A method is provided for concurrently forming MP-TFTs and P-TFTs. Generally, the method comprises: forming a P-TFT having source/drain (S/D) regions, an intervening channel region, and a gate, all in a first horizontal plane; and simultaneously forming a MP-TFT having a first gate in the first horizontal plane and at least one S/D region in a second horizontal plane, overlying the first horizontal plane. The vertical TFT (V-TFT) is an MP-TFT having vertical first gate sidewalls and a vertical channel region overlying a gate sidewall. The dual-gate TFT (DG-TFT) is an MP-TFT having a bottom gate, first and second S/D regions with top surfaces, an intervening channel region with a top surface, and a second, top gate with a bottom surface, all in a second horizontal plane, overlying the first horizontal plane.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to integrated circuit (IC) and liquid crystal display (LCD) fabrication and, more particularly, to a combination of planar and multi-planar thin-film transistors (TFTs) and a method for simultaneously fabricating planar and multi-planar TFTs.
2. Description of the Related Art
The size of TFTs formed in liquid crystal display (LCD) processes are limited by the resolution of large panel photolithography tools. Currently, the resolution of feature sizes is about 0.5 microns (um) and larger. High-speed circuit operation requires a TFT capable of high drive current and low parasitic capacitance. These characteristics are obtained by shrinking the device size, especially the transistor channel length. For example, conventional production CMOS technology uses transistor channel lengths of 90 nanometers (nm), and lower, for very high-speed operation.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are a schematic drawing and a plan view, respectively, of a conventional inverter circuit (prior art). The most basic logic element is an inverter, consisting of an N and P channel transistor as shown in FIG. 1A. A common arrangement for fabrication of an inverter circuit uses planar transistors is shown in FIG. 1B. These transistors have a channel length (L) equal to 0.8 microns. Note that the width of the P channel device is larger than the N channel device because of the higher drive current of N channel transistors. In most cases the P/N width ratio is about 2.
The above-mentioned Related Applications disclose two different types of multi-planar TFTs (MP-TFTs). A vertical TFT (V-TFT) has one source/drain (S/D) region in the same plane as the gate, as is conventional with a planar TFT (P-TFT), a second S/D region in a second plane overlying the gate, and a very short channel length formed along the sidewalls between the two S/D regions. A dual-gate TFT (DG-TFT) forms a bottom gate underlying the two S/D regions and channel region, and a top gate overlying the channel regions. The dual-gate control mechanism permits the threshold voltage to be more precisely controlled.
These devices address specific integration needs for next generation advanced displays. For example, advanced displays require the use of high-speed circuit functions involving image processing, voice recognition, wireless communication that can be directly (i.e. monolithically) integrated onto the substrate of the display itself. Monolithic integration becomes particularly appealing for the fabrication of novel display products featuring ultra-light, low-power consumption, and flexible characteristics.
Although these novel functions require novel device structures, certain basic display functions, such as pixel switching and power circuit architectures, can be best served by conventional device structures. For example, deep-sub-um P-TFT devices are known to be reliable when operated under high drain or gate voltages. Therefore, the co-integration of P-TFTs with MP-TFTs is desirable. This co-integration, ideally, can be made to occur without the addition of masking steps, which increase the manufacturing costs of display panels.
It would be advantageous if CMOS circuits in general and, more specifically, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) could be built using the two above-mentioned MP-TFTs, fabricated simultaneous with P-TFTs.
It would be advantageous if the above-mentioned P-TFTs and MP-TFTs could be fabricated using conventional CMOS processes.

Simultaneous planar and non-planar thin-film transistor processes


A computerized method is used to determine whether portions of a video are part of a continuous video segment. The method includes identifying a time code break in a plurality of time codes of a video by having a computing device examine the plurality of time codes of the video. The method also includes determining whether a first portion of the video located before the time code break and a second portion of the video located after the time code break are part of a continuous video segment by having a computing device examine the expected time code of the first frame of the second portion of the video and a location of the second portion of the video with respect to a location of the first portion of the video. A computer readable medium stores a set of computer executable instructions for performing the method.

Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a computerized method of determining whether portions of a video are part of the same continuous video segment. The invention also relates to a computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method.
Description of the Related Art
Typically, a person will determine whether there is a discontinuity in recorded video content by manually inspecting the actual video content of consecutive frames of the video content. This person will also manually inspect the video content of the portions of video before and after the discontinuity in order to determine whether the portions are part of the same continuous video segment or whether they are unrelated video portions that probably should not be combined.

Computer readable medium and computerized method of determining whether portions of a video are part of a continuous video segment


The limit structure for the hook of the pneumatic tool, and the area that is preset on the pneumatic tool has a cylinder hook assembly part that can be covered by a loop cover of the hook. A ring groove is placed on the circumferential area of the hook assembly part, and radial through holes are located at two radial spaced locations on the loop cover, so the center line of the through hole can pin through the ring groove. The through fixer goes through the radial through hole and through the corresponding ring groove, and the hook reaches the combination of limit state that is rotatable by locking the middle of these two through fixers in the ring groove. With this structure, it helps the limit structure for the hook of the pneumatic tool to achieve practical effects of simpler production and more convenient assembling.

In response to users' demand, the current pneumatic tool (such as pneumatic handle, pneumatic gun) is added with hook in convenience of hanging the pneumatic tool. However, under some circumstances, the hook is not needed, therefore, there are many hooks for pneumatic tools are designed with assembled or disassembled options.
The structure that present invention desires to improve is the limit structure of the hook mentioned above. The conventional design puts a stepped cylinder at the area that is prepared for the hook of the pneumatic tool, so that a loop cover of the hook may be placed pivotally over the cylinder. A screw clamping ring is made to be screwed onto the end of the cylinder of the pneumatic tool, and by blocking one side of the loop cover to achieve the purpose of limiting the hook. Except, this conventional structure still has the following issues in practical application.
1. From a manufacturing point of view, because the screw clamping ring and the cylinder part of the pneumatic tool has the spiral part that can be time consuming during the manufacturing process, which creates the disadvantages, such as higher cost of manufacturing, and it does not meet the preferred industrial practicality.
2. From an assembling point of view, the assembling of the screw clamping ring must be screwed on to achieve the desired position; therefore, the process is slower and less effective.
Thus, to overcome the aforementioned problems of the prior art, it would be an advancement if the art to provide an improved structure that can significantly improve the efficacy.
To this end, the inventor has provided the present invention of practicability after deliberate design and evaluation based on years of experience in the production, development and design of related products.

Limit structure for a hook of a pneumatic tool


The invention is directed to an image forming apparatus including a print engine operable in at least two modes, and an access control system connected to and controlling the print engine. The access control system includes an access control key for allowing selective and discriminate switching of the print engine from one of the at least two modes to an other of the at least two modes, such as from an economy mode to a high quality mode, or vice versa.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image forming apparatus, and, more particularly, to printers having a controllable operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus, such as a printer, may typically be selectively operated in one of a plurality of different modes. In the case of an ink jet printer, one such mode may be a high quality mode which provides a high quality print job. Alternatively, the ink jet printer may be operated in a relatively lower quality ink saver mode wherein certain available pixels are essentially xe2x80x9cblocked outxe2x80x9d such that ink is not deposited on the print medium at a corresponding location. In the case of an electrophotographic printer (e.g., a laser printer), the printer may similarly be operated in different modes to use different amounts of toner for a specific job.
With conventional printers, the printer is usually switched from one mode of operation to another by depressing a button on the printer, or alternatively sending a signal from an attached host computer to the printer. With such known printers, however, there is no controlled access to the printer for switching from one mode of operation to another. Any person may either depress a button on the printer or send an appropriate signal from the host computer to the printer to switch from one mode of operation to another.
A problem with known printers is that it is not possible to prevent a person from utilizing a printer in a mode of operation which consumes a relatively large amount of a consumable supply, such as ink, toner or paper, over a predetermined unit of time. For example, a color ink jet printer attached to a host computer may be used primarily for producing business-type graphics, presentations, etc. Nonetheless, children may also have access to the printer and use the same for printing created artwork, clip art, etc. Although the activities associated with such print jobs provide children with entertainment and education, the person desiring to use the printer for business purposes may wish to limit use of the consumable supplies in the printer so that adequate consumable supplies are later available for the production of business-type work product.
What is needed in the art is an image forming apparatus, such as a printer, which allows controlled access to selected features and/or (sub)systems of the printer.
The present invention provides an image forming apparatus, such as a printer, having controlled access to selected features and/or (sub)systems. The controlled access allows a selected usage of consumable supplies, such as ink or toner.
The invention comprises, in one form thereof, an image forming apparatus including a print engine operable in at least two modes, and an access control system connected to and controlling the print engine. The access control system includes an access control key for allowing selective and discriminate switching of the print engine from one of the at least two modes to an other of the at least two modes, such as from an economy mode to a high quality mode, or vice versa.
An advantage of the present invention is that controlled access is provided to certain printer features and/or (sub) systems.
Another advantage is that a consumption rate of consumable supplies, such as ink or toner, may be controlled.

Image forming apparatus with controlled access


A semiconductor package comprising a packaging substrate, a semiconductor die mounted with the substrate, a heatspreader, and a multi-layer heat transfer element arranged between the semiconductor die and the heat spreader to enable thermal communication between the die and the heat spreader is disclosed. The multi-layer heat transfer element includes a core spacer element sandwiched between a first layer of thermally conductive reflowable material and a second layer of thermally conductive reflowable material. Also disclosed are methods for forming such semiconductor packages and for forming multilayer heat transfer elements.

In semiconductor packaging, care must be taken to insure that heat generated by a semiconductor die can be adequately dissipated. Commonly, the die of a semiconductor device is mated with a heat spreader to conduct heat away from the die. Typically, the heat spreader operates as a heat sink to dissipate heat from the die. In some implementations, a finned heat sink is cemented to the heat spreader to enhance the heat dissipation properties of the heat spreader.
FIG. 1 illustrates a commonly employed structure for a semiconductor package design. The depicted illustration is a cross-section view of a commonly employed implementation of a conventional semiconductor package 100. In the depicted structure, a semiconductor die 102 is mounted with a packaging substrate 101. Commonly, solder bumps 104 are subject to a reflow process to physically attach and electrically connect the die 102 with the substrate 101. Additionally, the die 102 is further secured to the substrate 101 by underfilling the die 102 with an encapsulant material 103.
Additionally, the package is commonly stiffened by the attachment (or formation of) of a stiffener 106 to the substrate 101. Frequently, the stiffener is attached using an adhesive 107. Such adhesives commonly comprise epoxies, but may also consist of numerous other adhesive materials that are commonly used for such purposes. Such materials are known to persons having ordinary skill in the art. Additionally, in some approaches, a stiffener 106 can formed by depositing stiffener materials (e.g., metals) directly on the substrate 101. Generally, although not exclusively, the stiffener 106 runs around the entire edge of the substrate 101 encircling the entire die 102.
A heat spreader 110 is then attached to the "top" of the package. Commonly, the heat spreader 110 is secured to the package using another layer of adhesive 107′ on top of the stiffener 106. The adhesive 107′ affixes the heat spreader 110 to the stiffener 106. Importantly, thermal contact between the heat spreader 110 and the die 102 is facilitated by the presence of a layer 108 of heat conducting thermal transfer material. Typically, such thermal transfer material has been, until recently, comprised of a resin based material with a conductive filler. Examples include organic resins having metal fillers. However, with increasing processor speed (and therefore increasing die temperatures) come a need for increased cooling efficiency for die packages. In general, this means that it is desirable to improve the heat conduction between the die 102 and the heat spreader 110. Although suitable for many implementations, the present resin based thermal transfer materials can be improved.
In one approach, designers have sought to replace the present resin based thermal transfer materials with solder materials. Such solder materials have better thermal conductivity and so in some ways are a superior choice. However, such solder layers have their own limitations. For example, in many implementations the space between the die 102 and the heat spreader 110 can be in the range of 30 to 250 microns (μm). It has been discovered that current techniques of solder layer formation have difficulties reliably and uniformly depositing or coating surfaces to form a solder layer of such thickness. Some techniques can require that many layers of solder are formed, one over the other in order to establish solder layers of appropriate thickness. Additionally, solder layers are adhered to the heat spreader 110 and the top of the die 102 using reflow processes. If a thick solder layer 108 is used, the reflow process can cause pooling of the solder to create unevenness in the solder layer. This unevenness can prevent good thermal contact between the heat spreader 110 and the die 102. Additionally, these excessively thick solder layers can overflow and excess solder can be "squeezed" out of the space between the die 102 and the heat spreader 110. Such excess solder can overflow onto conductors or cause heat related damage to portions of the package 100. Thus, for these and other reasons, improved structures and methodologies for establishing good thermal transfer between a die and heat spreader are desired. The principles of the present invention are directed toward methods and apparatus for constructing and implementing improved multi-layer heat transfer elements.

Method and apparatus for establishing improved thermal communication between a die and a heatspreader in a semiconductor package


A method of forming a mask pattern and, more particularly, a method of forming a mask pattern wherein micro patterns having resolutions lower than those of exposure equipment by overcoming the resolutions of the exposure equipment, wherein, a silicon layer is formed over a substrate and is patterned. The patterned silicon layer is oxidized to form the entire surface of the silicon layer to a specific thickness by using an oxide layer. The oxide layer is removed to expose a top surface of the silicon layer. A mask pattern is formed with the remaining oxide layer by removing the silicon layer.

The invention relates, in general, to a method of forming a mask pattern and, more particularly, to a method of forming a mask pattern wherein micro patterns having resolutions lower than those of exposure equipment can be formed by overcoming the resolutions of the exposure equipment.
As semiconductor products are miniaturized and highly-integrated, there is an increasing interest for patterning techniques for forming patterns in order to develop new functions of devices.
A patterning technique having a high level of integration has been developed as a core technique of semiconductor manufacturing, and largely employs a photolithography process.
The photolithography process includes forming a photoresist layer by coating a photoresist, that is, chemical material that reacts to radiation, performing exposure and development processes on the photoresist layer to form a mask pattern, and selectively etching a lower layer by using the formed mask pattern.
In general, the process capability limit (resolutions) of photoresist exposure equipment used for pattern formation is decided by a wavelength of a light source and numerical aperture (NA) of the exposure equipment as in the following Equation 1.
  R  =      kS                                λ      NA      where, R is resolution, k is a process parameter, λ is a wavelength of the light source, and NA is a numerical aperture.
The resolutions of exposure equipment that has been developed so far are 55 nm on the basis of a half pitch. Thus, there is a need for developing new and expensive exposure equipment in order to form a pattern requiring resolutions that exceed the process capability limit of the existing exposure equipment, that is, a pattern of 50 nm or less.


Methods for forming combinatorial libraries and the libraries produced thereby are provided. According to a preferred aspect of the invention, a plurality of core molecules are reacted with a plurality of different tool molecules to form a library of molecules having non-naturally occurring molecular diversity. The libraries are useful for identifying lead compounds which modulate the functional activity of a biological molecule. Protease inhibitors that have been isolated from the libraries also are disclosed.

A need exists to identify novel lead compounds that are capable of modulating pharmaceutical and agricultural molecular reactions. Historically, such novel compounds were identified by individually synthesizing a compound and testing it for biological activity. This time-consuming process has been replaced, in part, by a process referred to as "rational drug design". This traditional route to drug discovery requires a knowledge of the structure of the target (i.e., ligate) and/or its cognate (i.e., ligand) in order to synthesize only those molecules which are structurally-related to known ligands of the biological target. However, despite this more focussed approach to identifying lead compounds, the time requirements for conventional structural analysis and chemical synthesis of complex molecules continues to contribute to the substantial periods of time consumed by research and development in the discovery of novel drugs.
The application of recombinant technology and automated methods for solid phase chemical synthesis to the generation of molecularly diverse libraries has circumvented many of the most time-consuming steps associated with the traditional drug discovery process. As a result of these technological advances, "rational drug design" rapidly is being replaced by "irrational drug design", i.e., the process of screening libraries of molecularly diverse molecules to identify biologically active molecules contained therein (Brenner, S., and Lerner, R., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89:5381-5383 (1992)).
Recombinant molecular libraries are generated by inserting random segments of nucleic acid into a vector, such as a phage, and allowing the vector to replicate, transcribe and express the inserted sequence. In a phage library, the nucleic acid is inserted into the phage genome in a manner which permits expression of the inserted material on the phage surface (see, e.g., Pavia, M., et al., Bioorg. & Med. Chem. Ltrs. 3(3):387-396 (1993) and references cited therein; Devlin, J., et al., Science 249:404-406 (1990)). Typically, the virus particles are screened for the presence of a lead compound by contacting the particles with an immobilized ligate and isolating the virus particles which express a ligand that binds to the immobilized ligate.
The primary advantage of using a recombinantly-produced library for drug discovery is the ability to clone and amplify the nucleic acids encoding the lead compounds which are identified during the screening process. Unfortunately, recombinant libraries inherently are limited in diversity to linear polymers (e.g., oligonucleotides, peptides) formed of naturally-occurring monomers (e.g., nucleotides, L-amino acids). Typically, these naturally-occurring polymers exhibit metabolic instability and poor absorption properties in vivo. Accordingly, pharmaceutical lead compounds that are isolated from recombinant libraries frequently require substantial modification to obtain a clinically useful drug.
To overcome these limitations, a number of chemical methods have been used to generate molecular libraries. In general, such methods utilize a solid support (e.g., cellulose paper, cotton, polystyrene-grafted polyethylene film, polymeric beads and resins) upon which a diverse collection of linear compounds are synthesized using conventional coupling chemistries (e.g., Merrifield, J. Am. Chem. Soc. (1963) 85:2149-2154). The synthesis of libraries containing molecularly diverse peptides has become commonplace since Geysen et al. first reported the chemical synthesis of a peptide library on polyacrylic acid grafted polyethylene pins (Geysen, H., et al., J. Immunolog. Meth. 102:259-274 (1987)). More recently, Houghten et al. (BioTechniques 4(6):522-528 (1986) and Nature 354:84-86 (1991)) described a method for generating peptide libraries in which small amounts of a resin support were encapsulated in a plurality of porous polypropylene bags. By sequentially immersing the bags in solutions of individual amino acids under conditions for forming a peptide linkage, Houghten et al. generated a collection of bags, each of which contained a unique resin-immobilized peptide. The generation of combinatorial bead-immobilized peptide libraries also has been reported using a split synthesis procedure (Lam, K., et al., Nature 354:82-84 (1991). Solid-phase peptide synthesis also has been combined with photolithography to prepare arrays of peptides or oligonucleotides attached to solid supports (Fodor, S., et al., Science 251:767-773 (1991)).
Although chemically-synthesized libraries offer nearly unlimited molecular diversity, it typically is necessary that small library molecules be cleaved from the solid support prior to assessing biological activity. Moreover, the above-recited methods typically produce libraries of linear polymers in which monomers are connected via a biological backbone (e.g., a polypeptide backbone of amide linkages connecting amino acid monomers). Because such structures are recognized by degradative enzymes in vivo, many chemically-synthesized library molecules also are metabolically unstable.
Frequent attempts have been made to identify compounds which inhibit the enzymatic activity of proteases and in particular, to identify inhibitors of serine proteases. The serine proteases are a family of enzymes that utilize an activated serine residue in their substrate binding domain to hydrolyze peptide bonds. See, e.g., "Textbook of Biochemistry", 3rd edition, ed. T. Devlin, N.Y., N.Y., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp.102-116 (1992). The Devlin textbook, as well as each of the references, patent publications and patents identified in this application, are incorporated in their entirety herein by reference.
Abnormally high levels of serine proteases have been implicated in the following physiological conditions (the serine protease believed to mediate the condition appears in parentheses): pancreatitis (trypsin, chymotrypsin, pancreatic elastase, enterokinase); cerebral infarction, coronary infarction, thrombosis, bleeding disorders (plasma kallikrein, Factors XIIa, XIa, IXa, VIIa, Xa and IIa (thrombin) and Activated Protein C); inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune disease (Factors C1r, C1s, D, B and C3 Convertase); clotting disorders, tumor metastasis (urokinase plasminogen activator, tissue plasminogen activator, plasmin); infertility (acrosin); and inflammation, allergic response (granulocyte elastase, Cathepsin G, mast cell chymases, mast cell tryptases). Accordingly, agents which reduce or eliminate the catalytic activity of these enzymes, i.e., serine protease inhibitors, are useful for treating individuals diagnosed as having the above-mentioned serine protease-mediated physiological conditions.
Several naturally-occurring serine protease inhibitors have been identified and isolated. These inhibitors are believed to play a key role in the regulation of serine protease activity in vivo. In view of the clinical significance of the serine protease inhibitors, early efforts to identify serine protease inhibitors focussed on isolating peptide inhibitors from mammalian tissue, chemically synthesizing inhibitors having the same amino acid sequence as the natural peptide inhibitors and/or chemically (or otherwise) modifying the natural (or chemically equivalent) peptide inhibitors.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,963,654, issued to Katunuma, describes a naturally-occurring trypsin inhibitor that is isolated from animal tissue. The inhibitor is a basic peptide containing L-amino acids and has a molecular weight of about 7,600. U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,019, issued to Glover et al. also describes novel peptides which exhibit inhibitory activity toward serine proteases. The Glover et al. inhibitory peptides include a generic inhibitory amino acid core sequence that is recognized by several different proteases. The inhibitory core sequence contains between about eleven and about thirty-one amino acid residues. U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,913, issued to Marganore et al. describes a thrombin inhibitor which contains naturally-occurring, as well as non-naturally occurring amino acids.
Chemically synthesized serine protease inhibitors are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,250,677, issued to Han (hereinafter "Han '677") and U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,018, issued to Powers et al. (hereinafter "Powers et al. '018"). Han '677 describes the synthesis of azetidin-2-one derivatives and their use as serine protease inhibitors. In particular, Han '677 report that the derivatives exhibit anti-thrombin and anti-trypsin activities and are useful in controlling blood coagulation and treating pancreatitis.
Powers et al. '018 describes the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds and reports that these compounds inhibit serine proteases having chymotrypsin-like, elastase-like and trypsin-like specificities. Powers et al. further report that these compounds are useful for treating physiological conditions which involve tissue proteolysis (e.g., emphysema), as well as for preventing undesired proteolysis that occurs during the production, isolation, purification, transport and storage of valuable peptides and proteins.
A biotransformed heterocyclic compound, described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,668, issued to Treiber et al., reportedly exhibits inhibitory activity toward a protease present in the HIV virus. The biotransformed molecule is prepared by culturing a particular Streptomyces culture in the presence of a known HIV protease inhibitor to yield a biotransformed molecule having anti-HIV protease inhibitor activity.
Despite the developments in genetic engineering, rational drug design and the recognition of the clinical and industrial value of developing more potent, biologically-stable serine proteases, few serine protease inhibitors having the requisite activity for inhibiting the catalytic activity of proteases in vivo and/or in vitro to accomplish the above-described clinical and industrial objectives have been identified. Accordingly, a need exists to identify, select and manufacture serine proteases inexpensively and in commercially reasonable quantities to achieve these goals.

Process for creating molecular diversity and novel protease inhibitors produced thereby


In some embodiments, a method includes obtaining an object code of an application executed on a mobile device. The application is created by an author different from an operator of a data source. The method includes loading dynamically at least one intercept point into the object code, wherein the intercept point is to detect a predetermined input gesture. The method further includes, responsive to an input gesture being received within a context of the application at the mobile device and the input gesture matching the predetermined input gesture: (1) overlaying a user interface within the context of the application, the user interface permitting selection of data items from the data source; (2) determining from a selection signal received at the mobile device, a selected data item; (3) responsive to the determining, loading the selected data item into the context of the application; and (4) removing the user interface overlay.

Some embodiments described herein relate generally to providing security for applications and data on mobile, or edge, clients.
Organizations such as, for example, financial institutions have various data protection and security requirements. Some employees and customers of such organizations would like to be able to use their personal mobile devices (e.g., iOS and Android) for business purposes and for accessing services provided by the organizations. In order to provide such capabilities to the users, the organizations need solutions that provide for device, application, and data security and management.
Some currently known solutions for securing mobile devices, such as, for example, Smartphones and tablets, lack comprehensive capabilities for managing applications, services, policies, devices, and data. Some organizations rely on the basic security policies of their mobile operating system (OS) provider. These policies tend to be quite coarse, thus wipe or delete the phone's entire memory or use a certain length password, etc. Similarly, some third party solutions provide a separate walled garden that does not allow arbitrary applications to be run or support fine-grain customization based on corporate policies and user preferences.
For example, some mobile operating system (OS) providers tend to provide limited device security, for example, to password protect a device, encrypt a device, wipe (erase data and reset) a device remotely, etc. If, however, system users can access their emails through a built-in mail client, they may be able to download attachments and save the attachments to unsecured locations. Storage of data in unsecured locations can be particularly problematic for financial and medical information. Similarly, a malicious application installed on the user's personal device can be running on the mobile device and be watching the clipboard, or accessing another application's cached or persistently stored data.
Furthermore, there is a range of existing security solutions on traditional enterprise clients (e.g. desktops and laptops) including the use of a variety of software to verify the computer, virtualize a work environment, and the like. Such solutions are not well suited for mobile devices, which have specialized operating systems and less computing power. Such mobile devices have more recently been targeted as highly personal, as opposed to corporate, devices. For example, some solutions manage and house, bring-your-own-PC solutions that provide a centrally managed virtual computing environment to laptops and desktops. In addition, some companies have defined self-contained application suites to provide a secure environment. This approach, however, does not enable users to access the full range of native applications available for the mobile device in a secure fashion.
Therefore, a need exists for solutions that provide for enterprise type security protection on mobile devices that allow for the devices to remain highly usable as both enterprise and personal mobile devices. Enterprises need systems to provide secure application distribution (including lifecycle management), location and networking environment awareness (e.g., to provide different access permissions inside the corporate network vs. outside), isolation of applications (corporate vs. personal), data encryption and isolation (e.g., application A cannot access application B's data without permission), user profile isolation/personalization, offline application data access and synchronization in an edge operating system agnostic fashion, etc.

Method and apparatus for securing mobile applications


An organic electroluminescent (EL) device which contains a novel coumarin derivative composed of a coumarin ring, a naphthalene ring with one or more hydrocarbon groups, and a five-membered hetero ring condensed with the naphthalene ring so as to give an electronic resonance through the coumarin and naphthalene rings. The coumarin derivative emits a visible luminescence with a satisfactory color purity, which consistently continues over a long period of time even at an elevated temperature when used in such an organic device.

In the field of information display, organic EL devices have been highlighted as displaying devices of the forthcoming generation. Hitherto, cathode-ray tubes have been predominantly used in information displaying equipments of larger sizes such as computer termini and TV receivers: However, cathode-ray tubes are large in volume and weight and high in operation voltage, and these may restrict their application in equipments which are directed to use at home, as well as in compact equipments where portability is one of important factors. More required are information displaying equipments which are in a thinner and lighter panel form and operable with a lower voltage and less power consumption. Liquid crystal devices have been frequently used in various fields because of the merit that they are operable with a low voltage and less power consumption. Liquid crystal devices however have the demerits that one hardly receives a clear information therefrom when he or she views them at an angle outside the specific ranges, as well as that their power consumption is not so small as expected because they usually require backlight. Organic EL device has appeared as information displaying means which may overcome these demerits.
Organic EL device is a class of light-emitting device which utilizes electroluminescence such as fluorescence or phosphorescence: It usually comprises a luminescent layer incorporated with a luminescent compound and inserted between a cathode and anode to which dc voltage is energized to inject holes and electrons in the luminescent layer so that a pair of hole and electron recouple each other to make in the luminescent compound an excited state which subsequently returns to the ground state to emit such luminescence. Organic EL device is characterized in that its luminescent color tint can be controlled to a desired level by selecting an appropriate organic compound to be used as host compound in the formation of luminescent layer, and screening guest compounds (or dopants) which may match with the host compound. There is the possibility of remarkably increasing the brightness and life expectancy for luminescence in organic EL device, dependently upon the combination of host and guest compounds. Organic EL device has been deemed to be in principle an excellent device because of the merit that it does realize an autonomous light emission and this would advantageously save power consumption.
Many of organic EL devices proposed hitherto however have the problem that they are low in durability, and therefor their brightness decreases within a short period of time when used under severe conditions, for example, in case of equipping them to automobiles where mechanical vibrations and high temperatures are unavoidable.
In view of such situation, the objectives of this invention are to provide a luminescent agent which would be useful even in highly durable organic EL devices, as well as to provide its uses.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Kabushiki Kaisha Hayashibara Seibutsu Kagaku Kenkyujo


An aspect of the present invention selects a maximum voltage and a minimum voltage in respective sub-intervals of a timing window in which an output of a cell is expected to switch, and performing timing analysis based on the selected maximum voltage and the selected minimum voltage. By using appropriate smaller sub-intervals within the timing window, more optimal physical layout of the design may be obtained. In an embodiment, the sub-intervals equal a cell delay, i.e., a delay between an input change to an output change for a corresponding cell. According to another aspect of the present invention, the sub-interval for later cells in a timing path are modified based on a modified timing window of previous cells in the timing path, to reduce the computational requirement.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to integrated circuit (IC) design, and more specifically to an IC design flow which incorporates optimal assumptions of power supply voltage drops at cells contained in the IC, when performing timing analysis for the IC.
2. Related Art
An Integrated Circuit (IC) design flow generally refers to the various phases involved in designing an IC, with one or more of the phases being typically performed using electronic design automation (EDA) or computer aided design (CAD) tools. Some examples of the various phases (or steps) include functional description, synthesis, and timing analysis (timing closure), power supply drop (IR drop analysis), etc.
Power supply and ground connections to each component (cell) in the IC may be provided using one of several known approaches (for example via power supply and ground grids). As is well known in the relevant arts, the magnitude of the power supply provided to (i.e., available at) a cell may vary from desired (ideal) values due to voltage drops in the paths used to provide (or route) the power supply and ground connections to the cell.
Such power supply voltage drops generally cause the speed of operation (input signal received to output signal generation) of the cell to vary, with the speed variation generally having a positive correlation with the power supply voltage.
Such speed variations due to power supply drops may need to be taken into account when performing timing analysis for the IC. As is well known in the relevant arts, timing analysis generally refers to the process of verifying whether various timing parameters such as setup and hold timing, logic delay etc., at circuit nodes (e.g., inputs/outputs of cells) of the IC are satisfied or not for a desired operating speed (often indicated by the frequency of a clock(s) used to control the operation of various portions of the IC).
Hence, a measure of the magnitude of the voltage drops at each of the cells of the IC is often required when performing such timing analysis. Further, the voltage drops used in performing the timing analysis may need to be selected (or assumed) in an optimal manner such that optimum area and/or speed may be obtained for the IC, along with reduced design time, minimal computing and storage resources for the design flow, etc.

IC design flow incorporating optimal assumptions of power supply voltage drops at cells when performing timing analysis


Methods and systems for generating timing signals in remote units which can be used in a radiocommunication system are described. A high accuracy clock can be used to provide a timing reference signal for a processor in the remote unit during times when highly accurate timing signals are required. During periods of low activity, the high accuracy clock can be turned off and a low accuracy clock can be used to generate the reference timing signals for the processor. Periodically, the accuracy of the low accuracy clock can be checked by determining a number of low accuracy clock pulses which are generated between system timing signals created based upon the high accuracy clock pulses. In this way, when the low accuracy clock is relied upon to create the system tuning signals, the accuracy is sufficient to enable the processor to recognize when it is time to again power up the high accuracy clock. Moreover, checking the accuracy of the low accuracy clock enables the processor to provide error compensation signals to a real time clock function which relies upon the low accuracy clock pulses for determining a current time.

Applicants' invention relates generally to radiocommunication systems and more particularly to timing signal generation in remote units used in radiocommunication systems.
The growth of commercial radiocommunications and, in particular, the explosive growth of cellular radiotelephone systems have compelled system designers to search for ways to increase system capacity without reducing communication quality beyond consumer tolerance thresholds. One way to increase capacity is to use digital communication and multiple access techniques such as TDMA, in which several users are assigned respective time slots on a single radio carrier frequency.
In a TDMA cellular radiotelephone system, each radio channel is divided into a series of time slots, each of which contains a burst of information from a data source, e.g., a digitally encoded portion of a voice conversation. The time slots are grouped into successive TDMA frames having a predetermined duration. The number of time slots in each TDMA frame is related to the number of different users that can simultaneously share the radio channel. If each slot in a TDMA frame is assigned to a different user, the duration of a TDMA frame is the minimum amount of time between successive time slots assigned to the same user.
It can be seen that TDMA cellular systems operate in a buffer-and-burst, or discontinuous-transmission, mode: each mobile station transmits (and receives) only during its assigned time slots. At full rate, for example, an actively connected mobile station might transmit during slot 1, receive during slot 2, be idle during slot 3, transmit during slot 4, receive during slot 5, and be idle during slot 6, and then repeat the cycle during succeeding TDMA frames. Therefore, the mobile station, which may be battery-powered, can be switched off, or sleep, to save power during the time slots when it is neither transmitting nor receiving.
In addition to voice or traffic channels, cellular radiocommunication systems also provide paging/access channels (also known as control channels) for carrying call-setup messages between base stations and mobile stations. In some systems, idle mobile stations are assigned to predetermined paging slots. After being switched on, an idle mobile station needs to regularly monitor only its assigned paging time slots. For example, when an ordinary telephone (land-line) subscriber calls a mobile subscriber, the call is directed from the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to a mobile switching center (MSC) that analyzes the dialed number. If the dialed number is validated, the MSC requests some or all of a number of radio base stations to page the called mobile station by transmitting over their respective control channels paging messages that contain the mobile identification number (MN) of the called mobile station. The base stations will transmit a paging message intended for the mobile subscriber during the time slot assigned to the subscriber's equipment for pages. Each idle mobile station receiving a paging message in its assigned paging time slot compares the received MIN with its own stored MIN. The mobile station with the matching stored MIN transmits a page response over the particular control channel to the base station, which forwards the page response to the MSC. Thus, the idle mobile station can sleep during time slots other than its assigned paging time slot in order to conserve battery power.
In addition to minimizing the monitoring activity required by a mobile station in order to conserve battery power, internal adjustments can be made to further increase the energy efficiency of these units. For example, FIG. 1 depicts a conventional system configuration wherein the mobile station is provided with two clock signal generators. One clock signal generator 10 is precisely tuned to an external timing reference which serves as a time base for global system timing. The other clock signal generator 12 has its own local oscillator crystal (not shown) and is free running. The clock signal generator 12 has lower accuracy than clock signal generator 10 but may be optimized for low power operation.
The counter 14 receives clock pulses from the clock signal generator 10 and outputs system timing signals (sometimes referred to as "system ticks") having a well defined timing, which signals are used to strobe processor 16. Processor 16 controls the various receive and transmit functions of the mobile station, among other processes. As known by those skilled in the art, processor 16 requires strobing signals having precisely controlled timing and is, therefore, conventionally clocked by the high accuracy clock signal generator 10. Among other things, in a TDMA-based radio communication system, the system timing pulses received from counter 14 may be used by the processor 16 to identify the time slots assigned to an idle mobile station for decoding paging messages.
By way of contrast, the low accuracy clock signal generator 12 is conventionally used for controlling circuitry with less critical timing requirements, for example, a real-time clock (RTC) 18. RTC 18 can, in turn, supply the local time for output on the mobile station's display 19. Since low accuracy clock signal generator 12 is designed for low current operation, it may be sourced from a low-apacity voltage supply, for example, a back-up battery (not shown).
The high accuracy clock signal generator 10 provides the basic system reference time and typically provides clocking pulses which are distributed to most of the circuitry in the system. Given its importance, high accuracy clock signal generator 10 also includes circuitry for accuracy control, for example, compensation for temperature and manufacturing variation. With this additional complexity and with the wide distribution connectivity load, the high accuracy clock signal generator 10 consumes more power than the low accuracy clock signal generator 12.
During the active mode (i.e., when the mobile station is connected to the system by way of a traffic channel) most of the circuitry is active in the above described system. But in a TDMA-based telephone system, activity during the stand-by or idle mode (i.e., when the mobile station listens periodically to the control or access channel) is limited. During the idle mode, most of the activity is related to decoding of paging messages which, as described above, are transmitted for a particular mobile station during an assigned paging time slot, i.e., a fraction of the total time. During time slots other than its assigned paging time slot, the mobile station can enter a sleep mode during which it does not monitor its control channel. This allows the mobile station to reduce power consumption and extend battery life.
Since the high accuracy clock is also a relatively large consumer of power and the low accuracy clock is a relatively small consumer of power, it would be desirable to use the low accuracy clock as much as possible to increase times between battery recharge. Unfortunately, conventional remote unit design recognizes that for most of the functional circuitry in the remote unit, clock accuracy cannot be sacrificed. Thus, the conventional remote unit of FIG. 1 suffers from the problem of high power consumption within the clock signal generation system. Although it would be desirable to use the low accuracy clock for additional functionality, the problems associated with this concept include that the low accuracy clock is simply too inaccurate to, for example, strobe the processor 16 according to conventional techniques.

Method and apparatus for reducing power consumption in a mobile radio communication device


In order to prevent quenching caused accidentally in a superconducting magnet, an MRI apparatus vibrates the superconducting magnet in order to prevent quenching of the superconducting magnet in a time period for which a predetermined imaging sequence is not executed (step 210). As a specific method, a gradient magnetic field may be generated by a gradient magnetic field coil for an imaging sequence of the MRI apparatus, or a gradient magnetic field may be generated using a gradient magnetic field coil for vibration provided apart from the gradient magnetic field coil for an imaging sequence. In addition, in a period for which the predetermined imaging sequence is not executed, a phantom may be imaged to prevent the quenching of the superconducting magnet.

In the MRI apparatus, a superconducting magnet is used as a source of strong static magnetic field. For the superconducting magnet, a superconducting coil is formed by winding the superconducting wire around the coil bobbin, a thermosetting epoxy resin is filled and hardened in the gap of the superconducting wire, and then the superconducting coil is cooled to a temperature (usually, 4.2 Kelvin (−268.8° C.) that is a boiling point of liquid helium) at which the transition to the superconducting state occurs. After the cooling, a current is supplied to the superconducting coil, and a circuit called a superconducting switch is closed in a state of having reached the rated magnetic field. As a result, a closed loop state in which a permanent current flows is realized. In this manner, it is possible to maintain the superconducting state.
However, when the superconducting wire of the superconducting coil moves several micrometers or the cracking occurs in the resin that solidifies the superconducting wire in the permanent current mode, the local heat generation occurs. When the temperature of the superconducting wire exceeds a critical temperature due to the heat generation, the transition from the superconducting state to the normal conducting state (quenching) occurs. In order to prevent sudden quenching from occurring while the permanent current is held for a long time, PTL 1 proposes that the aging of the internal structure of the superconducting coil is substantially accelerated in advance by repeating the excitation and demagnetization of the superconducting magnet or making the overcurrent flow.

MRI apparatus, operation method thereof, and quenching prevention device


This invention relates to a method for encapsulation of liquid crystals to form spherical particles with a narrow size distribution. More specific, this invention relates to a method for encapsulation of liquid crystals that are suitable to be employed in liquid crystal displays, including displays intended to be used in large boards outdoors.

Liquid crystals (LCs) are currently used in a wide variety of devices, including optical devices such as information displays, including but not limited to computer screens, wristwatches, projection display devices, etc.
Generally, thermotropic liquid crystals, that is, materials with liquid crystal properties at specific temperature intervals, consist of molecules with a rod-like shape with flexible tails or with a disk-like shape. Liquid crystals simultaneously exhibit properties such as optical and electrical anisotropy of a solid crystal and fluidity of a liquid. The liquid crystal molecules have a tendency to align themselves along a common axis called the director in contrast to molecules in an isotropic (ordinary) liquid which has no intrinsic order. In the crystalline solid phase, the molecules are highly ordered and have little translational freedom. Due to the polarity of the LC-molecules, they can be ordered to point along a common director by imposing an electric or magnetic field, and the optical properties of the anisotropic liquid crystal may be manipulated accordingly.
Liquid crystals can have several molecular structures, which may be divided into three main mesophases, depending on the type of ordering within the molecular structure: Nematic, smectic and cholesteric. The nematic mesophase is the least ordered one and is characterised in that the molecules have no positional order but tend to point in the same direction. The cholesteric mesophase is very close to the nematic phase (known as the chiral nematic phase), but the director will form a helix within the material. The smectic phase is the most ordered one and is characterised in that the molecules tend to align themselves in layers, in which they may have various types of directional and transitional order. There are a total of 12 smectic mesophases identified that are different in the degree and type of order within the layers. The most important from the point of view of display application are the smectic A and smectic C. Generally, the physiochemical properties of a thermotropic liquid crystal will allow the material to exhibit several of the mesophases mentioned above within different temperature intervals.
Most liquid crystal displays are based on the ability of a liquid crystal to change the polarisation state of light. Such displays are commonly referred to as twisted nematic or super twisted nematic displays. More recently Bragg reflection in cholesteric displays has been utilised to produce reflective displays. Other liquid crystal displays are scattering and partially reflective due to steps in the index of refraction at LC domain boundaries within the display. The domains may be focal conic domains as is the case for EASL (electrically addressed smectic liquid crystal) displays or they may be liquid crystal spheres dispersed in an index-matched polymer (Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal or PDLC). The domains may also be encapsulated spheres with hard shells that again need to be dispersed in some index-matched medium as mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 4,435,047. While nematic spheres are described as a single domain with a corresponding single domain wall towards the polymer matrix, smectic spheres may consist of several focal conic domains causing an improved optical scatter efficiency.
One interesting and useful characteristic for liquid crystal optical devices is that of the optical state stability. Most displays based on nematic liquid crystals, i.e., TN (twisted nematic), STN (super twisted nematic), and PDLC, are known to be monostable, that is, they will return to their original molecular configuration when the externally imposed force field such as an electric field, has been removed. The EASL display based on a smectic A liquid crystal is bistable and will thus retain its written image after the imposing force (electric field) is switched off. The same bistability is also available for some other display technologies, e.g., the cholesteric reflective display. This is a useful property for information displays which are intended to contain the same information for long periods of time.
The concept of a reflective liquid crystal display technology is particularly useful in situations with strong ambient light, e.g., outdoors in sunlight, where backlit displays effectively have no contrast, i.e., there is little difference between the perceived levels of black and white.
The concept of a bistable display is particularly useful when high resolution is required, since monostable technologies then rely on active switching elements at each picture element (pixel), which imply high production costs. The bistability may also imply low power consumption depending on (1) the energy required to switch the liquid crystal structure, (2) the time between updates, and (3) the power consumption of internal light sources.
Addition of polymer to LC has several features, as such combined materials possess properties both of LC and polymer. First of all, a polymer matrix can offer a flexible host for the liquid crystal. This means that rigid substrates such as glass etc. are not required, but flexible ones can be used such as for example indium tin oxide (ITO) coated polyesters. Secondly, the production of displays on the basis of the LC-polymer mixture is simpler and larger sizes of substrates can be used. The introduction of the polymer can also lead to new electro-optical effects (e.g. scattering in nematic polymer dispersed LCs), to obtain the stability of optical states (e.g. polymer stabilised cholesteric LC) and improved grey scale—the ability of the display to have intermediate optical states (e.g. polymer stabilised ferroelectric LC). Yet, such materials also have some disadvantages. Usually the introduction of a polymer into the LC leads to an increase in the driving voltage, i.e. voltage that is necessary to obtain a change in the optical state of the display. The degree of increase depends on the using electro-optical effect. One other disadvantage is that part of the LC volume is occupied by an optically non-active polymer, which will lead to decrease of the contrast.
The morphology of a LC-polymer mixture depends on the amount of polymer added. In the case of polymer stabilised liquid crystal (PSLC) the amount of polymer is less than 10 wt %. In this case a polymer network inside the LC is formed. When the amount of polymer is higher, the LC forms droplets inside the polymer phase and becomes a polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC). The shape, size and size distribution of LC droplets determine the electro-optical properties of the material and depend on the preparation method of the PDLC as well as on physicochemical properties of the LC and the polymer.
The following methods of PSLC/PDLC preparation are well known by the art: Emulsification, phase separation and encapsulation. The first PDLC films were made by emulsifying an aqueous latex polymer solution, LC and surfactants until a dispersion was achieved. This emulsion was coated onto a substrate with a conductive layer and the water was evaporated. The soft rubbery layer obtained was laminated onto a second substrate. The original term for such material was Nematic Curvilinear Aligned Phase (NCAP) due to the curved arrangement of the nematic director within the droplets, but now this term is commonly used to point out the emulsification method that was used for preparation of PDLC.
The second widely used method for preparing PSLC/PDLC is a phase separation method. The phase separation of LC from polymer can be achieved by polymerisation of prepolymer (monomer or oligomer) in the mixture of LC and prepolymer (polymer induced phase separation or PIPS method). UV light is widely used to cure the prepolymer, but thermal polymerisation can be used for this purpose also. This method is good for PSLC preparation. It is possible to phase separate the LC and polymer from the LC/polymer solution in organic solvent during solvent evaporation (solvent induced phase separation or SIPS method). Phase separation can also occur by cooling a LC/polymer melt to room temperature (thermal induced phase separation or TIPS method).
However, information displays based on polymer dispersed liquid crystals offer several disadvantages. The main disadvantage of described methods for PDLC preparation is that the droplets of the liquid crystal will have a broad variety of shapes and sizes. This means that these methods will not give reproducible electro-optical properties of displays. Another disadvantage is that there will be diffuse interphase regions between LC droplets and polymer, mainly composed of liquid crystal, which has been swelled into the polymer matrix. These interphase regions will have different optical characteristics compared to the bulk material inside the liquid crystal droplets. This means the interfaces will not be sharp, thus reducing the quality of the clear and scatter state.

Method for encapsulation of liquid crystals with a narrow capsule size range


A waveguide type optical control element which has an optical waveguide made of an insulating material having an electro-optic effect or a thermo-optic effect, and a control electrode provided in contact with or proximity to the optical waveguide; the optical waveguide having a propagation loss which is 1 dB/cm or less at wavelengths of from 1.3 μm to 1.6 μm. The control electrode is constituted of a conductive oxide film having a carrier electron concentration of 5.5×1020/cm3 or less and a resistivity of 9.5×10−4 Ωcm or less, and the conductive oxide film has a coefficient of extinction of light waves, of 0.240 or less at a wavelength of 1.55 μm.

In optical fiber communication systems and optical fiber measurement systems, processing is required in variety on the intensity, phase, polarization and so forth of light waves. For this purpose, light intensity modulators, photonic switches (optical switches) and optical attenuators, for example, have been developed and put into practical use.
An optical waveguide technique is available as one of such optical processing techniques. The optical waveguide technique has advantages that waveguides can be of low voltage, can be integrated with ease, can be strong and can be formed in large numbers and at a low cost. What are used as substrate materials for optical waveguides are rich in variety, such as semiconductor materials, oxide crystal materials and glass materials. In particular, in optical waveguide type intensity modulators, oxide crystal materials having electro-optic effects as typified by ferrodielectric lithium niobate and lead lanthanum titanate-zirconate are widely used as substrate materials.
Here, how control electrodes operate which are provided in contact with or proximity to optical waveguides is explained with reference to the following mathematical expressions (1) and (2):Δφ=(2Π/λ)·δn·L  (1),δn=(−½)·n3·r·Γ·(V/G)  (2).
In the mathematical expression (1), Δφ is the level of a phase change produced by applied voltage, λ is the wavelength of an input, δn is the change in refractive index that is to be induced, and L is the electrode length.
In the mathematical expression (2), n is the refractive index, r is the electro-optical constant of a substrate crystal, Γ is the parameter of light wave-electric field overlap, V is the applied voltage, and G is the gap between electrodes.
As can be seen from the mathematical expressions (1) and (2), in order to attain the phase change Δφ at a level as high as possible, it is necessary to attain the refractive index change δn at a value as large as possible.
For this end, the following points are important.
(1) The gap G between electrodes is set small as far as possible. This can make the electric field have a high intensity.
(2) The parameter Γ of light wave-electric field overlap is set large. For this end, the electrode width is set as large as possible to make lines of electric force as many as possible in a deep region in the substrate material in respect of optical guide mode distribution so that a sufficiently strong electric field can be applied.
In general, the electrode width is set maximum within the area limit of optical waveguides used, and hence the freedom of studies is limited. Accordingly, it is studied how the gap G between electrodes is made narrower.
Here are beforehand properly shown a typical structure that is common to waveguide type optical control elements making use of a lithium niobate substrate and utilizing the electro-optic effect of such a substrate material, and how to make this structure. As an example of such waveguide type optical control elements, the constitution of an optical circuit of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer type light intensity modulator and its constituent factors are exemplified in FIG. 6.
Ti metallic stripes of about 10 μm in width each are formed on a lithium niobate substrate 11 by photolithography. Thereafter, the substrate with stripes is processed at about 1,000° C. to make Ti atoms diffuse into the lithium niobate substrate. As the result, the Ti atoms diffuse thereinto in its areas of a depth of about 5 μm and a width of about 10 μm each to produce a distribution. At this part, the refractive index comes high substantially in proportion to the concentration of Ti atoms. Regions where this refractive index has come high serve as optical waveguides 12a, 12b, 13a, 13b and 15. In these regions, light waves of from 1.3 to 1.55 μm in wavelength which are used in optical fiber communication systems are propagated in a single mode.
Subsequent to the formation of the optical waveguides, SiO2 is vacuum-deposited on the surface of the lithium niobate substrate in which the optical waveguides have been formed, to provide a buffer layer thereon. The buffer layer is, as its function, provided so that any metals used in electrodes may not absorb the above light waves.
Thereafter, a metal thin film is vacuum-deposited on the surface of the buffer layer, followed by patterning to form electrodes denoted by reference numerals 14a and 14b in FIG. 6. In the electrode patterning, photolithography may be used like the case of the formation of optical waveguides as described above. More specifically, usable are an etching process in which, e.g., Ti or Cr is uniformly vacuum-deposited to form a film, thereafter Au is vacuum-deposited thereon, and then unnecessary portions are removed by chemical etching; and a lift-off process in which a photoresist is applied in a pattern, thereafter a metallic material is vacuum-deposited, and subsequently the photoresist is dissolved and removed.
The Ti or Cr is used to form a first layer of each electrode, for the reason that it also has a superior adherence to the substrate material such as the lithium niobate substrate crystal and to the SiO2 used as the buffer layer material. Also, the Au is used to form a second layer on the first layer, for the reason that the Au has superior electrical conductivity and environmental resistance and further makes it easy to carry out wire bonding.
Now, as stated above, the buffer layer functions so that the metals used in electrodes may not absorb the light waves propagated through the interior of optical waveguides, where there is a problem that may arise because of the presence of the buffer layer. For example, it is DC drift.
Here is explained what phenomenon the DC drift is. The electric field E of an optical waveguide region is expressed by the following mathematical expression (3), where V is the external applied voltage and g is the electrode gap.E=V/g  (3).
Note, however, that g is herein not the actual electrode gap G used in the mathematical expression (1), and an electrode gap value g is introduced which is actually effective in intuitionally understanding the matter.
According to the mathematical expression (3), E is kept constant as long as V is kept constant, and the optical power is kept at a constant value. However, although the external applied voltage V is kept constant, E changes with time, so that the optical power is not kept at a constant value. Such a phenomenon may come about. This is the DC drift. This DC drift occurs as an effect brought by actually effective capacitance component and resistance component in the buffer layer itself and at the interface between the buffer layer and the optical waveguide substrate. The DC drift must be kept from occurring, in order that waveguide type optical control elements such as photonic switches and light intensity modulators are actually put into use.
Where the buffer layer is removed in order to eliminate the DC drift, any measure substituting for the buffer layer must be taken in order to prevent the light waves from being absorbed by the electrodes. In particular, in single-mode optical fiber systems, the polarization does not stand constant with time. Hence, in waveguide type optical control elements used in such systems, it is required that the element shows the same behavior in respect to both the modes of the TE mode (transverse electromagnetic mode), in which the direction of vibration of the electric-field is parallel to the substrate surface and the absorption at the electrodes is not remarkable, and the TM mode (transverse magnetic mode), in which the direction of vibration of the electric-field is vertical with time and the absorption at the electrodes is remarkable, i.e., that the element is free of dependence on polarized light.
In waveguide type optical control elements utilizing a thermo-optic effect, materials having a high transparency and an appropriately large temperature dependence of refractive index, such as quartz glass and polymeric materials, are used for substrates. Then, a strip of a metallic conductor such as Cr is set only on one arm of an interferometer, and an electric current is passed therethrough to generate Joule heat, where this heat is utilized to change the refractive index of only the one arm to consequently produce a phase difference between both arms. This phase difference brings a change in the amount of output light. This is quite the same as what is brought by the electro-optic effect.
The metallic conductor absorbs light waves like the above electrodes, and hence, where the buffer layer is not used, the metallic conductor must be separated at a certain distance from the optical waveguides. Where the buffer layer is used, the metallic conductor can be set closer to the optical waveguides, but the step of providing the buffer layer is required.
As a solution for such a complicated problem, a structure is proposed in which an ITO film (indium-tin oxide film; In2O3:Sn film), which is a conductive oxide transparent in the visible region, is used in the control electrode (see German Patent Publication No. DE3724634 A1). According to this, the ITO film as an electrode is formed on optical waveguides, and a protective-film layer is loaded thereon.
In general, when light comes incident on a substance, some part of the light is reflected, the remaining part is absorbed in the substance, and further some part thereof is transmitted therethrough. In2O3-base conductive oxide materials are n-type semiconductors, in which carrier electrons are present and their movement contributes to electrical conduction. Carrier electrons in such a conductive oxide film reflect and absorb light of the near-infrared region. The more the carrier electrons are present in the conductive oxide film, the larger the amount of reflection and absorption of the near-infrared light is (see "Techniques of Transparent Conductive Films", pp. 55-57, Ohmusha, Ltd.; Edited by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) and the larger coefficient of extinction the conductive oxide film has.
ITO films used widely at present have a low electrical resistance, but have a carrier electron concentration of 8×1020/cm3 or more and shows remarkable reflection and absorption in the near-infrared region of from 1.3 to 1.6 μm in wavelength. The use of such films as control electrodes in the state they are in contact with or proximity to optical waveguides brings about a remarkable loss of the near-infrared light of from 1.3 to 1.6 μm in wavelength that travels through the interiors of optical waveguides. Accordingly, as control electrodes for optical waveguides making use of the infrared light of from 1.3 to 1.6 μm in wavelength, they are required to have a low carrier electron concentration.
Meanwhile, the resistivity ρ (electrical conductivity 1/ρ) of a substance depends on the product of the carrier electron concentration n and the mobility μ of carrier electrons (1/ρ=enμ; e: elementary electric charge). In order to materialize electrode materials having a low carrier electron concentration and a high electrical conductivity, the mobility μ of carrier electrons must be large. The mobility of carrier electrons in ITO films is approximately from 10 to 35 cm2/Vsec. The mobility of carrier electrons in the n-type semiconductors indium oxide (In2O3) materials is chiefly governed by the scattering of ionized impurities or the scattering of neutral impurities. (In regard to the impurities, impurities contained in the state of ions are called the ionized impurities, and impurities contained in the state of neutrality as a result of the adsorption of surplus oxygen to surroundings are called the neutral impurities.)
When impurity elements added in order to make the carrier electron concentration higher are at a high level, carrier electrons are scattered and the mobility of carrier electrons lowers. It is possible to lower the carrier electron concentration of ITO films by introducing oxygen into the ITO films at a high level, but the mobility of carrier electrons in the ITO films further lowers because of an increase in neutral impurities which is due to the introduction of oxygen, resulting in a very low electrical conductivity.

Waveguide type optical control element and process for its fabrication


The fiber organizer includes a tray for supporting at least one optical fiber within a housing, such as an optical receiver node. The fiber organizer also includes means for defining a raceway along which the optical fiber is routed. The raceway can be defined by inner and outer walls which extend outwardly from the tray in order to guide the optical fiber along the raceway in a manner which prevents the fiber from being excessively bent. In order to provide access to components disposed beneath the fiber organizer, the tray can include a hinge to permit a first portion of the tray to be pivoted relative to a second portion of the tray. The tray can also define one or more openings aligned with respective test ports of the electrical circuitry which lies beneath the fiber organizer. A technician can therefore establish electrical contact with the test ports while the tray remains in position within the housing. The fiber organizer can also include a receptacle for cooperably engaging and storing a spare connector so as to facilitate reconnectorization or other repair of the optical fibers.

Fiber optic networks oftentimes include a number of nodes or housings through which one or more optical fibers extend. Within each of these housings, it is desirable for the optical fibers to be routed or managed in a controlled fashion to reduce snarling of the optical fibers and to facilitate access to the other components within the housing. For example, many fiber optic networks include optical receiver nodes in which incoming optical signals transmitted via one or more optical fibers are converted to electrical signals prior to subsequent processing and/or further transmission. As known to those skilled in the art, optical receiver nodes are commonly mounted on the exterior of buildings or on utility poles so as to convert optical signals which have typically been optically transmitted over long distances by one or more optical fibers to electrical signals for subsequent distribution throughout the building. Optical receiver nodes therefore generally include one or more printed circuit boards mounted within the housing for converting the optical signals delivered by the optical fibers to corresponding electrical signals and for thereafter electronically processing the signals, if so desired.
In order to provide some form of optical fiber management, conventional optical receiver nodes typically include a fiber organizer. A conventional fiber organizer includes a metal plate mounted within the housing. The conventional fiber organizer includes a slack loop defined by a number of fingers extending upwardly from the metal plate such that excess or slack lengths of optical fiber can be wrapped about the fingers in order to provide excess optical fiber, such as for reconnectorization or other reworking of the optical fiber. In order to secure the optical fiber in position, each finger generally includes a flange portion that extends over the optical fiber for preventing the optical fiber from slipping off of the finger or otherwise becoming dislodged. Since the slack loop of a conventional fiber organizer is defined by a number of fingers, typically about eight fingers, spaced about the circumference of the slack loop, the optical fiber is forced to bend somewhat as the optical fiber is looped about the fingers. Thus, the slack loop defined by the upwardly extending fingers is not a smooth curve, but is, instead, formed by a number of discrete, almost linear, segments.
While the slack loop defined by a conventional fiber organizer prevents the optical fibers from being bent excessively, the conventional fiber organizer did not provide similar radius control for those portions of the optical fibers leading into or out of the slack loop. Thus, the portions of the optical fibers leading into and out of the slack loop could be excessively bent, thereby damaging the transmission characteristics of the optical fibers. Moreover, the portions of the optical fibers leading into and out of the slack loop oftentimes hung or otherwise extended over the printed circuit boards within an optical receiver node. As such, the optical fibers limited access to the printed circuit boards, such as by limiting access to the test ports defined by the printed circuit boards which otherwise would permit a technician to evaluate the performance of the optical receiver node.
A conventional fiber organizer also generally includes a bulkhead extending upwardly from one end of the fiber organizer. The bulkhead defines a single window for receiving a connector sleeve in which a pair of connectors, such as a pair of SC connectors, can be mated. By permitting the interconnection of only a single pair of connectors, however, a conventional fiber organizer effectively limits the number of optical fibers which can be managed thereby.
While the printed circuit boards are generally arranged about the periphery of the fiber organizer within a conventional optical receiver node, the fiber organizer does overlie at least some portions of the printed circuit boards. In addition, the fiber organizer typically overlies the power supply within a conventional optical receiver node. As such, the fiber organizer must be removed each time the power supply is serviced or is otherwise accessed. Since the fiber organizer is generally mounted within the node by two or more fasteners, such as two or more bolts, removal of a conventional fiber organizer is somewhat time consuming and must be performed in a careful manner in order to protect the optical fibers from excessive strain or other undesirable forces which could potentially disconnect the optical fibers from the associated printed circuit boards. Therefore, even though fiber organizers have been developed for managing, i.e., routing, the optical fibers within a housing, such as an optical receiver node, conventional fiber organizers suffer from a number of deficiencies which limit their effectiveness as described above.


A 3-D rendering engine with embedded memory a graphics engine. A graphics engine is disclosed that includes a rendering engine for receiving graphics primitives and converting them to pixel information for transfer to a display, The rendering engine is operable to access memory locations with multiple memory access requests for a Read or a Write operation and operable in a first address space. A plurality of memory blocks are provided, each individually accessible and all configured in a virtual address space different than said first address space. A memory mapping device is provided for mapping each of the memory requests to the virtual address space. A pipeline engine is operable to pipeline the mapped memory access requests for both Read and Write operations in accordance with a predetermined pipelining scheme. The memory access requests are received in parallel and processed asynchronously, such that access to more than one of the memory blocks can occur at substantially the same time.

Due to recent advances in computer performance in the area of processing speeds, graphic systems have been improved to provide more realistic graphical images to operate with such things as home video games and the such. In these graphic systems, the data is processed to "render" or draw graphic primitives to the display of a system. These graphic primitives constitute the basic components of a graphics picture, such as a triangle or any type of polygon. It is the combination of these graphic primitives that is utilized to perform this rendering operation.
During the rendering operation, a frame buffer is utilized to store all the information for a given frame, the frame being mapped substantially to the display of the user. This frame buffer will therefore include all of the information that is necessary to interface with the display and allow the display to be written in the desired manner. During the rendering operation, these frame buffers must be accessed a number of times in order to create the final values that are to be output to the display. In the rendering operation, there are multiple operations that must be undertaken. Each of these operations requires access to the frame buffer or memory to Write data thereto or Read data therefrom. As the graphic systems become more complex, and more complex algorithms are utilized, access to the memory becomes the "bottleneck" to the overall operation of the system. Typically, there will be provided some type of bus structure that will interface with the memory. As the resolution increases in the graphic systems, more and more memory is required for storing the various information required for the rendering process. This memory tends to be external to the rendering engine and there is typically only provided a single bus that provides access to the memory, which bus usually has a defined width and data rate. Further, when a substantial amount of processing is provided on a single integrated circuit, the bus width becomes more problematic due to the number of pins on the integrated circuit that must be dedicated to interface with the external memory. Even though some memory could be included on the integrated circuit, as the memory requirements increase, they tend to exceed the capabilities of the semiconductor processing technology required for this 3-D rendering engine.


A method detects traffic events in a compressed video. Feature vectors are extracted from the compressed video. The feature vector are provided to a Gaussian mixture hidden Markov model. Then, a maximum likelihood of the Gaussian mixture hidden Markov model is determined to classify the plurality of feature vector as traffic events.

In intelligent transportation systems, computer vision and artificial intelligence techniques are applied to traffic data. The traffic data can be acquired by various sensors, see Masaki, "Machine-vision System for Intelligent Transportation: The Autoscope system," IEEE Transaction Vehicle Technology, Vol. 40, pp. 21-29, 1991. Traffic management and control also rely on sensors for real-time traffic parameter estimation. The dominant technologies for current traffic management systems are loop detectors and pneumatic sensors placed in or on roads to count individual passing vehicles.
Video monitoring systems have more advantages, see Beymer et al., "A Real-time computer vision system for Measuring Traffic Parameters," CVPR, pp. 495-501, 1997. First, more traffic parameters can be estimated. Second, cameras are less disruptive and less costly to install than loop detectors and pneumatic sensors. For vision-based traffic surveillance system, the cameras are usually mounted on poles or other tall structures looking down at the road. Traffic conditions are captured and digitized into compressed videos, e.g., MPEG. The compressed videos are transmitted to a transportation management center (TMC) for multi-channel statistical analysis and event detection. Beymer uses a grouped sub-feature set to overcome the difficulty of vehicle tracking in congested traffic.
Most computer vision-based systems for monitoring traffic rely on stationary cameras, and inspect traffic by tracking vehicles passing through the field of view of the cameras. In one system, vehicles are located and tracked in 3D as the vehicles move across a ground plane. Trajectories are classified, while taking into account occlusions of vehicles by stationary parts of the scene or occlusions between vehicles, see Sullivan, "Model-based Vision for Traffic Scenes using the Ground-plane Constraint," In Real-time Computer Vision, D. Terzopoulos and C. Brown (Eds.), Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Another system uses a contour tracker and affine motion model-based Kalman filters to extract vehicle trajectories. A dynamic belief network is used to make inferences about traffic events, see Koller et al., "Towards Robust Automatic Traffic Scene Analysis in Real-time," ICPR, pp. 126-131, 1994.
Another system detects vehicles in urban traffic scenes by means of rule-based reasoning on visual data, see Cucchiara et al., "Image Analysis and Rule-Based Reasoning for a Traffic Monitoring System," IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 119-130, 2000. Six types of traffic events are defined and tested in their system.
Kamijo et al., in "Traffic Monitoring and Accident Detection at Intersections," IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 108-118, 2000, describe an extensible traffic monitoring system for traffic detection at intersection. They use three types of traffic events and a discrete HMM.
Traffic monitoring and vehicle tracking can also be done with a camera mounted on a moving vehicle, see Ferryman et al., "Visual Surveillance for Moving Vehicles," International Journal of Computer Vision, pp. 187-197, 2000, Dellaert et al., "Model-based car tracking integrated with a road follower," Proceedings International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 1189-1194, 1998, Dikmanns, "Vehicles Capable of Dynamic Vision," Proceedings International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 1577-1592, 1997, and Zhao et al., "Qualitative and Quantitative Car Tracking from a Range Image," CVPR, pp. 496-501, 1998. Zhao et al. construct three motion models that are incorporated into extended Kalman filters to perform quantitative tracking and motion estimation of both the camera and the vehicles. Dellaert et al. model a vehicle by a box and design a filter to estimate parameters such as vehicle position and dimensions, road curvature and width, vehicle motion, direction and speed, and camera motion. Ferryman et al. estimate the camera motion by matching features on the ground plane from one image to the next. Then, vehicle detection and hypothesis generation is performed using template correlation and a 3D wire frame model of the vehicle is fitted to the image. After vehicle detection and identification, the vehicles are tracked using dynamic filtering.
A rear-end-collision prevention system uses a directional-temporal transform (DTT). That system transforms spatio-temporal image onto a directional-temporal plane, see Jung et al., "Content-Based Event Retrieval Using Semantic Scene Interpretation for Automated Traffic Surveillance," IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vol. 2, No 3, pp. 151-163, 2001.
A non-parameter regression (NPR) method can be used to forecast traffic events from a signal curve extracted from a moving area, see Shuming et al., "Traffic Incident Detection Algorithm Based on Non-parameter Regression," IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), pp. 714-719, 2002.
Another system uses a multi-level approach, optical flow, Kalman filtering, and blob merging for monitoring traffic, see Maurin et al., "Monitoring Crowded Traffic Scenes," IEEE International Conference on ITS, pp. 19-24.
Another system extracts traffic information from an MPEG compressed video, and uses a ratio between moving blocks and all blocks to estimate traffic conditions, see Yu et al., "Highway Traffic Information Extraction from Skycam MPEG Video," IEEE International Conference on ITS, pp. 37-41, 2002.
It is desired to analyze large traffic scenes. Such analysis can yield more information than traditional sensor based systems that detect only single instances of passing vehicles.

Traffic event detection in compressed videos

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.


An electrode array device for use with a conductive element to simulate a crevice that is subject to corrosive conditions. The device includes a non-conductive member and a plurality of electrodes. The non-conductive member has a face, with the member defining (i) an opening through the member, the opening passing through the face of the member, and (ii) a depression formed in the face and contiguous with at least a portion of the opening. The plurality of electrodes is embedded in the member, with each of the plurality of electrodes having a portion exposed from the member to the depression.

This invention relates generally to studying crevice corrosion. More particularly, this invention relates to a multiple-reference electrode array for measuring open circuit potentials in artificial aerosol container crevices.
A common problem associated with commercial aerosol containers is that the metals (e.g., tinplated steel, aluminum or the like) used to form the containers are susceptible to corrosion. The potential for corrosion depends, at least partially, on both the material used to construct the container and the medium (e.g., solution) provided in the container. Generally, the materials used to construct such containers are subject to a uniform amount of corrosion along their inner surfaces. However, in cracks and crevices formed in the containers, there occurs non-uniform corrosion that manifests itself in the form of, for example, pitting. In addition, the non-uniform corrosion occurring in the cracks and crevices generally takes place at a faster rate than at exposed surfaces in the containers.
In order to determine the long-term viability of materials to be used in aerosol containers containing particular solutions, or other environments in which crevice corrosion is a factor, it is necessary to accurately predict the rate of corrosion that will occur within the crevices. However, traditional techniques for measuring corrosion on open/exposed surfaces are generally inadequate for predicting crevice corrosion.
Techniques have been developed to gage corrosion in artificial crevices of varying geometry in order to provide a model for what could be expected in an actual crevice due to the materials and solutions forming the crevice environment. In such conventional devices, an electrode is typically provided in the artificial crevice to measure electrical properties in the crevice that are indicative of corrosion. Alternatively, some devices employ a crevice formed in an electrode itself. Examples of devices employing these conventional techniques for measuring crevice corrosion are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,633,099, 4,181,882 and 3,599,090.
Unfortunately, conventional devices for corrosion analysis in artificial crevices have certain drawbacks. In particular, the known devices typically measure only a general likelihood of corrosion in the entire crevice. Thus, the known devices only take into account corrosion effects due to the diffusion of solutions from the bulk of a container into a crevice as a whole. However, in real-world applications, diffusion of a solution not only occurs from the main cavity of a container into a crevice, but may also occur within the crevice. Thus, corrosion may occur at different rates at different positions within the crevice. Conventional devices are not equipped to measure varying corrosion rates within a continuous crevice.
Another drawback of conventional crevice-corrosion analysis is its inflexibility to simulate accurately varying real-world environments. Different lines of containers will have crevices of different dimensions. However, conventional devices are not equipped to take into account the different aspect ratios (i.e., the crevice depth divided by the crevice width) of crevices occurring in different lines of commercial containers.
This invention is directed to a device designed to overcome the problems of the conventional devices, by allowing for a plurality of measurements related to corrosion within a single crevice, to take into account the complexities of the dimensions of the crevice.
Typically, the invention relates to measuring crevice corrosion in a test cell designed to simulate the corrosive conditions that exist inside a container. The test cell can be filled with a particular test solution. An artificial crevice, formed of a particular test material, is exposed to the test solution in the test cell in order to simulate the corrosive conditions occurring in cracks and crevices of a container.
In one aspect, the invention is directed to a novel member used to simulate a crevice in a test cell. Preferably, the member is provided with a plurality of electrodes for measuring crevice corrosion in a more comprehensive and accurate manner than with known designs. In another aspect, the invention is directed to a test cell using the crevice simulation member discussed above.
More specifically, in a preferred aspect, the device of the present invention includes a non-conductive member having a face with a depression formed therein. When the face of the member is placed against a test surface, the depression forms a simulated crevice between the member and the test surface. A plurality of electrodes is embedded in the non-conductive member. Each of the plurality of electrodes has a portion exposed to the depression.
Preferably, this invention is directed to an electrode array device that includes a non-conductive member having a face. The member defines (i) an opening through the member, the opening passing through the face of the member, and (ii) a depression formed in the face and contiguous with at least a portion of the opening. The device also includes a plurality of electrodes embedded in the member. Each of the plurality of electrodes has a portion exposed from the member to the depression.
In another embodiment, the invention is directed to an electrode array for measuring corrosion in a crevice. The electrode array includes a ring-shaped non-conductive member and a plurality of electrodes. The ring-shaped non-conductive member has a first face and a second face, and defines an opening therethrough extending through the first face and the second face. The first face defines an annular depression that is contiguous with the opening in the non-conductive member. The plurality of electrodes is embedded in the non-conductive member. Each of the plurality of electrodes has a portion exposed from the non-conductive member in the depression of the first face.
This invention can also be directed to a test cell for measuring corrosion in a crevice. The test cell includes a container, an electrode array, and a test electrode. The container preferably includes a valve assembly opening into the container. The electrode array device includes a non-conductive member and a plurality of electrodes. The non-conductive member has a face, with the member defining (i) an opening through the member, the opening passing through the face of the member, and (ii) a depression formed in the face and contiguous with at least a portion of the opening. The plurality of electrodes is embedded in the member, with each of the plurality of electrodes having a portion exposed from the member to the depression. The test electrode is sealingly secured to the face of the non-conductive member and is spaced from a surface of the depression therein to form the crevice. The container, electrode array device, and test electrode are sealingly secured together such that the crevice and an interior of the container are in flow communication.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be made apparent from the following description with reference to the drawings, in which like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout.

Multiple reference electrode array for measuring open circuit potentials in artificial crevices