A magnetic apparatus and related method and energy product-by-process to motivate linear or rotational motion, comprising: at least one magnet ring tier comprising a ring of a plurality of permanent magnets; a central core comprising a permanent magnet projectile movement channel, an axis of the channel aligned in a direction normal to a geometric plane defined by the magnet ring, and running through a geometric center of the magnet ring; and each of the permanent magnets mounted in the ring at a mount angle thereof, with the components of their polar alignments parallel to the central core all oriented in the same direction; wherein: if the polar alignment of a permanent magnet projectile was introduced with a particular duality-dependent orientation into the permanent magnet projectile movement channel, the magnetic forces between the ring magnets and the projectile would be capable of motivating the permanent magnet projectile relative to the channel.

This invention pertains to a circular construction of permanent magnets that will do work on magnetized bodies or permanent magnets attached to non-magnetic weights such as lead. Manufactured arrays may be married ad infinitum at regular and specific intervals to unify the individual fields and sum magnetic forces enabling increased workload through the center of the array. These may also be assembled into closed configurations to motivate rotation or motion along a linear path of the magnet arrays.

Device, method and energy product-by-process for launching magnetic projectiles and motivating linear and rotational motion, using permanent magnets or magnetized bodies


A portable electronic device includes a housing, and a fragment mechanism installed inside the housing. The fragment mechanism includes a first fragment, and a second fragment pressing against the first fragment. The first fragment is capable of being separated from the second fragment when an impulsive force greater than a critical impulsive force is applied to the portable electronic device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable electronic device with an impact-detecting function, and more particularly, to a portable electronic device utilizing a fragment mechanism to detect impact level.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In highly developed information communication systems in the modem information society, electronic devices are widely utilized in every area. For instance, the utilization of a convenient and lightweight mobile phone device has become a way of communication in our daily life; users can easily exchange and share information, experiences, and opinions through the convenience of the mobile phone device. In regard to the impact protection or drop protection of consumer electronic products, most drop test standards follow real usage scenarios for the products to be tested. However it is not always easy to predict all usage patterns of products by consumers. For instance, a warranty does not cover damage caused by artificial factors, such as throwing down mobile phones. But for now it is difficult to determine if the impulsive force applied to the mobile phone is over the limited load, and it is therefore difficult to determine who is responsible for the repairs. There is a need to get information of usage status of a product from the product itself so that the responsibility for repairing can be decided according to whether the product has been under an over-loading situation.

Portable electronic device with an impact-detecting function


One customer of the license clearinghouse may act as an intermediary and perform selected tasks on behalf of another customer. In particular, an intermediary customer can make rights inquiries that access the portion of the central repository that belongs to its client in order to determine rights available to the client. In one embodiment, the portion of the central repository that is accessed in response to a rights inquiry is determined by an IP address of the device being used to make the rights inquiry. This IP address is used to retrieve a record having a customer ID and a field that indicates whether the IP address corresponds to a rights intermediary. If this is the case, a keyword corresponding to the customer ID of the customer that is provided in the rights request by the rights intermediary is used to access the central repository.

This invention relates to library services and methods and apparatus for managing reuse rights for content. Works, or "content", created by an author is generally subject to legal restrictions on reuse. For example, most content is protected by copyright. In order to conform to copyright law, content users often obtain content reuse licenses. A content reuse license is actually a "bundle" of rights, including rights to present the content in different formats, rights to reproduce the content in different formats, rights to produce derivative works, etc. Thus, depending on a particular reuse, a specific license for that reuse may have to be obtained.
Many organizations use content for a variety of purposes, including research and knowledge work. These organizations obtain the content and the rights to reuse that content through many vendors, including publishers and subscription resellers. Due to the number of vendors and rights involved, these organizations often additionally engage the services of a license clearinghouse to obtain and manage these rights. The license clearinghouse, in turn, has a central repository that it maintains on behalf of multiple organizations. For each organization, the central repository includes license rights acquired from the license clearinghouse and license rights acquired through direct negotiations with vendors. Additionally, even though there is a central repository, many organizations maintain their own virtual database that allows them to manage their own rights.
In order to determine whether a reuse right for a particular content item has been previously purchased and is therefore available or whether it must be newly purchased, a member of an organization must check the virtual database and, if the right is not there, make a right request either directly to a vendor who provides the content item or to the license clearinghouse. Individual vendors can provide a higher level of service value if they are aware of the rights that an organization has previously acquired. For example, assuming that a member of an organization requests a copy of a content item from a vendor, if that vendor is aware that the organization has already acquired a right to an original of the content item, the vendor can charge a fee appropriate for a content item copy rather than a fee for an original content item. Similarly, if the vendor is aware that the organization has acquired a right to an original content item together with rights to share that content item in specified format, the vendor can provide a copy of the content item in the specified format without charge. In another scenario, if a vendor is aware that an organization has not acquired access to an original content item, but does have rights to share the item in given format, the vendor can provide access to original free of digital rights management restrictions because copying of the content item is allowed. Another way vendor can provide a higher service level is by indicating available rights and permissions when the content item is provided to the client.
However, in order to be aware of all of the rights that an organization has previously acquired, a vendor must access the license clearinghouse database. While many vendors are themselves customers of the license clearinghouse services, each customer is only allowed to access the portion of the central repository that belongs to it. Therefore, a vendor cannot access the portion of the central repository that belongs to its client.


A fiberboard box formed from a blank (20), which includes side panels (24 and 28), also top and bottom flaps (40, 42, 44 and 46), with a pair of outer end panels (26 and 30). Mating inner overlapped end panels (48 and 50) produce a double fiberboard thickness on each end. Each corner contains a doubled vertical reinforcement (64) at an equal bisecting angle integrally formed from each outer end panel and adjacent side panel. A diagonal corner reinforcement (68) is formed from each overlap end panel and is angularly bent to span between the end and side panels and is also contiguous with the doubled vertical reinforcement. The diagonal and doubled reinforcement combination in each corner is attached together with glue where they touch each other, creating a rigid weight bearing corner permitting other like boxes to be stacked on top. Optionally, a number of stacking tabs (52) are formed in the end panels with mating recesses (54) maintaining alignment when the completed boxes are stacked.

Previously, many types of box structures have been used in endeavoring to provide an effective means for producing sufficient strength to permit stacking. Many attempts have been made to add a rigid structural member in each corner of a box to support the weight loading rather than utilizing the structural rigidity of the box itself. While this ancillary element served the purpose, its expense and assembly labor requirement has not completely solved the problem. Other inventions were directed to folding material over in the corners doubling the wall thickness, however, if the stack was not completely even, the strength in the corners was not evenly distributed, again not always fulfilling the need.
A search of the prior art did not disclose any patents that read directly on the claims of the instant invention. However, the following U. S. patents were considered related:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. INVENTOR ISSUE DATE ______________________________________ 2,634,021 Cella Apr. 7, 1953 3,270,943 Polenghi Sep. 6, 1966 3,935,991 Crane Feb. 3, 1976 4,174,045 Heller et al Nov. 13, 1979 4,613,045 Watson Sep. 23, 1986 4,799,670 Vilella Jan. 24, 1989 ______________________________________
Cella, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,634,021, teaches a container construction for boxes, or crates, that are fabricated of sheet metal with a reinforcing angle-piece fitted into each corner. A lug projects f rom the top of the crate to intersect with a crate stacked on the top thereof. The sides are wood and riveted to the sheetmetal ends.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,270,943 of Polenghi discloses a paperboard container utilizing triangular shaped rods of wood or other material resistant to compressive stresses. Each rod has two blind holes, one in each end, in which a projection is placed in the top, one to align and hold the box to one stacked thereabove., The paperboard is cut-away for the projection and hole.
Cranes invention in U.S. Pat. No. 3,935,991 employs molded thermosetting plastic reinforcing end frames secured to outer sides of end walls of a paperboard container body permitting stacking. Tabs interlock with the lids, or cover panels, locking them closed allowing temporary opening for display of the produce within.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,174,045 of Heller et al teaches a metallic platform with supports to receive a like platform stacked on top. Side walls consist of steel plates that engage the corners and the bottom also include feet for resting the platform away from the ground.
Watson in U.S. Pat. No. 4,613,045 discloses a paperboard container that has the corners folded into a triangular shape with the stability of the corner reinforcements provided by interlocking tabs that are folded down and threaded through apertures cut into the top panels. The resulting reinforced corner then contains a double thickness material adjacent to the sides and ends and a single proximal corner reinforcement diagonally positioned across the corner. The rigid relationships provide stability and strength to a column of containers, however, two problems exist with this prior art. First, the requirement for threading a flap through an aperture to lock the corner in place is labor intense, as the paperboard must be bent by hand when inserted and forced in flush necessitating a tight radial bend making the procedure extremely time consuming. Second, the reinforced corner has only the single diagonal weight bearing member, as the other two are contiguous with the sides and ends and offer little or no support when stacked, whereas the instant invention contains three supports directly in the corner, all of which are away from the side and end panels and are weight bearing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,799,620 of Vilella folds and assembles the box in a conventional manner, except at the corners where pillars are constructed by superimposing a series of double panels having two or three material thicknesses. The upper portion of each pillar is connected together with a cap of plastic material the shape of a prism with a triangular base having a solid bottom and opening to receive, like parts in a similar box stacked thereupon. The weight support is augmented by the plastic cap.
It will be noted that prior art has attempted to reinforce the corner of a box container by adding a secondary structural member or a single diagonal fold in the corners, however, none of the prior art found includes a combination of diagonal and doubled angular corners that unitedly support the weight of a box stacked on top.


The present invention provides apparatus and methods for carrier frequency offset and phase compensation, which can compensate the phase rotation of an OFDM symbol resulted from carrier frequency offset between the receiver and transmitter of an OFDM System. The apparatus and method for carrier frequency offset compensation generates an estimated carrier frequency offset according to a phase error between estimated frequency responses of two consecutive received OFDM symbols within the pilot subchannel, and calculates an accumulated phase rotation, according to the estimated carrier frequency offset, for compensating the received OFDM symbol. On the other hand, the apparatus and method for phase compensation generates an estimated residual phase error according to the pilot signal of a frequency offset-compensated OFDM symbol and the original pilot signal transmitted by the transmitter, and compensates the frequency offset-compensated OFDM symbol or a following one according to the estimated residual phase error.

(a). Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a communication system, and more particularly to an apparatus for estimating and compensating the carrier frequency offset and phase error in a communication system and a method thereof.
(b). Description of the Prior Arts
In recent years, the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology is widely applied to high-speed communication systems, such as asymmetric digital subscriber loop (ADSL), IEEE 802.11a/g wireless local area network (WLAN), etc. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a typical OFDM communication system 100. The transmitter of the OFDM system 100 first distributes the data under transmission into N frequency-domain subchannels (N=2n, n is an integer) via a signal mapping unit 101, and maintains the orthogonality among the signals of each subchannel to prevent inter-carrier interference (ICI). Next, an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) device 102 is used to transform the subchannel signals into time-domain signals, to which a guard interval (GI) is added by a GI adding device 103. Then, each of these time-domain signals is passed through a parallel-to-serial converter (P/S) 104 and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) 105, modulated by a carrier and then transmitted via a channel 106. The receiver of the OFDM system 100 first performs carrier demodulation on the received time-domain signals and then an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 107 is used to sample the demodulated signals. Next, the guard interval of the sampled signals is removed by a GI removal unit 109. The result thereof is provided to a serial-to parallel converter (S/P) 110, and then a fast Fourier transform (FFT) device 110 is used for transforming to frequency-domain signals. Last, the receiver compensates these frequency-domain signals by a channel compensator 112 and performs signal demodulation via a signal demapping unit 113 to recover to the original transmitted data.
A set of N-point IFFT output is typically called a symbol. Since the channel impulse response (CIR) is usually not ideal, a received symbol after passing through the channel 106 would impact the reception of subsequent symbols, i.e. inter-symbol interference (ISI). To prevent ISI, an additional guard interval (GI) is added between two OFDM symbols. Two typical ways to implement the guard interval are zero-padding (ZP) and cyclic prefix (CP). In ZP, a string of zero is added as the guard interval and energy efficiency is thus improved. In CP, a latter portion of a symbol is copied and put before the symbol as the guard interval. CP can reduce the ICI resulted from the channel impulse response. Circuits 103 and 109 of FIG. 1 are used to add and remove the guard interval respectively.
When demodulating OFDM symbols, the receiver of the OFDM system 100 needs to transform the received time-domain signals into frequency-domain signals by the FFT device 111 and performs the demodulation within each subchannel respectively. If synchronization error exists in the time-domain signals inputted to the FFT device 111, then additional ICI and phase rotation would be generated in the output frequency-domain signals to damage the orthogonality of the outputted frequency-domain signals. The system performance would thus be degraded. For the OFDM system, the synchronization error resulted from; (1) carrier frequency offset, (2) carrier phase error, (3) sampling frequency offset, and (4) sampling phase error.
In view of this, the present invention provides an apparatus and a method that can track and compensate the carrier frequency offset by using the pilot signal of an OFDM symbol, thereby upgrading the performance of an OFDM system.

Apparatus and method for carrier frequency offset and phase compensation in communication system


A method of forming devices including forming a first region and a second region in a semiconductor substrate is provided. The method further includes forming a semiconductive material over the first region, wherein the semiconductive material has a different electrical property than the first semiconductor substrate, forming a first dielectric material over the first region, depositing a second dielectric material over the first dielectric material and over the second region, wherein the second dielectric material is different than the first dielectric material, and depositing a gate electrode material over the high dielectric constant material. In one embodiment, the semiconductive material is silicon germanium and the semiconductor substrate is silicon.

1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to semiconductor devices, and more specifically, to dual gate oxide device integration.
2. Related Art
In many instances, dual gate oxide (DGO) devices need to be integrated on the same substrate. As used herein, the term dual gate oxide devices relates to devices that are formed on the same substrate, but have different gate oxide thicknesses. For example, thicker gate oxide devices may be formed on the periphery of the substrate so that they can handle higher voltages associated with input/output operations. Thinner gate oxide devices may be formed in areas of the substrate where higher voltages are not present. Metal gate with high dielectric constant (high k) devices increasingly need materials that may not be compatible with existing methods for forming dual gate oxide devices. For example, such metal gate/high k dielectric devices may need silicon germanium channels to lower the threshold voltage (Vt) associated with the PMOS devices. Conventional processes, such as thermal oxidation, used to form thick gate oxide devices, however, are not compatible with silicon germanium channels. This is because if thick gate oxide is grown over silicon germanium, the thermal oxidation step results in the germanium diffusing into the regions of the substrate or the gate oxide that should not contain any germanium. In sum, thermal oxidation step used as part of the conventional dual gate oxide integration process may degrade the profile of the silicon germanium channel.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved dual gate oxide device integration.


Users can switch between applications using contextual interface elements. These elements can include icons for applications determined to likely be accessed by the user for a current context. Information is gathered to determine the current context, then information such as patterns of historical usage are utilized to determine and rank the applications by likelihood of use. Different contexts can include different icons, and a given context can include different icons for different points in time or locations. A user can access a contextual interface element by performing a swipe motion, for example. The user can continue the motion to an area associated with an icon of interest, and perform an action such as a tap or release to cause the associated application to be launched. Such an approach enables a user to quickly and easily launch another application independent of the application currently active on the device.

People are utilizing computing devices for an ever-increasing variety of tasks. Accordingly, there is an ever-increasing amount of applications and functionality through which a user must navigate in order to perform a given function. Since conventional menus and icon layouts are static, a user must exit a current application or task and navigate to the appropriate menu or layout location in order to activate a particular application or function. This can be inconvenient at best, and further can make it difficult to return to the task which the user was previously performing with the device. While users have some ability to customize these layouts, the layouts do not adapt for changes that might cause a user to tend to use some applications more than others. Thus, a user must attempt to manually organize things in a way that balances all potential situations and uses, which thus causes inefficiencies for each of these uses.


Techniques are described for filtering and normalizing training data used to build a predictive auto scaling model used by a service provider network to proactively scale users' computing resources. Further described are techniques for identifying collections of computing resources that exhibit suitably predictable usage patterns such that a predictive auto scaling model can be used to forecast future usage patterns with reasonable accuracy and to scale the resources based on such generated forecasts. The filtering of training data and the identification of suitably predictable collections of computing resources are based in part on autocorrelation analyses, and in particular on “delayed” autocorrelation analyses, of time series data, among other techniques described herein.

Service provider networks have enabled businesses and other organizations to more easily develop, deploy, and scale virtually any type of computing workload using various types of computing resources. The services provided by these service provider networks generally enable users to use, for example, compute resources (for example, by hosting virtual machine (VM) instances or containers, executing batch jobs, executing code without provisioning servers, and so forth), data/storage resources (for example, object storage, block-level storage, data archival storage, databases and database tables, and so forth), network-related resources (for example, configuring virtual networks including groups of compute resources, content delivery networks (CDNs), Domain Name Service (DNS)), application resources (for example, databases, application build/deployment services), and the like.
Many service provider networks further enable users to automate capacity management for various services, including compute instance capacity and the capacity associated with other "elastic" computing resources. In the context of compute instances, for example, an auto scaling service can help users automatically provision and de-provision compute instances as the load associated with the user's applications varies over time. To manage such scaling, users can create defined and scalable collections of compute instances, sometimes referred to as "auto scaling groups." An auto scaling group can be configured, for example, such that it maintains at least a minimum number of healthy compute instances. Users can further specify scaling policies used by an auto scaling service to launch or terminate compute instances as demand for a user's application increases and decreases over time.

Using delayed autocorrelation to improve the predictive scaling of computing resources


Described herein is a system for creating and maintaining materialized views. The maintenance of the materialized views is performed in a distributed manner that improves efficiency and performance in response to the queries for materialized views or views on top of the materialized views.

In modern databases, views are computed and stored to allow efficient querying and analysis of the data. A view provides an alternate method for accessing data contained in a database's base table. Usually, a view is a child of and exists as a filter on top of the base table(s), and does not itself contain data. Generally, the query used to generate the view condenses, combines, or otherwise processes the data residing in one or more underlying base tables.
A materialized view is similar to a view in syntax and output; however, materialized views contain their own distinct data. In order to be materialized, such a view must exist physically in storage. Materialized views provide faster data access than do base tables with non-materialized views.
Materialized view architectures historically have to deal with issues of creation, storage, and maintenance. Keeping materialized views up to date may be an expensive process, with the expense defined in terms of storage space, response time, and computational resources needed to maintain the materialized view. However, if a materialized view is not kept up to date, the data contained it is considered stale or invalid, and the view cannot be used until the maintenance is performed.
Materialized views are typically created and stored in the same location as the base relations they are built from, kept on mass storage devices. On data retrieval, the materialized view records are read from disk and returned to the database.


A gas turbine engine includes a compressor section and a turbine section. The turbine section includes at least one turbine rotor having a radially extending turbine blade. The turbine section is rotatable about an axis of rotation. A blade outer air seal is positioned radially outwardly of a radially outer tip of the at least one turbine blade. The blade outer air seal has axially spaced forward and aft portions and a central web between the axially spaced portions. An attachment block is supported on structure within the engine. The attachment block mounts the blade outer air seal. A passage extends into a chamber within the attachment block, and communicates to circumferential edges of the attachment block to direct cooling air along the central web of the blade outer air seal. A blade outer air seal assembly is also disclosed.

This application relates to an attachment block for a blade outer air seal which provides convection cooling.
Gas turbine engines are known and generally include a fan delivering air into a bypass duct as propulsion air. Air is also delivered into a compressor where it is compressed and delivered into a combustions section. In the combustion section, the compressed air is mixed with fuel and ignited.
Products of this combustion pass downstream over turbine rotors, driving them to rotate. The turbine rotors generally include turbine blades which are impacted by the products of combustion to drive the turbine blades and, hence, the rotors.
The efficiency of gas turbine engines is an area of much design effort. It is desirable that as much of the products of combustion as possible be guided across the turbine blades.
Thus, it is known to provide blade outer air seals ("BOAS") spaced radially outwardly of a radially outer tip of the turbine blades. This minimizes leakage.

Attachment block for blade outer air seal providing convection cooling


A content selection apparatus selects a target content item which is a content item to be presented to a user, from a plurality of content items. The plurality of content items are sorted into a plurality of management units according to a creation date and time of each content item. The content selection apparatus includes a selection unit that selects a predetermined number of management units in ascending order of the number of sorted content items, and selects a content item that belongs to the selected management units as the target content item.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a content selection apparatus and a content selection method for selecting a content item to be presented to a user from content items such as still images and moving images.
2. Background Art
The widespread use of a digital imaging device such as a digital camera and a camera phone and the increase in capacity of a recording medium installed in or connected to such an imaging device have provided greater opportunities for a user to create content items (photographs or movies (video)). Moreover, the significant increase in storage capacity of a content management apparatus (such as a personal computer and a hard disk recorder) for storing and managing created content items enables large amounts of content items to be stored in the content management apparatus.
Meanwhile, the user does not have many occasions to look back the content items stored in the content management apparatus. Many content items stored in the content management apparatus have been either viewed by the user only once or left without ever being viewed by the user.
In most cases, content items such as photographs or movies show objects which the user intends to record. In the case where an object different from that intended by the user is shown in a content item, however, the user may enjoy an element of chance and surprise upon looking back such a content item. Besides, when content items captured in different situations are collected and presented to the user, the user may enjoy finding out some commonality between the content items.
A content item that not only has few opportunities of being looked back but delivers unexpected value (fun, interest) to the user as the user can enjoy an element of chance and surprise from the content item is referred to as "dead storage content item" in this description.
If the user is aware of an element of chance and surprise brought by such a content item, the user looks back the content item not only once but in various ways. This reduces the number of dead storage content items. If the user is unaware of an element of chance and surprise brought by the content item, however, the user merely views the content item only once or leaves the content item in the content management apparatus without ever looking back. This increases the number of dead storage content items.
In view of this, for instance, a technique whereby a content item which the user has not viewed for a while is automatically extracted and displayed based on a user operation is disclosed (for example, see Patent Literature (PTL) 1).

Content selection apparatus and content selection method

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA


Control signals for refreshing interval selection is simplified and yield in production of a dynamic memory device is improved by a dynamic memory device of the invention. The dynamic memory device includes a refreshing timing signal generating portion for generating first and second refreshing timing signal having mutually different periods, refreshing timing selection means for detecting a time difference of level variation timing of two or three external control signals and generating a refreshing timing selection signal of selected one of first and second levels depending upon the time difference, selector for selecting one of the first and second refreshing timing signal depending upon the level of the refreshing timing selection signal, self-refreshing detecting means for detecting a time condition of level variation timing of a plurality of external control signals and generating an active level self-refreshing entry signal, and an internal address generating means for generating an internal address signal sequentially updated an address value in synchronism with the refreshing timing signal selected by the selector while the self-refreshing entry signal is in active level.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a dynamic memory device and a driving method therefor. More specifically, the invention relates to a dynamic memory device having a self-refreshing function and a driving method therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a dynamic memory device having a self-refreshing (hereinafter referred to as "SR") function, after detection of CBR (CAS Before RAS) operation, when both of a row address control signal RAS* (* represents that low level is an active level, hereinafter "*" will be used to represent the same meaning), and a column address control signal CAS* are held in active (low) level, an operation mode is switched into a self-refreshing mode after expiration of a predetermined self-refreshing triggering period to automatically perform refreshing operation for a memory cell array at a predetermined refreshing period.
One example (first example) of the dynamic memory device having the self-refreshing function is illustrated in FIG. 7. The shown dynamic memory device includes a CBR operation detecting circuit 1x outputting a CBR entry signal CBRE which becomes active level by detecting active level of the column address control signal CAS* when the row address control signal RAS* is switched from inactive state (high level) into active level (low level) (CBR operation), and becomes inactive in response to switching of the row address control signal RAS* into inactive level, an oscillation circuit 2 for outputting a predetermined frequency of oscillation clock signal OCK in response to active level of the CBR entry signal CBRE, an SR entry timing signal generating portion 10 for outputting an SR entry timing signal SRET in response to a predetermined count value by counting the oscillation clock signal, an SR detection circuit 11 outputs an active level self-refreshing entry signal SRE when the CBR entry signal CBRE is active when the SR entry timing signal SRET is output, a refresh timing signal generating portion 3x becoming active in response to the active level of the self-refreshing entry signal SRE, counting the oscillation clock signal OCK for generating a predetermined period of self-refreshing entry signal RFTx, an SR control circuit 5 responsive to the active level of the self-refreshing entry signal SRE to output a self-refreshing control signal SRCX of a predetermined width in synchronism with the refreshing timing signal RFTx, to a refreshing control circuit 6x. An internal address generating portion 7 and a row address control circuit 8, after detecting the CBR operation, generate an internal address signal IAD sequentially updated address values in synchronism with the self-refreshing control signal SRCx when the self-refreshing entry signal SRE is active, the internal address signal IAD sequentially updated the address values in synchronism with the row address control signal RAS* of an external control signal when the self-refreshing entry signal SRE is inactive, selecting and outputting an external address signal EAD according to external control signal (RAS*, CAS*), and controlling refreshing operation and so forth of the memory cell array (not shown) when the CBR operation is not detected.
Next, refreshing operation of the dynamic memory device will be discussed in conjunction with the timing chart of the respective signal shown in FIG. 8.
The CBR operation detecting circuit 1x becomes active (high level) by detecting the CBR operation and generates the CBR entry signal CBRE becoming inactive (low level) when the row address control signal RAS* becomes inactive level (high level). In response to the active level of the CBR entry signal CBRE, the oscillation circuit 2 generates the oscillation clock signal OCK.
The SR entry timing signal generating portion 10 counts the oscillation clock signal OCK to output the SR entry timing signal SRET at the predetermined timing. The SR detection circuit 11 makes a judgement that the self-refreshing mode is to begin if the CBR entry signal CBRE is active at an output timing of the SR entry timing signal SRET, and outputs the active level self-refreshing entry signal SRE.
The refreshing timing signal generating portion 3x becomes active when the self-refreshing entry signal SRE becomes active to generate the predetermined period of refreshing timing signal RFTx by counting the oscillation clock signal OCK. The SR control circuit 5 outputs a predetermined period of the self-refreshing control signal SRCX in synchronism with the refreshing timing signal RFTx.
The refreshing control circuit 6x outputs a first refresh control signal RFC1 which becomes active level in response to variation of the row address control signal RAS* after detection of the CBR operation and inactive level in response to variation of the self-refreshing entry signal SRE into active level (or variation of one of the RAS* and the CAS* into inactive level, neglected from FIG. 8), and becomes active level in synchronism with the self-refreshing control signal SRCX when the self-refreshing entry signal SRE is active level and inactive level when the self-refreshing entry signal SRE is inactive, and a second refresh control signal RFC2 varying level variation similarly to the first refresh control signal, and in addition thereto, becomes active in synchronism with the active level of the row address control signal RAS*, for controlling the internal address generation circuit 7 and the row address control circuit 8.
The internal address generating portion 7 generates the internal address signal IAD sequentially updated address value in synchronism with the active level of the first refreshing control signal RFC1. The row address control circuit 8 selects the internal address signal IAD for synchronized with the first refreshing control signal RFC1 when the CBR operation is detected, according to first and second refreshing control signals RFC1 and RFC2, and selects the external address signal EAD in response to the active level of the row address control signal RAS* when the CBR operation is not detected. Namely, when the self-refreshing mode is executed, after detection of the CBR operation, CBR refreshing operation (once at the first time) is performed until the self-refreshing mode is detected (zone A shown in FIG. 8), and self-refreshing operation is performed after detection of the self-refreshing mode to perform refreshing by the internal address IAD in synchronism with the refreshing timing signal RFTx. If the CBR operation is detected but the self-refreshing mode is not detected, so called CBR refreshing operation is performed by the internal address signal IAD in synchronism with the row address control signal RAS*. When the CBR operation is not detected, normal refreshing operation is performed based in the external address signal EAD taken in synchronism with the row address control signal RAS*.
The self-refreshing mode in the dynamic memory device is frequently used when the power source is switched into a back-up power source and when the data holding condition becomes effected. It is thus desirable to make power consumption quite smaller even by prolonging the refreshing interval. Thus, in the foregoing dynamic memory device, in order to realize low power consumption, the refreshing interval of the self-refreshing mode is set long.
For example, in a 16 Mbit dynamic memory device, a refreshing interval in the normal operation is 32 ms. During this period, the refreshing cycle is 2048 (refreshing period about 16 .mu.m). In the self-refreshing mode, the refreshing interval is longer than 300 ms(hereinafter referred to as over 300 ms). The refresh period, namely, the period of RFTx, SRCx, is longer than or equal to 150 .mu.s (over 150 .mu.s).
In the above-mentioned dynamic memory device, due to tolerance or so forth in the production stage, a provision in a refreshing interval (e.g. 300 ms) in the low power consumption type self-refreshing mode is not satisfied in many cases. In such cases, such a memory device is commercialized as a product without a self-refreshing function. Namely, the yield of the product with the self-refreshing function is generally not high.
On the other hand, a data holding period of the memory cell is variable depending upon fluctuation in the production stage, and is significantly influenced by the use environment, and particularly on environmental temperature. In order to permit use in the worst use condition, it is typical to shorten a refreshing interval in the self-refreshing mode. In such case, power consumption is increased.
Therefore, depending upon fluctuation in production stage and upon use environment, there has been proposed the dynamic memory device which varies refreshing interval in the self-refreshing mode. (For example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 3-59876, in which is disclosed a storage holding mode instead of the self-refreshing mode).
Block diagram of the dynamic memory device (second example) and timing chart of signals of respective portion are shown in FIGS. 9 and 10.
The shown dynamic memory device includes a refreshing period generating circuit 21 generating refreshing timing signals RFTa and RFTb of mutually different periods, a timing detecting means 24 outputting a refreshing information set signal RFIS by detecting the column address control signal CAS* and a write control signal WE* in active level (low level) at a timing where the row address control signal RAS* switches from inactive level (high level) to active level (low level), storage means 25 reading out and storing the level ("1" or "0") of the data signal DI according to the refreshing information set signal RFIS), a selection circuit 22 for selecting one of the refreshing timing signals REFTa and RFTb according to the level of the signal (refresh information RFI) stored in storage means 25, a timing control circuit 26 generating various timing signals including the refreshing timing signal RFTn in normal operation according to the row address control signal RAS*, the column address control signal CAS* and a write control signal WE*, and a trigger signal selection curcuit 23 selecting the refresh timing signal RFTs selected by the selection means 22 when the external storage holding mode signal REF is the storage holding mode, and outputting a refreshing start-up signal RCE with selecting the refreshing timing signal RFTn during normal operation while not in the storage holding mode. The address of the row address signal is sequentially updated according to the refreshing start-up signal RCE to perform refreshing operation of the memory cell array.
In this dynamic memory device, since the refreshing period in the storage holding mode can be determined depending upon the use condition, such as environmental temperature upon refreshing operation, characteristics determined in the production stage and level of the input data signal DI in consideration of the power consumption, or the like. Therefore, the power consumption can be reduced depending upon the use environment and the like.
The above-mentioned conventional dynamic memory device in the first example encounters the problems of low production and low yield of production with the self-refreshing function when longer refreshing period is provided for low power consumption type since the refreshing interval at the self-refreshing mode is fixed at a constant value, amount of the product becomes smaller, on the contrary when shorter refreshing period is provided, though yield in the products with the self-refreshing function can be improved, power consumption is increased. On the other hand, in the second example, since the refreshing interval can be selected depending upon use environment or so forth, power consumption can be reduced and yield in production can be improved. However, four external signals DI, RAS*, CAS* and WE* are required for selecting the refreshing interval. Therefore, signal control becomes complicated. Also, the level of the external data signal is determined in consideration of the characteristics of the environmental temperature and upon production, power consumption and so forth. Thus, it is possible that errors on setting of level of the data signal occur, and cause erasure of the stored data.

Dynamic memory device with circuits for setting self-refreshing period


An apparatus and method for stabilizing the frequency of a piezoelectric crystal resonator, especially useful in common emergency positioning radio beacons. A temperature compensated crystal oscillator circuit (TCXO) is mounted on one surface of a thin substrate. The TCXO includes a piezoelectric device such as a quartz resonator and a capacitor thermistor compensation network to reduce the frequency fluctuations of the crystal through variations in temperature. A heating circuit is mounted to the opposing surface of the substrate, thereby providing a thermal connection between the two circuits. The heating circuit includes a temperature sensor for sensing changes in ambient temperatures and a heater control amplifier for adjusting the power of a heating element. The substrate with the two circuits disposed thereon is suspended within a hermetically sealed enclosure by a plurality of support pins. The pins assist in supporting the substrate away from the interior walls of the enclosure thereby reducing heat loss. The crystal oscillator is therefore maintained within a certain temperature range while temperatures at which activity dips often occur are avoided. The invention is also a method for constructing an electronic component heater assembly, including the construction of conventional oven controlled crystal oscillators.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of crystal oscillators and specifically to a crystal oscillator frequency stabilizing apparatus that utilizes a hybrid Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) and Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator (OCXO) design in order to maintain the temperature of the oscillator within a given predetermined operating range as well as avoiding temperatures at which activity dips frequently occur.
2. Description of Related Art
Crystal-controlled oscillators comprise a large portion of the frequency sources that are used in many RF signal-transmitting devices including emergency personnel locating devices. In emergency personnel location devices, it becomes critical to incorporate an oscillator frequency source that provides a predictable stable oscillation frequency through varying ambient temperatures.
Aircraft emergency locator systems such as ELTs (Emergency Locator Transmitters) and terrestrial location systems such as PLBs (Personal Locator Beacons) each require stable frequency sources. Individuals lost at sea and fortunate enough to have emergency location identification devices such as an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), can send out RF signals with the hopes that their distress signals will be picked up by maritime stations or satellites, which can in turn, relay the information to the proper authorities.
Distress signals are transmitted at very specific frequency ranges. For example, 406 MHz is a specific frequency that is only allowed for emergency broadcast for aviation and maritime radio communication channels such as xe2x80x9cmaydayxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cSOSxe2x80x9d-related distress signals. Stable frequency sources are needed to support accurate beacon location. Satellites can locate the beacons by a Doppler measuring technique that gives the satellite a line of position when the satellite passes the beacon location. A major limitation on the accuracy of such Doppler locations is the frequency stability of the beacon transmitter. As an example, 406 MHZ signals which use the OCXO typically can be located to a position accuracy of 1 or 2 kilometers while signals at 121.5 MHz (another emergency broadcast frequency) which usually use unheated crystal oscillators can be located to a position accuracy of between 10 and 30 kilometers.
Many RF stable frequency sources incorporate electrical circuits that provide automatic frequency adjustment to compensate for temperature-driven frequency variations that commonly occur in quartz crystals. These frequency sources allow the crystal temperature to vary and then attempt to provide frequency correction by various tuning schemes, known in the art as Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators (TCXOs) and other closely related schemes such as Microprocessor Controlled Crystal Oscillators (MCXOs) and Digitally Compensated Crystal Oscillators (DCXOs).
Each of the above mentioned schemes share a common difficulty known as quartz crystal activity dips, which cause phase and frequency instability in the oscillator output, and in some severe cases, the circuit may cease oscillation entirely. These activity dips occur at discrete temperatures, which are usually unique to each crystal unit. The activity dips result from undesired modes of vibration within the crystal combined with the desired mode to either reinforce or interfere with desired mode resonance. The unique temperature behavior of each unit results from the desired mode and undesired modes having different temperature/frequency coefficients, and when the temperature is just right, the desired and undesired modes can have the same frequency and therefore interfere, causing large frequency resonance variations within the crystal.
Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillators (OCXOs) are stable frequency sources that incorporate oscillator circuits and crystal in a precisely temperature-controlled oven enclosure.
OCXOs are used where the ultimate in frequency stability is required. The degree of frequency stability achieved by an OCXO depends on the quality of the temperature control circuits, the design of the oven enclosure, arid most importantly, the match between the oven operating temperature and the zero temperature/frequency slope (turn-over) temperature of the crystal. However, accurate frequency control by OCXOs requires high power, large ovens, and very accurately processed and characterized crystals.
The present invention utilizes a TCXO in combination with an oven circuit thereby eliminating the need for exact control of the crystal cut to achieve a specific turn-over temperature and eliminating the requirement for precise setting and control of oven temperature matching the crystal turn-over temperature thereby allowing use of an inexpensive oven circuit and package.
Certain applications for frequency sources could be readily serviced by Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators (TCXOs) if the activity dip phenomenon could be eliminated. Unfortunately, there is presently no compensated scheme that is completely free of activity dips and the associated phase and frequency instability.
An additional problem with TCXOs is that TCXOs assume the local environmental temperature, typically between 40xc2x0 C. to 50 or 60xc2x0 C. At the temperature extreme, the rate of crystal frequency change with temperature change becomes excessive and impossible to accurately compensate.
The present invention incorporates an oven circuit that keeps the TCXO temperature away form activity dips that occur randomly over the oscillator temperature range thereby providing greatly improved frequency and phase stability compared to standard TCXO designs.
Additionally, although there have been attempts in the prior art to provide a hybrid TCXO-OCXO design where the heater element is used to keep the TCXO from going below a minimum temperature where it no longer functions, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,060,692 issued to Bartley et al., such attempts fail to address the activity dip problem since the oven does not operate while the temperature is above the TCXO low temperature xe2x80x9ccriticalxe2x80x9d limit, and there is therefore no way to avoid activity dip temperatures that occur within the TCXO""s normal operating temperature range.
Further, prior art OCXO components are mounted on standard, thick PCB or ceramic substrates and substrate mounted to the case by heavy metal leads to support the substrate structure. The heavy leads used for mechanical support conduct heat away from the substrate causing oven current demand to increase substantially.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a crystal oscillator frequency stabilizing apparatus that incorporates the beneficial features of TCXO and OCXO circuits in order to maintain the temperature of the oscillator within a given predetermined operating range as well as avoiding temperatures at which activity dips frequently occur and a method of constructing an oscillator circuit wherein the design of the substrate results in minimal heat loss through the substrate and surrounding components.
The present invention is a crystal oscillator frequency stabilizing apparatus and method of constructing same that combines an inexpensive TCXO design with a miniature, inexpensive, oven circuit design whereby the TCXO is kept in a small high temperature range just above the operating temperature range and away from activity dips of the TCXO crystal. The TCXO compensates for allowed temperature variation resulting from ambient temperature changes and small, low power, inexpensive ovens. The overall result is a frequency source that offers greater stability than the TCXO without the instability of activity dips. Finally, the present invention provides a method for constructing oscillators with a heating circuit providing minimal heat loss through the substrate material.
An improved stabilized frequency source comprising a substrate, preferably having a thickness between 0.008 and 0.015 inches, a temperature compensated crystal oscillator (TCXO) disposed upon a first surface of the substrate, a heating control circuit for maintaining the temperature of a TCXO within a predetermined temperature range and outside of activity dip temperature ranges, where the heating circuit is disposed upon the substrate""s second surface, substrate supporting means for supporting the substrate, the temperature compensated oscillation circuit and the heating element within an enclosure, and an enclosure housing the substrate and the circuits disposed thereon wherein the substrate, temperature compensated crystal oscillator circuit and heating circuit are not in contact with any portion of the enclosure.
Unlike the prior art, which uses a piezoelectric crystal with precisely controlled turn-over temperature in conjunction with a precision oven, the present invention uses a TCXO replacing the piezo crystal, within a simple oven circuit. By using a TCXO, the need for tight tolerance crystal turn-over temperature control and tight tolerance oven temperature control is eliminated, by using an oven circuit to keep the TCXO within a small temperature range just above the maximum system operating temperature, frequency instability due to activity dips is eliminated while the cost is much less than a conventional OCXO.
In the preferred embodiment, the supporting means comprises a plurality of support pins protruding through corresponding apertures within the base of the enclosure and the substrate whereby the substrate, temperature compensated crystal oscillator circuit and heating circuit are suspended within the enclosure without making contact with any portion of the enclosure.
The temperature compensated crystal oscillator circuit is comprised of a piezoelectric crystal, an oscillator circuit and a thermistor temperature compensation network electrically coupled thereto. The heating circuit is comprised of a temperature sensor electrically coupled to a temperature control amplifier, and a heating element, such that upon certain ambient temperature variations, said temperature control amplifier receives a signal from the sensor and varies the heating element accordingly to maintain the substrate at approximately constant temperature.
Preferably, the temperature compensated crystal oscillator circuit and the heating circuit are each soldered on opposing surfaces of the thin substrate thereby providing a thermal but not an electrical connection between the circuits.
The enclosure is a standard resistance welded metal enclosure hermetically sealing the components within.
The present invention also provides a method of stabilizing the frequency of a crystal oscillator, comprising the steps of providing a substrate having a first surface and a second surface, disposing a crystal oscillator circuit upon the first substrate surface, disposing a heating circuit for maintaining the temperature of a crystal oscillator within a predetermined temperature range and outside of activity dip temperature ranges, upon the second substrate surface, providing substrate supporting means for supporting the substrate and circuits thereon within an enclosure, and housing the substrate and the circuits disposed thereon within an enclosure wherein the substrate, crystal oscillator circuit and heating circuit are not in contact with any portion of the enclosure.
The present invention is an apparatus, which incorporates an inexpensive temperature compensated oscillation circuit, with a miniature, inexpensive, low precision oven circuit. Each circuit is disposed upon opposite surfaces of a very thin insulated substrate, and the substrate suspended away from the interior of the enclosure that houses the apparatus. The design avoids activity dips that often occur at discrete temperatures.
It is an additional feature of the present invention to provide a simple design that allows for the construction of electronic component heating assemblies that can be made by using conventional PCB techniques and automated SMT assembly while providing the desired high thermal coupling between the TCXO and oven circuits while providing low heat loss through the PCB material to the mounting structure.
In the preferred embodiment, the circuit means of the radio beacon includes a frequency source stabilizing apparatus comprising: a substrate having a first surface and a second surface; a temperature compensated crystal oscillator circuit disposed upon the first substrate surface; a heating circuit for maintaining the temperature of a crystal oscillator within a predetermined temperature range and outside of activity dip temperature ranges, said heating circuit disposed upon the second substrate surface; substrate supporting means for supporting the substrate, the temperature compensated oscillation circuit and the heating element; and an enclosure housing the substrate and the circuits disposed on the substrate wherein the substrate, the temperature compensated crystal oscillator circuit and the heating circuit are not in contact with any portion of the enclosure.
It is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus and method that stabilizes the RF frequency of a piezoelectric quartz resonator in a simple and cost-effective manner.
It is another object of this invention to provide a method of constructing an electronic component heater assembly that provides a stable RF frequency source.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an emergency positioning radio beacon comprised of a frequency stabilizer apparatus that stabilizes the RF frequency of a piezoelectric quartz resonator in a simple and cost-effective manner.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are explanatory and are not restrictive of the invention as claimed. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute part of the specification, illustrate the preferred embodiment of the present invention and together with the general description, serve to explain principles of the present invention.

Oscillator with frequency stabilizing circuit and method of constructing same


An ink formulation comprises a marking component, e.g. ammonium octamolybdate, and a metal salt that absorbs laser irradiation at 780-2500 nm, e.g. reduced indium tin oxide, and thereby causes the marking component to change colour.

WO02/01250 discloses the use of oxymetal salts in laser marking. AOM (ammonium octamolybdate) is an example of a material that can be marked directly with 10,600 nm laser radiation. However, the use of a NIR (near infra-red) laser would offer additional advantages.
WO05/068207 discloses the use of NIR laser radiation (i.e. at 800 to 2000 nm) to initiate a colour change reaction when a NIR-absorbing metal salt is used in combination with a substance that normally undergoes a colour change reaction at much longer wavelength (˜10,600 nm), e.g. AOM. A plethora of metal salts are described; particularly preferred salts are of copper, e.g. CHP (copper hydroxy phosphate).
WO05/095516 discloses that r-ITO (reduced indium tin oxide), a non-stoichiometric compound, can be incorporated into thermoplastics which are then heated, using non-laser NIR heating lamps, above their glass transition temperatures for stretch blow-moulding, e.g. in the production of PET beverage bottles from injection-moulded performs. r-ITO is particularly suitable for this purpose as it is mostly transparent in the visible region.
JP8127670 discloses the use of reduced titanium oxide compounds for incorporation into thermoplastics, for the laser marking of moulded products.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,120 describes the use of a laser beam-absorbing inorganic substance and a colorant. Examples of the colorants that can be used include those mentioned in JP-A-49-82340, e.g. zinc oxide semiconductors and titanium dioxide semiconductors.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,911,921 discloses the use of non-stoichiometric ytterbium phosphate to produce NIR absorbing inks, e.g. for printing stealth bar codes.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,602,595 discloses the use of non-stoichiometric nano-materials for use in inks. r-ITO is mentioned as an NIR absorber.


A beam management method is performed by a UE. In one embodiment the method includes: the UE receiving a first scheduling message regarding a first scheduled downlink transmission for the UE, wherein the first scheduling message comprises pointer information pointing to an object configured in the UE. As a result of receiving the first scheduling message: the UE obtains the pointer information from the first scheduling message; the UE determines a preferred receiver configuration that is currently associated with the obtained pointer information; and the UE uses the determined preferred receiver configuration to receive the first scheduled downlink transmission.

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has begun work on the development and design of the next generation mobile communications system (the 5G mobile communication system or simply "5G"). 5G will encompass an evolution of today's 4G networks and the addition of a new, globally standardized radio access technology known as "New Radio" (NR).
The large variety of requirements for NR implies that frequency bands at many different carrier frequencies will be needed. For example, low bands will be needed to achieve sufficient coverage and higher bands (e.g. mmW, such as near and above 30 GHz) will be needed to reach the required capacity. At high frequencies the propagation properties are more challenging and high order beamforming at the base station (e.g., eNB or gNB) will be required to reach sufficient link budget. For example, narrow beam transmission and reception schemes may be needed at higher frequencies to compensate for the high propagation loss. For a given communication link, a beam can be applied at the transmission point (TRP) (i.e., a transmit (TX) beam) and a beam can be applied at the user equipment (UE) (i.e., a receive (RX) beam)).
NR will have a beam centric design, which means that the traditional cell concept is relaxed and UEs (i.e., fixed or mobile wireless communication devices, such as smartphones, tablets, sensors, appliances, etc.) will in many cases be connected to and perform "handover" between narrow beams instead of cells. Hence, 3GPP has agreed to introduce concepts for handling mobility between beams (both within and between TRPs). As used herein, a TRP may include, for example, a base station or a component of a base station. At higher frequencies, where high-gain beamforming will be needed, each beam will only be optimal within a small area (i.e., the beam's coverage area) and the link budget outside the coverage area will deteriorate quickly. Hence, frequent and fast beam switching methods are needed to maintain high performance (so called beam management) and it has been agreed to include in the scheduling downlink control information (DCI) message a beam indicator that informs the UE as to which TRP TX beam will be used to transmit the scheduled transmission so that the UE can adjust its RX beam accordingly. This is especially important in case of analog RX beamforming because the UE needs to know the direction in which to point its RX beam before the downlink data arrives.

Apparatuses and methods for scheduling object configuration


Techniques for sending page messages with quality of service (QoS) in a wireless communication system are described. In an aspect, a network entity receives incoming packets for access terminals operating in an idle state, generates page messages in response to the incoming packets, and includes QoS information in the page messages. The QoS information for each page message may indicate whether the page message is delay sensitive. A base transceiver station (BTS) receives page messages with QoS information and sends the page messages to access terminals based on the QoS information. In one design, the BTS determines whether each page message is delay sensitive based on the QoS information, sends page messages that are delay sensitive, and either sends or delays sending page messages that are delay insensitive in order to reduce the number of packets to send for the page messages.

I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for sending page messages in a wireless communication system.
II. Background
An access terminal (e.g., a cellular phone) in a wireless communication system may operate in one of several states, such as "active" and "idle", at any given moment. In the active state, the access terminal may actively exchange data with one or more base transceiver stations (BTSs), e.g., for a voice and/or data call. In the idle state, the access terminal may monitor for messages applicable to the terminal. Such messages may include page messages that alert the access terminal to the presence of incoming call or overhead messages that carry system and other information for the terminal.
In the idle state, the access terminal continues to consume power to sustain circuitry used to receive messages. The access terminal may be portable and powered by an internal battery. Power consumption by the access terminal in the idle state decreases the available battery power, which then shortens the standby time between battery recharges and the talk time when a call is placed or received. Therefore, it is desirable to send page messages in a manner to reduce power consumption in the idle state and extend standby time for the access terminal.

Paging with QoS in a wireless communication system


A device for controlling decoder extension cards and universal extension cards, comprising a card reader, control circuit and a processor, characterized in that the receiver (1) is connected via the control circuit (2) with the processor (2), select circuit (4) and a card reader (9) connected with a power supply circuit (8), and to the card reader (9) three buffers are connected, where the card reader (9) is connected via the first buffer (5) and the second buffer (6) with the processor, and via the third buffer (7) with the control circuit (2).

The known devices for controlling decoder extension cards (CI type cards—Common Interface Specification for Conditional Access and other Digital Video Broadcasting Decoder Application) or universal extension cards (cards of PCMCIA—Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) are equipped with a card reader having a slot (pocket), which is linked to the processor and the control circuit.

Device for controlling decoder extension cards and universal extension cards


A system for connecting a compatibility liner with a source of perishable therapeutic is provided. In one exemplary system for connecting a reservoir of perishable therapeutic with a lumen, a hollow hub having a first end and a second end is provided. The first end of the hollow hub, which contains a bond port, is in fluid communication with the second end. The second end of the hollow hub may contain a docking groove that is sized to couple a reservoir to it. The system also includes an inner hypo-tube having a proximal tip and an inner lumen. This inner lumen is lined with a therapeutic compatible lining and is in fluid communication with the second end of the hub through the proximal tip of the inner hypo-tube. The inner lining and the proximal tip in this system are configured to shield therapeutic ejected from the reservoir from contacting materials that can diminish the integrity of the therapeutic.

The delivery of therapeutics to a target site in the body of a patient is a task that finds innumerable applications in the practice of modern medicine. In some applications the therapeutic may be delivered through a needle and syringe while in others the therapeutic may be delivered though a pump and catheter system. In either of these configurations, as with the many other plausible configurations, the objective is to deliver active therapeutic to a target site such that the therapeutic may cure the infirmities resident at the target site. For some perishable, sensitive or volatile therapeutics, such as certain viruses employed today, a compatibility issue can arise between the therapeutic and the channel or vessel that will transport the therapeutic from its storage vessel to its target site. When compatibility issues do arise between the therapeutic and its surroundings, the therapeutic may lose some or all of its effectiveness and may, upon its arrival at the target site, be partially or completely inert. In certain applications, the therapeutic may lose its effectiveness moments before it is delivered as it passes down and through the delivery lumen of the delivery device simply because the therapeutic has come in contact with a non-compatible material.
Therefore, the environment in which the therapeutic is stored as well as the environment in which the therapeutic must travel can and does affect the potency and effectiveness of certain perishable therapeutics. In order to avoid the risk of deterioration of the potency of perishable therapeutics it is, consequently, advantageous to minimize or eliminate the contact between non-compatible materials and the therapeutic during the delivery of the therpeutic to the target site.

System for connecting a compatibility liner with a source of perishable therapeutic


A method and apparatus is described for electrically stimulating a patient's retina with an electrode array (32) implanted in the patient's eye, wherein one or more images are captured; at least one line and/or edge in the images is determined (21), a line of electrodes in the electrode array corresponding to a detected line and/or edge is identified (24); and electrical current is applied simultaneously to electrodes of the identified line of electrodes.

Visual prostheses have been developed to restore or improve vision within blind or partially blind patients. A visual prosthesis commonly includes an implantable component having an electrode array, situated on or in a substrate, for placement in the eye on or near retinal nerve cells. Electrical signals are transmitted via the electrodes to the retinal nerve cells, triggering a perception of light within the patient's brain. The prosthesis can therefore restore or improve vision to patients whose retinal photoreceptors have become dysfunctional.
Commonly, a visual prosthesis is used in conjunction with a video camera. A stream of images detected by the camera is converted into digital signals by an image processor and transmitted in 'real time' to an electrode interface unit. The electrode interface unit is connected to the electrode array via a plurality of conductors and decodes the signals and stimulates the electrodes in accordance with the detected images.
Conventional electrode stimulation techniques apply current to one electrode at a time, and seek to switch between application of current to electrodes of the array fast enough to cause flicker-free vision, either using single or multiple current sources. For epiretinal implants with 16-site electrode arrays it has been shown that fast sequential application of current to electrodes, using a raster scanning process for example, can elicit the perception of continuous elements. Typically, each electrode represents a single "pixel" in a coarse array of pixels derived from the image. Pixel-based techniques such as this are disclosed in US 2008/0058897 A1 and US 2008/0046030 A1, for example.
It is desirable to provide the perception of increased image quality to the patient through use of larger electrode arrays representing images with a greater number and finer spacing of pixels. However, when using larger electrode arrays, including arrays of hundreds or thousands of electrodes, conventional pixel-based techniques have been found to have significant engineering and technical constraints. For instance, when sequential application of current to electrodes is employed in larger arrays, the stimulation may not be fast enough to provide flicker-free vision to the patient.
To solve this problem, simultaneous application of current to multiple electrodes has been performed. However, "cross-talk" or current interactions between the electrodes has been found problematic as it leads to enlarging of the various tissue areas stimulated by the electrodes, blurring stimulation between these areas and thus the resultant image perceived by the patient. In light of this, it has been proposed in US 2006/0241753 A1 to apply current to hexagonal patterns of electrodes using multiple current sources. Hexagonal 'guard' rings of electrodes are created, which each surround a central electrode, and act as current return electrodes, keeping the current applied to the central electrode focussed. By using multiple current sources, current can be applied to many such hexagonal patterns simultaneously. However, this technique requires specialised hardware with multiple current sources, increasing cost and component sizes. The use of hexagonal guard rings also increases thresholds for electrical stimulation and therefore increases the total power consumption of a device when compared to devices having simpler stimulus patterns, such as monopolar stimulus patterns.
Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present specification is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention as it existed before the priority date of each claim of this application.
Throughout this specification the word "comprise", or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising", will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.
Throughout this specification the term "visual prosthesis" is used to denote apparatus for restoring or improving visual function of a patient, and will be understood to cover devices otherwise known as bionic eyes, artificial eyes, retinal prostheses and retinal stimulators or similar.

Method and apparatus for stimulating retinal nerve cells


A brush having a handle at one end thereof and a bristle bearing head characterised in that the bristles are anchored in an elastomeric bridge disposed between the bristles and the head, the bridge forming a bond between the bristles and the head.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a brush having an elastomeric component and a non-elastomeric component and to a method of producing such a brush.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional brushes comprise bristles mounted in rigid head materials. The rigid head material provides support for the bristles. The bristle material and the head material demand different physical properties. Accordingly, brush heads and bristles are frequently manufactured from different materials e.g. polyolefins and polyamides which do not bond efficiently. Accordingly, the bristles must be frequently mechanically attached to the brush using staples, stops and the like.
The bristles are generally mounted on the brush in a substantially upward orientation. Following use over a prolonged period the bristles tend to splay permanently outwards from the upward orientation whereupon the brush is discarded and replaced.
The abovementioned problems are particularly common with toothbrushes.
However, it has been found that an improved cleaning operation can be performed with a toothbrush in which the bristles are splayed or adapted to splay in a controllable and repeatable manner. Accordingly, toothbrushes have been developed in which the toothbrush head is flexible to facilitate movement of the bristles in use. The flexible head is usually made up of jointed portions or segments which facilitate articulation of groups of bristles. However, a disadvantage of such segments is that unwanted foreign matter can accumulate in spaces between the segments and that individual tufts cannot articulate independently of one another.
Fine bristles can exhibit and enhance a splaying effect. In addition, applicant has found that fine bristles produce a more effective cleaning effect as they penetrate further into the interproximal spaces between the teeth and gums. However, it has been found that fine bristle tufts are particularly susceptible to excessive permanent splaying in use thereby reducing cleaning efficacy. Accordingly, rapid deterioration of the toothbrush results.
Our co-pending British Patent Application of even date, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, describes a toothbrush having bristles embedded in an elastomeric component which in turn is attached to a plastics extension of a plastics toothbrush handle.
An object of the invention is to provide a brush having bristles flexibly mounted in a material which is compatible with the material of the bristles and the material of the brush head.
A further object of the invention is to provide a toothbrush having a head with bristles mounted thereon in which the bristles mounted on the toothbrush head can repeatably and resiliently splay and move in a multidirectional manner to provide more effective cleaning.

Chesebrough-Pond's USA Co., Division of Conopco, Inc.


Methods and apparatuses for rejecting radioactive interference in a radiation monitoring station. Techniques typically include two radiation detectors positioned to acquire first and second radiation measurements from a moving radiological source in substantially distinct fields of view. A transition zone is established between the fields of view. A function yielding a dependent variable is defined at least in part by the first radiation level measurement and the second radiation level measurement. A detection alert is generated when the dependent variable reaches the first threshold value. In some embodiments a determination is mage as to whether the monitoring station is occupied as a condition for generating a detection alert, and in some embodiments a determination is made as to whether the detected radiological source is likely innocuous or offensive prior to generating a detection alert.

Various types of radiation monitoring stations are used to inspect a stream of vehicles. shipping containers, packages, luggage, persons, animals, manufactured products, process materials, waste materials, and similar items to determine whether any radiological material is present therein. In such systems a flow of articles to be inspected is typically configured to pass by or through the monitoring station. For example, pedestrian portal monitors may be designed for detection of microcurie-levels of special nuclear materials. In a conventional designs the portal contains one or two large gamma detectors, usually plastic scintillators or NaI (Tl) detectors on each side of the portal. The detectors are generally designed so that they issue an alarm for a count rate that is statistically above the background count rate which would be detected when no radiation sources are near the portal. The statistically significant (alarm threshold) level may be calculated from cumulative probability distributions. A complicating effect that is common with such monitoring stations is that radiological sources that are in the queue to pass by or through the radiation monitoring station may trigger an alarm in the station before the article or material actually bearing the radiological source reaches the station. As a consequence, material that has reached the station ahead of the actual radiological source may be falsely identified as containing the radiological source.
One example illustrating this problem is a radioactive source present in a medical patient who has received a radionuclide administration and is in a queue approaching a pedestrian radiation monitoring portal. The radioactivity levels of many medical radionuclides are a thousand to more than ten thousand times the radioactivity level that pedestrian portal systems are typically designed to detect. Because the portal has typically been designed to detect much smaller radioactive sources, a nearby medical radioisotope source generally leads to detector count rates that are above the alarm threshold when the large activity medical source is still a long distance (often 5 to 10 meters) from the portal. If a continuous queue of pedestrians (vehicles, etc.) is moving through the portal then the alarm will appear to be due to the person (vehicle, etc.) within the portal, but the alarm is actually caused by a radiation source further back in the queue. All persons/things in the queue will appear to generate an alarm until the large source has cleared the portal or moved sufficiently far from the portal that it no longer causes an increase in detector count rate.
Thus, in this example, the challenge is how to avoid detaining all of the people who are in front of the medical patient and who innocently set off the alarm because they are occupying the portal when the count rate is significantly elevated due to the high gamma rate emissions from the medical patient who is in the queue behind them. The resulting interdiction of innocent persons may require secondary inspections involving specially-trained enforcement personnel and radionuclide identifier equipment. This procedure involves labor and equipment costs that are both undesirable and, for the circumstances described in this example, are unnecessary. Clearly this is not a satisfactory operating mode.
Various techniques have been developed in attempts to overcome the effects of premature detection of radiological materials in radiation monitoring stations. For example, the sensitivity of radiation detectors in the radiation monitoring station may be decreased to minimize premature detection. However this has the disadvantage of potentially failing to detect a small quantity of offensive radioactive material as it passes through the radiation monitoring station. Another technique that has been attempted is to shield the radiation detectors so that they only "see" radiation sources that are located within a specific defined small viewing angle. However, because such shields limit the viewing window to a relatively small angle, the shields must screen off very large angles around the detectors. Furthermore, because the detectors are very sensitive, being typically designed to detect very small quantities (e.g., micro-curies) of special nuclear material, the shields must be very bulky in order to prevent the undesired detection of larger quantities of special nuclear material that are outside the specified small viewing angle. This shielding bulk adds considerable undesired weight and cost to the monitoring station.
What are needed therefore are methods and systems for rejecting radioactive interference in radiation monitoring stations from nearby radiation sources.

Method and apparatus for rejecting radioactive interference in a radiation monitoring station


An image pickup apparatus and manufacturing method is disclosed. The image pickup apparatus comprises an optical system, an optical wavefront modulator that modulates an optical transfer function, an aperture adjacent to the optical wavefront modulator, and an image pickup device for detecting an object image passing through the optical system and the optical wavefront modulator. A product of a diameter of the aperture at a stop position multiplied by a distance between the aperture and the optical wavefront modulator is less than 2.

With the rapid development of digitalization of information, digitalization in image processing is increasingly required. In digital cameras in particular, solid-state image pickup devices, such as Charge Coupled Devices (CCD) and Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) sensors, have been mainly provided on imaging planes instead of films.
In image pickup apparatuses including CCDs or CMOS sensors, an image of an object is optically taken by an optical system and is extracted by an image pickup device in a form of an electric signal. Such apparatuses may be used in digital still cameras, video cameras, digital video units, personal computers, mobile phones, PDAs, image inspection apparatuses, industrial cameras used for automatic control, and the like.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a structure of an existing image pickup apparatus 1 and traces of light ray bundles. The image pickup apparatus 1 comprises an optical system 2 and an image pickup device 3. The optical system 2 includes object-side lenses 21 and 22, an aperture stop 23, and an imaging lens 24 arranged in order from an object side (OBJS) toward the image pickup device 3. The image pickup device 3 may be a semiconductor sensor such as a CCD and a CMOS sensor.
The object-side lenses 21 and 22 focus the image of an object before the aperture stop 23, and the imaging lens 24 focuses the image of an object after the aperture stop 23. The optical system 2 may be telecentric.
Telecentricity is a special property of certain multi-element lens designs in which chief rays for all points across the object or image are collimated. A chief ray is any ray from an off-axis object point which passes through the center of the aperture stop 23 of the optical system 2. The chief ray enters the optical system 2 along a line directed toward the midpoint of the entrance pupil, and leaves the system along a line passing through the center of the exit pupil. For example, telecentricity occurs when the chief rays are parallel to the optical axis, in object and/or image space.
Another way of describing telecentricity is to state that the entrance pupil and/or exit pupil of the system is located at infinity. If the entrance pupil is at infinity, the lens is object-space telecentric. If the exit pupil is at infinity, the lens is image-space telecentric. If both pupils are at infinity, the lens is double telecentric. For many applications, telecentricity is desirable because it provides nearly constant magnification over a range of working distances, virtually eliminating perspective angle error. This means that object movement does not affect image magnification.
A telecentric lens is a compound lens with an unusual geometric property in how it forms images. The defining property of a telecentric system is the location of the entrance pupil or exit pupil at infinity. This means that the chief rays (oblique rays which pass through the center of the aperture stop 23) are parallel to the optical axis in front of or behind the system, respectively. The simplest way to make a lens telecentric is to put the aperture stop 23 at one of the lens's focal points.
The aperture stop 23 can limit the light that traverses the optical system 2. The optical system 2 typically may have many openings, or structures that can limit the ray bundles (ray bundles are also known as pencils of light). These structures may be the edge of a lens or mirror, or a ring or other fixture that holds an optical element in place, or may be a special element such as a diaphragm placed in the optical path to limit the light admitted by the system. In general, these structures are called stops, and the aperture stop 23 is the stop that determines a ray cone angle, or equivalently the brightness, at an image point.
In some contexts, the term aperture may refer to a diameter of the aperture stop 23 rather than the physical stop or the opening itself. For example, in a telescope the aperture stop is typically the edges of the objective lens or mirror (or of the mount that holds it). One then speaks of a telescope as having, for example, a 100 centimeter aperture. Note that the aperture stop is not necessarily the smallest stop in the system. Magnification and demagnification by lenses and other elements can cause a relatively large stop to be the aperture stop for the system.
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light is admitted. More specifically, the aperture of an optical system 2 is the opening that determines the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. The aperture determines how collimated the admitted rays are, which is of great importance for the appearance at the image plane. If the admitted rays also pass through a lens, highly collimated rays (narrow aperture) will result in sharpness at the image plane, while uncollimated rays (wide aperture) will result in sharpness for rays with the right focal length only. This means that a wide aperture results in an image that is sharp around what the lens is focusing on and blurred otherwise. The aperture also determines how many of the incoming rays are actually admitted and thus how much light that reaches the image plane (the narrower the aperture, the darker the image).
The term stop is sometimes confusing due to its multiple meanings. A stop can be a physical object: an opaque part of an optical system 2 that blocks certain rays. The aperture stop 23 is the aperture that limits the brightness of the image by restricting the input pupil size, while a field stop is a stop intended to cut out light that would be outside the desired field of view and might cause flare or other problems if not stopped.
In photography, stops are also a unit used to quantify ratios of light or exposure, with one stop meaning a factor of two, or one-half. The one-stop unit is also known as the EV (exposure value) unit. On a camera, the f-number is usually adjusted in discrete steps, known as f-stops. Each "stop" is marked with its corresponding f-number, and represents a halving of the light intensity from the previous stop. This corresponds to a decrease of the pupil and aperture diameters by a factor of √{square root over (2)} or about 1.414, and hence a halving of the area of the pupil.
In optics, the f-number (also called Fno, f-stop, focal ratio, f-ratio, or relative aperture) of an optical system 2 expresses the diameter of the entrance pupil in terms of the focal length of the lens; in simpler terms, the f-number is the focal length divided by the "effective" aperture diameter. It is a dimensionless number that is a quantitative measure of lens speed, an important concept in photography.
Referring to FIG. 1, in the image pickup apparatus 1, the best-focus plane coincides with the plane on which the image pickup device is disposed. FIG. 2A to 2C illustrate spot images formed on a light-receiving surface of an image pickup device 3 in the image pickup apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 1 when a focal point is displaced by 0.2 mm (Defocus=0.2 mm), when the focal point is not displaced (Best focus) or when the focal point is displaced by −0.2 mm (Defocus=−0.2 mm), individually.
An image pickup apparatus, in which light is regularly dispersed by a phase plate and is reconstructed by digital processing to achieve a large depth of field, has been suggested. Furthermore, an automatic exposure control system for a digital camera in which a filtering process using a transfer function is performed has also been suggested.
As a focusing method, a so-called hill-climbing autofocus (AF) method is known in which a focal position is determined by acquiring a peak value of contrast.
In the image pickup apparatuses shown in FIG. 1, it is assumed that a Point Spread Function (PSF) obtained is constant when the above-described phase plate is placed in the optical system 2. The point spread function (PSF) describes the response of an imaging system to a point source or point object. The degree of spreading (blurring) of the point object is a measure for the quality of an imaging system.
If the PSF varies, it can be difficult to obtain an image with a large depth of field by convolution using a kernel. Therefore, setting single focus lens systems aside, in lens systems like zoom systems and autofocus (AF) systems, there is a large problem in adopting previous structures because high precision is required in the optical design, thereby increasing costs accordingly. More specifically, in known image pickup apparatuses, a suitable convolution operation cannot be performed and the optical system 2 should be designed to eliminate aberrations, such as astigmatism, coma aberration, and zoom chromatic aberration that cause a displacement of a spot image at wide angle and telephoto positions. However, eliminating the aberrations, can increase the complexity of the optical design, the number of design steps, the costs, and the lens size. In addition, in the known image pickup apparatuses, for example, in the case where a bright object is shot, a phase of a phase modulation element varies when the aperture stop 23 is moved away from the phase modulation element.
If the aperture stop 23 is moved away from the phase modulation element while the system is not telecentric, it may distort the reconstructed image. In addition, the PSF may vary and the image reconstruction can become difficult unless the incident angle at which the light rays are incident on the image pickup device is controlled.
Accordingly, there is a need for an image pickup apparatus operable to simplify an optical system, reducing the costs, and obtaining a reconstruction image which has an appropriate image quality in which the influence of noise is small.

Image pickup apparatus and method for manufacturing the same


A mounting assembly for mounting an alternator is disclosed. The mounting assembly includes a first bracket, and a second bracket. The first bracket includes a first member, a second member, a third member, a fourth member, and a fifth member. The second bracket includes a first section, a second section, a third section, and a fourth section. The alternator is mounted using the first bracket and the second bracket for reducing vibrations during operation.

Internal combustion engines generally have an alternator coupled near an engine. The alternator provides electric current for a variety of components within a machine. The alternator emits a time-varying magnetic field that produces the electric current. Generally, a mounting bracket (also called mounting assembly) is used for mounting the alternator at a specific position within the internal combustion engine.
Currently, large internal combustion engines, such as engines for powering construction and mining machinery, produce vibrations during the operation of the internal combustion engine. As the mounting bracket is directly mounted on to the internal combustion engine, the mounting bracket and the alternator also vibrate with the internal combustion engine. Continuous vibrations from the internal combustion engine generate high level of stress concentrations around the mounting bracket, which results into cracking and bending of the mounting bracket. Additionally, it also generates undesirable noise during operation of the internal combustion engine. A failure of the mounting bracket and/or the alternator leads to engine downtime and costly repairs. Further, the mounting brackets, in use currently, are bulky and have huge weight, so the production cost of the mounting brackets is also high. Thus, there is a need of an improved and compact mounting assembly for mounting the alternator that reduces vibrations and other failures.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,980,589 (hereinafter referred as '589) discloses a vehicle alternator. The vehicle alternator comprises a pair of brackets for holding front and rear portions of a stator. A front bracket having projecting flanges at respective vertical ends while a rear bracket has a projecting flange at one vertical end. A pair of separate mounting pieces is provided for attaching the alternator to the engine via the bracket flanges. The mounting pieces have attachment bosses with holes, and one of the mounting pieces is provided with bosses at both horizontal ends for connecting the brackets to each other at the flanges. The '589 reference does not disclose any mechanism to reduce the external vibrations experienced by a mounting assembly, therefore the '589 fails to address the problem of external vibrations experienced by the alternator during operations. Thus, there is a need of an improved mounting assembly for mounting the alternator that reduces vibrations and other failures.