A positive resist composition which comprises an alkali-soluble resin and, as a sensitizer, a quinone diazide sulfonic acid ester of a phenol compound of the formula: ##STR1## wherein Y.sub.1, Y.sub.2, Z.sub.1, Z.sub.2, Z.sub.3, Z.sub.4, Z.sub.5, Z.sub.6 and Z.sub.7 are independently a hydrogen atom, a hydroxyl group, a C.sub.1 -C.sub.4 alkyl group which may be substituted with a halogen atom, provided that at least one of Y.sub.1 and Y.sub.2 is a hydroxyl group, and at least two of Z.sub.1 to Z.sub.7 are hydroxyl groups, and R.sub.1, R.sub.2, R.sub.3, R.sub.4, R.sub.5 and R.sub.6 are independently a hydrogen atom, a C.sub.1 -C.sub.10 alkyl group, a C.sub.1 -C.sub.4 alkenyl group, a cycloalkyl group or an aryl group, which composition has a high .gamma.-value.

A composition containing a compound having a quinone diazide group and an alkali-soluble resin finds use as a positive resist, because upon exposure to light having a wavelength of 300 to 500 nm, the quinone diazide group decomposes to form a carboxyl group whereby the originally alkali-insoluble composition becomes alkali-soluble. The positive resist composition has much better resolution than a negative resist composition and is used in the production of integrated circuits such as IC or LSI.
Recently, particularly with integrated circuits, miniaturization has proceeded with a rise in the integration level, which results in demands for formation of patterns of submicron order and more excellent resolution (high .gamma.-value). However, a resist composition comprising a conventional quinone diazide compound and a conventional alkali-soluble resin has a limit in increase of the .gamma.-value.
For example, if the amount of quinone diazide compound is increased to improve the .gamma.-value, serious problems such as deterioration of sensitivity and increase of residues after developing arise. Therefore, the improvement of the .gamma.-value is limited.

Positive resist composition comprising an alkali-soluble resin and a quinone diazide sulfonic acid ester of a hydroxy flavan derivative


Systems and techniques for calling attention to loss of communication with an electronic shelf label. One or more of a plurality of labels deployed in a location may be programmed with a message to be displayed or an action to be taken if communication is lost. The labels may be programmed with a scheduled action that will cause a label to take the programmed action or display the programmed message if communication with the label does not occur by a specified time. Communication with the label causes the action or event to be rescheduled.

ESLs provide a convenient way to display prices and other relevant information about goods. A retail location may have hundreds or thousands of ESLs that receive pricing and other information transmitted by a communication base station. The communication base station provides an interface between a central server and the ESLs.
Each of the ESLs is typically identified by a serial number and transmissions to the ESL often use its serial number as an address, while transmissions from the ESL use the serial number as an identifier. The server hosts a database including the serial number of each ESL and data stored in each ESL. An ESL may be updated by storing updated data in the database and issuing a command to the server to transmit the updated data to the communication base station for transmission to the ESL. Data stored in an ESL is updated when an entry for an ESL changes in the database. For example, an update may be made if a price change for a product occurs. In addition, new transmissions may be made to all ESLs or a selection of ESLs on a periodic schedule, in order to help insure that the data stored in the ESL reflects the data in the database.
It is possible for an entry for an ESL to be inadvertently removed from the database. For example, an ESL may be removed from a shelf, but the entry for a different ESL is deleted from the database. In such a case, the ESL whose entry was deleted will not be updated and if the pricing or other information changes for the products associated with the ESL changes, the ESL will display incorrect information. A large number of ESLs are typically deployed in a given location, such as a retail store or supermarket, and the results of a failure of communication are not immediately obvious, consisting as they do essentially of a mismatch between stored information and information displayed on an ESL. It may therefore be difficult in typical prior art systems to identify ESLs with which communication has failed.

Methods and apparatus for identifying electronic shelf labels with which communication has been lost


The present invention is a method of identifying the script and orientation of a document image by identifying each set of connected pixels in the document image; computing the number of pixels in each set of connected pixels; computing the horizontal mean position of the pixels; computing the vertical mean position of the pixels; computing the horizontal extent of the pixels; computing the vertical extent of the pixels; computing a plurality of moment values for each set of connected pixels in the document image using a unique normalized centered moment calculation; grouping the moment values according to moment type; sorting the moment values within each moment group according to moment value; selecting moment values from each rank ordered moment group in order to characterize the document image; comparing the selected moment values to moment values for representative document images in a number of scripts and orientations; defining the script and orientation of the document image as being the same as the representative document that it compares most favorably to; selecting at least one script of interest to the user; rotating the document image to a user-defined orientation if the document image is of a script of interest to the user; and presenting the rotated document to the user if the document image is of a script of interest to the user.

Analysis of a document image requires the identification of orientation, script, language, and characters. The identification of orientation is the task of determining which way is up. Assuming limited skew, there are four possible orientations (i.e., 0.degree. or up, 180.degree. or down, 90.degree., and 270.degree.). Script identification is the task of determining the alphabet used in the document. Examples of common scripts include Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, and Latin (or Roman). Language identification is the task of determining the language used in the document. Different languages may use the same script (e.g., English and French both use the Latin script). Character (or word) identification is the task of converting a character (or word) image to an encoding scheme such as ASCII or Unicode.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,027, entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INFERRING ORIENTATION OF LINES OF TEXT," discloses a method of determining page orientation by determining the predominant orientation of lines connecting the centers of connected components to their nearest neighbors. It is stated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,027 that this method will not work with connected scripts which are used in Arabic. The method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,027 will also have difficulty with evenly spaced characters which are used in Chinese and Japanese. The method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,027 produces a horizontal versus vertical answer but cannot be used to produce a right-side-up versus upside-down answer or a top-to-the-left versus top-to-the-right answer. U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,027 is hereby incorporated by reference into the specification of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,797, entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIC CHARACTER SCRIPT DETERMINATION," discloses a method of determining the script from the connected components on a page image based upon features such as occurrences of upward facing concavities (e.g., the letters h, m, and n). Moment calculations are not specifically mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,797. Upward concavities are relatively easy to detect if a two-dimensionally coded facsimile (fax) transmission is used and the scanned image quality is very good. The method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,797 would be much slower with a fax transmitted using one-dimensional coding. Much of the fax transmission today uses one-dimensional coding. Also, the latest fax compression scheme (i.e., JBIG or CCITT Standard T.82) is not readily compatible with the method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,797. Lastly, the method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,797 does not determine orientation. U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,797 is hereby incorporated by reference into the specification of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,110, entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIC LANGUAGE DETERMINATION OF ASIAN LANGUAGE DOCUMENTS," discloses a method of distinguishing between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean by examining the distribution of density (black pixels to total pixels) within the bounding boxes encompassing connected components. The method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,110 is very sensitive to the boldness of the font used in a document, whereas the present invention is not. Also, U.S. Pat No. 5,425,110 does not mention determining orientation or the use of a moment calculation as does the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,110 is hereby incorporated by reference into the specification of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,176, entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIC CHARACTER TYPE CLASSIFICATION OF EUROPEAN SCRIPT DOCUMENTS," discloses a method of distinguishing between Latin scripts based on detecting ascenders, descenders, diacritics, and punctuation. These features are hard to distinguish accurately in a degraded document image, whereas the present invention discloses a method of distinguishing between any script contained in a document image that is, relatively, insensitive to image degradation. U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,176 is hereby incorporated by reference into the specification of the present invention.
An article by Cheng-Lin Liu et al, entitled "Extracting Individual Features from Moments for Chinese Writer Identification," published by the IEEE in 1995, discloses a particular moment calculation used on features extracted from a document image. The moment calculation is specifically tailored to the style the Chinese writing style (i.e., square characters are used and the resolution in the one direction is the same as in the other direction). The present invention is not constrained to accepting document images with only square characters. Lin et al. specifically say that "the normalization of moments [with] respect to rotation is unnecessary, and even detrimental." The present invention uses a different moment calculation that is normalized for different rotations of the document image with great effect. The present invention is also insensitive to differences in resolution between the different directions in the document image.
An article by H. Al-Yousefi et al., entitled "Recognition of Arabic Characters," published in the IEEE Transactions On Pattern Analysis And Machine Intelligence, Vol. 14, No. 8, August 1992, discloses a method of using a normalized moment calculation to identify Arabic characters that is different from the normalized moment calculation used in the present invention. Al-Yousefi et al. uses there normalized moments to obtain simple measures of shape, whereas the present invention uses a different normalized moment calculation to make a feature invariant to font thickness, horizontal size, and vertical size.
An article by Chong-Huah Lo et al., entitled "Pattern Recognition Using 3-D Moments," published by the IEEE in 1990, discloses a method of using a 3-D moment calculation normalized according to a constant, the area of a surface patch, and the total length of a curve in order to recognize a pattern. The moment calculation of Lo et al. differs from the two dimensional moment calculation of the present invention.
The document image processing methods of the prior art suffer from one or more of the following problems. First, the prior art methods may not determine both the orientation and the script of the image as does the present invention. Second, the prior art methods may be sensitive to the thickness of the font used in the document image, whereas the present invention is not. Third, the prior art method may not be able to process all scripts as can the present invention. Fourth, the prior art methods may be sensitive to the image compression scheme used to transmit the document image, whereas the present invention is not. Fifth, the calculations employed by the prior art methods may be computationally intensive, whereas the calculations of the present invention are highly efficient. Sixth, the prior art methods may perform poorly if the document image is degraded due to poor contrast, multiple generation reproduction, blurring, etc., whereas the performance of the present invention is not effected as much by such degradation. Also, a document image may be transmitted in any orientation. Prior art document image processing methods may not be able to process an image of unknown orientation, whereas the present invention can. The present invention is a method of processing a document image of any orientation and presenting the document in a user-defined orientation to a user if the document is of interest to the user. The user may specify which scripts the user is interested in.

Method of identifying the script of a document irrespective of orientation

The United States of America as represented by the National Security Agency


An articulating adapter allowing increased clamping and holding capabilities of a common vise or tool at a plurality of angles having a base mounting plate (12) attached to a table (T). The rotating plate (14) has a mounting means (24) to allow the turning on a horizontal plane while having a hinged means to the articulating plate (16) allowing movement from 0 to at least 90 degrees from horizontal. The rotating plate (14) and the articulating plate (16) are attached via a set of links (18) and a slotted link (20) and having a set on each side with a locking means (34) and (36) to set at a given plurality of angles as needed. The articulating plate (16) additionally allows a variety of sizes and types of vises or tools to be attached.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to expanding the angular clamping capability of the common vise.
2. Prior Art
The common vise that is in use in most garages by home handymen and in professional use has a limitation of only being able to hold or clamp an item or tool horizontally only as wide as the jaw opening.
The only way, at this time to accomplish holding a tool or item horizontally wider than the jaws permit is to use either a very expensive machinist type of vise, which is intended for the most part, for machine shop use or using another tool or vise with the existing common vise. Also this would mean having to buy another very expensive vise and not utilizing your existing common vise.
Thus the referred to expensive vises are limited in their mounting points and are not easily mountable with the average bench or tool box where they would be typically used. Additionally the size and weight of the machine shop type vises are large, heavy and cumbersome.
The complexities of the machinist type vises are far more than the average person using it would require, such as the precision machining, the degree indicators and weight. This also increases the cost of production considerably.
There are current vises such as U.S. Pat. No. 1,507,815 to M. S. Cumner that will let the vise tilt, angle and rotate, but the complexity, cost and size are very great. Not having a variety of bolt mounting patterns precludes a limitation of mounting patterns. Another major difference is that Cumner's vice has the tilt linkages as part of the actual vise itself adding the expense of having to purchase the complete vise. Additionally the link mechanism to allow and lock into position extends beyond the mechanism and intrudes into the work space thereby again limiting working angles and interfering with its use. The number of parts to assemble this device is at least 90.
Another somewhat similar device is U.S. Pat. No. 2,353,891 to A. J. GRUNTORAD is again a very complex, expensive and bulky device. As with Cumner's, the links are also an integral part of the vise itself. Additionally it also suffers from the link mechanism extending outside the device. The number of parts to assemble this device is at least 80. As with Cumner's vice, it is also limited to the bolt pattern as to what it can be mounted to.
All of the U.S. Pat. Nos. 851,491 (1907), 1,392,130 (1921), 1,579,582 (1923), 1,665,170 (1927), 1,818,501 (1927), 2,207,881 (1938), 3,495,795 (1970) and 4,378,107 (1983) all are either complex, expensive to manufacture, bulky or are limited as to their mounting capabilities. All of the vises heretofore suffer from a number of disadvantages:
(a) the cost of manufacture is very expensive due to the highly precision machined parts;
(b) the complexity of the numerous parts makes it labor intensive to assemble adding to the cost of manufacture;
(c) the amount of material used to manufacture the vise adds to the price;
(d) the number of parts required to achieve the desired results adds to the cost of the manufacture;
(e) they are not converted easily from one size or type of vise to another;
(f) the links extend beyond the device itself interfering with the available work space;
(g) the complexity requires 80 or 90 parts; and
(h) the mounting surface must have specific mounting holes and position of same to utilize all of the angular positions.


A recombinant promoter molecule for enhancing expression of a plant-expressible structural gene in a monocot plant cell is provided comprising a plurality of enhancer elements selected from the group consisting of ARE and OCS elements, a truncated plant-expressible promoter, and an intron.

One of the most important factors to be considered in developing a plant transformation procedure is the availability of a promoter which provides reliable high level expression of introduced genes in the target cells. For example, for the transformation of plant cells with DNA encoding an antibiotic resistance marker, it is clearly desirable to obtain a high level of expression of the introduced gene to enable efficient selection of transformants. Moreover, in cases where the untransformed tissue shows a degree of natural resistance to the antibiotic, e.g., wheat and maize embryo tissue selected on kanamycin (Hauptmann et al. (1988) Plant Physiol. 86:602-606), a strong selection system would be critical for the successful production of transformed plants.
Promoters are the portions of DNA sequence at the beginnings of genes which contain the signals for RNA polymerase to begin transcription so that protein synthesis can then proceed. Eukaryotic promoters are complex, and are comprised of components which include a TATA box consensus sequence at about 35 bp 5' relative to the transcription start site, or cap site, which is defined as +1 (Breathnach and Chambon (1981) Ann. Rev. Biochem. 50:349-383; Messing et al. (1983) in Genetic Engineering of Plants, T. Kosuge, Meredith and Hollaender, (eds.), pp.211-227). In most instances the TATA box is required for accurate transcription initiation. Further upstream, often between -80 and -100, there can be a promoter element with homology to the consensus sequence CCAAT (Breathnach and Chambon (1981) supra. In plants the CCAAT box may be substituted by a consensus sequence which Messing et al. (1983) have termed the AGGA box, positioned a similar distance from the cap site. Additional DNA sequence in the 5' untranscribed region are believed to be involved in the modulation of gene expression. There are DNA sequences which affect gene expression in response to environmental stimuli, such as illumination or nutrient availability or adverse conditions including heat shock, anaerobiosis, or the presence of heavy metals. There are also DNA sequences which control gene expression during development, or in a tissue-specific fashion. Other DNA sequences have been found to elevate the overall level of expression of the nearby genes; such sequences have been termed "enhancers" in animal and plant systems. In yeast, similar stimulatory sequences are known which are called "upstream activating sequences," which also often appear to carry regulatory information. Promoters are usually positioned 5', or upstream, relative to the start of the coding region of the corresponding gene, and the tract containing all the ancillary elements affecting regulation or absolute levels of transcription may be comprised of less than 100 bp or as much as 1 kbp.
Among promoters that have been widely used in plant cell transformations are those of two genes encoding alcohol dehydrogenase, Adh1 and Adh2. Both Adh1 and Adh2 are induced after the onset of anaerobiosis (Freeling (1973) Mol. Gen. Genet. 127:215-227). Of the two enzymes, Adh1 is the one of primary importance during anaerobic conditions (Freeling et al. (1973) Biochem. Genet. 8:27-23). Maize Adh1 has been cloned and sequenced (dennis et al. (1984) Nucl. Acids Res. 12:3983-4000) as has been Adh2 (Dennis et al. (1985) Nucl. Acids Res. 13:727-743). Adh1 genes from other sources have also recently been cloned and sequenced (Llewellyn et al. (1987) J. Mol. Biol. 195:115-123). Howard et al. (1987) Planta 170:535-540 examined the expression of the endogenous Adh1 gene and a chimeric Adh1 gene in maize protoplasts. The Adh1 chimeric gene ADH-CAT consists of the Adh1 promoter linked to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) coding sequences and nopaline synthase (nos) 3' signal. ADH-CAT, introduced into maize protoplasts by electroporation, was expressed approximately four-fold higher at low oxygen concentrations than under control conditions. Expression of ADH-CAT paralleled the expression of the endogenous Adh1 gene in maize protoplasts and the anaerobic response in cell culture was qualitatively similar to the response in maize seedlings. Walker et al. (1987) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 84:6624-6628 identified the sequence elements necessary for anaerobic induction of ADH-CAT based on the expression of a series of in vitro manipulated ADH-CAT chimeric genes. They showed that there is an anaerobic regulatory element (ARE) between positions -140 and -99 of the maize Adh1 promoter, and that the ARE is composed of at least two sequence elements, positions -133 to -124 and positions -113 to -99, both of which are necessary, and together are sufficient for low oxygen expression of ADH-CAT gene activity.
It was further reported (Walker et al. (1987) supra) that the Adh2 gene of maize is also regulated by anaerobiosis and contains homology to the Adh1 ARE. The homology is approximately 81% in Region I of the ARE and approximately 69% in Region II. Also, the 5'-flanking regions of the Adh genes from Arabidoosis and pea were reported to be not greater than 60% homologous to the maize Adh1 ARE over a 10 bp region.
The 35S promoter of Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (Guilley et al. (1982) Cell 30:763-773; Odell et al. (1985) supra) is one of the most frequently used promoters in plant transformation procedures. This dicot virus promoter directs expression of genes introduced into protoplasts of dicots and monocots (Fromm et al. (1985) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci 82:5824-5828; Nagata et al. (1987) Mol. Gen. Genet. 207:242-244; Odell et al. (1988) Plant Mol. Biol. 10:263-273). Quantitative measurements of relative transcript levels in transformed tobacco cells (Morelli et al. (1985) Nature 315:200-204; Nagy et al. (1985), in Biotechnology in Plant Science: Relevance to Agriculture in the Eighties, M. Zaitlin, P. Day, and A. Hollaender, (eds.), Academic Press, New York, pp. 227-236) or transgenic petunia plants (Sanders et al. (1987) Nucl. Acids Res. 15:1543-1558) showed that the 35S promoter was at least 30 times stronger than the nos promoter. The strength of the 35S promoter accounts for its widespread use for high level expression of desirable traits in transgenic plants. Fang et al. (1989) The Plant Cell 1:141-150 have shown by 5', 3', and internal deletions that the -343 to -46 upstream fragment can be subdivided into three functional regions, -343 to -208, -208 to 31 90, and -90 to -46. They showed that the first two regions potentiated transcriptional activity when tested with the appropriate 35S promoter sequence. In contrast, the -90 to -46 region by itself had little activity but it played an accessory role by increasing transcriptional activity of the two distal regions.
Although, the CaMV 35S promoter is a strong promoter, driving high levels of RNA production in a wide variety of plants including plants well outside the host range of the virus, it has relatively low activity in the agriculturally significant graminaceous plants such as wheat (Lee et al. (1987) in "Progress in Plant Protoplast Research," Proceedings of the 7th International Protoplast Symposium, Wageningen, The Netherlands, Dec. 6-11, 1987, Puite et al. (eds.); Hauptmann et al. (1987) Plant Cell Rep. 6:265-270). Conversely, the monocot promoter from the Adh1 gene of maize gives very low expression in protoplasts of the dicot, Nicotiana plumbaginifolia (Ellis et al. (1987) EMBO J. 6:11-16). These observations suggest that there may be differences between monocots and dicots with respect to transcription factors and the recognition of promoter sequences.
The level of expression of a transgene can often be increased by the addition of enhancer elements, cis-acting sequences which increase the level of transcription from a promoter (Banerji et al. (1981) Cell 27:299-308). As defined by Khoury and Gruss (1983) Cell 33:313-314, an enhancer is one of a set of eukaryotic promoter elements that appears to increase transcriptional efficiency in a manner relatively independent of position and orientation with respect to the nearby gene. The prototype enhancer is found within the 72 bp repeat of SV40. It is located more than 100 bp upstream from the transcription start site, and has a consensus sequence of GTGGAAA(orTTT)G. As a rule the animal or animal virus enhancers can act over a distance as much as 1 kbp 5', in either orientation, and can act either 5' or 3' to the gene. The sequence motif is generally reiterated several times. Enhancers have been used in animal virus systems to study genes with weak promoters (Lee et al. (1981) Nature 294:228-232; Huang et al. (1981) Cell 27:245-255). There have been sequences from plant genes described which have homology to the animal enhancer consensus core sequence. Odell et al. (1985) Nature 313:810-812 have shown that sequences between -105 and -46 are required for maximal expression of the CaMV 35S promoter. Contained within that region is a sequence partially homologous to the animal enhancer core consensus sequence. It has been shown further by Bouchez et al. (1989) EMBO J. 8:4197-4204 that a 31 bp fragment from -89 to -59 of the 35S promoter contains a binding site for a nuclear protein factor present in maize and tobacco nuclei (Singh al. (1989) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 86:3733-3737) and is essential for maximal activity of the promoter. Similar enhancer sequences have been found in upstream regions of the figwort mosaic virus (FMV), the carnation etched ring virus (CERV), and of seven T-DNA opine synthase genes from Ri and Ti plasmids. Ellis et al. (1987) EMBO J. 6:11-16 have shown that deletion of upstream sequences of the Adh1 promoter (from positions -1094 to -140) gave an Adh1 gene construct having only extremely low expression in transgenic tobacco. However, activity was readily detected when sequences with enhancer-like properties derived from two constitutive genes, octopine synthase (ocs) and the CaMV 35S gene, which are expressed in dicot plants, are placed upstream of the maize Adh1 promoter region. It was shown that the first 247 bp of sequence upstream of the translation initiation codon of the maize Adh1 gene confers anaerobic regulation and accurate transcription initiation to the hybrid gene in transgenic tobacco. It was further shown (Ellis et al. (1987) EMBO J. 6:3203-3208) that a 176 bp DNA sequence derived from the upstream region of the ocs promoter functions as an enhancer in protoplasts of Zea mays, a monocot plant, and Nicotiana plumbaginifolia, a dicot plant. This 176 ocs sequence was reported to function in both orientations, but its enhancing activity was found to be dependent upon its distance from the Adh1 promoter, and also to result from the presence of a 16 bp palindrome having the sequence ACGTAAGCGCTTACGT (SEQ ID NO:6).
In other studies Kay et al. (1987) Science 236:1299-1302 reported a ten-fold higher transcriptional activity in transgenic tobacco plants with a CaMV 35S promoter containing a duplication of 260 bp of CaMV 35S upstream sequences. The duplicated region was reported also to act as a strong enhancer of heterologous promoters, increasing the activity of an adjacent and divergently transcribed transferred DNA gene several hundred fold.
It was also reported by Ow et al. (1987) Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 84:4870-4874 that multimers of the distal region of the 35S promoter (between positions -148 and -89) were able to activate the 35S promoter core to even greater levels of expression than the native 35S promoter. It was further reported by Fang et al. (1989) supra that monomers and multiples of an upstream 35S promoter fragment (-209 to -46) can act as enhancers to potentiate transcription from a heterologous promoter. In these studies eight copies of the upstream region between positions -209 to -46 of the 35S promoter were cloned at position -50 of the rbcS-3A (small subunit of the ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase) gene; the octamer increased the rbcS-3A transcript to a level even higher than that obtained with the rbcS-3A upstream region (Fang et al. (1989) supra).
Enhancers obtained from sources such as viral or bacterial genomes were shown to function in enhancement of expression in plants of a desired gene. In one such case, the species-specificity of a promoter was modified by the addition of the octopine synthase (OCS) enhancer from Agrobacterium tumefaciens to the maize Adh1 promoter (Ellis et al. (1987) EMBO J. 6:11-16). After addition of the OCS enhancer, the maize Adh1 promoter is able to give strong anaerobically inducible expression in transgenic tobacco plants. In another case, it was reported that when the OCS enhancer is placed directly adjacent to the ARE, the OCS-ARE construct shows maximal expression in maize protoplasts and CAT expression is not further increased by anaerobic stress (Peacock et al. (1987) in Plant Gene Systems and Their Biology, Alan R. Liss, Inc., pp. 263-277). It was also reported (Callis et. al. (1987) Genes and Dev. 1:1183-1200) that the inclusion of the maize Adh1 Intron 1 downstream of the Adh1 promoter in the untranslated leader has been shown to increase expression ten-fold from a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) marker gene introduced into maize protoplasts.

Recombinant promoter for gene expression in monocotyledonous plants


A method for defining at least one parameter for a finite elements analysis (FEA) calculation in a computer-assisted drafting (CAD) program comprises the steps of determining a body for which said parameter is to be defined, said body being a entity processed by said CAD program; and using at least one graphical function of said CAD program to define a region within a face of said body, said region being used to define a load/support condition for said FEA calculation. A computer program product and an apparatus comprise corresponding features. The present invention provides an improved way of defining parameters like load or support conditions for an FEA calculation in a CAD program.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns the fields of computer aided design (CAD) and finite elements analysis (FEA). In particular, the present invention concerns a way of improving the integration of these fields into a unified design environment.
2. Description of Related Art
The use of computer aided design (CAD) techniques has become common engineering practice. The available CAD programs range from simple drawing tools to sophisticated systems covering the whole range of product design and possibly further aspects like engineering or manufacturing or quality control. The term "CAD program" as used herein should therefore be understood in its broadest meaning as any computer program that contains a drawing and/or design component and possibly further components. A widely used CAD program is manufactured in various versions by Autodesk, Inc., San Rafael, USA under the trademark AutoCAD.
Another computer aided technique that has become common practice in the field of mechanical engineering is the technique of finite elements analysis (FEA). FEA is a very powerful numerical method for analyzing mechanical properties of bodies under given load conditions. For example, stress patterns and distributions or the deformation of a body under a load may be calculated and analyzed during the design process without the need for costly experiments. Overviews of the various steps and aspects of FEA can be found in the books "Finite-Element-Analysis, Grundlagen" by R. H. Gallagher, Springer-Verlag, Berlin 1976, and "The Finite Element Method" by O. C. Zienkiewicz and R. L. Taylor, 3rd edition, vol. 1, McGraw-Hill, New York 1977. The disclosure of these books is herewith incorporated in the present specification.
For many available FEA programs, the definition of the input parameters is a rather cumbersome process. While it is normally possible to import data defining the body to be analyzed from a CAD program, load and support parameters must be defined in a complex way. In other words, there is often too little compatibility and integration between independent CAD and FEA programs.
The article "Steps towards CAD-FEA Integration" by S. Arabshahi et al., Engineering with Computers, 1993, vol. 9, no. 1, pages 17–26, discloses an attribute editor using a graphical interface to enable the user to define and attach attributes to different regions of a solid model. A load for an FEA calculation can be assigned to an appropriate region of the model using the graphical interface.
A CAD program with integrated FEA functions is currently available under the trademark Genius Desktop 3 from Autodesk, Inc., San Rafael, USA. This program makes it possible to perform FEA for any three-dimensional body defined using the underlying CAD functionality. The results of the FEA calculations are also displayed for the user in a fully integrated way. However, the Genius Desktop 3 product imposes certain limitations with respect to the definition of load and support parameters (load/support conditions). It is only possible to define forces and fixed and movable supports that act on individual points or along edges or on whole faces (delimited by edges) of the body. These limitations restrict the variety of situations that can be modeled conveniently. Any attempt of the user to work around these limitations would be rather complex and time-consuming, and would furthermore decrease the accuracy of the finite elements analysis and increase the necessary computing time.
Therefore a need exists for improving the integration between CAD programs and FEA programs or program modules. In particular, a need exists for expanding the possibilities for defining parameters like load or support conditions for an FEA calculation in a CAD program. The invention has the objective of meeting these needs fully or at least partially.

Defining parameters for a finite elements analysis calculation in a computer-assisted drafting program


The present invention concerns synthetic polynucleotides encoding a human fukutin-related protein (FKRP) wherein the synthetic polynucleotides contain at least a mutation avoiding supplementary transcript(s) generated from frameshift start codon(s). The synthetic polynucleotides are useful, especially for treating a pathology linked to a FKRP deficiency or induced by a defect in α-dystroglycan (α-DG) glycosylation, such as LGMD2I.

The "Dystroglycanopathies" regroup different genetic pathologies leading to secondary aberrant glycosylation of α-dystroglycan (αDG). This protein, mostly present in skeletal muscle, heart, eye and brain tissues, is a hyper-glycosylated membrane protein, the glycosylation process raising its weight from 70 to 156 kDa in muscle. It is part of the dystrophin-glycoprotein complex which connects the cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix (ECM). Its high glycosylation level enables αDG direct binding to the laminin globular domains of some ECM proteins, such as laminin in the cardiac and skeletal muscles, agrin and perlecan at the neuromuscular junction, neurexin in brain and pikachurin in the retina. Glycosylation of αDG is a complex process that is not yet fully understood. Indeed, a number of genes have been identified as being involved in αDG glycosylation. These discoveries have been accelerating recently thanks to the use of high throughput sequencing methods for mutation detection in patients showing αDG glycosylation defects. One of these proteins is the Fukutin-Related Protein (FKRP). It was originally classified as a putative αDG glycosyltransferase on account of the presence in its sequence of a D×D motif, which is common to many glycosyltransferases, and evidence of αDG hypoglycosylation in patients mutated in the FKRP gene (Breton et al., 1999; Brockington et al., 2001). Recently, FKRP and its homolog fukutin were identified as ribitol-5-phosphate (Rbo5P) transferases, forming a di-Rbo5P linker necessary for addition of the ligand binding moiety (Kanagawa et al., 2016).
Mutations in the FKRP gene can generate the entire range of pathologies induced by a defect in αDG glycosylation, from Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy type 2I (LGMD2I; Muller et al., 2005); Congenital Muscular Dystrophy type 1C (MDC1C; Brockington et al., 2001) to Walker-Warburg Syndrome (WWS) and Muscle-Eye-Brain disease (MEB; Beltran-Valero de Bernabe et al., 2004). There is an inverse correlation between the severity of the disease and the number of patients, the more severe, the rarer the patients (prevalence indicated in www.orphanet.fr: WWS (all genes): 1-9/1,000,000 and LGMD2I: 1-9/100,000). The type of pathology seems, at least partially, correlated to the nature of the FKRP mutation. In particular, the homozygous L276I mutation, replacing a leucine by an isoleucine in position 276 of the protein, is always associated with LGMD2I (Mercuri et al., 2003). LGMD2I is a recessive autosomal muscular dystrophy, affecting preferentially, albeit heterogeneously, the muscles of the shoulder and pelvic girdles. It is one of the most frequent LGMD2 in Europe, notably due to high prevalence of the L276I mutation in Northern Europe (Sveen et al., 2006). The severity of the pathology is very heterogeneous. The muscular symptoms can appear between the first to third decades, and vary from Duchenne-like disease to relatively benign courses. The heart can also be affected with consequences such as severe heart failure and death (Muller et al., 2005). Investigations using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging suggest that a very high proportion of LGMD2I patients (60-80%) can present myocardial dysfunction such as reduced ejection fraction (Wahbi et al., 2008). Interestingly, the severity of the cardiac abnormalities is not correlated to the skeletal muscle involvement.
Gicquel et al. (Hum Mol Genet, 2017 Mar. 3. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddx066) reported the generation of a FKRPL276I mouse model in which the recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV2/9) transfer of the murine Fkrp gene, placed under the control of the desmin promoter and of the polyadenylation (polyA) signal of beta-hemoglobin (HBB2) gene, was evaluated. After intramuscular or intravenous delivery, improvement of the muscle pathology was observed. They obtained strong expression of FKRP, at mRNA as well as protein levels, and showed the rescue of αDG proper glycosylation and increase in laminin binding, that led to histological and functional rescue of the dystrophy.
WO2016/138387 proposed to reduce the GC content of the wild-type nucleotide sequence encoding FKRP by about 5% to about 10% to increase expression of FKRP. It provides a synthetic polynucleotide named SEQ ID NO: 1 having a GC content reduced by 9.99% in comparison to the wild-type sequence.
Therefore, gene replacement therapy based on FKRP appears as a promising treatment of pathologies resulting from a FKRP deficiency. However, there is still a need of improved treatments.

Synthetic polynucleotides encoding a human FKRP protein

INSERM (INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE)


The use of substituted amides for modulating the activity of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11βHSD1) and the use of these compounds as pharmaceutical compositions, are described. Also a novel class of substituted amides, of the general formula I. Their use in therapy, pharmaceutical compositions comprising the compounds, as well as their use in the manufacture of medicaments are described. The present compounds are modulators and more specifically inhibitors of the activity of 11βHSDI and may be useful in the treatment of a range of medical disorders where a decreased intracellular concentration of active glucocorticoid is desirable.

The metabolic syndrome is a major global health problem. In the US, the prevalence in the adult population is currently estimated to be approximately 25%, and it continues to increase both in the US and worldwide. The metabolic syndrome is characterised by a combination of insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, obesity and hypertension leading to increased morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular diseases. People with the metabolic syndrome are at increased risk of developing frank type 2 diabetes, the prevalence of which is equally escalating.
In type 2 diabetes, obesity and dyslipidemia are also highly prevalent and around 70% of people with type 2 diabetes additionally have hypertension once again leading to increased mortality of cardiovascular diseases.
In the clinical setting, it has long been known that glucocorticoids are able to induce all of the cardinal features of the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.
11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11βHSD1) catalyses the local generation of active glucocorticoid in several tissues and organs including predominantly the liver and adipose tissue, but also e.g., skeletal muscle, bone, pancreas, endothelium, ocular tissue and certain parts of the central nervous system. Thus, 11βHSD1 serves as a local regulator of glucocorticoid actions in the tissues and organs where it is expressed (Tannin et al., J. Biol. Chem., 266, 16653 (1991); Bujalska et al., Endocrinology, 140, 3188 (1999); Whorwood et al., J. Clin Endocrinol Metab., 86, 2296 (2001); Cooper et al., Bone, 27, 375 (2000); Davani et al., J. Biol. Chem., 275, 34841 (2000); Brem et al., Hypertension, 31, 459 (1998); Rauz et al., Invest. Opthalmol. Vis. Sci., 42, 2037 (2001); Moisan et al., Endocrinology, 127, 1450 (1990)).
The role of 11βHSD1 in the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes is supported by several lines of evidence. In humans, treatment with the non-specific 11βHSD1 inhibitor carbenoxolone improves insulin sensitivity in lean healthy volunteers and people with type 2 diabetes. Likewise, 11βHSD1 knock-out mice are resistant to insulin resistance induced by obesity and stress. Additionally, the knock-out mice present with an anti-atherogenic lipid profile of decreased VLDL triglycerides and increased HDL-cholesterol. Conversely, mice that overexpress 11βHSD1 in adipocytes develop insulin resistance, hyperlipidemia and visceral obesity, a phenotype that resembles the human metabolic syndrome (Andrews et al., J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab., 88, 285 (2003); Walker et al., J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab., 80, 3155 (1995); Morton et al., J. Biol. Chem., 276, 41293 (2001); Kotelevtsev et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94, 14924 (1997); Masuzaki et al., Science, 294, 2166 (2001)).
The more mechanistic aspects of 11βHSD1 modulation and thereby modulation of intracellular levels of active glucocorticoid have been investigated in several rodent models and different cellular systems. 11βHSD1 promotes the features of the metabolic syndrome by increasing hepatic expression of the rate-limiting enzymes in gluconeogenesis, namely phosphoenolpyuvate carboxykinase and glucose-6-phosphatase, promoting the differentiation of preadipocytes into adipocytes thus facilitating obesity, directly and indirectly stimulating hepatic VLDL secretion, decreasing hepatic LDL uptake and increasing vessel contractility (Kotelevtsev et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94, 14924 (1997); Morton et al., J. Biol. Chem. 276, 41293 (2001); Bujalska et al., Endocrinology, 140, 3188 (1999); Souness et al., Steroids, 67, 195 (2002), Brindley & Salter, Prog. Lipid Res., 30, 349 (1991)).
WO 01/90090, WO 01/90091, WO 01/90092, WO 01/90093, and WO 01/90094 discloses various thiazol-sulfonamides as inhibitors of the human 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 enzyme, and further states that said compounds may be useful in treating diabetes, obesity, glaucoma, osteoporosis, cognitive disorders, immune disorders and depression. WO 04/089470 discloses various substituted amides as modulators of the human 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 enzyme, and further states that said compounds may be useful in treating medical disorders where a decreased intracellular concentration of active glucocorticoid is desirable. WO 2004/089415 and WO 2004/089416 discloses various combination therapies using an 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 inhibitor and respectively a glucocorticoid receptor agonist or an anti-hypertensive agent.
We have now found substituted amides that modulate the activity of 11βHSD1 leading to altered intracellular concentrations of active glucocorticoid. More specifically, the present compounds inhibit the activity of 11βHSD1 leading to decreased intracellular concentrations of active glucocorticoid. Thus, the present compounds can be used to treat disorders where a decreased level of active intracellular glucocorticoid is desirable, such as e.g., the metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), impaired fasting glucose (IFG), dyslipidemia, obesity, hypertension, diabetic late complications, cardiovascular diseases, arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, myopathy, muscle wasting, osteoporosis, neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, and adverse effects of treatment or therapy with glucocorticoid receptor agonists.
One object of the present invention is to provide compounds, pharmaceutical compositions and use of compounds that modulate the activity of 11βHSD1.

11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 active compounds


Each processor comprises a register for storing start address of a forked child thread and a comparator for detecting that the value of its own program counter is coincident with the start address stored in this register. Each processor sends a thread stop notice to a thread controller when the value of its own program counter is coincident with the start address of the forked child thread and ends the execution of a parent thread when receiving a thread end permission from the thread controller.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a parallel processor system for dividing a single program into a plurality of threads and executing the above program in parallel by a plurality of processors, and more particularly to a thread ending method in the individual processors.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a method of processing a single program in parallel by a parallel processor system, there is a multi-thread executing method of dividing a program into instruction flow called as thread and executing the above program by a plurality of processors in parallel. As the articles describing this method, there are Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open (Kokai) No. Heisei 10-27108 (hereinafter, referred to as article 1), "Suggestion of On-Chip Multiprocessor-Oriented Multi-Stream Control Architecture MUSCAT" (pp. 229–236, papers of Joint Symposium on Parallel Processing JSPP97, Information Processing Society of Japan, May 1997) (hereinafter, referred to as article 2), Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open (Kokai) No. Heisei 10-78880 (hereinafter, referred to as article 3), "Processor Architecture SKY by Using Instruction Level Parallel among Threads of Nonnumeric Calculation Program" (pp. 87–94, papers of Joint Symposium on Parallel Processing JSPP98, Information Processing Society of Japan, June 1998) (hereinafter, referred to as article 4), "Multiscalar Processor" (G. S. Sohi, S. E. Breach and T. N. Vijaykumar, The 22nd International Symposium on Computer Architecture, pp. 414–425, IEEE Computer Society Press 1995) (hereinafter, referred to as article 5). The conventional technique described in these articles will be described below.
In a general multi-thread executing method, to generate a new thread on another processor is said as "fork a thread", a thread on the side of performing the fork operation is called as a parent thread, a newly generated thread is called as a child thread, a position to fork a thread is called as a fork point, and a head position of a child thread is called as a fork destination address or a staring point of a child thread. In the articles 1 to 4, a fork instruction is inserted in a fork point in order to instruct the thread fork. A fork destination address is specified in the fork instruction, a child thread starting from the fork destination address is generated in another processor by the execution of the fork instruction, and the execution of the child thread is started. Further, an instruction called as a term instruction for ending the processing of a thread is prepared, and each processor ends the processing of the thread by executing the term instruction. In the article 4, this term instruction is called as END instruction.
FIG. 8 shows an outline of the processing of the multi-thread executing method. FIG. 8(a) shows a single program divided into three threads A, B, and C. When a single processor processes the program, one processor PE sequentially processes the threads A, B, and C, as illustrated in FIG. 8(b). On the contrary, in the multi-thread executing method in the articles 1 to 5, one processor PE1 executes the thread A, so to generate the thread B in the other processor PE2 according to the fork instruction embedded in the thread A, while the processor PE1 is executing the thread A, and then the processor PE2 executes the thread B, as illustrated in FIG. 8(c). The processor PE2 generates the thread C in the processor PE3 according to the fork instruction embedded in the thread B. The processors PE1 and PE2 end the processing of the threads according to the term instructions embedded just before the starting points of the respective threads B and C, and when the processor PE3 executes the last instruction of the thread C, it executes the next instruction (generally, a system call instruction). As mentioned above, by simultaneously executing threads in parallel by a plurality of processors, the performance can be improved, compared with the serial processing.
As the other conventional multi-thread executing method, as illustrated in FIG. 8(d), there is a multi-thread executing method in which the processor PE1 executing the thread A performs a plurality of times of fork, so to generate the thread B in the processor PE2 and the thread C in the processor PE3 respectively. Contrary to the model of FIG. 8(d), the multi-thread executing method, as illustrated in FIG. 8(c), which is restricted to only one generation of an effective child thread according to a thread during its existence, is called as a Fork-Once Parallel Execution model. The Fork-Once Parallel Execution model can simplify the thread management greatly and a thread controller can be realized in hardware on a realistic hardware scale. Since in the individual processors, the other processor of generating a child thread is restricted to one processor, a parallel processor system with the adjacent processors connected with each other in a single direction like a ring, can execute a multi-thread. The present invention is assumed to use this Fork-Once Parallel Execution model.
When forking a child thread, it is necessary to inherit register values from the parent thread to the child thread. As for this register-value inheritance, generally, there are two methods. One method is, as adopted in the parallel processor systems of the articles 1 to 3, that only the content of a register file at a fork time of the parent thread is inherited and that the register values updated after fork are not inherited. The other method is, as adopted in the parallel processor systems of the articles 4 and 5, that the register values updated after fork are also to be inherited. The former is called as a fork-time register-values transfer method, and the latter is called as an after-fork register-values transfer method.
In the MUSCAT described in the article 2, a lot of exclusive instructions, such as a synchronization instruction between threads, for flexibly controlling the parallel operations of threads are provided.
In the above-mentioned conventional parallel processor system, it is necessary to describe a term instruction just before a starting point of a child thread without fail, in order to end a thread in the individual processors. Since one term instruction is required for every one thread, the ratio of the term instruction in the whole instructions becomes greater in a finer grain-sized thread including fewer instructions. Since the term instruction is stored in an instruction memory and becomes an object to be fetched similarly to the other instructions, there is a problem of deteriorating the performance caused by an increase of the hardware amount in the instruction memory and an increase of the number of instruction fetches.

Thread ending method and device and parallel processor system


A charge control composition for controlling the resistivity of recording media used in electrophotographic printing processes is herein disclosed. The charge control composition is included in one or more layers applied to a substrate of the recording media. The charge control composition is an admixture of an electrolyte, a solvent, an organic carrier, and a co-organic carrier. The organic carrier is selected to form and maintain at least some physical and/or chemical bonds with the solvent such that he organic carrier will retain a fraction of the solvent during a high temperature fusion procedure. The co-organic carrier is selected to have a smaller molecular weight than the organic carrier and will also form at least some physical and or chemical bonds with a solvent.

The electrical resistivity of recording media such as paper intended for use in electrophotographic printing processes is critical to the success of those processes. Dry toners are applied to recording media by means of electrostatic charge. Accordingly, electrostatic charges of a specified magnitude are beneficial and even necessary. However, where the electrical resistivity of the recording media becomes too high, excess electrostatic charges can build up in the recording media, thereby causing such well-known problems as misfeed, double feed increasing of the recording media itself. In addition, excess of electrostatic charges generate artifacts and defected printing images similar to "chicken tracks" or "sharkskin". Alternatively, where the resistivity of recording media is exceptionally low, too little electrostatic charge can build up in the recording media resulting in a low toner transfer efficiency, which in turn translates into a lower and sometimes variable print density in the image.
Accordingly, there is recognized need for inexpensive resistivity control layering for recording media such as paper that is to be used in electrophotographic printing process. More specifically, there is a need for an electrical resistivity control layering that can maintain the resistivity of a recording media within a predetermined suitable range and which is relatively insensitive to changes in the moisture content of the recording media and to the relative humidity of the environment in which the recording media stored. It would also be desirable to provide an electrical resistivity control layering that is relatively light fast and which will not yellow the recording media to which it is applied.

Recording media for electrophotographic printing

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


An apparatus for transmitting and receiving data in a wireless communication system method thereof are disclosed. In a terminal of a wireless communication system, the present invention includes receiving a physical downlink control channel (hereinafter abbreviated PDCCH), receiving a physical downlink shared channel (hereinafter abbreviated PDSCH), and demodulating the PDSCH by interpreting the PDCCH according to a type of a subframe including the PDCCH and the PDSCH.

First of all, a frame structure of a wireless communication system is described with reference to FIG. 1 as follows.
FIG. 1 is a diagram for a frame structure of LTE (long term evolution) system.
Referring to FIG. 1, a single frame consists of 10 subframes. And, a single subframe consists of 2 slots. A time taken to transmit a single subframe called a transmission time interval (hereinafter abbreviated TTI). For instance, a single subframe is 1 ms and a single slot is 0.5 ms.
A single slot consists of a plurality of OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) symbols. In this case, the OFDM symbol can be called an SC-FDMA symbol or a symbols duration.
A single slot consists of 7 or 6 PFDM symbols according to a length of a cyclic prefix (hereinafter abbreviated CP). In LTE system, there are a normal CP and an extended CP. In case of using a normal CP, a single slot consists of 7 OFDM symbols. In case of using an extended CP, a single slot consists of 6 OFDM symbols.
Referring to FIG. 1, a primary synchronization channel (hereinafter abbreviated P-SCH) and a secondary synchronization channel (hereinafter abbreviated S-SCH) are transmitted for synchronization every frame. Moreover, in order to transmit resource allocation information of each subframe and the like every frame, a base station transmits a physical downlink control channel (hereinafter abbreviated PDCCH) on 0th to 2nd OFDM symbols. In doing so, it is able to send the PDCCH on 0th OFDM symbol, 0th and 1st OFDM symbols or 0th to 2nd OFDM symbols according to a quantity of the PDCCH. The number of OFDM symbols used by the PDCCH is variable each subframe. A base station informs a mobile station of the corresponding information via a physical control format indicator channel (hereinafter abbreviated PDFICH). Thus, the PCFICH should be transmitted each subframe and has total 3 kinds of informations. Table 1 shows a control format indicator (hereinafter abbreviated CFI). If CFI=1, it indicates that the PDCCH is transmitted on the 0th OFDM symbol only. If CFI=2, it indicates that the PDCCH is transmitted on the 0th and 1st OFDM symbols. If CFI=3, it indicates that the PDCCH is transmitted on the 0th to 2th OFDM symbols.
TABLE 1CFI codewordCFI<b0, b1, . . . , b31>1<0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0,1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1>2<1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1,0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0>3<1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1,1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1>4<0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,(Reserved)0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0>
The CFI can be defined different according to a bandwidth. For instance, if a bandwidth of system is smaller than a specific threshold, 'CFI=1', 'CFI=2' and 'CFI=3' can indicate that the PDCCH is transmitted on '2 OFDM symbols', '3 OFDM symbols' and '4 OFDM symbols', respectively.
FIG. 2 is a diagram for a transmission format of PCFICH.
Referring to FIG. 2, a resource element group (hereinafter abbreviated REG) consists of 4 subcarriers, is constructed with data subcarriers except a reference signal (hereinafter abbreviated RS), and is generally transmitted by applying a transmit diversity scheme. Moreover, in order to avoid inter-cell interference, a position of the REG is frequency shifted to use. Since PCFICH is always transmitted on a first OFDM symbol of a subframe, if a receiver receives a subframe, the receiver checks information of PCFICH first and then cheeks information of PDCCH. A size and usage of the PDCCH vary according to a format of a downlink control indicator (hereinafter abbreviated DCI). In particular, the size of the PDCCH can vary according to a coding rate. For instance, the DCI format can be defined as Table 2.
TABLE 2DCIformatObjectives0Scheduling of PUSCH1Scheduling of one PDSCH codeword1ACompact scheduling of one PDSCH codeword1BClosed-loop single-rank transmission1CPaging, RACH response and dynamic BCCH2Downlink scheduling of closed-loop rank-adapted spatialmultiplexing mode2ADownlink scheduling of open-loop rank-adapted spatialmultiplexing3TPC commands for PUCCH and PUSCH with 2 bitpower adjustments3ATPC commands for PUCCH and PUSCH with singlebit power adjustments
The DCI format shown in Table 2 is independently applied per mobile station. And, PDCCHs of several mobile stations are multiplexed within a single subframe. Channel coding is independently performed on the multiplexed PDCCH of the mobile stations and cyclic redundancy check (hereinafter abbreviated CRC) is applied thereto. In doing so, in order to enable the corresponding mobile station to receive its PDCCH, a unique ID of each mobile station is applied to the CRC.
Yet, since the mobile station is not aware of a location of its PDCCH, the mobile station performs blind detection on all PDCCHs of the corresponding DCI format each subframe until receiving the PDCCH having its mobile station ID. In addition, DCI format 0 and DCI format 1A are designed to be always received by the mobile station without increasing complexity in a manner of being configured to have the same size of information bits. In particular, the DCI format 1A is used in a fallback mode and an MIMO transmission scheme is determined according to a transmitting antenna configuration. For instance, in 3GPP Rel-8 system, a base station is able to have 1, 2 or 4 transmitting antennas. When a physical downlink shared channel (hereinafter abbreviated PDSCH) is transmitted using the DCI format 1A, if a base station has 1 transmitting antenna, the PDSCH is transmitted as single input signal output (hereinafter abbreviated SISO). If a base station has 2 or 4 transmitting antennas, the PDSCH is transmitted using the MIMO diversity scheme (TxD) shown in Table 3. In Table 3, a row of a matrix indicating a diversity scheme indicates a transmitting antenna, while a column is usable as a frequency or time.
TABLE 32Tx4TxTransmission  scheme for PDSCH (TxD)      1          2              (                                        S            1                                                S            2                                                            -                          S              2              *                                                            S            1            *                                )        1          2              (                                        S            1                                                S            2                                    0                          0                                      0                          0                                      S            3                                                S            4                                                            -                          S              2              *                                                            S            1            *                                    0                          0                                      0                          0                                      -                          S              4              *                                                            S            3            *                                )
Data transmitted by the MIMO transmission scheme shown in Table 3 is demodulated using a cell specific reference signal thereinafter abbreviated CRS). FIG. 3 is a diagram of a structure of CRS according to the number of transmitting antenna(s).
The CRC structure shown in FIG. 3 can be represented as a single resource block (hereinafter abbreviated RB) within a single subframe shown in FIG. 1. In particular, N resource blocks construct a single subframe. And, a value of N is determined according to a system bandwidth.
Reference signal used for MIMO transmission scheme can be defined as an antenna port. In case of the above described SISO, it can be described that the antenna port 0 is used. Each antenna port can be defined as a cell only reference signal or a mobile station only reference signal. In case of the mobile station only reference signal, a corresponding layer is just decoded via the corresponding reference signal without description of special MIMO transmission scheme.
FIG. 4 is a diagram for a structure of antenna ports 0 to 3 (R0 to R3) corresponding to cell only reference signals in case of a normal CP. FIG. 5 is a diagram for a structure of antenna ports 0 to 3 (R0 to R3) corresponding to cell only reference signals in case of an extended normal CP.
And, FIG. 6 and FIG. 7 are diagrams of antenna ports 5, 7 and 8 (R5, R7, R8) corresponding to mobile station only reference signals.
In case of the mobile station reference signals shown in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7, they are characterized in that a mobile station is able to perform demodulation without description o special MIMO transmission scheme.
Meanwhile, a single radio frame can include M MBSFN subframes. In this case, a PDSCH region of the MBSFN subframe does not include a CRS. In case of Rel-9 mobile station, it is set not to receive PDSCH in the MBSFN subframe. Since the corresponding PDSCH region does not include the CRS, estimation for channel state information is not performed as well. Yet, in case of Rel-10 mobile station, a precoded demodulation reference signal (RS) is used and can be configured to transmit data on the PDSCH region of the MBSFN subframe. Although this subframe is recognized as the MBSFN subframe by the Rel-8 mobile station, it is recognized as a subframe capable of carrying PDSCH by the Rel-10 mobile station. This is named 'LTE-A only subframe' in the following description.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Apparatus for transmitting and receiving data in a wireless communication system and method thereof


A fixing device includes a fixing belt, a pressuring member, a driving member and a slide contact member. The fixing belt is arranged rotatably. The pressuring member comes into pressure contact with the fixing belt to form a fixing nip and is arranged rotatably. The driving member is arranged so as to sandwich the fixing belt with the pressuring member and rotates the fixing belt. The slide contact member is arranged so as to sandwich the fixing belt with the pressuring member and comes into slide contact with the fixing belt. The fixing belt is engaged around the driving member and slide contact member with a state having looseness at least partially.

The present disclosure relates to a fixing device fixing a toner image onto a recording medium and an image forming apparatus including the fixing device.
Conventionally, an electrographic image forming apparatus, such as a copying machine or a printer, includes a fixing device fixing a toner image onto a recording medium, such as a sheet. In the fixing device, a heat roller manner is widely applied. The heat roller manner is a manner making a pair of rollers come into pressure contact with each other to form a fixing nip. However, in order to sufficiently ensure a nip width (a width of a fixing nip) by the heat roller manner, it is necessary to enlarge an external diameter of each roller forming the fixing nip, and accordingly, heat capacity of components forming the fixing nip is increased. Because of this, a restoring time of the fixing device (a time until it is restored to a condition capable of fixing the toner image onto the sheet) is elongated to obstruct energy saving. If the external diameter of each roller forming the fixing nip is enlarged, a problem of deteriorating separability of the recording medium from each roller is brought.
Recently, in order to solve the above-mentioned problem, a belt fixing manner is applied. The belt fixing manner is a manner making a fixing belt and a pressuring member (e.g. a pressuring roller) come into pressure contact with each other to form a fixing nip. By applying the belt fixing manner, the nip width may be sufficiently ensured without enlarging external diameters of the fixing belt and pressuring member.
For example, there is a fixing device including a fixing belt arranged rotatably, a pressuring member coming into pressure contact with the fixing belt to form a fixing nip, a tensioning roller arranged to sandwich the fixing belt with the pressuring member and a slide contact member arranged to sandwich the fixing belt with the pressuring member.
In such a fixing device, the fixing belt is stretched across the tensioning roller and slide contact member and constant tension strength is applied to the whole area of the fixing belt. In such a condition, when the fixing belt is rotated, a sliding load of the fixing belt (a load required for sliding the fixing belt with respect to the slide contact member) becomes large. According to this, there is a possibility that the fixing belt is rapidly worn and durability of the fixing belt is deteriorated. If the fixing belt is rotated in a condition having the large sliding load, and is repeatedly bent in accordance with a shape of the slide contact member, there is a possibility of bringing damage of the fixing belt.
In order to rotate the fixing belt in a condition where the constant tension strength is applied to the whole area of the fixing belt, it is necessary to increase a nip pressure (a pressure of the fixing nip), and accordingly, drive torque of the fixing belt (torque required for rotating the fixing belt) is increased. If the nip pressure is increased as mentioned above, because each component of the fixing device must be enlarged in order to ensure strength withstanding the increased nip pressure, there is a possibility of bringing enlargement of the entire fixing device. In addition, if the nip pressure is increased as mentioned above, because the force shifting the fixing belt to one side in a longitudinal direction is strengthened, there is a possibility that an end part of the fixing belt interferes with other components and is damaged.

Fixing device and image forming apparatus


A MOSgated trench device has a reduced on resistance by forming a less than about a 13 nm thick strained SiGe layer on the silicon surface of the trenches and forming a thin (30 nm or less) layer of epitaxially deposited silicon on the SiGe layer which epi layer is converted to a gate oxide layer. The conduction channel formed by the SiGe layer is permanently strained to increase its mobility particularly hole mobility.

Trench type MOSgated devices such as power MOSFETs and IGBTs are well known, wherein an insulation gate lines the side walls in spaced trenches, covering an invertible channel region along at least portions of the walls of the trench. A conductive polysilicon gate then fills the trenches.
The on resistance and the gate charge of the device is determined, in part, by the carrier mobility in this channel region.
It would be desirable to increase the mobility of the channel region in a trench device or, indeed, in a lateral surface channel of a planar device, to reduce on resistance and improve high speed switching performance.

Trench type mosgated device with strained layer on trench sidewall


A computing device, including memory, an accelerator device, and a processor. The processor may generate a plurality of data packs that each indicate an update to a variable of one or more variables of a combinatorial cost function. The processor may transmit the plurality of data packs to the accelerator device. The accelerator device may, for each data pack, retrieve a variable value of the variable indicated by the data pack and generate an updated variable value. The accelerator device may generate an updated cost function value based on the updated variable value. The accelerator device may be further configured to determine a transition probability using a Monte Carlo algorithm and may store the updated variable value and the updated cost function value with the transition probability. The accelerator device may output a final updated cost function value to the processor.

A combinatorial cost function is a scalar-valued function of one or more discrete or continuous variables. For example, a combinatorial cost function may be a sum of weighted terms that each depend on one or more variables. In a wide variety of applications, such as logistics, machine learning, and material design, it is useful to maximize or minimize a combinatorial cost function. Determining the maximum or minimum of a combinatorial cost function is frequently an NP-hard problem for which it would not be feasible to find an exact solution. Instead, solutions to combinatorial cost functions are more frequently approximated by numerical methods. However, these numerical methods are often slow and/or low-precision. Thus, solving for approximate maxima and minima of computational cost functions may be computing-intensive and costly.

Accelerator for computing combinatorial cost function


The cells of a memory cell array are programmed in a pair wise manner. The pairs are separated by at least one memory cell, reducing the possibility of interference between the pairs during programming. The memory cells are programmed individually by applying a relatively high voltage to one of the bit lines of each cell regardless whether the cells are to be programmed or not, while applying a lower voltage to the second bit lines, depending on whether the cells are to be programmed or not. This programming voltage assignment enhances the speed of programming. Furthermore, the pair wise programming scheme applies the necessary high voltages only half as often as in previous schemes to program all the cells of the array, increasing the lifetime of the memory system.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to programming floating gate memory cells, and in particular to improved techniques of reading and writing of dual floating gate memory cells.
2. Discussion of Related Art
There are many commercially successful non-volatile memory products being used today, particularly in the form of small cards, which use an array of flash EEPROM cells. The basic architecture of an individual EEPROM memory cell includes source and drain diffusions, coupled by a channel, formed in a semiconducting substrate. The storage element itself is positioned above the channel, separated from it by a dielectric layer. This storage element is often referred to as a floating gate. Overlying the storage element there can be a select gate, used to address the individual cell for programming and reading.
Some designs include a split channel architecture, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,344, granted to E. Harari, which is incorporated herein by this reference in its entirety. In a split channel cell both the storage element and the select gate overlie the channel partially. This design has the advantage of simplicity, but the select gate performs the multiple functions of addressing the individual cells to be programmed or read, as well as the function of participating in the actual programming or reading of the cells as well.
Another design introduces an additional steering gate, positioned between the storage element and the select gate. The select gate continues to carry out the addressing function and even may contribute to the programming, but the primary programming and reading functions are performed by the steering gate, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,421, granted to D. Guterman et al., which is incorporated herein by this reference in its entirety.
Higher storage densities can be achieved by a dual cell design, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,712,180, granted to D. Guterman et al., which is incorporated herein by this reference in its entirety. There are two floating gates per cell in the dual cell architecture, overlying portions of the same channel. Corresponding steering gates are positioned above the floating gates. The select gate is formed above the steering gates and also overlies the channel itself.
In an array of cells the select gates of the memory cells along a row are coupled to form a word line along that row. The diffusions in different rows are aligned and coupled to form bit lines across the rows. Also, the steering gates in different rows are aligned and coupled to form steering lines. A recent design of a memory cell array is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,151,248, granted to E. Harari, which is incorporated herein by this reference in its entirety.
Flash EEPROM memories hold some key advantages over other types of memory systems. One of these advantages is the non-volatile nature of the data storage, making these systems prime candidate for a wide variety of applications, including digital cameras, recording music and utilization in mobile communications.
A characteristic of flash memory systems is, however, the relatively long time it takes to program the cells. Programming can take as long as 10-1000 microseconds, longer than, for example, present day DRAMs.
Many cells are programmed simultaneously in the memory systems. The cells of the array are selected for programming in a certain scheme. The speed of the programming is influenced by this scheme. In some arrays the simultaneous programming is performed, for example, on every fourth, or every seventh cell only. Therefore these schemes require four or seven programming cycles to program all the cells of the array, respectively.
Thus programming schemes which program memory arrays in fewer cycles are desired.
The programming speed is affected also by the operating speed of the individual circuit elements involved. For example, if the input/output circuitry is slower than the internal array circuitry, the overall operating speed of the memory system will be restricted by the speed of the input/output circuitry. The input/output circuitry can be slow, for example, because relatively high voltages have to be applied to program some of the arrays. In order to handle higher voltages, the thickness of the oxide layers of the programming circuit elements has to be increased. This in turn slows down the operating speed of these circuit elements.
Therefore improvements in programming voltage assignments in the memory arrays are desired.
Another aspect of the quality of flash EEPROM related products is their expected lifetime. The lifetime is influenced by several factors. One of them is associated with the relatively high voltages needed to program the memory cells. Every time these relatively high programming voltages are applied, some degree of wear occurs in the memory cell, thereby limiting the useful lifetime of the memory cell.
Thus programming schemes reducing the number of instances, when high programming voltages have to be applied have the potential of extending the lifetime of flash memory based products.
Briefly and generally, the cells of a memory array are programmed in a new, pair wise programming scheme. The cells are programmed by the application of a data-independent high voltage and a data-dependent low voltage. This novel programming scheme and voltage assignment has the advantage of increasing the speed of the programming and the lifetime of the memory cell array.
According to one aspect of the invention a new programming scheme is introduced. The cells of a memory cell array are programmed in a novel, pair wise scheme. The programmed pairs of cells are separated by at least one memory cell, reducing the possibility of interference between the pairs during programming. This scheme is capable of programming all cells of the array in three programming cycles. Previous methods, which program every fourth or every seventh memory cell of an array in one cycle, are only capable of programming all cells of the array in four or seven cycles, respectively.
According to another aspect of the invention new programming voltage assignments are introduced. The memory cells of an array are typically associated with two bit lines. In existing memory systems a relatively high voltage is applied to one of the cell""s bit lines, if the cell is to be programmed, while applying a low voltage to the second bit line of the cell irrespective whether the cell is to be programmed or not. The programming circuit elements, including input/output circuitry, buses, and drivers, have to be capable of handling these relatively high voltages. This is achieved, among others, by increasing the thickness of the oxide layers of the involved semiconductor devices. Devices with thicker oxide layers, however, operate slower, eventually reducing the speed of reading of the whole array.
The novel programming voltage assignments according to an aspect of the invention eliminate the necessity of thicker semiconductor layers in the programming circuit elements because the memory cell is programmed by applying the relatively high voltage to one of the bit lines irrespective whether the cell is to be programmed or not. The programming of the cell is controlled instead by the voltage applied to the second bit line of the cell. Both the programming and the non-programming voltages, applied to the second bit line, are lower than the relatively high voltage applied to the first bit line. Therefore the programming circuit elements, including the input/output circuitry, buses, and drivers, can all operate at lower voltages. This allows for utilizing thinner oxide layers, thus enhancing the operating speed of the programming circuit elements and eventually the overall performance of the circuit.
The lifetime of memory cells is also affected by the above programming scheme and programming voltage assignments. As mentioned above, every time a high voltage is applied to a bit line, some degree of wear occurs, shortening the lifetime of the cell. In the pair wise programming scheme, however, the application of the high programming voltage to one bit line programs two memory cells. Therefore high programming voltages have to be applied only half as often as in previous schemes to program all the cells of the array, increasing the lifetime of the memory system.


A cartridge-type faucet valve is provided which includes a housing with an inlet, an outlet and an insert assembly (or cartridge) seat interposed between the inlet and outlet and for cooperating with a portion of an insert assembly or cartridge to provide a seal between the inlet and outlet. The insert assembly or cartridge includes a stationary elongated sleeve and a stem mounted within the sleeve which is longitudinally movable over a range of travel between a closed position and a fully open position. One section of the stem co-acts with the sleeve to control the longitudinal position of the stem. Another section of the stem cooperates with an internal surface portion of the sleeve to provide a longitudinally extending flow passage for communicating from the inlet to the outlet. A seal piece is mounted on the stem and is adapted for engagement with a stationary seating surface adjacent one end of the sleeve. In operation, the seal piece is engaged with the seating surface only in the closed position for preventing flow to the flow passage. The insert assembly or cartridge further includes a seal interposed between the two above-mentioned stem sections for isolating the first mentioned section from the flow passage. The insert assembly or cartridge also includes a deformable seal for providing static sealing engagement with the insert assembly seat, the seal adapted to be in deformed static compression against the insert assembly seat when the insert assembly is assembled with the housing.

Various cartridge-type faucet valves have heretofore been utilized in wash basins, sinks, bath tubs, showers, faucets and the like for controlling flow from a supply of hot and/or cold water. Such faucet valves characteristically have a valve housing or body forming a relatively permanent part of a given installation and a removable or replaceable faucet valve insert assembly, or cartridge, which is inserted into and assembled with the housing to form a complete faucet valve. A cartridge typically includes a valve seal and seat, which cooperate to provide the flow control (or the on-off action of the faucet valve) and a mechanism for controlling the faucet valve position (i.e., seal and/or seat positions) in response to an actuation of the valve, manually or otherwise. The mechanism typically includes a movable valve stem.
It has been found, however, that certain cartridge-type faucet valves have been beset with sealing problems. In particular, a problem has arisen with a seal between the valve housing and the cartridge itself. Such a seal is often needed to isolate the inlet of the valve housing, which may be under constant pressure, from the outlet, which provides the controlled flow (or no flow if the valve is closed). In prior valves, that seal has been provided by the physical abutment of a relatively incompressible (e.g. metal) portion of the cartridge with a relatively incompressible (e.g. metal) portion of the valve housing. As such, a proper seal depended upon maintaining very tight manufacturing tolerances for the mating surfaces and, more importantly, upon field installation or service personnel properly following critical torque limits when tightening the fasteners used for assembling and retaining the cartridge in the housing. This has been costly and has oftentimes resulted in an inferior seal.
A further sealing problem with prior cartridge-type faucet valves involves the seal used to prevent leakage along the valve stem. Heretofore, a retaining nut or the like has been used to hold a packing material against the stem. The packing would permit stem movement yet prevent leakage along the stem. While such an approach can reliably prevent leakage from the valve as a unit, it does nothing to prevent internal leakage from the fluid flow path within the cartridge to the mechanism of the cartridge used to control valve position. Such leakage can degrade or wash away necessary lubricant from the mechanism and can result in the accumulation of mineral deposits or corrosion within the mechanism, thereby shortening the useful life or the service interval of the valve cartridge.

Cartridge-type faucet valve with improved seal


Categorizing images may include training a first neural network to cluster a plurality of images to obtain a first image embedding space, wherein a vector representation is determined for each of the plurality of images based on the training, determining a vector norm value corresponding to each of the plurality of images based on the vector representation for each of the plurality of images, and identifying a first subset of the images for which a corresponding vector norm value satisfies a predetermined vector norm quality threshold. Then, a second neural network may be trained using the first subset of images to obtain a second image embedding space, and the second image embedding space may be used to categorize additional images.

With the rise of mobile devices, users have started to capture more and more images. With the increase in images and other media collected by users, the need for organization methods of the media items becomes more necessary. As an example, face recognition may be used to identify photos or images of a distinct individual. However, training a network to identify a face on naturally captured photos may be difficult because user photos are often of lower quality than those used as training data in a factory context. As such, training a network on user photos may be unreliable and expensive.

Vector norm algorithmic subsystems for improving clustering solutions


Apparatus for positioning an occupant of a vehicle in an area of a closeable roof hatch includes a carrier frame suspended within a vehicle below the roof hatch and including a vertical support portion and a horizontal standing area connected to the vertical support portion. A seat assembly for the occupant has a backrest which is guided by the vertical support portion for movement in a vertical direction between upper and lower end positions and is spring-biased to seek the upper end position. The seat assembly has a seating area, which is swingably mounted to a lower end of the backrest, and a coupling brace, which has one end swingably mounted to the seating area and another end swingably mounted to the standing area. Connected to the seat assembly is a seat belt for fastening the occupant.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for positioning an occupant of a vehicle in an area of a closeable roof hatch.
Vehicles, in particular armored vehicles used by the military or police, normally accommodate several occupants. One occupant, the so-called commander assumes the task to view the situation around the vehicle and to derive conclusions which may possibly be relayed to the other occupants. To enable the commander to reliably survey the surrounding environment, the vehicle involved here has a roof hatch which can normally be closed by a manually operated hatch cover. If the hatch cover is swung open to clear the hatch, the commander is able to stand in the hatch and to monitor the surroundings. For that purpose, the commander oftentimes stands on a seat of a seat formation, occasionally even upon a backrest of such a seat formation.
So long as the vehicle travels on a substantially flat terrain, the commander has no problem to fulfill the job. However, as the vehicle is exposed in addition to natural movements and braking operations to significant spatial vibrations, especially in off-road terrain, the commander has to protect himself or herself from hitting the upper body against the edge of the hatch by moving the upper body as far out as possible from the hatch and using the hands to hold onto external parts of the vehicle for stabilizing the position.
On occasion, occupants are confronted with a situation in which the armored vehicle rolls over. In this case, the commander is exposed and does not have a chance to retract fast enough through the hatch into the interior for safety, when a rollover occurs. Rather, the commander will be hurled out of the vehicle or even crushed by the vehicle. Another dangerous situation for the commander occurs when the vehicle strikes a mine which explodes and then causes the vehicle to tilt. In addition, a strong shock wave is generated which is transmitted through the bottom-mounted seat into the lower leg and thigh as well as spine of the commander, when the vehicle is caused to significantly accelerate in vertical direction as a consequence of the mine explosion.
One approach to address these problems involves to restrain the commander in normal seating position to a mechanically liftable seat by means of a safety belt and to lift the commander with the seat far enough to enable him or her to look out of the hatch for surveying the surroundings. Although this approach secures the commander to the seat assembly, there is still the problem that the seat assembly is coupled to the vehicle bottom. As a result, the commander is forced to follow all motions of the vehicle and thus can be subjected to oftentimes significant accelerating forces. Moreover, such a seat assembly has the drawback that its entire mass including the weight of the commander buckled thereto must be lifted and lowered. Lifting must be implemented by mechanical means because vehicles of this type normally are not equipped with a hydraulic system due to combustibility of hydraulic fluid. When the vehicle rolls over or hits a mine which then explodes, there is not enough time for the mechanic system to respond and move the seat assembly with the commander out of the danger zone in the area of the hatch.
Mechanical lifting of the seat assembly is also disadvantageous because the seat assembly blocks in the upper position the hatch so that the commander, even when unbuckling the safety belt, is unable to stretch in order to leave the vehicle via the hatch with straight legs. Thus, neither the commander nor any of the other occupants has an escape route out of the vehicle, when the seat assembly is secured in the upper position. Finally, there is also a risk that the seat assembly jams in the upper position, as a result of hitting a mine and of the resultant significant high accelerations, and then can no longer be moved downwards. Thus, the hatch is permanently blocked for use as escape route.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved apparatus for positioning an occupant of a vehicle in an area of a closeable hatch to obviate prior art shortcomings and to enable the occupant to stand in the hatch to reliably assume surveying tasks while still assuring a safe return into the interior of the vehicle, when the vehicle tilts or rolls over or is exposed to a vertical acceleration in the event of an accident of any kind.


Apparatus and methods are described to reduce program disturb for a memory string with a partial select gate drain, which is partially cut by a shallow trench. The memory string with a partial select gate drain is linked with a neighboring full select gate drain that during its programming can cause a program disturb in the memory string with a partial select gate drain. The bias voltage applied to the selected full select gate drain can be controlled from a high state for low memory program states to a lower state for the high memory program states. The high data states may cause program disturb. The reduction in the bias voltage can match a reduction in the bias voltage applied to the bit lines to reduce the program disturb while providing adequate signal to program the high states on the memory string of the full select gate drain.

The present technology relates to the operation of memory devices.
Semiconductor memory devices have become more popular for use in various electronic devices, such as cellular telephones, digital cameras, personal digital assistants, mobile computing devices, non-mobile computing devices and other devices. A non-volatile memory allows information to be stored and retained even when the non-volatile memory is not connected to a source of power (e.g., a battery).

System and methods for programming nonvolatile memory having partial select gate drains