An image display system capable of displaying two distinct images at the same time. One image is shown on an image display device such as a television or computer monitor which is coupled to the image display system. The other image is shown on a remote control included in an image display system. A docking station is also part of the image display system. It is connected by standard audio-visual coaxial cable to the TV and associated video devices and sends compressed digital video signal information to the video remote control by RF communication. Both the docking station and the video remote control have RF antennas and receivers capable of sending digital RF signals. Digital command and information signals are exchanged between the docking station and video remote control to allow control from the remote control of the functions of the TV and other video devices. The remote control has a learning mode with on-screen feedback making the image display system backward and forward compatible with a wide array of image display devices. The invention is thought to be particularly useful for networked computer televisions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of remote control, and in particular to controlling image display devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Television (TV) remote control has radically changed the manner in which many television viewers watch TV. Even the lexicon of television viewing has changed such that viewers regularly xe2x80x9cchannel surfxe2x80x9d by quickly progressing from one channel to another. While the standard remote control has proven quite popular, it has not satisfied all the potential needs of the viewer. For example, some TVs are equipped to display a second smaller picture within a screen of the TV. This xe2x80x9cpicture within a picturexe2x80x9d (PIP) can display a second program, from either a tuner of a video cassette recorder (VCR) or a second tuner within the TV, or it can display a video signal from a VCR tape or a laserdisc. While the viewer with the PIP TV can watch two programs with the PIP window, viewers without PIP cannot monitor programming on a second channel.
Standard remote controls for video devices such as TVs, VCRs, laser disc players, surround-sound systems and digital satellite system (DSS) dishes are simple hand-held devices which send an infrared (IR) signal to an IR sensor located on the front of the video device to control functions of the video display device. To operate the video device with the remote control, the user must be within a specified angle and a limited, direct-line-of-sight distance of operation in front of the video device. Although not in widespread use, some conventional remote controls also permit display on the remote control of the same image that is displayed on the television.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,003,396 issued to C. H. Kang discloses a black in white monitoring system for monitoring a broadcast television system. While the monitoring system of the Kang reference is capable of reproducing a broadcast television picture on a LCD display, the monitoring system is not capable of displaying broadcast television pictures other than the broadcast television picture shown on the associated television set.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,107 issued to S. Funado discloses a remote control for use with a video camcorder. While the remote control of the Funado reference is capable of producing a video image on a LCD display, the remote control is not capable of displaying video images other than the video image shown on the associated video apparatus.
Moreover, while remote controls have become quite popular, the proliferation of video devices and associated remote controls has produced a clutter of remote controls for the viewer to control all the video devices connected to the TV. Universal remote controls store commands for a large number of video device types and particular models. They become obsolete as new models of televisions, VCRs, and other video devices are released. While remote controls that can xe2x80x9clearnxe2x80x9d to emulate the commands of other remote controls are available, they have not gained wide acceptance among consumers due to the difficulty in programming these learning remotes. Users are required to make all of their own decisions regarding the functional assignment of buttons. Additionally, these remotes only provide a limited feedback to users by employing beeps and LED flashes. Such a limited feedback has proven to be confusing and inadequate for many users.
Learning remote controls which accept and then emulate commands of other remote controls may be particularly useful in the new technology of computer television where standards are in flux. In a typical computer television scenario, such as WEB-TV(trademark), a computer signal is sent to a television via computer network. A signal corresponding to image data is displayed on a television screen as it would be on a conventional computer monitor. Computer commands may be entered on a keyboard in communication with the television via infrared transmitters and receivers.
The present invention relates to a remote control system for use with an image display device. The remote control system is capable of showing an image distinct from another image displayed on the image display device. The remote control system includes a transmitter and a remote control. The transmitter transmits a selected image signal to the remote control. The remote control displays an image that can be distinct from another image displayed on the image display device corresponding to another selected image signal, or it can be the same image displayed on the image display device corresponding to the same selected image signal. The displaying of the images may depend upon a mode of operation selected by the remote control system.
The remote control may be a learning remote control. The learning remote control includes a receiver for receiving an original command signal sent by an original remote control which corresponds to an original command on the original remote control. When a learning algorithm on the learning remote control is activated, such as by pressing a button, the received original command signal is stored in a memory. To indicate which command button should be pressed on an original remote control and whether the emulation signal has been successfully saved in the memory in a location associated with a desired command on the learning remote control, the remote learning control includes feedback mechanisms. The image screen on the remote control is part of the feedback mechanism.
In an alternate embodiment, the invention includes an image display system capable of displaying two distinct images essentially simultaneously. The image display system includes two image displays. One image display is included with the remote control and one is separate from the remote control. A controller selects two image signals from at least two image sources. The images displayed on the two displays may be distinct from the image displayed on the other display.
An advantage of the present invention is that it permits convenient channel monitoring of other channels and the output of multiple image display devices without covering up part of an image displayed on an image screen as in the conventional picture-in-picture (PIP) technology. The invention also offers the advantage of easily programming a learning remote control by displaying feedback information on the image screen on the remote control. The convenience of the learning remote control provides backward compatibility with a wide array of image display devices. The invention""s remote control allows a user to operate and view the output of a display device, such as a cable television or a VCR, without being in proximity to the display device. These and other advantages of the invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the following description and a study of the accompanying drawings.

Image display and remote control system capable of displaying two distinct images


A realtime multilateral foreign exchange settlement system having a computer implemented netting system, a processor-based multilateral settlement coordinator (MSC) having a first money module and a first host application, where the first host application receives debit and credit data from said netting system. A plurality of processor-based multilateral settlement agents (MSAs) each having a second money module and a second host application. A plurality of processor-based counterparty settlement agents (CSAs) each having a third money module and a third host application. The second and third money modules communicate via cryptographically secure sessions. The first money module receives electronic money from the third money modules of net debit CSAs via the second money modules. When all net debit counterparties have paid, the first money module sends the electronic money to the third money modules of net credit CSAs via the second money modules.

In commonly assigned, U.S. Pat. No. 5,453,601, U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,518 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/427,287, filed Apr. 21, 1995 (corresponding to PCT International Publication WO 96/33476 published Oct. 24, 1996), now U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,087, which are hereby incorporated by reference, an electronic monetary system (EMS) is described that utilizes electronic money that is interchangeable with traditional cash and is universally accepted. The described EMS provides a method and system for securely and reliably transferring economic value including currency and credit among subscribers, among financial institutions, and between subscribers and financial institutions. The EMS also provides for electronic money in the form of multiple currencies.
Foreign exchange trading has grown from $1 billion per day in 1974 to almost $1 trillion per day in 1994. Hundreds of billions of dollars per day pass through the international payment systems to settle these transactions. The risk of failure by any of the participants has the central banks of the major economies concerned. These concerns and potential solutions were set out in the report by the Bank for International Settlements "Central Bank Payment and Settlement Services with Respect to Cross-Border and Multicurrency Transactions." This report spawned two responses from the private sector: "Reducing Foreign Exchange Settlement Risk" by the New York Foreign Exchange Committee and "Risk Reduction and Enhanced Efficiency in Large-Value Payment System: A Private Sector Response" by the New York Clearing House Association.
The problem was first demonstrated in 1974 when the Herstatt Bank in Germany was declared insolvent at the end of the banking day. Foreign exchange trading is by convention settled two business days following the trading day. This is termed the value day. In order to settle a dollar Deutsche Mark trade, for example, funds have to be transferred between the counterparties dollar accounts and their Deutsche Mark accounts. These transfers are made final at the appropriate central banks, i.e., the Federal Reserve and the Bundesbank. Since Germany is seven hours ahead of the time in New York, the Bundesbank closes before the Federal Reserve. Thus the transfer of marks could be final before the dollars transferred. If the counterparty to the Herstatt Bank had paid his marks and had not received his dollars by the end of the banking day in Germany, then the marks could be lost. This risk is called foreign exchange settlement risk or Herstatt risk.
All of the foregoing reports suggest solutions incorporating extended banking hours, coordinating central bank accounting systems, and setting up multicurrency clearing banks. Each of the proposed solutions reduces the risk but does not eliminate it. We propose a system to eliminate the risk which incorporates EMS with an augmented transaction called Settle Foreign Exchange which eliminates the risk by coordinating the multicurrency payments outside the central bank systems.


A wireless node, such as a relay node, has different operating modes for unicast and broadcast/multicast subchannels. For unicast services the phase offsets of those relay nodes engaged in a cooperative transmission are optimized for the subchannels used for unicast services. Alternatively, when no feedback is available and an open loop MIMO or MIMO-type scheme is in use, retransmissions are performed in such a way that a destination (e.g., user terminal) receives effectively a distributed space-time block code. For the broadcast/multicast services time varying random phase offsets may be employed for the subchannels used for broadcast services. For reliable high data rate broadcast transmissions a cooperative retransmission scheme that effectively forms distributed space-time block codes may be used.

Various abbreviations that appear in the specification and/or in the drawing figures are defined as follows:
3GPP third generation partnership project
ARQ automatic repeat request
BPSK binary phase shift keying
DAS distributed antenna system
FEC forward error correction
H-ARQ hybrid-ARQ
LTE long term evolution
OFDMA orthogonal frequency division multiple access
OTD orthogonal transmit diversity
MBMS multimedia broadcast and multicast services
MIMO multiple input, multiple output
NACK negative acknowledge
QAM quadrature amplitude modulation
QPSK quadrature phase shift keying
SINR signal to interference noise ratio
STTD space time transmit diversity
DSTTD double space time transmit diversity
V-BLAST vertical Bell Labs layered space-time architecture
WIMAX worldwide interoperability for microwave access (IEEE 802.16)
In present and future mobile communication systems it is desirable to provide high data rate coverage for mobile terminals serviced by the communication systems. Typically, only those mobile terminals that are physically close to a base station can operate with a very high data rate, and to provide a high data rate coverage over a large geographical area a large number of base stations would be required. As the cost of implementing such a system can be prohibitive, research is being conducted on alternative techniques to provide wide area, high data rate service. One of the most promising, and currently heavily researched techniques, is to use relays or relay nodes to distribute the data rate more evenly in a cell served by a particular base station. FIG. 1 illustrates this principle for a layer two relay located at a street crossing (see R. Pabst, B. H. Walke, D. C. Schultz, P. Herhold, H. Yanikomeroglu, S. Mukherjee, H. Viswanathan, M. Lott, W. Zirwas, M. Dohler, H. Aghvami, D. D. Falconer, G. P. Fettweis, "Relay-Based Deployment Concepts for Wireless and Mobile Broadband Radio", IEEE Communications Magazine, September 2004). The darker areas indicate the gain in data rate achieved by the relay. Note that only very close to the base station is the data rate approximately half of the original data rate, however the high data rate is more evenly distributed in the coverage area.
One problem that is presented is how best to integrate relays into a wireless communication system. In general, the performance gain realized by the use of relays when integrated in a wireless communication system should by maximized, while the interference caused by relays to the communication system should be minimized. One approach is to use cooperative relaying, i.e., instead of one relay, two or more relays are engaged in a single transmission and thus similar benefits to those realized in multi-antenna transmissions can be achieved. Moreover, due to the higher spatial separation, as compared to co-located antennas in traditional MIMO systems, the MIMO channel matrix is typically better conditioned.
In addition, future radio communication systems are envisioned to be very flexible and to support many different services at the same time. OFDMA systems offer a high flexibility and allow, for example, broadcast, multicast and unicast transmissions at the same time. OFDMA is proposed for use in many future radio systems, such as 3GPP LTE and WiMAX, and has been researched in the WINNER project. Cooperative relaying operations for broadcast/multicast have been previously proposed, but there is no efficient relay operation that would allow broadcast/multicast and optimized unicast transmission at the same time. FIG. 2 illustrates such a network.
Of interest to the exemplary embodiments of this invention that are described below is a network where the source (S) cannot necessarily communicate directly with the destination (D), and communicates with the destination through relays (R). FIG. 3 illustrates such a network. For example, in the downlink of a cellular network the source would be the base station and the destination the mobile terminal.
To illustrate the concept, assume that the source controls the operation of the relay. Thus it tells the relays at what time and at which OFDMA sub-channel(s) they are to transmit a received packet to the destination. This reflects also the current implementation of cooperative relaying in the WINNER project (see WINNER II Deliverable D3.5.2, "Assessment of relay based deployment concepts and detailed description of multi-hop capable RAN protocols as input for the concept group work", June 2007).
Instead of an optimized unicast transmission based on closed loop MIMO schemes with feedback, the relays can, for example, use open loop MIMO schemes such as V-BLAST for their unicast transmission. Reference with regard to V-BLAST can be made to "V-BLAST: An Architecture for Realizing Very High Data Rates Over the Rich-Scattering Wireless Channel", P. W. Wolniansky, G. J. Foschini, G. D. Golden, R. A. Valenzuela Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Crawford Hill Laboratory (1998). Reference can also be made to "Simplified Processing for High Spectral Efficiency Wireless Communication Employing Multi-Element Arrays", G. J. Foschini, G. D. Golden, R. A. Valenzuela, P. W. Wolniansky, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Vol. 17, No. 11, November 1999, pgs. 1841-1852.
Most of the cooperative relaying schemes proposed in the literature can deal with the case 1 shown in FIG. 4, when one of the relays cannot decode the received packet. In the case of distributed space time block codes only the relay that successfully decoded the data will transmit and the destination is still able to decode the data.
However, the published literature does not consider open loop MIMO schemes such as V-BLAST or space-time codes, and possible optimizations in relay systems for retransmissions when the second hop transmission fails.
Typically for MBMS it is assumed that a multimedia data stream is sent to the users in a cell in a manner similar to a broadcast service such as television. However, in many cases (e.g., firmware update of a user terminal, delivery of a new application, downloading of multi-media content for later use) it would be desirable to have the possibility for reliable data transmission, that is, where the user terminal can request a retransmission. MBMS without feedback is typically designed to cover at least 95% of the service area and robust modulation and coding is used, which requires a large amount of resources. However, for reliable data transmissions an infrequent channel quality feedback can be requested from the user terminals and, if all of the MBMS users have a sufficiently high SINR, then open loop MIMO schemes such as V-BLAST or space-time coding can be utilized to improve the resource utilization. In this case it is desirable to optimize the retransmissions.
Exemplary of different cooperative relaying schemes proposed in the literature, an overview of the cooperative relaying schemes studied in WINNER will be provided. In the WINNER project several cooperative relaying schemes that were investigated are as follows.
A first approach is a fixed relaying scheme, where two relays decode the signal of two users (both relays use SDMA to decode the signal of the two users) and forward it cooperatively to the base station using a distributed space time block code. This approach is best suited for use on the uplink.
A second approach is a relay cyclic delay diversity scheme that increases the frequency selectivity of the channel. With this method only one parameter, the cyclic shift in the time domain, can be controlled for each relay. Thus, it is not possible to optimize broadcast/multicast and unicast transmissions in different OFDMA sub-channels at the same time.
A third approach is an adaptive decode and forward scheme, and its enhancement YARP. In this case the relays only forward the signal if they can decode the input signal correctly. This technique is not designed to optimize a unicast or a broadcast/multicast transmission, but is intended instead to provide additional diversity.
Several publications relate at least in part to ARQ and cooperative relaying. However, in these publications it is assumed that the destination receives the signals of the source and the relay.
J. N. Laneman, D. N. C. Tse, and G. W. Wornell, "Cooperative Diversity in Wireless Networks: Efficient Protocols and Outage Behaviour", IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, April 2003, describe a technique where the relay only transmits when necessary.
E. Zimmermann, P. Herhold, and G. Fettweis, "A Novel Protocol for Cooperative Diversity in Wireless Networks", in The Fifth European Wireless Conference—Mobile and Wireless Systems beyond 3G, February 2004, describe a technique where the relay only transmits if it has decoded the data correctly.
J. N. Laneman, "Limiting Analysis of Outage Probabilities for Diversity Schemes in Fading Channels", in IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), San Francisco, December 2003, describe a technique where the relay does not simply use repetition coding, but instead uses a different and jointly designed codeword.
E. Zimmermann, P. Herhold, P., and G. Fettweis, "The impact of cooperation on diversity-exploiting protocols", 59th IEEE VTC 2004-Spring, 17-19 May 2004 Page(s): 410-414 Vol. 1A, describe a technique that is a combination of the preceding three approaches.
I. Stanojev, O. Simeone and Y. Bar-Ness, "Performance Analysis of Collaborative Hybrid-ARQ Protocols over Fading Channels", in Proc. Sarnoff Symposium, NJ, USA, March 2006, describe the use of orthogonal space-time block coded H-ARQ.
None of the foregoing approaches, nor any others that the inventors are currently aware of, permit the simultaneous use of broadcast/multicast and optimized unicast transmission with cooperative relays.

Cooperative relay system enabling simultaneous broadcast-unicast operation with efficient automatic repeat request functionality


An electromechanical power transfer system that transfers power between a prime mover and a direct current (DC) electrical system, comprises: a permanent magnet machine (PMM) that has a permanent magnet (PM) rotor coupled to the prime mover, a stator with a multiphase alternating current (AC) winding coupled to an AC bus and a control coil with a winding that has a configuration to generate a magnetic field with flux that varies the reactance of the stator winding with the application of control coil current; a control coil current sensor for generating a control coil current signal that is representative of the level of electrical current in the control coil; an electrical current sensor for generating a DC bus current signal that is representative of the level of DC current through the DC bus; an electrical potential sensor for generating a DC bus potential signal that is representative of the level of DC potential on the DC bus; a fixed pattern active rectifier and inverter system coupled between the AC bus and a DC bus; a position sensing system for generating a rotor position signal that is representative of the angular position of the PM rotor; and a control coil current regulator system that regulates the control coil current.

Electrical power generation systems powered by variable speed prime movers that require highly regulated electrical output, such as electrical power generation systems used for aeronautical applications, generally use a wound field synchronous machine (WFSM) that serves as an electrical generator. This is because it is easy to adjust rotor current to regulate electrical output of a WFSM. In aeronautical applications, the prime mover is often a gas turbine engine that has a normal rotational velocity that exceeds 20,000 revolutions per minute (rpm). Due to the rotational velocity limitations of the WFSM, such electrical power generation systems generally require a reduction gearbox between the prime mover and the WFSM. This increases weight, cost and complexity of the electrical power generation systems.
Electrical power generation systems may alternatively employ an electrical machine of the permanent magnet type as an electrical generator. Such a permanent magnet machine (PMM) is capable of much higher rotational velocity than a WFSM of similar output and therefore it is capable of direct coupling to the prime mover, thereby eliminating the reduction gearbox. This results in reduced weight, cost and complexity of an electrical power generation system. However, a traditional PM PMM, with its permanent magnet rotor, has no convenient means to alter magnetic flux of the PMM rotor field that passes through its stator to regulate its output.

Generating system with a regulated permanent magnet machine and an active rectifier


According to one example embodiment, a communication system includes a transmitter and a receiver for receiving symbols from a phase-shift shift keying modulation. The system also includes estimation means for estimating a frequency error relating to a symbol based on a sequence of symbol phases. The receiver includes calculation means for calculating a phase sequence, called an initial sequence, based on decisions made on symbols. The receiver also includes means for detecting and correcting phase jumps in this initial sequence in order to supply a phase sequence, called a final sequence, to the frequency error estimation means.

Such an estimation algorithm of a frequency error relating to a received symbol based on a phase sequence is described, for example, in paragraph 4.1 (page 107) of the article <<Feedforward Frequency Estimation for PSK: a Tutorial Review>>by M. Morelli and U. Mengali, published in the journal <<European Transactions on Telecommunications, vol. 9, no. 2, March-April 1998>>. This algorithm is known by the name of Tretter algorithm, or least squares method.
To obtain such a phase sequence, it is known that a phase estimation algorithm is used, which estimates the phase relating to a received symbol on the basis of decisions made on various received symbols. For example, the expectation maximization algorithm is used, which is described in paragraph 3.3 of the conference report of the <<International Conference on Communications, New Orleans, USA, 1-5 May, 1994, vol. 2, pp. 940 and 945>>, entitled <<Comparison between digital recovery techniques in the presence of frequency shift>>by F. Daffara and J. Lamour.
The problem posed is the following: in a PSK modulation comprising 2n points, two adjacent points have a phase difference of
      π          2              n        -        1              .When the frequency error is such that, based on a certain symbol, an error is made in the decision, this error is translated by a phase jump of
  ±                π          2              n        -        1            in the sequence of phase estimates obtained. The number of phase jumps that may be obtained depends on the number of symbols contained in the packet and the initial frequency difference.
When the sequence of phases, which are used for applying the Tretter algorithm, includes one or various phase jumps, the frequency estimate obtained is inaccurate. The invention notably has for its object to provide a solution to this problem.

Detection and correction of phase jumps in a phase sequence


A Multiple In Multiple Out (MIMO) communication system comprises an air interface scheduler for allocating air interface resource to a plurality of user equipments transmitting to a MIMO receiver. A vector processor of the scheduler determines a receive equalizer vector for the MIMO receiver for each of a plurality of user equipments in response to a channel matrix for the user equipment. The vector processor may specifically apply singular value decomposition to the channel matrix to determine the receive equalizer vector. An orthogonality processor then determines orthogonality measures between receive equalizer vectors for different sets of user equipments. A selection processor selects a set of user equipments to be allocated a shared MIMO air interface resource in response to the orthogonality measures. By scheduling in response to orthogonality of receiver operations, a reduced interference and/or reduced receiver complexity can be achieved.

In recent years, the popularity of systems using wireless radio communication has increased substantially. For example, cellular communication systems and wireless networks have now become commonplace. The increased requirement for frequency spectrum resource has led to an increased desire for efficient communication and especially at higher frequencies and for higher data rates.
For example, Broadband Wireless Access systems (BWA) are becoming common not only in fixed deployments but also in mobile deployments. In order to increase the capacity of such BWAs, it is desirable to increase the data rate of the wireless communication. As a specific example, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) have formed a committee for standardizing an advanced air interface for operation in licensed bands known as IEEE 802.16m. (Trademark). The 802.16m™ standard comprises BWA Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) specifications aimed at enhancing BWAs to meet the cellular layer requirements of International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunications Sector (IMT-Advanced) next generation mobile networks. Similarly, Wireless Local Area Network WLANs are becoming common not only in business environments but also in domestic environments. The IEEE has formed a committee for standardizing a very high-speed WLAN standard known as IEEE 802.11vht. It is intended that the 802.11vht™ standard will help WLANs meet the expanding bandwidth needs of enterprise and home networks, as well as those of WLAN hot spots. Other popular examples of wireless networks include the more popular names of WiFi™ and WiMAX™ (corresponding to IEEE 802.11n and IEEE 802.16e)
In order to achieve high data rates over the air interface, a number of advanced radio techniques are employed. It has been found that in systems using open-loop approaches (i.e. without the transmitter using knowledge of the transmit channel or the signal received at the receiver) significant improvement can be achieved by using multiple antennas at the transmitter and the receiver. In particular, many radio communication systems, such as WLANs, provide for a plurality of transmit and receive antennas to be used. Specifically, some transmission techniques involve transmitting a data stream by simultaneously transmitting different signals derived from the data stream from different antennas over the same communication channel. The receiver(s) of these techniques typically also comprise a plurality of antennas each of which receive a combined signal corresponding to the transmitted signals modified by the individual propagation characteristics of the radio link between the individual antennas. The receiver may then retrieve the transmitted data stream by evaluating the received combined signal.
Such techniques may also be used in closed loop configurations wherein the receiver may communicate information back to the transmitter allowing this to weight the signals to the individual antennas. Specifically, data may be fed back to the transmitter to allow this to provide a suitable beamforming. Such open and closed loop techniques are known as Multiple Transmit Multiple Receive (MTMR) or Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) schemes and can be designed to derive benefit from spatial diversity between the antennas in order to improve detection. Indeed, the equivalent Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the combined signal is typically increased compared to the single antenna case thereby allowing higher channel symbol rates or higher order constellations. This may increase the data rate for the communication link and thus the capacity of the communication system.
In order to further enhance the capacity of MIMO systems, it has been proposed that multiple users may share the same air interface resource, and specifically that two users may be allocated the same time-frequency block. For example, two user equipments may be allowed to simultaneously transmit uplink signals to a base station using the same frequency channel.
In such systems, the scheduling of user equipments (i.e. the assignment of time-frequency resources to user equipments) is critical for the performance of the system, and in particular it is of the utmost importance that the most suitable user equipments are scheduled to share the same time-frequency resource block.
In known systems, such scheduling may be based on the overall channel conditions or the transmit beamforming of the transmitting MIMO user equipments (the weights applied to each MIMO antenna of the transmitting MIMO user equipment). Specifically, typical scheduling algorithms seek to allocate user equipments to share time-frequency resource blocks such that the sharing user equipments have the most different overall channel conditions or transmit beamforming characteristics.
However, although such scheduling may provide acceptable performance in many scenarios, it also tends to be suboptimal and have a number of disadvantages. For example, in many scenarios it may result in complex processing e.g. in order to determine the overall channel responses and to evaluate which user equipments have overall channel responses that are most suitable for sharing resource blocks. Furthermore, in order to provide the desired performance and differentiation between the user equipments sharing the same time-frequency resource block, complex equalization is typically necessary by the individual receivers. For example, as the scheduling is based on transmitter or overall channel conditions, the receiver equalization will typically need to utilize complex non-linear equalization in order to reduce the cross-interference between the sharing user equipments sufficiently.
Such non-linear equalization may for example include an iterative equalization wherein received data symbols are estimated in each iteration, with the estimated data symbols of one user equipment of a previous iteration being used to estimate the data symbols of the other user equipment in the following iteration. This equalization process will typically have to be iterated a number of times resulting in high computational requirements. Hence, an improved communication system would be advantageous and in particular a system allowing increased flexibility, facilitated implementation, reduced complexity, reduced resource usage, increased spectral efficiency, improved and/or facilitated multi-user operation and/or improved performance would be advantageous.

Communication system and method of operation therefor


A semiconductor radiation detector (1′, 1″, 1′″, 1″″) includes a body of semiconducting material (2) responsive to ionizing radiation for generating electron-hole pairs in the bulk of said body (2). A conductive cathode (4) is disposed on one side of the body (2) and an anode structure (6) is disposed on the other side of the body (2). The anode structure (6) includes a first set of spaced elongated conductive fingers (8) in contact with the body (2) and defining between each pair of fingers thereof an elongated gap (10) and a second set of spaced elongated conductive fingers (12) positioned above the surface of the body (2) that includes spaced elongated conductive fingers (8). Each finger of the second set of spaced elongated conductive fingers (12) overlays, either partially or wholly, the elongated gap between a pair of adjacent fingers of the first set of spaced elongated conductive fingers (8).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to semiconductor radiation detectors and, more particularly, to a semiconductor radiation detector having an improved electrode design.
2. Description of Related Art
With reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, a typical, prior art configuration of a co-planar grid (CPG) radiation detector 1, such as, without limitation, CdxZn1-xTe, (0≦x≦1), detector, includes metal or non-metal conductive electrodes on opposing surfaces. More specifically, a body of radiation detector material 2, e.g., CdxZn1-xTe, (0≦x≦1), has a continuous cathode electrode 4 on one face of body and an anode structure 6 comprised of two sets of elongated conductors 8 and 12 which are interconnected to form two independent, interdigitated grid electrodes on the face of body 2 opposite cathode 4.
Anode structure 6 includes a first anode conductor comprised of a first set of elongated conductors 8 spaced from each other and defining elongated gaps 10 between each pair of adjacent anode conductors 8. Herein, anode conductors 8 are also called "collecting anodes". Anode structure 6 also includes a second anode conductor comprised of a second set of elongated conductors 12 spaced from each other and defining elongated gaps 14 therebetween. Herein, anode conductors 12 are also called "non-collecting anodes".
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, with the exception of one collecting anode 8 on an end thereof, each collecting anode 8 is disposed in a gap 14 between, desirably intermediate, a pair of adjacent non-collecting anodes 12. Similarly, with the exception of one non-collecting anode 12 on an end thereof, each non-collecting anode 12 is positioned in a gap 10 between, desirably intermediate, a pair of adjacent collecting anodes 8. Desirably, adjacent collecting and non-collecting anodes 8 and 10 are separated from each other by a gap 21. However, this is not to be construed as limiting the invention since the gap between each pair of adjacent collecting and non-collecting anodes 8 and 12 can be any suitable and/or desirable distance deemed suitable and/or desirable by one of ordinary skill in the art.
All of the collecting anodes 8 can be coupled to an optional collecting bond pad 16 either directly or by way of a lateral conductor 18. Similarly, all of the non-collecting anodes 12 can be connected to an optional non-collecting bond pad 20 either directly or by way of a lateral conductor 22. Optional bond pads 16 and 20 can be utilized to facilitate connecting collecting anodes 8 and non-collecting anodes 12 to suitable electrical biases (not shown).
Anode structure 6 can be surrounded by an optional guard ring 24 as is known in the art. Lastly, radiation detector 1 desirably includes on the sides thereof an insulator 26. Desirably, insulator 26 is also disposed in the gaps 21 between adjacent pairs of collecting and non-collecting anodes 8 and 12 as well as between guard ring 24 and either a collecting anode 8, a non-collecting anode 12, lateral conductor 18 or lateral conductor 22, as the case may be. The portion of insulator 26 on the sides of body 2 can be the same or different than the portion of insulator 26 on the surface of body 2 that includes anode structure 6. For example, insulator 26 can be an insulating paint well-known in the art, or an insulator deposited by evaporation or sputtering, such as AlN, Al2O3 or Si3N4. However, this is not to be construed as limiting the invention since it is envisioned that the insulator on the sides of body 2 and/or the insulator on the surface of body 2 including anode structure 6 can be any insulator deemed suitable and/or desirable by one of ordinary skill in the art.
In use of detector 1, a cathode bias voltage (a negative high voltage) is applied across the detector to cause electrons occurring in body 2 in response to ionizing radiation impinging on body 2 to drift toward anode structure 6. Additional bias voltages are applied between collecting anodes 8 and non-collecting anodes 12 of anode structure 6 whereupon electrons in body 2 are steered toward collecting anodes 8. This additional bias is small compared to the bias applied to cathode 4, such that most of the volume of body 2 experiences a linear electric field. Desirably, only very near collecting anodes 8 and non-collecting anodes 12 is the electric field bent toward collecting anodes 8.
Factors that affect the performance of radiation detector 1 include material uniformity, charge transport properties, bulk resistivity, surface passivation and the design of anode structure 6.
Information regarding prior art radiation detectors can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,530,249; 5,777,338; and 6,043,106, in an article by P. N. Luke, entitled "Unipolar Charge Sensing With Coplanar Electrodes-Application To Semiconductor Detectors", IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 207-213, August 1995 and in an article by P. N. Luke et al., entitled "A CdZnTe Coplanar-Grid Detector Array For Environmental Remediation", Nuclear Instruments And Methods In Physics Research A 458 (2001) 319-324.
While the performance of radiation detector 1 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 has been satisfactory, it would be desirable to provide a radiation detector device having improved performance.

Radiation detector with co-planar grid structure

Endicott Interconnect Technologies, Inc.


A fabric is provided which exhibits a high dust collecting efficiency and which is superior in both waterproofness and abrasion resistance, and which is especially suitable for us in dust proof and/or waterproof clothes.. The fabric is a plain weave fabric of synthetic filaments, wherein warp yarns occupy 60% to 90% of the fabric surface, a percent (%) overlap of the width (L2+L3) of overlapped portions of adjacent warp yarns relative to the width (L1) of an overlapped portion of adjacent warp yarns in a section of the fabric, i.e., ((L2+L3)/L1).times.100 is in the range of 35% to 60%, and weft yarns of the fabric are located inside the warps in the thickness direction of the fabric.

The recent progress of the semiconductor manufacturing technique is outstanding, which technique is becoming more and more fine. With this tendency, there is an increasing demand for a higher degree of cleanness of the air present in a clean room as a semiconductor manufacturing site. As to suspended dust in the clean room, a target degree of cleanness is substantially attained by a facility improvement using an appropriate filter and taking the circulation of air in the clean room into account. As the material of dust proof clothes used in the clean room there is used a woven or non-woven fabric of synthetic filaments to prevent the generation of dust from the dust proof clothes. Further, as the material of dust proof clothes there also has been used fabric composed of polyester yarns and electrically conductive yarns, or a fabric subject to an antistatic finishing, to prevent dust from adhering to the dust proof clothes.
However, it has turned out that when a man works in a working space which is very strict against residual suspended dust, the worker himself or herself or the worker's undershirt is the main cause of dust generation. Thus, there exists a demand for preventing the leakage of dust generated inside the dust proof clothes to the exterior of the clothes. Although a large number of clothes called dust proof clothes have heretofore been available commercially, many of them use electrically conductive yarn as antistatic measures woven into the clothes to prevent the adhesion of dust to the clothes, or have been subjected to an antistatic finishing. In such dust proof clothes, the cuff and neck are closed with rubber or the like to prevent the leakage of dust generated from the worker's skin and undershirt through the cuff and neck. They are measures against static electricity and leakage of dust, but they are insufficient for preventing dust permeation therethrough.
For remedying the above-mentioned points, an attempt of using, for dust proof clothes, a laminate structure of woven and non-woven fabrics of filaments is described in JP60-34606A and 61-55204A.
Further, in JP60-34605A, 61-55205A and 61-75804A are described fabric-polymer laminate structures such as, for example, a synthetic filament fabric and a soft resin coated on or laminated to the surface of the fabric. Dust proof clothes of the resin laminated type are moisture-permeable because there is used a moisture-permeable waterproof resin, but the air permeability thereof is poor, so when the clothes are used over a long time, the inside of the clothes becomes stuffy, thus giving an unpleasant feeling to the person who wears the clothes. Moreover, due to a low air permeability of the fabric, there occurs the problem of dust leakage from a cuff or a neck by a pumping effect as the wearer moves. Further, because the laminated resin is inferior in abrasion resistance, the resin comes off and its performance is deteriorated after repeated wearing and washing.
The use of a multifilament yarn in the contituent filament not larger than 1.5 denier is described in JP60-259649A end JP1-321904A. Although the use of such in constituent very fine filaments is advantageous in point of improving the filtration efficiency, the use of yarns in constituent very fine filaments is not always advisable because a decrease of the constituent filament size causes deterioration of abrasion resistance or of tear strength.
Heretofore, as fabrics for dust proof clothes, both plain weave fabric and twill fabric have been used generally. Plain weave fabric is superior in abrasion resistance because there are few floating threads, but it is difficult to eliminate pores formed at intersecting portions of weaving yarns and therefore the dust filtration efficiency of plain weave fabric is inferior to that of twill fabric. As to the twill fabric, it is possible to diminish such inter-yarn pore at the point of intersection of warp yarn and weft yarn and the dust filtration efficiency thereof is generally superior to that of the plain weave fabric, but there occur a lot of floating threads, which is attributable to the weave of the twill fabric. Thus, the abrasion resistance is generally infereior to that of plain weave fabric.
Keeping the air permeability of these fabrics low is effective in preventing dust from passing through the fabrics, and high-density fabrics have so far been developed for keeping the fabric air permeability low. However, a limit is encountered in increasing the weave density of fabric, and weaving encounters a limit in diminishing the inter-yarn pore size at the point of intersection of warp yarn and weft yarn. Therefore, the fabric is subjected to shrinking in a finishing process to enhance the fabric weave density. The high-density fabric thus prepared is further subjected to calendering with use of hot pressure rolls to crush the fabric, thereby diminishing the voids present at intersecting portions of weaving yarns and enhancing the dust filtration efficiency. However, as a higher degree of cleanness in cleanroom is requested, by merely finishing a general fabric using yarns in constituent very fine filaments, it is no longer possible to meet the demand for a high dust filtering performance.
For obtaining waterproof fabrics, various attempts have been made heretofore.
According to one conventional method, a waterproof membrance is laminated to a fabric by, for example, coating or laminating to afford a waterproof composite. This method is commonly adopted and such a composite waterproof fabric is in mass production, but there remains a problem to be solved in point of comfortability because the fabric is poor in air permeability and is apt to become stuffy. There also is a problem of high cost.
According to another conventional method, waterproofness is attained without using such a waterproof membrance as is formed by coating or lamination. In this method, a high-density fabric is woven using yarns in constituent very fine filaments as at least one of warp yarn and weft yarn, which subsequent calendering with use of not pressure rolls to crush the fabric and thereby diminish pore size present at intersecting portions of weaving yarns.
Although the method just referred to above is advantageous to the improvement of waterproofness because it uses yarns in constituent very fine filaments, the use of yarns in constituents very fine filaments is not always advisable because a decrease of the constituent filament size causes deterioration of abrasion resistance or of tear strength.


A method of producing a magnetic recording medium includes forming a underlayer on a base, and successively forming, on the underlayer, a first magnetic layer, a nonmagnetic coupling layer and a second magnetic layer. The first and second magnetic layers are exchange-coupled via the nonmagnetic coupling layer and have antiparallel magnetizations in a state where no external magnetic field is applied on the magnetic recording medium. The underlayer is made of Cr or a Cr alloy having a bcc crystal structure within an atmosphere including nitrogen gas.

This application claims the benefit of a Japanese Patent Application No.2004-025562 filed Feb. 2, 2004, in the Japanese Patent Office, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to methods of producing magnetic recording media suited for high-density recording, and more particularly to a method of producing a magnetic recording medium which has a recording layer formed by two magnetic layers which are antiferromagnetically exchange-coupled.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the recording densities of magnetic recording media have increased dramatically, even at a rate reaching 100% per year. However, in the popularly employed longitudinal (or in-plane) recording system, it is expected that a limit of the longitudinal recording density will be on the order of 100 Gb/in2 to 200 Gb/in2, because the medium noise will increase and the output will decrease in the high-density recording region, thereby deteriorating the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio. In addition, in the longitudinal recording system, the thermal stability of the magnetic recording medium becomes a problem due to the self-diamagnetic field with respect to written bits and the diamagnetic field from the adjacent bits which increase for the high-density recording.
In order to reduce the medium noise in the high-density recording region, it is necessary to reduce the size of the magnetic grains, that is, the crystal grains forming the recording layer, and to reduce the magnetic interaction between the magnetic grains. When the size of crystal grain forming the magnetization unit is reduced, it is possible to reduce the zigzag of the boundary between the magnetization units, that is, the magnetization transition region. There are several known methods of reducing the crystal grain size, such as adding Ta, Nb, B, P and the like to a CoCr alloy forming the recording layer. Moreover, there is a known method which reduces the size of the crystal grains forming an underlayer of the recording layer so as to reduce the size of the magnetic grains grown epitaxially on it, Yu et al., "High-Density Longitudinal Recording Media With CrMoB Underlayer", IEEE Trans. Magn., vol.39, No.5, September 2003, pp. 2261–2263 proposes reducing the thickness of the underlayer and adding B to the underlayer in order to reduce the crystal grain size of the underlayer.
Furthermore, as a method of reducing the magnetic interaction between the magnetic grains, it is known to be effective to increase the Cr-content or B-content of the CoCr alloy forming the recording layer, so as to promote segregation and isolate the magnetic grains by the grain boundaries between the formed magnetic grains.
On the other hand, in the longitudinal magnetic recording medium, it is known that an isolated wave peak width at half-value PW50 of the reproduced output waveform can be described by the following formula (1) of relationships of static magnetic characteristics of the magnetic recording medium, where Hc denotes a coercivity, Mr denotes a remanent magnetization, t denotes a thickness of the recording layer, a is proportional to (t×Mr/Hc)1/2, and d denotes a magnetic spacing.PW50=[2(a+d)2+(a/2)2]1/2  (1)
It may be seen from the formula (1) that in order to reduce the isolated wave peak width at half-value PW50, the coercivity Hc should be increased and the thickness t should be reduced. Since the resolution of the reproduced signal improves as the isolated wave peak width at half-value PW50 becomes smaller, it is desirable to make the thickness t of the recording layer small and to make the coercivity Hc of the recording layer high, in order to realize the high-density recording.
However, when the reduction of the magnetic grain size and the reduction of the magnetic interaction are promoted, the diamagnetic field increases as the recording density increases, thereby making the problem of the thermal stability even more serious. As a countermeasure, an anisotropic field Hk of the recording layer is conventionally increased. But when the anisotropic field Hk is increased, it becomes more difficult to record information on the recording layer. Consequently, the recording magnetic field needs to be increased, and it becomes essential to develop a magnetic pole material having a high saturation magnetic flux density for the recording head element. The development of the magnetic pole material must not only satisfy the high saturation magnetic flux density, but must also simultaneously satisfy various required characteristics, thereby making the development extremely difficult.
A Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-056924 proposes a magnetic recording medium which simultaneously realizes reduced medium noise and thermal stability. This so-called Synthetic Ferrimagnetic Medium (SFM) has a recording layer that is formed by two antiferromagnetically exchange-coupled magnetic layers. In the SFM, the volume of the magnetic grains substantially becomes a sum of volumes of the magnetic grains of the two antiferromagnetically exchange-coupled magnetic layers. For this reason, the thermal stability is greatly improved, and the magnetic grain size can be reduced. As a result, the SFM can realize improved thermal stability, reduced medium noise and high S/N ratio.
However, when the thickness of the magnetic layer of the SFM is reduced as described above in order to improve the resolution, a coercivity squareness ratio decreases to thereby deteriorate the resolution instead of improving the resolution. In addition, a ratio Siso/Nm of an isolated wave average signal output Siso and a medium noise Nm, and a ratio S/Nm of an average output S at a maximum recording density used and the medium noise Nm, deteriorate.
Moreover, in a case where an exchange coupling energy acting between the two magnetic layers is excessively large, the thermal stability improves, but recording characteristics such as an overwrite performance and a Non-Linear Transition Shift (NLTS) deteriorate. Although there is a method of increasing the recording magnetic field to suppress the deterioration of the recording characteristics, it is difficult to increase the recording magnetic field as described above.

Method of producing magnetic recording medium


A regulator circuit including output loading sense circuitry where the output loading sense circuitry comprises, in one example, a resistor in the feedback leg of the replica bias regulator, a switch in the feedback leg of the replica bias regulator for bypassing the resistor, and a comparator used to sense the output loading and selectively drive the switch.

A replica bias regulator is a regulator that isolates the output of the regulator from the feedback loop of the regulator. This is done to ensure stability of the feedback loop of the overall regulator. If the output node was in the loop, the loop could become unstable due to widely varying and unpredictable currents drawn by the load. The output voltage is then designed to be a replica (copy) of the voltage formed in the feedback loop that does not have varying current.
A conventional replica bias regulator 10 is shown in FIG. 1 and comprises a simple replica bias regulator that has no adjustment for load regulation. In the conventional replica bias regulator of FIG. 1, the output signal (Vout) is taken from a replica output that is not connected in the feedback loop, thus isolating the output capacitance and load current from the feedback loop and ensuring stability of the overall circuit. As recognized by the present inventor, the problem with this architecture is the large load regulation that results from the change in voltage at this node due to a change in current. The output voltage drops as more current is pulled from the output. With large ranges of output currents, this architecture may not meet the output voltage requirements for all desired operating conditions. This phenomena is illustrated in FIG. 2.
FIG. 2 shows the output waveform with respect to load current of the conventional replica bias regulator for FIG. 1. The graph shows the output voltage (Vout) falling as the output current (Iout) increases. This is due to the increased gate-source voltage (Vgs) of the output transistor M2 required to supply the load current. Also shown is the line indicating the source voltage of transistor M1. This is the reference voltage set by feedback. The output waveform Vout moves around this reference/source voltage of M1 depending on the load current. The lower dashed horizontal line 12 represents the lower specified limit of Vout for the application. As the graph shows with the line 12, there is a maximum Iout that can be sourced before the output signal Vout falls below the specified limit across line 12. Conversely, if the output current drops (i.e., during a sleep mode or other low current mode), then the Vout signal rises above the specified limit shown by line 14.
One solution for this problem is to increase the size of the output transistor M2 to allow more current drive. However, when doing this, a new problem is created. The larger the transistor M2, the more sub-threshold current it sinks. This will cause the output to drift upward above the upper specification limit when very little or zero current is required from the regulator. This range of problems effects applications where large ranges of current are required such as those with standby modes and active modes.
As recognized by the present inventor, what is needed is a replica bias regulator that provides an output voltage characteristic that stays within the specified limits for all possible load currents that the regulator will have to supply.
It is against this background that various embodiments of the present invention were developed.

Replica bias regulator with sense-switched load regulation control


An integrated circuit includes a sensor which is arranged in the vicinity of a conductor in the circuit and is capable of measuring variations of the current through the conductor. This sensor, for example constructed as a coil, is capable of determining whether a connection which includes the conductor is in order. It can thus be tested notably whether the possibly multiple supply connection of the integrated circuit is appropriately connected to an external connection terminal.

The invention relates to a method of testing a connection which includes a conductor in an integrated circuit, the conductor being coupled to an external connection terminal of the integrated circuit, which method includes the following steps:
applying a stimulus to the external connection terminal, PA1 detecting a response in the conductor in the integrated circuit, PA1 characterizing the functioning of the connection on the basis of the response.
The invention also relates to an integrated circuit which includes a conductor for conducting a current and a detection device for characterizing a current through the conductor.
A method and an integrated circuit of this kind are known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,068,604 in the name of Applicant. The known integrated circuit includes a plurality of supply connections, each of which is connected to a common supply source, the supply connections also being internally interconnected. The test aims to check whether each of the supply connections is correctly connected to the supply source and conducts a relevant part of the supply current to the internal part of the circuit. To this end, a voltage difference is measured across some internal points in the conductor and it is checked whether this voltage difference remains within a given margin. To this end, the known integrated circuit includes a comparison circuit for comparing the voltage difference. A problem encountered while using this test method is the fact that the voltage difference to be measured is small since the conductor has a low, process-dependent resistance so that it is difficult to execute the above test. A further problem consists in that the complexity of the test increases as there are more supply connections, each of which is connected to a common supply source.

Method of testing a connection which includes a conductor in an integrated circuit


A liquid dispensing device includes at least one piston pump (7), which sucks liquid to be dispensed from a container in a filling cycle and applies the liquid to a target in an emptying cycle and which is driven by an actuator comprising an actuating element (1) that is arranged to move a piston rod (2) between two extreme positions, and a gripper (3) attached to the actuating means (1), which gripper is able to engage with the piston rod (2) so as to move it along with the actuating element. The gripper (3) is made able to engage with the piston rod (2) only in its first extreme position and arranged to disengage automatically from the piston rod in its second extreme position.

The invention relates to a liquid dispensing device comprising at least one piston pump, which sucks liquid to be dispensed from a container in a filling cycle and applies said liquid to a target in an emptying cycle and which is driven by an actuator comprising an actuating means that is arranged to move a piston rod between two extreme positions, and a gripper attached to the actuating means, which gripper is able to engage with the piston rod so as to move it along with the actuating means. The extreme positions refer to the two positions between which the piston is shifted in the cylinder of the piston pump. These positions need not correspond to those of empty and full piston pumps.
A dispensing device as described above is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,567,122. The gripper, which in this case is a pin moved by a solenoid, is arranged to move along with the actuator. To retain the engagement of the gripper requires continuous power supply to the solenoid. Because the gripper moves with the actuator, the power supply must be arranged by means of flexible cables or the like arrangements. If the apparatus includes a plurality of piston rods, like the paint toning machine which is intended to be a particular application of the present invention, the gripping arrangement of the U.S. Pat. No. 5,567,122 is difficult, complicated and space-consuming.
As stated above, dispensing devices of the invention are used, in particular, for dispensing colour paste. In some known dispensing devices the actuating means of the actuator driving the piston pump is continuously in cooperation with the piston rod, and as the actuating means moves so does the piston rod. The cooperation between the piston pump and the actuator is advantageous in a dispensing device comprising one piston pump, but when a plurality of piston pumps are driven by one and the same actuator, the situation is always such that only some of the piston pumps are desired to supply colour paste. Because the actuator is coupled to all piston rods, it is not possible to stop the movement of the idle piston pumps but liquid dispensing from said pumps must be prevented by valve operations.
A problem with the above-described arrangement is that the idle piston pumps move unnecessarily with the actuator, which wastes energy and results in unnecessarily fast wearing of the parts. Complicated valve arrangements may also cause problems, because the automation system thereof should take care of stopping and restarting the liquid dispensing.


In paper and board machines the position of a rolling device relative to another rolling device and/or the force exerted by the rolling device on the other rolling device or any variable acting on these is measured, and the value of the measured variable is compared with the set value of said variable in order to obtain the difference value of the variable, and the position of the rolling device and/or the force it exerts on the other rolling device is controlled on the basis of the difference value. The fluid pressure of the hydraulic means (5) and/or the flow velocity of the fluid to the hydraulic means is changed in order to alter the difference value of the variable by opening and/or closing at least one digital valve in a digital valve pack (7) functionally connected to the hydraulic means (S).

The invention relates to a method and an arrangement for controlling the position and/or force of an elongated rolling device in the roll nip between two elongated rolling devices in paper and board machines.
The nip pressure in a roll nip between two rolls and the opening and closing of the roll nip are adjusted with hydraulic means connected to said rolls, such as hydraulic cylinders. For nip pressure control, suitable measuring means are first used for measuring the force/pressure generated by the roll in the roll nip, the control logic of the control system converts an analog measurement signal into a digital signal and transmits a control signal in digital form to the control valve in charge of changing the nip pressure. The digital control signal is converted into analog form by the control valve, and then the control valve controls the fluid flow entering and leaving the hydraulic means. Such a manner of controlling nip pressure has noticeable shortcomings, of which the major ones relate to disappearing data content as an analog measurement signal is converted into digital form and a digital control signal is subsequently converted into a control signal.
There are frequently also problems caused by the fact that the same relatively large-sized control valve, such as a proportional valve, is used for controlling both the force exerted by the roll on the backing roll in the roll nip between the rolls and also the roll position relative to the backing roll. This problem is particularly tangible in reelers, because, as the fiber web is reeled around the reel core, the reel core needs to be continuously shifted away from the reeling cylinder. However, meanwhile it is necessary to maintain the nip pressure between the reel core and the reel cylinder on a determined level. The shift of the location of the reel core requires relatively large movements of the piston of the hydraulic means and also changes of the fluid pressure prevailing in the compression cylinder, whereas changes of the nip pressure can be achieved with considerably smaller piston movements and changes of the fluid pressure in the compression cylinder, entraining a tendency to cause control fluctuation and vibrations in the roll/rolls. In practice, due to the great mass of the control valve and the consequently slow changes of the flow volume in the hydraulic means, it is often difficult or even impossible to actively attenuate roll vibrations caused by control fluctuation by means of control engineering means.
Controlling hydraulic means by current control valves such as servo valves and proportional valves is awkward and inaccurate, because the required valves are bulky and slow, and thus have poor control resolution. In addition, the control valves themselves might cause control fluctuation and vibrations in the rolling devices by their own operation.
The purpose of the invention is to eliminate the prior art inconveniences. Thus, the first purpose of the invention is to achieve a system for controlling the location and the force of the roll, allowing the same hydraulic means to accurately control both the location of the roll relative to the backing roll in the roll nip and also the nip pressure (=force) generated by the roll in the roll nip, substantially without control fluctuation. A second purpose of the invention is to achieve an active manner of control enabling efficient attenuation of roll vibrations.

Method and an arrangement for controlling position and/or force of an elongated rolling device


An additive mixture useful as a flame retardant is described. The mixture is comprised of (i) a poly(bromophenyl)alkane having in the molecule in the range of 13 to 60 carbon atoms and in the range of two to four aryl groups and (ii) a poly(bromophenyl)bromoalkane having in the molecule in the range of 13 to 60 carbon atoms and in the range of two to four aryl groups, said poly(bromophenyl)bromoalkane being in an amount which is greater than 25 wt %, based on the total weight of the additive mixture. A facile process for making the poly(bromophenyl)bromoalkane is also described.

Polyhalogenated diarylalkanes, e.g. decabromodiphenylethane, are known flame retardants for use in polyolefin and polystyrenic-based formulations. On a commercial basis, the polyhalogenated diarylalkane is supplied to the formulation as a product predominant in the polyhalogenated diarylalkane selected. Heretofore, known formulations of polyhalogenated diarylalkanes were brominated at the aryl ring(s) exclusively. Thus, such formulations were thus less desirable when the circumstance of use of the flame retardant called for the beneficial aspects of an aliphatically brominated composition.
Thus, a need exists for a flame retardant formulation which combines the beneficial characteristics of flame retardants having aryl group bromine substitution and flame retardants having aliphatic bromine substitution.

Poly(bromoaryl)alkane additives and methods for their preparation and use


A new and distinct cultivar of Rose plant named ‘Bokrammi’, characterized by its upright and mounding plant habit; dark green-colored foliage; freely branching growth habit; freely flowering habit; red purple-colored flowers; large glossy red-colored fruits; and good garden performance.

The present Invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Rose plant, botanically known as Rosa hybrida, commercially used as an ornamental shrub, and hereinafter referred to by the name 'Bokrammi'.
The new Rose plant is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Boskoop, The Netherlands. The objective of the breeding program was to develop new uniform shrub Rose varieties with attractive flower and fruit coloration.
The new Rose plant originated from a cross-pollination made by the Inventor during the summer of 1996 of two unnamed seedling selections of Rosa hybrida, not patented. The new Rose plant was discovered and selected by the Inventor during the summer of 2001 as a single flowering plant within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled outdoor nursery environment in Boskoop, The Netherlands.
Asexual reproduction of the new Rose plant by softwood cuttings in a controlled greenhouse environment in Boskoop, The Netherlands since the summer of 2001, has shown that the unique features of this new Rose plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.


Thin-film SOI semiconductor devices formed in a thin film Si semiconductor substrate layer formed on an insulating layer on a semiconductor substrate have improved electrical characteristics and reliable reproducibility of those characteristics in the mass production, which are obtained by utilizing semiconductor substrate having high concentrations of active impurities, or by utilizing voltage biased, impurity diffusion regions in the surface of the semiconductor substrate aligned beneath CMOS FETs formed in the thin film Si layer. They can also be obtained by extension of the semiconductor substrate through the insulating film to the channel region of the CMOS FETs formed in a thin film Si regions. Further, reliably reproducible contact connection of electrodes to buried thin film Si layers is also achieved.

This invention generally pertains to silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology comprising thin-film semiconductor SOI devices formed on an insulating layer formed on a semiconductor substrate and more particularly to SOI CMOS devices.
SOI devices, such as CMOS FET devices, are formed on prepared insulating layers, such as SIMOX buried oxide layers prepared on semiconductor substrates. Then, an epitaxially deposited Si layer is formed on the oxide layer and CMOS thin-film transistors, e.g., n-channel MOS FET, p-channel MOS FET, are formed in the Si layer with polysilicon gates separated by a thin gate oxide self-aligned relative to the CMOS thin-film transistor channel. In other cases, the thin-film MOS FET are commonly formed relative to a substrate floating condition on a semiconductor film formed on an insulating film.
However, many problems still remain in SOI technology. As an example, the resultant physical and electrical properties of the thin-film semiconductor devices formed in the thin-film layer supported on the prepared insulating layer are not consistently uniform. This because of defects in and ion transfer to the thin-film semiconductor film resulting in film damage thereby affecting its electrical properties and reduce the performance of electrical components, e.g., n-channel MOS FETs, p-channel MOS FETs, formed in the thin films. As an example, the MOS FET threshold voltage of SOI thin-film devices formed in such thin-film semiconductor films will not consistently uniform.
Thus, it is a purpose of this invention to solve this problem by offering a thin-film SOI semiconductor device structure that will consistently yield more uniform electrical characteristics.
Further, in the case of the substrate floating effect of SOI MOS FET thin film semiconductor substrates or base layers formed over SIMOX films, particularly in the case of such devices submicron channel lengths, there is a corresponding decrease in breakdown voltage between the source and drain of such devices. This is referred to as short channeling wherein shortened channel length decreases threshold voltage. Thus, it is a further purpose of the present invention to offer an improved thin-film SOI MOS FET device that will not reduce the breakdown voltage between the source and drain at submicron channel lengths due to the substrate floating effect in SOI MOS FET thin film semiconductor substrates.
An ideal contact portion for a typical thin-film SOI semiconductor device is shown in cross section in FIG. 7. The contact structure comprises a Si semiconductor substrate 81, e.g., 500 .mu.m thick, upon which is formed, such as, by SIMOX, SiO.sub.2 film 82 which may have a thickness of about 0.5 .mu.m. Next, a n-Si film 83 is epitaxially deposited on SiO.sub.2 film 82 which may have a thickness in the range of about 30 nm to 50 nm which is usually employed for such TFTs. This is followed by the CVD deposition of SiO.sub.2 film 84 having a thickness in the range of about 0.5 .mu.m. Then contact hole 86 is formed in SiO.sub.2 film 84 by means of conventional wet etching. Lastly, metal or polysilicon electrode 85 is deposited over and in contact hole 86. However, when diameter of contact hole 86 is less than 2 .mu.m, then dry etching must be employed to obtain this resolution. However, when dry etching is employed, the etching process advances into the thin Si film 83 so that Si film 83 at the bottom of contact hole 86 was depleted or removed so that electrode connection was poor or nonexistent. In other words, it is difficult to control the etching through SiO.sub.2 film 84 without also etching away film 83 because end point detection is difficult to achieve in connection with such thin films when employing such a fast etching method to achieve better resolution at smaller scales. Also, any reliable contact to film 83 is not good when seeking to achieve surface contact 87 as the means for reliable contact. Thus, while the configuration shown in FIG. 7 with a large area contact at 87 to film 83 is ideally desired, it cannot be realized in practice, particularly for dimensions less than 2 .mu.m.
Thus, it is a further purpose of the present invention to offer an improved contact portion for a thin-film SOI semiconductor device of the type shown in FIG. 7 that will ensure reliable and consistently reproducible connection between the semiconductor thin-film and electrode in thin-film SOI semiconductor devices.

Thin-film SOI semiconductor device having heavily doped diffusion regions beneath the channels of transistors


A high-speed router backplane is disclosed. The disclosed construction and layout techniques enable the construction of a reliable, high-layer-count, and economical backplane for routers and the like that use signaling across the backplane at trace speeds of 2.5 Gbps or greater. Specific ranges of differential trace geometry characteristics, with significant single-ended coupling to adjacent ground planes, have been found to provide the parameters needed for such signaling. New trace routing and layering techniques also help in the realization of a backplane embodiment containing roughly 600 operable high-speed differential pairs, while also providing sufficient electromagnetic interference management to allow power distribution to occur within the same backplane.

A backplane generally comprises a printed circuit board having a number of card connection slots or bays. Each slot or bay comprises, e.g., one or more modular signal connectors or card edge connectors, mounted on the backplane. A removable circuit board or "card" can be plugged into the connector(s) of each slot. Each removable circuit board contains drivers and receivers necessary to communicate signals across the backplane with corresponding drivers and receivers on other removable circuit boards.
One or more layers of conductive traces are formed on and/or in the backplane. The traces connect to individual signal connection points at the various slots to form data lines and control lines.
Router backplanes present a challenging area of circuit board design (for convenience, routers and switches will be referred to herein collectively as "routers", as the technical distinctions between the two are unimportant to the invention as described herein). By their very nature, configurable modular routers require a high degree of interconnectivity between their removable router cards. With any appreciable number of cards, it becomes infeasible to build large parallel point-to-point connection buses between each pairing of the cards. This limitation hinders further growth in large router throughput, as the next generation of large routers may well see throughput requirements measured in terabits-per-second. As such throughput requirements may require several tens (or even hundreds) of logical ports to exchange data simultaneously at twenty to one-hundred Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) speeds, it can be appreciated that the connectivity and throughput requirements placed on large router backplanes are extreme.
Many router manufacturers, believing that the limits of electrical circuit boards have been reached in the area of large router backplanes, are now designing optical backplanes for their next-generation products. Optical backplanes avoid some of the most problematic characteristics of electrical backplanes, such as trace density, signal attenuation, signal reflection, radiated noise, crosstalk, and manufacturing limitations—characteristics that become increasingly significant as single-trace signaling speeds push into the multi-Gbps range. Optical backplanes, however, come with their own set of problems, chief among these being cost and complexity.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A mobile terminal including a terminal body; a display unit configured to display a lock screen including a plurality of regions in a lock mode in which an input of a control command with respect to an application is limited; and a controller configured to, when a touch input applied to a region among the plurality of regions of the lock screen to release the lock mode is sensed, detect information regarding a home screen corresponding to the touched region, and display the home screen corresponding to the touched region based on the detected information regarding the home screen corresponding to the touched region on the display unit.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal and, more particularly, to a mobile terminal capable of displaying screen information, and a control method thereof.
Description of the Related Art
In general, terminals include different types such as mobile terminals and stationary terminals. In addition, mobile terminals include different types such as handheld terminals and vehicle mounted terminals.
As functions of mobile terminals become more diversified, mobile terminals can support more complicated functions such as capturing images or video, reproducing music or video files, playing games, receiving broadcast signals, and the like. By comprehensively and collectively implementing such functions, mobile terminals may be embodied in the form of a multimedia player or device. Efforts are ongoing to support and increase the functionality of mobile terminals. Such efforts include software and hardware improvements, as well as changes and improvements in structural components of mobile terminals.
To prevent a user's unintentional touch input, mobile terminals may execute a lock mode in which a user input is limited. Also, a pre-set lock screen may be displayed in the lock mode. Mobile terminals may release the lock mode on the basis of a touch input applied to the lock screen, and display a home screen. However, in mobile terminals in related art, only a pre-set single home screen is displayed. Also, in the mobile terminals in related art, a home screen optimized for a user situation among a plurality of pre-set home screens is not displayed.

Mobile terminal and control method thereof


An information display device may include: an image capturing unit configured to capture an image; a display unit configured to display the image captured by the image capturing unit; a detection unit configured to detect a position and an attitude of the information display device; an identification unit configured to identify a field device positioned in a direction of image capturing by the image capturing unit, by using a detection result of the detection unit; and a display control unit configured to cause an overlaid display on the display unit of the image captured by the image capturing unit, overlaid with at least one of static information and dynamic information regarding the field device identified by the identification unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information display device and an information display system.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-114454, filed May 18, 2012, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
All patents, patent applications, patent publications, scientific articles, and the like, which will hereinafter be cited or identified in the present application, will hereby be incorporated by reference in their entirety in order to describe more fully the state of the art to which the present invention pertains.
Conventionally, in plants, factories, and the like, in order to achieve a high level of automated operation, distributed control systems, referred to hereafter also as DCSs, in which on-site devices known as field devices, such as measuring instruments and actuators, and a control unit controlling these devices are connected via a communication unit, are implemented. In conventional distributed control systems, although communication is mostly performed by cable, in recent years wireless communication has been implemented in conformance with industrial wireless communication standards such as ISA100.11a and WirelessHART (registered trademark).
In a plant in which such a distributed control system is implemented, from the standpoint of, for example, preventing abnormal operation and maintaining measurement accuracy, workers perform periodic maintenance of the field devices. The maintenance of field devices is often performed using a portable terminal device such as a PDA (personal digital assistant) capable of close-range communication, such as by serial cable communication, infrared communication, and low-power wireless communication, and using a computer in which has been installed a field device setting tool, which is a dedicated tool for setting and adjusting field devices.
Specifically, in maintaining a field device, a worker first goes to the installation location of the field device and connects the portable terminal device to the field device using, for example, a cable. Next, the worker operates the portable terminal device to obtain device information, that is, parameters from the field device, and to display the obtained device information. Then, referring to the device information displayed on the portable terminal device, the worker, if necessary, operates the portable terminal device to change the device information and make device information setting instructions to the field device. In this manner various setting and adjustments are made to the field device.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication, First Publication No. 2005-115500 discloses a device that, while not used in maintaining a field device, can measure the current position and orientation of a user and can present information associated with the position and orientation. Specifically, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication, First Publication No. 2005-115500 discloses a device that, from an image of position information marker captured by a camera, distinguishes the camera position, that is, the distance between the marker and the camera, and the angle of the camera with respect to the marker, reads the marker description and obtains information regarding the marker position, and superimposes and displays the obtained information on a camera image that is adjusted to match the camera position and angle.
In maintaining a field device, as described above, it is basically necessary to have a situation in which a worker goes to the installation location of the field device and in which reliable communication is possible between the worker's portable terminal device and the field device. For this reason, as the size of the plant or the like becomes large, the range over which the worker must travel grows large, this placing an increased burden on the worker, and requiring a long time for travel, thereby worsening the work efficiency.
From the standpoint of security, in a distributed control system, it is desirable that all of the field devices are managed in an integrated manner by the control unit. When maintaining field devices, however, as described above, because a worker can change the device information, unless workers are sufficiently trained, there is a possibility of a lowering of security, by removal, theft, loss, or the like of the portable terminal device.
In a field device, the installation location might change in accordance with the surrounding situation. For example, there might be a decrease in the communication quality of a field device capable of wireless communication (hereafter, a wireless field device) because of a change in the surrounding radio conditions. In such a case, because a worker needs to decide the location at which the wireless field device should be installed by an intuitive trial-and-error process, the work efficiency is poor, and it is not possible to make a detailed judgment of the degree of improvement in communication quality, therefore making it impossible to establish reliability.

Information display device and information device system


A power system of a vehicle includes an engine, a first motor and a second motor. A method for controlling motion of the vehicle includes: receiving a cruise speed, a speed fluctuation quantity and a preset traveling mileage of the vehicle, and obtaining an upper speed bound and a lower speed bound of the vehicle based on the cruise speed and the speed fluctuation quantity; adjusting a current speed of the vehicle to the lower speed bound, and controlling the vehicle to enter a first cruise phase of a two-phase cruise mode; and controlling the vehicle to enter a second cruise phase of the two-phase cruise mode when the current speed of the vehicle is greater than or equal to the upper speed bound and a current traveling mileage is less than the preset traveling mileage.

Electric vehicles are vehicles with the greatest energy saving potential, their research on periodic cruise control strategies are still in the blank. As a typical multidisciplinary crossover system, electric vehicles are deeply integrated with electrical, mechanical, chemical and thermodynamic systems, while the energy efficiency of the system is improved, the management and coordination of the system is more complicated due to the existence of multiple power sources, and the energy and power management strategies of the system directly affect the system performance, which needs to be solved urgently.

Method and device for controlling motion of vehicle, and vehicle


A baud rate digital timing recovery circuit for use in the read channel of a storage device controller is able to operate nominally at the baud rate by recognizing and compensating for oversampling and undersampling conditions. The read channel includes a sample rate converter for interpolating between digitally sampled values and a digital timing recovery loop that detects a phase error in the interpolated signal and adjusts the interpolation interval accordingly. An accumulator circuit generates a modulo-TS interpolation interval value, where TS is the sampling period. Detection circuitry detects when the interpolation interval value has wrapped through its maximum value or minimum value and generates an oversampling or undersampling signal in response. The oversampling and underampling signals are received by an elastic buffer. The elastic buffer operates to store extra values that are generated during undersampling conditions and also disregards bogus samples that are generated during oversampling conditions, in response to the undersampling and oversampling signals. A mini-elastic buffer, also responsive to the oversampling and undersampling signals may be employed in the phase detection loop. The system can operate at the nominal baud rate or can operate at a half baud rate with two parallel paths for processing two incoming samples with each clock cycle.

The present invention relates generally to reading of information from a storage medium and more particularly to a storage medium read channel employing interpolated timing recovery.
The need to increase the storage density of information storage media, such as magnetic and optical storage media, is a well-known goal in the art. In a typical magnetic storage media device, information is written onto the medium as a series of pulses, which pulses are recorded as magnetic bit cells of either a positive or negative polarity. The pulses are then read using a coil, such as a read/write head, whereby the transitions in the polarity between adjacent bit cells cause an analog signal in the coil as the read/write head passes over the magnetic medium. The analog signal can then be coded into a digital signal using well-known digital sampling techniques.
As the analog signal is converted to a digital signal, it is important to properly align the sampling rate and phase to the rate and phase at which the information was originally written. This is important so as to ensure accurate detection of the pulses that were written to the medium. The rate at which the signal was written to the storage medium is typically referred to as the baud rate.
Accurate sampling at the baud rate and with minimal phase shift is necessary in order to minimize inter-symbol interference, as well. As storage density has increased, with the bit cells being placed closer together, the need to accommodate inter-symbol interference has become increasingly important.
Sample rate and phase variations can be compensated for in two general ways. In the first method, the phase difference between the sampled values and expected values is detected, and the sampling clock, typically a variable frequency oscillator (VFO) is adjusted in order to minimize or eliminate the phase difference, using a frequency feedback loop. Several VFOs may be required, however, one for the write channel, and one or more may be required for the read channel if information is written to the storage medium at different nominal baud rates, which is often the case. These multiple VFOs may give rise to cross-talk interference. More importantly, the VFO requires analog circuitry for its implementation. Analog circuitry is much more susceptible to process variations affecting circuit performance. Likewise, analog circuitry is not as easily migrated to new semiconductor processes which is an additional disadvantage. Circuit test is also more difficult with analog circuits than with comparable digital circuits.
A digital circuit based method of compensating for frequency and phase errors employs digital interpolation to minimize phase errors. In the digital interpolation method, the analog signal is sample asynchronously to the baud rate. The phase difference between the sampled values and expected values is again detected, but this phase error signal is used to adjust the interpolation interval of an interpolating timing recovery circuit. The interpolating timing recovery circuit generates interpolated sample values that are substantially synchronous to the baud rate. Because the interpolating timing recovery circuit does not require adjusting the sampling rate, the need for multiple VFOs is eliminated.
Because the interpolating timing recovery circuit samples asynchronously, however, an oversampling condition or undersampling condition is likely to result. In an oversampling condition, the sampling frequency exceeds the baud rate. As a result, the period between successive sample points must be extended in order to synchronize to the baud rate. In the undersampling condition, the sampling frequency is less than the baud rate, and the interpolator circuitry must decrease the period between successive sample points. Because the sampling is done asynchronously, the circuitry has no way of knowing whether it is in an oversampled or undersampled condition, however.
In order to address this issue, prior art methods have been employed in which the sampling rate is selected at a frequency that is known to be higher than the baud rate. For instance, Spurbeck et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,696,639, disclose an interpolating timing recovery circuit in which the sampling rate is selected to always be 1% to 2% higher than the write clock or baud rate. In that way, the read channel is known to always be operating in an oversampling condition. Once this is known, techniques can be employed to compensate for the oversampling condition, as is disclosed in the referenced patent.
The drawback in forcing an oversampling condition at all times is that this requires two separate synthesizers, one for the baud rate clock and one for the read channel clock. These two clocks must be close in frequency, say within 2%, at each of the frequencies at which data may be written to the storage medium (e.g. different baud rates may be employed at different locations on the storage medium). Because the synthesizers are analog circuits, the circuits are sensitive to process and other variations that might skew the frequencies of the clocks relative each other.
Therefore a need exists in the art for an efficient interpolating timing recovery circuit that can accommodate an asynchronous sampling clock that is nominally at the baud rate and that can compensate for both oversampling and undersampling conditions that may arise from differences in the baud rate and the sampling rate.
The present invention provides a device for reading information stored on a medium by detecting data from a sequence of discrete time interpolated sample values. The interpolated sample values are generated by interpolating a sequence of discrete time channel sample values generated by sampling pulses in a read signal from the medium. The device includes a sampling clock outputting a clock signal with a period of T and a sampling device, responsive to the sampling clock, receiving as input the read signal and outputting the channel sample values. An interpolated timing recovery circuit receives as input the channel sample values and outputs the interpolated sample values. The interpolated timing recovery circuit includes an accumulator for generating, modulo-T, a fractional delay value. An elastic buffer receives as input and stores the interpolated sample values from the interpolated timing recovery circuit. The interpolated sample values are subsequently read out to a data detector. In response to detection that the fractional delay value has wrapped past its maximum value through its minimum value, the elastic buffer prevents one interpolated sample value from being read out to the data detector; and in response to detection that the fractional delay value has wrapped past its minimum value through its maximum value, the elastic buffer stores one interpolated sample value and one associated channel sample value.

Digital timing recovery using baud rate sampling