The invention disclosed herein is implemented in a repository which stores metadata relating to data stored in one or more databases. The repository includes a repository database in which the metadata is stored, one or more scanners each of which scans at least one database and obtains metadata therefrom, and one or more loaders each of which loads metadata obtained by at least one scanner into the repository database in accordance with the externalized reuse criteria. According to the invention, metadata stored in the repository is reused, for example, not replaced by identical metadata when the repository is updated or populated, and the criteria governing reuse is externalized, i.e., accessible and modifiable by a repository user. The reuse criteria accessible to repository users is stored separate from repository program code at a non-programming level such that the customer (user) can change the reuse procedures without an experienced programmer.

The invention disclosed herein relates to a data repository in which metadata stored in the repository is reused, for example, not replaced by identical metadata when the repository is updated or populated, and in which the criteria governing reuse is accessible and modifiable by a repository user.
In today's environment, most large organizations suffer from too much data and not enough information. An enterprise may have vast information assets in many different applications. These assets often were developed by different teams and may be scattered throughout the enterprise. For example, an enterprise may have a number of heterogeneous RDMSs (DB2, IMS, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Teradata, Informix). This makes it difficult to determine where information is located, and how it is being used. Without sufficient accounting, information redundancy, inconsistency and underutilization occur or grow.
Large legacy systems (e.g., COBOL, PL/I Assembler, C, JCL, SQL) represent still another information asset management problem. These systems were developed over many years; the code is often undocumented, lacks modularity and is replete with complex dependencies. As a result, maintaining legacy systems is typically resource intensive and in the context of the overall enterprise, the return on the use of the resources is low.
In large enterprises, it is not unusual for CASE analysts and programmers simultaneously to work on similar projects sometimes without knowledge of the other's work, which can result in costly duplication of effort and a lack of universal standards. This is yet another information management problem across an enterprise.
The data repository addresses all of these problems.
Data warehousing similarly presents the need for information about an organization's vast stores of data in order to make the data more accessible and usable. Through scrubbing, migrating, recalculating, translating, and other data manipulation efforts, these projects can offer information that was previously unavailable. In many cases, however, data warehousing efforts lack a metadata directory that allows information workers to find and understand this new data. While a business may spend thousands or millions of dollars creating a data warehouse, without descriptions of the available corporate data this effort is futile. The information workers must understand what data is available and where they can find it. The data repository provides this capability.
A data repository is a shareable collection of information supporting an organization's or enterprise's data and data processing functions. The data repository stores metadata, i.e., data about data, including data containing descriptions and definitions of the structure, content, keys, indices, etc. of other data, applications and systems components. A data repository may also be a place of record for other information assets, such as queries, reports, and documents that benefit from sharing. The metadata for generally maintaining, running, analyzing, modifying and updating data and applications may be used and shared for many purposes, including, to name a few, data modeling, tool development, application development, CASE support, data warehousing support, impact analysis, and data resource management.
Among the benefits that a repository provides are the following.
(1) Makes the application development process more efficient through: better utilization of existing resources (no one person needs to be skilled at all implemented data bases and tools in an organization); identification of data redundancies (data rationalization); establishing naming standards (data rationalization); identification of opportunities for reuse of standard definitions across disparate tools; providing impact analysis (assess where data is used before implementing a change; support of data sharing (one place to share multiple modeling efforts (e.g., CASE) and consistent definitions; providing an inventory of existing data structure models (for example, those that contain year 2000 affected fields); leverages investment in legacy systems with the ability to inventory and utilize existing application information.
(2) Offers an opportunity for central point of control for data through: providing a place of record for data about an organization's information assets (like a card catalog for all data); provides a universal relational model for heterogeneous RDBMSs to interact and share information thus providing an unlimited opportunity for data documentation (far more than a typical DBMS); supportilng model extensibility to include metadata definitions from non-traditional sources and recording data ownership/stewardship.
(3) Leverages data across the enterprise so an organization can be more competitive by: understanding data properties, uses, locations, characteristics, owners, and relationships; providing organization and documentation of data audit trail (where data comes from and how it is changed) so information can be repeatedly derived with consistent results.
(4) Aids in the downsizing and/or migration to client/server architecture by: assessing and documenting what data is available today before initiating future data architectures and migrations; facilitating the migration process by generating physical data structures from existing data definitions.
(5) Assists with data warehousing by acting as a guide to warehouse sources, targets, and data translations (relationships between elements), and by capturing versions of warehouses--snapshots of moment in time.
A data repository may be populated with database metadata by scanning the database's code, identifying data to be imported into the repository, preparing metadata and loading the metadata into the repository. Since data existing in the repository prior to a load may be identical to data obtained from a database scan, the identical data was reused, i.e., the scanned identical data was not loaded into the repository. Without such data reuse, (1) a data load took much more time that necessary, and in a repository for a large number of databases and applications, could make the repository unworkable; and (2) identical data could be stored multiple times, which spawned still further problems related to memory waste and version control.
Data reuse in other applications by caching is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,511,208 and 5,404,488, UK patent publication GB 2,294,132A and International Publication WO 95/16956.
While a data repository provides many benefits, as for example described above, without the invention disclosed herein, prior repositories suffered from a serious drawback: hard-coded reuse criteria which was not accessible by a repository user. This made data reuse in the repository inflexible and impractical since an experienced programmer was needed to change the reuse criteria. This drawback drastically diminished the effectiveness of a repository, and without user access to the reuse criteria, repositories still had essentially the same serious problems discussed above.

Data repository with user accessible and modifiable reuse criteria


A data storage device and method for preventing accidental updates and deletions using data versioning are provided. In one embodiment, a data storage device is provided comprising a memory and a controller. The controller is configured to: receive a command from a host to modify data stored in the memory, wherein the data is associated with a host identifier created by the data storage device; determine whether the host is associated with the host identifier; in response to determining that the host is associated with the host identifier, modify the data; and in response to determining that the host is not associated with the host identifier, create a new version of the data without modifying the data. Other embodiments are provided.

A host can store data in a data storage device and later retrieve the data. In many situations, the data written by the host can be updated or deleted by the host or another host. This can occur, for example, in a shared namespace in a Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) environment.

Data storage device and method for preventing accidental updates and deletions using data versioning


Cardiopulmonary interval training between a user high target heart rate and a user low target heart rate is obtained with an exercise apparatus by increasing the load of the exercise apparatus at a first predetermined rate until either the maximum machine load is obtained or the high target heart rate. When this event occurs, the load can then be maintained at a fixed level for a predetermined time. Thereafter, the load is decreased until the low target heart rate is obtained, or the user-set exercise duration expired. The heart rate of the user is monitored during the exercise. In the event that measurement of a valid heart signal is lost at any time, any increase or decrease of the load of the exercise apparatus is terminated until a valid heart rate signal is reacquired. In the case when an exercise apparatus is a treadmill, the load can be varied by increasing or decreasing both the speed adjustment and the elevation adjustment of the treadmill. In the preferred embodiment, the speed is first adjusted until a user-set maximum speed is obtained and thereafter the elevation is adjusted in order to obtain the load variations toward or from the high and low target heart rates. The exercise may be repeated between the low and high target heart rates to provide cardiopulmonary interval training.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in the control of exercise machines utilizing interval training based on detecting a user's heart rate.
2. Description of the Related Art
The monitoring of heart rates for use on exercise equipment of all kinds, vertical bicycles, recumbent bicycles, steppers, treadmills, rowing machines and the like is well known. Typically, the exercise rate of the user is maintained according to a preset or calculated heart rate. The heart rate often is set based upon the user's age, weight and sex.
The user begins the exercise cycle by entering a warm-up period for a predetermined amount of time during which the exercise rate is not controlled by the actual monitored heart rate, other than perhaps a maximum limit. After the warm-up period, the user then increases the exercise rate or load, while the heart rate is monitored. The load may be varied according to various types of algorithms as the target heart rate is approached. Once the target heart rate is achieved, the load is thereafter varied to maintain the heart rate for a predetermined time or amount of exercise. Thereafter, a cool-down exercise period is performed at lower exercise rates or loads during which the heart rate is allowed to decrease.
However, it is appreciated by athletes that physical fitness training is more effectively reached by interval training. Interval training can, in general, be described as exercise at periodically higher and lower rates in a cyclic or repetitive pattern so that physical endurance is built up. Such interval training is based upon a cyclic pattern of physical exercise rates or exercise loads without regard to cardiopulmonary function, but is more directly concerned with the exercise and strengthening of skeletal muscle.

Heart rate interval control for cardiopulmonary interval training


The present invention provides genes, polypeptides and expression constructs therefor, recombinant photosynthetic microorganisms, and method of use thereof, such as for the production of branched-chain alcohols (including 2-methyl-1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol, and isobutanol) and derivatives thereof for a variety of uses.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides genes, polypeptides, and expression constructs therefor, recombinant photosynthetic microorganisms and methods of uses therefor, such as the production of branched-chain alcohols, which can optionally be derivatized to produce further compounds. This biological route provides advantages over other known methods of production.

Production of branched-chain alcohols by photosynthetic microorganisms


A pulse tube refrigerating system includes a first space, a second space, a pulse tube disposed between the first and the second spaces so as to constitute a closed operating space in which an amount of operating fluid is filled, a driving device for establishing opposite phase fluctuations of the operating fluid by an expansion and an compression of the first space and the second space in alternative manner, a first set of a radiator and an accumulator disposed in the pulse tube so as to be located at a side of the first space, a second set of a radiator and an accumulator disposed in the pulse tube so as to be located at a side of the second space, a phase control oscillator disposed in the pulse tube and set to be be vibrated with a phase relative to the fluctuation of the operating fluid, and a control device for controlling the phase of the phase control oscillator relative to the fluctuation of the operating fluid.

The present invention relates to a pulse tube refrigerating system.
In a conventional pulse tube refrigerating system, a compression space, a radiator, an accumulator and a pulse tube are arranged in series so as to constitute a closed operating space. Within the closed operating space, there is filled an amount of operating fluid such as helium gas, and the pressure of the operating fluid is set to be varied due to the compression at the compression space. This results in an establishment of a phase difference between the pressure vibration and the displacement vibration of the operating fluid, which leads to that a heat is set to be absorbed at a lower temperature terminal or a cold head of the pulse tube and the resulting heat is radiated from the radiator. Thus, the lower temperature terminal or the cold head of the pulse tube is cooled or lowered at a set temperature.
In order to improve the thermal transfer ability, it is well known that the setting of the phase difference at about 90 degrees is effective. This fact can be known from a thesis, for example, reported in "Advances in Cryogenic Engineering, Vol. 35, P1191/1990). On the basis of this, an improved pulse tube refrigerating system has been proposed in a report (Proc. Fifth International Cryocooler conf. (1988) P.127). In the improved pulse tube refrigerating system, a phase shifter includes a buffer tank which is used as a Helmholtz resonator and the resultant resonant frequency .omega..sub.0 is set to be more than the driving or fluctaion frequency .omega. of the operating fluid in order to establish the phase difference of about 90 degrees between the pressure vibration and the displacement vibration of the operating fluid as possible, thereby improving the heat transfer ability of the accumulator.
However, in the foregoing apparatus or device, the driving or fluctaion frequency of the operating fluid is restricted by the resonant frequency of the phase shifter, resulting in that foregoing apparatus is not so flexible for the practical use.


The present invention relates to group restart in switched ATM networks. In accordance a method of one embodiment of the present invention, a first network switch receives a message (e.g., a call setup message) at one of a plurality of interfaces to the first network switch. This first network switch reads data (e.g., a group identifier) contained in the message. In response, the first network switch generates first modified data as a function of both the data of the message and first interface identifier data. The first interface identifier data corresponds to or identifies the interface at which the first network switch received the message. The first network switch replaces the data in the message with the first modified data thereby creating a first modified message. Lastly, the first network switch outputs the first modified message from another of the plurality of interfaces.

Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks are well known in the art. FIG. 1 shows an ATM network 100 including ATM switches 102 through 110. End devices (e.g., personal computers or telephones) 120 through 128 are coupled to ATM network 100 via respective routers 112 through 116. ATM network 100 facilitates data communication between two or more of the end devices 120 through 128. For purposes of illustration, operational aspects of network 100 will be described with reference to data communication between end devices 120 and 122.
ATM switch 102, ATM switch 104 and the link therebetween are sub-components of a data communication path between end devices 120 and 122. Data communication paths facilitate an exchange of data packets between end devices. The exchange of data packets between two end devices via the data path is often referred to as a call. For each call routed through an ATM switch, the ATM switch creates and maintains a switched virtual circuit (SVC) for processing data packets. For each SVC, switches allocate internal resources including a virtual path identifier/virtual circuit identifier (VPI/VCI) and a portion of switch's data processing bandwidth. A switch may simultaneously support many different calls via separately allocated SVCs.
Each SVC, or allocation of switch resources, is mapped to a particular call via a call reference. Each call reference uniquely identifies a corresponding call. Once a call has terminated, the switch resources allocated to the terminated call should be released for latter use in a subsequent call to be established.
As the size of ATM networks increase, problems and limitations associated with connection oriented transport mechanisms come to surface. One of these problems relates to the mechanism for releasing SVCs. Often, when a call through a switch is to be terminated, the switch releases its SVC corresponding to the call, and generates a release message instructing the neighboring switches to release their SVCs corresponding to the call to be terminated. Releasing the SVCs frees resources for use in other calls. Thereafter, the neighboring switches may generate and transmit a release message to their neighboring switches instructing them to release their SVCs allocated to the terminated call. This process continues until all SVCs allocated to the terminated call have been released.
Releasing SVCs of a call works well when individual calls are terminated. However, this scheme of releasing SVCs creates problems when there is a sudden need to release a large number of SVCs. For example, suppose the link between ATM switch 104 and router 114 is supporting several calls and subsequently fails for any one of a variety of reasons. ATM switch 104 must individually release all SVCs that correspond to calls on the failed link. Additionally, ATM switch 104 must generate and transmit separate release messages to neighboring switches instructing them to release their SVCs corresponding to calls supported on the failed link. If the number of calls supported by the failed link is large, then switch 104 will generate and transmit a corresponding large number of release messages. The generation and transmission of these release messages requires substantial consumption of the switches' resources including processor bandwidth and memory allocation. Moreover, transmission of the release messages to neighboring ATM switches may flood the network and create corresponding communication problems.

Group restart for scalable switched ATM networks


A furnace system for preventing gas leakage is disclosed. The furnace system includes a bottom board for holding a furnace tube. A gas injection device is connected to the furnace tube at a first port for injecting reaction gas into the furnace tube. An exhaust subsystem is connected to the furnace tube at a second port. The exhaust subsystem has a first node, a second node, a third node and a fourth node. A vacuum seal is connected to the furnace tube at a third port for preventing the exhaust gas from leaking. The vacuum seal is connected to the exhaust subsystem at the first node and the second node. Finally, an N.sub.2 sealing tube is connected to furnace tube and surrounding the seam between the furnace tube and the bottom board.

The semiconductor furnace plays an important role in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Common processes such as oxidation, diffusion, chemical vapor deposition, and annealing are performed in a furnace. A typical type of furnace used is the so called "lamp annealing" furnace. The lamp annealing furnace has the advantage that a plurality of wafers can be treated and the process temperature can be precisely controlled. However, the lamp annealing furnace does not currently provide uniform temperature distribution over the entire wafer surface. Another popular type of furnace used in the semiconductor manufacture is the "hot wall" furnace. There are two types of "hot wall" furnace. One is the hot wall horizontal diffusion furnace which is capable of controlling temperature over the range of 300.degree.-1200.degree. C. to an accuracy of 0.5 or -0.5.degree. C. over a length of up to 40 inches.
Another type is the vertical furnace system. The major advantage of the vertical furnace system offers over a conventional system are (1) no cantilever or soft-landing is required since the wafers are held in a quartz boat which does not touch the process tube walls (2) the wafers can be loaded and unloaded automatically. (3) batch processes can be run in the same process tube. (4) temperature is more stable than other type.
In VLSI fabrication, the accurate control of layer thickness and reduction of defects are more important than ever. Many semiconductor processes are performed in a furnace such as oxidation, thermal annealing, deposition, etc . . . . Typically, one or more kinds of gases have to be injected into a furnace system. For example, in a thermal oxidation process, oxygen is injected into the furnace so that the wafer is kept in an oxygen ambient.
In addition, some of the processes are related to the reaction of oxygen and C.sub.2 H.sub.2 Cl.sub.2. It is a relatively simple reaction as shown below: ##STR1## The gases that are generated during the process are HCl and CO.sub.2. HCl is a poisonous gas that is extremely harmful to humans.
FIG. 1 shows in schematic form a conventional furnace system. A furnace tube 2 is used for process reaction that is set on a bottom board 4. The bottom board is used for setting a boat. Typically, wafers are transferred into the boat. A gas injection pipe 6 is connected to the furnace tube 2. The unreacted input gas is let through the pipe 6 into the furnace tube 2. An exhaust pipe 8 having a valve 10 is connected to the furnace tube 2 via a process gas exhaust pipe 26. The waste gas that is generated by a process is exhausted via the exhaust pipe 8 to an exhaust scrubber 12.
An automatic pressure controller (APC) 14 is set midway of the exhaust pipe 8 between the furnace tube 2 and the exhaust scrubber 12 and is used for maintaining and controlling the air pressure at a predetermined level inside the exhaust pipe 8 and the furnace tube 2. Valve 10 that is connected to the APC 14 is used to adjust the flow rate of the exhaust in the exhaust pipe 8. The APC 14 includes a sensor for monitoring the pressure inside the pipe 8. The mechanism of the APC 14 is controlled in accordance with the signal detected by the pressure sensor. For example, a value of air pressure is reached higher than -10 mm H.sub.2 O, the valve 10 will be responsive to the pressure and automatically opened. When the pressure approaches lower than -10 mm H.sub.2 O, the valve 10 will be automatically closed the opening of the valve 10 a little in order to release exhaust out of the furnace tube 2 and keep the air pressure at the valve of -10 mm H.sub.2 O.
In general, if the pressure inside the furnace tube 2 is higher than the pressure outside the furnace, then gas inside the furnace 2 will tend to leak out of the furnace tube 2 via the seam between the furnace tube 2 and the bottom board 4. Therefore, a vacuum seal 16 is attached to the bottom board 4 to prevent the gas from leaking. Typically, the vacuum seal 16 is connected to the exhaust pipe 8 at a node 17 via a vacuum seal pipe 20. A valve 10 is located midway between the node 17 and the bottom board 4 on the pipe 20. Another element of the furnace system is a water collector 22 located between the node 18 and a drain assembly 24. The water collector 22 is used to collect condensed water. The water also serves the dual purpose of being a pressure barrier. When water is collected by the water collector 22, gas cannot be exhausted from the drain assembly 24. A valve 10 is also typically located between the water collector 22 and the drain assembly 24.
In order to prevent the gas inside the furnace from leaking, the process gas exhaust pipe 26 has to provide a negative pressure into the furnace. However, the air pressure close to the process gas exhaust pipe 26 is very unstable due to the unstable air pressure inside the exhaust pipe 8. The variation of the air pressure is in the range of -10 mm H.sub.2 O to 0 mm H.sub.2 O. Therefore, the furnace pressure near the vacuum seal 16 is unstable between negative pressure and positive pressure. If the pressure reaches the positive pressure, then the gas will leak out of the furnace.
Another type of prior art furnace system that is used to prevent gas leakage is shown in FIG. 2. The furnace system includes a furnace tube 2a set on a bottom board 4a. A gas injection pipe 6a is connected to the furnace tube 2a for injecting gas into the furnace tube 2a. An automatic pressure controller (APC) 14a is located midway between the furnace tube 2a and the exhaust scrubber 12a via exhaust pipe 8a for maintaining the air pressure inside the furnace tube 2a. A valve 10a that is connected to the APC 14a to adjust the flow rate of the exhaust in the exhaust pipe 8a. A water collector 22a is located between the APC 14a and a drain assembly 24a. Similarly, the water collector 22a is used to collect condensed water that is used as a barrier. An N.sub.2 seal 16a is connected to the bottom board 4a for providing positive gas pressure into the furnace tube 2a in order to prevent gas leakage. Typically, the N.sub.2 seal 16a is connected to a port 4b which is attached to the bottom board 4a. A flow meter 16b is connected to the N.sub.2 seal 16a for controlling the flow rate of the N.sub.2.
The N.sub.2 is injected into the furnace tube 2a to generate a positive pressure near the bottom board 4a. This generally prevents the gas inside the furnace from leaking. Unfortunately, the injected N.sub.2 is forced into the furnace only via the port 4b. This often times allows gas to still leak out of the furnace tube 2a from the seam disposed away from the port 4b.
Another modification of the furnace system with an N.sub.2 seal is shown in FIG. 3. As can be seen, an open valve 26 is connected to the exhaust pipe 8a at node 18a. The open valve 26 will compensate for the pressure of process exhaust. Thus, air pressure variation will be reduced to the range of -9 mm H.sub.2 O to -11 mm H.sub.2 O. Although the modification can keep the gas exhaust pressure at the stable negative pressure. However, this design can not prevent the gas from leaking completely.

Diffusion furnace system for preventing gas leakage

Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation


This invention relates to a new cytotoxic protein (M toxin, mucous layer devastating toxin) produced by Helicobacter pylori and the use.

It has been considered that the human gets many gastritis, gastric ulcer and gastric cancer by Helicobacter pylori. A distinct direct cytotoxic factor causing destruction of gastric epithelial cells and irreversible cell death at the beginning of these diseases has not been specified. A factor changing pH environment and immunity reaction in the stomach, a factor adhering to gastric epithelial cells by Helicobacter pylori, or move properties of bacteria themselves has been indicated as a factor developing such diseases. However, it has been unclear hitherto that gastric mucosal destruction triggering gastritis, gastric ulcer and gastric cancer is injured in any process, or what is a direct responsible factor to the gastric mucosal destruction. The only is that vacuolating toxin having cytotoxicity is isolated, but it has week cytotoxic activity and reversible cytotoxic activity. As a fatal cytotoxic factor of a pathogenic factor, it has not been found in vivo and in vitro.
Many researchers estimate that Helicobacter pylori, as described in the above, in the environment stomach in vivo, secretes a direct cytotoxic factor for gastric mucosal cells. Considering the importance of diseases, all sequences of the gene is confirmed in 1996. However, in spite of the use of serum, it is impossible to isolate and identify the presumable toxin due to separation conditions, with difficult culture conditions and purification conditions and unfixed valuation systems of the toxin.
Problems to be Solved by the Invention
One problem is that responsible protein causing gastritis, gastric ulcer and gastric cancer by Helicobacter pylori infection is found, a mass production method of the toxic protein is established, new M toxin is identified, and diagnosis and screening method is established. Using these methods, it is desired that responsible toxin of a cytotoxic factor for gastric mucosal cells is controlled, and preventive and treating agents of gastritis, gastric ulcer, gastric cancer and the like are developed and a method for using the toxin is found.

Cytotoxic protein and utilization thereof

Abstract: This invention provides a cytotoxic protein (M toxin) produced by Helicobacter pylori, a partial peptide, and an antitumor agent containing the cytotoxic protein. The protein is obtained by culturing a transformant which is transformed with a recombination vector containing DNA coding the cytotoxin protein. This invention provides further the use of the protein.


A material for a surface modifying agent with which the problems of insufficient durability as abrasion and chemical resistances of surface modification effect in polyurethane surface modification by the prior surface modifying agent are resolved, and is immobilized in a matrix resin firmly and improved in durability. A reactive fluorine-containing highly branched polymer obtained by: polymerizing monomer A having in a molecule two or more radically polymerizable double bonds, monomer B having in a molecule a fluoroalkyl group and at least one radically polymerizable double bond, and monomer C having in a molecule an alcoholic hydroxy group and minimum, one radically polymerizable double bond, in presence of a polymerization initiator D in an amount of 5 % to 200 % by mole with respect to the number of moles of the monomer A; a curable composition containing the reactive fluorine-containing highly branched polymer; and a cured film obtained from the composition.

Polymer materials have been recently used in various fields, and accordingly, characteristics of their surfaces and interfaces have been important as well as their polymer characteristics as a matrix in accordance with the fields. For example, it has been expected that using a fluorine-based compound having low surface energy as a surface modifying agent improves characteristics about interface control such as water repellency and oil repellency, antifoulingness, mold releasability, nonadhesiveness, abrasion resistance, releasability, slidability, anti-reflection characteristics, and chemical resistance, and various technologies have been proposed.
Polyurethane as a thermosetting resin, which is a polymer obtained through a thermosetting process between an isocyanate group-containing compound and a compound having active hydrogen such as a polyol, has been used in a variety of fields in such various forms as flexible foam, rigid foam, elastomer, adhesive, coating, and binder, because various characteristics can be brought out through the combination of the compounds.
As an example of surface modification of the polyurethane resin, there is known surface modification of polyurethane resin by a fluorine-containing highly branched polymer with a fluoroalkyl group incorporated (Patent Document 1).

Reactive fluorine-containing highly branched polymer and curable composition containing the same


Empirically derived models are used to relate user perception to objectively measurable characteristics, under a criterion of nearly perfect co-variance between predicted MOS values and the variations in the values of the objectively measurable characteristics. In the example context of evaluating packet switched telephony service, the present invention eliminates the need to perform subjective tests to characterize each combination of codec type and transmission protocol.

Telephone connections have always been subject to impairments in the form of noise, attenuation, distortion, crosstalk, and echo. Such impairments are particularly common to analog portions of the connection, such as along subscriber loops and within frequency domain multiplexing equipment. Digital transmission alleviates many of these problems but introduces new impairments such as quantization noise or glitches. Even using perfect digital transmission for long-haul connections, a typical telephone connection includes many analog components, such as hybrids, where impairments can occur.
A poor connection or a malfunctioning piece of equipment can produce conditions that a telephone customer will find objectionable or intolerable, so that the connection is deemed to be of very poor quality. When there is a high incidence of such poor connections, customers may complain to the service provider or regulatory authorities, or simply change service providers. Perceived quality of telephone connections is therefore a major factor affecting the reputation and marketability of long distance telephone services.
To guard against poor quality, telephone service providers have developed methods to take objective quality measurements upon a telephone line, a piece of equipment, or even an end-to-end telephone connection. These measurements can help the service provider detect and gauge impairments, pinpoint weak elements and correct deficiencies that degrade user perception of quality.
Many such objective measurements are well known and standardized in the art. Empirically-derived thresholds enable analysts to infer the existence and severity of quality problems by comparing measurements to tables of acceptable values. For example, power levels of test signals and quiet channel noise can be measured electronically. It is well known that a certain range of signal levels must reach a telephone receiver to produce acceptable volume at the earpiece and that the C-weighted noise must be substantially less than the signal level to keep users from experiencing unacceptable noise at the earpiece. The combination of signal and noise measures for a particular connection may be used to determine the likelihood that a user would claim to have difficulty in hearing speech through the phone.
For any one of these objective measurements, the effect of extreme values on user perception of quality is clear, and there are coarse thresholds to define "no effect" and "substantial degradation" conditions. However, for intermediate values and combinations of impairments, there is generally no clear division between values representing acceptable and unacceptable connection quality. Speech clarity and perceived connection quality depend on many variables, including, for example, speech content, talker rhythms, subjective perception of the listener, and users+ acclimation to their telephone service. As a result, the correlations between values of objective measures and user perception of connection quality are statistical, representing the combined effects of many different kinds of impairments and variations of sensitivity to them among the population.
Earlier work in this field by the present inventor has created mappings between objective measurements and perceived quality, so that, for example, when a given circuit is measured in terms of signal level, noise, distortion, cross-talk, and echo using electronic measurement equipment, the mapping predicts the percentage of conversations that would be reported as being significantly impaired or of poor quality as perceived by an average user population. Such mappings have proven to be a powerful tool for analyzing reported impairments and for gauging acceptable performance of a new line or piece of equipment before deployment.
The mapping was produced by creating or finding telephone circuits having various combinations of measurable characteristics and then having a population of callers conduct test calls through such telephone circuits to subjectively gauge the quality of each call. For each test call, the circuit under analysis was rated on a scale of None-Some-Much for each of the impairments manifested to users of the connection. These impairments included noise, volume, distortion, and echo. Each of the subjectively rated impairments was related to the selected objectively measurable characteristics. The statistics from a large number of such empirical trials with ratings of None-Some-Much for each characteristic may be referred to as Service Attribute Test (SAT) data which characterizes the quality of a communications service.
For each test call described above, each caller also provided an opinion score, which was an overall rating of the circuit quality on a numerical scale. Furthermore, each caller also determined whether the overall effect of the impairments was to render the connection as:                unusable (U; rendering the channel entirely unusable),difficult (D; causing enough difficulty to require adaptation by the speaker and listener), irritating (I; disturbing but not requiring adaptation by the speaker and listener), noticeable (N; being minor enough to be ignored), or unnoticeable (O; having no effect on quality).
The percentage of calls or connections that elicit any one of the first three responses (unusable, difficult, or irritating) is called the P(UDI). The P(UDI) is of particular interest to service providers as a meter of customer satisfaction because it has been shown that overall satisfaction decreases as P(UDI) increases, regardless of average opinion score.
Analysis of empirical data including user reports of impairments and perception quality, together with user reports of impairments obtained in conjunction with objective measurements of connection characteristics, then supported a two step development of a means for predicting user perception of quality from objective measurements. First, a model was produced supporting prediction of P(UDI) and average opinion score as a function of percentages of calls with each of the possible combinations of "none," "some," and "much" (N, S, M) conditions reported for each of the impairments. Then, objective measurements were correlated with user reports of impairments to predict the proportion of N, S, M ratings likely to be reported by users as a function of the objective measurements. From these two elements, it was thereafter possible to take measurements of the objective characteristics for connections and translate the set of measures obtained into estimates of likely user perception of quality as revealed by the P(UDI) and an average opinion score.
While traditional circuit-switched telephone networks have been extensively characterized by such an approach, the recent trend toward packet-switched telephony (Internet telephony) has created a need to characterize a telephony channel that is subject to some new impairments. Packet switched networks are generally unsuited to ensuring that transmission delay is fixed or that data packets arrive in sequence, or even at all. This behavior is tolerable for transferring data files and messages, because packets arriving out of order can simply be arranged and lost packets can be retransmitted. However, in packet switched telephony, voice signals are digitized and encoded into a steady stream of discrete packets. Any interruptions or delay variations in transmitting voice data packets, even on the order of milliseconds, can affect the ability to reconstruct the voice signal at the receive end. This problem is further magnified when "codecs" are used to compress or encode the digitized voice signal for more efficient use of data transmission bandwidth. If a sophisticated codec is used and the data stream looses a crucial packet required for reconstructing the voice waveform, the result may be heard as a momentary drop-out, garbled speech, distortion, or a buzzing sound.
Voice over an Internet protocol, sometimes abbreviated as "VoIP", offers many potential technological and economic benefits. However, large-scale deployment of VoIP is hindered by the confusion over how much VoIP transport will affect the user's perception of voice channel quality. For the companies seeking to deploy and gain revenue from VoIP to compete with so-called "toll-quality" telephony service, there is a large risk that users will find the quality of service unacceptable and will revert to using traditional telephone networks.
There is a need to determine what incidences of packet delay and packet loss are tolerable in packet switched telephony without causing any perceptible degradation in service The traditional telephone network is an established first communications service that has been well characterized by extensive experiments. The packet switched enviornment may be viewed as a second communications service with both similarities to and differences from the first communications service.
Therefore, where the quality of a first communications service is well characterized and deemed acceptable, there is a need to establish the requisite performance of a second communication service to be comparable to the first communications service. This is particularly important where the second communication service is subject to additional impairments not applicable to the first communications service and where such additional impairments vary in severity and frequency.
The necessary comparison of the first communications service with the second communications service can be effected according to methods disclosed by the present inventor in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/778,186. Given empirical data on the effects of loss frame rates and added delay on user perception of quality, the methods disclosed in the previous application teach the taking into account of multiple added impairments, apportioning the influences of each added impairment toward the composite quality requirements, and devising a useful way of expressing the required performance of a communications service subject to the combination of added impairments.
The data required for effecting such comparisons include, in particular, the results of tests in which human users report their perception of speech distortion in the presence of different levels of packet loss. Because different codecs and packet transmission protocols vary in their behavior and susceptibility to packet loss, application of this approach would involve controlled tests for each of the myriad possible combinations of codecs and packet transmission protocols that might be employed in different packet-switched voice services.
To avoid having to perform a large number of subjective tests, it is desirable to accurately estimate the effects of dropped packets or novel sources of noise in a communications service implemented with a newly developed protocol, without first setting up and conducting subjective tests of quality of voice under that protocol.
It is further desirable to accomplish this as much as possible in a way that can still rely upon established statistics related to impairments common to both first and second communications services, so that knowledge of the first communications service may spare considerable time and effort in determining acceptable performance of the second communication service.

Determining the effects of new types of impairments on perceived quality of a voice service


Structures and methods for self-powered devices are disclosed herein. Specifically, disclosed herein is a stacked, three-dimensional integrated circuit including a power generation die including a power source. The integrated circuit also includes a functional system die including one or more functional components that are powered by power generated by the power source. The power generation die and the functional system die are stacked in a three-dimensional structure.

Self-powered, portable devices typically rely on batteries to provide power. The batteries in these devices must be recharged or replaced periodically. Efforts to reduce the need for recharging and replacing batteries have included attempting to increase the power storage capacity of batteries and to lower the power consumption of the devices.
Some self-powered devices are integrated circuits and have all their components fabricated at the integrated circuit level. However, tying such devices to batteries or similar power sources is not suitable for some applications due the limitations of batteries.

Three-dimensional chip stack for self-powered integrated circuit


A twine retaining device for a baler includes a retaining disk, which can rotate about a shaft, and a retaining plate, which jointly delimit a retaining gap. The retaining gap is defined by a plurality of constrictions distributed along a twine strand extending through the retaining gap.

The present invention relates to a twine retaining device for use in a baler. A twine retaining device of this type is known from DE 1 923 729 U1.
Block balers conventionally comprise a bale chamber, in which a baling ram is moved back and forth to press crop that has been fed into the baling chamber transversely to the direction of motion of said baling ram against a bale that is already present in order to compress the crop. As soon as the thusly produced crop bale has reached the intended size, said crop bale is knotted. Strands of twine required therefor are wrapped around the bale while said bale is being produced and are exposed to the pressure of the ram with each stroke thereof. A twine retaining device must apply a considerable amount of retaining force onto the free end of such a twine strand during the formation of the bale in order to ensure that the twine does not slip out of the clamping device under the effect of the strokes of the ram.
In the case of a conventional twine retaining device, however, when the clamping force to which the twine is exposed between the retaining disk and the retaining plate is selected too high, there is a risk that the twine will incur internal damage due to the clamping and will ultimately tear under the pressure of the ram. The consequences for the operation of the baler are similar if twine that is clamped too loosely slips out of the clamping device, or if twine that is clamped too tightly tears. The bale can no longer be completed, the material of the unfinished bale must be removed from the bale chamber, and the twine must be re-threaded into the clamping device and secured therein. The work interruptions associated therewith have a considerable negative impact on the cost effectiveness of a harvesting operation.


The invention provides an imaging system wherein toners of two or more colors are used to form toner images and the toner images are successively used to form a color image on a recording material. The imaging system can form an image with high transfer efficiency. An electrostatic latent image is formed on an image carrier. Using developing units for two or more colors, images are formed. Then, the images are successively transferred onto an intermediate transfer medium at a transfer voltage fed from a constant-voltage power supply. The developing units are located such that development occurs in descending toner work function order.

The present invention relates generally to an imaging system, and more particularly to an imaging system wherein toner images are successively formed on an image carrier using toners of two or more colors, and the images are then transferred onto an intermediate transfer medium at an applied transfer voltage, followed by transfer of the images on a recording material such as paper.
Among various imaging systems for forming color images known so far in the art, there is a specific imaging system wherein images successively visualized by toners of two or more are formed on a latent image carrier, an image with the colors put one upon another is formed on an intermediate transfer medium at an applied transfer voltage and then transferred onto a recording medium such as paper by one operation, and the toners are softened by the application of heat, pressure, etc. to fix toner images on the recording medium, thereby forming a color image.
To enhance the definition of the color image to be formed thereby reducing the amount of the toner used, it has been proposed to use toner particles having a reduced particle diameter.
However, a problem with the use of toner particles having such a reduced particle diameter is that frictional electrification of the toner particles with the surface of a development roller or a regulated blade becomes difficult, resulting in insufficient charges. Consequently, even a negative charge toner will unavoidably contain positively charged particles due to the presence of a charge quantity distribution in the toner, ending up with fog of a non-image area on an image carrier. To eliminate such fog, it is known to increase regulated pressure in a non-magnetic one-component development process. However, this can cause overcharging of toner, often resulting in a decrease in the toner density upon development or a transfer efficiency drop. To avoid these problems, JP06194943A proposes to control the amount of the toner deposited on a development roller in a proper range.
US2002076630 (JP2002131973A) proposes to use toner particles having a small diameter, thereby controlling the maximum amount of the toner to be deposited onto the recording material of each color in a given range and, hence, improving chargeability and particle image quality. However, this may be effective for improving the low-temperature fixation capability of the toner so that the toner is uniformly fixed, but is still insufficient for the transfer efficiency of the toner.
JP08248779A proposes a method for the formation of full-color images, wherein a latent image formed on a photosensitive member is developed with yellow, magenta and cyan toners as well as a black toner, each toner image is transferred onto an intermediate transfer medium, and an image developed with the black toner is superposed by primary transfer on the intermediate transfer medium and put by secondary transfer on other recording material.
The publication alleges that the intermediate transfer medium is not charged by repetition of the primary transfer so that the transfer efficiency of the black toner that is developed and primarily transferred in the last step is improved. However, the transfer efficiency of the toners is still less than satisfactory.
JP2000206755A proposes a color imaging system wherein for development a black toner is first used and yellow, magenta and cyan toners are then used, whereby mixing of the black toner with other color toners is so avoided that only the black toner can be recycled. However, the efficiency of transfer of the toners onto paper is again still insufficient.
JP200231933A proposes a color imaging system wherein toner images are formed on both sides of a recording material via an intermediate transfer medium, and yellow, magenta, cyan and black toner images are put one upon another in the order of cyan, yellow and magenta or vice versa, and black. However, the efficiency of transfer of the toners is still unsatisfactory.
JP10207164 proposes development of toners in ascending charge quantity order, and JP10260563 proposes to increase toner transfer voltage for each color, thereby enhancing transfer efficiency.
JP0527548A proposes to determine toner transfer voltage in such a way as to maximize the transfer efficiency of the lowermost toner layer, and JP200231933A proposes to use toners in the order of cyan, yellow and magenta or vice versa, and black.
For instance, JP05307310A teaches that development is carried out in the order of cyan, yellow, magenta, and black.
When toners of two or more colors are put one upon another for image formation, it is required to put the second and subsequent toners on the previously formed toner image; it is required that stable toner images be formed on the previously formed toner image.
Unless the second and subsequent toner images are precisely registered on the first toner image or at a position adjacent to the first toner image in the case of halftone, images having the desired color tone are hardly obtainable or image quality drops due to a scattering of toner particles.
When the formed toner images are transferred onto an intermediate transfer medium at a transfer voltage fed from a constant-voltage power supply, it is less likely to provide precise transfer of all the toner images or application of high transfer voltage is often needed.
One aspect of the present invention relates to an imaging system wherein an electrostatic latent image is formed on a latent image carrier, and a black toner or color toner of two or more colors are used to put colors one upon another so that the resultant image can be transferred and fixed onto an intermediate transfer medium or a recording material. According to this aspect, an object of the present invention is to take advantage of functional differences between the black toner and other color toners, thereby achieving a color imaging system, which enables a color image to be formed through a fixing step with high transfer efficiency but without causing misalignments of toner images obtained by transfer of toners onto an intermediate transfer medium or a recording material in a superposed fashion, and which enables the amount of the toners remaining on a photosensitive member upon transfer to be substantially reduced so that the quality of the resultant image can be improved.
Another aspect of the present invention also relates to an imaging system wherein toners of two or more colors are used on a photosensitive member to successively put colors one upon another on an intermediate transfer medium at an applied transfer voltage thereby forming a color image, which is then transferred by one operation onto a recording material such as paper or synthetic resin film, so that the color image can be fixed in a fixing step. According to this aspect, an object of the present invention is to provide an imaging system which enables a color image to be transferred with high transfer efficiency but without causing misalignments of the transferred color images, and which enables the amount of toners remaining on a photosensitive member upon transfer to be substantially reduced so that the quality of the resultant image can be improved.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


There are provided a head gimbal assembly and an information recording and reproducing apparatus capable of easily positioning a light guiding portion and a slider on a tongue portion and performing a stable recording and reproducing operation. A head gimbal assembly recording information on a recording medium using a near-field light includes: a suspension that extends along a surface of the recording medium so as to be deflectable in a thickness direction; a support portion that is provided at a tip end side of the suspension so as to be more deflectable in the thickness direction than the suspension; a light guiding portion that has a support-facing portion provided to the support portion so as to face the support portion and introduces a light flux used for generating the near-field light; and a 3-dimensional structure that is provided to the support portion and used for positioning the support-facing portion on a desired portion of the support portion, wherein the support-facing portion has a portion in which a width of a sectional surface thereof perpendicular in a longitudinal direction of the suspension is larger than a width of a contact surface that makes contact with the support portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a head gimbal assembly and an information recording and reproducing apparatus that records and reproduces various kinds of information on and from a recording medium using a focused spot beam.
2. Related Art
In recent years, a recording medium (hereinafter referred to as a disk) such as a hard disk of a computer device is facing a need for realizing recording and reproduction of high-volume and high-density information and having a further higher density is being demanded. Therefore, in order to minimize the influence of neighboring magnetic domains or thermal fluctuation, disks having strong retention force have begun to be used. Therefore, it has been difficult to record information on such disks.
In order to solve inconveniences such as those mentioned above, an information recording and reproducing apparatus has been proposed which uses a hybrid magnetic recording method of locally heating magnetic domains using near-field light to weaken the retention force temporarily and writing data to a disk during the temporary period. Particularly, the use of near-field light enables heating an area that is equal to or smaller than the wavelength of light which was regarded as a limit in a conventional optical system. Therefore, it is possible to achieve a higher density exceeding the number of recordable bits of a magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus of the related art.
An information recording and reproducing apparatus using the hybrid magnetic recording method is proposed in a variety of forms. One example thereof is an information recording and reproducing apparatus in which a light guiding portion guides light from a light source at an outer side of a slider and supplies the light to a near-field optical head provided on the slider, thus generating sufficiently large near-field light from a very small optical aperture. Therefore, the information recording and reproducing apparatus is capable of realizing superhigh-resolution and high-speed recording and reproduction and a high SN ratio. In this information recording and reproducing apparatus, the slider having the near-field optical head scans over the disk to be positioned at a desired position on the disk. Thereafter, information can be recorded on the disk by the collaboration of the near-field light radiated from the near-field optical head and a recording magnetic field generated from the slider. Among such apparatuses, there is known a configuration in which the near-field optical head is disposed at a tip end surface (trading edge) side of the slider in order to decrease the distance between the disk surface and the near-field optical head further.
As a configuration for supply a light flux to the near-field optical head, as disclosed in JP-A-2008-310865 or JP-A-2009-4006, a structure is known in which the slider and the light guiding portion are fixed to a suspension in which a notch or an optical aperture is formed, and the light flux emitted from the light source is guided to the near-field optical head by the light guiding portion.
However, in the information recording and reproducing apparatus using the hybrid magnetic recording method disclosed in JP-A-2008-310865 and JP-A-2009-4006, the suspension does not have structures, such as a flexure or a tongue portion, which is indispensable for properly maintaining a very small flying height. Therefore, it is difficult with such a structure to properly control the pressure that suppresses the air bearing force of the slider. In addition, there is a possibility that the recording and reproducing operation is not performed stably.
Meanwhile, the information recording and reproducing apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2008-130165 has a suspension structure which has a flexure or a tongue portion. Therefore, it is possible to stably levitate the slider. However, the light guiding portion or the slider must be disposed on the tongue portion which is easily deflectable in the thickness direction thereof. Therefore, there was a problem in that it is difficult to dispose the light guiding portion or the slider.
In addition, in the information recording and reproducing apparatus disclosed in JP-A-7-192421, a positioning mechanism is provided to both the slider and the tongue portion in order to facilitate disposition of the slider on the tongue portion which is easily deflectable in the thickness direction. However, in an information recording and reproducing apparatus using the hybrid magnetic recording method, it is necessary to dispose optical components such as an optical fiber or a laser unit in addition to the slider. Moreover, in many cases, such optical components have a small surface size on a surface facing the tongue portion. Therefore, there was a problem in that the optical components are likely to roll over the tongue portion when they are mounted on the tongue portion, and positioning of the optical components is difficult.

Head gimbal assembly and information recording and reproducing apparatus


Described is a drain cleaner assembly, including: a clamp knob having a central cavity therein for accommodating a drain snake; a spout having a central cavity therein for accommodating the drain snake; the spout having at least one gripper cavity therein; at least one gripper disposed in the at least one gripper cavity; the clamp knob and the spout being attached to one another and also being displaceable with respect to one another to achieve at least two orientations, the at least two orientations comprising: a first orientation wherein the clamp knob contacts the at least one gripper and forces the at least one gripper into securing contact with the drain snake; and a second orientation wherein the clamp knob permits the at least one gripper to transition within the at least one gripper cavity to be out of securing contact with the drain snake. Other aspects are described and claimed.

Clamps are used to hold an element that passes through a central portion of the clamp, e.g., a drain snake for cleaning a pipe or drain. A clamp is often used to secure in place a rotating tool (such as a drain snake or other rotating element). In some applications, the element held by a clamp remains stationary with respect to the clamp assembly, which rotates with the rotating element.
Clamps employ grippers, often arranged in a radially symmetrical pattern, to hold the element securely therein. The grippers may be tightened or loosened with the help of a clamp key, which is a wrench-like tool. Some keyless clamps may be tightened and loosened by hand without the use of a clamp key. Collet clamps have grippers in the form of a collet that includes flexible "fingers" that fit closely around the element to be secured and grip the element when squeezed, bending the collet inward and in contact with the element when tightened.


Synthetic roofing products such as simulated slate and clay tile shingles, and other products, such as flower pots, floor coverings, plastic pallets and the like are compression molded from a mixture of ultra low density polyethylene binder and a filler which may comprise recycled rubber products such as E.D.P.M (ethylene propylene diene monomer) and S.B.R. (styrene butadiene rubber). Colorants may be added to the mixture prior to final molding. Many of the products, especially synthetic shingles, are less expensive, easier to handle, and more durable than the slate or clay tile shingle product simulated.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,648,144 issued in 1997 to Maurer, et al is directed to a synthetic slate roofing material which comprises a resin matrix and which employs inert fillers such as A.T.H. (aluminum tri-hydrate), Commercially available solid surfacing materials may be used along with additives and colorants in the final mix prior to homogenizing and molding. It is believed that the use of a resin binder greatly limits the flexibility of the synthetic slate roofing material described above.
Recently, James Crowe, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, appeared on PBS""s xe2x80x9cTHIS OLD HOUSExe2x80x9d. Mr. Crowe showed and described a synthetic slate shingle which he said he invented in 1988. The shingle includes pelletized materials such as surplus rubber from from a plant which makes rubber products and surplus polyethylene and polypropylene from a disposable baby diaper plant. Although Crowe states that his binders are trade secrets, they are believed to be vinyl acetate and aluminum trihydrate. The content of binder in Crowe""s product is thought to be about 60% by weight, and his rubber filler materials, about 40% by weight. By contrast, the subject invention employs up to about 60% by weight of rubber filler materials, and only 40% by weight binder. The ultra low density polyethylene binder employed by applicant is very pliable. It is capable of 1000% elongation, and acts like rubber, and is very tough.

Waterproof, durable products made from recycled rubber products


A system including a plurality of processing units wherein one power source is connected to the plurality of processing units, is constituted such that when a total of maximum rated currents of the processing units exceeds an allowable current of the power source, an allowance or nonallowance of the power supplied to the processing units is determined from a state of the power source and the power supply is controlled thereby, and whereby the power source does not become overloaded. Thus, the system avoids overloading the power source if a sum of the maximum rated currents of respective connected processing units exceeds the allowable current of a power source.

1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a processing unit and a system including a plurality of the processing units and more particularly to a system including, for example, a plurality of electronic photo type printers wherein an overload of the power source is prevented.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a system wherein one power source supplies the power to a plurality of image processors, the connection by which the total of the respective, rated currents of the plurality of image processors exceeds the allowable current of the power source is not usually executed. If, for example, the total of the rated currents of the plurality of image processors is less than the allowable current of the power source and, by the addition of another image processor, the total of the rated currents exceeds the allowable current of the power source, the result is that the power source is disconnected by the over current condition, and the possibility thus occurs of the cessation of all the functions of the connected image processors. Generally the allowable current from a power supply terminal (outlet or the like) is about 15 amperes. If the connection of a plurality of image processors, each having a rated current of 8 amperes, is desired, the connection of more than one is dangerous for the above reason. At a time when information processing is popular, the above limitation of the connection of the processors is very inconvenient.

Processing unit and system including plurality of the processing units


A comb gripper is disclosed for use in the assembly of a disk drive. The comb gripper may be used to push a comb tower of a shipping comb such that a head stack assembly (HSA) of the disk drive is rotated and a head gimbal assembly (HGA) of the disk drive is coupled to a ramp of the disk drive. The comb gripper may comprise: a first gripper finger that includes a protruding portion; a second gripper finger; and an actuator. The actuator may be configured to move the first and second gripper fingers, wherein the actuator is configured to move the protruding portion of the first gripper finger to contact the comb tower and to push the comb tower and the shipping comb such that the HSA is rotated and the HGA is coupled to the ramp.

A huge market exists for hard disk drives for mass-market computer systems such as servers, desktop computers, laptop computers, and mobile computers (e.g., mobile devices, PDAs, cell phones, etc.). To be competitive in this market, a hard disk drive should be relatively inexpensive, and should accordingly embody a design that is adapted for low-cost mass production. Further, there exists substantial competitive pressure to continually develop hard disk drives that have increasingly higher storage capacity, that provide for faster access to data, and at the same time conform to decreasingly smaller exterior sizes and shapes often referred to as "form factors." Satisfying these competing constraints of low-cost, small size, high capacity, and rapid access requires innovation in each of the numerous components and methods of assembly. Typically, the main assembly components of a hard disk drive are a head disk assembly ("HDA") and a printed circuit board assembly ("PCBA").
The HDA typically includes at least one magnetic disk ("disk"), a spindle motor for rotating the disk, and a head stack assembly ("HSA") that includes a head with at least one transducer for reading and writing data. The HSA is controllably positioned by a servo system in order to read or write information from or to particular tracks on the disk. The typical HSA has three primary portions: (1) an actuator assembly that moves in response to the servo control system; (2) a head gimbal assembly ("HGA") that extends from the actuator assembly and biases the head toward the disk; and (3) a flex cable assembly that provides an electrical interconnect with minimal constraint on movement. The PCBA typically includes signals for processing signals and controlling operations. Within the HDA, the spindle motor rotates the disk or disks, which are the media to and from which the data signals are transmitted via the head of the HGA. Further, many hard disk drive include more than one disk and there may be multiple HGAs with read/write heads for reading from or writing to each disk surface. A typical disk drive may have an array of HGAs with read/write heads arranged in opposing pairs
For disk drive manufacturing, the HSA may be shipped together with a shipping comb that separates and protects the heads of the HGAs prior to the integration of the HSA into the HDA to assemble the disk drive. In the manufacture of a disk drive with a ramp design, the HGAs need to be loaded or merged into a ramp of the disk drive. In particular, the HGAs may include lift tabs that need to be loaded into the ramp and that may be used for sliding on ramp lanes.
One method of loading the lift tabs of the HGAs into the ramp during the disk drive assembly process is by utilizing a comb gripper that rotates the shipping comb and the actuator arms such that the lift tabs and HGAs are loaded into the ramp. However, damage may occur to the HGAs if they are not adequately vertically aligned with the ramp. In particular, collisions may occur between the lift tabs and the HGAs and the ramp during the merge process. For example, the collision may be caused by the lift tab's height traveling lower than it nominal height when the shipping comb first contacts the comb gripper. Existing comb grippers may unfortunately touch the comb tower of the shipping comb at an angle causing angled motion of the shipping comb which results in the tilting of the shipping comp. This tilting may result in the lift tabs and the HGAs being forced downwards such that they may collide with the ramp resulting in a bent lift tab and/or head damage. Unfortunately, once the HGA or lift tab is damaged, the HSA typically needs to be scrapped which may amount to costly yield losses in the disk drive manufacturing process.

Comb gripper for use with a shipping comb and a ramp in the assembly of a disk drive


In a method for extracting ingredients, particularly foreign substances, from liquids or solids dispersions by using compressed extraction agents such as, for instance, supercritical or liquid carbon dioxide, the liquid or dispersion is applied as a thin film in a pressure-tight reactor and the surface of the thin film is treated with the extraction agent, particularly carbon dioxide, wherein the surface of the thin film is constantly renewed over at least a portion of the layer thickness of the thin film by mechanically acting on said liquid or dispersion.

The extraction with supercritical gases has already been used on an industrial scale for more than 20 years. Main applications include the discontinuous processing of solids in the food industry. Continuous methods for separating liquids by the aid of supercritical gases have already been proposed too, wherein the field of application using high-pressure columns is limited to liquids exhibiting low viscosities, no solids portions and no tendency to foaming or solids precipitation under the applied conditions. Stirrers may be employed when using viscous liquids, wherein blending as intensive as possible, of the solvents and the liquid to be extracted is essential and liquid-liquid extractions, as a rule, require a number of auxiliary agents in order to appropriately reduce the viscosities of the liquids to be extracted. The separation of oils from lecithin is an example of a particularly demanding extraction. In order to avoid the difficulties involved in columns and to ensure, even with higher-viscosity liquids, that the extraction fluid will be intensively mixed in an appropriate manner with the liquid to be extracted, spray-extraction methods have been proposed, in which the material to be extracted is contacted with the supercritical fluid as extraction agent or solvent by being sprayed in the form of extremely fine droplets. Yet, in order to ensure appropriate sprayability, elevated temperatures are usually required to lower the viscosity, a method of this type, thus, having its limits when employed with temperature-sensitive substances. This applies also to molecular vapor distillation, which serves to separate useful materials from highly viscous media. During spraying, the droplets tend to rapidly agglomerate anew, particularly if the liquids concerned are relatively viscous, and hence a sufficiently intensive contact of the solvent will only occur with the surfaces of such droplets. As a result, a concentration gradient will rapidly form in the interior of the droplets, whereby also the viscosity may accordingly vary due to the resulting different chemical composition throughout the radius, so that an effective extraction will no longer be feasible from the comparatively hard cores of such droplets.

Method and device for the extraction of substances from liquids or solids dispersions


A method for manufacturing a transmission electron microscope analysis sample of a substrate containing an insulating body or an insulating sample includes the steps of: depositing a conductive material on the sample and then polishing the sample using a focused ion beam. The polishing step removes the conductive material from the analysis point of the sample, such that an electron projection and transmission path is formed through the sample at the analysis point. However, the conductive material is not removed from the remainder of the sample, not including the analysis point, thereby forming a ground path for any charges formed in the sample.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sample for transmission electron microscope analysis, and a method for manufacturing the sample. The sample is formed as a thin piece, and is used to analyze a defect occurring in a predetermined portion of a semiconductor device using a transmission electron microscope ("TEM"). The sample and its manufacturing method are designed to prevent a possible electron charging during an ion-polishing step and during the TEM analysis, by forming a conductive material on the sample before the sample is subjected to focused ion beam (FIB) polishing.
2. Background of the Related Art
A transmission electron microscope is an instrument for analyzing the phase and the composition of a material, by projecting an incident electron beam accelerated with high potential on a thin sample (below about 1,000.ANG. in thickness). TEM analysis is highly applicable to a sample of about 10 .mu.m or less, and this thin sample can be manufactured only by a focused ion beam system (FIB).
A disadvantage of the TEM analysis of the prior art is that it is impracticable for use on a sample from a substrate that is an insulating material, or a semiconductor containing an insulating layer such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), because the sample becomes charged during the manufacturing procedures and during the TEM analysis.
The above-mentioned electron charging occurs during the TEM analysis as follows. Electrons projected on the sample permeate the sample, which results in back scattering and secondary electron emission. In all cases, the numerous incident charges lose their original energies and are captured in the sample. In the process, if the sample is conductive and has a ground path, the charges will flow away through them. If the sample, however, includes an insulating layer without any grounding path, there occurs a rapid charging even in a conductive sample so that the surface potential of the sample increases.
When the sample captures charges sufficient to raise its surface potential above a predetermined level, a phase to be analyzed cannot be obtained because the charges serve as electron mirrors which reflect the incident electron beam out of the sample. Further, the surface potential of the sample periodically varies due to the repeated emission and accumulation of secondary electrons.
Some have employed a method of depositing a conductive layer on the region to be analyzed in order to prevent the charging described above. But, this method is not applicable to TEM analysis, which analyzes an image obtained on a thin sample projected by an electron beam. This is because, when a TEM sample contains a conductive material, the actual image or phase of the sample overlaps with the image of the conductive material on the sample.
The TEM analysis is, therefore, practicable for a conductive sample with a ground path, but not applicable to the analysis of a sample containing an insulating layer or an insulating sample.
Despite these limitations on TEM analysis, it has become increasingly necessary in recent years to carry out TEM analysis for the microscopic region of semiconductor devices such as memory devices or the like, particularly an LCD whose base layer is made of glass (SiO.sub.2).
In addition, the above-described charging effect on an insulating sample has a deleterious effect on the FIB grinding process in manufacturing the sample itself, by causing an over-etching or under-etching at the analysis point of the sample.

Sample for transmission electron microscope analysis having no conductive material in the electron beam path, and its manufacturing method


A migration framework provides for the migration of services in a cluster. A migratable target contains a list of servers in the cluster capable of hosting a migratable service. A migration manager can migrate the service between servers in the migratable target, and can activate an instance of the service on the selected host server. The migration manager ensures that only one active instance of the service exists in the cluster. A service stub can serve a user request on servers in the migration target, such as by order of preference, until the user request is served on the server hosting the active instance. A lease manager can assign a lease period to determine how long a server hosts an active instance.

Certain services are designed with the assumption that there will be only one active instance of each service running in a cluster at any given time. Examples of such services include transaction managers, JMS backends, and administration services. In order to enable these services to survive server failures or other problems, a mechanism can be used to move each service from a failed server to a healthy server in the cluster. A problem arises, however, in ensuring that each and every service is never active on more than one server at a time. Another problem, which is common with many distributed systems, involves how to ensure that all servers in the cluster agree to the new server.

Systems and methods for migratable services

Abstract: This description is not intended to be a complete description of, or limit the scope of, the invention. Other features, aspects, and objects of the invention can be obtained from a review of the specification, the figures, and the claims.


A demulsification process for extracting surface active biochemical products from crude oil and its fractions when they are used as feedstock during biochemical productions utilizes subcritical/supercritical CO2 as a proton pump. The process also includes a pH tuning step, thereby inducing demulsification and precipitation of biochemical products into the aqueous phase, but avoiding asphaltene precipitation by apriori addition of resinous solvents derived from crude oil or bioresources. The biochemical products are then extracted from the aqueous phase via temperature change or some other technique.

Crude oil and its fractions are used as feedstock for producing valuable chemicals. In the future, various high-value added biochemicals can also be commercially produced from the bioprocessing of crude oil and its fractions in the presence of water. Crude oil in oil fields often times forms an emulsion with water.
An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible where one phase is discontinuously dispersed in other continuous phase. There are several types of oil/water emulsions including, water-in-oil (w/o) emulsions [water is the dispersed phase, oil is the continuous phase] and oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions [oil is the dispersed phase, water is the continuous phase], as well as more complex emulsions such as water-in-oil-in-water (w/o/w) emulsions and oil-in-water-in-oil (o/w/o) emulsions. More often than not, the emulsions produced in oil fields are w/o emulsions.
In these emulsions, there are a number of surface active molecules that contribute to its viscosity. Further, resistant films at the crude oil/water interface usually form due to the presence many types of interfacial active components (groups, COOH etc.) from the oil phase possessing electrically charges interacting with the ions present in water (H+, OH−, Cl−, etc.). The emulsions in crude oil and its fractions can be formed from the indigenous components.
The high-value biochemicals present or formed or produced in crude oil have diverse applications, including cancer drug application, drilling fluid, cosmetic surgery, and heavy metals removal from drinking water. However, since these indigenous biochemicals are produced in substrates, such as crude oil and its fractions, are highly surface active compounds, they usually create tenacious emulsions in an oil-water system that is very difficult to break (i.e., demulsify). Thus, it is difficult to extract the biochemical from the mixture. In many of these cases, the conventional extraction (demulsification) methods are ineffective due to the high viscosity of the system and strong amphiphilic properties of the surfactants.
Further, while there are some methods for the demulsification of crude oil, these methods typically result in the precipitation of asphaltenes—a type of surface active macromolecules in the oil—which can result in equipment malfunction. Specifically, the precipitation of asphaltenes can cause deposition of asphaltenes in pipelines, and pumps, which can lead to reduced, plugged pipelines, and damaged pumps. Accordingly, it is desirable to avoid asphaltene precipitation.
Thus, there is a need for demulsification methods that are both effective at extracting high-value biochemicals, yet also avoid the precipitation of asphaltenes.

Demulsification and extraction of biochemicals from crude and its fractions using water and subcritical/supercritical carbon dioxide as proton pump with pH tuning without precipitating oil components


The present invention provides a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device, including the step of forming a hole penetrating an insulating film over a semiconductor substrate, wherein the step includes the steps of forming a pedestal at a position where a hole to be formed; forming an insulating film to bury the pedestal; forming a first hole in the insulating film so as to expose a top surface of the pedestal; and removing the pedestal to form a second hole continuous with the first hole to form a hole penetrating the insulating film.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device, and in particular, to the structure of plugs used to connect an upper conductor to a lower conductor and a method for forming plugs, as well as a method for forming a capacitor having a trench structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, semiconductor devices have been more and more highly integrated, requiring more precise micromachining. The semiconductor devices require a plug to be formed in an interlayer insulating film in order to connect an upper interconnection layer and a lower interconnection layer together. The plug is normally formed by forming a hole in the interlayer insulating film by dry etching and filling the hole with a conductive material. However, a decrease in the planar area in which the hole can be formed has made the machining based on dry etching significantly difficult.
This difficulty will be described in further detail taking a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) shown in FIG. 1 as an example.
An n well 102 is formed in a p-type silicon substrate 101. A first p well 103 is formed inside the n well 102. A second p well 104 is formed in the area except for the n well 102. An element isolation region 105 is formed around the p well on a front surface side of the silicon substrate. For convenience, the first p well 103 shows a memory cell region in which a plurality of memory cells are located. The second p well 104 shows a peripheral circuit region.
Switching transistors 106 and 107 are provided in the first p well 103 and each has a gate serving as a word line that is a component of each memory cell. The transistor 106 is composed of a drain 108, a source 109, and a gate electrode 111 provided on the silicon substrate via a gate insulating film 110. The transistor 107 is composed of a source 109 shared by the transistor 106, a drain 112 and a gate electrode 111 provided on the silicon substrate via the gate insulating film 110. An interlayer insulating film 113 with a flat surface covers the transistors.
A contact hole 114 is formed in a predetermined region of the interlayer insulating film 113 and connected to the source 109. A bit interconnection contact plug 115 is provided inside the contact hole 114 and consists of polycrystalline silicon 115a and metal silicide 115b. A bit interconnection 116 is connected to the bit interconnection contact plug 115 and consists of tungsten nitride 116a and tungsten 116b. An interlayer insulating film 118 with a flat surface covers the bit interconnection 116.
Contact plugs 117 are provided in a predetermined region of the interlayer insulating film 113 and connected to the drains 108 and 112 of the transistors. Capacitance contact holes 119 are formed in a predetermined region of the interlayer insulating film 118 so as to be connected to the contact plugs 117; capacitor contact plugs 120 are provided inside the contact holes 119. A silicon nitride film 121 and an interlayer insulating film 122 are provided over the capacitor contact plug 120 and interlayer insulating film 118.
Capacitors having cylinder structures are provided in a predetermined region of the interlayer insulating film 122. Each capacitor is composed of a lower electrode 124 and a dielectric 125 provided on an inner surface of a cylinder hole 123 formed in the interlayer insulating film 122, and an upper electrode 126 formed to fill the hole. The lower electrode 124 is connected to the capacitor contact plug 120. An interlayer insulating film 127 covers the upper electrode 126. The upper electrode 126 has its partial area led out to a peripheral circuit as a lead-out region 135. The lead-out region 135 is connected to a metal interconnection 134 via a via plug 137 provided in a through-hole 136 formed in the interlayer insulating film 127.
On the other hand, a transistor constituting a peripheral circuit is provided in the second p well 104. The transistor is composed of the source 109, drain 112, gate insulating film 110, and gate electrode 111. Contact holes 128 are formed in predetermined regions of the interlayer insulating film 113 so as to connect to the source 109 and the drain 112. Titanium silicide layers 129 are formed on a source and a drain located at the bottoms of the respective contact holes. Contact plugs 130 are provided inside the respective holes in contact with the respective titanium silicide layers; each of the contact plugs 130 consists of titanium nitride and tungsten. An interconnection layer 131 is provided on each of the contact plugs 130 and consists of tungsten nitride 131a and tungsten 131b. The interconnection layer 131 partly connects to the interconnection 134 via a via plug 133 that fills a through-hole 132 formed through the interlayer insulating film 118, silicon nitride film 121, and interlayer insulating films 122 and 127; the via plug 133 consists of titanium nitride and tungsten.
As is apparent from the above example of a DRAM, many holes are formed in the interlayer insulating films in order to form plugs for the connection between the upper and lower interconnection layers as well as cylinders for capacitors. In particular, for the capacitance contact hole 119 and capacitor cylinder hole 123 formed in the memory cell region, and the through hole 132 formed in the peripheral circuit region, a demand for an increase in integration level has increased aspect ratio, expressed as the ratio of the depth to diameter of the hole, to 15 to 20. This makes it very difficult to machine these holes.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 9-45633, 10-50835, and 2001-35921 disclose methods for forming a contact hole and a contact plug.
The above holes are normally formed in interlayer insulating films of silicon oxide. Anisotropic dry etching by high-frequency plasma is used to form holes. To dry etch silicon oxide, it is necessary to break the bond between silicon and oxygen, to cause silicon to react to generate a volatile substance, and to exhaust the substance. Fluorine can be effectively used for reaction with silicon. A source gas may be octaflorocyclobutane (C4F8), octaflorocyclopentane (C5F8), or the like. The source gas is decomposed and excited in plasma to generate fluorine ions. The generated fluorine ions are accelerated by an electric field applied to between the plasma and a stage for the semiconductor substrate. The fluorine ions thus impact the surface of the silicon oxide. The resulting acceleration energy is used to break the bond between silicon and oxygen. The silicon is caused to react to generate volatile silicon fluoride, which is then exhausted. A basic reaction process has been described, and many variations and modifications are actually made to the process. For example, argon gas may be added in order to improve the effect of ions.
If any one of the above holes is to be formed, an etching reaction occurs at the bottom surface of the hole. Accordingly, retention of constant etching characteristics is expected to require the maintenance of the balance between the supply, to the bottom surface, of reaction particles (fluorine ions) contributing to the etching and the exhaust, from the bottom surface, of a reaction product (silicon fluoride) resulting from the etching. However, when the hole becomes deeper to increase the aspect ratio, the reaction product is insufficiently exhausted and is likely to remain at the bottom of the hole. As a result, the remaining reaction product hampers the passage of ions contributing to the etching, causing the etching rate to start decreasing. Finally, the etching is disabled.
Further, the remaining reaction product causes the source gas and reaction product to be polymerized in the hole, with the resulting polymeric substance adhering to the inner wall of the hole. The adhesion of the polymer reduces the hole diameter during etching in a self aligning manner. The hole is thus tapered toward the deeper side and thus shaped like a mortar. This prevents the desired capacitor shape from being obtained, making it difficult to ensure storage capacitance. Further, unfortunately, the contact area of the plug in the hole with the lower conductor decreases to increase contact resistance. The inventors have empirically clarified that this problem becomes actual at an aspect ratio of greater than 10. For example, when a depth of a hole with diameter 0.2 μm increases above 2 μm (aspect ratio: 10), the problem becomes actual. When the depth of the hole becomes 3 μm, the problem becomes significant.

Semiconductor device and method for manufacturing the same


Process for preparing highly viscous organopolysiloxanes by reacting siloxanes (1) composed of units of the general formula

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process for preparing highly viscous organopolysiloxanes, and to highly viscous organopolysiloxanes prepared thereby.
2. Background Art
For the preparation of polysiloxanes having high viscosity, a number of methods exist, based predominately on condensation reactions. For instance, a standard method is to prepare silanol-functional, highly viscous polysiloxanes from low-viscosity hydrolyzates of chlorosilanes, usually dimethyldichlorosilane, by condensing them at relatively high temperature, usually under the action of acidic catalysts, and liberating water in the process.
In a similar manner, silanol-functional polysiloxanes can be condensed with methoxysilanes to liberate methanol. For this purpose, catalysts and relatively high temperatures are usually required in order to achieve industrially acceptable conversion rates. For instance, the standard process for preparing typical commercial amino-functional siloxanes is the base-catalyzed condensation of aminoalkyl methoxysilanes with a short-chain hydrolyzate of dimethyldichlorosilane at elevated temperature.
In view of the reaction temperatures of 100° C. and higher, and a reaction time of over several hours, a process for preparing highly viscous polysiloxanes is desirable which is either rapidly complete or proceeds at low temperature such as room temperature, or both.
DE-A 2500020 describes a process for preparing aminosiloxanes in which silanol-terminated polysiloxanes are reacted with a-aminosilanes which bear an alkoxy group. The reaction proceeds at moderate temperatures with elimination of alcohol. However, it is only possible with this technique to prepare comparatively unstable α-aminosiloxanes and also only in difunctional telechelic form.
Highly viscous polysiloxanes can also be obtained by polyaddition reactions, as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,241,034 and 6,252,100. EP-A 874 017 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,451,909 disclose polyaddition reactions in emulsion for the preparation of highly viscous polysiloxanes. However, it is common to all of these polyaddition methods that metal catalysts are required for the progress of the reaction, and these are often undesired. In the presence of N-containing sil(ox)anes, catalyst inhibition also occurs, so that it is barely possible, if at all, to carry out an efficiently catalyzed polyaddition.

Abstract: A          a                                                            R              c                                                  (                              OR                1                            )                                d                                  SiO                                    4              -                              (                                  a                  +                  c                  +                  d                                )                                      2                                              (        I        )            where                A is a nitrogen-containing Si—C-bonded radical,R is a C1-18 hydrocarbon radicalR1 is hydrogen or a C1-8 alkyl radical,a and d are 0 or 1, c is 0, 1, 2 or 3,a+c+d is <3 and one A and one R1 where of R1 is hydrogen atom are present,optionally siloxanes (2)

Abstract: R              c                                                  (                              OR                1                            )                                d                                  SiO                                    4              -                              (                                  c                  +                  d                                )                                      2                                              (        II        )            wherec+d is ≦3 and one R1 radical is hydrogen is present,with silanes (3)BReSi(OR3)3−e  (III)whereB is a radical —CR22—Y,R2 is hydrogen or C1-4 alkyl,Y is halogen, a monosubstituted O and S atom, or a substituted N or P atom,R3 is C1-8 alkyl, ande is 0, 1 or 2.