A microshutter array has a frame having a light transmissive portion. Linear microshutter elements extend across the light transmissive portion and in parallel to each other. Each microshutter element has a flat blade extended in a length direction and first and second torsion arms extending outwards from each side of the blade in the length direction, the blade extending across the light transmissive portion. There is at least one electrode associated with each linear microshutter element and extended in the length direction parallel to the microshutter element.

In digital camera and other imaging applications it is often useful to be able to selectively block light from falling on some portions of an electronic sensor and allow light to fall on other portions of the sensor. Conventional mechanical shuttering techniques have been used for an exposure sequence that sweeps across the sensor exposing only a portion at a time; however, this type of solution can be less desirable for miniaturized sensor arrays due to constraints of size, mechanical complexity, reliability, and cost.
MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) technology has been employed for providing shutter arrays with selectively actuable shutters in a number of display applications. For example, MEMS shutter arrays for display devices are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,479 entitled "Light Modulation Device with Matrix Addressing" issued to Vuilleumier and U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,190 entitled "Electro-Micro-Mechanical Shutters on Transparent Substrates" issued to Worley. With display devices of this type, MEMS shutters correspond to image pixels, so that each display pixel is formed using one or more shutter elements.
MEMS shutter arrays have also been adopted for use in light sensor applications. In one highly publicized NASA program, a MEMS microshutter array has been under development to support field selection for the near infrared spectrograph on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This array uses a 128×64 element matrix of individually actuable 100 micron×200 micron shutter blades for variable field selection. Each shutter blocks light to a separate cell, with an electrode along one of the cell walls. Each shutter is normally closed until actuated. The shutter blades themselves are electromagnetically opened by sweeping a magnet over the array, then electrostatically latched over the desired target positions. This device is described in a paper entitled "Microshutter Array Development for the James Webb Space Telescope" by Li et al. in Proceedings of SPIE, Micro- and Nanotechnology: Materials, Processes, Packaging, and Systems II, volume 5650, pp. 9-16.
Recognizing inherent limitations of the solution used for the JWST device, astronomy researchers working with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have proposed an alternate microshutter array that is electrostatically actuated. Their work is described in a paper entitled "Development of Microshutter Arrays for Ground-Based Instruments" by Motohara et al. presented at the Workshop for Instrumentation on Extremely Large Telescopes, Ringberg, Germany, July, 2005. The Motohara et al. device similarly uses an array of cells with a single shutter for each cell, normally closed until actuated and with its actuating electrode along a cell wall.
While MEMS microshutters have been developed for various display devices and for astronomical instrumentation, however, the solutions that have been proposed for either the JWST or Motohara et al. devices would be difficult to scale to the dimensions required for digital camera applications or for hand-held image capture devices in general. Moreover, even if such devices could be scaled to the dimensions needed for digital camera applications, problems such as poor fill factor, inherent fabrication difficulties, and disappointing shutter response times would significantly compromise their usefulness. These devices require considerable surface area for actuation and mechanical support components, severely reducing the proportion of the array that is available for transmission of light. This problem is particularly troublesome for small digital image capture apparatus, where it is important to provide as much light as possible from the object field.
Operational requirements further compound the problem. For example, the electromechanical initialization used in the JWST device, sweeping a magnet over the microshutter array in order to initially latch shutters in closed position, is impractical for implementation in a digital camera or other digital imaging apparatus. The high latching voltages required by the Motohara et al. device, in excess of 100 Vdc, render this type of solution wholly unsuitable for use within digital cameras. Both the JWST and Motohara et al. devices use electrodes that lie along a cell wall, which would not be an arrangement that could be readily fabricated at a smaller size using known MEMS techniques.
Thus, although MEMS microshutter arrays have been developed for some types of display and image-sensing applications, e.g., large separate cell arrays, there remains a need for a microshutter array solution that is suitable for use with digital cameras and other hand-held imaging devices.


A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device has a plurality of p well regions in a memory cell array region. P well region is independently provided for each erase block. Each p well region is connected to a common well/source line driver, respectively. Well/source line driver is connected to a well/source power supply and a well/block decoder. Therefore, a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device which can inhibit a well disturbance in erase operation can be provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device and more particularly to an electrically programmable and erasable nonvolatile semiconductor memory device (hereinafter referred to as a "flash memory") including stacked gate type memory cells (memory transistors).
2. Description of the Background Art
The electrically programmable and erasable flash memory is traditionally well known. This flash memory has a large number of memory transistors for storing data. FIG. 5 shows a cross sectional structure of a general stacked gate type memory transistor 11 formed within a conventional flash memory.
Referring to FIG. 5, drain and source regions 4 and 5 are formed spaced apart at a surface of a p well region 3. The drain and source regions 4 and 5 in this case include an n type impurity of high concentration. On a surface of p well region 3 between drain and source regions 4 and 5, an insulating film (tunnel insulating film) 7 including an extremely thin oxide film, for example, is formed to a thickness of approximately 100 .ANG.. A floating gate 8 is formed on this tunnel insulating film 7, and a control gate (word line) 10 is formed on this floating gate 8 with an interlayer insulating film 9 therebetween. Thus, memory transistor 11 has a double gate structure. The above-described p well region 3 may be replaced by a p type semiconductor substrate.
Memory transistor 11 having the above structure is kept in an erased state or a programmed state. Here, general definitions of erasing and programming of a flash memory will be described. Erasing collectively changes threshold voltages of a plurality of memory transistors 11 to one prescribed state, while programming changes a threshold voltage of a selected memory transistor 11 to another prescribed state. Specifically, the above erasing or programming is performed depending on whether electrons are accumulated in floating gate 8 shown in FIG. 5 or emitted from floating gate 8.
Among flash memories having memory transistors 11 as described above, the one called a DINOR (DIvided bit-line NOR) type flash memory is disclosed in IEICE TRANS. ELECTRON., VOL. E77-C, NO.8 AUGUST 1994, PP.1279.about.1286.
The above-described DINOR type flash memory is in the erased state when electrons are accumulated in floating gate 8 and it is in the programmed state when electrons are drawn out of floating gate 8.
FIG. 6 shows the erased and programmed states of memory transistor 11 in the DINOR type flash memory. Referring to FIG. 6, in the erased state in which electrons are injected into floating gate 8, threshold voltage of memory transistor 11 becomes relatively high. Therefore, current (sense current) of not less than a given value will not flow between drain 4 and source 5 if control gate voltage does not exceed Vg1 as shown in FIG. 6. This is because positive voltage is canceled by a negative charge of electrons accumulated in floating gate 8. Such an erased state corresponds to "1" in FIG. 6. Since electrons accumulated in floating gate 8 do not disappear almost permanently if left as they are, data stored in the gate will also be retained almost forever.
On the other hand, in the programmed state in which electrons are emitted from floating gate 8, the threshold voltage of memory transistor 11 becomes relatively low.
This state corresponds to "0" in FIG. 6. Current (sense current) of not less than the given value will flow between drain 4 and source 5 because the control gate voltage exceeds Vg0.
By sensing the two states above (erased or programmed states), it is possible to read data stored in memory transistor 11.
Next, program and erase operations of the above DINOR type flash memory will be described in more detail with respect to FIGS. 7A and 7B.
Referring first to FIG. 7A, in the program operation, drain 4 is supplied with a write voltage (positive high voltage) Vw (approximately 6 V in general), control gate 10 is supplied with a negative high voltage -Vpp (approximately -10 v), and source 5 is kept open. Therefore, electrons are drawn out of floating gate 8 into drain 4 through an overlapped region of drain 4 and floating gate 8 because of the FN tunnel phenomenon. As a result, the threshold voltage of memory transistor 11 is lowered.
In the erase operation, as shown in FIG. 7B, drain 4 is kept in a floating state, source 5 and p well region 3 are supplied with the negative high voltage -Vpp, and control gate 10 is supplied with a positive high voltage +Vpp. Therefore, a high electric field is applied to a tunnel insulating film 7, and electrons are injected into floating gate 8 from p well region 3 (semiconductor substrate) due to the tunnel phenomenon. As a result, the threshold voltage of memory transistor 11 is raised.
By supplying the above-described voltages to memory transistor 11, memory transistor 11 is shifted to the erased or programmed state and data is programmed or erased. However, the erase operation of the DINOR type flash memory is accompanied by such problems as described below. The problems will be described with respect to FIGS. 8 and 9.
FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing circuits related to the erase operation of a conventional DINOR type flash memory. On a main surface of a semiconductor substrate, a plurality of p well regions 3a are formed, each of which is connected to a well driver 60, a well decoder 71, and a well power supply 50. Well driver 60 supplies a prescribed voltage to p well region 3a, well decoder 71 selects a prescribed p well region 3a, and well power supply 50 generates a prescribed voltage which is supplied to p well region 3a.
A plurality of erase blocks 26 are arranged within a p well region 3a. A plurality of memory transistors 11 constitute these erase blocks 26 for each of which collective erasing is performed. A source line (not shown) connected to sources 5 of memory transistors 11 in each erase block 26 is formed, and it is connected to a source line driver 61. Source line driver 61 supplies a prescribed voltage to the source line and it is connected to a block decoder 70 and a source power supply 51. Block decoder 70 is provided corresponding to each p well region 3a and it selects a prescribed erase block 26 in each p well region 3a. Source power supply 51 generates a prescribed voltage which is applied to the source line.
As described above, a plurality of erase blocks 26 are arranged in a p well region 3a in the conventional flash memory, causing problems in the erase operation. The problems will be described with respect to FIG. 9, which is an illustration showing the erase operation of the conventional flash memory.
Since the erase operation is conducted one by one of the erase blocks 26, during erasing, erase block 26 which is selected (selected erase block) coexists with erase block 26 which is not selected (non-selected erase block) on the same p well region 3a as shown in FIG. 9.
During erasing, -Vpp is supplied to p well region 3a. Simultaneously, a control gate 10a of a memory transistor 11a within the selected erase block is supplied with +Vpp, its drain 4a is set to an open state, and its source 5a is supplied with -Vpp. Meanwhile, a control gate of a memory transistor 11b within the non-selected erase block is grounded, its drain 4b is set to the open state, and its source 5b is supplied with -1/2Vpp as an erase inhibiting voltage.
Since memory transistor 11b in the non-selected erase block and memory transistor 11a in the selected erase block are formed on the same p well region 3a, the emission of electrons from floating gate 8b can not be inhibited perfectly even if the erase inhibiting voltage -1/2Vpp is supplied to source 5b of memory transistor 11b in the non-selected erase block. In other words, a small amount of electrons is drawn out of floating gate 8b.
Therefore, some erase blocks 26 may be falsely erased when a large number of erase blocks are arranged within the same p well region 3a or when data is rewritten many times. Such phenomenon is referred to as a well disturbance in this specification. This well disturbance becomes more serious as flash memories come to have larger storage capacity.


A unitary molded grill cover is provided for the indoor side of a window type air conditioner. The grille cover is installed without tools or fasteners. A transverse flange on the grille cover top wall is positioned into a groove or slot on the discharge deck, and the grille cover is snapped into place with the bottom wall thereof extending beneath the base pan of the unit. Bosses on the base pan project into corresponding holes in the grille cover bottom wall to retain the grille cover in place. The evaporator fan aperture plate and the discharge deck are also installed without tools or additional fasteners.

This invention relates in general to room air conditioner, and is more specifically directed to a grille structure for the indoor portion of a window air conditioner unit.
Window type air conditioners typically have an indoor portion and an outdoor portion, the indoor portion being responsible for cooling and dehumidifying the indoor room air and the outdoor portion being responsible for exhausting heat into the outdoor environment. The indoor and outdoor portions each have a heat exchanger coil and a fan, and each has a return air opening and a discharge opening. A grille structure is normally installed at least over the indoor portion, and often grille structures are disposed over both the indoor and outdoor portions. To accommodate easy access to the internal parts of the unit (for cleaning or maintenance) the indoor section grille is made to be removable. Screws, clips or similar fasteners are used to attach the grille to the housing for the indoor portion. However, this construction, which requires separate fastener parts, makes construction of the unit somewhat difficult and requires undesirable process steps and parts inventory.
Additional parts also add cost and time to repair or maintenance procedures, and necessitate additional supply and inventory accounting.
An improved air conditioner window unit is described in Bolton et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,500. There, a one-piece plastic molded grille is shown and described with recesses on the grille that engage flanges on the main air conditioner housing to permit the grille to be installed without separate fasteners.
Another window air conditioners unit is described in U.S Pat. No. 5,125,239 with a one-piece grille for its indoor portion. In that case, the grille is held in place with screws.
In either case, the total number of parts is high, as the discharge deck and the evaporator fan orifice plates requires separate fasteners. Also, the grilles on these units do not provide a tight fit without separate fasteners, and are not easily installed or removed except by trained personnel.


Provided is a tempered glass substrate formed by a float method, comprising a bottom surface and a top surface, wherein a compression stress value of the bottom surface is larger than a compression stress value of the top surface.

Devices such as a cellular phone, a digital camera, a PDA, a touch panel display, a large-screen television, and a wireless charging system tend to be more widely used.
In any of those applications, a resin substrate such as an acrylic substrate has been conventionally used as a protective member for protecting a display. However, the resin substrate has a low Young's modulus, and hence, when the view surface of the display was pushed with a pen, a human finger, or the like, the resin substrate easily bended and touched with the internal display, sometimes causing a display defect. Further, the resin substrate has also involved a problem in that the resin substrate is liable to have flaws on its surfaces, resulting in easy reduction of its visibility. One of the ways to solve those problems is to use a glass substrate as a protective member. The glass substrate (cover glass) used as a protective member is required to, for example, (1) have a high mechanical strength, (2) have a low density and a light weight, (3) be able to be supplied at low cost in large quantity, (4) is excellent in bubble quality, (5) have a highlight transmittance in the visible region, and (6) have a high Young's modulus so as not to bend easily when its surface is pushed with a pen, a finger, or the like. In particular, when a glass substrate does not satisfy the requirement (1), the glass substrate does not satisfactorily serve as a protective member, and hence a glass substrate tempered by, for example, ion exchange (which is the so-called tempered glass substrate) has been conventionally used as a protective member (see Patent Literatures 1 and 2, and Non Patent Literature 1).

Toughened glass substrate and process for producing same


An accident report kit for providing accessories that may be used to record the details of a traffic accident in a single case. The accident report kit includes a carrying case with a main portion and a tray portion. The main portion of the carrying case has spaced apart front and back walls, a bottom wall, and a pair of spaced apart side walls. The main portion has a top edge along the front, back and side walls defining a top opening into the main portion. The carrying case has a top flap substantially covering the top opening of the main portion. The main portion of the carrying case has a plurality of generally rectangular divider panels therein forming a plurality of compartments. The tray portion of the carrying case has a back panel and a perimeter lip extending around the back panel of the tray portion to define a tray space therein. The perimeter lip of the tray portion is pivotally coupled to the back wall of the main portion adjacent a side wall of the main portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to accident report kits and more particularly pertains to a new accident report kit for providing accessories that may be used to record the details of a traffic accident in a single case.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of accident report kits is known in the prior art. More specifically, accident report kits heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Known prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 4,861,305; U.S. Pat. No. 5,306,973; U.S. Patent No. Des. 376,475; U.S. Pat. No. 2,550,870; U.S. Pat. No. 2,076,683; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,741,382.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new accident report kit. The inventive device includes a carrying case with a main portion and a tray portion. The main portion of the carrying case has spaced apart front and back walls, a bottom wall, and a pair of spaced apart side walls. The main portion has a top edge along the front, back and side walls defining a top opening into the main portion. The carrying case has a top flap substantially covering the top opening of the main portion. The main portion of the carrying case has a plurality of generally rectangular divider panels therein forming a plurality of compartments. The tray portion of the carrying case has a back panel and a perimeter lip extending around the back panel of the tray portion to define a tray space therein. The perimeter lip of the tray portion is pivotally coupled to the back wall of the main portion adjacent a side wall of the main portion.
In these respects, the accident report kit according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of providing accessories that may be used to record the details of a traffic accident in a single case.


A system and process are disclosed for converting thermal energy into power from three different compositional streams of a multi-component working fluid, one of the streams being a lean working fluid stream pressurized into its super-critical state before being vaporized in a heat recovery vapor generator, another stream is a rich working fluid steam and the third stream is an intermediate working fluid stream, where the system and process has increased overall efficiency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and process for the generation of electrical power or other useable energy in base load applications by converting thermal energy in working fluid stream into the power or other useable energy.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and process for the generation of electrical power or other useable energy in base load applications, the system and process involves converting thermal energy into electrical power or other useable energy from three different compositional streams of a multi-component working fluid, one of the streams being a lean working fluid stream pressurized into its super-critical state before being vaporized in a heat recovery vapor generator, another stream is a rich working fluid steam and the third stream is an intermediate working fluid stream, where the system and process of this invention has increased overall efficiency.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the process of the combustion of fuels, a minimum quantity of air, that is theoretically necessary for complete combustion of the fuel, is such that all oxygen contained in the air supplied to the combustion is completely consumed or used. Such a process is referred as a stoichiometric process, and corresponds to the highest temperature in the combustion zone given a combustion process that uses air as the oxidant.
However, in actual practice, all current industrially used combustion systems operate with some excess of air, i.e., an amount of air in excess of the stoichiometric amount, that is necessary to assure the complete combustion of the fuel. This excess air results in a lowering of the temperature of combustion. The greater the excess of air, the lower the temperature of combustion and the less heat available for conversion to a useable from of energy.
However, the greater the excess of air, the greater the flow rate of the produced flue gases. Because the flue gas cannot be cooled to a temperature equal to the initial temperature of the supplied air, the quantity of heat rejected into the atmosphere by the flue gas increases with increasing amounts of excess air. This results in a reduction of the efficiency of the combustion system.
Therefore, in conventional combustion systems, in order to operate with a minimum of excess of air, the tubes in which the boiling of a working fluid of a power cycle occurs, (so-called "waterwall" tubes), are located directly in the combustion zone. This allows the heat of combustion to be partially absorbed by the boiling of the working fluid, and thus controls the temperature in the combustion zone. Such systems are known as conventional boiler combustion systems. These systems are, perforce, expensive and complex structures that require a high degree of maintenance, especially due to the fact that the waterwall tubes are subjected to very high thermal stresses.
On the other hand, in so-called fluidized bed combustors, (which have several advantages), the excess of air is usually very high due to the fact that there is a substantial flow of air needed to maintain the fluidized bed. As a result, fluidized bed boiler/combustors have substantially reduced efficiencies.
In general, it would be extremely desirable, and would present a great simplification, if combustion were to be performed in a separate combustion chamber without the need for internal cooling by waterwall tubes, while at the same time operating with a minimum of excess air. All heat produced by the combustion would thus be accumulated in a stream of hot flue gas which could then be utilized in a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) or a heat recovery vapor generator (HRVG). HRSG and HRVG systems are relatively simple heat exchangers which are substantially less expensive than conventional boilers. A combustion system with such a structure would be substantially more reliable and less expensive than a conventional boiler/combustion system.
But in such a case, the temperature in the combustion chamber would become unacceptably high, such that the materials out of which the combustion chamber is constructed would be unable to withstand such temperatures. Moreover, the flue gases produced would have such a high temperature that they would not be able to be used directly to provide heat to the heat exchangers of a power system, especially if these heat exchangers are used to superheat vapor.
Separate combustion chambers, without internal waterwall cooling, have been used for the combustion of low quality fuels, particularly those with high water contents, such as biomass. However, even in these cases, the temperature of the flue gas produced is too high to be directly used in the heat exchangers of a power system.
Usually, in such cases, the hot flue gas is used to heat an intermediate heat carrying fluid, which in its turn is then used to provide heat to the heat exchangers of the power system. However such an arrangement results in the addition of substantial complications to the entire system.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a system and process for the generation of power in base load applications, converting thermal energy into power utilizing supercritical pressure, with the aim of increasing the overall efficiency of the system

System and process for base load power generation


A process for the preparation of N,N-bis(3,4-dimethylphenyl)-4-biphenylamine which comprises the reaction of N,N-bis(3,4-dimethylphenyl)amine and an iodobiphenyl in the presence of a ligand copper catalyst, and wherein the ligand is selected from the group consisting of monodentate tertiary amines and bidentate tertiary amines, and which reaction is accomplished at a temperature of, for example, from about 120.degree. C. to about 150.degree. C.

This invention is generally directed to processes for the preparation of arylamines, useful for photoconductive imaging members, and more specifically, the present invention relates to the preparation of N,N- bis(3,4-dimethylphenyl)-4-biphenylamine. In embodiments, the present invention relates to an improved process for the preparation of hole transporting molecules, such as arylamines, and wherein there are selected certain copper (II) catalysts, and in embodiments low temperatures, for example about 105.degree. C. The catalysts selected for the processes of the present invention include ligated copper salts, and more specifically, copper (II) salts, and wherein the ligands are characterized as monodentate tertiary amines and bidentate tertiary amines, such as 1,10-phenanthroline, or pyridine, and the like. The products obtained, such as N,N-bis(3,4-dimethylphenyl)-4-biphenylamine, with the processes of the present invention can be incorporated as hole transport molecules into layered photoconductive imaging members with a photogenerating layer, a charge transport layer, and a supporting substrate, reference for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,265,990, the disclosure of which is totally incorporated herein by reference. The aforementioned layered photoconductive imaging members can be negatively charged when the photogenerating layer is situated between the charge transport layer and the substrate, or positively charged when the charge transport layer is situated between the photogenerating layer and the supporting substrate. The layered photoconductive imaging members can be selected for a number of different known imaging and printing processes including, for example, electrophotographic imaging processes, especially xerographic imaging and printing processes wherein negatively charged or positively charged images are rendered visible with toner compositions of the appropriate charge, and for digital processes. Generally, the imaging members are sensitive in the wavelength regions of from about 500 to about 850 nanometers, thus diode lasers can be selected as the light source.


An imaging lens includes, in order from an object side, a first lens G1, a second lens G2, a third lens G3, an aperture stop St and a fourth lens G4. The first lens is a negative lens having a meniscus shape with a convex surface directed to the object side. The second lens is a negative lens. The third lens is a positive lens having a convex surface directed to the object side. The fourth lens is a biconvex lens. The following conditional expression is satisfied:1.5<f4/fa<2.7  (1)where fa denotes a focal length of the whole lens system, and f4 denotes a focal length of the fourth lens.

1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a small wide-angle lens system, and particularly relates to: an imaging lens that is suitable for a variety of digital input devices employing a solid-state imaging element such as a charge coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)—for example, a digital camera, a television phone, and a surveillance camera such as a vehicle-mounting camera and a door phone; and an imaging device that converts an optical image formed by the imaging lens into imaging signals.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, in surveillance cameras or vehicle-mounting cameras, a wide-angle type imaging lens having a wide viewing angle is used to taking an image with a wide area. JP 2002-244031 A, JP 2005-227426 A and JP 2006-292988 A (corresponding to US 2006/0227434 A) has proposed, as such a wide-angle lens, lenses having a smaller size than that of the conventional eight-lens-group wide-angle lens, by constructing the lens system with 4 lenses in total.
In recent years, the wide-angle lens for use in the digital input devices is required a long back focus, a small size, and a small image distortion. However, the wide-angle lenses described in the above publications are not sufficient in downsizing. The total length of those lenses (distance from a vertex of a first lens to an image formation surface) is large, and the diameter of the first lens increases together with the total length thereof. Also, in order to achieve wide angle, those lens have a lens configuration similar to a fisheye type. Therefore, the distortion thereof is large and a greatly distorted image is formed. Accordingly, there is a demand for development of a lens that has a wide viewing angle, a small size, and a small image distortion.


A probe and an apparatus for cerebral diagnostics and therapy, in particular for measuring absolute values of regional cerebral flow (CBF) and cerebral oxygenation. The probe is inserted through a burr hole in the skull and comprises illuminating device, light receiving device and a coating encapsulating said illuminating device and said light receiving means. The coating has a longitudinal shape and is adapted to fit through a burr hole in the skull. The coating is further adapted to slide between the skull and the dura, to be inserted into the ventricular system, and/or to be inserted into the cerebral tissue.

Early detection and treatment of cerebral ischemia to prevent further neurological damage in patients with severe brain injuries belongs to the most important issues in Neurocritical Care. Further, during neurological and neurologically related surgical procedures it is often desirable to continuously monitor the oxygenation of blood which is supplied to the brain. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is used for a wide variety of applications including invasive and non-invasive monitoring of cerebral blood flow (CBF) and cerebral oxygenation pattern, i.e. static and dynamic characteristics of cerebral blood and blood flow. The NIRS measurement of blood parameters is based upon the finding that light in the near infrared region penetrates biological tissue and is absorbed and scattered differently by hemoglobin chromophores in the deoxygenated and oxygenated state. Further, the concentration and flow of tracers such as the dye indocyaningreen (ICG) injected in the blood can be measured by NIRS to obtain information on parameters of cerebral hemodynamics, especially cerebral blood flow (CBF), mean transit time of ICG and oxygen metabolism. In pulse oximetry the temporal behaviour of NIRS signals is evaluated to obtain information about the fraction of oxygenated hemoglobin in the arterial blood. Other parameters are the concentration of deoxygenated and oxygenated hemoglobin, the mean transit time, the cerebral blood volume (CBV), cerebral blood flow (CBF) and the tissue oxygen index (TOI). The measurement and evaluation of the aforementioned parameters with NIRS are described in Jobis, F. F., "Noninvasive infrared monitoring of cerebral and myocardial oxygen sufficiency and circulatory parameters", Science 198; 1264–1267 and I. Roberts, P. Fallon, et al., "Estimation of cerebral blood flow with near infrared spectroscopy and indocyaningreen", Lancet 342; 1425.
Non-invasive techniques, e.g. as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,223,680 or U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,962, use NIRS optodes placed on the head. To obtain information on the chromophores oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin in cerebral vessels the detected NIRS signal gained by non-invasive techniques has to be corrected for effects due to light reflection and scattering by and in extracerebral tissue, i.e. skin and bone. The apparatus described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,223,680 therefore comprises a reference detector which detects light reflected or scattered back to the location of the light emitting optode. The reference signal is then used to correct the measured intensity for extracerebral tissue effects. The apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,962 comprises two light emitting elements directing light through different regions of tissue and a photodetector detecting light travelling through both regions. The difference of the measured intensities represents how much the oxygen saturation of the first region differs from the second region, i.e. only relative blood parameters can be obtained. Due to the need for correction for extracerebral tissue effects non-invasive techniques are able to provide indirect information on blood parameters only.
With invasive techniques direct access to the brain and elimination of extracerebral contamination is gained through a burr hole in the skull, and a sensor which optically measures oxygenation without artifacts caused by skin and bone can then be inserted through such a burr hole. A sensor capable of monitoring several parameters instantaneously is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,916,171. Several signal guides for electrical signals and a single light guide are arranged in a housing which is inserted in a burr hole having approximately the same diameter as the housing. The light guide and the electrodes terminate vertically at the brain tissue. UV and red light is coupled into the single light guide to measure relative changes of the blood flow velocities by analyzing the signal reflected back into the same light guide using Laser Doppler flowmetry. With this arrangement only relative parameters of flowing blood can be analyzed as the signal coming from static tissue components are not detectable in Laser Doppler flowmetry. Furthermore by Laser Doppler flowmetry only values of very small areas (about 1 mm2) are obtained. Futher, the probe is merely inserted into the burr hole and stabilized by the skull bone which can lead to brain injuries or artifacts in the measurements when the patient moves. It is therefore not suited for a long-term measurement. Monitoring regions of tissue other than those of the burr hole is not possible. As the probe comprises a complex arrangement of a plurality of sensors its manufacturing costs are high and it is therefore not suited as a throw away article. Products that contact the brain, however, should be throw away articles as sterilizing is often not sufficient to exclude a potential infection risk.
A sensor for measuring cerebral oxygen availability epidurally, i.e. between dura and skull bone, by optical reflectance is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,024,226. A pair of light emitting diodes (LED) and a photodetector are encapsulated by a coating and connected electrically to a power supply respectively a signal analyzer by a flexible wiring. The sensor tip including the diodes and the photodetector is inserted through a burr hole in the skull and maneuvered between dura and skull bone to a region chosen for the measurement.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a probe and an apparatus for measuring absolute values of regional cerebral flow and cerebral oxygenation through a burr hole in the skull by optical reflectance which can be manufactured at relatively low cost and is therefore suited as a throw away article.

Probe and apparatus for measuring cerebral hemodynamics and oxygenation


An extendable room comprises accordion type ceiling and wall panels which fold within panel covers when the room is retracted, thereby taking up much less interior space and leaving the interior of the primary structure just as attractive, albeit smaller, as prior to retraction. The wall and ceiling panels are hinged together with tongue and groove connections and are secured in the flat, extended configuration by steel cables running through the panels. The side walls also include windows which may be made clear and opaque electronically. The secondary floor is retractable below the floor of the primary structure when the room is retracted, permitting the room extension floor to become the primary floor.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to rooms which may be extended and retracted with respect to a primary structure, and more particularly to such rooms designed for recreational vehicles and motor homes.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has become common in the motor home and recreational vehicle arts to provide modular rooms which are retracted into the home or vehicle when it is moved or is traveling down the highways and which may then be extended when the vehicle is stopped. This, of course, can greatly increase the living space within the vehicle, providing much greater comfort.
Room extensions currently available utilize rigid walls, ceilings, and floors which, when retracted within the vehicle, necessarily take up a great deal of space, are quite unsightly, and make movement within the vehicle difficult.


A substrate bias voltage detection unit compares a level of a substrate bias voltage with a reference voltage in response to a self-refresh signal, an idle signal, and a refresh count signal so as to output an oscillating driving signal, enables the oscillating driving signal when the substrate bias voltage is equal to or higher than a first level in a normal mode, disables the oscillating driving signal when the substrate bias voltage is at a second level in a self-refresh mode, and disables the oscillating driving signal when the substrate bias voltage is at a third level in the self-refresh mode. An oscillation unit outputs an oscillating signal according to the oscillating driving signal. A voltage pumping unit controls pumping of the substrate bias voltage according to an output signal of the oscillation unit and then outputs a pumped substrate bias voltage.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a voltage generator, and more particularly, to a substrate bias voltage generator and a method of generating a substrate bias voltage in which voltages having different levels can be supplied in normal and refresh operations in a semiconductor memory apparatus.
2. Related Art
In general, a sense amplifier of a semiconductor memory apparatus senses cell data when a voltage difference ΔV between an amount of electric charges, which are applied to a bit line according to an amount of electric charges stored in a cell, and an amount of electric charges, which are applied to a bit line bar by charge sharing, becomes sufficiently larger than an offset voltage of the sense amplifier. The voltage difference ΔV between the bit line and the bit line bar can be expressed by the following equation 1.ΔV=(VCORE−VBLP)/{1+(CB/CC)}  [Equation 1]
Here, the voltage VCORE is a sense amplifier driving voltage, and the voltage VBLP is a bit line precharge voltage. As can be seen in Equation 1, in general, as a CB (bit line capacitance) decreases and a CC (cell capacitance) increases, the voltage difference ΔV increases. As a result, a precise sensing operation can be performed.
FIG. 1 is a timing diagram illustrating an operation of a sense amplifier in a conventional semiconductor memory apparatus.
For example, during a precharge operation, both the bit line and the bit line bar are precharged to a precharge voltage VBLP. Assuming that the cell data is at a high level, when a word line WL is activated, electric charges stored in the cell start to charge a bit line BL1 and a bit line bar BLb1 so as to be shared therebetween. Then, after a sensing period of time passes, the voltage of the bit line BL1 increases by ΔV1 with respect to the bit line bar BLb1. Then, by means of a sense amplifier enable signal, the voltage of the bit line BL1 rises to a VCORE level and the voltage of the bit line bar BLb1 is amplified to a ground potential GND level.
On the other hand, assuming that the cell data is at a low level, when the word line WL is activated, the electric charges stored in the cell charge a bit line BL0 and a bit line bar BLb0 so as to be shared therebetween. Then, after the sensing period of time passes, the voltage of the bit line BL0 falls by ΔV0. Then, the voltage of the bit line BL0 is amplified to the ground potential GND level and the voltage of the bit line bar BLb0 is amplified to the VCORE level.
Here, in order to perform a precise sensing operation, the values ΔV1 and ΔV0 should be larger than the offset voltage of the sense amplifier. If the voltage difference between the bit line and the bit line bar is not sufficient, an error occurs in a sensing result of the sense amplifier.
Therefore, the voltage differences need to be made sufficiently large by decreasing the CB value or increasing the CC value in Equation 1. A method of decreasing the CB value includes a method of controlling a voltage, which is applied to the sense amplifier and a substrate in a cell array region, to have a negative value. When this method is used, the CB value is reduced and the threshold voltage of a cell transistor increases. This reduces the electric charges stored in the cell from leaking through a channel, and accordingly, a refresh characteristic can also be improved.
However, as semiconductor memory apparatuses are highly integrated, the semiconductor memory apparatuses are manufactured using a shallow junction technique. When the shallow junction technique is applied, the impurity concentration in source/drain regions and the body increases, and as a result, the leaking between the source/drain regions and the body significantly increases. Such a leaking phenomenon increases as a voltage applied to the body becomes smaller (that is, as a negative voltage becomes larger), which deteriorates the refresh characteristic.
On the other hand, the threshold voltage of the cell transistor increases as an absolute value of a substrate bias voltage applied to the body becomes larger. Accordingly, in order to sufficiently store the cell data again through a refresh operation, a problem occurs in that a gate voltage should be sufficiently high.
In other words, in the case in which the substrate bias voltage is controlled to have a negative value, the data storage capability of a cell is improved; however, if the control is not made such that the gate voltage has a high value in order to perform the refresh operation, the refresh efficiency is lowered.

Substrate bias voltage generator and method of generating substrate bias voltage


The present invention comprises a method and apparatus for detection motion in video in which frames from an incoming video stream are digitized. The pixels of each incoming digitized frame are compared to the corresponding pixels of a reference frame, and differences between incoming pixels and reference pixels are determined. If the pixel difference for a pixel exceeds an applicable pixel difference threshold, the pixel is considered to be xe2x80x9cdifferentxe2x80x9d. If the number of xe2x80x9cdifferentxe2x80x9d pixels for a frame exceeds an applicable frame difference threshold, motion is considered to have occurred, and a motion detection signal is emitted. In one or more other embodiments, the applicable frame difference threshold is adjusted depending upon the current average motion being exhibited by the most recent frames, thereby taking into account xe2x80x9cambientxe2x80x9d motion and minimizing the effects of phase lag. In one or more embodiments, different pixel difference thresholds may be assigned to different pixels or groups of pixels, thereby making certain regions of a camera""s field of view more or less sensitive to motion. In one or more embodiments of the invention, a new reference frame is selected when the first frame that exhibits no motion occurs after one or more frames that exhibit motion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for detecting motion in video.
2. Background Art
There are many situations in which a motion detector is used to trigger an event when motion is detected or not detected. Some applications involve turning on lights when someone enters a room, or turning off lights when there is no movement in a room. Other uses include security, car theft protection, alarms, automatic doors, and others. Current motion detection systems have a number of disadvantages, including cost, complexity, poor performance, and others.
In the prior art there are two approaches to motion detection: xe2x80x9cactivexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cpassive.xe2x80x9d Active techniques emit some form of energy (e.g. sound or electromagnetic radiation) and detect motion based on the returned signals. These techniques tend to require more power, to be more disruptive of the environment, and to be easy to detect and defeat. Passive techniques do not emit signals but instead passively observe the environment being monitored and react to observed motion. Video cameras are used in some passive motion detection techniques.
A number of techniques have been developed to detect motion within the field of view of a video camera. These techniques include analog and digital techniques. Analog techniques typically look at the analog video signal generated by a camera and detect motion by examining changes in the signal. Examples of simple prior art analog techniques include putting photocells on a television monitor and detecting changes in values, using one-shot timers to sample fixed locations in a video signal, and using various circuits to integrate the video signal. These simple techniques generate signals that can be compared against baseline values to detect changes in the video signal that presumably are caused by motion. Other prior art analog techniques filter or integrate the incoming video signal and look for gross changes in the signal""s characteristics to detect motion.
These analog approaches tend to be inexpensive, but provide poor results because they utilize adulterated and simplified versions of the video signal. The bulk of the information content of the signal is discarded. Working with a signal with so little information content, the best that can be achieved is a presumption that motion has occurred in the scene when the incoming signal changes in a particular way.
All of these prior art analog techniques tend to be imprecise in what they measure. Accordingly, they have inherent limitations as to their sensitivity to actual motion. They are also susceptible to false triggers.
Digital techniques tend to be better at reducing both false positive (detecting motion when there is none) and false negative (not detection motion when motion does exist) motion detection outputs. Digital approaches are able to accurately and repeatably associate a numerical value with a physical portion of the video camera""s field of view. This ability to accurately quantify the light coming from an area in space makes it possible to determine when motion occurs in the scene being observed more accurately than can be done using analog techniques.
Prior Art Digital Techniques
Digital motion detection techniques are used for two general types of applicationsxe2x80x94determining inter-video-frame motion so that signal processing can be applied to deal with video interlacing issues, and video-based monitoring for physical security purposes. Techniques developed for video interlace signal processing tend to be much more computationally intensive, and therefore costly, than techniques developed for video security monitoring. In addition, video interlace processing techniques are not suited for detecting small amounts of motion and therefore do not work well in security video applications. Because these two application areas have quite different requirements, the digital processing techniques developed for each are different in nature. For example, in the case of motion detection for the purpose of video monitoring of an area, the ability to successfully detect motion is the key objective. Exact information on which particular objects in the field of view have moved and by how much is of lesser significance. For video interlace processing, however, it is important to know which object has moved and by how much. An example of a video motion detection technique designed for: video interlace processing is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,851,904 issued to Miyazaki, et. al.
Image understanding techniques have been developed for use in video interlace processing. These image understanding techniques automatically segment a video image into regions of pixels that correspond to objects in a video camera""s field of view. The motion of these objects can then be detected and tracked. These techniques are computationally intensive and expensive. They can rarely be made to run in real-time. Accordingly, they typically cannot be used for digital video security applications.
One example of a prior art computationally intensive approach for detecting motion involves taking regions of pixels (typically an Nxc3x97M rectangle) from an incoming video stream and correlating them with corresponding regions of pixels in a reference image. This approach can be thought of as an approximation of the generalized image understanding approach described above. The incoming image is divided up into rectangles. These rectangles are compared against corresponding rectangles of a reference image. Dividing an image into rectangles in this manner and comparing rectangles is considerably simpler than trying to identify individual objects in an incoming image and attempting to compare the location of those objects with the location of corresponding objects in the reference image. This technique is used as part of the MPEG video compression standard and is known as xe2x80x9cmotion-compensation.xe2x80x9d While this approach can be effective in detecting motion and is less complex than some other image understanding techniques, it is still time consuming and typically requires the use of large and expensive custom integrated circuits. In addition, it tends to be sensitive the to the quality of the incoming image. Any noise in the incoming video signal makes it very difficult to locate corresponding regions in a reference image.
Other digital techniques for motion detection in security video applications are based on the detection of edges in video imagesxe2x80x94i.e., abrupt transitions in color or brightness that delineate one region from another. Edge detection simplifies the processing of images by requiring the detection and storage of transitions only, as opposed to processing and storing values for large numbers of pixels. Edge detection takes advantage of the fact that there is a high degree of correlation between pixels in a video image (i.e., large regions of pixels tend to share similar values).
Devices that use edge detection tend to be very sensitive to false trigger events caused by changes in lighting. A stationary scene may appear to move as the lighting changes the location of shadows in a scene over the course of a day. An example of an edge detection system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,894,716 issued to Aschwanden et al. The system disclosed by Aschwanden et al. looks for changes in the location of edges from frame to frame. This system requires a certain degree of vertical coherence to cause a triggerxe2x80x94i.e., there must be a given amount of phase shift of an edge across multiple lines for motion to be detected. The reference data that is stored comprises a set of counts indicating where edges exist in the vertical scan lines of the previous frame.
Edges are detected by low-pass filtering a scan line of the incoming video, thresholding the signal, then using the filtered and thresholded signal to trigger a one-shot. The one-shot in turn is used to gate a counter whose final value is the location of an edge in the scan line.
While this edge detection technique provides a simple method for motion-detection, it is constrained with respect to the region of the video signal over which it works, and it uses only the previous frame as a reference. As a result, sufficiently slow-moving objects are not detected. Also, this approach does not work well in an environment that does not lend itself well to edge-detectionxe2x80x94e.g., where there is insufficient contrast to find edges, or where there are sufficiently large amounts of high frequency components in the scene that create too many edges.
Another motion detection scheme using edge detection is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,272,527 issued to Watanabe. In the system described by Watanabe, a classical signal processing technique is applied to extract edges from an input image, noise reduction techniques are applied, and an averaging mechanism is used to binary threshold the incoming image data. The previous two binary images are retained and a series of logical operations are performed on these images to create a reference against which an incoming binary image is compared. In essence, the previous two frames are used to generate a reference mask (by inverting their union), and then a population count of binary ones is applied to the masked version of the incoming image. The result is an estimate the difference between the incoming image and the previous two images. The approach of Watanabe is extremely complex and costly, and of questionable effectiveness.
The majority of video motion detection techniques work on the principle of comparing an incoming video signal to a stored reference signal. Some devices are constrained to only use the previous frame as a reference. While using only the previous frame as a reference has the benefit of requiring less storage, is less sensitive to false trigger events due to slowly changing lighting, and lends itself to a more simple implementation, it has the drawback of being unable to detect slow rate of change events.
In the digital domain, a common method for detecting motion is to subtract the value of each pixel of an incoming frame from the corresponding pixel in the reference frame, accumulate the resulting difference, and generate a motion indication when the accumulated difference signal exceeds some predetermined amount. A problem with this approach is that changes over the whole image field can cancel each other out, thereby giving a false reading. For example, a given pixel could be brighter than its corresponding reference pixel by amount N, and another pixel could be darker than its reference pixel by xe2x88x92N. In such a circumstance, the changes cancel out and significant motion may not be detected.
In addition, the simple differencing of values of corresponding pixels does not provide effective motion detection. Further, the outputs of video cameras typically have some noise imposed upon the video signal. As a result, the value reported for a pixel in an unchanging scene may vary plus and minus some amount from frame to frame simply due to noise. Most existing motion detection methods do not compensate for this noise. Consequently noise on the video signal contributes to false positive responses, requiring motion detectors to be desensitized to the point that additional false negatives are generated.
An example of a motion detection system that suffers from some of these problems is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,455,561 issued to Brown. In the system disclosed by Brown, a hybrid analog/digital approach is used in which the incoming frame is added to an inverted version of a stored reference frame. The resulting difference value is thresholded and the motion indication is generated when the thresholded value exceeds a preset amount for a given number of clock cycles. The Brown system chooses new reference frames periodically at predetermined increments of time, regardless of the current level of activity being observed by the camera. In the system of Brown, the threshold value being used is a constant (i.e., does not vary according to the input values), and the number of different pixels which are considered to constitute significant motion is also a constant.
Another approach to motion detection involves the digital decimation (by sub-sampling and low pass filtering) of video images in order to get a reduced data set. The reduced data set is compared to a similarly reduced reference image. Because decimation involves low-pass filtering of the original data, pixels of the resulting decimated image contain contributions from other pixels in the original image that were not selected during sub-sampling. Decimation can reduce the number of pixels that need to be compared while still allowing motion within the field of view to be detected. An example of a decimation approach is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/655,562 filed May 30, 1996, assigned to assignee of the present invention.
Some existing motion detection devices allow a region of interest within the field of view of the camera to be specified. For example, a border around an active image area of the video camera can be defined to be excluded from the motion detection mechanism. Likewise, entire regions within the camera""s field of view can be masked out so that motion within (or, alternatively, outside) these regions is ignored. The behavior of these masking schemes has heretofore been strictly binaryxe2x80x94a pixel is either included in the motion calculation, or not.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,339,104 issued to Hong describes a system that uses a windowing mechanism to restrict the area of interest to a rectangle within the full video frame. The system of Hong digitizes and stores a reference frame and compares it against the incoming video. A per-pixel comparison function is carried out by a table lookup in an EPROM. The (six bit) input pixel values and the reference pixel values are concatenated and presented to the EPROM as an address. The resulting output of the EPROM is the difference value. The difference value is compared with base and limit values provided by the controlling microprocessor and a binary output is generated to indicate whether the difference is within the given range of values. A count of the number of differences that fall within the given range is maintained and a motion indication is generated when the count exceeds a given value.
The present invention comprises a method and apparatus for detecting motion in video in which frames from an incoming video stream are digitized. The pixels of each incoming digitized frame are compared to the corresponding pixels of a reference frame, and differences between incoming pixels and reference pixels are determined. One or more embodiments of the invention use both a pixel difference threshold (that defines the degree (in absolute value) to which a pixel must vary from it""s corresponding reference pixel in order to be considered different) and a frame difference threshold (that defines the number of pixels which must be different for a motion detection indication to be given). If the pixel difference for a pixel exceeds the applicable pixel difference threshold, the pixel is considered to be xe2x80x9cdifferentxe2x80x9d. If the number of xe2x80x9cdifferentxe2x80x9d pixels for a frame exceeds the applicable frame difference threshold, motion is considered to have occurred, and a motion detection signal is emitted. A simple thresholding mechanism may be used. For example, in one embodiment, motion is declared to have occurred if more than N of the M pixels in the incoming frame are different from the reference frame. In one or more other embodiments, the applicable frame difference threshold is adjusted depending upon the current average motion being exhibited by the most recent frames, thereby taking into account xe2x80x9cambientxe2x80x9d motion and minimizing the effects of phase lag.
In one or more embodiments, different pixel difference thresholds may be assigned to different pixels or groups of pixels, thereby making certain regions of a camera""s field of view more or less sensitive to motion. In one or more embodiments of the invention, a new reference frame is selected when the first frame that exhibits no motion occurs after one or more frames that exhibit motion.
The present invention provides an efficient and reliable motion detection system.

Method and apparatus for the detection of motion in video


A paper beading apparatus, includes a hopper having a body defining a chamber for holding a quantity of joint compound, and having an open upper end, an upper rim, and a lower end; a lid pivotally secured to the body for movement between an open position and a closed position, wherein in the closed position, the lid engages the open upper rim, the lid having a releasably sealable air port; and a base configured for and accommodating the hopper lower end, for receiving joint compound, and for applying the joint compound to a corner paper bead.

The present invention relates generally to construction using gypsum wallboard, and more particularly, to an apparatus used to apply joint compound to corner paper beads prior to their attachment to joints or corners between adjacent wallboard panels.
Corner beads are elongated, narrow strips of metal or plastic, often having a paper face on one side, and are typically folded or angled along their longitudinal center line to produce a generally v-shaped cross-section. They are made with various angles and corner shapes, including 90-degree angle corners and rounded or so-called "bullnose" corners of various angles. Corner beads are also designed for covering both inside (concave) and outside (convex) corners. For application to an inside corner, joint compound is applied to the outside (convex) faces of an inside corner bead. For application to an outside corner, joint compound is applied to the inside (concave) faces of an outside corner bead. Joint compound is applied to the appropriate faces of the bead, and the bead is then pressed against the corner, with the joint compound forming an adhesive joint between the corner bead and the wallboard corner.
Although wallboard joint compound may be applied to corner beads by hand, this is a time consuming and messy process. Hopper devices have been used to reduce the time needed to apply joint compound to the paper bead and provide for a cleaner process. Such devices typically include a hopper retaining a supply of wallboard joint compound, and a passageway in a bottom of the container where the corner bead is passed through the passageway to receive a coating of joint compound and to provide a guide for locating the corner bead.
Two design criteria of such a device are to increase efficiency and increase cleanliness when applying joint compound to a corner bead. Further, since joint compound generally has a highly viscous property and some compounds set rapidly, it is often difficult to remove unwanted joint compound from the hopper upon completion of a job. Thus, another design criteria of such a device is the ability to readily remove unwanted joint compound.

Paper beading apparatus for wallboard corner beads


In one embodiment of the invention, a tool tracking system is disclosed including a computer usable medium having computer readable program code to receive images of video frames from at least one camera and to perform image matching of a robotic instrument to determine video pose information of the robotic instrument within the images. The tool tracking system further includes computer readable program code to provide a state-space model of a sequence of states of corrected kinematics information for accurate pose information of the robotic instrument. The state-space model receives raw kinematics information of mechanical pose information and adaptively fuses the mechanical pose information and the video pose information together to generate the sequence of states of the corrected kinematics information for the robotic instrument. Additionally disclosed are methods for image guided surgery.

Minimally invasive surgical (MIS) procedures have become more common using robotic (e.g., telerobotic) surgical systems. An endoscopic camera is typically used to provide images to a surgeon of the surgical cavity so that the surgeon can manipulate robotic surgical tools therein. However if the robotic surgical tool is not in the field of view of the camera or it is otherwise hidden by tissue or other surgical tools, a surgeon may be left guessing how to move the robotic surgical tool when it is obscured from his view.
Moreover, tissue or organs of interest in a surgical cavity are often obscured from view. A surgeon may have to initially guess the location of an organ of interest within a surgical cavity and search around therein to place the organ and the robotic surgical tools within a field view of the endoscopic camera.
To better localize a surgical tool in the field of view, optical devices, such as light emitting diodes, have been attached to robotic surgical tools. However, optical devices can interfere with endoscopic surgical procedures and may not provide sufficiently accurate position and orientation information for a minimally invasive surgical system. A magnetic device may be applied to a robotic surgical tool in an attempt to magnetically sense its location. However, robotic surgical tools are often formed of metal and a magnetic device may not work well due to the interference generated by the movement of metal-tools and electrical motors in a minimally invasive surgical system. Moreover, these may provide only a single clue of the position of a robotic surgical tool.

Tool tracking systems, methods and computer products for image guided surgery


Disclosed is a substrate treating apparatus including a chamber having a process space therein in which a substrate is treated, a substrate support assembly located in the chamber and including a support plate that supports the substrate, a gas supply unit that supplies gas into the chamber, a gas distribution plate that distributes the gas and supplies the gas into the process space, and a temperature control unit that controls temperature of the gas distribution plate. The temperature control unit includes a heating member that heats the gas distribution plate, a cooling member that cools the gas distribution plate, and a control member that controls the heating member and the cooling member, based on a correlation coefficient regarding an interaction of the heating member and the cooling member and a disturbance coefficient regarding an external influence.

Embodiments of the inventive concept described herein relate to a substrate treating apparatus and a temperature control method for a gas distribution plate, and more particularly, relate to a substrate treating apparatus including a controller for compensating for disturbances and a method for controlling the temperature of a gas distribution plate of the substrate treating apparatus.
In a process of manufacturing semiconductor elements, various processes, such as photolithography, etching, thin-film deposition, ion implantation, cleaning, and the like, are performed. A substrate treating apparatus using plasma is used for the etching, thin-film deposition, and cleaning processes among these processes.
In the etching process, a gas distribution plate (GDP) serves to distribute gases necessary for the etching process, make the flow of the gases into a chamber uniform, and reduce a gas reaction in a plasma environment. The gas distribution plate has to be maintained at a specific temperature to prevent the occurrence of a gas reaction because a deposition reaction of gas is greatly affected by temperature. To achieve this, the temperature of the gas distribution plate is controlled by controlling valves of a heater and a cooler located at the top of the chamber using PID controllers or by turning on/off the valves. The controllers for the heater and the cooler form independent control loops, respectively, but actually interfere with each other. Therefore, it is difficult to design the controllers.
Furthermore, precise process environments are required due to gradually intensified fine processes, and RF power generated for the etching process greatly affects the temperature of the gas distribution plate. Accordingly, a temperature control method for the gas distribution plate that is more precise and has high resistance to disturbances is required.

Substrate treating apparatus and temperature control method for gas distribution plate


Three methods will be described which may be used to improve the performance of compound semiconductor devices and Field Effect Transistors. In the first method, implementation of more than one sheet of 2DEG or high-density electrons in compound semiconductor devices will be described which may be used to improve the performance of compound semiconductor diodes, resistors and transistors. In the second method, implementation of at least one discontinuity in sheet or sheets of 2DEG or high-density electrons will be discussed which can be used to improve the performance of compound semiconductor diodes, resistors and transistors. In the third method, a way to form an electrical connection between an electrode and a sheet of 2DEG or high density electrons will be presented which may be implemented in compound semiconductor devices to reduce the contract resistance between an electrode and a sheet of 2DEG or high-density electrons.

Compound semiconductor devices and Field Effect Transistors (FETs) are key components in today's electronic systems. They are widely-used in electronic circuits and improving their characteristics is exceedingly important to achieve high-performance electronics. Improving the characteristics of these devices like their ON-state resistance (RON), drive current and speed are key factors to improve the energy-efficiency and speed of electronic systems. Three methods are presented in this document which can be applied to improve the performance of FETs and compound semiconductor devices as will be discussed.

Methods to improve the performance of compound semiconductor devices and field effect transistors


A method and system for concurrent garbage collection wherein live memory objects, i.e., not garbage, can be marked while an application executes. Root information is gleaned by taking a snapshot program roots or by arranging the stack to be scanned during execution of the program. Next, a first marking act is performed using the root information while the program executes. Modifications in the memory structure that occur during the concurrent marking act are logged or accumulated by a write watch module. The application is then paused or stopped to perform a second marking act using information from the write watch module. Following the second marking act, the garbage collection may be completed using various techniques.

The present invention relates to methods and systems for the automatic reclamation of allocated memory, normally referred to as xe2x80x9cgarbage collection.xe2x80x9d More particularly, the present invention relates to garbage collection that utilizes a technique known as xe2x80x9cmarkingxe2x80x9d of memory portions or objects.
During execution of a computer program or application, memory is allocated to the program to enable various operations. Once allocated, other executing processes cannot use the memory allocated to the program, i.e., memory use is exclusive. When the program has finished using a portion or object of allocated memory, it may explicitly deallocate or release that memory. For example, the program may xe2x80x9cdispose,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9ckill,xe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cfreexe2x80x9d the memory via a specific programming code function. Once freed, other applications or processes can then use the memory.
Often however, and for various reasons, the program to which the memory was initially allocated does not release objects of the memory, even after the program is finished using that memory. Moreover, when a program is done using a memory block or object, references to that object no longer exist. Without such a reference, that memory object cannot be reached by the application. Consequently, once the program has finished using the memory, that memory cannot be reused until it is freed by the program or reclaimed by another memory management program and then reallocated to either the initial application or process or to another application or process. Thus, allocated yet unreachable objects are unusable, and are considered to be xe2x80x9cdeadxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cgarbage.xe2x80x9d
Typically, the processes of allocating memory objects to applications and reclaiming dead memory objects, i.e., garbage collection, are performed by a memory manager. The memory manager tracks which memory objects are currently allocated to the computer program and which objects are currently available to be allocated through a xe2x80x9cfree listxe2x80x9d that keeps track of available objects. Thus, memory objects that are not on the free list are currently allocated to a computer program or application. Other memory managers do not use a free list, and instead allocate memory using an increasing memory address scheme. It is important to not only reclaim dead memory objects, but also compact the live objects to prevent memory fragmentation.
Consequently, the memory manager determines, based on predetermined thresholds, when to perform garbage collection. A common predetermined threshold is based on the number of allocated objects or objects of memory. That is, the memory manager maintains a running total of the number of allocated objects and once the number of objects exceeds a predetermined threshold number, the memory manager initiates garbage collection. Following the garbage collection, the running total of allocated objects is reduced by the number of reclaimed objects of memory or reset to zero, depending on the particular algorithm used. Once the running total exceeds the predetermined threshold again, the memory manager simply reinitiates the garbage collection process.
There are several common techniques for garbage collection. One technique for garbage collection relates to logically dividing the memory in half and using only one half of the memory at a time. During garbage collection, the memory manager copies the reachable objects to the other half of memory. Following the copying of all marked objects, the memory manager frees the entire first half of memory. Consequently, the previously used memory, which contained both the reachable objects and the garbage objects, becomes free memory and therefore contains only objects that are available to be allocated.
Another common garbage collection technique relates to the mark-and-sweep method, which marks all reachable objects of memory and then sweeps the entire heap to reclaim all unmarked objects of memory by adding the unmarked objects to the free list. When the sweep phase is complete, all garbage objects are now on the free list and available to be reallocated to the computer program.
In some situations, the mark-and-sweep may be preferred over the copying system because it is faster than copying garbage collection since the copying of objects and the updating references simply takes more time than adding a garbage block to a free list. Moreover, the mark-and-sweep technique is often more efficient since it uses the whole memory, as opposed to only half, as used in the copying technique. However, in other situations, the copying technique may be preferred due to the lack of fragmentation. In yet another technique, the mark and sweep technique is improved by adding a defragmentation or compaction step at the end of the sweep or reclamation process.
Each of these techniques, however, suffers a particular drawback based on the time it takes to mark each reachable block. During this marking phase, the system must stop or pause the executing applications processes, and such pauses significantly decrease the performance of the applications. That is, since any executing processes may modify the allocation of memory objects, the memory manager might miss reachable objects if the garbage collection process is running concurrently with other processes. Therefore, the application and other process are stopped for a considerable amount of time while the system checks all the allocated objects, and marks those objects as live.
The actual time it takes to mark the allocated objects varies and is dependent on the number of objects that are reachable. Since many applications may be running at one time and since many applications use a substantial amount of memory, typically the number of memory blocks or objects that are reachable is quite extensive. Consequently, the marking phase consumes a significant amount of time. Unfortunately, during this time period, the applications remain halted, preventing any further processing or interaction with the user.
One solution to this problem has been to perform the marking process as a separate thread running concurrently with the execution of programs and processes while implementing what is known as a xe2x80x9cwrite barrier.xe2x80x9d Using write barriers involved an additional process step performed by any running application or process that modified a memory object of marking each object as modified. In essence, the application was required to mark each object changed by the application as the modification occurred. Thus the garbage collector, during its marking phase, could go back and determine which objects to revisit based on the fact that any modified objects were marked as such by the application. Unfortunately, the additional marking steps performed by the application significantly decreased the performance of the program.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.
The present invention relates to a system and method of garbage collection that marks reachable objects concurrently with the processing of an application and operates in combination with a write-watch system that accumulates or logs which memory objects are modified during the marking phase. Using the accumulated modifications, the present invention revisits and marks modified objects while pausing the application for only a brief amount of time. The brief time that the application is stopped or paused is less than the amount of time it would have been paused, had the application been paused for the entire marking phase, yet the execution performance of the application does not suffer since it is not responsible for marking modified objects.
In accordance with certain aspects, the present invention relates to a system and method of marking memory objects for collecting garbage in a computer system by getting program root information, wherein the program root information has object references to memory objects. Next, the invention accumulates modification information using a write watch module wherein the modification information relates to memory objects that were modified following the getting of program root information. Meanwhile, the system and method marks reachable memory objects using the program root information. Following the marking operation, the system and method revisits modified memory objects identified by the accumulated modification information and marks the revisited memory object.
In accordance with other aspects, the system and method repeats the act of revisiting modified memory objects using updated information from the write watch module a predetermined number of times. In another embodiment the information received from the write watch module is tested against a predetermined threshold to determine whether the revisiting process is repeated. The predetermined threshold may be related to the number of allocated objects or, more specifically, a percentage based on the total number of allocated objects of memory.
In accordance with yet other aspects, the system and method uses a tricolor marking system where unvisited memory objects are indicated using a first color, such as white, visited objects are indicated using a second color, such as black, and visited but modified objects are indicated using a third color, such as gray. The modified visited objects are objects that have been modified after being visited a first time. In other embodiments, other marking schemes are used.
In an embodiment, the system and method of the present invention relates to collecting garbage for an executing application by first pausing the executing application. Once paused, a snapshot of a root stack is taken, i.e., by copying object references from relevant stacks to a temporary storage or by setting up markers on the stacks so the stacks can be scanned while active. Next, a write watch module to keep track of modifications in the memory is initiated and then the application is restarted. While the application is running, a first marking act of marking all reachable memory objects using snapshot information is performed. The application is paused after the marking act is complete. Next, a second marking act of marking all reachable memory objects is performed wherein the reachable objects marked by the second marking are identified by the write watch module. Following the second marking act, all unmarked garbage objects are collected and then the application is restarted.
The collecting act, in an embodiment relates to sweeping the memory and adding references to the unmarked memory to a free list. In another embodiment, the collecting act relates to copying all marked objects to a different memory portion. In yet another embodiment the collection act relates to planning the relocation of the marked memory objects, updating object references located within other memory objects, compacting the memory objects to relocate the memory objects, and updating a reference pointer related to an end of the compacted memory.
The invention may be implemented as a computer process, a computing system or as an article of manufacture such as a computer program product. The computer program product may be a computer storage medium readable by a computer system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process. The computer program product may also be a propagated signal on a carrier readable by a computing system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process.
A more complete appreciation of the present invention and its improvements can be obtained by reference to the accompanying drawings, which are briefly summarized below, to the following detail description of presently preferred embodiments of the invention, and to the appended claims.

Method and system for concurrent garbage collection


A hollow golf club head having a face portion for hitting a golf ball comprises                a main body made of at least one kind of metal material, said main body having the face portion and at least two openings, and        cover members attached to said main body so as to cover said openings, said cover members comprising        at least one resin cover member made of a fiber reinforced resin and        at least one metal cover member made of a metal material, and        said resin cover member and said metal cover member each having specific gravity less than said main body.

In recent years, hollow golf club heads made of a metallic main body and a cover member made of fiber reinforced resin have been proposed. These heads can save the weight thereof on the basis of the small specific gravity of the resin. Further, the saved weight can be allocated, for example, in the toe side, the heel side or the back face of the head. Therefore, these heads make it possible to improve a degree of freedom in the weight allocation design.
However, above mentioned head have bad sounds when hitting a ball (it is hereafter called "hitting sounds".). Specifically, there is a tendency for the hitting sounds to be low and for the reverberation to be also short.


A seat belt retractor has a spool for carrying seat belt webbing rotatably mounted about a longitudinal axle and biased in a seat belt webbing rewinding direction. A toothed ratchet wheel is mounted to rotate with the spool. A sensor is provided for detecting an emergency condition, and a vehicle acceleration sensor lever is responsive to the sensor to engage the ratchet wheel in an emergency. The retractor can operate in a first, emergency locking mode in which the spool is not locked and can rotate to pay-out and to rewind seat belt webbing. In a second, automatic locking mode the spool is locked against pay-out of the seat belt webbing. A switching means has a subassembly attached to an end of the seat belt retractors. The subassembly has an axially directed spring to reduce axial spacing between the housing, an eccentric cam and axially adjacent disks.

A conventional seat belt retractor allows a vehicle occupant some freedom of movement, but has a sensor to detect acceleration above a predetermined magnitude indicative of an emergency situation. The seat belt retractor then locks, arresting the vehicle occupant's movement. This can also occur when the vehicle occupant leans forward too quickly to reach a control on the instrument panel. Seat belts which allow movement are desirable for adult vehicle occupants as they restrain passengers in emergency situations but are comfortable because they allow a reasonable degree of freedom for movement during normal driving conditions. When transporting a young child with a child seat the child seat must be fixed in place, but it is desirable for the same seat belt retractor to also operate as a normal inertial retractor to provide the expected comfort for an adult.
This problem is a well known and several solutions have been proposed. U.S. Pat. No. 6,109,556 teaches a seat belt arrangement for motor vehicles, specially adapted for use with a child seat to switch between a fixed mode for the child seat and an automatic mode for adults. Such a seat belt retractor is known as a Child Hold Out Mechanism, sometimes referred to as a "CHOM".
U.S. Pat. No. 6,109,556 teaches a retractor switching means comprising a cam connected to a spool via a step down gearing arrangement and a cam follower. The step down gearing arrangement comprises an inner gear ring and a gear arrangement with a drive peg located at a predetermined radius. The drive peg is arranged to move cycloidally and rotate the cam when the gear rotates. This cycloidal motion often results in the gear arrangement being known as a "wobble" gear. The cam follower is pivotally mounted and arranged to be in continuous contact with the cam surface. At a predetermined rotational orientation of the cam, the cam follower urges the sensor lever into engagement with a toothed ratchet wheel fixed to the spool to lock the spool and seat belt webbing protraction.
A particular problem with Child Hold Out Mechanism retractors is that a large number of components are needed and this increases the size of the retractor as well as introducing numerous components that generate noise commonly referred to as "rattle noise".
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a noise reducing feature to such seat belt retractors.


A panoramic camera system includes a plurality of camera units mounted in a common, e.g., horizontal, plane and arranged in a circumferential array. Each camera unit includes one or more lenses for focusing light from a field of view onto an array of light-sensitive elements. A panoramic image generator combines electronic image data from the multiplicity of the fields of view to generate electronic image data representative of a first 360-degree panoramic view and a second 360-degree panoramic view, wherein the first and second panoramic views are angularly displaced. A stereographic display system is provided to retrieve operator-selectable portions of the first and second panoramic views and to display the user selectable portions in human viewable form. In a further aspect, a video display method is provided.

The present invention relates generally to the art of sensors and displays. It finds particular application in vision systems for operators of manned and unmanned vehicles and is illustrated and described herein primarily with reference thereto. However, it will be appreciated that the present invention is also amenable to surveillance and other tele-observation or tele-presence applications and all manner of other panoramic or wide-angle video photography applications.
Although it has been possible to collect panoramic images and even spherical images for a number of years, it has not been possible to simultaneously acquire and display data panoramically, at its true resolution, in real-time, as three-dimensional (3-D) stereoscopic images. Nor has it been possible to share non-coincident stereo views of the outside of a vehicle. The lack of these capabilities has severely hampered the ability to implement adequate operator interfaces in those vehicles that do not allow the operator to have direct view of the outside world, such as fighting vehicles like tanks and armored personnel carriers, among many other applications. Personnel often prefer to have themselves partially out of the vehicle hatches in order to gain the best visibility possible, putting them at risk of casualty. In the case of tanks, the risk to such personnel includes being hit by shrapnel, being shot by snipers, getting pinned by the vehicle when it rolls, as well as injuring others and property due to poor visibility around the vehicle as it moves.
Previous attempts at mitigating these problems include the provision of windows, periscopes, various combinations of displays and cameras, but none of these has provided a capability that mitigates the lack of view for the operators. Hence, operators still prefer direct viewing, with its inherent dangers. Windows must be small and narrow since they will not withstand ballistics and hence provide only a narrow field of view. Windows also let light out, which at night pinpoints areas for enemy fire. Periscopes have a narrow field of view and expose the operator to injury, e.g., by being struck by the periscope when the vehicle tosses around. Periscopes may also induce nausea when operators look through them for more than very short periods. Previous attempts with external cameras and internal displays similarly induce nausea, provide a narrow or limited field of view, do not easily accommodate collaboration among multiple occupants, endure significant lag times between image capture and display thereby causing disorientation for the users, do not provide adequate depth perception, and, in general, do not replicate the feeling of directly viewing the scenes in question. Further, when a sensor is disabled, the area covered by that sensor is no longer visible to the operator. Hence as of 2005, vehicle operators are still being killed and injured in large numbers.
In addition, display systems for remotely operated unmanned surface, sub-surface, and air vehicles suffer from similar deficiencies, thereby limiting the utility, survivability, and lethality of these systems.
The current state of the art involves the use of various types of camera systems to develop a complete view of what is around the sensor. For example, the Ladybug camera from PT Grey, the Dodeca camera from Immersive Media Corporation, and the SVS-2500 from iMove, Inc., all do this with varying degrees of success. These and other companies have also developed camera systems where the individual sensors are separated from each other by distances of many feet and the resulting data from the dispersed cameras is again "stitched" together to form a spherical or semi spherical view of what is around the vehicle. Most of these cameras have accompanying software that allows a user to "stitch" together the images from a number of image sensors that make up the spherical camera, into a seamless spherical image that is updated from 5 to 30 times per second. Accompanying software also allows one to "de-warp" portions of the spherical image for users to view in a "flat" view, without the distortion caused by the use of very wide-angle lenses on the cameras that make up the spherical sensors. These systems are generally non-real-time and require a post-processing step to make the images appear as a spherical image, although progress is being made in making this process work in real-time. Unfortunately, tele-observation situations such as viewing what is going on outside of a tank as it is being operated require a maximum of a few hundred milliseconds of latency from image capture to display. Present systems do not provide a stereo 3-D view and, hence, cannot replicate the stereoscopic depth that humans use in making decisions and perceiving their surroundings.
Furthermore, the fielded current state of the art still generally involves the use of pan-tilt type camera systems. These pan-tilt camera systems do not allow for multiple users to access different views around the sensor and all users must share the view that the "master" who is controlling the device is pointing the sensor towards.
Accordingly, the present invention contemplates a new and improved vision system and method wherein a complete picture of the scene outside a vehicle or similar enclosure is presented to any number of operators in real-time stereo 3-D, and which overcome the above-referenced problems and others.

Multi-user stereoscopic 3-D panoramic vision system and method


A device for performing a surgical procedure includes an elongated shaft extending between a proximal end and a distal end. The shaft includes an outer surface and an inner surface. An expandable member is disposed at the distal end of the shaft. The expandable member is configured to receive inflation material. At least one electrode is disposed with the inflatable member. Methods of use are disclosed.

Radio frequency ablation (RFA) is a medical procedure in which tumors or other dysfunctional tissue is ablated using the heat generated from high frequency alternating current. An important advantage of radio frequency (RF) current (over previously used low frequency AC or pulses of DC) is that RF current does not directly stimulate nerves or muscles and can therefore often be used without the need for general anesthetic. RFA has become increasingly accepted in the last 15 years with promising results. RFA procedures are performed under image guidance (such as X-ray screening, CT scan or ultrasound) by an interventional pain specialist (such as an anesthesiologist), interventional radiologist, a gastrointestinal or surgical endoscopist, or a cardiac electrophysiologist, a subspecialty of cardiologists.
RFA is performed to treat tumors in the lungs, liver, kidneys, bones and other organs. Once the diagnosis of tumor is confirmed, a needle-like RFA probe is placed inside the tumor. RF waves are passed through a probe to increase the temperature within tumor tissue to destroy the tumor. Generally, RFA is used to treat patients with small tumors that started within a specific organ (primary tumors) or that spread to the organ (metastases). The suitability of a patient to receive RFA is typically decided by doctors based on multiple factors. RFA can usually be administered as an out-patient procedure, but may at times require a brief hospital stay. RFA may be combined with locally-delivered chemotherapy to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (primary liver cancer). The low-level heat (hyperthermia) created by the RFA probe causes heat-sensitive liposomes to release concentrated levels of chemotherapy in margins around ablated tissue, which is a method commonly used to treat Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). RFA is also used in pancreatic cancer and bile duct cancer.