An end piece for the end of a lace, string, filament or the like flexible article. The end piece includes a tube into which the end of the lace or the like is installed. A pin passes through and across the tube and pierces or traps the end of the flexible article in the tube. A decoration may be applied on the pin. A decoration support may be supported on the pin. The decoration support may have the form of a pivotable bridle attached on the ends of the pin. The bridle is supported to the tube by pintles. The pin passes through one pintle and into the other arm of the bridle.

The present invention relates to attaching an end covering piece to a free end of a string, lace, filament or other elongate flexible article. The end piece is useful, for example, for capping the end of the flexible article, decorating the end and/or attaching another object, such as a decoration or a support for a decoration on the end of the article. A particular non-limiting application of the invention is to cover the end of a shoelace, to serve as an aglet. The lace end piece attaches securely to the lace. It is also quickly and easily changed or replaced.
Laces, strings, filaments, and the like flexible articles have an end that may be covered, protected and decorated. There are numerous string, lace, filament and flexible article end coverings and decorations in the prior art. Many are used on the ends of shoe laces as aglets, but they are not so limited in their application. Examples of lace covers, lace end pieces and decorations are found in the prior art, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,425,384; 1,810,602; 2,961,727; 3,636,594; 5,584,132; and U.S. 2006/0064856.
Several disclosed lace end pieces include a cuff, cap or aglet that is fitted over the free end of the lace. These known lace end pieces or coverings are originally so shaped or are deformed after being fitted on the end of the lace so as to be securely held on the end of the lace. Examples of these include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,584,132; and 5,638,589. These lace end pieces are held on the lace by their internal profiling or by shaping of the lace end piece. But, the end piece may not be fixed sufficiently on the lace to prevent the end piece being pulled free of the lace.
It is known to supply a lace end piece with ornamentation or decoration, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,552; U.S. 2005/0132546; and U.S. 2006/0260153. Securement of the decoration to the lace end piece usually requires an extra securement device on the end piece.


A multimode Radio Access Network (RAN) for wireless communication is disclosed. The RAN separates the control signals from the data streams for their distributed processing. The control signals are transmitted between base stations and a Radio Resource Server (RRS), while the data streams are communicated between the base stations and Wireless Access Gateways (WAGs). The base station and WAG resources are managed by the RRS. Besides providing single and multiple radio mode access to a mobile user for efficient communication with other wireless communication networks, the RAN infrastructure has a high outage tolerance and can be scaled cost effectively for wider coverage and increased data traffic capacity.

The instant invention relates to a multimode wireless radio access network (RAN) having a distributed signal processing architecture, which can either be part of a wireless service provider's network or comprise an independent enterprise wireless network infrastructure.
Current and envisioned wireless cellular systems employ various air interfaces between the mobile user communication equipment (UE) and the fixed infrastructure of the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN). Examples of widely deployed air interfaces, commonly labeled as second generation (2G) networks, include IS-95 (CDMA), IS-136 (TDMA), and GSM. Examples of third generation (3G) wireless networks, more advanced than the 2G networks and in the process of standardization or deployment, include UMTS (WCDMA) and CDMA2000.
The 2G and 3G network architectures consist of two major sub-networks: (a) the radio access network (RAN), and (b) the Core Network (CN). The RAN controls the radio physical aspects of the UE, and the CN controls the UE's access to applications supported by the wireless service provider or external public or private networks, such as the Internet. The wireless service providers typically own and operate both the RAN and CN sub-networks. The traditional wireless network architecture includes the UE, RAN, CN, and the wireless interfaces to network applications.
The traditional RAN has two major components, the radio base station (BS) and the base station controller (BSC). The single-mode RAN of the prior art comprises a multitude of BS/BSC associations depending on the system capacity and coverage area Each BSC controls a cluster of BS's dedicated to the same specific single radio access mode.
The UE employs two levels of signaling protocols for establishing the service connection with a wireless communication network: (1) a signaling protocol stack between the UE and the CN for connection set-up specifications; and (2) a signaling protocol stack between the UE and the RAN for establishing a radio channel with characteristics consistent with the desired UE-CN service connection.
The initial communications for exchanging signaling protocol messages between the UE and the CN and the UE and the RAN use pre-established common radio resources between the UE and the wireless network. The signaling protocol(s) between the UE and CN are well-established. That between the UE and the RAN, referred to as the Radio Resource Control protocol, has the protocol entity resident at the BSC. In the existing art, both control and data information streams are processed by the BSC.
The BSC controls the radio resources of the BS to establish the radio physical connections, i.e., the radio transceiver characteristics, between the UE and the BS and the ground communications link between the BS and its associated BSC. The BSC employs a signaling protocol with the CN to establish the ground communication link between the BSC and its corresponding entity in the CN. Once all the links are established, the data streams are exchanged between the UE and BS, the BS and the BSC, and the BSC and the CN. The communications between the BS and the BSC and between the BSC and the CN consist of both control and application data information.
The traditional BSC comprises a monolithic and rigid RAN component. It uses fixed dedicated connections with its associated BSs for processing the control signals and the single mode radio access data streams. This limits the wireless service provider's ability to (a) increase the RAN capacity because of the single mode operation limitation, and (b) minimize the impact of BSC outage on wireless service availability, because a fault at the BSC shuts down further communication.
The layered protocol model specific to the traditional single radio access mode is a three-layer structure: the Physical layer (layer 1), the Media Access Control and Radio Link Control layer (layer 2), and the Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer (layer 3). Each of these layers employs technology dedicated to the same specific single radio access mode.
Various methods to implement multiple radio access mode communication, such as using IEEE 802.11 and 3G UMTS and their variants, have been proposed or implemented. [e.g. IEEE Standards 802.11b, a, g, n (http://standards.ieee.org); 3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP, Technical Specifications and Technical Reports for a 3rd Generation Mobile System (www.3gpp.org); 3GPP TR 22.934, "Feasibility Study on 3GPP System to Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Interworking"]. The focus has been on inter-working the radio link modes constituting separate Radio Access Networks (RANs), using one of two schemes that vary in the degree of control and interactions between the networks: Loose Coupling and Tight Coupling. The choice of the coupling scheme has a direct effect on the service performance in the case where the mobile users are handed off from one radio access mode to the other [R. Samarasinghe, V. Friderikos, A. H. Aghavami "Analysis of Intersystem Handover: UMTS FDD & WLAN", London Communications Symposium, 8-9 Sep., 2003].
An example of a RAN architecture that aims to mitigate issues related to integrated BSC functionality in the UMTS Terrestrial RAN (UTRAN) has been described by Siemens. [3GPP TSG-RAN WG3 Meeting #36, "Proposed Architecture for UTRAN Evolution," Marne-la-Vallee, 19-23 May 2003.] While decomposing the functionality of a Radio Network Controller (RNC) into two entities—a signaling entity and a data processing entity (DPE), the scheme fails to provide the instant invention's distributed architecture for multimode functionality. (The RNC is the equivalent of the BSC in the 3GPP UMTS standards.) Although the DPEs are inter-linked, each BS has a fixed connection with a specific DPE, which processes both the signaling traffic and the data traffic between them. Consequently, this scheme too suffers from the low network outage tolerance limitation of the other prior art. A fault at the DPE renders the network inaccessible, and further communication impossible.
The prior art schemes employing fixed connections between the BS and the BSC also suffer from less than optimal handoff of mobile UE equipment from one BSC to another. If the new BS lacks a connection with the currently used BSC, the UE connection must be switched to a BSC connected to the new BS. This requires the connection between the BSC and the core network (CN) to be altered, resulting in a less efficient handoff. Because the DPEs are inter-linked in the Siemens approach, however, changing the connection to the CN may be avoided by transferring the data traffic directly from the old to the new DPE. Although more desirable than the alternative, this process incurs traffic delays while also requiring increased infrastructure bandwidth.
Current wireless network deployments handle two types of traffic, the circuit-switched (CS) traffic and the packet-switched (PS) traffic. The former refers to the mobile voice telephony service that ties into the legacy telephony network. The latter corresponds to the mobile access to data networks, such as the Internet. The CS and PS traffic flows are handled separately in the Core Network (CN) by different equipment, comprising the CS and PS domains. A current thrust in wireless technology is to support CS services within the PS domain, eliminating the need for the CS domain. This way, the PS data traffic will support multi-media services, including voice and video. As an intermediate step, the CS domain has witnessed major changes, including use of packet-based connection links between the RAN and the CS domain equipment. This has resulted in separate traffic flows for system signaling and user traffic, consistent with the PS domain's requirements. Where the CS Domain is implemented using such a paradigm, the instant invention is readily applicable to both the PS and CS domains, including multimedia data streams comprising voice and video.

Multimode wireless radio access network with distributed processing


A disk player which is capable of attaining a higher speed in its start-up for sound reproduction, in which at the time of the reproduction of a disk, the pickup moves to the starting position of the reproduced side for the disk to be reproduced after the specified side of the disk is determined when the disk number, the disk size, and the music piece number are specified. Even in case the side B of a disk has been specified, the present invention makes it possible for a disk player promptly to perform the start-up operation of each disk. Even in case any of CDs and LDs different in type is stored, the present invention enables a disk player promptly to perform the start-up operation for such a disk.

The present invention relates to a disk player having an automatic changing function consisting of storing a plural number of disks respectively different in diameter, such as compact disks (hereinafter referred to as "CD") and video disks (hereinafter referred to as "LD") and automatically loading and reproducing a selected disk. More particularly, the present invention relates to a disk player which makes it possible to attain a higher speed in the start-up of a reproducing operation by controlling the position of the pickup according to a reproduction side or a type of the selected disk.
In a laser disk reproducing system for playing music without a song for accompaniment of singing (KARAOKE system), a considerably experienced specialized operator is needed for finding requested music pieces one after another in rapid succession and setting a proper disk in a disk player. An automatic changing function can be a substitute for such a specialized operator.

Disk player with internal conveyor for exchanging stored disks


A coupler assembly includes a valve with a locking ball locking mechanism and a locking sleeve interacting with the locking balls to lock the valve in the connected position. A slider is positioned radially between the ball body and the locking sleeve, and longitudinally inward relative to the locking balls. During a connection operation to a nipple, the slider is moveable along the ball body to permit movement of the locking balls into an inner recess defined by the locking sleeve as the valve moves toward the connected position. The slider is biased to return to the first slider position. During a disconnection operation, the locking sleeve is moved to a second sleeve position. As the nipple moves longitudinally outward, a surface of a locking shoulder of the nipple moves the locking balls into an outer recess of the locking sleeve to permit removal of the nipple.

Quick couplings that provide a push-to-connect locking mechanism have a variety of applications. One example is a breathing apparatus, such as may be used by firefighters, in which a breathing mask is connected via tubing to an air supply. An end of the tubing has a nipple that is inserted into a connector on the breathing apparatus component that includes the air supply. Insertion of the nipple operates to open a valve to permit the flow of air. Such systems may enable a "buddy breather" configuration, by which a second person connects a second breathing mask to access the air supply of a first person who is breathing via a first breathing mask. Such a system may be used, for example, by firefighters who share air when the air supply of one firefighter becomes low, or a firefighter may provide air to a victim in tandem with the firefighter.
Because buddy breather systems are employed under dangerous circumstances, a quick and reliable connection is required. Accordingly, quick couplings having a push-to-connect locking mechanism are employed for ease of use. In a typical configuration, insertion of the nipple operates to push on a spring loaded valve to open the valve to permit the flow of air. An outer ring-shaped or annular locking sleeve is spring loaded and pushed back permitting a plurality of locking balls to fall into a locking groove on the nipple to hold the connection. Such couplings further may employ a cocking ring, which constitutes an inner ring relative to the locking sleeve that aids in holding the locking balls against the spring loaded locking sleeve.
This conventional configuration, however, may experience a "mis-latch" during a failed angular connection. This mis-latch occurs if the cocking ring is pushed back under the locking balls causing the locking sleeve to slide forward. When this occurs, the action forces and retains the locking balls inward, and holds the valve assembly in the open position. The mis-latch can lead to failure of the connection, which in the case of a buddy breather system, for example, can be dangerous as the second breather may not connect to the air supply.

Quick-coupling with internal slide locking mechanism


A concrete form and a pool wall and deck support system is disclosed. The pool wall may be formed of steel, plastic, aluminum or wood and has a plurality of wall panels secured together in end-to-end relation to define the perimeter of the structure. Wall supports or brace structures fabricated from non-compressible material such as concrete are attached to, and support both the wall of the pool and the perimeter deck therearound. The pool wall, coping and deck are supported by the top of the concrete brace structure. In a preferred embodiment, the brace structure is fabricated from pairs of nestable forms made from a suitable material such as corrugated cardboard and are located beside the pool walls, reinforcing bars are attached to the pool walls and interconnect the latter with the walls and the forms are filled with concrete and are so structured as to have the concrete engage the flanges of the pool wall panels.

Conventionally, mechanisms for strengthening swimming pool walls have generally consisted of metal bracings, sometimes in the form of a "X" as shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,797,957. Another example is my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 4,109,324 where I disclose a combination of an X-shaped brace filled with concrete, the brace having extensions that bolt on to the outside of the pool wall. Other examples of the prior art may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,000 Nov. 1, 1988; U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,304 Jan. 13, 1987; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,491 of Nov. 11, 1980. Several Canadian Patents may also be referred to, 1,266,352 Mar. 6, 1990; 1,169,330 Jun. 19, 1984; and 1,189,658 Jul. 2, 1985.
The present invention provides an improved wall brace and support system and incorporates concrete form units that are constructed in such a manner that, when completed, concrete in the form attaches directly to the pool wall so that a solid concrete brace is attached to the pool wall and also supports a poured concrete deck around the upper edge thereof. This is a distinct concept compared to many conventional arrangements where sono tubes, plastic or steel forms are used and in which a plastic or steel membrane interconnects the wall structure to the concrete.
The invention provides a pool wall bracing and support system in which a concrete structure is poured in place and attaches to the steel or plastic wall of the swimming pool and supports the wall and, if required, a poured concrete deck which surrounds all or part of the pool.
The pool wall may be formed of steel, plastic, aluminum or wood and has a plurality of wall panels secured together in end-to-end relation to define the perimeter of the pool wall structure. Wall supports or brace structures according to the invention include form units fabricated from any suitable material and in a preferred embodiment this material is a double walled, waxed corrugated cardboard. The form units are located at predetermined spacings in the excavation around the outside of the pool wall. The form units are so constructed as to have portions at least of the flanges of the walls enter the confines of the forms so that when the forms are filled with concrete, the concrete attaches directly to the flanges of the walls. This provides a much more stable and stronger brace and spreads the load of support more evenly across the panels of the walls than in conventional systems.
According to one broad aspect, the invention relates to a swimming pool wall structure comprising a plurality of pool wall panels secured together in end-to-end relation to define the perimeter of the pool. Flanges are provided on the terminal end edges of each of the panels for securement to juxtaposed flanges on adjoining panels and the flanges extend generally normal to and outwardly of the pool wall. A plurality of pool wall support and brace members are spaced about the outer perimeter of the wall structure and each of the brace members comprises a concrete form configured to accept at least portions of the flanges of the panels so that when concrete is poured into the forms, the concrete encompasses those portions of the flanges within the confines of the forms.
According to another broad aspect, the invention relates to a concrete form unit for use as a bracing and supporting member for a swimming pool wall, the form unit comprising front and rear walls spaced by side walls connected thereto and defining open ends of the form unit. End panels are coplanar with and extend outwardly of one end of the front and rear walls for slidably receiving like panels on a corresponding open end of another form unit and a slot is provided in one of the end walls for receiving flanges projecting from panels of the pool wall.
According to a still further aspect, the invention relates to an erectable, blank concrete form unit for use as a bracing and supporting member for a swimming pool wall. The blank comprises a plurality of foldable panels including primary front and rear panels, a secondary panel interconnected to the primary panels by parallel lines of weakness and, when erected, forms a first end wall spacing the front and rear wall panels; and a pair of tertiary panels each of which is connected to a side edge of the primary panels by a line of weakness and, when erected, serving to space the primary front and rear panels and constituting a second end wall of the form. Spaced tongues are provided on the terminal side edges of the tertiary panels and slots are located inwardly of the tongues adjacent the lines of weakness between the tertiary panels and the primary panels, the slots of tertiary panel receiving the tongues of the other tertiary panel when the blank is erected to close and secure the second end wall.


This invention relates to methods of using weak partitioning chromatography for the purification of a product from a load fluid containing one or more impurities. Further, the invention relates to methods of weak partitioning chromatography defined by operating conditions which cause a medium to bind least 1 mg of product per mL of medium, or alternatively, defined by a partition coefficient of at least 0.1.

Within the biotechnology industry, the purification of proteins on a commercial scale is an important challenge to the development of recombinant proteins for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Problems related to yield, purity, and throughput plague the manufacturing sector. With the advent of recombinant protein technology, a protein of interest can be produced using cultured eukaryotic or prokaryotic host cell lines engineered to express a gene encoding the protein. What results from the host cell culturing process, however, is a mixture of the desired protein along with impurities that are either derived from the protein itself, such as protein variants, or from the host cell, such as host cell proteins. The use of the desired recombinant protein for pharmaceutical applications is contingent on being able to reliably recover adequate levels of the protein from these impurities.
Conventional protein purification methods are designed to separate the protein of interest from impurities based on differences in size, charge, solubility, and degree of hydrophobicity. Such methods include chromatographic methods such as affinity chromatography, ion exchange chromatography, size exclusion chromatography, hydrophobic interaction chromatography, immobilized metal affinity chromatography, and hydroxyapatite chromatography. These methods often employ a separation medium that can be designed to selectively adhere either the protein of interest or the impurities. In the bind-elute mode, the desired protein selectively binds to the separation medium and is differentially eluted from the medium by different solvents. In the flow-through mode, the impurities specifically bind to the separation medium while the protein of interest does not, thus allowing the recovery of the desired protein in the "flow-through."
Current methods for the purification of proteins, such as antibodies, include two or more chromatographic steps. For example, the first step in the protein purification protocol often involves an affinity chromatography step that utilizes a specific interaction between the protein of interest and an immobilized capture reagent. Protein A adsorbents are particularly useful for affinity capture of proteins, such as antibodies, which contain an Fc region. However, drawbacks to using Protein A chromatography for protein purification include leakage of the Protein A capture agent, leading to contamination of the eluted protein product. Additionally, affinity capture does not separate protein variants, such as aggregated forms of the protein, from the protein of interest.
Researchers have used bind-elute methods, flow-through methods, and displacement methods in efforts to recover proteins free from impurities resulting from both the culturing process and from possible prior steps in the purification process itself. Examples of groups using a bind-elute step as a typical second step to purifying proteins after an affinity capture step include: U.S. Pat. No. 4,983,722, describing a bind-elute ion exchange method of reducing Protein A from a mixture; U.S. Pat. No. 5,429,746, describing a bind-elute hydrophobic interaction chromatography method for purifying IgG antibody from a mixture including Protein A impurities; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,644,036, describing a three-step process for obtaining a purified IgG antibody preparation comprising a Protein A step, a bind-elute ion exchange step, and a size exclusion step. Other groups have used a flow-through step after the affinity chromatography step. For example, PCT publication WO 04/076485 describes a method for removing leaked Protein A from an antibody purified by a Protein A chromatography step followed by a flow-through ion exchange step. PCT publication WO 03/059935 describes a method for purifying a protein in a sample comprising subjecting the sample to a flow-through hydroxyapatite chromatography step following an affinity chromatography step.
Other groups have used a single polishing-step purification scheme to avoid the problems associated with prior purification steps. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,548 describes a single-step flow-through ion exchange method for removing aggregates from a biological sample where the pH of the sample is adjusted to 0.2 logs below the isoelectric point of the biological sample. U.S. Pat. No. 5,451,662 describes a single-step bind-elute ion exchange method where the pH of the crude protein mixture is adjusted to a point between the ranges of isoelectric points of the protein fractions to be separated. PCT publication WO 05/044856 describes a single-step displacement method for removal of high molecular weight aggregates from antibody preparations using hydroxyapatite chromatography.
None of the conventional bind-elute or flow-through methods in the prior art, however, is able to meet the needs of the biotechnology industry in terms of all the requirements of throughput, yield, and product purity. Bind-elute methods and displacement methods are limited by, among other factors, the capacity limit of the separation medium for the desired protein. Flow-through methods, on the other hand, do allow for higher load challenges than bind-elute methods but are limited by the capacity of the separation medium for the impurities. With flow-through methods, no substantial binding of the product to the column occurs; any substantial product binding is seen as negatively impacting product recovery. There is still a need for methods of recovering purified proteins at high throughput that meet the requirements for purity and yield necessary for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. In addition, commercial manufacturing processes add the needs for reliable, robust, and cost-effective purification schemes.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method of weak partitioning chromatography


A thrust washer (9) for planet gears (6) of a planetary gearbox is provided that is made form a tempered, cold rolled strip having a flatness less than or equal to 0.03 mm, and a hardness ranging from 370 to 580 HV. The thrust washer (9) can be produced in a particularly cost effective manner by making it from an appropriate initial stock having the desired final properties.

The invention relates to a thrust washer for planet gears of a planetary gearbox. The thrust washers are arranged with their positioning bore hole on the planet gear pins that are fixed in a planet carrier and contact both sides of the planet gears, which are supported rotatably by a rolling bearing on the planet gear pin. For lubricant supply, the planet gear pin is provided with an axial lubricant through hole and a radial lubricant through hole branching off from the axial hole and the thrust washer is provided with axial through holes.
Thrust washers of this type are already known in a wide variety of embodiments. They are used for the axial stop of the planet gear and for protecting the non-hardened planet carrier and also the planet gear from wear. Here, with a flat end surface, the planet gear contacts a similarly flat stopping surface of the thrust washer. The planet gear is provided with a continuous bore hole, with which it is held rotatably on the planet gear pin with the help of a bearing. This bearing can be formed, for example, by a needle collar or also by a cageless needle set. Therefore, according to the type of bearing, either the bearing cage or the ends of the bearing needles contact the thrust washers. The thrust washers are usually stamped from sheet metal. The surface of the thrust washers is either ground or coated. The selection of the material for the washers and their surface quality, as well as their surface hardness, is essentially dependent on the known friction relationships.
However, very often the lubricating relationships at the contact points between the thrust washers and the end surfaces of the planet gears are unsatisfactory. In this case, bronze washers are also used as thrust washers. Now and then, two thrust washers made from different materials, one next to the other, are also used or multiple-layer thrust washers, for example, plated metal plates, are used. Here, the materials steel and bronze are combined with one another. This arrangement takes into account the different stopping and friction relationships between the planet gear and the thrust washer on one hand and the thrust washer and the planet carrier on the other hand.
Also, through a corresponding configuration of the thrust washers, the lubricant circulation within the planetary gearbox and especially at the bearing of the planet gear is influenced in a positive way. The lubricant circulation in the bearing of the planet gear and the lubrication of the stopping surfaces of the thrust washers in the contact area with the planet gear is achieved through oil grooves formed in a targeted way in the surface of the thrust washers or through axial through holes.
Such a thrust washer is previously known, for example, from DE 35 02 076 C1. This thrust washer has two ends formed as flat stopping surfaces and is provided with an angular opening, through which lubricant is to be fed to the bearing. Another thrust bearing is previously known from DE 198 04 734 A1. It is embodied as a flat steel ring, whose ends are provided with impressions and whose positioning bore hole is provided with through holes. Such thrust washers are also previously described in DE 44 18 693 C1. Finally, in DE 40 09 968 A1, a composite thrust washer is presented, which comprises a steel and a copper washer. The inner steel thrust washer exhibits a hardness of 700 to 1500 HV (diamond penetrator hardness number), while the outer copper thrust washer should have a hardness of 200 to 350 HV.
For these thrust washers, it is disadvantageous that for axial contact of the planet gear on the thrust washer, under unfavorable conditions, the lubricant film at the contact points can break down or be interrupted. The result is inadequate lubrication and premature wear at the contact points, which in the extreme case can lead to loss of the entire planetary gearbox. It is further disadvantageous that such thrust washers are relatively complicated and consequently are also expensive to manufacture.


A plating method for plating a substrate by increasing a current value from a predetermined current value to a first current value is provided. The plating method plates the substrate for a first predetermined period with the first current value when a first current density corresponding to the first current value is lower than a limiting current density. This plating method includes measuring a voltage value applied to the substrate, and when the current value is increased from the predetermined current value to the first current value, determining whether the first current density is equal to or more than the limiting current density or not based on an amount of change in the voltage value.

As an electroplating apparatus employing what is called a dip method, an electroplating apparatus that includes a plating bath, which internally houses a plating solution, a substrate and an anode, which are arranged as opposed to one another inside the plating bath, and a regulation plate, which is arranged between the anode and the substrate, has been known (for example, see PTL 1). This electroplating apparatus includes a paddle to stir the plating solution between the regulation plate and the substrate. The paddle moves in a reciprocating direction along a surface of the substrate to stir the plating solution near the substrate surface.
Recently, to improve a productivity of a plating apparatus, it has been required to reduce a plating period required for forming a plating film having a predetermined film thickness. To perform plating having the predetermined film thickness in a shorter time on a certain plating area, it is necessary to perform the plating with a high current density. In the plating apparatus described in PTL 1, moving the paddle at high speed facilitates supply of metal ions to the substrate surface, thus suppressing reduction in quality of the plating when the plating is performed with the high current density.

Plating method, plating apparatus, and method for estimating limiting current density


A balanced-to-unbalanced converter (balun) is provided, including: a converting circuit having a first processing circuit including a first inductor and a first capacitor connected in series, a second processing circuit including a second capacitor and a second inductor connected in series, the second capacitor being electrically connected to the first inductor, and two balanced output ends connected to the first processing circuit and the second processing circuit, respectively; and a preprocessing circuit connected to the converting circuit and including an unbalanced input end for converting real impedance at the unbalanced input end into complex impedance at the balanced output ends. Accordingly, the balun satisfies the need of the wireless communication chips by providing differential signals with complex impedance. This is done by employing the preprocessing circuit in conjunction with the converting circuit to convert an unbalanced signal with real impedance into a balanced signal with complex impedance.

In recent years, with the advent of the personal wireless communication techniques, wireless communication devices are becoming more important in everyday life. In wireless communication applications, devices, such as double balanced mixers, push-pull amplifiers, balanced frequency multipliers, phase shifters, dipole antenna feeds, balanced modulators, 180-degree hybrids and the like, employ a balanced-to-unbalanced converter (or sometimes called "balun" for short), which converts an unbalanced signal to a pair of balanced differential signals with equal amplitude and anti-phase, thereby reducing common-mode noise with the transmission of the differential signals.
However, a traditional balun is generally consisted of high-pass filters and low-pass filters. Therefore, there is a limitation that both the unbalanced input end and the balanced output end have to be in real impedance. However, more and more wireless communication chips require the use of differential signals with complex impedance as input signals. Thus, there is a need for a balun that is capable of converting an unbalanced signal with real impedance into a balanced signal with complex impedance.

Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd.


Apparatus has at least one processor and at least one memory having computer-readable code stored therein which when executed controls the at least one processor: to determine a name relating to a face in an image; to calculate a first maximum length attribute for a name bubble for the face at a first zoom level; to select a part of the name for inclusion in the name bubble having regard to the first maximum length attribute; to calculate a second maximum length attribute for the name bubble for the face at a second zoom level, the first and second zoom levels being different and the first and second maximum length attributes being different; and to select a part of the name for inclusion in the name bubble for the face at the second zoom level having regard to the second maximum length attribute.

It is known for people in digital photographs to be "tagged". A tag provides a link between a part of a photograph and a person. For instance, social networking services are known to provide a facility whereby users can upload digital photos, for storage in a gallery associated with the user's profile. Where these photographs include images of their friends, family and other contacts, these other people can be tagged such that users of the social networking service can follow links from the people that are tagged in the photograph to the photograph itself.
Separately, it is known for photograph handling software applications to feature facial recognition, by which faces within a photograph can be identified and a guess taken as to the identity of the individual whom is imaged.
Pocket-sized mobile devices tend to include displays of relatively limited size. Mobile telephones, smartphones and personal digital assistants, for instance, tend to have a diagonal screen size of less than 5 inches (12.7 centimeters), and often less than 4 inches (10.16 centimeters). To allow text to be sufficiently easily readable, it is usually displayed with a certain minimum text height. The display of text overlaid on images can be to the detriment of the user experience, particularly on pocket-sized handheld devices. This can be ameliorated by reducing the size of text, although reducing text size can be detrimental to user experience in a different way.
It is within this context that the present invention was made.


A recording apparatus including recording modules each having a recording medium conveyance path, the modules being identical in external shape and disposed such that conveyor surfaces thereof are parallel to each other and such that same-shaped portions thereof align with each other in a first direction intersecting the conveyor surface, wherein, in a certain cross section orthogonal to the conveyor surface and parallel to the first direction, where a dimension of each module in a second direction orthogonal to a conveyor surface is L1 and a dimension thereof in a third direction orthogonal to the second direction is L2, a dimension L3, in the second direction, of adjacent two of the modules in the first direction is smaller than twice the dimension L1 and a dimension L4, in the third direction, of the adjacent two modules is smaller than twice the dimension L2 and is larger than the dimension L2.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus configured to record an image.
2. Description of Related Art
There is known a printer (recording apparatus) having a plurality of printing units disposed in parallel. When a large amount of printed matter is produced, for instance, the printing units are operated in parallel, so as to achieve high-speed printing. In the printer, the plurality of printing units are stacked on each other in the height direction of the printer. Each printing unit has: a conveyance path in which a recording sheet is conveyed; and a printing portion having an ink-jet head for recording an image on the recording sheet. The recording sheet on which an image has been recorded is discharged to a sheet-discharge tray.


A one-piece adhesive label is provided incorporating an integral tear strip. The tear strip is formed as the user grasps one activation tab that resides on either opposite end of the label. Preferably, one tab is formed at each opposite end. Slits formed on the opposite ends of the label adjacent the tabs enable the label to be torn in a uniform manner, taking advantage of the particular material characteristics of the label sheet that has unidirectional fibers.

Adhesive labels are used to identify the contents of various packages, as well as to provide other information such as where the package is to be shipped, where the package originated, among other information. Whether a package is sent by courier, mail, or other package delivery services, adhesive labels are perhaps the most common way in which to identify the package so that it can be delivered to its proper destination. Many labels include pressure sensitive adhesive that allows the label to be easily applied to the package, yet the label remains secured to the package even under harsh shipping conditions.
Adhesive labels may also serve the dual purpose of securing adjacent closure flaps of the package, as well as to identify package contents and shipping information. These labels may be applied over the seam defining the edges of the closure flaps when folded to the closed position.
One disadvantage with respect to many prior art labels is that they require multiple layers of materials if the label is to include an integral tear strip enabling the package to be opened by grasping of the tear strip. Furthermore, multi-layer labels generally add to the costs of manufacturing the labels, as well as increasing the difficulty in manufacturing the labels since multiple materials are used and must be manipulated in the manufacturing process.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a label with an integral tear strip, but the label having a simplified yet reliable construction. There is also a need to provide an adhesive label that can serve the dual functions of identifying the package and securing adjacent closure flaps, yet achieving these functions at minimum cost.

One-piece label with integral tear strip


A method for selecting calibration data which uses mean square error to minimize variations in the calculated origins of the earth's magnetic field vector. A microcomputer having a memory calculates and stores the origin of the earth's magnetic field vector from the last three headings or data points. The x and y coordinates of the origins are summed with all the previous x and y coordinates and the mean square errors of the x and y coordinates are calculated. A figure of merit for the mean square errors is calculated. An adjusted origin is determined and stored by weighing the newly calculated origin by a figure of merit and adding it to the previous origin. Provision is made for reinitializing all quantities to zero when the sum of the mean square errors exceeds a predetermined maximum.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to electronic compasses and more specifically to a method for selecting calibration data for an auto-calibrating electronic compass.
2. Discussion
Normally, electronic compass systems employ a microprocessor to calculate vehicle headings based upon signals received from a magnetic flux-gate sensor. An example of a microprocessor-based electronic compass can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,622,843 to Hormel, issued Nov. 18, 1986, entitled "Simplified Calibration Technique and Auto-Ranging Circuit for an Electronic Compass Control Circuit". This reference is hereby incorporated by reference.
The operation of the flux-gate sensors are also well-documented. See for example, "Magnetic Field Sensor and its Application to Automobiles" by Hisatsugu Itoh, dated February, 1980 and published by the Society of Automotive Engineers as Paper No. 800123; "Magnetic Heading Reference for the Electro/Fluidic Autopilot", by Doug Garner which appeared in two parts, one in the November, 1981 and one in the December, 1981 issues of Sport Aviation. The above-mentioned publications are also hereby incorporated by reference.
The subject invention is closely related to and is an improvement upon the method described in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,462 to Al-Attar issued Feb. 28, 1989 entitled "Method for Performing Automatic Calibration in an Electronic Compass". This document is hereby incorporated by reference.
Auto-calibrating compasses suffer from real world problems. As discussed in the '462 patent to Al-Attar, auto-calibration occurs as a vehicle equipped with an auto-calibrating compass is driven. Since the calibration process does not occur at the same spot on the earth, it is subject to the effects of minor variations in the earth's magnetic field. Magnetic anomalies, caused by locally high concentrations of ferrous minerals, and magnetic transients, caused by time-variant magnetic fields, create noise in flux-gate sensor readings. It is desirable that the auto-calibration method minimize the effects of the noise.
A method for calculating the vector for the noise caused by magnetic anomalies and transients is disclosed in German Patent No. DE 3644681 Al, issued Jul. 14, 1988, to Helldorfer. A microprocessor is used to calculate the difference between a magnetic field vector sensed by the compass sensor and a previous magnetic field vector for the same heading. The resultant vector is then weighted by a factor k<1, which suppresses the effect of the anomalies and transients upon the direction of the vehicle.

Method for selecting calibration data for an auto-calibrating compass


A method for assigning frequency bands from a group of frequency bands, the method comprising determining a quality of service being required by the wireless network system, comparing the required quality of service with the predefined categories of the plurality of groups of frequency bands, selecting a group of frequency bands based on the comparison, and assigning at least one band from the selected group of frequency bands to the wireless network system, for communication between the at least one base station and the at least one user equipment.

In wireless communication networks, a frequency spectrum may be shared between different network devices. The network devices may be in particular devices with cognitive radio function. Such a device may be a device that automatically changes its transmission or reception parameters, in a way in that the entire wireless communication network communicates efficiently, while avoiding interference with licensed or licensed exempt users. This alteration of parameters is based on the active monitoring of several factors in the external and internal radio environment, such as radio frequency spectrum, user behavior and network state.
In such wireless communication systems, for example with 3GPP LTE-advanced devices with cognitive radio function, the frequency spectrum, or moreover frequency bands of the spectrum may be licensed according to a license scheme. In particular, the scheme may be related to a service (QoS, quality of service) guarantee scheme, as provided by the Authorised Shared Access (ASA) concept in cognitive radio technology. The Authorized Shared Access (ASA) is a complementary spectrum authorization scheme for commercial use that may enable timely availability of harmonized spectrum for mobile broadband while ensuring predictable QoS for all rights holders. ASA may allow new users to access to an already licensed spectrum with the obligation to protect the incumbent user. For example it may an IMT service to access the bands that are under-utilised by existing primary uses, especially to bands that have been allocated to mobile but not made available for mobile use through current regulatory means. The access may be regulated via cognitive radio capabilities, i.e. geolocation databases complemented, if required, by sensing. ASA is neither exclusive licensing nor license-exempt but has few commonalties with licensing-light. The incumbent user works on a primary basis maintaining its spectrum assignment over time in line with the National Table of Frequency Allocation. ASA allows selected authorised users to share the ASA band under some technical condition. Predictable QoS can be ensured for those limited number of non-overlapping authorised users.
The actual ASA concept is a framework to share a spectrum between limited numbers of authorized users. Under this concept, the initial user(s) (e.g. the "incumbent(s)") would share its spectrum with one or several new users (the "incoming user(s)") in accordance with a set of conditions defined by the regulation. These conditions may be "static" (e.g. exclusion zone, restricted time for operation) or more 'dynamic' (e.g. geographic/time sharing, on-demand authorization of operators).
However, there may be a need for an improved system and method being able to ensure a predictable quality of service (QoS) for all spectrum users.

Assigning frequency bands from a group of frequency bands to a wireless network system


A pallet includes a platform and a plurality of support assemblies located at multiple positions on the platform. One support assembly is associated with each location of the component to be supported. Each support assembly has a linkage assembly to support and enable movement of a support element. The support assemblies also each include multiple bases secured to the platform, to position the support element in a desired location for each version of a component. A locking mechanism on each support element allows for selectively preventing vertical movement of the support element relative to the pallet.

During assembly of vehicles in an assembly plant individual components must be supported prior to installation in the vehicle. In the case of heavy or bulky components it may be necessary or desirable to support these components in a specific configuration which facilitates installation of the component into the vehicle. For example, it may be desirable to support the component in an orientation which corresponds to its in-vehicle orientation and in a manner which enables access to locations, such as boltholes, used to attach the component to the vehicle.
An example of this is a vehicle engine or powertrain (i.e. engine plus transmission), where engine and/or powertrain specific support structures are used for the purpose of presenting the engine or powertrain to the vehicle body in a manner which facilitates attachment of the engine or powertrain to the vehicle body.
Commonly, customers may be offered various hardware options, such as engines or powertrains, with a specific vehicle body. Hence, to meet the need described above, multiple support structures must be employed each of which will be specific to a single hardware option or component version and which will be incapable of being used for other options. Frequently, for convenience and to ensure their strength and rigidity, these support structures are mounted on a platform. Together the support structure and the platform to which is attached constitute a pallet. As a result, a unique pallet is required for each version of the component associated with the assembly line.

Locking mechanism for reconfigurable pallets


A system enables selection of live, pre-recorded and locally synchronized video of desirable travel destinations worldwide. The system includes a viewer control module and a display monitor such as a television, a plurality of video cameras aimed at scenic sites of interest, a networked computer communicatively coupled to the video cameras and user control module, and a network for selectively communicating video and data between the various components.

People love to travel and sightsee. However, traveling and sightseeing can be costly, time-consuming and physically demanding. Many people are in no condition to travel. Elderly, sickly and handicapped individuals may have limited mobility. Oftentimes, such individuals are forced to stay close to home to for medical reasons. However, even people who enjoy excellent health are not able to travel as often as they would like to due to financial and/or logistical constraints. Such people are thus relegated to enjoying sights of distant places through magazines, an occasional glimpse of background scenery in a television program or movie, or surfing postings on the Internet.
Even while on a trip, travelers may not have the time or resources to see all local scenic sites of interest. Prudence dictates prioritizing the available sights, so that time and resources are properly allocated. However, without a good reference point, it may be impossible to decide the best sights for someone to see. Regrettably, many wonderful sights may be overlooked.
After returning from a trip, people may wish to reminisce by seeing the sights again. However, static images accessible from the Internet, photographs from the trip and other mementos are far cry from a live dynamic view. While amateur video taken on a trip provides a dynamic view, oftentimes the quality leaves much to be desired, scenes of interest are displayed for a fleeting moment and often buried between lengths of less interesting footage.
The invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.

System and method for selectively providing video of travel destinations


An antenna system for a communication receiver (100) which has an internal antenna (200) and which is coupled to a portable computer (104) to deliver received data messages thereto comprises a resonant loop antenna (16) magnetically coupled to the internal antenna (200) of the communication receiver (100), and a resonant wireframe shield (18, 40) which is coupled to the resonant loop antenna (16) and oriented perpendicular thereto. The resonant wireframe shield (18, 40) shields the communication receiver (100) from an electrical interference signal generated by the portable computer (104).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of antennas, and more particularly to an antenna system for a data communication receiver.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Portable data communication receivers have recently become available which enable the reception of data messages which can be downloaded to a personal computing device. An example of one such a portable data communication receiver is the NewStream.TM. Advanced Information Receiver manufactured by Motorola Inc. which can be coupled to a portable computer such as the HP 95LX palmtop computer manufactured by Hewlett Packard. Because of the relatively small size of the palmtop computer when coupled to the data communication receiver, the computer/data receiver pair can be easily carried about by the user, can be conveniently set on a desk top to enable independent use of the palmtop computer to run programs stored in an internal memory, or to enable the user to review information received by the data communication receiver. Because of the flexibility imparted by the small size of the computer/data receiver pair with regards to location, there are times when the data communication receiver can be inadvertently positioned by the user in a location where the data signal transmission signal strength is greatly diminished, such as being placed in a signal null, or placed in an area essentially shielded from the data signal transmissions.
Numerous prior art portable communication receivers were equipped with collapsible whip antennas, or provided with an external antenna input which allowed coupling the receiver to an external receiving antenna, both of which greatly reduced receiver sensitivity degradation due to placement of the receiver. While somewhat effective, collapsible whip antennas are generally unsightly, and placement of the external antenna to hide the cables from view was next to impossible. Portability was further compromised with those receivers which provided an external antenna input.
Significant sensitivity degradation can also be encountered when a portable computer is coupled to the data communication receiver at certain receiver operating frequencies, which albeit can be remedied by turning off the portable computer, does not satisfy the need to receive information while additional data is being received by the data communication receiver.
There is a therefor a need for an antenna system which minimizes the signal degradation due to placement of the computer/data receiver pair as described above. Furthermore, there is a need for an antenna system which can enhance the sensitivity of the data communication receiver, and which is readily removable when use is not required, and which is aesthetically pleasing when coupled to the portable computer/data communication receiver pair.

Antenna system for a data communication receiver


A method of developing a screen of a cathode ray tube includes the steps of establishing an uniform electrostatic charge on selected areas of an inner surface of a panel with a predetermined pattern, rotating a nozzle to a predetermined angle with respect to the inner surface of a panel, and moving the rotated nozzle backwards and forwards while spraying a dry-powdered and electrically charged screen structure material on the selected areas of the inner surface of the panel.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for developing a screen of a cathode ray tube (CRT) and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for depositing a light-absorptive black matrix material and a light-emitting phosphor material (referred to hereinafter more simply as `screen structure material`) on an inner surface of a panel by using an electrophotographic screening process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, CRTs are designed to reproduce original picture images through exciting phosphors coated on the inner surface of the panel by electron beams emitted from an electron gun.
The screen portion of the panel is formed with a light-absorptive black matrix layer and a light-emitting phosphor layer.
Conventionally, in the process of forming the black matrix and phosphor layers, slurries of screen structure materials and photosensitive binders are deposited on the panel screen portion. And, this is known as a wet photolithographic screening process.
However, the wet process requires numbers of processing steps as well as large quantities of chemicals, causing an environmental pollution.
Therefore, in recent years, an electrophotographic screening (EPS) method, which uses dry-powdered screen structure materials in the screen developing process, has been widely used in substitute for the photolithographic screening method.
The EPS method includes the steps of cleaning the inner surface of the panel, sequentially forming an organic conductive (OC) layer and an organic photoconductive (OPC) layer on the cleaned surface of the panel, establishing a substantially uniform electrostatic charge on the OPC layer, inserting a shadow mask into the panel, exposing selected areas of the OPC layer to visible light to affect the charge thereon, and developing the selected areas of the OPC layer with a screen structure material. The screen structure material is dry-powdered and tribo-electrically charged before the developing operation.
FIG. 5 is a schematic view of a conventional screen developing apparatus for a CRT illustrating the EPS method. As shown in FIG. 5, the developing apparatus includes a chamber 2 having a supporting member 6 for supporting a panel 4, a screen structure material reservoir 12 for storing and feeding the screen structure material, and a spray gun 10 for spraying the screen structure material on an inner surface of the panel 4.
The spray gun 10 is communicated with the screen structure material reservoir 12 through a tube 8.
The screen structure material is mixed with a suitable quantity of air and fed into the spray gun 10 through the tube 8.
In addition, a grid 16 is provided on the supporting member 6 to control the electric field in the vicinity of the OPC layer coated on the inner surface of the panel 4. And a high voltage source 18 is connected to the grid 16 to supply voltage thereto.
Furthermore, the chamber 2 is provided with an exhaust port 20 to remove excess screen structure material that is not deposited on the inner surface of the panel 4.
In the aforementioned screen developing apparatus, the spray gun 10 receives the screen structure materials passing through the tube 8 and sprays it onto the inner surface of the panel 4. At this time, the spraying operation is performed in such a state that the spray gun 10 is vertically spaced apart from the inner surface of the panel 4 and internally fixed on the center of the chamber 2.
However, in the aforementioned spraying operation, the resultant screen layer on the center and corner portions of the panel is not uniform in thickness because the sprayed screen structure material is relatively focused on the portion toward which the spray gun is directed.
As shown in FIG. 6, the dot width d1 of the central portion of the panel is maintained at 150 .mu.m while the dot width d2 of the corner or peripheral portion is maintained at 100.about.150 .mu.m.
Accordingly, difference in the dot width of the screen structure material on the center and corner of the panel causes serious defects in the CRT screen.

Method and apparatus for developing screen of cathode ray tube


A mechanical lift for raising, lowering, and positioning a flywheel or a clutch assembly, the mechanical lift incorporating a base, the base being configured as a mechanic's floor creeper; a boom arm mounted upon the base for motion between first and second positions, the boom arm extending upwardly from the base while in the second position, the boom arm being positioned downwardly from the second position while in the first position; a first hydraulic cylinder connected operatively to the boom arm, the first hydraulic cylinder being mounted for moving the boom arm between its first and second positions; a telescoping shaft and a second hydraulic cylinder actuating the telescoping shaft, the telescoping shaft being connected operatively to the boom arm; and a clutch or flywheel adapter fixedly attached to the boom arm.

Vehicle flywheels and clutches, particularly those incorporated within large truck engines and power transmissions are typically difficultly installed and de-installed. A major factor contributing to such difficulty constitutes the typical extreme heaviness and weight of truck flywheels and clutches. Another factor contributing to such difficulty arises from the close space constraints, typically behind a truck's engine, beneath the truck's cab, and between the truck's chassis rails, within which flywheel or clutch installations and de-installations must be performed. The instant inventive flywheel and clutch lift assists in installations and de-installations of such heavy truck flywheels and clutches within such tightly constrained spaces by providing a sit-down style mechanic's floor creeper which includes and incorporates a flywheel and clutch lifting and positioning mechanism.


A wearable device, an electronic apparatus and a method for recording user actions are provided. The wearable device includes a body, at least one sensor and a memory module. An outer part of the body includes a surface, and an internal part includes an accommodating space. The sensor senses touching actions of a user to the surface, and records the location, the force and the number of the touching actions with respective to the surface, so as to form touching information corresponded to the touching actions. Thus, when the user is dressed the wearable device, the sensor senses and stores instinctive physical touching actions of the user relative to the user body covered by the wearable device, and the touching actions can become the basis of the diagnosis by the doctor.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an application technology of a wearable device, and more particularly, to a wearable device, an electronic apparatus disposed on a body and a method for recording user actions.
2. Description of Related Art
Due to aging or injury, many people often wear protective gears the from time to time so as to protective specific parts of the body, such as knees, legs and so forth. When the body parts located in the internal portions of the protective gears still feel uncomfortable, people would instinctively perform actions such as tapping and kneading with expectations of getting instant relieve.
However, conventional protective gear only provides physical oppression and protection to the body parts that wear the protective gear, but does not automatically perform an adaptive adjustment with respective to user reactions, so that the user can merely adjust the protective gear manually so as to provide better comfort to the body parts that wear the protective gear. On the other hand, when patients describe injury locations to the physicians, such as similar injuries at the knee, it is to be noted that different sites of pain at the knee may be caused by different diseases (e.g., patella tendinitis, cartilage tissue pain, or so forth). However, the patients would all describe these pains as knee pains, and cause the physicians to have difficulty in diagnosing the causes quickly. Since people often instinctively perform physical touching actions, such as tapping, kneading and so forth, to the injured or uncomfortable body parts, it may perhaps be helpful if these instinctive reactions may be transformed into digital information and provided to the physicians, so that the physicians can perform the treatments more accurately based on the digital information.

Wearable device, electronic apparatus and method for recording user actions


An amplifier circuit includes an amplifier and an output transistor. The amplifier is coupled to an output node of the output transistor for providing an output voltage to a load device. The amplifier circuit also includes a slew-rate control circuit coupled to a gate node of the output transistor and configured to control voltage rise of the gate node of the output transistor during power-up to reduce output voltage overshoot.

The invention relates to the field of electronic circuits. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention are directed to capacitor-less linear regulating circuits. Some embodiments described herein are applied to reducing power-up overstress in capacitor-less regulator circuits. However, the circuit and methods described herein can be used in applications which involve reducing power-up overstress in other amplifier circuit.
The linear regulator acts as a variable resistor between the input power source and the output to drop the voltage applied to the load. As a result, the efficiency of a linear regulator is low. Unlike a switching power supply DC-DC converter, the linear regulators provide continuous operation and are cheaper and easier to use.
FIG. 1 is a simplified schematic diagram for a conventional linear regulating circuit. As shown in FIG. 1, linear regulator 100 is a low drop-out regulator (LDO) that takes in an input power source VIN, and produces a regulated output voltage, VOUT. A low-dropout or LDO regulator is a DC linear voltage regulator which can regulate the output voltage. LDO 100 includes an amplifier 110, which is a differential amplifier as an error amplifier, and an output transistor M1, which can be a power FET (field effect transistor). Differential amplifier 110 is configured to amplify a differential between a reference voltage Vref and a feedback voltage Vfb, which is a portion of a regulated output voltage Vout sampled by a voltage divider formed by resistors R1 and R2. An output of the differential amplifier 110 is coupled to a gate node 122 of output transistor M1. The regulated output voltage Vout is derived at an output node 124 of output transistor M1. The gate voltage at gate node 122 is designated as Vg in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 also shows input voltage VIN providing operational power to LDO 100. A load device, represented by a current sink Iload receives power provided by LDO 100.
For an ideal operational amplifier (OP amp) gain, the output voltage is given by,
      V   OUT    =         V    REF      =            V     o        =               (             1       +                        R         1                         R         2                           )                     V      REF               where VREF is a reference voltage, which can be a bandgap reference voltage of, e.g., 1.205V.
The conventional compensated linear voltage regulator (LDO) of FIG. 1 requires a relatively large external capacitor, Cext, typically in the micro-farad range to control the stability. In this case, the integrated circuit chip requires a pin to connect to the external capacitor Cext, which increases the board cost and area. In FIG. 1, an equivalent series resistance (ESR) is shown in series with the external capacitor, Cext. To circumvent the issue of having an extra pin on the chip and employing an external low ESR capacitor, a capacitor-less linear regulator is employed, but presents challenges for load stability and transient response.
Therefore, improved methods and systems that address some of the limitations described above are desired.

Method and apparatus for reducing power-up overstress of capacitor-less regulating circuits


The present invention uses a high signal to noise ratio method and apparatus to analyze a characteristic of a biological object, such as blood glucose level. The method and apparatus can also have surgical applications, such as coagulation or ablation of a pattern on a biological object.

Diabetes is a disease of the pancreas in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin or when the body does not respond properly to insulin ("insulin resistance"). There is no cure for diabetes and diabetics must generally manage the disease on a daily basis. One aspect of management includes injecting insulin, such as Lantus, multiple times a day or dispensing it continuously via a pump. Improper administration of insulin can lead to severe side effects including hyperglycemia in which blood glucose levels are too high, which can lead to damage to nerves, blood vessels, and other body organs. Improper administration can also lead to hypoglycemia, in which blood glucose levels are too low, which can lead to passing out and even coma in worst case scenarios. Accordingly, as the amount of insulin dispensed needs to be varied based on blood glucose levels, diabetics must frequently monitor their blood glucose levels.
Conventionally, home glucose monitoring is performed using a glucose blood meter, which yields results within a few minutes. In order to determine a blood glucose level, a person must first prick his or her finger with a small needle to collect a small amount of blood; the blood must then be placed on a test strip and inserted into the glucose test meter, which analyzes the blood for a blood glucose level. A diabetic can then adjust the amount of insulin to be dispensed accordingly.
A disadvantage of the conventional method of glucose monitoring is that it requires the drawing of blood, which can be painful and inconvenient. Accordingly, as glucose monitoring is extremely important for diabetics because of the risk of side effects, a new glucose monitoring system and method is needed that is non-invasive and pain free.

Apparatus and method for pattern delivery of radiation and biological characteristic analysis


An intelligent robot control method is provided for an intelligent robot. The method includes obtaining a first position at which the intelligent robot is currently located and a target position to be reached, and determining a movement path from the first position to the target position. The movement path has a particular roadblock. The method also includes transmitting a removal request when the intelligent robot moves from the first position to a second position, and a distance between the second position and a third position at which the particular roadblock is located and that is to be reached reaches a target distance. The removal request is used for requesting a removal instruction to be transmitted to the particular roadblock, and the removal instruction is used for, based on a roadblock type of the particular roadblock, instructing to remove the particular roadblock before the intelligent robot arrives.

Nowadays, more intelligent robots are used in real life to do some simple and repetitive work. For example, some intelligent robots used in a process of autonomous inspection to replace manual inspection, so as to improve inspection efficiency.
However, in a process of autonomous inspection, an intelligent robot often encounters some special roadblocks, such as an entrance guard or an elevator. To continue to complete the inspection, the intelligent robot requires the entrance guard to be removed or needs to enter the elevator to go to another floor. The intelligent robot usually passes through such special roadblocks in the following manners: (1) The intelligent robot is controlled, based on near field data communication, to pass through. For example, a near field data communications device is disposed at the entrance guard, and the entrance guard may be removed only after it is detected that the intelligent robot has reached a specified position, to enable the intelligent robot to pass through. (2) The intelligent robot is controlled, based on an operation performed by a mechanical arm, to pass through. For example, the entrance guard may be removed or the elevator may be started only after the mechanical arm accurately touches a corresponding button, to enable the intelligent robot to pass through.
However, when the intelligent robot passes through such special roadblocks, the intelligent robot further needs to be controlled to wait at a specified position for a period of time, until the intelligent robot reaches an accurate specified position, or an accurate button is touched. In other words, a control method provided in the related art has a problem of relatively low efficiency in controlling an intelligent robot.
The disclosed methods and systems are directed to solve one or more problems set forth above and other problems.

Intelligent robot control method, apparatus, and system, and storage medium

TENCENT TECHNOLOGY (SHENZHEN) COMPANY LIMITED


Provided is a channel estimation apparatus and method in a broadband wireless communications system using a smart antenna are provided. In the channel estimation apparatus, an FFT processor converts a received time-domain signal into a frequency-domain signal by FFT-processing the received time-domain signal. A channel acquirer estimates a first channel information for an SDMA user using a preamble signal allocated to the SDMA user in the frequency-domain signal. A channel tracker estimates a second channel information for the SDMA user using pilots in a data area allocated to the SDMA user in the frequency-domain signal. A channel estimator estimates a final channel information by weighting the first channel information and the second channel information according to a channel change rate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadband wireless communications system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for performing channel estimation using pilots and a preamble in a broadband wireless communications system supporting Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA).
2. Description of the Related Art
With the dawn of the wireless multimedia era, demand for high-speed wireless transmission of large amounts of data has rapidly increased. This increasing demand has become a driving force behind worldwide active research concerning high-speed wireless data transmission systems to provide Internet service using radio channels.
While 3rd Generation (3G) communications systems support up to 2 Mbps for stationary users, 4th Generation (4G) communication systems aim to provide 1 Gbps for stationary users or pedestrians within a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) environment and 100 Mbps for vehicles within a Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN) environment. However, since wireless high-speed data transmission using radio channels surfers from a high error rate due to multipath interference, a radio access technique suitable for radio channels is needed.
In order to reduce errors caused by the multipath interference of radio channels, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16d systems have been developed in which the physical channels of the WMAN system operate in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). IEEE 802.16d systems are defined in the IEEE 802.16d wireless communications standard, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. These IEEE 802.16d systems realize high-speed data transmission by sending physical channel signals on a plurality of subcarriers. However, IEEE 802.16d systems are only for fixed wireless connections.
The IEEE 802.16e wireless communications standard, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, is an amended variant of IEEE 802.16d and is expected to enable connections for mobile devices. IEEE 802.16e offers a standard mechanism to support an Adaptive Antenna System (AAS) mode and a non-AAS mode in one frame. The benefit of applying the AAA mode to systems is an increase in both cell capacity and cell coverage.
The AAS adaptively forms a beam pattern in accordance with a varying radio channel environment by continuously monitoring a cell area. Given one Mobile Station (MS) and no interference, the AAS creates an effective antenna pattern that tracks the movement of the MS, thereby adapting to the movement of the MS. The antenna pattern has the highest gain in the direction of the MS. With this AAS, SDMA can be implemented. As such, given N MSs, N beams of the same frequency band are steered in the directions of the individual MSs. Thereby, the MSs share the same time and frequency resources.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional SDMA cellular system. Referring to FIG. 1, a Base Station (BS) 101 in a smart antenna system forms different beams 102 and 103 for MSs at different locations. The beams 102 and 103 are formed in accordance with corresponding beam patterns in order to spatially divide the same frequency and time resources. To form the spatially divided downlink beams, the BS 101 needs uplink channel information. Thus, AAS preamble symbols are added on the downlink and the uplink to support the AAS mode in the IEEE 802.16e OFDMA system, as illustrated in FIG. 2.
FIG. 2 illustrates the structures of a downlink frame 201 and an uplink frame 202 in the conventional IEEE 802.16e OFDMA system.
Referring to FIG. 2, an AAS preamble is delivered at the start of downlink and uplink bursts. For downlink beamforming, the BS 101 performs channel estimation using the uplink AAS preamble and estimates a beam coefficient based on the estimated channel information. The BS 101 then forms a beam using the beam coefficient. Since spatial channels 102 and 103 resulting from the beamforming are divided in space, as shown in FIG. 1, they do not interfere with one another despite sharing the same frequency and time resources. Consequently, each spatial channel fully utilizes the frequency and time resources assigned by the system.
The uplink preamble is used in compliance with the physical layer standard of the IEEE 802.16e OFDMA system as follows.
According to the physical layer standard of the OFDMA system, AAS preambles assigned to SDMA users utilize the same Pseudo Noise (PN) code. In OFDM modulation of the PN code sequence, therefore, each SDMA user multiplies a specific user signature by the PN code sequence, for user identification. The user signature is given as
                    a        =                              1                          N                                                tile                                                        (                    bin                    )                                                                                _                                    size                                                              ×                      [                                                                                ⅇ                                          j                                                                                2                                                    π                                                                                f                                                                                (                              k                              )                                                                                m                                                                          N                                                                                tile                                                                                (                                bin                                )                                                                                _                                                            size                                                                                ⅇ                                          j                                                                                2                                                                                π                                                                                [                                                                                f                                                                                (                                    k                                    )                                                                                +                                1                                                            ]                                                                                m                                                                          N                                                                                tile                                                                                (                                bin                                )                                                                                _                                                            size                                                                                ⋮                                                                                ⅇ                                          j                                                                                2                                                                                π                                                                                [                                                                                f                                                                                (                                    k                                    )                                                                                +                                                                  N                                                                                tile                                                                                (                                        bin                                        )                                                                                _                                                                            size                                                                                -                                1                                                            ]                                                                                m                                                                          N                                                                                tile                                                                                (                                bin                                )                                                                                _                                                            size                                                                                ]                                              (        1        )            where Ntile(bin)—size denotes the number of tones per tile (or bin) (9 tones for an Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) bin and 4 tones for a Partial Usage SubCarrier (PUSC) tile) and f(k) denotes the first tone index of a kth tile (or bin) in the AAS preamble. m is a user index, representing cyclical time shifts for the SDMA user (e.g. 0, 1, 2, 3, . . . , Ntile(bin)—size−1). That is,
  ⅇ      j                      2                π                                                            f                                (            k            )                                  m                    N                              tile                                      (              bin              )                                                      _                        size                              denotes the phase rotation of a tone with the tone index f(k), determined by m.
The user signature expressed in Eq. (1) leads to a linear phase rotation of the PN code sequence for the user in the frequency domain. This is equivalent to cyclical time shifting at a predetermined interval in the time domain. For a PUSC or AMC channel with clustered tones, the user signature functions to assign an orthonormal kernel between SDMA users.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an uplink channel estimation apparatus in a BS in a conventional SDMA-OFDMA system. Because the channel estimation is performed in the same manner with respect to each antenna, the channel estimation for one antenna is shown and described by way of example.
Referring to FIG. 3, the BS downconverts a Radio Frequency (RF) signal received through an antenna 301 to a baseband signal and converts the baseband analog signal to a baseband digital signal.
A Cyclic Prefix (CP) remover 303 removes a CP from the baseband digital signal. A Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processor 305 converts the time-domain signal received from the CP remover 303 into a frequency-domain signal by using a N-point FFT.
An AAS preamble tone extractor 307 extracts an AAS preamble signal from the frequency-domain signal that corresponds to an area assigned to the SDMA user. A preamble code multiplier 309 removes a PN code multiplied by the tones of the preamble signal by
                              y          –                =                              [                                                                                y                      –                                        1                                                                                y                      –                                        2                                                                                ⋮                                                                                y                      –                                        n                                                                        ]                    =                      c            ·            y                                              (        2        )            where y denotes the FFT signal from the FFT processor 305, c denotes a PN code vector for the AAS preamble, and yn denotes an nth AMC bin (or PUSC tile) multiplied by the PN code vector. Here,
            y      _        n    =                    [                                            y              _                                                  (                              f                k                            )                                ,                                    y              _                                                  (                              f                                  k                  +                  1                                            )                                ,          …                                                    ,                                    y              _                                                  (                              f                                  k                  -                  1                  +                                      N                                                                  tile                                                                          (                          bin                          )                                                                                _                                                size                                                                                )                                      ]            T        .  That is, only the phase rotation value of the SDMA user remains by multiplying the FFT signal by the PN code vector of the AAS preamble.
The number of channel estimators 311 to 313 provided is the same as the number of AMC bins (or PUSC tiles). The channel estimators 311 to 313 calculate average channel estimates representative of their corresponding AMC bins (or PUSC tiles) by computing Eq. (3) using the output of the preamble code multiplier 309.
Channel estimation is carried out on a bin-by-bin basis (or on a tile-by-tile basis) byH(fn)=aH yn  (3)where H(fn) denotes a channel estimate representative of an nth bin (or tile), yn denotes the nth AMC bin (or PUSC tile) multiplied by the PN code vector according to Eq. (2), a denotes a unique orthonormal kernel between SDMA users described in Eq. (1), and aH denotes the Hermitian of a.
As described above, the general frequency-domain channel estimation is performed by cross-relation of orthonormal kernels between SDMA users as expressed in Eq. (1), Eq. (2) and Eq. (3) in the SDMA-OFDMA system. Thus, the channel estimate of each bin (or tile) is achieved. This channel estimation information is used when calculating a beam coefficient for the data area.
Meanwhile, if the channel conditions varies greatly over time, application of the channel information estimated by the preamble to data in a different time area degrades performance. For example, in the IEEE 802.16e OFDMA system which takes into account mobility, the variation of the channel condition increases with the mobility of the MS. Therefore, the performance degradation caused by application of the channel estimation estimated by the preamble to beamforming for a data area that is different in time, reduces the gain achieved by using the smart antenna system.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved apparatus and method with improved channel estimation performance that increases the gain of a smart antenna system.

Apparatus and method for channel estimation in an SDMA-OFDM system


A crusher comprises a crushing rotor being rotatable and having a crushing bit to crush target materials to be crushed, a feed conveyor for conveying the target materials toward the crushing rotor, and a pressing feeder unit including a pressing roller disposed above the feed conveyor and introducing the target materials on the feed conveyor toward the crushing rotor while pressing the target materials from above, and an anvil disposed at a position which is closer to the crushing rotor than a point where the pressing roller presses the target materials and which is outward of the crushing rotor in the radial direction. The fixed bit has a bumping surface, against which the target materials bump, disposed in an opposed relation to the rotating direction of the crushing bit, thereby crushing the target materials introduced toward the crushing rotor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a crusher capable of efficiently crushing target materials to be crushed.
2. Description of the Related Art
For the purposes of mainly promoting reuse of waste materials and reducing the volume thereof, crushers are employed to crush various kinds of materials to be crushed. Some of those crushers are used to crush primarily cut limbs and timbers from thinning, which are generated with land development, maintenance and other operations made in forests, branches generated by trimming trees cut in forests, and scrap woods generated with pulling-down of wooden houses, etc.
One known such crusher includes a feed conveyor for conveying target materials, which are loaded to be crushed, toward a crushing chamber, a pressing roller for pressing the target materials to be crushed from above, which are conveyed on the feed conveyor, a crushing bit for crushing the target materials introduced by cooperation of the feed conveyor and the pressing roller, and a screen (sieve member) for discharging the materials having been crushed outward of the crushing chamber while selecting the grain size of the crushed materials. Further, in one example of that type of crusher, the crushing bit smashes against the target materials to be crushed from below, which are introduced to the crushing chamber while being gripped by the feed conveyor and the pressing roller, thereby crushing the target materials (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,395).

Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.