Described are agrochemical compositions comprising alkoxylation products according to general formula (I)R1(CO)m—O—[R2O]nR3  (I)wherein R1 is a linear or branched, saturated or unsaturated, optionally hydroxy-functionalized hydrocarbyl radical containing 8 to 30 carbon atoms, R2 is an ethylene, propylene or butylene group or mixtures thereof, R3 is hydrogen or an acyl group containing 1 to 8 carbon atoms, m is 0 or 1, n is an integer between 3 and 100. When R3 is an acyl group, R2 is ethylene, propylene or mixtures thereof, and when R3 is hydrogen, R2 is ethylene, propylene, butylene or mixtures thereof provided that the terminal group represents a butylene oxide unit.

Biocides, and in particular pesticides such as fungicides, insecticides and herbicides, are important auxiliary agents for agriculture in order to protect crops and to increase their quality and harvest yield. Depending on the various and often very specific needs, a magnitude of actives exists which shows very different chemical structures and behaviours. Nevertheless, it is well known from the state of the art that it remains difficult to prepare solid or even liquid compositions of these actives which are exhibiting a satisfying stability, especially if stored at very low or elevated temperatures over a longer period. In addition to storage stability and the ability to prepare stable tank mixes, the influence of additives and adjuvants on bio-performance is of elevated importance. Their choice is governed by many additional parameters, such as ease to manufacture, a low toxicological and ecotoxicological profile, their compatibility such formulations such as emulsifiable concentrates (EC), oil in water emulsions (EW), suspo-emulsions (SE) and concentrated suspensions in water (SC) or in oil (OD)
In order to meet requirements outlined above one can find various additives in the market. For example international application WO 99/027782 A1 (Henkel) claims adjuvants which are obtained from adducts of up to 10 ethylene oxide (EO) and/or propylene oxide (PO) units, end capped by C1 to C12 alkyl radicals. Syngenta's patent EP 1427280 B1 refers to Oleyl alkoxylates comprising typically about 20 moles EO or PO, preferably end-capped by butyl groups. The use of butyl chloride for capping the alkoxylate, however, is disadvantageous since the formation of butene as a side-reaction requires an excess of the butyl chloride. For application and environmental reasons, this is an undesired effect.
The problem underlying the present invention has been to overcome the disadvantages of the state of the art. In particular it has been the object to provide new additives for agricultural compositions fulfilling a complex profile of application requirements: adjuvant properties in order to support and increase the performance of the biocides within the compositions, high stability of the compositions also over longer storage times and different storage temperatures, compatibility with a wide range of biocides, and low foaming behavior.


The present invention provides stable liquid formulations of antibodies suitable for parenteral administration. Also, provided are aqueous solutions which have high concentrations of therapeutical antibodies which may be used to produce therapeutical liquid formulations. The present invention also relates to uses, such as medical uses, of the stable liquid formulations and processes for the production of the stable liquid formulations.

Stable liquid formulations of antibodies are useful for parenteral administration, such as intravenous (i.v.), intramuscular (i.m.) or subcutaneous (s.c.) administration. Such formulations must fulfill two key requirements: 1) the required drug concentration must be achieved, and, 2) the drug must be chemically and physically stable in order to have a sufficient shelf-life.
For a protein to remain biologically active, a formulation must preserve intact the Conformational integrity and at the same time the protein's multiple functional groups must be protected from degradation. Degradation pathways for proteins can involve chemical instability or physical instability. For example, chemical instability can result from deamidation, hydrolysis oxidation, beta-elimination or disulfide exchange, while physical instability can result from denaturation, aggregation, precipitation or adsorption, for example. Aggregation is one of the most common protein degradation pathways.
Most current stable formulations of antibodies are not liquid formulations. For example, WO97/04801 describes a stable lyophilized formulation of anti-IgE antibodies. The stability of proteins in aqueous formulations is of general importance to the pharmaceutical industry. The problem has been addressed by drying the protein, for example, by the method of freeze-drying. For a patient who needs daily injections of an antibody, it is of importance that the product is easy to handle, to dose and inject. Because a dried antibody formulation is then distributed and stored in dried form, the patient or medical professional has to reconstitute the dried powder in a solvent before use, which is an inconvenience for the patient.
Thus, it is advantageous to provide a liquid antibody formulation for which reconstitution before use is not required.
Furthermore, the freeze-drying process is a costly and time consuming process, and it would be advantageous if this step could be avoided when preparing a commercial antibody formulation.
It would also be advantage for the manufacture and formulation of a therapeutical product if the final pharmaceutical solution contained only few or no additives.
Thus, there is a demand on the market for stable, liquid, injectable antibody formulations; and, in particular, for highly concentrated stable, liquid, injectable antibody formulations.
There is also a need for stable aqueous solutions comprising a high concentration of antibody protein that can be used as a starting material or intermediate in process to obtain stable liquid antibody formulations of the invention.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


An apparatus comprising a mobile access gateway (MAG) configured to register an Internet Protocol (IP) address for a mobile node (MN) with a local mobility anchor (LMA) to allow proxy mobile IP version 6 (PMIPv6) mobility management for the MN, wherein the MAG communicates a query message that comprises a PMIPv6 service name to a Domain Name Service (DNS) and obtains the IP address of the LMA from the DNS. Also disclosed is a network component comprising at least one processor coupled to a memory and configured to send a DNS query for a plurality of Service Resource Records (SRV RRs), and receive a DNS reply that comprises a plurality of Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) for a plurality of LMAs, wherein the DNS query comprises a Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol version 6 (PMIPv6) service name, a protocol name, and a domain name.

Internet Protocol (IP) version six (IPv6) is being introduced for various access technologies such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Fiber to the Home (FTTH) over Ethernet based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.3 standard, Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) based on the IEEE 802.11 standard, and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) based on the IEEE 802.16 standard. Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) is a protocol that allows a mobile node (MN), such as a mobile device, to handle its mobility management. As such, the MN may communicate, e.g. via an access router (AR), with a MIPv6 home agent (HA) for the MN. Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) is a protocol that allows a MN to avoid handling its own mobility management. In PMIPv6, the mobility management of the MN can be handled by a mobile access gateway (MAG) that communicates with a PMIPv6 Local Mobility Anchor (LMA) on behalf of the MN in the network. In some access networks, the LMA can act as a MIPv6 HA for some of the MNs and as a PMIPv6 LMA for other MNs to handle the mobility management of the MNs in the network.

System and apparatus for local mobility anchor discovery by service name using domain name service


A memory device includes a cell array including a plurality of pages and a control logic configured to control program and read operations of the cell array. The control logic controls the program and read operations to store first through N-th codewords in a first page among the pages and program a page parity corresponding in common to the first through N-th codewords to the first page in response to a program command for a page unit and to selectively read the first codeword among the first through N-th codewords in response to a read command for a sub-page unit, where N is an integer of at least 2. The first codeword includes first sub-page data and a first sub-parity corresponding thereto, and the first sub-parity includes information for correcting an error in the first sub-page data through error correction code (ECC) decoding independently performed on each codeword.

Inventive concepts relate to a memory device, and more particularly, to a memory device storing a parity related to error correction and/or a memory system including the same.
As memory devices, non-volatile memory devices include a plurality of memory cells storing data in a non-volatile memory. As an example of a non-volatile memory device, a flash memory device may be used in at least one of a cellular phone, a digital camera, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing system, a stationary computing system, and other devices.
With the development of semiconductor manufacturing technology, the high integration density and high capacity of memory devices continue to be in progress. As the scale of storage devices decreases with the high integration density of memory devices, an error rate of data stored in memory devices is increasing. An error correction code (ECC) method is used for data error correction, but space storing a parity to increase error performance and/or a time taken for error correction increases.

Memory device storing parity and memory system including the same


An electrical connector for electrically connecting at least two electrical conductors featuring first and second electrical cables. The connector features at least one first conductor plate allocated to the first cable and at least one second conductor plate allocated to the second cable. Each conductor plate features in total a number of conducting structures with first contact sections which corresponds to at least the number of the conductors for electrical contacting of the allocated conductors and also second contact sections. Furthermore, the connector features a number of coupling elements corresponding to the number of conductors which are designed for electrically contacting the second contact sections of the respective conductor plate allocated to the respective conductor by bridging of a spatial gap between the first and second conductor plate.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
For data cables and similar applications in motor vehicles, twisted cable pairs are frequently used, in general to improve the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), that is, for example, to improve the crosstalk behavior of the data cable. Cables of this kind, in particular unshielded twisted pairs (UTP), are installed in vehicles, inter alia for ethernet applications and for differential bus systems, such as the CAN bus or FlexRay, for instance. To obtain the best possible electrical transmission properties of the cable, it is twisted along the greatest possible length (twisted length) and only at the end of the cable is there a comparatively short length of a few centimeters where the cables are untwisted, that is, not twisted (untwisted length). The electrical transmission properties of the data cable are improved, in particular with regard to differential signals in the vehicle, with a greater twisted length and/or a shorter untwisted length, respectively.
However, if twisted cables are equipped with plug connector housings or similar features, then frequently the issue arises that with very short untwisted lengths, the proper orientation of the contact parts to the orientation of the housing chambers is not assured, so that the cable ends equipped with electrical contact parts can hardly be introduced into the plug connector housing, if at all. The insertion of the contact parts into the plug connector housing in this case would only be possible if the cable ends are again partially untwisted.
In this regard it is known from DE 10 2012 213 391 A1 that in particular with regard to automotive ethernet applications, an excessive untwisted length means that the system-relevant electrical properties of the transmission medium cannot be maintained.
To alleviate this issue, the referenced prior art proposes that an electrical plug contact be provided in the transition region between a twisted and an untwisted portion of a cable and an electrical plug contact disposed at the cable ends. The plug contacts are attached to a rotating and displaceable rotary tool which is then rotated and displaced in order then to twist the as yet untwisted part of the cable. Next, the cable ends and/or the plug contacts are gripped by a gripping element such that the cable ends and/or the plug contacts remain unchanged in their proper alignment even after removal of the rotary tool. Even though in this case a correct alignment of the cable ends and/or plug contacts is attained, the manufacture of this kind of cable is made more complicated due to the tools required and the gripper. In addition, the integration of the proposed tool into existing automatic placement machines is relatively complicated.
In addition, a plug connector is known from U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0155670, for example, in which the cable ends of cables are first inserted with a short untwisted length into a first housing, and this is then inserted into the actual plug connector housing. The disadvantage here is that for automated assembly of this configuration, the cable ends have to be inserted repeatedly into housings.

Electrical connector and electrical cable arrangement connected thereto


The present disclosure relates to a communication technique for converging a 5G communication system, which is provided to support a higher data transmission rate beyond a 4G system with an IoT technology, and a system therefor. The present disclosure may be applied to an intelligent service (for example, smart home, smart building, smart city, smart car or connected car, healthcare, digital education, retail business, security and safety-related service, etc.) on the basis of a 5G communication technology and an IoT-related technology. The present disclosure relates to an efficient method and device for uplink communication in a narrow band system which provides an IoT service in a band for a broadband system, and a method for uplink communication in a narrow band system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure comprises the steps of: receiving, by a terminal, control information associated with uplink transmission of symbols from a base station; and performing, by the terminal, the uplink transmission using symbols except a second symbol overlapping with a first symbol for transmission of an uplink reference signal in a broadband system, on the basis of the control information.

To satisfy demands for wireless data traffic having increased since commercialization of 4th-generation (4G) communication systems, efforts have been made to develop improved 5th-generation (5G) communication systems or pre-5G communication systems. For this reason, the 5G communication system or the pre-5G communication system is also called a beyond-4G-network communication system or a post-Long-Term Evolution (LTE) system.
To achieve a high data rate, implementation of the 5G communication system in an ultra-high frequency (mmWave) band (e.g., a 60 GHz band) is under consideration. In the 5G communication system, beamforming, massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO), full dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), an array antenna, analog beamforming, and large-scale antenna technologies have been discussed to alleviate a propagation path loss and to increase a propagation distance in the ultra-high frequency band.
For system network improvement, in the 5G communication system, techniques such as an evolved small cell, an advanced small cell, a cloud radio access network (RAN), an ultra-dense network, a device to device (D2D) communication, a wireless backhaul, a moving network, cooperative communication, coordinated multi-points (CoMPs), and interference cancellation have been developed.
In the 5G system, advanced coding modulation (ACM) schemes including hybrid frequency-shift keying (FSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) modulation (FQAM) and sliding window superposition coding (SWSC), and advanced access schemes including filter bank multi carrier (FBMC), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and sparse code multiple access (SCMA) have been developed.
Internet, which is a human-oriented connectivity network where humans generate and consume information, is now evolving to the Internet of Things (IoT) where distributed entities, such as things, exchange and process information. The Internet of Everything (IoE) has also emerged, which is a combination of the IoT technology and the Big Data processing technology through connection with a cloud server.
As technology elements, such as sensing technology, wired/wireless communication and network infrastructure, service interface technology, and security technology, have been demanded for IoT implementation, a sensor network, a Machine to Machine (M2M), Machine Type Communication (MTC), and so forth have been recently researched for connection between things.
Such an IoT environment may provide intelligent Internet technology (IT) services that create a new value to human life by collecting and analyzing data generated among connected things. IoT may be applied to a variety of fields including smart home, smart building, smart city, smart car or connected cars, smart grid, health care, smart appliances, advanced medical services, and so forth through convergence and combination between existing IT and various industries.
With a rising demand for data in a wireless communication system, the wireless communication system has moved from a code division multiple access (CDMA) scheme representing 3G mobile communication to an orthogonal frequency multiple access (OFDMA) scheme to transmit more data faster in 4G communication. The OFDMA scheme transmits data by using a plurality of orthogonal frequency components, thereby transmitting more data faster than in the 3G wireless communication scheme, the CDMA scheme. The OFDMA scheme has been employed in various wireless communication systems such as Wireless Broadband (Wibro), etc., as well as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) mobile communication systems.
However, as requirements for various service scenarios have been recently defined, an interest in techniques satisfying requirements in a specific scenario is increasing. Machine type communication (MCT) may be an example. In this regard, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) GSM EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN) Cellular IoT (CIoT) has standardized a narrow-band communication system operating in a 200-kHz band, and the CIoT technology has been designed mainly considering an empty (clean-slate or stand-alone) band for narrow-band communication. Thus, there are discussions for reforming a low-utilization GSM band for narrow-band techniques by using the CIoT technology. However, since the CIoT technology is designed originally for the empty band as mentioned above, several limitations may exist in operations, when considering interworking between CIoT and LTE in a band of a legacy LTE system.
Meanwhile, the 3GPP has standardized a system using only six resource blocks (RBs) in the name of Enhanced MTC (eMTC, hereinafter, referred to as 'MTC'). The MTC technology is an IoT technology suggested by the 3GPP. The MTC technology has been designed based on an operation of MTC with legacy LTE in a band of an LTE system. However, a minimum resource unit allocable to an MTC terminal is 1 RB, and thus there is a limitation regarding whether requirements may be satisfied in situations where a plurality of MTC terminals exist.

Method and device for communication in narrow band system


Computer-implemented methods, software, and computer systems for authenticating a user. Authentication includes presenting on a first user interface a challenge set of cognitive information elements (400) to the user that comprises a cognitive challenge that has a reference solution based on an intersection of the challenge set of cognitive information elements and a secret set of cognitive information elements. Biometric features of the user can be extracted from a response made by the user to the cognitive challenge on a second user interface, and the user can be authenticated if the biometric feature extracted from the response matches a reference biometric feature.

User authentication plays an increasingly important role in a digital era since more and more transactions are being and will be conducted online without physical presence of a user at a transaction location. It should be noted that the term "authentication" in the present disclosure refers to a technical mechanism that uses a technical means to allow a legitimate user to access and prevents an illegitimate user from accessing a service that should only be accessed by the legitimate user. The technical means used in the authentication may take different forms.
For example, instead of walking into a branch of a bank in person, a user may create an account in a database operated by the bank, and associate a password with the account. The account is typically identified by an account name. By providing the account name and the password via a computer at home, the user invokes a password check process using network and digital technologies adopted by the bank. Once the user is authenticated by the password check process, the user is able to transact using the account, for example, making a payment, transferring money to another account held by another user, etc. In addition to banking services, user authentication may be required in document access services. For example, if a user attempts to access a document stored at a secure document server. The secure document server or a third-party security service provider may need to check if the user has the right to access the document. If the user has the right to access the document, the user is authenticated to access the document. Otherwise, the secure document server rejects the user by not allowing the access to the document.
The convenience makes our life easier, however, on the other hand, also increases risk. Particularly, an attacker or a hacker may be able to use hacking technologies to track the account name and the password set by the user when the user is typing the account name and the password on a computer at home. The attacker can even obtain the account name and the password by simply observing the user if the user is logging into the account using a computer installed at a public place.
Different authentication mechanisms have been developed to enhance online security, for example, a cognitive challenge mechanism and a biometric feature mechanism. However, in order to achieve a robust security level, the cognitive challenge mechanism has to be repeated many times with different cognitive challenges when a user logs in the account. This makes the cognitive challenge mechanism inefficient and not user-friendly. On the other hand, the biometric feature mechanism takes advantage of unique biometric features (for example, unique handwriting habits, gestures, etc.) of a user to reduce the number of repetitions, however, this mechanism is vulnerable to noise and imitations due to lack of randomness. This makes the biometric feature mechanism less reliable, particularly, due to the high Equal Error Rate (EER).
Throughout this specification the word "comprise", or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising", will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.
Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present disclosure is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present disclosure as it existed before the priority date of each claim of this application.


A voltage controlled oscillator is provided. The oscillator has an oscillator amplifier core formed of a complementary pair of FETs connected with their gates in common and connected to share a bias current. An inductance is connected between the common gates and the common drains of the FETs. The inductance may be an inductor element or an inductance of a physical structure of the circuit, such as a bond wire. The voltage controlled oscillator includes a variable capacitor stage connected at the input of the oscillator amplifier stage and a buffer amplifier stage connected at the output of the oscillator amplifier stage. The buffer amplifier of one embodiment includes a pair of complementary FETs having common gates connected to the common drains of the FETs of the oscillator amplifier stage. The buffer amplifier stage also include an inductor and a capacitor connected between common drains of the buffer amplifier FETs and the output.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electrical oscillator circuit and, in particular, to a voltage-controlled oscillator with complementary transistors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless radio communications systems transmit voice and other data between fixed transceivers and mobile radio communications terminals, or between two mobile terminals, via the propagation of radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic waves. It is essential to the functionality of such wireless communication systems that a stable and accurate generation of oscillating electrical signals be provided. The oscillating signals are supplied by oscillators, such as voltage controlled oscillators, connected in the communications system circuitry. Low phase noise oscillators are important components in wireless communication systems, particularly since phase noise critically affects the sensitivity of wireless transceivers. With advancements in sub-micron CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) technology, CMOS technology has become widely used for low cost and highly integrated RFICs (Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits).
Recently, single-chip transceivers that integrate both digital and RF circuits onto one chip using CMOS technology have been introduced. Among the building blocks in single-chip RFICs, design and implementation of a fully integrated low noise CMOS VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) is known as a challenging circuit block because of the in-born limitations of silicon CMOS process technology. Most of the previously reported publications about CMOS VCOs describe the use of negative-Gm differential topology. In these publications, in order to optimize the phase noise performance, researchers stress the importance of layout issues such as active and passive device design, and design of the floor plan of the layout to reduce the side effects of the parasitic characteristics that are inherent in CMOS technology. See the publications by Thomas H. Lee, "The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits", Cambridge University Press, 1998; Chin-Ming Hung, Brian A. Floyd, Namkyu Park, and Kenneth K. O, "Fully Integrated 5.35 GHz CMOS VCOs and Prescalers," IEEE Trans; and Donhee Ham and Ali Hajimiri, "Concepts and Methods in Optimization of Integrated LC VCOs," IEEE ISSCC. Vol. 36, No. 6, June 2001.
In negative-Gm based sub-micron CMOS differential VCOs, the complementary structure shows a better performance than an NMOS-only (Negative-channel Metal Oxide Semiconductor) structure as result of the reduced hot carrier effect, better up/down swing symmetry, and higher transconductance of the constituting transistors.
Thus, by using low parasitic, simple, and high transconductance oscillator topology, there exists greater potential in the design of a low noise oscillator for use at high frequencies or with low power. Traditionally, a Colpitts oscillator, which has a simple oscillator core, has been the most favored topology for low phase noise. See the publication by Lawrence E. Larson, "Integrated Circuit Technology Options for RFICs-Present Status and Future Directions," IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, Vol. 3, No. 3, March 1998. However, since the conventional Colpitts oscillator needs additional circuit elements for bias and buffer interfaces, its oscillation performances may be degraded by the parasitic effects in the circuit at high frequencies.
Due to the large number of passive and active components employed in conventional voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), which incur various parasitic effects, it used to be preferable to implement the circuitry in printed circuit boards with passive and active components mixed together rather than to integrate the circuit in silicon. However, the printed circuit board implementation causes high phase noise, resulting in serious problems in wireless communication, and occupies a large area that runs counter to the miniaturization trend of current wireless mobile stations and communication systems.
In addition to their use in wireless telecommunications, voltage controlled oscillators are used in many other types of devices, from computer mice, audio systems, telephones, computers, MP3 players, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) devices to devices operating under the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), Bluetooth, WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network), and Zigbee standards.
In a typical wireless telephone or telecommunications device, a voltage controlled oscillator is provided as the local oscillator (LO) in the circuit and is connected to mixers in both the transmission and reception signal paths to provide the carrier signal for frequency synthesizing. If the LO (Local Oscillator) output contains phase noise, both the down-converted and up-converted signals are corrupted. Phase noise can be defined as random timing fluctuations in an oscillator period. Phase noise causes the ideal signal to be spread in the frequency spectrum, which results in frequency instability in the oscillator. Phase noise is generally specified in dBc/Hz at a given offset frequency from the particular carrier frequency. Therefore, phase noise can be found by measuring the ratio of the power spectral density (in a 1-Hz bandwidth) at a given offset frequency to the total power at the carrier frequency.
A typical voltage controlled oscillator has three functional portions of the circuit, namely a tank stage for selecting the oscillation frequency, an oscillation amplifier stage for amplifying the oscillation frequency signal selected by a tank stage, and a buffer amplifier stage for buffering and amplifying the final output signal. Many of the components in the traditional oscillator circuit have significant parasitic characteristics or parameters particularly at radio frequencies, resulting in poor performance of the circuit in a wireless communications system.
Traditionally, the Colpitts oscillator, which has a simple oscillator core, has been a favored topology for a low phase noise oscillator. However, since the conventional Colpitt oscillator needs additional circuit elements over and above those required for the oscillator core for bias and buffer interfaces, the oscillation performance of the Colpitts oscillator in practice may be degraded by the parasitic characteristics of these additional circuit elements at high frequencies. FIG. 1 shows the previous single-ended VCO implementation. The conventional VCO consists of a tank circuit 4 for selecting the oscillation frequency, an oscillation amplifier 2 for amplifying the selected oscillation frequency signal selected by the tank circuit 4, and a buffer amplifier 3 for buffering and amplifying the final output signal. In particular, the tank circuit 4 has an input for receiving a control voltage Vc. The control voltage is filtered by a capacitor C1 and is provided to an inductor L1 and a diode D1. Capacitors C2 and C3 are connected to an inductor L2 which then provides the frequency signal through capacitor C4. In the oscillator amplifier 2, the frequency signal is amplified by a transistor Q1 that has bias and buffer elements resistor R1 and resistor R2 and capacitors C5 and C6. The buffer amplifier 3 also has a transistor Q2 as well as a number of further bias and buffer elements resistors R3 and R4, capacitors C7, C8, C9, C10 and C11, and an inductor L3. The frequency signal is provided at the output of the voltage controlled amplifier at P0.

Complementary voltage controlled oscillator


A golf practice apparatus (10) which automatically dispenses and tees golf balls (19) is disclosed herein. Depressing a foot pedal (41) coupled to a main shaft (42) actuates a reciprocating ball dispenser (50) which dispenses a single golf ball (19) to be teed upon a ball support (102). Releasing the foot pedal (41) causes an air cylinder (111) to raise the ball support (102) and teed golf ball (19) into a position for driving. The golf practice apparatus (10) of the present invention is characterized by its simplicity of function and ability to be transported by the average user.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to golf practice equipment generally, and more particularly to a ball dispensing and teeing apparatus which is manually operated by the user.
2. Description of the Background Art
Various golf practicing and teeing devices have been designed in the past, some of which were actuated by human-power alone. However, these devices were generally complex, cumbersome designs, which employed a multitude of moving parts to perform the function of teeing a golf ball for practice. These past designs were typically plagued by wear caused from friction among the multitude of moving parts, which resulted in frequent breakdowns and an increased necessity for maintenance.
For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,657 issued to Bussiere on Jun. 11, 1991, discloses a golf practice apparatus which is actuated by human-power means. Depression of a foot pedal by the user moves an "L" shaped shaft, one end of the "L" being connected to a tee mechanism, and the other end of the "L" being connected to a second shaft extending to a ratchet-operated ball dispensing means. The ratchet-operated ball dispensing means consists of a ball hopper with a rotating plate having numerous holes. Rotation of the plate is caused by a ratchet engaging numerous cogs in a gear mechanism, whereby when the ratchet is actuated, the plate rotates. Each time the pedal is pushed, the plate rotates, thereby allowing a single ball to be released through holes in the plate. This golf practice apparatus is reset by a system which includes a gas shock and a retracting spring.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,602,789 issued to Chung on Jul. 29, 1986, discloses a human-powered golf practice apparatus, wherein depression of a foot pedal a first time simultaneously moves three separate levers, which simultaneously causes a ball elevator to lower, four balls to be loaded onto the elevator, and a "ball raising" device to be lowered. Releasing the foot pedal causes a resiliently biased damping device to move two of the three levers, thereby simultaneously raising the ball elevator and releasing four balls onto a feed guide track. The foot pedal is then depressed a second time, simultaneously raising the ball raising device, and thereby releasing a ball and lowering a tee. When the foot pedal is released a second time, the ball elevator returns to its lower position, the tee is raised to a driving position, with a ball in place, and the ball elevator returns to the raised position, releasing more balls to the feed guide track. The ball raising device distributes one ball at a time by an elaborate mechanism which lowers and accepts a single ball from a ball tube. The ball raising device then raises and, subsequently, drops the ball onto the tee. This golf practice apparatus is reset with a biased damping device and a spring.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,659,081 issued to Cook on Apr. 21, 1987, discloses a human-powered golf practice apparatus wherein pushing a foot pedal depresses an air bellows which is connected to a second air bellows having a tee positioned on top. As the first bellows is depressed, the second bellows inflates, lifting the tee into a driving position.
In addition to human-powered golf practice apparatuses, there have been a myriad of golf practice devices driven by a variety of means other than by human-power. U.S. pat. No. 5,133,557 issued to Sugimoto on Jul. 28, 1992, discloses a golf practice apparatus with a teeing device operated by a drive mechanism dependent upon a system of hanging weights. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,661 issued to Jorgensen on Jul. 21, 1992, U.S. Pat. No. 5,096,200 issued to Komori et al. on Mar. 17, 1992, U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,401 issued to Fehrenbach et al. on Jan. 7, 1992, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,815,744 issued to Diamandis on Mar. 28, 1989, all disclose golf practice apparatuses which depend upon non-human power sources for operation, many of which employ a motor-driven means as a source of power.
Many of the foregoing patents disclose golf practice devices which, although actuated by human-power means, employ complex mechanical systems having a multitude of moving parts for performing the function of teeing golf balls for practice. Therefore, there is a need for a human-powered golf practice apparatus which is operable using a minimal number of moving parts and is therefore less prone to breakdown and requires less maintenance. The present invention disclosed herein has fewer moving parts than previous golf practice apparatuses, and therefore performs the function of teeing a golf ball in a more efficient manner with a lower potential for breakdown and a lessened maintenance requirement.
The foregoing patents reflect the state of the art of which the applicant is aware and are tendered with the view toward discharging applicant's acknowledged duty of candor in disclosing information which may be pertinent in the examination of this application. It is respectfully stipulated, however, that none of these patents teach or render obvious, singly or when considered in combination, applicant's claimed invention.


A neuromorphic compiler includes a placement module to provide analytic placement of neurons in a neural network description. The analytic placement is to produce placed neurons. The neuromorphic compiler further includes a smoothing module to perform diffusion-based smoothing of the placed neurons; a legalization module to adjust locations of the placed neurons to correspond to legal locations of neuromorphic neurons within a neural fabric; and a simulated annealing module to refine locations of the placed neurons within the neural fabric using simulated annealing following location adjustment by the legalization module. The neural fabric is to implement a synaptic time-multiplexed (STM) neuromorphic network.

1. Technical Field
The invention relates to analog circuits, systems and related signal processing. In particular, the invention relates to elements and processing used in synapses of biologically inspired neuromorphic circuits and systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Complex, real-time and near real-time processing and control applications are becoming more commonplace and important. Examples include, but are not limited to, real-time image processing, as well as processing data, from a large array of sensors (e.g., a focal plane array of optical sensors) that may involve simultaneous processing of multiple, parallel channels from the sensor array. Such real-time processing often presents significant design challenges including, but not limited to, providing implementations that have sufficient processing power and at the same time exhibit reasonable energy efficiency. Neuromorphic circuits and related circuit topologies may offer a solution to some of these significant obstacles associated with the design and implementation of real-time processing and control.
Neuromorphic circuits are electronic circuits that mimic the operation of cell populations within a nervous system and as such, may offer a number of advantages for robust signal processing in support of various real-time control and sensor processing applications. In particular, neuromorphic circuits may facilitate robust signal processing in a manner that mimics certain populations of neural cells including, but not limited to, populations of neural cells found in the brain of an animal, for example. As an animal's brain is generally adept at processing and interpreting a barrage of signals received from an animal's environment in a robust and energy efficient manner, so too are various neuromorphic circuits that mimic brain-like functions. Specifically, the neuromorphic circuit may perform various brain-like functions in a manner substantially similar to, or at least modeled on, its biological counterpart. However, the challenge remains to develop practical implementations of neuromorphic circuits and more particularly, low-power integrated circuit implementations thereof, that can be applied to real-time control and processing systems.


The invention is related to a method for improving handover in reception and transmission in a digital cellular mobile communication system including base stations and mobile stations, in which mobile station receives from a base station a handover command in the middle of speech reception or transmission on a first reception or transmission channel, whereby in the handover, the reception/transmission is changed to a second reception or transmission channel. Particularly the invention is related to mobile communication systems based on time division multiple access, in which transmission and reception occur in bursts in separate time slots. In the method according to the invention, speech is sampled, or, in transmission, it is A/D converted (32), and in reception, it is D/A converted (22) during the handover and stored in memory, e.g. in buffers, and taken into use in reception during the handover by D/A converting (24) it for a loudspeaker, and in transmission, by transmitting (34) it immediately after the handover. This method shortens the silent period in the handover.

The present invention is related to a method for improving handover in reception and transmission in a digital cellular mobile communication system, which includes base stations and mobile stations, in which a mobile station receives from a base station a handover command during the reception or transmission of speech on a first reception or transmission channel, whereby in the handover the reception/transmission is changed to a second reception/transmission channel. Particularly the invention is related to mobile systems based on time division multiple access, in which transmission and reception occur in bursts in separate time slots, and it is intended to be used in a mobile station.
Mobile systems in use today are mainly cellular systems, in which the system network comprises adjacent cells C, which all include a base station BS. Each of the cells thus comprises the coverage area of one base station. In addition, the cellular system also includes mobile stations MS and mobile telephone exchanges MSC which monitor several cells C and the traffic and operation of the system. The structure of the cellular system is depicted in FIG. 1.
To illustrate the invention and its background the operation of a cellular system and a mobile station will be described below using as an example the digital US TDMA mobile system based on time division multiple access and used in the United States. The system is described with reference to FIGS. 2a, 2b, 3, 4a and 4b, of which FIGS. 2a and 2b show the structure of the transmission and reception frames used in the system, FIG. 3 is a generalized block diagram of a digital mobile phone, and FIGS. 4a and 4b show the structure of time slots used in the US TDMA system.
In a digital system, information is processed using speech encoding and channel encoding. In a fixed digital telephone network, speech is transmitted as a digital signal which is PCM-coded (PCM =Pulse Code Modulation) to 64 kbit/s transmission rate. To transmit information at this speed in the radio network would require a broad channel bandwidth, so to fit the information in a narrow 30 kHz channel, the 64 kbit/s transmission rate is slowed down by means of speech encoding to 7950 bit/s.
In a digital mobile phone according to FIG. 3, transmission and reception occur as follows. In the first stage of the transmission sequence, analog speech is digitized 1 and encoded 2. Sampling at, say, 64 kbit/s is performed with an A/D converter 1, which may also be called a PCM-speech encoder 1, and the samples are segmented into 20-ms speech frames comprising 1280 bits (64,000 bit/s * 20 ms=1280 bit). 20 ms of analog speech is sampled with the PCM-speech encoder I using a kind of buffer into which it is collected one 20-ms speech frame at a time. When a 20-ms speech frame has been collected, it is taken to a speech encoder 2 which removes the recurrence in the speech signal waveform and characteristics which are not essential for the intelligibility of the signal. The input signal to the speech encoder 2 is updated at 20-ms intervals. Various known algorithms, e.g. VSELP (Vector Sum Excited Linear Predictive) coding, can be used for speech encoding 2. The encoding operations are carried out frame by frame. From the speech encoder 2 the bits are taken to the output at a transmission rate of 7950 bit/s, so 20 ms of speech at the speech encoder output comprises 159 bits (7950 bit/s * 20 ms=159 bit).
On the transmission path, noise is added to the signal and it becomes distorted. With channel encoding, both the speech and the signalling information are protected against disturbances on the radio channel. After the speech encoding 2, channel encoding 3 is performed in two stages, whereby first some of the 159 bits (12 most significant bits) are protected with block code 3a (=CRC, Cyclic Redundancy Check) and then these and the next significant bits are further protected with convolution code 3b (1/2 -rate convolution coding), and some of the bits are taken unprotected. Error correction protecting against random errors is based on comparing redundant bits produced by the convolution codec 3b. The half-rate convolution coding doubles the number of bits, thereby increasing the redundancy of the speech frame. Of the speech information only certain bits are convolution coded 3b to minimize the bandwidth requirement. To facilitate error detection, a CRC generator 3a produces parity bits from the twelve most significant bits by dividing by a certain polynomial formula. The remainder bits constitute the CRC parity bits. If dividing the received bits by the same polynomial formula as in the transmission does not result in parity bits identical with the received parity bits, then the receiver (channel decoder 15 and control unit 19) will know that an error has occurred in the information. When an error is detected, the information frame is corrected or rejected. As a result of codings 2, 3a, 3b, one frame comprises 260 bits.
As shown in FIG. 3, signalling and logic messages come directly from the control unit 19, which controls the blocks of the telephone, to the block coding block 3a and, therefore, these data messages are naturally not speech encoded 2. Similarly, signalling and logic messages received in the reception, such as the so-called call paging messages sent to a mobile station by a base station, are taken from the channel decoding block 15 to the control unit 19.
So, all in all it is sent 260 bits per one 20-ms speech frame. Deep fadings on the radio path may distort several bits in one burst and result in the rejection of the whole frame. The effect of burst errors is diminished by interleaving 5. Thus, the 260 bits of a frame are interleaved, thereby spreading the data stream (message) into several time slots. Transmission errors usually occur as error bursts, and inter-leaving aims to spread them evenly across the transmitted data, thereby optimizing the channel decoding.
A burst to be transmitted, shown in FIG. 4a, is generated 6 by adding to the inter-leaved data a training sequence, tail bits and guard time. Advantageously, the burst generation block 6 includes a buffer register into which the transmission burst is collected before transmission.
In the US TDMA system used in the United States, a digital traffic channel implemented with technology based on time division multiple access (TDMA) is defined as a time slot of a radio frequency channel. The radio frequency channel can be divided into either three full-rate or six half-rate digital traffic channels (time slots). The length of a TDMA frame divided into six time slots is 40 ms, and the length of each time slot is 6.67 ms. A time slot comprises 162 symbols, and each symbol comprises two bits, so there are 324 bits altogether in a time slot, of which 260 bits contain the data. On a full-rate channel a mobile phone uses for both the transmission TX and reception RX two time slots in a frame (40 ms), as shown in FIG. 2a. On a half-rate channel a mobile phone uses only one time slot in a TDMA frame for the transmission TX and one time slot for the reception RX, as shown in FIG. 2b. The transmission time slot TX and reception time slot RX are always followed by an idle time slot IDLE, which there will be four in the case of a half-rate channel.
FIG. 4a shows the structure of the 6.67-ms TX time slot sent by the mobile phone in the US TDMA system, and FIG. 4b shows the structure of the 6.67-ms RX time slot sent to the mobile phone by a base station. The transmission time slot TX sent by the mobile phone includes a guard time G, power ramp up interval R, speech and channel encoded speech information DATA, synchronization word SYNC and base station identifier CDVCC (Coded Digital Voice Colour Code), and in the reception (reception time slots), instead of the guard time G and power ramp up interval R, extra time RSVD (Reserved). As can be seen from the numbers in FIGS. 4a and 4b representing the amount of bits, there are altogether 324 bits in a time slot, of which 260 are data bits (in the case of speech, data bits containing speech). A burst to be transmitted is generated as described above in connection with FIG. 3, whereby speech is first sampled into 1280 bits and digitized with an A/D converter 1, speech encoding into 159 bits is carried out in a speech codec 2 (using e.g. the VSELP algorithm), channel encoding into 260 bits is carried out in a channel codec 3, and the other bits of the time slot are added in the burst generation block 6 to generate the 324-bit transmission burst which is stored in a buffer register.
From the buffer register the burst to be transmitted is taken to a modulator 7 (such as a .pi./4-DQPSK, or Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying modulator) which modulates the burst for the transmission. The .pi./4-DQPSK modulation method is a digital modulation method in which the information is contained in phase changes.
A transmitter 8 mixes the modulated burst through one or more intermediate frequencies to the transmission frequency (824 to 849 MHz) and transmits it via an antenna to the radio path. The transmitter 8 is one of three radio frequency blocks RF. A receiver 9 is the first block on the reception side, and it performs functions which are in reverse as compared to the transmitter 8. The third RF block is a synthesizer 10 which generates frequencies.
Operations are carried out in the reception that are reverse to those performed in the transmission. Following the RF receiver 9 and demodulator 11 there comes bit detection 12 using e.g. a channel equalizer, in which the bits are detected from the received samples, or, the transmitted bit sequence is found out. The detection is followed by deinterleaving 13. After deinterleaving, an error burst, which possibly occurred on the transmission path, is converted into individual error bits that can be corrected in channel decoding. So, after deinterleaving, the detected bits are channel decoded 15 and the error sum is checked using a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). If division of received bits by the same polynomial formula that was used in the transmission (encoding) does not result in parity bits identical to the received parity bits, an error has occurred in the information. When an error is detected, the information frame is corrected or rejected. The channel decoding block 15 not only tries to detect errors but also attempts to correct bit errors occurred in the transmission of the burst. After the channel decoding, the 159-bit speech frame contains the transmitted parameters for speech, which the speech decoding block 16 uses to generate a digital speech signal. The digital speech signal is converted to an analog speech signal in a D/A converter 17. The 20-ms speech signal is collected in a kind of buffer, wherefrom it can be taken to the D/A converter that converts the signal for the loudspeaker 18.
The transceiver includes as an essential controlling unit of the mobile station a control unit 19, which controls substantially all blocks 1 to 18 and coordinates their operation and controls timing. The control unit 19 usually includes a microprocessor among other things.
When a mobile phone is switched on, it is first initialized, after which it goes into the idle state to wait for a mobile paging call transmitted on the control channel or for a user-originated call. Having received a paging call the phone responds to it by attempting to set up a connection to the base station. During the call, the base station monitors the connection quality by means of a mobile assisted handover (MAHO) measurement function, with which the base station may instruct the mobile phone to measure the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) on up to 24 different channels. It is characteristic of a cellular system that not all calls can be terminated within the area of one cell. For instance, a car moving on a motorway may pass by several cells during one call. To facilitate uninterrupted calls, a handover system was created. It is based on the idea that with continuous signal strength measurement at various locations of a cell the cellular system (mobile exchange) can sense when a phone, which is having a call, is moving from a cell into another, whereby the call can be switched over from the first cell (first channel) to the second cell (second channel) "on the move", without losing or interrupting the ongoing call. If the base station finds out on the basis of the MAHO measurement that the connection quality has dropped below a predetermined threshold value, it informs the mobile exchange about the fact and hands the call over to another base station (on the basis of the MAHO measurement).
Several factors influence the decision concerning handover; these include the transmission power of the mobile station, the base station serving the mobile station at that moment, and the neighbouring base stations, the quality of the connection in both directions, represented by the bit error rate (BER), etc. On the basis of these different factors the base station centre (BSC) makes a decision about the handover: whether or not a handover is carried out, and if it is, which is the channel/base station to which the call is handed over. When the base station centre makes a decision about the handover, it sends to the mobile station a handover command which includes the necessary information, such as the data about the new channel and time slot.
For reception, the mobile station operates in the handover as follows: it finds in the incoming signal the synchronization word SYNC of its own time slot RX, on the basis of which it is synchronized to a new base station, whereafter it immediately starts normal reception. However, handover takes some time, during which the mobile station only deals with operations related to the handover (such as adaptation to the channel, settling of the synthesizer to the new channel, getting into synchronization) and speech is therefore not processed, whereby the speech coding functions and audio functions (ie. the speech decoder, D/A converter, speaker, and correspondingly, the microphone, A/D converter and speech encoder) are muted for the duration of the handover because there is no speech in either direction but the connection to the base station is cut off. When synchronization has been obtained, the mobile station can start normal transmission. The handover is then completed.
For transmission, the mobile station operates similarly as in reception, ie. first it finds in the signal coming from the base station its own reception time slot RX, on the basis of which it can calculate the moment of its own transmission time slot.
Depending on the mobile system, the handover may take about 30 to 80 ms, which can be heard on the mobile station as a silent pause. In the reception, one attempted solution for this problem has been to echo the so-called sidetone, which is carried from the earpiece to the microphone, back to the earpiece, albeit a little muffled. Then, in the reception, the silent pause is not so conspicuous. However, this method is viable only in the reception. One alternative for removing the silent pause occurring during a handover, or for making it more inconspicuous, is to feed noise to the mobile phone's earpiece during handover. However, the user may find this, too, disturbing.


Multifunctional coolers are provided herein. A multifunctional cooler can include a cooler body having a top, a bottom, a first end wall, a second end wall, a front side wall, and a back side wall. The body can have at least two or more separate, isolated and thermally insulated drawer cavities positioned within the body with each drawer cavity having an opening on the front side wall. The multifunctional cooler can also include a drawer removably insertable into each drawer cavity in the front side wall, each drawer being movable from an open position to a closed position. In some embodiments, the multifunctional cooler can include at least one foldable tabletop extension foldably secured to the top of the cooler body that can be movable between a closed position and an unfolded position.

There are many coolers and cargo boxes available on the market that offer storage space for food and drink or for clothing and other items, but none offer multiple and separate (isolated) compartments to allow the storage of multiple items that cannot be stored together. Furthermore, once you get to your destination, which may be an outdoor location, such as a tailgate party, camping site, promotional event, etc. you will need a table to spread out and serve your items. The subject matter disclosed herein includes a foldable table built-in so that carrying an additional and separate table in not necessary thereby saving space and weight. It also includes hooks for hanging various items, beverage holders and a tube for holding an umbrella to protect the items on the tabletop from sun and rain.


A bed-depth gauge consists of a guide member, a screed member, and means for assembling them for relative movement, for effective depth adjustment, in a vertical direction that is generally perpendicular to a bottom edge of the screed member. The guide member has a pair of arms that extend laterally, at different heights, which are used to engage and follow a fixed reference surface to thereby enable the bottom edge of the screed member to level and control the depth of both a base layer and also an overlying upper layer, comprising a bed prepared for installation of paving blocks and the like.

In constructing patios, walks, or the like, using pavers such as blocks, bricks, stones, tiles, etc. (hereinafter referred to comprehensively as "pavers"), the quality of the underlying base is of paramount importance. Normally, pavers are placed on a bed that consists of a relatively course particulate bottom layer and a relatively fine particulate top layer, typically provided by gravel and sand, respectively.
The depth and uniformity of those layers are very important to the quality of the finished installation, and various tools have in the past been proposed and provided in an effort to achieve uniformity and depth control. Representative of the prior art in the field are the following United States patents: U.S. Pat. No. 219,399, to Hurlburh; No. 584,860 to Dowble; No. 1,222,188, to De Avilia, No. 1,361,677, to Brown; No. 2,112,432, to Baumann; No. 2,682,791, to Emile; No. 5,671,553 to Burkhart; No. 6,412,185 to Mills et al.; No. 7,192,216 to Casale; D325,177 to Vogrig; D339,971 to Hatcher; D336,253 to Economaki; D400,453 to Holland; D426,235 to Phirippidis et al.; and D517,575 to Maschke.


There is provided an apparatus including: an electrostatic chuck for holding an object; and a base plate which supports the electrostatic chuck and controls a temperature of the electrostatic chuck. The electrostatic chuck is fixed onto the base plate via an adhesive layer. The electrostatic chuck includes: a base; an electrostatic electrode built in the base; and a mounting portion containing a dielectric material and detachably mounted on the base. The object is mounted on the mounting portion.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an electrostatic chuck and a substrate temperature control fixing apparatus including the electrostatic chuck. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an electrostatic chuck for holding an object mounted on a base and a substrate temperature control fixing apparatus including the electrostatic chuck.
2. Related Art
The film forming apparatus (e.g., the CVD apparatus, the PVD apparatus) and the plasma etching machine used in manufacturing a semiconductor device such as IC or LSI is equipped with a stage to hold a substrate (e.g., silicon wafer) in a vacuum processing chamber with good precision. As such stage, a substrate temperature control fixing apparatus equipped with an electrostatic chuck, for example, has been proposed. The substrate temperature control fixing apparatus attracts and holds the substrate with the electrostatic chuck, and performs a temperature control such that the substrate is maintained at a predetermined temperature.
FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view showing a substrate temperature control fixing apparatus in the related art. FIG. 2 is a schematic sectional view showing the substrate temperature control fixing apparatus in the related art, and taken along a II-II line in FIG. 1. By reference to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, a substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100 has an electrostatic chuck 101, an adhesive layer 105, and a base plate 106.
The electrostatic chuck 101 is the Coulomb force type electrostatic chuck or the Johnson-Rahbek type electrostatic chuck having a base 102 and electrostatic electrodes 103. The base 102 is fixed on the base plate 106 via the adhesive layer 105. The base 102 is formed of ceramic. The base plate 106 is formed of Al. The adhesive layer 105 secures the base 102 and the base plate 106. As the adhesive layer 105, the silicon adhesive is used.
An outer peripheral sealing ring 102b as an annular projection portion, when viewed from the top, is provided on an outer edge portion of an upper surface 102a of the base 102. A large number of projection portions 102c shaped into a cylindrical column respectively are provided on the inner side of the outer peripheral sealing ring 102b such that they are dotted like a polka dots pattern, when viewed from the top.
The electrostatic electrodes 103 are formed of a thin film electrostatic electrode respectively, and are built in the base 102. The electrostatic electrodes 103 are connected to a DC power supply (not shown) provided outside of the substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100. When a predetermined voltage is applied, the electrostatic electrodes 103 attracts and holds an object (not shown) such as a substrate on upper surfaces of the outer peripheral sealing ring 102b and the large number of projection portions 102c. A chucking force becomes stronger as the voltage applied to the electrostatic electrodes 103 is increased higher.
The base plate 106 is provided to support the electrostatic chuck 101. A heating element (not shown) and a water channel 104 are provided to the base plate 106 to perform the temperature control of the base 102. The heating elements (not shown) generate a heat when the voltage is applied thereto, and heats the base 102 via the adhesive layer 105.
The water channel 104 has a cooling water inlet 104a and a cooling water outlet 104b, each of which is formed in a lower surface 106b of the base plate 106. The cooling water inlet 104a and the cooling water outlet 104b are connected to a cooling water controlling unit (not shown) provided on the outside of the substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100. The cooling water controlling unit (not shown) introduces the cooling water into the water channel 104 via the cooling water inlet 104a, and exhausts the cooling water from the cooling water outlet 104b. The cooling water is circulated to cool the base plate 106 and thus cool the base 102 via the adhesive layer 105.
A gas channel 108 is formed in the base 102, the adhesive layer 105, and the base plate 106 to pass therethrough. The gas channel 108 has a plurality of gas inlets 108a formed in the lower surface 106b of the base plate 106, and a plurality of gas outlets 108b formed in the upper surface 102a of the base 102. A plurality of gas inlets 108a are connected to a gas pressure controlling unit (not shown) provided out of the substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100. The gas pressure controlling unit (not shown) can vary a pressure of an inert gas in a range of 0 to 50 Torr, for example, and can introduce an inert gas into the gas channel 108 from the gas inlets 108a.
FIG. 3 is a schematic plan view showing a state that the related-art substrate temperature control fixing apparatus attracts and holds the substrate. In FIG. 3, the same reference symbols are affixed to the same components as those in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, and their explanation will be omitted in some cases. In FIG. 3, 107 denotes a substrate, and 109 denotes a gas filling portion in which an inert gas is filled. By reference to FIG. 3, the substrate 107 is attracted and held on the upper surfaces of the outer peripheral sealing ring 102b and a large number of projection portions 102c of the base 102. A temperature of the substrate 107 is controlled by the heating element (not shown) and the water channel 104, which are built in the base plate 106.
The gas pressure controlling unit (not shown) introduces an inert gas into the gas channel 108 through a plurality of gas inlets 108a. The introduced inert gas is exhausted from the gas outlets 108b. When the inert gas is filled in the gas filling portions 109 formed between the substrate 107 and the upper surface 102a of the base 102, a thermal conductivity between the base 102 and the substrate 107 is improved. The outer peripheral sealing ring 102b is provided to prevent such an event that the inert gas filled in the gas filling portions 109 leaks to the outside of the gas filling portions 109.
As described above, the related-art substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100 attracts and holds the substrate 107 on the upper surfaces of the outer peripheral sealing ring 102b and the large number of projection portions 102c of the base 102 of the electrostatic chuck 101. Also, the outer peripheral sealing ring 102b, which is formed as the annular projection portion, when viewed from the top, is provided on the outer edge portion of the upper surface 102a of the base 102 in the related-art substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100. Thus, the outer peripheral sealing ring 102b prevents such an event that the inert gas, which is filled in the gas filling portions 109 to improve a thermal conductivity between the base 102 and the substrate 107, leaks to the outside of the gas filling portions 109. Also, the heating element (not shown) and the water channel 104, which are built in the base plate 106 in the related-art substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100, control a temperature of the base plate 107 (see JP-A-2000-317761 and JP-A-2000-332091, for example).
However, the silicon adhesive constituting the adhesive layer 105 has a low plasma resistance. Therefore, when the related-art substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100 is used in the plasma, the adhesive layer is exposed into the plasma and is corroded. When the adhesive layer 105 is eroded, the inert gas leaks through the eroded portion, and thus a thermal conductivity between the base 102 and the substrate 107 is degraded. Also, the plasma cleaning is applied to remove attached substances deposited on the upper surface 102a of the base 102. In this case, the plasma used in the cleaning not only removes the attached substances but also corrodes the upper surface 102a of the base 102.
When the adhesive layer 105 and the upper surface 102a of the base 102 are eroded by the plasma, degradation of the substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100 is caused. At that time, the maintenance should be done by applying a renewal polishing or a cleaning using chemicals, or the like to the upper surface 102a of the base 102 or by replacing the over-all substrate temperature control fixing apparatus 100 with the new one. In this case, such a problem existed that a predetermined cost is needed in doing the maintenance and also an availability factor of the apparatus is lowered.

Electrostatic chuck and substrate temperature control fixing apparatus


A dog harness is comprised of a torso strap encircling a dog's chest, connected to a chest strap passing around the chest of a dog, and a shoulder strap passing over the back of a dog. The chest strap is provided with a elongate linker. A leash connector is fixed to both ends of the elongate linker. When a leash is attached to either leash connector, a directional pull on the leash causes the leash connector to slide in the direction of the pull, pulling the elongate linker to the side creating a noise detectable by the animal to assist in the training of the animal. If the leash becomes tight pulling the elongate linker all the way to the side it will move the pull off the center of the dog's chest, thus decreasing the opposition reflex.

Dog training and dog handling have many facets and one of the most important parts of dog training is the equipment created to teach the dog to walk. There are collars, head restraints and harnesses available in the market place today. Collars have been around virtually since man and dog got together, then came harnesses which were used to get dogs to pull sleds. Head restraint collars came into being in the latter part of the last century.
Harnesses have traditionally been devices that fit around the dog's body, encompassing the chest, with an anchor point that the leash attaches to and for the handler to hold the dog.
Harnesses in the prior art generally do not 'communicate' anything to the dog via sound, nor do they have any chain in connection with their design. Prior art harnesses are generally not designed to 'communicate' in any of their applications. Said harnesses generally are designed to 'restrain' the dog, e.g. to stop the dog's forward motion.
Many dog collars are not well accepted by the mainstream public, dog trainers or vets. Check chains that were used many years ago to communicate to dogs are now almost non-existent and not popular. Instead, harnesses and head collars have often taken the check chains' place. However, there is still a need for a piece of training equipment that can be used to communicate to the dog in a humane and acceptable manner. With the popularity of harnesses with dog owners and vets, as well the greater acceptance of the harnesses in dog training, a harness that communicates and one that is kind and gentle to the dog is desired.


In association with identification information for identifying a representative of a community site, personal information about the representative and theme information are registered in a basic information database, while in association with identification information for identifying a member, member information about the member is registered in a member information database. Commodity information about commodities to be provided to the community site is registered in a commodity database in association with the theme information. The central apparatus extracts the optimal commodity information from the commodity database based on the theme information registered in the basic information database and then transmits the extracted commodity information to a terminal device.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a community site constructing method for constructing a community site on a network by utilizing the network including a central apparatus for managing the community site and a terminal device used by a representative of the community site or by a member previously authorized by the representative to have access to the community site.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, to construct a community on a network, there have been constructed many community sites in which only a representative of the community and specific members can participate. It is outlined as follows. As for a so-called on-line album, for example, its representative takes a digital image etc. of a wedding and uploads it to a community site to thereby prepare his original album. Then, he transmits a URL (Uniform Resource Locators) and an ID only to his family members, the participants of the wedding, and the members authorized by him to have access to the community site.
Thus, such a private community site that cannot be accessed by the third party can be formed on the network. In order to improve a communication in the community, there have been made many proposals to this community site for a variety of functions of having a bulletin board, easy commitment, easy uploading of contents such as movies, music, and commenting on these contents by the members.
Such a community is present not only of a net album but also of a university circle, alumni association, a family and relatives centering around a baby. These community sites are often provided by an enterprise; for example, a community site of a family and relatives centering around a baby is managed by an enterprise selling toys, clothes, and foods for babies in order to differentiate the other enterprises' sites. Also, such an enterprise that handles wedding ceremonies gives such a service to construct a community site centering around a bride and a groom.
On the network, however, many community sites are present, so that it is difficult to get profits therefrom; in fact, many community sites are run on an income from advertisement. Also, although a certain extent of access may be expected for a certain lapse of time after establishment of a community site, for example, a few years after the birth of a baby or the wedding, the community site often loses attention thereto gradually and disappears as time passes by, problematically.
Such a community site constructing system is desired that its representative and members continuously manage a community site without getting bored and also that an enterprise for the community site can get profits.

Community site constructing method and system, central apparatus and computer memory product


A light-weight animal enclosure formed from a plurality of preferably rectangular panels hingedly interconnected that can be erected to form a complete enclosure wherein each panel is formed from a tubular polymeric frame structure that receives and holds in position a relatively light-weight polymeric sheet material, such as an acrylic sheet, such that each panel can be collapsed upon an adjacent panel for easy transportation and storage and the panels can be unfolded and positioned to encompass an enclosed area for animal exercise and/or grazing.

Small animals bred for profit, and even household pets, sometimes are confined to small cage areas, particularly during house-training periods to minimize an area that an animal can drop waste and to prevent household damage of carpet and/or furniture. Examples include rabbits bred for profit, teething puppies and any household animal pets that are not yet house-trained or trained to excrete their body wastes outdoors. Confinement in very small cages, such as seen in pet stores, prevents the animal from obtaining sufficient exercise for maintenance of good muscle structure and tone and negatively contributes to an animal's happiness and/or breeding capabilities.
It is known to provide portable livestock corrals and modular, relocatable grazing enclosures for farm animals, such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,381,757 and 4,787,603, but such structures are heavy, for example made from welded steel beams, or include very heavy slotted bases for receiving steel fencing structures and are not suitable for being erected and stored easily. Further, others have provided small, stackable animal cages made from molded plastic material as shown in the Rubricius U.S. Pat. No. 3,698,360, but such structures are not capable of allowing any substantial exercise for the caged animal.

Light weight, collapsible, hinged fencing structure particularly suitable as a small animal enclosure


Disclosed is a semiconductor device used to embody a neuromorphic computation system and operation method thereof. By comprising a floating body as a short-term memory means electrically isolated from the surroundings and a long-term memory means formed at one side of the floating body not formed of a source, a drain and a gate, a low power synaptic semiconductor device is provided, which can be mimic not only the short-term memory in a nervous system of a living body by an impact ionization, but also the short- and long-term memory transition property and the causal inference property of a living body due to the time difference of signals of the pre- and post-synaptic neurons.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and operation method thereof, and more particularly to a synaptic semiconductor device and operation method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
The nervous system of a living body is consisted of numerous nerve cell neurons and synapses connecting neurons. Synapses may be classified as electrical or chemical, based on the signal transmission between neurons. The electrical synapses are found in invertebrates and myocardial cells etc. Since the others are known as the chemical synapses, hereinafter, word of "synapse(s)" indicates the chemical synapse(s).
Recently, many studies have been made to mimic the nervous system of a living body, in particular the brain nervous system, by a nerve-like circuit system (i.e., a neuromorphic computation system) using semiconductor devices.
By the way, in order to embody the neuromorphic computation system, the following properties of the nervous system of a living body must be considered.
First, a short-term memory is biologically formed of synaptic connections or a potentiation of the synaptic connections and a long-term memory is composed of the growth of new synapses etc. in the stimulated place through gene expression in the nucleus of a neuron by repetitive stimulation. This content refers to pp. 293-308 of a Korean translated book of 'In Search of Memory' by Eric R. Kandel, which is translated by Deaho Jeon and published by Random House Korea Inc. in 2011 (Reference 1). FIGS. 1 and 2 are redrawn from Reference 1.
In order to analyze a transition mechanism from a short-term memory to a long-term memory, Kandel, the original author of Reference 1, performed the experiment of learning (memory) of stimulation in Aplysia which has relatively a simple nervous system and obtained the results as shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a simple drawing of a nervous system of Aplysia. According to (a) in FIG. 1, an external stimulation impacted on a tail 1 activates an interneuron releasing serotonin and the interneuron is connected to a sensory neuron connected to a siphon 2 and a motor neuron controlling a shrinking reflection of a gill 3, respectively.
In FIG. 1, (b) is an enlarged view of a part A in (a) for explaining a short-term memory mechanism when a single stimulation is applied. The neurotransmitter serotonin released from an interneuron is binding to a receptor of a sensory neuron and induces the increase of cyclic AMP and protein kinase A in the sensory neuron. Subsequently, vesicles having the neurotransmitter at the axon terminal of the sensory neuron are moved to a plasma membrane and burst to transmit the stimulated signal to the motor neuron. As a result, the stimulation remains in the short-term memory.
On the other hand, (c) in FIG. 1 is drawn to explain the mechanism of a long-term memory when repetitive stimulation is applied 5 times. The repetitive stimulation induces the repetitive release of serotonin from the interneuron. The released serotonin increases the amount of cyclic AMP in the sensory neuron, and then protein kinase A and MAP kinase move into the nucleus to activate CREB-1 and inactivate CREB-2 respectively for gene expression. Subsequently, the repetitive stimulation remains in the long-term memory through the change of cell functions or structures such as the growth of new synapses etc.
Thus, when the regular stimulation is repeatedly applied to a living body, according to the increase of cyclic AMP in a neuron, the short-term memory is transited to the long-term memory through the change of functions or structures of a synapse by gene expression in the nucleus of a neuron.
Additionally, as shown in FIG. 2, Kandel, the original author of Reference 1, insisted that in a cell culture system having a single sensory neuron connected to two motor neurons via two synapses, the gene expression in the nucleus only affect the single synapse receiving 5 times of serotonin injection (5 times of stimulation) for the growth of new synaptic terminals etc.
The author, as shown in the enlarged view of FIG. 2, explains the reasons that (1) the mRNA synthesized by the repetitive stimulation in the nucleus of a sensory neuron is delivered to all axon terminals in a resting state, (2) serotonin injected 5 times in a single terminal changes the recessive CPEB (Cyto-plasmic Polyadenylation Element Binding protein: the protein with the self-perpetuation as like as the prion) being in a recessive state in all terminals into the dominant CPEB, (3) the dominant CPEB changes the recessive CPEB into the dominant one, and (4) the dominant CPEB meets and activates the mRNA moving into each axon terminal and then the activated mRNA synthesizes the proteins for changing the structure such as a new synaptic terminal growth etc. Consequently, the portion of the stimulated synapse is transited to the long-term memory.
Additionally, in order to embody the neuromorphic computation system, another important property of the nervous system of a living body has to be considered. It is a Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) that the synaptic connectivity is dependent on the fire time difference between pre- and post-synaptic neurons.
According to FIG. 3, each neuron 100, 200 or 300 has basically a nucleus 110 in a cell body (a soma), and there are a plurality of dendrites 120 to receive a stimulated signal around the cell body and an axon 130 connected by an axon hillock 122 to transmit the stimulated signal to one side of the cell body.
The axon 130 generally has a length of about 10,000 times of diameter of the cell body, is wrapped with a plurality of myelin sheaths 132 interlaid with a node of Ranvier 134 and consists of axon collaterals 136 and axon terminals 138.
A synapse 400, as an enlarged view shown in FIG. 3, indicates a connecting region between two neurons, namely, a meeting region between an axon terminal of the pre-synaptic neuron 200 and a dendrite of the post-synaptic neuron 100 interlaid with the narrow space, as a synaptic cleft 402, of about 20 nm.
The transmission process of the synapse 400 is simply described as the followings with respected to the enlarged view shown in FIG. 3.
First, when a fire is triggered by a stimulation exceeded over the threshold (Vth, an about −55 mV) in the pre-synaptic neuron 200, the stimulation as an electrical signal is transmitted to the axon terminal through the axon with the repeat of depolarization and repolarization by alternately opening and closing sodium 202 and potassium (not shown) channels, respectively.
The stimulation transmitted to the axon terminal of the pre-synaptic neuron 200 opens a calcium channel 204 and allows an influx of Ca2+ ions into the plasma membrane through the calcium channel. The intracellular Ca2+ ions bind to vesicles 206 filled up the neurotransmitters 208 and cause the vesicles 206 to fuse into the plasma membrane for releasing the internal neurotransmitters 208 into the synaptic cleft 402. The released neurotransmitters 208 diffuse to flow across the synaptic cleft 402 and arrive at dendrite membranes of the post-synaptic neuron 100.
Here, the neurotransmitters 208 enable the stimulation transmitted from the pre-synaptic neuron 200 through two kinds of channels to chemically transmit into the post-synaptic neuron 100.
Exactly, one is a ligand-gated ion channel that uses the diffused neurotransmitter 208 as a ligand which directly binds to the ion channel. Namely, if the neurotransmitter 208 binds to Na+ channel 102, Na+ ion flows into the post-synaptic neuron 100 for contributing towards excitation and if the neurotransmitter 208 binds to K+ channel 104, K+ ion flows out of the post-synaptic neuron 100 for suppressing excitation.
The other is a G-protein coupled receptor 106 mediated ion channel that is activated by the diffused neurotransmitter 208 which directly binds to the G-protein coupled receptor 106 on the plasma membrane of a dendrite in the post-synaptic neuron 100. In this time, an alpha subunit of the G-protein coupled receptor 106 is dissociated and directly couples to the ion channel or indirectly couples to an effecter 108 on the inner membrane for operating this ion channel through an intracellular second messenger (not shown). In other words, if the second messenger couples to a Na+ gate 102, Na+ ion flows into the post-synaptic neuron 100 for contributing towards the excitation and if the second messenger couples to a K+ gate 104, K+ ion flows out from the post-synaptic neuron 100 for suppressing the excitation.
The intracellular Na+ ions flow in the dendrite membrane of the post-synaptic neuron 100 through the Na+ channels 102, diffuse across the cell body and then collect at the axon hillock 122. When the sum of the intracellular Na+ ions and the ions transmitted from other dendrites 120 induces the depolarization by more than the threshold membrane potential (Vth) at the axon hillock 122, a fire is produced as a spike signal shown in FIG. 4. The spike signal is an electrical signal for transmission of the stimulation by again repeating the depolarization and the repolarization along the axon 130 of the post-synaptic neuron 100.
In FIG. 3, the stimulation is transmitted from the pre-synaptic neuron 300 to two different dendrites 120 of the post-synaptic neuron 100 through two different synapses by two signals (a) and (b), respectively and can be fired when the sum (a+b) of two signals (a) and (b) is exceeded over the threshold (Vth) at the axon hillock 122 of the post-synaptic neuron.
In FIG. 4, when the membrane potential reaches the threshold (Vth, −55 mV) at the point {circle around (1)}, the membrane of the axon 130 of the post-synaptic neuron 100 opens the Na+ channels, which allow Na+ ion inflow to produce a fire by a sudden membrane potential rising and then, at the point {circle around (2)}, closes the Na+ channels and simultaneously opens the K+ channels, which allow K+ ion outflow to reduce the membrane potential until the K+ channels are closed at about −80 mV, and then maintains −70 mV of the resting (equilibrium) membrane potential by operations of Na+ pumps and K+ pumps.
By the above mentioned reasons, the first fire is mainly generated at the axon hillock 122 of the post-synaptic neuron 100 and the Na+ ions entered by the first fire are rapidly diffused by the myelin sheath 132 to depolarize the neighbor axon membrane. As a result, the spike waveform as shown in FIG. 4 is transmitted to the axon terminal.
Thus, as shown in FIG. 3, since a single neuron is connected to two or more neurons through the different synapses in the real nervous system of a living body, in order to embody a neuromorphic computation system, it is important element that consideration of different fire times between pre- and post-neurons of a predetermined synapse. In other words, as shown in FIG. 3, when a fire is generated at an axon hillock 122 of a neuron 100, it is considered that the synaptic connectivity is potentiated in the synapses connected to a pre-fired neuron 200 or 300 and the synaptic connectivity is depressed in the other synapses.
Among prior research results to mimic the nervous system of a living body by considering the above mentioned properties, there are S. H. Jo, et al., Nanoscale Memristor Device as Synapse in Neuromorphic Systems, Nano Letters 10 (4), pp. 1297-1301, 2010 (hereinafter, Reference 2) and D. Kuzum, et al., Energy Efficient Programming of Nanoelectronic Synaptic Devices for Large-Scale Implementation of Associative and Temporal Sequence Learning, IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, pp. 693-696, 2011 (hereinafter, Reference 3).
However, References 2 and 3 are intended to mimic the synapse by a memristor based device using a resistive switching material and a phase change material, respectively. These can mimic the long-term memory and the properties of the synaptic connections which are potentiated or depressed by the applying time differences of the pre- and post-synaptic signals. But, these cannot mimic the short-term memory that the stored information is naturally deleted within a short time period when the input signal temporarily disappears. Subsequently, these have a problem that the short-long term memory transition cannot be embodied.
And U.S Publication No. 2012/0084241A1 (hereinafter, Reference 4) is disclosed for techniques to mimic STDP properties that the synaptic connectivity connecting two neurons is changing by the spike time differences between pre- and post-synaptic neurons by using the phase change material as a synaptic device applied to the neuromorphic computation system. As like as References 2 and 3, since it uses the property of the phase change material, it cannot embody the property of the short-term memory of the biological synapse. Subsequently, it also has a problem that the short- and long-term memory transition cannot be embodied.

Synaptic semiconductor device and operation method thereof

SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY R&DB FOUNDATION


In an anode structure for a high temperature fuel cell which has a non-catalytic phase and a catalytic phase with respect to methane-vapor reforming reactions, a substrate with a bi-polar plate disposed thereon has areas of different catalytic activity levels, that is, an area in which the regular catalytic metallic phase has been replaced by a catalytic metallic phase with low catalytic activity whereby the methane vapor reforming reaction is delayed in the areas of reduced catalyst activity.

The invention resides in an anode substrate with a bi-polar plate disposed thereon for a high temperature fuel cell which anode substrate has a phase in which it does not act as catalyst with regard to methane-vapor reforming reactions and a phase in which it acts as a catalyst.
A high temperature fuel cell (SOFC) comprises a stack of fuel cells with an associated periphery. The basic components in a fuel cell are the electrolyte [material for example yt-trium-stabilized zirconium dioxide (YSZ) ; ZrO.sub.2 -8mol%Y.sub.2 O.sub.3 ], the cathode[material for example strontium-doped lanthanium manganese oxide (LSM); La.sub.1-x-y Sr.sub.x MnO.sub.3-2 ] and the anode consisting of ceramic (=non catalytically acting) as well as as a metallic (=catalytically acting) phase [for example nickel-YSZ Cermet; 40 vol% Ni/ZrO.sub.2 -8 mol% Y.sub.2 O.sub.3 ]. For a series and/or parallel arrangement of several cells in a stack a fourth arrangement of several cells in a stack a fourth component is required; a bi-polar plate (material for example earth alkaline metal-doped lanthanium chromate; La.sub.x Me.sub.x CrO.sub.3 (Me=Sr, Ca) or a high temperature Cr-alloy; Cr.sub.5 Fe.sub.1 (Y.sub.2 O.sub.3)] [A Hammou, Adv. Electrochem. Sci. and Engin. 2(1992) 87-139; N.Q. Minh, J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 76 (1993) 563-88; D. Stolten and W. Schafer, in ; Technische Keramische Werkstoffe, J. Kriegsmann (editor), Deutscher Wirtschaftdienst, John Freyland GmbH, Cologne, 1994, Chapter 22.214.171.124]
A stack of fuel cells is set up in accordance with two concepts. The first concept is based on tubes which have support functions and which must provide for the mechanical stability of the cell. The tubes consist either of an inert material or of one of the two electrode materials. The functional components are disposed on these tubes as layers arranged in a specific geometry and order. The second concept utilizes self-supporting electrolyte foils and bi-polar plates in a flat geometry. The two electrodes are disposed as layers on the electrolyte foil. The electrolyte foil as well as the bi-polar plate must insure the mechanical stability of the arrangement. [A Hammou, Adv. Electrochem. Sci. and Engin. 2(1992) 87-139; N.Qminh, J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 76 (1993) 563-88; D. Stolten and W. Schafer, in ; Technische Keramische Werkstoffe, J. Kriegsmann (editor), Deutscher Wirtschaftdienst, John Freyland GmbH, Cologne, 1994, Chapter 184.108.40.206]
Both stacking concepts mentioned above have their specific disadvantages. Because of the geometry, the tube concept provides for relatively long charge transport paths which results in relatively high ohmic losses. Because of a relatively large-pore porosity of the porous support tube a substantial minimum thickness is required for the electrolytic layer in order to make it gas-tight. The flat cell concept has the disadvantage that the self supporting electrolyte foils have to have a certain minimum thickness in order to insure mechanical stability. This also limits a self-supporting electrolyte foil to a certain size (effective surface area). As a result, in both concepts, the stacks can be operated without substantial losses only above 900.degree. C. because of the relatively thick electrolyte layers (or foils). In order to eliminate these disadvantages, the substrate concept with a flat geometry has been developed. This includes a porous substrate consisting of one of the two electrode materials which fulfills a support function and which, as a result, needs to be relatively thick in order to permit cells of reasonably large sizes to be manufactured. On this substrate a very thin electrolyte layer is deposited by a thin film manufacturing process and, in a next step, the second electrode layer is deposited on this electrolyte layer by one of the usual manufacturing processes. These three-layer cell units are assembled in series to a stack with the usual bi-polar plates [T. Iwata and H. Shundo, 2.sup.nd Symp. SOFC Japan, Tokyo, Dec. 15-16, 1993, Extended Abstract No. 101, p. 1-4].
The state of the art has the following disadvantage: If natural gas is fed into the anode space, the methane vapor reformation reaction occurs directly at the metal/YSZ-Cermet since the metallic phase (for example NI) acts in accordance with the state-of-the-art as a catalyst with respect to the methane-vapor reformation reaction. This reaction is strongly endothermic (.increment.+227.5 kg J/mol at 1000.degree. C.) arid accordingly removes heat from its environment. In addition, the reaction rate of this reaction is very high as compared to the following electrochemical reactions (at 900.degree. C. factor 40). As a result, the reformation reaction is completed already within a distance of 10 mm from the point where the methane vapor enters the anode chamber. The heat required within such a short distance cannot be supplied by the much slower electrochemical reactions, so that the temperature drops. For this reason, the stack variations referred to above require a pre-reformer in the periphery where some o the methane-vapor reformation reactions occur in order to avoid large temperature gradients in the stack, that is, in order to achieve a more uniform temperature distribution.
It is the object of the present invention to provide an anode substrate, which has disposed thereon a bi-polar plate for a high temperature fuel cell with which a uniform temperature distribution can be achieved in a simple manner.

Anode substrate for a high temperature fuel cell