Virtualization software can improve the effectiveness of a guest application running inside a virtual machine (VM) by providing information to the guest application indicative of a memory condition of the VM. The memory condition is indicative of an availability of memory resources to the guest application. When guest physical memory can be reserved by a balloon application running in the (VM), providing memory condition data indicative of the memory condition provides more accurate information regarding the availability of memory resources to the guest application than could be provided by the guest operating system of the VM.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to virtualized computer systems, and specifically to memory management for a virtual machine.
2. Description of Related Art
The advantages of virtual machine technology have become widely recognized. Among these advantages is the ability to run multiple virtual machines on a single host platform. This makes better use of the capacity of the hardware, while still ensuring that each user enjoys the features of a "complete" computer. Depending on how it is implemented, virtualization also provides greater security, since the virtualization can isolate potentially unstable or unsafe software so that it cannot adversely affect the hardware state or system files required for running the physical (as opposed to virtual) hardware.
As is well known in the field of computer science, a virtual machine (VM) is a software abstraction—a "virtualization"—of an actual physical computer system. FIG. 1 shows one possible arrangement of a computer system 700 that implements virtualization. A virtual machine (VM) 200, which in this system is a "guest," is installed on a "host platform," or simply "host," which will include a system hardware 100, that is, a hardware platform, and one or more layers or co-resident components comprising system-level software, such as an operating system (OS) or similar kernel, a virtual machine monitor or hypervisor (see below), or some combination of these.
As software, the code defining the VM will ultimately execute on the actual system hardware 100. As in almost all computers, this hardware will include one or more CPUs 110, some form of memory 130 (volatile or non-volatile), one or more storage devices such as one or more disks 140, and one or more devices 170, which may be integral or separate and removable.
In many existing virtualized systems, the hardware processor(s) 110 are the same as in a non-virtualized computer with the same platform, for example, the Intel x86 platform. Because of the advantages of virtualization, however, some hardware vendors are producing hardware processors that include specific hardware support for virtualization.
Each VM 200 will typically mimic the general structure of a physical computer and as such will usually have both virtual system hardware 201 and guest system software 202. The virtual system hardware typically includes at least one virtual CPU 210, virtual memory 230, at least one virtual disk 240, and one or more virtual devices 270. Note that a storage disk—virtual 240 or physical 140—is also a "device," but is usually considered separately because of the important role it plays. All of the virtual hardware components of the VM may be implemented in software to emulate corresponding physical components. The guest system software includes a guest operating system (OS) 220 and drivers 224 as needed, for example, for the various virtual devices 270.
To permit computer systems to scale to larger numbers of concurrent threads, systems with multiple CPUs—physical or logical, or a combination—have been developed. One example is a symmetric multi-processor (SMP) system, which is available as an extension of the PC platform and from other vendors. Essentially, an SMP system is a hardware platform that connects multiple processors to a shared main memory and shared I/O devices. Yet another configuration is found in a so-called "multi-core" architecture, in which more than one physical CPU is fabricated on a single chip, with its own set of functional units (such as a floating-point unit and an arithmetic/logic unit ALU), and can execute threads independently; multi-core processors typically share only very limited resources, such as at least some cache. Still another technique that provides for simultaneous execution of multiple threads is referred to as "simultaneous multi-threading," in which more than one logical CPU (hardware thread) operates simultaneously on a single chip, but in which the logical CPUs flexibly share not only one or more caches, but also some functional unit(s) and sometimes also the translation lookaside buffer (TLB).
Similarly, a single VM may (but need not) be configured with more than one virtualized physical and/or logical processor. By way of example, FIG. 1 illustrates multiple virtual processors 210, 211, . . . , 21m (VCPU0, VCPU1, . . . , VCPUm) within the VM 200. Each virtualized processor in a VM may also be multi-core, or multi-threaded, or both, depending on the virtualization. This invention may be used to advantage regardless of the number of processors the VMs are configured to have.
If the VM 200 is properly designed, applications 260 running on the VM will function essentially as they would if run on a "real" computer, even though the applications are running at least partially indirectly, that is via the guest OS 220 and virtual processor(s). Executable files will be accessed by the guest OS from the virtual disk 240 or virtual memory 230, which will be portions of the actual physical disk 140 or memory 130 allocated to that VM. Once an application is installed within the VM, the guest OS retrieves files from the virtual disk just as if the files had been pre-stored as the result of a conventional installation of the application. The design and operation of virtual machines in general are known in the field of computer science.
Some interface is generally required between the guest software within a VM and the various hardware components and devices in the underlying hardware platform. This interface—which may be referred to generally as "virtualization software" or "virtualization layer"—may include one or more software components and/or layers, possibly including one or more of the software components known in the field of virtual machine technology as "virtual machine monitors" (VMMs), "hypervisors," or virtualization "kernels." Because virtualization terminology has evolved over time and has not yet become fully standardized, these terms do not always provide clear distinctions between the software layers and components to which they refer. For example, "hypervisor" is often used to describe both a VMM and a kernel together, either as separate but cooperating components or with one or more VMMs incorporated wholly or partially into the kernel itself; however, "hypervisor" is sometimes used instead to mean some variant of a VMM alone, which interfaces with some other software layer(s) or component(s) to support the virtualization. Moreover, in some systems, some virtualization code is included in at least one "superior" VM to facilitate the operations of other VMs. Furthermore, specific software support for VMs is sometimes included in the host OS itself.
Unless otherwise indicated, the invention described below may be used in virtualized computer systems having any type or configuration of virtualization software. Moreover, the invention is described and illustrated below primarily as including one or more virtual machine monitors that appear as separate entities from other components of the virtualization software. This is only for the sake of simplicity and clarity and by way of illustration—as mentioned above, the distinctions are not always so clear-cut. Again, unless otherwise indicated or apparent from the description, it is to be assumed that the invention can be implemented with components residing anywhere within the overall structure of the virtualization software.
By way of illustration and example only, the figures show each VM running on a corresponding virtual machine monitor. The description's reference to VMMs is also merely by way of common example. A VMM is usually a software component that virtualizes at least one hardware resource of some physical platform, so as to export a hardware interface to the VM corresponding to the hardware the VM "thinks" it is running on. As FIG. 1 illustrates, a virtualized computer system may (and usually will) have more than one VM, each of which may be running on its own VMM.
The various virtualized hardware components in the VM, such as the virtual CPU(s) 210, etc., the virtual memory 230, the virtual disk 240, and the virtual device(s) 270, are shown as being part of the VM 200 for the sake of conceptual simplicity. In actuality, these "components" are often implemented as software emulations included in some part of the virtualization software, such as the VMM. One advantage of such an arrangement is that the virtualization software may (but need not) be set up to expose "generic" devices, which facilitate, for example, migration of VM from one hardware platform to another.
Different systems may implement virtualization to different degrees—"virtualization" generally relates to a spectrum of definitions rather than to a bright line, and often reflects a design choice in respect to a trade-off between speed and efficiency on the one hand and isolation and universality on the other hand. For example, "full virtualization" is sometimes used to denote a system in which no software components of any form are included in the guest other than those that would be found in a non-virtualized computer; thus, the guest OS could be an off-the-shelf, commercially available OS with no components included specifically to support use in a virtualized environment.
In contrast, another concept, which has yet to achieve a universally accepted definition, is that of "para-virtualization." As the name implies, a "para-virtualized" system is not "fully" virtualized, but rather the guest is configured in some way to provide certain features that facilitate virtualization. For example, the guest in some para-virtualized systems is designed to avoid hard-to-virtualize operations and configurations, such as by avoiding certain privileged instructions, certain memory address ranges, etc. As another example, many para-virtualized systems include an interface within the guest that enables explicit calls to other components of the virtualization software. For some, para-virtualization implies that the guest OS (in particular, its kernel) is specifically designed to support such an interface. According to this view, having, for example, an off-the-shelf version of Microsoft Windows XP as the guest OS would not be consistent with the notion of para-virtualization. Others define para-virtualization more broadly to include any guest OS with any code that is specifically intended to provide information directly to the other virtualization software. According to this view, loading a module such as a driver designed to communicate with other virtualization components renders the system para-virtualized, even if the guest OS as such is an off-the-shelf, commercially available OS not specifically designed to support a virtualized computer system.
Unless otherwise indicated or apparent, this invention is not restricted to use in systems with any particular "degree" of virtualization and is not to be limited to any particular notion of full or partial ("para-") virtualization.
In addition to the distinction between full and partial (para-) virtualization, two arrangements of intermediate system-level software layer(s) are in general use—a "hosted" configuration (illustrated in FIG. 2) and a non-hosted configuration (illustrated in FIG. 1). In a hosted virtualized computer system, an existing, general-purpose operating system forms a "host" OS that is used to perform certain input/output (I/O) operations, alongside and sometimes at the request and direction of the VMM 300. The host OS 420, which usually includes drivers 424 and supports applications 460 of its own, and the VMM are both able to directly access at least some of the same hardware resources, with conflicts being avoided by a context-switching mechanism. The Workstation product of VMware, Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., is an example of a hosted, virtualized computer system.
In addition to device emulators 370, FIG. 2 also illustrates some of the other components that are also often included in the VMM of a hosted virtualization system; many of these components are found in the VMM of a non-hosted system as well. For example, exception handlers 330 may be included to help context-switching, and a direct execution engine 310 and a binary translator 320 with associated translation cache 325 may be included to provide execution speed while still preventing the VM from directly executing certain privileged instructions.
In many cases, it may be beneficial to deploy VMMs on top of a software layer—a kernel 600—constructed specifically to provide efficient support for the VMs. This configuration is frequently referred to as being "non-hosted." Compared with a system in which VMMs run directly on the hardware platform (such as shown in FIG. 2), use of a kernel offers greater modularity and facilitates provision of services (for example, resource management) that extend across multiple virtual machines. Compared with a hosted deployment, a kernel may offer greater performance because it can be co-developed with the VMM and be optimized for the characteristics of a workload consisting primarily of VMs/VMMs. The kernel 600 also handles any other applications running on it that can be separately scheduled, as well as any "console" operating system 420 that, in some systems, is included to boot the system as a whole and for enabling certain user interactions with the kernel. The console OS in FIG. 1 may be of the same type as the host OS in FIG. 2, which is why they are identically numbered—the main difference is the role they play (or are allowed to play, if any) once the virtualized computer system is loaded and running.
This invention may be used to advantage in both a hosted and a non-hosted virtualized computer system, in which the included virtual machine(s) may be fully or para-virtualized, and in which the virtual machine(s) have any number of virtualized processors, which may be of any type (including multi-core, multi-threaded, or some combination). The invention may also be implemented directly in a computer's primary OS, both where the OS is designed to support virtual machines and where it is not. Moreover, the invention may even be implemented wholly or partially in hardware, for example in processor architectures intended to provide hardware support for virtual machines.
To facilitate effective memory management, many operating systems in use today introduce a layer of abstraction between the memory addresses used by the applications and the memory addresses describing physical memory. When an application requests memory, the operating system will allocate memory in a first address space, typically called a virtual memory address space. This first memory address space maps to a second memory address space, typically the physical memory of the computer. A page table organizes the relationships between the two address spaces and maps memory addresses (for example, given as page numbers) of the first memory address space to memory addresses of the second memory address space. It is common for multiple virtual memory address spaces, as well as multiple page tables, to be implemented in modern operating systems. For example, each application may have its own virtual memory address space. In many systems, each application can treat its virtual memory address space as if it had exclusive use of that memory. The operating system organizes these virtual memory addresses spaces and keeps track of the corresponding physical memory address using entries in a page table.
One of the advantages of using virtual memory address spaces is that the amount of virtual memory used by the applications may exceed the amount of physical memory available on the computer. When such a situation occurs, the operating system will use a secondary storage medium, such as a hard disk, to store some of the data contained in virtual memory. When data from some virtual memory pages is actually stored on the secondary storage medium, the page table will map some virtual memory addresses to physical memory addresses, while mapping other virtual memory addresses to locations on the secondary storage medium.
If an application attempts to access a virtual memory address not mapped to physical memory, the operating system will detect a page fault. In response to a page fault, the operating system will retrieve the requested data from the appropriate storage device, store it in physical memory, and update the page table with the address of the location in physical memory. Retrieving a page and storing it in physical memory is commonly described as "paging-in" the requested page. Frequently, in order to page-in some data, the operating system must first make room in the physical memory. One method for making room in the physical memory is by "paging-out" a page presently stored in the physical memory. Paging-out refers to the process of copying a page from the physical memory to another storage device and updating the page table accordingly. Subsequent access to that virtual memory address will then result in another page fault and the paging-in process will repeat. Ideally, the operating system will page-out pages that are inactive so that they will not have to be paged back in for some reasonable amount of time. Various methods for determining which pages are inactive and are good candidates to be paged-out are well known in the art.
When a guest operating system 220 is run on a virtual machine 200, the guest operating system 220 treats the virtual memory 230 as if it were the physical memory of a computer system. Thus the guest operating system 220 will create virtual memory address spaces (not shown) and map them into the virtual memory 230.
The virtualization layer introduces an additional layer of memory management abstraction. The kernel 600 typically emulates the virtual memory 230 by mapping the virtual memory 230 to the physical memory 130. In many ways, the mapping of the virtual memory 230 to the physical memory 130 is analogous of the mapping of virtual memory addresses to physical memory addresses performed by an operating system. Guest operating systems 220 running on various virtual machines 200 are allowed to treat their virtual memory 230 as if they had exclusive control over that memory, when in fact those virtual memory address spaces are mapped to physical memory 130. Furthermore, as in virtual memory managed by an operating system, the total amount of virtual memory 230 used by the various virtual machines 200 may exceed the total amount of physical memory 130. The virtual machine monitor 300 organizes these virtual memory addresses and keeps track of the corresponding physical memory addresses in the memory 130.
Thus, when a guest operating system 220 implementing virtual memory is run on a virtual machine, typically three levels of memory address spaces are used. The guest operating system 220 organizes some virtual memory address spaces. For the purposes of this application, these addresses spaces are referred to as "guest virtual memory" which are addressed using a "guest virtual page number" (GVPN). The guest operating system 220 maintains a page table that maps this guest virtual memory to the virtual memory 230. Typically, the guest operating system 220 treats the virtual memory 230 as if it were physical memory. For the purposes of this application, the address space of the virtual memory 230 is referred to as the "guest physical memory" which is addressed using a "guest physical page number" (GPPN). The virtual machine monitor 300 maintains a data structure (such as a page table) that maps this guest physical memory to the physical memory 130. The physical memory 130 is addressed using a "physical page number" (PPN), which is sometimes also referred to as a "machine page number" (MPN).
One approach for allowing the total amount of guest physical memory used by the various virtual machines 200 to exceed the total amount of physical memory is for the kernel 600 to page-out some of the inactive guest physical memory. For example, the kernel 600 can copy pages from the physical memory 130 to the disk 140 and adjust the page table entry for the corresponding guest physical memory accordingly. However, such an approach has several problems. First of all, determining which guest physical memory pages are less active (and therefore suitable for page-out) is a challenging task, and it is difficult to find inactive pages with a high degree of accuracy. Paging-out a page that is actively being used will result in a page fault and require the selection of another page for page-out in the near future. The subsequent paging and repaging cycle can seriously affect the performance of the system, and in worst cases, can bring the virtual machine to an effective halt, a condition commonly referred to as "thrashing".
Furthermore, even if an inactive page of the guest physical memory is determined with a high degree of accuracy, paging-out this page introduces a problem known as "double-paging." If the guest physical memory is constrained, the guest operating system 220 will be searching for inactive guest virtual memory pages as candidates for page-out. When it finds an inactive guest virtual memory page, it will attempt to read from the corresponding guest physical memory page to perform the page-out. However, since the guest physical memory page is also inactive, it may have already been paged-out by the kernel 600. If the guest physical memory page has already been paged-out by the kernel 600, the attempt to page-out the guest virtual memory will result in a guest physical memory page fault, and the inactive guest physical page will be paged back in. Thus interference between the memory management of the guest operating system 220 and the kernel 600 can significantly reduce the effectiveness of paging-out guest physical memory pages.
Another approach for managing allocations of physical memory to various virtual machines is to dynamically change the size of the guest physical memory. However, most guest operating systems 220 do not provide a mechanism by which the amount of guest physical memory can be increased or decreased during execution of the operating system. Therefore, current techniques for managing allocations of physical memory to various virtual machines are inadequate.

Providing memory condition information to guest applications


A graphical user interface displayed at a mobile computing device may adjust dynamically and automatically in response to detecting a pattern of user interactions with the graphical user interface. Adjustments to the graphical user interface may include causing content to advance automatically, removing or resizing the display of particular interface components, re-locating components of the interface, and causing display events to occur automatically. The device may cause such adjustments to occur in response to detecting patterns of user interactions with the graphical user interface. The detection of user interaction pattern may include determining when content advancement commands are received, when viewing of the interface is terminated, whether particular components of the interface are not selected, the locations of the interface with which the user interacts, or which user commands for display events are frequently received.

The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Due to the prevalence of mobile devices, mobile applications are now commonly used for a wide variety of user purposes, including daily activities such as shopping online, consuming news or other content, viewing driving directions, or searching for restaurants. Because of the portability of mobile devices, mobile applications are often used on-the-go and in a hurried manner. For these reasons, application developers have an incentive to make applications as user-friendly and efficient to use as possible in an on-the-go environment. In some applications, user interfaces are context-sensitive so that the number and arrangement of user interface widgets changes according to the context of a particular app function or feature. However, context-sensitive user interfaces typically use a relatively static and narrow set of possible changes. In particular, standard context-sensitive user interfaces normally cannot adapt on a per-user basis to the particular operational preferences or habits of a user of the interface.

Intelligent adjustment of graphical user interfaces


An electric thermos jug comprises generally from the top to the bottom a lid assembly, a spout assembly, a double-layer vacuum body, a heating element, an underbody, and a base. An insulating plate and an insulating material layer are provided under the heating element inside the underbody of the jug. The lid is two-layer structure comprising an upper lid and lower lid with an air plenum in between. The electric thermos is convenient for use and effective in heat insulation due to the excellent air tightness of the components. The temperature inside the jug can be maintained for a long time without the need of repetitive heating. As a result, it can maintain a good water quality and is energy efficient. A safety valve is also employed.

At present, people usually boil water using an electric kettle, and then pour the boiled water into a thermos bottle for insulated storage, which results in inconvenient handling. Consequently, a kind of electric thermos jug was invented that could boil water and preserve heat. It worked using two heating elements, namely, a main heating element with large power and a heating element with low power for keeping water hot by intermittent heating. This structure could maintain water temperature within the preset range for a long time, but it was not provided with heat insulation measures. Therefore, water in the jug had to be boiled frequently and repeatedly, which not only had a bad influence on water quality, but also wasted electricity.
As a result, an electric thermos jug with single heating element was invented, which body was covered with heat insulating material, or, had a double-layer with vacuum gap. It increased greatly thermal insulation and reduced heating frequency. Still, its bottom for heating had good thermal conduction. Consequently there was a swift heat loss from the bottom. Besides, the lid was designed as single-layer structure, and for safety reasons the lid was usually provided with a steam discharge vent, or steam discharged directly from the spout to prevent explosion due to excessive steam pressure in the jug when boiling water. As a result, this structure caused heat loss from the lid or spout during the insulated storage period.


An Insertable indicator with a spare receptacle includes an indicating component and a power getting plug, the indicating component comprises an enclosure and an display screen disposed in the enclosure for displaying content, the power getting plug is intended for connection with a car power getting receptacle for obtaining power therefrom and supplying it to the display screen. The indicating component of the enclosure is pivoted with a side of an exposed end of the power getting plug; and an end surface of the exposed end of the power getting plug is provided with a spare receptacle electrically connected to the car power getting receptacle.

External tire pressure gauges have been used widely the fundamental principle underlying which involves an external sensor installed on the wheel hub of a tire. Said sensor includes a bridge electronic gas pressure sensing device for sensing gas pressure. It transforms gas pressure signal into electric signal and transmits the signal to a receiver through a radio transmitter device. Kinds of data changes may be displayed on a screen of the receiver. Or, they may take form of buzzing to remind the driver. In addition, in case that tire gas leakage occurs and pressure change exceeds a safe threshold, alter will be generated for ensuring safe driving.
Normally, the display of tire status and alerting device are disposed on the front console of the cab and are coupled with a car battery by a connecting line so as to be powered. This kind of devices and their connecting lines occupy space of the cab. Moreover, these connecting lines may be accidently touched by the driver. Furthermore, instruments on the front console of the cab may divert attention of the driver and thus result in bad influence on safe driving of the car. To make improvement, many solutions have been proposed in related industry to integrate tire pressure monitor function into the car console. The present applicant has also proposed implementation of tire pressure monitor by getting power from the car cigarette lighter receptacle. However, the former solution causes heavy cost and therefore is not suitable for car products available in the marketplace. The latter one occupies the cigarette lighter receptacle of the car and is not convenient for the driver to use other display devices.
In detail, according to the applicant's solution where power is obtained from the car cigarette lighter receptacle, the indicator and its power getting plug are integral. The indicator is basically perpendicular to an axis direction of the plug of the cigarette lighter receptacle and is fixed onto the same element. This causes some shortcomings.
At first, as the indicator is fixedly connected to the plug, it can present data to the user only from one angle thus lacking flexibility. In this situation, the user is limited to read displayed data in the visual range of the indicator.
Secondly, as the indicator is fixedly connected to the plug and the indicator uses relatively large space, indicators of the same size will not certainly be suitable for cars with different console streamline design. Moreover, use of space around the power getting receptacle may also be influenced, hence influencing manipulation of the driver. For example, this may possibly obstruct pushing action of the gear levers.
Thirdly, once one or two power getting receptacles on the car are occupied by the indicator, it will be impossible to provide power receptacle for other devices. Apparently, this kind of resource use lacks of efficiency.

Insertable indicator with a spare receptacle and tire pressure status instrument


An inexpensive unmanned mobile sensor and data collection rolling rover (“rollver) for exploring remote, inaccessible locations, such as deep craters and canyons, includes a hollow enclosure having a flexible wall that is expandable into the shape of a sphere, an apparatus for selectably expanding the wall of the enclosure, a sensor and instrumentation payload disposed within the enclosure and coupled to an inner surface of the wall of the enclosure, and a power supply for powering the payload at its destination. The rollver is adapted to roll to a target destination at least partially in response to at least one of an initial impetus imparted to the vehicle and gravitational forces acting thereon, and due to its relatively low cost, can be simultaneously deployed and used in an area of interest in relatively large numbers.

1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to mobile sensor and data collection devices, in general, and in particular, to expandable spheres carrying instrument payloads for data collection that are rolled to the destinations at which data is to be collected.
2. Related Art
Access to remote locations in the solar system or to dangerous places here on Earth can be limited due to geographical, chemical, atmospheric or other constraints. Investigators are often interested in exploring or investigating areas that are located in remote holes, valleys or craters with steeply sloping sides. For example, shadowed deep craters (known as "cold traps") that exist on other planets, e.g., Mars and our own moon, are often places where water may exist, but are difficult to reach because of their rugged, deeply sloping sides. Such conditions make it difficult to acquire the desired data from such locations because it is difficult for either manned or unmanned vehicles to navigate the approaches to them.
Current solutions in space exploration include unmanned, mobile "rovers" and "landers" that are designed to be deployed to remote locations on other planets. Terrestrial exploration operations also rely on remotely operated roving or flying vehicles. However, in planetary exploration, it can be very difficult to get a lander or a rover to a location of interest, such as in the bottom of a crater or deep within a steep-walled canyon, due to the ruggedness and slope of the terrain. Current vehicles have extreme difficulty navigating these slopes without turning over, getting stuck, or sliding out of control. Also, once landed on a remote planet, landers cannot move to gather information that might lie out of range, and conventional rovers need large power sources for travelling to distant locations and must actively navigate around obstacles that could damage them.
Even in many terrestrial areas, access for remote reconnaissance vehicles can also be severely limited by steep slopes and long drives, and it is not cost-effective to send out many such vehicles at once to quickly scan a large area. Aerial vehicles can solve some of the accessibility problems, but cannot collect data directly on the surface of the Earth, and there are some places that aircraft cannot fly easily or where ground cover makes it difficult to see targets of interest. Landing such aircraft at the location may also be too risky. Both methods require powered movement, and can be large and hard to store.
Accordingly, a need exists for a delivery vehicle for deploying sensor and data collection devices to areas that are located in remote holes, valleys or craters with steeply sloping sides that is reliable, yet simple to make and use, that uses gravity as its primary motive force, and that is sufficiently inexpensive as to enable several sensor and data collection devices to be deployed in a given target area simultaneously and cost effectively.

Spherical sensor and data collection vehicles


A submersible seal that operates in a substantially frictionless manner is provided for protecting a motor from liquid intrusion along the shaft. Motors of this type are commonly used, for example, in aerators, pumps, mixers, flow developers, and the like. The submersible seal of the present invention includes a stationary seal element and a rotating seal element. The stationary seal element is in the form of a tubular section which is attached to the motor casing, surrounding but spaced from the rotating shaft. The rotating seal element, is a cylindrical section which is attached to the rotatable shaft and inter-engages the stationary seal element to form a labyrinth passageway having a first end at the casing of the motor, a second end opposite the first end, and at least one reverse bend therebetween. Liquid from the body of liquid in which the motor is immersed attempts to enter the first end of the labyrinth passage, and in so doing compresses an air cushion in the labyrinth passage. The geometry is such that the air cushion occupies the reverse bend, and serves as a liquid seal to prevent ingress of liquid.

Devices for aerating, spraying, pumping, mixing, and developing the flow of liquids are well known in the art. Such devices are frequently used, for example, to treat or condition liquids contained in a reservoir such as a pond, a lake, a lagoon, a canal, a tank, a waste treatment basin, or the like. Aerators, in particular, are commonly used to enrich the oxygen content of water by pumping it upwardly into the air. Aerators are also used to scrub undesirable gases from liquids and to cool large quantities of liquids for future recirculation. Mixers and flow developers, in contrast, do not pump or spray liquids into the air. Instead, they circulate a body of liquid beneath its top surface. In this way, mixers and flow developers are commonly used, for example, to blend different types of liquids together and to agitate biological or other solids that are suspended in a liquid.
Many devices of this type are designed to float on the top surface of a liquid. Such floating devices include an impeller attached to a rotatable shaft, a motor for rotating the shaft, and a buoyant float for supporting the motor relative to the top surface of the liquid. When the impeller is rotated by the motor, liquid is either pumped into the air (in the case of aerators), or circulated below its surface (in the case of mixers and flow developers). In either event, the motor is either arranged on the float (as a non-submersible or partially-submersible motor), or beneath the float (as a fully-submersible motor). Floating aerators, mixers, and flow developers are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,416,729 (Ravitts et al.), 3,606,273 (Johnson), 3,856,272 (Ravitts), and 4,089,620 (Ravitts).
Other devices of this type are statically arranged on the bottom surface (or floor) of the liquid filled reservoir. Such stationary devices include an impeller attached to a rotatable shaft, a motor for rotating the shaft, and a stand for supporting the motor relative to the bottom surface of the liquid body. Of course, the motor of such stationary devices is fully-submersible.
In both floating and stationary devices, certain precautions must be taken in order to prevent liquids from invading, entering, and damaging the motor. In most instances, a submersible seal fabricated from a hard and insoluble material (e.g., silicon carbide or tungsten carbide) is disposed between the motor and the shaft in order to seal and protect the motor from leakage. Although effective for relatively short durations, such seals suffer from many noted deficiencies including, but not limited to: (1) a susceptibility to friction and corrosion; (2) a tendency to wear and leak; (3) a propensity to freeze-up in icy conditions; (4) a need for frequent servicing and/or replacement; and (5) a high relative cost.


The present invention provides an abrasive article, particularly a cut-off wheel, having a mixture of rare earth oxide modified abrasive grains and alpha alumina seeded or iron oxide nucleated abrasive grains. Preferably, the rare earth oxide is present at a level between about 0.1 wt-% to 10 wt-% of the abrasive grain, based on a theoretical oxide basis. In one embodiment, the rare earth oxide modified abrasive grains are rods.

The present invention relates to abrasive articles, particularly grinding wheels, having a mixture of two different abrasive grains. The first abrasive grain comprises seeded or nucleated alpha alumina, preferably iron oxide nucleated alpha alumina, and the second abrasive grain comprises rare earth oxide modified alpha alumina.
Fused alumina abrasive grains or particles have been utilized in abrasive applications for close to one hundred years. Fused alumina abrasive grains are made by heating an alumina source above its melting point, quenching, and then crushing to form the alumina abrasive grains. In the early 1980's a new and substantially improved type of alumina abrasive grains, commonly referred to as "sol gel" or "sol gel-derived" abrasive grains, were commercialized. The sol gel abrasive grains were based upon a sintering process rather than a fusion process. In general, sol gel abrasive grains are made by preparing a dispersion or sol comprising water and alumina monohydrate (boehmite), gelling the dispersion, drying the gelled dispersion, crushing the dried dispersion into particles, calcining the particles, and sintering the calcined particles at a temperature below the melting point of alumina. Frequently, the dispersion also includes one or more oxide modifiers, nucleating agents, and/or precursor thereof. Further details regarding sol gel abrasive grain, including methods for making them, are reported in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,314,827 (Leitheiser et al.), 4,623,364 (Cottringer et al.), 4,744,802 (Schwabel), 4,881,951 (Wood et al.), 5,011,508 (Wald et al.), 5,090,968 (Pellow), 5,201,916 (Berg et al.), 5,213,591 (Celikkaya et al.), and 5,366,523 (Rowenhorst et al.).
Sol gel abrasive grains are typically incorporated into abrasive articles such as coated abrasive articles, nonwoven abrasive articles, and bonded abrasive articles. Bonded abrasive articles include grinding wheels, stones, hones, and cut-off wheels. The bonds used to hold or bond the abrasive grains within the wheel are typically a resin or organic polymers, but may also be inorganic materials such as ceramics or glasses (i.e., vitreous bonds).
Cut-off wheels are typically small thin wheels used for general cutting operations. The wheels are generally several inches in diameter and a few millimeters thick. They may be operated at speeds from about 1000 to 50,000 RPM, and are used for operations such as cutting metal or glass, for example, to nominal lengths. Cut-off wheels are also know as "industrial cut-off saw blades" and, in some settings such as foundries, as "chop saws".
Examples of commercially available cut-off wheels include those available from Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company of St. Paul, Minn.(hereinafter referred to as "3M") under the trade designation "General Purpose Cut-Off Wheel". These 3M cut-off wheels utilize fused aluminum oxide abrasive grain. Other commercially available cut-off wheels include wheels available under the designation "Vulcan" from United Abrasives Inc., of Vulcan, Mich., and wheels from Spedecut of Adelanto, Calif. Both of these examples use essentially 100% brown fused aluminum oxide as the abrasive grain. Cut-off wheels such as these are typically used for cutting of softer workpieces such as mild steel (e.g., 1018 MS) and glass.
In an effort to improve the cutting performance and to reduce the cost of the cut-off wheels, manufacturers also produce wheels which have a blend of two or more types of abrasive grain. In some instances a premium, expensive, abrasive grain is partially replaced with a lower quality, less expensive, abrasive grain. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,867,795 (Howard) discloses cut-off wheels and methods of making cut-off wheels. These cut-off wheels may contain a blend of fused aluminum oxide and fused alumina-zirconia abrasive grains. Alumina-zirconia is a mid-priced abrasive grain particularly useful in cutting nickel alloys or stainless steel materials. Wheels available under the trade designation "GREEN CORPS" from 3M utilize a blend of equal amounts of fused alumina abrasive grain and an iron oxide nucleated ceramic abrasive grain which contains approximately 4.5% magnesium oxide. Norton Company, of Worcester, Mass., produces a cut-off wheel containing equal amounts of brown fused aluminum oxide and fused alumina-zirconia abrasive grain. Also available from Norton, under the trade designation "Medallion", are cut-off wheels having equal amounts of fused alumina-zirconia abrasive grain and seeded ceramic aluminum oxide grain (the ceramic aluminum oxide grain being commercially available from Norton as loose abrasive grains under the trade designation "SG").
Ceramic aluminum oxide abrasive grains, which are derived from a sol gel process, are particularly useful in cutting carbon steel articles. By combining the premium abrasive grains with lower quality abrasive grains, the overall cost of the wheel, based on the cost of the abrasive grains used, is reduced. Unfortunately, use of lower quality abrasive grains in the wheel may also reduce the cutting performance of the wheel.
The abrasive industry is continuously searching for ways to improve the performance of cut-off wheels by using existing premium abrasive grains, yet maintain good product performance and still keep the cost at acceptable levels. It would be desired to make a wheel which works well on various types of articles yet still has a reasonable price.

Abrasive articles comprising a blend of abrasive particles

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company


A noninvasive method of determining function of a target organ using a pre-calibrated imaging system is described. The method contains the steps of introducing an indicator/tracer bolus into the subject's circulatory system and thereafter monitoring simultaneously the responses recorded from the heart/great vessels, and from the target organ. The absolute activity per unit volume of blood withdrawn at a known time(s) is measured, and the observed data from the heart or great vessels is converted into absolute units. These data serve as B(t), the input function. Precalibration of the detector/measuring system allows the observed dynamic indicator/tracer data recorded from the target organ to be expressed in units of absolute activity. These data serve as A(t). A(t) and B(t) are deconvolved in order to obtain the linear response function (LRF, h(t)) for an image element. A preferred method of deconvolution, the DOP method is introduced. Functional images of the target organ's LRF are created.

The prior art teaches extracting information from images by deconvolution by the transformation of the desired quantity (or image) by Fourier transform and subsequent arithmetic operations. Fourier transform enables the change of an image from the spatial domain to the frequency domain, while the inverse Fourier transform enables transformation from the frequency domain to the spatial domain. In the frequency domain, the computation of deconvolution with another function also in the same frequency domain requires a simple arithmetic operation, whereas in the spatial domain the deconvolution operation requires multiple steps. The added required steps in the spatial domain render deconvolution highly inefficient compared to deconvolution in the frequency domain, i.e. the same operation can be performed in the frequency domain more efficiently. This is why a tool that allows minimal operations to compute deconvolution is beneficial whenever a large number of images having multiple pixels need to be processed to extract information contained therein.
Furthermore some images, particularly those obtained from medical images, contain high amounts of noise that may render some Fourier based and other deconvolution methods ineffective. The present application describes a method that is an improvement of a medical imaging method utilizing a deconvolution method that is highly tolerant of noise contained in images. The deconvolution method provides a technique of extracting quantitative information on organ function from existing data. Methods previously in use could not provide this information except by invasive methods which expose patients to an unacceptable degree of risk.
The present invention relates to noninvasive diagnostic procedures for producing functional images from static, non-functional images. The new images are useful in determining organ activity, or linear response. The invention utilizes an array processor for the process of deconvolution to obtain the new images.
Much previous work has been done using dynamic scintigraphy to determine organ function. Such work required direct, invasive, sampling of organ efflux to measure the changing concentration of an injected indicator over time. See e.g. Chinard and Enns, "Relative Renal Excretion Patterns of Sodium Ion, Chloride Ion, Urea, Water, and Glomerular Substances", Am. J. Physiol. (1955) 182:247-250.
The formulations used in prior invasive techniques have established the mathematics involved in organ function analysis by indicator-dilution methodology. See e.g. Meier and Zeirler, "On the Theory of Indicator Dilution Method for Measurement of Blood Flow and Volume", J. App. Physiol. (1954) 6:731-744.
Methodology to reliably determine the absolute perfusion rate of an organ by a noninvasive technique, previously unavailable, is clinically important in certain diseases, organ transplantation and determination of the effects of various pharmaceutical agents. Such methodology can be used to establish diagnoses and monitor disease progression as well as response to therapy. In the past, invasive techniques with microspheres or contrast media have been used experimentally to measure flow per unit volume or weight of the organ. See e.g. Eigler et al., "Digital Angiographic Impulse Response Analysis of Regional Myocardial Perfusion: Linearity, Reproducibility, Accuracy, and Comparison With Conventional Indicator Dilution Curve Parameters in Phantom and Canine Models", Circ. Res. (1989) 64:853-866.
Previous work with dynamic scintigraphic methods, which have the virtue of being noninvasive, has provided information from which only comparative spatial and temporal evaluations could be made, i.e., one region of an organ compared to another region, one kidney compared to the other. Peters et al., "Noninvasive Measurement of Renal Blood Flow using DTPA. In: Bischof-Delaloye A, and Blaufox MD, eds., Radionuclides in Nephrology, Karger, New York (1987), pp.26-30; and Alazraki et al., "Reliability of Radionuclide Angiography and Renography to Detect Varying Degrees of Impaired Renal Artery Flow". In: Bischof-Delaloye A, and Blaufox MD, eds., Radionuclides in Nephrology, Karger, New York (1987), pp. 82-86. It has been shown that the ratio of the slopes of the initial ascending portion of the renal time-activity curve is proportional to the relative renal blood flow. Ford et al., "The Radionuclide Renogram as a Predictor of Relative Renal Blood Flow", Radiology (1983) 149:819-821. These methods continue to prove clinically useful even though they face limitations such as dependence on the shape of injected activity, recirculation effects, and distribution of tracer to other compartments. Ash et al., "Quantitative Assessment of Blood Flow in Paediatric Recipients of Renal Transplants", J. Nucl. Med. (1988) 29:791-792.
More recently, attempts have been made to improve the methods described above by deconvolving the input-output time activity curves recorded by dynamic scintigraphy and thereby reduce dependence on empirical approximations. Nimmon et al., "Practical Application of Deconvolution Techniques to Dynamic Studies", In: Medical Radionuclide Imaging. Vienna:IAEA 1981; pp. 367-380; and Russell, "Estimation of Glomerular Filtration Rate Using .sup.99m Tc DTPA and the Gamma Camera", Eur. J. Nucl. Med. (1987) 12:548-552.
Several attempts have been made to determine flow directly from measured time activity curves without involving deconvolution procedures. Quantitative measurements of renal blood flow obtained by combining scintigraphy and ultrasound have been reported. Lear et al., "Quantitative Measurement of Renal Perfusion Following Transplant Surgery", J. Nucl. Med. (1988) 29:1656-1661. Real time ultrasound was used to determine the volume of the femoral artery from which the activity in a region of interest was measured. Thus, the activity of the tracer per unit volume of arterial blood, C.sub.a (t), was used as the input function and A.sub.k was the measured activity over the kidney. T was set to 5 sec. The equation utilized was ##EQU1## an approximation to the convolution integral ##EQU2##
Equation A represents a modification of the formulation proposed to describe the uptake of a tracer in an organ from measurements of the arterial and venous concentrations (input B(t) and output A(t)). Meier and Zierler, "On the Theory of Indicator Dilution Method for Measurement of Blood Flow and Volume", J. App. Physiol. (1954) 6:731-744.
Since such measurements are available only with invasive techniques it has been proposed that the output function, i.e. the concentration of tracer in the venous efflux could be set to zero during the very early interval of tracer uptake. Mullani and Gould, "First-pass Measurements of Regional Blood Flow with External Detectors", J. Nucl. Med. (1983) 24:577-581. This assumption leads to equation A. Comparing equation A with equation B, h(t-t') must be set to constant=F. In other words, tracer particles accumulate at a constant rate which implies that, under physiological conditions, tracer particles must remain within the region or organ supplied by the input. This holds true only when microspheres are used.
It has been reported that the kidney time activity curves have the same shape as the integrated arterial time activity curves. Peters et al., "Noninvasive Measurement of Renal Blood Flow (RBF) with DTPA", J. Nucl. Med. (1987) 28, #4(suppl):646. Even though under these circumstances the measured organ activity is proportional to blood flow, F, and the integral of the arterial concentration over time, it is questionable if equation A, even when integrated over the first time points, is appropriate for estimating blood flow to the organ. This is because mean transit time for most vascular beds, including the kidney are such that clinically useful tracers such as DTPA and hippuran, which are not administered as microspheres, leave the organ quickly.
Although several methods exist for performing deconvolution numerically, the methods are plagued by instabilities in the presence of noise. Szabo et al., "Effects of Statistical Noise and Digital Filtering on the Parameters Calculated From the Impulse Response Function", Eur. J. Nucl. Med. (1987) 13:148-154.


The invention provides methods for sharpening the tip of an electrical conductor. The methods of the invention are capable of producing tips with an apex radius of curvature less than 2 nm. The methods of the invention are based on simultaneous direction of ionized atoms towards the apex of a previously sharpened conducting tip and application of an electric potential difference to the tip. The sign of the charge on the ions is the same as the sign of the electric potential. The methods of the invention can be used to sharpen metal wires, metal wires tipped with conductive coatings, multi-walled carbon nanotubes, semiconducting nanowires, and semiconductors in other forms.

Electrical conductors with ultrasharp tips have applications as probes for scanned probe microscopy and field emitters for use in scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and field emission displays. In probe microscopy, the sharpness of the tip affects the lateral resolution. For field emission, the sharpness of the tip affects the electric field at the tip.
A variety of techniques have been reported for producing sharp tips on electrical conductors, including electrochemical etching, chemical vapor deposition or electron beam deposition onto previously sharpened tips, and ion sputtering. Electrochemical etching is a common technique used to produce sharpened tips on wires of tungsten and other materials. Typically, the radius of curvature of the apex of the tip is about 1 micron or less. Electrochemically sharpened tungsten tips typically have an oxide layer present on the tip surface.
Several ion sputtering techniques have been described in the scientific and patent literature. Biegelson et al. (1987, Appl. Phys. Lett, 50(11) 696) report a technique in which a beam of energetic ions is directed towards an electrochemically etched tungsten tip at an angle with respect to the tip axis. The tip is then rotated within the ion beam, resulting in sputter removal of the oxide layer and reduction of the radius of curvature at the tip apex. U.S. Pat. No. 6,329,214 to Hattori et al, report ion milling of noble metal field emitters with an ion beam incidence angle of 30-60 degrees relative to the substrate normal direction.
Axial incidence ion beam sputtering techniques have also been reported. U.S. Pat. No. 5,993,281 to Musket describe sputtering by high-energy (30 keV and higher) ions incident along or near the longitudinal axis of a field emitter to sharpen the tip with a taper from the point, or top end, down the shank of the emitter. The process is reported to sharpen tips down to radii of less than 12 nm with an included angle of about 20 degrees. U.S. Pat. No. 6,329,214 to Hattori et al. reportion milling of emitters made of conductive material other than a noble metal with an ion beam incidence angle of zero degrees relative to the substrate normal direction. Kubby and Siegel (1986, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 4(1), 120) reportion milling of electropolished tungsten and iridium wire targets; the target was electrically isolated from the target chamber and mechanically rotated and the beam energy was in the interval 3-15 keV. Morishita and Okuyama (1991, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 9(1), 167) report sharpening of monocrystalline molybdenum tips with Ar+ or Xe+ ions focused into a beam approximately 350 microns across. Hoffrege et al. (2001, J. Appl. Phys., 90(10) 5322) describe variation of the angle between the ion beam and the macroscopic tip.
Focused ion beam (FIB) milling techniques have also been reported. Typical beam diameters (full width at half maximum) are from about 5 nm to about 1 μm. Vasile et al. describe FIB milling of electrochemically etched W and Pt—Ir tips via a three stage process (Vasile et al., 1991, Rev. Sci. Instrum., 62(9), 2167; Vasile et al., 1991, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 9(6)). Formation of microtips having radii of curvature between 4 nm and 30 nm was reported (Vasile et al., 1991, Rev. Sci. Instrum., 62(9), 2167). U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,978 to Alvis et al. describes FIB milling of platinum deposited on an electron beam emitting filament.
Self-sputtering sharpening techniques are also described in the scientific literature. As reported by Schiller et al. (1995, Surface Sci. 339 L925-930), electrochemically etched tips are placed in within an ambient neon environment and a high negative voltage is applied to the tip. Under such a voltage, electrons are emitted directly from the tip, impacting and ionizing surrounding neon ions. These positively charged neon ions are attracted to and sputter the tip. The sputtering process results in "necking" and then "decapitation" of the tip.
There remains a need in the art for methods for producing nanometer-scale conducting tips, especially methods which are self-limiting and capable of sharpening more than one tip at a time.

Nanometer-scale sharpening of conductor tips

The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois


Nonwoven fabric for pleated filters comprising a sheath-core conjugate filament in which the core component is made of a polymer higher in melting point and the sheath component is made of a polymer lower in melting point, having compressively bonded portions dotted by embossing, with a weight per unit area X (g/m2) of the nonwoven fabric and a stiffness Y (mgf) obtained according to the Gurley method of JIS L 1096 of Y/X2xe2x89xa70.03 and Xxe2x89xa7120.

The present invention relates to a nonwoven fabric for pleated filters, partially compressively bonded by embossing and having high weight per unit area, and relates to a production process therefor.
It is generally known that a nonwoven fabric composed of continuous filaments can be produced by drawing the continuous filaments spun from a spinneret by an air sucker, etc. at a high speed, letting them collide with a divergence plate mainly made of a lead, to be electrified and opened, catching them on a net conveyer, and partially thermally compressively bonding them by a pair of heated embossing rolls, to form a nonwoven fabric, or by mechanically entangling the web piled and caught on a net, by needle punching, to form a nonwoven fabric. Such nonwoven fabrics are widely used as industrial materials, geotextiles, etc.
Especially for filters, since the nonwoven fabrics have high performance and are excellent in durability and workability, they are expected to be in great demand as a substitute for the conventional filter paper. For filters, since any partial defect greatly affects the performance of filters, the nonwoven fabric used for them are required to have high quality, being less uneven in weight per unit area and free from partial delamination in the sheet.
Japanese Patent Publication (Kokoku) No. 60-4298 discloses a nonwoven fabric producing process, in which a web composed of continuous filaments of two or more kinds having different melting points is thermally compressively bonded, to melt the filaments of lower melting point, for production of a nonwoven fabric.
However, the nonwoven fabric is insufficient in thermally compressively bonding in the thickness direction even if thermally compressively bonding is effected by a pair of embossing rolls, and delamination is liable to occur at the center of the thickness. Furthermore, since the thermally compressively bonding must be effected at a temperature higher than the melting point of the filaments that have lower melting point, the filaments lower in melting point are liable to adhere to the surfaces of the embossing rolls, and this contamination causes the embossed sheet to be attracted by the rolls, partially delaminating the surfaces of the nonwoven fabric disadvantageously. Therefore, if the nonwoven fabric is later pleated for use as a filter, it cannot be well pleated, and at the partially delaminated portions, fine particles leak. Furthermore, on the partially delaminated surface, a nap is raised, making it difficult to allow dust to be released, lowering the filter performance. Because of these problems, the nonwoven fabric is insufficient as a filter medium.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application (Kokai) Nos. 2-133644, 2-169756 and 3-8856 disclose nonwoven fabrics composed of sheath-core conjugate filaments respectively consisting of a polymer higher in melting point used as the core component and a polymer lower in melting point used as the sheath component.
The nonwoven fabric disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application (Kokai) No. 2-133644 has the web thermally compressively bonded on the entire surface, and has smoothness and performance like a film. The weight per unit area specified here is 40 g/m2 at the highest.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application (Kokai) No. 2-169756 intends to provide a nonwoven fabric having non-melting-bonded portions kept bulky to give a soft fabric feeling, for providing excellent surface abrasion resistance and strength. The weight per unit area specified here is 40 g/m2 at the highest.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application (Kokai) No. 3-8856 discloses a nonwoven fabric used as a mat in asphalt road construction, waterproof material and soundproof material. The weight per unit area specified here is 100 g/m2 at the highest.
On the other hand, nonwoven fabrics exceeding 100 g/m2 in weight per unit area are disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application (Kokai) Nos. 3-137261 and 3-146757, but they are impregnated with asphalt or acrylic resin, to be used for roofing.
The object of the present invention is to provide a filter medium having excellent pleatability, freedom from sheet delamination, and high collection efficiency.

Nonwoven fabric for pleated filters, and a production process therefor


Described embodiments may provide transferring a file to a mobile device via scanning quick response codes displayed via a display output device. A media device in communication with a server may receive a request to access a file on the server. A file converter of the media device may encode the file obtained from the server into a plurality of quick response (QR) codes. The media device may display the plurality of QR codes via a display output device. A mobile device may scan each of the plurality of QR codes displayed on the display output device. A file downloader of the mobile device may interpret each of the scanned plurality of QR codes to form a file on the mobile device.

A device may have difficult downloading or otherwise accessing files located on a data repository that is not communicatively connected to the client. Current techniques to retrieve the file from the data repository for the device may involve the use of specialized hardware or software or may incur security risks.

Mobile-optimized file transfer mechanism based on QR code


Disclosed is a method of operating a laundry treating appliance having a tub, a rotatable drum within the tub, and a rotatable drive shaft supported in a bearing assembly and mounted to the drum, with the bending moment acting on the bearing assembly being determined and used as an input to control the operation of the appliance.

A laundry treating appliance is a common household device for treating laundry in accordance with a preprogrammed treating cycle of operation. A subset of laundry treating appliances uses a generally horizontally rotating drum to define a chamber in which the laundry is received for treatment according to the cycle of operation. The laundry may be distributed in the drum chamber in such a way as to introduce an imbalance, and increase the bending moment, acting on the rotating drive shaft.
Shaft bending moment will increase as the drum rotational speed increases for a given imbalance. Because the magnitude of drive shaft bending moment is generally limited by design to a selected maximum, the drive shaft or drum rotational speed must be limited. Generally, motor power or torque is used to estimate the shaft bending moment, with this information utilized to determine if a design limit bending moment has been reached. However, utilizing motor power or torque to calculate drive shaft bending moment can provide inaccurate results, and can necessitate calibration each time a cycle is operated, which increases overall cycle time and vibration level.
One solution for addressing the inaccuracies in the motor power and/or torque determinations is to establish a reduced design limit for acceptable bending moment values that provides a safety margin to ensure that normal operation will not result in a failure. As a result, when the bending moment is large, the drum must be rotated at lower spin speeds, or rotated to redistribute the laundry load. For example, if a maximum bending moment limit is 400 newton-meters, a factor of safety may be provided to limit the calculated moment to 350 newton-meters, which is sufficient to account for the magnitude of the errors in motor power or torque readings.

Method of estimating bending moment of a laundry treating appliance drum shaft using a proximity sensor


A semiconductor package includes a first connection structure, a first semiconductor chip on an upper surface of the first connection structure, a first molding layer on the upper surface of the first connection structure and surrounding the first semiconductor chip, a first bond pad on the first semiconductor chip, a first bond insulation layer on the first semiconductor chip and the first molding layer and surrounding the first bond pad, a second bond pad directly contacting the first bond pad, a second bond insulation layer surrounding the second bond pad; and a second semiconductor chip on the second bond pad and the second bond insulation layer.

The inventive concept relates to packaged semiconductor devices and, more particularly, to packaged multi-chip semiconductor devices.
High-performance and compact electronic devices have been continuously requested. Due to these requests, semiconductor packages including a plurality of semiconductor chips have been developed. For example, a plurality of semiconductor chips may be stacked in a vertical direction to thereby reduce the layout area of the semiconductor package and provide multi-functional and/or high-performance semiconductor packages.

Packaged multi-chip semiconductor devices and methods of fabricating same


Systems and methods may determine a boundary value data unit in a large data set in parallel with determining an associated index of the determined boundary value data unit into the large data set using a single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instruction set architecture and a specialized data layout of array entries. In one example, the specialized data layout of array entries combines a data value and its associated index to an array into a single array entry.

Single instruction multiple data (SIMD) processors are generally used in applications that exhibit massive amounts of data parallelism without complicated control flow or excessive amounts of inter-processor communication. Typical applications for SIMD processors may include low-level vision and image processing, such as, for example, pattern recognition, database searches, and statistic analysis. One common operation involved in image processing is to find the minimum or maximum value and its associated index into a large data array. Most SIMD processors provide instructions that may quickly perform the minimum and maximum operations. However, if the SIMD processors have to keep track of the indices that produce these values, the data parallelism of SIMD instructions may be broken.

Fast approach to finding minimum and maximum values in a large data set using SIMD instruction set architecture


A method for connecting at least one sensor or actuator to a time-controlled bus system, the sensor or actuator carrying out a signal processing in at least two phases, the signal processing in a first phase taking place at a higher speed than in a second phase, the sensor or actuator being synchronized to a time, which is external to the sensor, of the time-controlled bus system in at least one of the phases.

Interconnection of control units, sensors, and actuators, using such a communication system, i.e., bus system, has increased and may have even drastically increased in the past few years with the construction of modern motor vehicles, in machine construction, in the machine tool industry in particular, as well as in automation and other industrial applications. Synergistic effects as a result of the distribution of functions to a plurality of control units may thus be achieved. This is referred to as a distributed system. Communication among different nodes takes place increasingly via at least one bus or at least one bus system. Communication traffic on the bus system, access and receiving mechanisms, as well as error processing are regulated via a protocol.
One approach for doing so is time-controlled communication in time-controlled bus systems. Such time-controlled communication systems are based on cyclical transmission of messages in a fixed time pattern. The sequence for this time pattern is derived from a freewheeling timer or time master in the system, which specifies this global time for the time-controlled bus system. One example of such a time-controlled bus system is the time-controlled CAN (Controller Area Network) corresponding to ISO Standard 11898-4, known as TTCAN or time-triggered controller area network.
In the TTCAN and other time-controlled bus systems, such as FlexRay, communication rounds (for example, basic cycle) are formed; such time-controlled communication systems, such as TTCAN or FlexRay, are thus essentially based on time-controlled periodic communication, which is timed by a main timing node, referred to as the time master, with the help of a time reference message or reference message for short. The period to the next reference message is referred to as the basic cycle, which is subdivided into a predefinable number of time windows and includes the cycle time of the time-controlled bus system.
Control units in such time-controlled communication systems may have direct bus access for exchanging application messages. These messages must be provided in a timely manner in the above-described time-controlled bus systems. This requirement may be met, for example, by using a time-controlled operating system, such as OSEK. The time perception of the operating system, an OSEKtime-compatible OS, for example, is then derived from the above-described global time (GT).
In such interconnected systems having time-controlled communication, sensors and actuators are also directly connected, i.e., the logic of the sensor or actuator also assumes the function of participating in the bus traffic.
The special behavior, the time behavior in particular, of the bus system when sensors and actuators are used is not specifically explained in the related art. This means that the time-controlled behavior of such bus systems is not directly assumed by the sensor or actuator, thereby resulting in time uncertainties with reference to the timeliness of the measurement data in particular in the case of sensors in addition to the maximum allowable phase rotation normally described in the sensor specification, i.e., a time shift within the signal processing.

Method and device for connecting sensors or actuators to a bus system


An image processing apparatus for receiving image data composed of a plurality of pixels, extracting an area from an image based on the received data and detecting a type of an image included in the extracted area, includes means for calculating the ratio of pixels having a predetermined pixel value to pixels constituting the area, and detects the type of the image included in the area, based on the calculated ratio of pixels.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image reading apparatus and an image recording apparatus having the function of detecting a predetermined pattern from an image including the pattern.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, in order to prevent copying of banknotes, securities and so on, image reading apparatus, such as an image scanner, and image recording apparatus, such as a copying machine, incorporate a memory for storing some characteristics of banknotes, etc., and an ASIC (image processing apparatus) for detecting specific images such as banknotes by comparing an inputted image with images stored in the memory and performing pattern matching, and prohibits copying if a specific image such as a banknote is detected (see, for example, Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 05-85158, and Japanese Patent Applications Laid-Open No. 06-178098 and No. 2003-99788).
For example, Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 05-85158 discloses an image processing apparatus for detecting a circular image such as a banknote's red seal. When a red pixel is detected in a main scanning direction of an image read, first, the image processing apparatus performs a thinning process on the image composed of a plurality of red pixels. Thereafter, when the image processing apparatus detects another red pixel at a position separated from the position of the thinned image by a predetermined distance in the main scanning direction, it supposes that the red pixel detected first and the red pixel detected next correspond to both end positions of a line segment that is a diameter of the circle, and then turns the line segment by a predetermined angle in the main scanning direction. If the positions of the two pixels on both sides of the line segment are within a predetermined range of the positions of the pixels stored in the memory, the image processing apparatus determines that the red pixels are an image having a circular outer circumference (red seal image).
Moreover, in an image processing apparatus disclosed as a similar technique in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 06-178098, when pixels corresponding to both ends of a line segment that is a diameter of a circle in the main scanning direction are detected and a part of the circle is detected at a position separated from the center of the circle by a predetermined distance in a sub-scanning direction, the image processing apparatus determines that the detected pixels are part of an image to be detected. Further, the image processing apparatus counts the number of times the pixels within a predetermined distance in the detected circle are turned on, namely the number of red pixels, and determines whether or not the counted value is equal to a numerical value corresponding to specific image data pre-stored in a memory. If they are equal, the image processing apparatus determines that the image formed by the detected pixels is a specific circular image (red seal image).
However, in the image processing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 05-85158, by detecting a red seal image, the detected image is determined to be a red seal image formed on a banknote. Thus, although this image processing apparatus is simple and convenient, it often determines an image similar to a red seal image to be the red seal image, and has the problem of very poor determination accuracy.
On the other hand, the image processing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 06-178098 counts red pixels in a detected red circle, and compares a counted number using a specific image pre-stored in the memory with a counted number using an externally inputted image. Therefore, this image processing apparatus has high determination accuracy, but it is necessary to store the specific image, and the storage capacity of the memory increases. Moreover, since comparison means for performing a high-speed comparing process on such large-volume data is required, this image processing apparatus has drawbacks that a comparison circuit in the image processing apparatus is complicated and the manufacturing cost of the image processing apparatus is high.
Further, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-99788, the applicant of this application proposed an image processing apparatus for extracting a target image portion to be extracted, which is included in an image to be processed. This image processing apparatus comprises determining means for determining whether or not a part of a specific image segment of a target image portion is included in an image to be processed, and confirming means for confirming whether or not a target image portion candidate including the specific image segment is the target image portion when a determination is made that the specific image segment is included in the image to be processed, and proposes a technique for detecting a specific target image with high accuracy. However, this does not realize the detection of a plurality of specific images by a simple circuit structure.

Image processing apparatus, image reading apparatus and image recording apparatus


A piston-operated dispenser unit for confectionery food products, comprising (I) a door (4) mountable on a dispensing mouth (5) of a machine (2) for making and instantaneously dispensing confectionery products; (II) at least one dispensing tap (9), in turn comprising a main body (10), extending frontally from the door (4) and forming, inside the door (4), an outflow duct (11) for the product to be dispensed, and a piston (13), slidably mounted inside the duct (11) and mobile between an open position and a closed position of the duct (11); (III) a manually operated lever (17), connected to the piston (13) for moving the piston (13) between the open position and the closed position of the duct (11), and vice versa; and (IV) a spring (24) operating on the piston (13) to apply an action for keeping the piston (13) in the closed position.

This invention relates to a piston-operated dispenser unit for liquid or semi-liquid food products.
More specifically, this invention relates to a dispenser unit which is mounted on machines for making and instantaneously dispensing confectionery products in creamy or semi-liquid form.
The dispenser unit of the invention is advantageously suitable for mounting on machines for making and instantaneously dispensing frozen confectionery products such as soft ice cream served directly from the machine, yogurt ice cream or creamy ice cream cake and pastry fillings.
The dispenser unit of the invention can also be mounted on machines for making and instantaneously dispensing hot confectionery products such as chocolate, creams and the like.
For convenience of description and without limiting the scope of the invention, this specification refers expressly to machines for making and instantaneously dispensing frozen confectionery products (in particular, soft ice cream).
These machines usually have a product collection bin, a product processing cylinder located downstream of the collection bin, a dispenser unit comprising a tap mounted at the outlet of the cylinder and a cooling circuit for the product being processed in the cylinder.
More specifically, as is known, the main body of the tap comprises a duct having, at one end of it, an inlet mouth in communication with the processing cylinder, and, at the other end, an outlet mouth for dispensing the product made.
Slidably mounted inside the duct is a piston which is mobile between an open position and a closed position of the duct.
The piston is operated manually by the operator by means of a lever which is lowered to move the piston to the open position and raised to move the piston to the closed position.
The product is fed into the cylinder by a gear pump or a peristaltic pump or, alternatively, is gravity fed and, inside the cylinder, is processed and pushed towards the outlet mouth by a single- or double-spiral rotary stirrer.
Between one dispensing and the next, the tap lever must be reset. Furthermore, after each dispensing, the tap lever must always be brought to the raised position to prevent product from coming out when not required.
One drawback encountered during use is that the piston is not returned exactly to its closed position, causing an unwanted extra amount of product to be dispensed or to leak out. This is often due to the fact that the operator does not raise the lever all the way or, more rarely, does not raise it at all. The problem may, however, also be caused by slack in the piston-lever assembly preventing the piston and/or the lever from reaching the end of stroke position or causing it to return to a half open position.

Piston operated dispenser unit for liquid or semi-liquid food products


The liquid crystal display device of this invention includes a vertical alignment type liquid crystal layer between a first substrate and a second substrate. A picture element region is defined by a first electrode provided on the surface of the first substrate facing the liquid crystal layer and a second electrode provided on the surface of the second substrate facing the liquid crystal layer. The first substrate has at least one first protrusion with an inclined side face on the surface thereof facing the liquid crystal layer in each of the plurality of picture element regions. A portion of the liquid crystal layer included in each of the plurality of picture element regions is in a substantially vertical orientation state under application of no voltage, and includes at least a part of a first liquid crystal domain placed in a radially-inclined orientation state about the first protrusion under voltage application. A display is produced by changing the orientation state of the liquid crystal layer in accordance with an applied voltage.

The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device, and more particularly, it relates to a liquid crystal display device having a wide viewing angle characteristic and high display quality.
Recently, a thin and light liquid crystal display device is used as a display device for a display of a personal computer or a display unit of portable information terminal equipment. Conventional twist nematic (TN) or super twist nematic (STN) liquid crystal display devices have, however, a disadvantage of a narrow viewing angle, and a variety of techniques have been developed for overcoming this disadvantage.
A typical technique to improve the viewing angle characteristic of a TN or STN liquid crystal display device is a method of additionally providing an optical compensator. Another technique is a lateral field method of applying, through a liquid crystal layer, an electric field in a lateral direction to the substrate surface. Liquid crystal display devices of the lateral field method are recently mass-produced and regarded as promising devices. A still another technique is DAP (deformation of vertical aligned phase) in which a nematic liquid crystal material with negative dielectric anisotropy is used as a liquid crystal material and a vertical alignment film is used as an alignment film. The DAP is a kind of an electrically control birefringence (ECB) method, in which the transmittance is controlled by utilizing the birefringent property of the liquid crystal molecules.
Although the lateral field method is one of the effective methods for attaining a wide viewing angle, the production margin is very small in the production process as compared with that of a general TN liquid crystal display device, and hence, there is a difficulty in stable production of this type of liquid crystal display devices. This is because gap irregularity between substrates and shift of the transmission axis of a polarizing plate (polarization axis) from the orientation axis of a liquid crystal molecule largely affect the luminance and the contrast ratio of display. In order to stably produce the liquid crystal display devices of the lateral field method by highly precisely controlling these factors, the technique should be further highly developed.
Furthermore, in order to produce an even display free from display unevenness by a liquid crystal display device of the DAP method, it is necessary to control orientation. For controlling the orientation, an alignment treatment is carried out by rubbing the surface of an alignment film. When the surface of a vertical alignment film is subjected to a rubbing treatment, however, rubbing streaks are easily caused in a displayed image. Therefore, this treatment is not suitable to mass-production.
On the other hand, for controlling the orientation without the rubbing treatment, a method for controlling the orientation directions of liquid crystal molecules by an inclined electric field generated by forming a slit (opening) in an electrode has been proposed (as described in, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Nos. 6-301036 and 2000-47217). However, the present inventors have found the following as a result of examination: The orientation state of a portion of a liquid crystal layer corresponding to the opening of the electrode is not specified in the methods disclosed in these publications, and the continuity of the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules is not sufficient. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain a stable orientation state over an entire picture element, and hence, a displayed image becomes disadvantageously uneven.

Liquid crystal display device having liquid crystal domains with radially-inclined orientation


A translation machine which is capable of analyzing a syntactic of a sentence having a complicated or an ambiguous modifying structure of the words composing the sentence includes a dictionary consulting and morpheme analyzing unit (151) for consulting dictionaries and for analyzing morphemes of a sentence in a source language input to the translation machine so as to provide a part of speech of the analyzed morpheme, a syntactic analysis unit (152) connected to the dictionary consulting and morpheme analyzing unit (151) for analyzing a syntactic of the sentence based on the obtained parts of speech of the morphemes by using grammatical rules stored in the dictionary consulting and morpheme analyzing unit (151), a transforming unit (153) connected to the syntactic analysis unit (152) for transforming the analyzed syntactic into a syntactic of a target language, a translated sentence creating unit (154) connected to the transforming unit (153) for creating a translated sentence of the target language, and a break setting unit (155) connected to the syntactic analysis unit (152) for determining whether or not the syntactic analysis unit (152) fails in the syntactic analysis of the sentence and for setting breaks to proper locations of the sentence according to the breaking rules at a time when the syntactic analysis fails.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a translation machine which enables to create a natural translated sentence, more particularly, the translation machine which is capable of analyzing a syntactic of a sentence whose words are modified in a complicated or ambiguous manner.
2. Description of the Related Art
The inventors of the present invention know a translation machine which is operated to enter a source language input from a keyboard into a translation module under the control of a main central processing unit (CPU). The translation module serves to translate the source language into a target language through the use of dictionaries and rules such as grammatical rules and tree-structure transforming rules stored in a memory.
In translation, the syntactic of the source language is analyzed in the translation module as follows. Words composing one sentence contained in the read source language are stored in a buffer. Using the dictionary stored in the memory, the translation module serves to derive the part of speech of each word stored in the buffer. Then, the proper grammatical rules are picked out of the memory for setting up the modifying relation among the parts of speech of the words. Based on the picked grammar rules, a parse tree is created indicating how the words composing the sentence are modified. The syntactic analysis process for the source language done in the known translation machine is the bottom-up analysis of a syntactic based on the local information, that is, the grammar rules about the parts of speech and the phrases of the words.
The bottom-up analysis of a syntactic based on the local information implemented in the known translation machine has the following shortcomings.
To analyze a sentence having a complicated or ambiguous modifying structure of words composing the sentence, the modifying relation is often erroneously recognized. In a case that one phrase of the sentence is erroneously recognized, the syntactic analysis is carried out on the basis of the erroneously-recognized modifying relation of one phrase, resulting in creating the erroneous syntactic analysis.
Alternatively, in a case that the erroneously-recognized modifying relation of one phrase results in bringing about failure of the syntactic analysis, thereby failing in creation of a parse tree, and the translation is carried out for each phrase. Hence, the resulting translated sentence does not have the proper structure in the target language.
For example, consider the sentence of the source language "After independence from the U.K. in 1962, the country started election." This sentence consists of a prepositional phrase, a comma, and a declarative sentence.
The foregoing known translation machine may fail in analyzing a syntactic, because the translation machine does not store in the memory the grammatical rules appropriate to form one parse tree about the example sentence. As such, the known translation machine operates to divide the example sentence into:
______________________________________ Three prepositional phrases "After independence" "from the U.K." "in 1962" Comma "," Declarative sentence "the country started election." ______________________________________
Then, the syntactic analysis is carried out for each phrase and the declarative sentence. As a result, the known translation machine offers the translated sentence of: EQU 1962
which does not have a natural Japanese syntactic as a target language.

Translation machine capable of analyzing syntactic of sentence


An enclosure for securing a disc having a central aperture includes a base and a pivotable cover. A two part disc securing rosette has a first part on the base including at least two upstanding, circularly spaced apart segments with arcuate outer peripheral surfaces dimensioned for engaging the central aperture of a disc and a second part including at least two elongate, upstanding ribs extending radially from a position on the cover which is centered on the segments on the base, the number of ribs on the cover corresponding to the number of segments on the base, the ribs being positioned and dimensioned such that, when the enclosure is closed, the ribs on the cover enter the first part radially inwardly of the segments with the ribs contacting the radially inside surface of the corresponding arcuate segments for bracing the arcuate segments against breakage.

Various types of planar discs are in use at the present time to record and store information which is to be retrieved by various means, such as by optical or magnetic means. Typical of such discs are compact discs and DVD discs (hereinafter referred to generically as CDs) on which information is digitally recorded by use of a laser beam and then read optically by a laser beam. Such discs are used to record audio information, such as musical renditions, video information such as visual images and digital information for use as read only and other memories for use in various applications, such as computer applications. In most instances, at the present time, such discs are sold with information already recorded thereon. In other applications, such discs are sold in blank form and are used by the customer to record information thereon. In the latter case, for example, optical discs are sold for use as computer storage media and are used in hard disc storage systems. In either case, optical imperfections in or on the surfaces of such discs interfere with both the recording and retrieval of information stored on the discs. Care must, therefore, be taken in the storage, moving and handling of such discs to avoid causing any such imperfections. As used herein, the term compact disc or CD is intended to encompass all such discs, whatever their size, for all known or proposed uses.
Compact discs containing laser recorded information are typically packaged in enclosures designed to hold one or more CDs for protecting the discs during storage and shipment. Enclosures commonly used at the present time comprise a three piece assembly consisting of a base or bottom element, an insert in the base/bottom element for positioning and supporting the disc in the base/bottom element, e.g., by a center projection (commonly referred to as a "rosette") which engages the periphery of the aperture in the center of the disc, and a lid or cover which is hinged to the base/bottom element and is closed thereon after the disc is mounted therein on the tray. Other enclosures utilize only two pieces, omit the insert, and position and support the disc via the center projection directly on the base/bottom element. The enclosure is, typically, at least partially transparent and graphics relating to the disc and containing trademark and sales promotional information are usually inserted in such a manner as to be visible through the enclosure. In another form of CD packaging, a tray having a rosette projecting from the base thereof for receiving and supporting the CD is attached to a paperboard component, which folds over the tray to enclose the CD.
It has become conventional for at least the CD receiving and supporting element of the CD enclosures to be formed by injection molding. As a consequence the rosettes are formed of the same plastic material as the base or tray with which they are integrally molded. The base and/or tray elements and, therefore, the rosettes have historically been made from pigmented thermoplastic molding resins having sufficient impact resistance to withstand the forces attendant to mounting and unmounting CDs as well as the forces experienced during shipping and handling. More recently, it has become desirable to form the enclosure out of a more transparent plastic material, such as crystalline polystyrene. Although such a material makes the enclosure more attractive and the graphics and promotional materials more legible, it is more brittle and easily shattered than previously used thermoplastics and has, in large part, diminished the protection afforded the disk by the enclosure and its mounting rosette.
Therefore, it has become desirable to improve certain aspects of the heretofore conventional CD enclosures, for example, by improving their impact resistance to avoid damage during shipping or if dropped. For these same reasons, it has become desirable to better retain the disc on the rosette in the package. In addition, in order to reduce shipping costs and to conserve retail space, it is desirable to design and manufacture thinner overall packages, particularly for multiple disc packages.
However, efforts to date at solving these problems suffer from one or more shortcomings which make the resulting package unsatisfactory or the rosette not particularly desirable for use in a CD enclosure. This is because prior art CD packaging, particularly the rosettes, are either of complex construction and, therefore, uneconomical to manufacture or unacceptably fragile and unreliable in use, which presents substantial risk of damaging the information bearing surface of the disc. Accordingly, there remains a need for a simple, inexpensive to manufacture and easy to use rosette for a CD package which is configured to facilitate safe mounting and unmounting of the disc thereon and which does not present a damage risk for the disc's information bearing surface. There is also a need for thinner and lighter overall packages, particularly for multiple disc packages, in order to reduce material costs, to conserve retail space and to reduce shipping costs.

Recording medium storage package having improved rosette