A rail-to-rail amplifier suitable for use in a line-inversion LCD grayscale reference generator comprises a p-type differential pair and a first switchable current source which supplies tail current to the p-type pair in response to a first control signal, and an n-type pair and a second switchable current source which supplies tail current to the n-type pair in response to a second control signal; when its tail current is present, each pair provides a differential output current which varies with a differential input signal. A control circuit provides the control signals such that the first switchable current source is enabled when a voltage applied to the amplifier's input is closer to the amplifier's negative supply rail, and the second switchable current source is enabled when the applied voltage is closer to the amplifier's positive supply rail, such that only one input pair is active at any given time.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of operational amplifiers (op amps), and particularly to rail-to-rail op amps suitable for use in a line-inversion grayscale reference generator.
2. Description of the Related Art
LCD display panels are made up of pixels, with each pixel's transparency varying with the voltage applied across it. The "source driver" circuit which provides the voltages applied to the pixels is typically a simple digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The DAC consists of a series string of resistors with a voltage connected across it such that unique voltages are produced at each resistor—resistor junction, followed by a multiplexer which passes on one of the produced voltages in response to a digital code. As the digital code to the mux is increased from zero-scale to full-scale, the voltage applied across a pixel increases linearly. Unfortunately, the relationship between pixel transparency and applied voltage is non-linear; as such, applying a drive voltage which is ¼ of full scale may not result in a ¼ brightness level from an addressed pixel.
One approach to correcting the non-linearity involves "bending" the DAC at certain points along the resistor string, using a grayscale reference generator. Several correction voltages are applied to selected resistor—resistor junctions, such that the DAC's transfer characteristic is made linear between pairs of correction points (though the DAC's overall transfer function may now be non-linear). When properly arranged, linearly incrementing the digital code to the DAC causes the transparency of a driven pixel to vary linearly.
A basic grayscale reference generator 10 and source driver 12 are shown in FIG. 1; a grayscale reference generator in combination with a source driver are referred to herein as an "LCD display driver". A pixel 14 is addressed by toggling a "gate" line (G) for the row in which the pixel resides, which closes a switch 16 to connect the pixel to a particular column line, which is driven with a source driver as described above. A desired drive voltage is applied to the pixel's column line, and is stored on a storage capacitor 18.
Another problem associated with LCD displays is "ghosting". Ghosting is avoided by maintaining a near-zero average DC voltage across the pixels. This is accomplished by periodically alternating the polarity of the voltage applied across each pixel so as to maintain a constant absolute voltage across it. For example, in FIG. 1, ghosting is avoiding by connecting the "second" terminal (19a) of each pixel 14 to a voltage VCOM, which is alternately switched between first and second voltages—typically a positive supply voltage and ground, but any two voltages could be used. Simultaneously, the polarities of the drive voltages applied to the pixel's "first" terminal (19b) are alternated in synchronization with the switching of the second terminal so as to maintain a constant absolute voltage across the pixel. A generator of this type is referred to herein as a "line-inversion" LCD grayscale reference generator.
One way of alternating the polarities of the drive voltages is shown in FIG. 1. Voltage sources (not shown) generate a set of correction voltages (VA, VB, VC, VD, VE) for use when the pixel is being driven with a first polarity, and a set of correction voltages (VA′, VB′, VC′, VD′, VE′) for use when the pixel is being driven with the opposite polarity. An analog multiplexer 20 receives the two sets of corrections voltages, and switches one set or the other to the resistor—resistor junctions of source driver 12 in synchronization with the switching of pixel terminal 19a. A controller 22 operates analog mux 20, source driver 12, and the switching of the pixel terminal.
Amplifiers A1–A5 are typically interposed between respective outputs of analog multiplexer 20 and source driver 12. Most of the amplifiers, particularly the "outer" amplifiers (A1, A2, A4 and A5 in this example), need to be able to swing close to their supply rails (V+ and ground in this example); a graph illustrating the input voltages that amplifiers A1–A5 might need to accommodate is shown in FIG. 1b. This requires that these outer amps be rail-to-rail amplifiers.
A typical rail-to-rail amplifier as might be used in grayscale reference generator 10 is shown in FIG. 1c. A PMOS differential input pair 24, 26 receives tail current from a current source 28, and an NMOS differential input pair 30, 32 receives tail current from a current source 34. The gates of PMOS FET 24 and NMOS FET 30 share a common input terminal (+), as do the gates of PMOS FET 26 and NMOS FET 32 (−). The pairs generate respective differential output currents that vary with the differential input voltage applied across the input terminals; an output stage 36 generates an output voltage (OUT) which varies with the differential output currents.
There are several drawbacks to the use of a rail-to-rail amplifier as shown in FIG. 1c. One disadvantage is that for some values of common-mode input voltage (Vcm), both input pairs will be operational, while for other values of Vcm only one pair is operational. Having both pairs active consumes what may be an excessive amount of supply current.
Another disadvantage concerns the amplifier's frequency compensation scheme. Such a scheme is designed to limit the maximum amplifier bandwidth to avoid oscillation. Bandwidth varies with the transconductance of the input stage, and is greatest when both pairs are active. As such, the amplifier's compensation scheme is generally optimized for this condition. This means that the compensation becomes sub-optimal—and the amplifier's bandwidth unnecessarily limited—when only one pair is active.

Rail-to-rail amplifier for use in line-inversion LCD grayscale reference generator


Deep drawn, deep drawn and stretched, or extruded cylindrical aluminium containers are varnished internally and externally, provided with a twostage neck by drawing in and onto the neck is rolled a thread, followed by cutting to length. The drawing-in of the neck, thread rolling and cutting to size are performed with the same container setting. To improve the flexibility, adhesiveness and sliding characteristics, the varnish used is mixed with catalysts, plasticizers and/or lubricants. When the thread is rolled, the container neck is supported from the inside with a quasi-stationary screw-pitch gauge, while from the outside a thread roll is rolled over the neck surface and presses the thread inwards into the neck. The screw-pitch gauge and the thread roll are forcibly guided in such a way that a slip occurs between them and the neck material. As a result the varnish also remains intact in the vicinity of the thread.

The prior art discloses the shaping of flat, circular aluminium pieces by drawing so as to form cylindrical containers, which are internally and externally varnished and then the container opening is narrowed by drawing in and flanging and made ready for the attachment of a cap or closure. Such containers are e.g. further processed to form aerosol monoblock containers. Varnishing and in particular the printing of inscriptions or decorative patterns prior to drawing in is advantageous, because lacquer or varnish can only be rolled on to cylindrical containers. Even internally, where the varnish is sprayed on, this can take place more easily on the still cylindrical container.
Varnishing the insides of aluminium containers is necessary for all those applications in which a bare aluminium surface would be attacked by the container contents. Whenever during storage and use the container content comes into contact with the container inner surface, it is important for the internal varnish to cover said surface in an absolutely uninterrupted manner.
For the methods for the manufacture of varnished aluminium containers according to the prior art, varnishes have been developed, which are so adhesive, elastic and slidable that cylindrical, varnished aluminium containers can be drawn in in bottle-like manner without damaging the varnish.
As aluminium is a very satisfactory and inexpensively recyclable packing material, it would be appropriate and desirable if it would be possible to manufacture, from aluminium, containers onto which could e.g. be screwed a hand pump with a riser tube or a screw cap, in the same way as with plastic or glass bottles. The aluminum container could e.g. be marketed filled with the screw cap closed. The consumer would only have to screw and then unscrew the multiply usable pump onto the aluminum container and to either refill or recycle the container without extraneous material. For this purpose aluminum containers with corresponding threads and advantageously standardized threads are necessary.

Method and apparatus for the manufacture of threaded aluminum containers


Aspects described herein relate to communicating feedback in wireless communications. A user equipment (UE) can receive, in a downlink portion of a slot, data communications from a base station, where the data communications comprise multiple code blocks received in one or more downlink symbols. The UE can generate one or more feedback bits to provide feedback for the multiple code blocks. The UE can transmit, to the base station and in an uplink portion of the slot, an indication of the one or more feedback bits.

Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communication networks, and more particularly, to providing feedback in wireless communications.
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems.
These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide a common protocol that enables different wireless devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and even global level. For example, a fifth generation (5G) wireless communications technology (which can be referred to as new radio (NR)) is envisaged to expand and support diverse usage scenarios and applications with respect to current mobile network generations. In an aspect, 5G communications technology can include: enhanced mobile broadband addressing human-centric use cases for access to multimedia content, services and data; ultra-reliable-low latency communications (URLLC) with certain specifications for latency and reliability; and massive machine type communications, which can allow a very large number of connected devices and transmission of a relatively low volume of non-delay-sensitive information. As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, however, further improvements in NR communications technology and beyond may be desired.
For example, for NR communications technology and beyond, transmitting of acknowledgements (ACKs)/negative acknowledgements or other feedback occurs by transmitting a single ACK/NACK used for all physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) symbols/code blocks. This may result in using additional resources to retransmit some PDSCH symbols/code blocks that may have actually been received, but for which a NACK was reported in communicating the single ACK/NACK for the multiple PDSCH symbols/code blocks.

Uplink multi-bits acknowledgement for self contained transmissions


A travel control method estimates a position of a moving object around a subject vehicle using a detector configured to detect the moving object. This method includes detecting a direction of travel in a lane from map information. The lane is located on a road on which the moving object travels. When the subject vehicle is changing directions, the position of the moving object is estimated on the basis of the direction of travel in the lane.

There has been a conventional technique of determining whether or not another vehicle is traveling in a lane (adjacent lane) adjacent to a lane (subject vehicle lane) in which a subject vehicle travels, on the basis of the number of lanes included in map information and the position of the other vehicle received from the other vehicle (see Japanese Patent Application JP2013-134567A).
However, unfortunately, the position of another vehicle cannot be detected with a high degree of accuracy depending on the sensor provided in the other vehicle, and the other vehicle may be actually traveling in the adjacent lane even when a determination is made that the other vehicle is not traveling in the adjacent lane.

Travel control method and travel control apparatus


An evacuated envelope (C) which is connected with an anode (A), has a cathode assembly (B) rotatably mounted inside. Magnets (44, 46) hold the cathode assembly stationary as the anode and envelope rotate. A ferrite core transformer (60) includes a ferrite core primary (66) stationarily mounted exterior to the envelope. A secondary (64) is mounted to the cathode assembly interior to the envelope. The secondary winding includes a ferrite core (70), a portion of which is surrounded by a ceramic, dielectric bobbin (76). The bobbin includes walls or ridges (78) which define a spiral groove (80) therearound in which an uninsulated electric wire (82) is received. The uninsulated electric wire is connected with a cathode filament (52). The primary winding has a ferrite core (90) that has about five times the cross section as the secondary ferrite core to compensate for a low, about 20%, coupling efficiency between the primary and secondary windings. Preferably, the primary winding core tapers (94) adjacent its pole faces to focus magnetic flux toward pole faces (72, 74) of the secondary ferrite core.

The present invention relates to the x-ray tube art. It finds particular application in conjunction with high power x-ray tubes for use with CT scanners and the like and will be described with particular reference thereto. It will be appreciated, however, that the invention will also have other applications.
Typically, a high power x-ray tube includes a cathode filament through which a current of about 5 amps is passed at a voltage sufficient to provide about 75 watts of power. This current heats the filament sufficiently that it is caused to emit a cloud of electrons, i.e. thermionic emission. A high potential on the order of 100 kV is applied between the cathode and the anode. This potential causes the electrons to flow between the cathode and the anode through the evacuated region in the interior of the envelope. Generally, this electron beam or current is on the order of 10-500 mA. The electron beam impinges on the anode generating x-rays and producing extreme heating as a byproduct. In high energy x-ray tubes, the anode is rotated at high speeds such that the electron beam does not dwell on only a small area of the anode causing thermal deformation. Each spot on the anode which is heated by the electron beam cools substantially during one rotation of the anode before it is again heated by the electron beam. Larger diameter anodes have a larger circumference, hence provide greater thermal loading. In most conventional rotating anode x-ray tubes, the envelope and the cathode remain stationary while the anode rotates inside the envelope. Heat from the anode is dissipated by thermal radiation through the vacuum to the exterior of the envelope.
High power x-ray tubes have been proposed in which the anode and vacuum envelope rotate, while the cathode filament inside the envelope remains stationary. This configuration permits a coolant fluid to be circulated to the anode to provide a direct thermal connection between the anode and the exterior of the envelope. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,788,705 and 4,878,235. One of the difficulties with this configuration is providing electrical energy to the stationary cathode within the rotating vacuum envelope. Conveying 5 amps of power into an evacuated envelope without degrading the vacuum can be achieved by using an air core coil or an air core transformer as illustrated by the above-referenced patents. One drawback of the air core coil or transformer configurations is that any vibration of the cathode structure induces changes in the magnetic flux linking the external primary and the internal secondary. These vibration induced changes in the flux linkage cause corresponding variations in the filament current, leading to erratic filament emission. Another drawback to these patents is that the air core coil or transformer operates at about 13.56 MHz which corresponds to a skin depth in copper of about 0.024 mm. Because the electrical current is constrained to such a shallow skin depth, problems arise in the design of the low-resistance leads to the filament, as well as to localized hot spots on the filament itself. Additionally, when multiple secondary turns are provided, wire insulation systems present serious problems with respect to vacuum outgasing and particles.
The present invention provides a new and improved technique for transferring electrical power to the filament of an x-ray tube in which there is relative rotational movement between the envelope and the cathode.

X-ray tube with ferrite core filament transformer


An inkjet printer that can improve image quality of printing than in a conventional technique is to be provided. An inkjet printer includes an inkjet head 40 that discharges ink droplets toward a print medium; an in-head ink heating unit that heats ink inside the inkjet head 40; and an out-of-head ink heating device 68 that heats ink in an ink supply passage to the inkjet head 40 at outside of the inkjet head 40, and the out-of-head ink heating device 68 is arranged at a position where the heated ink is supplied to the inkjet head 40.

Conventionally, an inkjet printer that includes an inkjet head in which a plurality of nozzles for discharging ink droplets onto a print medium is known (see JP 2012-51160 A).
As ink used by an inkjet printer, there are ones with too much viscosity at normal temperature to be discharged from nozzles. Due to this, among conventional inkjet printers, there are ones having an inkjet head provided with a heater for heating ink for a purpose of reducing the viscosity of the ink, so that the ink can appropriately be discharged from the nozzles.
However, in the conventional inkjet printer that heats the ink by the heater in the inkjet head, since the ink that has already been present inside the inkjet head and heated by the heater is cooled by the ink supplied from the outside of the inkjet head at a portion where the ink is supplied from the outside to the inside within the inkjet head and in a vicinity thereof, unevenness in temperature is generated in the ink inside the inkjet head depending on locations. The unevenness in temperature being generated in the ink inside the inkjet head depending on the locations means that unevenness in viscosity is generated in the ink inside the inkjet head depending on the locations. When the unevenness in viscosity is generated in the ink inside the inkjet head depending on the locations, an ink droplet discharging accuracy is varied for each of the nozzles of the inkjet head by the unevenness in viscosity of the ink inside the inkjet head. Accordingly, in the conventional inkjet printer that heats the ink by the heater in the inkjet head, there is a problem that an image quality of printing is degraded.


We have demonstrated reversibly reducing metal-ion crosslinkages in polymer systems, by harnessing light, creating a dynamic and reversible bond. The reduction induces chemical and physical changes in the polymer materials. Some variations provide a polymer composition comprising: a polymer matrix containing one or more ionic species; one or more photosensitizers; and one or more metal ions capable of reversibly changing from a first oxidation state to a second oxidation state when in the presence of the photosensitizers and light. Some embodiments employ urethane-based ionomers capable of changing their crosslinked state under the influence of a change in counterion valance, using light or chemical reducing agents. This invention provides films, coatings, or objects that are reversible, re-mendable, self-healing, mechanically adjustable, and/or thermoplastic/thermoset-switchable.

Historically, improvements to polymer properties have focused on static properties including strength, thermostability, toughness, and durability. Recent research has broadened to incorporate multifunctionality into polymers that can adapt to their environment, with dynamic properties such as recyclability, remoldability, self-healing, and shape memory. The ability to rework and remold certain polymers is of great interest due to increased awareness of recycling, high cost of materials, and the ability to extend the life of a material through in situ repair.
In order to accomplish many of these properties, it is necessary to form and break bonds or crosslinks. Research in reversible crosslinking within materials dates back to the 1960s, where the majority of the work was based on thermally triggered Diels-Alder chemistry. New approaches are needed that provide greater flexibility in trigger mechanisms and strategies for reversibility.
There are two classes of polymer materials that are categorized based on their network structure: thermosets and thermoplastics. Thermosets are polymers that are heated, molded, and cured to form a permanent shape and can no longer be reworked due to network constraints when cured. Thermoplastics will soften upon heating, becoming flowable, which allows them to be remolded multiple times without loss of properties. The biggest distinction between the two classes is the crosslinking architecture of the network. Thermosets tend to have a high density of crosslinking—specifically, interchain covalent bonds—that hold all the polymer chains together. By contrast, thermoplastics are made up primarily of long individual polymer chains that associate together to form a network. This architecture gives thermosets high thermal stability, high rigidity, dimensional stability, and resistance to deformation, which makes them desirable, but removes the ability to recycle, reshape, and repair. Remolding and reshaping thermoplastics is made possible due to non-covalent associations between the polymer chains; however, the reduced number of crosslinks makes the material more vulnerable to creep under stress.
Introducing reversible crosslinking into a polymer network can controllably capture the advantages of both a thermoset and thermoplastic. A conventional problem with crosslinking a network is that the material becomes non-recyclable and non-formable. However, if these crosslinks could be removed, the desirable properties of a thermoplastic—remolding and shaping—are made possible.
While thermally reversible crosslinking by Diels-Alder chemistry has been researched, uniform heating is generally difficult to achieve for large parts. Moreover, the response is slow and gradual, due to the low thermal conductivity of polymers as well as the bond breakage that occurs over a wide temperature range. Polymer materials instead can be synthesized to be responsive to mechanics. Mechanoresponsive materials rely on ultrasonication or other means of mechanical stress to break crosslinking chains. Large material parts would suffer from energy transfer challenges. Reversibility of such systems relies on the re-equilibration of the components with time, a slow and undesirable process. Polymer materials instead can be synthesized to be responsive to electricity. Electroresponsive materials are triggered by an electrical potential that often oxidizes or reduces components.
In view of the shortcomings in the art, what is desired is non-thermal reversible crosslinking for mechanical tunability and self-healing properties, preferably exploiting naturally occurring stimuli, such as natural light. Coating technologies based on these reversible polymers would enable improved coating materials and systems. Compositions suitable for these coating systems are also needed.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Reversible, chemically or environmentally responsive polymers, and coatings containing such polymers


A knee pad construction includes a shaped cushion element with a concave interior with a recess having a flowable gel insert therein. The recess and insert are shaped to accommodate the left knee or the right knee of an individual.

The present invention relates to a protective knee pad construction and, more particularly, to a pair of kneepads which are constructed to accommodate, respectively, the left knee and the right knee of an individual.
Protective knee pads are used by various individuals, for example, construction workers, mechanics, sportsmen, athletes, and others who find it necessary to protect their knees as a result of their work or activities. Utilization of protective knee pads placed on or around the knee for use when kneeling on hard surfaces is thus a common practice and, in some instances, a requirement in order to practice a trade or craft. Various knee pad constructions are available and typically comprise a rigid case or padding which is fitted over the knee and held thereon by attachment straps.
Knee pad constructions are the subject of various prior patents and applications including U.S. Pat. No. 6,584,616 B2 issued Jul. 1, 2003 and incorporated herewith by reference. Further knee pad constructions are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,223,350 for a Molded Kneepad Construction in U.S. Pat. No. 5,031,240 for a Kneepad; U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,261 for a Protective Joint Guard; U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,689 for a Protective Kneepad Having a Single Piece Cupping Means and Stitch Receiving Groove; U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,955 for a Kneepad for Athletes; U.S. Des. Pat. No. D473,977 for a Kneepad; and U.S. Patent Publication No. US2004/0111780 for a Kneepad.
Recently, there have been proposals for the construction of knee pads which account for the differentiation or distinction between the left knee of an individual and the right knee. Human anatomy exhibits differences between the shape of the left knee cap (or patella) and its position physiologically with respect to the skeletal structure and muscular arrangement and the right knee cap. The size, shape and configuration of knee caps may also vary from person to person. On the other hand, the general shape and location of the left knee cap and the right knee cap is similar, in many respects, from person to person.
Most knee pads, however, are universal in size and in shape and are considered interchangeable with respect to usage on the right and left knees of an individual. Such knee pads thus typically do not compensate for the distinction between left and right knees, or for the sizing of the knee of an individual. Consequently, there has remained a need for improved knee pad constructions.


A thermal printer using a thermal head having a plurality of heating elements arranged in line, wherein the heating elements are driven for different power conduction times to record dots at different densities. According to the invention, the thermal printer is comprised of a first look-up table for converting original heating data into time data representative of a power conduction time corresponding to the original heating data; a correction circuit for correcting the time data to obtain a corrected power conduction time; a second look-up table for converting the corrected power conduction time into corrected heating data which corresponds to the corrected power conduction time; and a head driver for driving the heating elements in accordance with the corrected heating data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thermal printing method and a thermal printer, wherein heating data for a thermal head is corrected with regard to resistance variation between heating elements of the thermal head, and heat accumulation in the thermal head. More particularly, the present invention relates to a thermal printer and a thermal printing method, wherein heating data is corrected after being converted into data representative of a driving or power conduction time of each individual heating element.
2. Background Arts
Sublimation transfer type or ink transfer type thermal printers and thermosensitive type or direct imaging type thermal printers have been known as printers which is capable of recording each dot at a different density to print an image with gradation. The former heats an ink film with a thermal head to transfer ink onto a recording sheet. The latter directly heats with a thermal head a thermosensitive recording sheet having a thermosensitive coloring layer per one color, to make the layer develop color. The thermal heads have a large number of heating elements aligned in a main scan direction. While the thermal head is moved relative to a recording sheet in a subscan direction perpendicular to the main scan direction, the heating elements are driven to record an image on a recording sheet one line after another. Each heating element is heated to record one dot in a pixel, i.e. one virtual square segment of the recording sheet. The heating energy of each heating element is controlled in accordance with heating data of each pixel, to change the density of the dot in accordance with a tonal level designated by the heating data. Hereinafter, heating data of each pixel will be referred to as pixel heating data.
For example, as shown in FIG. 10, when printing one dot on the thermosensitive recording sheet, one heating element first performs a bias heating by applying a bias heat energy Eb to the recording sheet to heat it up to such a degree above which a desired thermosensitive coloring layer begins to develop a color. Thus, the amount of bias heat energy Eb is determined by the heat sensitivity of the coloring layer. After this bias heating, a gradation heating for causing the coloring layer to color at a different density is performed by applying a different amount of gradation heat energy Eg to the recording sheet. With these bias heating and gradation heating, one pixel is colored to form one dot. The bias heat energy Eb and the gradation heat energy Eg are controlled in accordance with bias data and image data respectively. Accordingly, heating data for the thermosensitive type thermal printer consists of bias data and image data. On the other hand, heating data for the ink transfer type requires only to image data.
To control the amount of heat energy generated from the individual heating element in accordance with the pixel heating data assigned to that heating element, the amount of electric power supplied to each heating element is controlled. However, as shown for example in FIG. 10, the recording density is not proportional to the gradation heat energy Eg applied to the thermosensitive recording sheet. That is, the actual gradation of tonal levels is non-linear with respect to the gradation heat energy Eg, while the tonal levels represented by the image data are based on a linear gradation. Therefore, the pixel heating data is converted into time data representative of a driving or power conduction time through the heating element necessary for recording a dot at the designated density. This is because the heat energy generated from the heating element increases in direct proportion to the power conduction time through that heating element, as the heating elements are constructed of resistors. Conventionally, power conduction time through the heating element is controlled for each pixel by changing the time duration of one continuous driving or the number of times of intermittent driving in accordance with the heating data of that pixel.
It is also known in the field of thermal printing that the recording density is affected by heat energy accumulated in the individual heating elements as well as in the whole thermal head. The results are undesirable variation in density, inadequate contrast, so-called shading etc. As the heating elements are resistors, a variation in the resistance also results an unexpected variation in density. To prevent these problems, the heating data is corrected so as to eliminate the influence of heat accumulation and the resistance variation between the heating elements. Hereinafter, these correction processes of the heating data will be referred to as the correction due to the thermal head. Many methods for the correction due to the thermal head have been suggested, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,528,276 and 5,608,333, and U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 08/698,695 and 08/768,942.
Because of the non-linear relationship between the image data and the gradation heat energy, when correcting the heating data, for example, such that consequent gradation heat energy values are corrected by the same rate compared with the respective original values, it is necessary to multiply the image data of each tonal level by a different correction coefficient or factor. These different correction coefficients must be calculated from the value of image data, i.e. the original heat energy value, and the correction value of heat energy, in accordance with formulas that are determined based on the non-linear recording density curve of the thermosensitive coloring layer relating to heat energy, such as shown in FIG. 10. Such a calculation is complicated. Since this calculation should be done for each individual pixel of each line, and one line consists of a large number of pixels, it takes a certainly long data processing time or needs highly complicated operation circuits. In result, the total printing time is elongated, or the production cost of the thermal printer is increased.

Thermal printing method and thermal printer


Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a signal measurement method, a network side device, and user equipment. The method includes the following steps: receiving, by user equipment, a channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS); receiving, by the user equipment, a synchronization signal; and sending, by user equipment, a first measurement result and a second measurement result, wherein the first measurement result is obtained by measured the CSI-RS, and the second measurement result is obtained by measured the synchronization signal.

Radio resource management (Radio Resource Management, RRM) is to ensure service quality for a wireless user terminal in a network when a bandwidth is limited. A basic starting point is to flexibly allocate and dynamically adjust available resources for wireless transmission and the network when network traffic is distributed unevenly and a channel feature fluctuates with channel attenuation and interference, to improve wireless spectrum utilization to a greatest extent, avoid network congestion, and maintain signaling load as low as possible. The RRM includes power control, channel allocation, scheduling, handover, access control, load control, adaptive coding and modulation, and the like.
Currently, in a Long Term Evolution (Long Term Evolution, LTE) system, cell handover in the RRM uses a measurement manner that is based on a downlink signal. To be specific, a base station sends a reference signal (Reference signal, RS), for example, a common reference signal (Common Reference signal, CRS) of a fixed time-frequency resource; user equipment (User Equipment, UE) receives the CRS sent by the base station, obtains, through measurement, a measurement result such as reference signal received power (Reference Signal Received Power, RSRP) and reference signal received quality (Reference Signal Received Quality, RSRQ) of the CRS, and reports the measurement result to the base station; and the base station receives the measurement result fed back by the UE, and determines, based on the measurement result, whether the UE needs to perform cell handover.
In a communication process, the UE may be in a moving state, and may move from a center of a cell to an edge of the cell, or from an edge of a cell to a center of the cell. However, in these cases, the foregoing measurement manner is still used, a measurement signal cannot be configured for the UE as required due to the fixed measurement manner, and a ping-pong handover effect may be caused by insufficient measurement precision. In addition, the CRS exists in each downlink subframe sent by the base station. Consequently, this increases reference signal overheads to some extent for the base station, and affects measurement efficiency to some extent for the UE.

Signal measurement method, network side device, and user equipment


A checkout station for checking out articles selected for purchase and bearing UPC codes includes an island for checkout including a first checkout module, having a first UPC scanner and a first conveyor leading from the first scanner to a first bagging area. A first customer passageway extends lengthwise along one side of the first conveyor. A cashier station is adjacent a second side of the first conveyor. A second checkout module, having a second UPC scanner and a second conveyor leading from the second scanner to a second bagging area and having one side adjacent the cashier station. A second customer passageway extends lengthwise along the other side of the second conveyor. Checkout is practiced by a customer scanning article UPC and an operator (cashier) processing payment, increasing throughput. Throughput improvement is further enhanced by providing a bagging area adjacent an exit of the conveyor and divider apparatus operable for placing a portion of the bagging area in communication with the conveyor exit correspondingly with the size of the customer order. The divider apparatus is further operable for isolating from the conveyor exit that bagging area which is not placed in communication with the conveyor exit.

U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,676,343 and 4,792,018, commonly-assigned herewith, set forth systems for operator-unattended checkout with particular concern for detection of customer fraud and deterrence of the same.
In the '343 patent, an article selected for purchase has its universal product code (UPC) scanned by a code reader and the code reader output signals effect the fetching from storage of a signal indicative of a measurable characteristic of the article. The article is placed on a conveyor and led thereby into a security zone defined by inlet and outlet light curtains. In the security zone, the measurable characteristic of the selected article is measured by a sensor and the sensor provides an output signal indicative of the measurement. A comparison is made of the sensor output signal and the fetched signal and, if the comparison is favorable, the conveyor continues to move in an article acceptance sense. Should the comparison be negative, the movement of the conveyor is reversed and the article placed on the conveyor is returned to the customer.
While the commonly-assigned patents describe their systems as operator-unattended, practical implementation thereof has led to a re-characterization thereof as systems requiring limited operator assistance, vastly less than the conventional, fully operator-attended systems theretofore known. Typically, an employee is assigned to a prescribed number of checkout counters and floats therebetween as assistance is required.
In typical current implementations of checkout systems in accordance with the commonly-assigned patents, on completion of the activity of the security system, indication is provided by the security system to a POS (point of sale) system of the installation of the acceptance of a given UPC-scanned article selected for purchase. The indication is conveyed to an interface which mates the security and POS systems. The POS system includes a store of article prices correlated with UPC indications and is responsive to the acceptance indication and the UPC indication for a given article to fetch the stored price of the article and to proceed with price totalization for a consumer order, seriatim per selected and accepted article.
One basis for the need for some operator assistance derives from the failure, at times, of the POS system price store to have pricing data for a selected article. In currently implemented systems, the POS system advises the security system, through the interface, of this aberration and the selected article is rejected.
Heightened operator assistance attends the described situation, since all article rejections for failure of price information require an operator to assist in the checkout. In the described situation, the operator is required to determine the selected article price and to furnish the price by key input to the POS system.
A system and method for averting need for continued operator assistance for price input in installations following the '343 and '018 patents is set forth in a commonly-assigned, copending application, entitled "ARTICLE CHECKOUT SYSTEM WITH PRICE PARAMETER OVERRIDE CAPACITY".
Another basis for the need for some operator assistance derives from article supplier activity not keyed into the security data base by the manager of the facility using the system, typically a food market supermarket. By way of example, in a promotional effort for a given article, a further article may be affixed thereto as an award for purchase of the article. This gives rise to a size characteristic which compares negatively with the stored size characteristic for the article absent its companion.
Heightened operator assistance attends the described situation, since all article rejections by the checkout system require an operator to assist in the checkout, e.g., as in bypassing the system for the rejected article. While the above example is a size discrepancy, article suppliers will at times change the weight aspect of an article, e.g., by changing a container from plastic to glass or vice versa. Weight discrepancy likewise gives rise to article rejection and need for operator assistance.
A system and method for averting need for continued operator assistance for size or weight input in installations following the '343 and '018 patents is set forth in a commonly-assigned, copending application, entitled "ARTICLE CHECKOUT SYSTEM WITH SECURITY PARAMETER OVERRIDE CAPACITY".
In conventional article checkout, a cashier scans the articles for about one-half of the order checkout time and does tendering (payment acceptance) and finalizing operations for the other one-half or so of the order checkout time. In the operator-unattended checkout system, the customer does the article scanning and is less efficient than the cashier. However, since tendering occurs remotely from the checkout station, at a paystation, the time to perform checkout in the operator-unattended system can equate with the operator-attended system. In either variety of checkout system, if there can be an increase in the usable time of the article code scanner, throughput can be increased accordingly.

Article checkout system with enhanced throughput


An airbag deployment controller has a plurality of sensors interposed between a rigid member and a seat pan member such that the weight supported by a portion of the seat cushion which the rigid member underlies is transferred from the rigid member to the seat pan via said sensors. The sensors sense the magnitude of the force transferred therethrough. A device processes signals from the sensors to determine the weight that the portion of the seat cushion which the rigid member underlies is bearing. The signal processing device controls the activation and operation of an airbag as a function of the presence and weight of a seat occupant. Optionally, the tension on a seat belt may also be sensed and processed as a parameter for controlling the deployment of an airbag.

Many vehicles are equipped with airbags to protect persons occupying various seats in the vehicle. If a seat is unoccupied or is occupied by a person of a particular size, it may not be necessary to activate the airbag associated with that seat. Furthermore, if a seat is occupied by a person of a particular size, the manner in which a safety device is employed may be varied accordingly. One indicator of the size of a seat occupant is his or her weight. In the case of an infant, the combined weight of the infant and an infant safety seat is useful as an indicator of occupant size.
There is a need in the field of inflatable vehicle occupant restraints, such as airbags, to determine if the occupant of the front passenger seat of a motor vehicle equipped with a front passenger side airbag is an infant in an infant seat or a small child weighing less than a preselected amount Thus, the airbag deployment controller disclosed herein may determine the presence or absence of an object or person on a seat cushion, and the weight of the person or object on a seat cushion and based upon those determinations may allow or disallow the deployment of an airbag.


A high pulse repetition rate (PRF) plasma gun is provided which gun inlets a selected propellant gas into a column formed between a center electrode and a coaxial outer electrode, utilizes a solid state high repetition rate pulse driver to provide a voltage across the electrodes and provides a plasma initiator at the base of the column, which is normally operative when the driver is fully charged. The plasma expands from the base end of the column and off the exit end thereof. When used as a thruster, for example in space applications, the driver voltage and electrode lengths are selected such that the plasma for each pulse exits the column at approximately the same time the voltage across the electrode reaches zero, thereby maximizing the thrust. When used as a radiation source, and in particular a source for radiation in the EUV band, the voltage and electrode length are selected such that the plasma exits the column when the current is maximum, which occur when the driver is roughly half discharged. The plasma is magnetically pinched as it exits the column, thereby raising the plasma temperature to provide thermal radiation at desired wavelengths. The plasma gun parameters can be selected to achieve a desired wavelength within the EUV band. The plasma gun of this invention, which is capable of operating at PRF in the range of approximately 100 Hz to in excess of 5,000 Hz, may also be used in other applications, and in particular in applications where low pressure near-vacuum environments are possible.

Thrusters currently utilized for satellite or other space stationkeeping and maneuvering applications utilize propellant gases with relatively low exhaust velocities (in the range of approximately 500 meters/sec to 2000 meters/sec). Examples of such thrusters include cold gas thrusters, which typically utilize valved nitrogen as the propellant and have very low specific impulses, and hydrazine thrusters, which are the thrusters most commonly used, but which also provide low specific impulses (although four times that of the cold gas thrusters). Hyrdazine thrusters also present tankage problems related both to liquid handling in zero gravity and to storing an unstable and highly corrosive fuel. Other available thruster technologies, including Teflon ablative thrusters, Hall thrusters, ion thrusters and MPD thrusters, while offering higher specific impulses, suffer from a variety of other problems, including being relatively massive, lack of temporal agility and/or requiring significant electrical energy storage, all of which has prevented use of such devices for space stationkeeping and maneuvering applications.
Since the lift weight of a satellite or other space vehicle is normally predetermined, the more weight or mass required for thruster propellants, the less is available for payload. It is therefor desirable to keep propellant mass to a minimum. Thus, since the thrust which can be achieved from a given mass of propellant increases substantially linearly with exhaust velocity, if exhaust velocity can be increased by for example a factor of ten, then the mass of propellant can either be reduced by a factor of ten, or the same mass or quantity of fuel/propellant will last ten times longer, thereby potentially extending the useful life of the space vehicle.
Another problem faced in industry is that as the density of integrated circuits and other micro-products formed using lithographic techniques increases, the wavelength of the radiation used for lithographic etching needs to be correspondingly reduced. In particular, for the next generation of lithography, radiation in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) band, which extends from approximately 10A.degree. (1 nm) to 1000A.degree. (100 nm), and in particular at a wavelength approximately 130A.degree. (13 nm) it is deemed critical. However, the only radiation source capable of operating in this band is large, cumbersome, expensive and operates at too low a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) for lithographic and many other applications. A practical source for generating radiation in this band, and in particular a source generating radiation at 13 nm, does not currently exist. A need therefor exists for a radiation source operating in this wavelength band which source is of usable size and cost and which generates radiation at wavelength and PRFs suitable for lithographic and other applications. More generally, a need exists for an EUV radiation source capable of generating radiation over at least a significant portion of this band, which source can be designed or programmed relatively easily and predictably by selecting various parameters to produce radiation at a desired wavelength within this band. In addition to lithography, such source might find application in various imaging or detection systems.
As is discussed later, plasma gun technology may be applied to dealing with the above problems. However, existing plasma guns have had reliability and pulse repetition frequency (PRF) limitations which has prevented their applicability in space applications, where long-term maintenance-free operation and high PRFs are requirements, and the relatively low PRFs has also prevented such plasma guns from being used for lithography. In particular, prior art coaxial plasma guns have required a very high power, extremely fast switch to instantaneously produce the drive. Large spark gap switches, which were the only components available which met the requisite specifications, have never operated at PRFs in excess of 100 Hz or for more than a few million shots without maintenance. As a result, plasma guns have never had PRFs exceeding 10 Hz. For space applications, PRFs in excess of 5000 Hz (pulses/sec) and maintenance free cycles exceeding 100 million pulses are desirable, while for lithography, PRFs of at least 500 Hz and preferably 1000 Hz are required.
Further, prior art plasma guns have utilized a dielectric insulator at the base of a coaxial column to create a voltage enhancement which helps force breakdown or plasma initiation at that point. Reliable, uniform plasma initiation could only be produced by applying a very high voltage very rapidly, and the dielectric is often quickly damaged by the resulting breakdown. Reliability and low PRF problems have therefor prevented plasma guns from being utilized as thrusters in space applications or as EUV radiation sources for lithographic or other applications. A need therefor exists for an improved plasma gun which provides the maintenance free reliability required for space applications along with relatively high PRFs, preferably in excess of 5,000 Hz for space, while being adapted to deliver exhaust velocities of 10,000 to 100,000 meters/sec. for space, and preferably in excess of 1000 Hz for radiation applications.

Plasma gun and methods for the use thereof


Technologies for fine-grained completion tracking of memory buffer accesses include a compute device. The compute device is to establish multiple counter pairs for a memory buffer. Each counter pair includes a locally managed offset and a completion counter. The compute device is also to receive a request from a remote compute device to access the memory buffer, assign one of the counter pairs to the request, advance the locally managed offset of the assigned counter pair by the amount of data to be read or written, and advance the completion counter of the assigned counter pair as the data is read from or written to the memory buffer. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

High performance computing (HPC) communication methods typically expose regions of user-level memory within a process for remote direct memory access (RDMA). Some systems expose a relatively large section of memory (e.g., a relatively large buffer) for remote access (e.g., by remote compute devices) and utilize a receiver-managed data access pointer, known as a locally managed offset (LMO), to indicate the next available location in the memory buffer. However, the locally managed offset, alone, does not indicate the completion status of the remote memory access operation that caused the LMO to advance to a new location in the memory buffer. Accordingly, some systems additionally use a separate pointer, known as a completion counter (CC), which indicates the number of completed bytes read or written from or to the memory buffer. However, when multiple remote memory access operations are pending, unordered messages and retransmissions make it difficult to determine which of the pending operations have completed. Accordingly, even with a completion counter, it may not be possible to determine which regions of the memory buffer have stabilized (i.e., are no longer being accessed by a remote memory access operation). Generally, a process can only guarantee data stabilization for a given memory buffer when the LMO and CC are equal. Accordingly, the continual arrival of remote access requests can cause the CC to continually lag behind the LMO, leading to long delays in determining which portions of the memory buffer are no longer being utilized by the remote access operations.


There is provided a method of encoding a video signal, the method comprising: receiving an input frame; processing the input frame to generate at least one set of residuals data, the residuals data enabling a decoder to reconstruct the input frame from a reference reconstructed frame; and, applying a run-length coding operation to the set of residuals data, wherein the run-length coding operation comprises generating a run-length encoded bytestream comprising a set of symbols representing non-zero data values of the residuals data set and counts of consecutive zero values of the residuals data set. In certain embodiments the method comprises apply a Huffman coding operation to the set of symbols. A method of decoding is also provided as well as apparatuses and a computer readable medium.

A hybrid backward-compatible coding technology has been previously proposed, for example in WO 2014/170819 and WO 2018/046940, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
A method is proposed therein which parses a data stream into first portions of encoded data and second portions of encoded data; implements a first decoder to decode the first portions of encoded data into a first rendition of a signal; implements a second decoder to decode the second portions of encoded data into reconstruction data, the reconstruction data specifying how to modify the first rendition of the signal; and applies the reconstruction data to the first rendition of the signal to produce a second rendition of the signal.
An addition is further proposed therein in which a set of residual elements is useable to reconstruct a rendition of a first time sample of a signal. A set of spatio-temporal correlation elements associated with the first time sample is generated. The set of spatio-temporal correlation elements is indicative of an extent of spatial correlation between a plurality of residual elements and an extent of temporal correlation between first reference data based on the rendition and second reference data based on a rendition of a second time sample of the signal. The set of spatio-temporal correlation elements is used to generate output data.
Typical video coding technologies involve applying an entropy coding operation to output data. There is a need for a low complexity, simple and fast entropy coding scheme to apply data compression to the reconstruction data or residual elements of the above proposed technologies or other similar residual data.

Entropy coding for signal enhancement coding


A bowstring release has, in one embodiment, a removable safety device. The safety device prevents unintentional releasing of the bowstring. The safety device enables enough movement to provide perceptible output indicating that the release has been at least partially activated.

Release aids are used to hold a bowstring in the drawn position. The release attaches to the bowstring and pulls the bowstring to the drawn position. The user then activates the release, either by activating a trigger or by twisting the release, to separate the bowstring from the release thereby allowing the bowstring to fire an arrow. The release allows the user to utilize a device with an ergonomic and more secure grip. Additionally, the release provides protection to the users hands from repeated draws and release of the bowstring.
There are two main types of releases, trigger activated releases and back tension releases. Trigger activated release contain a trigger mechanism, which when activated, releases the hook holding the bowstring. Back tension releases do not use a trigger. Instead, when in the drawn position the user gives a slight twist of the release. This activates the release and the hook releases the bowstring. Becoming proficient with back tension releases requires practice to prevent accidental activation of the release resulting in misfired shots, or unexpected release. When applying force during the draw of a bowstring, an expected release could result in the user hitting themselves in the face with great force, potentially causing serious injuries.
For trigger activated releases, there exist safety mechanisms that prevent the trigger from activating the release. However, these types of safety mechanisms are ineffective for back tension releases.
Therefore, a release having a removable safety pin is desired.
Further, a release having a safety pin that allows for feedback as to the exact release point without releasing the bowstring is desired.

Bowstring release having a safety device


The print head includes an energy generating element, a chamber for accommodating liquid, and an ejection opening arranged in a position corresponding to the energy generating element. The ejection opening includes at least one projection projecting inside of the ejection opening, the ejection opening having a first region between a front end of the projection and an inner wall of the ejection opening positioned at the shortest distance from the front end, and second regions positioned on both sides of the projection and different from the first region, and when a width of the projection at a chamber-side opening face is represented as a1 and the maximum width of the projection is represented as a2, a relation a1<a2 is established and the width of the projection decreases gradually or step by step from a position having the width of a2 to the chamber-side opening face.

As to a method of ejecting a liquid of ink or the like, there is known a method of using an ejection energy-generating element such as a heat generating element (heater) or the like to bring a liquid to a boil to generate an air bubble, a pressure of which causes a liquid drop to be ejected from an ejection opening in the print head. In regard to such a liquid drop ejecting method, there are provided a bubble through jet (hereinafter, called also BTJ) ejection method in which an air bubble in the print head is communicated with the atmosphere in the liquid drop ejection process and a bubble jet ejection method in which the air bubble in the print head is not communicated with the atmosphere in the liquid drop ejection process. FIG. 8A to FIG. 8H are pattern diagrams showing a general ejection process in the BTJ ejection method by using a cross-section of the ejection opening vicinity in the print head.
According to the liquid ejection method, when a liquid to be ejected in the liquid drop ejection process is separated from the liquid in the print head to form a liquid drop, there may possibly occur a phenomenon where the separated liquid drop is divided into a liquid drop (hereinafter, called a main drop) which should be originally used for printing and a side liquid drop (hereinafter, called a satellite). There are some cases where degradation of image quality is caused by the event that the satellite lands on a print medium at a large distance from the main drop or the satellite loses its speed before reaching the print medium to be formed as a floating liquid drop (hereinafter, called a mist), possibly causing contamination of the print medium.
For a reduction of the satellite, for example, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-290380 or the like, it is known to shorten a length of an ink tail (tail of a liquid extending in a columnar shape) in the liquid drop to be ejected. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-290380 discloses a technology that an ejection opening is provided with a projection projecting inside thereof to limit an amount of the liquid involved in the ink tail, whereby the length of the ink tail is shortened to reduce the satellite.

Print head and inkjet printing apparatus


A method and system for notification in a palm-sized computer system. Specifically, the present invention discloses an Attention Manager that manages application demand for a user's attention. The Attention Manager receives multiple attention requests from varying applications. With each new attention request received that indicates a record needs a user's attention, the Attention Manager stores the request in memory and determines if are other outstanding attention requests that have not been cleared. Depending on number of outstanding requests, the Attention Manager sends a request for record information in list or detail format. If there are multiple outstanding attention requests, the Attention Manager displays a notification dialog in a list format. If there is only one outstanding attention request, the Attention Manager displays the notification dialog in detail format. Additionally, a simple user interface to navigate to the application and record entry requiring attention is provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of providing notification from applications requiring user attention. The present invention also relates to the field of managing a plurality of outstanding attention requests with an Attention Manager.
2. Related Art
As the components required to build a computer system have reduced in size, new categories of computer systems have emerged. One of the new categories of computer systems is the "palmtop" computer system. A palmtop computer system is a computer that is small enough to be held in the hand of a user and can therefore be "palm-sized." Most palmtop computer systems are used to implement various personal information management (PIM) applications such as an address book, a daily organizer, scheduling calendar, and electronic notepads, to name a few. Palmtop computers with PIM software have been known as Personal Digital Assistants (hereinafter referred to as "PDAs").
Previously, support for various types of alarms used to get a user's attention were simple and effective for PDAs with less capability. In those cases, the operating system for a PDA would require the application with a record entry requiring user attention to be responsible for the alarm and user experience. However, the alarm system was most effective when operating only with one application with alarm capabilities. This was needed because different applications with alarm capabilities would be unaware of another application's set of alarms.
Typically, this application would be a datebook or calendar application. The calendar application could be used to arrange daily meetings and events. The operating system, through an alarm manager, maintains a queue of times for alarms and associated applications to be sublaunched. Thereafter, the application, e.g., the calendar application, is entirely responsible for the alarm/user experience.
Multiple applications with independent alarm systems did not provide an adequate user experience. In a typical scenario, alarms that are invoked may be "snoozed" or suspended for a predetermined period of time to allow a user to interact with applications on the PDA. This is accomplished by hitting a "snooze" button. The user would later return to and follow up with the snoozed alarm at a more convenient time. In the best case, the snooze button is intended to snooze all outstanding alarms or snoozed alarms.
However, since each application was responsible for user interaction with alarms, snoozing an alarm in one application would only snooze all the outstanding alarms associated with that application. The user would have to tap the snooze button for each application's alarm dialog before being allowed to use the device.
Thus, operating systems only allow one application to invoke an alarm dialog at a time. Accordingly, this one-to-one relationship between an operating system and one application on with an alarm system would be inadequate with today's more sophisticated personal digital assistants that have many applications requiring a user's attention.
Another problem with previous alarm systems involve multiple alarms that have been set-off but not cleared. A typical user scenario is one where a user has left the PDA unattended for a period of time, such as when on vacation, and returns to an unknown stack of set-off alarms that must be tediously dismissed on an individual basis.
The scenario starts when the "next" alarm, the first alarm while the user is on vacation, goes off. The operating system through an alarm manager sends a pair of sublaunch codes to the registered or corresponding application associated with the record entry requiring attention. The first sublaunch is user-interface free. The application typically checks to see if the alarm is really still valid (e.g. the meeting has not been canceled). If the alarm is still valid, then the operating system sends the second sublaunch.
The second sublaunch provides for a user interface. Here, the application is allowed to put up a dialog informing the user of the alarm with some rudimentary user interface. For example, a typical calendar application responds to the second sublaunch by putting up an alarm dialog.
The alarm dialog opens a window on the screen, and creates a nested event loop to handle events for the dialog. This nested event loop ignores virtually all events that would cause the dialog to go away, e.g., hard key characters that would cause an application to launch are ignored by this event loop. The result is the dialog is fixed on the screen, and it can not be dismissed until one of the embedded buttons is tapped.
Also, the currently active application remains active 'behind' the alarm dialog. However, a user cannot see or interact with the application, because the alarm dialog takes up the full screen. Additionally, the user cannot interact with the active application because the dialog's nested event loop is processing all events. Thus, the active application is effectively suspended until the dialogs have been dismissed or snoozed.
When a second alarm goes off before the first has been dismissed, the operating system still sends the first sublaunch, but defers the second user interface sublaunch until after the sublaunch from the first alarm has been completed. For applications that put up dialogs, this typically means that only one dialog at a time will appear on the screen.
The operating system does not return to the event loop between sublaunches, so when the first application sublaunch finally returns, the second application's first sublaunch will happen immediately, with third and subsequent application first sublaunches happening if necessary in the same order the alarms went off.
Returning from vacation, the user is only aware of the dialog present on the screen and is unaware that a stack of dialogs may exist. The net result for the user is that each alarm dialog in turn must be dismissed before the device can be used. Additionally, the dialogs are presented with the oldest first. This means that all the older dialogs must be dismissed before the most current dialog can be examined.
Furthermore, the previous alarm system did not allow users to directly navigate to a record entry requiring attention. Navigation to record entries was unnecessary in a typical calendar application because the calendar hard button could be pressed once the alarm stack has been dismissed. Pressing the calendar hard button would navigate the user to the calendar display with the current date and time on-screen. Presumably, the most current or most urgent alarms are associated with the current data.
However, if an alarm is set a significant amount ahead of the event in the future, e.g., a 5-day warning on an un-timed birthday reminder, it may be hard to locate the birthday event once the dialogs have been dismissed. A user would have to investigate all the calendar entries up to and including the birthday entry. Even then, there is no guarantee that the user will recognize that birthday entry is associated with the alarm.
Furthermore, adding a "go to" button would be challenging with this simple application-owned dialog approach. The problem is that in order for a dialog to implement the function, it would have to back out of all pending attention requests. That means essentially throwing away any other information that is waiting to be presented to the user.
Similarly, since the dialogs are stacked into nested event loops, if two applications compete for attention, one wins out and starves the other until the user dismisses that dialog.
At this point, the second application takes over. A "go to" subroutine would be severely impacted. Instead of navigating to the application and showing the corresponding data, a subsequent dialog with some other attention request would appear.

Method and apparatus for notification on an electronic handheld device using an attention manager


Methods of fabricating high-k dielectric layers having reduced impurities for use in semiconductor applications are disclosed. The methods include the steps of: forming a stacked dielectric layer having a first dielectric layer and a second dielectric layer formed on a semiconductor substrate using an ALD method, in combination with a post-treatment step performed to the stacked dielectric layer. The steps of forming the stacked dielectric layer and performing the post-treatment are repeated at least once, thereby fabricating the high-k dielectric layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods of fabricating a dielectric layer used in a semiconductor device and, more particularly, to methods of fabricating a high-k dielectric layer having reduced impurities.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a semiconductor device, a dielectric layer has a variety of uses. Typically, the dielectric layer is used as a gate dielectric layer of a MOS field effect transistor. To normally operate the semiconductor device, the gate dielectric layer should be able to maintain the capacitance (C) of the device at a suitable level. The capacitance of the dielectric layer is defined as follows: C=ε·A/d (where C is capacitance, ε is a dielectric constant, A is a surface area of the dielectric layer, and d is the thickness of the dielectric layer). That is, the capacitance of the dielectric layer is directly proportional to the dielectric constant and the surface area of the dielectric layer and is inversely proportional to the thickness of the dielectric layer. As semiconductor devices have become more highly integrated, the area of a unit cell of the semiconductor device has been reduced and therefore the surface area of the gate dielectric layer has also been reduced. Hence, there is a need to compensate for the associated reduction of the capacitance of the dielectric layer due to the reduced surface area of the gate dielectric layer. The reduced capacitance of the dielectric layer may be compensated for by decreasing the thickness (d) of the dielectric layer and/or by using a higher-k dielectric material. In cases where the thickness of the dielectric layer is reduced, however, there often occurs a problem in that leakage current is increased due to the reduced thickness of the dielectric layer. Accordingly, in order to maintain the proper capacitance of the dielectric layer without increasing the leakage current, a dielectric material having a higher-k dielectric constant is required.
High-k dielectric materials applicable to the gate dielectric layer of a semiconductor device conventionally include an aluminum oxide (Al2O3) layer, a hafnium oxide (HfO2) layer, a zirconium oxide (ZrO2) layer, a tantalum oxide (Ta2O5) layer, a titanium oxide (TiO2) layer, etc. Further, dielectric materials having an ultra-high k dielectric constant are known including a barium strontium titanate (BST) layer, a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) layer, etc. However, the application of a new dielectric material should be determined in conjunction with the related considerations of compatibility, reliability, productivity, etc. with a fabricating process of the conventional semiconductor device as well as a high-k dielectric constant.
From this point of view, when one of the foregoing high-k dielectric materials is used as the gate dielectric layer, one or more of the following problems may occur. In the case of the BST layer, the titanium oxide layer, the tantalum oxide layer, etc., reactivity with a silicon substrate is relatively high; and, thus, the interfacial properties between the gate dielectric layer and the silicon substrate become poor, thereby increasing the leakage current or deteriorating carrier mobility. In the case of the aluminum oxide layer, thermal stability is relatively high but the dielectric constant is relatively low, so that the resulting improvement in capacitance is limited. Further, the aluminum oxide layer has a negative fixed charge, so that it is difficult to control a threshold voltage. In the case of the hafnium oxide layer, the zirconium oxide layer, etc., these dielectric layers are known to become partially crystallized by the heat (annealing) treatment step that typically follows formation of the dielectric layer, thereby increasing the leakage current.
In the meanwhile, a hafnium silicate (HfSiO2) layer has been developed as a promising material for the gate dielectric layer. The hafnium silicate layer has good properties as the gate dielectric layer. For example, the NMOS threshold voltage and the current performance of hafnium silicate layers are equivalent to those of a silicon oxynitride (SiON) layer. The hafnium silicate layer may be formed by a metal-organo chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) method or an atomic layer deposition (ALD) method. In the case of the MOCVD method, it is difficult to control the thickness and the composition of the hafnium silicate layer. On the other hand, in the case of the ALD method, the hafnium silicate layer is formed as a sequence of atomic layers, so that it is possible to precisely control the thickness of the completed hafnium silicate layer. The ALD method is typically performed at a relatively low temperature. For reference, there has also been disclosed a method of forming the hafnium silicate layer by forming a nano-laminated structure on which a hafnium oxide layer and a silicon oxide layer are alternately stacked using the ALD method, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,627,503, entitled "Multilayer dielectric stack," which patent is incorporated herein by reference.
However, because the ALD method is performed at a relatively low temperature, impurities such as carbon (C), chlorine (Cl), etc. injected from source gas(es) may remain in the hafnium silicate layer after formation, thereby contaminating the hafnium silicate layer and impairing the performance of the resulting semiconductor device. Accordingly, there is a need for an alternative technique for preparing a high-quality, high-k dielectric layer of controlled thickness while substantially eliminating contamination by impurities.

Method of fabricating high-k dielectric layer having reduced impurity


The present invention provides an earphone, including: an earphone base; an earphone plug, where the earphone plug is disposed on the earphone base; an eject pin configured to remove a card tray of a mobile terminal, where the eject pin is disposed in the earphone plug and the eject pin is connected to the earphone base by using a spring; and a pin controller, where the pin controller is connected to the earphone base, and the pin controller controls the eject pin to extend out of the earphone plug along an axial direction of the earphone plug or to retract into the earphone plug.

At present, due to an increasingly compact internal structure of a mobile terminal, there are few models that can implement a dual-card dual-standby function and TF card expansion, bringing much inconvenience to consumers. To meet needs of the consumers, a supplier configures a subscriber identity module (Subscriber Identity Module, SIM) card in one card slot, and configures a Nano-SIM (Nano-SIM) card or a Micro SD card in the other card slot, so that a consumer may replace the card in the other card slot. In this way, a mobile terminal may be used as a dual-card dual-standby mobile terminal, or may be a mobile terminal with an expandable TF memory. To embed the foregoing SIM card and TF card in the mobile terminal in a more compact manner, an integrated card slot may be used as the card slot. However, removing an integrated card slot requires an eject pin.
FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a card slot area of a mobile terminal. A card slot shown in FIG. 1 can be removed by using an eject pin, that is, to insert the eject pin into an eject pin hole next to the card slot, to eject the card slot. FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of an eject pin in the prior art. It can be learned that the eject pin shown in FIG. 2 is not convenient to carry and is easily lost, affecting removal of the card slot by a user and deteriorating user experience.