In accordance with one embodiment, an information processing apparatus comprises an interface and a control section. The interface receives the identification information of a user-designated sheet sent from a first terminal and the position information of the first terminal. The control section specifies, based on the identification information of the sheet and the position information, an information terminal capable of forming an image on the sheet designated by a user from the data stored in a storage section and sends information relating to the specified information terminal to the first terminal using the interface.

Conventionally, there is provided a service of ordering and obtaining printing targets such as postcards having a favorable design in an order-made manner. However, such a service is not used widely due to the limitations in quantity and cost.
Besides, a kiosk terminal is available which is arranged in a store or facility for a user to operate to obtain desired information. The kiosk terminal may also be capable of accepting a printing job and printing on a sheet.
When printing with the kiosk terminal, a user generally acquires a design from the Internet and the like and then carries out an editing job of, for example, inputting an address and an addressee and changing part of the design. Then, the user stores the edited data in a portable flash memory or the like and prints the edited data using a kiosk terminal arranged in a store nearby.
The kiosk terminal can only prints postcards of specific sizes or specific materials but cannot print postcards of other sizes or materials. Moreover, the kiosk terminal cannot print or form an image with, for example, gold leaf since the terminal doesn't comprise special coloring material. In this case, it is needed to use a sheet which is specially processed in advance and sold in a store to carry out a printing job, however, the store does not deal with the specially processed sheet, and sometimes it is even impossible to acquire a processed sheet.
Thus, when printing with a kiosk terminal which is arranged in a store and cannot be widely used due to the order-made manner, how to obtain a printed sheet, and that whether or not the kiosk terminal deals with the sheet become a problem. In order to solve these problems, information such as 'whether or not a sheet can be obtained from a store nearby' and ' whether or not the sheet, if obtained, can be printed' needs to be acquired when printing a desirable design.

Information processing apparatus for printing special sheet or special design and method using the same


A method of and a system for synchronizing isochronous audio data frames provided by a USB interface to a clock of a wireless RF communication device is provided. The USB interface and the wireless RF communication device are connected via an I2S link, the method comprising receiving the isochronous audio data frames and the wireless RF communication device clock in a streaming controller, phase locking the isochronous audio data frames to a USB interface clock, counting start-of-frame pulses of the phase locked isochronous audio data frames, comparing the counted start-of-frame pulses with the wireless RF communication device clock to determine a difference signal, the difference signal triggering a synchronization event code when a threshold difference has been reached, rate matching the isochronous audio data frames to the wireless RF communication device clock upon receiving the synchronization event code.

Audio programs, for e.g. Voice over IP, audio streaming, etc., are well-known, and software for these programs are readily available for installation on a computer. The data stream may be provided to an external device, such as headphones, mixers, loudspeakers, headsets, etc. Typically, a wired connection has been made via audio jacks for providing audio to speakers and receiving input from microphones.
However, the wired connections tying a user to the computer are in many situations not advantageous, and consequently, wireless devices may be preferred. Wireless devices may be connected directly to the computer, using e.g. the Bluetooth standard. It may however for some applications be advantageously to connect the computer to a wireless RF hub using a USB interface.
The communication of audio data between the USB interface and the RF hub may prove challenging, especially for low latency applications, such as telephony.
It has been suggested to use an adaptive mode in which the computer controls the audio transfer rate and the USB has to update a master clock e.g. every one millisecond. However, this requires a complex frequency synthesizer, and may not be an available option for all computer operating systems in that different operating systems provide different control signals.
It is also known to use a synchronous data stream and provide a buffer to buffer incoming data having a first sample rate and outputting data at a second sample rate. However, for low latency data, such as in telephony systems, the delay caused by the buffer is typically not acceptable.
In another approach, the digital signal provided by the USB interface is converted into an analog signal, and the analog signal is provided to an ND converter providing the converted digital signal to the RF wireless device. However, this method is complex, requires a D/A and an ND converter, and results in the loss of data and thus a loss of signal information at each conversion.
Thus, there is a need for an improved communication of audio data between a USB interface and a wireless RF hub.

Adaptive isochronous USB audio to RF communication device


A power-voltage driver circuit includes a first MOS transistor configured to turn a second MOS transistor off when a high-voltage generator provides a high voltage output. Related methods are also disclosed.

Some nonvolatile semiconductor memories use the mechanisms of Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) tunneling and hot-electron injection to store data. Practically, in order to erase/program data using the F-N tunneling and hot-electron injection effects, high voltages of 15V through 20V may be needed together with a power source voltage. In general, a semiconductor memory device operable under a low power source voltage can employ a high-voltage generation circuit to generate a power source voltage and a high voltage.
FIG. 1 shows a high-voltage generation circuit of a semiconductor memory device according to the conventional art. The high-voltage generation circuit shown in FIG. 1 includes a high-voltage generator 10, a power-voltage driver 20, and a ground-voltage driver 40. The high-voltage generation circuit drives an output signal VOUT to a high voltage that is greater than a power source voltage VDD in response to a high-voltage control signal HVCON. The power-voltage driver 20 drives the output signal VOUT to the power source voltage VDD in response to a ground-voltage control signal GNCON.
As shown in FIG. 1, the power-voltage driver 20 includes depletion NMOS and PMOS transistors, 21 and 23, connected between an output node N60 and the power source voltage VDD. The NMOS transistor 21 is gated by the power-voltage control signal VDCON while the PMOS transistor 23 is gated by an inverse signal nVDCON of the power-voltage control signal VDCON.
However, in the conventional high-voltage generation circuit, charges accumulated at the output node N60 may leak toward the power source voltage VDD when the output signal VOUT is driven to a high voltage. In more detail, when the output signal VOUT is being driven to a high voltage, the power-voltage control signal VDCON goes to a logical "L" level (i.e., the level of the ground voltage VSS) and the inverse power-voltage control signal nVDCON goes to a logical "H" level (i.e., the level of the power source voltage VDD). In response, a voltage level at a common junction N22 shared by the two depletion NMOS transistors 21 and 25 is set to the level of VDD+Vt, while a voltage level at a common junction N24 shared by the NMOS and PMOS transistors 21 and 23 is set to the level of Vt. Here, Vt denotes a threshold voltage of the depletion NMOS transistor 21 or 25.
When the power source voltage VDD is pulled down to a lower voltage, the PMOS transistor 23 may turn on in response to the reduced VDD. As a result, when the output signal VDOUT is being driven to a high voltage, the high voltage generation efficiency may be degraded because charges accumulated at the output node N60 may leak into the power-voltage driver 20.

High-voltage generation circuits and nonvolatile semiconductor memory device with improved high-voltage efficiency and methods of operating


A toothbrush which is adapted to contain a significant quantity of toothpaste therein and to dispense the toothpaste onto the toothbrush bristles. The toothbrush generally comprises a hollow handle having a brush head formed integrally on its top end, a disposable toothpaste containing cartridge supported within its interior, and a piston mechanism threadably attached to its bottom end. The piston mechanism is adapted to force the toothpaste out of the handle into a conduit formed through the brush head. The conduit leads from the interior of the handle to a plurality of outlet holes disposed below resilient valves in a rubber gasket layer which supports the bristles. The valves allow toothpaste to flow from the conduit onto the bristles of the toothpaste while preventing water or other fluids from flowing into the conduit to contaminate the toothpaste supply.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toothbrush. More specifically, the invention relates to a toothbrush which contains a significant quantity of toothpaste therein and dispenses the toothpaste onto the toothbrush bristles.
2. Description of Related Art
In many different circumstances when a person does not have access to convenient bathroom facilities, such as when traveling or camping, it is desirable to have a toothbrush which may be stored and transported with a minimum of difficulty. Additionally, it is often inconvenient at times to carry a supply of toothpaste in addition to the toothbrush. For these reasons, several toothbrushes which contain a significant supply of toothpaste therein that may be easily dispensed onto the brush head have been disclosed in the prior art.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,155, issued Nov. 19, 1991 to Philip H. English and Anthony D. Szpak discloses a toothbrush having a removable and disposable handle portion adapted to contain a significant quantity of toothpaste therein. The disposable handle relies on a screw driven piston mechanism to force toothpaste from the handle, through a channel formed through the brush head, and onto the bristles. A tube is located at the outlet of the channel formed through the brush head to help dispense toothpaste onto the top of the bristles and a valve helps prevent the toothpaste within the toothbrush from being contaminated.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,578,922, issued Mar. 30, 1926 to Joseph A. Sargery, 3,141,465, issued Jul. 24, 1964 to Thomas S. Petropoulos, and Belgium Patent number 526,405, issued Feb. 27, 1954, disclose toothbrushes which are adapted to have a toothpaste containing cartridge placed within the handle thereof. All three toothbrushes rely on a screw driven piston mechanism to force the toothpaste out of the cartridge, through a channel in the brush head, and onto the bristles of the toothbrush.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,125, issued Sep. 18, 1990 to Merle L. Yaneza, discloses a toothbrush having a handle adapted to be filled with a significant quantity of toothpaste and a screw driven piston mechanism adapted to force the toothpaste through a hole in the top of the handle. The brush head of the toothbrush threadably attaches to the top of the handle to seal the toothpaste dispensing hole therein and a floss dispensing mechanism is fixedly attached to the bottom of the handle.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,995,648, issued Dec. 7, 1976 to Michael A. Kuryla, and French Patent Number 1,034,682, issued Jul. 29, 1953, disclose toothbrushes having hollow handles adapted to contain a significant quantity of toothpaste therein and screw driven piston mechanisms adapted to force the toothpaste through a channel in the brush head and onto the bristles of the toothbrush. The screw driven piston mechanisms of the both toothbrushes may be removed from within the handle to allow the handle to be refilled with toothpaste.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,145,147, issued Mar. 20, 1979 to Joseph T. Schuck, 4,201,490, issued May 6, 1980 to Augustino D'Angelo, and 5,026,191, issued Jun. 25, 1991 to Cesar Akly disclose toothbrushes which contain significant quantities of toothpaste in hollow handle portions and which utilize screw driven piston mechanisms to force the toothpaste through a channel in the brush head and onto the bristles of the toothbrush. None of the toothbrushes mentioned above are adapted to be refilled.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,062,635, issued Dec. 13, 1977 to Wu Teh-Sheng, and Italian Patent Number 420,129 issued Apr. 16, 1947, disclose toothpaste dispensing toothbrushes which dispense toothpaste from a reservoir within the toothbrush handle onto the bristles of the toothbrush. The toothbrushes mentioned above both rely on a directly driven piston to dispense the toothpaste contained therein.
However, none of the prior art discloses a toothbrush which has a hollow handle adapted to receive a disposable toothpaste cartridge therein, a screw driven piston mechanism for forcing the toothpaste from the handle, and a plurality of elastic valves regulating the flow of toothpaste onto the bristles of the brush head.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.


An evaporative cooler, including one or more media modules, distributes water from a source of water to each module through a constant flow valve. A distribution unit at each media module includes a spray bar for spraying water through a plurality of uniformly spaced holes having an aggregate area equivalent to or less than twenty five percent (25%) of the internal cross sectional area of the spray bar. A distribution cap distributes the streams of water to the underlying media module(s) and the water dripping from the media module(s) is drained. A fan or other air moving device draws air through the media module(s) to obtain cooled air resulting from evaporation of water flowing downwardly along the media module(s). A microprocessor controller, responsive to any of one or more sensors for sensing the temperature of the air flowing into and out of the media module(s), the relative humidity of the air flowing into and out of the media module(s), the pressure differential between the upstream and downstream sides of the media module(s), the temperature of the water flowing to the spray bar(s), the fan speed, and the pressure differential between the downstream side of the media module(s) and the downstream side of the fan, controls the flow of water and the fan speed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to water distribution systems for evaporative coolers and, more particularly, to a water distribution system for controlling distribution of water uniformly across a media to avoid dry spots, scaling, streaking and distribution of excess water.
2. Description of Related Art
Evaporative cooling appears to be a simple process of passing hot dry air through a wet pad or media to evaporate the water with the latent heat of the air and inherently the air becomes cooler and more humid. In reality, there are three complex mechanical and chemical processes taking place in an evaporative cooler. The first process is the air system which is controlled by the pyschrometric chart and the efficiency of the media. The second process is the water delivery system that has to ensure that the media has sufficient water for evaporation and that the media is uniformly wetted. The third process is the water chemistry system where the water for evaporation is controlled so that the naturally occurring dissolved solids in the water remain in solution and are disposed of prior to being deposited on the media. Almost all evaporative coolers built to date have made only first order approximations for one or more of the processes and have either ignored or been unaware of the others.
The air around us is essentially a constant composition of gases (nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and others) and varying amounts of water vapor. It also contains solid impurities such as dust and organic material, which will be ignored in the following discussion. The gas component of air behaves in accordance with Boyle's and Charles' laws, i.e. the volume of the gas varies inversely with the absolute pressure and directly with the absolute temperature, respectively. The water vapor portion of air does not behave as a perfect gas. The amount of moisture in the air is dependant on the amount of moisture available and is limited to a maximum saturation value based on the air temperature and pressure. As moisture is added to or removed from the air, water is either evaporated or condensed. This change in phase captures or releases energy. In evaporative cooling applications, the evaporation of water absorbs heat. The movement of the heat from the air to the water vapor happens without a change in air volume or air pressure and results in a lowering of the temperature of the air. The relationships between pressure, temperature, humidity, density and heat content are most commonly shown graphically on pyschrometric charts. These relationships are very well defined and have been the subject of extensive research. Applying the pyschrometric chart to the evaporative cooling process is easy for any one particular set of operating conditions. If one knows the entering air temperature (inlet dry bulb), the relative humidity of the inlet air, the barometric pressure and the volume of air being cooled one can calculate the theoretical amount of moisture that can be evaporated into the airstream and the resulting temperature reduction.
Actual operating conditions change constantly. The inlet air temperature, the relative humidity and barometric pressure are the detailed measurements of what is generally referred to as the "Weather". Most evaporative cooler manufacturers design their equipment to handle a specific air flow rate at standard conditions and size the evaporation media for this flow rate. The efficiency of the evaporative cooler is determined by the air flow rate over the chosen media. Each media type has physical characteristics that determine how fast and thoroughly the water can be evaporated into the airstream. The most common evaporative cooling media in use today is a corrugated kraft type paper. The market leader in this type of media is Munters Corp. which markets its media under the brand names Cel Dek and Glacier-Cor. Depending on the thickness of the media used and the velocity of the air flowing through the media, the saturation effectiveness (efficiency) can range from less than 60% to about 98 or 99%.
The majority of existing evaporative coolers are controlled by a downstream thermostat and the evaporative coolers are either on or off. The efficiency of the evaporative cooler changes with the weather and the water system pressure. The conventional evaporative cooler does not attempt to control any of these process variables to optimize efficiency.
To obtain maximum evaporation, the media must be adequately wetted. Most conventional evaporative coolers have a large basin or sump filled with water that is pumped to a perforated header pipe at the top of the media. The water is sprayed from the header pipe up to a deflector shield and runs down onto the top of the media. Excess water is applied to ensure saturation of the media. The water not evaporated drains into the sump to be reused. All recirculating evaporative cooler manufacturers recommend that a portion of the recirculating water be discarded and replaced with fresh water added to the sump to keep the water quality at a minimum quality level.
The media removes significant amounts of airborne contaminants from the air as it passes through the media and the return water rinses a portion of the contaminants off the media and carries them to the sump. In addition, naturally occurring salts in the water supply become concentrated on the surface of the media and are partially rinsed into the sump. While some of these contaminants and precipitated salts settle to the bottom of the sump, a significant amount are entrained at the pump inlet and are recirculated back onto the media.
The pumps used in most recirculating type evaporative coolers are submersible centrifugal pumps. These inexpensive pumps are not precision pieces of equipment when new and wear quickly as the debris is recirculated. This deterioration of the pump leads to fairly rapid changes in the delivery head for the pump. This change in the output of the pump renders it difficult to regulate the water flow across the media. The distribution header pipe uses large holes on relatively large hole spacing to minimize debris fouling and plugging. The end result is an uneven water distribution and occasionally dry strips on the media. Constant maintenance is required to adjust and maintain an adequate supply of water for the media. Often, these systems attempt to cure uneven water flow by pumping an excess amount of water to the media. This excess amount of water can cause the cellulose media to deteriorate prematurely with associated poor performance and costly early media replacement.
The most overlooked aspect of evaporative cooling is controlling the concentration of dissolved solids in the water being evaporated on the media. The water supply for evaporative coolers is typically domestic water which contains a number of compounds as dissolved solids. Water is evaporated by the warm air leaving behind all of the dissolved solids in a small volume of water on the media. Each type of dissolved solids has a solubility limit. That is, when the concentration of a particular compound reaches a known concentration, the compound precipitates out. In evaporative coolers the most common form of precipitate is calcium carbonate scale on the media. This hard water scale does not re-dissolve when rewetted. Once formed on the media it reduces the saturation efficiency and clogs the water distribution channels.
Recirculating evaporative coolers reapply the sump water to the media. Each time the water is applied, some of it evaporates and the dissolved solids build up in the water. All evaporative cooler manufacturers either bleed some of the recirculating water off to try and reduce the concentration of the dissolved solids (called cycles of concentration in the industry) or dump the sump water occasionally to eliminate as much of the dissolved solids as possible. Most sumps have a float actuated make up valve to add water to the sump. This mixes the fresh water with the concentrated dissolved solids in the water and reduces the concentration. As a practical matter, however, the resulting water being distributed on the media will always have higher levels of dissolved solids than the inlet water.
If the water distribution system allows the water in any area to become too concentrated with dissolved solids before it leaves the media, the media will start to scale. Once scaling begins, the process threshold for additional scaling is reduced such that the salt crystals will grow whenever the water surrounding them is just near the precipitation point.
Effectively controlling the build up of scale through deployment of a feed and bleed process requires more control equipment and is currently supplied with such systems. To date, a clear solution is that of eliminating a recirculating system in favor of a single water pass system. The single pass systems provide water to the top of the media and let it flow through the media and the flow therefrom is drained. Several challenges must be overcome to implement such a system. First, one must incorporate on/off controls to regulate the water introduced to the media. Second, the flow volume of water must be sufficient to wet the media completely and yet the flow must be periodically shut off to avoid wasting large amounts of water. Some existing systems use a timer based controller to regulate the water flow. Another type of system uses a single temperature sensor within the media coupled with a timer to control the flow of water. These systems typically fail prematurely either from using too much water or from using an insufficient amount of water resulting in drying out and scaling of the media. Neither of these two types of systems are widely commercially acceptable.
In general, the evaporative cooler market has become a commodity market, with market conditions forcing the manufacturers to produce less expensive coolers. Without clear standards on how to rate the units and a consumer base untrained in the art of evaporative cooling will not recognize the consequences of the current industry practice to rate evaporative coolers at a nominal air flow rate without reference to the efficiency of the unit. As a result, the consumer makes his decision primarily on cost rather than performance or return on investment.
Various prior art evaporative cooler systems are described in the patents listed below.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,457 describes a non circulating control for an evaporative cooler. The water flow is metered by a simple solenoid valve which does not take into consideration change in flow rate as a function of inlet line pressure. Therefore, the amount of water delivered at different times of the day will vary with changes in domestic water line pressure. Furthermore, there is no understanding of the need for a change of water flow rates as a function of the hardness of the inlet water nor is there a discussion of providing more water than is evaporated to keep the media from scaling. A sensor for controlling operation of a solenoid valve is placed downstream of spray nozzles ejecting water to the media to sense the temperature or the humidity. There is no understanding that the cooling process is primarily dependant on the inlet air conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,775,580 is directed to a non circulating evaporative cooler for primarily eliminating the dripping of water from the media. This will result in at least a part of the media becoming dry with resulting deposit of salts and compromise of the integrity of the media and its effectiveness unless pure water is used.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,367,277 discloses the use of fresh water makeup to minimize scaling in a recirculating evaporative cooler system. There is no disclosure relating to controlling the hardness of the water at the point of evaporation on the media nor does this system minimize the amount of water used. It also requires bleed of a substantial amount of the recirculating water to keep the minerals from precipitating out. No understanding of the varying conditions from location to location and the effect thereof on the efficiency of the evaporative cooler is set forth.
There are several types of problems associated with heavy scale formation on the media in an evaporative cooler where evaporative cooling occurs. First, there is a decreased air flow through the media because the air channels therewithin become more or less plugged. To maintain an adequate air volume, the velocity of the air through the media must increase. At speeds above 650 feet per minute, there is a tendency for small droplets of water to become entrained in the airstream unless other steps are taken. These droplets may super saturate the airstream to the point that moisture may condense downstream of the media and create other problems unacceptable to the user. Second, at localized concentrations of salts, the pH in those areas increases dramatically. The high pH will allow the water to leach the resin and delignify the cellulose in the media and cause premature structural failure of the media.
Indoor air quality has become a growing concern as modem office and industrial buildings become more energy efficient and better insulated. Various regulations cover how much fresh outside air must be introduced into the HVAC system in a building. This outside air is rarely at the desired temperature and relative humidity. In the southwest of the United States, the air is generally much dryer and hotter then desired. This means that the makeup air requires cooling and humidification before it can be introduced into the building. Conventional chilled water systems in large commercial buildings use a combination of cooling towers and mechanical chillers to supply the cooling for the building. These systems use considerable electricity to operate. Direct evaporative cooling has been used to reduce this electrical demand by cooling the makeup air during its introduction into the building. These applications have been plagued by the same scaling and lack of control problems described above.
Evaporative cooling is often used in dusty industrial environments. Historically, recirculating evaporative coolers become plugged with dust. Often pre-filters are installed upstream of the evaporative cooler to remove the dust present in the air. Poor maintenance often resulted in filter overloading, filter failure and media plugging. One approach to this problem of dust has been that of using an excess water flow controlled by only a timer for dust control. These results were not particularly successful. A further unit uses a fresh water makeup header to try to control the dust buildup with a timer to activate the flush. This has not proven to be particularly effective.

Water distribution system for an evaporative cooler


An image forming apparatus includes a conveyance unit configured to convey a recording material, a driving unit configured to drive the conveyance unit based on a manipulated variable corresponding to a deviation between a conveyance speed of the recording material and a target conveyance speed, and a control unit configured to change a control method for controlling the manipulated variable required to drive the driving unit according to a state in which the recording material is conveyed by the conveyance unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that controls a driving unit configured to drive a conveyance unit, which is configured to convey a recording material.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional image forming apparatus has the capability of increasing or decreasing the conveyance speed of each recording material to convey recording materials at optimum intervals in image forming processing. To convey a recording material to a transfer position at ideal timing, the acceleration/deceleration control includes detecting the recording material with a sensor disposed on a conveyance path. The acceleration/deceleration control further includes obtaining a difference between the detected arrival timing of the recording material and ideal arrival timing. The acceleration/deceleration control further includes increasing or decreasing the conveyance speed in such a way as to reduce unevenness, such as advanced/delayed pickup or slippage occurring during a conveyance operation, to convey the recording material to the transfer position at ideal timing.
In general, a driving source of a recording material conveyance unit is a stepping motor or a direct current (DC) motor. The stepping motor is desirably used in feed-forward control because the stepping motor can cause an angular movement in proportion to the number of pulses of an input signal. In other words, the stepping motor is excellent in speed and position controllability compared to a DC motor used in feedback control. From the reason described above, the stepping motor is desirably employable as the driving source of the conveyance unit. On the other hand, the DC motor is a recently employed driving source for a recording material conveyance unit because the conveyance speed tends to increase and the required torque of the driving source tends to increase. For example, a conventional method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-88926 includes generating an ideal profile for a driving operation, when the driving operation is performed, based on a target position and predetermined parameters, in the control of a DC motor employed as a power source for a device driving a mechanism, and controlling the driving of the DC motor according to the generated profile.
As conventionally known, when a DC motor is employed as a driving source, it is feasible to obtain a large torque. However, in an image forming apparatus, an optimum control method for controlling the conveyance speed of a recording material is variable depending on each control period in the process of conveying the recording material. Therefore, if a DC motor or a comparable driving source requiring feedback control is employed to perform conveyance control with fixed control constants in any control period, it is unfeasible to perform optimum control according to a conveyance state of the recording material. It is difficult to accurately control the conveyance speed of the recording material.

Recording material conveyance apparatus and image forming apparatus


A method for compressing font instruction data. The method includes analyzing a set of pixel-per-em values and fractional pixel shifts contained in font instruction for each glyph in a font data set to construct a database of values. The pixel-per-em values and fractional pixel shifts are converted into operational codes and argument values and these values are compressed into a compressed data stream including a series of multiple-bit words representing font instruction specifications for each glyph in the font data. In addition, fixed environmental variable values are set for each glyph based on the font instruction data. When a glyph is to be rendered using the compressed font instruction, the compressed instruction is decompressed and only relevant multiple-bit word or words corresponding to font instruction specifications for the respective glyph are executed, but not any of the 16-bit words corresponding to font instruction for the fixed environmental values.

The appearance and layout of a typical text document, e.g. a word processing document or a media presentation document, is determined by the selection of fonts used to display the characters which comprise the text document. To accurately render a text document, often it is necessary to vary the size or resolution of the font, depending on the display or printer used to view the contents of the document.
Mathematical algorithms are used to scale a font character and render the font characters at various sizes and resolutions. However, as a font size and display or printer resolution is varied, anomalies or imperfections occur in characters to be rendered. Different techniques have been developed to address these issues. One mathematical scheme to correct font scaling and resolution errors and to restore character aesthetics is referred to as hinting. Hinting corrects the pixels of a font character scaled to a given size and resolution using any number of techniques for restoring the native shape, aesthetics and legibility of the character.
Hinting consists of making minor corrections to the outline of a font character. For example, at low resolution, rounding effects may result in portions of a character disappearing, or other parts appearing too thick or too thin. Hinting addresses these and other anomalies by equalizing the weights of stems and preventing parts of glyphs from disappearing as the rendering resolution is decreased.
One type or family of fonts, which are mathematically scalable, are TrueType fonts. In TrueType fonts, each glyph or character form contains a respective hint program, i.e. a script or algorithm, which includes instructions for manipulating various control points of the respective glyph outline just prior to rasterization. As a result, the outline of the glyph is mathematically altered by the respective glyph's hinting instruction to surround only the pixels that produce a desired bitmap image of the glyph. The hinting instruction of TrueType fonts includes loops, conditional branches, user-definable functions, instructions to move, align and interpolate points in various ways—often with reference to "control values," methods to round points to the "grid" of the device, and arithmetic and logical instructions.
The TrueType hinting language is "stack-based," like PostScript®, meaning that the instructions take all their arguments from the stack. Instructions take the form of single-byte codes. However, unlike PostScript®, there are explicit PUSH instructions to push bytes and words from the instruction stream (these are the only instructions to take arguments from the stack).
Prior to applying one or more hints specific to a glyph, the glyph is scaled with respect to the current pixels-per-em, (hereinafter "ppem"). The ppem value is a measure of the number of pixels available for rasterization, derived from point-size and resolution. All the glyph's coordinates are measured in fractional pixels, rather than integral font design units. Coordinates are "F26DOT6" values: 32-bit fixed-point numbers with six fractional bits. Each point is stored twice: once for its original position, once for its current "instructed" position.
There are instructions for absolute and relative movements with measurements taken from the stack, the Control Value Table (hereinafter, "CVT"), or from other points that have already been moved. All moving of points takes place with respect to two vectors: the Projection Vector P, along which all measurements are taken, and the Freedom Vector F, along which movement actually occurs. Flexibility of TrueType font rendering lies, in part, from the independence of these vectors, and the ability to set them diagonally.
One important objective of hinting is to preserve the "spirit" of a typeface throughout all its characters or glyphs. This is the purpose of TrueType's CVT. It should contain measurements that are used frequently within the hints for each glyph. The CVT is always "scaled" to the current ppem. Sample CVT entries might be: how thick are the vertical stems, how thick are the horizontal stems, how thick are the serifs, and by how much do round features overshoot the baseline?
During rendering, it may be necessary to manipulate points that are not part of the final outline. In TrueType, the non-outline points, referred to as "twilight zone points" are often initialized in the CVT Program ('prep'). Values in the each fonts' 'maxp' table declare the number of twilight points and storage locations.
These prior methods of executing respective correction programs to render each font glyph or character consumes a huge amount of computer power and time when displaying characters. What is needed in the art is a method of streamlining font hinting which more efficiently renders characters.

Method for reducing size and increasing speed for font generation of instructions


When it is decided that it is impossible to shift the automatic transmission directly to the target speed position according to the second shifting-action decision made during a shifting control to shift the automatic transmission to a target speed according to a first shifting-action decision, one of a plurality of candidate intermediate speed positions to which the automatic transmission can be shifted directly is determined as an intermediate speed position. The determined intermediate speed position is established with the largest amount of change of an engine speed NE, and accordingly with the longest time required for completion of the change of the engine speed NE during which a hydraulic pressure of a clutch to be engaged to establish the intermediate speed position can be raised, whereby the clutch engaging pressure can be changed at a rate low enough to reduce a shifting shock of the automatic transmission.

In a shift control apparatus for controlling shifting actions of an automatic transmission which have a plurality of speed positions having respective different speed ratios and which are established by selectively engaging a plurality of frictional coupling devices, a second shifting-action decision to effect a shifting action of the automatic transmission to a given speed position may be made during a shifting control of the automatic transmission according to a first shifting-action decision to effect a shifting action to another speed position. This second shifting-action decision by the shift control apparatus takes place as a result of an operation by an operator of a vehicle such as an abrupt operation of an accelerator pedal or successive operations of a shift lever, or due to a change of a running state of the vehicle such as running on an uphill or slipping of the vehicle.
When the second shifting-action decision is made during the shifting control according to the first shifting-action decision, the shifting control according to the first shifting-action decision is stopped, and a shifting control to shift the automatic transmission to the target speed position selected according to the second shifting-action decision is immediately initiated. Patent Document 1 discloses an example of a shift control apparatus arranged to control the automatic transmission in such a manner. This shift control apparatus requires a shorter time for controlling the shifting actions of the automatic transmission, than a shift control apparatus arranged to initiate the shift control according to the second shifting-action decision after completion of the shifting control according to the first shifting-action decision.
However, there are cases where the shifting control according to the second shifting-action decision is not or cannot be initiated immediately after the second shifting-action decision made during the shifting control according to the first shifting-action decision. That is, the shifting control to shift the automatic transmission to the target speed position newly selected according to the second shifting-action decision cannot be initiated immediately after stopping of the shifting control according to the first shifting-action decision, if the number of the frictional coupling devices that should be concurrently controlled to establish the newly selected target speed position is larger than a predetermined upper limit number of the frictional coupling devices that can be concurrently controlled by the shift control apparatus.
For example, the shift control apparatus disclosed in the above-indicated Patent Document 1 is arranged to stop the first shifting control and immediately initiate the second shifting control if the second shifting-action decision is made before a moment of initiation of an actual engaging action of each frictional coupling device in the first shifting control, but continue the first shifting action and initiate the second shifting action after completion of the first shifting control if the second shifting-action decision is made after the above-indicated moment of initiation. If the second shifting control is initiated immediately after stopping of the first shifting control after the moment of initiation of the actual engaging action of the frictional coupling device in the first shifting control, this frictional coupling device whose engaging action has already been initiated must be released again, and another frictional coupling device must be engaged. In this case, therefore, it is difficult to control the shifting actions without a shifting shock.
[Patent Document 1]: JP-10-281277 A
Where the shifting control according to the second shifting-action decision cannot be initiated immediately after the moment of the second shifting-action decision during the shifting control according to the first shifting-action decision, as described above, the shift control apparatus disclosed in the above-identified Patent Document 1 is arranged to first establish the target speed position which is selected according to the first shifting-action decision and which is different from the target speed position selected according to the second shifting-action decision. Thus, the speed position to be once established before initiation of the shifting control according to the second shifting-action decision is fixed and kept unchanged, giving rise to a problem of insufficiency of the shifting control, such as insufficient reduction of the shifting shock and insufficient shortening of the required shifting time.
The present invention was made in view of the background art discussed above. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a shift control apparatus for an automatic transmission, which provides an improvement in the shifting control where it is impossible to effect the shifting control to shift the automatic transmission directly to the target speed position according to the second shifting-action decision.

Shift control apparatus for automatic transmission


Skin lightening additives and skin lightening compositions having at least one of a heterosubstituted, saturated or unsaturated aliphatic acid are described. The compositions are suitable for topical application and may comprise 12-hydroxystearic acid, ricinoleic acid or both.

Many consumers are concerned with the characteristics of their skin. For example, consumers are concerned with the degree of pigmentation of their skin, freckles and/or age spots. Other consumers wish to reduce skin darkening caused by exposure to sunlight. To meet the needs of consumers, many attempts have been made to develop products that improve skin characteristics. The products developed thus far, however, often tend to have low efficacy, undesirable side effects or both. Furthermore, such products can be expensive and are often not an alternative for lower income consumers.
There is an increasing interest to develop a cosmetic composition that comprises new skin lightening additives. This invention, therefore, is directed to cosmetic compositions that comprise new skin lightening additives. The cosmetic compositions of the present invention preferably comprise, as a lightening additive, compounds like 12-hydroxystearic acid, ricinoleic acid or both. The cosmetic compositions of this invention result in a decrease in melanin content which is at least about 8% lower (preferably, at least about 11% lower) when comparing MelanoDerm™ cultures treated with the same to MelanoDerm cultures that have not been subjected to a composition with the newly discovered skin lightening additives of this invention.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A toy is provided that includes a clear plastic ball to be readily movable along a supportive surface, such as the ground. Within the ball there is located a motorized character assembly. The character assembly has an upper housing cover in the form of a mouse or other rodent that would visually trigger an instinctive response in a cat or some breeds of (hunting) dogs. Beneath the upper housing cover is a motor which operates a drive wheel assembly. The drive wheel assembly is to be in continuous contact with the inner surface of the ball. The wheels further are made of soft rubber that does not slide in the internal ball surface, but rather causes the ball to roll and be propelled forward.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an amusement device and, more particularly, to an amusement device designed primarily to be employed in conjunction with animals, such as dogs and cats.
2. Description of the Related Art
In practically every pet store, drug store and grocery store there may be purchased a wide variety of toys for either a cat or dog. Different types of balls, bones, toys which squeak, etc. can be purchased. In every case, each of the toys is passive. The only way that any of the toys can become movable is through the toy being thrown by a human being or upon the toy being moved by the animal itself.
It is well known that animals, such as dogs and cats, love to chase anything that moves. It a toy could be constructed which becomes movable when the animal comes to within a few feet of the device, there is no doubt that such a toy would be quite entertaining to a dog or cat.
Numerous examples exists that depict such toys. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,391,224, issued in the name of Adler, discloses an animal amusement device that is activated by a radio transmitter of limited range being carried by the animal. However, a toy made in accordance with this reference is associated with several drawbacks. For example, such toys do not rely on instinctive sensory responses, such as sight or smell, to trigger interest in by a dog or cat. Moreover, such a device is of such complexity as to be expensive to manufacture; so expensive, in fact, as to make such a device unpractical for use with pets.
A search of the prior art did not disclose any patents that read directly on the claims of the instant invention; however, the following references were considered related:
U.S. Pat. No.InventorIssue Date5,533,920Arad et al.Jul. 9, 19965,533,921WilkdinsonJul. 9, 19965,476,408Hoeting et al.Dec. 19, 19955,439,408WilkinsonAug. 8, 19954,391,224AdlerJul. 5, 19834,662,260RumseyMay 5, 1987
Consequently, a need has therefore been felt for an improved but less complex mechanism that creates a chasable toy that triggers a play or chase response in a dog or cat.


Disclosed is a process and apparatus for removing nitrogen compounds from an alkylation substrate such as benzene. A conventional adsorbent bed can be used to adsorb basic organic nitrogen compounds and a hot adsorbent bed of acidic molecular sieve can adsorb the weakly basic nitrogen compounds such as nitrites. Water facilitates the adsorption of the weakly basic nitrogen compounds. Running an alkylation substrate stream from a fractionation column of elevated temperature and suitable water concentration to the hot adsorbent bed may be advantageous.

The use of molecular sieves as catalysts in aromatic conversion processes are well known in the chemical processing and refining industry. Aromatic conversion reactions of considerable commercial importance include the alkylation of aromatic compounds such as in the production of ethyltoluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, cumene, or higher alkyl aromatics and in disproportionation reactions such as toluene disproportionation, xylene isomerization, or the transalkylation of polyalkylbenzenes to monoalkylbenzenes. Often the feedstock to such an aromatic conversion process will include an aromatic component or alkylation substrate, such as benzene, and a C2 to C20 olefin alkylating agent or a polyalkyl aromatic hydrocarbon transalkylating agent. In the alkylation zone, the aromatic feed stream and the olefinic feed stream are reacted over an alkylation catalyst to produce alkylated benzene such as ethylbenzene or cumene. Polyalkylated benzenes are separated from monoalkylated benzene product and recycled to a transalkylation zone and contacted with benzene over a transalkylation catalyst to yield monoalkylated benzenes and benzene.
The catalysts for such alkylation or transalkylation reactions generally comprise zeolitic molecular sieves. U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,458 discloses the presence of a catalyst comprising zeolite beta. U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,786 discloses an aromatic conversion process employing zeolite Y, zeolite omega and zeolite beta molecular sieve catalyst. U.S. Pat. No. 4,185,040 discloses the alkylation of benzene to produce ethylbenzene or cumene employing zeolites such as molecular sieves of the X, Y, L, B, ZSM-5 and Omega crystal types. U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,377, discloses an aromatic conversion process involving alkylation over a catalyst comprising a solid phosphoric acid component followed by transalkylation using aluminosilicate molecular sieve transalkylation catalysts including X, Y, ultrastable Y, L, Omega, and mordenite zeolites.
Water is often found in the aromatic feedstock to alkylation and transalkylation reactions, especially in benzene feed. Benzene feed is often water saturated, for example, when it is recycled from a styrene monomer unit. Molecular sieve catalysts employed in alkylation reactions in the vapor or the liquid phase may be sensitive to water at various levels or sulfur compounds in the feedstock. U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,224 discloses that water and hydrogen sulfide in vapor phase reactions may be tolerable if more rapid aging of the catalyst is acceptable. U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,786 disclose the dehydration of the feedstock to a water content of no more than 100 ppm, and preferably 50 ppm or less when the reaction zone is operated to maintain the reactor contents in the liquid phase. However, WO 93/00992 discloses that in the starting phase the zeolite catalyst for alkylation or transalkylation processes should have a minimum water content of more than 3.5 wt-%, related to catalyst composition. EP 0 922 020 B1 discloses uses of a solid acid to adsorb impurities from a benzene alkylation feed which is dried to contain no more than 200 ppm water at a temperature of between 130° and 300° C. to improve the lifetime of a zeolitic alkylation or transalkylation catalyst.
Other impurities present in the feedstock to an aromatic conversion reactor, particularly basic impurities such as basic organic nitrogen compounds (ONCs), neutralize the solid acids that comprise most present day aromatic alkylation catalysts. Catalyst performance and the catalyst life are adversely affected. Even very low nitrogen concentrations in the feed increase the catalyst regeneration frequency during which accumulated nitrogen compounds and coke must be combusted from the catalyst. As more active zeolite catalysts are employed in aromatic conversion reactions, the degradation of catalyst life by nitrogen impurities in the feedstock must be more carefully controlled. Processes are sought to reduce the impact of nitrogen impurities on the catalyst in the reaction zone. Basic nitrogen compounds that degrade catalyst life include indoles, pyridines, quinolines, diethanol amine (DEA), morpholines including N-formyl-morpholine (NFM) and N-methyl-pyrrolidone (NMP). NFM and NMP are used as aromatic extraction agents and DEA is a corrosion inhibitor that all often contaminate aromatic feed streams. U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,099 teaches removing indole, quinoline and pyridine impurities with zeolites and using toluene with dissolved water to desorb the impurities from the zeolites. WO 00/35836 discloses contacting an alkylated benzene with molecular sieve to remove catalyst poisons including nitrogen compounds prior to feeding it to a transalkylation reactor. WO 01/07383 discloses contacting a feed stream to an alkylation zone with a zeolite to remove organically bound nitrogen. U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,962 discloses contacting a solvent extracted oil with an amorphous silica-alumina or crystalline zeolite adsorbent to remove basic nitrogen compounds such as NMP. The adsorbent may contain up to 30 wt-% water.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,271,835 discloses the presence of polar impurities in the C3 to C5 product fraction from a fluid catalytic cracking unit. The impurities were found to include weakly basic ONCs such as acetonitrile. Acrylonitriles and propionitrile can also be found in hydrocarbon streams that may serve as feed to an aromatic alkylation process. These polar compounds are attracted to and poison the catalyst used in aromatics alkylation processes. U.S. Pat. No. 6,019,887 teaches using a cationic nonacidic zeolite at no more than 300° C., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,107,535 teaches using silica gel to adsorb nitriles at room temperature from a hydrocarbon stream. U.S. Pat. No. 2,999,861 teaches using an X zeolite to selectively adsorb basic ONCs over weakly basic ONCs including nitriles, nitrates and nitro compounds at −18 to 427° C. U.S. Pat. No. 5,744,686 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,942,650 teach removing water from a benzene stream containing nitrites before removing the nitrites by contacting the benzene stream with nonacidic molecular sieves at −18° to 204° C. U.S. Pat. No. 6,617,482 B1 teaches higher silica zeolites are more effective when water is present. However, only adsorption of NFM in the presence of water is demonstrated at room temperature; adsorption of nitrites is demonstrated only in the absence of water in this reference. Low concentrations of nitrites in the ranges of parts per million and parts per billion can cumulatively deactivate alkylation catalysts faster than other deactivation mechanisms such as coking.
Clay or resin guard beds are inexpensive means to adsorb ONCs from aromatic alkylation feed streams. During adsorption of organic nitrogen from alkylation feed streams, coke also forms on the adsorbents. These adsorbents become spent when all of the adsorption sites are occupied by either ONCs or coke. Spent clay and resin guard beds cannot be regenerated by combustion. Guard beds containing molecular sieves can be regenerated by combusting both ONCs and coke off of the adsorbent.
An object of the invention is to provide a guard bed that will adsorb nitrites from a hydrocarbon feed stream.
A further object of the invention is to provide a guard bed that will adsorb nitrites from a hydrocarbon feed stream to an alkylation or transalkylation zone in the presence of water.
An even further object of the invention is to provide two guard beds of different composition that will cooperatively adsorb ONCs from a hydrocarbon feed stream.

Process and apparatus for the removal of nitrogen compounds from a fluid stream


Embodiments of making an energy harvesting device are described. In one embodiment, a case and integrated piezoelectric cantilever to harvest vibration energy from an environment being sensed is produced via a print forming method injection molding method. The cantilever device consists of a piezoelectric material member, and a proof mass of high density material coupled to the piezoelectric member. The print forming method is used to build up the base and walls of the device as well as the neutral layers of the piezoelectric member. Metal layers are printed to form the electrode layers of the piezoelectric member and the electrical contact portions of the device. Passive components can also be formed as part of the layers of the device. The entire assembly can be encapsulated in plastic.

The use of miniaturized electrical systems (Microsystems) on the order of 1 cm2 has been proposed to provide distributed sensing capability. Microsystem sensors can be used to monitor various environmental and operational conditions and transmit signals back to a host receiver for many different applications, such as industrial monitoring, security applications, weather prediction, and so on. The design and implementation of such devices and systems requires overcoming several challenges, such as designing small and robust packaging and providing adequate transmitter power. A major consideration in designing such systems remains providing adequate electrical power, and for many Microsystems, this challenge remains a significant obstacle. In general, current miniature battery technologies cannot store enough energy to power these systems for long periods of time, such as on the order of months. Another disadvantage of battery use is that many sensor applications involve harsh or limited access environments that can limit or disable battery performance and/or render battery maintenance virtually impossible.
One approach to overcome the problem of providing enough battery power for microsystems is to extract energy from the surrounding environment. This approach, which is called energy harvesting (or scavenging) eliminates the need for an external or stored power supply, thus allowing a system to be made fully autonomous, that is, one that requires no external power connections or maintenance. As long as the source of environmental energy is available, an energy harvesting microsystem can remained fully powered, virtually non-stop, while providing information to the user.
Several techniques have been proposed and developed to extract energy from the environment. The most common available sources of energy are vibration, temperature, and stress (pressure). In many environmental applications, vibration energy may be the most readily available and easiest to convert into electricity. In general, vibration energy can be converted into electrical energy using one of three techniques: electrostatic charge, magnetic fields, and piezoelectric materials. Piezoelectric generation of electricity from vibration energy typically represents the most cost-effective approach, as the electrostatic and magnetic techniques usually require more extensive design, packaging, and integration work to adapt to particular applications.
Current methods of manufacturing small piezoelectric energy harvesting devices typically involve traditional PC (printed circuit) board techniques in which components are mounted on a PC and then integrated into a separate housing or other structure. Such methods are typically expensive and inefficient when small-scale devices are produced. Moreover, for applications in which vibration energy is converted to electrical energy, a rigid platform for the piezoelectric elements must be provided to maximize energy generation. Present methods of piezoelectric device manufacture typically involve mounting or attaching a piezoelectric beam to a separate case. Even if the bond between the case and beam is strong, the attachment point often represents a source of energy loss due to vibrational transmission and/or losses in the interface region.

Energy harvesting device manufactured by print forming processes


In visual display devices such as LCD devices with backlight illumination, the backlight typically consumes most of device battery power. In the interest of displaying a given pixel pattern at a minimized backlight level, the pattern can be transformed while maintaining image quality, with a transform determined from pixel luminance statistics. Aside from, or in addition to such minimizing, a transform also can be used for image enhancement, for a displayed image better to meet a visual perception quality. In either case, the transform preferably is constrained for enforcing one or several display attributes.

Visual display devices are ubiquitous in battery-powered portable electronic devices such as notebook computers and mobile, hand-held telephones where, typically, they are the largest consumers of battery power. For example, in mobile devices equipped with thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal displays (LCD) utilizing backlight illumination, the LCD panel consumes more than 30% of the device power and the backlight typically consumes 75% of the LCD power. Thus, for conserving battery power, there is primary interest in minimizing the power consumption of the display device.
An LCD screen typically includes an array of liquid-crystal pixels arranged as a plurality of rows each having a plurality of pixels, arranged in columns, with each pixel capable of displaying any one of 256 luminance values of a gray scale and the corresponding chrominance values. Each pixel has its own liquid crystal cell, a dedicated thin-film transistor, and a dedicated capacitor. The electrical field of the capacitor controls the orientation of the liquid crystals within the cell, determining the optical transmissivity of the cell and thus its luminance when lit by a backlight. The capacitor is charged and discharged via its transistor. Device activation typically is row-by-row, so that, at any one time, all column lines are connected to a single row.
For saving power in an LCD device, dynamic backlight control can be used, involving dynamic scaling down and up of the backlight brightness while the device is being used, e.g. in playing back a movie. Moreover, it is beneficial to correspondingly transform an image/pattern to be displayed by transforming the pixel luminance values.

Video enhancement and display power management


A block decomposition based method is provided for compressing textures based on sharing color information between texture blocks. The texture map is divided into a plurality of texture blocks containing texels. During compression a first color value is stored for a first block and a second color value is stored for a second block. A palette is created for each texture block using the color values stored for several neighboring texture blocks. Each texel in each of the texture blocks is indexed to one of the colors in the palette. Accordingly the method compresses the information in the texture map by storing for each texture block bits representing a color value and bits to index each of the texels to a color in the palette, which allows sharing of color information between blocks. During decompression the palettes are regenerated and colors from the palette are assigned to the texels according to the stored index values. Accordingly, the decompression of the texture allows regeneration of the compressed texture, which may be mapped to surfaces to improve the visual quality of three-dimensional graphics.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to compressing computer graphics information. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for compressing computer graphics and textures for three dimensional computer graphics.
2. Background Information
In order to provide realistic computer graphics with smooth continuous rendering rates, it is desirable to have fast access to a large number of high-quality detailed textures. This goal is somewhat constrained by system memory and memory access bandwidth limitations. Texture compression can be used to significantly reduce the memory required to store textures and the bandwidth required to access textures from memory. Thus, four qualities are typically important for texture compression methods: (1) high compression ratio, (2) sufficient quality of decompressed images, (3) fast decoding, and (4) fast access to any texel in any order. Methods having these qualities allow more and higher-resolution textures to be incorporated into graphics, and provide a more realistic, immersing experience.
Block decomposition is one approach to texture compression. This approach is based on dividing an image into equally sized blocks (typically, 4×4 texels) and storing each of them in a uniform manner, so that after compression each block takes the same amount of memory. Thus, all blocks may be stored row by row, and an offset of a block containing any individual texel may be easily calculated. Three prior art block-decomposition methods will be discussed below: (1) Microsoft's Texture and Rendering Engine Compression (TREC), (2) S3 Texture Compression (S3TC), and (3) 3dfx's Texture Compression (FXT1).
Texture and Rendering Engine Compression (TREC)
Texture and Rendering Engine Compression (TREC) was developed by Microsoft Corporation. This technique is very similar to the JPEG standard since it is based on the two-dimensional discrete cosine transform (DCT) of 8×8 pixel blocks and quantization of coefficients. This approach provides variable compression ratios with satisfactory visual quality. However, implementing a hardware DCT decoder on a graphics accelerator board only for texture decompression is relatively expensive.
S3 Texture Compression (S3TC)
FIG. 1 shows a representative indexed texture block 110 for compression of a 4×4 texel texture block according to the S3TC approach. This approach stores two color values 115 for the texture block. A reconstructed color palette 120, corresponding to indexed texture block 110, contains the two stored color values 115 and two interpolated colors 140. The interpolated color values 140 are determined by equations 160. A two-bit index 170 (e.g., 00, 01, 10, 11) is assigned to each of the texels in block 110, wherein each of the indices represents a color value in one of the four color palette entries 130 in the reconstructed color palette 120.
Because colors are stored in RGB565 format, palette information requires 32 bits per each texture block (two colors times 16 bits per color). Indices take another 32 bits per block (16 texels times 2 bits per texel). Thus, the compressed texture block requires 8 bytes, while the original takes 48 considering RGB888. Consequently, S3TC scheme provides 6:1 compression ratio.
3dfx's Texture Compression
FXT1 may be considered an extension of the S3TC approach, since it separately encodes equally sized blocks of 4×8 texels by small local palettes (look-up tables). FXTi has four modifications, however all the modifications have a common approach: (1) some basic colors (RGB555) are stored in a block, (2) a local palette (or palettes) is generated by interpolation of basic colors, and (3) each texel is represented by index of the most appropriate color from the corresponding look-up table.
FIG. 2 briefly presents the FXT1 encoding parameters for different modifications. For CC_HI scheme, two basic RGB555 colors, which are stored in a block, are used for interpolating seven RGB888 look-up table entries, while the eighth entry is defined transparent. Thus, three bits are required for each texel. CC_CHROMA refers to storing four colors, which are used with no change as the four-entry palette. CC_MIXED is very similar to the S3TC approach, since two four-entry palettes are generated, each by interpolating between two colors (therefore, four colors are stored for a 4×8 texel block). Then, two sub-blocks of 4×4 texels are encoded separately by their own palettes. CC_ALPHA creates an aggregate of two 4×4 texel texture blocks and stores three colors for that aggregate. The first and second colors are used as the primary colors of the left 4×4 texel texture block and the second and third colors are used as the primary colors of the right 4×4 texel texture block. Two additional colors are created for each texture block by interpolating between the two primary colors for that block. During compression, FXT1 encoder produces all representations of each 4×8 block of texels, chooses the one that introduces the least error, and stores the corresponding data in the resulting data stream.
Thus, S3TC represents each block of 4×4 texels by 8 bytes (4 for colors+4 for indices), while FXT1 uses a 16-byte data chunk for each 4×8 texel block. The compression ratio, provided by these techniques, is 6:1 for TrueColor 24 bpp images, and 8:1 for 32 bpp images.
Quality Degradation of Compressed Textures
One major problem with current texture compression methods including S3TC and FXT1 is an inadequate balance between visual quality and compression ratio. In the prior art, high compression ratio is achieved by serious reduction of color data available for texel representation. In general, the methods described above use interpolation to determine some colors, and the interpolated colors lack diversity. As a result, less independent colors are available to represent the image, and this may introduce perceptible quality degradation in some cases;
As an example, consider an image having three colors that do not belong to one line in an RGB cube. For instance, it may be red, green and blue. If pixels of these colors appear in one block simultaneously, many prior art methods will not be able to reproduce them without visual degradation by interpolation of any two. It will either discard less frequent color or construct a line (in an RGB cube) being less distant from all existing points. This will often introduce perceptible quality degradation effects as shown in FIG. 3. FIG. 3 shows an original image 310 where shades of gray are used for representing a red flower 320 with a blue core 330. As shown for the S3TC method of compression 340, compression and reconstruction using S3TC resulted in regions with quality degradation 360 because only two basic independent colors were available.

Color distribution for texture and image compression


A dental flossing tool and dispenser includes a case with an enclosed chamber divided by a partition wall into floss spool and take up reel compartments. A hub mounts a floss spool for rotation within the floss spool compartment. A take up reel is rotatable within the take up reel compartment. A rotator on the take up reel, is at least partially disposed outward of the take up reel compartment. Floss in-feed and out-feed openings in the case communicate with the respective compartments. A length of floss extends through the floss out-feed opening and back into the take up reel compartment through the floss in-feed opening, thereby forming a bight in the floss outward of the case. A unidirectional rotation limiter allows rotation of the take up reel to take up the length of floss but inhibits pay out of floss.

Dental flossing has long been advised by those in the dental field as a way to reduce the number of bacteria between teeth that might cause decay; to prevent plaque build-up and avoid periodontal and other tooth and gum related diseases. While daily flossing is recommended at a minimum, some prefer flossing after meals and carry floss about for that purpose.
The typical floss dispenser carries a roll of floss within a small plastic box. Floss is pulled from the box and is trimmed on a cutting device supplied on the box. The cut length of floss is then wound about a finger on each hand so a length of floss connects the two fingers. The floss is drawn taut between the fingers and the taut span is inserted in the mouth and the fingers are worked to force the floss into the interstices between adjacent teeth. The floss is then moved back and forth between the teeth to clean the engaged surfaces. After several strokes, the floss is pulled out and the process is repeated on the next pair of teeth. It is not unusual to use more than a foot of floss in a single flossing procedure.
A person who has finished the above described operation is left with a length of unsanitary and unsightly floss to dispose of. While disposing of used floss is not always a challenge, it is in circumstances where a proper disposal receptacle is not available.
Standard forms of flossing tools typically involve the use of a rigid or semi-rigid elongated handle, which, in many such tools has a forked end. Floss is drawn taut between the bifurcations. The use of short lengths of floss with such tools is more economical than hand application, which can easily consume twelve or more inches of floss per use. However, the forks or other floss holders do not permit the tactile capability that is available during hand flossing, and the dispensing problem discussed above can remain a problem. Further, flossing tools that must be inserted into the mouth become unsanitary unless they are cleaned after each use.
While some flossing tools accommodate used floss on separate spools, hygiene is still a problem because contaminated used floss is not adequately separated from the fresh, unused floss.


There is provided an infrared signal receiver which includes a photo-detector unit receiving light in a predetermined infrared wavelength region, sent from a remote operating unit; and an optical element disposed in front of the photo-detector unit, allowing the light of the predetermined infrared wavelength region to transmit therethrough in preference to other infrared wavelength region. In the receiver, the predetermined signal wavelength region is a region of 930 nm or longer and 960 nm or shorter, and mean transmittance of light of the optical element in the predetermined signal wavelength region is larger than mean transmittance of light in a region of 900 nm or longer and shorter than 930 nm, and/or, mean transmittance of light in a region of longer than 960 nm and 1,020 nm or shorter.

The present application relates to an infrared signal receiver, a liquid crystal display, and an optical element applicable thereto, capable of suppressing degradation of sensitivity to remote controllers of video display devices such as liquid crystal display and its peripheral instruments, caused by near infrared radiation emitted, for example, from the liquid crystal display.
Today's video display is diversified into several categories including cathode ray tube display, plasma display, liquid crystal display and so forth. Almost all of these video displays are given with remote operating units, that is, remote controllers making use of near infrared communication. Signal wavelength of a general remote controller, and a sensitivity curve of its photo-detector unit are shown in FIG. 13. The signal wavelength of the remote controller shows a single peak having the center at 940 nm, and a half-value width of 50 nm or around. On the other hand, the photo-detector unit has sensitivity over a broad range from 850 nm to 1150 nm.
Under the environment such that near infrared radiation other than that of the remote controller signal also exists, in addition to the remote controller signal, in the wavelength region in which the photo-detector unit shows its sensitivity, sensitivity of communication with the remote controller will degrade, and distance allowing communication between the remote controller and the main unit of communication instrument will be reduced. In particular, plasma display is known to emit a huge energy of near infrared radiation which is causative of degradation in sensitivity to remote controllers of infrared communication instruments (for example, portable handset of telephone set, air conditioner, optical disc drive, etc.) placed at around the display.
As a countermeasure therefor, it has been known that provision of an optical filter containing a dye capable of absorbing light having wavelength in the near infrared region, in front of the display is effective (see Japanese Patent Application Publication (KOKAI) No. 2005-272660 (Patent Document 1), for example). Most of current plasma displays adopt this sort of optical filter.
Japanese Patent Application Publication (KOKAI) No. 2006-41657 (Patent Document 2) discloses a configuration such that an optical filter intercepting a predetermined wavelength of light emitted from the plasma display is provided to the photo-detector unit of the remote controller, in order to suppress influences of the predetermined wavelength of light in the near infrared region emitted from the plasma display exerted on the infrared communication. Considering now that the peak wavelength of infrared radiation emitted from the plasma display resides in the range from 825 nm and 880 nm, the optical filter is configured as characteristically showing a transmittance of light of 80% or more in the wavelength region longer than 900 nm, reducing the transmittance of light in the range from 900 nm to 800 nm, and showing a transmittance of light of nearly 0% in the wavelength region shorter than 800 nm.
By the way, also liquid crystal display, besides the plasma display, has emerged as a flat screen television set, and has been becoming the main stream of recent large-sized television sets. Recent trend in increase in screen size of the liquid crystal display causes gradual increase also in the energy of near infrared radiation emitted from the back light, while being still in a level lower than the plasma display. FIG. 14 shows an emission spectrum of the liquid crystal display in the near infrared region.
A known method of intercepting the near infrared radiation emitted from the back light of the liquid crystal display is such as providing a dye-containing filter on the display side, similarly to as in the plasma display. The near infrared absorbing dye, however, generally shows a slight absorption also in the visible light region, and therefore lowers luminance of displayed video image. For the liquid crystal television set, allowed for only a narrower range of luminance as compared with plasma television set, it is very difficult to compensate the loss of luminance caused by absorption by the filter, with the aid of output of the back light or the like.
On the other hand, another possible method is such as disposing, at the photo-detector unit of the remote controller, an optical filter capable of intercepting a predetermined wavelength of near infrared radiation emitted from the display, as disclosed in Patent Document 2. However, unlike the infrared radiation emitted from the plasma display, the infrared radiation emitted from the liquid crystal display shows a peak wavelength at 911 nm, 922 nm, 965 nm and 1,013 nm as shown in FIG. 14. As a consequence, even use of the above-described optical filter having a transmittance of light, longer than 900 nm, of 80% or more cannot provide a countermeasure against infrared radiation emitted from the liquid crystal display.

Infrared signal receiver, liquid crystal display and optical element


A circuit includes a current generator and a voltage generator. The current generator is configured to generate a predetermined current flowing toward a selected cell in a memory array via a node during a write operation. The voltage generator is configured to generate a predetermined voltage. The voltage level at the node is clamped at a predetermined value associated with the predetermined voltage as the selected cell is switched between a low resistance state and a high resistance state during the write operation.

A resistive random access memory (RRAM) device is a non-volatile memory device that stores data by varying the resistance of a resistive element. RRAM devices can have certain beneficial characteristics over other types of memory devices, such as low power consumption, high speed, and excellent bit resolution due to separation and a relatively large resistance ratio between a high resistance state (HRS) and a low resistance state (LRS), without the read/write cycle endurance limitations of charge-storage type memory.
The resistive element of an RRAM device has a current-voltage characteristic which may be varied in response to an applied voltage or current. Once the current-voltage characteristic is varied, the varied current-voltage characteristic of the resistive element may be maintained until a reset voltage or current is applied thereto. In some approaches, data may be written to a selected RRAM device by applying a predetermined voltage for a predetermined duration in a voltage-driven mode (VDM). Alternatively, data may be written by applying a predetermined current in a current-driven mode (CDM). As compared to VDM, CDM has a better on/off ratio, exhibits a relatively tight distribution of resistance, and achieves more complete dissolution of filament. When using the CDM to write an RRAM device, however, over-stress might occur in the RRAM device and cause damage thereto.
Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements.

Write buffer for resistive random access memory

TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD.


According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a nonvolatile ferroelectric memory, including a ferroelectric capacitor composed of a ferroelectric film sandwiched by capacitor electrodes made of a conductive material, a cell capacitor block stacked a plurality of the capacitor electrodes and the ferroelectric film of the ferroelectric capacitor perpendicular to a main surface of a silicon substrate in layer, a cell transistor having a drain electrode and a source electrode, the drain electrode and the source electrode are electrically connected to the ferroelectric capacitor in parallel, a memory cell composed of the ferroelectric capacitor and the cell transistor, a cell block having the plurality of memory cells electrically connected in series, the drain electrode and the source electrode being as a terminals, a word line, a bit line connected to one end of the cell block, the bit line being arranged along orthogonal direction to the word line and a plate line connected to the other end of the cell block, the plate line arranged along the word line.

Today, a semiconductor memory is used in various commercial products, such as a main memory of both large-sized computer and personal computer, a home electric appliance, a cellular phone and the like. As a kind of semiconductor memory, a volatile DRAM (Dynamic RAM), a volatile SRAM (Static RAM), a nonvolatile MROM (Mask ROM), a nonvolatile flash EEPROM (flash memory) and the like have come out as a device product. Especially, the DRAM, in spite of the volatile memory, is superior to another memory from view points of a lower cost and a higher speed. For example, a cell area of the DRAM is ¼ as compared with that of the SRAM and a speed of the DRAM as device performance is higher than that of the flash memory. Therefore, the DRAM largely occupies in the present semiconductor memory market. On the other hand, the flash memory is rewritable and nonvolatile, and power supplied to the flash memory can be switched off, however, rewriting number (W/E) of the flash memory is approximately 106 and writing time of the flash memory takes approximately micro seconds. Furthermore, the flash memory has to be applied to high voltage (12V-22V) in a writing process. These shortages lead the flash memory to fewer commercial products as compared with the DRAM.
On the other hand, a nonvolatile ferroelectric memory using a ferroelectric capacitor was proposed in 1980. Since then, as the nonvolatile ferroelectric memory has advantages such as nonvolatile property, W/E number being approximately 1012, a reading time and a writing time being nearly the same as those of the DRAM, an operation in 3V-5V and the like, it has been developed by many electronics manufacturers. The nonvolatile ferroelectric memory has capability of replacing all the commercial products in the memory market.
Conventionally, for example, as J. T. Evans et al., described in "An experimental 512k-b nonvolatile memory with ferroelectric cell", IEEE Journal Solid-State Circuit, vol. 23, No. 5, pp. 1171-1175, October 1988, the ferroelectric memory cell is constituted of one cell transistor and one ferroelectric capacitor. The cell transistor and the ferroelectric capacitor are connected in series. One memory cell is arranged at two intersections of a word line and a bit line in a folded-bit-line structure of a conventional ferroelectric memory. In the structure, the minimum size of the memory cell is 2F×4F=8F2, where a width of an interconnection and a space between interconnections is F. As a result, the miniaturization of the cell size has a restriction.
Moreover, in the conventional memory cell structure, plate lines are divided into each word line and are individually driven in order to prevent destruction of polarization information of a non-selected cell in the ferroelectric capacitor. As a plurality of the ferroelectric capacitors are connected to each of the plate lines along the word line direction, the load capacity of the ferroelectric capacitor become large. Furthermore, as a layout pitch of a plate line drive circuit becomes severe as comparable as the layout pitch of the word line, the layout size of the plate line drive circuit can not be designed comparatively large. For the reason mentioned above, in the conventional ferroelectric memory, delay of the voltage applied to the upper and the lower sides of the plate lines becomes large. As a result, there was a shortage that an operation speed of the ferroelectric memory becomes slow.
In order to cope with such shortages, authors disclose a ferroelectric memory, for example, in Japanese Patent Publications, such as Japanese Patent Publication (Kokai) No. H10-255483, Japanese Patent Publication (Kokai) No. H11-177036, and Japanese Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2000-22010. The ferroelectric memory can realize three points, (1) a small ferroelectric memory cell of 4F2 size (2) a plane transistor being simply fabricated (3) a high speed random access function with versatility. By applying such technology to the ferroelectric memory, the ferroelectric memory cell of a minimum size of 4F2 by using the plane transistor can be realized.
However, realization of the memory cell having smaller size than 4F2 is principally difficult in the ferroelectric memory, even if these techniques are applied. Furthermore, a multiple value NAND flash memory can perform R/W of data at high speed than the conventional NAND flash memory and substantially realize a cell size below 4F2 by memorizing multiple value information in one cell. Therefore, realization of the ferroelectric memory cell exceeding the multiple value NAND flash memory in lower cost is difficult.
On the other hand, there exists a ferroelectric memory constituted of three-dimensional structure. For example, T. Nishihara et al. demonstrated that a transistor is formed on a silicon substrate and a ferroelectric capacitor is stacked in layer in "A quasi-matrix ferroelectric memory for future silicon storage", IEEE Journal Solid-State Circuit, vol. 27, No. 11, pp. 1479-1484, November 2002. The ferroelectric memory having a small size and a large capacity is constituted of a plurality of ferroelectric capacitors stacked in layer.
In the conventional method as described above, the ferroelectric capacitors are simply disposed without being connected by the transistor. When data are both writing in and reading out to/from the ferroelectric capacitor, unnecessary voltage over ⅓ is applied to adjacent non-selective ferroelectric capacitor. This is so called a disturb phenomenon being generated in the non-selective ferroelectric capacitor. This is a serious problem as degradation of a stable operation on the ferroelectric memory. Therefore, the ferroelectric memory has had a difficult problem for practical realization. Accordingly, fabricating of a ferroelectric capacitor being strongly prevented from the disturb phenomenon has been developed as a main subject.
As mentioned above, practical realization of a cell size being smaller than 4F2 is difficult in the conventional ferroelectric memory. Further, a three-dimensional ferroelectric memory stacked in layer has a difficulty for practical realization in accordance with the disturb phenomenon.


An amplifying circuit and method are disclosed for amplifying electrical signals, such as electrical signals generated by the read head of a disk drive. The circuit includes a pair of cross-coupled differential amplifier circuits. Each differential amplifier circuit is asymmetric, including two input transistors of different transistor types. For instance, a first of the two input transistors of each differential amplifier circuit may be a bipolar transistor and a second of the two input transistors may be a field effect transistor. By utilizing asymmetric differential amplifier circuits, a relatively wider operating frequency range is obtained.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to signal amplification, and particularly to a preamplifier circuit for amplifying signals generated by the read head of a disk drive device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most computer systems include one or more associated disk drives, which may be built internal or external to the computer system. Typically, disk drives have at least one rotating magnetic medium and associated head mechanisms that are carried adjacent the magnetic material. The heads are radially positionable to selectively write information to, or read information from, precise positions on the disk medium. Such disk drives may be, for example, hard disk drives, floppy drives, or the like.
The conventional disk drive recording technology is referred to as "longitudinal magnetic recording" in which data is stored longitudinally along the surface of the magnetic recording medium in predefined concentric tracks. Data is written to the conventional data disk by applying a series of signals to a write head according to the digital information to be stored on the magnetic disk media. The write head has a coil and one or more associated pole pieces that are located in close proximity to the disk media. As signals cause the magnetic flux to change in the head, the magnetic domains of the magnetic media along the surface of the disk are aligned in predetermined directions for subsequent read operations. Typically, a small space of unaligned magnetic media disposed longitudinally along the medium surface separates each magnetic domain transition to enable successive transitions on the magnetic media to be distinguished from each other.
More recently, perpendicular recording has been discussed as a mechanism for extending magnetic recording density beyond what is believed to be attainable using longitudinal magnetic recording. In perpendicular magnetic recording, the medium is magnetized perpendicularly to the plane of the medium. Perpendicular magnetic recording system utilizes magnetic anisotropy in a direction perpendicular to the disk plane in order to increase the linear recording density. With this perpendicular magnetic recording system, recording at a remarkably higher density can be performed than a longitudinal magnetic recording system in which magnetic anisotropy in its plane direction is utilized. This is because in the perpendicular magnetic recording system, the demagnetizing field at a magnetization reversal region is very small in principle, thus enabling to narrow the magnetization transition width.
Next generation hard disk drive systems may employ the perpendicular magnetic recording technology. As such, the disk drive systems may very well require disk drive circuitry, such as preamplifiers, to possess low corner frequencies (LCFs) on the order of a few hundred kilohertz and high corner frequencies (HCFS) as high as 1 GHz or so. Such requirements result in a preamplifier having a lower LCF by a factor of approximately five, relative to LCFs of existing preamplifiers utilized in longitudinal recording. This LCF reduction is necessary because the readback signal of perpendicular recording has much lower frequency contents compared to longitudinal recording (square wave-like waveform versus lorentzian pulse waveform for longitudinal recording). Increased HCF that approximately doubles the HCF values for preamplifier circuitry in longitudinal recording systems may be required as well due to the increased data rate requirements associated with perpendicular recording. What is needed, then, is a preamplifier circuit possessing the operating performance necessary to effectively function in future disk drives utilizing the perpendicular recording technology.

Preamplifier circuit and method for a disk drive device


A safety device for a window shade system comprising a shade tube having a first end mounted to a first bracket 100 and a second end mounted to a second bracket. The system also includes a first plurality of catchpins 110 mounted to the first bracket, wherein the first plurality of catchpins 110 are mounted below the first end of the shade tube. In response to the first end of the shade tube disengaging from the first bracket, the first plurality of catchpins 110 catch the first end of the shade tube and prevent the first end of the shade tube from further falling.

A window shade system includes a window shade (e.g., roller shade) that is typically wound around a shade tube. The shade tube is typically mounted to a bracket on each end. The brackets are mounted to a wall or other structure. The window shade system may include brackets mounted in a window pocket, overhead, ceiling mounted, jamb mounted, a top-down mounting, sloped mounting, horizontal mounting and/or skylight mounting. The window shade system may be in excess of 400 pounds. As such, it is important to secure the window shade system to prevent any portion from falling.
The window shade system is a very secure structure, if mounted, maintained and used correctly. However, in very rare situations, the window shade system may become dislodged from the window shade system not being properly installed, wear and tear, building movements, obstructions and/or the like. Moreover, the shade tube may slip off the brackets 100, for example, when the distance between the brackets could be set up larger than required, drive and idle ends of the tube may not be properly secured in the corresponding brackets 100, the window shade system may be mounted such that the brackets become loose, a dimensional change in the distance between brackets may occur due to building movement or changes, the supports may be out of level and/or the wall that retains the brackets may degrade. Moreover, in very rare situations, the window shade system may not be properly maintained such that the components cause friction (e.g. against other components or against the supporting structure) which results in breaking or disengaging of the components. The window shade system may also be controlled with a motor, wherein the motor receives instructions from a switch or software. As such, the motor, electronics and/or software may cause the window shade to malfunction. For example, the window shade may get caught, but the motor keeps rotating which may cause the shade tube (and/or other hardware attached to the shade tube) to disengage from the brackets. Additionally, in very rare situations, the shade may also fall due to a failure of the motor or idle end attachment.
As a result of any of these very rare malfunctions, the shade tube may dislodge from one or both of the brackets. If the shade tube dislodges, the shade tube may unfortunately fall down and injure people or damage property. As such, an important need exists to secure the window shade system with a redundant security device to avoid damage or injury, in case the mounting system for the window shade system fails.