An apparatus and methods utilized a DC or AC power to supply through a conductive substrate support pedestal to a conductive photomask substrate during a photomask substrate manufacturing process for EUV or other advanced lithography applications are provided. In one embodiment, an apparatus for processing a photomask includes a substrate support pedestal configured to receive a conductive photomask, wherein the conductive photomask is fabricated from a dielectric material substrate with a conductive coating, and at least a conductive path formed in the substrate support pedestal in contact with the photomask substrate configured to be conductive.

1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to an apparatus and methods for fabricating a photomask substrate for EUV applications and, more specifically, to an apparatus and methods for fabricating a photomask substrate with conductive contact from the apparatus to the photomask substrate during photomask fabrication process for EUV applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the manufacture of integrated circuits (IC), or chips, patterns representing different layers of the chip are created by a chip designer. A series of reusable masks, or photomasks, are created from these patterns in order to transfer the design of each chip layer onto a semiconductor substrate during the manufacturing process. Mask pattern generation systems use precision lasers or electron beams to image the design of each layer of the chip onto a respective mask. The masks are then used much like photographic negatives to transfer the circuit patterns for each layer onto a semiconductor substrate. These layers are built up using a sequence of processes and translate into the tiny transistors and electrical circuits that comprise each completed chip. Thus, any defects in the mask may be transferred to the chip, potentially adversely affecting chip performance. Defects that are severe enough may render the mask completely useless. Typically, a set of 15 to 30 masks is used to construct a chip and can be used repeatedly.
A photomask is typically a dielectric material, glass or a quartz substrate with a film stack having multiple layers. These layers may include a light-absorbing layer and an opaque layer disposed thereon. When manufacturing the photomask layer, a photoresist is typically disposed on the film stack to facilitate transferring features into the film stack during the subsequently patterning processes. During the patterning process, the circuit design is written onto the photomask by exposing portions of the photoresist to electron beam or ultraviolet light, making the exposed portions soluble in a developing solution. The soluble portion of the resist is then removed, allowing the exposed underlying film stack be etched. The etch process removes the film stack from the photomask at locations where the resist was removed, i.e., the exposed film stack is removed.
With the shrink of critical dimensions (CD), present optical lithography is approaching a technological limit at the 45 nanometer (nm) technology node. Next generation lithography (NGL) is expected to replace the conventional optical lithography, for example, in the 32 nm technology node and beyond. There are several NGL candidates, such as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography (EUVL), electron projection lithography (EPL), ion projection lithography (IPL), nano-imprint, and X-ray lithography. Among these, EUVL is the most likely successor due to the fact that EUVL has most of the properties of optical lithography, which is more mature technology as compared with other NGL methods.
During an etching process for etching the film stack disposed on the photomask, an alternating current (AC) power is often supplied to a cathode (e.g., a substrate support) to generate a bias power to the photomask. However, alternating current power (AC) often includes multiple waveform phases. Different phase angles generated by the alternating current may result in ion bombardment of the photomask to be unpredictable across different regions of the photomask, thereby resulting non-uniform etching across the substrate surface. Furthermore, as the feature size on the photomask continues to get smaller, different phase angles of the alternating current may cause ions to travel in different directions or to different locations in the processing chamber, thus failing to penetrate into small features required to form the photomask, thereby resulting in defects or the formation of undesired profiles formed in the photomask.
Therefore, there is a need for supplying a steady current power during an etching process for forming a photomask for EUV technology.

Apparatus and methods for fabricating a photomask substrate for EUV applications


A liquid crystal display device having an upper electrode layer and a lower electrode layer formed on an identical substrate via an insulating layer includes slits formed on the upper electrode layer for applying voltage between the upper electrode layer and the lower electrode layer and driving liquid crystal molecules. Edge portions of the slits each include a first curved portion the tangential direction of which at the edge portions with respect to the rubbing direction falls within a range from 0° to +90° and a second curved portion the tangential direction of which at the edge portions with respect to the rubbing direction falls within the range from 0° to −90°. The direction toward an acute angle subtended by the long sides of the slits with respect to the rubbing direction is the positive direction. The second curved portion is smaller than the first curved portion.

1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display device and, more specifically, to a liquid crystal display device in which one of an upper electrode layer and a lower electrode layer formed on an identical substrate via an insulating layer is assigned as a common electrode layer, and the other one of the upper electrode and lower electrode is assigned as a pixel electrode layer, the upper electrode layer is formed with slits, through which voltage is applied between the upper electrode layer and the lower electrode layer for driving liquid crystal molecules.
2. Related Art
In the related art, TN (Twisted Nematic) system has been widely used as a display system of the liquid crystal display device. However, this system has a limit in angle of visibility because of the display principle thereof. As a known method for solving this limitation, there is a lateral electric field system configured in such a manner that a pixel electrode and a common electrode are formed on an identical substrate, and voltage is applied between the pixel electrode and the common electrode to generate an electric field which is substantially parallel to the substrate to drive liquid crystal molecules within a plane which extends in parallel to the substrate plane.
IPS (In plane Switching) system and FFS (Fringe Field Switching) system are known as the lateral electric field system. In the IPS system, a comb-teeth-shaped (or comb-tooth-shaped) pixel electrode and a comb-teeth-shaped (or comb-tooth-shaped) common electrode are arranged in combination. In FFS system, one of the upper electrode layer and the lower electrode layer formed via the insulating layer is assigned as the common electrode and the other one of those is assigned as the pixel electrode, and slits or the like are formed on the upper electrode layer as openings for allowing passage of the electric field.
The openings for allowing the passage of the electric field to the upper electrode layer are formed by etching an electrode thin film. However, when forming the openings into an elongated groove shape, the edge portions at the ends of the long side are formed into a round shape or an arcuate shape in many cases due to the limit of the formation process (exposure, etching). The electric field passing from the lower electrode layer through the openings toward the upper electrode layer flows along the pattern of the openings, and hence the electric field is rounded along the pattern of the arcuate shape at the edge portions. Consequently, for example, when the initial alignment of the liquid crystal molecules is oriented substantially parallel to the long sides of the openings through a rubbing process or the like and the electric field is applied between the upper electrode layer and the lower electrode layer to drive the liquid crystal molecules, the liquid crystal molecules in the areas within the linear portions of long sides of the openings rotate from the initial alignment in the direction vertical to the long sides, while the liquid crystal molecules in the edge portions of the openings rotate from the initial alignment in the direction vertical to the arcuate shape.
When the liquid crystal molecules rotate from the initial alignment along the arcuate shape of the edge portions, such phenomenon that the direction of rotation of the liquid crystal molecules is inverted occurs. For example, it is assumed that the arcuate shape of the edge portions is a part of a circle and the rubbing direction is substantially parallel to the long sides of the openings, and that the direction of the long sides of the openings is X-axis, the direction vertical to the long sides is Y-axis. Then, when the arcuate shape at the edge portions has a shape corresponding to the first quadrant of a circle, the liquid crystal molecules rotate counterclockwise from the X-axis direction and are oriented in the direction vertical to the arcuate shape. In contrast, when the arcuate shape of the edge portions has a shape corresponding to the fourth quadrant of the circle, the liquid crystal molecules rotate clockwise from the X-axis direction and are oriented in the direction vertical to the arcuate shape. In the same manner, when the arcuate shape of the edge portions has a shape corresponding to the second quadrant of the circle, the liquid crystal molecules rotate clockwise from the X-axis direction and are oriented in the direction vertical to the arcuate shape, and when the arcuate shape of the edge portions has a shape corresponding to the third quadrant of the circle, the liquid crystal molecules rotate counterclockwise from the X-axis direction and are oriented in the direction vertical to the arcuate shape.
In this manner, when the electric field is applied, the direction of rotation of the liquid crystal molecules at the edge portions varies depending on the position. The phenomenon that the direction of rotation varies with the position is referred to as "disclination". At the boundaries between portions demonstrating different directions of rotation, the liquid crystal molecules rotate in undesired directions, or even cannot rotate. Therefore, the coefficient of transmission is lowered, and hence the boundaries are visually recognized. These boundaries are referred to as "disclination lines" or "disclination defects", and may also be referred simply as "disclination".
JP-A-2003-280017 points out a problem in the IPS system in which voltage is applied to the comb-teeth-shaped pixel electrodes and the common electrodes formed on the identical substrate to generate the electric field which is substantially parallel to the substrate plane and drive the liquid crystal molecules in a plane parallel to the substrate plane such that radial electric fields generated in the vicinity of distal end portions or root portions of the comb-teeth-shaped electrodes generate areas in which the liquid crystal molecules rotate in the opposite direction from the normal rotation (reverse domain), which generates the disclination defects (disclination) at the boundaries with respect to the areas of normal rotation. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-280017 discloses that when a high-field is generated by superimposing the pixel electrodes and the common electrodes, the normal rotation of the liquid crystal molecules is induced without fixing the same in the direction of the initial alignment by establishing the relation between the direction of a high-field θSE and the direction of initial alignment of the liquid crystal θLC to be θLC<θSE≦θLC+π/2, where the direction of rotation of the liquid crystal is the positive direction (clockwise rotation) with reference to the direction of the scanning wiring (gate wiring), so that occurrence of reverse domain and disclination are restrained.
According to JP-A-2005-107535, in the case of a configuration in which a black matrix on the upper substrate and the edge portions of the pixel electrodes of the lower substrate are overlapped with each other by a predetermined area and liquid crystal is interposed between these substrates, the twisted angle of the liquid crystal molecules is changed gradually to about 90° and arranged in the vertical direction as it approaches from the ends of the edge portions to the center of the pixel electrodes due to the electrical field interference between the black matrix and the pixel electrode. However, since the edge portions have a curved shape due to the limitation in exposure process, a trace of rubbing, that is, the disclination (disclination lines) is generated in the white tone. JP-A-2005-107535 discloses a structure in which the edge portions of the pixel electrodes have a linear shape, and are inclined with respect to the pixel electrodes at an angle of 9 to 12°, whereby a restoration force of the liquid crystal and a deflecting force of the liquid crystal are increased in the edge portions of the pixel electrodes.
Since many of the edge portions in which the disclination may occur are arranged at the end of light transmitting areas, the disclination in the light transmitting areas may be avoided by the provision of the black matrix or the like. However, this results in lowering of the aperture ratio of pixel.
The disclination generated when the pixel electrodes and the common electrodes are superimposed in the EPS system is addressed in JP-A-2003-280017, and the disclination between the black matrix on the upper substrate and the edge portions of the pixel electrodes on the lower substrate is addressed in JP-A-2005-107535. In both of them, the upper electrode layer and the lower electrode layer are arranged on the identical substrate with the intermediary of the insulating layer, and the disclination when the electrode layer is formed with openings for allowing the passage of the electric field to the upper electrode layer is not addressed.


Shaped articles of fat-containing confectionery material are formed by extruding a fat-based confectionery material under pressure so that it passes to and through a flow-constriction and a die so that the material subjected to extrusion and the extrudate from the die are in a non-pourable state and so that the material subjected to extrusion plastically deforms and so that the extrudate is plastically deformable, and then while the extrudate is plastically deformable, extrudate is placed in a molding tool and pressed to shape an article which then is demolded, or extrudate is fed to a nip of counter-rotating rollers having depressions which upon passage of the extrudate in the nip between the rollers shape the extrudate.

The present invention relates to perparing articles of fat-based confectionery material, including chocolate, by forming a fat-based confectionery material, including chocolate, into a desired shape.
One method of forming chocolate into a desired shape is by moulding. Moulding of chocolate is normally carried out in the liquid state by casting, i.e. pouring the molten chocolate into a mould followed by cooling. The moulded chocolate is usually demoulded quite easily after cooling, due to the thermal contraction of the chocolate as it sets, giving a product with an attractive glossy surface. However, the disadvantages of conventional chocolate moulding are the requirement for cooling tunnels which consume space and time, the product cannot be wrapped directly because of the cooling step and it is not possible to achieve exact weight control. The formation of the chocolate centres for SMARTIES candy, currently involves the use of rollers which also require a very high cooling capacity.
European Patent Application Publication No. 0 603 467, which sets forth the contents of Application No. 93114251.7, (herein "the '467 Application") describes a process for plastically extruding a fat-containing confectionery material which comprises feeding the fat containing confectionery material into an extrusion device and applying pressure to the fat-containing confectionery material in a substantially solid or semi-solid non-pourable form upstream of a flow constriction whereby the temperature, pressure, contraction ratio and extrusion rate are such that the fat-containing confectionery material is extruded substantially isothermally and remains in a substantially solid or semi-solid non-pourable form to produce an axially homogeneous extruded product and which has a temporary flexibility or plasticity enabling it to be physically manipulated, cut or plastically deformed, e.g. it can be bent, twisted or forced into a mould. The '467 Application also describes an injection moulding process wherein the temporarily flexible extruded product is injection moulded under pressure at a temperature below the normal melting point of chocolate. This injection moulding process is substantially isothermal and subsequent cooling is therefore unnecessary so that the product is suitable for demoulding immediately after the injection moulding is complete. However, because a subsequent cooling is not necessary, thermal contraction does not necessarily occur and, in some circumstances, demoulding and obtaining a high quality surface finish may be difficult to achieve.

Forming articles of fat-containing confectionery material including chocolate


The design and fabrication of ultrathin poly-3-hexyl thiophene (P3HT) film based amine sensors are described herein. Ultrathin P3HT monolayer films can be built on a patterned flexible n-octadecylphosphonic acid (ODPA)/Al2O3/PET substrate, forming a flexible polymer thin film transistor according to a solution process. The mechanism of the sensor is based on the interaction of amine molecules with the surface of the P3HT monolayer. The interaction of amine molecules with the surface of the P3HT monolayer can affect the current density of the PTFT, and the change in current density can indicate the presence of amine molecules in the surroundings. The amine sensors described herein can easily detect amine molecules in a parts per billion (ppb) range. The amine sensors can be utilized, for example, as disposable sensors within food packaging to ensure the safety of the packaged food.

Neutral biogenic amines are important molecules in living systems, impacting many areas ranging from biomarkers of diseases to quality control of foodstuffs. Biogenic amines, such as histamine, spermidine, putrescine, and trimethylamine, are the key compounds in living systems and are involved in many vital biological functions, such as protein synthesis, regulation of cell proliferation, and modulation of gene expression.
Biogenic amines can be markers of biological disorders. For example, a high plasma level of putrescine and spermidine is associated with various cancers. Similarly, a wide range of biogenic agents have been found to be biomarkers for spoiled food. For example, an increase in histamine and other biogenic amines can indicate that food is beginning to spoil.
Since biogenic amines can be biomarkers useful for clinical diagnoses and food quality control, the detection of biogenic amines is of particular interest. For example, the detection of biogenic amine vapors that can build up as food spoils can be a valuable tool with regard to food quality control. Traditional methods of detecting biogenic amines include enzyme sensors, antibody sensors, and array sensors. However, these types of sensors are not good candidates for use in food quality control applications where cheap, disposable sensors are necessary. Supramolecular sensors, such as polymer thin film transistors (PTFTs) are easy and inexpensive to fabricate, making them excellent candidates for disposable sensors. However, the detection of neutral molecules, such as biogenic amines, through supramolecular sensors has traditionally been difficult.
The foregoing description is merely intended to provide an overview of some of the conventional sensors that can detect biogenic amines, and is not intended to be exhaustive. Problems with the state of the art and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.

Flexible amine sensor based on ultrathin poly-thiophene thin film transistor


A substrate in which a minute ruggedness structure including columnar projections is formed in a track shape is prepared. The pitch of the columnar projections of the ruggedness structure is set such that a plurality of the columnar projections is within a beam spot. A flat portion is disposed between adjacent tracks. A reflecting layer is formed on the substrate. The flat portion becomes a mirror surface because of the formation of the reflecting layer. The reflectance of the ruggedness structure becomes significantly lower than the reflectance of the flat portion. When the ruggedness structure is irradiated with high-power laser light, a portion of the ruggedness structure is raised to a reflecting layer side and flattened. At this time, reflectance of the raised portion becomes higher than reflectance of a non-raised portion. When a track including the ruggedness structure is irradiated with high-power pulse laser light, signal recording based on a change in reflectance is possible.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical recording medium, an optical recording method, an optical reproducing method, an optical recording apparatus, and an optical reproducing apparatus. More particularly, the present invention is suitable for use in the case where information is recorded and reproduced based on a change in reflectance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to now, optical recording media such as a compact disc (CD) and a compact disc-recordable (CD-R) have been developed and commercialized. Of the optical recording media, the CD is a reproduction-only optical disc on which a pit train is spirally formed. Information is read out from the CD based on a change in intensity of reflection light when a pit is irradiated with laser light. The CD-R is a recordable optical disc in which organic pigment is used as a material of the recording layer. A groove is spirally formed on the disc surface of the CD-R. The groove is irradiated with high-power laser light to deform or alter a part of the recording layer, thereby recording information therein. In addition to the optical recording media, a digital versatile disc (DVD) using red laser light as laser light for recording and reproducing has been commercialized. Further, the standardization of a next-generation DVD using blue laser light as laser light for recording and reproducing proceeds and the next-generation DVD are being commercialized.
In the reproduction-only optical disc among the above-mentioned optical discs, a pit train having a length corresponding to a recording signal is formed in a track shape. In the recordable optical disc, the recording layer is deformed or altered to form a pit train having a length corresponding to a recording signal on the groove. In either type of the optical discs, a single mark is formed from a single pit.

Optical recording medium, optical recording method, optical reproducing method, optical recording apparatus, and optical reproducing apparatus


A surge protector or transient suppressors for AC power lines having its components mounted on a circuit board. The metalization of the board are configured to present as large a surface area as possible, given the topology of the board, to the flow of current. A return conductor is placed on the opposite side of the board with a large surface area corresponding to the first conductor. The magnetic field between the two conductors is substantially cancelled. This configuration reduces the magnetic field intensities associated with the flow of current, thereby reducing self-inductance.

Overvoltage surge protectors are used in many electrical and electronic circuitry. For example, it is well known that the semiconductor junctions that make up the solid state devices used in discrete transistor and integrated circuits are very sensitive to overvoltages. A voltage spike of even transient duration can destroy a given junction and render the electronic equipment of which it is part inoperable. Typically, these voltage spikes represent a high amplitude, short duration overvoltage pulse, or, sometimes, ringwave. The form or type of pulse depends on such things as cause of transient, impedance of the line, and load impedance.
Electrical surges or transients are inevitable. Typically, they are created by lightning, electric utility switching operations, and the cycling on and off of large inductive loads. Rural locations have more direct exposure to lightning. Metropolitan areas are more likely to experience switching transients. Factories are also subjected to internally generated transients created by the starting and stopping of electrical machinery such as arc welders and punch presses. In office buildings, copy machines or elevators may be principal surge producers.
The responsibility rests with the user to install transient overvoltage protection which will attenuate power line disturbances to a safe nondestructive level which matches the voltage tolerances of the equipment protected.
After documenting surges on AC power circuits, engineers arrived at an industry consensus on a practical guide for describing surge voltages on AC power circuits rated up to 600 volts. The resulting IEEE Std. 587-1980 has become American National Standard ANSI/IEEE C62.41-1980. This is the principal reference for surge current and surge voltage waveforms and amplitudes when evaluating transient voltage suppressors. The reference lists three standard waveforms, two of which are impulse and ringwave, and three location categories, two of which are service entrance and panelboard.
Generally, the objective is to clip the transient as quickly as possible by providing a low impedance path for same at a defined voltage level. The more inductance there is between the actual protective device (MOV or zener diode) and the line being clamped or protected, the less effective is the spike arresting action. The actual clamping voltage of the protective device can be stated as follows:
Clamping Voltage=MOV voltage+the IR drop of the wiring+LdI/dT where PA1 L=inductance PA1 I=current PA1 T=time PA1 R=resistance
Hence it is desirable to reduce the inductance to as low a level as possible and thereby increase the effectiveness of the protective device. Normal runs of wire, either independently connected or on conventional circuit boards, have considerable self-inductance, and this leads to reduced effectiveness of the spike arrester.
It is the object of the present invention to provide improved surge protectors and transient overvoltage arresters, overcoming the disadvantages and difficulties of the prior art devices.
It is another object to provide an improved circuit board having minimal inductance for use in electrical and/or electronic devices such as surge protectors.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed disclosure considered in connection with the accompanying drawings.


Technologies are described herein for providing a focus-on-content (FOC) mode for a content page. The content page may be received. The content page may include a content portion and various other portions. The content page may be configured in a first state. Code configured to transform the content page from the first state to a second state may be received. The second state may place a greater focus on the content portion and produce a reduced focus on the other portions than the first state. The code may be inserted into the content page. A user instruction to enable the FOC mode may be received. Response to receiving the user instruction to enable the FOC mode, the content page may be transformed from the first state to the second state in accordance with the code.

An application program may include various user interfaces for viewing content. Such interfaces may include some combination of multiple interface elements, such as a navigation pane, a toolbar, a ribbon, a search box, a content pane, or the like. Many application program designers tightly control their user interfaces in terms of the configurability of the interface elements. That is, an application program designer may restrict a customer from significantly altering the pre-defined configuration of the interface elements.
By limiting the configurability of the user interface, the application program designer can have greater control over the user experience. For example, this can limit the customer from potentially creating configurations that degrade the user experience. However, there may be some instances where the customer may want to have greater ability to customize the user experience. In this regard, conventional application programs may have limited or no functionality enabling such customizations.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.


A torque wrench for manually applying a screw cap on a threaded opening of a container. The torque wrench includes a handle portion which engages a dome s that releasably receives a neck ring insert. The insert engages the cap and applies a consistent amount of torque thereto by the use of a draft angle or curved portion on an inner surface which tightly engages the curved top edge of the cap. The insert may be sized to accommodate different sized caps.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to capping of bottles and, more particularly, a torque wrench for applying a predetermined amount of torque to a cap when placing the cap on a bottle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Automated capping machines for applying screw-on caps are known. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,658,565, 3,906,706, 4,222,215, 5,151,897, 3,984,965 and 3,031,822. See also U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,716,772 and 4,794,801, regarding torque evaluators. Manual torque wrenches are also known and, of course, caps may be applied by hand without the assistance of a wrench. It will be appreciated, however, that placing caps on bottles by hand without any tool is not very effective and is very inconsistent.


A fuel-tank support structure for a motorcycle includes a left outer extending portion, a right outer extending portion, a left tank support stay, and a right tank support stay. The left outer extending portion is provided in a left main frame to extend outward in a vehicle width direction of the motorcycle. The left main frame extends rearward to diverge from a head pipe to left. The right outer extending portion is provided in a right main frame to extend outward in the vehicle width direction. The right main frame extends rearward to diverge from the head pipe to right. The left tank support stay protrudes from a fuel tank and is supported by the left outer extending portion. The right tank support stay protrudes from the fuel tank and is supported by the right outer extending portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel-tank support structure for a motorcycle.
2. Discussion of the Background
A motorcycle that has a shaft (hereinafter referred to as "outer extending portion") protrusively provided on a main frame extending rearward from a head pipe to extend outward in the vehicle width direction and a fuel tank supported by the outer extending portion is known in the related art (see, for example, JP Patent No. 3489918).
The motorcycle is structured such that, as shown in FIG. 3 and the like of JP Patent No. 3489918, the main frame is formed of a length of member extending longitudinally at the center in the vehicle width direction, and the fuel tank is formed in an inverted U shape covering the main frame from above and both sides as viewed in a vertical section, so that a recess is formed in the underside of the fuel tank and the outer extending portion supports the fuel tank from below within the recess of the fuel tank.

Fuel-tank support structure for motorcycle


Method for making a hollow body comprising, as sole layer(s), at least one layer L1 consisting of a polyamide composition comprising an aromatic polyamide and an impact modifier, said method comprising extruding the polyamide composition through a die.

Polymeric hollow body articles have many uses including liquid handling and storage containers, hoses, tubing, and pipes. The use of polymeric hollow bodies, such as tubing and hoses, is increasing. One such application is motor vehicle fuel line tubing and hoses. At present these applications include the use of both monolayer and multilayer aliphatic polyamide (PA), high-heat rubber composites, and braided polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). At the same time there is also a trend toward higher temperatures in both diesel and passenger motor vehicle under-the-hood applications. While braided PTFE and high heat rubber composites can be used in these higher heat environments, the constructions are often complex and costly. The use aliphatic polyamide also has limitations in these high heat applications. In particular, PA12 has limitations with regard to both permeation of fuel and long term heat aging at the higher temperatures present in newer vehicles. Multilayer constructions are often subject to delamination, especially where fluoropolymer layers are present, and generally require special chemical bonding between layers as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,524,671.
There are different requirements for the vapor return line and the liquid fuel line in today's fuel systems. In the vapor line, one of the primary requirements is the barrier property to prevent vapors from escaping into the environment, as well as the long-term thermal and mechanical requirements. Included in the mechanical requirements are sufficient flexibility and impact strength for both fabrication and safety. In addition to the requirements for vapor lines, liquid lines also include the requirement that essentially no components in the fuel line contaminates the fuel, which could lead to problems, such as clogged fuel injectors.

Method for making a polyamide hollow body


In a distributed router containing routing nodes connected by a switch fabric, an input-output processor for use in the routing nodes. The input-out processor comprises: 1) an input interface controller for receiving incoming data packets from N input links; 2) an output interface controller for transmitting outgoing data packets to the switch fabric via a first uplink and a second uplink. Each of the N input links is assigned to one of the first and second uplinks so that incoming data packets from each input link are transmitted to the switch fabric by the assigned one of the first and second uplinks. The input-out processor also comprises 3) a load balancing controller for i) determining first and second uplink traffic levels on the first and second uplinks, ii) determining a difference between the first and second uplink traffic levels, iii) comparing the difference to a predetermined threshold, and, iv) in response to a determination that the difference exceeds the predetermined threshold, reassigning at least one input link from the uplink having the greater uplink traffic level to the uplink having the lesser uplink traffic level.

The explosive growth of Internet traffic has been caused by the increased number of Internet users, various service demands from those users, the implementation of new services, such as voice-over-IP (VoIP) or streaming applications, and the development of mobile Internet. Conventional routers, which act as relaying nodes connected to subnetworks or other routers, have accomplished their roles well, in situations in which the time required to process packets, determine their destinations, and forward the packets to the destinations is usually smaller than the transmission time on network paths. More recently, however, the packet transmission capabilities of high-bandwidth network paths and the increases in Internet traffic have combined to outpace the processing capacities of conventional routers. Thus, routers are increasingly blamed for major bottlenecks in the Internet.
Early routers were implemented on a computer host so that the CPU of the host performed all managerial tasks, such as packet forwarding via a shared bus and routing table computation. This plain architecture proved to be inefficient, due to the concentrated overhead of the CPU and the existence of congestion on the bus. As a result, router vendors developed distributed router architectures that provide efficient packet processing compared to a centralized architecture. In a distributed router architecture, many of the functions previously performed by the centralized CPU are distributed to the line cards and the shared bus is replaced by a high-speed crossbar switch.
FIG. 1 illustrates distributed router 100 according to an exemplary embodiment of the prior art. Distributed router 100 interfaces with different types of networks, including optical networks (OC-192), asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks, and Gigabit Ethernet, among others. Distributed router 100 comprises line card modules (LCMS) 111–113, switch fabric 130, routing processor 140, and line card modules (LCMS) 151–153. LCM 111, LCM 112, and LCM 113 contain forwarding table (FT) 121, forwarding table (FT) 122, and forwarding table (FT) 123, respectively. Similarly, LCM 151, LCM 152, and LCM 153 contain forwarding table (FT) 161, forwarding table (FT) 162, and forwarding table (FT) 163, respectively.
Packets coming from adjacent router(s) or subnetworks are received by line card modules 111–113 and line card modules 151–153 and sent to switch fabric 140. Switch fabric 130 switches packets coming from or going to line card modules 111–113 and 151–153 and plays an essential role in relaying packets.
Routing processor 140 builds routing table 141 and maintains the current status of routing table 141 by updating changed routes immediately. Routing processor 140 maintains routing table 141 by running a routing protocol, such as Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), or Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Forwarding tables 121–123 and 161–163 support an efficient lookup in each line card and are downloaded from routing table 141 of routing processor 140. If an incoming packet from a line card module cannot find its destination path from the forwarding table, the corresponding packet may be passed through switch fabric 130 toward a pre-defined default route, or may be silently discarded at the line card.
The main reason for router manufacturers to favor distributed architecture is the simplicity of using a centralized processor to manage one routing table in a consistent way. On the other hand, although the separation of routing and forwarding functions enables high-speed packet processing, the introduction of QoS-capable routing service and the route delays caused by network instability demand even greater packet processing capacity, thereby resulting in additional overhead for the routing processor or instability in the router itself.
A large number of small routers can operate in concert (i.e., in parallel), if an efficient set of interoperability rules are established. The industry has avoided this coordination problem by using a single routing server to handle the routing problems. Therefore, it bounds both the scale of the router and its maximum performance to the scale of available microprocessor processing capacity.
Data packets that are inbound to a router may be switched through to one or more switch fabrics via two or more uplink paths within the input interface. The purpose of having multiple uplinks and switch fabric modules is to perform traffic load balancing and to provide redundant paths in case of link or switch fabric module failures. For example, packets received by LCM 111 in FIG. 1 may be transmitted to switch fabric 130 via one of N uplink paths. The actual uplink path may be selected by forwarding table 121. The selected path may be chosen, for example, by a round robin load balancing scheme in which the uplinks are sequentially selected for successive packets. However, by its very nature, such as scheme may potentially alter the order in which packets from the same source are received at the output interface (e.g., LCM 151–LCM 153). This may lead to performance and conformance related problems. Even though Internet protocol (IP) does not assume any packet ordering, packets arriving out-of-order at the destination may create throughput problems, particularly for TCP/IP based applications. The problem is worsened if packet size is not taken into consideration, since packet size deviation can affect the effectiveness of the load balancing scheme.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved massively parallel router. In particular, there is a need for a massively parallel router having a distributed architecture that implements an effective load balancing scheme. More particularly, there is a need for a distributed architecture router that implements a load balancing scheme that minimizes out-of-order packet arrival and that minimizes the impact of packet size deviation.

Router using measurement-based adaptable load traffic balancing system and method of operation


The invention is related to a monopole antenna provided for short-range applications, having a conductive pattern arranged on a dielectric substrate. The conductive pattern has a first straight radiating element connected to an antenna feeding point, a second straight radiating element arranged essentially parallel to the first radiating element and interconnected to it, and further a third straight radiating element arranged between the first and second radiating elements and essentially parallel to both of the first and second radiating elements and interconnected to the second radiating element. The electric and magnetic fields of the first and the third radiating elements are thereby interacting constructively. The invention is also related to an integrated circuit having such monopole antenna, and a method for manufacturing such monopole antenna.

The present invention is related to the field of antennas, and more particularly to a monopole antenna provided for short-range applications, and comprising an electrically conductive pattern arranged on a dielectric substrate.
In the ever-increasing use and development of wireless communication, the demand for small and compact portable devices is likewise increasing. The miniaturization is possible owing to the rapidly reducing physical size and cost of wireless electronic components, this in turn enabled by the progress and technological improvements made in microelectronic technologies, such as semiconductors, packaging and interconnection technologies.
Antennas constitute a crucial part of such wireless communication system, but have not been subject to a corresponding cost and size reduction. The physical size of an antenna is not as much related to the improvements of the manufacturing methods used, as to the operating frequency or wavelength of the system in which it is to be used. Accordingly, as portable devices, such as mobile phones, become smaller and smaller, new requirements are placed on miniaturizing the antennas to be used with such devices as well. However, making antennas smaller include several challenges, as the performance of the antenna should not be allowed to decrease. The cost of the antenna is also a very important consideration, especially in short-range wireless communication devices.
Classical antenna structures such as monopoles and dipoles are fabricated using dedicated structural components such as wires, tubes and mechanical support. This is an expensive manufacturing method and would add far too much cost to equipment for short-range wireless communication applications, such as Bluetooth enabled equipment, in order to be feasible.
For short-range antennas to be cost-effective, they are instead manufactured by high volume, low cost manufacturing technologies similar to the methods used for manufacturing the microelectronic components themselves. Examples of such manufacturing technologies include ceramic multilayer antennas and printed antennas, that is, antennas made by PCB (Printed Circuit Board) technology.
There are integrated antennas available, for example patch antennas and microstrip antennas manufactured by PCB, ceramic technologies or by utilising special low dielectric materials. Such antennas, although having a relatively low cost, have a physical height much exceeding current requirements.
Even the classical antenna configurations monopole and dipole antennas may be manufactured by printed circuit board techniques. However, the operating frequency of the antenna should be so high that the physical size of the antenna is reasonable with respect to the manufacturing technology. This gives a physical size of the antenna many times bigger than the size of the radio component itself, which is of course unacceptably large.
A type of antenna resembling a printed monopole antenna is a printed inverted F antenna (PIFA), the physical size of which is somewhat smaller, but still very big compared to the typical component size.
Still another type of antenna typically made by PCB technology is a loop antenna. The physical size of a loop antenna can be reduced by introducing additional components, such as capacitors, but at the expense of reduced performance. Besides the additional space required, the addition of components also adds time to the manufacturing process, and entails another possible source of failure. Further, the radiation efficiency of loop antennas is rather low.
Still another type of antenna is a fractal antenna, first described about a decade ago. It is based on so-called fractal geometries, or geometrical patterns repeating itself in smaller and smaller size. The major advantage of fractal antennas is their ability to operate on a wide range of frequencies, and it is also possible to design compact fractal antenna structures. However, the fractal geometrical patterns are often very complex and can therefore be difficult to manufacture with high precision.
Thus, all the above described antenna types entail shortcomings regarding their suitability to be miniaturised as well as to be easily integrated, and it would therefore be desired to provide an antenna structure overcoming these difficulties.

Miniaturized integrated monopole antenna


The application discloses a sensor device to measure friction force at a head-media interface. As disclosed, the sensor device has a transducer element oriented to provide an electrical output responsive to force or strain imparted to the transducer element along an in-plane axis. Sensor circuitry is coupled to the transducer element to process the electrical output to provide an output measure of friction force. In illustrated embodiments, the head includes an actuator element which is powered on/off at an on/off frequency to cyclically protrude a localized portion of the head. The on/off frequency of the actuator is used by the sensor circuitry to detect excitation of the sensor device due to friction force at the head-media interface.

Data storage devices position a head above a storage media to read data from and write data to the storage media. The spacing of the head from the media effects the strength of the read signal and the strength of the write signal. To achieve higher recording densities, the head is positioned closer to the media, which decreases the fly height of the head above the media. The decreased fly height increases the propensity of the head to contact the disc degrading read and write operations and increasing the propensity for damage to the head or media.

Friction force measurement assembly and method


A shatter device includes an exposure opening. Shutter blades slide in an opening direction to a maximum open position to open the exposure opening so as to provide an exposure. Then the shutter blades slide in a closing direction to close the exposure opening. An opening diameter is determined in accordance with the maximum open position, and is controlled smaller according to highness of subject brightness. A solenoid slides the shatter blades in the opening direction. A position detecting photo interrupter detects a reach of the shutter blades to a reference position while the solenoid slides the shutter blades in the opening direction. A controller obtains a timer time in accordance with the subject brightness, and starts measuring elapsed time in response to a signal from the photo interrupter. The solenoid is turned off when the measured elapsed time comes up to the timer time while the shutter-blades are slid further in the opening direction. Thereafter the shutter-blades are slid by inertia to the maximum open position, and then slid in the closing direction. Tho reference position is so predetermined that the maximum open position is changeable in a range limited by one limit open position located in the closing direction. The shutter blades, when located in the limit open position, open the exposure opening to a small extent. Thus opening operation of the shutter blades for the exposure opening is ensured even when the timer time is small.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shutter device for a camera. More particularly, the present invention relates to a shutter device for a camera in which shutter blades can open without failure even when exposure time is very short.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
Some types of compact cameras or instant cameras incorporate a program shutter, of which shutter blades are used also for controlling an exposure amount. A program shutter is constructed to take an exposure according to a predetermined combination of an aperture stop and a shutter speed respectively for each exposure value. Two or more shutter blades are combined and simultaneously opened/closed by means of a motor, a solenoid or other actuators. Open time or timer time of the shutter blades is determined in accordance with the exposure value. An opening diameter of the shutter blades corresponds to the aperture stop. A moved amount of the shutter blades is determined by the timer time. The opening diameter is increased and decreased according to the moved amount of the shutter blades. This is a widely used technique with considerable simplicity and convenience.
In FIG. 15, states of driving the program shutter according to the prior art are illustrated. A curve S4 indicates a relationship between an elapsed time and a change in a moved position (the moved amount) of the shutter blades. Sign D0 designates a moving position where a shutter opening starts being formed between the shutter blades. When exposure value EV is calculated by photometric operation, then the timer time T0 is uniquely determined. When a trigger signal is generated by a user's releasing operation of the shutter device, the motor starts rotating in a forward direction. Then the shutter blades are moved in an opening direction. Upon the start of the forward rotation of the motor, the timer time T0 starts being measured.
When the moved amount of the shutter blades increases for the shutter blades to come to the moving position D0, then the shutter blades starts forming the shutter opening. When the moved amount further increases, the opening diameter also increases. Upon the finish of measuring the timer time T0, a shutter-close signal is generated. The motor, in response to the shutter-close signal, is caused to rotate in reverse. The shutter blades, having been moved in the opening direction, now move in a closing direction, and finally come back to a closed position. One sequence of opening/closing operation is finished. Note that, immediately after the occurrence of the shutter-close signal, inertia and various factors move the shutter blades farther in the opening direction. Of course one exposure is being taken while the shutter blades are coming in the closing direction. In consideration of those various steps, the timer time T0 is predetermined. It is possible to control the exposure amount only by determining the timer time T0 according to the exposure value EV even with a comparatively simple construction.
However there is a problem in remarkable changes in an operating state of the shutter blades in the course of the opening/closing operation. Those changes are due to various causes including a difference in the orientation of manually holding the instant camera, changes in friction between the shutter blades, changes in friction between a shutter base plate and the shutter blades, differences between plural individual shutter blades, changes of the shutter blades with time, changes in environmental conditions for use of the shutter blades, and changes in response of the actuator. Especially when the shutter blades start being moved in the opening direction, the time point of the start of the shutter blades or the moving speed of the shutter blades are likely to change, because the state of rest of the shutter blades changes to the moving state.
If the shutter blades start being moved less quickly or are moved less quickly upon the start of their operation, the shutter blades operate in the manner indicated by a curve S5 of FIG. 15. If an exposure is taken with the timer time T0 associated with the photometrically obtained exposure value EV with the shutter blades of the curve S5, then it results in the under-exposure relative to the exposure with the shutter blades according to the curve S4. Also another most unacceptable state may occur in which the shutter blades come back in the closing direction without forming the shutter opening as indicated in a curve S6. This is remarkably frequent when a subject brightness of a photographic subject is very high. The opening diameter is controlled to be small for high subject brightness, to shorten the timer time T0 to reduce the moved amount of the shutter blades. A problem lies in that no exposure is taken even by exposure-taking sequence, due to failure in the opening operation of the shutter blades.
It may be conceivable that, in order to solve such a problem, a lower limit is predetermined for inhibiting the timer time T0 from coming lower than it. At least the smallest size of the shutter opening could be formed. But this is unacceptable because of ineffectiveness in controlling an exposure with high brightness, which has been possible according to the known techniques.


The invention illustrates a system and method of sharing content with multiple peer device while protecting the content from unauthorized use. In one embodiment, the system and method comprises: identifying a plurality of peer devices within a predetermined area wherein each of the plurality of peer devices includes an interface framework; directly transmitting content among the plurality of devices; and a selected plurality of peer devices requesting a license from a digital rights management server for the content, wherein the selected plurality of peer devices possess the content, wherein the interface framework is configured to allow the plurality of peer devices to directly communicate and utilize an application

There have been many advances in consumer electronics devices. Consumer electronics devices may include devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, digital cameras, personal digital assistants (PDAs), remote controls, and the like.
In addition to becoming smaller, an increasing number of consumer electronic devices are network enabled and capable of accessing Web services through the Internet operated by the device vendor and/or third parties. With their ability to access the Internet directly, these consumer electronic devices will no longer rely on the traditional personal computer as intermediary device.
Once consumer electronics devices have their own network interfaces, in addition to communicating to other devices as a client from a client-server relationship, these interfaces can also be used for device-to-device, so-called peer-to-peer, communication.
Due to a variety of peer-to-peer protocols which can be customized for particular consumer electronics devices, there are challenges associated with offering applications which can be utilized by consumer electronic devices having different communications protocols.

Method and apparatus for extending protected content access with peer to peer applications

Abstract: Other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, illustrated by way of example of the principles of the invention.


An illumination control circuit allows a user to set a desired brightness level and maintains the desired brightness level over temperature and life of a light source. The illumination control circuit uses a dual feedback loop with both optical and thermal feedbacks. The optical feedback loop controls power to the light source during normal operations. The thermal feedback loop overrides the optical feedback loop when the temperature of the light source becomes excessive.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backlight system, and more particularly relates to using optical and temperature feedbacks to control the brightness of the backlight.
2. Description of the Related Art
Backlight is used in liquid crystal display (LCD) applications to illuminate a screen to make a visible display. The applications include integrated displays and projection type systems, such as a LCD television, a desktop monitor, etc. The backlight can be provided by a light source, such as, for example, a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL), a hot cathode fluorescent lamp (HCFL), a Zenon lamp, a metal halide lamp, a light emitting diode (LED), and the like. The performance of the light source (e.g., the light output) is sensitive to ambient and lamp temperatures. Furthermore, the characteristics of the light source change with age.

Optical and temperature feedbacks to control display brightness


A hydrogen detector for gas and fluid media is disclosed. The detector includes a selective membrane and a housing. Within the housing is a potential measuring unit and a ceramic sensing element made of a solid electrolyte. A standard electrode is located within a cavity of the ceramic sensing element and a porous platinum electrode is applied to an external layer of the ceramic sensing element. A potential measuring unit passes through a sealed lead-in at the upper end of the housing and is brought out to the standard electrode. The selective membrane, which is attached to a hole in the end of the lower bushing, is closed with a plug. The cavity limited by the inner surface of the lower bushing, the external part of the bottom of the ceramic sensing element and the inner surfaces of the selective membrane and the plug is leak-tight.

The electrochemical detector of hydrogen concentration in gas and fluid media is disclosed (refer to patent for the invention RU No. 2120624, IPC G01N27/417 Electrochemical Detector of Hydrogen Concentration in Gas and Liquid Media, published on Oct. 20, 1998).
The detector comprises a housing tightly connected with solid electrolyte hydrogen detector by means of metal. The solid electrolyte oxygen detector consists of a ceramic insulator, closed in the lower part with a plug made of solid electrolyte, a porous platinum electrode applied on the external side of the plug, the liquid metal oxide standard electrode placed inside the plug, current lead thermocouple attached to the lid that covers the top of the ceramic insulator. A selective membrane shaped as a crimped cup is welded to the lower part of the housing. A tablet of the porous insulating oxide is installed between the selective membrane and the solid electrolyte plug.
The disadvantage of the said device is relatively low leak-tightness of the inner cavity of the ceramic sensing element that occurs due to oxygen inleakage through the gap between the potential measuring unit and the central core that results in oxidation of the reference electrode and decrease in service life of the device and reliability of its operation.
The electrochemical detector of hydrogen concentration in fluids and gases is disclosed (I. G. Dmitriev, V. L. Orlov, B. A. Shmatko. Electrochemical Hydrogen Detector in Fluids and Gases/The collection of abstracts of Teplofizika-91 (Thermophysics-91) Intersectoral Conference, Obninsk, 1993. p. 134-136).
The detector comprises an electrochemical oxygen cell based on solid electrolyte made of stabilized zirconium dioxide, a liquid-metal reference electrode of Bi+Bi2O3 mixture, a measuring platinum electrode, which is placed in a sealed chamber filled with water vapor.
The disadvantages of the known technical solution are:
relatively low reliability and short service life of the device due to configuration complexity of the detector;
relatively low thermal durability and corrosion resistance of the solid electrolyte oxygen detector to water vapors;
relatively long response time and lack of sensitivity due to stabilization complexity of partial pressure of water vapor in the measuring chamber;
relatively low accuracy of hydrogen concentration measurement, which is caused by difficulty of maintaining stability of temperature and pipes.
A hydrogen detector for gas and fluid media is technically the closest to the claimed device (refer to patent for invention RU 2379672 IPC G01N27/417 Hydrogen Detector for Gas and Liquid Media, published on Jan. 20, 2008).
The hydrogen detector comprises a selective membrane, porous electrically insulating ceramics and a housing with a potential measuring unit inside, a ceramic sensing element made of solid electrolyte with a standard electrode in its cavity, a porous platinum electrode, applied to the external layer of the ceramic sensing element, silica fabric, joining material, a plug with a hole that covers the cross section of the cavity of the ceramic sensing element, a sealed lead-in tightly installed inside the housing above the ceramic sensing element, a doubly-clad cable potential measuring device that passes through the central hole of the sealed lead-in, a cylindrical bushing. The cavity of the housing between the sealed lead-in and the ceramic sensing element is leak-tight. The ceramic sensing element is designed as a cylinder interlinked with a part of the sphere, located in the lower part of the cylinder. The upper part of the external cylindrical surface of the ceramic sensing element is tightly connected to the inner side surface of the case by means of the joining material. The reference electrode is located in the cavity between the inner surface of the ceramic sensing element and the surface of the plug and occupies at least a part of the cavity. The external spherical part of the ceramic sensing element is covered with porous platinum electrode. The end of the central core of the potential measuring unit directed to the ceramic sensing element is brought out through the hole in the plug to the reference electrode. It enables an electric contact between the reference electrode and the lower part of the central core of the potential measuring unit. A part of the ceramic sensing element protrudes beyond the housing. The bushing shaped as a tube is connected to the lower part of the housing from the protruding part of the ceramic sensing element. The lower end of the bushing has a bottom with a center hole to which a selective membrane made of at least one tube is attached. The lower free end of the selective membrane is tightly closed with a plug. The cavity limited by the inner surface of the bushing, joining material, external part of the ceramic sensing element protruding beyond the housing and the inner surface of the selective membrane is leak-tight. The inner cavity of the bushing between the protruding part of the ceramic sensing element and the bushing bottom is filled with silica fabric. The porous electro-insulating ceramics designed as a cylinder is located with an annular gap to the inner surface of the selective membrane.
The disadvantage of the known device is relatively low leak-tightness (Disadvantage 1) of the inner cavity of the ceramic sensing element that can result in inleakages of oxygen to the inner cavity through the gap between the central core and the casing of the potential measuring unit and lead to oxidation of the reference electrode and decrease in service life of the device and reliability of its operation. Due to the absence of reliable leak-tightness of the upper part of the potential measuring unit (Disadvantage 2) moisture can infiltrate into the insulating material of the double-clad cable that can result in decrease of resistance of the central core and the cable sheath and, consequently, in the loss of the valid signal and detector reading errors.

Hydrogen detector for gas and fluid media


A portable liquid level detector. The detector comprises a portable casing, a power supply unit disposed in the portable casing, a sensing device coupled to the power supply unit to sense a capacitance within a container and to output a enable signal when a difference in the capacitance is detected, a light emission device coupled to the sensing unit that illuminates after receiving the enable signal, and an alarm device coupled to the sensing unit that sounds after receiving the enable signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable liquid level detector, and method for detecting the level of a liquid in a container.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some semiconductor processes, liquid supply is necessary. For example, chemical slurries or the like used in chemical mechanical polish (CMP) processes require liquid provision. However, sometimes the container used to contain liquid is nontransparent, so that process engineer doesn't know how much liquid remains in the container. In this case, the process engineers sometimes estimate how much liquid remains in the container by knocking the container and listening to the corresponding sound from the container. But sometimes the process engineer's estimation is wrong, in which case the liquid supply may be interrupted, ruining semiconductor products. Another way to know how much liquid remains in the container is to use a flow measuring system to detect the weight of the container with liquid. However, the flow measuring system is not cheap. So, if a flow measuring system must be provided with every process that needs liquid supply, the cost is high.


A method for extraction and isolation of proanthocyanidins from biological material. The method includes the steps of hot water extraction of the material after comminution using deoxygenated water, separation of the solids from the liquor, concentration of liquor into a concentrated solution and waste streams,and drying the concentrated solution to a solid product. The hot water can be recycled. The residue results in a usable by-product and the tannins can be extracted from the tannin-rich waste stream. The most preferred biological material is bark from Pinus radiata trees which are 15 years old, the bark most optionally coming from the upper portion of the tree.

Hot Water Extraction Processes.
The use of hot water extraction of proanthocyanidins from biological material is covered extensively in the prior art. Examples of discussions of such techniques are in the examples below, along with the attendant problems, even if the method claimed in the patent is not solely a hot water extraction technique. Non-bark materials: Japanese Patent Application No. 62101976 (Publication Number 63267774A) reveals that it is possible to obtain a solution of proanthocyanidins derived from the juice of apples, grapes and other fruit, soy beans (etc). U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,688 (Ayroles) discloses extraction of proanthocyanidins from ginko biloba leaves using aqueous ketone solvents. U.S. Pat. No. 5,607,965 (Kando) discloses extraction from a grape extract. U.S. Pat. No. 5,532,012 (Balentine) discloses an extractive from tea. Tree bark materials: The most common bark discussed is that of Pinus radiata bark. However other species of bark or tree have been used for extraction of proanthocyanidins. For example: Australian AU B 58998/80 uses Croton or a Calophyllum species as the starting material and the acacia species is used in NZ Patent No. 181274 (NZ Forest Products).
The extractives of Pinus radiata bark (both inner and outer) have been well documented. For example, Markham and Porter in New Zealand Joumal of Science (1973, Vol 16, p. 751) detail the phenolic compounds which can be extracted with ethyl acetate solution, amongst others. These include procyanidins, high molecular weight condensed tannins and phenolic acid compounds.
A range of methods of hot water extraction of Pinus radiata have been proposed: Yazaki (Holzforschung 37 (1983) 87) reviewed hot water extraction of bark, followed by freeze drying, and dissolution in 10% aqueous sodium hydroxide solution. This was then subjected to micro-filtration and ultra-filtration. However, uniform quality of the extract was noted as a problem.
This process is similar to that disclosed in Australian Patent Application No. 57753/80 (CSIRO). Yazaki (Holzforschung 39 (1985) 79) reviewed the results of a similar process, using solvent solutions which obtained more reliable results. NZ Patent No. 179933 (NZ Forest Products) also noted the problem of uniformity of extract. In NZ Patent No. 234804 (Chem Eng Contracts) there is extensive discussion of the problems relating to hot water extraction processes. In NZ Patent No. 181274 hot water extraction is disclosed, but with a two stage control of the pH value of the extractive solution.
Another problem that has been noted with extraction processes of proanthocyanidins is that in some techniques there is degradation of the product as the proanthocyanidins starts reacting before the extraction process is completed. This is countered by control of the pH (for example: NZ Patent No. 181274, NZ Forest Products Ltd) or control by selection of solvent(s) used (for example, Yazaki 1985).
In summary, there are three problems relating to hot water extraction processes. Firstly, when only hot water extraction alone is used, high purity yield has been found to be too low for viability of the process commercially. Low yields are also noted from the yields disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 62101976 (Publication Number 63267774A). This patent discloses that it is possible to obtain a solution of high purity and yield by the treatment of a proanthocyanidin-containing solution (in 0.5% v/v alcohol) with ultra-filtration and/or reverse osmosis. However the yield disclosed in the examples given is 0.72% w/w or less of proanthocyanidins.
Second and thirdly, uniformity of quality is sometimes problematic. This may result from the selection of the size or type of material for the extraction process or from the proanthocyanidins reacting with chemicals present in the process and thus resulting in a degraded or less pure product.
An object of the present invention is the provision of a method of extraction for proanthocyanidins which overcomes the disadvantages of the known processes of purely hot water extraction and still produces a commercially acceptable yield of high purity of the proanthocyanidins. This object includes the avoidance of solvents other than water, and avoids the use of other chemical additives such as sodium hydroxide and sodium chloride for pH adjustment and salting down.

Process for extraction of proanthocyanidins from botanical material


Methods are provided in which a domain name system (DNS) service obtains a lookup request for information about a source of a traffic flow being transmitted to a network resource external of a service cluster and performs, based on the lookup request, a lookup operation for a microservice that is the source of the traffic flow, among a plurality of microservices of the service cluster registered with the DNS service. The methods further include providing information about the microservice based on the lookup operation. The information includes at least a name of the microservice for visibility of the microservice external of the service cluster.

Enterprise services may be provided in a form of one or more software applications. Network and security visibility and enterprise policies are applied at the application level, leveraging tools such as Application Visibility and Control (AVC). Enterprise services may be provided in a form of monolithic applications that are tightly coupled to physical and/or virtual machines. That is, a monolithic application is executed on a dedicated server. With recent advances in virtualization and containerization technologies, the enterprise services are transforming from monolithic applications to microservice-based cloud native architectures. Instead of a monolithic application, a collection of loosely-coupled services may be used by an enterprise and may be deployed on different physical and/or virtual machines. These discrete microservices communicate with one another using various application programming interfaces (APIs).


The purpose of this multi-purpose drain is to prevent foreign matter from intruding into the down stream drainage system while providing a means to maintain the flow of liquid through the system should the primary path of flow become clogged. This invention has a wide variety of uses in all industries and can help individuals of diverse backgrounds maintain their drain piping system. The breakthrough and background of this invention relates directly to the beverage service and hotel service industries. I contend that this product can significantly reduce the labor and maintenance costs of drainage systems of all types. It can be used universally by the homeowner and maintenance professional alike.

The invention relates to traps in low-pressure drain plumbing applications, in particular to readily cleanable traps which function as gas traps and those that capture heavy sediment and trash that flow into the trap itself. This particular design incorporates an overflow mechanism that allows the drain to keep flowing in the event that the trap portion of the drain becomes clogged and does so without violating the integrity of the gas trapping feature desired in drain traps.
Various styles of traps that prevent the escape of sewer gas through the drain have been available since the beginnings of indoor plumbing. The P and S style traps are those most commonly used over the last century. A trap that provides a removable cup is exhibited in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,210,201 and 4,700,412. Other types of cleanable traps are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,742,101, 3,994,031, 2,170,390, and 919,701.


The present invention is related to an IPS-LCD device and a method of fabricating an array substrate for use in the IPS-LCD device, which increase a high aperture ratio and provide a large and enough storage capacitance. A common line formed of an opaque metal is designed to have a small width for the increased aperture ratio. A portion of a pixel electrode overlaps one of common electrodes, thereby forming a supplementary storage capacitor. As a result, with a main storage capacitor comprised of a portion of pixel electrode and a portion of common line, the array substrate of the present invention can have two storage capacitors. A sufficient and satisfactory capacitance can be obtained and the aperture ratio is raised.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display (LCD) device, and more particularly, to an array substrate for use in an in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display device (IPS-LCD).
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display device uses the optical anisotropy and polarization properties of liquid crystal molecules to produce an image. Liquid crystal molecules have a definite alignment direction as a result of their long, thin shapes. That alignment direction can be controlled by an applied electric field. In other words, as the direction of an applied electric field changes, so does the alignment of the liquid crystal molecules. Due to the optical anisotropy, the refraction of incident light depends on the alignment direction of the liquid crystal molecules. Thus, by properly controlling an applied electric field, a desired light image can be produced.
Of the different types of known LCDs, active matrix LCDs (AM-LCDs), which have thin film transistors and pixel electrodes arranged in a matrix form, are the subject of significant research and development because of their high resolution and superiority in displaying moving images.
LCD devices have wide application in office automation (OA) equipment and video units because they are light and thin and have low power consumption characteristics. The typical liquid crystal display (LCD) panel has an upper substrate, a lower substrate and a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. The upper substrate, commonly referred to as a color filter substrate, usually includes a common electrode and color filters. The lower substrate, commonly referred to as an array substrate, includes switching elements, such as thin film transistors (TFTs) and pixel electrodes.
As previously described, LCD device operation is based on the principle that the alignment direction of the liquid crystal molecules is dependent upon an electric field applied between the common electrode and the pixel electrode. Thus, the alignment direction of the liquid crystal molecules is controlled by the application of an electric field to the liquid crystal layer. When the alignment direction of the liquid crystal molecules is properly adjusted, incident light is refracted along the alignment direction to display image data. The liquid crystal molecules function as an optical modulation element having variable optical characteristics that depend upon polarity of the applied voltage.
In a conventional LCD device, since the pixel and common electrodes are positioned on the lower and upper substrates, respectively, the electric field induced between them is perpendicular to the lower and upper substrates. However, the conventional LCD devices having the longitudinal electric field have a drawback in that they have a very narrow viewing angle. In order to solve the problem of narrow viewing angle, in-plane switching liquid crystal display (IPS-LCD) devices have been proposed. The IPS-LCD devices typically include a lower substrate where a pixel electrode and a common electrode are disposed, an upper substrate having no electrode, and a liquid crystal interposed between the upper and lower substrates. A detailed explanation about the lower substrate (i.e., array substrate) of the IPS-LCD device will be provided referring to figures.
FIG. 1 is a plan view illustrating one pixel of an array substrate of an in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display (IPS-LCD) device according to a related art. As shown, gate lines 12 are transversely disposed on a substrate (see reference element 10 of FIG. 2A). A common line 16 is spaced apart from the gate lines 12, and disposed adjacent to and parallel with the gate lines 12. Data lines 24 that are spaced apart from each other are disposed across and substantially perpendicular to the gate and common lines 12 and 16. A pair of data lines 24 and a pair of gate and common lines 12 and 16 define a pixel area P.
A switching device, e.g., a thin film transistor T, is positioned near the crossing of the gate and data lines 12 and 24. As shown in FIG. 1, the thin film transistor T includes a gate electrode 14, an active layer 20, a source electrode 26 and a drain electrode 28. The gate and source electrodes 14 and 26 are positioned and electrically connected with the gate and data lines 12 and 24, respectively. Namely, the gate electrode 14 extends from the gate line 12, while the source electrode 26 extends from the data line 24. The drain electrode 28 is spaced apart from the source electrode 26 and overlaps a portion of the active layer 20. The active layer 20 is located right above the gate electrode 14 and under the source and drain electrodes 26 and 28. Thus, the source electrode 26 and the drain electrode 28 overlap portions of the active layer 20, respectively.
In the pixel area P, a pixel electrode 30 connected to the drain electrode 28 is disposed. The pixel electrode 30 includes a horizontal portion 30a above the common line 16 and a vertical portion 30b parallel with the data lines 24. The horizontal and vertical portions 30a and 30b and the drain electrode 28 are formed as one united body. A common electrode 17 including first and second common electrodes 17a and 17b is also disposed in the pixel area P. The first and second common electrodes 17a and 17b extend from the common line 16 and are formed as one united body with the common line 16. The first and second common electrodes 17a and 17b are parallel with and adjacent to the data lines 24, respectively. Between the first and second common electrodes 17a and 17b, the vertical portion 30b of the pixel electrode 30 is positioned.
There is a storage capacitor C that is parallel-connected to the pixel at the top of the pixel area P. The storage capacitor C is formed of a portion of the common line 16, a horizontal portion 30a of the pixel electrode 30, and a dielectric layer (not shown). Namely, the portion of the common line 16 acts as a first electrode and the horizontal portion 30a of the pixel electrode 30 acts as a second electrode in the storage capacitor C. The common line 16 in the related art shown in FIG. 1 has a width W. When designing the common line 16 to have the width W, the width W of the related art should be as large as necessary so that the signal can easily flow through the common line 16 and the storage capacitor C can have an enough capacitance.
FIGS. 2A to 2C are cross sectional views taken along lines II—II and III—III of FIG. 1 and illustrate fabricating processes for the array substrate.
Referring to FIG. 2A, a first metal layer is formed on a substrate 10 and then patterned to form the gate line 12 (see FIG. 1), the gate electrode 14, the common line 16, and the first and second common electrodes 17a and 17b. Aluminum (Al), aluminum alloy (e.g., aluminum neodymium (AlNd)), chromium (Cr), molybdenum (Mo) or tungsten (W) is used as a material for the first metal layer. The gate electrode 14 protrudes from the gate line 12 (see FIG. 1). The common line 16 is adjacent to and parallel with the gate line. Further, the common line 16 is spaced apart from the gate line by a predetermined distance. As mentioned before, the first and second common electrodes 17a and 17b extend from the common line 16 and are disposed parallel with and adjacent to the data lines that are formed in a later step. Thereafter, a gate insulation layer 18 is formed on entire surface of the substrate 10 to cover the patterned first metal layer. Thus, for example, as shown in FIG. 2A, the gate electrode 14, the second common electrode 17b and the common line 16 are covered by the gate insulation layer 18. The gate insulation layer 18 is an inorganic material, such as silicon nitride (SiNx).
In FIG. 2B, an amorphous silicon layer (a-Si: H) and an impurity-included amorphous silicon layer (n+ a-Si: H) are sequentially formed on the gate insulation layer 18 and then patterned to form the active layer 20 and an ohmic contact layer 22. Particularly, the active layer 20 and the ohmic contact layer 22 are formed right above the gate electrode 14. Since the amorphous silicon layer (a-Si: H) and the impurity-included amorphous silicon layer (n+ a-Si: H) are simultaneously patterned, the active layer 20 is interposed between the ohmic contact layer 22 and the gate insulation layer 18.
Now in FIG. 2C, a second metal layer is formed on entire surface of the gate insulation layer 18 and then patterned to form the data lines 24, the source electrode 26, the drain electrode 28 and the pixel electrode 30 (including the horizontal portion 30a and the vertical portion 30b). As with the first metal layer, the second metal layer is one of chromium (Cr), aluminum (Al), aluminum alloy (e.g., AlNd), molybdenum (Mo), and the like. As shown and mentioned with reference FIG. 1, the data lines 24 cross both the gate line 12 and the common line 16, and define the pixel area P with both the gate line 12 and the common line 16. The source electrode 26 extends from the data line 24 and overlaps a portion of the ohmic contact layer 20. The horizontal portion 30a of the pixel electrode 30 is formed above the common line 16 to overlap a portion of the common line 16. The vertical portion 30b of the pixel electrode 30 extends from the horizontal portion 30a to the pixel area P and is disposed between the first and second common electrodes 17a and 17b parallel with the data lines. At the end of the vertical portion 30b of the pixel electrode 30, the drain electrode 28 is formed to overlap a portion of the ohmic contact layer 22. Since the source and drain electrodes 26 and 28 are spaced apart from each other, a portion of the ohmic contact layer 22 is removed using the source and drain electrodes 26 and 28 as a mask. Thus, a channel region is formed in the active layer 20 between the source and drain electrodes 26 and 28. The portion of the common line 16 and the horizontal portion 30a form the storage capacitor C. As mentioned before, the portion of the common line 16 acts as a first electrode of the storage capacitor, the horizontal portion 30a of the pixel electrode 30 acts as a second electrode of the storage capacitor, and the gate insulation layer 18 between the common line 16 and the horizontal portion 30a acts as a dielectric layer.
According to aforementioned structure of the array substrate shown in FIGS. 1 and 2A–2C, the array substrate for the IPS-LCD device has only one storage capacitor in the pixel. Thus, the common line acting as a first storage electrode needs to be designed to have large width for sufficient and satisfactory capacitance. In this case, since the common line is formed of an opaque material, the aperture ratio of the pixel becomes decreased.

Array substrate for use in in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display device and method of fabricating the same


A system for controlling access to a network includes a wireless switch configured for radio frequency communication with a mobile unit associated with a radio frequency identification tag. The wireless switch is adapted for determining if a radio frequency identification tag is located within a first area, and enabling the mobile unit to access the network according to a first scheme if the mobile unit is located within the first area.

In recent years, radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have achieved wide popularity in a number of applications, as they provide a cost-effective way to track the location of a large number of assets in real time. In large-scale applications (e.g., warehouses, retail spaces, and the like), many types of tags may exist in the environment (or "site"). Likewise, multiple types of readers, such as RFID readers, active tag readers, 802.11 tag readers, Zigbee tag readers, and the like are typically distributed throughout the space in the form of entryway readers, conveyer-belt readers, mobile readers, etc., and may be linked by network controller switches and the like.
In many instances it is desirable to know the location of a tag within a building or other such site. Furthermore, it is desirable to control access to one or more networks associated with the tags, particularly when the information accessed through the network is of a sensitive or proprietary nature.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide systems and methods for controlling access to a network based on one or more RFID technologies. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.


Various embodiments may include a method for adapting the opening behavior of a fuel injector having a solenoid drive, the method comprising: applying a voltage pulse having a predetermined electrical voltage to the solenoid drive; acquiring a time profile of the strength of a current flowing through the solenoid drive; comparing the acquired time profile with a reference profile; and adjusting a value of a mechanical parameter of the fuel injector to reduce a deviation between the acquired time profile of the strength of the current and the reference profile.

During the operation of directly operated coil injectors, in particular fuel injectors for motor vehicles having an internal combustion engine, with the same current and voltage values, electrical, magnetic and mechanical tolerances result in different temporal opening and closing behaviors of the injectors and therefore in variations in the injection quantity. The relative differences in injection quantity from one injector to another become larger as the injection times become shorter. Until now, these relative differences in quantity have been small. The need for smaller injection quantities and injection times now means that the influence in terms of the difference in quantity has to be taken into account. Influences such as variations in the injector opening time (OPP 1) have to be taken into account to a greater extent. Until now, it has been possible to solve this problem merely with relatively small component tolerances, which entails considerable expenditure and corresponding costs.


A method and apparatus for efficient and consistent validation/conflict detection in a Software Transactional Memory (STM) system is herein described. A version check barrier is inserted after a load to compare versions of loaded values before and after the load. In addition, a global timestamp (GTS) is utilized to track a latest committed transaction. Each transaction is associated with a local timestamp (LTS) initialized to the GTS value at the start of a transaction. As a transaction commits it updates the GTS to a new value and sets versions of modified locations to the new value. Pending transactions compare versions determined in read barriers to their LTS. If the version is greater than their LTS indicating another transaction has committed after the pending transaction started and initialized the LTS, then the pending transaction validates its read set to maintain efficient and consistent transactional execution.

Advances in semi-conductor processing and logic design have permitted an increase in the amount of logic that may be present on integrated circuit devices. As a result, computer system configurations have evolved from a single or multiple integrated circuits in a system to multiple cores and multiple logical processors present on individual integrated circuits. A processor or integrated circuit typically comprises a single processor die, where the processor die may include any number of cores or logical processors.
The ever increasing number of cores and logical processors on integrated circuits enables more software threads to be executed. However, the increase in the number of software threads that may be executed simultaneously have created problems with synchronizing data shared among the software threads. One common solution to accessing shared data in multiple core or multiple logical processor systems comprises the use of locks to guarantee mutual exclusion across multiple accesses to shared data. However, the ever increasing ability to execute multiple software threads potentially results in false contention and a serialization of execution.
For example, consider a hash table holding shared data. With a lock system, a programmer may lock the entire hash table, allowing one thread to access the entire hash table. However, throughput and performance of other threads is potentially adversely affected, as they are unable to access any entries in the hash table, until the lock is released. Alternatively, each entry in the hash table may be locked. However, this increases programming complexity, as programmers have to account for more locks within a hash table.
Another data synchronization technique includes the use of transactional memory (TM). Often transactional execution includes speculatively executing a grouping of a plurality of micro-operations, operations, or instructions. In the example above, both threads execute within the hash table, and their accesses are monitored/tracked. If both threads access/alter the same entry, one of the transactions may be aborted to resolve the conflict. One type of transactional execution includes a Software Transactional Memory (STM), where accesses are tracked, conflict resolution, abort tasks, and other transactional tasks are performed in software.
In one implementation, versions of read operations are tracked to maintain consistency and detect conflicts. However, in a typical STM, validation of the read operations is not done until a transaction is to be committed. Therefore, if a invalidating action, such as a conflict, occurs during a transaction, some data may become inconsistent and the use of the inconsistent data may lead to program exception or infinite looping. Furthermore, execution cycles are potentially wasted in executing the rest of the transaction to discover an inconsistency occurred.

Efficient and consistent software transactional memory