Preparing porous materials includes forming a mixture including a geopolymer resin and a liquid between which a nanoscale (1-1000 nm), microscale (1-1000 m), and/or milliscale (1-10 mm) phase separation occurs. The mixture is solidified (e.g., at an ambient temperature or a relatively low temperature), and a portion (e.g., a majority or a significant majority) of the liquid is removed from the solidified mixture. The liquid can include organic liquids from agricultural, geological, industrial, or household sources. The porous materials have accessible pores with a range of pore sizes including nanoscale pore sizes, microscale pore sizes, milliscale pore sizes, or a combination thereof. The porous material may be treated further to form another material, such as a composite.

Geopolymers are commonly referred to as low-temperature aluminosilicate glass, alkali-activated cement, geocement, alkali-bonded ceramic, inorganic polymer concrete, and hydroceramic. These terms describe materials synthesized utilizing processes that can be described as a complex system of coupled alkali-mediated dissolution and precipitation reactions of aluminosilicates in an aqueous reaction substrate. Other metal-oxide based geopolymers include phosphate geopolymers and silico-phosphate geopolymers which form through dissolution of metal oxide precursors via acid-base reactions and subsequent precipitation of phosphates or silico-phosphates. Depending on the raw material selection and processing conditions, geopolymers can exhibit a wide range of properties and characteristics, including high compressive strength, low shrinkage, fast or slow setting, acid resistance, fire resistance, and low thermal conductivity. However, geopolymers have been much less explored for chemical applications, such as catalysis and ion exchange.

ARIZONA BOARD OF REGENTS, A BODY CORPORATE OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA ACTING FOR AND ON BEHALF OF ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY


A BLDC motor phase commutation method is provided, which can correctly detect phase commutation timing and position detection timing of a BLDC motor in a compressor to stabilize rotation and RPM of the compressor, thereby minimizing noise and vibration. When the BLDC motor rotates through a mechanical angle corresponding to one period, the BLDC motor operates according to a first scheme in which operation of the BLDC motor in the first phase commutation section of a period is performed in the same manner as in the last phase commutation section of a period immediately prior to the period. After the BLDC motor switches to sensorless mode, the BLDC motor operates according to a third scheme in which the first phase commutation section of a period has a time interval equal to the average of time intervals of first phase commutation sections of periods prior to the period.

1. Field of the Invention
Methods consistent with the present invention relate to a phase commutation method of a Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motor, and more particularly, to a phase commutation method of a BLDC motor that minimizes noise and vibration by accurately controlling phase commutation timing.
2. Description of the Related Art
A BLDC motor is a motor that uses a rectifier circuit composed of switching elements rather than mechanical elements such as a commutator and brushes. BLDC motors are characterized in that there is no need to replace brushes due to abrasion and noise and electromagnetic interference levels are low.
BLDC motors are typically used in products such as washing machines and compressors for use in refrigerators and air conditioners, which require high-performance, variable-speed operation.
To run a BLDC motor, the flux of a stator in the BLDC motor must be controlled to be at an electrical angle of 90 degrees or at any other suitable electrical angle with respect to the flux produced by a permanent magnet in a rotor of the BLDC motor. To accomplish this, the position of the rotor must be constantly detected to determine switching states of switching elements in the inverter and determine a position of the stator, where flux is to be produced, according to the detected rotor position. A resolver, an absolute encoder, a hall sensor or the like may be used to detect the rotor position. However, it is difficult for BLDC motors in compressors for refrigerators and air conditioners to use sensors due to environmental factors such as temperature and pressure, and therefore the BLDC motors use a sensorless method for detecting the rotor position from a voltage or current applied to the motors.
Driving methods of BLDC motors can be classified into a rectangular current waveform method and a sinusoidal current waveform method according to the waveforms of phase current applied to the motors.
In the sinusoidal current waveform driving method, the rotor position can be detected by detecting all three-phase voltages and currents. Generally, rotor position information of a mechanical angle corresponding to one period (i.e., 360 degrees) for compressors of refrigerators, air conditioners, or the like requires a resolution of 10 to 12 bits.
Compressors of refrigerators, air conditioners, or the like have a very large variation in load applied to a motor for each rotation of the motor due to consecutive operations of refrigerant gas such as intake, compression, and discharge. When the BLDC motor performs 10 to 12 phase commutations while rotating one turn (i.e., while rotating through a mechanical angle corresponding to one rotation), it is necessary to correctly determine the time when each phase commutation is performed and the time when position detection is performed.
However, conventional BLDC motor phase commutation methods have not provided how to effectively or correctly determine when to perform a first phase commutation of the next period after the BLDC motor rotates through a mechanical angle corresponding to one rotation, so that noise and vibration is severe when the phase commutation method is used for inverter refrigerators or the like having a large variation in load applied to motors.
In addition, in the conventional phase commutation methods, when the BLDC motor operates stably after switching to sensorless mode, it performs phase commutation in the same manner as when the BLDC motor is in initial startup mode. Thus, the conventional phase commutation methods cannot perform phase commutation taking into consideration the characteristics of different operating modes of the BLDC motor.

Phase commutation method of brushless direct current motor


An example climbing wall includes: a frame; a plurality of climbing panels connected to the frame; and a plurality of holds, each of the plurality of holds connected to at least one of the plurality of climbing panels with a t-nut, the t-nut including: a flange in contact with the at least one plurality of climbing panels, and a plurality of splines embedded within the at least one climbing panels.

Climbing walls can be a good source of entertainment for all ages. Different walls provide different levels of challenges, varying in terms of handholds, pitch, etc. This makes the activity interesting and allows a participant to find satisfaction as the participant progresses in skill level. However, the opportunities to participate in the sport may be limited based upon the small number of locations having such walls for use.


The claimed subject matter relates to an architecture that can obtain biometric data from a user as the user interacts with a device. Based upon the obtained biometric data, the architecture can determine an identity of the user and automatically apply settings associated with that particular user to the device. The settings can relate to a physical configuration of the device (or aspects, features, and/or peripherals of the device), as well as to a data set employed by the device (or components of the device). As such, a user of the device can benefit from enhanced efficiency, utility, and/or convenience.

Conventionally, there are many systems that configure devices based upon settings customized for a particular user. Often, these systems require the user to enter a password in order to access and apply that particular user's settings. In other cases, the systems merely require that the user make a selection (e.g., button 1 is mapped to user 1, button 2 is mapped to user 2, and so on), however, in the latter case, such systems do not provide any means of identification or verification. For example, user 2 could accidentally or purposefully press button 1 and the device would be configured with the settings of user 1.
Biometric data such as fingerprints, DNA, voice patterns and the like have long been employed for purposes such as identification as well as authentication, however, there is very little research or work directed toward employing biometrics for the sake of convenience. While biometric data is often an effective tool for identification, it suffers from numerous problems when used for authentication. Namely, many systems that rely upon biometrics for authentication can be readily circumvented by common fraudulent means, such as obtaining samples of the biometric (which can often be an extremely easy task for those skilled in this type of fraudulent behavior), and then copying or mimicking the samples (or utilize the samples themselves) to fool the authentication system.
Ironically, biometrics are often only employed for authentication when highly important, critical, expensive, and/or secret ends are involved, even though biometric authentication is not generally among the strongest or most effective means for authentication conventionally known. Moreover, when the stakes are high (e.g., highly important, critical, expensive, and/or secret ends), that in itself can provide a powerful incentive or motive to entice fraudulent behavior. However, there is very little incentive to fraudulently circumvent an authentication system when there is little or nothing to be gained from doing so. For example, there is often a very strong incentive to fraudulently circumvent an authentication system protecting a top secret military device or a multimillion dollar asset account, but no strong incentive to circumvent an authentication system for, say, a user's list of favorite television channels.

Automatic configuration of devices based on biometric data


A valve, system and method for the delivery of gases or liquids is shown where the delivery persons can fill the system without having to enter the building and the system can continue to deliver gas to the user. There is no interruption of service while the system is being filled.

This invention relates to devices used in the carbonated beverage industry and other industries using carbon dioxide, such as fire protection systems, welding, medical and other industries using compressed gases. This technology may have applications in additional other industries, for reasons of simplicity, this discussion will relate primarily to the beverage industry. It is in no way meant to limit the application of this invention to only the beverage industry.
The beverage industry uses carbon dioxide to carbonate and to move beverages from a storage tank to a dispensing area. For beverages such as beer, the beer can be contained in large kegs in the basement or storage room and the taps at the bar can dispense the beer. This method eliminates the storage of beer kegs in the bar area and allows the beer keg delivery and removal to occur in an area other than that in which patrons may be sitting. This type of system has existed for many years. In order to get the beverages from the storage area to the serving area, prior art has used carbon dioxide among other gases. The carbon dioxide is generally delivered as a liquid in large heavy DOT cylinders and hooked to the dispensing system. When the tanks are hooked to the system, a certain volume, generally about one third of the tank, in a one tank system or one third of the tank volume in a multi-tank system is not filled with liquid. This allows the carbon dioxide to boil to a gaseous state. It is this gaseous state that is then used to carbonate and to move the desired beverage from the storage room or basement to the delivery area and provide much of the carbonation to the beverages.
The only problem with this system is that the carbon dioxide tanks must be changed or when the current tanks run out, they must be replaced with new tanks. This can be inconvenient and time consuming. If only one person is working, then they are required to leave the patron area and manually change the tank to allow the refreshments to continue to flow. In addition, delivery of additional filled tanks cannot always occur when they are needed if a user runs out in the late evening or during non-business hours. This problem can be somewhat lessened by using multiple liquid tanks, but this uses more space and can be more expensive to monitor and refill.
To refill or replace a tank, the system must generally be completely shut down, so no beverages can be served, and service or delivery personnel can move the full liquid carbon dioxide tanks into the business and remove the empty tanks. Generally several valves must be shut off while the tanks are changed. The business must wait until the changeover is complete before beverages can be served again.
Some systems exist where the physical changing of the tanks has been eliminated. This is done by delivering liquid carbon dioxide to the tanks or system pre-existing in the businesses. Generally a pump truck delivers the liquid carbon dioxide to a fill line plumbed to the outside of the building. The delivery personnel must then enter the establishment to close and adjust various valves. The system is then shut down and the dispensing of beverages must cease until the filling process is complete. Delivery personnel must then return to the truck and start the pump. They must then carefully watch the system to attempt to determine when the system is full. This can be difficult to determine with any uniformity. Some weeks a business may do very well with beverages and some weeks may not do so well. While an operator may get a general sense, it is difficult to determine without the trial and error method, when the system is full.
Some art uses relief valves to indicate when the system is full. This method of determining when the system is full is wasteful and can result in increased pressure hazards from over filling. Over filling can also result in the system not operating properly.
The system needs to maintain the proper liquid gas ratios and overfilling lessens the efficiency of the system as a whole. When the delivery person determines that the system is full, he/she must then reverse the actions taken on the valves and disconnect the truck from the system. While these types of systems do eliminate much of the inconvenience of physically changing out tanks, there are still significant disadvantages to this liquid delivery system common in the art.
Some prior art uses o-rings in the valving and extensive connections and valves. These types of o-ring systems are notorious for failures. Once a system fails, the business may have no carbon dioxide for serving beverages. A call for maintenance may go unanswered if not during regular business hours. Thus, the beverage system may not be operational. The other failure mode of the o-rings or extensive connections or valving is to develop a leak. This causes gaseous carbon dioxide to leak in the storage area and depending on the size of the leak can be costly and hazardous.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a liquid delivery system that would not require the delivery personnel to enter the business to shut/adjust valving before and after delivery of the liquid. There is also a need for a system that would allow the delivery at any time of day or night without any contact with the personnel inside the business. A system that aided in delivering the proper amount of liquid while also lessening the hazards associated with over filling is needed. Also needed is a system that would allow the business to continue using the beverage delivery system without interruption even when the system is being filled. This will result in more sales and less inconvenience to the business. A system that doesn't vent the liquid carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as a means of determining a filled system will also result in less waste, less cost to both the beverage and the delivery businesses and less potential hazards. A system that does not use o-rings and simplifies the number of connections and valving is also very desirable.


An electrically controlled valve (10) includes a shaft (36), a piezoelectric motor (34) affixed to an end of the shaft (36), a controller (54), a follower (42), a valve member (40), and a valve seat (28). The piezoelectric motor (34) drives the shaft with a first direction and a second opposite direction. The controller (54) provides power to the piezoelectric motor (34) to move the shaft with a first speed and a second speed, the first speed being faster that the second speed. The follower (42) receives the shaft (36), and slides relative to the shaft in response to the shaft moving with the first speed, and grips and moves with the shaft in response to the moving with the second speed and includes a valve member (40). The valve member (40) moves with the follower (42). The valve member (40) is configured to be moved by the follower (42) against the valve seat (28) to restrict fluid flow and to be moved by the follower (42) away from the valve seat to increase the fluid flow.

The following relates generally to electrically controlled valves which can operate in a strong magnetic field. It finds particular application in conjunction with low-pressure fluid valves which operate near a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it will be understood that it also finds application in other usage scenarios and is not necessarily limited to the aforementioned application.
Electrically controlled valves with solenoids or ferrous parts are adversely affected near strong magnetic fields such as in a magnetic resonance (MR) room or in the bore of an MRI scanner. Valves which operate in a strong magnetic field include non-magnetic materials or are designed such that the magnetic materials are removed or shielded from the magnetic field. The presence of magnetic materials can affect operation of the valve device and can potentially act as projectiles. Valves are used for controlling fluids such as anesthesia gas supply during magnetic resonance guided surgery, air pressure control in non-invasive blood pressure (NIBP) monitoring, oxygen supply for patient life support, measuring patient gas expiration, and the like. One acute area of need includes neonatal applications where volumes of gas are small and close adjustment of fluid flow is important.
One approach is to use a valve switched pneumatically from a traditional valve location outside the magnetic field, e.g. located outside a shielded room with pneumatic connections. The disadvantage is the use of a compressed air supply, bulky pneumatic tubing, and noise. Another approach is the use of shielding to shield ferrous valve parts from external magnetic fields. However, shielding makes use of ferrous materials such as iron which make the shielding subject to distorting the magnetic field and becoming potentially projectiles.
Valves typically include a spring or biasing element which biases the valve by default either open or closed. Springs materials subject to the strong magnetic fields, and in some instances, can collapse under the magnetic forces. Alternatively, springs can be made from non-magnetic materials such as beryllium-copper or phosphor-bronze but the material is costly. Furthermore, the non-magnetic materials can be found to change their spring constant over time which makes them less reliable in medical care applications.
Another approach is the use of valve materials which are not subject to the magnetic field. For example, piezoelectric diaphragm valves are used, but are typically physically large and need very high drive voltages. The diaphragm includes a covering of piezoelectric material which operates to change shape and directly open or close a valve port when an electrical charge is applied. The high voltage drivers are expensive and difficult to implement in magnetic field because they often have components which are also subject the magnetic field. Another example includes piezoelectric bending actuators such as a flap which bends to directly open or close a valve. Both examples include a spring element or biasing element which is subject to wear and difficult to replace and/or repair. Both examples include a valve which operates in analog manner between the valve being either completely open or completely closed.
The following discloses a new and improved linear digital proportional piezoelectric valve which addresses the above referenced issues, and others.

Linear digital proportional piezoelectric valve


In an image forming apparatus containing a plurality of rollers disposed with generally parallel axes, a retraction plate containing a plurality of rotational couplings is movable between engaged and retracted positions. Each rotational coupling is operative to transmit a rotary force to each cartridge when the retraction plate is in the engaged position. The couplings move laterally in an axial direction of the rollers as the retraction plate moves between the engaged and retracted positions, in response to an applied force. In one embodiment, the retraction plate is rotated about a pivot point to move the couplings between engaged and retracted positions. In another embodiment, the retraction plate is translated laterally in the axial direction of the couplings.

The present invention relates generally to the field of image formation devices and in particular to a coupling retraction mechanism for a color electrophotographic printer.
The use of removable cartridges in image formation devices is well known. Such cartridges typically include a photoconductive member upon which latent images are formed, as well as a reservoir of toner and rollers to apply toner to the photoconductive member to develop the latent image. A wide variety of designs and mechanisms are employed in the art for inserting and removing such cartridges. In particular, inserting a removable cartridge in an axial direction, whereby a drive receiver on the end of the cartridge mates with a rotary drive coupling as the cartridge is inserted, is well known in the art. Other insertion/removal means are known, whereby the cartridge is inserted/removed in a direction at right angles to the cartridge's rollers' axes. Such systems typically require a manual, mechanical decoupling of a rotary drive coupler from a drive receiver on the cartridge, to provide mechanical clearance for the insertion/removal of the cartridge.
Modern, compact, multicolor image formation devices typically include a plurality of removable cartridges, such as three or four, each supplying a different color of toner. One recent development in the image formation arts is the separation of the functions of toner supply, and image formation and transfer, into different removable cartridges. Such a system may include a large number (e.g., eight) separately removable cartridges, each of which must be mechanically coupled to the image forming device, to provide rotary power to the cartridge. Additionally, other elements in the image forming device may require decouplable rotary power.

Coupling retraction mechanism for an image forming device


In a semiconductor device, a surge voltage is lowered on turning OFF of a switching element, and output current is reduced on turning ON of the switching element in a non-saturated condition to achieve a reduced amount of self-heating. The semiconductor device can comprise a semiconductor switching element, an overvoltage protection circuit, and a resistance circuit to transmit a control signal for turning the switching element ON and OFF to a control terminal of the switching element. The semiconductor device can further comprise a voltage detecting switch that receives a signal corresponding to a voltage appearing at the output terminal of the switching element on turning OFF of the switching element, and a gate resistor change-over switch that operates according to a voltage of a timing capacitor connected to the output side of the voltage detecting switch to increase a resistance value of the resistance circuit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device providing an overvoltage protection function for a switching element.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 4 shows a conventional example of a semiconductor device providing an overvoltage protection function for a switching element.
In FIG. 4, the reference numeral 1 designates a semiconductor switching element, for example, an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) and the reference numeral 2 designates a free-wheeling diode (FWD). Between the collector C and the gate G of the switching element 1 is connected an overvoltage protection circuit 23 composed of a series-connected circuit of a constant voltage diode 3 and a reverse-blocking diode 5 for a gate current. A constant voltage diode 9 is connected between the gate G and the emitter E of the switching element 1. The constant voltage diode 9 prevents the overvoltage noise due to a gate signal and the overvoltage protection circuit 23 from exceeding the withstand voltage of the gate G of the switching element 1.
The collector C is connected to the positive terminal of the DC power supply and the emitter E is connected to the negative terminal N of the DC power supply.
The reference numeral 8 designates a gate signal output circuit. Between the output terminal of the gate signal output circuit and the gate G of the switching element 1 connected is a series-connected circuit of a gate resistance 7 and a diode 22 for a gate bypass at an OFF time. A gate resistor 6 is connected in parallel with the series-connected circuit of the gate resistor 7 and the diode 22.
When switching drive is conducted on an inductive load (not shown in the figure) by applying a voltage between the collector and the emitter of the switching element 1 in this circuit, a surge voltage is generated due to the collector current variation di/dt at the time of turning OFF of the switching element 1 and the existence of a wiring inductance. If the maximum voltage, which is a voltage between the collector and the emitter superimposed with the surge voltage, exceeds a breakdown voltage between the collector and the emitter, the switching element 1 may breakdown due to overvoltage.
To cope with this issue, in the circuit of FIG. 4, when the voltage at the collector C of the switching element 1 rises to the voltage set by the constant voltage diode 3, a Zener current flows through the diode 3 and raises the gate voltage of the switching element 1 above the ON threshold value even though in the period of gate signal OFF (the period of the gate voltage lower than the ON threshold value). As a result, an electric current flows between the collector and the emitter of the switching element 1 to lower the collector voltage. Thus, the switching element 1 is protected from electric breakdown due to overvoltage.
Patent Document 1 (identified below) discloses an overvoltage protection circuit comprising a clamp circuit including a constant voltage diode between the collector and the gate of an IGBT. When an overvoltage is applied between the collector and the emitter, a Zener current flows through the clamp circuit to turn ON the IGBT in a non-saturated state. Thus, the voltage between the collector and the emitter decreases, performing overvoltage protection.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H07-297358 (paragraphs [0065], [0066], and FIGS. 1 and 3, in particular)
When an overvoltage is applied between the collector and the emitter of a switching element 1 in the circuit of FIG. 4 or of the Patent Document 1, the switching element 1 is turned ON in a non-saturated state to decrease the voltage between the collector and the emitter. The energy of the surge voltage is self consumed and converted to heat. Although these conventional technologies can avoid electrical breakdown due to overvoltage, the self-heating abruptly increases at the turn OFF time presenting a problem of great burden on the switching element 1 and a gate control circuit for it.


Methods and systems for providing a response to a query. Multiple users' search engine activity in regard to a query is correlated. A response is provided based upon this correlated search engine activity information. For one embodiment of the invention, in the context of search engine result optimization, the user activity and/or user information of multiple users, during a search session, is correlated with queries to effect an evolving association between queries and the organization and presentation of documents. Systems in accordance with such embodiments employ the ability to store users' activity over the entire search session, thus making possible the correlation of a number of different types of user activity and user information. The use of correlated user input allows such systems to provide relevant search results without the limitations imposed by the key-word-based systems of the prior art.

The capability of organizing information has grown along with the ever-increasing availability of information. A vast source of available information may be found on internet-related networks (e.g. the World Wide Web (Web)) or other Internet sources. The Internet is an extensive network of computer networks through which information is exchanged by methods well known to those in the art (e.g. the use of TCP and IP protocols, etc). The Internet permits users to send and receive data between computers connected to this network. This data may include web sites, home pages, databases, text collections, audio, video or any other type of information made available over the Internet from a computer server connected to the Internet. This information may be referred to as articles or documents, and may include, a web page, data on a web page, attachments to a web page, or other data contained in a storage device (e.g., database).
Making sense of such a very large collection of documents, and foraging for information in such environments, is difficult without specialized aids. One such aid to assist in locating information is the use of key terms. That is, the articles may include key terms representing selected portions of the information contained in the article. These key terms are available over the Internet to other computers and permit these other computers to locate the article.
To locate articles on the Internet, a user of a remote computer searches for the key terms using a search program known as a search engine. Search engines are programs that allow the remote user to type in one or more search terms. The search engine then compares the search query with the key terms from the articles and retrieves at least a portion of the articles having key terms that match the search query. The search engine will then display to the user the portion of the article such as the title. The user can then scroll through these retrieved portions of the articles and select a desired article.
Early key-term search engines have exhibited serious drawbacks. For example, to increase exposure of a particular document, the document provider may use as many search terms as are possibly related to the article. In fact, some articles or search engines use every word in the article as key terms. As a result, search engines will retrieve many articles that are unrelated, or only peripherally related, to the subject matter that the user desires to find through a combination of search terms. Additionally, many users of such search engines are not skilled in formulating key-term search queries and produce extremely broad searches that often retrieve thousands of articles. The user must then examine the excerpted information regarding each document to locate the desired information.
This drawback was addressed by the evolution of search engines to include the organization of information based upon the search activity of one or more users. Such schemes rank results based upon a consensus of user preferences instead of document-oriented parameters (e.g., text). One such scheme ranks documents according to an evolving score based upon the key terms used. That is, the documents receive a relevancy score relative to the key terms of the search query. As users enter search queries and select documents from among the list of documents the query produces, the relevancy scores of the documents are adjusted. The scores are used to organize the resulting list of documents for subsequent searches. Such schemes typically base relevancy, at least in part, on the number of "clicks" the document received (i.e., the number of times a document was selected). Such schemes, known generally as "popularity ranking schemes" or "click popularity schemes", provide a search result list in which the highest ranked documents are those that attracted and satisfied the greatest number of previous users. Moreover, click popularity schemes generate results that reflect search context. For example, previous search schemes would return documents containing all of the query terms, but would not automatically exclude words that are not part of the query. Thus, a text-matching search for "Mexico" might return mostly results about "New Mexico." A click popularity scheme search will reduce such erroneous results, as users seeking "Mexico" will generally refrain from clicking pages about "New Mexico" and will tend to click those pages that they discern are most relevant to "Mexico," thus raising the relevancy of the desired documents.
Basing relevancy on the number of clicks may lead to erroneous results over time as information related to the query terms changes. For example, for the particular query of "democratic frontrunner," documents referring to the early-stage frontrunner Howard Dean may have been selected numerous times in December 2003, but the user in March 2004 entering that query may have been anticipating results for John Kerry who was then leading. Additionally, top-ranked results generally receive disproportionately greater use resulting in increasingly skewed search results in which the top-ranked results may never be displaced.
Some of these drawbacks have been addressed by search engines that organize information provided in response to queries using numerous factors including time-based and use-based factors. For example, such a scheme may use the activity of previous users in response to particular queries to adjust the relevancy of the query response documents. Such user activity may include the number of clicks in conjunction with the timing of prior users' selections or use of particular information. Such schemes may also consider where in a prior results listing a particular document was ranked when prior users selected it, actual versus expected use frequency of a document, and how the selected documents were used.
Yet, many drawbacks still exist in the current schemes. For example, current schemes do not address the problem of very rare queries for which sufficient user activity data has not been compiled. In such cases, results may be poor or non-existent. Additionally, click results are dependent upon the quality and integrity of the data source. Current schemes fail to account for the wide variations in data source quality. Moreover, current schemes are subject to spurious influences that may affect the integrity of the search results. One exemplary scheme, in accordance with the prior art, attempts to address certain drawbacks by updating search engine results based upon user activity. This scheme is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,421,675 entitled "Search Engine" which is hereby incorporated by reference herein, to provide a fuller description of the prior art and clearly distinguish features of various embodiments of the present invention.


A sheet feeding device and a recording apparatus using such a sheet feeding device include a feed mechanism for feeding a sheet material, a guide mechanism for guiding the end portions of the sheet material, which is shiftable in the width direction of the sheet material, and a discharge mechanism for discharging the sheet material being fed. The discharge mechanism is capable of changing its positions in accordance with the shift of the guide.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a feeding mechanism for a sheet material and a recording apparatus using such a mechanism.
2. Related Background Art
A printer, a copying machine, a facsimile apparatus, and other recording apparatuses are of such a structure that its recording head is driven in accordance with recording information to record images on a recording sheet such as a paper or plastic sheet.
For the recording apparatus mentioned above, the recording sheet is being fed automatically by a sheet feeding device besides its manual set for insertion. In general, the sheet feeding device is provided with a feed driving unit for feeding a recording sheet by rotating the feed roller, and an discharge tray unit for stacking the recorded sheets which have been discharged. The arrangement is made for this device so that by utilizing the driving force for the carrier system of the recording apparatus, the foregoing feed driving unit is driven to feed the foregoing recording sheets one by one separately.
However, since the sheet feeding device carries the recording sheet to be discharged while depressing the recording surface of the recording sheet with an discharge roller or a spur directly, there may be some cases where the traces of the roller or other marks remain on the recorded portion. Also, in a case of an ink jet recording apparatus or the like where ink liquid is ejected for recording, the roller depresses the inked surface to cause the occurrence of smudges.

Recording apparatus including feeding mechanism with exhausting roller connected to sheet guide member


The apparatus comprises a developing station (10), a second treatment station (12), a third treatment station (14). A liquid connection (52) is provided between the third treatment station (14) and the second treatment station (12). In a cleaning mode, liquid is fed from the developing station (10) to the third treatment station (14) to assist in cleaning of the third and second treatment stations (12, 14). The apparatus can be cleaned in a particularly convenient and efficient method, enabling optimum use of cleaning liquids and enabling automation of the cleaning process.

As a rule, a processing apparatus for photographic sheet material comprises several vessels each of which contains a treatment liquid, such as a developer, a fixer and a rinse liquid. As used herein, the term sheet material includes not only photographic material in the form of cut sheets, but also in the form of a web unwound from a roll. The sheet material to be processed is transported through these vessels in turn, by transport means such as one or more pairs of drive rollers, and thereafter optionally to a drying unit. The time spent by the sheet material in each vessel is determined by the transport speed and the dimensions of the vessel in the sheet feed path direction.
A typical apparatus comprises a developing station followed by second and third treatment stations, which may, for example, be a fixing station and a washing station. The apparatus may have a generally horizontal or vertical configuration.
From time to time it is necessary to clean the processing apparatus, in order to remove debris which may derive from the sheet material itself and deposits derived from the treatment liquids. The usual process for cleaning a processing apparatus, whether of the vertical or horizontal configuration, is to drain the treatment liquids and to flush the apparatus through with cleaning liquid. Water, optionally containing various additives and optionally at an elevated temperature, is the usual cleaning liquid.
For environmental reasons, there is a desire to reduce the use of all raw materials used in a processing machine, including water and this is particularly the case where the apparatus is being used in an area where there is a shortage of water.
European patent application EP-A-0 774 691 (Agfa-Gevaert NV) discloses a method of cleaning a photographic sheet material processing apparatus having a vertical configuration in which cleaning liquid passes by gravity from one cell to another.
Such a method is limited in its applicability to vertical apparatus and in any event is not optimally efficient in terms of total liquid usage.

Apparatus and method for the processing of photographic sheet material


A multi-spectral miniature microscope objective imaging system for a miniature microscope array includes one or more illuminating light sources for illuminating an object with light including multiple spectral bands, a multi-spectral imaging miniature microscope objective for imaging the object, and one or more detectors for detecting a images corresponding to each of the multiple bands separated from other wavelengths of the light.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to miniature microscope objectives, and particularly to miniature objective arrays for multi-spectral imaging.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Miniaturization of microscope objective optics, e.g., to less than a few mm or less than around 5 mm in diameter, has many potential applications in imaging. It is the enabling technology for the construction of a microscope array such as the miniature microscope array (MMA). Moreover, miniature microscope objective designs for MMA have certain characteristics that are uncommon from typical microscope objectives.
Imaging in multiple spectral bands is extremely useful in microscopy applications. For example, to construct a color image of an object for visual inspection, it is desired to image the object at multiple wavelength bands, and preferably at three spectral bands corresponding to red, green, and blue. For non-visual inspection, it may be advantageous to image the object at different or additional wavelengths even including non-visible wavelengths, and perhaps at more than three spectral bands determined by the object's material properties.
A MMA includes many miniature microscope objectives. Each one of MMA's individual microscope objective forms a 2D image. MMA preferably is used as a scanning system, and so a thin, substantially linear portion of an entire 2D image is used as an object is scanned. In this case, the rest of the image is not used.
It is recognized in the present invention that one can take advantage of this situation by scanning the object at different spectral bands simultaneously or substantially simultaneously. For example, multiple linear detectors equipped with different spectral filters may be used to simultaneously image an object at multiple spectral bands. The number of spectral bands imaged may depend on the size of the 2D images and the area of the available image field, i.e., how many linear detectors can fit in that image field.

Multi-spectral miniature microscope array


A process for recovering weight material for reuse in drilling fluids from a previously unavailable source of feed stock. The process described herein includes a process of cleaning drilling waste through either low temperature thermal or solvent washing to remove hydrocarbon or water based drilling fluid contamination. The cleaned drilling waste, substantially free of liquids is sifted and the bulk fraction is further treated by employing conventional separation technology to recover a high gravity solids phase while discarding low gravity solids phase as tailings. Additionally, described is a process where the recovered high gravity solids phase can be reused as a high density weight material, or lower cost weight material, either of which is desirable to the drilling of modern oil and gas wells. The process of adding drilling fluid back into the recovered weight material to simplify the process of transporting the weight material into an active drilling fluid system is also described.

During the drilling of a well, for example for gas or oil, drilling mud is typically pumped down the drill string through a drill bit. The drilling mud simultaneously cools the bit and carries drill cuttings up the well bore. Drilling mud is typically comprised of a fluid (or fluids), and mixture of additives which can be either fluids or solids, forming a useable drilling fluid.
Typically, the drill cuttings which are carried up the wellbore are subjected to solids separating devices when the cuttings exit the wellbore, such as that of shale shakers or decanter centrifuges. These mechanical separators allow a substantial portion of the drilling mud to be returned to the storage tanks for reuse, while the drill cuttings portion is sent to separate storage tanks.
The drilling mud is a very important aspect of drilling safety and efficiency. "Mud checks" are typically performed daily to monitor density, rheology, viscosity, low gravity solids accumulations, among other parameters. Conditioning or drilling mud rehabilitation is subsequently ordered, to maintain or enhance the drilling mud performance.
With the evolution of new drilling technologies such as horizontal drilling, shale oil or shale gas fracking, and the increasing cost of drilling fluids, the ability to, and benefits of, recovering or enhancing drilling fluid or additives would have clear benefits.
Accordingly, there is a constant search for new technologies and improvements to existing technologies to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of reclaiming and recycling processes.

Weight material recovery and reuse method from drilling waste


Systems and methods for predicting traffic accident location. A method includes: obtaining a plurality of accident records, each accident record is associated with a target user terminal and includes a plurality of locations; determining a plurality of refined accident locations by, for each of the plurality of accident records, operating a first clustering procedure with the corresponding plurality of locations of the target user terminal as inputs of the first clustering procedure and assigning a first result of the first clustering procedure as a refined accident location of the plurality of locations of the target user terminal; and determining at least one accident-prone road section by operating a second clustering procedure with the plurality of refined accident locations corresponding to the plurality of accident records as the inputs of the second clustering procedure.

Vehicles are widely used in public transportation and have been increasingly popular in people's daily commuting. When an accident happens, a driver of a vehicle, a passenger of the vehicle, a witness of the accident, or a police officer needs to report an accident time and an accident location (e.g., when and where does the accident happens) to seek roadside assistant, ambulant service, firetruck assistant, or insurance services. However, the reported accident time and accident location are often inaccurate, thus causing difficulties to locate the actual accident and delays to provide the necessary services. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide systems and methods for remotely determining an accurate accident time and an accurate accident location such that an efficient locating of an accident can be achieved. Furthermore, it is desirable to provide systems and methods for predicting a plurality of accident-prone areas to provide safety-driving assistant to the driver.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Artificial intelligent systems and methods for predicting traffic accident locations

BEIJING DIDI INFINITY TECHNOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD.


A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell stack, a fuel inlet conduit, a water inlet conduit, and a hydrometer, such as an alcoholometer. The hydrometer is adapted to provide a measurement of a water-to-fuel ratio of a fuel inlet stream within the fuel inlet conduit. The water inlet conduit is adapted to provide a quantity of water to the fuel inlet conduit in order to achieve a desired water-to-ratio being provided to the fuel cell stack.

The present invention relates generally to the field of fuel cells and more specifically to fuel cell systems that are integrated with a hydrometer.
When a fuel cell system is operated on a water-containing fuel, an optimum water-to-fuel ratio is desirable in order for the fuel cell system to operate at peak efficiency. If the fuel does not contain the proper ratio, then water is either added or removed from the fuel. Adding or removing too much water poses a serious risk to the integrity of the fuel cell system. For instance, the risk of coking exists if too little water is added. Moreover, the water-to-fuel ratio of a given fuel source is not homogenous, because the fuel may "stratify" by density while it is stored in a fuel vessel (e.g., alcohol rises to the top and water lowers to the bottom of the vessel). Interrupting the operation of the fuel cell system to perform remedial water addition/removal further decreases the efficiency of the fuel cell system.

Structure and method for optimizing system efficiency when operating an SOFC system with alcohol fuels


An effective heat-sinking arrangement is realized for circuit elements used in a portable type information terminal having a small restricted space therein. Wherein, a first substrate has a cavity formed in its insulating layer extending to an earthing layer and filled with a silver paste to form a seat for mounting a CPU that can thus thermally contact with the earthing layer, and a second substrate has a cavity formed in an insulating layer in which cavity a heat-conducting cushion bonded to the top of the CPU is fitted for creating the heat-conductive route between the CPU and the earthing layer of the second substrate.

The present invention relates to heat-sinking arrangement for circuit elements, e.g., central processing units (CPU) incorporated in information apparatuses, specially portable computer terminals, which elements require sinking heat produced by them.
A CPU and other electronic components mounted on a printed substrate should be surely protected from being self heated in working state to assure normal operation of them. Many kinds of protections have been proposed and applied.
FIG. 1 shows an exemplified cooling arrangement for a CPU used in a universal type desk-top personal computer. In the shown construction, a cooling fan 33 is directly attached to the top of the CPU 32 mounted on a substrate 31. Namely, the CPU 32 is forcibly cooled by the cooling fan 33. In FIG. 6, numeral 34 designates a lead wire of the CPU 32.
FIG. 2 shows an exemplified cooling arrangement for a CPU used in a portable type personal computer that has no space for mounting a cooling fan for cooling the CPU. Therefore, the CPU 32 mounted on a substrate is provided at its top with and a cushion 36 made of electrically insulating and thermally conducting material and a radiation metal plate 35 for transferring heat from the CPU 32.
FIG. 3 shows another exemplified cooling arrangement for a CPU used in a further compact portable type personal computer. The computer has further restricted spacing above the CPU in a housing. Therefore, the multilayer substrate 37 on which the CPU is mounted is used for radiating heat from the CPU 32.
Namely, the multilayer substrate 37 has a cavity 39 that extends to an earthing copper layer formed in the depth thereof and is filled with, e.g., silver paste 40 or a copper-made spacer. The CPU 32 is mounted on the thus prepared seat of the substrate. The CPU can now be in contact with the earthing layer 38 through which heat radiation from the CPU is dissipated. In FIG. 3, numeral 41 designates an insulating layer of the substrate.
However, the arrangement shown in FIG. 3 for dissipating heat away from the CPU through the earthing copper layer 38 formed in the depth of the substrate 37 has a small heat-transfer effect and can not sufficiently dissipate heat away from the CPU through the substrate.
The arrangements shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 are excellent to cool the CPU or dissipate heat away from the CPU but cannot be applied in a miniature type computer smaller than the portable type because the former has no space for accommodating the fan 33 or the heat-radiation plate. The arrangements of FIGS. 1 and 2 are designed to improve the effect of transferring heat from the CPU mounted on a substrate by providing a large space around the CPU in the housing.

Heat-sinking arrangement for circuit elements


An enclosed carton for carrying a number of containers, such as cans, which is easily convertible into a tray with a lid, from which the cans can be easily removed. The tray is formed by a zipper with two tear lines that are formed in the adjoining bottom flaps of the carton. The carton may have a carrying handle for carrying the carton loaded with containers. This carton is especially designed to be easily convertible into a tray for holding cans between two closely spaced shelves in a refrigerator. Provision is made for the easy removal of the lid. Another embodiment of this invention discloses an enclosed carton with diamond shaped corners so that the carton can be tightly packed and which is also convertible into a tray.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an enclosed paperboard carton capable of enclosing a number of containers, such as cans, which can be easily converted into a tray from which the containers can be removed one at a time with the other containers in the tray not being disturbed. This carton is provided with a zipper-like tear strip and an aperture into which a person may insert his or her finger to commence tearing the tear strip open. This tear strip is located where the bottom flaps in the carton overlap and is designed to be opened while the carton is resting on a side panel on which the ends of the containers have been placed. Once the tear strip has been opened, a lid is formed which can be opened and closed with a fold line in the top panel functioning as a hinge. The opening of the lid is not impeded because of the design of the ends of the carton.
A tear line can be provided in the top panel so that the lid can be completely removed from the tray. These same features can be incorporated in an enclosed carton for containing cylindrical containers, such as cans, which is designed to provide a tighter package by placing a diamond shaped corner panel formed by fold lines, between each bottom end flap and the bottom panel.
2. Background
Fully enclosed cartons capable of enclosing cylindrical containers, such as cans, have been used in the past that have a feature for dispensing the cans one at a time. Dispenser sections have been provided at various locations and with various features within these cartons depending on the design.
Trays constructed of different materials, such as plastic and corrugated paperboard, have been used in the past. These trays have sometimes been wrapped in shrink film to prevent the containers from falling out while the tray is being carried. Once the shrink film has been removed, these trays provide a convenient dispenser from which containers can be pulled one at a time. These trays are difficult to carry because they do not have a built-in carrying handle and it may be difficult to remove the plastic film from the tray to access the cans contained in the tray.

Enclosed container carton convertible into a tray


A composition is provided that includes mesoporous starburst carbon domains. Each of the mesoporous starburst carbon domains is incorporated with particles of metal or metal oxide in an amount of from 40 to 85 total weight percent of the composition. The metal or metal oxide particles can include tin, cobalt, copper, molybdenum, nickel, iron, or ruthenium, or an oxide thereof. The resulting composition when combined with a binder forms a battery electrode. Such a battery electrode operating as an anode in a lithium ion battery has gravimetric capacity of more than 1000 milliampere hours per gram after 15 galvanostatic cycles.

The ability to develop a high efficiency lithium battery has been met with limited success owing in large part to low capacity, as measured in milliampere hours per gram (mAh/g), as well as a dramatic decrease in capacity with battery cycling. A prototypical anode for many lithium ion batteries is conventional graphite with a theoretical gravimetric capacity of 372 mAh/g. In response to these limitations, the prior art has explored metallic and metal oxide based anodes as a replacement for graphite. Such anodes typically have theoretical gravimetric capacities much greater than that of graphite. By way of example, tin has a theoretical gravimetric capacity of about 960 mAh/g. Tin oxide has a theoretical gravimetric capacity of 1491 mAh/g. Unfortunately, metal and metal oxide based lithium ion battery electrodes suffer from large volume changes with lithium intercalation/deintercalation that rapidly fragment the electrode with cycling. Electrode fragmentation also referred to herein as decrepitation increases overall cell impedance. As a result, bulk tin foil can only be cycled at 600 mAh/g for only about 15 cycles before a dramatic decrease in operating performance. S. Yang et al. Electrochem. Commun. 2003, 5(7), 587-590. In order to address bulk material decrepitation, nanostructures and nanocomposites have been extensively investigated to address volumetric changes during electrochemical cycling.
In order to overcome decrepitation problems associated with bulk tin, various composite systems have been evaluated. These systems illustratively include tin dispersed in carbon matrices (M. Egashira et al., J. Power Sources, 2002, 107(1), 56-60); tin-core/carbon-sheath coaxial nanocables (B. Luo et al, Adv. Mater. 2012, 24(11), 1405-1409); dual metal alloy nanoparticles encapsulated in carbon (Q. Fan et al. Electrochem. Solid-state Lett. 2007 10(12) A274-A278); tin-secondary metal oxides (Y. Idota et al., Science 1997, 276(5317), 1395-1397); tin oxide nanoparticles (C. Kim et al., Chem. Mater. 2005 17(12), 1397-3301); and other reduced domain size tin oxide halo structures, nanotubes, nanowires, and nanosheets. While these prior art records have shown progress in increasing gravimetric capacity to between 400 and 700 mAh/g over 15 cycles, these systems have required high carbon contents of greater than 40 percent by weight carbon in order to achieve improved capacity and at the expense of a lower theoretical gravimetric capacity than could be achieved with lower amounts of carbon materials.
Thus, there exists a need for a composition with a higher gravimetric capacity than conventional electrode materials. There further exists a need for a process for forming such a composition into a battery electrode.

Mesoporous starburst carbon incorporated with metal nanocrystals or metal oxide nanocrystals, and uses thereof

Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.


A method and apparatus for generating a qualify bit and detecting matching addresses in the completion unit register file, or annex, of a processor. A qualify bit is appended to each entry in the annex. Overlapping register windows are represented by a window pointer and a register index. Annex entries addressed to the same window or addressed to GLOBAL registers always qualify. Annex entries addressed to OUT registers only qualify if the instruction address is one of the IN registers of the next window. Annex entries addressed to IN registers only qualify if the instruction address is one of the OUT registers of the previous window. A pseudo-address bit is appended to each annex entry. For IN and OUT registers, the indexes for the aliases differ by one bit. The pseudo-address bit normally takes on the value of the most significant bit of the annex entry's index. If the instruction operand virtual register is an OUT register of a certain window, and the annex virtual register is an IN register within the next window, the pseudo-address bit for that entry is set to one. If the instruction operand virtual register is an OUT register within the previous window, the pseudo-address bit for that entry is set to zero. Comparison logic then compares the instruction operand index to the annex index with the differing bit of the annex index replaced by the pseudo-address bit. Entries that match and that have asserted qualify bits address the same physical register.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to pipelined superscalar processors. Specifically, the present invention deals with retrieving results from a completion unit register file prior to writing them into their destination registers.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
A typical early microprocessor included a central processing unit (CPU) which implemented a machine capable of interfacing with memory and serially executing a sequence of instructions. The instruction execution was typically broken into at least four major stages: instruction and operand fetch, instruction decode, execution, and write back of results into the destination registers. A typical instruction took one clock cycle to execute, so that each of the four functions was performed in that cycle. Each stage had to wait for the results from the previous stage before its work could be accomplished. The minimum clock period was then determined by the longest possible propagation delay through all four stages.
The concept of pipelining increased the maximum clock frequency by reducing the amount of logic performed in each clock cycle. To facilitate this, for example, the interface between the second and third stages could be separated by clocked latches. The first two stages (fetch and decode) would be performed in one clock cycle. Subsequently, during a second clock cycle, the last two stages (execution and write back) would be performed. Here, the overall latency of an instruction might remain approximately the same since the total amount of time from the beginning of the fetch to the end of the write back would be approximately the same. However, separating the instruction execution into two distinct pieces has the important advantage that the throughput could be increased by as much as a factor of two. This is a result of the fact that the pipelined CPU can operate on two instructions simultaneously. While the execution and write back of one instruction is being performed, the fetch and decoding of a second instruction can be performed. Quite naturally, this pipelining concept can be extended such that each of the four stages is performed in a separate clock cycle, thus increasing the throughput accordingly. Thus, by dividing the logic into N separate segments, the throughput can theoretically be increased by a factor of N.
Superpipelined designs break up the logic in some or all of the four stages so as to reduce the maximum propagation delay through any one stage, and thus increase the operating frequency and throughput as the instruction execution is broken into more than four pipeline stages. A superscalar microprocessor 10 is shown in FIG. 1.
A superscalar processor 10 has several parallel functional units 11. Some typical superscalar implementations include floating point, integer, branch, and load/store functional units 11. Typically, among the functional units 11 are units which can perform floating point calculations or similar complex operations. It is desirable to run these complex units at the same clock frequency as the rest of the hardware, while still allowing for each functional unit 11 to begin executing a new instruction every cycle. To accomplish these objectives, pipelining of the parallel functional units 11 is desirable. The complexity and logical partitioning of the most complicated functional unit dictates the number of pipeline stages necessary in that functional unit 11. Not all of the functional units 11 have the same latency. Of these four parallel functional units 11, the floating point unit will probably turn out to have the most complexity. Because the other three types of functional units 11 are not as complex, it is possible to pipeline these other functional units into fewer stages than are required for the pipelining of the floating point unit. All of the parallel functional units 11 merge back into the final stage 12 in which the results of the executions are written into their respective destination registers.
If the pipeline for every parallel functional unit 11 is not the same number of stages, then the results from some functional units 11 will be available sooner than others. For example, if the pipelining of the floating point unit requires five stages, while the pipelining for the integer unit only takes two stages, then the results from the integer unit would be available three clock cycles prior to the results of the floating point unit even though both instructions were dispatched concurrently. By the same token, "younger" instructions can finish sooner than older instructions. For example, during one clock cycle a floating point instruction is dispatched, and during the next subsequent clock cycle, an integer instruction such as an addition is dispatched. If the integer pipeline is three stages shorter than the floating point pipeline, the integer addition result will be available two clock cycles before the floating point result even though the floating point instruction was dispatched first. In this example, the integer addition was a "younger" instruction because it was dispatched later than the "older" floating point instruction.
If some younger instructions are allowed to write into the destination registers before some older instructions, potential problems arise. For example, if both instructions write to the same destination register, the programmer expects the younger instruction to write over the results of the older instruction. If in fact the older instruction writes over the results of the younger instruction, the processor has not correctly executed the sequential program since the intended result does not appear in the intended destination. Therefore it is important to maintain the sequential nature of instruction result writeback.
Referring now to FIG. 2, in order to facilitate sequential write-back of instruction results, any shorter functional unit pipeline 20 is lengthened with extra pipeline stages so that all functional units have the same latency from dispatch 21 to write back 22. In the shorter functional unit pipeline 20, this results in several extra stages 23 being added to the end of the functional unit pipeline 20. These additional pipeline stages 23 effectively form a first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer, known in the industry as a completion unit register file, which will be referred to as an annex.
Although preserving the sequential nature of the program execution and write-back, the addition of the extra stages 23 in the pipeline of the shorter functional unit 20 pipeline creates additional complications. Assume the shorter functional unit 20 in FIG. 2 is an integer ALU functional unit which might be used to execute a sequence of instructions. For example, consider the following program fragment where add rs1,rs2,rd denotes that the contents of register rs1 and the contents of register rs2 should be added and the result should be stored to register rd.
add r1,r2,r3;
add r3,r4,r5;
Here, the first instruction creates a result for register r3. The very next instruction uses the value for r3 that was computed by the previous instruction. Unfortunately, however, the value of r3 which was calculated by the first instruction has not been written into the register file by the time the second instruction begins execution. The destination register in the register file is not finally updated until the write-back stage 22 is reached at the end of the annex 23. Therefore, the correct operand of the second instruction is resident in the first entry of the annex when the second instruction is executing. In order to allow the entries of the annex to be utilized by subsequent instructions, some access to the annex 23 must be provided. In addition, some means must be provided to determine which register addresses are stored in each entry of the annex 23 in order to determine which entry, if any, should be provided back to the inputs of the functional units 20 and 24.
Referring to FIG. 3, an advantageous method involves the use of a memory 30 to implement the annex. If an entry in the annex 30 contains that most up-to-date or "youngest" version of a variable which needs to be used as an operand in a current instruction, that entry can be driven onto the annex access bus 31 and selected by the multiplexor 32 to provide the input to the functional unit 33. Instead of feeding through each entry of the annex 30, only one set of feedthroughs 31 are provided to a two input multiplexor 32. This eliminates increase in pitch of the functional unit datapath 34 regardless of the number of entries in the annex 30. The number of inputs to the multiplexor 32 remains two regardless of the number of entries in the annex 30.
One way to determine which entry, if any, should be provided to the multiplexor 32 involves the use of content addressable memory in the address field of the annex 30. Each entry in the annex 30 stores an address field and a data field. The address field contains the address of the destination register, while the data field holds the results to be stored to that destination register. When attempting to determine if one of the operands is in the annex 30, the address of that operand is simultaneously compared to all of the addresses stored within the annex. If there is a match, the match line for that entry is asserted.
Most instructions require more than one operand. For instance an add x,y,z instruction performs an addition of the contents of x to the contents of y and stores the result in z; thus x and y are operand registers. Because it is possible that data destined for both x and y are in the annex 30, more than one compare port and set of match lines in the content addressable memory should be provided to allow simultaneous look-up for all the operands.
The search for an annex entry which contains results for a particular operand destination register address is somewhat complicated by the fact that some processors support "virtual" register addresses which are different from the "physical" register addresses. In most implementations, the number of real physical addresses is different than the number of virtual addresses. Usually, there are more virtual addresses than physical addresses. When there are more valid virtual addresses than physical addresses, some of the virtual addresses must map to the same physical address. Multiple virtual addresses which map to the same physical address are called "aliases".
An architecture using register windows commonly uses virtual addresses which map to physical addresses. The operand registers and destination register addresses are referred to by their respective virtual addresses within instructions. There are many advantages to the use of register windows. Register windows allow for multiple register use without the time-consuming spills and fills to main memory characteristic of fixed register set designs found in many architectures. Using a large "windowed" register file, the processor has access to a large number of on-chip registers configured in overlapping sets. This access permits compilers to automatically cache values and pass parameters in registers. At any one instant, a program sees eight GLOBAL integer registers plus a 24-register window into a larger register file. The windowed registers can be used as a cache of procedure arguments, local values, and return addresses.
FIG. 4 illustrates the circular stack nature of register windows for an eight window implementation. FIG. 5 illustrates the same window structure from a flat perspective. At any time, a program can address 32 integer registers: 8 INs 50, 8 LOCALs 51, and 8 OUTs 52 of the active window, and the 8 GLOBAL registers 53 that are addressable from any window. The 8 OUTs 52 of one window are also the 8 INs 50 of an adjacent window. The overlapping nature of the register windows makes them ideal for multitasking environments like UNIX, where parameters can be quickly passed between procedures. Because of the overlapping nature of the register windows where specific registers are shared between the windows, there is no actual movement of parameters. Rather, parameters are simply shared between the caller and callee register windows.
The actual number of physical registers in the register file is less than the number of virtual registers in the virtual register files. In part, this is because the eight physical registers designated as GLOBAL registers 53 are shared among all virtual register windows. Moreover, the IN registers 50 of one virtual window and the OUT registers 52 of the adjacent virtual window are, in fact, the same physical register. Thus, for a virtual register file having K windows, each having N GLOBAL, N LOCAL, N IN, and N OUT registers, the total number of virtual registers is 4*K*N, while the total number of real physical registers is only (2K+1)*N.
FIG. 6 shows a typical mapping of the virtual register windows to physical registers 60. Within each window, the registers are virtually addressed in the same way. Registers r0! through r7! are the GLOBAL registers g0-g7; registers r8! through r15! are the OUT registers o0-o7; registers r16! through r23! are the LOCAL registers 10-17; and registers r24! through r31! are the IN registers i0-i7. A current window pointer (CWP) 61 keeps track of the current window.
Because of the unique virtual register file configuration, a virtual to physical register address 62 translation must take place each time a register is accessed. The translation is accomplished by applying the current window pointer (CWP) 61 and the virtual register number to a translator, which performs a calculation to obtain the physical register address 62. This is a moderately complicated calculation. In the mapping shown in FIG. 6, the physical address 62 could be translated by adding the virtual register index to the product of 16 and the current window pointer 61. If the binary representation of the current window pointer 61 is W2 W1 W0, and the binary representation of the virtual register index is R4 R3 R2 R1 R0, the translation for non-GLOBAL registers would be as follows. ##EQU1##
In the example mapping shown in FIG. 6, the GLOBAL registers are those registers whose virtual register index is between 0 and 7 inclusive. Thus, if R4 and R3 are zero, the physical address 62 is simply the register index.
Since the registers are designed to be the fastest memory that the processor accesses, it is desirable to minimize the number of times a virtual to physical register address 62 calculation must be performed. The designer must decide which type of address to use in the annex structure. Referring to FIG. 7, if the physical address 62 is used, then a virtual-to-physical address translation 70 must occur prior to the results of an instruction being entered into the annex 71. Furthermore, in order to search the annex 71 for operands of an instruction, each operand's virtual address must be translated prior to the search. This presents a large overhead in both hardware and delay.

Completion unit register file using virtual addresses with qualify and pseudo-address bits


The Invention is a wheeled military vehicle that may be stacked one on top of another for efficient transportation aboard an aircraft such as a helicopter. A tubular frame reinforces the fenders of the military vehicle, allowing a first vehicle to support the weight of a second vehicle and to withstand the load applied by rigging. A pintle hook is connected to the military vehicle by a hinge and has a deployed and a folded position. The hinged pintle hook allows a combination of the military vehicle and a trailer to be shortened selectably so that the combination will occupy a reduced space within the fuselage of an aircraft.

A. Field of the Invention
The Invention relates to a wheeled military vehicle that may be stacked for efficient transportation aboard an aircraft such as a helicopter. A combination of the military vehicle of the Invention and a trailer such as a towed weapon may be shortened so that the combination will occupy less space within the fuselage of an aircraft. Upon arrival by air at a destination, the military vehicle may be used to transport equipment, troops and supplies across difficult terrain.
B. Description of the Related Art
Wheeled vehicles for military and civilian transportation are well known in the art. Military vehicles also have been transported by air, as by fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter. The capabilities, weight limitations and internal dimensions of an aircraft may pose substantial constraints on a military vehicle to be transported by the aircraft. For example, the internal dimensions of the cargo area of the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft are five feet wide by five feet high and less than seventeen feet long. The Osprey also presents limitations on floor loading. The V-22 Osprey will not accommodate conventional military vehicles within its cargo area.
Military vehicles may be suspended from helicopters using rigging techniques. Suspending a vehicle using rigging substantially degrades the performance of the aircraft compared with carrying a vehicle within the cargo area of the aircraft. None of the prior art teaches the military vehicle of the Invention.


A donor substrate for laser transfer comprises: a base film; a light-to-heat conversion layer formed on the base film; and a transfer layer formed of an organic material on the light-to-heat conversion layer. The transfer layer contains a thermosetting electroluminescent material, and an organic electroluminescence display device is manufactured using the same. Thus, R, G and B emission layers are simply formed with a fine pattern by a thermal curing process after laser transfer. As a result, the emission layers are not damaged, and the manufacturing cost of a full-color organic electroluminescence display device is reduced due to employment of a simplified mask process. The donor substrate is advantageous to use in the manufacture of a large-sized organic electroluminescence display device.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a donor substrate for laser transfer and an organic electroluminescence display device manufactured using the same. More particularly, the invention relates to a donor substrate used to form an organic layer for an organic electroluminescence display device, and an organic electroluminescence display device using the same.
2. Related Art
In general, an organic electroluminescence (EL) display device is composed of several layers, such as, for example, an anode, a cathode, a hole injecting layer, a hole transporting layer, an emission layer, an electron transporting layer, and an electron injecting layer. Organic electroluminescence display devices may be classified into polymer organic electroluminescence display devices and small molecule organic electroluminescence display devices according to the material used therein. In the case of the small molecule organic electroluminescence display device, each of the layers is formed by a vacuum deposition process; in the case of the polymer organic EL display device, the electroluminescent (EL) element may be manufactured by a spin coating process.
For monochrome devices, an organic electroluminescence display device using a polymer may be simply manufactured by a spin coating process, and needs a lower driving voltage compared to the device using small molecules, but it has disadvantages in efficiency and life span. Further, the manufacture of full color devices requires polymers of red, green and blue colors to be patterned, which leads to degradation of such luminescence characteristics as efficiency and life span when an inkjet technique or a laser-induced thermal imaging method is used for patterning.
In particular, when the laser-induced thermal imaging method is used for patterning, most single polymers are materials which are not transferred. A method of forming a pattern of a polymer organic electroluminescence display device using a laser-induced thermal imaging method is disclosed in Korean Patent No. 1998-51844, and also in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,998,085, 6,214,520 and 6,114,088.
The application of the laser-induced thermal imaging method needs at least a light source, a transfer substrate, and a substrate, wherein light emitted from the light source is absorbed into a light absorption layer of the transfer layer and is converted to thermal energy. The thermal energy allows the material forming the transfer layer to be transferred onto the substrate so that a desired image is formed (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,220,348, 5,256,506, 5,278,023 and 5,308,737).
This laser-induced thermal imaging method has been used to manufacture a color filter for a liquid display device, and has also been used to form a pattern of an electroluminescent material (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,998,085).
The invention of U.S. Pat. No. 5,937,272 is directed to a method of forming an advanced patterned organic layer in a full-color organic electroluminescence display device. The method uses a donor support technique in which an organic electroluminescent material is coated with a transferable coating material. The donor support is heated so as to cause the organic electroluminescent material to be transferred onto a recessed surface of a substrate that forms a colored organic electroluminescent medium in an intended underlying pixel. At this time, heat or light is applied to the donor substrate so that the electroluminescent material is vaporized and transferred to the pixel.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,688,551, a sub-pixel is formed in each pixel region by transfer from a donor sheet to a receiver sheet. In the transfer process, a sublimated organic electroluminescent material is transferred from the donor sheet to the receiver sheet at a low temperature (e.g., about 400° C. or less) so as to form the sub-pixel.
The polymer constituting the emission layer has a large molecular weight and thus the adhesion strength of the substrate becomes larger after laser transfer. Accordingly, the patterning by laser leads to poor transfer characteristics.
As a result, a shadow mask technique has been recently used for R, G and B patterning of the full-color organic electroluminescence display device. Thus, it would not be suitable for the patterning of a large-sized display device.
Recently, a polymer with a structure suitable for a photolithographic process was developed in order to manufacture a full-color organic electroluminescence display device by patterning red, greed and blue emission layers. However, in the latter method, because a photoacid generator is mixed to cure an exposed portion, impurities may be introduced, other active materials may be damaged by super acid generated upon curing, and the inflow of impurities may occur, all of which unreasonably affects the stability or life span of the device.

Donor substrate for laser transfer and organic electroluminescence display device manufactured using the same


Methods of forming and the integrated circuit device structure formed having vertical interfaces adjacent an existing crack stop around a perimeter of a chip, whereby the vertical interface controls cracks generated during side processing of the device such as dicing, and in service from penetrating the crack stop. The vertical interface is comprised of a material that prevents cracks from damaging the crack stop by deflecting cracks away from penetrating the crack stop, or by absorbing the generated crack energies. Alternatively, the vertical interface may be a material that allows advancing cracks to lose enough energy such that they become incapable of penetrating the crack stop. The present vertical interfaces can be implemented in a number of ways such as, vertical spacers of release material, vertical trenches of release material or vertical channels of the release material.

The present invention relates to semiconductor substrates, and more particularly, to methods and semiconductor structures having a release layer for controlling cracks that form during dicing or as a result of package-induced stresses.
Integrated circuits are fabricated by building multiple layers of wiring and passivation on substrates (wafers) that contain semiconductor devices. Upon completion of substrate-level processing, wafers are diced to provide individual chips. The dicing process often causes cracks that damage active areas of the chips. To prevent such damage, crack stop layers have been employed along the perimeter of the chip.
These crack stop layers often take on additional functions for low-K dielectrics, such as providing an edge seal to prevent moisture ingress that can damage or destroy active areas of a chip. They also protect active areas of chips from cracks, which may emanate from the diced edges as a result of package-induced stresses. However, as the dielectric constant of the material is lowered, the insulator material becomes mechanically weaker, and as such, it becomes significantly easier for the crack stop/edge seal to be breached. To address this problem, prior art has been focused on the use of multiple redundant crack stop/edge seals. However, this type of conventional approach takes up valuable "real estate" on the chip, ultimately reducing the number of chips that can be produced per wafer.
Thus, as retention of real estate on the chip is crucial for productivity, further improved methods and processing layers are needed in the art for controlling edge-cracking in chips. Preferably, these methods and layers would take up minimal space on the chip and allow for the control of cracking during dicing, as well as in service.

Crackstop with release layer for crack control in semiconductors

International Business Machines Corporation


A buffering device used in a hinge structure of a lid or cover, such as stool lid of a toilet stool of Western style, which is pivoted on a horizontal axis and generally opened upwards by hand and closed downwards by gravity, comprising two members such as of coaxial cylinder type having mutually facing surfaces, respectively, and being combined coaxially to enable relative rotation, and at least one idle member disposed within a gap between the facing surfaces to roll with the relative rotation, and including no buffering fluid, in which the torque for closure is made large as compared with the torque for opening, so that the lid can be opened lightly when it is opened by hand, while it is automatically braked for preventing it from colliding against the stool body to produce an undesirable strike sound when it is naturally closed by gravity.

This invention relates to a damper device and, especially to a buffering assembly used in a hinge structure of a lid or cover, such as a stool lid of a toilet stool of Western style or a cover of a personal computer of wrap-top type which is opened upwards and closed downwards.
Such manually operated lid or cover which is hinged about a horizontal axis can be opened lightly if the frictional resistance between an axle and a bearing of the hinge structure is small. However, if it is released from a hand when it is closed, it freely runs down against a body to cause not only an unpleasant strike sound but also a possible damage of the device due to shock. However, if the frictional resistance is increased for preventing these problems, unnecessary resistance acts at the time of opening and the hand must be used to the last at the time of closing. In order to avoid such troubles, it has been proposed, as described, for example, in the Japanese utility model opening gazette No. H2-6594, to use a buffering fluid such as grease for braking the lid therewith when it is closed. However, such a device as using a fluid is complicated in structure and, moreover, it conceives such problems in that it is troublesome to handle the fluid in the manufacturing process and it may leak out in the future. With this structure, moreover, a long time is needed for closure when only the gravity regards, since a uniform braking torque acts throughout the closing operation.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide a novel and improved damper device using no buffering fluid, in which the braking effect does not appear at the time of opening but appears only at the time of closing.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved damper device for a hinge structure in which the braking effect at the time of closing is raised especially at the last step to prevent collision of the lid.
A further object of this invention is to provide an improved damper device in which the braking effect is raised especially within a specific range in the way of closing, so that the lid can be stood still at any position within the range.


A liquid separator removing a liquid from a sample of a breathing gas flowing through an airway adapter having a channel surrounded by a wall is disclosed herein. The separator includes a chamber receiving the sample, and a membrane having an outer surface exposed to the gas flow, the membrane at least partially surrounding the chamber, which membrane separates the liquid received by the chamber. The separator also includes a supporting structure for supporting the membrane, and a connector operationally attached to the supporting structure, the connector being connectable to the adapter. The connector comprises a cavity providing a flow path for the sample from the chamber through an opening of the cavity to a sample tube. The membrane branches from a central part of the channel into at least two different branches extending to different directions.

This disclosure relates generally to a liquid separator for removing a liquid from a sample of a breathing gas and an airway adapter.
When a patient is mechanically ventilated with a conventional ventilator, an endotracheal tube is placed into a trachea so that it goes through oral or nasal cavity and larynx. The other end of the endotracheal tube is connected to a breathing circuit Y-piece through a luer type connector. If the patient is gas monitored with a sidestream gas analyzer, an airway adapter used for sampling the breathing gas that is analyzed by the gas analyzer is normally connected between connectors of the endotracheal tube and the breathing circuit Y-piece. During an inspiration the fresh breathing gas including higher oxygen (O2) concentration flows into the patients lungs through an inspiratory limb of the breathing circuit Y-piece, the airway adapter, the endotracheal tube and their connectors, then to a trachea, a bronchus, a bronchi, bronchioles and finally reaching an alveoli deep in the lungs, where all the gas exchange actually occurs. Carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules in hemoglobin of a blood flowing in tiny blood vessels around the alveoli are replaced with O2 molecules in the fresh breathing gas through the thin walls of the alveoli. O2 molecules take their place in the hemoglobin, whereas CO2 molecules flow out from the patient within the used expired breathing gas, through the same path as the fresh gas came in during the inspiration. Thus a gas concentration of the breathing gas measured by the gas analyzer is somewhat proportional to the gas concentration in the blood. If anesthetic agents are used they flow in to the patient during inspiration and the content not adsorbed by the patient flows out from the patient during expiration, which can be monitored with a gas analyzer as well.
The conventional patient side part of the breathing circuit, which is also shown in FIG. 1, usually consists of an endotracheal tube 2 connected to a patient 1 and to a sidestream type airway adapter 3 used for sampling the breathing gas for the gas analyzing purposes and a Y-piece 4 that connects the patient side part of the breathing circuit to the ventilator 5 through breathing circuit tubing for inspiratory gas 6 and expiratory gas 7. The gas analyzer 8 is placed further away from the patient close to or into the host device such as the ventilator 5. The breathing gas sample withdrawn from the patient's breathing is sucked by the gas analyzer 8 from the airway adapter 3, through a sampling port 9, which in connection with the breathing gases, through a sampling tube 10 and through a water separation unit 11 into the gas analyzer 8 to be analyzed. The length of the sampling tube 10 may vary from 2 to 6 meters and the inner diameter of the tube may vary from 1.2 to 2 mm. The breathing gas includes close to 100% humidity, which condensates into water in the sampling tube 10. The breathing gas may also include other liquid substances such as blood, mucus etc. that may enter the sampling tube 10. The water separation unit 11 usually comprises a porous membrane or a similar structure that separates the water or liquid substance from the gas flowing in the tube 10, preventing it to enter the sensitive parts inside the analyzer.
The inner diameter and the length of the sampling tube together with the sampling gas flow speed mostly determine the total system response time and the total system rise time of the gas analyzer. The length of the tubing is normally determined by the use environment in the hospital and is between 2 to 6 meters. It would be beneficial to have high sampling gas flow speed to decrease the total system response and rise times, but the tendency is to have the sampling gas flow speed below 200 ml/min or advantageously approximately at 50 ml/min to enable the gas monitoring of small patients whose tidal volumes may be as low as 2 ml. The advantageous choice to decrease the total system response and rise times is to decrease the diameter of the sampling tube. However as the diameter is decreased the condensed water and other liquid substances block the sampling tube easily deteriorating the measurement system rise time and increasing the measurement system response time or even preventing the whole gas analyzing as the sample gas is not allowed to enter the gas analyzer.
Some prior art systems may comprise a cylindrical water separation unit located partially inside the airway adapter breathing flow path and the volume inside the sample gas tube, which is in connection with the airway adapter. Such systems generate high and unwanted flow resistance to the gas flow disturbing the gas exchange in the lungs. Such systems are also position sensitive and easily get blocked by the condensed water and other liquid substances in certain positions.

Liquid separator for removing a liquid from a sample of a breathing gas and airway adapter