A device for eliminating a channel effect is provided. A time-domain channel estimating unit generates a channel estimation result according to a first reference signal. A fast Fourier transform (FFT) unit performs FFT on the channel estimation result to generate a plurality of channel frequency responses corresponding to a plurality of frequency indices. An adjusting unit receives a plurality of input signals, and determines whether to adjust the input signal of each of the frequency indices according to the amplitude of the channel frequency response of each of the frequency indices to generate a set of adjusted signals. An inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) unit performs IFFT on a set of output signals associated with the set of adjusted signals to generate a feedback signal. The time-domain channel estimating unit further generates another channel estimation result according to a second reference signal and the feedback signal.

Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a wireless signal receiving system, and more particularly to a technology for eliminating a channel effect in a wireless signal receiving system.
Description of the Related Art
Digital television broadcasting has matured and become popular with the ever-improving communication technologies. In addition to being transmitted through cables, digital television signals may be propagated in form of wireless signals via base stations or artificial satellites. Wireless signals are inevitably affected and interfered by transmission environments during the transmission process. Thus, a receiver ends needs to evaluate corresponding channel effects to eliminate the influence the channel effects have on signal contents through equalization in order to correctly decode received data.
Digital terrestrial multimedia broadcasting (DTMB) is a main digital television broadcasting standard currently adopted in the Mainland China. According to the DTMB specification, signals in a multi-carrier mode are formed by a series of alternating data headers and frame bodies. From a time-domain perspective, the data headers may be regarded as periodically placed between multiple frame bodies. Contents in the header frames are known, and may thus serve as reference data for channel estimation at a DTMB receiver end. FIG. 1(A) shows a functional block diagram of a stereotypic channel effect eliminating device 100. A receiver 100 includes a time-domain channel estimating circuit 11, a fast Fourier transform (FFT) circuit 12 and an equalization circuit 13. The time-domain channel estimating circuit 11 generates a channel estimation result h according to reference data r (e.g., a data header). The FFT circuit 12 converts the channel estimation result h and a data signal y (e.g., a frame body) respectively to a frequency-domain channel estimation result H and frequency-domain data Y. The equalization circuit 13 then generates an equalized signal X according to the frequency-domain channel estimation result H and the frequency-domain data Y to reconstruct the contents of the data signal y. However, in the event where the known data (the reference signal r) has an inadequate length, the channel estimation result h the time-domain channel estimating circuit 11 generates according to the reference data r cannot reflect the true channel effect, such that the channel effect eliminating device 100 may fail to correctly reconstruct the contents of the data signal y.
In view of the above, an improved channel effect eliminating device 120, as shown in FIG. 1(B), has become available. One difference between the channel effect eliminating device 120 and the channel effect eliminating device 100 is that, the channel effect eliminating device 120 further includes a decision circuit 14 and an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) circuit 15. The equalized signal X is transmitted to the decision circuit 14, which applies hard decision on the equalized signal X to generate a decision processed signal Z. The IFFT circuit 15 then converts the hard decision processed signal Z to a feedback signal z, which serves as a part of the reference data for channel estimation of the time-domain channel estimating circuit 11. Compared to the channel effect eliminating device 100, including the feedback signal z in the reference data is equivalently increasing the length of known data. Therefore, the channel estimation result h the time-domain channel estimating circuit 11 generates according to the reference signal r and the feedback signal z better reflects the true channel effect, hence allowing the channel effect eliminating device 120 to more correctly reconstruct the contents of the data signal y.

Device and method for eliminating channel effect


A performance testing apparatus includes a refrigerant pipe provided with open ends, and installed such that a condenser, an expansion device and an evaporator are sequentially aligned from one end thereof to the other end thereof. A refrigerant heating unit is installed at one end of the refrigerant pipe for heating a refrigerant by a double boiler method and transmitting the heated refrigerant to the other end of the refrigerant pipe. Cooling fluids are respectively provided outside of the condenser and the evaporator for exchanging heat with the refrigerants in the condenser and the evaporator. A flow rate measurement unit is used for measuring the flow rate of the refrigerant flowing within the refrigerant pipe. A temperature and pressure measurement unit measure variations in temperature and pressure of the refrigerant passing through the condenser, the expansion device and the evaporator.

1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to a performance testing apparatus of a refrigerating cycle for testing a heat exchanger, and, more particularly, to an apparatus for testing a refrigerating cycle of a small capacity heat exchanger.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a refrigerating cycle used by an air conditioner or a refrigerator comprises a compressor, a heat exchanger including a condenser and an evaporator, and an expansion device including an orifice. Such components of the refrigerating cycle form a closed circuit through a refrigerant pipe.
The compressor compresses a refrigerant into a high-temperature and high-pressure gaseous state, and the condenser then condenses the refrigerant into a high-temperature and high-pressure liquid state. Further, the expansion device expands the refrigerant, while in the high-temperature and high-pressure liquid state, into a low-temperature and low-pressure liquid state through a throttling expansion action. The evaporator evaporates the refrigerant in the low-temperature and low-pressure liquid state after being transmitted by the expansion device.
Accordingly, the refrigerant circulating within the refrigerant pipe is condensed by the condenser to emit heat to the surrounding circumference, and is evaporated by the evaporator to absorb heat from the surrounding circumference, thereby being cooled by the evaporator.
Before the above components constituting the refrigerating cycle are installed in the air conditioner or the refrigerator, their performances are measured to test whether or not they are working properly.
A conventional apparatus for testing the heat exchanger and the expansion device includes a general compressor, a refrigerant pipe connected to the compressor and installed such that a condenser, an evaporator and an expansion device. Further, such a testing apparatus includes cooling fluids respectively provided outside of the condenser and the evaporator for heat-exchanging with refrigerants in the condenser and the evaporator. Sensors are respectively installed along the refrigerant pipe at inlets and outlets of the condenser, the evaporator and the expansion device for sensing the temperature and pressure of the refrigerant.
When the compressor is operated under the above-described condition, the refrigerant compressed by the compressor sequentially passes through the condenser, the expansion device, and the evaporator, thus being circulated within the above components. The refrigerant passing through the condenser and the evaporator exchanges heat with a corresponding one of the cooling fluids outside of the condenser and the evaporator. The condenser, the evaporator and the expansion device are tested by measuring variations in the temperatures and pressures of the refrigerant at the inlets and the outlets of the condenser, the evaporator and the expansion device, and measuring a flow rate of the refrigerant flowing within the refrigerant pipe.
Since the refrigerating cycle used in the conventional air conditioner or refrigerator has a capacity of at least several kilowatts (kw), the apparatus for testing components constituting the above-described refrigerating cycle is suitable for testing a heat exchanger and an expansion device employed in such a refrigerant cycle having a capacity of several kilowatts (kw), and where the compressor of the testing apparatus compresses a large quantity of the refrigerant at once based on the capacity of the refrigerant cycle.
Recently, a refrigerating cycle having a capacity of several watts (w), which employs a small capacity heat exchanger and a micro orifice serving as an expansion device, has been developed. Since ultra small capacity compressors have been recently developed, it is expected that such a refrigerating cycle having a capacity of several watts (w), as opposed to the conventional refrigerating cycles having several kilowatts (kw), will be rapidly developed. Accordingly, there is a need for an apparatus for testing the performance of a small capacity heat exchanger and an expansion device, such as a micro orifice, employing the above-noted refrigerating cycle having such a small capacity.

Performance testing apparatus of refrigerating cycle


In an optical disk storage device capable of reading compact disks (CDs) and digital video disks (DVDs), the latency of an error correction system is significantly reduced by sharing a syndrome buffer between CD and DVD modes of operation. In CD mode, user data read from the disk is stored in the syndrome buffer and corrected using C1/C2 redundancy of a Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Code (CIRC). In DVD mode, user data read from the disk is stored in a data buffer and the syndrome buffer stores: intermediate values for generating the ECC syndromes for use in correcting the user data, and data CRC and error CRC syndromes for use in verifying the validity and completeness of the corrections. Two aspects of the present invention which significantly increase throughput are (1) the ECC syndromes are generated concurrently for the row (Q) and column (P) codewords of the CD and DVD product codes, and (2) the CRC validation syndrome is generated concurrent with correcting the product code. In this manner, the ECC syndromes for the entire product code can be generated during the first horizontal pass over the row codewords, thereby avoiding the latency in generating the ECC syndromes for the column codewords during the subsequent vertical pass. In addition, the CRC validation syndrome is available immediately after correcting a data sector--it is not necessary to read the entire data sector from the data buffer after correction in order to generate the CRC validation syndrome, as in the prior art.

Computer storage devices, and particularly optical storage devices, typically employ a multi-dimensional error correction code ECC (e.g., a product code) to enhance performance by increasing systems immunity to noise, thereby allowing an increase in storage capacity while maintaining an arbitrary low bit error rate. A conventional compact disk (CD) storage device employs a multiple layer ECC design: a two-dimensional product code comprising horizontal and diagonal codewords, and a Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon code (CIRC) commonly referred to as a C1/C2 code. A more recent optical storage device, digital video disk (DVD), also employs a two-dimensional product code comprised of horizontal and vertical codewords but with significantly more ECC redundancy so as to obviate the need for the C1/C2 code found in CD devices (see FIG. 3A). The DVD format will likely dominate the market and eventually obsolete the CD format. However, during the transitional period from CD to DVD, it will be desirable to provide storage devices capable of reading either format. In other words, one should be able to insert either a CD or DVD disk into future optical storage devices and expect it to operate transparently regardless as to the format. The challenge is to implement the error correction circuitry for both the CD and DVD formats in an efficient, cost effective manner.
Another aspect of error correction systems relevant to the present invention is the validation code typically employed to verify the validity and completeness of corrections made to the product code. There is a certain probability of a miscorrection associated with every error correction code, including product codes. The term miscorrection refers to the possible, although rare event when the ECC redundancy indicates that the product codeword has been successfully corrected when in fact errors still remain. Although the probability of a miscorrection occurring is quite small, the repercussions are potentially disastrous, especially when the recorded data is computer information which cannot tolerate mutation (consider, for example, the effect of mutating tax information). For this reason, computer storage devices typically employ an additional layer of ECC referred to as a validation code, the sole purpose of which is to detect and prevent miscorrected data from being transferred to the host system. Although there is a small probability that a miscorrection will get past the validation code undetected, this probability is so small it is essentially zero.
The validation code is necessary; however, it represents a significant bottleneck in the overall throughput of the storage device. The horizontal and vertical codewords of the product code are typically stored in a data buffer (DRAM) so that it can be accessed by the product code error correction system. The latency in accessing this data buffer is a significant factor in the overall latency of the storage device. In the prior art, checking for miscorrections occurs after the ECC redundancy indicates that the product code has been "successfully" corrected. This requires an additional access to the data buffer to read the entire product code and generate the syndromes for the validation code. The latency associated with this additional buffer access is a drawback overcome by the present invention.

ECC system employing a data buffer for storing codeword data and a syndrome buffer for storing error syndromes


Embodiments are provided for importing contacts. A contact importer leverages the various contacts associated with a user of a content management service to find potential new users and/or customers. A contact importer may run on one or more devices of a user associated with an account on a content management system, and import various contacts of that user to a contact list. The list may be culled to weed out non-human contacts, and processed so as to assign an affinity score to each contact, expressing a degree of affinity to the user. Incentives may be offered to the user for either sending or approving an invitation to a contact to register with the content management system, paid upon the invitee successfully registering. Different incentives may be offered for an accepted invitation from various contacts or classes thereof.

Existing users of various web platforms, social media platforms, and Internet accessible data storage and management services, such as, for example, content management systems, are often the best source of referrals for new users. Generally, inasmuch as when such services gain more users they are (i) able to offer more features, (ii) have more market presence, clout and revenue, and consequently (iii) are able to make more and better upgrades and offerings, it is in both a current user's interest as well as in the system's interest for the user to refer persons he or she knows, or is acquainted with, to the service as potential new users. However, users do not always recognize such a benefit. Even if they do, they do not tend to take the initiative to send referral requests or notifications on their own, or prioritize their contacts by, for example, degree of affinity to the user or likelihood of a given contact to respond positively to a referral request. An astute system, service or platform needs to provide the resources, intelligence and incentives to successfully mine a user's contacts to sign up additional users.
Accordingly, there is a need to both harvest the various contacts associated with a user of a, for example, content management system, process the contacts so harvested, and streamline the referral request process to maximize the likelihood that a referral request sent to such contacts will result in an acceptance.


A method and an apparatus for monitoring simultaneously the temperature and velocity of a thermal spray jet. The apparatus has a sensor head directed at the jet, the sensor head having two optical fibers carrying radiation from the jet to a remote detection unit which comprises two or three photodetectors. The radiation carried by the separate optical fibers is filtered at two different wavelengths before being passed to the photodetectors. The temperature of the jet is determined by analyzing the ratio of the energy radiated at the two wavelengths. The velocity of the jet is determined, knowing the distance between the fibers, by measuring the time delay between the signals carried by the separate fibers using cross-correlation.

Thermal spraying in general, and plasma spraying in particular, is a powerful technique widely used to produce protective coatings on a large variety of substrates. For example, thermal barrier coatings are plasma sprayed in producing aircraft engines, and ceramic and metal coatings are thermally sprayed for various purposes. Coating properties depend upon many spraying parameters, some of them being related to the spray gun operation. Consequently, spraying process control has been implemented by monitoring and regulating gun input variables as arc current and power, arc gas flow rates, powder feed rate and powder gas pressure, to keep them at predetermined optimum values. This control approach is quite complex because a large number of interrelated input variables must be monitored, while some variables, such as electrode wear, cannot be monitored at all.
On-line measurement of the variables which directly influence the structure of thermally sprayed coatings, can provide an efficient feedback for the setting of the spray gun parameters and a diagnostic tool to detect any problems during the coating operation.
It is well known to those skilled in the art that thermal spraying denotes a number of techniques besides plasma spraying, e.g. arc spraying, HVOF and flame spraying.
Collecting information about hot particle flow may also be useful in other applications, e.g. in the production of metallic powders by gas atomization.
Two types of techniques are available to perform an in-flight particle velocity measurement. In the first type, the velocity information is obtained from light impinging upon and reflected by the particles and then detected by an appropriate sensor. Laser based techniques, such as laser Doppler anemometry and laser dual focus velocimetry, are included in this first type of techniques. They use intense laser light beams to form interference fringes, or use two focused light beams in the measurement region. When the particle trajectory intercepts the measurement region, the reflected light intensity is modulated as the particle travels through the intensely illuminated zones and the velocity is computed from the modulation period. Periodic light distributions may also be obtained using a high intensity incandescent source and a Ronchi grating. This technique is not attractive as being bulky and requiring high intensity light sources.
In patents DE 2401322 and EP 150658, a source of light is guided by a bundle of optical fibers to the jet stream from which the reflected light is transmitted back by two other optical fibers and captured by two detectors. The velocity is obtained from the fiber spacing and by calculating the time delay by cross-correlation. Since the system uses reflected light, it is limited to a very small measuring volume and the sensor must be relatively close to the jet which may cause heating problems in thermal spray processes. Secondly, no information can be obtained concerning the temperature of the jet.
The second type of techniques used to perform the velocity measurement takes advantage of the thermal radiation emitted by the particles heated to a high temperature by the plasma or other heat source such as HVOF. The radiation emitted by individual particles is detected when the particles pass through the detector field of view of known dimensions. The transit time is evaluated and the velocity is computed knowing the travel length. Since the dimensions of the field of view change with the distance from the optical detection assembly, it is necessary to analyze only particles near the assembly focal plane. To do that, a laser beam or a second detection assembly focused in the appropriate region from a different angle must be used in conjunction with a coincidence detection analysis system. Such a system is complex and difficult to keep well aligned under practical operating conditions. In this same type of techniques, velocity measurements can also be performed using high speed cameras. In this case, light emitted by the particles is used to image them on a high speed film and, from these images the particle velocity is determined. Such a system can be used for laboratory investigation, but it is not suitable for real time operation in the harsh thermal-spray environment.
A somewhat similar velocity measurement apparatus using two wide angle radiation detectors is described in PCT patent application WO 834437. A timing electronic circuit is used to determine the time delay between the detectors. However, the signal processing scheme is restricted to slowly moving material because of its start-stop configuration. No temperature information can be obtained from that apparatus.
A thermal radiation signal from hot gas jet was used to measure velocity by cross-correlation technique (See G. J. Liewellyn, Acta Imeko London (1976), 351-357 and P. J. Webb, Acta Imeko London (1976), 327-336). Again no information was extracted concerning the temperature of the gas jet, even though temperature measurement was performed with one wavelength pyrometry technique using a different apparatus in the publication by Webb.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,921 issued to Moreau et al. describes a control approach in which the temperature and velocity of the sprayed particles are monitored before their impingement on the substrate. The system of Moreau et al. has a sensor head attached to the spray gun, an optical fibre transmitting the collected radiation to a detection apparatus which incorporates two photodetectors. A two-slit mask is located in the sensor head at the end of the optical fibre. For temperature measurements, the radiation emitted by the particles and collected by the sensor head is transmitted to the photodetectors, filtered by interference filters at two adjacent wavelengths. The particle temperature may be computed from the ratio of the detector outputs. To measure the velocity, the two-slit system collects radiation emitted by the in-flight particles tracelling in the sensor field-of-view, which generates a double-peak light pulse transmitted through the optical fibre. The time delay between these two peaks may be evaluated automatically and the particle velocity computed knowing the distance between the two slits.
In conclusion, except for the Moreau U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,921 in certain conditions, none of the above mentioned systems are capable of or adapted for simultaneous measurements of both velocity and temperature in typical industrial thermal spray environment.
While the system of the Moreau et al. patent is useful, the system is designed to measure accurately the temperature and velocity of individual particles. Consequently, the measuring volume is small and the number of particles in that volume per unit time is also limited. Due to the small measuring volume, in order to obtain an average picture, the jet must be divided into many smaller regions. This can make the analysis unduly lengthy. The fact that the number of particles in the measuring volume is limited, imposes a maximum powder feed rate, on the order of 5 kg per hour, which can still be analyzed accurately.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,317,165 to Montagna describes an apparatus which uses two fiber bundles to determine electromagnetic radiation emitted by the flame of a burner. The apparatus serves to detect the presence and quality of the flame.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,797 to Moreau et al. is concerned with the evaluation of the diameter of thermally sprayed particles.
Other systems and methods for detecting, measuring or monitoring temperature or velocity of in-flight particles are described in PCT application No. WO 834,437; DE 2,401,322; EP 150,658; Swancke et al., Proceedings of the 8th National Spray Conference 111-116 (Sep. 1995); Mishin et al., J. Phys. E. Sci. Instrum., 20 (1987) 620-5; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,656,331 to Lillquist. The various known techniques to perform the measurements of the properties of in-flight particles are discussed in the above-cited U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,921 the specification of which is being incorporated herewith by reference.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for monitoring certain characteristics, and particularly temperature and velocity of thermally sprayed particles in a plasma jet during flight between a thermal jet source, e.g. a plasma gun, and a substrate.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus as defined above, enabling the extension of prior art methods to higher powder feed rates and to lower temperatures, while being relatively simple and easy to operate.

Method and apparatus for on-line monitoring the temperature and velocity of thermally sprayed particles


A solenoid valve device which is easy to assemble and is sealed tightly to prevent leakage of the pressure medium. An armature assembly (30) is inserted into the housing cavity (21) of the housing (20), then affixed by a primary caulked portion (A) which has plasticly deformed a portion of the housing (20). The primary caulked portion (A) is then reinforced with a secondary caulked portion (B) which has plasticly deformed another portion of the housing (20) onto a collar (50). At the same time, the bottom face of the valve plate (31) is forced against the bottom of the housing cavity (21), wherein the housing cavity between the atmosphere end and the pressure medium end, and between the pressure medium ducts on either side of the valve mechanism is sealed fluid-tight.

This invention relates to a solenoid valve device which opens or closes various pressure medium ducts in solenoid valves used in vehicles and for other purposes.
There is known a method of securing solenoid valves in a housing. As shown in FIG. 7, in this type of solenoid valve device, several solenoid valves c are incorporated in a housing cavity b formed inside a housing a. In order to prevent its expulsion from the housing cavity b by the pressure of the pressure medium, that side of the solenoid valve c on the open end of the housing (hereinafter atmosphere end h) is covered with a very rigid plate d which is affixed to the housing with bolts e. However, the securing of the solenoid valves c in this manner requires much time and effort. Further, the attachment of the plate d increases the outer dimensions and weight of the device. Another publicly-disclosed method of securing the solenoid valves c is to mount all of the valves inside the housing cavity, then a covering is screwed over the mouth of the housing cavity. Again this method requires time and effort in fabricating the screws for the housing cavity and in setting the cover.
Also, the solenoid valves c must be tightly sealed to prevent leakage of the pressure medium. Conventionally, a rubber O-ring g is mounted externally on the port f formed on one or both sides of the solenoid valve c in order to secure a seal with the housing cavity. However, since the plate d will not bend under the pressure of the pressure medium, in cases where the pressure changes repeatedly, the rubber O-ring g mounted on the solenoid valve c will easily erode as it slides back and forth repeatedly within the housing cavity b while bearing the pressure. Such wear and tear decreases the reliability of the seal. Another indicated problem is that in cases where the solenoid valve c does shift toward the mouth of the housing cavity, consumption of the pressure medium will increase in an amount corresponding to the shift.


In various embodiments, the motion of simulated or secondary objects, such as the motion of cloth, of computer imagery and computer generated animations may be viewed as a time-varying signal. Accordingly, simulation results can be “filtered” to repair, reduce, or eliminate “damage” to the motion signal of regions of the simulated object where “jumps,” “wigglies,” “sags,” “blemishes,” or high frequency perturbations may occur during simulation. Simulation repair may be performed using a coordinate frame from one or more regions of the simulated object or of another reference object whose motion is not “damaged” like the motion of the regions to be repaired. The coordinate frame can be non-linear, temporally varying, or the like, and can provide a suitable reference to repair simulation results in an efficient and time-optimized manner with quality results.

The motions of secondary elements in computer graphics imagery, such as clothing or cloth, are often too complex for an animator to directly control. Instead of a human animator determining the motion of these secondary elements, some computer programs use physically-based numerical methods to simulate their motion over time. For clothing or cloth, this is sometimes accomplished by modeling the physical properties of the cloth (e.g., how the cloth bends due to forces or collisions with solid objects, how the cloth deforms or collides with itself, or the like), the external forces on the cloth (gravity, wind), the motions of kinematic elements (e.g., the characters or objects upon which the cloth rests) associated with the secondary elements, or the like.
In many cases, the animation of kinematic elements is specified and is independent of and/or unaffected by the motion of the dynamic or secondary elements (e.g., cloth). As a concrete example, consider an animation of a human character standing upright, wearing a jacket. The human character (e.g., the kinematic element) may be directly animated by a skilled human animator. However, the motion of the jacket (e.g., the dynamic or secondary element) in response to the human's animation may be simulated using physically-based numerical techniques.
If the physical properties and external forces acting on dynamic or secondary elements are accurately modeled, the resulting motion is often "plausible" and seemingly realistic to a viewer. In other words, it will appear to a viewer that the cloth hangs down and folds naturally, and that the cloth reacts naturally in response to a character's motions. Typically, the software and mathematics underlying physical simulations of this nature are highly complex.
It has been determined by the inventors, that for any number of reasons, a simulation system may produce output motion that is mostly but not typically fully correct. In other words, some small number of defects in the output motion are still observable. A particularly common defect in this adverse motion involves localized regions of the cloth undergoing high frequency perturbations or "fluttering," relative to the overall motion of the cloth, in localized time spans. Said differently, small sections of a simulated cloth may occasionally "jump" or "twitch" as though the motion were in reaction to an invisible object or force. These perturbations are typically visually unacceptable, and typically need to be eliminated.
Accordingly, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for solving the problems discussed above. Additionally, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for reducing some of the drawbacks discussed above.


A computer enclosure for mounting a disk drive bracket includes a chassis for receiving the disk drive bracket, and an extending plate releasably positioned and aligned at an end of the chassis. One portion of the disk drive bracket is fixed on the chassis, and the other portion is fixed on the extending plate. The disk drive bracket is completely mounted on the chassis and the extending plate.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a computer enclosure, particularly to a computer enclosure having different disk drive brackets therein.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, when a conventional computer is assembled, at least one disk drive bracket is mounted in a computer enclosure. Data storage devices such as a hard disk drive, a floppy disk drive, and a compact disc drive are then attached to the drive bracket.
However, each computer enclosure has a special fixing means for the disk drive bracket. Thus, it is difficult to use a computer enclosure mounting different disk drive brackets therein.
Therefore, a computer enclosure is desired to overcome the above-described shortcoming.


A laser light receiver is provided with an integral laser distance measurement (LDM) device for measuring the distance from a laser plane of a desired elevation to a desired physical target point to be measured on a jobsite. The laser receiver can be combined with a gravity reference device, so that the laser receiver does not necessarily have to be held plumb to a desired target point, when determining the relative elevation of the laser receiver between a rotating beam of laser light and the target point; it can also acquire multiple samples of positions and automatically take a vertical measurement and store that result for later readout. The laser receiver can be further combined with a GPS receiver, to acquire latitude and longitude data, and then in combination act as a three-dimensional transducer that is more accurate in the vertical direction than a GPS receiver alone is capable of.

The measurement of relative elevation is an important element in almost any phase of a construction project. In the last few decades, the use of laser reference planes has grown as a way to satisfy this demand for accurate elevation information. The laser plane is created by a laser transmitter. A variety of methods are used to do this, but one of the most common is a rotating beam of light. The laser transmitter is typically placed at a known elevation. The plane of light is frequently set up to be level with respect to gravity so that all points on the laser plane are at the same elevation.
To use this laser plane to measure the elevation of a point, a worker will mount a laser receiver on a pole or a handle. The bottom of the pole/handle will rest on the point whose elevation will be measured. However, the pole/handle must be held plumb with respect to gravity. The laser receiver is positioned in the plane of laser light such that it indicates an on-grade position. The relative elevation can then be read as the length of the pole/handle between the point being measured and the on-grade position of the receiver. Many different pole/handle designs are available to make this job easier. Most provide an easy height adjustment and a scale that can be read at a convenient height for the worker.
While these methods are widely used, there is room for improvement. The pole/handle itself can be expensive and less rugged than users desire. Much care must be taken to assure accurate measurements. Some points on a jobsite are inaccessible for measurement by this method, so it can be seen that there are limitations to that methodology.
In addition to the above, the use of GPS receivers for survey and machine control is well known in the field of construction. However, due to technical limitations in GPS receivers, the vertical accuracy is at least a factor of two (2) worse than the accuracy in the plane parallel to the Earth's surface. Frequently, the vertical dimension is the most important, so there is an incentive to improve this.

Handheld laser light detector with height correction, using a GPS receiver to provide two-dimensional position data


A driver has components that are easily disassembled for cleaning and/or sterilization. Once disassembled, the limited number of components allows for easy reassembly. The driver utilizes a cam that rides on spring fingers for determining the level of producible torque that the driver can produce. The cam and spring fingers are contained in a housing. Particularly, the spring fingers are part of a finger housing that is key lockable with the housing when assembled for movement as one unit. The cam is integral with a driver shaft and is received within the finger housing. The cam and driver shaft are limitedly rotatable with respect to the finger housing. The level of producible torque may be changed by providing cams and/or spring fingers of various dimensions. The driver is torque-limiting in one direction (tightening) and essentially non torque-limiting in the opposite direction (loosening). The various components are also large enough to be easily handled reducing the chance of lost components.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to devices for applying a particular level of torque to an orthopedic implant component and, more particularly, to a torque limiting driver for applying a particular level of torque to an orthopedic implant component that can be easily disassembled for sterilization of the torque limiting driver components.
2. Background Information
Various types of orthopedic implants such as spine implants and joint prosthetics typically utilize and/or rely on components that must be securely attached to other components of the implant or to various parts of the body. The integrity and/or effectiveness of the implant may depend upon proper attachment of the component. Particularly, if the component is either over-tightened or under-tightened, there can be associated negative effects. For example, an under-tightened component may loosen causing the loss of effectiveness of a component, while an over-tightened component may impart an undesirable amount of stress on one or more components.
Implants are thus attached using devices that will allow the surgeon to apply the necessary torque throughout the attachment process, since a certain level of torque is required to properly secure a component. It is often difficult, however, to ascertain when the proper level of torque has been imparted on an implant component and, in turn, when the implant component has been securely attached.
In order to alleviate these problems, torque-limiting devices or drivers have been developed to help ensure that a consistent or limited assembly torque is imparted on implant components in order to properly secure torque-applied implant components to other implant components and/or body parts. Torque-limiting drivers are calibrated to impart a desired level of torque to an implant component during implant thereof. Other torque-limiting drivers offer user adjustable calibration for varying the level of applied torque. A problem with these prior art torque-limiting drivers is their complexity and/or their ability to be disassembled for cleaning. Another problem with these prior art torque-limiting drivers is there lack of being able to be medically sterilized.
Current federal regulations (e.g. FDA regulations) do not require medical instruments to be able to be disassembled. It is anticipated, however, that future federal regulations will require that some or all medical instruments be able to be disassembled, especially for complete sterilization of the instrument.
Because, as pointed out above, current torque-limiting drivers cannot be disassembled or they include parts that can be medically sterilized, there exists a need for a torque-limiting driver that can be disassembled for medical sterilization. There is also a need for a torque-limiting driver that can be easily reassembled after medical sterilization.

Torque limiting driver with easily disassembled components for sterilization


The present invention provides a safe method for upgrading firmware code for optical disk products without corrupting firmware even if an abnormality occurs during a upgrading a firmware process. A nonvolatile memory device of the present invention may store a boot system image and an application ware image separately. End users may update the application ware image by executing an upgraded application program. However the boot system image stored in the nonvolatile memory device may not be modified at any event and it may be used to restore the optical disk product from a system failure caused by a corrupted firmware.

Optical disk drives, in particular the category of Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) drives and Compact Disk (CD) drives, are widely employed in consumer electronic products such as DVD players and recorders. This kind of product has a firmware code memory device and a controller that executes the firmware code. With the firmware code, the optical disk drive can read data files stored on the Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) or DVD, write data files on the CD-ROM or DVD, and playback music CD, video DVD or music DVD. This firmware code is usually stored in non-volatile semiconductor memory devices, such as the erasable-programmable read-only memory (EPROM) or electrically erasable-programmable read-only memory (EEPROM).
Often, the firmware code of these products may be modified to correct program problems (program bugs) and provide additional functionality (improvements).
Conventional solutions to modifying the firmware code of these products have involved replacement of the firmware code stored in the semiconductor memory device with a new firmware code. If the semiconductor memory used for storing the firmware code is a device like an EPROM, it must be removed from its inserted socket or de-soldered from the printed circuit board so as to implement reprogramming of its memory content.
If the semiconductor memory used for storing the firmware code is a device like an EEPROM, the firmware can be modified (rewritten) by executing an upgraded firmware code. Many manufacturers now provide optical disks storing upgraded firmware code for end users. The end users may insert the optical disk to the disk drive to execute the upgraded firmware code stored in the optical disk. As a result, the firmware code stored in the semiconductor of the product may be replaced with the upgraded firmware code.
However, the above described conventional solution which allows the end user to upgrade the firmware may create serious problems. Conventionally, the application ware which rewrites the firmware upon upgrading command is compressed and stored in EEPROM, together with the other programming code for the optical disk device. Therefore the firmware image can be rewritten only after the whole firmware is erased. However, if an abnormality occurs during the rewriting procedure, the EEPROM may be wiped out (no firmware code) or the EEPROM may store a corrupted firmware code.
As such, the conventional solutions to upgrading the firmware associated with the optical disk drive may render the whole product inoperable especially when the upgrading was terminated by unexpected event such as power failure, invalid application ware, disk read error and the like. Consequently, an improved method for safe way to upgrade firmware without rendering the device inoperable is necessary.

Safe method for upgrading firmware of optical disk product


The present invention generally relates to a laser processing systems for thermally processing substrates. The laser processing systems include a shield disposed between an energy source of the laser processing system and a substrate which is to be thermally processed. The shield includes an optically transparent window disposed adjacent to a cavity within the shield. The optically transparent window allows annealing energy to pass therethrough and to illuminate the substrate. The shield also includes one or more gas inlets and one or more gas outlets for introducing and removing a purge gas from the cavity within the shield. The purge gas is utilized to remove volatized or ablated components during thermal processing, and to provide a gas of predetermined composition, such as oxygen-free, to the thermally processed area.

Field of the Invention
Embodiments disclosed herein relate to an apparatus for manufacturing semiconductor devices. More specifically, an apparatus for laser annealing semiconductor substrates is disclosed.
Description of the Related Art
Thermal annealing is a commonly used technique in semiconductor manufacturing. A process is generally performed on a substrate, for example implanting or doping of the substrate, and then the substrate is subsequently annealed to improve the properties of the substrate. A typical thermal anneal process includes heating a portion of the substrate, or the entire substrate, to an anneal temperature for a period of time.
During the thermal anneal, the material introduced to the substrate typically migrates through the substrate, but some of the material may volatilize into the vapor space above the substrate within the annealing chamber. The volatiles may include elements such as phosphorus, arsenic, and other potentially toxic elements that must be removed from the vapor space before the chamber can be vented into the environment. Additionally, when thermal annealing substrates using lasers having a high fluence, it is possible that portions of the exposed substrate may ablate and undesirably redeposit on the substrate surface or the optics within the thermal annealing system.
Thus, there remains a need for an efficient and cost-effective apparatus for removing undesired thermal annealing byproducts from a thermal annealing apparatus during processing.

Particle control in laser processing systems


The master carrier for magnetic transfer of the invention comprises a support and a magnetic layer formed on the surface of the support, wherein an uneven transfer pattern that corresponds to the information to be transferred to a magnetic recording medium is formed in the surface of the magnetic layer, and a relief is formed in the site where the transfer pattern is not formed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a master carrier for magnetic transfer, which has a magnetic layer with a transfer pattern formed therein for transferring information data to a magnetic recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Increasing the recording density of magnetic recording media is now in great progress so as to satisfy the requirement for the increase in information contents of today. In a magnetic recording medium having a high recording density, the information-recording region has a narrow track. In order to precisely trace a magnetic head along such a narrow track to thereby reproduce signals at a high S/N ratio, a tracking servo technique for magnetic heads is an important theme.
In order that a magnetic head could trace along the recording track of a magnetic recording medium, the recording medium must be preformatted with the necessary servo information that includes positioning servo signals, tracking address signals and regeneration clock signals, while it is produced.
For preformatting magnetic recording media, a dedicated servo-write device (servo track writer) is used at present. With it, however, a magnetic head must be scanned on every magnetic recording medium for preformatting it one by one, and it takes a long period of time. Therefore, for increasing the productivity in preformatting, a large number of servo-write devices must be driven all at a time. However, introduction and maintenance of such a large number of servo-write devices is expensive.
It is anticipated that increasing the recording density of magnetic recording media will be in greater progress in future and the track density thereof will therefore further increase.
In that situation, a study of magnetic transfer is now in progress, which comprises keeping the surface of a magnetic recording medium that has a magnetic recording region in its surface, in intimate contact with the surface of a master carrier that has a transfer pattern of servo signals and others formed of a magnetic material on the surface of a support thereof, and applying a transfer magnetic field to the master carrier in that condition to thereby magnetically transfer the transfer pattern of the master carrier to the magnetic recoding medium all at a time.
When the magnetic recording media referred to hereinabove are disc-shaped ones such as hard discs or high-density flexible discs, then a disc-shaped master carrier is kept in intimate contact with one or both faces of the magnetic recording medium of the type and, in that condition, a transfer magnetic field is applied to one or both surfaces thereof by the use of a magnetic field applicator with electromagnets or permanent magnets (for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,347,016).
For correctly transferring and recording a transfer pattern of a master carrier to a magnetic recording medium (slave medium) in a mode of magnetic transfer, it is important to apply a magnetic field to the magnetic recording medium while it is in uniform and intimate contact with the master carrier.
FIG. 8 is an explanatory view schematically showing a conventional master carrier 100 and a magnetic recording medium 200 that are put on top of each other. As in FIG. 8, when there exists a space S between the master carrier 100 and the magnetic recording medium 200, then the fine uneven transfer pattern (not shown) provided in the transfer region of the master carrier 100 could not be in uniform and intimate contact with the magnetic recording region formed in the surface of the magnetic recording medium 200 and therefore the transfer pattern could not be correctly transferred to the magnetic recording region.
The cause of the space S would be that the warp or distortion occurred in the master carrier 100 may be high-ordered when kept in intimate contact, and the support 101 of the master carrier 100 is thereby deformed, and the face of the support 101 is curved.
FIG. 9 is a plan view of the master carrier 100 of FIG. 8, seen on its top. FIG. 10 is a graphical view showing the warp of the master carrier 100 of FIG. 9, in the radial direction thereof (in the direction of the arrow R in the drawing). FIG. 11 is a graphical view showing the distortion of the master carrier 100 of FIG. 9, in the peripheral direction thereof (in the direction of the arrow C in the drawing).
"Warp" as referred to herein means the displacement of the support surface in the radial direction of the master carrier, as in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. "Distortion" also referred to herein means the displacement of the support surface in the circumferential direction of the master carrier, as in FIG. 9 and FIG. 11.
Heretofore, a magnetic field is applied to a magnetic recording medium and a master carrier that are in uniform and intimate contact with each other while an external load is applied there to so as not to form a clearance gap between the two. However, since the master carrier is warped or distorted by itself, it is extremely difficult to ensure uniform and intimate contact between the mater carrier and the magnetic recording medium attached thereto.
On the other hand, it was impossible to completely remove warp and distortion from master carriers in view of the process of producing them.
For these reasons, there occurs a space between the magnetic recording medium and the master carrier that are kept in contact with each other, owing to the high-ordered warp and distortion of the master carrier, and, as a result, the transfer efficiency is lowered and magnetic recording media could not be correctly preformatted. In this point, there is still room for improvement in the transfer technique.


An IC card connector in which in the insertion space for one IC card, the insertion space for the other IC card is secured, and contact parts are disposed near the insertion slot. In the insertion slot for one IC card, the insertion space for the other IC card is disposed, which is narrower in width and one end of the height direction is located in the insertion slot for the one IC card, while at least a part of the insertion space is shared with the insertion space for the one IC card. A plate is disposed to partition the shared part of the insertion space for the one IC card to make the shared part as the insertion space for the other IC card. This plate has a mechanism that, when the one card is inserted while the other card is not, the plate is moved away from the insertion space for the one IC card and makes room therefor.

The present invention relates to an IC card connector for connecting an IC card which is used as an external memory medium for electronic devices such as a personal computer and the like, wherein a plurality of IC cards in different specifications may be accommodated with the same connector.
A memory medium, a so-called IC card, which is a card type memory device having a built-in semiconductor memory, is widely used as an external memory device for electronic devices such as a computer main unit, video camera apparatus, and a portable information terminal device. Being very small in comparison with conventional memory media but having a large memory, this IC card is a convenient memory medium for transferring data from a digital camera and portable information terminal device to the computer main unit, for printing by transferring data directly to a printer or, conversely, for transferring data from the computer to these electronic devices.
There are a plurality of kinds of IC cards with different sizes and shapes which require individual connectors, and the present applicants have proposed a complex connector which can accommodate a plurality of kinds of IC cards in Japanese Laid Open Patent Publication No. 2003-100369 ("JP '369").
This IC card connector is shown in FIG. 8 and FIG. 9. The IC card connector shown in FIGS. 8 and 9 is composed of a thin box type connector housing 1, in the front of which the first insertion slot 2 and the second insertion slot 3 are disposed in top and bottom levels communicating in a flat reverse T shape, and inside these first and second insertion slot 2, 3, contacts are disposed for first, second, third and fourth IC cards, 27, 28, 31 and 33. Pin terminals connect from these contact to an external substrate.
FIG. 10 through FIG. 13 shows the IC card connector of JP '369 in which corresponding IC cards are inserted. FIG. 10 and FIG. 11 are front views of the IC card connector, in which the first IC card 27 and the second IC card 28 are inserted to the first insertion slot 2. In this case, both cards use the contact 6, which is located toward the middle of the depth axis in the first insertion slot 2 shown in FIG. 9. FIG. 12 shows a front view when the third IC card 31 is inserted to the first insertion slot 2, and, in this case, the contact 7 is used, which is placed further back than the contact 6 described above in the first insertion slot 2 shown in FIG. 9. FIG. 13 shows a front view when the fourth IC card 33 is inserted to the second insertion slot 3, and, in this case, the contact 8 is used, which is placed in the second insertion slot 3 shown in FIG. 9.
Here, the insertion space where the first IC card 27 or the second IC card 28 are inserted shown in FIG. 10 and FIG. 11 and the other insertion space where the third IC card 33 is inserted shown in FIG. 13 are totally independent each other, and practically separate insertion slots. In the IC card connector of JP '369, the first IC card 27 or the second IC card 28 shown in FIG. 10 and FIG. 11 and the third IC card 31 shown in FIG. 12 share the same insertion space, but, in this case, the back part of the space of the insertion slot is formed with the width of the third IC card 31 to be utilized to hold the third IC card 31 which has a narrower width than the first IC card 27, and therefore, it can be said that these are independent spaces for holding different cards.
The method for accommodating a plurality of IC cards in the conventional IC card connectors is, as in the IC card connector shown in JP '369, by making separate independent insertion slots or, in the case where one IC card and the other IC card with a narrower width share the same insertion entry point, by placing the holding mechanism for the latter narrower IC card in the back part of the insertion space for the former IC card (the contact is also placed toward the back). However, no IC card connector is proposed yet in which, at the front side of the insertion space of an IC card, the insertion space for another IC card that is narrower in width and lower in height and a contact part thereof are secured.


One or more techniques for nano structure fabrication are provided. In an embodiment, an apparatus for manufacturing a nano structure is disclosed. The apparatus includes a stamp having a line pattern on a surface thereof that comprises a plurality of protrusions, a die configured to hold a substrate thereon, and a mechanical processing unit configured to press the plurality of protrusions of the stamp against the substrate with a predetermined pressure so as to form at least one channel pore therebetween.

Contemporary advances in nanotechnology have allowed several types of nano materials to become widely available in many different industries. The ability to measure and manipulate materials on a nanometer level now makes it possible to recognize new nano materials with enhanced properties and to thus broaden the application area of nano structures (e.g., nano wires) made with nano materials.
Typical nano materials may include small-molecule organic and polymer semiconductors, and provide enhanced electrical conductivity, good mechanical flexibility, low temperature processability, inherent compatibility with plastics, and the like. Accordingly, nano structures made of such nano materials have been widely used for flexible and rigid displays based on light emitting diodes, electrophoretic inks, polymer-dispersed liquid crystals, radiofrequency identification tags and sensors, etc.

Apparatus for nano structure fabrication

KOREA UNIVERSITY RESEARCH AND BUSINESS FOUNDATION


Tracing logic for monitoring a stream of processing instructions from a program being processed by a data processor is disclosed, said tracing logic comprising monitoring logic operable to detect processing of said instructions in said instruction stream; detect which of said instructions in said instruction stream are conditional direct branch instructions, which of said instructions in said instruction stream are conditional indirect branch instructions and which of said instructions in said instruction stream are unconditional indirect branch instructions; said tracing logic further comprising compression logic operable to: designate said conditional direct branch instructions, said conditional indirect branch instructions and said indirect branch instructions as marker instructions; for each marker instruction, output an execution indicator indicating if said marker instruction has executed or a non-execution indicator indicating if said marker instruction has not executed and not output data relating to previously processed instructions that are not marker instructions.

1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to data processing and in particular to diagnostic mechanisms for monitoring data processing operations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are a number of situations where it is desirable to keep track of the processing being performed by a processing circuit, and in such situations it may be desirable to be able to identify an order that instructions are processed in and to determine at any point in time which instruction is being processed. For example, such information is useful during the development of data processing systems, where it is often desirable to track the activity of the processing circuit. An example of a tool that may be used to assist in such a process is a tracing tool.
Tracing the activity of a data processing system whereby a trace stream is generated including data representing the step-by-step activity within the system is a highly useful tool in system development. Such tracing tools use a variety of means for tracing the program flow including embedded trace macrocells (ETM, a trademark of ARM Limited, Cambridge) which are present on the chip whose processing is being monitored.
Most processor instruction set architectures include branch instructions that are conditional on the state of the data processing system at the point where the branch is processed, that is they will execute and branch to the destination if some condition is true, and not execute and continue to the next sequential instruction if the condition is false, that is, it is treated as a no-op operation. Most instruction set architectures also include an indirect branch instruction, where the destination of the branch is calculated from the current state of the data processing system at the point where the branch is processed. The ARM® instruction set architecture, which is documented in the ARM Architecture Reference Manual, ISBN 0-201-73719-1 of 2001 also includes conditional instructions that are not branch instructions, which either execute or not depending on the current state of the processor at the point when the instruction is processed. Other instruction set architectures also include such conditional, sometimes referred to as predicated, instructions. Instructions that are not conditional—those that always execute—are referred to as unconditional instructions.
Current protocols used on Embedded Trace Macrocells for non-cycle-accurate trace of existing ARM® (registered trade mark of ARM Limited, Cambridge) processor cores has evolved from that used for cycle-accurate trace. Thus, for every instruction in a stream the ETM codes the information from the CPU as either an E-atom (when the instruction is executed) or an N-atom (when the instruction was not executed). The ETM then emits a data stream with the sequence of E and N-atoms that occurred. Generally these are emitted in a compressed form, using encoding techniques such as run-length encoding.
This is described in the ARM Embedded Trace Macrocell Architecture Specification, ARM IHI 00141 of December 2002.
This data stream can be stored either on- or off-chip and can then be fed to a debug agent program called an ETM decompressor. The decompressor has a copy of the program being traced so by decoding the E and N-atoms, and other information in the data stream which encodes data dependent changes to program flow (such as indirect branches) it can reconstruct the program flow in the embedded CPU.
As data processor cores increase their operating frequency and processors having multiple cores are becoming more common there is a need to improve the debug and tracing tools and mechanisms that may be used within the development of data processing systems. Increasing core frequencies pose a particular problem for trace. For example in existing ARM processor cores and ETM protocols, a bit rate of about 1.2 to 1.6 bits per instruction is achieved with instruction-only trace. Therefore a 1 GHz processor processing one instruction per cycle would generate 1.2 to 1.6 gigabits per second of trace data, this data may need to be taken off-chip and stored in a buffer. Furthermore, multi-processor system introduce integer multiples to this data rate.
Compression is used to reduce the average number of bits used to trace an individual instruction. However, as ever faster cores need to be traced, it would be advantageous to be able to reduce this data rate further.
Another known way of tracing the data activity of a data processing system is that embodied in the data processing system produced by Intel® under the name of XScale®. This is described in the Intel Developers Manual of January 2004 entitled Intel® XScale® core.
In this trace mechanism, instead of outputting details of every instruction that executes or does not execute XScale® counts the instructions that are processed until it gets to a branch instruction that is executed. Thus, it outputs a number of instructions processed and information as to where the program has branched to. Thus, if it passes a conditional branch instruction that does not execute, no information on this instruction is output as it never outputs non-execution indicators, unlike the other conventional trace mechanism described above. One disadvantage with XScale® is that by not outputting information on conditional branch instructions that do not execute, the indicator of a conditional branch instruction that does execute must contain sufficient information for the trace decompressor to determine which of the possible branch instructions in the instruction stream is the one that executed, which takes the form of a counter requiring many bits to encode. In addition, because this counter counts all instructions processed that are not executed branch instructions, overflows of this counter are likely, and the trace stream therefore also has to encode overflow markers. A second disadvantage is that it only outputs information for branch instructions, and not other conditional instructions; thus, the trace is incomplete, limiting the number of situations where it is useful.

Reducing the size of a data stream produced during instruction tracing


A method for analyzing mobile handset based transactions between sender handsets and receiver handsets comprising the steps of: identifying locations of a sender handset and a receiver handset for each transaction using mobile base station information; determine a geographical distribution of mobile handset based transactions based on the identified locations; and identifying anomalies by comparing the determined geographical distribution with an expected geographical distribution.

Cell phone based money transfer systems such as M-PESA provide a facility for transferring funds between mobile users. Cash may be exchanged for electronic money, which may be sent to family and friends, to pay bills or to purchase mobile air-time, for example. Such systems are designed to work on limited functionality mobile handsets using an installed SIM toolkit to provide additional menus dedicated to funds transfer, USSD sessions or interactive voice response (IVR) systems. SMS messages may be used to confirm to a sender and a receiver that an amount has been transferred following a transaction or payment. Cash may be redeemed or exchanged for electronic money (or "e-money") at outlets, which may be grocery stores or air-time resellers, for example.
An example of such a system is described at http://www.vodafone.com/start/about_vodafone/what_we_do/vmt.html.
Such money transfer systems are typically in use in countries with a limited banking infrastructure, where the population may not have access to basic financial services.
Such systems are gaining popularity with millions of transactions occurring daily. These transactions are monitored for the purposes of complying with anti-money laundering/counter terrorist financing requirements, but the aggregated data may not be analysed otherwise. Furthermore, aggregated transactions may not necessarily be analysed on a regional or national scale. Compliance with transaction monitoring, identification and verification of customers is an ongoing process in money transfer systems.
Therefore, there is required a system and method that overcomes these problems.


A method of searching a database of documents, wherein the method includes performing a search of the database using a query to produce query result documents; constructing a word dictionary of words within the query result documents; constructing an out-link dictionary of documents within the database that are pointed to by the query result documents; adding the query result documents to the out-link dictionary; constructing an in-link dictionary of documents within the database that point to the query result documents; and adding the query result documents to the in-link dictionary.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to search programs and more particularly to an improved method and system for searching which clusters hypertext documents.
2. Description of the Related Art
The World-Wide-Web has attained a gargantuan size (Lawrence, S., and Giles, C. L. Searching the World Wide Web. Science 280, 5360 (1998), 98., incorporated herein by reference) and a central place in the information economy of today. Hypertext is the lingua franca of the web. Moreover, scientific literature, patents, and law cases may be thought of as logically hyperlinked. Consequently, searching and organizing unstructured collections of hypertext documents is a major contemporary scientific and technological challenge.
Given a "broad-topic Query" (Kleinberg, J. Authoritative sources in a hyperlinked environment, in ACM-SIAM SODA (1998), incorporated herein by reference), a typical search engine may return a large number of relevant documents. Without effective summarization, it is a hopeless and enervating task to sort through all the returned documents in search of high-quality, representative information resources. Therefore, there is a need for an automated system that summarizes the large volume of hypertext documents returned during internet searches.

Clustering hypertext with applications to WEB searching

International Business Machines Corporation


A piston engine and a method for controlling a diesel-type piston engine including at least one combustion chamber formed by a cylinder. A movably arranged piston is provided in each cylinder is connected to a crankshaft. An injection device is provided that is configured to inject fuel directly into the combustion chamber. Thermal efficiency of the internal combustion engine can be increased while at the same time requirements relating to nitrogen oxide and soot particle emissions can also be maintained.

In a standard direct-injection diesel engine for heavy goods vehicles, i.e. a diesel engine with a cubic capacity between 0.5 and 4 liters per cylinder, the engine is controlled for a combustion at a maximum cylinder pressure amounting to about 180 bar at 22 bar BMEP. In such an engine, fuel is injected directly into the combustion chambers at about 30 crank angle degrees when the internal combustion engine is under maximum load. At maximum load, the injection is usually initiated 10–15 degrees before upper dead center and continues up to about 15–20 degrees after dead center depending on the operating point of the engine. A conventional internal combustion engine of this type is fitted with a turbo unit having a turbo map efficiency amounting to about 55–60%. The maximum charge pressure from the turbo unit amounts to about 330 kPa absolute pressure. Conventional diesel engines of the above-stated type have a thermal efficiency amounting to about 45–46% at maximum. By thermal efficiency is meant that share of the energy content of the fuel which is released during combustion which the engine is capable of converting into useful mechanical work.
In recent years, statutory requirements pertaining to emissions from diesel engines, especially relating to discharges of nitrogen oxide compounds and particles, have been tightened. The quantity of nitrogen oxides which is formed when fuel is combusted in a cylinder is dependent on the temperature and duration of combustion. Higher temperature leads to a greater share of the nitrogen in the air being converted into nitrogen oxides. One way of reducing the quantity of formed nitrogen oxide is to reduce the temperature at combustion. Reducing the temperature at combustion, however, creates problems. In certain operating conditions, the quantity of soot particles increases, which can result in an engine, for this reason, failing to win approval under prevailing emissions legislation. Moreover, the thermal efficiency of the internal combustion engine may diminish when the temperature falls. Nitrogen oxides formed during the combustion can be reduced, however, and hence re-converted into nitrogen by the after-treatment of exhaust gases in catalytic reaction chambers located in the exhaust pipe. The presence of catalytic reaction chambers raises, however, the exhaust-gas back-pressure. An increased exhaust-gas back-pressure causes a fall in the thermal efficiency of the internal combustion engine. Furthermore, the demands for reduced discharges of soot particles can necessitate the use of so-called particle traps, should the internal combustion engine, in certain operating points, generate excessive particle quantities, in order to satisfy prevailing emission requirements. Particle traps also give rise to increased exhaust back-pressure and hence lower thermal efficiency for the internal combustion engine.
One problem facing manufacturers of internal combustion engines on which statutory requirements are imposed with respect of maximally permitted emission levels of soot particles and nitrogen oxide compounds lies in the fact that the required permitted emission levels are constantly being lowered. Demands for reduced emission levels mean, firstly, that the engine cannot be optimized for low fuel consumption and, secondly, that emission-reducing peripheral equipment is called for which contributes to reduced thermal efficiency for the internal combustion engine.

Diesel-type piston engine and a method for controlling a diesel-type piston engine


An herbal formulation comprises green coffee bean extract, artichoke extract, banaba leaf extract, chromium polynicotinate, vanadyl sulphate, pterocarpus marsupium extract, gymnemia sylvestre extract, biotin, and goat's rue extract.

Compounds which are effective for suppressing the production of glucose in the human body may additionally be beneficial to those suffering from diabetes and conditions which are precursors to diabetes. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes) is broadly defined as a group of metabolic diseases caused by defects in insulin secretion and/or insulin action resulting in hyperglycemia. Diabetes has been identified as the fifth leading cause of disease death in the United States. Of particular concern are the increasing rates of previously rare type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents.
People with diabetes have a higher morbidity rate than the general population, as well as higher risks for heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, extremity amputation, and other chronic conditions. The causes of diabetes are associated with several pathogenic processes including autoimmune destruction of cells in the pancreas, resulting in insulin deficiency, metabolic abnormalities that result in resistance to insulin action, or both. Diabetes is generally divided into two categories. Type 1 diabetes is caused by an autoimmune defect resulting in an absolute deficiency of insulin secretion. A resistance to insulin action combined with an inadequate compensatory insulin secretion response causes type 2 diabetes.
Symptoms of diabetes include polyuria, polydipsia, weight loss, polyphagia, blurred vision, hypertension, abnormalities of lipoprotein metabolism, and periodontal disease. Diabetes can lead to impaired growth and susceptibility to certain types of infections. Over the long-term, diabetes can also lead to: reinopathy with blurred vision; nephropathy resulting in renal failure; peripheral neuropathy resulting in foot ulcers, amputation, and Charcot joints; and autonomic neuropathy causing gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and cardiovascular symptoms and secual dysfunction.
Moreover, there are a number of precursors to diabetes which also can be debilitating. Pre-diabetes, for example, is a condition wherein blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Pre-diabetes may result in long term damage to the body, especially to the heart and circulatory system. Research has demonstrated that action taken to control blood glucose levels for one having pre-diabetes can prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes.
Likewise, Syndrome X (also referred to as Metabolic Syndrome), a possible precursor to diabetes, may result in an increased risk of coronary artery disease. Syndrome X comprises three or more of the conditions of glucose intolerance, high blood pressure, high blood triglycerides, low levels of HDL, and abdominal obesity. Reducing the body's production of glucose may reverse the likelihood that Syndrome X would develop into type 2 diabetes.
It would be desirable to develop an herbal formulation which may be effective in suppressing the production of glucose in the human body, and could also benefit those suffering from diabetes and precursor conditions.


An intake passage upstream of a throttle valve is divided into a plurality of intake divided-flow conduits, and air flow meters are arranged in the respective intake divided-flow conduits. The throttle opening is obtained, and a throttle valve passing-through air amount, which is an amount of air passing through the throttle valve, is calculated on the basis of the throttle opening. Each air flow meter-detecting intake air amount, which is an intake air amount to be detected by the air flow meter, assuming that air flows through each intake divided-flow conduit by a part of the throttle valve passing-through air amount, the part being determined by a divided-flow ratio of the corresponding intake divided-flow conduit, is estimated, and a total value of the estimated air flow meter-detecting intake air amounts is then estimated. The engine is controlled on the basis of the total air flow meter-detecting intake air amount.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control device for an internal combustion engine.
2. Related Art
In order to make an air-fuel ratio accurately equal to a target air-fuel ratio, it is necessary to accurately obtain an in-cylinder intake air amount, which is an amount of intake air sucked into a cylinder and, in particular, the in-cylinder intake air amount at a closing timing of an intake valve. There is known an internal combustion engine in which the in-cylinder intake air amount at the closing timing of the intake valve is estimated by using a calculation model modeling an intake pipe which is an intake passage downstream of a throttle valve.
Use of such a calculation model will simplify the calculation. However, calculation results typically include calculation errors which should be eliminated.
Therefore, if an amount of air passing through an air flow meter is referred to as a throttle valve passing-through air amount and an air amount to be detected by the air flow meter is referred to as an air flow meter-detecting air amount, there is known an internal combustion engine in which: an air flow meter is provided for detecting an amount of air flowing through an intake passage of the engine; an in-cylinder intake air amount at the closing timing of the intake valve is estimated; a current throttle valve passing-through air amount is calculated on the basis of a current throttle opening; a current in-cylinder intake air amount is calculated from the current throttle valve passing-through air amount and the above-mentioned calculation model; an air flow meter-detecting air amount assuming that air flows through the intake passage by the calculated current in-cylinder intake air amount is estimated; the current in-cylinder intake air amount is estimated from the estimated air flow meter-detecting air amount and the above-mentioned calculation model; the estimated in-cylinder intake air amount at the closing timing of the intake valve is corrected by a difference between the calculated current in-cylinder intake air amount and the estimated current in-cylinder intake air amount, to calculate the final in-cylinder intake air amount at the closing timing of the intake valve; and the engine is controlled using the thus calculated, final in-cylinder intake air amount at the closing timing of the intake valve (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,644,104).
The difference between the calculated current in-cylinder intake air amount and the estimated current in-cylinder intake air amount represents errors of the calculation model. Therefore, the estimated in-cylinder intake air amount at the closing timing of the intake valve corrected by the difference will represent the in-cylinder intake air amount at the closing timing of the intake valve accurately.
On the other hand, if clogging occurs at, for example, an air cleaner arranged in the intake passage upstream of the throttle valve, an amount of air supplied to the engine may be insufficient. Therefore, it has been proposed that the intake passage upstream of the throttle valve is divided into a plurality of intake divided-flow conduits and air cleaners are arranged in the respective intake divided-flow conduits. In this proposal, amounts of air flowing through the respective intake divided-flow conduits are not always identical. Therefore, it is preferable to arrange air flow meters in the respective intake divided-flow conduits in order to obtain the in-cylinder intake air amount accurately.
However, USP'104 discloses only a method of calculating the in-cylinder intake air amount when a single air flow meter is provided. A method of calculating the in-cylinder intake air amount when a plurality of the air flow meters are provided must be newly introduced.

Control device for internal combustion engine


A deck for use with a vehicle having a frame includes a platform. The platform has opposite upper and lower surfaces. The platform is operatively coupled to the frame of the vehicle for selective movement between a storage position, wherein the upper surface is disposed substantially underneath the vehicle and a use position wherein the upper surface is disposed alongside the vehicle for ingress and egress thereon. A stabilizer extends from the lower surface for supporting the platform above the ground while in the use position. The stabilizer is selectively height adjustable to maintain the upper surface in a generally horizontal position.

The rushed pace and hectic schedule-balancing inherent in today's modern culture has made long getaways a rare luxury. In lieu of long vacations, many are opting for shorter, extended-weekend trips. Because time is precious on these quick trips, many find it undesirable to spend large amounts of time at airports where all passengers are subject to lengthy safety precautions and where flights can be delayed or cancelled. Instead, many choose to drive to a suitable location with a recreational vehicle and camp.
Modern recreational vehicles are equipped with all the technological comforts available in one's home, such as microwaves, DVD players and satellite television. Yet despite all of these internal comforts, most recreational vehicles lack exterior comforts that enhance the user's ability to enjoy the outdoors. Traditionally, if a recreational vehicle user wanted to have a picnic, grill or sunbathe by his vehicle, he would simply do so on the ground or perhaps lay a carpet or a blanket on the ground to enhance comfort. However, the ground is often not level and in the case of inclement weather, the ground and the carpet may get wet or muddy. A more ideal way to enjoy the outdoors would be for the recreational vehicle to have a deck.
A recreational vehicle having a platform is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,878 issued to Weaver. Weaver discloses a vehicle having a platform stowable in a storage bay mounted underneath the vehicle. The storage bay includes rollers to reduce friction when the platform is pulled out and when it is stowed. To further support the platform, a cable guide system including a cable and a pulley is employed. When the platform is in use, it lies directly on the ground. However, the added weight and space of a storage bay can negatively impact the cost of the system as well as the gas mileage of the vehicle. In addition, such a storage bay would likely require dismantling in the event that the vehicle requires repairs. Furthermore, it may be undesirable to have the platform resting directly on the ground in inclement weather or if the user desires to prevent the destruction of plants or grasses.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,837 issued to Klein et al discloses a collapsible deck for use with either a recreational vehicle or a mobile home. The collapsible deck includes a platform that is mounted on a frame assembly. The frame assembly includes a frame, a hitch and an axle having at least two tires. The platform has four sides that, when not in use, fold upwards to create a box having five walls. When in use, the four sides fold downward to form a skirt underneath the platform. When being transported, the four sides of the platform are folded upwards and the hitch is connected to a suitable towing mechanism on a vehicle. However, the requirement that the deck be hitched to a vehicle may be inconvenient if the user desired to hitch other equipment, such as an automobile, jet ski, or a snowmobile to the vehicle.
Consequently, there is a need in the art for a device adapted to minimize or eliminate one or more of the shortcomings set forth above.


An electronic volume control system has an UP key (1) for increasing the level of volume, a DOWN key (2) for decreasing the level of volume and a control (3) for controlling to increase or decrease the level of volume at the primary rate of volume change, based on the operation of each of the keys (1 and 2). The control (3) can set a fine adjustment mode in which the level of volume can be increased or decreased at a secondary rate of volume change which is smaller than the primary rate of volume change. The control (3) sets the fine adjustment mode when the time interval from a time point when one of the keys (1 or 2) is turned off to another time point when one of the keys (1 or 2) is subsequently turned on is within a preset time period. In order to enable the setting of the fine adjustment mode, a preset time period is set in UP-key or DOWN-key counter (10 or 11), if required. This preset time period is counted down for each unit time. If any key is turned on before the output of the counter becomes "0", the fine adjustment mode is selected.

It is known that mechanisms for controlling the volume in audio instruments are classified into analog type and electronic type.
The analog type volume controller controls the level of volume (which is referred to "sound volume" herein) by using a variable resistor which can adjust the level of signal for regulating the sound volume. Normally, the variable resistor is adjusted by rotating a knob to an angular position corresponding to the desired sound volume.
On the other hand, a setting of sound volume has been digitized and stored in a memory. The sound volume can be adjusted when a preselected digital value is added to or subtracted from the stored value.
Such a type of electronic volume controllers are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. Sho 57-88316, Utility Model Laid-Open No. Sho 59-140520, Utility Model Laid-Open No. Sho 61-158723, Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 61-242407, Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 62-21315, Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 64-10713, Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 64-36111, Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 64-81512, Utility Model Laid-Open No. Hei 1-72718, Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 1-143511 and Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 1-143512.
The electronic volume controller generally comprises an operation button for increasing the sound volume (which will be referred to as "UP key") and another operation button for decreasing the sound volume (which will be referred to as "DOWN key"). When the UP key or DOWN key is once turned off immediately after it has been turn on (this operation will be referred to as "single operation"), the preselected value is once added to or subtracted from the setting value of sound volume stored in the memory. Thus, the sound volume will be increased or decreased by a given amount of volume change. Such a volume control mode will be referred to as "single operation mode".
The electronic volume controllers frequently have such a function that when the UP key or DOWN key is maintained at its ON state for a time period exceeding a preselected time period (this operation will be referred to as "continuous operation"), the preselected value is added to or subtracted from the setting value of sound volume stored in the memory at each unit time so as to increase or decrease the sound volume by an amount of volume change at each unit time until the UP key or DOWN key is turned off. This volume control mode will be referred to as "continuous operation mode".
However, the conventional electronic volume controllers are disadvantageous in that they are inferior in operability to the analog type volume controller.
The analog type volume controller is very easy to be operated since a desired sound volume can be obtained merely by rotating a knob, as described above. More particularly, an operator is only required to rotate the knob rapidly to a position near a desired sound volume level and then to rotate the knob gradually to a position accurately corresponding to the desired sound volume level.
The electronic volume controller uses the continuous operation mode when it is desired to increase or decrease the sound volume rapidly to a position near a desired sound volume. When such a position is reached, both the UP and DOWN keys are used to fine adjust the sound volume in the single operation mode. In such a time, the sound volume will not be adjusted depending on the sense of the operator's finger(s), unlike the analog type volume controller. Therefore, it cannot be avoided that the operator feels cumbersome in handling the electronic volume controller for such a reason why the operator cannot sensuously detect the accurate relationship between the key operation and the volume change in each of the single and continuous operation modes.
There is further known an electronic volume controller which can be adjusted by a rotatable knob. Since such a rotatable knob extends outwardly from the console panel of the controller, the knob frequently provides any obstruction. It is thus desired that the electronic volume controller can have UP and DOWN keys capable of adjusting the sound volume in conformity with the human's sense.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an electronic volume controller improved in operability.


An envelope has a glass bulb body and a cylindrical glass bulb base. The glass bulb body includes an upper hemisphere and a lower hemisphere. The upper hemisphere is curved in a substantially spherical shape. The lower hemisphere is substantially curved in a spherical shape and connects the upper hemisphere and glass bulb base. A photocathode is formed on the inner surface of the glass bulb body. An avalanche photodiode is disposed on the glass bulb body side relative to an intersection between an imaginary extended curved surface of the lower hemisphere within the glass bulb base and an axis. When light enters the photocathode, electrons are emitted from the photocathode. The electrons are converged at the position above and in the vicinity of the APD by an electrical field in the electron tube, so that the electrons enter the APD in an efficient manner and are detected satisfactorily.

Various electron tubes have been proposed. The electron tubes have a photocathode that emits photoelectrons in response to an incident light and a detection section constituted by a semiconductor device or a multiple-stage dynode that amplifies the photoelectrons so as to detect them.
As an electron tube using a dynode, there is available an electron tube having substantially a spherical main body and a cylindrical base. In the electron tube, a photocathode is formed on the internal surface of the main body and a first-stage dynode is disposed on the main body side relative to the base (refer to, for example, Patent Document 1).
As an electron tube using an avalanche photodiode (hereinafter, referred to as APD) as the detection section, there has been proposed an electron tube in which an entrance window and a conductive stem are disposed opposite to each other at both ends of an insulating container; a photocathode is formed on the internal surface of the entrance window; and the APD is disposed on the conductive stem. The conductive stem protrudes in the direction toward the photocathode (refer to, for example, Patent Document 2).
As an electron tube using a semiconductor device as the detection section, there is also available an electron tube in which a photocathode is formed on the internal surface of a window with a curved surface having a center of curvature inside the electron tube, and a photodiode is disposed on the opposite side to the photocathode (refer, for example, to Patent Document 3).
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 9-35680 (pages 3 to 5, FIG. 1)
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 9-297055 (pages 4 to 9, FIG. 4)
[Patent Document 3]
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 5-54849 (pages 2 to 4, FIG. 1)


A magnetoresistance element deposited upon a substrate includes a first stack portion having opposing first and second surfaces and including a first plurality of layers. The first stack portion has a first substantially linear response corresponding to an applied magnetic field over a first magnetic field strength range. The magnetoresistance element also includes a second stack portion having opposing first and second surfaces and including a second plurality of layers. The first surface of the second stack portion is disposed over the second surface of the first stack portion and the second stack portion has a second substantially linear response that is different than the first substantially linear response. The second substantially linear response corresponds to the applied magnetic field over a second magnetic field strength range.

As is known in the art, magnetic field sensing elements can be used in a variety of applications. In one example application, a magnetic field sensing element can be used to detect motion (e.g., rotation) of an object, such as a gear or ring magnet. A magnetic field affected by motion of the object may be detected by one or more magnetic field sensing elements, such as Hall effect elements and/or magnetoresistance elements, which provide a signal (i.e., a magnetic field signal) in response to an applied magnetic field. Motion of the object may, for example, result in variations in an air gap between the object (or target features of the object) and the magnetic field sensing elements, which may result in variations in the applied magnetic field to which the magnetic field sensing elements are exposed, and in the magnetic field signals provided by the magnetic field sensing elements in response to the applied magnetic field. Such magnetic field signals can be processed to detect position, proximity, speed and/or direction of motion of the object, for example.
Various parameters characterize the performance of magnetic field sensing elements and circuits or sensors that use magnetic field sensing elements. With regard to magnetic field sensing elements, the parameters include sensitivity, which corresponds to a change in a resistance of a magnetoresistance element or a change in an output voltage from a Hall effect element, for example, in response to an applied magnetic field (e.g., a magnetic field as may be affected by motion of a ferromagnetic object). Additionally, with regard to magnetic field sensing elements, the parameters include linearity, which corresponds to a degree to which the resistance of the magnetoresistance element or the output voltage from the Hall effect element varies linearly (i.e., in direct proportion) to the applied magnetic field.
Magnetoresistance elements are known to have a relatively high sensitivity compared, for example, to Hall effect elements. Magnetoresistance elements are also known to have moderately good linearity, but over a restricted or limited range of magnetic fields, more restricted in range than a range over which Hall effect elements can operate. It is known that in the restricted range of magnetic fields (i.e., in a so-called "linear region" or "linear range" of a magnetoresistance element), the resistance of a magnetoresistance element is typically indicative of an applied magnetic field to which the magnetoresistance element is exposed. It is also known that outside the restricted range of magnetic fields (i.e., in so-called "saturation regions"), the resistance of a magnetoresistance element is typically not indicative of the applied magnetic field. As a result of the foregoing, an operational range of a magnetoresistance element (i.e., a range in which the magnetoresistance element has a resistance that is indicative of an applied magnetic field) is typically limited to the restricted range of magnetic fields (i.e., the linear range of the magnetoresistance element). Additionally, an operational range of a circuit or sensor (e.g., a magnetic field sensor) using the magnetoresistance element (i.e., a range in which the circuit or sensor using the magnetoresistance element is capable of generating a signal indicative of the applied magnetic field) may be limited to the operational range of the magnetoresistance element.
For at least the above reasons, the fundamental usage for conventional magnetoresistance elements, and circuits or sensors using conventional magnetoresistance elements, has typically been limited to applications in which sensing is needed over a restricted range of magnetic fields (e.g., low strength magnetic fields) and the relatively high sensitivity characteristics of magnetoresistance elements are desired.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Magnetoresistance element with increased operational range