A control signal training system in an integrated circuit comprises a signal transmitting unit, the signal transmitting unit outputting control signals and sampling clock signals, the control signals and the sampling clock signals having a predetermined time phase with respect to each other, a signal receiving unit, the signal receiving unit latching control signals in relation to the sampling clock signals, and an evaluation unit connected to a reading unit and the signal transmitting unit, the evaluation unit determining concordance of the control signals outputted by the signal transmitting unit and the control signals read out by the reading unit from the signal receiving unit, the evaluation unit adapting the time phase between the control signals and the sampling clock signals step-by-step until concordance of the control signals outputted by the signal transmitting unit and the control signals read out the reading unit from the signal receiving unit is determined by the evaluation unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control signal training system in an integrated circuit, to a memory module and a computer system. The invention further relates to a control signal training method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Demands imposed on large scale integrated circuits are constantly increasing. In the case of memory devices, said demands mainly translate into speed and storage capacity. As far as high-speed memory devices are concerned, the computer industry has established the so-called DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) as an economic means for high speed and high capacity data storage.
Although a DRAM requires continuous refreshing of stored information, speed and information density, combined with relatively low cost, have put DRAM in a pivotal position in the field of information technology. Almost every modern computer system, ranging, for example, from PDAs over notebook computers and desktop personal computers to high-end servers, takes advantage of this economic and fast data-storage technology.
While the storage capacity of modern memory devices are steadily increasing, the memory device must provide means for a fast and efficient access to the information held in the device. For synchronisation to other components of a computing system or a memory module, data is read from or written into a conventional memory device with respect to a so-called clock signal. This clock signal may periodically alternate between a low-level and a high-level, in this way defining a time unit of the system.
In order to increase data throughput, conventional memory devices employ the so-called double data rate (DDR) concept for data exchange. In this concept, two words of data are exchanged per cycle: a first word is transmitted upon the transition of the clock signal from the low-level to the high-level, and a second word is transmitted upon the subsequent transition of the clock signal from the high-level to the low-level. With this concept, data throughput is increased by a factor of two in respect to the so-called single data rate (SDR) memory devices. The latter SDR-devices only exchange one word of data per clock cycle, for example, upon one transition, either the high-level to low-level transition or the low-level to high-level transition.
Since data exchange rate in modern electronic memory modules is very high, not only the transmission bus-width has increased over recent years, but also the clock frequency of the clock signal has already reached the gigahertz domain. Since in DDR memory devices, the data changes twice within a period of the clock signal, precise timing may be important to avoid data-scrambling and/or data loss. Modern memory modules, therefore, may employ carefully designed signal traces amongst components to ensure correct timing and synchronization, i.e. correct times of arrival of the signals in relation to each other at respective positions, such as landing pads (e.g., pins) for interconnection of the components of the memory module.
Since these timing requirements may result in a complex routing of the manifold of signal traces, the routing itself may represent a sophisticated task and may also limit the density of components that may be placed on a printed circuit board. Conventional high performance memory modules may therefore employ memory controllers which, for example, upon initialization determine an optimized timing between a data signal line and a clock signal to allow for a correct time of arrival of the data signal at the memory device in relation to the clock signal. During a training stage, such a memory controller may write certain data to and read certain data from a memory device, for example a DRAM, and shift the data signal in respect to the clock signal within the time domain, such that the data signal arrives at the memory device with a well-defined synchronisation to the clock signal. The memory controller may vary this time shift until a written value corresponds to a read value, which indicates that timing is correct. In this way, a reliable, fast, and efficient exchange of information is enabled. Since this training sequence may require bi-directional data exchange, certain components or registers are not available for such training methods, since the provision of bi-directionality may require a disadvantageous addition of circuitry. Additional circuitry may not only increase device complexity and cost, but may also worsen signal transmission characteristics, and, therefore, the reliability.


An athletic shoe cleat constructed of suitably wear resistent, yet soft, flexible, resilient material such as polyurethane is disclosed. The cleat can be removably attachable to a ground engageable portion of the shoe, such as a sole or a heel, and can be used as part of a group forming any number of arrays of such cleats for the shoe. The cleat can also be formed integrally with the sole and heel of a shoe. Common features of these cleats include a plurality of at least partially cone shaped teeth formed in a closed circle on the shoe. In the removably attachable form, the cleat employs a threaded fastener which projects through a central circular opening in a disc-like base portion and threads into the shoe. The fastener can have an enlarged flat head with radially projecting shoulder which bears against an annular part of the base portion radially inwardly of the teeth to operatively secure the cleat to the shoe. The shape of the teeth permits the cleat to exhibit excellent holding characteristics while not lifting dirt out of depressions formed by the bearing weight of the cleat on soft, moist or closely cropped grass bearing ground.

This invention relates broadly to a cleat for an athletic shoe, such as a golf shoe, which may be removably secured to a ground engageable heel and/or sole of the shoe or may be integrally formed on and with the heel and/or sole. More specifically, the invention relates to a cleat constructed of soft, wear resistent, flexible, resilient material, such as polyurethane, which includes a plurality of at least partially cone shaped teeth disposed in a closed circle around an outer peripheral portion of a disc shaped base.
Broadly speaking, generally disc shaped cleats which are removably secured to a ground engageable portion of a shoe have long been known and used in the prior art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,793 issued to E. I. Deacon et al. on Nov. 29, 1994. The cleat of Deacon is of interest in that it includes a disc with a plurality of raised, arc shaped ribs arrayed in an open circle about on broad surface of the disc such that there are gaps between adjacent ribs. The other broad surface of the disc is dished and contains a projecting threaded stud for being secured to the sole and/or heel of a shoe. Both the dish shaped disc and the ribs are constructed of relatively rigid, non-deformable material.
Replaceable cleats containing a single, relatively rigid cone shaped spike have also long been known in the prior art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,366 issued to L.D. Hagger on Feb. 9, 1988. Also, cleats which are integral with the sole of an athletic shoe are known in the prior art. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,858 issued to W. T. Bowerman et al. on Aug. 22, 1978.
All of the foregoing prior art cleats are made of relatively rigid, inelastic materials. None are made of a soft, wear resistant, flexible, resilient material. While the Deacon et al. and Bowerman et al. patents contain a plurality of raised ribs and ground engaging pins, respectively, the ribs are spaced apart from one another as are the pins. While the ribs are arrayed in a circle about a central axis, the pins are arrayed in an arc, an L-shape and a straight line, but not a circle. In no case do the ribs or pins adjoin adjacent or neighboring ribs or pins, respectively, along base portions thereof.
The cleat of my invention does not include these structural characteristics, by reason of which it will not damage golf greens and, yet, can hold well on both closely cropped golf course fairways and in the relatively high grass of roughs adjacent to golf course fairways. Moreover, the cleat of my invention does not tend to dislodge pieces or clumps of dirt from holes or depressions formed by the teeth thereof when bearing upon a golf green and when, thereafter, being removed from such a green.


A method, and structure resulting therefrom, of forming a metal silicide at a shallow junction in a single crystal substrate without encroaching on the shallow junction by forming a metal layer on the substrate over the junction followed by forming a layer of a silicon material which reacts with the metal faster than the silicon in the single crystal substrate. Titanium is the preferred metal and amorphous silicon is the preferred silicon layer and is of a thickness to react with all of the titanium. The two layers are rapid thermal annealed to form titanium silicide. A second rapid thermal anneal is performed which converts the majority of the C49 phase of the titanium silicide to a less resistive and more conductive C54 phase and causes a silicon epitaxial layer to form between silicon substrate and the titanium silicide.

In the conventional self aligned silicides fabrication, which is has been given the name "salicide process", the silicidation process usually is carried out after the formation of the junctions. In the case of NMOS, PMOS, CMOS and BiCMOS, the silicidation process is after the source/drain implant and anneal and, in the case of bipolar, the silicidation process is after the emitter to base junction formation and anneal. For example, in the conventional CMOS fabrication process, after the gate definition, LDD implant, spacer formation and source/drain implant screen oxide, the source and drains are implanted and annealed. After removal of the screen oxide and a clean step, titanium or another refractory metal or Group VIII metals is deposited and annealed to form the silicide, such as titanium silicide. During the silicidation process with titanium, the silicon is the moving species and, as the silicide is formed, the silicon below the original silicon surface is consumed. It is well established that 1 angstrom of titanium (Ti) will react with 2.27 angstroms of crystalline silicon to produce 2.4 angstroms of titanium silicide (TiSi.sub.2).
Advanced high performance submicron NMOS, PMOS, CMOS, biCMOS and bipolar integrated circuits require further down scaling of the devices in the lateral and vertical directions. However, as the gate length is scaled down, the vertical dimension of the devices, such as gate oxide thickness and junction depth need to be scaled down accordingly for optimum performance of the devices and to alleviate short channel effects. However, as vertical and laterally scaling of these devices continues, the fabrication of very shallow junctions create additional challenges due to the very low implant energy required to fabricate very shallow junctions and the higher parasitic source and drain resistance for field effect transistors (FETs), such as CMOS, and emitter resistance for bipolar introduced by the shallow junctions, as well as excessive off leakage current for FETs. To reduce the parasitic resistances, these advanced integrated circuits employ silicides at the shallow junctions and thereby increase device speed and performance. However, a major portion (.about.one-half) of the originally implanted shallow junction in the silicon substrate is consumed by the silicidation in the conventional salicidation process and such consumption of the silicon substrate during silicidation degrades the integrity of the shallow junctions and sets a lower limit for the junction depth. A similar situation exists in using the conventional method in fabricating silicided shallow emitters in bipolar or biCMOS integrated circuits. In addition, the junction depths of the silicided sources and drains or the junction depth of the silicided emitters are all the same depth and have common device characteristics.

Silicided shallow junction transistor formation and structure with high and low breakdown voltages


A roller device includes a shaft, a bushing, a roller shell, a retainer, and a seal. The roller shell is fitted over the outer circumference of the bushing. The retainer is fixed detachably to an end of the bushing, and fitted in an end of the roller shell on a radially outer side. The seal is disposed on the outer circumference of the shaft so as to seal a gap between the shaft and the bushing. The seal includes a first seal member attached to the bushing and a second seal member attached to the shaft. The first seal member is rotatable relative to the second seal member. The second seal member has an outer circumferential end disposed on an inner side with respect to an inner circumferential end of the retainer.

Track-type work vehicles, such as bulldozers, have a crawler type carrier. The crawler type carrier has a crawler belt apparatus, a sprocket wheel, an idler tumbler, a roller device, and the like. The crawler belt apparatus is generally structured by coupling a plurality of crawler belt links endlessly with pins and bushings and attaching a track shoe plate to the plurality of crawler belt links. The crawler belt apparatus is wound around the sprocket wheel, the idler tumbler and the roller device, and is configured to be rotationally driven with a rotation of the sprocket wheel by engaging the tooth of the sprocket wheel with the above-mentioned bushings.
The roller device has a shaft, a seal, a roller shell, and the like. The shaft is fixed to a vehicle. The shaft has a storage for lubricating oil, and is provided with the seal for sealing the device such that lubricating oil does not leak out. The roller shell is rotatably supported by the shaft. The above-mentioned lubricating oil is supplied to the rotating section of the roller shell and the shaft. The roller shell is worn by rolling over rail surfaces of the crawler belt links during traveling. As the wear of the roller shell progresses, the roller shell needs to be replaced. When replacing the roller shell, there is a technique for replacing the whole roller device. However, this technique is costly. Therefore, a technique for replacing the roller shell alone rather than the whole roller device has been proposed. This technique for replacing the roller shell alone rather than the whole roller device is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 50-90026 (PTD 1).

Roller device for track-type work vehicle


Two crystals of (S)-(+)-hydroxychloroquine sulfate. One crystal features diffraction peaks at 12.3±0.1°, 13.1±0.1°, 17.9±0.1°, 22.8±0.1°, 23.4±0.1°, 25.1±0.1°, and 26.3±0.1° as 2θ angles in a powder X-ray diffraction pattern. The other crystal features diffraction peaks at 12.8±0.1°, 14.5±0.1°, 16.7±0.1°, 17.6±0.1°, 20.2±0.1°, 21.4±0.1°, 23.8±0.1°, 25.7±0.1°, and 26.0±0.1° as 2θ angles in a powder X-ray diffraction pattern. Also disclosed are methods of preparing crystals of (S)-(+)-hydroxychloroquine sulfate.

(±)-Hydroxychloroquine sulfate is one of the essential drugs in the World Health Organization Model List for treating, among other, discoid and systemic lupus erythematosus, chronic polymorphous solar eruption, chronic rheumatoid arthritis, and malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax.
The drug has two optical isomers, i.e., the (R)-(−)-isomer and the (S)-(+) isomer. It is administered to a patient as a racemic (50:50) mixture of these two isomers. Long-term and high-dosage administration can damage retinas and lead to vision impairments in some patients, due to drug accumulation in ocular tissues.
An animal study using the Rat Pleurisy Macrophage Model shows that the (S)-(+)-isomer is not only 70% more efficacious but also accumulates much less in ocular tissues than the (R)-(−)-isomer. As such, (S)-(+)-hydroxychloroquine sulfate is more effective and much safer than (±)-hydroxychloroquine sulfate for patients who take long-term medication at high dosages.
In addition, a drug in a crystalline form is more stable and easier to process when used to prepare pharmaceutical compositions.
Thus, there is need for crystals of (S)-(+)-hydroxychloroquine sulfate.


Methods for determining affective information are provided as are imaging systems that determine affective information. In accordance with one method, affective signals are obtained containing facial characteristics and physiological characteristics of a person. The facial characteristics are analyzed and the physiological characteristics are analyzed. The emotional state of the person is determined based upon analysis of the facial and physiological characteristics of the person.

Increasingly, still and motion images are recorded in digital form. Digital still and motion images can be captured using a digital still or digital video cameras. Digital still and motion images are also obtained by converting images that have been recorded in other ways into digital form. For example, it is well known to use analog to digital converters to convert analog electronic video signals into digital images. It is also known to use optical scanners to derive digital images from images recorded on photographic prints, films, plates and negatives.
Digital still and motion images are easily viewed, stored, retrieved, and printed by a user using a home computer or other image processing device. Such images can be uploaded to a website for viewing, as described in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,666,215 filed by Fredlund et al. on Aug. 3, 1995. Using a web browser, uploaded digital images can be viewed, selected for printing, electronically transmitted to other family members and/or friends or stored in on-line databases and photo albums.
With the recent increase in the use of digital cameras for picture taking and with the recent growth in the use of technology that converts conventional still images, analog video images, and film based motion pictures into digital form, the volume of digital images that are available is rapidly increasing. However, users often do not immediately print or otherwise use the digital images, but instead opt to upload digital images to an electronic storage device or data storage medium for later use. Accordingly, personal computers, personal digital assistants, computer networks, optical, magnetic and electronic storage mediums, so-called set top television devices and other electronic image storage devices are increasingly being used to store digital still and motion images.
Therefore the task of classifying or cataloging digital still and motion images on such storage devices in a way that they will be easily accessible by the user is becoming increasingly important. Some users create large personal databases to organize the digital still and motion images on such storage devices. Many computer programs have been developed to help users to do this. However, because of the time and effort necessary to review and categorize images, these databases are typically only rarely used and updated.
Thus, what is needed is a way to help organize and categorize images with reduced emphasis on the post capture analysis and categorization of images.
Even when users make the investment of time and energy necessary to organize images into databases, the databases are typically organized according to various categories such as the date of capture, places, events, people. Other categories are also used. Often, such categories do not inherently help the user to locate images that are of particular importance or value. Instead the user must remember the image, and when the image was captured and/or how the user categorized it.
Thus, what is also needed is a more useful basis for organizing images. It is known from various studies and observations that the most memorable categories of events and subsequently pictures are the ones that are associated with user's feelings at the time of capture or the emotional reaction that the user experienced during the event or at the scene. Information that can be used to characterize the emotional state of a user is known as affective information. Affective information represents a user's psychological, physiological, and behavioral reactions to an event. Affective information can refer both to recorded raw physiological signals and their interpretations. Using affective information, digital still and video images can be classified based on a user's subjective importance, a degree of preference or the intensity of and nature of specific emotions. Such classifications can help to quickly find, review and share those valuable images.
Various methods are known in the art for deriving affective information based upon a user's reaction to an image. One example of a system that monitors physiological conditions to derive affective information is a wearable capture system that enables the classification of images as important or unimportant based on biosignals from human body. This system was described in an article entitled "Humanistic Intelligence: "WearComp" as a new framework and application for intelligent signal processing" published in the Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 86, pp. 2123-2151, 1998 by Mann. In his paper, Mann described an example of how the system could potentially operate in a situation when a wearer was attacked by a robber wielding a shotgun, and demanding cash. In this case, the system detects physiological signals such as a sudden increase of the wearer's heart rate with no corresponding increase in footstep rate. Then, the system makes an inference from the biosignals about high importance of the visual information. This, in turn, triggers recording of images from the wearer's camera and sending these images to friends or relatives who would determine a degree of a danger.
Another example of such a system is described in a paper entitled, "StartleCam: A Cybernetic Wearable Camera" published in: Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Wearable Computers, 1998, by Healey et al. In the system proposed in this paper, a wearable video camera with a computer and a the physiological sensor that monitors skin conductivity are used. The system is based on detecting a startle response—a fast change in the skin conductance. Such a change in the skin conductance is often associated with reactions of sudden arousal, fear or stress. When the startle response is detected, a buffer of digital images, recently captured by the wearer's digital camera, is saved and can be optionally transmitted wirelessly to the remote computer. This selective storage of digital images creates a "memory" archive for the wearer which aims to mimic the wearer's own selective memory response. In another mode, the camera can be set to automatically record images at a specified frequency, when very few responses have been detected from the wearer, indicating that their attention level has dropped.
The systems proposed by Mann et al. make use of the physiological signals to classify images as "important" (i.e., causing rapid change in a biological response) or "unimportant" (i.e., not causing rapid change in a biological response), and trigger the wearable camera to store and/or transmit only the "important" images. However, their systems have several shortcomings.
The described systems do not associate, do not store, and do not transmit the physiological signals, or any other "importance" identifier together with the corresponding images. As a result, the "important" images can be easily lost among other images in a database, since there is nothing in these "important" images to indicate that these images are "important". This can happen, for example when the digital image files are used on a different system, when the images are transferred via a recordable contact disk or other media, when the images are uploaded to an on-line photo service provider, etc. The described systems also do not associate, do not store, and do not transmit the user's identifier together with the corresponding images. Therefore, when the system is used by more that one user, it is unable to distinguish which user reacts to the image as "important".
Further, the described systems provide only binary classification "important-unimportant" and do not allow a finer differentiation of the relative degree of importance between the captured images. As a result, after a certain time of acquiring images in the user's database, the number of important images becomes too large to serve the purpose of the importance attribute, unless the user will change the attribute for every image in his or her database, which is a lengthy and tiresome process.
Additionally, the described systems provide image classification only based on the general "importance" attribute. For example, they are unable to differentiate whether the important image evoked a positive (happy) or negative (unhappy) reaction in the user. Therefore, a wide range of human emotional reactions (e.g., joy, sadness, anger, fear, interest, etc.) is not considered in the system and cannot be applied to the advantage of the user.
Consequently, a further need exists for an improved method for obtaining affective information and for using the affective information to facilitate storage and retrieval of images.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A shredder apparatus has a moveable, shaftless ring component and a secondary comb member component. The ring component and the secondary component cooperate to shred material. The shredder mechanism may be positioned so as to be substantially in-line with the material entering the shredder. The shredder apparatus may be used in a method for shredding materials.

Wet chip materials are generated in the course of machining operations. Often the wet chip material, which can vary in size and configuration, is passed through a shredder apparatus that serves to shred the material prior to its passing on to other work stations, e.g., filtering or centrifugal separation stations.
Shredder apparatuses for shredding wet chip materials are well known in the art. Conventional shredder apparatuses include systems that utilize a plurality of spaced shredder members that are disposed upon a rotatable rotor. One example is the shredder apparatus shown and disclosed in my co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/611,526, filed Jul. 1, 2003, the disclosure, drawings and claims of which are incorporated by reference in their entirety herein. Upon actuation of such a shredder apparatus, the rotor rotates, and the shredder members fixed to the rotor rotate and cooperate with shredder comb members to shred material entering the apparatus.
In some instances, however, it has been found that, because of the nature of the material to be shredded, the shredder apparatus experiences difficulty in properly transporting the material to be shredded to the shredder components, such that appropriate shredding does not occur. For example, certain wet chip material, e.g., ball bearing-type scrap material or scrap rings formed in the manufacture of pistons, sometimes fail to shred properly with conventional shredding apparatuses. It has been found that this type of material, once it enters the shredder apparatus, is not properly carried to the shredder components within the shredder apparatus.
What is desired is to have a shredder apparatus that allows for the appropriate shredding of material whereby material to be shredded is properly transported to and within the shredder apparatus.
It is also desired to have a shredder apparatus where the shredder elements that cooperate to shred material are positioned principally orthogonal to the primary flow direction of the material to be shredded.
It is further desired to have a shredder apparatus located at least partially in a coolant flow path so that coolant flowing along the flow path and through the shredder apparatus assists in moving material through the shredder.
Finally, it is desired to have a shredder apparatus where, if desired, the shredding can occur without the requirement of having rotating shredding elements located on a rotating shaft-like member.

In-line shredder apparatus and method for shredding materials


Films of magnesium mixed with titanium are produced by non-equilibrium alloying processes such as electron beam evaporation of magnesium and titanium ingots in a very low pressure chamber. Such magnesium-titanium films form as single phase solid solutions. Titanium is inherently resistant to corrosion and its admixture with magnesium in solid solution provides a new composition that is less subject to intra-film galvanic corrosion. The magnesium-titanium films also provide relatively hard and strong coatings.

Magnesium and titanium have positive heats of mixing. As a result they have not been found to form intermetallic compounds and they have very little mutual solubility. Equilibrium phase diagrams for the magnesium-titanium system are prepared using mixtures of predetermined compositions of magnesium and titanium from close to 100 percent magnesium to nearly 100 percent titanium. Each of several known-composition mixtures is examined at a range of temperatures at which all constituents are liquid and at a lower range of temperatures in which the constituents are wholly solid. At each temperature the mixture is allowed to attain an equilibrium state. The presence of one or more equilibrium phases at each temperature is observed and the composition of each phase is analyzed. As stated, mixtures of magnesium and titanium display little mutual solubility under such equilibrium conditions and no intermetallic compounds. However, titanium is a corrosion resistant material and there is interest in incorporating titanium in magnesium as a solid solution to increase the corrosion resistance of the resulting alloy and to obtain mechanical properties that result from a single-phase combination of these elements.
This disclosure provides solid solutions of titanium in magnesium by processes in which the titanium and magnesium do not reach an equilibrium condition as is obtained in processing which yields equilibrium phase products.

Magnesium-titanium solid solution alloys


Optical spine backplane apparatus for interconnecting circuit cards. The apparatus comprises a central spine structure formed of a bundle of optical fibers extending between circular collars each positioned along the spine and formed around the optical fiber bundle to form a shelf for mounting circuit cards. Each circular collar has an optics pad consisting of optical transmitters and receivers coupled with ones of the optical fibers and with signal leads connected to a first coupling device. A circular collar is constructed of a bundle of electrical conductors formed around the outside of the central spine with each electrical conductor coupled to the first coupling device and to second coupling devices positioned around the outside of the collar. Each of the second coupling devices is connected by signal leads to a socket intended to receive a plug-in circuit card. The coupling devices selectively interconnect circuit cards and circuit card components via ones of the circular collar electrical conductors and optical fibers.

Electrical and electronic equipment is oftentimes constructed of circuit cards mounting components which are interconnected to form the equipment. Typically, equipment consists of circuit card mounting frames that are constructed to receive plug-in circuit cards that are interconnected to form the electrical and electronic equipment.
Circuit card mounting frames may be constructed with rows of shelves wherein each shelf is open at the front and arranged to receive a number of the plug-in circuit cards. The back of each shelf may have a printed wiring backplane provided with connectors positioned thereon to correspond with and receive each plug-in circuit card. The contacts of the sockets are interconnected by conductors printed on the printed wiring backplane which interconnect the shelf circuit cards. Cabling is formed along the back of the circuit card mounting frame between the rows of shelves and is connected to the printed conductors of each shelf printed wiring backplane. The cabling interconnects the shelves so that each plug-in circuit card may be connected to other circuit cards in accordance with a preplanned wiring configuration of the printed wiring backplanes and interconnecting cabling.
A problem arises that even small changes in the design of the electrical and electronic equipment requires that the frame cabling and printed wiring backplane conductors be changed to effect equipment design changes. Another problem arises in that new designs of circuit cards generate heat that requires new configurations of circuit card mounting frames that dissipate heat and allow air to freely circulate among the frame mounted circuit cards. Accordingly, a need exists for backplane apparatus that allows circuit cards to be interconnected without requiring the rewiring of circuit card mounting frames and that is adaptable for use with multiple circuit card mounting frame configurations and which allows the circulation of air around mounted circuit cards.


A deep neural network architecture comprises a stack of strata in which each stratum has its individual input and an individual objective, in addition to being activated from the system input through lower strata in the stack and receiving back propagation training from the system objective back propagated through higher strata in the stack of strata. The individual objective for a stratum may comprise an individualized target objective designed to achieve diversity among the strata. Each stratum may have a stratum support subnetwork with various specialized subnetworks. These specialized subnetworks may comprise a linear subnetwork to facilitate communication across strata and various specialized subnetworks that help encode features in a more compact way, not only to facilitate communication across strata but also to increase interpretability for human users and to facilitate communication with other machine learning systems.

Artificial intelligence has had remarkable success in recent years, especially with machine learning systems implemented on deep neural networks with many layers. For the most difficult problems, deep neural networks with more layers generally have better performance than deep neural networks with fewer layers. However, it usually becomes increasingly difficult to train deeper neural networks with more layers. For each network architecture and each training strategy, there generally is a maximum number of layers beyond which it has proven to be impractical to train a deeper network.

Building a deep neural network with diverse strata


A pump assembly includes a pump housing, a stator ring supported within the pump housing, and a pump ring also rotatably supported within the pump housing. The pump ring interfaces with the stator ring to define a plurality of variable volume pressure chambers. A cover plate covers the stator ring and pumping ring within the pump housing. The cover plate is axially displaceable relative to the pump housing and defines a wall of each of the pressure chambers. Pressure within the pressure chambers induces linear movement of the cover plate away from the stator ring and the pump ring.

Gerotor pumps are commonly used in power transfer assembly of the type installed in motor vehicles for supplying lubrication to the rotary components as well as for cooling torque transfer assemblies such as, for example, multi-plate friction clutches. Such power transfer assemblies include manual and automatic transmissions, transaxles, power take-off units, all-wheel drive couplings and four-wheel drive transfer cases. Typically, the gerotor pump has an outer ring defining a pumping chamber and an inner ring that is positioned in the pumping chamber and which is fixed for rotation with a driven member (i.e., a shaft, etc.). The inner ring has external lobes which are meshed with, and eccentrically offset, from internal lobes formed on the outer ring. Because the number of internal lobes is greater than the number of external lobes, driven rotation of the inner ring results in a pumping action such that a supply of hydraulic fluid is drawn from a sump in the power transfer assembly into the suction side of the pumping chamber and is discharged from the pressure side of the pumping chamber at an increased pressure.
Traditionally, the gerotor pump is continuously driven regardless of the lubrication and/or cooling needs. In addition, as the rotational speed of the driven member increases, the pressure generated by the gerotor pump correspondingly increases. As a result, additional energy is used to drive the pump, thereby reducing the overall efficiency of the power transfer assembly.


An electrophotographic toner includes a binder resin including a linear polyester such as a polyester formed by condensation of an ethylene oxide adduct of a bisphenole A with a terephthalic acid, and a non-linear polyester such as a polyester formed by condensation of a mixture of an ethylene oxide adduct of a bisphenole A and a glycerin with a terephthalic acid; and, as a magnetic substance, a polyhedral magnetite of not more facets than a hexacosahedron and not less facets than a decahedron. The toner has an excellent fixing property at low temperature, an anti-offset property and a wide fixing latitude.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic toner containing a binder resin and a magnetic substance and also relates to a method for forming an image comprising a latent image forming step for forming a latent image on a latent image carrying substrate, a development step for forming a toner image by developing the latent image by making use of a developer on a developer carrying substrate, a transfer step for transferring the formed toner image to a transfer medium and a fixation step for fixing the toner image on the transfer medium.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, a digitalization has been developed in not only a printer but also a copying machine or a plotter for a large-sized drawing and a latent image of high resolution such as delicate gradation by small Chinese character (Kanji) or dot has been able to be formed. Then, studies have been carried out to discover a toner which can be used to accurately develop latent images of high resolution.
On the other hand, a two component development method using a toner and carrier such as iron powder etc., and a magnetic single component development method using only a toner containing a magnetic substance are known as dry development methods in various kinds of electrostatic copy systems currently practically used. Further, in the development method using a magnetic single component toner, a developing machine may be simplified because there is no need to use an automatic density controller or the like which are required for the two component development method, and maintenance such as replacing the carrier or the like is not needed because there is no carrier. Therefore, a magnetic single component toner which is able to develop accurately the latent image of high resolution has been desired.
It is, however, difficult for the magnetic single component toner to develop accurately the latent image of high resolution, since the magnetic single component toner tends to aggregate and to form clumps due to magnetism of magnetic substance compared with non-magnetic toner, used for two component development, free from the magnetic substance.
Furthermore, the magnetic single component toner has an inferior fixing property compared with a non-magnetic toner used for two component development, since the magnetic single component toner contains a magnetic substance and the proportion of binder resin in the toner decreases.
In order to satisfy the strong requirement for a small-sized machine and economy in energy, a magnetic single component toner which is able to fix in lower energy has been desired, and various kinds of binder resins have been studied. Above all a polyester resin has been remarkably studied, since the polyester resin has an ester group contained in a main chain which group is freely rotatable, and has an excellent flexibility and an excellent fixing property at low temperature as described in, for example, Japanese Parent Application Publication (JP-B) Nos. 46-12680 and 52-25420.
However, when the magnetic single component toner containing the polyester resin disclosed in these Publications is used in heat fixing system in which heat and pressure are applied by means of two rolls, the toner adheres to the heat rolls, which causes offset which stains the next copy. For example, when postcards are continuously printed, the heat of a portion of the heat roll surface, with which portion each of the postcards is in contact, is absorbed by the postcards. Accordingly, the whole heat roll is heated to maintain constant the temperature of this portion of the heat roll surface contacting the postcards. As a result, the temperature of the other portion of the heat roll surface becomes higher than that of the portion with which each of the postcards is in contact. Then, when a paper of a large size is printed immediately after printing of the postcards, the toner on the paper which toner is in contact with the other portion of the heat roll surface (i.e., the portion other than the portion contacted by each of the postcards) causes offset.
In order to improve the fixing property of a toner containing a polyester at high temperatures and prevent the offset thereof as above described, there been proposed a magnetic single component toner containing non-linear polyester resin formed by making use of polyol or polycarboxylic acid which have more than or equal to three functional groups in a molecule, or cross linking agent (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 3-11364 and 5-134454).
In these magnetic single component toner, however, while an anti-offset property can be improved the fixing property at low temperature deteriorates.
Furthermore, in order to obtain both a satisfactory anti-offset property and a satisfactory fixing property at low temperatures, a magnetic single component toner containing linear polyester resin and non-linear polyester resin has been proposed. (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 60-4947 and 60-90344)
However, linear polyester resin and non-linear polyester resin can not be homogeneously mixed at the time of milling because of the difference in visocoelastic behaviors thereof. Therefore, two kinds of toners, one kind containing mainly linear polyester and the other kind containing mainly non-linear polyester, are formed by way of a grinding step and a classification step. As a result the toner containing mainly linear polyester adheres to the heat roll at the fixation step, which causes an offset.

Electrophotographic toner and method for forming images


A fuel cell system for supplying electricity to a main motor as a power source includes a fuel cell stack and pumps for supplying a fuel gas and an oxygen-containing gas to the fuel cell stack. The fuel cell system further includes a driving force transmitting mechanism. The driving force transmitting mechanism connects the main motor, the pumps, and the supercharger for driving the pumps and the supercharger by the main motor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell system including a fuel cell stack formed by stacking a plurality of electrolyte electrode assemblies and separators. Each of the electrolyte electrode assemblies includes a pair of electrodes, and an electrolyte interposed between the electrodes.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, a solid polymer electrolyte fuel cell employs a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) which includes an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte membrane interposed between the electrodes. The electrolyte membrane is a polymer ion exchange membrane (proton exchange membrane). The membrane electrode assembly is interposed between separators. The membrane electrode assembly and the separators make up a fuel cell.
Generally, a predetermined number of fuel cells (membrane electrode assemblies and separators) are stacked together to form a fuel cell stack. In the fuel cell stack, a fuel gas such as a hydrogen-containing gas is supplied to the anode. The catalyst of the anode induces a chemical reaction of the fuel gas to split the hydrogen molecule into hydrogen ions (protons) and electrons. The hydrogen ions move toward the cathode through the electrolyte membrane which is humidified to a desirable extent, and the electrons flow through an external circuit to the cathode, creating a DC electric current. An oxygen-containing gas such as air is supplied to the cathode. At the cathode, the hydrogen ions from the anode combine with the electrons and oxygen gas to produce water.
Fuel cell systems utilizing the fuel cell stack in vehicle applications are known in the art. Referring to FIG. 13, a fuel cell system 1 includes a fuel cell stack 2. A fuel gas supply unit 3 for supplying a fuel gas such as a hydrogen-containing gas to the fuel cell stack 2, an oxygen-containing gas supply unit 4 for supplying an oxygen-containing gas such as air to the fuel cell stack 2, and a coolant supply unit 5 for supplying a coolant to the fuel cell stack 2 are provided.
The fuel gas supply unit 3 includes a fuel tank 6. The fuel tank 6 and a fuel gas flow passage (not shown) of the fuel cell stack 2 are connected through a fuel gas supply passage 7. A fuel gas supply pump 8 is provided in the fuel gas supply passage 7. The fuel gas supply pump 8 is connected to a pump motor 9.
The oxygen-containing gas supply unit 4 includes an oxygen-containing gas supply passage 10 and an oxygen-containing gas discharge passage 11 connected to an oxygen-containing gas flow passage (not shown). An inlet filter 12 and an oxygen-containing gas supply pump 14 are provided in the oxygen-containing gas supply passage 10. The oxygen-containing gas supply pump 14 is connected to a pump motor 13. The oxygen-containing gas discharge passage 11 is connected to a gas discharge unit 16.
A coolant supply unit 5 includes a circulation passage 17 connected to a coolant flow passage (not shown) of the fuel cell stack 2. A coolant supply pump 19 and a radiator 20 are provided in the circulation passage 17. The coolant supply pump 19 is connected to a pump motor 18. The circulation passage 17 includes a bypass passage 21 in parallel to the radiator 20.
A valve 22 is disposed in the bypass passage 21. The valve 22 performs a switching operation for the coolant to flow through the radiator 20 or not to flow through the radiator 20.
For example, the fuel cell stack 2 is placed in an underfloor area of the vehicle. The fuel cell system 1 is controlled by a PCU (power control unit) in a front box, for example, to drive motors 9, 13, 18 to supply the fuel gas, the oxygen-containing gas, and the coolant to the fuel cell stack 2, using the pumps 8, 14, 19.
In the conventional technique, the fuel cell stack 2 is placed under the vehicle, and the pumps 8, 14, 19 require the dedicated motors 9, 13, 18, respectively. Therefore, the overall size of the fuel cell system 1 is considerably large, the structure is complicated, and the production cost is high.
In the case the fuel cell system is used in a vehicle application, as shown in FIG. 14, for example, the fuel cell stack 2 is placed in an underfloor area 24 of a vehicle body 23. A coolant supply pump (not shown) is placed in the underfloor area 24. Further, an oxygen-containing gas supply pump 14 is placed in a front box 25 of the vehicle body 23, and a fuel tank 6 is placed in a rear box 27 of the vehicle body 23.
In the conventional technique, the fuel cell stack 2 is placed in the underfloor area 24, the oxygen-containing gas supply pump 14 is placed in the front box 25, and the fuel tank 6 is placed in the rear box 27. Therefore, pipes for connecting auxiliary equipment such as the oxygen-containing gas supply pump 14 and the fuel tank 6 to the fuel cell stack 2 are considerably long. The space in the overall fuel cell system 1 is not utilized efficiently.
Since the pipes as flow passages of the oxygen-containing gas and the fuel gas are long, pressure losses of the fluids in the pipes are large. Therefore, large energy losses occur in the auxiliary equipment, and the power generation performance in the overall fuel cell system is decreased.
Since the pipes are long, responsiveness to load changes is bad, and piping layout is complicated. Thus, it is difficult to use a turbo charger system which is operated by off-gas. Therefore, the fuel cell system 1 can not be used in a wide variety of applications.

Compact fuel cell system with efficient power generation performance


The invention relates to a method for forming a pattern on a substrate surface of a target by means of a beam of electrically charged particles in a number of exposure steps, where the beam is split into a patterned beam and there is a relative motion between the substrate and the pattern definition means. This results in an effective overall motion of the patterned particle beam over the substrate surface and exposition of image elements on the substrate surface in each exposure step, wherein the image elements on the target are exposed to the beamlets multiply, namely several times during a number of exposure steps according to a specific sequence. The sequence of exposure steps of the image elements is arranged in a non-linear manner according to a specific rule from one exposure step to the subsequent exposure step in order to reduce the current variations in the optical column of the multi-beam exposure apparatus during the exposure of the pattern.

Multi-beam lithography by means of electrically charged particles has been investigated since the 1980s. One important application of particle-beam lithography is in semiconductor technology. Therein, lithography apparatus are used to define structures on a target, e.g., a silicon wafer. (Throughout this disclosure, the terms target and substrate are used interchangeably.) In order to define a desired pattern on a substrate wafer, the wafer is covered with a layer of a radiation sensitive resist. Afterwards, a desired structure is imaged onto the resist by means of a lithography apparatus, and the resist is then patterned by partial removal according to the pattern defined by the previous exposure step and then used as a mask for further structuring processes such as etching. In another important application the structures on the target may be generated by direct patterning without a resist, for example ion milling or reactive ion beam etching or deposition.
In 1997, I. L. Berry et al., in J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B, 15(6), 1997, pp 2382-2386, presented a writing strategy based on a blanking aperture array and an ion projection system. Arai et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,369,282, discuss an electron beam exposure system using a so called blanking aperture array (BAA) which plays the role of a pattern definition means. The BAA carries a number of rows of apertures, and the images of the apertures are scanned over the surface of the substrate in a controlled continuous motion whose direction is perpendicular to the aperture rows. The rows are aligned with respect to each other in an interlacing manner to that the apertures form staggered lines as seen along the scanning direction. Thus, the staggered lines sweep continuous lines on the substrate surface without leaving gaps between them as they move relative to the substrate, thus covering the total area to be exposed on the substrate.
Starting from Berry's concept, E. Platzgummer et al., in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,768,125, presented a multi-beam direct write concept dubbed PML2 (short for "Projection Maskless Lithography"), employing a pattern definition device comprising a number of plates stacked on top of the other, among them an aperture array means and a blanking means. These separate plates are mounted together at defined distances, for instance in a casing. The aperture array means has a plurality of apertures of identical shape defining the shape of beamlets permeating said apertures, wherein the apertures are arranged within a pattern definition field composed of a plurality of staggered lines of apertures, wherein the apertures are spaced apart within said lines by a first integer multiple of the width of an aperture and are offset between neighboring lines by a fraction of said integer multiple width. The blanking means has a plurality of blanking openings arranged in an arrangement corresponding to the apertures of the aperture array means, in particular having corresponding staggered lines of blanking openings. The teaching of the U.S. Pat. No. 6,768,125 with regard to the architecture and operation of the pattern definition device is hereby included as part of this disclosure by reference.
The PML2 multi-beam direct write concept allows for a large enhancement of the writing speed compared to single beam writers. This arises from the reduction of the required current density, the diminished importance of space charge due to the large cross section, the enhanced pixel transfer rate due to the parallel writing strategy, and the high degree of redundancy possible using a plurality of beams.
The U.S. Pat. No. 7,276,714 of the applicant/assignee discloses a pattern definition means for particle beam processing, comprising at least an aperture plate and blanking means. The apertures in the aperture plate are arranged in "interlocking grids", i.e., the apertures are arranged in groups in squares or rectangles whose basic grids are meshed together. This means that the positions of the apertures taken with respect to a direction perpendicular to a scanning direction and/or parallel to it are offset to each other by not only multiple integers of the effective width of an aperture, as taken along said direction, but also by multiple integers of an integer fraction of said effective width. In this context, "scanning direction" denotes the direction along which the image of the apertures formed by the charged-particle beam on a target surface is moved over the target surface during an exposure process.
The "interlocking grids"-solution allows a finer resolution on the target surface even though the individual spots formed by each image of an individual aperture are not decreased in size. Particular values of the fractional offsets are integer multiples of ½K times the effective width of an aperture, where K is a positive integer.
Furthermore, the U.S. Pat. No. 7,276,714 describes the generation of grey scales by subsequent exposures of one pixel on the target by multiple apertures located in line, and shows how a shift register approach can be effectively applied to create grey scale patterns, i.e., exposure levels interpolated between a minimal ('black') and maximal ('white') exposure dose.
The state of the art PML2 concept is a strategy where the substrate is moved continuously, and the projected image of a structured beam delivers 100 percent of the exposure dose for the "white" pixels by subsequent exposures of apertures located in line. To realize grey levels, the total amount of apertures in line is subdivided into columns, the number of columns corresponding to the number of desired grey levels. In a recent variant described in the published US patent-application US 2008237460 by the applicant/assignee, a so called "trotting mode" writing strategy is proposed in which for each pixel one or a few beams along the (mechanical) scanning direction are used to deliver the full exposure dose to the pixels. The advantage of this variant is the reduced complexity of the CMOS structure and improved data management.
In all writing strategies based on a bitmap type of pattern coding, accurate placement control of the individual beams with respect to an ideal grid (physical grid, typically 20 nm pitch) is essential in order to fulfill lithographic requirements. While basically a systematic distortion of the image would cause a non-isotropic change of the blur, in the mentioned "trotting mode" a systematic distortion would also give rise to significant distortion of the pattern eventually generated since only one beam (or a few, depending on the chosen strategy and redundancy) contributes to the total exposure dose of one pixel. Similarly, the dose per level, which is directly related to the aperture size and current density at the respective position on the aperture plate, becomes more important in the case of the trotting mode.
Another parameter that has essential impact on the performance of the optical system is the current through the optical column of a maskless particle-beam exposure apparatus. The current is directly proportional to the charge density of the beam, i.e., the actual pattern density being exposed by the apparatus. The coulomb interactions of the particles (which depend on the charge density) are therefore dependent on the current. Thus, the blur of the individual beamlets increases with larger currents through the optical system. This blur, which is influenced by the coulomb interactions, is an essential parameter for the spatial resolution of the apparatus.
Especially when the exposure is performed in a scanning mode, the current will change when large features move into the exposure field. Thus, the target will be exposed with a strongly fluctuating blur at the feature borders, leading to a poor overall performance of the apparatus.
The same consideration applies when the apparatus uses grey-levels for exposing an image, as is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 7,276,714. Here, the current is not only dependent on the pattern density but varies, in addition, during the exposure process because of the grey levels being exposed.
Depending on the patterns to be exposed, the current variations may become as high as 100 percent of the maximum possible current, e.g., when a completely "white" exposure (all apertures open) follows a completely "black" exposure (all apertures closed).


A voice generation control apparatus includes a one-bit voice flag, a voice start address register used for temporarily saving a voice start address, and a terminator detector for detecting a terminator in a voice data memory. Voice generation is started when the voice flag is set, while voice generation is terminated when the voice flag is reset upon an output of a terminator from the voice data memory. As a result, the voice generation is smoothly started and terminated by a simple system and simple operations.

In general, in order to generate voice, head sections of a plurality of predetermined voice information are successively reproduced, and address control and access to a memory are performed through a control circuit.
For example, such a device is disclosed in Japanese Publication for Unexamined Patent Application No. (Tokukaihei) 6-325587. In an information reproducing apparatus disclosed in the above publication, a plurality of voice data are recorded in a memory and operation-start positional information of each voice data is recorded in an index section. Moreover, a main control circuit controls an address control circuit to read out the operation-start positional information and specific positional information of each voice phrase from the memory. Thereafter, the contents of recording recorded in a position between the respective positional information are reproduced successively with respect to each voice data. Namely, in this structure, each phrase is selected by the main control circuit instead of allocating voice data to be written or setting a voice start address.
Therefore, it is necessary for the main control circuit to observe the entire operations from the start of voice generation until the voice generation is stopped, resulting in a complicated and expensive circuit. In addition, in this structure, it is impossible to directly start or stop the voice generation by directly specifying a voice start address through a peripheral or an external CPU (central processing unit). Moreover, it is difficult to add new voice data to the memory, or reproduce voice from the middle of a phrase by a simple control.
One example of the integrated structure where the voice generation function is included in the microcomputer is a voice generation chip. The voice generation chip reproduces voice by turning on a port determined every other phrase. This structure is advantageous in terms of cost. However, it is also difficult to start the voice generation from the middle of a phrase, or continuously reproduce more than one phrase in a smooth manner.
Moreover, it is impossible to perform fine and stable control with a simple system having a small number of ports if the voice generation function is independent of the main CPU. Additionally, the start and stop of the voice generation cannot be smoothly controlled through the external CPU and other devices. It is thus difficult to continuously generate voice from different phrases, and continuously generate voice during reproduction of another voice. Here, the structure in which the voice generation function is independent of the main CPU refers a structure in which the voice generation function is used as an internal peripheral circuit formed as a single chip, or a structure in which the voice generation function is used as a voice generation device.
Regarding a method of stopping the generation of voice, one method records a code representing the data length of voice data in advance, and detects a time at which the voice generation stops by reading out the code at the start of the voice data. In this case, a down counter or an address comparator is separately required to judge whether an address containing voice stop data is accessed before a voice address pointer reaches the final address of the data. When a judgment is made using the down counter, since it is necessary to decode the number of steps of voice data to be reproduced from a code representing the number of voice steps in the voice data into the form of the down counter, a decoder for detecting the count of the step number is further required.
In order to avoid the use of the down counter and the decoder for the step number counter, the following method may be employed. In this method, a one-bit flag is allocated for each step, and the generation of voice is stopped when the control circuit reads out the flag. In this case, although the circuit structure is simplified, a memory having a bit capacity corresponding to the addresses of voice data is separately required, resulting in an increase in the cost.


The present invention relates to a radio communication system and a method in the system. According to the method radio resources of the system are managed based on information of the bitrate that has been allocated for a station of the radio communication system.

A number of different radio telecommunication systems are known. A radio telecommunications system provides mobility for the mobile stations, i.e. the mobile stations are typically enabled to move from a location to another. A mobile station may also roam from one network to another network, if the other network is compatible with the standard the given mobile station is adapted to and there is a roaming agreement between the operators of the two networks. A radio telecommunications network is a cellular network consisting of cells. The cell can be defined as a service area covered by one or several base transceiver stations (BTS) serving mobile stations (MS) or similar user equipment (UE) via a radio interface. Examples of the multiple access cellular radio networks include CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) or WCDMA (Wide-band CDMA) or TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) system or FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access) systems and hybrids thereof.
The radio network system is typically provided with radio resource management function that may be based on the received noise raise of the received radio signal. A function of the radio resource management is to continuously adjust the transmission power levels between a base (transceiver) station (BS) and a mobile station (MS) associated with said base station during an ongoing connection between the base station and the mobile station. This is done in order to provide a sufficient quality for the transmission in various conditions. To reduce power consumption and interference it is also preferred to keep the required transmission power levels as low as possible at the same time. By means of this it is possible to avoid "wasting" network resources and power resources, and to enable as great a number of mobile stations as possible to communicate simultaneously with the base station having only limited power resources. The power resources of the base station may be limited both in transmission (downlink) and receiving (uplink) directions.
One power control mechanism is based on power control (PC) commands transmitted between two stations to cause the other station to alter or adjust or change its transmission power. The PC commands can be transmitted e.g. in a WCDMA closed loop functioning between the base station and the mobile station. The closed loop PC (CLPC) commands can be sent both in the uplink (towards the base station) and in the downlink (towards the mobile station), whereafter the base station or the mobile station will process the received command and reduce/increase its transmission power accordingly. The power control between the stations, such as the closed loop PC, may be controlled by another power control command generated by a controller of the communication system. For example, in the currently proposed WCDMA system it is envisaged that an outer loop power control (OLPC) command generated by a radio network controller (RNC) of the WCDMA system will attempt to set the connection quality target of a physical connection between the base station BS and the mobile station MS to be such that a required FER (Frame Error Ratio) target or BER (Bit Error Ratio) target or any other similar target of the connection is met with a minimal connection quality target. The closed loop power control command is then adjusted at the base station in accordance with the outer loop power control command received from the controller. The connection quality target may sometimes be referred to as a connection setpoint.
The connection quality target or setpoint can be announced e.g. by means of so called Eb/No (Signal Energy/Noise) target or SIR (Signal to Interference Ratio) target or desired signal level target or a similar parameter indicating a quality measure which can be estimated for the connection. The relationship between the parameters is such that the connection quality target (e.g. the SIR target) has to be set such that the FER or the BER or similar parameter of the connection remains at an appropriate level. The actual connection quality value (e.g. SIR) is then controlled in accordance with the target value, and one or several of used connection parameters having influence to the quality of the connection should follow any changes in the target value. In most cases it is sufficient if the transmission power is increased/decreased in order to meet the target value. The idea behind the arrangement is that by increasing the connection quality target value the transmission power (or any other appropriate transmission parameter having an influence over the connection quality) will increase and thus the connection quality will increase and the FER will improve.
When more than one radio station communicate within a certain area, the radio stations may interfere each others radio connection. A form of this interference problem is known as adjacent channel interference (ACI). The interfering stations may be in communication with the network apparatus of the same network system and operator. The interfering mobile stations may also be in communication with different radio networks operated by different operators. The interfering networks may even be based on a different standards and/or principles of operation.
Although it may be possible to ease the problem caused by the simultaneous radio traffic between several stations by careful network planning, the amount and nature of interference caused by radio apparatus of other network systems is very difficult to predict and/or take into account beforehand. Despite the careful network planning, adjacent channel interference caused by radio stations of the same system may still occur e.g. due to increase in the radio traffic and/or in the number of users roaming within a cell of the radio network.
A specific problem with the adjacent channel interference may occur when an interfering mobile station comes close to a base station, especially when the uplink transmission power of the interfering mobile station is relatively high compared to the other mobile stations. Uplink received power can be filtered by various filter means and thereby it may be possible to reduce the effect of short time or narrowband interference. However this may prove to be difficult to accomplish and does not totally solve the interference problem. Although filter means may be employed in order to minimise and/or normalise the problems caused by the interfering mobile radio station, the filter means have only a limited adjacent channel interference protection, and the interfering station may still block useful signals from the other stations.
Additional or unexpected interference in the uplink direction may influence adversely the radio resource management, since the radio resource management is based on the relative received power in the uplink. In the uplink the noise raise relative to noise floor (i.e. the basic noise of the system) is determined, and this should not exceed a predefined target (for example, 6 dB).
The noise raise describes the ratio of the total interference power and the noise power in the dB-scale. The noise raise can be calculated as follows:
                                                        Noise_raise              =                                                                    Interference                    +                    Noise                                    Noise                                                                                in                                                                                linear                                                                                scale                                                                                and                                                                                Noise_raise              =                                                10                  ·                                                            log                      10                                                                                (                                                                        Interference                          +                          Noise                                                Noise                                            )                                                                                dB                                                                                in                                                                                dB                                                  -                                                scale                                                                                (          1          )                ,                                                    (          2          )
The noise floor is denoted by the Noise-term in above equations (1) and (2). Noise floor typically contains the thermal noise, noise figure and other noises, which are not in the interference. The noise raise value can be measured by a base station e.g. by subtracting the noise floor from the avarage total received power.
The additional interference may change the assumptions made during the network planning so that the noise floor is no longer constant, but may become increased. As a consequence to this, some network capacity may be lost because of the interference. The interference problem may last only for short periods of time, and the occurrence of interference is hard to predict. Therefore the various interference instances may generate different kinds of unexpected fluctuations into the network. The interference may also cause a station to be dropped from the cell. The station's sensitivity to drop from the cell depends on uplink and/or downlink powers. In addition, the pure interference based load control, admission control and packet scheduler algorithms may not always be applicable for all radio environments (e.g. in micro or pico cells). Therefore it may be advantageous to base the management of the uplink load on some other factor. The other factor should be selected such that it is less sensitive for the adjacent channel interference (ACI) problem than the above described solutions. In the event of a strong adjacent channel interference (ACT), the conventional interference based radio resource management may clear/drop even the whole cell because of one interfering station that causes the adjacent channel interference into that cell.

Radio resource management in a communication system


Radiation-sensitive compositions can be used to prepare imageable elements useful for example to make lithographic printing plates. The compositions include an aqueous alkaline solvent soluble phenolic resin or poly(vinyl acetal) as a polymeric binder. The compositions also include a fluorinated compound that has a urethane moiety and a fluorinated alkyleneoxy moiety to provide improved coating and friction properties particularly when stacked with interleaf papers. The radiation-sensitive composition can be coated as an imageable layer that further includes a radiation absorbing compound that is sensitive, for example, to infrared radiation.

In lithographic printing, ink receptive regions, known as image areas, are generated on a hydrophilic surface. When the surface is moistened with water and ink is applied, the hydrophilic regions retain the water and repel the ink, the ink receptive regions accept the ink and repel the water. The ink is then transferred to the surface of suitable materials upon which the image is to be reproduced. In some instances, the ink can be first transferred to an intermediate blanket that in turn is used to transfer the ink to the surface of the materials upon which the image is to be reproduced.
Imageable elements useful to prepare lithographic (or offset) printing plates typically comprise one or more imageable layers applied over a hydrophilic surface of a substrate (or intermediate layers). The imageable layer(s) can comprise one or more radiation-sensitive components dispersed within a suitable binder. Following imaging, either the exposed regions or the non-exposed regions of the imageable layer(s) are removed by a suitable developer, revealing the underlying hydrophilic surface of the substrate. If the exposed regions are removed, the element is considered as positive-working. Conversely, if the non-exposed regions are removed, the element is considered as negative-working. In each instance, the regions of the imageable layer(s) that remain are ink-receptive, and the regions of the hydrophilic surface revealed by the developing process accept water or aqueous solutions (typically a fountain solution), and repel ink.
Similarly, positive-working compositions can be used to form resist patterns in printed circuit board (PCB) production, thick-and-thin film circuits, resistors, capacitors, and inductors, multichip devices, integrated circuits, and active semiconductive devices.
"Laser direct imaging" methods (LDI) have been known that directly form an offset printing plate or printing circuit board using digital data from a computer, and provide numerous advantages over the previous processes using masking photographic films. There has been considerable development in this field from more efficient lasers, improved imageable compositions and components thereof.
Thermally sensitive imageable elements can be classified as those that undergo chemical transformation(s) in response to, exposure to, or adsorption of, suitable amounts of thermal energy. The nature of thermally induced chemical transformation may be to ablate the imageable composition in the element, or to change its solubility in a particular developer, or to change the tackiness or hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity of the surface layer of the thermally sensitive layer. As such, thermal imaging can be used to expose predetermined regions of an imageable layer that can serve as a lithographic printing surface or resist pattern in PCB production.
Positive-working imageable compositions containing novolak or other phenolic polymeric binders and diazoquinone imaging components have been prevalent in the lithographic printing plate and photoresist industries for many years. Imageable compositions based on various phenolic resins and infrared radiation absorbing compounds are also well known.
A wide range of thermally-imageable compositions useful as thermographic recording materials are described in GB Patent Publication 1,245,924 (Brinckman). This publication describes increasing the solubility of any given area of the imageable layer in a given solvent by heating the imageable layer by indirect exposure to a short-duration, high intensity visible light or infrared radiation. This radiation can be transmitted or reflected from the background areas of a graphic original located in contact with the recording material. The publication describes various mechanisms and developing materials and novolak resins are included among the aqueous developable compositions that can also include radiation absorbing compounds such as carbon black or C.I. Pigment Blue 27.
Other thermally imageable, single- or multi-layer elements are described for example, in WO 97/039894 (Hoare et al.), WO 98/042507 (West et al.), WO 99/011458 (Ngueng et al.), U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,840,467 (Katatani), 6,060,217 (Ngueng et al.), 6,060,218 (Van Damme et al.), 6,110,646 (Urano et al.), 6,117,623 (Kawauchi), 6,143,464 (Kawauchi), 6,294,311 (Shimazu et al.), 6,352,812 (Shimazu et al.), 6,593,055 (Shimazu et al.), 6,352,811 (Patel et al.), 6,358,669 (Savariar-Hauck et al.), and 6,528,228 (Savariar-Hauck et al.), U.S. Patent Application Publications 2002/0081522 (Miyake et al.) and 2004/0067432 A1 (Kitson et al.).
WO 2004/081662 (Memetea et al.) and U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,255,033 (Levanon et al.) and 6,541,181 (Levanon et al.) describe the use of various phenolic polymers or poly(vinyl acetals) in positive-working compositions and elements.

Positive-working radiation-sensitive composition and elements


An IoT water purification system includes a water purification device and a cloud management device. The water purification device includes a filter element, a water tank, a water quantity sensing circuit, a filter element sensing circuit, and a water purification side wireless transmission circuit. The water quantity sensing circuit measures a current storage quantity of the drinking water to generate respective water quantity information. The filter element sensing circuit measures a water quality of the tap water to generate water quality information. The cloud management device includes a cloud wireless transmission circuit and a cloud processing circuit. The cloud processing circuit determines the storage quantity of the drinking water according to the water quantity information, counts the water quality information to generate historical water quantity information, and counts a current service life of the filter elements according to the current water quality information and the historical water quantity information.

Today, the drinking water is transported to the home after a series of processing procedures. During the long transportation process, water resources are easily polluted by the external environment or by the pollution source penetration due to the old and damaged underground pipeline, thereby affecting the water delivered at home.
With the continuous development of science and technology, various chemical pollution issues have occurred, and water quality has been affected by pesticides, dioxin, heavy metals and detergents, and therefore the hidden dangers of modern human health increase. These "environmental hormones" are scattered in the environment, return to the human body through the food chain, and deeply affect the physiological regulation function of the human body.
In order to enable families to have truly clean drinking water, the most effective filtration method known at present is to use RO water filter as a water filtration base to filter bacteria, viruses, chemical pollutants and heavy metals, so that the family can have purity and clean water. Combined with activated carbon to remove residual chlorine in the water and the mineralized ball, the drinking water can also contain trace minerals required by the human body.
However, the conventional water filter has the disadvantages, such as the water quality at the terminal is unknown for the user, the use status of the filter element is unknown, whether the water filter is in good condition or not is unknown, whether there is electric leakage or water leakage is unknown. As a result, the user must notify the dealer's maintenance personnel when there is a problem with the water filter.
Therefore, how to provide a system in which a user can know the water quality at the terminal, the use status of the filter element, the status of the water filter, and the dealer can send the maintenance personnel to solve problem at the first time when the problem occurs is the main focus of the present invention.

Internet of things water purification system


The present invention relates to compositions suitable for use against one or more pathogens comprising at least one antagonistic micro-organism and at least one stimulating agent, which may be selected from the group consisting of one or more uronic acids, mannans, and/or derivatives thereof and mixtures of said agents. The invention also relates to a method for the biocontrol of disease caused by pathogens to vegetal material using the compositions of the invention.

A great number of pesticides is well known in the art and has intensively been used for many years. There is presently a tendency to contemplate the possibility of using alternative methods involving more environment-friendly products.
It is well known in the art to use, as biological control agents, micro-organisms that are antagonistic to plant pathogens. Such micro-organisms can be effective biocontrol agents for the biological control of plant diseases, in particular postharvest diseases.
Penicillium and Botrytis species are responsible for important economical losses. Botrytis may cause important damages to plants for instance in the production of tomato, grapevine and strawberry prior to harvesting, and postharvest diseases on Malus and Pyrus spp. The common occurrence of Penicillium species in food is a particular problem. Some species produce toxins and may render food inedible or even dangerous. Species of Penicillium can cause severe fruit rot for example on Malus, Pyrus and Citrus spp.

Faculte Universitaire des Sciences Agronomiques de Gembloux


A method and system for authenticating a digital optical medium, such as a CD-ROM, determine whether the medium is an unauthorized copy, or the original. The original media is created, or altered, so as to contain anomalous locations from which the transfer of data is accomplished at different rates than a standard digital copy would exhibit. One implementation of the process involves timing analysis of the differences in data transfer rates. Another implementation involves the determination of digital signatures during multiple read operations performed on a data segment. The process can be employed in systems that control access to unauthorized copies, or may be used for other informative purposes. Theft, distribution, and piracy of digital content on optical media, such as computer software (also games, video, audio, e-book content), is often accomplished by copying it directly to another disc using commonly available copy tools and recordable optical media, or the replication of media to another mass manufactured disc. The present invention, which helps to irrefutably identify a unit of optical media as the original, and can correspondingly identify any copy made by any currently available means as such a copy, may prevent an unauthorized individual from making use of any unauthorized copies. This offers significant advantages to content creators who wish to protect their products.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to the field of systems and methods for preventing, deterring and detecting the unauthorized duplication of digital information, such as digital information distributed on optical media. The method relies upon a computing device executing validation code, either stored on the media itself or stored in firmware, volatile device memory provided from an external store or network transaction, or non-volatile device memory within the device, prior to allowing full access to the protected content.
2. Description of the Related Art
The electronic publishing industry, which publishes application software, computer games, appliance-console games, movies, and music on optical media is facing a growing and serious problem; namely, the piracy, unauthorized modification, and use of digital content. Since digital content itself is in essence a sequence of binary 1's and 0's, it may often be copied exactly, wherein a copy of these "bits" is identical in every way to the original, and since the tools that enable such copying are becoming more readily available, the industry is facing ever-increasing losses. Such losses may include the unauthorized duplication of a unit of optical media containing a game, a word processing program, an E-Book, a movie, or musical content.
A number of mechanisms are currently available that may be used to limit or prevent unauthorized access to digital content, including those approaches related to optical media manufacturing, modification, and protection thereof.
The most popular among these methods include methods that insert data errors into the media at the time of manufacture by producing actual bit patterns that are technically out of conformance with published standards and specifications (originally such as those set by Philips Corporation in their CD specification documents sometimes referred to as the "Red Book", "Orange Book", and other industry-standards-book names). In theory, the errors cannot be reproduced by copying processes or devices if those devices or processes are themselves specification conformant. However, such approaches are limited in that they do not take into account that while these bit patterns are not officially sanctioned and not specification conformant, the approach relies on unenforceable voluntary specification compliance. Even as recently as a few years ago, most device manufacturers were in fact working very hard to be specification conformant, and most copy software was also conformant, so these protective methods were effective for a period of time. However, it was realized that by making minor changes to the devices and software, they could be made to copy nearly everything, even protected titles. This resulted in sales of more devices, more copying software, and, of course, more blank media, and such devices are not in any way illegal. Certain usage is, but that is the responsibility of the purchaser. A slippery slope of sorts, but piracy is ubiquitous and part of the reason why many segments of industry and society derive financial benefit from the act of piracy. Devices have intentionally been created which ignore these specification deviations, as have software programs dedicated to copying media such as the popular "BlindRead" and "CloneCD" software products. Examples of devices that deviate from the specifications are for example CD-R and CD-RW drives manufactured under the name "Lite-On" or "Liteon", or devices made by industry giant "Plextor", which are engineered to copy and reproduce all bits on a disc exactly, regardless of specification conformance. Since the methods mentioned above rely on conformance to specifications and on industry consortia applying pressure to manufacturers and software companies to cause them to comply with the specifications, they are inherently flawed, because any number of such companies can, and have, carved themselves a perfectly legal market niche by breaking ranks, doing just the opposite and creating devices optimized for such unauthorized duplication usage. If copying of a medium is physically possible, then it will be copied and distributed. This is the significant challenge faced in this field; to create media authentication mechanisms that depend on detection of repeatable, measurable media properties, and which do not depend on voluntary specification compliance across a broad set of industries.
Conventional implementations of some significance include methods that depend on the existence of media errors and the detection of these errors in order to authenticate the media. These historic methods relied, as described above, upon cooperation and compliance from the makers of copying software and makers of the drives themselves. The intentionally-generated errors used by these approaches were sometimes chosen to be illegal and/or outside the appropriate specification, and the cooperating parties were encouraged to ship only those products that would ignore, or fail to fully, or correctly, copy the bit patterns. Since any and all bit patterns are inherently copyable, it was only a matter of time before one or more of these cooperating parties broke ranks and created copy software (Blind Read, Clone CD for example) and media drives (Plextor, Lite-On) that could generate an exact copy of these "uncopyable errors", invalidating the entire class of protection technologies based on this approach. The very failing of these methods lies in that the property they detected and depended upon can be wholly, or sufficiently copied by digital means. Such prior art "Backup-Resistant" or "Copy Protected" digital media that relies upon validation code executing on a general purpose device, is able to be wholly copied if all available bits of data relied upon by the validation algorithm can be accurately duplicated at a fundamentally low enough level onto recordable media and subsequently read on legacy devices.
A class of these authentication methods are restricted to protecting optical media intended to be used in general purpose computing devices. Such media includes a wide variety of formats such as CD-ROM, CDR, CDI, CDRW, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD+, DVDR, CD+ (also called CDPlus or Enhanced CD, or Blue Book). Other such authentication methods can protect content on Audio and Video CD's and DVD's by applying the above methods to algorithmic logic resident in firmware or non-volatile memory within the playback device, itself a computing device whose usage is much like an appliance.
Despite such developments, no current validation methods succeed at preventing accurate duplication of such protected media and the data on the media, either intended for use on general purpose computers, such as mass-produced "stamped" optical digital formats including CD-ROM, CDR, CDI, DVD-ROM, and CD+, or on appliance devices, consumer players, and game consoles.

Systems and methods for media authentication


An independent monitoring system and method for measuring the airflow rate in an appliance and determining its sufficiency is provided. An airflow detection system that monitors airflow rate (velocity) in an appliance is separate from the primary appliance control system and can determine whether a sufficient flow of air through air passageways occurs during operation of the appliance. An appliance component or subsystem can be controlled (e.g. activated or deactivated) by the airflow monitoring system based on the detected airflow rate.

Appliances that generate heat need a means to regulate internal temperature for adequate overall operation of the appliance. Cavities, passages, or ducts are frequently provided to direct air flow and to cool the appliance. Some appliances have conventionally relied upon natural convection to provide movement of air through ducts to cool the appliance. For example, the higher the expected temperature, the larger the size of the duct and inlet/exhaust ports.
However, the space provided for the ducts usually comes at the expense of space needed for general operation of the appliance. For example, in an oven, the overall size is generally standardized due to cabinet size, etc. By increasing the size of the ducts, the size of the cooking chamber is reduced.
As a result, a fan or blower can be provided to force air through the ducts or ventilation system of the appliance. Incorporating forced air ventilation into the appliance improves the cooling and temperature regulation within the appliance. However, it is important to ensure that the fan or blower is operating properly, that is, producing sufficient airflow, to provide adequate ventilation.
Generally, monitoring the power supplied to the fan is inadequate to determine if proper ventilation of the appliance is taking place. Likewise, using a tachometer system to measure the fan's rotational speed (RPM) can be inadequate to properly determine an actual airflow rate through the appliance. An appliance's controller can determine the amount of current used to run the fan, or measure the speed (RPM) of the motor by a variety of means, but other factors can influence the actual rate of airflow such as clogged or blocked ducts/vents or a stuck rotor shaft/impeller. For example, in the situation of clogged or blocked ducts/vents, the fan will continue to essentially operate normally (the RPM may be slightly higher) and the current detected by the device controller remains relatively unchanged (the current may drop slightly), but because the duct/vent is blocked, there is a reduced airflow provided to the appliance, and portions of the appliance might operate hotter than intended. Without adequate cooling regulation in the appliance, damage may occur to the appliance components, such as control electronics, circuitry, or other components and the life of the affected components may be reduced.
Accordingly, an appliance having a fan that provides for proper and adequate cooling during operation of the device would be useful. Such an appliance that includes an autonomous or separate and independent (aka autonomous) system for determining whether a sufficient flow of air is present would also be beneficial. An appliance capable of taking remedial action in the event the separate system detects that the flow of air is insufficient for properly cooling the device would also be particularly useful.

Fan airflow monitoring system in an appliance


A transmission method that transmits an optical signal via a plurality of virtual lanes in dual polarization or multi-level modulation includes: receiving a first frame signal of a first frequency and a second frame signal of a second frequency, and storing the first and second frame signals on a memory; reading out the first frame signal from the memory at a third frequency, and inserting a stuff into the first frame signal such that a difference between the first frequency and the third frequency is adjusted to generate a third frame signal; reading out the second frame signal from the memory at the third frequency, and inserting a staff into the second frame signal such that a difference between the second frequency and the third frequency is adjusted to generate a fourth frame signal; and transmitting the third and fourth frame signals respectively via different virtual lanes.

In the OTN (Optical Transport Network) standardized by the ITU-T Recommendation, a client signal is mapped to ODUk (Optical channel Data Unit) (where k=0, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., for example). A lower order ODUk (LO ODUk) is multiplexed into a higher order ODUk (HO ODUk) by the time division multiplexing so as to be transmitted. 100 Gbps data is transmitted in ODU4, for example. Schemes for transmitting large-volume data of more than 100 Gbps over the OTN have recently been considered.
Techniques to realize transmission of large-volume data are described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2012-119759, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-062682, and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2009-159062, for example.
Transmission of a high-speed signal of more than 100 Gpbs over the OTN may be realized by defining a frame of a higher order than the ODU4, for example. A frame realizing a bit rate n times higher than a bit rate of the ODU4 is referred to as "ODU4Cn (or ODUCn)". For example, ODU4C2 has a transmission capacity approximately twice as large as that of the ODU4, and ODU4C4 has a transmission capacity approximately four times larger than that of the ODU4.
It is, however, difficult to realize a symbol rate of 100 Gbaud or more because of a limit of increase in high speed of hardware circuits.

Transmission method, transmission equipment and transmission system