A clamp plate retaining surface, a handling surface positioned outside the outer circumference of the clamp plate retaining surface, and an information surface outside the outer circumference of the handling surface are provided in a substrate. The handling surface is formed to be a slope with its outer circumferential side being inclined downward with respect to the information surface. The resin forming the inner circumferential side end of the handling surface is melted and deformed to form a projection part, so that a clamp plate can be retained. Since the top part of the slope is deformed, a large projection part can be formed. As a result, a thin small-diameter optical disk and substrate can be obtained.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an optical disk used for information recording or reproduction, its substrate, and a mold for forming the substrate.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, an optical disk and its substrate have been proposed in a minidisk form disclosed in JP 5(1993)-303768 A.
FIG. 11 shows a schematic sectional view of a conventional optical disk. In FIG. 11, numeral 101 indicates an optical disk substrate, numeral 102 a handling surface, numeral 103 an information surface, numeral 104 a clamp plate retaining surface, numeral 106 a clamp plate, numeral 107 a groove, numeral 108 an information recording layer, numeral 109 a protective coating, and numeral 120 a rotation central axis. The functions of the optical disk configured as described above and its substrate are described as follows.
On the information surface 103 formed on one principal plane of the optically transparent disc-like substrate 101 made of polycarbonate, acrylic resin, or the like, a signal recording/reproduction layer or a reflection film is formed as the information recording layer 108 and the protective coating 109 is formed thereon. Thus, the optical disk is configured. The disc-like clamp plate 106 formed of an iron plate or magnetic stainless steel is attached to the clamp plate retaining surface 104 around the center of the substrate 101. The clamp plate 106 is attracted magnetically to a disk table fixed to the tip of a spindle axis of a recording/reproducing device. Thus, the substrate 101 is rotated together with the disk table.
For instance, JP 5(1993)-89529 A describes a welding method using ultrasonic waves and an adhesion method using an ultraviolet curable resin as methods of holding the clamp plate 106 to the substrate 101.
The welding method using ultrasonic waves is carried out as follows. As shown in FIG. 11, the clamp plate 106 is placed on the clamp plate retaining surface 104. Then, a ring-like contact face of an ultrasonic horn tip is pressed against an inner circumferential side end portion of the handling surface 102 with a predetermined force. In this state, ultrasonic vibration is applied, so that the resin forming the portion against which the contact face has been pressed (hereinafter referred to as the xe2x80x9cpressed portionxe2x80x9d) is melted. The pressing force of the ultrasonic horn allows the resin thus melted to deform and the pressed portion to be displaced downward. In addition, the melted resin projects from a wall surface extending between the clamp plate retaining surface 104 and the handling surface 102 and thus a projection part 110 as shown in FIG. 12 is formed. In FIG. 12, numeral 112 indicates a displaced surface formed by the displacement of part of the handling surface 102 on its inner circumferential side by the contact with the contact face of the ultrasonic horn. In this case, the projection amount of the projection part 110 toward the center corresponds to a displacement amount of the displaced surface 112 with respect to the handling surface 102. As a result, an outer circumferential side flat portion (hereinafter referred to as an xe2x80x9couter flat portionxe2x80x9d) 106a around the outer circumference of the clamp plate 106 is sandwiched between the clamp plate retaining surface 104 and the projection part 110. Therefore, the clamp plate 106 is retained so as not to come off the clamp plate retaining surface 104.
The adhesion method using an ultraviolet curable resin is carried out as follows. Initially, an ultraviolet curable resin is applied between the clamp plate retaining surface 104 and the outer flat portion 106a around the outer circumference of the clamp plate 106. Then, the ultraviolet curable resin is irradiated with ultraviolet rays to be cured. Thus, the clamp plate retaining surface 104 and the clamp plate 106 are bonded and fixed.
The substrate 101 is manufactured by injection molding. The handling surface 102 functions as a suction face to be subjected to the suction of a vacuum suction pad attached to the end of a robot arm when the substrate 101 molded by injection molding is taken out from the mold using the robot arm. The inner circumferential side end of the handling surface 102 is defined by the outer circumferential side end of the clamp plate retaining surface 104 and the outer circumferential side end of the handling surface 102 is defined by the inner circumferential side end of the groove 107. The groove 107 is formed as the reflection of the shape of a mold part required for holding a stamper incorporated into the mold. The inner circumferential side end of the information surface 103 (the inner circumferential side end in an area where grooves or pits are formed) is positioned at a predetermined distance from the outer circumferential side end of the groove 107.
In the optical disk and its substrate, it is required to reduce the diameter and thickness of the disk so that the optical disk can be applied to portable equipment.
However, in the optical disk and its substrate with the clamp plate 106 sandwiched between the clamp plate retaining surface 104 and the projection part 110 as shown in FIG. 12, there has been the following problem in thickness reduction. In order to reduce the thickness of the substrate 101, it is necessary to shorten the distance in the thickness direction between the handling surface 102 and the clamp plate retaining surface 104. In FIG. 12, therefore, the displacement amount in the thickness direction of the displaced surface 112 with respect to the handling surface 102 is reduced. Thus, the projection amount of the projection part 110 is reduced. As a result, the reliability in retaining the clamp plate 106 decreases.
In order to solve the above mentioned problem, the following method might be considered. That is, a protrusion 114 is formed along the inner circumferential side end of the handling surface 102 as shown in FIG. 13, and then while the contact face of an ultrasonic horn is pressed against the protrusion 114 to suppress the occurrence of the difference in level between the handling surface 102 and the displaced surface 112, the projection amount of the projection part 110 toward the center is increased. However, in this method, due to the formation of the protrusion 114, the inner circumferential side end of the handling surface 102 is displaced radially outward. In order to take out the substrate 101 from the mold used for injection molding, it is necessary to form the handling surface 102 with a larger area than a predetermined area. Therefore, the outer circumferential side end of the handling surface 102 is required to be shifted radially outward. Accordingly, the inner and outer circumferential side ends of the groove 107 and the inner circumferential side end of the information surface 103 also are required to be shifted sequentially to the radially outer side. Therefore, in order to secure the same recording capacity, the outer diameter of the optical disk increases, which has been a problem.
On the other hand, in an optical disk and its substrate in which the clamp plate 106 is bonded and fixed to the clamp plate retaining surface 104 with an ultraviolet curable resin, the above-mentioned problem is not caused when the size and thickness of the disk are intended to be reduced. However, after being applied, the ultraviolet curable resin is solidified gradually with the passage of time. For instance, therefore, in the case where the environmental temperature varies, since the clamp plate 106 and the substrate 101 are different in material and thus in thermal expansion coefficient, the substrate 101 is distorted, which may cause noise generation.
The present invention intended to solve the above-mentioned problem. It is an object of the present invention to provide an optical disk and its substrate whose sizes and thicknesses can be reduced and to provide a mold for forming the substrate. In addition, the present invention is intended to provide an optical disk in which no distortion remains in its substrate, and to provide the substrate for the optical disk.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objects, the present invention employs the following configurations.
A first optical disk substrate of the present invention includes at least a clamp plate, a clamp plate retaining surface, a handling surface, and an information surface. The clamp plate retaining surface retains the clamp plate with an outer circumferential side flat portion of the clamp plate being in contact therewith. The handling surface is provided outside the outer circumference of the clamp plate retaining surface. The information surface is provided outside the outer circumference of the handling surface. At least part of the handling surface is inclined with respect to the information surface.
According to the first optical disk substrate, the top part of a slope of the handling surface is melted to be deformed, so that the clamp plate can be retained. As a result, it is possible to reduce the thickness of the optical disk and substrate with the clamp plate attached thereto. In addition, since the inner circumferential side end of the information surface can be positioned to be closer to the rotation central axis, an optical disk and a substrate with smaller outer diameters can be obtained.
In the first optical disk substrate, preferably, the substrate has a thickness in a range of 0.5 mm to 0.7 mm in an area where the information surface is formed. When the thickness is below the range, the mechanical strength of the substrate decreases and thus deformation of the substrate or surface wobbling during rotation may occur. On the other hand, the thickness exceeding the range results in the reduction in the working distance (a distance between an objective lens and the optical disk surface) with respect to an objective lens with a high numerical aperture of at least 0.6.
In the first optical disk substrate, it is preferable that an inclination angle of the handling surface with respect to the information surface is in a range of 2xc2x0 to 10xc2x0, further preferably 3xc2x0 to 6xc2x0. When the inclination angle is below the range, the inner circumferential side end of the information surface is positioned inevitably at a longer distance from the rotation central axis. Therefore, the recording capacity of the optical disk decreases or the disk diameter increases. The inclination angle exceeding the range causes the substrate to be partially thinner and thus the mechanical strength of the substrate decreases. In addition, malfunction of a suction pad in sticking to the handling surface may occur.
In the first optical disk substrate, it also is preferable that the handling surface has a radial width in a range of 1.8 mm to 2.5 mm. When the radial width of the handling surface is below the range, malfunction of the suction pad in sticking to the handling surface may occur. On the other hand, when the width exceeds the range, the inner circumferential side end of the information surface is positioned at a longer distance from the rotation central axis. Therefore, the recording capacity of the optical disk decreases or the disk diameter increases.
In the first optical disk substrate, preferably, the radial distance between an outer circumferential side end of the handling surface and the inner circumferential side end of the information surface is in a range of 2.0 to 4.0 mm. When the distance is below the range, the position to which a slider of a magnetic head can move on the inner circumferential side of the optical disk is limited and therefore the recording capacity is limited. On the other hand, when the distance exceeds the range, the inner circumferential side end of the information surface is positioned at a longer distance from the rotation central axis. Therefore, the recording capacity of the optical disk decreases or the disk diameter increases.
Furthermore, in the first optical disk substrate, it is preferable that a distance between a supposed first center plane and a supposed second center plane does not exceed 0.3 mm. The supposed first center plane is at equal distances from a surface of the clamp plate furthest from the clamp plate retaining surface and a back face of the optical disk substrate in an area where the clamp plate retaining surface is formed. The supposed second center plane is at equal distances from the information surface and a back face of the optical disk substrate in an area where the information surface is formed. When the distance between the supposed first and second center planes exceeds the range, the thicknesses of the optical disk and the substrate increase, which thus makes it difficult to reduce the thickness of a driving unit as compared to that of a conventional unit.
In the first optical disk substrate, preferably, a distance between the information surface and a plane including a circle defined by the deepest portion of the handling surface does not exceed 0.25 mm. When the distance exceeds 0.25 mm, the thickness of the substrate is reduced partially, and thus the mechanical strength of the substrate decreases.
In the first optical disk substrate, it also is preferable that an outer circumferential side end of the handling surface is lower than the information surface. This allows a stamper for molding the information surface to be held by its inner circumferential end.
Preferably, the first optical disk substrate further includes a projection part projecting toward the center formed inside an inner circumferential side end of the handling surface, with an upper face of the projection part being lower than the inner circumferential side end of the handling surface, and the clamp plate is limited in position in its thickness direction by the projection part and the clamp plate retaining surface. According to this configuration, the resin forming the inner circumferential side end of the handling surface is melted to form the projection part and thus the clamp plate can be retained. Therefore, an optical disk and a substrate can be provided in which distortion tends not to be caused by temperature variation.
In the first optical disk substrate, it is preferable that in the clamp plate, its outer circumferential side flat portion is thinner than its inner circumferential side flat portion. When the clamp plate is attached to the substrate with its thinner outer circumferential side flat portion being sandwiched between the clamp plate retaining surface and the projection part, the thicknesses of the optical disk and the substrate can be reduced. In addition, the inner circumferential side flat portion is formed to be relatively thick, so that a required magnetic attraction can be secured.
In this case, the inner circumferential side flat portion of the clamp plate may be formed of a plurality of stacked members. This allows the clamp plate having different thicknesses depending on the position to be manufactured easily at low cost.
A second optical disk substrate of the present invention includes at least a clamp plate, a clamp plate retaining surface, a handling surface, and an information surface. The clamp plate retaining surface retains the clamp plate with an outer circumferential side flat portion of the clamp plate being in contact therewith. The handling surface is provided outside the outer circumference of the clamp plate retaining surface. The information surface is provided outside the outer circumference of the handling surface. In the clamp plate, the outer circumferential side flat portion is thinner than its inner circumferential side flat portion.
According to such a second optical disk substrate, the clamp plate is attached to the substrate with the thinner outer circumferential side flat portion being held, so that the thicknesses of the optical disk and the substrate can be reduced. In addition, the inner circumferential side flat portion is formed to be relatively thick, so that a required magnetic attraction can be secured.
In the second optical disk substrate, the inner circumferential side flat portion of the clamp plate may be formed of a plurality of stacked members. This allows the clamp plate having different thicknesses depending on the position to be manufactured easily at low cost.
A third optical disk substrate of the present invention includes at least a clamp plate, a clamp plate retaining surface, a handling surface, and an information surface. The clamp plate retaining surface retains the clamp plate with an outer circumferential side flat portion of the clamp plate being in contact therewith. The handling surface is provided outside the outer circumference of the clamp plate retaining surface. The information surface is provided outside the outer circumference of the handling surface. The clamp plate retaining surface and the information surface are different in level. The thickness of the substrate in an area where the clamp plate retaining surface is formed is in a range of 0.75 to 1.25 times the thickness of the substrate in an area where the information surface is formed. The thickness of the substrate in an area where the handling surface is formed is in a range of 0.75 to 1.25 times the thickness of the substrate in the area where the information surface is formed. The distance between a wall surface extending between the clamp plate retaining surface and the handling surface and a wall surface extending between a back face of the clamp plate retaining surface and a back face of the information surface is in a range of 0.75 to 1.25 times the thickness of the substrate in the area where the information surface is formed.
According to such a third optical disk substrate, an optical disk and a substrate can be obtained in which mechanical and optical distortions hardly occur.
In the third optical disk substrate, it is preferable that at least part of the handling surface is inclined with respect to the information surface. According to this configuration, the top part of the slope of the handling surface is melted to be deformed, so that the clamp plate can be retained. As a result, the thicknesses of the optical disk and the substrate to which the clamp plate is attached can be reduced. In addition, the inner circumferential side end of the information surface can be positioned closer to the rotation central axis. Therefore, a small-diameter optical disk and substrate can be obtained.
An optical disk of the present invention includes at least the first, second, or third optical disk substrate and an information recording layer, and at least the information recording layer is formed on the information surface of the optical disk substrate.
Preferably, the optical disk further includes grooves along recording tracks or grooves forming recording tracks at the information surface, and a ratio of a quantity of light reflected from the grooves to a quantity of light reflected from a flat portion other than the portion where the grooves are formed is in a range of 0.3 to 0.8 when the information recording layer is irradiated with a beam. When the ratio exceeds the range, a sufficient rate of signal modulation in the grooves cannot be obtained. On the other hand, when the ratio is below the range, signals cannot be secured sufficiently due to a small quantity of light reflected from the grooves.
In the above, preferably, the beam with which the information recording layer is irradiated has the same wavelength as that of a beam used for recording and/or reproduction. This is intended to allow the condition described above to correspond to actual conditions.
A mold of the present invention includes at least a disc-like fixed-side main body with a flat principal plane, an inner stamper hold fitted inside the fixed-side main body, a fixed-side bushing fitted inside the inner stamper hold, a disc-like movable-side main body installed in a position substantially opposing the fixed-side main body at a predetermined space, a movable-side bushing, and a floating punch. The movable-side bushing is fitted inside the movable-side main body and is installed in a position substantially opposing the inner stamper hold at a predetermined space. The floating punch is fitted inside the movable-side bushing and is installed in a position substantially opposing the fixed-side bushing at a predetermined space. A surface of the inner stamper hold opposing the movable-side bushing is inclined with respect to the principal plane of the fixed-side main body. A surface of the fixed-side bushing opposing the floating punch is positioned on a side of the floating punch with respect to the principal plane of the fixed-side main body.
Since the surface of the inner stamper hold opposing the movable-side bushing is inclined, an optical disk substrate with a slope corresponding to the inclination can be formed. In addition, since the surface of the fixed-side bushing is positioned on the side of the floating punch, an optical disk substrate with a difference in level adapted to receive and retain a clamp plate can be formed. The top part of the slope of the optical disk substrate is melted to be deformed, so that the clamp plate can be retained. As a result, a thin and small-diameter optical disk and substrate can be obtained.
In the mold described above, it is preferable that the surface of the inner stamper hold opposing the movable-side bushing is a slope inclined from its inner circumferential side to its outer circumferential side toward the movable-side bushing. According to this configuration, an optical disk substrate can be formed which has a slope with its inner circumferential side higher. Therefore, the inner circumferential side end positioned at a higher level is melted to be deformed, so that the clamp plate can be retained.
Preferably, the above-mentioned mold further includes a disc-like stamper attached to the principal plane of the fixed-side main body, an outer circumferential side end of the surface of the inner stamper hold opposing the movable-side bushing being positioned on a side of the movable-side bushing with respect to a surface of the stamper, and an inner circumferential side end of the surface of the inner stamper hold opposing the movable-side bushing being positioned further apart from the movable-side bushing than the outer circumferential side end is. According to this configuration, the stamper can be held by the outer circumferential side end of the inner stamper hold.

Optical disk, substrate of the same, and mold for forming the substrate

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


Provided is a lithium air battery system, and more particularly, a lithium air battery system capable of stably and continuously operating a lithium air battery by recovering an electrolytic solution evaporated in the lithium air battery and injecting the recovered electrolytic solution into the lithium air battery.

Recently, due to an increase in emission of carbon dioxide according to consumption of fossil fuel, a sudden change in crude oil prices, and the like, technology development for converting gasoline and diesel as an energy source for a vehicle into electric energy has been receiving attention. An electric vehicle has been commercialized and thus there is a need to increase capacity and energy density of a battery, in detail, a lithium ion battery which is a battery for long distance driving of the electric vehicle. However, the current lithium ion battery has a limited battery capacity and therefore has a difficulty in long distance driving. Therefore, a lithium air battery having larger capacity and higher energy density than the lithium ion battery in theory has been receiving attention.
The lithium air battery has a battery having a cathode using oxygen in air as an active material and is a battery which may be charged and discharged in response to an oxidization and reduction reaction of oxygen in the cathode.
Generally, the lithium air battery includes an anode in which lithium ions may be adsorbed and emitted, a cathode including an oxidization and reduction catalyst of oxygen using oxygen in air as a cathode active material, and a lithium ion conductive medium disposed between the cathode and the anode.
Further, the lithium air battery has a theoretical energy density of 3,000 Wh/kg or more, which corresponds to energy density approximately 10 times larger than that of the lithium ion battery. Further, the lithium air battery may be eco-friendly and may have more improved stability than that of the lithium ion battery.
However, the lithium air battery has a problem in that an electrolyte solvent of an electrolyte part is evaporated. The electrolyte solvent is evaporated inside the lithium air battery. Therefore, ion conductivity of the electrolyte inside the lithium air battery is not only reduced but performance of the lithium air battery is also degraded, and an operation of the lithium air battery abruptly ends and thus the lithium air battery may be instable. Therefore, a lithium air battery system capable of ensuring the stability of the lithium air battery is required.


An electrode active material layer for a lithium-ion secondary battery is formed from an electrode active material of layered crystal. The electrode active material having layered crystal is oriented in a layer direction of the electrode active material layer, and a plurality of through holes are formed from the surface of the electrode active material layer. The diameter of the through holes is preferably 10 μm to 5000 μm inclusive.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electrode active material layer, an electrode body, a lithium-ion secondary battery, a method of producing an electrode active material layer, and the like.
2. Related Art
Layered crystal such as lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2), lithium nickel oxide (LiNiO2) and graphite is able to increase an electrode reaction through insertion/extraction (intercalation/deintercalation) of lithium ions within the layer, and is thus widely used as a positive or negative electrode active material for lithium secondary batteries (e.g., see JP-A-8-180904).
JP-A-8-180904 is an example of related art.
However, with an electrode active material layer made from an electrode active material of layered crystal, insertion/extraction of Li ions from an electrolyte does not readily occur since intercalation layers within the crystal are oriented parallel to the electrode active material layer (current collector layer), giving rise to the problem of low active material utilization and low capacity.

Electrode active material layer, electrode body, lithium-ion secondary battery, and method of producing electrode active material layer


The postage meter machine (11) comprises a stator part (12) and a print rotor (13). Two motors (41, 52), a drive (42), a motor switch (45), a battery (46), a logic unit (56), a clock module (58), and two position indicators (48, 54) are disposed in the stator part (12). A catch-stop actuator (24), a catch-stop row sequence (23) with three catch stops of different lengths as well as a date stamp (20) with four counter wheels (16-19) and a coordinated stop-catch device (26-29) are disposed in the print rotor (13). The counter wheels (16-19) are disposed coaxially next to each other and each counter wheel exhibits twelve print positions, which are rotatable stepwise by the catch-stop row sequence (23). Based on the kind of teeth and the length of the cams, either one, two or three counter wheels (16-18) are rotated simultaneously by one position. A coupler (32) connects the one motor (41) to the catch-stop actuator (24) in a certain angular setting of the print rotor (13). The logic unit (56), controls the one motor (41). Depending on the date to be set, this motor (41) runs for such a time until the catch-stop row sequence (23) has performed one, three, twelve, thirteen, sixteen, or seventeen steps.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for the setting of the date stamp of a postage-meter machine, where the postage-meter machine comprises at least a stator part and a print rotor, pivotally disposed at the stator part, as well as independent, coaxially disposed counter wheels in the print rotor, where a first counter wheel serves for setting the single-digit positions of the day of the month, a second counter wheel for the decimal positions of the day of the month, a third counter serves to set the month, and a fourth counter corresponds to the years of the date stamp.
2. Brief Description of the Background of the Invention Including Prior Art
Postage-meter machines are commercially available in diverse constructions. As a norm, these machines comprise a print rotor, which rotor includes on its cylindrical surface a postage value stamp and a date stamp. The numerals of the two stamps are adjustable.
While the value stamp in general is continuously set to new values corresponding to the amounts of postage required in each case, the setting of the date occurs only once per day. This entails that this day-setting can easily be forgotten, which would result in consequences imposed by the licensing postal authority.
The print rotor rolls during franking in each case with a full rotation over the mail pieces to be furnished with metered postage, for example, over a letter, and thereby prints successively the recited and possibly additional stamps. Such a postage-meter machine is described, for example, in Hasler Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 1978), pp. 2-7 (R. Grunig: Hasler Mailmaster F204 Franking Machine).
A first device for the setting of a date stamp of a postage-meter machine, different from a manual setting with a stylus, is known from the Swiss Patent document CH-418,705 issued on Aug. 15, 1966. This device comprises a manually operable rotary knob which is coupled to a cam disk. If the knob is rotated, then the counter wheels of the date stamp are successively released, are switched to the next position, and are finally blocked again.
A semi-automatic setting device for the index wheels of the date stamp of a postage-meter machine is known from the European Patent application EP-105,424 published. This device exhibits adjustment tappets actuated by electromagnets. Said adjustment tappets set the index wheels step by step with gear wheels like a catch-stop drive. The adjustment tappets engage either from the outside into the print cylinder or they are actuated by gear racks supported in the axle of the print cylinder. It is true that in the latter case there is provided a compact construction, however, the equipment and financial requirements are substantial.
A further semi-automatic device for the setting of the date stamp is known from the Swiss Patent CH-670,524 issued on Jun. 15, 1989. This device uses gear racks guided within the axle of the print cylinder. The gear racks serve primarily for a setting of the counter wheels of the postage-value stamp. For this purpose, the device comprises a cam, an extension at one of the gear racks, and a spring-loaded lever. Upon coaction of these means, the index wheels of the date stamp engage with the remaining gear racks and can thus be changed via these gear racks relative to their setting.

Device for setting of date stamps in a postage-meter machine


The aim of the invention is to provide an electric motor which has a high torque at low rotation speeds and a high power at high rotation speeds. The invention therefore proposes an electric motor with permanent-magnet excitation having a first active part (10), which is fitted with permanent magnets (11), and a second active part (10), which can be moved in relation to the first active part (10) by magnetic force of the permanent magnets (11). The electric motor also has a heating device (12) with which the magnetic field of at least one of the permanent magnets (11) can be weakened by heating the permanent magnets as a function of a speed of the first active part (10) in relation to the second active part (8).

The present invention relates to a permanent-magnet-excited electric motor having a first active part which is fitted with permanent magnets, and a second active part which can be moved relative to the first active part by means of magnetic force of the permanent magnets. The present invention further relates to a method for operating a permanent-magnet-excited electric motor of the aforesaid type.
The torque of electric motors typically decreases as rotational speed increases. This is illustrated by way of example in the diagram according to FIG. 1. Characteristic curve 1 represents a permanent magnet (PM) synchronous motor having strong permanent magnets. Their residual induction Br equals 1.1 T. At low rotational speeds the synchronous motor possesses a torque of up to 25 Nm and more. The torque decreases rapidly with increasing rotational speed and reaches the value 0 Nm at around 4500 min−1. This means that said synchronous machine possesses high torque at low rotational speeds, yet only low output power at high rotational speeds.
Characteristic curve 2 in FIG. 1 represents a PM synchronous motor having weaker permanent magnets. At low rotational speeds the torque reaches almost 20 Nm and then drops to 0 Nm at approximately 6200 min−1. In the case of these permanent magnets the residual induction Br amounts to 0.8 T. Thus, although the synchronous machine has a lower torque at low rotational speeds, it already has a higher output power at higher rotational speeds.
Characteristic curve 3 likewise represents a PM synchronous motor having relatively weak permanent magnets. in this case the residual induction Br equals 0.4 T. At low rotational speeds the torque attains the value 10 Nm. The torque decreases only slowly and at 8000 min−1 still has a value of approximately 5 Nm. This in turn means that at low rotational speeds the PM synchronous motor possesses a low torque, yet at high rotational speeds it can in contrast deliver very high output power.
The permanent magnets of a synchronous machine should therefore be chosen according to their desired operating point (rotational speed). If a high torque at low rotational speeds is required, then strong permanent magnets need to be employed. If, on the other hand, high output power at high rotational speeds is required, then weaker permanent magnets should be used for preference.
If it is aimed to achieve a high torque at low rotational speed and high output power at high rotational speeds, then use is made of the field weakening effect of the permanent magnets in PM machines. This is achieved by impressing a direct-axis current component whose field overlays the field of the permanent magnets and thereby weakens said field. A disadvantage thereof is on the one hand that for its part said field-weakening current generates losses in the windings. On the other hand the impressed current must not be allowed to become too strong so that the permanent magnets are not irreversibly weakened. Furthermore harmonic fields are produced due to saturation, which again increase the iron losses.

Permanent-magnet-excited electric motor with heating device, and operating method


A system and method are provided for supporting video browsing over a communication network such as the Internet/World Wide Web. A graphical user interface is provided through a client software tool such as a Web browser. A client/user selects a video data object stored at a remote server. A set of points within the object are displayed at the client's graphical user interface display, as representations, preferably thumbnail images, of the points within the object. The user selects an interval defined by the representations, preferably the interval between two temporally adjacent representations. Responsive to this selection, a new set of points, falling within the selected interval, are chosen, and representations of those points are generated and displayed. By doing so repeatedly, the user can easily browse through the video data object, and quickly and easily zero in on a desired portion of the video data object.

In recent years, the technologies of video data compression, storage, and interactive accessing have converged with network communications technologies, to present exciting prospects for users who seek access to remotely stored multimedia information.
In the area of network communications technologies, particluarly exciting has been the recent prominence of the Internet and its progeny, the World Wide Web. The Internet and the Web have captured the public imagination as the so-called "information superhighway." Accessing information through the Web has become known by the metaphorical term "surfing the Web."
The Internet is not a single network, nor does it have any single owner or controller. Rather, the Internet is an unruly network of networks, a confederation of many different networks, public and private, big and small, whose human operators have agreed to connect to one another. The composite network represented by these networks relies on no single transmission medium. Bi-directional communication can occur via satellite links, fiber-optic trunk lines, phone lines, cable TV wires and local radio links.
To this point the World Wide Web (Web) provided by the Internet has been used in industry predominately as a means of communication, advertisement, and placement of orders. The World Wide Web facilitates user access to information resources by letting people jump from one server to another simply by selecting a highlighted word, picture or icon (a program object representation) about which they want more information--a maneuver known as a "hyperlink". In order to explore the WWW today, the user loads a special navigation program, called a "Web browser" onto his computer.
There are a number of browsers presently in existence and in use. Common examples are NetScape, Mosaic and IBM's Web Explorer. Browsers allow a user of a client to access servers located throughout the world for information which is stored therein. The information is then provided to the client by the server by sending files or data packets to the requesting client from the server's storage resources.
Part of the functionality of a browser is to provide image or video data. Web still image or video information can be provided, through a suitably designed Web page or interface, to a user on a client machine. Still images can also be used as Hypertext-type links, selectable by the user, for invoking other functions. For instance, a user may run a video clip by selecting a still image.
However, video data objects are very large, or, to put it more precisely, the quantity of data per unit time in a real-time viewing of a video data object is large. As a consequence, access by a user to a desired video data object is subject to data throughput constraints. The present state of the art makes it impracticable to provide more than a few tens of seconds of real-time video over the Internet with a response time that will be satisfactory to a user.
Therefore, multimedia and communication systems for providing users with access to video data objects, for browsing, searching, etc., must grapple with the problem of providing video data in a manner which best utilizes the available throughput to provide video data in a form which is most useful to the user.
With this design objective in mind, let us now consider the state of the art in the technologies of video data compression, storage, and interactive accessing. Recent work has been done to make video material more available and usable over the Web. For instance, an article in the August 1995 issue of ADVANCED IMAGING, by Amy T. Incremona, titled "Automatically Transcribing and Condensing Video: New Technology is Born", describes a method for providing video having an accompanying textual index, such as audio narration or closed caption text. Still images are presented, along with a transcription of audio text that accompanies the images (illustration on page 60). This information is provided in HTML format. Thus, a user can take advantage of the temporal correspondence between video shots and narration or closed caption text. To find a desired point in the video corresponding with a known point in the text, the user performs a key word search for the known point in the text. The result of this key word search is that the desired point in the video is reached.
Additionally in Shahraray et al., "Automatic Generation of Pictorial Transcripts of Video Programs", SPIE Vol. 2417, pp. 512-518, there is described an automatic authoring system for the generation of pictorial transcripts of video programs which are accompanied by closed caption information. The system employs a table having a series of rows, each row containing a pointer to a location of an image, and another pointer to the beginning of a text segment related to the image. A viewing window for a GUI display is shown in FIG. 4 of Shahraray et al., and reproduced herein in simplified form as FIG. 1 of the present patent application. FIG. 1 shows a video image 2, a closed caption text subtitle area 4, and a basic user control area 6. The basic user controls include a "Seek" slider 8.
Accordingly, the state of the art allows for user access to video information based on associated text. However, a more general method for accessing video, not provided by the prior art, would sever the tie between video images and accompanying audio narration or closed caption text.

Method and system for video browsing on the world wide web

International Business Machines Corporation


An optical head comprising a diffracting element having two tracking diffracting regions separated by a division line extending in a direction corresponding to a track direction of a recording medium, and one focusing diffracting region separated from the tracking diffracting regions by a division line extending in a direction corresponding to a radial direction of the recording medium. The optical head further comprises a light receiving element having two tracking light receiving regions for receiving diffracted lights produced in the tracking diffracting regions, and two adjoining focusing light receiving regions for receiving a diffracted light produced in the focusing diffracting region. The diffracted light produced in the focusing diffracting region always has a substantially constant light intensity, even when a tracking error occurs. As a result, an offset can be prevented from occurring in a focus error signal by finely adjusting the diffracting element.

FIG. 8 shows an example of optical head used in conventional optical data reproduction apparatuses and optical data recording/reproduction apparatuses.
A light beam is projected from a semiconductor laser 1, diffracted in a diffracting element 2 and split into a zero-order diffracted light (main beam) and .+-.1 order diffracted lights (a pair of sub beams). In FIG. 8, the .+-.1 order diffracted lights are comprised in a plane orthogonal to the surface of the paper.
The main beam and the sub beams are further diffracted in a diffracting element 3. Zero-order diffracted lights respectively produced by the main beam and the sub beams are transmitted through a collimating lens 4 to be focused onto a recording medium 6 by an objective lens 5.
Return lights reflected off the recording medium 6 pass through the objective lens 5 and the collimating lens 4, and are diffracted in the diffracting element 3. First order diffracted lights are then directed onto a light receiving element 7 from which data signal, tracking error signal and error focus signal can be obtained.
When, for example, data is recorded in the form of physical pits on the disc-shaped recording medium 6, the data is read out by focusing the zero order diffracted light produced by the main beam in the diffracting element 3 on the physical pits. The return light of the zero order diffracted light is diffracted again in the diffracting element 3 to produce first order diffracted lights. The data signal is derived from the intensity of these first order diffracted lights.
The zero order diffracted lights produced by the two sub beams in the diffracting element 3 are focused on positions symmetrical with respect to the zero order diffracted light produced by the main beam in the diffracting element 3. These positions are offset greatly in a track direction and offset slightly in a radial direction from the position on the recording medium 6 where the zero order diffracted light of the main beam is focused. The return lights are respectively diffracted in the diffracting element 3 to produce first order diffracted lights. The tracking error signal is derived from the intensities of these first order diffracted lights.
FIG. 9 shows the diffracting element 3 as seen from the recording medium 6. As shown in FIG. 9, the diffracting element 3 is divided into two diffracting regions 3a and 3b that are delineated by a division line 3e and whereon gratings 3c and 3d are respectively formed. The gratings 3c and 3d have mutually different pitches and the directions thereof are orthogonal to the division line 3e. Here, the direction of the division line 3e is set so as to coincide with the radial direction of the recording medium 6.
As shown in FIG. 10, the light receiving element 7 is divided into five light receiving regions 7a to 7e.
When the light beam projected from the semiconductor laser 1 is precisely focused on the recording medium 6, a portion of the return light corresponding to the zero order diffracted light produced by the main beam in the diffracting element 3, is diffracted in the diffracting region 3a of the diffracting element 3 to produce a first order diffracted light. This first order diffracted light is focused on a division line 7f separating the light receiving regions 7a and 7b, to form a spot-shaped diffracted image Q.sub.1. Another portion of the return light corresponding to the zero order diffracted light of the main beam produced in the diffracting element 3, is diffracted in the diffracting region 3b of the diffracting element 3 to produce a first order diffracted light. This first order diffracted light is focused on the light receiving region 7c to form a spot-shaped diffracted image Q.sub.2. The return lights corresponding to the zero order diffracted lights produced by the two sub beams in the diffracting element 3, respectively form two spot-shaped diffracted images Q.sub.3 and Q.sub.4 and two spot-shaped diffracted images Q.sub.5 and Q.sub.6 on the light receiving regions 7d and 7e.
Supposing that S.sub.1a to S.sub.1e respectively represent output signals released from the light receiving regions 7a to 7e, the focus error signal may be obtained by calculating (S.sub.1a --S.sub.1b). The tracking error signal may be obtained by calculating (S.sub.1d -S.sub.1e) and the data signal may be obtained by calculating (S.sub.1a +S.sub.1b +S.sub.1c).
However, in a conventional system, the light beam projected from the semiconductor laser 1 is split into a main beam and two sub beams in the diffracting element 2 whereby the light intensity of the main beam is lower than that of the original light beam. Therefore, when the recording medium 6 employed is of a recordable type such as a Direct Read after Write type disk, a Rewritable disk, etc., and the main beam is used to perform recording, it is difficult to provide a sufficient light intensity.
A drop in the light intensity of the main beam causes the amount of light received by the light receiving element 7 to decrease. As a result, the detection of the data signal and the focus error signal becomes difficult whereby the recording and reproduction of data can not be performed accurately.
In order to prevent the light intensity of the main beam from decreasing, an alternative optical head that does not include the diffracting element 2 and where sub beams are not generated, can be adopted.
As shown in FIG. 11, with such an optical head, the light beam projected from the semiconductor laser 1 passes through the collimating lens 4 and the objective lens 5 and is focused at a point on the recording medium 6. The tracking error signal is derived from the light intensity distribution of the return light reflected off the recording medium 6.
Namely, as illustrated in FIG. 15, the light beam is converged by the objective lens 5 and forms a light spot 9 on the recording medium 6. When the light spot 9 is centralized on a track 8, the light intensity distribution of the return light is symmetrical at both sides of a center line l.sub.2 -l.sub.2, as illustrated in FIG. 18. In FIG. 18, the section represented by hatching indicates sections having a low light intensity, and the center line l.sub.2 -l.sub.2 corresponds to a center line l.sub.1 -l.sub.1 of the light spot 9 shown in FIG. 15.
On the other hand, when, as shown in FIGS. 14 and 16, the light spot 9 is formed in a position displaced inwards or outwards from the center of the track 8, the light intensity distribution of the return light is not symmetrical at both sides of the center line l.sub.2 --l.sub.2, as shown in FIGS. 17 and 19.
As shown in FIG. 12, in order to obtain the tracking error signal, provision is made such that a division line 3e' of a diffracting element 3' coincides with the track direction, i.e., is orthogonal to the radial direction.
As shown in FIG. 13, a light receiving element 7' is divided into three light receiving regions 7a' to 7c'.
A portion of the return light is diffracted in the diffracting region 3a' of the diffracting element 3' to produce a first order diffracted light. This first order diffracted light is focused on a division line 7d' separating the light receiving regions 7a' and 7b' to form a spot-shaped diffracted image Q.sub.1 '. Another portion of the return light is diffracted in the diffracting region 3a' of the diffracting element 3' and a first order diffracted light thereof is focused on the light receiving region 7c' to form a spot-shaped diffracted image Q.sub.2 '.
Supposing that S.sub.2a to S.sub.2c respectively represent output signals released from the light receiving regions 7a' to 7c', the focus error signal may be obtained by calculating (S.sub.2a -S.sub.2b). The tracking error signal may be obtained by calculating (S.sub.2a +S.sub.2b)-S.sub.c and the data signal may be obtained by calculating (S.sub.a +S.sub.2b +S.sub.2c).
However, it is difficult to obtain an accurate focus error signal with the optical head arranged as described above.
Namely, when the light beam is precisely focused on the recording medium 6, the diffracted images Q.sub.1, and Q.sub.2 'formed on the light receiving element 7' are in theory spots. However in practice, due to differences in the performance of various optical members, tolerance at the time of assembly of the optical system or differences in the oscillation wavelength of the semiconductor laser 1, the diffracted images Q.sub.1 ' and Q.sub.2 ' spread to a certain extent, as shown in FIG. 20. This causes an offset to occur in the focus error signal when the focus is correct.
Here, in order to prevent the occurrence of an offset, one might consider to finely adjust the diffracting element 3' so that, as shown in FIG. 21, the diffracted image Q', is equally distributed in the light receiving regions 7a' and 7b'. In other terms, provision is made such that the light amounts respectively received by the light receiving regions 7a' and 7b' are equal.
However, as was discussed above, when the position of the light spot 9 is displaced from the center of the track 8, the light intensity distribution of the return light is not symmetrical at both sides of the center line l.sub.2 --l.sub.2, as shown in FIGS. 17 and 19. As a result, the light intensity distribution of the return light impinging upon the diffracting element 3' is also uneven causing the light intensity distribution of the diffracted image Q.sub.1 ' to vary and the light amounts respectively received by the light receiving regions 7a' and 7b' to differ. A conventional optical head therefore presents the disadvantage that in the case of a tracking error, an offset occurs in the focus error signal even when the focus is correct thereby impeding an accurate focus adjustment.


A golf swing practice device is disclosed and which comprises a carrier member which is removably attached to the shaft of a golf club and which is preferably attached to a lower portion of the hand grip on the golf club. Two spaced apart light sources are mounted on the carrier so as to emit two discrete and parallel beams of light which extend in a direction towards the head of the club and which lie in a plane which bisects a face of the club head and which is also substantially perpendicular to the club face. The light tracings on the ground from the two beams of light on the ground and relevant to a target line which is also on the ground, inform the golfer if the practice golf swing relative to an imaginary golf ball is on or off line, square to the ball or being hit in a toe-in or toe-out condition. In an additional embodiment, the carrier member can also be attached to a hole in the hand grip located at the proximal end of the golf club so as to support at this end a third light source the beam of which is coaxial with the shaft of the club and which extends in a direction opposite to the beam direction of the light sources on the carrier member. The ground tracing produced by this third beam can be used to inform a golfer of the swing plane of the club shaft.

The use of light sources, light reflectors and light beams which are either built into a golf club or attached to a golf club, usually along the shaft of the club, are well known in the art and most commonly are employed for visually informing a golfer if the impact face of the club head is square to the target line at the point of actual or imagined golf ball impact.
One such attachment device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,991 issued Nov. 21, 1995, White, which discloses a base mounting plate which is removably attached to a club shaft and which supports a pair of light emitting diodes (LED's) aimed in opposite directions parallel to the shaft of the club.
As the beam of light emitted from the lowermost LED is offset relative to the axis of the club shaft, the light trace which the beam makes when it impinges the ground is behind the head of the club head. Because of this offset, the light trace on the ground is not representative of the actual location of the impact face of the club head, and further, does not produce a straight line ground light trace in the ball impact area due to the rotation of the hands and club in this area.
The second LED on the White device also emits a beam of light which is offset and parallel to the axis of the shaft, but which in this instance extends in a direction opposite to the first or lowermost beam. This second or upper beam, during the latter part of the back swing, early part of the down swing and during follow through is intended to produce a light trace on the ground which is parallel to the desired target line. While White's golf swing training device is useful in assisting a golfer in determining if the golfer's swing is following the correct swing plane by the two light tracings on the ground, it is not possible through the use of the single and offset downwardly projecting light beam to determine if the face of the club head at the point of actual or imaginary ball impact is on line to the ball, "square" to the ball or if it is open or closed to the ball and which is commonly described as a toe-in or toe-out condition. Toe-in or toe-out of the face of a club head normally imparts to an impacted ball unwanted side spin which results in either a hook or slice.
Cunningham in U.S. Pat. No. 5,470,072 issued Nov. 28, 1995, provides for two spaced apart light sources positioned on the crown or top surface of a club head and which are also positioned in a plane perpendicular to the ball impact face of the club head. If the light tracings from the light sources (which are directed or reflected towards the golfer swinging the club and not the ground) appear superimposed at the point of actual or imaginary ball impact, it indicates to the person swinging the golf club that the face of the club head is square to the ball. However, if the two light tracings in the proximity of ball impact are offset one relative to the other, it is indicative that the club face is not square, and is either in a toe-in or toe-out condition.
Cunningham also discloses the attachment of a bar to a lower portion of the shaft of the club with the bar carrying light sources or light reflectors thereon, and which provides the golfer with the same interpretive information as given when the light sources are positioned on the crown of the golf head.
While Cunningham assists one in determining if the club face is square to the ball at the point of impact, no interpretive visual information is given the golfer about the golfer's swing being in the correct swing plane or if the imaginary ball which appears to be hit square, is in fact being hit square but in a in-to-out or an out-to-in swing arc relative to the desired target line; thereby creating what is termed a "push" or a "pull".


Systems and techniques are described for performing a priori corner and mode reduction. Some embodiments create a synthetic corner in which (1) a cell delay for each library cell in a set of library cells corresponds to a maximum delay over multiple temperature corners, and/or (2) a cell delay for each library cell in a set of library cells corresponds to a maximum delay over multiple parasitic corners. Some embodiments can identifying, for a given corner, a portion of the circuit design that is common across multiple modes, and then replace the multiple modes with a single mode for optimizing and verifying timing constraints of the portion of the circuit design that is common across the multiple modes. The circuit design can then be optimized over the reduced set of modes and/or corners.

1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to reducing the number of corner and mode combinations over which a circuit design needs to be optimized. More specifically, this disclosure relates to a priori corner and mode reduction.
2. Related Art
Rapid advances in computing technology have made it possible to perform trillions of computational operations each second on data sets that are sometimes as large as trillions of bytes. These advances can be largely attributed to the exponential increase in the size and complexity of integrated circuits.
To ensure that a manufactured chip will perform as desired, the circuit design is usually checked for compliance with a large number of design requirements. In fact, a circuit design is typically not manufactured until it satisfies the design requirements which can include, but are not limited to, timing requirements, noise requirements, leakage requirements, etc.
In a typical circuit design flow, a compliance checking tool is used to identify design requirement violations in a circuit design. Incremental adjustments are then made to the circuit design to fix the design requirement violations. Once the circuit design is violation free, the circuit design can be readied for manufacturing.
The advance to smaller semiconductor geometries has increased the variability in process and operating conditions of integrated circuits. A process corner is a particular set of process conditions under which the circuit design may be manufactured. An operating corner is a particular set of operating conditions (e.g., temperature, voltage) under which the circuit design may operate.
Modern circuit designs typically have multiple operating modes (e.g., stand-by, mission, test, etc.). Specifically, some parts of the circuit design may be completely switched off in certain operating modes. Further, different operating modes can have drastically different voltages, clock speeds, etc.
It is desirable to ensure that a circuit design meets the functional and performance goals under all combinations of process corners, operating conditions, and/or operating modes. The term "Multi-Corner/Multi-Mode (MCMM) scenario," or "scenario" for short, refers to a combination of a particular process corner, a particular operating condition, and/or a particular operating mode.
The amount of time required to fix design requirement violations is increasing rapidly because the size and complexity of circuit designs is increasing rapidly and because the number of scenarios over which circuit designs need to be checked is increasing rapidly.


A method for configuring a physical resource block of a user equipment search space includes: a system side configuring a Physical Resource Block (PRB) pair of a default User equipment specific Search Space (USS), and notifying the user equipment of positions of the PRB pairs of the default USS, or the system side agreeing with the user equipment on the positions of the PRB pairs of the default USS. The user equipment obtains the positions of the PRB pairs of the default USS according to the notification from the system side, or agrees with the system side on the positions of the PRB pairs of the default USS. The embodiments of the present document further provide the system side and the user equipment.

With the development of the mobile communications industry and the growing demand for mobile data services, the user's requirements for mobile communication rate and Quality of service (Qos) is increasing. Therefore, before the 3rd Generation (3G) mobile communication has been commercially applied in a large scale, research and development works of the next Generation mobile communication system have already started, and a relatively typical work is the Long Term Evolution (LTE) projection launched by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), and the highest spectrum bandwidth which can be provided by the LTE system is 20 MHz. With further evolution of the network, the LTE-advanced (LTE-A), as an evolved system of the LTE, can provide a spectrum bandwidth up to 100 MHz, and support more flexible communication with a higher quality, and at the same time the LTE-A system has a better backward compatibility. In the LTE-A system, there are multiple component carriers (CC), an LTE terminal can only work on a certain backward compatible CC, while an LTE-A terminal with a stronger capability can transmit on multiple CCs at the same time. This realizes that the LTE-A terminal transmits and receives data on multiple component carriers at the same time, so as to achieve the purpose of improving the bandwidth. The technology is referred to as multi-carrier aggregation technology.
In the research at this stage, on the basis of multi-carrier aggregation technology, the LTE R11 stage puts forward new requirements for aspects such as spectrum resource utilization, network energy saving, as well as inter-cell interference suppression. In order to achieve this goal, the New Carrier Type (NCT for short) is proposed currently. By means of the application of the carrier aggregation technology, the new carrier type has a distinct feature, i.e., there is no need to consider backward compatibility when designing, and more new technologies can be applied therein. For example, at present, in the LTE R11, the new carrier type is defined as follows: it needs to operate with at least one compatible carrier in a pairing manner (also referred to as operation with a compatible carrier in a carrier aggregation manner), and in the new carrier type, Cell-specific Reference Signals (CRS for short) of the LTE R8 are not configured, to avoid serious CRS interference of the adjacent cell at the edge of the cell, especially CRS interference between a macro cell and a micro cell in a scenario of HETerogeneous NETwork (HeNet).
Further, as the LTE R11 progresses slowly, finally in consideration that the standard work of the NCT cannot be completed within a time period, the related research on the NCT technology is put off until the LTE R12, and the contents accepted in the LTE R11 are still accepted. At present, the standardization work of the LTE R12 has not started, and many companies have believed that in the LTE R12, not only the NCT of the LTE R11 continues to be researched, but also it needs to further increase other NCT technologies, for example, a standalone NCT is proposed, which has an independent operation capability. In order to distinguish from the NCT in the LTE R11, as the NCT in the LTE R11 needs to configure a backward compatible carrier, it is referred to as a non-standalone NCT, which needs to operate with the help of a paired compatible carrier thereof as it deletes part of channels/signaling.
Further, in a standalone NCT, it has been determined that the positions of the Physical Resource Block (PRB) pairs occupied by a UE specific Search Space (USS) of an enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel (ePDCCH) are notified through high-layer signaling, and in particular, are notified in a User Equipment (UE) specific manner. In this way, the PRB pairs of the USS of the UE may configure PRB pairs of the common USS for part of UEs which need them. For example, in the Coordinated Multi-Point (COMP), USSs of the UEs which require coordination are configured in the same PRB pairs through signaling respectively for the UEs, which is beneficial for the UE to reduce the search space, and would not affect configuration of PRBs of the USS of other irrelevant UEs.
With respect to notifying the positions of the PRB pairs of the USS of the ePDCCH of the UE through a UE dedicated Radio Resource Control (RRC for short) message, there are the following problems at present: In the process that the UE accesses in downlink until an RRC connection is established, a random access process is necessarily to be completed, wherein it needs to receive a Message 4 (msg4) as one of downlink messages in the random access process. If Downlink Control Information (DCI) for scheduling is transmitted in the USS of the UE for the msg4, it is a problem for the UE to acquire the position of the PRB pair where the USS of the UE is located. Another problem is that assuming the UE completes a random access process in another manner, the base station needs to transmit some dedicated RRC messages to the UE, and at this time, when the UE receives a first dedicated RRC message transmitted by the base station, the dedicated RRC message is transmitted through scheduling of the USS. In this case, there is a problem for the UE to acquire the positions of the USS for scheduling the first dedicated RRC message in the PRB pairs.
Obviously, according to the current conclusion, the PRB pairs of the USS of the UE are transmitted to the UE through a dedicated RRC message of the UE, it needs to firstly establish an RRC connection for transmitting the dedicated RRC message, and at present, in the process of establishing the RRC connection, the UE needs to acquire the positions of the PRB pairs of the USS, or the UE needs to acquire the positions of the PRB pairs of the USS when receiving the first dedicated RRC message.

User equipment, and method and system side for configuring physical resource block of search space thereof


The nonvolatile semiconductor memory device of this invention has a trench region in a semiconductor substrate and has a NAND type memory cell unit in three dimensions in both sides of a side wall of one trench region, respectively. And these NAND memory cell units are connected to one bit line. In each NAND type memory cell unit, a plurality of the memory cell transistors and the selective gate transistors are connected in series. These pluralities of the memory cell transistors and the selective gate transistors are provided in the same trench region. Moreover, in the nonvolatile semiconductor memory device of this invention, an insulating layer containing a lamination structure of a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride film and a silicon oxide film, or silicon, or metal or other nano crystals of conductivity substance is used for an electric charge accumulation layer of the memory cell transistor instead of a conventional floating gate.

In recent years, the demand for small-size nonvolatile semiconductor memories with large capacity is increasing rapidly, and especially, compared with the conventional NOR type EEPROM, NAND type EEPROM which can expect high integration has attracted attention.
As for NAND type EEPROM, one line of one source/drain line formed in the diffusion zone of the silicon active region is formed to one bit line BL. That is, one NAND type memory cell unit is constituted to one bit line BL. Here, if a design rule is set to F (Feature Size), the line/space of bit line BL is set to 1F/1F, and the line/space of word line WL is also set to 1F/1F. For this reason, the cell size of one memory cell transistor MTr is set to 2F×2F=4F2. Since two selective gate transistors are provided in one NAND type memory cell unit, if the size of these selective gate transistors is considered as an overhead α, substantial one cell size becomes 4F2+α.
On the other hand, the following patent documents 1 discloses the nonvolatile semiconductor memory device which a trench is formed in a semiconductor substrate in order to minimize one cell size and the NAND memory cell unit forms lengthwise at the wall part of the trench side.                Patent documents 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H7-45797
The technology disclosed in this patent document is that as shown FIG. 57, a trench region TC is formed in a semiconductor substrate, and memory cell transistor MTr is formed on the sidewall of the both sides of this trench region TC, respectively. In this case, a floating gate FG is formed along with the side wall of inner side of the trench region, and a source/drain SD is formed as a diffusion zone along with side wall of trench region of a semiconductor substrate. That is, as for this NAND type memory cell unit, a plurality of memory cell transistors MTr are formed along with the sidewall of trench region TC, and for this reason, a source/drain current flows along with the sidewall of a trench region. A bit line BL is formed for every NAND type memory cell unit via an interlayer insulating film. The line/space in this bit line BL is 1F/1F.
However, in the technology disclosed in the above-mentioned patent documents 1, only one silicon activation region can be located in the bit line pitch of 2F, and memory cell size cannot be effectually reduced by half, and the further high integration is demanded.
Then, the present invention is conducted in view of the above subject, and it aims at making NAND type EEPROM in three dimensions and locating source/drain line in the bit line pitch of 2F in two silicon activation regions. That is, it purposes that two NAND type memory cell units are located to one bit line. And thereby it purposes to reduce a memory cell size by half, offering the nonvolatile semiconductor memory device which can realize low bit cost as a result.


A negatively chargeable toner for developing latent electrostatic images is composed of a coloring agent; releasing agent; a binder resin including a polyester and a styrene - acryl-based polymer component with a weight-average molecular weight of 50,000 to 150,000, a number-average molecular weight of 2,000 to 12,000, and a glass transition temperature of 55.degree. to 70.degree. C. at a mixing ratio by weight in the range of (95:5) to (50:50); and a charge controlling agent including at least one phthalic ester which is mixed with the styrene - acryl-based polymer component, and at least one fluorine-containing quaternary ammonium salt.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a negatively chargeable toner for developing latent electrostatic images, and more particularly to a negatively chargeable toner for use in a one-component or two-component dry type developer which is utilized in the electrophotographic method, electrostatic recording method and electrostatic printing method.
2. Discussion of the Background
For developing latent electrostatic images to visible images with a developer, there are conventionally proposed two methods, that is, one using a two-component developer comprising a toner and a carrier, and the other using a one-component developer comprising a toner, as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 61-147261.
According to the method using the two-component type developer, a carrier acquires a charge of one polarity and a toner acquires a charge of the opposite polarity by the friction therebetween while the carrier and the toner are mixed and stirred together. The toner is attracted to a latent electrostatic image charged to a polarity opposite to that of the toner and the latent electrostatic image can thus be developed with the toner. Development techniques are divided into several groups according to the kinds of toner and carrier, for example, the magnetic brush development using iron powder carrier, the cascade development using beads carrier, and the fur brush development.
The developing method using the one-component type developer includes the powder cloud development in which a toner is used in the form of a mist, namely, an extremely fine powder, the contact development (or touch-down development) by which toner particles are brought into direct contact with the surface of a latent-electrostatic-image-bearing member, and the induction development by which a magnetic electroconductive toner is brought into direct contact with the surface of a latent-electrostatic-image-bearing member.
The toner applicable to the above-mentioned various development processes comprises toner particles, each toner particle comprising a binder resin such as natural resin or synthetic resin, and a coloring agent such as carbon black dispersed in the binder resin. For instance, a toner can be prepared by dispersing a coloring agent in a binder resin such as polystyrene and pulverizing the above mixture until the particle diameter reaches about 1 to 30 .mu.m. Further, a magnetic toner can be obtained by addition of a magnetic material such as magnetite to the aforementioned components.
The toner used in previously mentioned developing methods is designed to acquire a positive or negative polarity in accordance with the polarity of the latent electrostatic images to be developed. The toner can be charged to a desired polarity by the triboelectric charging of a resin component contained in the toner. When the toner is charged by the triboelectric charging, however, the charge quantity of toner is relatively small, so that the obtained images become vague due to the fogging. Therefore, a dye, pigment or charge controlling agent capable of imparting the charging characteristic to the obtained toner is conventionally contained in the toner to successfully achieve the triboelectric charging of the toner.
Examples of the conventional charge controlling agent capable of negatively charging the toner include a metal complex salt of a monoazo dye; nitrohumic acid and salts thereof; metal complexes, such as Co-, Cr- and Fe-complexes of salicylic acid, naphthoic acid and dicarboxylic acid; sulfonated copper phthalocyanine pigment; a nitro-group- or halogen-introduced styrene oligomer; chlorinated paraffin; and melamine resin. The structures of the above charge controlling agents are complicated and the characteristics thereof are unstable. In addition, they are apt to decompose in the course of kneading under application of heat thereto, and they are easily caused to deteriorate by the application of mechanical shock and friction thereto, or by the changes in temperature and humidity. As a result, the charge controlling properties of the above-mentioned conventional charge controlling agents are degraded. In addition, the charge-imparting capabilities change depending upon the environmental conditions in most of the above conventional charge controlling agents. When the toner comprising the above-mentioned charge controlling agent is used in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus over a long period of time, there occurs the problem of toner-filming, which is associated with defective charging.
Recently, a binder resin comprising polyester resin or epoxy resin is widely used in the toner. This is because the above-mentioned binder resin has the advantages that the binder resin can be prevented from fusing and adhering to a vinyl chloride sheet, the original color of a coloring agent contained in the toner is not impaired, and both the storage stability and the image-fixing property at low temperature can be satisfied at the same time.
However, when the binder resin comprising polyester resin or epoxy resin is contained in the toner, the charge quantity of toner is insufficient at the initial stage, or decreased during repeated operations even though the initial charge quantity of toner is sufficient. Consequently, the fogging and the scattering of toner particles easily take place in the practical use. The above-mentioned defects are ascribed to the chemical structures of the polyester resin and the epoxy resin. More specifically, it is supposed that functional groups such as --COOH group and --OH group remain in the polyester resin and the epoxy resin, which hinder the maintenance of charging characteristics of the toner in a stable condition.
Further, the binder resin comprising polyester resin is superior in the image-fixing property at low temperature, although the grindability is poor in the preparation of the toner. A binder resin comprising a styrene-acryl-based resin is not satisfactory when used in the toner from the viewpoint of the image-fixing property at low temperature.
A binder resin for use in the toner disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2-127657 comprises polyester resin, and other resins with a number-average molecular weight of 11,000 or less, such as styrene and a styrene-acryl-based resin. In this case, to improve the grindability of the polyester resin, the resins such as styrene and styrene-acryl-based resin are added to the polyester resin in an amount of up to 30 wt. % of the total weight of the binder resin. However, when the binder resin comprises the polyester resin and the styrene-acryl-based resin with a low molecular weight, the binder resin is apt to fuse and adhere to a vinyl chloride sheet, so that the vinyl chloride sheet is easily stained with the binder resin of the toner when brought into contact with an image-receiving medium carring the toner images thereon.

Negatively chargeable toner for developing latent electrostatic images


An active-matrix substrate according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a plurality of first TFTs that are arranged within a display area, an inorganic insulating layer that covers the plurality of first TFTs, an organic insulating layer that is provided on the inorganic insulating layer, a plurality of second TFTs that are arranged within a non-display area, and a source and gate metal connection portion that is positioned within the non-display area, a first conductive layer that is formed from an identical conductive film with a gate wiring line and a second conductive layer that is formed from an identical conductive film with a source wiring line being connected to each other at the source and gate metal connection portion. Each of the plurality of first TFTs is an oxide semiconductor TFT. At least one second TFT among the plurality of second TFTs is covered with the organic insulating layer. The source and gate metal connection portion is not covered with the organic insulating layer.

An active-matrix substrate that is used for a liquid crystal display device or the like includes a switching element, such as a thin film transistor (hereinafter referred to as a "TFT") for every pixel. As this switching element, a TFT (hereinafter referred to as an "amorphous silicon TFT") an activation layer of which is an amorphous silicon film, or a TFT (hereinafter referred to as a "polycrystal silicon TFT") an activation layer of which is a polycrystal silicon film is widely used.
In recent years, as a material of the activation layer of the TFT, use of an oxide semiconductor instead of the amorphous silicon or the polycrystal silicon has been proposed. A TFT that has an oxide semiconductor film as an activation layer is referred to as an "oxide semiconductor TFT". In PTL 1, an active-matrix substrate in which an In—Ga—Zn—O-based semiconductor film is used for an activation layer of a TFT is disclosed.
An oxide semiconductor has higher mobility than amorphous silicon. For this reason, it is possible that the oxide semiconductor TFT operates at a higher speed than the amorphous silicon TFT. Furthermore, because the oxide semiconductor film is formed in a simpler process than the polycrystal silicon film, the oxide semiconductor film can be applied to an apparatus which requires a large area.
Generally, the active-matrix substrate has a display area and a non-display area. The display area includes a plurality of pixels (pixel areas) that are arranged in a matrix form, and is also referred to as an active area. The non-display area is positioned in the vicinity of the display area, and is also referred to as a picture-frame area or a peripheral area.
Provided in the display area are a TFT that is formed for every pixel, and a gate wiring line, source wiring line, and pixel electrode that are electrically connected to a gate electrode, source electrode, and drain electrode of the TFT, respectively. The TFT is covered with an interlayer insulating layer, and the pixel electrode is formed on the interlayer insulating layer. A configuration is known in which, as an interlayer insulating layer, an inorganic insulating layer (a protection film) that is formed from an inorganic insulating material and an organic insulating layer (a planarizing film) that is formed from an organic insulating material (a resin material) are stacked.
Positioned in the non-display area is a drive circuit for driving a gate wiring line and a source wiring line. Specifically, a gate driver that supplies a scanning signal (a gate signal) to the gate wiring line, or a source driver for supplying a display signal (a source signal) to the source wiring line are arranged. Drive circuits such as the gate driver and the source driver may be mounted as semiconductor chips (chip on glass (COG) packaging) in some cases, and they may be monolithically (integrally) formed on the active-matrix substrate in other cases. The drive circuit that is monolithically formed is referred to as a "driver monolithic circuit". The driver monolithic circuit is normally configured using the TFT. In recent years, techniques have been used that manufacture a driver monolithic circuit using an oxide semiconductor TFT. Thus, narrowing-down of a picture-frame area, or reduction of cost, which results from simplification of a packaging processing, is realized.
In recent years, a gate driver is often monolithically formed (a gate driver monolithic circuit) and a source driver is often packaged using a COG method in the non-display area in devices, such as a smartphone and a tablet with a small size of less than 10 inches, the frame of which is strongly desired to be narrower.
In some cases, moreover, an inspection circuit for performing pseudo-dynamic lighting inspection, which is a method for detecting a defect in a liquid crystal display device (a liquid crystal display panel), is provided in the non-display area. Accordingly, it is possible that defects, such as a wiring-line breaking and a wiring-line short circuit, on the active-matrix substrate are detected. The inspection circuit, for example, is disclosed in PTL 2.
Furthermore, in some cases, a portion (hereinafter referred to as a "source and gate metal connection portion") at which a conductive layer that is formed from the same conductive film (a gate metal film) as the gate wiring line, and a conductive layer that is formed from the same conductive film (a source metal film) as the source wiring line are connected to each other is provided in the non-display area.

Active-matrix substrate and display device


A method for managing a multi-vessel seismic system including a first vessel, having a recording system and towing a streamer integrating seismic sensors, and a second vessel, including at least one seismic source performing shots. The second vessel sends to the first vessel a plurality of series of shot predictions. For each shot, the second vessels activates the seismic source according to the predictions and sends to the first vessel shot data relating to the shot. The first vessel activates the recording system. If the first vessel has not received the shot data relating to at least one performed shot, it sends a request to the second vessel and receives in response the missing shot data. For each performed shot and the related shot data, the system selects seismic data and combines the selected seismic data with the related shot data to obtain combined data allowing a seabed representation.

To perform a seismic marine acquisition in a survey area, it is common to use seismic sources (guns, vibratory sources, . . . ) and seismic sensors. The sensors are housed in cables, called streamers or linear antennas. Several streamers are used together to form an array of thousands of sensors. Sources and streamers are both towed by vessels. A vessel tows generally one or more streamers and can be equipped (or not) with seismic sources.
To collect the geophysical data in the marine environment, one or several immerged seismic sources towed by at least one shooter vessel are activated to generate single pulses or continuous sweep of energy. The signals generated by each source travels through the layers of the earth crust and the reflected signals are captured by the sensors (hydrophones) in the streamers towed by at least one listener vessel.
The data collected by all sensors during a period of a few seconds (called record length) is then stored by a recording system as a dataset (usually a file in SEG-D format). The interpretation of the seismic data contained in the SEG-D files is used to compute a 3D image of the earth crust.
The theoretical position of seismic sources and seismic sensors for each acquisition is described in a specific document called "preplot": the more the preplot requirements are respected, the more the quality imaging of the earth crust is. The actual positions of all equipments (hydrophones and guns) are known thanks to well-known measure means (GPS, RGPS, acoustics, compasses, depth sensors . . . ).
The acquisition process is controlled and monitored by an Integrated Navigation System (INS), whose role is to compute position of sensors and sources, drive vessels along their acquisition path, according to the preplot geometry, and to activate sources to perform seismic acquisition at desired location.
This time and space synchronization (between sources and sensors) is achieved by the exchange of space events (called bull's eye), giving position at which each vessel should be (this giving position of sensors and sources), and time events (called shots), giving time at which a source is to be activated.
To further increase the quality of seismic imaging, the seismic surveys are now performed in multi-vessel operation, in order to obtain a wide azimuth illumination of the earth's crust. In this case, an initiating pulse is transmitted via a radio modem line to the vessel or vessels participating in the survey. In multi-vessel operation, a known solution is to centralize the shooting management on a particular vessel called master vessel. For example, this master vessel tows a plurality of seismic streamers and also tows one or more seismic sources (guns for example).
All vessels position information are sent to this master vessel, which in return generates space and time events for all vessels, according to preplot. The flow of information is exchanged in real time through wireless channels, which are not 100% reliable due to fading, long distances between vessels, multipath and floating obstructions.
Referring to FIG. 1, an example of such a multi-vessel marine seismic acquisition is schematically shown.
As explained above, for the sake of simplicity, we consider the simple case of a couple of vessels including a shooter vessel V2, which tows a source G2 (for example a gun), and a listener vessel V1, which tows a plurality of streamers S1. We also assume that the listener vessel V1 is the master vessel and the shooter vessel V2 is the slave vessel. The master vessel V1 is moving in parallel with the slave vessel V2. Streamers S1 include seismic signal receiving sensors (for example, hydrophones), which receive reflections of signals from source G2.
Source G2 is controlled by a source controller located on slave vessel V2. Signals received by streamers S1 are recorded onboard master vessel V1 by a seismic recorder.
It is desirable to record reflections of signals initiated by source G2 at streamers S1. For this purpose, synchronization of the recording system on the listener vessel (master vessel in this example) with the source on the shooter vessel (slave vessel in this example) is critical to accurate data acquisition. However, while a recording system on any given vessel is accurately synchronized with a source on the same vessel, precise coordination of a recording system and a source located on a listener vessel and a shooter vessel respectively has proved to be difficult.
An example of the problem occurs when the recording system on the master vessel is set to record seismic reflections from a source on a slave vessel. The master vessel transmits a shoot command to the slave vessel's seismic source. There is a small, but significant, delay between the instant when the master vessel computer issues the shoot command for the slave vessel source, and the instant when the slave vessel actually causes the shot. This delay is caused by the delay inherent in the computers, radio transmission, and receiving links between the vessels.
The instant in time when any source actually fires, and the instant when any particular reflection is received by a streamer, are termed "events" which must be synchronized. Those of skill in the art will also recognize that synchronization among and between other events is also of critical importance in multi-vessel seismic exploration. Examples of such other events include: the instant in time when a particular vessel crosses a particular point on the seabed floor, the instant in time when a seismic source on a particular vessel is initiated, etc.
According to typical systems, a VHF radio link is used to communicate the events between the two vessels (master and slave), with, for example, a phase locked loop (PLL) circuit used to detect the events communicated on the radio link. "Fire" and "time break" commands are generated across the radio link at specific instants, based upon the calculated delay, which will, hopefully, cause the recorder to begin recording at about the same instant as the firing of the source. However, such a system requires a constantly operational radio transmission link, and the system also requires regular calibration. Calibration is normally carried out "off-line," the result of which is that timing errors may occur between calibrations, these timing errors being undetected.
During seismic survey, the radio link between two vessels (or more) can be lost or down (broken), for example when the two vessels sail on both sides of a metallic barrier, such as in an offshore platform.
If radio link is lost or down at a time when a shoot command is transmitted to the slave vessel's source, the shoot command will not be received, the shot will not be made, and the vessels will pass by a spot where data is required.
Thus, such loss of wireless communication (radio link) prevents master vessel to know precisely position of other vessels and/or prevents other vessels to receive time and space events, thus making shot imprecise in time and/or space or missing. The consequence is an altered image of the earth's crust.

Method for managing a multi-vessel seismic system


Semi-trailer units are configured to erect a mobile and scalable detention center to help relieve overcrowded conditions in prisons. A series of conventional semi-trailer units are modified and configured to create a detention center providing typical incarceration features. The trailer units can be arranged in different configurations to provide space for different purposes. Multiple trailer units can be positioned side by side along their length with the walls of the interior trailer units removed to increase the usable area within and among the joined trailer units. The detention center can be scaled up in overall size with additional units as necessary, and reduced in scale or deconstructed if the overcrowding situation were to become relieved.

It is an unfortunate societal consequence that there must exist prisons. It is an even greater dilemma when there are more prisoners than can be adequately housed and detained in existing facilities. Overcrowded jails and prisons leads to numerous problems, such as stress on the inmate populace, burdensome working conditions for guards, and extra operating costs for the jail institution. Solutions for overcrowding are not simple to achieve and their implementation can create other problems. For example, relieving overcrowded conditions through the early release of prisoners can return dangerous persons back into the civilian population before rehabilitation is complete. Transporting prisoners from one overcrowded facility to another less crowded facility is costly and risky.
Relieving overcrowded prison conditions should not have to be the driving force in determining justice and incarceration policy and strategy. A solution that would minimize overcrowded prison conditions would free up resources such that more socially appropriate rehabilitation strategies could be considered. Simply shuffling prisoners from an overcrowded prison facility to a different facility offers an unsatisfactory solution. It is an expensive proposition to transport prisoners in terms of manpower and logistics required to make the transfer and can pose an unexpected and unwanted burden on the destination facility. If overcrowding became less of a factor, then decisions addressing incarceration policy and strategy could focus on more meaningful issues such as justice and societal influences.


An electric power-assist system for a manually operated vehicle, such as a bicycle, has a pedal with Hall sensors for producing a signal representing a rotational speed of the pedal, and an electric motor for power assisting the driving force of the bicycle. A speed counter, speed decision block, up/down counter, and comparator are provided so that the power assist by the electric motor increases or degreases, as the speed of the manual controlling device increases or decreases, respectively.

The present invention relates to an electric power-assist system for a manually-operated vehicles, and more particularly, to an electric bicycle having a motor used for assisting the pedaling force.
An electric power-assist system for manually-operated vehicle is able to deliver power according to current efforts devoted by the vehicle operator. With this electric power-assist system, vehicle operator is able to achieve the same speed with less effort, as compared to the situation when the vehicle is purely human power driven. Thus the operator is able to operate the vehicle in a more efficient way.
Currently, the electric power-assist system is implemented on a vehicle, such as shown in FIG. 1 of US2004/0206563A1, which takes an electric bicycle as an example. Pedaling force is sensed by torque sensor 11, which converts this force information to a signal. This signal is processed by units 19, 21 and 22, which decide how much PWM to output to motor driving block 14. Block 14 then controls the motor 13, which contains an encoder 16 that senses the rotation speed of the motor. Information from 16 is feedback to unit 19 via speed calculating blocks 17 and 18. Therefore the speed is regulated.
However, use of torque sensor bears a high cost, and leads a higher price of vehicles. Another existing method of implementing the electric power-assist system employs the "Hall sensor"—where the Hall sensor is used to sense the vehicle speed to be more than a certain threshold and then a fixed current is commanded in the motor. This method does not have advance feature of controlling the motor power output proportional to the human power input. Hence there will be a problem of unequal power output from the motor, resulting in insufficient assisting power from the motor during high speed or too much assisting power from the motor during low speed.
Therefore, a need arises such that the cost is brought down while advance feature of adapting assist power to human power effort is implemented.

Electric power-assist system for manually-operated vehicle

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.