An oral cavity spreading apparatus. The apparatus includes a pair of mouth corner hooks capable of being inserted into the oral cavity to spread the corners of the mouth, wing portions protruding individually outward from the mouth corner hooks and capable of spreading the inner part of the oral cavity, and a substantially U-shaped spring arm portion connecting the mouth corner hooks. The mouth corner hooks are adapted to be pressed toward each other against the urging force of the spring arm portion so that the respective end portions of the mouth corner hooks engage each other and the wing portions are steadily rotated inward and toward each other around the point of engagement between the end portions as a pivot as the mouth corner hooks are inserted into the oral cavity.

This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-211557, filed Jul. 12, 2000, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an oral cavity spreading apparatus adapted to be used in, for example, medical examination, medical care, photographing, etc. for the interior of the oral cavity or the pharyngeal region, or oral muscle function training, or in inserting a cannula or gastrocamera into the trachea.
2. Description of the Related Art
An oral cavity spreading apparatus of this type is described in Jpn. UM Appln. KOKOKU Publication No. 56-33524, for example.
The apparatus described in Jpn. UM Appln. KOKOKU Publication No. 56-33524 comprises a pair of mouth corner hooks, left and right, which are connected to each other by means of a substantially U-shaped spring arm.
In operating this oral cavity spreading apparatus, a user first holds the left- and right-hand mouth corner hooks with his/her hand, and presses the hooks inward against the urging force of the spring arm. Thereupon, the crosswise dimension between the mouth corner hooks is reduced. Then, the narrowed mouth corner hooks are inserted into the oral cavity of a patient and hooked on the opposite corners of the mouth. Thereafter, the hand is released from the mouth corner hooks. Thereupon, the mouth corner hooks are moved away from each other to spread the mouth corners left and right by means of the restoring force of the spring arm. Thus, the interior of the oral cavity can be subjected to medical examination, medical care, photographing, etc.
Although the mouth corner hooks can be conveniently used in carrying out medical examination, medical care, photographing, etc. for the anterior tooth portions, they cannot spread alone the inner part of the oral cavity. Thus, the mouth corner hooks cannot be used for the posterior tooth portions without any problem.
Accordingly, there has recently been developed an oral cavity spreading apparatus that is provided with wing portions protruding individually outward from the respective outside portions of left- and right-hand mouth corner hooks. These wing portions serve to spread the inner part of the oral cavity, thereby widening the field of vision that leads to the posterior tooth portions.
If the wing portions are formed protruding outward from the mouth corner hooks, individually, however, the crosswise dimension between them increases, so that the wing portions hinder the apparatus from being easily inserted into the oral cavity, although they can widen the field of vision to the posterior tooth portions. Thus, the oral cavity spreading apparatus inflicts pain on the patient, and its usability for users is not satisfactory.
The present invention has been contrived in consideration of these circumstances, and its object is to provide an oral cavity spreading apparatus, which can be easily inserted into the oral cavity even though it is provided with wing portions that project outward or toward the corners of the mouth.
An oral cavity spreading apparatus according to the present invention comprises a pair of mouth corner hooks capable of being inserted into the oral cavity to spread the corners of the mouth, wing portions protruding individually outward from the mouth corner hooks and capable of spreading the inner part of the oral cavity, and a substantially U-shaped spring arm portion connecting the mouth corner hooks, the mouth corner hooks being adapted to be pressed toward each other against the urging force of the spring arm portion so that the respective end portions of the mouth corner hooks engage each other and the wing portions are steadily rotated inward and toward each other around the point of engagement between the end portions as a pivot as the mouth corner hooks are inserted into the oral cavity.
As the apparatus constructed in this manner is inserted into the oral cavity, the wing portions on the paired mouth corner hooks can be steadily kept in parallel relation, so that the crosswise dimension between them can be reduced considerably. Thus, the apparatus can be easily inserted into the oral cavity.
Further, the structure of the pivot is made small enough not to hinder the apparatus from being fitted into the oral cavity.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.

Japan Science and Technology Corporation


A memory address monitoring device for monitoring a memory includes an address determining module and an identification determining module. A first process has a first process identification and issues a request address to access the memory. The memory saves data of a second process between a beginning address and an ending address of the memory. The second process has a second process identification. In this device, the address determining module receives the request address and determines whether the request address is located between the beginning address and the ending address to generate an address determining result. The identification determining module receives the address determining result, the first process identification and the second process identification, and compares the first process identification with the second process identification to generate an identification determining result when the address determining result is true.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to an address monitoring device and an address monitoring method, and, in particular, to a memory address monitoring device capable of monitoring the condition when a processing circuit accesses a memory, and an address monitoring method.
2. Related Art
With the progress of the semiconductor manufacturing process, various types of chips, such as a processor, a controller or a memory, have higher and higher working frequencies, and many circuits may be integrated in one chip such that the working ability of the chip can be enhanced. In a digital data system, the data processing efficiency can be enhanced according to the working clock of the chip, such as that of the processor or the controller, and also can be enhanced through a multi-task mode.
A digital video/audio player, for example, receives digital video/audio data from an optical drive, a network or a wired/wireless television. Next, the digital video/audio player performs the process of variable length decode (VLD), inverse scan, inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) or inverse discrete wavelet transform (IDWT), inverse quantization, motion compensation or television encode on the digital video/audio data, such that the complete video/audio can be correctly played. These processes can be implemented by a program code or a circuit, or performed in a multi-task mode simultaneously. When these processes are being executed, the digital video/audio player allocates an independent memory sector to each process such that data can be saved and used in each process. In addition, these processes can be implemented by firmware or hardware in the same processing circuit, or in different independent processing circuits.
As shown in FIG. 1, in a memory 11 of a conventional digital video/audio player 1, sectors 111 and 112 are allocated to processes 121 and 122 for usage, respectively, and data for the processes 121 and 122 are saved in the sectors 111 and 112. When the process 121 is being executed, the video/audio data is stored in the sector 111. At this time, if the process 121 wrongly writes the data in the sector 112, the process 122 provides the wrong data, and the digital video/audio player may finally play the wrong frame.
In order to avoid the above-mentioned condition, the developer has to develop the processes 121 and 122, to debug strictly in the testing phase, and to monitor the reading state of the memory, such that the wrong procedure can be found, the occurrence of the above-mentioned condition can be decreased, and the digital video/audio player can correctly play the video.

Memory address monitoring device and memory address monitoring method


A sand separator is used in a well from which particulate bearing liquids are extracted into tubing for transport up the tubing. The separator causes the fluid bearing particulate matter to be accelerated. This acceleration in turn causes the particulate matter to separate from the fluid because of the higher mass and greater inertia of the particulate matter. The fluid, after separation of the particulate matter, is drawn up through the pump. The particulates preferably accumulate within a sand trap which can be pulled from the well and emptied as desired. In the case wherein the particulate matter tends to float within the liquid part of the mixture, a strainer is added after the initial inertia separation of particles from the liquid. The strainer prevents the passage of particulate matter which would tend otherwise to float upward into the output port by which the liquid passes up the tube.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The invention relates to equipment for use in a fluid producing well. In particular, the invention is disclosed as apparatus for separating sand from the fluids extracted from a well. The description which follows discloses the invention in use in an oil well, having no intention, however, to so limit the use of the invention.
2. Prior Background Art
In pumping fluids from a well, for example an oil well, certain difficulties may arise depending upon the nature of the fluids being extracted. Frequently, natural gas is encountered as one of the fluids taken from an oil well. If the well is self pressurized, there is no need to separate the gasses from the liquids. However, if a pump must be employed to remove the fluids, it is desirable that the gasses be separated from the other fluidic materials before the liquids enter the pump, otherwise, gasses entering the pump may cause the pump to gas lock. The fluids will frequently also include a mixture of oil and water. These liquids can be readily separated after they are extracted from the well.
A problem does arise, however, when the liquid portions of the fluids contains particulate matter such as sand. This particulate matter, especially if sand, tends to abrade the moving surfaces into which the sand-bearing liquids come into contact. For example, pumps have a significantly shortened working lifetime when the liquids being pumped carry sand or other abrasive particulate matter.
Sand strainers are commercially available for insertion into the well casing to separate sand or other particulate matter from the liquids rising from a pressurized well or being pumped to the surface. However, the inventor herein has found no commercially available sand separator which performs to his satisfaction.
It is the objective of the present invention to provide a simple sand separating means for removing sand from liquids to be extracted from a well. It is a further objective of the invention to define embodiments of the invention which will successfully separate either water-borne sand, or oil-borne sand, or both.

Sand separating, producing-well accessory


A window of n.times.m dot is spread over binarized color image data in an original image in order to multi-levelcode the binary data for various image processes with respect to the multi-level-coded data. A binary window is re-arranged to determine the number of dots to be printed within the window for re-arrangement of the dots so as to correspond to the dot positions in the original image. When the number of dots to be printed is within the number of dots in the original image, the dots are rearranged so as to correspond to the dot positions in the original image, while on the contrary, when the number of dots to be printed is increased or decreased, the number of dots is accordingly increased or decreased based on a table, in which the priority of dot arrangement is provided. For these reasons, it is possible to perform various image processes to meet the characteristics of a desired binary color printer even if the original image contains binary color data, thereby allowing a good color image suitable for the binary color printer to be produced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image data processing apparatus and a method of image data processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Basically, multi-level image data is stored in conventional image data bases such as color image data bases. Therefore, it is possible to perform at will processes such as .gamma. correction or masking for output color printers.
Attention has been shifted to binary color image data bases in terms of a memory capacity for an image data base, processing speeds and the like because the multi-level data increase volumes of data.
A binary color image data base utilizes a method of making a multi-level color image a binary image by means of a binarizing method and of storing the binary image in a data base. With this method, the volume of data is simply reduced to 1/8. Further, data compression together with the above method greatly reduces the volume of data. The data compression efficiency of color images used for business purposes further improves because many color characters, color graphs, etc. are used, while fewer color images are used which have full range of colors.
However, in the above-mentioned example, .gamma. conversion, color processing, black generation and the like for use with a color output printer cannot be effected according to a conventional method, since the color image data is binarized.
That is, because the data is binarized in a "0" or "1" state, the data remains at a fixed value of "0" even if an arithmetic coefficient is multiplied. Thus it is impossible to perform the above-described processes.
Such problems as described above exist not only in binarized image data but also, for example, in three-level-coded or four-level-coded image data.

Image data processing apparatus and method thereof


Presented herein are techniques for storing parameter values determined by a power sourcing equipment (PSE) device during a Power over Ethernet (PoE) detection process. More specifically, in one example, a voltage is applied to an end device connected, via an Ethernet cable, to a port of the PSE device. The PSE device measures the current drawn by the end device and calculates, based on the measured current, a resistance and/or a capacitance value for the end device. The resistance and/or capacitance values are then stored in a memory of the PSE device.

Power over Ethernet (PoE) is a technology for wired Ethernet local area networks (LANs) in which the Ethernet cables simultaneously supply power and data to network devices. Electrical current necessary for the operation of each device is carried by the data cables rather than by separate power cords and separate power supplies. PoE is governed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.3at standard and the earlier 802.3af standard.
In accordance with the PoE standards, a device may either transmit/send power or receive power, but may not perform both functions. Devices that send power are referred to as PoE power sourcing equipment (PSE) or PSE devices, while devices that receive power are referred to as powered devices (PDs).


Method and system for identification of a changed state of a fluid with respect to a reference state of the same fluid, the fluid having an optical parameter changing with the change of the state of the fluid. The method comprises: a) providing an optical arrangement including a transparent enclosure with a portion of the fluid, and an object observable through the optical arrangement, the arrangement being designed such that an image of the object in the changed state of the fluid is optically distinctive from an image of the object in the reference state of the fluid due to change of the optical parameter, at least one of the images being predetermined; b) illuminating the object with diffuse light; c) observing a current image of the object though the optical arrangement along an optical axis; and d) comparing the current image to the predetermined image to identify the changed state of the fluid. The comparison and the identification may be performed by eye or by a sensor with a logical circuit.

There exist systems for measuring optical properties of fluids. U.S. Pat. No. 4,569,590 to Karney describes a system for determining unknown index of refraction of a sample fluid with reference to the refraction index of a known reference fluid. The system comprises a collimated light source, a light pervious cell formed as a biconvex lens fillable with a fluid, a pair of gratings and a screen. Collimated light is directed through the cell filled first with the reference fluid and then with the sample fluid, onto the gratings, and reference and sample patterns are obtained thereby on the screen. The sample pattern will be different from the reference one if the optical power of the biconvex lens changes due to the change of the liquid in the cell. The difference between the reference pattern and the sample pattern is then measured and used for calculating the refraction index of the sample fluid.
EP 1324015 describes similar techniques for measuring optical parameters of a phase object based on recording a moiré pattern viewed through the phase object. The moiré pattern is formed by illuminating two gratings by diffuse light, and projecting their images on a screen through the phase object. The optical parameters of the phase object are calculated from the moiré pattern.
Such methods require relatively complex optical systems, recording and measurement of images and sophisticated calculations in order to determine accurately a change in the optical parameter of the liquid.

Method and system for identification of changes in fluids


The present invention provides a variable valve mechanism of an internal combustion engine, which includes a rocker arm that is swingably supported by a single pivot, and a switching device that operates the rocker arm to switch a drive state of the valve, in which the rocker arm is configured such that at least in a predetermined drive state, a pressing force of the cam is applied disproportionately to one side of the rocker arm in a width direction with respect to a center line when the cam presses a portion of the rocker arm located away from the center line in the width direction. The variable valve mechanism further includes a swing guide that abuts against the rocker arm so that the rocker arm is guided in a swing direction so as not to be tilted in the width direction.

Variable valve mechanisms are described in Patent Documents 1 to 5. As with a variable valve mechanism 100 according to the related art (Patent Document 5) illustrated in FIG. 8, for example, all of the variable valve mechanisms include a rocker arm 101 that is swingably supported by a single pivot 105 and that swings when pressed by cams 108 and 109 to drive a valve 6, and a switching device 106 that operates the rocker arm 101 to switch the drive state of the valve 6.
Specifically, the rocker arm 101 includes an inner arm 103 and an outer arm 104 provided around the inner arm 103. The inner arm 103 is pressed by an inner cam 108. The outer arm 104 is pressed by two outer cams 109 and 109 having the same profile and provided on both sides of the inner cam 108 in the width direction. The switching device 106 relatively indisplaceably couples and decouples the outer arm 104 to and from the inner arm 103 to switch the drive state of the valve 6.

Variable valve mechanism of internal combustion engine


Wind turbine comprising a tower with an interior enclosed by a tower wall which forms a heat exchange surface in an air cooling circuit wherein the tower interior forms a channel for guiding hot air along a flow path, wherein one or more air flow deflectors are arranged within the flow path for guiding the flow towards the tower wall. The flow deflectors can for example be active flow deflectors, such as fans or blowers, or passive flow deflectors, such as one or more static flow deflector plates or vanes, forming a static mixer element.

The discussion below is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Aspects of the present invention relate to a wind turbine comprising a cooling circuit, particularly for discharging heat generated by electrical equipment in the wind turbine.
Energy conversion results in energy being lost in the form of heat. In the main driving line of a wind turbine, which is typically mounted in the nacelle, losses occur in the gears, at the bearings, and in the generator or at other control units, such as, e.g., in the hydraulic systems or similar control and regulation pitch and yaw units. For gearless direct drive wind turbines the main losses occur at the generator area in the nacelle. For the power supply, losses occur at the power transformer and in possibly present other power electronics, e.g., in the rectifier.
Generators in wind turbines are typically cooled by an air flow through the air gap between the generator rotor and stator, and over the sections containing the coils where most of the heat is generated. Corrosion sensitivity requires that the materials near the air gap should only be subjected to dry and clean air. For this purpose, closed air cooling circuits are generally used. Closed cooling circuits have the advantage that no outside air needs to enter the generator area which is particularly useful for offshore wind turbines where the outside air is humid and has a high salt particle content. A secondary air-to-air system can be used to transfer the heat to the outside air. Alternatively, air from the turbine interior can be circulated via the air gap. For turbines comprising a steel tower, the tower wall can be used to dissipate the heat from the air circulation system. In a closed or partly closed cooling circuit, the cooling air circulates within the wind turbine from its nacelle to the tower or to the base of the wind turbine and the energy stored by the coolant, such as air, during the cooling is dissipated via the tower wall of the wind turbine. The tower of the wind turbine is exposed to wind, enhancing the effectiveness of the wind turbine tower as a cooling element or a heat exchanger. In order to use the complete tower length effectively the air should be forced to have a vertical flow, top-down or bottom-up.
WO 01/06121 discloses a wind turbine with a closed cooling circuit and a tower being integrated into the cooling circuit as a cooling element. Channels guide the hot air closely along the interior side of the tower wall. Similarly, in DE 100 16 913 A spiralling channels are used to guide hot air along the inner surface of a wind turbine tower wall. This way, a closed cooling circuit can be obtained circulating hot air which is cooled by the tower wall.
The channels used in WO 01/06121 and DE 100 16 913 A complicate the construction of the wind turbine tower. Moreover, the passage of the channel forms a bottle neck for the circulating amount of air, which may not be sufficient for effective cooling of the generator area.

Wind turbine comprising a cooling circuit


The invention aims to prevent the dust passing through a gap provided for sliding movement of bypass valve from being attached to a screw mechanism, and thus to guarantee smooth motion of the screw mechanism. Provided is a bypass-intake-flow control apparatus including a throttle body in which a bypass and a valve hole that is open into the course of the bypass are formed. A bypass valve to open and close the bypass is slidably but not rotatably fitted into the valve hole. An actuator is attached to the throttle body with an output shaft arranged coaxially with the bypass valve. The screw mechanism links the output shaft and the bypass valve. A bottomed hollow portion is formed in the bypass valve with an opening facing the actuator. A dust cover that surrounds the screw mechanism in the hollow portion is attached to the throttle body.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improvement of a bypass-intake-flow control apparatus in which a throttle body having an intake passage that is opened and closed by a throttle valve is provided with: a bypass connected to the intake passage while bypassing the throttle valve; and a valve hole open into the bypass, a bypass valve that opens and closes the bypass by moving in an axial direction is slidably but not rotatably fitted into the valve hole, an output shaft of an actuator that is attached to the throttle body is arranged substantially-coaxially with the bypass valve, the output shaft and the bypass valve are linked by a screw mechanism, so that the bypass valve is driven in an axial direction by rotation of the output shaft so as to be opened and closed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such bypass-intake-flow control apparatus has already been known as disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3784679.


A system for processing electrocardiograph signals includes an interface and a processor. The interface provides a first electrocardiograph signal and a second electrocardiograph signal from an electrocardiograph to the processor. The processor receives the electrocardiograph signals, processes the first electrocardiograph signal to identify a feature of the signal, and processes the second electrocardiograph signal to identify energy over time (e.g., at various time instances), and identifies a first time instance of interest based on the feature.

The disclosed embodiments relate to processing an electrocardiograph signal, such as a system for processing an electrocardiograph signal to identify instances of interest in the signal.
Electrocardiography (ECG) is a transthoracic (e.g., across the thorax or chest) interpretation of the electrical activity of the heart over a period of time, as detected by electrodes attached to the outer surface of the skin or at specific loci of the heart via cardiac catheters and recorded by an electrocardiograph external to the body. The electrical activities of the heart are recorded as signals by the electrocardiograph. The signals recorded from the surface of the skin are referred to as surface electrocardiograph signals and the signals from the internal part of the heart are referred to as intracardiac electrograph signals.
ECG with the electrodes at the outer surface of the skin is useful to measure the rate and regularity of heartbeats, the size and position of the chambers, the presence of any damage to the heart, and the effects of drugs or devices used to regulate the heart (such as a pacemaker). While the intracardiac electrograph signals help to detect cardiac arrhythmias, detection of some heart diseases, such as cardiac arrhythmias, involves a great degree of accuracy in identifying few instances of interest in each of the signals. Based on these instances individually and in combination, a physician decides on the occurrence or non-occurrence of the disease in a patient.
One possible way for identifying the instances of interest in signals is by automated segmentation of the signals using frequency and time domain template matching methods, such as correlation waveform analysis, which is independent of amplitude fluctuation and ICE baseline. Correlation waveform analysis is effective in discriminating ventricular depolarizations in sinus rhythm (SR) from indications of ventricular tachycardia (VT), and in differentiating morphologically distinct ventricular tachycardias in the same patient. Another way is based on a difference of area (DOA) scheme, which is dependent upon amplitude fluctuation and ICE baseline. These methods are based on simple criteria, such as the difference of areas between the template and the test signal. The methods have a limitation in connection with the variability in the test signals. The limitation may be met by increasing the number of templates. But incrementing the number of templates leads to increased computation time. Further, these methods implicitly rely on the P wave onset point, which, in some cases, cannot be computed accurately.


An access control unit and method is proposed for use with an SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory) device to control each round of burst-transfer type of access operation on the SDRAM device. The proposed access control unit and method is characterized by that the column-address strobe signal involved in each round of the burst-transfer access operation is continuously set at active state for a period of clock pulses equal in number to the specified burst length of the burst-transfer access operation, rather than just for a period of one pulse. This feature allows external circuitry to arbitrarily change the burst length, and also allows no use of burst-stop command or a precharge-interrupt method to stop each round of the burst-transfer access operation, allowing the access control logic circuit architecture to be more simplified than the prior art.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer memory technology, and more particularly, to an access control unit and method for use with an SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) chip for controlling a burst transfer access operation on the SDRAM chip.
2. Description of Related Art
SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) is an advanced type of DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory), which is characterized by that the data access rate is synchronized with CPU's clock signal, allowing the CPU to retrieve data from SDRAM without latency so that the access speed is increased. An SDRAM device operates in two modes: interleaved mode or sequential mode.
With the above-mentioned SDRAM characteristics, the required access control circuitry for an SDRAM chip should be designed to comply with these requirements so as to be able to perform the data access operations.
One drawback to conventional SDRAM access control units, however, is that the burst length in each burst transfer access operation is a fixed amount of data, such as 8 bits or 16 bits, and cannot be changed arbitrarily.
Still another drawback of conventional SDRAM access control units is that at the completion of each burst transfer access operation, a burst stop command or a precharge interrupt method should be used to terminate the burst transfer access operation, which makes the required logic circuitry more complex in structure.

Access control unit and method for use with synchronous dynamic random access memory device


An air bag apparatus having a constitution of developing an air bag folded to contain in a case to a rear side of a vehicle by making an expanding gas flow from a gas flow inlet in expanding to develop the air bag. The air bag is arranged with a through hole. The air bag is constituted by a ring-like member arranged with a lower expanded portion arranged with a gas flow inlet, an upper expanded portion arranged to an upper side of the lower expanded portion to communicate with a front side of the lower expanded portion, and a rear expanded portion arranged to connect to a rear part of the lower expanded portion and a rear part of the upper expanded portion at a surrounding of the through hole. The air bag is constituted to finish to expand by closing the through hole.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air bag apparatus installed at an instrument panel and constituted to develop an air bag folded to contain at inside of the case.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a related art, according to an air bag apparatus having the above-described constitution, an air bag is provided with a through hole penetrated in a left and right direction (refer to, for example, JP-A-6-344844).
However, the air bag apparatus of the related art is constituted such that the through hole provided at the air bag is not closed even in finishing to expand the air bag. That is, according to the air bag of the related art, a dispersion is brought about in a function of constraining the passenger at a portion thereof on a side of the passenger in a state of finishing to expand the air bag since the through hole penetrated in the left and right direction is provided at a vicinity of a center thereof. For example, according to the air bag apparatus of the related art, when the head portion of the passenger interferes with a portion of the air bag which has been finished to expand constituting a vicinity of a center axis of the through hole, the air bag is considerably recessed to deform to a side of the through hole to narrow an inner diameter of the through hole. Further, when the head portion of the passenger interferes with a portion thereof remote from the center axis of the through hole, an amount of recessing the air bag is small. Therefore, according to the air bag apparatus of the related art, the function of constraining the passenger is dispersed by a physical constitution and an attitude of the passenger and there is a concern of being unable to stably protect the passenger.
Incidentally, an air bag apparatus for protecting a passenger is included at inside of an instrument panel arranged in front of a passenger seat of a vehicle. An air bag is folded to contain in a case constituting the air bag apparatus and an inflator is operated in impacting the vehicle. Further, by introducing a generated gas at high pressure into the air bag, the air bag is rapidly expanded to develop to the passenger to thereby constrain movement of the passenger by an inertia force.
There is proposed the above-described air bag apparatus disclosed in JP-A-11-170955. According to the air bag apparatus, an initial developing speed of the air bag to the rear side is reduced by providing an inner bag in the air bag.
According to the air bag apparatus disclosed in JP-A-11-170955, a portion of the air bag needs to press to an instrument panel or a windshield by the inner bag and a position of mounting the air bag apparatus to the vehicle is limited.
Incidentally, according to an air bag apparatus of a related art, an air bag in a bag-like shape is constituted substantially by a shape of a cone including a passenger side wall portion arranged substantially along a vertical direction on a side of the passenger and a peripheral wall portion narrowed substantially in a shape of a cone from an outer peripheral edge of the passenger side wall portion to a front side of a vehicle as a shape in finishing to expand to develop the air bag (refer to, for example, JP-A-2002-255004). The air bag is constituted to arrange a gas flow inlet as an opening face substantially along a horizontal direction at a front side of a lower side of the peripheral wall portion in finishing to expand to develop the air bag and a peripheral edge of the gas flow inlet is attached to a case.
The air bag is contained in the case by transversely folding the air bag for making a crease in a left and right direction and vertically folding the air bag for making a crease in a front and rear direction after previously folding the air bag, and a previously folding shape thereof after finishing to previously folding the air bag is constituted by a shape of arranging a portion of a vicinity of an upper edge of the passenger side wall portion at a position opposed to the gas flow inlet and overlapping the passenger side wall portion on the lower side of the peripheral portion to flatten.
According to the air bag apparatus, in expanding to develop the air bag, the air bag is expanded to develop to a rear side of a vehicle by making an expanding gas flow from the gas flowing inlet to project to push to open doors arranged at an instrument panel while resolving the creases constituted by transversely folding and vertically folding the air bag, at that occasion, since the portion proximate to the upper edge of the passenger side wall portion is arranged at the position opposed to the gas flow inlet, a portion proximate to the upper edge of the passenger side wall portion opposed to the gas flow inlet is strongly pushed up to an upper side by a pressing force of the expanding gas at an initial stage of making the expanding gas flow more precedingly than other portion of a portion on a side of a lower edge of the passenger side wall portion or the like and therefore, the passenger side wall portion is easy to arrange to be along substantially in the vertical direction
Further, when the portion at the vicinity of the upper edge of the passenger side wall portion is strongly pushed up, the portion can contribute also to swiftly resolving the creases constituted by transversely folding and vertically folding the air bag and therefore, the passenger side wall portion can widely be developed, in expanding to develop the air bag, the passenger side wall portion which is brought into a state of being substantially orthogonal to the peripheral edge of the gas flow inlet can be arranged to be swiftly along substantially the vertical direction and the air bag can be developed in a widely opened state such that the pressing force is not partially operated to a side of the passenger.
However, although according to the air bag apparatus of the related art, in expanding to develop the air bag, the passenger side wall portion can be moved to the rear side of the vehicle in the state of constituting the wide face arranged substantially in the vertical direction, in the case in which an obstacle having a height up to a vicinity of a height of the instrument panel is arranged at a vicinity of the instrument panel, there is a room for improvement in finishing to expand the air bag while restraining interference with the obstacle.
Incidentally, according to an air bag apparatus of a related art, in expanding to develop an air bag folded to contain in a case, an expanding gas is made to flow thereinto from a gas flow inlet, push to open doors arranged at an instrument panel and expanded to develop to a rear side of a vehicle. Further, according to the air bag apparatus of the related art, the air bag is folded to contain to project to a side of a passenger in a state of widely opening a face constituting the side of a passenger and in a state of restraining a moving speed thereof such that the pressing force is not operated partially to the side of the passenger in expanding to develop the air bag (refer to, for example, JP-A-2002-255004).
Further, according to the air bag apparatus of the related art, a vicinity of an upper end of the face arranged substantially orthogonally to the gas flow inlet to constitute the side of the passenger in finishing to expand the air bag is arranged to be opposed to a gas flow inlet in the contained state. Therefore, in expanding to develop the air bag, the face on the side of the passenger is developed to be along substantially in a vertical direction. However, according to the air bag apparatus of the related art, there is a room for improvement in reducing a speed of moving the face constituting the side of the passenger.
Incidentally, in a related art, there is known an air bag apparatus arranged with a supporting member for supporting an expanded portion of an air bag for protecting a passenger on a front side (refer to, for example, JP-A-11-227553).
According to the air bag, an expanded portion of a region of protecting the head portion of the passenger is supported by the supporting member comprising an air bag arranged on a front side thereof (refer to FIG. 1 of JP-A-11-227553).
However, according to the air bag apparatus of the related art, the expanded portion for protecting the head portion of the passenger is supported by the supporting member, an expanded portion for protecting the chest and the belly portion of the passenger is not supported by the supporting member, depending on elastic performance of the supporting member, by presence or absence of the supporting member, the chest and belly portion of the passenger is constrained by the protecting expanded portion with excellent positioning performance, however, there is a concern that the head portion of the passenger is not constrained by the protecting expanding portion of the head portion.


This invention relates to the field of olefin polymerization catalyst compositions, and methods for the polymerization and copolymerization of olefins, typically using a supported catalyst composition. In one aspect, this invention encompasses precontacting a metallocene with a borinic acid or boronic acid prior to contacting this mixture with the acidic activator-support and an organoaluminum compound.

Mono-1-olefins (α-olefins), including ethylene, can be polymerized with catalyst compositions employing titanium, zirconium, vanadium, chromium or other metals, impregnated on a variety of support materials, often in the presence of cocatalysts. These catalyst compositions may be useful for both homopolymerization of ethylene, as well as copolymerization of ethylene with comonomers such as propylene, 1-butene, 1-hexene, or other higher α-olefins. Therefore, there exists a constant search to develop new olefin polymerization catalysts, catalyst activation processes, and methods of making and using catalysts that will provide enhanced catalytic activities and polymeric materials tailored to specific end uses.
One type of catalyst system consists of metallocene compounds contacted with methyl aluminoxane to form a polymerization catalyst. However, in order to achieve the desired high polymerization activities, large amounts of expensive methyl aluminoxane are necessary to form the active metallocene catalysts. This feature has been an impediment to the commercialization of metallocene catalyst systems. Therefore improvements in catalyst compositions and in methods of making the catalyst are needed to afford the desired high polymerization activities at reasonable commercial costs.


An interrupt supervision system comprises an interrupt controller device comprising a plurality of interrupt request input lines and at least one output line connectable to a processing device. The interrupt controller device is arranged to receive, on the plurality of interrupt request input lines, a plurality of corresponding interrupt requests and to provide, on the at least one output line, the plurality of interrupt requests to the processing device in a sequence generated by the interrupt controller device depending on one or more priorities assigned to the interrupt requests; and one or more interrupt checker devices, each being arranged to receive a reception indication when the interrupt controller device receives, on a selected one of the plurality of interrupt request lines, a corresponding selected interrupt request, and to provide a corresponding error indication when an output of the corresponding selected interrupt request from the interrupt controller device on the at least one output line is not confirmed within a latency period assigned to the corresponding selected interrupt request, wherein the assigned latency period begins when the interrupt checker device receives the reception indication.

A processing system is a system for processing data and contains at least one processing device, e.g., a microprocessor, arranged to perform certain tasks, such as the execution of a sequence of instructions that may be provided, for example, as part of a computer program.
An interrupt is a signal indicating the need for attention from, or a change in execution by, a processor core. The interrupt may cause a processing device to switch its device context or save its state of execution and to execute an interrupt handler or interrupt service routine (ISR) associated with the interrupt. An interrupt may be triggered by an interrupt request (IRQ). Interrupt requests may be signals generated by programs or peripheral devices and sent to the processing device, for example, to request the processing device to perform a requested service while abandoning its current tasks for the period.
The interrupt requests are transmitted to the processing device via an interrupt controller connected to receive the issued interrupt requests on interrupt request lines, each line typically dedicated to signal a particular associated interrupt request. The interrupt controller receives the interrupt requests from a variety of different sources of interrupt requests, e.g. peripheral devices, internal modules, and other processing devices, and asserts or provides the interrupt request to the processing device on one or more lines connected to the processing device, taking into account priorities or priority levels or interrupt request levels (IRQL) assigned to the interrupt requests.
Temporary failure of an interrupt controller may, for example, cause IRQ errors, such as priority errors, spurious, constant, wrong, late or even lost IRQs which may result in malfunction of the processing system and may, for example, result in dangerous situations, for example when being used in a safety critical system. Detection of errors generated by an interrupt controller device may, for example, be performed by using duplicated or replicated interrupt controllers connected to the same interrupt request lines and comparing the outputs of the interrupt controllers. In multiprocessor systems containing multiple processing devices and an associated set of interrupt controllers, the interrupt controllers may use an error detection strategy wherein the interrupt controllers are used in combination to control their outputs.

Interrupt supervision system, processing system and method for interrupt supervision


The adjustable pipe fitting of the invention has double walls in accordance with Type B standards established by the American National Standards Institute and Underwriters Laboratories. In the preferred embodiment, the invention comprises a main conduit having three sections which are rotatably coupled together. A branch conduit is securely connected to the main conduit so that fluid communication exists between the branch and main conduits. The branch conduit also comprises three sections which are rotatably coupled together. The main conduit sections and the branch sections are coupled together at oblique angles relative to their respective longitudinal axes to provide a means for adjusting the fitting to accommodate connector pipes having various angles and orientations.

A problem often encountered in the design and construction of pipe systems is the difficulty of routing inflexible lengths of pipe along paths which change direction. Also, to avoid obstacles in the path of the pipe, it is often necessary to connect pipe sections at angles, complicating the task of connecting the pipes. Further misalignment of the individual pipe sections can make it very difficult to connect them together to complete the system.
Difficulties of connecting pipe sections typically arise in the construction of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems for residential and commercial buildings. For example, building codes require that all gas-burning appliances, such as furnaces and water heaters, must be adequately vented so that combustion products are safely channeled outside the building. At the same time, it is desirable to minimize the number of vent pipes extending through the roof or exterior wall of a house or building. Therefore, two or more appliances are often vented through a common exhaust vent. However, the connector pipes which join each appliance to the common vent must be routed around structural members and other obstacles within the building. This causes the connector pipes to meet the common vent pipe at odd angles, making connection to the common vent pipe difficult. Furthermore, because locations of the appliances can vary, as can the location of the common vent and other structures within the building, no two installations are exactly alike.
The situation is further complicated by the increased use of newer, mid-efficiency gas appliances, which have efficiencies of 78 to 83 percent and which are commonly referred to as "fan assisted appliances." With these appliances it is very important to minimize the heat loss through the walls of the vent pipes in order to prevent the formation of excessive condensation within the system. Consequently, many building codes will soon require gas vent systems to be constructed in accordance with "Type B" vent pipe guidelines established by the American National Standards Institute ("ANSI"), Underwriters Laboratories ("UL") and other national and local building codes. To meet ANSI/UL Type B standards, vent pipe must have double walls with an air space between the walls to increase resistance to heat conduction through the pipe. Of course, all connector fittings used in such systems must meet ANSI/UL Type B standards as well.
Previous attempts to solve the problem of connecting misaligned pipes include the use of various combinations of numerous conventional fittings, such as elbows and tees having many different angles and sizes. The fittings are pieced together at the job site in an effort to find the right combination which will complete the connection. However, because the fittings are only available in predetermined angles and sizes, the connections sometimes cannot easily be made. In addition, when the connection is made, the numerous fittings tend to take up an excessive amount of space and can reduce the slope of the connector pipe running from the appliance to the common vent. The reduced slope is a disadvantage because it makes venting less efficient. In addition, the installer is forced to maintain a large stock of fittings for each job.
The prior art discloses various adjustable pipe fittings which are intended to alleviate the pipe connection problem. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. Re.8,885; 704,936; 1,467,833; 1,708,528; and 1,808,450 disclose adjustable elbow fittings. U.S. Pat. No. 861,409 discloses an adjustable tee fitting designed to accommodate different angular orientations of a branch pipe. U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,646 discloses various types and combinations of adjustable fittings. However, none of these adjustable fittings have the double wall construction necessary to comply with ANSI/UL Type B standards for venting mid-efficiency gas appliances.
Thus, a need exists for a pipe fitting having double walls separated by an air space, as required by ANSI/UL Type B standards, and which is readily adjustable to join two or more connector pipes having various orientations.


A system and method of protecting all the amplifiers in a link between wavelength routing network elements of an optical network. According to the invention, an optical control channel is added before a plurality of optical amplifier, preferably the first amplifier, in a link. To prevent improper loading of downstream links, the control channel is stripped off at the next wavelength routing network element. The power of the control channel is automatically adjusted using a fast feedback circuit to hold substantially constant the total power of the signal channels and the control channel at the input of the first amplifier following the feedback loop. In this manner, channel loading of all optical amplifiers in the link is maintained substantially constant, and the incidence of error bursts, as might otherwise result when one or more channels are added or dropped due to a network fault or reconfiguration, is substantially reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to optical fiber communication networks and, more particularly, to systems and methods for dynamically controlling gain in accordance with the collective behavior of the amplifier chains employed in the links of such networks.
2. Description of the Background Art
A dramatic increase in the information capacity of an optical fiber can be achieved by the simultaneous transmission of optical signals over the same fiber from many different light sources having properly spaced peak emission wavelengths. By operating each light source at a different peak wavelength, the integrity of the independent messages from each source is maintained for subsequent conversion to electric signals at the receiving end. This is the basis of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM).
Wavelength switched optical networks potentially offer high capacity networking at lower cost than current electronically switched networks. The optical amplifiers in the nodes and repeaters of such networks will each be traversed by multiple signal channels following diverse routes. In optical amplifiers such as rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers (e.g., erbium doped fiber amplifiers--EDFA's), amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) is the major source of noise. ASE originates from the spontaneous emission of incoherent light over the broad gain bandwidth of the amplifier and constitutes the random noise contribution of the amplifier. If the signal powers in the transmission fibers are too high, optical nonlinearities such as Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) can also occur and further degrade the signals by introducing noise. In the wavelength domain, gain saturation induced by a data channel operating at .lambda..sub.1 produces a level change in another data channel at wavelength .lambda..sub.2.
In optically amplified systems, the above-described noise sources present two limitations on the amplifier operating range. At low input signal levels the amplifier random noise contribution, ASE, causes bit errors (signal-spontaneous beat noise) while at large input signal levels, nonlinearities in the transmission fiber add noise and can also degrade performance. As such, fluctuations in the transmitted data stream--as may occur, for example, when one or more wavelength channels are added or dropped--can have a substantial effect on the reliability and quality of service in a multiwavelength network. Illustratively, the number of channels traversing an EDFA may change suddenly as a result of a network reconfiguration or a fault that interrupts some of the channels. Cross saturation in the affected optical amplifiers of a network will induce power transients in the surviving channels, the speed of which is proportional to the number of amplifiers in the network; for large networks, surviving channel power transients can be large and extremely fast. If their power levels exceed thresholds for optical nonlinearities or become too low to preserve adequate eye opening, the surviving channels traversing the optical amplifier will suffer error bursts.
The gain medium in a rare-earth doped optical fiber amplifier such, for example, as an EDFA has a comparatively long excited state lifetime or relaxation time, and for this reason is generally regarded as allowing for a larger saturation energy and, hence, as exhibiting virtually no saturation in response to high speed data pulses (1 ns). In fact, it has been reported that transient effects of gain saturation and recovery in an individual amplifier typically occur on a 100 .mu.sec-1 msec time scale. Desurvire et al., Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers, p. 412 (1994)!. The inventors herein, have, however, observed gain dynamics in a chain of EDFA's almost two orders of magnitude faster than this and, for large scale wavelength routed networks, gain dynamics three orders of magnitude may be predicted. These fast transients in chains of amplifiers may ultimately constrain the design or extent of multiwavelength optical networks. Accordingly, there is recognized a need for a technique by which the amplifiers employed in optical networks can be reliably controlled despite power level fluctuations in the respective wavelength channels or, in the case of time division multiplexed networks, individual time slots.

System and method for mitigating cross-saturation in optically amplified networks


The injection apparatus, which injects a molding material into a mold by operating an injection cylinder and fills the mold with the molding material, includes a plurality of actuating mechanisms that is connected to the injection cylinder. Each actuating mechanism includes an actuating cylinder that supplies an incompressible fluid to the injection cylinder, and a drive part that drives a piston of the actuating cylinder. In a low-speed step and a high-speed step for injecting the molding material, the piston of each actuating cylinder is driven forward, and hydraulic oil is supplied to the injection cylinder. In a pressure-increasing step, the pistons of the actuating cylinders are driven forward, and hydraulic oil is supplied to the injection cylinder. As the injection apparatus includes a plurality of actuating mechanisms, the speed and pressure of the injection cylinder can be increased without requiring high performance from the drive parts.

Injection apparatuses are known as apparatuses for molding a desired product by injecting a molding material into a mold and filling the mold with the molding material. In recent injection apparatuses, for example, operating force is imparted to an injection cylinder using an electric motor as in the injection apparatus described in Patent Document 1. The injection apparatus described in this publication includes an injection cylinder device which operates an injection plunger for injecting a molding material into a mold and a conversion cylinder device which supplies hydraulic oil to the injection cylinder device. In the injection apparatus, an electric motor is used as a drive source for a conversion piston of the conversion cylinder device when supplying the hydraulic oil to the injection cylinder device. Due to this, the conversion piston of the conversion cylinder device operates with the driving force of the electric motor to supply hydraulic oil to the injection cylinder device. Due to this, the injection piston of the injection cylinder device operates toward the injecting direction of the molding material with the hydraulic oil supplied.


A highly dispersed, unsupported, electrocatalyst made of pyrolyzed porphyries and a method for synthesizing the same. The disclosed synthesis procedure allows for optimization of pore size and therefore transport properties. Compounds suitable for use include transition metal N4-chelates such as, but not necessarily limited to, N4-chelates containing different metal centers including Co, Fe, Mn, Ni, Ru, Cu, etc., and other N4-chelates such as porphyrin, phthalocyanies, and structures based on their pyro products.

Fuel cells are receiving increasing attention as a viable energy-alternative. In general, fuel cells convert electrochemical energy into electrical energy in an environmentally clean and efficient manner. Fuel cells are contemplated as potential energy sources for everything from small electronics to cars and homes. In order to meet different energy requirements, there are a number of different types of fuel cells in existence today, each with varying chemistries, requirements, and uses.
As one example, Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFCs) rely upon the oxidation of methanol on an electrocatalyst layer to form carbon dioxide. Water is consumed at the anode and produced at the cathode. Positive ions (H+) are transported across a proton exchange membrane to the cathode where they react with oxygen to produce water. Electrons can then be transported via an external circuit from anode to cathode providing power to external sources.
As another example, polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells (also called proton exchange membrane fuel cells) use pure hydrogen (typically supplied by a hydrogen tank) as a fuel. A stream of hydrogen is delivered to the anode side of a membrane-electrode assembly (MEA), where it is catalytically split into protons and electrons. As with the DMFC, the positive ions are transported across a proton exchange membrane to the cathode where they react with oxygen to produce water.
Currently, one of the limiting factors in the wide scale commercialization of PEM and DMFC fuel cells is the cost associated with precious metals. Both DMFC and PEM fuel cells commonly use platinum as an electrocatalyst. Nobel metals such as platinum are needed to catalyze the sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the cathode. One of the major routes to overcome this limitation is to increase the platinum utilization in noble-metal based electrocatalysts. Another viable route is to use a less expensive, yet still sufficiently active catalyst in larger quantities. Several classes of non-platinum electrocatalysts have been identified as having adequate oxygen reduction activity to be considered as potential electrocatalysts in commercial fuel cell applications.
Generally, known non-platinum electrocatalysts are supported on high surface area carbon blacks. This is done to increase dispersion, active surface area, and conductivity of the catalytic layer. The synthesis procedure usually includes precipitation of the precursor molecules onto the supporting substrate and pyrolyzation of the supported precursor.

Self supporting structurally engineered non-platinum electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction in fuel cells


In a hair-cutting system (1) including a hair-cutting apparatus (2) comprising a toothed cutting device (14) having a toothed cutter (15) which is drivable by a motor (17), and a comb device (19) which can be coupled to the toothed cutting device (2) and which comprises an adjustable comb section (22), the hair-cutting apparatus (2) has an adjustment button (48) for adjusting the adjustable comb section (22) of the comb device (19) and an on/off button (74) for switching on and switching off the motor (17), the adjustment button (48) being arranged at the location of a front side (10) of the hair-cutting apparatus (2) and the on/off button (74) being arranged at the location of a back side (11) of the hair-cutting apparatus (2).

A hair-cutting system of the type defined in the opening paragraph is commercially available from the Applicant under the type designation HS 025 and is known therefrom. In the known hair-cutting system the hair-cutting apparatus comprises an adjustment button formed by a slide button and an on/off button also formed by a slide button. Both buttons are arranged in line with one another in the longitudinal direction of the housing at the location of the front side of the hair-cutting apparatus in the grip area of the housing, the adjustment button being disposed adjacent the coupling area, i.e. nearer the toothed cutting device of the hair-cutting apparatus and the on/off button being disposed behind it in the longitudinal direction of the housing, i.e. further away from the toothed cutting device. In the known hair-cutting system the adjustment button is simply and easily slidable between several, i.e. seven settings in total, by the thumb of the hand which holds the grip area of the hair-cutting apparatus during operation. In order to actuate the on/off button of the known hair-cutting system the thumb of the hand which holds the grip area of the hair-cutting apparatus during operation should be placed on the on/off button, after which the on/off button can be slid between its on-position and its off-position. After the on/off button has been slid, for example, into its on-position in order to switch on the motor of the hair-cutting apparatus, upon which the toothed cutting device of the hair-cutting apparatus is put into operation, the thumb should be moved to the adjustment button in order to enable a desired hair-cutting length to be adjusted, for which it is not only necessary to move the thumb but also to change the position of the entire hair-cutting apparatus in the hand holding the hair-cutting apparatus. This is a comparatively inconvenient operation, which is consequently susceptible of improvement.

Hair cutting system having a comb adjustment button and a powder button


Provided are a thin film transistor, a method for preparing the same and a flat panel display employing the same. The thin film transistor includes a gate electrode, source and drain electrodes insulated from the gate electrode, a semiconductor layer insulated from the gate electrode and electrically connected to the source and drain electrodes, an insulating layer, and a carrier blocking layer interposed between the semiconductor layer and the insulating layer and preventing electrons or holes moving through semiconductor layer from being trapped in the insulating layer. Since the thin film transistor is constructed such that the carrier blocking layer is interposed between the semiconductor layer and the insulating layer, the electrons or holes injected into the semiconductor layer can be prevented from being trapped in the insulating layer, thereby suppressing hysteresis characteristic. In addition, a reliable flat panel display device can be manufactured using the thin film transistor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present embodiments relate to a thin film transistor, a method for preparing the same and a flat panel display employing the same, and more particularly, to a this film transistor having improved charge mobility by overcoming a hysteresis characteristic problem, a method for preparing the same and a flat panel display employing the thin film transistor.
2. Description of the Related Art
A thin film transistor (TFT) used in a flat panel display device such as, for example, a liquid crystal display device, an organic light-emitting device, or an inorganic light-emitting device, is used as a switching element for controlling the operation of each pixel and a driving element for driving the pixel.
Such a TFT includes a semiconductor layer having source region and a drain region, and a channel region formed between the source/drain regions, a gate electrode insulated from the semiconductor layer and positioned on a region corresponding to the channel region, and source/drain electrodes contacting the source/drain regions, respectively.
Since the source/drain electrodes are generally made of a metal having a low work function for facilitating the flow of charges, contact resistance increases at a region where the metal and the semiconductor layer contact each other, resulting in a deterioration of device characteristics and increasing power consumption.
Recently, research into an organic thin film transistor has been actively conducted because it is advantageous in that it comprises an organic semiconductor layer. Since the organic semiconductor layer can be formed at a low temperature, use of a plastic substrate has become possible.
To improve electrical performance of the organic thin film transistor, e.g., a driving voltage, a thin film transistor comprising a buffer layer between a source/drain electrode and an organic semiconductor layer or a self-assembly monolayer between a gate insulating layer and an organic semiconductor layer has been proposed, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2004-103905.
However, known organic thin film transistors have not hitherto been suited to actual applications due to hysteresis characteristics. Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to develop thin film transistors having satisfactory operational stability.

Thin film transistor, a method for preparing the same and a flat panel display employing the same


A cryogenic air separation plant or a combined pressure swing adsorption plant and membrane separation plant is integrated with a float glass manufacturing system wherein oxygen from the plant is used for oxy-fuel combustion in the melt furnace and nitrogen from the plant is used as a protective atmosphere in the float glass forming chamber.

The production of flat sheet glass by the float glass process involves the melting of glass in a melt furnace and the transfer of the molten glass from the melt furnace to a float glass forming chamber. There the molten glass is poured onto a bath of molten tin within the float glass forming chamber. To prevent the surface of the hot tin from oxidizing, an atmosphere of nitrogen is used in the float glass forming chamber. The atmosphere also contains hydrogen which reacts with any oxygen which is present to form water vapor, and with sulfur generated from the glass to form hydrogen sulfide. This further ensures the integrity of the hot tin and the molten glass within the float glass forming chamber.
In the making of glass a very large amount of heat is needed to melt the glassmaking materials as they are processed in a glassmelting furnace. Generally this heat is provided by the combustion of fuel and oxidant which has heretofore generally been air.
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are recognized pollutants and it is desirable to reduce emissions of NOx from industrial processes. NOx is produced in air-based combustion mainly because at the high temperatures of the combustion reaction, nitrogen from the air combines with oxygen.
Recently in response to the NOx problem many industrial processes have begun using pure oxygen or oxygen-enriched air to carry out the combustion as this reduces or completely eliminates the nitrogen brought into the area of the combustion reaction by the oxidant. However, the use of pure oxygen or oxygen-enriched air as the oxidant increases the costs of glassmelting and thus of the entire glass manufacturing system.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide a float glass manufacturing system which employs oxygen as the oxidant for combustion to generate heat for the glassmelting furnace and which operates more efficiently than conventional float glass manufacturing systems.


Disclosed are a method and apparatus for trace metal testing using mercury-coated screen printed electrodes. Both voltammetric and potentiometric stripping analysis are used. Sample solutions were tested employing both stirring and non-stirring, as well as aeration and deaeration procedures. Microliter samples suitable for slide mounting were also employed.

1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The invention relates to testing apparatus for heavy metals, more particularly disposable, printed electrodes; and a method of using such apparatus.
2. Background Art
Anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) and potentiometric stripping analysis (PSA) have long been used in trace metal testing, as discussed in "Anodic Stripping Voltammetry as an Analytical Tool" (by Wang Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol 16, No. 2 (1982)) and "Mercury-Coated Carbon-Foam Composite Electrodes for Stripping Analysis of Trace Metals" (by Wang, et al., Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 64, (1992). Anodic stripping voltammetry generally involves the reduction or electrolytic deposition of metals onto an electrode, termed preconcentration, followed by anodically reoxidizing and stripping the metals, thereby producing a plot of current as a function of voltage increasing in amplitude (the measurement step), as discussed in "Anodic Stripping Voltammetry" (by Wang Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 60, P. 1074).
Normally, ASV and PSA require laboratory conditions for optimum results (see Wang, "Anodic Stripping Voltammetry"). Beakers, nitrogen bubbling equipment, and stirrers are usually required. Electrodes for ASV comprise a working electrode, reference electrode (usually Ag/AgCl), and an auxiliary electrode, usually platinum.
Prior art working electrodes for ASV and PSA, such as those in U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,443, entitled Method and Apparatus for the Determination of Electrochemically Active Components in a Process Stream, to Newman, et al., comprised hanging mercury drop and mercury-coated glassy carbon electrodes. The hanging mercury drop electrode requires laboratory conditions to insure stability and drop size of the drop. As discussed in "Mercury-Coated Carbon-Foam Composite Electrodes for Stripping Analysis of Trace Metals," by Wang, et al., (Analytical Chemistry, Vol 64 (1992)) glassy carbon substrate electrodes also give better results under laboratory conditions.
Two articles entitled "Disposable Single-Use Sensors" and "Disposable Electrochemical Biosensors" (by Monika J. Green and Paul I. Hilditch, MediSense Inc., Units 3 and 4) discuss single-use disposable sensors, also well-known to the prior art. Biosensors, for example, glucose monitors, may comprise a PVC substrate with a working (carbon) and reference (Ag/AgCl) electrodes coated thereon, as well as the enzyme. Such enzyme-coated electrodes are also described in parent application Ser. No. 07/682,907, incorporated herein by reference. Other prior art applications of screen-printed electrodes are electrochemical measurements of ascorbic acid or reduced glutathione.
As disclosed in the parent application, working electrodes, particularly flat or planar carbon paste electrodes, can effectively be modified. Chemical and biological modification involving selective electrode coatings or membranes, are disclosed. Also disclosed in the parent application is the use of optical or thermal devices as sensors.
Parent application Ser. No. 07/682,907, while generally disclosing apparatus and method for batch injection analysis, also used voltammetric and potentiometric measurements and measurement devices therein.
A requirement for decentralized testing of trace metals has evolved. Field or on-site trace metal testing further suggests a need for disposable single-use electrodes. However, despite the ready availability, low cost, and general convenience of screen-printed carbon electrodes, formerly used primarily as biosensors, they are nowhere in the prior art suggested for use in trace metal detection apparatus.

Method and apparatus for trace metal testing

New Mexico State University Technology Transfer Corp.


The present invention relates to a method for providing interactive contents for a smart TV, which allows a seller to directly upload contents such that vivid contents can be easily provided.

In general, a smart TV refers to a TV through which a user can watch moving images without disconnection of data while hanging among three screens of a mobile phone, a PC, and the TV. Such a smart TV may download contents through the Internet in real time, and serve as a communication center through which news, weather, emails and the like can be directly checked.
Recently, a lot of electronic commerce-related technologies for providing a home shopping program or the like using such a smart TV have been proposed.
In such conventional technologies, however, a product seller delivers product-related contents to a person in charge for a home shopping company, and the person in charge uploads the contents. Thus, it is inconvenient for the seller to provide the contents.
Furthermore, since it is inconvenient to provide contents as described above, the contents may not be quickly updated. In this case, there are difficulties in providing vivid contents.
Furthermore, since the e-commerce technology using a smart TV is publicly known, the detailed descriptions thereof are omitted herein.

Method for providing interactive contents for smart TV


Anchor systems and methods anchor components of a Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) device to a substrate. An exemplary embodiment has a trace anchor bonded to a substrate, a device anchor bonded to the substrate, and an anchor flexure configured flexibly couple the trace anchor and the device anchor to substantially prevent transmission of a stress induced in the trace anchor from being transmitted to the device anchor.

Various silicon-based devices, such as a Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) gyroscope, are mechanically coupled to a substrate. Coupling of the MEMS device to the substrate occurs at one or more anchor points (anchors) bonded to the substrate, referred to herein as mesas.
Portions of the MEMS device may be suspended from the substrate using one or more silicon flexures. A number of recesses etched into the substrate allow the portions of the MEMS device, referred to herein as a MEMS mechanism, to move freely within an interior portion of the MEMS device.
FIG. 1 is a top view 100 of a prior art anchor 102 bonded to a portion of a substrate 104. FIG. 2 is a side cut-away view 200 of the prior art anchor 102 bonded to the portion of a substrate 104. The anchor 102 is bonded to the substrate 104 on a mesa 106 along the contact region 108 where the anchor 102 and the substrate 104 are in contact.
The anchor 102 fixes and supports a MEMS mechanism 118 via an interconnecting flexure 110 or the like. Flexure 110 allows for movement of the MEMS mechanism 118 in selected directions and limits movement in other directions.
Prior to bonding the anchor 102 to the substrate 104, a trace 112 is formed from an external location to a location on the mesa 106. The trace 112 may be made of a metal and formed by a suitable process, such as metal sputtering over a mask oriented above the substrate 104.
An optional bump 114 (or bumple) is located at or near the end of the trace 112 to facilitate electrical coupling between the anchor 102 and the trace 112. If the trace 112 is made of metal, the bump 114 may be the same metal or another metal that is relatively soft and deformable under pressure and/or temperature.
Often, the process of bonding the anchor 102 to the substrate mesa 106 uses a pressure which deforms the trace 112 and/or the bump 114. Deformation of the trace 112 and/or the bump 114 improves the electrical connectivity between the anchor 102 and the trace 112.
During the process of bonding, stresses occur in the anchor 102. The stress is caused by forces exerted by the trace 112 and/or the bump 114 onto the material of the anchor 102. Such stresses (conceptually illustrated by a plurality of stress lines 116) exerted by the bump 114 to the anchor 102 may cause damage or otherwise stress the material of the anchor 102. Further, temperature fluctuations during use of the MEMS device may change the relative size of the trace 112 and/or the bump 114, inducing a time-varying change in the stress of the material of the anchor 102. Additional stress may be induced by a coefficient of thermal expansion mismatch between silicon and substrate material.
The stresses induced in the material of the anchor 102 are undesirable in that such stresses, in addition to forces transmitted from the flexure 110 to the anchor 102 during MEMS device use, may result in the formation of microcracks. Such microcracks may lead to structure failure of the MEMS device at the anchor 102.
Additionally, the movement of the MEMS mechanism 118 generates forces that are transmitted to the anchor 102 via the flexure 110. The stresses and/or microcracks may sufficiently weaken the anchor 102 such that the anchor 102 may structurally fail when the forces generated by movement of the MEMS mechanism 118 are transmitted to the anchor 102.
Accordingly, the anchor 102 is designed with sufficient size and mass to accommodate the stresses induced in the material of the anchor 102 from the trace 112 and/or the bump 114, and to accommodate forces generated by the MEMS mechanism 118. However, the prior art process has several disadvantages. The minimum size of the anchor 102 is limited since the anchor 102 must have sufficient material to accommodate the induced stresses. As MEMS devices become increasingly smaller, it is very desirable to reduce the size of anchors used in a MEMS device. Further, it is desirable to reduce fabrication process costs.

Systems and methods for reduced stress anchors


A photofinishing system and method for utilizing otherwise wasted space on a sheet of photographic paper. The system includes a printer such as an ink jet printer, laser printer or digital silver-halide system for printing a set of desired images on a larger sheet of photographic paper. The system nests the images on the larger sheet so as to minimize wasted space. The amount of wasted space is determined and, if the space is large enough, the system prints an extra image in the space. The extra image can comprise a diagnostic pattern, promotional literature or an additional copy of at least one of the desired images.

The present invention relates to a method for utilizing an otherwise wasted resource such as the unused photographic print media left over from a photofinishing operation.
In photofinishing operations it is conventional to develop and print photographs on roll stock photographic paper having a width that generally accommodates one size of print. After printing out a roll of photos on a strip of the roll stock, the strip is cut to provide the individual prints. Dedicating a given size of roll stock to the production of a given size photo is less flexible for fulfilling print orders and slows throughput. It requires the photofinishing operation either to have multiple machines, each dedicated to a given size of photo or it places a burden on the operator to change the print media from one size to another after completing orders.
Advancements in photofinishing allow for the production of photographs by ink jet printers, laser printers and other photofinishing printers including silver-halide systems that receive digital input and employ conventional wet chemistry output. Moreover the use of computers in connection with these advancements allows for further improvement. For example, it is not necessary to use roll stock having the width of a desired finished photo. A photofinishing printer now can generate photos of various sizes on a single sheet of print media. Also the images can be manipulated to nest various image sizes on a single larger sheet. Accordingly, a sheet or roll stock of a single width can be used to generate prints of various sizes for a single customer order.
However, photofinishing printers require periodic maintenance to insure print quality. To insure a consistent quality print, the printer is caused to produce a test pattern from time to time as a diagnostic operation. The test pattern may be used to determine color balance, test the alignment of the print heads, provide some other indicator of the health of the print head or otherwise provide an indicator of the state of other components of the system. The operator then analyzes the results of the printed test pattern and makes adjustments, or repairs or replaces the print heads as needed. The production of such a test pattern, whether occurring opportunistically or at periodic intervals between photofinishing operations, consumes a portion of the print media causing downtime from a productive operation.
In some cases during photofinishing operations, the nesting of various size prints on a single sheet produces waste space because of physical limitations on how the various sizes can be arranged on a larger sheet of a given width. When the sheet of prints is cut into individual photos, the wasted space is not suitable for further use and is scrapped. This means that the advantages of being able generate various size prints from a single width of print media are compromised by the economic loss of the unusable and scrapped portion of the media
For these reasons it is desirable to provide for the utilization of otherwise wasted print media and to convert this waste media to an economic advantage whenever possible. It also is desirable to perform the necessary diagnostic testing of the photofinishing printer without undue interruption of the photofinishing operation and to utilize otherwise scrap portions of the print media for such testing.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a photofinishing method and apparatus for producing various size prints from a sheet of print media wherein waste space on the sheet resulting from the nesting of photographic images of various sizes on a single sheet is utilized for constructive purposes.
Another object of the invention is to provide a photofinishing method and apparatus for utilizing print media that is otherwise left blank and wasted after completion of a customer order.
A further object is to provide a photofinishing operation in which otherwise wasted print media is used for diagnostic purposes or to produce an economic return
In accordance with the method of the present invention, a set of photographs is processed by a photofinishing system. This may include a customer order comprising photographs of a single size or of various sizes. In this respect the image data, including the number and size of prints desired as supplied by the customer is inputted into the system for processing. The data is communicated to the printing portion of the system, which includes a computer controlled photographic printer. The quantity of prints and the various sizes of prints to be made are analyzed by the computer software and based on this analysis, the most space efficient layout of the photographs is planned for the given width of print media that is being used. Included in the analysis for the most efficient layout of prints is a determination of the size and location of any waste space resulting from the planned printing layout. The system them can provide for the utilization of this waste space in any one of several ways.
For example, if the unused space is large enough, a diagnostic image or test print can be printed in the waste space. This diagnostic image can be some indicator of the health of the print head, a color balance test pattern or other indicator of the printer performance. Such a diagnostic image or test pattern can be set to run at set intervals and/or whenever the waste space is of a size sufficient to accommodate the image. The unused space also can be used to accommodate other printed images including promotional literature such as an advertisement or a coupon to be used by the customer for succeeding orders.
In cases where multiple customer orders have been received and are in queue in the controlling computer, the otherwise wasted space can be used by inserting the prints from one or more customers into the print layout of yet another customer. When the photofinishing operation of all jobs in the queue is completed, the prints can be separated and moved to the appropriate trays or bins containing the other prints of a given customer. Also, if promotional literature is printed in the space, it can be for the benefit of the customer whose prints are currently being nested or for customers with prints currently in the queue or for other subsequent customers.
The wasted space further can be used to print one or more extra photographs. In this respect the cost of the print media left blank and otherwise wasted is first determined. Depending upon the calculated size of the blank space that will result from the printing sequence, the operator can offer the customer the option of receiving additional prints or extra copies of one or more of the photographs in the order. Moreover, these can be offered to the customer at a reduced cost calculated to offset the cost of the otherwise wasted print media while still generating additional profit. To do this, the computer preferably includes software designed to calculate the cost of the otherwise wasted print media and any other consumable resource that is used in generating the additional prints, such as the ink used.
Accordingly, the present invention can be characterized in one aspect thereof by a method for profitably utilizing an otherwise wasted space on print media comprising:
arranging a quantity of photographic images on a larger sheet of print media so as to minimizes the amount of unused print media space;
determining the size of the unused print media space; and
printing a desired image in the unused print media space if the unused print media space is large enough to accommodate the desired image.
In another aspect the present invention can be characterized by a photofinishing system comprising:
a photofinishing printer for printing a desired set of images on a larger sheet of print media;
the printer including means for determining an arrangement of the images to be printed on the sheet that minimizes the amount of blank space on the print media when the set is printed; and
means for determining the size of the blank space and causing the printing of a desired extra image in the blank space if the size of the blank space is large enough to accommodate the extra image.


The invention discloses a method and apparatus to control the shaping change of Shape-Memory-Alloy (SMA). The piece-wised current drain control device is designed to independently deliver current to stimulate sectional SMA but not the entire one. The invention is also successfully implemented on an automatic light sensitive aperture control device to simulate the light response of a pupil. The control technique can extend the application potential of SMA toward precise actuation, aeronautical applications, surgical tools, or biomedical applications such as artificial organ or muscles.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention discloses a method and apparatus for controlling the transformation of Shape Memory Alloy, particularly a precision control method and apparatus applied to the transformation of Shape Memory Alloy.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the medical field, there many substitutes for human function, or the auxiliary electromechanical equipments, such as the artificial limb, pacemaker, artificial electronic ear and artificial knee etc. are the focal research point in many research fields. However, most auxiliary electromechanical equipments are controlled by the motor at present, there are some shortcomings such as large occupation volume, unable to be used for a long time, generation of noise, and apt to break down etc. Thus it is the future trend to select the Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) to substitute the motor, so that the auxiliary or integrated artificial organs will be more suitable to be used for the patients, or carry out the relevant medical therapy.
The SMA is a kind of an alloy having the shape memory effect; it is the functional material which can remember the original shape of design. The ordinary material will be deformed by the external force under the specific temperature, and then it will turn into the deformed shape after the external force is removed. Even the SMA will also be deformed by the external force under the specific temperature, thought it can recover to its original shape automatically under the higher temperature. Comparing to the use of the motor, the SMA will not generate the permanent magnetism and sparking, and will have the advantages such as low temperature, quiet, uneasy to get metal fatigue etc. Thus the SMA is often applied to a narrower space at present, or to the machines and equipments with higher requirement. However, due to the flexible amount of SMA is unable to be controlled effectively; it is still unable to be applied to various equipments required precision control at present.
The SMA can be changed via temperature or current. It can be applied to the transmission control due to its shape transformation. At present, the control method of SMA is the only linear two-stage way. Only stretching and contracting states are unable to satisfy various demands. The SMA only has binary-valve value transformation characteristics; it is unable to carry on precision control of flex amount, thus it is relatively shortage of flexible control for the application.
Therefore, under the control technology of the existing SMA is unable to reach effective application, the advanced research and development of SMA control technology will be more important for the future.

Precision method and apparatus for controlling the shape memory alloy


A semiconductor apparatus includes a first structural body including a first temperature voltage generation unit configured to generate first and second temperature voltages which have different voltage level variations according to a temperature variation, in response to a temperature measurement command, and a first temperature information determination unit configured to generate first temperature information depending on a difference between levels of the first and second temperature voltages; and a second structural body including a second temperature voltage generation unit configured to generate a third temperature voltage and a fourth temperature voltage which have different voltage level variations according to a temperature variation, when a predetermined time elapses after the first and second temperature voltages are generated from the first structural body, and a second temperature information determination unit configured to generate second temperature information depending on a difference between levels of the third and fourth temperature voltages.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a semiconductor apparatus, and more particularly to a circuit for generating information of temperature in a semiconductor apparatus with a stacked structure.
2. Related Art
A semiconductor apparatus constituted by transistors is substantially influenced by a temperature. Therefore, a semiconductor apparatus is configured to control an operation thereof (for example, a refresh operation in the case of a memory) by measuring a temperature inside the semiconductor apparatus.
In order to acquire precise temperature information, a semiconductor apparatus includes a temperature information generation circuit therein.
In a semiconductor memory apparatus, a plurality of memory chips are stacked to increase memory capacity. In such a semiconductor memory apparatus, since temperatures are different in respective layers (e.g., memory chips), operation characteristics thereof may be different from each other. Thus, precise temperature information of the respective layers (e.g., memory chips) is necessary.
Since characteristics of a transistor may vary according to the temperature change, a semiconductor apparatus constituted by transistors need the information about the temperatures inside the semiconductor apparatus so as to control an operation of the semiconductor apparatus and thus reduce the occurrence of an operation error.