In an exhaust gas turbine for a turbocharger with a spiral housing consisting of sheet metal surrounding a guide vane structure and having a tangential inlet funnel and an outer shell which also consists of sheet metal and surrounds the spiral housing with an air gap, the spiral housing and the outer shell are pot-shaped and the ends adjacent the guide vane structure are delimited by parts of the guide vane structure, the spiral housing being connected to these parts by means of at least one axially flexible element.

The invention relates to an exhaust gas turbine for a turbocharger having a spiral housing consisting of sheet metal.
An exhaust gas turbine for a turbocharger in which a spiral housing made from sheet metal is both fixedly connected to a contoured casing and clamped to a central bearing housing of the turbine via an intermediate ring by means of a clamping strip is known from WO 02/06637. According to one version of the exhaust gas turbine the intermediate ring can be designed integrally with the contoured casing or form a separate component. The spiral housing is composed of two sheet metal shells, of which one forms the spiral duct wall which faces the flow guide vane structure, while the other shell forms the outer spiral duct wall. The outer duct wall can be surrounded by another shell with an air gap for thermal insulation purposes. The spiral housing is of complicated design and is therefore complex in terms of manufacture and assembly. Furthermore, it is of considerable weight and in particular does not allow equalization of different thermal expansions of the individual housing parts relative to one another without considerable thermal stresses. Such thermal expansions can lead to malfunctions and result in premature wear. The adjusting mechanism for the guide vanes, a bearing ring for the guide vanes, the contoured casing and the guide vanes themselves can form a modular unit which can be preassembled.
A turbine housing for a turbocharger in which the spiral housing is of double-walled design is known from DE 100 22 052 A1. The inner wall which forms the spiral duct is attached by means of an inlet funnel, which opens tangentially into the spiral housing, to an inlet flange. The outer wall is welded to the inlet flange, while the inner wall has a sliding seat with respect to the outer wall and the inlet flange with a sliding seat, so that thermal expansions in the direction of the inlet funnel between the inner and outer wall do not generate thermal stresses. However, as a matter of principle, no equalization of the inner and outer wall of the spiral housing is provided in the axial direction of the exhaust gas turbine, so that, in the event of high temperature differences between the inner and outer shells in particular, durability can no longer be ensured on account of intense stresses.
It is the object of the present invention to provide an exhaust gas turbine having a two-shell turbine housing consisting of sheet metal parts which are simple and light and generate the smallest possible stresses under thermal influence.

Exhaust gas turbine for an exhaust gas turbocharger


A CPU in a one-chip microcomputer executes a control operation in accordance with program data stored in part of a flash memory capable of erasing/writing data in each memory block defined in the flash memory. A write controller writes data in a specific block in the flash memory. A plurality of adjustment values for correcting variations between products which the system is to be used are written in a specific block of the flash memory after the adjustment values are determined. A control program for rewriting data stored in the flash memory is written before the one-chip microcomputer is incorporated in the system. After the one-chip microcomputer is incorporated in the system, data is written in the flash memory through the write controller. In addition, the circuit configuration of the system is stored in part of the flash memory. When a program stored in the flash memory of the system is upgraded, an upgrading program is selected on the basis of the circuit configuration is written in the flash memory by the write controller.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a one-chip microcomputer built-in system and, more particularly, to a one-chip microcomputer built-in system which uses a microcomputer incorporating a flash memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional flash memories have been described in detail in, for example, "Nikkei Microdevices" (Special report "Ready for magnetic disk replacement for flash DRAM, May 1992, pp. 25-62).
A technique associated with a one-chip microcomputer (to be abbreviated as a 1-.mu.COM hereinafter) incorporating a flash memory as a programming memory has already been presented by Hitachi as "H8/538F", and a technique for incorporating a flash memory in a 1-.mu.COM has already been known.
The "H8/538F" also has a write controller for rewriting the contents of the flash memory by a program. Additionally, a program is likely to be written in the flash memory in the microcomputer mounted in a product.
On the other hand, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 4-291489 discloses a technique in which a loader program ROM is incorporated in addition to a flash memory, and using a ROM program, a main control program is stored in the flash memory through a data communication device.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,423,934 discloses a technique in which a product is operated in predetermined conditions using a standard program, and a deviation from a standard value is obtained as a custom constant. Each product is programmed using this custom constant.
However, to rewrite the contents of a flash memory in a 1-.mu.COM mounted in the product, a hardware write controller is required to rewrite the flash memory by program control.
In addition, although the above-described Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 4-291489 discloses a technique in which data is sequentially written in blocks of the flash memory, no technique for rewriting only a specific block is disclosed. No technique for writing an adjustment value for variations between products in the flash memory is disclosed.
According to the technique disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,423,934, it is necessary to remove the emulator from a camera after programming and mount a programmed 1.mu.-COM (PROM) on the camera.
Furthermore, in the technique disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 4-291489, a program cannot be rewritten without a loader programming ROM after a 1-.mu.COM is mounted in a product.
On the other hand, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 4-170797 discloses a technique which allows to upgrade a program by using a 1-.mu.COM incorporating a flash memory while it is mounted in a product.
However, to rewrite the contents of the flash memory in the microcomputer while the 1-.mu.COM is mounted in a product, a hardware write controller is required to rewrite the flash memory by program control.
The above-mentioned Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 4-170797 describes an updated circuit in a product. Although the upgraded circuit needs an appropriately upgraded program, there is no description of an upgraded program at all.


A voice communication device such as an earpiece that provides for ultra short range transmission of voice sound information using ultra wide band (UWB) radio communications is disclosed. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a voice communication device includes a speaker, a bone conduction sensor for sensing voice sound vibrations, and an UWB transceiver operatively connected to the speaker and the bone conduction sensor. According to another embodiment of the present invention, a voice communication device is disclosed that includes an earpiece housing, a speaker operatively connected to the earpiece housing for transducing audio, an air conduction sensor operatively connected to the housing for sensing voice sound information, a processor electrically connected to the speaker and the bone conduction sensor and disposed within the earpiece housing, and an UWB transceiver operatively connected to the processor.

The present invention relates to a voice communication device using ultra wide band (UWB) technology. More particularly, but not exclusively, the present invention relates to the use of UWB in a two-way communications earpiece.
There has been great interest in providing improved handsfree earpieces. Various problems have arisen in different contexts regarding such earpieces. For example, one context where an improved handsfree earpiece is desired is for use in conjunction with cellular telephones. Using a handsfree earpiece not only frees the user's hands, but also allows the cellular telephone to be used without pressing the cellular telephone against the side of the head. The electromagnetic radiation of a cellular telephone is thought to be associated with certain health risks that can be reduced by moving the cellular telephone away from the head region and using an earpiece instead.
Other problems regarding cellular phones relate to the quality of the voice sound information. These same problems are also prevalent in voice recognition applications as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,492, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Therefore, it is a primary object, feature or advantage of the present invention to improve upon the state of the art.
It is a further object, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a wireless voice communication device that reduces electromagnetic radiation.
Another object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is to provide a voice communication device that provides for improved sensing of voice sound information.
Yet another object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is to provide a voice communication device that requires very low power.
These and/or other objects, features or advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the specification and claims.


A deployment orchestrator for managing deployment of a solution architecture includes persistent storage that stores a deployment plan and a deployment manager that orchestrates display, to a user of a user device of the solution architecture, of a graphical user interface (GUI) based on the deployment plan; obtains a task completion indicator for a task specified by the deployment plan via the graphical user interface; updates, based on the task completion indicator, at least one of a task GUI element of the GUI that is associated with the task and a relationship indicator of the GUI that is associated with the task to obtain an updated GUI; after updating the GUI: performs an automated validation task associated with the task; and makes a determination, based on the automated validation task, that the task is completed; and updates the updated GUI, based on the determination, to obtain a second updated GUI.

Computing devices may provide services to other computing devices. For example, a computing device hosting application such as a website server may provide services to other computing devices by serving webpages to the other computing devices. The computing devices may be connected by operable connections such as, for example, the Internet. The computing devices may host any number of applications. Each of applications may provide different types, or the same types, of services. Configuration of the devices is typically a manual error-prone process.

System and method to assign, monitor, and validate solution infrastructure deployment prerequisites in a customer data center


A machine for manufacturing tires (P) using at least one core (N) used as a reference surface of the manufacture of the tires (P) by moving consecutively from one manufacturing station to another from the start of assembly through to vulcanisation, comprising a first line of stations, oriented in a horizontal direction XX′, capable of receiving the core whose axis of rotation rr′ is oriented horizontally, and a second line of stations (200, 300, 300′), oriented in a horizontal direction YY′, perpendicular to the direction XX′, in which the stations are capable of receiving a core (N) whose axis rr′ is oriented vertically. The first line of stations comprises a first (120) and a second (130) station for assembling the tire including member (121, 131) for grasping and driving the core (N) in rotation about a horizontal axis rr′, merged with the axis XX′, such members being placed opposite one another. A turning device (110) is movable in the direction XX′ and is capable of transferring the core from one station to another within the first line of stations (120, 130) by making the axis rr′ of the core effect a translation along the axis XX′ and a rotation of 180° about a horizontal axis yy′ parallel to the direction YY′.

A process and machine for the manufacture of tires are known from the prior art, such as described in the patent EP 0 666 165 B1, wherein the arrangement of the manufacturing stations is simplified, and wherein the entirety of devices for carrying out the assembly and vulcanisation stages is concentrated on one chassis acting as a single platform intended to receive the mechanical elements of the machine.
This manufacturing process uses a rigid core which may be dismantled and which partially imposes its shape on the tire. The core is formed of plural elements which are separable from one another and which form, once assembled, a stable surface of revolution used for manufacturing a tire, from assembly where it acts as a reference surface for the application of various components, through to vulcanisation where it forms the mould of the internal portion of the tire. When it is assembled, the core can be grasped by each of the faces of its central portion, forming a rim, so as to be transferred from one station to another.
The first manufacturing stage includes assembling the elements of the core and positioning this in a station for assembling the components of the tire. The assembly stage includes depositing all the components of the tire consecutively on the core in a specified order of assembly. The whole is then transferred to a station in which the external moulding elements complement the core and is inserted into a vulcanisation chamber. Finally, after the stage of vulcanisation, the external mould and the core are removed from the tire and the elements of the core are cooled and re-assembled for the next cycle.
The transfer of the core from one station to another is ensued by carriages circulating on the chassis on which are fixed the assembly station, the vulcanisation station which is able to cure one or more tires simultaneously, the station for dismantling and re-assembling the core and the cooling station.
The highly compact nature of the machine elements, combined with extremely rapid cycle times makes it possible to have a high-performance process which is fully adapted to forming certain types of small-dimension tires.
The need to manufacture very complex or large-dimension tires is continuously growing in order to satisfy the fitting of modern vehicles whose requirements in terms of speed, strength and safety is increasing all the time. Moreover, it is difficult to respond to the evolution of market requirements by simply revising the dimensioning of the elements of the machine as described in the specification cited by way of reference.
In particular, the increase in number of components of a different kind and the increase in diameter of the cores in combination with the increase in diameter of the tires lead to a thorough modification of the machine cycles, in particular at the assembly station, which may bring about a tangible loss in productivity.

Machine for assembling and vulcanising tires


A mast includes two support columns each having nonuniform strength in a height direction. Both of upper and lower end portions of the mast have the highest strength, intermediate portions of the mast have the intermediate strength, and shoulder portions of the mast, between the central portion and both of the upper and the lower end portions, have the lowest strength.

Japanese Utility Model Patent Publication No. 6-67412 discloses a technique of reducing the strength of a mast of a stacker crane from a lower position to an upper position. The inventors studied to achieve weight reduction of the stacker crane, and to realize structure which makes it possible to reduce the weight while supporting the horizontal stress applied to the mast. As a result, the inventors arrived at the present invention.
An object of the present invention is to reduce the weight of a mast of a stacker crane.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a guide for elevation and lowering of an elevation frame using a mast formed by joining parts having different cross sections.
According to the present invention, a stacker crane includes lower and upper vehicles each having a travel motor, and a mast having nonuniform strength along a height direction. The mast is provided between the lower vehicle and the upper vehicle. The mast includes upper and lower end portions, and a central portion.
The central portion of the mast has low strength in comparison with both of the upper and lower end portions of the mast.
Preferably, the nonuniform strength of the mast is determined as:
the upper and lower end portions>the central portion in the height direction>an intermediate portion between the lower end portion and the central portion, and an intermediate portion between the upper end portion and the central portion.
Further, preferably, a surface of the mast facing an elevation frame from the lower end portion to the upper end portion is placed on a same plane, and at least the intermediate portions are made up of a plurality of hollow pipes to place both side surfaces of the mast from the lower end portion to the upper end portion, as viewed from the elevation frame, on the same planes, respectively.
In the present invention, a stacker crane includes lower and upper vehicles each having a travel motor, and a mast having nonuniform strength along a height direction. The mast is provided between the lower vehicle and the upper vehicle. The mast includes upper and lower end portions, and a central portion.
The central portion of the mast is formed to have low strength in comparison with both of the upper and lower end portions of the mast. In this manner, the weight of the mast is reduced.
In the present invention, the mast has the nonuniform strength in the height direction in correspondence with the stress distribution applied to the mast. In this structure, weight reduction of the mast is achieved, and the stacker crane can travel at high speed easily. Further, in the case where the surface of the mast facing the elevation frame is placed on the same plane from the lower end portion to the upper end portion, while the strength of the mast changes in the height direction, the elevation frame can be guided easily. Further, in the case where the narrow intermediate portions of the mast are made up of a plurality of hollow pipes, both side surfaces of the mast are aligned on the same planes from lower end portion to the upper end portion, respectively, to guide the elevation frame along the side surfaces of the mast easily.

Stacker crane and weight reduction method for mast of the stacker crane


An address buffer (20) provides an ATD pulse in response to an address signal transitioning from one logic state to another. The address buffer (20) includes a differential amplifier (22), an emitter-follower transistor (35), and two P-channel transistors (36 and 37). A first current electrode of each of the P-channel transistors is connected to the output nodes (101 and 102) of the differential amplifier (22), and a second current electrode of each of the P-channel transistors (36 and 37) is connected to the base of the emitter-follower transistor (35). Delayed control signals are provided to the gates of the P-channel transistors (36 and 37) by a level converter circuit (60) to cause an ATD pulse to be provided at the emitter of the emitter-follower transistor (35). Generating the ATD pulse in the address buffer allows the ATD pulse to be produced very quickly.

Integrated circuit memories, such as static random access memories (SRAMs) require increasingly short access times. SRAMs are often used in the portion of a processing system where speed is very important, such as in a cache memory for a microprocessor. Address transition detection is one method that has been used to decrease access times by allowing a memory access to begin as soon as a change in the address is detected. ATD decreases memory access times, and also may reduce power consumption, by providing both preconditioning signals and activation signals in the memory. ATD is generally used in a memory to provide data line precharge and equalization signals. In addition, ATD may be used for word line driving, bit line driving, data line sensing, and for data outputting.
In a memory using ATD, an address transition detector provides a pulse in response to an address change. It is typical to have a separate address transition detector for each address signal for which transitions are to be detected. For example, if a transition of the row address is to be detected, then an address transition detector is commonly used for each row address signal. The output pulses of these detectors are then summed to provide a single pulse. In this example, a single pulse is provided when a change in any row address signal is detected.
The access time of a memory using ATD is often related to the time it takes to generate an ATD pulse after an address change. The more rapidly an ATD pulse can be generated, the earlier a memory using ATD can be accessed, thus increasing the speed of the memory.


A system is disclosed that determines a spatial position of a tracker device relative to an object sending a return signal to the tracker. Such a system advantageously maintains phase accuracy between a forward signal from the tracker device and the return signal from the object. The system can include, as part of a tracker device, a reference signal generator, a transmitter, a receiver, and a spatial position computer. The reference signal generator is responsive to and phase-stabilized by a broadcast signal, e.g., a signal received from a commercial AM broadcast transmitter. The transmitter and receiver are both coupled to and phase-stabilized by the tracker reference signal generator. Variations and methods with different advantageous features are also described.

The problem of determining the spatial position of objects is an ancient one. Perhaps the simplest and oldest known solution is to pace off a distance to a visible object by walking toward it along a straight path. More accurate and recent techniques include triangulating the location of a hidden object based on estimated distances or azimuthal angles to the object.
Measurement of azimuthal angle to a given object tends to be less accurate than measurement of distance to that object. Extremely precise instruments have been developed for distance measurement. For example, an optical instrument disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,430,537 to Liessner et al. purports to have accuracy around the 1–10 micron resolution of light wavelengths. This instrument is based on phase changes between a light beam sent to a passive reflector and another light beam returned from the reflector.
Less precise instruments for phase-based distance measurement can provide benefits in particular applications. For example, R. S. Trenam, "Automatic Animal Tracking on a Limited Budget," in The Collection and Processing of Field Data (1967) (pp. 273–82), discloses tracking of sheep to 20-yard accuracy using RF phase measurements.
In any system relying on phase differences between forward and return signals, frequency stability of the signals is critical to maintaining accuracy of distance measurement. Slight frequency deviations in the forward and return signals can cause significant phase deviations, especially when the distance to be measured includes a large number of wavelengths. Such phase deviations interfere with those expected from changes in distance and can significantly degrade accuracy.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Accelerating processing of a non-sequential instruction stream on a processor with multiple compute units by broadcasting to a plurality of compute units a generic instruction stream derived from a sequence of instructions; the generic instruction stream including an index section and a compute section; applying the index section to localized data stored in each compute unit to select one of a plurality of stored local parameter sets; and applying in each compute unit the selected set of parameters to the local data according to the compute section to produce each compute unit's localized solution to the generic instruction.

Video compression involves encoding/decoding of pixel information in 16×16 pixels macroblocks. The new emerging standards like (MPEG4, H.264, and Windows Media) provide a flexible tiling structure in a macroblock. It allows the use of 16×16, 16×8, 8×16, 8×8, 8×4, 4×8, and 4×4 sub-macroblock sizes. A filter (de-blocking filter) is applied to every decoded macroblock edge to reduce blocking distortion resulting from the prediction and residual difference coding stages of the decoding process. The filter is applied on both 4×4 block and 16×16 macroblock boundaries, in which three pixels on either side of the boundary may be updated using a five-tap filter. The filter coefficients or "strength" are governed by a content adaptive non-linear filtering scheme. This is done in a number of ways. Windows Media Video decoder (wmv) uses one protocol involving the boundary strength across block boundaries. H.264 or MPEG-4 part 10 uses pixel gradient across block boundaries.
In H.264 the de-blocking filter is applied after the inverse transform in the encoder (before reconstructing and storing the macroblock for future predictions) and in the decoder (before reconstructing and displaying the macroblock). The filter has two benefits: block edges are smoothed, improving the appearance of decoded images (particularly at higher compression ratios). And in the encoder the filtered macroblock is used for motion-compensated prediction of further frames, resulting in a smaller residual after prediction.
Three levels of adaptive filtering (slice, edge, and sample) are applied to vertical or horizontal edges of 4×4 sub-macroblocks in a macroblock, in the following order vertical first and then horizontal. Each filtering operation affects up to three pixels on either side of the boundary. In 4×4 pixel sub-macroblocks there are 4 pixels on either side of a vertical or horizontal boundary in adjacent blocks p and q (p0,p1,p2,p3 and q0,q1,q2,q3). Depending on the coding modes of neighboring blocks and the gradient of image samples across the boundary, several outcomes are possible, ranging from (a) no pixels are filtered to (b) p0, p1, p2, q0, q1, q2 are filtered to produce output pixels P0, P1, P2, Q0, Q1 and Q2.
The choice of filtering outcome depends on the boundary block strength (edge level) parameter and on the gradient of image samples across the boundary (sample level). The boundary strength parameter Bs is chosen according to the following rules:
p or q is (intra coded andBs = 4P0, P1, P2,boundary is a macroblock(strongestQ0, Q1, Q2boundary)filtering)p or q is intra coded andBs = 3P0, P1,boundary is not a macroblockQ0, Q1boundaryneither p or q is intra coded;Bs = 2P0, P1,p or q contain codedQ0, Q1coefficientsneither p or q is intra coded;Bs = 1P0, P1,neither p or q contain codedQ0, Q1coefficients; p and q havedifferent reference frames or adifferent number of referenceframes or different motionvector valuesneither p or q is intra coded;Bs = 0neither p or q contain coded(no filtering)coefficients; p and q have samereference frame andidentical motion vectors
The filter is "stronger" at places where there is likely to be significant blocking distortion, such as the boundary of an intra coded macroblock or a boundary between blocks that contain coded coefficients.
The filter sample level decision (ap==[1,0] for the left side of the filter, and aq==[1,0] for the right side of the filter) depends on the pixel gradient across block boundaries. The purpose of that decision is to "switch off" the filter when there is a significant change (gradient) across the block boundary or to filter very strongly when there is a very small change (gradient) across the block boundary which is likely to be due to image blocking effect. For example, if the pixel gradient across an edge is below a certain slice threshold (ap/aq=1) then a five tap filter (a strong filter) is applied to filter P0, if not (ap/aq=0) then a three tap filter (a weak filter) is applied. In slow single compute unit processors the selection between which of the filters to apply is done using If/else, jump instructions. The sequencer must jump over the second filter instruction stream if the first one is selected or jump over the first one if the second one is selected. These jump (If/else) instructions are acceptable in slower single compute unit processors but not in fast (deep pipelined) single compute unit processors and/or multi-compute unit processors such as a single instruction multiple data (SIMD) processors.
Since an SIMD processor can solve similar problems in parallel on different sets of local data it can be characterized as n times faster than a single compute unit processor where n is the number of compute units in the SIMD. However, this benefit only is available for sequential types of problems such as FIR, FFT, and DTC, IDCT, etc. The need for SIMD type processing for non-sequential instruction streams is increasing as image size increases.
However, in such multiple compute unit processors where a single sequencer broadcasts a single instruction stream which drives each of the compute units on different local data sets, e.g. the pixel gradient at block boundaries, the conduct of each compute unit may be different, jump/not jump; and to where—depending upon the effect of the common instruction on the individualized local data, and the sequencer cannot take a decision if to jump/not jump that satisfies all the compute units. Therefore, the high speed and efficiency of SIMD processors has not been applied to the family of non-sequential instructions e.g. conditional (if/else, jump) type of problems.

Method and apparatus for accelerating processing of a non-sequential instruction stream on a processor with multiple compute units


Salts of tetrathiocarbonic acid are produced by a process in which a hydroxide, sulfur, carbon disulfide and hydrogen sulfide are reacted continuously. The salts are produced as aqueous solutions having concentrations of about 15 to about 55 percent by weight.

The chemistry of thiocarbonic acids and their salts has been studied in some detail, as indicated by O'Donoghue and Kahan, Journal of the Chemical Society, Vol. 89(II), pages 1812-1818 (1906); Yeoman, Journal of the Chemical Society, Vol. 119, pages 38-54 (1921); Mills and Robinson, Journal of the Chemical Society, Vol. 128(II), pages 2326-2332 (1928) and by Stone et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 2,893,835, dated Jul. 7, 1959.
According to O'Donoghue and Kahan, as far back as 1826 derivatives of thiocarbonic acid were prepared by Berzelius, who reacted aqueous solutions of hydrosulfides with carbon disulfide to give unstable solutions which yielded unstable crystalline salts in accordance with the following reaction: EQU 2KSH+CS.sub.2 =>K.sub.2 CS.sub.3 +H.sub.2 S (1)
Other thiocarbonates were prepared and further characterized by O'Donoghue and Kahan. Their paper, at page 1818, reports the formation of ammonium thiocarbonate by reacting liquid ammonia with cold alcoholic thiocarbonic acid prepared by dropping a solution of calcium thiocarbonate into concentrated hydrochloric acid to produce free thiocarbonic acid (H.sub.2 CS.sub.3). The calcium thiocarbonate utilized by the authors is described as a double salt, including the calcium cation in combination with both the hydroxide and the trithiocarbonate anions. In addition to free thiocarbonic acid, other compounds prepared by O'Donoghue and Kahan included the sodium, potassium, zinc and lead salts. However, regardless of which of these salts were prepared, a common characteristic was their relative instability, with the prepared compounds breaking down and releasing carbon disulfide and hydrogen sulfide and/or a metal sulfide, often in a matter of minutes.
The noted paper by Yeoman reports a further study of thiocarbonates (called trithiocarbonates therein) and also reports the preparation and properties of perthiocarbonates (or tetrathiocarbonates), derivatives of tetrathiocarbonic acid (H.sub.2 CS.sub.4). Yeoman reports on methods of preparing the ammonium, alkali metal and alkaline earth metal salts of these acid species. For example, Yeoman prepared ammonium trithiocarbonate by saturating an alcoholic ammonia solution with hydrogen sulfide and then adding carbon disulfide to precipitate the product salt. Ammonium perthiocarbonate was prepared in a similar manner, except that after reacting the ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, elemental sulfur was added to form the disulfide, (NH.sub.4).sub.2 S.sub.2 ; adding carbon disulfide immediately precipitated the product.
Yeoman states that solutions of both ammonium trithiocarbonate and perthiocarbonate are very unstable due both to decomposition to form thiocyanate as a product, and to complete dissociation back into ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide.
Considerable explanation is provided concerning the stability of thiocarbonates, as exemplified by sodium trithiocarbonate and perthiocarbonate. Sodium trithiocarbonate solutions in water are said to remain stable only if oxygen and carbon dioxide are rigidly excluded; the presence of oxygen causes decomposition to form carbon disulfide and thiosulfates, while carbon dioxide decomposes the solution to form a carbonate, elemental sulfur, carbon disulfide and hydrogen sulfide. Potassium trithiocarbonate behaves similarly, according to Yeoman.
Yeoman also attempted to prepare and characterize the stability of thiocarbonate salts of four of the alkaline earth metals. Yeoman was unable to prepare a pure calcium tri- or tetrathiocarbonate, but did observe that the double salt of calcium trithiocarbonate which he prepared was more stable (probably because it was less hygroscopic) than the sodium or potassium thiocarbonates. The barium salt of tetrathiocarbonic acid could not be isolated, although Yeoman believed it existed in solution. Solid barium trithiocarbonate could not be isolated, although it was alleged to behave like sodium trithiocarbonate when dissolved in water. The preparation of aqueous solutions of the tri- and tetrathiocarbonates of magnesium and strontium was alleged, but the magnesium thiocarbonates were not isolated.
The previously noted paper by Mills and Robinson shows the preparation of ammonium thiocarbonate by digesting ammonium pentasulfide with carbon disulfide. The ammonium pentasulfide was obtained by suspending sulfur in aqueous ammonia, then saturating with hydrogen sulfide. A crystalline residue from the reaction was found to be ammonium perthiocarbonate. The authors prepared a "better" ammonium perthiocarbonate product, however, by extracting the ammonium pentasulfide with carbon disulfide in a Soxhlet apparatus.
Stone et al. disclose several methods for preparing solid ammonium, alkali and alkaline earth metal salts of tri- and tetraperoxythiocarbonates, hereinafter referred to simply as "tetrathiocarbonates." One such method involves the solution of an active metal such as sodium in anhydrous ethanol to form an ethoxide which, in turn, is reacted with hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide to form sodium trithiocarbonate. They report, however, that the trithiocarbonates tend to be quite soluble in ethanol, and if it is desired to recover the solid material from the solution, it is necessary to treat the reaction mixture with a "displacing agent" such as ether, in which case the thiocarbonates frequently separate, not as solids, but as difficultly crystallizable oils which appear to be saturated aqueous solutions of the trithiocarbonate salt. Consequently, such a procedure is not considered feasible for use on a commercial scale. Similar problems were reported with tetrathiocarbonate salts, which were prepared using procedures analogous to those for the trithiocarbonates.
These problems were reportedly solved by carrying out the preparation reaction in a medium which is composed of a major part of a nonsolvent for the reaction components and a minor proportion of a liquid which is miscible with the nonsolvent and which is a solvent, to a measurable degree, for inorganic sulfides. The preferred nonsolvents used were relatively low boiling hydrocarbon materials such as hexane, cyclohexane and benzene. The second solvent was preferably ethanol, isopropanol or dioxane.
Basic physical and chemical properties of these materials and a number of methods for making them are summarized in considerable detail, starting at page 154 in "Carbon Sulfides and their Inorganic and Complex Chemistry" by G. Gattow and W. Behrendt, Volume 2 of "Topics in Sulfur Chemistry", A. Senning, Editor, George Thieme Publishers, Stuttgart, 1977.
What is needed is a process for the manufacture of salts of tetrathiocarbonic acid which is convenient and less cumbersome than the processes previously used. Such process should be capable of providing aqueous solutions of tetrathiocarbonates on a continuous basis and on a commercial scale. The present invention provides such a process.


A coloring material color separating section 101 separates an input image into ink colors of a printer referring to an LUT which is registered in the printer as initial values and used for color separation of coloring materials. A total coloring material amount calculating section 102 calculates total amounts of coloring materials equal to amounts of component coloring materials to be used of each pixel from the data passing through the ink color separation, and obtains the maximum value of them. A total coloring material amount adjusting section 103 readjusts the total amounts of the coloring materials of all the pixels such that they become equal to the maximum amount of the coloring materials using the total amount of the coloring materials of the pixel at which the total amount of the coloring material becomes maximum.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing method, apparatus and program, and more particularly to an image processing method, apparatus and program for reproducing target colors by combining a plurality of coloring materials and a transparent material.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, to make color prints by printing or with a variety of printers, four coloring materials of Y (yellow), M (magenta), C (cyan) and K (black) are often used. A lot of lookup table (LUT) makeup methods have been proposed for representing, by coloring material colors, images which are generated by reproducing target colors by combining the four-color coloring materials from RGB color image data input from a scanner or acquired as the data. Likewise, a number of matrix calculating methods have been proposed.
For example, a method is proposed which determines by calculation the amount of the K (black) component to be used, one of the four coloring material components Y (yellow), M (magenta), C (cyan) and K (black), first, and then determines the amounts of the remaining three coloring materials, Y (yellow), M (magenta) and C (cyan) components, to be used (for example, see, Japanese patent application laid-open No. 6-242523 (1994)).
Although the method can achieve the target colors, it does not consider the amount of coloring materials used, which remain on a surface of a recording medium. In particular, when the pigment coloring materials are used, they have a characteristic that the coloring materials remain on printing paper in contrast to dye coloring materials. This results in unevenness of the total amounts of the coloring materials, the sum totals of the amounts of the coloring material components to be used, on the recording medium, thereby bringing about roughness on the printed surface. Such roughness on the surface has a problem of deteriorating the print image as a result of diffuse reflection of light on the surface. To counteract such a problem, a method is proposed which uses transparent toner for controlling glossiness of the image (for example, see, Japanese patent application laid-open No. 7-266614 (1995)).
However, an image processing method or an image processing apparatus has not been studied which limits the diffuse reflection of light in a thick-and-thin system using a thick-and-thin recording mediums. In addition, glossiness meeting user requirements has not been implemented.
The present invention is implemented to solve the foregoing problems. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an image processing method, apparatus and program capable of improving the image quality by suppressing the diffuse reflection of light in a thick-and-thin system. Another object of the present invention is to provide an image processing method and image processing apparatus capable of achieving the glossiness meeting the user requirements.

Image processing method, apparatus and program product


A method of leveling a machine on a support surface includes supporting the machine on the support surface, the machine including multiple load-bearing supports, and inserting a stack of support plates underneath a load-bearing support of the multiple load-bearing supports, the stack of support plates having an area and a strength that are sufficient to support the machine. The stack of support plates includes a first plate that includes multiple projections that extend outward from a bottom surface of the first plate and a second plate that includes multiple recesses that extend inward from a top surface of the second plate, the multiple recesses being sized to receive the multiple projections, respectively, and multiple grooves disposed along respective edges of the top surface. When the first plate is stacked adjacent the second plate, the first and second plates bear against each other to support a load of the machine.

Certain industrial equipment, such as milling machines, need to maintain certain predetermined operating tolerances, oftentimes as small as fractions of millimeters. To achieve such precision, a milling machine should be positioned as level as possible on a machine shop floor, but typically, unevenness of machine shop floors make such leveling difficult. To compensate for uneven floors, metal shims referred to as "leveling plates" are selectively inserted as needed underneath one or more legs of a milling machine in order to level the machine.


An image forming apparatus includes a rotary shaft, a first image bearing member, a nip forming member, a moving device, and a restriction device. The first image bearing member bears a visible image on a surface thereof and is rotatable about the rotary shaft which is driven directly or indirectly. The nip forming member contacts the first image bearing member to form a transfer nip therebetween. The moving device is disposed on the rotary shaft and rotates to move the nip forming member to contact and separate from the first image bearing member. The restriction device inhibits rotation of the moving member in a state in which the nip forming member is separated from the first image bearing member by the rotation of the moving device.

1. Technical Field
Exemplary aspects of the present invention generally relate to an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, a facsimile, or a multi-functional system including a combination thereof, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus using an intermediate transfer member.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known an image forming apparatus equipped with an image bearing member bearing a visible image known as a toner image and a nip forming member that contacts the image bearing member to form a so-called a transfer nip therebetween. In the transfer nip, the toner image is transferred onto a recording medium. In such an image forming apparatus, in order to prevent deformation and contamination of the image bearing member and the nip forming member, the nip forming member is separated from the image bearing member in cases other than an image forming operation. The nip forming member contacts the image bearing member during the image forming operation.
For example, JP2010-019964-A proposes a moving device disposed coaxially on a rotary shaft of an image bearing member supported rotatably about the rotary shaft. The rotary shaft is rotatably driven by a first drive source, and the moving device is rotatably driven by a second drive source via a drive transmission device.
In such a configuration, parts employed in the drive transmission device have different tolerances and assembly variations. As a result, backlash or play in the direction of rotation may be generated. When a plurality of gears is employed as a drive transmission device, the gears contact at the upstream side (drive source side) in a drive transmission path and rotate. Accordingly, the moving device disposed at the end of a drive transmission path has backlash only in a forward direction in the direction of rotation.
Because the moving device and the image bearing member are disposed coaxially on the same rotary shaft, while the nip forming member and the image bearing member are separated and the rotary shaft rotates in the same direction as the direction of rotation of the moving device, the frictional force between the moving device and the rotary shaft or the rotary member supported by the rotary shaft causes the moving device to rotate by the amount of backlash. As long as a certain amount of space is secured between a transfer device and the image bearing member even after the moving device rotates by the amount of backlash, rotation of the moving device does not cause an adverse effect. However, when there is a significant amount of backlash, a sufficient amount of space may not be secured between the transfer device and the image bearing member.
In view of the above, there is thus an unsolved need for an image forming apparatus capable of preventing undesirable rotation of the moving device and hence securing reliably a space between the transfer device and the image bearing member.

Image forming apparatus with a restriction device that controls separate drive sources


Improved data transport and management within a network communication system may be achieved by utilizing a transmit timer incorporated within the sender device and exploiting host-level statistics for a plurality of connections between a sender and receiver. The period of the transmit timer may be periodically adjusted based on a ratio of the smoothed round-trip time and the smoothed congestion window, thereby reducing or eliminating bursty data transmission commonly associated with conventional TCP architectures. For applications having a plurality of connections between a sender and a receiver that share a common channel, such as web applications, the congestion window and smoothed round trip time estimates for all active connections may be used to initialize new connections and allocate bandwidth among existing connections. This aspect of the present invention may reduce the destructive interference that may occur as different connections compete with one another to maximize the bandwidth of each connection without regard to other connections serving the same application. Error recovery may also be improved by incorporating a short timer and a long timer that are configured to reduce the size of the congestion window and the corresponding transmission rate in response to a second packet loss with a predefined time period in order to increase resilience to random packet loss.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention generally relates to data communication protocols, and more particularly, to systems and methods for data transport acceleration and management within a network communication system.
2. Description of Related Art
Transport Control Protocol (TCP) has become a common end-to-end data transport protocol used in modern data communication networks. Communication networks employing a TCP architecture offer significant advantages in terms of connectivity by enabling applications and users deployed on different physical networks to communicate with one another using a common communications protocol. The recent increase in the number and diversity of applications, users and networking environments utilizing TCP architectures, however, has exposed many of the limitations associated with a single, ubiquitous design. Because these architectures were primarily intended to provide reliable, sequenced transmission of non-real-time data streams over relatively high bandwidth wireline channels, these TCP architectures tend to exhibit sub-optimal performance when employed in applications or networking environments having different or incompatible characteristics.
Many of the problems associated with conventional TCP architectures stem from the flow control, congestion control and error recovery mechanisms used to control transmission of data over a communication network. Typical TCP flow control mechanisms, for example, utilize an acknowledgement-based approach to control the number and timing of new packets transmitted over the communication network. In these implementations, a sender maintains a congestion window parameter that specifies the maximum number of unacknowledged packets that may be transmitted to the receiver. As the sender receives acknowledgement signals from the receiver, the congestion control mechanism increases the size of the congestion window (and decreases the number of unacknowledged packets), thereby enabling the flow control mechanism to immediately transmit additional packets to the receiver. The problem with this approach is that it assumes that the network employs symmetric communication channels that enable data packets and acknowledgements to be equally spaced in time. In communication networks, such as wireless communication networks, that employ asymmetric uplink and downlink channels, where the available bandwidth towards the receiver is significantly higher than the available bandwidth towards the sender, the receiver may be unable to access the uplink channel in order to transmit acknowledgement signals to the sender in a timely manner. This initial delay in the transmission of acknowledgement signals may cause the sender to suspend transmission of additional data packets until additional acknowledgement signals are received, and then transmit a large burst of packets in response to the sender receiving a large group of acknowledgement signals. This bursty nature of data transmission may under-utilize the available bandwidth on the downlink channel, and may cause some applications requiring a steady flow of data, such as audio or video, to experience unusually poor performance.
The congestion control and error recovery mechanisms typically employed in TCP architectures may also cause the communication network to exhibit sub-optimal performance. In conventional TCP implementations, the congestion control and error recovery mechanisms are used to adjust the size of the congestion window (and therefore the number of new packets that may be transmitted to the receiver) based on the current state of the congestion control and error recovery algorithm. In the initial "slow start" state, for example, the sender rapidly probes for bandwidth by increasing the size of the congestion window by one for each new acknowledgement received from the receiver until the congestion window exceeds a particular congestion window threshold. Once the congestion window exceeds the congestion window threshold, the algorithm enters a "congestion avoidance" state, where the congestion window is increased by one whenever a number of acknowledgment signals equal to the size of the current congestion window is received. If the sender receives a predetermined number of duplicate acknowledgements or a selective acknowledgment ("SACK") that indicate that a packet in the sequence has not been received, the algorithm enters a "fast retransmit" state in which the sender decreases the congestion window to a size equal to one half of the current congestion window plus three, and retransmits the lost packet. After the "fast retransmit" state, the algorithm enters a temporary "fast recovery" state that increments the congestion window by one for each duplicate acknowledgement received from the receiver. If an acknowledgement for the lost packet is received before a retransmit timeout occurs (which is typically based on the average and mean deviation of round-trip time samples), the algorithm transitions to the "congestion avoidance" state. On the other hand, if an acknowledgement for the lost packet is not received before a retransmit timeout occurs, the sender resets the congestion window to one, retransmits the lost packet and transitions to the "slow start" state.
The problem with the foregoing approach is that the congestion avoidance and error recovery mechanisms assumes that packet loss within the communication network was caused by congestion, rather than a temporary degradation in the signal quality of the communication channel. Although this assumption may work adequately for many wireline communication networks that have a relatively low occurrence of random packet loss, random packet loss due to fading, temporary degradation in signal quality, signal handoffs or large propagation delays occur with relatively high frequency in most wireless and other bandwidth constrained networks. Because conventional TCP architectures react to both random loss and network congestion by significantly and repeatedly reducing the congestion window, high levels of random packet loss may lead to significant and potentially unjustified deterioration in data throughput. TCP performance, particularly in the fast recovery state, may also be adversely impacted by signal handoffs and fades that typically occur in wireless networks. Handoffs and fades can cause multiple data packet losses, which can lead to failure of TCP's fast recovery mechanism and result in prolonged timeouts. If the handoff or fade lasts for several round trip times, failure of multiple retransmission attempts may cause exponential backoff of data throughput. This may result in long recovery times that last significantly longer than the originating fades or handoffs, and may cause TCP connections to stall for extended periods of time.
Another area where conventional TCP congestion control mechanisms tend to exhibit sub-optimal performance is initialization of data connections over reduced-bandwidth channels, such as wireless links. Generally, when a connection is initiated, the congestion control mechanism aggressively increases the size of the congestion window until it senses a data packet loss. This process may adversely impact other connections that share the same reduced-bandwidth channel as the connection being initialized attempts to maximize its data throughput without regard of the other pre-existing connections. For example, many applications, such as web browsers, often open multiple TCP connections between a given sender and a given receiver. Under conventional TCP architectures, these connections operate independently and may compete with one another for the same bandwidth, even though they serve the same application. This may lead to inefficient use of resources with decreased overall throughput as connections initialized at later times disrupt connections already in progress.
Therefore, in light of the deficiencies of existing approaches, there is a need for improved systems and methods for data transport acceleration and management within a network communication system, particularly network communication systems having wireless and other bandwidth constrained channels.

Data transport acceleration and management within a network communication system


Aluminum/lithium alloys displaying excellent weldability while also exhibiting isotropic physical properties is produced by including greater than 0.25 weight percent scandium and processing by a combination of low temperature hot working, recrystallization, optional cold working, and artificial aging. The alloy materials are particularly useful as aircraft and spacecraft components such as fuel tanks.

Aluminum/lithium alloys have been proposed for many years, and several Al/Li alloys are produced commercially. Lithium, in appropriately formulated alloys, tends to increase alloy strength while providing for a lower density alloy at the same time. However, lithium is a very reactive metal, and smelting opera- tions are problematic. In some alloys and furnaces, the alloys are known to react with the refractory furnace lining, while other alloys are explosively oxidizable. Those factors increase the cost of the alloys considerable. A thorough discussion of aluminum/lithium alloys and some of the problems associated with their preparation and use may be found in Pickens et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,910.
For these reasons, Al/Li alloys are generally reserved for applications where strength/weight ratios and other requirements outweigh cost disadvantages. However, even for many such applications, problems associated with such alloys such as weldability, work hardening, and the like render these alloys unsuitable. One example is the manufacture of fuel tanks for the aerospace industry. Several Russian alloys, i.e. 1421 and 1460, employ specific alloy compositions which encourage weldability. These alloys, like those discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,910, employ a modest amount of copper along with lithium. However, the Russian alloys also add a small amount of scandium. While these alloys exhibit vastly improved weldability, their physical properties, particularly short transverse properties, are severely deficient.
It would be desirable to provide sheet materials which offer high strength characteristics, uniform properties, i.e. which are substantially isotropic, and yet which are weldable.

Process for preparing aluminum/lithium/scandium rolled sheet products


System, method and program product executed at a workstation for selecting recipients of an e-mail. The workstation displays an initial list of potential recipients of said e-mail. A user identifies to the workstation a first type of recipient to receive the e-mail. The initial list including at least one recipient of the first type. A user identifies to the workstation a second type of recipient not to receive the e-mail. The initial list including at least one recipient of the second type. The workstation automatically determining a final list of recipients to receive the e-mail. The final list is the recipients of the initial list which are the first type but not the second type.

The present invention relates generally to e-mail, and more particularly to selection of recipients of an e-mail.
In an early e-mail system the first line of a message contained the recipient's address. Subsequent e-mail systems and protocols have been defined by RFC (Request For Comments) documents These standards include Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), RFC 2821 and Internet Message Format (RFC 822 and RFC 2822). On the basis of the SMTP model, a user preparing a simple e-mail composes the text of the message and provides additional information which will be sent in a header of the message. The e-mail author indicates the sender name ('From' field in the e-mail header), and the recipients. The recipient(s) can be the name(s) of the final recipient ('To' field), and optionally, the names of the people that are copied ('.Cc' field) and the names of people that are 'Blind Carbon Copied' ('.Bcc' field). The recipient names correspond to network or "IP" addresses.
The e-mail author can type recipient names into the e-mail address fields or the e-mail author can select a preexisting distribution list. In some business areas such as marketing, the number of recipients ('To', '.Cc', '.Bcc') is very important and the management of the addresses can become very complex, time consuming and error prone.
European patent application entitled, "A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PREPARING ELECTRONIC MAILS" serial number 04291949.8 filed Jul. 29, 2004 by F. Bauchot, F-X Drouet and G. Marmigere allows an e-mail author to select different recipients for different sections of the e-mail text. The European patent application uses tags in the message text to identify different sections and their corresponding recipient lists. A Selective Mail Parser in a client side e-mail management application identifies the e-mail coded with the tags and prepares the e-mail to be sent to the server side of the e-mail management application. The European patent application also discloses that if the recipient requests to Reply to the e-mail, the system will automatically identify a list of recipients to include all the recipients having a super set of the e-mail.
Other known tools to control a recipient list are based on Directories. Such Directories can either be a general shared Directory or a local address book. The Directories could contain distribution lists which facilitate sending of the e-mail to multi-recipients. For example, a Directory of a sales organization of a company may include a distribution list containing the e-mail addresses of all sales representatives.
According to SMTP, a mailbox is a virtual entity which corresponds to file storage and receives e-mail for a recipient. When it is desirable to treat several mailboxes as a single group (i.e. in a distribution list), a group construct can be used. The group construct allows the sender to indicate a named group of recipients without actually providing the individual mailbox address for each of the members of the group. When the sender creates the message, he/she can identify the name of the group or distribution list as the recipient. In response, the e-mail application operating on its workstation automatically creates a message for each member found in the group or distribution list at the envelope level. The Header of the message contains the name of the group or distribution list.
Another known e-mailing system allows the user to compose e-mail messages and specify lists of recipients with a text editor. The user can use a copy/paste function to select and move e-mail addresses of the e-mail and/or distribution lists to prepare a desired list of recipients in the 'To', '.Cc' and '.Bcc' fields.
An object of the present invention is to facilitate identification of recipients of an e-mail.

System, method and program for selecting recipients of an e-mail

International Business Machines Corporation


A display apparatus having a base portion and a display support portion extending vertically from the base portion. At least one display feature bearing at least one graphic presentation is connected to the display apparatus. More specifically, the display apparatus includes elongate pontoons, a plurality of column members extending from each of the pontoons, an elongate transverse member with each of the column members connecting thereto, and a plurality of cross-members extending between the pontoons. The pontoons, the column members, the transverse member and the cross-members each comprise an independently inflatable compartment. The display apparatus further comprises a ballast system including elongate ballasts mounted to the pontoons, and display features removably affixed to the column members which extend between the transverse member and the pontoons.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an inflatable display apparatus having a plurality of inflatable structural members and at least one display panel or three-dimensional inflatable display. When used in a marine environment, the display apparatus comprises a ballast system including at least one elongate ballast mounted to a bottom surface thereof to provide stability and guidance while floating on a water surface.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Outdoor billboard and advertising installations are well known. For many years, billboards have been installed along the nation's highways and have served as useful tool for reaching driving audiences. Advertising installations such as electric signs are commonly used by vendors to attract customers and provide notice of events. Billboards and advertising installations are also frequently used at local events and attractions such as fairs, festivals, retail establishments and sporting events.
Another type of outdoor advertising is the use of portable billboards or banners carried by planes, automobiles and blimps. For example, it is well known to fly airplanes or blimps carrying banners or graphic presentations that promote local events, services or products above crowds gathered at sporting events, parks and city streets. Moreover, it is also common to employ a truck or van to transport a billboard display in crowded cities and towns advertising a new product, event or service.
Heretofore, there has been no successful portable outdoor advertising scheme employed for a marine environment such as those directed to crowds along waterfronts or coastlines. It is thus highly desirable to provide a display apparatus capable of providing an advertising scheme capable of reaching crowded beaches or parks located along a waterfront or coastline.
An increasing problem is being encountered pertaining to laws and local ordinances prohibiting, limiting or requiring licensing of billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising. Often these regulations relate to the degree of permanency of advertising matter, being more stringent the more permanent the advertising installation becomes. Regulations vary from outright bans on billboards along interstate highways, waterfronts, and coastlines to restrictions on sign styles and size above a business establishment.
Advertisement of alcohol and tobacco products is severely limited through radio and television, and modes of outdoor advertising of the types discussed above are frequently used instead. Nonetheless, many localities place restrictions or even outright bans on advertising of alcohol and tobacco on beaches, and accordingly, it is difficult to reach crowds of beachgoers with alcohol and tobacco advertising. Moreover, advertisers in general have very few outlets to reach beach crowds and are typically limited to trash can ads, bus benches, parking lot fliers or airplanes. It will be noted, however, that offshore areas a certain distance from the shore are often exempt from local ordinances since such waters are outside the jurisdiction of these localities. Accordingly, crowds of beachgoers can be reached with advertising if such advertising is located a distance from shore.
To overcome many of the impediments of known modes of advertising, it has been proposed to provide an advertising display apparatus that can reach crowds along a waterfront or coastline while complying with local ordinances or capable of displaying advertisements a distance from a waterfront or coastline outside of such local jurisdictions. Moreover, it is desirable to provide a display apparatus of simple construction that is versatile in that it may be used in both marine environments and on dry ground, and further may be easily adaptable to include different advertising displays.


The distance between an end of a contour of the curved area at which a straight line extending longitudinally of the pipe through the axis of the hole intersects with the contour of the curved area, and an end of the hole that is the nearest to the end of the contour of the curved area longitudinally of the pipe, is larger than the distance between an end of the contour of the curved area at which a straight line extending laterally of the pipe through the axis of the hole intersects with the contour of the curved area, and an end of the hole that is the nearest to the end of the contour of the curved area laterally of the pipe, when viewed along the central axis of the through hole.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a needle that pierces an elastic body, which is stopping a flow passage, so as to interconnect regions of the passage, which are separated by the elastic body; and also to a manufacturing method of the needle.
2. Description of Related Art
JP-A-2005-14437 discloses an ink cartridge having an ink bag to be filled with ink, and an image formation apparatus including therein the ink cartridge. The ink cartridge includes a supporting member thermally bonded to the ink bag. An ink inlet and an ink outlet are formed in the supporting member. An elastic body made of rubber is provided at an end of the ink outlet to tightly seal the ink outlet. The ink inlet is sealed by heat after the ink bag is filled with ink introduced through the ink inlet. The ink bag is thus kept in a state of being filled with ink. A hollow needle is provided in a main body of the image formation apparatus to introduce ink into the main body. The needle is formed into a tube having therein an ink introducing passage. A front end portion of the needle is tapered, and an ink introducing hole is formed on a side face of the front end portion. By sticking the needle into the elastic body of the ink cartridge, the ink introducing passage of the needle is connected through the ink introducing hole with the ink outlet of the supporting member, and thereby ink in the ink bag is supplied into the main body of the image formation apparatus.
In the above-described technique, when the needle is stuck in the elastic body, the elastic body enters, by its elastic restoring force, the ink introducing hole of the needle. When the needle is moved till its ink introducing hole, in which the elastic body has entered, reaches the ink outlet of the supporting member, a shear force is applied to the elastic body by the peripheral edge of the ink introducing hole of the needle so that the elastic body is scraped off. Scraped-off pieces of the elastic body are sent together with ink in the ink bag through the ink introducing hole of the needle into the main body of the image formation apparatus. The pieces of the elastic body cause an ink ejection trouble in an inkjet head.


An inflation control system for an inflatable is disclosed. In various embodiments, the inflation control system includes a source of a pressurized gas; a valve module connected to the source of the pressurized gas and configured to control a flow of the pressurized gas to the inflatable; a stretch sensor configured for mounting to the inflatable and to provide a real-time stretch data of an elastic deformation of the inflatable; and a controller configured to receive the real-time stretch data and to transmit a control signal to the valve module to control the flow of the pressurized gas to the inflatable.

Inflatable evacuation systems may be found on various structures, including aircraft, boats, offshore drilling platforms and the like. The systems are typically equipped with an inflatable device, such as, for example, an inflatable slide or an inflatable raft, configured to facilitate rapid evacuation of persons in the event of an emergency. The slides or rafts are typically stored in an uninflated condition on the structure—e.g., a commercial aircraft—in a location readily accessible for deployment.
Systems used to inflate evacuation slides typically employ a gas stored within a cylinder or tank at high pressure, which is discharged into an inflatable within a specific time period. This may be accomplished by opening a main inflation valve that connects the high-pressure gas to the evacuation slide. Current systems are often open loop control systems, designed to maintain a constant pressure in the evacuation slide or raft once discharged. Since fast inflation times for an evacuation slide or raft is important, most inflation systems will have excess gas in the storage cylinder or tank to adjust for variations in ambient temperature and gas supply lines. The inflatable is also provided with one or more pressure relief valves to vent the excess gas after the inflatable is charged to the set pressure of the pressure relief valve.
During inflation, as charge flows from the cylinder to the inflatable, the gas expands and flows into the inflatable. The continuous entry of fresh charge into the inflatable results in an increase in pressure within the inflatable. The inflatable primarily consists of a fabric that has a finite elasticity. As a result, the fabric will stretch in response to the pressure increasing inside the inflatable during the inflation process. The stretch properties of the inflatable fabric vary with temperature. At higher temperatures, the stretch will be higher than the stretch observed in the inflatable at room temperature when inflated to the same pressure. Accordingly, the stretch experienced by the inflatable will vary as a function of pressure and temperature. Monitoring the elastic stretch of the inflatable during inflation at a specific temperature may thus provide a closed loop check on the pressure within the inflatable during the inflation process.

Stretch control system for inflatable evacuation slide


A method to enhance brightness in Chemical and Mechanical pulps comprising adding an organic sulfide chelant is described and claimed.

There are three major types of pulping methods known in the Pulp and Paper Industry. The first is Chemical and the second is Mechanical and the third is a Combination of Chemical and Mechanical. Methods to enhance the effectiveness of all three types of pulping methods are always desirable.
In Chemical pulps, sufficient lignin is dissolved to allow the fibers to separate with little, if any mechanical action. However, a portion of the lignin remains with the fiber and an attempt to remove this during digestion would result in excess degradation of the pulp. The degradation is a depolymerization of the cellulose and is measured by determining the viscosity of the cellulose dissolved in special solvents. For this reason from about 3 wt. % lignin to about 4 wt. % lignin is normally left in hardwood chemical pulps and from about 4 wt. % to about 10 wt. % lignin is normally left in softwood chemical pulps after the cook or digestion. The lignin is subsequently removed by bleaching in separate pulp mill operations if completely delignified and whitened pulps are to be produced.
The dominant Chemical wood pulping process is the kraft ("kraft" means strength in German) or sulfate process. In the kraft process, the alkaline pulping liquor or digesting solution contains about a 3 to 1 ratio of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. A stronger pulp is obtained when sodium sulfide is used in combination with sodium hydroxide. This is to be compared with pulp obtained when sodium hydroxide is used alone, as it was in the original soda process. In the kraft process the wood is delignified (pulped) with a solution of sodium hydroxide and the addition of sodium sulfide is beneficial for pulping as well. Key advantages of the kraft process is its great adaptability of pulping many different species of wood and yielding pulps that may be used for a variety of applications.
Another type of Chemical pulping is the "sulfite process". The sulfite process has several advantages over the kraft process. These advantages include improved yield (45-55%), lower cost cooking chemicals, higher brightness pulps and more easily bleached pulps. However, the sulfite method also has two distinct disadvantages: only a limited number of species can be pulped and the pulps produced are distinctly weaker than those made using the kraft or sulfate process.
In Mechanical pulping, pulp is made predominantly using mechanical methods. The fundamental criterion used in assessing the quality of mechanical pulp is the amount of energy expended per unit of production. Because this energy is difficult to quantify, pulp freeness is most commonly used as a process control parameter. Generally, the more the energy expenditure the lower the freeness of the pulp.
The first step in the Mechanical pulping process is the grinding or refining of wood.
The Stone Groundwood (SGW) process involves making pulp by pressing logs and chips against an abrasive rotating surface. Many years ago the grinding surface used was an actual stone. In current practice specifically designed "artificial pulp stones" are available for the grinding.
A Pressurized GroundWood (PGW) process is where the grinding operation is completely pressurized.
Another type of Mechanical pulping is Refiner Mechanical Pulp (RMP) featuring atmospheric refining with no pretreatment of the wood chips. This process is one of the main mechanical pulping operations.
Thermo Mechanical Pulping (TMP) is a Mechanical pulping process that evolved from RMP and a high temperature process known as the Apslund process. Thermo Refiner Mechanical Pulping (TRMP) is a variation in Thermo Mechanical Pulping. In this case, the chips are preheated under pressure and refining is carried out at atmospheric pressure. TMP and TRMP pulps are stronger than either SCW or RMP pulps.
The third type of pulping process is a Combination of Chemical and Mechanical pulping processes. Two types of Combination processes are ChemiMechanical Pulping and SemiMechanical Pulping. There is little difference between ChemiMechanical Pulping (CMP) and SemiChemical Mechanical Pulping (SCMP). Both processes involve pretreatment of chips with chemicals, followed by mechanical refining. Four different chemical treatments are associated with these processes. These chemical treatments are: sodium hydroxide, sodium bisulfite, sodium sulfite, acid sulfite treatment. These processes are generally used on hardwoods. Chemical treatment weakens the fiber structure allowing fibers to rupture similarly to softwood that is mechanically pulped.
ChemiThermoMechanical Pulping (CTMP) appears to be a full evolution of all Mechanical pulping methods. It includes chemical treatment elevated temperature steaming followed by mechanical refining. This process can produce fibrous raw materials that vary considerably in properties depending upon process conditions such as sodium sulfite concentration, pH, temperature, etc.
With all pulps, "pulp brightness" is a measurement of the ability of a sample to reflect monochromatic (457 nm) light as compared to a known standard, using magnesium oxide (MgO). Since cellulose and hemicellulose are white, they do not contribute to pulp color. It is generally agreed that the lignin left in the pulp after pulping is responsible for the color the pulp. This unbleached pulp has an appearance similar to brown grocery bags. The chromophores are believed to be quinone-like materials formed from the lignin's phenolic groups through an oxidative mechanism. Additionally, heavy metal ions, especially iron and copper, can form colored complexes with the phenolic groups.
There are generally two approaches to removing color. The first uses a selective chemical to destroy the chromophores but not the lignin. The other approach is to use a bleaching system to remove the residual lignin. The bleaching of pulp is the standard method of removing color from pulp. It is current state of the art technology for all Chemical and Mechanical pulps to be bleached.
The bleaching of pulp and the subsequent delignification of pulp is usually performed in several stages, with each stage being referred to by a letter designation. Note, that although all pulps are bleached, only Chemical pulps are delignified using oxygen treatment.
The following table briefly describes the most common stages in a "typical" bleaching process. Note that the stages captured in this table are not necessarily in the order that they are practiced. For example, oxygen delignification is typically never the last step in the process as oxygen delignification leaves the pulp yellowish in color. That is why oxygen delignification is followed by some level of bleaching.
StageDescriptionC-chlorinationReaction with Cl2 in an acidic mediumE-ExtractionDissolution of chlorination reaction productsorwith sodium hydroxideEOadding oxygen with the sodium hydroxide toorimprove delignifiication and lower the use ofchlorine and chlorine dioxideEOPadding oxygen and peroxide with the sodiumhydroxide to improve delignification and lowerthe use of chlorine and chlorine dioxideH-HypochloriteReaction with sodium hypochlorite in alkalinemediumD-Chlorine DioxideReaction with ClO2 in an acidic mediumP-PeroxideReaction with peroxides in an alkaline mediumO-OxygenReaction with O2 at high pressure in an alkalinemedium. Usually used prior to chlorine as adelignification step.DC or CDMixture of chlorine and chlorine dioxide
Usually the chlorination and extraction stages are carried out in sequence, first chlorinating the lignin compounds and then solubilizing them in the alkaline extraction stage. This is similar to the oxygen stage in that the objective is exclusively to delignify the pulp.
Five or six stages are needed to produce a "full bleach" brightness level of 89 to 91% MgO. Most commonly these stages, in order are CEDED, CEHDED and OCEDED. A brightness of 65% MgO can be obtained with less stages, usually a CEH. Intermediate brightness levels can be reached using CED, CEHH, CEHD, or CEHP. Brightness enhancement during bleaching of pulp, as well as improving selective lignin removal during oxygen delignification of the chemical (kraft) pulp is important in the pulp and paper industry. Brightness enhancement is also useful in Mechanical pulps.
It is to be understood that separate from the technical aspects of bleaching pulp there are environmental concerns that have dictated that chlorination is being rapidly reduced or eliminated in favor of alternative treatments.
In current practice in pulp and paper mills, Mechanical pulps are not oxygen delignified.
Currently, hydrogen peroxide is the dominant bleaching agent for mechanical pulps. Sodium hydrosulfite can also be used for bleaching. Several auxiliary chemicals are needed to provide an adequate performance. These auxiliary chemicals include sodium silicate for stability and chelation, sodium hydroxide for alkalinity, chelating agents such as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) for control of heavy metals, and magnesium sulfate for cellulose stability. Each chemical added increases the cost of the bleaching method.
Although the benefits of using a chelant are known in the pulp and paper industry, the known chelants used in hydrogen peroxide bleaching:                (1) are usually selective in regards of the target transition metal ions (e.g., removing manganese but not iron or vice versa);        (2) must be applied in substantial quantities to achieve a noticeable effect; and        (3) require washing out complexes formed during the treatment.
Selectivity can be defined as the ratio of the change in delignification (kappa number that characterizes lignin removal; the lower the better) divided by the change in viscosity (that characterizes carbohydrate depolymerization, the higher the better). Currently, the commonly used chemical for increasing the selectivity of oxygen delignification is magnesium sulfate. Magnesium sulfate does not influence the delignification, but provides a small measure of protection for the pulp viscosity. Conventional chelants such as DTPA and EDTA are also used for this purpose, however, none of them are reported to affect the kappa number. Therefore, currently, there are no known additives that can provide a noticeable improvement in lignin removal during oxygen delignification.
Japanese Patent Application No. 4-114853 discloses a method of pretreatment of wood pulp before bleaching which uses certain water-soluble polymers. The desired goal is to subject wood pulp to bleaching pretreatment through inexpensive pretreatment having little toxicity, thereby permitting a high degree of bleaching of wood pulp in the subsequent bleaching step. The recommended amount of polymer used in this Japanese Patent Application is from about 0.04 to 0.8 wt % per "exsiccated" pulp.
It would be desirable to identify additional or alternative compounds capable of enhancing the brightening of pulp in Chemical and Mechanical Pulping processes; or to be capable of enhancing delignification of pulp in Chemical Pulping processes.

Methods to enhance pulp bleaching and delignification

Abstract: A method to enhance delignification in a Chemical pulp comprising adding an organic sulfide chelant is also described and claimed.


A method reduces a threshold voltage distribution in transistors of a semiconductor memory device, where each transistor includes a nitride liner. The method includes injecting electrons into a charge trap inside and outside the nitride liner of the transistors, and partially removing the electrons injected into the charge trap inside and outside the nitride liner to equalize trapped charges in the transistors.

The inventive concepts described herein generally relate to semiconductor memory devices which include transistors containing a nitride liner between a gate and source/drain regions.
Generally, the transistors of such devices, such as DRAM (dynamic random access memory) devices, disadvantageously exhibit a wide threshold voltage distribution of such devices.
The inventive concepts described herein more particularly relate to methods for equalizing trap charges in semiconductor memory device transistors, thereby reducing the threshold voltage distribution of the transistors.
According to an aspect of the inventive concepts, a method is provided for reducing a threshold voltage distribution in transistors of a semiconductor memory device, where each transistor includes a nitride liner. The method includes injecting electrons into a charge trap inside and outside the nitride liner of the transistors, and partially removing the electrons injected into the charge trap inside and outside the nitride liner to equalize trapped charges in the transistors.
According to another aspect of the inventive concepts, a method is provided for reducing the distribution of threshold voltages of a plurality of transistors of a semiconductor memory device including a shallow trench isolation (STI) structure comprising a nitride liner. The method includes selecting transistors that are positioned in a region where acceptor segregation has occurred from among the plurality of transistors, and injecting electrons to a trap inside and outside the nitride liner of the selected transistors. A quantity of injected electrons is increased with an increased occurrence of the acceptor segregation among at least one of the selected transistors.

Trap charge equalizing method and threshold voltage distribution reducing method


Examples of job allocation are described hereon. In an example, a job for allocation may be received. The job may be analyzed to obtain information pertaining to the job. The information may comprise at least one of a domain of the job and a priority level of the job. Further, performance of resources may be determined to provide resource information. The resource information may be determined using a supervised learning model comprising a job vector for each job type and a resource vector corresponding to each resource. The resource information may include a list of resources with at least one of a corresponding probability of each resource completing the job and a performance score of each resource. Based on the job information and the resource information, the resource may be recommended for the job using an expertise-estimation modeling technique and the job may be assigned to the recommended resource, accordingly.

Generally, each organization has a wide variety of tasks, which may be performed by resources, automated or otherwise. For example, manual resources may be employed to perform certain tasks, and once sufficient knowledge pertaining to these tasks is accumulated, these tasks may later be performed by automated resources.
Consider a task such as, for example, a content moderation task. The content moderation task may include examining whether content such as, for example, advertisement submissions, are compliant with predefined policies before the content is posted on a public forum such as, for example, Facebook™ or Twitter™. An organization may employ the manual resources to moderate such content before posting the ad publicly. In addition, the organization may also use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for performing tedious and repetitive tasks instead of having such tasks performed by the manual resources.
While certain tasks may be relatively simple and straightforward, certain tasks may be complex and may require skilled resources. Typically, complexity of the tasks follows an eighty-twenty rule, where eighty percent of a task volume is considered as easy and may be tackled by twenty percent of total effort, i.e., available resources, while twenty percent of the task volume is difficult and may take eight percent of the total effort. However, the definition of complexity is relative. That is, easy tasks for manual resources may be difficult for computational resources, and vice versa. Likewise, easy tasks for one manual resource may be difficult for another, and vice versa. Thus, how efficiently a task may be performed may depend on a resource performing the task.
Typically, tasks are assigned either randomly, empirically by supervisors, or by using a simplistic assignment technique such as round robin, or on a first come first serve basis. However, such techniques generally do not factor in aspects, such as, for example, a type of task, and an experience, a skill-set, ability, and availability of a resource. As a result, inappropriate allocation of task may affect the efficiency with which the task may be performed. For example, time and resources used in performing the task and a quality of output may be affected. It will be appreciated that a low quality of output, may in turn affect computations performed by the AI tools, which rely on knowledge accumulated by performing these tasks. Moreover, in instances an input queue includes a large volume of tasks, manually assigning each task may not only be cumbersome but may also be prone to errors and inefficient.
This presents a technical problem of devising task scheduling mechanism that may efficiently identify a resource to perform the task to reduce cost (computational and otherwise), minimize computational and other errors, and better utilize manual and computational resources.


An oxide semiconductor device has an improved withstand voltage when an inverse voltage is applied, while suppressing diffusion of different types of materials to a Schottky interface. The oxide semiconductor device includes an n-type gallium oxide epitaxial layer, p-type oxide semiconductor layers of an oxide that is a different material from the material for the gallium oxide epitaxial layer, a dielectric layer formed to cover at least part of a side surface of the oxide semiconductor layer, an anode electrode, and a cathode electrode. Hetero pn junctions are formed between the lower surfaces of the oxide semiconductor layers and a gallium oxide substrate or between the lower surfaces of the oxide semiconductor layers and the gallium oxide epitaxial layer.

Power electronics (abbreviated as PE) is a technology for speedy and efficient conversion of electricity such as direct current, alternating current, and frequencies of current, and it is a term used to describe a technology that mixes electronic engineering and control engineering, which are based on semiconductors in recent years, with conventional power engineering.
Nowadays PE is a technology applied in almost all or all fields using electricity, such as for power use, for industrial use, for transport use, and for household use.
In recent years, the ratio of electric energy to total energy consumption, i.e., an electrification rate, is continuing its upward trend not only in Japan but also on a worldwide basis. One of the backgrounds for this is recent year's development of equipment excellent in convenience and energy saving in terms of electricity usage, and resultant improvement in the utilization ratio of electricity. A PE technology forms the foundations for this.
The PE technology can also be said as a technology for converting electricity to a form suited for equipment using electricity, irrespective of the form of electricity to be converted (e.g., frequencies or the magnitude of current or voltage). The base elements of the PE technology are rectifiers and inverters. Then, semiconductors and semiconductor elements such as diodes and transistors that apply semiconductors form the foundations for the rectifiers and inverters.
In today's PE fields, diodes serving as semiconductor rectifying devices are used in various applications including electrical equipment. The diodes are applied in a wide range of frequency bands.
In recent years, switching elements capable of operating with low losses and at high frequencies in applications that require high withstand voltage and large capacity have been developed and put to practical use. Also, materials used for the switching elements have shifted to wide-gap materials to increase the withstand voltages of the elements.
Schottky barrier diodes (i.e., SBDs) or pn diodes (PNDs) represent such switching elements, and these diodes are widely used in various applications.
For example, semiconductor devices having a merged P-i-n/Schottky diode (MPS) structure that includes both Schottky junctions and pn junctions have been developed as illustrated in Patent Document 1.
Compared to the case of using SBDs alone, the MPS structure can pass a large surge current that exceeds a rating, with a small voltage drop as a result of bipolar operations of PNDs. Thus, the MPS structure has an improved forward withstand surge voltage. In this way, development has been made on semiconductor devices that have a rectifying function of suppressing an increase in forward voltage drop and achieving a high forward withstand surge voltage.
Moreover, as illustrated in Patent Document 2, electric field concentrations in the bottoms of trenches can be moderated by a depletion layer generated from a pn junction portion at the interface between a terminal structure and a drift layer. In this way, development has been made on semiconductor devices that are capable of reducing its forward voltage and reverse leakage current and thereby easily achieving rectifying operations.

Oxide semiconductor device and method of manufacturing oxide semiconductor device