A magnetic sensor device comprises a substrate, first and second magnetic sensors, and one or more inductors are disposed over the substrate and are controlled by a magnetic sensor controller having a control circuit. The control circuit controls the first magnetic sensor to measure a first magnetic field and the second magnetic sensor to measure a second magnetic field under presence of a fifth magnetic field generated by the inductors. The control circuit controls the first magnetic sensor to measure a third magnetic field and the second magnetic sensor to measure a fourth magnetic field under presence of a sixth magnetic field generated by the inductors, the fifth magnetic field and the sixth magnetic field being different. The control circuit calculates a relative sensitivity matching value converting magnetic field values measured by the second magnetic sensor to a comparable magnetic field value measured by the first magnetic sensor.

Sensors are widely used in electronic devices to measure attributes of the environment and report a measured sensor value. In particular, magnetic sensors are used to measure magnetic fields, for example in transportation systems such as automobiles or in portable electronic devices. Magnetic sensors can incorporate Hall effect sensors that generate an output voltage proportional to an applied magnetic field or magneto-resistive materials whose electrical resistance changes in response to an external magnetic field. Magneto-inductive and fluxgate magnetic sensors are also used. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,545,462 describes a sensor for the detection of the direction of a magnetic field having magnetic flux concentrators and Hall elements. The Hall elements are arranged in the area of the edge of the magnetic field concentrator.
Other magnetic systems are integrated with an electrically conductive coil, for example a wire wrapped in a helix forming a solenoid. By applying an electrical current to the solenoid, a magnetic field is formed that can be detected by a magnetic sensor. Various solenoids can have different materials within the helix, for example an air core or a ferromagnetic core such as iron. Other designs use magnets to provide a field.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,831,431 illustrates a miniaturized coil arrangement for the detection of magnetically permeable materials. In this design, a core is provided in or parallel to a plane of the substrate and a coil wound around a section of the core so that at least a portion of the coil extends out of the substrate plane. In contrast, U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,192 discloses an integrated planar magnetic sensor with an excitation coil formed in a planar winding made using integrated circuit techniques on a semiconductor substrate. Flat detection coils are provided in different arrangements. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0316638 also describes a planar coil. WO2006067100 describes a magneto-resistive sensor with a modulation magnetic field. EP1407945 describes a magnetic sensor system with a magnetic sensor and two magnets that provide a magnetic field to the sensor to overcome stray external magnetic fields.
Measurements from magnetic sensors can drift over time, providing varying sensor measurements even when exposed to the same magnetic field. For example, the magnetic field measurements can be offset from a desired nominal value, the sensitivity can vary so that measurements are a multiple (either greater or less than one) of the desired value, or both. These changes in magnetic sensor response can have a variety of causes, including changes in environmental operating conditions such as temperature or humidity, changes in the magnetic sensor materials including magnetically permeable materials due to aging, parasitic effects such as ambient temperature variation, or mechanical stress on the magnetic sensor or a package in which the magnetic sensor is mounted. It is important, therefore, to calibrate a magnetic sensor to provide accurate measurement results when the magnetic sensor is first put into use and also during operation, for example periodically or when the magnetic sensor is turned on and used. Furthermore, stray external ambient magnetic fields can be present during calibration or in operation, complicating the process of accurately measuring a desired magnetic field. Moreover, due to manufacturing process and materials variation, as well as materials and operational aging, different magnetic sensors can have different performances and sensitivities to magnetic fields so that measurements of identical magnetic fields can result in different measured values.
Thus, in general and prior to their use, magnetic sensors are calibrated so as to eliminate or at least reduce any imprecision, measurement inaccuracy, or disturbances such as process dispersions during manufacture, magnetic interference caused by the circuitry that controls the magnetic sensor, interference due to external causes (e.g., loudspeakers, batteries, ferromagnetic elements), and dependence upon temperature or time. Calibration generally consists in selecting an appropriate set of gain and offset values for each detection axis of a magnetometer, such as a tri-axis position sensor. The calibration methods are typically carried out at manufacture or else at installation of the device in an apparatus in which it is to be used (for example, in the navigation system of an automobile).
Various magnetic sensor calibration methods are known and rely on the calibration of the absolute sensitivity of the magnetic sensor, that is, the response of the magnetic sensor to an imposed external magnetic field, for example a magnetic field made by an integrated solenoid. Calibration can be accomplished using a continuous gain calibration loop such as an electronic amplifier whose gain is set to match a desired value in response to the known external magnetic field. Some calibration methods rely on physically moving the sensors and making a set of measurements to calibrate the device. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,240,186 describes techniques for the calibration of magnetic sensors by using one or more magnetic sensors to sample at least four data points taken as the sensors are rotated about an axis and performing a mathematical operation to obtain offset values for the measured values and correcting the measured field values with the offset values to calibrate the apparatus. The magnetic sensors can be spatially separated and controlled by a controller. U.S. Pat. No. 7,835,879 finds multiple solution sets and selects from among the solutions. U.S. Pat. No. 8,825,426 uses motion during operation to make different magnetic field measurements and fits the measured data points to an ellipsoid to calculate a magnetic field. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014033696 also employs an ellipsoidal model.
Another approach to providing sensor motion for calibration uses a generated magnetic field, for example employing a magnet as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,259,550 in which a magnetic calibration device includes at least one magnetic sensor, for example a Hall sensor, to be calibrated. At least one coil card is detachably attached and comprises three coils arranged substantially orthogonal to each other. A magnet generates a substantially homogeneous and constant calibration magnetic field and a rotator rotates the cards in the calibration magnetic field around two substantial orthogonal axes. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20090072815 describes a magnetic sensor device including at least one magnetic excitation field generator for generating a magnetic excitation field and at least one magnetic calibration field generator for generating a magnetic calibration field. At least one magnetic sensor element measures the magnetic reaction fields generated by magnetic particles in reaction to the magnetic excitation field and/or the magnetic calibration field. The measurements are evaluated to calibrate the magnetic sensor element.
Another magnetic sensor design incorporating magnetic-field-generating circuits is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,547,050 in which a sensor system carried by an electronic device is configured to detect an eternal magnetic field emitted by a magnetic source. The sensor system comprises a single substrate formed of non-magnetic material and having a first surface and a second surface displaced from the first surface, a first magnetic sensor at the first surface and a second magnetic sensor at the second surface, both detecting the external magnetic field at different locations. The first magnetic sensor and the second magnetic sensor concurrently (i) detect the external magnetic field and (ii) provide a first detection signal and a second detection signal, respectively. The first detection signal corresponds to a first magnetic field strength and the second detection signal corresponds to a second magnetic field strength. A processing circuit is coupled to the first magnetic sensor and the second magnetic sensor. The processing circuit uses a difference between the first detection signal and the second detection signal to provide a direction of the external magnetic field.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,089,276 discloses a magnetic field sensor assembly with at least one magnetic field sensor integrated into a semiconductor chip and has at least one magnetic field source. The semiconductor chip and the at least one magnetic field source are arranged relative to each other in such a way that a magnetic field generated by the magnetic field source is detectable with the aid of at least one magnetic field sensor.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,669,761 describes a sensor circuit configured and operated in the presence of interference. In connection with various example embodiments, a stray magnetic field is sensed with current sensors that also respectively sense current-induced magnetic fields generated by current flowing in opposing directions through different portions of a conductor. The current-induced magnetic fields and the stray magnetic field are coplanar, and the current sensors are arranged such that a portion of the output from each current sensor corresponding to the stray magnetic field is canceled when the sensor outputs are combined.
These magnetic sensors are typically calibrated using absolute sensitivity so that they sin/ply correct for a measured bias, for example using integrated coils and a continuous gain calibration loop and as described in the above references. However, this method has drawbacks that limit effectiveness, for example the magnetic field from integrated coils is relatively low, inhibiting the magnetic sensor's ability to overcome external stray magnetic fields, and the calibration is only as accurate as the current source used to generate the current passed through the integrated solenoid coil. These drawbacks lead to inaccurate magnetic sensor calibration.
There is an ongoing need, therefore, for effective calibration methods and structures for magnetic sensors operable under a wide range of measurement conditions for detecting a wide range of magnetic fields in different locations.

Magnetic sensor sensitivity matching calibration


A beam position control system controls a position of a beam directed from a beam source. The beam position control system includes a beam position sensing system that generates one or more satellite beams which are used to determine the position of a main beam. A beam offset computation block determines a relative position of the main beam with respect to a desired main beam position and provides beam offset information to a controller that generates a compensation signal used to adjust the main beam position to the desired main beam position via a beam actuation system.

The present application is directed to beam position detection and control, and more particularly to systems and methods that enable sensing the position of a beam along one or more axes while minimally perturbing or interfering with the beam, and, when appropriate, moving of the beam to control its position.
A number of beam sensing systems and methods are known. One type of system senses the beam itself. For example, in Bhalla et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,402, the main beam is dithered in order to provide appropriate alignment information and control. However, during sensing of beam position, the beam cannot be used normally for its intended purposes. This shortcoming delays or impacts desired operational use of the beam.
Another beam sensing system, U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,690 to Corsover et al. describes a single dithered beam system, where the output from a light source is split by a beam splitter into a plurality of beams. This plurality includes a light beam (PBT) used for tracking a guide track (T) of an optical disc. The tracking is accomplished by dithering the PBT beam that impinges as a light spot (PT) upon guide track (T). The dithered beam (PBT) is used for tracking purposes in both a playback and record mode. In a preferred embodiment, the playback beams are split by an optical grating and dithered by an acousto-optic device. Such a system generates an error signal which is to be driven to zero, but it does not teach measuring the position of a beam over a variable range. Corsover et al., therefore, show a teaching for sensing a relative distance from a track which is a fixed feature. It does not teach sensing of an actual position of a main beam which permits for adjustable control.
Accordingly, a new system which provides highly accurate, highly responsive position sensing and/or control is desirable. The system should provide minimal disturbance of the main beam in its operation, while preferably providing precision sensing and also providing both rapid response and long-term stability. Such a system would be anticipated to have applicability in a variety of beam sensing applications, including that for beam position control. Control of a beam in this manner has applicability in a variety of environments, including laser printing, medical laser systems, precision laser instruments, optical switch networks, free space laser communication, high power lasers, as well as other industrial and academic settings.

Optical beam position active sensing and control using satellite beams


A printing system and method performs lossy compression on a bitonal image when the printing system runs out of available memory for processing a page. The lossy compression is performed by dividing the image into subregions and by then determining a contone value for each subregion. Next, each contone value is converted to a bitonal value (i.e. either a "1" or a "0") to achieve lossy compression. In converting the contone values to bitonal values, the system determines the error associated with each conversion and diffuses the error to adjacent subregions using a random perturbation technique to determine the proportion of the error to diffuse to each subregion. When compressing color images, contone values are determined for each color plane. A relative color ordering of each contone value is also stored and used in converting the contone values to bitonal values in order to solve phasing and color alignment problems which would otherwise arise.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of digital printing and specifically to systems and methods for compressing bitonal black and white and color images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional digital printing systems operate on bitonal images. Bitonal images are images, whether black and white or color, that are represented on a page by a plurality of dots or "pixels" wherein each dot (or "pixel") generally has one of two states (e.g. is either on or off). In these systems an "on" dot (or pixel) causes colorant to be applied and an "off" dot (or pixel) causes no colorant to be applied at the corresponding location on the page. In black and white systems, an "on" dot (or pixel) generally causes black colorant to be applied. Color systems similarly turn on and off dots (or pixels) to generate an image. Color systems, however, superimpose "dots" (or pixels) of different colorants to generate a desired color. For example, some color systems generate color by superimposing cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY) colorants or by superimposing cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) colorants. In such color systems, the bitonal color image is represented by a plurality of bitonal sets of data (color planes), each corresponding to a colorant.
Generally, an image is initially generated as a contone image and then later converted to a bitonal image for printing. For example, a person using an image editing program or using an image scanning device will generate a contone image and in the course of printing, the image is generally converted to a bitonal representation. A contone image is represented by a plurality of dots or pixels wherein each dot or pixel has a range of tonal values, as opposed to binary values as in bitonal images. Some examples of possible tonal ranges for each pixel in a contone images are 16 tonal values (4 bit), 32 tonal values (5 bit), 64 tonal values (6 bit), 128 tonal values (7 bit) and 256 tonal values (8 bit).
Conventional digital printing systems receive data corresponding to text and graphics in a variety of formats. These systems process such data to create bitonal images suitable for printing by the particular print engine in the system.
A conventional technique for processing images is to incorporate a microprocessor into a printing device, and to program the microprocessor to interpret commands from an attached computer in accordance with the protocols of a page description language. Such subsystems are commonly known as "interpreters", and translate the printing commands from the attached computer into commands and bitonal image data more easily processed by the printing device.
In practice, it is common for interpreters to decompose high-level commands corresponding to complex images into low-level commands representing, for instance, a collection of simple components known as "graphic primitives".
Two system architectures are commonly used in the industry for further processing of the low-level commands produced by page description language interpreters. The first, known as a "frame buffer", represents every bitonal pixel on a printed page as a separate bit or, in the case of color, as a set of bits in random access memory (RAM). Under this system, any page that can be described as a map of bitonal pixels can be printed. Frame buffer systems typically must process the information to be displayed on a frame-by-frame basis in which each frame must be rasterized and the data therein sent serially to the print engine. Furthermore, a substantial amount of frame buffer RAM is required to store information for the page, even when the image to be printed is extremely simple.
The second common architecture, known as "banding", stores all of the graphic primitives to be printed on the page, such as characters, graphics, images, and the like, in one or more "display lists" stored in the RAM of the printing system. One example of a system using such an architecture is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,928 issued to Cook et. al, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. A display list is typically a temporally-ordered list of graphic primitives for one area of the page, typically a horizontal band. Each display list is rasterized in turn into one of a small number of band bit maps (or "pixel maps"), or buffers, the contents of which are sent in turn to the print engine. The band buffers are reused during the processing of all the display lists of the page. Typically, most of the rasterization into band pixel maps occurs after the print engine has started to print the page. In the typical laser printer, the engine cannot be stopped in the middle of a page, so this rasterization must be fast enough to keep up with the print engine. In banding systems, relatively little RAM is required to print simple pages, and processing of one page while another page is printing is possible. However, for very complex images the size of the lists can exceed the RAM resulting in an error. Thus, sufficient RAM for handling such complex images must be provided or an error will result. Additionally, the bands must be rasterized within the time requirements of the printer engine or an error will result.
Some prior art systems perform lossless compression on selected bands of bitonal image data when the memory requirements for the bitonal image approach or exceed the available memory. In some instances, however, the lossless compression does not provide sufficient compression to meet the memory constraints of a particular system and in these instances, a page prints with an error such as being printed across multiple sheets.

System and method for providing glossy compression and contone/bitonal image conversion


An apparatus for estimating an inter-channel time difference between a first channel signal and a second channel signal, includes a signal analyzer for estimating a signal characteristic of the first channel signal or the second channel signal or both signals or a signal derived from the first channel signal or the second channel signal; a calculator for calculating a cross-correlation spectrum for a time block from the first channel signal in the time block and the second channel signal in the time block; a weighter for weighting a smoothed or non-smoothed cross-correlation spectrum to obtain a weighted cross correlation spectrum using a first weighting procedure or using a second weighting procedure depending on a signal characteristic estimated by the signal analyzer, wherein the first weighting procedure is different from the second weighting procedure; and a processor for processing the weighted cross-correlation spectrum to obtain the inter-channel time difference.

Stereo speech and particularly conversational stereo speech has received much less scientific attention than storage and broadcasting of stereophonic music. Indeed in speech communications monophonic transmission is still nowadays mostly used. However with the increase of network bandwidth and capacity, it is envisioned that communications based on stereophonic technologies will become more popular and bring a better listening experience.
Efficient coding of stereophonic audio material has been for a long time studied in perceptual audio coding of music for efficient storage or broadcasting. At high bitrates, where waveform preserving is crucial, sum-difference stereo, known as mid/side (MS) stereo, has been employed for a long time. For low bit-rates, intensity stereo and more recently parametric stereo coding has been introduced. The latest technique was adopted in different standards as HeAACv2 and Mpeg USAC. It generates a down-mix of the two-channel signal and associates compact spatial side information.
Joint stereo coding are usually built over a high frequency resolution, i.e. low time resolution, time-frequency transformation of the signal and is then not compatible to low delay and time domain processing performed in most speech coders. Moreover the engendered bit-rate is usually high.
On the other hand, parametric stereo employs an extra filter-bank positioned in the front-end of the encoder as pre-processor and in the back-end of the decoder as post-processor. Therefore, parametric stereo can be used with conventional speech coders like ACELP as it is done in MPEG USAC. Moreover, the parametrization of the auditory scene can be achieved with minimum amount of side information, which is suitable for low bit-rates. However, parametric stereo is as for example in MPEG USAC not specifically designed for low delay and does not deliver consistent quality for different conversational scenarios. In conventional parametric representation of the spatial scene, the width of the stereo image is artificially reproduced by a decorrelator applied on the two synthesized channels and controlled by Inter-channel Coherence (ICs) parameters computed and transmitted by the encoder. For most stereo speech, this way of widening the stereo image is not appropriate for recreating the natural ambience of speech which is a pretty direct sound since it is produced by a single source located at a specific position in the space (with sometimes some reverberation from the room). By contrast, music instruments have much more natural width than speech, which can be better imitated by decorrelating the channels.
Problems also occur when speech is recorded with non-coincident microphones, like in A-B configuration when microphones are distant from each other or for binaural recording or rendering. Those scenarios can be envisioned for capturing speech in teleconferences or for creating a virtually auditory scene with distant speakers in the multipoint control unit (MCU). The time of arrival of the signal is then different from one channel to the other unlike recordings done on coincident microphones like X-Y (intensity recording) or M-S (Mid-Side recording). The computation of the coherence of such non time-aligned two channels can then be wrongly estimated which makes the artificial ambience synthesis fail.
References from known technology related to stereo processing are U.S. Pat. No. 5,434,948 or 8,811,621.
Document WO 2006/089570 A1 discloses a near-transparent or transparent multi-channel encoder/decoder scheme. A multi-channel encoder/decoder scheme additionally generates a waveform-type residual signal. This residual signal is transmitted together with one or more multi-channel parameters to a decoder. In contrast to a purely parametric multi-channel decoder, the enhanced decoder generates a multi-channel output signal having an improved output quality because of the additional residual signal. On the encoder-side, a left channel and a right channel are both filtered by an analysis filterbank. Then, for each subband signal, an alignment value and a gain value are calculated for a subband. Such an alignment is then performed before further processing. On the decoder-side, a de-alignment and a gain processing is performed and the corresponding signals are then synthesized by a synthesis filterbank in order to generate a decoded left signal and a decoded right signal.
In such stereo processing applications, the calculation of an inter-channel or inter channel time difference between a first channel signal and a second channel signal is useful in order to typically perform a broadband time alignment procedure. However, other applications do exist for the usage of an inter-channel time difference between a first channel and a second channel, where these applications are in storage or transmission of parametric data, stereo/multi-channel processing comprising a time alignment of two channels, a time difference of arrival estimation for a determination of a speaker position in a room, beamforming spatial filtering, foreground/background decomposition or the location of a sound source by, for example, acoustic triangulation in order to only name a few.
For all such applications, an efficient, accurate and robust determination of an inter-channel time difference between a first and a second channel signal may be used.
There do already exist such determinations known under the term "GCC-PHAT" or, stated differently, generalized cross-correlation phase transform. Typically, a cross-correlation spectrum is calculated between the two channel signals and, then, a weighting function is applied to the cross-correlation spectrum for obtaining a so-called generalized cross-correlation spectrum before performing an inverse spectral transform such as an inverse DFT to the generalized cross-correlation spectrum in order to find a time-domain representation. This time-domain representation represents values for certain time lags and the highest peak of the time-domain representation then typically corresponds to the time delay or time difference, i.e., the inter-channel time delay of difference between the two channel signals.
However, it has been shown that, particularly in signals that are different from, for example, clean speech without any reverberation or background noise, the robustness of this general technique is not optimum.

Apparatus, method or computer program for estimating an inter-channel time difference

FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FÖRDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V.


A user equipment includes a receiving unit configured to receive a first signal of inter-terminal direct communication transmitted from a first user equipment, and information indicating a first resource for transmitting a HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) response corresponding to the first signal of inter-terminal direct communication transmitted from either one of a base station apparatus or the first user equipment; a control unit configured to determine the HARQ response based on a reception result of the first signal of inter-terminal direct communication; and a transmitting snit configured to transmit the determined HARQ response to the base station apparatus or the first user equipment, by using the first resource for transmitting the HARQ response.

In LTE (Long Term Evolution) and successor systems of LTE (for example, LTE-A (LTE Advanced) and NR (New Radio) (also referred to as 5G)), a D2D (Device to Device) technology in which user equipments directly communicate with each other without involving a radio base station, is being studied (for example, Non-Patent Literature 1).
D2D reduces the traffic between the user equipment and the base station apparatus, and enables communication between the user equipments even when the base station apparatus becomes unable to communicate in the event of a disaster, etc. Note that in 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), D2D is referred to as "sidelink"; however, in the present specification, D2D, which is a more general term, is used. However, sidelink is also used as necessary in the description of the embodiment to be described later.
D2D is generally classified into D2D discovery (also referred to as D2D detection) for discovering other communicable user equipments and D2D communication (also referred to as D2D direct communication, inter-terminal direct communication, etc.) for user equipments to directly communicate with each other. In the following description, when D2D communication, D2D discovery, etc., are not particularly distinguished, these may be simply referred to as D2D. Furthermore, signals used for transmission and reception in D2D are referred to as D2D signals. Various use cases of services related to V2X (Vehicle to Everything) in NR are being studied (for example, Non-Patent Literature 2).

User equipment and base station apparatus


A manufacturing device for a synthetic resin hollow molded body molds a first split assembly member, a second split assembly member, and a third split assembly member by a first injection, and joints each of contact portions of the three members with a corresponding contact portion by a second injection. The manufacturing device includes an ejecting mechanism which moves the second split assembly member in a die opening/closing direction, a rotating mechanism which rotates the third split assembly member around a shaft center in the die opening/closing direction, and a sliding mechanism which slides the second split assembly member and the third split assembly member in a direction perpendicular to the die opening/closing direction. According to the manufacturing device, while the dies are open after the first injection, the three members are made different by the ejecting mechanism, and then the three members are made to face one another by the rotation mechanism and the sliding mechanism in the die opening/closing direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a manufacturing device and a manufacturing method for a synthetic resin hollow molded body. More particularly, the invention relates to a manufacturing device and a manufacturing method for efficiently manufacturing a synthetic resin hollow molded body including three members, which are a first split assembly member, a second split assembly member and a third split assembly member. The invention is widely applied to manufacture of an intake manifold and the like of an internal combustion engine, and to a field related thereto.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a synthetic resin hollow molded body, there is a complex-shaped product, such as an intake manifold for an automobile, which includes a plurality of nonlinear pipes. As shown in FIG. 10, an intake manifold 30 includes a first split assembly member 31, a second split assembly member 32, which make a pair, and a box-shaped third split assembly member 33 which is provided on an end portion of the second split assembly member 32. As a manufacturing method for the intake manifold, a method including an injection molding process and a vibration welding process is known. In the injection molding process, contact portions of the first split assembly member and second split assembly member that are molded by a first injection are jointed by a second injection. In the vibration welding process, the contact portion of the jointed second split assembly member and the contact portion of the third split assembly member are jointed by the vibration welding or the like. As a conventional injection molding device used in the aforementioned injection molding process, for example, an injection molding devices disclosed in Japanese Patent-Laid Open Publication No. 4-331123 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No.6-297501 are known. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 4-331123 discloses the injection molding device including a sliding mechanism which relatively slides the first split assembly member and second split assembly member so as to make them face each other in a die opening/closing direction, such that the contact portions of the first split assembly member and the second split assembly member, which are molded by the first injection, contact each other. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 6-297501 discloses the injection molding device including a rotating mechanism which relatively rotates the first split assembly member and the second split assembly member so as to make them face each other in the die opening/closing direction.
In the aforementioned conventional manufacturing method for an intake manifold, the intake manifold is manufactured through the injection molding process and the vibration welding process. Accordingly, it is necessary to control the two different, manufacturing processes, which reduces manufacturing efficiency. In addition, as manufacturing equipment, both an injection molding device used in the injection molding process and a vibration welding device used in the vibration welding process are required, which increases a cost of equipment. Further, generally, only a molded product having a relatively simple shape can be molded by the vibration welding, and a flash receiver needs to be provided, which reduces flexibility in designing a molded product. Therefore, in order to solve the aforementioned problems, a method can be suggested in which the vibration welding process is not performed and the intake manifold is manufactured only by the injection molding process, that is, a method for manufacturing the intake manifold including the first split assembly member, second split assembly member, and the third split assembly member using the conventional injection molding device. However, in the conventional injection molding device, the sliding mechanism (or the rotating mechanism) is appropriate for relatively moving the two members, which are the first split assembly member and the second split assembly members. Accordingly, even when two sliding mechanisms (or the two rotating mechanisms) are simply provided, or both the sliding mechanism and the rotating mechanism are simply provided, it is impossible to appropriately move the three members, which are the first split assembly member, second split assembly member, and the third split assembly member, so as to make them face one another in the die opening/closing direction. Further, for example, when two sliding mechanisms are simply provided, driving means such as a hydraulic cylinder which forms the sliding mechanism protrudes in a direction in which the sliding mechanism slides, which results in upsizing of the entire device. When two rotating mechanisms are simply provided, the entire device is also upsized so as to obtain a rotation area for the rotating mechanisms.

Manufacturing device and manufacturing method for synthetic resin hollow molded body


There are provided a first casing 100A that has a photosensor section 113 for capturing an image, a second casing 100B that has a lens section 122 for projecting the image of a subject onto the photosensor section 113 of the first casing 100A and a connection section 100C that foldably connects the first casing 100A with the second casing 100B. The photosensor section 113 and the lens section 122 are arranged so that the photosensor section 113 and the lens section 122 are superposed on each other in a state in which the first casing 100A and the second casing 100B are folded together. With this arrangement, the folding type camera device and the folding type portable telephone equipped with this device can be reduced in thickness.

The present invention relates to a folding type camera device and a folding type portable telephone provided with a camera function.
In a prior art folding type portable telephone provided with a camera function, a camera unit is built in either one of a first casing located on the display side and a second casing located on the operation panel side of the folding type portable telephone since the camera unit in which a lens section and a photosensor section are integrally formed is easy to handle.
As shown in FIGS. 8A through 8E, there is a folding type portable telephone in which a main body side casing A and an LCD side casing B are integrally constructed by being pivotably connected with each other via a pivot section C, and a camera unit D is built in only the second casing A located on the operation panel side as a prior art folding type camera unit (e.g., JP 2002-11834 A).
Moreover, as shown in FIG. 9, there is a folding type portable telephone in which a display section 10A and an operation section 10B are pivotably connected with each other via a hinge unit 21, and a camera unit 25 is built in only the display section 10A as a prior art folding type camera unit (e.g., JP 2002-185589 A).
However, the folding type portable telephone shown in FIGS. 8A through 8E and FIG. 9, in which the thickness of the casing equipped with the camera unit D is determined by a focal distance (about 4 mm) between the lens and the photosensor section, has therefore a problem that it cannot cope with a demand for further reducing the thickness of the folding type portable telephone. Moreover, the folding type portable telephone, which has an integrally formed camera unit mechanism, also has a problem that the lens cannot be replaced according to normal photographing, telephotographing, close-up photographing and so on.

Folding type camera device and folding type portable telephone


Mach-Zehnder optical modulators and IQ modulators based on a series push-pull travelling wave electrode are provided. The modulator includes a conductive backplane providing an electrical signal path. One or more voltage control taps are electrically connected to the conductive backplane within an area underneath the travelling wave electrode and provide an equalizing DC control voltage to the conductive backplane. In other variants, a plurality of conductive backplane segments are provided, and at least one voltage control tap is electrically connected to each conductive backplane segment within an area underneath the travelling wave electrode and provides a DC control voltage to the corresponding conductive backplane segment.

Optical modulators have been employed for many years in the field of optical communications to accept modulated data in electrical format (typically radio frequency or RF) and transfer the data onto an optical carrier. In a Mach-Zehnder optical modulator 20, as generally shown in FIG. 1 (PRIOR ART), a beamsplitter 22 divides the laser light from an input optical waveguide 24 into two optical beams propagating in parallel waveguides defining optical paths 28A and 28B, at least one of which having a phase modulator in which the refractive index is a function of the strength of the locally applied electric field. In the example of FIG. 1 light in both optical paths 28A, 28B undergoes a phase modulation, although in other configurations the refractive index in only one of the optical paths could be modulated with respect to the other. The beams are then recombined by an output optical combiner 26. Changing the electric field on the phase modulating paths determines whether the two beams interfere constructively or destructively when recombined, and thereby controls the amplitude or intensity of the exiting light. In some configurations, the phase of the exiting light can be controlled via a variety of means such as by manipulating the phase modulation signal, or through design.
In the configuration shown in FIG. 1, the modulating electric field is provided by a segmented Travelling Wave Electrode 21 (or TWE) that consists of two or more transmission line conductors 30A, 30B oriented substantially parallel to the optical paths 28A, 28B, and a plurality of pairs of waveguide electrodes 32A, 32B. Each waveguide electrode 32A, 32B is connected to one of the transmission line conductors 30A, 30B via a corresponding tap or bridge conductor 34A, and 34B. Each bridge conductor 34A, 34B branches out of one of the transmission line conductors 30A, 30B in a direction substantially perpendicular to the optical paths 28A, 28B. The transmission line conductors 30A, 30B convey an RF signal along an RF path that is substantially parallel to the optical paths 28A, 28B.
The configuration shown in FIG. 1 is known as a Mach-Zehnder modulator operated in "push-pull" mode is referred to as a series push-pull travelling wave electrode, after Klein et al., "1.55 μm Mach-Zehnder Modulators on InP for optical 40/80 Gbit/s transmission networks", OFC/NFOEC 2006, paper TuA2, and described in further detail by R. G. Walker, "High-Speed III-V Semiconductor Intensity Modulators", IEEE J. Quant. Elect., vol. 27(3), pp. 654-667, 1991. In a series push-pull configuration, a single voltage signal or field is used to phase modulate the interfering signals in the two arms in anti-phase. Each pair of waveguide electrodes 32A, 32B, as shown in FIG. 1, impart a phase change to the optical wave in the waveguide 28A, 28B and also act as a pair of capacitors in series and as a load on the main transmission line conductors 30A, 30B.
A travelling wave electrode Mach-Zehnder optical modulator can be driven using either a single RF signal input, or two RF signal inputs in anti-phase. Referring for example to FIG. 1, in a single-ended design the two transmission line conductors 30A, 30B may respectively act as a signal transmission line conductor (S) conveying the input electrical signal, and a ground transmission line conductor (G) connected to a ground reference. This modulator configuration is sometimes referred to as an SG modulator (also known as a coplanar strip). It should be noted that other types of RF drives are known in the optical telecommunications industry, requiring other arrangements of transmission line conductors in the modulator. For example, the prior art includes optical modulators with differential-drive GSGSG and GSSG formats (see for example applicant's U.S. patent application published under number US2013/0209023 (PROSYK) "Mach-Zehnder Optical Modulator Using A Balanced Coplanar Stripline With Lateral Ground Planes", filed on Feb. 14, 2013).
FIG. 1A (PRIOR ART) is an elevation view of section A of the optical modulator of FIG. 1, showing two pairs of waveguide electrodes 32A, 32B. Each waveguide electrode 32A, 32B extends over a p-i-n junction 36A, 36B, formed within the corresponding waveguide branch. The p-layer 38A, 38B is in contact with the corresponding waveguide electrode 32A, 32B and the n-layer 40A, 40B is in contact with a common conducting backplane 42. The i-layer 39A, 39B contains a series of layers of InGaAsP of varying composition that acts as the waveguiding core. The entire structure extends on a semi-insulating substrate 43. When an instantaneous change is applied in the voltage difference between the transmission line conductors 30A and 30B, a RF current 44 flows from the highly p-doped contact material 38A beneath waveguide electrode 32A, through the corresponding p-i-n junction 36A and the common conducting backplane 42, and up through the opposite p-i-n junction 36B. The direct current (DC) bias voltage of the backplane 42 is typically fixed by an external DC voltage source (not shown). A simplified electrical diagram of this configuration is shown in FIG. 2. The p-i-n semiconductor layers act as capacitors C that are connected in series through the common conducting backplane 42. This series connection halves the required loading capacitance on the main signal transmission line conductor compared to designs with electrically-independent Mach-Zehnder arms, leading to major performance advantages with regards to bandwidth.
Another type of Mach-Zehnder optical modulator known in the art is an in-phase quadrature modulator, or IQ modulator, for example described in Prosyk et al., "Tunable InP-based IQ modulator for 160 Gb/s", ECOC 2011 post-deadline paper Th.13.A.5. An example of an IQ modulator 80 is shown in FIG. 3 (PRIOR ART). It includes two series push-pull travelling wave Mach-Zehnder modulators 20a and 20b, nested within a parent Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The parent Mach-Zehnder modulator is defined by a parent input optical waveguide 82 which received an input optical signal, a parent beamsplitter 84 splitting the optical signal into first and second parent optical branches 86A and 86B, each hosting one of the Mach-Zehnder optical modulators 20A and 20B, and a parent combiner 88 that recombines the beams outputted by the individual Mach-Zehnder modulators. In contrast to a standard Mach-Zehnder modulators, which typically is operated by switching between two binary data states (e.g., on and off), IQ modulators may be suited to switching between four states, using a signaling format known as quadrature phase shift keying. This format has many advantages over binary signaling schemes, such as an increase in data rate and efficient use of the optical spectrum.
Although series push-pull travelling wave architecture provides many advantages for Mach-Zehnder and IQ modulators, some difficulties may arise with such designs when high optical powers are coupled into the input waveguide. This is particularly true for Mach-Zehnder and IQ modulators fabricated from direct bandgap semiconductors, such as the compound semiconductor indium gallium arsenide phosphide, as used in the modulators of Klein and Prosyk above. Furthermore, the behavior of series push-pull travelling wave Mach-Zehnder modulator and IQ modulators can depend sensitively on the magnitude of the DC bias applied to the p-i-n junctions. Non-uniformity in the backplane voltage can negatively impact performance, such as the amount of optical phase shift per unit change in electrical signal. Also, other electrodes and diodes in the optical path which share the common backplane, such as DC phase control electrodes as described, for example, in FIG. 1(a) of the Prosyk paper, may also suffer in performance and stability.
Accordingly there is a need in the art for improved series push-pull travelling wave Mach-Zehnder modulators which can alleviates at least some of the disadvantages inherent to the prior art.

Mach-Zehnder modulator with backplane voltage equalization


A method for determining material density variations and prediction of defects on a multi-layer printed circuit board (PCB), in the X, Y, and Z axis, includes a virtual grid creation system and a set of rules for determining the material density in each grid element in the grid system.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to semiconductor circuit boards and, more particularly, to a system and method for calculating material density variations in multi-layer printed circuit boards.
2. General Background
Material, such as copper, density variation analysis is performed in the semiconductor industry as a metric for determining manufactured semiconductor board quality. Calculating the density variations for designing the printed circuit board is often required in the manufacturing process to assess manufacturing defects. Specifically, larger the variation in material density the more likely the board will exhibit mechanical and thermal defects. Thus, the density variation analysis is used for the purpose of making copper pattern density substantially uniform across the board.
One mechanism to determine material density variation is through the use of ultra-violet light and glass based system 1 as shown in FIG. 1. Shown therein, is a bottom and top glass exposure layers 2 and 4 respectively. Sandwiched between these layers are a top and a bottom photo-tool layers 6 and 8 respectively. The photo-tool layers 6 and 8 are brought in contact with the multi-layer printed circuit board 10 having material (e.g., copper) variations, generally depicted as 12 and 14. An ultra-violet light is transmitted from one end 16 towards a sheet of material (not shown) positioned at another end 18. The interference pattern observed on the sheet material provides feedback means for identifying material variations on the printed circuit board. However, there are several disadvantages with this system including, (i) the system being expensive, (ii) the need for contacting the multi-layer printed circuit board with the photo-tools/exposure glass system thereby increasing the likelihood of damaging the circuit board.
Density variation analysis is useful for determining other important scalar properties, for example, defect susceptibility, power dissipation, etc. for purposes of modeling and/or correction for these properties. The density variation analysis also is used to estimate yield loss due to densities that are too low or too high in layers of the design. The density variation analysis may be used to evaluate non-uniformities in height across the circuit board due to variations in density. Density analysis may be anywhere from about 10% to about 50% for standard designs.
Therefore, a need exists for an efficient and cost-effective method for determining density variations of the material in a printed circuit board.

Method for analyzing material density variations on a multi-layer printed circuit board


An upper limit of a target value of a wheel cylinder pressure generated by a wheel cylinder is set. Specifically, the upper limit of the target value is predetermined and increases with elapsed time from the beginning of the control. Accordingly, the actual application pressure generated can be set to be equal to or less than the upper limit. Thus, it is possible to prevent the application pressure from being dramatically increased when the automatic brake control is switched to a manual brake control from automatic brake control. Accordingly, it is less likely that the driver will be caused to feel a sense of unease by a change from automatic to manual brake control.

Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-313322 discloses a related vehicular brake control device that aims to achieve a good brake feeling when a manual brake is operated during automatic braking. The brake control device has a relief valve for releasing brake fluid, and is thus able to release brake fluid pressure applied to a wheel cylinder by the manual brake. When a brake pedal is operated during automatic braking, the opening of the relief valve is controlled in accordance with a release time. This release time is determined based on a vehicle body deceleration, and corrected using a depression speed of the brake pedal. Thus, a pedal stroke that corresponds with the manual braking state can be obtained.
However, according to the disclosure of Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-313322, when the brake fluid pressure applied to the wheel cylinder is released by the operation of the manual brake, the deceleration speed generated by the automatic brake is temporarily reduced, and deceleration speed inconsistency, namely, a fall in the deceleration speed, may result.
For example, if there is a risk of a frontal collision with an obstacle in front of the vehicle, the likelihood that a collision will occur (hereinafter referred to as the "frontal collision likelihood level") during operation of the automatic brake increases, and thus the driver may operate the manual brake. At this time, the automatic brake is stopped, and brake fluid pressure is applied to the wheel cylinder based on a master cylinder pressure generated by the operation of the manual brake. Thus, when an operation amount of the manual brake by the driver is small, even if the corresponding brake fluid pressure is applied to the wheel cylinder, the brake fluid pressure applied is smaller than that previously generated by the automatic brake. Therefore, even if the driver actually operates the manual brake, the deceleration speed is reduced.
As a result of this reduction, the driver feels a sense of unease, i.e., feels that the braking force is weakened, and is not able to obtain a brake feeling that meets with the driver's expectations.
Moreover, when the above brake control device performs the brake assist control, if the frontal collision likelihood level increases during operation of the automatic brake, and the driver strongly depresses the brake pedal, the automatic brake is stopped, and the brake assist control is started. At this time, the amount of the pressure applied to the wheel cylinder is boosted in accordance with the driver's operation of the brake pedal, and high brake pressure is suddenly applied to the wheel cylinder.
In this case, the vehicle body deceleration is increased, and the driver may feel a sense of unease due to the sudden braking force. In particular, if the brake control device is configured such that (i) the frontal collision likelihood level is determined based on CCD camera detection or the like, and (ii) a control amount generated by the brake assist control is adjusted by a pre-crash control in accordance with the frontal collision likelihood level, the control amount is adjusted to a higher amount when the collision likelihood level is high. Thus, when the driver feels that there is a risk of collision, and depresses the brake pedal strongly, the pressure applied to the wheel cylinder may be increased rapidly.

Brake control device improving driver's brake feeling


A device for determining and controlling a bale length on a pick-up baler for agricultural harvested material has a pick-up device, a feed channel connected to the pick-up device, and a pressing channel with pressing piston connected to the feed channel. A conveying device conveys the harvested material through the feed channel into the pressing channel. The pressing piston compacts the harvested material. A sensor detects a bale growth resulting upon compression of the harvested material during the feed stroke from the feed channel into the pressing channel. An electronic evaluation device is connected to the sensor that supplies a bale growth value to the electronic evaluation device where it is converted into an averaged operand or a statistical operand for determining a required number of feed strokes for reaching the nominal bale length. After the computed number of feed strokes is reached, the binding device is triggered for tying the finished bale.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device and a method for determining and controlling the bale length on a pick-up baler for agricultural harvested material, wherein the device comprises a pick-up device, a conveying device, with or without cutting device, arranged downstream of the pick-up device for conveying the harvested material to a feed channel, a conveying action for the harvested material that is controlled as a function of the degree of filling of the feed channel for conveying the harvested material from the feed channel into a pressing channel by means of a feed stroke, a pressing piston arranged within the pressing channel and movable in a reciprocating fashion for compacting the harvested material, as well as a tying device for tying the finished bale with tying material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such pick-up balers are used to generate primarily rectangular large-size, high-density bales of stalk material. It is particularly important in this connection that a uniform preset bale length is maintained for transport and storage of the bales and for a possible precise determination of the harvest yield.
Several patent applications with proposed solutions for different devices for determining the bale length are known. In most cases, the length is determined by means of a measuring wheel that is embodied as a thumb wheel and is driven by the moving bale; it measures the bale length directly by a mechanical device or an electronic sensor connected thereto. After reaching a preset nominal value, the tying of the bale is triggered. In all these measuring devices, the precision of repeated measurements of the bale length is however unsatisfactory. Many factors regarding the material properties lead to different bale properties and behavior. In particular, the density of the harvested material and the restoring expansion of the bale have an effect on the measuring results because of slip and reverse rotation of the measuring wheel. A further imprecision of this bale length measurement action re-sides in that a bale growth is assumed for the last piston stroke of a bale that is triggered after the tying action has been initiated. However, this stroke, depending on the degree of filling of the pressing chamber, can actually vary extremely and, therefore, the bale length can vary also.
In the solution proposed in German patent 38 09 132 C1 for measuring the bale length, the aforementioned disadvantages of the direct length sensing on the bale by means of a measuring wheel are circumvented in that the stroke length of the pressing piston is used as a parameter for determining the bale length. In this connection, it is assumed that with each stroke of the pressing piston the achieved bale growth represents a constant value so that, based on this growth value per stroke and the number of strokes of the pressing piston, the precise length of a bale can be determined. Since the bale growth per pressing piston stroke is only a theoretical value and since is known in practice that harvested materials to be processed cannot be compacted to the same degree, this method of measuring the bale length is also not precise enough.

Device and method for measuring and controlling bale length


A plasma processing apparatus includes a processing vessel; a carrier wave group generating unit configured to generate a carrier wave group including multiple carrier waves having different frequencies belonging to a preset frequency band centered around a predetermined center frequency; and a plasma generating unit configured to generate plasma within the processing vessel by using the carrier wave group.

There is known a plasma processing apparatus using excitation of a processing gas by a microwave. For example, this plasma processing apparatus generates plasma by radiating the microwave generated by a microwave oscillator into a processing vessel and ionizing the processing gas within the processing vessel.
Further, as a technique for suppressing a deflection of an electric field which occurs within the processing vessel and is caused by a standing wave of the microwave, there is known a technique of generating a microwave having a preset frequency bandwidth by modulating a frequency of a carrier wave.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2012-109080

Plasma processing apparatus and plasma processing method


A system and method for unifying access to a physical memory by operations using virtual addresses of the same virtual address space are provided. The operations may be generated by at least one central processing unit (CPU operations) and/or by at least one IO device (IO operations). The system may include a bus arranged to transfer data and virtual addresses of the same virtual address space from the central processing unit (CPU) and the IO device to a unified memory management unit (UMMU), a unified memory management unit (UMMU) arranged to translate the virtual addresses to physical addresses, and to protect the physical memory from illegal access attempts of the CPU operations and the IO operations. The system may further include a memory controller arranged to manage access to the physical memory. The access is done by using physical addresses.

The architecture of most current personal computer (PC) systems, from desktop to server, may be conceptually and schematically illustrated by FIG. 1, to which reference is now made.
PC system 10 typically includes memory 20, which may be embedded within one or more processing units 12, or may be separate therefrom. Processing units 12 are typically coupled with IO devices 14[1]-14[i] via one or more IO buses 16, e.g., peripheral component interconnect (PCI) buses. Some or all of the IO devices may be coupled with an IO bridge 17, which may be coupled with IO bus 16. Optionally, in order to make the connection between processing units 12 and IO devices 14[1]-14[i] quicker, PC system 10 may also include one or more components, e.g., a north bridge unit 18, that communicate with the processing units 12 and control the interaction with memory 20, and the IO buses 16.
Processing unit 12 typically includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 26 that typically refers to virtual memory addresses or space, which get translated by the memory management unit (MMU) 24 into physical addresses. The physical address is typically used for cache 22 (although some processor architectures use virtual addresses for cache access) and access to memory 20. In addition to 'virtual to physical' translation information, the MMU 24 typically contains memory protection information used to grant memory access to its owner, e.g., to the thread or process that requested the memory access. For example, system pages may typically be read only by a privileged process, such as by an operating system, or by another privileged process, while user space processes are typically allowed to access only their own memory pages.
In the computer architecture described in FIG. 1, there is substantially no memory protection for Direct Memory Access (DMA) done from a DMA-enabled IO device 14[1]-14[i], whether the IO device is directly coupled with IO bus 16 or whether the IO device is coupled with IO bridge 17. In both cases, IO device 14[1] and 14[i] communicate via DMA engine 28 to directly access memory 20.
As shown in FIG. 1, IO bus 16 is coupled with memory 20 through north bridge unit 18 without the involvement of CPU 26 and MMU 24. Therefore, IO devices 14[1]-14[i] that typically use physical addresses have access to all memory space, both to privileged memory space, such as the memory space of the operating system, and to non-privileged memory space, such as the memory space of applications running on PC system 10. Any mis-configuration of IO devices or hostile configuration of IO devices 14 may compromise the stability and integrity of PC system 10 by allowing the DMA engines 28 of IO device 14[1]-14[i] to freely access any region in memory 20 of system 10.
Furthermore, in DMA based IO operations that use physical addresses, the operating system is typically required to access the operating system page tables to find the physical addresses of the pages involved in the operation. To ensure that the required pages are present in the memory, multiple page faults may be issued to retrieve them. Since a continuous range of virtual addresses spanning multiple pages may be mapped to a non-contiguous range of physical pages, the DMA operation is often broken into multiple page-sized operations. More recent DMA engines or controllers attempt to support DMA operations to a non-contiguous range of physical pages, but in both cases, the physical pages involved in the DMA operation cannot be relocated or evicted from the memory while the operation is in progress, to avoid overwrite or read operations of pages that belong to other processes. To ensure the safe operation of the system, all pages involved in the DMA operation are required to be pinned before the operation begins and later unpinned once it is completed. For non-blocking IO operations, the pages are required to remain pinned even when the process crashes, as long as the DMA operation is still in progress.
When systems use a hypervisor (not shown) to manage sharing of the processor by multiple operating system instances, safe DMA operation is an even harder target. In such systems, each operating system instance is typically allocated a subset of the physical memory that it manages on behalf of its processes. These instances cannot be trusted for pinning their pages when performing an IO operation. Therefore, when any of the instances crashes, it is substantailly impossible for the hypervisor to determine which page is involved in an ongoing DMA operation and which page can be safely allocated to a new operating system instance.
The following two attempts to solve this problem are equally ineffective and have problems related to their complexity and performance. The first attempt is to perform the IO operations through the hypervisor itself, which results in a complicated design of the hypervisor, which also requires modification to the hosted operating systems. The second attempt is to perform the IO operations through a dedicated memory partition, but in this case the hypervisor is still required to manage the allocation of pages in that partition.
In more recent systems the memory is better secured using a specialized virtual address space for IO, typically referred to as the "IO address space", and having IO devices use that space for their DMA operations. An exemplary system is illustrated in FIG. 2, to which reference is now made. System 30 includes one or more 10 Memory Management Units (IOMMU) 32. Some or all of IO devices 14[1]-14[i] may include a local IOMMU 32. Alternatively, two or more IO devices 14[1]-14[i] may share a common IOMMU 32. Each IOMMU 32 typically uses translation and protection tables that hold the mapping between virtual addresses at the IO address space and their corresponding physical addresses. Before an IO operation can take place, the operating system updates the translation tables for the IOMMU, so the operation, e.g., DMA operation, targets the correct physical pages.
System 30 has a few problems. First, the operating system has to manage two sets of translation tables, one for the processes that are executed on the CPU, for mapping their virtual address space to physical memory (to be used by MMU 24), and the second for IO, for mapping the IO address space to physical memory (to be used by IOMMU 32). The operating system is always required to keep the tables in sync. For example, if a process virtual to physical mapping is modified, then the corresponding IO translation tables are required to be modified as well so the DMA operation will access the right set of physical pages. Keeping the tables synchronized raises difficulties such as race conditions issues, complicates memory management and IO handling code in the operating system, and may adversely affect the performance of IO operations. The problem is even more complicated if IOMMU 32 caches recent translation entries to speed-up translation. In this case, entries at the IOMMU TLB (translation lookaside buffer, not shown in FIG. 2) are required to be invalidated whenever a process mapping is changed or a new IO operation begins. Second, the IO address space, unlike the processes virtual address space, is not protected, which means that potentially any IO device can access any region at the IO address space and thus access any region of the physical memory which is mapped by the IO translation tables. Solutions to this problem are typically handled by complex layers of software. Third, there is no mechanism for IOMMU 32 to handle translation exceptions, e.g., when a valid translation for an I/O virtual address is not found at the I/O page tables. It is then the responsibility of the operating system to ensure that valid translations for ongoing IO operations exist.

Method and system for unifying memory access for CPU and IO operations

International Business Machines Corporation


The gate of this invention comprises a gate panel 10, a gate hinge mounting means 12 for mounting the gate panel to a hinge post 14 or the like, a gate latching closure means 16 mounted by the gate panel 10 for latching the gate in a closed condition to a latch post 18 or the like, a vehicle-actuatable unlatching means 20 mounted by the gate panel 10 for contact by a vehicle 22 whereby closure means 16 may be unlatched to enable the gate to be swung open by bumping contact from the vehicle 22 from a closed condition 24 to one of two open conditions 26, 28, and a gate latching retaining means 30 mounted by the gate panel 10 for securing the gate to a retaining post 32 or the like in an open condition for a predetermined length of time whereby vehicle 22 may pass through the gate area before the gate is released and allowed to self-close.

Fence gates designed to be extended across roadways and to be opened manually or by contact by a vehicle have been proposed heretofore. Such gates have incorporated designs permitting vehicles to bump the gates with the result that the gates unlatch and swing away from the contacting-vehicles to an open position. Such gates have also been proposed that include designs to secure the gates in an open condition for a sufficient period to permit vehicles to pass by, whereupon the gates are released and allowed to swing back to a closed condition automatically. Mostly, such gates are complicated and cumbersome. For all practical purposes, none of these gate designs, to the inventor's knowledge have found commercial success.


Provided are a method of configuring a hierarchical network of user groups and resource groups, and a key distribution center. The method includes the steps of: analyzing hierarchical connection relationships between respective user groups and respective resource groups, comparing redundancy rates of the respective hierarchical connection relationships, and determining a connection mode having a larger redundancy rate; separating the respective user groups and resource groups and hierarchically connecting the user groups with the resource groups, according to the determined connection mode; comparing hierarchical connections between the respective separated user groups and resource groups, and removing an overlapping hierarchical connection; and recombining the separate hierarchical connections except for the overlapping hierarchical connection, and configuring an entire network.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of configuring a hierarchical network of a user group and a resource group and a key distribution center.
The present invention has been produced from the work supported by the IT R&D program of MIC (Ministry of Information and Communication)/IITA (Institute for Information Technology Advancement) [2006-S-019-01, The Development of Digital Cable Transmission and Receive System for 1 Gbps Downstream] in Korea.
2. Discussion of Related Art
As networks are developed, a resource group providing data information in a network is connected in a very complicated manner with a user receiving and using the information in the network, and furthermore, a user connected to each resource group is continuously changed.
In such a complicated network structure, forward secrecy and backward secrecy must be guaranteed in order for network subscribers to freely join, withdraw from and change a group, so that a user and a resource group can have a hierarchical access relationship and safely communicate with each other. Here, the backward secrecy indicates a requirement that a subscriber newly joining a network group must not know communication content between members of the corresponding network before he/she joins, and the forward secrecy indicates a requirement that a subscriber that withdraws from a network group must not know a communication content between members of the corresponding network after he/she withdraws.
To meet the above requirements, key information for information security between each resource group and a currently connected user must be provided to both the user and the resource group, and used requirement keys must be appropriately managed. Particularly, in a centralized method, a key distribution center (KDC) disposed at a head-end performs the above functions.
Meanwhile, performance of a requirement key management method can be verified using communication cost and storage cost according to dynamic membership change of subscribers. The communication cost denotes the amount of messages that a KDC sends to subscribers every time a dynamic membership of a subscriber is generated, and the storage cost denotes key storage capacity for the messages. Needless to say, the lower the costs, the better the key management method is.
Therefore, a method of hierarchically connecting a user group with a resource group has been researched, that is, a method which can minimize key information cost while maintaining both the forward secrecy and the backward secrecy in a relationship where a user group and a resource group are hierarchically connected.

Method of configuring hierarchical network of user group and resource group and key distribution center

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


An electrostatic discharge protection circuit includes a first terminal, a second terminal, an electrostatic discharge device coupled between the first and second terminals, and an active device coupled to the electrostatic discharge device and controlling an electrostatic current through the electrostatic discharge device. The electrostatic discharge device includes at least one of an SCR, an FOD, an active device, a BJT, and an MOS device.

A semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) is generally susceptible to an electrostatic discharge (ESD) event, which may damage or destroy the IC. An ESD event refers to a phenomenon of electrical discharge of a current (positive or negative) for a short duration during which a large amount of current is provided to the IC. The high current may be built-up from a variety of sources, such as the human body. To protect an IC from an ESD event, traditional NMOS and PMOS devices are used to discharge an ESD current. However, traditional NMOS and PMOS devices may not respond quickly to an ESD event, and may require additional devices to facilitate triggering. Examples of known ESD protection schemes using additional devices to quickly conduct an ESD current are shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.
FIG. 1 is a reproduction of FIG. 2 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,793 (the '793 patent) to Ker, one of the inventors of the present invention. The '793 patent is entitled "Capacitor-Couple Electrostatic Discharge Protection Circuit" and describes an ESD protection circuit using a gate-couple technique in order to fast conduct an ESD current during an ESD event. To achieve the capacitor-couple effect, a resistor-capacitor circuit is coupled to the gates of MOS devices such that a portion of an ESD voltage can be coupled to the gates of the MOS devices, thereby raising the gate voltages and therefore lowering the snapback breakdown voltage of the device.
FIG. 2 is a reproduction of FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,147,538 (the '538 patent) to Andresen, entitled "CMOS Triggered NMOS ESD Protection Circuit". Andresen describes an ESD protection circuit using a substrate pumping technique. Pumping of a substrate, i.e., increasing substrate potential or applying a small positive bias voltage to the substrate, aids turn on of a parasitic transistor. Additional devices such as resistors and capacitors are also used in the '538 patent to achieve fast conduction of an ESD current.
A limitation with the '793 patent and the '538 patent is that the additional devices, e.g., capacitors and resistors, are passive. Such passive devices require large area for fabrication and complicate making protection circuits.

Electrostatic discharge protection circuit with active device

Industrial Technology Research Institute


According to one embodiment, a signal processing apparatus correlates a plurality of communication terminals as a group and enables one-to-many communications in the group. The signal processing apparatus includes processing circuitry. The processing circuitry assigns a transmission right to one of the communication terminals in the group. The processing circuitry generates text data based on voice data from said one of the communication terminals in possession of the transmission right. The processing circuitry gives a texting completion notice indicative of completion of texting processing to the communication terminals in the group. The processing circuitry transmits, after the texting completion notice is given, the generated text data to at least one of the communication terminals in the group.

Push-to-Talk (PTT) communication, being a half-duplex voice communication system, is known as the technique realizing one-to-many simultaneous group voice communications. The PTT communication involves use of, for example, transceivers, wireless equipment, etc., as terminals. In the PTT communication, a user is permitted to send voices to other parties forming a group, during a period where the user is pressing a call button arranged on its terminal.
The recent spread of multipurpose communication terminals such as smartphones has attracted attention to Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) that stipulates transmission of packets including voice data to multiple devices in a multicast manner. According to the PoC, a transmission right for transmitting voice data is given to one of multiple communication terminals forming a group. The communication terminal having acquired the transmission right transmits voice data to the other communication terminals in a multicast manner.
It is often the case with the communication systems realizing one-to-many simultaneous group voice communications that information is miscommunicated due to circumstances such as receivers not hearing intended contents of voice data correctly. There is therefore a demand in the communication systems of this type for the art that can suppress miscommunication of information.

Signal processing apparatus, communication system, method performed by signal processing apparatus, storage medium for signal processing apparatus, method performed by communication terminal, and storage medium for communication terminal to receive text data from another communication terminal in response to a unique texting completion notice


Using image data generated by an image generating device, and image generation record information that is associated with the image data and that includes at least subject area information indicating a subject area in the image, hue of each pixel in the subject area is calculated, and in the event that the proportion of pixels having hue of a predetermined color range is greater than a first predetermined threshold value, an image quality adjustment process appropriate for an image containing a subject identified by the predetermined color range is executed. In preferred practice, the predetermined color range is the skin color range, and the image quality adjustment process is a process appropriate for a portrait image. When the image quality adjustment process appropriate for a portrait image is not executed, and in the event that the proportion of pixels having hue in the green range is greater than a second predetermined threshold value or in the event that the proportion of pixels having hue in the sky blue range is greater than a third predetermined threshold value, an image quality adjustment process appropriate for a landscape image is executed.

To date, the practice has been that the user selects a shooting scene, such as a portrait or landscape, with a camera or printer driver, and image adjustment appropriate to the particular image is performed according to the scene selection (see, for example, JP11-136219A, JP2001-169135A, and JP2001-298631A).
However, with the prior art techniques, selection of a shooting scene such as a portrait or landscape requires the user to perform a fairly complicated operation during shooting or during printing.
For example, where shooting scene is selected with a camera, where a portrait image and a landscape image are shot in series, it becomes necessary to reset the scene each time an image is taken. Where shooting scene is selected with a printer driver, it becomes necessary to select the shooting scene for each image, which involves a complicated operation in cases where portrait images and landscape images are intermixed.
In view of the problems mentioned above, it is an object of the invention to automatically carry out image quality adjustments appropriate for individual image data.


A tool adapted to tighten tie-down straps utilized to secure cargo transported on flatbed trailers or the like. The tool includes an elongate handle having a standard ratchet mechanism fixed at one end thereof. A cylindrical socket extends from one side of the ratchet mechanism. The cylindrical socket is designed to encompass a conventional winch drive shaft. Diametrically spaced openings are formed in the circumferential wall of the socket for receiving a locking pin therethrough. The cylindrical socket could be configured internally, at least, to match the winch drive shaft with which it will be used, e.g., square, hexagonal, etc.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to hand tools. More specifically, the present invention is drawn to a ratchet wrench employed to tighten tie-down straps that secure cargo on flat bed trailers and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is conventional in the hauling and transporting industry to utilize straps (usually fabricated from nylon) to tie down cargo being transported on flat bed trucks or similar vehicles. Typically, one end of the strap(s) is secured in place on one side of the truck bed. The strap is then disposed over the cargo and the opposite end of the strap is inserted into a winch located on the opposite side of the truck bed. The winch is then rotated in a direction to tighten the strap and secure the cargo. This procedure is followed for each strap used in the arrangement. A bar is employed to rotate the winch. The bar is inserted in the winch and is manually rotated until the straps are tight. This manual rotation is a very inefficient means for tightening the straps. The art would certainly welcome an efficient device that would effectively automate the rotation of the winch.
The related art abounds with devices for rotating tie-down strap winches. Pertinent samples of such devices are cited and identified in the accompanying IDS. However, none of the cited and identified devices, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to disclose a ratcheting winch tool as will subsequently be described and claimed in the instant invention. Thus, a ratcheting winch tool solving the aforementioned problems is desired.


Modular lighting systems are provided that comprise lighting strips physically and electrically connectable with one another by way of flexible connectors. The lighting strip devices can be made of flexible or rigid material to allow for applying the lighting devices along flat as well as contoured surfaces and can be waterproof or water resistant. A modular lighting strip system is provided comprising: two or more lighting strips comprising a non-conductive substrate strip with an electrical circuit; a plurality of light sources operably connected to the electrical circuit; a plug or socket at opposing ends of the strip; one or more connectors for providing electrical and physical interconnection of the lighting strips comprising: one or more plug and/or socket and one or more flexible wires interconnecting the plugs or sockets, which are operably configured to provide for side-by-side interconnection of lighting strips.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to lighting strips and more particularly to modular lighting systems comprising lighting devices, for example, lighting strips, physically and electrically connectable with one another by way of a plug and socket integrally formed at opposing ends of the lighting strips. The lighting strip devices can be made of flexible material to allow for applying the lighting devices along flat as well as contoured surfaces. The lighting strips can also be rigid. The lighting strips can also be non-waterproof or waterproof. The present invention further provides connectors for the lighting strips.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modular strip lighting is highly desirable for numerous applications, including as decorative lighting in commercial settings where the lighting is installed for discrete display, especially on contoured surfaces. Often times, such lighting is hidden from view to provide an indirect, softer light source. It is, however, time consuming and difficult to install or repair lighting in places where the technician may not be able to observe where and how the lighting components are installed, but instead must rely only on his hands in the placement of the components. This conflicts tremendously, however, with the desire to minimize downtime for installation and repair of such systems so as not to disrupt the operating schedule of a particular commercial establishment. Further, some types of installations would be impossible to perform in certain circumstances or otherwise extremely time consuming so as not to warrant the repair or installation.
Some existing strip lighting devices and systems provide for installation and repair of sections of flexible lighting strips by providing two cutting points in the strip where the strip can be cut then spliced with a replacement section by using two discrete connectors to connect the ends of the replacement piece to the previously installed lighting strip where the section was removed. As can be imagined, it is especially difficult if not impossible to make this kind of repair in places where the technician can only use his hands, not his eyes, during the repair. For example, without a visual inspection it would be very difficult to determine where to make the needed cuts. Instead, a larger section of the lighting most likely would have to be removed from its point of installation, repaired, and then re-installed, which is burdensome and takes more time leading to longer overall repair times.
For low-profile lighting in hard to reach places, it is cumbersome for the technician to orient the individual connectors in the correct position without visual assistance because the connectors are often too tiny to be able to discern surface differences with only the fingers. For example, some known connectors have small prongs or plugs projecting from the connector which require alignment with small holes in the socket portion of the lighting strip for proper installation. Determining proper alignment in these cases is often difficult and time consuming.
Additionally, known strip lighting systems use connectors that have either two plugs or two sockets. These plug-type connectors will mate with either end of a strip lighting device with complementary socket-type ends. Likewise, these socket-type connectors will mate with either end of a strip lighting device with complementary plug-type ends. Thus, these types of known connectors have two junctions where the circuit of the lighting strip can be connected and disconnected. Having multiple junctions, however, can increase the opportunity for lighting failures, as each junction provides a place where the circuit can be broken, e.g., when the components become loose over time and ultimately disconnected. Accordingly, there is a need to reduce the number of components in strip lighting systems, which in turn provides the advantage that the number of physical and electrical connections in the system is also reduced, which in turn reduces the chance of failure of the entire lighting system by reducing the number of possible failure points. Likewise, the amount of time needed for troubleshooting such types of lighting strip failures is proportional to the number of components in the system, so reducing the number of components can save on repair troubleshooting time.
Further, waterproof modular strip lighting is also highly desirable for numerous applications, including as decorative lighting in exterior settings or interior settings where moisture is common, such as bathrooms, bars, and kitchens. In exterior settings, it is common for installed lighting devices to be exposed to the elements, such as rain, condensation, humidity, or other moisture, as well as extreme temperatures. Lighting devices exposed to moisture and/or extreme temperatures, however, is often at risk for failure. If moisture, especially water droplets, is allowed to contact non-waterproof lighting devices, the water can cause a short circuit or other electrical failure of the device, requiring repair and/or replacement of the failed components.
Waterproofing materials of existing lighting devices typically include as a waterproof colloid layer an epoxy resin for covering the LEDs, electrical circuits and connections, and the substrate. In some cases in existing devices, the epoxy resin or colloid layer does not cover the surface of the LEDs to avoid compromising the light output. By not covering the LEDs, however, there is an increased chance of moisture being introduced into the system where the colloid layer meets the LEDs. This is especially applicable in flexible designs where adherence between the colloid layer and the side of an LED may come loose enough to allow moisture into the system if the strip is flexed repeatedly. Further, in some situations, epoxy resin as colloid layer has been found to be inadequate, such as in extreme temperature situations, including in external weather or environmental conditions or due to the use of high brightness LEDs, which typically have a high heat output during operating of such devices. Under extreme low or high temperatures epoxy resin can craze or become discolored or cloudy, leading to cracks in the waterproof barrier and a decrease in the amount of light output from the device. Better waterproofing materials and techniques are thus desired.
Further, strip lighting that is easy and convenient to install is also highly desirable, especially lighting devices that can be adaptable to various situations. For example, lighting strips that are waterproof, are configured to be cut to a desired length during installation, minimize the number of electrical junctures for a lighting strip system, can be cut and re-connected by way of a waterproof connector, and/or are adaptable to remain waterproof after cutting would be highly desirable, however, existing lighting strip devices and assemblies do not satisfy this need.
Lighting strips and illumination systems such as signs, displays, and other lighting systems have been used for many years. Such signs and displays typically have extended life spans, can be formed to a variety of different shapes and are operative at a relatively low cost. Although lighting systems have been somewhat successful, known lighting systems have encountered certain problems. One known problem is the excessive number of components required to make such lighting systems. Another problem relates to the fragile nature of such lighting systems. Often lighting systems must be individually crafted which increases the purchasing price associated with such lighting systems. Another problem with known lighting systems relates to the lack of convenient interconnectable components of individual lighting sections and the lack of easily removable and securely fit interconnections.
Thus, there remains a need for an improved lighting system and improved connectors which are capable of being interconnected with a variety of lighting strips having a variety of shapes and configurations. In particular, there remains a need for an improved lighting system having light strip sections easily assembled and securely fit interconnections that can be easily removed and interchanged with a number of light strip sections having varying overall shapes. What are also needed are modular, waterproof lighting systems that are easy and quick to install and repair, and/or provide less opportunity for lighting system failures by providing fewer electrical and physical breaks in the circuit of the lighting system, and/or provide for high brightness output of the LEDs, and/or provide for custom fitting of a lighting system to a particular situation while remaining waterproof.

Modular LED lighting systems, including flexible, rigid, and waterproof lighting strips and connectors


In an information processing system including a controller device including at least one vibration body, and an information processing apparatus outputting a control signal for the vibration body to the controller device, in vibration of the vibration body, sounds of the periphery are collected, and it is decided whether or not an allophone is generated in the controller device by using a signal of the collected sounds. When it is decided that the allophone is generated in the controller device, the information processing apparatus executes correction processing for the control signal for the vibration body, and outputs the control signal corrected by the correction processing.

Like a controller device which is connected to an information processing apparatus such as a home video game console to be used, some controller devices which are used by a user with the controller device attached to or held in the user's body are provided with a vibration mechanism for vibrating part or all of the controller device. The information processing apparatus such as the home video game console outputs waveform information representing a temporal change of a vibration amplitude to such a vibration mechanism to cause the vibration mechanism to perform vibration based on the corresponding waveform information. As a result, the controller device can be vibrated at an arbitrary timing to present the vibration to the user.

Information processing system, vibration control method and program


A low restriction air filter is especially useful for racing engines and includes a filter media of spun-bonded synthetic material, such as polyester co-pleated with a metal screen on the dirty side of the filter. An expanded metal aluminum screen surrounds the clean side of the filter media and annular end seals made of plastisol seal the axial ends of the filter media. The filter element has an inside diameter of about 14 inches, a height of about 4 inches and a filter media thickness in the radial direction of about 1 inch.

Air filters used with internal combustion engines desirably remove particles from intake air desirably with minimal reduction in air flow and minimal increase in restriction in order to result in increased horse power, torque, and engine efficiency. Engines used in automobile racing have somewhat unique requirements because the engines run at very high rpms for relatively short periods of time under somewhat unique environmental conditions. Since the engines consume relatively large amounts of intake air, it is still necessary to filter the air to maintain engine performance over the course of a race. Among the concerns of racing teams are high restriction caused by intake air filters; heat which may adversely effect the performance and efficiency of air filters, and weight because, in racing automobiles, controlling weight is an important consideration. While the weight of an air filter might appear to be a relatively insignificant concern, reduction in the weight of an air filter combined with reductions in weight of other engine and chassis components result in composite weight reduction which can be of considerable significance in configuring racing cars.
Current filters used in racing car engines are made mostly with natural cellulose fibers that are pleated either with or without wire screen support. The materials comprising these filters create higher restriction when combined together which decreases engine performance both initially and over the course of a race. Moreover, the current filters are relatively heavy, no attention having been paid to the desirability of decreasing the weight of any component wherever possible.

Low restriction, high performance air filter


The tensile strength of a thermoplastic, transparent, aromatic polyester is markedly improved by incorporating into the polyester a thermoplastic, rigid polyurethane. The resultant transparent blend is particularly useful in making eyeglasses, toothbrushes, and screw-driver handles.

This invention relates to synthetic polymeric resin compositions useful for thermoplastic fabrication. More particularly, the present invention refers to thermoplastic blends of polyesters and other polymers that improve certain physical properties without adversely affecting the transparency property of the polyester.
The high molecular weight polyesters of terephthalic, isophthalic and other aromatic diacids are well known. See, for example, U. S. Pat. Nos. 2,465,319 and 3,047,539. These aromatic polyesters have many properties such as high heat distortion temperature, stiffness, transparency and the like which make them particularly suitable for use in containers, electronic components and consumer products. However, for many potential applications such as safety eyeglasses, the polyesters do not possess sufficient combination of tensile strength, toughness and transparency to perform satisfactorily.
Therefore, it is highly desirable to provide a means to improve the tensile strength of the polyester without sacrificing its hardness, thermal resistance or transparency.

Thermally processable blends of aromatic polyesters and high modulus polyurethanes