A driving assistance system for regulating an operation of a vehicle in a discrete manner according to different ranges of risk potentials associated with the vehicle, such that different risk potentials in different ranges are conveyed to the driver in a different and discrete manner. The system includes a device for calculating a risk potential associated with the vehicle, and a data processor for regulating an operation of the vehicle, such as a reaction force applied to the acceleration pedal, based on a control parameter assuming one of a plurality of values according to the calculated risk potential associated with the vehicle, wherein each of the values is assigned to one of a plurality of predetermined ranges of risk potentials.

Various types of driving assistance systems were proposed in the past. For instance, a system described in a US published patent application No. US2003/0060936 A1 includes a controller, at least one actuator and a data acquisition system for obtaining data related to a status of a vehicle and an environment in a field around the vehicle. The controller determines a future environment in the field around the vehicle using the acquired data, and generates an operator response plan in response to the determined future environment. The plan prompts the operator to operate the vehicle in a desired manner. The actuator is coupled to a driver controlled input device to mechanically affect operation of the input device in a manner that prompts, via a haptic input to the driver to operate the vehicle in the desired manner.
Another example of such systems is proposed in US published patent application No. US2003/0233187 A1. This system transmits a risk associated with a host vehicle (or alternatively called an own vehicle) to a driver by a reaction force input applied to an accelerator pedal. Based on the position of the accelerator pedal, an inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and another vehicle in a field around the vehicle.
Still another example of such systems is proposed in US published patent application US2003/0135317 A1 (Japanese counterpart JP2003-205760 A). This system transmits a risk associated with a vehicle to a driver by a reaction force input via an accelerator pedal. The reaction force input is exponentially proportional to the risk so that the driver is kept informed of the progress of the risk.
These conventional systems, however, do not transmit different levels of risk to the driver in a sufficiently clear and discrete manner because the reaction force input via the accelerator pedal varies continuously with the risk.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system that can transmit different levels of risk around a vehicle to a driver in a clear and distinct manner.


A head slider, of a disk apparatus, flying over a rotary magnetic recording disk, having a characteristic less dependent on the atmospheric pressure. The head slider of a disk apparatus comprises: a magnetic element adapted to fly over a magnetic recording medium; a medium opposing surface being formed with, with respect to the direction in which the medium moves, an inflow pad portion at the upstream end and a pair of side rail portions extending downstream from the inflow pad portion, and a center pad at the central part and a pair of side pads on the sides of the center pad and upstream of the center pad at the downstream end of the head slider. The center pad and the side pads are constituted so that a positive pressure generated by the side pads is greater than a positive pressure generated by the center pad.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a head slider for a disk apparatus, or in particular, to a head slider for a disk apparatus comprising a magnetic element adapted to fly over a magnetic recording medium of a disk type to record or reproduce magnetic information between the magnetic element and the magnetic recording medium, wherein the surface of the head slider opposed to the medium is formed with, with respect to the direction in which the medium runs, an inflow pad portion at the upstream end and a pair of side rail portions extending downstream from the inflow pad portion, and a center pad at the central part and a pair of side pads on the sides of the center pad and upstream of the center pad at the downstream end of the head slider.
2. Description of the Related Art
First, a conventional disk apparatus having a magnetic slide header mounted thereon is explained with reference to FIG. 15. FIG. 15 is a plan view of the conventional magnetic disk apparatus 1, in which one or a plurality of disk-type magnetic recording media 3 are mounted on a rotatable spindle at predetermined intervals.
A head slider 10 is arranged for each of the obverse and reverse surfaces of each rotary magnetic recording medium 3, and each is supported through a suspension 5 at the end portion of an arm 4 of an actuator swingably supported on a pivot. The head slider 10 is adapted to be moved, in radial direction (for a seek operation) on each medium surface, by a voice coil motor 6.
The head slider 10 of the disk apparatus 1 having the structure described above, as shown in FIG. 16, moves outward or inward substantially radially on the disk-type recording medium while flying over the medium surface under a positive or negative pressure generated by the disk-type recording medium 3 rotating at high speed.
In FIG. 16, with the high-speed rotation of the magnetic recording medium 3 in the direction along arrow P, an air stream as shown is generated in the direction of the arrow P between the magnetic recording medium 3 and the head slider 10. Through this air film, under positive or negative pressure, the head slider 10 flies at a predetermined height from the surface of the magnetic recording medium 3 and is kept in predetermined spaced relation with the surface of the recording medium 3.
In order to realize the high-density packaging of the magnetic recording medium 3, the head slider 10 is desirably placed as near to the disk-type recording medium 3 as possible. Under various conditions, however, a predetermined interval is desirably maintained between the medium surface and the head slider. If the total length of the head slider 10 is 1.25 nm, the flying height t of the head slider 10 from the medium surface is tens and several nm or about 15 nm from the nearest portion of the medium surface where the recording/reproducing magnetic element 7 is mounted.
The head slider 10 of the disk apparatus, having the above-mentioned structure, flies over the medium surface due to the force generated by the disk-type recording medium 3 rotating at high speed in the direction of the arrow P in FIG. 17, while at the same time moving (the seek operation) outward or inward substantially radially over the disk-type recording medium.
As a result, the running speed of the disk-type recording medium 3 relative to the head slider 10 varies depending on whether the head slider 10 runs along the inner peripheral side, the middle peripheral side or the outer peripheral side of the disk-type recording medium 3. At the same time, the direction in which the disk recording medium 3 runs with respect to the head slider 3, i.e. the velocity vectors V1, V2, V3 and the directions thereof are varied. Specifically, between the innermost periphery and the outermost periphery, the running speed changes about twice and the speed vector changes about 25 degrees.
In designing the head slider 10 of the disk apparatus, therefore, it is important to maintain as uniform a flying height t (FIG. 16) of the head slider as possible over the whole periphery of the disk-type recording medium 3 and even allowing for a change in velocity or a change in the velocity vector.
In similar fashion, in the case where the arm 4 (FIG. 15) of the actuator supporting the head slider 10 performs the seek operation, the head slider 10 mounted at the forward end of the arm 4 moves radially inward at some timer and outward at other of the disk-type recording medium 3. In the process, the addition of the seek operation to the velocity vector of the head slider 10 with respect to the recording medium 3 changes the direction of the velocity vector (V4 or V5) by about 15 degrees.
With this direction change of the air flow, therefore, the flying height of the head slider, above the recording medium, is required to be maintained as uniform as possible.
Further, the device carrying the magnetic disk apparatus, whether it is a stationary computer or a mobile personal computer, is required to with stand operating conditions including a low atmospheric pressure. Generally, the HDD (hard disk drive) requires that the use at high altitudes is taken into account and therefore has to be operatively guaranteed even at an altitude of, say, 3000 m above sea level.
Furthermore, taking manufacturing problems such as machining errors and assembly errors into consideration, a robust design is required.
Of all the design problems of the head slider of the disk apparatus described above, this invention is especially intended to provide a head slider for the disk apparatus usable under low atmospheric pressure.
Specifically, the head slider of the conventional disk apparatus poses the problem that the flying height of the head slider decreases with low atmospheric pressure. Especially in the case where the head slider supported at the free end of the arm of the actuator is located on the inner side (inner side) of the disk medium while performing the seek operation radially of the rotating disk medium, the peripheral speed of the disk-type recording medium relative to the head slider is so low that a sufficient air-bearing pressure cannot be secured for the head slider. As a result, the flying height decreases considerably with a decrease in atmospheric pressure.
An attempt to secure a head slider having little dependency on the atmospheric pressure, i.e. having a characteristic robust against low atmospheric pressure encounters the problem of a decreased robustness against a change in peripheral speed. Also, with the decrease in atmospheric pressure, "the pitch angle", providing an inclination angle of the rotating head slider with respect to the direction upstream or downstream of the medium, decreases, as does the flying height of the head slider.
The conventional technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-323706 related to this invention proposes a magnetic head in which the magnetic core is prevented from coming into contact with the magnetic recording medium by decreasing the effect of the atmospheric pressure on the spacing between the magnetic core and the magnetic recording medium in the case where the slider body flies over the magnetic recording medium.
JP-A 2003-323706 disclosed a head slider of a magnetic recording apparatus, wherein the center pad portion having the magnetic core is formed at the central part of the outflow end (trailing end portion) of the surface of the slider body opposed to the medium, and side pad portions are formed at the transverse end portions nearer to the inflow end (leading end) than the center pad portion. The total area of the surfaces of the two side pad portions opposed to the medium is larger than the area of the surface of the center pad portion opposed to the medium. Each pad portion is formed with a front stepped surface lower than the other parts on the leading side.
As described above, an attempt has been made to improved the robustness of the magnetic head slider against the variations in the atmospheric pressure by adjusting the area of the surfaces of the center pad portion and the side pad portion opposed to the medium. The method disclosed in patent reference 1, however, takes into consideration only the areas of the surface of the center pad portion and the side pad portions in opposed relation to the medium, and fails to sufficiently take into account the amount of the pressure generated by the center pad and the side pads.
In view of this, according to this invention, regardless of the area of the surface of the center pad portion and the side pad portions opposed to the medium, the positive pressure generated in the side pad portions is increased beyond the positive pressure generated in the center pad portion thereby to secure the robustness against the variations in the atmospheric pressure. Further, the robustness against the greater variations in the atmospheric pressure can be improved further by designing the shape of the side pad portion appropriately.


A contactor arrangement for operation in a dielectric liquid environment may include a first connection terminal and a second connection terminal, a contactor having a fixed contact, and a movable contact that is movable relative to the fixed contact, the contactor having an open state in which the movable contact is spaced apart from the fixed contact and a closed state in which the movable contact is in contact with the fixed contact so as to provide an electric connection through the contactor via the movable contact. The contactor arrangement may further include a conductor section.

Contactors are devices which can be used for switching power circuits. They can generally handle loads drawing high currents. As such, they may for example be used to control or switch electric motors, electric drives and the like.
Contactors are different to circuit breakers in that they are not intended to interrupt short circuit currents, as the contact regions may otherwise suffer severe damage due to arcing. Arcing can also occur when switching at nominal currents. To reduce arcing, the contacts of the contactor can be placed under vacuum or in an inert gas.
To avoid the detrimental effects of arcing when short circuit currents occur, the contactor can be maintained in a closed position. This is particularly true for subsea applications. In such application, the contactor may for example be placed in a pressurized enclosure, such as a subsea canister, which is filled with dielectric liquid that is balanced to the outside pressure. Arcing can lead to a combustion and extensive contamination of the dielectric liquid. Accordingly, it is desirable to keep the contactor closed to prevent arcing.
Conventional contactors are generally not suitable for such operation. If the contactor remains closed, there will be excessively high currents in the contacts. These currents will result in a blow-off force or Slade force which acts on the contacts in a direction that separates the closed contacts and reduces the contact force/pressure. This reduction leads to a degradation of the electrical contact and to an increase in resistance. Due to the high short circuit current through the contact, the increased resistance leads to excessive heating and as a consequence to the welding of the contacts. The contacts can thus not be opened any more, rendering the contactor inoperable. This is particularly problematic for subsea applications, since removal of the contactor from the sea floor and its replacement are technically challenging and very cost intensive tasks.
It is thus desirable to provide a contactor which can remain in a closed state even in the presence of a short circuit current without suffering severe damage and which is still operable after clearance of the fault.

Contactor arrangement for use in dielectric liquid


An audible coin bank includes: a hollow container (1) having a dropping slot (11) formed in an upper portion of the container for dropping coins (3) into the container through the slot (11) and a bottom hole (12) formed in a bottom portion of the container, and a casing (20) having a battery-powered audio-actuating device (2) plugged in the bottom hole (12) of the container, which will receive a sound signal of an impacting sound caused by a coin (3) impacting upon a sensor (21) of the audio-actuating device or caused by a mutual impact of the dropping coin (3) with the other coins deposited in the container for producing a voice or music melody by a voice or music producing integrated circuit for entertaining purpose, and wherein the batteries (26) stored in the casing may be replaced or renewed directly from the casing (20) plugged in the bottom portion of the container for prolonging a service life of the coin bank.

A conventional coin bank or piggy bank owned by a child is provided for depositing or inserting coins into a container through a slot formed in an upper portion of the bank container for saving his or her coins or money.
The coin bank may be installed with an electronic circuit device such as a voice generator in the container having a sensor provided adjacent to the slot for dropping coins therethrough for generating a voice for entertaining the bank owner. However, the electronic circuit device will consume electric energy and should be replaced with fresh batteries for powering the electronic circuit for generating a voice and it is impossible or very difficult to dismantle the electronic circuit device fixed inside the bank container for renewing the batteries or for maintaining the electronic circuit device.

c/o Hung Hsing Patent Service Center, P.O. Box 55-1670


A compression method is disclosed, which comprises receiving an OFDM data block comprising a plurality of complex valued data samples wherein each in-phase and quadrature sample value is represented by a first number of bits. The method also comprises calculating an average of absolute sample values of the OFDM data block and mapping the average absolute sample value to a standard deviation value. The method further comprises quantizing each of the sample values using quantization thresholds scaled by the standard deviation value to produce quantized in phase and quadrature sample value representations, each comprising a second number of bits, and mapping the standard deviation value and the quantized sample value representations to an OFDM transmission frame. Corresponding de-compression method, compressor, de-compressor and network node are also disclosed.

In a typical radio base station (RBS), a digitized and serial internal interface may establish a connection between radio equipment control (REC) and radio equipment (RE) of the RBS. Such an interface is specified in the specification for common public radio interface (CPRI), available from http://www.cpri.info/spec.html. For an RBS system supporting the universal mobile telecommunication standard, long term evolution/long term evolution advanced (UMTS LTE/LTE-A), a complex valued time domain OFDM signal is typically transported between remote radio unit (RRU) and baseband unit (BBU) of the RBS via the CPRI. The in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) modulated data (i.e. digital baseband signals with I and Q components per complex valued sample) may be denoted I/Q data in user plane information of the CPRI.
As requirements on the maximum data rate between RRU and BBU of the RBS (and the data rate of backhauling between eNBs) increase (e.g. in OFDM due to increased radio frequency (RF) bandwidth, increased number of carriers per sector, multiple antenna technology (e.g. multiple input multiple output—MIMO), coordinated multi point (CoMP), cascading and multihop topologies of the RRU, etc.), increasingly higher requirements are posed on the CPRI implementation (e.g. number of CPRI ports, speed and cost of fiber module, and operating speed of serializer/deserializer units (SerDes)) for accelerating the CPRI line bit rate.
A typical CPRI implementation comprises transceiver modules, which are hardware units at both ends (RRU and BBU) of an optical link. As indicated above, the increasing BBU-RRU connectivity requirements pose challenges to speed and capacity of the optical transceiver modules. To meet these increasing requirements for aggregated data rate of the internal RBS interface, the CPRI line bit rate may be increased and/or the number of CPRI ports allocated for RRU and BBU connection may be increased. Another possibility is to compress the data to be transferred over the CPRI, for example by using fewer bits to represent each sample.
Therefore, there is a need for methods and arrangements that reduces the amount of data, in particular complex valued OFDM data, for transfer over the CPRI. Various techniques may reduce the burden on the CPRI interface, including time domain schemes (e.g. reducing sample rate, reducing sample bit length via truncation) and transformed domain schemes (e.g. sub-carrier compression in the frequency domain).
Data rate may be a limiting factor also in other technology areas including data transfer, such as, for example, satellite communication and remote sensing. In relation to such technology areas, some compression algorithms for I/Q baseband data and implementations thereof are known and can generally be divided into three types (scalar compression, vector compression and transformed domain compression). Examples of scalar compression may be found in "Block floating point for radar data" by E. Christensen, IEEE transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 35, no. 1, January 1999, pp. 308-318 and in "Block Adaptive Quantization of Magellan SAR Data" by R. Kwok, W. Johnson, IEEE transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 27, no. 4, July 1989, pp. 375-383.
Signal-to-quantization-and-saturation-noise ratio for both fixed point and floating point uniform quantization representation are analytically expressed in "Block floating point for radar data" by E. Christensen, IEEE transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 35, no. 1, January 1999, pp. 308-318.
Block floating point quantization (BFPQ) may be considered as a special case of floating point representation or as a tradeoff between fixed point and floating point representation.
In a typical quantization approach, a block of L consecutive samples is assigned a shared scaling factor corresponding to the largest magnitude among the samples in the block, i.e.[x0, . . . ,xL-1]=[m0, . . . ,mL-1]2EXP;ml=xl2−EXP,EXP=1+S+log2└maxl=0, . . . ,L-1|xl|┘,where the range of each mantissa of the block is in the interval |ml|ε[0; 2−S] for l=0, 1, . . . , L−1, the integer S is a scaling factor used to prevent overflow, and └.┘ denotes the floor operation that rounds a scalar value down to its closest integer.
In BFPQ, each block of samples is separately quantized to block-floating-point representation, and the shared block exponent EXP is represented only once for all samples within each block. If the magnitudes of mantissas |ml| are represented with bm bits and the block exponent EXP is represented with bEXP bits, each scaled sample is represented with (1+bm)+bEXP/L bits on the average.
Due to signal power fluctuation, bm and bEXP may be different for each block. Hence, the average bit length per sample may vary from block to block, thus introducing fluctuation in the instantaneous resulting data rate, which in turn may cause difficulties in timing and frame synchronization. There may also be data rate fluctuation between the antenna paths in multi antenna applications, which may lead to adverse impact on time alignment between the antennas.
Many known techniques for reducing CPRI requirements suffer from one or more drawbacks such as, for example, high complexity, signaling overhead, real-time implementation difficulties, latency problems, information distortion, dynamic range limitations, and difficulties to control transfer data rate.
Therefore, there is a need for alternative solutions that reduces the amount of data, in particular complex valued OFDM data, for transfer over the CPRI. More particularly, there is a need for methods and arrangements that compress/de-compress complex valued OFDM data.

Compression and de-compression of complex valued OFDM data for a radio base station


Novel methods of generating a localized population of immobilized clonal amplicons on a support are provided.

Nucleic acid amplification is very useful in molecular biology and has wide applicability in practically every aspect of biology, therapeutics, diagnostics, forensics and research. Generally, multiple amplicons are generated from a starting template using one or more primers, where the amplicons are homologous or complementary to the template from which they were generated. Multiplexed amplification can also streamline processes and reduce overheads. A single set of primers can be mixed with different templates, or a single template can be contacted with multiple different primers, or multiple different templates can be contacted with multiple different primers. This application relates to methods and reagents for nucleic acid amplification and/or analysis.

Methods, compositions, systems, apparatuses and kits for nucleic acid amplification


A clutch for use with an arrow rest is mounted intermediate the arrow rest and the bow. The clutch includes a body having a first end configured to operatively connect to the arrow rest cord and a second end that receives a moveable shaft. The moveable shaft has a first end received in the body and a second end configured to connect to a bow. A spring is received on the shaft and positioned between the shaft and the clutch body. The clutch is moveable between a first position in which the shaft first end is proximate the clutch body first end to facilitate the movement of an arrow rest launcher arm out of an arrow support position, and a second position in which the shaft first end is proximate the clutch body second end to facilitate movement of the arrow rest launcher arm into an arrow support position.

Arrow rests are used in combination with a bow to support an arrow during draw of the bow's bowstring. Arrow rests can interfere with the flight of an arrow as the arrow passes the arrow rest by coming into contact with the fletching of the arrow. Thus, prior art arrow rests are designed to move the arrow rest out of the arrow's path so as not to come into contact with the arrow's fletching as the arrow passes the arrow rest. However, the prior art arrow rest designs may be cumbersome. First, in some prior art designs, the arrow rest only supports the arrow once an arrow is nocked and the bow string is drawn back bring the arrow into the firing position. In other prior art designs, the arrow rest must be manually moved into the support position and locked until the arrow is nocked and drawn into the firing position. At that point, the locking mechanism is released so that the arrow launcher may move out of the support position when the arrow is fired. Thus, the user must both support the arrow and ensure that it aligns with the arrow rest as the bow is drawn, or pause in between each shot to manually lock the arrow rest into place. Accordingly, there is a need for improved arrow rests that address one or more of the problems described above.

Linear clutch for use with a bow and an arrow rest


A broadcast receiver includes a tuner section for receiving a broadcast program, an MPEG decoder 126 for converting a signal coming from the tuner section into a given format, and a hard disk drive (HDD) for recording the converted digital signal. In the broadcast receiver, a HDD medium of the HDD for recording the received broadcast program has, separately, a stream area for storing stream data as a video/audio signal, and a management data area for storing management data other than the stream data, and these areas are formatted by each different given unit. With such a structure, the broadcast receiver becomes highly-usable, requiring less time for the search operation on an HDD at the time of system startup. There is also a method for recording broadcast programs received by the broadcast receiver, and an information recorder for such use.

The present invention relates in general to a system and method for handling broadcast audio/video (AV) contents in digital or analog format; and, more specifically, the invention relates to a broadcast receiver which permits recording of broadcast programs with easy to perform operations on an internally-provided information recording medium exemplified by a hard disk drive or other type of storage device, to a method for recording the broadcast programs, and to an information recorder for such use.
In addition to conventional analog television broadcasting, digital television broadcasting has recently received considerable attention in connection with satellite broadcasting with broadcast satellite or communications satellite systems and in terrestrial broadcasting, with the result that systems for receiving various broadcast contents in digital form are becoming widely available for use in ordinary households. Such systems ensure more channels than systems used only for conventional analog broadcasting, so that quite a large number of broadcast programs are available therethrough. For recording and reproduction of such a large number of broadcast programs, various types of AV systems are appearing on the market, e.g., digital VCRs, disk recorders, and other digital devices.
Since the information transmission speed has increased recently, e.g., to 20 Mbps, a stream recording/reproducing system, such as a so-called HDD recorder is well on its way to implementation. The stream recording/reproducing system includes a large-capacity information recording medium, such as a hard disk drive (HDD), so that a large number of channels can be received and stored. Using the HDD allows the recording of video/audio stream data. Such a data stream recording/reproducing system uses a data recorder in the form of a so-called disk recording medium, so that, even if the system stops operation due to a power failure or for other reasons, data reading after failure recovery is ensured by known technology, such as that described in JP-A-2002-32975.

Broadcast program recording method and broadcast receiver, and information recorder for the same


A joint includes at least one joint bushing and a joint bolt or pipe that is rotatably mounted with radial play in the joint bushing, forming an annular bearing gap. The joint has a play compensation element having several spring-loaded sections that engage in the annular bearing gap. The radii of the spring-loaded sections are shorter than the radius of the annular bearing gap. The spring-loaded sections project beyond a base body of the play compensation element at an acute angle to the joint axis. If the play compensation element is designed both to compensate the play and to axially secure the joint, it includes at least one clamping section, which is/are supported on the joint bolt and project(s) beyond the opposite side of the base body of the play compensation element to the spring-loaded sections. The play compensation element can be used in particular for joints of adjusting devices in motor vehicles.

The invention relates to an articulated joint.
From German Patent No. DE 195 31 278 C1 an articulated joint is known in which a tubular sleeve and a stay are mounted rotatable with radial play on a through-bolt which serves as a bearing axle. The bearing axle is held without play inside the structural part by means of two separate bearing bushes which each surround a protruding longitudinal section of the bearing axle. The substantially cylindrical bearing bushes have for this purpose a conically inclined end region which engages in a bearing gap between the mounted structural part and the through-bolt which (gap) is widened out through a chamfer and is subject to play. The bearing bushes are each pressed by their conically inclined end region which is designed to be spring-elastic in the radial direction into the bearing gap by means of axial force action and are then pressed through the wedge action by overcoming the radial play against the outer sleeve face of the through-bolt.
From U.S. Patent Application No. US 2002/0125049A1 a seat weight measuring device is known having a bearing structure. This comprises an articulated joint with a push-in bush which has different shaped spring sections whereby the radial play of a bolt mounted in the bush is compensated.
Simple articulated joints in the form of radial rotary joints as used for example between levers of a seat height adjuster in motor vehicles, normally consist of an axially secured articulated bolt which engages through bores in bushes formed on the levers and connects these together for rotation. Sufficient minimum play must be provided between at least one bush and the bolt to allow a relative rotational movement between the interconnected levers and to ensure easy assembly between the levers and the joint.
As a result of the minimum radial play required there may result, for example through vibrations, relative radial movements between the bolt and the bush which can lead to rattling noises and thus loss of comfort. Furthermore the relative movements and resulting frequent load changes can lead to fatigue arising in the material of the bush or joint bolt. A further reduction in the play to eliminate relative radial movements is however often not possible since otherwise a press-fit arises and no or only a restricted rotational movement between the bush and joint bolt is possible in the joint.
The object of the invention is to provide a play compensation element for an articulated joint of the type mentioned at the beginning which with simple assembly of the joint and with low manufacturing costs even with wide tolerances in the joint permanently suppresses relative radial movements between the joint parts without the risk of the joint bolt or joint pipe and joint bush canting and becoming jammed.

Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH & Co KG, Coburg


A method and apparatus for managing heap memory for an application program in a data processing system. The system supports a basic addressing mode and an extended addressing mode. Programs operating in the basic addressing mode are limited to addressing using a first number of bits, program operating in the extended addressing mode are limited to addressing using a second number of bits, and the first number of bits is less than the second number of bits. One or more heap banks are established for an application program, with each heap bank having a quantity of memory space that is addressable by the program operating in basic addressing mode. The heap banks are managed by a system program operating in extended addressing mode. In response to each request from the application program that requires a quantity of memory space, one of the heap banks is selected for allocating the memory. An additional heap bank is established if none of the heap banks has a quantity of available memory space that satisfies the required quantity.

The present invention generally relates to memory management, and more particularly to using multiple heap data banks with reserved areas within the data banks.
The number of concurrent activities that can be started and the number of files that can be opened by an application program are limited by some data processing systems because of the manner in which memory space is managed by the system. Some data processing systems allocate a heap memory bank of a certain size to an application. The heap bank is available for file input/output (I/O) and for use by activities started by the application. In one environment, for example, the USC C environment from Unisys, an activity is an executing part of a program and is sometimes referred to as a xe2x80x9ctask.xe2x80x9d The tasks or activities of a program generally execute concurrently. When the available space in the heap bank is exhausted, no additional files can be opened and no additional activities can be started by the application. Thus, in order to open a new file or start another activity, the application would need to wait for a file to be closed or an activity to complete. This limits the flexibility in developing applications.
One approach to dealing with the limited bank size is to increase the size of the heap bank for an application. However, the size of the heap bank may present addressing problems for some applications. For example, some systems, such as the Unisys 2200 series data processing systems, support applications with different addressing modes: xe2x80x9cbasic modexe2x80x9d is an 18-bit addressing architecture and xe2x80x9cextended modexe2x80x9d is a 36-bit addressing architecture. If the size of a heap bank is increased beyond the limits of basic mode addressing, basic mode middleware would need to be modified to accommodate the increased address space, thereby incurring additional and perhaps unnecessary development expense.
A method and apparatus that addresses the aforementioned problems, as well as other related problems, are therefore desirable.
The invention provides a method and apparatus for managing heap memory for an application program in a data processing system. The system supports a basic addressing mode and an extended addressing mode. Programs operating in the basic addressing mode are limited to addressing using a first number of bits, program operating in the extended addressing mode are limited to addressing using a second number of bits, and the first number of bits is less than the second number of bits. One or more heap banks are established for an application program, with each heap bank having a quantity of memory space that is addressable by the program operating in basic addressing mode. The heap banks are managed by a system program operating in extended addressing mode. In response to each request from the application program that requires a quantity of memory space, one of the heap banks is selected for allocating the memory. An additional heap bank is established if none of the heap banks has a quantity of available memory space that satisfies the required quantity.

Management of memory heap space for data files accessible to programs operating in different addressing modes


An image sensor image sensor may include: a substrate; photo-sensing elements formed in the substrate, each photo-sensing element responsive to light to produce a photo-sensing electrical signal; an antireflection layer formed over of the photo-sensing elements and structured to reduce optical reflection to facilitate optical transmission of incident light to the photo-sensing elements through the antireflection layer; color filters formed over the antireflection layer and arranged to spatially correspond to the photo-sensing elements, respectively, each color filter structured to select a designated color in the incident light to transmit through to a corresponding photo-sensing element; and partition patterns formed over the antireflection layer and arranged to spatially correspond to the photo-sensing elements, respectively, to partition light receiving area above the photo-sensing elements into separate light receiving areas, each partition pattern surrounding a corresponding color filter to be separate from an adjacent color filter; grooves formed in upper portions of the partition patterns, and providing air gaps between the adjacent partition patterns; micro lenses formed over the partition patterns and the color filters to direct incident light to the photo-sensing elements through the color filters, respectively. The micro lenses may be separated from one another by the grooves.

Recently, with the development of information and communication technologies and the digitalization of image information, an increasing number of electrical devices, such as a digital camera, a camcorder, a mobile phone, a personal communication system (PCS), a game machine, security camera and a medical micro camera, are now equipped with image sensors. An image sensor includes a plurality of pixels, and each of the plurality of pixels includes a photodiode, a color filter and a micro lens. In general, the plurality of pixels includes grid patterns for optically isolating the pixels. However, since the grid patterns alone cannot sufficiently guide light, it is difficult to sufficiently improve quantum efficiency and a crosstalk phenomenon.

Image sensor including partition patterns


A light guide plate has a light exit surface, a back surface opposed to the light exit surface, and a light entrance surface consisting of at least part of a side surface. The light guide plate also has a body portion, and a light exit-side layer formed from an ionizing radiation curable resin. The light exit-side layer includes an optical element portion which defines the light exit surface. The optical element portion includes unit shaped elements arranged in one direction intersecting a light guide direction, each unit shaped element extending linearly in a direction intersecting the one direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light guide plate having a light exit surface, a back surface opposed to the light exit surface, and a light entrance surface consisting of at least part of side surface extending between the light exit surface and the back surface, and more particularly to a light guide plate having excellent optical properties. The present invention also relates to a method for producing a light guide plate having excellent optical properties, and to a surface light source device and a display device, both having a light guide plate having excellent optical properties.
2. Description of Related Art
A surface light source device for illuminating a liquid crystal display panel from the back is in widespread use (see e.g. JP 2007-227405A, JP 2008-296587A and JP 9-145931A). Surface light source devices are roughly classified into direct-light type devices which have a light source disposed right behind an optical member, and edge-light type devices which have a light source disposed lateral to an optical member. Edge-light type surface light source devices have the advantage that the surface light source devices can be made thin as compared to direct-light type surface light source devices.
In an edge-light type surface light source device, a light guide plate is provided lateral to a light source, and light from the light source enters the light guide plate from the side surface (light entrance surface) of the light guide plate. The light that has entered the light guide plate repeats reflection at a pair of opposing main surfaces and travels in the light guide plate in a direction (light guide direction) almost perpendicular to the light entrance surface. The light traveling in the light guide plate, by the optical action of the light guide plate, is caused to gradually exit the light exit surface as it travels in the light guide plate. The amount of light, exiting the light exit surface of the light guide plate, can thus be equalized. In an exemplary light guide plate, a light scattering component is dispersed in the light guide plate so that light, traveling in the light guide plate, is allowed to gradually exit the light guide plate.
In addition to the equalization of the in-plane distribution of the amount of exiting light, a surface light source device is also required to increase the front-direction luminance, the efficiency of the use of source light, etc. A common surface light source device (see e.g. JP 2007-227405A), therefore, has various optical members, such as an optical sheet (prism sheet) for adjusting the angular distribution of luminance for a light component traveling along the light guide direction, an optical sheet (prism sheet) for adjusting the angular distribution of luminance for a light component traveling along a direction perpendicular to the light guide direction, etc., disposed on the side of the light exit surface of a light guide plate. It is very desirable if excellent optical properties can be imparted to a light guide plate and therefore the number of optical members in a surface light source device can be reduced. This makes it possible to reduce the production cost of the surface light source device, facilitate the assembly of the surface light source device and make the surface light source device thinner.
On the other hand, a conventional light guide plate is produced by injection molding or thermal transfer processing as disclosed in JP 2007-227405A, JP 2008-296587A and JP 9-145931A. As display devices are becoming thinner with larger screens these days, it is becoming difficult to produce a light guide plate by a conventional method even with such accuracy as to allow the light guide plate to fully perform its intended function. Thus, it is practically impossible to impart additional optical properties to a light guide plate produced by a conventional production method.

Light guide plate, method for producing light guide plate, surface light source device, and liquid crystal display device


An apparatus for coiling successive lengths of metal strip onto mandrels changes the strip path from a path leading to the mandrel currently being wound to a path to a new mandrel when the current strip ends and a new strip appears. The new mandrel has a mandrel strip guide that includes a chain of driven mandrel guide rollers located around the new mandrel in its initial position to receive the leading edge of a new length of strip and guide it around the mandrel. Adjacent rollers in the chain have interlocking grooves and flanges. Similar chains of rollers are used to guide the strip between the shears and the mandrels. The new mandrel is positioned in an initial position such that the strip path to it is a straight path, and the mandrels are mounted on a carousel which moves that mandrel to a second position such that the strip path to it is an angled path, the first segment of which is common with the first part of the straight strip path. A tail restraining unit holds the tail of the old strip onto its mandrel.

The present invention relates to shearing and coiling metal strip. In particular, it is concerned with guiding the strip onto a coil at the end of a rolling mill line, and shearing the strip and transferring the strip to a second coil when a first coil is complete, whilst at the same time permitting the continuous production of the strip at an uninterrupted rate.
Such shear and guiding systems for shearing and guiding the strip to alternate coils are well known in the art. In fact, more than two coils may be used if the cycle time for the removal of the completed coil is greater than the time to complete the coiling of a single coil.
In a typical known system, the strip is first passed through a rotating shear unit, which comprises two cutting edges each mounted on a rotatable support on opposite sides of the strip so that the blades are coincident with the strip and act together to cut the strip when the rotatable supports are rotated. The rotatable supports rotate in the direction of the strip. The strip emerges from the shears towards two pairs of deflecting rolls placed one after the other. Each pair of deflecting rolls has an associated spool or mandrel located below the straight path from the shears. Various deflector plates are used in combination with the deflector rolls to guide the strip onto the spool or mandrel.
Supposing that the strip is being wound on the second spool, the first deflecting rolls will be open, allowing the strip to pass through them without deflection and on towards the second pair of deflecting rolls, which will deflect the strip to its associated spool. As that spool becomes nearly full, the strip is sheared and the part ahead of the shears will continue along the existing strip path, and will be wound onto the current spool.
As the end of that part passes through the first deflecting rolls and the front edge of the next part of the strip approaches those deflecting rolls, those rolls will be operated to engage with the strip and deflect it onto the spool associated with those rolls. That spool is then filled to form the next coil whilst the previous coil is removed from its spool.
When the second spool is nearly full, the shears are again operated, and the deflecting rolls associated with that spool are opened to allow the front edge of the new part of the strip to pass straight through and on to the deflecting rolls associated with the second spool, which should by then have been changed in readiness.
This known system is typical of the way that strip is formed into coils at the end of the strip production. There are variations on this theme in which the spools are movable to pick up the strip after each cut, and also there are alternative means of diverting the path of the strip, some of which rely merely on gravity or the inertial movement of the strip to cause the strip to take up a new path.
These known systems have the disadvantage that it is necessary to control the time of engagement of the guiding rolls or guiding mechanism accurately, immediately after the cutting has taken place. This can cause problems for the cutting and coiling of thin strip moving at high strip speeds. If the guiding rolls are engaged too soon, then the previous strip length will be engaged and this will cause it to be deflected in the wrong direction. Alternatively if the engaging roll is engaged too late, the next strip length will proceed on its previous path and may overshoot the corresponding spool. Thus the engaging roll must move very quickly into and out of position, and the dynamic limitations of this movement of the engaging rolls limits the strip speeds that can be used. Thus it is necessary to ensure that the movement of the guiding rolls is precisely timed with the action of the rotating shears.
A further disadvantage of known systems is that thin strip especially is very easily bent by hitting stationary guides or other guidance mechanisms which can throw the strip out of line with the desired path into the coiling stage or cause it to jam. Similarly, for systems which rely on inertia or gravity, the strip speeds are limited because at high speeds the strip may not fall in time or in a predictable way because it is influenced by aerodynamic effects.
For cold rolling, a technique known as carousel coiling has been developed. For this technique, there is provided apparatus for coiling successive lengths of metal strip onto mandrels, comprising means for changing the strip path from a path leading to the mandrel currently being wound to a path to a new mandrel when the current strip ends and a new strip appears, wherein the new mandrel is positioned in an initial position such that the strip path to it is a straight path, and means are provided for moving that mandrel to a second position such that the strip path to it is an angled path the first segment of which is common with the first part of the straight strip path.
The tail end of the old length of strip is pulled along the angled path by the main body of that length which is already coiled on its mandrel, and therefore cannot go seriously astray. After the shear is operated, the leading edge of the new length of strip continues straight ahead instead of following the angled path because of the inertia and weight of the strip. The leading edge of the new length of strip is guided onto the mandrel by a moving belt which is wrapped part of the way around the mandrel in such a way that the leading edge of the new length of strip is caught between the belt and the mandrel. This type of apparatus is known as a belt wrapper.
The present invention is particularly concerned with handling hot thin strip. This involves a number of additional problems compared to handling strip resulting from cold rolling.
Mills rolling cold strip generally slow down during the changeover from one coiling mandrel to the other. This reduces the aerodynamic effects on the strip which could cause it to take the wrong path. It also reduces the speed at which the belt wrapper or other strip guidance mechanism has to operate. However, hot strip mills cannot slow down during coiling for metallurgical reasons. Consequently, the belt wrapper or other guidance mechanism has to operate at full speed. The life of conventional belt materials or chains is severely reduced by operating at the high speeds required for thin hot strip. In addition the high temperature of the strip is liable to cause damage to the belt or chain material.
In addition, guidance of the strip is more difficult because the hot strip has lower strength than cold strip and is therefore more liable to bend and follow an incorrect path; also, with higher speeds, aerodynamic effects are more liable to cause deflection of the head of the strip from the desired path.
The general object of the invention is to provide means for improved guidance of hot rolled strip in strip shearing and coiling apparatus.


A treadmill includes a front leg frame and a connecting arm. The front leg frame has a front end pivoted to a support base. The connecting arm has a lower end pivoted to the leg frame. An upper end of the connecting arm is connected to a threaded sleeve connected telescopically to a motor-driven screw rod disposed at a top side of a tread base. A hydraulic telescopic unit is pivoted to the leg frame and the support base. When the threaded sleeve is driven by the screw rod, the tread base is inclined. When the tread base is folded upward, it is held in position by the hydraulic telescopic unit which is prevented from moving telescopically by engagement with a latch member. The latch member disengages the telescopic unit through a release member provided on the tread base.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a treadmill, more particularly to a treadmill which is foldable and which can be raised to an inclined position.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIGS. 1 and 2 show a conventional treadmill which includes a support frame 1, an instrument panel 2, a tread base 3, a front leg frame 4, a linear actuator 5 and two hydraulic lifting units 6. The support frame 1 includes two slide rails 101. The instrument panel 2 is mounted on the support frame 1. The front end of the tread base 3 has two mounting arms 301 connected pivotally to the support frame 1. The front leg frame 4 has upper ends connected pivotally to the tread base 3 and lower ends provided with wheels 401 which are disposed slidably in the respective slide rails 101. The linear actuator 5 is mounted on the bottom of the tread base 3 and includes a screw rod 502 driven by a motor 501 and a threaded sleeve 503 connected telescopically to the screw rod 502 and connected pivotally to the front leg frame 4. Each hydraulic lifting unit 6 has a front hydraulic cylinder 601 mounted pivotally on the support frame 1 and a rear piston rod 602 connected pivotally to the tread base 3.
When the tread base 3 is to be raised to an inclining position for the user to exercise thereon, the screw rod 502 of the linear actuator 5 is rotated by the motor 501 to retract the threaded sleeve 503. The front leg frame 4 is thus pulled and the wheels 401 are moved along the slide rails 101 so that the mounting arms 301 are inclined and the tread base 3 are raised by the front leg frame 4.
Referring to FIG. 3, when the tread base 3 is to be folded for storage, the linear actuator 5 is first operated to extend forward the threaded sleeve 503 so as to place the tread base 3 in a horizontal position. Then, the tread base 3 is lifted upward manually so that the hydraulic lifting unit 6 is extended and turned upward together with the tread base 3. At this juncture, a spring latch 302 provided on the tread base 3 is automatically moved into a latch hole 201 of the instrument panel 2, thereby positioning the tread base 3. The tread base 3 is further stabilized in its folded upward position by the hydraulic lifting unit 6.
However, the conventional treadmill has a disadvantage in that the construction thereof is rather complicated and that the spring latch 302 is unsafe as it can drop from the latch hole 201 due to vibration. In addition, when the tread base 3 is to be unfolded for use, the user must pull out the spring latch 302 from the latch hole 201 with one hand while holding the tread base 3 with another hand to prevent the tread base 3 from falling down accidentally. The need to pull out the spring latch 302 is therefore troublesome.


An inverter and a method for detecting a phase failure in an energy supply grid during operation of an inverter, which is connected to the energy supply grid for feeding electrical energy via a YNd transformer is disclosed. The method includes transforming the values of the output currents into a symmetrical positive-sequence current value and into a symmetrical negative-sequence current value of a coordinate system rotating at a fundamental frequency of the energy supply grid. The method further includes determining a ratio of the negative-sequence current value to the positive-sequence current value, and signalling a phase failure in the energy supply grid if the determined ratio is greater than a preset threshold value for longer than a preset time period. The disclosure furthermore relates to an inverter designed for implementing the method.

Inverters are used for converting direct current into a grid-compliant alternating current suitable for feeding into an energy supply grid. Such inverters are used, for example, in photovoltaic systems. If galvanic isolation between the energy supply grid and the inverter is desired or even required on the basis of regulations and legal requirements for specific energy supply grids, the transformer mentioned at the outset is arranged between an AC output of the inverter and the energy supply grid. In particular in the case of relatively large photovoltaic systems which are connected directly to a medium-voltage grid, the use of transformers is imperative. In this case, it is generally additionally required that the medium-voltage grid needs to be grounded effectively. Such required effective grounding can be implemented in a technically suitable manner and inexpensively by virtue of the use of a so-called YNd transformer. In this nomenclature, the abbreviation "YN" describes a high-voltage side in star circuit configuration with a grounded neutral point and "d" describes a low-voltage side in a delta circuit configuration. In some cases, the use of such a YNd transformer is also explicitly specified by operators of the energy supply grid.
A further requirement placed on photovoltaic systems is that fault states of the energy supply grid need to be detected on the low-voltage side of the transformer, i.e. from within the photovoltaic system, and the photovoltaic system is to be disconnected from the grid after identification of specific fault states. A fault state which is relevant in this respect is in particular a single-phase phase loss, i.e. an interruption between the photovoltaic system and the energy supply grid or within the energy supply grid on one of generally three phases.
In principle, a single-phase phase loss can be detected by means of measuring devices within the energy supply grid, i.e. on the output side (high-voltage side) of a YNd transformer. The current flow can be monitored, for example, in all three phases, and a failure of a phase can be detected directly. Such a solution is very complicated and cost-intensive, however, owing to the complex measurement technology on the high-voltage side.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 4,600,961 describes an apparatus and a method for detecting high-resistance ground faults in a three-phase energy supply grid. The apparatus comprises current sensors for measuring currents flowing in the three phases, wherein positive-sequence and negative-sequence currents are determined from the measured current values by means of suitable filters, and a ratio of the negative-sequence current to the positive-sequence current is formed. A high-resistance ground fault is indicated when this ratio exceeds a threshold value assigned to it. This apparatus is also correspondingly complex owing to the necessarily complex measurement technology for measuring at the high voltages in the energy supply grid.
For feeding electrical energy into the energy supply grid, power switches in an output stage, usually an output bridge, of the inverter are actuated in a pulse-width modulation method (PWM method). For this purpose, output currents and output voltages as well as the fundamental frequency thereof are detected. Depending on a difference between the setpoint values and the actual values of the output currents, control values for the output currents are determined. Alternatively, in the case of so-called voltage-regulated inverters, a difference between the setpoint values and the actual values of the output voltages is formed and control values for the output voltages are determined. Pulse-width-modulated control signals for the power switches of the inverter are generated from the control values for the output currents or the output voltages, and the power switches are clocked correspondingly on the basis of the control signals.
Depending on the type of transformer used between the inverter and the energy supply grid, certain fault states of the energy supply grid are mapped onto the inverter-side AC voltage grid of the photovoltaic system and can be detected there and possibly taken into consideration. In the case of the mentioned YNd transformers, however, especially single-phase phase losses of the energy supply grid on the AC voltage side are not mirrored directly on the other side of the transformer, i.e. within the photovoltaic system. In the case of other transformer types, for example the so-called YNy transformers, a phase loss is mapped directly onto the side of the photovoltaic system and can be identified by known operating methods of the inverter and taken into consideration. With this transformer type, however, the precondition of effective grounding as mentioned in the outset is not provided.

Inverter and method for detecting a phase failure in an energy supply grid


The present invention provides a polymer coating method. In the method, in a vacuum chamber, a low temperature monomer evaporation chamber is used to heat a liquid monomer and a cooled substrate at a temperature lower than the liquid monomer reservoir or vapor. The liquid monomer is allowed to condense on the cooled substrate surface where it is polymerized by a radiation source. The process depends on the vapor pressure difference between liquid in the monomer source and liquid condensed on the surface of the cooled substrate. The film thickness is dependent on the temperature difference between the monomer reservoir and the substrate, and the time that is required to move the coated substrate from the evaporation chamber to the cure station. The method is suitable for forming very thin, uniform, pinhole-free, polymer coatings from a variety of monomers, having at least two olefinic groups per molecule, on a variety of substrates.

Throughout this application, various publications, patents, and published patent applications are referred to by an identifying citation. The disclosures of the publications, patents, and published patent specifications referenced in this application are hereby incorporated by reference into the present disclosure to more fully describe the state of the art to which this invention pertains.
Coatings are applied to a wide variety of substrates for widely divergent purposes. Examples of the many different types of coatings in use include adhesive coatings, primer coatings, decorative coatings, protective hard coatings, anti-reflective coatings, reflective coatings, interference coatings, release coatings, dielectric coatings, photoresist coatings, conductive coatings, barrier coatings, and the like. Such coatings can be applied to substrates that are made from many different materials and have many different shapes. For example, in terms of materials, substrates may be metal, polymeric, ceramic, paper, mineral, glass, composite, and the like. In terms of shape, substrates may be flat, curved, undulating, smooth, rough, porous, particulate, fibrous, regular or irregular surfaced, and the like.
In conventional industrial coating processes, an admixture (for example, an emulsion, solution, slurry, two-phase fluid mixture, and the like) comprising the coating constituents and a suitable solvent is applied to the substrate using a suitable coating technique such as spraying, roll coating, brush coating, spin coating, or the like. The coated composition is then typically dried and cured in order to solidify the coating. During drying, the solvent is removed from the coating and then discarded or recovered.
Several solvent-free methods which avoid the expense or problems associated with removal, disposal, or recovery of solvents have been described for the deposition of thin polymer films onto substrates, such as polymers, metallized polymers, or metal foils and the like. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,260,095 to Affinito, is described a method of depositing a thin layer of liquid monomer onto a moving substrate in a vacuum chamber and curing the thin layer. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,842,893 to Yializis et al. is described a coating method in which flash evaporation of monomer fluids from a heated surface forms vapor which is condensed on a substrate as a thin film and polymerized. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,045,864 to Lyons et al. is described a vapor coating method in which a carrier gas vaporizes a fluid composition and carries the vapor to a substrate upon which the vapor condenses and may be polymerized to form a coating. J. Affinito et al. (Affinito 1) in Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Vacuum Web Coating, pp. 77–94, ed. R. Bakish, Bakish Press (2000), and J. Affinito et al. (Affinito 2) in Proceedings of the 44th Annual Technical Conference of the Society of Vacuum Coaters, pp. 492–497 (2001), describe a thermal evaporation process and theoretical modeling for the deposition of lithium metal on polymer films.
There is a need for less costly and simpler solvent-free methods for providing thin film coatings for a variety of applications.

Methods and apparatus for vacuum thin film deposition


An ink cartridge for use in an ink jet printer includes a cartridge body and a lid. The cartridge body has an ink reservoir storing ink therein, arid is in a box-shape having one open surface. The lid is fixedly secured to the open surface of the cartridge body to hermetically seal the opern surface. The cartridge body is provided with a secondary housing formed with a hole open to atmosphere. In the secondary housing, inner walls are formed which define a communication channel of a labyrinthine structure for making a fluid communication between the ink reservoir and an outside atmosphere through the hole. The provision of such a communication channel smoothens the supply of ink to a print head but the labyrinthine structure prevents the ink evaporation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relate to an ink cartridge for use in an ink jet painter, and more particularly to an ink cartridge provided with an ink reervoir filled with an ink permeated material, such as ink containing porous material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, ink jet printers are provided with a recording unit, a recording medium feeding unit for feeding a recording medium, and a carriage unit for reciprocally moving the recording unit in the widthwise dimension of the recording medium. The recording unit includes an ink jet type print head and an ink cartridge detachably mounted on the recording unit for supplying ink to the print head. The recording medium feeding unit includes a platen roller for feeding the recording medium past the recording unit in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the recording unit reciprocally moves. The carriage unit includes a carriage for mounting ttie recording unit thereon. The carriage slidably movably supported on a guide rod extending in parallel with the axial direction of the platen roller. The carriage is reciprocally moved back and fortt along the guide rod by a belt stretched between a drive pulley driven by a motor and a driver pulley.
As disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. HEI-7-32603, the ink cartridge is formed with not only an ink introduction port for supplying ink from an ink reservoir to the print head but also a communication hole open to atmosphere, so that the internal space of the ink cartridge is held at the atmospheric pressure and thus ink supply from the ink reservoir to the print head can be smoothly performed. When such an atmosphere communication hole is provided, it is required that air be prevented from freely moving through the communication hole in order to prevent ink evaporation. To this end, it has been a general practice to connect the ink reservoir and atmosphere with a communication path of a labyrinthine structure.
One such example is shown in FIG. 1 wherein a groove c of a crank or labyrinthine structure is formed on the top surface of a lid b attached to an ink cartridge. One end of the groove c is in communication with the internal space of the ink cartridge, i.e., ink reservoir. A seal member d is bonded or thermally adhered to cover the groove c while exposing the other and of the groove in atmosphere, thereby bringing the ink reservoir into communication with atmosphere.
Another example is shown in FIG. 2. A large-diameter attachment hole f is formed in the cartridge body e and an attachment member g is fitted into the attachment hole f The attachment member g is formed with apertures. The attachment hole r and the attachment member g in combination provide an atmosphere communication channel of labyrinthine structure. Hence, the internal space of the ink cartridge is drought into communication with atmosphere.
However, the conventional structures as described above increase the number of components required for forming the atmosphere communication path, such as seal member d or attachment member g. This increases the number of manufacturing steps and manufacturing cost.

Ink cartridge having an atmosphere communicating channel of labyrinthine structure


Methods of drying streams that include propylene oxide. The methods may include contacting a stream that includes propylene oxide with molecular sieves. The molecular sieves may be in a drying unit, and may be regenerated. The streams that include propylene oxide may include one or more other organic compounds.

Propylene oxide may be used in a number of processes. For example, refined propylene oxide may be used as a feedstock in processes for producing 1,4-butanediol. The production of 1,4-butanediol may be achieved through the isomerization of propylene oxide to allyl alcohol, which then undergoes hydroformylation with synthesis gas (H2+CO) to produce 4-hydroxybutyraldehyde, which is hydrogenated to 1,4-butanediol.
Propylene oxide may be created as a product or by-product of a number of processes. Propylene oxide created by such processes may include more water than the refined propylene oxide streams used as a feedstock in certain processes, including the foregoing process for producing 1,4-butanediol. For example, some processes produce samples of propylene oxide having a water content of about 2% by weight.
Efforts to reduce the amount of water in propylene oxide have been based on distillation. Distillation, however, is a thermal separation process, which not ideal as far as energy consumption is concerned.
There remains a need for methods of drying propylene oxide that are energy efficient, are effective, do not cause propylene oxide to react with one or more other compounds, and/or do not undesirably increase the likelihood that propylene oxide may react with one or more other compounds.


A mobility call management service is disclosed that provides enhanced call management functionality for a wireless mobile terminal (MT). Incoming and/or outgoing calls are managed based on an assessment of the degree of motion of the MT, or other available data pertinent to the MT's physical situation, such as but not limited to it's location, movement, or rate of movement. The degree of motion or other assessment may be used to determine whether a communication can safely terminate on, originate from, or continue safely on the MT, so as to reduce or remove driver distraction.

Each year more than 42,000 people are killed and more than 3 million are injured in more than 6 million motor vehicle accidents on the nation's roads according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Association (NHTSA). In its most recent 2005 report, the NHTSA estimates that driver distraction is contributing to 20-30 percent of all motor vehicle crashes or 1.2 million accidents each year. A 2002 Harvard Center for Risk Analysis suggested that the rise in deaths and serious injuries and damages is attributable to the fast growing pool of cell phone users with 85 percent of users admitting to cell phone use while driving. Another study found that the risk of vehicle accidents is four times greater when motorists are using cell phones and produce the equivalent effect of reduced physical control and mental inattentiveness as individuals having reached 0.08 percent blood alcohol level, the legal limit in most states for driving under the influence. Virginia Tech Transportation Institute's 2005 study reported that hand-held wireless devices were among the highest distraction-related factors in crashes and were the leading distraction-related factor in near crashes.
Early researchers believed that hands-free phones were safer to use than hand-held phones. Recent studies have shown that this is assumption is untrue and that earlier assumptions may have offered motorists a false sense of safety. The mechanism by which cell phone conversations interfere with driving performance is not based on whether the motorist is using a hands-free or a hand-held device but rather by attentional interference, the diversion of attention from the driving task to the cell phone conversation itself In neurophysiology, this competition between visual and auditory stimuli is known as dual-task competition. Dual-task competition occurs when auditory tasks unrelated to the visual task are introduced. As a result, the degree of attentional distraction depends on the complexity of the driving task and how engaged the driver is to the cell phone conversation.
Recognizing the severity of this problem to public safety, 17 of the 50 states in America have introduced legislation that restricts or bans cell phone use while driving. The NHTSA is lobbying to have all 50 states adopt restrictions on cell phone use while driving. Similar restrictions and bans have been adopted by both developed and underdeveloped countries around the world, including UK, France, Germany, Finland, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, India and many others. Fines are commonly the method of encouraging those who violate the cell phone use restrictions. In New Delhi, India, motorists who are found talking on their cell phone while driving have been imprisoned.
With the emergence of more and more wireless services and applications, the likelihood of using the cell phone and other wireless communication devices in a moving vehicle will continue to rise. It is necessary to put in place guidelines in which users are able to take advantage of their increasingly sophisticated services but at the same time ensure that public safety is not compromised. The reliance on public education may not be adequate because of the convenience of cell phone communications. Furthermore, infringement on restrictions and bans is difficult to monitor, making it difficult for such legislation to be enforced.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A device and a method for controlling an internal combustion engine in which, starting from the comparison between a measured and an expected value for a lambda signal, a correction value is specified for a fuel signal characterizing the fuel quantity, or an air signal characterizing the air quantity. Depending on the operating state, an output signal of a characteristics map and/or the output signal of a closed-loop control are/is used as the correction value.

German Patent No. 100 17 280, for example, describes a method and a device for controlling an internal combustion engine. The patent describes a method and a device for controlling an internal combustion engine in which the oxygen quantity flowing into the internal combustion is determined with the aid of at least one model on the basis of at least one manipulated variable and at least one measured variable characterizing the condition of the air in an intake manifold. Furthermore, a signal regarding the oxygen concentration in the exhaust-gas tract is ascertained, which corresponds to the output signal of a lambda probe.

Method and device for controlling an internal combustion engine


A hinge for a multi-panel door includes a first bracket, a second bracket pivotally coupled to the first bracket, and a carrier link carrying a roller adapted to engage in a door track. The first bracket is adapted to be operably attached to a first panel of the multi-panel door, the second bracket is adapted to be operably attached to second panel of the multi-panel door, and the carrier link is pivotally attached to one of the first bracket or the second bracket. The carrier link is selectively positionable in a plurality of pre-defined positions, such that at each of the pre-defined positions, the roller is disposed at a different position relative to the first bracket and the second bracket so that the roller can be spaced apart a variety of different distances from the door.

An overhead garage door 8 as depicted in FIG. 1 usually includes several horizontally oriented sections 10, 12, 14, 16 hinged together, and with rollers 18 at each edge that ride in tracks 20 such that the door 8 rolls up and down vertically when opened and closed. The tracks 20, in which the door 8 rides, angle slightly away from door frame 22 bottom-to-top in order to facilitate opening of door 8 without rubbing or binding on frame 22 as the door opens.
It is desirable that all the door sections 10, 12, 14, 16 are as close as possible to door frame 22 when door 8 is in the closed position in order to facilitate sealing of the opening defined by frame 22 against weather and against the passage of unwanted insects and pest animals. As a result, the hinges between the successive vertical door sections 10, 12, 14, 16 have slightly different geometry, and are actually numbered for uniformity in the industry as depicted in FIG. 1A. Starting at the bottom of the door, hinges 24 between the first and second door sections are assigned location #1, hinges 26 between the second and third door sections are assigned location #2, hinges 28 between the third and fourth door sections are assigned location #3, and so on.
Referring now to prior art FIG. 1A, each hinge 30 generally includes first bracket 32 and second bracket 34, pivotally coupled by hinge pin 36. After the hinge for location #1, each successive hinge includes a bushing 38 for receiving an axle and a roller that rides in track 20. The bushing is located further and further away from the door to accommodate the vertical rearward slant of track 20. As can be seen from FIGS. 1 and 1A, hinge 24 (position #1) has the axle and roller riding in hinge pin 36. For hinge 26 (position #2), the axle and roller ride in bushing 38 which is slightly vertically offset from the axis of hinge pin 36. As can be seen, each successive hinge positions bushing 38 is further horizontally offset from hinge pin 36—in order to accommodate the slant of track 20 rearwardly away from frame 22 in the vertical direction.
It is typical for garage door manufacturers to supply different hinges for each of the numbered connections between different vertical panels of the door—so, it is necessary to manufacture and supply as many different hinges as there are different vertical garage door sections to be hinged. These different hinges are not interchangeable—for instance, a hinge at location #1 cannot be interchanged for a hinge at location #2, #3, #4, or any of the successive locations because the roller location would be incorrect and would cause binding when the door is opened and closed.
This leads to inefficiency in manufacturing in having to supply the different hinges, and to extra cost and delay when an installer or repair technician must ensure that a correctly numbered hinge is available and installed at each vertical door panel hinge point. What is needed in the industry is a universal overhead door hinge that can be easily adjusted to accommodate installation at any of the vertical locations on the door.


A display apparatus according to one or more embodiments includes an array substrate and an opposite substrate facing the array substrate. Pixels areas are defined in the array substrate, and each pixel area includes a pixel electrode having concave-convex patterns at the edges thereof when viewed in a plan view. The concave-convex patterns vary directions of fringe fields generated from the edges of the pixel electrode, so that an area in which a fringe field is formed relative to one pixel area may be prevented from overlapping with a peripheral pixel area.

1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a display apparatus. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to a display apparatus having an improved display quality.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a display apparatus displays an image corresponding to an external input signal in a pixel area. The display apparatus includes first and second substrates facing each other.
An electrophoretic display apparatus further includes an electrophoretic layer interposed between two substrates facing each other. The two substrates have first and second electrodes, respectively, and the electrophoretic layer includes first and second particles controlled by an electric field formed between the first and second electrodes.
The first and second particles have colors different from each other, and are charged with polarities different from each other. Thus, if the electric field is formed between the first and second electrodes, the first and second particles are electrophoresed, so that an alignment state of the first and second particles varies.
Furthermore, when the electric field is formed between the first and second electrodes, a fringe field having a curved shape is generated at an edge of the first or second electrode. The fringe field exerts influence on the electrophoretic layer corresponding to a peripheral pixel area. Thus, an undesired color is displayed in the peripheral pixel area, so that display quality of the electrophoretic display apparatus deteriorates.


A reliable image sensor and a method for forming the same are provided. The image sensor includes a photo-detective device. At least one transistor is electrically connected to the photo-detective device for outputting charges stored in the photo-detective device. A transistor directly connected to the photo-detective device includes a gate electrode pattern and an ion-implantation interrupting pattern arranged on the gate electrode pattern. Since the ion-implantation interrupting pattern is located on an upper portion of the gate electrode pattern of the transistor in the vicinity of the photo-detective device, a threshold voltage of the gate electrode pattern of the transistor in the vicinity of the photo-detective device is adjusted to a desired value.

The present invention relates to an image sensor and a method for forming the same, more particularly to a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor and a method for forming the same.
Recently, digital technologies, such as the digital camera, have been rapidly advanced. Main elements for determining image quality of the digital camera are an optical lens and an image sensor. The image sensor converts light input through the optical lens into an electric signal having an excellent image quality.
The image sensor includes a pixel array composed of a plurality of pixels that are two-dimensionally arranged in a matrix form. Each pixel includes photo-detective, transfer, and readout devices. According to the types of the transfer and readout devices, the image sensor is classified as a charge coupled device (hereinafter referred to as CCD) or a CMOS image sensor (hereinafter referred to as CIS). The CCD uses MOS capacitors for transfer and readout operations. Respective MOS capacitors are arranged adjacent to each other, a charge carrier due to an electric potential difference is stored in one capacitor and is transferred to an adjacent capacitor. In contrast to this, a CIS is provided with MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) transistors of the same number as the pixels and employs a switching mode to detect outputs in an orderly manner by using the MOS transistors.
The CCD image sensor has lower noise and higher image quality than the CIS. The CIS, compared to the CCD image sensor, has a simple operational scheme and is capable of implementing various scanning types. A single processing circuit for the CIS can be integrated into a single chip so that it is possible to miniaturize products. Also, use of compatible CMOS technique provides advantages of reducing manufacturing costs, owing to low and single power, random access with image data. Accordingly, the CIS can be used in any device that displays images, e.g., digital cameras, surveillance cameras, smart phones, PDAs, notebook computers, bar code reader, HDTV resolution cameras, toys and so forth. Currently, uses and applications of the CMOS image sensor have become progressively broader.
Unlike the CCD image sensor, the CIS is proper to integrate unit pixels, peripheral analog elements, and MOS elements on a single chip thereof by applying a CMOS fabricating process thereto. As the integration degrees of MOS transistors increase, each gate electrode of MOS transistors formed at the peripheral circuit region becomes lower in height. For example, when the heights of the gate electrodes in the MOS transistor are too high, it is impossible to implant halo ions because an aspect ratio of a space defined between the gate electrodes becomes larger. Accordingly, it is preferred that gate electrode of MOS transistors of the pixel array region be shallowly formed like those of the MOS transistors of the peripheral circuit region in the CIS.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing a pixel of a pixel array region that illustrates an impurity ion implantation for a photo diode in a manufacturing process of a CIS, relevant to the problem arising from the CIS when the gate electrode of a MOS transistor is low in height. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 11 represents a P-type substrate, reference numeral 13 represents a gate insulation layer, and reference numerals 15a and 15b represent gate electrodes. Reference numeral 17 notes an ion implantation mask, reference numeral 19 notes an N-type impurity ion implantation for forming a photo diode, and reference numeral 21 denotes an N-type impurity diffusion region of the photo diode.
Referring to FIG. 1, the N-type impurity diffusion region of the photo diode is formed at a gate electrode 15a in the vicinity thereof by a self-alignment method, as indicated by a dotted line. However, since the gate electrodes 15a and 15b are shallow, they have a high energy, for example, about 500 keV. As an injected impurity ion passes through the gate electrode 15a, an N-type impurity diffusion region 21 is foil led at a lower portion of the gate electrode 15a. As a result, it is difficult to adjust a threshold voltage of a MOS transistor having the gate electrode 15a. This does not allow a reliable image sensor to be implemented.

Image sensor and method for forming the same


A microfluidic device comprises: a sensor provided in a sensing chamber; a liquid inlet and liquid outlet connecting to the sensor chamber for respectively passing liquid into and out of the sensing chamber and; a sample input port in fluid communication with the liquid inlet; a liquid collection channel downstream of the sensing chamber outlet; a flow path interruption between the liquid outlet and the liquid collection channel, preventing liquid from flowing into the liquid collection channel from upstream; a buffer liquid filling from the sample input port to the sensing chamber, and filling the sensing chamber and filing from the liquid outlet to the flow path interruption; an activation system operable to complete the flow path between the liquid outlet and the liquid collection channel such that the sensor remains unexposed to gas or a gas/liquid interface.

A variety of microfluidic devices and sensors are known. Sensors such as disclosed by WO99/13101 and WO88/08534 are provided in the dry state and a liquid test sample applied to the device is transported to the sensor region within the device by capillary flow. Other types of sensors are known, such as ion selective sensors comprising an ion selective membrane.
Another example is provided by WO 2009/077734 which discloses an apparatus for creating layers of amphiphilic molecules, and is now briefly discussed with reference to FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 shows an apparatus 1 which may be used to form a layer of amphiphilic molecules. The apparatus 1 includes a body 2 having layered construction comprising a substrate 3 of non-conductive material supporting a further layer 4 also of non-conductive material. A recess 5 is formed in the further layer 4, in particular as an aperture which extends through the further layer 4 to the substrate 3. The apparatus 1 further includes a cover 6 which extends over the body 2. The cover 6 is hollow and defines a chamber 7 which is closed except for an inlet 8 and an outlet 9 each formed by openings through the cover 6. The lowermost wall of the chamber 7 is formed by the further layer 4.
In use aqueous solution 10 is introduced into the chamber 7 and a layer 11 of amphiphilic molecules is formed across the recess 5 separating aqueous solution 10 in the recess 5 from the remaining volume of aqueous solution in the chamber 7. Use of a chamber 7 which is closed makes it very easy to flow aqueous solution 10 into and out of the chamber 7. This is done simply by flowing the aqueous solution 10 through the inlet 8 as shown in FIG. 1 until the chamber 7 is full. During this process, gas (typically air) in the chamber 7 is displaced by the aqueous solution 10 and vented through the outlet 9.
The apparatus includes an electrode arrangement to allow measurement of electrical signals across the layer 11 of amphiphilic molecules, which allows the device to function as a sensor. The substrate 3 has a first conductive layer 20 deposited on the upper surface of the substrate 3 and extending under the further layer 4 to the recess 5. The portion of the first conductive layer 20 underneath the recess 5 constitutes an electrode 21 which also forms the lowermost surface of the recess 5. The first conductive layer 20 extends outside the further layer 4 so that a portion of the first conductive layer 20 is exposed and constitutes a contact 22.
The further layer 4 has a second conductive layer 23 deposited thereon and extending under the cover 6 into the chamber 7, the portion of the second conductive layer 23 inside the chamber 7 constituting an electrode 24. The second conductive layer 23 extends outside the cover 6 so that a portion of the second conductive layer 23 is exposed and constitutes a contact 25. The electrodes 21 and 24 make electrical contact with aqueous solution in the recess 5 and chamber 7. This allows measurement of electrical signals across the layer 11 of amphiphilic molecules by connection of an electrical circuit to the contacts 22 and 25.
In practice, the device of FIG. 1 can have an array of many such recesses 5. Each recess is provided with the layer 11 of amphiphilic molecules. Further, each layer can be provided with a nanopore, to allow other molecules to pass through the layer (which affects the electrical signal measured). For example, one nanopore is provided per membrane. The extent to which this occurs is determined in part upon the concentration of the nanopores in the medium applied to the membranes.
An analysis apparatus incorporating means to provide amphiphilic membranes and nanopores to the sensor is disclosed by WO2012/042226. The step of providing the amphiphilic membranes and nanopores is carried out prior to use of the device, typically by the end user. However this provides drawbacks in that additional steps are required on the part of the consumer and also requires the provision of an apparatus with a complex fluidic arrangement including valves and supply reservoirs. Furthermore setting up such a sensor for use by the user can be prone to error. There is a risk that, even if the system is set up correctly, it will dry out, which could potentially damage the sensor. There is also a risk that excessive flowrates in the sample chamber could cause damage to the sensor. This risk increases for more compact devices, which bring the sample input port into closer proximity to the sensor (and so there is less opportunity for system losses to reduce the flowrates through the device).
It is therefore desirable to provide a device to the user in a 'ready to use' state wherein the amphiphilic membranes and nanopores are pre-inserted and are maintained under wet conditions. More generally it is also desirable to provide a device wherein the sensor is provided in a wet condition, for example provided in a wet condition to or by the user prior to detection of an analyte.


An electrically programmable and erasable floating gate memory array device is disclosed. The array has a plurality of column address lines, a plurality of row address lines, and a plurality of common source lines. Each of the memory cells has one terminal connected to one of the column address lines, another one connected to one of the row address lines, and a third connected to one of the common source lines. By appropriate selection circuit, a high voltage source can be connected to either the row address line to effect erasure of charges on the floating gate of the memory cells connected to the selected row address line or to the common source line to selectively program the memory cells connected to the associated common source line. In this manner, write disturbance can be limited.

Electrically programmable and erasable memory array devices using floating gate for the storage or charges thereon are well known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,698,787.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,130, assigned to the present assignee, which is incorporated herein by reference, a novel type of EEPROM or flash EEPROM memory device is disclosed. In that application, the programming and erase operation can be selectively performed on a single row. However, although the programming operation is selectively performed on a single row, there may be undesired disturbance on the same column lines. In U.S. Patent Application 682,459, filed on Apr. 9, 1991, which is also assigned to the present assignee and is incorporated herein by reference, another type of EEPROM memory device is disclosed. In that application, the memory array can be programmed and erased on a selective row basis. However, similar to the invention disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,130, because programming is accomplished by high voltage, i.e., greater than 10 volts, the high voltage may disturb the unselected cells due to the common ground line.

Floating gate memory array device having improved immunity to write disturbance


In an exhaust path, a HC trapping material which traps HC contained in exhaust gas temporarily, a H2O trap which traps H2O contained in exhaust gas and a CO oxidation catalyst are arranged in this order from the upstream side, wherein the H2O trap is disposed just upstream of and close to the CO oxidation catalyst. H2O and HC which are components disturbing the activity of the CO oxidation catalyst can be removed efficiently and the adsorption heat and condensation heat of H2O can be efficiently utilized to raise the temperature of the CO oxidation catalyst so that early activation of the CO oxidation catalyst is accomplished just after an engine starts.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an exhaust emission control device of an internal combustion engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
A three-way catalyst is widely used as the exhaust emission purification catalyst of an internal combustion engine. However, current three-way catalyst has a significantly low efficiency when the temperature is low. For this, various studies are being made to exploit catalysts which are highly active even at low temperatures to thereby decrease emission when the engine starts in low temperature conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,776,417 discloses an exhaust emission control device using a catalyst which is highly active at relatively low temperature.

Exhaust emission control device of internal combustion engine