A method and apparatus for automatic determination of semiconductor plasma chamber matching a source of fault are provided. Correlated plasma attributes are measured for process used for calibration both in a chamber under study and in a reference chamber. Principal component analysis then is performed on the measured correlated attributes so as to generate steady principal components and transitional principal components; and these principal components are compared to reference principal components associated with a reference chamber. The process used for calibration includes a regular plasma process followed by a process perturbation of one process parameter. Similar process perturbation runs are conducted several times to include different perturbation parameters. By performing inner products of the principal components of chamber under study and the reference chamber, matching scores can be reached. Automatic chamber matching can be determined by comparing these scores with preset control limits. The potential source(s) of chamber fault can also be identified by the lowest matching score(s).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to semiconductor substrate processing systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to techniques and apparatus for automatically determining whether a substrate process chamber matches a reference substrate process chamber and the potential source(s) of chamber fault.
2. Description of the Related Art
Within the semiconductor industry, an ever present need exists for improved process repeatability and control. As new generations of integrated circuits employ smaller feature sizes than were contemplated in previous generations, greater demands are placed on the integrated circuit fabrication process. Deposition and etching one or more layers of a semiconductor substrate in a plasma environment are two of the most common steps in integrated circuit manufacturing. To ensure that a correct quantity and quality of film is deposited or etched, the plasma state of the process chamber needs to be monitored comprehensively prior to, during and after production substrate processing. Comprehensive chamber monitoring prior to production substrate processing allows proper chamber qualification to be conducted. Comprehensive chamber monitoring during production substrate processing allows correct endpoint and fault detection. Comprehensive chamber monitoring after production substrate processing allows diagnosis of source of fault, if faults were detected during substrate processing.
To ensure that a correct amount and quality of film is deposited or etched, substrate processing in a process chamber needs to be monitored during the processing. Plasma state of the process and chamber during processing needs to match that of a selected process in a "reference" chamber to ensure the chamber and process are functioning as expected and also correct endpoint detection can occur to terminate the process at the desired time. If the plasma state of the process and chamber during processing does not match that of a selected process in a "reference"chamber, a potential fault is detected and the operator is alarmed to take appropriate action. Details of how a chamber and process can be monitored during process to detect endpoint and fault have been disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,368,975, entitled "Method and Apparatus For Monitoring A Process By Employing Principal component Analysis", issued on Apr. 9, 2002 and its divisional application Ser. No. 10/341,696, filed on Jan. 14, 2003.
To ensure that a correct amount and quality of film is deposited or etched,substrate processing in a process chamber needs to be monitored during the processing. Plasma state of the process and chamber during processing needs to match that of a selected process in a "reference" chamber to ensure the chamber and process are functioning as expected and also correct endpoint detection can occur to terminate the process at the desired time. If the plasma state of the process and chamber during processing does not match that of a selected process in a "reference" chamber, a potential fault is detected and the operator is alarmed to take appropriate action. Details of how a chamber and process can be monitored during process to detect endpoint and fault have been disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,368,975, entitled "Method and Apparatus For Monitoring A Process By Employing Principal component Analysis", issued on Apr. 9, 2002 and its divisional application Ser. No. 10/341,696, filed on Jan. 14, 2003.
Besides chamber qualification, process monitoring and endpoint detection, techniques for identifying the source of a chamber fault are also very much in demand. In a semiconductor manufacturing environment, chambers can be found to have insufficient pre-conditioning, such as seasoning, or to have hardware related problems. It's important to quickly determine the sources of the problem (or fault) to reduce the down time of the processing equipment. Extended down time can be very costly.
During a plasma process, certain plasma "attributes", such as the plasma's electromagnetic emissions, the RF power delivered to a wafer pedestal, wafer reflectance, process pressure and process temperature, manifest low frequency fluctuations that contain significant information about the plasma process and the plasma chamber. The intensity of a plasma's optical electromagnetic emission (OES) and the fluctuations of the RF power delivered to a wafer pedestal during plasma processing contain information related to process state, process event and process chamber. OES and RF states are affected to different degrees by varying chamber conditions and by process parameter changes. OES and RF data are complementary to one another. Inclusion of both data during process or chamber monitoring is more comprehensive than merely including one of the two types of data.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for techniques for automatically determining whether a substrate process chamber matches a reference substrate process chamber and the potential source(s) of chamber fault that are repeatable and accurate by comprehensive monitoring of semiconductor plasma processes.

Method for automatic determination of semiconductor plasma chamber matching and source of fault by comprehensive plasma monitoring


For integrally bonding a first member and a second member made of copper or a copper alloy by brazing, a paste brazing material composed essentially of copper (Cu), tin (Sn), nickel (Ni) and phosphorus (P) is beforehand applied to at least one of the first and second members. A base material is exposed at the whole or a part of a contact portion between the first and second members. Thereafter, the first and second members are assembled at a predetermined position, and heated at a temperature in a range of 600° C.-800° C. within a reducing atmosphere furnace. By the brazing method, an oxide film on the surface of the base material can be sufficiently removed, so that the paste brazing material can smoothly flow on the surface at the contact portion.

A paste brazing material is used for integrally bonding members made of copper or a copper alloy by brazing. As described in JP-A-2000-197990, the paste brazing material is formed by mixing a high-molecular polymer and an organic solvent together with an alloy powder composed of phosphorus (P), nickel (Ni), tin (Sn) and copper (Cu). The paste brazing material is beforehand applied to an entire surface of a metal base material (i.e., copper alloy plate) to be bonded. Thereafter, the metal base material is heated for 5-10 minutes at temperature equal to or below 700° C. in vacuum or a reducing atmosphere furnace.
In this case, flux is not used, so that the melting point of the brazing material becomes low and cost of the brazing material is reduced.
However, the above-described brazing method is used only for a case where the brazing members have a simple flat plate shape. When an actual machine such as a heat exchanger is bonded by using the brazing method, an oxide film on the surface of a metal base material having a complex shape cannot be sufficiently removed by using the reducing gas and phosphorus (P) in the brazing material. Therefore, the brazing material cannot smoothly flow, and the bonding members of the actual machine cannot be sufficiently bonded.


Described is a voice persona service by which users convert text into speech waveforms, based on user-provided parameters and voice data from a service data store. The service may be remotely accessed, such as via the Internet. The user may provide text tagged with parameters, with the text sent to a text-to-speech engine along with base or custom voice data, and the resulting waveform morphed based on the tags. The user may also provide speech. Once created, a voice persona corresponding to the speech waveform may be persisted, exchanged, made public, shared and so forth. In one example, the voice persona service receives user input and parameters, and retrieves a base or custom voice that may be edited by the user via a morphing algorithm. The service outputs a waveform, such as a .wav file for embedding in a software program, and persists the voice persona corresponding to that waveform.

In recent years, the field of text-to-speech (TTS) conversion has been largely researched, with text-to-speech technology appearing in a number of commercial applications. Recent progress in unit-selection speech synthesis and Hidden Markov Model (HMM) speech synthesis has led to considerably more natural-sounding synthetic speech, which thus makes such speech suitable for many types of applications.
However, relatively few of these applications provide text-to-speech features. One of the barriers to popularizing text-to-speech in such applications is the technical difficulties in installing, maintaining and customizing a text-to-speech engine. For example, when a user wants to integrate text-to-speech into an application program, the user has to search among text-to-speech engine providers, pick one from the available choices, buy a copy of the software, and install it on possibly many machines. Not only does the user or his or her team have to understand the software, but the installing, maintaining and customizing of a text-to-speech engine can be a tedious and technically difficult process.
For example, in current text-to-speech applications, text-to-speech engines need to be installed locally, and require tedious and technically difficult customization. As a result, users are often frustrated when configuring different text-to-speech engines, especially when what many users typically want to do is only occasionally convert a small piece of text into speech.
Further, once a user has made a choice of a text-to-speech engine, the user has limited flexibility in choosing voices. It is not easy to obtain an additional voice unless without paying for additional development costs.
Still further, each multiple high quality text-to-speech voice requires a relatively large amount of storage, whereby the huge amount of storage needed to install multiple high quality text-to-speech voices is another barrier to wider adoption of text-to-speech technology. It is basically not possible for an individual user or small entity to have multiple text-to-speech engines with dozens or hundreds voices for use in applications.

Voice persona service for embedding text-to-speech features into software programs


To provide a radar device, capable of eliminating the influence based on the local feedthrough in the FMCW radar device. There is provided a radar device including: an oscillator configured to oscillate a local signal; a transmitting antenna configured to emit a transmission signal based on the local signal; a receiving antenna configured to receive a reflected wave in which the transmission signal is reflected from a target; a mixer configured to multiply the reflected wave and the local signal by each other to produce a multiplied signal; and a first shifter provided between the oscillator and the mixer and configured to shift a phase of the local signal.

A frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar device is employed as a vehicle-mounted radar device in some cases. The ranging performed by the FMCW radar device is as follows. A chirp signal in which frequency linearly increases or decreases with time is emitted as a transmission signal from a transmitting antenna, and an echo signal reflected back from a target is caught by a receiving antenna. Then, a local signal chirped at the same frequency as the transmission signal and the echo signal are multiplied by each other in a mixer and are subjected to direct conversion reception. Then, at the time of direct conversion reception, the frequency of the local signal varies during the round trip time until the transmitted signal is reflected back from the target, so a beat signal of the frequency proportional to the distance to the target occurs.
It is known that the direct conversion reception causes occurrence of a DC component based on a local feedthrough where the local signal leaks from the receiving antenna due to incomplete isolation between LO (local) and RF of a mixer. Thus, in one example, there is a technique for eliminating the DC component based on the local feedthrough, as disclosed in Patent Literature 1.

Radar device, signal processor, signal processing method, and mobile object

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation


A wireless vehicle and infrastructure system is described that allows for utilization of a quasi-anonymous common private key/digital certificate pool, such that all vehicles are authenticated to the system, but no one vehicle/user can be readily identified during their use of the system because of their use of set of common private key/digital certificate pairs that are assigned to each vehicle from the pool and are common across multiple vehicles. Vehicle/user anonymity is only temporarily removed during vehicle/user re-authentication and re-issuance of new common private key/digital certificate pairs from the pool in the wireless vehicle and infrastructure system.

A vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communication system creates a large number of potential uses that include crash avoidance, communications, law enforcement, and entertainment. One such system is the Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) system. A vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communication system would include a common message set (CMS), which is broadcast by each vehicle, that is comprised of relevant kinematical and location information including GPS/Vehicle position, velocity, vehicular dimensions, as well as other relevant vehicle information.
For example, in a crash avoidance system implementation utilizing the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communication system, a vehicle would utilize the CMS messages and analyze any received information to determine if a crash was imminent. If a crash with another vehicle was imminent, it would send a confirmation message to the other vehicle and then internally exchange information with vehicle sub-systems to mitigate vehicle/occupant damage/injury before crashing. For example, once the accident seems likely, the vehicle sub-systems such as airbags and seatbelts can be instructed to prepare for a crash.
Other high-end applications, including, but not limited to Internet access and telephony are also possible over such a vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communication system.
Given this exchange of personal driver and vehicle information (e.g., over-speeding on the highway, passing another vehicle on the right) system users (such as drivers, vehicle owners, or other users) will desire privacy protection and will not wish to be specifically tracked electronically. Conversely, government agencies, law enforcement, infrastructure providers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will desire ways to authenticate users/vehicles, protect the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communication system from hackers or attackers, and desire a way to track problem vehicles, problem users and/or malevolent actors and revoke their access to the system.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for authenticated quasi-anonymous certification of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communication systems for system users and motor vehicles.

Nissan Technical Center North America, Inc.


Methods for generating cells of the inner ear, e.g., hair cells and supporting cells, from stem cells, e.g., mesenchymal stem cells, are provided, as well as compositions including the inner ear cells. Methods for the therapeutic use of the inner ear cells for the treatment of hearing loss are also described.

A source of sensory cells and neurons for regeneration of inner ear cells would provide a valuable tool for clinical application because neurons and hair cells could be employed in cell replacement therapy for hearing loss. Recent work has shown that hair cells and neurons can be differentiated from endogenous stem cells of the inner ear (Li et al., Nat Med 9, 1293-1299 (2003); Rask-Andersen et al., Hear Res 203, 180-191 (2005)) and other work has shown that endogenous cells of the sensory epithelium can be converted to hair cells when the proneural transcription factor, Atoh1, is expressed exogenously (Izumikawa et al., Nat Med 11, 271-276 (2005); Zheng and Gao, Nat Neurosci 3, 580-586 (2000)) and yet the endogenous stem cells of the inner ear do not spontaneously generate hair cells. Injection of whole bone marrow to reconstitute a lethally irradiated mouse resulted in engraftment of these cells in areas occupied by inner ear mesenchymal cells and fibrocytes but did not yield hair cells (Lang et al., J Comp Neurol 496, 187-201 (2006)).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A method of forming a network of RDL lines on the backside of a thinned TSV die to control warpage and the resulting device are provided. Embodiments include providing a thinned TSV die of a 3D IC stack, the thinned TSV die having a front side and a back side; forming a plurality of RDL lines across the backside of the die; and forming a plurality of UBM structures across the backside of the die.

Flip-chip attachment of large thin dies with TSVs for 3D applications often results in warpage control issues when a mass reflow process is used. Bottom die warpage can prevent top die attachment when micropillars are used as the interconnect since a near flat surface is required on the backside of the bottom die. Warpage is more severe with higher numbers of back-end-of-line (BEOL) layers.
A need therefore exists for methodology enabling warpage control on the backside of a thinned TSV die and the resulting device.

Wafer backside redistribution layer warpage control


A method of making tooling by preparing a master model having a first surface and casting a thin-skinned mold from a first master surface, with an inner surface corresponding to the first master surface and an outer surface spaced from the inner surface thereof. A bolster is fabricated in releasable contact with the outer surface of the thin-skinned mold and serves as a support structure for the thin-skinned mold or a replica thereof. The bolster and thin-skinned mold are removed from the master and the thin-skinned mold supported by the bolster in contact with the outer surface thereof. A thickness calibration material is located on the inner surface of the thin-skinned mold and corresponds in thickness to an article to be produced. A matching contra halfmold set is formed against the calibration material, the calibration material and thin-skinned mold being supported by the bolster. The contra half matching mold set is removed, and the calibration material removed from the inner surface of the thin-skinned mold. The bolster and the thin-skinned mold are aligned with the matching mold set contra half to define a cavity corresponding to the calibration material, and the surfaces of the cavity coated with a release agent. A rigid skin member is cast in the cavity, the matching mold set contra half removed from registration with the bolster and the thin-skinned mold, and the thin skinned mold removed from the bolster.

A composite mold can make use of a metal faced mold. The metal can be deposited as a skin such as by metal spraying, sheet forming, casting or machining. Whatever means are used to provide a skin the metal thickness is kept to a minimum and the skin is cradled in a well support composite material including an embedded heater. It is supported as a skin adapted for high temperature operation by way of steel support frames serving to provide for readily matchable mold sets.
As originally conceived solid bonding of the skin to the supporting frame reduced, if it did not actually prevent, allowance for movement between skin and frame to provide. This is desirable in order to allow for a degree of relative movement between skin and frame arising from differential expansion due to different coefficients of thermal expansion between frame and skin.
In our co-pending UK Application No. 9623587.49 (the xe2x80x9cApplicationxe2x80x9d) there is described a process for the manufacture of tooling comprising the use of a thin skin mold supported in a bolster by way of an elastomeric shim over the entire under surface of the skin, the shim being, in turn, supported on an in-fill in the bolster wherein the thin skin is of at least one of the following: vacuum formed thermoplastic sheet; formed metal sheet; cast metal skin; ceramic skin; silicone or similar elastomeric matrix skin; thermoset reinforced or un-reinforced skin.
The application further describes a process for the manufacture of tooling characterized by the steps of: forming on a surface of a master pattern member a skin layer by casting or laminating of plastics material; the skin layer during this stage having an inner face contacting the member and an exposed outer face; depositing on the exposed face of the skin layer a calibration layer of substantially uniform thickness of a material such as wax; the calibration layer during this step having an inner face contacting the sin and an exposed outerface; depositing on the exposed face of the calibration layer a bolster layer of a heat insulating material optionally including means whereby the bolster layer can be heated or cooled or providing for both heating and cooling relative to ambient temperature; shrouding the exposed face of the bolster layer by way of a bolster frame so as to provide between the exposed face of the bolster layer and an inner face of the bolster frame a plenum; filling the plenum with an aggregate material providing for thermal insulation between the bolster layer and the bolster frame; separating the pattern with the skin layer retained thereon from the assembled bolster frame, bolster layer and calibration layer; removing the calibration layer to expose the inner face of the bolster layer; provide a release means on the exposed inner surface of the bolster layer; relocate the pattern with the skin layer retained thereon into the assembled bolster frame and bolster layer; injecting or otherwise locating in the volume left on removal of the calibration layer between the exposed face of the skin layer and the exposed inner surface of the bolster layer a plastics material to provide a locking shim reproducing the exposed face of the skin layer; and operating the pattern from the remainder of the assembly when formation of the locking shim is complete; removing the release means from the bolster layer; locating the skin on the locking shim in the bolster to provide a tool comprising the skin layer releaseably mounted on the bolster layer by way of the locking shim and the bolster layer retained in the bolster frame.
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of making tooling comprising the following steps of preparing a master model having a first surface; casting a thin-skinned mold from the first surface of the master model, the thin-skinned mold having an inner surface corresponding to the first surface of the master model and an outer surface spaced from the inner surface thereof; fabricating a bolster in contact with, and releasable from, the outer surface of the thin-skinned mold, which bolster is intended to serve as a support structure for either the thin-skinned mold or a replica thereof; removing the bolster and the thin-skinned mold from the master model and thereafter supporting the thin-skinned mold by means of the bolster, the bolster being in contact with the outer surface of the thin-skinned mold; locating a layer of a thickness calibration material on the inner surface of the thin-skinned mold, the layer corresponding in thickness to an article to be produced by means of the tooling; forming a matching mold set contra half against the layer of calibration material while the calibration material and the thin-skinned mold are supported by the bolster; removing the matching mold set contra half from the combination of the calibration material, the thin-skinned mold and the bolster and thereafter removing the calibration material from the inner surface of the thin-skinned mold; aligning the combination of the bolster and the thin-skinned mold with the matching mold set contra half to define a cavity corresponding to the space previously occupied by the calibration material; coating the surfaces defining the cavity with a release agent and thereafter casting a rigid skin member in the cavity; removing the matching mold set contra half from registration with the combination of the bolster and the thin-skinned mold, and removing the thin-skinned mold from the bolster.
According to a first preferred version of the first aspect of the present invention wherein the provision of a replica of the first female thin skinned mold characterized by the steps of: registering the bolster and rigid skin combination with the mold set contra half to define a cavity defining a mold for a replica of the first female thin skinned mold; and casting a replica in the mold.
According to a second preferred version of the first aspect of the present invention at least one casting process can be selected from a group comprising pouring liquid matrix, injecting a liquid matrix under pressure, injecting a liquid matrix using sub atmospheric pressure; injecting a liquid matrix using both super and sub-atmospheric pressures.
According to a third preferred version of the first aspect of the present invention or any preceding preferred version thereof the bolster and thin skin combination and the mold set contra half provide for heating of a surface to be contracted by material to be cast.
According to a fourth preferred version of the first aspect of the present invention or any preceding preferred version thereof there is provided a step for a surface to be contacted by material for casting of coating with a material selected from a group comprising metal, alloy, ceramic, elastomeric, un-reinforced or reinforced thermoset resin. Typically where a metal coating is to be used the surface is coated by a spraying process. Alternatively the surface is formed by a metal sheet of reduced thickness by comparison with the desired final thin skin and the required thickness is achieved by a layer of a castable matrix attached to the rear side of formed metal sheet.
According to a fifth preferred version of the first aspect of the present invention or any preceding preferred version thereof the step of fabricating the bolster involves a computer numerically controlled machining operation to provide for the subsequent mounting of the item on the bolster.
According to a sixth preferred version of the first aspect of the present invention or any preceding preferred version thereof the item is retained on the bolster by means of a sub-atmospheric pressure.
According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a mold tool manufactured according to the method of the first aspect or of any preferred version thereof.
According to a third aspect of the present invention there is provided a product manufactured by means of a mold tool according to the third aspect.
Exemplary embodiments of the new invention will now be broadly described including reference to the accompanying drawings which show steps in a process for manufacturing skins for use in mold sets.

Plastech Thermoset Tectonics, Unit One Delaware Road


A MAC method has three procedures: a prioritization procedure, a collision resolution procedure, and a polling procedure. The prioritization procedure employs the handshaking method to ensure that a high priority station can join the polling list earlier than a low priority station. The collision resolution procedure employs a tree-splitting algorithm to ensure all active stations that underwent the prioritization period can join the polling list in a bounded time. In the polling procedure, the AP allocates the TXOP for each admitted station and schedules the transmission order of all admitted stations. In addition, the AP broadcasts the schedule information in the V-POLL frame. A power-saving station can wake up at the start of the contention-free period. To conserve power, on inspecting the V-POLL frame, if a PS station finds that it cannot transmit nor receive data frames during the polling period, then that station may return to the doze state.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to medium access control (MAC) methods for wireless local area networks (WLANs). Specifically, the invention provides prioritization, time-bounded reservation, dynamic channel time allocation, admission control, and power management mechanisms to support applications with power saving and quality of service (QoS) requirements.
2. Description of Related Art
With the proliferation of portable devices and the advance of channel modulation techniques, there has been growing interest in providing QoS guarantees for multimedia applications over WLANs. A WLAN typically consists of an access point (AP) and a finite number of mobile stations (or called stations), such as wireless phones or laptops. On the other hand, mobile stations are often operated by batteries. It is well known that, due to technology limitations, the battery capacity will not be dramatically improved in the not-so-distant future. Hence it is important to design a MAC method with QoS and power saving support.
The international MAC standard for WLAN, IEEE 802.11, defines two modes of operation: distributed coordination function (DCF) and point coordination function (PCF). DCF employs carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) in the contention period (CP) for asynchronous data transfer. PCF employs the polling scheme during the contention-free period (CFP) to provide isochronous transmission services. In 802.11, PCF uses a point coordinator (PC), which should operate at the AP, to determine which station on the polling list currently has the right to transmit. When an AP/PC is operating in a WLAN, the two coordination functions alternate, with a CFP followed by a CP, which we will collectively refer to as a CFP repetition interval or a superframe. For a complete and detailed description, please refer to the IEEE 802.11 specification (IEEE Standard 802.11-1999, Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications. IEEE, November 1999).
Although PCF can provide contention-free transmission, there are several problems with PCF that make it less attractive for QoS and power conservation. (i) Any station intending to receive contention-free service should first send the (re)association frame to the AP during the CP. Since DCF is governed by a contention-based DCF, the (re)association frames need to compete with all other stations in the same cell, resulting in an unbounded (re)association delay. Hence a real-time station with bad luck may never get on the polling list. (ii) Since DCF does not support traffic prioritization, so a low priority station may join the polling list earlier and faster than a high priority station. (iii) IEEE 802.11 does not allow a station to send frames directly to any other stations within the same infrastructure WLAN, and instead the AP should relay the frames always. In this way, the bandwidth is indeed consumed twice than directional communication between stations. (iv) During the CFP, the transmission time of a polled station is unpredictable and unrestrained. Any polled station is allowed to send a single frame that may be of an arbitrary length, up to the maximum of 2304 bytes (or 2312 bytes when the frame body is encrypted using WEP). This may adversely degrade and ruin the performance of the other stations on the polling list. (v) Since PCF has no admission control, the PC may admit a large number of real-time stations. Under the circumstances, several pollable stations may not receive a poll or the data from the PC during the entire CFP, thus incurring unnecessary awakeness and energy expense. (vi) When a pollable station wants to leave the polling list, it should reassociate with the AP via DCF. The station without additional buffered data but having no chance to get off the polling list will respond with a Null frame when polled by the AP. These Null frames are simply a wastage of bandwidth, thus causing the PCF performance down.
To accommodate additional QoS provision, IEEE 802.11e draft (IEEE 802.11e/D6.0, Draft Supplement to Part 11: Wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications: Medium Access Control (MAC) Enhancements for Quality of Service (QoS), 2003) proposes a new coordination function, called HCF (hybrid coordination function). The HCF defines two channel access mechanisms: EDCA (enhanced distributed channel access) and HCCA (HCF controlled channel access). Especially, the EDCA introduces a new type of IFS (Inter Frame Space), named AIFS (Arbitration IFS), for different access categories. Since the AIFS values are longer than DIFS, the frame of a station using the existing DCF may take priority over that of a QoS-aware station using EDCA. In EDCA, the minimum and maximum values of the contention windows (CWs) of a high-priority station are smaller than those of a low-priority station, where CWmin denotes the smallest contention window and CWmax denotes the largest contention window. However, EDCA may suffer from the priority reversal problem; that is, a lower-priority station may take priority over a higher-priority station. Such a priority reversal phenomenon may discourage customers from buying high-priority WLAN services. We accordingly invent new MAC methods which can conquer the above-mentioned problems, coexist with DCF, and provide power saving and QoS guarantees to wireless multimedia applications as well.

Medium access control methods with quality of service and power management for wireless local area networks


Systems and methods for compensating a QKD system for variations in temperature are disclosed. One of the methods includes identifying an optimum detector gating signal timing as a function of temperature for a single-photon detector (SPD) control board in one of the QKD stations. The detector gating signal timing versus temperature information is stored in a look-up table in a memory unit. The QKD system's temperature is monitored during operation and the timing of the detector gating signal is adjusted based on the operating temperature and the corresponding timing value adjustment in the look-up table. The result is a compensated detector gating timing signal provided to the SPD that yields an optimum number of photon counts even as the temperature of the QKD station varies.

Quantum key distribution involves establishing a key between a sender ("Alice") and a receiver ("Bob") by using weak (e.g., 0.1 photon on average) optical signals transmitted over a "quantum channel." The security of the key distribution is based on the quantum mechanical principle that any measurement of a quantum system in unknown state will modify its state. As a consequence, an eavesdropper ("Eve") that attempts to intercept or otherwise measure the quantum signal will introduce errors into the transmitted signals, thereby revealing her presence.
The general principles of quantum cryptography were first set forth by Bennett and Brassard in their article "Quantum Cryptography: Public key distribution and coin tossing," Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers, Systems and Signal Processing, Bangalore, India, 1984, pp. 175–179 (IEEE, New York, 1984). Specific QKD systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,410 to Bennett, and in the publication by C. H. Bennett entitled "Quantum Cryptography Using Any Two Non-Orthogonal States", Phys. Rev. Lett. 68 3121 (1992). The general process for performing QKD is described in the book by Bouwmeester et al., "The Physics of Quantum Information," Springer-Verlag 2001, in Section 2.3, pages 27–33.
The above-mentioned references describe a so-called "one-way" QKD system wherein Alice randomly encodes the polarization or phase of single photons, and Bob randomly measures the polarization or phase of the photons. The one-way system described in the Bennett 1992 paper and incorporated by reference herein is based on a shared interferometric system. Respective parts of the interferometric system are accessible by Alice and Bob so that each can control the phase of the interferometer. The signals (pulses) sent from Alice to Bob are time-multiplexed and follow different paths. As a consequence, the interferometers need to be actively stabilized to within a few tens of nanoseconds during transmission to compensate for thermal drifts.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,438,234 to Gisin (the '234 patent), which patent is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a so-called "two-way" QKD system that is autocompensated for polarization and thermal variations. Thus, the two-way QKD system of the '234 patent is less susceptible to environmental effects than a one-way system.
When operating a QKD system in practice (e.g., in a commercial setting), multiple variables need to be aligned in time and then maintained aligned for optimal system performance. For example, in a commercial QKD system one or more single-photon detectors (SPDs) are gated with one or more corresponding detector gating signals from a controller to synchronize the detection of optical pulses with expected pulse arrival times. However, once the system is set up, the timing drifts due to various systemic and environmental factors (e.g., temperature) and the photon count can drop. This leads to a reduction in the transmission rate of the system, and also to an increase in the bit—error rate—i.e., to diminished system performance.
Laboratory and prototype QKD systems can be adjusted to account for system drifts can under very controlled and artificial conditions. However, making the same kinds of adjustments for a commercial QKD system in the field is a far more daunting endeavor. And, unlike with a laboratory or prototype QKD system, end-users of commercial QKD systems have an expectation that their QKD system will automatically run in an optimal state with minimal or no operator intervention.
The various elements depicted in the drawings are merely representational and are not necessarily drawn to scale. Certain sections thereof may be exaggerated, while others may be minimized. The drawings are intended to illustrate various embodiments of the invention that can be understood and appropriately carried out by those of ordinary skill in the art.

Temperature compensation for QKD systems


In an access controller provided for a musical sound signal generating system, a signal generating section operates when a readout of wave data of one block stored in a working memory is completed in a sound channel, for supplying a next waveform request signal to a CPU, which requests a next block of the wave data for the sound channel. First and second buffer memories are connected between a recording medium and the working memory respectively through first and second buses which are independent from each other. A first transmitting section operates when receiving block specifying information from the CPU, which specifies a block to be read next from the recording medium, for transmitting the wave data of the specified block to either of the first or second buffer memory while reading the specified block of the wave data from the recording medium. A second transmitting section operates when the transmitting of the wave data to either of the first or second buffer memory is finished and during a period when the musical sound signal generation system is not accessing the working memory, for transmitting the wave data of the specified block to the working memory from either of the first or second buffer memory, to which the wave data of the specified block has been transmitted by the first transmitting section.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a memory access controller suitable for use in generating a musical sound signal by a personal computer.
2. Background Art
In recent years, there has been known a system for composing a memory tone generator using a personal computer to thereby generate a musical sound signal based on musical performance information. In such a system, wave data stored in a hard disk are read into a buffer memory in units of partial data (data block, for example one cluster), and contents of this buffer memory are further transmitted to a waveform memory. An envelope is then given to the wave data in this waveform memory, and a sound effect process is performed thereto, whereby the musical sound signal is generated (Patent Documents 1 to 3). In the hard disk, however, due to a large time lag until the data are actually read after receiving a read instruction from a CPU, the CPU needs to output the read instruction in advance to the hard disk before a time when the partial data (data block) is actually required.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Publication No. 2671747
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Patent Publication No. 2768204
[Patent Document 3]
Japanese Patent Publication No. 2798077
For instance, Patent Document 2 discloses a technique providing a pair of memory regions of a "first half" and a "last half" in the waveform memory for every sound channel to continuously play back the wave data by alternately accessing the pair of the regions. In this technique, successive address spaces are given to the regions of the "first half" and the "last half", and the regions of the "first half" and the "last half" are alternately read by a tone generator circuit. As a result, a read address is changed in the shape of a sawtooth wave. When a readout of the region of the "first half" is completed by the tone generator circuit, an interruption is generated to the CPU and, under the control of the CPU, new partial data are read from the hard disk to the region of the "first half". In parallel with this, the region of the "last half" is read by the tone generator circuit, and the musical sound signal is then synthesized based on the partial data in the region of the "last half".
Similarly, when the readout of the region of the "last half" is completed by the tone generator circuit, an interruption is generated to the CPU and, under the control of the CPU, new partial data are read from the hard disk to the region of the "last half". In parallel with this, the region of the "first half" is read by the tone generator circuit, and the musical sound signal is then synthesized. In this way, a partial data transmission to one region and a playback of data using the other region are repeatedly performed. Here, a speed of reading respective regions is determined based on a pitch (f-number) of the corresponding sound channel. Accordingly, one kind of wave data can be applied now to various pitches.
A progress situation of read addresses of a plurality of channels will now be explained using FIG. 2(b). Since a speed of reading the waveform memory for each sound channel is determined based on a pitch (f-number) of the sound channel, periods of the sawtooth waves tracing the read addresses are different for each sound channel as shown in the chart. In any sound channels, interruptions occur for every half period of the sawtooth wave, namely at timings indicated by white round marks, and an update of a channel corresponding memory region of a "first half" or a "last half" is started. When the periods of the sawtooth waves are different for every channel like this, many interruptions of the sound channels may occur almost at the same time near a certain timing (time tp in an example of the chart).
Incidentally, when the interruptions intensively occur like this, partial data will come to be read from a hard disk almost continuously. In order to write the wave data read from the hard disk in a buffer memory, however, it is necessary to transmit in advance the wave data previously stored in the buffer memory, to the waveform memory. As a result, even when the hard disk itself is in a readable state, there is a need to suspend the data read from the hard disk depending on a state of the buffer memory, whereby there has been a problem that the supply of the partial data does not meet the requirement.
When the periods of the sawtooth waves are different for every channel as shown in FIG. 2(b), many interruptions of the sound channels may occur almost at the same time near a certain timing (time tp in an example of the chart). If the interruptions intensively occur like this, the timing for reading the partial data from the hard disk gets delayed, whereby there has been a problem that the supply of the partial data does not meet the requirement especially to a channel with a short period of the read address.

Memory access controller for musical sound generating system


A method enables for a remotely located telephone user to selectively preprogram the recording of a desired television (TV) program on a video cassette recorder (VCR) tape or of vocal messages from the caller on a storage device in a receiver telephone set. At a first step, each of input ringing signals is processed to provide a detected ringing signal corresponding thereto. At a next step, the number of the detected ringing signals is counted until the number of the counted ringing signals reaches a first predetermined number. Thereafter, at a checking step, it is checked whether or not there is a first tone signal from the caller's telephone when either the number of the counted ringing signals is equal to the first predetermined number or it is smaller than the first predetermined number but equal to or larger than a second predetermined number. At a final step, if it is checked that the first tone signal is provided from the caller's telephone, accepting preprogramming information provided by the caller to thereby preprogram the desired TV program based on the preprogram information, and if otherwise, recording the caller's voice message in the storage device of the receiver telephone set.

A conventional remote-controlled system for a remotely located telephone user to preprogram the recording of a desired TV program utilizes a video cassette recorder (VCR) and a telephone set coupled with the VCR.
However, there is no known prior art remote-controlled system provided with the capability of remotely preprogramming the recording of a desired TV program and at the same time accommodating an automatic telephone answering device coupled to the system.

Remote-controlled system and method for selectively recording desired information


Disclosed is a determination device for the size of a cutting block. The determination device includes the connection device mounted to a tibia to be placed at a top surface thereof along an upper line of a predetermined flexion gap; a body including a slide groove on a central portion of a front surface thereof, a bent part on an upper portion thereof to be placed at a precut anterior cortex of a femur, and a plurality of graduations provided on the body to determine the size of the cutting block; a slider to be slidably engaged with the slide groove of the body and including an indicating line on an upper portion thereof, and a guide to be assembled with the slider and come into surface contact with the top surface of the connection device at a lower portion thereof. The conventional devices are problematic in terms of being incapable of determining a cutting block suitable for the damaged state of a knee joint of a patient because the size of the cutting block is determined by measuring only the height of the femur with no consideration of a flexion gap. The problem encountered in the prior art can be overcome by using the determination device for the size of the cutting block according to the present invention.

Knee arthroplasty has become one of the most commonly performed surgeries, with which a damaged or deformed knee joint due to congenital deformation, traumatic injuries, diseases, degenerative arthritis, etc. is removed and replaced with an artificial joint. In brief, referring to FIG. 1, the anterior cortex 15 is first cut according to the damaged or deformed state of a knee joint of a patient. And, an extension gap is determined to allow for bone cutting matching with the size of an artificial joint (prosthesis). The femur 10 is undercut according to the extension gap. In addition, according to the determined extension gap, referring to FIG. 2, a flexion gap is determined based on an upper end of the tibia 20. Then, referring to FIG. 3, the posterior condyles 11, the posterior chamfer 12, the anterior cortex 13 and the anterior chamfer 14 of the femur 10 are cut using an appropriate femoral cutting block 30. An artificial joint is then implanted to replace the cut knee joint.
The flexion gap, which is required for the knee to be flexed from an extended (straight) position, indicates the gap between the cut surface of the upper end of the tibia 20 and the cut surface of the posterior femoral condyles 11. Since the femur and the tibia rotate at a state of being in close contact with each other, the flexion gap is typically determined to be identical to the extension gap. However, the flexion gap may be determined according to 3-D shape of the damaged knee joint of a patient.
On the other hand, the femoral cutting block 30, used upon the posterior and anterior cuts at the posterior condyles 11, the posterior chamfer 12, the anterior cortex 13 and the anterior chamfer 14 of the femur 10, is commercially available in a standardized size corresponding to the size of the flexion gap. Therefore, the femoral cutting block 30 is determined to have a size corresponding to that of the determined flexion gap, while the size of the artificial joint is determined according to the size of the femoral cutting block.
However, conventional devices for determining the size of a cutting block are problematic in terms of being incapable of determining a cutting block with a proper size because the size of the cutting block is determined by measuring only the height of the femur without any consideration for the size of a flexion gap that varies depending on the size of the cutting block.
Referring to FIG. 4, the problem of the conventional devices for determining the size of the cutting block will be described in detail, as follows. A conventional device 40 for determining the size of the cutting block includes a support 41 to be placed at the posterior femoral condyles 11 and a bar 42 to be placed at the anterior femoral cortex 15. The bar 42 is slidably connected with the support 41 and has a predetermined number of graduations. The support 41 includes an indicating line. A graduation of the bar is determined, which is aligned with the indicating line of the support 42, by closely contacting the support 41 and the bar 42 with the position femoral condyles 11 and the anterior femoral cortex 15, respectively. The measured graduation becomes to the size of a cutting block 30, and thereby the size of an artificial joint is determined.
However, there is a significant problem experienced in this conventional device 40 for determining the size of the cutting block. That is, the graduation of the bar indicated by the indicating line is changed by the damaged or deformed state of the posterior femoral condyles, by the cut degree of the anterior femoral cortex or by the total height of the femur, thereby the size of the cutting block is varied.
As described above, the flexion gap is the gap between the cut surface of the upper end of the tibia 20 and the cut surface of the posterior femoral condyles 11, and the size of the cutting block should be determined by the flexion gap. However, since the conventional devices determine the size of the cutting block by only the height of the femur without any consideration of the flexion gap, the devices have the problem of being incapable of determining the cutting block with a proper size to allow a surgeon to perform a bone cutting operation to define a desired flexion gap.
If a cutting block with an unsuitable size is determined, a determined artificial joint has also an unsuitable size. This unsuitable prosthesis results in a limitation in normal physical behavior. Consequentially, extension and flexion exercises of the knee are not normal, and an imbalance occurs between the muscle and the ligament that constitute the knee joint.

Determination device for size of cutting block using connection device

Incheon University Industry Academic Cooperation Foundation


A system and method is disclosed for treating water to remove suspended solids, disinfect for bacteria and viruses and remove color, taste and odor to produce a potable water. A bactericide is introduced which is relatively stable and long term. The system and method introduces the bactericide to the water in an amount sufficient to kill the bacteria and inactivate viruses, The bactericide is maintained in the water at least for a time period sufficient to kill the bacteria in the water, and, until the water is desired to be consumed at which time the water may be passed through an ion exchange. In this way, there is a decreased likelihood that the water will become recontaminated with the same bacteria and/or viruses before the water is desired to be used. In one embodiment, the bactericide comprises metal ions, such as silver ions and/or copper and zinc ions. In order to introduce the metal ions into the water, the system may comprise an electrode having about 70 percent to 90 percent copper, about 5 percent to 15 percent silver and about 5 percent to 15 percent zinc. Prior to the introduction of the bacteriacide, the water may be treated by passing the water through diatomaceous earth to remove contaminants from the water and/or passing the water through an initial disinfection stage.

This invention relates to the treatment of water. More particularly, this invention relates to a system or method for treating water to produce water having biologically acceptable levels of bacteria.
In the past, there have been many different types of water treatment methods and systems proposed to treat water in order to remove contaminants and kill bacteria. In particular, it is known in the prior art to introduce bacteriacides to kill bacteria in the water. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,198,296 to Doumas proposes a method for treatment of water by passing the water through a media of activated carbon impregnated with silver salts and metallic silver to increase the amount of silver ions Ag+ to a level which can kill the bacteria. The silver ions Ag+ remain in the water for a period of time necessary to kill bacteria, in the order of six minutes. The water can then be further treated and/or filtered prior to human consumption.
However, in many cases, bacteria which can grow in water may be found in several locations. For example, bacteria which grow in water may be airborne or may be found on surfaces within the actual water treatment system and re-contaminate the water. Furthermore, there is always the possibility that not all of the bacteria in the water has been killed, such that the remaining bacteria may continue to multiply while the water is being held for later use. Therefore, water which has been subjected to disinfection and treated to kill bacteria, may become recontaminated with the same bacteria which were killed by the disinfection. This is particularly likely in warm environments where bacteria and viruses are known to grow faster and be airborne in greater amounts. This may also occur in environments and/or countries which have poor sanitation and may have more bacteria, both airborne bacteria and non-airborne, throughout the environment.
Furthermore, many prior art devices and methods require a long holding time to permit the bacteriacide to kill the bacteria and viruses. This decreases the efficiency of the overall water treatment system, and, requires large amounts of water to be treated at any one time so as to ensure a sufficient supply of treated water when desired.
In some prior art water treatment systems, ultraviolet light is sometimes used substantially immediately before the water is consumed to kill any bacteria which may have recontaminated the water while it was being held for consumption. However, ultraviolet treatment occasionally does not kill all of the bacteria in the water, depending on the intensity of the ultraviolet light, the characteristics of the water itself (i.e. colour, turbidity, organic content), and, the quantity of bacteria in the water. Furthermore, ultraviolet light tends to be inconsistent and bacteria and viruses may not always be exposed to all of the water as it passes in front of the ultra violet light source.
Accordingly, there is a heed in the art for a system and method to treat water so as to ensure a supply of water having biologically acceptable levels of bacteria by killing bacteria in water, and also preventing recontamination of the water before the water is desired to be consumed. There is also a need in the art to quickly treat water so as to rapidly kill bacteria, thereby ensuring a ready supply of treated water. Quickly treating water to rapidly destroy bacteria also avoids the need for large holding containers which are used to treat large amounts of water to ensure water is available at any particular time, and, increases the efficiency of the overall system.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to at least partially overcome the disadvantages of the prior art. Also, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved type of water treatment system and method which ensures a supply of water having a biologically acceptable level of bacteria when the water is desired to be consumed by ensuring the bacteria which are killed do not recontaminate the water supply.
Accordingly, in one of its aspects, this invention resides in a method for treating water for human consumption comprising the steps of: (a) introducing a bacteriacide to the water in an amount sufficient to kill bacteria in the water; (b) maintaining the bacteriacide in said water until the water is desired to be consumed and at least for a period of time sufficient to kill the bacteria in the water; (c) once the water is desired to be consumed, decreasing the amount of the bacteriacide in the water to a biologically acceptable amount for human consumption.
In a further aspect, this invention resides in a system for treating water for human consumption comprising: a container for holding the water until the water is desired for human consumption; means for introducing a bacteriacide to the water in the container in an amount sufficient to kill bacteria in the water; means for decreasing the bacteriacide to a biologically acceptable level when the water is desired to be consumed; wherein the bacteriacide is maintained in the water in the container in an amount sufficient to kill bacteria in the water and to prevent recontamination of the water by bacteria until the water is desired to be consumed.
One advantage of the present invention is that maintaining the bacteriacide in the water for an extended period of time will ensure that all the bacteria and viruses have been killed before consumption. Furthermore, maintaining the bacteriacide in the water until substantially immediately before the water is desired to be consumed, decreases the likelihood that the water will become recontaminated with the same bacteria and viruses. In addition, maintaining the bacteriacide in the water until substantially immediately before the water is desired to be consumed, decreases the ability of any bacteria which may have survived the bacteriacide, to reproduce in substantial quantities.
A further advantage of the present invention is that the same disinfecting treatment which is used to initially kill the bacteria is also used to prevent recontamination of the bacteria. Accordingly, the present invention provides a cost savings over other water treatment systems and methods which require a secondary type of water treatment method, such as ultraviolet radiation, in addition to the primary type of water treatment used to initially kill the bacteria.
A further advantage of the present invention is that the bacteriacide, in a preferred embodiment, is a silver ion Ag+ which can be introduced rapidly by means of a silver containing electrode. This provides rapid dissemination of silver ions throughout the water in order to rapidly kill the bacteria, thus decreasing the time required to treat the water and increasing the overall efficiency of the system.
A further advantage of the present invention is that the silver ions Ag+ may be removed by passing the water through an ion exchange to remove the silver ions Ag+. The ion exchange removes the silver ions Ag+, which have acted as the bacteriacide, and further removes other ions and contaminants in the water in addition to the silver ions Ag+. Furthermore, the silver ions Ag+ removed by the ion exchange can then be extracted and recycled in new electrodes for later use.
Further aspects of the invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and drawings which illustrate the invention and preferred embodiments of the invention.

System and method for treatment of water


A route selection method, a route selection system, a network acceleration node, and a network acceleration system are provided. The route selection method comprises detecting, by an ingress network acceleration node, a link delay from the ingress network acceleration node to each egress network acceleration node, and determining whether each egress network acceleration node is available; obtaining, by the ingress network acceleration node, from an available egress network acceleration node, a link delay from the available egress network acceleration node to a source site IP; and selecting a desired route from the ingress network acceleration node to the source site IP based on a link delay from the ingress network acceleration node to an available egress network acceleration node and a link delay from the available egress network acceleration node to the source site IP.

As the computer network technology advances continuously, the Internet technology has become an important part of human life. Users have increasingly higher requirements on the network transmission speed and the feedback speed for the user request. In the earliest technology architecture, user request data is directly sent to a source site server, and after being processed by the source site server based on the user request, the feedback is directly sent back to the user. Because issues such as a long geographic distance, the user and the source site server belonging to different network carriers, transmission line being damaged, and overload of the transmission line, etc., may exist between the user and the source site server, the communication between the user and the source site may show phenomena such as slow transmission, slow feedback, high cost, and transmission interruption, etc. Thus, not only the user's Internet surfing experience may be affected, but also the content provider's cost may be increased. Further, other unpredictable losses may also occur.
With the improvement and advancement of the technologies, the above described issues in existing technologies may be alleviated by establishing an application acceleration network between the user and the source site. The application acceleration network is a network data acceleration system for boosting the data transmission speed between the user and the source site. For different source sites visited by users in different regions, transmission routes with relatively good quality may be selected respectively to accelerate the data transmission. The application acceleration network mainly uses an architectural mode including a central server and a network acceleration node. In such mode, the network acceleration node may be responsible for detecting the link status between itself and the source site and the link status between itself and other connected network acceleration nodes, and reporting the detection results to the central server. Based on the detection result from each network acceleration node, the central server may select a desired route from the user to the source site, and may send the selection result to each network acceleration node. The network acceleration node may transmit and feedback the user request based on the selection result.
However, the existing network acceleration mode may have the following shortcomings. (1) When a particular network acceleration node receives a user request, every network acceleration node in the application acceleration network may need to add a task of detecting the link status between itself and the source site and add a task of detecting the link status between itself and other connected network acceleration nodes. Accordingly, the number of detection tasks may increase dramatically, the detection traffic may need to occupy a relatively large bandwidth, and even the service traffic may be affected. (2) The substantial number of detection tasks may be reported to the central server, resulting in a particularly high calculation pressure on the central server, thereby affecting the feedback speed of the central server. As such, although the existing application acceleration network improves the speed and quality of the data transmission between the user and the source site to certain extent, the existing application acceleration network has its own shortcomings, thus failing to meet the ever growing user demands and being unable to provide better user experience.

Route selection method and system, network acceleration node, and network acceleration system


A system for electronically managing patient discharges may include a patient data repository that can store patient data. The system may also include a provider repository that can store medical provider data having information about one or more providers of services to discharged patients. Moreover, the system may include a discharge planning module that can output a discharge planning user interface for presentation to a user. The discharge user interface can have functionality for the user to input post-discharge medical care options for a medical patient. The discharge planning module can also access the provider data in the provider data repository in response to receiving the post-discharge medical care options from the user, select medical providers from the provider data who have characteristics in the provider data that match the medical care options, and electronically send a discharge request to the selected medical providers.

In order to discharge patients from hospitals or other clinical facilities, a great deal of planning often takes place. A care worker assigned as a discharge planner typically begins the discharge process on the day the patient enters the hospital. The discharge planner prepares a significant amount of paperwork to ensure that discharged patients receive proper, safe medical care upon leaving the clinical facility. This post-discharge medical care can be provided by medical providers such as skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), assisted living centers, pharmacies, medical equipment providers, medical transport (e.g., ambulances), therapy and treatment centers (e.g., dialysis treatment), medical laboratories, and the like.
In order to ensure a safe discharge for a patient, a discharge planner typically faxes discharge requests, which include large amounts of patient information, to several medical providers. The discharge planner then waits for a response from the medical providers. Each medical provider reviews the extensive fax documents to find relevant information about the patient and then determines, depending on the type of medical provider, if a room, medicine, equipment, therapy, or the like is available for the patient. The medical providers then fax back their responses, and the discharge planner chooses from among the medical providers who responded positively.

Computer systems for managing patient discharge


An EUV greyscale filter of an EUV optical unit of a metrology system has a membrane that is at least partly transmissive in regions for EUV light in the wavelength range of between 5 nm and 30 nm. The latter interacts with a whole beam of the EUV light in the operational position of the EUV greyscale filter. This results in a metrology system with extended application possibilities on account of the EUV greyscale filter.

Such metrology systems are known from WO 2016/012426 A1, US 2013/0063716 A1, DE 102 20 815 A1, DE 102 20 816 A1 and US 2013/0083321 A1. DE 10 2012 204 295 A1 discloses a filter element for a projection exposure apparatus. DE 10 2008 041 436 A1 describes an optical membrane element for an optical appliance in EUV lithography.

Metrology system having an EUV optical unit


The present invention provides a freezer capable of preventing/restraining quality of foods from being deteriorated, freezing method, and frozen objects manufactured using the freezer and freezing method. The freezer 10 comprises a freezer main body 101, a cluster fragmenting device 1A for fragmenting water clusters contained in the objects 5, a loading part 7 for loading the objects 5, a heat exchanger 8 and a cold gas supply device. The cold gas supply device comprises a dehumidifying device 11 for dehumidifying a cold gas heat-exchanged by the heat exchanger 8, and a fan 9 for-circulating dehumidified cold gas to maintain the inside of the freezer 101 in a dry state. Further, the cluster fragmenting device 1A includes plural magnetic field generating devices 2 that imparts magnetic fields to the objects 5 containing water and changes the strength of magnetic fields with time elapsed.

Freezers, which freeze foods and the like at a temperature below the freezing point and store them therein, are widely used. A major purpose of such freezers is to prevent the foods from decaying etc., so as to store the object for a long period of time.
However, when a conventional freezer is used for freezing foods, there is a case where a quality of foods (for example, flavor, appearance, fragrant and the like) is deteriorated due to changes in microscopic structure of foods during freezing (for example, destruction of cells constituting the foods and the like). Also, some kinds of foods cannot endure frozen storage practically because of significant quality deterioration through freezing.
To solve the above problem, there are some proposals in which nuclear magnetic resonance is generated in hydrogen nucleus to freeze foods (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-325062). However, even when such method is employed, it is difficult to satisfactorily prevent the deterioration of the quality due to the freezing.
Ordinarily, frozen foods are unfrozen and served for eating. In the methods as described above, depending on the type of the food, the drip generation can not satisfactorily prevented during unfreezing. Further, in the case of noodles such as Chinese noodle and pasta, when they are frozen and then unfrozen to cook, the flavor and appearance thereof are easily degraded in general. Thus, the above-mentioned method cannot solve such problems.

Freezer, freezing method and frozen objects


The present invention relates to a stackable packing element for use in degassing liquid ophthalmic lens monomer and a lens resulting therefrom. One or more stackable elements can be used to form a modular degasser and implement an in-line degassing process, employing same. The stackable packing element is comprised of a body module and a removable puck component.

Ophthalmic lenses, such as for example, soft contact lenses, can be fabricated by a variety of techniques. The more industrially popular methods involve the use of suitable liquid monomers, such as hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), that are deposited into especially configured mold halves. The monomer can be cured by any number of techniques, e.g. ultraviolet radiation, to form the lens. The liquid monomer, however, invariably contains dissolved gases such as oxygen and nitrogen, which can detrimentally affect curing either by forming unwanted bubbles, which can manifest as voids or other flaws in the final lens, or by otherwise interfering with the curing mechanism itself. It has thus become a common practice to degas the liquid monomer prior to use.
Accordingly, different techniques have been explored for degassing the monomer. One practice is to employ a rotary evaporator unit that removes excess gas from the monomer by rotating same under subatmospheric pressure. The container holding the mixture is then flushed with and held under nitrogen atmosphere. Another technique is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,943 wherein the monomer is pumped through a gas permeable tube surrounded by a subatmospheric chamber. Gases in the monomer permeate the tube in favor of the lower pressure on the outside of same, the degassed monomer then being deposited into the lens molds and cured.
While these methods have proven commercially useful, efforts to advance the degas operation are nonetheless of interest. For example, the rotary evaporator method provides an opportunity for nitrogen gas to re-dissolve into the monomer during back fill flushing. Degas using permeable tubing has its own drawbacks: it typically demands batch operation due to the particulars involved in pumping viscous liquid monomer through tubing; thus, monomer is stored in vessels until required, whereupon it is sent to a tubular degas station which is off line. In a production environment where automation and advances in automation are critical, the use of a batch operation causes numerous inefficiencies that can adversely affect yield and logistics. Related to this is the fact that the permeable tubing is at some point subject to breakage, due for example to the pressure difference on either side of the tube wall and wear of the material of construction, typically silicone tubing. Breakage usually results in a shut down and often requires the wholesale replacement of tubing bundles, even those that are still intact, the arduousness of which can further disrupt operations. Moreover, the permeable tubing typically can not be properly cleaned when the need arises given, for example, the difficulty of cleaning the lumen. A batch degas operation also creates disposal problems inasmuch as liquid monomers for ophthalmic lenses commonly have shelf lives, and if not used within same they must be discarded. Moreover, in a batch operation where liquid monomer is pumped from a storage vessel, there is always some residual monomer remaining in the vessel after use. The aggregate amount of this residue, in the context of an industrial production facility, must be disposed of once past its shelf life.
There is thus a continuing need in the art for a degas technology that has increased effectiveness in both operation and maintenance, which technology can be employed in-line, and with reduced disposal issues.


A column redundancy circuit for a semiconductor memory device, e.g., a DRAM, which includes a normal memory array comprised of a plurality of memory blocks each comprised of a matrix of rows and columns of memory cells, with at least two of the memory blocks sharing common columns, and with at least one of the columns being defective, in the sense of being connected to at least one memory cell which has been determined to be defective. The column redundancy circuit includes a plurality of redundant columns, block selection control circuit which is programmed to generate a first output signal in response to receipt of a memory block address signal corresponding to one or more of the memory blocks which contain the defective column, a column address decoder which is programmed to generate a second output signal in response to receipt of both the first output signal and a column address signal corresponding to the defective column, and, a redundant column driver circuit which is responsive to the second output signal for activating a predetermined one of the redundant columns, to thereby repair the defective column. In a preferred embodiment, the block selection control circuit and the column address decoder each include a plurality of fuses and are each programmed by means of a selected one or more of their fuses being blown, e.g., by use of a laser.

The present invention relates generally to semiconductor memory devices, e.g., DRAMs, and more particularly, to a column redundancy circuit therefor.
One of the major determinants of the cost of producing memory chips is wafer yield, which is defined as the ratio of non-defective chips/total chips fabricated on a given wafer. In general, the higher the integration density of the memory chip, the higher the probability that one or more memory cells thereof will be defective. Thus, the higher the integration density of the chips fabricated on a given wafer, the lower the wafer yield. Accordingly, the need for a method in which to correct defects in order to enhance wafer yield became more acute with the advent of high-density memory chips.
The single most effective method in which to correct memory cell defects in order to enhance wafer yield is the provision of a redundant memory circuit in which one or more redundant rows and/or columns of memory cells are provided in order to replace rows and/or columns of the main memory array which are found to be defective, during testing, e.g., during wafer sort. In general, the redundant rows and/or columns have initially unspecified addresses and redundant decoders coupled thereto. The redundant decoders are programmable in such a manner as to match the addresses of rows and/or columns which are determined to be defective. The defective rows and/or columns are decoupled or disabled.
In operation, when a memory read or write cycle is executed, access to the defective rows and/or columns is prevented, and the redundant decoders are responsive to only the addresses of the defective rows and/or columns, to thereby effectively replace the defective rows and/or columns with the redundant rows and/or columns, which are sometimes referred to as spare rows and/or columns. This technique of replacing defective rows and/or columns with redundant rows and/or columns is oftentimes referred to as repairing defective memory cells.
A typical implementation of the programmable redundant decoder is an address decoder in which a polysilicon fusible link, i.e., fuse, is connected to each address bit line of a row address or column address buffer, depending upon whether the redundant decoder is a redundant row or column decoder, respectively. In order to program such a redundant decoder with the address of a column or row of memory cells having a defective memory cell, selected ones of the fuses are cut/blown, e.g., by means of a laser.
With reference now to FIG. 1, there can be seen a representational block diagram of the organizational structure of a multi-block memory device and the row and column address decoders therefor. As can be seen, the memory device depicted in FIG. 1 includes an m.times.n normal memory cell array and an m.times.k redundant memory cell array. In operation, fuse boxes FB1-FBk generate signals .phi.REN1-.phi.RENk, respectively, which indicate the receipt of a column address signal corresponding to a defective column in the normal memory cell array. More particularly, if a column common to normal cell arrays NCA12-NCAm2 is determined to contain a defective memory cell, then the signal .phi.REN2 will be driven high. The normal decoder control circuit NDC, in response to the signal .phi.REN2 being driven high, will disable the input/output gates IO12-IOm2 corresponding to the normal cell arrays NCA12-NCAm2, respectively, which share the defective column, by way of disabling the normal column decoder NCD2 corresponding to the defective column. Further, the signals .phi.REN1-.phi.RENk generated by the fuse boxes FB1-FBk, respectively, are also applied to redundant column decoders RCD1-RCDk, respectively. The redundant column shared by the redundant cell arrays RCA12-RCAm2 is selected by the corresponding redundant column decoder RCD2, in response to the signal .phi.REN2 going high, thus effectively replacing the defective column with the redundant column which has been programmed with the address of the defective column.
With reference now to FIG. 2, there can be seen an overall block diagram of the conventional column redundancy circuit, including a redundant column control circuit 100', a fuse box array 200', and a redundant column driver 300'. More particularly, the redundant column control circuit 100', in response to receipt of a row address signal corresponding to that of a defective memory cell, generates a redundancy enable signal RSTP which is applied to a first input of the fuse box array 200'. The fuse box array 200' also receives, at a second input, a column address signal. When the fuse box 200' receives a high logic level RSTP signal at its first input, and a column address signal corresponding to a defective column at its second input, it generates a high logic level output signal, .phi.RENi, which is referred to as the redundancy sensing signal. The redundancy sensing signal .phi.RENi is applied to the redundant column driver 300' which, in response to the signal .phi.RENi, generates an output signal RCSL which activates the redundant or spare column RCAi which has been selected to replace the defective column.
With reference now to FIG. 3, there can be seen a detailed circuit diagram of the fuse box 200' of the conventional column redundancy circuit depicted in FIG. 2. In operation, the fuse box array 200' works as follows. More particularly, in response to the RSTP signal going high, the output signal "b" of the inverter 7 goes high, and the output signal "a" of the inverter 6 goes low, thereby turning on the dual transistors T1 and T2 in the fuse box 200'A of the fuse box array 200'. Assuming that the fuse F1 of the fuse box 200'A has been blown, then the node r1 will remain high, even when the column address bit CAi associated therewith is low. Thus, assuming that negative logic is used, the fuse box 200'A has been programmed to generate a high level signal as its output node r1 only in response to receipt of the column address bit CAi. If the remaining fuse boxes CA2-9 also have their fuses selectively blown in a similar manner, then the fuse box array 200' can be programmed with the column address of the defective column. Thus, the fuse box array 200' can be considered a programmable redundant column address decoder. When the column address corresponding to the defective column is received, it generates an output signal .phi.RENi having a high logic level. As described previously in conjunction with FIGS. 1 and 2, this signal is then applied to the redundant column driver 300' to activate the selected redundant column for replacing the defective column.
A significant drawback with the above-described conventional column redundancy circuit is that the entire defective column common to several memory sub-arrays is disabled, even though only a portion thereof located within a single one of the sub-arrays may in fact be defective, i.e., the only defective memory cell(s) connected to the defective column may be contained within a single one of the sub-arrays. This results in unnecessary loss of memory space. Moreover, this results in unnecessary usage of valuable and scarce redundant memory space, thereby reducing redundancy efficiency and the, wafer yield.
In order to overcome this limitation, the present inventor has proposed the column redundancy circuit disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 757,465, entitled "Semiconductor Memory Redundant Device". A partial schematic, partial block diagram of a fuse box utilized in this proposed column redundancy circuit is depicted in FIG. 4. As is evident from FIG. 4, in this proposed column redundancy circuit, the redundancy efficiency is improved by virtue of employing a block selection signal .phi.BLSki which is applied to a block decoder corresponding to each specific sub-array/memory block of the memory device, to thereby facilitate repair of only the column of the specific memory block which contains the defective memory cell, rather than all of the memory blocks or sub-arrays which share the defective column. Although this proposed column redundancy circuit constitutes a major improvement over theretofore existing technology, it suffers from the following shortcoming. More particularly, when it is necessary to replace the same column in two or more different memory blocks, the circuit is incapable of doing this, thereby limiting the utility thereof.
Based upon the foregoing, it can be appreciated that there presently exists a need for a column redundancy circuit for a semiconductor memory device which overcomes the above-described limitations and disadvantages of the presently available column redundancy circuits. The present invention fulfills this need.

Column redundancy circuit for a semiconductor memory device


The present invention provides an intestinal tract-protecting agent, an agent for the prophylaxis or improvement of a disease caused by damage in intestinal tract barrier function, which contains hydroxylated fatty acid, particularly hydroxylated unsaturated fatty acid, having a hydroxyl group at the 10-position and/or the 12-position, which is an intermediate of the metabolism of unsaturated fatty acid by lactobacillus.

Intestine epithelial cells are in direct contact with foods, enteric bacteria, pathogens and the like. They do not simply function as a physical barrier, but also play an important role in the induction of and giving direction to immune responses in the intestine, and the like. Intestine epithelial cells form a structure wherein intercellular spaces are closely adhered by plural tight junction-related factors such as ZO-1, Occludin and Claudin firmly. When the expression of said related factors decreases and the like in the intestinal epithelial cells due to IL-6, TNF-α, insulin and the like, the intestinal tract barrier function may sometimes be damaged (non-patent document 1). Also, when the intestinal epithelial cell layer is damaged by pathogen and the like, peripheral immunocytes are activated to repair the epithelial layer and remove foreign substances.
However, when immune response becomes excessive, inflammation may occur in the intestinal tissues and, as a therapeutic agent to suppress such inflammation, a therapeutic agent for inflammatory bowel diseases, which contains lactobacillus bacterium, and the like have been reported (patent document 1). As a therapeutic drug that suppresses permeation of allergen substances and the like by taking note of substance permeation through tight junction and preventing looseness of the tight junction, intestinal tract-protecting agents containing whey protein, casein, serum albumin and the like as an active ingredient and the like have also been reported (patent document 2).
While the above-mentioned intestinal tract-protecting agents have been reported, the development of a new intestinal tract-protecting agent, which can be used for the prophylaxis or treatment of damage in intestinal tract barrier function or diseases caused thereby is desired.
Conjugated fatty acid represented by conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has been reported to have various physiological activities such as a lipid metabolism improving effect, an anti-arteriosclerosis action, a body fats decreasing action and the like (non-patent documents 2-4), and is a functional lipid expected to be applicable to various fields of medicament, functional food and the like. In addition, action on the intestinal tract protection has been attracting attention and improvement of symptoms of patients with ulcerative colitis such as Crohn's disease and the like, by conjugated linoleic acid has been reported and the like (http://www.nimml.org/838/).
Conjugated linoleic acid is produced as an intermediate of saturation metabolism of unsaturated fatty acid by lactobacillus. As an intermediate of the metabolism, for example, hydroxylated fatty acids such as 10-hydroxy-cis-12-octadecenoic acid, 10-hydroxy-octadecanoic acid and the like, oxofatty acids such as 10-oxo-12-octadecenoic acid, 10-oxooctadecanoic acid, 10-oxo-11-octadecenoic acid and the like, and the like exist. However, there is no report on the action and effect of an intermediate of saturation metabolism of unsaturated fatty acid by lactobacillus on the intestine, as far as the applicant is aware of.

Intestinal tract-protecting agent containing hydroxylated fatty acid


An apparatus and method to produce hydrogen gas a high pressure is disclosed. An electrolyzer is located inside a pressure vessel that is pressurized with high pressure water. The high pressure water is provided to both the anode and cathode sides of the electrolyzer by a pump in the pressure vessel Oxygen produced at the high pressure on the anode side of the electrolyzer is vented directly into the pressure vessel while hydrogen produced at the high pressure on the cathode side is routed to a separator and is deadheaded. The high pressure hydrogen is periodically routed from the separator to a storage tank by a pressure regulator.

Hydrogen is used as a fuel in many applications today, including in fuel cells producing electric power. Fuel cells have also been proposed for use in electrical vehicular power plants to replace internal combustion engines. With the increased use of hydrogen as a fuel source, better methods of producing hydrogen gas are needed.
A common way to produce hydrogen gas is by electrolysis of water. In addition to producing hydrogen, electrolysis of water also produces oxygen. The generation of hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis of water is performed in an electrolyzer. An electrolyzer is comprised of a plurality of cells that each have an anode side with an anode electrode and a cathode side with a cathode electrode. The anode and cathode electrodes are separated by a solid polymer electrolyte. A load or voltage (electrical potential) is applied across the anode and cathode electrodes while water is supplied to the anode side. Oxygen is generated on the anode side and excess water supplied to the anode side carries the oxygen and heat generated away from the cell. Hydrogen ions along with a small amount of the water are driven through the membrane by the electrical potential and, with the addition of electrons from the cathode, form hydrogen gas on the cathode side. The hydrogen gas and the protonic water are ported out of the cathode side of the cell. A plurality of such cells are stacked adjacent one another to form an electrolyzer capable of producing both hydrogen and oxygen gas with the addition of water and electrical potential.
Because the gases produced through water electrolysis are very pure and typically do not require additional processing, it is advantageous to match as closely as possible electrolysis pressure with that required for further processing or storage. Hydrogen, being a light gas, is preferably stored at high pressures (5,000–10,000+ psi). These high pressures provide for economical storage of the hydrogen gas. Oxygen, likewise, is also preferably stored at high pressures. While production of hydrogen or oxygen at these higher pressures is desirable, a limitation of electrolyzers has been the inability to produce hydrogen or oxygen gas at these elevated or high pressures. The limitation on the pressure at which an electrolyzer can produce hydrogen or oxygen gas has been due to the structural limitations of the individual cells. That is, the structural configuration of the individual cells limit the magnitude of the pressure differential that can exist between the anode and cathode sides without the membrane failing or rupturing. To overcome these limitations, the electrolyzer was enclosed within a pressure vessel that was then pressurized with a blanket of inert gas (nitrogen). The pressurized nitrogen was provided to both the anode and cathode sides of the electrolyzer so that the electrolyzer could be operated at a higher overall pressure while maintaining a pressure differential between the anode and cathode sides of a magnitude that does not rupture or cause premature failure of the membrane. The use of a pressurized inert gas, however, lowered the efficiency of the electrolyzer due to the requirement to compress the nitrogen gas to the desired pressures. That is, specialized mechanical devices are necessary to compress the nitrogen to these elevated pressures and requires additional energy input to accomplish the compression. The efficiency of compressing nitrogen, even though heavier than hydrogen, and the complex controls necessary to accomplish this, reduce the overall efficiency of producing hydrogen and oxygen with the electrolyzer. In order to limit the necessity of utilizing pressurized gas to pressurize the anode and cathode sides of the electrolyzer, improvements were made on the inherent pressure capabilities of the electrolyzer itself. The improvements were made to the membrane support structure that is provided in each of these cells and which allow the cells to withstand, without damage, higher differential pressures than were previously possible. Current membrane support structures in electrolyzers allow pressure differentials between the anode and cathode sides of the electrolyzer of about 2,000 psi.
Thus, current electrolyzers are capable of producing hydrogen or oxygen gas at about 2,000 psi without the use of an inert gas to increase the pressure in the anode and cathode sides of the electrolyzer. By enclosing the electrolyzer within a pressure vessel pressurized by an inert gas that is supplied to both the anode and cathode sides of the electrolyzer, production of oxygen or hydrogen at pressures higher than 2,000 psi is possible. However, as stated above, the use of an inert gas to pressurize the anode and cathode sides of the fuel cells reduces the overall efficiency of the electrolyzer.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus to produce hydrogen or oxygen gas in an electrolyzer at high pressures (5,000–10,000+ psi) in a more efficient and economical manner. To increase the efficiency, it is desirable to avoid the necessity of compressing an inert gas to pressurize a pressure vessel within which the electrolyzer is positioned.

Electrolyzer system to produce gas at high pressure