In the operation of construction machines having multiple functions it has been a problem to provide a mounting arrangement for the levers that incorporates low lever effort operational detents without experiencing undue wear within the components. The present invention provides a mounting arrangement for a control lever that has a plurality of upraised ribs defined thereon in a preselected array. A plurality of grooves are positioned on an adjacent bearing member that are positioned to engage the upraised ribs in a first condition of the control lever. The control lever may be rotated out of engagement with the ribs to operate in a second condition while at the same time being engageable with a plurality of operational detents to provided feedback to an operator as to impending operational conditions.

In the operation of modern day construction machines, it is becoming increasingly common to incorporate electronic controls into the operation of the machine. One of the advantages gained by utilizing electronic controls is that the control levers may be downsized and the operational effort required to manipulate them is greatly reduced. In addition, it has been known to incorporate some operational indicators utilized in many implement functions into the design of the control lever mounting.
One such example is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,892, issued on Jul. 23, 1996 to Dean A. Weichman. In this design, a control lever is positioned between two non-metallic bearing members that are biased for engagement with the control levers. The bearing members have a plurality of grooves and recesses positioned on either side of a central portion that engages the shank of the control lever as it is moved throughout its ranges of movement. While this design has been known to work quite well in most instances, there are applications wherein the movement of the control lever with respect to the bearing member has caused wear of the bearing member to a point wherein the operational indicators, i.e., ramps that have been formed in the bearing members that indicate various phases of operation, have been diminished.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.

Mounting arrangement for a control lever


A method of restricting fluid flow through a passageway can include inserting a device comprising memory foam into the passageway. The expanded memory foam can have a cross-sectional profile with a shape and size to securely fit within the passageway so as to restrict fluid flow through the passageway. Additionally, the memory foam can have a receiving portion that extends from the first end to the second end that is configured for receiving an object that extends from the first end to the second end. The receiving portion can have various configurations and can include internal portions and external portions of the memory foam. The receiving portion can self-form a conduit around the object by expanding the memory foam around the object.

1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to methods of using devices and systems that include memory foam for use in restricting the fluid flow (e.g., liquid or gas flow) in a passageway. More particularly, the present invention is related to methods of using flow restricting devices and systems having memory foam configured to expand and form conduits around objects disposed in a passageway so that the fluid flow in the passageway is restricted.
2. The Related Technology
Air conditioning systems have long been employed to regulate temperatures within buildings or rooms by generating and blowing heated or cooled air. Usually, the air conditioning system routes forced air through a series of ducts that open into the location needing to be cooled or heated. The air conditioning ducts can include vents and/or vent covers that regulate the amount of air being blown out of each duct. Often, the air conditioning system includes ducts that are pre-installed and are integrated fixtures of a building or room. Air conditioning systems that include ducts with vents and/or vent covers that regulate the air flow are well known in the art.
Recently, data storage facilities have been constructed to house computer equipment containing important data. The data storage facilities typically include at least one air conditioning system to regulate the temperature of the air within the room containing the computer equipment. Usually, the air conditioning system is configured to generate and force cool air into the data storage facility to regulate the temperature of the computer equipment. A data storage facility having a large number of computers may require multiple air conditioning systems in order to regulate the temperature because of the amount of heat produced by the large number of computers. Also, a single air conditioning system may have ducts and vents arranged so that cooled air is blown towards an air inlet of a computer (e.g., front of computer). Often the air conditioning system includes some ducts and vents that blow cool air towards the air outlet of a computer (e.g., back of computer), but the air outlet of the computer releases hot air due to the operation of the computer. The hot air produced by the computer can warm the cool air and render the air conditioning ineffective.
It has recently been found that selectively blowing cooled air toward a computer air inlet and maintaining cool air around the computer air inlet can be more beneficial than maintaining the data storage facility or data storage room housing the computers at a substantially homogenous temperature. Additionally, the cooled air can be prevented from being blown toward the computer air outlets and wasted. Accordingly, temperature gradients that are cooler around the computer air intakes compared to the computer air outlets can be easier and cheaper to maintain, as compared to regulating the temperature so that it is substantially homogenous throughout the data storage facility or data storage room. In part, this is because the computer air intake can receive cooled air and blow hot air out of the computer air outlet. As such, selectively cooling the air around the computer air intake without cooling the heated air around the computer air outlet can provide enhanced cooling without wasting cool air. Attempting to cool the heated air around the computer air outlet is a substantial waste of cooled air. Thus, selectively cooling the air around the computer air intake can be comparatively more cost-effective than standard cooling techniques that cool an entire room to a substantially homogenous temperature.
Additionally, data storage facilities or data storage rooms housing computers have been constructed to utilize air conditioning ducts for passing power cords and data cords between different computers. As such, a large number of cords can be disposed within an air conditioning duct and have one end extend out of a duct opening and connected to a computer and another end extending out of a different duct opening and connected to a different computer. The large number of cords passing through a single air conditioning duct can provide a complex problem when determining the proper endpoints of each cord, rearranging the cords, disconnecting the cords, and reconnecting the cords. Often, the cords emerge from a duct opening, and are plugged into the backs of computers close to the computer air outlet, which can position the computer air outlet in the back of the computer close to the duct opening.
While air conditioning ducts can include vents and vent covers to restrict the flow of cool air towards the computer air outlet, most vents and vent covers are not properly configured to allow cords to be passed therethrough and to restrict the flow of cool air. Additionally, some vents and vent covers may require the cords to be unplugged at one end and routed through the vent or vent cover; however, unplugging a cord or a plurality of cords in a data storage facility can be a daunting activity because of the complex problems associated with determining the proper endpoints of each cord, rearranging the cords, disconnecting the cords, and reconnecting the cords. Thus, the use of such vents and vent covers can have unfavorable consequences and the time required to route the cords through the vents or vent covers can be prohibitive.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have methods of using a device to selectively restrict the flow of air through air conditioning ducts or from openings in air conditioning ducts. Additionally, it would be advantageous to have methods of using a device to selectively restrict the flow of air through air conditioning ducts containing power cords or data cords being passed therethrough. Further, it would be advantageous to have methods of using a device to retrofit a removable barrier into air conditioning ducts to selectively restrict the flow of air without having to disconnect an end of a cord or plurality of cords that are disposed within the air conditioning duct.

Method for restricting fluid flow in a passageway


An electrical system of a vehicle includes a first battery, a second battery, a first switch electrically connected in series between the first battery and the second battery, an external connection point, and a second switch electrically connected in series between the second battery and the external connection point. The system and a method of operating the system include determining that the first battery will need assistance to start an engine of the vehicle, opening the second switch in response to a state of charge of the second battery decreasing below a charge threshold, and closing the first switch for the second battery to assist the first battery to crank the engine for starting.

Motor vehicles typically include at least one primary battery. Types of batteries include lithium-ion batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries, and lead-acid batteries. The primary battery is used to start the motor of the vehicle. When the operator turns the ignition, current from the primary battery is provided to a solenoid switch causing the solenoid switch to close and electrically connect the primary battery to a starter. The starter converts the electrical energy from the primary battery into rotational kinetic energy to start the motor.


An alarm device for a bicycle includes a locking block and an alarm assembly connected with the locking block. The alarm assembly includes a base, a mounting seat, an alarm unit, a top cover, and a bottom cover. The alarm unit includes a circuit board, at least one sensor, at least one buzzer, a control switch button, at least one storage battery, an indication lamp, and at least one socket hole. When the alarm unit is started, the alarm unit detects vibration or shaking of the locking block or the alarm assembly due to an external force and transmits an alarm signal so as to achieve a burglar-proof effect.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an alarm device and, more particularly, to an alarm device for a bicycle.
2. Description of the Related Art
A first conventional lock includes a cable extended through the tire and the spokes of a bicycle so as to lock the bicycle. However, the burglar can directly carry away the whole bicycle so that the first conventional lock fails to achieve a burglarproof purpose efficiently. A second conventional lock comprises an elastic and flexible metallic chain whose one end is extended through the frame of the bicycle and an object, such as an electric pole, a fence, a bar and the like, and is locked onto the other end of the metallic chain. Thus, the bicycle is limited to the object to achieve a burglarproof purpose. However, the second conventional lock cannot transmit an audible alarm signal to the rider when a thief is breaking the metallic chain, thereby decreasing the anti-theft effect.


Disclosed in an interleukin-1 related gene and gene product. In particular, the invention relates to a protein that is highly homologous to known interleukin-1 cytokines, nucleic acid molecules that encode such a protein, antibodies that recognize the protein, and methods for diagnosing conditions related to host inflammatory and immune responses.

The proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-1 (IL-1) elicits a wide array of biological activities that initiate and promote the host response to pathophysiological states including infection, fever, sleep, loss of appetite, acute phase protein synthesis, chemokine production, adhesion molecule upregulation, vasodilation, the coagulant state, increased hematopoiesis, and production and release of matrix metalloproteinases and growth factors. Until recently IL-1 activity was thought to reside in each of two molecules, IL-1 alpha (IL-1α) and IL-1 beta (IL-1β), which are potent inflammatory cytokines that play important roles in host immune responses and in the development of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. While only being about 25% identical, the two cytokines interact with and activate the same receptor complex, composed of the IL-1 Type-I receptor (IL-1RI) and IL-1 Receptor Accessory Protein (IL-1RAP) subunits. Upon binding and receptor activation, a number of signal transduction pathways are activated including that controlled by NF-kappa B. In fact, IL-1α and IL-1β are thought to positively or negatively modulate NF-kB and AP-1 signaling stimulated through IL-1RI-associated kinase/TNF receptor-associated factor-like complexes recruited through the IL-1 receptor family. IL-1 induces expression of a large number of genes including cytokines, growth factors, cell adhesion molecules transcription factors and proteases. In addition to the agonist peptides, a third IL-1, IL-1 receptor antagonist protein (IL-1RA) can bind to IL-1 receptors and block activity of IL-1α and IL-1β. The IL-1 system has been shown to effect a number of inflammatory diseases in animals and in humans. Blockade of IL-1 signalling with an antibody to either of IL-1α, IL-1βor the IL-1RI blocks the development of the disease processes in animal models of arthritis, encephalitis, contact sensitivity, graft rejection, endotoxic shock and inflammatory bowel disease among others. In addition, the recombinant IL-1 receptor antagonist protein has been shown to block the progression of rheumatoid arthritis in human clinical trials.
Recent studies have shown the IL-1 system is represented by a family of related genes. One IL-1 related gene is IL-18. This cytokine was originally cloned by its ability to induce gamma interferon expression. It was later shown that this molecule had significant structural homology to IL-1 and subsequently shown to bind to receptors highly related, but distinct from the IL-1RI and IL-1RAP. Another member of the family, the IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1RA), also binds to IL-1RI but fails to induce the subsequent interaction with IL-1RAP, thus not only not signaling itself, but also, by blocking the receptor, preventing the action of agonist IL-1s. Recently, 4 new IL-1 related molecules have been identified. These proteins share between 13 and 50% identify to the characterized IL-1 molecules. In this respect, two reports have identified overlapping but nonidentical sets of IL-1 related genes including IL-1H1, IL-1H2, IL-1H3 and IL-H4 (Kumar et al., J. Biol. Chem. 275 (2000), 10308–10314), and FILδ, FILε, FILν and FILζ (Smith et al., J. Biol. Chem. 275 (2000),1169–1175). Several of these genes are either identical or clearly derived from the same gene including IL-1H2 and FILν, IL-1H3 and FILδ, and IL-1H4 and FILζ. IL-1H4 and FILζ are 88% identical with changes only at the extreme ends of cDNAs. Thus, these two sequences are derived from alternative splicing of the same gene. Interestingly, most of these molecules are relatively more related to IL-1 RA than to either IL-1α, IL-1β or IL-18, implying that common, IL-1 antagonizing, effect of these molecules may coincide with separate, unique activities. Importantly, while related at the amino acid level, none of the IL-1 related proteins appears to bind to the known IL-1 receptors.


The present invention is to provide a novel heterocyclic compound of the formula [I]:

Mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases is a kind of serine-threonine kinase which transfers a γ-phosphate group of adenosine triphosphoric acid (ATP) to a hydroxyl of specific serine or threonine constituting a protein, and participates in various cell responses against extra-cellular signals. The p38 MAP kinase is a protein with about 38 kDa which is subjected to cloning as a homologue of a MAP kinase.
The p38 MAP kinase is activated by an inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), inter-leukin 1 (IL-1), etc., or by stress stimulation such as ultraviolet ray irradiation, etc. Also, it has been clarified that the p38 MAP kinase phosphorylates various transcription factor groups and kinase groups as substrates, these transcription factor groups and kinase groups are activated by the p38 MAP kinase, so that they contribute to progress in transcription, control after the transcription (stabilization of mRNA and progress of translation of protein) and stabilization of proteins, etc. with regard to various proteins which participate in inflammatory reaction such as inflammatory cytokines, etc. From these facts, it has been considered that the p38 MAP kinase deeply involves in various inflammatory reactions, etc. through control of production and/or signal transduction of inflammatory cytokines so that there is a high probability that an inhibitor of the p38 MAP kinase is to be an agent for treatment of inflammatory diseases and the like.
As an inhibitor of p38 MAP kinases, imidazole derivatives are known in (Patent Literature 1), 1,3-thiazole derivatives in (Patent Literature 2), 1,3-thiazole derivatives and 1,3-oxazole derivatives in (Patent Literature 3), imidazole derivatives, pyrrole derivatives, furan derivatives, 3-pyrazolin-5-one derivatives, pyrazole derivatives and thiophene derivatives, etc. in (Non-patent Literature 1), and 4-imidazolin-2-one compound in (Patent Literature 4), respectively.
[Patent Literature 1] JP 2000-503304-A
[Patent Literature 2] JP 2001-114690-A
[Patent Literature 3] JP 2001-114779-A
[Patent Literature 4] WO 03/035638
[Non-patent Literature 1] Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, 2000, 10(1), p. 25-37

Heterocyclic compound which may be used as a medicine having p38 MAP kinase inhibitory activity

Abstract: wherein R1 is a halogen, nitro, an alkyl, etc.; R2 is hydrogen, an alkyl, etc.; Ring A is 2-oxo-4-imidazolin-3,4-diyl, etc.; Ring B is a cycloalkyl, monocyclic saturated heterocyclic group; X is CH, N; Y is a single bond, CO, SO2; Z is O, NH, etc.; and Ring C is an aryl, a heterocyclic group,or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, which is useful as a p38 MAP kinase inhibitor.


An attachment system may be used for attaching an assembly to a target. The attachment system includes an attachment element adapted to attach to the target. The attachment system also includes a receiver adapted to attach the assembly to the attachment system. A portion of the attachment system is reversibly detachable from the target. The portion of the attachment system is reversibly detachable from the target when the attachment system is attached to the target.

To assemble multiple components into a structure, the components may need to be attached to one another. The presence of substance in the environment in which the multiple components are to be assembled may reduce the reliability of connections between components. For a structure that includes components that are to be reversibly assembled, the method of attachment between the components impacts the reliability of the assembled structure.

System and method for assembly attachment


A high power factor AC/DC converter is disclosed. In the AC/DC converter in which a rectifying circuit RC1 rectifies a commercially available AC power supply Ei, a switching device turns on and off so that the rectified voltage is applied across the primary winding n1 of the transformer Tr1 to provide a high frequency voltage across the secondary winding n2, and the high frequency voltage is rectified by means of a rectifying circuit connected across the secondary winding so as to generate a predetermined DC output, a choke coil (L1) and a diode (D1) are interposed between the rectifying circuit (RC1) and a smoothing capacitor (C1) and a capacitor (C3) is interposed between a first junction and a second junction. The first junction connects the choke coil (L1) to the diode (D1) and the second junction connected the switching device (Q1) to the primary winding (n1) of the transformer (Tr1).

1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates generally to a circuit of AC/DC converter which converts a commercially available alternating current power supply voltage into a stable DC output voltage, particularly, relates to the AC/DC converter having a high power factor.
2. Description of The Background Art
FIG. 1 shows a conventional AC/DC converter which converts the received commercially available alternating current (AC) power supply into a direct current (DC) voltage.
In FIG. 1, the AC/DC converter includes an input rectifying circuit RC1 which carries out a full rectification of an input alternating current voltage E.sub.i, a smoothing capacitor C1, a field effect transistor Q1 which serves as a switching device, a transformer Tr1, transformer magnetically resetting diode D4, an output rectifying diode D2, a flywheel diode D3, an output smoothing choke coil L2, and an output smoothing capacitor C2. Thus, the AC/DC converter serves to convert the alternating input voltage E.sub.i into a stable DC output voltage E.sub.0.
Although, in such an AC/DC converter as described above, a desired characteristic is exhibited for the output DC voltage, the input current thereof I.sub.i flows only at a time at which a peak of the instantaneous input alternating current voltage E.sub.i approximately appears as appreciated from FIG. 2.
Therefore, a power factor of the AC/DC converter shown in FIG. 1 is as low as about 0.5 through 0.7.
To improve the power factor, a method of inserting a large sized choke coil into the rectifying circuit has been proposed. However, the size and weight of the AC/DC converter are too large and heavy.
Another method for improving the power factor is to install a pre-converter to electronically improve the power factor has been proposed. However, the other method introduces the increased number of parts and components, large-sized and expensive AC/DC converter, and interferences between the switching devices in the AC/DC converters.


In an internal combustion engine including a valve actuating mechanism, a vibration control member made of vibration control alloy is interposed in a path of vibration transmission between a camshaft and a cylinder head. The vibration control alloy has a vibration isolation capability comparable to that of rubber, but provides a durability and a resistance to degradation comparable to those of metal and alloy that are typically used in internal combustion engines. Therefore, a desired vibration control can be achieved while ensuring a required reliability, durability and resistance to degradation. The present invention is particularly useful when the valve actuating mechanism is provided with a variable lift, variable timing or variable compression mechanism because such a variable mechanism increases the stress to the engine, and tends to cause more vibrations than a more conventional non-variable valve actuating mechanism.

The valve actuation system of an internal combustion engine for opening and closing intake valves and exhaust valves typically uses rocker arms that are each provided with a cam engagement portion for engaging a cam formed on a camshaft and a valve engagement portion for engaging the stem end of a valve. The camshaft is rotatably supported by a cam holder provided on the cylinder head, and a rocker arm shaft that rotatably supports the rocker arm is fixed to the cam holder. In such a valve actuating mechanism, vibrations that are produced as a result of actuation of the valve are transmitted to the outside, and are emitted as noises. In particular, when variable mechanisms such as variable valve lift mechanism, variable valve timing mechanism, a variable compression ratio mechanism, etc. is used, the adjusting mechanism tends to apply an additional stress to various parts of the engine, and the vibration problems often become even more acute. The vibrations are transmitted via at least two paths. Firstly, the vibrations owing to the collision between the valve and the valve engagement portion of the rocker arm are transmitted to the cam holder via the rocker arm. Secondly, the vibrations owing to the collision between the cam and cam engagement portion of the rocker arm are transmitted to the cam holder via the rocker arm or camshaft. In either case, the vibrations transmitted to the cam holder are emitted to the atmosphere via the cylinder head, head cover and so on, and turn into noises.
The crankshaft system comprises a connecting rod that transmits the reciprocating movement of the piston, a crankshaft that converts the movement transmitted from the connecting rod into a rotational movement, and a bearing that rotatably supports the journal of the crankshaft. In the case of the crankshaft system, the vibrations transmitted from the connecting rod to the crankshaft and bearing are converted into noises.
Conventionally, the transmission of vibrations from vibration sources to various components was controlled by using vibration control material such as rubber and plastic in the path of vibration transmission from the vibrations sources in the valve actuating mechanism and crankshaft system and thereby attenuating the transmission of vibrations from the vibration sources to the various components. Such a prior attempt at reducing vibrations and noises in internal combustion engines is disclosed, for instance, in Japanese patent laid open publication 6-185522.
However, the vibration control material such as rubber and plastic has a poor resistance to deformation and prone to degradation as compared with metallic material such as an aluminum alloy which is typically used in various components of the engine.

Vibration control arrangement for internal combustion engines


An insulated gate device has a substrate with a surface protrusion bearing a gate electrode. A conductive substance is provided on a side of the protrusion and on the substrate, with a height not above the upper surface of the protrusion. The conductive substance may be a metallic material or a semiconductive material, and functions as source and/or drain regions for a channel region formed in a protrusion under the gate electrode. Also, the conductive substance may contact the side surface of the protrusion either directly, or indirectly through an insulating layer capable of passing tunnel current.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a micro-semiconductor device and an integrated circuit using the same. The present invention also relates to a process for producing a micro-semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
So-called MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) and MIS (metal-insulator-semiconductor) field effect transistors (collectively referred to hereinafter as MISFETs) are the essential devices for integrated circuits (ICs), large scale integrated circuits (LSIs), and very-large scale integrated circuits (VLSIs). More advanced MISFETs are now developed with progress in the development of finer and faster devices.
An LDD(lightly doped drain)-type MISFET is known as the most advanced MISFET at the present. A schematically drawn structure of this device is given in FIG. 1. A MISFET of this structure is characterized by that the impurity region provided on the substrate, such as the source and the drain, has a continuously changing concentration, since there is no large electric field generated at the phase boundary between the impurity region and the channel region. Referring to FIG. 1, for example, areas changed in the conductive type are established, from a source electrode 107 to an n.sup.+ -type first source 102, then to an n.sup.- -type second source 103, a p.sup.- -type channel 108, followed by an n.sup.- -type second drain 104, an n.sup.- -type first drain 105, and finally to a drain electrode 106. Thus, because of a moderate gradient in the electric field at the boundary between the channel region and the impurity region, defects due to over-acceleration of the carriers at this region are less produced on the semiconductors and the gate insulator films. The LDD-type MISFETs are therefore endurable for use over a long period of time.
In a typical LDD-type MISFET as illustrated in FIG. 1, however, several problems arise with increasing fineness of the devices. Representatively, there can be mentioned an overlap of the impurity region and the gate electrode, and a concentration of the electric field between the impurity regions right below the gate insulator film. The former concerns the process. In general, the impurity region is established by ion-implantation, i.e., by bombarding the substrate with impurity ions in a self-consistent manner using the gate electrode as the mask. Ideally, there should be no overlap between the gate electrode and the impurity region, however, in practice, the impurity ions go beyond the desired region to the portion under the gate electrode. The reason for such overlapping is considered mainly due to the incident impurity ion beams which undergo a secondary scattering upon irradiation on the crystal lattices of the semiconductor substrate. This phenomena is more enhanced with increasing energy of the incident ion beam energy, and more pronounced with relative decrease in the gate width, i.e., the channel length. An overlap of the impurity region and the electrode impairs the speed of the MISFET due to the increased parasitic capacity between the gate electrode and the impurity region.
The latter of the aforementioned problems is also a serious problem in the case of a typical LDD-type MISFET. Referring to the MISFET as shown in FIG. 1, which comprises an impurity region of the structure as illustrated, the electric field become most concentrated between the points A and B at the ends of the second source region and of the second drain regions, respectively, upon application of a voltage between the source and the drain. Accordingly, the most accelerated carriers run between the two points, A and B; hence. the gate insulator films are liable to be damaged since those points are located right under them. The gate insulator film thus damaged by the accelerated carriers generates charge trap centers, and, in an extreme case, the gate electrode completely loses the ability to control the carrier passing through the channel region.
As a measure to overcome the aforementioned problems, an LDD-type MISFET as shown in FIG. 2 (a) has been proposed. The very difference between this MISFET and the conventional LDD-type MISFET of the structure given in FIG. 1 is that the points A and B, which are the end points of the second source region and the second drain region, respectively, are located remotely from the gate insulator films. Thus, the gate insulator films are less damaged by the concentration of the electric field to these two points. Furthermore, because of the electrode established distant from the impurity region, as it can be seen clearly from FIG. 2(a), the parasitic capacity can be reduced despite of the overlapping of the electrode and the impurity region.
The LDD-type MISFETs of this structure can be fabricated by bombarding impurity ions from an oblique direction with respect to the surface. However, an MISFET with a channel length of 0.5 .mu.m or less cannot be expected with a high yield because of the difficulty encountered in its fabrication process. More specifically, such structures can be fabricated with good reproducibility only when the accelerating energy of the impurity ions are controlled with high precision and when a highly ordered ion source is available. If those requirements are not sufficiently achieved at the fabrication process, the oblique incident ion beams enter into an unexpectedly deep region to result in a fused impurity region, as is shown in FIG. 2(b). This phenomena become more pronounced with minimizing the channel length.
In conclusion, it is industrially unfeasible to adapt the conventional LDD-type MISFETs, inclusive of the modified type as shown in FIG. 2, to MISFETs having a channel length of 0.5 .mu.m or less, particularly to the so-called quarter-micrometer MISFETs having a channel length of 0.3 .mu.m or less.

Insulated gate semiconductor device having an elevated plateau like portion

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


An organic light-emitting display device includes a thin film transistor, a first insulating layer, a first electrode a second insulating layer, an organic emission layer, a second electrode, a first auxiliary layer in a first region on the second electrode and having a first edge, a third electrode in a second region, on the second electrode and having a second edge contacting the first edge of the first auxiliary layer, and a second auxiliary layer on at least the first region and having a refractive index higher than the first auxiliary layer.

1. Field
Embodiments relate to an organic light-emitting display device and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Organic light-emitting display devices, which are self-emitting display devices that electrically excite an organic compound, have attracted much attention as next-generation display devices because the organic light-emitting display devices may be driven at a low voltage, may be easily made thin, and may have advantages such as wide viewing angles, fast response speeds, or the like which were previously pointed out as problems in liquid crystal display (LCD) devices.

Organic light-emitting display device and method of manufacturing the same


An internal addressing structure for a semiconductor memory with at least two memory banks, includes a counter associated for operation with each memory bank and capable of generating sequences of digital codes for addressing locations in the corresponding bank, a first circuit for causing a selective updating of the counters, a second circuit for loading into the counters a common initial digital code, forming part of an initial address supplied to the memory from the outside through an addressing line bus, corresponding to an initial memory location, and a third circuit capable of detecting a first signal, supplied to the memory from the outside and indicating the presence of a digital code on the bus, to cause the common initial digital code to be loaded into the counters. The first circuit is capable of identifying, on the basis of the initial address, the bank to which the initial memory location belongs, and of consequently causing the periodic updating of the counters in a sequence which depends on the bank to which the initial memory location belongs, in such a way that successive memory locations preceding or following the initial location are addressed in sequence, each of these successive locations belonging to a corresponding memory bank, according to an interlaced system.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of semiconductor memories, and particularly but not exclusively to non-volatile memories, such as flash EEPROM memories (referred to hereafter as xe2x80x9cflash memoriesxe2x80x9d).
2. Description of the Related Art
The typical structure of the simplest non-volatile semiconductor memories such as ROMs and EPROMs essentially comprises a matrix of memory cells (memory matrix) with the cells arranged in rows (word lines) and columns (bit lines), circuits for decoding an externally supplied address, circuits for selecting the memory cells within the matrix according to the externally supplied address, circuits for reading the contents of the selected memory cells, and output circuits for driving external data lines.
In a conventional non-volatile memory, the only form of reading access to the memory is random access. The address of a memory location whose content is to be read is supplied to the memory from the outside. Access to the memory is random because the memory cannot predict which memory location is to be accessed before the address of the location has been supplied to it from the outside. The decoding circuits and the selection circuits are responsible, respectively, for decoding the externally supplied address and for the selection of the memory cells which correspond to this address, in other words the selection of the rows and columns of the matrix. The reading circuits read the contents of the selected memory cells and supply the result of the reading to the output circuits; the data element read at the addressed memory location is sent to the data lines external to the memory.
In a memory access of this type, the time required to complete the reading (called the memory access time) is the total of a plurality of component times, representing the duration of the various elementary steps which make up the process of access to and extraction of the data element. These elementary steps comprise the propagation of the signals along the row and column selection paths, the activities of precharging, of the selected columns for example, the reading and evaluation of the data stored in the selected memory cells, the propagation and the transfer of the read data to the output circuits (xe2x80x9cbuffersxe2x80x9d), and the switching of these.
Each read access operation of the random type requires the execution of all the aforesaid elementary steps. Consequently, the access time is rather long, and it is always difficult to reduce it, even if advanced manufacturing technologies are used. In particular, the memory access time in random reading is longer than the time required simply to read the content of a location in the memory.
More advanced memories, such as flash memories, have a more complex structure and can be organized in such a way that the memory matrix is divided into two or more memory banks which are essentially independent. In flash memories, providing two or more memory banks permits a specificity of the erase operation, which, instead of always involving the whole of the memory, can involve only the cells of one memory bank.
In these memories it is possible to provide counters of various sizes, for carrying out functions which are of different kinds, but which generally all relate to the control of the activities of modifying the content of the memory cells (the xe2x80x9cmodifyxe2x80x9d operation) and of verifying this content (the xe2x80x9cverifyxe2x80x9d operation) after a modify operation. These functions can comprise, for example, the internal addressing of the memory matrix, the definition of the programming times for the memory cells whose content is to be modified, the counting of the memory cell programming attempts, etc. However, the counters operate in an entirely autonomous way, without coordination between them, each one carrying out the specific function assigned to it.
In view of the prior art which has been described, an embodiment of the present invention provides an internal addressing structure for a memory, which enables functionality additional to that of known memories to be implemented in the memory.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the internal addressing structure for a semiconductor memory includes at least two memory banks; a corresponding counter associated for operation with each memory bank and capable of generating sequences of digital codes for addressing locations of the corresponding bank; a first circuit for selectively updating the counters; a second circuit for loading into the counters a common initial digital code corresponding to an initial memory location; anda third circuit capable of detecting a signal, supplied to the memory from the outside and indicating the presence of a digital code on an address line bus, to cause the common initial digital code to be loaded into the counters.
The first circuit means is capable of identifying, on the basis of the initial address, the bank to which the initial memory location belongs, and of consequently causing the periodic updating of the counters in a sequence which depends on the bank to which the initial memory location belongs, in such a way that successive memory locations preceding or following the initial location are addressed in sequence, each of these successive locations belonging to a corresponding memory bank, according to an interlaced system.
Another embodiment provides a method of operation of a device according to the principles of the invention.

Internal addressing structure of a semiconductor memory


Reactant supply and effluent storage cartridges adapted for use with a closed liquid feed fuel cell system, as well as closed liquid feed fuel cell systems. The cartridge includes at least first and second volumes and comprises: a first reactant reservoir for holding a first reactant, the first reactant reservoir being configured to occupy substantially all of the first volume when filled with the first reactant; a second reactant reservoir for holding a second reactant, the second reactant reservoir being configured to occupy substantially all of the second volume when filled with the second reactant; and an effluent reservoir for holding effluent produced by the fuel cell system, the effluent reservoir being configured to occupy, when filled with the effluent produced by the fuel cell system, a portion of the first volume, a portion of the second volume, or a portion of the first and second volumes. The reactant supply cartridge of may further comprise an electrolyte reservoir for holding an electrolyte. In other embodiments, the present invention is directed to a computer system comprising the detachable cartridges and closed liquid feed fuel cell systems disclosed herein.

A fuel cell is an energy conversion device that consists essentially of two opposing electrodes, an anode and a cathode, ionically connected together via an interposing electrolyte. Unlike a battery, fuel cell reactants are supplied externally rather than internally. Fuel cells operate by converting fuels, such as hydrogen or a hydrocarbon (e.g., methanol), to electrical power through an electrochemical process rather than combustion. It does so by harnessing the electrons released from controlled oxidation-reduction reactions occurring on the surface of a catalyst. A fuel cell can produce electricity continuously so long as fuel and oxidant are supplied from an outside source.
In conventional electrochemical fuel cells employing methanol as the fuel supplied to the anode (also commonly referred to as a "Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC)" system), the electrochemical reactions are essentially as follows: first, a methanol molecule's carbon-hydrogen, and oxygen-hydrogen bonds are broken to generate electrons and protons; simultaneously, a water molecule's oxygen-hydrogen bond is also broken to generate an additional electron and proton. The carbon from the methanol and the oxygen from the water combine to form carbon dioxide. Oxygen from air (supplied to the cathode) is likewise simultaneously reduced at the cathode. The ions (protons) formed at the anode migrate through the interposing electrolyte and combine with the oxygen at the cathode to form water. From a molecular perspective, the electrochemical reactions occurring within a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) system are as follows:
                              Anode          :                                                                                CH                  3                                                OH                            +                                                H                  2                                                O                                      →                                          6                                                  H                  +                                            +                              6                                                  e                  -                                            +                                                CO                  2                                                                                E                  0                                                                    =                  0.04                                                              V                                                                          vs            .                                                              NHE                                              (        1        )                                                                    Cathode              :                                                                                3                      2                                                                                O                      2                                                        +                                      6                                                              H                      +                                                        +                                      6                                                              e                      -                                                                      →                                  3                                                        H                    2                                                      O                                                                                E                    0                                                                        =                          1.23                                                                                V                                                                                vs                .                                                                                NHE                                                                                _                            (        2        )                                                                                Net            :                                                                                CH                    3                                                      OH                                +                                                      3                    2                                                                          O                    2                                                              →                                                2                                                        H                    2                                                      O                                +                                                      CO                    2                                                                                E                    0                                                                                =                      1.24                                                                          V                                                                                vs              .                                                                        NHE                                                          (        3        )
The various electrochemical reactions associated with other state-of-the-art fuel cell systems (e.g., hydrogen or carbonaceous fuel) are likewise well known to those skilled in the art of fuel cell technologies.
With respect to state-of-the-art fuel cell systems generally, several different configurations and structures have been contemplated. In this regard, existing fuel cell systems are typically classified based on one or more criteria, such as, for example: (1) the type of fuel and/or oxidant used by the system, (2) the type of electrolyte used in the electrode stack assembly, (3) the steady-state operating temperature of the electrode stack assembly, (4) whether the fuel is processed outside (external reforming) or inside (internal reforming) the electrode stack assembly, and (5) whether the reactants are fed to the cells by internal manifolds (direct feed) or external manifolds (indirect feed). In general, however, it is perhaps most customary to classify existing fuel cell systems by the type of electrolyte (i.e., ion conducting media) employed within the electrode stack assembly. Accordingly, most state-of-the-art fuel cell systems have been classified into one of the following known groups:                1. Alkaline fuel cells (e.g., KOH electrolyte);        2. Acid fuel cells (e.g., phosphoric acid electrolyte);        3. Molten carbonate fuel cells (e.g., Li2CO3/K2CO3 electrolyte);        4. Solid oxide fuel cells (e.g., yttria-stabilized zirconia electrolyte);        5. Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (e.g., NAFION electrolyte).
Although these state-of-the-art fuel cell systems are known to have many diverse structural and operational characteristics, such systems nevertheless share many common fuel and oxidant flow stream and path characteristics. Unfortunately, existing state-of-the-art fuel and oxidant flow regimes are not entirely satisfactory for the production of small-scale portable direct feed fuel cell systems. Moreover, existing fuel cell technology has not addressed many of the concomitant problems associated with making and using direct circulating liquid feed fuel cell systems adapted for use with portable electronic devices. Accordingly, there is still a need in the art for new and improved fuel cell systems (including related sub-components and methods) that have, among other things, improved fuel and oxidant flow regimes to thereby enable better utilization of the fuel cell system's supply of reactants (i.e., fuel and oxidants). The present invention fulfills these needs and provides for further related advantages.

Fluid cell system reactant supply and effluent storage cartridges


A coupler for coupling first and second fiber optic cables terminating in first and second connectors having first and second ferrules, respectively. The coupler includes a holder element and a mating element. The holder element defines a channel for receiving the first ferrule and a socket aligned with the channel for receiving an optical component The holder element further defines a first cable connector adapted for connection to the first connector and a first element connector opposite said first cable connector. The mating element defines a channel for receiving the second ferrule, a second cable connector adapted for connection to the second connector and a second element connector opposite the second cable connector. Accordingly, the holder element and mating element are connectable to house an optical component aligned with the channels and positionable substantially contiguous with the first and second ferrules when attached thereto.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to fiber optic couplers and particularly to a fiber optic coupler with an in-line optical component.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of fiber optics, it is often necessary to operate on an optical beam carried by an optical fiber using an optical component. For example, such optical components may include filters, such as colored glass, interference or neutral density filters, e.g. for blocking out or passing specific wavelengths of light, attenuators for reducing optical power to a desired range, polarizers for controlling the polarization of light, and isolators for preventing back reflections and other noise from reaching sensitive optical components. Such optical components are well known in the art.
A variety of "bench top" devices are known for use in a laboratory to set up optical components and fiber optic cables to allow access to and operation upon an optical beam. For example, Thor Labs of Newton, N.J., USA and Ocean Optics, Inc. of Dunedin, Fla., USA offer typical devices. These devices are adapted to position and hold a pair of fiber optic cables (and therefore fibers) in alignment at a specified distance from each other, e.g., approximately 1 to 2 inches. These devices include a structure permitting an optical component to be positioned therebetween to perform the desired operation on the optical beam after it exits the first fiber/cable and before it enters the second fiber/cable.
It will be appreciated that optical fibers provide for complete internal reflection of light and therefore there is little dissipation of light as it propagates along a continuous fiber. Where light dissipation will typically occur is at any interface between two mediums having different refractive indices, e.g. at a fiber/air interface, such as at the end of a single fiber or between two fibers held by a bench top device. Accordingly, as soon as the light leaves the first fiber and travels through the open air, the light begins to dissipate and/or diverge. This effect is significant even over the relatively short distance between the fibers when mounted in such bench top devices. Accordingly, each bench top device requires a pair of collimation lenses to focus the dissipating/diverging beam of light. In a bench top device, one such lens is positioned between each fiber and the optical component. These lenses are relatively expensive, typically costing hundreds of dollars and being the most expensive components in the bench top device.
There is a current trend toward the use of fiber optics in various pieces of equipment, and towards miniaturization of such equipment, e.g. to develop handheld devices. Such bench top devices are sufficiently large in size, e.g., approximately three inches by six inches by two inches, to be unsuitable for use in typical hand-held devices. The optical component is typically relatively large, e.g., greater than one-half inch square or approximately one inch round to account for inaccuracies in positioning of the fibers and/or optical component, and to facilitate handling. Such an arrangement is wasteful of optical component materials and contributes unnecessarily to the cost of the device.
Additionally, bench top devices require a high degree of precision in alignment of the fibers and optical component, and are therefore subject to a risk of misalignment due to jarring, etc. Some such devices have adjustments to permit realignment, but any realignment process requires an undesirable amount of work and time.
While some couplers with in-line optical components are known in the art, such couplers lack sufficient versatility to permit easy interchangeability of optical components and/or to allow for interchangeability of optical components of various thicknesses, particularly for connectors unlike the ST and FC connectors, which have floating, spring-biased designs and therefore have a degree of built-in versatility. Unlike telecommunications applications, which primarily involve long-term use of a pre-selected optical component in a given coupler, in spectroscopic applications, optical components must often be interchanged for a given coupler, e.g. when using a different sensor to perform a different analysis, or when analyzing a next, different substance.
What is needed is a compact, lens-free fiber optic coupler that provides for secure alignment of fibers, conservation of optical component materials, easy interchangeability of optical components, e.g. without the need for supplemental support structures such as bushings, sleeves or rings, and accommodation of interchangeable optical components of various thicknesses, and therefore various types.

Fiber optic coupler with in-line optical component


An image forming system includes a plurality of image forming apparatuses, a determining unit, and a control unit. The image forming apparatuses are connected in series in a paper conveyance direction, and include first and second image forming apparatuses. The second image forming apparatus is disposed downstream of the first image forming apparatus in the paper conveyance direction. The determining unit determines whether image data is front-side data or back-side data at a time of duplex printing. The control unit controls the first image forming apparatus to print an image based on the back-side data, and controls the second image forming apparatus to print an image based on the front-side data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system and a computer readable medium containing a program.
2. Description of Related Art
There have been known image forming systems including two image forming apparatuses connected in series in the paper conveyance direction. When such image forming systems perform duplex printing, the first image forming apparatus disposed upstream in the paper conveyance direction prints an image on the front side of paper, and the second image forming apparatus disposed downstream in the paper conveyance direction prints an image on the back side the of paper, for example.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-225123 discloses a tandem continuous-form printer that prints an image on one side of paper with a first printer engine, and prints an image on the other side of the paper with a second printer engine when a duplex printing mode is selected.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-225123, however, does not disclose or suggest which of the image data corresponding to the front side of paper and the image data corresponding to the back side of the paper is to be printed first in a duplex printing mode. In general, in order to perform duplex printing, an additional mechanism has to be provided to allow paper to wait at a predetermined place, such as at a paper turning-over unit, after an upstream image forming apparatus completes printing on one side of paper and before a downstream image forming apparatus is ready for printing on the other side of the paper. In addition, there is a danger that the paper, whose one side is printed, deforms while staying at the turning-over unit until the downstream image forming apparatus is ready for printing on the other side of the paper.

Image forming system and computer readable medium containing program

KONICA MINOLTA BUSINESS TECHNOLGIES, INC.


Disclosed is a composition of an essentially solid phase state having as components, a liquid hydrophilic organic polymer, an aqueous salt solution containing at least one metallic or metalloid element, and a coagulating agent. The composition on calcination provides a metal-containing powder having an average particle size of 1 micrometer or less. Such metal-containing powders are of value in the preparation of industrial catalysts, ceramics, electronic components, or as fillers in plastics, paints or cosmetics.

Metal or metal oxide particles of submicron size are a valuable industrial commodity finding use in many applications including for example in the manufacture of industrial catalyst such as might be employed in the chemical industry, in the manufacture of ceramics, of electronic components, and as fillers for, for example, plastics, paints or cosmetics.
A large variety of techniques are available for the manufacture of metal or metal oxide powders having a very fine particle size. Such techniques include solution processes and high temperature gas phase and condensed phase syntheses. For a comprehensive review of the general techniques available reference is made to the recent publication entitled "Chemical Engineering Aspects of Advanced Ceramic Materials" by V. Hlavacek and J. A. Puszynski published in the Journal of Industrial Engineering and Chemical Research, pages 349-377, Volume 35, 1996.
Despite the numerous procedures available, a problem in common to a lesser or greater extent with nearly all methods is the difficulty of obtaining consistently fine uniform particles of good purity. Procedures that can provide a greater consistency in this respect invariably have high costs associated with their operation due to the complexity of the equipment required, the use of expensive and potentially hazardous raw materials, or high energy consumption. Recently two closely related procedures have been published which provide a means of manufacturing submicron sized metal powders without need of complex and costly equipment. In the publication EP-A-621,234 to manufacture metal powders it is required to calcine a polyurethane polymer containing a metal salt; however yields are relatively low. In another publication, WO96/29280 this polyurethane approach has been modified by avoidance of the use of polyisocyanate, a hazardous chemical, with the requirement to subject to calcination a gel or liquid. Gels are difficult to handle or manipulate in such a calcining procedure; handling of solids is highly preferred.
It would therefore be desirable to develop a cost effective procedure leading to the production of metal or metal oxide powders having a consistently fine particle size. It would be of particular advantage if such a procedure could be operated using raw materials readily available and could be operated in the substantial absence of highly specialized equipment and costly solvents or chemical processing aids. It would also be an advantage if such a procedure were able to provide for the production of metal powders in a more attractive yield by calcination of solids in contrast to gels which are notoriously difficult to handle in industrial procedures.

Composition comprising a metal salt and metal powder therefrom by the calcining thereof


An in-plane-switching mode liquid crystal display device includes a first ferroelectric liquid crystal layer on a first substrate, a second ferroelectric liquid crystal layer on a second substrate, the first and second substrates being bonded to each other with a space therebetween, and a nematic liquid crystal layer at the space between the first and second ferroelectric liquid crystal layers, the first and second ferroelectric liquid crystal layers including a photo-polymerizational monomer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device, and, more particularly, to an in-plane-switching mode liquid crystal display device using a ferroelectric liquid crystal material and a method of fabricating the same.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In general, a liquid crystal display (LCD) device controls an electric field applied to a liquid crystal cell. The controlling of the electric field modulates light incident to the liquid crystal cell, thereby displaying a picture. The liquid crystal display devices may employ a vertical electric field method and a horizontal electric field method to drive the liquid crystal cell.
In the vertical electric field method, a pixel electrode and a common electrode are formed on an upper substrate and a lower substrate, respectively. Thus, the pixel and common electrodes are vertically opposite to each other, and an electric field is generated vertically across a liquid crystal cell by a voltage difference applied between the pixel and common electrodes. For example, a twisted nematic (TN) mode LCD device generally uses the vertical electric field method. The twisted nematic mode LCD device has a relatively wide aperture ratio. However, since the liquid crystal molecules have different refractive indices, a display picture varies for an observer depending on a viewing angle. Thus, there is a disadvantage that the realization of wide viewing angle is difficult.
Further, in-plane-switching (IPS) mode LCD devices generally use the horizontal electric field method. In the horizontal electric field method, an electric field is generated between the electrodes formed on the same substrate to drive the liquid crystal cell.
FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of an in-plane-switching mode liquid crystal display device according to the related art. In FIG. 1, a liquid crystal display device includes an upper glass substrate 12 and a lower glass substrate 18 with a liquid crystal layer having liquid crystal molecules 14 formed therebetween. A polarizer 11 and an alignment layer 13 are respectively formed on an upper surface and a lower surface of the upper substrate 12. In addition, an alignment film 17 and a polarizer 19 are respectively formed on an upper surface and a lower surface of the lower substrate 18. In particular, the axes of the polarizers 11 and 19 cross each other.
Further, a common electrode 15 and a pixel electrode 16 are formed on the alignment film 17 on the lower substrate 18. In particular, an electric field 20 is generated along a horizontal direction by a voltage difference applied between the common electrode 15 and the pixel electrode 16. As a result, the liquid crystal molecules 14 are rotated by the electric field 20, thereby modulating a polarization component of light transmitting through the liquid crystal layer. For instance, if the polarization component of light transmitting through the liquid crystal layer is changed by 90 degrees, then light passes through the upper polarizer 11. On the other hand, if the polarization component of light does not change, then light cannot pass thorough the upper polarizer 11.
The IPS mode liquid crystal display device according to the related art has a wide viewing angle since a refractive index change of the liquid crystal molecules 14 is not large. However, the electric field applied to the liquid crystal molecules 14 is done with the opaque common and pixel electrodes 15 and 16 on the lower substrate 18. In particular, because a light switching is not made on the common and pixel electrodes 15 and 16, the electric field applied to the liquid crystal molecules 14 is bent. Thus, the IPS mode liquid crystal display device according to the related art has a disadvantage of having a low aperture ratio.

In-plane-switching mode liquid crystal display device and method of fabricating the same with nematic liquid crystal molecule layer driven in-plane by molecules of sandwiching ferroelectric layers rotating along a virtual cone


In a first step, the value of the synthetic retardation and the direction of the synthetic optical axis as angle data of a transparent substrate having a thin film thereon are measured. In a second step, the value of the retardation and the direction of an optical axis as angle data of only the transparent substrate are measured. In a third step, the value of the retardation and the direction of an optical axis as an angle of only the thin film are calculated in accordance with the following equations on the basis of the value of the retardation and the angle data of the direction of the optical axis which are calculated in the first step and the value of the retardation and the angle data of the direction of the optical axis of only the transparent substrate which are calculated in the second step: ##EQU1##

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of measuring optical characteristics such as the retardation and the direction of an optical axis of a thin film formed on a transparent substrate, and an apparatus therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Measurement of optical characteristics of an optically anisotropic thin film such as an alignment film formed on a substrate surface of a liquid crystal display device or the like is generally performed by the following method. A target thin film to be measured is formed on a transparent substrate such as a glass substrate, light is radiated from a laser onto this substrate having the thin film thereon through a polarizer and a photoelastic modulator, light passing through the substrate and the target film is detected by a photodetector through an analyzer, and optical characteristics of the target thin film, i.e., the retardation (the difference between the lengths of optical paths of ordinary and extraordinary rays) and an angle .theta. of an optical axis (phase-delay or phase-advance axis) in accordance with arithmetic operations.
In the above conventional method of measuring the optical characteristics, however, since light detected by the analyzer is light having passed through the target thin film and the substrate having this thin film thereon, the retardation and the angle of the optical axis of the target thin film cannot be accurately measured, resulting in inconvenience.
This inaccuracy in measurement is caused since the substrate having the target thin film thereon also has optical anisotropy and, for this reason, the measured retardation and the measured angle of the optical axis represent the synthetic optical characteristics of both the target thin film and the substrate.

Method of measuring optical characteristics of thin film and apparatus therefor


A linguistic disambiguation system and method creates a knowledge base by training on patterns in strings that contain ambiguity sites. The string patterns are described by a set of reduced regular expressions (RREs) or very reduced regular expressions (VRREs). The knowledge base utilizes the RREs or VRREs to resolve ambiguity based upon the strings in which the ambiguity occurs. The system is trained on a training set, such as a properly labeled corpus. Once trained, the system may then apply the knowledge base to raw input strings that contain ambiguity sites. The system uses the RRE- and VRRE-based knowledge base to disambiguate the sites.

Natural language processing systems are computer implemented software systems that intelligently derive meaning and context from natural language text. "Natural languages" are languages that are spoken by humans (e.g., English, French, Japanese). Computers cannot, without assistance, distinguish linguistic characteristics of natural language text. Natural language processing systems are employed in a wide range of products, including spell checkers, grammar checkers, machine translation systems, and speech synthesis programs.
Oftentimes, natural languages contain ambiguities that are difficult to resolve using computer automated techniques. Ambiguities come in many forms. Confusable words (e.g. then/than, its/it's, weather/whether) are one of the biggest sources of grammar errors by users. Possessive/plural types (e.g., kids/kid's) is another source for ambiguity. A third common example is part-of-speech tagging, such as differentiating whether "produce" is a noun or a verb. A fourth example is word sense disambiguation, such as deciding whether a particular instance of the word "crane" is referring to a bird or a machine.
Many natural language processing problems can be viewed as trying to disambiguate a token into one of a small number of possible labels, based upon the string context in which that token appears. For example, a spell checker may try to decide whether the word "then" or "than" is appropriate in the sentence "I am much smarter then/than you are." A machine translation system may try to determine what the word sense is of the word "line" in the sentence "I am not going to wait in line", so it can more accurately determine what the proper translation is. A speech synthesis program may try to decide whether the word "produce" is a noun or a verb in the sentence "This grocery store has beautiful produce", in order to determine the proper pronunciation for the word.
To automatically perform disambiguations, the natural language processing system is provided with linguistic knowledge that it applies to the string context in order to disambiguate. Linguistic knowledge can either be entered manually or learned automatically. Typically, the manual approach has the advantage that people can provide linguistically sophisticated knowledge. Automatic approaches are beneficial in that the linguistic knowledge can be derived empirically from essentially unlimited amounts of data, can be rapidly ported to new domains, languages, or problems, and can be constantly and automatically adapted to a particular individual or subpopulation.
To date, automatic approaches have been extremely constrained in the types of linguistic information they can learn. For example, conventional systems automatically learn how to disambiguate words/phrases by learning cues based on whether a specific word appears within a pre-specified window of words from a "disambiguation site" (i.e., the place in the text where the ambiguity to be resolved actually occurs), and what combinations of words and word features (such as part of speech) appear in immediate proximity to the disambiguation site. The contextual words and phrases surrounding the disambiguation site are commonly referred to as the "string context" or simply "string".
To provide a concrete example of a token disambiguation problem, a spell/grammar checker may wish to check whether the words "then" and "than" are confused anywhere in a document. Suppose the sentence is:                I am much bigger then you.The spell/grammar checker will try to determine whether "then" or "than" is the correct word. It does so by analyzing the string context (e.g., the sentence in which the word appears) and applying its linguistic knowledge to this string context to determine which word is more likely. In this particular example, it may make use of its linguistic knowledge that the word "than" immediately follows a comparative adjective much more often than the word "then".
There are two primary components of a machine learning approach to the problem of token disambiguation based on a string context: (1) the algorithms used for learning and applying the learned knowledge to perform disambiguation and (2) the specification of features the learner is allowed to explore in training. Over the past decade, there have been many different approaches to (1), but very little progress in (2).
For confusable word set disambiguation, an article by Golding and Schabes, entitled "Combining Trigram-based and Feature-based Methods for Context-Sensitive Spelling Correction," Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 1996, describes training a naïve Bayes classifier using as features the set of words that appear within +/−3 words of the target word and patterns of up to 2 contiguous words and/or part of speech tags around the target word. In an article by Golding and Roth, entitled "A Winnow-Based Approach to Spelling Correction," Machine Learning, Special issue on Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing, Volume 34, pp. 107-130, 1999, the authors propose using the Winnow machine-learning algorithm with essentially the same features. In an article by Mangu and Brill, entitled "Automatic Rule Acquisition for Spelling Correction," Proc. of the Fourteenth International Conference on Machine Learning, ICML'97, Nashville, Tenn., 1997, the authors describe use of transformation-based learning, again using the same features. In an article by Jones and Martin, entitled, "Contextual Spelling Correction Using Latent Semantic Analysis," Proceedings of the Fifth Conference on Applied Natural Language Processing, 1997, the authors propose use of latent semantic analysis as the learning algorithm, and features that include the set of words and contiguous word pairs (bigrams) that appear within a window of +/−7 words of the target word.
For word sense disambiguation, an article by Ng, entitled "Exemplar-Based Word Sense Disambiguation: Some Recent Improvements," Proceedings of the Second Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, 1997, describes systems for word sense disambiguation that employ two different machine learning algorithms, naïve Bayes and Nearest-Neighbor. In both systems, the features used were: word before, word after, word two before, word two after, the pair of words before, the pair of words after, and the two surrounding words. In an article by Yarowsky, entitled "One sense per collocation," In Proceedings of the ARPA Human Language Technology Workshop, 1993, the author proposes using a decision list learning algorithm with a very similar set of features.
One attempt at a richer feature set was proposed by Christer Samuellson, Pasi Tapanainen and Atro Voutilainen in "Inducing Constraint Grammars," published in Grammatical Inference: Learning Syntax from Sentences, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 1147, Springer (L. Miclet and C. del la Huguera eds), 1996. There they propose a system that can learn barrier rules for part of speech tagging. A barrier rule consists of a pair of symbols X and Y and a set of symbols S, and matches a string if that string contains X and Y, with X preceding Y and no symbols from the set S intervening between X and Y.
Despite these efforts, there remains a need for a method for learning much more expressive disambiguation cues. Such a method should be capable of being applied to virtually any problem involving token disambiguation in a string context, and should offer significant performance gains over current state of the art automatic linguistic knowledge acquisition solutions to these problems.

Linguistic disambiguation system and method using string-based pattern training learn to resolve ambiguity sites


A yoke for the speaker includes: a parent member molded of an iron-based powder; and a heterogeneous material molded of a metal powder having a higher conductivity and a lower magnetic susceptibility than the iron-based powder, wherein the heterogeneous material is integrally disposed on at least one of a part of a surface of the parent member, or an internal portion of the parent member, or both, and the heterogeneous material diverts an eddy current generated in the parent member.

A speaker apparatus converts an electrical signal into a mechanical signal in the form of sound that is audible by the human through a medium such as air.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a general speaker apparatus. As shown in FIG. 1, the general speaker apparatus includes a yoke 10, a magnet 20, a bobbin 30, a voice coil 40, and a diaphragm 50. In this case, the yoke 10 is divided into a lower yoke 10 and an upper yoke 10. Accordingly, during an operation of the speaker apparatus, the voice coil 40 vibrates along with a change in current flowing in the voice coil 40 in a magnetic field formed by the magnet 20, and the vibration of the voice coil 40 is transferred to the diaphragm 50 through the bobbin 30, and accordingly, the diaphragm 50 vibrates to form a sound.
However, when undesired eddy current is formed in the yoke 10 during the operation of the speaker apparatus, a flux is formed in an opposite direction to a desired direction due to the eddy current, which degrades sound quality.
In particular, the yoke 10 is manufactured by molding an iron-based bulk including pure iron and an iron-based alloy via forging, and in this regard, the yoke 10 manufactured via forging as such has a dense internal structure, and thus, there is a problem in that eddy current is easily generated to degrade sound quality.
Accordingly, in order to prevent sound quality from being degraded, methods of reducing the amplitude of the eddy current generated in the yoke or diverting the path of the eddy current generated in the yoke have been proposed.
For example, a method of reducing a path of the eddy current by a pore to reduce the amplitude of the eddy current when the eddy current is generated in the yoke as the yoke is molded via powder molding to form the pore therein has been used.
As a method of diverting the path of the eddy current generated in the yoke, a technology for applying a copper cap to the yoke has been proposed.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an internal view of the conventional speaker apparatus. FIGS. 3 and 4 are cross-sectional views showing main parts of the conventional speaker apparatus. As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, in the conventional speaker apparatus, to divert the eddy current, a copper cap 60 is applied to a yoke. Copper has properties whereby current flows therethrough but does not have magnetism, and thus, the eddy current formed in the yoke 10 is diverted to the copper cap 60 to prevent the eddy current generated in the yoke 10 from interfering with vibration of the voice coil 40. Then, a magnetic flux due to air is formed around the copper cap 60, but copper itself does not form a magnetic flux, and thus, only a weak magnetic flux is formed in the air to minimize degradation of sound quality.
However, the copper cap 60 applied to the conventional speaker apparatus is separately manufactured from the yoke 10 and is assembled therewith, and thus, as shown in FIG. 4, an air gap G is inevitably formed between the copper cap 60 and the yoke 10, and the air gap G obstructs transmission of the eddy current generated in the yoke to the copper cap 60. Accordingly, although the copper cap 60 is applied, there is a problem in that enhancement in degradation of sound quality is incomplete.
The contents described as the related art have been provided only to assist in understanding the background of the present disclosure and should not be considered as corresponding to the related art known to those having ordinary skill in the art.

Yoke for speaker having heterogeneous material and iron-based material integrally molded, method of manufacturing the same, and speaker apparatus including yoke for speaker


Low MFFT aqueous polymer dispersions of film-forming, relatively low Tg ethylenic/carboxylic polymer particulates, e.g., styrene/alkyl acrylate/acrylic acid copolymer particles, are well adapted for the production of wear- and soil-resistant coatings and adhesives, and include an effective, at least partially "neutralizing" amount of a polyoxyalkyleneamine, e.g., a polyoxyalkyleneamine bearing at least one primary and/or secondary amine functional group.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to aqueous dispersions of film-forming polymers prepared from ethylenically unsaturated monomers, and, more especially, to latices of acrylic or vinyl polymers containing a polyoxyalkyleneamine which includes, per molecule, at least one primary and/or secondary amine functional group.
This invention also relates to aqueous coating compositions comprising such dispersions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Aqueous dispersions of addition polymers prepared from ethylenically unsaturated monomers are commonly employed as binders for fillers and pigments sought to be fixed or secured onto a substrate for various applications such as paints, adhesives, sealing and impermeability coatings, paper coating and the like.
For these applications, the effectiveness of the dispersion in forming a resistant film after a surface is coated depends on the glass transition temperature Tg of the dispersed polymer and on the minimum film-formation temperature MFFT of the dispersion, which determines the ability of the particles to coalesce.
It is generally desirable that the MFFT should be lower than room temperature and as low as possible. However, it is generally accepted that so-called "soft" resins of low Tg produce coatings whose resistance to wear and to soiling is less than that of the so-called "hard" resins.
A traditional technique for lowering the MFFT of a relatively hard polymer entails adding an inert plasticizer of the phthalate or polyalkylene glycol type and/or a coalescing agent to the coating composition. These additives are not entirely satisfactory and, in the case of coalescing agents which are volatile materials, they present the major disadvantage of creating environmental and atmospheric pollution risks.
Another technique for providing latices which have a low MFFT from monomers forming a "hard" polymer entails incorporating into the polymer chain hydrophilic monomer recurring structural units containing hydroxyl, amine, acetate or carboxylic acid functional groups. However, the film produced often exhibits a very high water sensitivity and a poor abrasion resistance, especially in a wet medium.

Polyoxyalkyleneamine-neutralized, low MFFT aqueous dispersions of ethylenic/carboxylic polymers


Provided is a binder for an electrostatic image developing toner using a polyester resin in which at least a part of a carboxylic acid component (a) and/or an alcohol component (b) comprises a carboxy-modified polyolefin or a hydroxyl-terminated polyalkadiene that may be hydrogenated containing an aliphatic hydrocarbon group (x) having a carbon number of 100 to 1,000. The binder is excellent in environmental stability and does not generate a peculiar odor around a copier or a printer when the binder is used in a toner, and a toner using the binder.

An electrostatic image developing toner for a heat fixing method adopted generally as a fixing method of an image in a copier, a printer, and the like requires that a toner does not fuse with a heat roll even at a high fixing temperature (hot offset resistance); that a toner can be fixed even at a low fixing temperature (low temperature fixing properties); further that stable image quality be obtained even under the conditions of low temperature and low humidity to high temperature and high humidity (environmental stability); and the like. Polyester resin has been studied as a toner binder due to excellent low temperature fixing properties, and in particular there is disclosed that the use of polyester resin containing, as constituents, a bisphenol A-based monomer and an alkenylsuccinic acid-based monomer component having a carbon number of 12 to 44 can stably provide a suitable copy image (refer to, e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 06-202374).
However, the polyester resin proposed above has excellent environmental stability, but has a peculiar odor. Thus, the use of a toner comprising said polyester resin generates a peculiar odor surrounding a copy machine or a printer; therefore, the toner is insufficient as a binder for an electrostatic image developing toner.
The present inventors have earnestly studied to solve the above-described problem, thereby leading to the present invention.

Binder for electrostatic image developing toner


An electrostatic discharge protective circuit including an ESD protective circuit which has a trigger terminal and forms a discharge path from a first node to a second node when trigger signals are supplied to the trigger terminal, a trigger circuit included in a circuit to be protected which is connected between the first and second nodes, the trigger circuit having a first MOS device, and which functions as a part of the circuit to be protected at the time of normal operation when ESD voltage is not applied, and forms a conductive path between a drain and source of the MOS device when ESD voltage of a predetermined value or more is applied to the first node during a normal operation, and supplying the trigger signals to the trigger terminal of the ESD protective circuit when the first MOS device becomes conductive.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrostatic discharge protective circuit and a semiconductor integrated circuit device using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an interface of a semiconductor integrated circuit device is made to function at higher speeds, there is increasing demand for higher speed input/output buffer circuits connected between an internal circuit and an input/output terminal of a semiconductor integrated circuit. Normally, a logic circuit section of the internal circuit is required to be operated particularly at high speeds, and as a result a thin film transistor in which a thin gate insulation film is used is provided as a component thereof. Meanwhile, the input/output buffer circuit is formed of a thick film transistor in which the gate insulation film is formed to be thick, but in order to operate the input/output buffer circuit at high speeds, in some cases, the input/output buffer circuits also need to be formed of thin film transistors.
For example, as shown in FIG. 7, an output buffer circuit 76 which is formed of a pair of thin film PMOS device 71 and NMOS device 72 is connected between power source terminals 74 and 75 to which voltages VDD and VSS are applied, respectively. These terminals 74 and 75 will be referred to as VDD terminal and VSS terminal, hereinafter. An output of the output buffer circuit 76 is supplied to an I/O terminal 73. An ESD (electrostatic discharge) protective circuit 79 which comprises the PMOS device 77 and the NMOS device 78 is provided in parallel with the output buffer circuit 76. In this case, the gate of the NMOS device 78 which forms the protective circuit 79 is connected to the power source terminal 75 such that the NMOS device 78 is normally set to be off and is not turned on due to an output signal applied to the I/O terminal 73.
In this state, when the ESD voltage is applied to the I/O terminal 73, and if the gate of the thin transistors 71 and 72 of the output buffer circuit 76 is in a floating state, the output buffer circuit 76 will be turned on first. As a result, a large ESD surge current flows from the NMOS device 72 of the output buffer circuit 76 to the VSS terminal 75, and the NMOS device 72 may be damaged before it is protected by the ESD protective circuit 79.
In addition, the size of the ESD protective circuit 79 must be increased in order to increase the current capacity of the discharge path, but in general, the parasitic capacitance is large for a large MOS device, and this is inconsistent with increasing the operation speed. For this reason, as shown in FIG. 8, instead of using MOS devices in the ESD protective circuit 79, a protective device 81 such as an SCR (Semiconductor Controlled Rectifier) which has low parasitic capacitance and high discharge capacity is used in the ESD protective circuit together with diodes 82 and 83. In the circuit of FIG. 8, the VDD terminal 74 and the I/O terminal 73 are isolated by the diode 82 and the I/O terminal 73 and the VSS terminal 75 are isolated by the diode 83.
In the case where the protective device 81 comprising the SCR is used as the ESD protective circuit, the trigger voltage of the SCR must be set so as to be lower than the trigger voltage or the turning on voltage of the NMOS device 72 of the buffer circuit 76. However, since the electric potential at the gate of the buffer circuit and the internal circuit shown in FIGS. 7 and 8 at the time when the ESD voltage is applied is not generally fixed and is almost in a floating state, so that it is difficult to predict the sufficient trigger voltage. For example, it is impossible to accurately set the trigger voltage for the MOS device 72 at all cases. As a result, it is also difficult to set the trigger voltage at the protective device 81.
An example of a prior art using such an ESD protective circuit comprising SCR is that described Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 8-293583. In the technology described in this publication, SCR is used for protecting an input/output buffer, but the configuration is complex because an SCR trigger dedicated circuit for triggering the SCR is formed separately from the input/output buffer. In addition, when ESD voltage is applied, a buffer circuit that is to be protected before the SCR trigger dedicate circuit operates, operates first and thus there is the possibility that a large current caused by the ESD flows to the buffer circuit which is damage.

Electrostatic discharge protective circuit and semiconductor integrated circuit using the same


An apparatus comprising a first circuit and a second circuit. The first circuit may be configured to calculate and present an output signal having a first resolution in response to (i) an input signal having a second resolution and (ii) one or more control signals. The second circuit may be configured to generate the control signals in response to (i) a previous calculation by the first circuit and (ii) one or more input parameters. The first circuit may be configured to scale and filter the input signal.

A block move engine (BME) operates on blocks of data, which occupy rectangular regions when displayed. The block of data is read by the BME a single scan line at a time (i.e., a single dimension). To achieve 2 dimensional resizing or filtering, data is run through the BME twice, once with horizontal scanning and once with vertical scanning. The horizontal and vertical scanning can be interchanged. The results of the first pass (vertical or horizontal) are input for the second pass.
A basic scaling operation (without filtering) involves changing a number of pixels in an image by repeating or dropping pixel data in a regular pattern to obtain the required image scale factor (i.e., for 90% scaling, every 10th pixel is discarded). However visible distortions in the image appear.

Block move engine with scaling and/or filtering for video or graphics


An extremely small aperture is formed using a sharp conductive tip. The aperture may be in the form of a transparent window or an open aperture. In a first embodiment, the conductive tip is positioned adjacent a layer of titanium and a voltage is applied to the tip. The intense electric field near the tip anodizes the titanium and creates a small transparent window of titanium dioxide. In a second embodiment, a titanium layer is covered with a layer of silicon, a small region of the silicon is oxidized using a conductive tip, and the silicon and then the titanium are etched. In a third embodiment, an electric field from a conductive tip creates a pit in a surface titanium oxide layer. The titanium is then etched, using the oxide layer as a mask, to form an open aperture. The conductive tip is preferably the tip of an atomic force microscope. This process is useful in constructing any instrument, such as a near field optical scanning microscope or a scanning ion conductance microscope, which requires an extremely small, precise aperture.

Near field scanning microscopy is a technique for analyzing objects by means of a light beam which is directed through a very small aperture. The aperture can take the form of a window made of a transparent material or an actual opening in an opaque material. The sample to be studied is positioned in the "near field" of the aperture, which begins at the aperture and extends outward a distance equal to about one-half of the width of the aperture, wherein the light emerging from the aperture remains collimated. The width of the aperture must be less than one-half the wavelength (.lambda.) of the light, and it is frequently made substantially smaller than the wavelength (e.g., .lambda./20). During scanning, the aperture must be maintained at a constant distance from the sample.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,354,985 to Quate, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes an NSOM in which an optical waveguide is formed along the longitudinal axis of a cantilever. During scanning, the cantilever is positioned parallel to the surface of the sample. A tip is formed near the free end of the cantilever, and the small aperture is formed at the apex of the tip by a focused ion beam process. The cantilever approaches the sample until the apex of the tip is located extremely close to the sample surface. Optical radiation is introduced into the waveguide and transmitted to the tip, where the radiation exits through the aperture.
The tip-sample separation is held constant by operating the cantilever in the manner of an atomic force microscope operating in the non-contact or attractive mode. In this mode of operation, which is well known in the art, the distance between the tip and sample is controlled by detecting the resonant frequency of the cantilever as it is vibrated. A feedback system adjusts the distance between the tip and the sample so as to maintain the resonant frequency at a constant value. The non-contact or attractive mode is described in greater detail in numerous sources, including for example Y. Martin et al., "Atomic Force Microscope Force Mapping And Profiling On A Sub-Hundred Angstrom Scale", Journ. App. Phys., Vol. 6, pp. 4723-4729, March 1987.
If the NSOM is being operated in the transmission mode, the sample is analyzed by detecting the light which passes through the sample; or, if the NSOM is being operated in the reflection mode, the sample is analyzed by detecting the light reflected from the sample.
In an SICM, a very small aperture is formed in a body, typically a pipette, and the body is immersed in an electrolytic bath. An ionic current flows from an electrode located on one side of the body, through the aperture, to one of two electrodes located on the other side of the body in the electrolytic bath.
The resolution obtainable in an NSOM or SICM is a function of the width of the aperture. In an NSOM, for example, the width of the aperture is normally from 1/10 to 1/20 of the wavelength of the light being used, or in the range of 15-100 nm. Both the width and thickness of the aperture should be as small as possible. Moreover, for commercial instruments the aperture width and thickness should also be predictable and should be repeatable from one manufacturing batch to another.

Method of fabricating an aperture for a near field scanning optical microscope

The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University