Methods and apparatus for delivering precise amounts of fluid under pressure into cardiac tissue for the purpose of facilitating ablation of the tissue along a desired lesion line. One method injects fluid under pressure through a discharge orifice in a needle-less injection device. The injected fluid can be a cytotoxic fluid and/or a highly conductive fluid injected in conjunction with radio frequency ablation to create an ablative virtual electrode. The injected fluid can provide deeper and narrower conduction paths and resulting lesions. Radio frequency ablation can be performed at the same time as the fluid injection, using the injection device as an electrode, or subsequent to the fluid injection, using a separate device. In some methods, the injected fluid is a protective fluid, injected to protect tissue adjacent to the desired lesion line. Fluid delivery can be endocardial, epicardial, and epicardial on a beating heart. The present methods find one use in performing maze procedures to treat atrial fibrillation.

The present invention is directed toward treatment of tachyarrhythmias, which are heart rhythms in which one or more chambers of the heart exhibit an excessively fast rhythm. In particular, the present invention is directed toward treatment of tachycardias, which are due to the presence of ectopic foci within the cardiac tissue or due to the presence of aberrant condition pathways within the cardiac tissue.
There are many medical treatments that involve instances of cutting, ablating, coagulating, destroying, or otherwise changing the physiological properties of tissue. These techniques can be used beneficially to change the electrophysiological properties of tissue. For example, ablation of cardiac tissue can be used to cure various cardiac conditions. Normal sinus rhythm of the heart begins with the sinoatrial node (or "SA node") generating a depolarization wave front. The impulse causes adjacent myocardial tissue cells in the atria to depolarize, which in turn causes adjacent myocardial tissue cells to depolarize. The depolarization propagates across the atria, causing the atria to contract and empty blood from the atria into the ventricles. The impulse is next delivered via the atrioventricular node (or "AV node") and the bundle of HIS (or "HIS bundle") to myocardial tissue cells of the ventricles. The depolarization of these cells propagates across the ventricles, causing the ventricles to contract. This conduction system results in the described, organized sequence of myocardial contraction leading to a normal heartbeat.
Sometimes aberrant conductive pathways develop in heart tissue, which disrupt the normal path of depolarization events. For example, anatomical obstacles in the atria or ventricles can disrupt the normal propagation of electrical impulses. These anatomical obstacles (called "conduction blocks") can cause the electrical impulse to degenerate into several circular wavelets that circulate about the obstacles. These wavelets, called "reentry circuits," disrupt the normal activation of the atria or ventricles.
The aberrant conductive pathways create abnormal, irregular, and sometimes life-threatening heart rhythms, called arrhythmias. An arrhythmia can take place in the atria, for example, as in atrial tachycardia, atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter. The arrhythmia can also take place in the ventricle, for example, as in ventricular tachycardia.
The lesions used to treat atrial fibrillation, are typically long and thin and are carefully placed to interrupt the conduction routes of the most common reentry circuits. More specifically, the long thin lesions are used to create a maze pattern that creates a convoluted path for electrical propagation within the left and right atria. The lesions direct the electrical impulse from the SA node along a specified route through all regions of both atria, causing uniform contraction required for normal atrial transport function. The lesions finally direct the impulse to the AV node to activate the ventricles, restoring normal atrioventricular synchrony. Several surgical approaches have been developed with the intention of treating atrial fibrillation. One particular example is known as the "maze procedure," as is disclosed by Cox, J L et al. in "The surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. I. Summary" Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 101(3), pp. 402–405 (1991); and also by Cox, J L in "The surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. IV. Surgical Technique", Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 101(4), pp. 584–592 (1991), both of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. In general, the "maze" procedure is designed to relieve atrial arrhythmia by restoring effective atrial systole and sinus node control through a prescribed pattern of incisions about the tissue wall. In the early clinical experiences reported, the "maze" procedure included surgical incisions in both the right and the left atrial chambers. However, more recent reports predict that the surgical "maze" procedure may be substantially efficacious when performed only in the left atrium, such as is disclosed in Sueda et al., "Simple Left Atrial Procedure for Chronic Atrial Fibrillation Associated With Mitral Valve Disease" (1996), which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
When modifying the electrophysiological properties of cardiac tissue by ablation, or by other means of destroying tissue to create lesions, physicians must carefully place the lesions. Otherwise, tissue will be unnecessarily destroyed. In addition, the heart is in close proximity to nerves and other nervous tissue and the destruction of this tissue will result in severe harm to the patient. Anatomical methods are used to locate the areas to be ablated or otherwise modified. In other words, the physician locates key structures such as the mitral valve annulus and the pulmonary veins. Lesions are typically formed that block propagations near these structures. Additional lesions are then formed which connect these lesions and complete the so-called "maze pattern." However, the exact lesion pattern, and number of lesions created, can vary from patient to patient.
The surgical "maze procedure" as performed in the left atrium generally includes forming vertical incisions from the two superior pulmonary veins and terminating in the region of the mitral valve annulus, traversing the inferior pulmonary veins en route. An additional horizontal line also connects the superior ends of the two vertical incisions. Thus, the atrial wall region bordered by the pulmonary vein ostia is isolated from the other atrial tissue. In this process, the mechanical sectioning of atrial tissue eliminates the precipitating conduction to the atrial arrhythmia by creating conduction blocks within the aberrant electrical conduction pathways.
Injection of alcohol into heart tissue has also been employed to ablate cardiac tissue. Alcohol may be delivered to blood vessels supplying the tissue to be ablated, as described in "Transcoronary Chemical Ablation of Arrhythmias", by Nellens et al, Pace Vol. 15, pages 1368–1373, September 1992. Alternatively, alcohol can be delivered directly to the tissue to be ablated by means of a needle inserted through a catheter, as described in "Chemical Ablation by Subendocardial Injection of Ethanol via Catheter—Preliminary Results in the Pig Heart", by Weismuller et al, European Heart Journal, Volume 12, pages 1234–1239, 1991.
Although successful at treating AF, the surgical maze procedure is quite complex and is currently performed by only a few skilled cardiac surgeons in conjunction with other open-heart procedures. Tools that could reliably duplicate the Maze incisions by other means (e.g. radio frequency, laser, microwave, ultrasound energy) will reduce the time and invasiveness required for the maze procedure and make it more accessible to more surgeons. Problems faced by these methods, however, include (a) the creation of continuous, linear lesions in the atria for the prevention of atrial fibrillation, (b) minimization of clotting and thromboembolism, (c) the effect of heat loss due to circulating blood, (d) minimization of lesion width and minimization of atrial debulking, (e) conforming to an irregular myocardial thickness, (f) adaptability to a variety of lesion geometries and (g) usefulness from either the endocardial surface of an open heart, or the epicardial surface of a beating heart.

Device and method for needle-less interstitial injection of fluid for ablation of cardiac tissue


Briefly, descriptions of embodiments in accordance with the invention, a test access port for a multi-core processor.

1. Field
This disclosure relates to the testing of multi-core processors.
2. Background Information
A Test Access Port (TAP) typically comprises a 4 or 5-pin serial test interface that is compliant with the IEEE 1149.1 specification. IEEE Standard Test Access Port and Boundary-Scan Architecture, IEEE Std 1149.1a-1993. It may be used as an access mechanism to implement a boundary scan architecture, as well as other test modes employed to implement the Design For Testability (DFT) methodology on a given integrated circuit (IC). Traditional microprocessor designs have employed a TAP as a mechanism for testing.
A TAP typically has multiple uses. For example, when testing a chip, it is used in a test and manufacturing environment to help debug the chip. As another example, in a system environment, a TAP is used to perform board level interconnect testing between two or more board level components.
As the trend towards higher integration on a given piece of silicon continues, a new class of microprocessors, multi-core microprocessors, have appeared. Traditional microprocessors typically include a block of circuitry which substantially includes the core functions of the processor (hereafter, the "processor core") and one or more circuit blocks which substantially contain non-core functions, such as, for example, comprising cache, front side bus logic, pads, etc. (hereafter, the "non-processor core" or "non-core"). In contrast, multi-core processors may contain or include a plurality of processor cores and one or more non-processor cores.
Typically, the processor core houses a TAP for the processor. By substantially duplicating the processor core on the integrated circuit (IC), the number of TAPs will, therefore, be increased in this situation. This would potentially increase the number of pins for the IC package. In addition, there may potentially be increases in test time and test vector depth, in order to test each processor core independently. A need, therefore, exists for an improved apparatus or method for implementing an IEEE 1149.1 compliant test access port for a multi-core IC processor.


A memory updating system for a field device involves a fieldbus, one or more field devices that incorporate a nonvolatile memory and are connected to the fieldbus, a host system that is directly or indirectly connected to the fieldbus and transmits an updating instruction and updating data to one of the field devices in order to update the nonvolatile memory of the field device, and a current control circuit that controls a current provided from the fieldbus. The current control circuit increases the current provided from the fieldbus to a value greater than a normal value before the field device erases data stored in the nonvolatile memory, and returns the current provided from the fieldbus to the normal value after the field device completes the erasing of the data stored in the nonvolatile memory.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a memory updating system for a field device, used at a process field, that rewrites data, such as firmware or configuration data, stored in a nonvolatile memory in the field device.
2. Description of the Related Art
JP-A-2001-350504 and JP-A-2003-510710 are referred to as related art of the memory updating system.
JP-A-2001-350504 discloses the steps of: performing a calculation process in a first memory area; deactivating the first memory area; and activating a second memory area, whereby reconfiguration can be performed in an online mode.
JP-A-2003-510710 discloses the steps of: employing a standard communication protocol to download a program instruction from a host to a field device; and storing the program instruction, whereby re-programming of a field device in a process control network is performed.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the general configuration of a process control system. A plurality of field devices 9 are connected to a fieldbus 8 such as a FOUNDATION Fieldbus or a serial transmission fieldbus. Each of the field devices 9 incorporates an analog input function block AI or a PID function block PID.
The fieldbus 8 is connected to a host system 5 through an I/O unit 7 and a control bus 6. In such a process control system, a signal is received from a sensor (not shown), and data are transferred between the field devices 9 or between the field devices 9 and the host system 5.
In the field device 9, a program for performing a computation in order to convert a signal received from a sensor into an output signal, and configuration data indicating network information are generally stored in a nonvolatile memory, such as an EPROM, a Flash memory or a EEPROM.
Recently, in order to enhance a function decentralization for the purpose of process improvement, an additional function, such as an extension of a self diagnosis function, is also required to the field device 9. Furthermore, since there is the variety of functions, the possibility that bugs will exist in the firmware is also increased. Therefore, the updating of the firmware inside the field device 9 is also performed by using the communication function of the field bus 8.
In this case, a binary image of the firmware is transmitted to the host system 5, and is transferred, through the control bus 6, the I/O unit 7 and the field bus 8, to the field device 9, which then rewrites the received binary image. The binary image of the firmware may be obtained from a web site across the Internet.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a part of the Software Download specification of the FOUNDATION Fieldbus. This specification is based on an assumption that the firmware of the field device 9 will be updated with using a fieldbus communication, and commands such as PREPARE_FOR_DWNLD and CANCEL_DWNLD are prepared.
However, the field device used to update the firmware has the following problems.
A field device that employs a Flash ROM or an EEPROM as the nonvolatile memory can update the firmware through the fieldbus. However, current consumption inside of the field device temporarily increases during the update of the nonvolatile memory.
FIG. 3 is a drawing showing the actual value of the measured power consumed when data in the Flash ROM are rewritten. When data are rewritten in the Flash ROM, data in each sector are erased and then new data is written to the Flash ROM. The values IDL (I Download), which indicates an increase in the power consumed during sector erasing, are a maximum of 20 mA and an actual measurement of 10 mA. Further, the increase in the power consumption for data writing was the maximum of 20 mA, while the actual measurement was 1 mA. In accordance with these measurements, it is found that mainly during sector erasing the consumption of power is considerably increased.
Therefore, when the host system 5 arbitrarily rewrites the firmware stored in the field device 9, an increase of 20 mA in the consumption of power for each field device must be considered when designing a power source circuit and other components. Consequently, the costs will be increased.
When the host system 5 updates the firmware for the field devices 9 one by one, the consumption of power can be reduced to 20 mA at the maximum. However, because of a limitation in the transfer rate (31.25 kbps) for the fieldbus 8, about thirty minutes, for example, is required to update each device. When ten field devices 9 are constituted in one segment, a maximum of 300 minutes is taken in order to update all of the field devices 9, so that this is not practical.
Assuming that the firmware size is about 300 kilo bytes, the communication interval is one second and the number of bytes transferred during each communication interval is about 200 bytes, the following updating time is required for rewriting.
                              Updating                                                              time                =                                  ROM                                                              capacity          ×          Communication                                                              interval                                                                                (              seconds              )                        /            The                                                                        number                                                              of                                                              transferred                                                              bytes                                        =                                  300                                                              k          ×                      1            /            200                                                  =                                              1500                                                                          seconds                    =                      25                                                                          minutes
Thus, since the power supplied to the field device 9 would become insufficient, data could not be rewritten, and the number of field devices 9 that could be connected to the fieldbus 8 is limited.


A photographic film package comprises a camera pre-loaded with a roll film and including a non-opaque body section having an integral front finder lens for viewing a subject to be photographed, and an outer opaque packaging tightly encasing the camera and having a front opening for the front finder lens. The outer packaging is coated with a light-absorbent substance at a location along its inside surface, which is sufficiently absorbent to prevent ambient light transmitted through the front finder lens to the location from being reflected off the inside surface at least to the front finder lens. Consequently, the peripheral edge of the front finder lens will not appear to have undesireable bright spots as in prior art cameras.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of photography, and in particular to a photographic film package more commonly known as a single-use or disposable camera.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Single-use or disposable cameras have become well known. Generally, each single-use camera is a point-and-shoot type that comprises a plastic inner camera shell or body and a paper-cardboard outer packaging that tightly encases the inner camera shell. The inner camera shell houses or supports the various camera components such as a fixed-focus taking lens, a film advance and metering mechanism, a shutter, a simple see-through viewfinder, a frame or exposure counter, a manual film advance thumbwheel, etc. The outer packaging has respective openings for the taking lens, the viewfinder, the frame counter, and the thumbwheel. At the manufacturer, the camera shell is loaded with a conventional 24-exposure 35 mm film cartridge, and substantially the entire length of the unexposed filmstrip is factory pre-wound from the cartridge into a supply chamber of the camera shell. After the photographer takes a picture, the thumbwheel is manually rotated to rewind the exposed frame into the cartridge. The rewinding movement of the filmstrip the equivalent of one frame rotates a metering sprocket to decrement the frame counter to its next lower numbered setting. When the filmstrip is fully exposed and completely rewound into the cartridge, the single-use camera is sent to a photofinisher who processes the filmstrip and recycles certain camera parts.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,812,866, issued Mar. 14, 1989, discloses a single-use camera comprising an opaque main body section pre-loaded with a roll film and including the shutter and the taking lens, an opaque back cover section attached to the rear of the main body section to light-tightly shield the film, and a transparent front cover section attached to the front of the main body section and having an integral single-element taking lens or an integral single-element finder lens and an integral viewfinder tunnel. A cardboard opaque box tightly encases the main body section and the front and rear cover sections, and has a front opening for the single-element taking or finder lens.
Problem to be Solved By the Invention
When in a single-use camera the front finder lens is integral with a transparent cover section of the camera body and the inside surface of the cardboard box is light-reflective ( for example because it is white or lightly colored), as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,812,866, ambient light transmitted through the front finder lens will be reflected off certain portions of the inside surface of the cardboard box which lie over the transparent front cover. Consequently, the peripheral edge of the front finder lens may appear to have undesireable bright spots that interfere with the view through the see-through viewfinder of a subject to be photographed.

Photographic film package with anti-reflection substance for viewfinder


An electric receptacle capable of operating in a dimmable mode and a standard mode comprises an opening for receipt of an adapter. The adapter is received by the electric receptacle and switches the electric receptacle from the standard mode to the dimmable mode. The adapter is dimensioned to fit over a standard plug and the electric receptacle is configured to receive a standard plug.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to lighting control systems.
2. Background Art
Lighting control systems allow users to control the level of lighting in one or more areas of a structure. Lamps in the system may be switched off, switched on or dimmed to an intermediate light level. Typically, dimmers for lighting loads are incorporated into the same unit as an on/off switch or are wired as an intermediate device between the lighting load and the switch. Often, however, table and floor lamps plugged into an electric receptacle need to be dimmed as part of a lighting control system. Current solutions to dim these devices are inadequate.
One solution is to install a standard dimmer wired to the receptacle for powering the table or floor lamp. However, control of a standard receptacle by a lighting dimmer may have undesirable results. Therefore, to meet National Electrical Code (NEC) regulations, the receptacle must be replaced with a non-standard receptacle. In the United States, the standard electric receptacle used in residential applications is nominally capable of supplying fifteen (15) amps (A) at one hundred ten (110) volts (V), which is equivalent to 1.65 kilowatts (kW). A typical lighting dimmer is not designed to handle such power. If a power load connected to a dimmer were to draw more than the rated capacity for the dimmer, the dimmer could be damaged.
Moreover, restricted electrical voltage supplied to a motor load connected to a dimmer-controlled receptacle could lead to motor stalling. Some motors designed for a 100 V power supply, for example, may stall if the voltage drops below even 100 V. An electric motor that remains stalled for a long period of time with even a small amount of current flowing through it could overheat, potentially starting a fire.
Accordingly, to meet NEC regulations, the receptacle must be replaced with a non-standard receptacle. Accordingly, the lamp plug must be altered to match the non-uniform receptacle. This prevents other appliances with standard shaped plugs such as vacuum cleaners from being plugged into the dimmer controlled receptacle. However, this solution limits the utility of the electric receptacle as only loads with modified plugs may be powered by the receptacle.
Another common solution, a plug in dimmer module, plugs into an electric receptacle between the lamp plug and the electric receptacle. This intermediate device contains dimming circuitry to control the light level of the lamp. This method is simple from an installation perspective, but the modules can be bulky and unsightly.
A screw-in lamp base adapter is another solution. The base adapter contains dimming circuitry and screws into the lamp in place of the bulb. The bulb is then screwed into the base adapter. This is a simple solution to install as well, but it causes lamp shades to move out of position and can only be used on lamps that provide sufficient space for the plug adapter.
An alternate solution which meets NEC wiring regulations is not bulky or aesthetically unappealing and is straightforward from an installation and user perspective is desired.


A utility vehicle with space utilization features is disclosed. The space utilization features provide storage and access to components.

Vehicles including utility vehicles, all-terrain vehicles, tractors, and others are known. It is known to provide a vehicle with a hitch and to attach sub-assemblies having axles to the hitch in a pivotal manner. Sub-assemblies generally include trailers. The vehicle's hitch powers such sub-assemblies. The hitch is configured to allow sub-assemblies to pivot vertically or horizontally or both about the hitch. It is also known to provide a vehicle with a cargo bed and with platforms covered by roofs or hoods.


A method of operating a memory device including a plurality of memory cells may include counting a number of times that the plurality of memory cells during a first time period, comparing the number of times to a reference number, and controlling a refresh interval of a refresh operation for the plurality of memory cells based on a result of the comparison.

This disclosure relates to a memory device, and more particularly to a memory device which may control a refresh interval of a refresh operation for the plurality of memory cells, an operation method thereof, and a system including the memory device.
A memory device includes a memory cell array including a plurality of memory cells. According to a recent tendency of high integration, a distance between the plurality of memory cells of the memory cell array has been very narrowed.
Accordingly, when a memory access operation is concentrated on specific memory cells among the plurality of memory cells, cells adjacent to the specific memory cells are disturbed by the memory access operation.

Memory device, operating method thereof, and system having the memory device


An image forming apparatus includes a conveyance sensor disposed near a pair of conveyance rollers so as to accurately detect an amount of movement of the recording paper, a conveyance delay determination unit to determine a conveyance delay of the recording paper, and a conveyance control unit to control drive for rollers. The conveyance delay determination unit obtains conveyance delay information from among information detected with the conveyance sensor, or the like, and accelerates a rotational velocity of the pair of paper feed rollers when the conveyance delay quantity exceeds a threshold.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus.
Discussion of the Background
An image forming apparatus operates to cause a paper feed unit to deliver stored recording papers one by one to a conveyance path by paper feed rollers, and then cause conveyance rollers to conveyance the recording paper to an image forming unit so as to form an image on the recording paper. The image forming apparatus has timing rollers disposed at a position in front of the imaging forming unit on the conveyance path, and the timing rollers are to be driven to ensure that the recording paper is conveyed to the image forming unit in synchronization with image formation timing in the image forming unit. Conventionally, the image forming apparatus includes several sensors to detect the state of the recording paper on the conveyance path in order to ensure stable execution of the conveyance of the recording papers on the conveyance path (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 07-319241).
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 07-319241 has proposed an image forming apparatus including a recording paper presence/absence sensor to detect the presence or absence of the recording paper in the paper feed unit, and a recording paper length detection sensor to detect the length of the recording paper which is disposed on the downstream side of the recording paper presence/absence sensor. The image forming apparatus according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 07-319241 allows the paper feed rollers to keep rotating based on recording paper length information during the time that the recording paper presence/absence sensor detects the presence of the recording paper. On that occasion, the paper feed roller on the upstream side is allowed to keep rotating so as to assist the conveyance of the recording paper even in the state in which the fed recording paper reaches the conveyance rollers located on the downstream of the paper feed rollers.
In the conventional image forming apparatus, the rotational velocity of the paper feed rollers is set higher than the conveyance rollers so as to feed the recording papers of different types and thicknesses, thereby configuring so that the fed recording paper surely reaches a conveyance sensor close to the conveyance rollers within a predetermined period of time. With the image forming apparatus, when the conveyance sensor detects the front end of the fed recording paper, the rotational operation of the paper feed rollers on the downstream side is suspended to inhibit excessive conveyance of the recording paper by the continuous rotation of the paper feed rollers, thereby preventing the occurrence of damage, such as paper folding.
When the rotation of the paper feed rollers is suspended at the timing at which the conveyance sensor detects the front end of the recording paper in the conventional image forming apparatus, the paper feed rollers are to be suspended in the state in which the recording paper being conveyed by the conveyance rollers is caught in the paper feed rollers. Therefore, the load exerted on the conveyance rollers is increased by the amount of frictional resistance of the recording paper caught in the paper feed rollers, and a slip may occur between the conveyance rollers and the recording paper. The occurrence of the slip may cause a delay in the conveyance velocity of the recording paper, thus leading to the occurrence of a timer jam (virtual paper jam due to the passage of time) or deterioration of productivity in the recording paper conveyance. With this image forming apparatus, a recording paper detection sensor disposed on the conveyance path is to measure passage time of the recording paper. When the passage time is longer than a predetermined period of time, a determination is made that the timer jam has occurred.
With the configuration of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 07-319241, the amount of feed of the recording paper by the conveyance rollers on the downstream side is decreased when the slip of the recording paper occurs on the conveyance rollers on the downstream side. On that occasion, the paper feed rollers on the upstream side perform the rotational operation only a predetermined period of time determined with the recording paper length information, so that the rotational operation of the paper feed rollers may be suspended during the conveyance of the recording paper by the paper feed rollers. Consequently, the amount of slip on the conveyance rollers is increased, and the amount of movement (velocity) of the recording paper is further reduced (decelerated). Hence, even with the configuration of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 07-319241, the occurrence of the slip contributes to the occurrence of the timer jam or the deterioration of the productivity in the recording paper conveyance.
In view of the foregoing problems, the present invention has an object to provide an image forming apparatus capable of stably conveying the recording papers regardless of the presence or absence of the occurrence of a slip during the recording paper conveyance.


An apparatus performs motion estimation based on an average of previous field references in a flexible, yet high performance manner. The apparatus has a command memory for storing a motion estimation command list segment which in turn contains a search command for specifying a merged search operation over one or more search positions. The apparatus also has a score memory for storing the result of each merged search operation. The score memory is initialized when the merged search operation is initiated. During the search operation, the score memory accumulates the result of each search position. The apparatus also has a search engine connected to the command memory and to the score memory for determining from the score memory a search position with the lowest score. The search engine then generates dual prime motion estimation outputs in the form of motion estimation result list segments.

The invention relates to apparatus and methods for encoding video and image data, and in particular, to apparatus and methods for performing dual prime motion estimation.
The emergence of multimedia computing is driving a need for digitally transmitting and receiving high quality motion video. The high quality motion video consists of high resolution images, each of which requires a large amount of space in a system memory or on a data storage device. Additionally, about 30 of these high resolution images need to be processed and displayed per second in order for a viewer to experience an illusion of motion. As a transfer of large, uncompressed streams of video data is time consuming and costly, data compression is typically used to reduce the amount of data transferred per image.
In motion video, much of the image data remains constant from one frame to another frame. Therefore, video data may be compressed by first describing a reference frame and then describing subsequent frames in terms of changes from the reference frame. Standards from an organization called Motion Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) have evolved to support high quality, full motion video. A first standard (MPEG-1) has been used mainly for video coding at rates of about 1.5 megabit per second. To meet more demanding application, a second standard (MPEG-2) provides for a high quality video compression, typically at coding rates of about 3-10 megabits per second.
An example of the MPEG compression process is discussed next. Generally, a first frame may not be described relative to any other frame. Hence, only intra (I) frame or non-predictive coding is performed on the first frame. When a second frame is received, the second frame may be described in terms of the I frame and a first forward predicted (P) frame. The compression of the received second frame is delayed until receipt of the first P frame by a processing system. In a similar manner, a third frame is also described in terms of the first I and P frames. The first P frame is formed by predicting a fourth received frame using the first I frame as a reference. Upon computation of the first P frame, the motion estimation engine can process the second and third received frames as bidirectionally (B) predicted frames by comparing blocks of these frames to blocks of the first I and P frames.
One primary operation performed by the motion estimation engine is block matching. The block matching process identifies a block of image data that should be used as a predictor for describing the current target block. To identify the proper predictor, tokens containing blocks of picture elements (pel) such as a 16xc3x9716 pel block describing the current macroblock are received and compared against the content of a search window.
The block matching process computes a mean absolute difference (MAD) between data stored in the target block and blocks at various offsets in the search window. In this process, corresponding data from the two blocks being compared are subtracted, and the sum of the absolute values of the pel differences are calculated. The smaller the MAD, the better the match between the blocks. The motion estimation engine keeps track of the smallest MAD computed during the search process to determine which of the block in the search window is the best match to the input token. A motion vector describing the offset between the current frame and the best match block is then computed. The motion vector is subsequently sent back to a host processor in the form of an output token.
Although the motion estimation process may be a full, exhaustive block matching search, a multiple step hierarchical search to either a full or a half pixel search resolution is generally performed. In the hierarchical search approach, a best matching block is first found using a low resolution macroblock containing fewer data points than the full resolution image. Once the best matching block has been found, a full resolution search in the vicinity of the best matching block can be performed. This sequence reduces the total number of computations that must be performed by the motion estimation engine as fewer individual pel comparisons are performed in the reduced resolution image. Hence, the appropriate macroblock from which to compute the motion vector is more quickly determined.
Moreover, the MPEG-2 introduces a concept of a dual prime motion compensation in Section 22.214.171.124 of the MPEG H.262 specification. In dual prime motion compensation, a macroblock prediction is computed from an average of two previous field references, one with a same parity (top to top or bottom to bottom fields) and one with an opposite parity (top to bottom or bottom to top fields). Motion vectors for each field are coded as a common motion vector for the same parity fields and a small difference motion for the opposite parity fields. Ideally, the search of the target and reference fields is to be coordinated to minimize the overall error.
Once the motion vector for a macroblock is known relative to a reference field of the same parity, it is extrapolated or interpolated to obtain a prediction of the motion vector for the opposite parity reference field. This prediction is adjusted by adding a small shift to account for a half-pel vertical offset between the two fields. Then, small horizontal and vertical corrections (+1, 0, xe2x88x921) coded in the bitstream are added. In calculating the pel values of the prediction, motion-compensated predictions from the two reference fields are averaged to reduce noises in the data.
If a field picture is being coded, the coded motion vector is applied to the reference field of the same parity. Obtaining the motion vector for the opposite parity field between the two fields generally involves interpolation. If a frame picture is being coded, the coded motion vector is applied to fields of the same parity, but a single vector is used for both fields. Obtaining motion vectors for the opposite parity fields in a frame picture involves both interpolation and extrapolation, but the computation is otherwise the same.
As the dual prime motion estimation process is compute intensive, dedicated hardware is typically used to perform this function. The hardware may be coupled tightly to a processor or alternatively, may be implemented as a hard wired control logic. A tight coupling with the processor allows flexibility in implementing the search process. Flexibility is desirable, as different video applications would benefit from different levels of processing.
Although flexible, the tight coupling approach does not provide as high performance as the hard wired approach. The hard wired approach delivers high performance as it minimizes the burden of motion estimation searching on the processor and thus releases processing cycles otherwise needed for the encoding process. However, the performance associated with the hard wired approach is achieved at the expense of reductions in the flexibility of handling complex search operations.
An apparatus performs dual prime motion estimation based on an average of previous field references in a flexible, yet high performance manner. The apparatus has a command memory for storing a motion estimation command list segment which in turn contains a search command for specifying a merged search operation over one or more search positions. The apparatus also has a score memory for storing the result of each merged search operation. The score memory is initialized when the merged search operation is initiated. During the search operation, the score memory accumulates the result of each search position. The apparatus also has a search engine connected to the command memory and to the score memory for determining from the score memory a search position with the lowest score. The search engine then generates dual prime motion estimation outputs in the form of motion estimation result list segments.
Implementations of the invention include the following. The search command has a merge bit to select a merged search operation. Accordingly, when the merge bit of a current search command is set and the merge bit of a previous search command is cleared, indicating the start of a merged search operation, the score memory is initialized to the score for each search position. Moreover, when the merge bit of the previous search command is set, indicating that the merged search operation is in progress, the score memory accumulates the result for each search position. Further, when the merge bit of the current search command is cleared and the merge bit of the previous command is set, indicating the end of the merged search operation, a search result is generated by locating in the score memory a search position with the lowest accumulated score wile the score is being generated.
Implementations of the invention additionally include the following. The apparatus may estimate a common vector using merged search operations on fields spaced two temporal units apart at a first pel grid resolution with a common input velocity estimate, a merged search operation on adjacent fields at a second pel grid resolution with a first scaled common input velocity estimate, and a merged search operation on fields spaced three temporal units apart at a third pel grid resolution with a second scaled common input velocity estimate. The first pel grid resolution is a xc2xd pel grid resolution, the second pel grid resolution is a xc2xc pel grid resolution, the third pel grid resolution is a xc2xe pel grid resolution, the first scaled common input estimate is xc2xd of the common input velocity estimate, and the second scaled common input estimate is 3/2 of the common input velocity estimate.
The apparatus also may estimate a differential vector using a merged search operation on adjacent fields at a pel grid resolution with a first scaled common input velocity estimate and a predetermined search range, and a merged search operation on fields spaced three temporal units apart at the pel grid resolution with a second scaled common input velocity estimate and the predetermined search range. The pel grid resolution is a xc2xd pel grid resolution, the first scaled common input velocity estimate is xc2xd of the common input velocity estimate, the second scaled common input velocity estimate is 3/2 of the common input velocity estimate and the predetermined search range is one.
Implementations of the invention further include the following. The search engine compensates for differing search grid resolutions between same and opposite parity motion vector searches. Moreover, temporally adjacent fields are compensated by duplicating a search result to four score memory positions.
Advantages of the present invention include the following. The apparatus off-loads much of the dual prime motion estimation processing from the processor while allowing the processor to retain full control of critical search parameters, including the number of levels, search regions and range, target size, horizontal and vertical decimation, field versus frame search, among others. Moreover, the dual prime search operation takes advantage of information not available to the heuristics approach and is thus more efficient. Further, the dual prime search operation is faster than a brute force approach which exhaustively searches for all possible vectors in arriving at a search position with a minimal score. Thus, flexibility and high performance are maintained by the invention.


A locking and insertion structure, applicable for an electronic device including a casing, includes a fastening element and a locking element. The casing includes a bottom part, a locking seat and a cantilever part. The fastening element includes a body disposed on the casing, a first locking part extending from the second locking part to between the cantilever part and the locking seat, and a second locking part extending from the body onto the cantilever part. The cantilever part is between the first and second locking part. A first locking hole of the first locking part, a second locking hole of the second locking part and a third locking hole of the cantilever part align with each other. The locking element penetrates through the second, third and first locking hole and is inserted into the locking seat sequentially so the fastening element is affixed to the casing.

1. Field of the Invention
The disclosure relates to a locking and insertion structure, and more particularly to a locking and insertion structure disposed in an electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with the advances in technology, the use of electronic devices are becoming more and more popular and are being developed towards a compact design to provide better convenience. The electronic device, such as a laptop computer, a mobile phone or a personal digital assistant (PDA), has advantages in being lightweight and a smaller size, so that it is easy to carry. Therefore, these portable electronic devices are becoming popular.
However, although this kind of the electronic device has small in size and is easy to carry, it is easy to be improperly moved or stolen when user does not pay attention. Therefore, a locking structure, such as a Kensington Lock, may be disposed on a casing of the electronic device, and the electronic device is connected to an external lock via a locking hole of the locking structure. Typically, an end of the lock is connected to the locking hole and is fixed to the electronic device. The other end of the lock is placed on a fixing position, such as a table. Therefore, the user may lock the electronic device on the table to prevent the electronic device from being improperly moved or stolen.
Moreover, the locking structure is commonly disposed on an extra fixing component. The fixing component is fixed to the casing of the electronic device by a screw so as to expose the locking hole from the casing, such that the electronic device is affixed to the table by means of the locking hole connecting to the lock. In order to dispose the fixing component on the casing, conventionally, a copper nail having threads is inserted to the casing such that the screw is fixed in copper nail so as to fix the fixing element onto the casing. In order to provide a better fixing effect, the height of the copper nail (i.e., the depth of the inner thread) must be increased to a predetermined value. Therefore, the fixing manner of applying the screw to be fixed in the copper nail so as to fix the fixing element to the casing may not be applicable for the thinner electronic devices. Moreover, the structure including the copper nail that inserts into the casing increases the manufacturing cost.

INVENTEC (PUDONG) TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION


A computer-implemented method for scanning packed programs in response to detecting suspicious behaviors may include (1) executing a packed program that may include (i) malicious code that has been obfuscated within the packed program and (ii) unpacking code that deobfuscates and executes the malicious code when the packed program is executed, (2) monitoring, while the packed program is executing, how the packed program behaves, (3) detecting, while monitoring how the packed program behaves, a suspicious behavior of the malicious code that indicates that the unpacking code has deobfuscated and executed the malicious code, and (4) performing a security operation on the packed program in response to detecting the suspicious behavior of the malicious code. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

Because many existing antivirus technologies detect malicious programs ("malware") by detecting or identifying unique digital signatures associated with known-malicious programs, malware authors have attempted to proliferate malware by generating thousands or potentially millions of unique variations of the same malicious program. Often, malware authors create a unique variation of a malicious program by packing (e.g., compressing, encrypting, and/or otherwise obfuscating) the malicious program within a new program (referred to as a "packed program"). When the packed program is executed, additional code within the packed program may unpack (e.g., decompress and/or decrypt) and then execute the obfuscated malicious program.
Unfortunately, this packing process may enable a malicious program to evade detection by existing antivirus technologies since existing antivirus technologies may be unable to identify packed programs within which the malicious program has been obfuscated until security system vendors update their signature databases to include digital signatures for each unique packed program. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies a need for additional and improved systems and methods for detecting malicious programs obfuscated within packed programs.

Systems and methods for scanning packed programs in response to detecting suspicious behaviors


A power semiconductor device comprises a substrate, a first electrode, a conductive layer, at least one electrical connecting element, a plurality of doped semiconductor layers, an insulating layer, and a second electrode. The first electrode is formed on a surface of the substrate. The conductive layer is formed on another surface of the substrate. The electrical connecting element is formed through the substrate and electrically connects the first electrode and the conductive layer. The doped semiconductor layers are stacked on the conductive layer. The upper most semiconductor layer comprises two doped sub-regions. The insulating layer is formed on the plurality of doped semiconductor layers. The second electrode is formed on the insulating layer and at least extends on an area between the doped sub-regions.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a power semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Related Art
Power semiconductor devices have wide applications. For example, power transistors can be found in electronic equipment or apparatuses, such as air conditioners, elevators, public transport systems, neon lights for multimedia demonstrations, and display panels. Thus, it can be observed that power semiconductor devices are key components of power electronic appliances.
A conventional manufacturing method for power transistors includes multiple semiconductor processes, which involve considerable outlay of manpower, time, and cost. The processes consume much water for washing away chemicals. Water supplied for the semiconductor processes is always reduced to meet domestic water demands. Production lines may be halted if water shortages worsen. Some processes, for example, impurity diffusion and oxidation, are conducted in high temperature ovens, and therefore, the processes for manufacturing semiconductor devices are not environmental.

Power semiconductor device and method for manufacturing the same


A counter-force mechanism is provided for use with a stringed instrument, such as a pedal guitar, which neutralizes the adverse effects on adjoining strings during the sharpening or flattening of notes. In one embodiment the counter-force mechanism is affixed to the tone changer axle near the pickup and in another embodiment the counter-force mechanism is affixed at the opposite end to the head of the guitar in contact with the strings. Pull and push rods connected to the foot pedals and knee levers operate the counter-force mechanism automatically as the pedals and levers are used, as is standard while playing.

Stringed musical instruments such as guitars and in particular pedal guitars have innate structural weaknesses which translate into inadvertent variations of tonal sounds which are often unnoticed by the untrained ear and are generally tolerated by skilled musicians. During playing, pedals are depressed of both the foot and knee types which loosen or tighten a particular string or strings to selectively vary the tones produced. For example, a string may be tuned to a C note in the open condition and a designated pedal, when pressed will raise the tone of that particular string to a D note. A second pedal or lever attached to the same string may lower the tone from a C as contained in the open condition, to a B note. These changes occur as a mechanical action, in effect, either tightening or loosening the string while playing. While the limitations of such mechanical changes are normally accepted, the depression of a lever or pedal imparts additional forces which act on the structural integrity of the guitar, oftentimes with adverse results. Therefore, to obtain a D note with one string, other strings may also inadvertently receive some of the stresses and may decrease or increase in pitch.
Pedal guitar and other instrument manufacturers strive to eliminate inadvertent tonal defects and structural features which contribute to the tonal variations mentioned above, and the exact causes and/or structural designs are often debated. Thus, one purpose and objective of the present invention is to provide a mechanism to counter physical distortions or changes in a stringed musical instrument such as appear in a pedal guitar while playing to insure constant, uniform tonal quality and prevent inadvertent tonal (pitch) changes.
It is also an objective of the present invention to provide a mechanism to eliminate distortions of the instrument which affect the tonal (pitch) quality by the addition of a counter-force lever connector to the tone changer axle, in the preferred embodiment, which is attached through the counter-force lever to the foot pedals and knee levers as used for sharpening and lowering the pitch of the notes played.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a counter-force mechanism which can be attached at the head end of the strings in a second embodiment.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a means for compensating for tonal changes of other strings which occur during the pressing of a lever or pedal to induce tonal changes in a particular string or strings.
Various other objectives and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art as a more detailed description is set forth below.


The luminaire has a housing (1) with a light emission window (2), and side reflectors (5) and lamellae (7), which may constitute a louver (8), in the housing (1). The light emission plane (2) is closed during transport by means of a shaped plastic sheet (10), which has a base plane (11) and opposed walls (12) connected thereto. The shaped plastic sheet (10) enters the housing with its walls (12) and thereby keeps its position fixed. The shaped sheet (10) can easily be removed when there is no longer a risk of the louver (8) becoming polluted.

The invention relates to a luminaire provided with:
a housing with a light emission plane; PA1 means for accommodating a tubular lamp in the housing along the light emission plane; PA1 a pair of mutually facing side reflectors in the housing, each having an outer edge in the light emission plane; PA1 a plurality of lamellae arranged transversely between the side reflectors and transversely to the light emission plane.
Such a luminaire is known from EP-B-0 435 394.
It is an advantage of a luminaire of the known kind that it has a comparatively high efficiency because the light emission plane is substantially open, and the light generated by an accommodated lamp is distributed over the field to be illuminated by the side reflectors and the lamellae. Light is lost owing to reflections and absorption in a luminaire whose light emission plane is closed with a prismatic or frosted pane in order to distribute the light.
It is a disadvantage of the known luminaire, however, that the reflectors and the lamellae may become polluted by loose dust particles during transport and, when used in a new building project, during building work after being mounted. Not only does this detract from the appearance of the luminaire, it also reduces the efficiency of the luminaire.

Luminaire having a synthetic resin cover


A rotor loading system for an aircraft turbine engine has a first tool having first proximal and first distal ends. The first proximal end defines a traction interface about a first axis and a first surface radially outward of the traction interface. The first distal end defines first projections spaced circumferentially and extending to outward of the first surface. The system has a second tool with second proximal and second distal ends. The second proximal end defines a torque interface about a second axis and a second surface radially outward of the torque interface. The second distal end defines second projections spaced circumferentially and extending to outward of the second surface. One of the first and the second tool is received by the other one of the tools such that: the first and the second axis are colinear and each of the first projections is received between two second projections.

Engines, such as turbine engines, have rotors that are rotatably mounted inside shrouds with relatively small clearances between the rotors and the shrouds. The assembly or disassembly of some rotors, whether during initial building of the engine or during maintenance, is a time-consuming and costly enterprise that entails the assembly or disassembly of neighboring components in order to make room for suitable handling of such rotors.


The present invention relates to benzofuran derivatives and analogs, as well as compositions containing the same and to the use thereof for the treatment or prophylaxis of viral infections and diseases associated therewith, particularly those viral infections and associated diseases caused by the hepatitis C virus.

Hepatitis C is a common infection that can lead to chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver failure, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) leads to chronic hepatitis in at least 85% of cases. It is the leading reason for liver transplantation, and is responsible for at least 10,000 deaths annually in the United States (Hepatology, 1997, 26 (Suppl. 1), 2S-10S).
Interferon and interferon in combination with ribavirin are used in the U.S. for hepatitis due to HCV. These treatments are associated with improved serum enzyme response in some patients. The remainder are non-responsive to treatment. For responders, a sustained clinical improvement is seen in only a small percentage of patients; the majority of patients relapse upon cessation of treatment. Thus, the effectiveness of therapy for chronic hepatitis C is variable and its cure rate remains low. Moreover, therapy is often associated with considerable side effects.
New therapies and preventatives are clearly needed for infections and diseases caused by the hepatitis C virus.
The hepatitis C virus is a member of the Flaviviridae family. The genome of HCV is positive strand, single stranded linear RNA (Hepatology, 1997, 26 (Suppl. 1), 11S-14S). HCV displays extensive genetic heterogeneity; at least six genotypes and more than 50 subtypes have been identified.
Following infection by HCV, the viral RNA is translated into a polyprotein. This approximately 3,000 residue polyprotein is subsequently cleaved into individual proteins by host peptidases, as well as virally encoded proteases. The HCV genome encodes structural proteins (required for virus assembly) and nonstructural proteins (required for replication). Some of the nonstructural proteins include: NS2, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B (J. General Virology, 2000, 81, 1631-1648). NS5B is a RNA-dependent RNA polymerase that is essential for viral replication. In positive stranded RNA viruses, such as HCV, RNA is the sole genetic material. Since mammalian host cells ordinarily lack RNA-dependent RNA polymerase activity, the positive stranded RNA viruses encode their own replicative polymerase (NS5B in the case of HCV), which is essential for the production of virion progeny. The inhibition of NS5B activity, therefore, provides an attractive target for HCV drug design.

Benzofuran compounds, compositions and methods for treatment and prophylaxis of hepatitis C viral infections and associated diseases


A request for information is received, and results corresponding to the request are obtained. The results are provided to a ranking module that ranks them based on user-specific and environmental-specific ranking characteristics in order of how likely they are to be selected by the user in response to the user's request. Before the user selects one of the results, an asynchronous caching component caches the top ranked results so that if they are selected by the user they can quickly be retrieved from cache.

Many different types of computer programs allow a user to request data, and in response, return results that have links to additional information. For instance, when a web browsing application allows a user to browse a wide area network (such as the Internet) and follow hyperlinks When the user clicks on a hyperlink, the browser loads the page or document associated with that hyperlink so that it can be viewed by the user.
Search engine applications allow a user to search for information by inputting a query as a series of keywords. The search engine then searches one or more different data stores for documents, webpages, or other results that correspond to the keywords. The search engine often returns, on a results page, a list of hyperlinks that link to the underlying result documents. The underlying result documents can be webpages, word processing documents, or other types of underlying documents. Again, when the user clicks on one of those links on the results page, the search engine downloads the underlying document so that it can be viewed, or operated on, by the user.
Other types of programs do similar things as well. For instance, enterprise resources planning (ERP) and customer relations management (CRM) applications allow users to search for and manipulate business data. By way of example, a user can specify search parameters to identify certain kinds of customers that have certain sales tendencies during certain times of the year. These parameters are used by the ERP/CRM system to search for customer account entities or records that satisfy the search criteria. A list of those account entities is often returned to the user, by way of hyperlinks or other reporting, and the user can click on hyperlinks or portions of the report to get further detail, or to look at other aspects of the search results. When the user clicks on one of the hyperlinks, or selects a portion of data for more detailed viewing, the ERP/CRM program downloads those records and displays them to the user so that the user can view or operate on those records as well.
In each of these scenarios, it can happen that it takes the program an undesirably long time to download a selected results document. For instance, when the user is presented with a list of hyperlinks to underlying documents, and the user clicks on one of those hyperlinks, it can take the program an undesirable amount of time to download the underlying document so that it can be viewed and operated on by the user. This can have a negative impact on user experience. It is likely that a user who needs to wait longer encounters frustration, and a user experience that is less pleasant, than a user who does not need to wait a long time for the underlying source document to download.
In addition, if the user spends a relatively large amount of time performing these types of operations, the waiting times for source documents to download can accumulate quickly and result in a significant waste of time. For instance, such wait times can accumulate to hundreds of minutes per month. In those cases, instead of being exposed to the underlying documents (or to related advertisements generated by the program) the user is often in an idle state, simply waiting for the underlying data to be downloaded. Neither the user nor the company that provides the program and its corresponding hyperlinks benefit from such a situation. This problem can be greatly exacerbated in certain regional territories where high speed network service is unavailable.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

Asynchronous caching to improve user experience


A cushion improved structure of shoe ventilating insole comprises a top insole having air inlet and outlet ports, a bottom insole and a middle smaller area foam pad, wherein said top insole adhered with a cloth or leather and made of plastic material is integrally formed with a raised face on top of the heel area at the top surface thereof, and a plurality of air inlet ports are made at lower peripheral edge of said raised face, further, several grooves in any arbitrary shapes having a plurality of air outlet ports at the inside bottoms thereof is integrally made on the front sole area, and a larger density foam pad is distributingly punched with several small holes while unpressed arch area of foot is densely punched with several big holes, whereby the enhanced smooth air flow and best air change effect due to increased air volume are obtained.

(a) Field of the Invention
A cushion improved structure of shoe ventilating insole is a flexible insole which comprises a top insole having improved air inlet and outlet ports, a bottom insole and a middle smaller area foam pad, a raised face is integrally made on top of the heel area at the top surface of said top insole, and a plurality of air inlet ports are made at lower peripheral edge of said raised face, further, several grooves in any arbitrary shapes having a plurality of air outlet ports at the inside bottoms thereof is integrally made on the front sole area, and a larger density and anti-compressive foam pad is distributingly punched with several small holes while the unpressed arch area of foot is densely punched with several big holes, whereby through said structure, air flow and air change effects are significantly strengthened.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
A ventilating insole has a air bladder, wherein the top insole above the air bladder is made with an air inlet port at heel area thereof, and made with several air outlet ports at the front sole area thereof.
Prior patents for ventilating insole can be referred to U.S. Pat. No. 4,215,492, Aug. 5, 1980; U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,661, May 30, 1991; U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,397, Aug. 2, 1994; U.S. Pat. No. 4,224,746, Sep. 30, 1980; WO 97/04676A1, Feb. 13, 1997; and China Utility Model patent No. 925176, Jul. 18, 2007, etc.
Prior patents for insole internal air bladder to be insertingly installed with foam pad (or sponge pad) can be referred to U.S. Pat. No. 4,224,746, Sep. 30, 1980; U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,447, Dec. 28, 1999; WO 97/04676A1; and China Utility Model patent No. 925176, Jul. 18, 2007, etc.
However, regarding known ventilating insole structure on the streets and in the prior patents, if the top insole is made to a level plane, then when the foot is raised above ground, air inlet ports are easily covered by heel of the foot for a tight shoe, so air is difficult to flow in air bladder through said air inlet ports; on the other hand, when the insole is pressed by the foot, if the air outlet ports are covered by front sole of the foot, air inside air bladder is difficult to flow out from the air outlet ports, thereby the imperfections of unsmooth air flow are commonly found in everywhere.
In addition, if said air bladder of ventilating insole structure is constituted by the top and bottom insoles and a middle foam pad, wherein if the foam pad with large porosity and low density is used, although it has a larger air volume, it is easily squelched due to elastic fatigue, on the contrary, if a foam pad with small porosity and larger density is used, although it is advantageous to have a good elasticity and therefore is not easily squelched, however, its air flow is unsmooth due to smaller air volume and there is other imperfections such as heat source generated by impingement and friction when air is flowed through the larger density foam pad.

Cushion improved structure of shoe ventilating insole


A protection domain system is implemented to provide protection for applications executing in a computing environment. Protection domains are allocated system resources and may contain executing tasks. The protection domain system may allow tasks to access resources in other protection domains to which attachments have been made. Attachment is transparent to the software developer. The protection domain system provides flexibility in implementing operating system services and defining protection hierarchies.

Traditional multitasking operating systems (e.g., UNIX, Windows) have been implemented in computing environments to provide a way to allocate the resources of the computing environment (e.g., CPU, memory, Input/Output (I/O) devices) among various user programs that may be running simultaneously in the computing environment. The operating system itself comprises a number of functions (executable code) and data structures that may be used to implement the resource allocation services of the operating system.
Operating systems have also been implemented in a so-called "object oriented" manner. That is, when a particular function and/or data structure (defined by a "class" definition) is requested, the operating system creates ("instantiates") an "object" that uses executable code and/or data structure definitions specified in the class definition. Such objects thus may contain executable code, data structures, or both. Objects that perform actions are typically referred to as "tasks" (also known as "threads"), and a collection of tasks may be referred to as a "process." Upon loading and execution of the operating system into the computing environment, system tasks and processes will be created in order to support the resource allocation needs of the system. User applications likewise upon execution may cause the creation of tasks ("user tasks"), processes ("user processes"), and other objects in order to perform the actions desired from the application.
In order to protect the operating system and each task running in the computing environment from interference from other tasks also running in the computing environment, typical operating systems apportion the computing environment's execution "space" (e.g., its memory) into a "system" space and a "user" space. The system space includes the operating system tasks, while the user space includes any user tasks. Typically, operating systems are designed so that user tasks cannot directly access the memory apportioned to system tasks (and also may not access the memory allocated to other user tasks). The operating system itself, however, can access all portions of memory.
Conceptually, this "protection model" is illustrated by FIG. 1. In a computer system 1 controlled by an operating system 2, there may be any number of user processes 3 and system tasks 5 executing at one time. User processes 3 each include a number of user tasks 6. Because each user process 3 is only allocated a portion of the system memory, the operating system 2 may restrict access by any user task 6 affiliated with a particular user process 3 to the memory allocated to another process. Typically, however, system tasks 5 have unrestricted access to each other and each user process 3 (indicated by direct connections 7).
Additional protection may be provided by the CPU of the computing environment through the use of protected processing modes. For example, a CPU may provide "supervisor" and "user" modes of operation, where supervisor mode allows full use of all CPU instructions and facilities and user mode restricts the use of certain system critical instructions and facilities. Typical operating systems designate system processes to run in supervisor mode and user processes to run in user mode.
There may be instances, however, when a user task desires access to facilities controlled by the operating system. For example, a user task may want access to a network I/O connection, the control of which is delegated to a system task. In order to make such access, the user task is required to request execution of the system functions that perform the desired actions via a "system call", typically implemented via a special instruction used to cause the processor executing the code to "trap" to a trap routine (implemented in the system software) that makes a function call to the desired facilities of the operating system. Thus, the user task executing the system call cannot directly access the instructions and data structures of the system functions it wishes to execute, but rather must employ a special access procedure (represented in FIG. 1 as connections 4). Furthermore, since the user task is not permitted access to system resources, another task must be created by the operating system in the system space in order to perform the requested action. While this procedure protects the operating system from potential interference caused by user tasks, it increases system processing overhead (and thus increases execution time).
There may also be instances where it is desirable to allow a user process to access functions provided in other user processes. For example, it is desirable to implement applications in a modular fashion, and to re-use modules already implemented by other applications. Under traditional operating system implementations, such re-usable code modules (called "shared libraries") may be implemented in one of two ways. First, the shared library can be implemented in the user space, and any task that desires access to a function of the shared library may be allowed to directly call the function. This first implementation may be undesirable because it allows errant or malicious tasks to make changes to the shared library that may permanently corrupt the library. Second, the shared library can be implemented within the operating system space, and any user task that desires access to a function of the shared library must perform an indirect call to the system (the system call described above). Although implementing the shared library within the system provides protection from corruption, execution time is increased due to the overhead incurred from the system trap. Moreover, if the shared library software is not carefully designed and implemented, erroneous shared library functions can interfere with other system processes, potentially causing damage to the operating system.
Certain operating systems, called "real-time operating systems," have been developed to provide a more controlled environment for the execution of application programs. Real-time operating systems are designed to be "deterministic" in their behavior—i.e., responses to events can be expected to occur within a known time of the occurrence of the event, without fail. Determinism is particularly necessary in "mission-critical" applications, although it is generally desirable for all operating systems. Real-time operating systems are therefore implemented to execute as efficiently as possible with a minimum of overhead. As a result, prior real-time operating systems have typically employed relatively simplistic protection models for system and user process—typically all processes execute in the same space, thus allowing direct access to all system resources by all user tasks (system calls can be made directly, without a trap instruction). This protection model provides the fastest execution speed, but is deficient in providing system protection.
Certain operating systems have also been implemented in so-called "embedded" computing environments—for example, an electronic device that includes a computer system embedded within the device (e.g., automobiles, medical devices, cellular phones). Embedded computing environments tend to include less resources than standard "desktop" PC-type computing environments, for example, less memory may be used and a limited set of I/O devices may be supported. Embedded computing environments also tend to vary widely, using different CPUs and other hardware. As a result, operating systems used in embedded computing environments are designed to be portable across multiple processor environments and scalable to the particular hardware and functionality of the electronic device. The need for portability and scalability make its beneficial to implement the operating system using as little system space as possible and in a modular fashion. Real time operating systems (such as VxWorks® from Wind River Systems, Alameda, Calif.) are particularly suitable for use in the embedded computing environment.
While the simple protection model used in real-time operating systems was adequate for simple controlled implementations, the simple protection model impairs the use of real-time operating systems in more demanding computing environments. Such capability is desirable for use of the real-time operating system in the growing field of so-called "information appliances"—electronic devices that provide desktop PC-type applications in smaller, non-desktop PC-type devices (mobile phones, personal digital assistants, television set-top units, etc.) These information appliances can allow for the execution of application programs from vendors other than the maker of the appliance (which may be more complex than typical embedded applications), and may also allow for networking between the appliance and other systems. Users of such devices have a lower tolerance for system delays and failures as are prevalent in desktop PC systems. In such an environment, the ability to provide a protection model that prevents interference by malfunctioning and/or malicious tasks while maintaining high execution speeds, portability and system scalability is desirable.

Protection domains for a computer operating system


A method of upgrading bitumen in a plant comprising a diluent recovery unit that processes diluted bitumen and outputs atmospheric topped bitumen (ATB), a vacuum distillation unit which processes ATB and outputs vacuum topped bitumen (VTB), and at least one fluid coker unit which processes VTB and outputs a tar pot bottom stream comprising heavy heavy gas oil is provided comprising the step of processing the tar pot bottom stream in a catalytic hydrocracking unit comprising an ebullated bed reactor to produce naphtha, light gas oil, and heavy gas oil.

Upgrading is the processing of bitumen, heavy oil or hydrocarbon residues to produce a better quality crude oil product. The upgrading process can result in a synthetic crude product with reduced viscosity which may be transported by pipeline without a diluent, a product with reduced density to produce an economically more valuable product, and the removal of contaminants such as metals and sulphur.
The reactions used to upgrade bitumen fall mainly into two different categories. First, thermal cracking reactions use heat to drive the upgrading process, usually with the formation of coke. Fluid coking is a thermal conversion process where long chain bitumen molecules are cracked into more valuable short chain molecules. It is a continuous operation where fluidized coke particles are transferred back and forth between the reactor and burner vessels. A portion of the coke produced in this process is transferred to the burner to provide heat for the thermal cracking process. The second category includes catalytic reactions with hydrogen gas.
A hydroprocessing unit such as an LC-Finer™ is an example of an ebullated bed catalytic hydrocracker. The principal advantage of hydrocracking technology compared to fluid coking is the ability to convert microcarbon residue (MCR) into distillable products and hydrogen-rich pitch materials. As such, the greatest benefit of the hydrocracker is realized when the maximum possible pounds of MCR are converted; improving the yield of synthetic crude on each barrel of bitumen processed.
In one commercial operation, fluid coking and hydrocracker processing have been operated in parallel, where both the fluid coker and the hydrocracker process a mixture of atmospheric topped bitumen and vacuum topped bitumen. The unconverted hydrocracker bottoms have then been processed in the fluid coker. However, hydrocracker throughput has been limited by the pumping capacity of the hydrocracker bottoms to the coker and the reactor exotherm. The presence of hydrocracker bottoms arises from unconverted pitch in the product stream. Reactor exotherm arises from the consumption of hydrogen due to removal of heteroatoms (primarily sulfur, nitrogen, nickel, and vanadium) and hydrogenation (i.e. saturation of aromatics, olefins/free radicals resulting from boiling point reduction, etc.).
The focus on improving performance of hydrocracking technology has typically been on developing improved activity catalysts for the feed, which is typically a mixture of atmospheric topped bitumen and vacuum topped bitumen. However, there may be an opportunity to improve hydrocracker throughput and conversion by improving the feed quality.


A system having eyeglasses including hinged stems, a plurality of sensors and an alarm, and a method implanting the system. The system additionally includes a triaxial accelerometer, an IR transmitter, an IR receiver, and a barometric sensor. The sensors are set up in the stems and the rims of the eyeglasses and connected to a processing and calculation unit having a microprocessor and a memory. A computer program in the processing and calculation unit collects and analyzes data issued by the sensors, and triggers the alarm based on the analysis of the data.

The effects of a drop of alertness are likely to have serious consequences when the person experiencing it drives a vehicle or a machine, the risk extending to the passengers of the vehicle or to the facilities and people close to the machine.
Even a light fall, may potentially be a vital hazard when it affects an elderly or a disabled person.
A person may be subject to dehydration, sometimes severe, before the person may feel any thirst. This can lead to loss of consciousness or more severe symptoms.
The risks involved in these situations are significantly reduced if suitable measures are completed on time. Thus, as a for instance, the driver a vehicle easily overestimates its state of alertness, to the point of getting caught by a real slumber. A simple alarm directed to his intention or to the passengers in the vehicle allows to make him aware of his drowsiness state and to foster him to stop driving.
The harmful consequences of a fall, even heavy, are mitigated if assistance is provided to the person in a short time. Other comparable cases concern, for example, seizures.
People practicing outdoor activities such as cycling or hiking, or an elderly in hot weather conditions, a car or truck driver, may get dehydrated. Dehydration may lead to functional impairments, making it difficult for instance for the elderly to drink and communicate their need for fluids, may cause brain fog, leading to poor concentration, impaired memory and general difficulty of getting things done, thus increasing the risk of an accident for the driver, or the risk of getting lost for the hiker.
In the US, 4%—approximately eleven million drivers—admit they have had an accident or near accident because they dozed off or were too tired to drive. According to data from Australia, England, Finland, and other European nations, drowsy driving triggers 10 to 30 percent of all crashes.
Falls are the leading cause of death in people over 65. Every second of every day in the United States an old adult falls, making falls the number one cause of injuries and deaths from injury among older Americans. In 2014 alone, older Americans experienced 29 million falls causing seven million injuries and costing an estimated $31 billion in annual Medicare costs.
Besides death cases, people who are victims of a fall usually experience a loss of autonomy and a loss of self-confidence that also have important consequences. Studies show that, in the case of an elderly person, the longer the time spent on the ground after a fall, the more serious the consequences.
Alertness disorders may also cause a fall, they are the result of e.g. an extreme fatigue, or more commonly the result of dehydration, drugs or alcohol consumption. Thus, in some instances, the detection of a loss of alertness and the warning of the person experiencing it, or of one of his relatives, may prevent a fall or mitigate its aftermath.
Dehydration, drowsiness and fall are connected together in many instances; Dehydration may cause dizziness and a loss or alertness, even a loss of consciousness leading ultimately to a fall. Hydration is influenced by alcohol and drugs consumption, therefore an early detection of dehydration may in some instance prevent a further risk of loss of alertness. An early detection of a drop of alertness may prevent a fall. The severity of a fall, and the capability of the victim to recover herself from the fall may be assessed by measuring the alertness of the person after the fall.
Physiological measurements performed on groups of individuals in laboratory conditions can statistically detect signs of reduced alertness, sleep, fall, loss of consciousness or dehydration. These tests use multiple sensors that can be worn by an individual only in laboratory conditions. When the results of these experiments are used with the aim of developing a personal detection device, the detection quality usually drops, for various reasons, including:                it is difficult to integrate suitable sensory, in terms of the number of sensors and their reliability of measurement, in a wearable device;        the wearable device is unsightly, uncomfortable, too intrusive or too perceived by the individual and his relatives as a surveillance device, so that the individual does not wear it;        the detection reliability is not satisfactory, because of the reduced number of sensors and, because it is based on statistical data not adapted to the individual itself and his way of life, leads to the generation of false alarms, so that, losing its confidence in the device, the user does not wear it anymore;        the detection is too late, as a for instance, a system detecting drowsiness by a continuous closing of the eyes, during one second or more, or by the detection of a head drop, detects in fact an advanced stage of drowsiness. If this detection, and possible actions thus triggered are of certain utility, a car launched at 80 mph (130 km/h) travels 118 feet (36 meters) in one second, what significantly reduces the effectiveness of any maneuver carried out by the driver, thus woken up in a critical situation;        the detection system usually uses cascading tests where the outcome of a first test determines the implementation of a second test, etc. . . . when reliability is poor it only gets worse from one test to the other and generates positives false or negatives false; and        the autonomy of the personal system is low because of the power consumption of the many components and of the required computing power.

Personal system for the detection of a risky situation and alert


There is a method of generating a token required to transfer an access authority to a cooperating system to a cooperation asking system. In this method, a refresh token is issued to update a token without confirmation to a user after a valid period of a token has expired. When information which is required to update a token is leaked, an unintended system updates a token, and the cooperating system is illicitly used. For this reason, a unit for invalidating the leaked refresh token is required. An access management service stores a refresh token issued at the time of first authorization processing linked to tokens re-issued when a series of token is issued using refresh tokens. Then, upon designation of the refresh token issued first, all refresh tokens linked to the refresh token issued first are invalidated.

In recent years, a system called a cloud service, which provides software functions via the Internet, has received a lot of attention. Recently, in increasing cases, a plurality of cloud services are cooperated to provide a new system.
A technique called "OAuth" is available as a mechanism for securely and easily implementing access control between systems which provide services upon cooperating cloud services (refer to "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Protocol draft-ietf-oauth-v2-25", E. Hammer, Oct. 9, 2012).
OAuth is a technique for transferring an access authority of a user of a cooperating system to a cooperation asking system while limiting to the access authority. With this technique, the cooperation asking system can access the cooperating system using the authority of that user, and can provide services using those provided by the cooperating system to users. When authentication mechanisms of cooperating systems include the access authority transfer configuration of systems based on OAuth, the cooperation between systems can be securely implemented without storing authentication information associated with the security such as user IDs and passwords of the cooperating system in the cooperation asking system. OAuth sets a valid period for authorization information required to permit accesses from the cooperation asking system, and also sets a mechanism for re-issuing authorization information after the valid period of the authorization information has expired and a mechanism for invalidating the authorization information and re-issuance of the authorization information.
On the other hand, as another authorization technique different from OAuth, a method of setting a valid period for use permission is known. In this method, a method of extending the valid period of use permission in each system, and a method of permitting use again while obviating the need for verification within a given period even after the valid period has expired are conventionally known (refer to Japanese Patent Laid Open No. 2011-519087).
However, the existing OAuth configuration for re-issuing authorization information after the valid period of the authorization information has expired suffers a problem in terms of security. More specifically, when authentication information of a client and update authorization information have leaked, a malicious user may illicitly re-issue authorization information. When authentication information of a client, which is managed in a server system, is to be changed so as to cope with leakage of the authentication information of a client and the update authorization information, such change seriously influences the operation of the server system.

Authorization server and client apparatus, server cooperative system, and token management method


A semiconductor memory device includes first and second element isolation insulating films, first and second gate insulating films, first and second gate wiring and first and second mask layer. First and second upper surfaces of the first and second element isolation insulating films are higher than an upper surface of the substrate, first and second bottom surfaces of the first and second element isolation insulating films are lower than the upper surface of the substrate, a second height from the upper surface of the substrate to the second upper surface is larger than a first height from the upper surface of the substrate to the first upper surface. A height from the upper surface of the substrate to an upper surface of the first mask layer equals a height from the upper surface of the substrate to an upper surface of the second mask layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device having a layered gate structure with a shallow trench isolation (STI) element isolation insulating film and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with the recent size reduction of semiconductor memory devices, element isolation by self-aligned shallow trench isolation (STI) is becoming popular. In element isolation using STI, the width of STI in the memory cell region is minimized, and the STI is made shallow to minimize the aspect ratio in gap filling so as to ensure the STI gap filling capability. In the peripheral circuit portion to control the memory cell, however, the dielectric isolation between elements is more necessary than memory cells. To ensure the dielectric isolation, the STI in the peripheral circuit region is deeper than the STI in the memory cell region (see e.g., Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-368077).
However, if the dielectric isolation in the peripheral circuit region is to be further improved, the STI cannot be deepened because of the restrictions on the STI gap filling capability. Instead, in the peripheral circuit region, the STI is made higher than in the memory cell region. In this case, however, the following problems are posed.
The STI is high in the peripheral circuit region and low in the memory cell region. For this reason, the height from the surface of the silicon substrate to the mask material of the gate wiring is large in the peripheral circuit region and small in the memory cell region. If the gate wiring is to be buried by an insulating film, and planarization by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is to be executed, a barrier layer deposited on the mask material of the gate wiring is used as the stopper of CMP. However, since the height to the mask material changes between the memory cell region and the peripheral circuit region, the barrier layer in the peripheral circuit region where the mask material is high is excessively polished by CMP. For this reason, the barrier layer on the peripheral circuit region side becomes thin at the boundary between the memory cell region and the peripheral circuit region, or the barrier layer is completely lost. In addition, the difference in height to the barrier layer between the peripheral circuit region and the memory cell region (the step difference between the memory cell region and the peripheral circuit region) influences metal interconnection formation to be performed later. Hence, a resolution failure occurs in lithography at the step portion of the boundary region.

Semiconductor memory device and method of manufacturing the same