A thermal transfer recording medium comprising a foundation, a heat-meltable ink layer comprising a coloring agent and a heat-meltable vehicle disposed on one side of the foundation, and a back layer comprising a heat-resistant resin disposed on the other side of the foundation, the ink layer containing a surface active agent, the back layer containing a surface active agent, the ink layer and the back layer satisfying the following relations: EQU A.gtoreq.3, B.gtoreq.3, C.gtoreq.0, A>C, B>C,. wherein A is the absolute value of the difference between the SP value of the heat-meltable vehicle of the ink layer and the SP value of the surface active agent contained in the ink layer; B is the absolute value of the difference between the SP value of the heat-resistant resin of the back layer and the SP value of the surface active agent contained in the back layer; and C is the absolute value of the difference between the SP value of the surface active agent contained in the ink layer and the SP value of the surface active agent contained in the back layer.

The present invention relates to a thermal transfer recording medium comprising a foundation having a heat-meltable ink layer on one side thereof and a back layer on the other side thereof.
A conventional thermal transfer recording medium of this type is adapted to form printed images by superimposing a receptor on the side of the heat-meltable ink layer and heating the recording medium from the back side thereof by means of a thermal head to transfer the heat-meltable ink onto the receptor.
The main purpose of providing the back layer is to prevent the so-called sticking phenomenon wherein the foundation melts and sticks to the thermal head.
Such a back layer is composed of a heat-resistant resin as a main ingredient. For instance, a back layer is known which is formed by applying onto a foundation a silicone-modified resin such as a silicone-modified acrylic resin, followed by curing.
When a thermal transfer recording medium having the back layer made of the silicone-modified resin is employed to form printed images, there is a disadvantage that the heat-meltable ink at the heated portion is not completely transferred onto a receptor, resulting in printed images having dropout portions or voids.
The present inventor's investigation of the causes reveals the following: With a thermal transfer recording medium which is wound in the form of a roll, the heat-meltable ink layer and the back layer are in contact with each other. In such a state, a low molecular weight component contained in the silicone-modified resin constituting the back layer migrates to the heat-meltable ink layer. The portion of the ink layer to which the low molecular weight component has migrated does not transfer to a receptor because of poor adhesion to the receptor. In addition to such a transfer disturbance, there is a further problem that the migration of a component of the ink layer to the back layer invites a decrease in the slipping property of the back layer, resulting in a disturbance of the travelling of the thermal transfer recording medium.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer recording medium which is free from the transfer disturbance and travelling disturbance due to the migration of a component of the back layer thereof to the ink layer thereof the and migration of a component of the ink layer to the back layer.
This and other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the description hereinafter.


A system and method for testing an integrated circuit is disclosed. One embodiment includes at least one central processing unit, at least one volatile memory area, and an interface, wherein the volatile memory area is connected to the interface to be written thereto by the interface. The system includes a test device connected with the integrated circuit which is configured to stop the program execution, write data in the volatile memory by using the interface, and start the program execution.

The invention relates to a system and a method for testing an integrated circuit.
Modern microcontrollers, in particular "Systems on a Chip" (SoC), include at least one memory area and at least one Central Processing Unit (CPU) with a processor on a chip. In the memory area, a complex software program executed by the processor and further data may be stored, which the processor accesses during processing.
During the development of the software program and of the chip itself, and of the function blocks surrounding the chip, the chip and the software program have to be tested. To this end, it is necessary that the software program runs through the situations to be tested so as to cause and observe the reaction of the software program or of the chip, respectively.
The situations to be tested may, however, not be caused with reasonable effort in that the program stored in the chip and the parameter data are changed frequently and the normal progress of the software program is executed up to the relevant place in the instruction sequence of the program.
Furthermore, system parameters, for instance, constants for actuators that are controlled by the SoC, have to be optimized. This calibrating requires the repeated running through of an instruction sequence with parameters, wherein these are optimized between the cycles.
Thus, there is the need to repeatedly bring the software program executed on the SoC in a particular situation, so that a particular program section and thus a desired instruction sequence is run through. In so doing, it must be possible to vary parameters that are processed by the software program and influence the program flow, so that a particular situation can be run through with different parameter values.
From prior art, possibilities for performing such a calibration are known.
DE 102 37 173 discloses a method for collecting temporary measurements in a programmed control device, wherein the control device includes a microcontroller—and thus a processor, and a memory. The memory includes, on the one hand, a volatile memory area whose content is lost without power supply, and which is, for instance, a RAM in which predominantly the variable parameters are stored. On the other hand, the memory includes a non-volatile memory area in which the program to be executed is stored. By an address register, a section of the RAM memory area can be indicated as Calibration RAM (CALRAM), so that the processor accesses the CALRAM instead of the memory areas that are specifically stored in the program flow. Via an emulator sensing head, the memory areas defined as CALRAM can be accessed in reading and writing, so that the desired data and instruction sequences can be written in these memory areas and are subsequently processed by the processor. Via the emulator sensing head, the content of the CALRAM and thus the content of the parameters can be read.
This solution, however, has the disadvantage that an emulator sensing head has to be used.
WO 03/102961 describes another method by which the instructions and data to be processed by the processor of a SoC can be manipulated via an interface from outside. The SoC or the method, respectively, serve the calibration of an SoC with a volatile memory area, for instance, a RAM, and a non-volatile memory area, for instance, a flash EEPROM, and a processor. The software program to be executed and the data are stored in the flash EEPROM in the normal state of the SoC. In the normal state, the processor accesses the flash EEPROM to read and process the software program and the data. For calibration of the data, the SoC can be accessed via an interface from outside such that the SoC passes into a calibration mode. In this mode, the data to be calibrated are copied into the volatile memory area. The volatile memory area is assigned the address of that non-volatile memory area in which the data to be calibrated have been stored so far, so that the processor, when accessing the data to be calibrated, will henceforth access the volatile instead of the non-volatile memory area. Via the interface, a user may input instructions and data for processing by the processor and thus calibrate the parameters. Subsequently, the modified data are written back from the volatile memory area in the non-volatile memory area, so that they are permanently stored.
This method and the pertinent SoC, respectively, has the disadvantage that an instruction sequence for the calibration mode and for writing the data from the non-volatile memory in the volatile memory and back has to be provided in the software program. To be able to store this instruction sequence in the non-volatile memory, it has to be designed correspondingly larger.
In a further known solution, the microcontroller includes, for storing the program to be executed in normal operation, exclusively a volatile memory that is adapted to be written with modified data for testing and calibrating the microcontroller. Here it is of disadvantage that this memory permanently has to be supplied with voltage. Since usually only the memory, but not the entire microcontroller has to be supplied with voltage, considerable effort is practiced to limit the memory as the area of permanent voltage supply on the microcontroller.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.

System and method for testing an integrated circuit


The present invention relates to a hydrogel formulation for delivering probiotics including a hydrogel, probiotics and zwitterionic buffer as an active ingredient, a composition for delivering probiotics comprising the same and a method of preparing the same, which adjust and maintain the internal pH of the hydrogel even in the gastric juice environment, thereby increasing the survival rate of the probiotics in the gastric juice and improving the delivery rate to the large intestine, by further adding zwitterionic buffer capable of maintaining pH to the hydrogel encapsulated with probiotics.

Probiotics are live bacteria and bacteria that help health by being taken in reasonable amount (FAO/WHO, 2012). In general, probiotics function in a living state in the intestine, and are effective for various diseases such as IBD, diarrhea, obesity and cancer as well as health promotion by control of intestinal immune function. To this end, the survival rate of probiotics must be ensured at all stages of production, storage and ingestion. In particular, probiotics after ingestion should not die by the gastric acid in a stomach and a sufficient amount of live bacteria must reach in an intestine. To this end, methods of taking a greater number of probiotics or encapsulating them in a probiotics delivery system are under discussion and research and development. Currently, the product containing the largest number of probiotics, i.e. 4.3×1011 CFU/sachet contains about 10 times as many live bacteria than the general probiotics, but there is a limit in terms of price. In addition, although various delivery systems have been discussed, there are difficulties such as insufficient protection effect or no release at the target location (a), complex processes (b) or reduced viable count and functional loss in the encapsulation process.
In the case of probiotics delivery systems, the use of high temperatures, shear forces, pressures, osmotic pressure and organic solvents during the entire production process from incubation to ingestion, may result in reduced viable count and function. In addition, the additional processes for providing additional protection effect not only increases the cost burden, but also generates functional loss by prolonging the exposure time of the anaerobic probiotics to the external environment and reacting the added carrier material with the probiotics.
As such, probiotics delivery system should be made from materials that have been proven to be biologically stable in as simple process as possible. Through this, there is a difficulty in research and development and mass production in that the delivery system itself does not react with the probiotics, and the probiotics must be protected in various stress environments and also they must be completely released from the small and large intestine. In addition, because probiotics have a physiological activity and adaptation mechanism to external stress environments, factors that can impair these functions in the production process should be minimized.

Probiotics-delivering hydrogel formulation for protecting probiotics in acidic environment and composition for delivering probiotics comprising same

PUSAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY COOPERATION FOUNDATION


The present invention provides an agent which exhibits excellent antibacterial activity, low toxicity, improved bioavailability, and low binding rate to serum proteins. The present invention is directed to a pyridonecarboxylic acid derivative represented by formula (1):

Among compounds having a pyridonecarboxylic acid as base skeleton, there have been known many compounds, which are useful synthetic antibacterial agents, by virtue of their excellent antibacterial activity and broad antibacterial spectrum. Among such compounds, compounds such as norfloxacin (see Patent Document 1), enoxacin (see Patent Document 2), ofloxacin (see Patent Document 3), ciprofloxacin (see Patent Document 4), and tosufloxacin (Patent Document 5) are extensively used in clinical application as therapeutic agents for infectious diseases. However, these compounds are still unsatisfactory in terms of, for example, antibacterial activity, intestinal absorption, metabolic stability, and side effects; particularly phototoxicity and cytotoxicity.
The present inventors previously conducted extensive studies in order to solve the aforementioned problems, and found that, pyridonecarboxylic acid derivatives having a substituted pyridyl group at the 1-position of the pyridonecarboxylic acid moiety, especially those having an aminoazetidinyl group at the 7-position of the pyridonecarboxylic acid moiety, have remarkably excellent characteristics; i.e. exhibit remarkably potent antibacterial activity, and, unlike most of pyridonecarboxylic acid class of synthetic antibacterial agents, do not produce phototoxicity (Patent Documents 6 and 7).
Another requirement for drugs to perform their abilities efficiently on the treatment of infectious diseases is high bioavailability of the drugs, more preferably, a higher blood level of the free form of drugs. This latter property is closely related to binding of the drug to serum proteins. That is, the drug with lower binding rate to serum proteins results in higher proportion of free form of the drug in the blood. Therefore, a drug exhibiting higher bioavailability and lower binding rate to serum proteins is a more preferred therapeutic agent for infectious diseases.
The pyridonecarboxylic acid derivative having a substituted pyridyl group at the 1-position and an aminoazetidinyl group at the 7-position is improved its bioavailability by introducing an alkyl group to the amino group on the azetidine ring and increasing the number of carbon atoms of the alkyl group so as to enhance lipophilicity of the derivative. However such modification is also prone to enhance the binding rate of the derivative to serum proteins.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 53-141286
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 55-031042
Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai No. 57-046986
Patent Document 4: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 58-076667
Patent Document 5: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 60-228479
Patent Document 6: WO 97/11068 Pamphlet
Patent Document 7: WO 01/02390 Pamphlet

Pyridonecarboxylic acid derivatives or salts thereof

Abstract: or a salt thereof, wherein R1 represents a methyl group, a fluorine atom, or a chlorine atom; R2 represents a hydrogen atom or a lower alkyl group; R3 represents an isopropyl group or a tert-butyl group; R4 represents a methyl group or a halogen atom; and R5 represents a fluorine atom or a chlorine atom. The present invention is also directed to an antibacterial agent and a medicament containing the derivative or the salt thereof as an active ingredient.


An improved integrated circuit cell architecture is provided for configurability between a memory cell or logic elements. The cell architecture is configured on variable layers above a first layer of metal, with the first layer of metal and layers therebelow reserved as fixed layers. By coupling a maximum of two layout cells together, a single-port or dual-port memory cell is realized. Likewise, by interconnecting transistors within a single cell or transistors among two or more cells, a logic device is realized. Within each cell, the bit lines are arranged on a layer separate from the wordlines, and extend orthogonal to each other.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to integrated circuits and, more particularly, to cell based integrated circuit layout architecture that is configurable as a logic device or a single/dual port memory cell using no more than two configurable cells.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following descriptions and examples are not admitted to be prior art by virtue of their inclusion within this section.
An integrated circuit generally comprises the interconnection of various circuit elements. Those circuit elements include transistors, resistors, capacitors, logic gates, flip-flops, registers, etc. In order to achieve functionality, the various circuit elements must be interconnected with attention given to where those elements are relative to each other. For example, performance of the integrated circuit is affected by where the elements are connected, and the interconnect length between elements. Optimal performance of circuit elements upon the integrated circuit substrate is generally dictated by the "layout" of the integrated circuit.
Layout considerations oftentimes depend on a tradeoff between performance and cost. In an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), placement of elements and the interconnection therebetween is unique to that particular integrated circuit design. That is, layout is performed on a chip-by-chip basis and cannot be easily modified whenever a design change is needed for that particular product. An ASIC thereby enjoys the benefits of high performance, but also has a fairly high non-recurring expense each time a design change is needed.
At the opposite end of the spectrum from ASIC design is the more versatile gate array concept. A gate array can be designed into a base pattern and thereafter fabricated into an integrated circuit for customer-specific functional requirements. A typical gate array consists of pre-designed circuit units or cells that are wired together to rapidly implement the final integrated circuit functionality. The pre-designed circuit elements are called basic cells that, when interconnected, becomes the macro cell building blocks for the final integrated circuit product. The functionality of the final integrated circuit is thereby dictated by the interconnection of the macro cells, and that interconnection can vary depending on any changes in functionality.
Gate array technology allows the pre-designed circuit unit to be fixed and need not change from one final circuit design to the next. Placement of interconnection that can vary depending on the final result thereby adds configurability (or reconfigurability) to the gate array design. Thus, the concept of "fixed" and "variable" cell design applies to gate array technology to afford a lower non-recurring expense if any design change is needed. The design change can be implemented on the variable fabrication layers, yet the fixed layers will remain the same.
Gate array technology generally allows changes to be made in the field to implement what is known as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). FPGAs unfortunately have lower performance and higher power consumption relative to ASIC designs, yet enjoy a lower non-recurring expense. A special form of ASIC, known as structured ASIC, serve somewhat as a compromise between FPGAs and standard ASICs.
Similar to gate arrays, structured ASICs implement basic cells that are interconnected to form circuit elements. However, structured ASICs are not programmed in the field as in FPGAs, nor do structured ASICs consist of pre-designed circuit elements (e.g., logic gates, flip-flops, registers, etc.) that are wired together to form the integrated circuit. Instead, structured ASIC technology utilizes cells that may contain one or more transistors that are customized by connecting a transistor within one cell to possibly several transistors in another cell, yet all cells of the fixed layers look alike. The variable layers and, specifically, the variable interconnect layers, provide reconfigurability to the structured ASIC.
While structured ASICs have better performance and lower power consumption than gate arrays, and have a lower non-recurring expense relative to standard ASICs, structured ASICs nonetheless have limitations as to what type of integrated circuit they can form. With the advent of greater integration and the use of system-on-chip (SoC) technology, modern design places as many subsystems on the integrated circuit as possible. One such popular subsystem includes semiconductor memory. Conventional structured ASICs are generally limited to fixed layers of transistors that are thereafter interconnected through variable layers to form logic circuits, such as NAND gates, NOR gates, etc. Unfortunately, modern SoCs mandate that the final integrated circuit contain more than just logic gates.
It would be desirable to implement a structured ASIC that can be reconfigured as logic gates, registers, flip-flops, and all other logic circuitry, as well as or in addition to memory. It would also be desirable to introduce a structured ASIC that can achieve a single port or dual port memory cell using a minimum number of ASIC cells. If the final memory density is to be feasible, the desired circuit layout architecture must contain the necessary building blocks for logic as well as memory within a minimum number of layout cells that repeat as a fabric or array across the integrated circuit.

Integrated circuit cell architecture configurable for memory or logic elements


Packaged microelectronic devices and methods of manufacturing packaged microelectronic devices are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a method of manufacturing a microelectronic device includes forming a stand-off layer over a plurality of microelectronic dies on a semiconductor workpiece, and removing selected portions of the stand-off layer to form a plurality of stand-offs with the individual stand-offs positioned on a backside of a corresponding die. The method further includes cutting the semiconductor workpiece to singulate the dies, and attaching the stand-off on a first singulated die to a second die.

Processors, memory devices, imagers and other types of microelectronic devices are often manufactured on semiconductor workpieces or other types of workpieces. In a typical application, several individual dies (e.g., devices) are fabricated on a single workpiece using sophisticated and expensive equipment and processes. Individual dies generally include an integrated circuit and a plurality of bond-pads coupled to the integrated circuit. The bond-pads provide external electrical contacts on the die through which supply voltage, signals, etc., are transmitted to and from the integrated circuit. The bond-pads are usually very small, and they are arranged in an array having a fine pitch between bond-pads. The dies can also be quite delicate. As a result, after fabrication, the dies are packaged to protect the dies and to connect the bond-pads to another array of larger terminals that is easier to connect to a printed circuit board.
Conventional processes for packaging dies include electrically coupling the bond-pads on the dies to an array of pins, ball-pads, or other types of electrical terminals, and then encapsulating the dies to protect them from environmental factors (e.g., moisture, particulates, static electricity, and physical impact). In one application, the bond-pads are electrically connected to contacts on an interposer substrate that has an array of ball-pads. For example, FIG. 1A schematically illustrates a conventional packaged microelectronic device 6 including a microelectronic die 10, an interposer substrate 60 attached to the die 10, a plurality of wire-bonds 90 electrically coupling the die 10 to the interposer substrate 60, and a casing 70 protecting the die 10 from environmental factors.
Electronic products require packaged microelectronic devices to have an extremely high density of components in a very limited space. For example, the space available for memory devices, imagers, processors, displays, and other microelectronic components is quite limited in cell phones, PDAs, portable computers, and many other products. As such, there is a strong drive to reduce the surface area or "footprint" of the microelectronic device 6 on a printed circuit board. Reducing the size of the microelectronic device 6 is difficult because high performance microelectronic dies 10 generally have more bond-pads, which result in larger ball-grid arrays and thus larger footprints. One technique used to increase the density of microelectronic dies 10 within a given footprint is to stack one microelectronic die on top of another.
FIG. 1B schematically illustrates another conventional packaged microelectronic device 6a having two stacked microelectronic dies 10a-b. The microelectronic device 6a includes a substrate 60a, a first microelectronic die 10a attached to the substrate 60a, a spacer 30 attached to the first die 10a with a first adhesive 22a, and a second microelectronic die 10b attached to the spacer 30 with a second adhesive 22b. The spacer 30 is a precut section of a semiconductor wafer. One drawback of the packaged microelectronic device 6a illustrated in FIG. 1B is that it is expensive to cut semiconductor wafers to form the spacer 30. Moreover, attaching the spacer 30 to the first and second microelectronic dies 10a-b requires additional equipment and steps in the packaging process.
To address these concerns, some conventional packaged microelectronic devices include an epoxy spacer, rather than a section of a semiconductor wafer, to space apart the first and second microelectronic dies 10a and 10b. The epoxy spacer is formed by dispensing a discrete volume of epoxy onto the first die 10a and then pressing the second die 10b downward into the epoxy. One drawback of this method is that it is difficult to position the second die 10b parallel to the first die 10a. As a result, microelectronic devices formed with this method often have "die tilt" in which the distance between the first and second dies varies across the device. If the second die 10b is not parallel to the first die 10a, but rather includes a "high side," the wire-bonds on the high side may be exposed after encapsulation. Moreover, the "low side" of the second die may contact the wire-bonds electrically connecting the first die to the substrate. This can cause an electrical short that renders the device defective. Accordingly, there is a need to improve the process of packaging multiple dies in a single microelectronic device.

Packaged microelectronic devices and methods for manufacturing packaged microelectronic devices


The invention relates to a template for checking the geometry of shaped and/or bent profiles (T) having rectilinear sections and bent sections. This template comprises a support plate (2), in which holes (8-10) are provided, and a superstructure comprised of, for each rectilinear section of the profile, a bracket (12) and at least one reinforcement (24) consisting of planar plates provided with lugs (16, 17, 29, 30) adapted for being inserted into the holes (8-10) of the support plate (2) and of assembling means (20, 30) that permit said bracket and reinforcement to be fit together in a position in which they extend perpendicularly. In addition, each bracket (12) is provided with at least one guiding element (45, 46) of the rectilinear section of the profile (T).

In a number of industries, in particular automotive and aeronautical, a large number of profiles such as tubes are shaped then curved or bent.
These profiles are cut lengthwise, then possibly shaped at the ends and fitted with various components such as nuts, mountings, skirts, etc., and are curved or bent in space depending on precise dimensional features.
At the end of the profile production process, a geometric control of the latter is carried out.
A first method to determine if a shaped or bent profile complies with the required geometric tolerances, consists of using a multi-jointed measuring arm, specialized in measuring bent profiles. This method, which provides numerical measurement results, presents the disadvantage of being a very lengthy method of control and furthermore requires the acquisition of a costly measuring device and the training of skilled operators.
A second method to determine if a shaped and/or bent profile complies with the required geometric tolerances, consists of using a measuring gauge.
This gauge is made of a mechanical assembly presenting an enlarged and partial imprint of the profile fitted with its components and accessories. This imprint is made by means of a series of grooves made in the mechanical assembly, of dimensions corresponding to the profile section added to the positioning tolerance of the profile. The gauge is also designed to allow the profile to be inserted into the grooves of the gauge as well as to be extracted after being controlled.
Such a gauge allows for a quick comparison of the profile to be checked with the shape and circuit defined by the geometry of the gauge. If the profile to be checked can be inserted into the grooves of the gauge naturally, without deforming the said profile, then the latter is considered as complying with the geometric requirements.
Usually, current gauges are made up of a series of aluminum or wooden blocks fixed securely onto a hard, thick plate which is generally made of the same material as the blocks. Furthermore, in these blocks are grooves, often made by machining, or marks with pins added on all or a part of the length of the circuit corresponding to the image of the circuit of the profile to check. The grooves generally have the same height and width measurements as the profile added to the value of the positioning tolerance of the said profile at the level of this groove.
Another way of making these gauges is by welding metal structures together onto a base plate. Parts called guides are machined or fixed, possibly by welding, onto these structures to form grooved parts into which are inserted the profile to check.
The methods of control which consist in using such measuring gauges are all perfectly well-known and mastered by the men skilled in the art, and have the advantage of allowing profiles such as tubes to be checked very quickly.
However, gauges used for the implementation of these controlling methods happen to be very bulky and need large storage areas since, furthermore, they cannot be dismantled and cannot be stacked on top of each other.
Moreover the production processes for these gauges are costly because they are difficult to industrialize and generally need mass machining.
In order to compensate for the latter disadvantage, the U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,333 describes a production process specific to controlling gauge devices consisting of using a single piece of sheet metal held in position by tenons and slots on a base plate, and defines a production process for the gauges by means of CAD and a plate cutting machine.
Although such a production process effectively results in a reduction in production costs as compared to classic production processes, it nonetheless presents, in return, several major disadvantages.
Indeed, firstly in accordance with this process, the achievement of good control gauge assembly accuracy supposes perfect and accurate bending of the sheet. But such bending happens to be very difficult or even impossible to do automatically, and is, in practice, the cause of bending errors, which, if they do not prevent the sheet being mounted onto the plate, result in a deformation of the sheet. In particular, in its upper part which is used to check the profile, the consequence is a perceptible modification of the definition of the circuit of the profile and an impossibility to guarantee gauge assembly accuracy.
Moreover the differential lengthening of the material in the bends generates variations in the unbent part length that could prevent the sheet from being correctly assembled on the base plate, in particular when the profiles to be controlled have numerous bends separated by very short straight parts, such as the rear wheel brake tubing on automobiles. These differential lengthenings of the sheet can lead to it being impossible to assemble the sheet on the base plate and consequently impossible to make the control gauge.
Furthermore, certain profile geometries can lead to making wholly linear shaped sheets that need to be fixed very solidly and permanently on the base plate, in order to ensure that the whole length of the sheets will remain stable and not deform.
Finally, in the case of certain more complex shaped profiles, such as tubing currently found in the automotive industry, this manufacturing process of successively bending a sheet could prove to be impossible to implement due to the general bulkiness by the bending tools.
To sum up, the process of making a gauge as described above can not guarantee respect for tolerances in every profile configuration, is not easy to implement, and offers no solutions for easy assembling and dismantling of the gauge whilst at the same time retaining the tolerance characteristics of it. Moreover, even in the case of dismantling the bent sheet in relation to the base plate, the storage of the gauge proves to be quite difficult, its irregular geometry means that its storage is not free from risk of deformation of the bends.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,877 describes, with reference to FIGS. 23 to 27, another manufacturing process specific to control gauges which consists of making all the components from parts cut out by a laser machine, and of assembling these components by means of a large number of tenons and slots secured by gluing.
Firstly, and in order to provide good rigidity to the gauges, this method of production has the drawback of needing a large number of parts machined as well as a relatively long assembly time for them.
Furthermore the design of the gauge and the way the tenons and slots are fixed on by glue makes the gauge impossible to dismantle. If dismantling were envisaged, it would entail, in fact, a very long and meticulous assembly operation imposing, to prevent any assembly imperfections, a control operation using a three dimensional measuring machine. In addition, a tenon incorrectly driven into one of the slots and its subsequent gluing is always possible, resulting in making a gauge inappropriate to the purpose for which it is destined. In fact, based on the design described, no layout can guarantee that the different parts making up the gauge are stuck together and are consequently positioned correctly.
In practical terms, and in view of the drawbacks aforementioned, it happens that the two above-mentioned methods described in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,333 and 5,412,877, with reference to the FIGS. 23 to 30, are almost never implemented in industry, in particular the automotive and aeronautical sectors. In fact it happens that one of the current methods commonly used in the automotive and aeronautical sectors, derives from the method illustrated in the FIGS. 1 to 22 of the U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,877. Nevertheless, marking the trajectories by a laser machine is only used on wooden gauges since as indicated in this patent, this product carbonizes and the marking leaves a deep black visible mark.
The origin of the present invention noticed that current gauges are both heavy and difficult to handle, costly and difficult to make, and difficult to dismantle and re-assemble without damaging the dimensional characteristics of the gauge. Characteristics define the trajectory of the tube to control and for which any deterioration is consequently unacceptable for a control gauge. The objective of the invention is thus to remedy all of these drawbacks.

Template for checking the geometry of shaped and/or bent profiles


A linear/non-linear adaptive filter for transforming an input signal to an output signal. The present invention also includes a novel GSPT LMS algorithm for significantly reducing complexity. The adaptive filter includes a coefficient updater that can execute a Carry-in operation or a Borrow-in operation to adaptively adjust a filtering coefficient according to whether an updating term signal is a Carry-in signal or a Borrow-in signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an adaptive filter and related methods for determining a filtering coefficient, and more particularly, to an adaptive filter operating based on an GSPT LMS Algorithm for adaptively determining the filtering coefficient so as to reduce complexity of the circuit arrangement of the adaptive filter.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the advent of modern communication standards and the progress of VLSI technology, wireless communication services such as mobile person-to-person communication and indoor wireless network are becoming more and more popular and growing rapidly. Furthermore, wireless communication nowadays is not only confined to lower data rate transmission as the voice service but has also advanced to higher data rate transmission such as the multimedia service. However, with the increase of transmission rate and the enhancement of modulation technique, Inter-symbol interference (ISI) caused by the multi-path fading channel becomes more and more serious. Multi-path fading is a phenomenon in which radio waves are deflected and reflected due to the temperature gradients in the air, the surface of the earth, and the obstacles in the transmission path. The fading phenomenon results in several replicas of the transmitted signal appearing at the receiver end, and those replicas usually arrive at different times because the distance of each path is different. If those replicas span a period that is comparable to or even longer than a symbol period, the receiver might fail to correctly identify the transmitted signals. Therefore, it is necessary to install an adaptive filter in the wireless communication system to erase the interference effect so as to ensure the transmission quality.
Nowadays, the adaptive filter is widely used in various ways. Regarding wireless communication applications, for instance, the adaptive filter is used as the adaptive equalizer in the receiver of the wireless communication system. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,068, Sato et al. teach a mobile communication system with installed adaptive equalizers capable of transmitting and receiving a radio signal obtained by TDMA and CDMA without interference. Additionally, Wong et al. disclose an adaptive antenna array in the base station of the wireless network according to the concept of the adaptive filter in U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,460, "Simultaneous forward link beam forming and learning method for mobile high rate data traffic". Besides being applied to the wireless communication system, the adaptive filter can be used in an active noise control for speakers.
As previously mentioned, the adaptive filter is widely used in the present wireless communication systems and noise-control modules. Considering the operating principles of the adaptive filter, one of the most acknowledged and popular adaptive algorithms is Least Mean Square(LMS) algorithm. Regarding the operating efficiency and performance, LMS algorithm has lower convergence speed comparing to other adaptive algorithms, that is, the adaptive filter based on LMS algorithm may erase ISI more slowly. On the other hand, the simple structure of LMS algorithm is suitable for hardware accomplishment and circuit arrangement. However, considering the trend of state-of-the-art VLSI circuit designing, due to that the users desire compact and low-power electronic devices, even LMS algorithm are too complicated for the circuit designers to implement because LMS algorithm requires multiplication. Therefore, the simplification of the operations of the adaptive filter becomes one of the most important issues in the industrial and academic circles.
In the general finite impulse response filter (FIR filter), multipliers are inevitable due to that general algorithms require multiplications. For significantly reducing the filter complexity, a well-known approach is to express the filter coefficient as sum of signed power-of-two (SPT). According to SPT method, the multiplication with SPT number can be achieved by only several shifters and adders, and the filter with SPT number is so-called 2PFIR filter(Powers-of-Two FIR filter or multiplierless FIR Filter). The above-mentioned concepts and methods related to complexity reduction of the filter algorithms are described in many journal papers or letters. For instance, Y. C. Lim et al. express the filter coefficient as sum of signed power-of-two in IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems II: Analog and Digital Signal Processing, Vol. 46, Issue 5, pp. 577-584, 1999. The resulting filter requires no general-purpose multiplier for multiplications and thus saves the chip area. R. M. Hewlitt et al. express the filtering coefficient with a Canonical Signed digit (CSD) system and apply the CSD system in the digital FIR filter system in IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems, Vol. 8, pp. 414-426, 2000. In addition, Y. M. Hasan et al. further details other applications of CSD system in IEEE Signal Processing Letters, pp. 167-16, 2001.
As for applying both of SPT method and LMS algorithm to the adaptive filter, we can find related information in many documents and patents. C. L. Chen et al. disclose the way to adaptively adjust the filtering coefficient of the adaptive filter by SPT method and LMS algorithm in Proceedings of IEEE ISCAS-96, pp. 364-367, 1996. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,337,878, "Adaptive equalizer with decision directed constant modulus algorithm", Endres et al. utilize a Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA) to adaptively adjust the filtering coefficient of the adaptive equalizer combined with SPT method. CMA representation, which can be treated as an advanced LMS algorithm, pre-estimates the error value by a pre-determined table that takes various conditions into consideration for accurately estimating the error value and for raising the convergence speed. Moreover, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,418,164, "Adaptive equalizer with enhanced error quantization", Endres et al. improve the above-mentioned CMA representation and enhance the pre-determined table for adaptively adjusting the filtering coefficient of the adaptive equalizer in the receiver end.
Generally speaking, the quality of the adaptive filter can rely on both the convergence speed and the residual error. Although the above-mentioned prior arts have contributed to the simplification of the operations of the adaptive filter, we find that the prior art still leaves lots of space for improvement regarding sufficiently reducing the system complexity. Moreover, most of the prior art cannot take care of both the convergence speed and the residual error while reducing the system complexity. Since the requirement of performance in a communication system may alter according to different situations, each of the above-mentioned prior art that only aims at certain improvement cannot cover the actual demands in a wireless communication system.

Adaptive filter with GSPT LMS algorithm for reducing complexity


A cargo rack utilizing a structural beam in the form of three embodiments, two of the embodiments comprising a rib, one of which includes a recessed flange and a horizontal return flange, the other includes a standard angled flange and an angled return flange, the third embodiment includes a recessed flange and a horizontal return flange, structural beams used in a framework comprising a plurality of vertical posts containing key shaped apertures and a plurality of horizontal shelving members, structural beams contain nubs enabling structural beams to connect to vertical posts via key shaped apertures thereby enabling horizontal shelving members to be associated with structural beams and vertical posts, various attachments may be added to cargo rack when recessed structural beams are used via a slight clearance that is formed between the recessed edge and a slight taper on horizontal shelving member sides.

This invention relates in general to a shelving unit and more particularly to the structural beams in the shelving unit. Several products are similar to this product in that they rely on beams affixed to posts to form a rigid shell that in turn supports shelf members. Examples of such prior art are illustrated in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,553,549 and 5,749,481.
Similar frameworks are typically provided with four vertical corner posts and a plurality of horizontal members. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,549 issued to Nilsson discloses a framework for a shelving unit comprising horizontal members, a plurality of vertical posts, and a locking attachment for connecting the horizontal members to the vertical posts. One disadvantage of this prior art design is that the horizontal support members do not provide enough load bearing capabilities. A further result of this is a poor utilization of material. The material gauge or thickness is higher than necessary and the strength to material weight ratio could be improved which may result in a lower cost per unit of capacity.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,481 issued to Miller utilizes a storage rack and a structural beam to maximize the strength of the beam construction. However, the storage rack and structural beam of this patent are very large. Its size assumes a consumer will have an excess of space to house the rack. The storage rack utilizes a structural member to ensure that decking members and pallets will be adequately supported. While the rack has greater strength capabilities, it is very large in size and in weight. The structural beams are connected to the support columns or posts by removeable attachment pins. Specifically, each beam is provided with an upright connector plate with holes for receiving a pin which is then inserted through a selected hole in the vertical column or post. Another disadvantage of this prior art design is that there are a multiplicity of components required for assembly including the aforementioned pins as well as pliers or screwdrivers. Furthermore, it is possible for the nuts and bolts to become loosened over time, thereby resulting in potential instability of the shelving assembly.
Previous structural beams have been used in similar shelving units. An example is a beam model that had a profile of an "L" shape. The beam simply had a flange that came off perpendicular to the top of the beam. Although there are other differences between this prior art and the present invention such as the shape of apertures on the vertical posts, the crux of this prior art is the cross section of the beam profile. The shelving unit containing this beam is an adequate shelving unit. However, this beam does not have a large load bearing capacity. The overall strength and capacity may be substantially improved. Namely, it is possible to provide greater rigidity against horizontal deflection of the beam and maintain the depth of the unit by providing additional rigidity against deflection.


The color of a measurement object, such as a vital tooth, and the color of a comparison object to be compared with the measurement object are displayed to a user in an easily comparable manner. The invention provides an image combining apparatus including an image extracting unit for extracting an image of a vital tooth (hereinafter referred to as “measurement-object image”) from a color image of the vital tooth and extracting an image of a shade guide (hereinafter referred to as “comparison-object image”) from a color image of the shade guide, a combining-reference-line setting unit for setting combining reference lines on the measurement-object image and the comparison-object image, a combining unit for combining the measurement-object image and the comparison-object image to form a combined image, and a correction unit for correcting at least one of the measurement-object image and the comparison-object image so as to align their outlines on the combining reference line in the combined image when the outlines are not aligned.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image combining apparatus for combining a plurality of images. In particular, the present invention relates to an image combining apparatus, an image combining method, and an image combining program that are suitable for use in a colorimetry apparatus for performing colorimetry of teeth, skin, and so forth.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-365215, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, there has been increased interest in beauty and health. In the beauty industry, for example, whitening for reducing melanin pigment in the skin has become a fashionable unit in the pursuit of beauty.
Skin-diagnosis camera systems which are designed to allow observation of magnified images of the skin surface on a monitor are used in conventional skin diagnosis; for example, they are used in dermatology, aesthetic salons, beauty counseling, and so on. In the case of dermatology, for example, by observing images of the grooves and bumps in the skin, features of the skin surface can be diagnosed and counseling can be given.
In the field of dentistry, dental treatments such as ceramic crowns are another aspect of the pursuit of beauty. The procedure for applying ceramic crowns involves first preparing a crown (a prosthetic tooth crown made of ceramic) having a color that is close to the color of the patient's original tooth, and this crown is then overlaid on the patient's tooth.
Conventionally, crowns are prepared by the process described below.
First, in a dental clinic, a dentist or other person acquires an image of the oral cavity of a patient. More specifically, images of the whole oral cavity including a plurality of teeth, the surface of a patient's vital tooth used as a reference for the crown preparation, and the like are acquired.
Subsequently, from a plurality of tooth samples having different colors (hereinafter referred to as "shade guides"), the dentist selects a shade guide that is closest to the color of the patient's vital tooth (this procedure is referred to as a "shade take" below). The shade guides are, for example, tooth-shaped samples that are made of ceramics of a plurality of different colors.
Upon completion of the procedure described above, the dentist sends the acquired images and a specific identification number associated with the shade guide selected in the shade take to a dental laboratory that makes crowns. Then, the crown is produced in the dental laboratory on the basis of this information.
However, the shade take described above has a problem in that it is not entirely quantitative because it depends on the subjective judgment of the dentist. Also, the appearance of the shade guide and the patient's tooth color may differ depending on various factors, such as the color tone of the gums, the environmental conditions, the illumination (for example, the illumination direction and color), the level of fatigue of the dentist, and so on. Therefore, it is very difficult to select the optimal shade guide, which places a significant burden on the dentist.
Consequently, in order to reduce the above burden on the dentist or other person, apparatuses providing support in procedures such as the shade take have been proposed; in such apparatuses, for example, a shade guide that is closest to the color of the patient's vital tooth is automatically selected.
For example, Publication of Japanese Patent No. 3710802 discloses a technique including storing in a computer in advance a data table in which identification information data of a plurality of tooth reference colors corresponds to color information data of the tooth reference colors in the L*a*b* calorimetric system, inputting image data prepared by simultaneously acquiring a vital tooth and reference samples (corresponding to the above "shade guides") having the tooth reference colors, calculating a color correction value for substantially matching the color information data of the tooth reference colors of the reference samples in the L*a*b* calorimetric system analyzed in the image data with the color information data of tooth reference colors in the data table corresponding to the identification information data of the tooth reference colors to correct the color of the vital tooth, and extracting from the data table identification information data of a tooth reference color of color information data that corresponds to or that is similar to color information data of the corrected color of the vital tooth and outputting the extracted data.
However, in the invention disclosed in Publication of Japanese Patent No. 3710802, since the comparison results of the color of the vital tooth and the reference color etc. are expressed by numerical values, it is difficult for a user to intuitively understand the degree of color difference.


Disclosed are compositions which include an isolated soft tissue from Modiolus modiolus (“MM”) and compositions which include an oil isolated from MM or a portion thereof. Also disclosed are methods of treating adenocarcinoma in a subject; methods of decreasing proliferation of adenocarcinoma cells, or of inducing apoptosis of adenocarcinoma cells, or of inducing differentiation of adenocarcinoma cells into non-cancerous cells; methods of inhibiting the activity of 5-lipoxygenase or 12-lipoxygenase or both in cells; and methods of treating a subject suffering from a disease or condition associated with excessive 5-lipoxygenase activity or 12-lipoxygenase activity or both. A process for preparing an MM extract by contacting MM or a portion thereof with a solvent under conditions effective to extract one or more materials from the MM or portion thereof is also described.

A number of diseases and conditions are believed to be associated with excessive 5- and/or 12-lipoxygenase activity. These include inflammation, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and coronary disease, as well as cancers, for example of the prostate, colon, pancreas, and lung.
Inflammation represents a cascade of physiological and immunological reactions that nature has designed as the first cellular response to noxious stimuli in an effort to localize toxic materials or prevent tissue injury. Clinically, inflammation is a primary disease under acute conditions or is a manifestation of underlying pathophysiological abnormalities in chronic disease, characterized by classic signs of redness, pain, swelling, and loss of function. Inflammatory diseases are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in humans.
Arthritis is a disease that results in degradation and degeneration of the articular cartilage. The major symptoms of arthritis are pain, stiffness, crackling, and enlargement, and deformities of the affected joints, and, in some cases, these symptoms can be accompanied by inflammation and swelling of the joints. To ease the pain associated with arthritis, millions of people ingest daily high doses of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs ("NSAIDs"), such as ibuprofen. Unfortunately, NSAIDs irritate the stomach and the intestines in many people causing ulcers and bleeding. It has been reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine that ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding caused by NSAIDs lead to as many as 20,000 deaths each year.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most enigmatic and aggressive malignant diseases facing oncologists (Parker et al., "Cancer Statistics. 1996," CA Cancer J. Clin., 46:5-27 (1996) ("Parker")). It is now the fourth leading cause of cancer death in both men and women in the United States, and the incidence of this disease has significantly increased over the past 20 years (Parker; Trede et al., "Survival After Pancreaticoduodenectomy: 118 Consecutive Resections Without an Operative Mortality," Ann. Surq., 211:447-458 (1990); Cameron et al., "One Hundred and Forty-five Consecutive Pancreaticoduodenectomies Without Mortality," Ann. Surg.,217:430-438 (1993); Horward, "Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma," Curr. Prob. in Cancer, 20:286-293 (1996) ("Horward"); Poston et al., Gut. Biology of Pancreatic Cancer, 32:800-812 (1991) ("Poston"); and Black et al., "Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer: Current Limitations, Future Possibilities," Oncology, 10:301-307 (1996) ("Black")). Pancreatic cancer is responsible for 27,000 deaths per year in the United States. Because of lack of early diagnosis and poor therapeutic responsiveness of pancreatic cancer, less than 2% of patients survive beyond five years, and the median expectation of life after diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is less than 6 months (Horward; Poston; and Black).
Colonic cancer is the second most common form of cancer in the United States (Doll et al., "Mortality in Relation to Smoking: 20 Years' Observations on Male British Doctors," BMJ, 2:1525-153.6 (1976); Hruban et al., "Molecular Diagnosis of Cancer and Micrometastases," Adv. Anat. Pathol., 5:175-178 (1998) ("Hruban"); Figueredo et al., "Adjuvant Therapy for Stage II Colon Cancer After Complete Resection. Provincial Gastrointestinal Disease Site Group," Cancer Prev. Control, 1:379-92 (1997) ("Figueredo"); Ness et al., "Outcome States of Colorectal Cancer: Identification and Description Using Patient Focus Groups," Am. J. Gastroenterol., 93:1491-7 (1998) ("Ness"); Trehu et al., "Cost of Screening for Colorectal Cancer: Results of a Community Mass Screening Program and Review of Literature," South Med. J., 85:248-253 (1992); and Wingo et al., "Cancer Statistics," CA Cancer J. Clin., 45:8-30 (1995) ("Wingo")). Colonic cancer occurs in more than 138,000 patients and is responsible for more than 55,000 deaths in the United States each year (Wingo). Up to 70% of patients with colonic cancer develop hepatic metastasises by the time of death, indicating that non-detectable micro-metastases are present at the time of surgery (Hruban; Figueredo; and Ness). Furthermore, metastatic cancer is often not responsive to standard chemotherapeutic regimens, resulting in treatment failure (Figueredo and Ness). The overall response of advanced or non-resectable colorectal cancer patients to chemotherapeutic agents varies from 26 to 44 percent. For example, less than one third of colorectal cancer patients with liver metastases respond to treatment with agents such as 5-FU and leucovorin (Id.).
Breast cancer has the highest incidence of any cancer in women with the diagnosis being made in more than 275,000 per year in the USA (Richards et al., "Influence of Delay on Survival in Patients with Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review," Lancet, 353:1119-26 (1999); Norton, "Adjuvant Breast Cancer Therapy: Current Status and Future Strategies—Growth Kinetics and the Improved Drug Therapy of Breast Cancer," Semin. Oncol., 26:1-4 (1999); Morrow et al., "Current Controversies in Breast Cancer Management," Curr. Probl. Surg., 36:163-216 (1999); and Ruppert et al., "Gene Therapy Strategies for Carcinoma of the Breast," Breast Cancer Res. Treatment, 44:93-114 (1997)). Even though five year survival has increased to more than 80%, more than 77,000 women still die from this disease each year (Id.).
Accordingly, there continues to be a need for agents and methods for treating pancreatic, colonic, and breast cancer as well as diseases and conditions that are believed to be associated with the inappropriate expression and/or activity of 5- and/or 12-lipoxygenases. The present invention is directed, in part, to meeting these needs.


A process for the production of hydrogen, comprising the steps of: (i) providing a photosynthetic microorganism having electron transfer capability through a photosynthetic light reaction pathway and through a respiratory electron transfer chain involving an oxidative phosphorylation pathway, and which expresses a hydrogenase, wherein regulation of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway is disrupted with the result that electron flow along the respiratory electron transfer chain toward cytochrome oxidase (complex IV) is reduced; ii) culturing the microorganism under microoxic and illuminated conditions; and (iii) collecting evolved hydrogen.

The development of a clean, sustainable and economically viable energy supply for the future is one of the most urgent challenges of our generation. Oil production is expected to peak in around 5 to 30 years time and economically viable oil reserves will be largely depleted by 2050. More recent reports, however, suggest that oil production may already have peaked in 2000. A viable hydrogen economy requires clean, sustainable and economic ways of generating hydrogen. Current hydrogen production depends almost entirely on the use of non-renewable resources (i.e. steam reformation of natural gas, coal gasification and nuclear power driven electrolysis of water). Although these approaches are initially likely to drive a transition towards a hydrogen economy, the hydrogen produced is more expensive and contains less energy than the non-renewable energy source from which it is derived. In addition, the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power is unsustainable. Therefore, there is a clear need to establish economically viable means of hydrogen production.
A particularly desirable option is the production of hydrogen using photosynthetic organisms, since the ultimate energy source is solar energy. Algal pond technology is likely to be cheap compared to alternatives such as photovoltaic cells. Furthermore and in contrast to all other sustainable energy systems (except biomass), which incur an initial CO2 emissions penalty during manufacture, algae have the advantage that they are able to sequester CO2 while self-assembling their intricate solar collectors. This gives them an additional intrinsic value in terms of carbon trading upon setup.
Solar energy is captured and stored in the form of starch and other molecules including proteins, which are subsequently used as a fuel to drive ATP production via the processes of oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria (FIG. 1). Some green algae have evolved the ability to channel the H+ and e− stored in starch into H2 production under anaerobic conditions. Thus there is the promise that hydrogen may be generated using algal bioreactors. In the first step of photosynthesis, Photosystem II (PSII) drives the most highly oxidizing reaction known to occur in biology, splitting H2O into oxygen (O2), protons (H+) and electrons (e−) (FIG. 1). O2 is released into the atmosphere and is responsible for maintaining aerobic life on Earth. The derived e− are passed along the photosynthetic e− transport chain (FIG. 2) from PSII via Plastoquinone (PQ) to Cytochrome b6f (cyt b6f) and Photosystem I (PSI), and are ultimately used in the production of NADPH. In a parallel process (photophosphorylation), H+ are released into the thylakoid lumen (FIG. 1) where they generate a H+ gradient that is used to drive ATP production via ATP synthase. NADPH and ATP are subsequently used to produce starch and other biomolecules.
ATP and NADPH/NADH are fundamental requirements of all living cells. The inhibition of PSII (eg. by incubation in the dark) blocks the supply of H+ and e− that are used to generate ATP and NADPH via photophosphorylation in the chloroplast. For a time, the shortage of ATP and NADPH caused by the inhibition of PSII can be compensated for via aerobic respiration mediated by the mitochondrial e− transport chain (FIG. 1), which metabolises starch, proteins and lipids. As its name suggests, oxidative phosphorylation requires O2. The O2 is combined with H+ and e− by mitochondrial Complex IV to generate H2O, which essentially acts as an H+ and e− sink (FIG. 1). Under anaerobic conditions Complex IV is inhibited, blocking e− transport through the remainder of the e− transport chain consisting of Complexes I, II, III and Cytochrome oxidase (also known as Complex IV). Under strictly anaerobic conditions most photosynthetic organisms die. However, a select number of photosynthetic organisms such as the green alga C. reinhardtii have a third mechanism, which allows them to switch into a mode of ATP and NADPH production (FIG. 2). Under illuminated anaerobic conditions, they generate ATP in the chloroplast while simultaneously producing H2 as a volatile H+/e− sink, instead of H2O. This process involves the Hydrogenase HydA located in the chloroplast stroma (Florin et al., 2001 and Happe and Kaminski, 2002.). HydA transcription and activity is strongly inhibited by O2 (Ghirardi et al., 1997). It is likely that oxygen sensitivity acts as a molecular control switch which tells HydA when anaerobic conditions occur.
In order to optimise ATP and NADPH production under transient light conditions, plants and algae developed a redox-controlled regulation mechanism called the LHC state transitions. This process normally balances PSI and PSII turnover rates by regulating the size of their light harvesting antennae (LHCI & LHCII, respectively), specifically by shuttling Lhcb proteins between the two photosystems (State 1: large PSII antenna; State 2: large PSI antenna). In the green alga C. reinhardtii, this process results in a switch from linear to cyclic photosynthetic electron transport, which could compete with the Fe-hydrogenase HydA for e− at the reducing side of PSI. Cells blocked in state 1 under anaerobic conditions do not perform cyclic electron transfer in which electrons are transferred back to Cytb6f. Under these conditions the Fe-hydrogenase HydA no longer has to compete with Cytb6f mediated cyclic electron transport for the electrons derived from PSI.
The earliest reports of algal H2 production date back to the 1930s (Stephenson and Stickland, 1931). It was discovered that certain green algae and cyanobacteria could produce H2 gas upon illumination, by a reaction that was extremely sensitive to inhibition by O2. Despite the obvious attraction of using photosynthetic organisms for sustainable H2 production from H2O, it was not until 2000 that Melis and co-workers first reported a method to overcome this inhibition (Melis, 2000 and U.S. Patent Application No. 2001/005343). Melis describes a process in which the inhibition was lifted by temporally separating the O2 generating H2O splitting reaction, catalysed by PSII, from the O2 sensitive H2 production catalysed by the chloroplast Hydrogenase (HydA). This separation was achieved by culturing C. reinhardtii first in the presence of sulfur to build stores of an endogenous substrate and then in the absence of sulfur. Sulfur is required for the de novo synthesis of the D1 protein of the PSII reaction centre, and of course of many other organic components of the cell. The D1 protein has an approximate half-life of 30 min, being damaged under non-optimal conditions through the highly oxidizing reaction that it drives. In the presence of sulfur, high levels of active PSII are maintained and H2O is split into H+, e− and O2. As sulfur levels decrease in a sulfur depleted medium the H+ and e− are subsequently recombined by HydA to generate H2, which lifts the inhibition of the Hydrogenase induced by O2. This, for the first time, facilitated long-term H2 production using wild type (WT) C. reinhartii.
The Melis process is, however, subject to considerable practical constraints. The actual rate of hydrogen gas accumulation is at best 15 to 20% of the photosynthetic capacity of the cells (Melis and Happe 2001) and suffers the inherent limitation that hydrogen production by S deprivation of the algae cannot be continued indefinitely. The yield begins to level off and decline after about 40-70 hours of S deprivation, and after about 100 hours of S deprivation the algae need to revert to a phase of normal photosynthesis to replenish endogenous substrates.
International Publication No. WO 03/067213 describes a process for hydrogen production using Chlamydomonas reinhardtii wherein the algae has been genetically modified to down regulate expression of a sulfate permease, CrcpSulP, through insertion of an antisense sequence. This is said to render obsolete prior art sulfur deprivation techniques, as it obviates the need to physically remove sulfur nutrients from growth media in order to induce hydrogen production. The reduced sulfur uptake by the cell using this technique not only results in a substantial lowering of the levels of the major chloroplast proteins such as Rubisco, D1 and the LHCII, but also deprives the cell of sulfur for use in the biosynthesis of other proteins.
Consequently there remains a need to identify a sustainable and efficient process for photosynthetic hydrogen production that avoids sulfur deprivation.


A system and method of creating a highly efficient digital amplifier which can take either analog or digital inputs, and produce a high power accurate representation of the input to drive speakers or other low impedance load is described. The system employs a transition detector and delay unit which allows the comparator of the signal modulator to ignore its inputs for a pre-determined number of subsequent clock cycles once an output transition has been detected. Through the use of faster clocks and variable clock cycle skips upon the comparator""s output transition, finer resolution of the feedback""s clock period for noise-shaping purposes is achieved. Finer resolution of the clock period allows the present invention to employ a more aggressive noise-shaping than previously possible.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of switching amplifiers. More specifically, the present invention relates to a novel method of sampling in the signal modulation stage of a digital amplifier to achieve a highly accurate representation of the input signal at substantial gain.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been various developments pertaining to oversampled, noise-shaping signal processing. These developments have been applicable to both continuous-time (analog) and discrete-time (digital or sampled analog) signals. The constant struggle in this field is to increase the efficiency of the amplifiers. Given the myriad of applications of sound applications in the electronics of today, it is apparent that an efficient audio amplification is highly desirable.
In response to this need, attempts have been made to design switching audio amplifiers using oversampled, noise-shaping modulators, especially delta-sigma modulators. A prior art first order delta-sigma modulator is shown in FIG. 1. A noise shaping network 102 is connected in series with a comparator 104, which is a 1-bit quantizer with sampling rate fs. The output 105 of the comparator is fed back to the noise shaping network via summation element 106. The feedback in turn forces the average value of the quantized output signal to track the average value of the input to the modulator 100. Any difference between the quantized output and modulator input is accumulated in the noise shaping network 102 and eventually corrected. For first-order delta-sigma modulators, noise in the signal band due to quantization error is reduced by approximately 9 dB for each doubling of the oversampling ratio (OSR). The OSR is given by fs/2fo, where 2fo is the Nyquist rate, i.e., twice the bandwidth fo of the baseband signal, and fs is the previously mentioned 1-bit quantizer""s sampling rate. For second-order delta-sigma modulators, this noise is reduced by approximately 15 dB (9 dB+6 dB) for the same increase in OSR. However, noise improvements achieved by increases in the OSR, i.e., increases in fs, are ultimately limited as the rise and fall times of the output signal become significant with respect to the sample period.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to employ aggressive noise shaping while at the same time maintaining a fixed signal feedback rate for improved noise shaping. This would allow efficient application of audio amplification in many of today""s electronics such as multimedia computers.
A system and method of creating a highly efficient digital amplifier which can take either analog or digital inputs, and produce a high power accurate representation of the input to drive speakers or other low impedance load is described. The system employs a transition detector and delay unit which allows the comparator of the signal modulator to ignore its inputs for a pre-determined number of subsequent clock cycles once an output transition has been detected. Through the use of faster clocks and variable clock cycle skips upon the comparator""s output transition, finer resolution of the feedback""s clock period for noise-shaping purposes is achieved. Finer resolution of the clock period allows the present invention to employ a more aggressive noise-shaping than previously possible.
In another aspect of the invention, additional delta-sigma modulator noise suppression is obtained by using the common bridge implementation of the power output stage with the improvement of configuring the bridge to create a 3-state condition instead of the conventional 2 states. By controlling the two halves of the bridge independently of one another, an output with 3 states makes for improved noise shaping performance.

Method and apparatus for efficient mixed signal processing in a digital amplifier


A rotor blade is provided. The rotor blade includes a main body having a shank, an airfoil extends radially outwardly from the shank, and a platform. The main body includes a pressure side slash face and a suction side slash face. A slot is defined within each of the pressure side slash face and the suction side slash face. The slot of the pressure side slash face and the slot of the suction side slash face each include an upstream end portion that defines an end and a main body portion extending from the upstream end portion. The upstream end portion tapers from the end to the main body portion. The main body portion further includes a retention wall that covers a portion of the end and that defines an opening. The retention wall further includes an inner retention surface. The retention wall defines an offset from the opening.

Turbomachines are utilized in a variety of industries and applications for energy transfer purposes. For example, a gas turbine engine generally includes a compressor section, a combustion section, a turbine section, and an exhaust section. The compressor section progressively increases the pressure of a working fluid entering the gas turbine engine and supplies this compressed working fluid to the combustion section. The compressed working fluid and a fuel (e.g., natural gas) mix within the combustion section and burn in a combustion chamber to generate high pressure and high temperature combustion gases. The combustion gases flow from the combustion section into the turbine section where they expand to produce work. For example, expansion of the combustion gases in the turbine section may rotate a rotor shaft connected, e.g., to a generator to produce electricity. The combustion gases then exit the gas turbine via the exhaust section.
The compressor section and the turbine section generally include a plurality of rotor blades, typically arranged in a plurality of stages. During engine operation, fluctuations in the flow of working fluid being compressed or the hot combustion gases or steam may cause leaks within the rotor blade assembly, which result in an overall loss in engine performance. For example, hot combustion gases from the turbine section may leak into the blade shank or root cavity causing unwanted rotor disk heating.
In order to improve overall engine performance by minimizing leaks in the rotor blades, seals are typically provided between rotor blades on the rotor disk to prevent escaped working fluid or combustion gases from passing therethrough.
However, there is a desire to improve the overall seal effectiveness. For example, one issue with many known rotor blade seals is that they are cumbersome to install and require additional hardware, such as a locking plate or plates, to maintain retention within the rotor blade shank. Failure of the additional hardware may cause the seal to back out of its slot and/or prematurely fail.
Accordingly, improved rotor blade seal retention designs are desired in the art. In particular, damper designs that provide improved seal retention without requiring additional hardware would be advantageous.


A cycle saddle structure comprising a base and a container is provided. The base has a front crotch portion and a rear supporting portion. The container is adapted to slide on the bottom portion of the rear supporting portion between an open position and a closed position with respect to the base.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cycle saddle structure, and particularly, relates to a cycle saddle structure having a containing space.
2. Descriptions of the Related Art
Even though technological developments have led to increased developments in advanced and diversified vehicles, cycles are still commonly used for both transportation and leisure sports.
However, there is limited carrying capacity on these cycles when compared to other vehicles. To address the rider's needs to carry his or her personal items, various cycle containers have emerged in the market. For example, bags that are bound to the cycle frame have been developed. These bags are generally bound to the bottom of the saddle to provide less interference with the riding. However, such a bag is typically fixed onto the cycle frame with a reusable adhering strip, which tends to get loose and makes it difficult to secure the bag onto the cycle frame. Furthermore, it is not made of a water-proof or anti-collision material, thus providing insufficient protection for the articles contained therein.
Another development that has been made is a design where an additional containing space is provided within the cycle saddle. In the products available at present, the saddle body is coupled to the saddle structure by an axle. Practically, the saddle body has to be rotated open to access the articles received therein. In other words, to open the containing space, the rider has to suspend the riding action and get off the cycle. Consequently, it is very inconvenient for the rider to access the articles during the ride.
In view of this, it is highly desirable in the art to provide a cycle saddle with a containing space that is convenient to access.

International Bicycle Products Corporation


A charge transfer circuit for capacitive sensing is disclosed. The charge transfer circuit for capacitive sensing includes a variable capacitor, an X-drive unit, and an active output voltage feedback (AVF) part. The variable capacitor is disposed between the output terminal of an X-drive line and the input terminal of a Y-drive line. The X-drive unit is connected between the input unit of the X-drive line and a voltage input terminal. The active output voltage feedback (AVF) part is connected between the output terminal of the Y-drive line and a voltage output terminal. The output terminal of the AVF part is connected to the output terminal of the Y-drive line.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a charge transfer circuit for capacitive sensing and, more particularly, to a charge transfer circuit for capacitive sensing using active output voltage feedback (AVF) technology, which is insensitive to parasitic capacitance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since capacitive sensors, such as touch screen panels (TSPs), have more advantages than other input devices, such as keyboards and mouses, they have become popular and have spread rapidly, especially in mobile systems. Capacitive sensors, such as touch input devices, provide effective and interactive input functions, such as a multi-touch function, a proximity sensing function, and a pattern input function. Furthermore, capacitive sensors are widely used for various application apparatuses for moisture sensing, bio-sensing and special purpose sensing, etc.
Recently, the sizes of display units have increased in many mobile application apparatuses, and thus display units require more touch points in order to achieve higher resolution. Electrodes generally formed of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) in touch screen panels contain parasitic elements, such as capacitance and resistance, and these parasitic elements may incur reductions in performance in terms of both touch sensitivity and accuracy.
In order to reduce a parasitic effect, a discrete time integrators may be used as a capacitive sensor. However, since the capacitance of a touch screen panel decreases only in a touch state, a discrete time integrator uses only half of a supply voltage, and thus touch sensitivity is deteriorated.

Charge transfer circuit for capacitive sensing

Hanshin University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation


An ophthalmologic apparatus comprises an optical system that acquires data of an anterior segment of a subject's eye or a fundus of the subject's eye, an imaging unit that images the anterior segment or the fundus, a movement mechanism that moves the subject's eye and the optical system relative to each other, and a controller that controls die movement mechanism. The controller controls the movement mechanism so as to maintain a positional relationship between the subject's eye and the optical system based on an anterior segment image acquired by the imaging unit in an anterior segment mode for acquiring data of the anterior segment by the optical system, and controls the movement mechanism so as to maintain the positional relationship based on a fundus image acquired by the imaging unit in a fundus mode for acquiring data of the fundus by the optical system.

Examples of the ophthalmologic apparatus for photographing a subject's eye include an optical coherence tomography (OCT) apparatus using OCT, a fundus camera, a scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO), a slit lamp, and the like. Among them, OCT has been drawing attention. OCT creates an image representing the exterior structure, interior structure, or the like of a target eye using light beams from a laser light source or the like. Unlike X-ray computed tomography (CT), OCT is not invasive on the human body, and therefore is expected to be applied to the medical field and the biological field, in particular. For example, in the field of ophthalmology, apparatuses have been put to practical use for forming images of an anterior segment, etc. of the subject's eye or measuring the intraocular distance.
For the ophthalmologic apparatus like this, tracking is an important technique to obtain a high-definition image or to remeasure with high accuracy regardless of the eye movement of the subject's eye. Tracking is an operation to move the optical system of the apparatus according to eye movements of the subject's eye. To perform tracking, alignment and focusing are performed in advance. In other words, tracking is a function of maintaining a suitable positional relationship in which alignment and focusing are matched by causing the position of an optical system of the apparatus and the like to follow the eye movement. Various types of methods relating to such tracking are suggested.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2015-043898 discloses an ophthalmologic apparatus that acquires a base image of a fundus and a target image of the fundus using a fundus camera, performs a phase only correlation processing on the base image and the target image to obtain a minute misregistration amount, and performs tracking based on the obtained misregistration amount.
In addition, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2017-080561 discloses a method to shorten the time required for adjustment, by starting the tracking of the fundus and then performing coherence gate adjustment after starting the tracking of the anterior segment and then performing focusing adjustment of the SLO.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A method is provided for differentiation of reticulocytes. In addition, the method provides for a concurrent differentiation of leukocyte subpopulations in a blood cell sample by suitable electronic and optical measurements. The method includes exposing a blood cell sample to a reagent system to lyse mature red blood cells and subsequently analyzing reticulocytes in a flow cell by optical analysis. A concurrent differentiation of reticulocytes and leukocytes can be performed using electronic and optical analysis. The electronic and optical analysis includes light scatter and impedance measurements. This method does not require the use of nuclear stain for differentiation of reticulocytes.

The red blood cell goes through six stages of development: pronormoblast, basophilic normoblast, polychromatophilic blast, orthochromic normoblast, reticulocyte, and mature red blood cell. The first four stages are normally confined to the bone marrow. The reticulocytes, however, are found in both the bone marrow and peripheral blood. Increased reticulocytes are found in hemolytic anemias, thalassemia, sideroblastic anemia, and in acute and chronic blood loss. Therefore, it is of clinical importance to analyze reticulocytes contained in a blood sample. Traditionally, reticulocyte measurement is performed manually. The process involves the smearing of a blood sample stained by new methylene blue dye on a microscope slide, followed by manual visual analysis of the individual slide. The reticulocytes are reported as percentage of the total red blood cells in the blood sample. This approach is extremely time-consuming as well as being subjective to the interpretation of the individual analyzing the slide.
In recent years, several automated methods have been developed for analysis of reticulocytes. The majority of these methods utilize fluorescent RNA stain to specifically stain reticulocytes and use fluorescence flow cytometry for detection. U.S. Pat. No. 4,985,174 to Kuroda et al. discloses a reagent containing auramine O for the fluorescent staining of reticulocytes in a sample of whole blood to permit determination of reticulocytes by means of a flow cytometer. U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,891 to Fan et al. discloses a reagent which includes an organic cationic dye for staining the reticulocytes in the blood sample and a buffer solution for maintaining pH. The reticulocytes, mean cell volume and hemoglobin concentrations are analyzed by fluorescence flow cytometer. These methods can differentiate reticulocytes from other cell populations; however, fluorescence measurement is a complex and expensive detection method.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,616,501 to Rodriquez et al. discloses a method using upper median angle light scatter (UMALS) measurement to detect stained and ghosted reticulocytes. The method precipitates intracellular RNA of the reticulocytes by incubating the blood sample with a new methylene blue dye solution, then releases hemoglobin and fixes the red blood cells by further incubating with a ghosting reagent. In the treated sample mixture, the reticulocytes have a shift in their median angle light scatter signals, which is used to differentiate the reticulocytes from mature red blood cells. This method avoids the use of costly fluorescence measurement; however, the precipitation mechanism of the staining process can be troublesome on an instrument. In addition, the critical ghosting process requires heating of the sample mixture to 41.degree. C. for an automated analysis.
On the other hand, analysis of leukocyte populations from whole blood samples is an integral and essential part of diagnostic procedures regarding a multiplicity of pathologies. The ability to analyze the major subpopulations of leukocytes in an automated manner is essential for a rapid diagnosis of a single blood sample and for the rapid processing of many samples at once.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,155,044 (to Ledis et al.) discloses a method for isolation and analysis of leukocytes from a whole blood sample, which enables differentiation of leukocytes into five subpopulations in a one-step measurement on an automated hematology analyzer. The detection technique involves a concurrent light scatter measurement and impedance measurements in both DC (direct current) and RF (radio frequency). Ledis et al. enables automated differentiation of leukocyte subpopulations, but they do not provide differentiation of reticulocytes.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,389,549 (to Hamaguchi et al.) describes a lysis reagent system and a method for differentiation of leukocytes into five subpopulations with a complex procedure. The method requires three lytic reagents, three separate sample preparations and measurements for the identity of eosinophil, neutrophil and basophil populations in addition to the lymphocyte and monocyte populations. Hamaguchi et al. enables automated differentiation of leukocyte subpopulations, but they do not provide differentiation of reticulocytes. U.S. Pat. No. 5,686,308 (to Li et al.) describes a lysing reagent system and a method for differentiation of leukocytes into five subpopulations in a one-step measurement on an automated hematology analyzer. The lytic reagent comprises a lytic reagent comprising an ethoxylated long chain amine compound and acid to adjust the pH of the lytic reagent to be within the range of 2.0 to 3.6; and a hypertonic, alkaline stabilizing reagent. This patent teaches a reagent and method for differentiation of leukocytes subpopulations, but does not teach differentiation of reticulocytes.
Based on the foregoing, there exists a need for a simple and less costly analysis method for differentiating reticulocytes.

Method for differentiation of reticulocytes in blood


Al.sub.100-a-b-c X.sub.a M.sub.b T.sub.c, in which X is Y (yttrium) and/or rare-earth element(s), M is Fe, Co, and/or Ni, and T is Mn, Mo, Cr, Zr and/or V, and, a=0.5-5 atomic %, b=5-15 atomic %, and c=0.2-3.0 atomic %, and, further, X and M fall on and within the hatched region range of the appended FIG. 1, has a complex, amorphous-crystalline structure with an amorphous matrix containing the Al, X, M and T, and minority crystalline phase consisting of aluminum-alloy particles containing super-saturated X, M and T as solutes. The alloy has a high strength due to the dispersed crystalline particles.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an amorphous alloy, whose strength is enhanced by means of dispersing fine crystalline particles.
2. Description of Related Arts
Heretofore, various amorphous aluminum-alloys are known in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 64-47,831. It is intended in every one of these aluminum-alloys to form a single amorphous phase so as to promote the strength-enhancement. It is proposed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2-59,139 that the crystalline particles be dispersed in the amorphous structure and hence enhance the strength. The amount of the crystalline particles dispersed is determined by the cooling speed and the composition of the mother alloy, specifically, the relationship between the amount of rare earth element(s) and the amount of Fe, Co and Ni. Desirably, the dispersion particles should have high strength and should have close inter-particle distance considering the theory of the law of mixtures. It is therefore desired that the inter-particle distance be shortened by controlling the cooling speed. Although, such controlling is not very effective for controlling the inter-particle distance, there are no other means than the cooling speed-control.
There is no clear and concrete theory for explaining the strengthening mechanism of the composite amorphous material, in which the crystalline particles are dispersed in the amorphous matrix. It seems however that the following requirements are given for the particles which greatly contribute to the enhancement: (1) the strength of dispersion particles is high; (2) good coherency is realized between the dispersion particles and the matrix; and, (3) inter-particle distance (.lambda.) is small.
The inter-particle distance (.lambda.) is greatly influenced by the following geometrical parameters and is expressed by: EQU .lambda.=(2/3)d(1-V.sub.p)/V.sub.p,
in which d is the diameter of a particle, and V.sub.p is the volume of a particle (M, GENSAMER; Trans. ASM, 36(1946), 30). It is believed that the .lambda. reduction is effective for enhancing the tensile strength. The yield strength .delta..sub.0.2 is expressed by: EQU .sup..delta. 0.2.varies.V.sub.p.sup.3/2 .multidot.d.sup.-1
A small (d) is therefore effective for enhancing the yield strength. There are two methods for decreasing the inter-particle distance (.lambda.), namely decreasing the diameter of a particle (d), and increasing the volume of a particle (V.sub.p). The latter method for increasing the volume of a particle incurs, however, reduction in elongation and hence impairment of toughness.

Particle-dispersion type amorphous aluminum-alloy having high strength


A method of testing a semiconductor apparatus performs a function test of reading data from memory cells in SRAM by applying a potential lower than a GND potential to a backgate of an n-type MOS transistor with a drain connected with a storage node and a source connected with the GND potential. Then, the method performs a function test of reading data from memory cells by applying a potential higher than the GND potential to the backgate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of testing a semiconductor apparatus suitable for detecting a defective cell due to a defective standby current or SNM (static noise margin) deficiency.
2. Description of Related Art
Normally, when testing a memory cell such as RAM (Random Access Memory), a BIST (built in self-test) is performed (step S101), a fail bit is read (step S102), and a defective cell is replaced with a redundancy cell by cutting a fuse (step S103), as shown in FIG. 6.
However, in some cases, a cell which places the border of a defective cell and a non-defective cell remains without being replaced. In such a case, there is a problem that memory malfunctioning is likely to occur depending on the LSI use environment, that is, by a temperature or voltage change. Defective modes include a write/read defect caused by the varying threshold of a field-effect transistor constituting a memory cell and an unstable operation caused by the deficiency of SNM, in addition to a leakage defect that has been a problem. These defective modes are aggravated as miniaturization progresses, which raises a problem of a cost increase due to the need for a high-temperature/low-temperature test for reliable removal of a defective cell or the like.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-93195 (Shiomi) discloses a method of testing a semiconductor apparatus of which object is detecting a defect of a direct-current electricity such as a standby current defect and saving a defective cell. FIG. 7 is a view of an SRAM disclosed by Shiomi. The method of testing a semiconductor apparatus taught by Shiomi aims at identifying and saving a defective cell when a standby current flows in the SRAM due to a minute leakage.
As shown in FIG. 7, a memory cell M1 includes an n-channel MOS transistor 80 and an n-channel MOS transistor 82. The n-channel MOS transistor 80 is connected between a bit line BL1 and a storage node N10, and its gate is connected with a word line WL1. The n-channel MOS transistor 82 is connected between a bit line /BL1 and a storage node N11, and its gate is connected with a word line WL1.
The memory cell M1 further includes an n-channel MOS transistor 74 and an n-channel MOS transistor 78. The source of the n-channel MOS transistor 74 is connected with the ground voltage GNDM of a memory cell array, the drain is connected with a storage node N10, and the gate is connected with a storage node N11. The source of the N-channel MOS transistor 78 is connected with the ground voltage GNDM, the drain is connected with the storage node N11, and the gate is connected with the storage node N10.
The memory cell M1 further includes a p-channel MOS transistor 72 and a p-channel MOS transistor 76. The source of the p-channel MOS transistor 72 is connected with a power supply voltage VCCM for a memory cell array, the drain is connected with the storage node N10, and the gate is connected with the storage node N11. The source of the p-channel MOS transistor 76 is connected with the power supply voltage VCCM, the drain is connected with the storage node N11, and the gate is connected with the storage node N10.
It is assumed that the storage node N11 of the memory cell M1 is coupled with the power supply voltage VCCM of the memory cell array by a resistor R1 to cause short-circuit. The memory cell M1 is capable of controlling the ground voltage GNDP, which is a substrate voltage of the n-channel MOS transistors 74 and 78 that constitute a memory cell of SRAM, independently of the ground voltage GNDM, which is a source voltage. When the storage node N11 is "L", a through current flows in the pass indicated by the arrow. Since the through current keeps flowing in a standby condition, the semiconductor apparatus has a standby defect. When the standby current defect occurs, GNDP is set lower than GND (back bias). As a result, the drive ability of the n-channel MOS transistors 74 and 78 is weakened by body effect. This enables to detect a defect by a function test. It is therefore possible to identify a defective memory cell and replace the defective cell with a redundancy cell, thereby improving process yield.
However, the method taught by Shiomi only controls a threshold to be higher by applying a back bias. Therefore, although it has a tentative effect that the memory cell which has leakage is easily identified, the method is incapable of detecting the defective mode that becomes more significant as the threshold of the field-effect transistor becomes lower (or a cell current becomes higher), such as an SNM defect.

Method of testing semiconductor apparatus