A flexible wired circuit board that is provided can improve the yield per sheet and the production efficiency of the wired circuit board and thus to reduce the production costs when a plurality of flexible wired circuit boards are formed and aligned on the sheet. The flexible wired circuit board includes a first wired circuit board portion having a first terminal portion, a second wired circuit board portion having a second terminal portion, and a connecting portion for connecting the first wired circuit board portion and the second wired circuit board portion. The first wired circuit board portion and the second wired circuit board portion are disposed adjacent to each other at one end of the connecting portion, and the first wired circuit board portion is foldable over the other end with respect to the connecting portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flexible wired circuit board and, more particularly, to a flexible wired circuit board that is mounted to an electrical and electronic apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the manufacturing of a printed circuit board, it is known to form a plurality of printed circuit boards in a generally identical shape on a worksheet which can yield many printed circuit boards thereon. (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-217503, for example).
In a flexible wired circuit board, terminal portions are formed on both ends in a longitudinal direction for connecting with an electrical and electronic apparatus. Wires for connecting between the terminal portions formed on the both ends are formed to have a pattern along a longitudinal direction.
With a recent trend for a miniaturized electrical and electronic apparatus, there is a growing demand to mount a flexible wired circuit board in a smaller space. To meet the requirement, bending portions are formed on a flexible wired circuit board, which causes the profile thereof to be more complex.
On the other hand, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-217503, a plurality of printed circuit boards formed on a worksheet may create a dead space therebetween in the case where each of the printed circuit boards has a complex outer shape and less numbers of the printed circuit boards are formed per worksheet. This reduces the yield of the printed circuit board per worksheet, and the production efficiency, thereby increasing the production costs.


Conductive, flowable, emollient compositions and electrostatic methods for their application e.g., to tissue, are disclosed. Compositions of the invention include emollient(s) and conductivity modifiers. Emollient-compatible phosphates and succinates are particularly preferred families of conductivity modifiers. In methods of the invention conductive emollient composition of the invention are preferably applied to tissue substrates, particularly facial tissue substrates, and particularly in a commercial tissue-making process. Electrostatic spray processes are utilized to obtain surprisingly uniform application of conductive emollient to tissue with minimal overspray or spray path overlap.

This invention relates, in general, to emollient compositions having a specified conductivity and range of viscosity and to methods of applying such emollient compositions to a substrate. The present invention relates, more specifically, to emollient compositions in a liquid form having sufficient conductivity and viscosity to be electrostatically sprayed. Yet more specifically, this invention relates to electrostatic methods of applying conductive emollient compositions, to essentially any substrate, but particularly to the more common forms of paper tissue, e.g. bath or toilet tissue, paper towels, facial tissue and the like. The present invention is especially applicable to large scale commercial, tissue making processes for producing emollient-coated or emollient-carrying tissue.
An "emollient" is defined as an agent that softens and smooths the skin The American Heritage Dictionary (1982). Emollients, salves, cleansing agents, and the like have been applied to substrates or carriers, such as tissue paper, for subsequent application to skin to reduce skin irritation and inflamation but also to enhance cleaning. See, e.g. Dake et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,167, the Dake et al. patent being incorporated by reference herein.
Emollients, especially emollients applicable to tissue substrates, generally tend to fall into at least two broad categories, i.e., mineral oil-based emollients and silicone-based emollients. Mineral oil-based emollients usually comprise long chain alcohols. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,112,167, 4,481,243, and 4,513,051. Silicone-based emollients typically contain polysiloxane of various molecular weights along with other silicone-based compounds. See, e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,950,545; 5,227,242; 5,246,546; and 5,385,643.
Whether mineral oil-based or silicone-based, such emollients are conventionally applied to tissue paper or other such substrates or carriers by dipping, see e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,896,807, air spraying, see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,227,242 and 4,950,545, and printing, see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,389,204; 5,389,643; and 5,525,345. The teachings of the aforementioned patents, as well as the patents mentioned in the previous paragraph are incorporated by reference herein.
Conventional methods used to coat or treat tissue substrates or carriers with emollients, especially paper substrates in a tissue manufacturing processes, have one or more drawbacks. Spraying of emollients onto a substrate or carrier, is accomplished using air pressure to force the composition through an orifice in a sprayer head. This creates a dispersed stream of emollient which is directed toward a substrate surface passing beneath or beside a sprayer head, thereby coating it. Air-driven sprayer heads tend to deliver solutions in the form of unevenly sized droplets, and in an uneven spray pattern. They also tend to require overlapping spray paths or patterns in order to obtain complete substrate coverage. Thus, surfaces coated or treated with emollients delivered by conventional air spray methods tend to be unevenly coated or to be coated excessively in regions of spray overlap. Air-driven sprayers also tend to "overspray" i.e., to miss the substrate. Overspray wastes solution, can cause air pollution, and can present a safety issue to the extent slippery working surfaces are created.
Printing of emollients on substrates, is accomplished by applying an emollient to a heated transfer surface and transferring the emollient to the substrate by placing it in direct contact with the substrate. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,385,643; 5,389,204 and 5,525,345. Emollients can be applied to absorbent substrates, such as tissue paper, in a very uniform fashion using traditional printing methods. However, printing requires a substantial investment in printing equipment which is generally more costly than spraying equipment. Printing equipment also tends to become clogged as fibers are transferred from tissue paper and thus requires continuous cleaning.
Other methods for applying solutions to substrates, such as tissue paper substrates, have been developed. However, the alternative methods developed so far address some of the problems of the conventional methods discussed above but introduce others. For example, one such alternative application method, disclosed in United States patent U.S. Pat. No. 3,484,275, involves moving an electrostatically charged paper web past a grounded sprayer head. Solution ejected from the sprayer head is attracted to the electrostatically charged paper web substrate and is deposited thereon. The method of the U.S. Pat. No. 3,484,275 patent does not address the uneven droplet size or uniformity of spray problems.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a conductive emollient composition capable of being rapidly and precisely deposited on an substrate, preferably on a tissue or paper substrate, and more preferably on a facial tissue substrate in a commercial tissue making process, using an electrostatic sprayer apparatus.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for rapidly and precisely applying a conductive emollient composition to a moving tissue paper substrate using an electrostatic sprayer apparatus, with minimal overspray and spray overlap, to produce a tissue substrate uniformly coated with emollient.

Emollient compositions and methods of application to a substrate by electrostatic spraying


The invention relates to an electronic device and a method of enhancing character input in an electronic device comprising a set of keys. The method comprises associating a group of characters with at least one key; detecting repeated presses of a key; detecting whether the key has been touched continuously during the repeated presses of the key; and interpreting the characters corresponding to the key presses in the group of characters associated with the key on the basis of the detections.

The user interface of electronic devices comprises in many cases a keyboard with which the user may give commands to the device. A full-size typewriter keyboard is usable in devices which are of sufficient size, but in many portable devices the size of the device limits the size of the keyboard.
In prior art, the problem has been solved by introducing a touch sensitive screen which displays a miniature keyboard. A user presses the keys with a pointing device. However, this is a cumbersome solution, as it typically requires the use of both hands of the user.
Another solution presented in prior art is to reduce the number keys in the keyboard and to associate several characters with each key. For example, in mobile phones a typical keyboard comprises twelve keys intended for entering characters. Each key is associated with several different characters. The problem with this solution is to unambiguously determine the correct character when a user enters a sequence of keystrokes.
In what is called a multi-tap method, the user presses a key repeatedly to cycle through the characters associated with the key. For example, if characters 'a', 'b' and 'c' have been associated with a key and the user presses the key twice in succession, the character 'b' is selected as the correct character. The drawback of this solution is the large number of keystrokes. Another drawback is that if the next character to be typed is associated with the same key as the previous one, the user has to pause the typing for a given period of time so that the device can distinguish the characters from each other. Alternatively, the user may press a separation key, which indicates to the device that the next key presses are for the next character. Both of these solutions make the typing of characters slow.
Predictive text input solutions have also been proposed. These solutions rely on dictionaries stored in the devices. The dictionaries comprise words most commonly used in the selected language. In these solutions, the user does not select specific characters from the keys by repeatedly pressing each key. Instead, only one key press is required for each character. Each press indicates the key the particular character is associated with. The device receives the keyed sequence and compares the selected keys and their associations to the words stored in the dictionary. Thus, while the word is being written, the device proposes words that match the typed key sequence to the display of the device. If several words correspond to the typed key sequence, the user may select the correct words from the proposed alternatives.
This solution may greatly reduce the number of required keystrokes. However, the solution also has several drawbacks. The user has to be very careful all the time to select the correct word from the proposed alternatives—otherwise a totally wrong word can easily get inserted into the text. Furthermore, as the operation is based on a limited dictionary, it may be a tedious task for the user to keep on adding the missing words to the dictionary. As the number of words in the dictionary grows, there will be more and more words corresponding to a single keypad sequence, which slows down the typing procedure. The typing can also be rather cumbersome, if the text being written mixes words from several different languages. For these reasons the predictive text input has not replaced the multi-tap method, especially not among those who need to use character input repeatedly.

Enhancing character input in electronic device


A controllable coolant pump for internal combustion engines driven by torque transmission elements has a pump housing, a driven shaft mounted in the pump housing, an impeller wheel arranged fixedly in terms of rotation on a free, flow-side end of the shaft, and a pressure-activated valve slide having an outer cylinder covering the outflow region of the impeller wheel in a variable manner. The valve slide is of annular configuration and is arranged on piston rods mounted displaceably in the pump housing. An annular piston mounted in an annular groove in the pump housing and movable in a defined manner in the annular groove via excess pressure or vacuum is arranged on the piston rods in a manner lying opposite the valve slide.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a controllable coolant pump driven by way of a belt pulley.
2. Description of Related Art
In the state of the art, controllable coolant pumps for internal combustion engines are previously described, which are driven by the crankshaft of the internal combustion engine by way of a belt pulley, and in which the impeller wheel is driven by the pump shaft in switchable manner, for example in connection with a friction pairing.
The applicant presented a proven controllable coolant pump in the patent DE 100 57 098 C1, in which a magnetic coil is disposed in the pump housing, in stationary manner, which coil can enter into an action connection with an anchor disk that is disposed on the drive shaft so as to rotate with it, but is displaceable under spring force, provided with a friction coating on the impeller wheel side, in such a manner that when the magnetic field is shut off, the impeller wheel that is disposed on the drive shaft so as to rotate is entrained by the anchor disk as a result of the spring press-down pressure.
Since, in the case of this construction, the entrainment friction moment is greatly limited by the magnetic construction space that is available, this solution was developed further in systematic manner.
The application DE 102 35 721 A1 that builds on this solution describes a controllable coolant pump which has been optimized in terms of construction space, having a drive torque that can be transferred from the friction disk of the magnetic coupling to the impeller wheel, which torque is clearly increased.
This increased drive torque is brought about by means of increasing the press-down force, which results from the fact that a partial vacuum that supports the press-down force is built up between the friction disk and the impeller wheel, by means of an inflow ring and an outflow ring for the cooling medium, and, at the same time, the friction disk has the pressure of the cooling medium applied to it during operation, by means of overflow openings on the coupling side.
Both the cooling power and the drive power of the coolant pump can be varied by means of the two-point regulation that can be implemented with such coolant pumps.
However, optimal regulation of the drive power or cooling power of coolant pumps for motor vehicles is supposed to make it possible to avoid compulsory cooling that starts immediately when the engine is started, causing the warm-up phase of the engine, with all the disadvantages that occur during this phase, such as increased friction losses, increased emission values, and increased fuel consumption, to be clearly reduced.
In order to now allow such faster engine warm-up, with the advantages that result from it, the drive of the coolant pump was uncoupled during cold start of the engine, with the aforementioned constructions.
Once the engine reached its operating temperature, the friction coupling, with the wear problems inherent to this coupling construction, as a result of its function, was activated, and the drive of the coolant pump was turned on.
In this connection, a large amount of cold coolant was now pumped into the engine, which had heated up to operating temperature, so that the engine immediately cooled down greatly.
When this happened, however, the desired advantages of rapid warm-up of the engine were partially compensated again.
When larger coolant pumps were turned on again, great torques furthermore had to be overcome, because of the required mass acceleration, and this necessarily resulted in great component stress. A solution was previously described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,455, in which it was possible to change the active impeller width of the impeller wheel by means of a slit, axially movable disk.
A controllable coolant pump having an open impeller wheel and an adjustable slide having a slit, axially movable base, with which the effective impeller width of the impeller wheel can be varied by means of electrical, hydraulic, or pneumatically activated displacement of the slide is also known from DE 199 01 123 A1.
One of the significant disadvantages of the two aforementioned constructions is, however, that slit slides can only be used in connection with simply curved, open vane wheels.
However, such simply curved vane wheels necessarily have a low degree of effectiveness.
Another construction of a slide was presented by the applicant in DE 103 14 526 A1. This is a valve slide that is electromagnetically activated and works in the suction region of a coolant pump.
In the case of large pump units in systems technology and power technology, other constructions of valve slides are used (cf. "Die Kreiselpumpen" [Impeller-driven pumps] by C. Pfleiderer, Springer-Verlag, 4th edition (1955), p. 422).
These constructions, referred to as split slides, are axially displaceable valve slides disposed concentric to the impeller wheel, which are supposed to prevent exit of the fluid from the impeller wheel into the pressure spiral in the closed position, and are used to block off the volume stream.
In DE 881 306 C, for example, such an axially movable, spring-loaded, hydraulically adjustable split slide that works in the pressure region is previously described, which is able to greatly restrict the transport volume stream under a spring effect, while taking advantage of the differential pressure of the wheel side space.
However, these solutions of impeller-driven pump technology are not suitable for use as a coolant pump in motor vehicle technology, since, among other things, the slide closes as a result of the spring effect, for example, so that a failure of the control necessarily also means a failure of the coolant pump, and continued operation of the coolant pump after failure of the control (fail-safe) cannot be guaranteed.
Furthermore, in the case of this construction, the guides are always exposed to the operating medium, with the unavoidable contaminant load of the cooling medium, such as molding sand, metal particles, and the like, from the production process, for example, or resulting from wear, so that dirt particles that penetrate into the guides necessarily lead to jamming of the slide.
Furthermore, no "zero leakage" can be implemented with these slides previously described in the state of the art, in the closed state.
In the course of the increasing optimization of internal combustion engines with regard to emissions and fuel consumption, however, it is becoming increasingly important to bring the engine to operating temperature as quickly as possible after a cold start, in order to minimize friction losses, on the one hand (with an increasing oil temperature, the viscosity of the oil decreases, thereby decreasing the friction on all oil-lubricated components), and reducing the emission values (since the catalytic converters only go into effect after the so-called "starting temperature", the time period until this temperature is reached significantly influences the exhaust gas emissions), in order to thereby simultaneously reduce the fuel consumption.
Test series in engine development have shown that a very effective measure for warming the engine is that of "standing water" or "zero leakage" during the cold-start phase.
In this connection, coolant should by no means flow through the cylinder head during the cold-start phase, in order to bring the exhaust gas temperature to the desired level as quickly as possible.
Leakage gas flows of less than 0.5 l/h ("zero leakage") are desired by vehicle manufacturers.
Studies concerning the fuel consumption of internal combustion engines in motor vehicles have also shown that about 3 to 5% fuel can be saved by means of consistent thermal management, in other words those measures that result in optimal operation of an internal combustion engine in terms of energy and thermomechanics.
Therefore, ever more precise regulation of the coolant throughput as a function of the temperature of the coolant being passed through is absolutely necessary, taking these aspects into account.

Geräte- und Pumpenbau GmbH Dr. Eugen Schmidt


A portable device for washing drinking glasses includes a hollow tubular handle containing a rotary shaft, drive motor, and dry cell battery. A circular sponge cleaning element is attached to the external end of the rotary shaft for cleaning the interior surface of a drinking glass enclosing the sponge element. The hollow handle provides a storage chamber for liquid detergent that can be delivered through an axial passage in the shaft to the sponge element. Handle construction is simplified by forming the handle in two sections split on the handle longitudinal axis; a single gasket is interposed in the plane of the split to seal the longitudinal joint between the two handle sections.

This invention relates to a device for washing hollow ware, e.g. drinking glasses, cups, and bottles. More particularly, the invention concerns a manual device having a hollow tubular handle and an elongated rotary shaft that carries a sponge-type cleaning element. A battery-powered electric motor in the handle powers the shaft for rotary motion. The device can be held in a person's hand, with the shaft and cleaning element inserted into a drinking glass or other hollow ware item for washing the interior surface of a drinking glass.
The use of rotary cleaning devices is old in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 3,387,312 to W. Westphal discloses a rotary cleaning device for cleaning toilets, bathtubs and tile walls. The device comprises an electric motor within an elongated housing for imparting a rotary oscillating motion to an associated shaft; a hemispheric sponge on the free end of the shaft performs the cleaning function.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,204,273 to J. Gallo, discloses a stationary machine locatable in a sink for cleaning a drinking glass as it is lowered onto a rotary brush slightly below the sink water level. A motor in the machine spins the rotary brush to clean the interior surface of the glass.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,177,510 shows a device for cleaning a person's teeth. The device comprises a hollow handle containing an electric motor, a dry cell battery for powering the motor, and an elongated shaft driven by the motor. A compressible tube containing a supply of toothpaste delivers toothpaste to the shaft and a cleaning brush attached to the shaft.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,168,560 discloses a general purpose cleaning device that includes a reservoir for a liquid cleaning agent, and a manual valve for delivering small quantities of the cleaning agent to a rotary brush. A battery-operated motor in the handle powers the brush.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,379,355, to K. Kobayaski, discloses a non-powered device for cleaning hollow ware. The person moves a drinking glass or other hollow item over a sponge cleaning element that is mounted for rotation on a stationary housing. Manual manipulation of the drinking glass causes the sponge element to effect a cleaning operation on the glass surface.
The present invention relates to a portable hand-held cleaning device for hollow ware, comprising a hollow tubular handle containing a battery-powered electric motor, and a rotary shaft driven at reduced speed by the motor. A circular sponge cleaning element on the outer end of the shaft cleans a piece of hollow ware held against the cleaning element surface.
The hollow tubular handle is split on its longitudinal axis into two mating handle sections, for easy assembly of the motor, battery, shaft and speed reducer gearing in the handle. The joint between the two handle sections is sealed by an endless gasket that extends around the handle periphery and transversely across edge areas of partition walls within the handle sections.
In order to simplify the gasket sealing contact and gasket construction, the shaft is offset from the handle's longitudinal axis. This enables the gasket to be a single planar unit adapted to have good uninterrupted sealing contact along its entire length. The handle is effectively sealed against the entrance of moisture without using complex sealing constructions. Assembly of the cleaning device components into an operative structure is accomplished in the manufacturing facility with a minimum number of assembly operations.


A method, apparatus, and system to transmit signals using multiple antennas with per-antenna power constraints. The method includes initializing a precoding algorithm to a complex matrix. The precoding algorithm is for precoding signals transmitted by a plurality of antennas. The method includes iteratively processing the precoding algorithm on a per-antenna basis by, at each iteration, sequentially updating a precoder for each of the plurality of antennas. The method includes, after each iteration, determining whether the precoding algorithm has converged based on a change in a rate of mutual information across iterations. Additionally, the method includes, in response to determining that the precoding algorithm has converged, transmitting the signals using the precoding algorithm.

As multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology has developed over the years, the number of antennas in the deployed MIMO systems has been steadily increasing. The concept of using a large number (hundreds or thousands) of antennas has also been brought up from an information theory perspective. However, the challenges of implementing hundreds or thousands of antennas in conventional cellular systems have been prohibitive. For example, to accommodate 1024 half-wavelength antennas in 2G Hz band, the dimension of the antenna array will be around 2.4 m×2.4 m.
Proposals for a mobile broadband system using millimeter-wave bands (MMB) have opened up opportunities to bring large MIMO antenna arrays with hundreds or thousands of antennas. For example, using millimeter-wave frequencies around 30 GHz, the dimension of an antenna array with 1024 antennas is about 16 cm×16 cm, smaller than a single sector antenna for a typical cellular base station.
The transmitter and receiver beamforming in MMB systems are different from the MIMO operations in cellular systems. With possibly thousands of antennas at a base station and hundreds of antennas at a mobile station, the spatial degree of freedom of MMB systems is much larger than that of cellular systems. To drive hundreds or thousands of antennas, a large number of power amplifiers are needed, each having its own power constraint. The design of efficient beamforming schemes to fully utilize the power of all these power amplifiers is an interesting problem with practical significance.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for improved transmission strategies in multiple antenna wireless communication systems. In particular, there is a need for methods and apparatuses that are capable of multiple antenna transmission schemes with per-antenna power constraints.

Multiple antenna transmission with per-antenna power constraints


A method for separating a composite fluid into components in a centrifugal fluid separation system. The system includes a rotor that has a composite fluid containment area, an inlet channel, a peripheral separation channel, outlet channels and separated component collection areas, which together form a processing area. The separation channel may be semi-spiraled. The inlet channel may connect to the center of the separation channel and an outlet channel may connect to each end of the separation channel. The outlet channels have different heights. The ends of the separation channels may have different heights. The separation channels may have extensions. The rotor may have multiple processing areas. The collection areas may be pockets slanted radially outwardly and downwardly. A motor may produce a rotating magnetic field, which co-acts with a magnetically reactive material in the rotor. A disposable bag and tubing system may be used in a processing area of the rotor.

The present invention is directed generally to centrifugal fluid separation devices and more particularly involves a pressure driven and/or balanced separation device preferably having a simplified disposable tubing and bag set used with a loopless, rotating sealless rotor.
A number of fluid separation devices have been known and various models are currently available for the separation of blood or other composite fluids into the various component elements thereof. For example, a variety of centrifugal machines are available for separating blood into component elements such as red blood cells, platelets and plasma, among others.
Centrifugation for such purposes has come in many forms in both continuous and batch types. For example, in the widely used process known as continuous centrifugation, as generally opposed to batch process centrifugation, a continuous input of a composite fluid is flowed into the separation device or chamber while at the same time the components of that composite fluid are substantially continuously separated and these separated components are usually then also substantially continuously removed therefrom. Many currently popular forms of such continuous fluid separation devices include loops of entry and exit flow tubing lines connected to the separation centrifuge chamber such that each loop is rotated in a relative one-omega—two-omega (1ω–2ω) relationship to the centrifuge chamber itself so that the tubing lines will remain free from twisting about themselves.
An alternative form of tubing line connection to a continuous centrifugal separation device is also available in the art which does not have such a loop, but which instead requires one or more rotating seals at the respective connections of the tubing lines to the centrifuge separation chamber, again to maintain the tubing lines free from twisting.
Batch-type centrifugation, on the other hand, usually involves separation of a composite fluid such as whole blood in a closed container, often a deformable bag, followed by a usually complicated process of automated and/or manual expression of one or more of the separated components out of the separation container or bag. A great deal of control, either automated, such as by optical interface detection, or by a diligent human operator watching a moving interface, is required with such previous batch-type processes. Indeed, various means and methods have been used in prior centrifugal separation devices, both continuous and batch, for driving fluid flow and maintaining desirable interface position control between the component elements being separated thereby. For example, as mentioned, various optical feedback methods and devices have been employed in the art. Various pumping and valving arrangements are also used in various of these and other arrangements. Alternative relatively automatic volume flow and density relationship interface controls have also been used; for example, in a continuous system by the disposition of control outlet ports in strategic locations relative to the separated component outlet ports. Nevertheless, many facets of these prior separation devices, though satisfactorily productive, may provide certain features which are less efficient than a desired optimum. For example, centrifugal separation devices using loops of tubing lines rotated in the above-described 1ω–2ω relationship with the centrifuge separation chamber require significant, usually substantially large drive mechanisms which thereby mandate that each such entire device then also be necessarily of a relatively large scale. Rotating seal devices, on the other hand, require intricate and often operationally problematic rotating seal structures. Still further, prior fluid drive and/or interface control systems have generally been either overly complex, as in the case of most of the optical control models, and/or automatic volume flow/density controls may not be entirely efficient in separation due to the usually inherent re-mixing of some quantities of the centrifugally separated components.
Hence, substantial desiderata remain to provide more highly efficient centrifugal separation devices in terms of increased efficiency fluid flow drive and separation interface controls; reduced rotor drive mechanization, quantity and/or scale; and/or reduced seal need and/or intricacy. It is toward any one or more of these or other goals as may be apparent throughout this specification that the present invention is directed.

Method for fluid separation devices using a fluid pressure balanced configuration


An optical wireless local area network using line of sight optical links. The base station and terminal stations are provided with optical transceivers which include a transmitter array and detector array. The transmitter array consists of an array of resonant cavity light emitting diodes integrated using flip-chip technology with a CMOS driver circuit. The driver circuit includes constant bias, current peaking and charge extraction. The driver circuitry is compact and can be confined within a region underlying the corresponding light source. The detector array consists of an array of photo diodes, provided with sense circuitry consisting of a pre-amplifier and post-amplifier. The diodes and sense circuitry are also integrated using a flip-chip technique. The light emitter and the detector may include adaptive optical elements to steer and/or focus the light beams.

The provision of voice data and visual communications to mobile users has become an important area of research and product development. The degree of mobility of users varies widely, from wide area "roaming" at one end of the range, to users within a room requiring a small degree of mobility but extremely high bandwidth communications at the other end of the range. Wireless communication links are essential for providing communications with mobile users, and while radio communications are useful in providing good coverage over large areas, the data transfer rates achievable with radio communications are rather limited compared to the data transfer rates achievable with fixed networks, for instance using fibre optics. Thus radio links tend to act as a bottleneck for data. The advantage of optical links over radio links, namely providing much higher bandwidth and thus much higher data transfer rate, is well-known. Optical local area networks (LANs) have been proposed, and fall into two main types as illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 of the accompanying drawings. Diffuse networks, as illustrated in FIG. 1, use a wide angle source 1 and scatter the light from surfaces in the room to provide an optical "ether" similar to that which would be obtained using a local radio transmitter. This produces coverage that is robust to blocking, so that the terminal 3 can receive data despite the direct line-of-sight path being blocked by, for instance, a human being 5. However, the multiple paths between the source 1 and receiver at the terminal 3 cause dispersion of the channel, thus limiting its bandwidth. The optical transmitters required are also extremely high power, and dynamic equalisation is required for high bandwidth. Proposed networks using this approach have provided approximately 10 Mb/s "ethernet" type bandwidth. This low data rate is necessary to avoid the difficulties caused by multipath dispersion.
An alternative approach, as illustrated in FIG. 2, is to use direct line-of-sight paths between a transmitter 7 and terminals 8. These can provide much higher data rates, but the coverage area provided by a single channel can be quite small. Therefore providing area coverage and the ability of users to roam presents difficult problems. There is an additional difficulty which is that optical channels are subject to eye safety regulations, and satisfying these regulations is difficult. The eye safety regulations are particularly strict for near infrared regions (between 700 and 1400 nm), and this means that there are limits on the power of the sources. Line-of-sight networks also have the problem of blocking of the channels, by people or objects.


A display device having a multi-touch recognition function includes an integration module having a plurality of cameras integrated at an edge of a display panel; and a processor that detects a touch area using at least first and second images captured by the plurality of cameras, respectively.

Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a display device, and more particularly to a display device and a driving method thereof. Embodiments of the present invention are suitable for a wide scope of applications. In particular, embodiments of the present invention are suitable for providing multi-touch recognition capabilities to a display device.
Description of the Related Art
Generally, a touch panel is a type of user interface that is attached to a display device with the property that an electrical characteristic thereof is changed at a contact point where a hand or a pen touches the panel. Touch panels have been used in various applications, such as in small portable terminals, office equipment and the like. However, if a multi-touch is generated by two or more substantially simultaneous contact points, the touch panel might malfunction or any one of the touches can be selected by a pre-set program.
In order to overcome the limit of multi-touch recognition in the touch panel of the related art, there has recently been developed a multi-touch recognition device which simultaneously recognizes a plurality of touches. However, since the multi-touch recognition device is manufactured in a structure which is separated from the display device, the appearance deformation of the display device is generated in order to attach the multi-touch recognition device to the display device. In this case, if the multi-touch recognition device is attached to the display device, an assembling process is complicated, and a volume is increased, so that a large space is required. Furthermore, since the display device and the multi-touch recognition device are not a single unit, a structural stability is decreased between the display device and the multi-touch recognition device. On the other hand, there is a method of embedding an optical sensor of the multi-touch recognition device in each pixel of the display device, but this method has another problem in that the aperture ratio of the display device is decreased to lower the brightness thereof due to the optical sensor.

Display device having multi-touch recognizing function and driving method thereof


A metal door comprising first and second side frames or stiles and upper and lower frames or rails which are joined together. Each of the frames includes front and rear panels which are spaced apart and which are secured together by means of insulating panel connectors. The space between the panel connectors in each of the frames is filled with an insulating foam material. The panel connectors are also comprised of an insulating material such as wood, fiberglass, plastic or other insulative material.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a metal door and more particularly to a metal door including first and second side frames or stiles and upper and lower frames or rails. Even more particularly, the first and second side frames have identical structures and the upper and lower frames have identical structures. Each of the frames has a metal front panel and a metal back panel which is spaced rearwardly of the front panel. Spaced-apart insulating panel connectors are positioned between the front and rear panels and are secured thereto to secure the front and rear panels together. An insulating foam material is positioned between the panel connectors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many types of metal doors have been previously provided. The metal doors of the prior art are very durable and are resistant to forced entry attempts by burglars or the like. A problem associated with the metal doors of the prior art is encountered when the metal doors are subjected to cold temperatures. In such a situation, the inside portion of the metal doors of the prior art may "frost-up" when the metal doors are subjected to very cold temperatures.
Applicant's earlier metal doors, such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,534,027 and 8,656,684, represent distinct improvements in the metal door art. However, since the exterior and interior panel members of the '027 and '684 patents were each constructed of tubular steel members, the doors thereof are quite heavy. The invention set forth in the co-pending application represents an improvement in the art. The instant invention represents a further improvement in the metal door art.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


An aircraft may include a cabin having a first portion, a second portion, a first ramp and a second ramp. The first portion of the cabin may include an upper deck and a lower deck. The upper deck and the lower deck may be disposed proximate to each other with vertical separation therebetween. The second portion may include an intermediate deck disposed in a plane that is substantially parallel to planes in which the upper deck and the lower deck lie. The intermediate deck may be vertically separated from both the upper deck and the lower deck. The first ramp may extend between the lower deck and the intermediate deck to provide access therebetween. The second ramp may extend between the upper deck and the intermediate deck to provide access therebetween.

Even after about a century of development, most commercial fixed wing aircraft continue to be designed around the same core features including wings, a fuselage, control surfaces and engines. Although there have been numerous advances in aerodynamics, materials employed, power and efficiency of engines used, and other improvements in component design, the basic structure has remained roughly similar for quite some time. During this period, the largely cylindrically shaped fuselage has remained a recognizable and consistent feature of commercial aircraft.
Particularly for passenger airliners, the fuselage has typically been divided into separate decks. In many instances, passengers sit on an upper deck that is pressurized and is referred to as the cabin. The cabin is often separated from a lower deck in which cargo is housed. However, for some larger sized passenger airliners, multiple passenger decks may be employed over at least a portion of the cabin area.
In the past, the use of multiple decks in the cabin area has only been employed on the largest airliners. However, even on these relatively large airliners, due to size and design constraints, moving from an upper level to a lower level (or vice versa) in a multiple deck airliner has typically been facilitated by the provision of staircases or ladders. Some airliners have also employed cart lifts to facilitate movement of carts between levels. Having multiple decks in the cabin area can create complications for boarding and deplaning. For example, accessibility of certain areas of the plane (i.e., those accessible only via using stairs or ladders) may be restricted based on age or health of the passengers. Furthermore, movement of carry-on luggage up and/or down stairs and ladders can be difficult for even healthy adults in some cases. Stairs or ladders also typically end up being a choke point that slows down boarding or egress.
Accordingly, it may be desirable to develop alternative ways of arranging the layout of the interior of the fuselage to overcome some of the disadvantages described above.

Aircraft configuration with ramp access to multiple decks


An in-vivo blood composition analyzing apparatus and method generates a laser beam at the blood vessels of the patient's eye. The Raman scattered photons from the blood vessels are collected and used to generate a Raman spectrum indicative of the blood composition. In one embodiment, a laser beam is generated with two streams of photons, the photons of one beam being entangled with the photons of the other beam. One stream is then directed at the eye and only the other beam is analyzed to obtain said Raman spectrum. Alternatively, the scattered photons from the second beam are also analyzed and the results are correlated for greater efficiency and accuracy.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention describes a system and method for performing in vivo blood analysis. This is accomplished by directing a probe beam, consisting of monochromatic, coherent, polarized, quantum state entangled, exclusive or nearly exclusive co-incident photons, at the conjunctiva and its blood vessels of a patient and analyzing the resulting conventional Raman backscatter spectrum and the changes in the quantum state characteristics of the entangled photons.
2. Background of the Invention
Various blood chemistry and hematology tests are available to obtain a great amount of information about a patient's physical condition. These results, after review and interpretation, play an important part in an overall diagnosis. However, all these tests require actual samples taken from a patient. Of course, the process of drawing blood, can be uncomfortable, and even painful, especially if constant repetitive sampling is necessary as in the case of diabetics.
For this reason non-invasive in vivo blood studies by optical devices and methods have been investigated with great interest. The determination of an analyte, or a disease state, in a human subject without performing an invasive procedure, such as removing a sample ,of blood or a biopsy specimen, has several advantages. These advantages include ease in performing the test, reduced pain and discomfort to the patient, decreased exposure to potential biohazards, and no production of medical waste. These advantages encourage increased frequency of testing when necessary, accurate monitoring and control, and improved patient care. Representative examples of non-invasive monitoring techniques include pulse oximetry for oxygen saturation (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,638,640; 4,223,680; 5,007,423; 5,277,181; 5,297,548). Another example is the use of laser Doppler flowmetry for diagnosis of circulation disorders (Toke et al, "Skin microvascular blood flow control in long duration diabetics with and without complication", Diabetes Research, Vol. 5 (1987), pages 189–192). Other examples of techniques include determination of tissue oxygenation (WO 92/20273), determination of hemoglobin (U.S. Pat. No. 5,720,284) and of hematocrit (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,553,615; 5,372,136; 5,499,627; WO 93/13706). These involve the use of transmission, or absorption spectroscopy.
Another type of phenomena can also be used for patient testing. This involves the way in which light scatters off any surface. That is to say, when light of any wavelength impinges on a surface (or molecule), most of the scattered photons are elastically (or Rayleigh) scattered. That means that they leave with the same frequency (or wavelength) as the incident radiation. In contrast to this there is a small fraction of the scattered light (less than one in a thousand incident photons) that is inelastically (or Raman) scattered at frequencies that differ from the incident frequency by a value determined by the molecular vibrations of the sample. Raman scattering creates a discrete atomic or molecular spectrum at frequencies corresponding to the incident frequency plus or minus the atomic or molecular vibrational frequency. A Raman spectrum is thus a plot of the intensity of scattered light as a function of frequency (or wavelength). By convention, Raman spectra are shown on an orthogonal graph with the wave numbers (reciprocal centimeters) along the horizontal axis and the abscissa representing intensity or energy.
Raman spectra have long been used to determine the structure of inorganic and biological molecules, including the composition of complex multicomponent samples. Raman spectroscopy is considered to have many advantages as an analytical technique. Most strikingly, it provides vibrational spectra that act as an atomic o,r molecular fingerprint containing, unique, highly reproducible, detailed features, thereby providing the possibility of highly selective determinations.
In comparing Raman scattering verses other forms of analysis, the Raman approach is advantageous for several reasons:
1. Solid, liquid and gas states can be analyzed.
2. Aqueous solutions present no special problems.
3. No special pre-scanning preparation of the sample is necessary.
4. The low frequency region is easily obtained.
5. The device can be made inexpensive lightweight and portable.
6. Scanning can be completely non invasive or even clandestine.
7. Scanning distance can be varied from centimeters to kilometers.
Several previous inventors have recognized the potential for using Raman scattering as a non-invasive (NI) sensor for scanning individuals. U.S. Pat. No. 6,574,501 discusses assessing blood brain barrier dynamics or measuring selected substances or toxins in a subject by analyzing Raman spectrum signals of selected regions in aqueous fluid of the eye. U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,616 discloses the use of Raman scattering with excitation in the near infrared (780 nm) and an artificial neural network for measuring blood glucose. WO 92/10131 discusses the application of stimulated Raman spectroscopy for detecting the presence of glucose. U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,093, describes a noninvasive glucose sensor that combines Raman measurements with complementary non-invasive techniques in order to enhance the sensitivity and selectivity of the measurement.
Other previous inventors have recognized the potential for using Raman scattering for non-invasively scanning of objects. U.S. Pat. No. 6,608,677 discloses the use of a Mini-lidar sensor for the remote stand-off sensing of chemical/biological substances and method for sensing same. U.S. Pat. No. 6,593,582 discloses a Portable digital lidar system, which in part could use raman backscattering. U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,761 discusses optical-fiber Raman spectroscopy used for remote in-situ environmental analysis.
Still other previous inventors have recognized the potential for using SPDC (Spontaneous Parametric Down Converstion) photons for enhancing the scanning of objects. U.S. Pat. No. 5,796,477 discloses an entangled-photon microscope, for waveform fluorescence microscopy.
A major challenge for all of the Raman techniques to date has been to collect spectral information with sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratios to discriminate weak analyte signals from the underlying background noise.
Existing non-invasive in vivo Raman measurements are hindered by a number of factors, including notoriously low quantum efficiency. In other words, very few inelastic scattering events occur in comparison to the number of elastic scattering events. Conventionally, in non-resonance Raman spectroscopy in order to double the efficiency of Raman scattering it is necessary to square the photon density. Unfor-tunately this can damage the sample. Therefore it is necessary to perform scans at either long integration times or high power densities to achieve acceptable signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios.
Other forms of Raman scattering like, resonance and surface enhancement can significantly improve the sensitivity and selectivity of Raman measurements. However, these enhancements are not generally applicable to all analytes or to all samples, especially in vivo. Furthermore relating band intensities to analyte concentrations under such circumstances requires careful calibration procedures.

Method and apparatus for performing in-vivo blood analysis using raman spectrum


A double gate silicon over insulator transistor may be formed wherein the bottom gate electrode is formed of a doped diamond film. The doped diamond film may be formed in the process of semiconductor manufacture resulting in an embedded electrode. The diamond film may be advantageous as a heat spreader.

This invention relates generally to double gate silicon on insulator semiconductor integrated circuits.
As silicon approaches its scaling limits, double gate field effect transistors are attractive ways to achieve smaller gate lengths for the same oxide thicknesses. Double gate silicon over insulator structures are considered to be the most scalable technology down to an 0.02 micron regime. Such devices can have higher gain than conventional single gate transistors.
However, the fabrication of double gate transistors generally involves complex processing and/or the use of polycrystalline silicon thin films for the device layers sandwiched between the two gates. Since the polycrystalline film is not a single crystal, the electronic quality may be degraded compared to structures using single crystal material.
Thus, there is a need for less complex ways of producing greatly scaled transistors having adequate electronic qualities.

Double gate field effect transistor with diamond film


A variable resistance nonvolatile memory element includes: first and second electrode layers; a first variable resistance layer between the first and second electrode layers; and a second variable resistance layer between the second electrode layer and the first variable resistance layer and having a higher resistance value than the first variable resistance layer. When viewed in a direction perpendicular to the major surface of the second variable resistance layer, an outline of the second variable resistance layer is located inwardly of the outline of any one of the second electrode layer and the first variable resistance layer, and an outline of a face of the second variable resistance layer, the face being in contact with the first variable resistance layer is located inwardly of an outline of a face of the first variable resistance layer, the face being in contact with the second variable resistance layer.

In recent years, electronic devices such as mobile information devices and information home appliances are becoming more sophisticated in functionality along with advancement of digital technology. Along with the more sophisticated functionality of the electronic devices, miniaturization and speed-enhancement of the semiconductor devices used in the electronic devices have been rapidly advanced. Among all, demand for nonvolatile memories with a large capacity represented by flash memories is expanding rapidly.
In addition, research and development of a nonvolatile memory device which uses a so-called variable resistance nonvolatile memory element has been advanced, the nonvolatile memory device being a new nonvolatile memory of the next generation which replaces the flash memory. Here, the variable resistance nonvolatile memory element is an element having a characteristic that a resistance value changes reversibly by electrical signals and being capable of storing data corresponding to the resistance value in a nonvolatile manner.
In order to make a variable resistance nonvolatile memory element switchable between a high resistance state and a low resistance state under application of electrical pulses, it is necessary to perform an electrical operation called forming. The forming herein refers to application of a voltage (forming voltage) higher than a normal write voltage to the variable resistance nonvolatile memory element having an extremely high resistance value after manufacture.

Variable resistance nonvolatile memory element and method of manufacturing the same

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd


A method of reducing the viscosity of a crude oil, the method comprising adding to the crude oil (i) a surfactant compound including at least two hydrophobic groups wherein the resultant mixture has a water content of less than 10 vol %.

The present invention relates to compositions suitable for use as additives for crude oil, and to methods and uses relating thereto. In particular the invention relates to the use of additive compositions which modify the viscosity of crude oil.
Crude oil must be transported through pipelines before being converted into useful products. However its high viscosity means that the transport of crude oil through pipelines is difficult, especially in the case of heavy crude oil.
Pumps are typically used to drive crude oil through pipelines. These pumps operate at high pressures and pipelines may be heated. Thus this is an energy intensive process.
Reducing the viscosity of the crude oil at a particular temperature will allow it to be pumped at a lower pressure. Alternatively a greater flow rate can be achieved at the same pressure. This may offer cost savings and environmental benefits.
Many ways of modifying the viscosity of crude oil are known in the art. Various compounds have been added to modify the viscosity including polymer blends (U.S. Pat. No. 4,010,006), organic fluorocarbons (U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,018), amine-chelate complexes (U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,934), alkyl-substituted phenol formaldehyde resins (U.S. Pat. No. 8,575,082) and random acrylate based copolymers and terpolymers (U.S. Pat. No. 9,120,885).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,863,301 describes the formation of an emulsion with water to improve the flow characteristics of crude oil. These emulsions comprise 60 to 85% oil and 15 to 40% water and a combination of emulsifiers is used. One suitable anionic emulsifier is dioctyl sulfosuccinate. The compositions typically comprise 25% or more of water.
Dioctyl sulfosuccinate has also been added to crude oil as a demulsifier during the desalting process (U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,550) and as an anti-fouling agent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,222,853).

Compositions and methods and uses relating thereto


A display apparatus including: a display device; an image processor processing an image signal received from an image source according to a preset image processing process to display an image on the display device; a connector to which an upgrade apparatus upgrades the image processing process is connected and to which a server is connected to communicate with; and a controller comparing a first pairing key with a second pairing key stored in the server and selectively allowing or blocking a booting operation according to a comparison result, the first pairing key being generated based on a pre-stored first identification of the display apparatus and a second identification of the upgrade apparatus obtained from the upgrade apparatus when the display apparatus starts booting up.

1. Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the exemplary embodiments relate to a display apparatus which processes an image signal provided from an image source according to a preset image processing process to display an image, a control method thereof, an upgrade apparatus upgrading the display apparatus, and a display system including the display apparatus and the upgrade apparatus, and more particularly to a display apparatus of which an existing operation is upgraded as an upgrade apparatus is connected to the display apparatus, a control method thereof an upgrade apparatus, and a display system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A display apparatus is a device which processes image signals/image data transmitted from various external image sources and are autonomously stored to present images on a display panel provided therein. Available display apparatuses for general users may include a television (TV) and a monitor. For example, a display apparatus provided as a TV processes broadcast signals transmitted from external sources according to various types of image processing, e.g., decoding and scaling, to offer images of broadcast channels desired by users.
The display apparatus has an embedded image processing board configured as a circuit including various kinds of chip sets and a memory to conduct such image processing. However, in view of various factors, such as technological developments, the diverse demands of users, and convenience, there is increasingly required a display apparatus having advanced capabilities. The functions of the display apparatus can be improved and upgraded in terms of hardware and software.
To upgrade the hardware of the display apparatus, the whole or at least part of the image processing board embedded in the display apparatus is replaced, which is not easy in view of manufacture and use. Also, to run advanced software, hardware designed corresponding to the software is needed. In the end, a user may need to purchase a new upgraded display apparatus.

Display apparatus, control method thereof, upgrade apparatus, and display system


The present invention provides a detection element for lancets in lancing devices which will indicate that a lancet element is inserted completely again after the lancet has been changed. The invention includes a blood lancet apparatus which has a base body for the arrangement of a plurality of apparatus components, comprising a lancet reception device for coupling the blood lancet apparatus to a lancet element, at least one spring element for acting upon the lancet reception device with spring force and an actuating element for initiating a movement of the lancet reception device. The invention may further comprise a detection device for emitting at least for a time a signal with respect to a fixing position of the lancet element coupled at least in part to the lancet apparatus.

Until now it has been customary for lancets or lancet elements—even if they are arranged inside a lancet holder inside a lancing device for piercing the skin for taking a blood sample—to have to be withdrawn by hand from the casing or the lancet holder of the lancing device when changing the lancet. In this case the problem arises that there is the risk of an inadvertent injury on the one hand and that it is necessary to handle lancets or lancet elements contaminated by blood from the puncture made previously on the other hand.
In addition, when changing the lancet or lancet element it has not been possible to ascertain whether the lancet has been inserted in a reliable manner, i.e. preferably up to 100 percent in the lancet holder, or is positioned at the intended location, so that a reliable operation of the lancing device, even with respect to the depth of piercing, may be guaranteed.

Detection element for determining the position of a lancet element in a lancing device


A signal generating electric circuit, a signal generating method, a digit-to-time converting electric circuit and a digit-to-time converting method. The signal generating electric circuit includes: a first generating electric circuit configured for, based on a first frequency control word and a reference time unit, generating a periodic first output signal; and a second generating electric circuit configured for, based on a second frequency control word and the reference time unit, generating a periodic second output signal. The first frequency control word includes a first integer part and a first fractional part, the second frequency control word includes a second integer part and a second fractional part, the first integer part is equal to the second integer part, the first fractional part is not zero, the second fractional part is zero, and a period of the first output signal and a period of the second output signal are not equal.

With the rapid development and popularization of the Internet of Things, electronic systems such as sensors, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and Integrated Circuits (IC) are being increasingly extensively applied.
The time of the chip in electronic systems may refer to the clock-signal period. Currently, the clock-signal periods are generally of the order of magnitude of nanoseconds. For example, if a clock-signal period is 20 nanoseconds (ns), then the precision of a counter that is obtained according to the clock signal may be 20 ns; in other words, the resolution of the counter cannot be less than 20 ns. However, such a resolution or precision can hardly satisfy the requirements by practical applications in the fields such as scientific research, military applications and consumer electronics. In addition, when the time period is small to a certain extent (for example, the order of magnitude of picoseconds), it will be difficult to control the parameters of the signal such as jittering and phase noise, and therefore the integrity of the signal cannot be ensured. Therefore, it is difficult to further increase the frequency and reduce the time period.

Signal generation circuit and method, and digit-to-time conversion circuit and method

BEIJING BOE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD.


An improvement in garage door tracks which includes placing an inwardly pressed hem on the distal ends of the sections of track which surround the gap by which wheels from a garage door are placed into a track chamber. The hems on the distal end provide increased strength and a safer smoother edge. The inward hemming also does not interfere with the roller wheels of the garage door. This further solves the problem of track failure and bulge or crimping and causes less stress on the garage door track. A further innovation is to have strengthening ribs at different locations on the garage door track to provide further strength to the garage door track. A further innovation is to provide strengthening ribs at different locations on the garage door track to provide further strength to the garage door track.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of tracks installed in garage openings to accommodate the wheels of garage doors and in particular to enable the garage door to be rolled down in a closed position and to also enable the garage door to be rolled up so that it is generally parallel to the garage floor and the garage is opened to permit entry and exit of vehicles or other items in the garage.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general the concept of improving a garage door track has been performed. In conventional garage door tracks, the exterior edges of the track are sharp which can create a risk of a cut to an installer and a home owner. As illustrated in FIG. 3A, the prior art garage door track 2000 has sharp ends 2100 and 2200 and a reinforcing member 2300 with sharp ends 2400 and 2500.
One improvement is to cause the track edges to be hemmed outwardly. Another variation is to cause the track to be rolled inwardly as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,111. The use is also described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,250,360. In general, the prior art garage door tracks have no stiffening ribs and no mechanism to provide extra support to the track to prevent rollout of the garage door wheels from the track as the garage door is moved upwardly toward the horizontal open position.
There is a significant need for an improved garage door track which addresses the deficiencies of the known prior art garage door tracks.

Garage door track with inwardly hemmed sidewall, and reinforcing ribs to reduce the incidence of rollout


A system and a method are disclosed that provide plans for autonomous machines such as humanoid robots to perform indoor task. Human subjects contribute plans to a knowledge database. Information in the knowledge database is pre-processed to identify task steps and characterize them as action-object pairs, from which a plan database is created. A discriminative technique uses hierarchical agglomerative clustering to select an existing plan from the plan database. A generative technique formulates new plans from the plan database using first-order Markov chains, and may take into account information about the operational environment. Experimentation and evaluation by human subjects confirm the efficacy of both techniques.

Humanoid robots, for example, robots having human characteristics, represent a major step in applying autonomous machine technology toward assisting persons in the home or office. Potential applications encompass a myriad of daily activities, such as attending infants and responding to queries and calls for assistance. Indoor humanoid robots may be expected to perform common household chores, such as making coffee, washing clothes, and cleaning a spill. Additional applications may include assisting elderly and handicapped persons. Humanoid robots will be expected to perform such tasks so as to satisfy the perceived desires and requests of their users. Through visual and voice recognition techniques, robots may be able to recognize and greet their users by name. In addition, robots should be able to learn through human interaction and other methods. In order to meet these needs, such robots must possess the requisite knowledge.
In particular, to accomplish an indoor task, an autonomous system such as a humanoid robot needs a plan with steps. It is desirable that the robot be able to derive such a plan dynamically, that is, taking into consideration aspects of the actual indoor environment when the task is to be performed. It is also desirable to derive plans based on "common sense" knowledge. For example, steps for executing common household or office tasks could be collected from non-expert human volunteers using distributed capture techniques.
Human actions have been analyzed on a variety of levels. At the most basic level, execution of an action can be represented by a motor response schema of sensory motor mapping. A description of this can be found in R. A. Schmidt, A Schema Theory of Discrete Motor Skill Learning, Psychological Review, 82(4):225-260, 1975, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. At the most abstract level, concepts such as scripts and Memory Organization Packets (MOP) have been proposed to represent the organization of well-learned activities such as going to a restaurant or visiting a doctor for surgery. A description of this can be found in R. C. Schank and R. Abelson, Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd., Hove, UK, 1977, and in R. C. Schank, Dynamic Memory: A Theory of Reminding and Learning in Computers and People, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1982, both of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. When a MOP is activated, only one step is generally carried out at a time, but steps can sometimes be combined with other activities. For example, one can read while waiting at doctor's office.
Between these extremes lies a range of practical, well-learned activities like making breakfast, cleaning one's teeth, dressing and so on. At this mid-level, Cooper and Shallice presented a computational model for selection of steps for routine tasks based on competitive activation within a hierarchically organized network of action schemas. Their activation model for sequential step selection was based on the Contention Scheduling theory of Norman and Shallice. A description of this can be found in Richard Cooper and Tim Shallice, Contention Scheduling and the Control of Routine Activities, Cognitive NeuroPsychology, 17(4):297-338, 2000, and in D. Norman and T. Shallice, Attention to Action: Willed and Automatic Control of Behavior, pages 1-18, Plenum Press, New York, 1980, both of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. The Cooper-Shallice model was demonstrated for the routine task of preparing coffee. Under normal functioning, the model was able to generate a sequence of simple actions (pick up spoon, dip spoon in sugar bowl, etc.) culminating in a drinkable cup of coffee.
In contrast, work in artificial intelligence (AI) planning falls under the category of goal-controlled exploratory behavior. Attempts are made to reach the goal using knowledge of different plans, and a successful sequence is selected. Such planning is important during execution of tasks. A description of this can be found in Daniel S. Weld, Recent Advances in AI Planning, AI Magazine, 20(2):93-123, Summer 1999, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
One conventional approach has utilized expert systems to encode the steps for accomplishing a task algorithmically. A key component was the capture of human expert knowledge using a laborious manual process. A description of this can be found in D. A. Waterman, A Guide to Expert Systems, Addison Weseley, 1986, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. A disadvantage of this approach is that not everything that humans learn is taught by experts. Most day-to-day activities, e.g., tying shoe laces, are learned by observations of and interaction with non-experts.
According to Rasmussen et al., human activity in such routine tasks is goal-oriented and controlled by a set of proven rules. The sequence of task steps is typically derived empirically, communicated from another's knowhow or a "cookbook" sequence. A description of this can be found in Jens Rasmussen, Skills, Rules and Knowledge: Signals, Signs, and Symbols, and Other Distinctions in Human Performance Models, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, SMC-13(3):257-266, May/June 1983.
One source of common sense knowledge is the Worldwide Web ("web"). For instance, websites such as eHow.com list the steps to perform activities. Intel Corporation developed a system called Probabilistic Activity Toolkit (PROACT) to build activity models. They automatically identified activities by observing the objects involved in the activity. They also found the relevance of various terms to a given activity from the web. For instance, the word "cup" is highly related to the activity making tea because "cup" occurs frequently on web pages about making tea. A description of this can be found in Matthai Philipose, Kenneth P. Fishkin, Mike Perkowitz, Donald Patterson, and Dirk Haehnel, The Probabilistic Activity Toolkit: Towards Enabling Activity-Aware Computer Interfaces, Technical Report IRS-TR-03-013, Intel Research Laboratories, November 2003, and in Mike Perkowitz, Matthai Philipose, Kenneth Fishkin, and Donald J. Patterson, Mining Models of Human Activities from the Web, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on World Wide Web, pages 573-582, ACM Press, 2004, both of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
Using the web as an open information source for building plans for tasks is very attractive. However, the extracted knowledge exhibits high variance and "noise", e.g., extraneous or erroneous information, and documents may be prohibitively large. An alternative is a distributed information source such as the Open Mind Indoor Common Sense (OMICS) database. In compiling this database, volunteers are prompted with household tasks and asked to provide steps to accomplish them. A description of this can be found in R. Gupta and M. Kochenderfer, Common Sense Data Acquisition for Indoor Mobile Robots, Nineteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-04), Jul. 25-29 2004. However, even with this approach, semantic information must be extracted from the steps provided.
From the above, there is a need for a practical system and method for building plans from distributed knowledge for enabling autonomous machines such as humanoid robots to perform tasks in constrained environments such as indoor environments.

Building plans for household tasks from distributed knowledge


A light emitting diode includes: a substrate of front and back main surfaces; a V-shaped groove, which has a reflecting surface, formed over front surface of the conductive substrate; a light-emitting epitaxial layer, the margin of which has its vertical projection between the bottom and the inner margin of the V-shaped groove, formed over the substrate, so that light emitted from the light-emitting epitaxial layer margin is incident to the mirror surface of the V-shaped groove and emits outwards. This structure can effectively improve extraction efficiency of device and control path of light at peripheral region of the light-emitting epitaxial layer.

In recent years, light emitting diodes (LEDs) has been widely applied and play a more and more important roles in various fields like display system, lighting system and automobile tail light. The LED with (AlxGa11-x)0.5 InP active area has high internal quantum efficiency. However, external quantum efficiency of traditional LED has been restricted by many factors like internal total reflection, metal electrode blocking and light absorption by GaAs semiconductor material. For those LEDs growing over light-absorption substrates, a good part of light is finally absorbed by the substrate. Therefore, for those traditional LED structures, external quantum efficiency remains low even internal photoelectric converting efficiency is high. Methods to improve LED light extraction efficiency include thinning window layer, surface roughening, transparent substrate, inverted pyramid structure, etc.

Light-emitting diode and fabrication method thereof

XIAMEN SANAN OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


A fuel economy improvement assist device (1) has: accelerator operation amount detection means (12); and display control means (15a) for displaying, on a display device (20), a target value corresponding to a target accelerator operation amount and a deviation value of the detected accelerator operation amount from the target accelerator operation amount (14a). The display control means (15a) calculates an accelerator depression speed based on the detected accelerator operation amount, and variably displays the deviation value in accordance with the calculated accelerator depression speed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel economy improvement assist device and a method of improving fuel economy by displaying the accelerator operation amount to a driver.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to reduce the fuel consumption, various driving techniques such as avoiding sudden starting and acceleration, constant-speed driving, using higher gears, stopping engine idling are recommended. While many drivers keep the fuel economy in mind when driving, display devices that are used to display information to the drivers for improving fuel economy to further reduce the fuel consumption are known as below.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-220851 (hereinafter referred to as "JP-A-2003-220851") describes a display device that it is determined whether the actual operation is suitable for improving fuel economy when the driver selected a gearshift mode for improving fuel economy, and then a lamp is turned on when the actual operation is suitable for improving fuel economy. On the other hand, the lamp is turned off when the actual operation is not suitable for improving fuel economy. Therefore, the driver may be encouraged to operate suitably for improving fuel economy.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-370560 (hereinafter referred to as "JP-A-2002-370560") describes a display device that compares a calculated present fuel consumption to a recommended driving pattern specific to each vehicle, and then displays appropriate accelerator operation manners (i.e., appropriate, should be stopped, or over-depressed) in different colors. Therefore, the driver may be encouraged to operate appropriately after recognizing the displayed color.
However, the display device described in JP-A-2003-220851 merely determines a driving operation, and turns on and off the lamp. Thus, the displayed information may be insufficient. Because the lamp indicates only whether the driving operation is suitable for improving the fuel economy but provides no indication of the accelerator depression amount until the threshold for turning on or off the lamp is reached. Accordingly, the driver is not aware of how much further the accelerator pedal may be depressed. Therefore, even drivers who keep fuel economy in mind, may frequently use the low accelerator operation amount region, and may possibly maintain for a long time an accelerator operation amount where the fuel economy is poor. When the driver adjusts the accelerator depression in response to turning on and off of the lamp, the driver may frequently increase and decrease the accelerator depression around the threshold for turning on and off the lamp, which may reduce fuel economy.
The display device described in JP-A-2002-370560 calculates the instantaneous fuel consumption for comparison with the fuel consumption based on a recommended driving pattern. However, it is not possible to provide appropriate accelerator operation instructions to the driver before the fuel economy is reduced. For example, in the throttle valve control of the gasoline car, the engine may be controlled based on the detection of changes in the accelerator depression speed. However, according to the display device described in JP-A-2002-370560, the driver may not learn the way to avoid reducing fuel economy in response to the accelerator depression because the causes that lead to be reduced fuel economy are not displayed to the driver. In addition, the display device described in JP-A-2002-370560 provides no indication of the accelerator depression amount until the threshold for displaying "appropriate" or "over-depressed" is reached, as similar to JP-A-2002-370560. Accordingly, the driver is not aware of how much further the accelerator pedal may be depressed.

Fuel economy improvement assist device and method of fuel economy improvement assist


Methods and systems are disclosed for investigating a region of interest with a radar. A radar signal is propagated to the region of interest. Sampled time-domain radar data scattered within the region of interest are collected. A likelihood function is calculated with the sampled time-domain data within a parametric model of the region of interest for a defined set of parameters. The set of parameters in varied to find an extremum of the likelihood function.

This application relates generally to radar. More specifically, this application relates to mitigation of ground clutter contributions to radar using parametric time-domain techniques.
One of the fundamental objectives of meteorological radar systems is to sample the atmosphere surrounding the Earth to provide a quantitative measure of precipitation. Conventional meteorological radars provide coverage over long ranges, often on the order of hundreds of kilometers. A general schematic of how such conventional radar systems function is provided in FIG. 1. In this illustration, a radar is disposed at the peak of a raised geographical feature such as a hill or mountain 104. The radar generates an electromagnetic beam 108 that disperses approximately linearly with distance, with the drawing showing how the width of the beam 108 thus increases with distance from the radar. Various examples of weather patterns 116 that might exist and which the system 100 attempts to sample are shown in different positions above the surface 112 of the Earth.
For weather radars, the signal coming from ground targets represents clutter. It is generally desirable to mitigate the contribution of clutter to the overall radar signal to improve the quality of the radar signal and for quantitative applications. Such mitigation is conventionally achieved by applying a notch filter around zero Doppler frequency. The main disadvantage of such an approach is the signal loss, especially in cases where weather echoes have small radial velocities. Recent developments in radar signal processors allow for improvement in clutter suppression. For example, one approach compensates for the effect of notching by using advanced spectral filter that interpolates over notched spectral lines. The limitation of spectral filtering techniques is the effect of spectral leakage, caused by finite sample length, on the spectral moments estimates. As a result, spectral processing limits successful clutter suppression to cases of moderate clutter-to-signal ratios.
A general need in the art accordingly persists for improvement in mitigating the effect of ground clutter.

Ground clutter mitigation using a parametric time domain method

Colorado State University Research Foundation


Provided is a solid oxide fuel cell unit comprising an insulating support, and a power generation element comprising, at least, a fuel electrode, an electrolyte and an air electrode, which are sequentially laminated one another, the power generation element being provided on the insulating support, wherein an exposed insulating support portion, an exposed fuel electrode portion, and an exposed electrolyte portion are provided in an fuel electrode cell end portion.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a solid oxide fuel cell unit. In particular, the present invention relates to a solid oxide fuel cell unit that is gas-tightly fixed to a fuel gas tank, the solid oxide fuel cell unit having a joint portion which provides the gas-tight fixation and which is highly reliable against repetition of operations of the solid oxide fuel cell unit where the solid oxide fuel cell unit is activated by raising a temperature from room temperature to high temperature and is stopped by lowering a temperature from high temperature to room temperature.
2. Background Art
A solid oxide fuel cell (hereinafter also referred to as "SOFC") includes a solid-oxide ion-conducting electrolyte as the electrolyte, and electrodes are attached to both sides of the electrolyte. The fuel cell is operated at relatively high temperature by supplying a fuel gas to one electrode and an oxidizing agent gas (air, oxygen, or the like) to the other electrode.
A solid oxide fuel cell apparatus, especially, a fuel cell module housing solid oxide fuel cell units comprises a fuel flow path for supplying a fuel to the solid oxide fuel cell units, an oxidizing agent gas flow path for supplying an oxidizing agent gas such as air thereto. In general, these flow paths are constituted of multiple constituent members. The flow paths are formed by joining the constituent members together. In addition, since solid oxide fuel cells are generally operated at high temperature of 600 to 1000° C., the joints of the solid oxide fuel cell units to constituent members (for example, a fuel gas tank) have to withstand such high temperature.
Japanese Patent No. 5173458 proposes a cell in which an electrically conductive lead film (Ni—MgAl2O4) is formed on a surface of a substrate tube (15% calcia-stabilized zirconia) and a gas-tight film (8% yttria-stabilized zirconia) is formed on a surface of the lead film, wherein an adhesion-improving film having an appropriate thermal expansion is provided between a surface of the gas-tight film and an adhesive agent.
Japanese Patent No. 5080951 refers to a distance between a current collector and an active fuel electrode layer provided on a fuel electrode in a solid oxide fuel cell unit comprising a plurality of power generation elements in order to suppress peeling of an internal electrode and the like and formation of cracks and the like.
Japanese Patent Application Publications Nos. 2010-257744 and 2008-59793 disclose views showing how cells arranged upright are gas-tightly joined to a fuel gas tank.
Japanese Patent No. 3064087 proposes a method for producing a solid electrolyte cell, in which simultaneous calcination of a substrate tube, and a part or the entirety of an electrode and an electrolyte makes it possible to achieve stability in performance and reduce the man-hour of the production.
Moreover, Japanese Patent No. 5188236 proposes a gas supply/exhaust manifold which can simplify the gas supply/exhaust structure. Cells are inserted through insertion holes formed in plates of an insulating material, and are sealed by gas seal members.


An angle-adjustable engine starter structure for remote-control toy car is disclosed to include an engine, a driven gear coupled to an one-way axle bearing at the output shaft of the engine, a drive gear meshed with the driven gear and rotatable by an electric starter, a side cover covering the drive gear and the driven gear and having outside radial teeth, and an outer cover detachably fastened to the engine with screws and having radial teeth meshed with the radial teeth of the side cover to hold the side cover and the drive gear in position and for allowing adjustment of the angular position of the side cover and the drive gear relative to the driven gear after disconnection of the outer cover from the engine.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates an engine for remote-control toy car and more particularly, to an angle-adjustable engine starting structure for remote-control toy car, which allows adjustment of the starting angle subject to the condition of the environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows a conventional engine for remote control toy car. This structure uses an electric starter instead of traction rope starting design. As illustrated, the output shaft of the engine is mounted with an one-way axle bearing 13, and then mounted with a partition board 2 and a driven gear 3. The driven gear 3 is meshed with a drive gear 41 inside a side cover 5 that is covered on the cylinder block of the engine. The drive gear 41 is affixed to a starter barrel 4, which is rotatably mounted in a through hole 51 of the side cover 5 and has two longitudinal crevices 42. An electric starter is used and coupled to the longitudinal crevices 42 of the starter barrel 4, and controlled to rotate the output shaft, thereby starting the engine.
According to the aforesaid design, the starter barrel is set at a fixed angle and not adjustable. In some places, the angle of the starter barrel does not allow operation of the electric starter to start the engine. In this case, the user must carry the remote-control toy car to a suitable place for starting. However, the remote-control toy car and the electric starter are heavy, not convenient to carry from place to place.

Angle-adjustable engine starting structure for remote-control toy car