Leakage of propellants such as oxygen and hydrogen in an enclosed environment in the atmosphere can lead to fires or explosions. For storage tanks on reusable launch vehicles such as the space shuttle where propellant is to be stored in the cargo bay of the vehicle, the storage tank should be filled while the vehicle is at a safe altitude to avoid the dangers associated with propellant leakage. The invention a process for filling propellant tanks at safe altitudes where if there is propellant leakage ignition will not occur. The process involves launching the vehicle with an inert gas in the storage tanks, dumping the inert gas and filling the tanks in the cargo bay from the main propellant tanks during the launch once the vehicle is at a safe altitude. The propellant can be dumped overboard and the storage tanks filled with an inert gas in case of a mission abort if the vehicle needs to make an emergency landing.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the loading and storage of cryogenic fuel inside a vehicle, and more particularly to the transfer of cryogenic fuel from a main tank to another tank inside of the cargo bay of a vehicle during flight.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current designs for upper stage reusable launch vehicles, satellites and other uses for stored cryogenic fuel call for locating cryogenic tanks inside a closed cargo bay of a launch vehicle. A significant cryogenic liquid leakage during tank chill and fill can result in an unacceptable payload bay overpressurization resulting in a potential loss of the vehicle and the payload. Even a small component leakage in the cargo bay can represent an unacceptable risk of explosion or fire. The risk of leakage is very high during loading operations and during abort landings.
The safety and operations impact of a cryogenic upper stage for the Space Shuttle was extensively evaluated in the Shuttle/Centaur program at NASA. The program was eventually canceled because of "major unresolved safety issues." The safety issues associated with a typical cryogenic upper stage can be grouped into three main areas; loading, mission abort, and post abort landing. The loading issues included; cryogenic component leakage, cargo bay over pressurization, liquid air/nitrogen condensation on the LH.sub.2 tank multi-layered insulation and potential damage to structure, premature separation of the lift-off fill and vent umbilical resulting in the inability to drain and vent the tank, and T zero umbilical/vehicle separation and clearance. The safety issues during mission abort include; the need to rapidly dump both LO.sub.2 and LH.sub.2 in a positive and/or zero g environment, reducing the post dump residuals to a low level prior to 160 k ft altitude, and repressurization of the storage tanks prior to landing. The post landing abort issues include; leakage of hydrogen and oxygen into the closed cargo bay without the presence of a purge gas, venting of hydrogen gas after a landing which can result in unacceptable accumulation of unburned hydrogen outside and inside the vehicle, potential detonation of the unburned hydrogen, unacceptable plume heating of the vehicle vertical tail, and safing the cryo upper stage.
The propellant dump and vacuum inerting issues can be resolved through proper tank and dump system design. However, the loading, and prelaunch issues are more difficult and can only be safely resolved if cryogens are not present. The success of a cryogenic upper stage therefore depends on the ability to safely and reliably load the tanks after lift-off.

Cyrogenic upper stage for reusable launch vehicle


In some embodiments, a mechanical adapter may be used to couple a first circuit board (e.g., a motherboard) to a second circuit board (e.g., a daughtercard) in a module. The mechanical adapter may have a mounting portion and a configurable portion. In some embodiments, the mounting portion may be similar for multiple configurations of the mechanical adapter. In various embodiments, the motherboard may be similar for different modules. For example, the mechanical adapter may be configured to mount a specific type of daughtercard in the configurable portion, while the mounting portion may be similar to mounting portions on other mechanical adapters with different configurations for different daughtercards (e.g., the motherboard may be similar for each of the different configurations). Therefore, in various embodiments, a common mounting portion may mate to a common motherboard configuration for different products each configured to mount a different daughtercard.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computer hardware and, more particularly, to circuit card mounting hardware.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printed circuit board (PCB) materials are typically made of inflexible laminates containing conductive layers with successive combinations of insulating layers. Conductive layers may include copper metal, or another conductive material. Conductive layers of the PCB may be used to transport electrical energy within the laminate. Insulating layers may include glass-fiber reinforced epoxy resins or other insulating materials.
The conductive circuits of the PCB may reside in a limited area of the PCB's form. The rest of the form may have the same laminate, however, with the conductive material etched away. The portion cleared of conductive material may be used for mechanical adapting and may not serve an electrical function. The PCB may be exposed to an etching bath to remove copper from a front of the PCB, creating an imbalance of conductive material within or on the PCB (e.g., high copper content on rear 20% of a PCB's volume and zero copper content on the remaining 80% of the PCB's volume). Long exposure times to the etching bath may cause poor circuit trace quality and/or PCB warping. Differences in conductive material content across the PCB may result in differences in thermal expansion coefficients of the different materials in the PCB. The differences in the thermal expansion coefficients may result in PCB warping when the PCB is reheated during electrical component-level device assembly to a PCB surface.
Many traditional PCB laminates may be composed of interwoven glass fibers held rigidly in a matrix of cured resin, usually a thermosetting epoxy, resulting in a structure that allows for extremely limited plastic deformation. As a result, mechanical features that can be created in such a material may be limited to simple cuts with all the limitations inherent to a machined feature.

Mechanical adapter for circuitry modules


This invention has as its object to provide a vehicle power train structure, which can decrease the total height and the total length of the entire power train as a combination of an engine, a transmission, a drive shaft, and the like. In order to achieve this object, a power train structure according to this embodiment includes an engine which has a plurality of cylinders arranged in series with each other, and is mounted in a vehicle body with a bore center axis of the cylinder inclining downwardly towards a cylinder head of said cylinder with respect to horizontal plane of the vehicle, such that a crankshaft as an output shaft extends in the widthwise direction of the vehicle body, a transmission, arranged at a position neighboring the engine to be substantially parallel to the extending direction of the crankshaft, for receiving a rotating force of the engine, and a drive shaft, arranged behind the transmission to extend in the widthwise direction of the vehicle body, for receiving the rotating force of the engine from the transmission.

The present invention relates to a power train or plant structure of a vehicle, which has an engine mounted in a vehicle body with a bore center axis of the cylinder inclining downwardly towards a cylinder head with respect to horizontal plane of the vehicle.
In a front-wheel drive vehicle or a four-wheel drive vehicle in which an engine is transversely mounted in the front portion of a vehicle body, a transmission is normally transversely mounted with respect to the vehicle body to be adjacent to the engine. A drive shaft (axle) for front wheels is mounted to extend parallel to the transmission in the back-and-forth direction or the up-and-down direction of the vehicle body, and the rotating force of the engine is transmitted to the drive shaft through the transmission.
However, in the above-mentioned prior art, the transmission is mounted to extend parallel to a crankshaft of the engine, and an angle defined between the central axis of each cylinder of the engine and a line connecting the center of rotation of the crankshaft and the center of the transmission is set to be 90.degree. or less so as to prevent interference between a cylinder block and the transmission. The crankshaft of the engine is normally located at the lowermost position of the engine. For this reason, when the engine is mounted, so that the bore center axis of each cylinder is perpendicular to the ground, the center of the transmission is located at substantially the same level as that of the bore center axis of the crankshaft or higher. More specifically, the transmission is located at a considerably low level with respect to the engine and the vehicle body. Even when the engine is slanted, the slant angle is as small as about 35.degree. to 45.degree.. For this reason, it is impossible to shift the transmission to a position considerably higher than the crankshaft. The drive shaft for the front wheels is mounted below the transmission or is mounted to extend parallel to the transmission in the back-and-forth direction of the vehicle body.
Of the above-mentioned arrangements, when the drive shaft is mounted below the transmission like in the former arrangement, the position of the drive shaft is further shifted below the transmission which is originally mounted at a low level. Therefore, the total height of a power train as a combination of the engine,, the transmission, and the drive shaft is increased, resulting in a high engine-hood line.
When the drive shaft for the front wheels is mounted to extend parallel to the transmission in the back-and-forth direction of the vehicle body as in the latter arrangement, since the crankshaft, the transmission, and the drive shaft are juxtaposed in the back-and-forth direction of the vehicle body, they are arranged to extend in the back-and-forth direction, resulting in an increase in back-and-forth length of the power train.


An apparatus for making artificial snow includes a flexible pipe which encloses a plurality of longitudinal conduits receiving and holding water therein. The pipe is cooled by a coolant liquid so that ice crystals form in the water on the surfaces of the conduits. A frame member is provided, oriented transversely to the axis of the pipe, which is movable axially along the pipe. Rollers provided on the frame member dislodge the ice crystals from the surfaces of the conduits. A seeve member is provided to strain the dislodged ice crystals from the water. The ice crystals are then conveyed to a desired area.

At many snowfields and ski resorts, the weather is notoriously fickle, and there is often no snow or insufficient snow for enjoyable skiing. It is therefore necessary to augment natural snowfall with artificial snow.
It is known to make artificial snow by releasing a mist of atomised water and compressed air into a sub-zero temperature environment. The atomised water freezes to form minute ice crystals which, when accumulated, resemble snow. There are various known machines which have been developed to produce snow in this manner, and examples of such machines can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,676,471; 3,567,115; 3,716,190; 4,083,492; 4,004,732; 4,105,181 and 4,475,688.
However, the method cf making artificial snow in the abovedescribed manner has several inherent disadvantages. First, conventional snow making systems are very dependent on ambient conditions. The snow production rate, and the capacity of the snow making machines, decrease as the air temperature and humidity increase. Above zero degrees Celsius (0.degree. C.) snow cannot be produced efficiently using such known machines, unless an extremely low humidity exists. With the gradual heating of the earth due to the "greenhouse effect", the compressed air and atomised water method of making snow is becoming less effective.
Most revenue in commercial ski fields is generated on weekends and holidays. Such revenue can be maximised by ensuring that there is adequate (artificial) snow coverage during those peak use periods in the event of inadequate natural snow. Due to the fickleness of the weather however, there is no guarantee that the conventional systems will be able to operate to generate adequate snow coverage for these peak periods. Conversely, there are times, such as during the working week, when the revenue obtained from a relatively low number of skiers does not justify the high cost of creating the artificial snow by conventional methods and machines.
Secondly, known snow making machines are expensive to construct and operate. Since such snow making machines may remain idle when temperatures are above 0.degree. C. despite strong skier demand for snow, the snow machines do not fulfil their intended purpose and represent an inefficient use of large capital resources. Even if the temperature falls below zero, this normally occurs only during the night, and the machines are operative only about five hours in each day.
Thirdly, conventional snow making systems using compressed air and atomised water are not suitable for use in excessively windy weather or during rain periods, or near skiers.
Finally, the use of compressed air by the known snow making machines creates a loud noise level while those machines are operating, typically in the middle of the night. Such a noisy environment is detrimental to the wellbeing and sleep of skiers who may be staying at the ski lodges in the vicinity of the ski runs, and in any case, is generally inconsistent with the peaceful alpine environment of a typical ski field.
Despite the above limitations and disadvantages of known snow making systems, they have become increasingly popular and are virtually essential for a profitable ski field operation. Any prolonged period without snow can be financially disastrous for a commercial ski resort. For this reason, ski operators are forced to spend large amounts in capital expenditure and operating costs in providing the artificial snow making capacity.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved snow making method and apparatus which overcomes or substantially ameliorates, at least some of the disadvantages mentioned above.


Methods and system are provided for delivering a software package to particular wireless computing devices (WCDs). The system includes logical sites (LSs), WCDs, and a Network Operation Center (NOC) communicatively coupled to the LSs by a network. The NOC includes a device management module (DMM) and a second DCP server. The DMM is designed to: determine that particular ones of the WCDs are currently located at and associated with a first LS based on registration information for each of the WCDs; determine characteristics of the particular ones of the WCDs currently located at and associated with the first LS; and determine particular software packages appropriate for the particular ones of the WCDs based on the characteristics of the particular ones of the WCDs currently located at the first LS. The second DCP server designed to send the particular software packages to the first DCP server.

An enterprise network typically includes a Network Operations Center (NOC) that is responsible for managing a large number of wireless and wired devices which can be distributed throughout one or more physical sites which make up the enterprise network. Each physical site includes one or more logical sites, and in many cases, a NOC may be responsible for managing thousands of wireless computing devices which can be distributed among the various physical and/or logical sites that make up the enterprise network (e.g., in retail environment).
When these wireless computing devices have to be provisioned or updated with software, configuration or firmware, the wireless computing devices pull data from the NOC. As the number of wireless computing devices increases, this approach creates a large load on the network. This approach is inefficient since the NOC will often send multiple copies of same software package to the same site if there are multiple wireless computing devices of the same type at that site.
In some enterprise networks, many of the wireless computing devices are handheld mobile devices which move or "roam" between different physical and/or logical sites within the enterprise network. When a particular wireless computing device moves or roams between different physical and/or logical sites the NOC will try to provision the wireless computing device using its original Direct Connection Protocol (DCP) server at the site the device was initially assigned to. However, because the particular wireless computing device has roamed, the particular wireless computing device will no longer have a connection to its original DCP server due to network routing configuration restrictions and hence would remain unprovisioned. In some cases, software packages for a particular wireless computing device will not be available at the current site the particular wireless computing device has roamed to.
As the number of wireless computing devices increases the task on updating software running on each of the wireless computing devices becomes a complex task. In many cases, wireless computing devices that have moved from one physical and/or logical site to another physical and/or logical site will end up running old versions of software even though a newer version of the software is available for the wireless computing devices. This causes device management problems for a network administrator.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide improved techniques for updating software running on potentially mobile devices in an enterprise network that includes a number of logical sites. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.

Efficient provisioning of software packages to mobile handheld devices


The present invention is an Internet Protocol (IP) network clustering system which can provide a highly scalable system which optimizes message throughput by adaptively load balancing its components, and which minimizes delay and packet loss especially in the TCP mode by a controlled fail-over process. An innovative process of defining the essential portion of TCP state required to maintain reliable message connections across the cluster is also disclosed.

As more and more businesses develop electronic commerce applications using the Internet in order to market and to manage the ordering and delivery of their products, these businesses are searching for cost-effective Internet links that provide both security and high availability. Such mission-critical applications need to run all day, every day with the network components being highly reliable and easily scalable as the message traffic grows. National carriers and local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are now offering Virtual Private Networks (VPN)--enhanced Internet-based backbones tying together corporate workgroups on far-flung Local Area Networks (LANs)--as the solution to these requirements.
A number of companies have recently announced current or proposed VPN products and/or systems which variously support IPSec, IKE (ISAKMP/Oakley) encryption-key management, as well as draft protocols for Point-to-Point Tunneling protocol (PPTP), and Layer 2 Tunneling protocol (L2TP) in order to provide secure traffic to users. Some of these products include IBM's Nways Multiprotocol Routing Services.TM.2.2, Bay Networks Optivity.TM. and Centillion.TM. products, Ascend Communication's MultiVPN.TM. package, Digital Equipment's ADI VPN product family, and Indus River's RiverWorks.TM. VPN planned products. However, none of these products are known to offer capabilities which minimizes delay and session loss by a controlled fail-over process.
These VPNs place enormous demands on the enterprise network infrastructure. Single points of failure components such as gateways, firewalls, tunnel servers and other choke points that need to be made highly reliable and scaleable are being addressed with redundant equipment such as "hot standbys" and various types of clustering systems.
For example, CISCO.TM. Inc. now offers a new product called LocalDirector.TM. which functions as a front-end to a group of servers, dynamically load balances TCP traffic between servers to ensure timely access and response to requests. The LocalDirector provides the appearance, to end users, of a "virtual" server. For purposes of providing continuous access if the LocalDirector fails, users are required to purchase a redundant LocalDirector system which is directly attached to the primary unit, the redundant unit acting as a "hot" standby. The standby unit does no processing work itself until the master unit fails. The standby unit uses the failover IP address and the secondary Media Access Control (MAC) address (which are the same as the primary unit), thus no Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is required to switch to the standby unit. However, because the standby unit does not keep state information on each connection, all active connections are dropped and must be re-established by the clients. Moreover, because the "hot standby" does no concurrent processing it offers no processing load relief nor scaling ability.
Similarly, Valence.TM. Research Inc. (recently purchased by Microsoft.RTM. Corporation) offers a software product called Convoy Cluster.TM. (Convoy). Convoy installs as a standard Windows NT networking driver and runs on an existing LAN. It operates in a transparent manner to both server applications and TCP/IP clients. These clients can access the cluster as if it is a single computer by using one IP address. Convoy automatically balances the networking traffic between the clustered computers and can rebalance the load whenever a cluster member comes on-line or goes off-line. However this system appears to use a compute intensive and memory wasteful method for determining which message type is to be processed by which cluster member in that the message source port address and destination port address combination is used as an index key which must be stored and compared against the similar combination of each incoming message to determine which member is to process the message. Moreover, this system does not do failover.
There is a need in the art for an IP network cluster system which can easily scale to handle the exploding bandwidth requirements of users. There is a further need to maximize network availability, reliability and performance in terms of throughput, delay and packet loss by making the cluster overhead as efficient as possible, because more and more people are getting on the Internet and staying on it longer. A still further need exists to provide a reliable failover system for TCP based systems by efficiently saving the state information on all connections so as to minimize packet loss and the need for reconnections.
Computer cluster systems including "single-system-image" clusters are known in the art. See for example, "Scalable Parallel Computing" by Kai Hwang & Zhiwei Xu, McGraw-Hill, 1998, ISBN 0-07-031798-4, Chapters 9 & 10, Pages 453-564, which are hereby incorporated fully herein by reference. Various Commercial Cluster System products are described therein, including DEC's TruClusters.TM. system, IBM's SP.TM. system, Microsoft's Wolfpack.TM. system and The Berkeley NOW Project. None of these systems are known to provide efficient IP Network cluster capability along with combined scalability, load-balancing and controlled TCP fail-over.

Method and apparatus for an internet protocol (IP) network clustering system


Before game data is arranged, a storage area for the game data in an internal memory is determined so that each game parameter is stored in a different storage area each time the game data is arranged. Then, arrangement information that directly or indirectly indicates the storage area for each game parameter is stored in a specified area of the internal memory. Then, the game data is loaded from an external storage medium to the determined storage area. Moreover, when a game parameter in the internal memory needs to be referred to or overwritten during the game process, the storage area for the game parameter is determined by referring to the arrangement information. Thus, it is possible to prevent general users from easily modifying the game data.

With a conventional video game machine, when a video game program is started and a game starts progressing, game data representing the current status of the game is produced in an internal memory provided in the video game machine. When the player suspends the game, the game data in the internal memory is temporarily saved in a memory card inserted in the video game device. When the player resumes the game, the game data temporarily saved in the memory card is loaded to the internal memory. Then, the game process is performed while referring to the game data, which has been loaded to the internal memory. Thus, the player can resume the game from the point where the game was suspended.
When a saved game is resumed, the game data stored in the memory card is always loaded to a particular storage address of the internal memory. For example, the value of a particular game parameter included in the game data (e.g., the value representing the life points of the player character) is always loaded to a particular area of the internal memory. Therefore, in the game process, it is possible to immediately obtain the value of a game parameter by referring to the particular address corresponding to the game parameter to be obtained. Specifically, a value representing the life points of the player character is stored in a first storage address of the internal memory, a value representing the coordinate of the position of the player character in the game space is stored in a second storage address, a value representing the amount of money in the game space is stored in a third storage address, and other values representing the kinds of monsters that the player character has captured, etc., are stored in fourth through tenth storage addresses.
It is known that the status of a game can be reproduced based on game data as described above. Game data overwriting devices, and the like, are sold for overwriting and modifying the game data by, for example, increasing the amount of money in the game world or maximizing other parameters of the game character.
In order to prevent such modifications, game data stored in a backup memory such as a memory card is encrypted in some cases for example, Japanese Laid-Open Paten Publication No. 2001-265658). In such cases, it is necessary to decrypt the game data stored in the backup memory in order to modify the game data. Then, it is quite difficult to overwrite the game data.
In view of this, there have been game data overwriting devices for allowing the user to overwrite game data which has been loaded from the backup memory to the internal memory during the game process, instead of modifying the game data as being stored in the backup memory.
The user of such a game data overwriting device uses values being displayed on the game screen to identify storage addresses of the internal memory at which these values are stored. For example, where the amount of money is being displayed on the game screen, a value equal to the amount of money is searched for in the game data stored in the internal memory to identify the storage address of the internal memory at which the value is stored. Thus, the player can identify storage addresses for particular game parameters. Then, the player can overwrite the value stored in an identified storage address to manipulate a particular game parameter as desired.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-44378 discloses a method for starting a program with which alterations to the program can be detected. However, the disclosure is directed to detecting alterations to a program by using checksums when starting the program, but not to preventing the overwriting of data stored in an internal memory.
If a player identifies a storage address for a particular game parameter, that information may become known to large numbers of the general public through the Internet, magazines, etc. Identifying addresses at which game parameters are stored as described above requires a certain level of technical knowledge and a lot of time and effort, and is a difficult task for general users. However, once the information on addresses where particular game parameters are stored is publicly disclosed, even general users can easily modify the game data.
Thus, anyone can easily modify the game data by purchasing a game data overwriting device. Then, a large number of players may modify the game data, whereby the game progresses in a manner not intended by the game maker. This may significantly reduce, or even destroy, the playability of the game. Particularly, with multiplayer online games, or the like, if an abnormally strong player character is created through modifications of the game data, the power balance between such a strong player character and a normal player character cannot be maintained, and the overall game balance may be destroyed. Another problem is that such modifications of game data may encourage infringement of copyright (see, for example, Japanese Supreme Court Case 1999 (ju) No. 955 delivered on Feb. 13, 2001).
Although such a problem may be avoided by encrypting the game data stored in the internal memory, a process for recovering complicated encrypted data imposes a high computational load, which may even affect the execution of the video game program. This will also make it quite time-consuming to refer to, or overwrite game data in, an internal memory for debugging a video game program being developed.
Thus, if overwriting game data is made overly difficult, reading out the game data by the video game program may impose an excessive computational load and the debugging of the program may become excessively time-consuming. Nevertheless, if game data stored in an internal memory is left as it is as in the prior art keeping the debugging process easy, the data can easily be modified.
The present exemplary embodiments have the following features to solve these problems. Note that reference numerals, etc., shown in parentheses are for indicating how those elements are related to the exemplary illustrative embodiments below to assist the reader in understanding the present invention, but they are in no way intended to restrict the scope of the invention.
A computer-readable recording medium of the exemplary illustrative embodiments is a computer-readable recording medium (11), storing a first game data control program for arranging game data in an internal memory (35) of a video game device (13) for use in a game process, the game data including a plurality of game parameters representing a status of a game stored in an external storage medium (23) connected to the video game device, wherein the game data control program instructs a computer to function as storage area a setter (31, S203), a game data loader (31, S107), an arrangement information storage mechanism (31, S205), and a storage area determination mechanism (31, S503). Before the game data is arranged, the storage area setter sets a storage area for the game data in the internal memory so that each game parameter is arranged in a different storage area each time the game data is arranged (FIG. 5, FIG. 14, FIG. 15). The game data loader loads the game data from the external storage medium to the storage area set by the storage area setter. When the storage area setter sets the storage area for the game data, the arrangement information storage mechanism stores arrangement information (FIG. 5, FIG. 14, FIG. 15) in a specified area of the internal memory, the arrangement information being information which directly or indirectly indicates the storage area for each game parameter. When a game parameter in the internal memory needs to be referred to or overwritten during the game process, the storage area determination mechanism determines the storage area for the game parameter by referring to the arrangement information.
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the storage area setter directly or indirectly sets the storage area for the game data by specifying at least one address of the internal memory (e.g., the storage start address).
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the game data control program instructs the computer to function further as a game data saver (31, S603) for saving the game data in a predetermined original format in the external storage medium by referring to the arrangement information when the game data in the internal memory needs to be saved in the external storage medium during the game process.
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the storage area setter sets the storage area for the game data in the internal memory based on a random number (S201).
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the storage area setter specifies an offset value for shifting the storage area for the game data as a whole in the internal memory so that the storage area for the game data is changed each time the game data is arranged; and the game data loader loads the game data as a whole to the internal memory so that a storage position relationship between the game parameters is maintained, by using, as a base address, an address obtained by adding the offset value to a specified address of the internal memory (FIG. 5).
The game data is divided into a plurality of blocks, and the storage area setter sets a storage area for each block of game data in the internal memory so that a storage position relationship between the blocks is changed each time the game data is arranged (FIG. 14). In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, each block corresponds in size to one address of the internal memory.
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the game data control program instructs the computer to function further as: storage area changer (31, 5405) for changing the storage area for each game parameter which has been loaded to the internal memory at a predetermined time during the game process; and data rearranger (31, S409) for rearranging the game parameters based on results of the storage area changing process by the storage area changer, wherein the arrangement information storage mechanism updates the arrangement information when the data rearranger rearranges the game parameters (S407).
Another computer-readable recording medium of an exemplary illustrative embodiment is a computer-readable recording medium (11), storing a second game data control program for arranging game data in an internal memory (35) of a video game device (13) for use in a game process, the game data including a plurality of game parameters representing a status of a game stored in an external storage medium (23) connected to the video game device, wherein the game data control program instructs a computer to function as game a data loader (31, S107), a storage area changer (31, S405), a data rearranger (31, S409), an arrangement information storage mechanism (31, S407), and a storage area determination mechanism (31, S503). The game data loader loads the game data from the external storage medium to the internal memory. The storage area changer changes a storage area for each game parameter which has been loaded to the internal memory, at a predetermined time during the game process (FIG. 7, FIG. 14, FIG. 15). The data rearranger rearranges the game parameters based on results of the storage area changing process by the storage area changer. When the game parameters are rearranged by the data rearrangement means, the arrangement information storage mechanism stores arrangement information (FIG. 5, FIG. 14, FIG. 15) in a specified area of the internal memory, the arrangement information being information which directly or indirectly indicates the storage area for each game parameter. When a game parameter in the internal memory needs to be referred to or overwritten during the game process, the storage area determination mechanism determines the storage area for the game parameter by referring to the arrangement information.
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the storage area changer directly or indirectly sets the storage area for the game data after the storage area changing process by specifying at least one address of the internal memory (e.g., the storage start address).
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, when the game data in the internal memory needs to be saved in the external storage medium during the game process, the game data control program instructs the computer to function further as game data saver (31, S603) for saving the game data in a predetermined original format in the external storage medium by referring to the arrangement information.
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the storage area changer changes the storage area for the game data in the internal memory based on a random number (S201).
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the storage area changer changes the storage area for the game data in the internal memory by specifying an offset value for shifting the storage area for the game data as a whole in the internal memory; and the data rearranger rearranges the game data as a whole in the internal memory so that a storage position relationship between the game parameters is maintained, by using, as a base address, an address obtained by adding the offset value to a specified address of the internal memory (FIG. 7).
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, the game data is divided into a plurality of blocks, and the storage area changer changes a storage area for each block of game data in the internal memory so that a storage position relationship between the blocks is changed each time the game data is rearranged (FIG. 14).
In one exemplary illustrative embodiment, each block corresponds in size to one address of the internal memory.
Still another computer-readable recording medium of the exemplary illustrative embodiments is a computer-readable recording medium, storing a first game data overwriting program for overwriting data of a predetermined parameter included in the game data, which is stored in the internal memory (35) by the first or second game data control program set forth above, wherein the game data overwriting program instructs a computer (79) to perform: a step of prompting a player to input a first search value (S703); a step of searching for a value corresponding to the first search value through the game data stored in the internal memory (S707) and detecting at least one first storage address at which the value is stored (S709); a step of following the first storage address, which dynamically changes, by using, as indices, values at a plurality of storage addresses which are each in a fixed positional relationship (e.g., being next to, or being apart from by a certain number of addresses) with the detected first storage address and the value at the first storage address (S715); a step of prompting the player to input a second search value (S721); a step of searching for a value corresponding to the second search value (S725) and detecting at least one second storage address at which the value is stored (S721); a step of determining a target storage address as being at least one of the second storage address that coincides with the first storage address (S731); a step of prompting the player to input a new value for the target storage address (S733); and a step of overwriting the value at the target storage address with the inputted new value (S735).
Still another computer-readable recording medium of the exemplary illustrative embodiments is a computer-readable recording medium, storing a second game data overwriting program for overwriting the game data, which is arranged in the internal memory (35) by the first or second game data control program set forth above, wherein the game data overwriting program instructs a computer (79) to perform: a step of receiving an input of a code for overwriting a predetermined item of the game data with a predetermined value (S803); a step of identifying a target storage address at which the predetermined game data item to be overwritten is stored, based on the inputted code and the arrangement information stored in the internal memory by the arrangement information storage mechanism (S809); and a step of overwriting a value of a game data item stored at the identified target storage address with the predetermined value indicated by the code (S811).
A game data overwriting device of an exemplary illustrative embodiments is a game data overwriting device, including therein the first or second game data overwriting program set forth above, and a control section (79) for overwriting a game data item according to the game data overwriting program.
With the first game data control program of the exemplary illustrative embodiments, each time the game data is loaded from the backup memory, the game data is stored at a different storage address of the internal memory. Therefore, even if someone identifies the storage address of the internal memory at which a particular parameter is stored, the data will be stored at a different storage address next time the game data is loaded from the backup memory. Thus, if someone overwrites data at a storage address publicly disclosed in a magazine or on the Internet, it will only destroy the game data. Therefore, it is possible to prevent general users from easily modifying the game data.
Where the loaded game data in the internal memory is arranged back in a predetermined original format when it is saved back in the external storage medium, the game data will be stored in the external storage medium always in a uniform format.
Where the storage area in the internal memory for the game data is set based on a random number, it is no longer possible to predict the area in the internal memory where a game parameter is to be loaded. Thus, it is more difficult to modify the game data.
Where the game data as a whole is shifted to a different area each time the game data is loaded, it is only required that the start address of the storage area for the game data, for example, is stored as the arrangement information, whereby it is possible to save space in the internal memory.
Where the game data is divided into a plurality of blocks, and the blocks are loaded into different areas each time the game data is loaded, it is more difficult to identify the area in the internal memory where a particular game data item is loaded, as compared with a case where the game data as a whole is shifted each time the game data is loaded. The smaller the block size is, the more difficult it is to identify the area where a particular game data item is loaded.
With the second game data control program of the exemplary illustrative embodiments, after the game data is loaded to the internal memory, the storage address at which the game data is stored is changed dynamically. Therefore, even when the game is being played, the storage address for the game data changes dynamically, whereby it is possible to more effectively prevent general users from easily modifying the game data.
With the first game data overwriting program of the exemplary illustrative embodiments, the storage address for the game parameter to be overwritten is identified taking into consideration not only the detected candidate storage address for the game parameter to be overwritten, but also values stored at other addresses each having a fixed positional relationship with the detected candidate storage address. Therefore, it is possible to detect the storage address for the game parameter to be overwritten even if the storage address for the game data periodically shifts in the internal memory.
With the second game data overwriting program of the exemplary illustrative embodiments, the game data is overwritten while referring to the arrangement information stored in a specified area of the internal memory. Therefore, it is possible to easily overwrite the game data in the internal memory simply by inputting a code even if the storage address for the game data periodically changes in the internal memory.

Game data control program, game data overwriting program and game data overwriting device


A poseable hair strand system for use in the creation of braids. The strands comprise at least one wire and at least one mass of hair. In the first embodiment, three wires are connected to each other. In the second embodiment, two wires are affixed to a mass of hair, the mass of hair positioned between the two wires. The third embodiment, comprises two masses of hair and one wire, wherein the wire is positioned between the masses of hair. The wires are covered with a coating that is available in a variety of colors to match typical hair colors. The wires are thin and bendable, thus allowing the wires to be easily cut and easily positioned around one's hair. The poseable hair strand system can be employed to be add structure to one's braids. It can also be used to add extensions to one's preexisting hair, thereby adding volume to the hair.

The invention relates to poseable hair strand assemblies. In particular, the invention relates to poseable wires that are braided along with one's hair to lend structure to said braid. The invention may also be used to add synthetic hair extensions to existing hair.
Women spend a great deal of time and effort making their hair fashionable and presentable. Hair can be arranged in many different ways: it can be curled, straightened, braided, beaded, and put in a ponytail. Hair styling has emerged in the 1990's as a true art form. In fact, many women having hair of shorter lengths want to add extensions to their hair in order to create different styles.
Braiding has become a very popular hairstyle over the last decade. Braiding can lend creativity to one's appearance and allows the style to changed frequently. Although braiding is a preferred form of hairstyle, the texture and thickness of many women's hair often gives them problems. Thin or unevenly cut hair will tend to unravel from the braid. Hair extensions can also cause problems since it is difficult to add the extension by way of a braid without showing the use of said extensions. Because of the difficulty of braiding one's hair, many women seek professional help to create different styles involving braids.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,325 to Eddins et al. discloses a poseable hair strand for a toy doll comprising thin flexible fibers that are intertwined into the hair of a doll. While this invention discloses strands that can aid in the styling of a doll's hair, it is impractical to use such a device on human hair.
U.S. Pat. No. Des. 357,701 to White discloses the design for a combined doll and stand for teaching hair braiding.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as disclosed hereafter.

Method of using a poseable hair strand system


This disclosure relates to a method for preparing vertically grown nanostructures of C60 and conjugated molecules, including: forming a C60 film or a conjugated organic molecular film; and introducing the C60 film or conjugated organic molecular film and a solvent into an airtight container, and then conducting solvent vapor annealing. According to the preparation method, C60 molecules and conjugated molecules may be vertically grown under mild conditions by a simple process.

Since efficient growth methods for C60 molecules, conjugated organic molecules, and the like provide opportunities to design new soft building blocks of which properties are largely different from those observed from powder or solution phase, studies thereon are continuously being progressed.
One approach is to utilize spontaneous precipitation in solution phase that involves self-crystallization of target molecules at liquid-liquid, liquid-air, or liquid-air-solid interfaces, and particularly, crystallization at the liquid-air-solid interface can be achieved by a simple process, called a drop-drying process.
Organic molecules such as C60 molecules, conjugated organic molecules, and the like are readily crystallized by the drop-drying process into 0D, 1D, and 2D nano- to micro-structures at room temperature by simply dissolving them in a solvent and then drop-drying. The drop-drying process has recently attracted much attention due to its simplicity as well as high efficiency in terms of yield and reaction time. However, one important drawback that has not yet been resolved is the controllability of growth direction.
Further, the vertical crystallization of conjugated molecules has been reported only for limited examples (peptides, 1,5-diaminoanthraquinone, copper phthalocyanine). Except for aromatic dipeptide nanotubes that have been vertically grown by the action of a fast evaporating solvent, all other examples require a high temperature, template, or physical vapor transport environment, and thus are not economically efficient and have limited industrial applications.
Accordingly, there is a demand for the development of a method for preparing vertically grown nanostructures of C60 molecules, conjugated molecules, and the like, under mild conditions by a simpler process.

Preparing method of vertically grown nanostructures of C60 and conjugated molecule


A method and system for eliminating global and local noise in periodical items is described. An exemplary method may include preprocessing each item in a set of items using one or more rules, removing global noise from the set of items using semantic similarities across items in the set of items, and removing local noise in each item in the set of items based on text content in each item.

A large and growing population of users employs various electronic devices to read periodicals such as newspapers, journals, magazines, news feeds and blog feeds. Among these electronic devices are electronic book readers (e-book readers), cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable media players, tablet computers, netbooks, and the like.
Converting periodicals into a format understandable by e-book readers or other electronic devices involves a significant manual effort. Publishers provide periodical feeds in diverse formats, thus requiring customized code to be written for individual publishers (or sometimes even individual titles) to map the publisher's periodical feeds to the format understandable by e-book readers or other devices. In addition, publishers' materials typically have recurring problems such as missing articles and sections and incorrect formatting, resulting in frequent non-scalable operational loads. Further, quality control usually must be done manually for every issue to ensure that it matches a source of a periodical. As e-book readers and other electronic devices continue to proliferate, finding inexpensive and effective ways to convert periodicals into a standard format understandable by the electronic devices continues to be a priority.


The present invention relates to an LBS system in which user location information is obtained using a ULID code of RFID tags attached to various places such as a building, a store, road signs, footway and road, and various LBSs are provided based on the location information. The problems that can be caused when using a conventional GPS and a wireless network are solved. It is easy to immediately obtain location information through a tag and security of private information can be enhanced. The LBS system of the present invention of the present invention includes: a plurality of RFID tags distributed on various places, for wirelessly providing a ULID code of a location; an RFID reader for wirelessly receiving the ULID code from an adjacent RFID tag; a local ULID processor for extracting current location information through a wirelessly received ULID code; and a local LBS application for providing a user with an LBS on the basis of the extracted location information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a location acquisition and location-based service (LBS) system, and particularly, to a universal location identifier (ULID) data structure, a ULID-based location acquisition method and an LBS system, in which user location information is checked using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags attached to various buildings, stores and road signs as well as ULID received from the RFID tags, and various LBSs are provided based on the location information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, with the advance of wireless communication technology such as mobile communication, the LBS is expected to create a huge market in the field of wireless Internet services in the future. The LBS combines location information of a moving user or vehicle with other various information in real time and provides an additional application service necessary for the user. Location acquisition is one of the most important factors in providing the user with the LBS service.
The location information is the contents of the location of an object and the real geographical feature on the ground, which are represented using a predetermined method such as a global positioning system (GPS) in general. The GPS is an electromagnetic wave navigation system that precisely measures 3D location, speed and time of an object on the ground using satellites, which receives a satellite signal transmitted from a satellite identifying the location of the object by triangulation, measures the elapsed time of the electromagnetic wave to arrive at the system and calculates the user location. Recently, the communication systems such as CDMA and GSM employ a network system that provides location information of a mobile terminal by using the precise location of a wireless relay (or a base station). It is advantageous that the location information can be transferred to a user in a building.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical example in which location of a hand-held telephone is acquired and the LBS is provided using the conventional mobile communication described above.
Referring to FIG. 1, a hand-held telephone 11 of a mobile communication company keeps connecting to a base station 15 for communication. The locations of the hand-held telephones connected to each base station 15 are managed by the mobile communication company. The company can provide the LBS of cell-ID level by using the location information. To acquire the more precise location information, triangulation is performed through a positioning determination entity (PDE) 12 by using signals transmitted from more than two base stations 15. The location of the hand-held telephone with a GPS module can be acquired using a signal received by a GPS satellite 16 as well as a base station signal. In some cases, the location information can be calculated by a mixed method with the base station signal. The acquired location information is transferred to an internal or external CP LBS server 14 through a location information gateway 13 of a mobile communication company. The LBS server 14 combines the acquired location information with map and directory information to provide a service through wireless Internet and wire Internet.
However, when the location information obtained using a GPS is provided to a civilian user, an error can be embedded into the location information on purpose for security. Also, the precision of the location information may deteriorate due to geographical displacement of a satellite that transmits a signal or the satellite may transmit erroneous location information due to an electromagnetic wave interface problem. The precision of the location information provided using a network system is low since it is different from a relay in their time and electromagnetic wave signals. Also, the precision may vary very much according to the location of a user. In the technologies, it is dangerous that private location information may leak through a server when the server performs a location information process to estimate location since a hand-held terminal is short of computing power as an assisted GPS.
Therefore, the technology is required, in which precise location information is extracted in a city and an interior to provide a service without any leakage of private location information.
In the present invention, an LBS is provided using an RFID so as to intend to solve the above-mentioned problem of the related arts. The basic structure of an RFID will be described in brief.
Recently, an RFID technology is applied to various industries such as electronics, dresses and foods. The RFID consisting of a miniaturized IC chip and an antenna in the fields can work as a wireless tag that can obtains the information on goods without direct contact. For this reason, the RFID is expected to substitute for the conventional optical barcode that obtains information through contact.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a basic structure of a system using the RFID and an RFID reader.
The RFID system is a wireless communication system consisting of an RFID reader 20 for reading and interpreting information and an RFID transponder 30 for providing the corresponding information. The RFID transponder 30 is called an RFID tag.
As widely known, the RFID systems are classified into an inductively coupled system and an electromagnetic wave system according to their connection for mutual communication, and are also classified into an active RFID and a passive RFID according to whether the RFID tag uses an additional energy source such as a battery or an external power source or not for its operation.
Most of the inductively coupled RFID tags are always operated as the passive RFID system. In other words, the IC chip in the RFID tag obtains all the energy for its operation from a reader and does not necessitate any additional power source. For this purpose, an antenna coil 25 of the RFID reader 20 generates strong electromagnetic field of high frequency around the antenna coil 25. Some of the emitted electromagnetic field generates inductive voltage in a coil antenna of a tag spaced from the RFID reader 20 to provide the tag with energy. For this reason, the passive RFID can be used semi-permanently and is small-sized but has a short transmission range. Since the active tag uses an additional energy source, a strong response signal is generated and transmitted so that the RFID signal can be detected at a long range even in the region in which transmission signal of the reader is weak. However, since the battery has a comparatively short life span, the effective life span of the tag is limited and is large-sized and expensive compared with the passive tag.
FIG. 3 illustrates a general configuration of the passive RFID. The passive RFID 30 includes an IC 31 and a coil antenna 32 in general. A capacitor 33 is selectively used to synchronize an operation frequency of the tag to a predetermined value. The IC 31 permanently stores a tag identifier and other useful information, interprets and processes a command received from the RFID reader 20, responds to the RFID reader 20, and includes software and a circuit for solve a collision caused when a multiplicity of tags assists hardware to responds to inquiry at one time. The location and characteristic of the antenna 32 are different according to the required operation frequency for an RFID portion of a tag. For example, the RFID tag of a frequency such as 2.4 GHz includes a linear dipole antenna or a folded dipole antenna while the RFID tag of a frequency such as 13.56 GHz includes a spiral antenna or a coil antenna.
The RFID includes information that can be used as an identifier in a memory 34 of the IC chip. FIG. 4A illustrates a basic structure of 96-bit electronic product code (EPC) suggested by the MIT AutoID center and its embodiment. In other words, the EPC consists of a header, an EPC manager, an object class and a serial number part.
The header identifies its version. The EPC manager is an identifier of a manufacturer that can allocate the EPC. The object class is used to specify a category such as goods that the manufacturer produces. The serial number part identifies a serial number of the goods.
FIG. 4B illustrates a structure of a location code suggested by AutoID center in the year of 2000. In the present invention, the location code is used as a reference code. The code includes an 8-bit header for identifying its version and 32-bit parts for identifying latitude, longitude and altitude respectively.
MIT AutoID center has suggested the types of the EPC code as shown in FIG. 4C but has not suggested a service method using the types of the EPC code.

ULID data structure, ULID-based location acquisition method and location-based service system

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


In a laser-driving device including a high-frequency current generating circuit generating a high-frequency current superimposed on a control current output from a light intensity control circuit for light intensity control, and supplied to a laser diode as a drive current, the high-frequency current generating circuit has a sourcing current source, a sinking current source, current switches connected between the current sources and a drive output terminal respectively, a gated oscillation circuit oscillating with a desired frequency, and switch drive circuits complementarily on/off controlling the current switches by using a drive switching signal obtained by removing a high-frequency component from an output signal of the oscillation circuit. The present invention, therefore, provides a high-frequency current generating circuit which can increase the amplitude of the high-frequency current superimposed on the control current of the laser diode and which generates less heat while suppressing power consumption.

This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Applications No. 11-180591, filed Jun. 25, 1999; and No. 11-297014, filed Oct. 19, 1999, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to a high-frequency current generating circuit for reading a signal recorded on an optical-recording medium which is a disk-type data storage medium (to be referred to as xe2x80x9coptical diskxe2x80x9d hereinafter) from/to which information is read and/or written by a laser beam, and relates to a controller for controlling the light intensity of a laser diode.
Recently, optical disk devices such as a CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read-Only Memory) device, a CD-R (Compact Disk Recordable) device, a CD-RW (Compact Disk Rewritable) device and DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) device, are widely used as storage devices provided externally of, for example, a personal computer which is an information processor for processing information. In addition, portable equipment such as a notebook computer handy to carry and mobile equipment which is easily movable, are popular. As a consequence, demand for increasing the storage capacitance of an optical disk device installed in these mobile equipment and for making the optical disk smaller in size, thinner and lighter, is rising.
Among constituent elements of an optical disk device, an optical pickup device for reading a signal recorded on an optical disk, includes many optical components and elements such as a laser diode emitting a laser beam by means of a semiconductor, an objective lens for converging the laser beam of the laser diode, a mirror for reflecting the laser beam, a hologram element for interfering with the laser beam and a light detector for detecting a laser beam. The capacitance and weight of these components and elements are large in an overall optical disk device. For that reason, to provide a smaller, thinner and lighter optical disk device largely depends on the optical pickup device. Due to this, various improvements have been hitherto made for optical pickup devices.
When a laser diode is employed in an optical pickup device, a problem of occurrence of so-called return-light noise arises. The occurrence of the return-light noise is a phenomenon that when a light beam emitted from the laser diode is applied onto an optical disk, a part of the reflected light returns from a optical disk surface to the laser diode to thereby generate noise. Since the laser diode is oscillated in a single mode having a single frequency, mode hopping that is frequency changes occurs when there is return-light. Then, the intensity of output light varies greatly, and return-light noise occurs as stated above.
To reduce return-light noise, the variation of the intensity of light may be prevented even if mode hopping occurs. To do so, there is known a method in which a laser of a laser diode is oscillated in multiple modes having two or more frequencies. According to this method, a high-frequency current having a frequency of 200 MHz or higher is superimposed on a control current for controlling the laser diode. The high-frequency current superimposed on the control current is a drive current for driving the laser diode. Consequently, the laser of the laser diode is oscillated in multiple modes by the drive current, and return-light noise is thereby reduced. In this case, the amplitude of the high-frequency current is not less than 20 to 30 mA.
When the above-stated method is carried out, it is preferable that an integrated circuit for generating a high-frequency current is arranged in the vicinity of the laser diode so as to reduce a driving loss and to make an optical pickup device smaller and thinner. This circuit, however, generates considerable heat. For example, the power supply voltage of a high-frequency current generating circuit is generally 5V, and power consumption thereof is not less than 300 mw. The laser diode has such properties that light emission characteristics deteriorate in a high temperature environment, and in particular, the laser diode may not emit light at a temperature of 80xc2x0 C. or higher. It is, therefore, difficult to arrange the high-frequency current generating circuit in the vicinity of the laser diode. Nevertheless, a circuit for effectively reducing the power consumption of a high-frequency generation circuit is realized as disclosed by, for example, Japanese Patent Unexamined Application Publication (KOKAI) No. 10-247329. The circuit disclosed therein allows a high-frequency current generating circuit to be arranged in the vicinity of a laser diode. Additionally, according to Elantec Homepage (http://www.elantec.com), two output current loops circuit for reducing power consumption is shown on xe2x80x9cEL6200C Preliminary; Mar. 19, 1999xe2x80x9d, page 6, FIG. 2.
However, to further accelerate data transmission rate at the time of reading data, the frequency of the high-frequency current is required to be as high as 300 to 500 MHz.
On the other hand, laser diodes can be produced at lower cost and operated at higher temperature, so that a junction capacitance thereof tends to be higher. When the frequency of such a superimposed high-frequency current increases and so does the junction capacitance of the laser diode increase, driving loss rises. If so, the amplitude of the superimposed high-frequency current needs to be increased further. As a result, the power consumption of the high-frequency current generating circuit increases, thereby making it quite difficult to arrange a high-frequency current generating circuit in the vicinity of the laser diode.
Meanwhile, a DVD drive or CD drive is provided with an optical system including a red laser diode (wavelength=650 nm) for reading data on the DVD and an optical system including a near-infrared laser diode (wavelength=780 nm) for reading data on the CD-R/RW. In an optical disk device provided with these two laser diodes emitting different wavelength light, two independent high-frequency current generating circuits corresponding to the respective laser diodes are prepared. This possibly leads to an increase in the size of an integrated circuit including a high-frequency current generating circuit for generating a high-frequency current and to hike cost up. At present, the development of a laser diode which emits a laser beam due to two wavelengths being switched is undergone. Even so, the same disadvantages occur if two independent high-frequency current generating circuits corresponding to the respective wavelength are provided.
Generally, an auto-power control (APC) is employed in the drive system of the laser diode. Specifically, a part of the light emitted from the laser diode is received by a light detector for monitoring the intensity of light and the output current is converted into a voltage by a current-to-voltage conversion resistor. Thereafter, the converted voltage is supplied to an APC circuit as a control signal for controlling the light intensity. The APC circuit generates a control current for controlling the intensity of light emitted from the laser diode. A high-frequency current stated above is superimposed on this control circuit. The laser diode and the light intensity monitored light detector are packaged in the same package.
When this APC is applied to the optical disk device provided with the two laser diodes having a different wavelength stated above, the following disadvantages occur. The first disadvantage is caused by providing light detectors for monitoring the intensity of light, these detectors being individually provided to correspond to the respective laser diodes. If so, the number of pins of the package for packaging the laser diode and the light detector of monitoring light intensity, disadvantageously increases. Another disadvantage is that if a monolithic structure in which two laser diodes are formed in one chip is employed, this structure requires an optical device, such as a dichroic prism, having wavelength selectiveness and separating an optical path so as to separate light of the respective wavelength from each other and to allow the separated light to be incident on the respective light-monitoring detectors. As a result, the size of the package becomes large. These disadvantages are serious obstructions to realizing a smaller, thinner and lighter optical pickup device.
It is considered that these disadvantages can be overcome by employing a light detector for monitoring light intensity, this detector being common to two laser diodes. The detection sensitivity of a light detector is normally dependent on wavelength of light, and an output current of the light detector varies according to the wavelength of an incident light with a fixed intensity of light. Accordingly, in one light-monitoring detector, it is difficult to accurately control the intensity of light of each laser diode.
As described above, according to the conventional high-frequency current superposition technique, if the frequency of the high-frequency current superimposed on the control current of the laser diode increases due to high rate of transmitting data, the junction capacitance of the laser diode increases and thereby driving loss increases, then it is required to increase the amplitude of the superimposed high-frequency current. Consequently, the power consumption of the high-frequency current generating circuit increases to thereby generate more heat. It is, therefore, difficult to provide a smaller, thinner optical pickup device by providing a high-frequency current generating circuit in the vicinity of a laser diode.
The main object of the present invention is to provide a high-frequency current generating circuit included in a semiconductor integrated circuit, this current generating circuit being able to increase the amplitude of a high-frequency current superimposed on the control current of a laser diode and generate less heat while suppressing power consumption, and control device for controlling light intensity of laser diode.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a high-frequency current generating circuit included in a semiconductor integrated circuit, this current generating circuit being able to generate a high-frequency current superimposed on the control current of a laser diode emitting a laser selected from two lasers having a different wavelength, with a circuit size as small as possible.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a light intensity control device and a semiconductor integrated circuit which can individually control light intensity of the laser diode of two wavelengths by using a common light-monitoring detector.
According to the present invention, there is provided a high-frequency current generating circuit for generating a high-frequency current, incorporated into a driving device for driving a laser diode by using a drive signal obtained by superimposing the high-frequency current on a control current for controlling an output of the laser diode, the high-frequency current generating circuit comprising:
an output terminal configured to output the high-frequency current;
a first current source including a first capacitor and a first MOSFET, configured to generate a first current and outputting the first current to the output terminal;
a second MOSFET configured to control an output of the first current from the first current source to the output terminal, the second MOSFET having a first gate-input capacitance and being connected between the first current source and the output terminal;
a first control circuit including a third MOSFET and a first resistor connected to the third MOSFET and constituting a first low-pass filter, together with the first gate-input capacitance of the second MOSFET, the first control circuit supplying a first gate signal to the second MOSFET through the first low-pass filter, the third MOSFET and the first resistor being arranged in series;
a second control circuit including a fourth MOSFET and a second resistor connected to the fourth MOSFET and constituting a second low-pass filter, together with the first gate-input capacitance of the second MOSFET, the second control circuit supplying a second gate signal to the second MOSFET through the second low-pass filter, the fourth MOSFET and the second resistor being arranged in series;
a second current source including a second capacitor and a fifth MOSFET, configured to generate a second current and input the second current from the output terminal;
a sixth MOSFET configured to control an output of the second current from the second current source to the output terminal, the sixth MOSFET having a second gate-input capacitance and being connected between the second current source and the output terminal;
a third control circuit including a seventh MOSFET and a third resistor connected to the seventh MOSFET and constituting a third low-pass filter, together with the second gate-input capacitance of the sixth MOSFET, the third control circuit supplying a third gate signal to the sixth MOSFET through the third low-pass filter, the seventh MOSFET and the third resistor being arranged in series;
a fourth control circuit including an eighth MOSFET and a fourth resistor connected to the eighth MOSFET and constituting a fourth low-pass filter, together with the second gate-input capacitance of the sixth MOSFET, the fourth control circuit supplying a fourth gate signal to the sixth MOSFET through the fourth low-pass filter, the eighth MOSFET and the fourth resistor being arranged in series;
an oscillation circuit configured to output an oscillation signal having a predetermined frequency; and
a fifth control circuit configured to alternately supply the first and second gate signals to the second MOSFET based on the oscillation signal, and alternately supply the third and fourth gate signals to the sixth MOSFET based on the oscillation signal.
Further, according to the present invention, there is provided a high-frequency current generating circuit for generating a high-frequency current, incorporated into a driving device for driving a laser diode by using a drive signal obtained by superimposing the high-frequency current on a control current for controlling an output of the laser diode, the high-frequency current generating circuit comprising:
an output terminal configured to output the high-frequency current;
a first sourcing current source configured to generate a first current, and output the first current to the output terminal;
a first current switch configured to control an output of the first current from the first sourcing current source to the output terminal, the first current switch being connected between the first sourcing current source and the output terminal;
a second sinking current source configured to generate a second current, and input the second current from the output terminal;
a second current switch configured to control an output of the second current from the second sinking current source to the output terminal, the second current switch being connected between the second sinking current source and the output terminal;
a control circuit configured to alternately on/off control the first and second current switches, the control circuit being connected to the first and second circuit switches; and
a detection oscillation circuit configured to detect the control current, and output an oscillation signal selectively when the laser diode is turned on, the detection oscillation circuit being connected to an input terminal of the control circuit.
Moreover, according to the present invention, there is provided a high-frequency current generating circuit driving device for driving a laser diode by using a drive signal for driving one of first and second laser diodes having different wavelengths of emitting light obtained by superimposing the high-frequency current on a control current for controlling an output of the laser diode, the high-frequency current generating circuit comprising:
a detection oscillation circuit configured to detect whether the first and second laser diodes are turned on/off while referring to a voltage value generated based on the control current, and output an oscillation signal corresponding to the wavelength of the laser diode being turned on; and
two high-frequency current generation units configured to input an output signal of the detection oscillation circuit, and output the high-frequency current, wherein
each of the two high-frequency current generation units comprises:
an output terminal configured to output the high-frequency current;
a first sourcing current source configured to generate a first current, and output the first current to the output terminal;
a first current switch configured to control an output of the first current from the first sourcing current source to the output terminal, the first current switch being connected between the first sourcing current source and the output terminal;
a second sinking current source configured to generate a second current, and input the second current from the output terminal;
a second current switch configured to control an output of the second current from the second sinking current source to the output terminal, the second current switch being connected between the second sinking current source and the output terminal; and
a control circuit configured to alternately on/off control the first and second current switches, the control circuit being connected to the first and second current switches.
Still, according to the present invention, there is provided a light-intensity controlling device of laser diode comprising:
a light detector configured to detect light of one of first and second laser diodes being driven, and generate an output current corresponding to a light intensity of the detected light;
first and second current-to-voltage conversion resistors provided to correspond to the first and second laser diodes, respectively, the first and second current-to-voltage conversion resistors for converting the output current of the light detector into a voltage;
a determination circuit configured to determine whether the first and second laser diodes are turned on/off;
a resistor-selecting circuit configured to select one current-to-voltage conversion resistor corresponding to the laser diode determined to be turned on by the determination circuit from the first and second current-to-voltage conversion resistors; and
an output control circuit configured to control light intensities of the first and second laser diodes based on a voltage obtained by current-to-voltage conversion by one of the resistors selected from the first and second current-to-voltage conversion resistors.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.

High-frequency current generating circuit and control device for controlling light intensity of laser diode


An outdoor unit disposed under a floor of a vehicle and including a compressor and an outdoor heat exchanger serving as a condenser during a cooling operation, an indoor unit disposed at a ceiling portion of the vehicle, including an indoor heat exchanger serving as an evaporator during the cooling operation, and connected to the outdoor unit by refrigerant pipes, and an inverter unit including a cooling heat exchanger serving as an evaporator, an air-conditioning inverter device, and a cooling air-sending device sucking outdoor air for heat exchange by the cooling heat exchanger and cooling the inverter device by cooled air obtained by the heat exchange are provided; and the cooling heat exchanger is connected in parallel to the outdoor unit by refrigerant pipes.

As an existing vehicle air-conditioning apparatus, there is a vehicle air-conditioning apparatus in which an indoor unit is provided on a roof of a railway vehicle, a pair of outdoor units are provided at both left and right end portions thereof, and further an inverter unit in which an inverter device is accommodated is provided between the indoor unit and one of the outdoor units. In the indoor unit, a fan motor is disposed, a pair of fans driven by the fan motor is disposed in front of and in rear of the fan motor, and a pair of indoor side heat exchangers are disposed at both outer sides of the pair of fans. During a cooling operation, cold air cooled by the pair of indoor side heat exchangers is blown into the inside of the vehicle by the fans, and part of the cold air is guided by a communication duct and discharged into the inverter unit to cool the inverter device (e.g., see Patent Literature 1).


A plasma display apparatus is disclosed wherein a column electrode driver for a PDP has a simpler constitution to facilitate wirings between the column electrode driver and column electrodes in the PDP. A plasma display apparatus comprises a plasma display panel having a plurality of row electrodes, and a plurality of column electrodes extending perpendicularly to the plurality of row electrodes, wherein the plurality of column electrodes are divided into first, second, and third row electrode groups corresponding to discharge cells of red, green, and blue; a first unit for driving the plurality of column electrodes on the basis of digital video data for red, green, and blue; a second unit for driving the row electrodes, wherein the first unit for driving said plurality of column electrodes comprises a first shift register for receiving the digital video data for red, a second shift register for receiving the digital video data for green, a third shift register for receiving the digital video data for blue, and a latch circuit for latching outputs of the first, second, and third shift registers to position the latched outputs in the manner that the latched outputs are associated with the corresponding first, second, and third row electrode groups.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a plasma display apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, a plasma display panel (designated as PDP hereinafter) is known as a plane display apparatus of a dotted matrix type. In many cases, the PDP is used as a display of a personal computer, a word processor, or the like. Since the PDP can perform a high speed display and can easily provide a large screen, PDP is expected as larger sized flat type display means having the size of 20 inches or more.
FIG. 1 shows a surface discharge type PDP comprising a 3-electrode structure of an AC driving type in a unit cell. This PDP comprises: a pair of parallel disposed glass substrates 301 and 302 spaced through a discharge space 308; a plurality of paired, parallel sustaining electrodes (maintaining electrodes) X and Y formed on an inner surface of the glass substrate 301 forming a display surface; a dielectric layer 306 covering the sustain electrodes X and Y; and a protecting layer 307 made of MgO and covering the dielectric layer 306. Each of the sustain electrodes X and Y is made up of a belt-shaped wider transparent electrode 303 and a bus electrode 304 of a metal film overlapped for compensating a conductivity of the sustain electrode.
The PDP further comprises: barrier ribs 310 formed on an inner surface of the glass substrate 302 and extending perpendicularly to the sustain electrodes X and Y, the barrier ribs dividing the discharge space 308 to unit light emitting regions; a column electrode 305 formed between the barrier ribs 310 on the glass substrate and extending perpendicularly to the sustain electrodes X and Y; and a plurality of fluorescent layers 309 for emitting predetermined colored light. The discharge space 308 is filled with a discharge gas including neon and a smaller quantity of xenon.
In the operation of the above PDP, a driving voltage exceeding a discharge starting voltage is applied between the sustain electrodes X and Y. As a result, a surface discharge is caused near a surface of the dielectric layer 306, predetermined amount of wall charges are then accumulated in the surface of the dielectric layer 306, and the discharge is ceased.
A surface discharge is caused each tine a sustaining pulse having an opposite polarity to that of the wall charges is alternately applied to the sustain electrodes X and Y. Ultraviolet rays generated by the application of the pulses excite the fluorescent layer 309 to emits a light therefrom.
FIG. 2 shows a block diagram illustrating a driving apparatus of a conventional plasma display panel. In FIG. 2, a video signal processor 101 receives a composite video signal to extract R, G, and B video signals corresponding to red, green, and blue video components therefrom to supply the extracted video signals to A/D convertors 104R, 104G, and 104B. A synchronous separator 102 extracts horizontal and vertical synchronous signals from the composite video signal, thereby supplying them to a row electrode driver 108. Signal processors 105R, 105G, and 105B process signal outputs from the corresponding A/D convertors 104R, 104G, and 104B in the manner that the signal outputs can be stored in the corresponding frame memories 106R, 106G, and 106B. Then, the processed signal outputs are stored in the corresponding frame memories 106R, 106G, and 106B. The signals stored in the frame memories 106R, 106G, and 106B are sequentially read out and mixed in a mixture processor 107. The mixed signals from the mixture processor 107 are supplied to a column electrode driver 409 in the order of red, green, and blue, thereby driving the corresponding column electrodes D.sub.1 -D.sub.3n.
The synchronous separator 102 supplies its output signal to a row electrode driver 108 at a proper timing through a controller 103 to drive row electrodes X.sub.1 -X.sub.m, and Y.sub.1 -Y.sub.m.
When the row electrode driver 108 applies a scanning pulse to a PDP 110, the PDP 110 starts discharge light emissions in accordance with pixel data pulses, and then maintains the light emitting state during a period in which the application of sustain pulses to the PDP 110 is continued. when the row electrode driver 108 applies erasing pulses to the PDP 110, the discharge light emissions are ceased. Thus, the driving pulses for the row electrode consist of the scanning pulses, the sustain pulses, and the erasing pulse.
FIG. 3 shows a detailed diagram of the column electrode driver. In FIG. 3, 64-bit shift registers 501.sub.1 -501.sub.3n receive the data consisting of red, green, and blue and subjected to the mixing processes, and then convert the received data in series into parallel ones. Latches 502.sub.1 -502.sub.n latch the outputs of the 64-bit shift registers 501.sub.1 -501.sub.3n. Outputs of the latches control column electrodes D.sub.1 -D.sub.m.
In the conventional colored PDP, in order to drive each cell of red, green, and blue in one pixel, a problem arises that the mixing processes of three primary color data are necessary before the column electrode driver receives them. In addition, since a shift register generally includes a plurality of bits consisting of binary codes, and one data corresponding to three bits of red, green, and blue is distributed over an adjacent shift register, a further problem arises that its processing is required.


Embodiments provide for controlling power production in an islanded microgrid system while maintaining the system frequency and implementing desired load sharing between different types of generating resources and energy storage systems. Embodiments include a controller in communication with the resources to control operation of the resources and operative to determine an optimal load balance based on load and renewable generation forecast information; transmit load and generation schedules to a generation controller that operates the resources in accordance with the schedules; calculate a frequency set point for energy storage resources in the microgrid based on the optimal load balance of the energy storage resources, droop settings, rated power, and the frequency of the energy storage resources; and to control the frequency set point of the energy storage resources to achieve the optimal load balance. Numerous additional aspects are disclosed.

A microgrid is a small-scale power grid that is able to provide electricity to its local area (e.g., campus or neighborhood) and can operate independently (e.g., when islanded) or in conjunction with a substantially larger area's (e.g., a town's or a city's) main electrical grid. Microgrids are typically relatively low voltage power systems that include a number of loads and generators. Power generation systems using renewable resources can be integrated into a microgrid efficiently. However, due to the variable nature of renewable sources and fluctuating load profiles, the power supply in the microgrid sometimes cannot match the load demand. Imbalances between generation and load can result in system frequency fluctuation and in microgrids the problem is compounded due to the relatively low inertia and small time constant of the system. Therefore, frequency control is critical in islanded microgrids.
Battery energy storage systems which have high efficiency and large energy density are considered to be an effective solution for power balancing in an islanded microgrid. Many studies suggest that batteries can be used in microgrids to shave peak demand, store surplus renewable energy, improve both power quality and frequency control. Thus, what is needed are systems, apparatus, and methods for load sharing between isochronous generators and battery energy storage systems in islanded microgrids.

Systems, apparatus, and methods for load sharing between isochronous generators and battery energy storage systems in islanded microgrids


The present disclosure provides methods for signaling QoS Flow control parameters, and corresponding NF entities. The method comprises generating one or more data flow rules associated with a QoS Flow and a QoS Flow profile. The data flow rules include parameters specific to a data flow that belongs to the QoS Flow, while the QoS Flow profile includes parameters that are common to all data flows that belong to the same QoS Flow. The present disclosure further discloses a corresponding method of receiving the QoS Flow control parameters. The present disclosure further provides corresponding computer readable medium.

This section is intended to provide a background to the various embodiments of the technology described in this disclosure. The description in this section may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and/or claims of this disclosure and is not admitted to be prior art by the mere inclusion in this section.
In 5th Generation (5G) networks, a Network Slice is introduced as a logical network that provides specific network capabilities and network characteristics. An instance of a network slice (e.g., a network slice instance (NSI)) is a set of Network Function (NF) instances and the required resources (e.g., compute, storage, and networking resources) which form a deployed Network Slice. A NF is a 3GPP adopted or 3GPP defined processing function in a network, which has defined functional behavior and 3GPP defined interfaces. An NF can be implemented either as a network element on dedicated hardware, a software instance running on a dedicated hardware, or as a virtualized functional instantiated on an appropriate platform, e.g., on a cloud infrastructure.
3GPP 5GS also defines a Quality of Service (QoS) Flow. A QoS Flow is the finest granularity for QoS forwarding treatment in the 5G System. All traffic mapped to the same 5G QoS Flow receives the same forwarding treatment (e.g., scheduling policy, queue management policy, rate shaping policy, RLC configuration, etc.). Providing different QoS forwarding treatment requires separate 5G QoS Flow.


A process for separating inorganic salts from a solution of dimethyl sulfoxide, water and salts including feeding the solution plus a hydrocarbon based oil to a vacuum thin film evaporator. The DMSO and water are vaporized and condensed outside the evaporator for reuse or further purification. The salt and oil exit the evaporator as a liquid phase slurry. Water is added to the slurry to dissolve the salt and produce an aqueous phase and an oil phase which are separated. The oil phase is recycled to the thin film evaporator portion of the process.

Dimethyl sulfoxide, also known in the industry as DMSO, is a dipolar aprotic solvent which is useful for dissolving both ionic and covalent compounds. DMSO dissolves ionic salts, such as sodium chloride or potassium bromide, as well as many nonionic compounds of low molecular weight. When using DMSO as a solvent for both inorganic salts and organic compounds in a single operation, the standard method for separating the organic compound from the DMSO and salts is to add water to the solution. The DMSO and salts enter the water phase, while the organic material forms a second phase which can be easily separated by physical means.
The resulting DMSO/inorganic salt/water phase can present a difficult disposal problem. In addition, DMSO is a fairly expensive solvent and thus, recovery would provide an economic incentive as well as overcome the problem of disposal.
In other situations, DMSO may be contaminated with inorganic salts alone. Again, purification of the DMSO by removal of the soluble inorganic salts may be necessary.
Berg, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,599,979 discloses the use of extractive distillation, which separates two compounds with similar boiling points by adding a higher boiling substance, to separate formic acid from acetic acid.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,190,619 Berg et al. disclose the separation of 3-methyl-2-butanone from formic acid by extractive distillation with DMSO plus an additional compound. None of these references address the separation of inorganic salts from DMSO or DMSO/water/salt solutions.
Attempts to separate and recover DMSO from solutions of DMSO/inorganic salts/water or DMSO/inorganic salts by either thin film evaporators or vacuum distillation are not successful since, at even moderately elevated temperatures, DMSO and inorganic salts can react to decompose and contaminate the DMSO. Often the reaction is sufficiently exothermic that a dangerous condition results, possibly damaging the separation apparatus and endangering the system operator. Attempts to separate inorganic salts from DMSO/water solutions at lower temperatures by vacuum fractionation also encounter difficulties where the salt becomes insoluble and sticks to the surfaces of the apparatus used in the fractionation. The insoluble salt may collect to the point of plugging pipes and heat exchange equipment.
To overcome this problem in the recovery of DMSO from the above described solvent solutions, applicant has discovered a new process for separation and recovery of DMSO.

Separation of inorganic salts from dimethyl sulfoxide