The present invention relates to the combination therapy of anti-HER3 antibodies with certain anti-HER antibodies.

Human HER3 (ErbB-3, ERBB3, c-erbB-3,c-erbB3, receptor tyrosine-protein kinase erbB-3, SEQ ID NO: 17) encodes a member of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) family of receptor tyrosine kinases which also includes HER1 (also known as EGFR), HER2, and HER4 (Kraus, M. H. et al, PNAS 86 (1989) 9193-9197; Plowman, G. D. et al, PNAS 87 (1990) 4905-4909; Kraus, M. H. et al, PNAS 90 (1993) 2900-2904). Like the prototypical epidermal growth factor receptor, the transmembrane receptor HER3 consists of an extracellular ligand-binding domain (ECD), a dimerization domain within the ECD, a transmembrane domain, an intracellular protein tyrosine kinase domain (TKD) and a C-terminal phosphorylation domain. This membrane-bound protein has HER3 a Heregulin (HRG) binding domain within the extracellular domain but not an active kinase domain. It therefore can bind this ligand but not convey the signal into the cell through protein phosphorylation. However, it does form heterodimers with other HER family members which do have kinase activity. Heterodimerization leads to the activation of the receptor-mediated signaling pathway and transphosphorylation of its intracellular domain. Dimer formation between HER family members expands the signaling potential of HER3 and is a means not only for signal diversification but also signal amplification. For example the HER2/HER3 heterodimer induces one of the most important mitogenic signals via the PI3K and AKT pathway among HER family members (Sliwkowski M. X., et al, J. Biol. Chem. 269 (1994) 14661-14665; Alimandi M, et al, Oncogene. 10 (1995) 1813-1821; Hellyer, N. J., J. Biol. Chem. 276 (2001) 42153-4261; Singer, E., J. Biol. Chem. 276 (2001) 44266-44274; Schaefer, K. L., Neoplasia 8 (2006) 613-622).
Expression of this gene and/or expression of its protein have been reported in numerous cancers, including prostate, bladder, and breast tumors. Alternate transcriptional splice variants encoding different isoforms have been characterized. One isoform lacks the intermembrane region and is secreted outside the cell. This form acts to modulate the activity of the membrane-bound form. Additional splice variants have also been reported, but they have not been thoroughly characterized.
WO 97/35885 relates to HER3 antibodies. WO 2003/013602 relates to inhibitors of HER activity, including HER antibodies. WO 2007/077028, WO 2008/100624, WO2011076683, WO2011044311, WO2011136911, WO2012019024, WO2012022814, WO2012031198, WO2012044612, WO2012052230, WO2012059858 relate to HER3 antibodies.
Human HER2 refers to 185-kDa growth factor receptor also referred to as neu and c-erbB-2 (Slamon, et al., Science 235 (1987) 177-182; Swiss-Prot P04626) whose function is related to neoplastic transformation in human breast cancer cells. Overexpression of this protein has been identified in 20-30% of breast cancer patients where it correlates with regionally advanced disease, increased probability of tumor recurrence, and reduced patient survival. As many as 30-40% of patients having gastric, endometrial, salivary gland, non-small cell lung, pancreatic, ovarian, peritoneal, prostate, or colorectal cancers may also exhibit overexpression of this protein.
The HER receptor will generally comprise an extracellular domain, which may bind an HER ligand; a lipophilic transmembrane domain, a conserved intracellular tyrosine kinase domain, and a carboxyl-terminal signaling domain harboring several tyrosine residues which can be phosphorylated. The extracellular domain of HER2 comprises four domains, Domain I (amino acid residues from about 1-195), Domain II (amino acid residues from about 196-320), Domain III (amino acid residues from about 321 488), and Domain IV (amino acid residues from about 489-632) (residue numbering without signal peptide). See Garrett, et al., Mol. Cell. 11 (2003) 495-505, Cho, et al., Nature 421 (2003) 756-760, Franklin, et al., Cancer Cell 5 (2004) 317-328, or Plowman, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 90 (1993) 1746-1750 and WO 2006/007398.
Trastuzumab (sold under the tradename Herceptin®) is a recombinant humanized anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody used for the treatment of HER2 over-expressed/HER2 gene amplified metastatic breast cancer. Trastuzumab binds specifically to the same epitope of HER2 as the murine anti-HER2 antibody 4D5 described in Hudziak, et al., Mol. Cell. Biol. 9 (1989) 1165-1172. Trastuzumab is a recombinant humanized version of the murine anti-HER2 antibody 4D5, referred to as rhuMAb 4D5 or trastuzumab) and has been clinically active in patients with HER2-overexpressing metastatic breast cancers that had received extensive prior anticancer therapy. (Baselga, et al, J. Clin. Oncol. 14 (1996) 737-744). Trastuzumab and its method of preparation are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,821,337.
Pertuzumab (Omnitarg®) is another recombinant humanized anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody used for the treatment of HER2 positive cancers. Pertuzumab binds specifically to the 2C4 epitope, a different epitope on the extracellular domain of HER2 as trastuzumab. Pertuzumab is the first in a new class of HER2 dimerisation inhibitors (HDIs). Through its binding to the HER2 extracellular domain, pertuzumab inhibits dimerization of HER2 (with other HER family members), thereby inhibiting downstream signalling pathways and cellular processes associated with tumour growth and progression (Franklin, M. C., et al. Cancer Cell 5 (2004) 317-328 and Friess, T, et al. Clin Cancer Res 11 (2005) 5300-5309). Pertuzumab is a recombinant humanized version of the murine anti-HER2 antibody 2C4 (referred to as rhuMAb 2C4 or pertuzumab) and it is described together with the respective method of preparation in WO 01/00245 and WO 2006/007398.
The "epitope 2C4" is the region in the extracellular domain of HER2 to which the antibody 2C4 binds. In order to screen for antibodies which bind to the 2C4 epitope, a routine cross-blocking assay such as that described in "Ed. Harlow and David Lane, Antibodies, A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, (1988)", can be performed. Alternatively, epitope mapping can be performed to assess whether the antibody binds to the 2C4 epitope of HER2 (e.g. any one or more residues in the region from about residue 22 to about residue 584 of HER2, inclusive). Epitope 2C4 comprises residues from domain II in the extracellular domain of HER2. 2C4 and pertuzumab bind to the extracellular domain of HER2 at the junction of domains I, II and III. See also Franklin, et al., Cancer Cell 5 (2004) 317-328.
Human HER1 (also known as r Erb-B1 or Human epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) (SEQ ID NO: 19) is a 170 kDa transmembrane receptor encoded by the c-erbB proto-oncogene, and exhibits intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity (Modjtahedi, H., et al., Br. J. Cancer 73 (1996) 228-235; Herbst, R. S., and Shin, D. M., Cancer 94 (2002) 1593-1611). SwissProt database entry P00533 provides the sequence of EGFR. There are also isoforms and variants of EGFR (e.g., alternative RNA transcripts, truncated versions, polymorphisms, etc.) including but not limited to those identified by Swissprot database entry numbers P00533-1, P00533-2, P00533-3, and P00533-4. EGFR is known to bind ligands including epidermal growth factor (EGF), transforming growth factor-α (TGf-α), amphiregulin, heparin-binding EGF (hb-EGF), betacellulin, and epiregulin (Herbst, R. S., and Shin, D. M., Cancer 94 (2002) 1593-1611; Mendelsohn, J., and Baselga, J., Oncogene 19 (2000) 6550-6565). EGFR regulates numerous cellular processes via tyrosine-kinase mediated signal transduction pathways, including, but not limited to, activation of signal transduction pathways that control cell proliferation, differentiation, cell survival, apoptosis, angiogenesis, mitogenesis, and metastasis (Atalay, G., et al., Ann. Oncology 14 (2003) 1346-1363; Tsao, A. S., and Herbst, R. S., Signal 4 (2003) 4-9; Herbst, R. S., and Shin, D. M., Cancer 94 (2002) 1593-1611; Modjtahedi, H., et al., Br. J. Cancer 73 (1996) 228-235).
Overexpression of HER1 has been reported in numerous human malignant conditions, including cancers of the bladder, brain, head and neck, pancreas, lung, breast, ovary, colon, prostate, and kidney. (Atalay, G., et al., Ann. Oncology 14 (2003) 1346-1363; Herbst, R. S., and Shin, D. M., Cancer 94 (2002) 1593-1611; Modjtahedi, H., et al., Br. J. Cancer 73 (1996) 228-235). In many of these conditions, the overexpression of EGFR correlates or is associated with poor prognosis of the patients. (Herbst R. S., and Shin, D. M., Cancer 94 (2002) 1593-1611; Modjtahedi, H., et al., Br. J. Cancer 73 (1996) 228-235). HER1 is also expressed in the cells of normal tissues, particularly the epithelial tissues of the skin, liver, and gastrointestinal tract, although at generally lower levels than in malignant cells (Herbst, R. S., and Shin, D. M., Cancer 94 (2002) 1593-1611).
WO 2006/082515 refers to humanized anti-EGFR monoclonal antibodies derived from the rat monoclonal antibody ICR62 and to their glycoengineered forms for cancer therapy.

Combination therapy of anti-HER3 antibodies


The invention concerns a method and device for processing UHF signals for an EPC communication. The method includes the steps of picking up UHF signals by an antenna of the device for processing UHF signals, creating an envelope signal from the UHF signals picked by the antenna in a demodulator, processing the envelope signal and decoding critical TRcal symbol and data in a logic unit of the device. Furthermore, the method includes the steps of interpreting the critical TRcal symbol and data, storing the interpreted data, encoding transmit data, modulating by encoded data in a modulator, and clocking the steps as above by a local oscillator. In the step of processing the envelope signal, the critical TRcal symbol is processed by a high frequency clock and data are processed by a low frequency clock.

The EPC Class-1 Generation-2 UHF RFID standard is widely accepted UHF standard. This protocol defines interrogator-talks-first RFID system. The interrogator commands are encoded by PIE (pulse interval encoding). Command replies are backscattered at BLF (backscatter-link frequency). The BLF is determined by length of a TRcal symbol which is part of the defined Query command.
The length of the TRcal symbol must be measured precisely to full-fill BLF tolerances given by the EPC standard. The length of the symbol can be measured by using a timer counting number of internal oscillator clock cycles between start and end of the TRcal symbol, the start/end of the symbol is determined from re-sampled demodulator output. It can be used also clock-less methods based for example on capacitor charging such as described in the article of Sung-Jin Kim; Min-Chang Cho; Joonhyun Park; Kisuk Song; Yul Kim; SeongHwan Cho entitled "An ultra-low power UHF RFID tag front-end for EPCglobal Gen2 with novel clock-free decoder" of Circuits and Systems, 2008. ISCAS 2008. IEEE International Symposium on, vol., no., pp. 660, 663, 18-21 May 2008.
The clock-less methods are not widely used because they are not so robust and easy to implement as timer based method.
For timer based method, the precision of length measurement is related to internal oscillator clock frequency—the higher the frequency, the smaller re-sampling error, the better symbol start/end detection, the more precise measurement. On the other hand, the higher the frequency, the higher power consumption. Several studies were done to determine minimum internal oscillator clock frequency which fulfils EPC Class-1 Generation-2 BLF requirements. One can cite for that the article in Impinj Inc., entitled "Gen 2 Tag Clock Rate—What You Need to Know" 2005, or the article of Qiasi Luo; Li Guo; Qing Li; Gang Zhang; Junyu Wang, entitled "A low-power dual-clock strategy for digital circuits of EPC Gen2 RFID tag" RFID, 2009 IEEE International Conference on, vol., no., pp. 7, 14, 27-28 April 2009.
In summary, two options are used. First option, it is used the timer based method, which uses an oscillator with frequency 1.92 MHz or higher (the multiples of highest defined BLF 640 kHz). Second option, it is used an alternative dynamically calibrated methods as defined in the patent application US 2011/0156871 A1, and the patent U.S. Pat. No. 8,193,912 B1.
Again, the alternative dynamically calibrated methods are not so robust and easy to implement as timer based method.
A power optimization of timer based method was proposed in the article of Qiasi Luo; Li Guo; Qing Li; Gang Zhang; Junyu Wang, entitled "A low-power dual-clock strategy for digital circuits of EPC Gen2 RFID tag" RFID, 2009 IEEE International Conference on, vol., no., pp. 7, 14, 27-28 April 2009.

Method and device for processing UHF signals for an EPC communication


A semiconductor wafer and a plurality of semiconductor dies are provided. The wafer and the dies each include first electrically conductive terminals arranged on a main surface. The wafer is permanently attached to each of the semiconductor dies such that the first terminals are electrically connected to one another. At least one of the wafer and the semiconductor dies is thinned. The wafer is diced so as to form a plurality of chip-stacks, each of the chip-stacks comprising one of the semiconductor dies permanently attached to a diced wafer chip. At least one of the first terminals in the chip-stack is accessible by a second electrically conductive terminal arranged on a rear surface and electrically connected to the first terminal by an electrical connector that is internal to a semiconductor body of either the semiconductor die or the diced wafer chip of the chip-stack.

Semiconductor technology is utilized to form integrated circuit devices for a wide variety of applications. Typically in semiconductor technology, one or more functional devices are formed within a semiconductor body. Examples of these functional devices include Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs), Bipolar-Junction-Transistors (BJTs), diodes, thyristors, etc. A single integrated circuit may include any number of functional devices (e.g., one, ten, thousands, millions, etc.) that are collectively configured to provide a desired digital or analog configuration, e.g., CMOS logic, power switching, analog amplification, etc.
One aspect of semiconductor technology that designers are constantly seeking to improve is the thickness of the semiconductor body that is used to form functional devices. Reducing chip thickness can provide advantageous performance benefits for the integrated circuit, such as improved on-resistance (RON) and better heat dissipation. However, known semiconductor manufacturing techniques are currently limited in their capability to reduce chip thickness below certain levels, e.g., below 100 μm, because, as a semiconductor substrate becomes thinner, it becomes more brittle and susceptible to breakage. These breaks are not correctible and therefore require the device to be discarded. Accordingly, there is a need to provide reduced semiconductor chip thickness in a reliable and cost-effective manner.

Method of thinning and packaging a semiconductor chip


Multi-level programming allows for writing a first and a second bit in selected cells by separately programming the first bit from the second bit. Programming of the first bit determines a shifting from a first threshold level to a second threshold level. Programming of the second bit requires a preliminary reading to detect whether the first bit has been modified, performing a first writing step to bring the cell to a third threshold voltage if the first bit has been modified and performing a second writing step to bring the selected cell to a fourth threshold voltage different from the third threshold level if the first bit has not been modified. For increasing reading and program reliability, during preliminary reading of the second portion a reading result is forced to correspond to the first threshold level.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for accessing a multilevel nonvolatile memory device of the flash NAND type.
2. Description of the Related Art
As known, flash memories of the multilevel type are particularly delicate as regards reliability, due to the fact that each cell may store four different threshold voltage levels, instead of two, as in single level memories. In fact, the increase of the threshold voltage levels to be stored in each cell causes a reduction in the safety margins between contiguous threshold voltage distributions during reading, when it is necessary to discriminate a stored threshold among four possible ones, instead of between only two.
In view of the above, all the circuits and respective control algorithms are designed so as to ensure the correct operation of memories of the considered type. However, the present solutions do not exploit the higher design complexity in order to improve the memory reliability, instead of or in addition to only the access speed, using simple, quick and reliable measures.
In order to clarify this problem, reference is made to FIGS. 1 and 2, showing respectively the threshold voltage distributions of a single-level memory and a two-level memory. As shown in FIG. 1, in case of storing a single bit, just two voltage distributions are present, one for storing logical level "1" and one for storing logical level "0". Reading may be carried out comparing the stored threshold voltage with a reading voltage VR; and reading may be carried out with a safety margin Δ1 between the reading voltage VR and each voltage distribution.
For a two-bit, four level memory, four voltage distributions are necessary, each for a different state A, B, C and D, e.g., corresponding to logical level "00", "01", "10" and "11". Reading requires comparison of the stored threshold voltage with three different reading voltages VR1, VR2, VR3, and the safety margin is here Δ2, lower than Δ1.
The above problem of data reliability is particularly felt when reading specific data, correctness whereof must be ensured with an even higher precision. This is the case for example of the data stored in the so-called "sector 0" (sector with address 00h) which generally stores the boot information for the system using the memory device.
Presently, the only way to ensure a higher reliability of the "sector 0" is to introduce substitution algorithms which logically remap the content of the "sector 0" in another redundancy sector when, during the EWS (Electrical Wafer Sorting) test, problems are encountered in the physical sector implementing the "sector 0". This solution does not affect however the safety margins, so that "sector 0" (either the original one or the redundancy one) is read with the same accuracy and reliability as standard sectors of a multilevel memory, lower than for single-bit memories.

Method for accessing a multilevel nonvolatile memory device of the flash NAND type


A method for providing assistance in driving includes capturing an image of a second moving vehicle when a first moving vehicle is moving and obtaining basic information of the second moving vehicle according to the image thereof, the basic information of the second moving vehicle comprising weight information of the second moving vehicle. Driving information of the first moving vehicle is obtained, and a safe distance between the first moving vehicle and the second moving vehicle is determined according to the driving information of the first moving vehicle and the basic information of the second moving vehicle. The current distance between the first moving vehicle and the second moving vehicle is detected, and a warning is output if the distance between the first moving vehicle and the second moving vehicle is less than the safe distance.

Traffic accidents happen all the time. Most traffic accidents are caused by not keeping a safe distance between two vehicles. A driver generally estimates a distance between two vehicles and adjusts a vehicle speed according to the estimated distance. However, the estimating of the distance between two vehicles may not be precise, many factors can affect the estimation of a safe distance. Factors such as road conditions during the operation of the vehicle may also affect the estimation of distance and a safe vehicle speed.

Driving assistant method, vehicle, and storage medium


Provided is a heat medium heating unit comprising a plurality of flat heat exchange tubes, PTC heaters incorporated between flat tube portions, a heat exchanger pressing member that presses from one side the flat tubes and the PTC heaters against the inner surface of a casing, and a control board that is disposed above the heat exchanger pressing member and that controls the PTC heaters. A terminal extending upwards from an electrode plate directly connects to a terminal supports of the control board. On an inner surface of the casing, since a positioning means that engages with the terminal to position the terminal and the plate, the thermal contact resistance between the flat heat exchanger tubes and the PTC heaters is reduced.

As one of heat medium heating units provided in vehicle air conditioning apparatus applied to electric vehicles or hybrid cars or the like for heating a heat-transfer medium to serve as a heat source for heating operation, a Positive Temperature Coefficient (hereafter PTC element) heater is known that uses a PTC thermistor element as a heating element. The PTC heaters has a positive thermistor characteristic, in which the value of resistance thereof rises as the temperature rises, which controls the current consumption to make its temperature increase become mild, and in which, thereafter, the current consumption and the temperature of the heating portion reach a saturation level and stay unchanged. Thus, the PTC heater has a self-temperature control feature.
As a heat medium heating unit described above, PTL 1 discloses a heat medium heating unit having multiple partitions that separate the inside of the housing to make a heating chamber and a heat medium circulation chamber within the housing which has an inlet and an outlet for the heat medium, and the PTC heating element is inserted for installation in contact with the partition in the heating chamber defined by the partitions, and the heat medium circulated in the circulation chamber is heated over the partition by the PTC heating element.
Further, PTL 2 discloses a heat medium heating unit of a stacked structure in which an electrode plate, an insulating layer and a heat transfer layer are provided on both surfaces of a PTC element to constitute a plate-like PTC heater, and a pair of heat medium circulation boxes including an inlet and an outlet for a heat medium, and communicating with each other are stacked on both surfaces of the PTC heater, and a substrate housing box that houses a control board and a lid are provided on the external surface thereof.

Heat medium heating unit and vehicle air conditioning apparatus provided with the same

MITSUBISHI HEAVY INDUSTRIES AUTOMOTIVE THERMAL SYSTEMS CO., LTD.


An improved knee-supporting sleeve (10) is provided having posterior and proximal anterior panels (12, 20) formed of thin relatively highly stretchable material, with a distal anterior panel (22) formed of less stretchable composite materials. The sleeve (10) thus provides maximum-support and joint conformity, together with good breathability and thermal properties. The sleeve (10) also has a patella-receiving opening (42) and an adjacent buttress (52) housed within a selectively openable compartment (44) to trim and/or shift buttress (52) therein, so that a desirable "lateral J" buttress may be provided for either a left or right knee.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is broadly concerned with knee-supporting orthopaedic sleeve supports having posterior and anterior panels giving differential stretch characteristics so as to provide a unique combination of compression, knee area conformity and support, while also giving optimum thermal and evaporation properties. More particularly, the invention pertains to such knee sleeves which preferably have highly stretchable posterior and proximal anterior panels formed of a thin, lightweight, three-ply laminate, with a distal anterior panel formed by securing a faced, VELCRO-compatible neoprene material to the inner lightweight laminate. In further preferred forms, the sleeves of the invention are provided with a patella-receiving opening in the anterior panel thereof, together with an adjustable knee buttress. The latter is housed within an openable compartment on the outer face of the anterior panel to allow access to the buttress therein to permit trimming and/or adjustment of the buttress. In this fashion, the buttress can be selectively trimmed and positioned by the user as a "lateral J" buttress for either the right or left knee.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Tubular orthopaedic supports have long been produced for use by individuals to support weak or injured limbs during rehabilitation or as a general protective measure. Very commonly, tubular knee supports are used by athletes and generally include an elongated, tubular body adapted to be placed over the knee, lower thigh and upper calf regions of the leg. Many such knee supports include padding, lateral bracing and external straps for proper positioning and maximum comfort and support. Modern-day orthopaedic knee sleeves of this type are often fabricated using closed cell neoprene rubber sleeves, which may be lined with a soft terry or nylon fabric.
Orthopaedic knee supports can be in the form of simple tubular or frustoconical, open-ended bodies. These units are considered rather crude, however, and suffer from the problems of gathering at the knee and falling during exercise. It has also been known in the past to provide anatomically contoured supports which are designed to more closely conform with the knee area. These units generally include an outwardly flaring upper section designed to receive the lower thigh, a recessed central region, and a lower, diverging, calf-receiving section. Contoured supports of this type are generally preferred, in that they avoid many of the problems of simple tubular designs.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,223 describes anatomically contoured knee supports which are specially designed to be free of posterior, transverse dart-defining seams, thereby avoiding abrasion and irritation to the popliteal region of the knee joint during walking or exercise. Accordingly, the '223 patent represents a distinct advance in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,492,227 discloses an elastic knee bandage formed of three distinct, interconnected tubular sections. The central knee-engaging section of the bandage is designed to have from 2-10 times the elastic stretch of the adjacent upper and lower sections of the bandage. Thus, the '227 patent teaches that the greatest degree of flexibility in the knee bandage be at the area of the knee proper, whereas stiffer and less stretchable segments are provided above and below the knee.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,084,584 describes a knee sleeve having a central, anterior patella-receiving opening therethrough. In addition, this patent teaches the use of a stationary, semi-circular knee buttress positioned on the outside of the leg in order to restrict lateral outward movement of the knee cap. More recent manifestations of this concept have involved the use of "lateral J" knee buttresses which are positioned adjacent the patella-receiving opening with the upright portion of the "J" along the outer edge of the patella and the lower curved portion of the "J" beneath the patella. The use of such knee buttresses has required manufacturers to make right and left handed versions of the knee supports, i.e., the "J" buttress is positioned oppositely for right and left knees. This not only increases manufacturing costs, but also requires the distributor and seller to stock handed versions of the supports.
Additional patents describing various knee and orthopaedic supports, and materials used therein, include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,320,634, 3,613,681, 4,446,181, 5, 085,210, 4,388,134, 4,908,037, 4,832,010, 4,961,418, 4,790,855, and 4,822,371. Other disclosures are found in UK Patent Application 2,111,833 and Italian Patent No. 684,333.
Thus, while there has been significant design activity in the field of orthopaedic knee supports, there remains an unfulfilled need for a knee supporting sleeve which provides optimum compression and support, knee joint conformity and thermal properties. At the same time, it would be a distinct advance in the art to provide a knee sleeve having an adjustable patella buttress which can be selectively configured and positioned for use on either right or left knees, thus eliminating the need for separate production and stocking of handed units.

Knee brace having differential flexibility posterior and anterior panels


A processor, capable of operation in a host machine, including memory management logic to support a plurality of memory types for a physical memory access by the processor, and virtualization support logic to determine a host memory type for a reference to a memory location by a guest in a virtual machine executable on the processor based at least in part on a memory type field stored in an entry of an extended paging table of a virtualization support system of the host machine (extended memory type field), to determine a guest memory type for the reference to the memory location, and to determine an effective memory type based on at least one of the host memory type and the guest memory type.

Virtualization enables a single host machine with hardware and software support for virtualization to present an abstraction of the host, such that the underlying hardware of the host machine appears as one or more independently operating virtual machines. Each virtual machine may therefore function as a self-contained platform. Often, virtualization technology is used to allow multiple guest operating systems and/or other guest software to coexist and execute apparently simultaneously and apparently independently on multiple virtual machines while actually physically executing on the same hardware platform. A virtual machine may mimic the hardware of the host machine or alternatively present a different hardware abstraction altogether.
Virtualization systems may include a virtual machine monitor (VMM) which controls the host machine. The VMM provides guest software operating in a virtual machine with a set of resources (e.g., processors, memory, IO devices). The VMM may map some or all of the components of a physical host machine into the virtual machine, and may create fully virtual components, emulated in software in the VMM, which are included in the virtual machine (e.g., virtual IO devices). The VMM may thus be said to provide a "virtual bare machine" interface to guest software. The VMM uses facilities in a hardware virtualization architecture to provide services to a virtual machine and to provide protection from and between multiple virtual machines executing on the host machine.
As guest software executes in a virtual machine, certain instructions executed by the guest software (e.g., instructions accessing peripheral devices) would normally directly access hardware, were the guest software executing directly on a hardware platform. In a virtualization system supported by a VMM, these instructions may cause a transition to the VMM, referred to herein as a virtual machine exit. The VMM handles these instructions in software in a manner suitable for the host machine hardware and host machine peripheral devices consistent with the virtual machines on which the guest software is executing. Similarly, certain interrupts and exceptions generated in the host machine may need to be intercepted and managed by the VMM or adapted for the guest software by the VMM before being passed on to the guest software for servicing. The VMM then transitions control to the guest software and the virtual machine resumes operation. The transition from the VMM to the guest software is referred to herein as a virtual machine entry.
As is well known, a process executing on a machine on most operating systems may use a virtual address space, which is an abstraction of the underlying physical memory system. As is known in the art, the term virtual when used in the context of memory management e.g. "virtual address," "virtual address space," "virtual memory address" or "virtual memory space," refers to the well known technique of a processor-based system, generally in conjunction with an operating system, presenting an abstraction of underlying physical memory to a process executing on a processor-based system. For example, a process may access a virtual, contiguous and linearized address space abstraction which is mapped to non-linear and non-contiguous physical memory by the underlying operating system. This use of virtual is distinguishable from the use of the same term used in the context virtualization, where virtual generally refers to an abstraction that simulates a physical machine e.g. "virtual machine," "virtual bare machine," "virtual hardware," "virtual processor" or "virtual network interface." The intended meaning of the term will be clear to one in the art based on the context in which it is used herein.
A processor may be designed in general to allow data from memory to be cached by the processor. Additionally, accesses to data in memory may require one or more actions to be taken with regard to the contents of caching structures in the system processor or processors. These actions are referred to herein as snooping characteristics. Furthermore, certain processors may select to allow dynamic reordering of memory accesses. The type of caching, if any (cacheability) used by the processor to access a location in memory, the snooping characteristics and whether dynamic reordering of memory accesses is enabled for that location determines certain behaviors of the memory location, such as for example whether the memory location supports ordering operations or side-effects of reads correctly. These attributes and others that relate to memory behavior are called a memory type and may be specified for a given memory location and access event using a variety of system flags and registers. Memory types may include, for example, "uncacheable", "write combining", "write through", "write back", and "write protect". Memory type range registers, a page attribute table, page tables and other processor control register fields may determine, for each memory access, the relevant memory type for the linear or physical address being accessed. The communication protocols utilized by a processor may vary depending on the memory type of the memory location being accessed.
When a virtual machine executes on a processor supporting different memory types, the virtual machine may also, similarly, support specific memory types for the access of virtual machine physical memory. When the guest accesses memory of a certain memory type in the virtual machine, the correctness of guest execution may depend on the memory access type of the host being consistent with that specified by the guest. Therefore, it is necessary to reconcile memory type specification in the guest with memory type specification in the host in a virtualization system that supports memory type specification.


Methods and systems are provided for natural-language surveillance of packet-based communications. Speech data is received, representing at least part of a speech session. The speech data is compared with at least one speech-characteristics profile in an automated manner. The comparing step comprises using natural-language-processing (NLP) to compare the speech data with the profiles on at least one of a lexical level, a syntactic level, a semantic level, a discourse level, and a pragmatic level. It is determined in an automated manner whether the speech data matches any of the profiles. If the speech data matches at least one profile, an indication that the speech data matches the at least one matching profile is responsively stored.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to packet-based communication sessions, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, and, more particularly, to conducting surveillance with respect to such sessions.
2. Description of Related Art
Given the recent rise in popularity of the Internet and packet-switched communications generally, it is becoming more and more common for people to engage in packet-based, real-time media sessions over packet-switched networks rather than, for example, more traditional circuit-switched telephone communication sessions. These real-time media sessions may take the form of VoIP sessions, and/or any other type of real-time media sessions. To engage in these sessions, communication devices may use a packet-switched protocol such as the Internet Protocol (IP), relevant aspects of which are described in "Internet Protocol," RFC 791 (September 1981), which is incorporated herein by reference.
Certain types of media sessions, such as VoIP sessions, may be set up using a protocol such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), relevant aspects of which are described in Rosenberg et al., "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol," RFC 3261 (June 2002), which is incorporated herein by reference. The SIP messages involved in setting up these sessions may include description of one or more parameters of those sessions according to a protocol such as the Session Description Protocol (SDP), relevant aspects of which are described in Handley and Jacobson, "SDP: Session Description Protocol," RFC 2327 (April 1998), which is incorporated herein by reference.
Once the session parameters have been agreed upon by the session participants, the session may be conducted using a bearer protocol—and via one or more bearer elements such as routers, switches, media servers, media gateways, etc.—such as the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), relevant aspects of which are described in Schulzrinne et al., "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications," RFC 3550 (July 2003), which is incorporated herein by reference. Many other protocols may used instead of or in addition to SIP, SDP, and RTP, however.
With respect to communication sessions in general, whether they be circuit-switched or packet-switched, it sometimes occurs that law-enforcement agencies need to and are authorized to monitor them. Along these lines, on Oct. 25, 1994, the United States government enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to clarify the duty of telecommunications carriers to cooperate in monitoring communications for law-enforcement purposes. CALEA requires these carriers (e.g., telephone companies, wireless service providers, etc.) to make available both call content (voice signals) and call data (digits dialed, length of call, etc.) to requesting law-enforcement agencies in response to a valid court order.
Among the known techniques for conducting surveillance of communications are speaker verification and speaker identification. Speaker verification refers to comparing a voice sample against a stored digital representation—often known as a voiceprint—of a person's voice, for the purpose of verifying the identity of the speaker. This is often most useful alongside some identity-corroborating data, such as a name, account number, and the like. Speaker identification involves comparing a voice sample against multiple voiceprints, to determine the identity of the speaker, and is often used when no identity-corroborating data is available.
However, it may also happen that a target of surveillance may not convey his or her actual voice during a communication session, perhaps in an effort to avoid the voiceprint analysis mentioned above. This could occur if, for example, the target communicated using instant messaging (IM) or in a chat room. The target could also use a computer-generated voice, perhaps produced in part by text-to-speech (TTS) technology, or perhaps by a combination of speech-to-text (STT) technology and TTS technology. Still another example might involve a target using a device to garble or distort his or her voice. And other examples are certainly possible, each of which may render voiceprint-matching strategies ineffective.

Natural-language surveillance of packet-based communications


Disclosed is a structure having anchor vias for improved backside metal adhesion and an associated method for the structure's fabrication. The structure includes at least one anchor via disposed in at least one corner of a semiconductor substrate. A metal filler may be formed within the at least one anchor via, the metal filler having a protruding portion extending from a backside of the semiconductor substrate. The structure may further include a backside metal layer on a bottom surface of the semiconductor substrate, the backside metal layer being bonded to the protruding portion of the metal filler in the at least one anchor via. The at least one anchor via may include a cluster of anchor vias, a plurality of anchor vias disposed in a straight line and/or in a staggered configuration along a periphery of the semiconductor substrate.

Semiconductor substrate density has continuously increased, and continues to increase. Further miniaturization and increased density in semiconductor substrates has typically relied on a backside metal layer attached to the substrate to provide a common ground for the increasing number of active components on the semiconductor substrate. However, to ensure high fabrication yields the backside metal layer must remain securely attached to the substrate throughout the entire fabrication process and then for years during operation.
One conventional method of adhering a backside metal layer to a substrate relies on forming a backside metal stack having several layers, the first of which must form an adhesive bond with the substrate. For example, an interface layer may be deposited on a bottom side of the substrate followed by a thicker current carrying layer, and finally an outer packaging contact layer. However, fabrication procedures such as semiconductor die singulation and pick-and-place processes subject the semiconductor substrate to very high stresses, especially near the edges and/or corners of the die. Because adhesion of the backside metal stack to the substrate is almost entirely dependent on the adhesive qualities between the substrate and the interface layer, unacceptably low yields are often achieved during fabrication due to the backside metal layer peeling from the semiconductor substrate.

Anchor vias for improved backside metal adhesion to semiconductor substrate


An object of the invention is to provide an abnormality detection device that can detect a processing abnormality of various types of software. The abnormality detection device according to the invention divides an output data series which is output by software into one or more clusters, determines that the output data included in any cluster is normal, and determines that the output data not included in any cluster is abnormal.

PTL 1 described below discloses a technique for "improving detection accuracy of a device that detects an abnormality sign such as malfunction of plant facilities using time-series data of an instrumentation system," specifically, a technique in which "a local time-series data extracting unit 102 receives an input of a plurality of sets of time-series data, applies a predetermined technique of time division on the sets to divide the plurality of sets of time-series data over time, and extracts local time-series data from the time-divided time-series data, a local time-series data model estimating unit 103 estimates a model each extracted local time-series data using a predetermined model estimation method, a local time-series data clustering unit 104 divides the local time-series data of which a model has been estimated into a plurality of clusters and calculates a representative local parameter representative of each cluster, and an outlier detecting unit 106 detects whether a value which is defined as a distance between evaluation target data in a predetermined period and the representative local parameter is an outlier greater than a threshold value on the basis of the representative local parameters" (see ABSTRACT).


A method and apparatus to produce correction-free pyrometry is described. The method determines the optimum position for a pyrometer that "views" a specular, spherical or near-spherical target in a furnace through pyrometer optics and a window in a wall of the furnace. The positioning method uses nonparaxial optical analysis to determine the position of an image of the window in the target. The window image is free of any image of the furnace walls, that is, it is free from wall radiance, and pure target radiance can be obtained in that region. The optical analysis is then used to back project the pyrometer detector through the pyrometer optics and onto the surface of the target. If the detector projection falls completely within the image of the window, the detector will read only pure target radiance and no correction will be necessary to obtain the temperature of the target through pyrometry.

The science of containerless processing of materials under the microgravity conditions of orbital space flight has raised the need for specialized instrumentation. This includes noncontact positioning and furnace systems, remote sample handling techniques, and noninvasive diagnostic instrumentation. Of the latter, the remote measurement of specimen temperatures is recognized as being particularly important.
In a typical containerless processing application, a specimen is positioned inside a hypothetical furnace. Acoustic or electromagnetic forces are used to maintain this position. The specimen itself is invariably spherical, possibly molten, and may be a metal or glass, but in any case, it generally has a highly specular surface. The furnace may have walls which are heated so as to radiantly heat the specimen. Alternatively, the specimen may be heated by some external source such as a laser and, at high temperatures, its own incandescence will illuminate the inside of the furnace. In either case the amount of background radiance in the furnace will be significant.
Thermocouples are clearly unsuitable for measuring the temperature of the specimen in such cases, and radiometric pyrometry is a logical choice. By measuring the radiance, R, of the target, and if its emissivity, .epsilon., is known, then the temperature may be determined from the Planck radiation law, ##EQU1## where C.sub.1 and C.sub.2 are the first and second radiation constants and .lambda. is the wavelength of the measurement. This is a well-documented and useful technique and the exponential relationship enables good resolution to be achieved.
However, there are some specialized considerations for containerless processing that need to be addressed in order to obtain true temperatures from radiance measurements. Not the least of these is the problem of the background radiance which can contribute to the measured radiance levels resulting in an error in the inferred temperature. Indeed, if a metal is to be melted in a heated-wall furnace, the effective emissivity of the closed furnace cavity may be so large that the walls contribute more radiant energy than the specimen itself. For example, if the furnace acts like a blackbody but the specimen emissivity is only 0.3, for example, then the furnace will generate about three times the radiant energy intensity of the target. Since the target is specular, this energy may be reflected into the pyrometer. From Equation (1), it is easy to show that at 1000.degree. C., for example, the error in the inferred temperature will be about 200.degree. C. for measurements at 650 nm, a wavelength typical of many pyrometers. It will be difficult to implement corrections of this magnitude that preserve the accuracy and confidence needed in the measurement.

Correction-free pyrometry in radiant wall furnaces

The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration


In part, the disclosure relates to computer-based methods, devices, and systems suitable for performing intravascular data analysis and measurement of various types of data such as pressure and flow data. The disclosure relates to probes and methods suitable for determining an event in a cardiac cycle such as flow threshold such as a peak flow, a fraction thereof, other intravascular parameters or a point in time during which peak flow or a change in one of the parameters occurs. An exemplary probe includes one or more of a pressure sensor, a resistor, a flow sensor and can be used to generate diagnostic data based upon measured intravascular and other parameters. In part, the disclosure relates to methods and systems suitable for determining a coronary flow reserve value in response to one or more of intravascular pressure and flow data or data otherwise correlated therewith.

Sensor and guide wire assemblies can be used to collect intravascular data using measurement sensors located at or near their distal tips. These devices are typically used in applications to measure internal properties of tissues and fluids such as blood pressure. Sensor and guide wire assemblies may be introduced into arteries, veins or other body organs either by themselves or through catheters that have been previously positioned within a patient. These assemblies can be used to measure pressure and other parameters.
For example, such assemblies can be used along with one or more pressure sensing devices such as a delivery catheter to measure a Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR) using pressure data. In addition, Coronary Flow Reserve (CFR) measurements can be performed using a thermodilution-based approach. In such an approach a CFR value is obtained by injecting a cold saline solution into the coronary artery of interest and using a temperature sensor to measure the onset of cold saline injection into the artery to the return of the temperature to a specific level.
The thermodilution method has a number of constraints. The stated accuracy of this method is as low as +/−30%. Further, the procedure is cumbersome/time-consuming, requiring a number of saline injections of a certain quality to produce enough data for the system software to calculate the CFR value. Performing FFR and CFR is performed as two separate methods given the nature of the thermodilution system, saline delivery, and subsequent measurements required.
FFR is used to provide a measure of stenosis severity in a coronary artery. The typical method to determine FFR is to measure a pressure drop in the coronary arteries at hyperemia. A hyperemia inducing substance is injected to create an increase in blood flow in the coronary system for a controlled period. The pressure drop is measured during this time period and used as an input in determining FFR.
In part, the disclosure relates to methods, systems and devices suitable for measuring FFR, CFR, and other values and generating diagnostic outputs that overcome some of the challenges with existing methods.

Intravascular pressure and flow data diagnostic systems, devices, and methods

ST. JUDE MEDICAL COORDINATION CENTER BVBA


In the replenishment of a washing fluid with a replenishment fluid a chemical property of the replenishment fluid is compared to the chemical property of the washing fluid. Replenishment fluid is added to the washing fluid according to the difference in the properties of the washing fluid and replenishment fluid.

During processing of the light sensitive material it is necessary to wash the material after a chemical treatment to remove chemical ingredients used in the treatment. Such washing is generally carried out by transporting the light sensitive material through a wash chamber containing water supplied from a domestic water source. Means are generally provided to periodically or continuously replenish the wash water to avoid the build up of contaminants such as salts in the wash water. However, it is desirable to minimize replenishment to reduce water consumption and waste water discharge.
One of the problems in hard or saline water regions is that the fresh water itself contains salts. If an ionic conductivity sensor is used to regulate the amount of water replenishment during the washing process, the presence of such salts can result in a false identification of the residual salts in the water from the washing function. This is because ionic conductivity sensors do not distinguish between different ions well. Thus it is difficult to determine the concentrations of salts in the fresh water relative to that produced by the washing process to accurately control water replenishment to achieve water conservation.

Apparatus and method for washing light sensitive material


A general purpose computer is programmed to provide graphic representations of the mechanical and electrical systems of an operating plant where all of the components are treated as "objects" and associated through a relational database with text files providing component specifications, product identifications, component operating status, and all directly interconnected components including data as to flow direction and relative position in the system. For maintenance and service each component is associated with existing and future specified work orders, service requirements including consideration of probable life expectancy and the like.

The present invention relates to maintaining and retrieving information in conjunction with the operation and maintenance of an operating plant. In particular it relates to a computerized system for maintaining the records and knowledge for overseeing plant operation and maintenance.
All operating plants must provide for appropriate maintenance of components. Particularly in those situations where the plant either can not be shut down or it is not desirable for economic or other reasons to shut it down, provision must be made for safely isolating and taking out of service components that must either be serviced or replaced. Generally speaking, this is particularly true of power generating plants, chemical and pharmaceutical plants, refineries, and the like.
The invention can best be described and understood in conjunction with the operation and maintenance of an atomic energy (nuclear) power plant. While the present invention was made to oversee the operation and maintenance of one such plant, and will be described with reference thereto, it should be understood that it is adaptable and applicable to use with various other operating plants.
In the maintenance of any operating plant it is necessary to consider safety regulations, both governmental and in house, environmental regulations and concerns, appropriate scheduling, logistics, and so forth. These considerations are particularly critical in the operation of an atomic energy power plant.
Prior to the present invention, several separate computerized databases were created and accessed by appropriate plant managers, and hard copy records and work sheets were used for manual data entry and control. For the nuclear plant under discussion, there was a Power Plant Maintenance Information System referred to hereinafter by the acronym "PPMIS"; the Nuclear Plant Master Equipment List referred to hereinafter by the acronym "NPMEL"; and the Project Resource Evaluation and Management Information System referred to hereinafter by the acronym "PREMIS". Also in use was a computer database containing "Tag-Out" information.
"Tag-Out" refers to the practice of attaching warning tags (e.g., stop work tags) to components to caution workers that the setting or operation of that component should not be altered without getting prior approval that it is safe to alter the operative condition. When a component is to be serviced it must be isolated from the system in which it is used. Valves may have to be opened or closed, switches may have to be secured in a particular condition, and all of these operations usually have to be performed in a prescribed sequence. The components that must be secured in a particular mode to isolate a selected component are said to establish the boundary for isolation, and this group of boundary components are referred to as a "Tag-Out".
To add or remove a "Tag-Out", the components that form the boundary for isolation have to be identified from process drawings (e.g., electrical and mechanical schematics). The position in which components in the isolation boundary must be placed is identified. The sequence for placing components in the proper position for the isolation is determined. The planned Tag-Out must be cross checked with other work to determine if there are conflicts (e.g., the same valve must be open for one Tag-Out and closed for another Tag-Out). The proposed Tag-Out is considered relative to operational procedures and relative to possible technical specification limitations. Finally, the Tag-Out is verified for implementation.
The majority of the tasks are performed by people using knowledge, experience and plant documents (drawings, procedures and references such as the technical specifications). Because of the human element and the tremendous amount of information that is combined from multiple sources, errors are made quite often. Moreover, the process is labor intensive and time consuming. All mistakes in the process result in considerable rework. Also, errors can lead to injury or death to personnel, damage to plant equipment, loss in plant reliability, and so forth.
Generally, maintenance is planned by: a) identifying from drawings equipment that must be placed in a particular state (for example, "closed" for a valve or "open" for an electrical breaker) to isolate another component for maintenance; b) determining the impact upon the system or plant from written procedures when available or, more frequently, from understanding of component operation; and c) determining by logical thought the sequence of safely placing the boundary components in the isolation states.
Notwithstanding the existence of the databases mentioned above, heretofore the procedure involved first identifying all of the components that are needed to completely isolate the component that is to be serviced. This was accomplished by visual examination of drawings and looking for components (e.g., valves and breakers) that may be isolated. Multiple sets of drawings had to be examined such as flow diagrams, piping and instrumentation diagrams, electric system schematic diagrams, and electric wiring diagrams. Having located the various components to provide the isolation boundary, it was necessary to determine through logical thought processes the position or state that each of the selected components had to assume. Next, it was necessary to determine logically if such positions or states would conflict with the positions or states that would be required for safe maintenance, safe operation or to satisfy regulatory requirements.

Computerized management of plant maintenance and program therefor


A test key structure includes a plurality of transistors formed on a scribe line of a wafer and arranged in a 2*N array having 2 columns and N rows. The transistors arranged in the 2*N array respectively includes a gate, a source, a drain, and a body. All of the sources of the transistors arranged in the 2*N array are electrically connected to each other.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a test key structure and a test key group, and more particularly, to a test key structure and a test key group arranged in array.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In semiconductor fabrication, semiconductor devices or integrated circuits (ICs) are continuously tested in every step so as to maintain device quality. Generally, testing circuit and test key structures are fabricated in a scribe line of a wafer or on a monitor wafer simultaneously with the forming of actual or functional devices in the product wafer so that the fabricating processes are stimulated and the quality of the actual devices are checked by providing and electrically connecting the test pads to an external circuit or pins/probes of a probe card in test steps.
Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic drawing illustrating a conventional test key structure. As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional test key structure 100 is positioned on a scribe line 104 of a wafer 102. The test key structure 100 includes a plurality of electronic elements 110, such as transistors for testing. Each of the electronic elements 110 is electrically connected to four pads 122/124/126/128. In detail, the four pads 122/124/126/128 are electrically connected to a source (not shown), a drain (not shown), a gate (not shown), and a body (not shown) of the electronic element 110 by metal wires 130 in sequence. Furthermore, the electronic element 110 of the test key structure 100 and the pads 122/124/126/128 are arranged in a linear pattern on the scribe line 104.
Please refer to FIG. 1 again. It is observed that each electronic element 110 of the test key structure requires four pads 122/124/126/128 that is large enough so that the probe can contact the pads 122/124/126/128 with ease. However, the four large pads 122/124/126/128 occupy large and valuable areas of the wafer 102. More important, since large areas are required to accommodate the large pads, amount of the electronic elements 110 for testing cannot be increased, and thus test sample size cannot be increased either. There is therefore an imperative issue to provide a test key structure with increased sample size.


In a charged particle beam drawing apparatus, if at least one of calculating portions is free and at least one memory includes a free portion, a report that a next process can be additionally started by using at least one free calculating portion and the free portion of the memory, is transferred from a daemon to a writing control unit, and the next process is additionally started by the daemon on the basis of a start request transferred from the writing control unit to the daemon. If there is a possibility of a shortage of the calculating portions and the memory, and if a start request for starting a next process is transferred from the writing control unit to the daemon, the start request for starting the next process is refused by the daemon.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a charged particle beam drawing apparatus and control method thereof, wherein patterns corresponding to figures included in a drawing data are drawn in a drawing area of a workpiece by applying a charged particle beam to the workpiece, wherein a resist is applied to an upper surface of the workpiece.
2. Description of Related Art
As is known in the prior art, in a charged particle beam drawing apparatus, patterns corresponding to figures included in a drawing data are drawn in a drawing area of a workpiece by applying a charged particle beam to the workpiece, wherein a resist is applied to an upper surface of the workpiece. For example, the charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art is described in paragraphs 0013, 0021, 0024, 0025, and 0033 of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-73918. In the charged particle beam drawing apparatus described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-73918, shot data for applying the charged particle beam is formed on the basis of the drawing data, by means of a shot forming system (shot data forming portion) (see paragraphs from 0033 to 0038 of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-73918).
Also, as is known in the prior art, in a charged particle beam drawing apparatus, a parallel processing unit (PPU) is provided. For example, the charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art is described in paragraphs 0022 and 0028 of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-218767. And, as is known in the prior art, in a charged particle beam drawing apparatus, a writing control unit (WCU) is provided. For example, the charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art is described in a paragraphs 0021 of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-71929.
In a conventional charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art, such as the charged particle beam drawing apparatus described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. 2010-73918, 2008-218767 and 2008-71929, a process, such as an Area process corresponding to a block frame, and another process, such as an Area process corresponding to another block frame, are performed in parallel by central processing units (CPUs) of the parallel processing unit (PPU). A predetermined number of central processing units (CPUs) are simultaneously used, so that a memory utilization rate of the parallel processing unit (PPU) does not exceed a predetermined value.
In one case, an actual processing load while a process corresponding to a block frame is performed, may be considerably smaller than an estimated processing load, because of diversification of the drawing data inputted to the charged particle beam drawing apparatus. In that case, in a conventional charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art, only the predetermined number of central processing units (CPUs) are simultaneously used. Namely, in the conventional charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art, if the actual processing load is considerably smaller than the estimated processing load, the number of central processing units (CPUs) are simultaneously used, wherein the number of central processing units (CPUs) is smaller than a number of usable central processing units (CPUs). Consequently, in the conventional charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art, if the actual processing load is considerably smaller than the estimated processing load, throughput cannot be sufficiently increased.
In another case, an actual processing load may be considerably larger than an estimated processing load, while a process corresponding to a block frame is performed, because of diversification of the drawing data inputted to the charged particle beam drawing apparatus and miniaturization of figures included in the drawing data. In that case, in a conventional charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art, the predetermined number of central processing units (CPUs) are simultaneously used. Namely, in the conventional charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art, if the actual processing load is considerably larger than the estimated processing load, the memory utilization rate of the parallel processing unit (PPU) may exceed a limit value. In the conventional charged particle beam drawing apparatus in the prior art, if the memory utilization rate of the parallel processing unit (PPU) exceeds the limit value, a process of the parallel processing unit (PPU) is performed by using a storage device, wherein processing speed and accessing speed of the storage device is slower than processing speed and accessing speed of a memory of the parallel processing unit (PPU), accordingly, throughput may be considerably decreased.

Charged particle beam drawing apparatus and control method thereof


An ultrasonic transducer probe uses one or more ribbon cables to attach the transducer elements to the probe wiring. Electrical conductors within a first ribbon cable attach to corresponding lands on an end of an integrated circuit and, electrical conductors within additional ribbon cables attach to corresponding lands on circuit boards. The circuit boards distribute the electrical signals from the attached ribbon cables to additional lands on another end of the integrated circuit.

The present invention relates generally to ultrasonic transducers and, more particularly, to an ultrasonic probe using ribbon cable to attach the electrical wiring to the transducer elements.
Ultrasonic transducers have been available for quite some time and are particularly useful for non-invasive medical diagnostic imaging. Ultrasonic transducers are typically formed either of piezoelectric elements or of micro-machined ultrasonic transducer (MUT) elements. The piezoelectric elements typically are made of a piezoelectric ceramic such as lead-zirconate-titanate (PZT), with a plurality of elements being arranged to form a transducer. A MUT is formed using known semiconductor manufacturing techniques resulting in a capacitive ultrasonic transducer cell that comprises, in essence, a flexible membrane supported around its edges over a silicon substrate. By applying contact material, in the form of electrodes, to the membrane or to a portion of the membrane, and to the base of the cavity in the silicon substrate, and then applying appropriate voltage signals to the electrodes, the MUT may be energized such that an appropriate ultrasonic wave is produced. Similarly, when electrically biased, the membrane of the MUT may be used to receive ultrasonic signals by capturing reflected ultrasonic energy and transforming that energy into movement of the electrically biased membrane, which then generates a receive signal.
The ultrasonic transducer elements may be arranged in a one or multi-dimensional array and combined with control circuitry forming a transducer assembly, which is then further assembled into a housing possibly including additional control electronics, in the form of electronic circuit boards, the combination of which forms an ultrasonic probe. A large number of ultrasonic elements typically comprise an array, thereby requiring a large number of electrical connections as each element should be connected to a separate electrical lead and to a ground plane.
There are different ultrasonic probes available depending on the type and the location of the tissue, organ, or other structure in the body being imaged. One of the more specialized ultrasonic probes is the transesophageal probe (TEE probe), which is formed on a long slender body. This configuration places severe limitations on the mechanical and electrical design of the probe and presents significant wiring challenges. Specifically, the TEE probe has considerable space restraints that must be observed when designing the probe. This affects both the size of the array and the volume of space available to connect each element in the array to a suitable wiring system. While known one-dimensional arrays typically have a fine horizontal pitch (pitch is the center to center distance between the elements in the array) and a coarse vertical pitch, many proposed two-dimensional arrays are finely pitched in both dimensions having horizontal and vertical pitch dimensions on the order of 100-160 xcexcm (microns).
The TEE probe is an invasive probe, and, as such, space inside the probe body for making electrical connections is severely limited. In the past, it has been difficult to design a TEE probe having a significant number of electrical leads within the space allowed by the probe design, and it has been difficult to connect a large number of transducer array elements to their respective individual conductors.
Therefore, it would be desirable to be able to be able to connect a large number of transducer elements to their respective conductors in the limited space available in an ultrasonic transducer probe.
An ultrasonic transducer probe uses one or more ribbon cables to attach the transducer elements to the probe wiring. Electrical conductors within a first ribbon cable attach to corresponding lands on an end of an integrated circuit and, electrical conductors within additional ribbon cables attach to corresponding lands on circuit boards. The circuit boards distribute the electrical signals from the attached ribbon cables to additional lands on another end of the integrated circuit.
Other systems, methods, features, and advantages of the invention will be or will become apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following drawings and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features, and advantages be included within this description, be within the scope of the present invention, and be protected by the accompanying claims.

Ultrasonic probe using ribbon cable attachment system


A method and system for determining a location of an occupant in a space include detecting a shape of an occupant in an image of a space; determining a location of the occupant on a floor of the space in the image, based on the shape of the occupant; and transforming the location on the floor in the image to a location of the occupant on the floor in the space.

The ability to detect and monitor occupants in a space, such as a room or building, enables planning and controlling home or building systems for better space utilization, to minimize energy use, for security systems and more.
Computer vision is sometimes used to analyze an imaged space and to detect occupants in the space. One or more cameras are usually employed to monitor a space or area. Typically, 3D cameras or 3D models of people are used to detect segmented bodies or blobs which may represent occupants in the imaged space and to analyze the space. In a multi camera setup, where several cameras are used to cover an area too large for a single camera, overlapping fields of view of the plurality of cameras causes ambiguity leading to inefficient and inaccurate analysis of the monitored space. This, and the need to use special (usually sophisticated) cameras and/or complex or heavy computation in order to reconstruct the imaged space to find positions of objects in the space, may be one of the impediments to wide-spread implementation of occupant monitoring systems in living and work spaces.

Method and system for determining location of an occupant


The present invention is generally comprised of an appliance for holding a bottle (or other object having a threaded opening) and a method of using the appliance. The appliance is generally comprised of a cap member that is removably connected to a container member. In some embodiments of the invention, the cap member has a cylindrical portion adjacent to an opening in the cap member, such cylindrical portion being threaded on its interior surface. In such embodiments, the container member also has a cylindrical portion adjacent to an opening in the container member, such cylindrical portion being threaded on its exterior surface. In such embodiments, the cap member is screwed onto the container member by means of the threads. In other embodiments, the cap member is also comprised of an adjustable connector portion to receive threads on the cylindrical portion of the bottle adjacent to bottle opening. The adjustable connector provides the capability to adapt the cap member to different sizes of bottle openings and thread designs on such openings, so that a single cap member may be used to hold multiple bottles or other apparatus with different sizes of openings and thread designs. In still other embodiments, the appliance is comprised of a tubular member that extends from an area outside the appliance through the opening in the cap member and the opening in the bottle to the interior volume of the bottle, so that the volume within the bottle is in fluidic communication with such outside area. In yet other embodiments, the appliance is also comprised of the bottle. Finally, the invention also includes a method for using an embodiment of the appliance.

The present invention generally relates to an appliance that holds a container or other object having a threaded opening and a method of using the appliance, and more specifically, to an appliance that holds a bottle or other object having a threaded opening and a method of using such appliance.
There currently exist in the relevant art devices that are used to hold liquids. In addition, there are devices currently known in the art that hold other containers with the function of maintaining the temperature of liquids held in the containers. For example, there are foam-insulated devices that fit tightly against the sides and bottom of a 12 ounce can of soda in order to keep the soda cold until consumed. There are also "coaster" type devices known in the art. These devices are placed under a container holding a cold liquid in order to keep condensate from running from the container onto the surface on which the coaster and container are placed. In addition, there are devices known in the art that may be used to cool the temperature of a liquid held in a container. For example, an ice chest may hold ice and containers of liquid in a manner so that the ice in the ice chest cools the liquid in the containers placed in the ice chest.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/959,478, filed on Oct. 6, 2004, which is the parent application of this present continuation-in-part application, discloses a first version of a single appliance that may be used to accomplish all of these purposes by providing convenience and flexibility for the user of the appliance. For example, the user is only required to have one appliance available to accomplish these purposes, rather than multiple devices. Similarly, the appliance of the parent application saves the user money, in that only one device (and not multiple devices) needs to be purchased. Further, this appliance has an aesthetic appearance that may be more appealing to users. This appliance also reduces water rings that form from condensate from cold drinks, so that the appliance prevents damage to desktops, paperwork, computers and other office equipment in office settings. The appliance of the parent application does not, however, have the capability to adapt to different sizes of bottles. For example, a specific embodiment of this appliance may receive and hold bottles having an opening of a specific diameter, but may generally not receive and hold bottles that have openings with significantly greater or smaller diameters. There is therefore a need for a device similar to this appliance that provides the flexibility to receive and hold bottles that have openings with different diameters. This would provide even more convenience for the user because only one appliance, rather than multiple appliances would be required. In addition, the user would save money because only one appliance, and not multiple appliances, would need to be purchased to accomplish this purpose.

Bottle holding appliance and method for its use


To provide a container that can be easily configured and has good operability when opened and closed with one hand. The container includes a container body having an opening, and a lid body that can open and close the opening of the container body, wherein the container body has, near the opening, a journaling portion that supports the lid body rotatably around an axis orthogonal to an opening surface of the opening, while the lid body has a journaled portion that is journaled by the journaling portion, and a lid portion, and the lid body rotates around the journaling portion to allow the lid portion to move to a position for covering the opening and a position for exposing the opening.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a container.
2. Description of the Related Art
A widely known container for containing, for example, mechanical pencil leads includes a container body having an opening, and a lid body that can open and close the opening of the container body, the lid body being removable from the container body. However, such a container cannot be operated with one hand.
Thus, several containers that can be operated with one hand are proposed (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-272885 (JP10272885A) and Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 61-34156)(JP6134156U).
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-272885, a container includes a container body, a container cover, and a lid body. The container cover has a straight guide groove and a bent opening/closing guide groove. An engagement protrusion provided on the container body movably engages the straight guide groove via a throughhole provided on a protruding portion of the lid body, and also an opening/closing support protrusion provided on the protruding portion of the lid body movably engages the opening/closing guide groove. When the container body is linearly slid with respect to the container cover, the engagement protrusion of the container body moves along the straight guide groove, the lid body that the engagement protrusion penetrates follows the movement of the engagement protrusion, and the opening/closing support protrusion of the lid body is guided to the opening/closing guide groove of the container cover. Because the opening/closing guide groove is bent, the lid body is rotated to open an opening of the container body.
In Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 61-34156, a container includes a lead containing cylinder and a lid body rotatably and concentrically attached to the lead containing cylinder. A lead guiding groove for separately placing one of leads in a taking-out position is formed inside the lead containing cylinder, and a lead protruding hole is bored in the lid body. The lid body is rotated with respect to the lead containing cylinder to align the lead protruding hole with the lead guiding groove, then the lead separately placed by the lead guiding groove can be taken out of the lead protruding hole. If the lid body is rotated with respect to the lead containing cylinder, and the lead protruding hole is not aligned with the lead guiding groove, the lead cannot be taken out of the lead containing cylinder.
However, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-272885, a configuration for rotating the lid body is complex. In Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 61-34156, the lid body has to be concentrically rotated with respect to the lead containing cylinder, and such a rotating operation is hard to perform with one hand.


An electrophotographic imaging member includes a substrate, a charge generating layer, a charge transport layer, and an overcoating layer, the overcoating layer being a cured film formed from a film forming resin composition including at least a melamine compound, a polyol, and a charge transport compound, where the charge transport compound is represented by:QL-OH]n.where Q represents a charge transport component, L represents a divalent linkage group, and represents a number of repeating segments or groups.

Electrophotographic imaging members, i.e. photoreceptors, typically include a photoconductive layer formed on an electrically conductive substrate. The photoconductive layer is an insulator in the dark so that electric charges are retained on its surface. Upon exposure to light, the charge is dissipated.
Many advanced imaging systems are based on the use of small diameter photoreceptor drums. The use of small diameter drums places a premium on photoreceptor life. A major factor limiting photoreceptor life in copiers and printers, is wear. The use of small diameter drum photoreceptors exacerbates the wear problem because, for example, 3 to 10 revolutions are required to image a single letter size page. Multiple revolutions of a small diameter drum photoreceptor to reproduce a single letter size page can require up to 1 million cycles from the photoreceptor drum to obtain 100,000 prints, a desirable goal for commercial systems.
For low volume copiers and printers, bias charging rolls (BCR) are desirable because little or no ozone is produced during image cycling. However, the micro corona generated by the BCR during charging, damages the photoreceptor, resulting in rapid wear of the imaging surface, e.g., the exposed surface of the charge transport layer. For example, wear rates can be as high as about 16 microns per 100,000 imaging cycles. Similar problems are encountered with bias transfer roll (BTR) systems. One approach to achieving longer photoreceptor drum life is to form a protective overcoat on the imaging surface, e.g. the charge transporting layer of a photoreceptor. This overcoat layer must satisfy many requirements, including transporting holes, resisting image deletion, resisting wear, avoidance of perturbation of underlying layers during coating.
Despite the various approaches that have been taken for forming overcoating layers, there remains a need for improved overcoat layer design, to provide increased wear resistance and resistance to moisture, such as humidity, and the like. A need also exists for improved overcoat layer design, to provide hard yet flexible layers that are more resistant to cracking. For example, the art has previously provided a range of hard overcoating layer materials. However, such overcoat layers are typically prone to cracking, especially during use, as well as humidity. Both effects tend to reduce the useful life of the photoreceptor, or limit the range of environments and printing apparatus in which the photoreceptor can be used.


A method of forming an integrated circuit structure includes forming a dielectric layer; forming an opening in the dielectric layer; performing a first deposition step to form a seed layer in a first chamber; and performing a first etch step to remove a portion of the seed layer. The method may further include performing a second deposition step to increase the thickness of the seed layer. At least one of the first etch step and the second deposition step is performed in a second chamber different from the first chamber.

In integrated circuit art, a commonly used method for forming metal lines and vias is known as "damascene." Generally, this method involves forming an opening in a dielectric layer, which separates the vertically spaced metallization layers. The opening is typically formed using conventional lithographic and etching techniques. After the formation, the opening is filled with copper or copper alloys. Excess copper on the surface of the dielectric layer is then removed by a chemical mechanical polish (CMP). The remaining copper or copper alloy forms vias and/or metal lines.
Copper is commonly used in the damascene structures because of its low resistivity. Typically, copper is electro plated into damascene openings. As is well known in the art, in order to plate copper, a seed layer is required to provide a low-resistance electrical path, and hence to enable uniform electro-plating over the wafer surface, so that copper ions in the plating solution can be deposited.
FIG. 1 illustrates a cross-sectional view of an intermediate stage in the formation of a conventional damascene structure. Trench opening 10 is formed in low-k dielectric layer 2, followed by the blanket formation of diffusion barrier layer 4. Next, copper seed layer 6 (including portions 61, 62, 63—1, and 63—2) is formed, either by physical vapor deposition (PVD), or by electroless plating. FIG. 1 illustrates a typical profile of seed layer 6 formed of PVD. Due to the fact that copper atoms are deposited downwardly, horizontal seed layer portions 61 and 62, which are over low-k dielectric layer 2 and in trench opening 10, respectively, are much thicker than portions 63—1 and 63—2 on sidewalls of trench opening 10. Furthermore, a necking effect often occurs, so that on the sidewalls of trench opening 10, top portions 63—1 of seed layer 6 are thicker than bottom portions 63—2, resulting in overhangs. The non-uniformity in the profile of seed layer 6 will adversely affect the quality of the subsequently performed electro plating.
Besides the adverse profile of seed layer 6 in the trench openings, asymmetry effects also result, and the asymmetry effects depend on the relative position of the trench opening on a wafer. For example, for a trench opening located close to an edge of a wafer, the side of the trench opening closer to the center of the wafer and the side closer to the edge of the wafer may have significantly different sidewall seed layer thicknesses. Also, overhangs of seed layers are more severe at the center portion of the wafer than at the edge portions. Further, the thickness of sidewall seed layer closer to the edge of the wafer is often less then those closer to the center of the wafer. All these asymmetry effects adversely affect the performance and reliability of the resulting interconnect structure.
One of the methods for reducing the above-discussed non-uniformity in a seed layer profile is to reduce the deposition rate of seed layer 6, for example, using very small power and/or adopting very low pressure in the process chamber. As a result, the throughput becomes very low, and hence this method is not suitable for mass production. New methods for improving the uniformity of seed layers without sacrificing the throughput are thus needed.

Multi-step Cu seed layer formation for improving sidewall coverage

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


A protected extended playback mode protects the integrity of audio and side information of a spatial audio signal and sound object and position information of audio objects in an immersive audio capture and rendering environment. Integrity verification data for audio-related data determined. An integrity verification value is computable dependent on the transmitted audio-related data. The integrity verification value can be compared with the integrity verification data for verifying the audio-related data transmitted in the audio stream for generating a playback signal having a mode dependent on the verification of the audio-related data A transmitting device transmits that integrity verification data and the audio-related data in an audio stream for reception by a receiving device. The audio stream, including the audio-related data and integrity verification data are received by the receiving device. The integrity verification value is computed by the receiving device, compared with the integrity verification data, and a playback signal is generated depending on whether the integrity verification value matches the integrity verification data.

This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention disclosed below. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived, implemented or described. Therefore, unless otherwise explicitly indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section. Abbreviations that may be found in the specification and/or the drawing figures are defined below, after the main part of the detailed description section.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/927,663, filed Nov. 19, 2010 and U.S. Pat. No. 9,313,599 B2, issued Apr. 12, 2016, which are incorporated by reference herewith, describe mechanisms for ensuring backwards compatibility. That is, these references describe, for example, the ability to render an audio signal with conventional playback methods, such as stereo, for a spatial audio system.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,055,371 B2, issued Jun. 9, 2015, which is incorporated by reference herewith, describes a method for obtaining spatial audio (binaural or 5.1) from a backwards compatible input signal comprising left and right signals and spatial metadata. In accordance with this reference, original Left (L) and Right (R) microphone signals are used as a stereo signal for backwards compatibility. The (L) and (R) microphone signals can be used to create 5.1 surround sound audio and binaural signals utilizing side information. This reference also describes high quality (HQ) Left ({circumflex over (L)}) and Right ({circumflex over (R)}) signals used as a stereo signal for backwards compatibility. The HQ ({circumflex over (L)}) and ({circumflex over (R)}) signals can be used to create 5.1 surround sound audio and binaural signals utilizing side information. This reference also describes a method for ensuring backwards compatibility where a two channel spatial audio system can be made backwards compatible utilizing a codec that can use regular Mid/Side-coding, for example, ISO/IEC 13818-7:1997. Audio is inputted to the codec in a two-channel Direct/Ambient form. The typical Mid/Side calculation is bypassed and a conventional Mid/Side-flag is raised for all subbands. A decoder decodes the previously encoded signal into a form that is playable over loudspeakers or headphones. A two channel spatial audio system can be made backwards compatible where instead of sending the Direct/Ambient channels and the side information to the receiver, the original Left and Right channels are sent with the same side information. A decoder can then play back the Left and Right channels directly, or create the Direct/Ambient channels from the Left and Right channels with help of the side information, proceeding on to the synthesis of stereo, binaural, 5.1 etc. channels.
Typically, the prior attempts for backwards compatibility do not handle the situation where the audio signal or the side information has been tampered with.
Accordingly, there is a need for ensuring high quality playback and determining if an audio signal and related information transited in an audio stream has been tampered with, and if tampering is suspected or determined, an alternative playback mode made available.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


In one embodiment, a computer-implemented method includes tracking a size of a load-store queue (LSQ) during compile time of a program. The size of the LSQ is time-varying and indicates how many memory access instructions of the program are on the LSQ. The method further includes scheduling, by a computer processor, a plurality of memory access instructions of the program based on the size of the LSQ.

Various embodiments of this disclosure relate to compile-time schedulers and, more particularly, to compile-time schedulers with load-store queue awareness.
In executing a program, a processor core may need to perform an ordered sequence of arithmetic instructions and memory access instructions. Generally, performing a memory access instruction can take two or more orders of magnitude more time than an arithmetic operation. The specific order of this sequence may be determined by a compiler that converted the program into code executable by the processor.
A load-store queue (LSQ) is a shared queue used by one or more processor cores of a computer processor, where each core inserts memory access instructions into the LSQ during execution of a program. Generally, the LSQ is a first-in-first-out (FIFO) queue, such that memory access instructions are handled in the order they are received at the LSQ. When a memory access instruction is handled, the desired memory addresses are accessed and the retrieved data is returned to the requesting processor core.
The LSQ has a finite capacity and thus has the potential to become full. When the LSQ is full, subsequent memory access instructions from a processor core are forced to stall. In the case of an in-order core, even arithmetic operations that are memory-independent and otherwise ready to execute will stall if they are scheduled for execution after the memory access instruction causing the stall.

Schedulers with load-store queue awareness

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION