A gas sensor comprises a layered structure with an ionic conductive film and a high gas-permeability interlayer film, a first catalyst electrode and a second catalyst electrode, a conductivity promotion structure, a high-k layer and a current detecting unit. The ionic conductive film includes a material with ionic conductivity ranging from 0.02 to 1000 S/cm. The first catalyst electrode and second catalyst electrode are located on the layered structure and spaced by a predetermined distance for ionizing a gas and reducing the ionized gas, respectively. The conductivity promotion structure includes a material with electronic conductivity ranging from 10−5 to 105 S/cm, and provides wanted electrons for a reduction reaction. The high-k layer is interposed between the conductivity promotion structure and layered structure. The current detecting unit is coupled to the first catalyst electrode and second catalyst electrode to sense a detecting current with respect to the ionized gas.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gas sensor, particularly for a current-type gas sensor.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Basically, current popular conventional gas sensors according to the operation mechanism can be categorized into following types: catalytic combustion type, oxide semiconductor type, solid state electrolyte type (using sensing electric voltage, current or resistance as signal), field-effect transistor type (FET), infrared type and so on. By electrode configuration of the conventional technology, the popular conventional gas sensors can further be classified into electrode coplanar configuration and electrode un-coplanar configuration. In the early phases, the conventional gas sensors of electrode un-coplanar configuration take the dominance, which are further sorted into tubular profile, planar profile and compound profile. Whereas, the conventional gas sensors of electrode coplanar configuration are apt to be adopted in popular manner because the thin-film technology is gradually improved and advanced. Moreover, the gas sensors can be grouped into electric voltage signal kind and electric current signal kind in accordance with the sensing method and detecting signal. Nowadays, a combinational gas sensor in merging the electric voltage signal kind and electric current signal kind emerges from the automobile industry.
FIG. 1 is an illustrative schematic view for a conventional current-type oxygen sensor 10. As shown in the figure, the oxygen sensor 10 comprises a first catalyst electrode 11, a second catalyst electrode 12, an electrolyte layer 13, a gas diffusion cavity 14 with a gas diffusion opening 17, a power supply 15 and a galvanometer or current meter 16. The power supply 15, which is usually a battery, is electrically connected to both of the first catalyst electrode 11 and the second catalyst electrode 12. The current meter 16 is parallel connected to the power supply 15. The first catalyst electrode 11 is located in the gas diffusion cavity 14. The gas diffusion opening 17 is bored at the top surface of the gas diffusion cavity 14.
Upon performing detecting operation, the power supply 15 will provide a voltage to both of the first catalyst electrode 11 and second catalyst electrode 12 to initiate of the gas sensor 10 so the oxygen gas is enabled to enter into the gas diffusion cavity 14 via the gas diffusion opening 17. In the gas diffusion cavity 14, the oxygen gas is chemically is ionized into oxygen ion by the first catalyst electrode 11 so a limiting current is generated by the flow of gas ions and/or electrons from the first catalyst electrode 11 to the second catalyst electrode 12 by the oxygen vacancies in the electrolyte layer 13. Thereby, by measuring the magnitude of the limiting current via the current meter 16, the ambient oxygen concentration can be determined. Normally, the measured limiting current signal value of the current meter 16 is direct proportional to the partial oxygen pressure in the ambient atmosphere.
Regarding the conventional current-type gas sensor, the thickness of the electrolyte layer 13 will affect the sensitivity of the gas sensor 10, which means the thinner for the thickness of the electrolyte layer 13, the better for the sensitivity of the gas sensor 10 is. However, subjecting to the material feature of the electrolyte layer 13, the thickness reducing of the electrolyte layer 13 has its critical limit otherwise it is susceptible to break if it exceeds its critical limit. Moreover, the conventional current-type gas sensor requires operating in higher working temperature for keeping stability because the conductor material of able ionization adopted by the conventional electrolyte layer 13 is almost solid electrolyte. Accordingly, an extra conventional heating accessory is needed to maintain the higher working temperature. However, if sudden fluctuation happens in the ambient temperature, the conventional heating accessory is usually unable to adequately response in adjustment for the suitably corresponding working temperature with result that the detecting accuracy of the conventional current-type gas sensor is harmfully affected.

NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY


A graphics processor is disclosed having a programmable Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) stage for processing pixel packets. Scalar arithmetic operations are performed in the ALUs to implement a graphics function.

The generation of three-dimensional graphical images is of interest in a variety of electronic games and other applications. Conventionally, some of the steps used to create a three-dimensional image of a scene include generating a three-dimensional model of objects to be displayed. Geometrical primitives (e.g., triangles) are formed which are mapped to a two-dimensional projection along with depth information. Rendering (drawing) primitives includes interpolating parameters, such as depth and color, over each two-dimensional projection of a primitive.
Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are commonly used in graphics systems to generate three-dimensional images in response to instructions from a central processing unit. Modern GPUs typically utilize a graphics pipeline for processing data. FIG. 1 is a prior art drawing of a traditional pipeline architecture which is a "deep" pipeline having stages dedicated to performing specific functions. A transform stage 105 performs geometrical calculations of primitives and may also perform a clipping operation. A setup/raster stage 110 rasterizes the primitives. A texture address stage 115 and texture fetch 120 stage are utilized for texture mapping. A fog stage 130 implements a fog algorithm. An alpha test stage 135 performs an alpha test. A depth test stage 140 performs a depth test for culling occluded pixels. An alpha blend stage 145 performs an alpha blend color combination algorithm. A memory write stage 150 writes the output of the pipeline.
The traditional GPU pipeline architecture illustrated in FIG. 1 is typically optimized for fast texturing using the OpenGL® graphics language. A benefit of a deep pipeline architecture is that it permits fast, high quality rendering of even complex scenes.
There is an increasing interest in utilizing three-dimensional graphics in wireless phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other devices where cost and power consumption are important design requirements. However, the traditional deep pipeline architecture requires a significant chip area, resulting in greater cost than desired. Additionally, a deep pipeline consumes significant power, even if the stages are performing comparatively little processing. This is because many of the stages consume about the same amount of power regardless of whether they are processing pixels.
As a result of cost and power considerations, the conventional deep pipeline architecture illustrated in FIG. 1 is unsuitable for many graphics applications, such as implementing three-dimensional games on wireless phones and PDAs.
Therefore, what is desired is a processor architecture suitable for graphics processing applications but with reduced power and size requirements.


The present invention makes available a rapid, effective assay for screening and identifying pharmaceutically effective compounds that specifically interact with and modulate the activity of a cellular receptor or ion channel. The subject assay enables rapid screening of large numbers of polypeptides in a library to identifying those polypeptides which induce or antagonize receptor bioactivity. The subject assay is particularly amenable for identifying surrogate ligands for orphan receptors.

A common technique for cloning receptors is to use nucleic acid hybridization technology to identify receptors which are homologous to other, known receptors. For instance, originally the cloning of seven transmembrane domain G protein-coupled receptors (GCR) depended on the isolation and sequencing of the corresponding protein or the use of expression cloning techniques. However, when sequences for these receptors became available, it was apparent that there were significant sequence homologies between these receptors. This technology, since it does not require that the ligand of the receptor have been identified, has resulted in the cloning of a large number of "orphan receptors", which have no known ligand and often whose biological function is obscure. Receptors of all types comprise this large family. Known orphan receptors include the nuclear receptors COUP-TF1/EAR3, COUP-TF2/ARP1, EAR-1, EAR-2, TR-2, PPAR1, HNF-4, ERR-1, ERR-2, NGFIB/Nur77, ELP/SF-1 and MPL (Parker et al, supra, and Power et al. (1992) TIBS 13:318–323). A large number of orphan receptors have been identified in the EPH family (Hirai et al (1987) Science 238:1717–1720). HER3 and HER4 are orphan receptors in the epidermal growth factor receptor family (Plowman et al. (1993) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90:1746–1750). ILA is a newly identified member of the human nerve growth factor/tumor necrosis factor receptor family (Schwarz et al. (1993) Gene 134:295–298). IRRR is an orphan insulin receptor-related receptor which is a transmembrane tyrosine kinase (Shier et al. (1989) J. Biol Chem 264:14606–14608). Several orphan tyrosine kinase receptors have been found in Drosophila (Perrimon (1994) Curr. Opin. Cell Biol. 6:260–266). The importance of identifying ligands for orphan receptors is clear; it opens up a wide area for research in the area of drug discovery.
One large subgroup of orphan receptors, as alluded to above, are found in the G protein coupled receptor family. Approximately 100 such receptors have been identified by function and these mediate transmembrane signaling from external stimuli (vision, taste and smell), endocrine function (pituitary and adrenal), exocrine function (pancreas), heart rate, lipolysis, and carbohydrate metabolism. Structural and genetic similarities suggest that G protein-coupled receptor superfamily can be subclassified into five distinct groups: (i) amine receptors (serotonin, adrenergic, etc.); (ii) small peptide hormone (somatostatin, TRH, etc.); (iii) large peptide hormone (LH-CG, FSH, etc.); (iv) secretin family; and (v) odorant receptors (Buck L. and Axel, R. (1991) Cell 65:175–187), with orphan receptors apparently occurring in each of the sub-families.
Previous work describes the expression of recombinant mammalian G protein-coupled receptors as a means of studying receptor function as a means of identifying agonists and antagonists of those receptors. For example, the human muscarinic receptor (HM1) has been functionally expressed in mouse cells (Harpold et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,401,629). The rat V1b vasopressin receptor has been found to stimulate phosphotidy.inositol hydrolysis and intracellular Ca2+ mobilization in Chinese hamster ovary cells upon agonist stimulation (Lolait et al. (1995) Proc Natl. Acad Sci. USA 92:6783–6787). Likewise, the C5a receptor {to be completed} These types of ectopic expression studies have enabled researchers to study receptor signalling mechanisms and to perform mutagenisis studies which have been useful in identifying portions of receptors that are critical for ligand binding or signal transduction.
Experiments have also been undertaken to express functional G protein coupled receptors in yeast cells. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,835 to King et al. describes a transformed yeast cell which is incapable of producing a yeast G protein α subunit, but which has been engineered to produce both a mammalian G protein α-subunit and a mammalian receptor which is "coupled to" (i.e., interacts with) the aforementioned mammalian G protein α-subunit. Specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,835 reports expression of the human beta-2 adrenergic receptor (β2AR), a seven transmembrane receptor (STR), in yeast, under control of the GAL1 promoter, with the β2AR gene modified by replacing the first 63 base pairs of coding sequence with 11 base pairs of noncoding and 42 base pairs of coding sequence from the STE2 gene. (STE2 encodes the yeast α-factor receptor). The Duke researchers found that the modified β2AR was functionally integrated into the membrane, as shown by studies of the ability of isolated membranes to interact properly with various known agonists and antagonists of β2AR. The ligand binding affinity for yeast-expressed β2AR was said to be nearly identical to that observed for naturally produced β2AR.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,835 describes co-expression of a rat G protein α-subunit in the same cells, yeast strain 8C, which lacks the cognate yeast protein. Ligand binding resulted in G protein-mediated signal transduction. U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,835 teaches that these cells may be used in screening compounds for the ability to affect the rate of dissociation of Gα from Gβγ in a cell. For this purpose, the cell further contains a pheromone-responsive promoter (e.g. BAR1 or FUS1), linked to an indicator gene (e.g. HIS3 or LacZ). The cells are placed in multi-titer plates, and different compounds are placed in each well. The colonies are then scored for expression of the indicator gene.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Methods and compositions for identifying receptor effectors


Separating and/or sorting processed workpieces cut from a metal sheet, and the remnant surrounding the workpiece, is performed by holding the workpieces and remnant in a co-planar state after processing, moving the held workpieces and remnant away from a processing area, and then, with the workpiece and remnant still held, moving the workpiece and remnant relative to one another with a separating movement perpendicular to the workpiece plane, to such an extent that the workpiece is displaced outside the remnant.

US 2008/0023900 A1 discloses a system for the laser cutting of sheet-like workpieces. In front of a laser cutting unit there is arranged a pallet changer having a support, onto which the cut sheets are fed after processing by cutting. On a cut sheet, finished parts in the form of workpiece blanks are surrounded by a workpiece remnant in the form of a scrap skeleton. By means of a handling device, the finished parts and the scrap skeleton of a processed sheet are together removed from the workpiece support of the pallet changer. For that purpose, the handling device has a gripping unit with two lifting forks that are movable in opposite directions on a carrier frame of the handling device. In order to take up a processed sheet, the handling device moves on a guide structure into a position above the support of the pallet changer. The lifting forks of the handling device, which have been moved into their open position, are then lowered to a level at which they are located beneath the workpiece that is to be taken up. After the lifting forks have been moved in opposite directions into their gripping position and consequently grip the processed workpiece on its underside, the lifting forks are raised together with the finished parts and the scrap skeleton of the processed sheet. The handling device with the finished parts positioned thereon and the scrap skeleton positioned thereon then moves laterally over a workpiece table. By lowering the lifting forks and then moving them into the open position, the processed sheet, with the finished parts and the scrap skeleton surrounding them, is deposited by the handling device on the workpiece table. The lifting forks of the handling device are then raised above the workpiece table again, and the handling device moves laterally back into the position above the support of the pallet changer. When the handling device has left the vicinity of the workpiece table, a gate-like frame structure moves over the workpiece table. The scrap skeleton deposited on the workpiece table is fixed to the frame structure spanning the workpiece table. The workpiece table is then lowered to a level beneath the scrap skeleton fixed to the frame structure. The lowering movement of the workpiece table is followed by the finished parts deposited on the workpiece table, which are thereby separated from the scrap skeleton fixed to the frame structure.
Improvements to such methods and systems are sought.


The invention provides a work transfer in a multi-stage forging apparatus for stepwise forging a work into a refined product.. The work transfer has an open-close type chuck which is, with its pair of finger members, suitable for grasping such a work whose diameter at its midportion is smaller than that at its endportions.. The work transfer is, in addition to the chuck open-close mechanism, provided with the chuck approach-recede mechanism for a work extract-insert function, which moves the chuck so that the finger members of the chuck may approach to and recede from a front face of a die.. The work transfer comprises a single camshaft rotating synchronously with a forging motion, and both the chuck open-close mechanism and the chuck approach-recede mechanism are operated by the single rotation of the camshaft.

A multi-stage forging apparatus fabricating various component parts like bolts, nuts, etc. has a base frame and stepwise forges a work being fed at one side end portion of the base frame as a raw material having a rough shape into a finished product having a refined shape throughout a plurality of forging stations each provided with a die and a punch. The work is forged at respective forging station and pushed out of the die of each station by means of a knockout pin installed in each die. The forging apparatus is further provided with a work transfer having a plurality of chucks for grasping and transferring the works from one forging station to subsequent other forging station.
Conventionally, the work transfer has a chuck reciprocating mechanism for transferring the work between the adjacent dies, and in an operation of the chuck reciprocating mechanism, the chuck reciprocates in a single direction in which the dies are aligned, i.e., after grasping the work in front of an upstream did the chuck moves to a front of a downstream die, and then, after releasing the work there it returnes to the front of the upstream die.
On the other hand, in case of forging such a specific work, a housing of an ignition plug, for instance, that a length of the work is relatively short and a diameter of the work becomes smaller as it goes to a rear end portion thereof, when the work is so pushed out from a bore of the die that most part of it comes out of the die, the work is likely to be tilted relative to the die with its head down under gravity. Therefore, it is possible that the chuck of the work transfer may fail to grasp the work, and even if the work is grasped, since it is not in a correct horizontal posture but tilted the work may not be driven into a bore at the next die properly or smoothly by only the forging motion of the punch.
To avoid this disadvantage, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 48294/1982 or Japanese Examined Utility Model Patent Publication No. 42358/1990 discloses a work transfer having a work extract-insert function relative to the die, which is operated as follows:
A chuck of the work transfer grasps the work of such specific shape as mentioned above at a time that the work is not wholly pushed out of the upstream die by the knockout pin, and the chuck recedes from a front face of the upstream die keeping the grasp of the work. Then, the chuck moves to the front of the downstream die, and approaches to a front face of the downstream die keeping the grasp of the work. Therefore, the work is, at the upstream die, extracted from the die bore by the chuck before it is tilted, and, at the downstream die, the work is inserted into the die bore to some extent by the chuck before it is fully driven into the die bore by the forging motion of the punch.
However, the chuck employed in the work transfer disclosed in the above-mentioned Publications is a press type chuck that has a pair of finger members arranged to face each other leaving a predetermined spacing therebetween, and the work is pushed out of the die and pressed into the spacing between the finger members so that it should be grasped by the finger members at its portion where a diameter is larger than a breadth of the spacing.
Therefore, in case of forging and grasping still such a specific a work, a bottom plate Z for a speaker as shown in FIG. 15, for instance, that has a stepped surface, diameter of each stepped portion being different and becoming smaller as it goes to a rear end portion thereof, and the work has a thin flange X1 of bigger diameter at its front portion, a relatively longer tubular midportion X2 of smaller diameter and a relatively shorter tubular rear portion X3 of still further smaller diameter, it is possible that the press type chuck as mentioned above may not grasp the work stably because the front flange portion X1 of the work is too thin for the chuck to catch steadily while the chuck is to grasp the work at that flange portion X1. As a result, it is inevitable that the chuck should grasp the work Z at the longer midportion X2 instead of the thin front flange portion X1, but above-mentioned press type chuck is, as clearly understood, not structurally able to comply with this desire.
In order to overcome this problem, as also disclosed in the above Japanese Examined Utility Model Patent Publication No. 42358/1990, an open-close type chuck may be employed, in which the finger members are swingably supported respectively so as to open for releasing the work and to close for grasping the work. However, in order to employ this open-close type chuck, in addition to the chuck reciprocating mechanism for the work transfer function and to the chuck approach-recede mechanism for the work extract-insert function, another chuck open-close mechanism for the work grasp-release function is required, which extremely complicates a whole structure of the work transfer.

Work transfer in multi-stage forging apparatus

Kabushi Kaisha Sakamura Kikai Seisakusho


Method and apparatus for simultaneous optimization of the compiler to generate codes that may be compatible and acceptable for two or more different processors without potentially sacrificing the performance on any processors is provided. In particular, the rules of instructions scheduling for the machines of interest of different processors are abstracted. From the abstractions, a hypothetical machine is generated that is the restrictive or constraining set of the actual machines modeled in the abstraction step. After generating the hypothetical machine, the restricted hypothetical machine is targeted rather than the actual machines modeled in the first step. Thereafter, conflicts, if any are resolved by modeling the performance impact and selecting the less damaging choice. In this manner, by creating a hypothetical machine model which incorporates the features of all target machines of interest and which is more restrictive or constrained that the actual machines modeled, it is possible to simultaneously optimize the code targeting multiple machines.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to compilers for microelectronics in integrated circuits. More particularly, the present invention relates to method and apparatus for simultaneously optimizing compiler's attempt to generate efficient code for multiple target machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
The backend of compilers for a target machine performs operations such as instruction scheduling, register allocation and other related tasks using a model of the target processor. The general goal of the algorithms and techniques employed is to generate code that executes quickly on the modeled target machine.
In real world applications, technical advances in processor technology generally rises with time. Computer manufacturers take advantage of new technology, periodically offering new systems that are faster but functionally compatible with their previous generation models. As customers gradually upgrade and transition to the newer, later available systems, most installations generally contain systems built with both old and new processors at any given time. The installation of the newer systems generally require compatible computer software that operates on all of the machines available including both the latest generation as well as the prior versions.
In such an environment, computer code optimization targeting a particular processor, while adequate for one target machine (for example, target machine P), may not be satisfactory for another target machine (for example, target machine N), and vice versa. This leads to customers being forced to select machines for which they wish to obtain optimal code, while potentially sacrificing the performance of other existing machines on their floor.
In particular, in the case of the two target machines P and N above with two generation of processors, a previous version P (of target machine P) and a newer version of the processor N (of target machine N), trends over the past several years in processor technology indicate increasing CPU clock frequencies. For example, processor P may be configured to operate in the 300–600 MHz clock frequency range, while processor N may be configured to operate in the 750–1000 MHz clock frequency range. At the higher clock rate, for example, the newer processor N generally takes more processor cycles to complete an operation such as a floating point addition as compared with the processor P operating at a relatively lower clock rate. In such cases, the optimizing compiler is generally required to generate code that is sufficient to operate around the increased latency of operations and to maintain high CPU utilization.
A typical machine model includes a latency table and a resource usage table. Latency here generally refers to the length of time duration necessary for a given operation to complete from a starting point to when the results of the given operation is available, and is measured in the number of processor cycles.
Generally, a computer processor speed is measured in terms of frequency such as MHz and so on. For a 400 MHz processor, the 400 MHz refers to the clock frequency of the processor whose one cycle is equal to 1/(400*106) seconds, which is the same as (1/400)*10−6 seconds. In multiple stages of a CPU pipeline, one cycle is can be viewed as the time given to a particular stage of the pipeline to perform the necessary operations at that stage. Here, pipeline of the CPU generally refers to the number of instruction execution stages for the particular CPU.
In the event that the processor speed is increased, for example, from 400 MHz to 600 MHz, it can be seen that the time available to each stage in the pipeline decreases, but the total amount of operations and necessary functions remain the same. Thus, in one approach, the number of stages in the pipeline architecture can be increased to ensure that all operations can be performed to completion.
Generally, an instruction is mapped to a latency class, and each processor may have a different number of latency classes with different latencies. In other words, for a given data producer such as a floating point adding instruction (Fadd), it is determined to what latency class the data producer belongs, and the determined latency class is mapped to the latency class of the data consumer such as a floating point multiplication instruction (Fmul). After mapping the latency class of the data producer to that of the data consumer, a corresponding source and destination latency class can be looked up from the latency table to obtain the number of cycles for the particular processor. In the example given above, the destination latency class is the floating point multiplication instruction (Fmul) while the source latency class is the floating point addition instruction (Fadd). In this manner, by mapping the destination latency class with the source latency class for a given processor, the look up latency table can be generated.
Referring again to the machine model referenced above, each instruction set is further mapped into a class called a resource usage class. Different instructions can be mapped to the same resource usage class. Resource usage class contains information related to the processor resources used by the particular instruction over time. For example, for each resource, there is provided a number of a particular resource that is used by a particular instruction. In specific, a given resource can be called once or on multiple occasions.
For a particular instruction to be scheduled, all its input data should be available. That is, the data producers should make the necessary data available to the data consumer, and further, all the resources that the data consumer needs should be available. In other words, all the resources that the data consumer needs to execute the necessary operations should be available. Otherwise, for a given processing cycle, the data consumer will be unable to execute its predetermined operations.

Method and apparatus for simultaneous optimization of code targeting multiple machines


Systems and methods are provided for annotating software with performance information. The computer code is compiled into assembler code, the assembler code is translated into a simulation model, expressed in assembler-level source code. The simulation model is annotated with information for calculating various performance parameters of the software, such as timing information, or resource usage information. The simulation model is then re-compiled and executed on a simulator, optionally including a hardware simulation model, and the performance information is computed from the simulation.

With the ability to mix processors, complex peripherals, and custom hardware and software on a single chip, full-system design and analysis demand a new methodology and set of tools. Today, high performance integrated circuit ("IC") technologies combine ever-increasing computing power with complex integrated peripherals and large amounts of memory at decreasing costs. It comes as no surprise that the software content of these embedded systems grows exponentially. While the system development tool industry has overlooked this trend for years, most estimates place the software development cost at well over half the total development budget for a typical system. The bias to software in system-level design arises mostly from the migration from application-specific logic to application-specific code, driven mainly by the need to cut down product costs and time to market.
Short product life cycles and customization to niche markets force designers to reuse not only building blocks, but entire architectures as well. The architecture cost is often paramount, thus the prime goal is to achieve the right combination of processor, memory and glue logic for efficient manufacturing. Once this prime goal is achieved, the architecture is analyzed for appropriateness and efficiency to different applications or behaviors. The fitness of a new architecture to a variety of end-user applications determines its market size. Reused architectures (platforms) often constitute the basis for a cluster of products that may differ in details such as software features, regulatory standards, or language specialization. Every time new features are added to a reused architecture, the architecture performance needs to be re-analyzed to ensure it provides the right timing and support. Using efficient system development tools can significantly streamline this performance analysis procedure.
An important part of the design consists in fitting together the behavior (from the specifications) and the architectural blocks (from IP suppliers) in such way that the cost, power consumption, and timing of the system can be analyzed. For the hardware side, ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) companies provide gate-level models and timing shells. For the software blocks, a similar characterization method is expected from system development tools.
When properly separated, the behavior and the architecture may co-evolve. As new requirements in the behavior call for changes in the architecture, architecture considerations (e.g., production cost) may lead to behavior modifications. Good system design practice keeps the specification as abstract as possible and allows independent mapping of behavior onto architecture. This is the essence of what has been termed function/architecture co-design.
Once mapped, the behavior can be annotated with estimated execution delays. The delays depend on the implementation type (hardware or software) and on the performance and inter-action of the architectural elements (e.g., IC technology, access to shared resources, etc. for hardware; clock rate, bus width, real-time scheduling and CPU sharing, etc. for software). These estimates should be accurate enough to help in making high level choices such as: deciding which behavior needs to be implemented in hardware and what can be done by software, how to architect the software in terms of threads, and what real-time operating system ("RTOS") to use.
Embedded systems are a significant application area for system-level design. Embedded systems interact with the outside world. They may read sensors, control actuators, communicate with other systems, or interact with users. Timing accuracy of these tasks is very important. A system with tight timing constraints is a "real-time" system. Design specifications for such systems add time constraints to functional specifications. These constraints specify the minimum and maximum times that a component of the system can consume in completing a task. The design tools are expected to provide accurate timing simulations at early stages of system definition, to assist the designer. High-level performance estimation coupled with a fast co-simulation framework is a suitable solution to forestall performance problems in embedded system design.
Providing good timing information for the hardware/software co-simulator, at an early stage, before designing detailed hardware and software, is a very difficult problem, especially for the software side. Small architectural enhancements can rapidly obsolete a previously good software estimation technique. This goal was pursued through various methods, but none of these is suitable for the function/architecture co-design methodology. They generally target worst-case execution time analysis for a single program. These approaches are not suitable for embedded systems, which are composed of multiple tasks, accessing common resources, whose dynamic activation can significantly modify each others' execution paths.
Thus methods and systems are required to accurately evaluate the performance of a system at different levels of abstraction. The evaluation must be done dynamically, in a simulation environment, to capture run-time task interaction. Moreover, it should be fast enough to enable the exploration of several architectural mappings in search for the best implementation. Tunable models, where the designer can trade accuracy for speed, would do the best.

Systems and methods for performing software performance estimations


A vehicle lamp capsule 32 having a base 34 having a spring 5 which, when lamp capsule 32 is installed, biases an inner surface of a vehicle lamp reflector 12. Spring 5 is monolithically formed with base 34 along with at least one reflector-locating structure on the base such as circumferentially extending exterior locating surface 44 and/or retaining keys 42. Base 34 and spring 5 may be molded of a plastics material. In other embodiments base 34 and spring 5 are made in one piece of sheet metal. The spring 5 formed unitary with the lamp base 34 meets regulatory requirements and avoids a risk of dislodgement of a conventional separate piece-part metal spring which could cause an electrical short when the lamp is installed in the field. The lamp capsule 32 is suitably an H13-style lamp.

It is known that a vehicle lamp capsule has a separate piece-part metal bias spring disposed in the lamp capsule base and positioned to act between, on the one hand, the lamp capsule, and, on the other hand, the internal wall within the lamp-receiving neck or socket of the reflector base, so as to press between the reflector and the lamp capsule in a direction orthogonal to the lamp axis. Such separate piece-part springs are known, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,430 (Coushaine) at FIG. 1, spring 52 and described therein at column 5, lines 5-42. Similar springs are known in U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,252 (Coushaine) at FIGS. 6, 8, and 12 depicting spring 400 and therein at col. 9, ln. 23-33.
It is known that in H13-style lamps that regulations, such as those in the United States at 49 CFR Part 564, require the presence of a spring that is used to preload the lamp within the reflector to enhance the repeatability of the location in which the capsule filament is placed into the reflector and in turn enhance the beam pattern of the system. Analogous regulations exist in other countries, such as regulation ECE R37. The spring is conventionally a separate component that must be manufactured and assembled into the lamp. An example of a lamp specification consistent with such regulation in the U.S. is shown in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Memorandum dated Jun. 26, 2002 archiving in the public record the Osram Sylvania Inc. specification under Part 564, Replaceable Light Source Information, at NHTSA Docket entry No. 98-3397-050, and containing ten data and drawing sheets H13-0 to H13-9, which is incorporated here in in its entirety as if fully set forth herein.
Conventional headlamp capsules, illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,252 (Coushaine); U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,430 (Coushaine); U.S. Pat. No. 10,066,801 (Rice); U.S. Pat. No. 9,739,439 (Landcastle et al.), each being of the present Applicant's assignee, and that illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,986 (Helbig) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,569 (Helbig) of the present Applicant's assignee's parent corporation, are known, and each such document is incorporated here in their entirety as if fully set forth herein. Commercial embodiments of such headlamp capsules as seen at Coushaine Pat. '252 at FIGS. 1-5 are generally designated in the trade as, for example SAE type 9005 or 9006 capsules (also known as HB3 and HB4, respectively), which are generally L-shaped, and embodiments of FIGS. 7-11 therein (or at Coushaine Pat. '430 at FIG. 4) are generally designated in the trade as, for example SAE type 9008 (or H13), which are generally straight. Also known is published application DE 10 2007 015 925 (Helbig), showing another separate piece-part spring, which states it is a construction variant of the spring shown in his own U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,986 (Helbig) and having a wider abutment flange.
Other conventional lamp arrangements are known in U.S. Pat. No. 4,740,876 (Roller); Pub. US2006/0098443 (Kaandorp); and document CN 207438161U at FIG. 1 therein.

Vehicle lamp base having integrally formed spring to bias reflector


A reduced-pressure fryer machine adapted to fry a food material in a food container case by immersing same in heated oil in a reduced-pressure frying vessel, the food container case being constituted by an open-topped container body substantially unperforated except its bottom side and a substantially unperforated lid for opening and closing the open top side of the container body.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a batchwise reduced-pressure fryer machine of the sort employing a food container case for holding therein various food products to be fried, including vegetables, fruits, sea foods and live-stock products as well as moldings or shaped products of these food stuff in the form of slices or chips, sticks, cubes or other arbitrary shapes, the food container case being designed to be immersed in heated oil of a reduced-pressure frying vessel to let the food product in the case undergo a predetermined frying process, and more particularly to a reduced-pressure fryer machine employing an improved food container case which is arranged to prevent the individual pieces of the food product in the case from abruptly floating up and sticking to a lid of the case or from sticking to each other to form larger lumps.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The reduced-pressure fryer machine of this sort generally includes a frying vessel, which is connected to a vacuum pump, and a food container case in the form of a metal wire basket or a box of punched or perforated metal sheet. The food container case which is filled, for example, with a predetermined amount of sliced food material is introduced into a frying vessel and immersed in heated oil for a preset time period under reduced pressure condition to fry the food material in the case.
In such a reduced-pressure fryer machine, however, it is often experienced that, when heated under reduced pressure, the food material in the case releases a great deal of steam vigorously for a certain time period in an initial stage of a frying process, and the released steam climbs up within the case and gushes out through the perforations in the lid toward the oil surface. The released steam is then discharged from the frying vessel by the action of the vacuum pump. Partly because of the energy of the vigorously climbing steam and partly because of the buoyancy of the food product itself, the individual pieces of the sliced food material in the case are urged to float up altogether and as a result forcibly pushed against the lid of the case, giving rise to problems such as adhesion of the sliced food material on the lid or agglomeration of the chips which will adversely affect the quality of the ultimate products.
Therefore, there have been proposed various countermeasures in this regard, for example, a method of supporting the food container case on a wag frame which is vertically shaken in the oil during a frying operation, or a method of repeatedly moving the food container case into and out of the oil for a few minutes before immersing the case in a still state in the oil. The first-mentioned method has a problem in that it is extremely difficult to disperse the sliced food material without adhesion or agglomeration because the whole content of the case tends to float up under the influence of great buoyancy as soon as the case is immersed and shaken up and down in the oil. This tendency is observed more conspicuously especially with a larger content of the processing food material. The second one of the above-mentioned methods also has drawbacks in that the vertical movements of the container case into and out of the oil in the course of a frying operation normally result in an inferior heating efficiency due to intermittent heating and an elongated processing time, in addition to the difficulty of giving a finish of a soft-and-full touch to the products and degradations in yield due to breakage losses of the products taking place while the case is moved up and down over a large stroke.
The above-mentioned phenomenon of the food material being pressed against and sticking on the lid of the food container case in the course of a frying operation as well as the phenomenon of the food material sticking together and agglomerating into lumps is considered to be mainly attributable to the construction of the food container case itself. Namely, normally the steam which is released from the food material in the frying process tends to climb straight upward. Therefore, it is presumable that, in a conventional food container case which is formed with a multitude of pores or perforations, the released steam from the food material vigorously flows out of the case toward the oil surface through the lid on the top side of the case, causing the food material to float up all of a sudden under the influence of the energy of the climbing steam and the buoyancy of the food material itself, and pressing the food material strongly against the lower surface of the lid in multiple overlapped layers until they completely block the perforations in the lid. As soon as the lid perforations are blocked by the food material being fried, the climbing steam which is now unable to flow out smoothly through the lid tends to find flow passages through side walls of the case. In such situations, the steam once flows upward to hit against the food material and then turns into sideward directions, leaving the food material still stuck on the lid of the food container case.
Therefore, it is conceivable that the above-mentioned problems of the conventional food container cases could be eliminated by providing a case which is constructed to control the climbing steam flows in such a way as to let part of steam linger in an upper portion of the case and form there a buffering steam layer with a cushioning effect on the food material being hit against the lid of the case, while letting the remainder of the steam form irregular sinuous flows within the container case to encourage convectional flows of the heated oil. The above-mentioned steam layer, coupled with the stirring action on the food material by the convectional heated oil flows, is considered to contribute to the eliminate the above-mentioned problematic phenomena, i.e., the adhesion of food material on the case lid and the agglomeration of food material into lumps.


A removable rear shelf for a motor vehicle and lateral supports therefor. The shelf includes a pair of front corners and an abutment surface adjacent the front corners on the bottom surface of the shelf. Each of the lateral supports includes a surface on which the bottom surface of the shelf rests when installed in the motor vehicle, a coupling element which receives a front corner of the shelf and permits rotation of the shelf relative to the supports for installation and removal, and an abutment surface which is complementary with the abutment surface on the shelf to prevent rearward movement of the shelf when installed.

The present invention relates to a device for mounting the rear shelf of a motor vehicle and, more particularly, to such a device intended for mounting the shelf on its lateral supports.
Motor vehicles of the three-door or five-door type have, in a known way, a removable rear shelf, so as to make it possible for the volume located behind the back seat to be freed completely. Moreover, these shelves are usually mounted pivotably so as to be capable of being raised in order to have easier access to the boot. For this purpose, they are often attached to the rear tailgate by means of a flexible tie, so as to be raised at the same time as the latter.
In order to achieve these aims, the known shelves comprise an articulation system, for example two cylindrical fingers for support and rotation which are mounted on either side of the shelf, in the extension one of the other, perpendicularly to the plane of symmetry of the vehicle. These fingers may be mounted on the shelf by any known means, for example in the form of an insert, or else screwed into an insert which is itself moulded on. They are intended to engage into receiving pieces integral with lateral receiving supports which are themselves fastened to the chassis of the vehicle.
These devices have some disadvantages. In the first place, the fingers for support and rotation project beyond the lateral edges of the shelf when the latter is removed from its position of use. This results in a risk that these fingers may become caught while the shelf is being mounted or demounted and may damage the inner walls of the vehicle or damage themselves.
Furthermore, these arrangements are complicated, and therefore costly to manufacture, and they require parts, the number of which must be reduced as far as possible.

Device for mounting a motor vehicle rear window shelf


The present invention relates to a nanocrystalline metallic material, particularly to nano-twin copper material with ultrahigh strength and high electrical conductivity and its preparation method. High-purity polycrystalline Cu material with a microstructure of roughly equiaxed submicron-sized grains (300-1000 nm) has been produced by pulsed electrodeposition technique, by which high density of growth-in twins with nano-scale twin spacing were induced in the grains. Inside each grain, there are high densities of growth-in twin lamellae. The twin lamellae with the same orientations are inter-parallel, and the twin spacing ranges from several nanometers to 100 nm with a length of 100-500 nm. This Cu material invented has more excellent performance than existing ones. The tensile yield strength and ultimate strength of the present Cu material at room-temperature can be as high as 900 MPa and 1086 MPa, respectively, and such a high tensile strength can not be achieved for the Cu materials with the same chemical composition prepared by any traditional methods. Meanwhile, the present Cu sample also keeps a good electrical conductivity, for example, the room-temperature resistivity is (1.75±0.02)×10−8 Ω·m, corresponding to 96% IACS, which is close to that of the conventional coarse-grained Cu.

The copper and its alloy are a kind of nonferrous metals that are used comprehensively for many proposes. It was frequently used as early as thousands years ago. For example, in Yin and Zhou dynasty (more than 3700 years ago), Chinese people are well known for the manufacturing on the bells, tripods (ancient cooking vessel with two loop handles and three or four legs) as well as weapons by bronze. So far, Cu and its alloys are still extensively used in conventional and modern industry. The main characteristics of Cu and its alloys are high electrical conductivity, good thermal conductivity, also good corrosion resistance in atmosphere, seawater and many other mediums. Moreover, they have very good plasticity and wear resistance, which are suitable for processing and casting various kinds of products. The copper and its alloys are the indispensable metal materials in many industrial fields, such as electric power, electrician equipment, thermal technology, chemical industry, instrument, shipbuilding and machine-manufacturing, etc.
The pure Cu has a very good conductive performance. However, the strength is pretty low. Strengthening Cu and its alloys could be approached by several methods, such as grain refinement, cold working, solid solution alloying etc, but such approaches usually lead a pronounced decrease in conductivity. For example, alloying pure Cu by adding elements (Al, Fe, Ni, Sn, Cd, Zn, Ag, Sb etc.) may increase the strength by two or three times, but the electrical conductivity of Cu alloys will decrease dramatically. Otherwise, adding minim Fe and Ni will affect the magnetic property of Cu, which is a disadvantage to making compasses and aviation instrument. The volatilities of some alloy elements, such as Cd, Zn, Sn and Pb etc., would limit their application in electronic industry, especially in high temperature and high vacuum environments. Currently, machine equipment, toolmaking and instrument apparatus are going for a high speed, high efficiency, high sensitivity, low energy consumption and microminiaturization. Therefore the high and comprehensive demand for copper material has been presented in precision and reliability. For instance, the new-type high performance of copper material is urgently required in the rapidly developing computer industry, automobile industry, radio communication (such as plug connector in cell phone and lithium battery) and printing (for making the multi-layer printed circuit board and high density printed circuit board) etc. So there are great challenges to significantly strengthening copper and its alloys without damaging their excellent electrical conductivity.
The nanocrystalline materials refer to single phase or multiphase solid materials consisting of very fine grains of 1-100 nm in diameter. Due to its small grain and numerous grain boundaries (GBs), nanocrystalline materials are expected to exhibit tremendous difference from conventional micron-sized polycrystalline materials in physical and chemical performances, such as mechanics, electrics, magnetics, optics, calorifics, chemistry etc.
Grain refinement is often used to strengthen materials in engineering, which increases the strength of materials by introducing more grain boundaries to obstacle dislocation motion, described by the well-known Hall-Petch (H-P) relationship as σy=σ0+d−1/2. However, the strength does not monotonously increase with decreasing grain sizes in any regiem; when the grain size reduces down to nanometer scale, especially less than a critical size, abnormal H-P relationship will occur. Actually, both experimental observations and computer simulations have shown that the strengthening effect will weaker or disappear as the grain sizes are refined to nanometer, thereby softening effect appears. When grain sizes are small enough, namely close to lattice dislocation equilibrium distance, few dislocations can be accommodated in grains, and grain boundary activities (e.g. grain boundary rotating and sliding) would be dominate, leading to the softening of materials. Therefore, for nanocrystalline materials, ultrahigh strength can be achieved by suppressing the dislocation activities and the grain boundary activities simultaneously.
Strengthening of solid solution alloying or introduction of a second phase is also effective method in blocking the motion of lattice dislocations. Cold-working (plastic straining), which generates numerous dislocations during deformation process and limits the further dislocation activities, also strengthen the materials. All of these strengthening approaches are based on the introduction of various kinds of defects (GBs, dislocations, point defects and reinforcing phases, etc.), which restrict dislocation motion but increase the scattering for the conducting electrons. The latter will decrease the electrical conductivity of materials.
For example, the tensile yield strength (σy) of the coarse-grained Cu at room temperature is only 0.035 GPa, which is about two orders of magnitude lower than the theoretical strength, and the elongation is about 60%. After cold-working (as-rolled Cu), the tensile yield strength increases appropriately, being about 250 MPa. Nanocrystalline Cu has higher σy than coarse-grained Cu. American scientists J. R. Weertman et al. [Sander P. G, Eastman J. A. & Weertman J. R., Elastic and tensile behavior of nanocrystalline copper and palladium, Acta Mater., 45 (1997) 4019-4025] produced nanocrystalline Cu by inert-gas condensation with grain sizes of about 30 nm, and the tensile yield strength is 365 MPa at room temperature. Prof. R. Suryanarayana et al. [Suryanarayana R. et al., Mechanical properties of nanocrystalline copper produced by solution-phase synthesis, J. Mater. Res. 11 (1996) 439-448] prepared nanocrystalline copper powder by ball milling, then cold-pressed the purified Cu powder to nanocrystalline Cu with the grain size of 26 nm, it's yield strength is about 400 MPa. However, nanocrystalline samples have very limit elongations, usually less than 1-2%. In China, L. Lu, K. Lu et al. (patent application numbered 0114026.7) produced bulk nanocrystalline Cu with the grain sizes of 30 nm by electrodeposition technique. It is indicated that the as-deposited nanocrystalline Cu consisted of small-angle GBs, unlike the large-angle GBs in conventional nanometer materials. The yield strength at room temperature is 119 MPa and the elongation 30%.
If the as-deposited nanocrystalline Cu was cold-rolled at room temperature, the average grain sizes of the sample remained unchanged, but the misorientation among the nanocrystallites and the dislocation density increased. The yield strength of the as-rolled nanocrystalline Cu reached as high as 425 MPa, but the elongation declined to 1.4%. J. R. Weertman et al. achieved the yield strength of 535 MPa in microsample tensile testing of nanocrystalline Cu specimen (1 mm) [Legros M., Elliott B. R., Ritter M. N., Weertman J. R. & Hemker K. J., Microsample tensile testing of nanocrystalline metals, Philos. Mag. A., 80 (2000) 1017-1026]. For the nanocrystalline Cu samples produced by surface mechanical attrition treatment, the tensile results at room temperature of the microsamples (thickness of the sample 11-14 μm, gauge length 1.7 mm, cross-section area 0.5 mm×0.015 mm) showed that the yield strength was as high as 760 MPa, but the elongation was almost zero [Wang Y. M., K. Wang, Pan D., Lu K., Hemker K. J. and Ma E., Microsample tensile testing of nanocrystalline Cu, Scripta Mater., 48 (2003) 1581-1586]. Meanwhile, the yield strength of about 400 MPa is achieved in compression testing at room temperature for the copper with the grain size of 109 nm processed by severe plastic deformation, however, the electrical resistivity at room temperature (293 K) was as high as 2.46×10−8 Ω·m (only 68% IACS) [Islamgaliev R. K., Pekala K., Pekala M. and Valiev R. Z., Phys. Stat. Sol. (a), 162 (1997) 559-566].

Nano icrystals copper material with super high strength and conductivity and method of preparing thereof

Institute of Metal Research Chinese Academy of Sciences


A method for producing a welded joint between a high-strength aluminum alloy with a copper proportion as a first metal and a second metal, in which the welded joint is produced by CMT welding.

For high-strength aluminium alloys of this type, such as alloys from the 7075 group, it is known that fusion welding processes such as arc welding cannot be employed successfully on account of the copper content in the alloys. Therefore, use is commonly made of more complex processes for joining these metals.
By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,769,306 discloses a special friction welding process for aluminium alloys of this type.
Japanase Patent Publication JPH1147959 A discloses friction stir welding for high-strength aluminium alloys.
Particularly in vehicle construction, it would be desirable for it to be possible to produce lighter vehicle bodies by joining, for example, steel and high-strength aluminium and to replace relatively heavy steel parts with high-strength aluminium parts. These high-strength aluminium alloys, in particular aluminium alloys from the 7075 group, have been used to date predominantly in aircraft construction, in which case they are riveted—and therefore the problem of the lack of weldability arises to a lesser extent in aircraft construction.


A peer-to-peer modular presentation system is disclosed for providing improved presentations. The system includes a plurality of displays. Each display is associated with an input device, processor and input/output port. The plurality of displays may include static or mobile wherein each display is aware of the displays immediately surrounding it or of the displays in a remote site during a teleconference. A propagation direction may be configured for at least two of the displays in the system. Propagation may be initiated for multiple displays by generating a gesture input at one display. The gesture input will cause content to be presented in the particular display, and initiate propagation of content along the configured direction in neighboring displays. Content may be fed to a particular display through a stack or other memory that is associated with the display.

Presenting slides is an integral part of many meetings and other events that involve communication. Currently, the standard set-up is to use a laptop computer or meeting room computer to show Microsoft Powerpoint slides or web-based slides in a single video projector.
There are several disadvantages inherent to the standard slide presentation scenario. First, as a presenter progresses through a series of slides, the slide previously displayed on a screen is completely replaced. An audience may not view the previous slide that relates to the slide currently displayed. Second, there is generally no interaction from audience members regarding slide content. Audience members may discuss slides with a presenter, but generally may not add content to a slide as it is being presented.
Some attempts have been made by prior art systems to improve on the traditional slide show. One simple system uses multiple displays to show the same output of a single computer. Current presentation systems typically use a laptop with a video output signal that shows a copy of the laptop's display on a video projector or a large wall display. In the Unix operating system, a display can be set to view a particular workstation that can be located anywhere on the network. More recently, popular technology such as VNC (Virtual Network Computing) and Microsoft Terminal Services Client allow one computer's display and keyboard/mouse input to control another computer.
In other prior art attempts, several displays have been tiled together to create a large high resolution display. An example of this work is disclosed in the Princeton Scalable Display Wall, Li, Kai, et al, "Early experiences and challenges in building and using a scalable display wall system", IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 20 (4), pp 671-680, 2000. Since the resulting tiled display is intended to behave like a single large display, the spirit of such systems does not provide much improvement over existing systems.
More sophisticated systems allow separate display units to interact with each other. ConnecTables, as disclosed in "ConnecTables: Dynamic coupling of displays for the flexible creation of shared workspaces", Tandler, P. et al., Proceedings of UIST '01. ACM, New York, supports the dynamic coupling of displays for small tables having a display on top. This work has major limitations in that two tables must be physically moved together in order for them to be coupled. Additionally, only two displays can be connected at a time, and they must be connected in a front-edge-to-front-edge configuration. The two displays can either form a single surface or remain as two separate surfaces. When connected, the two users can work on computer applications and share data.
Prior art systems have improved over the standard slide presentation methods, but there is still a need for an improved presentation system. What is needed is a media presentation system that overcomes the limitations of the prior art.

Peer to peer gesture based modular presentation system


A cooking appliance includes a body having an interior to receive product to be cooked, the body having an opening via which the product can be moved relative to the interior; a pilot mounted within the body; and a door attached to the body to close the opening. The door includes a first latch mounted to the door and a second latch mounted to the door and independently reciprocable relative to the first latch between a first position and a second position, wherein the second latch is urged to move towards the second position such that, as the door is moved to close the opening, the second latch is received within the body and is deflected towards the first position by the pilot until a portion of the second latch clears the pilot and is urged to move towards the second position to come to rest behind the pilot.

Soft close type oven doors utilise friction or damping elements that act against a door retraction mechanism. When a latch blade carried by the oven's door passes through a cooperating slot in the oven body, the blade is clasped and the door is drawn into closure by the dampened action of a retraction spring. Should the latch blade become disengaged from the retraction mechanism it may thereafter be impossible for a user to re-engage it. Unless re-engaged, a fault condition is generated that prevents the oven door from closing fully. As such, the oven is inoperable and must be serviced by qualified personnel.


The invention provides a heat conductor device (10) for removing heat from an electrical component (12) operating in a frequency range, the device comprising a body (13) having a first thermal conductivity, characterized in that the body (13) is provided with a heat spreader (14) comprising a pattern of thermally conducting tiles (20, 50, 51, 52, 61) separated by gaps (21), the tiles having a second thermal conductivity higher than the first thermal conductivity, wherein each tile has at most a maximum area value and the gaps have at least a minimum gap width, and the maximum area and the minimum width are dimensioned for conforming to a predetermined electromagnetic interference characteristic of the heat conductor device when combined with the electrical component operating in the frequency range. The invention also provides a method for forming a heat conductor device.

An electrical component that needs cooling is placed in thermal contact with a thermally conductive material, also called a heat conductor device or heat sink. However, materials with good thermal conductivity (such as metal) also tend to have good electrical conductivity.
A nearby layer with good electrical conductivity is problematic when used in conjunction with high frequency devices such as for processor integrated circuits (ICs) or memory ICs operating in the Megahertz (MHz) or Gigahertz (GHz) domain. In these applications, the conducting surface of the surrounding layer acts as a radiator for source currents which are present internally in the IC. The surface can also act as a reflector of electromagnetic (EM) waves. This behaviour can interfere with the functioning of other electrical components and is, for that reason, often forbidden by regulations.
It is known to use other, non-conducting or poorly electrically conducting materials, such as ceramics. However, ceramics are relatively expensive and have, compared to electrical conductors, a generally poor thermal conductivity.
Another material that is used are polymers or plastics. Plastics are less expensive than ceramics, but have even poorer heat conducting properties.
It is noted that US 2006/047 053 discloses an electrically conductive polymer composition which also has a degree of thermal conductivity. A plurality of discrete electrically conductive elements are incorporated into the polymer composition. These elements give the polymer composition a degree of electrical conductivity that is intended to shield an IC coated with the polymer from electromagnetic interference (EMI) and/or radio frequency (RF) radiation. The IC is to be surrounded by the electrically conductive polymer composition or by a combination of the electrically conductive polymer composition and another electrical conductor so that a closed Faraday cage is formed. Heat conductor devices, or heat sinks, to which the present invention relates, typically are intended to enlarge the area of heat transfer and therefore typically cover only part of the IC and do not surround the IC. Heat sinks for high frequency components must be carefully designed to prevent acting as an antenna, which is not a concern of the shielding application of US 2006/047 053, which material is therefore generally unsuitable for use in heat sinks.
There is thus a need for a heat conductor device with good thermal conductivity for removing heat from electrical components which does not simultaneously act as a radiator or reflector in the frequency domain of the component.

Heat conductor device and method of forming a heat conductor device


The present invention provides an inner rotor electric motor, in which the stator core is divided into a plurality of stator segments extending in an axial direction which are accommodated in corresponding stator casing segments. The stator segments are preferably constructed in an identical manner; the corresponding stator casing segments are also preferably substantially identical to each other. Means of connection to mechanically connect the stator segments and the corresponding stator casing segments is provided as well as means of electrically coupling the phase windings.

This application claims priority to the filing date of German Utility Model Application No. 203 08 665.1 filed Jun. 3, 2003.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an inner rotor electric motor comprising a stator core having an annular stator back yoke and a plurality of stator poles. The stator poles project radially inwards from the inner surface of the stator back yoke. The stator core encloses an assembly consisting of a shaft and a rotor, the shaft and the rotor being rotatably supported in respect of the stator by means of roller bearings.
The invention relates in general to the field of electronically commutated brushless direct current motors and other permanent magnet motors that are configured as inner rotor motors.
2. Background of the Invention
Such motors known from the prior art comprise a shaft, a rotor assembly having a magnetically soft back yoke and one or several permanent magnets disposed on it, and a stator assembly including a stator core composed of laminations, for example, and phase windings. Two bearings are arranged on the shaft on each side of the rotor assembly at an axial distance from each other to journal the rotor assembly in respect of the stator assembly. The electric motor according to the invention is not limited to any specific application and can be used in the automotive sector, for example, to support the steering, to operate the windscreen wipers or to drive a cooling water pump just as it can be used as a drive motor for fans, disk drives, machine tools or suchlike.
Inner rotor motors have the basic disadvantage that due to the cylinder-shaped, closed stator, they have to be mounted in an axial direction which involves limitations for inserting and adjusting the components inside the stator. The cause of this is the magnetic forces that work in an axial and radial direction between the stator and the permanent magnets of the rotor. Moreover, it is difficult to apply the phase windings to the stator poles of a stator core. For this purpose, highly complex winding techniques and machines, such as needle winders, are used.
The object of the invention is to provide an inner rotor electric motor that is easy to manufacture and to assemble.


A system for separating waste by type and collecting the separated wastes, preserving the integrity of the separation during the collection and consolidation, including a multi-compartment inside container for the initial separation, an outside container that interfaces with the inside container so that the separated contents of the latter can be dumped into the former, a mobile collection unit that transfers the separated wastes from the outside container to a plurality of bins, again preserving the separation, and transports the waste to a distribution facility. The volume of the separated waste is reduced by the collection vehicle as it is dumped through hatches on the top of the vehicle into chutes that lead to the appropriate bin for that type of waste. The collection vehicle grips, lifts and inverts the outside container, made up of three subcontainers, and then separates them so that each can be positioned over and aligned with a different hatch on the top of the vehicle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to recycling household wastes. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system for efficiently collecting wastes that have been separated by type in a manner that preserves the integrity of the original separation.
2. Discussion of Background
Despite the growing concern about the environmental impact of industrial processes and waste generation, the amount of waste generated continues to be a problem in our society. It has been estimated that approximately 3.5 to 6.5 pounds of solid waste are generated per day for every individual in the United States. Additionally, the capacity of our landfills is steadily dwindling and the buried waste sometimes threatens to become a source of pollution.
One method for tackling this solid waste problem is recycling as much of household solid waste as possible. Recycled waste saves landfill space and provides resources for making new products.
Recycling involves the recovery of materials such as glass, plastic, metals and paper products for eventual reuse, thus reducing the overall amount of solid waste generated. By reusing much of the waste materials that are generated, recycling helps to extend the finite supply of raw materials.
Recycling has been taking place for many years, as have waste disposal and retrieval systems facilitating the collection and processing of recyclable waste. Also, multi-compartment containers for segregating household wastes are known. Likewise, vehicles designed to receive waste contained in these compartmentalized containers while maintaining separation of the segregated wastes collected are known.
For example, Pluss, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,776 discloses a container having separate compartments for recyclable materials. The container has a series of compartment partitions for forming compartments of different sizes. Also, Schiller (U.S. Pat. No. 4,113,125) discloses a system for collecting and transporting a plurality of waste types using a vehicle having multiple collection chambers and a plurality of collection containers.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,015,142 and 5,015,143, Carson discloses a waste collection system using a transportable, outdoor container that has a plurality of bins for dumping materials from a divided container into the separated bins. The plurality of bins have hinged doors opened by actuating a push plate catch release.
Similarly, Foa, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,960,220, discloses container assemblies for use with each other to transfer plural types of waste from one container to the other while maintaining separation of plural waste types. In this waste collection system, indoor containers are rotated about a fitting mounted on the outdoor containers to invert the indoor containers for conveying the contents of indoor container into corresponding outdoor container compartments. Also disclosed by Foa is an additional embodiment that uses lid openings rotating about a vertical axis to create sequentially a window for each compartment.
Nothing in these references uses the convenience of sliding compartment or container lids instead of liftable, rotatable covers. Also, current collection and transferal devices either feature single containers having multiple compartments or multiple containers housing separate types of wastes.
Nothing currently in use teaches a collection vehicle that can lift and invert a group of containers, each of which has multiple compartments for separated wastes, and can dump the separated wastes into the vehicle while preserving the integrity of the waste separation.
There exists a need for an improved waste collection system that maintains the integrity of the separation of wastes from initial collection of household wastes to distribution of the waste types.


A diagnostic system for an engine includes a pressure monitoring module that determines a plurality of first average pressure values and a plurality of second average pressure values of a fluid supply provided to a camshaft phaser. A diagnostic module identifies one of a plurality of cylinders associated with a failed variable valve lift mechanism based on the first and the second average pressure values. Each of the first and the second average pressure values respectively correspond to each of the plurality of cylinders.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Vehicles include an internal combustion engine that generates drive torque. More specifically, an intake valve is selectively opened to draw air into the cylinders of the engine. The air is mixed with fuel to form a combustion mixture. The combustion mixture is compressed within the cylinders and is combusted to drive pistons within the cylinders. An exhaust valve selectively opens to allow the exhaust gas to exit from the cylinders after combustion.
A rotating cam shaft regulates the opening and closing of the intake and exhaust valves. The camshaft includes a plurality of cam lobes that rotate with the camshaft. The profile of the cam lobe determines the valve lift schedule. More specifically, the valve lift schedule includes the amount of time the valve is open (duration) and the magnitude or degree to which the valve opens (lift).
Variable valve actuation (VVA) technology improves fuel economy, engine efficiency, and/or performance by modifying a valve lift event, timing, and duration as a function of engine operating conditions. Two-step VVA systems include variable valve assemblies such as hydraulically controlled switchable roller finger followers (SRFFs). SRFFs enable two discrete valve states (e.g. a low lift state or a high lift state) on the intake and/or exhaust valves.
Referring to FIG. 1, a hydraulic lift mechanism (i.e. a SRFF mechanism) 10 is shown in more detail. Those skilled in the art can appreciate that the SRFF mechanism 10 is merely exemplary in nature. The SRFF mechanism 10 is pivotally mounted on a hydraulic lash adjuster 12 and contacts the valve stem 14 of an inlet valve 16 that selectively opens and closes an inlet passage 18 to a cylinder 20. The engine inlet valve 16 is selectively lifted and lowered in response to rotation of an inlet camshaft 22 on which multiple cam lobes (e.g. low lift cam lobe 24 and high lift cam lobe 26) are mounted. The inlet camshaft 22 rotates about an inlet camshaft axis 28. Although the exemplary embodiment describes the SRFF mechanism 10 operating on the engine inlet valve 16, those skilled in the art can appreciate that a SRFF mechanism may operate similarly on an exhaust valve 30.
A control module transitions a SRFF mechanism from a low lift state to a high lift state and vice versa based on demanded engine speed and load. For example, an internal combustion engine operating at an elevated engine speed such as 4,000 revolutions per minute (RPMs) typically requires the SRFF mechanism to operate in a high lift state to avoid potential hardware damage to the internal combustion engine.

Diagnostic system for valve actuation mechanism


A lens shutter type of camera is disclosed in which a zoom lens is positioned in a lens block (1) which has a sector gear (15) rotatably associated with the lens block and with a rotatable cam ring (14). The cam ring and sector gear are rotatable in a substantially constant axial position. A movable finder optical assembly (8) and a movable strobe assembly (9) are movable in association with movement of the zoom lens. The zoom lens is movable between an extreme telephoto position and an extreme wide angle position, as well as into a fully collapsed lens position beyond the extreme wide angle position and a macro or close-up photographing position beyond the extreme telephoto position. When the camera is in its macro mode, a prism (P1) is inserted into the finder optical assembly to correct for parallax; the strobe assembly is moved to change its illumination angle; and an optical wedge (4e) is pivoted into the path between a light receiver (4) and a light emitter (3e). A single cam plate (53) is provided to move the finder assembly and the strobe assembly. The photographic aperture (22b) can be selectively closed by barrier plates (31a) when the zoom lens is moved into its fully collapsed position. A light intercepting assembly (210) is provided for preventing light from entering the photographic optical assembly via cam grooves (20 and 21). This intercepting assembly includes a flexible code plate (90) which surrounds a peripheral portion of the cam ring (14) and which provides positional information relating to the position of the zoom lens.

1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a lens shutter type of auto-focus camera, and more particularly to a zoom lens type of camera in which a zoom lens system is used as a taking or photographing optical system, and in which a finder optical system and an electronic flash device (i.e., a strobe) are associated with the zooming operation of the zoom lens system. In other words, the finder optical system and the strobe move in coordinated fashion with zooming movement of the lens.
2. Background Art
Generally, in conventional lens shutter (i.e., between the lens shutter) types of auto focus cameras, it is impossible to vary the focal length of the photographic optical system. Other lens shutter types of auto focus cameras comprise a two focal length system, in which a lens is provided for varying the focal length and can be selectively inserted in the photographing optical system. In such a system, two focal lengths are provided; however, it is possible to use only the two focal lengths provided, e.g., a wide angle and a telephoto range for the zoom lens, or, e.g., a standard range and a telephoto range for the zoom lens. While taking advantage of such dual focal lengths, it is impossible to cover the range of focal lengths between the two extreme focal lengths, or between a wide angle and a medium telephoto focal length. Under such circumstances, taking pictures with the use of a zoom lens has heretofore only been possible by using a single lens reflex camera.
However, single lens reflex cameras are more expensive and heavier than lens shutter type cameras, and, accordingly, it is not easy for a photographer who is unfamiliar with cameras to freely use such single lens reflex cameras. Because of the heavy weight and relatively large size of such single lens reflex cameras, female photographers and travelers who are desirous of reducing the weight and the amount of baggage carried tend to hesitate to use such a single lens reflex (hereinafter SLR) camera, even if they appreciate the high quality pictures which are generally taken by such cameras.
Accordingly, users who would otherwise hesitate to use single lens reflex cameras which are relatively bulky and heavy, as noted above, have only two alternate choices: (a) a relatively small, light lens shutter type of automatic camera which has heretofore not been capable of controlling the focal length of the photographing optical system; or (b) a dual focal length type of auto focus camera in which only two extreme focal lengths can be used.
In view of such circumstances, one primary object of the present invention is to provide a small, light, compact lens shutter type of camera with a zoom lens in which focusing control and electronic flash or strobe control can be automatically effected.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a lens shutter type of auto-focus camera which has an additional macro (i.e., close-up) function with which an extremely large, detailed image can be taken; and in which a finder optical system and an electronic flash device are adapted to be coordinated with zooming operation of the zoom lens in the macro mode as well as in normal operation (e.g., in wide angle, telephoto or standard operation).
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a movable macro compensating optical element which is used in the distance measuring apparatus or range finder in order to extend the optical base length from its value in the normal photographic mode, and to enable substantially the same area on the position detecting sensor to receive light when measuring the distance of a subject.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a camera having a field of view with minimum parallax in the macro mode.
Another object of the present invention is to reduce parallax in a lens shutter type camera by providing a prism selectively movable into the path of a finder optical system in order to deflect the field of view downwardly and rightwardly to the axis of the photographing optical system when the camera is in its macro photographing mode.
Still a further object of the present invention is to move a strobe lamp assembly along an optical axis thereof in coordination with movement of a zoom lens.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a distance measuring device used in an auto-focus lens shutter type of camera in which an optical wedge is selectively inserted to extend the optical base length between the light emitter and the light receiver comprising the distance measuring device.
Still another object is to provide a finder optical system in which it is necessary to move only a single lens to vary the field of view.
Another object is to provide a lens shutter type camera with a light intercepting assembly which minimizes light from entering a photographic optical assembly lens system.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a lens shutter type of camera which includes a strobe assembly whose illumination angle varies in accordance with the position of a movable zoom lens assembly.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a lens shutter type camera in which a flexible printed circuit board is guided in its movement along one side of a cam ring and zoom lens, and which includes structure for minimizing internal reflections from the FPC board into the interior of a photographing optical assembly.


An attaching system for a steering wheel assembly including a ring portion, a plurality of spokes, as well as integrally formed ring and spoke covering layers, and a pad portion. A steering shaft is formed at its distal end with external screw threads, a portion of which project beyond the upper surface of a boss plate. A nut includes a wheel gear having a plurality of teeth that are engagable with screw threads as a fastening tool. The nut is screwed onto or off from the steering shaft by the fastening tool that engages and rotates the nut, relative to steering shaft.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a steering wheel assembly and in particular to a structure for mounting a steering wheel assembly on a steering shaft.
2. Description of Related Art
A steering wheel assembly comprises a wheel or annular gripping ring portion, a pad portion disposed in the center of the ring portion, and a plurality of angularly spaced apart spokes for connecting the ring portion with the pad portion. A separated or independent pad is mounted at the pad portion.
A ring core is embedded in the ring portion and, similarly, spoke cores are embedded in the respective spokes. In this case, the ring and spoke cores are each covered with a covering layer made, for example, of foamed polyurethane, such as TPE. Further, a boss plate with a boss for mounting the entire steering wheel assembly on a steering shaft is coupled to the spoke cores beneath the pad adjacent the pad portion.
On the other hand, a steering wheel assembly has been proposed which has no interface line between the covering layers of the spokes and the pad portion when the covering layers and the pad portion are integrally formed in order to improve the appearance of the finished product (e.g., Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. Hei. 2-133955).
Although such type of steering wheels in which the ring and spoke core covering layers are integral with the pad portion have been widely used owing to its improved appearance, they have a problem, which will be described below, when mounting the steering wheel assembly on the steering shaft. Since the pad can not itself be removed from the covering layer for the ring core and spoke cores in the above-mentioned type of steering wheel assembly, it is hard to conduct screw-fastening of the boss plate to the steering shaft, especially when the boss plate is connected by a nut. Accordingly, a novel steering wheel assembly has been demanded which can be easily and positively mounted on the steering shaft even when the boss plate is connected with the spoke cores, that is, after the steering wheel has been assembled.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a novel steering wheel assembly, including a cover layer covering a ring core and spoke cores which is formed integrally with a pad portion, that can be easily and positively mounted on a steering shaft.


Historical information about a significant input parameter is stored in a data analytics model of a hydrocarbon reservoir. A historical deep recursive neural network (RNN) model is built based on time-series production data from the hydrocarbon reservoir as a function of the significant input parameter in the data analytics model. The historical deep RNN neural network model is stored on a data storage device. An experiment using the historical deep neural network model is designed to predict the significant input parameter. The experiment is run to produce a significant experimental input parameter. The significant experimental input parameter is compared to the significant input parameter stored in the data analytics model to determine a difference. The data analytics model is adjusted to reduce the difference.

Hydrocarbons are typically produced from reservoirs in the earth. Data, in the form of parameters such as permeability, connectivity, fracture geometry and conductivity and other similar parameters, collected from a reservoir and around the reservoir is often studied to develop and implement procedures to enhance production from the reservoir. Such production enhancement procedures include, but are not limited to, hydraulic fracturing, acidizing, and other such procedures. Production enhancement procedures can be affected by the reservoir, fracture and treatment parameters and can be designed to take into account those parameters. It is a challenge to identify significant parameters, defined to be those reservoir, fracture and treatment parameters that have the most impact on the design of production enhancement procedures, and then to design and implement production enhancement procedures considering the significant parameters.

Optimizing production using design of experiment and reservoir modeling


A securing structure for a stator includes the stator having a stator core, and a housing having an opening portion containing the stator core, and the housing includes a portion A where the clearance between the inner circumferential surface of the opening portion and the stator core is relatively smaller and the inner diameter of the opening portion is constant, and a portion B located adjacent to the portion A in the axial direction of the stator core where the clearance between the inner circumferential surface of the opening portion and the stator core is relatively larger.

A rotating electric machine including a stator has conventionally been known.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-15957 discloses an electric motor (rotating electric machine) in which a stator having a stator core is press-fit in a housing (case).
Further, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2000-166207 discloses a brushless fan motor having a rubber vibration isolator provided at a portion of contact between a case containing a stator and another casing.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 9-168253 discloses a bearing structure for a motor with the intention of suppressing vibration and mechanical noise.
Moreover, a paper of issue number 16748 in Toyota Technical Publications published on Apr. 28, 2005 discloses a technique regarding a securing structure for an IPM (Interior Permanent Magnet) motor, for reducing vibration and noise by allowing a stator core and a high stiffness portion of a motor case to selectively abut on each other.
In the case where a stator is fit in a case so that the position where the stator is attached is determined, vibration of the stator caused when a rotating electric machine is driven is likely to be transmitted to the case.
Here, if the tolerance in fitting the stator is increased, the amount of eccentricity between the stator and the rotor is likely to be increased. As a result, imbalance in the electromagnetic attraction force occurs and accordingly vibration and noise increase. Further, if the amount of eccentricity between the stator and the rotor is particularly large, there is the concern that interference between the stator and the rotor might occur.
In contrast, if the tolerance in fitting the stator is decreased, the working efficiency in inserting the stator into the case is deteriorated. Further, the area of contact between the case and the stator increases, and accordingly vibration of the stator without being damped is likely to be transmitted to the case.

Securing structure for stator and electric vehicle


A backpack having a bow-shaped frame incorporated into its backside and two carrying straps is provided, in which the carrying straps are attached directly or indirectly to a strap that can be adjustably slid longitudinally along the backpack backside, and is connected to the backpack by its free ends in an area in which free ends of the bow-shaped frame end.

The invention concerns a backpack provided with a bow-shaped frame incorporated into its backside and two carrying straps.
Backpacks with incorporated bow-shaped frames, intended to improve the stability of the backpack, are already known. To adjust the backpack to the carrier's anatomy, adjustable-position carrier straps are also already known. The carrying height of the backpack can be adjusted according to the length of the back. The free ends of the adjustable carrier straps fit on one hand into the top part of the backpack, on the other hand into the bottom part of the backpack. The principal energy component of the load-bearing capacity is thus introduced into the top part of the backpack.