Reinforcing rings are provided around the cylindrical outer surface of a stator can of a canned motor, near the front and rear ends of a stator of the canned motor respectively. An axial position detecting coil A is wound around the cylindrical outer surface of at least one of the reinforcing rings. The axial position of a rotor is detected by an inductance of the axial position detecting coil A. The axial position detecting coil A is installed by winding a coil around at least one of the reinforcing rings. The invention reduces the influence exerted by change in the radial position of the rotor on the output to the axial position detecting coil A to a negligible level and enables detection of the axial position of the rotor and axial zero adjustment without the necessity of considering change in the radial position of the rotor.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a bearing wear detecting device for detecting wear of bearings of a motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
The principal usage of a conventional canned motor is for driving a pump. For example, in case of a canned motor pump, it is not possible to visually observe the interior of the motor, because the canned motor and the pump are formed in an integral body to prevent fluid leakage. An impeller of the pump is rotated by a rotor of the canned pump, which is in many cases supported by bearings that are adapted to be lubricated with pump fluid. In order to operate the canned motor efficiently, it is essential to observe the state of the bearings, i.e. degree of wear, from outside.
There have conventionally been provided various bearing wear detecting devices that call for disposing an axial position detecting coil at each axial end of a stator of a canned motor and comparing the voltages respectively induced in the two axial position detecting coils in order to detect the axial position of a rotor and thereby estimate the amount of axial wear of bearings based on the axial position of the rotor, which is supported by the bearings. The aforementioned voltages are induced in the axial position detecting coils, which are respectively provided at the two axial ends of the stator, by rotation of the rotor when the motor is operated.
An example of bearing wear detecting devices of this type is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-153018, which offers two ways of providing an axial position detecting coil at each axial end of a stator: one of them calls for providing a small core portion by forming notched grooves near the end of a tooth of the stator and winding an axial position detecting coil around the core portion, and the other way calls for providing a space in the surface of each axial end of the stator and disposing therein a core around which an axial position detecting coil is wound.
With such a bearing wear detecting device, in order to precisely detect the axial position of the rotor based on difference between the voltages respectively induced in the axial position detecting coils at the two ends of the rotor, zero adjustment is essential. The aforementioned zero adjustment calls for matching the axial position of the rotor, which is supported by bearings, with the signal representing the difference between the voltages respectively induced in the axial position detecting coils at the two axial ends of the rotor. This matching is done by moving the rotor in either axial direction in the state where rotation of the rotor resulting from operation of the canned motor is inducing voltages on the detection coils. The rotor is moved by an adjusting device or any other appropriate means to move the rotor in an axial direction or a radial direction while the canned motor is operated.
As disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 08-43010 and published Japanese translation of PCT International publication No. 2001-505310, there is provided a position detecting device that calls for providing the rotor or the rotor shaft of a canned motor with a position detection target made of a magnetic material, and disposing a plurality of detection coils around a stator can, wherein the detection coils are wound around such a member as a magnetic piece or a core and circumferentially arranged at regular intervals so as to face the cylindrical outer surface of the position detection target. The bearing wear detecting device is adapted to apply high frequency signals to the detection coils during operation of the canned motor, detect the inductances of the detection coils to which the frequency signals have been applied, and determine the axial position as well as the radial position of the rotor based on changes in the inductances of the detection coils.
The conventional bearing wear detecting device described above calls for providing a small core portion by forming notched grooves near the end of a tooth of the stator and winding an axial position detecting coil around the core portion, or providing a space in the surface of each axial end of the stator and disposing therein a core around which an axial position detecting coil is wound. In either case, installation of the axial position detecting coils causes inconvenience and requires a number of man-hours as it necessitates processing of the stator.
Furthermore, voltage induced in each axial position detecting coil is affected by not only the axial position of the rotor but also the radial position of the rotor. Therefore, changes in radial position of the rotor must be taken into consideration to detect the axial position of the rotor or perform axial zero adjustment.
The aforementioned position detecting device is provided with a plurality of detection coils around the stator can. As these detection coils have to be wound around a magnetic piece, a core, or the like, installation of the axial position detecting coils causes inconvenience and requires a number of man-hours. Furthermore, as output from each detection coil is affected also by the radial position of the rotor, changes in radial position of the rotor must be taken into consideration to detect the axial position of the rotor or perform axial zero adjustment.

Kabushiki Kaisha Teikoku Denki Seisakusho


An ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus includes an image processing controlling unit that creates a guide image which corresponds to an anatomical position and orientation of a two-dimensional ultrasound image of an interior of a subject based on anatomical image data which is previously stored as anatomical image data of a human body; and a display unit that outputs and displays various types of images including the guide image and the two-dimensional ultrasound image so that plural images are simultaneously output and displayed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus that irradiates an interior of a living body with ultrasound in a radial manner, receives and scans an echo of the ultrasound, obtains ultrasound image data from the scanning, and outputs and displays an ultrasound image of the interior of the living body based on the obtained ultrasound image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus is widely used as a medical diagnosis apparatus that allows for a real-time observation of an interior of a living body. The ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus performs a sector scan by irradiating the interior of the living body with ultrasound and by receiving an ultrasound echo from a living tissue of the living body to generate and output an ultrasound image of the interior of the living body. On using the ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus, an operator recalls known anatomic positional relations of respective organs and tissues inside the living body and keeps the same in mind. While observing the ultrasound image, the operator estimates an anatomic position of a currently observed region inside the living body based on the above knowledge and makes medical diagnosis on the living body. For a support of such diagnosis, one conventionally proposed ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus outputs and displays a guide image to help the operator to track down the anatomic position of a region inside the living body whose ultrasound image the operator currently observes.
For example, the above mentioned conventional ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus includes an ultrasonic probe which is arranged outside a subject and irradiates an interior of the subject, i.e., the living body, with ultrasound from outside the subject, and an anatomical chart database in which anatomic illustrative images are stored. The conventional ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus detects position and orientation of an ultrasonic transducer provided in the ultrasonic probe, selects an illustrative image, which matches with anatomic position and orientation extracted from the detected position and orientation, from the anatomical chart database, and outputs and displays the selected illustrative image. Further, the operator adjusts a contact position and a contact orientation of the ultrasonic probe before starting the diagnosis so that a predetermined section (reference plane) of the living body coincides with a scanning plane of the ultrasonic probe. Thus, the conventional ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus can automatically select an illustrative image from the anatomical chart database according to the position and the orientation of the ultrasonic transducer (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-263101 (KOKAI)).
One manner of matching the reference plane and the scanning plane is: firstly, the ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus displays a bone structure chart which is formulated based on information of a constitution of a subject; then, an operator optionally sets the reference plane on the bone structure chart, and adjusts the contact position and the contact orientation of the ultrasonic probe so that the reference plane coincides with the scanning plane. Another manner of matching is: firstly, the ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus displays a bone structure chart corresponding to a current contact state of the ultrasonic probe, and an operator sets coordinates of the reference plane which coincides with the scanning plane of the ultrasonic probe on the bone structure chart. The ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus matches the scanning plane of the ultrasonic probe and the reference plane on the bone structure chart in the above described manners, thereby matching a coordinate system of the ultrasonic probe (coordinate system the ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus recognizes) with a coordinate system on the living body.


A tower frame combined transmitting pumping unit without guiding wheels includes a tower frame, a powering system, a transmitting system, a controlling system, a balancing weight box, a weight hauling cable, a rope wheel, a driving rope and rope hangers. The rope wheel is fixed on a side of an operation platform through a rope wheel supporting device. A central axis line of the rope wheel is located within the operation platform. A wheel rim of the rope wheel extends beyond the operation platform and a minimum distance between a most external rim thereof. The weight hauling cable and the driving rope twine around the rope wheel reversely. A free end of the weight hauling cable is connected to the balancing weight box through a rope hanger A. A platform moving device is installed between the operation platform and a top of the tower frame.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a mechanical device for exploiting oil, and more particularly to a tower frame pumping unit.
2. Description of Related Arts
In the field of exploiting oil, the beam pumping unit is gradually replaced by the tower frame pumping unit because the tower frame pumping unit has a simple structure, low costs, small energy consumption and etc. However, some mutually related technical problems existing in the tower frame pumping unit affects and limits wider promotion and application thereof. The two most predominant technical problems are the method for giving space to drill and the duration of steel wires. Before drilling, in order to save enough space for the drilling devices to operate at the well mouth, a minimum distance between the tower frame and the well mouth should be kept more than 700 mm. Thus two most common methods for giving space to drill are as follows. The first one is to set the whole tower frame movable. Before drilling, the whole tower frame is dragged away from the well mouth by traction devices. Because main devices of the tower frame pumping unit are provided on the top of the tower frame to form a relatively high center of gravity, it is time-consuming, energy-consuming and relatively insecure to integrally move the tower frame. The second one is to provide a guiding wheel extending outwardly at the top of the tower frame. A distance at which the guiding wheel extends outwardly can be adjusted based on practical needs, so the distance between the tower frame and the well mouth is possibly kept longer than 700 mm during installing the tower frame. Considering stability and costs of the tower frame, usually a diameter of the guiding wheel is relatively small; moreover, the duration of the steel wires is closely related with a bending diameter thereof, and the steel wires continuously passes a rope wheel and the guiding wheel in a short distance, so that the steel wires continuously bend twice under a condition that stresses thereof are not completely removed, which accelerates damaging the steel wires. FIG. 1 shows a diagram of duration factors relative to bending fatigue of the steel wires. Supposing that a ratio of a bending diameter D of the steel wires to a diameter d of the steel wires is 62 and the duration factor of the steel wires is 1, the bigger ratio, the longer duration. Conventionally, a tower frame pumping unit with a load within 12 tons has a ratio of the diameter of the guiding wheel to the diameter of the steel wires only around 40 to 50; a tower frame pumping unit with a load over 12 tons has a ratio of the diameter of the guiding wheel to the diameter of the steel wires only around 25 to 35. Thus a relatively small diameter of the guiding wheel leads to a relatively short duration of the steel wires. Some conventional tower frame pumping units use belts to replace the steel wires to solve the problem of the duration of the steel wires, but the belts would shake violently under actions of winds, which tends to damage a suction rod of the pumping unit and the well mouth. The conventional tower frame pumping units fail to simultaneously overcome the above technical problems.

Tower frame combined transmitting pumping unit without guiding wheels

International Business Alliance Management, Inc.


A non-woven flame retardant barrier can be prepared from low denier, charring fibers and substantially free of polymers made from halogenated monomers. The charring fibers can be modified viscose fibers, for example Visil®. The blend of low denier fibers can be, for example, a blend of 1.5 denier fibers and 3.0 denier fibers.

Various fire-retardant products are available for use in furniture, mattresses, etc. These products are made using natural or synthetic fibers to form the basis of the fabric, which can be woven, spunlace nonwoven or knit.
Fire resistance can be imparted to fibers in several ways. For example, fabric can be treated with chemicals to render it fire-retardant. However, the process of chemical treatment can weaken the fabric, causing it to crack when exposed to direct flame. Once the outlying fabric is damaged, the flame can come into contact with the underlying material, causing it to ignite. Also, treated fabrics are heavy and do not last as long as non-treated fabrics.
Other fabrics are available in the art that are not as susceptible to cracking and can withstand open flame tests. One example is a 100% fiberglass flame barrier coating a woven polymer, but fiberglass barriers have low durability due to glass-to-glass abrasion. Another option is a woven or knit core-spun yarn based flame barrier, where natural and/or synthetic fibers are wrapped around a fiberglass core, a multifilament core, or a core yarn. The fibers may be treated with a fire retardant chemical or a coating of thermoplastic polyvinyl halide composition.
Woven flame barriers suffer drawbacks in becoming very stiff when coated with fire retardant materials, making the final product less comfortable/desirable to a consumer. Also, woven and nonwoven knit flame barriers must be laminated to a decorative fabric or double upholstered during manufacturing, increasing costs.
Another disadvantage of chemically treated fire retardant material is that the treatment adds weight to the fabric, making an already cumbersome product even more difficult to handle. Also, many chemical treatments are water soluble or otherwise impermanent. Water solubility is a drawback, making the material less durable. Chemical treatment can also be costly. Thus, there is a need in the art for a lightweight fire retardant barrier that does not require chemical treatment.
Regarding nonwoven technology, fibers are bought from suppliers, usually referenced by a brand name or generic name. The fibers are carded to straighten out the fibers. Layers of carded fibers are cross lapped (one layer running north/south, then another layer running east west) over one another to build a batt. The fiber batt is then densified by either thermal bonding, needle punching, or spray bonding. Thermal bonding may be accomplished by adding low melt fibers that have a lower melting point than the other fibers and by heating the batt such that the low melt fibers melt. These fibers act as an adhesive in a web because their softening point is less than the softening point of the other fibers in the material. Needle punching involves punching a needle plate repeatedly through the batt to physically entangle the fiber layers. Typically, the more the batt is needled, the lower the loft and the higher the strength. The loft of the nonwoven can be set by the amount of needlepunching applied. With thermally bonded material, loft can be controlled by compressing the batt in the oven and blowing air through the batt as the batt is cooled. Spray bonding may be accomplished by spraying a liquid binder (e.g. latex) onto one or both sides of the carded batt and drying and curing the batt in an oven. The nonwovens are then cut and rolled for sale to manufacturers for incorporation into products such as mattresses, furniture, etc.
WO 03/023108 describes a nonwoven highloft flame barrier which uses a blend of inherently flame retardant fibers and modacrylic fibers, i.e. fibers extruded from polymers made from halogenated monomers. However, modacrylic fibers are expensive, making it difficult to provide high quality, low cost products to consumers.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No 2004/0097516A1 describes a fire retardant nonwoven fabric for use in household goods. However, the nonwoven fabrics disclosed in the publication include more than one type of fire retardant fiber and/or a fire retardant resin used to coat fibers. The disclosed materials also use higher denier fibers and polyethylene terephthalate, which are not advantageous for flame barrier and cost efficiency.
Prior fire retardant materials generally have been produced with higher basis weight, e.g. in the 0.75-1.25 osf range for highloft barriers, and generally use relatively high denier fibers. When lower basis weight materials are produced, the material must be densified in order to increase fire resistance or charring, resulting in a product that does not have the soft feel desired for mattresses and other products. Thus, there is a further need in the art for a high loft flame barrier that retains feel characteristics desirable of mattresses, bedspreads, and the like.

Lightweight nonwoven fire retardant barrier


A variable speed compression system that is driven by a variable frequency high speed motor that receives power from a high frequency generation unit that is driven by a high speed gas turbine is provided. The speed of the turbine may be varied to control the output frequency of the high frequency generation unit, thus controlling the output of the compression system by controlling the speed of the turbine driving the generation unit.

The present disclosure relates to a power distribution arrangement capable of supplying high frequency power, which is generally defined as power at frequencies above the standard 60 Hz, directly to high frequency motors, which may be located remotely from the power generation source.
Conventional high frequency motors have used a plurality of different methods to receive high frequency power, however, each of the conventional methods have employed some sort of power conversion. For example, the US Navy's Next Generation Integrated Power System (a primary user of high frequency power) utilizes high frequency generation, which then is converted to DC or low frequency for transmission/distribution to the end user (high frequency motor). Other configurations use a variable frequency drive (VFD) to convert the standard low frequency energy up to the desired high frequency for use with an associated high frequency electric motor. A VFD or adjustable frequency drive (as they are sometimes known) generally includes a system or controller capable of adjusting the rotational speed of an AC motor by controlling the frequency of the electrical power supplied to the motor, as the frequency, number of poles in the stator winding, and the rotational speed of the motor are known to be directly related.
However, each of the conventional methods for driving high frequency motors suffers from several disadvantages, including the increased size and weight associated with the converters and related equipment, which is critical in markets where weight and space are limited, such as in the offshore market. Additionally, reliability and maintenance issues that inherently accompany a system with multiple components (converters, controllers, operator interfaces, etc.), such as the above noted conventional VFD-type high frequency motor driver system, are disadvantageous.
Therefore, a high frequency motor drive system that overcomes one or more of the conventional disadvantages is desired. More particularly, a system that would enable the use of high power, high speed motors without the need for high power, high voltage solid state conversion systems is desirable.

Advanced topologies for offshore power systems


Clipper assemblies include a clipper body with a die support holding at least one clip die; and a knife cylinder with a downwardly extending rod, the knife cylinder attached to the clipper body above the clip die. The clipper assemblies also include a knife plate having a body with a perimeter with a first portion pivotably attached to the rod and a second portion pivotably attached to the clipper body below the clip die. The knife plate holds a knife which extends outward from a side of the knife plate a distance between about 1-2 inches, at an angle of between 80-110 degrees (measured from a line drawn parallel to the side from which the knife extends outward from). In operation, the knife is configured to either: (a) move upward to cut respective clipped packages or (b) move downward to cut respective clipped packages.

Conventionally, in the production of goods such as, for example, explosives, meat or other products, the product is fed (typically pumped) or stuffed into a casing in a manner that allows the casing to fill with a desired amount of the product. As is well-known, the casings can be a slug-type natural or artificial casing that unwinds, advances, stretches and/or pulls to form the elongate casing over the desired product. Another type of casing is a heat-sealed tubular casing formed by seaming together a thin flexible material, typically elastomeric and/or polymeric material. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,085,036 and 5,203,760 describe examples of automated substantially continuous-feed devices suitable for forming sheet material or flat roll stock into tubular film casings.
Rotating multi-clipper platform systems, such as the Rota-Clip® high speed packaging system by Tipper Tie, Apex, N.C., have been used to package emulsions, such as explosives. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,821,485; 5,020,298; 5,259,168; 5,471,815; 5,644,896; 8,006,463; and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0128524. The contents of the above referenced patents and patent application are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.

Cutting devices for packaging systems with clippers and related clipper assemblies


A toolless folding bicycle for facilitating storing and transporting a bicycle when not in use is provided. The toolless folding bicycle includes a bicycle assembly being designed for being ridden by a user across a support surface. The bicycle assembly comprises a frame member, a drive assembly and a steering assembly. The drive assembly is operationally coupled to the frame member whereby the drive assembly engages the support surface. The drive assembly is designed for being actuated by the user whereby the drive assembly propels the frame member across the support surface when the drive assembly is actuated by the user. The frame member is designed for supporting the user when the user is seated on the frame member. The drive assembly is operationally coupled to the frame member for steering the frame member across the support surface when the drive assembly propels the frame member.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a collapsible bicycle and, more particularly, the invention relates to a tool-less folding bicycle for facilitating storing and transporting a bicycle when not in use.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of collapsible bicycles is known in the prior art. More specifically, collapsible bicycles heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Illustrative examples of such devices include: U.S. Pat. No. 5,269,550; U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,745; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,975,561.
In these respects, the tool less folding bicycle according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of facilitating storing and transporting a bicycle when not in use.


A method and system are disclosed for controlling pop noises in a sound broadcasting system. After controllably connecting an output of a drive amplifier to a first predetermined low voltage level through a first switch, a first portion of an operation control data set is input to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuit for driving an output thereof to a second predetermined low voltage level, and a second portion of the operation control data set is also input to the DAC circuit and further to the drive amplifier to bring the output of the drive amplifier to a common mode voltage level over a predetermined rise-up time period for controlling the pop noises.

The present disclosure relates generally to digital-to-analog converters, and more particularly, to a method and system for reducing or eliminating transient (POP) noise created when a communication instrument or sound broadcasting system is powered on or off.
A typical sound broadcasting system contains an audio amplifier circuit that drives a broadcasting module such as a speaker. During the power-up or power-down phases of an audio amplifier circuit's operation, an abrupt change in the amplifier's output voltage can result in an undesirable POP noise. The POP noise has always been a major issue for any communication devices or systems that use amplifier circuit. These devices can be a mobile phone, home stereo, or any other sound broadcasting instruments that include speaker or microphone. Transient noises can occur during power-up and/or power-down sequences for a device producing a pop or click noise. These undesired noises can be extremely irritating to users and damaging to the device as well. It is of the best interest to provide a solution to eliminate or reduce such noises.
The current available solutions to the problem often require large and expensive parts such as large capacitors and external pads. These capacitors are often large and require an external pin for connection to integrated circuits. Due to this issue, the size and cost of such circuits can increase greatly. While these existing solutions do reduce or prevent POP noise from occurring, there are still needs for simpler and lower cost solutions. Since technology, such as software and microprocessors, continues to grow, cost for implementing such technology to solve the problem of POP noise may be lowered.
It is always desirable for additional flexible and low cost designs that provide the reduction or elimination of POP noises.

Method and system for reducing pop noise of a sound broadcasting instrument


A photosensitive resin constituent for a flexographic printing plate includes at least a support, a photosensitive resin composition layer, and a particle layer. The photosensitive resin composition layer contains a photosensitive resin composition containing a binder, a monomer, and a polymerization initiator. The particle layer contains a resin composition containing a binder having a crosslinkable group and a particle having a pore structure, and the particle having a pore structure has an average particle size of 1 μm or more and 10 μm or less, and a specific surface area of 350 m2/g or more and 1000 m2/g or less.

As printing methods, a method in which printing can be performed by providing a three-dimensional shape to a printing plate and a method in which printing can be performed by imparting a chemical feature have been known.
Representative examples of the former include relief printing and intaglio printing.
In the relief printing, the printing can be performed by causing an ink to adhere to a convex portion of a printing plate, and in the intaglio printing, the printing can be performed by causing an ink to adhere to a concave portion of a printing plate.
Flexographic printing is a kind of the relief printing, and the printing is performed using a flexible printing plate of a resin, rubber or the like, and hence has a characteristic that the printing can be performed on a variety of printed bodies.
Since a three-dimensional shape is formed by lithography, photosensitivity is imparted to many of resin compositions used as materials of flexographic printing plates in recent years.
A photosensitive resin composition to be used for a flexographic printing plate usually contains a thermoplastic elastomer, a photopolymerizable unsaturated monomer and a photoinitiator.
A photosensitive resin constituent for a flexographic printing plate, that is, a layered body obtained at a previous stage of imparting a printing shape, usually has a structure including a support of a polyester film or the like, a layer of the photosensitive resin composition formed thereon, and if necessary, a protection layer formed on the photosensitive resin composition layer for purposes of smoothing contact with a negative film.
In order to perform plate-making of a flexographic printing plate from such a photosensitive resin constituent for a flexographic printing plate, the whole photosensitive resin constituent for the flexographic printing plate is first exposed to UV through the support (back exposure), and thus, the photosensitive resin composition is photopolymerized to form a thin and homogeneous cured layer.
Next, a negative film having a desired image is caused to adhere onto the photosensitive resin composition layer, and the photosensitive resin composition layer is subjected to image exposure (relief exposure) through the negative film to cure an image portion, and then, an unexposed portion is washed away with a development solvent to remove the unexposed portion.
Thereafter, a surface of the photosensitive resin constituent for the flexographic printing plate on which irregularities have been thus formed is subjected to post-exposure, and thus, a flexographic printing plate is obtained.
The printing using a flexographic printing plate is performed by a method in which an ink is supplied with an ink supply roll or the like onto a convex portion on the surface of the flexographic printing plate having irregularities formed thereon, and the ink disposed on the surface of the convex portion is transferred onto a printed body by bringing the flexographic printing plate into contact with the printed body.
In recent years, in accordance with increasing demands for improvement in print quality, a technique has been developed in which an infrared laser-ablative UV blocking layer is provided instead of a conventionally used negative film on a photosensitive resin composition layer, the UV blocking layer is ablated with a laser into a desired pattern, and then exposure is performed to provide a portion to be cured with UV and a portion not to be cured with UV.
In the conventional method using a negative film, the photosensitive resin composition layer is blocked from oxygen by the negative film in curing through the UV exposure, and hence, a cured portion having the same size as an image size of the negative film can be formed without being affected by radical polymerization inhibition by oxygen.
On the other hand, in the method in which the UV blocking layer is ablated with an infrared laser and then the exposure is performed as described above, the surface of the photosensitive resin composition layer is affected by the radical polymerization inhibition by oxygen, and therefore, a fine dot smaller than the size of an image provided in the UV blocking layer can be formed, and high resolution can be thus attained.
When the printing is continuously performed for a long period of time, however, a fine dot is abraded through contact between an ink supply roll and a printed body.
The abrasion of the printing plate is unpreferable from the viewpoint of stability in print quality.
On the other hand, an ink density in a blotted portion called as solid printing is also a significant factor in the quality of a printed matter.
An ink density can be increased by increasing a contact pressure between an ink supply roll and a printed body, and a printing plate.
A high contact pressure is, however, not preferable because it causes dot gain and also causes abrasion of the printing plate to proceed.
As a method for increasing an ink density, a method in which a surface of a printing plate is finely shaped to increase the surface area has been proposed.
In this method, a larger amount of an ink can be supplied from an ink supply roll to the surface of the printing plate, and hence the ink density can be increased.
Patent Literature 1 has proposed a method in which a mat layer containing a matting agent is disposed on a photosensitive resin composition layer, so as to transfer minute recess shapes onto a surface of the photosensitive resin composition layer by pressing the photosensitive resin composition layer against minute convexes formed by the matting agent.
This method has, however, a problem that the recess shapes on the surface of the photosensitive resin composition layer are lost during a washing step, and hence an effect of stably increasing an ink density cannot be obtained. When affected by the radical polymerization inhibition by oxygen in curing through exposure, an uppermost surface portion of the photosensitive resin composition layer is not sufficiently cured, and hence there arises a problem that the recess shapes are further lost through the washing step.
Patent Literature 2 has proposed a method in which a mat layer containing a matting agent is disposed on a photosensitive resin composition layer, so as to provide convexes derived from the matting agent to the surface by fixing the mat layer on the photosensitive resin composition layer during plate-making of a printing plate.
This method has, however, a problem that the amount of the matting agent fixed on the surface is insufficient and hence an effect of stably increasing an ink density cannot be obtained. When affected by the radical polymerization inhibition by oxygen, the amount of the fixed matting agent is further reduced through the washing step because the photosensitive resin composition layer is insufficiently cured in some portions.
Patent Literature 3 has proposed a method in which an elastomer layer containing a particulate substance is disposed on a surface of a flexographic printing plate.
Since adhesion strength between the particulate substance and the elastomer layer is insufficient, however, the particulate substance is washed away during a washing step using a development solvent, and there arises a problem that an effect of sufficiently increasing an ink density cannot be obtained. The particulate substance is dropped off through abrasion caused in a printing step, and hence, when the printing is continued for a long period of time, there arises a problem that the effect of increasing the ink density is degraded.

Photosensitive resin constituent for flexographic printing plate and flexographic printing plate


A solution for providing bandwidth grooming functionality in an access network element in order to reduce the amount of data storage required by a switching module disposed therein. Each communication link coupled to the switching module is identified by an address identifier. An allocation storage unit is operable to store the addresses of a select subset of the links in response to a control unit. A multiplexer is provided for selecting the links based on the stored addresses for transmitting data to a data storage unit coupled to the switching module, thereby obviating the need for a much larger data storage unit.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to telecommunications. More particularly, and not by way of limitation, the present invention is directed to bandwidth grooming functionality in an access network element.
2. Description of Related Art
The remote access market is undergoing a major metamorphosis. Three factors serve as catalysts for change. The first is the growing number of users, for example, small office/home office (SOHO) users, demanding high performance Internet and remote access for multimedia. Liberalized governmental activity with respect to telecommunications is another factor, which is fostering broader competition through deregulation in local area markets everywhere. The third and final factor is congestion in the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), originally designated and developed for voice-only traffic.
There have been several important advances in telecommunications technology that enable high rates of throughput in carrier networks' backbone connections. For example, by implementing Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networking technology over a Synchronous Optical Network (SONET)/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) physical layer, carrier networks can achieve data rates of up to several hundred megabits per second (Mbps). However, efforts to meet the bandwidth demand for remote access have been beset by the limitations of the existing twisted-pair copper cable infrastructure (i.e., access network) provided between a carrier's central office (CO) and a subscriber's remote site, typically referred to as the local loop. In the telecommunications art, these limitations are sometimes collectively described as the "last mile" problem.
Current access network solutions that attempt to avoid the bottleneck created by the last-mile problem involve the use of fiber optic technology in the local loop also. As with the high-speed carrier networks, the fiber-based local loop infrastructures are typically architected using SONET as the physical layer technology. With recent developments in optical components and related opto-electronics, in addition to improvements in network design, broadband access is now becoming commonplace.
Moreover, coupled with the phenomenal growth in the popularity of the Internet, there has been a tremendous interest in using packet-switched network (PSN) infrastructures (e.g., those based on Internet Protocol (IP) addressing) as a replacement for the existing circuit-switched network (CSN) infrastructures used in today's telecommunications networks. From the network operators' perspective, the inherent traffic aggregation in packet-switched infrastructures allows for a reduction in the cost of transmission and the infrastructure cost per end-user. Ultimately, such cost reductions enable the network operators to pass on the concomitant cost savings to the end-users.
As can be appreciated by one skilled in the art, concomitant with the aforesaid developments, access networks are being required to handle ever greater amounts of traffic. Whereas an access network node may be provided with an increased number of links in order to handle raw transport bandwidth needs, various internal architectural constraints necessarily follow, especially with respect to the switching functionality of the node.
It is well-known that the switching functionality of telecommunications network nodes, including access terminals, is vital to the performance of the deployed infrastructure. Essentially, the demand for greater number of links to be provisioned for an access terminal translates into a need for a more robust and sophisticated system for storing and processing bandwidth at the switching "fabric" of the terminal.
Conventionally, a time slot interchanger (TSI) mechanism is employed for effectuating a terminal's switching functionality. One existing solution for storing and processing more bandwidth at the TSI is to increase the size of the memory and associated hardware supporting the TSI. Whereas this solution and related variants can be effective in some implementations, they are nonetheless beset with certain shortcomings and deficiencies. First, the additional memory adds hardware cost to the system and introduces a greater probability of error. Moreover, implementing additional memory typically requires a more sophisticated busing structure which adds further complexity to the system. Further, the increased amount of hardware uses valuable "real estate" in today's already crowded access products where stringent form factor requirements exist. Additionally, the current hardware solutions make upgrading of extant access products difficult.

Bandwidth grooming functionality in an access network element


A light filtering system for filtering light from a light source so as to conceal the light source's signature. The light filtering system generally includes an outer member and an inner member which are hingedly secured to each other. The outer member includes a filter insert having a plurality of apertures for filtering light and thus reducing light signature from a light source. The inner member, which is frictionally engaged with the light source, includes a protection insert to prevent damage to the light source when the present invention is installed thereon.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a filtering system and more specifically it relates to a light filtering system for filtering light from a light source so as to conceal the light source's signature.
2. Description of the Related Art
Any discussion of the related art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such related art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
When utilizing a light source to provide light in various areas, it is often desirable to conceal the light source's signature so as to prevent easily detection of the source and location of the light. In the past, light filters have been narrowly adapted to change the light's color (i.e. to green, blue or red) to reduce the light's signature. However, such previously-existing systems have often suffered from limited effectiveness and still allow a large floodlight to be broadcast from the source, thus leaving a much larger signature angle.
Because of the inherent problems with the related art, there is a need for a new and improved light filtering system for filtering light from a light source so as to conceal the light source's signature.


An improved cantilever beam optical switch design which provides the function of a variable optical attenuator (VOA). A small degree of intentional misalignment of the waveguide will create different levels of optical attenuation. By finely controlling the misalignment of a selected switched position, a single device may be realized that will provide the functions of both switching and attenuating or just attenuation alone. The optical MEMS device utilizes a latching mechanism in association with a thermal drive actuator for aligning a cantilever beam platform. The integration of the switching function and the VOA function reduce the optical loss which is otherwise unavoidable when the inevitable alterative of a separate switch and a separate VOA must necessarily be employed. The resultant improved device can also be applied for correcting the difference in optical intensity created by the manufacturing tolerances inherent in the fabrication of array waveguide gratings.

The embodiments disclosed herein relate generally to micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) attenuators and more particularly to variable optical attenuators.
The telecommunications industry is undergoing dramatic changes with increased competition, relentless bandwidth demand, and a migration toward more data-centric network architectures. First generation point-to-point wave division multiplex systems have eased the traffic bottleneck in the backbone portion of a network. As a new cross-connect architecture moves the technology closer to the subscriber side of the network, operators are challenged to provide services at the optical layer, calling for more flexible networks that switch, attenuate and reroute wavelengths. This is placing great emphasis and demand for wavelength agile devices.
The need to provide services "just in time" by allocation of wavelengths, and further migration of the optical layer from the high-capacity backbone portion to the local loop, is driving the transformation of the network toward an all optical network in which basic network requirements will be performed in the optical layer.
The optical network is a natural evolution of point-to-point dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transport to a more dynamic, flexible, and intelligent networking architecture to improve service delivery time. The main element of the optical network is the wavelength (channel), which will be provisioned, configured, routed, attenuated and managed in the optical domain. Intelligent optical networking will be first deployed as an "opaque" network in which periodic optical-electrical conversion will be required to monitor and isolate signal impairments. Longer range, the optical network will evolve to a "transparent" optical network in which a signal is transported from its source to a destination entirely within the optical domain.
A key element of the emerging optical network is an optical add/drop multiplexer (OADM). An OADM will drop or add specific wavelength channels without affecting the through channels. Fixed OADMs can simplify the network and readily allow cost-effective DWDM migration from simple point-to-point topologies to fixed multi-point configurations. True dynamic OADM, in which reconfiguration is done in the optical domain without optical-electrical conversion, would allow dynamically reconfigurable, multi-point DWDM optical networks. This dynamically reconfigurable multi-point architecture is slated to be the next major phase in network evolution, with true OADM an enabling network element for this architecture.
On chip integration of optical switching and planar light circuits has the potential to greatly reduce the size and manufacturing costs of multi-component optical equipment such as Variable Optical Attenuators (VOAs). Current costs for Variable Optical Attenuators (VOAs) are significant, limiting their use to long-haul optical telecommunications networks. In order to extend their use into the metropolitan network the cost will need to be decreased by an order of magnitude without sacrificing performance.
One solution in particular to decreasing cost is through the integration of components, where the primary cost savings will be in packaging. A number of approaches are being pursued for optical integration using Planar Light Circuit (PLC) technologies. The majority of approaches use a silica-on-silicon platform with the VOA formed from the integration of silica Arrayed Waveguide Gratings (AWG's) for multiplexing and demultiplexing, with Thermo-Optic (TO) attenuators for performing the add/drop and pass of the demultiplexed signal. The use of a low-index contrast silica-on-silicon platform severely limits the yield of these components due to the requirement for uniform thick oxide films over large areas to form the waveguides. The use of TO attenuators limits the extensibility due to high-power requirements and thermal cross-talk.
A number of different materials and switching technologies are being explored for fabricating chip-scale photonic lightwave circuits such as AWG's for demultiplexers and multiplexers, Variable Optical Attenuators (VOA's) and Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs). The main material platforms include silica wafers, silica-on-silicon substrates using both thin film deposition and wafer bonding techniques, polymer waveguides defined on silicon substrates, and silicon-on-insulator substrates. The main switching technologies include Mach-Zehnder interferometers based on either a thermo-optic or electro-optic effect, and MEMS mechanical waveguide switches and attenuators.
While silica waveguides have optical properties that are well matched to the optical properties of conventional single mode fibers, and thus couple well to them, they require thick cladding layers due to the low index of refraction contrast between the waveguide core and cladding materials, making them difficult to fabricate using planar processing techniques for fabrication and integration with other on-chip optical devices. The low index of refraction contrast, Δn, between core and cladding also requires large bending radii to limit optical loss during propagation through the photonic lightwave circuit, leading to large chip footprints and low die yields (<50%).
In addition, silica based waveguide attenuators are typically based on Mach-Zehnder interference using thermo-optic effects, that have a limited Extinction Ratio (ER) of around 25-30 dB, require significant power due to the low thermo-optic coefficient of silica, have problems with thermal cross-talk between the different optical channels and have a sinusoidal rather than a digital optical response.
What is needed is a Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) platform for monolithically integrating optical, mechanical and electrical functions. The use of a silicon platform enables fabrication of components using the vast infrastructure and process development available for semiconductor IC manufacturing at silicon foundries. By fabricating the MEMS switches, attenuators and waveguides in the same material, single crystal silicon, there are no stress and strain issues as exist with heterogeneous materials sets such as silica-on-silicon. Fabrication in silicon also allows for integration with CMOS microelectronics for control and sensing capabilities, and for free-carrier plasma dispersion effects to enable signal leveling using integrated VOA's. The high index contrast of silicon (n=3.5) enables the ridge waveguide structures to make tight turns with minimum optical bending loss, decreasing overall chip size to centimeter dimensions.
An optical micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) combination cantilever beam optical switch and attenuator is herein disclosed below. In one embodiment the optical MEMS attenuator is used as an M×N optical signal switching system. The optical MEMS attenuator comprises a plurality of optical waveguides formed on a flexible cantilever beam platform for switching-optical states wherein the state of the optical attenuator is changed by a system of drive and latch actuators. The optical MEMS device utilizes a latching mechanism in association with a thermal drive actuator for aligning the cantilever beam platform. In use the optical MEMS device may be integrated with other optical components to form planar light circuits (PLCs). When attenuators and PLCs are integrated together on a silicon chip, compact higher functionality devices, such as Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs), may be fabricated.
Disclosed in embodiments herein is a micro-electro-mechanical variable optical attenuator comprising a fixed optical waveguide and a movable optical waveguide which may be brought into substantial alignment with the fixed optical waveguide. The micro-electro-mechanical variable optical attenuator further comprises an actuator micro-incrementally misaligning the movable optical waveguide relative to the fixed optical waveguide and a latch that will hold the movable optical waveguide as micro-incrementally misaligned relative to the fixed optical waveguide by the actuator, in a manner such that any optical signal passing through the fixed optical waveguide and movable waveguide is attenuated.
Also disclosed in embodiments herein is a micro-electro-mechanical variable optical attenuator comprising a single optical gap, the single optical gap further comprising a fixed optical waveguide, and a movable optical waveguide, the movable optical waveguide being capable of being brought into substantial alignment with the fixed optical waveguide. The micro-electro-mechanical variable optical attenuator further comprises an actuator micro-incrementally misaligning the movable optical waveguide relative to the fixed optical waveguide, and a latch that will hold the movable optical waveguide as positionally micro-incrementally misaligned, relative to the fixed optical waveguide by the actuator, in a manner such that any optical signal passing through the single optical gap is attenuated.
Further disclosed in embodiments herein is a micro-electro-mechanical system optical switch with integral variable optical attenuator comprising two or more fixed optical waveguides and a movable optical waveguide which may be brought into substantial alignment with any of the two or more fixed optical waveguides. The micro-electro-mechanical system optical switch with integral variable optical attenuator further comprises an actuator for switching the movable optical waveguide to a selected one of the two or more fixed optical waveguides and further capable of micro-incrementally misaligning the movable optical waveguide relative to the selected one of the two or more fixed optical waveguides, and a latch that will hold the movable optical waveguide as micro-incrementally misaligned by the actuator, relative to the selected one of the two or more fixed optical waveguides, in a manner such that any optical signal passing through the single optical gap is attenuated by some variably desired amount.

Cantilever beam MEMS variable optical attenuator


Traditionally, providing parallel processing within a multi-core system has been very difficult. Here, however, a system is provided where serial source code is automatically converted into parallel source code, and a processing cluster is reconfigured “on the fly” to accommodate the parallelized code based on an allocation of memory and compute resources. Thus, the processing cluster and its corresponding system programming tool provide a system that can perform parallel processing from a serial program that is transparent to a user. Generally, a control node connected to the address and data leads of a host processor uses messages to control the processing of data in a processing cluster. The cluster includes nodes of parallel processors, shared function memory, a global load/store, and hardware accelerators all connected to the control node by message busses. A crossbar data interconnect routes data to the cluster circuits separate from the message busses.

Generally, system-on-a-chip designs (SoCs) are based on a combination of programmable processors (central processing units (CPUs), microcontrollers (MCUs), or digital signals processors (DSPs)), application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) functions, and hardware peripherals and interfaces. Typically, processors implement software operating environments, user interfaces, user applications, and hardware-control functions (e.g., drivers). ASICs implement complex, high-level functionality such as baseband physical-layer processing, video encode/decode, etc. In theory, ASIC functionality (unlike physical-layer interfaces) can be implemented by a programmable processor; in practice, ASIC hardware is used for functionality that is generally beyond the capabilities of any actual processor implementation.
Compared to ASIC implementations, programmable processors provide a great deal of flexibility and development productivity, but with a large amount of implementation overhead. The advantages of processors, relative to ASICs are:                Re-use. An application developed once can be implemented on other processors that are at least binary compatible and often only source-level compatible.        Verification leverage. Interfaces are standard, and hardware verification can use relatively standard infrastructure for processor verification from one implementation to the next.        Overlapped development. Software development can be done in parallel with hardware development, or even afterwards.        Track evolving requirements. Since the implementation is based on software, a single hardware platform can satisfy different performance and/or feature requirements.The disadvantages of processors, relative to ASICs are:        Inefficient algorithm mapping. Processors implement specific sets of native datatypes, such as character, short integers, and integers, and these often don't map well to the actual datatypes required by a set of applications, particularly for signal and media processing.        Area inefficiency. To provide flexibility, processor features are normally a union of the requirements of a set of applications, but not optimized for any particular one. Moreover, the requirement to execute existing applications implies that legacy features have to be carried forward to new designs regardless of their fundamental value.        Power inefficiency. This is related to area inefficiency, but there are additional causes, particularly in high-performance implementations. It is common for the hardware devoted to fundamental algorithm operations to be a small subset of the overall implementation, with the remainder devoted to pipelining, branch prediction, caches, etc. As a result, power dissipated is much larger than the power required by fundamental operations.        Energy inefficiency. To support code generation, processors normally spend approximately 30% of execution time performing fundamental operations: the remaining cycles are spent for load, store, flow control (branch) and procedure linkage. If the application executes in a conventional operating environment (RTOS or HLOS), this percentage can be significantly smaller, because of the cycles spent in the operating environment. So the power inefficiency, combined with the number of overhead cycles not directly related to the fundamental application, results in a relatively large energy dissipation compared to what is actually required by the application.        Poor performance scalability. There are two reasons for this. Deep sub-micron process technology, particularly interconnect and transistor scaling effects, lead to performance scaling that is much lower than the "historical" factor of roughly doubling performance every two years. However, even if scaling could keep this pace, the algorithm requirements have grown at a much steeper rate—for example, video processing grows quadratically with resolution.
Not surprisingly, a motivation for ASICs (other than hardware interfaces or physical layers) is to overcome the weaknesses of processor-based solutions. However, ASIC-based designs also have weaknesses that mirror the advantages of processor-based designs. The advantages of ASICs, relative to processors are:                Efficient algorithm mapping. ASIC hardware is customized to the data types, formats, and operations required by the application.        Power Efficiency. Active area can be near the minimum required, because this area is customized to what the application can require and no more.        Energy Efficiency. Not only is active area minimized, but operational hardware (non-control) can be utilized at close to 100%, so cycle count is minimized. Hardware is controlled by state machines, adding little or no cycle overhead        Performance scalability. Functions can be pipelined or performed in parallel, to the level of throughput required. Communication mostly uses short, local interconnect and isn't as sensitive to interconnect scaling as is involved in controlling and clocking a large processor.The disadvantages of ASICs, relative to processors are:        Low re-use. The large amount of customization accomplished with ASICs implies that very little of a particular design has applicability elsewhere.        No verification leverage. Verification is tied to the blocks and interfaces specific to the design, and each design has custom verification environment.        Serial Development. Algorithms and requirements are defined before the design can begin, and little change is possible after design begins        Poor adaptability. Algorithms and requirements should remain mostly "frozen" throughout development—or very nearly so. There is little opportunity to trade off performance and area for multiple cost-performance targets.        Area inefficiency. To provide any sort of flexibility, for example targeting multiple video codecs, hardware is replicated, since the potential for re-use is limited. This is analogous to the area overhead in processors required to provide generality.
Parallel processing, though very simple in concept, is very difficult to use effectively. It is easy to draw analogies to real-world example of parallelism, but computing does not share the same underlying characteristics, even though superficially it might appear to. There are many obstacles to executing programs in parallel, particularly on a large number of cores.
Turning to FIG. 1, an example of a conversion of a conventional serial program 102 to a functionally equivalent parallel program 104 can be seen. As shown, the serial program 102 (and the corresponding parallel program 104) are generally comprised of code sequences or subroutines 120 and 122 that each include a number of instructions. In particular for code sequence 120, a value for a variable x is defined by function 106, and this variable x is used to define a value for a variable z in function 108 of code sequence 122. When executed as serial program 102 on a single processor, the value for variable x is transmitted from definition (by function 106) to use (in function 108) in a processor register or memory (cache) location, taking no more than a few cycles.
However, when code sequences 120 and 122 are converter from serial program 102 to parallel program 104 so as to be executed on two processors, several issues arise. First, sequences 120 and 122 are controlled by two separate program counters so that if the sequences 120 and 122 are left "as is" there is generally no way to ensure that the value for variable x is valid on the attempted read in sequence 122. In fact, in the simplest case, assuming both code sequences 120 and 122 execute sequentially starting at the same time, the value for variable x is not defined in time, because there are many more instructions to the definition of variable x in sequence 120 than there are to the use of variable x in sequence 122. Second, the value for variable x cannot be transmitted through a register or local cache because, although code sequences 120 and 122 have a common view of the address for variable x, the local caches map these addresses to two, physically distinct memory locations. Third, although not shown directly in the FIG. 1, there can be a second update of the value in variable x in sequence 120, but this subsequent update of variable x by sequence 120 should not occur until the previous value has been read by sequence 122.
For at least these reasons, the serial program 102 should be extensively modified to achieve correct parallel execution. First, sequence 120 should wait until sequence 120 signals that variable x has been written, which causes code sequence 122 to incurs delay 112. Delay 112 is generally a combination the cycles that sequence 120 takes to write variable x and delay 110 (the cycles to generate and transmit the signal). This signal is usually a semaphore or similar mechanism using shared memory that incurs the delay of writing and reading shared memory along with delays incurred for exclusive access to the semaphore. The write of variable x in sequence 120 also is subject to a barrier in that sequence 122 cannot be enabled to read variable x until sequence 122 can obtain the correct value for variable x. Generally, there can be no ordering hazards between writing the value and signaling that it has been written, caused by buffering, caching, and so forth, which usually delays execution in sequence 120 some number of cycles (represented by delay 114) compared to writes of unshared data directly into a local cache.
Second, sequence 122 generally cannot read its local cache directly to obtain variable x because the write of variable x by sequence 120 would have caused an invalidation of the cache line containing code sequence 120. Sequence 122 incurs additional delay 116 to obtain the correct value from level-2 (L2) cache for sequence 120 or from shared memory. Third, sequence 122 generally imposes additional delays (due in part to delay 118) on sequence 120 before any subsequent write by sequence 120 so that all reads in sequence 122 are complete before sequence 120 changes the value of variable x. This not only can stall the progress of sequence 120 but can also delay the new value of variable x such that sequence 122 has to wait again for the new value. Because of the number of cycles that sequence 122 spends obtaining the value for variable x, sequence 120 could potentially be ahead in subsequent iterations even though it was behind in the first iteration, but synchronization between sequences 120 and 122 tends to serialize both programs so there is little, if any, overlap.
The operations used to synchronize and ensure exclusive access to shared variables normally are not safe to implement directly in application code because of the hazards that can be introduced (e.g., timing-dependent deadlock). Thus, these operations are usually implemented by system calls, which cases delays due to procedure call and return and, possibly, context switching. The net effect is that a simple operation in sequential code (i.e., serial program 102) can be transformed into a much more complex set of operations in the "parallel" code (i.e., parallel program 104), and have a much longer execution time. The result is that parallel programming is limited to applications that do not incur significant overhead for parallel execution. This implies that: 1) there is essentially no data interaction between programs (e.g., web servers); 2) the amount of data shared is a small portion of the datasets used in computing (e.g., finite-element analysis); or 3) the number of computing cycles is very large in proportion to the amount of data shared (e.g., graphics).
Even if the overhead of parallel execution is small enough to make it worthwhile, overhead can significantly limit the benefit. This is especially true for parallel execution on more than two cores. This limitation is captured in a simplified equation for the effect, known as Amdahl's Law, which compares the performance of single-core execution to that of multiple-core execution. According to Amdahl's Law, a certain percentage of single-core execution cannot feasibly be executed in parallel because the overhead is too high. Namely, the overhead incurred is the sum of the percentage of time spent without parallel execution and the percentage of time spent for synchronization and communication.
Turning to FIG. 2, a graph can be seen that depicts speedup in execution rate versus parallel overhead for a multi-core systems (ranging from 2 to 16 cores), where speedup is the single-processor execution time divided by the parallel-processor execution time. As can be seen, the parallel overhead has to be close to zero to obtain a significant benefit from large number of cores. But, since the overhead tends to be very high if there is any interaction between parallel programs, it is normally very difficult to efficiently use more than one or two processors for anything but completely decoupled programs.
Further limiting the applicability of parallel processing is the cost of multiple cores. In FIG. 3, the die areas of processors 302, 306, and 310 are compared. Processor 310 has 16 high-performance general-purpose cores 312, processor 306 has 16 moderate-performance general-purpose cores 308, and processor 302 has 16 high-performance custom cores 304. As can be seen, the high-performance general-purpose processor 310 uses the largest amount of area, and the application-specific processor 302 uses the least amount of area.
Turning to FIG. 4, the throughput of processors 302, 306, and 310 can be seen. The block for processor 302 illustrates die area assuming that throughput (results 402) is determined only by the basic operation required by an application—assuming that only the functional units determine throughput, thus maximizing the operations per cycle per mm2 (comparable to what could be accomplished with a hard-wired ASIC). The block for processor 306 illustrates the effect of including loads, stores, branches, and procedure calls into the mix of operations, where it can be assumed that these operations (in sum) to represent roughly two-third of the cycles taken, reducing throughput by a factor of 3. To achieve the same throughput as that determined by the basic functions, the number of cores should be increased by a factor of 3 to compensate. The block for processor 310 illustrates the effect of adding system calls, synchronization, context switches, and so forth, which reduces throughput by another factor of 3, requiring a factor of 3 increase in the number of cores to compensate.
There is another dimension to the difficulty of parallel computing; namely, it is the question of how the potential parallelism in an application is expressed by a programmer. Programming languages are inherently serial, text-based. Transforming a serial language into a large number of parallel processes is a well-studied problem that has yielded very little in actual results.
Turning to FIG. 5, an example of a conversion of serial source code 502 to parallel implementation 504 with conventional symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) using OPENMP® (which is a register trademark of OpenMP Architecture Review Board Corp., 1906 Fox Drive Champaign, Ill. 61820) can be seen. OPENMP® programming involves using a set of pre-defined "pragmas" or compiler directives that allow the programmer to aid the compiler in locating opportunities for parallel execution. These "pragmas" are ignored by compilers that do not implement OPENMP®, so the source code can be compiled to execute serially, with equivalent results to the parallel implementation (though the parallel implementation can introduce errors that do not appear in the serial implementation).
As shown, this example illustrates the use of several directives, which are embedded in the text following the headers ("#pragma omp"). Specifically, these directives include loops 506 and 508 and function 510, and each of loops 506 and 508 respectively employs functions 512 and 514. This source code 502 is shown as a parallel implementation 504 and is executed on four threads over four processors. Since these threads are created by serial operating-system code 502, the threads are not generally created at exactly the same time, and this lack of overlap increases the overall execution time. Also, the input and result vectors are shared. Reading the input vectors generally can require synchronization periods 516-1, 516-3, 516-5, and 516-7 to ensure there are no writers updating the data (a relatively short operation). Writing the results in write periods 518, 520, 522, 524, 526, 528, 530, and 532 can require synchronization periods 516-2, 516-4, 516-6, and 516-8 because one thread can be updating the result vectors at any given time (even though in this case the vector elements being updated are independent, serializing writes is a general operation that applies to shared variables). After another synchronization and communication period 516-9, 516-10, 516-11, and 516-12, the threads obtain multiple copies of the result vectors and compute function 510.
As shown, there can be significant overhead to parallel execution and a lack of parallel overlap, which is why parallel execution is made conditional on the vector length. It might be uncommon for the compiler to chose to implement the code in parallel, as a function of the system and the average vector length. However, when the code is implemented in parallel, there are a couple of subtle issues related to the way the code is written. To improve efficiency, the programmer should recognize that the expression for function 510 can be executed by multiple threads and obtain the same value and should explicitly declare function 510 as a private variable even though the expression that assigns function 510 contains only shared variables. Declaring function 510 as shared would result in four threads serializing to perform the same, lengthy computation to update the shared variable function 510 with the same value. This serialization time is on the order of four times the amount of time taken to complete the earlier, parallel vector adds, making it impossible to benefit from parallel execution and making vector length the wrong criteria for implementing the code in parallel since this serialization time is directly proportional to vector length. Furthermore, whether or not function 510 can be private is a function of the expression that assigns the value. For example, assume that function 510 is later changed to include a shared variable "offset" as follows:
(1) scale=sum(a,0,n)+sum(z,0,n)+offset++;
In this case, function 510 should be declared as shared, but it is insufficient. This change implies that the code should not be allowed to execute in parallel because of serialization overhead. Code development and maintenance not only includes the target functionality, but also how changes in the functionality affect and interact with the surrounding parallelism constructs.
There is another issue with the code 502 in this example, namely, an error introduced for the purpose of illustration. The loop termination variable n is declared as private, which is correct because variable n is effectively a constant in each thread. However, private variables are not initialized by default, so variable n should be declared as shared so that the compiler initializes the value for all threads. This example works well when the compiler chooses a serial implementation but fails for a parallel one. Since this code 502 is conditionally parallel, the error is not easy to test for.
This example is a very simple error because it will likely usually fail, assuming that the code can be forced to execute in parallel (depending on how uninitialized variables are handled). However, there are an almost infinite number of synchronization and communication errors that can be introduced with OpenMP directives (this example is a communication error)—and many of these can result in intermittent failures depending on the relative timing and performance of the parallel code, as well as the execution order chosen by the scheduler.
Thus, there is a need for an improved processing cluster and associated tool chain.

Integrated circuit with control node circuitry and processing circuitry


A radio input device includes a holding part to be held by an operator; an operation part to be operated by the operator; a transmission part transmitting radio waves from an antenna according to the operation of the operation part; and a blocking part avoiding influence of a surrounding electric conductor on the radio waves.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radio input device, and, in particular, to a radio input device having a holding part to be held by an operator, an operation part to be operated by the operator, and a transmission part transmitting radio waves from an antenna according to the operator's operation on the operation part.
2. Description of the Related Art
For a computer system, a recent trend is to configure a peripheral device such as a mouse, a keyboard, or such, in such a manner that it may be operated in a wireless manner, for the purpose of simplification of electric connection for such a periodical device or improvement in operation convenience of the same. Radio waves, infrared waves or such may be applied for achieving such a configuration to enable wireless operation.
Thereamong, a method of applying radio waves has an advantage of signal penetrability, an advantage of not being likely to be affected by an obstruction or such thanks to diffraction or reflection of radio waves, and also, advantage of flexibility of location of mounting a relevant facility.
A wireless mouse in a radio wave type has a radio transmission unit built therein, and, transmits coordinate information input by means of a coordinate input part, by means of radio waves from the radio transmission unit (see Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2002-196844).


A data storage medium has a first memory area that is read-only and stores first certification data that is unique to the data storage medium, a second memory area that stores data and second certification data supplied from the outside, an identity circuit for determining whether or not the first and second certification data are identical with each other, and a switch circuit for providing the data stored in the second memory area to the outside only when the identity circuit determines that the first and second certification data are identical with each other. If data is written into the data storage medium with illegal certification data, the data storage medium disables the reading of the written data from the data storage medium, thereby preventing the illegal copying of digital data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data storage media for storing digital data, and particularly, to data storage media having certification data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of information in characters, images, video, and audio are presently handled as digital data. To record digital data and programs, a variety of storage media such as tapes, floppy disks, hard disks, and magneto-optical disks are used.
The floppy disks are one of popular media. When data are written or read, the floppy disks need to be rotated. Therefore, the disk-drives must have a motor and a rotating mechanism. Due to this, the floppy disks are improper for electronic devices that must be small and light.
Portable electronic devices need external data storage media that are small and light and ensure compatibility among various types of electronic devices.
Data storage media that meet these requirements are those having nonvolatile semiconductor memories which are electrically rewritable. For example, card-type data storage media incorporating nonvolatile semiconductor memories are suitable for the portable electronic devices. Many techniques have been developed to record contents such as still images, voice, and music in the card-type data storage media.
Unlike analog data, digital data never deteriorates even if it is repeatedly copied among data storage media. It is required, therefore, to provide a technique of preventing the illegal copying of digital contents.
In particular, electronic commerce and electronic banking must prevent the illegal alteration and copying of data, in particular, personal identification data stored in data storage media.

Data storage medium with certification data


A back light module and a method for driving the back light module are disclosed. The back light module includes a plurality of light emitting units and a driving unit. The driving unit is electrically connected to the light emitting units and utilized for driving the light emitting units according to a switched-on number of the light emitting units and a dithering scheme.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for controlling a light emitting unit, and more particularly, to a back light module utilizing a dithering scheme to drive a plurality of light emitting units, and a related driving method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Light emitting diodes (LEDs) used as light sources have become popular in recent years. For example, the light source in a back light module of a conventional liquid crystal display (LCD) panel is usually a plurality of cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs). However, as the luminous efficiency of an LED increases and the cost of LEDs decreases, CCFLs are gradually being replaced by LEDs as the light source in a back light unit.
The LED back light module is implemented with a driving scheme of controlling divided areas. In other words, the LCD panel and the LED back light are divided into a plurality of areas, wherein each area of the LCD panel corresponds to each area of the LED back light unit. Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a diagram of a conventional back light module 100 of an LCD. As shown in FIG. 1, the back light module 100 includes a plurality of LEDs 110, a timing controller 120, a pulse width modulation (PWM) controller 130, and a plurality of switches 140. The timing controller 120 outputs a control signal SC according to the peak values of the gray levels in different areas of the LCD panel. The PWM controller 130 is electrically connected to the timing controller 120 and utilized for controlling an on/off state of the switches 140 according to the control signal Sc in order to adjust the luminance of each area of the LEDs 110.
In prior art schemes, the back light module utilizes high power LEDs. If the luminance of an LED is divided into 17 (i.e. 42+1) levels, the PWM controller 130 has to transmit a 4-bit control signal to control the LED. Thus, the data transmission quantity will increase when the LED has more luminance levels. In addition, there is a problem of overheating of the LEDs due to the LEDs usually emitting light for a long time. If one of the LEDs fails, it will result in the whole light source being of unstable quality.

Back light module and driving method thereof


A one-way valve comprises a seat and a membrane having an inner portion that is stretched over the seat, wherein, in use, the inner membrane portion is selectively deflected from the seat such that a fluid path is created from one side of the membrane to the other so as to open the valve, and wherein an outer peripheral portion of the membrane is stiffer than the inner portion such that the membrane deflection is substantially restricted to only the inner portion. The one-way valve may be used in a pump for an infusion system.

Therapeutic products can be administered to a human or animal in a variety of ways and the administration method is often matched to the specific requirements of the therapeutic product and its intended action. While oral administration is typically preferred, some therapeutic products, such as insulin, have to be administered in such as way as to avoid the digestive system, or it may be beneficial to deliver them directly to the site of intended action.
The administration of therapeutic products to avoid the digestive tract is known as parenteral delivery and is typically achieved by administering the therapeutic product as a liquid formulation directly into the circulation. This is commonly performed using a syringe or equivalent device to deliver a bolus of therapeutic product, or an infusion system capable of continuous, and in some cases programmed, delivery of therapeutic product. It is clear that the controlled administration of the therapeutic product more adequately matches the clinical requirement of these products, often offering better therapeutic control and reducing toxicity.
There is a growing demand for intensive insulin therapies for controlling glucose in people with diabetes. These therapies require that the patient administer regular insulin in an attempt to mimic the daily pattern of insulin release in an individual without diabetes. The pattern of insulin release in people without diabetes is complex. Generally, there is a background level of insulin that acts to control a fasting glucose and this is supplemented by temporary increases that counteract glucose released from ingested meals.
To meet this demand a number of infusion systems have appeared based on positive pressure reservoirs working in cooperation with a pulsatile pumping chamber having one-way check-valves operating at the inlet and/or the outlet of the pumping chamber.
An exemplary prior art infusion system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,486,190. This document describes an infusion system where therapeutic product is held in a reservoir at a positive pressure. Therapeutic product is withdrawn from the reservoir through a one-way check-valve that forms an inlet valve to a pumping chamber. A flow restrictor is provided at the outlet of the pumping chamber. Drawing of a membrane of the pumping chamber increases the volume of the pumping chamber, thereby decreasing the pressure in the pumping chamber. This causes an increase in the pressure differential across the inlet valve to beyond a predetermined activation pressure of the inlet valve which opens in response. This enables the therapeutic product to enter the pumping chamber. The pumping chamber membrane moves under the action of a solenoid which, when released, causes the pumping chamber membrane to return to its original position. The inlet valve shuts under the action of a return spring and the therapeutic product empties from the pumping chamber via the outlet and the flow restrictor. The system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,486,190 suffers a drawback in that the filling efficiency of the pumping chamber is affected by the pressure at the outlet. In addition, the design of the system is prone to allowing uncontrolled flow of therapeutic product due to leaking of the inlet valve. To prevent this, the activation pressure of the inlet valve could be increased but this would then compromise the pumping efficiency.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,152,098 describes a micro-pump for an infusion system that incorporates one-way check-valves at an inlet and an outlet of the micro-pump. Each one-way check-valve is formed by sandwiching a rubber membrane between two rigid layers. The rigid layers have a protrusion formed on one layer and a corresponding recess formed in the opposite layer at the site of the valves. A fluid conduit passes up through a center of the protrusion that is covered by the membrane. The membrane has a hole offset from an opening of the fluid conduit in the protrusion. During assembly, the membrane is located onto one of the rigid layers and held in place by gluing it to one or both of the rigid layers. The gluing of the membrane to the rigid layer(s) ensures that the membrane does not move during assembly and stretches over the protrusion to provide sealing. The need to glue the membrane during the assembly process significantly increases the complexity of the manufacture of the micro-pump. It also serves to increase the opportunity for assembly problems and seepage of the glue. These problems are significantly increased when an attempt is made to reduce the size of micro-pumps yet further.
The provision of a one-way check-valve at the outlet of the pumping chamber having a sufficiently high activation pressure to prevent free flow of liquid under expected operating conditions is necessary for micro-pumps for use in infusion systems, where uncontrolled flow of therapeutic product into the patient would be unacceptable. The activation pressure of the outlet valve can be designed to be overcome by the pressure generated by a pumping stroke of the pumping chamber. On the other hand, the one-way check-valve at the inlet could have a relatively low activation pressure, sufficient to seal but which allows the inlet valve to open readily once a filling stroke of the pumping chamber initiates.
In the above described prior art, the valves are assembled using conventional machining techniques and are relatively large. In addition, the devices described are not suitable for disposable, short term use.
WO 02/068823 describes a further passive membrane-type micro-valve formed of multiple layers having cut outs. The assembled valve includes a membrane having an aperture formed therein. A valve inlet is disposed on one side of the membrane and a valve outlet is disposed on the opposite side. A region of the membrane immediately surrounding the aperture is stretched over a valve seat on which the membrane rests when the valve is closed. Again, a positive fluid pressure in the valve inlet causes the membrane to deflect from the valve seat when above some undefined activation pressure, and fluid is then able to pass through the small aperture and from the valve outlet. A reduction in the fluid pressure permits the membrane to return to the valve seat, closing the valve. Valves of this type are slightly improved over those in U.S. Pat. No. 4,152,098 since some consideration is given to factors affecting the activation pressure. However, the membrane material is inherently flexible giving rise to misalignment of the inlet, outlet and valve seat during manufacture. This can adversely affect control of the activation pressure. It is also observed in this type of valve design that the tension of the valve membrane cannot be accurately controlled during the assembly of the device and that this leads to variability in the performance of the valve.
There is therefore a need in the art for an improved one-way micro-valve for a micro-pump, that is very small, lightweight, inexpensive and disposable, having an accurately defined activation pressure. The micro-valve should also be suitable for manufacture in a variety of sizes for various applications and having a range of accurately predetermined activation pressures. These and other objects will become apparent from the following description of the invention.


A spark plug is provided having a resistor. The resistor is made from resistor glass material containing an alkali free barium alumino-silicate glass mixed with mullite. In one embodiment, the resistor is a 15 to 30 wt % alkali free barium alumino-silicate glass and 10 to 25 wt % mullite. The resistor material provides for a greater processing kiln temperature range with reduced resistor variability and improved durability performance.

This application is a divisional of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/444,098 filed Apr. 11, 2012, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to a spark plug and in particular to a spark plug having a resistor made with glass materials with an increased glass transition temperature.
Spark plugs are widely used to ignite fuel in internal combustion engines. Spark plugs are subject to intense heat in a highly corrosive environment of a vehicle engine. As a result, a spark plug having high durability and useful life is desireable. Further, in addition to igniting fuel, in some applications the spark plug is influencing the senor signal acquired by the vehicle control system to monitor the operation of the engine. These applications typically require tighter electrical tolerances and lower electromagnetic interference (EMI) to reduce interference with signals from both the spark plug itself and the surrounding control circuitry.
Accordingly, while existing spark plugs are suitable for their intended purposes, there remains a need for improvements particularly in providing a spark plug with tighter resister tolerance.


An architecture for presenting web content that modularizes the various components of that content. A “wire frame” defines spatial regions of a page of content. The regions are called “slots.” A “view” defines a mapping or binding between the slots in a wire frame, and objects that generate content. A rendering engine fills the slots with content based on the objects bound to the slots. Slots can be bound to controls, eXtensible Style Language (XSL) tags, or other views. Controls are executable or interpretable code that generate content to fill a slot. An XSL processor can also generate such content based on an XSL tag. Additionally, views can be used recursively so that the content of a slot can be generated by another view. Controls can receive parameters from a configuration file, so that a given control can produce different variations of a given underlying piece of content.

A conventional web page comprises content in a markup language, such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), which is suitable for rendering by a web browser. Some web pages are static—i.e., a piece of constant, unchanging HTML or XHTML content may be stored in a file that can be downloaded to a client machine and displayed on a browser. However, most commercial web content, such as content provided by search sites, portal sites, E-commerce sites, is not static, but rather is generated dynamically so that it can be personalized for the user or generated in response to some input from the user.
Dynamically-generated content is generated by a program designed for that purpose. Such a program is a module of executable or interpretable code that creates content according to set of rules or procedures. For example, when a user transmits a query to a search engine site, the search engine consults various sources (e.g., databases of known web pages) to produce results, and then a content-generating program at the search engine site generates a page of HTML content that includes the results, and transmits that page to the user. Clearly, such a results page must be generated dynamically, since the content of the results page will differ depending upon what query the user has submitted.
While existing software is effective at dynamically generating web content, such software suffers from a lack of flexibility when there is a creative change to the content that the program needs to produce. For example, a search engine may use a program that displays search results as a list of the titles of web pages that the search engine has located. However, if the operator of the search engine wishes to introduce a new way of presenting these results (e.g., enhancing the list with thumbnail images of the located web pages), in general the only way to accomplish this change is to rewrite the program (or, at least, to add code to the program that supports inclusion of the thumbnail images).
Most web content can be viewed as being built from modular "building blocks" of smaller pieces of content. For example, a search results page is made up of various separate pieces of content (e.g., a logo, a copyright notice, the results of the most recent search, a search box for entering another search query, advertisements, etc.). In theory, the modular nature of web content suggests that a single program could drive the content generation process, by building content from modular building blocks that the content designer would provide at run time. A creative change to the content would not necessitate a change to such a program, since the program could simply be directed to use different building blocks to produce different content. However, conventional content-generation software is extremely limited in terms of what types of created changes can be made to the content without changing the software itself.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a system that overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art.

Infrastructure for generating web content


A sculpturing tool includes a movable member and a rotatable member respectively received in the main tube which is connected to a driving member connected to the rotatable member. The movable member is connected to blade at its first end and has a first ball rotatably and eccentrically received in its second end thereof. The rotatable member has a second ball rotatably and eccentrically received in the end opposite to the driving member so that when the rotatable member is rotated, the movable member is moved in the longitudinal direction when the second ball rolls over the first ball.

A conventional sculpturing tool has a chuck device connected to the front end of the tool so as to securely connect a blade or the like thereto. The chuck device is driven by a vibrating device which is operated at a very high speed to that the blade can remove material of the object to be formed a desired article. The vibrating device generally comprises two parts which move relative to each other so that a high temperature heat will be generated between the two contact surfaces of the two parts. The heat will transferred to the user's hand holding the sculpturing tool, this makes the user uncomfortable, although there is a sleeve mounted to the device.
The present invention intends to provide the vibrating device of the sculpturing tool, wherein the vibrating device comprises two parts each of which has a ball eccentrically and rotatably mounted thereto so that the contact area is very small when one of the two parts is rotated to push the other part to move in the longitudinal direction. Therefore, the vibrating device of the present invention can well resolve the problems as mentioned above.