An analog signal generation circuit is provided. The analog signal generation circuit includes a first control section that generates a first control signal; a second control section that generates a second control signal; current cells, each of the plurality of current cells controlled to generate current or to not generate current based on the first and second control signals; and an analog signal output section that outputs an analog signal generated based on current generated by the current cells. The first control signal includes first and second cell state setting signals. A logical value corresponding to the first cell state setting signal is complementary to a logical value corresponding to the second cell state setting signal. Each current cell has an initialized state based on the first cell state setting signal.

1. Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a control of a circuit, and more particularly, to a circuit and a method capable of generating an analog signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, various kinds of electronic devices are being used. An electronic circuit included in an electronic device is controlled by an electric signal and performs its own function. A variety of circuit control methods are utilized to obtain a result of performing the function of the electronic circuit.
For instance, an image sensor is used to generate image information. Pixels of the image sensor receive light and generate a current having an intensity that varies according to the intensity of the received light. Further, digital signals corresponding to the pixels are generated. Digital values of the generated digital signals vary according to the intensity of generated current. Based on the generated digital signals, image information is generated. Herein, circuit control for converting an analog signal (i.e., current) into a digital signal is performed when the image sensor generates the image information.
In the above example, the intensity of the generated current needs to be determined to decide a digital value corresponding to a digital signal. A reference signal to be compared with the generated current is required to determine the intensity of the generated current. The reference signal is called as a ramp signal. The ramp signal has a value that stepwise increases or decreases within a predetermined interval. An interval which a value corresponding to the intensity of the generated current belongs to is determined by comparing the intensity of the generated current with the intensity of the ramp signal. A digital value corresponding to the generated digital signal is decided based on the interval which the value corresponding to the intensity of the generated current belongs to.
The ramp signal is a reference signal that is to be compared with an analog signal (e.g., a current). The ramp signal is an analog signal, too. That is, when the image sensor generates image information, circuit control is performed to generate the ramp signal which is an analog signal.


A method is provided for cleaning an article with a solvent having a boiling point such that the solvent is a gas at room temperature and one atmosphere pressure. Such a method includes the steps of disposing the article in a chamber, introducing the solvent into the chamber so that the solvent contacts the article, pressurizing the chamber so that the solvent is in a liquid state and removes contaminants from the article, purging the chamber to remove the solvent, and removing the treated article from the chamber. Such a system permits the use of liquids having boiling points lower than room temperature, such as certain C.sub.1 -C.sub.4 halocarbons, which liquids have not previously been used as cleaning solvents.

Volatile organic compounds are known to pose health and environmental hazards. On the one hand, ozone depletion and global warming are now attributed to such factors as the release of copious quantities of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) and similar volatile compounds. On the other hand, inhalation of volatile constituents, particularly solvents or similar compounds used in a wide range of manufacturing procedures, is known to result in potentially severe health hazards. In all such cases, the characteristics which make these compositions particularly desirable in manufacturing procedures, such as the efficacy of a composition as a solvent or cleaning agent (e.g., volatility), are directly responsible for the deleterious or potentially deleterious effects accompanying their use.
Systems have been devised to minimize solvent loss during or incident to procedures in which these volatile compositions have a tendency to escape to the atmosphere. Some are recovery systems designed to retrieve the fluid and entrained materials resulting from a manufacturing procedure, such as a cleaning procedure, and thence separate the reusable fluid from contaminants. These systems tend to have common limitations or drawbacks. For example, air is often allowed to enter the system and mix with vapor, whereupon removal of the air necessarily implicates loss of volatile constituents as well. More direct sources of solvent loss may be attributed to diffusion, "dragout," and system leaks.
Indirect solvent loss, as in the case of solvent admixed with admitted air, has been addressed most commonly by means of carbon absorbers. Those recovery or control systems can become complicated and hence costly in terms of both capital investment and operating expense. Direct loss is sometimes easier to control, but many potential solutions designed for that purpose can contribute to admission of ambient air to the system, resulting in the types of problems mentioned above. Thus, it is not uncommon to find solvent systems used in, for example, the electronics industry for cleaning printed circuit boards or electronic components, to emit relatively large amounts of solvent vapor, on the order of 8 to 10 pounds of solvent per hour.
Many azeotropes of chlorofluorocarbons such as CFC-113 with alcohols or methylene chloride are known and are used for a variety of purposes. See Freon TMC, Solvent, U.S. Pat. No. 2,999,817, Freon TA Solvent, U.S. Pat. No. 2,999,815, Freon T-P 35 Solvent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,085,116, Freon TES Solvent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,905,009, Freon TMS Solvent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,960,746, and Freon T-DFC Solvent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,182,687. High boiling CFC's are in common use as cleaning solvents, usually in the form of an azeotropic mixture with an alcohol or acetone. See generally Merchant et al. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,810,412, issued Mar. 7, 1989, U.S. Pat. No. 4,814,100, issued Mar. 21, 1989, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,812,256, issued Mar. 14, 1989, relating to use of CHF.sub.2 CHCl.sub.2.A pressurized system for recovering dissolved substances from aqueous solution using a mixture of high and low-boiling fluorocarbon solvents has also been proposed. See Knupp, Jr. U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,695, issued May 7, 1985. Henrich et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,183, issued Aug. 23, 1983, describes using Cl.sub.2 CF.sub.2 as an absorption agent for noble gases, with subsequent desorption.
Many CFC's and HCFC's, such as CHClF.sub.2 (HCFC-22) have low boiling points and have accordingly been used only in applications such as aerosol propellants or refrigerants. See Ermak U.S. Pat. No. 4,510,064, issued Apr. 9, 1985, Bivens et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,810,403, issued Mar. 7, 1989, Orfeo et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,303,536, issued Dec. 1, 1981, Murphy U.S. Pat. No. 3,901,817, issued Aug. 26, 1975, Charle et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,714,049 issued Jan. 30, 1973, Bargigia et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,174,295, issued Nov. 13, 1979, and Japanese Patent Publication 5921632, published Feb. 3, 1984. Solvency, uses and other properties of CHClF.sub.2 are discussed in Sander, "Handbook of Aerosol Technology", Second Edition, Rogert E. Krieger Publishing Co., Malabar, Fla., Second Edition, 1987.
A variety of cleaning systems have been proposed which provide for recovery of solvent, e.g., by condensation of solvent vapors. See generally U.K. Patent Application 2,085,310, Apr. 28, 1982, German Patent Publication No. 3,012,759, 1981, and German Patent Publication No. 3,907,437, 1989. A closed system for cleaning articles utilizing a flushing gas circuit is described in European Patent Application No. 331,611, 1989.
Despite the availability of low-boiling halocarbons, no method or system has been proposed enabling use of such compounds in liquid form for cleaning applications in a manner similar to CFC's having higher boiling points.

Method for cleaning with a volatile solvent


An improved reed type compressor discharge valve assembly uses a conventional reed and reed stop, but increases flow efficiency past the reed with a uniquely configured valve plate port. The valve plate port has an elongated ovoid or teardrop shape, oriented colinear to and symmetrical to the reed. A greater surface area is thus opened to the underside of the reed, compared to a round port, and the wider end of the port is located beneath the higher lifting free end of the reed, providing for a larger, more efficient flow path.

Automotive air conditioning compressors are typically piston machines, in which reciprocating pistons within cylinder bores pull in refrigerant from a low pressure cavity on the back stroke, and drive it out to a high pressure discharge cavity on the up stroke. Reverse flow into the cylinder bores from the discharge cavity is prevented by one way discharge valves. Most often, the discharge valve uses a thin, resilient, elongated reed that is either riveted to the flat surface of a thicker, disk-shaped valve plate, or which is lanced integrally out of a thin metal sheet that is sandwiched to the surface of the valve plate. The valve plate separates the cylinder bores from the various refrigerant cavities. The front of the reed covers a refrigerant port through the plate, while the back end of the reed acts as a hinge. The reed bends up about the hinge, away from the surface of the plate, to allow flow across the port in only the desired direction, and snaps back down against the valve plate to prevent reverse flow. In this way, the assembly of reed and valve plate maintains the desired pressure differentials in a simple, passively responsive fashion.
While simple, the typical reed valve assembly does have some inherent limitations. Since the metal reed snaps up and down against the metal valve plate, it can cause noise. The reed also requires a metal stop to limit its upward bending, contact with which can cause noise. Since the reed bends with every piston stroke, it is stressed accordingly, to a degree that roughly corresponds to the height that it lifts from the surface of the valve plate while opening. The reed lift height must be great enough that flow across the port, which must pass around the sides of the reed, is not limited. In order to create enough reed lift height away from the valve plate, a minimal reed length is necessary, since a short reed will be inherently stiff. Moreover, the lift height varies along the length of the reed, being greatest at the front end, and less toward the back. Since the port has a finite diameter, the reed does not lift away from the port by a constant height, and flow will be more restricted through that area of the port that is closest to the hinge point. This requires that the lift height at the front of the reed be greater than it would have to be if the reed lifted away from the plate uniformly. And, again, greater reed lift height is also associated with noise and reed stress. If flow is too limited by the valve, especially in the case of a discharge valve, an excessive so called overshoot pressure can occur, meaning the degree to which pressure in front of the piston exceeds the elevated pressure created in the compressor discharge cavity. Overshoot pressure is a good measure of excess, wasted work done by the compressor, and is also the cause of compressor vibration, shaking and noise, which can be a greater problem than inherent reed noise.
Reed valves of the type described may also be used as suction valves, that is, the valves which open on piston back stroke so as to allow low pressure refrigerant vapor to enter the cylinder bore, to then be compressed on the forward stroke. Suction valve reeds do not have metal stop members, however, since the piston head generally comes too close to the back surface of the plate. However, the suction valve may also be a disk shaped, thin metal piece carried on and with the front end of the piston itself, rather than an elongated reed.
Every valve must have a port to be covered and uncovered by the reed, of course, and these are typically round only, because of the obvious ease with which a round hold can be drilled or simply punched through. Non round or circular ports are disclosed in existing prior art patents, however, although not generally found in production compressors. At least one patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,457 issued Mar. 24, 1981 shows a non circular valve port that is elongated with an apparently constant width, with what might be referred to as a "stadium" rather than an ovoid shape. The port is also covered by a unique reed that is axially slidable up and down at both ends, rather than bending up about a single hinge point.
The prior art also shows non circular valve ports with an ovoid or trapezoidal shape, that is, wider at one end than at the other. However, the known prior discloses the narrower end of the port at or near the unconfined free end of the reed, where the opening or "lift" height is greater, not vice versa. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,540 issued Nov. 1, 1988 to Ikeda, et al. shows, in one embodiment, an ovoid port so oriented, with the narrower end at the free end of the reed. However, there appears to be no discussion of that aspect of the port shape or its orientation, and the real point of the invention is to situate the port, be it circular or non circular, asymmetrically relative to the axis reed. The same patent also discloses non circular port shapes other than ovoid, including kidney shapes. The stated objective of the patent is to cause the reed to open and close with a sideways bend, rather than flat to the plate, so as to prevent the development of oscillatory vibrations in the reed.
Another non circular port shape, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,778,360, issued Oct. 18, 1988 to Ikeda et al. is essentially the polygonal equivalent of an ovoid, that is, trapezoidal, and the patent is very definite in orienting the narrow end of the port at the free, higher lift end of the reed. It is claimed that placing the wider end of the port beneath the lower lifting main body of the reed, and the narrower end of the port beneath the higher lifting free end of the reed, will yield a more constant flow rate and pressure. That is, where the reed lift is lower, the port is wider, and vice versa. Since this patent has the same assignee and lead inventor as the '540 patent described just above, it is logical to assume that the same philosophy was behind the identical orientation of the ovoid ports there, although that particular claimed advantage was not articulated.
While not prior art per se, co assigned and co pending U.S. patent application U.S. Ser. No. 08/416,123, allowed Aug. 29, 1995 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,672,053, a compressor reed valve with a circular port was disclosed, but with an elongated, recessed channel behind and opening into the port. While the channel itself is itself substantially straight and constant in width, it blends into the circular port with rounded edges which give the circular port and channel together a somewhat elliptical outline, with the wider end of the outline near and beneath the free end of the port. However, the port itself, which is the only part of the outline that actually pierces through the plate, is disclosed as circular only, with no explicit teaching that it be anything but circular or round.

Compressor valve assembly with improved flow efficiency


An imaging system may include a housing having shape and size sufficient to receive an industrial tool inserted into the housing. The imaging system may further include a plurality of cameras and a plurality of light sources positioned within the housing in a manner to surround the industrial tool upon insertion of the industrial tool into the housing. The imaging system may include a processing unit to control operation of the cameras and light sources and adjust relative positions of the cameras and light sources in relation to the industrial tool to capture a plurality of images of relevant portions of the industrial tool. The plurality of images collectively reveals substantially all of the relevant portions of the industrial tool. A method and computer-readable medium are also disclosed.

Real-time inspection of field-based industrial tools is critical in preventing future failures. For example, drilling wellbores require the use of expensive heavy-duty drill bits. As the drill bits are used, they wear and sometimes fail due to various causes. Forensic analysis and/or fault analysis may be conducted by onsite personnel; however, this can be a daunting task requiring one or more individuals to visually inspect a drill bit for causes of wear and/or failure in order to prevent replacement drill bits from suffering a similar fate. Often times, visual inspections by an individual may be hindered by various obstacles, such as the time of day or shape of the drill bit. For example, if an oil-well drill bit fails on an oil rig at night, visual inspection may be difficult due to lack of adequate light. Also, fault detection via visual inspection requires an individual with knowledge of failure causes who may not be available in all situations.
Thus, it would be desirable to implement an imaging system to capture images of various industrial tools capable of being used for real-time inspection and analysis.


An apparatus and method for tracking a vehicle is provided. The vehicle tracking system may include an inertial measurement unit for providing inertial vehicle state characteristics of the vehicle. The inertial measurement unit may include at least one gyro and at least one accelerometer. The vehicle tracking system additionally includes an inertial converter for generating vehicle state information from the inertial vehicle state characteristics. Clinometers are utilized within the vehicle tracking system to initialize the gyros and may additionally provide acceleration information. The vehicle tracking system may additionally include one or more redundant sensors for providing redundant state information. The redundant sensors can include an odometer/tachometer, Global Positioning System receiver, tag receiver, and a map matching system. A Kalman filter may be utilized to reduce error within the vehicle tracking system and improve the accuracy thereof.

This invention relates generally to the tracking of vehicle motion, and more particularly, to the utilization of redundant vehicle state information and clinometers to provide accurate measurements of the vehicle state in real time.
The interest in the tracking of land vehicles has recently increased dramatically. Vehicle tracking is an applied science which utilizes a variety of techniques and approaches to determine vehicle state information. The vehicle state information may include present position, velocity, acceleration as well as attitude information.
For centuries, the position and course of ships were determined by celestial observations and compass readings. Subsequently, similar technology was utilized for aircraft navigation. More recently, radio location systems, inertial measurement systems (IMS), and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have been utilized to assist with the tracking and navigation of vehicles. In addition, map matching has also been introduced to reduce time based error in vehicle tracking and navigation systems.
Vehicle tracking and navigation systems provide an abundance of useful information related to the vehicle state. This information may be utilized by the driver for planning the best possible route to reach a particular destination and may include distance and direction information as well as detailed guidance instructions.
Additionally, the vehicle tracking systems may be utilized in a fleet management system wherein a central control facility remotely monitors the status of individual vehicles. Typical applications include bus schedule control, police car dispatching, and emergency car dispatching. Location and status data may be transmitted between the plurality of vehicles and the central control facility via radio communication.
Inertial measurement units or guidance systems were developed in Germany during the Second World War. These initial inertial systems were generally utilized for determining desired flight attitude in aircraft and measuring acceleration or thrust along a longitudinal axis.
More recently, inertial measurement units have been utilized to assist with the tracking and navigation of land vehicles. Specifically, inertial measurement units can monitor the acceleration vector of a land vehicle in motion. The inertial measurement units generally consist of various combinations of inertial sensors including one to three gyros and one to three accelerometers. Additional sensors may be utilized to provide fault tolerant operation.
The gyros used in the inertial measurement unit measure the angular velocity of the vehicle with respect to inertial space and the accelerometers measure the linear acceleration of the vehicle. The angular orientation of the vehicle may be obtained by integrating the output of the gyros with respect to time. The linear velocity and position of the vehicle may be obtained by integrating the accelerometer output with respect to time and performing appropriate coordinate transformations.
Some tracking subsystems such as dead reckoning or inertial measurement systems inherently accumulate error over time. While this error may be reduced through various error collapsing schemes, the accuracy of the entire vehicle tracking system will be drastically improved if the error is minimized before the vehicle begins to move.
Other errors may arise in the vehicle tracking subsystems due to noise in the tracking instruments, processing limitations and errors in the map database if map matching is utilized. Therefore, the accuracy of the vehicle tracking system is greatly improved if an increased amount of vehicle state information, including redundant vehicle state information, is utilized by the vehicle tracking system.

Apparatus and method for tracking a vehicle


There is provided a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material which is improved in sensitivity, fog and resistance to formalin, and capable of providing photoprins of the same hue irrespective of the type of a printer employed. The color photographic material comprises photographic component layers including a blue-sensitive layer, a green-sensitive layer and a red-sensitive layer, wherein the green-sensitive layer contains a magenta coupler M-I and at least one of the component layers contains a formalin scavenger represented II through VI by the following formulas: ##STR1##

Nowadays, substractive three primary colors are employed for a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material. A color image is formed by the combination of three dyes formed by a coupling reaction between couplers, i.e., a yellow coupler, a magenta coupler, a cyan coupler, and an oxidized p-phenylenediamine-based color developing agent.
As a magenta coupler for a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material, pyrazolone, pyrazolinobenzimidazole, pyrazolonetriazole and indanone have heretofore been employed in the industry. Of them, 5-pyrazolone derivatives are the most common.
Examples of 5-pyrazolone derivatives include those obtained by introducing into the 3-position of 5-pyrazolone an alkyl group; aryl group; an alkoxy group (see U.S. Pat. No. 2,439,098); an acylamino group (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,369,489 and 2,600,788); and a ureido group (see U.S. Pat. No. 3,558,319).
These conventional magenta couplers, however, have a defect that does not allow a high-density magenta dye image to be obtained due to their low coupling activity. Further, a magenta dye produced from these couplers has an unfavorable secondary absorption in the blue light region, and its primary absorption is not sharp-cut in the longer wavelength region.
A 3-anilino-5-pyrazolone-based coupler described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,311,081, 3,677,764, British Patent Nos. 956,261 and 1,173,513 is improved in coupling activity and color development, and capable of providing a dye which has a very small secondary absorption in the red light region. However, this coupler has such a disadvantage that a dye formed therefrom has a primary absorption in a relatively short wavelength region, and, hence, a color negative film produced by using this coupler has poor color reproducibility.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that, when a color negative is printed on color paper to obtain a photographic print, the hue of the photographic print tends to vary according to the type of printer employed. The hue of a magenta coupler contained in a negative is one of the factors contributing to this phenomenon.
It should be noted that such a variation in hue is most serious when a 3-anilino-5-pyrazolone-based coupler is employed as a magenta coupler.
Variation in photoprint hue caused by a change in the type of a printer can be suppressed to some extent by the use of a magenta coupler described in Japanese Patent Examined Publication No. 30615/1980.
However, studies by the inventors have revealed that this magenta coupler causes fogging, and makes the photographic properties of a light-sensitive material deteriorate during storage by the action of a harmful substance such as formaldehyde.

Silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material


A semiconductor package includes a lead frame, at least one chip, and an encapsulation. The lead frame has a plurality of leads, and each of the leads includes at least one first conductive part, at least one second conductive part, and at least one third conductive part. The first conductive part is not electrically connected to the second conductive part, and the second conductive part is electrically connected to the third conductive part. The chip is electrically connected to the first conductive part. The encapsulation encapsulates the chip and at least a portion of the lead frame, and forms a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface. The first conductive part and the third conductive part are exposed from the first surface, and the second conductive part is exposed from the second surface.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a package and a manufacturing method thereof, in particular, to a semiconductor package having a lead frame and a manufacturing method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
In the semiconductor technology development, the capacity and performance of semiconductor package devices are improved to meet the demands of users along with the miniaturization and high-efficiency oriented development of electronic products. Therefore, multi-chip module becomes one of the researching focuses in recent years, in which a semiconductor package device is formed by stacking two or more chips, thereby chips with different functions are integrated into a semiconductor package device. In addition, the multi-chip module may reduce a length of a connection circuit between the chips, so as to shorten a delay time and an access time of a signal.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional package device 1 includes a plurality of packages 11 to 14 stacked with each other. Each package 11 to 14 respectively has a chip 111, 121, 131, or 141, a lead frame 112, 122, 132, or 142, and an encapsulation 113, 123, 133, or 143. The chip 111, 121, 131, or 141 is respectively electrically connected to the lead frame 112, 122, 132, or 142. The encapsulation 113, 123, 133, or 143 respectively encapsulates the chip 111, 121, 131, or 141 and a portion of the lead frame 112, 122, 132, or 142. In addition, the lead frames 112, 122, 132, and 142 are electrically connected to each other.
The semiconductor package device 1 has an improved operating performance due to the chips 111, 121, 131, and 141. However, for signal transmission, the chips 111, 121, 131, and 141 share the lead frame 112 as an input/output (I/O) port, such that it is difficult to control the signal. Because of the limit of the number of the I/O ports, the semiconductor package device 1 is not applicable to package the chip with complicated wires, and the stacking number of the package may also be limited.
Therefore, it becomes one of the important topics how to provide a semiconductor package capable of increasing the number of the I/O ports to improve the stacking package performance of the semiconductor package.

Semiconductor package and manufacturing method thereof

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc.


According to one aspect of the invention, a heat transfer system comprises a heat transfer fluid circulation loop. The heat transfer system includes a heat exchanger disposed in the heat transfer fluid circulation loop. The heat transfer fluid is an aqueous solution having a pH of 7.8 to 8.0 that comprises from 1.00 wt. % to 1.20 wt. % of a buffer composition comprising sodium and/or potassium salts of borate, carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, from 0.40 wt. % to 0.60 wt. % of a straight chain aliphatic dicarboxylic acid, from 0.90 wt. % to 1.10 wt. % of a branched aliphatic carboxylic acid, from 0.40 wt. % to 0.60 wt. % of an aromatic carboxylic acid, from 0.04 wt. % to 0.08 wt. % of a molybdate salt, and from 0.01 wt. % to 0.03 wt. % of an aldehyde biocide, based on the total weight of the heat transfer fluid.

The subject matter disclosed herein generally relates to heat transfer systems and, more particularly, to heat transfer systems that include an aluminum surface in contact with a heat transfer fluid.
Heat transfer systems are widely used in various applications, including but not limited to heat transfer systems for environmental heating and cooling in aerospace applications, automotive, industrial, residential, and electronics, to name a few. Heat transfer systems often utilize a heat transfer fluid that circulates between two or more heat exchangers to transfer heat between environmental spaces. Many such heat transfer systems include one or more aluminum components in contact with the heat transfer fluid. Aluminum alloys offer durability, malleability, high strength to weight ratio, and thermal conductivity, which make it a desirable material for heat transfer system components such as heat exchangers, tubes, fins, etc.
Many different types of heat transfer fluids have been used or proposed for use in various types of heat transfer systems. Organic liquids such as halogenated hydrocarbons (e.g., R-134a (tetrafluoroethane), R-1234 (tetrafluoropropene)) have been used in many systems. However, such fluids, although they offer improvements over prior chlorinated fluorocarbons, are still subject to toxicity, flammability, lower thermal performance than water, and environmental issues. Additionally, they are often not suitable for use in heat transfer systems in enclosed environments such as aerospace or submarine environments, where leaks or other accidental release into the enclosed environmental space would be problematic from an occupant health perspective. Aqueous-based heat transfer fluids containing glycols such as propylene glycol have also been used. Such fluids can provide benefits over organic liquids with respect to toxicity, flammability, thermal performance and environmental issues. However, they are not suitable for some heat transfer systems, especially those with a high surface area of aluminum, where corrosion becomes a challenge. For example, propylene glycol acts to reduce the freezing point temperature of the heat transfer fluid. In PCM (phase change material) heat transfer systems where the latent heat of a phase change material is used to store and release thermal energy, the freezing point suppression imparted by the glycol to an aqueous heat fluid can be problematic. In other systems, such as capillary coolant systems used for cooling lasers or heat-generating manufacturing tools, the glycol may have a detrimental effect on the surface active properties of the coolant needed for proper capillary action. Also, the use of aqueous based coolants results in a need to control microbial growth.
Although the above-described and other heat transfer fluids can be effective in various applications, new and different alternatives are always well received that might be more appropriate for or function better in certain environments or could be less costly or more effective.

Heat transfer system with aqueous heat transfer fluid

HAMILTON SUNDSTRAND SPACE SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC.


A lane sensing system (20) comprises a processor (22) operable to drive an infrared optical transmitter (24). Light is reflected by a center stripe (18) placed in the center of a highway lane. Reflected light is received in right and left receivers (26) and (28). The processor (22) uses the information to control a power steering control system (30) and a speed control system (32). Information may be encrypted into the center stripe (18) and used by processor (22) to control the speed of the vehicle (10) or to display information to an operator of the vehicle (10) through a display system (34).

A variety of systems have been developed to provide for automatic steering of vehicles. Primarily, these systems have been designed for use in the factory or office environment. For example, robot courier and waste management vehicles may be automatically steered by embedding conductive material in the floor along the path on which the vehicle is to travel. These systems are extremely expensive and very difficult to modify due to the physical placement of electric conductors in subflooring of a building. The use of optical tracking systems has not been widely explored. However, similar automatically-steered vehicles have been developed that can track a stripe of material placed on the ceiling above the vehicle. These systems are not suitable for use in a highway environment due to the placement of the stripe above the vehicle. Further, there has been little attention to the problems associated with many vehicles utilizing the pathway to be tracked. Accordingly, need has arisen for an automatic vehicle steering system which is suitable for the highway environment and which addresses the problems associated with many vehicles using the automatic pathway.

Method and apparatus for lane sensing for automatic vehicle steering


A pressure sensor includes a detection element that detects a change in pressure, and a cover member that accommodates the detection element and that includes a first through hole and a second through hole. Each of the first through hole and the second through hole is provided at a position that does not overlap the detection element in a front view of the respective hole.

A pressure sensor for detecting pressure is used. A pressure sensor includes a pressure detection element that detects a change in pressure and a package member that protects the pressure detection element. The package member of the pressure sensor is provided with an introduction hole for introducing pressure into the inside of the package member. The atmospheric pressure outside the package member is introduced into the inside of the package member through the introduction hole, and the pressure detection element detects the introduced pressure.
Patent Document 1 discloses, for example, a semiconductor pressure sensor including a pressure detection element, a pedestal that supports the pressure detection element, and a package that has an introduction hole for introducing pressure to be measured into the pressure detection element, to which the pedestal is fixed, and that accommodates the pressure detection element and the pedestal, wherein an elastic buffer member is mixed in an adhesive that bonds the pedestal and the package. The semiconductor pressure sensor according to Patent Document 1 can absorb external forces and distortion by the adhesive in which the buffer member is mixed, and therefore can reduce a decrease in accuracy of pressure measurements when an external force or the like is applied to the package.

Pressure sensor and moving device having pressure sensor


The activating device (20) for an occupant protection device includes a first deceleration detecting means (22) for detecting a first deceleration G in vehicle front/rear direction and an activation judging means (37) for judging whether the activation of the occupant protection device is necessary or not by comparing the first deceleration G detected by the first deceleration detecting means (22) with a first threshold value. The device further includes a second deceleration detecting means (24, 26) for detecting a deceleration LG, RG at a position further front side of the vehicle than the position detecting the first deceleration, a collision condition detecting means (35) for detecting a vehicle collision condition based on a second threshold value by the deceleration LG and RG and a first threshold changing means (36) for changing the first threshold value of an activation judging means (37) based on the detected result of the collision condition detecting means (35).

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an activating device for occupant protection device and the method for controlling the activating device. In more detail, the present invention relates to an activating device for an occupant protection device and a controlling method therefor by early stage and accurate activation by providing a front sensor provided in the vehicle front most portion for detecting a vehicle collision at an early stage and a floor sensor provided at the central portion of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
An occupant protection device such as an air bag installed in a vehicle adjusts the activating timing of the occupant protection device based on the time change of the vehicle deceleration detected by a deceleration sensor provided in the vehicle. In order to activate with a more proper timing, it is important for the occupant protection device to detect the vehicle collision without fail. The applicant of this invention has proposed one of such collision-detecting device that includes an activating device for the occupant protection device that includes a floor sensor provided at the center of the vehicle body and a front sensor arranged at the front of the vehicle to detect the vehicle deceleration. Based on the detected deceleration, the activating timing of the occupant protection device is controlled. (Japanese patent Laid-Open publication H10-152014). According to this activating device, the occupant protection device can be timely activated even under a vehicle collision, the impact of which could not be detected by a floor sensor only.
By the way, when the vehicle is under collision condition, an early stage the vehicle collision condition is detected by the front sensor. By arranging the front sensor at the vehicle front most portion where the impact of the collision is easily detected, the front sensor can detect the vehicle collision more sensibly and by using the detected value, the protecting device can be activated early and accurately.
Further, it is preferable for the activating device of the occupant protection device to be structured so that the front sensor arranged at the vehicle portion where the impact can be easily detected, can function without fail.

Activating device for occupant protection device and controlling method therefor


A surgical rod scorer is provided. The surgical rod scorer includes a pair of elongated shaft members that are pivotably coupled to one another and movable from a spaced-apart configuration to an approximated configuration. Each of the shaft members includes a handle member that is configured for gripping by a user and jaw member that is configured to support respective first and second cutting assemblies thereon. The first and second cutting assemblies each include one or more cutting elements thereon configured and dimensioned to score surgical rod when the jaw members are in the approximated configuration and rotated about the surgical rod.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a surgical rod scorer and method of use of the same. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a surgical rod scorer including a plurality of cutting elements aligned along a common scoring axis of the surgical rod scorer.
2. Description of Related Art
Disease, the effects of aging, or physical trauma resulting, in damage to the spine has been treated in many instances by fixation or stabilization of the affected vertebra. A wide variety of spinal fixation apparatuses have been employed in surgical procedures for correcting spinal injuries and the effects of spinal diseases. Many types of spinal fixation apparatuses typically use a pair of longitudinal surgical rods running, in a relatively parallel relationship to each other and the spinal column. The surgical rods are often bent into various complex shapes to provide the desired correction to a patient's anatomy. Typically, the surgical rods are solid.
In certain instances, the surgical rods may need to be cut. For example, typically, the surgical rods are longer than necessary in order to allow for the variability of a patient's anatomy and, therefore, need to be cut once a construct, e.g., a spinal fixation apparatus, is completed. Also, the surgical rods may need to be cut in revision surgeries where the hardware of the construct that was implanted needs to be removed so additional hardware can be implanted and/or additional corrections can be made, either of the foregoing cutting scenarios involving surgical rods, it may prove advantageous to transfer minimal force to the construct and/or surrounding anatomy and to provide a smooth edge to the cut rod so it does not damage surrounding tissue and vasculature.
Conventional devices employed to cut the surgical rods utilize a "bolt cutter" approach, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,836,937 issued to Holmes. Typically, devices of this type include a surgical rod cutter having a set of jaw members rotatably connected to one another. The jaw members are capable of opening and closing upon actuation thereof. Each of the jaw members includes a cutting blade that opposes a cutting; edge on the other jaw member. However, this type of rod cutter applies a large amount of force to the surgical rod, which, in turn, effectively shears the surgical rod apart; this type of rod cutter does not provide a clean cut of the surgical rod. That is, this force is, typically, applied to a portion of rod that is to be removed and, thus, creates a burr on a cut edge of the surgical rod after the surgical rod is cut.

Surgical rod scorer and method of use of the same


An anti-split wood screw includes a screw head and a shank. The shank has a tip portion connected to a distal end thereof, a first thread extended helically from the front end of the tip portion toward the distal end of the shank, a second thread extended helically from the distal end of the first thread toward the shank, and a third thread extended helically from the distal end of the second thread toward the middle of the shank. The second thread has a plurality of serrated cutting edges and teeth peaks that are alternately disposed. The anti-split wood screw thus formed can tap an object through the first thread, cut off the chips generated during tapping through the second thread, and channel out the chips through the third thread without being clogged by the chips, hence can avoid the object from splitting and damaging.

To fasten an object W such as furniture or wooden articles, referring to FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, a screw 1 with a tip portion 11 at the distal end is commonly used. As the object W usually does not have a hole formed by drilling in advance, the tip portion 11 has to be screwed into the object W by force during tapping of the screw 1; meanwhile, chips are generated by means of threads 12 of the screw 1 and then channeled out reversely along the threads 12. While the threads 12 are wedged in a screw hole W1 of the object W during tapping, the chips easily clogs the threads 12 to generate frictional resistance. Hence fastening the screw 1 requires a greater effort, and the screw hole W1 tends to be squeezed to generate cracks C1 to result in damage of the object W. This weakens the strength of the object W and reduces the durability thereof. It also spoils the appearance of the object W. Moreover, after the screw head 13 of the screw 1 is wedged in the screw hole W1, the screw hole W1 also is squeezed by the screw head 13 to create other cracks C2.


Detection of the existence, magnitude, and frequency of occurrence of a plurality of ESD events is achieved by using an envelope detector to process signals generated by ESD events and received by an antenna. The ESD event detector includes an antenna for producing a signal waveform in response to electromagnetic fields incident thereupon, a demodulator coupled to the antenna for generating an envelope waveform that is related to the envelope of the signal waveform, a threshold window discriminator coupled to the demodulator for generating an indication signal if the envelope detected by the demodulator has a magnitude between a first and a second threshold, and a counter coupled to the threshold window discriminator for counting the number of indication signals received from the threshold window detector.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to electronic measurement devices, and more particularly to electrostatic discharge event detectors.
2. Background Art
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) events may cause damage to electronic semiconductor components. ESD is a well-known problem in the operational environment of electronic circuit board assembly lines. In the past, ESD has been controlled by requiring human operators to wear grounded wrist straps. However, current automation trends have replaced human operators with robotic assembly equipment that uses insulative composite materials and ungrounded metal parts. Such equipment, including, for example, pick-and-place machines and IC testers, is difficult to analyze for susceptibility to ESD problems. It is quite time-consuming, if not altogether impossible, for engineers in factories to certify automated machines for ESD-free operation. The engineers must be able to detect occurrences of ESD events in order to apply the appropriate ESD mitigation methods to a given machine. This task is important because ESD events that take place in the context of automated machines are oftentimes of sufficient magnitude so as to damage one or more electronic components on a circuit board.
Presently-existing ESD event detectors, an example of which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,473 issued to Masamitsu Honda on Dec. 23, 1986 and entitled, Transient Electromagnetic Field Detector", provide a momentary indication of the existence of an ESD event at the time that the event is actually taking place. This momentary indication takes the form of an audible beep or a flash of light emitted by an indicator lamp or LED. A human operator must be present at the time that an ESD event triggers the detector, or else information as to the occurrence of an ESD event is lost.
Prior-art ESD event detectors trigger an ESD indication whenever a received signal waveform has an amplitude above a predetermined threshold, irrespective of how many ESD events the received signal waveform actually represents. A single ESD event produces electromagnetic radiation which may be reflected by nearby metallic objects, resulting in the receipt of several signal peaks above a predetermined threshold. Unfortunately, existing ESD detectors are unable to distinguish a multi-peak waveform representing a single ESD event from a waveform that represents several ESD events. Moreover, existing ESD detectors provide no information about relative magnitudes of a plurality of ESD events, or the number of ESD events that occur within a given period of time. Such information is critical in determining the relative effectiveness of various proposed methods of ESD mitigation in environments where electronic devices are assembled and used.


A method of aligning an inertial navigation system or gyrocompass, including executing real-time navigation software on real-time inertial data to generate real-time navigation data, executing real-time Kalman filter software on the real-time navigation data and real-time aiding data, recording the real-time inertial data and the real-time aiding data as real-time input data in a buffer, initializing a playback process, executing playback navigation software on buffered inertial data to generate playback navigation data, and executing playback Kalman filter software on the playback navigation data and buffered aiding data. The execution of the real-time navigation software and the real-time Kalman filter software effect a real-time alignment process. The playback navigation software and the playback Kalman filter software effect an alignment process executed at a faster rate than the real-time navigation software and real-time Kalman filter software.

A strapdown inertial navigation unit contains inertial sensors (gyros and accelerometers) fixed within an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Because the sensors are fixed to the IMU chassis ("strapped down"), the angular relationship of their input axes to chosen IMU axes is constant, so rotations and accelerations measured by the sensors can be used to compute equivalent rotations and accelerations along IMU axes. Typically the IMU is fixed to the body of a host vehicle to be navigated, such as an aircraft or land vehicle, but it can be a free-standing unit carried by an individual.
For the unit to navigate accurately, the IMU's initial attitude, that is the IMU's angular orientation with respect to some chosen navigation reference frame, must be determined through an alignment procedure. (By long tradition the procedure is called "alignment", even if, as in most strapdown systems, there is no actual repositioning of the unit. For such systems the "alignment" or more properly "self-alignment" procedure involves only the collection and processing of data from the inertial sensors and other data supplied by the user or obtained from other sensors.)
Specifically, the alignment procedure determines the directions of the orthogonal axes of the IMU with respect to a selected navigation reference frame. An oft-used reference frame is defined by vectors that point north, east and down at the IMU's location. The angular relationship between the IMU axes and the navigation reference frame is defined by the values of a selected set of attitude parameters. Several such sets are in common use. But whatever set is selected, the purpose of the alignment procedure is to develop numeric values for the parameters that constitute that set. For subsequent inertial navigation to be accurate, these values must be determined accurately.
When heading of the vehicle is unspecified, the alignment procedure is executed in two phases. The first phase, coarse alignment, determines heading to within, say, a few degrees, after which the second phase, fine alignment, is started. Fine alignment further refines the heading error, and also solves for various inertial sensor errors. The two phases are necessary because of the limitations of alignment algorithms that approximate the equations that govern the inertial system with linearized forms; this includes Kalman filters and most other alignment algorithms. The underlying assumption for such algorithms is that, for the ranges of the errors being estimated, the governing equations of the inertial system are well approximated by a linearization about a known approximate solution. But this assumption is not justified for an unspecified heading; the actual heading can differ as much as 180 degrees from an assumed heading, and the governing equations involve sines and cosines of heading, which are far from linear over this wide range. For such large initial errors, the ignored non-linearities in the governing equations limit the accuracy of the coarse alignment algorithm, corrupting not only the estimate of heading but also the estimates of other quantities such as inertial sensor errors. The fine alignment algorithm, on the other hand, can separate a richer selection of alignment and inertial sensor errors, and can do it more accurately, but only when all the initial errors are sufficiently small. So coarse alignment is undertaken first, to reduce the errors to sizes that fine alignment can accommodate.
Both coarse alignment and fine alignment operate on inertial data supplied at regular intervals by the inertial sensors, and on "observation data" from some external source. As defined herein, input data comprises the inertial data and the observation data. Observation data may be measurements by one or more aiding sensors such as a GPS receiver, or can be information supplied by the user, such as the fact that the vehicle is stationary. A common alignment approach is to initialize the inertial navigation system with externally-supplied or default values for the navigation variables and allow it to navigate. The resulting navigation data are used to predict the data for an external observation; then these predicted observation data are compared with the actual observation data. A Kalman filter algorithm uses the differences in the observation data and estimates of the probability distributions of navigation errors to estimate the navigation errors; the error estimates are applied as corrections to the navigation data. The process is repeated at regular intervals.
Coarse alignment begins by determining the attitude with respect to the local level plane and using the outputs of accelerometers as they sense the effect of gravity. Because gravity is so much larger than the accelerometer errors, under stationary conditions an accurate determination is made quickly, typically in a few seconds. In contrast, the determination of heading requires that the rotation of the earth be sensed by gyros. Earth rate is larger than the gyro errors, but slow enough that typically it takes on the order of a minute to determine heading to within a few degrees. Finally, fine alignment takes a few minutes more to reduce the heading error to a small fraction of a degree and to accurately estimate other system errors, such as those for inertial sensors. In total, for vehicles stationary with respect to the earth, the complete alignment procedure can take several minutes. For situations in which alignment must be performed with aiding data of lesser accuracy (e.g., airborne Doppler radar), or while the system is experiencing vigorous dynamics (e.g., aboard ship in heavy seas), accurate alignment can take significantly longer.
Many operators of vehicles with inertial navigators want to prepare their vehicles for takeoff within a very short time. In military, medical and law enforcement applications, the time spent sitting on the runway while the inertial navigation unit completes its alignment procedure is lost time that can be critical to the safety of soldiers and/or citizens.
For short alignment times, there's a trade-off between alignment time and alignment accuracy. Within limits, a longer alignment time leads to better alignment accuracy and therefore to improved accuracy in the subsequent navigation. How this trade is resolved depends on the application, and in some applications on decisions made by the user. For example, in an urgent situation, a pilot may elect to cut alignment time short, and accept the resulting degradation in navigation accuracy. Any improvement that allows the same accuracy to be achieved in less alignment time may also provide improved accuracy with the same alignment time, or may provide some combination of improved alignment time and improved accuracy.

Rapid self-alignment of a strapdown inertial system through real-time reprocessing


A surface plasmon sensor includes a prism, a metal film which is formed on one face of the prism and is brought into contact with a sample, a light source emitting a light beam, and an optical system which causes the light beam to enter the prism so that various angles of incidence of the light beam to the interface between the prism and the metal film can be obtained. First and second photodetectors respectively detect the amounts of light of first and second parts of the light beam reflected in total reflection from the interface. The first part is a light bundle reflected from the interface at angles in a first reflecting angle range and the second part is a light bundle reflected from the interface at angles in a second reflecting angle range different from the first reflecting angle range. A comparator compares the light amount signal output from the first photodetector with that output from the second photodetector.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a surface plasmon sensor for quantitatively analyzing a material in a sample utilizing generation of surface plasmon, and more particularly to a surface plasmon sensor in which the light detecting system is simplified in structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
In metal, free electrons vibrate in a group to generate compression waves called plasma waves. The compression waves generated in a metal surface are quantized into surface plasmon.
There have been proposed various surface plasmon sensors for quantitatively analyzing a material in a sample utilizing a phenomenon that such surface plasmon is excited by light waves. Among those, one employing a system called "Kretschmann configuration" is best known. See, for instance, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6(1994)-167443.
The plasmon sensor using the Kretschmann configuration basically comprises a prism, a metal film which is formed on one face of the prism and is brought into contact with a sample, a light source emitting a light beam, an optical system which causes the light beam to enter the prism so that various angles of incidence of the light beam to the interface between the prism and the metal film can be obtained, and a photodetector means which is able to detect the intensity of the light beam reflected in total reflection from the interface for the various angles of incidence.
In order to obtain various angles of incidence of the light beam to the interface, a relatively thin incident light beam may be caused to impinge upon the interface while deflecting the incident light beam or a relatively thick incident light beam may be caused to converge on the interface so that components of the incident light beam impinge upon the interface at various angles. In the former case, the light beam which is reflected from the interface at an angle which varies as the incident light beam is deflected may be detected by a photodetector which is moved in synchronization with deflection of the incident light beam or by an area sensor extending in the direction in which reflected light beam is moved as a result of deflection. In the latter case, components of light reflected from the interface at various angles may be detected by an area sensor.
In such a plasmon sensor, when a light beam impinges upon the metal film at a particular angle of incidence .theta.sp which is at least as great as the angle of total internal reflection, evanescent waves having an electric field distribution are generated in the sample in contact with the metal film and surface plasmon is excited in the interface between the metal film and the sample. When the wave vector of the evanescent waves is equal to the wave number of the surface plasmon and wave number matching is established, the evanescent waves and the surface plasmon resonate and light energy is transferred to the surface plasmon, whereby the intensity of light reflected in total reflection from the interface between the prism and the metal film sharply drops.
When the wave number of the surface plasmon can be known from the angle of incidence .theta.sp at which the phenomenon takes place, the dielectric constant of the sample can be obtained. That is, ##EQU1## wherein Ksp represents the wave number of the surface plasmon, .omega. represents the angular frequency of the surface plasmon, c represents the speed of light in a vacuum, and .epsilon.m and .epsilon.s respectively represent the dielectric constants of the metal and the sample.
When the dielectric constant .epsilon.s of the sample is known, the concentration of a specific material in the sample can be determined on the basis of a predetermined calibration curve. Accordingly, a specific component in the sample can be quantitatively analyzed by detecting the angle of incidence .theta.sp at which the intensity of light reflected in total reflection from the interface between the prism and the metal film sharply drops.
In such a surface plasmon sensor, there has been a problem that since a photodetector which is moved in synchronization with deflection of the incident light beam or a CCD area sensor having a wide light receiving surface is required in order to detect the intensity of the light beam reflected from the interface between the prism and the metal film, the cost of the system is high.

Surface plasmon sensor having an improved optical system


A system and methods for automatic digital certificate installation on network devices in a data-over-cable network are developed. One of the methods includes sending a digital certificate request from a cable modem to a predetermined network server upon determining on the cable modem that there is no digital certificate already installed on the cable modem. The method further includes generating at least one digital certificate on the network server and providing the at least one digital certificate to the cable modem.

Cable television networks such as those provided by Comcast Cable Communications, Inc., of Philadelphia, Pa., Cox Communications of Atlanta Ga., Time-Warner Cable, of Marietta Ga., Continental Cablevision, Inc., of Boston Mass., and others, provide cable television services to a large number of subscribers over a large geographical area. The cable television networks typically are interconnected by cables such as coaxial cables or a Hybrid Fiber/Coaxial ("HFC") cable system which have data rates of about 10 Mega-bits-per-second ("Mbps") to 30+ Mbps.
The Internet, a world-wide-network of interconnected computers, provides multi-media content including audio, video, graphics and text that requires a large bandwidth for downloading and viewing. Most Internet Service Providers ("ISPs") allow customers to connect to the Internet via a serial telephone line from a Public Switched Telephone Network ("PSTN") at data rates including 14,400 bps, 28,800 bps, 33,600 bps, 56,000 bps and others that are much slower than the about 10 Mbps, to 30+ Mbps available on a coaxial cable or HFC cable system on a cable television network. Further, the ISPs allow customers to connect to the Internet via other types of connections, such as a Digital Subscriber Line ("DSL") connection providing data transmission rates from 512 kbps to 1.544 Mbps downstream and about 128 kbps upstream, or an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ("ADSL") connection providing data transmission rates up to 6.1 Mbps downstream and 640 kbps upstream.
With the explosive growth of the Internet, many customers have desired to use the larger bandwidth of a cable television network to connect to the Internet and other computer networks. Cable modems, such as those provided by 3Com Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif., Motorola Corporation of Arlington Heights, Ill., Cisco Corporation of San Jose, Calif., Scientific-Atlanta, of Norcross, Ga., and others, offer customers higher-speed connectivity to the Internet, an intranet, Local Area Networks ("LANs") and other computer networks via cable television networks. These cable modems currently support a data connection to the Internet and other computer networks via a cable television network with a data rate of up to 30+ Mbps, which is a much larger data rate than can be supported by a modem used over a serial telephone line.
Many cable television networks provide bi-directional cable systems, in which data is sent "downstream", from a "headend" to a customer, as well as "upstream", from the customer back to the headend. The cable system headend is a central location in the cable television network and, further, is responsible for sending cable signals in the downstream direction and receiving cable signals in the upstream direction. An exemplary data-over-cable system with RF return typically includes customer premises equipment entities such as a customer computer, a cable modem, a cable modem termination system, a cable television network, and a data network such as the Internet.
Some cable television networks provide only uni-directional cable systems, supporting only a "downstream" data path, which provides a path for flow of data from a cable system headend to a customer. A return data path via a telephone network, such as a public switched telephone network provided by AT&T and others, (i.e., a "telephone return") may be used for an "upstream" data path, which provides a path for flow of data from the customer back to the cable system headend. A cable television system with an upstream connection to a telephone network is typically called a "data-over-cable system with telephony return."
An exemplary data-over-cable system with a telephony return typically includes customer premises equipment ("CPE") entities (such as a customer computer or a Voice over Internet Protocol ("VoIP") device), a cable modem, a cable modem termination system, a cable television network, a public switched telephone network, a telephone remote access concentrator, and a data network (e.g., the Internet). The cable modem termination system and the telephone remote access concentrator combined are called a telephone return termination system.
In a bi-directional cable system, when the cable modem termination system receives data packets from the data network, the cable modem termination system transmits received data packets downstream via the cable television network to a cable modem attached to a customer premises equipment entity. The customer premises equipment entity sends response data packets to the cable modem, which sends the response data packets upstream via the cable network. The cable modem termination system sends the response data packets back to the appropriate host on the data network.
In the case of a telephony return system, when a cable modem termination system receives data packets from a data network, the cable modem termination system transmits the received data packets downstream via a cable television network to a cable modem attached to a customer premises equipment entity. The customer premises equipment entity sends response data packets to the cable modem, which sends response data packets upstream via a public switched telephone network to a telephone remote access concentrator. Next, the telephone remote access concentrator sends the response data packets back to the appropriate host on the data network.
When a cable modem used in a cable system is initialized, the cable modem establishes a communication link to a cable modem termination system via a cable network and, in telephony return data-over-cable systems to a telephone return termination system via a public switched telephone network. As the cable modem is initialized, the cable modem initializes one or more downstream channels via the cable network. Also upon initialization, the cable modem receives a configuration file (a boot file) from a configuration server via a trivial file-transfer protocol ("TFTP") exchange process.
As the theft of service is becoming a vital concern for cable network operators, a few standards have been developed to provide cable operators with basic protection from the theft of service. These standards, among others, include a Data-Over-Cable-Service-Interface-Specification ("DOCSIS") Baseline Privacy Interface ("BPI") Specification and a Data-Over-Cable-Service-Interface-Specification ("DOCSIS") Baseline Privacy Plus Interface ("BPI+") Specification. The Baseline Privacy Interface Specification is currently utilized in data-over-cable networks, while the Baseline Privacy Plus Interface Specification products are currently being developed and tested.
The Baseline Privacy Interface Specification provides cable modem users with data privacy across a network by encrypting data flow between cable modems and headend entities such as a cable modem termination system. The secondary goal of the Baseline Privacy is to provide cable operators with a basic protection from the theft of service. Since the data privacy is the primary service goal of that specification, and given that neither a cable modem nor a cable modem termination system authentication is a prerequisite for providing the data privacy, the Baseline Privacy's key distribution protocol does not authenticate cable modems and cable modem termination systems, i.e., it does not employ authentication mechanisms such as passwords or digital signatures. In the absence of authentication, the Baseline Privacy provides a basic service protection by ensuring that a cable modem, uniquely identified by its 48-bit physical (Medium Access Control "MAC") address, can only obtain keying material for services it is authorized to use.
The Baseline Privacy Plus Interface ("BPI+") specification describes Medium Access Control layer security services for cable modems and cable modem termination systems that interact based on standards proposed by the Data-Over-Cable-Service-Interface Specification ("DOCSIS"). Specifically, the Baseline Privacy Plus provides cable modem users with the data privacy across the cable networks and prevents unauthorized users from gaining access to the network services. The Baseline Privacy Plus specification proposes a key management protocol providing a service protection by adding a digital-certificate-based cable modem authentication.
According to the basic operation of the Baseline Privacy Plus, a cable modem has an internally installed digital certificate issued by a cable modem manufacturer. A digital certificate is an electronic version of an identification card that establishes credentials and authenticates communication between two network entities. One of the widely used standards for defining digital certificates includes a X.509 digital certificate standard. For more information on the X.509 security certificates, see the Request For Comments ("RFC") 2459, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and CRL Profile," by R. Housley, W. Ford, W. Polk, and D. Solo, incorporated herein by reference. The digital certificate issued by the manufacturer includes a cable modem's public key and a physical (MAC) address. The digital certificate may further include a manufacturer's signature that binds the MAC address of the cable modem with its keying data such as its public key. When the cable modem receives the digital certificate, the cable modem may use the signature specified in the certificate to authenticate the received digital certificate. Certificates received on cable modems may also include different identifying information such as a manufacturer's identifier. When a cable modem requests authorization from a cable modem termination system, the cable modem presents its digital certificate that is then verified on the cable modem termination system. Upon a successful verification of the digital certificate, the cable modem termination system typically uses the public key specified in the certificate to encrypt an authorization key, which is then sent to the cable modem requesting authorization.
According to the Baseline Privacy Plus specification, a cable modem termination system associates a cable modem's authenticated identity to a paying subscriber and to data services that the subscriber is authorized to access. Therefore, with the authorization key exchange, the cable modem termination system establishes an authenticated identity of a client cable modem and network services that the cable modem is authorized to access. Further, since the cable modem termination system authorizes cable modems, system resources are protected from attacks of hacker cable modems masquerading the identity of legitimate cable modems. Further, the use of digital certificates prevents unauthorized cable modems from passing fake credentials to the cable modem termination system.
The assumption of the Baseline Privacy Plus specification is that cable modems would be manufactured with installed digital certificates. However, such an assumption creates a problem for cable modems already deployed in data-over-cable systems, as for those cable modems to run in the Baseline Privacy Plus mode, they need to obtain digital certificates. A number of methods for providing digital certificates to cable modems are described in the existing Data-Over-Cable-Service-Interface-Specification standards. One of such methods employs management protocols to download a digital certificate to a cable modem. Using the proposed methods, a cable operator may use one of the existing network management protocols to retrieve a physical (MAC) address and a public key from a cable modem, and, subsequently, send the retrieved data to a cable modem's manufacturer. Upon a receipt of the cable modem's data, the manufacturer may create a digital certificate for the cable modem and send it to the cable modem operator. Then, the cable modem operator may employ the network management protocols to load the certificate on the cable modem.
The existing method for providing digital certificates has several drawbacks. First, it requires a cable operator to retrieve authentication and configuration information from cable modems and then format the retrieved data according to the manufacturers' standards. Further, it requires a lot of coordination between cable operators and manufacturers, and, lastly, it does not guarantee that all of cable modems intended for an upgrade will actually get upgraded since some of the cable modems may be offline or in the inventory when the process is run by a cable operator.
Therefore, it is still desirable to develop a system and method for providing digital certificates to network entities such as cable modems in a data-over-cable system.

System and method for automatic digital certificate installation on a network device in a data-over-cable system


An enclosed ink cup for a pad-type printing machine including a hollow support having a continuous wall surrounding and defining a reservoir region and an opening to the reservoir region at the bottom of the region, and a continuous, sheet metal band disposed around and conforming to an outer vertical surface of the wall, the band having a lower portion extending below the hollow support for sealably contacting an engraved printing plate so as to contain ink within the band over said plate.

The invention relates to enclosed ink cups for pad-type printing machines.
On pad-type printing machines, an image engraved in a metal plate is provided with a thin film of ink by an ink cup that is slid over the surface of the plate. A doctor blade on the cup wipes the engraved surface as the ink cup is moved from the engraved area of the plate, leaving the ink at only the engraved image. A silicone pad then transfers the ink image from the plate to the object being printed. Typically the printing machines have used ink wells that are open to the atmosphere, and there have been recent environmental and health concerns related to vapors evaporating from the exposed ink.
In response to these concerns, enclosed ink cups have been proposed. For example, Phillip et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,594 describes an enclosed ink cup that has a hollow body that can be bent in the area of its end face and employs a bellows structure to permit relative movement between the area of the end face and the remaining part of the hollow body in order to provide a sealable contact between the ink cup and the printing plate surface on printing plates whose surfaces exhibit deviations from a plane. Phlipp U.S. Pat. No. 4,557,195 describes an enclosed ink cup having a two-piece hollow body. The two parts are movable in relation to each other to ensure exact abutment on the printing plate surface independent of production tolerances.

Enclosed ink cup for pad-type printing machine


Techniques for translating between logical addresses and ports of a first network, and logical addresses and ports of a second network connected to the first network at an intermediate device include receiving a first packet at the intermediate device from a first device having a first address on the first network. A second packet is sent to a second device on the second network in response to receiving the first packet. The second packet includes, in a source address field, a particular address of the intermediate device on the second network. It is determined whether the first packet includes a resource registration message that registers a first resource on the first device with a protocol server for a particular protocol. The protocol server is available at the second device on the second network. If the first packet includes the resource registration message, then information in the resource registration message for uniquely requesting the first resource is determined. The first information is stored in a first data structure in association with the first address. As a result, network address and port translation (NAPT) functions in a system using NetBIOS protocol.

A computer network includes computer processors or "hosts" that host software applications that provide or request services, or both. The hosts may be network terminals or end stations that do not perform network traffic routing or forwarding functions. The hosts communicate with each other through network devices, such as switches and routers, sometimes called intermediate devices, which do perform routing and forwarding functions. When a host is added to a network by connecting directly to another host, or indirectly to another host through one or more intermediate devices, the host must be configured for network operations. For example, the newly added host is assigned a logical network address for itself, and a network address for the intermediate device that routes or forwards its traffic, among other configuration information.
Many computer networks, including the Internet, employ the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) for sending packets of information between devices on the network. TCP/IP packets include data fields holding data indicating a destination, a destination port, a source, and a source port. The destination field holds data indicating the IP address of the intermediate device or host that is to receive the TCP/IP packet. Routers efficiently transmit TCP/IP packets using hardware configured to interpret the destination address in the destination field. An IP address consists of 32 bits, often represented as four 8-bit numbers separated by periods, e.g., A.B.C.D, where the letters A, B, C, D each represent one 8-bit number. An 8-bit number can represent values from 0 though 255. The source field holds data indicating the IP address of the intermediate device or host that sent the TCP/IP packet. The destination port field holds data indicating the service requested on the destination device, so that the destination device provides the packet to the appropriate server process executing on the destination device. The source port is used to distinguish several client processes operating simultaneously on the same host.
Computer networks that employ TCP/IP are proliferating, and as a result, logical network addresses that are used to locate each device on the network have become scarce. In many local networks with many different computers, the number and location of the computers connected to the network may change regularly. In addition, of the many computers physically connected at one time, only a fraction of the computers are on and operating at one time. Thus one or more hosts are being added and dropped frequently.
A specific context in which this problem arises involves large-scale cable modem networks in which voice and other services are delivered over an Internet Protocol (IP) network that uses coaxial cable for communications. In this context, cable modems of end users become active and inactive regularly as users initiate and terminate use of service. In this context, it is wasteful to give every computer a unique and permanent network address. A number of addresses sufficient for the simultaneously operating computers can be shared, and re-assigned as one host drops off the network and another host adds onto the network. Configuring each host is a tedious process to perform manually.
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) provides a mechanism through which computers using TCP/IP can obtain network addresses and other configuration information automatically. DHCP is an open standard protocol for dynamic host configuration described in request for comments (RFC) documents numbered 2131 and 2132 available at the time of this writing as rfc2131.html and rfc2132.html, respectively, on the worldwide web (www) at domain dhcp.org. A DHCP server process operates on a DHCP server host that is conveniently located for several hosts on one or more local networks. One or more DHCP server hosts and processes are set up by a system administrator with information to configure the hosts on one or more local networks to reflect the current architecture of those local networks. A DHCP client process operates on each host of the local networks. As used hereinafter, a server refers to the server process and a client refers to the client process unless otherwise indicated to refer to the host or device on which the process executes.
Another mechanism used to conserve scarce IP addresses is the network address and port translation (NAPT) process. NAPT is a process by which many network addresses and their TCP ports are translated into a single network address and its TCP ports. A conventional NAPT is an open standard for address translation described in request for comments (RFC) document number 3022 available at the time of this writing as rfc3022.txt on directory rfc, on the worldwide web (www) at domain ietf.org.
NAPT allows a local network with private addresses to connect to an external network with unique registered addresses. For example, assume that private IP addresses 220.127.116.11 through 184.108.40.206 are used on a local network. These addresses may already be registered on the public Internet to other devices on one or more other networks, or reserved for private addresses only, and so not used by the Internet at all. Thus, these addresses cannot be used by hosts on the local network to send or receive messages over the Internet. To communicate with a device on the Internet, data packets from hosts on the local network must go through an intermediate device with an NAPT process. Each data packet has a source port, often randomly generated at the host for each client process sending one or more messages. The intermediate device has an Internet registered address, for example, 22.214.171.124 and a local address, for example, 126.96.36.199. The NAPT process on the intermediate device translates the 256 private addresses 184.108.40.206 through 220.127.116.11, each with one or more ports, to the single address 220.127.116.11 with 256 or more different ports. For example, the NAPT process maps the 256 hosts, each using a single port, to 256 ports ranging from port 3000 to 3255. On messages originating on the private network for the Internet, NAPT substitutes the translated single address (22.214.171.124) for the source addresses and the translated ports (3000 to 3255) for the source ports, and then sends the message over the Internet. On data packets destined for the hosts on the private network from the Internet, NAPT translates the destination address and destination ports to the associated local IP addresses and local ports, and sends the messages onto the local network.
NAPT is useful for conserving IP addresses in circumstances interconnecting several local networks using private addresses that are not used outside the local network for privacy reasons or because those addresses are invalid outside the local network. Consider a retailer having dozens or hundreds of store locations, each store having its own local network of hosts running cash register processes. Installing a local network at each store is simplified if every local network can use the same set of IP addresses, e.g., 220.127.116.11 through 18.104.22.168.
In addition, if each local network can use the same IP addresses, a limited pool of unique registered IP addresses can be used for all the hosts at a very large number of sites. For example, assume that of 1000 unique registered IP addresses in a pool for the external network, all 1000 are used for 1000 different sites on the corporate wide-area network. At each site, any IP addresses can be used as local addresses, because such addresses are not presented to the wide area network.
A limit for the number of local addresses that can use NAPT in this manner is imposed by the number of unique port values that NAPT can use to distinguish the local addresses. Some ports are well-known ports used by certain processes running on a host. For example the port for an HTTP server is 80 and the port for a DHCP server is 67. The number of ports that are not reserved is well over 32,000. Thus, using NAPT, a pool of 1000 IP addresses can be used to access over 32,000 hosts on each of 1000 local networks—a total of over 32 million hosts.
However, the hardware and software that forms an NAPT process may fail in some important circumstances. For example, when the computers distributed across more than one network operate the Windows operating system of Microsoft Corp., communications that involve NAPT ultimately fail. The Windows operating system uses a network protocol called network basic input/output system (NetBIOS). NetBIOS is an open standard protocol for providing services over a TCP network described in request for comments (RFC) document number 1001, available at the time of this writing as rfc1001.htm on directory rfc, on the worldwide web (www) at domain ietf.org.
Many small offices and home offices use low-cost, personal computers for small local networks. Tens of millions of personal computers already deployed run the Windows operating system. An enterprise that has many sites, each with local networks of personal computers running Windows, is unable to utilize NAPT in attempts to obtain Windows services across those sites over an internetwork. Furthermore, large enterprises installing local networks at large numbers of sites may prefer to install low-cost personal computer networks at each site. Therefore, a failure of NAPT when interconnecting networks of such personal computers prevents data interchange among such enterprises.
Unlike NAPT, a simple network address translation (NAT) process has been configured to operate successfully with the NetBIOS protocol. A NAT process translates a local IP address to one of a set of corporate IP addresses associated with the intermediate device on which the NAT process executes. The number of corporate IP addresses used by the NAT process limits the number of local hosts simultaneously communicating with the corporate network, and is often a small subset of the total number of local hosts. The NAT process associates the local IP address with one corporate IP address of the set of corporate IP addresses for the intermediate device on which the NAT process executes. The NAT process is configured to operate successfully with NetBIOS by replacing the local IP address included in a field of the NetBIOS message originating on the local host having that local IP address. The NAT process configured for the NetBIOS protocol places into that field of the NetBIOS message the one corporate IP address associated with that local IP address by the NAT process. A NAT correction to support NetBIOS is described in a document available at the time of this writing as 27.asp on directory support/kb/articles/q172/2, on the worldwide web (www) at domain support.microsoft.com.
However a NAT process is not as desirable and powerful as a NAPT process. A NAT process is not as efficient as a NAPT process in saving corporate IP addresses. For example, a NAT process uses several corporate addresses; while an NAPT process may use a single corporate IP address. Furthermore, the NAT process does not allow as many local hosts to communicate with the corporate network as a NAPT process. For example, a NAT process may limit the number of local hosts that communicate with devices on the corporate network to 8 or 32; while a NAPT process may allow tens of thousands of local hosts to simultaneously communicate with devices on the corporate network.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for a way to use NAPT with interconnected local networks of computers that use the NetBIOS network protocol.
There is a specific need for a way to use NAPT in systems that run the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Furthermore, there is a need for an NAPT process that works with other network protocols that fail to function with the conventional NAPT process.

Techniques for network address and port translation for network protocols that do not use translated ports when requesting network resources


A display substrate includes a first switching element, an organic layer disposed on the first switching element, a capping layer disposed on the organic layer and a cover electrode covering the first emission hole. The first switching element is electrically connected to a gate line extending in a first direction, a data line extending in a second direction crossing the first direction and the pixel electrode disposed adjacent to the data line. The capping layer includes a first emission hole. The cover electrode overlaps the gate line as a first width. The cover electrode overlaps the first switching element as a second width. The second width is smaller than the first width.

1. Field
The present inventive concept relates to a display substrate and method of manufacturing the display substrate. More particularly, the present inventive concept relates to a display substrate capable of increasing success rate of repair and method of manufacturing the display substrate.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a liquid display apparatus having light weight and small size has been manufactured. A cathode ray tube (CRT) display apparatus has been used due to a performance and a competitive price. However the CRT display apparatus has a weakness for size or portability. Therefore the liquid display apparatus has been highly regarded due to small size, light weight and low-power-consumption of the liquid display apparatus.
Generally, a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel includes a thin film transistor (TFT) substrate, an opposing substrate and an LC layer. The TFT substrate includes a plurality of gate lines, a plurality of data lines crossing the gate lines, a plurality of TFTs connected with the gate lines and data lines, and a plurality of pixel electrodes connected to the TFTs. The TFT includes a gate electrode extending from the gate line, a source electrode extending from the data line, and a drain electrode spaced apart from the source electrode.
In the manufacturing process of the liquid display apparatus, when a failure of a pixel or a data line is occurred, a laser repair is used to disconnect a wiring. Particularly, a failure due to a short of a gate line and a data line is occurred, a drain-neck-cutting is used as a method of repair. The drain-neck-cutting is a method of repair disconnecting a signal from the data line to the drain. The drain-neck-cutting is performed by cutting a line extending from the data line to a transistor by a laser.
However, when the drain-neck-cutting is performed in an area in which a cover electrode is formed, short circuit between the data line and the cover electrode is occurred. Accordingly, success rate of repair may be decreased.

Display substrate and method of manufacturing the same


The multi-layer transformer 10 of the present invention comprises a composite sheet 14a comprising a center magnetic pattern 11a and peripheral magnetic pattern 12a that are formed at the center and periphery respectively, and a dielectric pattern 13a of a nonmagnetic body that is formed in a part except the center and periphery; a composite sheet 14b similarly comprising a center magnetic pattern 11b, peripheral magnetic pattern 12b and a dielectric pattern 13b; a primary winding 15a that is located on one face of the dielectric pattern 13a; a secondary winding 15b that is located on one face of the dielectric pattern 13b; and magnetic sheets 16a and 16b that hold the composite sheets 14a and 14b, primary winding 15a and secondary winding 15b from both sides and contact one another via the center magnetic patterns 11a and 11b and peripheral magnetic patterns 12a and 12b.

In recent years, multi-layer transformers have attracted attention as multi-layer magnetic parts that are thin, small, and lightweight in accordance with rapid advances in the miniaturization of electronic devices. FIG. 6 is a disassembled perspective view of a stacked body of a conventional multi-layer transformer. FIG. 7 is a vertical cross-sectional view along the line VII-VII in FIG. 6 after stacking. The description below is based on FIGS. 6 and 7.
A conventional multi-layer transformer 80 comprises primary-winding magnetic sheets 82b and 82d on which primary windings 81a and 81c are formed, secondary-winding magnetic sheets 82c and 82e on which secondary windings 81b and 81d are formed, and magnetic sheets 82a and 82g that hold the magnetic sheets 82b to 82e from both sides.
Furthermore, a magnetic sheet 82f for improving the magnetic saturation characteristic is inserted between the magnetic sheet 82e and magnetic sheet 82g. The magnetic sheets 82a to 82e are provided with through-holes 90, 91, and 92 that connect the primary windings 81a and 81c and through-holes 93, 94, and 95 that connect the secondary windings 81b and 81d. The lower face of the magnetic sheet 82a is provided with primary-winding external electrodes 96 and 97 and secondary-winding external electrodes 98 and 99. The through-holes 90 to 96 are filled with a conductor. The magnetic sheets 82a to 82g are the core of the multi-layer transformer 80.
Further, FIGS. 6 and 7 are schematic diagrams and, therefore, strictly speaking, the number of windings of the primary windings 81a and 81c and secondary windings 81b and 81d and the positions of the through-holes 90 to 96 do not correspond in FIGS. 6 and 7.
On the primary side of the multi-layer transformer 80, the current flows in the order of the external electrode 96, through-hole 92, primary winding 81c, through-hole 91, primary winding 81a, through-hole 90, and then the external electrode 97 or in the reverse order. On the other hand, on the secondary side of the multi-layer transformer 80, the current flows in the order of the external electrode 99, the through-hole 95, the secondary winding 81d, the through-hole 94, the secondary winding 81b, the through-hole 93, and then the external electrode 98 or in the reverse order. The current flowing through the primary windings 81a and 81c produces a magnetic flux 100 (FIG. 7) in the magnetic sheets 82a to 82g. The magnetic flux 100 produces an electromotive force corresponding with the winding ratio in the secondary windings 81b and 81d. The multi-layer transformer 80 operates thus.
Here, supposing that the self-inductance of the primary windings 81a and 81c is L1, the self-inductance of the secondary windings 81b and 81d is L2, the mutual inductance of the primary windings 81a and 81c and the secondary windings 81b and 81d is M, and a magnetic coupling coefficient k is defined by the following equation:k=|M|/√{square root over ( )}(L1·L2)(k≦1)
The magnetic coupling coefficient k is one of the indicators of the transformer function and the larger the magnetic coupling coefficient k, the smaller the leakage magnetic flux (leakage inductance) becomes and, therefore, the power conversion efficiency is high.
In the multi-layer transformer 80, because there is a magnetic body layer (magnetic sheets 82c to 82e) between the primary windings 81a and 81c and the secondary windings 81b and 81d, a leakage magnetic flux 101 (FIG. 7) is produced and, therefore, an adequate magnetic coupling coefficient k is not obtained. In order to resolve this problem, a technology (referred to as the 'prior art' below) that provides a dielectric layer (not shown) on the primary windings 81a and 81c and secondary windings 81b and 81d by means of screen printing or the application of paste and reduces the magnetic permeability of the magnetic body layer by means of a material that provides diffusion from the dielectric layer may be considered.
Problem to be Solved
However, the prior art is confronted by the following problems.
As a result of the diffusion of a conductive material (Ag particles, for example) from the primary windings 81a and 81c and secondary windings 81b and 81d to the conductor paste applied to the primary windings 81a and 81c and secondary windings 81b and 81d, there has been the risk of a reduction in the insulation of the primary windings 81a, primary windings 81c, secondary windings 81b and secondary windings 81d. The paste is in liquid form as a result of an organic solvent or the like, for example, and, therefore, the material is readily dispersed.
Further, even when the leakage magnetic flux is reduced by providing a dielectric layer, the gap between the primary windings 81a and 81c and secondary windings 81b and 81d widens to become 'magnetic body layer+dielectric layer'. This means that the leakage magnetic flux readily enters the gap and, therefore, acts conversely in the direction in which the magnetic coupling coefficient k is reduced. Therefore, with the prior art, it is very difficult to increase the magnetic coupling coefficient k.

Solid electrolytic capacitor and manufacturing method thereof