A diffusion gauge is formed in a surface of a silicon substrate which has a plane orientation of (110). The diffusion gauge is disposed so that a main current thereof flows along a <110> direction perpendicular to a direction in which large stress biased in one direction generates in the surface of the silicon substrate due to distortion of a base for fixing the silicon substrate. Therefore, even when the large biased stress generates in the surface of the silicon substrate, because the <110> direction in which the main current of the diffusion gauge flows is perpendicular to the direction in which the biased stress generates, there is a little change in a resistance value of the diffusion gauge. As a result, a detection error caused by the distortion of the base can be reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor type physical quantity sensor which can be used as, for example, a pressure sensor for detecting an intake pressure of an engine in an automobile.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 9 shows the constitution of a conventional semiconductor type pressure sensor. A diaphragm 1a is formed in a silicon substrate (sensor chip) 1. The diaphragm 1a is displaced in accordance with pressure applied thereto. A plurality of diffusion gauges (strain gauges) 2 are formed on a surface of the diaphragm 1a. Resistance values of the diffusion gauges 2 vary in correspondence to displacement of the diaphragm 1a. The silicon substrate 1 is bonded to a glass pedestal 3 by anodic-bonding. A vacuum chamber 4 is formed between the silicon substrate 1 and the glass pedestal 3. As a result, the diaphragm 1a is displaced in accordance with a differential pressure between pressure applied to an upper surface of the diaphragm 1a and pressure in the vacuum chamber 4. A unit including the silicon substrate 1 bonded to the glass pedestal 3 constitutes a sensing unit 5. The glass pedestal 3 is soldered on a base 6, such as a metal stem, with the result that the sensing unit 5 is mounted on the base 6.
In the constitution as described above, when the base 6 is formed from a resin material for example, the base 6 is likely to be deformed. If the base 6 is cramped at right and left side-faces (A and A' faces) in the figure and is not cramped at front and rear faces (B and B' faces) in the figure, the base 6 is deformed as shown in FIG. 10 on the basis of its thermal expansion. That is, the base 6 is greatly distorted in an X direction rather than in a Y direction as shown in FIG. 10. The distortion of the base 6 is transmitted to the silicon substrate 1 via the glass pedestal 3. As a result, large stress is generated in the X direction on the surface of the silicon substrate 1. When the diffusion gauges 2 formed on the surface of the silicon substrate 1 detect such stress biased in one direction, a detection error in the detecting operation of the diffusion gauges 2 occurs.

Semiconductor type physical quantity sensor


An output buffer of semiconductor memory device is provided for improving the operation speed and for reducing an output noise. The output buffer in accordance with this invention includes an output node driver having a pull-up transistor and a pull-down transistor for pulling-up or pulling-down an output node; a data input circuit for receiving a data to be outputted from a sense amplifier during a reading operation, in response to an output enable signal and a preset signal; a preset input circuit for receiving an output signal of the output node driver during a preset period before the data is applied to the data input circuit in response to the output enable signal and the preset signal; and a driving circuit for receiving signals produced from the data input circuit and the preset input circuit and for driving the pull-up transistor and the pull-down transistor.

The present invention relates to an output buffer of semiconductor memory device with high integration, which externally produces a sensed cell data, in particularly to an output buffer for preventing a shifting delay of an output signal by presetting the output of the output buffer.
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of a conventional output buffer, which is composed of a driver unit 10 and a logic circuit unit 12. The driver unit 10 is composed of a pull-up transistor(PMOS transistor, PM) for pulling-up the output node N1, a pull-down transistor(NMOS transistor, NM) for pulling-down the output node N1. The logic circuit unit 12 controls the pull-up and the pull-down transistors PM and NM based on the logic combination of a data /DATA to be outputted and an output enable signal OE.
Here, the logic circuit unit 12 is composed of an inverter IV1 for receiving the data /DATA so as to invert it, a NAND gate NAG1 for performing a logic-NAND operation with respect to the output enable signal OE and the data DATA produced from the inverter IV1, and a NOR gate NOG1 for performing a logic-NOR operation with respect to the data DATA from the inverter IV1 and an inverted output enable signal /OE.
The operation of the output buffer of semiconductor memory device as above are as follows.
In case the output enable signal OE is low, the output of the NAND gate NAG1 is high level which is, in turn, applied to the gate of the pull-up transistor PM, and the output of the NOR gate NOG1 is low level which is, in turn, applied to the gate of the pull-down transistor NM. As a result, the pull-up transistor PM and the pull-down transistor NM are turned off so that the output node is floating.
Meanwhile, in case the output enable signal OE is high, the outputs of the NAND gate NAG1 and the NOR gate NOG1 are determined based on the logic level of the data DATA produced from the inverter IV1. That is, when the data DATA is low level, the output of the NAND gate NAG1 is high level which is applied to the gate of the pull-up transistor PM so as to be turned off. In addition, the gate of the pull-down transistor NM is applied with the high level signal from the NOR gate NOG1, so that the pull-down transistor NM is turned on to pull-down the output node N1 which produces a low level signal.
Alternatively, when the data DATA is high level, the NAND gate NAG1 produces a low level signal which is applied to the gate of the pull-up transistor PM, and the NOR gate NOG1 produces a low level signal which is applied to the gate of the pull-down transistor NM. Thus, the pull-up transistor PM is turned on and the pull-down transistor NM is turned off, so that the output node N1 is driven by pulling-up operation of the pull-up transistor PM and the high level signal is outputted.
The conventional output buffer as above, however, has a problem that the output signal OUT is fully swung between a ground level and a power supply voltage level, which causes the delay of the output signal changeover due to the deep swing voltage depth, thereby reducing the overall operation speed. Also, an output noise is generated due to the current flowing therein in order to drive an capacitor(which serves as a load) coupled in general to the output node of the output buffer, so that the other circuits may be malfunctioned.

Output buffer of semiconductor memory device

Hyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd.


A power management device is adapted to reduce power consumption, particularly in battery-powered applications such as within a node in a utility network (e.g., in a gas, water, or other utility application). In one example, a low-current voltage regulator provides power to a processor during low-power “sleep” states. A high-current voltage regulator provides power to the processor, metrology devices and/or a radio during “awake” states. A buck-boost device may provide power to a transmitter during radio frequency (RF) transmissions. A max device may determine a greater of voltages output by a battery and the buck-boost device, and use the higher to power the high-current voltage regulator. The power management device may include a state machine, which may include several states and operations to perform within each state. In one state, the processor enters a sleep state prior to recovery of battery voltage after a transmission state.

Power management of battery powered devices is important to achieve adequate battery life. In a utility environment (e.g., a gas and/or water meter), expected battery life may be twenty years. To achieve such an operational period, it is important to limit current draw and to efficiently use the current that is drawn. Accordingly, processors spend larger amounts of time in sleep modes, and radio transmission periods are minimized. However, increasing demands for data (e.g., to provide encryption) have resulted in a need for new and better means to conserve power and extend battery life.


An A/C-D/C-F/C power system is provided that includes a portable power unit that can accept electricity from a number of alternative sources including an AC power source, a DC power source, a battery, and a direct oxidation fuel cell. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the fuel cell is used to either recharge a battery, or to power an application device, when the AC source and/or the DC source are unavailable. The A/C-D/C-F/C system of the present invention also includes signal processing and signal conditioning circuitry in a power combiner and conditioner, which condition the voltage signal to deliver power to the application device in a manner that is consistent with device requirements.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to battery powered electronic devices, and more particularly, to systems for recharging and maintaining operation of such battery powered electronic devices.
2. Background Information There are a multitude of battery powered devices which are in wide-spread use today including laptop computers, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), walkie-talkies, cordless power tools, and mobile video and video game systems. These devices typically operate using a battery that is recharged when the device is not in use. Often, the battery is recharged by connecting either the device (or a battery pack for the device) into an external A/C source such as the typical 110 or 220-volt electrical outlet in the consumer's home or office. Many application devices also include an adapter that can connect to a D/C source such as an automobile lighter.
Other devices have been developed that allow a consumer to operate, or recharge, a mobile phone or laptop computer from a PC via a USB port or other electrical connector. Other devices have a solar powered battery charger or backup. Travel packs that can charge a battery by electrically connecting an alternating or direct current power source or a battery to a rechargeable battery have been developed. However, rechargeable batteries are typically kept charged and maintained with the device with which they are to be used, even where no alternating current or direct current sources are available to charge the application battery when it is discharged. This creates problems where the application device user is in traffic, or otherwise does not have access to another source of electricity. The opportunity to make a mobile telephone call, or to send Email messages, or use a PDA, for example, has been lost. The problem may be anything from a mere inconvenience to a life-threatening deficiency, depending on the particular circumstances in which the user finds themselves.
Furthermore, even though many application devices include rechargeable batteries, there is a time element required for a recharge, particularly a full recharge, of the application device batteries. Thus, even though an external power source may be available to recharge a battery, it may not be convenient or possible for the user to tether the device to that external power source at that time.
There are also devices which can provide power or recharge the battery in an application device that utilize a zinc/air fuel cell system that operates without an external power source. Such cells typically can be used for about three charges, or for a quick boost allowing device operation for a short period of time, e.g. one brief phone call or several short Email messages. The zinc/air fuel cells, however, begin to discharge immediately upon exposure to oxygen in the air. Thus, these devices must be kept sealed while not in use, and even then, air leakage into the cartridge can still cause a small, but continual discharge diminishing their effectiveness over time.
There remains a need for an electrical power system that can be used either to operate an application device and/or to recharge a battery in an application device that has the versatility to be used with a conventional electrical outlet, an automobile D/C current source, or an independent power source. It is further desirable if this device can accept a new source of fuel to provide power on an "as needed basis." One way to meet these demands is to integrate into the device components that are capable of accepting alternating and/or direct currents to power an application device, as well as a direct oxidation fuel cell which is also capable of powering the application device or charging the battery associated with the application device.
Recently, there have been developments in direct oxidation fuel cell technology. Fuel cells are devices in which an electrochemical reaction is used to generate electricity. A variety of materials may be suitable for use as a fuel, depending upon the materials chosen for the components of the cell. The zinc air fuel cell mentioned previously is one example of a fuel cell. In the zinc air fuel cell, exposure to air begins the chemical reaction that is used to generate electricity.
Other organic materials such as methanol or natural gas are attractive choices for fuel due to their high specific energy. Direct oxidation fuel cell systems use carbonaceous liquid fuel in an aqueous solution (typically aqueous methanol), which is applied to the anode face of a membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The MEA contains a protonically conductive but, electronically non-conductive membrane (PCM), typically a catalyst which enables direct oxidation of the fuel on the anode is disposed on one surface of the PCM or is otherwise present in the anode chamber of the fuel cell. Upon exposure of the PCM to the methanol solution, protons (from hydrogen found in the fuel) and water molecules create an anodic reaction, thus separating the protons from the electrons. The protons migrate through the PCM, which is impermeable to the electrons. The electrons thus seek a different path to reunite with the protons and oxygen molecules involved in the cathodic reaction and travel through a load, providing electrical power.
This reaction begins when the fuel is introduced into the anode chamber and comes in contact with the anode face of the PCM. The reaction continues as the fuel substance is consumed. Thus, the reaction can be stopped when the fuel is no longer introduced into the anode chamber or upon separation of the fuel delivery source from the fuel cell. Thus, the cell does not continue to provide electricity unless fuel is introduced into the anode chamber.
There remains a further need for such a device that has an independent power source that involves an electricity generating reaction which proceeds and produces electricity when the electricity is needed, and does not discharge or continue producing power when it is not needed.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a versatile power system for providing power to an application device (or a battery for an application device) that can be used either with an A/C external source, a D/C external source or an independent power cell, and which does not depend on external environmental factors to operate effectively.

A/C—D/C power system with internal fuel cell


A roof side garnish peripheral structure of an automobile includes: a roof side garnish (9) mounted on an inner side of a side roof rail (1) from an inner side of a passenger room, the roof side garnish (9) being provided at its outer side in a widthwise direction of the vehicle with a cover portion (11) capable of opening inward of the passenger room; a duct member (12) bonded to an outer side of the roof side garnish (9) at an upper location than the cover portion (11) of the roof side garnish (9); a duct passage (13) of closed cross section formed by the duct member (12) and the roof side garnish (9); a support portion (25) extending from an outer end of the duct member (12) in the widthwise direction of the vehicle, the support portion (25) having a tip end extending close to the side roof rail (1); and an accommodation space (S) defined by the support portion (25), the side roof rail (1) and the cover portion (11) so as to accommodate an air-bag (4).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a roof side garnish peripheral structure of an automobile.
2. Description of the Related Art
A roof side garnish for covering a side roof rail from inside of a passenger room is mounted on the side roof rail of an upper portion of a vehicle body of an automobile. A folded side air-bag and a duct of an air conditioner are accommodated in a space between the side roof rail and the roof side garnish along a longitudinal direction.
The air-bag is mounted in a manner that the air-bag is sandwiched by a bracket formed on a back side so as to extend from an end of the roof side garnish through a plurality of hinges and in this state, a superposed portion of the bracket is fastened together with the side roof rail when the roof side garnish is mounted. This structure is disclosed in a Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-71925.
The duct of the air conditioner is formed into a cylindrical shape as a separate member from the roof side garnish, and the duct is previously mounted on the side roof rail through a special mounting bracket before the roof side garnish is mounted. This structure is disclosed in another Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-213261.
According to these conventional techniques, however, the air-bag is sandwiched by the bracket that is formed so as to extend from the end of the roof side garnish through the hinges and in this state, the air-bag is mounted on the side roof rail together with the roof side garnish. Therefore, it is troublesome to mount the air-bag.
Further, it is necessary to previously mount the cylindrical duct on the side roof rail before the roof side garnish is mounted on the side roof rail. Since many steps for mounting the roof side garnish are required on the assembling line, the mounting operation is inefficient.

Roof side garnish peripheral structure of automobile


A switching device for direct current applications having a first switching chamber for a first current path and a second switching chamber for a second current path, each current path having a switching contact arrangement having a first and second contact, wherein both the contacts, switched-on, come into contact with each other and, switched-off, are kept out of contact with each other by the creation of an isolation gap; a current path having an extinguishing device to extinguish an arc created between the contacts; an arc driver arrangement, arranged in one of the two switching chambers, and which creates a magnetic field at least in the area of the switching contact arrangement for the relevant current path that drives the arc into the relevant extinguishing device.

Such a switching device is known from EP2 061 053 A2. To create a switching device for direct current applications, it is recommended that the casing of a switching device for alternating current applications should be used, wherein additionally at least two permanent magnets are provided, which create a magnetic field with field lines predominantly transverse to the isolation gap in the current paths. There are three switching chambers in the casing for each single current path, wherein each current path is assigned a movable switching contact element as well as two fixed switching contact elements opposite to each other. The three moveable switching contact elements can be moved together, between a closed position which corresponds to the switched-on status of the switching device, and an open position which corresponds to the switched-off status of the switching device. The individual current paths are each assigned two arc extinguishing devices in the form of extinguishing plates, arranged individually over one another and electrically insulated from each other. In addition, each current path has two isolation gaps which are formed between the ends of the movable switching elements and the first and second fixed switching elements which are allotted to the ends of the movable switching contact elements when the movable switching contact elements are open. On opening of the switching contact elements, an arc which can be extinguished with the help of arc extinguishing devices is formed along each isolation gap. Since arcs in direct current applications cannot be extinguished during zero current passing as in alternating current applications, a magnetic field that drives the arc into an arc extinguishing device has to be used in direct current applications. The magnetic field created by the permanent magnets exerts a Lorenz force on the arc forming along the isolation gap and pushes it in the direction of the arc extinguishing devices. In the case of low voltages the arc is therefore safely extinguished in the arc extinguishing device. In the case of very high voltages however, there is the danger that the arc will flash onto one of the permanent magnets and set it on fire.
DE 34 09 564 A1 shows a similar switching device that has two switching chambers in each of which there is an arc extinguishing device and an arc driver arrangement.

Switching device for direct current applications


A camera comprises a camera body, a film Patrone stowage chamber defined in the camera body, a cover member to be freely opened or closed relative to the camera body, an elastic member that is attached to the cover member, and that when the cover member is closed relative to the camera body, is opposed to the film Patrone chamber, and a low-friction member that is attached to the elastic member, and that when the cover member is closed with the film Patrone mounted in the film Patrone stowage chamber, meets at least part of the film Patrone so as to press and slide the film Patrone.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera, or more particularly, a camera having a means for locating a Patrone, which is mounted in a Patrone stowage chamber in a camera body, at a given position.
2. Description of the Related Art
A compact camera adapted to a 35-mm film Patrone (hereinafter simply a Patrone) in which a roll film for photography of 35 mm wide is wound and stowed has prevailed in the past.
When photography is carried out using such a compact camera, a Patrone having an unexposed film stowed therein is mounted in a camera body in advance. The procedure usually adopted will be described below.
That is to say, first, a back cover pivoted to the backside of the camera body so that it can be opened or closed freely is left open. The Patrone is stowed in a film Patrone stowage chamber (hereinafter a Patrone stowage chamber) located at one lateral end in the camera body. A film tip is pulled out of the Patrone, and arranged at a given position in the camera body. The back cover is then closed. Thus, mounting the Patrone in the camera body is completed, and the camera is set to a photography-ready state.
However, although the Patrone is not mounted in a normal state in the Patrone stowage chamber, the back cover may be closed. In this case, the film tip pulled out of the Patrone is not wound normally in a film wind chamber located at the other lateral end in the camera body. Imperfect film feed causing a film jam or the like may occur. Otherwise, since the back cover is not closed perfectly, a gap may be created between the camera body and back cover. This poses a problem that a film may be exposed because of light leakage through the gap.
A means for positioning a Patrone to be mounted in a normal state in a camera body has been proposed in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 60-78028.
In the Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 60-78028, a proposal is made for a camera in which an elastic member attached to a back cover presses the outer circumference of a Patrone in the course of closing the back cover in order to bring the Patrone stowed in a Patrone stowage chamber to a steady posture of a normal state.
By contrast, in Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 61-132823 or the like, another camera has been proposed and put to practical use in recent years. In the camera, an opening is formed at a position on the back cover of the camera opposed to a Patrone stowage chamber. A check window formed with a transparent member or the like is created in the opening so that whether or not a Patrone is mounted in a camera body can be checked through the check window. When a Patrone is mounted, information written at a given position on the outer circumference of the Patrone, that is, character information such as a type of film and film speed concerning a film stowed in the Patrone can be checked through the check window.
Like the camera disclosed in the Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 61-132823, when a check window is created in a back cover, there arises a problem that unnecessary light invades into a camera body through the check window, and a film loaded in the camera body is exposed.
For preventing this problem, a light interceptive member such as an elastic foaming member is located near the opening in the back cover. When the back cover is closed relative to the camera body, the light interceptive member meets and presses part of the outer circumference of a Patrone mounted in the camera body. Thus, the light interceptive member intercepts light from entering through a gap between the opening in the back cover and the Patrone. This results in a lighttight state.
Moreover, the light interceptive member such as an elastic foam member fills the role of holding a mounted Patrone at a given position with the back cover closed.
However, according to the means disclosed in the Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 60-78028, a component such as an elastic member is needed to hold a Patrone in a steady posture in the camera body. This leads to an increase in manufacturing cost. Moreover, a space is required for stowing the component such as an elastic member in the camera body. This poses a problem that the camera becomes large.
On the other hand, according to the means disclosed in the Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 61-132823, there is a problem. Specifically, when a Patrone is stowed in the Patrone stowage chamber, although the Patrone is not mounted in a normal state but a film feed port of the Patrone is floating above a given position, the back cover may be closed. In this case, when the outer circumference of the Patrone and the elastic foam member meet in the course of closing the back cover, the back cover would be closed with the feed port of the Patrone floating because of the operation of frictional force. In this case, the back cover is not closed perfectly. This poses a problem of light leakage. through a gap between the camera body and back lid.

Camera with low-friction elastic insert on cover


An electronic system includes two or more peripheral devices or units each of which is electronically coupled to the host through a single port of a predetermined bus. By splitting commands from the host to at least one of the two or more peripheral units into subcommands or by repeating commands, the data bus will be released for another command to another device or unit, the overall system efficiency is thus improved.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an electronic system, and more particularly, to an information storage and retrieval system having a plurality of storage units using a single port on a data bus system, such as the Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) bus or a Serial AT Attachment (SATA) interface.
2. Description of Related Art
Electronic information storage devices are becoming increasingly important in today's business environment. Optical storage media, flash card devices, and other information storage options are important technologies which can be integrated into a PC or other similar system. In order to combine the functions and advantages of various storage technologies, interconnect buses such as the Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) bus, also known as the AT Attachment (ATA) bus or the Parallel AT Attachment (PATA) bus, as well as the Serial AT Attachment (SATA) interface are now in wide use. These represent one set of important data transfer protocol. Furthermore, the AT Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) for optical storage devices is an important extension of the ATA Interface which supports connections of such devices to personal computers. The ATAPI Standard defines a Task File, a set of registers used by the peripheral devices and personal computer, to transfer data. According to ATAPI, commands are communicated using packets. To allow for generic packet transfer to the peripherals devices, there is a minimum set of information that is exchanged, generically supporting the following:                Command Packet        Command Parameter Data (e.g., Write Data)        Command Response Data (e.g., Read Data)        Status, presented using the ATAPI Status Register.        The ATAPI commands were derived from the SCSI command set. With the exception of the CD-ROM MSF addressing technique, the interface uses logical rather than physical addressing for all data blocks. A logical unit may coincide with all or part of a peripheral device. Therefore, in this specification we will from time to time make a distinction between a physical device, a logical unit, or a functional unit which comprises an integrated packaged unit including one or more physical devices. However, the principles of this invention will apply beyond the categorical distinctions made here.
As a result of the increasing demands for more data storage capabilities, data storage systems have been developed that contain one, or typically several, peripheral devices. Such data storage systems may be connected to a host to increase the data storage capacity that is available to the host, such as a personal computer. While such multi-unit data storage systems solve the capacity problem, they create a secondary problem in decreased system performance; this is because system performance can be hampered by the data bus, which usually gets stalled if multiple units are sharing the same port on an interface, such as the IDE/ATA or SATA channel port, wherein the performance of all the units are limited by the speed of the worst-performing units.
ATAPI command protocol basically follows the first-come, first-serve rule. The IDE bus protocol specifies the concept of channels and ports. Each channel in an IDE bus includes a first port and a second port and is normally associated with a single physical cable. IDE/SATA architecture includes, as one possibility, one or more peripheral storage device electrically connected to a host using an IDE or SATA channel. The host can be a personal computer system, a central processing unit (CPU) of an embedded system, or another device that needs to access a peripheral device. When a processor wishes to cause a data transfer targeting a peripheral device, the host first issues a "packet" command to the storage device. The packet command is a command that complies with the ATA protocol and informs the storage device that the processor wishes to deliver a block of data to the optical storage device that includes command programming information for a data transfer. A "command packet" comprises the structure used to communicate commands from a host computer to an ATAPI or other peripheral device.
When multiple devices and/or units share the same IDE or SATA port or other types of port, the host can fetch or store data concurrently from or to the multiple targeted units according to, for example, principles of the invention filed in a previous patent application filed on Mar. 5, 2004 with Ser. No. 10/708,464 assigned to the same party as the present invention. Each of the multiple peripheral devices is connected to and shares a single port of the IDE/SATA channel, allowing the host to access each of the logical units through the single port.
In this situation, a simple first-come, first-serve protocol would severely limit the highest achievable efficiency because the system can serve the second command only after the first one has been completed.
FIG. 1 is a flow chart diagram showing flow of data transfer from a host to a physical device. Assuming that there are two functional units Flash Card 125 and DVDRW 120 attached to a host with logical DVDRW drive 100, logical Secure Digital (SD) Drive 105, and logical Memory Stick (MS) Drive 110. The host delivers packet commands to the physical devices consisting of function units 120 and 125 for data transfer. After optionally serializing for SATA interface with Serializer 115, data is transported to and from the functional units 120 and 125 using a single port on a channel over an IDE/AT bus cable, to DVDRW pick-up head (PUH) 130, MS card 135 or SD card 140.
FIG. 2 illustrates how wasteful the processing of a Flash Read and DVD Write command under this model can be due to the slow performance of Flash Card 125. Looking at the timing diagram of FIG. 2 regarding the bus usage, Flash Read step 200—comprising three stages of receiving command 205, buffering data 210, and transfer date 215—can take, for example, up to 10 ms. Of the 10 ms during which the bus is occupied with the Flash Read command, the actual data transfer time is only 1 ms. It is clear that the slower flash card read command takes most of the precious data channel without transferring any data with the host. Under this model, the much faster DVD Write 220 would have to wait for its turn to use the IDE bus after the bus has completed Flash Read 200, and data shortage may even cause problems on the quality of DVD recording.
Therefore, there is a need for an efficient method and system for running several vendor-specific ATAPI commands or other commands on multiple units using the same port.

Electronic data storage system divides command requiring data transfer into subcommands, in accordance with performance of devices


An adjustable crane rail brace that provides for lateral movement of a crane rail having a rail base resting upon a tie plate. The brace includes a block mounted to the tie plate and a wedge interposed between the block and the rail base. The wedge is slidable longitudinally with respect to the rail base. The block is mounted at an acute angle with respect to the lateral edge of the rail base, and the wedge has sides at this acute angle with respect to each other. The wedge also has a first serrated portion. The brace includes a member having a top face and having a second serrated portion. The first and second serrated portions are in frictional engagement, and the member has a resilient nose extending downwardly in contact with the rail base. The brace further has a spring for exerting downward force upon the top face.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to devices used to secure a crane rail to a rail support surface, and in particular, to an adjustable crane rail brace for securing a crane rail to a rail support surface such as a tie plate.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
It is often desired to secure a crane rail to a rail support surface. Well-known solutions for this problem include the cantilevered rail clip assembly disclosed in Marchant, European Patent EP 0 272 874 B1 (issued Apr. 10, 1991). Such prior art rail clip assemblies have a bolt extending through a cantilevered plate that has a rubber nose grip between the cantilevered plate and the lower flange of a crane rail. As the bolt is tightened, the rubber nose grip becomes compressed and secures the lower flange of the crane rail. However, such a prior art rail clip requires frequent inspection and maintenance because the threaded bolt becomes loose, thereby causing the crane rail to become unsecured and loose. If frequent inspection and maintenance is not performed, an unsafe condition can develop due to the looseness of the crane rail. This need for frequent inspection and maintenance is costly and, if the inspection and maintenance is not carefully done, accidents can result.
It is therefore desirable to have an improved crane rail brace that does not use bolts to secure a cantilevered securing plate to hold a crane rail in place.
The inventors are aware of Keiper, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 4,566,630 (issued Jan. 28, 1986), for a Boltless, Friction-Fit, Adjustable Rail Brace, which uses a Pandrol spring clip ("e" Clip) and Pandrol weld-on shoulder that are also used in the present invention. However, unlike the present invention, the Keiper, Jr., disclosure teaches that the spring clip should exert lateral forces against the neck of the rail, whereas the present invention exerts lateral force only against the base of the rail.
None of these references, either singly or in combination, discloses or suggests the present invention.


A multi-identity security environment is created for use in controlling access to resources. The multi-identity security environment enables one process that is spawned by another process to access resources security accessible to the one process, as well as resources security accessible to the another process. The multi-identity security environment includes an identity of the one process and an identity of the another process.

Controlling access to protected resources is of paramount importance in many computing environments. Inadvertent or unauthorized access to a protected resource can corrupt the resource and have other far reaching detrimental effects to the environment. Access is controlled by limiting for a given resource those processes authorized to access the resource. For example, for a particular resource, access authorization is provided to a limited set of processes and processes external to the limited set are unauthorized to access that particular resource.
At times, however, a given process needs access to a resource that it is authorized to access, as well as to a resource that it is unauthorized to access. For example, in a client/server system, a client may request a service of the server and to fulfill that service the server is to have access to one or more resources to which it is authorized, as well as to one or more resources accessible to the client, but not to the server.
Previously, to address this situation, the server created a new client process and under the auspices of the client's identity accessed the desired resources. However, this may not be sufficient, since the new client may also need access to resources of the server.
In order to access the server resources, the identity of the client has to be switched back to the server. That is, the identity of the client is switched back and forth between the identity of the client and the identity of the server depending on which resource is to be accessed at any particular point in time in order to service the client's request.
The switching of identities is disadvantageous, however. For example, it adds complexity to the application code and compromises security. Therefore, a further need exists for a capability that facilitates access to protected resources. As one example, a need exists for a capability that eliminates the switching of identities.

Accessing protected resources via multi-identity security environments

International Business Machines Corporation


A split nut and assembly steps for fitting the nut around an exposed portion of anchor bolt having no convenient access for conventional nuts to engage. The split nut includes first and second nut halves, and each nut half has an interior surface having a threaded half cylinder that, when aligned with the other threaded half cylinder and joined along joining surfaces, forms a threaded opening. The two half nuts may be connected by connectors that are inserted into penetrations that extend through at least a portion of both half nuts. At least one end of the penetration extends from the joining surface through the exterior surface of the half nut so that the connector may be inserted into the penetration. The exterior surface of both half nuts also include flat that, when the half nuts are joined, are dimensioned to form opposed parallel drive surfaces configured to be engaged by a wrench for screwing the split nut onto the bolt.

Large construction structures often need to be scaled for various purposes. For example, large towers are often scaled to change or improve equipment, modify or reinforce the structure of the tower, and maintain the tower. New innovations and increased demands have created a need to add additional weight to these types of towers. Often, it is necessary or desirable to reinforce the towers to accommodate the additional weight.
Many cell towers or other similar support structures, such as light poles, structural columns, and bridge supports may be mounted on a support platform that is supported on foundation bolts that are anchored into a concrete foundation in the ground. Typically, there is a space below the support platform and above the concrete foundation that ranges in height and is typically from about 1 inch to about 4 inches in height, depending on the application. As technology has advanced, there has been an increasing demand to place additional equipment on these types of towers. For example, when upgrading a tower from 3G to 4G mobile telecommunications technology additional equipment is needed, which adds additional weight to the tower. However, since the towers were likely not originally designed to support this additional equipment, the added weight of the additional equipment might exceed the weight tolerances of the towers and make them unsafe to use. However, the cost and time of constructing new cell towers makes replacing the existing towers with newer, stronger towers impractical.
What is needed, therefore, is a method for reinforcing existing support tower that would enable those towers to safely support the weight of additional equipment.


The disclosure provides a method of generating business rules for a retail system. Particularly, a computing device receives rule data from a user interface. The rule data comprises retail context information associated with a retail business operating the retail system. A business rule template is then generated based on the retail context information included in the rule data, and validated based on the retail context information and on sample business data. Validation may occur by conditionally performing one or more Point of Sale (POS) functions on the sample business data according to the retail context information. If valid, the business rule template is activated for use in the retail system.

Many conventional retail systems operate according to a set of context-aware business rules. Such rules can, for example, set prices, impose thresholds on quantity, and define the relationships between different products and/or prices. When a customer purchases a product, these rules are checked to ensure the purchase is correct.
In most cases, the rules are specific to the retail business implementing them. Nevertheless, the rules are generally hardcoded into the software used by the retail businesses. As the rules tend to change from time-to-time, it is difficult for retailers to quickly and easily update their retail systems to reflect new rules. Further, the rules usually require knowledge regarding the product and/or retail industry in which the retail system operates. As such, articulating business rules for use in a retail system is not always an easy, straightforward task.

Retail user interface for dynamic behavior configuration

Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions Holdings Corporation


System and method for managing a file attached to an e-mail. Added to a file name of the attached file is an address or derivation of the address from which a voice message associated with the attached file can be accessed. The file name with the address is displayed in the e-mail adjacent to an icon for the attached file. The derivation of the address is formed by identifying character(s) in the address or syntax of the address which are incompatible with file naming rules of a computer to receive the file and replacing the incompatible character(s) or syntax with corresponding character(s) or syntax which are compatible with file naming rules of the computer to receive the file. The address or derivation of the address can be merged with the file name. The voice message can describe a content of the file.

The present invention relates generally to e-mail, and more specifically to a technique to verify authenticity of a file attached to an e-mail.
Electronic mail or "e-mail" is well known today. It is typically sent over the Internet, and received and displayed by a recipient's web browser. An e-mail may also include a file attachment. The file attachment is typically displayed as an icon with a name of file adjacent to the icon. If a recipient "clicks on" or otherwise selects the file icon, the recipient's web browser will fetch and open the file.
Many e-mails are unwanted "spam", i.e. unsolicited advertisements or messages. The spam e-mail may also include attachment files. The attachment file may contain unwanted or offensive text documents, graphics, pictures, audio, or video information.
A computer virus can also be embedded in a file attached to an e-mail. This is the most common method to "infect" the recipient's computer and other computers across a network. For example, a recipient may receive an e-mail with an attached, infected file including a computer program that can be executed within the recipient's computer system. When an infected file is opened, the computer program executes and may disrupt or incapacitate the recipient's computer by corrupting or deleting important programs and/or data files. While less prevalent in number than "spam", viruses are more disruptive and costly.
A computer virus, when executed at a recipient computer, may also access information contained in the recipient's address book. Then, the virus may mail a copy of itself as a file attached to an e-mail sent by the recipient, to everyone in the recipient's address book. In such a case, the infected file attachment may appear to originate from someone the (new) recipient knows and trusts. Because such files "apparently come" from a reliable source, the likelihood the infection will be spread by unwitting recipients is greatly increased. In those cases, the recipient may wish to ensure that attached or accessed files have been sent by a trustworthy sender rather than by a hacker, prior to exposing his or her computer system to an infected program file.
Known e-mail systems e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,553,341 entitled "Method and apparatus for announcing receipt of an electronic message", provide the capability to automatically read selected portions of an e-mail by using text-to-speech conversion.
An object of the invention is to provide to a recipient information describing content of a received file attachment, before the recipient opens and accesses the received file.
Another object of the invention is to enable a recipient to verify that a received file has been intentionally sent by a person and not automatically sent by a machine, before the recipient opens and accesses the received file.
Another object of the invention is to enable a recipient to verify the identity of the sender or the author of the received file, before the recipient opens the file.

Method and system for verifying an attachment file within an e-mail


The invention provides apparatuses, systems, and methods for conducting assays in aquatic animals. The apparatuses, systems, and methods of the invention can be used to identify and/or characterize compounds that modulate morphological, anatomical, or behavioral characteristics. The apparatuses, systems, and methods of the invention can be used to identify and/or characterize compounds that modulate learning or memory.

Many academic and commercial projects have generated combinatorial libraries of small molecules, nucleic acids, or proteins. Screening through these libraries will result in the identification of novel compounds of interest to basic science and medicine. However, automated high-throughput methods currently exist only for very simple systems (e.g., in vitro assays or single cells). Thus, the current state of the art makes it difficult or impossible to conduct high-throughput screens in complex organisms or to conduct screens to identify and/or characterize compounds which affect higher-order behavioral, morphological, or anatomical characteristics in complex organisms.
The current state of the art regarding screening assays in complex organisms is also limited in other respects. Even assays of single candidate compounds or of a small number of candidate compounds can be difficult when conducted in complex organisms. Specifically, assays based on making multiple observations of a complex organism over time are prone to experimenter bias, error, and fatigue. This problem is exacerbated when attempts to scale-up such a screen are made.
The limitations of the current state of the art are perhaps most acutely, although certainly not exclusively, experienced when the observational endpoint of the screening assay is a metric such as learning or memory. Such cases represent perhaps the most complex of animal behavior. Furthermore, assays that chart changes in learning or memory typically require the gathering and analysis of data points over time, thus exacerbating the potential that experimenter bias, error, or fatigue will influence the results.
An important aspect of biology is the discovery of novel genes, proteins, or chemical reagents that have interesting, useful, and/or enlightening effects upon living systems. We appear to be leaving the classical era where these were mainly discovered fortuitously (e.g., most antibiotics and neurotoxins), but are still fairly far from the generalized ability of rational design of drugs or proteins, linking structure to desired function at will (Debouck and Metcalf (2000) Annul Rev Pharmacol Toxicol 40: 193-207; Farber (1999) Pharmacol Ther 84: 327-332). Thus, current efforts are focused on screening approaches: locating interesting reagents by large-scale high-throughput examination of candidate molecules present, for example, in a combinatorial library (Bensing et al. (2001) Infect Immun 69: 1373-1380; Cheung et al. (2002) Nature Cell Biol 4: 83-88; Goodnow (2001) J Cell Biochem Supp 37: 13-21; Katayama et al., 2001; Koide et al. (2001) J Am Chem Soc 123: 398-408; MacNeil et al. (2001) J Mol Microbiol Biotechnol 3: 301-308; Nuttall (2001) Cells Tissues Organs 169: 265-271). A number of academic and commercial pharmaceutical projects have generated large genetic, proteomic, or small-molecule (drug) libraries that must be screened to identify compounds of interest to both biomedicine and basic biology (Stephen et al. (2002) Biochem Biophys Res Comm 296: 1228-1237), or proteins which alter specific patterning events in developing embryos (Caveman (2000) J Cell Sci 113: 3543-3544; Colaiacovo et al. (2002) Genetics 162: 113-128; Cram et al. (2003) J Cell Sci 116: 3871-3878; Gonczy et al. (2000) Nature 408: 331-336; Lee et al. (2003) Nucleic Acid Research 31: 7165-7174; Thatcher et al. (2001) Develop Biol 229: 480-493; Tseng and Hariharan (2002) Genetics 162: 229-243; Vastenhouw et al. (2003) Current Biol 13: 1311-1316).
There is an endless list of potential targets for which screening of libraries would result in medically-valuable reagents, or perturbation of biological processes which then lead to increased basic understanding of endogenous control mechanisms. Generating the libraries is often easy; the crucial and usually most difficult aspect is the choice of screening methods, apparatuses, and systems. This requires a tractable yet relevant model system, a degree of automation (to ensure temporal and financial feasibility), and a test which gives useful answers for each candidate. Some screens have been successfully conducted using cell culture or unicellular organisms (e.g. bacteria or yeast) (Chen and Zhao (2003) Gene 306: 127-134). Large-scale screens in model systems such as mice are not feasible due to cost constraints and the resulting low sample size.
The foregoing illustrate examples of some of the limitations of the prior art. The present invention addresses these and other limitations, and provides apparatuses, systems, and methods for conducting assays in animals.

Methods and apparatuses for conducting assays in animals


Sheets capable of developing a positive electostatic charge are used for a variety of surface cleaning operations. Polyester fabric, non-woven and chemically bonded with an acrylic latex is used to dust surfaces, to clean clothes, furniture and carpets. A light solvent such as isopropanol can be used with the sheets to loosen gummy soils. In one mode, the sheets are used in a hot air clothes dryer to remove soils and detritus from garments. Processes for cleaning a variety of fabric and hard surfaces are conducted using the sheets.

Household cleaning tasks are conducted using articles and compositions which are designed to remove dirt and residues from a wide variety of surfaces. For example, items such as simple dust cloths and mops are conventionally used to remove particulate matter from hard surfaces such as furniture. Such items are often supplemented by spray-on waxy or oily compositions which are designed to enhance the uptake of dirt particles. Fabric surfaces are conventionally cleaned using various surfactants and surfactant pastes. For example carpet and furniture fabrics are typically scrubbed and/or cleaned by means of surfactants and/or solvents which are designed to loosen oily dirt from the fabrics, and the resulting residues are sometimes absorbed into a material such as clay or kieselguhr, which is then discarded. Garments and other fabrics such as draperies, tablecloths, and the like, are often cleaned by immersion processes involving various organic solvents and/or by conventional wet processes involving detersive surfactants and water, either in an immersion or spray-on operation.
In many instances, surface cleaning operations involve the application of small quantities of "pre-spotting" agents to discrete, highly stained areas of the article being cleaned. While effective for their intended use, such localized spot removal treatment compositions are generally expensive on a per-use basis and would not be suitable for large scale cleaning operations.
Accordingly, there is a continuing search for simple, effective cleaning processes and compositions for use by the consumer. Moreover, there is a continuing search for approved cleaning compositions which are cost effective.
The present invention provides a cleaning cloth for what can be termed "dry-wipe" cleaning of household surfaces such as carpets, upholstery, clothing, and the like. The dry-wipe cleaning articles herein can be passed across such surfaces, and oils, particulates and gummy residues are transferred onto the wipe fabric. The practice of the invention provides an unexpectedly high level of cleaning, approaching wet detergent cleaning in some cases, but without the mess, prospective damage and resoiling potential occasioned by the presence of unremoved wet detergent residues. In another mode, the articles and processes herein can be used in a conventional "dusting" operation on hard, non-fabric surfaces. In yet another mode, the articles herein can be used to clean living beings, e.g., the hair on domestic pets, farm animals, as well as to clean human hair and skin.


Described herein are methods for the enhanced production of secreted proteins. The secretion of a protein of interest having a substantially non-polar carboxy tail is enhanced by the placement of charged amino acid residues at the carboxy terminus either by adding to the native peptide or by replacing, i.e., substituting, the terminal residues of the native peptide.

Eubacteria export numerous proteins across the plasma membrane into either the periplasmic space (Gram-negative species), or the growth medium (Gram-positive species). The Gram-positive eubacterium Bacillus subtilis and, in particular, its close relatives Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and Bacillus licheniformis are well known for their high capacity to secrete proteins (at gram per liter concentrations) into the medium. This property, which allows the efficient separation of (secreted) proteins from the bulk cytoplasmic protein complement, has led to the commercial exploitation of the latter bacilli as important "cell factories." Despite their high capacity to secrete proteins of Gram-positive origin, the secretion of recombinant proteins from Gram-negative eubacterial or eukaryotic origin by Bacillus species is often inefficient.
General strategies for the secretion of heterologous proteins by bacilli are based on the in-frame fusion of the respective protein with an amino-terminal signal peptide that directs this protein into a secretion pathway, for example the Sec-dependent secretory pathway. Upon translocation across the membrane, the signal peptide is removed by a signal peptidase, which is a prerequisite for the release of the translocated protein from the membrane, and its secretion into the medium.
Proteolysis in bacteria serves to rid the cell of abnormal, and misfolded proteins. A unique mechanism for the destruction of abnormal proteins resulting from abortive termination of translation is provided by the SsrA-mediated tagging and degradation system (for a recent review, see Karzai et al. (2000). The SsrA-SmpB system for protein tagging, directed degradation and ribosome rescue. Nat. Struct. Biol. 7:449–455.). SsrA, also called 10Sa RNA or tmRNA is a highly conserved RNA molecule in eubacteria. It is a unique molecule that can act as both a tRNA and an mRNA in a process referred to as trans-translation (Atkins et al. 1996. A case for trans translation. Nature 379:769–771, Jentsch 1996. When proteins receive deadly messages at birth. Science 271:955–956, Keiler et al. 1996. Role of a peptide tagging system in degradation of proteins synthesized from damaged messenger RNA. Science 271:990–993). This mechanism provides the cell a way to release ribosomes that are stalled on untranslatable mRNAs, e.g. mRNAs lacking in-frame stop codons. In the model for SsrA action, SsrA charged with alanine enters the A site of a stalled ribosome, mimicking a tRNA. The alanine is added to the uncompleted polypeptide chain; and then, serving as an mRNA, SsrA provides a short reading frame followed by a stop codon as a template to add a short peptide to the nascent polypeptide before translation terminates and a tagged protein is released. The peptide tag (encoded by SsrA) functions as a proteolytic degradation signal, and in Escherichia coli four proteases have been identified that degrade proteins tagged by SsrA. ClpXP, ClpAP, and FtsH (HflB) degrade SsrA tagged proteins in the cytoplasm (Gottesman et al. 1998. The ClpXP and ClpAP proteases degrade proteins with carboxy-terminal peptide tails added by the SsrA-tagging system. Genes Dev. 12:1338–1347, Herman et al. 1998. Degradation of carboxy-terminal-tagged cytoplasmic proteins by the Escherichia coli protease HflB (FtsH). Genes Dev. 12:1348–1355), while SsrA tagged proteins with signal peptides that are exported to the periplasm of E. coli are degraded by Tsp (Prc) protease (Keiler et al. 1996).
Protein production and secretion from Bacillus species is a major production tool with a market of over $1 billion per year. However, proteolysis of proteins by endogenous proteases diminishes the production capability of these microorganisms. Thus, it would be beneficial to have an mechanism for the enhanced production and secretion proteins. The present invention provides such an advantage by changing the nonpolar C-terminus of a protein by adding charged, polar residues (or by replacing amino acids), so that the proteins are protected against the bacillus proteases that degrade SsrA-tagged proteins.

Enhanced secretion of a polypeptide by a microorganism


Methods, systems, and devices are described for intercepting requests from applications installed on a mobile device. The requests are system calls that establish communication channels for the mobile device. The requests are captured and held from reaching TCP/IP stack of an operating system executing on the mobile device. An intercepted request is aggregated with other intercepted requests. The aggregated requests are bundled together and released to the operating system upon the detection of a triggering event. The capture, holding, and aggregation of requests from applications occur when the mobile device is in a background mode.

Applications or device applets are now available that operate to provide a wide range of add-on services and features to wireless devices. For example, it is now possible for wireless devices to download and launch device applets to perform value added functions such as shopping, searching, position location, driving navigation, or an array of other functions. Network and application providers generally offer these device applets to device users for additional fees. Thus, the use of device applets may increase the functionality and usability of wireless devices and offers device users features and convenience not originally available on the devices themselves.
Typically, a wireless device interfaces with one or more communication networks using any of a number of radios. For example, the wireless device may include a variety of radios providing communications using Cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, or other types of radio access technologies. Accordingly, applications executing on the wireless device interface with a radio to establish a communications channel and the channel is used by the applications to communicate with the appropriate network.
Applications may continue to interface with radios on the wireless device to establish communication channels even when the device is in a background mode. With an increasing number of applications installed on a device, the battery power of the device may be unnecessarily consumed from the repeated establishment of network communications while the device is not active. Further, the increasing usage of wireless devices, such as smartphones, data networks may become overloaded by network signaling associated with the setup of communication channels.


An address determination circuit makes an address determination of an optical packet to which a destination address and a source address are assigned on a bit-by-bit basis. The address determination circuit has an optical branching section which divides the optical packet into branches, in which each of the branched optical packet contains the same original data, a delay section which delays at least one of the branched optical packets, a bit determination section which determines each bit value of the branched optical packets, and a logic operation section which performs a logic operation on the bit values of the branched optical packets determined by the bit determination section. The delay section delays the branched optical packets so that the logic operation section performs the logic operation on a bit assigned the destination address or the source address and a bit having a predetermined bit value in synchronization with each other.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an address determination circuit for making an address determination of an optical packet to which a destination address and a source address thereof are assigned on a bit-by-bit basis, and an optical communication system for transmitting the optical packet. The invention more particularly relates to an address determination circuit and an optical communication system capable of performing address processing of an optical packet at high speed while suppressing an increase in the circuit scale.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an optical communication system of conducting data communications using an optical signal has become widespread. In such an optical communication system, packet communications with using an optical signal are conducted as with data communications using an electric signal. The packet communications are communications of transmitting and receiving data divided into small pieces called packets, and it becomes very important to perform routing control of the packets.
FIG. 11 is a drawing to show the configuration of an optical communication system in a related art. (For example, refer to JP-A-2003-69495 and JP-A-2004-120696.) In FIG. 11, an optical packet 1 is transmitted over an optical transmission line 100 (for example, an optical waveguide of an optical fiber, etc.,) and is input to a repeater 10(1). The repeater 10(1) references the destination address and the source address contained in the header part of the optical packet 1, and selects a route for transmitting the optical packet 1. For example, the repeater 10(1) selects an optical transmission line 101 and outputs the optical packet 1 to a repeater 10(2) at the following stage or selects an optical transmission line 102 and outputs the optical packet 1 to a repeater 10(3) at the following stage. FIG. 11 illustrates an example wherein an optical packet 2 is transmitted to the repeater 10(3) over the optical transmission line 102. The repeaters 10(1) to 10(3) for performing destination control of the optical packets 1 and 2, namely, performing route switching are also called network switches.
Subsequently, the repeaters 10(1) to 10(3) will be discussed. FIG. 12 is a drawing to show the configuration of the repeater in the related art. (For example, refer to JP-A-2004-120696.) The repeater 10(1) in FIG. 11 to which the optical transmission lines 100 to 102 are connected will be discussed by way of example. In FIG. 12, a plurality of optical ports 11 are provided and the optical transmission lines 100 to 102 are connected thereto. A packet processing section 12 is interconnected to the optical ports 11. A storage area (for example, RAM) 13 is interconnected to the packet processing section 12.
The operation of the repeater 10(1) shown in FIG. 12 is as follows: The optical packet 1 is input from the optical transmission line 100 to the optical port 11. The optical port 11 converts the received optical packet 1 of an optical signal into a packet of an electric signal and outputs the packet of an electric signal to the packet processing section 12. The packet processing section 12 determines the optical port 11 to which the packet is to be transferred based on the destination address (and the source address as required) contained in the header part of the packet converted into the electric signal. The packet processing section 12 may once store the packet in the storage area 13 and then again read the packet and select the optical port 11 or may transfer the packet directly to the optical port 11 without storing the packet in the storage area 13. For example, the optical port 11 to which the optical transmission line 102 is connected is selected and the packet of the electric signal is output to the optical port 11. Further, the optical port 11 converts the packet of the electric signal into the optical packet 1 of an optical signal and outputs the optical packet 1 to the optical transmission line 102. Thus, the optical packets 1 and 2 are transferred to the optical transmission lines 100 to 102 selected by the repeater 10(1).
JP-A-2003-69495 and JP-A-2004-120696 (paragraph numbers 0008 to 0016, FIG. 8) are referred to as related art.
The transfer capability of the repeater 10(1), 10(2), 10(3) depends largely on the time taken for reading the destination address, etc., in the optical packet 1, 2 and determining the optical port 11 to which the packet is to be transferred, namely, the route selection of the optical transmission line 101, 102 from the destination address, etc.; particularly the processing speed of address processing of making address determination of the destination address and the source address is very important.
However, in the repeater 10(1), 10(2), 10(3) in the related art, since the packet processing section 12 and the storage area 13 perform packet processing by electric processing, it is indispensable to convert an optical signal into an electric signal and convert an electric signal into an optical signal in the optical port 11.
Generally, the speed of the electric processing is substantially low as compared with the transmission speed of optical communications. A delay occurs because the optical packet 1, 2 of the optical signal is converted into an electric signal and electric processing is performed as described above. Therefore, if the optical packet 1, 2 passes through the repeaters 10(1) to 10(3), a delay occurs in each of the repeaters 10(1) to 10(3) and the time involved in relaying is prolonged, causing a large delay to occur; this is a problem.
Of course, it is also possible to increase the electric processing speed so as to be able to follow the transmission speed of optical communications, but the circuitry and devices for performing the electric processing become remarkably large-scaled and it is very difficult to put them to use.
On the other hand, an attempt is made to execute address recognition with the optical packet 1, 2 of the optical signal intact without converting the optical signal into an electric signal. (For example, refer to JP-A-2003-69495.) However, there is a bottleneck such that the circuit scale becomes large, and it is difficult to make the attempt practical.

Address determination circuit and optical communication system


A light source includes a light emitting element and a light conversion layer configured to convert light emitted from the light emitting element into white light; wherein the light conversion layer includes a matrix resin and a quantum dot, wherein the white light includes a red light component, a green light component, and a blue light component each having a color purity configured to display a color gamut having a concordance rate of greater than or equal to about 99.0% with an Adobe RGB color gamut of a display device, and wherein the green light component has a peak wavelength of about 525 nanometers to about 528 nanometers and a full width at half maximum of less than or equal to about 40 nanometers, and a red light component having a peak wavelength of about 625 nanometers to about 645 nanometers.

1. Field
This disclosure relates to a light source, a backlight unit, and a display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD), which is a light receiving element, uses a backlight unit as a light source. The backlight unit includes a light emitting element. As for the light emitting element of the backlight unit, a CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent light) has been used, but a light emitting diode has also been widely used.
The light emitting diode uses a semiconductor, and as such, has a long life span, is able to be down-sized, consumes a small amount of power, and includes no mercury, and thus has environmentally-friendly characteristics. Accordingly, the light-emitting diode has drawn attention as one of the next generation light emitting elements capable of replacing the CCFL light emitting element. By applying a light emitting diode to a backlight, a color gamut that the display device is capable of expressing may be enlarged to a certain degree, however, there remains a need for an improved light source or a backlight unit that provides a display device having high color reproducibility.

Light source, back light unit, and display device


A gas sensing assembly includes a sensing material to be placed in contact with a fluid sample, electrodes coupled with the sensing material that apply an electric field to the sensing material across the electrodes, a heating element that controls a temperature of the sensing material while the sensing material is in contact with the fluid sample, and sensing circuitry to control application of the electric field to the sensing material via the electrodes at an alternating current frequency range in the presence of an uncontrolled ambient temperature and at an elevated alternating current frequency range. The sensing circuitry measures one or more electrical responses of the sensing material responsive to applying the electric field at the alternating current frequency range and at the elevated alternating current frequency range. The sensing circuitry detects presence of a gas in the fluid sample based on the one or more electrical responses.

Effects of ambient temperature on the performance of gas sensors represents a significant well known and accepted limitation against expanding gas sensors for industrial and consumer applications where accuracy is critical across different temperatures. To address this problem, supplementary temperature sensors are implemented with their outputs included in the gas-calibration functions. Metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) sensors with their resistance readout are common sensors because of the ability to detect numerous gases by the careful selection of the base semiconductor material and the doping of the base semiconductor material. Unfortunately, the sensitivity of conventional MOS sensors with their resistance readout to ambient temperature is well known and requires a correction using known methods to utilize dedicated temperature sensors. For example, a separate temperature sensor may be used in tandem with a MOS gas sensor.
Furthermore, impedance measurements of MOS sensors allow multi-gas sensor responses with improved limit of detection and improved response linearity as compared with a resistor readout of the MOS sensor. However, known impedance methods fail to teach how to solve the temperature effect problem without adding a separate temperature sensor.


In one general aspect, a package can include a semiconductor die having a first terminal on a first side of the semiconductor die and a second terminal on a second side of the semiconductor die, a leadframe portion electrically coupled to the second terminal of the semiconductor die, and a molding compound. The first terminal on the first side of the semiconductor die, a first surface of the leadframe portion, and a first surface of the molding compound can define at least a portion of a first surface of the package. A second surface of the molding compound and a second surface of the leadframe portion can define at least a portion of a second surface of the package parallel to the first surface of the package, and the second surface can be on an opposite side of the package from the first surface of the package.

A number of different types of semiconductor packages have been designed over the years for a variety of purposes and electronic systems. These semiconductor packages can have many different advantages include heat sinking advantages. However, many of the semiconductor packages lack the ability to be connected in a variety of systems, orientations, may be relatively large, difficult to assemble, and/or expensive to produce. In addition, many of the semiconductor packages may be relatively difficult to integrate with other semiconductor packages or devices in a system. Thus, a need exists for systems, methods, and apparatus to address the shortfalls of present technology and to provide other new and innovative semiconductor packaging features.

Packaged semiconductor devices and methods of manufacturing


Head part carrying a nozzle for picking-up a chip is moved up and down with the use of a can and cam follower during movement of the head part between a wafer in a chip supply part and a substrate in a positioning part so as to shorten a stroke for the up and down movement of the nozzle for picking up a chip from a wafer in the chip supply part, and mounting the chip on the substrate, and a load during the movement of the nozzle is reduced thereby it is possible to enhance the speed at which the head part is moved between the wafer and the substrate so as to shorten the time tact and to enhance the working efficiency.

1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a die-bonding device for picking up a chip from a wafer set on a supply part of an electric part mounting machine and shifting and mounting the same onto a lead frame or a printed circuit board.
2. RELATED ART
In a die-bonding device, a nozzle picks up a chip under vacuum suction from a wafer set on a supply part of an electric part mounting machine, and then shifts and mounts the same onto a lead frame or a printed circuit board.
Explanation will be made of the above-mentioned die-bonding device with reference to FIG. 7 which is a side view. A lead frame 1 is held on a guide part 2 in an electric part mounting machine, and a wafer 3 is held on a holder 4 which is carried on a movable table device 7 composed of an X-axis table 5 and a Y-axis table 6. A head part 8 carrying thereon a nozzle 9 for picking up a chip P on the wafer 3 at its lower end under vacuum suction is adapted to be reciprocated between the wafer 3 and the lead frame 1 by a drive means (which is not shown).
The head part 8 is reciprocated between two positions, that is, a position indicated by a solid line and a position indicated by a chain line. When the head is located at the stop position indicated by the chain line, the movable table device 7 is operated so as to move the wafer 3 in the X-axial and Y-axial directions, relative to the nozzle 9 which therefore can pick up a desired chip P. With this arrangement, a height difference D is ensured between the wafer 3 and the guide part 2 in order to prevent the wafer 3 from interfering with the guide part 2 when the holder 4 for holding the wafer 3 is displaced toward the guide part 2, and the wafer 3 is located below the guide part 2.
In a condition in which the head part 8 comes to and stops at a position right above the wafer 3, as indicated by the chain line, a vertically moving means such as a linear motor incorporated in the head part 8, is driven, and accordingly, the nozzle 9 moves up and down so as to pick up a desired chip P from the wafer 3 under vacuum suction. When the head part 8 is shifted to and is stopped at the position indicated by the solid line above the lead frame 1, the nozzle 9 similarly moves up and down so as to mount the chip P onto the lead frame 1. The above-mentioned operational steps are repeated while the lead frame 1 is fed pitch by pitch on the guide part 2 so as to mount chips P picked up from the wafer 3, successively onto the lead frame 1.
Referring to FIG. 7, since the height difference D is ensured, a vertical stroke Sa of the nozzle 9 during pick-up of a chip P from the wafer 3, is longer than a vertical stroke Sb of the nozzle 9 during mounting of the chip P onto the lead frame 1. Accordingly, the vertical motion of the nozzle 9 for picking up a chip P from the wafer 3 requires a long time, and accordingly, there has been a problem such that a time tact becomes longer, correspondingly, and therefore, the working efficiency is low.
Further, the vertically moving means (such as a linear motor) for the nozzle 9, provided in the head part 8, is heavy in its weight which exerts a relatively large load when the head part 8 moves between the wafer 3 and the lead frame 1, and accordingly, an increase in shift speed of the head part 3 is limited.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


The present invention provides a method and system wherein additional tasks can be added to a dynamic job after the job has been submitted to a scheduler. The added task can then be given the same priority as the tasks of the previously submitted dynamic job it is being added to. That is, the task added to the dynamic job is given priority over tasks and jobs submitted after the dynamic job the task is being added to. In one embodiment, a method is provided for distributing the processing of tasks in a distributed technical computing environment. The method involves the steps of creating tasks at a client, packaging the tasks into a dynamic job, and forwarding the dynamic job to a scheduler for distribution to a plurality of workers in the distributed technical computing environment. An additional task can then be created and added to the previously submitted dynamic job.

MATLAB® is a product of The MathWorks, Inc. of Natick, Mass., which provides engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and educators across a diverse range of industries with an environment for technical computing applications. MATLAB® is an intuitive high performance language and technical computing environment that provides mathematical and graphical tools for mathematical computation, data analysis, visualization, and algorithm development. MATLAB® integrates numerical analysis, matrix computation, signal processing, and graphics in an easy-to-use environment where problems and solutions are expressed in familiar mathematical notation, without traditional programming. MATLAB® is used to solve complex engineering and scientific problems by developing mathematical models that simulate the problem. A model is prototyped, tested and analyzed by running the model under multiple boundary conditions, data parameters, or just a number of initial guesses. In MATLAB®, one can easily modify the model, plot a new variable or reformulate the problem in a rapid interactive fashion that is typically not feasible in a non-interpreted programming such as Fortran or C.
As a desktop application, MATLAB® allows scientists and engineers to interactively perform complex analysis and modeling in their familiar workstation environment. However, a single workstation can be limiting to the size of the problem that can be solved, because of the relationship of the computing power of the workstation to the computing power necessary to execute computing intensive iterative processing of complex problems in a reasonable time.
For example, a simulation of a large complex aircraft model may take a reasonable time to run with a single computation with a specified set of parameters. However, the analysis of the problem may also require the model be computed multiple times with a different set of parameters, e.g., at one-hundred different altitude levels and fifty different aircraft weights, to understand the behavior of the model under varied conditions. This would require five-thousand computations to analyze the problem as desired and the single computer would take an unreasonable or undesirable amount of time to perform these simulations. In this case, the single computer would be allocated full-time to performing the computation while many computer resources on the network may be idle. Additionally, the benefit of the interactive features of the software is reduced as the computation time increases.
With many engineering and scientific problems requiring larger and more complex modeling, computations accordingly become more resource intensive and time-consuming. When a computation becomes so large and complex that it cannot be completed in a reasonable amount of time on a single computer, distributed computing in a distributed technical computing environment, for example Distributed Computing Toolbox for MATLAB® and MATLAB® Distributed Computing Engine, provides a solution to decrease the computation time as needed.
In the distributed computing systems, a scheduler may be employed to distribute a given computation to remote computing entities so that the remote computing entities are able to perform the distributed computation. Jobs are collections of tasks submitted to the scheduler or scheduler for distribution.
Traditionally, once a job is submitted, the tasks of the job are fixed or frozen so that they cannot be modified or added to. This makes it difficult for certain users to actually carry out the computations that they would like. For example, a priori, a genetic algorithm does not know exactly how many evolution cycles it will need to go through to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Thus to enable a genetic algorithm in a distributed computing system, the algorithm writer needs to partition each section of the algorithm into many jobs. However, conceptually, the whole genetic algorithm is a job and that is how a user would prefer to see it. Thus what is need is a way to dynamically add tasks to a job that has been queued or started running.

Adding tasks to queued or running dynamic jobs


New antibodies and methods of use are described.

Transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) was originally characterized as an oncogene capable of inducing a transformed phenotype in non-neoplastic cells. A number of TGFβ family members have since been characterized, based on the presence of similar amino acid domains.
Some TGF-β isoforms are expressed ubiquitously in mammals (TGF-β 1-3), but are maintained in an inactive form by non-covalent interaction with a propeptide, the latency associated domain of TGF-β (LAP). For TGFβ to signal, it must be released from its inactive complex by a process called TGFβ activation. The latent TGF complex includes 3 components: the active (mature) TGFβ dimmer, LAP (latency associated peptide) and LTBP (latent TGFβ binding protein). LAP is a dimer, linked by a disulfide bond, that represents the N-terminal end of the TGFβ precursor protein. The mature TGFβ protein represents the C terminal end (about 25 kD) of the precursor. The bond between the TGFβs and LAP is proteolytically cleaved within the Golgi, but the TGF-β propeptide remains bound to TGFβ by non-covalent interactions. The complex of TGFβ and LAP is called the small latent complex (SLC). It is the association of LAP and TGFβ that confers latency. LAP-TGFβ binding is reversible and the isolated purified components can recombine to form an inactive SLC. Both the SLC and the larger complex are referred to herein as latent TGFβ, as both are inactive.
In general, integrins are adhesion molecules and mediate the attachment of cells to extracellular matrix proteins. Integrin αvβ8 binds to the LAP of TGF-β and mediates the activation of TGF-β1 and 3 (Mu et al. (2002) J. Cell Biol. 159:493). Integrin αvβ8-mediated activation of TGF-β is required for in vivo activation of TGF-β (i.e., release of the mature TGF-β polypeptide), thus αvβ8 is a gatekeeper of TGF-β function. Integrin αvβ8 is expressed in normal epithelia (e.g., airway epithelia), mesenchymal cells, and neuronal tissues.
The integrin β8 (Itgb8) has been associated with forkhead box P3 (Foxp3)-positive T cells and T-regulatory-specific epigenetic remodeling. See, e.g., Vandenbon, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA vol. 113 no. 17 pp. E2393-E2402 (2016). FoxP3 is a transcription factor involved in the development of T-regulatory (Treg) cells. Human and mouse effector Treg cells express functional TGF-β-activating integrin αvβ8. See, Worthington, Immunity Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 903-915 (May 2015). Treg cell integrin αvβ8-mediated TGF-β activation is not needed for T cell homeostasis and integrin αvβ8 expression by Treg cells suppresses active inflammation.

Neutralizing antibodies to the alpha v beta 8 integrin complex for immunotherapy

The Regents of the University of California


A method for administration of ibuprofen to a subject in need of ibuprofen treatment is provided, in which an oral dosage form comprising a therapeutically effective amount of ibuprofen and a therapeutically effective amount of famotidine is administered three times per day.

Ibuprofen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), has been used in humans for nearly forty years. While generally regarded as safe, ibuprofen and other NSAIDs can cause gastritis, dyspepsia, and gastric and duodenal ulceration. Gastric and duodenal ulceration is a consequence of impaired mucosal integrity resulting from ibuprofen-mediated inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis. This side-effect is a particular problem for individuals who take ibuprofen for extended periods of time, such as patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.
The risk of developing gastric or duodenal ulceration can be reduced by cotherapy with the drug famotidine. Famotidine blocks the action of the histamine type 2 (H2) receptor, leading to a reduction of acid secretion in the stomach. Reducing stomach acid with famotidine during treatment with certain nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is reported to decrease incidence of gastrointestinal ulcers (see Taha et al., 1996, "Famotidine for the prevention of gastric and duodenal ulcers caused by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs" N Engl J Med 334:1435-9, and Rostom et al., 2002, "Prevention of NSAID-induced gastrointestinal ulcers" Cochrane Database Syst Rev 4:CD002296).
Famotidine is used for treatment of heartburn, ulcers, and esophagitis at daily doses from 10 mg to 80 mg. Approved schedules of famotidine administration include 10 or 20 mg QD or BID (for treatment of heartburn), 20 mg or 40 mg QD (for healing ulcers, such as 40 mg HS for 4-8 weeks for healing duodenal ulcers), 20 mg HS (maintenance dose following healing of ulcer), 20 mg BID for 6 weeks (for treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease), and 20 or 40 mg BID (for treatment of esophageal erosion). For treatment of Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome, a disease characterized by hypersecretion of gastric acid, doses of up to 800 mg/day have been used.
Although NSAID plus famotidine cotherapy reduces risk of developing gastric or duodenal ulceration, present therapies are not widely used. More effective methods of treatment and pharmaceutical compositions are needed. The present invention meets this and other needs.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Methods and medicaments for administration of ibuprofen


A bipolar transistor having a pair of transistor cells formed on a single crystal substrate. Each one of the cells including a collector electrode, an elongated emitter electrode and a base electrode disposed over a first surface of the substrate. The base electrode is adapted to control a flow of carriers between the collector and emitter electrodes. An emitter pad is disposed over the first surface of the substrate. A pair of conductive, air-bridge members is provided. First ends of the bridge members are connected to the emitter pad and second ends of the bridge members are connected along a length of the elongated emitter electrode. The substrate has an emitter contact disposed on a second surface of the substrate. The emitter pad and the emitter contact are electrically connected by an electrically conductive via passing through the substrate between the first and second surfaces of the substrate. The emitter pad comprises a resistive layer disposed serially between the pair of bridges and the emitter contact. The emitter pad includes: a resistive layer disposed over the first surface of the substrate and having an inner portion in electrical contact with the electrically conductive via; a dielectric layer disposed over an inner region of the resistive layer; and a pair of electrical contacts, an outer portion of each of the electrical contacts being disposed in electrical contact with outer portions of the resistive layer and inner portions of the pair of electrical contacts being electrically insulated from the resistive layer.

This invention relates generally to heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) and more particularly to high power HBTs.
As is known in the art, heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) have been used in a wide range of applications. Group III-V HBTs, such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) based HBTs are particularly suitable for use in high power microwave applications, such as high power microwave amplifiers. One N type HBT includes a GaAs semi-insulating substrate having epitaxially grown thereon a sequence of overlaying III-V layers; i.e., an N.sup.+ sub-collector layer, an N.sup.-, collector layer, a relatively thin heavily doped P.sup.+ base layer, a high bandgap N type emitter layer forming a heterojunction with the base layer, and a N.sup.+ emitter contact layer, respectively. The N.sup.+ emitter contact layer may be GaAs. The high bandgap N type emitter layer may be aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) or indium gallium phosphide (InGaP).
In one type of high power heterojunction bipolar transistor 6, a plurality of transistor cells 7 are electrically interconnected, as shown in FIG. 1. More particularly, each cell 7 includes a base electrode B, an emitter electrode E, and collector electrode C. The emitter electrodes, E, of the cells 7 are connected together in a grounded, or common emitter configuration, as shown schematically in FIG. 1. In order to equalize power dissipation among the emitters, ballast resistors, R, may be included between each emitter electrode and ground, as shown. The collector electrodes, C, are connected together at a collector contact CC and the base electrodes, B, are connected together at an input signal, or base contact BC, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. The emitter electrodes, E, are connected to a ground plane conductor, not shown, disposed on the bottom of the substrate by conductive vias CV which pass through the substrate. It is noted that base, emitter and collector electrodes are end-fed; that is the electrodes B, E and C are fed at ends E1, E2, and E3, respectively, as shown.


The present invention relates to an azeotropic or quasi-azeotropic composition comprising hydrogen fluoride, 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene and 1,1,1,2,2-pentafluoropropane, characterized in that said composition has a boiling point above 40° C.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) and in particular hydrofluoroolefins, such as 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoro-1-propene (HFO 1234yf) are compounds known for their properties as refrigerants and heat-transfer fluids, extinguishers, propellants, foaming agents, swelling agents, dielectric gases, polymerization medium or monomer, support fluids, abrasive agents, drying agents and fluids for power production units. Unlike CFCs and HCFCs, which are potentially hazardous to the ozone layer, HFOs do not contain any chlorine and thus do not pose any problems for the ozone layer. Several processes for manufacturing 1234yf are known. For example, WO 2011/010025 describes the process for preparing 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene from hexafluoropropylene. The preparation of 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene from 1,1,1,2,3-pentachloropropane is also known from WO 2013/088195 In addition to the reaction steps per se, the processes for preparing 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene that are known from the prior art carry out one or more purification steps generally including one or more distillations.
The operation of a distillation column can be disrupted by the formation of azeotropic compositions during the use of said column. This can cause a decrease in efficiency in the separation of the various compounds. This can also cause a poor design of the distillation column with significant repercussions on the overall efficiency of the process of the industrial scale. The existence of azeotropes between hydrogen fluoride and 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene is known from U.S. Pat. No. 7,476,771. In addition, the existence of azeotropes between hydrogen fluoride and 1,1,1,2,2-pentafluoropropane, a byproduct observed in processes for preparing 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene, is also known from WO 2008/054781.
The identification of new azeotropic compositions is essential for providing an efficient separation or purification process.

Ternary azeotropic or quasi-azeotropic composition comprising HF, 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene and 1,1,1,2,2-pentafluoropropane