A structure and manufacturing method of LED is disclosed. The manufacturing method of the structure of LED comprises: providing a substrate; on the substrate, forming in sequence a buffer layer, a first confining layer, an active layer, a second confining layer and a window layer; forming a first metal electrode beneath the substrate; forming a second metal electrode on the window layer, wherein there is a schottky contact surface between the second metal electrode and the window layer; forming a third metal electrode on the second metal electrode, wherein the third metal electrode has a feature of high melting point; forming a fourth metal electrode on the third metal electrode and the window layer, wherein there is an ohmic contact surface between the window layer and the fourth metal electrode; and forming a fifth metal electrode on the fourth metal electrode, wherein the fifth metal electrode has a feature of good adhesion, and when the substrate, the buffer layer and the first confining layer are n-type or p-type, the type of the second confining layer and window layer are opposite. The carriers are blocked from moving downward by the energy barrier between the schottky electrode and the window layer, so that the carriers are forced to spread around enormously. Furthermore, by utilizing the third metal electrode having high melting point to be a block between the fourth metal electrode and the second metal electrode, the schottky contact induced between the window layer and the second metal electrode can be maintained. Thus, irradiation efficiency of LED is enhanced.

The present invention relates to a structure and a manufacturing method of light emitting diode (LED), and more particularly relates to a LED structure having an electrode with a schottky contact and to a manufacturing method thereof. By reducing the quantity of carriers in an area under the electrode, the carriers can be distributed over the active region efficiently. Thus, the output intensity of light can be enhanced.
Nowadays, because LED has advantages of low manufacturing cost, low manufacturing difficulty level, easy and convenient installation and good development future, LED is used widely in daily life, such as electronic bulletin boards, indicator lights and car taillights, etc. However, how to further enhance the irraidation efficiency of LED is still a target on which engineers are working.
Referring to FIG. 1, FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure of a conventional LED. The conventional LED is grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) or molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). First, a buffer layer 102, a first confining layer 104, an active layer 106, a second confining layer 108 and a window layer 110 are formed on a substrate 100 sequentially, and then, by performing an evaporation step, a upper metal electrode 112 is formed on the window layer 110 and a backside electrode 114 is formed by evaporation beneath the substrate 100.
Current leaves or enters the window layer 110 through the upper metal electrode 112 of LED 90, and then the carriers arrive the active layer 106 after passing the second confining layer 108 uniformly by diffusion. Therefore, due to the carrier recombination, the active layer 106 ejects out photons thereby emitting light for the LED 90.
As the aforementioned description, the main current flow path is an area under the upper metal electrode 112, and the area contains plenty of carriers, so that the carriers can not be spread efficiently to the whole window layer 110 and to the whole chip. Hence, the main radiation combining area 116 is located on the center of the active layer 106 (the area beneath the upper metal electrode 112).
However, since most of carriers are only injected to the position under the upper metal electrode 112 during the operation of LED, and due to the Current Crowding Phenomenon that the carriers are concentrated under the upper metal electrode 112, there are no enough carriers to perform radiative recombination in the other position of the active layer 106. Thus, most of light emitted from the active layer 106 is either blocked and reflected by the upper metal electrode 112, or is absorbed by semiconductor, so that the emitting efficiency of LED 90 is decreased and is not be satisfied.
Referring to FIG. 2, FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure of another conventional LED. In order to resolve the aforementioned problem, the thickness of the window layer is increased for enhancing the spreading current. Another method of improving the Current Crowding Phenomenon is to formed a current blocking layer 118 beneath the upper metal electrode 112 in the subsequent process as shown in the FIG. 1 after forming the second confining layer 108 as shown in the FIG. 1. The carriers are blocked from moving downward by using the energy barrier and the electric field induced in the depletion region in the current blocking layer 118, so that the carriers beneath the upper metal electrode 112 are forced to be distributed allover the chip, and the main radiation combining area 116 is located on the active layer 106""s other areas which are not under the upper metal electrode 112. Therefore, the photons emitted from the active layer 106 will not be blocked by the opaque upper metal electrode 112, so that the light output intensity is enhanced.
Nevertheless, in the method of increasing the thickness of the window layer 110 for enhancing the spreading current, the thickness of the window layer 110 has to be about 5 xcexcm or over, which takes longer production time for forming the epitaxy and thus increases the production cost. In the other method of forming the current blocking layer 118 on the second confining layer 108, the current blocking layer has to be formed by using MOCVD twice. After the second confining layer 108 is formed, the chip needs to be moved out of the chamber for forming the current blocking layer 118, and after the current blocking layer 118 is formed, the chip is moved into the chamber again for performing the subsequent steps to complete the remaining structure. The additional step for forming the current blocking layer 118 results the extension of production time, the increase of production cost and the decrease of yield.
In view of the background of the invention described above, the LED with high efficient is urgently needed, so that many conventional methods for improving the light efficiency of LED are developed. In a conventional LED manufacturing process, for improving the current crowding phenomenon, a current blocking layer is formed on the second confining layer for blocking the carriers from moving downward and for forcing the carriers to spread around the chip. However, forming the current blocking layer has to employ MOCVD twice, before performing the subsequent steps. Because of additional step for forming the current blocking layer in the conventional manufacturing process of LED, the production time is extended, and the production cost is increased.
It is the principal object of the present invention to provide a LED structure and a manufacturing method thereof, and more particularly to provide a LED structure having an electrode with a schottky contact, and to provide a method for manufacturing the LED structure. In the present invention, by forming the schottky contact between the metal electrode and the window layer, the carriers are blocked from moving downward by using the energy barrier, and are forced to spread out, thereby enhancing the light output intensity.
In accordance with the aforementioned purposes of the present invention, the present invention provides a structure and a manufacturing method of LED, and the manufacturing method comprises: providing a first-type substrate; forming a first-type buffer layer on the first-type substrate; forming a first-type first confining layer on the first-type buffer layer; forming an active layer on the first-type first confining layer; forming a second-type confining layer on the active layer; forming a second-type window layer on the second-type confining layer; forming a first metal electrode beneath the first-type substrate, wherein there is a first ohmic contact surface between the first metal electrode and the first-type substrate; forming a second metal electrode on the second-type window layer, wherein there is a schottky contact surface between the second metal electrode and the second-type window layer; forming a third metal electrode on the second metal electrode, wherein the third metal electrode has a feature of high melting point; forming a fourth electrode on the third metal electrode and the second-type window layer, wherein there is a second ohmic contact surface between the fourth electrode and the second-type window layer; and forming a fifth metal electrode on the fourth electrode, wherein the fifth metal electrode has a feature of good adhesion, and when the first-type substrate, the first-type buffer layer and the first-type first confining layer are n-type, the second-type second confining layer and the second-type window layer are p-type, and when the first-type substrate, the first-type buffer layer and the first-type first confining layer are p-type, the second-type second confining layer and the second-type window layer are n-type.
Since there is a schottky contact surface between the second metal electrode and the second-type window layer, and the third metal electrode having the feature of high melting point is located between the second metal electrode and the fourth metal electrode, thus the carriers are blocked from moving downward and forced to spread out, and the schottky contact can be maintained, for enhancing the light output intensity by using the energy barrier. Thus, the thickness of the current-spreading layer can be diminished with a proper adjustment of the process, wherein the current blocking layer is no longer need, and the efficiency of carriers spreading around the chip can be maintained at the same time. Hence, the epitaxial material cost and the production time can be reduced because no additional current blocking layer is required, thereby increasing the throughput and the yield.

Led structure having a schottky contact and manufacturing method


A highly selective dehydrogenation catalyst for the preparation of para-dioxanones is produced by impregnating copper and zinc on a promoter impregnated support. This catalyst is effective for the dehydrogenation of dialkylene glycols to produce a high purity 2-para-dioxanones.

Para-dioxanones are used as a starting material in the manufacture of poly para-dioxanones. The poly para-dioxanones are used in the manufacture of adsorbable monofilament suture fibers and other adsorbable medical devices.
One method of preparing para-dioxanones is by oxidative dehydrogenation of dialkylene glycols. In U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,900,395 and 2,807,629, a copper chromite catalyst is used for the oxidation dehydrogenation of diethylene glycol. However, these patents report a yield of about 67-84% and a conversion of about 67-94%.
It has been found that the presence of impurities inhibit polymerization. Typical impurities in the preparation of 2-para-dioxanone include, unreacted dialkylene glycol and reaction by-products such as 2-para-dioxanol, para-dioxane, 2,3dihydro-para-dioxin (dioxene), alkylene glycol and carboxylic acids. Particularly, the production of carboxylic acids and hydroxylic compounds can hinder polymerization of 2-paradioxanones. Therefore, a process to produce a high purity paradioxanone ("polymerization grade") is desirable.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a para-dioxanone preparation process with high conversion rate and selectivity.


An elongated strip, for holding fastening elements (5) for use in explosive powder charge operated setting tools, forms a plurality of consecutively arranged hollow, cylindrically shaped spaces for holding the fastening elements (5) and with the spaces interconnected by flexible webs (2, 3). The spaces (1) each have a central axes and are positioned between parallel sidewalls extending in the elongated direction and arranged parallel to the central axes. First flexible webs (2) are formed in the sidewalls between adjacent spaces (1). The height (H2) of the first webs (2) measured parallel to the central axes of the spaces (1) are in the range of 0.3 to 0.6 times the height (H1) of the sidewalls (4) measured parallel to the central axes of the spaces (1).

The present invention is directed to an strip for holding fastening elements for use in explosive powder charge operated setting tools with consecutively arranged hollow cylindrical spaces serving as holders for the fastening elements with the spaces disposed between two elongated sidewalls arranged parallel to one another and parallel to the central axes of the spaces.
A commercially available strip for holding fastening elements for use in explosive powder charge operated setting tools is known from the Hilti/Liechtenstein Company in its product catalogue "Systems Solutions for the Building Industry 1993/1994" and identified by the designation ENP 2-21 L 15. This known strip for securing fastening elements has a number of consecutively arranged, hollow, cylindrically shaped spaces for holding the fastening elements. Spaces are interconnected to one another by a flexible web arranged in the region of the common central axes of the spaces and by two sidewalls extending parallel to one another. The sidewalls extend along the sides of the strip and run parallel to the central axes of the spaces.
The spaces in the strip serve to hold fastening elements which can be driven into a base or receiving material by an explosive powder charge operated setting tool. The fastening elements inserted into the spaces in the strip are provided with two spaced apart guide disks frictionally connected to the shank of the fastening element and radially outwardly abutting against the inside wall of the spaces.
The sidewalls of the strip have indentations running parallel to the central axes of the spaces and are positioned in a elongated edge between the spaces. The depth of the indentation is slight compared to the height of the sidewalls measured parallel to the central axes of the spaces so that the holding strip has a very high bending strength in a plane extending parallel to the central axes of the spaces as well as in a plane extending perpendicularly to the central axes of the spaces.


An electrical connector comprises a plug and complementary socket. The plug includes a main body having a portion adapted for insertion into the socket, and a resilient tongue biased away from the main body and extending laterally therefrom generally in the direction of plug insertion. The tongue and the socket are provided with respective catch means which mutually engage when the plug is inserted into the socket. The catch can thus be released simply by squeezing the tongue against the main body. In order to prevent the tongue catching on obstacles and to help prevent inadvertent actuation especially in the context of a portable radio telephone, a rigid joining member is provided between the rearward end of the tongue and the main body.

Such a connector is known in which the plug comprises a main body having a portion adapted for insertion into the socket, and a resilient tongue biased away from the main body and extending laterally therefrom generally in the direction of plug insertion, and wherein the tongue and the socket are provided with complementary catch means which mutually engage when the plug is inserted into the socket, said catch means being releasable by pressing said tongue towards the main body.
In the known connectors of this type the resilient tongue is fastened to the main body of the plug only at its leading end, i.e. in cantilever fashion, in such manner that the free end of the flying tongue protrudes from the socket when the plug is fully inserted in the socket so that the release mechanism can readily be actuated by the user.
However, the Applicant has found that this form of connector is unsuitable in the context of portable apparatus, such as a portable radio telephone, because there is a tendency for the free end of the protruding tongue to get caught accidentally on various obstacles, for example the user's clothing or furniture. Apart from the inherent disadvantage of getting the connector caught, and possibly even breaking the free end of tongue, the plug may inadvertently become disconnected if the pressure on the tongue is sufficient to release the catch mechanism.


A semiconductor device is provided, the semiconductor device including a semiconductor chip having a first metal heat-conductive medium in the inside thereof, a substrate having a second metal heat-conductive medium thermally connected to the first metal heat-conductive medium, and a temperature control device of which at least a part is disposed on the substrate, thermally connected to the second metal heat-conductive medium, and configured to control the temperature within the semiconductor chip.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a low resistance of a wiring resistance and a low dielectric constant of an interlayer insulation film have been promoted to improve a signal delay. Specifically, by changing a wiring material from Al to Cu, the wiring resistance is made to be a lower resistance. Besides, the interlayer insulation film is made to have a lower dielectric constant by applying a low dielectric constant insulating film (Low-k film) such as fluorine-doped SiO2, SiO2 film containing organic constituent, or an organic film instead of SiO2, and further by the porosity of the low dielectric constant film. However, the lowering of the dielectric constant of the interlayer insulation film causes a problem of a deterioration of heat conductivity on the other hand. In particular, the porosity brings about a thermal storage effect within the interlayer insulation film.
Meanwhile, the power consumption is increasing by a speeding up and a high integration density of a semiconductor device, and a heating value from inside of a semiconductor chip is more increasing.
From these circumstances, in the current semiconductor chip, a heating value increases and the heat tends to stay. Therefore, a heat release only from the rear surface of an Si substrate is not sufficient for the heat release, and thereby, it brings about a rise of a chip temperature, and it is possible to bring about an operation failure, and further, a reliability failure.
To solve these heat dissipation problems, a method to release the heat by bonding a metal plate or a metal fin on the rear surface of the Si substrate is suggested. However, the heat dissipation effect thereof is insufficient and more improvement is required.
A method to form multilayered dummy wirings in the semiconductor chip and connect the dummy wirings each other through dummy vias, and transmit the heat through the dummy wirings, to release the heat from the surface layer of a semiconductor chip, is suggested (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 10-199882). However, the surface layer of the semiconductor chip is generally sealed by a low heat conductive resin for avoiding a corrosion from environment and for protecting from a mechanical destruction. Therefore, also in this case, the heat remains in the semiconductor chip after all, and it is insufficient as a heat dissipation effect.

Semiconductor device with temperature control mechanism


An article includes a cover member, which can reversibly slide between an open orientation and a closed orientation. The article includes at least one track member disposed on one or opposing sides of the cover member. The article includes at least one support structure adapted to be received by the at least one track member in a sliding relation. The article includes at least one vertical support structure disposed in a fixed position relative to the cover member and adapted to mate with a bottom surface of the cover member in a vertically supporting relation. The article includes at least one mechanical stop limiting the range of motion of the cover member in an opening direction.

A. Field of Invention
The present invention generally relates to devices and methods for covering and/or concealing vehicle components.
B. Description of the Related Art
It is known in the art to provide anchors or attachment means for various interior components of a vehicle interior. It is also known to provide a child's seat that can be selectively secured within an automobile for human infants that are too small to be safely secured by conventional three point safety belt and shoulder harnesses.
The present invention provides methods and apparatuses for an innovative anchor and cap for the anchor, so as to provide a convenient method and apparatus for securing a child seat or other object within a vehicle interior. Further, a cap is provided to selectively cover the anchor.


A modular plug for directing a plurality of twist pairs of core wires into an opening of a modular jack (500) for electrical connection, includes a guide member (140) for separating and arranging the twist pairs for each twist pair; a housing (110) for positioning and holding each twist pair for each core wire; and a plurality of contact terminals (120), each connected to each core wire. The contact terminals are arranged such that adjacent contact terminals are not substantially overlapped each other or overlapped only in part. The modular jack includes a plurality of contact terminals (520) arranged such that adjacent contact terminals are not substantially overlapped each other.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to modular plugs and modular jacks and, particularly, to a modular plug for directing a plurality of twist pairs of core wires into the opening of a modular jack for electrical connection and modular jack for use with a modular plug for electrical connection with a plurality of core wires.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modular plugs and modular jacks are used for telephone sets or local area networks. A modular plug is connected to a plurality of core wires of a cable and plugged into equipment. A modular jack is mounted on the equipment to receive the modular plug.
A guide member is provided in the modular plug to arrange the core wires of a cable. An example of the guide member is shown in Japanese patent application Kokai No. 7937/96. The guide member is made from plastic, and the core wires are arranged horizontally at regular intervals. The cable has a plurality of twist pairs, each of which consists of a pair of twisted core wires, to prevent generation of noise by the alternating magnetic fields.
A contact terminal is attached to each of the core wires arranged by the guide member to receive an electrical signal from the core wire and transmit it to the modular jack. A substantially rectangular contact terminal is disclosed by the above Japanese patent application, and a blade-like contact terminal is disclosed in Japanese patent application Kokai No. 1621756/96. These contact terminals are arranged at regular intervals such that adjacent contact terminals overlap each other in the entire area.
Also, a plurality of contact terminals are provided in the modular jack. When the modular plug is plugged into the modular jack, the contact terminals are brought into contact each other. The contact terminals of the modular jack are arranged at regular intervals such that adjacent contact terminals overlap each other.
The current running in a circuit or terminal is induced by electromagnetic or static coupling to flow in another circuit to thereby cause crosstalk. The crosstalk interferes with signal transmission in the circuit or terminal, causing noise or other problems. Accordingly, it is necessary to reduce the crosstalk.
When the core wires are arranged horizontally at regular intervals, the twist pairs are prone to electromagnetic coupling and hardly receive shielding effect. Consequently, crosstalk can occur between the twist pairs. Where the guide member is made from a plastic, the same problem takes place. Where the contact terminals are arranged such that they overlap each other, crosstalk can occur between the contact terminals.
Where adjacent contact terminals of the modular jack overlap each other, crosstalk takes place between the contact terminals. Where the contact terminals of the modular jack form pairs corresponding to the twist pairs of the modular plug, crosstalk can occur between the paris.


In some embodiments, methods for securing a cylindrical screen jacket to a base pipe include heating the screen jacket to expand it so that its inner diameter becomes greater than the outer diameter of the base pipe, positioning the base pipe at least partially within the screen jacket and allowing the screen jacket to cool and contract, engaging the base pipe.

The use of screen assemblies is well known. For example, assemblies including one or more cylindrical screen jackets disposed over perforated based pipes are commonly used in downhole petroleum production operations. Often, the screen jacket is formed with wire wrapped around elongated, axially-oriented rib members. The spaces between adjacent wire wraps allow permitted flow through the screen jacket. In some applications, the screen jacket assists in holding gravel packing in the hole or casing. In other applications, such as open-hole completions, the screen jacket may be used to directly hold back the formation. Thus, in these examples, the size of the spaces between wire wraps in the screen jacket is typically critical for effective operation. Furthermore, these screen assemblies may be subject to substantial loads and stresses during use. Accordingly, the robustness of the screen jacket and positioning of the screen jacket relative to the base pipe is also often critical for effective operation.
Various types of screen assemblies have been used. For the cylindrical-type screen assemblies referenced above, for example, the screen jacket may be formed or wrapped directly onto the base pipe in a large screen assembly machine. Various challenges exist with this method. For example, maintaining the proper orientation and preventing bowing of the pipe during the screen wrapping operation may be difficult. This challenge is common, in particular, where the base pipe is not perfectly straight or round or is very large (e.g. length of 40′ at over 20 lbs/ft). Consequently, it may be difficult to form the wire wraps with the necessary precise spacing. Furthermore, this assembly technique may be slow and cause substantial wear to the screen assembly machine.
For another example, the screen jacket may be formed with an inner diameter that is larger than the outer diameter of the base pipe, allowing the screen jacket to be slid over and welded to the base pipe. With this technique, a gap exists between the screen jacket and base pipe. During deployment and use, the screen member could buckle, collapse or deform into the gap. Further, each weld may be subject to fail or give out, causing the screen to move relative to, or disconnect from, the base pipe.
It should be understood that the above-described examples, features and/or disadvantages are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope or subject matter of the claims of this patent application or any patent or patent application claiming priority hereto. Thus, none of the appended claims or claims of any related application or patent should be limited by the above discussion or construed to address, include or exclude the cited examples, features and/or disadvantages, except and only to the extent as may be expressly stated in a particular claim.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a screen assembly and methods of manufacture thereof having one or more of the following attributes, capabilities or features: involves heat shrinking the screen jacket onto the base pipe; ensures accurate and/or consistent spacing between wire wraps of the screen jacket; maintains good slot tolerances on the screen jacket; eliminates or minimizes any gap between the screen jacket and the base pipe; provides a tight, firm and/or reliable fit of the screen jacket to the base pipe along the entire length of the screen jacket; provides an interference fit between the screen jacket and base pipe; includes a screen assembly that is robust; includes a base pipe and screen jacket arrangement that essentially acts as a single unit during operations; includes a screen jacket that is resistant to collapsing or deforming during use; includes a screen jacket that is substantially resistant to typical loads transmitted thereto; includes a screen jacket that is resistant to undesirable shifting relative to, or separation from, the base pipe during use; eliminates, reduces or minimizes the use of welds to connect the screen jacket and base pipe; involves an assembly process that is simple, quick and/or efficient and minimizes wear upon screen assembly machines; or a combination thereof.


A charging device according to an embodiment includes a surface potential sensor configured to output a result of detecting a surface potential of a photoconductor, on which charge is deposited by the charging device, of an image forming apparatus and a main control unit. The main control unit is configured to perform a charging-current determining process which determines a charging-current setpoint value, which is an output setpoint value for constant current control of a charging bias to be fed from a corona power supply, based on a difference between the result of detection output from the surface potential sensor and a grid setpoint value, which is an output setpoint value for constant voltage control of a grid bias to be fed from a grid power supply, at predetermined timing.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a charging device configured to deposit charge on a surface of a latent-image bearer by establishing an electric discharge between a discharge electrode, to which a charging bias is applied, and the latent-image bearer through a grid electrode, to which a grid bias is applied. Some embodiments relate to an image forming method and an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a facsimile, or a printer configured to deposit charge on a latent-image bearer, which is a to-be-charged member, using the charging device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Known examples of this type of image forming apparatus include an image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. H4-163565. The image forming apparatus deposits charge uniformly on a surface of a photoconductor, which is a latent-image bearer, using a charging device and thereafter optically writes an electrostatic latent image to the charged surface of the photoconductor using an optical scanning system. The image forming apparatus obtains a toner image by developing the electrostatic latent image with toner and transfers the toner image from the photoconductor onto a recording sheet. The charging device includes a corona electrode, which is a discharge electrode, and a grid electrode arranged between the corona electrode and the photoconductor. The charging device further includes a corona power supply, which is a charging power supply for feeding a charging bias to be applied to the corona electrode, and a grid power supply for feeding a grid bias to be applied to the lattice-like grid electrode with constant voltage control. The charging device establishes a discharge between the corona electrode and the photoconductor through the grid electrode, thereby depositing charge uniformly on the surface of the photoconductor. During an initial operation at power ON, a control unit performs a determining process of determining an output setpoint value for the constant voltage control of the grid bias in the following manner to deposit charge on the surface of the photoconductor to a desired potential over a long period. More specifically, an amount of electric current flowing from the corona electrode to the photoconductor is detected. The output setpoint value for the constant voltage control of the grid bias, which allows charging the photoconductor to the desired potential, is determined based on a result of the detection. The determined output setpoint value is used in subsequent charging.
The reason why the output setpoint value for the constant voltage control of the grid bias is determined in this manner is as follows. That is, the longer the photoconductor is used, the more a surface layer of the photoconductor is worn, causing charging performance of the photoconductor to deteriorate. Accordingly, with a configuration which simply maintains the output setpoint value for the constant voltage control of the grid bias constant, the charging potential of the photoconductor drops with time as the surface layer of the photoconductor is worn and adversely affects an image. In contrast, with a configuration in which, as in the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. H4-163565, the determining process described above is performed at power ON, the photoconductor can be charged to a desired charging potential even when the surface layer of the photoconductor is worn to some degree.
Meanwhile, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2010-181737 discloses an image forming apparatus configured as follows. The image forming apparatus causes, as does the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. H4-163565, a grid power supply to feed a grid bias with constant voltage control and a corona power supply to feed a charging bias to be applied to a corona electrode with constant current control. However, in contrast to the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. H4-163565, the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2010-181737 maintains an output setpoint value for the constant voltage control of the grid bias constant over a long period. The image forming apparatus increases an output setpoint value for the constant current control in such a manner that the output setpoint value increases with an increase in a measurement result of a physical quantity which is proportional to the thickness of a surface layer of a photoconductor. Examples of the physical quantity include a cumulative number of revolutions of the photoconductor.
With this configuration, it is expected that the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2010-181737 can deposit charge on the photoconductor to a desired charging potential stably while avoiding generation of unnecessary ozone and waste of energy in contrast to the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. H4-163565. More specifically, after the surface layer of the photoconductor is worn to a certain degree, even if the output setpoint value for the constant voltage control of the grid bias is adjusted, the charging potential cannot be increased to a target value unless a relatively large amount of electric current is supplied to the corona electrode. The image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. H4-163565 requires that the output setpoint value for the constant voltage control of the grid bias be set to a relatively large value so that the photoconductor can be charged to the target charging potential even if the surface layer of the photoconductor is worn near to the end of its usable life. However, if the output setpoint value is set to such a value, in a state where the surface layer of the photoconductor is hardly worn and therefore the photoconductor delivers sufficient charging performance, a charging current larger than a necessary amount is fed to the photoconductor, resulting in generation of unnecessary ozone and waste of energy. In contrast, the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2010-181737 is capable of setting the output setpoint value for the constant current control of the charging bias to an appropriate value depending on the degree of wear of the surface layer of the photoconductor. Accordingly, the image forming apparatus is capable of depositing charge on the photoconductor to a desired charging potential while avoiding generation of unnecessary ozone and waste of energy when the surface layer of the photoconductor is not worn severely.
However, the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2010-181737 is disadvantageously prone to insufficient image density in a low-temperature and low-humidity environment. More specifically, when an environment changes to a low-temperature and low-humidity environment, electrical resistance of the surface layer of the photoconductor increases, and the potential of an electrostatic latent image formed by optical writing onto the photoconductor is increased to be higher than that in a normal-temperature and normal-humidity environment. As a result, a developing potential, which is the difference between a potential at a developer bearer such as a developing roller and a potential at the electrostatic latent image, drops, resulting in insufficient image density.
Under the circumstances, there is a need for a charging device described below, an image forming apparatus including the charging device and an image forming method. The charging device is capable of depositing charge on an electrostatic latent bearer to a desired charging potential while avoiding generation of unnecessary ozone and waste of energy and, simultaneously, obtaining stable image density independently of an environment.
It is an object of the present invention to at least partially solve the problems in the conventional technology.

Charging device, image forming apparatus and image forming method


The present disclosure relates to an alloy, for hardbanding and/or hard overlay applications, which is abrasion resistant to the order of siliceous earth particles and weldable in crack free state on industrial products. The alloy is a carbon chrome based alloy comprising titanium and vanadium carbides and thus has an extremely low coefficient of friction, high abrasion resistance as welded without working. In tool joints and stabilizers, the alloy achieves an optimum balance between tool joint and stabilizer wear resistance and induced casing wear. The alloy is also self-shielded and therefore does not require external shielding gas.

Hardbanding or hardfacing refers to a process whereby a harder or more wear resistant material is applied to a surface of a base material to make the base material more resistant to wear and the like. In this regard, hardbanding may be applied to new parts or products to increase the wear resistance of that part, or to used or older parts or products in order to restore a worn surface of the part and to extend the working life of the part or product.
Hardbanding is used across a variety of industries and applications where mechanical parts or components are employed. In industries such as the oil and gas drilling industry, tool joints and stabilizers used in earth boring equipment are prone to experience a high degree of surface wear due to the particularly abrasive environments in which they are used. As such, the service life and the performance of the components can be significantly reduced, and this can have a detrimental effect on both industry productivity and worker safety.
Traditionally, titanium carbide alloys have been used for hardbanding industrial products such as, but not limited to, tool joints and stabilizers in oil and gas well drilling industry. However, as the industry currently experiences severe problems with service life of these tool joints and stabilizers as well as high casing wear, there is a demand for improved hardbanding materials.
Developing new materials are also fraught with difficulties as mixing complex carbides is problematic from a field service point of view. Further, any new material has to exhibit sufficiently desirable characteristics including, but not limited to, abrasion resistance, hardness, crack resistance.
Thus, there is a need to provide an improved hardbanding alloy composition having increased wear resistance properties and which can be efficiently applied to a variety of components to increase the operating life and performance of such components.
The above references to and descriptions of prior proposals or products are not intended to be, and are not to be construed as, statements or admissions of common general knowledge in the art. In particular, the above prior art discussion does not relate to what is commonly or well known by the person skilled in the art, but assists in the understanding of the inventive step of the present invention of which the identification of pertinent prior art proposals is but one part.


An adjusting method for a synchronous signal in an optical storage device is disclosed. The optical storage device produces a predetermined synchronous signal, and the predetermined synchronous signal normally is matched with the data synchronous signal of the data on the optical disc. The predetermined synchronous signal includes a number of predetermined synchronous impulses, and the data synchronous signal includes a number of data synchronous impulses. In the method, when the data synchronous signal is not matched to the predetermined synchronous signal, it is searched that whether or not a data synchronous impulse is outside of the predetermined window and another consecutive data synchronous impulse detected later by a distance of an image frame is detected. Also and, according to the data synchronous impulse, the predetermined synchronous impulse is adjusted, so that the data synchronous impulse is matched with the predetermined synchronous impulse. The method can improve the function to successfully read the optical disc having the data gap.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to an adjusting method for a synchronous (sync) signal in an optical storage device, and more particularly is relating to an adjusting method for a sync signal in an optical storage device, used for searching for the synchronous impulses between windows.
2. Description of Related Art
In the recent years, related technologies for the optical industry is continuously developed. Taking the re-writable CD (CD-R/RW) drive as an example, the recording speed is improved rapidly. Moreover, the rewriting speed has been improved to 10 speed (10×), 12×, or even higher. However in the practical case, if the ability for recording/rewriting the optical disc in higher speed is desired to have full performance, it still has a point in technology to overcome. That is the issue of buffer under run.
About the situation of buffer under run in simple speaking, it means that the speed of data flowing out from the buffer is larger than the speed of data flowing into the buffer. During recording/rewriting the optical disc, data transferred from a host machine (for example, a personal computer) is stored into a buffer in the re-writable CD drive. The pick-up head of the re-writable CD drive will then record data onto the optical disc according to data stored in the buffer. Since the data transmitting speed from the computer is not constant, data stored in the buffer maybe be almost full in sometime and almost empty in other time. If the data transmitting speed from the computer is not sufficiently fast, the amount of data stored in the buffer decreases. When the amount of data stored in the buffer decreases under a threshold level, the re-writable CD drive will encounter a bad situation that there is no enough data for recording. This phenomenon is called the buffer under run. When the above situation occurs, recording data on to the optical disc is suddenly interrupted. This causes a failure of writing, and may cause a bad or defect disc.
If the computer executes other application programs during recording data on the re-writable CD, the data transmission speed from the computer to the rewritable CD drive may be negatively affected. As a result, the user often encounters the situation of buffer under run and even, a failure is occurred in recording CD. In general, a technology for preventing buffer under run, BURN-Proof or Just-Link, is proposed to avoid the above issue. This technology is briefly described as follows. When the amount of data stored in the buffer is reduced under to a threshold level, the re-writable CD drive will stop writing data onto the CD. At this time, the re-writable CD drive still continuously receives data transmitted from the computer and stores data into the buffer. When the buffer is accumulated enough, the re-writable CD drive is reactivated to record data on the disk at the location that the previous recording is terminated. From the above descriptions, it can be understood that via the BURN-proof or Just-Link technology, the probability about failure in recording disc is therefore reduced.
If the function of BURN-Proof technology is used during rewriting on the optical disc, a data gap between the previous recording location and the next recording location is generated. The length of this data gap is extremely small and related to the recording speed. For example, if the re-writable CD drive records data at 1× speed, then the data gap is about 40 microns. The data gap produced by the BURN-Proof technology will cause data on the optical disc to be discontinuous. This data gap will therefore also affect the synchronous signal with respect to data stored on the optical disc.
Referring to FIG. 1A that schematically illustrates the synchronous signal with respect to data stored on the optical disc without data gap. As shown in FIG. 1A, the synchronous signal 100 with respect to data on the optical disc without data gap is composed of a sequence of regular impulses. For example, the synchronous impulse 101 has a distance to the synchronous impulse 103 by an image frame, such as 588 T. In the same way, the synchronous impulse 103 has a distance to the synchronous impulse 105 by an image frame (588 T). Referring to FIG. 1B that schematically illustrates the synchronous signal with respect to data stored on the optical disc with a data gap. As shown in FIG. 1B, data between the synchronous impulse 111 and the synchronous impulse 113 is not interrupted by a data gap. Therefore, the distance between the two synchronous impulses 111 and 113 is equal to 588 T. However, a data gap exists between the two synchronous impulses 113 and 115 as shown in FIG. 1B. The data gap will cause the synchronous impulse 115, which is ideally expected to appear after the synchronous impulse 113 by 588 T, is then delayed. As a result, the distance between the synchronous impulse 113 and the synchronous impulse 115 is larger than 588 T. Then, since there is no data gap between the synchronous impulses 115 and 117, the distance between the synchronous impulses 115 and 117 is normal.
When the optical storage device, such as a CD-ROM drive, is reading data from the disc, the synchronous signal from the optical disc drive and the synchronous signal with respect to the information stored on the optical disc are compared for match. If the comparison result is that these two synchronous signals is matched, data stored on the optical disc then is decoded or read normally. In addition, the relation between the synchronous impulses is described as follows.
Referring to FIG. 2 that schematically illustrates a relation between the data synchronous impulses on the optical disc and predetermined synchronous impulses from the optical disc drive. As shown in FIG. 2, a predetermined synchronous impulse 202 (from the optical disc drive) and a data synchronous impulse 212 (from the disk) both have a width of t. Basically, when the predetermined synchronous impulse 202 and the data synchronous impulse 212 appear almost at the same time, these two synchronous impulses are considered as match. However, due to some limitation from the actual environment, there may be sometime a tiny difference between these two synchronous impulses. Thus, when considering this kind of issue about tiny difference, the optical disc drive will set a window 204 with length of w, where w>t, according to the predetermined synchronous impulse 202, so as to improve the tolerance during comparing the synchronous impulses. So, the data synchronous impulse 212 is compared with the window 204. When the data synchronous impulse 212 appears inside the window 204, it can be considered as a match between the predetermined synchronous impulse 202 and the data synchronous impulse 212.
However, in the case of a data gap on the optical disc recorded by BURN-Proof technology, even if the window is adjusted for increasing the tolerance of the error, it is still not able to make sure that the predetermined synchronous impulse for the optical disc drive always matches with the data synchronous impulse for the data on the optical disc. Referring to FIG. 3 that illustrates the waveform for the synchronous signal of the optical disc with the data gap. The data synchronous signal 310 with respect to the optical disc data includes the synchronous impulses 301, 303, 305, 307, 309 and 311. Since the data gap is located between the data synchronous impulse 305 and the data synchronous impulse 307, the abnormal distance between the data synchronous impulse 305 and the data synchronous impulse 307 will be greater than the normal distance (588 T) between the other data synchronous impulses. For example, the abnormal distance is 825 T. Then, the synchronous signal 350 for the optical disc drive includes the synchronous impulses 351, 353, 355, 357, 359, and 361. The optical disc drive will compare these synchronous impulses sequentially to check whether or not they match to the data synchronous impulses 301, 303, 305, 307, 309 and 311.
As shown in FIG. 3, only three predetermined synchronous impulses match with the data synchronous impulses. After the fourth synchronous impulse, all of the comparison results will not match. This is because the data synchronous impulse 307 is unexpectedly delayed after the data synchronous impulse 305 due to the data gap, but the optical disc drive cannot detect the occurrence of this situation. In this situation, the predetermined synchronous impulse 357 of the optical disc drive appears at the point of 588 T after the predetermined synchronous impulse 355. This will cause that the synchronous impulses are not matched for the first time. After the data synchronous impulse 307, the distance between the following data synchronous impulse on the optical disc becomes normal again, but the optical disc drive can only detect the data synchronous impulse on the optical disc within the window of the synchronous impulse. In other words, the optical disc drive cannot detect the delayed data synchronous impulses after the data synchronous impulse 307. Therefore, the optical disc drive still sets the predetermined synchronous impulses, so that the predetermined synchronous impulses 357 of the optical disc drive and other following predetermined synchronous impulses, such as the predetermined synchronous impulse 359, 361, and so on, will not be able to match with the data synchronous impulses.
Taking the current optical disc drive as an example, when the number of the synchronous impulses not matched is not over a certain limit number, such as 30, then even if the synchronous impulses cannot be matched, data still can be decoded by EDC (error detection code) and ECC (error correction code). However, according to the above descriptions, when the optical disc recorded by Burn-proof is read, the number of the synchronous impulses not matched may possibly be over the upper limit number, and therefore it causes the difficulty for the optical disc drive in decoding/reading data.

Adjusting method for a sync signal in an optical storage device


EMI from an operating information handling system is managed by disposing a stirring device in the chassis of the information handling system to mechanically modulate the resonance of predetermined RF signals emitted from processing components within the chassis. For example, a cooling fan disposed in the chassis has a reflective surface formed on its blades so that rotation of the blades mechanically modulates the RF signals. The blades have a depth of at least one-quarter of the wavelength of the RF signal and are coated with a low resistance material, such as steel, aluminum, copper, carbon loaded plastic or a high dielectric ceramic. The fan rotates at the faster of the speed required to provide desired cooling or the speed desired to produce a desired average RF signal amplitude.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system electromagnetic interference, and more particularly to a system and method for managing average emission of electromagnetic interference from an operating information handling system.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling system manufacturers generally attempt to configure information handling systems to have as much processing power as is economically available for a chassis of a given volume. Many of the processing components included in a chassis produce radio frequency (RF) signals as a by product of their operation. The cumulative effect of these RF signals often creates electromagnetic interference (EMI) across a wide spectrum of frequencies. EMI is typically measured by the average amount of RF emissions from a chassis during operation of the processing components and is regulated by government bodies, such as the FCC in the United States and the CISPR in Europe. Typically, as information handling system volume decreases, manufacturers have to use greater care in the distribution of processing components within the chassis so that operational EMI constraints are met. One way to reduce average EMI emissions is to shield the processing components with a chassis that reflects RF energy. Shielding effectively reduces EMI, however, EMI still escapes through the shielding and from unshielded portions of the chassis. Further, excessive reliance on shielding increases the cost, size and weight of an information handling system. Excessive weight and size of an information handling system chassis is typically viewed as a detriment by end users.
Information handling system components have steadily increased their processing capability over the past several years, often by operating at higher clock speeds. For instance, higher-speed serialized interconnects have become more prevalent in information handling systems that emit RF signals of greater than 1 GHz. The concentration of such RF signals at specific frequencies is increased for some serialized interconnects that do not allow for spread-spectrum clocking, such as the Serial-Attached-SCSI (SAS) and Fiber-Channel interconnects. Regulatory agencies have responded by placing restrictions on EMI in higher frequencies that are difficult for information handling system manufacturers to achieve. Often, measured emissions are not sufficiently reduced by existing EMI shielding technologies.

System and method for managing information handling system electromagnetic interference


A free-fall separator apparatus for mixed particles. The apparatus includes a screw feeder for triboelectrically charging the particles, a feed hopper for releasing the tribocharged particles in a laminar flow path between a first electrode structure and a second electrode structure. The first electrode structure provides corona charging for the falling particles, and a substantially uniform electrostatic separation field is provided between the electrode structures for separating the falling particles. The electrode structures may each include a plurality of vertically extending string electrodes. Also provided is a method for sorting mixed particles which includes steps of charging the particles through contact electrification, releasing the mixed particles to fall freely in a substantially laminar stream, charging the particles electrically through corona discharge, and separating the particles through an electrostatic separation field.

This invention relates to the electrostatic separation of materials, and particularly to a method and apparatus for the free-fall electrostatic separation of materials.
Two common forms of electrostatic separators are triboelectric separators and corona separators. In corona separators, the particles to be separated are charged by subjecting them to the corona discharge of a high voltage corona electrode. Typically, this is accomplished by passing the particles between a corona electrode (having either a high negative charge or a high positive charge) and a grounded electrode. Current leakage from the corona electrode ionizes the molecules of air adjacent the corona electrode, with the result that particles passing between the corona electrode and the grounded electrode are subjected to ionic bombardment. Many of the ions discharge against the particles, thus causing the particles to gain a positive surface charge if the corona discharge electrode is a positive electrode, or a negative surface charge if the corona discharge electrode is a negative electrode. As it is easier to cause ionization in the vicinity of a curved electrode, corona electrodes are generally considerably curved electrodes, such as small diameter tube electrodes.
A corona separator works on the principle that the surface charge applied to different particles types discharges at a rate in accordance with the surface conductivity of the particles. The surface charge applied to highly conductive particles tends to discharge rapidly, and particles having high dielectric values will discharge at a much slower rate.
In order to effect separation in a free-fall corona separator, the particles are dropped through an electrostatic field in which the differently discharged particles are subjected to different degrees of deflection as a result of the applied coulomb forces associated with their charges.
As corona separation depends primarily on differences in the conductivity of the particles to be separated, it is primarily used to separate conductive materials from dielectric materials, but is generally not effective for separating dielectric materials from each other. An example of a free fall corona separator is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,625,360 issued to A. Schickel, which includes a corona charging electrode located above an electrostatic separation field provided by a plate capacitor.
In a triboelectric separator, particles are charged through contact electrification which can be carried out through rubbing among the particles or through contact between the particles in an operating medium. Corresponding to their specific electrical properties, particles having different work functions assume different charges when brought into contact. If two materials are brought into physical contact, it is believed that the material having the smaller work function transfers electrons to the material having the larger work function, with the result that the material having the smaller work function will acquire a positive charge and the material having the larger work function will acquire a negative charge. Thus, a pair of different particulate materials can be tribocharged with opposite signs, and the particles can then be separated by passing them between differentially charged electrodes.
The dielectric strength of a material increases as its work function increases, such that the greater the dielectric strength of a material, the greater its work function is. Triboelectric separation is generally suitable for separating different dielectric materials from each other.
As the triboelectric charging process generally creates relatively weak charges, the materials to be separated often must be pretreated in the form of heating or surface active reagent treatment in order to allow the particles to gain a sufficient charge. Pretreatment is not always practical or cost effective. An example of a triboelectric separator is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,407 issued to M. H. Beck et al.
Although there are a number of triboelectric separators and a number of corona separator designs, the existing electrostatic separators have not made use of both triboelectric charging and corona charging to effect separation of dielectric materials from dielectric materials or of dielectric materials from conductive materials. It is thus desirable to provide a method of electrostatic separation and a corresponding separator apparatus for separating different dielectric materials from each other, or dielectric materials from conductive materials, which employs both triboelectric and corona charging. It is also desirable to provide an electrode structure which can simultaneously provide a corona charging effect and a uniform electrostatic separation field.

Method and apparatus for free fall electrostatic separation using triboelectric and corona charging


Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for copying storage. Copy operations are performed on source storage units to copy to target storage units, wherein the copy operations create a consistent copy of the source storage units in the target storage units. While performing a copy operation to copy from one source storage unit to one target storage unit, a write operation is restricted from being performed on the one source storage unit, until the copy operations have been performed on the source storage units.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and an article of manufacture for consistent copying of storage volumes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information technology systems, including storage systems, may need protection from site disasters or outages, where outages may be planned or unplanned. Furthermore, information technology systems may require features for data migration, data backup, or data duplication. Implementations for disaster or outage recovery, data migration, data backup, and data duplication may include mirroring or copying of data in storage systems. Such mirroring or copying of data may involve interactions among servers, clients, storage systems and networking components of the information technology system.
Enterprise storage servers (ESS), such as, the IBM* TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server*, may be a disk storage server that includes one or more processors coupled to storage devices, including high capacity scalable storage devices, Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), etc. The enterprise storage servers are connected to a network and include features for copying data in storage systems. *IBM, IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server, Enterprise System Connection (ESCON) are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp.
Enterprise storage servers (ESS) may include copy functions for copying data either locally, i.e., within the same on-site ESS, or remotely, i.e., copying data to a separate remote-site ESS. The copy functions can be classified as either dynamic or point-in-time copy functions. Dynamic copy functions constantly update the secondary copy as applications make changes to the primary data source. Point-in-time copying techniques provide an instantaneous copy or view of what the original data looked like at a specific point in time.
In certain enterprise storage servers there may be copy functions, such as, Flashcopy, that provide a point-in-time copy of the data. Implementations may copy data between a set of local/source volumes and a corresponding set of remote/target volumes in enterprise storage servers. Flashcopy may provide a point-in-time copy for ESS volumes by creating a physical point-in-time copy of the data, with minimal interruption to applications, and make it possible to access both the source and target copies substantially immediately. Both the source and the target volumes reside on the same ESS system, although implementations may be possible where the source and target volumes reside on different ESS systems. Further details of the Flashcopy are described in the IBM publication "IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server: Implementing ESS Copy Services with IBM eServer zSeries," IBM document no. SG24-5680-01 (Copyright IBM, 2003), which publication is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Method, system, and article of manufacture for consistent copying of storage volumes

International Business Machines Corporation


A digital camera method and apparatus providing encryption of an image during the acquisition process, and therefore avoiding any stage wherein unencrypted image data exists. An encrypted password is generated. This is done either by a user and downloaded to the camera, or it is generated in the camera and displayed to the user. Inside the camera, an encryption generator is initialized upon reception and successful decryption of the password, whereupon light is admitted from an object to be photographed and converted to digital image data. The camera then performs a first encrypting operation on the digital image data to create temporarily encrypted image data. This encrypted data is saved temporarily, whereupon it is decrypted in increments and each increment processed to form processed image data. Each increment then undergoes a second and final encryption operation to create final encrypted image data which is stored in the camera for transmission to a computer. Alternatively to storing encrypted data temporarily, if the quantity of image data can be handled in one step it is processed directly and then encrypted and saved in camera storage. Therefore, at no stage in the image acquisition is there a point where image data is stored in unencrypted form from which unauthorized access might be obtained.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatus for encrypting images, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for encrypting images in a camera as part of the image acquisition process.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
The use of encryption techniques to secure messages is well known in history. With modern data communications and storage devices often accessible by third parties, the securing of information is a problem receiving a great deal of attention. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,630 by Tseng et al. a system for maintaining the security of information transmitted between facsimile machines is described wherein messages on paper are encrypted by the facsimile machine, transmitted in secure encrypted form and decrypted at the receiving end. U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,924 discloses a method of encryption using a scanner with digital technology to record an image and then sample and encrypt a portion of it for comparison with an image presented on an I.D. card.
In order to secure data transmission, the data is encoded on the sending end and decoded at the receiving end. This deters a third party from deciphering the message in route. Such a method is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,233,653 by Katsurabayashi.
A method of securing payment documents is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,202 wherein a document is signed by a customer and a copy of the signature is captured in digital form. Thereafter the signature is encrypted and saved along with a digital record of the transaction.
In addition to the above methods of achieving secured messages, signatures and I.D. cards, there is a need in the area of conventional digital photography. Images captured and stored by a digital camera on a PCMCIA card, or downloaded to a PC are subject to interception and viewing by unauthorized persons. Typically, a digital camera outputs digital image data to a PCMCIA card, disk, or through lines to a computer. The card or disk could be intercepted and the image viewed, or the data downloaded to a computer could be extracted prior to an encryption procedure. Newspaper reporters, investigators, etc. have a need to temporarily store photographic images in a way that is secure from unauthorized viewing. There is, therefore, a need for a camera that will provide encrypted, secure image data from the moment of image acquisition.

Method and apparatus for in-camera encryption


The invention is an adhesive which comprises a linear hydrogenated tri-block copolymer of a vinyl aromatic hydrocarbon and a conjugated diene which has a coupling efficiency of 45% or greater and which has a peak molecular weight of from 50,000 to 150,000. For purposes of determining the concentration of the other components, the polymer is present in an amount of 100 parts rubber (phr). The adhesive further comprises from 30 to 110 phr of an endblock resin, a low molecular weight vinyl aromatic hydrocarbon, preferably alpha methyl styrene or styrene. Finally, the adhesive comprises from 80 to 210 phr of a hydrogenated hydrocarbon resin having a softening point below 35.degree. C.

This invention relates to an adhesive for joining containers into cluster packages so as to eliminate the necessity for a plastic ring type carrier. More particularly, this invention relates to a method of joining two or more containers together so as to controllably adhere them together until one or more are removed from the cluster package.
There are many ways to package containers. One way is by the use of cardboard which is wrapped around the periphery of the containers. Cardboard eventually biodegrades but during the time it takes to degrade the cardboard poses a litter problem. Additionally, cardboard cartons are often difficult to open when a container is to be withdrawn from the carton. The cardboard cartons, in addition to being costly, do not permit proper display of the containers. In today's marketplace, merchandising and advertising are extremely important. Decorating the carton sides or edges adds to the time and cost to prepare the package. Moreover, since cardboard is susceptible to moisture, the integrity of the package is reduced or destroyed if the carton becomes wet.
Another way to package containers is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,446,346, which discloses a method of immersion or dipping of a group of filled containers into molten liquid so that the liquid solidifies on the ends of the containers and encases the ends to form a unitary package. Each container is then removed from the group by breaking apart the solidified plastic between the containers. However, a plastic end remains on each removed container during and after consumption, causing a substantial litter problem. This process of immersion or dipping is time consuming, costly and requires more materials.
Elastic film material has been stretched around containers to contain them, as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,596,330. However, these containers are not packaged to be individually removable one at a time from the package without the package losing its integrity and thus its ability to retain the other containers. This material does not lend itself to high speed article movement along conveyor systems.
The packaging of food and beverage containers into groups is often attempted through the use of plastic ring type can carriers which usually encircle the necks of each container, such as carbonated beverage and beer containers, enabling the removal of one or more cans as desired. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,949. These plastic ring type carriers can be an unsightly litter item on beaches, roadsides and parks and can pose an enviromental risk to wildlife who often become entangled in the carriers and die or are injured. In addition, the containers can rotate in the ring or web of the carrier so that the label of each container may not be lined up properly for display on store shelves. Thus, the containers must be rotated by hand in order to reposition the container labels correctly so that the consumer sees an attractive display.
In 1973 and 1975, Adolph Coors Company obtained three U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,759,373, 3,759,378 and 3,902,992, relating to adhesively bonding a multi-container package of cans or bottles together. There is no teaching in any of the three patents of what adhesive could be used for this application. An adhesive which could be used in such an application would have to be capable of hot melt application, be water resistant, be sufficiently strong to maintain the container package intact during normal shipping and handling, be weak enough that the containers may be easily removed from the package by the consumer, be able to maintain strength at room temperature and above and not be brittle at the colder temperatures at which the contents of the containers may be stored. This is an unusual combination of attributes which known adhesives are not required or equipped to achieve.
Thus, it can be seen that there is a need for an adhesive which can be effectively used in the clustering food and/or beverage containers so that the container package is non-littering, efficient, low cost, aesthetically pleasing to the customer, holds the containers in place without rotation, is environmentally desirable and provides the ability to remove each container individually without the package losing its integrity.


The invention generally relates compositions and methods for the treatment of patients with melanoma and other malignant cancers. The compositions of the present invention are novel peptide sequences that inhibit seprase-mediated cell migration. Said sequences may also be used for diagnostics and library screening protocols.

Cancer of the skin (non-melanoma and melanoma skin cancers combined) is the most common of all cancers accounting for more than 50% of all cancers. Melanoma accounts for about 4% of skin cancer cases, but causes about 79% of skin cancer deaths. The number of new melanomas diagnosed in the United States is increasing. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 55,100 new melanomas will be diagnosed in the United States during 2004. About 7,910 people in the US are expected to die of melanomas during 2004. Since 1973, the mortality rate for melanoma has increased by 50%. Much of this increase has been in older people, mostly white men. Because of education and early detection, deaths from melanoma are now increasing less rapidly in white men and have leveled off among white women.
Melanoma begins in the melanocytes. Because most of these cells keep on making melanin after becoming cancerous, melanoma tumors are often brown or black. Melanoma most often appears on the trunk of fair-skinned men and on the lower legs of fair-skinned women, but it can appear other places as well. While having dark skin lowers the risk of developing melanoma, it by no means eliminates such risk. Melanoma is almost always curable in its early stages. But it is also likely to spread to other parts of the body. Melanoma is much less common than basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers, but is far more serious.
Currently, treatment options for melanoma include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, interferon-alpha treatment and vaccine therapy. All of these treatment options are not without problems. For example, surgery is invasive and may leave undetected cancer behind. Radiation and chemotherapy have toxic effects on the patient. Interferon-alpha and vaccine therapies are effective only for a subset of diagnosed patients.
Another prominent cancer of epithelial origin, also noted for its invasiveness, is ovarian epithelial cancer. It is often asymptomatic at its early stages and is only discovered once the disease has progressed to a later stage that manifests as the appearance of destructive growth in primary tumors, and accumulation of ascites in the peritoneal cavity.
Many other cancers generate invasive cells. Non-limiting examples are breast ductal carcinoma (Huang et al., Cancer Res. 64: 2712-2716, 2004; Goodman et al., Clin. Exp. Metastasis 20: 459-470, 2003; Kelly et al., Mod. Pathol. 11: 855-863, 1998; Ariga et al., Int'l J. Cancer 95: 67-72, 2001; Kelly, Drug Resist. Update 8: 51-58, 2005) and gastric (Mori et al., Oncology 67: 411-419, 2004; Okada et al., Oncology 65: 363-370, 2003), colonic (Iwasa et al., Cancer Lett. 227: 229-236, 2005), and cervical carcinoma (Jin et al., Anticancer Res. 23: 3195-3198, 2003). These invasive cells tend to drive the growth and spread of tumors, and are often metastatic.
What is needed are new materials and methods for the treatment of people diagnosed with cancer, including but not limited to melanoma and other carcinomas.

The Research Foundation of State University of New York


A structure 11 for attaching an electronic component to the inner surface of a pneumatic tire includes: a case 13 which has a bottom plate 18 a side wall 19 and a lid 20 and in which the electronic component is mounted inside an inner space defined by these; and a rubber patch 12 disposed between the case 13 and the inner surface of the pneumatic tire. The rubber patch 12 has a bottom surface 14 to be attached to the inner surface of the pneumatic tire, and a front surface 15 provided on the opposite side from the bottom surface. A seating surface 17 having such a shape as to be capable of receiving the bottom plate 18 of the case 13 is formed in the front surface 15. The rubber patch 12 has a groove 21 in the front surface 15.

Devices such as a TPMS (tire-pressure monitoring system) for monitoring the condition of a pneumatic tire (hereinafter, simply referred to also as "tire") have been known. Using this type of device involves mounting an electronic component such as a sensor to the inner surface of the tire, so as to collect data that indicates the condition of the tire during travel. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a rubber patch which holds a monitoring device in a detachable and re-attachable manner.
The tire repeatedly deforms when contacting a road surface during travel. Thus, the rubber seat or patch, which is an elastic body, repeatedly deforms as well by following the deformation of the tire. Here, the electronic component is housed in a case made of hard resin to prevent failure due to shock. For this reason, the case of the electronic component does not follow the deformation of the tire. In other words, stress resulting from the deformation of the tire is all absorbed by the rubber patch. This leads to a problem in that travelling with the tire for a long period of time results in cracking of the rubber patch, detachment of the bonding surfaces of the case of the electronic component and the rubber patch, and the like.

Structure for attaching electronic component to inner surface of pneumatic tire


Transferring application secrets in a trusted operating system environment involves receiving a request to transfer application data from a source computing device to a destination computing device. A check is made as to whether the application data can be transferred to the destination computing device, and if so, whether the application data can be transferred under control of the user or a third party. If these checks succeed, a check is also made as to whether the destination computing device is a trustworthy device running known trustworthy software. Input is also received from the appropriate one of the user or third party to control transferring of the application data to the destination computing device. Furthermore, application data is stored on the source computing device in a manner that facilitates determining whether the application data can be transferred, and that facilitates transferring the application data if it can be transferred.

Having people be able to trust computers has become an increasingly important goal. This trust generally focuses on the ability to trust the computer to use the information it stores or receives correctly. Exactly what this trust entails can vary based on the circumstances. For example, multimedia content providers would like to be able to trust computers to not improperly copy their content. By way of another example, users would like to be able to trust their computers to forward confidential financial information (e.g., bank account numbers) only to appropriate destinations (e.g., allow the information to be passed to their bank, but nowhere else). Unfortunately, given the generally open nature of most computers, a wide range of applications can be run on most current computers without the user's knowledge, and these applications can compromise this trust (e.g., forward the user's financial information to some other destination for malicious use).
To address these trust issues, different mechanisms have been proposed (and new mechanisms are being developed) that allow a computer or portions thereof to be trusted. Generally, these mechanisms entail some sort of authentication procedure where the computer can authenticate or certify that at least a portion of it (e.g., certain areas of memory, certain applications, etc.) are at least as trustworthy as they present themselves to be (e.g., that the computer or application actually is what it claims to be). In other words, these mechanisms prevent a malicious application from impersonating another application (or allowing a computer to impersonate another computer). Once such a mechanism can be established, the user or others (e.g., content providers) can make a judgment as to whether or not to accept a particular application as trustworthy (e.g., a multimedia content provider may accept a particular application as being trustworthy, once the computer can certify to the content provider's satisfaction that the particular application is the application it claims to be).
Computers typically execute one or more applications that each can have one or more secrets to store, intending each secret to not be made publicly available. Current computer systems have very little support for allowing applications to hide secrets well. Upcoming systems are anticipated to have facilities which restrict these secrets to being stored and retrieved only on the same computer as the application. This is problematic because it hinders the backing up is of data, as well as the transferring of applications and their corresponding data to other computing devices (even when fully complying with the licensing terms of the application).
The transferring application secrets in a trusted operating system environment described herein solves these problems.


A registration method for structured documents includes the steps of: preparing correspondence data between a string and a string occurrence position within a structured document for each structured document, and additionally storing the correspondence data in an occurrence frequency extracting index; and preparing a list of a character, an element containing the character and a length of the element and additionally storing the list in an element length index. A search method for structured documents includes the steps of: inputting search conditions including a search term and an element for specifying a search range; decomposing the search term into a plurality of substrings, obtaining an occurrence frequency and an occurrence position of the search term using the plurality of substrings from the occurrence frequency extracting index; selecting a character from the search term, obtaining an element containing the character using the character from the element length index, and further extracting a length of the element within the search range; calculating a matching degree for the search conditions from the occurrence frequency and the occurrence position of the search term and the length of the element within the search range; and outputting the element containing the search term and the matching degree.

The present invention relates to a registration and a search method for structured documents described in SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) or the like. More particularly, the invention is directed to a method of storing and a method of reading the lengths of elements forming a document.
As the information society grows at a rapid pace, an enormous amount of electronic documents are being prepared using word processors and personal computers in recent years. Under such circumstances, there are growing needs for searching documents containing the desired information from mounds of electronic documents. Full-text search is a technical solution to such needs. In the full-text search, the entire texts of documents to be registered is entered into a computer system to create a database at the time of registration, and all the documents containing a string (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9csearch termxe2x80x9d) specified by the user is searched from the database at the time of search, so that all the desired documents can be searched reliably without requiring the user to specify a key word during the registration.
On the other hand, a scoring function is proposed, in which the matching degree to specified search conditions is evaluated by giving a score to each of the searched documents, and a list of such documents arranged in the order of given scores is displayed.
The book xe2x80x9cInformation Retrievalxe2x80x9d (written by William B. Frakes and Ricardo Baeza-Yates and published by Prentice Hall) introduces a technique in which the matching degree (nfreqij) is calculated for searched documents using such factors as the occurrence frequency of a specified search term (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9csearch term occurrence frequencyxe2x80x9d) in each of the searched documents, the text length of each document and the following equation.
nfreqij=(log2 (freqij+1))/log2 (lengthj)xe2x80x83xe2x80x83Equation 1
where xe2x80x9cfreqijxe2x80x9d is the occurrence frequency of a search term i in a document j; and xe2x80x9clengthjxe2x80x9d is the text length of a document j.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,745 discloses a technique in which structured documents containing a search term are searched quickly by preparing a character component table for structured documents.
The related application cited as a cross-reference discloses a technique for registering a structured document by analyzing the hierarchical structure of the document. The application also discloses a technique in which a string index is extracted from a structured document and registered, and in which, at the time of search, a search term is decomposed into substrings and the character positions obtained from a plurality of character indexes are checked to obtain information about which positions in which documents the search term is located.
Each structured document has a unique hierarchical structure of its own. On the other hand, to calculate the matching degree, the element length of a partial logical structure (i.e., an element) or a higher-level logical structure of a structured document is necessary.
The object of the present invention is to obtain the occurrence frequency of a search term and the length of an element to be searched in a structured document quickly.
The present invention provides a registration method for structured documents, comprising the steps of: preparing correspondence data between a string and a string occurrence position within a structured document for each structured document, and additionally storing the correspondence data in an occurrence frequency extracting index, preparing a list of a character, an element containing the character and an element length thereof and additionally storing the list in an element length index at the time of registration, and also provides a search method for structured documents, comprising the steps of: inputting search conditions including a search term and an element for specifying a search range, decomposing the search term into a plurality of substrings, obtaining an occurrence frequency and an occurrence position of the search term using the plurality of substrings from the occurrence frequency extracting index, selecting a character from the search term, obtaining an element containing the character using the character from the element length index, and further extracting a length of the element within the search range; calculating a matching degree for the search conditions from the occurrence frequency and the occurrence position of the search term and the length of the element within the search range; and outputting the element containing the search term and the matching degree.

Method and search method for structured documents


A fabric securing system having a strip of flexible material for securing two pieces of fabric or clothing is disclosed. The system has at least a portion of one of its sides containing an adhesive material. Both sides of the system may contain an adhesive portion.

Neatly kept clothing is a cornerstone of fashion. Even when a person is dressed fashionably, a visible bra strap, visible undergarment, or an untucked shirt may be unsightly, which may interfere with a person's appearance and also may frustrate that person. Consequently, there is a need for device to hold clothing in place.
Previous designs have addressed this problem. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,166 issued to Le discusses an adhesive strip that may hold a bra strap in place within a shirt. However, the device is difficult for aligninment on the bra strap, especially if a user has a sore neck or has difficulty turning her head. Likewise, the adhesive material may easily contact the skin if not properly aligned, which may be uncomfortable or irritating to the wearer. Other similar strips have been contemplated to hold bra straps in place, but have not efficiently contemplated adjustability needs of a person. Thus an efficient, non-permanent system is needed to comfortably and easily hold clothing in place.