A display device includes a side I/O module sandwiched between a front frame and a rear cover to form a casing having a lateral side. The I/O module includes an L-shaped connector including a back plate fastened securely to the rear cover, and a side plate extending perpendicularly from the back plate and fastened the front frame so to prevent removal of the rear cover from the front frame in such a manner that the side plate is flush with the lateral side of the casing. A terminal substrate is mounted on the back plate opposite to the rear cover, and has a plurality of parallelly arranged terminal-receiving ports extending into the opening in the side plate so as to expose the ports exteriorly of the outer casing to facilitate insertion of terminals therein.

Ever since the invention of the CRT-type TV sets (or particularly flat panel displays of today), the prices thereof are rapidly going down as the manufacture technology advances and is matured. Therefore, little profit can be gained from selling the display device. The manufacturers are making some alteration on its external appearance in order to attract the attention of the consumers so as to increase the sale.
A conventional display device, such as a TV set, is generally provided with a plurality sets of terminal ports at its rear cover for establishing electrical communication with its peripheral devices, such as a tape recording-and-reproducing instrument or a DVD player or a sound amplifier. The more the peripheral devices are connected to the display device, the better the entertainment effect the user can enjoy. However, one problem arises when the terminal ports are mounted on the rear cover of the display. Attachment or detachment of the terminal ports to the peripheral devices is somewhat inconvenient.
In one conventional display device, the terminal ports are provided at a lower portion of the front frame so that attachment and detachment of the peripheral device can be conducted with ease. However, exposure of the terminal ports advertently affects the aesthetic appearance of the display.
Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, a conventional display device (such as a plasma TV set) includes a front frame 6, a rear cover 8 and a lateral side input-and-output module 4 sandwiched between the front frame 6 and the rear cover 8 to form a casing 2 that has a lateral side extending between the front frame 6 and the rear cover 8. The lateral side I/O module 4 generally includes a side connector 12 fixed to the front frame 6 and formed with a plurality of port-retentive sleeves 1202 defining openings, and a terminal substrate 14 having a plurality of parallelly arranged terminal-receiving ports 10. A plurality of fastener screws 18b extend through the holes 18a on the terminal substrate 14, and are fastened threadedly to the screw holes 18c in the inner surface of the rear cover 8 in such a manner that the ports 10 extend into the sleeves 1202 so as to expose the ports 10 to the exterior of the casing 2. The lateral side I/O module 4 further includes an electrical connector 16 connected to the ports 10 via a signal cable 20.
During assembly of the aforesaid conventional display device, the terminal substrate 14 is first of all mounted on the inner side surface of the rear cover 8. In order to establish electrical communication between the inner terminals in the casing 2 and the connector 16 of the terminal substrate 14, the inner terminals (not shown) are required to be projected outwardly from the front frame 6 so as to couple with the connector 16 once the rear cover 8 is brought toward the front frame 6. Thus the assembler needs to hold the front frame 6 and the rear cover 8 temporarily in order to form gap therebetween to permit coupling of the terminals with the connector 16 prior to coupling the front frame 6 and the rear cover 8, thereby inconveniencing the assembler.
The object of the present invention is to provide a lateral side input-and-output module used in a display device so as to eliminate the problems encountered during assembly of the conventional display device and reduce the electromagnetic interference around the display device.

Display device having a lateral side input-and-output module


The leakage current of an OTP-EPROM cell formed using buried channel PMOS technology can be reduced. The reduction in leakage current of the OTP-EPROM can be achieved by blocking implantation of the Vtp implant into a channel region of an n-well that substantially underlies a floating gate structure. The Vtp implant can be blocked by providing a mask overlying the surface of the channel region of the n-well during implantation of the Vtp implant.

One time programmable (OTP) electrically programmed read only memory (EPROM) can be an effective, low cost technology for providing non-volatile memory in a variety of CMOS or PMOS processes. A basic OTP-EPROM cell can be a simple enhancement-mode p-channel MOS field effect transistor (MOSFET) built in an n-well like any other p-channel MOSFET except that there is no connection to the poly gate. The OTP-EPROM cell can use a thin gate oxide (e.g., 75 Å to 200 Å range), no special masks or process steps, and is available in the base line process with no cost added to the basic CMOS or PMOS wafer price. However, special test requirements, multiple passes through a multi-probe, and the use of ultra violet (UV) light to erase the OTP-EPROM cell can increase the cost of a probed OTP-EPROM ready for assembly.
An OTP-EPROM cell can be designed using standard semi-conductor design rules. The minimum channel length allowed of an OTP-EPROM cell can be the same or slightly larger than the channel length of a p-channel MOS transistor. For example, if the minimum channel length of a p-channel MOS transistor is 0.4 μm, then the channel length of an OTP-EPROM cell can be 0.5 μm.
An OTP-EPROM cell can be programmed using a nominal voltage supply (e.g., 7.0 V) and can be expected to retain data through a 10 year operating life time at temperatures up to about 125° C. The power supply can be applied during the programming pulses. The read voltages should be kept below about 2.0 V to avoid any possibility of disturbance or degradation of data retention characteristics.
OTP-EPROM cells manufactured using CMOS processes with standard buried channel PMOS have a fairly high Ioff current (e.g., I virgin current) compared to the Ion current (e.g., I programmed current). The high Ioff current of the OTP EPROM cell can reduce the operating margin of OTP-EPROM cell and can reduce its lifetime.
The Ion/Ioff ratio of an OTP-EPROM cell formed using buried channel PMOS technology can be improved by increasing the channel length of the OTP-EPROM. Increasing the channel length, however, usually results in the formation of an OTP-EPROM cell with a larger area. An OTP-EPROM cell with a larger area is undesirable as it prevents the formation of OTP-EPROMs with greater bit density. The Ion/Ioff ratio of the OTP-EPROM cell can also be improved by increasing the programmed state current of the OTP-EPROM cell or decreasing the leakage of virgin state current of the OTP-EPROM cell. Increasing the programmed state current is generally undesirable because a corresponding increased programming voltage and increased programming time are required. It is thus desirable to reduce the leakage of virgin state current in order to reduce the Ion/Ioff ratio and improve the operating margin of the OTP-EPROM.

Fabrication of an OTP-EPROM having reduced leakage current


The present invention relates to a control panel assembly in which a light emitted from a single lamp is prevented from being dispersed nearby. A control panel assembly for a laundry machine, the control panel assembly includes a lamp supporter in which a plurality of lamps are installed to display functions selected by a user; a deco formed corresponding to the plurality of the lamps, the deco including a plurality of light-emitting holes through which a light emitted from each of the lamps passes; a light window including a light dispersion preventing part provided between the lamp supporter and the deco to prevent the light emitted from each of the lamps from being emitted through the other light-emitting holes except a single light-emitting hole corresponding each of the lamps.

1. Field of the Disclosure
The present invention relates to a control panel assembly for a laundry machine. More particularly, the present invention relates to a control panel assembly for a laundry machine, which can prevent a light emitted from a single lamp from being dispersed nearby.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Laundry machines are typically configured of a control panel provided on an upper portion of a front thereof and the control panel includes an input part and a display part. A user inputs operational functions by using the input part and washing information of the laundry machine is displayed on the display part.
The input part includes plural buttons and a rotation switch.
A user operates the buttons and the rotation switch to select a washing time, washing method, drying method and spinning method. Also, various kinds of information including a washing process condition and a remaining time may be displayed on the display part by using letters or images.
In reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, a structure of a conventional control panel assembly for a laundry machine will be explained.
A conventional control panel assembly includes a control panel 10, a rotation switch 50, a lamp supporter 40, a rotary knob 30 and a deco 20. The rotation switch 50 includes an encoder 52 and an encoder shaft 51. The lamp supporter 40 supports LED lamps for emitting a light. The rotation switch 30 is coupled to the encoder shaft 51. The deco 20 guides the light emitted from the LED lamp.
The control panel 10 covers a circuit substrate 60 in which the encoder 50 is installed and it has a through hole 11 through which the rotary knob 30 coupled to the encoder 51 passes.
As the user rotates the rotary knob 30 coupled to the encoder shaft 51, the encoder 52 creates a signal and sends the signal to a micom (not show).
The deco 20 is ring-shaped and an engaging part is projected from a rear circumferential surface of the deco 20 in a radial direction. A hook 12 is formed at a rear surface of the control panel 10. As a result, the engaging part of the deco 20 is fixedly engaged to the hook 12.
On the other hand, plural light-emitting holes 21 are formed at predetermined portions of the deco 20, corresponding to the LED lamps and the light emitted through the through holes 21 can show user selected functions.
In addition, a light window 70 is provided at a rear surface of the deco 20 to guide the light emitted from the LED lamps. The light window 70 is formed of transparent material and light-emitting protrusions 72 that passes the light-emitting holes 21, respectively, are arranged at the light window 70 a predetermined distance.
As a result, if the user rotates the rotary knob 30 to select a particular function, a corresponding LED lamp 41 emits a light and the light is dispersed through the light-emitting protrusions 72 formed at the light window 70.
However, as shown in FIG. 3, the light emitted from the single LED lamp 41 is emitted not only through the single corresponding through-hole 21 but also through the light window 70. As a result, the light is dispersed and emitted through neighboring light-emitting holes in the conventional control panel for a laundry machine.
Thus, there is a problem that a user fails to recognize the selected function clearly.

Control panel assembly for laundry machine


Systems and methods are provided for a turnkey modular printed circuit board enclosure that is generated using a template generator. The template generator accepts a user input comprising an enclosure parameter, based on which a manufacturing file may be generated. The manufacturing file may be provided to a fabricator for fabricating the enclosure or the manufacturing file may be modified in a printed circuit board design environment to incorporate a printed circuit board into the enclosure. The printed circuit board may be a separate printed circuit board that is inserted into the enclosure or it may be embedded in a face of the enclosure.

To ensure successful operation, it is important to have the right enclosure for an electronic device that has electrical or electronic components, for example, those that are on a printed circuit board (PCB). There are some challenges to finding or designing the right enclosure for a PCB.
Current methods for obtaining PCB enclosures include purchasing, in-house manufacturing, additive manufacturing, or hobby PCB designs. These methods suffer from various limitations. For example, with purchasing, standard or customized enclosures may be available but they have to be purchased separately and precisely modified (e.g., drilling holes for mounting the PCB and connectors) to fit the PCB. In addition, customization of commercial enclosures may be costly and may require long lead time. For in-house manufacturing, specialized equipment and tools may be required. With additive manufacturing, printing equipment and sometimes material curing are required. Moreover, most materials do not provide adequate electromagnetic interference shielding. With hobby designs, hardware may be required to assemble the enclosure and no manufacturable design or template is available.
One method for incorporating a PCB into an enclosure is to design and fabricate the circuit board as one entity and the enclosure as another, separate entity. As such, the designer must focus on the PCB or the enclosure separately. For example, the designer may design the PCB first and then consider the enclosure second, thereby facing issues in sourcing the best fit enclosure solution. Moreover, a complex PCB design may make it difficult to assemble electronic and mechanical components in an enclosure that is not specifically designed for that PCB. Additional time and funds may be needed for third party fabrication if in-house fabrication is not an option.
Another method is to outsource the design and fabrication of the whole unit, including the PCB and the enclosure, to a specialized third party. However, this method is time consuming and costly to implement. Any time the designer is faced with a customized circuit board or enclosure build, time of delivery and price of fabrication increases.

The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy


An arrangement for, and a method of, correcting for image distortion in an image projection system include making the scan lines of the projected image all of the same length by adjusting the amplitude of a drive signal used to sweep a laser beam to form each scan line of the image.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to projecting images onto a projection surface such as a screen or the like, and, more particularly, to correcting distortion of such images.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is generally known to project a two-dimensional image on a projection surface, such as a screen, based on oscillating a pair of scan mirrors in mutually orthogonal directions to scan a laser beam over a raster pattern of scan lines. However, the known image projection systems project the image with limited resolution, typically less than a fourth of video-graphics-array (VGA) quality of 640×480 pixels, and with some image distortion primarily caused by the orientation of the screen relative to the image projection system.
For example, when an image having a square or rectangular image area is projected on a tilted screen that is inclined relative to an optical axis along which the image is projected, then the projected image suffers a trapezoidal or quadrilateral distortion known in the art as a "keystone" distortion. In other words, there are scan lines located further away from the image projection system which are longer in length as compared to scan lines located closer to the image projection system.
As another example, the screen may be centrally oriented perpendicular to the optical axis of the image projection system. If the projection angle is very wide, then the scan lines at the top and at the bottom of the image area will be longer than the scan lines in the middle of the image area. This is generally known in the art as side-to-side or east-to-west "pincushion" distortion.
Such pincushion or keystone distortion is generally corrected in the art by electronically clipping or cropping triangular sections of the image area in order to make the image area square or rectangular. However, when this is done, the image resolution suffers due to the loss of usable pixels.

Correcting for image distortion in image projectors


The optical recording medium of the present invention comprises a substrate, a recording layer, and a protective substrate laminated to said recording layer interposing an adhesive layer, wherein said adhesive layer contains at least one copolymer selected from the group consisting of an ethylene-acrylic acid copolymer, an ethylene-acrylate copolymer, an ethylene-methacrylic acid copolymer and an ethylene-methacrylate copolymer, and has a Vicat softening point of from 65.degree. C. to 95.degree. C.. The process for producing it is also provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical recording medium having a superior durability, in particular, high-temperature durability, and a process for producing the optical recording medium. The present invention also relates to an information recording method.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, optical recording mediums, recording and reproducing information using light, are proposed as a means for storing a vast amount of information. Conventionally known optical recording methods include, as disclosed in "Review and Analysis of Optical Recording Media" in Optical Engineering, Vol.15, No.2, March-April 1976, pp.99ff., those types in which a recording layer is irradiated with a light beam, e.g., laser light, to cause deformation, hole or bubble production or changes in optical properties in the recording layer.
Materials used for the recording layer are known to include, for example, low-melting metals such as Te, Bi, Sn, Sb and In, dye and pigments (organic coloring matters) such as cyanines, squariums, phthalocyanines, tetradehydrocholines, polymethines, naphthoquinones and benzenedithiol nickel complexes, and composite materials comprised of any of these organic coloring matters and metals.
Of the above recording layer materials, organic coloring matters have been attracting notice in recent years as inexpensive optical recording mediums. More specifically, in organic coloring matter optical recording mediums, the recording layer can be formed on a substrate by solvent coating, and hence such optical recording mediums can promise a better mass-productivity than low-melting metal compound optical recording mediums whose recording layers are formed by vacuum deposition.
In the optical recording medium utilizing the organic coloring matter in the recording layer, the recorded information can be detected because the reflectance at the recording pits decreases as a result of decoloring caused by, for example, thermal decomposition of the organic coloring matter as well as the change of the reflected light from the information reproducing laser light at the recording pits caused by the effect of optical scattering due to the deformation of the recording pits.
In recent years, thinnes has been required for optical recording mediums as the recording-reproducing apparatus becomes small-sized. Optical cards, having the shape of cards, are required to have a thickness of from 0.68 to 0.84 mm according to the ISO standard.
On the other hand, not to be effected by dust or scratches on the substrate surface of the optical recording medium, it is more advantageous for the substrate to be as thick as possible. Usually thickness of about 0.4 to 0.6 mm is suitable. Protective substrates are required to have a thickness of about 0.15 to 0.4 mm. Hence, it is difficult to provide in the optical card having the above thickness what is called the air-gap structure, a structure in which a void space with a gap of about 0.5 to 1 mm is provided between a recording layer formed on a substrate and a protective substrate.
Under these circumstances, thin-type optical recording mediums such as optical cards have an adhered structure in which a protective substrate is laminated to a recording layer interposing an adhesive layer between them.
However, when an adhesive layer is formed directly on a recording layer containing an organic coloring matter (hereinafter "organic coloring matter recording layer"), sometimes the organic coloring matter reacts with an adhesive to cause deterioration of the recording layer, resulting in a decrease in the C/N of the information recorded in the recording layer.
To solve these problems, a laminate optical card is proposed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2-3116 which comprises a recording layer on which an optical information pattern is recorded, an adhesive layer and a spacer layer provided between the recording layer and the adhesive layer. In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 1-146144(U.S. Ser. No. 598,748, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,925), the present applicants have disclosed an optical recording medium making use of an adhesive mainly composed of an ethylene-acrylic acid copolymer, an ethylene-acrylate copolymer or an ethylene-maleic anhydride-acrylic acid terpolymer as an adhesive that does not damage the recording layer.
In the above techniques, however, the method providing the spacer layer has the disadvantage that it requires a complicated manufacturing process which brings about a high cost.
While the adhesive mainly composed of an ethylene-acrylic acid copolymer, an ethylene-acrylate copolymer or an ethylene-maleic anhydride-acrylic acid terpolymer has less interaction with the organic coloring matter in the recording layer, and is an excellent laminating adhesive for optical recording mediums. For the optical recording medium making use of this adhesive, there are still many requirements, for example, the reduction of reflectance of the organic coloring matter recording layer should be minimized to the greatest extent when the optical recording medium is stored in an environment of high temperature and high humidity, e.g., in an environment of 70.degree. C. and 90% RH for 100 hours, or when a high power beam is used as the reproducing light beam. Stated specifically, change rate of reflectance in an environment of 70.degree. C. and 90% RH should be controlled to be 10% or less, particularly 6% or less, and more particularly 4% or less. Also, when continuously irradiated with the high power reproducing light beam, it is desirable that 10% reduction of the reflectance of a recording layer does not occur by 200 seconds or more, particularly 250 seconds or more, and more particularly 280 seconds or more.

Optical recording medium, process for producing recording medium, and information recording method


A method is proposed for checking convergence in fractal image coding. In this case, a digitized image is divided into a number of range blocks (R.sub.i, R.sub.i+1) and into a number of domain blocks (D.sub.j, D.sub.k). A similar domain block is determined in relation to each range block. If necessary, in this process a transformation of a domain block is undertaken in order to map the domain block onto a range block. The assignment of the domain block to the range block including the transformation parameters represents the fractal code for the image. A reduced transformation matrix is set up to check convergence of the fractal code. The largest absolute eigenvalue of the transformation matrix is determined approximately. The entire method can be carried out in this case hierarchically. In a first approximation step, at least the row sum norm of each row of the reduced transformation matrix is checked. In further steps, further rows are combined to form square matrices of higher dimension. The latter are used to determine the largest absolute eigenvalues for the purpose of checking convergence.

A. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for checking convergence in fractal image coding.
B. Prior art
The invention proceeds from a method for checking convergence in fractal image coding according to the generic concept of the independent claim 1. A method for checking convergence in fractal image coding is already known from the article by P. Siepen and Prof. G. Dickopp "Zur Konvergenz bei der fraktalen Bildcodierung" ["On convergence in fractal image coding"], Proceedings of the 6th Dortmund Television Seminar, pages 133 to 138, October 1995. It is proposed there to reduce the dimension of the high-dimension transformation matrix using a proposed reduction method and to check the reduced transformation matrix for convergence instead of the original transformation matrix. It follows from the mathematics that checking the convergence of the transformation matrix or, in this case, of the reduced transformation matrix requires a determination of the eigenvalues of the matrix to be checked. Convergence occurs when all the eigenvalues of the matrix to be checked lie inside the unit circle of the complex plane. Calculating the eigenvalues of the reduced matrix still entails an immense outlay on computation, since the reduced matrix is still of very high dimension.

Method for checking convergence in fractal image coding


An embodiment of the invention is a technique for monitoring via a universal multipath driver (UMD) a first path to one of a plurality of virtual device objects. The virtual device objects are created by the UMD and correspond to a plurality of functional device objects. The functional device objects are created by a plurality of lower level drivers and correspond to a plurality of real physical devices having M device types including an external boot device. The UMD is a functional driver of each of the functional device objects. The lower level drivers control the real physical devices. The UMD detects a failure of the first path to a first virtual device object corresponding to a first real physical device and performs one of failover and failback for the first real physical device.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relates generally to drivers for storage systems, and more specifically, to multipath drivers for storage systems that include an external boot device.
2. Description of Related Art
Storage technology is important for systems that run data intensive applications. Currently, there are various storage devices having different capacities and streaming rates to accommodate various applications. Examples of these storage devices include redundant array of independent disks (RAIDs), tape drives, disk drives, and tape libraries. These devices may be connected to a system using various techniques such as the direct-attached storage technique, or storage area networks (SANs) (switch environment technique).
Existing multipath drivers to interface with these storage devices have a number of drawbacks. First, they do not provide a common driver for managing different types of devices. In other words, they are not universal. A system typically has to install several different types of drivers, one for each type of storage device. This creates complexity in management and system administration, increases cost in software acquisition and maintenance, and reduces system reliability and re-configurability. Second, existing techniques do not provide failover (and failback) for and among different storage devices, reducing system fault-tolerance and increasing server downtime. Third, they do not provide load balancing among different storage devices, causing performance degradation when there is skew in storage utilization.

Universal multi-path driver for storage systems including an external boot device with failover and failback capabilities


A display device including a first substrate, a second substrate, a display element layer, a non-transparent structure, an optical guiding structure and a reflective layer is disclosed. The second substrate is disposed opposite to the first substrate adjacent to a display surface of the display device. The display element layer is disposed between the first and the second substrates. The non-transparent structure, located between the optical guiding structure and the display element layer, defines at least one opening of the display device. The optical guiding structure corresponds to the one opening. The optical guiding structure includes a plurality of insulating structures each having a first surface adjacent to the non-transparent structure and side surfaces connected to the first surface. The reflective layer is disposed on the side surfaces. The ambient light entering via the second substrate is reflected by the reflective layer and exists via the opening.

Nowadays, the applications of flat panel displays in 3C products such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), global positioning systems (GPS), and digital cameras are closely related to people's daily life. Transparent displays, which not only display images or data but further allow users to view the images behind the display, may be used in vending machines, window displays, mall food displays, and museum displays. Display media such as liquid crystal displays (LCD), organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, and electrowetting displays (EWD) may all be used in transparent displays.
In a transparent display, since metal wires, thin film transistor (TFT), or the ink contraction zone of the electrowetting display all are impermeable to the light, the background light coming from the back of the display has insufficient transmittance, largely affecting users' viewing the images behind the display.

INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE


A lithographic projection apparatus is disclosed that includes a predictive system configured to predict changes in projection system aberrations with time with respect to measured aberration values, a modelling system configured to determine an application-specific effect of said predicted projection system aberration changes on at least one parameter of an image for a selected pattern, a control system configured to generate a control signal specific to the selected pattern according to said predicted projection system aberration changes and their application-specific effect on the at least one parameter of the image, and an image adjusting system, responsive to the control signal, to compensate for the application-specific effect of said predicted projection system aberration changes on the image. Adjustments may therefore be determined optimally for a given application.

The invention finds application, for example, in the field of lithographic projection apparatus incorporating a radiation system for supplying a projection beam of radiation, a support structure for supporting a patterning device, which serves to pattern the projection beam according to a desired pattern, a substrate table for holding a substrate; and a projection system for projecting the patterned beam onto a target portion of the substrate.
The term "patterning device" as employed here should be broadly interpreted as referring to devices and structures that can be used to endow an incoming radiation beam with a patterned cross-section, corresponding to a pattern that is to be created in a target portion of the substrate; the term "light valve" can also be used in this context. Generally, the pattern will correspond to a particular functional layer in a device being created in the target portion, such as an integrated circuit or other device (see below). Examples of such patterning devices include:                A mask. The concept of a mask is well known in lithography, and it includes mask types such as binary, alternating phase-shift, and attenuated phase-shift, as well as various hybrid mask types. Placement of such a mask in the radiation beam causes selective transmission (in the case of a transmission mask) or reflection (in the case of a reflective mask) of the radiation impinging on the mask, according to the pattern on the mask. In the case of a mask, the support structure will generally be a mask table, which ensures that the mask can be held at a desired position in the incoming radiation beam, and that it can be moved relative to the beam if so desired.        A programmable mirror array. One example of such a device is a matrix-addressable surface having a visco-elastic control layer and a reflective surface. The basic principle behind such an apparatus is that (for example) addressed areas of the reflective surface reflect incident light as diffracted light, whereas unaddressed areas reflect incident light as non-diffracted light. Using an appropriate filter, the non-diffracted light can be filtered out of the reflected beam, leaving only the diffracted light behind; in this manner, the beam becomes patterned according to the addressing pattern of the matrix-addressable surface. An alternative embodiment of a programmable mirror array employs a matrix arrangement of tiny mirrors, each of which can be individually tilted about an axis by applying a suitable localized electric field, or by employing one or more piezoelectric actuators. Once again, the mirrors are matrix-addressable, such that addressed mirrors will reflect an incoming radiation beam in a different direction to unaddressed mirrors; in this manner, the reflected beam is patterned according to the addressing pattern of the matrix-addressable mirrors. The required matrix addressing can be performed using suitable electronic circuitry. In both of the situations described here above, the patterning device can comprise one or more programmable mirror arrays. More information on mirror arrays as here referred to can be gleaned, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,296,891 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,523,193, and from WO 98/38597 and WO 98/33096, which are incorporated herein by reference. In the case of a programmable mirror array, the support structure may be embodied as a frame or table; for example, which may be fixed or movable as required.        A programmable LCD array. An example of such a construction is given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,229,872, which is incorporated herein by reference. As above, the support structure in this case may be embodied as a frame or table, for example, which may be fixed or movable as required.
For simplicity, parts of the rest of this specification are directed specifically to examples involving a mask and mask table; however, the general principles discussed in such instances should be seen in the broader context of the patterning device as set forth above.
Lithographic projection apparatus can be used, for example, in the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). In such a case, the patterning device may generate a circuit pattern corresponding to an individual layer of the IC, and this pattern can be imaged onto a target portion (e.g. comprising one or more dies) on a substrate (silicon wafer) that has been coated with a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist). In general, a single wafer will contain a whole network of adjacent target portions that are successively irradiated via the projection system, one at a time. In current apparatus, employing patterning by a mask on a mask table, a distinction can be made between two different types of machine. In one type of lithographic projection apparatus, each target portion is irradiated by exposing the entire mask pattern onto the target portion in one go; such an apparatus is commonly referred to as a wafer stepper or step-and-repeat apparatus. In an alternative apparatus, commonly referred to as a step-and-scan apparatus, each target portion is irradiated by progressively scanning the mask pattern under the projection beam in a given reference direction (the "scanning" direction) while synchronously scanning the substrate table parallel or anti-parallel to this direction; since, in general, the projection system will have a magnification factor M (generally <1), the speed V at which the substrate table is scanned will be a factor M times that at which the mask table is scanned. More information on such lithographic devices is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,792, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
In a manufacturing process using a lithographic projection apparatus, a pattern (e.g. in a mask) is imaged onto a substrate that is at least partially covered by a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist). Prior to this imaging step, the substrate may undergo various procedures, such as priming, resist coating and a soft bake. After exposure, the substrate may be subjected to other procedures, such as a post-exposure bake (PEB), development, a hard bake and measurement/inspection of the imaged features. This combination of processing steps is used as a basis for patterning of a single layer of the device which is for example an integrated circuit (IC). Such a patterned layer may then undergo various processes, such as etching, ion-implantation (doping), metallization, oxidation, chemical-mechanical polishing, etc., all of which are intended to finish off an individual layer. If several layers are required, then the whole procedure, or a variant thereof, will have to be repeated for each new layer. Eventually, an array of devices will be produced on the substrate (wafer). These devices are then separated from one another by a technique such as dicing or sawing, so that the individual devices can be mounted on a carrier, connected to pins, etc. Further information regarding such processing can be obtained, for example, from "Microchip Fabrication: A Practical Guide to Semiconductor Processing", Third Edition, by Peter van Zant, McGraw Hill Publishing Co., 1997, ISBN 0-07-067250-4, incorporated herein by reference.
For simplicity, the projection system may hereinafter be referred to as the "lens". However, this term should be broadly interpreted as encompassing various types of projection system, including refractive optics, reflective optics, and catadioptric systems, for example. The radiation system may also include components operating according to any of these design types for directing, shaping or controlling the projection beam of radiation, and such components may also be referred to below, collectively or singularly, as a "lens".
Furthermore, the lithographic apparatus may be of a type having two or more substrate tables (and/or two or more mask tables). In such "multiple stage" devices the additional tables may be used in parallel, or preparatory steps may be carried out on one or more tables while one or more other tables are being used for exposures. Dual stage lithographic apparatus is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,969,441 and WO 98/40791, the contents of both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Although specific reference may be made in this specification to the use of the apparatus according to the invention in the manufacture of integrated circuits, it should be explicitly understood that such an apparatus has many other possible applications. For example, it may be employed in the manufacture of integrated optical systems, guidance and detection patterns for magnetic domain memories, liquid-crystal display panels, thin-film magnetic heads, etc. The person skilled in the art will appreciate that, in the context of such alternative applications, any use of the terms "wafer" or "die" in this text should be considered as being replaced by the more general terms "substrate" and "target portion", respectively. Generally, throughout the specification, any use of the term "mask" should be considered as encompassing within its scope the use of the term "reticle"
In the present document, the terms "radiation" and "projection beam" are used to encompass all types of electromagnetic radiation, including ultraviolet (UV) radiation (e.g. with a wavelength of 365, 248, 193, 157 or 126 nm) and extreme ultra-violet (EUV) radiation (e.g. having a wavelength in the range 5-20 nm).
The phenomenon of lens heating can occur in the projection system of a lithographic projection apparatus. The projection lens becomes slightly heated by the projection beam radiation during exposures. As a result of this heating, refractive index changes occur, and a certain expansion of lens elements occurs, causing subtle changes in the geometric form of those elements, with an attendant change in their optical properties. This can result in the occurrence of new lens aberrations, or a change in existing aberrations. Because the occurrence of these aberration changes depends on such matters as the particular lens geometry, lens material, projection wavelength, light source power, target portion, wafer-reflectivity, size, and so on, the accuracy with which the effects of such lens heating can be predicted can be limited, especially in the absence of any measurement and compensating mechanism.
Lens heating has always occurred to some extent in lithographic projection apparatus. However, with the trend to integrating an ever-increasing number of electronic components, and thus smaller features, in an IC, and to increase the manufacturing throughput, shorter wavelength radiation, such as EUV radiation has been used, as well as high-power radiation sources, such as 3-6 kW Mercury-arc lamps and excimer lasers with a power of 10 to 20 W, which together with the reduction in feature size have made lens heating a more serious problem. The problem is generally worse in scanners than in steppers because, in a stepper, substantially the whole (circular) cross-section of each lens element is irradiated, whereas, in a scanner, generally only a slit-shaped portion of the lens elements is irradiated; consequently, the effect in a scanner is far more differential than in a stepper, even if the lens aberrations in the scan direction are averaged out in the scanner, thereby resulting in the occurrence of new lens aberrations.
The change in the optical properties of the elements of the projection system due to such lens heating naturally affects the image that is projected, principally by causing a change in the image parameters, of which magnification is particularly important for the XY-plane, and focus is particularly important for the Z-plane. However this lens heating effect can be calibrated and compensated for very well, e.g. by adjusting the positions of the lens elements to effect a compensating change in magnification or other image parameters of the projection system, for example as disclosed in EP 1164436A or U.S. Pat. No. 6,563,564, the contents of both of which are incorporated herein by reference. The lens heating effects depend on the lens properties, which are calibrated when the apparatus is constructed and may be recalibrated periodically thereafter, and various parameters of the exposures carried out, such as mask transmission, dose, illumination settings, field size and substrate reflectivity.
When performing imaging in a lithographic projection apparatus, despite the great care with which the projection system is designed and the very high accuracy with which the system is manufactured and controlled during operation, the image can still be subject to aberrations, which can cause offsets in the image parameters for example, distortion (i.e. a non-uniform image displacement in the target portion at the image plane: the XY-plane), lateral image shift (i.e. a uniform image displacement in the target portion at the image plane), image rotation, and focal plane deformation (i.e. a non-uniform image displacement in the Z-direction, for instance, field curvature). It should be noted that, in general, image parameter offsets are not necessarily uniform, and can vary as a function of position in the image field. Distortion and focal plane deformation can lead to overlay and focus errors, for example overlay errors between different mask structures, and line-width errors. As the size of features to be imaged decreases, these errors can become intolerable.
Consequently, it is desirable to provide compensation (such as adjustment of the projection system and/or substrate) to correct for, or at least attempt to minimize, these errors. This presents the problems of first measuring the errors and then calculating appropriate compensation. Previously, alignment systems were used to measure the displacements in the image field of alignment marks. However, alignment marks typically consist of relatively large features (of the order of a few microns), causing them to be very sensitive to specific aberrations of the projection system. The alignment marks are unrepresentative of the actual features being imaged, and because the imaging errors depend inter alia on feature size, the displacements measured and compensations calculated did not necessarily optimize the image for the desired features.
Another problem occurs when, for instance, because of residual manufacturing errors, the projection system features an asymmetric variation of aberration over the field. These variations may be such that at the edge of the field the aberration becomes intolerable.
A further problem occurs when using phase-shift masks (PSM's). Conventionally, the phase shift in such masks has to be precisely 180 degrees. The control of the phase is critical; deviation from 180 degrees is detrimental. PSM's, which are expensive to make, must be carefully inspected, and any masks with substantial deviation in phase shift from 180 degrees will generally be rejected. This leads to increased mask prices.
A further problem occurs with the increasing requirements imposed on the control of critical dimension (CD). The critical dimension is the smallest width of a line or the smallest space between two lines permitted in the fabrication of a device. In particular the control of the uniformity of CD, the so-called CD uniformity, is of importance. In lithography, efforts to achieve better line width control and CD uniformity have recently led to the definition and study of particular error types occurring in features, as obtained upon exposure and processing. For instance, such image error types are an asymmetric distribution of CD over a target portion, an asymmetry of CD with respect to defocus (which results in a tilt of Bossung curves), asymmetries of CD within a feature comprising a plurality of bars (commonly referred to as Left-Right asymmetry), asymmetries of CD within a feature comprising either two or five bars (commonly known as L1-L2 and L1-L5, respectively), differences of CD between patterns that are substantially directed along two mutually orthogonal directions (for instance the so-called H-V lithographic error), and for instance a variation of CD within a feature, along a bar, commonly known as C-D. Just as the aberrations mentioned above, these errors are generally non-uniform over the field. For simplicity we will hereafter refer to any of these error types, including the errors such as, for example, distortion, lateral image shift, image rotation, and focal plane deformation, as lithographic errors, i.e. feature-deficiencies of relevance for the lithographer.
Lithographic errors are caused by specific properties of the lithographic projection apparatus. For instance, the aberration of the projection system, or imperfections of the patterning devices and imperfections of patterns generated by the patterning devices, or imperfections of the projection beam may cause lithographic errors. However, also nominal properties (i.e. properties as designed) of the lithographic projection apparatus may cause unwanted lithographic errors. For instance, residual lens aberrations which are part of the nominal design may cause lithographic errors. For reference hereafter, we will refer to any such properties that may cause lithographic errors as "properties".
As mentioned above, the image of a pattern can be subject to aberrations of the projection system. A resulting variation of CD (for example, within a target portion) can be measured and subsequently be mapped to an effective aberration condition of the projection system which could produce said measured CD variation. A compensation can then be provided to the lithographic projection system such as to improve CD uniformity. Such a CD-control method is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,115,108, incorporated herein by reference, and comprises imaging a plurality of test patterns at each field point of a plurality of field points, a subsequent processing of the exposed substrate, and a subsequent CD measurement for each of the imaged and processed test patterns. Consequently, the method is time consuming and not suitable for in-situ CD control. With increasing demands on throughput (i.e. the number of substrates that can be processed in a unit of time) as well as CD uniformity, the control, compensation and balancing of lithographic errors must be improved, and hence, there is the problem of furthering appropriate control of properties.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,563,564 (P-0190) discloses a lens heating model by which projection system aberrations due to the lens heating effect can be corrected for by way of image parameter offset control signals that serve to adjust the image parameters of the projection system to compensate for the calculated change in the aberration effect due to such lens heating. In this case the change in the aberration effect with time is determined on the basis of a stored set of predetermined parameters corresponding to the selected aberration effect, these parameters can be obtained by a calibration step. The image parameter offsets may comprise focus drift, field curvature, magnification drift, third-order distortion, and combinations thereof. However, the required ideal compensation will depend on the particular application (the particular pattern, illumination mode, etc.), and the number of parameters that can be adjusted is generally not high enough to cancel out every aberration completely, so that the determination of the compensation to apply in a particular case will always be a compromise, the particular compromise to be chosen depending on the required application. Because the conventional lens heating model does not take into account the particular application, it follows that the calculated compensation will not be optimal for every particular application.
EP 1251402A1 (P-0244) discloses an arrangement for compensating for projection system aberrations on the basis of the relationship between properties of the substrate, the layer of radiation sensitive material on the substrate, projection beam, the patterning device and the projection system, and the lithographic errors causing anomalies in the projected image. A control system determines a merit function which weighs and sums the lithographic errors, and calculates a compensation to apply to at least one of the substrate, the projection beam, the patterning device and the projection system to optimize the merit function. Although the use of such a merit function enables compensation to be applied in such a manner as to reach a reasonable compromise in terms of optimization of the image, it is found that, since such optimization is intended to provide the best compromise in terms of imaging quality over the whole of the image, the image quality in parts of the image or in particular applications may be relatively low.
A control system may be provided for compensating for the effect of changes in a property of lithographic projection apparatus with time, such as the change in magnification of the projection system due to lens heating, in which a control signal is generated according to a predicted change in the property with time, a comparator compares a value based on the predicted change to a threshold, and generates a trigger signal when the value is greater than the threshold value, and the alignment system performs an alignment in response to the trigger signal. Such an arrangement triggers a so-called "realignment" when the predictive correction becomes larger than the desired maximum. This system therefore predicts the heating effects that will occur in performing a series of exposures and applies appropriate corrections in advance of the exposures being made when the corresponding threshold value is exceeded. This technique ensures that realignments occur only when errors are out of certain ranges, and avoids unnecessary realignments, thus avoiding loss of throughput in the exposure process. In certain applications errors in the predictive correction may result in unnecessary additional alignment steps and loss of throughput, since the optimal time for realignment is not calculated on the basis of the particular application. This could mean in practice that the imaging performance is worse than expected in a particular series of exposures, due to the realignment being triggered too late for the particular application; or the throughput is less than expected, due to the realignment being effected sooner than required in the series of exposures.

Lithographic projection apparatus and a device manufacturing method using such lithographic projection apparatus


A method, non-transitory computer readable medium, and device that identifies network traffic characteristics to correlate and manage one or more subsequent flows includes transmitting a monitoring request comprising one or more attributes extracted from an HTTP request received from a client computing device and a timestamp to a monitoring server to correlate one or more subsequent flows associated with the HTTP request. The HTTP request is transmitted to an application server after receiving an acknowledgement response to the monitoring request from the monitoring server. An HTTP response to the HTTP request is received from the application server. An operation with respect to the HTTP response is performed.

As enterprise customers deploy more web-based database applications, IT administrators face several challenges for correlating and managing subsequent flows. For example, IT administrators would like to provide a data access audit trail which is not always possible. Additionally, IT administrators would like to be able to monitor and effectively alert or terminate a user session deemed to be misbehaving based on a data or other access policy. Further, IT administrators would like to secure both application and database environments from threats, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks.

Methods for identifying network traffic characteristics to correlate and manage one or more subsequent flows and devices thereof


A carton with an improved dispenser facilitates access to articles enclosed within by providing expansive side recesses that expose at least one article on the lowermost row and the two end most articles in the uppermost row. The dispenser opening is defined by one or more severance lines extending at least partially across the top, end, and side walls, with a portion of the end wall remaining as an article stopper after the at least partially detachable portion of the dispenser is removed.

Cartons for encasing and dispensing multiple articles such as soft drink cans or bottles are useful for enabling users to transport, store, and access the articles for consumption. The user typically prefers the ability to easily retrieve one article from the carton at a time. To that end, it is desirable to have cartons with dispensers which allow one article to be removed, while continuing to encase the remaining articles. The user tears out a portion of the carton to form an access opening from which articles may be dispensed.
When the articles contained in the carton are cylindrical, and are disposed in the carton upon their sides, it is important that the articles be constrained such that the remaining articles do not unexpectedly and undesirably roll out of the dispenser when one is removed. It is also important to restrain all of the articles such that when the carton is first opened, the first article does not fall out of the carton. Thus, it can be appreciated that it would be desirable to have a carton with a dispenser that constrains articles to prevent the articles from undesirably rolling from or otherwise exiting the carton when one article is removed, or when the carton is first opened.
As a carton may be stored in a restrictive space such as on a refrigerator shelf, it is advisable to provide an access opening that enables a user to access an end of an article to pull the article out of the carton end rather than having to lift the article out of the top of the carton. End removal of articles is especially advantageous where the carton is to be stored on an adjustable refrigerator shelf, because the user is able to optimize storage space by conforming the height of the shelf to the height of the carton, without obscuring the access opening.
It is known to provide a carton having a side accessible dispenser for articles, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,368,194 and 6,478,219. Advantageously, these cartons enable the user to access the end of an article through a side wall portion of an access opening, and to "hook" the end of the article with one or more fingers to pivot the end of the article toward and through the end wall portion of the access opening, such that the article can then be removed from the carton through the end wall. However, the access opening created by removal of a tear panel of each of these inventions is situated near the bottom wall of the respective cartons, and thus, the dispenser of each of the cartons of these inventions must have a relatively small opening to prevent the lowermost article from falling out of or being ejected from the carton. The small opening dictates that the user must manipulate the endmost article into the correct position for removal from the carton, thereby potentially tearing the access opening. Furthermore, the lowermost article within each carton may tend to be forced toward the opening due to gravity and pressure from other articles in the carton such that the lowermost article undesirably at least partially protrudes through the opening before the user actually attempts to remove the article. When the lowermost article is removed, the same forces may cause another article to rapidly and somewhat forcefully shift toward the opening, which may tear the access opening and compromise the integrity of the carton and of the opening, which tends to further degrade the ability of the opening to restrain the articles remaining in the carton.
It can be appreciated, therefore, that it also is desirable to provide a carton having an improved article dispenser that is convenient to use and facilitates access to and removal of articles.


Disclosed are embodiments of a system and method for detecting wrong storage media in data recovery processes. One embodiment can detect incorrect media via environmental factors such as source data type and format. One embodiment can detect incongruous media by pool membership. One embodiment can detect inappropriate media by comparing fingerprints. As each item is read, its fingerprint is calculated and compared to the overall fingerprint of a job. If the new fingerprint is different by some preset margin, a human inspector may be asked to validate the newly inserted storage medium. If valid, the overall signature for the job is revised to integrate the new signature. If not, the wrong medium is ejected and incorrectly loaded data is removed. Embodiments disclosed herein can detect the presence of a wrong medium quickly and early in a data recovery process, avoiding mistakes and saving time and costs.

Data recovery services have become an important part of today's digital world. Many entities, especially those that create and store significant amounts of electronic data, rely on data recovery services to recover data from data backup storage media such as tapes, discs, disk drives, or other removable storage devices.
Recovering a large volume of electronic data typically involves processing many, in some cases, thousands of items of backup storage media. In practice, on the production floor, multiple large volumes of data recovery jobs may be processed coincidentally. Factors such as close temporal and spatial relationships among thousands of data media may cause incongruous, inconsistent, incorrect, or improper media items to be loaded into a job that they do not belong.
Currently, most data recovery services employ manual inspections to detect out of place media in a data recovery job. Human inspector(s) must manually check every physical media label and cross reference it against a master list for a particular data recovery job. This process is time-consuming, tedious, and potentially inaccurate. Moreover, even after manually checking every label, there is no guarantee that all data backup media loaded into a data recovery job are correct because a correct label could have been mistakenly applied on or otherwise attached to a wrong medium (e.g., a tape that is not a member of the backup job being recovered). In the event that a mistake (e.g., an incorrect medium) is found, it can cause an entire job to be re-executed, wasting time and money.
A need exists for a computer-implemented, automated data recovery system and method that can detect mistakes at various stages of a data recovery process, avoiding entirely or substantially reducing the probability of loading incongruous or incorrect media into a job that they do not belong. Embodiments of the present invention address this need and more.

System and method for detecting incongruous or incorrect media in a data recovery process


Distortion in an optical transmission system is significantly reduced by the use of two modulatable optical sources with non-ideal transfer functions of electric signal to light. The output of the first modulator is sampled and then delayed using an optical delay line. The sampled signal is compared with the input signal to generate an electrical error signal. This error signal is then used to modulate the second optical source. The output of this second modulatable optical source is then combined with the delayed output from the first optical source in a four-port optical coupler in such a way that the departures from linearity (which form the error signal) are removed on both outputs of the coupler, giving two optical outputs which possess a linear transfer function of electric signal to light through the entire system. The first optical source is chosen to have high power and low noise. The second source is chosen to be low power, moderate noise. The error signal generator and ratio of optical powers are chosen such that most of the final optical output comes from the first optical source, giving a linear, high power, low noise optical signal at the output of the system. Suitable modulatable sources include diode pumped Nd-YAG lasers with waveguide Mach-Zehnder modulators, and laser diodes. This method may be used in a modulating system and a transmission system for analog signals.

The overall scheme for reducing distortion by adding an error signal to the delayed output of a nonlinear device resembles electrical feedforward schemes, and operates under the same constraints in terms of required phase and amplitude marching in the signal and error paths. The difference is the use of light, and optical components, rather than electricity. A second difference is the system is used to produce a modulated (optical) signal rather than amplify an existing modulated (optical) signal.
A "quasi-feedforward" approach using two modulated optical devices with identical transfer functions has been previously demonstrated with light emitting diodes (Strauss, Electronics Letters 13, 158 (1977)).
A feedforward approach using two identical laser diodes has been demonstrated, where the main signal and error signal are sent over two separate fibers to two separate receivers, and then combined in a single electrical output (Franckart, ECOC 83, European Conference On Optical Communications, Elsevier Science Publishers, 1983, pp. 347-350).
Compared to the present invention, this use of two identical sources increases the received noise significantly. Two laser diodes used this way are not capable of obtaining the required 55 dB carrier to noise ratio with 80 channels of C.A.T.V. signals in a 550 MHz bandwidth, with the required -65 dB composite distortion products. The use of two diode pumped Nd-YAG or Nd-YLF lasers and two Mach-Zehnder modulators would not be an economical solution.
Also in contrast to the present invention, only one optical output is provided, divided between two optical fibers which must both be present at the receiver to generate the single electrical output.
Additionally, any change in optical length or attenuation of the two fibers will affect the main signal and the error signal unequally, and reduce the distortion cancellation. This is particularly true of optical length, where a relative change of a few inches in a 10 mile link would degrade system performance by 10 dB or more. In contrast, in the present invention, both the main signal and the error signal travel over the same fiber and are affected equally, leading to no system degradation.
A feedforward approach using two identical optical sources, each consisting of a diode laser and a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, has recently been published (Ridder et al., Technical Abstract, Optical Fiber Communication Conference, San Francisco 1990). This exhibits unacceptable noise performance for cable television, due to the low launch power and high noise of diode lasers. It would not be possible, without modification, to implement such a system with diode-pumped high power, low noise Nd-YLF lasers. This is because coherent interference at the optical combiner from two such lasers of the same wavelength would add noise to the signal. This could be avoided by the use of Nd-YAG and Nd-YLF lasers of different wavelengths or the addition of wavelength selective elements to the Nd-YAG cavity, but the use of two diode pumped lasers instead of one significantly increases the cost of the system compared to the invention described here. Again, in contrast to the present invention, only one optical output is provided, the remaining optical power being wasted in a three port combiner.

Modulated light source with a linear transfer function and method utilizing same


Embodiments provide for an image capture device having a learning function. Briefly described, one embodiment comprises at least one manual control adapted to generate a control signal that controls image capture operation, the control operable by a user of the image capture device; at least one sensor adapted to sense an operating condition during image capture; a first element adapted to analyse inputs from the sensor to learn at least one associated operating condition, and adapted to analyse the control signal to learn a corresponding preference of the user; a second element adapted to predict a value corresponding to the control signal and the associated operating condition; and a third element adapted to compare the predicted value and the control signal, and adapted to determine a confidence level from the compared predicted value and control signal, wherein the confidence level corresponds to a degree of confidence in the predicted value.

It is an interest in the field of camera manufacture to look at ways to make the operation of cameras more and more automatic. Cameras are already widely available that detect various settings for a subject at which a camera is pointed to provide better focus or exposure by measuring light levels and also by determining which part of a field of view should be made the subject of camera focus.
Cameras also exist that use learning mechanisms that respond to sensorial inputs, such as an image in an image field of the camera. "Unsupervised clustering of ambulatory audio and video" by Clarkson and Pentland (1998), Proceedings of the International Conference of Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Phoenix, Ariz. 1999 (incorporated herein by reference) describes a camera with a method that learns to cluster situations, such as supermarket or office, based upon audio and video clues. The training of this system uses a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) that is trained by labeling situations manually.
A further example is provided in "Context Awareness by Analysed Accelerometer Data" (Randell & Muller. Editors MacIntyre & Ianucci, The Fourth International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp 175-176, IEEE Computer Society, October 2002, incorporated herein by reference) which describes user input being used to train a clustering based situation classification system.
EP 1,109,132 (incorporated herein by reference) uses a user's opinion on the images presented, after they are captured, in a reinforcement learning framework to refine the ability of the system to predict what the user likes.

Image capture device having a learning function

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A location of a target is generated by, at each of a plurality of reference sensors, receiving signals from a plurality of positioning system satellites. A set of error measurements are generated by generating, for each of the reference sensors, one or more error measurements based on a reference location of the reference sensor and information derived from the signals received at the reference sensors from the plurality of position system satellites. Single differenced velocity corrections are also generated. At a central processing node, a meta-correction surface is generated from the set of error measurements. The meta-correction surface is then transmitted to a non-reference sensor. At the non-reference sensor, signals are received from a plurality of the positioning system satellites. The meta-correction surface and the signals received from the plurality of position system satellites are used to generate the location of the target.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) was implemented in the 1970's as a means to provide reliable positioning information for any location on the globe. Since its inception, the GPS has become increasingly employed in a variety of different types of applications that require accurate measurement of location on the surface of the earth. Some of the different applications which make use of information provided by the GPS include geo-location measuring applications, vehicle navigation applications, tracking applications, mapping applications and timing applications.
Data that is sent from GPS satellites can be used by location measuring applications to determine the position on the earth of a data-receiving device. GPS receivers may be useful for personal recreation activities, such as hiking, kayaking, skiing and other activities that may be carried out in remote locations. Location measuring applications may also be used in moving vehicles, such as automobiles and airplanes, to determine their instantaneous location, and thereby assist in navigating to a particular destination. Location measuring applications also find use in the military field, where increasingly more accurate position information is required for targeting and personnel location.
Navigation applications that employ GPS data are becoming more common in moving vehicles, particularly for determining the best path to be taken to reach a desired destination. For example, automobiles may incorporate GPS receivers to determine present location, and use this information in connection with known street layout information to determine the shortest, or most fuel efficient, path to a desired destination. Similarly, aircraft may employ GPS information for navigational purposes, as well as for landing and take-off guidance. In military applications, GPS data is useful in maneuvering blindly, such as at night, or without the aid of lights or other instruments.
Tracking applications employ GPS data to monitor the movement of people and things. For example, the military may employ GPS tracking applications to monitor the movement of troops and equipment. Emergency response systems might use tracking applications to determine the present location of emergency medical response teams, in an effort to minimize the time required to reach a victim at a desired location.
Mapping applications that utilize GPS signals can be used in cartography for creating more accurate maps. Land surveying and marine surveying may also be enhanced by mapping applications that utilize GPS information. In addition, construction and agriculture may both be improved by mapping applications that utilize precision GPS data to accurately align buildings or crops.
Other applications may employ GPS data to determine precise timing, for example to synchronize widely spaced devices. For example, applications such as mobile communications may achieve high levels of timing precision by utilizing the atomic clocks resident on GPS satellites, without incurring the high cost of incorporating such clocks themselves.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that many different applications make advantageous use of the data provided through the GPS. This data can be obtained from any one or more of the twenty-four satellites that currently constitute the GPS constellation. These satellites are placed in orbits such that a minimum of five satellites are in view from every point on the globe at any given time. Many GPS receivers are configured with an almanac, to enable the receiver to determine the present, or expected, location of each of the GPS satellites.
While the GPS data is useful in a variety of different applications, the preciseness of that data is subject to a number of different errors. For example, some of the errors which can affect the data at a GPS receiver include errors in the satellite clocks, satellite orbital ephemeris error, signal propagation delays induced by the ionosphere and troposphere, errors in the receiver clock, receiver noise, and multi-path propagation. The cumulative effect of these various errors can lead to differences of several meters between an actual position and the position indicated by the GPS receiver. These errors also vary with time since the GPS satellite constellation is moving relative to the Earth and the atmosphere is continually changing. While many applications are not sensitive to errors of this magnitude, such as automobile navigation or personnel tracking, other applications may require extremely precise positioning information. For example, in the landing of an airplane on an aircraft carrier, a positioning error of 10 meters could lead to very drastic results. Accordingly, various efforts have been undertaken to minimize the errors that are inherent to GPS data.
One commonly employed approach to reducing errors in GPS positioning data is known as "differential GPS." In addition to the mobile GPS receiver that is employed to determine a location, differential GPS utilizes a second, stationary GPS receiver. The location of the stationary GPS receiver is precisely known, and therefore can be used to calculate errors in the signals from the GPS satellite. In essence, the stationary GPS receiver operates in the opposite manner from the mobile GPS receivers. Rather than employ timing signals from the GPS satellites to determine location, the stationary GPS receiver utilizes its known location to estimate what the timing signals from the various satellites should be. These estimated timing signals are then compared to the actual timing signals from the satellites, to compute the errors. These computed errors are used to calculate position-correction data, which is transmitted to the mobile receivers over line of sight (LOS) radio data links. At the mobile GPS receivers, the correction data is used to compensate for the errors in the received GPS satellite signals, and thereby provide a more precise determination of location. Differential GPS accuracy is limited to a few meters compared with standard GPS that is accurate to tens of meters.
While differential GPS enhances the accuracy of the Global Positioning System, its applicability is relatively limited. A significant consideration in this regard is the fact the mobile GPS receiver must be located relatively close to the stationary GPS receiver for the correction data to be useful. As the distance between the mobile GPS receiver and the stationary GPS receiver increases, the GPS satellite data errors which occur at their respective locations will differ, for example due to differing atmospheric and/or signal propagation conditions. Consequently, differential GPS systems are only effective in those situations where the mobile GPS receiver operates in an area that is within a few hundred miles of the stationary GPS receiver. At greater distances, the correction data from the stationary GPS receiver is no longer reliable.
This limited effective range of differential GPS restricts its applicability in certain situations. For example, differential GPS would not be available to ships or airplanes in the middle of the ocean. Similarly, in military applications it is not feasible to locate the stationary GPS receivers within a theater of combat. Hence, if the theater of operation is relatively large, differential GPS cannot be employed to locate or track equipment or personnel within its confines. To overcome these limitations in the ability to locate a target, terminal seekers are employed. These devices rely upon an operator to designate and track a target, for purposes of guiding a moving vehicle to the target. However, terminal seekers of this type are quite expensive, and therefore it is desirable to minimize their use. In addition, they cannot be employed in adverse weather, where the ability to designate the target is compromised.
Current differential GPS cannot provide the precision position and velocity information required to reduce weapon system combined delivery errors to the levels achieved by terminal seekers today. This is due to the uncompensated target location errors, or errors in the assumption of the actual target coordinates relative to the navigation solution in the weapon. Current code phase GPS receivers typically provide velocity data derived from Doppler measurements on the LOS ranging signals from each tracked GPS satellite. Typical performance for the highest quality military P(Y) code receivers is in the 10 cm/sec range. (The notation "P(Y)" refers to the encrypted precise form of GPS signal.)
U.S. Pat. No. 5,899,957 to Loomis (henceforth, "Loomis") discloses a method and apparatus for providing GPS pseudorange correction information over a selected geographic region S with a diameter of up to 300 km with an associated inaccuracy no greater than 5 cm. N spaced apart GPS reference stations (N>4), whose location coordinates are fixed and are known with high accuracy, are provided within or adjacent to a region R. Each reference station receives GPS signals from at least four common-view GPS satellites, computes its own GPS-determined location coordinates, compares these coordinates with its known location coordinates, determines the pseudorange corrections for its GPS-determined location, and transmits these correction signals to a central station located within or adjacent to a region S. The central station retransmits the pseudorange correction signals throughout the region S. A mobile GPS station within or adjacent to the region S has stored within it the coordinates of the GPS-determined last location of that mobile station and the spatial coordinates of K GPS reference stations (K>3) within S that are closest to the last-determined location of that mobile station. The mobile station then computes the differential GPS corrections for the GPS-determined present location of that mobile station.
The system of Loomis is limited in that the pseudorange correction signals retransmitted by the central station are useful only over a limited geographic area. It is therefore desired to provide a system capable of generating and supplying useful correction information to mobile GPS stations over a much greater area, while using significantly fewer reference GPS receivers.

All-weather precision guidance and navigation system


A refrigeration system (12) is comprised of three expansion units (19A, 19B, 19C), with each having an expansion chamber (22) and three secondary chambers (24, 26 and 28), connected to a supply (16) of compressed refrigerant. The expansion chamber and secondary chambers are formed with progressively reducing volumetric capacity. The end of each of the the secondary chambers, is connected to a common bleed tube (29) having a bleed hole (34) for venting the refrigerant. The bleed hole opens to the outside of a housing (15) which houses the expansion units. The interior of the housing (15) is filled with a gel which changes state from a liquid to a solid at a predetemmined temperature. A valving arrangement (32) connects the expansion units to a supply of compressed refrigerant. The housing (15) together with a supply (16) refrigerant can be installed into a cooling box for cooling the space within the cooling box. This is achieved by the valve mechanism (32) periodically admitting a volume of compressed refrigerant into the expansion units, wherein the compressed refrigerant initially expands in the expansion chambers. This in turn absorbs heat from the space within the box. The flow of expanded refrigerant through the secondary chambers is retarded by back pressure produced by having the secondary chambers of progressively reducing volumetric capacity. This allows the gel to be maintained at a frozen state for a long period of time while consuming only small volumes of compressed refrigerant.

In a conventional closed refrigeration system, refrigerant is circulated through an evaporator and condenser by a compressor. Such refrigeration systems are inherently bulky due to the presence of the compressor and condenser and also have limited portability due to the need to power the compressor by connection with an electrical power source. Also, this type of refrigeration system has limited efficiency due to the need to provide the normal refrigeration cycle of expanding and compressing refrigerant and as the load becomes greater so does the size and power requirements to enable the cooling of the increased load.
It is an aim of the present invention to provide a refrigeration system which does not require connection to an external electrical power source for its operation and utilises a minimum of energy to maintain its operation and does not require a condenser.


A coupling device for coupling optical fiber cables facilitates positioning in a circumferential direction for coupling a connector. When a connector fixing member is inserted into an adaptor fixing member, a protruding section of the connector fixing member slides along an end surface of the adaptor fixing member, and is automatically guided to a notched section.

In recent years, with the progress of high-capacity communication and the like, there has been an increasing demand for optical-fiber connectors as coupling devices for coupling optical fiber cables, in the field of communication and the surrounding fields. Practical examples of the optical-fiber connectors include FC connectors, SC connectors and MU connectors.
These connectors are each provided with a mechanism for avoiding relative turning of optical fiber cables, so as to prevent end portions (contact surfaces) of the coupled optical fiber cables from injuring each other. For example, in the case of the FC connectors, turning in the circumferential direction. is avoided by a, pin and a groove, whereas in the cases of the SC connectors and MU connectors, turning in the circumferential direction is avoided by utilizing the shapes of the connectors. Examples are disclosed in JP-T-2005-533533 and JP-T-2001-507251.
The presence of such a mechanism causes the user to perform positioning in the circumferential direction at the time of coupling the connectors. Particularly, in the case of the connectors of the APC type in which inclination angles are provided at end portions of optical fiber cables in order to suppress reflection noises, positioning with higher accuracy is demanded.
In recent years, in the medical fields also, various medical apparatus have been employed which utilize light such as optical coherent tomography diagnostic apparatus (OCT). These medical apparatus utilize light as a signal, and transmission of the signal is performed by use of an optical fiber cable. Therefore, use of optical-fiber connectors for coupling optical fiber cables is indispensable to these apparatus.
In the medical field, medical personnel oftentimes wear protective garments including rubber gloves. In a situation where the user has to couple a connector while wearing rubber gloves, positioning in the circumferential direction is not easy to perform. Also, when the optical fiber cable is touched by a stained hand, correct transmission of a signal may be difficult, if not impossible. Therefore, it is desirable to preliminarily protect the connector by use of a protective cover or the like, at the time of coupling the connector. In such a case, the positioning in the circumferential direction can become more difficult to perform.

Coupling device, auxiliary device and adaptor fixing member


A certificate authority for certifying the validity of the collation result from a user terminal is placed on a communication network. The user terminal identifies a user himself or herself by collation by using biometrical information of the user. In response to notification of the collation result from the user terminal across the communication network, a service providing apparatus requests across the communication network the certificate authority to certify the validity of the collation result. When a certificate which certifies the validity of the collation result is notified from the certificate authority across the communication network, the service providing apparatus provides a predetermined service to the user.

The present invention relates to a network authentication system, method, and program, a service providing apparatus, a certificate authority, and a user terminal and, more particularly, to a network authentication system, method, and program, a service providing apparatus, a certificate authority, and a user terminal which perform authentication by using biometrical information of a user in providing a given service on a communication network.
In a highly information-oriented society, it is increasingly demanded to strictly authenticate a user while keeping affinity with information processing. This demand is particularly high in an information management system which handles important information such as personal information across a communication network, and in a settlement system which performs electronic payment on a communication network.
To meet this demand, researches on network authentication systems for authenticating a user via a communication network on the basis of electronically detected unique biometrical information are being extensively made on the basis of network communication technologies and information processing technologies.
In a conventional network authentication system, as shown in FIG. 14, a user terminal 7 to be accessed by a user detects biometrical information of the user, such as a fingerprint, and a collating unit 71 identifies this biometrical information by collation. A collation result 71A is transmitted as a collation result 7A from a communication apparatus 72 to a service providing apparatus 8 via a communication network 9. In the service providing apparatus 8, a processing unit 82 performs predetermined processing on the basis of a collation result 81A received by a communication unit 81, thereby providing a service.
In another system as shown in FIG. 15, an encryption circuit 74 of a user terminal 7 encrypts a collation result 71A from a collating unit 71 by using an encryption key 73A prestored in a storage circuit 73. The result of encryption is transmitted as communication data 7B. A decryption circuit 84 of a service providing apparatus 8 decrypts this communication data 7B from the user terminal 7 by using a decryption key 83A prestored in a database 83, thereby obtaining a collation result 84A.
Unfortunately, in the former conventional network authentication system (FIG. 14), the service providing-apparatus determines whether to provide a service on the basis of the collation result received directly from the user terminal. Therefore, the collation result can be easily tapped, and any third party can easily pose as the user. This lowers the safety.
In the latter system (FIG. 15), tapping and posing can be prevented because the collation result is encrypted. However, it is necessary to match encryption keys and decryption keys for use in user terminals and service providing apparatuses in one-to-one correspondence with each other. Accordingly, if a plurality of user terminals share one service providing apparatus 8, decryption keys corresponding to encryption keys of all these user terminals must be managed by the service providing apparatus.
To realize safe management of the keys in the service providing apparatus, therefore, the scale of the system increases.
Furthermore, if a plurality of service providing apparatuses are present and each user terminal selectively uses these service providing apparatuses as needed, each user must register a decryption key corresponding to an encryption key of his or her user terminal into all the service providing apparatuses. The key transmission and maintenance require high safety, resulting in an increased system scale and cost.

Network authentication system, method, and program, service providing apparatus, certificate authority, and user terminal

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation


A portable apparatus for mitigating the effects of chemical, biological aor radiological agent containing explosive devices within a defined area is disclosed. The apparatus is an inflatable, easily portable containment device and includes: explosive blast containment means for substantially containing explosive blast over-pressure and blast fragmentation particles caused by an explosive blast to a substantially defined area; chemical, biological and/or radiological agent mitigation means for substantially mitigating the effects of an explosively deployable chemical, biological and/or radiological agent within the substantially defined area; and an inflatable air-beam suspension support structure having a substantially open base portion, a plurality of lateral support members and a capping structure which, when inflated, establishes the substantially defined area and supports the blast containment and agent mitigation means.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to explosive containment systems. In particular, the invention relates to relatively light weight containment systems which can be used to contain or mitigate the effects of explosively disseminated chemical and/or biological devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Several countries, many of them hostile to the United States and its allies, currently possess or are seeking to develop the capability to produce nuclear, biological and/or chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the means to deliver them. Many of these countries also advocate terrorism as a means to achieve their goals. In order to respond to the threat of terrorism using weapons of mass destruction, responding agencies at all levels of government (i.e. local, state and federal) must be adequately prepared to mitigate the hazards to the public and the environment in a timely manner. Terrorists and extortion bombings have always been a problem for law enforcement officials, not only on a national scale, but on an international scale as well. A particular problem to date has been the manner of disposing of a detected bomb or explosive device.
Perhaps the largest single cause of bodily injury in detected explosive devices comes from blasts which take place as the law enforcement officials first on the scene attempt to disarm, or render safe, the bomb or device in order to protect the public and surrounding property. In some cases, the procedure is to detonate the device on site by use of smaller explosive or countercharge to set off the device's main explosive charge. The result is an explosive blast that may cause significant personal or property damage in the immediate area.
Improvised explosive devices (IED's) are the main tools of the trade for some terrorist groups and produce casualties or damage to property through three dynamic processes. The explosion produces high velocity metal fragments or shrapnel, a high velocity compression or blast wave, and a high temperature combustion event termed a fireball. Even small amounts of explosive can be deadly if enough high velocity fragments are disseminated after detonation.
Terrorists may deploy improvised dispersion devices (IDD's) which could effectively disperse chemical or biological hazards as vapors or aerosols. If the hazards are inspired by humans or animals downwind of the dispersion point, they can produce deleterious physiological effects including death.
For relatively small devices which contain either conventional explosives or a combination of an explosive device and chemical, biological, or radiological payload, it may be possible to place a ballistic blanket over the device to inhibit the hazardous effects from the IED or IDD. The difficulty with bomb blankets is that they are quite heavy. The weight of these blankets may require the use of a crane. The bomb blankets could also cause unwanted detonation by coming in contact with antihandling devices placed on the IED or IDD. In addition, conventional bomb blankets are not normally configured with standoff capabilities nor are they adequate in containing secondary hazards such as chemical or biological aerosols.
Since it is not practical to disseminate chemical or biological agents with large amounts of explosive, containment of the explosive is not as big a concern when dealing with chemical and biological devices. The chemical hazard is normally a vapor or off-gassing hazard, while the biological agent is an aerosolized particulate of respirable size. Although some work has been done in the area of containing individual hazards, it has been limited to passive dissemination systems through filtration systems and secondary containment systems.
In summary, prior art explosive containment systems are not well-suited for containment of chemical, biological or radiological agents. The systems often include only metal structures which are of considerable size and weight and are not likely to be man-portable. Furthermore, prior art explosive containment systems for use against improvised explosive devices (IED's) only attempted to contain the effects of the blast over-pressure, fireball and high velocity fragments. Applicants are unaware of previous attempts to mitigate or contain improvised dispersal devices disseminating chemical, biological or radiological hazards.
In view of the need to safely dispose of explosive devices which may contain chemical, biological and/or radiological agents, and further in view of the need to provide containment systems which can be quickly delivered and assembled at remote sites, new and improved explosive containment systems are still required. In sum, there is a need for explosion containment systems that include the wherewithal to mitigate and/or contain chemical, biological, radiological, and explosive hazards. The present invention addresses this need.

Chemical biological explosive containment system

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army