A sheet of expanded metal produced by slitting a sheet of metal, and stretching along a stretching direction, which sheet of expanded metal forms a grid of openings having a first repetition length in the stretching direction and a second repetition length in the direction perpendicular to the stretching direction, wherein the first and second repetition lengths are substantially equal. A sheet of expanded metal having a stretching angle larger than 90 degrees. Use of a sheet of expanded metal according to the invention for supporting a bundle of parallel tubes. A method of manufacturing expanded metal from pre-expanded metal, wherein expansion force is applied at a plurality of points perpendicular to the stretching direction, wherein the expansion force is applied using a plurality of force transmitters co-operating with the plurality of points, and wherein the force transmitters are arranged so that they can move towards each other in the second direction while applying extension force.

A sheet of expanded metal is conventionally made from sheet metal that is slit according to an arrangement of staggered parallel dashed lines, and stretched (expanded) perpendicular to the dashed lines into a structure of cross laths with interstices. Its manufacture is generally cheap. Moreover the sheets can easily be cut to a desired shape for a particular application, e.g. circular, for example by laser cutting.
The sheet of expanded metal forms a regular grid of openings, wherein each opening is defined by two substantially V-shaped pairs of strands, wherein the strands of each pair are adjoined in the direction of stretching and define a stretching angle, and two bonds interconnecting the two pairs of strands at the ends of the V-shapes. The openings of expanded metal have substantially rhombical or frustro-rhombical shape. Substantially rhombical shape (the shape of an equilateral parallelogram) is obtained when the slits along a virtual dashed line are much longer than the non-slit parts (so-called bonds) between them. After stretching of the slit sheet metal, the bonds form corner points each connecting four so-called strands of equal length. If the non-slit parts between the slits are relatively long, than a substantially frustro-rhombical shape is obtained. By frustro-rhombical it is meant that two opposite corners of a rhombical shape are cut off along a pair of parallel lines.
The strands after stretching of expanded metal are not perfectly straight but often slightly S-shaped; i.e. curved at the connections with the bonds, with a substantially linear central part in between. It will be understood that the V-shape of pairs of adjacent (neighboured) strands in the direction of stretching is somewhat distorted. The stretching angle is suitably defined by the central parts of the strands forming the (distorted) V-shape.
Known expanded metal is stretched to a maximum of 90 degrees, resulting in approximately square openings, as can for example be obtained from Sorst Streckmetall GmbH, Hannover, Germany.
Also, when expanded metal is stretched out, the strands are twisted out of the plane of the sheet metal, unless the sheet is subsequently flattened again. The slight S-shape of the strands and their attachment to the bonds has the consequence that the openings have no more than two mirror symmetry axes, which can be along and perpendicular to the direction of the stretching. This will be discussed in more detail with reference to the drawings.
To account for deviations of the openings in expanded metal from a perfect rhombical or frustro-rhombical shape are, the term 'substantially rhombical or frustro-rhombical shape' is used hereafter. The term therefore encompasses perfect and imperfect or distorted such shapes.
International Patent Application No. PCT/EP03/01074 in the name of Applicant, which was unpublished at the priority date of the present application, relates to the use of expanded metal as support for a bundle of tubes, such as a support baffle in a heat exchanger, in particular a shell-and-tube heat exchanger.
A shell-and-tube heat exchanger normally comprises a cylindrical vessel in which a bundle of parallel tubes are arranged extending in longitudinal direction of the vessel. It is an indirect heat exchanger in which heat is transferred between a fluid passing through the tubes of the tube bundle (the tube side) and a fluid passing through the space outside the tubes (the shell side). Details of the shell-and-tube heat exchangers can for example be found in Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook, 6th edition, 1984, McGraw-Hill Inc., page 11-3 to 11-21. The ends of the tubes of the tube bundle are secured to a tube sheet. The heat exchanger can include two tube sheets, one at each end of the cylindrical vessel, or a single tube sheet at one end of the cylindrical vessel in the event the heat exchanger is a U-tube exchanger.
The intermediate portions of the tubes have to be supported as well, for example to prevent damage to the tubes due to vibrations caused by the fluid flow. To support the intermediate portions of the tubes, a support can be used including transverse support plates that are spaced apart along the length of the tubes.
A conventional support comprises segmental baffles, and there are several kinds discussed in Perry's. Baffles do not only support the tubes, but also influence the fluid flow through the shell side. Therefore the design of a baffle is as well determined by heat-transfer considerations.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,709 discloses a support for a bundle of parallel tubes, which support comprises a plurality of transverse support plates spaced apart along the length direction of the tubes to be supported. Each plate is integrally formed from a single sheet wherein a plurality of holes is cut on a regular grid, each of which holes is large enough to accept a plurality of tubes. The holes can be generally rectangular-shaped, generally square-shaped, generally triangular-shaped or generally rhombical (diamond-shaped).
At least one of the support plates of the known support is disposed out of phase or staggered. Tubes extending through the same hole in one support plate extend through different holes in another support plate, so that the cooperating adjacent plates support the tubes from opposite sides against lateral movement.
However, applicant has found that the deviations from perfect rhombical or frustro-rhombical shape make it difficult to use expanded metal in a staggered arrangement like in U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,709, since at least two different types of passageways are formed with slightly different cross-section and shape, which is undesirable for optimum tube support.
It is an object of the invention to provide a new sheet of expanded metal, in particular expanded metal with optimum properties for use as a tube support.
It is a further object to provide a new method for manufacturing expanded metal.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


An on-vehicle antenna system which offers a superior receiving performance, by suppressing reception of reflected/scattered waves coming from inside of the vehicle's cabin; these reflected/scattered waves being an adverse factor which deteriorates signal receiving performance of an antenna. The antenna system is installed at glass pane portion of a vehicle with direction (12) of the greatest radiation pattern (11) directed towards ahead (14) of the vehicle from boundary plane (10) containing power supply portion (9), while direction (13) of the smallest radiation pattern (11) towards behind (15) of the vehicle. The above-configured antenna system can suppress those waves reflected/scattered in the vehicle cabin from being received; as the result, it demonstrates improved characteristics.

There are various types of antenna systems mounted on a vehicle nowadays. For example, radio receivers, television receivers, portable telephone systems, GPS (Global Positioning System), ETC (Electronic Toll Collection System), VICS, etc. have their own antenna systems that fit to their specific operation. Since vehicles are mobile substance, it is not easy for them to recognize direction of a certain signal where it is coming from, with these exceptions of GPS, ETC, etc. where recognition of the signal direction is comparatively easy. Based on the general understanding, radiation pattern of antenna for vehicles other than that for GPS, ETC, etc. has been designed to be non-directional with respect to horizontal direction of a vehicle.
Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. H8-298406 (hereinafter referred to as Document 1), Utility Model Unexamined Publication No. S58-61509 (Document 2) and Japanese Patent No. 3594224 (Document 3) are some of the known publications of prior arts on the on-vehicle antenna systems.
FIG. 22 shows a typical example of the on-vehicle antenna system disclosed in Document 1. Illustrated in FIG. 22 are first antenna wire 1001, second antenna wire 1002, power supply point 1003 provided for connection with the inner conductor of a coaxial cable which leads to a certain receiver unit, and rear window glass 1004 at the side of a vehicle. First antenna wire 1001 and second antenna wire 1002 are formed, respectively, into a rectangular shape, each having longer sides and shorter sides of its own. Between the longer sides of first antenna wire 1001 is a space D, and a space L between the shorter sides. There is a space K between the shorter side of first antenna wire 1001 and the shorter side of second antenna wire 1002. The antenna can be made to exhibit a non-directional characteristic by adjusting the spaces D, L and K.
Document 2 describes an on-vehicle antenna of space diversity antenna system. The antenna aims to make the directional characteristic into a substantially non-directional characteristic through a compensation of dip point of directional characteristic caused by the vehicle body, etc., using a plurality of antennas disposed at the vehicle's side window.
For the purpose of reducing the overall size of antenna system, monopole antennas of imbalanced operation have been employed for receiving television, radio broadcastings. Dipole antennas of balanced operation are not quite popular nowadays because they eventually take a large total size, and some other reasons. Monopole antenna element alone can not operate as an antenna, but it has to make use of metal body of the vehicle and the ground portion of coaxial cable's power supply line, etc. as part of the antenna system.
The antenna described in Document 1 is an imbalanced type antenna, which belongs to the same type as monopole antenna. It makes use of the metal body of vehicle and the ground portion of coaxial cable's power supply line as part of the antenna. Document 3 describes an imbalanced type antenna for use on a vehicle.
So far, on-vehicle antennas for radio, television reception have been designed so as they are non-directional; therefore, those of imbalanced type have been employed. However, as compared with an antenna installed above the roof of a vehicle, the above-described antenna installed at glass portion of vehicle demonstrates the significantly poorer reception characteristics.
FIG. 23 shows structure of a conventional dipole antenna. Distance between power supply section 1005 and base board 1006 is 15 mm, distance between first parallel side 1007 and second parallel side 1008 is 0.1 mm, length of first parallel side 1007 and second parallel side 1008 is 25 mm, length of first base side 1009 and second base side 1010 is 43.25 mm.
Those illustrated in FIG. 24 through FIG. 26 are used for describing the characteristics exhibited by a monopole antenna disposed at a vehicle's front windshield and a monopole antenna installed above the roof board for receiving digital surface wave television broadcasting.
FIG. 24 illustrates places where antenna was installed for receiving digital surface wave television broadcasting. Monopole antenna unit 2 was installed at three places of a sedan-type vehicle body. Installation point P1 is on the rear part of roof board 1, installation point P2 is at the lower area 23 of front windshield 3 on the cabin surface, installation point P3 is at the upper area 22 of front windshield 3 on the cabin surface. The receiving characteristics of the antenna at these three installation points were evaluated on.
FIG. 25 shows structure of monopole antenna unit 2. Monopole antenna unit 2 includes cylindrical antenna element 4 made of a conductive material, circuit board 5 which is mounted with circuit components such as a filter, an LNA (Low Noise Amplifier), etc., and coaxial cable 6 which connects with a tuner. Monopole antenna unit 2 does not operate with cylindrical antenna element 4 alone, but it functions as an antenna with collaboration of a ground plate provided on circuit board 5, a shield wire of power supply cable 6, and a vehicle frame made of conductive material.
FIG. 26 shows average reception power and percentage of reception in receiving a digital surface wave television broadcasting transmitted from a certain transmitting station, during a test conducted in a certain evaluation course which takes about 6 km a round. Shown in the chart is percentage of error-free receiving time, without a packet error, during one round cruising of the evaluation course. The result shown in FIG. 26 tells us that the reception percentage is the highest, although reception power is low in average, when monopole antenna unit 2 is installed above roof board 1, viz. installation point P1, as compared with the other setups where it is installed at the front windshield glass on the cabin surface, viz. installation points P2 and P3. Two other tests conducted in other district about several hundreds kilometers away from the above-mentioned evaluation course affirmed the earlier-demonstrated test result. The vehicle used in the tests is a sedan-type car installed with monopole antenna unit 2. A wagon-type car with the antenna unit also showed the same result. It was further recognized that even in a case where monopole antenna unit 2 was installed at a window glass other than front windshield, for example at a side window glass or rear windshield glass, the reception percentage was higher than the case where it was mounted above roof board 1.
Reasons why receiving characteristics deteriorate when monopole antenna unit 2 is installed at a window glass on the cabin surface, as compared with a case where it is disposed outside the cabin, had not been made sufficiently clear. The engineers involved in the present proposed technology started a thorough analysis of the causes by carrying out a number of experiments and simulations, and tried to find out a solution for improving the deterioration problem. They found out that the deterioration was caused in part by those reflected/scattered waves generated as the result of reflection/scattering of digital broadcasting waves by the vehicle's metal frame.
FIG. 27 shows a change along with the lapse of time with electric intensity of a 470 MHz-770 MHz plane wave incidental from outside of a vehicle and received by a monopole antenna installed on the vehicle's roof board.
FIG. 28 shows time-wise change in electric intensity of the wave received by a monopole antenna installed at upper area 22 of front windshield glass. Characteristics charts of FIG. 27 and FIG. 28 are those made available by a simulation analysis.
FIG. 29 is a time-wise waveform of electric intensity shown by a plane wave incoming from outside of a vehicle. The plane wave is arriving at the vehicle front with an angle of elevation 30 degrees.
As understood from FIG. 27, the electric intensity received by a monopole antenna installed above a vehicle's roof board shows a waveform pattern which is similar to that of incidental plane wave shown in FIG. 29. Waves reflected/scattered by a vehicle's metal frame are hardly observed received. On the other hand, the chart of electric intensity received by a monopole antenna disposed on upper area 22 of windshield shown in FIG. 28 indicates that the waves reflected/scattered by vehicle body, etc. are reaching the antenna with a delay of approximately 15 ns after arrival of direct wave 7. The approximate delay time 15 ns corresponds to a time which is needed by an electromagnetic wave to proceed for 4.5 m, or a time needed by an electromagnetic wave to go and return inside of the model vehicle cabin which was used in the present simulation analysis.
Judging from the results of experiments and simulations, a monopole antenna disposed at a vehicle's glass portion receives a number of those waves reflected/scattered by the vehicle's metal frame, etc.
The results of simulation analysis shown in FIG. 27 through FIG. 29 represent those situations where only one wave signal is arriving at a vehicle from the outside. In reality, however, a monopole antenna receives quite many signals at the same time, including those reflected/diffracted by buildings and other substances. Each of these signals is reflected/scattered by the vehicle's metal frame, and the monopole antenna receives also such reflected/scattered waves. These incoming waves change from time to time depending on changes in the environmental conditions for an electromagnetic wave, namely the change in location of reflecting substance (vehicles, human beings, trees, etc.). Furthermore, since these signals are received by a moving vehicle, the number and the incoming direction of arriving signals change remarkably from time to time. When an antenna receives a substantial number of such reflected/scattered waves that is changing moment after moment, it becomes difficult to conduct an equalization processing on propagation path at signal demodulation. Therefore, it makes it difficult to realize a high reception percentage, as shown in FIG. 26, despite the high average receiving power. The equalization processing of propagation path, which is a well-known technology among those in the industry, is for restoring a symbol's amplitude/phase information, which changes depending on a state of propagation path, to the original orientation based on information from a pilot signal.
Other deterioration factor with the reception percentage due to reflected/scattered waves in a vehicle cabin is that there is a difference in the Doppler frequency between a signal coming from the front or the behind of a vehicle received direct by on-vehicle antenna system and that received after it is reflected/scattered in the vehicle cabin. When a plurality of signals each having different Doppler frequency undergo a synchronized detection, symbol location of each demodulated signal is displaced along with the lapse of time from a should-be location, because of influence by the Doppler frequency. Especially in the digital television broadcasting which adopts OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex) modulation, interference is caused at the synchronized detection between the carriers by the reflected/scattered waves in the cabin. Because of these, it turns out to be difficult to enforce the equalization processing on propagation path at a high accuracy level. This invites deterioration in bit error rate (BER) and packet error rate (PER), eventually causing deterioration of the antenna's receiving characteristics. The adverse influence of those waves reflected/scattered in a vehicle cabin reveals significantly when receiving the digital television broadcasting, digital radio broadcasting and portable telephone system which use digital signals. The influence ill-affects the demodulation also with the analog radio broadcasting and analog television broadcasting which use analog signals, and deteriorates the reception characteristics.

On-vehicle antenna system and electronic apparatus having the same


A hand rail for a walkie/rider truck and a conversely U-shaped hand rail has a grab bar, and a control housing being arranged on the grab bar which includes control elements for the lifting and lowering of the load carrying fork, for the horn and for a fast speed mode. The housing is located at the lower side of the grab bar such and the grab bar in the area of the control housing is formed such that the grab bar can be seized by the operator above the control housing in order to obtain a secure support and/or to actuate a control element.

Such trucks have become known e.g. from U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,144, U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,306 or U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,313. On one end the body of the truck has a load carrying means, e.g. a load carrying fork. The truck body includes a lift drive for the load carrying fork and driving means for the truck. The steering of the truck takes place through a steering arm which is linked to the upper side of the truck body. With the free end the steering arm carries a head wherein various control elements for individual functions of the truck are arranged. At the front side the truck body is provided with a platform which can be used for the driver in order to ride with the truck. In this position the driver seizes a hand rail which is conversely U-shaped and mounted on the top of the truck body. The hand rail has two spaced approximately parallel vertical legs, and a hand rod or grab bar connected to the upper end of the vertical legs.
For the known walkie/rider trucks it has also become known to mount a control panel to the grab bar. From U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,306 it has become known to accommodate a plurality of control elements within a housing for such panel, preferably control elements for the lifting and lowering of the fork for the actuation of the horn and for the switching into a fast speed mode. The control elements or buttons are arranged in a control field which faces forwardly, i.e. towards the driver on the platform. From the prior art mentioned, it has further become known to arrange a further control element on the rear side of the control panel or housing e.g. for the actuation of the coast mode. In some uses the driver or operator prefers to let the truck freely roll further with small speed if he is still at a remote position. By this, the truck can be sent to a position where an operation is desired. Due to his experience, the operator can estimate how far the truck rolls on if he actuates this function at a predetermined speed.
The object of the invention is to provide a hand rail for a walkie/rider truck wherein the control panel is designed such or placed, respectively, that the operator can seize the grab bar of the hand rail at different positions also adjacent the control panel in order to actuate the control elements.


The examples herein relate to a cooking tool, and a cooking system and techniques that can be utilized with the cooking tool to steam or cook food. The cooking system includes a placement surface, a heat source to channel heat energy, and a cooking tool coupled to the placement surface. For example, the placement surface is a portion of cookware (e.g., pan or plate) and the heat source is a stove or a microwave. The cooking tool comprises an interior volume and a body that includes a lower body portion positioned on the placement surface and an upper body portion. The lower body portion includes a suction cup base that is coupled to the placement surface to form a sealing chamber to seal a liquid or food inside the interior volume. The upper body portion includes at least one conduit.

Various cooking appliances are available on the market, such as a microwave, stovetop, electrical skillet, conventional oven, convection oven, toaster oven, etc. Unfortunately, each of the foregoing cooking appliances are associated with its own drawbacks. For example, the microwave oven, while offering rapid cooking of foods, can negatively affect the quality, such as texture and taste. Moreover, according to clinical studies, the microwave oven presents numerous health hazards. The toaster oven can dehydrate food as the moisture content of the food evaporates.
For example, freshly baked pizza from the conventional oven typically has a crispy crust and moist toppings. Subsequently, when the pizza is reheated in the conventional oven, the pizza crust no longer maintains a crispy texture. Alternatively, if the pizza is later reheated in the toaster oven, while the crust is further cooked to maintain the crispy texture, the toppings lose moisture and become dried out.
Hence, there is room for improvement in cooking appliances and techniques for reheating food without drying moisture content out of the food.

Cooking system for food steaming or cooking


This disclosure relates to contextual determination of related media content. A referral source identification component determines a referral source associated with a request for media content, and a determination component determines a set of context data for the request based in part on the referral source. A contextual suggestion component identifies or selects a set of additional content based in part on a subset of the context data, and suggests or recommends a subset of the additional content to a user based on a set of recommendation criteria.

The Internet and media enabled portable computing devices have dramatically altered the processes for generating and consuming media content. Presently, users can consume media content virtually anywhere at any time, as long as they have access to a media capable device with an Internet connection. The convenience of being able to view media content via the Internet, essentially on demand, has resulted in explosive growth of Internet media consumption. Internet media traffic is currently approaching a majority of consumer Internet traffic, and the rate of demand is projected to continue increasing.
The sheer quantity of media content available to users can make targeting relevant related content for consumption challenging. Millions of people around the world have the capability to produce media content, and popular online services can receive tens of hours worth of newly uploaded user-generated content every minute. In addition, traditional media outlets now have the ability to enable consumers to access archives containing large amounts of older media content, along with newly generated content. Due in part to the large amounts of media content available, online services may have difficulty selecting relevant media content related to content consumed by a user.
A technique that has been commonly employed by online services to determine related content includes identifying related content based on attributes of previously consumed media content. However, different attributes may have varying degrees of usefulness for identifying related content based on user context. For instance, a user consuming media content in a first context may find related content based on a set of shared attributes very useful; however, another user consuming the media content in a different context may not find the same related content desirable or relevant.

Contextual determination of related media content


A method of treating infertility disorders by 1) administering an LH-RH antagonist, preferably Cetrorelix, in amounts to selectively suppress endogenous LH but not FSH secretion and 2) inducing follicle growth by administration of exogenous gonadotropin. The selective suppression OF LH allows FSH secretion to be at natural levelS thereby not affecting individual estrogen development. The LH-RH antagonist can be given as a single or dual subcutaneous dose in the range of 1 mg to 10 mg, preferably 2 mg-6 mg. In multiple dosing-posology, LH-RH antagonist can be administered subcutaneously in an amount in the range of 0.1 to 0.5 mg of LH-RH antagonist/day. LH-RH antagonist is applied starting cycle day 1 to 10, preferably on day 4 to 8, and ovulation can be induced between day 9 and 20 of the menstruation cycle by administering rec. LH, native LH-RH, LH-RH agonist or by HCG. In addition rec. LH, native LH-RH or LH-RH agonist can be given to avoid hyperstimulation syndrome and native LH-RH or a LH-RH agonist can be administered to avoid luteal phase stimulation by neutralizing the negative effects of HCG.

The reasons for unsuccessful attempts to establish pregnancy can be attributed equally to male and female fertility disorders. Today many different assisted reproduction techniques are available. These techniques are used to induce multiple and synchronous follicular growth and thereby obtain fertilizable oocytes.
The current standard treatment is to induce multiple follicular development by administering high doses of HMG (Human Menopausal Gonadotropin). This results in ovarian hyperstimulation. Upon reaching a suitable degree of oocyte maturation using these techniques, ovulation is induced by the administration of HCG (Human Chorionic-Gonadotropin) in order to obtain a sufficient number of oocytes. During this time, the clinic-infrastructure preparation can begin. Preparation includes recovery of oocytes by abdominal or transvaginal puncture, intracorporal or extracorporal fertilization of oocytes by different techniques and embryo replacement into the uterus. Routinely, beginning pregnancy is supported by additional administrations of HCG or progesterone. Today this treatment is applied to clinical conditions of male and female infertility.
Complications that are frequently observed during the hyperstimulation procedure are:
A: premature surges of luteinizing hormone (LH) at a premature maturation state with a rupture of the follicles that induced a subsequent cancellation of the treatment occurring in about 25% of the patients; and B: ovarian hyperstimulation syndromes induced by exogenous gonadotropins which in severe cases require hospitalization and are life-threatening.
In order to avoid premature LH-surges, today LHRH-agonists are used as a comedication. By continued administration of these drugs, a complete suppression of endogenous gonadotropins is achieved by desensitization of pituitary cells and down-regulation of their receptors. Subsequently, the gonadotropin levels can be controlled by exogenous injection and the pituitary is refractory to the stimulation of LH-release by increasing levels of estradiol. Disadvantages are 1) a long treatment period until the suppression and down-regulation occur; 2) estrogen withdrawal symptoms; 3) disturbance of the normal menstrual cycle; 4) the need for frequent hormone determinations in order to evaluate the time of onset of suppression; and 5) high dose HMG treatment is needed for ovarian stimulation.
The pathogenesis of hyperstimulation syndrome is not completely understood, but is thought to be associated with the use of HCG for ovulation induction and luteal phase support.
One recent approach involves the use of the LHRH antagonist Cetrorelix (INN). In first clinical trials, short term treatment with Cetrorelix resulted in a complete avoidance of premature LH surges during stimulated cycles and the need for HMG. Due to the immediate suppression of gonadotropins by this antagonist, the unwanted stimulatory phase and also the withdrawal of estrogen produced by the agonists was avoided. The duration of treatment was also significantly shortened. In addition, it was shown that a single injection of an antagonist, given in the mid-follicular phase, would adequately suppress premature LH surges.

LHRH-antagonists in the treatment of fertility disorders


A propeller shaft with a dynamic damper and a tubular wound paper damper in an inner portion of the propeller shaft. The dynamic damper provided with a ring member at an outer side in a diametrical direction and a weight member elastically retained in an inner side in the diametrical direction of the ring member. The paper damper has an outer paper portion positioned in the outer side in the diametrical direction and an inner paper portion positioned in the inner side in the diametrical direction. The outer paper portion extending to the dynamic damper farther than said inner paper portion, contacting the ring member, thus inhibiting the inner paper portion from coming into contact with the weight member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a propeller shaft used in a vehicle such as a motor vehicle or the like, and more particularly to a propeller shaft provided with a dynamic damper and a paper damper in an inner portion.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 7, there has been conventionally known a propeller shaft 100 structured such that a dynamic damper 102 and a paper damper 104 are provided in an inner portion (for example as disclosed in patent document 1). In other words, an output of an internal combustion engine mounted to a front portion of a vehicle is generally transmitted to a drive wheel in a rear side by the propeller shaft 100 via a transmission, however, since a characteristic of the propeller shaft 100 exerts a great influence on a vibration of the vehicle, it is possible to improve a vibration characteristic of the propeller shaft 100 by installing the dynamic damper 102 to a cylinder inner portion of the propeller shaft 100 and attenuating a vibration by the dynamic damper 102.
Further, a stuffy sound is generated at a time of a rotation of the propeller shaft 100, however, it is possible to reduce or vanish the stuffy sound by setting the paper damper 104 in the inner portion of the propeller shaft 100. In this case, as shown in FIG. 8, the paper damper 104 is formed as an approximately rectangular shape in a plan view in a state of being expanded, and is inserted to the inner portion of the propeller shaft 100 in a state of being wound in a tubular shape (for example as disclosed in patent document 2).    (Patent Document 1) Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-12446    (Patent Document 2) Japanese Patent No. 3544579    (Patent Document 3) Japanese Patent No. 3753191
However, in the structure in which the dynamic damper and the paper damper are provided in the inner portion of the propeller shaft, a part (a weight portion or the like) of the dynamic damper may come into contact with the paper damper at a time of simultaneously inserting the dynamic damper and the paper damper to the inner portion of the propeller shaft. If the weight member of the dynamic damper comes into contact with the paper damper, a frequency characteristic of the dynamic damper is changed. Accordingly, the function of the dynamic damper is compromised.
In general, the dynamic damper is constituted by a ring-like member positioned in an outer side in a diametrical direction, and a weight member positioned in an inner side in the radial direction of the ring-like member. One method of avoiding a contact between the weight member and the paper damper is intentionally elongating a length in an axial direction of the ring-like member. However, if the length in the axial direction of the ring-like member is elongated, the dynamic damper is enlarged in size so as to increase its weight, and there is generated the other problem that a manufacturing cost is increased.


In a method of etching a metal layer of an object to be processed, the metal layer is etched by ion sputtering etching while forming a protective film containing carbon on a surface of a mask of the object. The object is exposed to an oxygen plasma after etching the metal layer. The object is exposed to hexafluoroacetylacetone after exposing the object to the oxygen plasma.

When semiconductor devices are manufactured, a process for forming a wiring such as an interconnection line or a contact is carried out. As for this process, a so-called damascene process has been used. In the damascene process, a process for forming a groove or a hole in an interlayer insulating film by etching and burying a metal material in the formed groove or hole is carried out. However, with a recent trend toward miniaturization of a wiring, the damascene process has various problems such as the difficulty of burying a metal material in a fine hole or groove.
In order to deal with the problems of the damascene process, there has been proposed a process for forming a fine copper wiring by forming a copper layer and then etching the copper layer is suggested. This process is disclosed in a document (Fangyu Wu et al., "Low-Temperature Etching of Cu by Hydrogen-Based Plasma", ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES, 2010, Vol. 2, No. 8, p. 2175-2179). In the process disclosed in the above-cited document, the copper layer is etched by exposing the copper layer to a plasma of a processing gas containing hydrogen gas and argon gas.
The process disclosed in the above-cited document is disadvantageous in that the verticality of a side surface of the copper wiring cannot be ensured in the etching using the plasma of the processing gas containing the hydrogen gas and the argon gas. This problem occurs because an angled portion of a mask may be etched during the etching of the copper layer. In order to solve this problem, a method for etching a copper layer while forming a protective film containing carbon on the mask may be considered.
As described above, the protective film contains carbon and is generally removed by a process using an oxygen plasma. However, the present inventors have found that the protective film is not sufficiently removed in the process using an oxygen plasma.


A gain control circuit includes a first FET for serving as an active load, a second FET serving as an amplifier, and a third FET for serving as a current source. The first, second, and third FETs have substantially the same characteristics and are mutually connected in a series. The gain control circuit further includes a fourth FET for serving as a variable active load connected in parallel with the third FET and a capacitor connected between the third and fourth FETs. The fourth FET is also connected to a gain control terminal. The gain of the second FET is controlled by the voltage applied to the gate of the fourth FET through said gain control line.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gain control circuit using a metal semiconductor field-effect transistor (MESFET) device of gallium arsenide (GaAs) that bay be used in television tuners. The present invention also relates to a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Gain control circuits conventionally used in television tuners generally control the gain using a device combining P-I-N diode attenuator and fixed gain amplifier, or by changing the operating point of a dual gate FET device. Cost effective commercial application of P-I-N diodes is impeded, however, by the difficulties of manufacturing a P-I-N structure with stable characteristics from GaAs. When a gain control circuit using dual gate FET devices is used, the drain current (hereinafter referred to as "I.sub.DS ") varies with the change in the operating point. This necessitates, as described in IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics (Vol. 35, No. 3, August 1989), a separate circuit to stabilize the DC bias and to stabilize the variation in current consumption of the overall gain control circuit due to the gain control voltage. IEEE is an abbreviation for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
In a semiconductor device integrating devices such as GaAs MESFET devices with high I.sub.DS variation to form a gain control circuit, the DC bias of the drain will fluctuate as the voltage drop changes with the variation in I.sub.DS if a resistance load is used between the power supply and drain of the source ground amplifier. Furthermore, while the drain load resistance must be increased to obtain a sufficient gain, this also produces a larger change in the DC bias of the drain. As a result, a drain-source voltage (hereinafter referred to as "V.sub.DS ") sufficient to assure operation of the FET in the saturation range is set in the conventional semiconductor device when the power supply voltage is low, and it is difficult to simultaneously obtain sufficient gain and a stable DC bias.
In addition, a gain control circuit with a circuit construction which does not require a special power supply to set the gain control voltage and does not require a power supply providing a negative voltage is desirable for general purpose applicability. This type of circuit construction requires that the voltage range needed to obtain both the maximum and minimum gain levels be within the power supply voltage to ground voltage range of the gain control circuit, a requirement which cannot be met with the conventional gain control circuit construction.

Gain control circuit and semiconductor device

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


This invention discloses a semiconductor memory device having a voltage supply circuit for generating a driver power supply voltage. The voltage supply circuit is provided with a first voltage supply circuit for precharging the driver power supply voltage to a power supply voltage level of a memory cell, and a second voltage supply circuit for supplying a voltage lower than the power supply voltage level of the memory cell as the driver power supply voltage.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor memory device and, more particularly, to a configuration of a static semiconductor memory device capable of stably reading data.
The term "MOS" originally stands for Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor as a stack structure. However, particularly in a field effect transistor having a MOS structure (hereinbelow, simply called "MOS transistor"), materials of a gate insulating film and a gate electrode are improved from the viewpoint of improvement in integration and manufacturing process in recent years.
For example, in a MOS transistor, from the viewpoint of, mainly, forming a source and a drain in a self-aligning manner, polysilicon is employed in place of a metal as the material of the gate electrode. From the viewpoint of improving the electric characteristic, a material having high dielectric constant is employed as the material of the gate insulating film. The material is not always limited to an oxide.
Therefore, the term "MOS" is not always limited to the stack structure of metal/oxide/semiconductor. In the specification as well, such limitation is not the precondition. That is, in view of the technical common sense, the term "MOS" means not only the abbreviation of metal/oxide/semiconductor but also includes a stack structure of conductor/insulator/semiconductor in a broad sense. Therefore, in the specification, the term "MOS transistor" refers to an insulated gate field effect transistor in which a gate electrode and a source/a drain are electrically (galvanically) isolated from each other.
As a transistor element is becoming finer, the influence of fluctuation in manufacture parameters increases, variations in the threshold voltage of a MOS transistor as a component of a memory cell become large, and the operation margin decreases. As a result, in a semiconductor memory device in low-voltage operation, it becomes difficult to read data stably.
A configuration directed to assure stable data reading operation also under such operating conditions is proposed.
In patent document 1 (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-38557), a level shifter is used for a word line driver to drive a word line at a voltage level lower than that of a power supply voltage of a memory cell, thereby assuring a margin at the time of reading.


An ion detector (1) comprising a semi-conductor avalanche photodiode (4) and a scintillation layer (2), the scintillation layer having a thickness in the range 0.1 mm to 00 mm, the scintillation layer arranged to generate photons towards the photodiode resulting from ions impinging on the scintillation layer.

Detectors used in known Time-of-Flight (TOF) mass spectrometers, as well as the position sensitive detectors used in imaging mass spectrometry and other applications which require detection of ions with energies in the range of 1-100 keV, use micro-channel plates (MCPs) to convert incident ions into a measurable current. The avalanche of electrons produced when an ion strikes the front surface of an MCP leads to a typical gain of around 103, and often a pair of matched MCPs is used to achieve gains of up to 106. For imaging applications, the electrons can either be accelerated towards a phosphor screen, and light from the phosphor registered with a fast pixel imager, or the electrons can be detected directly after the MCPs using a delay line detector or one of the new generation of CMOS-based electron detectors. Optical detection using a phosphor is currently the standard for most imaging experiments, though the decay time of the phosphor imposes a considerable limitation on the attainable time resolution in such measurements.
In any detector based on MCPs, the 'dead' areas between the MCP pores mean that the detection efficiency is limited to about 50%. Arrangements are available to improve the efficiency up to about 80-90%, which include various surface coatings and the use of electrostatic meshes above the MCP surface. However, the improved detection efficiency is often achieved at the cost of spatial resolution and a considerable increase in experimental complexity.
We seek to provide an improved ion detector.


An image processing apparatus having an input means which inputs coded image data for a plurality of frames, with the coded image data being coded by intraframe and interframe coding. A decoder decodes the coded image, and skips decoding of the decoded image data in units of frames when the decoding is not performed at a predetermined timing, and performs decoding of intraframe coded image data following a skipped frame.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and, more particularly, to an image processing apparatus which processes coded data.
2. Related Background Art
In a system for synchronously reproducing a video image and an audio signal as an example of such an image processing apparatus, there are systems such as a TV conference system, a television telephone system, or the like which require a real-time performance and a system in which a real-time performance is relatively weak and which handles a video/audio information file (hereinafter, simply abbreviated as a video file) preserved or stored in a recording medium of a large capacity. According to the former system, since the coding on the transmission side of the video and audio signals and the decoding on the reception side must be performed in a real-time manner, an exclusive-use hardware is needed. The latter system relates to, for example, the case of constructing a video data base comprising a number of video files. More importance is paid to picture quality, a transmitting time (or transmission costs), or the like than is paid to the real-time performance of the video image.
There are the following limitations in a video/audio transmitting system which is constructed by using a general work station. That is, in general, a frame memory of the display system is constructed by eight bits and uses 256 colors among 6.40 million colors. The color to be displayed can be selected by a lookup table method. On the other hand, in the case where a black and white image and a color image mixedly exist and are displayed by a color monitor of eight bits, the black and white image can be expressed by 128 gradations (gray scale) and a color image can be expressed by 64 colors by allocating two bits to each of the colors of R, G, and B by a dither processing.
In communicating and accumulating systems, both of the audio data and the video data are compressed and coded, thereby reducing a data amount. As a compressing method, there are three types of methods: an interframe coding (INTER) method; an intraframe coding (INTRA) method; and a method using both of the INTER method and the INTRA method. According to the compressing method using both of the interframe coding method and the intraframe coding method, generally, in order to prevent the propagation of a transmission error and to make a special reproduction easy, the intraframe coded frames are arranged adaptively or uniformly at proper intervals. As an individual coding method, a discrete cosine transformation (DCT), a differential pulse code modulation (DPCM), or the like is used.
Although it is sufficient to use the interframe coding many times in order to raise a compression ratio, there is a drawback such that the data of the previous frame is necessary for decoding.
In a moving image, it is necessary to synchronize the reproduction of the video image and the reproduction of the audio signal. However, in the case where a processing ability of the hardware or a processing ability in reproducing processing is low, it is necessary to skip proper frames. In the conventional apparatus, even when performing such a frame skip, the interframe coded frame is once decoded and the system is set into a state in which the system is prepared for the decoding of the next frame and, after that, the frame skip is executed, so that it takes a long time for decoding. Consequently, the number of frames which must be skipped increases and a reproduction image becomes unnatural.
In the above-mentioned image communication system, however, when a CPU executes processing to reproduce and display a moving image,
(1) in the case where another process is being performed by a multitask function, or PA1 (2) in the case where the ability of the CPU is inferior to the performance that is expected on the transmission side, or the like, there is a drawback such that it is impossible to synchronously reproduce all of the frames while all of the frames are displayed.
That is, many general computers have a multi task function such that a plurality of processes can be simultaneously executed by the general computer. Since computer resources such as memory capacity which can be used in the processing to reproduce a moving image, processing ability of the CPU, and the like change momentarily, according to a conventional algorithm for the synchronous reproduction using the processing by the exclusive-use hardware as a prerequisite, there are problems such that a proper synchronization cannot be performed and the synchronous reproduction can be made impossible.
On the other hand, there is a TV telephone in an image communicating system having a low bit rate. In the TV telephone system, the transmission and reception of data in a real-time manner are fundamental and a hardware such as exclusive-use terminal, exclusive-use expansion board, and the like are necessary. On the other hand, a system in which a video file is exchanged on a computer such as a general work station or the like is also known. According to such a method using the video file, in association with the improvement of a processing speed of the CPU, the processings such as communication, play display, or the like of an image can be processed by software. However, there is also a problem such that synchronous reproduction is also made impossible in a manner similar to the foregoing case.


A computer-implemented method for inspecting BGA components using a ball grid array model thereof in semiconductor surface mounted devices. The method comprises setting a plurality of regions of interest (ROIs) for all BGA balls to be modeled, building a first grid model that includes coordinates and a diameter of the BGA balls in the plurality of ROIs, setting a plurality of regions of interest (ROIs) containing a BGA body to be modeled, detecting four body boundaries to localize four corner coordinates, determining a body orientation from orientations of four boundaries, calculating an orientation of each boundary by the projection of the edge of boundary, and comparing the BGA components with an obtained BGA model to inspect the BGA components based on ball sizes and ball distributions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for packaging surface mounted devices, and more particularly to modeling a ball grid array (BGA) for inspecting BGA applied electronic devices.
2. Discussion of Related Art
The on-chip delay of signals communicating among components within IC semiconductor devices has been reduced rapidly in the past few years. However, the signal delay in packaged ICs has not been reduced as much as that of the on-chip ICs. This is partly due to the focus of semiconductor industry on fabrication process rather than packaging. Packaging signal loss can be reduced by increasing the packaging density. To this end, a new chip packaging technology called 'Ball Grid Array' (BGA) was developed. With BGA chips, more electrical connections between chips and printed boards can be made because the electrical connections are on the under-side of the chip, freeing up more space than the conventional chips having surround edge connections.
There are many ways to inspect BGA chips. Inspection by illumination inspection, a low-power lens or stereo microscope is the most common. Two dimensional (2-D) systems using a camera to capture and digitize the optical image into a gray scale image represent an improvement over aided human vision. Three dimensional surface illumination systems generally use either structured light or laser scanning to generate height information along with a gray-scale image. While these systems tend to provide more surface data for analysis, they tend to be less sensitive to lighting conditions. The disadvantage of BGA packaging is that visual inspection is no longer available because, once the chip is attached to the circuit board, the electrical connections are hidden under the package. An automated x-ray inspection system that uses cross-sectional images to analyze both single-sided and double-sided surface mount assembly circuit cards has been developed for inspecting hidden parts of the package. However, the automated x-ray inspection system is elaborate and complicated. Further, a common problem of the inspection methods and systems described above is that a comparatively large amount of time is needed to inspect all BGA components.
Instead of an X-ray inspection system, an accurate model of the BGA package can be used to facilitate inspection of the BGA package. A need, therefore, exists for an accurate model of the BGA, having information about the geometric structures and properties of the SMD component.

Ball grid array modeling for inspecting surface mounted devices


A semiconductor lighting device may include a substrate populated with at least one semiconductor light source, wherein at least one reflective surface region of the substrate is covered with a light-reflecting layer, and wherein the light-reflecting layer has an aluminum carrier coated in a reflection-intensifying manner.

Coupling out of light from lighting modules (in particular so-called "light engines") that typically include a substrate populated with light-emitting diodes can be limited by a deficient reflectivity of the substrate. In order to realize a high degree of coupling out of light in the case of such lighting modules, the substrate can be covered with a light-reflecting layer.
In this regard, it is known, after populating and making contact with the light-emitting diodes, to pot the substrate alongside the light-emitting diodes with silicone, wherein the silicone contains a reflective filling material such as titanium oxide. In this case, problems often arise on account of contamination of emission surfaces of the light-emitting diodes by silicone spatter and light losses caused thereby. Furthermore, a deficient wetting of specific substrate regions can occur depending on a surface roughness and surface energy. Moreover, specific regions may be wetted to a great extent and the silicone may "creep up" on walls and electrical lines (e.g. bonding wires) of the light-emitting diodes onto the emitter area, particularly when flat LED chips are used.
Use of a large-area silver layer as a light-reflecting layer is also known, which layer, however, has to be protected against corrosion ("tarnish") and migration.

Semiconductor light-emitting device with reflective surface region


There is disclosed a polishing cloth having an abrasive layer containing a polymer material which is a hydrolyzable with an aqueous medium and being capable of exhibiting a stable polishing performance for a relatively long period of time without necessitating a dressing treatment.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a polishing cloth, a polishing apparatus and a method of manufacturing semiconductor devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
A polishing apparatus provided with a polishing cloth has been conventionally employed in the manufacture of a semiconductor device when it is desired to mirror-finish a semiconductor substrate (for example, a semiconductor wafer), to flatten an insulating film deposited on a semiconductor wafer, or to perform the back etching of a metal film to form a buried wiring.
This polishing apparatus is generally formed of a structure comprising a turntable whose surface is constituted by an underlying layer formed of rigid polyurethane foam or of a 2-ply structure consisting of a rigid polyurethane foam layer and a polyurethane nonwoven fabric layer, and by a polishing cloth having a rough surface and covering the underlying layer; a supply pipe for feeding a polishing slurry containing abrasive grains to the polishing cloth; and a holder rotatively and vertically movably disposed over the, turntable. When it is desired to flatten an insulating film deposited on wirings formed on the surface of semiconductor wafer for example, this polishing apparatus can be operated as follows. First of all, the semiconductor wafer is held by making use of the holder in such a manner that the insulating film to be polished faces the polishing cloth, and, while keeping the feeding of a polishing slurry containing abrasive grains to the polishing cloth, the semiconductor wafer is permitted to contact with the polishing cloth by applying a desired magnitude of load to the semiconductor wafer by means of the holder. On this occasion, the holder and the turntable are kept rotating in the same direction with each other.
In this polishing operation, the open interstices (generally 40–50 μm in diameter) of the polishing cloth are filled with abrasive grains having a diameter of 0.2 μm and included in the polishing slurry, thereby enabling the abrasive grains to be homogenously dispersed at the interface between the polishing cloth and the semiconductor wafer. At the same time, the abrasive grains are also permitted to remain at the portions of the polishing cloth which are located between the open interstices. As a result, the insulating film can be mechanically polished, thus achieving the flattening of the surface of the insulating film.
However, when this polishing operation is continued for a long period of time, the abrasive grains are accumulated in the open interstices, thus increasing the quantity of the abrasive grains on the portions located between the open interstices of the polishing cloth. Namely, the polishing power by the abrasive grains is enhanced. As a result, the polishing rate is increased as compared with the initial polishing rate, thus bringing out so-called fluctuation of polishing performance.
The polishing cloth which fluctuates in polishing performance as described above has been conventionally subjected to a regeneration treatment by making use of a dressing apparatus provided with a dressing tool having a large number of diamond particles electrodeposited on a metallic substrate. However, it is very difficult to avoid this fluctuation of polishing performance of polishing cloth unless the aforementioned dressing treatment is performed after finishing every polishing operation. This makes the polishing operation very troublesome because of the inclusion of the aforementioned dressing treatment.

Polishing cloth, polishing apparatus and method of manufacturing semiconductor devices


The present disclosure relates to a display device. The display device includes a display module and a support plate. The display module includes a display panel to display an image. The display module has a folding area folded with respect to a folding axis and a plurality of non-folding area adjacent to both sides of the folding area are defined on a plane. Additionally, the display module may include a plurality of layers disposed above and below the display panel. The support plate is disposed on a rear surface of the display module. An extension part of at least one layer of the plurality of layers may be coupled to the support plate.

The present disclosure relates to a display device and an electronic apparatus, and more particularly, to a foldable display device and an electronic apparatus having the same.
Display devices are used in electronic devices such as mobile phones, televisions, tablets, and computers. Mobile phones and other electronic devices including a display device may be designed for convenient daily use by a user. For example, images may be exhibited on display device to convey information such as weather, sports, or news. The demand for large display devices increases as people increasingly choose larger mobile phones and other electronic devices.
Foldable or bendable mobile devices can provide a large display in a relatively small package. For example, the folding feature may allow the user to halve the length of the phone for easy storage when not in use. However, in some cases when the mobile phone is unfolded, the folding area may tend to bend slightly. This may create a crease in the display when in use. The crease can be unsightly and may be effect usability of the device. Therefore, there is a need in the art to reduce the bending forces that occur when a foldable electronic device is unfolded.

Display device and electronic apparatus having the same


Embodiments include systems and methods for increasing frequency offset tracking in clock data recovery (CDR) systems. For example, in asynchronous clocking environments, the receiver-side clock frequency can be offset from the transmitter-side clock. While traditional CDR systems can handle some amount of offset, they are typically ineffective at accurately adapting the receiver-side clocking to an optimal data sampling rate when the offset is excessive. Embodiments include a CDR frequency offset adaptation loop that generates an adaptation signal, which can be monitored to detect an adaptation error arising from excessive frequency offset. In response to the detecting, an offset seed can be selected and injected into the frequency offset adaptation loop, thereby reinitializing the frequency offset adaptation loop with a less stressful seed.

In many electronics applications, a data is carried from a transmitter to a receiver over a bus or other type of channel. For example, a serializer/deserializer (SERDES) circuit can compress a relatively wide, parallel input into a relatively narrow, serial signal (e.g., a single "bit," differential signal) for communication over a serial bus. The serial bus switches at an appreciably higher rate than the parallel bus, and serial communication of the data stream tends to reduce cost, complexity, power, and board real estate relative to comparable parallel communications. As bus speeds increase, parallel communications manifest even higher power consumption and more issues relating to timing (e.g., skew mismatches and bit misalignment), making SERDES circuits even more attractive.
Signals sent over the channel can be sampled at the receiver to recover the transmitted data. Often, even if the data speed is known and appropriate clock frequencies are set at the transmitter and receiver sides, the transmitter and receiver can use separate clock circuits (i.e., there is asynchronous clocking). Because each clock frequency can deviate from its nominal center frequency (e.g., due to differences between crystal oscillators, manufacturing variances, etc.), there can be an offset between the transmit and receive clock frequencies. If not corrected at the receiver, the frequency offset can cause sampling timing errors, which can result in data recovery errors.
A clock data recovery (CDR) circuit can be used to recover an appropriate clocking signal from the data itself. For example, a CDR can often optimize sample clock timing, even in the presence of some amount of clock jitter, noisy data, small signal levels, and/or other difficult conditions. However, in some instances, the clock recovery conditions can frustrate CDR operations. For example, when the frequency offset between the transmitter-side and receiver-side clocks is too large, the CDR may be unable to properly adjust the receiver-side clock to compensate for that offset.

Clock data recovery with increased frequency offset tracking


A device for packing items in a box is provided with a conveyor for supplying items in a conveyance direction, a pushing device comprising a pressure plate, which pressure plate is movable in a horizontal pushing direction extending transversely to the conveyance direction, for moving at least one item onto a flap that is movable from a closed position to an open position and vice versa, a box being positionable below the flap. The device is additionally provided with two guide plates situated on either side of the flap, which guide plates extend transversely to the pressure plate. The device is further provided with a retaining plate extending parallel to the pressure plate and movable in the pushing direction. The device is also provided with a stop situated between the retaining plate and the pushing device, which stop is situated at a distance above the flap that is less than the height of the item, the item and/or the stop being deformable during the movement of the item on the flap.

The invention relates to a device for packing items in a box, which device is provided with a conveyor for supplying items in a conveyance direction, a pushing device comprising a pressure plate, which pressure plate is movable in a horizontal pushing direction extending transversely to the conveyance direction, for moving at least one item onto a flap that is movable from a closed position to an open position and vice versa, a box being positionable below the flap, which device is additionally provided with two guide plates situated on either side of the flap, which guide plates extend transversely to the pressure plate.
The invention also relates to a method for packing items in a box by means of such a device.
Items are, for example, bags, small boxes, bottles, jars, packets etc.
In such a device and method disclosed by American patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,864,801, items such as bags are conveyed in a virtually lying position by means of a conveyor until the bags are pressed against a stop plate positioned at an angle and are set substantially upright. A number of bags are then positioned simultaneously by means of a pressure plate on a flap in a pushing direction extending transversely to the conveyance direction. Guide plates are disposed on either side of the flap, a guide plate being situated at the same angle as the stop plate. After that, the guide plate positioned at an angle is tilted to a vertically extending position. The flap is then opened, and the bags standing on the flap fall into a box standing ready below the flap.
A disadvantage of a guide plate positioned at an angle is that the bags standing on the flap shift relatively easily in relation to each other, for example if a following row of bags is pressed against a row of bags already standing on the flap. There is then a risk that the rows will be disturbed and will not be positioned in the correct configuration on the flap. This upsets the placing of the bags in the box.

Device for packing items in a box, and a method for the same


A stiffened structural component for an aircraft includes a first material sheet with a first surface, and at least one elongate bulge that bulges out in a direction transverse to the first surface in order to stiffen the structural component, wherein each of the at least one bulge comprises two edges that extend along the first surface, wherein a continuous bulging surface extends between the edges, and wherein the bulges are formed integrally into the first material sheet through pressing.

Large structural components for transportation means, such as aircraft, are often manufactured by using surface-like components, to which stiffening elements are attached. For example, fuselage skin components of an aircraft often comprise a sheet-like skin, to which a plurality of stringers are attached that commonly extend along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. The stringers may be bonded, welded or riveted to the skin. The stringers usually comprise a curved profile and a base surface, which conforms the shape of the skin. The manufacturing process thus requires producing a plurality of stringers, their correct placement and an appropriate bonding or connection.
US20040075023A1 shows a lightweight, laminated structural component, such as a skin section for an aircraft fuselage, which is constructed of at least two sheet metal plies that are adhesively bonded to each other. One of the plies is uninterrupted, while the other ply is a lattice with open fields surrounded by strip shaped lands.,

Stiffened structural component for an aircraft


Disclosed herein is a method and a Radio Resource Management arrangement in a wireless communication system for allocating communication of one or several services to at least one of several available frequency spectrum resources. The method comprises the steps of categorizing said available frequency spectrum resources with respect to volatility, and categorizing said one or several services with respect to compressibility, and assigning said one or several services to the available spectrum resources such that compressible services are assigned to volatile spectrum resources.

Today, wireless communication is widely used and a multitude of wireless communication systems have been developed to accomplish such communication. Well known wireless communication systems are e.g. the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and other cellular technologies or similar. Other well known examples of wireless communication systems are the Wireless Local Access Networks (WLAN) and the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX).
As is well known, the assignment of a relevant frequency spectrum resource to be used is a fundamental precondition for substantially any wireless communication system.
However, the usage of frequency spectrum has been liberalized in that frequency resources may no longer be exclusively assigned to a particular wireless communication system, largely based on the observation that frequency resources assigned by licenses to licensees are not used, e.g. not at all or not to the full extent. For example, one possible approach pursued in regulations is to license a frequency resource to a licensee (primary user), while the frequency resource can be simultaneously used by other users (secondary users) under the condition that they do not cause harmful interference to the wireless communication system of the primary user. In the future there will be a multitude of spectrum usage regimes applied for different resources/portions of the electro-magnetic spectrum.
One example is a dedicated licensed spectrum operation. Here, the licensee (typically the operator of the communication system in question) receives an exclusive license for using a certain spectrum resource for his communication system. The license is typically valid within a certain region and/or for a certain period of time. A dedicated licensed spectrum is e.g. used by today's 2G/3G cellular communication systems.
Another example is the licensed spectrum operation with opportunistic spectrum access by secondary user systems. Here, a primary user receives a non-exclusive license for using a certain spectrum resource for his communication system. The non-exclusive license is typically valid within a certain region and/or for a certain period of time. Other systems are allowed to use the licensed spectrum resource under a secondary license and/or under certain usage regimes. A secondary system may e.g. be required to sense if the primary system uses the spectrum resource. A detection of a primary usage—e.g. within a certain region and/or during a certain period of time—may require the secondary system to (at least temporarily) withhold from or cease usage of the licensed spectrum resource. This may e.g. be the case if the interference caused from the secondary system to the primary system exceeds a certain threshold. An example of the above can be found in the secondary usage of white space spectrum in US TV bands, as developed in IEEE 802.22.
Still another example is the licensed spectrum operation with allowance for spectrum trading. Here, a primary licensee receives an exclusive license for using a certain spectrum resource for his communication system with the option for renting out the usage of the licensed spectrum in exclusive secondary licenses. The license is typically valid within a certain region and/or for a certain period of time. A spectrum trading opportunity may e.g. occur when the primary licensee has the spectrum usage right for a certain spectrum resource in a specific region for 20 years, but is only using the spectrum at certain time periods. The primary user may then lease the temporal/regional usage of the spectrum resources to secondary users; e.g. on a yearly or monthly basis, or only during daily time periods. An example may be the renting of TV spectrum resource to cellular systems during times when no TV-programs are transmitted, e.g. during night.
Naturally, a further example is the un-licensed spectrum operation. Here, the usage of a certain spectrum resource is allowed to any system which fulfils certain usage regimes, e.g. maximum allowed transmission power, sharing rules, etc. The allowance is typically valid within a certain region and/or for a certain period of time.
Of course, the examples above are not exhaustive and the invention is applicable to other examples of spectrum usage, which may result in different availability and usability for a certain spectrum user.
It should be added that the frequency spectrum resources mentioned above may comprise any spectrum portion within which a wireless communication may be accomplished. In addition, a frequency spectrum resource may e.g. comprise a single continuous spectrum portion or several partitioned spectrum portions.
With the independence of spectrum usage from specific service types it is possible for communication systems to combine the usage of a multitude of spectrum resources, as long as the spectrum usage regime for each spectrum resource is applied. A service type may e.g. be the transmission of a message or similar (e.g. SMS, e-mail or similar), the transmission of voice and/or video or similar (e.g. conversations, music and/or movies or similar), or the transmission of data (e.g. data files or similar) etc. In addition, A service type may e.g. be broadcasted and/or unicasted or similar. The services may also be categorized in to Quality of Service (QoS) classes or similar, e.g. such as Conversational, Streaming, Interactive and Background or similar as defined by the standards of the 3GPP.
A spectrum-on-demand system can be defined as a system that acquires spectrum resources based on the current demand, i.e. a system that can acquire additional resources when this is considered to be beneficial. An example of a spectrum-on-demand system is a wireless communication system which, in addition to primary spectrum resources (possible exclusively licensed), makes use of secondary spectrum resources (typically not exclusively licensed) in case the current demand so requires. An exemplifying spectrum-on-demand system may e.g. have access to a primary spectrum resource on exclusive basis and to one or several secondary spectrum resource on opportunistic basis or similar. Another exemplifying spectrum-on-demand system may e.g. only have access to one or more secondary spectrum resource on opportunistic basis or similar.
An example of a spectrum-on-demand system is depicted in FIG. 1a. Here a spectrum resource aggregation function of a wireless communication system performs an aggregation of different spectrum resources F1-F4 and performs common resource management for these resources. One spectrum resource F1 may for example be the licensed spectrum of the operator of the communication system in question with exclusive usage right according to a dedicated licensed spectrum operation; another spectrum resource F2 may be available for the system in question with a temporarily exclusive usage right according to a secondary license that was bought from another communication system operator or a TV broadcast operator or similar; a third spectrum resource F3 may be available as a non-exclusively resource licensed by the operator of another system (e.g. a TV broadcast operator or a radar system) which is used opportunistically by the communication system in question; a fourth spectrum resource F4 can be available as an unlicensed spectrum resource that is used by an unknown amount of systems. Naturally, the spectrum resources F1-F4 may be of other types and there is nothing preventing that one or several of the spectrum resources are of the same type.
In a spectrum-on-demand system a common resource management is typically performed for the total resources comprising the different resource components provided by the individual spectrum resources. However, this does not exclude that further resource management functions are performed within each system resource, like for example, power control, congestion control, scheduling, resource-specific admission control, etc. The common resource management may e.g. include functions like common admission control of services, transmission capacity management and service allocation. The transmission capacity management comprises the capability to decide when to change the current transmission capacity situation, i.e. acquiring or releasing secondary spectrum resources. The service allocation comprises the capability to allocate different services to different spectrum resources.
In a spectrum-on-demand systems the amount of capacity that a particular spectrum resource can provide may fluctuate (e.g. according to external factors, like the number of other systems that make use of this spectrum or dynamic overhead for determining availability/usability of the spectrum resource). Thus, the transmission capacity required for a particular service may not be available at every instance of the lifetime of the session. For example, if many users are assigned to a variable spectrum resource it may happen that the negotiated bit rate and service performance is not achieved.
Hence, in view of the above there seems to be a need for improvements directed to the allocation of transmission capacity for the services provided in a wireless communication system.

Allocation of frequency spectrum in spectrum-on-demand systems


A steam injection manifold assembly is mounted to a crop pick-up assembly and is provided with an elongate manifold disposed lengthwise of the pick-up assembly. A plurality of steam injection tubes are releasably mounted to the manifold to receive steam exiting through respective steam outlet openings provided in the manifold. In one embodiment the injection tubes are shaped similarly to tine stripper bands of the pick-up, and in another embodiment the injection tubes define the stripper bands of the pick-up.

It is known to use steam injection manifolds in combination with large square balers for directing steam into top and bottom sides of a windrow being picked up by the baler pick-up for being baled by the baler. Heretofore these steam injection manifolds have been constructed as a weldment which has one or more of the drawbacks of:
1) being too costly,
2) not allowing the injection tubes to be easily individually replaced if damaged,
3) requiring the entire injection manifold to be removed in order to permit replacement of damaged pick-up strippers, and
4) not having sufficient tolerance to accommodate variations in pick-up strippers.
The problem to be solved by the invention is the provision of a steam injection arrangement which overcomes the above-noted drawbacks of the prior art.

Steam injection tubes individually mounted for selective removal from manifold


When service requirements require moving of services registered with an object request broker (ORB) at a source server, continuity of service to service requests from clients may be provided by queuing the service requests at the source server. A server context with the same GUID as a source server context may be established at a destination server. URLs for the moved services may be registered with a destination ORB which may then begin receiving service requests. The source server may then respond to the queued service requests with respective URLs for the services registered at the destination ORB. Endpoints at the clients may be updated with the new URLs prior to resending the service requests. The movement of the ORB to the destination server may thus be transparent to the client application.

With the advent of mobile computing devices, distributed computing applications are growing in number and complexity. The present Applicants and/or Assignees have developed a suite of innovations relating to mobile applications. These applications operate under the name of Voyager™. The Voyager suite provides mobile agent applications that can communicate with agents on other devices. Agents can communicate with each other using a client/server model. A server application on one device can establish a server context that provides server functions to client applications on other devices. The server context operates an object request broker (ORB), as is known. The ORB provides a brokering service to handle client requests for a distributed object or component. Having ORB support in a network means that a client program can request a service without having to understand where the server is in a distributed network or exactly how the interface to the server program is realized. Components can find out about each other and exchange interface information as they are running.
In a mobile applications or distributed computing environment, it can at times be necessary or desirable to move an Object Request Broker (ORB) and associated services from one host location to another. Reasons for the move might include the original computer requiring a shutdown for maintenance reasons, because of loss of power (and UPS depletion), or for load balancing reasons. The challenging requirement is to execute the move with zero downtime for the services registered in the ORB.
Existing solutions include moving an entire virtual machine in which the ORB is running or shutting down the application containing the ORB and restarting the application on the destination machine. A problem with these solutions is that they sometimes fail to satisfy the continuous operation requirement (they shut down ORB operation for the duration of the move), or lack the granularity of moving a single ORB (e.g., moving an entire virtual machine).
What is required is an improved system and method for providing continuous service of a server application.


A sport training and exercise system (20) is provided. System (20) has a pair of base members (24), a pair of upright members (26) coupled to the pair of base members (24), and a transverse member (28) coupled to the pair of upright members (26). System (20) may have a tether-attachment device (46) coupled to one of the pair of upright members (26) at a tether-attachment-device location (52), and a tether (38) tethering a singly-tethered ball (22) to the tether-attachment device (46). Alternatively, system (20) may have a pair of tether-attachment devices (46) coupled to the pair of upright members (26) at a pair of tether-attachment-device locations (52), and a pair of tethers (38) tethering a doubly-tethered ball (80) to the pair of tether-attachment devices (46). System (20) is also configurable as a soccer goal (90) or a football goal (110).

In order to excel in a given sport, an athlete typically undergoes extensive training peculiar to that sport. This is especially true of field football games. Typical of such games are soccer (the U.S. common name for Association Football, called "football" outside the U.S.), Rugby football, Australian Rules Football, and football (called "American football" outside the U.S.). The common U.S. names given above will be used hereinafter.
For example, in the game of soccer a player must learn to properly control the ball with all parts of the body except the arms and hands, and including the hands if the player is a goalkeeper. This requires extensive training and practice. Such training often contains many repetitive exercises.
A problem exists with solo training in that certain desirous exercises may be difficult to achieve without an assistant to hold, throw, catch, fetch, or otherwise manipulate the ball for the athlete undergoing training. This is an inefficient utilization of resources for many repetitive exercises.
A problem also exists in that specific exercises often utilizes considerable space. This is especially true of kicking, butting, hitting, or otherwise propelling the ball.
A related problem exists in that a kicked, butted, hit, or otherwise propelled ball needs be fetched. The time taken to fetch the ball, by either the athlete or an assistant, is time not spent in training. Hence, the efficacy of the training is reduced.
A potential solution to the above and other problems is the use of specialized or customized training equipment. A problem exists with the use of such equipment, however, in that the equipment itself requires space. Once allocated, that space is thenceforth dedicated to the specific exercises for which the equipment is designed. Unless a sufficient number of athletes are to utilize the equipment, this represents an inefficient use of resources.
A related problem may lie with the availability of the space required for the specialized or customized equipment. An individual or small group, e.g., a neighborhood soccer club, may not have the resources to obtain dedicated space. They may, for example, utilize common property, such as a park, for training. Under such conditions, the individual or group may be unable to install specialized or customized equipment even were such equipment to be obtained.
Another problem with specialized or customized training equipment is that of cost. For an individual or a small group, equipment cost may be a significant factor in a small training budget. Dedicating funds to any but the most utilitarian of equipment may thus be contraindicated.
What is needed, therefore, is a sport training system that may be used by a solo athlete, not requiring the services of an assistant, is both portable, not requiring permanent installation, and easily set up and taken down, utilizes a minimum of space, serves a variety of different training and exercise functions, utilizes an exercise ball in a plurality of positions, returning that ball to the pre-established position automatically and efficiently, and is cost-efficient.


A system for controlling a flow of fluid includes a flow control device having a fluid channel configured to transport a fluid between a subterranean region and a borehole conduit, a resonant sensing assembly including a resonator body disposed in fluid communication with the fluid channel, and a controller configured to cause the resonator body to vibrate according to an expected resonance frequency of the resonator body. The system also includes a processing device configured to acquire a measurement signal generated by the resonator body, estimate a property of the fluid based on the measurement signal, and control a flow of the fluid through the flow control device based on the property of the fluid.

Exploration and production of energy, in some instances, requires a number of diverse activities from various engineering fields to be performed in a borehole penetrating a subterranean region. In fields related to hydrocarbon production, fluid produced from a subterranean region (e.g., an earth formation or strata) includes a mixture of a number of different fluid types, such as water, oil and gas. As such, some hydrocarbon production systems include systems or components for estimating the proportion of unwanted fluids (e.g., water and non-hydrocarbon gases) in production fluid, and/or for controlling the rate of production based thereon.

Control of fluid production using resonant sensors


An image projection system and method is presented for optically projecting an image onto a display surface with visually correct geometry and optimum image quality. The projection system includes an image processing unit for receiving the input image data and generating distortion-compensated image data to compensate for ensuing spatial distortions in the projection system, a projection light engine for receiving the distortion-compensated image data and projecting a distortion-compensated optical image that corresponds to the distortion-compensated image data; and, an optical reflection assembly comprising at least one curved mirror positioned in the optical path of the distortion-compensated optical image emerging from the projection light engine for producing a displayed optical image with reduced distortion on the display surface. The image processing unit distortion-compensates the input image data such that the optical and spatial distortions associated with the projection light engine and optical reflection assembly are substantially reduced in the displayed optical image.

In a front projection system, the projector and viewer are on the same side of the display surface, with the image from the projector reflecting from the display surface to the viewer. FIG. 1A shows a standard prior art eight-element projection lens 5, which can take an input optical image 2 and project an expanded output optical image 3. FIG. 1B shows a projection light engine 6 that uses the eight element projection lens 5 to project an image directly on a display surface 20. This is an example of an on-axis projection system in which the image is created and projected along a straight axis 10a that is perpendicular to the display surface 20.
For a rear projection system this design must be made more compact to comply with commercial requirements for rear projection screen cabinet dimensions. This "compactness" is quantified in terms of the "throw ratio". The throw ratio of a projection system is given by the projection distance d (see FIG. 1B) divided by the diagonal length D (not shown) of display surface 20. The diagonal D is measured from the opposite corners of the display surface 20. The throw ratio is given by:
                              Throw                                                              Ratio                =                  d          D                                    (        1        )
As shown in FIGS. 1C and 1D, the generic projection lens 5 in a front projection configuration produces an image with low distortion, having typical spot sizes (i.e. de-focused point images in the corners). Specifically, with display surface 20 having dimensions of 1480 mm×834 mm, and a 25.4 mm f/2.8 projection lens 5, a projected image is produced with 1 mm spots at the center and 3 mm spots at the corners. A reasonable design goal for a front projection system is to have a minimum resolvable focused spot size of no more than a pixel-span at the center and less than 2-3 pixel-spans in the corners. In this particular example, taking into consideration the pixel size in the micro-display imaging device and the magnification caused by projection onto a distant display surface, a pixel-span at the display surface 20 is about 1 mm. The overall lens distortion is less than 1% over the screen size of the display surface 20. It is desirable for the distortion map (i.e. FIG. 1C) to be rectangular and to exactly overlay the available display area in order to reduce lost pixels and lost brightness (resulting from turning off pixels which do not overlay the display screen and consequently losing their contribution to overall brightness). Furthermore, it is also desirable for the spot diagram of FIG. 1D to show minimal spot size increase (in pixels farther from the center of the display) and to be symmetrical. Minimizing spot size increase implies minimizing point image de-focusing.
Another important design goal in building a compact projection system is to achieve good image quality while minimizing the throw ratio (some designers use the width of the image instead of the diagonal when computing throw ratio, so it is important to specify which definition of throw ratio is being used). Minimizing the throw ratio is especially important for rear projection systems in which the projector and screen are physically combined into a single functional unit, such as rear projection televisions. In such units minimizing the throw ratio implies a shorter projection path length, allowing for a smaller depth for the cabinet, which houses the display surface and the projection light engine. Minimizing the throw ratio in front projection systems allows large images to be projected with a projector placed very close to the screen.
Cabinet depths and depth reductions in rear-projection display systems are evaluated objectively by measuring the ratio of display diagonal to cabinet depth or DtoD ratio. Conventional configurations using on-axis projection, flat mirrors, and optical-only means of distortion correction have yielded DtoD ratios of about 2.5 to 3.5 (for example, a 61″ diagonal with a 19.5″ depth, or a 55″ diagonal with a 18″ depth, etc).
To decrease cabinet depth, prior art methods have combined flat mirrors (to fold the optical path) with low distortion and wide field of view (FOV) lenses which serve to decrease the projection path length, hence decreasing the throw ratio. By fine-tuning the optical geometry (lens type, focal distances, mirror angles), image distortions can be minimized. Prior art configurations place the fold mirror (or mirrors) on-axis to the projected beam. This has the advantage of not producing keystone distortion. However, the disadvantage is not providing significant cabinet depth reductions, or not increasing in the DtoD ratio.
For instance, FIG. 2A, shows a prior art projection system 6′ with a projection light engine 14, a planar mirror 8, and display surface 20. This is an example of an on-axis projection system in which the planar mirror creates a folded optical path and lies at an angle α to the display surface 20. The result is a cabinet depth of T. This projection system 6′ does not result in keystone distortion as can be seen in FIG. 2B which shows an image I projected on the display surface 20.
The main method for reducing cabinet depth in prior art configurations is to use short-throw, wide-angle lenses with an on-axis optical path. This has the disadvantage of limiting depth reductions, and even though keystone distortion is not present, this approach still requires optical elements that are challenging to design and manufacture. The optical and geometric constraints manifest themselves as increased pincushion or barrel distortion and keystone distortion. The design of prior art systems has largely been constrained by the requirement of minimizing these distortions along with achieving a required Modulation Transfer Function (MTF), correcting for lateral color, meeting lens F-number specifications, while satisfying cost-performance tradeoffs.
Prior art rear projection systems use screen assemblies that have low reflectance to light impinging on them from the front (by use of light absorbing materials) in order to provide a high contrast ratio. These screen assemblies also have a high transmittance for light impinging on them from the rear (by use of lenticular arrays and collimation of light) in order to provide high brightness. Light is typically collimated by using a Fresnel lens as part of the screen assembly. A Fresnel lens is a symmetrical circular structure (its optical center is located at the physical center, or on the axis of the projection light path) for on-axis projection systems. A Fresnel lens of a given focal length substitutes for a large circular biconvex lens of the same focal length. The diameter of such a Fresnel lens is at most the length of the display diagonal. These Fresnel lenses are typically thin, very flexible and expand with interior temperature rise. The image quality for on-axis projection systems is not very sensitive to variations in the central portion (around the optical axis) of a Fresnel lens' surface profile. Unfortunately, these symmetrical Fresnel lenses cannot be used in off-axis RP systems. In addition, the Fresnel lens must be carefully designed in projection systems with high DtoD ratios because the light impinges on the rear of the screen at incident angles that vary from a minimum near the bottom of the screen of from 20±5 degrees to a maximum of up to 60±5 degrees near the top of the screen. Accordingly, the lens surface must be maintained very precisely because of the sensitivity of the collimation function to the angle of incidence of the impinging light.


A multi-function lighting module providing two or more possible light source capabilities, such as ambient and/or focused and or emergency lighting where power is supplied by an existing bus system, and the module is connected to the existing bus system by a tool-less means of connection.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to lighting. More particularly, the present invention relates to track lighting systems comprising lighting tracks, and fixtures which mount to the lighting tracks. Most particularly, the present invention relates to busways for providing multi-circuit lighting power, and a multi-function lighting module which mounts to existing busways.
2. Description of the Related Art
Busways for providing multi-circuit lighting power are known in the art. Zumtobel Staff Lighting of Highland, N.Y. 12528 (USA) manufactures such a system. Typically, the bus system contains insulated power conductors for single or three phase power. Additionally, the power take-off means is provided by molded female connectors attached to the bus wires. This system, and any similar systems, have provided lighting modules that contain a single lamp type. For example, either fluorescent or incandescent, as the application required. However, in many lighting applications, two lighting sources are required in a single module, and this is not provided for with the present day lighting systems.

Combination lighting module and tool-less bus system utilizing the same