Various genes of herpes virus of turkeys (HVT), Marek's disease virus (MDV) and infectious laryngotracheitis (ILTV) have been identified as non-essential regions (and candidates for insertion sites for foreign genes) and/or as antigen encoding regions. The former include the HVT homologue of the HSV (herpes simplex virus) gC gene, the TK (thymidine kinase) region of MDV or ILTV, ORF3 of ILTV (as defined herein), the ribonucleotide reductase (large subunit) gene of ILTV, MDV or HVT and the ribonucleotide reductase (small subunit) gene of MDV. The antigen-encoding regions include the HVT homologues of the HSV gB, gC and gH genes, the ILTV homologue of HSV gB, ORF2 of ILTV, and the HVT homologue of the HSV-1 immediate early genes IE-175 and IE-68. Manipulation of these genes allows vaccines to be prepared comprising attenuated virus or virus carrying heterologous antigen-encoding sequences.

Herpesviruses are large double stranded DNA viruses consisting of an icosahedral capsid surrounded by an envelope. The group has been classified as alpha, beta and gammaherpesviruses on the basis of genome structure and biological properties Roizman, B et al (1981) Inter-virology 16, 201-217!. Avian herpes viruses include Marek's Disease Virus (MDV) (a gammaherpesvirus) which causes a lymphomatous disease of considerable economic importance in chickens reviewed in Payne, L. N. (ed) Marek's Disease (1985), Martinus Nijhoff Publishing, Boston! and Infectious Laryngotracheitis Virus (ILTV) (an alphaherpesvirus) which causes an acute upper respiratory tract infection in chickens resulting in mortality and loss of egg production.
A recent unexpected finding in out laboratory is that there is sufficient amino acid homology between MDV, ILTV and mammalian herpesviruses, particularly varicella zoster (VZV) and Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) to allow identification of numerous conserved genes. These include the MDV and Herpesvirus of Turkeys (HVT) homologues of glycoproteins gB, gC and gH of HSV; the ILTV, MDV and HVT homologues of TK and ribonucleotide reductase genes and the ILTV homologue of gB and genes 34 and 35 of VZV Buckmaster, A et al, (1988) J. gen. Virol, 69, 2033-2042.
Strains of MDV have been classified into three serotypes. Type 1 comprises pathogenic strains and their attenuated derivatives. Type 2 are a group of naturally-occurring non-pathogenic strains and type 3 is HVT. For more than a decade, vaccination with HVT has been remarkably effective in controlling Marek's disease. However, in recent years, new strains of MDV have been isolated which cause disease despite vaccination with HVT. Losses due to these `very virulent` strains have occurred in parts of the U.S.A., Europe and the Middle East. Although the degree of protection can be improved by using a mixture of HVT, type 2 MDV and attenuated derivatives of very virulent strains for vaccination, the results have been erratic. These observations and the fact that there are MDV type-specific epitopes that are not shared by HVT or type 2 MDV have led us to the conclusion that improved vaccines might be constructed which are antigenically more related to MDV than existing vaccines. Reviewed by Ross and Biggs in Goldman J. M. and Epstein M. A. (eds) Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, Vaccine Intervention against Virus-Induced Tumour, p 13-31, Macmillan, 1986!.
Infectious laryngotracheitis is also a worldwide problem. Sporadic outbreaks occur in which the severity of clinical symptoms varies considerably. Virus can persist in birds that have recovered and may be shed at intermittent intervals after recovery. An attenuated field strain is currently used as a vaccine. However, it has retained some degree of pathogenicity. Mortality due to the vaccine may reach 10% in young chicks.
A number of herpesvirus antigens have been shown to confer protective immunity when expressed in a recombinant vaccinia virus. These include the gB gene of HSV Cantin E. M. et al (1987) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 84, 5908-5912!, gD of HSV Paoletti, E. et al (1984) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 81, 193-197! and gp50 of pseudorabies virus (PRV), a homologue of HSV gD Marchioli, C. C. et al (1987) J. Virol. 61, 3977-3981!. Because of the absolute requirement of gB for virus penetration and infectivity and because it is conserved among herpes-viruses, gB and its homologues are important immunogens. Moreover, the presence of gB at the surface of infected cells has been shown to be an important target for humoral and cell-mediated immune responses Blacklaws, B. A. et al J. gen. Virol. 68, 1103-1114 (1987); McLaughlin-Taylor, E. et al (1988) J. gen. Virol. 69, 1731-1734!. The recently described glycoprotein gH of HSV is also essential for infectivity and may also be an important immunogen Desai, P. J. et al (1988) J. gen. Virol. 69, 1147-1156!. It has also been shown that gIII of pseudorabies virus (PRV), a homologue of gC, is a major target for neutralizing antibody and for cytotoxic T cells although it is a non-essential protein. Also of interest is the unexpected participation of immediate early proteins in T cell mediated cytotoxic reactions in cells infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV) Kozinowski U. H. et al (1987) J. Virol. 61, 2054-2058!. Similar antigens could play an important role in the rejection of latently infected and transformed lymphocytes in Marek's disease since immediate early RNA transcripts have been detected in lymphoblastoid cell lines established from Marek's disease tumours.
Although many recombinant vaccines have been constructed using the poxvirus vaccinia as a vector, there are also reports of the use of herpesviruses as vectors for the expression of foreign genes. Thus hepatitis antigen has been expressed in HSV Shih, M. F. et al (1984) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 81, 5867-5870! and human tissue plasminogen activator has been expressed in PRV Thomsen, D. R. et al (1987) Gene 57, 261-265. In both cases, foreign genes were inserted in cloned fragments of non-essential herpes genes which were then introduced into the virus vector by homologous recombination. The hepatitis virus gene was fused to a herpesvirus promoter and the recombinant DNA was inserted within the TK gene of HSV. Homologous recombination following co-transfection of the recombinant DNA and wild-type HSV DNA resulted in TK- virus clones that expressed the hepatitis antigen.
In the case of PRV, the gX gene mapping in U.sub.s was used as the site for insertion of the foreign gene. The strategy used involved insertion of the TK gene of HSV in the gX gene of a PRV mutant that had a defect in its TK gene resulting in a TK positive virus. The human tissue plasminogen activator gene was then inserted within a cloned fragement of HSV TK and the recombinant was introduced into the PRV mutant by homologous recombination. TK- virus was selected which expressed the human gene (Thomsen et al as above). Similarly, VZV has been used as a vector Lowe et al (1987) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 84, 3896-3900!.
Several herpesvirus genes have also been shown to be associated with virulence and to be non-essential for growth in vitro. These include the TK genes of HSV Jamieson, A. T. et al (1974) J. gen. Virol. 24, 465-480; Field, H. and Wildy, P., (1987) J. Hygiene (Cambridge) 81, 267-277! and of PRV. Indeed it has long been known that PRV is readily attenuated by deletion of TK activity Tatarov, G. (1968) Zentralbl. Vet. Med 15B, 848-853!. Furthermore, attenuation of the Bartha strain of PRV has been attributed to a defect in gI, a non-essential structural glycoprotein mapping in U.sub.s Mettenleiter, T. et al (1987) J. Virol. 61, 4030-4032!.
Genes of HSV mapping in the internal repeat region (TRS) flanking the long unique sequence have also been associated with pathogenicity Rosen, A. et al (1986) Virus Research 5, 157-175; Thompson, R. L. et al (1983) Virology 131, 180-192.! Several additional genes of HSV have been shown to be non-essential for growth in vitro although it is not known whether they are associated with virulence. These include UL24 (Sanders, P. G., (1982), J. gen. Virol. 63, 277-295, large subunit of ribonucleotide reductase (Goldstein D. J. and Weller, S. K. (1988) J. Virol. 62, 196-205), gC (Draper K. G. et al (1984) J. Virol. 51, 578-585), dUTPase (Fisher, F. B. & Preston, V. G. (1986) Virology 148, 190-197), and U.sub.L 55 and U.sub.L 56 (MacLean, A. R. & Brown, S. M. (1987) J. gen. Virol. 68, 1339-1350).
Moreover there is evidence that several genes of HSV mapping in U.sub.s are also non-essential for growth in vitro Weber, P. C. et al (1987) Science 236, 576-579!.


A system and method for creating an improved three-dimensional image includes several steps. One step includes providing one or more adjacent viewing zones, where each of the adjacent viewing zones includes several views of content, and where the adjacent viewing zones include central subset zones that include centrally located views within the adjacent viewing zones, and transition subset views that include views at edges of the adjacent viewing zones. Another step includes inserting at least one of the views from the central subset views into the transition zone to create an expanded transition zone. A further step includes removing at least one transition subset view from the adjacent viewing zone and replacing the removed at least one transition subset view with the inserted at least one of the views from the central subset views.

Autostereoscopic and multiview displays add a single or multilayer optical lens or filter stack to the front of a pixel array including technologies similar but not limited to LCD, LED, OLED, QLED MicroLED, etc. An issue caused by using lenses or filters such as active or passive lenticular, parallax barrier, electro-wedding, lightfield, switchable/tunable filters or otherwise is that they are location specific and inherently create viewing zones where a set of video or still images project to a given position so the viewer may experience a 3D effect in that zone. Traditionally these zones are sensitive to a number of variables including the alignment of the optical stack on the front of the display, the quality of optics employed, the quality and accuracy of the content that has been created or displayed, and the angle/distance of the viewer with respect to the plane of the display. It's common that viewers, especially those in motion will have a difficult time "getting in a viewing zone" and likely without the use of the invention described herein that the viewer will find it challenging to have a clear 3D image if they move from a precise position due to these tight tolerances.
If the viewer or viewers move too close or too far from the monitor they will have a difficult time "fusing" the stereoscopic images and will be unable to see a complete or continuous scene across the display because the optics do not perform optimally in those positions due to the limitations of the lens itself, the filter stack and the optical properties thereof. Instead, they will see "cross-talk" or the bleeding over of conflicting views of content into their visual field as depicted in the middle and right views in FIG. 1. For example, the left view in FIG. 1 shows the image 100 viewed from the optimal viewing distance and angle as defined by the properties of the lens. This contrasts with the middle view of the image 110 where a viewer is not optimally positioned therefore the image results in viewer seeing image pairs that are further apart than intended and the right image 120 shows how certain "smoothing" effects can be used to improve or minimize these imperfections.
These limitations are generally known to those working in the field. Until now, the methods to work around these shortfalls have been by either controlling the viewing distance and viewing area to optimize the experience or reducing the volumetric space through a reduction of parallax thereby limiting the full capabilities of the solution.
In addition, the traditional defined viewing zones repeat to allow "x" number of viewers to experience a 3D, stereoscopic, motion parallax, or other multiview effect for their given position. While this technique succeeds in generating the effect within the viewing zone, if the user moves laterally to the display system, they will pass through an abrupt "transition zone" and see the left and right image flip or reset when they enter the new viewing zone as depicted in a traditional view ordering as seen in FIG. 2.
To be clear the content for each of the views may be captured or created by either real cameras or virtual views, defined by depth maps, conversion processes, rotoscoping, and/or various other methods that enable the creation of multiple images or videos. Whether captured, or delivered directly in real-time, streamed, or from a software application—the intent is to provide the viewer with slightly different perspectives of content for each eye that are resolved in the brain correctly so as to provide the viewer with depth perception as experienced in real life. Delivering these views is both an art and science whereby the creator, such as a 3D animator or stereographer, produces a stereoscopic illusion that is experienced on a 3D display that does not require 3D glasses. Cohesion of these systems remains paramount to creating an optimal experience.
Each of the numbers 1-9 represents an individual view of content rendered or captured from different perspectives to be presented to either eye in a given viewing zone projected by a device 200. In this example each of the viewing zones 210, 220, 230 are intended to present the same 3D experience without glasses to the viewer such that either a single viewer moving laterally across the viewing zones or multiple viewers positioned in each of these viewing zones, would each see the same 3D scene from their position.
It being understood that in an ideal scenario, as a viewer moves from left to right their eyes will pick up a stereo pair of images where the proper left eye image and right eye images are separated correctly as in real life.
FIG. 3 depicts Viewer A, having a left and right eye, and standing perfectly in a viewing zone 310 such that their visual field is limited to only seeing only views 1-9 in that order and whereas Viewer B is straddling two viewing zones 320, 330 with views 9 and 1 in the center of Viewer B's visual field (370). The edges of each viewing zone 310, 320, 330 are referred to as a transition subset zones (315, 325) while views 2-8 (numbered as 312, 322, 332) are a central subset zone of views 312, 322, 332 that are not part of the transition zone and are more centrally located within each viewing zone 310, 320, 330. In both instances, Viewer A and Viewer B observe all the views 1-9 but the Viewer B's brain may be unable to resolve the parallax from views 9 to 1 (in the transition between views, 325) because the amount of parallax between those views is too great.

Method for optimized viewing experience and reduced rendering for autostereoscopic 3D, multiview and volumetric displays


A sonde includes an elongate flexible ferromagnetic core and a coil surrounds an intermediate segment of the core. A housing surrounds and supports the coil. An electronic drive circuit is mounted in the housing for supplying the coil with an electric signal that will induce the core to emit electromagnetic signals at a predetermined strength and frequency that can be remotely detected. Self-contained battery powered float-type and pill-type sondes are also disclosed.

There are many situations where is it desirable to locate buried pipes and other conduits. For example, prior to starting any new construction that involves excavation it is important to locate underground water pipes, sewer pipes, septic tanks, reservoirs, gas lines, fiber optic cable conduits, etc. As used herein the term "buried" refers not only to pipes and conduits below the surface of the ground, but in addition, to objects located inside walls, between floors in multi-story buildings or cast into concrete slabs, etc. If a back hoe or other excavation equipment severs a water main, gas line or a sewer line this can lead to extensive damage and messy cleanups. Serious injury or even death can result from inadvertently piercing a gas line during excavation when the gas is ignited.
Buried objects can be located by sensing an electromagnetic signal emitted by the same. Some buried cables such as power lines are already energized and emit their own long cylindrical electromagnetic field and can be located through a process referred to as "line tracing." Metal pipes and conduits can be energized with an outside electrical source having a frequency typically in a range of approximately 4 Hz to 500 kHz in order to enable them to be located.
A sonde (also called a transmitter, beacon or duct probe) can also be used to locate buried pipes, conduits, horizontal directional drills and reservoirs. A sonde typically includes a coil of wire wrapped around a ferromagnetic core. The coil is energized at a desired frequency, typically in a range of approximately 4 Hz to 500 kHz. A sonde generates a different electromagnetic field than that produced by an energized line. A typical low frequency sonde does not strongly couple to other objects and thereby produce complex interfering fields that can occur during tracing. Therefore, a sonde can be localized to a single point. To take advantage of this feature, a sonde can be constructed as a self-contained unit that can be flushed down a pipe. Alternatively, a sonde can be coupled to a rugged camera head as part of a video pipe inspection system to thereby enable defects and blockages to be precisely located. An example of a hand-held portable locator that can be used to locate a sonde is disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/268,641 filed Oct. 9, 2002 of Mark S. Olsson et al. entitled OMNIDIRECTIONAL SONDE AND LINE LOCATOR.
Sondes are sometimes integrated into camera heads in video pipe inspection systems. They can also be attached to sewer snakes, drain cleaners and horizontal drill heads. Sondes are also available that are not attached to any guiding structures or remote power sources, but are flushed down a pipe, for example. These include battery powered float-type sondes that are buoyant and battery powered pill-type sondes which do not float and have an elongate configuration.
Sondes that have heretofore been developed have not had a construction that optimizes both utility and durability.

Sondes for locating underground pipes and conduits


An electrical junction box has a fuse module (40) with a plurality of fuse attachment portions (102) open into a first side face (132) and arranged side by side in a plurality of tiers that are placed one above another. A plurality of connector attachment portions (128) and (130) in which respective input terminals (90) and (96) of the fuse module (40) are disposed are provided so as to open into a second side face (134) that is perpendicular to the first side face (132), and are disposed in mutually shifted positions in a direction in which the tiers of the fuse attachment portions (102) are placed one above another.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an electrical junction box for an automobile or the like, and particularly relates to an electrical junction box in which a plurality of connector attachment portions to be connected to respective connectors open to a lateral side of a box body.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrical junction boxes, such as junction boxes in automobiles and the like, are equipped with a large number of fuse attachment portions to which fuses are attached for preventing an overcurrent from flowing to various electrical components. JP 2008-53079A discloses an electrical junction box equipped with a fuse module in which fuse attachment portions open into a side face of a box body and are arranged side by side in a plurality of tiers placed one above another to enable a large number of fuses to be connected with high space efficiency. A connector attachment portion is open into a side face of the box body and is connected to a connector from a battery or the like to supply power to input terminal in the fuse attachment portions.
Power for electrical components in automobiles can be supplied from batteries or alternators. A connector attachment portion for a battery and a connector attachment portion for an alternator are required if it is necessary to enable power supplies from both a battery and from an alternator to an electrical junction box.
Wires extending from connectors must be bent when plural connector attachment portions are arranged side by side in a side face of a box body. The wires overlap each other, and much time and effort is required to perform routing. Wires for input power sources that are connected to batteries, alternators, and the like are often thick and require a large bend radius. Accordingly, the wires protrude a large distance from the box body and a layout space of the electrical junction box is large when the wires are taken into account.
The invention was made in view of the above-described circumstances, and it is an object thereof to provide an electrical junction box having a novel structure that enables a plurality of connector attachment portions to be disposed in a side face of a box body with high space efficiency and that can suppress the distance by which a wire extending from a connector protrudes from the box body.


A rotor assembly (10, 20) for use in a dynamoelectric machine such as an electric motor has counterweights (18, 28) installed on it to reduce vibrations when the machine is in use. Apparatus (30) is for attaching a counterweight to each end of the assembly to reduce machine vibrations when in use. The apparatus comprises a support (32) on which the rotor assembly and counterweights are installed. The counterweights are installed in a predetermined relationship with the assembly so when they are attached, an unbalanced rotor assembly is produced. The rotor assembly is mounted in a predetermined position on the support. The support is indexed from a first station (S1) at which the rotor assembly and counterweights are installed on the support to a second station (S2) at which the counterweights are attached to the respective ends of the assembly. A press (36) is movable relative to the support, when it is at the second station, for pressing the rotor assembly and counterweights together and attach the counterweights to the respective ends of the assembly.

This invention relates to to dynamoelectric machines having unbalanced rotor assemblies and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus of constructing such a rotor assembly in a better and more economical manner than heretofore possible.
In certain electric motor applications, especially those in which air is pumped through a system to entrain an object in the airstream and move it from one place to another, damaging motor vibrations are often produced. One way of counteracting these vibrations is by applying counterweights to the the rotor assembly portion of the motor. Properly sized counterweights properly positioned will reduce, or eliminate the vibration problem. As a tradeoff, however, there is an increase in the manufactured cost of the motor. This is so, not only because of the added material in the motor, but also because of the time and labor required to attach counterweights to the assembly. Inclusion of counterweights in the motor of course means additional steps in the manufacturing process. Since precision of placement of the counterweights is vital in eliminating the vibration problem, care must be taken to insure the placement is correct. It will be appreciated that if counterweights are not correctly located, they may actually exacerbate the vibration problem, not solve it. What would be useful would be a way of readily incorporating the placement of counterweights as part of the rotor assembly, since this would help minimize any increased manufacturing costs. At the same time, if the accuracy of weight placement were insured, the effectiveness of the included weights could be assured, thus prolonging the useful life of the motor in these applications. In this latter regard, it would also be helpful if the resultant rotor assembly were an unbalanced assembly. This is important because an unbalanced assembly is more effective in eliminating the effects of vibrations in the above referenced motor applications.

Apparatus for constructing an unbalanced rotor


A pipe structure of an air conditioner, wherein the pipes inside the machinery room are concentrated on one side of the compressor to form long up-down direction so that the pipes inside the machinery room of the air conditioner may be formed in a compact manner, is provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pipe structure of an air conditioner, and more particularly, to a pipe structure of an air conditioner that can reduce vibration from an absorption/discharging pipe of a compressor, and from a plurality of connection pipes, which are neighboring pipes around the compressor, among elements of an outdoor unit. Also, the present invention relates to a pipe structure of an air conditioner that can maintain, in a more compact form, a structure of a machinery room where the compressor is located.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an air conditioner is an apparatus for controlling temperature and/or humidity of a system desired by a user, by circulating, inside the system, a cooling air generated through compression, condensation, expansion, and evaporation of refrigerant.
Such an air conditioner includes an indoor unit positioned in an indoor and an outdoor unit positioned in an outdoor, for emitting undesired heat or a cooling air. In the meantime, to the inside of the outdoor unit, an outdoor heat exchanger for exchanging heat, an outdoor fan for generating forced wind tunnel, and a compressor for forcibly flowing a refrigerant inside a cooling cycle, are generally provided. Since generating a noise during its operation, the compressor is generally positioned in the outdoor unit so that noise environment in the indoor may be improved.
However, recently, as the space of the indoor environment gets narrow, the indoor space gets close to the installation position of the outdoor unit and noise from the outdoor unit is frequently transferred to the indoor space. Under such an environment, an effort to reduce the noise occurring during operation of the outdoor unit is being made. Particularly, in case the outdoor unit and the indoor unit are positioned inside the same apparatus such as a window-type air conditioner, the problem related to the noise is caused more seriously.
In the meantime, the noise from the outdoor unit is roughly divided into a noise occurring during operation of the outdoor fan and a noise occurring during operation of the compressor. The present invention is mainly directed to improve the noise occurring during operation of the compressor. Generally, the noise occurring at the compressor is transferred through a pipe. More specifically, vibration occurring at the compressor is transferred through the absorption and the discharging pipes connected to the compressor and a plurality of connection pipes formed inside the machinery room, and amplified by mutual interference, and changed into big vibration and noise in case vibration reaches resonance.
According to the related art, a plurality of pipes formed in the machinery room where the compressor is located, is generally formed long to reduce vibration from the compressor. Also, in order for the long pipes to be formed inside the machinery room, a plurality of pipes are mutually twisted in a three-dimensional structure. Therefore, it is frequent that the mutually connected pipes are mutually amplified in their vibration and that resonance is generated in the whole pipe due to mutual three-dimensional influence given and taken between them, which have been problematic. If resonance is generated in the pipe, trembling is generated in the whole pipe, which becomes a factor for generating a noise in the whole machinery room.
Also, if the pipes are twisted disorderly, the structure of the machinery room becomes complicated and the space of the machinery room cannot be used efficiently.


An L.E.D. lighting fixture is provided. The lighting fixture comprises at least one heat transfer mounting bar, at least one emitter plate secured to the mounting bar, and an array of L.E.D. lights secured to each emitter plate. A method for providing light is also provided.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to light emitting diode lighting fixtures and, more particularly, the invention relates to light emitting diode lighting fixtures with emergency back-up and scotopic enhancement.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Although receptive field sizes account for some of the differences in visual sensitivity across the retina, the sensitivity at a given retinal location can also vary. The human eye can process information over an enormous range of luminance (about twelve (12) log units). The visual system changes its sensitivity to light; a process called adaptation, so that it may detect the faintest signal on a dark night and yet not be overloaded by the high brightness of a summer beach scene. Adaptation involves four major processes:
1. Changes in Pupil Size. The iris constricts and dilates in response to increased and decreased levels of retinal illumination. Iris constriction has a shorter latency and is faster (about 0.3 s) than dilation (about 1.5 s). There are wide variations in pupil sizes among individuals and for a particular individual at different times. Thus, for a given luminous stimulus, some uncertainty is associated with an individual's pupil size unless it is measured. In general, however, the range in pupil diameter for young people may be considered to be from two (2) mm for high levels to eight (8) mm for low levels of retinal illumination. This change in pupil size in response to retinal illumination can only account for a 1.2 log unit change in sensitivity to light. Older people tend to have smaller pupils under comparable conditions.
2. Neural Adaptation. This is a fast (less than one (1 s) second) change in sensitivity produced by synaptic interactions in the visual system. Neural processes account for virtually all the transitory changes in sensitivity of the eye where cone photopigment bleaching has not yet taken place (discussed below)—in other words, at luminance values commonly encountered in electrically lighted environments, below about 600 cd/m2. Because neural adaptation is so fast and is operative at moderate light levels, the sensitivity of the visual system is typically well adjusted to the interior scene. Only under special circumstances in interiors, such as glancing out a window or directly at a bright light source before looking back at a task, will the capabilities of rapid neural adaptation be exceeded. Under these conditions, and in situations associated with exteriors, neural adaptation will not be completely able to handle the changes in luminance necessary for efficient visual function.
3. Photochemical Adaptation. The retinal receptors (rods and cones) contain pigments which, upon absorbing light energy, change composition and release ions which provide, after processing, an electrical signal to the brain. There are believed to be four photopigments in the human eye, one in the rods, and one each in the three cone types. When light is absorbed, the pigment breaks down into an unstable aldehyde of vitamin A and a protein (opsin) and gives off energy that generates signals that are relayed to the brain and interpreted as light. In the dark, the pigment is regenerated and is again available to receive light. The sensitivity of the eye to light is largely a function of the percentage of unbleached pigment. Under conditions of steady brightness, the concentration of photopigment is in equilibrium; when the brightness is changed, pigment is either bleached or regenerated to reestablish equilibrium. Because the time required to accomplish the photochemical reactions is finite, changes in the sensitivity lag behind the stimulus changes. The cone system adapts much more rapidly than does the rod system; even after exposure to high levels of brightness, the cones will regain nearly complete sensitivity in ten (10 min) minutes–twelve (12 min) minutes, while the rods will require sixty (60 min) minutes (or longer) to fully dark-adapt.
4. Transient Adaptation. Transient adaptation is a phenomenon associated with reduced visibility after viewing a higher or lower luminance than that of the task. If recovery from transient adaptation is fast (less than one (1 s) second), neural processes are causing the change. If recovery is slow (longer than one (1 s) second), some changes in the photopigments have taken place. Transient adaptation is usually insignificant in interiors, but can be a problem in brightly lighted interiors or exteriors where photopigment bleaching has taken place. The reduced visibility after entering a dark movie theater from the outside on a sunny day is an illustration of this latter effect.
Studies suggest that the primary photoreceptor system for melatonin suppression is distinct from the rod and cone photoreceptors for vision. This action spectrum suggests that there is a novel retinaldehyde photopigment that mediates human circadian photoreception.

Light emitting diode (L.E.D.) lighting fixtures with emergency back-up and scotopic enhancement


Dixon methods in magnetic resonance imaging generate MRI images that may contain at least two tissue components such as fat and water. Dixon methods generate images containing both tissue components and predominantly one tissue component. A first segmentation of a first tissue component is generated in a T1 weighted image. The segmentation is correlated with at least a first and a second Dixon image. The image with the highest correlation is assigned the first tissue component.

The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for image classification. In particular, it relates to segmentation and classification of medical MRI images based on fat and/or water content.
MRI systems are known. FIG. 1 shows a diagram of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system 100 enabled to perform the methods that are an aspect of the present invention. The MRI system 100 includes a magnet system 112, a control system 120, a gradient coil driver 130, and an RF coil driver 128. The magnet system 112 includes a magnet 114, a gradient coil 116, and an RF coil 118. The control system 120 includes a sequence control unit 122, a data acquisition unit 126, and a controller 124 that controls the operations of the sequence control unit 22 and the data acquisition unit 126. Control system 120 may be implemented via any type of processing device(s), such as on a single computing device or as multiple computing devices networked together (e.g., over a LAN). The control system 120 may provide output signals to at least one display device 140, which may be a computer screen to display an image that is generated in accordance with one or more aspects of the present invention. A display device may also be an apparatus that generates a film containing an image. The control system 120 may also have an input device 141, which may provide control commands to the controller. A control device may be a keyboard, it may also be a mouse or a track-ball or any other device that can provide commands to the controller. The system may also have a plurality of input devices.
The magnet 114 includes resistance or superconducting coils (not shown) that generate a steady, uniform magnetic field. The uniform magnetic field is generated in a scanning space or region in which the subject to be examined is disposed. For example, if the subject is a person or patient to be examined, the person or portion of the person to be examined is disposed in the scanning region.
The gradient coil 116 generates magnetic field gradients that are used to cause the strength of the static magnetic field produced by the magnet 114 to undergo gradients in the x, y, and z directions or combinations thereof. The gradient coil driver 130 is in communication with the gradient coil 116 and applies a driving signal to the gradient coil 116 for the purpose of generating magnetic field gradients.
The RF coil driver 128 is in communication with the RF coil 118 and transmits a driving signal to the RF coil 118. In response to receiving the driving signal, the RF coil 118 produces RF excitation signals (referred to as "RF pulses"), which are used for generating species (e.g., exciting nuclei) in the region of interest (e.g., an organ) of the subject being imaged within the space of the static magnetic field. The species generate a resonance signal that is detected by the RF coil 118. In some embodiments, a separate coil is used to detect the resonance signal. The data acquisition unit 126, which is in communication with the RF coil 118, acquires the resonance signal (sometimes referred to as an "echo") from the RF coil 118. The resonance signal is defined in a two-dimensional frequency domain or Fourier space, referred to as "k-space". The data acquisition unit 126 samples and digitizes the resonance signal and provides the resulting signal to the controller 124 as digital data for storage and/or further processing.
The controller 124 processes the digital data to obtain an image of the region of interest. The controller 124 may apply a variety of known image processing techniques to construct the image, which may be viewed on a display 140 coupled to the controller 124. The display may be provided, for example, as a monitor or a terminal, such as a CRT or flat panel display. It may also be a device that creates an image on film.
The sequence control unit 122 is connected to each of the gradient coil driver 130, the RF coil driver 128, and the controller 124. The controller 124 has a memory that stores programs having instructions that cause the sequence control unit 116 to direct the delivery of RF pulses and gradient fields from the RF coil 118 and the gradient coil 116 to the region of interest. In response to receiving control signals provided from the sequence control unit 122, the gradient coil driver 130 provides a driving signal to the gradient coil 116, and the RF coil driver 128 provides a driving signal to the RF coil 118. These and other details on an MRI scanner may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,292,039 to Laub et al. issued on Nov. 6, 2007 which is incorporated herein by reference.
It is to be understood that the actual implementation of components of an MRI system may be realized in different embodiments, for instance as demonstrated in the different embodiments that are available in the Siemens MAGNETOM series of MRI systems and that the diagram as provided herein is not intended to be limiting to a single embodiment of an MRI system.
Dixon introduced a new image technique to create MRI images of water only and fat only in "Dixon W. T. Simple proton spectroscopic imaging. Radiology 1984; 153:189-194" which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The technique as disclosed by Dixon is based on periodic variations in the free induction decay signal (FID) in acquiring an image. By applying different echo times one can acquire a "sum of fat and water" image and a "difference of fat and water" image, from which one may determine a fat image and a water image. One may call the original Dixon method a two-point method. The reconstructed images in the two-point method may suffer from errors due to inhomogeneities in the intensity of the magnetic field. Glover et al. in "Glover G H, Schneider E. Three-point Dixon technique for true water/fat decomposition with B0 inhomogeneity correction. Magn Reson Med 1991; 18:371-383" addressed the issue by acquiring three images in what is known as the 3-point Dixon method, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Single-point Dixon methods are also known, for instance as disclosed in "Jong Bum Son et al, Concepts in Magnetic Resonance Part B: Magnetic Resonance Engineering, Volume 33B Issue 3, Pages 152-162 Published Online: 10 Jul. 2008, Wiley Publications, Single-point Dixon water-fat imaging using 64-channel single-echo acquisition MRI." and "A single-point Dixon technique for fat-suppressed fast 3D gradient-echo imaging with a flexible echo time", Jingfei Ma. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, February 2008, which are both incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
These Dixon methods are capable of computing pure fat and pure water images from MR raw data making use of the defined difference in precession times between bound water protons and bound fat protons.
The One-point Dixon method is thus one embodiment of an imaging method. The methods and systems of distinguishing and classifying images as a fat image or a predominantly fat image or as a water image, or a predominantly water image as one or more aspects of the present invention can be applied to different MRI acquisition techniques, such as 1-point, 2-point, 3-point and any multi-point Dixon techniques, as long as a combined fat/water image, and at least one of a separate fat image or a predominantly fat image and a separate water image or predominantly water image are generated.
Although the separation from image data into two different images of mainly separate but connected components x and y such as water and fat by the Dixon methods is known, it is not straightforward to conclude that x is fat and y is water. This is especially the case for automatic recognition of an image as a fat image or as a water image by a machine such as a processor. While it is possible for a human operator to conclude that an image is a fat image, based for instance on a knowledge of a context, it is difficult to make such a conclusion automatically by a machine or by an untrained operator. Common heuristics often fail.
The MR scanning process acquires complex data containing phase and magnitude information. Dixon methods are based on relative phase information based on the assumption of defined phase differences at defined echo times caused by the different precession times between protons bound to fat and protons bound to water. Due to its periodic nature and the superimposition of other effects, phase information is not absolute which makes it difficult to determine automatically by a machine that a generated MRI image is a fat image or a water image.
The Dixon methods are capable of separating components which are connected by neighboring voxels. If there is no connection, then one component might be classified correctly and the other incorrectly. One may, for instance, take an MRI image of a head of a person with his arms next to the head. Because the pixels or voxels in an arm are not connected with the ones of the head in an MRI image, one may correctly assign the labels fat and water in the head image, but incorrectly in the arm image.
Accordingly, novel and improved apparatus and methods are required to classify a Dixon method based image automatically in a robust way into its appropriate class.

Robust classification of fat and water images from 1-point-Dixon reconstructions


Provided is a low-reference-current generator that includes a circuit employing two feedback loops enabling it to operate even at a low voltage, has a high power supply rejection ratio (PSRR) to control power supply noise, and simply forms a voltage without a voltage-to-current converter used in a conventional general reference current generator. The reference current generator includes: a first voltage generator receiving a predetermined current and generating a first voltage that decreases as temperature increases; a second voltage generator generating a second voltage that increases as temperature increases; a first current generator generating a first current corresponding to the first voltage; a second current generator generating a second current corresponding to the second voltage; and a reference current generator receiving the first current and the second current and generating a reference current that is the sum of the first current and the second current.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reference current generator, and more particularly, to a reference current generator that sums up current sources having different temperature characteristics from each other at one node and generates a reference current.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In an integrated circuit (IC), a reference voltage and a reference current are used during an analog operation of an analog-to-digital converter and so forth, and are essential for reducing circuit variation resulting from process variation and helping the circuit to stably operate even within a wide temperature variation range. A typical example of a conventional reference voltage generation method uses a voltage of a diode (or only one junction of a transistor) biased at a uniform current, and a voltage VT of a thermal voltage generator.
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of a conventional reference voltage generator. Referring to FIG. 1, the reference voltage generator comprises a voltage generator 10 including a voltage source that is proportional to temperature and another voltage source that is inversely proportional to temperature, a voltage former 20 forming a uniform voltage level using the voltage generated by the voltage generator 10, and a voltage output 30 connected to the voltage former 20 and outputting a voltage corresponding to the voltage formed by the voltage former 20.
The voltage generator 10 receives a first power supply Vcc and a second power supply Vss, and includes a first line and a second line. The first line includes a first transistor T1, a second transistor T2, a third transistor T3, and a fourth transistor T4 connected in series between the first power supply Vcc and the second power supply Vss, and the second line is connected between the first power supply Vcc and the second power supply Vss like the mirror image of the first line, and includes a fifth transistor T5, a sixth transistor T6, a seventh transistor T7, and an eighth transistor T8 connected in series to one another. The first line is connected to the second power supply Vss through a first bipolar junction transistor Q1, and the second line is connected to the second power supply Vss through a resistor R11 and a second bipolar junction transistor Q2. The first and second bipolar junction transistors Q1 and Q2 are diode-connected. The first, second, fifth, and sixth transistors T1, T2, T5, and T6 are P-channel metal oxide semiconductor (PMOS) transistors, and the third, fourth, seventh, and eighth transistors T3, T4, T7, and T8 are N-channel metal oxide semiconductor (NMOS) transistors.
Gates of the first and second transistors T1 and T2 are connected to gates of the fifth and sixth transistors T5 and T6 respectively in the mirror configuration, and gates of the third and fourth transistors T3 and T4 are connected to gates of the seventh and eighth transistors T7 and T8 respectively in the mirror configuration. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth transistors T3, T4, T5, and T6 are diode-connected.
When the fifth and sixth transistors T5 and T6 are turned on, since the first and second transistors T1 and T2 are connected to the fifth and sixth transistors T5 and T6 in the mirror configuration, the same current that flows through the fifth and sixth transistors T5 and T6 flows through the first and second transistors T1 and T2. When the first and second transistors T1 and T2 are turned on, the third and fourth transistors T3 and T4 are turned on so that the same current that flows through the third and fourth transistors T3 and T4 flows through the seventh and eighth transistors T7 and T8. Therefore, a first current I1 and a second current I2 of equal magnitude flow through the first line and the second line, respectively, due to mutual current mirror operation.
Here, when the first current I1 flows through the first bipolar transistor Q1 to the second power supply Vss, a temperature around the first bipolar transistor Q1 goes up so that a voltage corresponding to the first current I1 decreases due to semiconductor characteristics of the first bipolar transistor Q1.
When the second current I2 flows through the first resistor R11 and the second bipolar transistor Q2 to the second power supply Vss, a predetermined voltage drop occurs across the first resistor R11.
The voltage drop across the first resistor R11 is described below. Since voltage levels of sources of the fourth and eighth transistors T4 and T8 are the same, voltages applied to the first and second bipolar junction transistors Q1 and Q2 and the first resistor R11 are as shown in Formula 1 according to Kirchhoff's voltage law:Vq1−Vq2−VR11=0  Formula1
Here, Vq1 denotes a voltage across the first bipolar junction transistor Q1, Vq2 denotes a voltage across the second bipolar junction transistor Q2, and VR11 denotes a voltage across the first resistor R11.
Since the bipolar junction transistors are diode-connected, voltages formed at the bipolar junction transistors are as shown in Formula 2:Vq=VT ln(Id/Is)  Formula2
Here, Is denotes a saturated current as a constant, and Id denotes a current flowing through the bipolar junction transistors.
When Formula 2 is inserted into Formula 1, the voltage across the first resistor R11 is given by Formula 3:VR11=VT ln(N)  Formula3
Here, VR11 denotes the voltage of the first resistor R11, and VT denotes a thermal voltage (kT/q), which is proportional to temperature and is about 25.6 mV at normal temperature. N denotes a size ratio of the first and second bipolar junction transistors Q1 and Q2.
Referring to Formula 3, the size ratio of the first and second bipolar junction transistors Q1 and Q2 is adjusted by the voltage applied to the first resistor R11 so that the voltage across the first resistor R11 generated by the second current I2 can be adjusted. However, the voltage of the first resistor R11 is proportional to temperature as shown in Formula 3.
The voltage former 20 includes a third line that is supplied with power from the first power supply Vcc and the second power supply Vss, and has a ninth transistor T9 and a tenth transistor T10 connected in series to each other. In the third line, a third bipolar junction transistor Q3 and a second resistor R12 are connected between the tenth transistor T10 and the second power supply Vss. The third bipolar junction transistor Q3 is diode-connected. Also, a first node N1 that is connected to the voltage output 30 is formed between the tenth transistor T10 and the diode-connected third bipolar junction transistor Q3.
The ninth and tenth transistors T9 and T10 are PMOS transistors. Gates of the ninth and tenth transistors T9 and T10 are connected to the gates of the fifth and sixth transistors T5 and T6 respectively in the mirror configuration so that a third current I3 of the same magnitude as the current flowing through the fifth and sixth transistors T5 and T6 flows through the ninth and tenth transistors T9 and T11.
Here, the third current I3 flows through the second resistor R12 and the diode-connected third bipolar junction transistor Q3 to the second power supply Vss, the second resistor R12 mirrors the voltage of the first resistor R11 in the second line, and the third bipolar junction transistor Q3 closely mirrors the voltage applied to the first bipolar junction transistor Q1 in the first line.
Therefore, the resulting voltage across the second resistor R12 is increased by the surrounding temperature as shown in Formula 1, and the voltage across the third bipolar junction transistor Q3 is decreased by the surrounding temperature like the first bipolar junction transistor Q1. When the voltage decrease and increase perfectly offset each other, voltage variation according to temperature can be reduced.
The method described above is considered to be an effective method of reducing deviation of reference voltage and reference current in response to variation of temperature and process in an IC, and thus widely used. When deviation according to temperature characteristics of general PN junction and temperature of VT are designed to offset one another, a reference voltage of the method has a value of about 1.26 V corresponding to the bandgap of silicon, and thus called a bandgap reference voltage.
In an IC device, a metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) device has been continuously scaled down in order to improve operating speed, and thus a gate length of the MOSFET device reached 130 μm. Therefore, characteristics of the device are considerably improved, and a power supply voltage has been reduced to 1.2 V so that power consumption can be largely reduced. However, the power supply voltage of 1.2 V is lower than a conventional general reference voltage of 1.26 V. In addition, considering a margin of an operating point of a transistor to output a reference voltage, it is generally essential that the reference power supply voltage decreases to 1.0 V or below. However, with a conventional bandgap reference voltage generator, it is hard to reduce the reference voltage as described above.
In addition, reduction of operating voltage due to scaling of devices causes a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a signal to decrease. This is because noise does not largely decrease compared to an actual signal interval, but rather increases due to a high operating speed and so forth. Due to this effect, a louder noise source exists in a power supply line that supplies power to a circuit, and in result, output noise of the reference voltage generator also increases.

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


A lamp socket (10) has first and second cylindrical body halves (12, 14) respectively. The first body (12) half has a first outer surface (16) and a first inner mating surface (18), the first inner mating surface (18) including a first depression (19). An insulating sheet (20) is positioned adjacent the inner mating surface (18). A plug (22) is fitted into the first depression (19) and includes a flange (24) that overlies the insulating sheet (20) and maintains the insulating sheet (20) in contact with the first inner mating surface (18). The second body half (14) has a second outer surface (26) and a second inner mating surface (28) and includes a second depression (30). The second body half (14) overlies the first body half (12) with the mating surfaces (18, 28) adjacent one another with the insulating sheet (20) held therebetween. The second depression (30) encompasses the flange (24). A dual function retainer (32) holds the various pieces together and comprises a tubular member (34) extending from the first body half outer surface (16) though the plug (22), the tubular member (34) being deformed at its inner terminus (36) to thereby maintain the plug (22) in position in the depression (19); and a threaded member (37) extends through the tubular member (34) and through an aperture (38) in the second body half (14). Means (40) on the threaded member (37) retain the first and second body halves (12, 14), together. In an alternate embodiment, the tubular member (34) is threaded, thus eliminating the need for a washer and nut.

U.S. pending patent application Ser. No. 11/583,471, filed Oct. 19, 2006, the teachings of which are hereby incorporated by reference, relates to a lamp socket that will accept lamps from either a front or rear loading position. The lamp socket described in the above-cited patent application works extremely well with lamps operated at 10 KV. However, it would be an advance in the art if sockets that will accept hot-restart lamps that operate at voltages up to 30 KV could be provided. Such sockets require superb electrical insulation to prevent the formation of arc paths that could lead to other parts of the socket or to the final fixture.


An automatic camera lens module retracting/extending apparatus for mobile communication terminals converts rotating movement of a driving motor into rectilinear movement to automatically retract/extend a camera lens module into/from a mobile communication terminal including a lens housing extending a predetermined length in the longitudinal direction thereof, and a lens cam assembly to accommodate the lens housing therein, the lens cam assembly converting rotating movement of a driving motor into rectilinear movement to automatically retract/extend the lens housing into/from the lens cam assembly in the longitudinal direction of the lens housing. The lens housing is automatically rotated about a rotating axis of the lens housing by means of the lens cam assembly when the lens housing extends from the lens cam assembly.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic camera lens module retracting/extending apparatus for mobile communication terminals, and more particularly to an automatic camera lens module retracting/extending apparatus for mobile communication terminals that automatically retracts/extends a camera lens module into/from a mobile communication terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, the phrase "portable communication devices" means electronic devices that are portable and enable owners of the devices to communicate through wireless communication. Such portable communication devices have become increasingly small, slim, and lightweight, whereby portability thereof is improved. Furthermore, such portable communication devices are capable of multimedia transmission, whereby the devices have various additional functions. Future portable communication devices will be even more miniaturized, lightweight, multipurpose devices with various functions, which will be easily adapted to various multimedia and Internet environments. The portable communication devices are electronic devices commonly used by people of all ages and both sexes all over the world, and are considered a necessity of life.
On the basis of their forms, the portable communication devices may be classified into several types of communication devices. For example, the portable communication devices may be classified into a bar-type communication device, a flip-type communication device, and a folder-type communication device. The bar-type communication device includes a bar-type single housing, the flip-type communication device includes a bar-type housing and a flip part pivotably attached to the housing, and the folder-type communication device includes a bar-type housing and a folder part pivotably attached to the housing.
On the basis of how they are opened or closed, the portable communication devices may be further classified into a rotating-type communication device and a sliding-type communication device. The rotating-type communication device is characterized in that two housings are rotatably connected to each other while the housings are continuously opposite to each other. The rotating-type communication device is opened or closed by the rotation of the two housings in such a manner that the housings are rotated apart from or towards each other. On the other hand, the sliding-type communication device is characterized in that two housings slide in the longitudinal direction. The sliding-type communication device is opened or closed by sliding movement of the two housings in such a manner that the housings are slid apart from or towards each other. The above-mentioned various types of communication devices will be easily appreciated by a person of ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains.
An increasing trend provides a camera lens module in each portable communication device to transmit image signals. The camera lens module is mounted outside or inside a main body of the portable communication device so that a user of the device can talk with another user of a similar device while looking at each other, or take pictures of his/her desired subjects.
However, the camera lens module provided in the conventional portable communication device is typically not properly protected from the environment which may result in the introduction of foreign matter into a camera lens.
Specifically, the camera lens module is constantly exposed to the environment, and therefore the camera lens module is easily contaminated or damaged without using an additional protecting unit.
In order to overcome the above-mentioned problem, a camera lens module retracting/extending apparatus has been adopted in a mobile communication terminal, which is capable of retracting/extending the camera lens module into/from the mobile communication terminal in a one-touch manner. In this conventional camera lens module retracting/extending apparatus, however, the camera lens module is provided with resilient means, making it necessary for the user to manually push the camera lens module, sometimes several times, in one direction. Consequently, the conventional camera lens module retracting/extending apparatus is not convenient to use. Furthermore, the resilient force of the resilient means decreases over time as the resilient means is repetitively pushed resulting in improper function of the retracting/extending operation of the camera lens module.

Automatic camera lens module retracting/extending apparatus for mobile communication terminals


In a financial institution accounting system, a system for, and method of, determining an optimal sweep threshold parameter for a demand deposit account ("DDA"), the DDA having a sub-DDA contra-account and a sub-money market account ("sub-MMA") associated therewith. The system includes: (1) an initialization routine that sets a trial sweep threshold parameter equal to a value that is a function of an activity of the DDA during a historical period of time and (2) a trial sweep routine that performs a trial sweep process on the DDA during the period of time, a timing of sweeps from the sub-MMA to the sub-DDA occurring during the trial sweep process being a function of the trial sweep threshold parameter, the sweep routine repeated with a modified trial sweep threshold parameter until modification of the trial sweep threshold parameter fails to produce an increase in an average balance of the sub-MMA for the predetermined period of time, the trial sweep threshold parameter thereby determined to be an optimal sweep threshold parameter for the DDA.

Commercial banks are required by regulation to produce periodic "call" reports which summarize a bank's Demand Deposit Account (DDA), e.g., checking account, liabilities and reserve balances over a seven day period. Based on these reports, banks must set aside a tiered percentage of DDA balances and hold the funds in "reserve" at the Federal Reserve Bank. The requirement that certain funds be held in reserve, however, limits the amount of bank resources available for investment purposes, such as making loans.
With the advent of recent changes in Federal Reserve regulations, financial institutions are now permitted to "restructure" certain DDAs as "non-transaction" accounts. The restructuring is accomplished by the creation of what are commonly referred to as "sub" accounts on the liability side of the bank's general ledger system that effectively lower the balances subject to the reserve requirement. The primary advantage of lower reserves is that it frees up a percentage of these funds to be used by the commercial bank for additional lending and other revenue-generating activities.
The accounts into which money is "moved" from the DDA may be referred to as the "sub-DDA" and the "sub-MMA" (Money Market Accounts), the sum of the sub-DDA and sub-MMA balances equaling the DDA balance. The average balance maintained in a sub-MMA represents the average amount of funds not subject to reserve requirements, a portion of which are available to the bank for investment purposes. By retaining a "threshold" balance in the sub-DDA, any excess funds over the threshold amount can be moved into the sub-MMA, thereby effectively lowering the balance on which the reserve requirement is calculated. This technique of accounting presents no impact to the bank customer, however, because the DDA ledger balance is not altered in any fashion.
Because sufficient funds must always be maintained in the sub-DDA to satisfy customer demands, a determination of the proper threshold for a DDA requires an analysis of the history of account activity. If the sub-DDA balance becomes less than or equal to zero, then sufficient funds should be "swept" (i.e., moved) from the sub-MMA to the sub-DDA as necessary to bring the sub-DDA balance up to the original threshold.
Current regulations limit the maximum number of sweeps to six per month. Once six sweeps are incurred, the customer account can only show funds in the sub-DDA account and the sub-MMA is effectively cleared to zero; i.e., if a sixth sweep is required, all funds in the sub-MMA must be swept into the sub-DDA to avoid exceeding the sweep limit, regardless of the threshold selected. The sweep counter is reset to zero at the beginning of each calendar month and a new sweep threshold, based on the prior month's account activity, is recalculated, with excess funds (i.e., funds exceeding the sweep threshold) in the sub-DDA being moved into the sub-MMA account. Optimizing the sweep threshold for each DDA allows a bank to maximize the average sub-MMA balance, thus minimizing the funds in the sub-DDA that are subject to reserve requirements and enhancing a bank's investment opportunity.
The difficulty for any commercial bank in optimizing the sweep threshold for each DDA is in determining the precise sweep threshold that should be set, either for the bank at large, the sub-product (account type) level, or the account level. Setting a generic threshold dollar amount for the bank, or accounts within a particular sub-product group, may not adequately reflect the debit activity affecting an individual account and may thus not be the optimal threshold for all accounts. For example, if the predetermined sweep threshold is too low, then a DDA may reach the maximum of six sweeps too early in the month; any future deposits that occur later in that month could not be moved into the sub-MMA. This presents an opportunity loss for the bank as the customer account has already reached the maximum number of sweeps allowed by regulation much too early within the calendar month. Similarly, if the threshold is set too high, then few, if any, sweeps will occur. This means that there are excess funds in the sub-DDA that could have been, but were not, moved into the sub-MMA. This situation also presents an opportunity loss for the bank as it must continue to maintain reserves on the sub-DDA portion of the account.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is a system and method for determining optimal sweep threshold parameters for DDAs.

System and method for determining optimal sweep threshold parameters for demand deposit accounts


A method for operating an engine of a vehicle, in which after an execution of an automated gear change of a transmission of the vehicle, an acceleration force for accelerating the vehicle is requested when a force value representing a present drive force of the engine is in a tolerance band around a reference value determined before the gear change and a request signal for the acceleration force exists.

During a gear change, a transmission having transmission steps may not transmit torque. In particular in the case of a change between a forward gear and a reverse gear, a noticeable pause may result, in which the vehicle may not start moving.
If a force or a torque, respectively, is requested during this pause, a jerky acceleration may result after the gear change, since a decoupled engine without load may rev up and abruptly decelerated as soon as the gear change is completed and the engine is engaged again. In the reverse case, the engine may not provide the requested torque during the gear change and stalls as soon as the gear change is completed. To prevent both scenarios in particular in the case of automated driving, a force or torque, respectively, may not be requested for a waiting time, that is longer than the gear change, to load the engine out of a secure stable situation.

Method and control unit for operating an engine of a vehicle


An internal power supply circuit includes a first output MOS transistor for transmitting a first reference voltage in a source follower mode, an internal reference voltage generating circuit for generating a second reference voltage from the output voltage of the first MOS transistor, and an output MOS transistor coupled between a power supply node and an output node and operating in the source follower mode in accordance with the second internal reference voltage. Internal reference voltage generating circuit has a function of canceling an influence of the threshold voltages of output MOS transistor and the first MOS transistor on the internal voltage VINT on the output node. Since comparing circuit for comparing the internal voltage and the reference voltage is not used, current consumption necessary for the comparing operation can be reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit for generating a voltage of a prescribed level in a semiconductor device. More specifically, it relates a structure of an internal power supply circuit generating an internal power supply voltage by lowering an external power supply voltage, and especially to a structure of an internal power supply circuit with low power consumption.
2. Description of the Background Art
In a semiconductor integrated circuit, a voltage source is required in some cases which supplies a voltage of a prescribed voltage level not dependent on an external power supply voltage. One of such cases is as follows. In order to achieve higher density and higher degree of integration, semiconductor elements which are the components are miniaturized. The miniaturized semiconductor element has its break down voltage decreased, and therefore power supply voltage (operational power supply voltage) of a semiconductor integrated circuit including such miniaturized semiconductor elements as its components must be lowered. However, it is impossible in a certain case to lower an external power supply voltage in practice. For example, in a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) having large storage capacity, the power supply voltage (operational power supply voltage) is lowered in view of break down voltage of the elements, speed of operation and power consumption. However, a microprocessor and a logic LSI (Large Scale Integrate Circuit), which are external devices, have their components not so much miniaturized as compared with DRAM, and hence the power supply voltage for these devices cannot be made as low as the power supply voltage of the DRAM. Therefore, when a system is to be constructed by using the DRAM, a microprocessor and the like, a power supply voltage of a higher voltage level required by the microprocessor and a logic LSI is used as the system power supply source.
When the system power supply source, that is, the external power supply voltage is relatively high, a circuit (an internal voltage down converter) for generating an internal power supply voltage by internally lowering the external power supply voltage is provided in a semiconductor device such as the DRAM or the like which requires lower operational power supply voltage.
FIG. 20 schematically shows a whole structure of a semiconductor device, which is, for example, a DRAM including such an internal voltage down converter. Referring to FIG. 20, a semiconductor device 900 includes an external power supply line 902 for transmitting an external power supply voltage EXV applied to a power supply terminal 901; one power supply line (hereinafter referred as ground line) 904 for transmitting one power supply voltage (hereinafter referred to as the ground voltage) Vss applied to one power supply terminal (hereinafter referred to as the ground terminal 903; and internal voltage down converter 905 which operates using both voltages EXV and Vss on external power supply line 902 and the ground line 904 as two operation power supply voltages, lowering (down-converting)the external power supply voltage EXV for generating an internal power supply voltage VCI. The structure of the internal voltage down converter 905 will be described later. The internal voltage down converter 905 has a function of generating an internal power supply voltage VCI which is, with the external power supply voltage EXV being within a prescribed range, stable and not influenced by the fluctuation of the external power supply voltage.
The semiconductor device 900 further includes a circuit 907 using internal power supply, which operates using voltages VCI and Vss on internal supply line 906 and ground line 904 as two operational power supply voltages, and a circuit 908 using external power supply which operates using the external power supply voltage EXV on eternal power supply line 902 and the ground voltage Vss on the ground line 904 as two operational power supply voltages. The circuit 908 using the external power supply is connected to an input/output terminal 909 and has a function of providing an interface with an external device. As an internal power supply voltage VCI of a prescribed voltage level is generated by using internal voltage down converter 905 in semiconductor device 900, breakdown voltage characteristics of the elements included in the circuit 907 using internal power supply, which are the main components, can be ensured, the speed of operation can be improved as the signal amplitude is made small, and power consumption is reduced.
FIG. 21 schematically shows a structure of internal voltage down converter 95 shown in FIG. 20. Referring to FIG. 21, internal voltage down converter 905 includes a reference voltage generating circuit 910 for generating a reference voltage vref of a prescribed voltage level from the external power supply voltage EXV applied to external power supply terminal 901; a comparing circuit 912 for comparing internal power supply voltage VCI on internal power supply line 906 with the reference voltage Vref; and a drive element 914 consisting of a p channel MOS transistor (insulated gate type field effect transistor) 914 for supplying current from external power supply terminal 901 to internal power supply line 906 in accordance with an output signal from comparing circuit 912. Comparing circuit 912 receives at its positive input the internal power supply voltage VCI on internal power supply 906, and at its negative input, the reference voltage Vref. Generally, comparing circuit 912 is formed by a differential amplifying circuit, and it differentially amplifies the internal power supply voltage VCI and the reference voltage Vref. The operation will be briefly described.
From the reference voltage generating circuit 910, a reference voltage Vref of a prescribed voltage level, which is not dependent on the external power supply voltage EXV if the voltage EXV falls within a predetermined voltage region is generated. If the internal power supply voltage VCI on internal power supply line 906 is higher than the reference voltage Vref, an output from comparing circuit 12 attains to a high level, and drive element 914 is turned off. In this state, current is not supplied from external power supply terminal 901 to internal power supply line 906. Meanwhile, if internal power supply voltage VCI is lower than the reference voltage Vref, the output signal from comparing circuit 912 attains to a low level in accordance with the difference between the internal power supply voltage VCI and reference voltage Vref, conductance of drive element 914 is increased (turned on), the drive element 914 supplies current from external power supply terminal 901 to internal power supply line 906, so that the voltage level of internal power supply voltage line 906 is increased. By the feedback loop formed by comparing circuit 912, drive element 914 and internal power supply line 906, internal power supply voltage VCI is maintained at the voltage level of reference voltage Vref.
FIG. 22 shows an example of a specific structure of comparing circuit 912 shown in FIG. 21. Referring to FIG. 22, comparing circuit 912 includes n channel MOS transistors NT1 and NT2 constituting a differential stage for comparing internal power supply voltage VCI with the reference voltage Vref, and p channel MOS transistors PT3 and PT4 constituting a current mirror circuit for supplying current to transistors NT1 and NT2. MOS transistor PT3 supplies current from external power supply line 902 to MOS transistor NT1. MOS transistor PT4 supplies current from external power supply line 902 to MOS transistor NT2. MOS transistors NT1 and NT2 have their sources connected to the ground line 904 through a current source CT5. MOS transistor PT3 has its gate and drain connected to each other, and provides a master stage of the current mirror circuit. When MOS transistors PT3 and PT4 have the same size, a current having the same magnitude as the current flowing through MOS transistor PT3 flows through MOS transistor PT4.
The operation will be briefly described. When internal power supply voltage VCI is higher than reference voltage Vref, conductance of MOS transistor NT1 becomes higher than that of MOS transistor NT2, and current flowing through MOS transistor NT1 becomes larger than the current flowing through MOS transistor NT2. MOS transistor NT1 is supplied with current from MOS transistor PT3. MOS transistor PT4 supplies a mirror current of the current flowing through MOS transistor PT3 to MOS transistor NT2. MOS transistor NT2 cannot discharge all the current supplied from MOS transistor PT4, so that potential at node 920 increases, conductance of drive element 914 shown in FIG. 21 decreases, and current supply from external power supply terminal 901 to internal power supply line 906 is reduced or stopped.
Meanwhile, if the internal power supply voltage VCI is lower than the reference voltage Vref, conversely the current flowing through MOS transistor NT2 becomes larger than the current flowing through MOS transistor NT1. Since MOS transistor PT3 supplies the current flowing through MOS transistor NT1, the current flowing through MOS transistor PT4 becomes smaller accordingly, and the current from MOS transistor PT4 is all discharged to the ground line 904 through MOS transistor NT2 and current source CT5. Therefore, potential at node 920 lowers, conductance of drive element 914 is increased, and current is supplied from external power supply terminal 901 to internal power supply line 906.
When comparing circuit 912 is formed by using above described current mirror type differential amplifier, a constant current flows through a constant current source CT5 between external power supply line 902 and ground line 904. By shutting off the constant current source CT5 in a stand-by cycle, it is possible to reduce current consumption in comparing circuit 912. However, in an active cycle in which the semiconductor device actually operates, a constant current continuously flows from external power supply line 902 to ground line 912, and as the current mirror type differential amplifier is a current driving circuit requiring relatively large current flowing therethrough (in order to change the potential at node 920 at high speed), the constant current source CT5 must provide relatively large current. This results in relatively large current consumption.
The above described problem arises in a circuit generating an internal voltage of a prescribed voltage level by driving a drive element by using a current mirror type differential amplifying circuit.

Internal power supply circuit with low power consumption


A stable, aqueous barrier coating composition includes: (a) prolamine; (b) cold water insoluble polymer; (c) water; (d) water-soluble co-solvent; and (e) stabilizer. The composition, when applied to a substrate, produces an article having a high surface energy and resistance to oil and grease penetration. A method of producing the article involves applying the composition to a substrate.

Industry has utilized compounds based on fluorocarbon chemistry for many years to produce articles having improved resistance to penetration by oil and grease, due to the ability of fluorocarbons to lower the surface energy of the articles. One emerging issue with the use of perfluorinated hydrocarbons is that they are remarkably persistent in the environment. The EPA and FDA have recently begun a review of the source, environmental fate, and toxicity of these compounds. A recent study reported a very high (>90%) rate of occurrence of perfluorooctane sulfonate in blood samples taken from school children. The expense and potential environmental liability of these compounds has driven manufacturers to seek alternative means of producing articles having resistance to penetration by oil and grease.
While lowering the surface energy improves the penetration resistance of the articles, lowering the surface energy also has some disadvantages. For example, a textile fabric treated with a fluorocarbon will exhibit good stain resistance; however, once soiled, the ability of cleaning compositions to penetrate and hence release the soil from the fabric, which may result in permanently soiled fabrics of reduced useful life. Another example is a greaseproof paper which is to be subsequently printed and or coated with an adhesive. In this case the requisite grease resistance is attained by treatment with the fluorocarbon, but the low surface energy of the paper may cause problems related to printing ink or adhesive receptivity, including blocking, back trap mottle, poor adhesion, and register. If a greaseproof paper is to be used as a release paper having an adhesive applied, the low surface energy may reduce the strength of the adhesion. To improve their printability, coatability or adhesion, the low surface energy articles can be treated by a post forming processes such as corona discharge, chemical treatment, flame treatment, or the like. However, these processes increase the cost of producing the articles and may have other disadvantages.
Prolamines are proteinaceous compounds present as the storage proteins of cereal grains. For example, zein is a prolamine found in corn gluten meal, a by-product of corn milling. Since the primary use for corn gluten meal is animal feed, which typically sells for a low price, there has been a great deal of interest in the development of value added products from zein. Unfortunately, the suitable applications for zein have been limited due to its lack of solubility in water.

Barrier compositions and articles produced with the compositions

University of Maine System Board of Trustees


A method of transforming and sending data, comprising: receiving an image with an associated mask; transforming the received image; quantizing the transformed image; encoding the quantized image and associated mask; and transmitting the encoded image and mask; wherein transforming the received image comprises transforming the dimension subset by repeating steps of: preparing an input vector; determining a filter type; determining a first intermediate vector; determining a second intermediate vector; computing a transform vector from the sum of the first intermediate vector and the second intermediate vector; and computing an output value from the input vector and the computed transform vector.

Efficient transmission of a composite digital image may be accomplished by decomposing the image into different layers with different characteristics and then encoding each layer using a different method. As one example, an image may be separated into text and background layers that are then independently transformed and encoded.
One method of decomposing an image involves masking out the unwanted elements associated with a layer using a binary mask and transforming the remaining elements so that the masked elements do not need to be transmitted. Both the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) have been adapted to support the transformation of arbitrarily-shaped images covered by a binary mask. However, the DWT generally result in higher image quality once an image has been decoded.
When wavelets are located entirely under a mask, coefficients resulting from a DWT transform may be set to zero or skipped during the coding process and the image may still be fully recovered at a remote system. In this case, the shape-adaptive DWT (SA-DWT) method enables the transform of an arbitrarily-shaped contiguous region that preserves self-similarity across sub-bands and the number of pixels in the original shape.
However in many image types, especially images comprising text, the image area is only partially masked. This includes image areas associated with the smallest scale wavelet. In these situations, partially masked wavelet coefficients cannot simply be cancelled or skipped as this will affect the unmasked pixel values in the recovered image. Rather, the input image or transformed coefficients are adjusted to compensate for the masked pixels.
One approach involves filling masked areas of the image with hallucinated data such as the average value of adjacent pixels. However, hallucination methods increase the image size by adding more data. They also introduce discontinuities at the mask boundaries that blurs the output image.
Another method involves adjusting the masked coefficients by calculating a code efficient interpolation of visible pixels using methods such as Projection Onto Convex Sets (POCS). POCS generates a set of transform solutions and a sequence of data comparisons to determine the optimum transform. This method involves high computational effort. For example, the Déjà vu system was documented to takes 15 seconds on an SGI workstation. This high computation effort is inappropriate for real time image processing applications such as compression of image frames comprising rapidly-changing content.
Another approach is mask-dependent lifting. In this method, the availability of pixels for an input image as limited by the mask is evaluated. An appropriate polynomial wavelet function is then derived on a case-by-case basis and a linear combination of available unmasked neighboring pixels for both prediction and update steps of the lifting process is generated. When the lifting method is used for masked sets, the update coefficients are derived from modified predicted coefficients. A problem with this approach is that modified update values are used for each subsequent pass of the wavelet transform that increases the uncertainty in the low frequency components as the transform progresses.
In summary, existing methods for transforming partially masked images are not optimized to address requirements necessary for efficient transformation of high-accuracy real-time images.

Pixel selective wavelet transform methods


The disclosed embodiments provide a system that drives a display from a computer system. The system includes a first hardware path for controlling a backlight of a display of the computer system. The system also includes a second hardware path for controlling the backlight. Finally, the system includes a backlight controller that enables use of the first and second hardware paths in controlling the backlight from the computer system.

1. Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to techniques for driving displays from computer systems. More specifically, the disclosed embodiments relate to techniques for providing multiple hardware paths for controlling a backlight of a display in a computer system.
2. Related Art
Interactions between a user and a computer system may be facilitated by a display of the computer system. For example, a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel of a laptop computer may allow the user of the laptop computer to view graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for an operating system and/or one or more applications executing on the laptop computer. One or more attributes of the display may also be dynamically adjusted and/or configured during use of the computer system. For example, the operating system may adjust the brightness of the display by transmitting commands that modify the duty cycle and/or frequency associated with pulse-width modulation (PWM) of power to the display's backlight.
On the other hand, native support for backlight control in the computer system may not be compatible with all operating systems on the computer system. For example, the computer system may be a multi-boot computer system with hardware that supports backlight control through a graphics-processing unit (GPU) of the computer system. As a result, a first operating system that is compatible with the hardware may issue backlight control commands to the GPU, while a second operating system that uses Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) for backlight control may be unable to interface with the GPU to control the backlight.
In addition, conventional mechanisms for enabling backlight control for operating systems that are not natively supported by backlight control hardware may be intrusive and/or associated with significant overhead. Continuing with the above example, an ACPI command for backlight control from the second operating system may be trapped before the command is translated into a GPU-compatible command that is then is transmitted to the GPU. Such trapping of the command may cause the operating system to freeze, resulting in noticeable performance degradation during processing of long sequences of backlight control commands from the operating system and/or the delayed processing of some backlight control commands from the sequences.
Hence, what is needed is a mechanism for reducing overhead associated with providing backlight control to operating systems that are unable to use natively supported backlight control mechanisms in computer systems.

Multiple hardware paths for backlight control in computer systems


An inductor includes a body including a coil and an encapsulant and an external electrode on an outer surface of the body. The encapsulant includes a first core surrounding the coil and a second core surrounding the first core. The first core includes a magnetic powder having high current characteristics, and the second core includes a magnetic powder having high capacity characteristics.

A power inductor is an important passive device in electronic circuits, together with a resistor and a capacitor. Such a power inductor is used for components eliminating noise or making LC resonance circuits, or the like. The power inductor is mounted on an AP, a CP, a charger of a smartphone or a wearable device, and a PMIC of a display, or the like, and may serve as a power supply.
The conventional power inductor forms a body made of a magnetic body of a single composition, and allows a magnetic flux to flow around a coil to perform the power supply function. DC-bias, one characteristic of an inductor, has to be at least 2 A or more for a recently issued product to be slim, lightweight and compact, as well to have multifunctionality and a multi input multi output (MIMO) communications for a smartphone, and accordingly, to high inductance may be required to be implemented, even at high current. Thus, demand for inductors having excellent bias characteristics increases while maintaining a constant inductance value according to high current of a product.


Embodiments of the present disclosure provide method, device and computer readable medium for beam failure recovery. In example embodiments, a method implemented at a terminal device is provided. The method comprises determining a configuration for receiving Physical Downlink Control Channels (PDCCHs) from a network device, the network device communicating with the terminal device via first and second Transmission and Reception Points (TRPs), wherein the configuration indicates which one of the first and second TRPs are the PDCCHs to be received from. The method further comprises determining whether a beam failure occurs in at least one of the first and second TRPs. In addition, the method further comprises, in response to determining that a beam failure occurs in at least one of the first and second TRPs, performing beam failure recovery (BFR) for the first and second TRPs at least based on the configuration.

Due to increased free space path loss in higher frequency band supported in new radio access (NR), channel/signal transmission relies on highly directional links. In other words, directional beam based communication is needed rather than the omni-directional communication in traditional communication systems. Directional links, however, require fine alignment of the transmitter and receiver beams, achieved through a set of operations knowns as beam management. For example, the beam management may generally include operations like beam sweeping, beam measurement, beam determination and beam reporting. These operations can be periodically repeated to update the optimal transmitter and receiver beam pair over time.
A beam failure may occur when the quality of beam pair(s) of an associated control channel falls low enough (for example, comparison with a threshold or time-out of an associated timer). A mechanism to recover from a beam failure may be triggered when the beam failure occurs. The beam failure recovery mechanism on terminal device (such as, user equipment (UE)) side usually includes the following operations: beam failure detection, identification of a new candidate beam, transmission of a beam failure recovery request and monitoring a response for the beam failure recovery request from a network device. For example, the terminal device may monitor a beam failure detection reference signal (RS) to assess if a beam failure occurs. Once the beam failure occurs, the terminal device may monitor beam identification RSs to find a new candidate beam. Once the candidate beam is identified, the terminal device may send a beam failure recovery request carrying information on the identified candidate beam to the network device. The terminal device may monitor a control channel search space to detect a response for the beam failure recovery request from the network device. Once the terminal device receives the beam recovery acknowledgement from the network device, the new beam pair can be considered to be established and the beam failure can be considered to be recovered.
In NR, a network device (such as, a next generation NodeB (gNB)) may be equipped with multiple Transmission and Reception Points (TRPs) or antenna panels. However, in current 3GPP specifications, the beam failure recovery procedure is only adapted to single TRP/panel transmission. For multi-TRP/panel transmission, the traditional beam failure recovery procedure may be not suitable.


A solid state microprocessor or digital signal processor (DSP) for dual mode illumination and dimming into modern aerospace searchlights. The system is a universal dimming platform with “smart functions” that include and are not limited to multiple light intensity linearization curves, analog and/or digital input dimming interface, built-in tests and health monitoring, synchronized dual mode light output with canopy position, light driver redundancy, lamp life reporting, and controlled switching with improved EMI. With real-time monitoring of the system parameters it monitors the lights proper operation and failures which can be a concern for flight-critical lighting.

Aerospace searchlights that are based on mechanical switches or relays have limited or no built-in capabilities for visible (VIS) or infrared (IR) light dimming. In such searchlights the added dimming functionality in most cases will require two external dimmers; one for the VIS and the other for the IR. Because light dimming requires added electronic components within a limited space, and because of the added challenges in thermal management and electromagnetic interference (EMI), recent solid state based dual mode searchlights controllers are limited to motor actuation control and light source enabling or disabling without dimming. Older searchlight technologies do not support programmable dual mode universal light controls, interface to the canopy position, or integration to aircraft management systems.

Dual mode searchlight dimming controller systems and methods


A tillage implement includes an implement frame having a first lengthwise frame member, a second lengthwise frame member, and a lateral frame member connected to and extending between the first and second lengthwise frame members. A hitch assembly is rotatably connected to the implement frame. A wheel assembly is connected to the implement frame and moveable between a raised position and a lowered position. A rockshaft is rotatably connected to the implement frame and connected to the wheel assembly. A leveling assembly is connected to the implement frame, the rockshaft, and the hitch assembly. The leveling assembly is configured to adjust the position of the hitch assembly based on movement of the rockshaft. The leveling assembly includes an actuator connected to and aligned with a leveling link.

Agricultural implements and machines, such as various plows, tillers, rippers, seeders, nutrient applicators, etc., are used to work soil of crop fields. Tillage and other agricultural implements can perform a variety of tasks, such as breaking up tough ground, injecting nutrients into the ground, and leveling the ground. Such implements are commonly towed behind work vehicles, such as tractors, and can be outfitted with a variety of ground-engaging tools, such as shanks, disks, harrowing tools and finishing tools, depending on the ground preparation operation being carried out.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Frame and leveling assembly for agricultural implement