An electronic system has a powerable device (e.g., one or more storage processors), a power supply assembly adapted to provide power from an external power source to the powerable device, and a data communications cable interconnected between the powerable device and the power supply assembly. The power supply assembly is further adapted to simulate backup power supply responses to the powerable device through the data communications cable in response to backup power supply communications from the powerable device through the data communications cable to imitate correct operation of a backup power supply in-line between the external power source and the power supply assembly. In the absence of such a backup power supply, the simulated backup power supply responses alleviate the need to modify the powerable device from a design that works with an actual backup power supply in-line between an external power source and a power supply assembly.

Some data storage systems utilize a standby power supply (SPS) which interconnects between a power supply of the data storage system and a main power feed, i.e., AC-line power. If the AC-line power from the main power feed becomes unavailable, the SPS provides DC backup power to the data storage system in place of the AC-line power. The SPS typically provides enough DC backup power to enable the data storage system to dump its cache into non-volatile memory and, if the AC-line power does not return within a predefined amount of time, to further perform an orderly shutdown.
FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of conventional data storage equipment 20 which includes a data storage system 22, an SPS assembly 24, two power supply power pathways 26(1), 26(2) (collectively, power supply power pathways 26), and two SPS communications pathways 28(1), 28(2) (collectively, SPS communications pathways 28). The data storage system 22 includes storage processing circuitry 30 (e.g., multiple storage processors which perform data storage operations on behalf of one or more host computers) and two power supplies 32(1), 32(2) (collectively, power supplies 32). The power supplies 32 are shown immediately adjacent the storage processing circuitry 30 to illustrate a configuration in which the power supplies 32 and the storage processing circuitry 30 reside together in a common enclosure.
As shown in FIG. 1, the SPS assembly 24 includes two SPS units 34(1), 34(2) (collectively, SPS units 34). The SPS unit 34(1) connects to a main power feed 36(1), the power supply power pathway 26(1) leading to the power supply 32(1), and the SPS communications pathway 28(1) leading to the storage processing circuitry 30. Similarly, the SPS unit 34(2) connects to a main power feed 36(2), the power supply power pathway 26(2) leading to the power supply 32(2), and the SPS communications pathway 28(2) leading to the storage processing circuitry 30. The power supply power pathways 26 (i.e., power paths) are separate and independent of the SPS communications pathways 28 (i.e., data signal paths).
As further shown in FIG. 1, each SPS unit 34 includes a controller 38, a set of batteries 40, and an ON/OFF switch 42. In particular, the SPS unit 34(1) includes a controller 38(1), a set of batteries 40(1), and an ON/OFF switch 42(1). Likewise, the SPS unit 34(2) includes a controller 38(2), a set of batteries 40(2), and an ON/OFF switch 42(2). The controllers 38 direct the operation of the SPS units 34. The batteries 40 store backup power for use by the data storage system 22 in the event of a loss of the main power feeds 36(1), 36(2) (collectively, main power feeds 36). The switches 42 enable a user to cutoff power completely to the power supplies 32.
When the power supplies 32 receive AC-line power from the SPS units 34, the power supplies 32 output DC power signals having a first polarity to the storage processing circuitry 30. However, if the power supplies 32 receive backup DC power from the SPS units 34, the power supplies 32 output DC power signals having the opposite polarity to the storage processing circuitry 30. The storage processing circuitry 30 is equipped with polarity detectors 44(1), 44(2) thus enabling the storage processing circuitry 30 to distinguish between a normal situation in which the storage processing circuitry 30 is running on AC-line power from the main power feeds 36, and an abnormal situation in which the storage processing circuitry 30 is running on DC backup power from the batteries 40.
During operation of the data storage equipment 20, the controllers 38 of the SPS units 34 normally supply AC-line power to the data storage system 22 directly from the main power feeds 36, and charge the batteries 40 when necessary. In response to the AC-line power, the storage processing circuitry 30 stores data into and retrieves data from an array of disk drives on behalf of one or more external host computers. Additionally, software running on storage processing circuitry 30 (e.g., a master controller) periodically sends SPS queries and SPS commands to the SPS assembly 24 through the SPS communications pathways in order to obtain SPS operating information and guide the operation of the SPS assembly 24 (e.g., a slave controller). In response to the SPS queries, the controllers 38 of the SPS units 34 provide particular SPS responses back to the data storage system 22 through the SPS communications pathways 28 (e.g., an SPS response identifying an operating state in response to an SPS condition query, an SPS response providing results of a battery test in response to an SPS battery test query, etc.). Furthermore, in response to the SPS commands, the controllers 38 perform particular SPS functions (e.g., an SPS command to test the batteries 40, another SPS command to modify operating parameters, etc.).
If main power (i.e., AC-line power) is lost during operation, the controllers 38 disconnect the main power feeds 36 from the power supply power pathways 26, and instead supply backup power (i.e., DC power) from the batteries 40 to the data storage system 22 through the power supply power pathways 26. Upon detection of this event by the detectors 44(1), 44(2) of the storage processing circuitry 30, the storage processing circuitry 30 begins a fault tolerant procedure which involves dumping its cache out to non-volatile memory and shutting down.
If main power returns to normal before the storage processing circuitry 30 reaches a defined shutdown point, the SPS units 34 switch back to supplying main power through the power supply power pathways 26. In response, the storage processing circuitry 30 is capable resuming normal operation (e.g., write-caching operations).
However, if the storage processing circuitry 30 passes the defined shutdown point and main power has not returned, the storage processing circuitry 30 performs an orderly shutdown and commands the SPS units 34 through the SPS communications pathways 28 to shutdown as well. Once shutdown, the SPS units 34 will return to normal operation upon return of main power.

Techniques for powering an electronic device with simulated backup power supply communications


Numerous products can be formed by combining a low melting matrix made up of one or more metals and high melting, high density metal particles and wherein the products can be formed by adding the high density particles to a molten matrix metal and casting same, mixing powders of all the metals together, compacting and centering at a temperature in the low end of the melting range of the matrix alloy, or by mixing the high density particles into a paste of the matrix alloy and molding. These methods and compositions are particularly adaptable for use in forming low or non-toxic high density projectiles, such as, shot, bullets and pellets having a density comparable to that of lead while avoiding problems of toxicity associated with the use of lead.

Traditionally, shot for shotguns has been composed of lead by virtue of its high density and low melting point characteristics. In recent years, however, lead has fallen into disfavor owing to its toxicity. On the other hand, there are no satisfactory substitute metals possessing the same density characteristics, and those metals that are somewhat close to lead in density are not satisfactory substitutes as a result of other drawbacks, such as, high cost, radioactivity, high melting point or other properties. Accordingly, numerous attempts have been made to formulate a mixture of metals which would serve as satisfactory substitutes for lead and especially in the manufacture of shot, pellets, bullets and the like.
Among other approaches which have been proposed, U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,295 to V. Urs is directed to a high density shot made up of an unsintered, cold-compacted mixture of at least two metal powders, one of the powders being more dense than lead and a second one being about the density of lead and flowable under compaction to serve as a matrix that surrounds the denser unmelted powder. The patent to Urs in particular is representative of approaches which have been taken to achieve at least the density of lead by combining lead with the powder of a metal that is more dense than lead. Urs avoids sintering in combining or compacting the metals together, as a result of which the end product has cold welding lines with microscopic voids or air pockets along those cold welding lines which weaken the product. The term "sintering" as employed in the metallurgical industry is the treating of compacted metal powders by heating to an elevated temperature sufficient to cause diffusion without melting of any of the metals present. One difficulty in sintering a single low melting point metal is that temperature and time are hard to control to the required tolerances and, for example, heating even slightly above the melting point temperature can result in melting of the metal into a puddle. On the other hand, sintering of the low-melting-point metal is desirable from the standpoint of achieving higher values of density and strength of the resultant article, because sintering is more effective than compaction alone in causing the matrix to become continuous and avoid weld lines in the article.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,644 to J. E. Brown utilizes bismuth or a bismuth alloy in the formation of high density shot. However, achieving the density of lead in this manner is exceedingly difficult since bismuth is significantly less dense than lead, and to alloy bismuth with any of the few metals that are more dense than lead poses immense problems of toxicity, economy or high temperature processing.

High density projectile and method of making same from a mixture of low density and high density metal powders


A processor of a vehicle is programmed to send a message to a mobile device connected to the processor to request an application permissions update for the vehicle from a remote server, responsive to the vehicle lacking application permissions for a vehicle-enabled mobile application executed by a mobile device. The processor is further programmed to receive, from the server, the application permissions update including both the application permissions and a diagnostic request to receive data from the vehicle.

A system for allowing vehicle-enabled mobile applications to be executed on vehicle systems may allow for third-party applications to integrate with the vehicle. By doing so, the third-party applications may be controllable via the human-machine interface (HMI) of the vehicle. However, some third-party applications may not be suitable for use when the vehicle is in motion, or may be restricted according to government regulations. Moreover, some third-party applications may attempt to retrieve information unnecessary for application operation, causing potential user privacy concerns.
It may be desirable to receive diagnostics from vehicles. However, users may be unlikely to install a diagnostic application onto their mobile devices to allow other parties to receive data from the vehicle.

Cloud-configurable diagnostics via application permissions control


A method for designing a mask for fabricating an integrated circuit is provided wherein a mask layout that requires coloring, such as for alternating phase shift, double-exposure and double-exposure-etch masks, is organized into uncolored hierarchical design units. Prior to modification by OPC, each hierarchical design unit is locally colored. OPC is then performed on the locally colored hierarchical design unit. The local coloring information for the hierarchically arranged OPC-modified design unit may be discarded. After OPC modification, the uncolored OPC-modified design units may be placed within the mask layout, and the flattened data may be colored. Thus, turnaround time for mask design is significantly improved since the numerically intensive OPC is performed on the hierarchical data, avoiding the need to perform OPC on flattened data, whereas the less intensive global coloring is performed on flattened data.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to VLSI circuit design and more specifically relates to optical proximity correction in the design of lithographic masks that require coloring, for example, in alternating phase shift masks or double exposure masks.
2. Description of Related Art
Integrated circuits including very large scale integrated (VLSI) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices are manufactured on a silicon wafer by a sequence of material additions (i.e., low pressure chemical vapor depositions, sputtering operations, etc.), material removals (i.e., wet etches, reactive ion etches, etc.), and material modifications (i.e., oxidations, ion implants, etc.). These physical and chemical operations interact with the entire wafer. For example, if a wafer is placed into an acid bath, the entire surface of the wafer will be etched away. In order to build very small electrically active devices on the wafer, the impact of these operations has to be confined to small, well-defined regions.
Lithography in the context of VLSI manufacturing of CMOS devices is the process of patterning openings in photosensitive polymers (sometimes referred to as photoresists or resists) which define small areas in which the silicon base (or other) material is modified by a specific operation in a sequence of processing steps. The manufacturing of CMOS chips involves the repeated patterning of photoresist, followed by an etch, implant, deposition, or other operation, and ending in the removal of the expended photoresist to make way for a new resist to be applied for another iteration of this process sequence.
The basic lithography system consists of a light source, a stencil, or photomask containing the pattern to be transferred to the wafer, a collection of lenses, and a means for aligning existing patterns on the wafer with patterns on the mask. Since a wafer containing from fifty to one hundred chips is patterned in steps of one to four chips at a time, a lithography stepper is limited by parameters described in Rayleigh's equation:
                    R        =                              k            l                                                                                λ            NA                                              (        1        )
where λ is the wavelength of the light source used in the projection system and NA is the numerical aperture of the projection optics used. k1 is a factor describing how well a combined lithography system can utilize the theoretical resolution limit in practice and can range from 0.8 down to 0.5 for standard exposure systems. The highest resolution in optical lithography is currently achieved with deep ultra violet (DUV) steppers operating at 248 nm wavelength. Steppers operating at a wavelength of 356 nm are also in widespread use.
Conventional photomasks consist of chromium patterns on a quartz plate, allowing light to pass wherever the chromium is removed from the mask. Light of a specific wavelength is projected through a mask onto the photoresist coated wafer, exposing the resist wherever holes are patterned on the mask. Exposing the resist to light of appropriate wavelength causes modifications in the molecular structure of the resist polymers which allows a developer chemical to dissolve and remove the resist in the exposed areas. (Conversely, negative resist systems allow only unexposed resist to be developed away.) The photomask, when illuminated, can be pictured as an array of individual, infinitely small light sources, which can be either turned on (points covered by clear areas) or turned off (points covered by chrome).
These conventional photomasks are commonly referred to as chrome on glass (COG) binary masks. The perfectly square step function exists only in the theoretical limit of the exact mask plane. At any distance away from the mask, such as in the wafer plane, diffraction effects will cause images to exhibit a finite image slope. At small dimensions, that is, when the size and spacing of the images to be printed are small relative to λ/NA (NA being the numerical aperture of the exposure system), electric field vectors of nearby images will interact and add constructively. The resulting light intensity curve between features is not completely dark, but exhibits significant amounts of light intensity created by the interaction of adjacent features. The resolution of an exposure system is limited by the contrast of the projected light image, that is, the intensity difference between adjacent light and dark features. An increase in the light intensity in nominally dark regions will eventually cause adjacent features to print as one combined structure rather than discrete images.
The quality with which small images can be replicated in lithography depends largely on the available process latitude; that is the amount of allowable dose and focus variation that still results in correct image size. Phase shifted mask (PSM) lithography improves the lithographic process latitude or allows operation of a lower k1 value (see equation 1) by introducing a third parameter on the mask. The electric field vector, like any vector quantity, has a magnitude and direction, so in addition to turning the electric field amplitude on and off, the phase of the vector can be changed. This phase variation is achieved in PSM's by modifying the length that a light beam travels through the mask material. By recessing the mask by the appropriate depth, light traversing the thinner portion of the mask and light traversing the thicker portion of the mask will be 180° out of phase; that is, their electric field vectors will be of equal magnitude but point in exactly opposite directions so that any interaction between these light beams results in perfect cancellation. For more information on PSM, the reader is referred to "Phase-Shifting Mask: Strategies: Isolated Dark Lines, " Marc D. Levenson, Microlithography World, March/April 1992, pp. 6-12. The limits of PSM lithography can be uniquely challenged by the manufacture of high-performance logic derivatives of advanced Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) technologies. These technologies are entering development cycles with immediate requirements for sub-quarter micron printed gate lengths and tight dimensional control on the gate structures across large chip areas. Since these logic technologies are based on shrinking the gate length in an established DRAM technology, the overall layout pitch remains constant for all critical mask levels, resulting in narrow, optically isolated lines on the scaled gate level. The requirement for tight line width control on narrow isolated lines drives the requirement of phase edge PSM's for these logic applications. Phase edge PSM lithography makes use of contrast enhancement caused by a phase transition under an opaque feature on a mask. This phase transition is achieved by etching an appropriate depth into the quartz mask substrate on one side of a narrow line structure on the mask. Since the 180° phase transition forces a minimum in the image intensity, narrow dark lines will be printed by these excess phase edges. Currently, the unwanted images are erased using a trim mask, a second mask that transmits light only in regions left unexposed by the residual phase edge.
Even though resolution enhancement through the use of phase shifted masks has been extensively proven, implementation of this technique is critically dependent on computer assisted design (CAD) technology that can modify existing circuit designs to incorporate the additional design levels needed to build a phase shifted mask. Design modifications consist of defining regions on the mask that require phase shifting (i.e., by etching into the mask substrate), and trim regions required to eliminate lines printed by unwanted phase edges, and then inserting additional shapes on the respective design levels (ie: phase, trim). The process of defining portions of the mask as 0° phase transition and other portions as 180° phase transition is generally referred to as phase coloring. The challenge for phase coloring algorithms to find a globally correct solution depends highly on design styles. Thus such algorithms have been difficult to effectively automate.
Currently phase coloring is considered a binary design problem and uses nets and net coloring to form the mask. The method in general assigns binary qualities (such as "−" or "+") in a way that eliminates conflicts between design elements. In phase-shifted mask designs, portions of the mask are assigned a 0° phase shift and other portions are assigned 180° phase shifts such that the image intensity between the portions is minimized. Thus, the phase shifted mask design is a type of binary problem, one that can be solved using phase coloring.
Phase coloring methods can be adapted to generate phase- shifted mask designs from traditional flat VLSI CAD data or hierarchical VLSI CAD data.
A method for phase coloring for flat databases and hierarchial databases is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,883,813 to Kim et al. and which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention. This patent is incorporated herein by reference.
CAD data structures for a VLSI circuit design can include either flat data structures or hierarchical data structures. The CAD data structure inputs include each shape element to be fabricated on a mask, and the location of that shape on the mask. Of course, such a data structure for a VLSI device is extremely complex, and could contain millions of shapes for each mask, with several masks required for each device. Preferably, the data is maintained in hierarchical data structures for minimizing storage and computational resources.
In the generation of phase shift masks, the phase coloring of one shape can affect the phase coloring of a "nearby" shape. Such shapes are "coupled" with respect to phase coloring. Each pair of nearby shapes is referred to as an "intrusion pair," meaning the phase of one determines the phase of the other. The CAD data structure input preferably contains a list of all intrusion pairs or otherwise contains the data from which the intrusion pair list can be derived.
The method of the Kim patent forms a database of element shapes and their color is assigned. This data base is generally referred to as a net list. A net is a set of shapes that are phase coupled together and are treated as a single entity, with the phase coupling as the "connected" function that allows the shapes to be stored as a net. Nets that are elements of higher level nets are referred to as "nested nets".
The method continues until all intrusion pairs have been located and assigned a color and a net. Those shapes that are not nearby any other shape can be arbitrarily assigned either color unless otherwise constrained.
In addition to working with flat VLSI CAD data structures, the Kim et al. patent can be applied to hierarchical VLSI CAD data structures. Many CAD systems describe the physical design of VLSI devices in the form of hierarchical 2-dimensional geometric models. These systems simplify the complex task of designing VLSI devices, but have traditionally had problems analyzing the hierarchical design. The primary reason for this is that traditional methods have analyzed the data flat, (i.e., all instances of mask shapes are transformed into the coordinate system of the root node of the design) whereas mask data is typically designed nested (i.e., the mask shapes are designed hierarchically and may be reused in a design many times). One system and method for creating hierarchical representations of interconnections between VLSI circuit design components to facilitate the analysis of a design while still in its nested form was described by Kim et al. in "System and Method for Building Interconnections in Hierarchical Circuit Design," U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,473, and assigned to International Business Machines Corp. and incorporated herein by reference. The system uses a form of the graphical technique known as inverse layout trees to describe the interconnections. The inverse layout tree is a forest of trees each rooted at a leaf node of the layout tree. Thus, in a typical implementation, a design mask shape would form the root of an inverse layout tree, while the leaves would represent flat layouts of the rooted mask shape. The use of the inverse layout tree has provided a means for manipulating instances of a mask shape at varying levels of nesting.
This system uses nets to group components of a design that are interconnected by some set of rules. In particular, the system uses nested net synthesis to identify and store the interconnection data between shapes in a nested component design. In particular, the system uses nested net synthesis to identify and store interconnections (such as electric or magnetic interconnections) of VLSI design components of a nested design while maintaining the data in its nested form.
Similarly, nested net synthesis can be used to identify and store phase coupling between mask shapes in a hierarchical VLSI database and the Kim et al. method can operate on this database to appropriately color the mask shapes to minimize the image intensity between them. Groups of locally interacting mask shapes are represented by independent subnets of mask shapes within the layout tree.
Thus, the Kim et al. method automatically colors VLSI design elements for the purpose of assigning binary properties to the elements. The method of Kim et al. attempts to find a clean coloring solution within each of the subnets by traversing the subnet and flipping the color of elements while attempting to find a clean coloring solution without flattening the data. However, as design density increases, subnet sizes increase and the probability of finding a clean coloring solution is significantly diminished, and flattening becomes required.
Adding phase modulation to the photomask can profoundly increase the attainable resolution. Other resolution enhancement methods have also been shown to increase attainable resolution and some of these must also undergo a coloring step similar to alternating phase shift masks. An example of one of these methods is the decomposition of a single patterning layer into two layers that are printed on two masks. The assignment of particular shapes to each decomposed mask is referred to hereinafter as coloring (which is analogous to assigning phase coloring in altPSM technology). Each of the two masks is then exposed on the wafer and their resulting images recombined to form the original desired pattern. If both masks are exposed into a single film of photoresist, this technique is generally referred to as double-exposure (DE), which is widely known in the art. If the first exposure is transferred into a secondary film and then another layer of photoresist added to the wafer and exposed with the second mask, the technique is often called double-exposure-double-etch (DE2) which is also known in the art. Although these patterning techniques are known, they are not widely practiced due to, among other reasons, the difficulty of decomposing a realistic design layout into two mask layers.
Sub-wavelength lithography, where the size of printed features is smaller than the exposure wavelength, places a tremendous burden on the lithographic process. Distortions of the intended images inevitably arise, primarily because of the nonlinearities of the imaging process and the nonlinear response of the photoresist. Two of the most prominent types of distortions are the wide variation in the linewidths of identically drawn features in dense and isolated environments (dense-iso bias) and the line-end pull-back or line-end shortening (LES) from drawn positions. The former type of distortion can cause variations in circuit timing and yield, whereas the latter can lead to poor current tolerances and higher probabilities of electrical failure.
Optical proximity correction or optical proximity compensation (OPC) is the technology used to compensate for these types of distortions. OPC is loosely defined as the procedure of compensating (pro-distorting) the mask layout of the critical IC layers for the lithographic process distortions to follow. This is done with specialized OPC software. In the heart of the OPC software is a mathematical description of the process distortions. This description can either be in the form of simple shape manipulation rules, in which case the OPC is referred to as "rule-based OPC or a more detailed and intricate process model for a "model-based OPC (MBOPC)." The OPC software automatically changes the mask layout by moving segments of line edges and adding extra features that (pre-) compensate the layout for the distortions to come. Although after OPC has been performed the mask layout may be quite different than the original (before OPC) mask, the net result of this procedure is a printed pattern on the wafer that is closest to the IC designer's original intent. There are commercially available software tools that perform OPC on a full-chip scale. OPC relies heavily on speedy calculations of the image intensity at selected points of the image field.
In general, with large densely packed designs, photomasks that require coloring, such as alternating PSM or decomposed masks for DE or DE2, are typically flattened (i.e. to the top level of the hierarchy) in obtaining the coloring solution. Thus, flattened data is passed down to the OPC engine which spends days in processing and is generally ineffective. Therefore, there is a need for a more efficient OPC technology that takes advantage of the hierarchical data structure for densely packed photomask designs that require coloring.

International Business Machines Corporation


An upstream hole is formed at the upstream end of a detector main body of a liquid flow detector for detecting liquid flow, and a downstream hole is formed at the downstream end, with a liquid flow channel comprising a liquid flow detection channel, discharge channel, and, optionally, intermediate flow channel, being formed between the upstream hole and downstream hole. A mobile body which is optionally, spherical, moves with the flow of liquid, and is arranged inside the liquid flow channel. The diameter of the liquid flow detection channel is smaller than the diameter of the discharge channel, and the diameter of the mobile body is slightly smaller than the diameter of the liquid flow detection channel. The shape of the peripheral edge part of the upstream hole and the downstream hole is optionally elliptical.

Liquids such as drug solutions are conventionally supplied to patients using a transfusion line provided with a tube. In such cases, it is difficult to visually confirm the flow of the liquid if there is a small amount of liquid to be administered to the patient. Furthermore, even if a liquid flow detector for detecting the flow of liquid is incorporated into the transfusion line, this liquid flow detector must be such that it does not obstruct administration of the liquid to the patient. In addition, there may be cases where the liquid flow detector is used only once, and an inexpensive liquid flow detector which does not utilize a device such as an electrical sensor or an optical sensor is required in such cases. There are instruments such as this in which a spherical body which moves along with the flow of liquid is provided in the liquid flow detector.
This liquid flow detector (flowmeter) has a configuration in which an inlet port extending horizontally and a conical upper flow channel extending vertically are connected by a narrow passage, and a spherical body is arranged inside the upper flow channel. The upper flow channel is formed so that the upper part has a somewhat larger diameter than the lower part, and the flow of the liquid can be detected by the position of the spherical body which moves inside the upper flow channel depending on the flow of liquid, which also allows the flow rate of the liquid to be measured.
However, with the conventional liquid flow detector described above, it is difficult to detect the flow of liquid if the liquid to be administered to the patient is in an extremely small amount, for example if the flow velocity is of the order of 1 ml per hour.
The present invention has been devised in view of the situation outlined above, and it aims to provide an inexpensive liquid flow detector which can detect the flow of a minute amount of liquid, and a transfusion line provided with same.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


An electrochemical motive device is described having an electrochemical cell and at least one device configured produce motion as a function of electrochemical gas produced by the electrochemical cell. One example of an electrochemical motive device is a pump having one pump chamber, and pump member that forces a pumping fluid through the chamber. An electrochemical cell provides for a transfer of gas from the anode to the cathode. A control portion is described for taking input from the electrochemical pump and controlling the voltage and current to the electrochemical cell. In one embodiment, multiple pumping chambers are configured, and in one embodiment two pumping chambers are connected. It is further described that the control portion may automatically adjust parameters as a function of inputs, including user interface inputs.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to electrochemical motive systems that can convert pressure differential from an electrochemical cell into work, for example move an item, such as a bladder or piston, or rotate a shaft, for an electrochemical pump apparatuses, for example.
2. Background
Electrochemical cells in which a chemical reaction is forced by adding electrical energy are called electrolytic cells. Central to the operation of any cell is the occurrence of oxidation and reduction reactions which produce or consume electrons. These reactions generally take place at electrode/solution interfaces, where the electrodes must be good electronic conductors and the solution should have high ion conductivity. In operation, a cell is connected to an external voltage source, and electric charge is transferred by electrons between the anode and the cathode through the external circuit. To complete the electric circuit, ions produced at an electrode must pass through the cell to the opposing electrode. Typically an electrolyte is provided between the electrodes for this purpose.
The simplest electrochemical cell consists of at least two electrodes and one or more electrolytes. The electrode at which the electron producing oxidation reaction occurs is the anode. The electrode at which an electron consuming reduction reaction occurs is called the cathode. The direction of the electron flow in the external circuit is always from anode to cathode. In an electrolysis reaction, it is necessary to apply electric power to the cell electrodes. The electrodes are connected through the electrical leads to an external source of electric power with the polarity being selected to induce the electrolyte anion flow to the anode and the cation flow to the cathode.
Generally speaking, the anode and cathode are comprised a substrate material, such as titanium, graphite, or the like, coated with a catalyst such as lead dioxide, platinum, palladium, or other known materials. The selection of a substrate and catalyst is determined by the particular electrode reaction.
Generally, an electrolyte is a material that conducts, ions. Fuel cells are a common electrochemical application. In fuel cells, proton exchange membranes are used as electrolytic and catalyst support for providing a reaction of hydrogen oxidation on the one side of membrane and oxygen reduction on the other side. This combination of membrane and electrodes can be called a Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA).


The invention relates to a method for in vitro seriological diagnosis of Whipple's disease, whereby the bacteria responsible for the disease are isolated and established in a culture and brought into contact with the serum or biological fluid of an infected patient. The invention also relates to useful oligonucelotides with a probe and a primer for amplifying, sequencing and detecting the gene rpoB of the bacteria, Tropheryma whippelii.

Whipple's disease is a disease which manifests itself in a variety of forms. The most classic form is that of a fever with chronic diarrhea leading to weight loss, but this disease is also capable of giving rise to chronic articular symptoms, cerebral symptoms with dementia and also cardiac symptoms, particularly endocarditis with negative hemoculture.
Since it was first described in 1907, Whipple's disease has been understood to involve the existence of a bacterium associated with "intestinal lipodystrophy" due to the observation of numerous microorganisms after the silver staining of a mesenteric ganglion (Whipple, Bull. John Hopkins Hosp. 1907; 18: 328–391). Demonstration of the non-specific PAS-positive (PAS=periodic acid-Schiff) character of this bacterium and subsequent observations by electron microscopy confirm the presence of an intracellular bacterial species of Gram-positive structure (Chears et al., Gastroenterology 1961; 41: 129–138). The universal molecular tool 16S rRNA made it possible to confirm this hypothesis, specifying the phylogenic taxonomy of this novel bacterial species and assigning to it the provisional name Tropheryma whippelii to evoke the idea of intestinal malabsorption and to honor the discoverer of the complaint (Relman et al., N. Engl. J. Med. 1992; 327: 293–301). The direct sequencing of 721 bases of an amplified fragment from a biopsy of one patient's small intestine (Wilson et al., Lancet 1991; 338: 474–475) and then from another patient's ganglion (Wilson et al., ASM News 1992; 58: 318–321) confirms the novelty of the bacterial species associated with Whipple's disease. The sequencing by Relman et al. (op. cit.) of 1321 bases in one sample, representing 90% of the gene, and of a fragment of 284 bases in four other patients made it possible to confirm that the bacterial species associated with Whipple's disease represented a novel species, and to specify its taxonomic position in the phylum of the actinomycetes, i.e. the bacteria of Gram-positive structure with a high content of guanosine plus cytosine, representing a new branch relatively close to two species known in human pathology, namely Actinomyces pyogenes and Rothia dentocariosa.
The disease is currently diagnosed by microscopic observation, after staining, of a smear obtained from a biopsy, or by amplification and sequencing of the universal genetic tool 16S rRNA (Relman et al., op. cit.).
Hitherto, it has in fact been impossible to isolate and cultivate the bacterium responsible for Whipple's disease in a manner suitable for performing serological tests.
Contrary to all expectation, the Applicant has developed a method of culturing the bacterium responsible for Whipple's disease.


A drip stop device (1) for a container for liquids (C) is arranged at the outlet opening (A) of a container (C) to allow liquid to be poured without drips. The device (1) includes a first plate-like element (2) introduced, in the rolled-up configuration, in the outlet opening (A) to define a tubular duct (21). A second plate-like element (3) that substantially develops along a longitudinal direction is superimposed on a surface (22) of first plate-like element (2) with a first end (31) fixed to a perimeter portion (23) of first plate-like element (2) so that when first plate-like element (2) is rolled up substantially along the longitudinal axis (x) of second plate-like element (3), longitudinal sides (32, 33) of second plate-like element (3) come into contact with surface (22) to define one or more forced routes for the liquid flowing out of the container (C).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a drip stop device suited to be arranged at the level of the outlet opening of a liquid container, in particular a bottle of wine, capable of improving the oxygenation of the liquid while this flows out of said container.
2. Present State of the Art
It is known that the drip stop devices belonging to the known art are suited to be arranged at the level of the outlet opening of a liquid container, in particular on the end of a bottle neck, in such a way as to support the liquid while it flows out and to avoid the formation of drips and sprays.
Among the several types of drip stop devices belonging to the prior art, the drip stop device described in patent EP0560777 is known, which is easy to use, economic and universal.
This drip stop device, in particular, comprises a disc made of an elastic and flexible material which, to be able to be used as a drip stopper, needs to be rolled up in such a way as to form a substantially tubular duct and must be partially introduced in said outlet opening of the container.
Thanks to the elasticity and flexibility of the material used to make it, said drip stop device, once introduced in the opening of the container, naturally tends to unroll in order to assume its original disc-shaped configuration, thus perfectly adapting to the inner edge of the opening.
This last characteristic thus allows this type of drip stop device to be universal, independently of the size of the outlet opening of the container.
However, said type of drip stop device, as well as most of the drip stop devices of the known art, only defines a hollow tubular duct in which the liquid, especially wine, flows along a linear direction, without encountering obstacles. In fact, said type of drip stop device has been designed and produced only for the purpose of avoiding the formation of drips and sprays while the liquid, especially wine, is being poured, and not to obtain also the oxygenation of the same.
In fact, as is known, wine is kept inside its container for long periods and therefore needs to come into contact with air in such a way as to be re-oxygenated and to be able to give forth all its aromas again.
To disadvantage, the use of said drip stop devices of the known art does not allow the oxygenation of the liquid, especially wine, to be guaranteed, and therefore the latter cannot give forth all its aromas.
The present invention aims to overcome the drawbacks listed above.


A seat assembly includes a seat bottom with a deformable seat shell. The deformable seat shell is configured to change shape with a changing occupant load distribution. The seat shell is coupled with a support frame via a shell motion controller having one or more motion control links. Each motion control link is coupled with the seat shell at a fixed location relative to the seat shell and with the support frame at a fixed location relative to the support frame. The shell motion controller allows these fixed locations to move relative to each other and also constrains their relative movement. The combined seat shell deformation and controlled movement relative to the support frame can provide the seat occupant with a comfortable seating experience while preventing pelvis drift and potentially eliminating traditional foam seat cushions.

Seat assemblies, such as vehicle seats, often include a generally horizontal seat bottom and a generally upright seat back. Each of the seat bottom and seat back usually includes an underlying structure, a decorative covering material, and a foam bun or cushion between the structure and covering material. The foam cushion is softer than the underlying structure and is intended to provide a comfortable seating surface for a seat occupant. Such cushions may be configured to compress when the seat occupant is seated. Foam density, thickness, composition, and porosity may affect the overall feel of the seat. Traditional foam materials, such as polyurethane foam, are thermoset materials and may pose end-of-life difficulty with respect to dismantling and material recycling.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0088061 describes a seat assembly with a collapsible cushion support assembly disposed on a seat bottom frame. The collapsible cushion support assembly is configured to support a seat occupant when not collapsed. The seat assembly is configured so that the cushion support assembly collapses to a location closer to the vehicle floor when the seat back is folded down over the seat bottom to reduce the overall height of the folded seat assembly.

Deformable seat shell with motion control


Process and arrangement for cutting and/or chamfering pipe front rims of pipes, in particular thick-walled pipes which are used for manufacturing ball bearings. The process includes the steps of measuring the actual external diameter of the pipe or inputting the data of the nominal external diameter of the pipe, moving of at least one cutting head towards abutting contact with the exterior surface of the pipe in a rapid transverse motion in accordance with measurements stored in a control unit, switching the feed motion and/or the cutting speed to conform to the machining process which has been adapted to the material of the pipe for the rapid cutting of a ring piece from the pipe blank. The external periphery of the pipe generally consisting of a hard zone which is being cut by a slower cutting speed and said cutting speed is increased once said hard zone has been fully traversed by the cutting tools mounted on the cutting head.

The invention relates to a pipe cutting and/or chamfering machine and to a process for cutting pipe sections from a pipe blank, in particular for cutting ring pieces from thick walled pipe blanks which ring pieces are adapted to be used in the manufacture of ball bearings.
Pipe cutting and/or chamfering machines of this type generally include a cutting head and clamping jaws which bear radially against the exterior surface of the pipe blank, a rotating face plate for uptake of at least one radially adjustable cutting tool and optionally at least one radially adjustable chamfering tool. This type of pipe cutting machine generally includes a clamping mechanism for grasping a cut pipe section and depositing it for further processing. This type of state of the art pipe cutting machine is described in the European patent No. 0 425 994 of the applicant herein.
In this known type of pipe cutting machine the pipe blank is deposited on a transport roller bed the parallel rollers of which are in alignment with the cutting head and at least one which is rotatably driven. By means of the driven roller(s) the pipe blank is transported through the cutting head and face plate against an adjustable stop member and then is clamped by means of clamping jaws. Thereafter the cutting operation is carried out. The stop member must be of rugged construction because it must not only properly position the pipe blank end, but must also absorb the inertial forces of the forward movement of the pipe blank, which is thick-walled and consequently has a large mass. After the pipe blank has been clamped by the clamping jaws the stop member is moved away from the pipe blank end in order to permit the clamping of the pipe section, which is to be cut off, to be grasped by the clamping mechanism and then to be deposited for further handling. Since this operational cycle repeats itself after each pipe blank feed advance, down times of the machine result which decrease the output of cut pipe sections. Furthermore, tolerance deviations of the width of the cut pipe sections may occur, in particular when, for example, metal chips or borings may lodge between the stop member and the end face of the pipe blank.
While the feed motion of the pipe blank by means of one or more driven rollers of a transport bed composed of a plurality of parallel rollers constitutes a relatively simple construction, it does, however, not permit the feed advance to be precisely adjusted to a given value. It is therefore necessary to move the pipe blank in each operational cycle with its end face against the adjustable stop member. Because there will inevitably occur in such an arrangement wear on the exposed cutting surfaces of the cutting tool, there results a gradual widening of the cut pipe section which can only be corrected if there is provided an adjustment mechanism for the stop member preferably along an additional CNC-axis.
In order to assure that the end face of the pipe blank abuts flush against the stop member, it is necessary to construct the roller bed so that, at the moment of contact by the stop member with the end face of pipe blank, there remains a sufficient driving force to cause a small additional rotation of the driven roller. This causes a high wear off the roller surface.
Finally an other drawback of the state of the art machines resides in the large waste of pipe section material that occurs in view of the fact that the transport rollers must be arranged in front of the input of the cutting head and a further advance of the pipe blank is no longer possible when no portion of the pipe blank is disposed on top of the driven roller. Furthermore, this pipe blank remnant can also not be further processed since a new pipe blank is used to move the pipe blank remnant through the cutting head. Since this pipe blank remnant is only still held by the clamping jaws in the cutting head, which have a small axial length relative to the axial length of the pipe blank remnant, these clamping jaws are therefore not suitable for holding and aligning the pipe blank remnant in an exact horizontal direction. The pipe blank remnant tilts and oblique pipe sections result from further cutting operations.
It is, of course, understood that ball bearings must be mass produced and preferably in a fully automatic operation with efficient as possible a use of the production machinery in order to minimize as much as possible the material losses due to cutting and/or machining in view of the raw material for ball bearings being expensive high alloy steel. Furthermore, the wear of the expensive machine cutting tools must be as low as possible. Low material losses can be realized by using band saws for machining the ball bearing rings which have a cutting width of 2 millimeter maximum. The cutting velocity of such a band saw is, however, not high and the useful service life of such band saws is low. This is due to the fact that a band saw can basically only cut transversely through a pipe and encounters throughout the cutting process hard zones in the region of the external and internal diameters of the pipe. To this must be added the fact that the cutting operation can not be carried out exactly normally to the pipe axis because the elastic unguided band saw can easily deviate from a preselected path in the region of the pipe, which makes a subsequent planing operation of the cut rings always indispensable.

Pipe cutting machine and process for cutting pipe pieces from a pipe blank


The present invention relates to an oil-retaining bearing for a rotary machine. In the oil-retaining bearing for a rotary machine according to the present invention, a first lock section is provided in a bearing housing; a first thrust spacer is relatively rotatably mounted in the vicinity of the end face of the oil-retaining bearing for a rotary machine; the first thrust spacer is provided with a second lock section, in engagement with the first lock section; a second thrust spacer is relatively non-rotatably mounted on the rotating shaft; and a third thrust spacer having elasticity is relatively rotatably mounted on the rotating shaft; the third thrust spacer being interposed between the first thrust spacer and the second thrust spacer. Furthermore, in the oil-retaining bearing structure for a rotary machine according to the present invention, a small hole is provided in the bearing housing through which the rotating shaft is mounted; at least one axial groove is formed in the inner surface of the bearing housing; and at least one radial groove is formed in the inner surface of the bearing housing; the axial groove being connected with the small hole section through the radial groove.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an oil-retaining bearing structure for use in a rotary machine such as an axial-flow fan and others.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an axial-flow fan having a prior art sintered oil-retaining bearing, a stator is secured to a casing; a sintered oil-retaining bearing is secured to the stator; a rotating shaft is rotatably supported on the sintered oil-retaining bearing; a rotor is secured on the rotating shaft; and a fan is secured on the rotor. In addition, a thrust spacer is secured on the rotating shaft, in contact with an end face of the sintered oil-retaining bearing. Furthermore, a plate member is secured on the stator to thereby form a space, which is enclosed on the plate member side of the sintered oil-retaining bearing.
In such an oil-retaining bearing structure of the axial-flow fan, when the fan secured on the rotor rotates and a reaction force acts on the rotating shaft, the thrust spacer is pressed against the end face of the sintered oil-retaining bearing. Therefore a sliding sound occurs in the sliding surface between the thrust spacer and the end face of the sintered oil-retaining bearing. Also the thrust spacer is worn, reducing the life of the sintered oil-retaining bearing. Furthermore, since there is formed the space enclosed on the plate member side of the sintered oil-retaining bearing, the pressure will increase with a temperature rise in the enclosed space when the fan rotates, causing a lubricating oil retained in the sintered oil-retaining bearing to pass between the sintered oil-retaining bearing and the rotating shaft, flowing out to the opposite side of the plate member side of the sintered oil-retaining bearing. The lubricating oil thus flowing out is scattered out by a centrifugal force with the rotation of the rotating shaft, then passing between the stator and the rotor to leak outwardly, thereby shortening the life of the sintered oil-retaining bearing structure and smearing the exterior with the lubricating oil.

Oil-retaining bearing structure for rotary machine


A electronic rotary switch is disclosed that comprises domes molded into an elastomeric switch mat mounted to a printed circuit board. A knob rotatably attached to the circuit board includes a cam that depresses individual domes to actuate a contact switch pad on the printed circuit board. A microprocessor may be utilized with the switch to replicate an encoder or potentiometer.

This invention relates to electronic rotary switches. Such switches are used in a great variety of applications to control or adjust input or outputs. Two familiar examples are the temperature control and blower fan motor control in an automotive vehicle.
Numerous designs of electronic rotary switches are known. A potentiometer is a well known device for controlling the amount of voltage potential in a circuit. With the advent of microprocessors and digital control of many components, encoders have been widely adopted as a means to control various systems, including electronics. Switches configured as potentiometers and encoders are used in an enormous variety of applications. Any application involving an electrical control panel will commonly have a potentiometer or an encoder or sometimes both for controlling things such as temperature, motor speed, frequency, timing, pressure, or mode of operation. The signals produced by the potentiometer or encoder are commonly sensed by an integrated circuit attached to a printed circuit board (PCB), also known as a printed wiring board or PWB. Depending on the application, the integrated circuit could be a microprocessor capable of processing a substantial number of inputs and controlling a variety of parameters.
For encoders or potentiometers adapted for use in an automotive vehicle interior, such as climate control switches, the cost of an encoder or potentiometer is typically on the order of $3-$4, not including the PCB or the microprocessor. A lower cost rotary switch that reliably replicates the functions of a potentiometer or encoder or mode control selector is desirable.


In one embodiment of the invention, in an image forming apparatus that reverses the front and back of recording paper by performing switchback transport of the recording paper to perform duplex printing of the recording paper, the image forming apparatus is provided with a control means that, when performing duplex printing of the recording paper, forms a void area at a leading end and a trailing end of the recording paper, the void area preventing curling of the recording paper around a roller.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that reverses the front and back of recording paper by performing switchback transport of the recording paper to perform duplex printing of the recording paper.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ordinarily, in an image forming apparatus such as a copy machine, a printer, or a facsimile device, an electrostatic latent image is formed on a photosensitive body, toner is supplied to the photosensitive body from a development apparatus, the electrostatic latent image is made visible on the photosensitive body by the toner, a toner image is formed on the photosensitive body, the toner image is transferred from the photosensitive body to recording paper, heat and pressure are applied to the recording paper, and thus the toner image is fixed on the recording paper.
In a fixing apparatus, heat and pressure are applied to recording paper sandwiched between a hot roller and a pressure roller (also referred to as a fixing roller), so that the toner image is hot-melted on the recording paper and thus fixed.
Incidentally, when a toner image is transferred to an entire sheet of recording paper, and the recording paper is passed between the rollers of the fixing apparatus, it is difficult for the ends of the recording paper to peel away from the rollers due to the adherence of toner to the ends of the recording paper, so the recording paper curls around the rollers and jams may occur.
Therefore, often a void area where a toner image is not transferred is formed at the ends of the recording paper. In the void area at the ends of the recording paper, a toner image is not transferred and so toner adherence does not occur. Thus, even after heat and pressure have been applied to the recording paper between the rollers of the fixing apparatus, the ends of the recording paper can easily be peeled away from the rollers, so the recording paper does not curl around the rollers and jams do not occur.
On the other hand, even when a toner image is transferred to the trailing end of the recording paper, the trailing end of the recording paper is quickly separated from the rollers after the trailing end of the recording paper has passed between the rollers, so a void area is not formed at the trailing end of the recording paper. Conversely, attempts have been made to reduce the margin area of the trailing end of the recording paper as much as possible (see JP H10-86350A).
With respect to printing of recording paper, a margin portion may be provided at the leading end, trailing end, and both sides of the recording paper. These margin portions are set as one item of the print layout of the recording paper, and differ from the void area of the leading end of the recording paper for preventing curling around the rollers. For example, even if the margin portion of the leading end of the recording paper for the print layout has been set to none, a void area of the leading end of the recording paper separate from the margin portion will remain.
Recently, there have been increasing demands for a recording paper duplex printing function in image forming apparatuses. In this duplex printing function, for example, after transfer and fixing of a toner image to the front face of the recording paper ends, transport of the recording paper is temporarily stopped, the recording paper is transported in the opposite direction to the previous stage of the photosensitive body via a detour path, the front and back of the recording paper are reversed, and transfer and fixing of a toner image to the back face of the recording paper are performed.
This sort of transport in order to reverse the front and back of the recording paper is referred to as switchback transport, and when reversing the front and back of the recording paper with this switchback transport, the leading end and the trailing end of the recording paper are switched, so the back face of the recording paper is printed from the trailing end of the recording paper.
However, as previously stated, when printing to the front face of the recording paper, a void area is not formed at the trailing end of the recording paper, so a toner image is printed up to the trailing end of the recording paper. When afterward printing to the back face of the recording paper, when the recording paper is passed between the rollers of the fixing apparatus beginning with the trailing end of the recording paper, it is difficult for the trailing end of the recording paper to peel away from the rollers due to the adherence of toner to the trailing end of the recording paper, so the recording paper curls around the rollers, and so the problem arises that jams occur.


A semiconductor integrated circuit for reducing power consumption and simultaneous switching noise in an output circuit, which outputs plural pieces of output data including first and second output data, each including a plurality of bits. The first output data is generated from first original data. The second output data is generated from second original data. A comparison circuit generates a determination signal indicating whether the number of changed bits of the second original data from the first original data is greater than a predetermined number. In accordance with the determination signal, a selection circuit generates output data expressing the second original data and the data type in a first expression format or output data expressing the complement data of the second original data and the data type in a second expression format. This is output as the second output data.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor integrated circuit, and more specifically, to a data output method for reducing power consumption and for reducing simultaneous switching noise in a semiconductor output circuit.
Portable electronic gadgets have become popular over the years. Reduction in power consumption of semiconductor integrated circuits (hereinafter referred to LSIs) is an important issue in terms of addressing global environment problems. Although progress in semiconductor processing technology has lowered operation voltages, resistance to noise has also become lower. This may result in noise affecting an LSI such that the LSI does not function properly or the LSI not functioning in accordance with its specification. Accordingly, it has become more important to perform designing that takes noise into account.
An LSI includes an input/output circuit (hereinafter referred to as I/O) that functions as an interface between the LSI and an external device. The I/O includes a signal circuit and a power supply circuit. The signal circuit includes an output circuit for providing a signal to the external device, an input circuit for receiving the signal from the external device, and a bidirectional circuit for outputting and inputting the signal. The power supply circuit includes a power supply circuit for supplying high potential power supply voltage (VDD) and a power supply circuit for supplying low potential power supply voltage (GND). The I/O, which is generally configured by a CMOS, inputs and outputs a signal when the CMOS is turned ON and OFF.
The power supply circuit is required to supply the LSI with constant voltage. However, in reality, constant voltage is not always obtained due to the influence of electrical parasitic elements in power supply wiring. The power supply wiring includes the electrical parasitic elements of resistance, capacitance, and inductance. Thus, when ON and OFF states are simultaneously switched in a plurality of output circuits including the bidirectional circuit, the value of the current flowing through the power supply wiring greatly changes within a short period of time due to the influence of the electrical parasitic element. This fluctuates the power supply voltage. Such type of noise is generally referred to as simultaneous switching noise (SSN) or a simultaneous switching output (SSO) noise.
The simultaneous switching noise affects the waveform and delay of the output signal. This may cause an anomaly in the LSI or lowering of the operating speed. Over recent years especially, the higher speed and function of an LSI has resulted in an increase in the amount and speed of data transfer. Thus, the influence of simultaneous switching noise is no longer negligible. Accordingly, it has become more important to perform designing that takes simultaneous switching noise into account.
Various designing methods for reducing simultaneous switching noise have been proposed in the prior art. One method increases the number of power supplies (i.e., number of power supply circuits) so as to increase noise resistance. Another method improves the mounting technique so that the inductance (e.g., inductance of bonding wire or lead frame), which produces noise, becomes small. A further method adds a capacitor on a board to suppress noise. Such designs for reducing noise is normally performed assuming the worst case in which the influence of the noise becomes the greatest.
As shown in FIG. 1, for example, when designing the LSI that performs the data transfer of eight bits, a case in which the bit pattern changes from "00000000", representing the decimal number of "0", to "11111111", representing the decimal number of "255", is assumed. That is, a case in which the CMOS of each output circuit corresponding to the bits are all simultaneously switched such that every one of the bit values are inverted must be assumed. By assuming the worst case in such a manner, the operation reliability of the LSI with respect to simultaneous switching noise is ensured.
When performing designing that assumes the worst case, the quantity of necessary components for countering noise (e.g., number of power supplies on the chip and number of capacitors on the board etc.) is required to be in accordance with the amount of simultaneous switches that must be considered. This increases the number of components. Further, when the amount of simultaneous switches increases, a large amount of noise margins must be accordingly provided. This not only restricts the data transfer speed and inhibits increase in speed of the LSI, but also makes designing difficult. The bit value described above is expressed by ON/OFF of the CMOS. Thus, when the number of simultaneous switches (number of simultaneous change of bits) increases and the CMOSs are frequently switched between ON and OFF states, the power consumption increases. It is thus desirable that the number of simultaneous switches be minimized.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-101415 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-13743 describe a coding method that minimizes simultaneous switches in an LSI, which handles signals in which bit changes frequently occur near 0 (i.e., signal in which the transition possibility of the bits is expressed by a normal distribution). Such signals may be for voice data of PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) or color component data of MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group).

Semiconductor integrated circuit and data output method


A device and system for improving efficiency of subterranean cutting elements uses a controlled oscillation super imposed on steady drill bit rotation to maintain a selected rock fracture level. In one aspect, a selected oscillation is applied to the cutting element so that at least some of the stress energy stored in an earthen formation is maintained after fracture of the rock is initiated. Thus, this maintained stress energy can thereafter be used for further crack propagation. In one embodiment, an oscillation device positioned adjacent to the drill bit provides the oscillation. A control unit can be used to operate the oscillation device at a selected oscillation. In one arrangement, the control unit performs a frequency sweep to determine an oscillation that optimizes the cutting action of the drill bit and configures the oscillation device accordingly. One or more sensors connected to the control unit measure parameters used in this determination.

1. Field of the Invention
In one aspect, this invention relates generally to systems and methods for controlling the behavior or motion of one or more cutting elements to optimize the cutting action of the cutting element(s) against an earthen formation.
2. Description of Related Art
To obtain hydrocarbons such as oil and gas, boreholes are drilled by rotating a drill bit attached at a drill string end. Conventionally, the drill bit is rotated by rotating the drill string using a rotary table at the surface and/or by using a drilling motor in a bottomhole assembly (BHA). Because wellbore drilling can be exceedingly costly, considerable inventive effort has been directed to improving the overall efficiency of the drilling activity. One conventional measure for evaluating the efficiency of drilling activity is Specific Input Energy (Se), which the drill bit industry defines as the energy required to drill a specific volume of rock in a given time period, i.e. the input energy required to achieve a target ROP.
Generally speaking, drilling efficiency has not changed substantially since industry was capable of estimating or measuring Se. The Se required to drill a volume of rock is strongly influenced by the chip or cutting size generated at the face of the bit. In general Se increases and drilling efficiency declines as cuttings become progressively smaller. This relationship is driven by the amount of energy required to remove a given volume of rock from the parent rock. One can better understand this relationship by thinking of table salt grains vs. kidney beans. For a given volume within a container, more salt grains will be present than beans. It is also evident that more of total volume is contained in fewer beans than salt grains. If one takes a drill cutting the size of the bean and continues to reduce its size until all of its volume is in particles the size of salt grains, it is clear that addition energy has been required. For further illustration, consider a borehole drilled to produce an extremely thin kerf. This could be thought of as a core that is practically the diameter of the final drilled hole. Of course this has practical limits, but does tend to define the largest possible cutting and the minimum amount of energy used to break the core into smaller pieces. In this case drilling efficiency would be maximized from a drill cutting surface to a contained volume standpoint. Said differently, one wants to maximize cutting size and keep the surface area of the cuttings to a minimum; i.e., the cuttings volume to cuttings surface area ratio should be as large as possible.
Herein is the classic method of improving drilling efficiency or reducing Se. The bigger the cutting, the less work done on the undisturbed volume within the cutting. Thus, attempts have been made to increase cutting size to a practical maximum by through design of drill bits and, to some degree, BHA's. Conventional drill bits are provided with a number of cutting elements or cutters on their face. Increased cutting size can be achieved by increasing cutter size, depth of cut, and by increasing bit torque as long as the increased torque produces larger cuttings. There are practical limits to these methods and only limited change to average cutting size has occurred in the past 10 or 15 years.
The present invention address these and other needs relating to the efficiency of drill bit.

Drilling efficiency through beneficial management of rock stress levels via controlled oscillations of subterranean cutting levels


Provided are supramolecular polypseudorotaxane hydrogel compositions and 3-D structures capable of reversible 3-D structural deformation which include (a) a solvent; (b) an at least partially linear polymer, where the polymer further comprises groups capable of covalent crosslinking between the polymers; (ii) at least one first macrocyclic ring which forms a pseudorotaxane with a polymer in the polymer network; and (iii) at least one second macrocyclic ring that does not form the pseudorotaxane. The hydrogel composition has a viscosity which allows for 3-D printing of the hydrogel to form a 3-D structure, and a storage (elastic) modulus after crosslinking that allows for the 3-D structure to undergo reversible 3-D structural deformation upon change of solvent conditions. Also provided are methods of manufacturing the compositions and 3-D structures.

Amplification of molecular motions into the macroscopic world has great potential in the development of smart materials. Mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs), including rotaxanes and polyrotaxanes, catenanes, and molecular knots, have been widely applied in the advancement of molecular shuttles, switches, muscles, and pumps, where light or chemical energy can be converted into molecular motions upon external stimuli.
While great strides have been made in recent years, it remains challenging to incorporate MIMs into bulk materials such that their molecular motions can be effectively and cohesively transformed into the macroscopic scale. The randomly oriented MIMs often counterbalance each other's mechanical work, thus affording no useful work macroscopically. Controlling the spatial assembly of MIMs and synchronizing their mechanical motions will amplify these molecular motions to a sizeable macroscopic event. Additive manufacturing (also commonly referred to as three-dimensional (3-D) printing may create physical objects, structures, articles, etc., based upon a computer-controlled program which instructs the 3-D printer how to deposit successive layers of extruded material which may be hardened by various methods.
It would thus be desirable to integrate mechanically interlocked molecules into complex 3-D architectures by direct-write 3-D printing, which would be capable of exhibiting macroscopic shape memory and/or is capable of converting chemical energy input into mechanical work by switching the motion of the α-cyclodextrin rings between random shuttling and stationary states.

Mechanically interlocked molecules-based materials for 3-D printing


A radiation-sensitive resin composition comprising (A) an alkali-soluble resin having an unsaturated group, (B) a compound having at least one ethylenically unsaturated double bond, and (C) a radiation-induced radical polymerization initiator, wherein:                the alkali-soluble resin having an unsaturated group (A) is obtained by reacting:        100 parts by weight of a copolymer comprising                    1 to 40 wt % structural units derived from (a) a radically polymerizable compound having a carboxyl group;            1 to 50 wt % structural units having a phenolic hydroxyl group which are derived from (b-1) a radically polymerizable compound having a phenolic hydroxyl group or (b-2) a radically polymerizable compound having a functional group convertible into a phenolic hydroxyl group after the copolymerization,            other structural units of said copolymer being derived from (c) another radically polymerizable compound;                        with 0.1 to 20 parts by weight of (d) a radically polymerizable compound having an epoxy group.

Photofabrication is a general term for technologies to produce various precision parts by a series of steps in which:
a radiation-sensitive resin composition is applied onto a workpiece surface;
the resultant film is patterned by photolithography; and
a chemical etching or an electroforming technique, mainly comprising an electrolytic etching or an electroplating, or their combination is carried out using the patterned film as a mask. This photofabrication is now a mainstream technology in the production of precision and fine parts.
In these years, the downsizing of electronic devices has accelerated a high integration and multi-layering of larger scale integration (LSI). To cope with such miniaturization, it is required that an LSI is mounted by a high pin count on a substrate to install in electronic devices. As such mounting technologies, bare chip mounting technologies, for example TAB mounting and flip-chip mounting, have more and more attracted attention. In the high density mounting, metal conductors formed by electrolytic plating have strict requirements. For example, one of the requirements is micropatterning of the metal conductors. Such metal patterns include bumps, called microelectrodes, and wirings that form conductive paths to electrodes. These metal patterns are required to be more microscopic with the trends toward the miniaturization, high pin counting and multi-layering of the package. For example, as the conventional projecting microelectrodes, gold bumps of about 20 μm high are arranged at a pitch of 40 μm or more with a distance of 8 to 10 μm between the bump edges. However, the bump pitches are required to be smaller because of higher performance and smaller size of electronic devices, and now the bump pitch of 25 μm is demanded.
Radiation-sensitive resin compositions used in the production of such microscopic metal patterns are required:
to form a radiation-sensitive film in a thickness greater than a deposit thickness necessary to from a bump, and to have a high resolution,
for example, to have a resolution whereby the resultant film in a thickness of 20 μm or more can be patterned at 25 μm pitches in the production of gold bumps; or a resolution whereby the resultant film in a thickness of 10 μm can be patterned at 5 μm pitches in the formation of wirings.
Further, a patterned product which is obtained by curing the radiation-sensitive resin composition is used as a mask in electrolytic plating. Then, the patterned product is required to have a sufficient wettability by plating solutions and have a plating resistance. Further, it is necessary that patterned product can be easily and completely stripped by a stripping solution or the like without damaging the metal pattern given after plating.
However, the conventional radiation-sensitive resin compositions for metal pattern production hardly satisfy both the sufficient resolution and the other properties, such as plating resistance. When the resin composition has a poor resolution, a desired microscopic metal pattern is hardly formed and semiconductor devices with such metal patterns cannot be produced. Further, when the wettability is poor, a plating solution will not be supplied in a sufficient amount within the microscopic pattern of the cured product. Therefore, the metal pattern cannot be formed. Also, a poor plating resistance causes a short circuit between conductive parts, and the device may not operate properly.

Abstract: The resin composition can form a radiation-sensitive film in a thickness greater than a deposit thickness and has a high resolution.


A composite for controlling the release of a well treatment agent or for inhibiting or preventing the formation of contaminants into a fluid or a surface within a reservoir contains a well treatment agent immobilized on a surface of the support or into the pores of a porous support. The composite is at least partially coated with an organic polymer or inorganic material. The composite exhibits sufficient strength for the composite to be used as a proppant or in conjunction with a proppant.

Hydraulic fracturing, a common method for producing hydrocarbons from a well, consists of pumping a fluid into a subterranean formation penetrated by the well at a sufficient pressure to cause the formation or enlargement of fractures. Downhole conditions contribute to the formation and deposition of scales, salts, gas hydrates and paraffins; precipitation of asphaltenes; formation of emulsions (both water-in-oil and oil-in-water); and formation of rust in the wellbore, production string and other tubulars within the well and conduits extending from and to the well. These contaminants decrease permeability of the subterranean formation and reduce well productivity. In acute situations, the lifetime of production equipment is shortened. In order to rid such contaminants from wells, tubulars, flow conduits and equipment, it typically is necessary to stop production. This is both time-consuming and costly.
Several methods have been employed for introducing well treatment agents into production wells. For instance, a liquid well treatment agent may be forced into the formation by application of hydraulic pressure from the surface which forces the treatment agent into the targeted zone. Alternatively, the delivery method may consist of placing a solid well treatment agent into the producing formation in conjunction with a hydraulic fracturing operation. These liquid injection treatments provide little to no protection deep into the reservoir. Another disadvantage of these methods is the difficulty in releasing the well treatment agent into the well over a sustained period of time. As a result, treatments must repeatedly be undertaken to ensure that the requisite level of treatment agent is continuously present in the well. Such treatments result in lost production revenue due to down time and increase costs by enhancing the likelihood of intervention/remedial treatments.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,491,682; 7,598,209; 7,493,955; 9,010,430; 9,029,300; and 9,656,237 disclose the successful use of composites for the slow release of well treatment agents. A disadvantage of such composites is the inability of prolonged release of the well treatment agent into a targeted area. This is particularly evident in hydraulic fracturing operations. Methods of improving the slow or delayed release of well treatment agents at targeted locations as well as improved methods for delivering such treatment agents into targeted locations in wells, formations, conduits and/or vessels have been sought.

Method of using coated composites containing delayed release agent in a well treatment operation


Disclosed is a system and method for monitoring one or more humans while maintaining the privacy of those individuals. The system includes one or more activity pickups that create one or more respective information outputs. A computer system monitors one or more of the information outputs and processes the information outputs to determine when one or more types of inactivity of the human in an area exceeds one or more thresholds of inactivity. Alarms and/or indications activate when one or more of the thresholds of inactivity is exceeded. Various types of thresholds of inactivity are disclosed.

Closed circuit television, and other video surveillance methods are commonly used for crime control. Per http://www.privacy.org/pi/issues/cctv/, 225–450 million dollars "per year is now spent on a surveillance industry involving an estimated 300,000 cameras covering shopping areas, housing estates, car parks and public facilities in great many towns and cities." Systems to enable such surveillance are commonly sold to security services, consumers and over the Internet. http://www.smarthome.com/secvidsur.html for example sells a variety of equipment for video surveillance.
These surveillance systems require active monitoring, and are generally viewed as potential privacy violations. Privacy concerns lead to the posting of surveillance policies in places such as locker rooms and dressing rooms.
In 1997, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office began a program to develop Video Surveillance and Monitoring (VSAM) technology. This technology is intended to alert an operator during an event in progress (such as a crime) in time to prevent the crime. The technology triggers an operator to view a video feed and take appropriate action. It does not protect privacy, and is triggered by observed action at one of the points of monitoring. (see http://www.cs.cmu.edu/˜vsam/vsamhome.html).
Another technology in this space is scene change detection. Scene change detection is used in the media industry as an aid to editing and indexing media. It accomplishes just what the name implies. Video is examined for significant differences on a "frame by frame" basis. When the differences meet criteria, a scene change is declared. These are used in the media industry to create storyboards of a video, to create indexes for media manipulation, and as an aid in editing, e.g. for example in creating a nightly news story. Scene change detection is taught by such patents as U.S. Pat. No. 6,101,222 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,322. Scene change detection is offered as part of content management systems by Virage (http://www.virage.com), and Bulldog (http://www.bulldog.com).
Audio change detection, determining where in an audio stream a particular loudness or frequency threshold has been reached can also be used to determine events of interest, such as a score in a football game, or a gunshot. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,163,510 to Lee et al.
Medical alert systems, comprising a pendant or other device, worn by the user allow an at-risk individual to signal to a distant system or person that an emergency has occurred. These have been popularized as "I've fallen and I can't get up" devices. Offered by companies such as Responselink, these systems include a wearable portion, power transformer, batteries, phone connection, and a monitoring service. The monitoring service, usually with a monthly fee, responds to alerts submitted by the user. Note that the user must have the ability to press the button and signal the alert for the alert to be sent. Injuries that involve rapid loss of consciousness may prevent the user from such signaling. Responselink information can be found at http://www.responselink.com
Periodic phone calls are also used to check on at-risk people. Relatives, friends or a paid service can call the individuals and ascertain from their responses whether or not they are OK.
Face recognition is a technology which can identify faces, and in many cases associate them with names in a database. Visionics (http://www.visionics.com) offers a product called FaceIt which "will automatically locate faces in complex scenes . . . "
All these cited references are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.

System and method for non intrusive monitoring of “at risk” individuals


An input apparatus that allows those who are severely physically handicapped for example to enter characters with comparative ease and minimizes the chance of making error entries. The input apparatus comprising: an optical signal transmitter constituted to be worn on the head of an operator and having a plurality of light-emitting elements for transmitting an optical signal and a breath-operated switch; an image display device on which a cursor is shown; and an optical signal receiver connected to the image display device and having a single light-receiving element for receiving the optical signal and a data processor; wherein the optical signal transmitter, when worn on the operator head, transmits, on the optical signal, a data signal containing switch data to be generated when the breath-operated switch is operated, the optical signal receiver generates coordinate data from positional data indicating a shift of the operator head from a predetermined position in the optical signal transmitter and switch data contained in the data signal according to a reception state of the optical signal coming from the optical signal transmitter and supplies the generated coordinate data to the image display device, and the image display device moves a display position of the cursor according to the positional data contained in the coordinate data and selects a display capability according to the switch data contained in the coordinate data.

The present invention relates to an input apparatus and, more particularly, to an input apparatus that allows those who are severely physically handicapped for example to enter characters by shifting their heads and operating a breath-operated switch while looking at an image display device on which entered characters are shown.
A character input apparatus, or a word processor for those who are severely physically handicapped for example is known in which all input operations are performed by blinking of the eye of an operator.
In such a known word processor, a screen on which various characters are regularly arranged is shown on the monitor display and this screen is scanned horizontally with a vertical slit and vertically with a horizontal slit. The operator blinks his or her eye when the vertical slit has reached a column that contains a desired character and blinks his or her eye again when the horizontal slit has reached a row that contains the desired character. Thus, the character located at the intersection of these slits is selected. Repeating these operations, the operator can enter desired characters to form a sentence for example.
Because the known word processor is operated all by the blinking of the eye of the operator, those who are handicapped in the hand for example can also enter characters. However, some operators are in the habit of blinking comparatively often, while others blink unintentionally mainly due to the strain caused by operating the word processor. The improper blinks lead to erroneous entering of characters, requiring frequent cancellation of the erroneously entered characters.

Yokohama City Rehabilitation Corporation


When a vehicle collides with an object and the object is thereby thrown into impact on a hood of the vehicle, a vehicle hood apparatus detects the collision and causes actuators attached to the vehicle to operate to lift up a rear end of a hood of the vehicle so as to reduce the impact of the object thereon. The apparatus include a control unit for controlling the actuators. The control unit includes a hood lock determination means for determining whether a hood lock locks a front end of the hood in place. When the hood lock is in an unlocking state, the control unit prevents the actuators from operating. When the hood lock is in a locking state, the control unit operates the actuators.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle hood apparatus designed to detect collision of a vehicle with an object and then operate an actuator attached to the vehicle, such that a hood of the vehicle is lifted up to absorb impact of the object thereon occurred subsequently to the collision.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicle hood apparatuses are known in the art. These types of apparatuses are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. HEI-11-28994 entitled xe2x80x9cSENSOR SYSTEM FOR PROTECTING PEDESTRIANxe2x80x9d.
The disclosed sensor system includes a lift mechanism, a detection means for detecting the presence of a pedestrian, a speed sensor for detecting a speed of a vehicle, and a controller for controlling the lift mechanism on the basis of information transmitted from the detecting means and speed sensor thereto. When the pedestrian is hit by a vehicle and thereby thrown into impact on a hood of the vehicle, the lift mechanism lifts up a hood of the vehicle to reduce the impact of the pedestrian thereon. The detection means is mounted at a front bumper of the vehicle.
When serviced, the vehicle with the hood opened travels on a test bed. At this time, an operator may unintentionally contact or strike the detection means with tools to thereby undesirably operate the sensor system.
The system is preferably operated with the hood fully closed.
An object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle hood apparatus which can be advantageously operated identifying a state of the hood of the vehicle.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle hood apparatus designed to detect collision of a vehicle with an object and operate actuators attached to the vehicle, such that a hood of the vehicle is lifted up to absorb impact of the object thereon occurred subsequently to the collision, the apparatus comprising; (a) a hood lock for locking a front end of the hood to a vehicle body of the vehicle; (b) a hood lock sensor for detecting a locking/unlocking state of the hood lock; and (c) a control unit for controlling the actuators on the basis of information transmitted from the hood lock sensor; the control unit including: (i) a hood lock determination means for determining the state of the hood lock; and (ii) an alarm lamp driving means for driving an alarm lamp provided in the vehicle when the hood lock determination means determines that the hood lock is in the unlocking state.
The vehicle hood apparatus of the present invention detects the collision of the vehicle with the object. Subsequently, the control unit of the apparatus operates the actuators to thereby lift up the hood of the vehicle. At this time, the apparatus preferably identifies the state of the hood lock provided for locking the front end of the vehicle body. When the vehicle is serviced with the hood opened, the vehicle hood apparatus need not be operated. Further, the hood apparatus could be improperly operated if the hood lock incompletely locks the hood (i.e., the hood lock is in the unlocking state). When the hood lock is held in the locking state (i.e., the hood lock locks the hood in place), the apparatus is properly operated. Therefore, the control unit is required to identify the locking/unlocking state of the hood lock for effective operation of the vehicle hood apparatus. To accomplish this, the control unit is provided with the hood lock determination means for determining the state of the hood lock. When the hood lock determination means determines that the hood lock is in the unlocking state, the alarm lamp driving means is operated to turn the alarm lamp on. The thus arranged vehicle hood apparatus is effectively or advantageously operated.
Preferably, the control unit further includes an operation determination means for determining whether the actuators are caused to operate, the operation determination means preventing the actuators from operating when the hood lock is in the unlocking state.
When the hood lock is in the unlocking state, the vehicle hood apparatus need not or should not be operated. In such a case, the apparatus is not operated. Thus, the function of the vehicle hood apparatus is not impaired.