An UWB receiver utilizing a microwave tunnel diode as a single pulse detector for short pulse, impulse, baseband or ultra wideband signals. The tunnel diode detector's bias point is set at system start-up, through an automatic calibration procedure to its highest sensitivity point relative to the desired bit error rate performance (based upon internal noise only) and remains there during the entire reception process. High noise immunity is achieved through the use of a high speed, adaptive dynamic range extension process using a high speed, Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) voltage variable attenuator (VVA) whose instantaneous attenuation level is determined by a periodic sampling of the ambient noise environment. Microprocessor-controlled detector time-gating is performed to switch the tunnel diode detector to the receiver front end circuitry for reception of an incoming UWB pulse, and alternately to ground through a resistor to discharge stored charge on the tunnel diode detector. In a second embodiment, two tunnel diode detectors are utilized in parallel, one biased for data detection and the other biased for noise detection, such that data detection can be interpreted based on simultaneous comparison to both a data threshold and a noise threshold.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of ultra wideband communications and radar. More particularly, it relates to reliable reception and processing of ultra wideband electromagnetic pulses in the presence of noise, strong interference and/or jamming.
2. Background of Related Art
One of the first ultra wideband (previously referred to as baseband, carrier-free or short pulse) receivers was patented in 1972 by Ken Robbins while at the Sperry Research Center, U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,316. This receiver utilized a "dispersionless" broadband transmission line antenna together with a biased tunnel diode located in the transmission line for detecting the total energy in a pulse and expanding the resultant output in the time domain so that conventional, lower speed circuitry may be used for processing. The tunnel diode was biased to operate as a monostable multivibrator as disclosed in 1962 in Gentile, S. P., Basic Theory and Application of Tunnel Diodes, Van Nostrand, N.J., ch. 8 "Pulse and Switching Circuits" (1962). The receiver took advantage of the tunnel diode's unique characteristic of changing state when the area under the current vs. time envelope, i.e., the charge carriers passing through the device, exceeded a prescribed number of picocoulombs. This change in state yielded a recognizable, detectable event or output voltage. Sperry's tunnel diode detector (TDD) receiver was used in a number of applications including baseband communications, liquid level sensing, object detection and radar. It was soon observed, however, that the Robbins TDD was subject to operating point bias drift due to temperature and power supply fluctuations. This bias drift impacted negatively the system's overall sensitivity and increased the false alarm rate.
In 1976, Nicolson and Mara introduced a constant false alarm rate (CFAR) circuit to the tunnel diode detector receiver that is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,983,422. The CFAR circuit employed a logic circuit that sampled noise dwells and data dwells to dynamically adjust a variable threshold of the tunnel diode. This feedback circuit operated in such a manner that the false alarm rate, as measured by the number of hits received due solely to noise during a fixed time interval, was held constant regardless of temperature fluctuations, power supply voltage changes, device aging, etc. The CFAR receiver was utilized in the development of baseband speed sensing, collision avoidance, and radar docking prototypes.
In 1987, an anti-jam circuit was introduced into the CFAR receiver. This is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,041. Since the baseband receiver was extremely broadband, with typical bandwidths of hundreds of MHz to GHz, it was found to be extremely susceptible to in-band interference and jamming since the tunnel diode circuit could not distinguish between valid and unwanted signals. Such in-band signals caused a significant reduction in receiver sensitivity by causing the CFAR loop to back-off the sensitivity of the tunnel diode detector. The anti-jam circuit disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,041 used the jamming signal itself (if sufficiently strong), or else an internally switched continuous wave (CW) signal, as a local oscillator signal to heterodyne the incoming signal prior to detection. However, this anti-jam circuit proved to be ineffective in the presence of barrage (broadband) noise jamming or interference, and/or multiple in-band CW interfences. In the case of barrage noise, no reference frequency is provided by the interference with which to down convert the incoming signal, and the system reverts to single-conversion superheterodyne operation with an internal first local oscillator. The broadband noise is also down converted with the signal, and no anti-jam improvement is obtained. In the latter case of multiple in-band CW interferers, the circuitry will use one of these tones, or a linear combination depending upon the third order intercept properties of the design. In this case, the remaining tones are also heterodyned to near baseband and act once again as strong in-band jamming signals.
Also in 1987, U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,752 disclosed a narrow range gate added to the existing baseband CFAR receiver. The reduction in range gate size had the effect of reducing unwanted noise and interference by more closely matching the detector with the received pulse duration. The inventor of this patent purports to achieve nanosecond range gate intervals through the use of two Germanium (Ge) and a single Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) tunnel diode.
In 1994, U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,054 to Ross and Mara disclosed a coherent processing tunnel diode UWB receiver. These inventors claim to have improved tunnel diode detector receiver sensitivity by using a tunnel diode envelope generator to perform a superheterodyne conversion whereby the available charge for triggering the tunnel diode is maximized. Ross and Mara considered only single pulse ultra wideband detectors; i.e., detectors which make a binary, or hard, decision (Logic 1 or Logic 0) at every sampling instant. However, their patent discloses a sliding average of detector hits, noise dwell or data dwell, in any group of thirty-two consecutive periods (col. 4, lines 35-39). Averaging of all hits, including data dwells, provides an average of the noise dwells which is skewed because of the inclusion of the data dwells. Moreover, to reduce the effects of the skewing, a large number of noise dwells must be detected for each data dwell detected, ultimately reducing data rates.
There have been other patented UWB receiver designs in which a multiplicity of pulses (typically several thousand) are first coherently added, or integrated, before a binary (bit) decision is made (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,523,760; 4,979,186; and 5,363,108). The UWB detectors of the present invention do not require coherent addition of a multiplicity of pulses, but rather have sufficient sensitivity to operate on a single pulse basis.
Only false alarm rate is typically computed by previous UWB receiver/processor designs, and thus the system bit error rate (BER), and accordingly the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) are unknown. In practice, the tunnel diode bias is "backed off" from the CFAR level to reduce the BER to an acceptable level. Unfortunately, since the BER is a very sensitive function of the tunnel diode bias level, this can result in a significant reduction in receiver sensitivity to achieve a desired BER.
As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,316, in a tunnel diode UWB receiver, the tunnel diode changes state whenever the accumulated charge on the device exceeds a given threshold. Mathematically, the performance of the tunnel diode detector in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) can be described by the following set of equations: ##EQU1## where P.sub.d is the probability of detection, P.sub.fa is the probability of false alarm, s(u) is the received UWB waveform, n.sub.w (u) is additive white Gaussian noise with double-sided power spectral density N.sub.0 B, B is the detection signal bandwidth, T is the diode dwell sensitivity interval, and T.sub.h is a threshold value.
While previous designs of the CFAR tunnel diode receiver have functioned reliably as an ultra wideband single pulse detector, their use in modern communication and radar applications have presented numerous drawbacks:
1. The prior art designs remain susceptible to in-band interference and jamming, particularly broadband or barrage noise jamming and multiple CW interferers. PA1 2. The requirement to continuously adjust bias to the tunnel detector to maintain a given constant false alarm rate (CFAR) conventionally requires a minimum number of noise dwells to take place for each data dwell--typically thirty-two or more noise dwells for each data dwell--to achieve false alarm rates less than a few percent. This severely restricts the maximum data rate at which a single detector can operate since data and noise dwells must operate at different time intervals. In addition, the speed at which the tunnel diode detector can respond to sudden changes in the electromagnetic environment is limited. Hence, impulsive noise (which is nearly always present) can create burst errors in the data stream, corrupting data integrity. PA1 3. Receiver sensitivity is conventionally backed-off to achieve a desired BER, providing an UWB receiver which has reduced distance capability and slower data rates.

Ultra wideband receiver with high speed noise and interference tracking threshold


The present disclosure relates to a method for forming a carbon nanotube array. In the method a tubular substrate is provided. The tubular substrate includes an outer sidewall with a catalyst layer located on the outer sidewall. The heating member, and the tubular substrate with the catalyst layer is received in a reacting chamber. The tubular substrate is heated by the heating member. A carbon source gas is supplied into the reacting chamber to grow the carbon nanotube array on the tubular substrate.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for forming a carbon nanotube array.
2. Description of Related Art
A carbon nanotube array is grown on a flat silicon wafer by using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. More specifically, a layer of nanosized catalyst grains is arranged on the flat silicon wafer by annealing a metal film deposited on the wafer. Then the wafer is disposed and heated in a reactor chamber. Carbon source gas and protective gas are introduced into the reactor chamber and the carbon source gas is pyrolyzed by an action of the catalyst grains at elevated temperature to grow the carbon nanotube array on the flat silicon wafer. However, the size of the carbon nanotube array grown on the flat silicon wafer is restricted by the size of the reactor chamber.
Recently, a method for growing a large-area carbon nanotube film is disclosed by the patent application US20070292614 A1 to Liu et al. The method includes steps of: providing a cylinder shaped substrate; forming a catalyst layer on the outer surface of the cylinder shaped substrate; fixing the cylinder shaped substrate in a reactor chamber; and growing a carbon nanotube film on the outer surface of the cylinder shaped substrate by the CVD process. The silicon wafer and the cylinder shaped substrate with the same diameter that can be accommodated by the same reactor chamber, can have different surface area that has the carbon nanotubes grown thereon, wherein the outer surface of the cylinder shaped substrate is larger than the flat surface of the silicon wafer. Therefore, a larger carbon nanotube film can be achieved by using the cylinder shaped substrate but not to increase the size of the reactor chamber, especially not increase a diameter of a tube furnace.
However, in the above method, the reactor chamber is heated to 700° C. by resistance wires coiled outside the reactor chamber, to indirectly heat the cylinder shaped substrate thereby pyrolyzing the carbon source gas. When the carbon nanotubes have been grown on the outer surface of the cylinder shaped substrate, an amount of heat is absorbed by the carbon nanotubes to slow down the heating speed of the substrate and the growing speed of the carbon nanotubes. As the increasing of the height of the carbon nanotubes, the growing speed of the carbon nanotubes becomes slower.
What is needed, therefore, is to provide a method and an apparatus for forming a carbon nanotube array at a quickly growing speed.

Method and apparatus for forming carbon nanotube array

Beijing FUNATE Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.


The present invention relates to a linear stepping motor, the motor characterized by: a housing; a stator mounted inside the housing: a rotor rotatively arranged at an inner surface of the stator and mounted with a female screw threaded to a lead screw; a mounting plate fixed at a lateral surface of the housing for passing the lead screw; and a plate cover coupled between the mounting plate and the housing configured to prevent a bearing rotatively supporting the female screw from axially moving, such that the bearing can be securely fixed in a simple structure by the plate cover itself to allow a free design in the size of a central hole of the housing or the size of an outer diameter of a magnet regardless of the size of outer diameter of the bearing, and the bearing is securely fixed to the plate cover by caulking to prevent the bearing from moving axially, whereby vibration and noise can be remarkably reduced to enhance the reliability of the product.

Generally, a linear stepping motor is a motor in which a rotor rotates at a predetermined angle to allow a lead screw to linearly and reciprocally move. The linear stepping motor is featured by the fact that the number of an input pulse and a rotation angle of a motor are proportionate to accurately control the rotation angle, such that the linear stepping motor is widely used that needs a precise control.
The linear stepping motor is largely utilized in the fields of NC (numerical control) machines, industrial robots, and office automation machines such as printers and copiers, and is particularly used as an actuator adjusting an illumination angle of a head light of an automobile.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating an example of a linear stepping motor according to prior art.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional linear stepping motor includes a housing 1, a control box 3 mounted outside of the housing 1, a stator 5 installed inside the housing 1, a rotor 7 rotatively installed inside the stator 5 to be rotated by the electromagnetic force, and a lead screw 9 linearly and movably installed inside the rotor 7 to linearly move in association with the rotating movement of the rotor 7.
The stator 5 includes a pair of tooth yokes 50, and first and second coil bobbins 52,54 wound by a coil 56 and arrange in parallel outside of the tooth yokes 50.
The rotor 7 includes a magnet 70 rotatively mounted inside the tooth yoke 50 at a predetermined gap, and an arm screw 72 installed to rotate along with the magnet 70 inside the magnet 70 and formed therein with a female screw 72 formed with female screw threads 72a.
Furthermore, the lead screw 9 is formed at a periphery thereof with a male screw threads 9a meshed with the female screw threads 72a of the female screw 72 to linearly and reciprocally move in response to the rotation of the female screw 72.
FIG. 2 is a schematic view of essential parts illustrating a bearing installation structure of a linear stepping motor according to prior art.
Referring to FIG. 2, the linear stepping motor is configured in such a manner that a plate cover 11 is welded to one side of a housing 1, where the plate cover 11 is coupled with a mounting plate 13. The mounting plate 13 is formed with an installation groove 13a inside of which is installed with a bearing 15 for rotatively supporting one side end of the lead screw 9. At this time, the bearing 15 is blocked by a lateral wall 1a of the housing 1 to be prevented from being disengaged.
However, the conventional linear stepping motor suffers from a disadvantage in that it must satisfy a condition in which a diameter d2 of a central hole 1b formed at the center of the housing 1 is smaller than an outer diameter d1 of the bearing 15 to prevent the bearing 15 from disengaging (d1>d2). As a result, the diameter of the central hole 1b must be designed based on the outer diameter of the bearing 15 to limit the designing condition of the housing 1.
In association therewith, the size of the magnet 70 positioned inside a tooth 1c bent from the central hole 1b must be determined by the diameter of the central hole 1b, whereby the size of the magnet 70 is also restricted based on the limiting condition in which the diameter of the central hole 1b cannot be arbitrarily enlarged or reduced.
Furthermore, in order for the housing 1 to precisely apply pressure to the bearing 15, a coupling accuracy of a mounting plate 13, a plate cover 11 and the housing 1 must be very important, and in order to satisfy the coupling accuracy of these elements, a manufacturing cost is inevitably increased to meet the meticulous design conditions and manufacturing processes. If the meticulous design conditions are not met, vibration and noise are inevitably generated by the axial motion of the bearing 15 to become causes of defect of the product.

Linear stepping motor having a plate cover for fixing a bearing in a structure


A processor holds the second change value of the energy value which has been calculated by the processor and corresponds to each of a predetermined number of state transitions, in entries corresponding to the input identification information k. When the processor stochastically determines whether or not any of the state transitions is accepted, by a relative relation between the first change value and thermal excitation energy based on the temperature value, the first change value of the energy value calculated by the processor, and a random number value, the processor stochastically determines whether or not any of the state transitions is accepted, by adding the offset value y to the first change value. The offset value y is obtained by multiplying the second change value held by any entry selected from the entries based on the input identification information k, by coefficient information α.

As a method of solving a multivariate optimization problem which is not easily handled by a Neumann-type computer, there is an optimization device (may also be referred to as an Ising machine or a Boltzmann machine) using an Ising-type energy function. The optimization device calculates a problem to be calculated by replacing the problem with an Ising model which is a model representing a spin behavior which is a rotation of electrons in a magnetic material.
The optimization device is also capable of being modeled, for example, using a neural network. In this case, each of a plurality of bits (spin bits) that corresponds to a plurality of spins included in the Ising model functions as a neuron that outputs 0 or 1 in accordance with a weighting factor (also referred to as a coupling factor) indicating the magnitude of interaction between other bits and the own bits. The optimization device uses, for example, a probabilistic search method, such as simulated annealing, to find a combination of values of bits from which the minimum value among values (referred to as energy) of an energy function (also referred to as cost function or objective function) as described above, as an optimal solution.
For example, an optimization device that calculates a combination of values of bits, which cause energy to be the minimum, by performing simulated annealing with a digital circuit is proposed. The optimization device calculates an energy change by changing by one bit at a time and determines whether or not to permit the change of the bit in accordance with a comparison between the energy change and a noise value corresponding to the temperature. When a state transition due to the bit change does not occur, the optimization device adds an offset value to the energy change and then determines whether or not to permit the bit change. Thus, the escape from the local solution is accelerated, and a calculation time is reduced. The optimization device increases the offset value little by little when the state transition does not occur, and resets the offset value to 0 when the state transition occurs.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2018-63626, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 10-328155, and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2014-160457 are examples of related art.

Stochastically determining to accept a state transition for an optimization device


According to one embodiment, the connector has a first portion and a second portion. The first portion is provided on the second surface of the semiconductor chip and bonded to the second electrode. The first portion has a first bonding surface bonded to the second electrode of the semiconductor chip, and a heat dissipation surface opposite the first bonding surface and exposed from the resin. The second portion protrudes from the first portion toward the second lead frame side and thinner than the first portion. The second portion has a second bonding surface bonded to the second lead frame and a level difference portion provided near the second bonding surface at the first portion side.

These days, for power devices, a structure in which a plate-like connector or strap of copper or the like, not wire bonding, is used as a connection structure between a chip and an external lead is proposed in order to reduce resistance, and there are a growing number of such products.
Furthermore, a structure is proposed in which a connector mounted on a chip is exposed from a resin, and heat is dissipated from both the lower surface of a package on the mounting substrate side and the upper surface of the package. In this structure, the peculiar problem caused by exposing the upper surface of the package is a concern, and solution to the problem is required.


A cleaning apparatus for a rotary printing press includes a cleaning blade, a cleaning cloth, and a cleaning unit and air cylinders, or an air cylinder, a guide shift mechanism, and a cleaning cloth travel mechanism. The cleaning blade has a distal end portion which abuts against the circumferential surface of an oscillating roller during a cleaning operation to scrape a waste ink, and a rear surface continuous to the distal end portion to guide the scraped waste ink downward. The cleaning cloth travels during the cleaning operation done by the cleaning blade to collect the waste ink scraped by the cleaning blade. The cleaning unit and air cylinders, or the air cylinder, the guide shift mechanism, and the cleaning cloth travel mechanism bring the cleaning cloth into contact with the rear surface of the cleaning blade, when the distal end portion of the cleaning blade is in contact with the circumferential surface of the oscillating roller, to collect the waste ink on the cleaning blade.

The present invention relates to a cleaning apparatus for cleaning the ink rollers of a rotary printing press.
In the rotary printing press, when the printing operation is ended or when the color of an ink in the ink fountain is to be changed, the ink in the ink fountain is discharged and an ink roller cleaning operation is performed to clean off the ink attaching to the circumferential surfaces of the respective rollers of an ink ductor roller group so as not to affect the next printing operation.
In this cleaning apparatus, a cleaning solution is sprayed to the upstream ink roller of the ink roller group, and the cleaning solution and the waste ink transferred to the downstream ink roller are scraped with a cleaning blade abutting against the circumferential surfaces of the ink rollers to drop into a cleaning solution tank. With this arrangement, every time the circumferential surfaces of the ink rollers are cleaned, the ink attaching to the distal end of the cleaning blade and to the cleaning solution tank must be cleaned, leading to a burden on the person in charge of the cleaning operation.
As a cleaning apparatus which reduces the burden on the person in charge of the cleaning operation, one in which the waste ink scraped with the cleaning blade is collected with a cleaning cloth is proposed. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-262757 (Reference 1) discloses a cleaning device in which the waste ink on the circumferential surface of the ink roller is wiped off with a cleaning cloth urged against the circumferential surface of the ink roller through a pad, and the cleaning cloth is also urged against the cleaning blade urged against the circumferential surface of the ink roller, so that the waste ink scraped with the cleaning blade is collected by the cleaning cloth.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,168,812 (Reference 2) discloses a cleaning apparatus in which the waste ink on the circumferential surface of the ink roller is scraped with a cleaning blade, and the cleaning blade can come into contact with and separate from the circumferential surface of the ink roller. When it is separated, the cleaning blade is abutted against a cleaning cloth that awaits on the rear surface side of the cleaning blade, thereby collecting the waste ink.
With the device of Reference 1 described above, since the cleaning cloth is strongly urged against the circumferential surface of the ink roller, the cleaning cloth tends to be torn apart by the ink roller rotating at a high speed during cleaning. In order to prevent this, an expensive special cleaning cloth having high durability must be used. Because of the viscosity of the waste ink wiped by the cleaning cloth, the cleaning cloth is pulled and caught by the circumferential surface of the ink roller, causing a cleaning trouble.
With the apparatus of Reference 2, since the cleaning blade is intermittently separated from the circumferential surface of the ink roller during cleaning, the time period while the cleaning blade is separate results in a time loss, additionally prolonging the cleaning time.

Cleaning apparatus for web offset printing press


A predetermined number of license units for each of a plurality of individually selectable pieces of digital content in a digital content suite are checked out when each piece of digital content is executed by a customer in a customer club. Execution of a requested digital content is granted when the number of license units to execute the requested digital content is less than or equal to the total number of available units for the club. Access is granted for execution of the requested digital content by a license manager based on whether the required units of the requested digital content are greater than the available units on the requesting customer computer network. If the requested digital content cannot be executed immediately, the required units can be locked up and charged to the customer club available units or left uncharged.

The present invention relates, in general, to methods and apparatus for licensing and managing the usage of digital content.
Although computer programs, individually also referred to as computer software products, video games, music, etc., can be sold to an end user, a more frequent approach is to license the digital product or program to an end user, with the software vendor or owner retaining ownership of all of the rights to the product.
Each license is devised to control the usage of the product or software by stating the conditions under which the product may be used, such as the location of use, the number of times used, etc. Digital products are licensed in many ways. By one category, licenses can be divided into node-locked licenses or network licenses. By another category, licenses can be divided into product licenses or product suite licenses. In general most licenses could be described by a combination or a simple variation thereof of the above two categories; i.e. node-locked product licenses, node-locked product suite licenses, network product licenses, and network product suite licenses.
Node-locked licenses restrict the use of software and digital products to a given computer. The major limitation of this approach is that it requires customers to purchase software separately for each potential user. Since each user does not use each software on his machine all the time, software purchased via this approach would idle most of the time. This is a very inefficient use of customers' money.
Network licenses allow access to the software products on computer networks formed of a number of interconnected computers or nodes which may be linked to each other and/or a central host. This addresses the primary inefficiency of node-locked licenses. Since the customer must purchase licenses only to cover the anticipated number of peak simultaneous users of that software.
Product licensing restricts the use of the license to only the product for which it is valid. In other words, the license is not transferable to other products. The limitation of this approach is that a customer must purchase the peak licenses, either node-locked or network, for each product separately. Again, peak usage for different products do not occur at the same time. Hence, the customer ends up purchasing more software licenses than really required.
Product suite licenses allow access to several software products using common licenses. A suite would generally include several individual programs which may be run concurrently with each other or individually and may or may not be linked to other programs in the suite. Traditional licensing approaches for computer programs or suites typically involve one license for all of the programs in each entire suite such that a user on a node of a computer network is charged with one license use regardless of which program the user is running from a particular program suite. A major limitation of this approach is that it assumes that each product in the suite has an equal value. Also, product suites typically involve a small number of software products which complement each other, and the expansion of suite licensing to license a wide range of software products is commercially impractical.
A recent development in licensing has been the units based licensing of multiple products. In such a system, different products are assigned different values in terms of units. A customer would license a certain number of units to run any and all of these products. While on paper, this system appears to address limitations listed above, in reality it does not due to the manner in which it is implemented by several organizations. Under this setup, when a user runs multiple products, the user is charged multiple units, also called stacking of units. Since the customers have limited budgets for purchasing software products, this system (i) forces the users to terminate one product in order to run another, thus decreasing the user's efficiency, or (ii) forces the customer to purchase additional licenses with no additional value thus undermining the profitability of their organization. This system does not encourage users to try new products, even though they are accessible and available on their network.
Other types of licensing techniques, such as a leveling license approach, enable new digital content to be used without incurring many or any additional licensed units. Either license approach can work for companies having multiple users tied together in a company based computer network.
Home computer users typically download many different types of digital content, including computer software, digital music, video games, movies, etc. While some homes can have multiple computers and multiple simultaneous users interconnected by a home based computer network, the number of users is relatively small, being on the order of two or three network connected nodes in each network at lower use or license fees.
Further, home computer users typically download the different forms of digital content from many different sources. These multiple sources make license management inoperable. In addition, the relatively small, individual users who download digital content from multiple sources are unable to take advantage of group discounts, parental monitoring and block-out, etc.
To provide a wider range of available digital content, it would be desirable to provide a club or group based approach whereby any number of unrelated individuals, either at businesses, home, etc., can form a group and act in the same manner as a company by operating under a license approach for the most economical use of a wide range of digital content made available in a selectable digital product suite.

Token based club digital content licensing method


A method for checking the plausibility of an actuation position of a clutch of a double-clutch transmission operated by an actuator, including the following steps: disengaging the clutch assigned to the currently active old subtransmission and simultaneously engaging the clutch assigned to the other subtransmission to shift from the gear selected in the old subtransmission to a gear selected in the other, new subtransmission; deselecting the gear selected in the old subtransmission still during the overlapping operation of the clutches or immediately thereafter; detecting the difference between the speed of rotation of a drive shaft of the double-clutch transmission driven by a drive motor and the speed of rotation of the input shaft of the old subtransmission; and evaluating the state of the clutch assigned to the old subtransmission as disengaged when the difference in speeds of rotation exceeds a predetermined value within a predetermined time after deselection of the gear.

The invention relates to a method for checking the plausibility of the position of the clutch actuator of a clutch contained in a dual clutch transmission. The invention also relates to a method for determining the touch point of a clutch operated by an actuator. In addition, the invention relates to a device for carrying out the method.
In modern motor vehicles, automated clutches, i.e. clutches operated by an actuator, are being used increasingly. The position of the actuating element of the clutch or of the actuator is detected in most cases with the aid of an increment meter, which directly supplies only information about actuator travel paths just traversed, but not information about the absolute position of the actuating element. In order to find the absolute position, a referencing is necessary, in which the actuator moves to a predetermined actuation position of the clutch and the current counter status of the increment meter is read.
A fundamental problem of such incremental travel measurements is their dependence on exact determination of the reference position. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that when operating a motor vehicle one must always plan on the occurrence of error events, which can result in the absolute position of the clutch actuator or of the actuating element of the clutch, and hence also the clutch torque set by the actuator in the electronic control device, no longer being known. That can result in safety-critical events, for example drive-off when travel is not wanted. Especially safety-critical is exact knowledge of the current actuating position of the clutch in a dual clutch transmission, in which two clutches must be actuated in precise coordination with each other.

Method for checking the plausibility of the position of the clutch actuator of a clutch, method for determining the touch point of a clutch, and device for carrying out the method


A current reference circuit is capable of operation at a very low supply voltage, such as 1 volt. The current reference circuit is composed of a current mirror circuit, serving as an inverse PTAT (i.e., inversely proportional to absolute temperature) subcircuit, and a PTAT subcircuit for driving the current mirror circuit. The current mirror circuit and the PTAT subcircuit are mutually biased to each other. First and second constant currents produced by the PTAT subcircuit are supplied to the current mirror circuit as its reference and mirror currents, thereby cancelling the temperature coefficients of the first and second constant currents.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a current mirror circuit and a current reference circuit and more particularly, to a current mirror circuit and a current reference circuit that can be operated at an extremely low supply voltage of approximately 1 V.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A current reference circuit producing a constant reference current whose current value decreases in inverse proportion to the ambient absolute temperature is termed an "inversely proportional to absolute temperature (inverse PTAT)" circuit. The constant reference current thus produced has a negative temperature coefficient.
When the supply voltage is comparatively high (for example, 3 V or more), there have been known some inversely PTAT circuits, an example of which is shown in FIG. 1. In the circuit of FIG. 1, a difference current between a bias current for one diode-connected bipolar transistor and another bias current for two diode-connected bipolar transistors is taken out as an output current having a negative temperature coefficient.
Specifically, two npn bipolar transistors Q51 and Q52 and a resistor R51 (resistance: r.sub.51) constitute a first current mirror circuit. The transistor Q51 has a base and a collector coupled together, in other words, it is diode-connected. A current flowing through the resistor R51, i.e., a collector current of the transistor Q51, serves as a reference current. A collector current I.sub.1 of the transistor Q52 serves as a mirror current for the reference current.
The mirror current I.sub.1 is expressed as EQU (V.sub.STB -V.sub.BE51)/r.sub.51,
where V.sub.STB is a supply voltage and V.sub.BE51 is the base-to-emitter voltage (typically, 0.6 to 0.7 V) of the transistor Q51.
Three npn bipolar transistors Q53, Q54 and Q57 and a resistor R52 (resistance: r.sub.52) constitute a second current mirror circuit. The transistors Q54 and Q57 are diode-connected. A current flowing through the resistor R52, i.e., a collector current of the transistors Q54 and Q57, serves as a reference current. A collector current I.sub.2 of the transistor Q53 serves as a mirror current for the reference current.
The mirror current I.sub.2 is expressed as EQU (V.sub.STB -2V.sub.BE54)/r.sub.52,
where V.sub.BE54 is the base-to-emitter voltage (typically, 0.6 to 0.7 V) of the transistor Q54, because the transistor Q57 has the same base-to-emitter voltage V.sub.BE57 as V.sub.BE54.
Two pnp bipolar transistors Q55 and Q56 constitute a third current mirror circuit. The transistor Q55 is diode-connected. The mirror current I.sub.2 of the second current mirror circuit flows through the transistor Q55 as a reference current of the third current mirror circuit. The current I.sub.2 is folded by the third current mirror circuit, thereby producing a constant current -I.sub.2 at a collector of the transistor Q56. Thus, a mirror current (I.sub.1 -I.sub.2) of the third current mirror circuit is produced at the collector of the transistor Q56.
Two pnp bipolar transistors Q58 and Q59 constitute a fourth current mirror circuit. The transistor Q58 is diode-connected. A collector current of the transistor Q58, which is equal to the mirror current (I.sub.1 -I.sub.2), serves as a reference current. A mirror current (I.sub.1 -I.sub.2) serving as a reference current with a negative temperature coefficient is produced at a collector of the transistor Q59.
with the conventional current reference circuit shown in FIG. 1, the bias current for the diode-connected transistor Q51 varies in inverse proportion to the ambient absolute temperature because the base-to-emitter voltage V.sub.BE51 of the transistor Q51 is inversely proportional to the ambient absolute temperature. The temperature coefficient of V.sub.BE51 or the bias current for the transistor Q51 is approximately -2 mV/deg.
Similarly, the bias current for the diode-connected transistors Q54 and Q57 varies in inverse proportion to the ambient absolute temperature because the transistors Q54 and Q57 have the base-to-emitter voltages V.sub.BE54 and V.sub.BE57 that are inversely proportional to the ambient absolute temperature. V.sub.BE54 and V.sub.BE57 have the same temperature coefficient as that of V.sub.BE51, and the transistors Q54 and Q57 are serially connected to each other. Therefore, the temperature coefficient of V.sub.BE54 or the bias current for the transistors Q54 and Q57 is equal to twice as much as that of V.sub.BE51, i.e., approximately -4 mV/deg.
Additionally, the supply voltage V.sub.STB needs to have no temperature coefficient.
The conventional current reference circuit of FIG. 1 has the following problem: Since the transistors Q54 and Q57 are serially connected between the supply voltage V.sub.STB and the ground, the supply voltage V.sub.STB is required to be greater than the sum (approximately 1.2 to 1.4 V) of the base-to-emitter voltages of the transistors Q54 and Q57. As a result, the supply voltage V.sub.STB needs to be equal to or greater than approximately 1.5 V. This means that the conventional circuit of FIG. 1 cannot be operated at a low supply voltage of approximately 1 V.
Moreover, there has been no inverse PTAT circuit operable at a low supply voltage of approximately 1 V.

Current reference circuit having both a PTAT subcircuit and an inverse PTAT subcircuit


A multidirectional drill bit cutter comprising a cylindrical stud having a layer of polycrystalline diamond formed thereabout. In one embodiment the stud is fortified with diamond grit and diamond rods to reduce stud wear and to reduce the depth of cut taken by the polycrystalline diamond cutting element formed about the stud. In another aspect of the invention, an earth-boring drilling system having a pair of flat profile bits utilizes multidirectional cutters in a manner which causes them to cut from a plurality of different directions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutter for an earth boring drill bit and more particularly to such a cutter comprising a central stud adapted for mounting on the bit body and having a layer of abrasive material, such as polycrystalline diamond, formed about the circumference thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
One type of earth-boring drag bit includes a bit body having a plurality of cylindrical studs extending from the crown thereof. Each of the studs includes a polycrystalline diamond (PCD) cutting element mounted thereon. The cutting element is typically in the shape of a cylindrical disk having one side thereof bonded to the stud. The cutting elements are oriented so that when the bits are set on the bottom of a borehole an edge of each cutting element, and a portion of the stud upon which the cutting element is mounted, abuts against the formation. As the bit rotates, the stud wears away more rapidly than the PCD cutting element thereby forming a cutting element lip which extends beyond the stud. It is the edge of this lip which cuts rock from the formation as the bit rotates.
When drilling in hard and sometimes abrasive formations, the stud may wear rapidly thus leaving a relatively large lip which breaks off as a result of the forces applied to it during drilling. Although it is normal for the outermost portion of the lip to break off from time to time as the stud wears away, if this occurs too frequently wear is very high and the rate of penetration may be reduced. It would be desirable to provide a cutting element on a drill bit in which lip size is limited even in hard or abrasive formations. It would also be desirable to design a lip depth for a bit used in a particular formation.
The usual drill bit of the type above described rotates about a central axis. The cutters on such a bit therefore cut in only a single direction, namely the direction of cutter movement during bit rotation. Some bits, however, require cutters which can cut from more than a single direction. For example, some bits are constructed to create a bore which turns rather than simply having a straight axis. Such bits can be navigated to create a curved bore. When such a bit turns, the cutters thereon cut in a different direction than when the bit moves along a straight axis. It would be desirable to provide such a drill bit with a cutter which could cut in any direction.
Another problem inherent in using a conventional drill bit to drill hard formations is that the center of the axis of rotation the velocity of the bit is very low. It would be desirable to provide a drilling system which provided relatively uniform cutter velocity across the entire bottom surface of the borehole.


A mechanism is provided for a stair-lift platform including a stair-lift carriage which runs up and down a flight of stairs and a platform which form a bridge to the carriage at the top of the stairs, the platform being lowered so as to constitute the bridge and raised out of the way when the carriage descends, the mechanism comprising a coupling unit fixed with respect to the stairs, a linkage from the coupling unit to the platform and a pick-up on the carriage, the pick-up engaging the coupling unit so as to cause a following movement of the coupling unit with respect to the carriage, which following movement causes the platform to be raised and lowered via the linkage.

The invention relates to a platform mechanism for a stair-lift. A stair-lift generally comprises a rail which is mounted on a stair-case or on an adjacent wall and which carries a carriage with a chair or a platform for a wheel-chair to enable an infirm person to be carried up and down the stairs. If the stairs consist of one straight flight fabrication of the stair-lift is relatively straight forward. If the carriage is to negotiate curves, however, fabrication of the stair-lift becomes more complex and expensive.
Frequently stair-cases consist of a major flight turning through 90 degrees near the upper level through winders or a quarter landing to one or two further steps. In this configuration a straight stair-lift cannot serve the upper landing level directly and it is necessary to accept the greater cost of a curved stair-lift to achieve this.
One solution to the problem is to provide a hinged platform at the upper level. The platform may be hinged up to a parked position in order not to obstruct the stair-case. When the stair-lift is at or near the upper level the platform is swung down to form a bridge. The platform may be operated manually but this is difficult for a person seated on the stair-lift. If the platform is left down when the stair-lift descends it obstructs the stair-case and presents a serious hazard because someone may inadvertently step off the unprotected edge.
The problems can be overcome by providing powered operation for the platform, operated by push-button or automatically. However, the additional motor drive mechanism and control system is expensive. The present invention seeks to provide an improvement.


A subsea completion system for a subsea well includes a tubing spool including an internal bore formed therethrough and a tubing hanger movable into a landed position within the internal bore of the tubing spool. The tubing hanger includes a production bore formed therethrough, an auxiliary passage formed therethrough outside of the production bore, and a valve in fluid communication with the auxiliary passage to control the flow of fluid through the auxiliary passage.

To meet the demand for natural resources, companies often invest significant amounts of time and money in searching for and extracting oil, natural gas, and other subterranean resources from the earth. Particularly, once a desired resource is discovered below the surface of the earth, drilling and production systems are often employed to access and extract the resource. These systems may be located onshore or offshore depending on the location of a desired resource. Further, such systems generally include a completion system that includes wellhead assembly through which the resource is extracted. These completion systems may include a wide variety of components, such as various casings, hangers, valves, fluid conduits, and the like, that control drilling and/or extraction operations.
One type of completion assembly includes a wellhead with one or more strings of casing supported by casing hangers in the wellhead. Attached to the wellhead may be a tubing spool with a tubing hanger secured to a string of tubing that lands in the tubing spool above the wellhead. The tubing spool may have a plurality of vertical passages that surround a vertical bore. The vertical fluid passages provide access through the tubing spool for hydraulic fluid or electrical lines to operate and control equipment located downhole, such a safety valves or chemical injection units. Electrical and/or hydraulic control lines may extend alongside the outside of the tubing to control downhole valves, temperature sensors, and the like. A production tree is then installed on top of the tubing spool. The production tree has a vertical bore that receives upward flow of fluid from the tubing string and wellhead.
Further, over the last thirty years, the search for oil and gas offshore has moved into progressively deeper waters. Wells are now commonly drilled at depths of several hundreds, to even several thousands, of feet below the surface of the ocean. In addition, wells are now being drilled in more remote offshore locations. As such, it remains a priority to reduce the complexity and height of completion systems, thereby assisting to prevent failure and reduce the footprint of the completion systems, particularly in these remote locations where maintenance may be difficult.

Vertical completion system including tubing hanger with valve


In a mobile phone of the present invention, de-spread circuits execute de-spread processing for receiving signals, and rake combines compose a plurality of information in the outputs of the de-spread circuits in correspondence to base stations, and calculate receiving levels of power control signals in individual channels in correspondence to the base stations to output the power control signals each having receiving level information to a comparator. The comparator outputs only the power control signal having the receiving level lying within a predetermined range from a maximum receiving level of the receiving levels of the power control signals from among the plurality of base stations to a decision circuit. The decision circuit decides based on the power control signal from the comparator whether a transmission power from the mobile phone should be increased or decreased to control the transmission power of a transmitter circuit, thereby preventing misrecognition of the power control signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a mobile telephone system using a wideband-code division multiple access (W-CDMA) system or the like, and more particularly to a method of controlling a transmission power of a mobile phone.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a mobile telephone system using the W-CDMA system, the control for an transmission power is required in order to transmit data between a base station (when it is assumed that one base station is constituted by one sector) and a mobile phone at a minimum electric power.
As for a method including a power control, the base station calculates a receiving power from a power control signal contained in transmission data from each of the mobile phones individually connected to the base station, and decides based on the calculation results whether a power of a signal transmitted from the mobile phone should be increased or decreased. The decision results are issued to the mobile phone through a power control signal (TPC) contained in the transmission data from the base station.
A signal frame #i of a separate down physical channel transmitted from a base station to a mobile phone of a code division multiple access (CDMA) system, as shown in FIG. 1, is composed of fifteen slots #0 to #14. Each slot #i includes data of a transport format combination indicator (TFCI), Data 1, transmit power control (TPC), Data 2 and Pilot. The mobile phone is controlled in accordance with TPC bits sent from the base station to which the mobile phone is being connected so that its transmission power is either increased or decreased.
That is to say, the mobile phone judges a transmission power when data is transmitted next time by using the TPC bits sent from the base station as a power control signal. In this power controlling method, when the base station is connected in one-to-one correspondence to the mobile phone, it is judged based on only the power control signal from the base station whether the transmission power from the mobile phone should be increased or decreased.
However, a plurality of base stations may be connected to a mobile phone in some cases. In such cases, the power control signals are respectively transmitted from a plurality of base stations to the mobile phone. Then, the mobile phone judges based on the power control signals from a plurality of base stations whether a power of a transmission signal outputted next time should be increased or decreased. According to the specification of a 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) of the W-CDMA, the regulation are made such that in a case where a mobile phone is connected to a plurality of base stations, a transmission power is increased only when a request to increase the transmission power is made from all the base stations, and a transmission power is decreased when a request to decrease the transmission power is made from at least one base station.
For example, when a mobile phone is connected to two base stations as shown in FIG. 2, no misdetection of a power control signal is caused because a communication environment provided among a mobile phone 12, and base stations 10 and 11 are held in a good state. In other words, since there is no obstacle between the base stations 10 and 11, and the mobile phone 12, a plurality of information of effective paths 13 is transmitted to the mobile phone 12 without propagation loss.
On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3, when there are obstacles 14 such as buildings between a base station 11 and a mobile phone 12, a radio wave including an effective path 13 is reflected by the obstacles 14. For this reason, information of the effective path 13 of a remarkably low receiving level is used between the base station 11 and the mobile phone 12.
At this time, when both the base stations 10 and 11 make a request to increase a transmission power from the mobile phone 12, the mobile phone 12 must increase its transmission power. However, while the mobile phone 12 can recognize that the transmission power should be increased in accordance with a power control signal from the base station 10, the mobile phone 12 can not properly detect a power control signal from the base station 11; because the receiving state of the power control signal from the base station 11 is poor. For this reason, there is a possibility that the mobile phone 12 may recognize that it must decrease its transmission power by mistake. As a result, al though both the base stations 10 and 11 make a request to increase the transmission power for the mobile phone 12, there is caused a situation in which the mobile phone 12 may carry out the control to decrease its transmission power. Consequently, there occurred deterioration of quality of the communication between the base stations 10 and 11, and the mobile phone 12, and disconnection of the communication.
In JP 2003-163630 A, such a problem is solved in a manner as will be described below. In regard to power control signals transmitted from all base stations and extracted by transmission power control information extracting means, when the power control signal from one base station instructs CDMA terminal equipment to decrease a power, and the power control signals from the remaining base stations instruct the CDMA terminal equipment to increase the power; the CDMA terminal equipment judges based on soft decision values of the power control signals from all the base stations whether its transmission power should be increased or decreased. Thus, there is avoided a problem that although all the base stations concerned in soft hand over (SHO) instruct a certain mobile phone to increase its transmission power, the transmission power is decreased due to a TPC bit error transmitted from one base station to deteriorate the communication quality of the mobile phone concerned.
However, in the technology described in JP 2003-163630 A, even the power control signal from the base station having a bad communication state is equally processed, which causes the CDMA terminal equipment to carry out misjudgment.
In addition, the soft decision processing is executed for deciding that the transmission power should be increased or decreased only when the power control signal from one base station among a plurality of base stations instructs the CDMA terminal equipment to decrease the power, and the power control signals from the remaining base stations instruct the CDMA terminal equipment to increase the power. As a result, when the power control signals from two or more base stations instruct the CDMA terminal equipment to decrease the transmission power, no soft decision processing is executed and thus, the transmission power is decreased.
Consequently, for example, in a state in which the CDMA terminal equipment is connected to three or more base stations, when the power control signal from the base station having the highest receiving level instructs the CDMA terminal equipment to increase the transmission power, but the CDMA terminal equipment recognizes that the power control signals from two or more base stations each having a lower receiving level instruct the CDMA terminal equipment to decrease the transmission power, the CDMA terminal equipment automatically decreases its transmission power. For this reason, there is also encountered a problem that the quality of the communication between the CDMA terminal equipment and the base station having the best communication state is deteriorated.

Mobile phone and method of controlling transmission power


A photo subject station used to capture information regarding a subject suitable for integration into a personalized, printed product and method of using same with children so that a personal identification of a child need not be saved to deliver a customized product to the child when the child takes part of a session, for example, at a school. The station uses a stool, a color background device, preferably two digital cameras and lights located at fixed positions in the station and a computer. The computer creates and stores a subject file for each subject that contains photographs of the subject (e.g., three frontal and three profile photographs with three different facial expressions, plus a rear photograph), an image data file associated with the photographs (which contains x-y coordinates used for scaling the photographs), a data file containing an identification related to the subject and a bit map skin file (derived from one of the photographs for use in fixing personalized skin color). The method uses a coordinator whose identity is used for shipping personalized products and assisting in a session.

In the development of the first computer-controlled system for producing personalized graphics and text products, which is the subject of U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,327, issued Oct. 7, 1986, we recognized the application of such a system to the production of personalized books, particularly for children was a desirable application. The original use of the invention was in the production of posters and other personalized novelty or occasional materials.
In the exploration of book applications, it became immediately apparent that the personalized book affords an opportunity to refine the basic principles disclosed in the aforementioned patent of one of the co-inventors of this application and provide personalized, meaningful texts with graphics rising to the level of complementary caricatures of the person represented. This led to the specification of systems that could mass-produce books and uniquely check the sequence and completion of page sets, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,729,674.
The systems and methods of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,616,327 and 5,729,674 both utilize a standardized pre-printed background containing background graphics and text with openings in both the text and background for the insertion of personalized images and names or other terms. A plurality of graphical segments, such as nose profiles, are stored in a digital computer, as are other details, such as sports equipment representations, glasses, and the like. A data input device, such as a card reader, is adapted to read personalized data, such as sex, age group, hair style and length, glasses or no glasses, and favorite sport or hobby.
The computer receives the personalized data and uses it to select graphical and text files, which are output to a plotter or other representation-producing device. The plotter or other device produces line sketches at the appropriate portion of the background consistent with the personalized data. Personalized text augments the pre-printed text at the proper location.
The above-described invention, when applied to books, adds much more personalization than heretofore possible. As noted in the background section of U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,327, prior to that invention, personalization of books, particularly for children, has been limited to personalized text, as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,982,744 and 3,892,427. The system and methods of U.S. Pat. No. 5,729,674 describes how we incorporate such a system into one which prints large quantities of personalized books using such a method.
The co-pending Non-Provisional patent application Ser. No. 10/846,987 filed May 13, 2004 shows a further improvement in which further refinement is not only in personalized images but also in the production and fulfillment steps of the process.

Photo booth and method for personalized photo books and the like


Resonance of a compressor impeller is prevented even when there are any pulsations in exhaust gas from an engine. An annular chamber in a diffuser defining wall of the compressor is connected with an outlet of a circulation passage for leading part of exhaust gas. An inner periphery of the chamber is communicated with the diffuser through an annular slit.

The present invention relates to an exhaust gas recirculation system for recirculatingly using part of exhaust gas from an engine so as to purify the exhaust gas.
Exhaust gas recirculation is known as one solution for purifying exhaust gas from an engine of a vehicle such as automobile. In such exhaust gas recirculation, part of the exhaust gas is taken out of an exhaust system of the engine, is returned to a suction system and is added to the air-fuel mixture. This increases the ratio of inert gas such as H.sub.2 O, N.sub.2 and CO.sub.2 in a combustion air-fuel mixture and decreases combustion temperature so that generation of NO.sub.x is suppressed. However, when excessive quantity of exhaust gas is recirculated, combustion becomes unstable and both HC level and fuel consumption increase. Therefore, it is necessary to control exhaust gas recirculation quantity within a certain limit at which a desired NO.sub.x level and engine stability are compatible.
FIG. 1 shows an example of the above-mentioned exhaust gas recirculation applied to an engine with a turbocharger (Japanese Utility Model 1st Publication or Laid-Open No. 1-173445). More specifically, in a turbocharger 1 with a turbine 2 and a compressor 3 integrated with each other through a bearing casing 4, the turbine 2 is connected to an exhaust manifold 6 which serves as an exhaust passage of the engine 5. The turbine 2 is driven by exhaust gas from the engine 5 to drive the compressor 3 where compressed suction air is supplied through a suction passage 7 to the engine 5. A circulation passage 8 is provided between the exhaust manifold 6 and a downstream portion of the suction passage 7 so as to pass part of the exhaust gas G from the engine 5 through the circulation passage 8 to the suction passage 7 for recirculation. Further, control valves 10 and 11 are provided respectively at an inlet and an outlet of the circulation passage 8 and are controlledly opened and closed by a controller 9.
In the above conventional system, the circulation passage 8 is connected at its outlet to the suction passage 7 where pressure has been increased by the compressor 3. Therefore, the exhaust gas sometimes flows in reverse direction depending upon pressure conditions, resulting in failure of properly joining the exhaust gas to the suction system.
To overcome this problem, it may be contemplated that the circulation passage 8 be connected to an upstream portion of the compressor 3. In this case, however, the compressor impeller will be contaminated to decrease performance of the turbocharger 1. Further, if there are any pulsations in the exhaust gas, pressure waves may be transmitted to the compressor impeller to cause resonance.
In view of the above, a primary object of the present invention is to provide an exhaust gas recirculation system in which part of exhaust gas from an engine having a turbocharger can be properly joined to a suction system without contaminating a compressor impeller and in which resonance of the compressor impeller is prevented even when there are any pulsations in the exhaust gas.
To attain the above object, in an exhaust gas recirculation system wherein a turbocharger with a turbine and a compressor integrated with each other is mounted on an engine, part of exhaust gas from the engine being joined back through a circulation passage to a suction system where air from the compressor is supplied to the engine, the present invention provides an annular chamber in a diffuser defining wall of said compressor, said chamber being connected with an outlet of said circulation passage, and a slit on said diffuser defining wall for communicating an inner periphery of said chamber with the diffuser.
A water-cooled jacket may be mounted on an outer surface of the diffuser defining wall.
The exhaust gas from the engine is introduced into the diffuser of the compressor having relatively low pressure so that the exhaust gas is introduced into the suction system without being hindered by compressor pressure. In this case, the compressor impeller is not contaminated since the diffuser is located downstream of the compressor impeller. Further, since the exhaust gas is passed to the chamber in the diffuser defining wall and then is introduced into the diffuser, any possible pulsation pressure in the exhaust gas is attenuated in the chamber and resonance of the compressor impeller is prevented.
When the water-cooled jacket is arranged on the diffuser defining wall, the chamber is cooled down to cool the exhaust gas passing through the chamber. Accordingly, the temperature of the gas passed to the engine can be decreased and this contributes to reduce the ratio of NO.sub.x content in the exhaust gas.

Exhaust gas recirculation system for a turbocharged engine

Ishikawajima-Harima Jukogyo Kabushiki Kaisha


Provided are systems and methods for mapping customer feedback to one or more processes. In one example, the method may include receiving text content that includes feedback, mapping, via execution of a mapping algorithm, the text content to a plurality of processes based on a synonym graph, generating mapping values for the plurality of processes, where a mapping value for a process is generated based on distance within the synonym graph of a mapping between a word in the text content and a word identifying the process, and determining a process among the plurality of processes that is most correlated to the feedback based on the generated mapping values.

Customer feedback can often provide first-hand experience with a company, a product, a service, or the like, and can be invaluable to consumers looking for products and services in the same field/area. In some cases, a web page where a product or service is listed for sale may include user-generated feedback in the form of reviews and comments. In addition, search engines provide reviews and other information in association with search results. Furthermore, social networking sites and forums provide message boards where a community of users can share feedback about a specific product or service.
However, it can be difficult for organizations (entities where the feedback is directed) to adequately harvest the feedback into useful data. For example, an organization may offer different products, services, and other aspects of the organization. Figuring out where feedback applies can be a tedious operation which involves a human reading the feedback and making a best guess as to what area the feedback applies. As a result, many organizations do not spend a great deal of time on customer feedback thereby missing out on valuable insight into their products and services.
Throughout the drawings and the detailed description, unless otherwise described, the same drawing reference numerals will be understood to refer to the same elements, features, and structures. The relative size and depiction of these elements may be exaggerated or adjusted for clarity, illustration, and/or convenience.

Mapping text content feedback to a process via a synonym graph


This invention provides a system and method for separating, folding, stacking and transporting a continuous web that allows stacks of web that are relatively large (four-feet-high or more) to be generated at high speed directly beneath the folding mechanism and to be transferred as complete, discrete stacks to downstream locations and stack utilization devices without interrupting the ongoing, upstream stack-folding and stack-formation process. A zigzag folded web passes by a pair of opposing front and rear compression plate assemblies, with fingers that are extended to selectively project into the folding area, onto a stack supported by a vertically moving supporting mechanism. The supporting mechanism cycles between an ever-lower position in which upper, loose pages of the folded web pass by plate fingers (when retracted) and an upper position in which the stack engages and presses upwardly against the now-extended plate fingers to compress the stack. After the web is separated above the chute, the supporting mechanism eventually travels to the base where the now-completed stack is conveyed to a downstream location. While the supporting mechanism is occupied transferring the completed, old stack, new folded web is deposited on a deployed temporary support that allows a new stack to form thereon until the supporting mechanism has completed the transfer of the old stack, and is ready to receive the new stack from the temporary support.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to folders and more particularly to systems and methods for folding continuous web into one or more stacks in large volume and at high speed.
2. Background Information
In high-speed, large-volume printing operations, such as those employed in bulk-mailing activities and print-on-demand applications, it is quite common to use a continuous web that contains printing and other enhancements. This web is transferred through a variety of operations within the overall printing system. A printed web may be fed initially to downstream web utilization devices (such as printers, embossers, cutters and folders) using a driven roll stand that pays out web from a source roll as the web is drawn by the downstream devices. The web may, at various time in the process be draw up onto is a take-up roll for refeeding to a further downstream web-utilization process. At some stage in the process it may be desirable to maintain the web in continuous form, but render it into one or more stacks of folded continuous web. Typically, web is folded into a stack in a "zigzag" fashion in which individual, substantially equal-length sections or pages are folded atop one another. Often, the web includes widthwise perforations, crease lines or other stress-relief points that facilitate folding by a set of folder beater units along the desired fold lines. These can be applied by a web manufacturer and exist in the web of the original source roll, or can be added by a particular utilization device in the system. A prior art folder is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,318, entitled SEPARATOR FOR FORMING DISCRETE STACKS OF FOLDED WEB, by H. W. Crowley, et al., the teachings of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference. This folder is designed to create short discrete stacks that are drawn away by a conveyor belt, or a continuous flow ("waterfall") of folded web that must be collected into a larger-height stack at a location remote from the conveyor.
When a folder completes a stack of web, based either on completing a particular job, or reaching a maximum stack height, the upstream end of the folded web stack is typically separated from the downstream folded stack by a cutter unit and the stack is driven away from the folder before a new stack can be formed. Often, the process of vacating the existing stack is cumbersome, as a large completed stack may weigh several hundred pounds and extend over four feet high. Various devices and conveyances for handling such large stacks are taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,120,043, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR BUSINESS FORMS PROCESSING, by H. W. Crowley, et al., the teachings of which are expressly incorporated herein by references. This reference relates to the receipt of a waterfall of folded continuous web onto a tilting table from a folder (such as the folder referenced above) and forming a stack on the table, which is subsequently transferred to various carts and dollies for later processing and/or use. As is clear by the description of the reference, the formation and handling of large stacks of folded web typically entails many stack formation and handling components and fairly involved handling processes that (while being simple and reliable) may entail interruptions in the process streams while downstream stack handling is accomplished.

System and method for folding and handling stacks of continuous web


A method of performing salicide processes on a MOS transistor, wherein the MOS transistor comprises a gate structure and a source/drain region, the method comprising: performing a selective growth process to form a silicon layer on the top of the gate and the source/drain region; performing an ion implantation process to form a retarded interface layer between the silicon layer and the gate and source/drain region; forming a metal layer on the silicon layer; and reacting the metal layer with the silicon layer for forming a silicide layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of fabricating semiconductor devices, and more particularly, to a method of performing salicide processes on MOS transistors.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Field effect transistors are important electronic devices in the fabrication of integrated circuits, and as the size of the semiconductor device becomes smaller and smaller, the fabrication of the transistors also improves and is constantly enhanced for fabricating transistors with smaller sizes and higher quality.
In the conventional method of fabricating transistors, a gate structure is first formed on a substrate, and a lightly doped drain (LDD) is formed on the two corresponding sides of the gate structure. Next, a spacer is formed on the sidewall of the gate structure and an ion implantation process is performed to form a source/drain region within the substrate by utilizing the gate structure and spacer as a mask. In order to incorporate the gate, source, and drain into the circuit, contact plugs are often utilized for interconnection purposes, in which the contact plugs are composed of conducting metals such as tungsten and copper. Nevertheless, the interconnection between the contact plugs and the silicon material of the gate structure and the source/drain region is usually poor, hence a silicide material is often formed over the surface of the gate structure and the source/drain region to improve the ohmic contact between the contact plugs and the gate structure and the source/drain region. Today, the process known as self-aligned silicide (salicide) process has been widely utilized to fabricate silicide materials, in which a source/drain region is first formed, a metal layer comprised of cobalt, titanium, or nickel is disposed on the source/drain region and the gate structure, and a rapid thermal process (RTP) is performed to react the metal layer with the silicon contained within the gate structure and the source/drain region to form a metal silicide for reducing the sheet resistance of the source/drain region.
However, when the silicides are being formed, the atoms within the metal layer will diffuse into the substrate and deplete the silicon within the source/drain region, thereby damaging the original lattice structure of the source/drain region and causing the PN junction between the source/drain region and the silicon substrate to react with the silicon contained within the source/drain region as a result of an overly short distance between the PN junction and the silicide layer. Ultimately, the problems become much worse in the design of ultra shallow junctions (USJ) as the silicides often come in contact directly with the substrate and result in failure of the device.
Please refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 are perspective diagrams showing the fabrication of a conventional field effect transistor. As shown in FIG. 1, a gate structure 106 having a gate dielectric layer 102 and a gate electrode 104 is first formed on a substrate 100. Next, an ion implantation process is performed to form a lightly doped drain 110 in the substrate 100. Next, a liner 107 and a spacer 108 are formed on the sidewall of the gate structure 106 and another ion implantation is performed to form a source/drain region 112 in the substrate 100. Next, a sputtering process is performed to form a metal layer 114 over the surface of the gate electrode 104, the spacer 108, and the substrate 100. Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 2, a rapid thermal process (RTP) is performed to react the contact area between the metal layer 114 and the gate electrode 104 and the source/drain region 112 into a silicide layer 116.
In order to prevent the short channel effect of the transistors and improve the interconnect resistance of the integrated circuit, the junction depth of the source and drain needs to be effectively reduced for fabricating transistors containing silicides. However, if the thickness of the silicides on the source and drain is decreased while reducing the junction depth of the source and drain, the interconnect resistance and contact resistance may increase simultaneously. On the other hand, if the depth of the silicides is kept constant, the distance between the PN junction of the source/drain region 112 and the silicon substrate and the silicide layer 116 may become overly short and result in junction leakage and a piping effect.

Method of performing salicide processes on MOS transistors


The present invention relates to a wireless mouse system. Particularly, the present invention relates to a wireless mouse system in which includes a controller, which controls a receiver and a flash memory device integrated into an interfacing device, can be performed function of the receiver and the flash memory device smoothly. A wireless mouse system comprises a wireless mouse and an interfacing device with a USB terminal, electrically communicated with a USB port of a information-displaying device. The interfacing device comprises a receiver receiving a signal data transferred wirelessly from the wireless mouse, and transferring the signal data to the information-displaying device, a flash memory device exchanging data with the information-displaying device through the USB terminal and a controller controlling the receiver and the flash memory device, and transferring optionally the signal of the receiver and the flash memory device to the information-displaying device.

1. Field
The present invention relates to a wireless mouse system. Particularly, the present invention relates to a wireless mouse system which can integrate a flash memory device and a receiver of a wireless mouse into one device.
2. Background
Because a computer, a monitor, a keyboard and cables thereof are arranged separately in a confined area, the effective use of the working area is restricted. For that reason, a laptop computer is widely used in order to provide convenience and rapidity to users working in a small room, outdoors, or on the move.
The laptop computer is portable device, and thus has a pointing device, such as a touch pad or a track ball, instead of a mouse. Such a pointing device has drawbacks that the pointing speed of the pointing device is slower than that of the mouse, and that accuracy of the pointing device is lower than that of the mouse.
Therefore, a wire mouse connected to the laptop computer has been used more frequently than the pointing device. However, the connection between the laptop computer and the wire mouse is inconvenient, and the use of the wire mouse is restricted by the confined working area where the laptop computer is used. In order to resolve these problems, a wireless mouse has been developed.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the constitution of a wireless mouse according to the related art.
Referring to FIG. 1, the wireless mouse system comprises a wireless mouse 40, a receiver 30, a computer 10, and a USB port 20. The wireless mouse 40 is operated by an independent power source.
The USB port 20 is installed on the computer 10 for connecting an internal processor of the computer 10 to an external communication device.
The receiver 30 is connected to the USB port 20, receives an operating signal from the wireless mouse 40, and transfers the operating signal to the computer 10. The operating signal of the wireless mouse 40 is inputted through the USB port 20, and the computer 10 processes the operating signal.
The wireless mouse system described above necessarily needs the separate receiver 30. Therefore, it is inconvenient to separately carry the receiver 30 as well as the wireless mouse 40.
Recently, as the use of peripheral equipments is increasing, the use of a flash memory connected to the USB port 20 is increasing.
Therefore, it is necessary for a user of the laptop computer to separately carry the flash memory as well as the laptop computer 10, the wireless mouse 40 and the receiver 30. It is inconvenient for the user to carry all of them, and also increases the probability of losing the above devices.
The above references are incorporated by reference herein where appropriate for appropriate teachings of additional or alternative details, features and/or technical background.

Wireless mouse system containing a flash memory


An embodiment of the invention provides a check-in verification system (VCS) that verifies a check-in by a user using a smartphone to check-in at a venue, by verifying that a geolocation provided by the smartphone agrees with a location of the venue and that a password used by the user and the venue are the same.

"Checking-in" is a growing social and commercial phenomenon that is based on, and may be considered to be, an emergent behavior of geolocation functionalities, which many of today's ubiquitous, smart, mobile communication devices provides. A smart, mobile communication device may for example be a smartphone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a laptop, or a workbook, hereinafter referred to generically as "smartphones". Geolocation refers to a real time physical location of a smartphone determined responsive to signals that are conveyed between the smartphone and a transmitter and/or a receiver having a known location. Geolocation may sometimes also refer to a location determined by an inertial navigator that dead reckons a path from a known location to determine a location of a smartphone. The term "geolocation" is also used to denote the process of determining the location responsive to the signals, and the verb "geolocate" and its inflections are used to denote performance of determining a location responsive to the signals. Checking-in, which developed in the wake of common availability of geolocation technology, refers to a person using a geolocation to inform others of his or her real time physical location.
A smartphone typically determines a geolocation by receiving and processing signals from satellites in the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system. A GPS enabled smartphone is capable of providing accurate locations as long as it has a clear line of sight to at least three satellites of the GPS system. If the smartphone has a clear line of sight to less than three GPS satellites, such as often occurs when a person bearing the smartphone is inside a building or on a city street bounded by high rise buildings, the smartphone cannot generally provide a reliable geolocation using only GPS technology that substantially agrees with an actual location. For such situations, the smartphone generally uses signals transmitted by a mobile telephone network to triangulate a geolocation for the smartphone. GPS assisted by information from a mobile telephone network is conventionally referred to as "assisted-GPS" (A-GPS).
Checking-in using a GPS or A-GPS geolocation provided by a smartphone is enabled by any of various application specific software (APP) packages that may be downloadable from the Internet. Among common check-in APPs are, for example, Foursquare®, Gowalla®, FaceBook Places®, Google Latitude®, and Brightkite®.
When a check-in APP in a person's smartphone is turned on, it displays on the smartphone's screen one or more venues in a neighborhood of a geolocation provided by the smartphone to which the person may check-in using the smartphone. A venue may, by way of example, be a restaurant, coffee shop, a store, a place of business, or a museum. The person typically checks-in to a particular venue displayed by the check-in APP after arriving at the venue by checking a suitable check box or by selecting a radio button associated with the venue in the smartphone display. After checking-in at a venue, the check-in APP may present the person with various options for adding information associated with being at the venue and/or for informing friends of his or her presence at the venue. A person typically informs others of a check-in and the check-in venue by posting an announcement on a social networking service such as, for example, Facebook Places®, Twitter®, or Linkedin®.
Businesses and organizations have recognized the potential commercial, promotional, and organizational advantages of using check-in services to interact with people in response to where they check-in, and have developed various ways of using "check-ins" to interface with their customers and associates. Retail stores offer incentives such as kickbacks, discounts, incentive points and badges, and real or virtual gifts, to people who frequently check-in at their stores. Coffee shops provide coffee cards to customers that may be debited for coffee when the customers check-in at the coffee shop. A coffee shop chain has even run a charity campaign responsive to checking-in, and committed to contribute to a charity for every check-in at a coffee shop in the chain. And various APPs for playing multiplayer geolocation games have been developed that are based on checking-in at different venues in a given geographical region.
Check-in services, and the businesses, organizations and activities that subscribe to and use the services, generally expect that a geolocation provided by a check-in APP that a person is running on his or her smartphone is an actual, real time location of the person at a time at which the person is checking-in. However, along with the development and spread of check-in services, methods and APPs for falsifying, referred to as "spoofing", geolocations have become available. People may want to spoof their geolocations for amusement, cheating a system, or perpetrating a crime. The availability of geolocation spoofing may make checking-in unusable for various functions and procedures that may be sensitive to reliability of geolocations. Among such functions and procedures may be queuing, logging in presence at a work place, and offering valuable promotional discounts and prizes for check-ins.


A novel method that enables prostate cancer testing that is noninvasive and more accurate than conventional methods is disclosed. The present inventors intensively analyzed urine samples from prostate cancer patients, and non-cancer subjects, who are free of prostate cancer, and, as a result, newly discovered urinary peptides that can be used as indicators in prostate cancer testing. Use of these urinary peptides as indicators enables various prostate cancer-related tests including detection of prostate cancer, discrimination between prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia, monitoring of a therapeutic effect of prostate cancer therapy and monitoring of postoperative recurrence.

Prostate cancer is a malignant disease that is prevalent in Western countries, and it is also becoming remarkably prevalent in Japan (Non-patent Document 1). The number of deaths from prostate cancer in Japan in 2009 exceeded 10,000 to reach 10,036, and is still increasing (Non-patent Document 2). Therefore, there is also a social demand for improvement of the diagnostic technique and development of a new therapeutic method for prostate cancer.
The prostate-specific antigen (PSA), which was separated from seminal plasma in 1979 by Wang et al., is a glycoprotein having a molecular weight of 34 kDa composed of 237 amino acids, and is a substance identical to human kallikrein 3 (Non-patent Document 3). Measurement of serum PSA is currently widely used not only for diagnosis and judgment of recurrence of prostate cancer, but also for prognostication, and judgment of therapeutic effects. Although serum PSA has good detection sensitivity for prostate cancer, its specificity for detection of cancer is low, since it is a prostate-specific antigen rather than a prostate cancer-specific antigen and PSA may also increase in cases of a benign disease such as benign prostatic hyperplasia or prostatitis, or rectal examination or ejaculation. Therefore, in cases where the reference value 4 ng/mL is used as the serum PSA cutoff in work-up, the false-positive rate is high, and this results in unnecessary prostatic biopsy which imposes physical burden on the patient. It is actually said that, in the so-called gray zone, where the serum PSA value is 4 to 10 ng/mL, the positive rate of prostate cancer is 25 to 30%, and that unnecessary biopsy is carried out in about 70% of the cases within this range (Non-patent Document 4). Thus, a new biomarker that allows non-cancer patients to avoid unnecessary biopsy and enables more efficient detection of prostate cancer patients than serum PSA is being strongly demanded.
Improvement of the method of collection of clinical samples from patients is also demanded. Although blood is a common clinical sample, the amount of blood that can be sampled may be limited in cases where blood samples need to be frequently collected in monitoring of disease over time. Use of a clinical sample whose collection is less burdensome for patients is more preferred. Urine is excreted every day and can be noninvasively collected, and urinary markers are ideal materials for examination also from an ethical point of view. Moreover, since the duct of the prostate opens at the urethra, various substances directly secreted from the prostate can be detected by comparing spot urine with post-prostatic massage urine. Actually, known diagnostic methods using a urine sample include (1) urinary RNAs, (2) urinary DNAs, (3) urinary proteins or (4) urinary metabolites. Among these, the prostate cancer gene 3 (PCA3), which encodes a non-coding RNA, has been reported to show high expression in prostate cancer but low expression in a normal prostate (Non-patent Document 5), and some diagnostic methods for prostate cancer by detection of urinary PCA3 have been reported in recent years (Non-patent Document 6). However, at clinical sites, such methods are still inferior to examination of serum PSA, and diagnostic methods using other urinary components are still being studied. Thus, establishment of a novel method for prostate disease testing using a urinary peptide or protein fragment associated with the disease is of high clinical significance.
Urine contains various peptides and protein fragments having molecular weights of not more than 10 kDa, and the amount of these peptides and fragments excreted reaches several ten milligrams per day even in healthy individuals (Non-patent Document 7). Urine can be noninvasively sampled, has only low activity of protease, and contains substances derived from blood, kidney, bladder, ovary, prostate and the like. Therefore, multifaceted proteomics studies targeting proteins having molecular weights of not less than 10 kDa are being carried out in search of disease-associated markers (Non-patent Documents 8 and 9).
Examples of the common method for comprehensive analysis of peptides and proteins include two-dimensional electrophoresis and liquid chromatography. However, such methods are suitable for molecular fractions corresponding to molecular weights of not less than 10,000, and they are not suitable for specific detection of low-molecular-weight proteins and peptides. A protein chip technology by the combination of Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption/Ionization (SELDI) and Time-of-flight/Mass spectrometry: (TOF/MS) was developed and utilized for detection of novel tumor markers and the like (Non-patent Document 10). However, since structure determination (amino acid sequence determination) cannot be done with disease-associated marker peaks detected by SELDI-TOF/MS, the method is not suitable for confirmatory clinical tests.
In terms of prostate cancer, Theodorescu et al. performed capillary electrophoresis (CE)-TOF/MS analysis of urine samples, and 12 peptide peaks were detected and identified. These peaks were reported as candidates for prostate cancer-associated markers (Non-patent Document 11), but they have not been practically used yet. Okamoto et al. used urine voided after prostatic massage as samples to perform SELDI-TOF/MS analysis within the mass range of m/z 2,500 to 150,000 using sinapic acid as a matrix, and detected 72 peaks significantly different from the peaks observed for benign prostatic hyperplasia (Non-patent Document 12). However, since most of the detected peaks have not been identified, they have not been clinically applied.
Patent Documents 1 to 8, which aim at industrial application, disclose short PSA fragments of not more than about 20 to 30 residues. All of these are peptides each composed of a region that induces a specific biological effect such as an epitope, identified by analysis of the PSA sequence, and are not natural products but artificial products. There is no disclosed information on the fact that urine actually contains such short PSA fragments and that such fragments can be used as markers for prostate cancer testing, and none of these fragments has been practically used for clinical tests.

Urinary biomarker for use in test for prostate cancer