A bidirectional WDM self-healing ring network is provided and includes an outer ring network and an inner network for processing N units of optical signals and for performing a protection switching by using the outer ring network when the inner ring network suffers a link failure.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical network, more particularly to an optical network employing a WDM (wavelength-division-multiplexing) technique.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a WDM technique enables the transmission of a plurality of optical signals through a single strand of an optical fiber, it has become possible to transmit a plurality of very high-speed mass-storage optical signals. With the aid of a switch that add/drop the optical signal in the optical layer, it is possible to build an optical network based on the WDM technique.
A WDM optical network is generally classified into a ring network using an optical add/drop multiplexer and a mesh network using an optical cross-connect. The WDM optical network transmits very high-speed mass-storage data through each optical fiber, thus requiring the WDM optical network to effectively cope with any undesirable failures in the system. In case of the mesh network, nodes of each optical network are connected to each other through a plurality of optical fibers, so that a protection switching is carried out through a complicated procedure at a low-speed when the system fails. However, in case of the ring network, only two or four strands of optical fibers are connected to the optical add/drop multiplexer, thereby enabling easier switching when the system fails. For this reason, the ring network is widely used in the market.
A node of a WDM ring network includes an optical add/drop multiplexer having a switching unit for adding/dropping an optical signal and a switching device for performing a protection switching of the network. The WDM ring network is divided into a path protection switching network and a link protection switching network depending on the protection switching manner. The WDM ring network uses two or four strands of optical fibers. In addition, the WDM ring networks are classified into a unidirectional network and a bidirectional network depending on the transmission direction of data. Particularly, a conventional WDM ring network including two strands of optical fibers and bidirectionally transmitting the optical signal uses a link protection switching method utilizing a loop-back of the optical signals.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are respectively illustrates a construction and a protection switching according to a conventional bidirectional optical network using a link protection switching. As shown in FIG. 1A, each node of a ring network includes optical add/drop multiplexers 10a to 40a and 10b to 40b for adding/dropping optical signals through inner and outer rings 2 and 4, and 2×2 switching devices 110 to 180 for executing a switching for the protection purposes. The outer ring 4 transmits optical signals having wavelengths of λ1, λ2, λ3, . . . λN, and the inner ring 2 transmits optical signals having wavelengths of λN+1, λN+2, λN+3, . . . λ2N. The outer ring 4 transmits the optical signals clockwise and the inner ring 2 transmits the optical signals counterclockwise.
When an error occurs in an optical fiber link, the optical network transmits an optical signal to an opposite direction by looping-back the optical signal through two 2×2 switching devices, which are positioned at the both ends of the link with the error. For example, referring to FIG. 1B, if an error occurs in an optical link connecting an optical add/drop multiplexer 10a to an optical add/drop multiplexer 20a, the optical signals having wavelengths of λ1, λ2, λ3, . . . λN intended to be transmitted to the optical add/drop multiplexer 20a from the optical add/drop multiplexer 10a are looped back to an optical add/drop multiplexer 10b through a switching device 120 and transmitted counterclockwise through the inner ring 2. The optical signals having wavelengths of λ1, λ2, λ3, . . . λN transmitted through the inner ring 2 are transferred to the optical add/drop multiplexer 20a from an optical add/drop multiplexer 20b through a switching device 130, thereby completing the switching.
During the normal operation mode of the ring network, 2×2 switching devices 110 to 180 are maintained in a bar state, so that a signal applied to an input part i1 is transferred to an output part o1, and a signal applied to an input part i2 is transferred to an output part o2. However, if an error occurs in the ring network, 2×2 switching devices 110 to 180 maintain in a cross state, so that a signal applied to the input part i1 is transferred to the output part o2. As shown in FIG. 1B, when a switching device 130 is positioned in the cross state, in addition to the optical signals passing through the link with the error, the optical signals having wavelengths of λN+1, λN+2, λN+3, . . . λ2N, which are transmitted in a counterclockwise direction from the optical add/drop multiplexer 20b to the optical add/drop multiplexer 10b, are looped back so that the optical signals are transmitted in a clockwise direction through the outer ring 4. Then, the optical signals are transferred to the optical add/drop multiplexer 10b from the optical add/drop multiplexer 10a through the switching device 120. Switching devices that are remote from the link having the fault are still maintained in the bar state.
However, two drawbacks are created if a bidirectional self-healing ring network including two strands of optical fibers is established using the above-mentioned conventional technique. First, it is necessary to at least double the processing capacity of a multiplexer and a demultiplexer consisting the optical add/drop multiplexer for real application as the conventional technique requires to simultaneously multiplex and demultiplex the loop-back signals as well as the transmitted optical signals in order to perform the recovery process.
FIG. 2 shows a construction of a conventional optical cross-connect. On the assumption that upper optical add/drop multiplexers are operated as the nodes of the outer ring 4 and lower optical add/drop multiplexers are operated as nodes of the inner ring 2, the optical signals transmitted through the upper multiplexers have wavelengths of λ1, λ2, λ3, . . . λN, and the optical signals transmitted through the lower multiplexers have wavelengths of λN+1, λN+2, λN+3, . . . λ2N. However, multiplexing and demultiplexing operatons have to be carried out for an upper optical add/drop multiplexer 10a. That is, the capacity of a multiplexer 13 and a demultiplexer 12 has to be determined, by considering the loop-back of the transmitted optical signals in such a manner that the optical signals having wavelengths of λN+1, λN+2, λN+3, . . . λ2N can pass through the upper optical add/drop multiplexer 10a. In the same way, the multiplexing and demultiplexing works have to be carried out for a lower optical add/drop multiplexer 10b to allow the optical signals having wavelengths of λ1, λ2, λ3, . . . λN to pass through the upper optical add/drop multiplexer 10a. Accordingly, the capacity of the multiplexer and the demultiplexer of the optical add/drop multiplexer for transferring N signals is determined as 1×2N.
Another drawback is that the optical signal passing through a normal link is looped back together with the optical signal passing through the link where the error occurred. Referring back to FIG. 1, optical signals having wavelengths of λN+1, λN+2, λN+3, . . . λ2N and passing through the normal link in the inner ring 2 are looped back, so they are transmitted in a clockwise direction of the outer ring 4. As a result, the transmitted optical signals are interrupted and suffers data loss.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved bidirectional WDM ring network that is cost effective to implement and requires less overload.

Bidirectional WDM self-healing ring network


Disclosed is a method for low voltage broadband power line carrier communication; when transmitting a physical layer protocol frame, short preambles are first transmitted to undergo automatic gain control, channel estimation, coarse-grained frequency offset compensation, and symbol synchronization; and then long preambles are transmitted to undergo automatic gain control, channel estimation, fine-grained frequency offset compensation, and symbol synchronization. Compared with the scheme of only transmitting long preambles, the present disclosure combines transmissions of short preambles and long preambles, which thus may quickly and accurately implement frequency offset compensation, automatic gain control, symbol synchronization, and channel estimation without sacrifice of precision, thereby achieving quick convergence, reducing resource overheads and time overheads, and enhancing system performance.

As specified in the LVPLC (Low Voltage Broadband Power Line Carrier Communication) protocol of the State Grid, the physical layer (PHY) frame format includes a long preamble, a frame control, and a data payload, wherein the long preamble is for frequency offset compensation, automatic gain control, symbol synchronization and channel estimation. A long preamble-trained receiving system trained has an improved symbol synchronization property and frequency synchronization property, which may adjust voltage gains and estimate channel characteristics more accurately, thereby improving receiver performance. However, a certain number of long preambles take up a large portion of bandwidth and system processing overhead, resulting in a relatively large resource overhead and time overhead for the system to implement frequency offset compensation, automatic gain control, symbol synchronization and channel estimation.

Method for low voltage broadband power line carrier communication


The current invention discloses methods, devices and systems for logging in a third party server through a browser application at a client terminal. After receiving a validation request from a third party server, the main server for the browser application may choose to grant or deny the request. The validation request, which may include a third party identifier, a user identifier, and a session key, can be triggered by a data access request from the browser application. If there is an active communication session between the client terminal and the server, the server may send an authorization request to the third party so that the third party server allows the client terminal to access non-sensitive data associated with the user identifier through the browser application without further validation of the data access request. The current invention provides additional convenience and security for third party login operations.

With the diversification of network technologies, the same company usually can provide the user with different kinds of services. Due to the extended business scope of the service providers, a user can register a user name and password with a certain business and use the same user name and password to access other businesses offered by the same service provider. With a terminal device, the most general situation is that when a user is using a browser application, the user may access websites and services provided by the same service provider for the browser application, using the same registration information for the browser application. Such an approach allows the user to log in the websites with an abbreviated process, providing significant convenience.
Taking smart phone browser as an example, the browser application at a client terminal has an account center, which can be used by a user to log in the browser application with a user name and password. After logging in successfully, the user can access other businesses operated by the same service provider for the browser application, and such businesses may include social networking sites, bulletin boards, microblogs, audio applications and group shopping sites without entering the user name and password again. Such an approach allows the user to have rapid login without the repetitive entry of user names and passwords, providing significant convenience.
However, in the process of developing the present application, the inventors find that the existing technology has at least the following problems:
The browser application can only provide the rapid login service for businesses from the same service provider. When the user is trying to access third party websites and/or businesses through the browser application at the client terminal, the user cannot use the account information—user name, password, and/or communication key—that have been established for the browser application. In other words, the account center of the browser application cannot automatically provide the login information to the third-party servers, preventing the user from logging in third party websites rapidly. Therefore, the existing rapid login service has great limitations. When trying to log in a third party website, the user needs to enter user name and password again. The whole process can be redundant, labor intensive, and error prone.
Accordingly, it is necessary and desirable to provide a new technology, so as to resolve the technical problem and improve the above-mentioned approach.

Method, device and system for logging in through a browser application at a client terminal

TENCENT TECHNOLOGY (SHENZHEN) COMPANY LIMITED


A novel human IL-18 native crystalline structure is identified.

IL-18 is a type of cytokine or substance that mediates signal transduction in the immune system. As seen in Japanese Patent Kokai Nos.27,189/96 and 193,098/96 and Okamura et al., Nature, Vol. 378, No. 6,552, pp. 88-91 (1995), IL-18 was provisionally designated as "interferon-gamma inducing factor" immediately after its discovery. This designation was later changed into "IL-18" in accordance with the proposal in Ushio, et al., Journal of Immunology, Vol. 156, pp. 4,274-4,279 (1996). IL-18 in its mature form consists of 157 amino acids. It induces immunocompetent cells in the production of interferon-gamma (hereinafter abbreviated as "IFN-gamma."), which is a useful biologically-active protein capable of inducing and enhancing the generation and cytotoxicity of killer cells. Extensive research is currently underway to develop and explore the various utility of IL-18 in pharmaceuticals. These greatly expected applications include using IL-18 as antiviral, antimicrobial, antitumor and anti-immunopathic agents.
In nature, cytokines, including IL-18, are produced and secreted as substances responsible for signal transduction in the immune system. Therefore, when cytokines are administered to the body of mammals, they disturb the naturally existing equilibrium in the mammal's immune system. The surfaces of mammalian cells bear sites or "receptors" that are responsible for recognition of cytokines and secreted cytokines transduce no signal in cells until they are bound to the receptors. In a normal immune system, a definite equilibrium exists between respective cytokines and their receptors. There are currently unmet needs in finding and learning the biological and structural properties of IL-18 and its receptors and using such knowledge in designing drugs for treatment and ameliorating diseases and disorders such as viral and microbial infections, cancer, inflammation, etc.


The present invention includes four chambers for containing refuse, a porous membrane at least partially enclosing the chambers, and a housing enclosing the porous membrane and the chambers. Combustion fuel is supplied to the porous membrane so that surface combustion takes place at the surface of the porous membrane facing the chamber for burning the refuse contained in the chamber. Electrical means may also be employed to provide combustion of the refuse. Safety features include pressure feed-back means for monitoring and regulating the pressure within the apparatus and temperature feed-back means for monitoring and regulating the temperature within the apparatus. A particle bin is positioned below the chamber for receiving burned particles from the chamber. The gases generated from the burning refuse is collected and pumped through a super heating and purifying chamber (eliminated all hazardous affluent) and into the boiler type heat exchanger and thereby producing steam for electrical generation. The electricity produced is then partially used to run a cryogenic plant which produces liquid oxygen which is used to produce oxygen gas, the major fuel component, used to produce the surface combustion used in the incinerator. Therefore a tri-generation system is generated which reduces operating cost, increase operating efficiency of the incinerator and the bi-produce sold to others generate an off-setting income.

For many years, residents and municipalities burned their own refuse in incinerators which did not have air pollution reducing devices incorporated therein. Most local and state governments have outlawed residential burning activities due to the air pollution problems created by the burning. Instead of burning, residents now send their waste to landfills. However, currently, landfills are being filled to capacity and new landfill sites are becoming less available.
In an effort to solve the landfill problems, communities are turning to recycling and municipal incineration to dispose of refuse. However, these solutions are still in the formative stages and therefore do not provide immediate relief from the ongoing problems of waste management. The current solutions do not solve the air pollution problems associated with burning garbage, and operate at considerable low efficiency. Current incinerators require the constant input of outside air to sustain the burning process. Air is approximately 76% nitrogen which does not burn. The nitrogen, however, must be heated and constantly discharged into the atmosphere. The discharged nitrogen absorbs as much as 70% of heat generated by the burning refuse, and it picks up and carries fly ash which must be removed before the discharge into the atmosphere.
Until the pollution and efficiency problems associated with municipal, industrial and household incineration are solved, other methods are needed to relieve the landfill problems. Accordingly, there is a need for a new type of incinerator and an incineration system. Furthermore, there is a need for an incineration system which operates in a closed cycle environment, is fuel efficient, and is safe for municipal use and other uses.


A device and method is provided for finding a specific material superimposed on an unknown background when the locations of the specific material and the background are unknown, for example, inside an item of baggage. The invention comprises exposing an area of an item to be inspected to x-rays of two substanitally different energies, making effective use of the characteristic material specific differences in photoelectric effect scattering and Compton scattering, and comparing the pairwise differential attenuation of the x-rays at nearby exposed subareas to determine whether differences in attenuation can be attributed to the presence of different amounts of the specific material overlying the respective subareas. The most probable subareas are indicated on a standard image on a monitor as being the most likely location of the overlying specific material.

The present invention relates to a method which utilizes at least two energy bands of x-rays to inspect objects subject to x-ray inspection (e.g., baggage) for a specific substance which can be characterized by a specific composite atomic number `Z`.
It is known to inspect objects using single energy x-rays to present an image of the objects with shading representing varying degrees of mass density (opaqueness to x-rays).
It is known to inspect objects using a dual-energy x-ray system and to present an image with color proportional to the ratio of one energy band to the other on a pixel by pixel basis.
Such x-ray inspection systems incorporate an x-ray single or dual energy source, a conveyor, slider, or scanning system to scan the object to be inspected with the x-ray beam, a detector or array of detectors that convert the x-ray flux which penetrates the object to be inspected into pixels of values which represent the x-ray image(s) resulting from the scan, a computing element which may optionally filter, average, enhance, contrast adjust, or otherwise process the image of values output from the detector system, and a display system which presents a black and white or color display of the resulting image of pixel values.
It is known to employ a dual energy x-ray inspection system and to use the value of the ratio of one energy band's attenuation values to the other to discriminate between low-Z material (plastics) and high-Z materials (metals) and to display the respective values as a color difference in the displayed image. These systems display the resulting high-Z to low-Z color-encoded image based on the value of the ratio of the attenuation values at the high and low bands of x-rays for each pixel at a time repeated for every pixel in the image. This method is unable to distinguish composite materials such as metal over plastic and in these cases, an intermediate color is displayed.
The discrimination ability of these systems is insufficient to discriminate adequately between different types of plastics or plastic-like materials, and in the presence of overlying materials, is unable to accurately indicate the presence of specific plastics or metals.

Device and method for inspection of baggage and other objects


In a system and method for failure analysis of a hardware system having an embedded specialized application computer as a firmware stored in a firmware memory and which controls and is part of the hardware system, with a snapshot dump system associated with the hardware system, detecting for an error. Upon detection of the error, a snapshot dump is initiated from memory locations providing information about conditions occurring during the error. The dumped information is stored in a memory associated with the dump system.

As shown in prior art FIG. 1, it is known to provide a computer system 10 formed of a host computer 11 connected via a backup data/communication path 13 to a tape drive 12. To back up host system data, the tape drive 12 has a removable media 14, such as a data tape, which is insertable into the drive 12 via a loading slot 9. The drive 12 has tape read/write hardware 15 and an embedded specialized application computer 8 containing firmware stored in a firmware memory 16 and data stored in a data memory 17.
It is known that failures can occur in the data backed-up computer system 10 of FIG. 1. These failures can be of various types. For example, a malfunction may be caused by the tape read/write hardware, the firmware, data stored in the data, or errors may occur as a result of the data tape itself being damaged or having quality problems. Also, errors can occur if faulty instructions are sent from the host computer 11 to the tape drive 12.
The main issue when performing a failure analysis is a lack of proper and useful information concerning the problem. A vendor of the tape drive may spend a very significant amount of time investigating the root cause of different types of problems reported by the computer system with respect to the data backup tape drive. These problems may have to be recreated by the tape drive vendor at the vendor's own laboratory at a location from the host computer system being backed up with the tape drive. The host system may have to be simulated in a laboratory remote from the host computer system in order to catch the failure mode and events leading up to the failure. In many situations, different types of debugging tools must be provided and prepared at the time the failure occurs. This may result in the vendor of the tape drive spending inordinate amounts of time at the computer system user's location while the system is operating, which may interfere with operation of the host computer. Also extensive time may be required at the remote vendor's lab where the tape drive/host computer system is simulated in order to attempt to recreate the problems which have occurred. This process may take a long time and several retries before the correct information is trapped.
The tape drive vendor normally allocates people from its development laboratory for the failure analysis after it receives back the tape drive from the host computer system user's location.
In the prior art, previous experience was used by those in the laboratory combined with information dumped from the firmware memory and data memory of the returned tape drive in an attempt to solve the failure problem. However, information learned by such a memory dump would be stale and difficult to analyze since the information stored in the memory after the drive is returned is after-the-fact information, which has been rewritten, such as overwriting in buffer memories.
Based on previous experience, it was known in the prior art to solve problems occurring in the tape drives with the implemented embedded firmware systems along with development of comprehensive debugging tools based on event traces and different logs. This together with complete mapping of the firmware (both code and data), plus complete access to all hardware registers provided observability of what may have caused the problem. However, as explained above, the dump typically would not provide information stored in the memory at the actual time of the failure occurrence since as is known in the art, portions of a memory useful for the failure analysis dump are rewritten during continued operation of the tape drive after the error has occurred. Thus, since the people in the vendor's laboratory attempting to solve the failure problem are at a remote distance from the people where the actual problem occurred—namely the backed-up computer system user—valuable information is lost in view of the operating time which occurs after the failure and prior to transport of the tape drive to the vendor's laboratory for failure analysis.
Typically in the prior art, the tape drive vendor laboratory would have to begin from scratch in an attempt to simulate the host computer environment in which the tape drive failed at the user's location.
Furthermore, the backed-up computer system user is focused on doing their job and not understanding problems with the peripheral backup tape drive unit. Although the end users may be very accommodating to perform simple tasks in order to provide help, they do not like to interrupt their organization's use of the computer system for a very long time. For example, rebooting the computer system server in order to prepare for debugging tools is not a welcomed operation by the backed-up computer system user.
As shown in FIG. 2, with the prior art system it was thus first necessary, as shown at step 18, to recreate the failed system with the drive and either the host computer system or a simulation of the host computer system. Once the failure mode occurred, then it was necessary, as shown at 19, to dump and collect the dumped information from the firmware memory and data memory of the embedded computer 8. Thereafter the available information was analyzed as shown at 20, and then actions and/or improvements to the drive were implemented as shown at 21.

Automatically triggered snapshot data dump for storage unit with embedded system


The present invention relates to a rice NADH-dependent reductase gene or variant thereof, to a rice NADH-dependent reductase or analog thereof, to DNA or expression vector comprising the gene or variant thereof and capable of expressing it in microorganism or plant cells, and to a plant or seeds thereof transformed with said expression vector.. According to the present invention, plants can be protected from damages caused by plant pathogenic microorganisms by applying the transformed plant to its cultivation.

In cultivation of rice, pathogenic microorganisms of plant diseases such as blast have caused problems of decline of the yield and have been controlled mainly by chemicals. The chemical control is generally effective only immediately before the diseases occur but much less effective after the diseases occur, thereby causing serious damages. On the other hand, genetic analyses have shown that various disease-resistant genes might exist on the basis of their chromosome maps (Proteins, Nucleic Acids, Enzymes, vol. 37 (7) 1353 (1992)). It is importantly desirable in rice breeding to introduce the trait of a variety having such a disease-resistant gene, i.e. resistant gene, into cultivated rice plants through the cross-breeding.
Although a number of such resistant genes were presumed to exist in rice plants and were associated with one another on chromosome maps, there were no reports revealing that these genes were isolated and clarified at genetic level.
Some successes have been reported in conferring a resistance to pathogenic microorganisms to plants other than rice, e.g. by introducing both genes of chitinase and .beta.-1,3-glucanase into tobacco plants or the like (M. B. Sela-Buurllage et al., Plant Physiol., 101, 857 (1993)), or introducing a detoxification enzyme gene for toxin produced by tobacco wildfire bacteria into tobacco plants (V. Nikolaeva et al., In vitro, 29A, 3, Pt. 2, 87A (1993)). In maize, a gene for an enzyme which reduces and detoxifies HC toxin (Helminthosporium carbonum toxin) produced by its pathogen Cochliobolus carbonum, i.e. HC toxin reductase, was isolated and proved to be consistent with the resistant locus of the chromosome (G. S. Johal et al., Science, 258, 985 (1992)).
In rice, disease-resistant genes such as genes for chitinase (KIM et al., Biosci. Biotechnol. Biochem. 58 (6) 1164 (1894)), lipoxygenase (JP-A-6-225774), phytoalexin synthetase (Minami et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 185, 19 (1989)), and peroxidase (Ito et al., Plant Cell Report, 13, 361 (1994)) were isolated, but there were no reports evidencing any correlation between these genes and disease resistances. Studies on the resistance mechanism of rice infection with a blast pathogen suggested two mechanisms, one being a mechanism of inhibiting the growth of pathogenic microorganisms by hypersensitive cell death in infected parts of rice plant cells at early infection phase and the other being a mechanism of inhibiting infection by alteration of cell membranes (S. ARASE, Chemistry and Biology, vol. 31 (4), 235 (1993)), but the gene responsible for the disease resistance has not yet been clarified.
Thus, the occurrence of plant diseases, as well as the resistance to plant diseases, has been studied in rice with difficulty and without progress at genetic level, because both the pathogenic infection mechanism and the resistance expression mechanism in plants are very complex and because any correlation could not be obtained even between labo-level resistance and field-level resistance.
However, several disease-resistant genes have been believed to be involved in various resistance mechanisms. Therefore, it will be necessary to isolate a full-length gene resistant to rice diseases including blast; to clarify the structure of the isolated gene as well as the primary structure of the corresponding protein; to express the gene in rice plants; and to examine functions of the gene in detail.
In this context, we have now isolated a gene for NADH-dependent reductase having an ability to detoxify a toxin produced by a pathogen of blast as one of disease-resistance genes, analyzed its structure, and introduced it into plants, thereby finding that the disease resistance could readily be given to plants such as rice. Namely, while keeping in mind the report that the protein expressed from a gene encoding a protein presumed to be the HC toxin reductase isolated from maize as described above offers a resistance by reducing and detoxifying the HC toxin produced by the pathogenic Cochliobolus carbonum, we have now succeeded in isolation of a cDNA clone having a partial sequence highly homologous to the HC toxin reductase gene by the random sequencing of cDNA from a rice anther cDNA library; and in isolation of a full-length rice NADH-dependent reductase cDNA from rice anthers using the obtained cDNA clone as a probe. As a result, it has been evidenced that this gene was associated with the blast-resistant locus.

Rice NADH-dependent reductase, gene therefor, and use thereof


A materials testing grip for tensile testing of small fibers includes a pair of inwardlyconverging surfaces into which a fiber may be easily pressed, and which in fiber tension is characterized by increased gripping force.

Prior art grips used with very small diameter (e.g., 10 to 50 microns) filaments have included grips with flat rubber gripping pad surfaces, such as the pneumatic grips sold by the assignee hereof, Instron Corporation, Canton, Mass., under the designation Model 2712, and the mechanically actuated grips sold by said assignee under the designation Model 2711. Such prior art grips have also included grips in which a fiber is wrapped around a conical "horn" and then pressed thereagainst, as in devices sold by said assignee under the designation Model 2714.


A vending machine for dispensing flat items includes a housing having a removable collection pan with a pan bag, a door with display windows, a coin slide mechanism extending through the door and a folder slide mounted on the inside of the door. The folder slide releasably retains either a tower or a shipping/dispensing box for holding a column of the flat items to be dispensed through a slot in the door.

The present invention relates generally to a vending apparatus for dispensing flat items such as stickers and temporary tattoos.
Sticker vending machines are used for dispensing items such as stickers and temporary tattoos to consumers. The stickers are usually applied on the pages of sticker albums or to the surfaces of books and other objects for display. The temporary tattoos are usually applied to the user's skin to simulate a conventional tattoo. Herein, the term "sticker" is used to denote a sticker, a temporary tattoo and any similar flat item to be vended.
Prior art sticker vending machines present many problems related to reliable operation and servicing. Typically, each sticker is retained in a flat cardboard folder which folders are assembled in packs of thirty stacked and held together by an elastic band. Ten packs of stickers in folders are then placed in a box for delivery to a vending machine service person. Conventional vending machines for stickers are constructed such that the service person removes the elastic band from a pack and inserts the thirty sticker folders into a metal tower in the machine. The machines typically have from one to four or six towers fixed in place with the two and four tower machines being the most common. The towers are either carried on the vending machine door for machines serviced from the front, or are mounted inside the machine body in machines that are serviced from the rear. In either case the sticker folders are retained in vertical stacks with each folder extending in a generally horizontal plane. In a typical sticker folder vending machine, a gravity biased metal plate is placed on top of the stack of sticker folders in the tower. In order to service a prior art sticker vending machine, the service person must first remove the old stickers from the towers, put the old stickers in small stacks place elastic bands around the small stacks and place the stacks in boxes to transport them. Then the service person can perform the above-described tower filing procedure. This is a time consuming task.
The conventional sticker folder vending machine has a front wall or door on which is mounted a three-sided frame open at the top for receiving a display card or sheet holding displays depicting the stickers to be dispensed. The frame also retains a clear cover, typically plastic, in front of the display sheet. When the stickers in the towers are changed, the service person must remove the cover and the sheet by sliding them upwardly and out the open top of the frame. Then the old displays are removed from the sheet and new displays are taped in place. Now the cover and the display sheet are inserted back into the frame.
The prior art sticker vending machine has a coin slide positioned adjacent the bottom of the tower. While most vending machines require the insertion of at least one coin for operation, in some instances the coin slides are adapted to be operated with special tokens or freely without coins. Prior art vending machines having a collection pan for the coins present a problem since a person servicing the machine is required to remove the pan and empty the collected coins into a canvas collection bag. The operation of holding a collection bag open while tilting the collection pan to pour the coins into the bag is difficult to perform, especially while standing in a crowded area, and often results in spills and wasted time.
As is evident from the discussion above, the normal service routine for a prior art sticker vending machine is time consuming and has many related problems. It can take the average service person from twenty to thirty minutes to change the stickers and displays in and collect the coins from one sticker vending machine.
Other problems associated with prior art sticker vending machines are related to mechanisms for receiving the coins and dispensing the stickers. When the vending machine customer inserts coins into the coin slide, and then pushes the slide into the machine, a dispensing mechanism on the inner end of the slide engages the bottom sticker folder in the stack. The dispensing mechanism in a typical sticker machine includes a stripper or pusher that engages the rear edge of the bottom folder and pushes that folder through an opening in the front wall of the tower to dispense that folder. Thus, as the customer pulls the slide out of the machine, the bottom folder is dispensed, and the metal plate on top of the stack urges the remaining folders downward replacing the just dispensed folder.
In type of problem, one or more stickers will become jammed in the dispensing mechanism. In another type of problem, a bent or damaged coin will hang up the coin slide. In either case, the service person must remove the associated tower from the machine to make a repair. In a front loading machine, the door must be lowered to approximately 20° below horizontal to access the screws holding the tower in place. Unless the stickers are first removed from the tower, they will tumble out when the door is lowered. Removing the stickers in a busy area and finding a place to stack them so that they will not fall over is time consuming.
One cause of the sticker jamming problems associated with the prior art sticker vending machines is related to the mechanisms for dispensing one sticker at a time and the anti-theft measures incorporated therein. A piece of spring steel is located adjacent a vertically narrow dispensing slot to limit the number of stickers dispensed usually to one at a time. Some "customers" use a sharp instrument to pick stickers out through the dispensing slot without using coins. The steel piece also functions as a security gate to prevent stickers from being picked out through the slot. A hinged security gate with a return spring can be provided in place of the steel piece. In some instances the sticker being dispensed drags a second sticker along and they become wedged in the security gate and/or the dispensing slot. In other instances, the "customer" uses a screwdriver to pry open the security gate thereby damaging it and causing a jamming problem. These jamming problems require the time-consuming service procedure outlined above.


Invention z-axis interconnection structures provide a means to mechanically and electrically interconnect layers of metallization in electronic substrates reliably and in any configuration. Invention z-axis interconnection structures comprise a novel bonding film and conductive paste and one- and two-piece building block structures formed therefrom.

Electronic substrates are the backbone of all electronic products. Due to the desire for high functionality in a small form factor, multilayer electronic substrates with a high density of circuitry or interconnect (i.e., high density interconnect or HDI), have become increasingly prevalent. The drive to higher circuit layer counts and finer circuit features has been relentless.
The Achilles heel of HDI electronic substrates is the interconnections that must be made in the z-axis direction between circuit layers. Traditionally these interconnections have been made by drilling through a multilayer electronic substrate and then plating the hole barrel with copper to interconnect the layers that the hole contacts. The problem with this type of z-axis interconnection is that the hole takes up space on every layer—including those where an interconnection is not required. As layer counts increase, an additional problem is that it becomes difficult to plate a consistent layer of copper throughout the entire depth of the hole barrel.
In order to overcome these deficiencies, it has become common practice in the industry to fabricate a central core by conventional means and then sequentially add layers of HDI to the outside surfaces of the core. In this method, the sequentially added layers are interconnected by "blind" vias (holes that traverses a dielectric and terminate at a copper pad below) that are located only where needed on each layer and are plated with copper to interconnect to the circuitry directly above and below. The problems with this approach are that the cumulative yield loss for the sequential processing is high, substantial increases in plating capacity are needed for implementation while such capacity requirements are continually increasing, and the via plating operation adds superfluous copper onto each outer circuit layer that is detrimental to the formation of fine circuit features.
One solution to these deficiencies is to install a conductive paste into vias that have been formed in a b-stage dielectric layer prior to lamination to effect z-axis interconnection. This process lends itself to both sequential and parallel fabrication methods. When a parallel process is used, all of the circuit layers can be fabricated in parallel and then joined in a single lamination cycle without the cumulative losses associated with creating an identical multilayer electronic substrate by sequentially laminating multiple layers. This solution also obviates the need for additional plating capacity and does not compromise the formation of fine circuit features. The problems with this method are that the conductive pastes used to form the interconnections are generally not as reliable as the copper-plated vias, and the b-stage dielectric materials typically used to adhere the circuit layers together during lamination are not well-suited to such a process.
Conductive Pastes
Conventional conductive pastes rely on point-to-point contact between metal particles in a polymer binder to effect electrical conduction. This reliance on point-to-point contact is the fundamental basis for the poorer reliability of these materials when compared the continuous metal of a plated via.
The conductivity and reliability of conventional conductive pastes may be sufficient for some applications, and the use of such conductive pastes can be cost-effective. However, in demanding applications, a more robust z-axis interconnection material is needed.
Transient liquid phase sintering (TLPS) pastes overcome the fundamental deficiency of conventional conductive pastes by providing a composition that sinters at lamination temperature to create a metallurgically interconnected metallic network that extends continuously from an overlying copper pad, through the bulk of the TLPS paste, and finally to the underlying copper pad. The use of TLPS compositions as suitable replacements for conventional electrically and/or thermally conductive materials has been used in a diverse assortment of applications, assembly of electronic components, in-plane circuit traces, interconnection of circuit traces on different planes, assembly of unpackaged integrated circuit die onto packaging elements, and the like. Some of the uses for TLPS compositions are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,716,036; 5,980,785; 5,948,533; 5,922,397; 5,853,622; 5,716,663; 5,830,389; 8,221,518; and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011-0171372, which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
Each application presents a specific set of application-specific requirements. TLPS compositions confer an advantage over conventional materials in meeting requirements that include ease of deposition, reduction in manufacturing time and/or complexity, increased circuit density in the resultant article, environmentally stable interfaces, high electrical and/or thermal conductivity, and many others. For use in vias in multilayer electronic substrates the disclosures of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,948,533 and 8,221,518 and application Publication No. 2011-0171372 are particularly relevant.
TLPS pastes have been demonstrated to form extremely reliable interconnects in multilayer electronic substrates using conventional b-stage lamination adhesives; however, as via sizes become smaller to match shrinking circuit pad size, the use of standard b-stage lamination adhesives not designed for a paste process becomes more problematic.
Bonding Sheets
Typical bonding sheets used for lamination of multilayer electronic substrates are made of thermosetting resins that have been infiltrated into a woven glass mat reinforcement matrix. This type of construction is known as a "prepreg" (woven glass mat pre-impregnated with resin). In HDI electronic substrate applications, where the object is to prepare the smallest and thinnest parts possible, the prepreg is generally selected to have a relatively low glass and a relatively high resin content. Not only do these characteristics facilitate a thin and lightweight part, the low glass density is more amenable to laser ablation to form via holes. This type of configuration is well-suited to the sequential, copper-plated-via process.
Handling of the very thin prepregs used for HDI is difficult. Creating conductive-paste-filled via holes in free-standing prepregs, even with protective coversheets, is particularly difficult to accomplish without damaging or distorting the prepreg. Any distortion is likely to cause misalignment of the vias from one or both of the circuits to be interconnected. In some circumstances, handling issues can be mitigated by tack laminating the prepreg to one of the circuit layers that will be joined by lamination. Nevertheless, other characteristics of HDI prepregs are also detrimental to conductive paste interconnect processes.
In copper-plated-via processes, the bonding sheets used are not subject to thermal processing prior to lamination and high flow is desirable for encapsulating the fine circuit features. Variations in bonding sheet flow characteristics that can be introduced during storage are generally well-tolerated by the process.
In contrast, in paste-filled via processes the bonding sheets are subjected to several intermediate handling steps and often multiple thermal excursions (e.g. tack laminating and extraction of volatiles from the conductive paste), prior to lamination. These intermediate steps can interfere with the ability of the bonding sheet to properly encapsulate and adhere to the circuit layers due to a reduction in flow. Conversely, if the flow of the bonding sheet adhesive is too high, it can migrate to the bottom of the blind via and coat the copper pad, thus preventing connection; it can also flow laterally where it can change the shape or even the position of the via; it can carry a portion of the deposited paste away from the via; and/or it can intermingle with the conductive paste thereby prevent the formation of the conductive pathway. For conductive paste interconnect, unlike copper-plated-via interconnect, flow control of the bonding sheet is critical.
The flow characteristics of standard bonding sheets can be managed by characterization and input of thermal work into the prepreg to achieve optimal flow for specific circumstances. Circuit designs that maximize the amount of copper on mating circuit layers can also be used to limit the amount of lateral flow. However, this is a laborious solution and may not fully address flow issues.
Prepreg bonding sheets characterized as no-flow are available. These materials are generally unaffected by the pre-lamination process steps required for conductive paste vias, and do not cause the interconnect defects associated with high flow resins. The disadvantages of no-flow prepregs are that there is a much more limited selection of materials, it can be more difficult to develop a lamination process using no-flow prepregs that achieves good encapsulation and adhesion for a given part configuration, and available no-flow prepregs are reinforced with woven glass mats.
The woven glass mats used to create prepregs provide good handling and dimensional control characteristics, but they are also a potential source of defects in conductive paste interconnects. The unit size of the glass weave is generally on order of the via hole size. This means that the immediate periphery of each via will vary greatly with regard to resin and glass content. In addition, the lighter glass weaves used for HDI prepregs provide significantly less control over the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), while limiting the thinness of the joint that can be achieved. Therefore, the CTE, particularly in the z-axis direction, is relatively high, but the thickness of the glass fabric limits the ability to mitigate any CTE mismatch between the conductive paste and prepreg. Due to the poorer electrical characteristics of glass relative to prepreg resins, a prepreg containing glass must be thicker than one containing resin alone to achieve the necessary dielectric characteristics. Because prepreg resins and glass require different levels of laser energy for ablation, via holes formed in b-stage prepregs will always exhibit some irregularity, which can complicate paste deposition and cause variation in the electrical performance of the conductive paste-filled vias. Finally, adhesion deficiencies between the prepreg resin and glass filaments, such as non-wetting, can create pathways for conductive pastes and/or plating solutions to migrate away from the via structure.
Bonding sheets in which aramid (polymer) fibers replaced the woven glass mats were introduced to alleviate the glass knuckle and lasing issues, but they suffered from high dimensional instability due to moisture absorption, and irregularity of resin penetration into the mat during the infiltration process and have been withdrawn from the market.
Film adhesives have the potential to alleviate all of the issues noted above, but those currently available have a high flow characteristic that tends to sweep conductive vias away.
To take advantage of the cost control, yield improvement, reduction in capital equipment requirements, density capability and design versatility offered by a conductive-paste-filled-via z-axis interconnection strategy for multilayer HDI electronic substrate, what is needed is a building block that provides an electronic substrate substructure bearing an electrically conductive element, that is coupled with an all-polymer bonding film having a portion thereof in a no-flow, b-staged form, with via holes that traverse the thickness of the bonding film, where such via holes are filled with, and/or aligned with bumps formed from a conductive paste that will become a continuous electrical pathway during lamination.

Structures for z-axis interconnection of multilayer electronic substrates


A coil component includes a body including a coil, and an external electrode disposed on an external surface of the body and connected to the coil, wherein the body includes a support member supporting the coil and including a through-hole and a via hole spaced apart from the through-hole, the coil includes a coil body and a lead portion connecting the coil body and the external electrode to each other, and a support thin film layer is interposed between one surface of the support member and one surface of the lead portion facing the one surface.

In accordance with the development of information technology (IT), miniaturization and thinning of various electronic devices have been accelerated. Therefore, miniaturization and thinning of thin film type inductors used in such electronic devices have also been demanded. Although inductors have been miniaturized, there is a need to increase turns of coil patterns (to make the coil patterns fine), develop a material having high magnetic permeability, and increase heights of the coil patterns in order to accomplish the miniaturization of the inductors without causing loss of electrical characteristics of the inductors, such as an inductance, Rdc, and the like.


The invention relates to mixtures including resorcinol and silica which are used as adhesion promoters for improving the adhesion between textile or metal strength carriers and rubber or plastics. The mixtures in accordance with the invention exhibit a sharply limited sublimation behavior with regard to the resorcin.

This invention relates to mixtures of resorcinol (also known as resorcin or 1,3-benzenediol) and silica, which mixtures are used as adhesion promoters in rubber mixtures and synthetic plastic mixtures. The invention also relates to the silicas which can be used in these mixtures.
The use of adhesion reinforcers to improve the adhesion between rubber and textile strength carriers, such as polyamides, aramides, celluloses, and polyesters or bare, galvanized, or brass-coated steel cord is known.
There are two possibilities available for the direct addition of the adhesion reinforcers to the raw rubber mixture (i.e., dry bonding). In the case of steel cord (e.g., steel belts in tires, high-pressure hoses, or conveyor belts with steel inserts), adhesion reinforcers in the form of the divalent salts of cobalt (e.g., cobalt naphthenate) or resorcinol/formaldehyde/silica systems are used. In the case of textile cord, only the resorcinol/formaldehyde/silica system is used as adhesion reinforcement.
Both of these systems exhibit various disadvantages. The cobalt based system has poor ageing behavior. The resorcinol/formaldehyde/silica system for rubber has poisoning problems. Furthermore, the resorcinol based system has disadvantages in that the resorcinol tends to sublime, is toxic, and has poor dispersability.
In the early stages of the development of the resorcinol/formaldehyde/silica system, there was the problem of the poor dispersing behavior of resorcinol. It was known that this could be improved only by utilizing an incorporation temperature of approximately 120.degree. C. (i.e., above the melting point of resorcinol). However, these high temperatures are not achieved by all mixtures in practice. One possibility for solving this problem included the fine grinding of resorcinol with silica, as described in German Patent No. 13 01 478 (Degussa adhesive system Cofill.RTM. 11), or in the grinding of resorcinol with stearic acid. This German patent is entirely incorporated herein by reference. In addition, an attempt was made to improve the dispersion of resorcinol by means of a suitable mixing technique and mixing units, and in this manner, to use resorcinol in pure form for economic reasons.
However, these measures were not able to eliminate the problems stemming from the sublimation tendency of resorcinol, at the temperatures which are necessary for the production of articles of rubber and plastic. Since it can not be precisely determined in practice how much of the resorcinol added to the mixture will evaporate due to sublimation, sharp variations and inhomogeneities in the adhesion values can not be avoided.
Moreover, there are problems and health risks posed for employees due to the presence of sublimating resorcinol. These problems and risks must be considered. Resorcinol, especially resorcinol vapors, are regarded as injurious to the health. They have an irritating effect on the respiratory system and result in irritations of the eyes and skin (based on the disclosure from the British Rubber Manufacturers Association Ltd., Toxicity and Safe Handling of Rubber Chemicals, Third Edition, 1990). Therefore, the rubber industry increasingly requires measures which counteract the sublimation tendency of resorcinol from the manufacturers of resorcinol and of adhesive systems based on resorcinol. A development intended to aid this problem is the use of so-called resorcinol precondensates. A resorcinol resin is formed thereby by means of a purposeful reaction of resorcinol with a suitable formaldehyde donor outside of the actual mixing production.
This purposeful increase in the molecular weight of resorcinol (di-resorcinol, tri-resorcinol and oligomeric resorcinol developed from the monomeric parent substance) sharply reduces the sublimation behavior of resorcinol. In the actual application of this higher-molecular weight resorcinol in rubber, the actual resorcinol-formaldehyde resin network necessary for the cord and rubber adhesion is then built up together with a further formaldehyde donor. However, the precondensates produced in accordance with the above-described methods exhibit the disadvantage of high cost, as well as a few serious technical disadvantages. Du to the partial occupation of the reactive centers of the resorcinol for the resinification (i.e., gumming) during the precondensation, the reactivity for the actual resorcinol formaldehyde resin formation in the rubber mixture decreases considerably, relative to the reactivity of free resorcinol. This distinctly affects the vulcanization speed, results in a modulus which is distinctly lower relative to resorcinol, and a lower hardness value, as well as a lower adhesion value, especially on bare steel cord. These technical deficiencies oppose the use of precondensates in the rubber industry.

Adhesion promoters for rubber and synthetic mixtures


An imaging device of the present invention includes a separating unit for separating a stack of original documents one by one. The separating unit feeds the separated document to a reading unit capable of reading an image out of the document. To insure stable operation of both the separating unit and reading unit, the separating unit and reading unit are respectively provided with an exclusive separating motor and an exclusive reading motor. A first transporting roller is included in the separating unit and rotated at a speed equal to or higher than the rotation speed of a second transporting roller included in the reading unit. This insures stable transport of the document from the separating unit to the reading unit. Even when any drive element included in the separating unit fluctuates, drive elements included in the reading unit are free from the influence of the fluctuation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging device for use in a facsimile apparatus or similar image forming apparatus and, more particularly, to an imaging device including a separating unit and a reading unit.
2. Discussion of the Background
An imaging device for reading an original document is disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 1-271330. The imaging device disclosed in this publication includes a separating unit and a reading unit. In the separating unit, documents stacked on a document table are sequentially separated one by one. The separated document is conveyed to the reading unit, read thereby, and then driven out.
In the above imaging device, both the operation of the separating unit and that of the reading unit are controlled by a single motor. The document to be read is transported at a preselected speed based on a resolution available with a sensor included in the reading unit. The transport of the document is stopped if the capacity of a memory for storing image data during document reading is exceeded.
For these reasons, a stepping motor is used as the motor for controlling both the separating unit and reading unit. In a typical stepping motor for use in the imaging device, which may be of two-phase hybrid type, torque begins to decrease at about 2,000 pps (pulse per second) to 3,000 pps, and the maximum speed is 3,500 pps.
To meet the increasing demand for a higher document reading speed, the stepping motor must be driven by a large current and a heavy torque. This, however, results in an increase in vibration, noise and heat generated by the stepping motor.
In the separating unit, a driving load of a transporting roller is larger than a driving load of a separating roller. As a result, a load fluctuation occurs when the original document is separated from the separation roller. It is likely that such a load fluctuation is transmitted to the output shaft of the stepping motor, causing the rotation of the motor to be irregular. In the imaging device including a single stepping motor, the load fluctuation of the separating unit is transferred even to rollers built in the reading unit, preventing the reading unit from reading image data correctly.

Imaging apparatus having different motors for separating and reading documents


Embodiments of a programmable passive equalizer are described herein.

An electrical channel may be made up of a variety of components which may have an effect on an electrical signal communicated through the channel. Additionally, the channel (and more particularly the components of the channel) may affect portions of the signal differently. For example, the channel may have different effects on signals of different frequencies. Signals of different frequencies, for instance, may experience difference attenuations and phase shifts. Thus, the shape of the waveform of the signal may be distorted after being transmitted through the channel.
The same reference numbers are utilized in instances in the discussion to reference like structures and components.


The present invention relates to a timepiece device, and more particularly to a timepiece device having a customized dial. The timepiece device has a housing and a face plate attached to the housing. The face plate has a peripheral rim which has a plurality of intermittently spaced lands. Each land is configured to provide a surface for receiving customized indicia. An outer cover which can be removed or opened to provide access to customize the face plate is provided.

Timepieces such as watches have been used for the primary purpose of keeping and displaying time for many years. Timepiece watch faces come in a variety of styles, types and versions allowing for wide ranging uses and style preference. While many different timepiece designs have been created, including various watch faces and band styles, the appearance and visual functionality of most timepieces is not customizable after the timepiece has been created. In fact, while the band of some timepieces may be replaceable, typically, the appearance of the face plate of most watches or timepieces does not change and is not changeable by the wearer. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a timepiece device in which the appearance of the face plate of the watch could be easily and conveniently changed as desired by the wearer.
Moreover, while some timepieces have been designed to allow for some customization of certain aspects of the timepiece by the user, these designs typically require a number of intricate pieces which makes manufacturing more costly and expensive. Similarly, the intricate pieces of these designs provide complicated mechanisms for allowing customization. Such complicated designs may preclude children or others from having the ability to actually customize the timepiece and make the customization process inconvenient, thereby limiting the market for which the timepiece could be sold. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a timepiece device in which the face plate of the watch could be simply and easily changed as desired by a user of virtually any age.
Finally, it would be advantageous to provide a timepiece wherein customizing the face plate of the timepiece did not affect the time displayed by the watch or affect the users ability to view the displayed time. For example, the time displayed by some timepieces which allow for customization, is affected during the customization process. In these designs, the watch or timepiece must be reset or re-synchronized to display the correct time. As a result, customization or individualization of the timepiece may be more difficult and time consuming than expected, thereby defeating the purpose of the watch.


A linear light fixture assembly for supporting a light fixture in a ceiling structure, comprises a light fixture mounting structure having a pair of opposed boundary regions configured to fit within a designated light fixture receiving region in the ceiling structure, and a plurality of spring elements configured to spaced outwardly from at least one of the boundary regions, each spring element having a mounting region configured to be anchored to the mounting structure and a free end region to extend therefrom and to be laterally outwardly biased in a first position to form a path of contact with a support surface region on the ceiling structure to anchor the structure in the receiving region, each of the spring elements configured to be movable toward the corresponding boundary region in a second position to release the path of contact to release the light fixture from the receiving region.

Light fixtures are widely used in ceiling structures formed from ceiling support grids made with t-bars or other supporting grid members. Installation involves forming the grid with a present a light fixture receiving region, usually with opposed exposed horizontal surfaces to engage opposed sides of the light fixtures, which are configured with releasable attachment mechanisms that permit them to be installed in the light fixture receiving region. Examples of such light fixtures are shown in US 2016/0010817 A1 to HIERZER, and US 2016/0138788 to Sareyka et al. In both instances, the releaseable attachment mechanisms rely on releaseable catches, akin to door latches or the like formed with a sloping edge portion and spring loaded. However, these mechanisms are relatively bulky and can be tedious to release. Furthermore, ongoing maintenance requires access to the light fixture either from above the ceiling structure, which can be limited in many cases, or complete removal of the fixture from the ceiling structure.
It may thus be desirable to provide novel approaches for positioning light fixtures in ceiling structures, or at least to provide the public with one or more useful alternatives.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for acquiring a signal to noise ratio (SNR), a signal receiving device and a signal sending device. Through the embodiments of the present invention, an SNR of the signal receiving device (i.e., a receiving end) can satisfy the setting requirement, that is, the test condition that an SNR does not contain a precoding gain, so that a subsequent test is valid.

In a relay backhaul link of a wireless communication system such as a long term evolution (Long Term Evolution, LTE) system or a long term evolution-advanced (Long Term Evolution Advanced, LTE-A) system, a device needs to be tested. During a test process, an SNR specified by the system is needed. In a signal test process, the SNR of a receiving end is set to a specified minimum index.
However, in a multi-output scenario, because a precoding technology is adopted in a signal sending device, the SNR measured by a signal receiving device (that is, the SNR of the receiving end) is an SNR containing a precoding gain, which does not satisfy the setting requirement, so that the test is invalid.

Method for acquiring signal to noise ratio, signal receiving device and signal sending device


The present invention provides a versatile system for management of clocking for a serial interface. Serial input data, comprising a plurality of fields, and preceded by a specific input pattern, is provided to a receiver element. Within one of the fields in the serial input data, some information concerning the size the current serial data payload is included. Responsive to receiving the specific input pattern, the system of the present invention asserts a clock enable signal to activate clocking. A countdown corresponding to the size the current serial data payload is initiated. Once that countdown has reached zero, the clocking for the interface is disabled.

The escalating deployment of wireless networking and communications technologies is causing a corresponding increase the number of wireless and portable devices, and applications for those devices. As a result, increasingly more computing resources are integrated into and utilized by portable and wireless applications ("portables"). Markets for portables demand devices with high data throughput rates, for applications such as multimedia and streaming media, voice over data, and others. At the same time, markets for portables also demand devices that are convenient to use—both from a form factor and use-time perspective. Thus, designers and manufacturers are faced with demands for greater versatility and processing power, coupled with demands for smaller devices with longer battery life (i.e., very low power consumption).
Initially, at least, attempts were made to address battery life concerns by improving battery systems—both battery density and charging efficiency. Unfortunately, however, such approaches were only successful for a short time, as the steadily increasing demands on portable performance outpaced the ability to improve battery systems. Designers and manufacturers have realized that the performance demands of new portables cannot be met by simply by increasing energy density in batteries.
To increase the functionality and use time of portables, designers and manufacturers are turning to high efficiency management of system functions. When the amount of energy that is needed to complete a function is decreased, a battery has more energy left to perform other processes. This simple approach to energy management has been applied throughout portable devices and systems.
Consider, for example, that various portable devices and systems (e.g., MP3 players, digital cameras) do not require full operation of all device circuitry all the time. There are certain times when various components or functions are idle and, depending upon the application, may be powered down to reduce overall system power consumption. Unfortunately, however, many digital data processing and transmission applications rely upon clocking signals and systems for recovery from power-down states, as well as for routine operation. As a result, in a number of conventional systems, clocking functions or circuitry cannot be powered down even where its associated operational circuitry is idle. Typically, a clocking element or system has a relatively high switching factor, which results in significant power consumption.
This concern becomes even more important when—as is the case in many modern portable devices and systems—a certain device or component relies upon a serial interface. In systems where clocking is always active, even when data is transmission or communication may be idle, the interface and associated circuitry are also always active and consuming power unnecessarily.
As a result, there is a need for a system that provides a versatile clock management for ultra low power applications—particularly for low power portable systems and devices utilizing serial interfaces; a system that provides clocking functionality only when device operations require it, and otherwise powers down clocking to provide efficient, low-power data processing or communication in an easy, cost-effective manner.

Versatile clock management system for a single pin serial interface protocol


The light source unit includes a single wavelength oscillation light source, a light generating portion which has an optical modulator converting and emitting light from the light source into a pulse light, a light amplifying portion made up of an optical fiber group in which each fiber has a fiber amplifier to amplify the pulse light from the optical modulator, and a light amount controller. The light amount controller performs a step-by-step light amount control by individually turning on/off the light output of each fiber making up the optical fiber group, and a light amount control of controlling at least either of the frequency or the peak power of the emitted pulse light of the optical modulator. Accordingly, in addition to the step-by-step light amount control, fine adjustment of the light amount in between the steps becomes possible due to the control of at least either the frequency or the peak power of the pulse light, and if the set light amount is within a predetermined range, the light amount can be made to coincide with the set light amount.

Conventionally, in the lithographic process to manufacture a semiconductor device (integrated circuit), a liquid crystal display device, and the like, various exposure apparatus were used. In recent years, as these types of exposure apparatus, the reduction projection exposure apparatus such as the so-called stepper or the so-called scanning stepper is mainstream, from the viewpoint of having high throughput. With the reduction projection exposure apparatus, a fine circuit pattern formed on a photomask or a reticle is reduced, projected, and transferred onto a substrate such as a wafer or a glass plate, which surface is coated with a photoresist via a projection optical system.
However, the exposure apparatus such as the projection exposure apparatus require high resolution, along with high throughput. The resolution R, and the depth of focus DOF of the projection exposure apparatus are respectively expressed in the following equation (1) and (2), using the wavelength of the illumination light for exposure λ and the numerical aperture of the projection optical system N.A.:R=K·λ/N.A.  (1)DOF=λ/(N.A.)2/2  (2)
As is obvious from equation (1), three ways can be considered to obtain a smaller resolution R, that is, to decrease the minimum pattern line width that can be resolved; {circle around (1)} reduce the proportional constant K, {circle around (2)} increase the N.A., {circle around (3)} reduce the wavelength of the illumination light for exposure λ. The proportional constant K, in this case, is a constant that is determined by the projection optical system or the process, and is normally a value around 0.5 to 0.8. The method of decreasing the constant K is called super-resolution in a broad sense. Up until now, issues such as improvement of the projection optical system, modified illumination, phase shift reticle have been studied and proposed, however, there were drawbacks such as the patterns suitable for application being restricted.
On the other hand, as can be seen from equation (1), the resolution R can be reduced by increasing the numerical aperture N.A., however, at the same time, this means that the depth of focus DOF is small, as is obvious from equation (2). Therefore, increasing the N.A. value has its limits, and normally, the appropriate value is around 0.5 to 0.6.
Accordingly, the most simple and effective way of reducing the resolution R is to reduce the wavelength of the illumination light for exposure λ.
For such reasons, conventionally, the g-line stepper and the i-line stepper that use an ultra-high pressure mercury lamp as the light source for exposure to emit the emission line (such as the g line or the i line) in the ultraviolet light region were mainly used. However, in recent years, the KrF excimer laser stepper that uses a KrF excimer laser as the light source to emit a KrF excimer laser beam having a shorter wavelength (wavelength: 248 nm) is becoming mainstream. And currently, the exposure apparatus that uses the ArF excimer laser (wavelength: 193 nm) as the light source having a shorter wavelength is under development.
The excimer laser, however, has disadvantages as the light source for the exposure apparatus, such as, the size being large, the energy per pulse being large causing the optical components to damage easily, and the maintenance of the laser being complicated and expensive because of using poisonous fluorine gas.
Therefore, the method of utilizing the nonlinear optics effect of the nonlinear optical crystal to convert light with a long wavelength (infrared light and visible light) to an ultraviolet light with a shorter wavelength and using the ultraviolet light as the exposure light, is gathering attention. As the light source employing this method, the array laser which details are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid Open (Unexamined) No. 08-334803, is well known. With the array laser, the wavelength of light from the laser beam generating portion comprising a semiconductor laser is converted by the nonlinear optical crystal arranged at the wavelength conversion portion, and a laser element which generates ultraviolet light is bundled into an ultraviolet light source of a plurality of lines in a matrix shape (for example, 10×10).
With the array laser, by bundling a plurality of lines of laser elements that are individually independent, the light emission of the individual laser elements can be suppressed at a low level, while maintaining the light emission of the whole apparatus high. However, since the individual laser elements were independent, fine adjustment was required in addition to an extremely complicated structure in order to make the oscillation spectrum of each laser element coincide with one another.
And so, the method to convert the wavelength can be considered where the laser beam emitted from a single laser oscillation source is diverged, and the wavelength of each diverged beam is converted with a common nonlinear optical crystal after each diverged beam is amplified. In the case of employing this method, it is convenient to use optical fiber to guide the laser beam, and the arrangement of a plurality of bundled optical fibers emitting a plurality of beams incident on the nonlinear optical crystal is the most suitable from the viewpoint of simple arrangement, smaller diameter of the emitting beam, and maintenance operation.
In addition, to efficiently generate a second harmonic and the like by the nonlinear optics effect using the nonlinear optical crystal, a linearly polarized beam of a specific direction which corresponds to the crystal direction of the nonlinear optical crystal needs to be incident on the nonlinear optical crystal. However, it is generally difficult to arrange the direction of the linearly polarized beams emitted from a plurality of optical fibers in order. This is because even if the polarization maintaining fiber is used to guide the linearly polarization, since the sectional shape of the optical fiber is almost round, the direction of the linearly polarization cannot be specified from the outside shape of the optical fiber.
Also, as is well known, in the case of using an excimer laser beam in the short wavelength region, mainly due to the transmittance of the material, the material that can be used for the lens of the projection optical system at this stage is limited to materials such as synthetic quartz, fluorite, or fluoride crystal such as lithium fluoride.
In the case of using lenses made of materials such as quartz or fluorite in the projection optical system, however, correction of chromatic aberration is actually difficult. Therefore, in order to prevent the image forming performance from deteriorating, narrowing the oscillation spectral width of the excimer laser beam, in other words, to narrow-band the wavelength is required. To perform this narrow-banding, for example, a narrow-band module (optical elements such as a combination of a prism and a grating (diffraction grating) or an etalon) arranged in a laser resonator is used, and it becomes necessary to keep the spectrum width of the wavelength of the excimer laser beam supplied to the projection optical system during exposure within a predetermined wavelength width at all times, and at the same time, the so-called wavelength stabilizing control to maintain the center wavelength at a predetermined wavelength becomes required.
In order to achieve the wavelength stabilizing control referred to above, the optical properties of the excimer laser beam (such as the center wavelength and the spectral half-width) need to be monitored. The wavelength monitor portion of the excimer laser unit is made up of a Fabry-Perot etalon (hereinafter also referred to as an "etalon element") playing the main role, which is in general a Fabry-Perot spectroscope.
In addition, with higher integration of the semiconductor device, the pattern line width is becoming finer, and further improvement on exposure accuracy such as the overlay accuracy of the mask and the substrate in the exposure apparatus such as the stepper is being required. The overlay accuracy depends on how well the aberration of distortion components and the like in the projection optical system is suppressed. Therefore, the center wavelength stability of the illumination light for exposure and further narrow-banding is becoming required in the exposure apparatus. Of these requirements, as a method of coping with narrow-banding, employing a single-wavelength light source as the laser light source itself can be considered.
Meanwhile, since the projection optical system is adjusted only to a predetermined exposure wavelength, if the center wavelength cannot be stably maintained, as a consequence, chromatic aberration of the projection optical system may occur, or the magnification of the projection optical system or the image forming characteristics such as distortion and focus may vary. Therefore, it is a mandatory to maintain the stability of the center wavelength.
However, since the etalon element is affected by the temperature and pressure of the etalon atmosphere, the influence of the change in temperature and atmospheric pressure in the etalon atmosphere cannot be ignored.
In addition, it is certain that a finer device rule (the practical minimum line width) will be required in the future, and the exposure apparatus of the next generation will require higher overlay accuracy than before. The overly accuracy depends, for example, on how well the distortion component is suppressed. Also, in order to increase the depth of focus, increase in the UDOF (usable DOF) and stability in focus will be necessary. And in both cases, stability of the center wavelength and controllability of the spectral half-width are required at a high degree.
Also, the exposure apparatus will be expected to achieve exposure amount control performance in line with the difference of the resist sensibility in each wafer, and a wide dynamic range, typically around 1 to 1/7, will be required. With the exposure apparatus using the conventional excimer laser as the light source, for example, the rough energy adjuster such as the ND filter is used for exposure amount control in accordance with the difference of the resist sensibility in each wafer.
In the case of such a method, however, an ND filter with a calibrated transmittance was required, and the durability of the ND filter and the change in transmittance with the elapse of time caused a problem. Furthermore, even in the case when only 1/7 of the maximum exposure light amount was required, the excimer laser operated to emit the exposure light at the maximum intensity, therefore, 6/7 of the emitted light was not used upon exposure, and was wasted. And, there were also difficulties on points such as the optical components wearing out and power consumption.
With the current exposure apparatus, other than the exposure amount control performance in accordance with the difference of the resist sensibility in each wafer (hereinafter referred to as the "first exposure amount control performance" as appropriate), the exposure amount control performance to correct the process variation of each shot area (chip) on the same wafer (hereinafter referred to as the "second exposure amount control performance" as appropriate) is required. Also, in the case of the scanning stepper, the exposure amount control performance to achieve line width uniformity within the shot area (hereinafter referred to as the "third exposure amount control performance" as appropriate) is further required.
With the current exposure apparatus, as the second exposure amount control performance referred to above, the dynamic range is required to be around ±10% of the exposure amount set, the exposure amount is required to be controlled within about 100 ms, which is the stepping time in between shots, to a value set, and the control accuracy is required to be around ±1% of the exposure amount set.
And, as the third exposure amount control performance referred to above, the control accuracy is required to be set at ±0.2% of the exposure amount set within 20 ms, which is the typical exposure time on one shot area, with the control velocity around 1 ms.
Accordingly, as the light source of the exposure apparatus, in order to achieve the first to third exposure amount control performance described above, the advent of a light source unit that can perform control corresponding to necessary requirements for control is highly expected. Control corresponding to necessary requirements for control, here, refers to functions such as (a) dynamic range of control, (b) control accuracy, (c) control velocity, (d) degree of linearity between the detected light intensity and the control amount, and (e) energy saving functions for the purpose of power-saving.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the situation described above, and has as its first object to provide a light source unit that can perform light amount control corresponding to necessary requirements for control described above.
It is the second object of the present invention to provide a light source unit that can maintain the center wavelength of the laser beam at a predetermined set wavelength without fail.
It is the third object of the present invention to provide a light source unit with a simple arrangement that can generate a predetermined light while controlling the polarized state.
It is the fourth object of the present invention to provide a wavelength stabilizing control method that can maintain the center wavelength of the laser beam at a predetermined set wavelength without fail.
It is the fifth object of the present invention to provide an exposure apparatus that can easily achieve the exposure amount control required.
It is the sixth object of the present invention to provide an exposure apparatus that can perform exposure with high precision without being affected by the temperature change and the like in the atmosphere.
It is the seventh object of the present invention to provide an exposure apparatus that can perform exposure with sufficient accuracy regardless of the change in sensitivity properties of the photosensitive agent.
It is the eighth object of the present invention to provide an exposure apparatus that can efficiently transfer a predetermined pattern onto a substrate.
It is the ninth object of the present invention to provide an exposure method that can easily achieve the exposure amount control required.
It is the tenth object of the present invention to provide an exposure method that can perform exposure with high precision without being affected by the temperature change and the like in the atmosphere.
And, it is the eleventh object of the present invention to provide a device manufacturing method that can improve the productivity of the micro device with high integration.

Light source unit and wavelength stabilizing control method, exposure apparatus and exposure method, method of making exposure apparatus, and device manufacturing method and device


The forward and lateral tracking system contains a moving carrier and a remote control device. The moving carrier contains a front frame, a first lateral frame, a second lateral frame, and at least a driving unit. The front frame has a first IR (infra-red) receiver and a second IR receiver for detecting left and right movement, and a first supersonic detector for detecting forward distance. The first lateral frame has a second supersonic detector and a third supersonic detector for detecting left and right movement, and a third IR receiver. The second lateral frame has a fourth supersonic detector and a fifth supersonic detector for detecting left and right movement, and a fourth IR receiver. The remote control device contains at least an IR transmitter signally linked to the IR receivers.

(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to automatic control systems, and more particular to a forward and lateral tracking system and a related method where a moving carrier follows a user at a constant distance behind as the user moves or turns.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Automatic carriers that can follow people to move around have already been developed. These automatic carriers usually employ a supersonic detector to detect distance so as to maintain a constant distance as the carriers follow the users. For these automatic carriers, the users usually can only move straight ahead. If the users turn left or right, the automatic carriers usually cannot respond in time and as such fail to follow up.

Forward and lateral tracking system and control method thereof


An annular bulkhead for separating the inner and outer generally coaxial pipes of a double walled pipe structure wherein the bulkhead is in the form of an annular resilient member dimensioned to fit, in use, the annular space between the pipes, wherein the annular resilient member is supported on each axial side thereof by means of at least partial annular rigid rings divided into separate segments and secured together through the resilient annular member.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to annular separators for double walled pipe structures.
2. Description of Related Art
It has been proposed for transporting oil and/or gas from off-shore oil wells, to provide a pipeline formed of double walled pipes constructed from an outer and inner pipe of a generally coaxial disposition, the inner pipe being arranged to carry the oil or gas, which will usually be at an elevated temperature relative to ambient conditions, the inner and outer pipes being held apart by separators or bulkheads acting as seals between lengths of the annular space between the pipes, and the annular space between the inner pipe and the outer pipe being filled with hollow microspheres of alumino-silicate, for example, whereby thermally to insulate the oil or gas contained within the inner pipe, increase the strength of the structure and in certain circumstances enable the pipeline structure to float on the water surface. A pipeline formed of such inner and outer pipes can, with appropriate bulkheads between the two along their length, and interconnection to successive pipes by welding for example, act as a single compliant structure capable of being handled as a single pipe.
It has been proposed to use as such bulkheads an annular ring of rubber or similar resilient material of generally rectangular cross-section sandwiched between two supporting steel rings one on each side bolted together through the rubber.
One problem with such a structure is that when the pipeline is bent, such as when it is coiled on to a drum for carriage purposes, it deforms somewhat into an oval section, and the bulkheads can form distortions in the slightly oval bent or coiled pipe structure because of resistance to the oval deformation of the pipe structure.

Annular separators for double walled pipe structures


An all-digital phase-locked loop (ADPLL) includes: a digital phase frequency detector (PFD) for generating a detection signal by detecting frequency difference and phase difference between a reference signal and a feedback signal; a digital phase difference counter coupled to the digital PFD for sampling the detection signal according to an oscillator signal to thereby generate a count value; a digital filter coupled to the digital phase difference counter for generating a control signal according to the count value; a digital controlled oscillator (DCO) coupled to the digital filter for generating the oscillator signal according to the control signal; and a frequency divider coupled to the DCO and the digital PFD for generating the feedback signal by dividing the oscillator signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an all-digital phase-locked loop, and more particularly, to an all-digital phase-locked loop in a frequency synthesizer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Phase-locked loop (PLL) can be used for clock/data recovery, frequency or phase modulation/demodulation, and generating clocks having stable frequency. In general, a conventional PLL is usually implemented as an analog PLL that comprises a phase frequency detector (PFD) for detecting phase and frequency of signals and a loop filter for adjusting the operation of a VCO according to the detection result of the PFD.
Passive components of an analog PLL are easily affected by noise such that undesirable effects may be caused. Therefore, it is more and more popular to utilize digital architecture to implement PLLs. Additionally, processing digital signals is often easier than processing analog signals. However, some components of a conventional digital PLL, such as a digital loop filter and a digital controlled oscillator (DCO), requires an external high frequency signal as the working clock. This requirement not only increases the implementation cost but also limits the performance of the system using the conventional digital PLL due to the source of the external high frequency signal.