A system for reducing plasma induced communication disruption utilizes an electrophilic gas injectant, bent reentry vehicle nose shaping and a number of flaps configured to provide 3-axis steering capability. Injecting electrophilic gas injectant into plasma accomplishes reduction of plasma induced communication disruption by removing free electrons in the plasma which causes the communication disruption. For reentry vehicles, a bent biconic nose also reduces plasma effect during reentry. By combining electrophilic gas injection and bent nose shaping, the system reduces and/or eliminates plasma induced communication disruption, such as, GPS communication blackout, for a reentry vehicle during reentry. Furthermore, the 3-axis steering capability renders the reentry vehicle more maneuverable. Performance of the reentry vehicle during reentry, such as, target accuracy, is thus improved.

Blazing fiery descent of space-borne objects into the Earth atmosphere is a well known phenomenon. To avoid damage or destruction during the fiery reentry phase, reentry vehicles are usually equipped with heat-shields known as the thermal protection system (TPS). With a TPS shield, it is the outer layer of TPS, rather than the structure of the reentry vehicle, that is subject to the intense heat and pressures during reentry. However, the TPS itself is not indestructible. For instance, the outer layer of TPS ablates away under the extreme heat and pressures of reentry phase. As the TPS chars and partly burns away, a layer of plasma is created around the reentry vehicle from the ablation process.
Plasma is a state of matter in which molecules or atoms are broken down to free electrons and positively charged ions—atoms with electrons stripped away—under extreme heat. The TPS ablation releases certain easily ionizable trace elements in the TPS—mainly the low ionization potential alkali metals such as Na, K, and Ca—into a thin layer of flow around the reentry vehicle. A significant portion of these atoms ionize when they are subject to the high temperatures that exist in the thin boundary layer of flow around the reentry vehicle. Equal numbers of singly ionized positive ions (Na+, Ca+, and K+) and free electrons (e−) are generated, and an overall charge balance is maintained. Although these trace elements are usually present only at very low levels in the TPS material, on the order of tens of parts per million, they make a large contribution to the free electron concentration in the vehicle boundary layer.
Another source of plasma is from ionization of the air molecules, primarily in the region of the nose tip shock wave. In this region just at the front of the vehicle, the bow shock wave is at right angle to the flow and produces much higher temperatures than the flow along the sides of the vehicle. Immediately behind this right angle shock wave, the air is highly dissociated and partially ionized to a mixture of N, O, NO, N2, O2, NO+, and e− molecules and ions. The most easily ionizable air derived species is NO, making creation of NO+ the principal source of "clean air" ionization free electrons. While not present in ambient air in significant amounts, NO is formed rapidly when the air is dissociated by the high temperatures at the nose tip. The relatively intense plasma formed at the nose tip flows back along the vehicle sides and eventually around the back into the wake, thinning as it goes and mixing with the boundary layer flow with its alkali metal produced ions. Hence, there are two major plasma contributors, one from the nose tip bow shock wave and the other from the ablating TPS layer with its alkali trace elements.
One result of plasma formation around a reentry vehicle is communication disruption during reentry. The free electrons racing around in the plasma interfere with the electromagnetic waves used for radio communication (the RF signals), resulting in communication disruption. The communication blackouts of space capsules or space shuttles that occur during their reentry into the Earth atmosphere are caused by this plasma effect.
Communication disruption during reentry affects reentry vehicles in many ways. For example, the plasma effect adversely affects the performance of reentry vehicles with missile launch capability. One method of maintaining the performance of the reentry vehicles is to guide the reentry vehicles utilizing a GPS (global positioning system). GPS is typically used to control various accuracy parameters required for low-yield nuclear or conventional payloads carried within reentry vehicles, such as, angle of attack, flight path angle, and angle of obliquity requirements, in order to achieve maximum mission effectiveness. However, the plasma effect disrupts the vehicles' communication with the GPS satellites, causing so-called GPS blackouts during reentry. Because the reentry vehicles cannot be guided by GPS during the critical reentry phase, performance is negatively affected by the plasma induced communication disruption.
Prior methods for controlling reentry vehicles during the GPS blackout using flaps, fins, moveable nose tips and small control rockets have been developed. Other exotic, difficult to design and manufacture high-lift shapes have also been proposed at the concept level.
The technology for reducing or suppressing plasma effects, thus, would provide numerous benefits including, for example, making space flights safer and making missiles more accurate. Hence, it would be desirable to provide methods and systems that are capable of reducing plasma induced communication disruption during reentry.

Method and system for providing cruciform steered, bent biconic and plasma suppression for maximum accuracy


An object of the present invention is to provide a Magneto-Resistance (MR) element showing a high Magneto-Resistance (MR) ratio and having a suitable Resistance-Area (RA) for device applications. The MR element of the present invention has a laminated structure including a first ferromagnetic layer 16, a non-magnetic layer 18, and a second ferromagnetic layer 20 on a substrate 10, wherein the first ferromagnetic layer 16 includes a Heusler alloy, the second ferromagnetic layer 20 includes a Heusler alloy, the non-magnetic layer 18 includes a I-III-VI2 chalcopyrite-type compound semiconductor, and the non-magnetic layer 18 has a thickness of 0.5 to 3 nm, and wherein the MR element shows a Magneto-Resistance (MR) change of 40% or more, and has a resistance-area (RA) of 0.1 [Ωμm2] or more and 3 [Ωμm2] or less.

A Magneto-Resistance (MR) element such as a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) or a current perpendicular to plane-giant magnetoresistance (CPP-GMR) element is an element which includes a 3-layered structure of ferromagnetic layer/non-magnetic layer/ferromagnetic layer and utilizes a phenomenon in which resistance varies significantly by the relative angle of magnetizations between two ferromagnetic layers. The MR element is expected to be applied to a magnetoresistive random-access memory (MRAM), a reading head of a hard disk drive (HDD), and a spin logic element. Thus, it is desired to develop an MR element showing a significant magnetoresistance (MR) change with a resistance-area (RA) product ranging from 0.1 to 1 Ωμm2. It is difficult to achieve the above benchmark both for an MTJ element and a CPP-GMR element.
The MTJ has a structure in which ferromagnetic electrodes such as CoFeB are disposed above and below a tunnel barrier layer such as thin MgO having a thickness of about 1 nm, and utilizes a tunnel magnetoresistance effect between the ferromagnet electrodes. It is an element including an MgO film having a thickness of 1 nm or more and showing a high MR ratio of more than 100%, and currently used as a reading element of a hard disk drive (HDD). However, in order to support fast readout of a high-density medium, reduction of RA is required. The thickness of a tunnel barrier layer should be reduced to 1 nm or less to decrease RA of MTJ. However, it is difficult to maintain a high MR ratio in such a small thickness range.
On the other hand, a CPP-GMR element in which all layers are composed of metals has a problem of having an insufficient RA and showing a low MR ratio. A lot of investigations have been made regarding MTJ, and MR ratio=200% and RA=10 Ωμm2 have been accomplished to date (see, Non Patent Literature 1). However, in a CPP-GMR element using a metal non-magnetic layer, even when a Heusler alloy, which is a material having a high spin polarization, is used, the properties are merely RA<0.1 Ωμm2 and the MR ratio=80%. In a CPP-GMR element, in order to further increase RA, special spacers such as current-confined-path (see, Non Patent Literature 2) and oxide (Non Patent Literatures 3 to 5) spacers may be used. However, both desired MR ratio and RA have not been accomplished concurrently.
On the other hand, examples of the method for achieving a desired RA product by an MR element include a method using semiconductor materials such as Si, GaAs, and ZnSe as a spacer, whereas oxides and non-magnetic metals are conventionally used. Band gaps of these semiconductor materials are 1 to 2 eV which is smaller than that of MgO of 7.8 eV. Thus, it is thought to be useful for reducing RA. However, growth of a semiconductor on a ferromagnetic metal is difficult, and an MR element including Fe/GaAs/Fe and showing an MR ratio of about 5% at low temperature has only been reported previously (see, Non Patent Literature 6).
High quality growth of Ge or SiGe, which is a group IV semiconductor, on a ferromagnetic material has also been reported. However, MR ratio, which is the most important in an MR element, has not been disclosed (see, Patent Literature 1). On the other hand, a perpendicular magnetic recording medium has already been proposed by the present inventors (see, Patent Literatures 2 and 3). However, in order to provide an MR element showing a high MR ratio and having a suitable RA for device applications, further improved performance has been desired.

Magneto-resistance element in which I-III-VI2 compound semiconductor is used, method for manufacturing said magneto-resistance element, and magnetic storage device and spin transistor in which said magneto-resistance element is used

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR MATERIALS SCIENCE


In a method for the injection molding of objects of at least two independent parts, which are connected nondetachably but mutually rotatably, the subsequently produced part being injected at least partially into a mold recess of the previously produced part or injected at least partially about the previously produced part, an approximately hollow, cylindrical element (1) is molded to the part produced first in the region connecting this part to a rotatable part (18) that is to be produced subsequently, which hollow, cylindrical element (1) is thereupon surrounded by a mold (10) for the subsequent part (18) and, for the production of this part (18), either the outer space of the hollow, cylindrical element (1), which is closed off by a core, or the inner space (9) of this hollow, cylindrical element (1), which is not closed off, is injected for the production of this part (18), the part produced first being deformed in the region of the hollow cylinder (1) into an undercut with rotational symmetry by the pressure of the material injected.

The invention relates to a method for the injection molding of objects of at least two independent parts, which are connected nondetachably but mutually rotatably the subsequently produced part being injected at least partially into a mold recess of the previously produced part or injected at least partially about the previously produced part.
There are a plurality of utensils, which are produced by injection molding from different plastics. Among these utensils, there are also those, which consist of several movable parts, which are connected with one another. The parts involved can be connected by a joint, rotate about an axis, carry out linear motions or also, in some cases, carry out very complex motions. Previously, such parts were made individually and assembled or allocated to one another in expensive manual or automatic operating processes. It has meanwhile become known that, starting out from a part that is produced first, the parts, which are to be connected with this nondetachably but movably, can be molded directly onto the first part. For this purpose, the part produced first forms a cutout of the mold for the part or parts formed subsequently. Fusion of the parts to one another is prevented owing to the fact that a plastic, which can be exposed briefly to high temperatures, is used for the part produced first.
In order to obtain a nondetachable, yet movable connection, an undercut must be molded to the plastic part produced first. Since such an undercut for a detachable, but, at the same time movable connection of two parts in almost all cases must be spherical, an at least 2-part mold, the two halves of which abut in the region of the undercut, is required to produce such an undercut. This is so because the removal of the injection molding, which forms a cutout during the production of a subsequent plastic part in the mold of that part, can take place only owing to the fact that the first mold is separated in the region of the undercut. However, the use of a mold, which is to be separated in the region of the undercut, is associated with a plurality of disadvantages. There will already be an edge in the injection molding if the two halves of the mold are not aligned with the utmost precision and have only a minor mismatch. Since especially this region, which has the undercut, forms a cutout of the mold in the subsequent step of the operation for the next injection molding, a surface unevenness, complementary to the edge of the first part, is formed when this next injection molding is produced. These mutually engaging edges form, as it were, a stop for the relative motion of the two connected parts. Moreover, these surface unevennesses result in increased frictional forces. Not all the difficulties are eliminated even if the two halves of the mold are aligned extremely accurately. If there is the slightest damage to the edge of one or both mold halves, a burr is formed at the part formed first. This burr gives rise to a complementary groove on the injection molding produced subsequently, so that a locking element consisting of a locking nose and a corresponding depression is formed. This also contributes to irregular rotational movements. Since the rotational mobility is limited appreciably or even made impossible by burrs larger than a particular size, relatively short service lives are observed for the molds in order to avoid rejects. Appreciable expenses arise out of this for the production of molds.

Method for injection molding objects of at least two parts

Fickenscher & Co. GmbH Werkzeugund Formenbau


A directional antenna and a portable electronic device using the same are provided. The directional antenna includes L-shaped radiator, L-shaped oscillator, and L-shaped reflector and it is preferred that the directional antenna is positioned at corners of the substrate. The L-shaped radiator is made resonant by the L-shaped oscillator and has higher gain to maximize performance of signal transmission. The directional antenna achieves signal transmission in a specific direction over a long distance by the L-shaped reflector. In addition, with the gravity sensor, the processor and the switches, the directional antenna is automatically adjusted to a predetermined direction to transmit and receive signals even through orientation of the electronic device is changing at any time.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a directional antenna, and in particular to a directional antenna which is implemented in electronic devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Directional antennas are usually implemented in electronic devices or adapted in the electronic devices, and they can transmit or receive electromagnetic waves in a predetermined direction. After electrical signals of the electronic devices are converted into electromagnetic waves, the electromagnetic waves are transmitted through the directional antennas. In addition, the electromagnetic waves are received through the directional antennas, and then converted into electrical signals for electronic devices. Because the directional antennas transmit or receive electromagnetic waves much more in one direction than other directions, the directional antennas are suitable for signal transmission over a long distance. In this light, the directional antennas are usually used to transmit or receive electrical signals with satellites or long distance antennas.
For example, an electronic device with a global positioning system (GPS) utilizes a directional antenna to transmit/receive signals over long distance. The electronic device is usually a portable electronic device such as mobile phone. The position of the portable electronic device changes when user has different postures, and the satellite orbits around the earth. In addition, the directional antenna of GPS must be continuously directed toward the satellite so it is difficult in the prior art.
Users manually adjust the directional of the antenna in the prior art when the directional antenna does not performs very well so that the antenna is tuned to a better direction. To overcome this drawback, an omni-directional antenna is utilized and suitable for signal transmission over a long distance without manual adjustment to the antenna.
Thus, there is a need for a directional antenna which is implemented in an electronic device and properly directed toward a direction to overcome the above drawbacks.

Directional antenna and portable electronic device using the same


Head-mounted accessories for surgeons and medical/dental practitioners are equipped with no-touch controls including, in different embodiments, passive and active infrared detection, voice operation, and capacitive proximity control. Compared to infrared, capacitive proximity control may be more omni-directional, whereas IR, particularly active IR, tends to be more effective in a cone of operation. Compared to voice activation, capacitive sensing is less expensive and less prone to false activation based upon ambient noise or other voices. The invention may be used to control other medical/dental accessories such as a head-mounted video camera, in which case the controller is further operative to at least turn the video camera ON or OFF. More preferably, a controller is additionally operative to control the focus or zoom of the video camera in accordance with touch-free commands.

It is common for surgeons and medical/dental practitioners to wear headlights to enhance vision. Typical headlights using light-emitting diodes and optical fibers may be found at http://surgitel.com/headlights.
With such systems, the headlight contains only the light source and beam-forming optics. The power supply is disposed remotely, and may be belt-worn, for example.
One of the problems with existing systems is that the control unit may not be sterilized, such that the practitioner's hand may become contaminated if the light is turned ON or OFF during a procedure.

Head-mounted illuminator with capacitive proximity control


The present invention relates to adhesive compositions having: a phosphate group-containing monomer (a) having a fluorocarbon group represented by Chemical Formula 1; and a solvent (b),

In the odontotherapy, a metal cast of an alloy or the like, porcelain, a composite resin or a combination of any of them is used as a restorative material for a defective tooth. In particular, a metal cast is widely used as a restorative material in the odontotherapy because it has high mechanical strength and is easily fabricated. A metal restorative material may, however, degrade the esthetic property of a mouth cavity. Therefore, examinations are recently being earnestly made on improvement of mechanical strength of a composite resin and a ceramic material, which are poor in the mechanical strength but have a high esthetic property. As a result of the examinations, a composite resin-based material including a large amount of inorganic filler (designated as "hybrid ceramics" in general) and metal oxide-based high strength ceramics including a metal oxide of zirconia (ZrO2) or the like as a principal component have been proposed as novel materials for a crown. As a dental adhesive for adhering such a novel crown material onto dentine, a dental resin cement is currently principally used.
As a dental adhesive for adhering the novel material onto dentine, in addition to the dental resin cement, for example, a dental adhesive including a phosphate group-containing monomer disclosed in Patent Document 1 specified below, a dental adhesive composition including a phosphate group-containing monomer and a silane coupling agent disclosed in Patent Document 2 specified below or the like can be used.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. Sho 58-21607 (Claim 1 on p. 1)
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. Sho 63-51308 (Claim 1 on p. 1)

Abstract: where R is a hydrogen atom or a methyl group, n, p and q are natural numbers 2≦n≦10, p+q≦n and p+q+n≦13.


A stand for a display device is provided. The stand prevents a viewer located at a side of the display from experiencing the problems of a narrow viewing angle by allowing the display device to be pivoted in a wide angle without interference from a wall behind the device. The stand includes a base, a swivel hinge, a fixed unit, a telescopic unit, and a movable unit. The swivel hinge is fixed to the base. The fixed unit is rotatably fixed to the swivel hinge. The telescopic unit includes one member fixed to the fixed unit. The movable unit, to which the other member of the telescopic unit is fixed, is capable of being translated in left and right directions of the base and being rotated.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stand for a display device, and more particularly, to a stand for a display device that increases convenience for viewers viewing the display device from a side thereof, by allowing a lateral translation of the display device to increase the pivoting angle of the display.
2. Description of the Related Art
A display device according to the related art is divided into wall and floor mounted displays. The present invention relates mostly to the floor-mounted type of display.
A floor-mounted stand is provided to support a flat screen display device at the bottom thereof, so that the display device may be viewed from the front thereof. Also, a user located to one side of the display can pivot the display device to a side in order to adjust the viewing angle of the display device. For this purpose, the stand usually has a built-in hinge that allows pivoting of the display device to the left and right. The swiveling rotation characteristic of such display devices is a necessary feature for display devices with a narrow viewing angle.
In narrow interior spaces, a display device must often be positioned closely against a wall, so that the degree that it can pivot is restricted.
That is, when the display device is pivoted, the edges thereof come into contact with the wall, so that even when the pivoting angle of the hinge allows for further pivoting, the display device cannot be pivoted further until it is moved a certain distance forward from the wall. Thus, when it is not possible to move the display device forward in its entirety, it cannot be pivoted any further. Accordingly, a user cannot further adjust the viewing angle of the display device, and will not be able to see a clear picture from his/her position to a side of the display device.


A pattern inspection method according to one aspect of the present invention includes generating a first positional deviation amount map by using data acquired by a pre-scan, generating a second positional deviation amount map by using data acquired by a full scan, generating a first positional deviation difference map by calculating a difference between the first positional deviation amount map and the second positional deviation amount map, generating a third positional deviation amount map from the first positional deviation difference map and the second positional deviation amount map, and judging existence of a value exceeding an allowable value, in values defined by the third positional deviation amount map.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pattern inspection apparatus and a pattern inspection method. For example, it relates to an inspection apparatus that inspects a pattern by comparing an optical image of a pattern image, which is obtained by irradiating illumination light, with a reference image, which is generated from configuration data etc., and relates to a method therefor.
Description of Related Art
In recent years, with the advance of high integration and large capacity of a large scale integrated circuit (LSI), the line width (critical dimension) required for a circuit of a semiconductor element is becoming narrower and narrower. Such semiconductor elements are manufactured by exposing (transferring) a pattern onto a wafer to form a circuit by means of a reduced projection exposure apparatus, which is known as a stepper, by using an original or "master" pattern (also called a mask or a reticle, and will be generically referred to as a mask hereinafter) with a circuit pattern formed thereon. Therefore, in manufacturing a mask for transferring such a fine circuit pattern onto a wafer, a pattern writing apparatus using electron beams capable of writing or "drawing" fine circuit patterns needs to be employed. Pattern circuits may be written directly on a wafer by the pattern writing apparatus. Alternatively, a laser beam writing apparatus which uses laser beams in place of electron beams for writing a pattern is under development.
Since the LSI manufacturing requires a tremendous amount of manufacturing cost, it is crucial to improve its yield. However, as typified by a 1 gigabit DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory), the scale of a pattern configuring an LSI has been changing from on the order of submicron to on the order of nanometer. One of major factors that decrease the yield of the LSI manufacturing is a pattern defect of a mask used when exposing (transferring) a fine pattern onto a semiconductor wafer by the photolithography technology. In recent years, with miniaturization of an LSI pattern formed on a semiconductor wafer, dimension to be detected as a pattern defect have become extremely small. Thus, a pattern inspection apparatus for inspecting a defect of a transfer mask used in manufacturing LSI needs to be highly accurate.
Meanwhile, with development of multimedia technology, the size of LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) substrate is becoming larger, e.g., 500 mm×600 mm or greater, and the size of a pattern such as a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) or the like formed on the liquid crystal substrate is becoming finer. Therefore, it is increasingly required that an extremely small defect of a pattern should be inspected in a large range. For this reason, development of a pattern inspection apparatus that efficiently and short-timely inspects a defect of a photomask used when manufacturing patterns of a large area LCD and a large-area LCD is urgently required.
As an inspection method, there is known a method of comparing an optical image of a pattern formed on a target object or "sample", such as a lithography mask, imaged at a predetermined magnification by using a magnifying optical system with design data or an optical image obtained by imaging the same pattern on the target object. For example, the following is known as pattern inspection methods: die-to-die inspection method that compares data of optical images of identical patterns at different positions on the same mask, and die-to-database inspection method that inputs, into the inspection apparatus, writing data (design pattern data) which is generated by converting pattern-designed CAD data to a writing apparatus specific format for input when writing a pattern on the mask, generates design image data (reference image) based on the input writing data, and compares the generated design image data with an optical image (serving as measurement data) obtained by imaging the pattern. According to the inspection method of the inspection apparatus, a target object is placed on the stage so that a light flux may scan the object by the movement of the stage in order to perform an inspection. Specifically, the target object is irradiated with a light flux from the light source and the illumination optical system. Light transmitted through the target object or reflected therefrom is focused on a sensor through the optical system. An image captured by the sensor is transmitted as measurement data to the comparison circuit. In the comparison circuit, after position alignment of the images, measurement data and reference data are compared with each other in accordance with an appropriate algorithm. If there is no matching between the measurement data and the reference data, it is judged that a pattern defect exists.
While with the advance in miniaturization of patterns, it continues to use the photolithography technology that forms a circuit by exposing and transferring a pattern onto a wafer by means of a reduced projection exposure device using a mask serving as a pattern original. Then, in order to increase a manufacturing yield of wafers, the allowable accuracy range (margin) with respect to a pattern defect of a mask and the allowable variation range (margin) with respect to process conditions in exposing and transferring are becoming tight. Until now, since the accuracy of dimension of a mask pattern has been kept high by having a tight range of tolerance values with respect to a shape defect, even when a variation margin of process conditions is somewhat wide, the width has been compensated for by the tightness of the accuracy of mask pattern dimension. However, recently, it is increasingly required for quality of a mask to be inspected to have uniformity of pattern position accuracy and pattern dimension errors on the whole surface of the mask in addition to having the accuracy that figures composing a pattern are formed exactly in accordance with the design respectively. Conventionally, the quality control of the uniformity of a mask surface has been performed by grasping errors of extension and contraction, parallel shifts, and local variation which are measured based on positions of cross marks arranged at suitable intervals in the mask pattern, by using a dedicated measuring device, in order to measure a variation amount of each point coordinates which should be an ideal grid.
Mask defect inspection usually performed is designed to detect a pattern shape defect, and thereby, a defect dimension to be detected becomes fine in accordance with the miniaturization of mask patterns. Accordingly, the detection needs to be performed by using a detection optical system of high magnification, and the inspection time required for inspecting a defect of the whole mask surface has come up to several hours, for example. Then, during such several hours of mask defect inspection, there occurs a problem in that a pattern position and a pattern dimension obtained based on a measured result vary in the mask surface by a thermal expansion of the mask to be inspected, which is generated from the storage of energy of inspection light irradiated on the mask, by a measurement error of the stage position measuring system, which is generated from a change of air current inside the inspection apparatus or various heat sources in the apparatus, and so on. Consequently, the uniformity of pattern position accuracy and the uniformity of pattern dimension errors in the whole surface of the mask are degraded, and the level of such degradation of the uniformity has become too high to ignore for the quality precision of the mask. Thus, to inspect the uniformity is an issue to be solved for assuring the reliability of the inspection apparatus and the mask to be inspected.
A pattern dimension error can be calculated, for example, by detecting edges at both the ends of a pattern from a measured optical image, obtaining the distance between the edge pair in order to measure a line width dimension of the measured optical image, detecting edges at both the ends of a pattern from a reference data image, and obtaining the distance between the edge pair in order to measure a line width dimension of the reference data image, so that the pattern dimension error is calculated by obtaining a difference between the line width dimensions (refer to, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-open (JP-A) No. 3824542). However, the dimension error calculated herein includes, as described above, an error due to the inspection apparatus, such as a thermal expansion of the inspection mask, which is generated from the storage of energy of inspection light irradiated on the mask, and a measurement error of the stage position measuring system, which is generated from a change of air current inside the inspection apparatus or various heat sources in the apparatus. Therefore, there is a problem that it cannot be known whether the dimension error belongs to a pattern formed on the mask or the dimension error is due to the inspection apparatus.

Pattern inspection apparatus and pattern inspection method


A filter housing assembly for exhaust applications and method of testing the same is provided. In one embodiment, the filter housing assembly includes a housing having a filter receiving aperture, a first air flow port configured to couple the housing to an exhaust system and a second air flow port sized to deliver a flow capable of providing at least 75 feet per minute of air flow through the filter receiving aperture. A filter element is sealingly disposed in the filter receiving aperture of the housing. A cap is provided that operably seals the second air flow port when not in use. In another embodiment, a method for testing a filter housing assembly for exhaust applications includes providing air through a filter element disposed in the housing in a direction opposite an operational air flow direction, leak testing the filter element from a roomside of the filter element, and, flowing air through the filter element after leak testing in the operational direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The embodiments of the present invention relate generally to a filter housing assembly for exhaust applications and leak testing thereof.
2. Background of the Invention
Cleanrooms are utilized in many industries for contamination control and to improve product yields. A plurality of filters, typically mounted in the ceiling of the cleanroom, are configured to remove particulates from air entering and/or exhausted the cleanroom at a predetermined efficiency selected based upon the cleanliness requirements of the activities performed in the cleanroom. As particulates load the filtration media disposed in the filter, the airflow through the filter decreases as the pressure drop across the filter increases. Once the filter reaches a critical pressure drop, the filter is typically replaced.
On other applications, replacement of filters is scheduled based on time or processes performed within the cleanroom. For example, in many pharmaceutical and biotech cleanrooms, periodic replacement of filters is required to meet regulatory or owner specifications. To facilitate efficient replacement of the filter, a ducted supply hood is typically mounted in the cleanroom ceiling in which the filter may be readily removed and replaced from the cleanroom side of the ceiling.
In many applications, the installed replacement filter must be leak tested before normal cleanroom activities may commence. In order to perform a statistically valid leak test within a reasonable time period, an aerosol challenge is introduced into the hood upstream of the filter. However, in filters used in exhaust applications, the downstream side of the filter is above the cleanroom ceiling, and is often not accessible. Moreover, introducing aerosol within the cleanroom to challenge a filter is also undesirable.
Therefore, there is a need for a ducted hood, i.e., a housing assembly, and a technique to facilitate testing of filters used in exhaust applications.

Scan testable filter housing assembly for exhaust applications


A sensor guide wire for an intravascular measurement of a physiological variable in a living body includes a sensor region in a distal part of the sensor guide wire, a sensor element arranged in the sensor region, a male connector at a proximal part of the sensor guide wire, a least one electrical micro-cable connecting the male connector to the sensor element, and an elongated guide wire body arranged between the sensor region and the male connector. The at least one electrical micro-cable extends essentially helically around the guide wire body along the length of at least a part of the guide wire.

In many medical procedures, various physiological conditions present within a body cavity need to be monitored. These physiological conditions are typically physical in nature—such as pressure, temperature, rate-of-fluid flow, and provide the physician or medical technician with critical information as to the status of a patient's condition.
One device that is widely used to monitor conditions is the blood pressure sensor. The sensor is typically included in a guide wire for intravascular measurements. A blood pressure sensor senses the magnitude of a patient's blood pressure, and converts it into a representative electrical signal that is transmitted to the exterior of the patient. For most applications it is also required that the sensor is electrically energized.
Some means of signal and energy transmission is thus required, and most commonly extremely thin electrical cables are provided inside the guide wire, which itself is provided in the form of a tube (in the order of 0.35 mm in outer diameter), oftentimes made of stainless steel. In order to increase the bending strength of the tubular guide wire, a core wire is positioned inside the tube. The mentioned electrical cables are positioned in the space between the inner lumen wall and the core wire.
A large flexibility of the sensor guide is advantageous in that it allows the sensor guide to be introduced into small and tortuous vessels. It should, however, also be recognized that if the core wire is too flexible, it would be difficult to push the sensor guide forward into the vessels, i.e. the sensor guide must possess a certain "pushability". Furthermore, the sensor guide must be able to withstand the mechanical stress exerted on the core wire especially in sharp vessel bends.
EP patent 1 475 036, assigned to the same assignee as in the present application, shows a sensor wire assembly, where electrical micro-cables extend along a core wire and along the length of a guide wire. One drawback with this design is that the guide wire when rotated has a tendency to store the elastic energy or the built up torque and release it, resulting in a rotational whipping.
The object of the present invention is to achieve an improved sensor guide wire that has a more predictable movement pattern compared to prior art sensor guide wires.

Sensor guide wire with micro-cable winding

ST. JUDE MEDICAL COORDINATION CENTER BVBA


Various embodiments described herein comprise array of light emitting diodes and a cylindrical lens having front and rear curved surfaces. The cylindrical lens is disposed to receive light from the light emitting diodes and to redistribute the light. The cylindrical lens is located no more than about 8 inches distance from the front an illumination target, which may for example, comprise products on shelves in a refrigerator. The front and rear surfaces of the cylindrical lens are shaped to provide substantially uniform illumination across the target.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a lighting system for providing a uniform light distribution, and particularly to a cylindrical lens for uniformly lighting long shelves in a refrigerator compartment
2. Description of the Related Art
A prominent means of lighting long store-shelves is the fluorescent lamp, due to its low cost and good luminous efficacy. While the linear geometry of this lamp is appropriate for long shelves, its isotropic radiation pattern is not, because most of the light misses the target, unless bulky and expensive reflectors are employed. Also, the light that does make it to the shelf is not at all uniform.
In addition, lighting cold storage compartments, such as commercial refrigerators, provides unique issues. The lighting equipment produces heat yet the hot lights are operating within a cold environment. This cold hinders the performance of the fluorescent lights. In particular, in such cold compartments, fluorescent lamps are disadvantageous due to their energy efficiency and their reduced lifetime of only a few thousand hours. Additionally, the lighting should be adequate to illuminate the products within the compartment and should be visually appealing to catch the eye of the consumer.
Light emitting diodes, however, have greater efficacy and even longer operational life (e.g., 50-100 thousand hours) at low temperature in comparison to fluorescent tubes which also produce the highly nonuniform illumination. The major advantages longer life, lower power consumption, as well as compact package size make LEDs a desirable light source for illuminating supermarket freezers.
Low-cost LEDs can be economically provided on low-voltage tapes, spaced every 10-20 mm, such as those sold by the Osram GmbH, Munich, Germany, under the 'Linear Flex' product line. Furthermore, because LEDs radiate into a hemisphere (or less), optical lensing can be employed to distribute their light output. Typically, such optics have been mounted individually on the LEDs as domes. Such conventional dome lens, however, do not produce the desired illumination, e.g., substantially uniform, in this setting where, for example, the objects, are close to the LEDs but are also wide.
What is needed is optics for providing uniform illumination for products on a shelf in a commercial refrigerator where the shelf is inches from the LEDs yet is wide, e.g., at least 2 feet. The present invention will remedy the current lack of suitable optics for uniform-illuminance LED shelf-lights, and in particular will provide numerous preferred embodiments for different illumination geometries for use in commercial refrigeration.


Electrode structures and methods for making the same are generally described. In certain embodiments, the electrode structures can include a plurality of particles, wherein the particles comprise indentations relative to their convex hulls. As the particles are moved proximate to or in contact with one another, the indentations of the particles can define pores between the particles. In addition, when particles comprising indentations relative to their convex hulls are moved relative to each other, the presence of the indentations can ensure that complete contact does not result between the particles (i.e., that there remains some space between the particles) and that void volume is maintained within the bulk of the assembly. Accordingly, electrodes comprising particles with indentations relative to their convex hulls can be configured to withstand the application of a force to the electrode while substantially maintaining electrode void volume (and, therefore, performance). Particles having indentations relative to their convex hulls also occupy a relatively small volume, compared to spheres or other particles including boundaries that fill substantially all of their convex hulls, allowing one to introduce a desired amount of void volume while reducing the percentage of volume within the electrode occupied by particulate material.

Electrochemical cells store energy by separating an ion source and an ion sink at differing electrochemical potential. A typical electrochemical cell has a cathode and an anode which participate in an electrochemical reaction to produce power. Ions can be transported via an electrolyte in communication with the anode and the cathode. In many electrochemical cells, it is important to maintain a sufficient level of void volume within one or both electrodes, in order to ensure that electrolyte can access the electrode active material within the electrode(s).

Electrode structure and method for making same


The MMU services data requests associated with isochronous (ISO) data (referred to herein as “ISO requests”) with a high priority to meet a fixed latency requirement. Such data includes display data for transmission to the display device or other display devices. Conversely data requests associated with non-isochronous (NISO) data are serviced with a relatively lower priority. Such data requests include requests received from the CPU, video requests and copy requests. The MMU utilizes a buffering mechanism to buffer ISO and NISO requests. The size of the buffer that stores ISO requests controls the amount of memory bandwidth that is allocated to the ISO requests and the amount of memory bandwidth available for NISO requests.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to memory traffic management and, more specifically, to memory bandwidth reallocation for isochronous traffic.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a computing system, many different clients compete for access to the memory subsystem. Therefore, certain types of data access requests are processed with a high priority to account for the competing access. Further, in some cases, servicing data access requests as quickly as possible allows for the computing system to save power by turning off the memory subsystem. Therefore, the data access requests processed with a high priority are also given high memory bandwidth usage to account for the "race to sleep" performance conditions. Such race to sleep conditions exist even if no lower priority data access requests exists.
Typically, isochronous data requests, such as display requests in a graphics subsystem, are served by the memory subsystem with a higher priority than non-isochronous data requests, such as video data requests. Consequently, in systems having a large amount of isochronous data request traffic, the memory bandwidth allocated to the non-isochronous data requests is minimal and non-isochronous data requests are processed with high latency. Further, during race to sleep condition, the isochronous data requests can saturate all available bandwidth for a long time. With no available bandwidth for non-isochronous requests, such requests suffer very high latency.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a system and method for allocating memory bandwidth to different types of data requests in a fair manner while also servicing processing priorities and performance conditions.

Memory bandwidth reallocation for isochronous traffic


System and method of insulating film deposition. A sputter deposition chamber comprises a pair of targets made of the same insulating material. Each target is applied with a high frequency power signal concurrently. A phase adjusting unit is used to adjust the phase difference between the high frequency power signals supplied to the pair of targets to a predetermined value, thereby improving the in-plane thickness distribution of a resultant film. The predetermined value is target material specific.

Sputtering is the thin film deposition manufacturing process at the core of today's semiconductor, disk drive, CD, and optical device industries. For example, a sputter deposition apparatus includes a plurality of metallic targets. During processing, Ar ions collide with the targets under the impact of a voltage applied on the metallic targets. As a result, a metal layer is formed on the wafer. The sputtering deposition apparatus includes an elevation unit for rotating and vertically moving the mounting table.
Magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) devices are typically manufactured using sputter deposition technologies. An MTJ device includes a plurality of magnetic layers and the magnetic layers are separated by a tunnel insulating layer. A tunnel insulating layer can be deposited using insulating target sputter deposition technologies.
Conventionally, the in-plane thickness distribution of a deposited film is determined by the various aspects of the mechanical and electrical/magnetic configurations of the sputter deposition chamber. For example, the distances between the targets and the mounting table, the sizes of the targets, the magnetic circuit of a cathode magnet and the like are all factors affecting the film thickness distribution across the wafer. However, it is very expensive and difficult to redesign a hardware component and install it in a sputter deposition apparatus. For example, an elevation unit used to change the distances between the targets and the mounting table is complicated in structure and is costly to design upgrade, manufacture, assemble and install.

Dual-target sputter deposition with controlled phase difference between target powers


A method for obtaining a solution for a structure to be analyzed is disclosed. The method operates by dividing the structure into two or more substructures, and preparing at least two different calculation techniques for calculating a solution for each of the substructures from boundary conditions. One of the calculation techniques is selected separately for each of the substructures according to characteristics of analysis conditions corresponding to each of the substructures. A solution is separately calculated for each of the substructures according to boundary conditions by using the selected calculation technique, until the solutions for all of the substructures fall within respective ranges that are predetermined in accordance with each of the substructures. The set of solutions for the substructures is then used as the solution for the structure. A corresponding system and computer program are also disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substructuring method for use, especially, in analysis of a large scale field, by which a field quantity corresponding to a structure is analyzed by dividing the structure into two or more substructures and calculating a solution respectively corresponding to the substructures separately.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, various kinds of devices, which use electron beams and ion beams, have been put to practical use. Each of these devices guides charged particles by using an electric field and a magnetic field and utilizes the charged particles for a predetermined purpose. An example of such an electron-beam device is illustrated in FIG. 9. In this figure, reference numerals 101 to 106 designate electrodes, to each of which a predetermined potential is provided. Thus a predetermined electric field (distribution) is formed in a space 200. Further, in the case of this example, a predetermined magnetic field is applied in an .alpha.-.beta. direction. Moreover, each of the electrodes 101 to 106 has a nearly rotationally symmetric shape with respect to an axis .alpha.-.beta.. Furthermore, the device is constructed in such a manner that electrons are emitted from an end portion 107 of the electrode 106. An emitted electrode moves in a trajectory designated by reference numeral 190 under the influence of forces caused by the electric and magnetic fields.
The control of a trajectory of a charged particle is important in designing such a device. Moreover, it is necessary for such a control operation to predict a trajectory of a charged particle by performing a numerical simulation. Roughly speaking, each numerical simulation consists of (1) the step of calculating field quantities corresponding to an electric field and a magnetic field and (2) the step of computing a motion of the charged particle.
The calculation of a field quantity is performed by using, for example, the finite element method, the boundary element method or the integral equation method. On the other hand, the computing of a motion of a charged particle is performed by using a method of calculating the distance traveled by the charged particle and the travelling speed of the charged particle in sequence every finite period .DELTA.t. There are various kinds of such methods. Further, a typical example of such methods is the Runge-Kutta method. Furthermore, such methods are named generically as a time integral method.
Next, a method of calculating an electric field (distribution) in a space 200 of FIG. 9 will be described hereinbelow. Further, each of the electrodes 101 to 106 is at a fixed potential. Moreover, on boundaries 121 to 125, the normal component of the electric field can be regarded as being approximately equal to 0. Such a boundary condition can be used without degrading the precision of calculating the electric field in the vicinity of the trajectory 190 of an electron.
In the case of using the finite element method in the calculation of the electric field, the interior of the space 200 is first divided into elements of small volume. Next, the predetermined values of the potentials are given to the electrodes 101 to 106 as known quantities. Further, zero is given to each of the other boundaries 121 to 125 as the value of the normal component of (the intensity of) the electric field. When performing finite element calculations in this way, the value of the potential at each of nodes of elements are obtained. According to the finite element method, the distribution of the potential in each of the elements is represented by a predetermined function of the potentials of the nodes of the corresponding element. The value of the intensity of the electric field, therefore, can be obtained by differentiating this intra-element function with respect to the position. Consequently, as long as a particle is within the space 200, the value of the intensity of the electric field at the position of this particle can be calculated.
However, high accuracy is sometimes needed for the calculation of the trajectory of a particle. In such cases, it is necessary to enhance both of the precision of calculating a field quantity corresponding to a field and that of computing the motion of a charged particle. Because of the fact that generally, the precision of calculating a field quantity is lower than that of computing the motion of a charged particle, the enhancement of the precision of calculating a field quantity becomes important. For that purpose, when performing the finite element method, the interior of the space has only to be divided further finely into elements. However, actually, there is a limit to the capability or throughput of a computer used for the calculation. Especially, storage or memory capacity, which is available for the calculation, imposes limitations on the magnitudes of field quantities to be calculated (or to the computational complexity). One of the methods for overcoming such limitations is the substructuring method.
The substructuring method is a method, by which a space to be analyzed is first divided into some substructures and next, one of the substructures is analyzed by applying the finite element method thereto, and finally, a solution to be found in the entire space is obtained by manipulating conditions established in each of the connecting portions among the substructures.
Next, the substructuring method will be specifically described hereinbelow by referring to FIG. 10. In this figure, reference numerals 101, 105, 106, 141 to 149 respectively denote electrodes; and 201 to 207 subspaces. Further, reference numerals 121 to 125 respectively designate boundaries between the entire space and the exterior, similarly as of the space of FIG. 9; and 131 to 136 boundaries between the subspaces into which the entire space is divided. The entire shape of the device is nearly rotationally symmetric with respect to an axis .alpha.-.beta., similarly as in the case of the device of FIG. 9. FIG. 10 is a sectional view of such a device.
Each of the substructures is formed as follows.
A first one of the substructures consists of the subspaces 201 and 202 and the boundaries 101, 106, 141, 142 and 132.
A second one of the substructures consists of the subspaces 202 to 204 and the boundaries 142 to 145, 123, 131 and 134.
A third one of the substructures consists of the subspaces 204 to 206 and the boundaries 145 to 148, 124, 133 and 136.
A fourth one of the substructures consists of the subspaces 206 and 207 and the boundaries 148, 149, 125, 135 and 105.
Therefore, the device of FIG. 10 is constituted by the four substructures. Each of the subspaces 202, 204 and 206 is an overlapping subspace between the adjoining substructures.
<Example of Calculation of Electric Field>
A process of calculating an electric field will be described hereinbelow by referring to a flowchart of FIG. 11.
The calculation is commenced in step S610. Next, in step S611, fixed boundary values, namely, the values of the potentials are set at nodes on the surfaces of the electrodes 101, 105, 106 and 141 to 149 as the fixed boundary values. Subsequently, in step S612, initial values are set at nodes on the boundaries 131 to 136 of the substructures. Here, the initial values are zero. However, in the case of the example of FIG. 10, the potential on the electrode in the vicinity of each of these boundaries may be set as the initial value to be set at a corresponding one of the nodes. Namely, the potentials on the electrodes 141 to 143 may be given to the nodes on the boundaries 131 and 132, respectively. Incidentally, as will be described later, practically, the initial values are not used. Thus, the setting of the initial values can be omitted. It is the same with the boundaries designated by reference numerals 133 and 135.
In the case of the calculation of a field (quantity) in one of the substructures to be step S613, first, such a calculation is performed on the first substructure (consisting of the subspaces) 201 and 202 according to the finite element method by using the boundaries 101, 106, 141, 142, 132, 121 and 122. Incidentally, in the cases of the boundaries 121 and 122, the boundary conditions are automatically met. Thus, it is unnecessary to set the initial values at the nodes on these boundaries 121 and 122.
In step S615, the value of the potential obtained as the result of the calculation performed on the first substructure is set at a node on the substructure boundary 131 contained in the first substructure. This means simply the replacement of the value at the node, because of the fact that the node in the overlapping subspace between the first and second substructures is common thereto.
A process consisting of steps S613 to S615 is performed on the first to fourth substructures in sequence. Next, such a process is again performed on the substructures by starting with the first substructure. In the aforementioned step S614, a judgment is made on midway convergence conditions in the repeated process. This judgment is performed so as to check the amount of the change in value of the potential at a node of a same substructure in a cycle of the repeated process, namely, the difference between the current value of the potential at the node and the preceding value thereof. Further, if the extent of the change in value of the potential at the node becomes sufficiently small, it is judged that the potential at the node has converged on the current value thereof. Moreover, if the convergence of the potentials at nodes is achieved in all of the substructures, it is judged that the potentials at the nodes has converged in the entire space to be analyzed. Then, the process or program exits from step S614 through a YES-branch to step S616 whereupon the calculation is finished.
<Example of Calculation of Trajectory>
Next, the procedure for calculating a trajectory of a charged particle will be described hereinbelow by referring to a flowchart of FIG. 12. Basically, this procedure is similar to that for calculating a trajectory of a charged particle in the case where the space to be analyzed has a single structure.
In step S620, the electric field is calculated. Namely, the electric field at each of all nodes is calculated according to the finite element method in this step. Then, the program advances to the next step.
In step S621, the value of the intensity of the electric field at each of the nodes is calculated. Further, the reason for calculating the value of the intensity of the electric field at each of the nodes is as follows. Here, it is assumed that the space to be analyzed is divided into elements as illustrated in FIG. 13 (incidentally, in this figure, the elements are shown as two-dimensional elements, for the simplicity of the description). The space of FIG. 13 is composed of elements 21 to 28 and nodes 11 to 19. Here, note that the electric field at an arbitrary point in the element 21 can be determined by the potentials at the nodes 11, 14 and 15 and an interpolation function defined in the element 21. The accuracy of calculating the electric field (distribution), however, becomes lower than that of calculating the potential field distribution. For example, in the case of a linear tetrahedron element, the value of the intensity of the electric field is constant therein but changes discontinuously on the boundaries thereof. This is extremely unnatural. Thus, if the value of the intensity of the electric field on each of the nodes is determined by some method and further, that of the intensity of the electric field in the element is obtained by interpolation from the values of the intensity of the electric field on each of the nodes. Thereby, the electric field can be further smoothly represented.
For instance, a method of defining the value of the intensity of the electric field at a node as the average of the values of the intensity of the electric field in an element containing a node is used as a method of calculating the value of the intensity of this node. If this method is applied to the space of FIG. 13, the value of the intensity of the electric field comes to be defined as the average of the values of the intensity of the electric field in the elements 21 to 23 and 26 to 28.
A loop S627 consisting of steps S622 to S624 is a portion or process for calculating the trajectory of a particle.
Further, reference character S622 designates a step in which the value of the intensity of the electric field at a position of a particle is calculated by interpolation by use of the values of the electric field at the nodes, which have been obtained in step S621, in the element. Then, in step S623, the equation of motion is solved. Moreover, the position and speed of the particle at a point of time when an infinitesimal time .DELTA.t has passed thence are computed. During a subprocess containing steps S622 and S623 and a path or branch P626 is repeatedly performed, the calculation corresponding to the particle is finished in step S624 when the particle reaches the final position thereof. Then, the program passes or moves on to the calculation of the trajectory of the next particle. When the calculation of the trajectories of all of the particles is finished, the procedure for calculating the trajectory is finished and the program advances to step S625.
<Example of Space-Charge Effects>
In the foregoing description, the calculation of the trajectories has been described. However, there is a problem to be discussed, which is left unmentioned, namely, a problem of a space-charge effect. Thus, the space-charge effect will be described hereinafter.
The space-charge effect is generally defined as a phenomenon in which the charge of a charged particle moving in a space causes an electric field. Namely, this means that when a charged particle is generated, the electric field (distribution) is changed from that produced only by the electrodes when there is no charge particle. This effect is large in a charged-particle emitting portion in which the speed of a charged particle is low, namely, in the proximity of the electron emitting portion 107 in the case of the device of FIG. 9. This effect becomes an important factor which not only causes the trajectory of the particle but also determines an emission current (incidentally, in the case of a field emission, the electric field occurring in the emitting portion changes owing to the presence of space charge and thus affects the emission current density directly). Therefore, it is necessary to calculate the trajectory of a charged particle by taking this effect into account.
A calculation procedure for performing the calculation in such a way will be described hereinbelow by referring to a flowchart of FIG. 14.
The calculation is started in step S630. Next, in step S631, the calculation of the electric field is performed. Here, note that if the influence or effect of a magnetic field caused by the motion of a charged particle can be neglected, the magnetic field does not affect the trajectory of a charged particle. Thus, it is sufficient to perform the calculation only one time. Then, in step S632, the trajectory of the charged particle is calculated.
Subsequently, if it is judged in step S633 that the value does not converge, the program advances to step S634 whereupon the space-charge distribution is calculated by using information concerning the position and speed of the charged particle. Next, the program returns through a path or branch P636 to step S631 whereupon the electric field is calculated again by using the space-charge density distribution which has been computed in step S634. Thereafter, the process consisting of steps S631 to S634 is repeated.
During repeating such a process, it is judged in midway step S633 whether or not the calculated values of the trajectory and so on have converged. If the convergence conditions are satisfied (namely, it is judged in step S633 that the calculated values have converged), the program exits therefrom to step S635 in which the calculation is then finished. Incidentally, in step S633, in the case where the trajectory of the charged particle, the value of the speed thereof and the value of the intensity of the electric field come to be able to be regarded as being unchanged, it is judged in step S633 that the calculated values have converged.
In the foregoing description, the conventional method of calculating the trajectory and so on of a charged particle placed in an electromagnetic field has been described. The conventional method, however, has encountered the following problems.
(1) In the case where high precision is required for the calculation of the trajectory of a charged particle, high accuracy is also required for the calculation of an electric field or a magnetic field. However, when performing the finite element method, an electric field (distribution) in an element is represented by a polynomial. Therefore, a large-scale analysis using the substructuring method is insufficient for accurately calculating the electric field (distribution).
(2) As the countermeasure to this, an analysis method, by which the electric field (distribution) can be further precisely represented or expressed, is considered to be employed. Examples of such an analysis method are the boundary element method and the integral equation method. Incidentally, these methods have problems in that the scale of an analysis becomes large and that the computational complexity, as well as the storage capacity used for the calculation, increases.
(3) Further, in the case where only one of such calculation techniques is employed, there is a drawback in that the accuracy of calculating the electric field in the neighborhood of a boundary, especially, in the vicinity of the electron emitting surface as designated by reference numeral 107 in FIG. 9 is low. Namely, the electric field occurring on the emission surface determines the emission current density and thus may cause a large error in the trajectory of a charged particle and in the amount of the emission current.
(4) Moreover, in the case where the space-charge effect is taken into consideration as described above, the space charge should be used in the calculation. In contrast with the finite element method by which a space is divided into elements and thus the electric charge distribution can be easily handled, the boundary element method and the integral equation method require special means or ideas for handling the electric charge distribution. Moreover, the boundary element method and the integral equation method have a defect in that if the handling of the electric charge distribution is inappropriate, the accuracy of calculating the electric field is degraded and thus such techniques lose their intrinsic advantage that the accuracy of calculating a field quantity is good.
The present invention is accomplished to eliminate the drawbacks of the conventional method.

Charged particle trajectory analysis through element analysis


An apparatus for inserting one or more objects into a filter component of a tobacco rod includes a storage apparatus that stores a plurality of the objects, each object having a predetermined volume; an inserter wheel that receives the objects stored in the storage apparatus, and inserts the objects into a band of filter material, the inserter wheel having an outer periphery with a plurality of pockets defined in the outer periphery and distributed about the outer periphery. Each pocket has a shape configured to support one of the objects with between about one quarter and about one half of the volume of the object received in the pocket. The remainder of the volume of the object protrudes from the pocket above the outer periphery of the inserter wheel. A method of inserting one or more objects into a filter component of a tobacco rod is also described.

International Publication No. WO 2010/107756, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes an apparatus and associated method for forming a rod for use in the manufacture of cigarette filter elements. A continuous supply of a filter material is formed into a continuous filter rod by a rod-forming unit. An object insertion unit is configured to insert a plurality of first objects and a plurality of second objects into the continuous filter rod. A rod-dividing unit is configured to subdivide the continuous filter rod, at predetermined intervals along the longitudinal axis thereof, into a plurality of filter rod portions such that each filter rod portion includes at least one first object and at least one second object disposed therein, with the first objects being different from the second objects.
International Publication No. WO 2010/055120, which is also incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes an apparatus for introducing objects into a smoking article comprising a reservoir for providing a plurality of objects to be introduced into the smoking article, a rotatable wheel for delivering the objects to the location where the objects are to be introduced into the smoking article, a transfer chamber for transferring the objects to the rotatable wheel, the transfer chamber being arranged between the reservoir and the rotatable wheel and being designed such that the objects are aligned into a single vertically arranged layer therein, and means for moving the objects from the single layer in the transfer chamber in a direction towards or along the peripheral surface of the rotatable wheel.
Due to the structure and function of these and other apparatuses known in the prior art, they are typically capable of operating at less than desired rod speeds, for example, at maximum rod speeds of approximately 85 meters per minute.

High speed object inserter and related methods


Change detection apparatus for detection of changes between first and second stereoscopic image pairs obtained at different times of a substantially similar view, comprises: a two-dimensional image filter for comparing first and second image pairs to obtain an initial list of change candidates from two-dimensional information in the image pairs, and a three-dimensional image filter for comparing the image pairs at locations of the change candidates using three-dimensional image information. The apparatus retains those change candidates correlating with three-dimensional image change and rejects change candidates not correlating with three-dimensional image change, and produces a refined list of change candidates.

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for processing of automatic images and, more particularly, but not exclusively to a method and apparatus that allows the automatic detection of changes from images taken of the same place at different times.
In the early days of aerial photography, images had to be pored over painstakingly to find out required information, especially when what was needed was to spot small changes. Today the task has been made easier by the use of automatic image analysis techniques to find candidate differences which are then presented to a human user to make a final identification. Nevertheless the sheer volume of photographic images that can be available in a high precision survey means that even such methods leave a huge amount of work for a human analyst to have to carry out. A high precision survey of a region may in fact photograph the region from a fairly low altitude with an ability to resolve objects of the ten-centimeter order of magnitude, and if a human analyst has to consider every suspect change that the computer locates then the effectiveness of the process is highly problematic.
A further issue is that the aerial photograph is taken from a certain position and a certain angular inclination. An aerial photograph needs to be converted into what is known as an orthophoto before it can be treated as a map. An aerial photograph and an orthophoto or orthoimage may look alike but there are several important differences that allow an orthophoto to be used like a map. A conventional perspective aerial photograph contains image distortions caused by the tilting of the camera and terrain relief (topography). It does not have a uniform scale. You cannot measure distances on an aerial photograph like you can on a map. That is to say, an aerial photograph is not a map. The effects of tilt and relief are conventionally removed from the aerial photograph by a mathematical process called rectification. The resulting orthophoto is a uniform-scale image. Since an orthophoto has a uniform scale, it is possible to measure directly on it, just as with a map. An orthophoto may serve as a base map onto which other map information may be overlaid. Until the issue of scale is dealt with, it is difficult to begin the process of looking for changes since two images taken from even slightly differing positions simply do not show the same thing.
However, even after dealing with the issue of scale, current automatic image processing systems have difficulty in ruling out irrelevant differences between photographs such as those due to naturally moving objects, those due to lighting changes between the times the photographs were taken, those due to failure to carry out accurate matching between the successively taken photographs and the like.
One method of matching images comprises finding the same point on the two images and using that as a reference location. However this does not always work since similar points which are not actually the same can erroneously be chosen. Thus any kind of terrain in which repeating features appear is liable to erroneous matching of similar neighbors.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, an automatic feature matching system devoid of the above limitations.

M.A.M.D. Digital Data Processing Systems Ltd.


Systems, methods, and processing nodes for obtaining radio network characteristics associated with network traffic, determining a type of network traffic and/or network session, allocating resources towards a network traffic session based on the type thereof (or type of network traffic), and performing additional network optimization operations based thereon, including but not limited to metering, billing, and service adjustments such as reallocation of resources. Consequently, resource usage patterns of different data types can be made predictable to a network operator, enabling optimal allocation of network resources, adjustments of latency, and thus providing an optimal user experience.

Wireless networks are becoming increasingly common. Wireless networks deploying different types of access points or access nodes, and utilizing different communication technologies (such as LTE, Wi-Fi, etc.) may be referred to as heterogeneous networks. Further, network traffic across these different types of communication technologies (including but not limited to data packets) may also be encoded differently, transmitted using different protocols, or have different requirements for usage of radio resources. Awareness of the content and/or application associated with different types of network traffic is therefore useful to allocate radio resources appropriately for the different types of network traffic. However, existing methods of determining types of network traffic, such as deep packet inspection or parsing headers or other indicators may be inefficient and/or intrusive, as well as difficult if the traffic is encrypted or otherwise encoded using some proprietary mechanism.

Non-intrusive traffic analysis for wireless networks


A capacitive type humidity sensor includes: a semiconductor substrate; a plurality of humidity devices having a capacitance variable in accordance with a humidity; a standard capacitance device having a standard capacitance, a capacitance change of which in accordance with the humidity is smaller than that of the capacitance of each humidity device; and a CV converter circuit for converting a capacitance difference between the capacitance of each humidity device and the standard capacitance of the standard capacitance device to a signal voltage. The humidity devices, the standard capacitance device and the CV converter circuit are disposed on one side of the substrate.

A capacitive type humidity sensor is disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,580,600. The sensor includes a humidity device, a capacitance of which is variable in accordance with humidity around the device. The above sensor 90 is shown in FIG. 12. The sensor 90 includes a semiconductor substrate 1 having one surface, on which a moisture sensitive portion 92 and a circuit portion 93 are disposed.
In the moisture sensitive portion 92, a silicon oxide film 2 as an insulation film is formed on the semiconductor substrate 1. A pair of electrodes 91a, 91b is formed on the silicon oxide film 2 in such a manner that one of the electrodes 91a, 91b faces and is disposed apart from the other one of the electrodes 91a, 91b. A silicon nitride film 3 as a protection film and a moisture sensitive film 4 are formed on the substrate 1 to cover the electrodes 91a, 91b. The moisture sensitive film 4 is made of material, dielectric constant of which is variable in accordance with moisture change of atmosphere. Accordingly, the capacitance of a capacitor formed between the electrodes 91a, 91b in the moisture sensitive portion 92 is also variable in accordance with the moisture change of the atmosphere.
The circuit portion 93 includes a standard capacitance portion (i.e., a reference capacitance portion) 94 and a CMOS transistor portion 95. The capacitance change of the capacitor between the electrodes 91a, 91b in the moisture sensitive portion 92 is compared with the standard capacitance of the standard capacitance portion 94, and then, the comparison data is processed in the CMOS transistor portion 95. Thus, in the capacitive type humidity sensor 90, the capacitance change of the capacitor between the electrodes 91a, 91b in accordance with the moisture change of the atmosphere is measured so that the moisture of the atmosphere is detected.
The circuit portion 93 having the standard capacitance portion 94 and the CMOS transistor portion 95 and the moisture sensitive portion 92 are integrally formed on the substrate 1 so that the sensor 90 is integrated. Therefore, the dimensions of the sensor 90 are minimized. Further, the sensor 90 can be formed by a conventional semiconductor manufacturing method; and therefore, a manufacturing cost of the sensor 90 becomes lower.
However, when multiple humidities obtained from different sources are detected at the same time, multiple humidity sensors 90 are necessitated for detecting multiple humidities. Accordingly, the dimensions of a sensor system of the humidity sensors 90 and the weight of the sensor system are increased as the number of measurement sources becomes larger. Further, a manufacturing cost of the sensor system becomes higher.