In producing a non-fitting type capsule containing an oily substance such as vitamin E, etc. in a capsule, a hydrophilic solvent such as ethanol, etc. which can be dissolved in the oily substance is added thereinto to lower viscosity thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a production technique of a non-fitting type capsule, and more particularly to a technique for producing a non-fitting type capsule containing an oily substance.
2. Related Art Statement
Soft capsules containing a oily substance have widely been used in the fields of medicine, food, etc. These soft capsules comprise an oily substance such as medicine, i.e., oil-soluble vitamins including Vitamin A, D, E, etc., cod-liver oil, linoleic acid, etc.; healthy food: or those in which an oil-soluble medicine is dissolved in a vegetable oil, etc; being contained in an outer shell made of gelatin, etc.
In general, for preparing the above soft capsules, a rotary type automatic encapsulation machine having a structure as shown in FIG. 2 has been used.
An oily substance 11 to be filled in capsules is supplied from a tank which is not shown through a pipe into a cylinder pump 12. A gelatin sheet 13 which is to constitute an outer shell is molded into a sheet from an aqueous gelatin solution which was heated to be dissolved in a previous step which is not shown, and after transferred to a die roll 14 in a heated state, it encapsulates therein the oily substance 11 supplied by the cylinder pump 12 and is formed to be a soft capsule 15 by heat pressing. The oily substance 11 is supplied to the die roll 14 generally in a heated state so as not to lower a temperature of the heat pressing.
In the aforesaid rotary type automatic encapsulation machine, it is difficult to broaden the width of the flow passage of the oily substance in view of its structure and the oily substance is supplied from the tank to the cylinder pump by gravity-drop.
Thus, if an oily substance having high viscosity is used, a large load must be applied for suction of the cylinder pump even when the viscosity is reduced to some extent by heating, whereby working failure tends to be caused when same production speed of capsules as low viscosity oil is employed. Therefore, production speed of capsules must be lowered.
To cope with this, it may be considered to supply an oily substance by using an additional pump in combination. It, however, is difficult since suction of the oily substance by a cylinder pump is intermittent.
Also, it may be considered to lower viscosity by adding a hydrophobic solvent or other low viscosity oily substance to a high viscosity oily substance. But, as a hydrophobic solvent, there is no suitable material which can be utilized together with medicine, food, etc. On the other hand, as shown in Table 1 below, an oily substance has generally much higher viscosity than a hydrophobic solvent, so that a viscosity lowering effect is small even when another oily substance with lower viscosity is added. As can be seen from these facts, it is the present situation that soft capsules containing a high viscosity oily substance cannot be produced with high efficiency.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ Viscosities of various kinds of oily substances Oily Viscosity (cps) substance 25.degree. C. 37.7.degree. C. ______________________________________ Vitamin E 320 Castor oil 651 263-290 Olive oil 75 43 Rapeseed oil 82 51 Soybean oil 28.49 Liver oil 32.79 (Codfish) ______________________________________ (Vitamin E is a measured value by the inventor, others are values shown i "Yushi Kagaku Binran" ("Oil and Fats Chemistry Handbook", in Japanese)

Production method of non-fitting type capsule and non-fitting type capsule produced thereby


A method used in a medium access control, hereinafter called MAC, layer of a wireless communications system for performing transmission and prioritization for packets of a radio link control, hereinafter called RLC, layer including a plurality of RLC entities coupled to a plurality of logic channel includes determining a size of a MAC protocol data unit, hereinafter called PDU according to a grant provided by a lower layer, selecting MAC control elements for use in a MAC PDU header, determining MAC sub-headers for use in the MAC PDU header according to the selected MAC control elements, determining a total transmission payload size according to total sizes of the control elements and the MAC sub-headers, and then allocating a transmission payload size for each RLC entity according to the total transmission payload size, a data volume provided by each of the plurality of RLC entities, and logic channel priority.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for packet transmission and prioritization, and more particularly, to a method of performing transmission and prioritization for packets of a radio link control (RLC) layer for a medium access control (MAC) layer of a wireless communications system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A long-term evolution (LTE) system, initiated by the third generation partnership project (3GPP), is now being regarded as a new radio interface and radio network architecture that provides a high data rate, low latency, packet optimization, and improved system capacity and coverage. In the LTE system, an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) includes a plurality of evolved Node-Bs (eNBs) and communicates with a plurality of mobile stations, also referred as user equipments (UEs).
A radio link control (RLC) layer is responsible for data transfer of radio bearers from an upper layer, Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer, and includes three transfer modes of Transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM) and Acknowledged Mode (AM). An RLC entity exchanges RLC service data units (SDUs) with upper layer and RLC protocol data units (PDUs) with its peer RLC entity via lower layers. An RLC PDU can either be an RLC data PDU or an RLC control PDU.
In the LTE system, a UM RLC entity is configured either as a transmitting UM RLC entity or a receiving UM RLC entity. The transmitting UM RLC entity receives RLC SDUs from upper layer and sends RLC PDUs to its peer receiving UM RLC entity via lower layers. The receiving UM RLC entity delivers RLC SDUs to upper layer and receives RLC PDUs from its peer transmitting UM RLC entity via lower layers. In addition, the transmitting UM RLC entity segments and/or concatenates RLC SDUs in accordance to a transport block (TB) size selected by lower layer at the particular transmission opportunity when forming UM data (UMD) PDUs from the RLC SDUs.
In the LTE system, an AM RLC entity, either in the E-UTRAN or in the UE, consists of a transmitting side and a receiving side and supports segmentation, retransmission, sequence check and other functions. The receiving side of the AM RLC entity delivers RLC SDUs to the upper layers and receives RLC PDUs from its peer AM RLC entity via the lower layer. The transmitting side of the AM RLC entity receives RLC SDUs from upper layers and delivers RLC PDUs to its peer AM RLC entity according to a TB size indicated by a medium access control (MAC) layer. In addition, the transmitting side of the AM RLC entity segments and/or concatenates RLC SDUs in accordance to the TB size selected by the MAC layer at the particular transmission opportunity when forming AM data (AMD) PDUs from the RLC SDUs.
In AM data transfer, the transmitting side of the AM RLC entity shall prioritize transmission of RLC control PDUs over RLC data PDUs and further prioritize retransmission of RLC data PDUs over transmission of new AMD PDUs. In retransmission, the transmitting side of an AM RLC entity delivers the AMD PDU if the AMD PDU can entirely fit into the TB of the particular transmission opportunity, otherwise segments the AMD PDU to form a new AMD PDU segment which can fit into the TB.
The MAC layer, a lower layer of the RLC layer supports functions of mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing, de-multiplexing, logical channel prioritization, transport format selection, and so on. An MAC entity of the MAC layer, performing the MAC functions, exchanges RLC PDUs, seen as MAC SDUs, with the RLC layer via logic channels and MAC PDUs with the physical layer via transport channels, such as an uplink shared channel (UL-SCH) or a downlink shared channel (DL-SCH). An MAC SDU can be an RLC data PDU, an RLC data PDU segment or an RLC control PDU. More specifically, the MAC entity multiplexes MAC SDUs from one or different logical channels onto the TB to be delivered to the physical layer on transport channels. Each MAC transmission is allocated with a transmission time interval (TTI).
In the logical channel prioritization of the MAC layer, a logical channel prioritization procedure is applied when a new transmission of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process is performed. Each logical channel is given a Prioritized Bit Rate (PBR). The PBR is a rate like X bytes/s or Y bits/s. The logical channel prioritization procedure ensures that all the logical channels are served in a decreasing priority order up to their configured PBR, and if any resources remain, all the logical channels are served in a strict decreasing priority order until either the data for that logical channel or the UL grant is exhausted, whichever comes first.
A MAC PDU consists of a MAC header, zero or more MAC SDUs, zero or more MAC control elements, and optionally padding. Both the MAC header and the MAC SDUs are of variable sizes. The MAC PDU header consists of one or more MAC PDU sub-headers, each corresponding to either a MAC SDU, a MAC Control element or padding. MAC PDU sub-headers have the same order as the corresponding MAC SDUs, MAC Control elements and padding. The MAC control elements are always placed before any MAC SDU and padding. A maximum of one MAC PDU can be transmitted per TB per UE, and one or two TBs can be transmitted per TTI per UE.
According to the prior art, the MAC selects a TB size for an AM RLC entity, and the TB, onto which the MAC SDUs are multiplexed from one or different logical channels, has the same size as the MAC PDU does. In this situation, a problem of TB allocation for RLC entities is incurred in a scenario where more than one RLC entity have data to transmit and logical channels of these RLC entities are multiplexed in the DL-SCH or UL-SCH. For example, two RLC entities of a UE with equal logical channel priority have data to transmit and two logical channels of these RLC entities are multiplexed in UL-SCH. The MAC layer has to provide half the TB size for each of the RLC entities when both of the RLC entities have data, more than half the TB size, to transmission. Therefore, it is unreliable for the RLC SDUs to be segmented and/or concatenated only in accordance to the TB size selected by MAC. Also, it is unreliable for the AMD PDU for retransmission to be determined whether to be segmented only depended on whether the AMD PDU can entirely fit into the corresponding TB or not.
The prior art does not clearly specify how to decide the RLC data PDU size when the RLC control PDU transmission is transmitted in the same transmission opportunity. Furthermore, the current logical channel prioritization is not clearly defined in the prior art.

Method of performing transmission and prioritization for radio link control packets for a medium access control layer of a wireless communications system


An ultrashort pulsed laser device includes: a pump laser diode having linear polarization; a solid laser medium oscillating with linear polarization; an optical fiber maintaining a polarization direction; and a saturable absorber mirror. The solid laser medium is disposed between the optical fiber and the saturable absorber mirror. Laser light emitted from the pump laser diode optically is coupled with a first end face of the optical fiber, and laser light emitted from a second end face of the optical fiber pumps the solid laser medium. The first end face of the optical fiber and the saturable absorber mirror constitute a laser resonator. With this configuration, mode lock can be realized stably at a repetition frequency of several hundred MHz.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ultrashort pulsed laser device used in an optical communication field and an optical information processing field.
2. Related Background Art
Three-dimensional bit-by-bit recording, which is a technology expected as next generation high-density and high-capacity recording, exploits a non-linear effect such as a multiphoton process. When ultrashort pulsed laser with a pulse width in femtoseconds is collected onto a glass, an organic material and the like that are transparent with respect to laser light applied in a normal state using a lens, a transition probability of the absorption changes in proportion to the square of a light intensity, thus generating optical absorption. Thereby, the absorption spectrum can be changed by, for example, changing diarylethene from an open ring to a closed ring. Since the material is transparent with respect to laser light, it can be made a multilayer along a laminated direction, whereby optical recording can be increased in capacity.
Such three-dimensional bit-by-bit recording requires an ultrashort pulsed laser. FIG. 9 shows an example of a femtosecond laser as an ultrashort pulsed laser light source. In this device, laser light from a pump laser 60 is collected onto a solid laser medium 63 via a mirror 61 and a concave mirror 62. Between a saturable absorber mirror 64 and an output mirror 65, a resonator is constituted. The saturable absorber mirror 64 is used for mode lock. A prism pair 66 and 67 is aimed for dispersion compensation. Cr: forsterite (pumping wavelength: 1.06 μm, oscillation wavelength: 1.3 μm) is used as the solid laser medium 63, and a Nd: YAG laser (wavelength: 1.06 μm) is used as the pump laser 60, whereby ultrashort pulsed light of 20 fs is obtained.
Assuming that an average power, a repetition frequency, a pulse width and a peak power of this ultrashort pulsed light are Pc, f, t and Pp, respectively, energy E of one pulse is represented as follows:E=Pc/f(J).
And, the peak power Pp is represented as follows:Pp=E/t(W).
Pc depends on the power of the pump laser. To accommodate household electronic appliances, the pump laser has to be not more than 1 W. Therefore, in order to increase Pp, the repetition frequency f and the pulsed width should be decreased. Meanwhile, in order to apply the ultrashort pulsed laser to optical recording, for example, a considerable degree of data transfer rate is required, so that a repetition frequency of not less than several hundred MHz is required. In order to realize the peak power of 1 kW by 1-watt pumping, the pulse width needs to be made to be about 10 picoseconds.
As one way for decreasing the pulse width, the mode lock is preferable. According to this method, the phase of the pulse is made uniform by changing gain and loss of the resonator in synchronization with a timing of one reciprocating motion of the laser light through the resonator. Methods for the mode lock include active-type mode lock utilizing an AO element and an EO element and passive-type mode lock utilizing a saturable absorber and a Kerr effect. A relationship between a frequency ν of the mode lock and a resonator length d is represented as follows:ν=c/2d
where c denotes the speed of light. Therefore, in order to realize the mode lock at the period of 100 MHz, the resonator length has to be set at 1.5 m. For that reason, the optical system becomes complicated as shown in FIG. 9, which causes a problem of increasing the size of the device, as well as a problem with reliability in view of the displacement and contamination of optical components.
In addition, there is a known ultrashort pulsed laser device as described in JP H08(1996)-213680 A in which an optical fiber is interposed in an optical path of a resonator. The use of the optical fiber allows a decrease in the number of optical components and the number of portions to be adjusted optically. However, in terms of a stability of the power by the mode lock and a simplification of the configuration, a sufficient practical device has not been realized.

Ultrashort pulsed laser and optical head using the same

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A touch controlled display device is disclosed. The device comprises: a display panel including a display panel including a first surface, a second surface opposing the first surface and a plurality of pixels between the first and second surfaces, each pixel including a transmission area and a display area, the transmission area being configured to transmit light therethrough, an infrared source located on the side of the second surface of the display panel and configured to irradiate infrared light toward the first surface through the second surface, and an infrared sensor located on the side of the second surface of the display panel and configured to detect infrared light from the first surface through at least one transmission area of the plurality of pixels.

1. Field
The described technology relates generally to a touch controlled display device using infrared.
2. Description of the Related Technology
A touch controlled display device is a device for which the control is achieved through touch. Touch controlled display devices using infrared have recently become popular.
Generally, touch controlled display devices using infrared include a display device for displaying images, an infrared source for irradiating infrared to an image displaying part, and an infrared sensor for sensing the infrared reflected from the image displaying part.
A screen display device for displaying images on the screen by using a projector, or a liquid crystal display (LCD) including an liquid crystal panel for displaying images using liquid crystal, and a backlight unit for irradiating light to the liquid crystal panel have generally been used.
Touch controlled display devices using infrared including a screen display device may provide unsatisfactory quality of images emitted from the projector and displayed on the screen, because of the technical limits of the projectors used. Such devices may also use a predetermined space between the projector and the screen, and hence the size of the touch controlled display device may be enlarged.
In infrared touch controlled display devices including a liquid crystal display (LCD), infrared irradiated from an infrared source may be transmit through the liquid crystal panel and infrared reflected from the liquid crystal panel may also be transmitted through the liquid crystal panel. Transmittance of infrared to the liquid crystal panel may be deteriorated by the shutter function of the liquid crystal included in the liquid crystal panel. If transmittance of the infrared to the liquid crystal panel is deteriorated, the recognition rate of touch for the touch controlled display device may be deteriorated.
The information disclosed in this Background section is merely for enhancement of understanding of the background of the described technology.


A semiconductor integrated circuit having a selector 1, which selects either an inverted signal 2B or a non-inverted signal 2A, based on the condition of a read strobe signal RDST that gives an instruction for readout of data in the logic circuit 10 into the read buffer 20, a first flip-flop circuit 2, which latches the signal selected by the selector 1 at the timing of the internal clock signal CK, and outputs the latched signal 2A to the selector 1, a second flip-flop circuit 3, which shifts the output signal 2A of the first flip-flop circuit 2 at the timing of the internal clock signal CK, and an exclusive-OR circuit 4, which takes the exclusive OR of the output signal 2A of the first flip-flop circuit 2 and the output signal 3A of the second flip-flop circuit 3, the output signal of the exclusive-OR circuit 4 serves as a clock signal RCK for readout of the read buffer 20.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor integrated circuit and to a method for generating a control signal therefor.
2. Related Art
FIG. 2(a) is a circuit diagram showing prior art. In this circuit, as shown in FIG. 2(b), a timer counter 10 performs counting operation in synchronization with a counting clock signal CK, a read buffer 20 reading in the value of the timer counter 10 in synchronization with a read clock signal RCK. On the rising edge of the counting clock signal CK, the timer counter 10 performs a counting operation.
A flip-flop 9 captures an inverted read strobe signal RDST, in synchronization with the counting clock signal CK. The output signal 9A of the flip-flop 9 and the counting lock signal CK are input to an AND circuit 30, and on the rising edge of the read clock RCK, which is the output from the AND circuit 30, a read buffer 20 captures the value of the timer counter 10. That is, when the read strobe signal RDST is 0, the read buffer 20 constantly captures the value of the timer counter 10, and when the read strobe signal RDST is 1, the read buffer 20 value is not updated.
As shown in FIG. 2(b), in the case in which the output signal 9A of flip-flop 9 is delayed, the read clock signal RCK rises, resulting in capture of data, and hindrance of the prescribed operation. For this reason, the counting clock signal CK is delayed by a delay circuit 40 provided in the clock line, and the read clock signal RCK is generated, so as to output to a read data bus 50 a properly established value of the read buffer 20.
In this case, however, because of the delay circuit 40, analysis using a static analysis tool becomes difficult.
FIG. 3(a) is an example of another circuit of the prior art, which is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (KOKAI) No.2-7284.
In this case of this circuit, as shown in FIG. 3(b), if a period of a read strobe signal is shorter than that of one clockxcfx86, a glitch 50 occurs, so that this glitch acts as a read clock, resulting in unwanted data capture at the timing indicated by the arrow, this representing faulty operation.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention, in order to improve on the above-noted drawbacks of the prior art, to provide a novel semiconductor integrated circuit and method for generating a control signal therefor, which can be statically analyzed, and wherein faulty operation does not occur even if a period of read strobe signal is shorter than that of one clock.
In order to achieve the above-noted objects, the present invention has the following basic technical constitution.
Specifically, the first aspect of the present invention is a semiconductor integrated circuit in which data of a logic circuit which operates by an internal clock signal is read into a read buffer, using a readout clock signal that is not synchronized to the internal clock signal, comprising a selector, which selects either an inverted signal or a non-inverted signal, based on the condition of a read strobe signal that gives an instruction for readout of data in the logic circuit into the read buffer, a first flip-flop circuit, which latches a signal selected by the selector at a timing of the internal clock signal, and outputs a latched signal to the selector, a second flip-flop circuit, which shifts an output signal of the first flip-flop circuit at a timing of the internal clock signal, and an exclusive-OR circuit, which takes an exclusive OR of the output signal of the first flip-flop circuit and an output signal of the second flip-flop circuit, an output signal of the exclusive-OR circuit serves as the readout clock signal of the read buffer.
In the second aspect of the present invention, the output signal of the first flip-flop circuit is input to one terminal of the selector, and an inverted signal of the output signal of the first flip-flop circuit is input to another terminal of the selector.
The third aspect of the present invention is a control signal generating method for a semiconductor integrated circuit in which data of a logic circuit which operates by an internal clock signal is read into a read buffer, using a readout clock signal that is not synchronized to said internal clock signal, comprising: a first step of generating a pulse signal that is synchronous with the internal clock signal, when a read strobe signal is not giving an instruction or readout of data in the logic circuit to the read buffer, and of stopping to generate the pulse signal, when the read strobe signal gives an instruction for readout, a second step of shifting the pulse signal generated by the first step by one clock, in synchronization with the internal clock signal, and a third step of taking an exclusive OR of the signal generated by the first step and a signal generated by the second step, and using the resulting signal as the readout clock signal.

Semiconductor integrated circuit and method for generating a control signal therefor


A method and apparatus for issuing one or more next-line prefetch requests from a predicted memory address. The first issued next-line prefetch request corresponds to a cache line having a memory address contiguous with the predicted memory address. Any subsequent next-line prefetch request corresponds to a cache line having a memory address contiguous with a memory address associated with a preceding next-line prefetch request.

A conventional processor typically operates at a much faster speed than the main memory to which the processor is coupled. To overcome the inherent latency of main memory, which usually comprises dynamic random access memory (DRAM), a memory hierarchy is employed. The memory hierarchy includes one or more levels of cache, each cache comprising a relatively fast memory device or circuitry configured to hold data recently accessed—or expected to be accessed—by the processor. The purpose of the cache is to insure most data needed by a processor is readily available to the processor without accessing the main memory, as the process of accessing main memory is very slow in comparison to the speed of the processor or the speed at which the processor can access a cache.
Typically, a memory hierarchy comprises multiple levels of cache, wherein each level is faster than next lower level and the level closest to the processor exhibits the highest speed and performance. A cache may be located on the processor itself—i.e., an "on-chip" cache—or a cache may comprise an external memory device—i.e., an "off-chip" cache. For example, a processor may include a high level on-chip cache—often times referred to as an "L1" cache—wherein the processor is coupled with a lower level off-chip cache—which is often referred to as an "L2" cache. Alternatively, a processor may include an on-chip L1 cache, as well as an on-chip L2 cache. Of course, a memory hierarchy may include any suitable number of caches, each of the caches located on-chip or off-chip.
As noted above, each level of cache may hold data recently accessed by the processor, such recently accessed data being highly likely—due to the principles of temporal and spatial locality—to be needed by the processor again in the near future. However, system performance may be further enhanced—and memory latency reduced—by anticipating the needs of a processor. If data needed by a processor in the near future can be predicted with some degree of accuracy, this data can be fetched in advance—or "prefetched"—such that the data is cached and readily available to the processor. Generally, some type of algorithm is utilized to anticipate the needs of a processor, and the value of any prefetching scheme is dependent upon the degree to which these needs can be accurately predicted.
One conventional type of prefetcher is commonly known as a "stride" prefetcher. A stride prefetcher anticipates the needs of a processor by examining the addresses of data requested by the processor—i.e., a "demand load"—to determine if the requested addresses exhibit a regular pattern. If the processor (or an application executing thereon) is stepping through memory using a constant offset from address to address—i.e., a constant stride—the stride prefetcher attempts to recognize this constant stride and prefetch data according to this recognizable pattern. Stride prefetchers do, however, exhibit a significant drawback. A stride prefetcher does not function well when the address pattern of a series of demand loads is irregular—i.e., there is not a constant stride—such as may occur during dynamic memory allocation.
Another method of data prefetching utilizes a translation look-aside buffer (TLB), which is a cache for virtual-to-physical address translations. According to this method, the "fill contents"—i.e., the requested data—associated with a demand load are examined and, if an address-sized data value matches an address contained in the TLB, the data value likely corresponds to a "pointer load"—i.e., a demand load in which the requested data is an address pointing to a memory location—and is, therefore, deemed to be a candidate address. A prefetch request may then be issued for the candidate address. Because the contents of the requested data—as opposed to addresses thereof—are being examined, this method may be referred to as content-based, or content-aware, prefetching. Such a content-aware prefetching scheme that references the TLB (or, more generally, that references any external source or index of addresses) has a significant limitation: likely addresses are limited to those cached in the TLB, and this constraint significantly reduces the number of prefetch opportunities. Also, this content-aware prefetching scheme requires a large number of accesses to the TLB; thus, additional ports must be added to the TLB to handle the content prefetcher overhead.

Method and apparatus for next-line prefetching from a predicted memory address


A magnetic head device includes a rotary cylinder and a magnetic head having one end fixed to an inner portion of one surface of the rotary cylinder such that the magnetic head extends from the inner portion toward the outer circumference of the rotary cylinder in alignment with a radius thereof. The head tip is provided on another end of magnetic head. A laser beam is impinged on the base plate at a portion within a range from 2 mm to (5.times.T1/2)mm from the outer edge of head tip where T is a thickness of the bass plate. The portion on which the beam impinged is heated and melts causing the base plate to incline in a vertical direction which is parallel to an axis the rotary cylinder. Thus, the head tip is positioned at a required horizontal level which is perpendicular to the axis of the rotary cylinder.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic head device for reading, recording, or erasing signals on a magnetic tape and, more particularly, to a magnetic head device for use in a helical scanning type videotape recorder.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Positioning of a magnetic head is an important factor which determines the quality of the information written on a magnetic tape. Especially, when a plurality of magnetic heads are used for recording, each of the magnetic heads should be located at a determined position so as not to adversely influence each other.
For example, in an video cassette recorder (VCR) of a video home system (VHS), each one of two magnetic heads is located in a symmetric position with respect to the axis of the rotary cylinder and on the same plane perpendicular to the axis. The videotape is wound around a half surface of the rotary cylinder with an inclination angle of approximately 6.degree. with respect to the diametrical circle thereof. Thus, the direction in which the videotape runs is changed along the rotary cylinder such that the wound videotape exhibits a U-shape when viewed from the top of the rotary cylinder. As each of magnetic heads runs over the surface of videotape alternatively, the recorded magnetism pattern is formed on the videotape surface subsequently. The writing pitch between each track in which the magnetism pattern is recorded is a predetermined 60 .mu.m or 20 .mu.m.
It is to be noted that both the magnetic heads should be located on the same plane perpendicular to the axis of the rotary cylinder. If any one of the magnetic heads deviates from the plane by some amount, the preceding magnetism pattern is overwritten by the following magnetism pattern, or a large gap is formed between tracks. In both cases, the recorded magnetism pattern is unevenly formed on the videotape, resulting in a degradation of the signals reproduced from the recorded magnetism pattern.
There two methods are available in the field of this art. A first method involves elastic deformation in the magnetic heads are moved toward an aimed position elastically by pressing a portion of the magnetic head with the means of a screw. The second method involves, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Ser. No. 07/798,601 filed on Nov. 26, 1991, melting deformation in which a portion of the magnetic head is melted by impinging a laser beam thereon to deform the magnetic head permanently toward the desired position.
In the first method, i.e. elastic deformation with a screw, since the magnetic head is elastically deformed and is temporarily positioned, the magnetic head experiences movement of some .mu.m and can return to the original position due to loosening of the screw, external vibrations, and other causes. Thus, this method can not be applied to the positioning of the magnetic head in which the magnetic patterns are to be recorded, at a writing pitch of 20 .mu.m or smaller.
In the second method, i.e. melting deformation with a laser beam, the magnetic head is deformed permanently and is self-positioned. Thus, this method enables the positioning of the magnetic head with a high accuracy and fine adjustment, and is a very effective means in the field of high density recording. However, it is very difficult to stably control the position of the magnetic head applied with the melting deformation.
Furthermore, since the plate applied with the melting deformation deforms in proportion to the amount of applied heat and in inverse proportion to the plate thickness generally, a longer distance between the melting deformation and the magnetic head gap is required to adjust the position of the magnetic head within a wide range. However, such a magnetic head is supported at one end like a cantilever, so that the head tip at the free end of the magnetic head spaced far from the supported end is easily subjected vibrations caused by the rotating rotary cylinder to prevent the formation of a magnetism pattern on the correct tracks.
Furthermore, if the magnetic head is bent with a larger angle at a portion near the head chip, the head unevenly contacts with the videotape, resulting in a reduction of the reproduced signal output therefrom. Since the portion on which the laser beam is impinged is not specified, the melting deformation methods using the laser beam can not be applied in the mass production of the magnetic heads.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


According to an aspect of the invention, a wiring board includes an inorganic insulating layer and a conductive layer disposed on part of one main surface of the inorganic insulating layer. The part of the one main surface of the inorganic insulating layer includes a plurality of first recessed portions each of which has at least partially circular shape in a plan view. Part of the conductive layer enters into the plurality of first recessed portions. According to the aspect of the invention, it is possible to obtain a wiring board capable of reducing disconnection of the conductive layer and therefore having superior electrical reliability.

In the related art, a mounting structure including an electronic component and a wiring board on which the electronic component is mounted has been used in an electronic device.
As such a wiring board, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 2005-223226 discloses a composite multilayer board (wiring board) including a ceramic layer (inorganic insulating layer), a conductive pattern (conductive layer) that is disposed on part of a main surface of the ceramic layer, and a resin layer that is disposed on another part of the ceramic layer.
The inorganic insulating layer and the conductive layer have different thermal expansion coefficients. Thus, if heat is applied to the wiring board when the electronic component is mounted or operated, thermal stress may be generated between the inorganic insulating layer and the conductive layer. Accordingly, the inorganic insulating layer and the conductive layer may be separated from each other. As a result, disconnection may occur in the conductive layer, and thus, electrical reliability of the wiring board may be lowered.
Accordingly, there is demand for provision of a wiring board having superior electrical reliability.

Wiring board and mounting: structure including the same


Methods, systems, and devices relate to digital wireless communication, and more specifically, to techniques relating to dynamic change MAC address of the station for subsequent transmissions. In one exemplary aspect, a method of dynamic change MAC address includes specifying a MAC address change mode and a new MAC address to be used by the station. In another exemplary aspect, a method of dual MAC address change mode in the dynamic change MAC address mechanism includes separating the unchanged MAC address of the station from the changeable MAC address of the station, and keep the mapping between them. In another exemplary aspect, a method includes transmitting a MAC address change request message from the station (or the access point) to initiate the MAC address change procedure. In another exemplary aspect, a method includes receiving a MAC address change response message from the access point (or the station).

Wireless communication systems can include a network of one or more access points (APs) that communicate with one or more wireless stations (STAs). An AP may emit radio signals that carry management information, control information or user data to one or more STAs. A STA may transmit radio signals to an AP in the same frequency channel using a technique such as time division duplexing (TDD) or in a different frequency channel using a technique such as frequency division duplexing (FDD).
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 specifies a specification for a wireless local area network (WLAN) over radio channels in license-exempt or shared access frequency bands. The basic unit of a WLAN is a basic service set (BSS). An infrastructure BSS may include the BSS with stations through associating with an Access Point (AP) to connect to the wired network or Internet. In an infrastructure BSS, both an access point and a station may share the same frequency channel via using Carrier Sensing Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) technology, a kind of TDD mechanism, for multiple access and data transmissions.

Dynamic MAC address change mechanism for wireless communications


A compact disk (CD) recording end address compensation method is disclosed herein. The recording end address of the original recording session is compared with the recording start address of the second recording session. If two recording sessions are overlapped or staggered, the non-informational area such as pre-gap or Lead-out area is shortened or extended for compensate the mismatch. The invention makes it possible to ensure the desirable data be recorded without missing any piece.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a compact disk (CD) recording end address compensation method, and more particularly to the compensation method to avoid the overlapping or staggering defects of recording data on a disk.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the age of technology, an increase in the amount of information, such as the documents, software, MP3, digital pictures and images, demands a high-density storage media. The optical disk such as compact disk (CD-R/CD-RW) and optical disk drives permit the recording of a vast amount of information, thus draw attention for its use as an inexpensive high density and high capacity recording system. However, the reliability of optical disk drive or disk quality could have the effects on the recorded information/data. For example, if the data in a session are recorded by different optical disk drives, the recorded data might be overlapped or staggered due to the differences in performance of optical disk drives. Also, the overlapped or staggered data could still occur while the data are recorded by one optical disk drive with unstable recording quality. The missing pieces of data cannot be retrieved permanently.
CD-R/CD-RW disk contains time-code information called ATIP. ATIP is abbreviation of "Absolute Time In Pre-groove", which means address and recording information encoded in the wobble groove on CD-R and CD-RW media. Based on this information, an optical disk drive (burner) can determine the absolute position in Pregroove. After recording/writing, data are written in CD format synchronizing with ATIP, and this CD coding system including a clock which monitors recording time and predicts a total is so-called "A-time" (Absolute-Time). The A-time address is encoded in Q-channel (Sub-channel) and called "Q-code" (Sub-code) thereinafter. The recording information is recorded in accordance with the time-code information of ATIP, while the recording information is read in accordance with the time-code information of Q-code. Simply saying, the ATIP address and Q-code address are referred to the recording position and reading position, respectively.
FIG. 1 is a schematic showing a normal relationship between the Q-code address and the ATIP address. In the normal recording condition, one Q-code address corresponds to one ATIP address. If it is desirable to read the data corresponded to Q-code address of 8 (Q-code=8), for example, the data encoded in the ATIP address of 8 will be acquired by transformation. Typically, the recording (writing) information in CD-R/CD-RW is continuously performed at a period of time. However, the recording defects such as excursion of the spin motor may occur, and the differences in rotation frequency of recording media will cause the overlapped or staggered recording data.
FIG. 2 is a schematic showing an abnormal relationship between the Q-code address and the ATIP address while the recording data are overlapped. In FIG. 2, data are actually encoded in 9 blocks of ATIP (ATIP address: 0˜8), but it only shows 8 blocks of Q-channel (Q-code address: 0˜7) are encoded. Since the CD coding system predicts a total according to Q-code, it starts to record the next data from the Q-code address of 8 (corresponding to ATIP address of 8), and the ATIP address of 8 will be used again. The phenomenon as shown in FIG. 2 is called "Q-delay", and the overlapped recording data cannot be retrieved again. One of the reasons for "Q-delay" is that the rotation speed of the spindle motor has been slowed down.
FIG. 3 is a schematic showing an abnormal relationship between the Q-code address and the ATIP address while the recording data are staggered. In FIG. 3, data are actually encoded in 10 blocks of ATIP (ATIP address: 0˜9), but it shows 11 blocks of Q-channel (Q-code address: 0˜10) are encoded. Since the CD coding system predicts a total according to Q-code, it starts to record the next data from the Q-code address of 11 (corresponding to ATIP address of 11), and the ATIP address of 10 will be blank. The phenomenon as shown in FIG. 3 is called "Q-lead", and the blank area of ATIP has effect on the data retrieve. One of the reasons for "Q-lead" is that the rotation speed of the spin motor has been speeded up.
Whether the phenomenon of "Q-delay" or "Q-lead" arises, it has undesirable effect on the recording result. For example, if the data of music files are overlapped, the software for playing the digital media will try to read the data at the overlapped section back ("read error" or "C2 error"). The next music won't be played until the music file is selected manually. If the data of music files are staggered thus resulting in the blank blocks on the track, an uncorrectable error still arises, though the blank blocks has no significant meaning for music recording.
In addition, the information of file structure on the data track could be ruined due to the phenomenon of "Q-delay" or "Q-lead". Session is a contiguous area of the disk that contains a Lead-in, Program Area, and Lead-out. Lead-In marks the start of each session on the disk, and Lead-Out marks the end of each session on the disk. The main channel in the Lead-in area contains audio or data null information. This area is coded as track zero. The Q Sub-channel in this Lead-in area is coded with the Table of Contents information. The main channel in the Lead-out area contains audio or data null information. Couple of blocks right before the Lead-out area contains file structure information, such as folder name, file name. If the Q-code address mismatches the ATIP address, file structure information in those blocks could be ruined and unable to be found.
Accordingly, it is one of important goals for the engineers not only to ensure that the desirable data can be recorded without missing any piece, but to exclude the possibility of discontinues record.

Method for compensating recording end address in an optical disk drive


A rotary shock absorber suitable for use in a suspension system of a vehicle. The shock absorber is provided with a housing and a rotary shaft supported by the housing for relative rotation thereto. A pressure chamber is formed in the housing and a rotor having a pair of blades is received within the pressure chamber. Further, a pair of partition walls are formed within the pressure chamber to define first and second chambers at both sides of each blade, and the first and second chambers are communicated with each other through throttles. When the rotary shaft is rotated, a high viscous fluid filled within the first and second chambers flows therebetween through the throttles. Due to the flow resistances of the throttles, pressures are generated in the first or second chambers. This pressure generation is used to generate a damping force. The shock absorber is further provided with a mechanism which changes the characteristic of damping force generation depending on the rotational direction of the rotary shaft. In some embodiments, the shock absorber has a stopper function which drastically increases the damping force at the stroke ends.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rotary shock absorber and, more particularly, to a rotary shock absorber suitable for use in a suspension system of a vehicle.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
An example of a rotary shock absorber for absorbing rotational force is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 60-3336. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the rotary shock absorber is mainly composed of a cylindrical housing 1, a partition wall member 2 inwardly protruding in a radial direction from the inner surface of the housing 1, a rotary shaft 3 penetrating the housing 1, and a vane 4 fixed to the rotary shaft 3 for rotation herewith and extending in a radial direction so that the inner chamber of the housing 1 is divided into two chambers in which an operation fluid is filled. Further, the partition wall member 2 is formed with a communication pass 5, and an adjustable throttle valve 6 is disposed in the communication pass 5.
In the rotary shock absorber, the vane 4 is rotated in response to a rotation of the rotary shaft 3. With this rotation of the vane 4, the operation fluid in one chamber whose volume decreases flows to the other chamber whose volume increases through the throttle valve 6, which acts as a resistance against the flow of the operation fluid, whereby a damping force is generated. The damping force is adjusted by the throttle valve 6.
In the conventional shock absorber, since the damping force is generated by the fluid resistance of the throttle valve through which the operation fluid flows, the conventional shock absorber can provide neither sufficient damping force nor sufficient response speed.
Further, the damping force generated by the shock absorber increases in accordance with increase of the rotational speed of the rotary shaft 3, but has the same characteristic regardless of the rotational direction of the rotary shaft 3, as illustrated by solid lines A and B in FIG. 2. Therefore, the conventional rotary shock absorber is not suitable for use in a suspension system of a vehicle. Namely, a rotary shock absorber used in the suspension system is required to change its characteristic depending upon the rotational direction of the rotary shaft 3, as illustrated by broken lines C and D in FIG. 2. When the rotational shaft 3 rotates in a forward direction (rebound direction), it must generate a large damping force, as illustrated by the broken line C. On the contrary, when the rotational shaft 3 rotates in a reverse direction (bound direction), it must generate a relatively small damping force, as illustrated by the broken line D.
Further, in a conventional suspension system, dampers made of rubber are used as stoppers for limiting the bound and rebound movements of tires, and for absorbing shocks which are produced at the stroke ends. Although the shocks are almost absorbed by the dampers, it is desirable to reduce the shocks more to provide a comfortable ride.

Rotary shock absorber having vanes with radial flow clearance


A process for the etherification of C4, C5 and/or C6 tertiary olefins in a hydrocarbon feed with at least one C1 to C6 alcohol, preferably C1–C4 alcohols in a distillation column reactor, preferably where C4's and C5's ethers are co-produced, in which the amount of alcohol employed in the etherification is below that which will produce an azeotrope with hydrocarbons in the overheads from the distillation column reactor. The azeotrope results from the presence of unreacted alcohol in the reaction system in the distillation column reactor. The amount of alcohol is less than the stoichiometric amount, preferably less than 90%, more preferably 10 to 80%, of the stoichiometric amount and the overheads contain less than a stoichiometric of alcohol.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the etherification reaction of C4, C5 and/or C6 isoolefins with lower alcohols, such as methanol, to produce the corresponding tertiary ether. More particularly the invention relates to a process wherein a catalytic distillation process is carried out under conditions to avoid an azeotrope of alcohol with the hydrocarbons.
2. Related Information
Some ethers have been suggested to be detrimental as gasoline additives, because their presence has been detected in ground water. However, the ethers continue to be a valuable source of oxygenates to improve octane levels for reformulated gasoline. The increased governmental restriction on gasoline has strained the availability of feed stocks for etherification. The use of the isoamylenes for the preparation of octane improvers for gasoline has increased as has isohexene. It is highly desirable to be able to employ mixed isobutene/isoamylene and isobutene/isoamylene/isohexene streams.
The reaction of an alcohol and an olefin and concurrent separation of the reactants from the reaction products by fractional distillation has been practiced for some time. The process is variously described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,232,177; 4,307,254; 4,336,407; 4,504,687; 4,987,807; and 5,118,873. The isoolefins preferably react with the alcohol to form ethers. Briefly the alcohol and isoolefin are fed to a distillation column reactor having a distillation reaction zone containing a suitable catalyst, such as an acid cation exchange resin, in the form of a catalytic distillation structure, and also having a distillation zone containing an inert distillation structure. Tertiary olefins react preferably to the normal olefins.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,248,837 discloses a method for controlling catalytic distillation etherifications wherein the methanol concentration below the catalyst bed is controlled to a point that maximizes ether production and prevents alcohol from leaving with the bottoms ether product.
U.S. Pat. No.5,313,005 discloses a similar process to U.S. Pat. No. 5,248,837 wherein the alcohol content is controlled by total oxygen in the form of OH. This system is particularly useful when a mixture of alcohols is used.
In the etherification of olefins with alcohol heretofore it was preferable that an excess of the alcohol be available in the reactor. This means that there is an excess of methanol in the reaction distillation zone of the distillation column reactor. Under these conditions in the distillation column reactor the methanol forms a minimum boiling azeotrope with either of the olefins. In the case where C4 components are present the azeotrope is only slightly more volatile than the C4's alone, and therefore the methanol tends to remain in a relatively constant concentration with the C4's throughout the column. The concentration of the methanol in the C4 azeotrope is about 4% (depending upon the composition of the C4 mixture and operating pressure of the column), and it is necessary to operate with a methanol concentration to satisfy this azeotrope before the C5 azeotrope can be satisfied.
In maximized ether production reactions using excess alcohol the C5 azeotrope contains about 12 wt % methanol, and the boiling point of the azeotrope is 10 to 15° F. below that of the corresponding C5's, but above the C4's and C4/methanol azeotrope. If the net methanol flow into the column is higher than the azeotrope, the methanol concentration will increase (60% has been measured) until methanol leaves with the TAME bottoms product. Similar considerations apply to the C6 streams.
In addition to the considerations of azeotopes discussed above, when two or more different alcohols are fed at the same time, other factors affect the operation of the etherification. For example, in the case of etherification of iC5= with a mixed methanol/ethanol stream to produce TAME and tertiary amyl ethyl ether (TAEE), there are two different azeotropes. The first is methanol with the C5's which is 12% methanol. The second is the azeotrope between the C5's and the ethanol which is 8% ethanol. The different alcohols also react at different rates with the isoolefins, e.g., methanol reacts more rapidly than ethanol with isopentenes.
It is an advantage of the present invention that the alcohol/hydrocarbon azeotrope can be reduced or eliminated using the present process. It is a further advantage that the amount of ether in the gasoline mix can be reduced while enhancing the dimer production. The dimers (olefins) can be reduced or eliminated by hydrogenation, e.g., diisobutene hydrogenates to isooctane. Since the alcohol is maintained at the partial stoichiometric amount, it is another advantage that the process is easier to operate on a commercial scale, because the alcohol can be substantially eliminated as a down stream problem.


Crucibles for melting titanium alloys having a facecoat including at least one facecoat layer containing an oxide selected from scandium oxide, yttrium oxide, hafnium oxide, a lanthanide series oxide, and combinations thereof, and a backing including at least one backing layer where the crucible has a backing to facecoat thickness ratio of from about 6.5:1 to about 20:1.

Turbine engine designers are continuously looking for new materials with improved properties for reducing engine weight and obtaining higher engine operating temperatures. Titanium alloys, and in particular, titanium aluminide (TiAl) based alloys, possess a promising combination of low-temperature mechanical properties, such as room temperature ductility and toughness, as well as high intermediate temperature strength and creep resistance. For these reasons, TiAl-based alloys have the potential to replace nickel-based superalloys, which are currently used to make numerous turbine engine components.
Vacuum induction melting is one method often used to make turbine engine components, such as airfoils, and generally involves heating a metal in a crucible made from a non-conductive refractory alloy oxide until the charge of metal within the crucible is melted down to liquid form. When melting highly reactive metals such as titanium or titanium alloys, vacuum induction melting using cold wall or graphite crucibles is typically employed. This is because melting and casting from ceramic crucibles can introduce significant thermal stress on the crucible, which can result in the crucible cracking. Such cracking can reduce crucible life and cause inclusions in the component being cast.
Moreover, difficulties can arise when melting highly reactive alloys, such as TiAl, due to the reactivity of the elements in the alloy at the temperatures needed for melting to occur. As previously mentioned, while most vacuum induction melting systems use refractory alloy oxides for crucibles in the induction furnace, alloys such as TiAl are so highly reactive that they can attack the refractory alloys present in the crucible and contaminate the titanium alloy. For example, ceramic crucibles are typically avoided because the highly reactive TiAl alloys can break down the crucible and contaminate the titanium alloy with both oxygen and the refractory alloy from the oxide. Similarly, if graphite crucibles are employed, the titanium aluminide can dissolve large quantities of carbon from the crucible into the titanium alloy, thereby resulting in contamination. Such contamination results in the loss of mechanical properties of the titanium alloy.
Additionally, while cold crucible melting can offer metallurgical advantages for the processing of the highly reactive alloys described previously, it also has a number of technical and economic limitations including low superheat, yield losses due to skull formation and high power requirements. These limitations can restrict commercial viability.
Accordingly, there remains a need for ceramic crucibles for use in melting highly reactive alloys that are less likely to contaminate the alloy and pose fewer technical and economic limitations than current applications.


An apparatus for determining the polarities of bonding points to locate false bonding connections including an applied voltage output circuit which outputs positive and negative voltages, a switching circuit which after a wire is connected to a bonding point impresses voltage from the applied voltage output circuit to the bonding wire, a D/A converter which outputs standard positive and negative voltages, a polarity determining comparator which determines the polarity of the bonding point by comparing the voltage detected on the bonding wire with the standard voltage, and a memory which stores such a determination result for each bonding point.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for determining the polarity of bonding points.
2. Prior Art
As a method to detect connection faults in wire bonding after the wire is connected to a first bonding point, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 1-58868, for example, is known. In this prior art, when detecting the connection fault of the first bonding point, it is necessary to apply positive or negative voltage to the first bonding point, switching from one to the other, depending on the polarity of the first bonding point.
FIGS. 3(a) through 3(d) show the polarities of the first bonding point. In these Figures, reference numeral 1 represents a lead frame, 2 a chip bonded to the lead frame 1, and 3 a wire connected to an electrode (which is the first bonding point) of the chip 2. As shown in these Figures, there are various electrodes (first bonding points) which are different in polarities. Therefore, when detecting connection faults at the first bonding points, it is necessary to apply positive or negative voltage, switching from one to the other depending on the polarity.
FIG. 3(a) shows that the first bonding point sends the current forward (hereinafter referred to as having "positive polarity"), and detection is performed by applying positive voltage. In FIG. 3(b), the first bonding point sends the current backward (hereinafter referred to as having "negative polarity"); as a result, detection is performed by applying negative voltage.
In FIG. 3(c), the portion of the chip 2 corresponding to the first bonding point is of a non-conductive material (hereinafter referred to as having "polarity with no detection required"). Accordingly, no detection is possible regardless of whether a positive or negative voltage is applied, and therefore detection is not needed. In FIG. 3(d), a portion of the chip 2 that corresponds to the first bonding point has no polarity but has some resistance (hereinafter referred to having "no polarity"); accordingly, detection can be performed by applying either positive or negative voltage.
As described above, when detecting connection faults at the first bonding point, it is necessary to change the applied voltage depending on the polarity of the first bonding point. Accordingly, it is also necessary that the polarity of the first bonding point be checked beforehand so as to apply voltage that is suitable for such a checked first bonding point.
Currently, the determination of the polarity of the first bonding point is performed by an operator. The operator moves a probe so that it touches each bonding point to determine their polarities by applying positive and negative voltages and monitoring the polarity of the bonding point on a display.
In this conventional way, since an operator determines the polarity of each bonding point, it requires a great amount of time and effort, and it also involves the risk of error determinations.

Bonding point polarity determining apparatus


Performance of an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is measured using a service deployed on a server. A client runs a compiler to add an aspect to an archive that provides a service when deployed to the server. The aspect causes the server to timestamp marked messages. The archive with the added aspect, which is the aspectized archive, is deployed to the server. The client measures the performance of the service deployed to the server by using timestamps of the marked messages returned from the server.

The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a popular architectural paradigm for the development of software applications. For example, Web services provide the SOA to other applications via industry standard network, interfaces and protocols. The SOA is based on loosely-coupled and standards-based architectures. It is one approach to distributed computing that allows networked software resources to be leveraged.
An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is an underlying infrastructure for the SOA. The ESB implements the abstract design concept of the SOA. The ESB is an event-driven and standards-based messaging engine that provides services for more complex architectures. The ESB provides an infrastructure that links together services and clients to enable distributed applications and processes. The ESB allows systems to interact through standard transports, such as file transfer protocol (FTP) and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), and to provide SOA-based applications. The ESB provides the capabilities of message handling, filtering, data transformation, content-based routing, and message repositories. The ESB provides a service to a client using a service deployed on an ESB server at runtime. The client receives the service from the deployed service through the exchange of messages with the ESB server.
Performance of the ESB can be measured by the time it takes for a deployed service to process a message. However, the time measured at the client side is generally not accurate due to an unknown initialization time (e.g., several seconds) for the ESB server to initialize the deployed service. To obtain an accurate measurement of the ESB performance, conventional techniques sometimes modify the source code of a client application to include performance measuring code, or modify the service deployed to the ESB server to perform performance measurements. However, an enterprise may implement many different services that perform various tasks for various client applications. Modifying either the client applications or the services to conduct performance measurements would necessitate extensive re-programming of the existing code, which is time consuming and error prone.

Performance testing of enterprise service bus


In a folding knife or hand tool having a handle and a blade pivotally connected to the handle, a spring loaded crossbolt 1 is fitted to the blade tang. One end of crossbolt 1 protrudes through an arcuate slot in the handle, crossbolt slot 32. A locking collar 19 on crossbolt 1 engages locking counterbores A 34 and B 36 located on the blade side of the opposite ends of crossbolt slot 32. When finger pressure is applied to the end of crossbolt 1, locking collar 19 is forced to disengage locking counterbore A 34 and retreat to a relieved area on the blade, collar relief 52. This permits the blade to be extended by forward finger pressure on crossbolt 1. When the blade is fully extended, spring pressure forces locking collar 19 into the opposite locking counterbore B 36, thus locking the blade. Reversing the sequence will close and lock the blade.

1. Field of Invention
This invention related to folding hand tools in which a blade or working member pivots into an enclosing protective sheath which forms a handle when the tool is in use, especially pocket knives, and specifically to an improved device for moving and locking the blade.
2. Discussion Of Prior Art
The folding knife provides numerous advantages of safety, compactness, and convenience of carry over the straight blade. However, these advantages come at the expense of several interrelated disadvantages:
(a) Difficulty of deployment. The insertion of a fingernail or a pinch grip on the blade spine, and subsequent manipulation of the blade into an open position is difficult at best. If the hands are cold, wet, or slippery, then blade extraction--especially against the pressure of a backspring--becomes infeasible. PA1 Belcher, U.S. Pat. No. 23,975 (1859) PA1 Minter, U.S. Pat. No. 543,943 (1895) PA1 Schmachtenberg, U.S. Pat. No. 553,430 (1896) PA1 Papendall, U.S. pat. No. 689,513 (1900) PA1 Romano, U.S. Pat. No. 947,980 (1910) PA1 Sibley, U.S. Pat. No. 1,478,260 (1922) PA1 Grille, German U.S. Pat. No. 1,104,386 (1961) PA1 Yunes, U.S. Pat. No. 4,612,706 (1986)
(b) Two hands are required to open the blade. If one hand is unavailable, the remaining hand cannot open and deploy the blade unassisted.
(c) Strength of blade attachment. Blades are commonly attached to handles by a single pivot, which, in conjunction with whatever handle portion serves to limit their extent of opening, bears the entire working stress of the blade. Moreover, backspring and backlocking mechanisms generally preclude the use of through pins or rivets int he area of the blade pivot, which could otherwise maximize the strength of the pivot area--since this is precisely the area a spring or lever needs to move in.
(d) Blade security. Many persons feel that even the heaviest backspring pressure feasible to still allow a blade to open is insufficient to insure against accidental collapse of the blade. Many different types of blade locking devices, and knives in which the blade is positively locked against accidental closure, have been devised. Most designs gain locking security at the expense of convenience or strength.
(e) Blade wobble. Related to the previous factor. Manufacturing allowances must be provided so that parts can move freely. But in a folding knife this may result in mechanical looseness which is perceived as blade wobble. manufacturers commonly reduce perceived wobble in backspring knives by increasing backspring pressure. This makes such knives hard to open.
Some efforts to minimize or overcome these disadvantages are of particular interest:
My own U.S. pat. No. 4,974,323 (1990) disclosed a folding knife or tool in which the blade is moved and locked by an integral control piece, which appears as a stem or button on the handle and a flat portion of which si moved within a cavity in the handle to position a crankpin on the blade tang. This design resolved for the first time the above mentioned problems. It provides total blade movement and locking control with a single button on the handle. However, despite the success of this design, some persons lack the manual dexterity to operate the knife easily. This difficulty is believed to relate to the eccentric movement of the control member, which requires that the finger change direction just at the point of least mechanical advantage.
An additional difficulty for these users is that the locking and unlocking operations require a separate and distance control movement from that used to move the blade.
Many users, therefore, would find it desirable to have a knife or folding tool which embodies a simplified means for achieving safe and effective one hand control of blade movement and locking, and which provides a constant leverage on the blade over the total path of the control member movement, and automatic locking of the blade at the open and closed positions.

Locking device for folding knife, tool, etc.


In one embodiment, voltages are discharged from a circuit under test by, after pins of a circuit tester have been coupled to nodes of the circuit under test, making a first one of the pins an active pin and executing a current discharge process for the active pin. The current discharge process couples a current discharge circuit to the active pin, and then enables the current discharge circuit. A voltage of the active pin is then measured and, if the measured voltage is within a defined window, the active pin is coupled to ground. However, if the measured voltage is outside of the defined window after the current discharge circuit has been enabled for a predetermined period of time, the active pin is marked as not discharged. The current discharged circuit is then disabled and decoupled from the active pin. Thereafter, a next one of the pins is made the active pin, and the current discharged process is caused to be repeated.

Electrical circuits (e.g., circuit boards) may be tested both during and after manufacture. Circuits can be tested to identify both component defects and assembly defects.
Some components, such as capacitors and batteries, are capable of storing energy. When automated test equipment (ATE) is coupled to one of these components (either directly or indirectly), the component can discharge its energy and potentially damage the ATE or other components of the circuit under test. Components such as capacitors can be especially dangerous, because their states are more likely to change between test processes (whereas batteries are more likely to remain charged throughout testing).
One approach for protecting ATE from energy discharge is to provide ATE with cross-connect relays with higher current ratings. However, this approach does not protect circuits under test from short circuit damage. Nor does it reduce wear on ATE resources. The higher rated components also add additional cost.
Another approach, for protecting both ATE and circuits under test from energy discharge, is to incorporate algorithms for identifying potential energy sources into test development software (e.g., by examining board topology). Software can then be used to write tests that cause the potential energy sources to discharge prior to testing. One weakness of this approach, however, is that it often depends on human operators to provide correct inputs, such as correct circuit topology information.
Yet another approach for protecting ATE and circuits under test is to incorporate one or more discharge mechanisms into a custom fixture for each circuit under test.
A typical problem with all of these approaches is that stray charges may "walk" around the board. That is, after discharging one electrical net, a non-discharged energy source may cause energy to leak back into the already discharged electrical net. And, even if a stray charge is small enough that it does not damage ATE or other circuitry, it may be significant enough to cause errors in circuit test measurements—especially when a circuit is submitted to low voltage and low current tests.
Also, the last two of the above approaches are susceptible to human error. That is, their approaches vary based on circuit topology, and therefore require different methodologies for different circuits under test.

Method and apparatus for discharging voltages from a circuit under test


In an electroluminescent display, a pixel driving circuit is coupled between a ground potential terminal and a power voltage terminal of a power source to drive the operation of a light-emitting device. Upon receiving addressing and image data signals from a scan line and a data line, the pixel driving circuit operates to deliver an electric current to the light-emitting device according to the image data signal.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to electroluminescent display technology, and more particularly to an electroluminescent display that can reduce the power consumed while driving the pixel array.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electroluminescent display technology has recently attracted many researches and developments in the field of emissive displays. Compared to other types of emissive displays such as the plasma display, the electroluminescent display promises advantages such as lower power consumption, reduced size, and high image brightness and sharpness. An electroluminescent display system conventionally includes a mesh of scan and data lines that define an array of pixels in each of which is coupled one electroluminescent or light-emitting device. The light-emitting device particularly can be an organic light-emitting device (OLED), and is usually driven by a driving circuit associated to each pixel.
Conventionally, a basic OLED cell is constructed from a stack of layers made of organic material and sandwiched between two electrode layers, i.e. one anode and one cathode. The organic layers are configured to form functional layers usually including a hole transport layer, an emissive layer, and an electron transport layer. When an adequate voltage is applied between the anode and the cathode, the injected positive and negative charges recombine in the emissive layer to produce light.
FIG. 1A is a schematic view of a conventional pixel driving circuit implemented in an organic electroluminescent display known in the art. The pixel driving circuit 110 includes two transistors 112, 114, a storage capacitor 116, and an organic light-emitting diode 118. The transistors 112, 114 can be any types of transistor, such as PMOS thin film transistors or the like. The transistor 112 works as a switch and includes a gate connected to a scan line SCAN, and a source connected to a data line DATA, and a drain connected to the storage capacitor 116. The transistor 114 works as a current driver and includes a source connected to the anode of the organic light-emitting diode 118, while its drain is connected to a positive voltage terminal PV. The storage capacitor 116 is coupled between the gate and the drain of the transistor 114. The cathode of the organic light-emitting diode 118 is connected to a ground potential.,
In this conventional circuit scheme, the voltage bias applied between the terminal PV and the ground potential usually results in a gate voltage of the driving transistor 114 between about +4.5V and +6.5V to have its operating in the saturation range for delivering an electric current to the organic light-emitting diode 118. This constitutes a relatively high power consumption that requires specific manufacture techniques to construct a reliable driving circuitry.
FIG. 1B illustrates another pixel driving circuit known in the art. This pixel driving circuit is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,509,692 issued to Komiya, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. The pixel driving circuit shown in FIG. 1B is very similar to that of FIG. 1A, except that the power source includes a positive voltage terminal PV and a negative voltage terminal CV between both of which are coupled the driving transistor 114 and the organic light-emitting diode 118.
This configuration of the power source enables to reduce the operating gate voltage of the driving transistor 114 down to a voltage range between about 3V and 0.5V. As a result, the driving circuitry can be constructed with less expensive CMOS techniques and operate with a lower power consumption.
FIG. 1C is a general diagram of a power generator circuit conventionally implemented to provide the power source of FIG. 1B. Conventionally, two power circuits including two DC/DC converters 130 are required to convert an initial voltage V to positive and the negative voltage potentials PV, CV. As a result, the manufacture cost is usually increased for this type of power source configured with both positive and negative voltage potentials. Further, the conversion efficiency of the DC/DC converter 130 usually is about 80%, in other words undesirable energy dissipation occurs in the power source. In addition, the installation of two DC/DC converters 130 increases the ripple factor, which affects the image quality of the display system. The foregoing and other disadvantages call for improvements of the power source in the pixel driving circuit.
Therefore, there is presently a need for an electroluminescent display, and in particular a pixel driving circuit that can overcome the disadvantages related to the power source.


Provided is a respiration analysis system using a gas image detection method, the respiration analysis system including: an exhalation capturing unit provided adjacent to a subject and capturing an image of exhalation exhaled from the mouth and nose of the subject; and a control unit electrically connected to the exhalation capturing unit, and calculating and storing, as data, a respiration cycle and respiration volume from the image captured through the exhalation capturing unit. Accordingly, provided is the respiration analysis system using the gas image detection method, in which not only respiration of the subject is measured in a non-contact manner, but also hypopnea is determined by quantifying volume of the exhalation exhaled by the subject, thereby inferring a disease caused by the hypopnea.

In general, there are many people who snore severely among adults over 30s, and such snoring is caused by extreme fatigue, obesity, stress, rhinitis, and sore throat.
Problems with the snoring are that the snoring may cause an apnea syndrome in which respiration is stopped for several seconds to several tens of seconds, thereby causing a serious fatigue phenomenon that causes a sudden drop in the quality of life to cause deterioration of efficiency of learning and work, and industrial accidents and traffic accidents, and in severe cases, dysfunction in cardiovascular activity and brain activity may be caused due to lack of oxygen supply in the body. In particular, a sleep apnea syndrome may be the cause of sudden death or unexpected death in a patient with heart disease, such as arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, or cardiac failure, or a patient with brain disease, such as cerebral infarction or cerebral apoplexy.
In order to prevent damage from the sleep apnea syndrome, a person with the sleep apnea syndrome may be cautious on his/her own, but unfortunately, it is difficult to self-realize the sleep apnea syndrome.
Thus, although family members of the person could observe whether person has the sleep apnea syndrome, it is not easy to observe the person for a long time without sleeping since the sleep apnea syndrome is considered as a state in which respiration stops 20 times or more during 7 hours of sleep.
Recently, an apparatus for measuring and monitoring such apnea syndrome has been introduced, and there is an apparatus that measures the apnea syndrome by measuring and inputting, to a computer, a change in ventilation volume according to a change of respiration during sleep by mounting a respiration mask suitable to the size of the mouth and nose of a target.
Such a mask is unable to be unified to all people but should be specially manufactured according to shapes of the mouth and nose of the target. Also, an expensive conversion apparatus and software are required to convert the change in the respiration ventilation volume measured for a long time to an electric signal, input the electric signal to the computer, and analyze the electric signal, and the help from a specialist or a medical technician is required.
In addition to a conventional sleep apnea syndrome measuring apparatus being complicated to use and being expensive, since a special mask is worn on the mouth and nose during sleep and a connection line transmitting the respiration ventilation volume is lengthily connected to the computer, the measuring apparatus itself becomes stress, thereby affecting the sleep.
The conventional prior art may be identified in KR 10-2015-0033197 (published on Apr. 2, 2015).

Breath analysis system using gas image detection method

AJOU UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY-ACADEMIC COOPERATION FOUNDATION


A self contained trailmower includes a respective angled bumper housing positioned on each front corner of the mower deck in a position such that the angled housing on the outside of the mower deck is the first part of the deck to hit an obstacle in the path of the mower. Each of the bumper housings holds a plurality of bumper rollers with the rollers being placed in a line along the outer edge of each bumper housing and protruding outward past the bumper housing such that the rollers are the first portion of the mower to encounter the obstacle. The rollers thus urge the mower deck outward away from the obstacle and serve to cushion the impact between mower deck and obstacle. The mower also incorporates a convenient height adjustment feature.

With the recent popularity of ATV's, efforts have been made to make these vehicles, which were initially designed primarily for recreation, more utilitarian. One innovation which is gaining increased acceptance are trailmowers which are towed behind an ATV. Another use for trailmowers is to extend the cutting swath of a lawn or garden tractor which already incorporates an existing mower deck.
These trailmowers typically are self contained mower decks with attached engines which are attached to the ATV or tractor via an offset articulating tow bar. A typical example is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,614 to Thomas Pestka.
Due to the fact that trailmowers are usually offset with respect to the path of travel of the towing vehicle, as well as being positioned behind the tow vehicle, it is difficult for the vehicle operator to gauge the path of the outside of the mower deck. It is common, then for an operator to inadvertently hit obstacles, such as tree trunks, particularly with the outside edge of the offset trailmower.
In the past, it is known to provide rigid angled flanges on the outside of the trailmower deck which are positioned to be the first part of the deck to hit an obstacle. Due to their angle, these flanges urge the mower deck away from the obstacle, thus allowing it and the tow bar to pivot about the tow vehicle and skirt the obstacle. A problem with these prior art flanges is the damage they do to obstacles, particularly tree trunks, when they hit them. Another problem is the potential damage to the trailmower by repetitive abrupt shocks to the trailmower deck as the flanges encounter obstacles.
It is clear then, that a need exists for a trailmower which incorporates better protection from encounters from obstacles, both for the obstacle and the mower deck itself.


A light receiving device is disclosed that is able to reduce jitter and to improve detection resolution. The light receiving device has plural light receiving elements each having a rectangular light receiving area. The light receiving areas are connected to each other at vertices on diagonals thereof, and sides of the light receiving areas of neighboring light receiving elements are adjacent to each other.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light receiving device and an encoding device, and particularly, to a light receiving device including plural light receiving elements and an encoding device thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, an encoding device is used to detect linear motion or rotational motion of an object, and input the detection results to a computer or other digital devices. For example, the encoding device generates pulses corresponding to the motion of the object to make the detection.
Usually, the encoding device includes a member moving in a direction in which several openings are arranged, light receiving elements that detect light passing through the openings, and a signal processing unit that generates the pulses from the output signals of the respective light receiving elements. For example, Japanese Laid Open Patent Application No. 6-18290 discloses such a device.
FIG. 6A and FIG. 6B are a plan view and a side view illustrating an encoding device in the related art.
As shown in FIG. 6A and FIG. 6B, an encoding device 1 includes a light source 10, a slit member 11, and a light receiving unit 12.
The light source 10 and the light receiving unit 12 are fixed and are separated at a certain distance. The slit member 11 is arranged between the light source 10 and the light receiving unit 12, and is movable relative to the light source 10 and the light receiving unit 12 in X1 and X2 directions (the right side or the left side in the X direction in FIG. 6B). The slit member 11 is fixed to an object to be detected, and moves in the X direction when the object moves.
The light receiving unit 12 includes adjacent light receiving elements 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d arranged in the X direction. For example, the light receiving elements 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d are photo diodes. Each of the light receiving elements 12a, 12b, 12c, and 12d has a length dx1 in the X direction and a width dy1 in the Y direction, and the light receiving elements 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d have the same light receiving area.
The slit member 11 includes light transmitting parts 11a and light shielding parts 11b which are arranged alternately and repeatedly. Each of the light transmitting parts 11a and the light shielding parts 11b has a length dx2 in the X direction and a width dy2 in the Y direction, and dx2 and dy2 satisfy dx2=2×dx1, and dy2=dy1+α, that is, the width dy2 of the light transmitting parts 11a and the light shielding parts 11b is greater than the width dy1 of the light receiving elements 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d by α.
The output signals from the light receiving elements 12a, 12c are compared in a comparator 13, and the comparison result is output through a terminal 14 as a detection signal.
The output signals from the light receiving elements 12b, 12d are compared in a comparator 15, and the comparison result is output through a terminal 16 as a detection signal.
When the slit member 11 is moved relative to the light receiving unit 12 in the X1 direction (to the right side in the X direction in FIG. 6B), the output signal of the comparator 15 is later than the output signal of the comparator 13 by ¼ cycle. On the other hand, when the slit member 11 is moved relative to the light receiving unit 12 in the X2 direction (to the left side in the X direction in FIG. 6B), the output signal of the comparator 15 is earlier than the output signal of the comparator 13 by ¼ cycle.
However, in the encoding device 1 in the related art, because the edges of the light receiving elements 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d are formed to be parallel to the edges of the light transmitting parts 11a and the light shielding parts 11b, the detection signals of the light receiving elements 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d have monotonically increasing or decreasing waveforms. For this reason, jitter of the detection signals is large.
In addition, the detection resolution of the encoding device 1 is determined by the width of the light transmitting parts 11a and the light shielding parts 11b of the slit member 11, and changes with the width of the light transmitting parts 11a and the light shielding parts 11b of the slit member 11. In order to reduce the width of the light transmitting parts 11a and the light shielding parts 11b of the slit member 11, special techniques are required, and this increases the cost of the slit member 11. Further, if the width of the light transmitting parts 11a and the light shielding parts 11b of the slit member 11 are reduced, the light intensity supplied to the light receiving elements 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d become insufficient, and this causes degradation of the detection precision.

Light receiving device and encoding device


An electronic device, comprising: a first component configured to transmit a first set of data to a second component by providing a first memory request specifying the first set of data for and an input memory address, and a transaction tracking unit coupled to a first transport interface, the transaction tracking unit configured to: receive the first memory request; transmit a second memory request that specifies at least a first portion of the first set of data, via the first transport interface, to the second component; receive a response to the second memory request from the second component; determine that the response corresponds to the second memory request; and provide, to the first component, an output response based on the received response to the second memory request.

Machine learning (ML) is becoming an increasingly important part of the computing landscape. Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) and ML helps enable a software system to learn to recognize patterns from data without being directly programmed to do so. Neural networks (NN) area type of ML which utilize a set of linked and layered functions (e.g., node, neuron, etc.) which are weighted to evaluate input data. In some NNs, sometimes referred to as convolution neural networks (CNNs), convolution operations may be performed in NN layers based on inputs received and weights CNNs are often used in a wide array of applications typically for recognition and classification, such as image recognition and classification, prediction and recommendation systems, speech and language recognition and translation, etc.
As ML become increasingly useful, there is a desire to execute multiple complex ML techniques, such as NNs and CNNs, efficiently in devices with a high degree of availability. For example, for a partially or fully automated driving application, multiple ML models may be executed concurrently and in real-time to identify, recognize, and/or predict objects, paths, trajectories, etc. These ML models may need to be available for use, even if there are issues that could impact the performance of the ML models, such as partial hardware failure, performance degradations for example due to a large number of inputs, inclement weather conditions, etc.

Redundant communications for multi-chip systems


A method, computer program product, and computing system for assigning a plurality of unique sequential identifiers to a plurality of tablets in a cache memory system. One or more metadata deltas associated with a metadata page stored in a storage array may be written to the plurality of tablets in the cache memory system. Each metadata delta stored in at least one tablet of the plurality of tablets may be written to the metadata page stored in the storage array, thus defining one or more destage tablets. A largest unique sequential identifier from the plurality of unique sequential identifiers assigned to the one or more destage tablets, may be written to the storage array, thus defining a current tablet identifier for the metadata page.

Storing and safeguarding electronic content may be beneficial in modern business and elsewhere. Accordingly, various methodologies may be employed to protect and distribute such electronic content.
For example, various operations may be performed on metadata pages in a storage system. Storage nodes may include a cache memory system configured to manage locks on metadata pages, provide transactional protection for composite updates requiring multiple page writes atomically, provide a least recently used (LRU) cache for metadata pages in order to avoid excessive reading of the metadata blocks from the storage array, and LRU cache invalidation (e.g., invalidation of an existing metadata page on one node in response to updating the metadata page on another node).
Updates to a metadata page may be stored rather than doing a full read modify process. For example, updates may be aggregated first in a cache memory system and then destaged to the storage array. Updates may be aggregated on the storage array before updating the metadata page.
Accordingly, the destaging or flushing of updates may be detached from the cache memory system. This may allow destaging to not block user writes, since a write operation is adding new deltas to the cache memory system. A user read hit operation may not be blocked by destaging the updates to the storage array. However, with conventional approaches, a user read operation which misses (i.e., a read operation for a metadata page "missing" from the cache) may require synchronization with other operations.
For example, with conventional approaches, a read miss operation includes: 1) reading a metadata page from the storage array; 2) determining which updates are missing from the metadata page; 3) applying the missing updates to the metadata page; and 4) updating the metadata page to the cache memory system. Accordingly, a read miss operation must be synchronized with a destage operation. Conventional approaches include using read and write locks (i.e., a read lock on disk access for the metadata page during a read miss operation and a write lock on disk access for the metadata page during a destage operation). In this manner, conventional techniques, lock contention may arise which may increase IO operation latency and decrease overall storage system performance.

System and method for lockless reading of metadata pages