A data processing system (100) of the present invention analyses input data (10) for statistical similarities in time and determines processing steps depending on the analysis. The system (100) transfers a first data set (12) which changes at every time transition (i-1) to i into a second data set (13) to output sets (22 and 23) by a transfer function H. According to a method of the present invention, the number of calculation instructions h(n) which are performed is established by comparing consecutive old input data (12) and new input data (13). The transfer function H is thereby simplified and the number of executed instructions optimized.

Computer processors are well known and widely used for a variety of purposes. One application of computer processors is digital signal processing (DSP). Digital signal processing is concerned with the representation of signals by sequences of numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals. DSP has a wide variety of applications and its importance is evident in such fields as pattern recognition, radio communication, telecommunications, radar, biomedical engineering, and many others. An example for a calculation algorithm used in DSP is the Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT). The DCT transforms, e.g., image samples in an image area to DCT-coefficients ("spatial coefficients") in a frequency area. For DSP, it is often required to perform a huge number of calculation operations in a short time. Operations (such as e.g., addition a+b, multiplication a*b, power a.sup.b, logarithm log.sub.b (a), cos (a)) require execution time and hardware. Calculations are conveniently performed by hardware specialized in certain operations (e.g., adders, log-units) or by processors performing different operations. Some operations (e.g., log) can require special memory space, such as, for example, look-up tables. Both execution time and hardware are critical for modern DSP applications. Power consumption and hardware requirements, hence costs, are often larger than desired. Hence, there is a need to provide an apparatus and a method for data processing which mitigates these and other disadvantages of the prior art.

Apparatus and method for data processing


A method of manufacturing a through electrode. While using at least a first conductive film for a gate electrode as a mask, an inner trench and a peripheral trench is formed. The Inner trench is provided for an inner through electrode having a columnar semiconductor. The peripheral trench is provided for a peripheral through electrode around an annular semiconductor surrounding the inner trench. The inner trench and the peripheral trench are filled with a through electrode insulation film and a through electrode conductive film, respectively, to form an inner through electrode and a peripheral through electrode.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and more particularly to a semiconductor device having a through electrode which forms a three-dimensional semiconductor device, and to a method of manufacturing such a semiconductor device.
Three-dimensional semiconductor devices having a plurality of stacked semiconductor devices have been proposed in recent years. In these three-dimensional semiconductor devices, the respective semiconductor devices are electrically connected to each other by through electrodes, which extend through semiconductor substrates.
FIGS. 1 and 2 show a conventional three-dimensional semiconductor device. The three-dimensional semiconductor device shown in FIG. 1 has three semiconductor devices 3, 4, and 5 and a support substrate 1 on which the semiconductor devices 3, 4, and 5 are mounted. Each semiconductor device has a through electrode 7 extending through a semiconductor substrate. The semiconductor devices are connected to each other by bumps 6, which are connected to the through electrodes 7, and also connected to a wiring pattern 2 on the support substrate 1. FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of one through electrode 7. The illustrated through electrode 7 is produced after completion of a wiring process in a semiconductor fabrication process.
An opening is formed in an insulation film 17 in a state in which interconnections 16 are formed in the semiconductor device. A trench is formed in the semiconductor substrate 11. A through electrode insulation film 7b is deposited on an inner wall of the trench. Further, the trench is filled with a through electrode conductive film 7a. Then, an upper surface of the through electrode conductive film 7a is flattened by CMP or the like so as to have the same height as a surface of the semiconductor. A rear face of the semiconductor substrate 11 is ground so that the semiconductor substrate 11 has a predetermined thickness. A rear insulation film 18 is deposited on the rear face of the semiconductor substrate 11. Then, an opening is formed in the rear insulation film 18, and a bump 19 is formed in the opening. A bump 19 may be formed on the front face of the semiconductor substrate as needed. If no bump is formed on the semiconductor substrate, a protective insulation film is formed on the semiconductor substrate.
These through electrodes are used as power source lines and signal lines. Accordingly, It is desirable that the through electrodes have a low wiring resistance and a small stray capacitance. Through electrodes having a high wiring resistance cause reduction of a voltage and delay of signals to thereby lower an operating speed. Finally, the semiconductor may not work. Further, if through electrodes have a large capacity, a signal waveform is disturbed by delay of signals and noise between signals, so that high-speed data transfer cannot be performed. Accordingly, in order to reduce a resistance of a through electrode, it is necessary to increase a diameter of a trench formed in a semiconductor substrate and fill the trench with a conductive film. Further, in order to reduce a capacity of a through electrode, it is necessary to thicken an insulation film between a semiconductor substrate and a conductive film and to use an insulation film having a small dielectric constant. However, only limited types of insulation films can be used in a semiconductor fabrication process. As a result, it is necessary to increase a film thickness of an insulation film.
Accordingly, in order to produce a through electrode, a trench having a diameter of several tens of micrometers should be formed in a semiconductor substrate, and a through electrode insulation film 7b should be deposited as thick as several micrometers to several tens of micrometers. In the prior art, when a conductive film or an insulation film having a film thickness in the above range, deposition should be performed for a long period of time. Thus, a heavy load is imposed on a manufacturing process. Further, in a case of deposition of a conductive film having a thickness of several tens of micrometers, the deposited grain becomes non-uniform as the film thickness becomes larger. The non-uniform grain causes variation of properties of the conductive film so as to increase a resistivity of the conductive film. Thus, it has been desired to develop a structure of a through electrode having a low resistance and a small capacity, and to establish a method of manufacturing such a through electrode.
Japanese laid-open patent publications Nos. 2003-017558 and 2002-289623 relate to through electrodes. Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 2003-017558 discloses forming a trench having a diameter of several tens of micrometers in a semiconductor substrate, then filling the trench with an application insulation film, etching the semiconductor substrate to form a trench in the semiconductor substrate, and depositing a conductive film in the trench to produce a through electrode with the conductive film having no cavities. Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 2002-289623 discloses a second insulation area provided outside of a through electrode to prevent short-circuits between the through electrode and a semiconductor substrate.
Japanese laid-open patent publications Nos. 2005-094044, 2004-228308, 08-078699, and 2004-273483 relate to methods of forming a via hole, a through hole, and a contact hole. Japanese laid-open patent publications Nos. 2005-094044 and 2004-228308 disclose that insulation films having different etching rates are deposited on an upper side of a gate electrode and on a side surface of the gate electrode to form self-aligning contact. Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 08-078699 discloses forming a diffusion layer while using a gate electrode as a mask. Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 2004-273483 discloses an etching method for forming a hole in an interlayer dielectric. However, these publications fail to teach or disclose a structure of a through electrode having a small capacity with respect to a semiconductor substrate and a low resistance, and a method of manufacturing such a through electrode.
As described above, a conventional through electrode used in a three-dimensional semiconductor device has the following problems: The resistance of the through electrode is so large that high-speed data transfer cannot be performed. A deposition time of an embedded conductive film becomes long because the embedded conductive film of the through electrode should have a large film thickness.

Semiconductor device having a through electrode with a low resistance and method of manufacturing the same


A printhead includes a droplet-forming heater operable in a first state to form droplets from a fluid stream having a first volume traveling along a path direction and in a second state to form droplets from the fluid stream having a second volume traveling along the path direction. A droplet deflector system is positioned relative to the droplet-forming heater, which applies a force to the droplets traveling along the path direction, whereby the droplets having the first volume diverge from the path direction by a greater extent than do the droplets having the second volume. A droplet-steering heater is adapted to selectively asymmetrically apply heat to the stream such that the path direction is changed.

Traditionally, digitally controlled color printing capability is accomplished by one of two technologies. The first technology, commonly referred to as "drop-on-demand" ink jet printing, provides ink droplets for impact upon a recording surface using a pressurization actuator (thermal, piezoelectric, etc.). Selective activation of the actuator causes the formation and ejection of a flying ink droplet that crosses the space between the printhead and the print media and strikes the print media. The second technology, commonly referred to as "continuous stream" or "continuous" ink jet printing, uses a pressurized ink source that produces a continuous stream of ink droplets. Conventional continuous ink jet printers utilize electrostatic charging devices and deflector plates. Examples of conventional continuous ink jet printers include U.S. Pat. No. 1,941,001 issued to Hansell, on Dec. 26, 1933; U.S. Pat. No. 3,373,437 issued to Sweet et al., on Mar. 12, 1968; U.S. Pat. No. 3,416,153 issued to Hertz et al., on Dec. 10, 1968; U.S. Pat. No. 3,878,519 issued to Eaton, on Apr. 15, 1975; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,346,387 issued to Hertz, on Aug. 24, 1982.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,709,432, which issued to Robertson on Jan. 9, 1973, discloses stimulation of an ink filament to cause the ink to break up into uniformly spaced droplets. Before they break up into droplets, the lengths of the filaments are regulated by controlling the stimulation energy supplied to transducers, with high amplitude stimulation resulting in short filaments and low amplitudes resulting in long filaments. A flow of air across their paths affects the trajectories of the filaments before they break up into droplets. By controlling the lengths of the filaments, the trajectories of the ink droplets can be controlled, or switched from one path to another. As such, some ink droplets may be directed into a catcher while allowing other ink droplets to be applied to a receiver.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,079,821, which issued to Chwalek et al. on Jun. 27, 2000, discloses a continuous ink jet printer. A printhead includes a plurality of nozzles, each of which uses actuation of a single asymmetric heater to both create individual ink droplets from a filament of working fluid and deflect those ink droplets. Printed ink droplets flow along a printed ink droplet path ultimately striking a receiver, while non-printed ink droplets flow along a non-printed ink droplet path ultimately striking a catcher surface. Non-printed ink droplets are recycled or disposed of through an ink removal channel formed in the catcher.
The paths of drops ejected from a row of equally spaced nozzles should be parallel. Continuous inkjet printheads often require fine adjustments in jet direction and drop placement to counteract flight path errors due, for example by manufacturing defects in the printhead, differences in the resistances of the drop-formation heaters, particles and other debris near the nozzle bores, air turbulence and splay, stitching defects, etc. It has been suggested that such adjustments can be effected by segmenting the drop formation heater in much the way suggested by Chwalek et al. in above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 6,079,821. Different power levels can then be applied to the heater segments in order to steer the jet in a desired direction to compensate for flight path errors. However, use of the drop formation heater to also adjust jet direction and drop placement convolutes the two processes, potentially requiring trade-offs in the optimization of drop formation and drop placement.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,517,197, which issued to Hawkins et al. on Feb. 11, 2003, recognized that, while the ink droplet-forming mechanism and the ink droplet-steering mechanism may be the same mechanism, it is also possible to make the droplet-forming mechanism and the droplet-steering mechanism separate distinct mechanisms. The examples provided by Hawkins et al. included a piezoelectric actuator droplet-forming mechanism with a segmented heater droplet-steering mechanism. While such a system overcomes the need for trade-offs in the optimization of drop formation and drop placement that would exist in the Chwalek et al. device, the use of a segmented heater droplet-steering mechanism would add a little extra energy to a jet. This would undesirably increase the velocity of corrected jets and cause the corrected jet to be out of sync with the non-corrected jets. It is feature of the present invention to compensate for the additional energy added by the segmented heater by providing a heater as the droplet-forming mechanism and to adjust the total amount of energy applied to corrected jets so as to keep the velocity of the corrected jets the same as the velocity of the non-corrected jets by reducing the energy from the droplet-forming mechanism by an amount substantially equal to the additional energy added by the segmented heater.
It is an object of the present invention is to simplify construction of a continuous ink jet printhead and printer having improved placement accuracy of individual ink drops in order to render images of high quality.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a continuous ink jet printhead and printer capable of rendering high-resolution images with reduced image artifacts using large volumes of ink.
It is yet another object of the present invention is to improve the reliability of a continuous ink jet printhead.
It is still another object of the present invention to simplify construction and operation of a continuous ink jet printer suitable for printing high quality images having reduced artifacts due to systematic errors of drop placement.

Continuous ink-jet printing with jet straightness correction


An illumination apparatus for illuminating paintings at least a part of which is painted by a particular paint that emits or reflects light upon reception of ultraviolet ray, has a first illumination lamp constituted of an ultraviolet lamp and a second illumination lamp constituted of incandescent lamps. The ultraviolet lamp and incandescent lamps are controlled by a control circuit to be repetitively turned on and off as time elapses in accordance with a control sequence selected by an observer. While the incandescent lamps are turned on, the ultraviolet lamp is turned off to make the painting viewed as, e.g., a daytime landscape without showing, e.g., a nighttime landscape, and while the incandescent lamps are turned on, the ultraviolet lamp is turned on to make the same painting viewed as the nighttime landscape.

This invention relates to an apparatus for illuminating paintings, posters, and those duplications (hereinafter collectively referred to as "paintings") and a frame to which such an illumination apparatus is attached.
A particular paint that emits or reflects certain light upon reception of ultraviolet radiation from an ultraviolet lamp (so called "black light") has been devised and used for production of paintings. The paintings are produced in a fashion that such a particular paint is placed in some part of the painting area, e.g., in a crescent portion over a circle area that is painted by a regular paint as the sun. When one of such paintings is observed under a sufficiently bright incandescent lamp, the sun portion is literally perceived as the sun while remaining portions depicting a landscape are seen brightly. That is, in this situation, this painting is observed as a daytime landscape. To the contrary, when the incandescent lamp is dimmed and the painting is observed with an ultraviolet light radiated from an ultraviolet lamp (black light), the sun portion is perceived as a dark portion, and only the crescent portion emits light. That is, in this situation, this painting is observed as a nighttime landscape.
We have developed some illumination apparatus in which the ultraviolet lamp is normally turned on and the incandescent lamp can be turned on and off by a switch control, to illuminate paintings using those paints. With such an illumination apparatus, the incandescent lamp is turned on and off upon control of the switch, thereby arbitrarily changing, between the daytime landscape and the nighttime landscape, the appearance of the paintings using the particular paint.
Switching control of the incandescent lamp, which is performed each time, however, creates inconvenience and abrupt changes from daytime to nighttime and thus makes such changes unnatural. To eliminate such inconvenience and to make changes between the daytime and nighttime landscapes closely natural as much as possible, we have devised an illumination apparatus that automatically repeats by a control circuit a sequence that the incandescent lamp is turned on when a previously set time elapses, gradually increases the lamp brightness, maintains the brightness for a prescribed period, is gradually dimmed, and then is turned off. In this illumination apparatus, it is to be noted that the ultraviolet lamp is normally turned on. According to the illumination apparatus, no switching control of the incandescent performed each time is required, and furthermore, the painting is perceived, as a nighttime landscape due to the ultraviolet radiation from the ultraviolet lamp where the incandescent lamp is turned off, then gradually as a morning landscape as shifted from the nighttime landscape in accordance with increase of brightness upon turning on of the incandescent lamp, then as a daytime landscape where the incandescent lamp is brightest, then gradually as a sunset landscape as the incandescent lamp is more dimmed, and as the nighttime landscape again when the incandescent lamp is turned off.
However, because the illumination apparatus thus described has the ultraviolet lamp normally turned on even while the incandescent lamp is turned on, the particular paint may emit light upon the ultraviolet radiation from the ultraviolet lamp, thereby rendering the painted portions of the particular paint recognizable by observers of the paintings, in association with watching angles of the observers, brightness of the incandescent lamp at the peak, number of the incandescent lamps, and size of the paintings, even where the incandescent lamp is turned on and brightness of the lamp reaches the peak or maximum. This makes difficult to adequately express differences between the daytime landscape and nighttime landscape and negates unexpectedness at a time of changes from the daytime landscape to the nighttime landscape, thereby reducing the commercial value of the apparatus.

Illumination apparatus and frame to which the illumination apparatus is attached


A system and method for resource handling provides for receiving a query and providing a response. The query is used to search resources locally available. Metadata is associated with each of the resources. The resources and the metadata are both analyzed with respect to the query such that a response indicative of a match between at least two of the resources and the query is a ranked search result included in the response. The invention is exemplified in an adaptation to peer-to-peer network applications.

1. Field of Technology
The field of technology relates generally to distributed resource searching.
2. Description of Related Art
In many operational environments, resources are distributed rather than being contained at one central depository.
For example, among many advancements to the computing field, the increasing preference for sharing computer resources and information, the decreasing cost of powerful computers and workstations, the widespread use of networks, the Internet, and the maturity of software technologies is increasing the demand for more efficient information retrieval mechanisms.
In general, the handling of queries with respect to specified topics is inefficient. For example, "Peer-to-Peer" (P2P) communications as a form of networking is becoming increasingly popular because P2P offers significant advantages in simplicity, ease of use, scalability, and robustness. P2P systems are communications networks where any currently connected computing device (also referred to as an Internet "edge node" or "fringe node") can take the role of both a client and a server. Generally, P2P systems are networked personal computing devices (e.g., personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), Internet-capable wireless telephones, and the like), where each network node has no fixed Internet Protocol (IP) address and therefore is outside the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS; viz., where an IP address like "232.452.120.54" can be something like "xyz.com"). P2P is a way of decentralizing not just features, but costs and administration as well.
P2P computer applications are a class of applications that takes advantage of resources (e.g., storage, cycles, content, human presence, and the like) available on the fringe of the Internet. However, accessing such decentralized resources means operating in an environment of unstable connectivity and unpredictable location since the nodes operate outside the DNS, having significant or total autonomy from central servers. At the same time, it is an advantage of such systems that communications can be established while tolerating and working with the variable connectivity of hundreds of millions of such fringe nodes. There is therefore a requirement for P2P system designers to solve connectivity problems. A true P2P system must (1) treat variable connectivity and temporary network addresses as the norm, and (2) give the Internet fringe nodes involved in the network some significant autonomy.
One known P2P network protocol, known as GNUTELLA™ network protocol, is a file sharing technology, offering an alternative to web search engines used in the Internet, with a fully distributed mini-search engine and a file serving system for media and archive files that operates on an open-source policy of file sharing. Another commercial example is the MORPHEUS™ file sharing system. FIG. 1 (Prior Art) illustrates a P2P structure and searching in the GNUTELLA™ P2P network. In essence, each node (each circle symbol represents a computing device). Individual host nodes 101, 102, 103, and the like, store resources, e.g., a database of documents or other content. Moreover, each peer uses its own local directory structure to store its copy of each of the resources. Any peer can propagate a search request, or "query," illustrated in FIG. 1 by arrows as broadcast by a first "Querying Peer" 101 to all of its "Neighbor Peers" 102. Note that a neighbor peer becomes the querying peer when it passes a search request on to its neighbors which are not in direct communication with the first Querying Peer 101, e.g., node 103. In other words, each peer not only searches its own directory for the resource-of-interest of the query, but broadcasts the query to each of its neighbor peers. While individual hosts are generally unreliable with respect to availability at any given moment, the resources themselves, i.e., the content being sought, tend to be highly available because resources are replicated and widely distributed in proportion to demand. Generally, however individual preferences are identified only by file name and file names are subject to the individual preferences of each node for its local directory structure. Thus, one specific problem is how to search intelligently and efficiently for relevant resources in a P2P network.
Again, it is common to store content data files at each peer's local directory structure simply by the given file name. For example, web sites such as NAPSTER™ music download site simply store data by a file name associated with the artist or specific song title, e.g., "artist name", to facilitate searching. Simple descriptor queries thus get a very large number of unranked returns. In fact, even a web site search engine in a non-P2P system, such as the commercial GOOGLE™, ALTA VISTA™ and the like internet search engines, provides all return links potentially relevant to a query-namely, each and every file found which has a match to the query —which the user must then study for relevance to the actual interest intended and then visit serially those which actually may be authoritative. That is, all of these web search engines rely upon the existence of user information in the form of web pages containing links. Web search engines may provide ranking algorithms by which they measure the degree to which a web page answers a query (the authority of a given web page). All of these web search engines rely on the existence of user information to measure the authority of a given web page —for example, web pages containing links to a given web page, or terms occurring within the content of the web page, or web page links contained by the web page. This form of evaluation will not work for P2P systems that, due to the transient nature of the P2P network, do not support the concept of a link.
Another method, storage at a given node by random names in order to hide actual file identity, raises the problem of need for some form of central index that can be searched.
Another method is collaborative filtering where patterns of searches by like-minded searchers are analyzed and leveraged to produce allegedly more relevant results in response to a specific query. Such analysis inherently requires real time delays in providing an answer message to the query.
In general, existing solutions focus on locating every specific instance of each of the resources that is a potential match to the query. Thus, a replicated resource is likely to appear multiple times in responses to a specific query.
Moreover, none of these methods provide any ranking of the resources. In other words, there is no measure of authority as to how authoritative any particular peer is as to the resource-of-interest, e.g., what is the peer's resource capability with respect to the topic of "jazz music."

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A hinge assembly includes a pivot shaft defining a latching recess, a second leaf non-rotatably connected to the pivot shaft, a first leaf rotatably connected to the pivot shaft, and a clasping member fixed on the first leaf. The clasping member includes a receiving portion sleeved on the pivot shaft, and an elastic portion adjacent to the receiving portion. A part of the elastic portion engages in the latching recess of the pivot shaft, and the part of the elastic portion is separated from the receiving portion.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally to hinge assemblies and, more particularly, to a hinge assembly typically used for an electronic device.
2. Description of Related Art
An electronic device such as a mobile phone, a notebook computer, or a personal digital assistant, generally has a main body and a display cover pivotally connected to the main body via a hinge assembly.
A typical hinge assembly includes a fixing member and a rotating member. The fixing member includes a fixing portion, and a sleeve formed on a side of the fixing portion. The rotating member includes a mounting portion, and a rotary shaft extending from the mounting portion. A latching protrusion is formed on an inner surface of the sleeve. A latching groove is defined in an outer surface of the rotary shaft. The rotary shaft is inserted into the sleeve, so that the rotating member can be rotated relative to the fixing member. When the rotating member is rotated to a predetermined position, the latching protrusion of the sleeve is engaged in the latching groove of the rotary shaft, thereby retaining the rotating member in the predetermined position. Moreover, the rotating member may be retained in any other desired position via a frictional force generated between the sleeve and the rotary shaft.
However, when the rotating member is rotated to another desired position, the latching protrusion slides out of the latching groove, and abuts against an outer surface of the rotary shaft, so that a portion of the sleeve adjoining the latching protrusion will become warped and no longer tightly contact the rotary shaft. As a result, the rotating member may not be retained stably in the desired position.
What is needed, therefore, is a new hinge assembly that overcomes the above mentioned disadvantages.

Hinge assembly and electronic device using the same

Hong Fu Jin Precision (ShenZhen) Co., Ltd.


Transmitters supporting multiple modulation modes and/or multiple frequency bands are described. A transmitter may perform large signal polar modulation, small signal polar modulation, and/or quadrature modulation, which may support different modulation schemes and systems. Circuit blocks may be shared by the different modulation modes to reduce cost and power. For example, a single modulator and a single power amplifier may be used for small signal polar modulation and quadrature modulation. The transmitter may apply pre-distortion to improve performance, to allow a power amplifier to support multiple frequency bands, to allow the power amplifier to operate at higher output power levels, etc. Envelope and phase distortions due to non-linearity of the power amplifier may be characterized for different input levels and different bands and stored at the transmitter. Thereafter, envelope and phase signals may be pre-distorted based on the stored characterizations to compensate for non-linearity of the power amplifier.

I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to electronic circuits, and more specifically to transmitters for wireless communication.
II. Background
A wireless device may support communication with multiple wireless communication systems. These systems may utilize different modulation schemes such as Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK), 8-ary phase shift keying (8-PSK), quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK), quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), etc. These systems may also have different chip rates and/or operate on different frequency bands.
A transmitter within the wireless device may be designed to support multiple modulation schemes, multiple chip rates, and/or multiple frequency bands. To transmit data to a given system, the transmitter may first digitally process the data to generate symbols. The transmitter may then convert the symbols to analog signals, filter and amplify the analog signals, and modulate local oscillator (LO) signals with the amplified analog signals to generate a modulated signal. The transmitter may further filter and power amplify the modulated signal to generate a radio frequency (RF) output signal, which may then be transmitted via a wireless channel.
The transmitter may use various circuit blocks such as filters, amplifiers, mixers, etc. to generate an RF output signal for a given modulation scheme on a given frequency band. These circuit blocks may be designed to achieve good performance for the modulation scheme and the frequency band. To support multiple systems and/or multiple frequency bands, the circuit blocks may be replicated for each combination of modulation scheme and frequency band supported by the wireless device. This replication of circuit blocks may increase cost and power consumption for the wireless device.
There is therefore a need in the art for transmitters that can efficiently support different modulation schemes and/or frequency bands.

Multi-mode and multi-band transmitters for wireless communication


The surface of a light guide plate is provided with face portions obliquely oriented. Since the face portions form leakage lights whose directional components are deviated from the principal viewing direction on the surface of the light guide plate, the orientation distribution of the leakage light differs from the conventional one, and the peak orientations of the leakage light are formed on both sides of the viewing direction. Moreover, the peak intensities on both sides significantly decrease.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an illumination device and to an electrooptical device having the illumination device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a structure of an illumination device which may be suitably used as a front light which is placed in front of a display surface of an electrooptical device so as to illuminate the display surface in dark environments and to allow the display surface to be visible therethrough in a lighted environment.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, reflective liquid crystal display panels that do not consume large amounts of power are used as electrooptical devices for use in display sections of portable devices. However, the displays are not readily visible in dim conditions, such as during the night. In contrast, since transmissive liquid crystal display panels have backlights, displays thereof are readily visible even under dim conditions. However, the backlights consume large amounts of power, and the displays are rather difficult to view outdoors in the daytime since the environment is bright.
In order to solve the above problems, a liquid crystal display device having a front light serving as a surface light-emitting element has been proposed in which a light guide plate is placed in front of a reflective liquid crystal display panel, light from a light source, such as a cold cathode-ray tube, placed adjacent to the end of the light guide plate, is introduced into the light guide plate, and the light is emitted from the surface of the light guide plate toward the liquid crystal display panel, thereby allowing the display to be visible even in a dim environment. In a liquid crystal display device having a front light, since the liquid crystal display panel is visible through the light guide plate in the daytime, it can be used as a normal reflective liquid crystal display panel. In a dim environment, the liquid crystal display panel is illuminated by lighting the front light, so that the display is visible through the light guide plate.
FIG. 11 schematically shows the general plan structure of a front light 20 for a conventional liquid crystal panel, and FIG. 12 is an enlarged general sectional view of the front light 20. The front light 20 may consist of a light source 21 formed of a cold cathode-ray tube or the like, a platelike light guide plate 22 made of a material having a high refractive index, such as acrylic resin, so as to introduce light from the light source 21 through an end face 22d and to guide the light to the right side in the figure, and a reflector 23 placed to surround the light source 21. On the surface of the light guide plate 22, gently inclined sections 22a inclined at a slight angle and steeply inclined sections 22b inclined at an angle greater than that of the gently inclined sections 22a are cyclically arranged to the right side in the figure. Cuneal projections formed by the gently inclined sections 22a and the steeply inclined sections 22b are formed in stripes so as to extend in the direction of the plane of the drawing paper. In contrast, a back surface 22c of the light guide plate 22 is flat.
When light is introduced from the light source 21 into the light guide plate 22, it is totally reflected by the inner surface of the light guide plate 22, and travels to the right side in the figure. When the light is totally reflected by the steeply inclined sections 22b, it is directed toward the back surface 22c, and is emitted as illumination light 22A from the back surface 22c in the downward direction in the figure. For this reason, light can be emitted downward from the surface of the light guide plate 22. When the light guide plate 22 is viewed from above, since it is made of a transparent material, a display formed therebelow is visible therethrough.
While light emitted from the light source 21 is emitted downward by using total reflection at the steeply inclined sections 22b in the above-described front light 20, it is not totally reflected, depending on the angle of light incident on the steeply inclined section 22b, and leakage light 22B leaks above the light guide plate 22, as is shown in the figure. Since the steeply inclined sections 22b are formed like bands in a direction orthogonal to the travel direction of propagating light that propagates inside
In contrast, in some devices, the direction, in which the gently inclined sections 22a and the steeply inclined sections 22b are alternately arranged, is placed obliquely with respect to the principal viewing direction F, as shown by dotted-chain lines in FIG. 11. By doing this, since the intensity peak direction of the leakage light 22B is deviated from the principal viewing direction F, as shown by dotted-chain lines in FIGS. 9A-B and 10, visibility is improved. In this method, however, since the brightness peak direction of the display is also deviated with the deviation of the intensity peak of the leakage light 22B, the display is somewhat dimmed. Moreover, when viewed from the deviated direction, the deviated direction coincides with the intensity peak of the leakage light 22B, which rapidly deteriorates visibility.
Accordingly, the present invention aims to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to prevent visibility from being deteriorated by controlling the leaking direction of leakage light emitted from the surface. of a light guide plate, and to thereby improve the performance as an illumination device.
In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an illumination device includes a light source, and a light guide plate for introducing light emitted from the light source from an end face and emitting the light from one surface thereof, wherein the other surface of the light guide plate opposing the one surface has a reflective face section for reflecting the light from the light source toward the one surface or emitting the light from the other surface according to the incident angle of the light, the reflective face section includes at least first and second faces, and the emitting direction of the light emitted from the first face and the emitting direction of the light emitted from the second face differ from each other. Herein, the light emitting direction means an emitting direction in which the light intensity is highest.
According to the illumination device of the present invention, even when leakage light leaks from the reflective face section toward the viewer, since the reflective face section includes the first and second faces and the first and second faces emit leakage light at different emitting angles, the leakage light is not collected in one direction, but is dispersed. Therefore, it is possible to prevent visibility from being deteriorated due to leakage light.
It is preferable to set the formation angles of the first and second faces so that leakage light is emitted from the first. and second faces in directions different from the principal viewing direction. By doing this, it is possible to prevent a large amount of leakage light from being emitted in a direction identical to or close to the principal viewing direction, and to thereby improve visibility when viewed from the principal viewing direction.
In another embodiment of the illumination device of the present invention, an angle, formed by the emitting direction of light projected onto the surface of the light guide plate and emitted from the first face and the emitting direction of light projected onto the surface of the light guide plate and emitted from the second face, is between 0xc2x0 and 180xc2x0.
According to this embodiment, even when the azimuth angle, at which the viewer views the light guide plate, is changed, since the first and second faces emit leakage light at different emitting angles, the leakage light is not collected in one direction, but is dispersed, which can prevent visibility from being deteriorated due to leakage light.
In a further embodiment of the illumination device of the present invention, the first face and the second face are formed alternately and continuously. For example, it is preferable that a plurality of reflective face sections be formed cyclically and repeatedly. In a case in which the reflective face sections are curved surfaces, it is preferable that the curved face sections be formed in a cyclic form. More particularly, it is preferable that the curved face sections be formed at sufficiently short intervals. This prevents brightness of illumination light and transmitted light from varying, and facilitates the production of the light guide plate.
High polymeric material having a high reflective index, such as acrylic resin, may be suitably used as the light guide plate used in the illumination device of the present invention. It is preferable that the reflective face sections be formed of inclined surfaces disposed at a predetermined angle to the plane parallel to one surface of the light guide plate.
An electrooptical device of another exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes an electrooptical element having an electrooptical layer disposed between a pair of substrates and a reflective film disposed on one side of the electrooptical layer; and an illumination device placed on the viewer side of the electrooptical element, and including a light source and a light guide plate for introducing light emitted from the light source from an end face and mainly emitting the light toward the electrooptical element, wherein a surface of the light guide plate on the viewer side is provided with a reflective face section for reflecting the light emitted from the light source toward the electrooptical element or emitting the light from the viewer-side surface according to the incident angle of the light, and a transmissive face section for allowing the electrooptical element to be visible therethrough from the viewer side, the reflective face section includes first and second faces, and the emitting direction of the light emitted from the first face and the emitting direction of the light emitted from the second face are different.
As the electrooptical element used in the electrooptical device of the present invention, a liquid crystal display device may be suitably used which uses a liquid crystal layer, such as an STN liquid crystal layer, an ECB liquid crystal layer, or a TN liquid crystal layer, as the electrooptical element.
According to the illumination device of another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, even when leakage light leaks from the reflective face section toward the viewer side, since the reflective face section includes the first and second faces and the first and second faces emit the leakage light at different emitting angles, the leakage light is not collected in one direction, but is dispersed, which can prevent visibility from being deteriorated due to leakage light.
It is preferable to set the formation angles of the first face and the second face so that the emitting directions of leakage light from the first face and the second face are different from the principal viewing direction. By doing this, a large amount of leakage light is prevented from being emitted in the direction identical to or close to the principal viewing direction, and visibility when viewed from the principal viewing direction can be improved.
In another embodiment of the electrooptical device of the present invention, an angle, formed by the emitting direction of light projected on the surface of the light guide plate and emitted from the first face and the emitting direction of light projected on the surface of the light guide plate and emitted from the second face, is between 0xc2x0 and 180xc2x0.
According to this embodiment, even when the azimuth angle, at which the viewer views the electrooptical device, is changed, since the first and second faces emit leakage light at different emitting angles, the leakage light is not collected in one direction, but is dispersed, which prevents visibility from being deteriorated due to leakage light.
In a further embodiment of the electrooptical device of the present invention, the first face and the second face are formed alternately and continuously. For example, it is preferable that a plurality of reflective face sections be formed cyclically and repeatedly. In a case in which the reflective face sections are curved surfaces, it is preferable that the curved face sections be formed in a cyclic form. More particularly, it is preferable that the curved face sections be formed at sufficiently short intervals. This prevents brightness of illumination light and transmitted light from varying, and facilitates the production of the light guide plate.
A high polymeric material having a high refractive index, such as acrylic resin, may be suitably used as the light guide plate used in the electrooptical device of the present invention. It is preferable that the reflective face sections be formed of inclined surfaces disposed at a predetermined angle to the plane parallel to one surface of the light guide plate.
An electronic equipment of another exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes an electrooptical device as a display section, and an input device for supplying an image signal to the electrooptical device, wherein the electrooptical device includes an electrooptical element having an electrooptical layer disposed between a pair of substrates and a reflective film disposed on one side of the electrooptical layer, and an illumination device placed on the viewer side of the electrooptical element, and including a light source and a light guide plate for introducing light emitted from the light source from an end face and mainly emitting the light toward the electrooptical element, and wherein a surface of the light guide plate on the viewer side is provided with a reflective face section for reflecting the light emitted from the light source toward the electrooptical element or emitting the light from the viewer-side surface according to the incident angle of the light, and a transmissive face section for allowing the electrooptical element to be visible therethrough from the viewer side, the reflective face section includes first and second faces, and the emitting direction of the light emitted from the first face and the emitting direction of the light emitted from the second face are different.

Illumination device, electrooptical device having the illumination device as front light, and electronic equipment


A display shield assembly adapted to hold a beverage. The display shield assembly construction includes a display shield and a collapsible beverage container frame. The collapsible beverage container frame comprises a substantially circular container stabilizer and a strap. The strap is integrally connected to the substantially circular container stabilizer. The strap includes at least one surface portion that is attached to the display shield. The collapsible beverage container frame supports a beverage container in wedged suspension under the force of gravity.

1. Field
This subject disclosure relates generally to a display shield having a holder for cups, cans, bottles or the like, and, more particularly, relates to a collapsible foldable holder for supporting a beverage container while rendering a display shield.
2. Description of the Related Art
Display shields and beverage container are widely known and used for various purposes, separate and apart from each other. As to beverage container holders, various commercially available beverage holding devices are often complex and bulky and require complex mechanical components. Those available that are foldable require complicated components to initiate deployment, securement and/or re-storage. They also require unduly involved user intervention to initiate these functions.

Display shield having a collapsible holder for a beverage


A method for suppressing repetition jammer signals and/or clutter signals by using a radar system wherein said radar system comprises, at least one wideband arbitrary waveform generator, for creating arbitrary waveforms, and at least one antenna operating with wide instantaneous bandwidth, enabling direction dependent waveform radiation, wherein said method comprises the steps of transmitting different waveforms in different directions; adapting transmitted waveforms in different directions depending on received waveforms such that a normalised signal to noise-jammer ratio, NSNJR, is maximized; and thereby providing received signals from repetition jammers and/or clutter that are substantially orthogonal to a received signal from a target; thereby achieving suppression of the repetition jammers and/or clutter.

1. Related Field
The present invention relates to the field of radar systems, and more particularly, to systems and techniques for minimizing system performance degradation caused by jamming or clutter.
The present invention relates to a method and a radar system used to suppress repetition jammer signals and/or clutter signals.
2. Description of Related Art
There exist various examples of methods and systems for repetition jammer suppression and clutter suppression. Today, the known solutions for repetition jammer suppression and clutter suppression are usually based on adaption of the transmitter and/or receiver to form nulls in the antenna pattern in one or more directions corresponding to jammers and/or clutter. A weakness of using these present solutions, however, is that they require advanced control of the transmit and/or receive antenna pattern.
Further, a common way to minimize system performance degradation caused by jamming is to create deterministic and/or adaptive cancellation directions in all jammed directions. Deterministic cancellation directions are mainly used during transmit and adaptive cancellation directions mainly during receive.
These present solutions are restricted to using both expensive and heavy equipments. Further, present solutions are normally not effective enough in suppressing repetition jammer signals.
There is thus a need for an improved solution for providing an effective suppression of repetition jammer signals and/or clutter signals in order to cancel jammer and/or clutter interference.

Method and radar system for repetition jammer and clutter supression


A filling process for filling an analytic liquid in a container is optically accurately and automatically carried out using a laser beam. An automatic filling system is capable of automatically and continuously cleaning and drying the container in pretreating processes prior to an analysis.

Typically in chemical research and development activities, it is being practiced to dissolve various materials into inorganic or organic solvents to make solutions and effect analyses using such solutions, and hence it is necessary to prepare various many solutions. Under the circumstances, there has been a demand for automatizing analytic systems in order to win the competition among researchers and developers by simply and quickly carrying out analytic processes.
In such analytic processes, materials to be analyzed and solvents are poured into a number of containers such as measuring flasks to prepare target amounts of solutions and hold them in the containers. A target amount of solution cannot be obtained simply by dissolving a certain amount of material into a certain amount of solvent. Therefore, it is necessary to perform a filling process for holding a target amount of solution in a container.
Since the filling process is difficult to automatize, however, it is difficult to fully automatize an analytic system in its entirety.
The filling process is a process for filling a solution up to a line called a marked line on a container under certain conditions. An error of the filling process depends on how the level of the solution in the container deviates from the marked line. The filling process is an important task which eventually determines the value of a series of analytic operations. Consequently, the filling process needs to be carried out strictly, and hence is a process which the person in charge has to be most careful about among various analytic operations and which cannot be neglected.
The above strict requirements for the filling process have been one of various factors which have made it difficult to automatize the filling process. The filling process that need delicate adjustments has imposed burdens with respect to time and labor on those involved in the filling process.
Another factor is that the conventional detecting technology is not available for automatically detecting a marked line on containers and automatically detecting solution levels in containers with high accuracy. According to the conventional detecting technology, a level sensor or a float switch is used to detect a solution level from above or detect a solution level in direct contact with the solution. Though these detecting processes have been studied so far, they have proven unsatisfactory as they are not preferable from the standpoint of the filling process.
In view of the conventional drawbacks, it has been proposed to optically detect a marked line and a solution level (including its meniscus) with a laser beam, for example, and carry out a filling process using a detected signal.
Apparatus which use a laser beam to detect a marked line and a meniscus are expected to suffer various detection interferences depending on how to process actual samples. Specifically, the solution sample in a container when it is filled in the container tends to a) become turbid, b) produce bubbles, and c) become attached to the container wall in pretreating operations. Since these defects are an obstacle to the transmission of detected light of the laser beam, i.e., irregularly reflect or block such detected light, they are liable to interfere with the detection of the marked line and the meniscus. As a result, the accuracy with which the marked line and the meniscus are detected is low, and hence the accuracy of the filling process is not highly reliable.
Proposals for eliminating these interferences have been to A) keep the solution clear by centrifugal separation and filtering, B) remove bubbles from the solution with a debubblizer such as alcohol or the like, and C) clean the inner surface of the container with a solvent.
These processes A).about.C) have to be carried out with respect to many containers when various many solutions are to be prepared. The processes B) and C) have heretofore been carried out manually, and hence pretreating operations for analyses have been inefficient and imposed strong burdens with respect to time and labor. At present, it is difficult to automatize and effect these pretreating processes continuously.

Pretreating apparatus for analytic container and automatic filling system


Filter apparatus for trapping particles suspended in gaseous fluid stream generally includes a first and a second electrode with a porous filter therebetween along with electrical contacts for applying a DC voltage across the first and second electrodes. A third electrode is provided and a frame is included for removeably supporting a porous filter, along with the first, second, and third electrodes in order to electrify, by induction, the third electrode with a voltage in the third electrode in order to increase trapping of the particles by the filter apparatus.

Heretofore, the major purpose of air filtration was to reduce the density of dust, consisting mostly of 0.2 micron, or larger, particles from air. Recent environmental concerns in the living, industrial and military environs have expanded the desired scope of air filtration into the "suppression of odor and virus/germs." Yet current air purification methods are hindered in many ways by an inability to capture undesirable submicron particles, microorganisms, odors, and substances efficiently and economically without suffering from high pressure drop, short life, energy inefficiency, and poor reliability. Simply stated, there is no current adequate method to meet the needs of modern air purification.
There have been thousands of experiments, research efforts, and patents made in the field of air filtration. However, all of this work has followed three existing basic principles: (1) the mechanical filter (mechanical blocking of airborne particles by mesh) (a few hundred years old--but still the most common and widely used method); (2) the electrostatic precipitator (invented 90 years ago in 1906 by Cottrelle, which relies on ionization and the Coulomb's law attraction of particle separation for filtration); and (3) the precharged synthetic fiber filter (precharged fibers create an electrostatic field within the filter material and interact with and capture airborne particles).
The present invention is directed to apparatus and method whereby a properly set non-ionizing electrical field creates a random, high speed, and churning motion of airborne particles in perpendicular directions to the air flow through a filter medium placed in the electric field, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,368,635.
This churning motion inside of a filter medium dramatically increases the probability of particles to bombard the surfaces of the fibers which compose the filter medium. Thus, a combination of such motion and Van der Waals force interaction between particles and fiber surfaces tremendously increases the probability of capturing particles throughout the filter material. This method efficiently captures a wide range of particles, in fact, even submicron particles which are much, much smaller than the porosity of the filter medium used.
The present invention is basically directed to apparatus for positioning of electrodes and a porous material in order to electrify by inducts one of the electrodes with a voltage which results in increase trapping of particular suspended in a gaseous fluid stream. This in turn dramatically upgrades the efficiency of filtration of most of the filter media known today, including paper, glass fiber, synthetic fiber, cloth, natural fiber, foam and electrostatically charged materials. This apparatus and method provides the advantages of 1) high efficiency of filtration, 2) capturing particles in a wide range of sizes, including below submicron sizes, 3) the least amount of pressure drop, 4) improvement in energy efficiency, and 5) low cost. These advantages are achieved without any change in the mechanical properties of the filter.

Induced voltage electrode filter system with disposable cartridge


A system includes a natural language processor to drive a financial transaction session with a chat application without engaging a context controller until such time that a completion threshold for a context state of the financial transaction session is met. Once the context state meets the completion threshold, the natural language processor engages the context controller with the context state, and the context controller applies the context state from the natural language processor to drive the financial transaction session between the chat application and a backend server system.

Instant messaging is a common means of communication. Instant messaging involves exchanging messages between two or more people or entities. Non-limiting examples of instant messaging client applications include WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Slack.
Another common means of communication is Short Message service (SMS). SMS and the related Multimedia Message service (MMS) are messaging services that enable textual messages, images, and video to be transmitted and received from a cellular phone. SMS and MMS messages are stored and forwarded at telecommunication server systems. Messages can be retrieved later if a user is not immediately available to receive them. Such messages travel to a cellular phone over a system's control channel, which is separate and apart from the voice channel. SMS and MMS messaging client applications are installed on virtually all mobile phones.
Many different messaging client applications and technologies thus exist for communication between messaging client applications, utilizing a variety of user interfaces, communication protocols, security requirements, and so on. There are also countless backend server systems with which such messaging client applications interact. This diversity is a benefit to users but a challenge to the implementation of complex transactions driven by natural language inputs to those messaging client applications. "Natural language" refers to a spoken and/or written language used and evolved for use among people in human societies. In particular, it can be challenging to maintain consistency and performance for completing complex transactions in such a heterogeneous technological environment.
Some modern client applications utilize a 'chat bot', i.e., a digital personal assistant such as Apple® Siri®, Google® Assistant®, Amazon® Alexa®, Microsoft® Cortana®, and others. Chat bots may accept inputs and/or output responses in various formats, including text, audio, video, and animation. Chat bots can be used to request and perform various data exchanges, including transactions. "Transaction" refers to an exchange of signals to generate a particular result.
Conversational interfaces may be included in social networks, mobile applications, instant messaging platforms, websites, and other locations or applications. However, depending on the type of transaction required and the nature of the interactions it entails between disparate backend server systems, these chat bots may suffer from inconsistent or slow performance.

Natural language driven transaction system


A method of preparing cellulosic biomass material for subsequent processing first comprises moving at least one stream of biomass material along a flow path. Then, the stream of cellulosic biomass material can be explosively dried and pulverized to disrupt lignocellulosic bonds, and to reduce a moisture content and a particle size of the cellulosic biomass material. Then, the stream of cellulosic biomass material can be electrically degraded the stream of cellulosic biomass material to disrupt lignocellulosic bonds. Additional pre-treatment and post-treatment processes can also be included.

Due to an increased demand for alternative fuel sources, substantial corn and grain production, previously used for food and livestock feed, now ends up in ethanol conversion. There are also competing demands for biomass resources from the standpoints of food, fuel, fiber, feed and power. These trends, coupled with the need to create a sustainable environment, drives an ever-increasing push to create transportation fuel and other bio-byproducts from various cellulosic biomass ("CB") source materials. Two of the more significant problems still to be overcome before achieving large scale production of such CB biomass biofuels, such as biobutanol, biocrude, and cellulosic ethanol, include, first, cost-effective collection, densification, and transportation of the sheer quantities and bulk of the needed CB source materials to a biorefinery, and second, breaking down (i.e., disrupting for further treatment) the tough, so-called lignocellulosic bonds ("LC bonds") found within plant cell wall structures. That is, a pretreatment of the CB source material is needed to make the same more susceptible to subsequent process steps in biorefinery conversion ("bio-conversion") operations. For example, unlike grain kernel ethanol production processes (i.e., starch-to-sugar), hydrolysis-type CB ethanol production includes complex pre-treatment and pre-processing steps as needed to liberate the internal sugars that are locked up by the LC bonds within CB source materials. It is understood that there are a complex variety of chemical bonds, covalent and hydrogen bonds, as well as the protective layering of lignin, both of which operate both at the macro and micro scales in lignocellulose. In view of that complexity, the term "LC bonds" as used herein is shorthand for that complex multiplicity of barriers to bio-conversion of LC biomass sugars into useful products.
CB materials contain cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin, and minor amounts of extractives. Within a plant's cell wall, the cellulose and hemi-cellulose are contained in bundle-like micro structures, including so-called microfibrils and microtubes, with the lignin acting like a superstructure binding those bundles together, e.g., creating the tough-to-separate LC bonds. Thus, pre-treatment of CB source materials is needed to separate the carbohydrate fractions and to break down the bundles, e.g., to alter the cell wall's cellular and molecular structure, to obtain access to the included sugars. Anything that can be done to expedite the bio-conversion, e.g., hydrolysis, of the cellulosic structure into its component parts will, in turn, accelerate the day by which economical CB ethanol production, for example, on a widespread commercial basis, becomes a reality.
Significant efforts and government research grant monies are being directed to creating more efficient methods of turning raw and recycled cellulosic biomass into transportation fuel. The eventual CB biofuel (e.g., ethanol) and bio-byproduct production facility, also sometimes called a "biorefinery", will use CB feedstocks that are agricultural crop residue-based, forest-based, industrial process waste-based, food processing waste-based, energy crop-based, organic waste-based and recycle waste-based, among yet even other CB sources like aquaculture. However, in the currently unfolding development of a cellulosic biomass infrastructure, and particularly between the locations where various different types and sources of cellulosic biomass are grown (or created, collected or recycled) on the one hand, and the actual biorefineries themselves, where such CB source materials will be fractionated and refined, on the other hand, there remains a significant gap to achieve a uniform cost-efficient operation. That gap is due, at least in part, to the great logistical challenge in cost-effectively and quickly getting CB source materials collected, densified and transported between the edge of the farm field, forest, primary processing facility, landfill, or waste recycling operation, and over to the front gate of the biorefinery in a usable form, and in the huge daily quantities that will be required. For example, collection and road-siding by farmers of field-grown raw CB materials is currently costly, and labor and energy intensive. Thus, new types of farming equipment, or at least new attachments and modifications to existing farm equipment, e.g., to harvesters, combines, and forage equipment, will be needed for farmers to not only harvest the grain kernels, e.g., corn and wheat, but also to harvest some portion of the rest of the plant, e.g., corn stover and cereal straw, and to preferably do so all with a single pass through the field.
Numerous different sources of raw and recycled CB materials may be available in a given locale that are likely to be useful at a biorefinery, and which may vary by locale across the country. As used herein, the term "raw" CB materials may also be known as "rural" or "crude" CB materials. For example, some principal crop residue-based candidates for raw CB source material include corn stover (every non-edible part of the corn plant, thus excepting the kernel), cereal straws (wheat, oats, rice, rye, barley, and clover hay), and even grain sorghum and milo stubble. Other crop-residue and agricultural processing waste materials in given locales could include sugarcane bagasse, citrus residues (peel, pulp, seeds, and cull fruit), olive pits, rice hulls, peanut shells, cotton stalks, cotton gin trash, corn fiber, soy fiber, palm processing waste, and similar food processing and organic wastes. However, many of such raw CB crop residue (and most crop processing-waste) sources, preferably in field-dried form, will generally be available in abundance only at certain times of the year, e.g., corn stover and cereal straw at fall harvest time. Also, if either the corn stover or cereal straw is chopped, bulk baled or bulk haystacked and then field-stored, or instead, if it is chopped and then ensiled, e.g., with both type storages intended then for later contract delivery to the pre-processing site, such stored CB materials may then only be available at higher moisture contents, albeit for longer parts of the year. Alternately, such field- or silo-stored raw CB materials may, suffer from "weather" decay, mildew and loss, or have excess initial moisture content, thus having reduced sugar content or requiring excessive drying (and in either case perhaps causing a financial "dock" in price levied against the grower-producer).
Separately, if finally grown in abundance, certain other raw CB source materials might be available fora larger period, and at several times per year. These could include such raw CB materials as the so-called "energy" perennial or prairie grass crops that are to be grown for their energy value, e.g., switchgrass, Indian grass, Reed Canary grass, Big Blue-stem grass, giant Miscanthus (also known as elephant grass), Arundo (also known as E-Grass or Energy cane), prairie cordgrass, giant sorghum varieties, or even a high-diversity mixture (i.e., a "polyculture") of many different native prairie perennial grass species (so as to achieve higher productivity). For example, there are expected to be some one to three annual cuttings of switchgrass, and then Miscanthus is expected to have even twice the tonnage per acre yield as switchgrass, once those type energy grass crops finally begin to be grown in sufficient quantities in the U.S. and elsewhere. It could also include cuttings, e.g., highway right-of-way cuttings, of fast-growing weeds.
Then, in many locales, particularly near cities, or instead near forest or orchard lands of any size, there are other generally regular supplies of more wood-based raw CB source materials. These may well have the advantage of being free, or at least quite low cost. These wood-based CB sources could result, for example, from government program (softwood) forest thinnings (e.g., for fire safety control; for "pine beetle kill" removal in Colorado), wood chips, orchard prunings, city arbor trimmings, forest floor debris removal, forest "slash" collection (e.g., tree branches, tree tops, and stumps left after logging operations), roadside brush clearings, and urban yard waste (e.g., grass clippings, leaves, small branches). For example, so-called "bundled" forest slash (see the John Deere "Timberjack" slash bundler apparatus) or the grindings and chips from the same can be processed. Also, most industrial wood processing facilities generate large ongoing, and many relatively dry, potential supplies of CB source materials, e.g., in the form of sawdust, lumber mill waste, paper mill waste, planar shavings, end cuts, slabs, pulp mill sludge, and wood chips. Yet another fairly regular supply of wood CB source material is urban wood waste, whether collected from landfills or otherwise, such as wood construction debris, wood consumer durables, wood demolition debris (depending on the contaminatin fraction), ground used wood pallets (nails fragments in all preferably having been first magnet-removed), and other similar wood wastes. Further, there is the possibility of so-called "energy tree" plantations, i.e., an energy crop of short-rotation trees that, like the "energy grasses", could be planted, cultivated, harvested, and supplied for their energy value as a biorefinery feedstock material. Such fast-growing energy trees could include, for example, hybrid poplars, willow, poplar coppice, eucalyptus, silver maple, sweetgum, sycamore, cottonwood (e.g., black cottonwood), and alder. Even certain herbaceous (woody) plants are considered suitable candidates as CB source material, e.g., kenaf, industrial hemp, and chaparral (the branched dwarf shrubs that grow wild in abundance in various arid locations, e.g., parts of California).
Further yet, one very good (and also normally low cost) potential source of CB material is the separated recyclable cellulosic portion of the daily municipal waste stream ("MWS"). It has a very high cellulose-containing content, e.g., paper, newsprint, paperboard, cardboard, packaging materials, recycled mixed paper waste, cellulose-fiber food containers, food and grease laden so-called "contaminated" paper, shredded "security" waste (copier paper, file folders), and such. All such recycled and separated high-content cellulose containing CB source materials are highly desirable. This is because they already are partially delignified, i.e., their LC bonds have previously undergone some type of substantial mechanical and chemical pre-treatment process when first being made, and importantly, a majority of their lignin fraction has been removed. Yet another low cost (or even negative cost) potential source of CB material is the organic waste portion of the daily MWS.
Then, at the other end of the spectrum, the CB biorefineries themselves, so as to best operate continuously and efficiently, will need an incoming CB feedstock that is generally uniform, of consistent high energy value, in dependable supply, available all year long, in a densified form (preferably in a "flowable" densified form, so it can be easily transported to the biorefinery and then handled with customary high speed material handling equipment), of a generally consistent moisture content, and most importantly, readily obtainable at a consistently low cost. Further, due to the significant pre-treatment required for CB feedstock for most bio-conversion processes, and to help accelerate its rapid and cost-effective conversion at the biorefinery, it would be helpful if the incoming CB feedstock had at least some form of pre-treatment already in place. That is, it would greatly enhance the subsequent bio-conversion if some form of pre-treatment (physical, chemical, enzymatic, microbial, or other) was already started, and completed, or at least substantially so. Further yet, it would be helpful if, to allow the eventual switchover to economical use of CB feedstocks, any existing grain-based ethanol plant would need only minimal front-end process or equipment modifications, e.g., allowing the easiest and least costly conversion from grain to CB ethanol production. It might even become desirable if certain existing ethanol and other biofuel plants could simultaneously handle both grain and CB-type feedstocks, or switch between them when needed. Thus, if achievable, the presence within the incoming CB feedstock of some significant physical disruption of the CB material's LC bonds, plus some type of chemical, enzymatic, microbial, or other pre-treatment, could create significant cost and time savings for the biorefinery, whether the same was making ethanol, biobutanol, biocrude, or some other form of biofuel.
It is anticipated that the delivered cost per ton of CB feedstock to a biorefinery will be very critical to the overall switchover, and thus economic success, from grain-based to CB feedstock-based ethanol production. It is expected that most CB feedstock ethanol plants, unless fortunate enough to be located near a dedicated single type of CB source material, and particularly one that is of consistent low-cost abundant supply, will actually operate on a diverse mixture of CB feedstocks. This will allow the CB feedstock ethanol and other biofuel plants to best adjust to diverse market factors affecting cost and supply of CB source materials.
More specifically, various different factors are expected to affect the price, desirability and availability of raw and recycled CB source materials. These may include such things as energy density, lignin content, ash content, variations in hemicellulose, consistency of supply (e.g., seasonality), amount of needle or bark content, quality (e.g., freedom from contaminants, incoming reduced size), collection costs (e.g., already collected at single locations, wet field vs. dry field collection, need for additional size reduction prior to pre-treatment), transportation costs (e.g., length of average "origination" distance), local waste "tipping" fees, market price fluctuations, competing uses (e.g., as livestock feed, soil amendments, mulch, pulverized insulation, burner fuel), moisture content (e.g., any need and cost to dry incoming CB materials to remove excess water content), "available sugar" content, age and condition of CB source material, amount of "loss" portion (e.g., decayed fraction), local crop growing habits, good vs. poor crop yield years, among numerous others. But these diverse needs greatly complicate creation of a uniform system for preparing a CB feedstock product.
To be uniformly acceptable, any CB feedstock product must be capable of being prepared for effective use by each of the different known (and future) types of CB-to-biofuel and bio-byproduct conversion processes, and particularly, by each of the different types of CB pre-treatment processes. For example, when making CB fuel ethanol, such pre-treatments commonly include so-called dilute acid (at high temperature), dilute alkali, concentrated acid (at low temperature), steam explosion, ammonia explosion, enzymatic hydrolysis, microbial hydrolysis, organic solvent (so-called "Organosolv" or "clean fractionization"), and ionic liquid solvent. Besides the "hydrolysis" type ethanol processes, there are also the separate "thermal conversion" type processes, e.g., pyrolysis, gasification, and "plasma arc" gasification, among others. Yet other known pre-treatment processes are used in making fuel biobutanol and biocrude. But such diverse bio-conversion processes also complicate creation of a uniform system for the preparation of a CB feedstock product.
Thus, there remains a need, which grows more important each day, for a standardized system of pre-processing and pre-treating various different types of incoming raw CB source material, and of recycled cellulosic-containing waste source material, as close to the CB source materials as able, to then create a uniform, generally consistent, high-energy content, flowable form of CB feedstock for use in biorefineries, for both biofuel conversion, and for preparing other biorefinery byproducts. There is also a need to quickly and inexpensively, but significantly, disrupt and alter to the greatest extent able, the LC bonds within the cellular and molecular structure of the CB materials, regardless what type and final reduced size of CB feedstock is being used. There is a need for a CB material pre-treatment that creates the maximum amount of internal surface area and pores that can be exposed, to thereby render the CB material more efficiently and easily converted, in subsequent biorefinery processing steps. Notwithstanding that each different type of CB source material has unique characteristics, physical differences, lignocellulosic make-up, and pre-processing needs, there remains a need to create a uniform, homogenous, consistent, preferably pelletized, form of CB feedstock material as formed from two or more different CB source types. There is also a need for a CB material pre-treatment and processing system that, while standardized, still has sufficient built-in flexibility to handle numerous different types, characteristics, sizes and conditions of incoming raw and waste-type CB source materials, and also to accommodate the various different bio-conversion processes to follow.

System and method of preparing pre-treated biorefinery feedstock from raw and recycled waste cellulosic biomass


A method is provided for managing multiple functions of a multi-channel SCSI chip. The method includes hiding a first function of a multi-channel SCSI chip from an operating system, wherein the first function corresponds to a first channel of the multi-channel SCSI chip. The method also includes unhiding a second function of the multi-channel SCSI chip from the operating system, wherein the second function corresponds to a second channel of the multi-channel SCSI chip. The method also includes managing the first function and the second function with a single driver.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computing technology and more particularly to using a single driver to manage multiple functions in a multi-channel SCSI chip capable of controlling multiple devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
To access and control certain types of peripheral devices connected to a computer system, the computer generally utilizes host adapter cards (or controllers) attached to the computer's peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus. The computer may also have peripheral device controllers built into the motherboard. These controllers serve to coordinate and manage the data communication to and from the peripheral devices. Controllers may be in the form of a video display adapter, an integrated drive electronics (IDE) controller, a small computer system interface (SCSI) controller, or other similar cards or chips which control peripheral devices. Each of these controllers manage a single type of peripheral device and, if not built into the motherboard, takes up one expansion slot on the PCI bus.
FIG. 1 shows a computer configuration where two peripheral devices 40a and 40b are connected to a computer system 10, in accordance with the prior art. In one example, the peripheral devices 40a and 40b are RAID devices. The computer system 10 includes an operating system (OS) 42 that is run by the CPU. The OS controls two functions 30a and 30b which in turn manage the peripheral devices 40a and 40b through miniport drivers 24a and 24b. The two functions 30a and 30b are managed by separate chips which each control separate peripheral devices. In one example, the separate chips are SCSI chips. Each of the miniport drivers 24a and 24b are connected to the peripheral devices 40a and 40b through separate buses 44a and 44b. Thus, each of the peripheral devices 40a and 40b are managed by different chips through different miniport drivers (24a and 24b, respectively). In following, logical containers containing data in the peripheral devices 40a and 40b cannot be generated or managed because the miniport driver 24a is not aware of the miniport driver 24b. Therefore, the computer configuration of FIG. 1 is problematic when more flexible storage alternatives are desired.
Dual channel SCSI chips sharing the chip single system interface were introduced to ease system complication associated with multiple single channel SCSI chips. The dual channel SCSI chip uses the same software for both channels and can only perform as one type of SCSI channel. Therefore, the dual channel SCSI chip is not capable of controlling multiple types of peripheral devices having different functionality. Thus, the dual channel SCSI chip is limiting with respect to expanded device configurations. In addition, another typical problem encountered with dual channel SCSI chips involves the different channels not being aware of one another. For example, a RAID system can typically only be implemented using one channel and cannot be implemented using the drives controlled over different channels. Therefore, the dual channel SCSI chip does not alleviate the problems encountered in FIG. 1 above.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus to overcome the limitations of the prior art by utilizing a single driver that can assist in managing multiple functions of multiple channels.

Single driver for multifunctional SCSI chips


In a starter for an internal combustion engine, comprising: a pinion; shift mechanism for moving the pinion into mesh with a ring gear of the engine; a housing for accommodating the pinion and the shift mechanism; an electric motor for rotating the pinion; a substantially cylindrical motor casing for accommodating the electric motor; a contact unit for selectively providing electric power to the electric motor; a brush holder stay disposed between the housing and the motor casing, the brush holder stay having a cavity opened toward the motor casing and the contact unit being mounted in the cavity; and a cover for covering the cavity of the brush holder stay, the cover is made of a flexible member so that the cover is naturally curved, and the cover is disposed between the brush holder stay and the motor casing with its concave surface facing the brush holder stay so that the cover is pushed toward the brush holder stay by an axial end of the motor casing. Thus, when pressed against the brush holder stay by the motor casing, the cover is deformed and made straight to produce a resilient restoring force, whereby increasing the pressing force to ensure sufficient watertight sealing effect.

Conventionally, a starter for starting an internal combustion engine typically comprises a motor, a one-way clutch connected to the motor and driven by the same via a reduction gear unit consisting of a planetary gear device or the like, a pinion gear connected to the one-way clutch, a solenoid for displacing the pinion gear via a shift mechanism in response to an engine start switch signal so that the pinion gear meshes with a ring gear of the engine, and others.
To minimize total size of the starter, a coaxial engine starter in which the aforementioned component parts are arranged coaxially has been proposed for example in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No.8-319926 filed by the Applicant (Assignee) of this application. In this engine starter, the solenoid is disposed around the starter's output shaft and accommodated in a shift chamber housing which also accommodates the pinion gear, shift mechanism, reduction gear unit and others, while the electric motor is accommodated in a substantially cylindrical motor casing. Between the shift chamber housing and the motor casing is disposed a brush holder stay which can be made of resin material by molding.
A terminal for connection to an outside power supply (typically a battery) is favorably mounted to the brush holder stay. The power supply terminal projects radially outwardly with respect to the motor casing and the brush holder stay is formed with a corresponding radially protruding portion to support the terminal. A contact unit for selectively supplying electric power to the motor is also favorably mounted to the brush holder stay near the power supply terminal. The brush holder stay may be formed with a cavity for mounting the contact unit therein, with the cavity opened toward the motor casing for the reasons such as convenience in mounting the contact unit therein and/or easiness in molding the brush holder stay. In the assembled state of the starter the cavity must be covered so as to prevent water and/or dust from entering it, but the cavity typically extends to the protruding portion and cannot be covered by the motor casing. Therefore, a rubber cover, for example, is used to close the cavity in such a manner that the cover is pushed in the axial direction against the brush holder stay by the motor casing in order to achieve watertight engagement between the cover and the brush holder stay.
However, the axial force applied to the cover by the motor casing may not work effectively to press the peripheral part of the cover against the brush holder stay, and therefore it has been difficult to reliably achieve watertight contact between the brush holder stay and the cover for covering the cavity of the brush holder stay.

Starter for an internal combustion engine


A collapsible, portable golf cart including a main frame assembly and a wheel assembly operatively connected to the main frame assembly for movement of the main frame assembly along a surface. The golf cart further includes a collapsible support assembly operatively connected to the main said frame assembly for selective movement between an erected position and a collapsed position relative to the main frame assembly. A seating member for a cart rider is operatively connected to the collapsible support means for movement with the collapsible support means between the above mentioned positions.

(1) Technical Field
The subject invention is directed toward a portable collapsible vehicle and more specifically, to a portable, collapsible cart adapted to accommodate a rider and a set of golf clubs.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Vehicles for transporting golfers and/or their clubs from hole to hole during a round of golf are well known in the art and come in various types. The most common and inexpensive type in use today are the individual "club caddies" which have a structure for supporting a golf bag including a pair of wheels and a handle and which is manually pulled by the golfer as the golfer walks the course. This type of golf cart is light weight and portable but is not powered and is ultimately dependent upon the golfer to transport the clubs.
Another type of golf cart, commonly employed today is the two person golf cart having a chassis supported on generally four tires and a structure for supporting a pair of golf clubs in the rear of the cart behind the seats for the golfers. This type of golf cart is powered electrically or with an internal combustion engine. Golf carts of this type are not portable, require a fair amount of maintenance and upkeep, are relatively expensive and because of these problems are commonly only rented by golfers for use during the round of golf. However, the cost of renting such a golf cart, where they are available, raises the cost of an already expensive round of golf.
Other types of vehicles adapted to be used as golf carts and which can be described as "hybrids" of the two types disclosed above are also known in the art. Such "hybrid" golf carts are shown for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,573,549 issued to Pankow on Mar. 4, 1986; U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,929 issued to Rolland on Jul. 7, 1969; U.S. Pat. No. 3,777,836 issued to Riza on Dec. 11, 1973: and U.S. Pat. No. 4,522,281 issued to Snider on Jun. 11, 1985.
Although all of the above mentioned patents disclose golf carts which appear to be collapsible to some extent and claim to be portable, they are, in general, either heavy, relatively complex and therefore expensive or substantially primitive and unpractical. What ever their problems, the fact that the vehicles disclosed by the prior art listed above have not solved the problems of portability and collapsibility in a cost effective manner is proven by their absence from golf courses across this country.
The subject invention, on the other hand, solves these problems inherent in the prior art in an inexpensive, collapsible, truly light weight and portable golf cart.


A method for controlling the wireless distribution of vehicle-related data that is collected from a vehicle and is distributed to one or more authorized recipients in a confidential manner. This method uses predetermined business rules, which can be maintained and/or applied at the vehicle, at the telematics service provider, or elsewhere, to control the distribution of vehicle-related data. These business rules can determine which pieces of vehicle-related data, if any, are to be sent to which authorized recipients and can do so in a confidential manner that prevents even the telematics service provider from having access to the vehicle-related data.

Some manufacturers have developed vehicles that are equipped with telematics-based systems capable of communicating a diverse amount of information to and from the vehicle. For example, there are telematics-based systems that can communicate with a vehicle to obtain information such as diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs), engine oil life, and vehicle mileage. The telematics-based system can then analyze that data at a technical research facility or other remote facility in order to assist the manufacturer in improving the quality and/or design of the vehicle.
Some of the information that is gathered and sent by the telematics-based system, however, may be confidential such that certain parties do not want it shared with others, including the telematics service provider.

Method for controlling the distribution of vehicle-related data