Isolates of Paecilomyces lilacinus, Paecilomyces lilacinus 251 (AGAL 89/030550), Paecilomyces lilacinus 252 (AGAL 90/028188A), Paecilomyces lilacinus 253 (AGAL 90/028188B), and Paecilomyces lilacinus 254 (AGAL 90/028188C), which exhibit aggressive and fast nematicidal activity at commercially useful spore concentrations and methods of using the disclosed strains of P. lilacinus to biologically control nematode infestation in crop plants, thereby reducing the need for chemical nematicides.

Damage and destruction of valuable field crops and horticultural cultivations due to infestation by plant parasitic nematodes is a serious problem to agriculture, causing considerable economic loss. In the past, control of nematodes has generally required the field application of chemical nematicides. However, chemical nematicides invariably lose their effectiveness due to nematodes developing resistance as well as build-up of soil organisms that can cause their degradation. In addition, application of chemical nematicides is often environmentally undesirable and, in recent years many have been withdrawn from the market due to their toxicity and persistence in the environment.
Biological control of nematodes would be an attractive alternative to the use of chemical nematicides and many laboratory experiments have indicated that there is good potential for the use of nematophagous fungi in such an approach. However, when experiments have been extended to non-sterile soil in a genuine cropping cycle, invariably the results have been disappointing. No doubt, as a consequence, Stirling (1988, "Biological Control of Plant Parasitic Nematodes" in "Diseases of Nematodes" Vol. II [Eds G. O. Poinar and H-B Jansson] pp 93-139, CRC Press Inc., Boca Raton, Fla.) has recently predicted that "biological control will remain an insignificant component of nematode control programmes, at least until the turn of the century". The reason usually advanced for such experimental failure is that the soil ecosystem involves a highly complex interaction between different microorganisms, and that it would be very difficult to manipulate such a system with economically feasible additions of other microorganisms (Van Gundy, 1985, In "Biological Control in Agricultural AIPM Systems"; (Eds M. A. Hoy and D. C. Herzog) pp 468-478, Academic Press.
Over 150 species of soil fungus are known to attack and destroy nematodes and extensive reviews are available in the literature (Jatala 1986, Ann. Rev. Phytopathol. 24, 459-489). Nematophagous fungi are broadly divided into two groups, (1) nematode-trapping fungi which produce mechanical or adhesive traps; and (2) endoparasitic fungi which infect nematodes when their conidia (spores) are ingested or adhere to the cuticle.
In the past there have been attempts to use nematode-trapping fungi, which are dependent on the presence of soil nematodes for growth, as biological control agents. An example of such is the commercial preparations based on Artrobotrys spp. However, these preparations have met with very limited success.
Some saprophytic soil fungi can parasitism nematode eggs (Stirling, supra). Because fungi of this type can have a dramatic effect on soil nematode populations, they are among the most interesting for their biological control (Sterling & Manakau, 1978, Mycologia 70 774-783). Jatala et al. (1979 J. Nematol. 11, 303) claimed that Paecilomyces lilacinus was an effective parasite of the eggs of Meloidogyne spp. and Globodera spp. A methodology was developed for the application of a Peruvian isolate of P. lilaninus and a large number of investigators in different countries were involved in trials with this particular organism. Whilst some results are apparently encouraging, little has been published of this work and that which has been, in many cases, is inconclusive (Jatala, 1986 Ann. Rev. Phytopathol. 24, 459-489).
A review of the literature over the last five years suggests that while there has been substantial laboratory and glasshouse experimentation on biological control of plant parasitic nematodes, the overall picture is confused and lacks consistent demonstration of any immediate practical application to agriculture. In regard to P. lilacinus spores obtained from mycelia grown on rice hulls and rice bran mixture, or chopped water lily and incorporated into the soil gave significant control of Meloidogyne incognita infesting okra (Davide & Zorilla, 1985, Phil. Agric. 68, 493-500). Good results were also found against M. incognita on corn, tomato and okra in glasshouse experiments in comparison with the chemical nematicide Aldicarb (Ibrahim at al., 1987, Nematol. Medit. 15, 265-268). However, inconclusive results against M. incognita were obtained when mixtures of P. lilacinus and Pasteuria penetrans were used in experiments involving Vicia villosa (Dube & Smart, 1987, J. Nematol. 19, 222-227). Hewlett et al. (J. Nematol. 20, 578-584, 1988) found that P. lilacinus did not control Meloidogyne javanica over a two year field experiment on tobacco and actually produced lower yields than all other treatments. In another group of experiments, Culbreath et al. (Nematotrop. 16, 153-166, 1986) tested the effects of a mixture of P. lilacinus and chitin for controlling Meloidogyne arenaria. The levels of material added, however, would prohibit any commercial application. Brazilian experiments by Novaretti et al. (Nematol. Brasil. 10, 133-144, 1986) led to substantial decreases in yield and no control of Pratylenchus spp. on sugar cane. Such inconsistent results in experiments using P. lilacinus indicate underlying problems in present approaches to its wide spread application as a biological control agent for nematodes. It has been suggested (Cabamilis et al., 1989, J. Nematol. 21, 164-172) that such variability in results may be caused by mutations. They go on to attribute loss of effectiveness as nematophagous agents in Peruvian isolates to culture material being kept with periodic transfer on media in the absence of nematodes.
Even in regard to some apparently successful field experiments using Paecilomyces lilacinus, Stirling (supra) suggests "that there is lack of convincing evidence that the introduced fungus was responsible for the observed reductions in nematode population".
To summarise existing technical knowledge, it is well established that many naturally occurring soil fungi are capable of parasitising and killing nematodes. However, use of these for biological control in realistic agricultural contexts in the past has met with mixed success and in a number of cases the form of the fungus administered to the soil is such that it would not be applicable to commercial use.

Myconematicides and methods for using the same

The Australian Technological Innovation Corporation Pty. Ltd.


Method and system are provided for notification of network connection errors between connected software systems. The method includes providing an error notification process for a local software system that uses one or more network connections to interact with a remote software system, wherein the error notification process includes a configuration of a selection of one or more error notification paths and enabling the error notification process that remains dormant and monitors the one or more network connections. The method detects an error in a network connection and invoking the error notification process, including: gathering information and building an error notification message; and sending the error notification message to the remote software system at the end of the network connection on which the error is detected via one or more error notification paths selected according to the configuration.

The present invention relates to notification of network connection errors between connected software systems and, more specifically, to notification between one software system and a partner software system that share the connection that is in error.
Many software products make use of network connections to distribute work between system images. Some of these network connections are long-lived, remaining active for hours or days at a time. Problem resolution for errors in the software components that access a network are difficult for service teams to handle in a timely manner, as they often require diagnostic information to be collected from the software systems at both ends of a connection at the time the error occurs.
Typically, an error is detected by one software system, which then collects the diagnostic information, while the partner software system at the other end of the connection fails to realize that an error has occurred. A software service team may then need to ask for the error condition to be recreated and then for data to be manually collected from the partner system when the primary system detects the error. This situation is far from ideal as the pair of systems may be located on different software stacks, or in separate data centers, or even in systems under the control of different organizations.
It would be helpful to the service team if the systems could be configured to notify each other that a specific error had been detected and diagnostics are needed at both ends of the connection. This is not straightforward as the error may prevent one system of notifying its partner that action is needed.
The notification of another system of an error needs to take place as soon as the error is detected, so that data collected from each system contains a record of what happened at the time of the error or very soon after it.

Notification of network connection errors between connected software systems

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


The present invention provides compositions and methods for modulating bacterial quorum sensing using antagonist or agonist compounds. Further, the present invention provides methods of treating or preventing microbial damages and diseases, in particular for diseases where there is an advantage in inhibiting quorum sensing regulated phenotypes of pathogens.

The present invention generally relates to quorum sensing and specifically relates to methods for modulating bacterial quorum sensing using antagonist or agonist compounds, and to methods of treating or preventing microbial damages and diseases, in particular for diseases where there is an advantage in inhibiting quorum sensing regulated phenotypes of pathogens.
Many microbial pathogens cause tremendous damages worldwide, in humans as well as in animals and crop plants. The continuing emergence of multiple-drug-resistant pathogen strains has necessitated finding new compounds that can be used in antimicrobial treatment. In general, two strategies exist for controlling the pathogens: either to kill the pathogen or to attenuate its virulence such that it does not cause damages to the host.
The latter approach has the advantage of not creating selective pressure in favor of drug resistant strains. Antimicrobial compounds having virulence—attenuating but not cell-killing effects are expected to remain effective for longer period of time than conventional antibiotics because of the lack of development of drug resistance. This approach has, however, suffered from a lack of specific targets for rational drug design.
The bacterial quorum-sensing regulatory system offers such a novel target. The control of gene expression in response to cell density, or quorum sensing, was first described in the marine luminous bacteria Vibrio fischeri and Vibrio harveyi. This phenomenon has recently become recognized as a general mechanism for gene regulation in many Gram negative bacteria. Quorum sensing bacteria synthesize, release, and respond to specific acyl-homoserine lactone ("AHL" or "HSL") signaling molecules called autoinducers ("AI") to control gene expression as a function of cell density.
Except that of V. harveyi, all acyl-homoserine lactone quorum sensing systems described to date utilize an autoinducer synthase encoded by a gene homologous to luxl of V. fischeri, and response to the autoinducer is mediated by a transcriptional activator protein encoded by a gene homologous to luxR of V. fischeri (Bassler and Silverman, in Two component Signal Transduction, Hoch et al., eds, Am. SOC. Microbiol. Washington D.C., pp 431-435, 1995).
V. harueyi has two independent density sensing systems (Signaling Systems 1 and 2), and each is composed of a sensor-autoinducer pair. Signaling System 1 is composed of Sensor 1 and autoinducer 1 (AI-1), which is N(3-hydroxybutanoyl)-L-homoserine lactone (see Bassler et al., Mol. Microbiol. 9: 773-786, 1993). Signaling System 2 is composed of Sensor 2 and autoinducer 2 (AI-2) (Bassler et al., Mol. Microbiol. 13: 273-286, 1994). Signaling System 1 is a highly specific system proposed to be used for intra-species communication and Signaling System 2 appears to be less species selective, and is hypothesized to be for inter-species communication (Bassler et al., J. Bacteriol. 179: 4043-4045, 1997).
In recent years it has become apparent that many Gram negative bacteria employ one or more quorum sensing systems comprising HSL derivatives with different acyl side chains to regulate in a cell-density dependent manner a wide variety of physiological processes such as swarming motility, biofilm formation, pathogenicity, conjugation, bioluminescence or production of pigments and antibiotics (for reviews and references see, e.g.: Fuqua et al., 1996, Ann. Rev. Microbiol. 50:727-51; Fuqua et al., 1998, Curr. Opinion Microbiol. 1:183-89, 1998; Eberl, 1999, Syst. Appl. Microbiol. 22:493-506; and De Kievit et al., 2000, Infect. Immun. 68:4839-49).
The quorum sensing system is an attractive antibacterial target because it is not found in humans and is critical for high level bacterial virulence. Targeting quorum sensing could have far reaching implications for treatment of many human pathogens that use quorum sensing virulence regulation, such as species of Bordetella, Enterobacter, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Serratia, and Yersinia.
Recent studies in vivo have shown that the virulence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa lacking one or more genes responsible for quorum sensing is attenuated in its ability to colonize and spread within the host. Similarly, elimination of the AHL synthase in several plant pathogenic bacteria has lead to complete loss of infectivity (Beck von Bodman, 1998, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95:7687-7692; Whitehead et al., 2001, Microbiol. Rev. 25:365-404). Moreover, ectopic expression of AHL synthases in transgenic plant systems has demonstrated that when invading bacteria encounter inducing levels of AHLs, their behaviors are sufficiently modulated to shift the delicate balance of host-microbe interactions in favor of disease resistance (Fray et al., 1999, Nat. Biotechnol. 171:1017-1020; Mae et al., 2001, Mol. Plant Microbe Interact. 14:1035-1042). A number of plants, including common crop plants, produce endogenous AHL-mimic compounds, and it is thought that these AHLs are the basis of varying degrees of disease resistance and susceptibility (Teplitski et al., 2000, Mol. Plant Microbe Interact. 13:637-648). In addition, the halogenated furanones produced by some marine algae are known to have a pronounced effect on suppressing marine biofouling.
Nevertheless, currently there are no antibacterial compounds that target bacterial quorum sensing system to reduce bacterial virulence and increase susceptibility to bactericidal antibiotics. Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide newly identified novel compounds that are antagonists or agonists of bacterial quorum sensing. The present invention further provides methods of modulating bacterial quorum sensing, and methods of treating or preventing bacterial infection using the novel antagonists and agonists of the present invention.

Method for modulating microbial quorum sensing


An apparatus for a service node used in a multimedia network. The apparatus has a data distributor circuit, and a decoder. The data distributor card has a data port for coupling with a data stream. The data distributor circuit has a relational code for determining whether an address field of a data packet of the data stream is intended for local distribution to peripheral devices by the distribution circuit. The decoder, in communication with the distribution circuit, has a virtual channel filter for filtering the address field to route the data packet to at least one data port, such as that associated with a peripheral device. An incorporator circuit is provided that is electrically-coupled to the data port to insert an address value having a relational code and a virtual channel code in a data input from the at least one data port. The incorporator then inserts the data input from the at leas tone data port into the data stream. In a method of the invention, interfacing a multimedia communications data stream having a plurality of data packets is provided. Inputing a data packet of the data stream, determining whether an address field of the data packet is intended for local distribution, and routing the data packet to a data port if the data packet is intended for local distribution. Otherwise, the data packet is returned to the data stream if the data packet is not intended for local distribution.

Individuals are periodically charged expensive fees to have television, telephone, Internet, or other communications services provided to their homes. If these individuals could be formed into a network group, then the resulting economic leverage of these networked individuals create a better negotiation position for reducing the charges of these services. That is, an organization representing five-hundred or more service subscribers has more negotiating leverage than one subscriber.
As a result, the network community would have the prerogative of selecting television channels that are consistent with the religious, moral and ethical standards of the community. But if individual subscribers in the community insist on channels that may be offensive to the community, these channels can be encoded for the specific purchaser and the cost of service charged directly to the user. However, available neighborhood network technology has insufficient bandwidth to accommodate all the data associated with television, telephone and other communications services, making a neighborhood network impractical and expensive. Furthermore, such network systems do not accommodate varying data formats such as synchronous transmissions typical of television transmissions, and asynchronous transmission typical of computer data transmissions. For example, present network broadcasts of video are generally limited to unidirectional distribution
U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,054 issued to Patisaul et al., discloses a digital communication technique for a television communication system. The television channels are obtained and multiplexed, then transmitted through an LED to generate an encoded optical signal. The encoded signal is received by a photodetector which converts the optical signals into electrical signals. The signal is then demultiplexed into individual channels. A problem with such a device is that it is limited to distributing data and does not allow the addition of data by users. A further problem is that data is limited to synchronous transmissions.
Another dilemna that has been brought about due to the diversity of service providers is in the offices and apartment markets. Generally, these developments in old and new have become a target for the telecom companies. Upstart companies have been denied access to potential customers in these markets because landlords have existing service arrangements with the regional Bell companies.
Further, building owners do not desire dozens of start-up companies traipsing onto their properties. Should they be compelled to do so by regulators, the property owners consider this to fall nothing short of "forced entry."
Such disputes have been coming before the Federal Communications Commission, which is hearing out both sides to decide whether to forbid building owners from turning away telecom providers. At stake is the ability to reach millions of customers in the nation's estimated 750,000 office buildings, and the one-third of the population who live in apartments.
The upstarts, known as competitive local-exchange carriers or CLECs, complain that competition is inhibited without their access inside the buildings. The need exists for these upstarts to wind wires through walls, tap into existing wiring or switches, or install antennae on roofs. Commonly, the upstarts' requests to enter buildings are often turned down, and even when allowed to come in, the negotiation process is prolonged or landlords demand excessive fees.
On the other hand, allowing access to the building is burdensome to the building owner. It has not been practical to allow access in view that, in Florida for example there are over 250 suppliers, which would wreak havoc if there was a building with over 400 renters.
Attempts have been made to provide a data communications network infrastructure for allowing ready access by multiple service providers. An example has been with SONET, which requires optical signals travelling across the network to be converted into electrical signals at each network transit point, and then re-converted into optical signals for transport to the next transit point: The multiple conversions required in a SONET/SDH network increase network complexity and cost.
But SONET/SDH has been cumbersome. In the public network transmission infrastructure, the ability to manage data has resided in the SONET/SDH equipment that converts the data traffic from an electrical signal to an optical signal, which is then transmitted over an optical fiber. The optical fiber itself is only a physical transmission medium with no imbedded intelligence. As a result, moving data through the network involves the complex processes that add cost and make scaling difficult.
The SONET/SDH architecture has typically required a linear or ring-based network topology. The SONET/SDH architecture was originally designed to transport voice traffic, which contains far less data than present high-speed data services. Unlike voice traffic, which is generally characterized by slow growth and stable demand, rapid growth and unpredictable demand characterize data traffic. Data networks must be capable of being deployed cost-effectively and expanded rapidly.
But the SONET/SDH network architecture has not been sufficiently flexible to meet present data requirements. Generally expanding the capacity of a SONET/SDH network is time-consuming and requires significant capital investment by the service provider. There have been only two methods to expand a SONET/SDH network. The first option has been to increase the speed at which the network operates. Because SONET/SDH equipment was designed to operate at a specific speed, this option has required that all equipment on the SONET/SDH ring be replaced with higher speed devices on a concurrent basis. Accordingly, adding capacity to a SONET/SDH ring network has been a complex and time-consuming process.
The second option to expand a SONET/SDH ring network has been to construct new rings with new fiber or increase the capacity of each individual fiber on a ring through the utilization of DWDM technology, which can transform each fiber strand into as many as 100 parallel optical wavelengths. Under either approach, network complexity increases since each optical wavelength must be terminated by SONET/SDH equipment and the interconnection of multiple SONET/SDH rings will absorb some available network capacity
Thus, a need exists for products that are based on a common architecture that can accelerate the release of new products, and enable customers to upgrade their networks without significant new capital equipment or intrusion into the existing structures.


A low drag garment is made from a fabric having a textured region with a texture height H, wherein the texture height H increases substantially continuously with the surface angle θ in said textured region. Optionally, the substantially continuous increase in texture height H comprises a plurality of incremental increases in texture height, and wherein each incremental increase in texture height is less than 200 μm.

When airflow passes over a body there are two fundamental mechanisms that produce a drag force. These forces come from surface drag, caused by friction as the air passes over the surface, and pressure drag caused primarily by the separation of vortices from the boundary layer. The ratio of surface drag to pressure drag is highly dependent on the shape of the object. Where objects are specifically shaped for optimum aerodynamic efficiency, the aspect ratio (length:width) will generally be at least 3:1. With an increased length to width ratio it is possible to have a wing-like shape with a narrow trailing edge. The advantage of this is that the flow can remain attached to the surface of the object so that the streamlines follow the shape of the profile. Although the surface area of the object and the resulting surface friction are increased, the flow is able to "recover" beyond the widest point of the object, resulting in a small net pressure drag. Generally, the reduction in pressure drag far outweighs the increase in surface drag.
The human body tends to have a much lower aspect ratio, particularly when upright, which may typically be nearer to 1:1 for the arms and legs, and 1:2 for the torso. As a result, the human body approximates to a "bluff body", and pressure drag tends to be by far the larger contributory factor to the overall aerodynamic drag experienced by an athlete.
Where it is not practical to modify the shape of the body and the aspect ratio is lower than about 3:1 in the flow direction, a high level of pressure drag can be caused by flow separation soon after the flow has passed the widest point of the body. In such situations in engineering and nature, it is known to adjust the surface texture of the body to help delay the separation point and thereby reduce the net pressure force that retards motion of the object.
A number of techniques are known to reduce the net drag force on bluff bodies, including the use of trip edges and textured surfaces. Although these techniques may give rise to an increase in surface drag, it is generally possible to find a solution whereby the reduction in pressure drag outweighs the increase in surface drag. This allows the total drag to be reduced in various applications. However, current technologies have the following limitations:                Trip edges can be very effective in ideal circumstances, but in practice they are extremely sensitive to position. If the trip edges are not placed precisely in the correct locations they can have a detrimental effect, increasing the overall drag. This means that trip edges, or multiple trip edges, are not appropriate for commercial clothing applications, where the exact shape of the body is unknown.        Environmental conditions can affect the onset of turbulent flow within the system in which the subject is positioned, and are variable and unpredictable. For example, the flow direction experienced by a cyclist can vary by 10° or more from the direction of travel owing to crosswind effects. Experience has shown that it is not possible to have a trip edge that works effectively for all conditions.        Textured surfaces work to an extent, but the types of textured surfaces available are limited and they are often designed for purposes that are not specific to delaying flow separation.        Fabrics with different textures are sometimes used in sports clothing and in certain circumstances this can reduce drag. However, changes in fabric texture often require the presence of seams, which can have a detrimental effect on the overall drag. Also, fabrics tend to be provided with uniform repeating texture patterns, which are not optimised to control flow separation.
The ideal surface roughness is heavily dependent on a number of factors, including forward velocity and body shape (curvature and body length), and ideally needs to change constantly along the flow direction to introduce perturbations into the flow that aid flow attachment, whilst not significantly increasing the surface drag. The optimum texture needs to change constantly to provide the correct height and level of disturbance for the air passing over a given point within the boundary layer. Currently, no textile products are available that can offer an optimum level of performance for a given application.


A method for manufacturing a carbon fiber rim is disclosed, which includes: preparing a carbon fiber composite material and a thermosetting resin-based composite material; preparing a mold to place the carbon fiber composite material into the mold so that the carbon fiber composite material forms a pre-molded rim according to the shape of the mold, and then annularly affixing the thermosetting resin-based composite material respectively to brake surfaces on both sides of the pre-molded rim, so as to form a brake layer; placing the pre-molded rim into the mold to integrally form a rim by means of heat and pressure; and taking out the rim having the brake layer on the surface.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a carbon fiber rim, and in particular, to a method for manufacturing a carbon fiber rim with a brake layer formed by a thermosetting resin-based composite material.
2. Related Art
Bicycles on the market generally use two types of brake, i.e., caliper brake and disc brake. The bicycle brake system using the caliper brake is widely used because of its simple structure, light weight and low price; moreover, as the bicycle tends to be light-weighted in recent years, the traditional aluminum alloy material has been gradually replaced by a carbon fiber composite material, which is widely used because in addition to the advantage of light weight, the carbon fiber composite material has high strength and good shock absorption. However, as shown in FIG. 1, the carbon fiber bicycle rim not only needs to support the cyclist's weight and the bicycle's weight, but also needs to load up-to-down impact and left-to-right torsion brought about by various road conditions. When the bicycle travels along a long continuous steep downhill section, a decelerating or stopping effect is achieved by friction between the brake block and the rim. However, as it is difficult for the rim made of the carbon fiber composite material to dissipate heat, the rim continuously contacts and rubs against the brake block to generate heat during the braking, and relatively, heat may be accumulated on the rim, which may result in that the rim is easy to be scratched, cracked or deformed, or even cause the danger of rim breakage or brake failure when the heat cannot be dissipated rapidly.
To solve the above problem, the industry takes the following processing measures.
For example, in Taiwan Publication No. M389648 "BICYCLE COMPOSITE MATERIAL RIM HAVING PROTECTIVE COATING," as shown in FIG. 2, the rim includes a metal frame 101 and a carbon fiber frame 102, two sides of the metal frame 101 each have a braking section 11 for contacting the brake block (not shown) of the bicycle brake system to generate friction, so as to make the moving bicycle slow down or stop. The braking section 11 forms a protective coating 20 by spraying metal powder to the surface of the braking section 11 with a spray process, thereby replacing the braking section 11 with the protective coating 20 to contact the brake block of the bicycle.
However, as the cost of the metal spray coating method is too high, the price of the bicycle does not have market competitiveness correspondingly, and the bicycle rim further includes a metal frame portion, which substantially has not been capable of thoroughly achieving the lightweight aim as compared with the rim completely made of the carbon fiber composite material.
Also, surface plating is applied to the braking section of the bicycle rim, so that the surface of the braking section has a plated metal layer, thereby achieving the decelerating or brake effect with the surface of the plated metal layer contacting and rubbing against the brake block of the bicycle. However, after the manner of being attached to the surface of the rim by means of metal coating has been used for a considerable time, the metal coating may peel off, and a lot of time or money needs to be spent on the maintenance and repair, which is not beneficial to the cost.

Method for manufacturing carbon fiber rim


A method is disclosed for performing comprehensive management for vehicles owned by clients, and according to this method, a vehicle managing apparatus, a client terminal, a workshop terminal and a store terminal are connected via a communication network, and the vehicle managing apparatus includes information acceptance unit, maintenance period calculation unit, business efficiency analyzation unit and information providing unit. First, maintenance history information for vehicles, automotive accessories purchase history information, vehicle operating record information and business performance information for a client, entered by the workshop terminal or the store terminal are received. Sequentially, a maintenance period for a vehicle is calculated based on the above information, and business efficiency is obtained based on the above information. Then, maintenance period calculation results and the business efficiency analysis results are transmitted to the client terminal.

Business use vehicles are indispensable to the performance of business activities, and one to several tens, or several hundreds, of vehicles are owned by companies, in accordance with their relative sizes. In large companies, specified departments may be responsible for the managing of all company vehicles, but in many companies, users are individually entrusted with the managing of the vehicles they operate. However, since most of users possess no technical vehicular knowledge, and since they do not own the vehicles they operate, there is a trend for the maintenance of vehicles to be neglected and the vehicles to be handled carelessly. If vehicles continue to be used in this manner, the vehicles will suffer frequent breakdowns and their service lives shortened, and as a result, maintenance costs will be increased.
On the other hand, for a company that owns and operates a plurality of vehicles for business activities has, as one problem, the fact that maintenance management costs and the operating period for each vehicle are not easily obtained, and therefore, an appropriate number of vehicles required for an operation can not be precisely defined. Especially when individual vehicle maintenance is not performed properly, as described above, an appropriate number of vehicles becomes more and more difficult to determine, and actually, there are many cases wherein more vehicles are owned than are required.
Therefore, in patent document 1 below, a vehicle managing system is proposed according to which a car dealer or a car maintenance workshop performs the centralized management of information related to the vehicles of clients, and for which a web site or email is employed to transmit to a client information such as vehicle maintenance periods. According to this system, the users of vehicles can obtain proper maintenance periods, and thus, use of the business efficiency for the car dealer or the workshop can be improved. Furthermore, in patent document 2, below, a system is proposed, mainly for application for taxis, that is used to collect and manage business performance information for individual vehicles.
Patent Document 1 Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-230423
Patent Document 2 Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-167585
However, although the invention in patent document 1 improves the convenience for vehicle management, it does not contribute, for example, to a reduction in management costs and calculations performed to determine an appropriate number of vehicles. Furthermore, the invention in patent document 2 merely collects information obtained for individual vehicles, and does not perform any specific analysis based on the obtained information.

Vehicle managing method, vehicle managing apparatus and vehicle managing program


A chip-scale schottky package which has at least one cathode electrode and at least one anode electrode disposed on only one major surface of a die, and solder bumps connected to the electrode for surface mounting of the package on a circuit board.

Conventional semiconductor devices, such as surface mounted devices (SMDs), typically include a semiconductor die, a lead frame having external leads, and a housing which may be molded out of a plastic material. In such conventional devices, the external leads act as electrical connections for the semiconductor die as well as support for the device, while the housing provides protection for the semiconductor die by encapsulating the same. Naturally, to encapsulate the semiconductor die the housing itself must be larger than the semiconductor die. Also, the external leads often extend laterally out of the housing thus further increasing the area occupied by the device.
Due to the increase in the demand for higher performance portable appliances such as cell phones, portable computers, personal digital assistants, etc. there has been an ever increasing need for semiconductor devices that provide higher power density but occupy less space on the circuit board in order to improve performance while reducing the size. To address the need for miniaturization, chip-scale devices for semiconductor switching die such as MOSFETs have been proposed. Chip-scale packages are the size of, or nearly the size of a semiconductor die and thus occupy less area on the circuit board than the conventional semiconductor packages. To ensure that the chip-scale device will be the size of or nearly the size of the semiconductor die, the electrodes of the die are provided on only one surface so that the die may be connected to conductive pads of, for example, a printed circuit board, by, for example, appropriately positioned solder bumps. Such a configuration is conventionally referred to as a flip chip. U.S. Pat. No. 4,250,520 discloses an example of a flip chip device. The flip chip device proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,250,520 is not, however, a chip-scale device in that the substrate on which the semiconductor die is formed occupies a relatively larger area than the die itself.
Schottky diodes are components that are prevalently used in electronic circuits. It is thus desirable to have a chip-scale schottky package in order to contribute to the miniaturization of electronic circuits.


A method for manufacturing a circuit board includes providing an insulating substrate, defining a through hole in the insulating substrate, forming a first conductive layer on two surfaces of the insulating substrate and on an inner wall of the through hole, forming a phase change material layer on a surface of each first conductive layer, forming a seed layer on a surface of the first conductive layer, forming a second conductive layer on a surface of the seed layer, and etching the seed layer, the first conductive layer, and the second conductive layer, so that a first conductive circuit layer and a second conductive circuit layer are respectively formed on two opposite surfaces of the insulating substrate, so that the phase change material layer is embedded in the first conductive circuit layer and in the second conductive circuit layer. The application also provides a circuit board.

Electrical energy consumed by electronic equipment during operation, such as radio frequency power amplifiers, field programmable gate array (FPGA) chips, and power supply products, in addition to providing functions, will mostly be converted into heat. Excess heat may cause the internal temperature of the electronic equipment to rise rapidly. If the heat is not dissipated in time, the electronic equipment will continue to heat up, and eventually cause internal components to fail due to overheating, and in the meantime, the electrical conductivity and stability of the circuit gradually decreases, until short-circuiting or the circuit becomes broken. Overheating will affect the reliability of the electronic equipment. Heat of the circuit board in the electronic equipment may come from the heat of the parts on the circuit board, and from the circuit board itself. In the prior art, methods of adding fans, heat dissipation covers, heat pipes, or embedded metal blocks are commonly used to improve heat dissipation. However, most of the existing technologies focus on heat dissipations of circuit boards and components, and few studies focus on improving heat dissipations of the circuit itself.
Document CN101588707A discloses a heat dissipation device, which wraps a circuit board or component to be heat-dissipated in a housing with a phase-change heat-conducting medium, covers all components on the circuit board, and also dissipates heat of a circuit body in contact with it. However, this method can only dissipate the heat of the local circuits in contact with the phase-change heat-conducting medium, resulting in uneven heat dissipation of the overall circuit, which adversely affects circuit stability.
Document CN207283896U discloses a heat dissipation structure of a multilayer PCB board. A heat dissipation plate made of a wave-shaped high thermal conductivity material is arranged between each layer of the circuit board. The wave-shaped heat dissipation plate supports a space for air circulation in the PCB board, so that heat of the inner circuit layer is dissipated by air cooling. However, the heat dissipation structure occupies a large space, the heat dissipation efficiency of air as a heat transfer medium is slow, and the temperature of the circuit layer may not be reduced in time.
Document CN106658942A discloses a high heat dissipation circuit board. The heat of the circuit layer and the surface of a substrate on the side of the circuit layer is directly transferred through embedded heat dissipation metal blocks and thermally conductive metal blocks to realize heat dissipation of the circuit layer. However, this method is prone to problems such as insufficient glue filling, voids, cracks, and delamination at the connection between the metal blocks and the substrate, and the embedded metal blocks increase the weight of the circuit board and reduce the flexibility of the circuit board, which may not be suitable for the trend of lighted, thinner, shorter, and smaller circuit boards.
Current trends of high density circuit boards, the voltage, current, and transmission time of the circuit board circuits are also increasing, the circuit board circuits have to withstand higher temperature, and heat generated by the circuit board circuits may also increase. If the heat generated from the high density circuit boards is not dissipated in time, it may cause reliability problems in the circuit board. Therefore, improving the heat dissipation performance of the circuit board circuit is an urgent goal to be solved within the art.

Circuit board and method for manufacturing circuit board

QING DING PRECISION ELECTRONICS (HUAIAN) CO., LTD


A universal wireless access control and paging system including universal wireless identity devices, fixed RF nodes, location beacons, and other devices which can store access privileges, store and provide personal identification information, record personal activity and presence, and deliver text or audio messages. The key component in the system is the universal identification card which contains wireless communication circuitry, data display circuitry, and a memory circuit for the storage of personal and location information. Further the universal identification card contains a microprocessor coupled to the memory circuitry, the display circuitry and the data communications circuitry. The device also can contain an input means to allow the user to control the card function during operation. This includes the ability to select what personal information can be accessed over the wireless communication means.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to automatic building security systems and employee paging systems. More particularly, the invention relates to the methods and apparatus for authorizing individuals to gain physical or electronic access to secure locations or information. The invention is also capable of compiling an electronic record of activity. The invention can report the current location of all users of universal wireless identity cards within the system.
2. Prior Art
In the prior art there exists known identification methods and apparatus that enable people to gain access to secure facilities. One example involves HID access cards that contain a unique ID number. When presented to a reader, a list of authorized numbers is checked to grant access. However, the amount of personal information stored on the card is very limited. For example, none of the prior art devices are capable of storing activity records. Additionally, none of the prior art cards are capable of communicating with each other.
Location recording mechanisms are also known. By way of example, there exist employee timecard packages that record when an employee arrives and leaves work. Their function is very coarse grained and requires the employee to manually log their entry. These systems are not able to maintain a record of the employee location throughout the day.
In view of the above, what is desired is an improved method or apparatus for a personal identification system that not only acts as an ID card substitute, but also has the intelligence to gather access history and to deliver electronics messages to and from users of the system. Additionally, it is desirable to reduce the number of cards a user has to carry, the improved apparatus is preferably capable of storing multiple pieces of identification information some or all of which may be issued by different authorities. To further improve usability, the device is capable of communication over a wireless means to card readers as well as to other universal ID Devices. If two cards are within the range of their RF communication, they can directly exchange information as desired.

Electronic access control, tracking and paging system


An information handling system (IHS) temperature control system includes a cooling system, a controller coupled to the cooling system, and an IHS coupled to the controller. The IHS includes a temperature status reporting engine that is configured to determine a first temperature of the IHS and determine a second temperature of the IHS subsequent to determining the first temperature. In response to the second temperature being above a first predetermined temperature range, the temperature status reporting engine provides a first signal to the controller to increase cooling provided by the cooling system if the first temperature and the second temperature indicate that a temperature trend of the IHS is not decreasing, and provides a second signal to the controller to maintain cooling provided by the cooling system if the first temperature and the second temperature indicate that the temperature trend of the IHS is decreasing.

The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to controlling a cooling system in an information handling system using temperature trends.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
IHS chassis or racks are sometimes provided to house a plurality of IHSs, and typically include a cooling system for cooling those IHSs. For example, an IHS chassis may house a plurality of a server IHSs, switch IHSs or other networking IHSs, storage IHSs, and/or a variety of other IHSs known in the art, as well as a cooling system for cooling those IHSs. A chassis management controller may be coupled to the IHSs and the cooling systems, and may be configured to receive a temperature status from each of the IHSs and use that temperature status to control the cooling system. The temperature status reported by each of the IHSs is based on temperature thresholds, with the reported temperature status changing when the temperature of the IHS passes those thresholds. The use of temperature thresholds to report a temperature status raises a number of issues, as the conventional actions taken in response to conventionally reported temperature thresholds can result in over-operation of the cooling system when it is not needed by the IHSs, which unnecessarily increases power consumption, component degradation, and noise.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide for improved control of cooling systems.

Temperature trend controlled cooling system


To provide an image forming apparatus, image forming method and process cartridge, which are excellent in low-temperature fixation properties, storage stability, durability and filming resistance, can reduce generation of odor, and are capable of forming an extremely high quality image. The apparatus includes: a latent electrostatic image bearing member; a charging unit; an exposing unit; a developing unit; a transferring unit; and a fixing unit; wherein the toner comprises a binder resin and coloring agent, and the binder resin comprises a polyester-based resin (A) and polyester-based resin (B) having a melting point at least 10° C. higher than that of the polyester-based resin (A), and at least one of the polyester-based resins (A) and (B) is a resin derived from a (meth)acrylic acid modified rosin and includes a polyester unit obtained by condensation polymerization of an alcohol component and a carboxylic acid component containing a (meth)acrylic acid modified rosin.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, an electrostatic printing machine, a printer, a facsimile and an electrostatic recording machine, an image forming method, and a process cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various known methods have hitherto been used for formation of an electrophotographic image. In general, the surface of a latent electrostatic image bearing member (hereinafter sometimes referred to as a "photoconductor", an "electrophotoconductor" or an "image bearing member") is charged and the charged surface is then exposed to form a latent electrostatic image thereon. Subsequently, the latent electrostatic image is developed with a toner to form a visualized image on the latent electrostatic image bearing member. The visualized image thus formed is transferred onto a recording medium directly or through an intermediate transfer member and the visualized image thus transferred is fixed to the medium by application of heat and/or pressure to obtain a record in which the image is formed on the recording medium. The toner particles left on the latent electrostatic image bearing member after transferring the visualized image are then removed with a known method that uses a blade, a brush, a roller or the like.
As a full color image forming apparatus which utilizes such an electrophotographic system, two systems are commonly known. One system is referred to as a single system (or a single drum system) in which an image forming apparatus is equipped with one latent electrostatic image bearing member and is also equipped with 4 developing units corresponding to fours colors such as cyan, magenta, yellow and black colors. In such a single system, visualized images of four colors are formed on a latent electrostatic image bearing member or a recording medium. In this single system, a charging unit, an exposing unit, a transferring unit and a cleaning unit that are arranged around the latent electrostatic image bearing member can be integrated and can be designed with small size at low cost as compared with a tandem system described hereinafter.
The other system is a system referred to as a tandem system (or a tandem drum system) in which an image forming apparatus is equipped with a plurality of latent electrostatic image bearing members (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 05-341617). Commonly, for one latent electrostatic image bearing member, a charging unit, a developing unit, a transferring unit and a cleaning unit are arranged one by one to form one image forming element, and the image forming apparatus is equipped with plural (commonly, four) image forming elements. In this tandem system, a monocolor visualized image is formed by one image forming element and the visualized image is sequentially transferred onto a recording medium to from a full color image. In this tandem system, since each colored visualized image can be formed by parallel processing, an image can be formed at a high speed. That is, the tandem system requires a time for an image formation treatment which is about ¼ times shorter than that in case of the single system, and also can cope with four-times high-speed printing. Also, it is possible to substantially enhance durability of each unit in an image forming element, including a latent electrostatic image bearing member. The reason is as follows. That is, in the single system, charging, exposing, developing and transferring steps are performed 4 times by one latent electrostatic image bearing member to form one full color image, whereas, in the tandem system, an operation of each step can be performed only one time by one latent electrostatic image bearing member.
However, the tandem system has such a problem that plural image forming elements are arranged and therefore the size of the entire image forming apparatus increases, resulting in high cost.
The above problem is solved by decreasing the diameter of the latent electrostatic image bearing member, down-sizing of each unit arranged around the latent electrostatic image bearing member and down-sizing of one image forming element. As a result, not only the effect of down-sizing of the image forming apparatus, but also the effect of reducing the material cost can be exerted, and thus entire cost reduction could be attained to some degree. However, with the progress in down-sizing of the image forming apparatus, there arises such a new problem that it is required to impart high performances to each unit with which the image forming element is equipped, and to remarkably enhance stability.
Recently, market's requirements such as energy-saving and speeding-up on image forming apparatuses such as printer, copying machine and facsimile have become stronger. To achieve good performances, it is important to improve thermal efficiency of a fixing unit in the image forming apparatus.
Commonly, in the image forming apparatus, an unfixed toner image is formed on a recording medium such as recording sheet, printing paper, photographic paper or electrostatic recording paper by an image forming process such as electrophotographic recording, electrostatic recording or magnetic recording processes using an indirect transferring system or a direct transferring system. As a fixing unit configured to fix the unfixed toner image, for example, contact heating systems such as heating roller system, film heating system and electromagnetic induction heating system are widely employed.
The fixing unit of heating roller system has such a basic configuration comprising a heat source such as halogen lamp inside, a fixing roller whose temperature is controlled to a predetermined temperature, and a pair of rotary rollers with a pressurizing roller to be pressure-contacted with the fixing roller. A recording medium is inserted into a contact portion (so-called a nipping section) of the pair of rotary rollers and transported, and then the unfixed toner image is melted and fixed by heat and pressure from the fixing roller and the pressurizing roller.
The fixing unit of the film heating system is proposed for instance in JP-A No. 63-313182 and JP-A No. 01-263679. Such a fixing unit of the film heating system makes a heating element supported fixedly to a supporting member and a recording medium come closely contact through a thin fixing film having heat resistance, and makes the fixing film to slide to a heating element, thereby feeding heat of the heating element to the recording medium through the fixing film while moving the heating element.
As the heating element, for example, it is possible to use a ceramic heater comprising a ceramic substrate made of alumina or aluminum nitride having properties such as heat resistance, insulating properties and good thermal conductivity, and a resistive layer formed on the ceramic substrate. In such a fixing unit, a thin fixing film having low heat capacity can be used and the fixing unit has higher heat transfer efficiency than that of the fixing unit of heating roller system, and thus the duration of warm-up period can be shortened and quick-start and energy-saving can be realized.
As the fixing unit of an electromagnetic induction heating system, for example, there is proposed a technology in which Joule heat is generated by an eddy current generated in a magnetic metallic member through a magnetic alternating field and a heating element including a metallic member is allowed to cause electromagnetic induction heat generation (see JP-A No. 08-22206).
In such a fixing unit of the electromagnetic induction heating system, since the visualized image is uniformly melted with heating in a state of being sufficiently covered, a film comprising a rubber elastic layer on the surface is formed between a heating element and a recording medium. When the rubber elastic layer is formed of a silicone rubber, thermal responsiveness deteriorates because of low thermal conductivity, and thus a temperature difference between the internal surface of the film to be heated from the heating element and the external surface of the film in contact with the toner. When the amount of the toner adhered is large, the surface temperature of the belt quickly decreases and fixation performances can not be sufficiently secured, and thus so-called cold offset may occur.
In the fixing unit of the electrophotographic image forming apparatus, releasability (hereinafter sometimes referred to as an "anti-offset properties") of the toner to the heating member are required. The anti-offset properties can be improved by the presence of a releasing agent on the surface of the toner. When the toner other than a predetermined toner is used or the toner is reused, the amount of the releasing agent, which is present on the surface of the toner, decreases and anti-offset properties may deteriorate.
With the development of the electrophotographic technology, a toner having excellent low-temperature fixation properties, anti-offset properties and storage stability (blocking resistance) is required and, for example, there are proposed a toner containing a linear polyester resin having defined physical properties such as molecular weight (see JP-A No. 2004-245854), toner containing a non-linear crosslinking type polyester resin using rosins as an acid component in a polyester (see JP-A No. 04-70765), a toner having improved fixation properties by use of a resin modified with maleic acid (see JP-A No. 04-307557), and a toner containing a mixture of a low molecular weight resin and a high molecular weight resin (see JP-A No. 02-82267).
Conventional binder resins, however, have been proved to fail in sufficiently meeting the market's requirements as current image forming apparatus becomes faster and energy-saving. More specifically, it has become very difficult to maintain sufficient fixation properties due to reduction in the fixation time in a fixing step and decrease in the heating temperature of a fixing unit. In particular, when low molecular weight resins are used as binder resin, it inevitably involves a reduction in their glass transition temperature and thus toner particles aggregate during storage, resulting in poor toner storage stability. Also, there arises a problem that durability of toner decreases due to strong stress upon image formation and filming occurs due to poor dispersion of particles of an internal additive, leading to poor image quality particularly in the case of continuous printing at high speeds.
Furthermore, rosins used in JP-A No. 4-70765 and JP-A No. 4-307557 are effective for improvement of low-temperature fixation properties, but have a drawback that odor is likely to occur depending on their type.
Therefore, it is now required to quickly provide an image forming apparatus, an image forming method and a process cartridge, which are excellent in low-temperature fixation properties, storage stability, durability and filming resistance, and also can reduce generation of odor and are capable of forming extremely high quality images for a long period of time.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and process cartridge


An apparatus, system and method of installation of a pipe in fixed association with at least one stanchion, said stanchion having a universal pipe mount for fixing the distance from a pipe inserted into the pipe holder to a mounting surface, and when two or more stanchions and associated pipe holders are used to insert a pipe, the distance between the pipe holders and the mounting surface create a pitch of the pipe in the direction of the sink and away from the source of a liquid insures the proper rate of gravitational flow of the liquid therein.

This invention provides an article and an installation method to insure that the proper pitch is employed in piping systems for the transport of liquids, typically constructed from plastic formulated pipes, such as a polyvinylchloride (PVC) and used in homes, offices and other facilities, generally. Although potable water and waste water, are the most frequent substance transported other fluids such as natural gas and gasoline are transported from one location to another via complex networks of pipes. These networks of pipes typically include long, relatively straight lines that enter into and exit from enclosed spaces, with occasionally intersected branches, and that may additionally bend around various enclosure walls and support structures, making it difficult to maintain a decreasing elevation as the piping progresses over its intended route. One problem with the use of piping systems is to insure that the pitch is in the direction of the sink and away from the source to insure the proper rate of flow and that liquid does not stagnate or worse, have impeded flow because pipes are pitched in the wrong direction. Presently there does not exist any device that insures a fool-proof means to install piping, especially in a rapid production fashion, that guarantees that the piping system is pitched properly, can be installed properly by a relatively unskilled work-force and is virtually no more expensive than the product without such advantages. With the foregoing in mind, the present invention will be distinguished over the prior art in the description and application of new components, design criteria and utility to the field of the invention.

Fixture and installation method for a pitched pipe system


Disclosed is a semiconductor device, including: a memory block including a plurality of memory strings, each of the memory strings including a drain select transistor coupled to a bit line, a source select transistor coupled to a common source line, memory cells coupled to the drain select transistor and the source select transistor, and dummy memory cells coupled to the drain select transistor and the memory cell; and an operation circuit configured to perform a program operation on the memory cells. The operation circuit generates operation voltages applied to the dummy memory cells so that electric charges are generated by a band to band tunneling effect in the dummy memory cell adjacent to the drain select transistor during the program operation.

1. Field
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to a semiconductor device, and more particularly to a semiconductor device including memory cells.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In cases where a program operation is performed on a particular type of memory array such as string-type memory arrays, while a program voltage is being applied to a selected word line, a pass voltage is applied to the remaining word lines. Further, the memory cells connected to the selected word line may be divided into selected memory cells (e.g., program permission cells) and unselected memory cells (e.g., program inhibition cells) depending on what data value is going to be stored. In order not to program on unselected memory cells, electrons must be prevented from being injected into unselected memory cells because electron injections may cause threshold voltage level changes. However, unintended electric charge injection may cause variations in threshold voltages of the unselected memory cell, and thus reliability of semiconductor devices may deteriorate.


A flexible storage device that fits over, or is adherable to a surface of, the lid of a compact disk player for receiving and storing compact disks, as well as, portable compact disk players that employ such a flexible storage device, are provided. The inventive storage device serves to increase the functionality of a compact disk player by adding storage capacity, without interfering with the player's effective operation.

Portable audio devices such as compact disk players have quickly gained popularity by providing an easier means for bringing these devices to picnics, on camping trips, or even to libraries. Unfortunately, these devices are designed to accommodate only one compact disk. As such, those wishing to listen to additional compact disks while picnicking, camping, or studying would need to separately transport additional compact disks in a separate storage/carrying case.
What is needed is a streamlined approach for transporting compact disks and portable compact disk players.

Flexible storage device that fits over (or is adherable to a surface of) the lid of a portable compact disk player for receiving and storing compact disks and portable compact disk players employing same


A method is disclosed for storing program code on a data processing device comprising: splitting the program code into one or more blocks; assigning each of the blocks a header containing a sequence number identifying which portion of the program code each of the blocks correspond to; and storing the one or more blocks of program code and the associated headers in a non-volatile memory.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of memory management. More particularly, the invention relates to an improved apparatus and method for allocating memory blocks.
2. Description of the Related Art
As illustrated in FIG. 1, non-volatile storage media 1000 (e.g., flash memory, hard drives, . . . etc) are typically divided into a plurality of contiguous blocks of memory. Accordingly, in order to store an application or other type of program code (e.g., "Application D") to non-volatile memory 1000, a file system 1030 breaks the application up into blocks. In addition, to track which blocks correspond to which application, the file system 1030 generates some type of indexing data structure.
One type of indexing data structure is a file allocation table ("FAT") which includes a pointer to each block for each application. Thus, in the example shown in FIG. 1, the FAT would include four separate pointers identifying each of the four blocks in which Application D is stored. Subsequently, when Application D is loaded into volatile memory 1010, the file system 1030 performs a lookup to the FAT to locate each of the four blocks (which, as illustrated, may or may not be stored contiguously).
Alternatively, the indexing data structure may contain a single pointer which identifies the first block in the series of blocks (e.g., block "Application D1"). Each block contains a pointer identifying the next block in the series. For example, the first block contains a pointer identifying the second block (e.g., block "Application D2"), the second block contains a pointer identifying the third block (e.g., block "Application D3"), and so on, until the final block (e.g., block "Application D4") is reached (which contains data indicating that it is the final block in the series).
One problem which exists with current block allocation techniques is that if any portion of the indexing data structure is corrupt the entire application must be reloaded. Accordingly, if the pointer to Application D3 is lost from the FAT, there is no way to restore only this portion of the application. As such, the entire application must be reloaded and a new FAT entry identifying the application must be generated. In addition, indexing data structures may consume a significant amount of memory.
Accordingly, what is needed it an improved system and method for allocating memory blocks.

Apparatus and method for allocating memory blocks


A semiconductor device and fabrication method thereof restrains an amplified current between input voltage Vin and ground voltage Vss, and first and second n-wells are biased into internal voltage sources, whereby the current-voltage characteristic of the input pad becomes stabilized during an open/short checkup of a semiconductor device. The semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate having a plurality of device isolation regions, first and second n-wells horizontally spaced from either of the plurality of device isolation regions, a p-channel transistor formed in the second n-well, an input protection transistor horizontally spaced from the first n-well and the device isolation region, on a symmetrical portion by the first n-well to the second n-well, and a guard ring formed between the first n-well and the input protection transistor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor, and more particularly to an improved semiconductor device and fabrication method thereof for forming a guard ring between n-wells provided for fabricating a peripheral circuitry adjacent to an input protection transistor, thereby stabilizing a current-voltage operation characteristic of an input pad.
2. Description of the Background Art
Among semiconductor devices, a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) refers to a memory device wherein a basic cell is provided with a selection transistor and a capacitor. A gate of the selection transistor is connected to a word line, a drain thereof is connected to a bit line, and a source thereof is connected to an electrode or the capacitor, that is, to an earthed electrode. Such a DRAM stores therein data depending upon whether there is an electrical charge loaded in the capacitor. The DRAM developed in the 1970's is still being studied for its larger integration.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a semiconductor device with regard to an input pad peripheral circuit according to a background art. As shown therein, a plurality of device isolation regions a, b, c are formed in the upper surface of a semiconductor substrate 10. A first and second n-wells 20, 30 are formed adjacent to the device isolation regions a, b in the semiconductor substrate 10. The first and second n-wells 20, 30 are isolated by the device isolation region b. In the first n-well 20 there is formed an n+ diffusion layer 21 which is connected to a first supply voltage Vdd. In the second n-well 30 there are formed an p+ diffusion layer 31 which is connected to first supply voltage Vdd, and a p+ diffusion layer 32 which is connected to a second supply voltage Vcc. A p-channel transistor Q2 having the p+ diffusion layers 31, 32 as drain and source and having a gate electrode G2 is formed in the second n-well 30. The first supply voltage Vdd denotes an internal supply voltage generated from an externally applied supply voltage Vcc and is generally lower than the externally applied supply voltage Vcc. To the left side from the first n-well 20, there is provided an input protection transistor Q1 adjacent to the device isolation region a. The input protection transistor Q1 is an n-channel transistor. The n-channel transistor Q1 includes the gate electrode G1 formed in the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate 10, and the n+ diffusion layers 11, 12 as source and drain, respectively. The gate electrode of the input protection transistor Q1 and the n+ diffusion layer 12 are connected to a ground voltage Vss serving as a third supply voltage. The n+ diffusion layer 11 is connected to an input voltage Vin which is received from an input pad (not shown). An n+ diffusion layer 13 is horizontally spaced from the left side of the input protection transistor Q1 and adjacent to the device isolation region c, and it is connected to the third supply voltage. A horizontal npn parasite bipolar transistor Q3 is formed by the n+ diffusion layer 11 connected to the input voltage Vin of the input protection transistor Q1 and by the n+ diffusion layer 13 connected to the third supply voltage Vss.
Voltage VGD connected to the gate electrode G2 of the p-channel transistor Q2 denotes a voltage applied to the gate of the p-channel transistor Q2 and a voltage of 0V is applied thereto. Here, voltage VBB denotes a back bias voltage.
In the input pad peripheral circuitry as shown in FIG. 1, when the input voltage Vin is less than a threshold voltage Vth, the input protection transistor Q1 is turned on, thereby allowing current to flow to an input voltage Vin of the input protection transistor Q1.
Here, when a temperature goes up, electron-hole pairs are generated from a depletion region provided between the first n-well 20 and the p-type semiconductor substrate 10, whereby holes h+ flow toward the p-type semiconductor substrate 10, and electrons e− flow toward the first n-well 20.
At this time, the first n-well is in a floating state so that the received electrons e− serve to lower the voltage, whereby a forward voltage is applied between the first n-well 20 and the p-type semiconductor substrate 10. Accordingly, electrons are injected toward the p-type semiconductor substrate 10.
When electrons are injected into the p-type semiconductor substrate 10, the injected electrons are turned to a base current of parasite bipolar transistor Q3, and the current amplified as much as the gate of the transistor is applied between n+ region 11 to which is applied Vin and n+ region 13 which is connected to Vss.
As a result, when the first n-well 20 and the second n-well 30 are biased by Vdd and an open/short test is carried out, a stable current-voltage characteristic is not realized around the input pad peripheral circuitry.
That is, the input pad peripheral circuitry of the conventional DRAM device according to the conventional art has several disadvantages: firstly, because the input protection transistor Q1 is activated by a thermal carrier generated in a high temperature, there is a strong possibility of incurring an operational error in the DRAM device; and secondly, when carrying out an open/short test by biasing the n-well regions 20, 30 to the first supply voltage Vdd, the n-well regions respectively remain in a floating state, thereby incurring a device error in a high possibility.

Semiconductor device and fabrication method thereof

Hyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd.


A formwork support for supporting concrete formworks in the construction sector, comprising an upper flange and a lower flange, which are connected to one another via a hollow profile web such that they are at an invariant distance in relation to one another, wherein the hollow profile web is stiffened inside by framework struts.

In the construction sector, so-called formwork supports are used to support wall, ceiling and column formworks. The formwork supports are usually in the form of a flanged beam and therefore have an upper flange and a lower flange which are permanently connected to one another via a flange connector or web. In conventional designs, the web is wholly made of solid wood or wood materials or, in order to save weight, is designed as a framework. The formwork supports generally have only limited weather resistance and dimensional stability, especially since water absorption causes the material to swell and shrink.
More recently, formwork supports have become known, from construction practice, in which the web (flange connector) is in the form of a simple extruded hollow profile made of aluminum. Although formwork supports of this kind are distinguished by further weight savings and improved weather resistance and thus service life, they often do not have a sufficiently great capacity for handling loads. For demanding formwork tasks, for example in exposed concrete construction, an excessively high number of formwork supports of this kind therefore has to be used, inter alia, which is time, labor and cost intensive.

Formwork support comprising a hollow profile web, stiffened by an internal framework, as a flange connector


A lossless broadband dipole antenna of length L having three collinear parts including a central part and two external parts. The parts are separated by slits, with a first feeding point for the antenna being located at a first end of one of the external parts nearest the slits, and a second feeding point being located at a second end of the other external part nearest the slits. The two feeding points of the antenna at the slits are arranged at a distance d from each other along the length L of the antenna, d/L being chosen such that

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadband lossless dipole antenna. The invention has been developed based on the requirements that exist in connection with broadband low-frequency radar, especially a type called CARABAS-II which uses the frequency range 20-90 MHz and requires an antenna with a relatively great beam width. In the following discussion, reference is made to this concrete example. How-ever, the antenna can also be used in other applications where a broadband antenna with a great beam width is desired and in other applications as well, and it is Applicant's pronounced opinion that the antenna should merit protection merely based on its construction and independently of its application.
2. Description of the Related Art
If a common dipole antenna should be used with the broadband low-frequency radar CARABAS-II, there will be problems with beam splitting at higher frequencies. FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a conventional dipole antenna with a central feeding point M, and FIG. 2 is an antenna gain chart for such a dipole antenna. The main beam, the central area with a high antenna gain, should essentially be constant over the frequency range. In the right part of the chart it is, however, to be seen that the problem with beam splitting starts to appear at about 75 MHz. A common dipole antenna thus is not suitable in the current case.
Up to now, CARABAS-II has used, instead of a common dipole, a dipole antenna in the form of a loaded slim biconical antenna, 4.9 m long. However, this antenna has an average efficiency over the frequency band of about 55% only, a higher efficiency being desirable. The reason for the low efficiency is that the antenna is provided with two filters, one on each dipole arm. The filters consist of parallel inductances, capacitances and resistances and are placed a distance onto the dipole arms. The filters prevent currents on the outer part of the dipole arms at higher frequencies, which prevents beam splitting occurring at the higher frequencies. A great part of the power supplied to the antenna is, however, absorbed in the resistances of the filters.

Abstract: d    L    =      0.37    ±          0.04      .


An integrated circuit package which may have a thermally conductive tape that attaches a thermal element to a package housing. The housing encloses an integrated circuit that is mounted to a substrate. The thermally conductive tape may be configured to conform with any warpage in the package and prevent the creation of air void in the housing/thermal element interface.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated circuit package.
2. Background Information
Integrated circuits are typically assembled into a package that is mounted to a printed circuit board. There are many types of integrated circuit packages including quad flat pack, pin grid array and plastic ball grid array (PBGA) packages. A PBGA package typically contains an integrated circuit which is mounted to a substrate. A plurality of solder balls are attached to a bottom surface of the substrate and reflowed to mount the package to a printed circuit board. The printed circuit board may be a motherboard of a computer system. The substrate may have routing traces and vias which connect the integrated circuit to the solder balls.
The integrated circuit of a PBGA package is enclosed by a protective plastic material. The outer plastic material is typically formed with an injection mold process. The integrated circuit generates heat which must be removed from the package. It may be desirable to attach a thermal element such as a heat sink to the plastic housing to facilitate the removal of heat generated by the integrated circuit. The thermal element may be bonded to the top surface of the package.
It has been found that the injection mold process may cause the package to warp. The warpage will create a lack of flatness in the top surface of the plastic housing. The lack of flatness may create air voids between the plastic housing and a thermal element that is mounted to the package. Air has a relatively low coefficient of thermal conductivity. Therefore any air voids in the package/thermal element interface will increase the thermal impedance from the integrated circuit to the thermal element. The increase in thermal impedance will raise the junction temperatures of the integrated circuit. It is important to maintain the junction temperatures below a threshold design value. It would be desirable to provide a means for attaching a thermal element to a plastic ball grid array package that can compensate for warpage in the plastic housing of the package.
One embodiment of the present invention is an integrated circuit package which may have a thermally conductive tape that attaches a thermal element to a package housing. The housing encloses an integrated circuit that is mounted to a substrate.

Integrated circuit package that includes a thermally conductive tape which attaches a thermal element to a plastic housing


The disclosed embodiments disclose techniques for performing physical domain error isolation and recovery in a multi-domain system, where the multi-domain system includes two or more processor chips and one or more switch chips that provide connectivity and cache-coherency support for the processor chips, and the processor chips are divided into two or more distinct domains. During operation, one of the switch chips determines a fault in the multi-domain system. The switch chip determines an originating domain that is associated with the fault, and then signals the fault and an identifier for the originating domain to its internal units, some of which perform clearing operations that clear out all traffic for the originating domain without affecting the other domains of the multi-domain system.

1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure generally relates to the design of a semiconductor chip. More specifically, this disclosure relates to a semiconductor chip that serves as a coherence directory and switch chip for a set of processor chips in a multi-chip system.
2. Related Art
The proliferation of the Internet and large data sets has made data centers and clusters of compute servers increasingly common. Such compute servers typically include multiple processor chips that collaborate to provide increased computational capacity for one or more applications. For instance, processor chips in a multi-chip system may be partitioned into multiple, separate domains, where each domain can execute a different instance of an operating system with different applications and/or operate upon a different data set. Higher-level management software typically manages these domains.
As the number of processor chips in a system grows, the number of external communication channels that are available in each processor chip becomes a limitation, and the processor chips are configured to communicate using a separate set of shared communication components. Unfortunately, an error or failure in a shared component that is used by multiple domains can cause all of the domains to fail, thereby affecting the reliability, availability, and serviceability of those domains.
Hence, what is needed are structures and techniques for organizing groups of processor chips into domains without the above-described problems of existing techniques.

Physical domain error isolation and recovery in a multi-domain system


A structure improvement for a water purifier includes a streamlined main body combined by a pair of the symmetrically arranged half housings each of which has a large opening closed by a lid, a motor unit, a pipeline and a flat rectangular rack disposed inside the main body, a plurality of the membrane pipes and the filter element horizontally and superimposedly secured to two sides of the rack automatically connected to the pipeline and a water outlet. A bottom and a cup seat at front side, a socket aside several pipes and plurality of the air vents at rear side of the main body, an arcuate handle on the top, a sensor, an electric circuit card and a TDS (total dissolved solids) remover device inside the main body.

The present invention relates to water purifying apparatus and more particularly to a structural improvement for a water purifier which can rapidly and individually change the filters and is easy to maintain and directly discharge purified water to the consumers.
Prior art water purifier contains several filter elements which is positioned superimposed and a set of pipelines. The problem is that the filter elements must be previously superimposed. Then connected to the set of pipelines during the assembly thus the flow of water can be passing through the filters. When disassembling, one has to disassemble the block plate on the back side at first, then disconnects all the filter elements with the set of pipelines that causes great inconvenience. Especially the assembly of the new filter element, the user some times causes miss connection of the filter element to the wrong pipe due to that the pipelines is very complicated. Further, the old filter elements is not that every one needs to change. But for their collective structure, no matter whether it is good or bad that they have to be wholly replaced that causes considerable waste. Besides, the narrow outlet (normally only a single outlet) is very difficult to assemble or disassemble the filter elements. These are the defects that has to be improved.
Furthermore, a conventional water purifiers is generally accumulate a high amount TDS (total dissolved solids) water between the last and the next discharging of pure water. If this high TDS mixes within the pure water, it would be cause that the user drinks no good pure water.

Structural improvement for a water purifier


The present invention relates to a highly elastic, ethylene-based quaterpolymer and a preparation method thereof. More particularly, the present invention relates to a highly elastic, ethylene-based quaterpolymer which comprises a specific molar ratio of an ethylene unit, a C4-6 α-olefin unit, a C8-12 α-olefin unit and at least one functional unit derived from a styrene-based monomer and to a method for preparing the ethylene-based quaterpolymer using a metallocene catalyst.

Polyolefins such as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), etc., are lightweight and inexpensive and have excellent physical properties and processability. Due to such advantages, these polyolefins are used in a variety of fields, including food packages, clothes, containers for medical and cosmetic applications, automobile parts, communications and electrical device parts, engineering and construction materials, agricultural materials, medical devices, etc., and occupy a very important position as general-purpose resins. However, in recent years, demand for improved physical properties of polyolefins has been diversified as the applications thereof are extended. For example, polyolefins having excellent heat resistance or having a soft feel similar to that of soft polyvinyl chloride, which are absent in existing polyolefins, or highly functional polyolefins having good printability, coatability, adhesiveness, compatibility with other polar polymers, etc., are required.
In general, ethylene-based copolymers are non-polar materials which have no polar group in the molecule and, thus, exhibit low adhesiveness to highly polar materials such as metals or polar resins.
For this reason, when an ethylene-based copolymer is to be bonded to a highly polar material, the surface of the ethylene-based copolymer needs to be treated with flame, corona discharge, primer, etc., thereby causing a problem of complicated operation.
A metallocene compound refers to a group 4 transition metal compound having one or two cyclopentadienyl group(s) as (a) ligand(s). The metallocene compound can be used as a catalyst for olefin polymerization after activation with a methylaluminoxane or boron compound. Because the metallocene catalyst advantageously has uniform active sites, copolymerization is easy, a polymer prepared using the metallocene catalyst has a narrow molecular weight distribution, and the distribution of a second monomer is uniform. And, in the case of propylene polymerization, the steric structure of the polymer can be controlled according to the symmetry of the catalyst. In particular, whereas the use of the existing Ziegler-Natta catalyst enables the preparation of isotactic polypropylene only, the use of the metallocene catalyst enables the stereoregular preparation of various polypropylenes, including isotactic, syndiotactic, atactic as well as hemiisotactic polypropylenes. For example, a syndiotactic polypropylene synthesized using a metallocene catalyst has the characteristics of low crystallinity, suitable rigidity and hardness, good transparency and high impact resistance.
These metallocene catalysts are actively used for the production of LLDPE, VLDPE, EPM and EPDM, which are copolymers of ethylene and an α-olefin; cycloolefin copolymers (COCs) which are copolymers of ethylene and a cycloolefin, or an α-olefin and a cycloolefin; and copolymers of ethylene, an α-olefin and styrene. The catalysts used for the production of such polymer products are commonly required to have good activity and good reactivity with a second monomer and to be able to prepare a polymer wherein the distribution of the second monomer is uniform.
Meanwhile, because the metallocene catalysts are costly, compared to the existing Ziegler-Natta catalysts, they should have good activities to be economically valuable. In particular, one catalyst having good reactivity with the second monomer is advantageous in that it enables to produce a polymer with a high content of the second monomer even when the second monomer is used in small amounts.

Ethylene-based quaterpolymer having low glass transition temperature and preparation method thereof

Korea Institute of Industrial Technology


Compounds having the formula (I),

Under normal conditions, the coagulation system is naturally balanced in favor of anticoagulation by a number of proteins circulating in the blood. These proteins include antithrombin III, a serine-protease inhibitor, and protein C, a vitamin-K dependent protein formed in the liver. When injury or trauma occurs, thrombin is produced at precise levels through an ordered series of reactions. Thrombin is a proteolytic enzyme that occupies a central position in the coagulation process. Thrombin catalyzes the conversion of fibrinogen to fibrin, is a key effector enzyme for blood clotting, and is pivotal for other functions as well, such as activation of helper proteins (including Factors V and VIII and thrombomodulin), and its own activation. Disturbances in the natural balance between pro- and anti-coagulant forces may result in bleeding or thrombotic diseases.
A number of coagulation factors present in the blood as precursors (e.g., Factors VII–XII) lead to the production of thrombin. When the coagulation system is triggered (e.g., when trauma occurs), the coagulation factors are transformed into activated factors (e.g., Factors VIIa, IXa, Xa, XIa, etc.). When Factor VII is activated, it forms a complex with tissue factor, a membrane protein. Thus, Factor VIIa is present as a complex bound to tissue factor. When triggered, the coagulation factors and tissue factor complexes undergo an ordered chain of reactions that ultimately lead to conversion of Factor X to Factor Xa, and Factor Xa catalyzes the conversion of prothrombin to thrombin.
An elevated plasma level of coagulation factors, particularly Factor VIIa, is a risk factor for fatal myocardial infarction and associated with coronary artery disease and other abnormalities of the coagulation system, e.g., thrombosis, ischemic vascular disease, intravascular clotting, stroke, embolisms, and so forth. Accordingly, antithrombotic agents have been researched and developed for use in treating cardiovascular and other diseases. Presently established antithrombotic agents include heparin, coumarin, and aspirin. There are, however, limitations with these agents. For example, both heparin and coumarin have a highly-variable dose-related response, and their anticoagulant effects must be closely monitored to avoid a risk of serious bleeding. The erratic anticoagulant response of heparin is likely due to its propensity to bind non-specifically to plasma proteins. Aspirin has a limited efficacy and at high doses presents a risk of gastrointestinal bleeding. Thrombin inhibitors and their drawbacks are further discussed in WO 96/20689.
As may be appreciated, those in the field of pharmaceutical research continue to seek new compounds and compositions having increased effectiveness and bioavailability and/or having fewer side effects. There is particularly an interest in developing agents that can selectively and directly inhibit key factors in the complicated coagulation process. Compounds effective in inhibiting Factors VIIa, Xa, as well as tryptase and urokinase are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,335,324 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,642,252. Factor VIIa inhibitors are also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,358,960 and WO 01/44172. U.S. Pat. No. 6,194,409 discloses certain bicyclic groups such as isoquinoline groups which reportedly are advantageous for promoting pharmacological properties. Phenyl glycine derivatives useful as serine protease inhibitors are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,140,353, U.S. Pat. No. 6,242,644, WO 01/90051 and WO 03/66588 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,472,393.
The patents, patent applications, and articles cited herewith are incorporated herein by reference.

Phenylglycine derivatives useful as serine protease inhibitors

Abstract: Compounds having the formula (I),

Abstract: or a stereoisomer or pharmaceutically-acceptable salt, or hydrate thereof, are useful as factor VIIa inhibitors, wherein X is —NR6S(O)pR16; W is hydrogen or —(CR7R8)q—W1; W1 is hydrogen or a bond with R6; Z is a 5-membered heteroaryl group, a five to six membered heterocyclo or cycloalkyl group, a 9 to 10 membered bicyclic aryl or heteroaryl, or a six membered aryl or heteroaryl, and R1, R2, R3, R6, R7, and R16 are as defined in the specification.