The specification discloses a portable traffic control sign comprising a stand capable of resting on a support surface, at least one mast portion extending upwardly from the stand, the at least one mast portion having a bottom and a top, a substantially hollow interior and an outside diameter of less than approximately 1.75 inches, at least one sign panel connected to the at least one mast portion, and a reinforcing member fixedly disposed in the hollow interior of each at least one mast portion, the reinforcing member having a length sufficient to reinforce the at least one mast portion proximate the area of probable impact by a motor vehicle.

Temporary traffic control devices such as, for example, warning and speed-limit signs are widely employed throughout the United States and elsewhere to control the movement of vehicular traffic in work-zones proximate the site of roadway or roadside construction. Because of their use in proximity to roadways, such traffic control devices are often hit by motor vehicles and so must be designed to suffer vehicular impacts without injuring any occupants of the striking motor vehicle.
Conventionally, traffic control signs comprise, as shown in FIG. 1, a stand or base including a pair of horizontally disposed legs 10 for resting on a support surface such as the ground, pavement, etc., each horizontal leg 10 further including a vertically oriented socket 11 for removably receiving therein one of a pair of upstanding supports or masts 12 to which is affixed a sign panel 13. The sign panel 13 is generally of a substantially rigid material, such as aluminum, wood, composite, etc. Sandbags S or other ballast are usually provided over top of the legs 10 to keep the traffic control sign in place in an upright orientation. The legs 10 and sockets 11 of the base, as well as the masts 12, are typically constructed of metal tubing. For the legs 10 and sockets 11, such tubing is usually of 2 inch outside dimensions; for the masts 12, the tubing is typically characterized by outside dimensions of no larger than approximately 1.75 inches. The mast 12 tubing may further include a plurality of holes 14 therein for selectively mounting the sign panel 13 in a desired position.
Generally speaking, a lower portion of the masts 12 constitutes the point of impact for a motor vehicle, and upon such impact one or both masts 12 may be sufficiently bent to become "hooked" about the striking motor vehicle's bumper. In such situations, the striking motor vehicle carries the traffic control sign forward following impact, and the forward momentum of the motor vehicle results in the accelerated rotational motion of the traffic control sign about the point of contact between the mast 12 and the motor vehicle's bumper, thereby causing the top of the mast 12, and possibly the sign panel 13, to strike the motor vehicle with considerable force.
In consequence of the foregoing, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program ("NCHRP") has established crashworthiness standards for all work-zone traffic control devices, which standards have further been adopted by the Federal Highway Administration ("FWHA") in respect of the National Highway System ("NHS"). These standards are embodied in NCHRP Report 350: "Recommended Procedures for the Safety Performance Evaluation of Highway Features" (National Academy Press, 1993), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In respect of traffic control signs in particular, the relevant evaluation standard is described in Test Designation 3-71. According to this standard, none of the constituent parts of the traffic control device must enter the motor vehicle's passenger compartment, or otherwise deform that compartment to an extent that might cause serious injury to the motor vehicle's occupant.
In light of these crashworthiness standards, the transportation-regulating bodies of some states have redefined their own standards for traffic control devices which can be deployed on the roads within their jurisdiction, including roads of the NHS, to comply with the standards set out by the NCHRP. In the State of Michigan, for instance, there has recently been developed by the Michigan Department of Transportation ("MDOT") a new standard for portable traffic control signs which has been determined to comply with the aforementioned standards. By this new standard, the conventional traffic control sign as discussed previously in conjunction with FIG. 1 has been modified to include, inter cilia, masts of 1.75 inch outside diameter having disposed over a part of the length thereof stiffening tubing of 1.96 inch outside diameter. Unfortunately, this traffic control sign is occasioned by several drawbacks. Firstly, the sign is, by its modified construction, both heavier and more bulky, in consequence of which it is also less easily man-portable. Secondly, the thus modified traffic control sign incorporates components—namely, the masts and stiffening tubes—not found in much of the considerable existing inventory of traffic control devices owned by the many private businesses responsible for deploying traffic control devices in work-zones throughout the country. On the contrary, and as previously discussed, such existing inventory of traffic control signs are characterized by masts having outside diameters of less than 1.75 inches, and most typically on the order of approximately 1.5 inches. In view of this fact in particular, it will be necessary for the concerned private businesses to replace or significantly modify their existing inventories of traffic control signs in order to comply with the safety guidelines established by the NHWA, MDOT, and numerous other states.
In light of the above, it would be desirable to provide a means for modifying the considerable existing inventory of traffic control signs to bring the same into compliance with crashworthiness standards with the least possible expense, which means do not render the modified signs considerably less man-portable.

Crashworthy portable traffic control sign


A method of manufacturing a battery current collector foil includes: applying wet etching (electrolytic etching) to a surface of a metal foil (aluminum foil) (step S1); and forming a conductive coating (carbon coating) on the surface of the metal foil (aluminum foil 33), which has been subjected to the wet etching, by vapor depostion (AIP) (step S2).

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a battery current collector foil, a method of manufacturing the battery current collector foil, and a battery that uses the battery current collector foil.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with the widespread of portable electronic devices, such as cellular phones, notebook personal computers and video camcorders, and vehicles, such as hybrid electric vehicles, the need for batteries used in driving power supplies of these portable electronic devices and vehicles has been increasing. Some of the above batteries use a positive electrode current collector foil having an aluminum foil as a base material. The above batteries, for example, include lithium ion batteries that use a positive plate, which is formed by coating a positive electrode current collector foil having an aluminum foil as a base material with a positive electrode active material layer containing an Li chemical compound.
Incidentally, a coating made of aluminum oxide is formed on the surface of the aluminum foil. Thus, when a positive electrode current collector foil, in which an aluminum oxide coating is formed on the surface of the aluminum foil, is used and then a positive electrode active material layer is formed on the surface of the positive electrode current collector foil, conductivity between the aluminum foil and the positive electrode active material layer problematically decreases because of the influence of the aluminum oxide coating. To solve the above problem, there has been suggested a technique for forming a conductive coating made of carbon, or the like, by vapor deposition after the surface of the current, collector (aluminum foil) is subjected to dry etching (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 11-250900 (JP-A-11-250900)).
However, when the conductive coating made of carbon, or the like, is formed on the surface of the aluminum foil by vapor deposition, compression stress occurs in the vapor-deposited conductive coating. This compression stress acts on the aluminum foil. For this reason, a wrinkle may occur in the aluminum foil (positive electrode current collector foil). In addition, because of the influence of the wrinkle, it may be difficult to appropriately (uniformly) coat the surface of the positive electrode current collector foil with the positive electrode active material layer.

Battery current collector foil, method of manufacturing battery current collector foil, and battery


A method and an apparatus are provided for improving or optimizing the frequency at which the keep-alive messages are sent to a network device (e.g., an Internet service platform) from a set top box (STB) connected to a router or gateway. By improving or optimizing the frequency at which these messages are sent by the STB to the network device, the amount of network bandwidth that is consumed as a result of sending keep-alive messages can be reduced. This allows a network device to remotely and asynchronously access a STB in a very efficient manner in terms of bandwidth consumption.

In a communications network, such as the Internet, for example, there is often a need for a network device, such as a server, to be able to remotely access a remote device on the network, such as a STB located in a person's home. In particular, there is a need for Internet Protocol (IP)—enabled STBs (IPSTBs) to be accessible asynchronously (i.e., in real-time) from a service platform (SP) in the Internet. The Internet SP needs to be able to asynchronously access the IPSTB for a number of reasons, including, for example, allowing a remote subscriber operating from a cell phone or personal computer (PC) to obtain immediate access to content on their IPSTB for digital video recorder (DVR) programming, content pull, etc.
Typically, an IPSTB in the home resides behind a router that implements a configuration known as Network Address Translation (NAT). An Internet Service Provider may also impose NAT and firewall functionality in its network to block asynchronous Internet access to a subscriber's IPSTB. The NAT inherently prevents an Internet SP from accessing the IPSTB unless a NAT address binding is established in the router between the Internet SP and the IPSTB. The NAT address binding includes IP address and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) or Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) port mapping between the Internet SP on the Wide Area Network (WAN) side of a router and the IPSTB on the Local Area Network (LAN) side of the router.
A NAT address binding can be established and maintained by a periodic LAN-to-WAN side transmission of "keep-alive" message packets sent from LAN-side IPSTB to the WAN-side Internet SP. The keep-alive messages must exchanged frequently enough to keep the NAT address binding alive. If the exchanges are not sent frequently enough, the NAT IP/port address binding entry timer will timeout, and the Internet SP will not be able to access the IPSTB. This problem is compounded by the fact that different routers may have different timeout values for NAT IP/port address binding entries. Thus, in order to ensure that a NAT entry is kept alive, the keep-alive messages are typically sent more frequently than is absolutely necessary; often as short as the shortest NAT IP/port address binding timeout period. This frequent transmission of keep-alive messages consumes a large amount of network bandwidth when averaged over many IPSTBs sending such messages.
A need exists for a way to allow a network device, such as an Internet SP, for example, to asynchronously access an IPSTB that is efficient in terms of network bandwidth consumption.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for enabling a network device to asynchronously access a set top box in a way that conserves network bandwidth


Described is a unit for filling containing elements (2) of single-use capsules (3) with a dose (33) of product for extraction or infusion beverages, comprising: a line (4) for transporting containing elements (2); a station (SR) for filling the containing elements (2) with a dose (33) of product which comprises: at least a first containing seat (S1) designed to receive a dose (33) of product; a substation (ST1) for forming the dose (33) provided with a device (6) for releasing a predetermined quantity of product defining the dose (33) inside the first containing seat (S1), the release device (6) comprising a hopper (38) and at least one rotary element (40a) having a helical profile which extends between a first end and a second end, configured to rotate about a respective axis (X4) of rotation; a drive and control unit (15) configured to drive the rotary element (40a) according to a speed of rotation variable as a function of an angular position of the first end of the rotary unit (40a).

The prior art capsules, used in machines for making extraction or infusion beverages, comprise in their simplest form, the following:                a rigid, cup-shaped outer container comprising a perforatable or perforated bottom and an upper aperture provided with a rim (and usually, but not necessarily, having the shape of a truncated cone);        a dose of product for extract or infusion beverages contained in the outer container;        and a length of sheet obtained from a web for sealing (hermetically) the aperture of the rigid container and designed (usually but not necessarily) to be perforated by a nozzle which supplies liquid under pressure.
Usually, but not necessarily, the sealing sheet is obtained from a web of flexible material.
In some cases, the capsules may comprise one or more rigid or flexible filtering elements.
For example, a first filter (if present) may be located on the bottom of the rigid container.
A second filter (if present) may be interposed between the piece of sealing sheet and the product dose.
The dose of product may be in direct contact with the rigid, cup-shaped outer container, or with a filtering element.
The capsule made up in this way is received and used in specific slots in machines for making beverages.
In the technical sector in question, the need is particularly felt for filling in a simple and effective way the rigid, cup-shaped containers or the filtering elements whilst at the same time maintaining a high productivity.
A technical problem particularly felt in the sector in question is also that of filling the rigid, cup-shaped containers with the same predetermined quantity of product, that is to say, that of reducing the variability of the weight of product introduced in the rigid, cup-shaped containers (relative to each other).
This problem is in fact particularly felt by the final users of these machines (capsule manufacturers), who have the absolute necessity to produce capsules all filled with the same predetermined quantity of product; that is, they have the absolute need to reduce the variability of the weight of product between the capsules (statistically reducing the variability of the weight between the various capsules).
It should be noted that, in this regard, there are prior art packaging machines having a filling unit which allows the simultaneous filling of several parallel rows of rigid, cup-shaped containers, which are advancing. In this case, each row of rigid, cup-shaped containers is associated with a dedicated filling device, generally equipped with a screw feeder to allow the descent of the product inside the container.
This type of unit is therefore obviously quite expensive and complex, since it comprises a plurality of devices and drives (one for each screw device) which are independent from each other and which must necessarily be coordinated.
Moreover, the overall reliability of the machine resulting from this configuration/arrangement of elements is necessarily limited because the rate of faults is inevitably linked with the number of devices and drives present.
Moreover, the screw feeder devices may have drawbacks due to clogging, soiling and poor dosing accuracy. More in detail, the end part of the screw feeder is not normally able to retain the product, which therefore falls and soils the machine.
It has also been found, in particular with screw feeders inserted inside hoppers for feeding the product, that the rigid containers are not filled in a uniform manner, that is, the variability in weight of the product inside the rigid containers does not fall within the tolerances requested by the final users of these machines (capsule manufacturers).
A strongly felt need by operators in this sector is that of having a unit and a method for filling containing elements (rigid, cup-shaped containers) of single-use capsules for extraction or infusion beverages which reduce the variability of the weight of the product introduced inside the containing elements and which are particularly simple, reliable and inexpensive and at the same time maintain a high overall productivity.

Unit and method for filling containing elements of single-use capsules for extraction or infusion beverages


The present invention provides novel compositions comprising a Nigella sativa L. polyunsaturated fatty acid fraction. The present invention also provides novel compositions, particularly topical compositions, comprising octadecadienoic acid and/or octadecenoic acid. The present invention provides novel methods for treating and preventing fungal infections, bacterial infections, skin conditions, anal fissures, hemorrhoids, inflammation, pain, allergic reactions, and septic wounds by administering, preferably topically administering, an effective amount of a composition comprising octadecadienoic acid and/or octadecenoic acid, or a composition comprising the Nigella sativa L. polyunsaturated fatty acid fraction.

A variety of herbal and plant extracts are available today for treating many diseases affecting the human body. Some preparations have been known for thousands of years while others are just being discovered to have highly curative effects. Effective plant extracts are highly desired as a natural way to treat diseases. It is believed that natural preparations will not have an adverse effect on the body compared to synthetic preparations.
The Nigella sativa plant is cultivated for its seeds which are used for medicinal purposes. Nigella sativa L. seeds come from an herbaceous plant that belongs to the Ranunculaceae family. The plant is a dicotyledon and is cultivated in various parts of the world, especially in Eastern Mediterranean countries and also in India, Bangladesh, Turkey and Pakistan. It is also grown in other places having similar climates, such as East Africa, North Africa and the Middle East. The plant is characterized by an erect branched stem and alternating, finely divided, feathery, grayish-green leaves. The bluish-white, star-shaped flowers are terminal and solitary, and there are no petals. The fruit is a globase capsule with small black, rough seeds. Other species of Nigella include Nigella arvensis and Nigella damascena.
The seeds of Nigella sativa are known as Habbatul Baraka (meaning the seed of good fortune) and El Habba El Sawdaa (meaning Black Seed) in the Mediterranean region. The seeds are also known as Kalajira or Kalaoji and Black Cumin in the Indian subcontinent. Nigella sativa L. seeds have been used as a natural remedy for over 4,000 years in various parts of the world, particularly in the Near and Middle East. In the authentic tradition and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) which are documented in "Hadeeth" books he is quoted as saying: "In the Black Seed there is healing for every illness except death."
There is a need in the art for new pharmaceutical compounds and compositions that are derived from natural sources, like plants. The present invention is directed to this, as well as other, important ends.

Biopharm Research & Development Corporation Limited


According to some embodiments of a video poker game of the present invention, a gaming device and/or controller may be configured to (i) output a pay table, (ii) deal an intermediate outcome, (iii) receive a request from a player to retain/discard a number of identified cards of the intermediate outcome, (iv) replace the discarded cards to create a primary game outcome, (v) determine a payout amount associated with the primary game outcome based on the pay table, (vi) determine one or more strategy options based on the primary game outcome to determine a secondary game outcome (e.g., holding selected cards from any in the final poker hand) (vii) determine a payout amount associated with one or more secondary game outcomes, (viii) receive a player selection to receive a strategy option, (ix) deal cards to a selected strategy, (x) determine whether or not the player achieves a winning secondary game outcome, and if so, (xi) output the payout amount associated with the winning secondary game outcome. Thus, in some embodiments, a video poker game of the present invention may allow a player to retain one or more cards of a primary video poker game, select a strategy based on the primary game outcome, and receive a payout if the player achieves a winning game outcome in the secondary game.

Gaming has become an increasingly important industry in the United States and around the world. In games of chance, a player typically places a wager on one or more games, and receives a payout or loses his wager based on the outcome of the game and/or the wager. Examples of devices for games of chance include, without limitation, video poker gaming machines, mechanical slot machines, and video slot machines. These gaming devices use random numbers to develop game outcomes that can be probabilistically predetermined.
Several games require a player to make a decision or select an available option that may influence the final outcome of the game. Such games include, without limitation, poker, blackjack, pai gow poker, and casino war. For example, in a typical draw poker game, play begins when the player is dealt an initial five-card hand. The player then chooses which of the five cards to discard (or which of the five cards to hold). The chosen discards are replaced with new cards, and the resulting hand is then categorized as a winning or losing outcome. In blackjack, a player begins with a two-card hand, and then make decisions such as whether to hit, stand, double down, surrender, etc. In pai gow poker, a player begins with a seven-card hand and must decide how to split his initial hand of seven cards into a five-card hand and a two-card hand. In casino war, a player must periodically decide whether to go to war, or whether to surrender an initial bet.
These strategy games (also known as skill-based games) can be played on and video poker type gaming devices. These video poker gaming devices differ from slot-type gaming devices, allowing players to make selections that affect the probability of a winning game outcome. Much of the popularity of these skill-based games can be attributed to a players ability to implement their own strategy in an effort to improve the probability of obtaining a winning game outcome.
The most successful strategies, however, often do not result in a winning game outcome. Applicants have recognized that many players would like a second chance to successfully complete a winning game outcome.

Method and apparatus for playing video poker with a redraw function


Disclosed is a method and apparatus for attaining control a device in a home automation network. The disclosed method may include establishing, by a processor, communication with an appliance controller. A list of appliances controlled by the appliance controller may be requested. The processor may receive the list of appliances from the appliance controller. A control request may be sent to the appliance controller. A series of images may be collected of the lighting patterns generated by a first appliance in the list of appliances in the field of view of the camera. A specific light pattern collected from the series of images may be correlated with the first appliance.

Home automation networks include devices or appliances that are controllable by network gateway control devices and the network controller in the network. The gateway control devices or network controller may have a user interface that allows users to select devices and set control parameters for them. However, the user has to know the location and orientation of the devices to be controlled before interacting with the user interface. With a number of devices in a residence, a user may have difficulty recalling all of the respective locations and orientations of each device for which the user wishes to adjust the control parameter.

Remotely controlling appliances based on lighting patterns


A filter that includes an analyzer, thresholding circuit, and synthesizer. The analyzer generates a low-frequency component signal and a high-frequency component signal from an input signal. The thresholding circuit generates a processed high-frequency signal from the high-frequency component signal, the processed high-frequency signal having an amplitude of zero in those regions in which the high-frequency component signal has an amplitude that is less than a threshold value. The synthesizer generates a filtered signal from input signals that include the low-frequency component signal and the processed high-frequency signal. The filtered signal is identical to the input signal if the threshold value is zero. The analyzer is preferably constructed from a plurality of finite impulse response filters that operate on a small fraction of the input signal at a time.

Swept-parameter instruments such as oscilloscopes display a graph of a measured quantity on a CRT or similar display device. The displayed measurement trace will typically exhibit noise that can be divided into trace noise and/or noise floor errors. The noise floor is the noise displayed when the measured signal has an amplitude of zero. The trace noise is the noise that depends on the amplitude and/or phase of the measured signal.
There are currently three methods used for noise reduction in such instrumentation. The first class of instruments reduces the noise errors by reducing the resolution bandwidth of the instrument. The resolution bandwidth is the equivalent noise bandwidth of an instrument. By reducing the resolution bandwidth, less noise is detected along with the signal of interest, resulting in less trace noise and a lower noise floor. While this method provides a more accurate measurement, the measurement speed is decreased due to increased signal processing time if the bandwidth reduction is implemented digitally. In addition, the instrument's transient response time is also reduced
The second prior art method averages a number of traces together to reduce the noise errors. By averaging successive traces of data, measurement error due to noise is reduced. Averaging successive traces is equivalent to reducing the resolution bandwidth of the instrument using digital signal processing. While averaging results in more accurate measurements, the measurement speed is decreased due to the number of sweeps that must be taken.
The third method utilizes video filtering and smoothing techniques to reduce the noise displayed by the instrument. The video bandwidth is the equivalent bandwidth of the display trace process. Video filtering trace noise reduces the noise uncertainty. While video filtering is computationally efficient, it has two main problems. First, low pass filtering of the video signal smears signal details, and hence, introduces errors in those regions in which the signal is rapidly changing. Second, many instruments display the logarithm of the measured signal amplitude to provide a more useful display for signals that have large dynamic ranges. Prior art video filtering systems introduce errors in such displays near the noise floor.
Broadly, it is the object of the present invention to provide an improved filtering system and method for reducing noise errors in trace measurement instruments.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings.

Trace video filtering using wavelet de-noising techniques


According to the present invention, a compound represented by the following formula (I) having a superior PPARα agonist action and concurrently showing a hypolipidemic action can be provided, and further, a compound useful as a synthetic intermediate for the compound can be provided.

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) is a nuclear receptor cloned in 1990 as a receptor responsive to peroxisome proliferator, forms a heterodimer with other nuclear receptor, retinoid X receptor (RXR), and activates various target genes as a transcription factor. PPAR comprises three kinds of subtypes (PPARα, β(δ), γ), and it has been clarified that fibrate, which is a therapeutic drug for hyperlipidemia, acts as a ligand for PPARα, and a thiazolidine derivative, which is an insulin sensitizer, acts as a ligand for PPARγ.
Fibrate is a pharmaceutical agent widely used as a therapeutic drug for hyperlipidemia, and clofibrate, aluminum clofibrate, simfibrate, clinofibrate and the like have been heretofore used. At present, bezafibrate (Bezatol SR (registered trademark), Bezalip (registered trademark)) and fenofibrate (lipantil (registered trademark)), which are called the second generation, have been generally used.
Fibrate is known to regulate expression of genes (acyl CoA synthase, lipoprotein lipase, fatty acid transport protein and the like) relating to the metabolism of fatty acid and apolipoprotein (AI, AII, AV, CIII) genes involved in triglyceride (TG) and cholesterol metabolism, by activation of PPARα, decreases TG and LDL cholesterol and increases HDL cholesterol. Thus, fibrate is known to be highly effective as a therapeutic drug for hyperlipidemia.
However, since conventional fibrate shows a weak PPARα agonist activity (EC50) of a μmol/L order (not less than 30 μmol/L), the dose needs to be as high as 200-1500 mg/day. In addition, various side effects such as digestive symptoms such as gastric distress, feeling of sickness and the like, skin symptoms such as anthema and the like, liver dysfunction and pancreatitis have been reported (foregoing from lipantil (registered trademark) package insert), and there is a room for further improvement as a pharmaceutical agent having a PPARα agonist action.
From the above, a pharmaceutical use as a compound superior in the pharmacological action based on PPARα activation (TG lowering action, LDL-C lowering action, HDL-C increasing action, anti-atherogenic action and the like) is expected by creating a compound capable of specifically activating PPARα than conventional fibrates.
Given such background, various carboxylic acid derivatives have been reported in recent years with regard to PPARα agonists. For example, patent reference 1, non-patent reference 1 and non-patent reference 2 have reported (phenylthio)acetic acid derivatives, patent reference 2 and non-patent reference 3 have reported 3-phenylpropionic acid derivatives, patent reference 3 and non-patent reference 4 have reported phenoxyacetic acid derivatives, patent reference 4 has reported phenoxyacetic acid derivatives, patent reference 5 and non-patent reference 5 have reported 2,2-dichloroalkane carboxylic acid derivatives, patent reference 6 has reported 1,3-dioxane-2-carboxylic acid derivatives, and patent reference 7 has reported phenoxyacetic acid derivatives, but no description of (1,3-thiazol-2-yl)thioacetic acid derivatives like the compound of the present invention is provided.    patent reference 1: WO00/23407    patent reference 2: WO00/75103    patent reference 3: WO02/38553    patent reference 4: WO02/28821    patent reference 5: WO96/15784    patent reference 6: WO01/90087    patent reference 7: WO02/096894    non-patent reference 1: J. Med. Chem., 42, 3785 (1999)    non-patent reference 2: Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 11, 1225 (2001)    non-patent reference 3: Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 12, 333 (2002)    non-patent reference 4: J. Med. Chem., 46, 5121 (2003)    non-patent reference 5: Am. J. Physiol., 283 (3, Pt. 2), H949 (2002)

Carboxylic acid derivative containing thiazole ring and pharmaceutical use thereof


A composition is disclosed that comprises:                (A) a lubricant or a hydrocarbon fuel, and        (B) at least one polysiloxane of the formula:MwD′xDyM′zwhere:            w is 2-z;    x is 0 to 50;    y is 0 to 500;    z is 0 to 2;    M=Si(CH3)3—O—;    M′=R1—Si(CH3)2O—;    D=—Si(CH3)2O—;    D′=—Si(CH3)(R1)O—; and    R1 is an aliphatic or aromatic moiety linked to at least one silicon atom from siloxane and comprising at least one heteroatom.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to fuels, especially hydrocarbon fuels, and lubricants, especially lubricating oils, and, more particularly, to a class of non-phosphorus-containing anti-wear, anti-fatigue, and extreme pressure additives that are derived from polysiloxanes for use in such fuels and lubricants.
2. Description of Related Art
In developing lubricating oils, there have been many attempts to provide additives that impart anti-fatigue, anti-wear, and extreme pressure properties thereto. Zinc dialkyldithiophosphates (ZDDP) have been used in formulated oils as anti-wear additives for more than 50 years. However, zinc dialkyldithiophosphates give rise to ash, which contributes to particulate matter in automotive exhaust emissions, and regulatory agencies are seeking to reduce emissions of zinc into the environment. In addition, phosphorus, also a component of ZDDP, is suspected of limiting the service life of the catalytic converters that are used on cars to reduce pollution. It is important to limit the particulate matter and pollution formed during engine use for toxicological and environmental reasons, but it is also important to maintain undiminished the anti-wear properties of the lubricating oil.
In view of the aforementioned shortcomings of the known zinc and phosphorus-containing additives, efforts have been made to provide lubricating oil additives that contain neither zinc nor phosphorus or, at least, contain them in substantially reduced amounts. Illustrative of non-zinc, i.e., ashless, non-phosphorus-containing lubricating oil additives are the reaction products of 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazoles and unsaturated mono-, di-, and tri-glycerides disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,190 and the dialkyl dithiocarbamate-derived organic ethers of U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,189.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,190 discloses an additive that provides anti-wear properties to a lubricating oil. The additive is the reaction product of 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole and a mixture of unsaturated mono-, di-, and triglycerides. Also disclosed is a lubricating oil additive with anti-wear properties produced by reacting a mixture of unsaturated mono-, di-, and triglycerides with diethanolamine to provide an intermediate reaction product and reacting the intermediate reaction product with 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4 thiadiazole.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,189 discloses that dialkyl dithiocarbamate-derived organic ethers have been found to be effective anti-wear/antioxidant additives for lubricants and fuels.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,084,195 and 5,300,243 disclose N-acyl-thiourethane thioureas as anti-wear additives specified for lubricants or hydraulic fluids.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,551,966 discloses a composition comprising:
(A) a lubricant, and
(B) at least one 5-alkyl-2-mercapto-1,3,4-oxadiazole compound of the formula:
wherein R1 is a hydrocarbon or functionalized hydrocarbon of from 1 to 30 carbon atoms.
U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/394,265 filed Jul. 9, 2002 is directed to a composition comprising:
(A) a lubricant or a hydrocarbon fuel, and
(B) at least one silane of the formula:A[Si(R1)3-a(OR2)a]rwherein
A is a group of valence r, r being an integer greater than or equal to 1, selected from the group consisting of linear, branched, or cyclic hydrocarbon groups, an oxygen atom, or a linear, branched, or cyclic siloxane or polysiloxane group, each of which, except for an oxygen atom, optionally comprises substituents having oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, or halogen heteroatoms;
R1 is selected from the group consisting of hydrocarbyl, and chain-substituted hydrocarbyl;
R2 is selected from the group consisting of hydrocarbyl and chain-substituted hydrocarbyl; and
a is 0, 1, 2, or 3;
provided that if r is 1, A is R7Y, wherein R7 is a divalent linear, branched, or cyclic hydrocarbon group, and Y is hydrogen, halogen, an N-bonded group, an O-bonded group, an S-bonded group, or a C-bonded group, and if r is 2, A can be R7.
Japanese patent publication 8-337788 (Dec. 24, 1996) claims additives consisting of silane compounds, e.g., R1Si(OR)3, (R1)2Si(OR)2, and (R1)3SiOR(R═H, C1-18 alkyl, C2-18 alkenyl, C6-18 aryl; R1═C6-50 alkyl, alkenyl, aryl; the alkyl group in R1 may contain N, O, or S or be substituted with OH, CO2H, alkoxycarbonyl, alkenoxycarbonyl, or aryloxycarbonyl). The lubricating oil compounds contain (1) 0.05-10 wt. % the silane additives or (2) the silane additives, metal detergents, and optionally extreme-pressure agents and ashless dispersants. The additives are said to decrease friction of engine oils and improve piston detergency.
Russian patent 245955 (Jun. 11, 1969) discloses that the antifriction and antiwear properties of mineral oil lubricants are increased by addition of organosilanes. To improve the properties of the lubricants, trialkoxy-organosilanes with various functional groups of the formula (RO)3SiR′X, where RO is an alkoxy group, R′ is an alkyl, alkylene, or aryl radical, and X is a functional group, such as NH2, CO2H, COH, OH, or CN, are used.
The disclosures of the foregoing references are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

Polysiloxane additives for lubricants and fuels


A method and apparatus for staggercasting, encodes a first signal representing content and encodes a second signal representing the content using encoding relatively more robust than the encoding of the first encoded content representative signal. A composite signal including at least the first and second encoded signals is generated, in which one of the first and second encoded signals is delayed with respect to the other encoded signal. If an error is detected in the composite signal, then the undelayed encoded signal is decoded to reproduce the content. Otherwise, the delayed encoded signal is decoded to reproduce the content.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to staggercasting methods and apparatus.
2. Background of the Invention
Current digital television transmission standards in the United States, as proposed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) dated Sep. 16, 1995, incorporated by reference herein, use a single carrier modulation technique: eight level vestigial sideband modulation (8-VSB). Because it is a single carrier modulation technique, it is susceptible to signal degradation in the communications channel, such as fading caused by multipath and other signal attenuation. While some such fading may be compensated by channel equalization techniques, if the fade is long enough and severe enough, then the receiver will lose the signal and the demodulator system will lose synchronization. Reacquiring the signal, and resynchronizing the demodulator can take several seconds and is quite objectionable to a viewer.
To overcome this problem, a first ATSC proposal permits creation of a second communications channel by permitting use of a more robust channel coding (modulation) technique for a limited period of time, e.g. less than 10%. For example, a 2 or 4-VSB modulation technique may be used for selected frames. A second ATSC proposal permits a more robust encoding technique, e.g. trellis encoding, while maintaining an 8-VSB modulation technique. Such a system permits improved performance with compatible receivers while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing receivers.
Another known technique for overcoming fading is staggercasting. PCT Application No. US02/22723 filed Jul. 17, 2002, by K. Ramaswamy, et al., and PCT Application No. US02/23032 filed Jul. 19, 2002 by J. A. Cooper, et al., incorporated by reference herein, disclose staggercasting communications systems. Staggercasting communications systems transmit a composite signal including two component content representative signals: one of which is delayed with respect to the other. Put another way, one of the component content representative signals is advanced with respect to the other. The composite signal is broadcast to one or more receivers through a communications channel. At a receiver, the advanced-in-time component content representative signal is delayed through a delay buffer so that it becomes resynchronized in time with the other component content representative signal. Under normal conditions, the undelayed received component content representative signal is used to reproduce the content. If, however, a signal fade occurs, then the previously received and advanced-in-time content representative signal in the delay buffer is used to reproduce the content until either the fade ends and the composite signal is available again, or the delay buffer empties. If the delay period, and the associated delay buffer, is large enough then most probable fades may be compensated for.


In a receiving apparatus in a multicarrier communication system for transmitting data independently via a plurality of subchannels, (1) a soft-decision target value lnD0 is calculated, this being the difference between the probability that data received from a subchannel of interest is one of two values and the probability that the data is the other of the two values; (2) a non-linear operation is performed using degrees of coupling α1, α2 with other subchannels and soft-decision target values lnD1, lnD2 that have entered from receivers on the other channels, and the soft-decision target value lnD0 on the subchannel of interest is adjusted subchannel by subchannel based upon results of the non-linear operation; and (3) a decision is rendered on receive data based upon the soft-decision target value that has been adjusted.

This invention relates to a receiving apparatus in a communication system employing DMT modulation or filter bank modulation, etc. such as a communication system having several subchannels or a multicarrier communication system. More particularly, the invention relates to a receiving apparatus in a communication system that is based upon a maximum a posteriori probability estimation algorithm in which soft-decision target values that have been derived from a plurality of subchannels are employed to refine a soft-decision target value on a subchannel of interest.
Bit error rate (BER) in filter bank modulation, DMT modulation and FMT modulation, etc. multicarrier communication systems can be improved by utilizing a receive signal that contains distortion owing to inter-channel interference (ICI). ICI is produced by system malfunction or an unavoidable environment (e.g., loss of orthogonality between subchannels ascribable to frequency offset or the like) in a communication system, e.g., in OFDM-CDMA. ICI is caused by leakage of spectral energy and sometimes by leakage between subchannels referred to as crosstalk.
The main advantage of a turbo receiver in the present invention is that the behavior of ICI is handled as a zero-average Gaussian distribution probability variable (e.g., a Gaussian approximation used in non-patent reference K. Sathananthan and C. Tellambura, "Probability of error calculation of OFDM system with frequency offset", IEEE Trans. Commun. Vol. 49, No. 11, Nov. 2001, pp. 1884-1888) and employs a finite-state discrete Markov process model. With such an ICI model, it appears that a simple Gaussian approximation is more realistic in view of the nature of ICI.
A turbo receiver according to the present invention is based upon a maximum a posteriori probability estimation algorithm. With this turbo receiver, information that has been derived from a plurality of subchannels after non-linear processing is employed to refine the estimated maximum a posteriori probability (soft-decision target value) of a subchannel of interest.
(a) Relationship between frequency offset and ICI
In a multicarrier communication system in which a band is split into a plurality of subbands, which are independent narrow bands, and transmit data is frequency-multiplexed subband by subband, sent and received, i.e., in a multicarrier communication system employing filter bank modulation, DMT modulation or FMT modulation, etc., selection of a filter set has traditionally been executed under the constraint that inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-channel interference (ICI) be completely eliminated.
In the case of an ideal transmission channel on which there is no Doppler shift, no offset frequency between transceivers and no occurrence of signal distortion, the above constraint assures error-free restoration of transmission symbols at the receiver. However, a frequency offset produced on each channel by inaccurate tuning of an oscillator or by a Doppler shift gives rise to a decline in BER ascribable to spectral leakage or ICI (non-patent reference K. Sathananthan and C. Tellambura, "Probability of error calculation of OFDM system with frequency offset", IEEE Trans. Commun. Vol. 49, No. 11, Nov. 2001, pp. 1884-1888).
The only method of mitigating such a decline in BER is to make the frequency offset as small as possible, i.e., to maintain it within 1% of the subcarrier frequency interval. However, this method necessitates precise estimation of frequency offset. In addition, when a multicarrier signal mixed with noise is received, a problem is that the accuracy of the frequency offset estimation is lost when the noise level is high. Furthermore, this method does not operate correctly on a high-speed fading channel, i.e., on a high-speed fading channel on which the Doppler shift is not constant with respect to a transmission symbol and, moreover, varies with time.
Consider a subchannel ch0 of interest and first and second adjacent subchannels ch1, ch2 disposed above the subchannel of interest. FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate the frequency responses of three subchannels in a case where the frequency offset is zero (FIG. 1) and in a case where the frequency offset is non-zero (FIG. 2). Signals of center frequencies f0, f1, f2 that correspond to first, second and third subchannels are indicated by vertical arrows in FIGS. 1 and 2. In FIGS. 1 and 2, subchannel ch0 indicates the channel of interest, and subchannel numbers ch1, ch2 indicate two subchannels placed above the channel of interest in terms of the frequency scale. If we let T represent the period of a DMT symbol, the frequency scale is normalized by a channel interval that is equal to 1/T. That is, one unit of the frequency scale is the channel interval. When the frequency offset (normalized by the channel interval) α is 0, as shown in FIG. 1, the transfer functions of the upper subchannels ch1, ch2 indicated by the dashed lines B, C in FIG. 1 impart infinite attenuation at the center frequency f0 of the subchannel of interest (solid line A). More specifically, if the frequency offset α is zero, the higher-order subchannels do not produce ICI in the subchannel of interest. In other words, if the frequency offset α is zero, the subchannels are orthogonal and absolutely no ICI exists.
If the frequency offset α is not zero, however, subchannel orthogonality is lost and ICI is produced. FIG. 2 illustrates the spectral characteristic of each subchannel when the frequency offset α is non-zero in a DMT system. Crosstalk signals from subchannels Ch1, Ch2 to the subchannel ch0 of interest have non-zero mutual gains indicated at α1,0, α2,0 in FIG. 2. According to this notation, the first index of α indicates the subchannel that is the source of interference, and the second index indicates the subchannel upon which the interference is inflicted. Thus, if the frequency offset α is non-zero, ICI (crosstalk) is produced in the non-zero mutual gains, i.e., between subchannels.
FIG. 3 is a general model for illustrating the mutual ICI among three subchannels in a DMT system having frequency offset. Here reference characters 10, 11, 12 represent transmitting devices on subchannels ch0, ch1, ch2, respectively; 2 a receiving device on the subchannel ch0 of interest, 3 a transmission path on the channel ch0 of interest; 41, 42 multipliers for multiplying subchannel signals D1, D2 by leakage transfer coefficients (interference coefficients) αi,0 of leakage from the subchannels ch1, ch2 to the subchannel ch0 of interest; 51, 52 combiners for combining crosstalk (ICI) from the subchannels ch1, ch2 with the subchannel of interest; 6 a source of noise; and 7 a noise combiner.
As evident from FIG. 3, the signal from the higher-order subchannel ch1 leaks into the subchannel ch0 of interest via the crosstalk coefficient α1,0, and the signal from the higher-order subchannel ch2 leaks into the subchannel ch0 of interest via the crosstalk coefficient α2,0.
(b) Technical Problems
Thus, it is necessary to so arrange it that the values (codes in case of binary numbers) of the receive signal on the subchannel ch0 of interest and transmit information symbols be decided correctly even if ICI occurs. For this purpose, the inventor of this application has proposed a receiving apparatus (a turbo receiver) that implements a turbo a posteriori algorithm for improving BER utilizing respective ones of ICIs for cases where the subchannels that impose crosstalk upon the subchannel of interest number one, two and n (patent references PCT/JP02/08763, PCT/JP02/08764, PCT/JP03/02537).
The more the number of subchannels to be considered is increased, the more the BER can be improved. A problem, however, is that the algorithm is complicated and so is the structure of the turbo receiver for implementing this algorithm.

Receiving apparatus in communication system


Solar panels having a lightweight honeycomb core as a support for an upper surface array of solar cells. The upper surface of the core is bonded to an upper insulation/faceskin laminate, and the lower surface of the core is bonded to a heat dissipation/faceskin laminate having an undersurface for absorbing heat from the solar cells and dissipating the heat into space for cooler operation and increased power efficiency of the solar panel. The invention resides in the use of a heat dissipation layer of curable resin and carbon powder having increased heat-emission properties.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to solar array panels or collectors, which absorb-solar energy and convert it to electrical energy to power associated electrical components, such as output multiplexers, R.F. switches and combiners, and similar power hardware in a spacecraft or communications satellite.
State of the Art
It is known that solar panels or collectors on a spacecraft, more specifically the solar cells thereof, operate or perform more efficiently at lower temperatures, to supply more energy for the operation of the spacecraft. Therefore, known solar panels or collectors, comprising elongate, lightweight support panels for a plurality or array of photovoltaic cells are designed to absorb solar energy and to convert it to electrical power which is conducted to energize components on the spacecraft, such as traveling wave tubes, radio frequency switches, output multiplexers, etc., some of which components degrade rapidly at high temperatures.
It is desirable to design solar panels so that they emit or release the excess absorbed heat from their rear, continuously-shaded surfaces, back into space to improve the efficiency of the solar cells, present on the front, continuously-sun-exposed surfaces, and to reduce the temperature of the solar panels and reduce heat conductivity to the satellite or spaceship and to the temperature-sensitive electrical components thereon.
State of the Art
It is known to produce solar panels having a strong, lightweight honeycomb support, such as of aluminum, and to provide such solar panels with an upper insulating layer faceskin laminate bonded to the upper surface of the honeycomb support, beneath the solar cell array layer, to insulate the solar cell array from the honeycomb support, and to provide the opposite surface of the honeycomb support with a faceskin comprising a laminate of one or more layers or plies of graphite/epoxy resin and a smooth-surfaced outer heat emissive surface layer consisting of the epoxy or similar resin. Said faceskin laminate is preformed and cured, and bonded to the opposite surface of the honeycomb support by means of an adhesive layer. The purpose of the lower faceskin laminate is to absorb heat from the solar panels and emit or dissipate it from the back surface thereof to provide cooler operating temperatures for the solar cells and higher power efficiency and output.

Solar panels having improved heat dissipation properties


In a first aspect of the present inventive subject matter, a lighting device includes a substrate, a light-emitting element electrically mounted on the substrate, a frame member including a white-colored resin and surrounding the light-emitting element, and a light-transmitting resin in which the light-emitting element and the frame member are embedded. Also, it is suggested that the frame member further includes a light-shielding member entirely sealed by the white-colored resin.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lighting device including a frame member arranged around a light-emitting element, and also relates to a method of manufacturing a lighting device including a frame member.
2. Description of the Related Art
A lighting device including a frame, reflector cup, or partition is suggested in some patent applications as follows.
For example, it is open to the public that a light-emitting diode includes a light-emitting diode element mounted on an upper surface of a glass epoxy substrate, a reflection frame placed around the light-emitting diode element, a second resin encapsulator and a third resin encapsulator used as a surface layer are stacked on an upper portion of the glass epoxy substrate including the reflection frame in layer form to seal the entirety of the first resin encapsulator (For reference, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,345,903).
Also, it is open to the public that a light emitting diode device that emits white light includes a reflector cup, an LED that is mounted in the reflector cup, and a phosphor-converting resin filled in the reflector cup. Also, it is suggested that the LED may be mounted in either a normal or flip-chip configuration within the reflector cup (For reference, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,603,258).
Furthermore, it is open to the public that a surface mounting type white LED includes a chip substrate with at least a pair of surface mounting terminals, a blue LED chip mounted on the chip substrate and electrically connected to the pair of surface mounting terminals, a frame-type member made of solder resist for example and formed on the chip substrate around a periphery of the blue LED, and a bonding agent that includes a phosphor to adhere the blue LED to the chip substrate, and a lens formed of the transparent resin to seal the blue LED chip, the frame-type member, and the bonding agent layer on the chip substrate (For reference, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-207369).
In addition, it is open to the public that a light emitting device includes a substrate, a blue LED element mounted on the substrate, a resinous sealing body including yellow fluorescent particles and sealing the blue LED element, a green LED element mounted on the substrate, a resinous sealing body including red fluorescent particles and sealing the green LED element (For reference, see U.S. Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. US 2006/0197098 A1). Also, it is suggested that a partition is arranged between the blue LED element and the green LED element in FIG. 4 of US 2006/0197098 A1.
Also, it is open to the public that a semiconductor light emitting device includes a circuit board, multiple LEDs mounted on the circuit board by flip chip mounting and serially connected, and electrodes for heat radiation on a rear surface side of the circuit board, and a sealing resin that may be a transparent resin or phosphor resin sealing the multiple LEDs mounted on the substrate (For reference, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2012-227230).

Lighting device and method of manufacturing the same


A safe and arm (S&A) device is disclosed. The device utilizes a no-fire separation distance and a mechanical configuration of primary explosive/booster explosive and secondary explosive to establish a safe mode. While in safe mode, the device would allow no more than 1 in 1 million detonation transfers to occur from primary to secondary. In armed mode, the no-fire separation distance is taken away, allowing reliable detonation transfer. Two arming environments, which occur after launch and safe separation, are used to move the S&A device to armed mode. The first environment is the release event of the projectiles from their packed state in a dispenser. The second environment is a target sense mechanism. If either arming environment returns to its original state, the mechanism returns to safe mode. The S&A device will not allow inadvertent packing into the dispenser of explosive devices in the armed state.

Safe and Arm (S&A) devices are used to prevent an explosive device's main charge from inadvertently detonating, e.g., while stored or handled. These devices allow the explosive to detonate when desired or intended, e.g., when delivered to a target.
Two military specifications set forth standards that relate to fusing: Mil-Std-1316 for fuses; Mil-Std-1455 for dispensed projectiles and submunitions. These specifications include the following standards:                1. While in safe mode, the S&A device must not allow more than 1 in 1 million detonation transfers from primary to secondary explosive.        2. A submunition's S&A device should not allow packaging of the device in the dispenser in armed mode.        3. There must be two independent arming environments sensed by the S&A device that allow the device to go from safe mode to armed mode.        4. The two environments must occur after launch and after safe separation has occurred.        5. In the event the arming environments are taken back away, the S&A device must return to safe mode.        6. In armed mode, the S&A device should allow transfer from primary to secondary explosive if the explosive train is initiated. For further details, the interested reader is referred to the applicable standards, such as Mil-Std-1316 and Mil-Std-1455, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Three known types of S&A devices make use of sliders, rotors, and shutters. A physical barrier (e.g., metal) separates a primary explosive from a secondary explosive in an explosive device. These devices can take up more than three times the amount of space as the explosive material's transfer diameter. The transfer diameter is the minimum diameter needed in intimate contact between primary explosive and secondary explosive to achieve a reliable detonation transfer from primary explosive to secondary explosive. For example, the transfer diameter for typical explosives is 0.11 inches. A rotor that eccentrically turns a primary material to be inline with the secondary would need to be about 0.375 inches in diameter to swing a 0.125 inch diameter in line.
A set back and spin S&A device can be used in gun rounds. For example, an artillery gun round S&A can use set back as environment 1. The set back environment pulls a pin out of a plate mounted eccentrically on a shaft. Removal of the set back pin allows the plate to rotate about the shaft. The gun round is spun up by rifling in its barrel while the set back is present, so the eccentric plate can swing a primary in line with a secondary to arm the device.
An example of an artillery gun round fuse containing the S&A device is 2.5 inches in diameter. Unfortunately, if you scale down these S&A devices to a smaller diameter, they no longer work. The environments (accelerations) they use are still there, but the mass of the tiny pieces are so small they may not reliably overcome friction and springs to enable the armed condition. Also, the transfer diameter is scaled below a level where it will function reliably. The M758 fuse used with the 25 mm M242 gun is an example of an S&A device that works correctly for its specific size, but may not scale to operation at a smaller size.

Safe and arm device and explosive device incorporating same


A semiconductor storage device is manufactured by the following steps. A cylindrical hole is formed in an interlayer insulating film. Then, a multilayer conductive layer including a first sublayer and a second sublayer is formed over the entire surface of the insulating interlayer including the internal surface of the hole. The second sublayer has a higher nitrogen content than the first sublayer. A cup-like lower electrode is formed by reactive ion etching of the conductive layer under conditions that the second sublayer is etched faster than the first sublayer, so that the conductive layer remains only on the internal surface of the hole, and so that the upper edge of the remaining conductive layer forms an angle of 45° or less with the internal wall of the hole. Then, a capacitor insulating layer and an upper electrode are formed in that order on the lower electrode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to semiconductor storage devices, particular to a DRAM (dynamic random access memory), and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
The memory cell of a DRAM includes a selection transistor and a capacitor. The charge storage of the capacitor is disadvantageously decreasing as the memory cell is miniaturized associating with the progress of microfabrication. In order to overcome this disadvantage, the memory cell has begun to employ a capacitor-over-bitline (COB) structure or a stacked trench capacitor (STC) structure. Specifically, the capacitor is formed over the bitline to increase its base area (projected area) and height, and thus to increase the total area. Typical forms of such capacitors have disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 2002-170940 and 8-316435.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-170940 has disclosed a COB DRAM cell and a method for manufacturing the COB DRAM cell. The COB DRAM includes a capacitor using a cup-like ruthenium layer as a lower electrode. The ruthenium layer is formed along the internal surface of a hole formed in an insulating interlayer, and has a double-layer structure composed of a first ruthenium sublayer deposited by sputtering and a second ruthenium sublayer deposited by CVD (chemical vapor deposition). However, this patent document does not mention the problem that the shape of the upper end of the lower electrode causes electric field concentration and thus increases the leakage current from the capacitor insulating layer.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-316435 has disclosed a structure using a cup-like polycrystalline silicon layer as the lower electrode. In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-170940, only the internal surface of the cup-like ruthenium layer functions as the lower electrode, while the cup-like polycrystalline silicon layer in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-316435 functions as the lower electrode at the internal and external surfaces. In this polycrystalline silicon lower electrode, the upper end is rounded in an addition step to prevent the increase in leakage current resulting from the electric field concentration.
It is considered that such adjustment in the shape of the upper end of the lower electrode reduces the leakage current to some extent.
On the other hand, cost reduction is strongly required in manufacture of DRAM. It is desirable that the upper end of the lower electrode be adjusted without adding a special step as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-316435. However, the material of the lower electrode (ruthenium, polycrystalline silicon, titanium nitride, etc.) is difficult to form into a desired shape by etching. Furthermore, a photoresist layer and an insulating interlayer are present on the semiconductor substrate when the lower electrode material is etched, and a high etching selectivity of the lower electrode material to those layers must be ensured. It is therefore difficult to adjust the shape of the upper end of the lower electrode.

Semiconductor storage device and method for manufacturing the same


A Crosslinked Aminosilicone Polymer is useful in personal care applications, particularly hair care or textile treatment. A process for making the Crosslinked Aminosilicone Polymer is also described.

Silicones have been used extensively for hair, textile, and other fiber treatments. In particular, various amine functional silicones have been developed and sold commercially under various trade names. Common problems associated with amine functional silicones as textile treatments are their yellowing of textiles from the oxidation of the amine groups and extensive hydrophobic nature of the polydimethylsiloxane chains. Thus, efforts over the years have focused on modifying amine functional silicones by adding hydrophilic groups to the siloxane polymers, e.g., as silicone polyether block copolymers, while altering or reducing the amine content to reduce yellowing.
There are several shortcomings using amine functional silicone polyether copolymers. They may be expensive and/or time consuming to prepare. Their performance, particularly in hair care applications, may be insufficient. There is an industry need for cost effective functional silicone materials for hair care compositions that can provide conditioning and/or styling benefits to hair.

Crosslinked aminosilicone polymer and methods for its preparation and use


A novel substance, 4,4-bis[(ethenyloxy)methyl]cyclohexene having the formula (I), which is low in odor, low in volatility, and low in skin irritability, and therefore, can be used as, for example, a starting material for inks and a starting material for electronic materials, and a method for producing the same are provided:

The divinyl ether compound according to the present invention, specifically 4,4-bis[(ethenyloxy)methyl]cyclohexene (other name: 3-cyclohexene-1,1-dimethanol divinyl ether), has not been reported in the past and is believed to be a novel compound.
As technology relating to divinyl ether compounds such as the present invention, for example, there are the following Patent Literatures 1 and 2. Patent Literature 1 describes pentaerythritolacetal divinyl ether. This compound has an acetal structure, and therefore, easily hydrolyzes and differs from the divinyl ether compound according to the present invention in the point of stability against water. Patent Literature 2 describes 1,3-adamantane dimethanol divinyl ether, but this compound differs from the divinyl ether compound according to the present invention in the point of ease of cyclization polymerization.

4,4-bis[(ethenyloxy)methyl]cyclohexene and method for producing same


An x-ray fluorographic system which produces a cineangiogram enables a feature in the image to be identified with a cursor and automatically tracked in subsequent images. The identified feature, such as a suspected lesion in a coronary artery, is located in each x-ray frame of the cineangiogram and the data is displayed such that the feature remains motionless in the center of each successive image.

The field of the invention is digital x-ray imaging systems, and particularly, x-ray fluorographic systems used in clinical cardiology to view cardiac vessel lesions.
In x-ray fluorographic systems the x-rays are received by an image intensifier which converts them to a bright optical image that appears on an output phosphor of the intensifier tube. This image is viewed with a video camera which converts the image to analog video signals, and these are digitized into frames of picture elements (pixels). These frames of digitized x-ray data are typically processed in a digital video processor to filter out undesired signals and enhance desired features. The resulting image data is then applied to a digital-to-analog converter which produces a video signal suitable for driving a CRT monitor.
The digitized frames of image data may be used in a number of ways by a cardiologist. As indicated above, the frames can be displayed immediately on the CRT monitor to provide the cardiologist with a cineangiogram or fluoroscopic view of the patient in real time. Such a mode of operation may be used, for example, when positioning a catheter in the patient's vascular system for treatment of a lesion. This mode requires that any processing performed by the digital video processor be carried out at a frame rate which does not cause the picture to flicker.
In the alternative, the acquired image frames may also be stored and played back by the cardiologist. For example, a series of image frames may be acquired for a complete cardiac cycle, digitized and stored. This series of image frames may be processed in a variety of ways to enhance specific features and then played back on the CRT monitor. The cardiologist may play the processed series of image frames back in real time to observe the vasculature during an entire cardiac cycle, he may step through each frame, or he may freeze the sequence on a particular image frame. These "off-line" modes of operation are employed primarily for location and diagnosis of lesions prior to any remedial procedure.
Current digital cardiovascular x-ray systems utilize digital image processing techniques to zoom and pan both static and dynamic cardiac images. In most cases, a statically zoomed image provides the most clinical information about cardiac vessel structure and composition. However, dynamic loops comprised of a series of x-ray frames yield valuable clinical information when played in real time or slow motion. When viewing such cineangiograms an interpolated image sequence provides increased spatial resolution, however, the cardiac motion forces the cardiologist to "track" the moving lesion or vessel. This movement not only distracts the cardiologist, but it also may force the doctor to slow the loop display rate or use a single-step mode. The problem is further complicated when the lesion or vessel of interest, moves in front of or behind other vessels during the cardiac cycle.
A solution to this problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,045 entitled "Coronary Tracking Display." In this system the cardiologist identifies a region in the first frame of the cineangiogram, and this region is tracked during each subsequent frame and made to remain stationary on the display screen. A vessel or lesion can thus be identified and easily followed during the play back of the cineangiogram loop. Other surrounding features are caused to move, but the identified region of interest remains stationary. In one embodiment the cardiologist examines each frame manually and identifies with a screen cursor the feature of interest to be followed. In the alternative, the feature of interest can be identified in the first frame and a means for automatically locating that same feature in subsequent frames may be employed. Although a number of techniques for automatically locating an identified feature in a set of x-ray images are suggested in the prior art, none provide a means which operates automatically and satisfactorily at real time in a commercially viable system.

Digital x-ray imaging system with automatic tracking


An optically transparent article is prepared from an optically transparent first piece and an optically transparent second piece. A channel pattern is scribed into a surface of the first piece to a preselected depth. A metallic stripe pattern is deposited into the channel pattern, with the thickness of the metallic stripe pattern being less than the depth of the channel pattern. The second piece is placed over the first piece and sealed thereto at a peripheral boundary such that the second piece does not contact the metallic stripe pattern. A bus connection is optionally made to the metallic stripe, preferably from the periphery of either the first or second piece.

This invention relates to transparent articles used for windows and the like, and more particularly, to such articles that have metallic mesh embedded therein.
It is a common practice to place a grid of fine electrical conductors on or inside a transparent article. Depending upon the arrangement and dimensioning of the electrical conductors and the wavelength of the radiation impinging radiation, the grid can either permit the transmission of radiation through the transparent article or block its transmission. The grid, formed of a plurality of intersecting metallic stripes, is connected at the periphery of the article to an electrical ground or to a voltage source.
The grid can serve any of a variety of functions. An electrical current can be transmitted through the grid to heat the metallic stripes and thence the transparent article to accomplish de-icing, for example. In another application, the grid is electrically grounded and serves to block the intrusion of electromagnetic interference (EMI) into the interior of the structure in which the window is set, while permitting the transmission of light through the window.
The transparent article with its embedded grid and associated connections can be prepared by any of several approaches. In one, a pattern of thin conductive metallic stripes is deposited upon a transparent substrate. A second piece of the substrate material is placed over the first piece and pressed against the first piece, with the pattern of metallic stripes sandwiched between the two transparent pieces. In another approach, the pattern of thin conductive stripes is deposited upon a transparent substrate. A top layer is deposited overlying the pattern by vapor deposition or other technique.
The inventors have recognized that these techniques, while operable for some applications, have drawbacks when they are used in an attempt to prepare transparent windows (including flat windows and curved domes) of extremely high optical quality. In the approach where the grid is sandwiched between two solid pieces, the resulting stresses in the window diffract and thence distort the transmitted radiation. In the approach where the top layer is vapor deposited, the production of the required thin films can be difficult. Masking of the substrate is not readily accomplished, particularly at the periphery of the substrate so that external bus connections to the grid can be made. In both approaches, it is difficult to disassemble the window to gain access to the grid, in the event that repairs to the grid are necessary, for example.
There is a need for an improved approach to the incorporation of metallic grids into transparent structures. This approach should produce an optically high-quality window, while also permitting disassembly of the window for access to the grid in some cases. The present invention fulfills this need, and further provides related advantages.

Optically transparent article with embedded mesh


Methods, systems, and data structures for communicating object metadata are provided. A generic metadata container is presented that allows object metadata to be described in an extensible manner using protocol-neutral and platform-independent methodologies. A metadata scope refers to a dynamic universe of targets to which the included metadata statements correspond. Metadata properties provide a mechanism to describe the metadata itself, and metadata security can be used to ensure authentic metadata is sent and received. Mechanisms are also provided to allow refinement and replacement of metadata statements. Communication of metadata is expedited using hash digests to confirm metadata versions, and by piggybacking policy metadata requests and responses on other substantive data communication messages, thereby dynamically altering future communications.

Currently, much of the utility of computer systems lies in their ability to communicate and share information with other computer systems. Information is typically passed between computer systems via computer networks. Computer networks are groups of computers interconnected by wires or wireless mechanisms such as infrared, radio, and other technologies. The Internet is a global network of many smaller computer networks connected to one another. There is no controlling central network, but rather several high level networks that are connected through network access points. A network access point is a computer hardware or software device (commonly a network router) that serves as a kind of translator between two different networks.
Web services, generally, refers to application-to-application communication over the Internet via programmatic interfaces. For example, a local application (e.g., Microsoft® Money) on a client computer may communicate with a server application on a remote computer to obtain stock ticker information. The two applications may communicate the requested ticker symbol and the corresponding results via one or more messages transmitted over the Internet, without opening or using a traditional Internet browser such as Internet Explorer®.
The advent of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and other protocol-neutral communications mechanisms has made it easier for web services to be offered between computers residing on different networks, written in different languages, and/or using different operating systems, yet still communicate effectively in an interoperable manner. However, these protocol neutral mechanisms do not provide an extensible mechanism to describe metadata regarding an object, nor do present metadata description techniques allow for the refining of metadata by other metadata or allow for secure metadata statements without the use of separate encryption technologies. Web services description language (WSDL) is known, however, WSDL described web services interfaces. WSDL does not describe metadata regarding a web service, such as its communication policies, etc.
FIG. 1 illustrates metadata in a conventional HTML document, e.g., from http://www.microsoft.com. In FIG. 1, each metadata element has a name (e.g., "keywords," "description," etc.) and corresponding content. These metadata elements apply only to the current object, i.e., the URL http://www.microsoft.com/default.asp.
Thus, it would be an advancement in the art to provide a mechanism for describing metadata in an extensible manner. It would be a further advancement in the art to allow metadata to refer to multiple objects, messages, and/or message patterns simultaneously. It would be a further advancement in the art to provide a metadata description mechanism that allows metadata statements to be refined by subsequent metadata statements. It would be a further advancement in the art to provide secure metadata statements without using external security measures.


Photovoltaic cells integrated with a bypass diode, as well as related systems, components, and methods, are disclosed.

Photovoltaic cells are commonly used to convert energy in the form of light into energy in the form of electricity. A typical photovoltaic cell includes a photoactive material disposed between two electrodes. Generally, light passes through one or both of the electrodes to interact with the photoactive material to convert light energy into electricity energy.
Photovoltaic cells are typically assembled into modules containing an array of photovoltaic cells connected together in series, or in parallel, or in a series-parallel combination. When all cells in a module are illuminated, each cell is forward biased. However, if one or more of the cells is shadowed (i.e., not illuminated), the shadowed cell or cells may become reversed biased because of the voltage generated by the unshadowed cells. Reverse biasing of a cell can cause degradation in cell performance or even complete cell failure.

Photovoltaic cells integrated with bypass diode


A hybrid vehicle drive control apparatus including an electric generator mechanically connected to an engine so as to have a differential rotation with respect to the engine, a generator brake for mechanically stopping a rotation of the generator and a controller that gradually decreases a generator torque while engaging the generator brake.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a hybrid vehicle drive control apparatus and a hybrid vehicle drive control method as well as a program thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
A known vehicle drive apparatus installed in a hybrid vehicle for transferring a torque of an internal combustion engine, that is a portion of the engine torque, to an electric generator (generator-motor) and transferring the rest of the engine torque to driving wheels is provided with a planetary gear unit that includes a sun gear, a ring gear and a carrier. The carrier is connected to the engine. The ring gear is connected to the driving wheels and to a vehicle drive electric motor. The sun gear is connected to the generator. Rotation output from the ring gear and the vehicle drive electric motor is transferred to the driving wheels, thus generating a vehicle-driving force.
If, in this kind of vehicle drive apparatus, the rotation speed of the generator (i.e., generator rotation speed) is relatively low, the electric power consumption increases and the electric power generation efficiency of the generator decreases. As such, the fuel economy of the hybrid vehicle correspondingly degrades. Therefore, if the generator rotation speed is relatively low, a generator brake is engaged in order to stop the generator (shut down) (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 9-156387).
To that end, a generator control device of the vehicle drive apparatus executes a generator rotation speed control in order to set a target generator rotation speed, that is a target value of a generator rotation speed, at zero (0). The control also causes the generator to receive the engine torque and then engage the generator brake. Subsequently, the generator control device instantaneously changes the torque of the generator, that is the generator torque, to zero to stop the generator.

Hybrid vehicle drive control apparatus, hybrid vehicle drive control method, and program thereof


An apparatus and method serves, e.g., to deaerate, clean or screen a fibrous suspension and is provided with a closed housing and a rotor arranged centrally therein. The rotor puts at least a part of the fibrous suspension guided into the housing into a rotational flow. The fibrous suspension flowing into the housing through the inlet is put into rotation by a guide element acting hydraulically. This increase the efficiency of the apparatus and prevents disturbing turbulences in the apparatus.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus and method for treating a fibrous suspension and, more particularly, to a deaeration apparatus, cleaning apparatus or pressurized screen for treating a fibrous suspension.
2. Discussion of Background Information
As is known, fibrous paper stock required for paper production is treated on a paper machine in a stock preparation. With a majority of the process steps carried out in this part of the installation of a paper mill, the fibers are treated and processed in suspension, in particular an aqueous suspension, with a fiber content between 0.5 and 8%. The major part of these process steps is carried out in closed apparatuses, i.e., those that are part of a closed system.
Apparatuses which can be used for the stock preparation can, e.g., be pressurized screens. In these types of apparatus, the fibrous suspension to be treated is pumped through a wet wire, e.g., a screen cylinder (also referred to as a screen basket), by an applied pressure difference. In this way, a part of the fibrous suspension is rejected at the openings of the screen and removed from the housing through a separate opening. A rotor is moved past the screen to prevent the screen from becoming clogged by fibers or rejected contaminants.
Apparatuses can also be designed to deaerate or degas the fibrous suspension. To accomplish such deaerating or degassing, the suspension is put into rapid rotation by the rotor, which causes gases, e.g., air, to accumulate in the center as a result of centrifugal forces. The gases are then removed through a suitable opening. Apparatuses of this type are suitable for replacing complex vacuum-operated degassing containers. They can be arranged directly before a pressure-increasing stock pump which conveys the suspension to the next treatment step. Naturally, the operating energy input used to drive the rotor is a cost factor in the operation of such an apparatus.

Apparatus for treating a fibrous suspension


The movable side step comprises a front frame and a rear frame being connected to a body frame of the lower portion of the vehicle, a guide bar and foothold being connected movably forward and backward to the front frame and the rear frame, and an rotating link and operating member and door connecting rod for operating guide bar and foothold according to the opening/shutting of a door of the vehicle. According to the movable side step, the vehicle may be driven more safely.

Generally, the bottom surface of commercial vehicles or recreational vehicles, which many passengers get into, is higher than that of passenger cars. Accordingly, it is difficult for people such as children or the old and the weak to get into or get out of the vehicles. To solve this problem, as an auxiliary foothold, a side step is installed onto the lower portion of the side door of the commercial vehicle or the recreational vehicle in order to protrude outward from the side door thereof.
A sample of a conventional vehicle equipped with the side step is shown in FIG. 12. The conventional vehicle, generally, comprises the frame 110 made of metal pipe and formed with vertical bending portions 101 and 102 on both sides thereof, and a rectangular foothold 120 being protrudingly outwardly mounted on the one side of the frame 110.
A predetermined bracket is fixedly attached on the body frame or the inner side member installed on the lower surface of the vehicle, and the bending portions 101 and 102 of the frame 110 are connected to the bracket by a connecting means such as a bolt. Thereby, the side step 100 is installed on the vehicle.
At this rime, the foothold 120 of the side step 100 is positioned in the intermediate of between the bottom surface of the vehicle and the ground so that passengers can easily get into or get out of.
However, the conventional side step should be fixedly outwardly protruding from the side door of the vehicle. Therefore, when the side step is excessively protruding, a car accident may happen. And, when the vehicle is parked, a large parking space is required. Further, when the side step is insufficiently protruding, it may not be usefully used as a foothold.


A extrusion die assembly for cold extruding internally and/or externally toothed gears and the like, particularly internally toothed ring gears, with the mandrel for forming the internal teeth in the workpiece including axially successive sets of die teeth, with each set including a full complement of annularly arranged and equally spaced die teeth, and the die teeth from the leading set to the trailing set increasing progressively in diameter.. In one embodiment, the die teeth from one set to the next on the mandrel extrude the gear teeth in equal radial depth, and in a second embodiment, the die teeth of each succeeding mandrel set extrude the gear teeth by displacing an equal volume of material from one set to the next.. The die teeth in each set on the mandrel including a relief portion of progressively decreasing radial dimension, the workpiece being arrested on the die assembly such that all extrusion of the workpiece axially along the mandrel is in the direction of the relief portion, thereby maintaining at a minimum frictional contact between the mandrel and the workpiece.

The cold extrusion of gears, such as externally toothed pinion gears and internally toothed ring gears for vehicular automatic transmissions is an extremely advantageous gear manufacturing process. The process provides a precise forging requiring only minimal trim and finished grind operations to produce a finished part. However, cold extrusion does require that significant extrusion forces be applied against the forging blank to cause cold flow of the material. Thus, a forging press having a high tonnage rated capacity is required. Further, the forces on the die teeth are significantly high, thereby creating high residual stresses which can contribute to the breakage of the die teeth, or other premature failure. High frictional forces are also a concern, i.e., the frictional force between the blank being forged and the inner or outer die pieces.
When such gears are provided with helical gear teeth, bending stress on the die teeth is also of concern. Bending stress is caused by the fact that the metal of the gear blank is caused to change direction from pure axial flow (i.e., coaxially with the press anvil such as with spur gears) to a combined axial and helical direction of flow typical of helix gears. The bending stress is greatest at the forward end of the die tooth. Various designs for the die teeth have been proposed to minimize bending stress in this area, such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,622,842 and 5,052,210 assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
It is also known to reduce the stress on the die teeth by eliminating or substantially reducing the friction between the gear blank and the non-toothed die part. Such a technique is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,878,370, also assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference. Therein, there is shown the forging of an internally toothed helical ring gear wherein the annular outer die ring is axially spring-loaded, and thereby allowed to move with the workpiece at a maximum rate equalling that of the punch as the workpiece is extruded through the length of the mandrel. Friction between the workpiece is further reduced by utilizing a free-floating, self-centering mandrel, and by providing the mandrel die teeth with a tapered relief portion rearward of the leading end of the die teeth.
Broaching is also a common technique for producing gears, particularly ring gears, i.e. by cutting the teeth to near finished or finished dimension. The commonly used single axially reciprocating broach may include an axially incremental tooth configuration, in sections, such that at each section more and more of the desired finished tooth profile is cut by the broach. Typically, for a helical ring gear having a six inch internal diameter, the broach is in the order of ten to twelve feet long. It is made of high grade steel and extremely expensive to fabricate. It does produce a precision part, and the finishing operations are less than that of the cold extrusion technique described above.
Further with the broaching of helical gear teeth, it is common to allow the broach and/or the workpiece to rotate about the axis of the broach (and annular outer die part) to allow cutting the teeth on a helix.


It can be determined without visually observing the display screen of a display device whether image conversion processing in a conversion circuit for outputting image data to the display device is being performed normally. The conversion circuit extracts data at a position designated from a host apparatus from image data output to the display device, and outputs the extracted data to the host apparatus. In the host apparatus, image data obtained upon normal conversion in the conversion circuit is prepared in advance, and this image data is collated with the data sent from the conversion circuit to determine whether the operation of the conversion circuit is normal.

The present invention relates to a display control apparatus, an information processing apparatus, and a control method.
In an information processing system (or apparatus), a display device is generally used as a means for realizing an information visual expression function. A CRT display device is most popular as such a display device, as is well known.
In display control in a CRT display device, an operation for writing an image to be displayed in a video memory (to be referred to as a VRAM hereinafter) arranged in an information processing apparatus and an operation for reading out display data from the VRAM are independently performed.
In the above CRT display control, write access of display data to the video memory to update display information and read access for displaying display information are performed independently of each other. For this reason, desired display data can be advantageously written at an arbitrary timing without considering the display timing in the program on the information processing system side.
The number of display dots on a display device in an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer is generally 640.times.400 to 640.times.480 dots. The number of display colors is a maximum of 16 in most display devices.
Along with recent advance in OS's (Operating Systems) and hardware, it is now possible to mount a display board or card on an existing information processing apparatus so as to increase not only the number of display dots but also the number of colors. The display board or card is a so-called graphic accelerator board (card) (to be referred to as a display control board hereinafter). Liquid crystal displays (LCD) have recently received a great deal of attention as substitutes for existing CRT devices because the LCD takes less space.
In the liquid crystal display, the number of colors is generally smaller than that of the CRT. Therefore, image data to be displayed on the LCD must be processed to some extent, and the processing result must be displayed.
For example, the assignee of the present invention has proposed a display using a ferroelectric liquid crystal cell (this display will be referred to as an FLCD hereinafter) as one type of LCD. One of the features of the FLCD lies in that a liquid crystal cell can retain its display state even after removal of an electric field. More specifically, the FLCD has a sufficiently thin liquid crystal cell, and each elongated FLC element in the cell maintains its aligned state even upon removal of the applied electric field. The FLCD using this FLC element has a memory effect for storing display contents due to the bistable properties of the FLC element. The details of the FLC and FLCD are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,699.
The number of colors of the FLCD is 16 at present. However, binarization techniques such as error diffusion can greatly increase the apparent number of display colors.
When a graphic accelerator board for a liquid crystal display such as an FLCD as an output target is taken into consideration, at least a circuit for converting display data into data to be displayed on a liquid crystal display is required.
To check if such a circuit operates properly, the board is connected to an FLCD (this FLCD is, of course, one that has been confirmed as operating properly), a sample image is displayed, and it is determined by observation with the human eye whether any defective portion is present. This operation is time-consuming and requires much labor of those who test the graphic accelerator boards.
To drive an FLCD, since a display image is stored beforehand and displayed, unlike in a CRT or other liquid crystal displays, a time margin is formed in the continuous refresh driving period. As a result, so-called partial rewrite driving for updating only the display state of an updated portion on the display screen independently of the continuous refresh driving can be performed.
In the FLCD, binarization halftone processing is performed to increase the number of pseudo display colors. A typical example is an ED (Error Diffusion) method for maintaining the image qualities of both a natural image and a character image. This ED processing requires continuity of an image in processing because an error occurring in a given pixel is sequentially diffused (distributed) to adjacent pixels.
The following problem is posed when processing using the ED method and the partial rewrite processing is to be simultaneously performed.
More specifically, as described above, according to the ED method, an error occurring in the process propagates like a wave, so that an image as a processing target must be continuous. If some updated portions are present, these portions become discrete in the vertical direction.
To immediately reflect the ED processing result on the FLCD, the transfer rate of the ED processing result must be equal to that of the FLCD. In this case, the partial rewrite position is not fixed, but may be an arbitrary position on the display screen. To cope with this by directly transferring the ED processing result to the FLCD, some technical problems are left unsolved.

Display control apparatus, information processing apparatus, and control method