When supporting an HDA including an H/DA and an electronic control circuit board for controlling the same in a fixed frame (drive bay) of upper level apparatus by means of elastic or xe2x80x9csoftxe2x80x9d fixation, counterforce of an FPC cable gives it bad influence. When rigidly securing the HDA in a translational motion direction while attaining soft fixation in a direction of rotation, the HDA is rotatably supported with its center of gravity being as the center of rotation in a soft secure/support mechanism as taught from Published Japanese Patent Application No. 8-161880 (JP-A-8161880) for example; however, in the case of employing one of commercially available general purpose HDAs, this is disposed so that a bent or curved portion of its cable is identical in position to the rotation center or placed at a nearby location of the gravity center to thereby preclude the stiffness of an FPC cable hardly affects such rotatable support mechanism. This makes it possible to minimize creation of a torque posing a bar to free rotation of the HDA, which in turn enables mounting of the general purpose HDA thereby permitting wide spread of soft securing techniques. It is possible to facilitate popularization of a scheme for mounting a magnetic disk drive into portable or mobile equipment.

The present invention relates generally to mounting structures of fixed or hard disk assembly (xe2x80x9cHDAxe2x80x9d) for use with magnetic disk drive units, and more particularly to a cable layout technique therefor.
Magnetic disk drives have been widely employed as external data storage units of modern computers. When magnetic disk drives are used in the form of unitary components, a single magnetic disk drive is accommodated within the interior of a personal computer as its storage module for example (as a logical equipment drive xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d in most cases). The same goes with other cases where it is used as a storage device adaptable for use in copying machines, land vehicle travel route guidance systems also known as xe2x80x9ccar navigation systems,xe2x80x9d portable or xe2x80x9cmobilexe2x80x9d computers, electronic cameras, and other electronic devices.
On the contrary, large size computers, called main frames, are designed to employ external storage apparatus including redundant arrays of inexpensive disk (RAID) systems with a plurality of magnetic disk drives packed in a box-like housing and/or large-capacity magnetic disk devices. These magnetic disk devices (such as RAIDs and mass-storage disk devices) will be collectively called the magnetic disk devices of the broad sense hereafter in the description. One typical approach to mounting for installation such magnetic disk devices of broad sense is to settle around a unitary magnetic disk drive (magnetic disk device of the narrow sense or alternatively HDA) a vibration-absorptive or anti-vibration support mechanism capable of withstanding vibration and shocks as externally applied thereto.
An HDA support structure for exclusive use in RAID systems or mass-storage magnetic disk devices is disclosed in JP-A-8-161880 (and its corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,011) under the name of the same applicant. Typically a magnetic disk device of the narrow or strict sense, HDA, is structured from two major parts: a mechanical part including magnetic disk storage media and more than one magnetic read/write head (referred to as a head/disk assembly or simply xe2x80x9cH/DAxe2x80x9d hereinafter), and electronic circuitry part (referred to hereafter as electronic control circuit board) for use in controlling the mechanical part.
A standard H/DA is designed to include an arm that is swingably movable with a pivot as its center, a magnetic head provided at the distal end of such arm, a rotatable magnetic disk media, an actuator for positioning the magnetic head at a desired location over the magnetic disk media, and an enclosure housing with its sealed interior space in which the above components are disposed. And, the H/DA is secured via a support mechanism to a fixed frame or fixation section of substantially rectangular shape (so-called drive bay within an upper-level device in the case of the magnetic disk device of the narrow sense).
Further, since the H/DA is designed so that its arm""s center of gravity is identical in position to a layout position of the pivot, any vibration and shocks as externally applied thereto to give the H/DA translational movement will no longer serve as disturbance with respect to position determination of the magnetic head involved. However, such vibration/shock application can result in occurrence of disturbance relative to magnetic head positioning in cases where moment components about the magnetic disk media""s rotary shaft and actuator""s rotation axis are included in such vibration or the like. It is thus required that the support mechanism for rigidly attaching the H/DA to its associative fixed frame is free from the risk of disturbance with respect to the positioning procedures of the magnetic head within the H/DA upon externally applying of vibration that would result in the fixed frame exhibiting translational motion. More precisely, it should be required that the position of the gravity center of the HDA be taken into consideration when attaching to the fixed frame the HDA including both the H/DA and the electronic control circuit board operatively associated therewith. Note here that the HDA""s gravity center position and the H/DA""s gravity center position may be substantially the same as each other in intended meaning and definition, depending on the mass of the electronic control circuit board.
On the other hand, it is deemed convenient to employ commercially available general purpose products or xe2x80x9cafter-marketxe2x80x9d items as the magnetic disk devices of narrow sense when mounting them into electronic equipment of interest. In addition, if it is permissible to employ HDAs of after-market items for RAIDs or large-size mass-storage disk devices, then production costs decrease in the resultant systems. Here, the HDAs of after-market items may refer to those magnetic disk drives of the form factor type with adaptability to several kinds of interface standards such as the integrated drive electronics (IDE), enhanced IDE (EIDE), small computer system interface (SCSI) and others, including but not limited to 3.5-inch type, 2.5-inch type, 1.8-inch type, and so forth. Also note that an after-market HDA product is provided with an electronic control circuit board operatively associated with the H/DA, which is connected to upper-level apparatus via a cable and a connector placed at an end portion of the H/DA.
While the prior art structure as taught by the above-identified Japanese document JP-A-8-161880 employs its special-purpose or xe2x80x9cdedicatedxe2x80x9d HDA, it has been found by the inventors as named herein that an attempt to replace this dedicated HDA with a mere general purpose HDA of after-market item can result in occurrence of inconvenience. More specifically, in view of the fact that the dedicated HDA comes with its own electronic circuitry as internally built therein, a specially designed cable wiring structure of the exclusive use type is used for transferring electrical signals from the H/DA to the electronic control circuit boardxe2x80x94in this case, such wiring structure did not affect in any way the behavior of an actuator as internally disposed in the H/DA. However, when an attempt is made to apply an HDA of after-market item in place of the dedicated HDA to a fixed frame that has been used for mounting of the dedicated HDA, extra cable wiring/routing schemes are required due to the necessity of separately converting the signals from the after-market HDA product into appropriate signals suitable for use therein. Another problem faced with the prior art lies in an inability to provide any sufficient spatial margins for accommodation of the support mechanism that is used to increase stiffness or robustness against vibration and/or shocks occurring due to rotation of the H/DA. Letting the fixed frame decrease in thickness in a way suited for the size of an HDA of after-market item would result in occurrence of bad influence upon the behavior of the actuator settled within the H/DA. In short, it has been found by the inventors that presently available FPC cables offer increased stiffness along the width and are thus incapable of being directly applied for use at narrow spaced locations.
It is estimated that the above-noted bad influence does not take place in the structure as disclosed in the JP-A-8-161880 because the use of its dedicated H/DA and the specially designed electronic control circuit board in combination permits achievement of any desired cable wiring and routing without suffering from limitations thereto. In other words, even where a cable is disposed in a narrow space defined within the fixed frame while being curved or folded at its one or several portions as shown in FIG. 23, the cable""s counterforce hardly affects the dedicated H/DA""s rotary support mechanism. The electronic control circuit board and the H/DA are separately attached in a way independent of each other; during this process, electrical connection between the HDA and the fixed frame did not affect the behavior of the actuator within the H/DA.
A currently available general purpose 3.5-inch form factor type H/DA and its associated electronic control circuit board for use in controlling this H/DA are typically integrated together while causing a connector for transmission of electrical signals toward the outside of the HDA to be directly secured to either one of the H/DA and the electronic control circuit board. In addition, the dimensions of the magnetic disk drive as a whole and the interface are designed to meet a prespecified specification (i.e. interface satisfying the existing standard, such as IDE, EIDE, SCSI, or the like). Due to this, when applying a general purpose HDA of after-market item to the architecture as disclosed in JP-A-8-161880 for achievement of further popularization, it should be required to avoid two problems which follow:
1) The use of an HDA of after-market item would result in that its connector restricts or limits the selectability of interface type while precluding free designing of connector position. To avoid this problem, careful consideration should be given to electrical connection between the HDA and a fixed frame having either terminals or a printed circuit board for access thereto. More practically, xe2x80x9cspecialxe2x80x9d system design activities are required to attain the intended routing of a cable for electrical interconnection.
2) The use of a known technique for fixation to the upper-level apparatus""s drive bay using screw holes as provided in a general purpose HDA results in the HDA being rigidly fastened to a fixed frame, which is insufficient in remedy for externally attendant vibration and shocks. To avoid this problem, an elastic or xe2x80x9csoftxe2x80x9d fixation technique must be applied without accompanying penalties, which technique is for achieving supportability with rotatability or with relative resiliency against spin motion and/or rotation shocks about a certain axis of rotation rather than translational external force being applied to the HDA, in a way as disclosed in JP-A-8-161880. It is also a must to design in such a way as to eliminate bad influence upon the soft fixation otherwise occurring due to cable routing while simultaneously leaving within the interior of a drive bay an extra space margin for accommodation of a soft fixation mechanism therein.
Here, the term rigid or xe2x80x9chardxe2x80x9d fixation is to be understood to mean the fixation based in principle on elastic deformation of metals for engagement togetherxe2x80x94for instance, securing a target body to a metallic member using metal screws with metal washers intervening therebetween during screwing. In this respect, it should be understood that the hard fixation is also established even when the member used is partly made of hard materials other than metals, such as glass or ceramic material.
On the contrary, the soft fixation as used herein may refer to a technique for securing an object by screwing with use of elastic washers and/or resilient members as disposed adjacent to screw holes, or alternatively a structure for rotatably or relatively resiliently supporting an object with respect to rotary motion and/or spin shocks about a certain axis of rotation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a support mechanism for use with an HDA of a general purpose product capable of retaining resistivities against vibration and impact shocks of prior art RAID systems and large size magnetic disk apparatus while at the same time reducing production costs thereof.
It is another object of this invention to provide an HDA support mechanism capable of improving vibration/shock resistivities of electronic equipment mounting therein an HDA without lowering the accuracy of position alignment of a magnetic head within an H/DA and also without requiring any physical and electrical alternations to such electronic equipment.
It is a further object of the invention to apply the technique as disclosed in JP-A-8-161880 while employing an HDA of general-use product without degrading the positioning accuracy of a magnetic head within its H/DA and also without requiring physical and electrical alternations to electronic equipment mounting the HDA therein.
A specific structure is provided for use in disposing a curved portion of a cable for transmission of electrical signals from an HDA of commercially available general-use product, which portion can affect rotation of a rotatably supported HDA, in such a manner as to be identical with the position of the center of gravity of the HDA (in other words, a position of the rotation center) while letting either HDA or H/DA be attached to a fixed frame so that it is rotatable about the center of gravity thereof. Disposing is done in a way such that provision of a marginal space between a cable and the fixed frame precludes creation of counterforce occurring due to friction between the cable and fixed frame. In addition, through special designing of the shape of a cable for use in transferring electrical signals from the HDA of general-use product, the cable is routed or xe2x80x9crailedxe2x80x9d to preclude occurrence of bad influence in a support system of soft fixation of the HDA. Further, the HDA is soft-secured to the fixed frame, which in turn is mounted into a drive bay of the electronic equipment. This results in achievement of an advantage that the magnetic head settling characteristics are no longer degraded. Additionally a magnetic disk device of the narrow sense as mounted in the electronic equipment is improved in anti-vibration characteristics.
It is permissible that the cable""s curved portion is spaced apart from the H/DA""s gravity center as long as degradation of settling characteristics is within an allowable range; alternatively, the cable may be modified to be variable in shape. It will also be permissible that when soft-securing the HDA to the fixed frame, a magnetic disk device less in size than those magnetic disk devices (narrow sense) with specification standards adaptable for the drive bay of interest is used to reserve an extra space for use in providing a soft securing mechanism. The cable may include a bundle of multiple signal transmission wires such as flexible printed circuit (FPC) cable or flat cables or else.
More specifically, at least two pairs of link mechanisms or plate members are provided for support between the HDA (including an electronic control circuit board and H/DA) and a fixed frame while causing hinges of them to be laid out along a line segment passing through the center of gravity of such HDA. A relation of this gravity center and the line segment may be determined with accuracies slightly deviated from the exact accuracy of assembling the HDA into the fixed frame. Where the mass of a holder supporting the HDA is not negligible relative to the mass of HDA, the position of the gravity center of certain part including the holder should be taken into consideration. And, let a cable as extended from the HDA be disposed so that its curved portion is identical to the HDA""s gravity center. An extra space is defined between the cable extended from the HDA and its associative fixed frame to thereby preclude unwanted inhibition of movement due to soft fixation of the HDA. Additionally the cable extended from the HDA is formed into a crank-like shape with two bent portions at right angles, rather than a straight parallel line. Alternatively, a structure is employable which forms the cable extended from the HDA into a straight parallel line which is bent at more than two portions for wiring.
In case the drive bay of the electronic equipment of interest is inherently designed for installation of a 3.5-inch magnetic disk drive unit, a 2.5-inch magnetic disk drive of commercially available general purpose product is soft-secured to a 3.5-inch type fixed frame; then, the above-stated or later-discussed cable wiring is to be done while retaining a spatial margin for provision of a soft fixation mechanism therein.
Preferably the cable as used herein may be a FPC cable with good temperature characteristics and durability against repeated physical deformation. It is also permissible that electrical signals from the HDA are sent forth to a supervisory or xe2x80x9cupper levelxe2x80x9d apparatus via a drive interface conversion substrate or board.
It should be noted that the drive interface conversion board is an electronic circuit board that is required for conversion of a xe2x80x9cnativexe2x80x9d type of interface into a desired interface in view of the fact that in those magnetic disk devices of narrow sense which are commercially available as general-use products or xe2x80x9cafter-marketxe2x80x9d items, the kind of interface is automatically determined depending on the type of connectors and/or commercially available general-use products (magnetic disk devices of narrow sense) per se. Even where such interface conversion is unnecessary, it is inevitable that the cable is extended outwardly from the HDA, which would result in the cable being secured to a specified portion of the fixed frame or other similar housing partsxe2x80x94in view of this, it is important to dispose while taking account of specific viewpoints which follow: The cable is disposed while causing its curved portion to be identical to the center of gravity of the HDA (rotation center); and the cable is hardly brought into contact with the fixed frame to thereby ensure that the counterforce of such cable does not badly affect the support system of soft fixation.
As a result, it becomes possible to suppress decrease in magnetic head positioning accuracy otherwise occurring due to unwanted vibrations of the support system of the cable. The vibrations discussed herein include vibration occurred when an actuator within the H/DA undergoes seeking and also vibration as externally applied theretoxe2x80x94in either case, the present invention offers the intended effects and advantages. Applying this invention makes it possible to install or constitute magnetic disk apparatus of the broad sense capable of exhibiting increased resistivities against vibrations and shocks, which in turn enables improvement in anti-vibration characteristics of electronic equipment concerned.

Magnetic disk drive with unique cable wiring scheme and electronic device using the same


A portable flexible fuel generator, having an engine, includes: a cylinder and a spark plug in the cylinder, a primary fuel tank fluidly connected to the cylinder, an air intake path fluidly connecting atmosphere to the cylinder, a start module including a starting fuel tank holder and a starting fuel line, where the starting fuel line is fluidly connected to the air intake path, a coolant path which provide a flow path for coolant to cool the cylinder, and a thermal controller along the coolant path. Furthermore, the engine has full cylinder cooling.

There has been a proliferation of small portable electronic devices in recent years, most of which include onboard and/or detachable rechargeable batteries. Examples include laptop computers, mobile telephones, personal digital assistants, portable digital cameras, global positioning systems, and hand-held radios. The rechargeable batteries are most commonly lithium ion batteries, although other varieties are available. The small portable electronic devices typically include a removable power cord with a standard two-prong or three-prong plug, or a universal serial bus (USB) plug, for plugging into a corresponding plug receiver, which allows for recharging the onboard batteries. Also commonly available are removable power cords with a standard cigarette lighter plug, for recharging the rechargeable batteries using a cigarette lighter plug receiver in an automobile or other vehicle. Also commonly available are multi-bay chargers for multiple electronic devices and/or their detachable batteries with standard two-prong or three-prong power cords. In general these devices typically require less than 1 kW of recharging power whether from AC or DC sources.
For field operation by consumers of portable appliances such as televisions and radios, and small portable electronic devices and recharging of the batteries therein, small portable gasoline-only inverter generators have come into common use. The advantage of using small portable gasoline-only inverter generators is the much lower sound profile, lighter weight, and greater efficiency for generating the small amount of electricity needed to recharge batteries, over the period of time necessary for recharging. Gasoline or petrol for the generator is readily available at retail gasoline refueling stations.
Remote field operations, such as those in areas far away from highways, retail outlets, and the electrical grid, require participants to carry all supplies, especially consumable supplies, which will be needed to complete the operations. Not only is the total amount of supplies often minimized to reduce cost and weight, but the variety of supplies is also minimized, to reduce logistical costs and complexity in transporting materials to, and resupplying, a base camp.
To get to remote field locations, off-road and military tactical vehicles often utilize diesel-type heavy fuels, rather than gasoline or petrol. The supplies carried to such remote field locations typically only include heavy fuel, not gasoline, for the vehicles as is common in the US military with it's one fuel forward policy with a diesel type fuel (JP-8). In these cases, recharging of batteries or batteries within electronic devices is typically carried out using power generated by the vehicle, via idling the vehicle main engine while recharging the batteries or from a large 2-10 kW heavy fuel generators towed or delivered on-site by the vehicle or air support. Furthermore, in these remote and austere field locations, the noise generated by the vehicles idling engine or heavy fuel generator can be especially undesirable and often exceeding 70 dB, considering the extended period of time needed for recharging batteries or devices. Under these circumstances, the use of heavy fuels and a heavy fuel generator or idling vehicle engine is particularly inefficient for recharging small format batteries, due to the poor match between the power generated and the power required and consumed.
Generators for producing electricity are well known and have been commercially available for many years. These devices typically include an internal combustion engine. They are adapted to provide alternating current (AC) electricity, through a standard two-prong or three-prong plug receiver, at 120 or 240 volts, and at 50 to 60 Hz; also common is an additional 12 volt DC power port for charging lead acid batteries. Devices which use either gasoline-only or heavy fuels only, such as JP-8, diesel fuel, jet fuel or kerosene, are available.
Gasoline and heavy fuel engines are products of distinct and divergent technologies. Gasoline has a low-flashpoint (less than −20° C.) and high autoignition temperature (greater than 200° C.). In operation gasoline requires the proper air to fuel ratio and a spark to induce and maintain ignition. A throttle and/or fuel injector is used to meter the fuel/air mixture which is sucked into the cylinders of the engine during operation. The low flashpoint and volatility of gasoline allows starting of the spark ignition engine at temperatures below freezing, allowing for operation over a broad range of temperatures typically between −20° C. to 55° C. In order to obtain acceptable efficiency, a compression ratio of 8:1 to 12:1 is desirable for a gasoline-only engine, which is low enough to allow for manual pull-starting of the engine and the construction of simple lightweight portable engine devices made of aluminum. Improving the combustion efficiency of a gasoline engine by increasing the compression ratio further can result in autoignition ("knocking") problems which interfere with operation and durability of the aluminum engine.
Diesel fuel and kerosene (heavy fuels) have both high flashpoints (greater than 35° C.) and low autoignition temperatures (below 200° C.). A diesel engine relies on compression induced autoignition to ignite the air/fuel mixture. Although a compression ratio of 18:1 or 20:1 is necessary to start and sustain reliable compression ignition, the superior combustion efficiency provides cost and power advantages. Furthermore, the high compression ratio requires that the fuel is sprayed into the cylinders with a pump at 70 to 80 psi, atomizing the fuel to form the liquid fuel/air mixture. The compression ignition engine cannot typically be started at low to moderate temperatures without the input of some form of high pressure from a fuel pump or thermal energy from glow plugs or block heaters. The high compression ratio requires stronger engine block materials and a heavy duty battery to start the engine, making small portable devices unrealistic.
Diesel fuel and kerosene cannot be used directly in a gasoline-only engine using a spark ignition. At ambient temperatures a gasoline-only engine would not start if heavy fuels are used. If somehow the engine were started, incomplete combustion of the heavy fuel quickly floods the engine and fouls the lubricant and spark plug. Unwanted autoignition ("knocking") is also observed.
There exists vehicles that can be operated on both gasoline and diesel fuel. An example is the "duce-and-a-half" or M35 cargo truck. In this hypercycle, multi-fuel engine, a very high compression ratio is used: the very high compression ratio allows for efficient autoignition of both gasoline and diesel fuel. The very high compression ratio requires strong engine block materials and a large engine and for the user to add oil to the gasoline in order to maintain lubrication. Accordingly, this approach cannot be used to create a portable generator.

Flexible fuel generator and methods of use thereof


A frequency comparator comparing frequencies of a first clock signal and a reference clock signal. The frequency comparator includes a phase-frequency detector and a comparison module. The phase-frequency detector receives the first clock signal and the reference clock signal, and outputs an up clock signal and a down clock signal. The pulse-width difference between the up clock signal and the down clock signal corresponds to the phase difference between the first clock signal and the reference clock signal. The comparison module compares the frequencies of the first clock signal and the reference clock signal based on how many times the pulse width of the up clock signal is larger or shorter than that of the down clock signal in a predetermined period.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a frequency comparator, and in particular to a frequency comparator utilizing a phase-frequency detector.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional frequency comparator 100. The frequency comparator 100 is used to compare frequencies of an in-phase clock signal CLKI and a reference clock signal CLKR. As shown in the figure, in the frequency comparator 100, three D-flip flops D1, D3 and D5 are connected in series, wherein a data input D and a clock input CK of the D-flip flop D1 respectively receiving CLKI and CLKR. Similarly, three D-flip flops D2, D4 and D6 are connected in series, wherein a data input D and a clock input CK of the D-fip flop D2 respectively receiving a quadrature clock signal CLKQ and the reference clock signal CLKR. The in-phase clock signal CLKI and the quadrature CLKQ have the same frequency but differ 90 degrees in phase. At every transition of the reference clock signal CLKR, the D-flip flops D1 and D2 sample the in-phase clock signal CLKI and the quadrature clock signal CLKQ respectively, and the D flip-flops D3-D6 serve as registers to save the sampled results of the D-flip flops D1 and D2. A logic circuit 12 receives output signals Q3-Q6 and inverted output signals Q3b-Q6b of the D-flops D3-D6, where Q3b-Q6b denote inverse signals of the output signals Q3-Q6 respectively, and outputs an up signal F_up and a down signal F_dn representative of the frequency comparison result of CLKI and CLKR.
FIG. 2A and 2B are timing diagrams of the reference clock signal CLKR, the in-phase clock signal CLKI, and the quadrature clock signal CLKQ in cases where the frequency of CLKI (or CLKQ ) is lower and higher than that of CLKR respectively. Referring to FIG. 2A, it is shown that (CLKI, CLKQ) changes as: (1,0)→(0, 0)→(0, 1)→(1, 1)→(1, 0) . . . , and so forth. Similarly, turning to FIG. 2B, it is shown that (CLKI, CLKQ) changes as: (1, 1)→(0, 1)→(0, 0)→(1, 0)→(1,1).
FIG. 3 is a truth table of the logic circuit 12 of FIG. 1. Thus, according to the truth table, when the up signal F_up is high and the down signal F_dn is low, the frequency of the in-phase clock signal CLKI (or the quadrature clock signal CLKQ) is beyond that of the reference clock signal CLKR. Conversely, when F_up is low and F_dn is high, the frequency of CLKI (or CLKQ ) is below that of CLKR.
However, the difference between frequencies of the in-phase clock signal CLKI and the reference clock signal CLKR is limited to a medium range for accurate comparison result based on the truth table of FIG. 3. Resultingly, this limits applications of the frequency comparator 100.


A composite structure of graphene and polymer and a method of manufacturing the complex. The composite structure of graphene and polymer includes: at least one polymer structure having a three-dimensional shape; and a graphene layer formed on the at least one polymer structure.

1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a composite structure of graphene and a polymer, and more particularly, to a composite structure of a three-dimensional polymer structure and a graphene layer disposed on a surface of the three-dimensional polymer structure, and methods of manufacturing the complexes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Carbonaceous materials exist in various forms such as graphite, buckyball, carbon nanotube (also known as "CNT"), and graphene. A buckyball, which has a ball structure and is formed of sixty carbon atoms, is a carbon allotrope also called fullerene. A molecular structure of a buckyball includes fifteen pentagons and twenty hexagons. The pentagons are each surrounded by the hexagons. Carbon nanotube has a tubular structure and includes carbon atoms bonded to one another in hexagonal honeycomb patterns, and has a dimension as small as single digit nanometer in case of a single wall nanotube. Grephene, which is another allotrope of carbon, has a structure of one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The crystalline or "flake" form of graphite consists of many graphene sheets stacked together. The carbon-carbon bond length in graphene is about 0.142 nm. Graphene is the basic structural element of some carbon allotropes including graphite, charcoal, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. Due to its unique structure of two dimension, graphene differs from most conventional three-dimensional materials: it has high electron mobility at room temperature, high opacity for an atomic monolayer, excellent thermal characteristics, chemical stability, a large surface area, and reportedly the greatest mechanical strength (breaking strength and tensile modulus).
Recently, extensive and vigorous research to apply graphene to various fields such as nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, and chemical sensors is under progress. Graphene may be synthesized by using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using a transition metal such as nickel or copper as a catalyst. In addition, graphene may be obtained by tearing off graphite sheet by sheet. Graphene is usually used in sheet form but may also be prepared in tubular form (which is also referred to as "carbon nanotube.").

Composite structure of graphene and polymer and method of manufacturing the same


A digital signature method and apparatus is provided in which a first party with a first public/private key pair forms an ambiguous signature on subject data using at least the private key of the first key pair, a keystone initially only known to the first party, and the public key of at least one other public/private key-pair. This signature is ambiguous in that a signature-checking party can only verify that the signature is in the set comprising a signature created by the first party and a respective signature created by the possessor of the private key of the or each of the key pairs the public key of which was used in creating the signature. Revelation of the keystone renders the signature unambiguous. Such an ambiguous signature can be used to implement a fair exchange of signatures between any number of parties, with the exchanged signatures being ambiguous signatures until revelation of the initial signer's keystone.

It is well known to use a digital signature to provide a non-repudiable indication of the originator of a document (or other data) covered by the signature. Typically, the signature creation and verification processes involve a public/private key pair of the signer, the private key being used in creating the signature and the corresponding public key in the verification process.
An example digital signature is the Schnorr signature as described in the paper: "Efficient signature generation by smart cards" C. Schnorr., in Journal of Cryptology, 4(3):161-174, 1991. According to this signature scheme, there are two large primes p and q selected such that q|p−1, which are published with an element g of (Z/pZ)* of order q. A signer with private key x and public key gx mod p signs a message Mas follows:                The signer chooses a random number tεZ*q;        The signer computes:h=Hash(gt mod p∥M)s=t−xh mod q                     where ∥ represents concatenation                        The signer outputs (s, h) as its signature on message M
Verification that the signature is from the sender and is on message M is effected by a verifier (who knows the signer's public key gx mod p) by seeking to generate a value h′ that should match the value of h in the signature. The verifier does this as follows:                The verifier first computes:(gt)′=gs(gx)h mod p                     where s and h are the received signature values (it being appreciated that if the values are correct, the right-hand expression is equivalent to gt mod p)                        The verifies then computes:h′=Hash((gt)′ mod p∥M)                    where M is the received message                        The verifier then compares h′ and h which, if equal proves that the message M was signed by the party having the public key gx mod p.
Electronic transactions frequently involve the exchange of signatures on data representing commitments of the parties concerned. There is, however, an inherent problem of fairness in the sense that one party will be the first to provide their signature and this can be abused by the second party to the transaction. Thus, for example, the second party, being in possession of the first party's signature on some commitment, can represent to an independent party that the transaction has been completed by the second party having made a complimentary commitment to the first party when, in reality, this has not been done.
The problem of fair commitment or fair exchange of signatures is a fundamental problem in secure electronic transactions, especially where the parties involved are mutually distrustful. Up to now, there have been two different approaches to solving the problem of
exchanging signatures so that it is fair for both parties.
The first method involves the use of a (semi-trusted) arbitrator (Trent) who can be called upon to handle disputes between signers. The idea is that Alice registers her public key with Trent in a one-time registration, and thereafter may perform many fair exchanges with various other entities. Trent may possibly learn some part of Alice's secret at this stage. To take part in a fair exchange with Bob, Alice creates a partial signature which she sends to Bob. Bob can be convinced that the partial signature is valid (perhaps via a protocol interaction with Alice) and that Trent can extract a full binding signature from the partial signature. However, the partial signature on its own is not binding for Alice. Bob then fulfils his commitment by sending Alice his signature, and if valid, Alice releases the full version of her signature to Bob. The protocol is fair since if Bob does not sign, Alice's partial signature is worthless to Bob, and if Bob does sign but Alice refuses to release her full signature then Bob can obtain it from Trent. So the arbiter Trent may only be required in case of dispute (these are commonly referred to as optimistic fair exchange protocols), but a certain amount of trust still has to be placed in Trent. However, the main problem that remains with such a scheme is that in general, appropriate arbitor are simply not available. Further details and references of such schemes can be found in the article "Breaking and Repairing Optimistic Fair Exchange from PODC 2003" Y. Dodis, and L. Reyzin, in ACM Workshop on Digital Rights Management (DRM), October 2003.
The other common method of solving the problem of fair exchange of signatures is the idea of timed release or timed fair exchange of signatures in which the two parties sign their respective messages and exchange their signatures little by little. There are various problems with this approach. The first is that the protocol is highly interactive with many message flows. The second is that one party, say Bob, may often be at an advantage in that he sometimes has (at least) one more bit of Alice's signature than she has of his. This may not be significant if the computing resources of the two parties are roughly equivalent, but if Bob has superior computing resources, this may put Bob at a significant advantage over Alice since Bob may terminate the protocol early and use his resources to compute the remainder of Alice's signature, while it may be infeasible for Alice to do the same. There are methods to reduce this type of problem which involve the use of special "timing" functions, but even if the fairness of the protocol is guaranteed by such methods, it is still too interactive for many applications. Further details and references for such schemes can be found in the paper "Timed Fair Exchange of Standard Signatures" J. Garay, and C. Pomerance in Proceedings Financial Crypto '03.
It may further be noted that the problem of avoiding one party's signature being abused by presentation to another party to prove some commitment by the first party to a non-existent transaction, can be avoided by use of a signature that can only be verified by a designated party (such as the other party in a transaction). Such a signature scheme (referred to as a Designated Verifier signature scheme) is described in the paper "Designated verifier proofs and their applications" M. Jakobsson, K. Sako and R. Impagliazzo in Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1996, vol 1070. Signatures of this type are ambiguous in that it is not possible for a party, who is not the signer or the designated verifier, to tell which of the signer or the designated verifier has created the signature. More particularly, in the implementation described in the above-referenced paper, the signatures are based on Schnorr signatures with the signer creating its signature using their own private key and the public key of the designated verifier. The designated verifier can produce an alternate signature on the same message using the verifier's own private key and the public key of the signer. The nature of these signatures is such that the verification operation as operated by a signature-checking party who is not the signer or designated verifier cannot tell whether a particular signature is one produced by the signer or is, in fact, a corresponding alternate signature produced by the designated verifier. Thus, whilst the designated verifier can prove that a signature created by the signer was so created (because the designated verifier knows that he did not), the designated verifier cannot prove this to an independent signature-checking party.
Another technique which was designed for different purpose but offers the same ambiguity property is ring signatures. A ring signature convinces an external verifier that a message has been signed by one of a number of possible independent signers without allowing the verifier to identify which signer it was. A 1-out-of-2 ring signature has all the security features of the designated verifier signature with one signer and one designated verifier. Further details and references of ring signature schemes can be found in the articles "How to leak a secret" R. Rivest, A. Shamir and Y. Tauman, in Advances in Cryptology—Asiacrypt 2001, LNCS 2248, pages 552-565, Springer 2001; and "1-out-of-n signatures from a variety of keys" M. Abe, M. Ohkubo and K. Suzuki, in Cryptology—Asiacrypt 2002, LNCS 2501, pages 415-432, Springer 2002.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a signature scheme for transactions that is fair. It is a more general object of the invention to provide a signature that is ambiguous until determined otherwise by the signer.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A polishing composition contains a compound represented by the general formula (1) below and abrasive grains. In the general formula (1), X represents a residue of polyether polyol (having a polyether chain containing an oxyethylene group in an amount of 20 to 90% by mass) derived from a compound having an active hydrogen atom and an alkylene oxide; m represents an integer of 2 to 8, which is equal to the number of hydroxy groups contained in a single polyether polyol molecule; Y and Z represent a lower alcohol residue to which ethylene oxide or propylene oxide is added by addition polymerization, an alkyl group or an alkylene group, respectively; and n is an integer of 3 or more.

The present invention relates to a polishing composition for use in polishing an object formed of a synthetic resin such as a plastic lens and a polishing method using the polishing composition.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-300347 discloses a polishing composition containing alumina, poly(oxyethylene-oxypropylene)glyceryl ether, aluminum nitrate, and water, for use in polishing an object formed of a synthetic resin. However, the polishing composition has a problem in that it has a high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD), requiring time and labor for treating wastewater.

Polishing composition and polishing method


A centrifugal fan according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention includes an impeller, a motor portion, and a housing. The housing includes an upper plate portion, a lower plate portion, and a side wall portion. The upper plate portion or the lower plate portion includes an air inlet. One of the upper and lower plate portions and the side wall portion together define a single housing component molded by casting. A portion of the one of the upper and lower plate portions which is along a boundary between the side wall portion and the one of the upper and lower plate portions defines an increased thickness portion arranged to have an axial thickness greater than that of a remaining portion of the one of the upper and lower plate portions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a centrifugal fan. In particular, the present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a housing component.
2. Description of the Related Art
Small and high-performance electronic devices, such as notebook PCs, produce a large amount of heat at CPUs and the like inside cases thereof. This makes it important to take measures against the heat. One common measure against the heat is to install blower fans inside the cases to discharge the heat. Meanwhile, there has been a demand for a reduction in thickness of the notebook PCs. Accordingly, the blower fans have been required to be reduced in thickness while reducing a deterioration in air-blowing performance.
A housing cover of a centrifugal fan disclosed in JP-A 2007-239712, for example, can be produced at a low cost by subjecting a thin plate material of stainless steel to press working. The housing cover includes a cover upper portion and a cover side wall portion. A small thickness of the cover is thereby easily accomplished, making it possible to achieve a reduction in thickness of the centrifugal fan. However, it is not easy to define a side wall portion and a plate portion as a single component by the press working. Accordingly, a method of manufacturing the plate portion and the side wall portion as a single component by a die casting process comes to mind.
When the die casting process is employed to produce a component including a portion in the shape of a thin plate, it is not easy to cause a molten metal to properly flow into a space in the shape of a thin plate in a mold. Accordingly, a variety of contrivances are required, as proposed by JP-A 2003-48047, JP-A 2002-160041, and so on, for example.
JP-A 8-90211 discloses a technique of producing a box structure of an electronic device by an aluminum die-casting process. A side plate and a bottom plate are integrally molded in the box structure. A sprue having a thickness greater than that of the bottom plate is defined at a portion of an edge of the bottom plate. No portion of the side plate is provided at an area where the sprue exists. The sprue having a relatively large thickness increases strength of the bottom plate. In addition, a shoulder portion is defined between the bottom plate and an injection sleeve to prevent an unwanted cut or deformation when a sprue gate is cut and removed after the casting is completed. Moreover, the sprue having a relatively large thickness enables a molten metal to flow easily, and contributes to improving quality of the box structure.
A plate portion of a housing is required to have an extremely small thickness in order to achieve a reduction in thickness of a centrifugal fan to be installed in a PC or the like. In addition, a side wall portion is arranged to connect with an outer edge portion of the plate portion over a large area. Therefore, when the plate portion and the side wall portion are to be molded as a single piece by a die casting process, a seam or an unwanted external appearance caused by a misrun tends to easily occur, making it hard to accomplish the molding easily. Meanwhile, since a channel for an air is defined inside the housing, the housing is required to have a shape that does not disturb an air current.

Centrifugal fan, housing component cast, and method of manufacturing housing component


The present invention involves methods and apparatus for supplying fuel for a hydrocarbon and water hybrid engine. Water may be supplied from a water supply source to a steam chamber disposed with an exhaust conduit. Heat may be conducted from the exhaust conduit to the steam chamber to produce steam. The steam may be flowed to a catalytic converter that may have a substrate element disposed therein with the substrate element coated with an oxide that may be oxidizable with steam and reducible back to the original state without use of a chemical agent while producing oxygen. The steam may be converted to hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen and oxygen may be flowed to an intake port of the internal combustion engine. The steam and catalytic converted hydrogen and oxygen may be used as an energy source and the hydrogen and oxygen may be converted to heated water for recycling as a steam source.

This invention relates to internal combustion engines that burn hydrocarbons such as gasoline and may be used to power land vehicles or for other purposes. The new hybrid engine may operate on a fuel of gasoline and water wherein the water may be converted to steam to create hydrogen and oxygen in a catalytic converter. The method of hydrogen and oxygen production may be used as an energy source.
Various systems and methods using steam reformation processes with hydrocarbons and catalysts may be known. These processes may be principally known for use in generating hydrogen for use in fuel cells. Reform reactors for use with Otto cycle internal combustion engines that may be powered by gasoline may be known. This type of combustion engine use hydrocarbon fuel at elevated temperatures to pass through a reforming reactor prior to delivery to the engine combustion chamber. In the presence of a reforming catalyst and water a part of the fuel may be converted to carbon monoxide and hydrogen by reaction with steam. A portion of the flow of exhaust gas from the combustion engine may be delivered to the reforming reactor and mixed with the fuel delivered to the reforming reactor.


A backup copy from a first data volume to a second data volume is executed according to either a synchronous mode, in which write data is copied from the first data volume to the second data volume in synchronous with a write request, or an asynchronous mode, in which journal data of a first storage apparatus is reflected on the second data volume in asynchronous with the write request. A second storage apparatus acquires secondary load information representing its own load status, and transmits the information to the first storage apparatus. The first storage apparatus acquires primary load information representing its own load status, determines switching between the modes based on the secondary load information, the primary load information and mode information, and transmits determination information representing determination results to the second storage apparatus. When the determination information represents the switching from the asynchronous mode to the synchronous mode, the second storage apparatus acquires the journal data from the first storage apparatus and reflects the journal data on the second data volume.

A backup system that has a secondary storage apparatus for backing up data, in preparation for a malfunction or the like of a primary storage apparatus, is known. As a backup method of the data in the backup system, for example, the method disclosed in PTL 1 is known.
According to this backup method, a mode for storing backup data in a data volume on the primary side to a data volume on the secondary side may be a synchronous mode (synchronous remote copy) that allows the data volumes on the primary side and the secondary side to be synchronous with each other, or an asynchronous mode (asynchronous remote copy) that allows the data in the data volume on the secondary side to asynchronously follow the data in the data volume on the primary side. According to this backup method, a first storage apparatus acts as a main body to execute data transfer in both of the synchronous mode and the asynchronous mode.


A longitudinal beam for a motor vehicle and also to a method for the production of the longitudinal beam is disclosed. The longitudinal beam is produced from a lightweight metal profile. The extrusion direction of the lightweight metal profile runs transverse to the longitudinal direction of the longitudinal beam.

It is known from the prior art to assemble longitudinal beams in motor vehicles and to produce self-supporting motor vehicle bodies. These self-supporting motor vehicle bodies are mostly produced in this context from metallic materials. In particular, steel materials, but also lightweight metal materials, are used here. An aluminum alloy is used with preference as the lightweight metal material.
At the front or at the rear, a self-supporting motor vehicle body of this type comprises longitudinal beams. The longitudinal beams serve on the one hand for producing a connection to cross-members arranged at a front or rear end, in particular incorporating crash boxes. However, the longitudinal beams also serve, for example, for receiving an axle subframe, but also an engine and/or gear mechanism.
A longitudinal beam is formed as an elongate component profiled in cross section. A longitudinal beam can also be formed as a closed hollow profile component.

Longitudinal beam and method for the production thereof


A rod guide for use in a piston/cylinder monotube shock absorber includes an annular guide body disposed about the piston rod within the shock absorber cylinder. A rod scraper in a top face of the guide body seals grease and oil inside the cylinder and prevents contaminants from entering the cylinder. A one-piece plastic insert, preferably formed of PPA or other rugged thermoplastic resin with a low coefficient of friction, is retained in a bottom face of the guide body. A rod seal on top of the insert, positioned within the guide body, further seals the cylinder against outward migration of shock oil from the cylinder as it slides along the piston rod and provides support for the rod guide, in both the axial and transverse directions, as the insert moves along and relative to the piston rod.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to the field of shock absorbers and, more particularly, to a rod guide for use in a monotube shock absorber.
2. Description of the Related Art
Monotube shock absorbers are well-known devices for cushioning machines (such as vehicles) from vibration and sudden jolts. Such monotube shock absorbers are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,661.
Monotube shock absorbers generally have a piston/cylinder unit in which a piston rod is slidably movable in a straight line along the longitudinal axis of a cylinder. A piston rod guide mounted within the cylinder provides a point of contact between the piston rod and the cylinder as the piston reciprocates within the cylinder. Thus, rod guides must be sufficiently stable and robust to withstand the environment in which they operate, which is often very hot and subject to forces and stresses in varying directions. The rod guides must also be easily slidable along the piston rod (i.e., they must have a low coefficient of friction with the piston rod), and provide a reliable seal to prevent contamination of the interior of the cylinder which could impair operation of the shock absorber.
Many known rod guides, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,661 and in United States Published Patent Application Publ. No. US2003/0070893, are complicated assemblies with many parts, making them difficult and costly to assemble. In addition, in many such rod guides, the points of contact are formed of metal, such as sheet metal or aluminum with hardcoating, which has a relatively high coefficient of friction, as a result of which these rod guides are less efficient than desired. Many designs require side loads from the piston rod to contact an unlubricated bearing. Although some known rod guides with sheet metal bushings are therefore coated with a material having a lower coefficient of friction, such coatings wear off, leaving the metal bushing in direct contact with the piston rod, and consequent deterioration in performance of the shock absorber.
There is accordingly a need in the art for simple, inexpensive rod guides that provide improved coefficients of friction with respect to the piston rods with which they are used.


A speech synthesis device includes: a mouth-opening-degree generation unit which generates, for each of phonemes generated from input text, a mouth-opening-degree corresponding to oral-cavity volume, using information generated from the text and indicating the type and position of the phoneme within the text, such that the generated mouth-opening-degree is larger for a phoneme at the beginning of a sentence in the text than for a phoneme at the end of the sentence; a segment selection unit which selects, for each of the generated phonemes, segment information corresponding to the phoneme from among pieces of segment information stored in a segment storage unit and including phoneme type, mouth-opening-degree, and speech segment data, based on the type of the phoneme and the generated mouth-opening-degree; and a synthesis unit which generates synthetic speech of the text, using the selected pieces of segment information and pieces of prosody information generated from the text.

In recent years, creation of synthetic speech with significantly high sound quality has become possible with the development of speech synthesis technologies. As a speech synthesis device which provides high real-voice feel, there is a speech synthesis device which uses a waveform concatenation method of selecting speech waveforms from a large segment storage unit and concatenating the speech waveforms (for example, see Patent Literature (PTL) 1). FIG. 17 is a diagram showing a typical configuration of a waveform concatenation speech synthesis device.
The speech synthesis device shown in FIG. 17 includes a language analysis unit 501, a prosody generation unit 502, a speech segment database (DB) 503, a segment selection unit 504, and a waveform concatenation unit 505.
The language analysis unit 501 linguistically analyzes text that has been input, and outputs pronunciation symbols and accent information. The prosody generation unit 502 generates, for each of the phonetic symbols, prosody information such as a fundamental frequency, a duration, and power, based on the pronunciation symbols and accent information output by the language analysis unit 501. The speech segment DB 503 is a segment storage unit for storing speech waveforms as pre-recorded pieces of speech segment data (hereafter referred to simply as "speech segments"). The segment selection unit 504 selects optimum speech segments from the speech segment DB 503, based on the prosody information generated by the prosody generation unit 502. The waveform concatenation unit 505 generates synthetic speech by concatenating the speech segments selected by the segment selection unit 504.

Speech synthesis device and speech synthesis method

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.


A device for protecting the surface of homes and surrounding soil from heating oil spillage during the filling process of a heating oil tank that is stored inside of or underneath the home. The device catches any spilled oil thereby protecting the home and preventing contamination of the surrounding soil. Traditional heating oil tanks must be refilled on a regular basis, usually via a fill tube that extends from the tank through an exterior wall of the home. Some spillage usually occurs during each filling procedure, causing cosmetic and environmental problems. The present device solves this problem by providing a device that protects the home and surrounding soil by catching any oils that spills during filling. It does so by providing an aluminum device, in the preferred embodiment, that covers the fill neck and vent line, and provides a basin in which the spilt oil can be caught. By providing a structure that can protect the home and surrounding environment from the problem of oil spillage, this device allows for a more convenient and pleasant use of oil-fired heating systems.

The present invention relates generally to protection devices and more specifically to a device for protecting exterior walls and soil from heating oil spills.
Heating oil is used in many homes for the warmth and comfort it provides. Heat that is produced by heating oil is often less expensive than electric heat, and is not affected by power outages or electrical malfunctions. Oil heating systems are often frequently in need of less repair or replacement than other heating systems. One of the downsides, however, of oil heating systems is the need to have the oil replenished throughout the year, the side effects of which are not always pleasant or convenient.
Many homes use oil-fired heating systems, with oil storage tanks stored inside of or beneath the home. The units are either stored in the basement or in the ground underneath of the home. In order to fill the oil storage containers, there is typically a device for this purpose attached to the outside of the home. This device typically has two components, a vent line and a filler neck. When oil companies come to the home to refill the oil storage container via the filler neck, spills or splashes frequently occur, discoloring the area of the wall itself, as well as contaminating the surrounding soil.
The present invention solves this common problem by providing a protective unit for the oil-filling device. The device essentially consists of a catch pan or guard surrounding the filler neck and vent line of an underground heating fuel storage tank. The device is compact and reliable, as there are not moving parts. The present device provides an improved level of cleanliness and can be used with most oil filling systems. By solving the problem of overall cleanliness, the present embodiment provides users of oil heating systems with a higher level of satisfaction and convenience with their systems.


The image display device has a display section formed of plural pixels and a control section which controls the display section, and is provided with nonvolatile phase-change type pixel memories in respective ones of the pixels, or is provided with a nonvolatile phase-change type frame memory in the control section. Each of the nonvolatile phase-change type pixel memories is formed of one or more switches and a variable-resistance memory element fabricated from a chalcogenide material for storing display data for at least a specified period of time. The nonvolatile phase-change type frame memory is formed of one or more switches and a variable-resistance memory element fabricated from a chalcogenide material for retaining display data for one frame.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display device which facilitates production of high-quality images, and particularly to an image display device capable of reducing power consumption by fabricating memories for displaying images with TFTs (Thin Film Transistors).
2. Description of Prior Art
In a first conventional technique, an active matrix type display device using TFTs incorporates therein a nonvolatile memory composed of TFTs fabricated on the same substrate and in the same fabrication processes as for pixel-driving TFTs, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2,000-252,373 and 2,001-326,289, for example. FIG. 16 illustrates a configuration of the display device employing the first conventional technique. In a display section 100, pixels 104 are arranged in a matrix fashion (in order to simplify the diagram, only one of the pixels 104 is shown). In both the above publications, used as the nonvolatile semiconductor memory is an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) having charge-storage layers and floating gates, and disposed around the display section 100 are a signal-related circuit 101, a scanning-related circuit 102, and a nonvolatile semiconductor memory 103. This configuration makes it possible to incorporate the function of the nonvolatile semiconductor memory without use of LSI (Large-Scale Integration) into the display device.
In a second conventional technique, a display device uses as a frame memory a semiconductor memory composed of TFTs fabricated on the same substrate and in the same fabrication processes as for pixel-driving TFTs, as disclosed in detail in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 11-85,065, for example. FIG. 17 illustrates a configuration of this display device. Pixels 115 are arranged in a matrix fashion in a display region 110, are coupled to a D/A (Digital-to-Analog) converter circuit 113 via signal lines 116, and are also coupled to a scanning-related circuit 114 via gate lines 117. Coupled to the D/A converter circuit 113 are a frame memory 112 and a signal-related circuit 111. The frame memory 112 is a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) having memory cells each of which is comprised of one transistor and a capacitor, stores display information corresponding to one frame, and thereby is capable of continuing displaying even when externally writing of display information is discontinued.
In a third conventional technique, a display device uses as one-bit pixel memories semiconductor memories composed of TFTs fabricated on the same substrate and in the same fabrication processes as for pixel-driving TFTS, as disclosed in detail in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 8-286,170, for example. FIG. 18 illustrates a configuration of this display device. Pixels 123 are arranged in a matrix fashion in a display region 120, are coupled to a scanning-related circuit 122 via gate lines 126 and ac-driving signal lines 127, and are also coupled to a signal-related circuit 121 via positive-polarity signal lines 124 and negative-polarity signal lines 125. Each of the pixels 123 is provided with a one-bit SRAM (Static Random Access Memory). With this configuration, this liquid crystal display panel is capable of continuing a one-bit image display even when outputting of data to the display section 120 is discontinued.
The memory circuits in the above-described conventional techniques are formed by using Si semiconductor TFTS. In the above conventional techniques, various kinds of memory functions can be incorporated into display devices by using Si semiconductor TFTS, thereby making possible the highly functional display devices and reduction in power consumption.


Embodiments provide a distributed file fuzzing environment. In an embodiment, a number of computing devices can be used as part of a distributing fuzzing system. Fuzzing operations can be distributed to the number of computing devices and processed accordingly. A group or team can be defined to process particular fuzzing operations that may be best suited to the group. The time required to perform a fuzzing operation can be reduced by distributing the fuzzing work to the number of computing devices. A client can be associated with each computing device and used in conjunction with fuzzing operations.

File fuzzing is a process that can be used to test the integrity of a software application. A fuzzer can be provisioned with functionality to add/remove random files, code, data, or other information to/from the software application. The fuzzing results can be analyzed to assess any operating issues or other impact to the functionality of the software application. For example, a fuzzer can be used to ascertain security vulnerabilities associated with a computer program, including protocol and other deficiencies. If an application fails (crashes, fails, code assertions, etc.) during the fuzzing process, there may be certain defects that need to be addressed and corrected.
Unfortunately, a single computing resource is normally used for file fuzzing and the process may take many hours, and sometimes days, to complete, tying up and bogging down the computing resource. Corresponding, the computing resource may not be able to provide results quickly enough (or at all) to be of any value. In some cases, a fuzzing task may be aborted so that an associated resource can be freed-up. Adding to the issue, separate fuzzing outputs are usually reviewed manually, which can occupy many hours of a reviewer's time.


Electrical power distribution systems with a bypass unit that electrically engages one of two alternate units for powering a load while electrically isolating the other using a power transfer switch with first and second contactors and mechanical and electrical interlocks to allow a technician to access one of the alternate units when de-energized and in position while the other of the alternate units is energized and powering the load.

In general, electrical power distribution systems distribute electrical power from power sources, such as private or public power grids, to different loads, such as motors. As a specific example, motor control centers (MCC) distribute electrical power to and control motors in a central location. MCCs can include structures, cabinets or enclosures containing a common power bus and multiple, typically modular, bucket assemblies or units, which generally contain a motor starter of various types, a circuit breaker or fuse(s), and a power disconnect. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,024,441, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein. Eaton Corporation has recently introduced a MCC product line with compact bucket assemblies that conveniently plug into a slot, compartment or space in an MCC structure. The product is sold under the product name, Freedom 2100 MCC. See also, U.S. Pat. No. 8,934,218, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.

Electrical power distribution systems with a bypass unit that couples to a load and electrically engages one of two alternate units for powering the load and related methods


The present invention relates to an apparatus for spectrophotometric analysis of a material in a container by reflectance of a beam applied to the material through an aperture in a primary mask. A restricted beam resulting from the primary mask is applied through a port in an opaque secondary mask to the material. The restricted beam is wholly within the port and radiation reflected from the material passes through the port to detectors for analysis. The secondary mask defines by its port an area on the base of the container through which the restricted beam is applied to the material and is not subjected to spurious reflections and refractions otherwise created by the container between its base and side wall. The container may be spaced from the secondary mask and inclined relative thereto so that the secondary mask shields the top and bottom ends of the container.. The present invention also relates to a conversion kit with primary and secondary masks for fitting to existing spectrophotometers and an apparatus by which an array of containers can be fed successively and automatically to overlie the port for analysis and thereafter removed.

The present invention relates to spectrophotometric analysis and is particularly concerned with apparatus for analysis of a sample material, typically in powder or liquid form, by reflectance measurements resulting from a beam of electromagnetic radiation (usually near infrared) applied to the material.
Spectrophotometers are well known to provide quantitive and qualitative analysis of substances and materials and are used extensively within the chemical, petro-chemical, food, agriculture and pharmaceutical industries. Typical infrared reflectance spectrophotometers are sold under the Trade Marks "COMPSCAN" by the Gardner Neotec Division of Pacific Scientific and "MODEL 6500" by NIR Systems Inc. Generally known reflectance spectrophotometers comprise a cell or container within which a sample of the material for analysis is retained; a source providing a beam of electromagnetic radiation (usually near infrared as previously mentioned) which is applied to the material in the cell, and sensors or detectors which are responsive to reflections from the material in the cell and provide an output from which the analysis is effected. Usually the spectrophotometer is coupled to a computer by which the application of the beam to the material is controlled and which provides a required analysis of the output from the sensors or detectors.
A particular concern when using reflectance spectrophotometers is to ensure that stray electromagnetic radiation reflected back to the sensors or detectors is minimised. Understandably such stray or spurious reflections from parts of the spectrophotometer apparatus to which the beam may be applied will be presented for analysis along with the intended reflections from the sample material and thus result in false or inaccurate measurements. Where relatively large volumes of material are available for spectrophotometric analysis so that such material may be presented in a sample cell or container distributed over a relatively large area which is subjected to the beam, the stray light reflectance may be regarded as insignificant in assessing the accuracy of the analysis measurements. However, when only a relatively small volume of sample material is available or desired for analysis there is a problem that spurious or stray light reflections can have a significant adverse effect on the accuracy of the analysis measurements--this problem frequently occurs in the pharmaceutical industry (where it is quite common for only a very small volume of highly expensive pharmaceutical to be made available for spectrophotometric analysis). It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for reflectance spectrophotometric analysis by which the aforementioned problem may be alleviated. It is also an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus in the form of a conversion kit by which conventional reflectance spectrophotometers may be converted in a relatively simple, efficient and economic manner for use with a cell or container for a relatively small sample of material that is to be subjected to analysis and which conversion alleviates the aforementioned problem of stray or spurious reflections from the electromagnetic beam from being applied to the sensors or detectors.


A slingshot adapter hunting tool including a slingshot adapter and a method of shooting an arrow are disclosed. The slingshot adapter includes a plastic body which defines an open orifice and protrusions defining sight markers, where the tips of the protrusions define the open portion of the orifice.

An individual venturing in the outdoors would benefit from outdoor self reliance and survival training. One aspect of this training is the goal of any adventurer to carry a minimal amount of gear needed to survive or to be self reliant. By minimal gear, it is envisioned that the amount, weight, and volume of gear is considered. Another aspect of this training is the goal to acquire food from the environment.
Acquiring food from the environment is preferable to carrying food. As the number of days in the environment increases carrying sufficient amounts of food, especially meat, becomes increasingly more challenging. Also carrying food limits the amount, weight and volume of other gear.
Hunting tools which aid in obtaining food are typically preferable to carrying food. Hunting tools may allow an adventurer to acquire more food in the wilderness than the amount of food the adventurer could carry. Hunting tools may also simplify the number of pieces of gear needed by the adventurer. Hunting tools may also weight less and require less space than the amount of food acquired by use of the hunting tools.
Reusable tools are typically preferable. Some hunting tools, for example bullets, are not reusable and may limit the relevance of certain hunting tools, such as guns. Compact tools are also typically preferable. Some hunting tools, for example bows, are generally bulky and may limit the amount, weight and volume of other gear available to the adventurer. Multifunctional tools are generally preferable. Any tool which performs multiple functions limits the need for additional pieces of gear.


A flexible cable guide and enclosure is disclosed for guiding one or more optic fiber cables between an outside of the enclosure and a moveable tray inside the enclosure on which devices terminating the one or more cables are mounted. A first end of the cable guide is secured to an outside of the enclosure and a second end is secured to the tray for movement therewith. The flexible cable guide ensures that the optic fiber cables transition smoothly from the outside of the enclosure to the devices.

Enclosures which house fiber optic equipment such as cross-connects or the like terminate a large number of fiber optic cables. Additionally, in many installations given limited space, enclosures are only easily accessible via the front of the enclosure for servicing or modifying connections or the like which requires that fiber optic cables both enter and exit the enclosure via the front. In order to provide ease of access to modules held within the enclosures, especially to the rear and without the necessity of removing the modules, slideable trays are provided which can be pulled forward to allow access to the modules. One drawback of such designs is that fiber optic cables entering the front of the enclosure become snagged on the trays which can lead to them being damaged or broken, or hindering the movement of the tray.


A time measurement system for measuring the delay between first and second signals comprises means for detecting the times of upcrossings when the first signal crosses a predetermined level (preferably substantially different from the average level) with a positive slope and the times of downcrossings when the first signal crosses the predetermined level with a negative slope. These events are transmitted to a remote device receiving the second signal, which uses the events to define respective staggered segments of the second signal, to sum said segments and to detect a predetermined feature in said sum, the position of said feature representing the delay between the first and second signals.

One obvious application of time delay determination is the synchronisation of different processes or functions being performed in a complicated engineering system, especially a communication system. There are many other practical applications of time delay determination; for example, radar and sonar systems. Also, in some industrial and biomedical applications, where a distance is known, but the velocity of a waveform, associated with some phenomenon or process, is required, this can be estimated by determining the time required for this phenomenon or process to travel the known distance.
One conventional method of determining a time delay Δt between two signals x(t) and y(t) is to estimate the standard cross-correlation functionRxy(τ)=(1/T)∫x(t).y(t+τ)dt=(1/T)∫x(t−τ). y(t)dtwhere the integral is evaluated over the observation interval of duration T and for a range of hypothesised time delays τmin<τ<τmax. The value of argument τ, say τ0, that maximises the cross-correlation function Rxy(τ) provides an estimate of the unknown time delay Δt.
In general, the operation of cross-correlation comprises the following three steps:    1. delaying the reference signal x(t) by τ;    2. multiplying the values of a received signal y(t) and delayed reference x(t);    3. integrating the product obtained in step 2 over a specified observation time interval T.
A block diagram of a standard cross-correlator system is presented in FIG. 1. The system comprises a variable delay line 100, a multiplier 102 and an integrator 104. An example of a cross-correlation curve, with its maximum determining the time delay estimate τ0, is shown in FIG. 2.
WO-A-00/39643 discloses an improved technique for the calculation of the time delay between signals using a technique referred to herein as "crosslation". The contents of WO-A-00/39643 are incorporated herein by reference.
The term "crosslation" as used herein refers to a technique whereby predefined (preferably at least substantially aperiodic) events which occur in one signal are used to define staggered segments of a second signal, and representations of the staggered segments are then combined. The first and second signals may in fact be the same signal, in which case the resulting combined representation will provide information regarding the statistical properties of that signal, and in particular about the average behaviour of the signal before and after the predefined events. Alternatively, the first and second signals may be different signals ("mutual crosslation"), or one may be a delayed version of the other, in which case the combined representation will provide information about the relationship between those signals. For example, if the combined representation contains a feature which would be expected from combining segments associated with multiple predefined events, this may indicate that one of the signals is delayed with respect to the other by an amount corresponding to the position within the representation of that feature.
According to WO-A-00/39643, a binary, bipolar signal is subjected to an unknown delay. The non-delayed version of the signal is examined to determine when its level crosses zero with a positive slope (an upcrossing). The timing of these crossing events is used to obtain respective segments of the delayed signal, the segments having a predetermined duration. The segments are all summed, and a representation of the summed segments is then examined to locate a feature in the form of an odd function. The position within the representation of a zero-crossing in the centre of the odd function represents the amount by which the signal has been delayed. Instead of using upcrossings, the non-delayed version of the signal could be examined to determine when its level crosses zero with a negative slope (downcrossings).
WO-A-00/39643 also suggests improving accuracy by using both upcrossings and downcrossings. In this case, the segments defined by the downcrossings are subtracted from the segments defined by the upcrossings to obtain the odd function which is then examined.
The crosslation techniques of WO-A-00/39643 are particularly suited for object tracking with the use of active sensors, such as radar or active sonar, in which the surveillance region of interest is illuminated by an interrogating energy waveform to obtain object-backscattered returns. In such circumstances suitable (e.g., binary) signals can be chosen for modulating the transmitted signal. However, the technique can be less advantageous in applications involving passive sensors which capture only object-generated signals (or object-influenced signals from separate sources), for example systems for detecting, localising and tracking the movement of people, wheeled or tracked vehicles, speedboats or vibrating machinery, etc. using wideband acoustic signals generated thereby. It would also be desirable to provide a system which generates an output which is better suited for some applications than the odd function generated by the system of WO-A-00/39643 (e.g. applications which are primarily intended for object detection, rather than tracking of an already-detected object).
Object-generated acoustic signals are classified as wideband signals since the ratio of their highest frequency component to lowest frequency component is relatively large. For example, for the audio range, 30 Hz to 15 kHz, the ratio is 500. In a case of wheeled and tracked vehicles, dominant frequency components may range from about 20 Hz to 2 kHz, resulting in a ratio of 100.
Not only do acoustic signals emitted by objects of interest occupy a wide frequency range, but they also will manifest a non-stationary and chaotic nature with identifiable intermittent transients. As a result, many known cross-correlation techniques based, explicitly or implicitly, on the assumptions of signal stationarity and noise Gaussianity are only of limited practical use. Furthermore, most practical implementations have to deal with discrete-time samples, so that the optimisation procedures and performance analyses carried out in the continuous-time framework cannot be fully applicable.
A specific example of an application in which improved techniques for object detection and localisation would be desirable is that of security surveillance with a network of distributed acoustic sensors forming an 'acoustic fence'. When an object of interest, such as a vehicle, has been detected and localised, the estimated object position can be utilized by security cameras for aiming and zooming in order to enhance the quality of recorded images. Such systems may be installed for monitoring purposes in industrial environments, e.g. to track moving objects, or to offer improved continuous surveillance of critical infrastructure, including power grids, power plants, gas and oil pipelines and water systems. Another application is that of coastguard or littoral surveillance in which speedboats and other surface vessels of interest can be detected and localised by a network of floating buoys employing acoustic sensors and low-power radio transceivers providing an intersensor communication link.
In addition to the above surveillance and reconnaissance applications, it would also be desirable to improve multimedia applications involving distributed microphone networks which are capable of enhancing audio signals for improved intelligibility, and cuing for camera aiming.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved technique for time delay measurement, for example for use in object detection systems, including object locating and object tracking systems.


Annealing a planar wave guide layer is critical because small structural imperfections lead to optical problems. Chemical vapor deposition of the layer tends to leave gaseous substances bonded to the deposit, which on being driven off by initial annealing warm-ups leave cavities requiring densification. Traditional annealing methods take several hours. This invention proposes a rapid heating of the layer to a temperature below the flow temperature, maintaining this temperature for about 30 to 300 seconds, then rapidly heating up further to a temperature close to or above the flow temperature, maintaining this temperature for about 30 to 300 seconds, then allowing the substrate and layer to cool rapidly to room temperature.

Planar optical wave guides typically comprise a buffer or so-called undercladding layer deposited on a silicon substrate. This buffer layer may be silicon oxide, undoped or doped with one or more of boron, phosphorus and germania. Deposited on the buffer layer is a core layer, also typically of doped silicon oxide. There may be a stress compensating oxide layer deposited on the underside of the substrate, to counteract any tendency of the oxides on top to cause thermal or other distortions. Optical signals are contained within the core layer by a lower refractive index arranged for the surrounding buffer and a cladding layer deposited on the core layer.
In such an arrangement, the cladding layer is generally deposited by a chemical vapour deposition process, typically plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition. The material is deposited in a form that requires consolidation into a coherent vitreous composition and this is effected by an annealing process. A particular problem with current annealing processes is the excessive time, typically several hours, required for their completion to provide a dense uniform material. It was previously considered necessary to raise the temperature to the annealing temperature at a very slow rate to avoid the risk of cracking and consequent degradation of the deposited cladding layer. This in turn impairs the optical properties of the wave guide core. It is believed that this cracking of the cladding layer results from voids or imperfections that are left from the evolution of bonded volatile materials, particularly hydrogen, that are present in the deposited material prior to the annealing process. The need for long annealing times has made these devices relatively costly to manufacture and has thus restricted their general use.

Method of fabricating a planar waveguide structure


A method of administering a voice server can include, within the voice server, receiving a call from a system administrator. Call control data of the received call can be matched with a system administration application of the voice server. The system administration application can be executed. Responsive to the executing step, communications between the system administration application and a resource management system of the voice server can be established such that the system administrator can interact with the resource management system to request administrative functions over the call.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of telecommunications and, more particularly, to managing and administering a voice server through a voice and/or telephony interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
Voice-based applications have become increasingly popular as a means to access data and applications. Voice-based applications are those that allow a user to select menu items or enter data into entry fields using a conventional telephone, a wireless telephone, or another audio interface. Advances in the interfaces between the digital data domain and the voice domain have led to increased use of voice-based technology for accessing traditional personal and business applications. In consequence, more often than not, users can interact with systems through traditional voice communications and/or a telephone keypad.
Typically, voice-based services are implemented using one or more distributed computers or servers executing appropriate software, which collectively can be referred to as a "voice server". A voice server can provide functionality such as a telephony platform connector for interfacing with a telecommunications network, speech processing resources for performing text-to-speech and speech recognition, development tools, and/or other interfaces which allow the voice server to interact with one or more application programs and control systems.
Presently, system management and administration in a voice server environment follows the traditional model of command-line or console-based control. That is, a system administrator interacts with the voice server via a conventional computer terminal, having a keyboard and display, which is communicatively linked to the voice server. The administration terminal frequently is located "on-premises" with the voice server. The system administrator can receive notifications and monitor the voice server by viewing messages on the administration terminal display. The system administrator can provide instructions, queries, or other commands to the voice server by entering the appropriate information into a command line interface of the administration terminal display using the administrative terminal keyboard.
Through the administration terminal, the system administrator can interact with the voice server to perform administrative, managerial, and maintenance functions. Legacy software components, for example components written in the C programming language, typically are managed through Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) via the administration terminal.
Other systems have come to use a resource management system for handling communications between the administration terminal and the voice server. For example, within a Java environment, the resource management system can be a Java Management Extension (JMX) enabled system for managing Java components. JMX is defined in the document entitled Java Management Extensions Instrumentation and Agent Specification, v1.1 (March 2002), published by Sun Microsystems, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. The JMX specification, which is incorporated herein by reference, defines an architecture, design patterns, application programming interfaces (APIs), and services for application and network management using the Java programming language. The JMX specification is a set of specifications and development tools for managing Java environments and building management solutions.
Conventional console-based administrative terminals lack an interface which exploits the technology which the voice server was designed to provide to users. In consequence, conventional voice servers lack a more natural interface through which the voice server can be managed, administered, and/or maintained by a system administrator.

Telephony and voice interface for voice server system management

International Business Machines Corporation


A multi-path acoustic signal apparatus, system, and apparatus for use in material detection are provided. The apparatus has a plurality of acoustic sensors positioned along a first portion of a fluid container. At least one acoustic signal is transmitted into the fluid container by each of the plurality of acoustic sensors. At least one additional acoustic sensor is positioned along a second portion of the fluid container, wherein the second portion is substantially opposite the first portion. The at least one additional acoustic sensor receives at least a portion of the acoustic signals from the plurality of acoustic sensors. A reflected acoustic signal is generated from an impedance barrier between the fluid container and a fluid therein. A characteristic of a material of the fluid container and/or the fluid therein are determined.

Many materials that are transported through pipes have significant acoustic impedance difference with material that the pipe sidewall is formed from. For example, fluids, liquids, and other viscous materials have a significant acoustic impedance difference relative to pipes or pipelines formed from metals, such as cast iron, steel, aluminum, or the like. Similarly, materials stored in containers, especially metal containers such as oil and gas storage tanks, have characteristically big differences with the material that the container wall is formed from.
With regards to the oil and gas industry specifically, steel is the material often used for pipelines. A steel pipe carrying crude oil has an acoustic impedance barrier which reflects approximately 88% of the energy of the acoustic wave back into the pipe wall depending on the temperature. Only approximately 12% from the energy of the incident wave is transmitted into the crude oil itself. In a similar example, when a cast iron pipe is used to transport water, the amount of the reflected energy is approximately 98.30311% from the incidence wave energy. Due to this reflection of the acoustic wave energy, pipelines and containers with larger sizes often present a challenge for nondestructive analysis since most of the initial signal is lost just crossing the sidewall of the pipe or container containing the fluid.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.

Multi-path acoustic signal improvement for material detection