The present invention is directed to antiperspirant compositions comprising an antiperspirant compound, like an astringent salt; a cyclomethicone, a silicone polymer wax derived from beeswax and a fatty alcohol. The antiperspirant compositions are viscous compositions that are highly stable and essentially non-whitening and non-staining to skin and clothing after topical application. These desirable properties are attained by the inclusion of the specific silicone compound derived from beeswax.

Antiperspirant compositions are well known in the personal care art. Ideally antiperspirant compositions are stable compositions that effectively deliver the antiperspirant compound to the skin. In addition, the composition should not leave a visually observable white residue that transfers to the skin or clothing. Deposition of a white residue is esthetically unappealing to the consumer.
Antiperspirant compositions are available in a variety of forms such as aerosol, suspensions, pump, sprays, roll on, powders emulsions, suspensions and solid gels. Antiperspirant compositions additionally have been prepared as either oil in water emulsions or water in oil emulsions. Therefore, antiperspirant compositions of any form typically have a milky or opaque appearance and are manufactured by complex methods. These emulsions contain several types of materials that are insoluble in each other. They include organic oils, silicone compounds, cyclomethicone and water. It is highly desirable to have an additive to place into the composition that will cause all of these various phases that are immicible in each other to form one uniform emulsion, which does not separate. We have surprisingly found a material that contributes this stability and provides outstanding slip to the composition. The inclusion of the compounds into an antiperspirant composition results in an unexpected highly uniform film when applied to the skin. Consequently, a superior heretofore-unattainable antiperspirant results. These properties are highly prized by consumer.
Non-emulsified antiperspirant compositions also are known in the art. However, non-emulsified compositions often require shaking prior to each use in order to re-disperse the insoluble antiperspirant compound that has separated from the compositions. Non-emulsifier antiperspirant compositions that do not require shaking prior to use, are typically pastes or creams that require a high percentage of thickening agents like organo-clay. The presence of organo-clay in the composition is a principal source of the whitening and staining of skin and clothing.
Investigators have searched for antiperspirant compositions that are highly uniform, do not contribute residue to skin or clothes, go on to the skin smoothly and do not separate with time. The inclusion of a specific class of silicone compounds derived from beeswax addresses all of these desired properties.
A roll-on antiperspirant is difficult to formulate and manufacture because the composition requires a sufficient viscosity to adhere to the skin, resist dripping off or running down the skin, and yet is not tacky or sticky. A gel antiperspirant composition is difficult to formulate and manufacture because the composition requires sufficient firmness to withstand rubbing across the skin to deliver a sufficient amount of antiperspirant compound to the skin. Additional formulation parameters include viscosity control lack of syneresis and tackiness.
However, providing a commercially acceptable antiperspirant composition requires overcoming several formulations and manufacturing problems. Antiperspirant compositions, especially in the roll-on or gel form are particularly favored by consumers because such products are esthetically appealing and project the appearance of product purity safety, good performance and being non-whitening. However, due to formulation instability and the difficult manufacture of transparent antiperspirant compositions are not now available to the consumer.
Solid antiperspirant compositions may be divided into three main classes, (a) compressed powder sticks (b) gelled sticks and (c) wax sticks. Each of the three classes has advantages and each also has particular disadvantages. Compressed powder sticks for example, are frequently brittle and hard and leave a cosmetically unacceptable powdery residue after application. Frequently, wax-based products are cosmetically unacceptable because of such factors as hardness, greasiness and tackiness. The opacity of wax sticks and the visually observable white residue that remains after application is also esthetically unacceptable.
Gel type solid antiperspirant compositions have several advantages over both compressed powder sticks and wax sticks. For example, the gel antiperspirant compositions leave fewer residues or dust on the skin. The gel antiperspirant compositions glide more easily over the skin surface resulting in easy and comfortable application of the composition However, preparation of antiperspirant compositions in the form of a stable gel is difficult. For example, a critical ingredient in the gel antiperspirant composition is the gelling agent. Many prior gel antiperspirant compositions comprise hydroalcoholic solutions including a gelling agent such as sodium stearate to form the gel. However, common gelling agent cannot be used in the presence of acidic antiperspirant compounds because of an interaction between the gelling agent which is alkaline and the antiperspirant compound that is acidic.


Some embodiments are associated with a system and method for deep learning unsupervised anomaly detection in Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks or manufacturing execution systems. The system and method use an ensemble of a plurality of generative adversarial networks for anomaly detection.

Advancements in the field of sensor technology and communication networks have led to the development of Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks. See Marjani Monsen, et. Al., Big IoT data analytics: architecture, opportunities, and open research challenges, IEEE Access 5, 2017. The IoT sensor networks consist of the systems of interconnected computing devices, mechanical and digital machines which are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer data over a network without/with minimum human-human or human-machine interactions. This makes it very easy for an engineer located at a remote location to monitor these complex processes and to take preventive actions if, such a need arises. One of the most important tasks in such situations is the detection of anomalies. See Chandola, Varun, et. Al., Comparative evaluation of anomaly detection techniques for sequence data, In 2008 Eighth IEEE international conference on data mining, IEEE, 743-748, 2008; Goh, Johnathan, et. al., Anomaly detection in cyber physical systems using recurrent neural networks, In 2017 IEEE 18th International Symposium on High Assurance Systems Engineering (HASE), IEEE, 140-145, 2017.
Anomalies are the data instances whose statistical behavior is very different from the data generated during a normal mode of operation. An example of anomaly can be an instance taking values that are either very high or very low compared to the values generated by time-series during the normal mode of operation. See Gupta, Manish, Outlier detection for temporal data: A survey, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering 26, 9, 2250-2267, 2013. In summary, given an instance of a multivariate time series data, anomaly detection algorithm should be able to classify it as an anomalous or non-anomalous data. Anomalies can occur in the data because of a variety of reasons. For example in credit card fraud detection system anomalies can occur in the data because of malicious online activity, cyber-attacks, terrorist activity, and a system/sub-systems failure. Since the occurrence of an anomaly is an example of a rare event so, it becomes hard and most of the time impossible for an AI engineer to obtain examples of labeled anomalous data.
Since one can understand anomalies as the example of data that is statistically different from the data during the normal mode of operation, a straight forward approach to detect them is to define a region in the feature space that conforms to the part of data set showing normal or expected behavior. An instance of the data that lies outside this normal region is termed as anomaly. See Lazarevic, Aleksandar, et. al., Feature bagging for outlier detection, In Proceedings of the eleventh ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery in data mining. ACM, 157-166, 2005; Li, Yang, et. al., Network anomaly detection based on TCM-KNN algorithm, In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM symposium on Information, computer and communications security, ACM, 13-19, 2007.
Several factors make the task of detecting anomalies difficult as compared to the other binary classification problems. First, defining a region in feature space which encompasses all the possible normal behavior is a very difficult task in itself. Also, even if one can define such a region in feature space the boundary of this region is not very precise. As a result, a data instance lying outside this region but very close to it will be declared as an anomaly by the algorithm even if the data instance is normal. In many real-time operations, the current notion of the normal behavior of data keeps evolving so, what seems to be normal behavior of data at present might not remain the same as the time passes by. Often, the observations coming from the sensing devices that are the part IoT network contains a lot of noise which can be misunderstood as an anomaly by the anomaly detection system. So, there is also an obvious challenge that comes as a result of noise in the data. These reasons along with several other factors render the task of anomaly detection a challenging problem.
In most of the practical situations occurrence of anomaly is a rare event so obtaining the labels for the anomalous data instance is not possible. Therefore, unsupervised learning algorithms are most suited for the task of anomaly detection. See Ahmed, Mohiuddin, et. al., A survey of network anomaly detection techniques, Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 2016; Chandola, Varun, et. al., Anomaly detection: A survey, ACM computing surveys (CSUR), 2009. These unsupervised algorithms can be broadly classified into four main categories including: linear-model based approaches; distance or clustering-based approaches; density estimation based approaches; and deep-learning based approaches. See Huang, Ling, et. al., In-network PCA and anomaly detection, In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2007; Ringberg, Haakon, et. al., Sensitivity of PCA for traffic anomaly detection, In ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, Vol. 35. ACM, 109-120, 2017; Wold, Svante, et. al., Principal component analysis, Chemometrics and intelligent laboratory systems 2, 1-3, 37-52, 1987; Dudani, Sahibsingh, The distance-weighted k-nearest-neighbor rule, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 4, 325-327, 1976; He, Zengyou, et. al., Discovering cluster-based local outliers, Pattern Recognition Letters 24, 9-10, 1641-1650, 2003; Prerau, Michael J and Eskin, Eleazar, Unsupervised anomaly detection using an optimized K-nearest neighbors algorithm, undergraduate Thesis, Columbia University, 2000; Kriegel, Hans-Peter, et. al., Angle-based outlier detection in high-dimensional data, In Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining. ACM, 444-452, 2008; Lazarevic, Aleksandar and Kumar, Vipin, Feature bagging for outlier detection, In Proceedings of the eleventh ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery in data mining. ACM, 157-166, 2005; Song, Yale, et. al., One-class conditional random fields for sequential anomaly detection, In Twenty-Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2013; Doersch, Carl, Tutorial on variational autoencoders, arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.05908, 2016.
Algorithms based on linear-models for anomaly detection rely on projecting the higher-dimensional time-series data to a lower-dimensional subspace. This lower-dimensional subspace is spanned by the principal components of the data obtained as a result of singular value decomposition. See Loan, Charles F Van and Golub, Gene H, Matrix computations, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Choosing the dimensionality of the lower dimensional sub-space depends upon the amount of variance in the original data that is captured by decomposing the time-series on to the lower-dimensional subspace See Wold, Svante, et. al., Principal component analysis, Chemometrics and intelligent laboratory systems 2, 1-3, 37-52, 1987. The choice of the dimensionality of the projected time series greatly affects the false positive detection rate of the anomaly detection process and hence effects the performance KPIs like precision and recall. See Ringberg, Haakon, et. al, Sensitivity of PCA for traffic anomaly detection, In ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, Vol. 35. ACM, 109-120, 2007. Principal component analysis (PCA), inherently being a linear-transformation, has shown to perform badly in the presence of trends or non-stationarity in the data. The performance of detecting anomalies also reduces greatly when the data is de-rived from a distribution that deviates from multivariate Gaussian distribution. In real-time anomaly detection, PCA based approach is modified slightly by maintaining, at every time t, a low-rank matrix with orthogonal columns that can linearly reconstruct the entire prior (till time t−1) non-anomalous data points. See Huang, Hao and Kasiviswanathan, Shiva Prasad, Streaming anomaly detec-tion using randomized matrix sketching, Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment 9, 3 (2015), 192-203, 2015. The anomalous data instances are located very far from their lower-dimensional approximation compared to the normal data instances in the sense of LP-norm. This approach to applying PCA in the real-time setting is called as incremental PCA. See Baker, Christopher G, et. al., Low-rank incremental methods for computing dominant singular subspaces, Linear Algebra Appl. 436, 8, 2866-2888; 2012; Kasiviswanathan, Shiva P, et. al., Online l1-dictionary learning with application to novel document detection, In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems. 2258-2266, 2012. These approaches, like their batch-processing counterparts, suffer a lot, performance-wise, in the presence of trend and non-stationary patterns present in the data. In summary, anomaly detection approaches based on linear-models perform badly in the presence of trend and seasonal non-stationarity in the data and also when the data generating distribution deviates from multivariate Gaussian.
The most popular method for detecting anomalies using distance-based approaches is K-nearest neighbors (KNN). See Dudani, Sahibsingh A., The distance-weighted k-nearest-neighbor rule, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 4, 325-327, 1976. The KNN based anomaly detection algorithms check whether a given data instance is located in the sparse regions of the feature space. This decision is taken based on the calculation of the distance of data instance from its K-nearest neighbors. If this distance crosses a certain threshold, then the data instance is labeled as an anomaly. See Li, Yang, et. al., Network anomaly detection based on TCM-KNN algorithm, In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM symposium on Information, computer and communications security. ACM, 13-19. 2007; Prerau, Michael J and Eskin, Eleazar, Unsupervised anomaly detection using an optimized K-nearest neighbors algorithm, undergraduate Thesis, Columbia University, 2000. Clustering algorithms form an important sub-category of distance-based anomaly detection algorithms. An example of the clustering-based anomaly detection algorithm is, CBLOF (clustering-based local outlier factor) which was introduced as an improvement over LOF. See Breunig, Markus M, et. al., LOF: identifying density-based local outliers, In ACM sigmod record, Vol. 29. ACM, 93-104, 2000; He, Zengyou, et. al., Discovering cluster-based local outliers, Pattern Recognition Letters 24, 9-10, 1641-1650, 2003. This algorithm uses a predefined anomaly score function to identify anomalies based on clustering. The distance-based approaches for anomaly detection work better if one has prior knowledge about the duration and the number of anomalies in the data.
Distance-based anomaly detection approaches do not take into account the nature of data generating distribution. As a result, distance-based approaches do not utilize the correlations between different attributes of the data. Density-estimation based approaches to anomaly detection were introduced to overcome this shortcoming of the distance-based approaches. Angle-based outlier detection (ABOD), one-class conditional random fields and feature bagging (FB) methods are few examples of important density-estimation based approaches for anomaly detection. See Kriegel, Hans-Peter, et. al., Angle-based outlier detection in high-dimensional data, In Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining. ACM, 444-452, 2008; Song, Yale, et. al., One-class conditional random fields for sequential anomaly detection, In Twenty-Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2013; Lazarevic, Aleksandar and Kumar, Vipin, Feature bagging for outlier detection, In Proceedings of the eleventh ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery in data mining. ACM, 157-166, 2005. Since these methods do not take into account the temporal correlations in the data, so these methods are not suitable for detecting anomalies in the time-series data.
Unsupervised approaches for anomaly detection in sequential data has gained a lot of popularity since the advent of LSTM (long-short term memory) and GRU (gated recurrent unit) networks. See Greff, Klaus, et. al., LSTM: A search space odyssey, IEEE transactions on neural networks and learning systems 28, 10, 2222-2232, 2016; Chung, Junyoung, et. al., Empirical evaluation of gated recurrent neural networks on sequence modeling, arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.3555, 2014. Auto-encoders (AE) and variational auto-encoders (VAE) designed using LSTM networks are popularly used for unsupervised anomaly detection. In AE and VAE deviation of a data instance from the normal behavior is captured by the reconstruction error. If this reconstruction error exceeds a certain threshold, then the data instance is termed as an anomaly.
Models based on auto-encoder architecture requires one to train these models on normal data instances and hence present operational constraints. Since in most of the practical situations the anomalous instances are very rare (5-15% of the total data-set), hence generative models with adversarial training become an obvious choice for the anomaly detection task. Although generative adversarial networks (GANs) have proven to be very successful in generating high-quality images using a lower-dimensional noise input, their use in generating good quality sequential data is still very limited. See Goodfellow, Ian, et. al., Generative adversarial nets, In Advances in neural information processing systems. 2672-2680, 2014. In the past, GANs have been used to produce polyphonic music with recurrent neural networks as generator (G) and discriminator (D), or to generate real-valued medical time series using a conditional version of recurrent GAN. See Mogren, Olof, C-RNN-GAN: Continuous recurrent neural networks with adversarial training, arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.09904, 2016; Esteban, Cristobal, et. al., Real-valued (medical) time series generation with recurrent conditional gans, arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.02633, 2017. In addition to these two models, GANs have been used to generate anomaly score in multivariate time-series (MAD-GAN). See Li, Dan, et. al., Anomaly detection with generative adversarial networks for multivariate time series, arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.04758, 2018; Li, Dan, et. al., MAD-GAN: Multivariate anomaly detection for time series data with generative adversarial networks, In International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks. Springer, 703-716, 2019. In MAD-GAN both the discriminator and generator are LSTM networks and the net anomaly score is a convex combination of the anomaly score generated by generator and discriminator.
As the research in communication technology and sensor network advances, one has more and more access to IoT sensor data coming through various remotely located physical/industrial processes. As a result, detection of anomalies in these multivariate IoT time-series becomes a important but challenging task. Thus, it warrant a continuous improvement of the anomaly detection ability of existing MAD-GAN architecture.

System and method for unsupervised anomaly detection


A system and method for generating an estimated volume of activation (VOA) corresponding to settings applied to a stimulation leadwire includes a processor performing the following: determining, for each of a plurality of neural elements, one or more respective parameters characterizing an electrical distribution along the neural element, looking up the one or more parameters for each of the neural elements in a look-up table (LUT), obtaining threshold values for each of the neural elements recorded in the LUT in association with the looked-up parameters, comparing, for each of the neural elements, a value of the leadwire settings to each of the respective threshold value, estimating based on the comparisons which of the neural elements would be activated by the settings, and generating a structure corresponding to a region including the neural elements estimated to be activated.

Stimulation of anatomical regions of a patient is a clinical technique for the treatment of disorders. Such stimulation can include deep brain stimulation (DBS), spinal cord stimulation (SCS), Occipital NS therapy, Trigemenal NS therapy, peripheral field stimulation therapy, sacral root stimulation therapy, or other such therapies. For example, DBS may include stimulation of the thalamus or basal ganglia and may be used to treat disorders such as essential tremor, Parkinson's disease (PD), and other physiological disorders. DBS may also be useful for traumatic brain injury and stroke. Pilot studies have also begun to examine the utility of DBS for treating dystonia, epilepsy, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
However, understanding of the therapeutic mechanisms of action remains elusive. The stimulation parameters, electrode geometries, or electrode locations that are best suited for existing or future uses of DBS also are unclear.
For conducting a therapeutic stimulation, a neurosurgeon can select a target region within the patient anatomy, e.g., within the brain for DBS, an entry point, e.g., on the patient's skull, and a desired trajectory between the entry point and the target region. The entry point and trajectory are typically carefully selected to avoid intersecting or otherwise damaging certain nearby critical structures or vasculature. A stimulation electrode leadwire used to provide the stimulation to the relevant anatomical region is inserted along the trajectory from the entry point toward the target region. The stimulation electrode leadwire typically includes multiple closely-spaced electrically independent stimulation electrode contacts.
The target anatomical region can include tissue that exhibit high electrical conductivity. For a given stimulation parameter setting, a respective subset of the fibers are responsively activated. A stimulation parameter may include a current amplitude or voltage amplitude, which may be the same for all of the electrodes of the leadwire, or which may vary between different electrodes of the leadwire. The applied amplitude setting results in a corresponding current in the surrounding fibers, and therefore a corresponding voltage distribution in the surrounding tissue. The complexity of the inhomogeneous and anisotropic fibers makes it difficult to predict the particular volume of tissue influenced by the applied stimulation.
A treating physician typically would like to tailor the stimulation parameters (such as which one or more of the stimulating electrode contacts to use, the stimulation pulse amplitude, e.g., current or voltage depending on the stimulator being used, the stimulation pulse width, and/or the stimulation frequency) for a particular patient to improve the effectiveness of the therapy. Parameter selections for the stimulation can be achieved via tedious and variable trial-and-error, without visual aids of the electrode location in the tissue medium or computational models of the volume of tissue influenced by the stimulation. Such a method of parameter selection is difficult and time-consuming and, therefore, expensive. Moreover, it may not necessarily result in the best possible therapy.
Systems have been proposed that provide an interface that facilitates parameter selections. See, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/454,330, filed May 15, 2009 ("the '330 application"), U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/454,312, filed May 15, 2009 ("the '312 application"), U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/454,340, filed May 15, 2009 ("the '340 application"), U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/454,343, filed May 15, 2009 ("the '343 application"), and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/454,314, filed May 15, 2009 ("the '314 application"), the content of each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Such systems display a graphical representation of an area within which it is estimated that there is tissue activation or volume of activation (VOA) that results from input stimulation parameters. The VOA can be displayed relative to an image or model of a portion of the patient's anatomy. Generation of the VOA is based on a model of fibers, e.g., axons, and a voltage distribution about the leadwire and on detailed processing thereof. Performing such processing to provide a VOA preview in real-time response to a clinician's input of parameters is not practical because of the significant required processing time. Therefore, conventional systems pre-process various stimulation parameter settings to determine which axons are activated by the respective settings.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

VOA generation system and method using a fiber specific analysis

Boston Scientific Neuromodulation Corporation


Systems and methods for providing an interactive graphical representation of a market for an electronic trading system are provided. A graph may be displayed on a display of a workstation in an electronic trading system. In one example, the graph may include a curve corresponding to a range of values of a financial instrument. In another example, the graph may include symbols that represent bids and offers for one or more financial instruments. A user may be allowed to select a portion of the graph. In response to the user's selection, a trading dialog box may be provided, thereby allowing the user to place a trade directly from the graph.

The present invention relates to systems and methods for providing a graphical representation of a market. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for providing an interactive graphical representation of a market for an electronic trading system that allows a user to, for example, place a trade directly from the graphical representation.
Electronically-based trading systems have gained widespread popularity over the years. Such trading systems are frequently used for trading items ranging from financial instruments (such as stocks, bonds, currency, futures contracts, etc.) to used household goods (such as old records, baseball cards, antiques, etc.). In many of these trading systems, bid/offer-hit/lift processes are used to negotiate a sale of a given item. In connection with such processes, bids and/or offers for items are entered into an electronic trading system, and a hit or lift is submitted in response to a bid or offer, respectively, to agree to a sale or purchase.
Currently, prior to entering a bid or offer into an electronic trading system or submitting a hit or lift in response to a specific bid or offer, traders can review trading-related information in a tabular format. For example, the trader can access a table that includes a list of financial instruments and corresponding bids and offers for each of the instruments. Based on the information provided to the trader in the table, the trader can determine, for example, what bids or offers to enter into the electronic trading system or which existing bids and offers are desirable to hit or lift. However, these determinations can be difficult due to the overwhelming amount of information provided to the trader in the table.
Currently, traders can also access graphical representations of financial markets to gain an overall understanding of a market's activity. Graphs, in contrast to tables of financial information, make it easier for the trader to determine market trends. However, these graphs are not interactive, as the trader is only provided with a representation of the current activity of a market and is not able to enter a bid or offer or submit a hit or lift directly from the graph.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods for providing an interactive graphical representation of a market for an electronic trading system that allows a user to, for example, place a trade directly from the graphical representation.

Interactive graphical representation of a market for an electronic trading system


A device for removing for particulates a diesel engine having a filter arranged in the flow of the exhaust gas, a heater for heating the filter, and an air pump or obtaining a flow of air for incineration of the particulates trapped by the filter when it is clogged. The amount of the air for the incineration of the filter is calculated in accordance with the amount of the particulates remaining in the filter at the peripheral zone thereof just after the preceding incineration cycle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device arranged in a exhaust pipe of a diesel engine for catching and removing particulates in the exhaust gas.
2. Description of the Related Art
Exhaust gas from a diesel engine includes particulates made of carbon etc. There are now strong regulations for eliminattion of these before discharge of the exhaust gas to the atmosphere. In order to eliminate particulates, use is made of a filter made of a ceramic material of, for example, a honeycomb structure having a plurality of axially extending cells with upstream and downstream ends which are alternately opened and closed. The cells have porous walls. Exhaust gas from cells having open upstream ends and closed downstream ends thus passes to the cells having closed upstream ends and open downstream ends. The particulates in the exhaust gas are thus trapped by the porous walls. The porous walls, however, become clogged the longer the filter is used. This causes an increased pressure loss between the inlet and the outlet of the filter. To renew the filter, a heater is provided in the casing of the filter device. This is energized when a renewing operation is necessary and causes the particulates clogged in the filter to be incinerated and eliminated.
During the incinerating process, the temperature at the center portion of the filter is much higher than at the outer peripheral portion. In order to prevent the filter from being thermally damaged, the temperature of the filter must not exceed an upper limit temperature such as 900.degree. C. In this case, the temperature of the filter at the outer peripheral portion is at most 500 .degree. C., which is usually insufficient to fully incinerate the clogged particulates. As a result, along the outer periphery of the filter, particulates remain without being incinerated, which causes the effective area of the filter to be reduced. This reduction in the effective area of the filter increases the speed of the air used for the following incineration process-making it too high so that the ideal incineration process can not be obtained. This in turn increases the amount of particulates remaining without being incinerated. As a result, the more incineration cycles, the larger the amount of the particulates not eliminated.

Device for catching and removing particulates for a diesel engine


A remote computer I/O apparatus comprising of a set of position tracked wireless user manipulated bodies and a host adapter station. Input is derived from the real-time position tracking telemetry received from each user manipulated body over a wireless transmitter housed in each body. Location determination is performed on a relative clustering basis using photonic light pulses, on a relative absolute special positioning basis using ultrasonic triangulation between bodies, or on a relative absolute spatial positioning basis between each body and the host adapter. For output each body may store or receive video and audio generated respectively by the controlled computer or by an sound generating device such as a soundcard running on the same. Stored feedback is emitted from each body upon receipt of playback signals transmitted to any selected bodies causing them to display stored video on a local body display or to emit stored audio segments out a local body speaker. Non-stored feedback is wireless broadcast to selected bodies for output through each body display or speaker. All feedback may be segmented into frames and distributed to targeted select bodies to enable direct feedback response. A model for using the interface in a direct feedback training environment is also provided.

Computer systems designed to supplement learning have exploded into schools and are touted as having the capability to revolutionize the learning process. Computer aided instruction has equally become indoctrinated into nearly every home exposing students to topics ranging from basic reading to advanced calculus. The computer can patiently and persistently teach at the student's pace and it can be made available whenever the student is eager to study. Computer aided teaching systems also can certainly make learning an exciting process, especially when considering the plurality of information-based media available today.
Despite the tremendous success of computer-aided teaching systems they are not capable of being embraced by students with limited cognitive and motor skills. This failure is caused by existing interface systems which stymie two way interaction between "developing" students (e.g. children, infants, the mentally challenged, etc.) and the underlying teaching application. Interfacing systems generally fail to provide a developing student the degree of output complex enough to enforce direct feedback while maintaining an input process simple enough to allow the student's usage. As such, these systems tend to distort the communication between the student and the training computer causing misinterpretation for both parties. Certainly, even the slightest misinterpretation of the student's response will cause the training software to provide incorrect reinforcement misleading, confusing, and discouraging the participating student.
Computer aided instruction systems employ as an input means a plurality of devices such as the keyboard, mouse, lightpen, joystick, trackball etc. These interface devices have proved to be very effective for adults and children who understand and are capable of using these devices without causing a bias in their response to stimuli. However, developing students generally do not foster the appropriate level of cognitive and motor sophistication to use existing input devices as each assume a level of skills required for their proper use. For example, a keyboard input device assumes that the user has an understanding of keys, how to press them, what they represent, how to enunciate their titles, etc. Developing students generally do not the alphabet or know how to spell or read and nonetheless lack sophisticated coordination skills allowing them to express any understanding or comprehension thereof Besides, the counter-intuitive sorting of characters on the QWERTY keyboard is confusing to the developing student while learning their ABC's. A mouse, joystick and trackball although more easily used, still assume that the user has a level of hand-eye coordination, concentration, and focus to successfully land the pointing device in some fixed target area while remembering to both press the trigger button and recollect the initial stimuli which invoked the response in the first place.
Existing computerized instruction systems generally employ a computer screen and a pair of speakers as the output means for conveying stimulus and reinforcement to their students. However, these appliances do not maintain a developing student's motivation during instruction sessions. Often, when using such devices, students become distracted by random events occurring in or around their environment and entirely lose focus on the underlying lesson. Educators suggest that a periodic change in a developing student's physical learning environment can replenish the student's lost energy and motivation during instruction. Unfortunately, moving these appliances into different learning environments is a profoundly burdensome task since existing screen and speaker output devices are generally too heavy and are usually captured in a tight jungle of cumbersome wiring.
In an effort to provide the output complexity required for maintaining the developing student's curiosity, certain applications project three dimensional visual and auditory stimuli through existing output devices such as the display and speaker system. However, because the display screen is planar and the paired speakers are fixed in space i.e. both are two dimensional, the projection of three dimensional effects through these output means is often found as an intuitive contradiction to the developing student since the desired visual impact cannot be perceived through the physical characteristics of the output devices themselves. For example, a developing student believes through touch experiments that the CRT screen is flat and not a three dimensional `space` like its output might suggest. Also, a developing student may rightfully understand that sound must come from some physical device; simulating or projecting three dimensional audio from a fixed stereophonic pair of speakers may leave the student in bewilderment wondering where the sound originated from. As such, prior-art output devices generally distort and may even harm a developing student's spatial reasoning skills.
Besides said obstacles presented by the individual input and output devices while viewed independently, when used simultaneously in a training exercise these concerns become larger problems for a student with limited concentration who is forced to manage both disparate devices to communicate with the computer. The distinction between separate input and output devices adds tremendous complexity to the interactive process by requiring the student to pay attention to and concentrate on both fragmented devices during a learning session. To interact with the system for example a learning student must; observe and focus on the output means i.e. screen device or speaker . . . , absorb the learning stimulus . . . , develop a response thereto . . . , change mental and physical focus from the output means to the separate input device . . . , convey the mental response physically through the input device . . . , shift mental and physical focus back to the output means . . . , absorb the feedback . . . , recall the initial stimuli. . . . , recall the response taken . . . , comprehend the feedback . . . , before the event is digested as that of being a learned experience. A developing student is generally incapable of committing the range of effort required to manage this complex process. It typically results in frustration and sporadic physical behavior usually causing a series of input events which are interpreted by the training system as a response input. This can prompt inaccurate thus harmful feedback to the student.
Other devices such as touch sensitive display screens have attempted to bridge the input and output interface gap, but by themselves do not enable real kinetic moving or targeted audio feedback that developing students require for sustaining interaction. First, like the others they pose a danger for young children who are exposed to the underlying radiation of the CRT for extended periods of time. Second, they rely on presenting learning stimuli on a planar screen limiting the sophistication of delivery to a two dimensional canvas. Third, they are incapable of providing sufficient exercise of motor skills and coordination, since tactile sensory feedback is not provided during the interactive process.
In the latest attempt to provide a computer user with a simulated visual, audio, and kinesthetic environment in three dimensions, a user will typically wear a set of goggles containing liquid display flat-screens in front of each eye and a position sensor that measures the position and orientation of the head and one hand in three dimensions. As the user moves in three dimensions, computer generated images in the goggles are updated using position information to create the effective movement inside a "virtual" space. Spatial or targeted audio is generated in a set of headphones the user wears. This space may contain learning stimuli of interest to the user. The user may affect the virtual space utilizing, for example a tactile feedback "data glove" which may be worn on one hand. These systems are capable of providing an effective learning environment, but require that users are strong, agile, and generally capable of wearing the plurality of devices and attachments on the body without effecting their ability to interact and respond to the learning stimuli. However exciting, these virtual methodologies cannot be implemented on fragile youths without causing input distortion from the plurality of attachments on their body during a learning session.
In summary, the general immobile nature of existing output means, the complexity of input means, and the general disjoint between disparate input and output devices employed in existing interfacing systems do not promote effective, motivational, and non-harmful interaction between a developing student's physical experimental behavior and learning objectives of the underlying training system. Thus existing interfacing means generally can not accurately and effectively be used to teach even the simplest lessons to this type of student. As a result, the sophistication of developing student learning systems is limited to that of very simple linear drill exercises. Besides being harmful these exercises sharply contrast those which are available for students who have cognitively and physically embraced interfacing to the point where they may transparently interact with a training system without the interface means causing a bias in the interpretation of stimuli, response, or reinforcement.

Wireless I/O apparatus and method of computer-assisted instruction


An avalanche test circuit for applying an avalanche test signal to a device under test, comprising a series combination of a voltage source and an inductance; a switching device connected in parallel with said series combination; a diode for being connected to a test terminal of said device under test, said diode being connected to a connection point of said inductance and said switching device; a common terminal of said device under test being connected to a connection point of said switching device and said voltage source.

1. Field of the Invention
A method and device for avalanche testing of top and bottom FETs of a DC to DC buck converter.
2. Background Art
In the last few years it has become very critical to screen defective devices before the final assembly of a module in order to reduce cost.
Known Good Die (KGD) test systems using probes and/or pogo pin contacts are available to guarantee that only good dies will be assembled in the final module, although these systems can be expensive.
However, a critical test that is difficult to implement using a probe is the avalanche test. All semiconductor devices are rated for a certain maximum reverse voltage (BVdss for power MOSFETs). Operation above this threshold will cause high electric fields in reverse-biased p-n junctions. Due to impact ionization, these fields create electron-hole pairs that undergo a multiplication (avalanche) effect leading to increasing current. This reverse current flow causes large power dissipation and temperature rise, and potentially may cause the destruction of the device. However, the KGD system is capable of avalanche testing only up to 80 A of peak current for a 157 mils×50 mils die.
Due to the introduction of low cost packages it has quite often become convenient to go to production with the die not tested by the KGD system but tested for avalanche at final test, once the die are already in the package. Although convenient, this technique may lead to higher costs due to defective packages.
FIG. 1 shows the typical schematic of a module 100 including an IC 110 for a single-phase synchronous DC-DC buck converter such as a converter of the iP200x Series manufactured by International Rectifier Corp. and described in more detail at www.irf.com, incorporated by reference.
FIG. 2 shows the typical schematic including a module 200 and an IC 210 for a fully functional multi-phase synchronous DC-DC buck converter, such as a converter of the iP120x Series manufactured by International Rectifier Corp. and described in more detail at www.irf.com, incorporated by reference.
At final test it is possible to test the power loss of each single module built. A typical application circuit is implemented in the load board.
With a series of relays we are able to disconnect the input circuit, the output circuit and all the power supplies. The DRAIN and SOURCE for both the top and the bottom FETs are available for testing.
A decoupled VDD voltage source has been used for avalanche testing, as illustrated in FIGS. 9 and 10. Here a driver FET and recirculation diode are added so that the voltage drop across the inductor during avalanche is equal to the avalanche voltage. With this circuit the energy can be approximated as:
      E    AS    =            1      2                  L      ·              I        AS        2
For further reference, FIGS. 11 and 12 depict ideal and actual avalanche waveforms, respectively. Note that the peak avalanche voltage VAV can be approximated as 1.3 times the device rating, or 650V. Further note that V(BR)DSS, BVdss and VAV are used interchangeably.
The following issues are presented by the buck converter of FIG. 1:    The GATEs of both top and bottom FETs Qt, Qb are not accessible for testing    The input cap Cin is part of the avalanche circuit    When we test avalanche on the bottom FET Qb, the SOURCE voltage of the top FET Qt rises up to BVdss and can damage the GATE of the top FET Qt which may be only 20V rated. Also, the IC 110 is not rated up to the BVdss of the bottom FET Qb.
Additional issues are presented by the buck converter of FIG. 2:    The IC input 210 is not rated up to BVdss of the top FET Qt.    The only way to shut down the bottom FET Qb and turn on the top FET Qt is to switch the IC 210.

Avalanche testing at final test of top and bottom FETs of a buck converter


A test device for testing of analyte concentration in a fluid to be applied thereto, the device comprising a plurality of test members arranged in at least one stack and electrodes for engaging with electrode tracks on a test member. A pusher pushes a single test member from the stack so that it can engage with the electrodes. An actuation member is connected to the pusher, and moves it when operated by a user. The at least one stack of test members is enclosed in a magazine which is initially sealed by a moisture impermeable seal. A cutter is provided for slitting the seal and permitting a test member to be pushed from the magazine by the pusher when the first test member from the magazine is to be used.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a test device for measuring the concentration of an analyte in a fluid sample, notably to a test device for analysing blood glucose or other analytes in bodily fluids.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Diabetics regularly need to test samples of their blood to determine the level of blood glucose. The results of such tests may be used to determine levels of medication needed to treat the diabetes at the time. In one known type of system, disposable sensors are used to test the blood. The sensors typically take the form of test strips which are provided with a reagent material that will react with blood glucose to produce an electrical signal. Conductive tracks on the test strip relay the electrical signal to a meter which displays the result. After a sample of blood has been applied to the test strip and the measurement has been taken, the test strip is disposed of. In order to couple the conductive tracks on a test strip with the meter, the test strip needs to be inserted into a sensor holder prior to the start of testing. The sensor holder has corresponding electrodes which are brought into electrical contact with the conductive tracks of the test strip. Test devices are known in which a plurality of test strip are provided on a cartridge disc. Each strip is housed in its own sensor slot, and means are provided to eject a test strip from its slot when required, and to automatically locate it in a sensor holder. Examples of test devices with test strip dispensers are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,660,791, European Patent Application No. 0 732 590, and European Patent Application No. 0 738 666.
A problem with test strips is that they have only a limited shelf life, and exposure of test strips to the atmosphere reduces the shelf life further. Test strips open to the atmosphere will typically have a shelf life of about two to three months, whereas test strips which are sealed from the atmosphere will have a shelf life of about six to 12 months.
It has been proposed in WO 94/10558 to provide a stack of disposable test elements in a cylindrical housing, the stack being urged towards a test station to form a liquid-proof seal. In DE 196 39 226 A1 it is proposed to provide a test device with a cartridge that may have a plurality of chambers containing test strips, each of which chambers may be individually sealed to preserve the shelf life of the strips therein. A user removes the seal for each chamber when required, and a timing circuit may be activated either by the user or when the cartridge is pushed into the device. After a set time period has elapsed, an alarm or other indication reminds the user that the time period for using the strips has elapsed.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved test device.

Test device for analyzing blood glucose or other analytes in bodily fluids


Circuitry, and associated methodology in a parallel processing system for sharing the address space among a plurality of autonomous processors (110, 210, 310) communicating over a common bus (60) provides an efficient, non-destructive data transfer and storage environment. This is effected by augmenting each processor with a global clock (31), state alignment circuit (41, 42, 43) to synchronize the processors with the global clock buffers (140, 240, 340) for storing data received off the bus, and circuitry (130, 230, 330) for selectively enabling the buffer to accept those segments of data having addresses allocated to the given processor. To ensure that processing states are aligned, each state alignment circuit inhibits incrementing of the global clock until each corresponding processor transceives necessary data over the bus. To avoid overwriting of data during bus conflicts, the buffers are arranged to store data on a first-in, first-out basis and to control the processing states and data transfer in correspondence to respective bus and processor states.

A programmable digital computer provides a readily adaptable environment to simulate physical systems such as a communication network or a multi-layer protocol. A system model, once described, can be analyzed extensively and then the model may be modified to study the effects of perturbations. Although there are numerous methods of simulation, they depart primarily in their details, not in their general characteristics. Most general purpose simulators exhibit the following essential characteristics: (1) the model, once activated from an initial condition, is represented by a series of events corresponding to changes in states of the model and, oftentimes, these changes are associated with particular instants of time in a simulated time environment; and (2) simulated time must not be affected by the time required to compute the events or state changes.
However, in order to make simulations tractable for complex systems, oftentimes it is necessary that parallel processing be utilized. With parallel processing, system computations are subdivided into tasks that are suitable for execution in parallel. The tasks are then distributed among a plurality of synchronized processors for autonomous execution. An inherent problem in the parallel approach, however, is the difficulty in ensuring that the computations, which are distributed among the processors for autonomous execution, are properly synchronized or aligned. As a simple example, it is supposed that two processors are executing in parallel and the first processor requires the results from the second processor. Then, the simulation must be arranged so that the second processor communicates its results to the first processor before the second processor may continue its computations; this is particularly important if the second processor completes its execution before the execution of the first processor is completed.
One recently disclosed approach to effecting state alignment was described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,833,638 issued May 23, 1989 to Vollaro. As disclosed in this patent, the processing states allocated to a plurality of autonomous processors comprising a multiple processor system are aligned by providing each processor with means for inhibiting a global reference generator within one unit of real time. The reference generator is restarted only after all task processing is completed in the order required by the sequence of changing states. To achieve maximum execution efficiency, the inevitable periods of long delay between scheduled states are detected and the system is advanced to the earliest, next scheduled state in a few, predetermined units of real time.
With respect to the specific processor computations during each of the processing states, the results have been conventionally stored in a single memory which is common to or shared among the several processors via a multiple access memory bus interconnecting the memory with the processors. Traditional methods for accessing and then storing computational data into the single memory possess inherent deficiencies. Two prime areas of difficulty are excessive loading of the memory bus and high overhead manifested by extra, unproductive processor cycles. Both of these factors may lead to unsuccessful access to the memory because of busy or blocking conditions exhibited by either the bus or the memory, or both simultaneously. The main cause of these difficulties is the constraint induced by the architectural arrangement, namely, the need to request and then acquire two shared resources (bus and memory) in series with some probability that access to each resource may fail due to blocking. In the case of a failure because of a busy condition, the entire access process must be continually repeated until access succeeds. The failure rate is exacerbated whenever the demand for memory access increases.
A so-called conflict, that is, a simultaneous update of the same memory location by two or more processors at the same instant of time, is another situation that is difficult to handle in shared memory systems. Multiple processors sharing the same data are called overlapping processes and the prevention of other processors from accessing shared data while one processor is doing so is called mutual exclusion. Several conventional techniques for implementing mutual exclusion, such as semaphores and test and set instructions, are detailed in the text entitled An Introduction to Operating Systems, by H. M. Ditel, Addison-Wesley, 1983, Chapter 4. These techniques also suffer from similar performance and overhead problems discussed above and, moreover, are extremely error-prone when handled by user-written software.
Finally, standard shared memory systems employ a destructive write process. Thus, when a memory location is modified, the contents of that location are replaced with the modified data and the original data is destroyed. This process, when combined with traditional conflict resolution techniques, basically obliterates the data history of each memory location, thereby either limiting the processor to using only the single data value presently stored in the memory location at the end of each computational phase or requiring elaborate recomputation procedures to reconstruct overwritten data.
There has been no teaching or suggestion in the art to synchronize time alignment of processing states with concurrency of data propagation.

Selective receiver for each processor in a multiple processor system


The invention relates to a fully modular and evolutive transformable garment obtained by a combination amongst multiple combinations of a plurality of instantaneously removable modules (1-17) which is metamorphosable. According to the invention, the modules (1-17) are interchangeable, substantially complementary by degrees, composite, irregular and optionally heterogeneous. Each module is made lying flat, generally shaped and costumized, and comprises at least on each of the edges to be assembled a means for rapidly fixing the edges to each other. The modules are comprised of a plurality of basic modules (7, 9, 11, 12) and of a plurality of complementary modules (1, 2, . . . ). Each module may be cut in any way as to the material used so that it can be adapted to other modules. Preferably, each module is polyvalent.

This invention concerns a transformable and evolving garment obtained from one combination among many possible combinations of a variety of detachable and interchangeable modules, the lower part of which is instantaneously metamorphosable. It also concerns a module for such a garment.
Such garments have numerous applications, because they are suitable in particular for children, for adults, for dolls, and even for domestic animals.
One is familiar with garments made up from several general parts which can be removed or added in order to achieve a transformation of the garment, as described in document FR-A-1 470 315 and FR-A-1 520 507. According to document FR-A-2 307 482, trousers can be transformed into shorts, and vice versa. Document FRA-A-2 567 726 describes a universal garment which can constitute trousers, a jacket or a skirt, according to the wishes of the user. Document FR-A-2 433 913 relates to a concept according to which the various parts of the document, such as sleeves, legs, etc., are detachable.
Document FR-A-2 593 356 proposes a similar garment, presenting a system to camouflage the connections between the detachable parts.
Document FR-A-2 079 865 concerns a garment which is obtained by the association of parts which can be assembled from simple geometrical shapes. This also applies to document WO-A-89/10706, which concerns a garment which can be created using a basic pattern in the form of a diamond ("whose long diagonal is parallel to the main axis of the body"), and completed by means of triangles.
Document WO-A-93/25101 describes a "metamorphosis" system which can be used to alter the external appearance of a given garment. In practice this does not in fact consist of a metamorphosis system, but rather to a simple, rapid alteration in the appearance of the given garment, which avoids the need to remove the whole garment during the change. To this end, the garment has several movable parts (collar, sleeves, etc.) which can be attached simply to a main part. This type of garment is very useful in the entertainment business.
Document FR-A-2 074 752 concerns one basic element "created for the human body", of a tunic type, forming the support for a variety of "variants" which are detachable from the support in order to change the appearance of the final garment. The variants cannot be attached to each other however. Furthermore, although the "variants" are complementary, they do not form part of the basic element.
In other words, all of these documents describe diverse solutions involving the detachability of certain parts, in volume, of a garment (hood, legs, sleeves, etc.), or involving the joining together of simple geometrically shaped parts in order to form one complete piece of abric which can be used to create a garment or the covering for an item of furniture. These proposed solutions never allow a garment to be transformed radically, and/or a garment to be metamorphosed totally, using simple modules made up flat.
It should be pointed out here that the words "metamorphose" or "metamorphosis" are used semantically when there is such a significant change of shape that the initial object is no longer recognisable (e.g. a skirt into trousers, or vice versa).

Transformable and/or metamorphosable garment


A first metal layer of tungsten is formed on a substrate in a scale. A second metal layer of chromium is formed on the first metal layer. The second metal layer is selectively removed with a mask of resist and an etching stopper of the first metal layer to form an optical grating.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photoelectric encoder for use in precise measurements and method of manufacturing a scale as an element of the photoelectric encoder.
2. Description of the Related Art
A photo electric encoder (hereinafter, it may also be simply referred to as the "encoder") has been employed in the art for precise measurements of linear displacements and angular displacements. The encoder may be mounted on a coordinate measuring machine and an image-measuring instrument. A brief description is given to a measurement by the photo electric encoder as follows.
A light source and a photoreceiver are moved relative to a scale. Light from the light source is applied to an optical grating on the scale alternatively through a plurality of index gratings having different spatial phases. A plurality of (for example, four) resultant sinusoidal optical signals with different phases are received at a plurality of photodiodes (photoreceiver) corresponding to respective phases and photoelectrically converted to generate electric signals, which are employed to measure displacements such as a linear displacement.
Typically, encoders are classified into (a) a transmissive type that employs light applied to the optical grating to transmit through the scale in measurements; and (b) a reflective type that employs light applied to the optical grating and reflected from the scale in measurements. Chromium has been well used as a material for the reflective optical grating.
The reflective optical grating has a structure provided with projections and depressions regularly in an optical reflective layer such as a chromium layer. Particularly, in the case of a diffraction grating scale, unevenness in processed depths caused on forming projections and depressions in the optical reflective layer enlarges variations in in-plane distribution and repeatability. The variation in in-plane distribution is a associated with differences in processed depth and arrayed pitch depending on locations in one optical grating. The variation in repeatability is associated with differences in processed depth and grating pitch among a plurality of optical gratings. As the optical signal to be received at the photoreceiver to generated from the optical grating on the scale, the above variations prevent improvements in the measurement accuracy.
Methods for forming uniform processed depth in the optical grating include, for example, the following two. One is a technology that utilizes a difference in etching rate between a silicon substrate and a silicon oxide layer. With an etching stopper of the silicon substrate, the silicon oxide layer formed on the silicon substrate is selectively etched to form projections and depressions therein, which serve as a diffraction grating (optical grating) (for example, see JP-A 7-113905, FIG. 1 and Paragraph [0043]).
Another is a technology that provides a triple-layered structure including upper chromium, silicon oxide and lower chromium layers. With a mask of the upper chromium layer and an etching stopper of the lower chromium layer, the silicon oxide layer is selectively etched to form projections and depressions therein, which serve as a phase grating (optical grating) (for example, see JP-A 8-286020, FIGS. 1–3 and Paragraphs [0010]–[0013]).

Photoelectric encoder and method of manufacturing scales


The process for forming a film of TiSiN includes the following sequence of steps: deposition of a TiN film at medium temperature, for example, 300-450° C., by thermal decomposition of a metallorganic precursor, for example TDMAT (Tetrakis Dimethylamino Titanium); exposition to a silicon releasing gas, such as silane (SiH4) and dichlorosilane (SiH2Cl2) at 10-90 sccm—standard cube centimeters per minute—for a quite long time, for example, longer than 10 s but less than 90 s, preferably about 40 s; exposition to a H2/N2 plasma at 200-800 sccm, for 10-90 s, preferably about 40 s.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for forming a thin film of TiSiN, in particular for phase change memory devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is known, phase change memory devices utilize a class of materials that have the unique property of being reversibly switchable from one phase to another with measurable distinct electrical properties associated with each phase. For example, these materials may change between an amorphous disordered phase and a crystalline, or polycrystalline, ordered phase. A material property that may change and provide a signature for each phase is the material resistivity, which is considerably different in the two states and varies of two or more orders of magnitude when the material transforms from the amorphous phase (more resistive) to the crystalline phase (more conductive) and vice versa.
Phase change may be obtained by locally increasing the temperature. Under 150° C., both phases are stable. Over 200° C., nucleation of crystallites is fast and if the material is kept to the crystallization temperature for a sufficient time, it changes phase and becomes crystalline. In order to change the phase back to the amorphous state, its temperature is brought over the melting point (about 600° C.) and rapidly reduced.
From an electrical point of view; it is possible to reach both critical temperatures (crystallization and melting temperatures) by passing an electric current through a resistive electrode in contact or close proximity with the chalcogenic material and heating the material by Joule effect.
A chalcogenic element 1 based on the above is shown in FIG. 1, and comprises a resistive electrode 2 and a chalcogenic region 3. The chalcogenic region 3 is generally in the crystalline state to allow good current flow. A portion of the chalcogenic region 3 is in direct contact with the resistive electrode 2 and forms a phase change portion 4.
By passing an electrical current of suitable value through the resistive electrode 2, it is possible to selectively heat the phase change portion 4 to the crystallization or melting temperatures and cause a phase change.
The present requirements of low-energy devices impose some constraints to the program current of the device. In order to meet such requirements, the resistive electrode should comprise a film with the following features:
a) very low thickness (5-50 nm);
b) high conformity, to ensure the electrical continuity of the electrode;
c) medium resistivity (i.e., 0.5-5 mΩ·cm);
d) temperature stability.
The presently available processes are not able to ensure all the above features. Indeed, deposited films with similar characteristics to the above are deposited using a PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) or a CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) technique.
However, films deposited by PVD are scarcely conformal due to the specific deposition technique and thus cannot ensure the electrical continuity.
Currently available CVD processes, in particular CVD processes developed to deposit TiSiN layers, are all optimized to form low-resistivity films, in particular to form barrier layers in interconnects, and thus are not compatible with the requirements.
For example, C. Marcadal, M. Eizenberg, A. Yoon, L. Chen "Metallorganic Chemical Vapor Deposited TiN Barrier Enhancement with SiH4 Treatment" in Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 149 (1) C52-C58 (2002) discloses a commercial process using Metallorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD). In detail, this known process comprises three basic steps:
1. depositing a TiN film at medium temperature (350-450° C.) by thermal decomposition of a metallorganic precursor, namely TDMAT (Tetrakis Dimethylamino Titanium);
2. exposing the TiN film to H2/N2 plasma;
3. exposing the TiN film to a silane (SiH4) flow for 10 s.
All the steps are carried out in the same reaction chamber.
The film obtained from the deposition in step 1 is very rich in carbon (30% atomic); carbon, present in the metallorganic precursor, causes the deposited film to be unstable when exposed to air (the film oxides and its resistivity increases in an uncontrollable way). The plasma treatment reduces the carbon content and at the same time thins the layer, so that the latter is less permeable to O2 (a thickness reduction is indeed observed following the plasma treatment). The subsequent silane treatment causes addition of silicon to the film; however, in the final layer, the Si concentration is quite small (about 4.4 at%) since the reactive sites have been dramatically reduced by the plasma treatment. As used herein, at% refers to "atomic percentage", i.e., the ratio of the number of a specific atomic component in a composition relative to the total number of all the atoms of the composition.
Since in the literature the resistivity of the end film is attributed to the presence of Si—N covalent bonds, it is clear that the known process can yield only a low resistivity film, since here the Ti—N metal bond is predominating.
Another known process (see, e.g., "Low Resistance Copper Interconnects with MOCVD TiN(Si) Barrier for Sub-0.13 μm Applications", T. Suwwan de Felipe, et al., Novellus Systems and International SEMATECH) teaches the deposition of MOCVD TiNSi using TDEAT (Tetrakis Diethylamido Titanium) and ammonia and soaking in SiH4 in-situ for forming a barrier for copper. Also here, the process is studied so as to reduce the resistivity of the barrier and thus is not suitable for forming a resistive layer, in particular for use in PCM devices.

Process for forming a thin film of TiSiN, in particular for phase change memory devices


An information processing apparatus for scanning a recording medium by means of a probe and recording and reading information by means of a physical interaction occurring between the recording medium and the probe, including, a device for generating a plurality of sets of image information with different resolutions from input image information, a device for successively recording the sets of of image information in a predetermined order on the medium, and a device for reading only a reproduction-necessary region on the recording medium, according to a resolution demanded, upon reproduction of the image information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus for recording and/or reproducing information utilizing a physical interaction (tunnel current, interatomic force, etc.) occurring when a probe is put near a recording medium.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, applications of memory materials are the core of electronics industries including computers and equipment related thereto, video disks, digital audio disks, and so on, and development of suitable material is very active.
The performance required for memory materials differs depending upon their applications, and quick response speeds of recording and reproduction are necessary and indispensable.
Conventional memories were mainly semiconductor memories and magnetic memories using materials such as magnetic materials and semiconductor materials, but the recent progress of laser technology has brought cheap and high-density recording media by optical memories using an organic thin film of an organic dye, a photopolymer, or the like.
On the other hand, recently developed was the scanning tunneling microscope (hereinafter abbreviated as "STM") capable of directly observing the electron structure of surface atoms of a conductor [Binnig et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 49, 57 (1982)], which enabled high-resolution measurement of real space image for any single-crystal and amorphous materials and which had an advantage of capability of observing a sample at low electric power without damaging the sample by an electric current. In addition, the scanning tunneling microscope operates even in the atmosphere and can be used for a variety of materials, and applications thereof in a wide range are thus expected.
The STM utilizes a phenomenon that a tunnel current flows when a metal probe (probe electrode) is brought to the proximity of an electroconductive substance, approximately up to the distance of 1 nm, while a voltage is applied between the metal probe and the electroconductive substance.
This electric current is so sensitive as to respond exponentially to a change of distance between the two elements. When the probe scans so as to keep the tunnel current constant, it is also possible to read a variety of information concerning the total electron cloud in the real space.
The resolution in the in-plane direction achieved by this technique is approximately 0.1 nm. It is thus fairly possible to achieve high-density recording and/or reproduction on the order of atomic scale (i.e., on the subnanometer order) by applying the principle of the STM.
For example, the information processing apparatus disclosed in the bulletin of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 61-80536 is arranged to write information by removing atomic particles that have been absorbed on a surface of a medium by means of an electron beam or the like and to reproduce the data by an STM.
There is a proposed method for using a thin film layer of a material having a memory effect for voltage-current switching characteristics, for example a thin film layers of organic compound having a conjugated .pi. electron system or a chalcogenides, as a recording layer and performing recording and/or reproduction by means of an STM (Japanese Laid-open Patent Applications No. 63-161552 and No. 63-161553). This method can achieve bulk recording and/or reproduction of even 1 Tbit/cm, supposing that the bit size recorded is 10 nm.
An example for a scanning mechanism of the probe electrode is a cantilever type (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 62-281138), and, according thereto, a plurality of cantilever mechanisms of SiO.sub.2 can be made in the size of approximately the length 100 p.mu., the width 10 to 20 .mu.m, and the thickness 0.5 .mu.m on an Si substrate, and writing and reading circuits are also integrated on the same substrate.
Such bulk memory systems are useful for processing image data, including, especially, very large amounts of information as database of large information amounts).
For example, they are indispensable for high-definition televisions, high-resolution still video systems, and so on, recently showing extreme progress of technology.
In such bulk memory systems, however, if input information is always read out at a constant resolution of high definition, or at a detailed level, reading will require a lot of time and will be often wasted.
Specifically, it is the present status that the memory systems as described above require a lot of time for writing or reading of large amounts of information because the scanning frequency limit, due to the physical condition of resonance frequency of cantilever or the like, is several hundred Hz and the limit on the transfer rate of information per probe caused thereby is several hundred kHz or less. In addition, detailed information and high definition resolutions are not always necessary, depending upon the purpose of output in a given instance, the output device in question, or the like. For example, in the cases of searching, access to data head, and the like, priority is given to processing speed over quality of image. In addition, for example, in a case of the still video system or the like, a high resolution is necessary when an image is printed out by the electrophotographic technology or the like; however, a monitor output does not require such a high resolution. Therefore, it is not always necessary to read out hundred percent of the information recorded.
Also in the case of recording, when only a necessary part is desired to be recorded in detail or when speed is important, we may employ a method of input of data arranged to record data first roughly and to locally supplement necessary portions in detail later.

Information processing apparatus capable of readily changing resolution


Disclosed are novel bifunctional nucleoside analogs and oligonucleosides of 3-4 bases (trimers and tetramers) and longer containing at least two consecutive internucleoside linkages of two carbon-one nitrogen atom or two carbon-one oxygen atom (3'-NCC-5', 3'-CNC-5', 3'-OCC-5') internucleoside linkages. The bifunctional nucleosides are useful for preparing the trimers and tetramers, which, in turn, are useful, together with the nucleosides, in preparing oligonucleosides as well as chimeric oligonucleotide analogs, preferably antisense oligonucleosides and oligonucleotide analogs, of 6 to about 60 bases having at least two consecutive internucleoside linkages of two carbon atoms and one nitrogen atom or 2 carbon atoms and one oxygen atom in the oligonucleoside backbone.

An antisense compound binds to or hybridizes with a nucleotide sequence in a nucleic acid (RNA or DNA) to inhibit the function (or synthesis) of the nucleic acid. Because they can hybridize with both RNA and DNA, antisense compounds can interfere with gene expression at the level of transcription, RNA processing or translation. The resulting interference leads to an inhibition of the synthesis of the protein encoded by the nucleic acid, such as the proteins of the tissues, various cellular growth factors, growth factor receptors, and oncogenes.
As discussed, e.g., in Klausner, A., Biotechnology, 8:303-304 (1990), the development of practical applications of antisense technology is hampered by a number of technical problems. Thus, natural, phosphate-linked antisense oligomer compounds are susceptible to rapid degradation by nucleases that exist in target cells and elsewhere in the body; such as exonucleases, which act on either the 3' or the 5' terminus of the nucleic acid, and endonucleases, which cleave the nucleic acid at internal phosphodiester linkages between individual nucleosides. As a result of such nuclease action, the effective half life of many administered antisense compounds is very short, necessitating the use of large, frequently administered, doses.
The high cost of producing antisense DNA or RNA on currently available DNA synthesizers is another problem. Armstrong, L., Business Week, Mar. 5, 1990, page 89, estimated the cost of producing one gram of antisense DNA to be about $100,000.
There is also a problem regarding delivery of antisense agents to targets within the body (and cell). Thus, antisense agents targeted to messenger RNA must permeate the plasma membrane and antisense agents targeted to genomic DNA must permeate both the plasma membrane and the nuclear membrane to gain access to the nucleus. The consequent need for increased hydrophobicity to enhance membrane permeability must be balanced against the need for increased hydrophilicity (water solubility) in body fluids such as the plasma and cell cytosol.
Also, oligonucleotide compounds such as antisense DNA are susceptible to steric reconfiguration around chiral phosphorous centers. This results in stability problems, too, whether the compounds are free within the body or hybridized to target nucleic acids.
To overcome the stability and drug delivery limitations, various oligonucleotide analogs have been investigated. In order to be of practical utility, such analogs should have good cell penetration properties, be resistant to nuclease degradation, have good sequence specific hybridization to target nucleic acids, and be synthesized by chemical methods that are not too difficult or costly.
Recent efforts to overcome the foregoing problems and prepare antisense compounds that are stable, nuclease resistant, relatively inexpensive to manufacture and which can be delivered to and hybridized with nucleic acid targets throughout the body have involved synthesizing oligonucleotide analogs that consist of oligonucleoside sequences with internucleoside linkages that differ from the `normal` internucleoside phosphodiester linkage, either by introducing modifications in the phosphodiester structure or by using non-phosphate internucleoside linkages that approximate the length and orientation of the normal phosphodiester internucleoside linkage. Uhlman, E. and Peyman, A., Chemical Reviews, 9(4):544-584 (1990).
Among the modified phosphodiester linkages that have been reported are phosphorothioates, alkylphosphotriesters, methylphosphonates and alkylphosphoramidates. Also, a variety of non-ionic oligonucleoside sequences containing non-phosphate internucleoside linkages, such as carbonate, acetate, carbamate, sulfone, sulfoxide, sulfonamide and dialkyl- or diaryl- silyl derivatives have been synthesized and reported. More recently, chimeric oligonucleotide analogs comprising nucleoside linkages containing two carbon atoms and one nitrogen atom or one oxygen atom, as well as those containing three carbon atoms, have been reported. See, e.g., International Patent Publication WO 9202534.

Bifunctional nucleosides, oligomers thereof, and methods of making and using the same


A rear end gear box cover for a racing car is formed with a fixed base plate and a removable top plate. The base plate is fixed to the rear end housing by multiple fasteners while the top plate is removable from the base plate. The top plate includes a pair of opposing cam members carrying connector pins for engagement with receiver mounts formed on the base plate. A cam driver on the top plate has a central connector member that when rotated drives a pair of opposing cam pins carried in a slotted opening on the cam members outwardly to force the connector pins into openings in the receiver mounts and secure the top plate to the base plate. A detent mechanism in each of the slotted openings retains the cam members in a locked position. A quarter turn of the connector member retracts the connector pins.

The present invention relates generally to a gear box cover for a racing car for which rapid access is required, and, more particularly, to a cover for a rear end gear box on a race car, such as a sprint race car, modified, late model, and/or street rods, which provides internal access to the gear box through manipulation of a single connector member.
Race cars, particularly sprint cars and smaller racing cars, are powered by an engine supported in a frame and connected to a rear end gear box that transfers rotational power to the rear wheels of the racing car. The rear end gear box has a pair of intermeshed gears with an input gear associated with the drive input from the engine and a transfer gear transferring rotational power from the input gear driven from the engine to the rear wheels of the racing car. Depending on the configuration of the rotational components of the rear end of the racing car, the input and transfer gears can be vertically aligned or offset horizontally as depicted in FIG. 1 and described in greater detail below. In either prior art configuration, the rear end gear box is provided with a cover that is secured to the gear box housing by fasteners and sealed with a gasket or O-ring. Whenever access to the interior of the rear end gear box is required, the fasteners must be disengaged from the housing to allow the cover to be removed.
Removal of the cover on the rear end gearbox is necessary to replace the input and/or transfer gears to maintain or repair the rear end gear box. In some instances, both the input and transfer gears are removed and replaced with similar input and transfer gears having different gear ratios. The input and transfer gears are splined onto the respect input shaft from the engine and the parallel transfer shaft that delivers rotational power to the rear end and the rear wheels. The cover is provided with a pair of bearings that rotatably support the respect ends of the input and transfer shafts beyond the mounting of the input and transfer gears. These bearings require a certain thickness in the cover in order to support the bearings for operative use.
The removal of the rear end gear box cover requires the manipulation of each of several bolts that secure the cover onto the gear box housing. Each bolt is threaded into a boss on the gear box housing and requires a socket wrench to remove each respective bolt. This process of removing the rear end gear box cover typically takes approximately twenty minutes to accomplish. If required prior to the start of a race, or even during the race, this length of time to remove the bolts securing the cover to the gear box housing can make the difference between racing and not racing.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a rear end gear box for a racing car that could be easily and quickly removed to permit access to the input and transfer gears within the rear end gear box.


A system and a method for defrosting/de-icing an air-conditioner are provided, the system comprising: a 3D depth sensor disposed inside an air-conditioner outdoor unit casing, for acquiring information regarding outer diameters of pipes of an outdoor heat exchanger, distances between the pipes, and distances between the respective pipes and an air-conditioner outdoor unit casing side plate; and a controller connected to the 3D depth sensor, for receiving the information acquired by the 3D depth sensor and controlling the air conditioner to enter or exit a defrosting-deicing mode. The system and method for defrosting/de-icing an air-conditioner provided by the present disclosure can effectively and timely perform defrost/de-ice operation on the outdoor heat exchanger to prevent freezing; besides, it can prevent the impact on the air-conditioner's heating function to the utmost extent so as to significantly improve user experience.

Current air-conditioners available in the market generally have an automatic defrost function when operating to heat in winter. The automatic defrost function is typically differentiated into two types: time-controlled and temperature-controlled.
When an outdoor temperature is relatively low (around 0° C.) and an air humidity is relatively high, the high water content in the air is easily condensed and attached onto a heat sink, causing an outdoor heat exchanger to get icy. An incomplete defrost would gradually cause buildup of frost and then cause an icy status.
The time-controlled defrost generally lasts 15 to 30 minutes. As an air-conditioner controls an operating program by time, even the frost fails to be completely removed within 15 to 30 minutes, it still switches to heating. So, with elapse of time, frost on the outdoor unit will build up and then get icy. In the case of temperature-controlled defrosting, the air-conditioner mainly works to de-ice if the temperature and the power are relatively low, which seriously affects the heating function.
The deficiencies in the existing technologies for defrosting/de-icing air-conditioner cause a poor user experience.

System and method for defrosting/ de-icing an air-conditioner