In a microwave plasma processing apparatus that uses a radial line slot antenna, the efficiency of cooling of a shower plate is optimized and simultaneously the efficiency of microwave excitation is optimized, by causing a radiation surface of the radial line slot antenna to make an intimate contact with a cover plate that forms a part of an outer wall of the processing chamber and makes an intimate contact with the shower plate.

FIGS. 1A and 1B show the construction of a conventional microwave plasma processing apparatus 100 having such a radial line slot antenna, wherein FIG. 1A shows the microwave plasmas processing apparatus in a cross-sectional view while FIG. 1B shows the construction of the radial line slot antenna.
Referring to FIG. 1A, the microwave plasma processing apparatus 100 has a processing chamber 101 evacuated from plural evacuation ports 116, and there is formed a stage 115 for holding a substrate 114 to be processed. In order to realize uniform processing in the processing chamber 101, a ring-shaped space 101A is formed around the stage 115, and the plural evacuation ports 116 are formed in communication with the foregoing space 101A with a uniform interval, and hence in axial symmetry with regard to the substrate. Thereby, it becomes possible to evacuate the processing chamber 101 uniformly through the space 101A and the evacuation ports 116.
On the processing chamber 101, there is formed a plate 103 of plate-like form at the location corresponding to the substrate 114 on the stage 115 as a part of the outer wall of the processing chamber 101 via a seal ring 109, wherein the shower plate 103 is formed of a dielectric material of small loss and includes a large number of apertures 107. Further, a cover plate 102 also of a dielectric material of small loss is provided on the outer side of the shower plate 103 via another seal ring 108.
The shower plate 103 is formed with a passage 104 of a plasma gas on the top surface thereof, and each of the plural apertures 107 are formed in communication with the foregoing plasma gas passage 104. Further, there is formed a plasma gas supply passage 106 in the interior of the shower plate 103 in communication with a plasma gas supply port 105 provided on the outer wall of the processing vessel 101. Thus, the plasma gas of Ar, Kr or the like supplied to the foregoing plasma gas supply port 105 is supplied to the foregoing apertures 107 from the supply passage 106 via the passage 104 and is released into a space 103B right underneath the shower plate 103 in the processing vessel 101 from the apertures 107 with substantially uniform concentration.
On the processing vessel 101, there is provided a radial line slot antenna 110 having a radiation surface shown in FIG. 1B on the outer side of the cover plate 102 with a separation of 4–5 mm from the cover plate 102. The radial line slot antenna 110 is connected to an external microwave source (not shown) via a coaxial waveguide 110A and causes excitation of the plasma gas released into the space 101B by the microwave from the microwave source. It should be noted that the gap between the cover plate 102 and the radiation surface of the radial line slot antenna 110 is filled with the air.
The radial line slot antenna 110 is formed of a flat disk-like antenna body 110B connected to an outer waveguide of the coaxial waveguide 110A and a radiation plate 110C is provided on the mouth of the antenna body 110B, wherein the radiation plate 110C is formed with a number of slots 110a and slots 110b wherein slots 110b are formed in a direction crossing the slots 110a perpendicularly as represented in FIG. 1B. Further, a retardation plate 110D of a dielectric film of uniform thickness is inserted between the antenna body 110B and the radiation plate 11C.
In the radial line slot antenna 110 of such a construction, the microwave supplied from the coaxial waveguide 110 spreads between the disk-like antenna body 110B and the radiation plate 110C as it is propagated in the radial direction, wherein there occurs a compression of wavelength as a result of the action of the retardation plate 110D. Thus, by forming the slots 110a and 110b in concentric relationship in correspondence to the wavelength of the radially propagating microwave so as to cross perpendicularly with each other, it becomes possible to emit a plane wave having a circular polarization state in a direction substantially perpendicular to the radiation plate 110C.
By using such a radial line slot antenna 110, uniform plasma is formed in the space 101B right underneath the shower plate 103. The high-density plasma thus formed is characterized by a low electron temperature and thus, there is caused no damaging of the substrate 114 and there is caused no metal contamination as a result of the sputtering of the vessel wall of the processing vessel 101.
In the plasma processing apparatus of FIG. 1, it should further be noted that there is provided a conductive structure 111 in the processing vessel 101 between the shower plate 103 and the substrate 114, wherein the conductive structure is formed with a number of nozzles 113 supplied with a processing gas from an external processing gas source (not shown) via a processing gas passage 112 formed in the processing vessel 101, and each of the nozzles 113 releases the processing gas supplied thereto into a space 101C between the conductive structure 111 and the substrate 114. It should be noted that the conductive structure 111 is formed with openings between adjacent nozzles 113 with a size such that the plasma formed in the space 101B passes efficiently from the space 101B to the space 101C by way of diffusion.
Thus, in the case a processing gas is released into the space 101C from the conductive structure 111 via the nozzles 113, the processing gas is excited by the high-density plasma formed in the space 101B and a uniform plasma processing is conducted on the substrate 114 efficiently and with high rate, without damaging the substrate or the devices on the substrate, and without contaminating the substrate. Further, it should be noted that the microwave emitted from the radial line slot antenna is blocked by the conductive structure and there is no possibility of such a microwave causes damaging in the substrate 114.
Meanwhile, the density of the plasma formed in the space 101B can reach the order of 1012/cm3 in such a plasma processing apparatus 110 that uses the radial line slot antenna 110. Thus, the shower plate 103 is exposed to a large amount of ions and electrons constituting the high-density plasma, and the ions and electrons thus formed cause heating. The thermal flux caused by such ions and electrons can reach the value of as much as 1–2 W/cm2. In view of the fact that the plasma processing apparatus 100 is frequently operated by maintaining the wall temperature of the processing chamber 101 to about 150° C. so as to suppress formation of deposits on the processing chamber 101, there is caused accumulation of heat in the shower plate 103 and the cover plate 102 formed of a dielectric material, as a result of heating of the processing chamber 101. As a result, there is formed a very large temperature distribution.
FIG. 2 shows the temperature distribution formed in the shower plate 103 for the case the wall temperature of the processing chamber 101 is set to 150° C. and the heat of the high-density plasma formed in the space 101B has been transferred into the shower plate 103 with a flux of 1 W/cm2. Here, the thickness of the shower plate 103 is set to 25 mm.
Referring to FIG. 2, it can be seen that the temperature at the central part of the shower plate exceeds far beyond 600° C. in the case a quartz glass having thermal conductivity of 1.4 W/m·K is used for the shower plate 103. In view of the large thermal strain associated with the temperature difference, it is concluded that such a shower plate is not suitable for practical use. In the case the shower plate is formed of Al2O3 having thermal conductivity of 1.5 W/m·K, or in the case of an Al2O3 shower plate formed by a hot isostatic pressing (HIP) and having thermal conductivity of 30 W/m·K, too, the temperature at the central part of the shower plate becomes 450° C. or more or 300° C. or more, and a very large thermal strain is applied to the shower plate 103. In such a high temperature, there arises another problem that a gas of low decomposition temperature cannot be used for the plasma gas because of the decomposition.
In the case AlN is used for the shower plate 103, on the other hand, there occurs efficient dissipation of heat in the radiation direction because of the large thermal conductivity of 160 W/m·K, and the temperature rise at the central part of the shower plate 103 as a result of heat accumulation becomes minimum.
Because of this reason, it has been practiced to use AlN for the shower plate 103 and also for the cover plate in the plasma processing apparatus 100 of FIG. 1 that uses a radial line slot antenna.
However, AlN is a material of large dielectric loss, and the dielectric loss, represented in terms of tan δ takes the value of about 3×10−3. Thus, in the case the shower plate 103 and the cover plate 102 are formed of AlN, there is caused substantial loss in the microwave emitted by the antenna 110 and efficient excitation of plasma is not possible. In other words, the conventional plasma processing apparatus 100 of FIG. 1 has suffered from the problem, associated with the use of AlN for the shower plate 103 and the cover plate 102, in that efficiency of plasma excitation is not sufficient. As a result, it has been necessary to use a microwave source of large output power in the conventional plasma processing apparatus 100 and ignition of plasma has been difficult.


A vacuum system is utilized for preventing radon gas from entering the basement of a home. The gas is drawn from the interior of the basement walls, the exterior of the basement walls and from underneath the floor into a drain tile under the floor where the gas is then evacuated to vent pipes extending to the top of the home where the gas is vented to the atmosphere. A water trap is provided in a pipe extending from a first drain passageway between the basement wall and the exterior edge of the basement floor to the drain tile under the floor preventing radon gases from moving upwardly into the basement. The first drain passageway and floor and wall are sealed against migration of gases upwardly from under the floor.

The problem of a wet basement and how to remedy it has been disclosed in Joseph F. Gazzo U.S. Pat. No. 3,852,925, Dec. 10, 1974. This problem has now been compounded by the identification of the presence of radon gas in many basements. A study conducted by the University of Iowa has shown that 75% of Iowa houses exceed the acceptable level of radon which is 4 picocuries per liter of air. Iowa houses average 9 picocuries per liter.
What is needed then is a system for keeping basements dry and also eliminating radon gas.

Method and means for maintaining a dry and radon-free basement


An object recognition apparatus of a vehicle includes a communication device receiving information of an object from the object, a camera capturing an image of the object, and a controller that recognizes the image of the object based on a deep learning network, and, when information from recognizing the image of the object is compared with the information of the object and then the comparison result is determined as a recognition error, transmits the image of the object and an error determination result to a server.

With the advent of autonomous vehicle, a technology in which a vehicle recognizes objects by itself is actively being developed.
A method of recognizing an object may include collecting an image of a target object, learning and storing the collected image, and then comparing the stored information with the input image. In recent years, the deep learning method has been used as a technology for recognizing an object.

Apparatus, system and method for recognizing object of vehicle


The rail vehicle has a guide device configured to guide traveling of a bogie on a traveling track by rolling guide wheels in a state of bringing the guide wheels into contact with guide rails installed on both sides of the traveling track in a vehicle width direction perpendicular to a traveling direction, wherein: the guide device has an arm and the guide wheels, the arm having a central portion fixed to a stationary member, extending to both sides in the vehicle width direction, and having both end portions elastically deformable in a direction in which the guide rails extend, the guide wheels being mounted on the arm at the both end portions of the arm in the vehicle width direction; and a center of each of the guide wheels is displaced from a center line of the arm, the center line extending in the vehicle width direction.

In recent years, rail vehicles that run with traveling wheels of rubber tires while a vehicle body is guided along a traveling track have been proposed. Patent Literature 1 discloses this kind of rail vehicle. A rail vehicle according to the conventional art disclosed in Patent Literature 1 is illustrated in FIG. 5. As illustrated in FIG. 5, the rail vehicle according to the conventional art includes a bogie 1 (a rear portion is not illustrated) supporting the vehicle body at each of the front (an upper portion of FIG. 5) and the rear (a lower portion of FIG. 5) with respect to a traveling direction Y, and travels along guide rails 3 on a predetermined traveling track 2. That is, the rail vehicle includes the guide rails 3 installed along the traveling track 2, respectively, on the left and the right in a vehicle width direction X perpendicular to the traveling direction Y, and guide wheels 5 mounted on a guide frame 4 of the bogie 1. The rail vehicle travels while being guided along the traveling track 2 by rolling the guide wheels 5 in a state of bringing the guide wheels 5 into contact with the guide rails 3.
The bogie 1 traveling on the traveling track 2 has an axle 6 extending in the vehicle width direction X, and traveling wheels 7 are rotatably mounted at both end portions of the axle 6. The guide frame 4 is pivotally fixed to the axle 6 through a pivot bearing 12 which pivots around a vertical axis using a center O as a pivot center. The axle 6 is fixed to the pivot bearing 12. Therefore, the axle 6 pivotably supports the guide frame 4 through the pivot bearing 12. In addition, the guide frame 4 has two longitudinal beams 8 extending in the traveling direction Y and two lateral beams 9 extending in the vehicle width direction X. More specifically, the longitudinal beams 8 are structured so as to extend in the traveling direction on the left and the right of the center O with respect to the vehicle width direction X, and the lateral beams 9 are structured so as to extend in the vehicle width direction X in front of and behind the center O with respect to the traveling direction Y.
Two guide arms 10 extending in the vehicle width direction X are provided at both end portions of each lateral beam 9 in the vehicle width direction X, and each guide wheel 5 that rolls in a state in which it comes into contact with the guide rail 3 during traveling is mounted on the guide arm 10 so as to be swingable through a rotation shaft 11. Therefore, when the guide wheel 5 is in contact with the guide rail 3 due to movement of the bogie 1 in the vehicle width direction X upon traveling of the rail vehicle, a rotation center of the guide wheel 5 swings in a clockwise direction or in a counterclockwise direction around a swing center which is the rotation shaft 11. Such swing of the guide wheel 5 is performed against an energizing force by an elastic member (not illustrated), or the like, directing to an opposite side of a swing direction. That is, the guide wheel 5 is mounted on the guide arm 10 through a shock absorber (not illustrated). The reason is that the shock absorber absorbs a shock when the guide wheel 5 comes into contact with the guide rail 3.


A picture display device having a flat vacuum envelope which is provided with a transparent face plate with a luminescent screen and with a rear wall, which display device has an electron supply section with an electron source for emitting electron currents in a direction parallel to the face plate, and an active selection electrode section with first, preselection, electrodes and second, fine-selection, electrodes, located closer to the screen, for directing each electron current towards desired pixels on the luminescent screen. The fine-selection electrodes are divided into groups and corresponding fine-selection electrodes of at least two groups are interconnected in a series or parallel arrangement in such a way that the technology of providing these electrodes is as simple as possible and/or the possible fine-selection electrode patterns are such that the number of required selection drivers can be reduced considerably.

The invention relates to a picture display device having a flat vacuum envelope which is provided with a transparent face plate with a luminescent screen and with a rear wall, said display device comprising an electron supply section for emitting electron currents, and an active selection electrode section having first, preselection, electrodes and second, fine-selection, electrodes, located closer to the screen, for directing a plurality of electron currents towards desired positions on the luminescent screen.
The display device described above may be of the flat-panel type, as disclosed in EP-A-464 937, or of another flat-panel type in which electron currents parallel to a display screen are emitted and deflected towards predetermined positions on the display screen. Display devices of the flat-panel type are devices having a transparent face plate and, arranged at a small distance therefrom, a rear plate, in which the inner surface of the face plate is provided with a (for example, hexagonal) pattern of phosphor dots. If (video information-controlled) electrons impinge upon the luminescent screen, a visual image is formed which is visible via the front side of the face plate. The face plate may be flat or, if desired, curved (for example, spherical or cylindrical).
The display device disclosed in EP-A-464 937 comprises a plurality of juxtaposed sources for emitting electrons, local electron propagation means cooperating with the sources and each having walls of a high-ohmic, electrically substantially insulating material having a secondary emission coefficient suitable for propagating emitted electrons along the wall, and an addressing means comprising an active selection electrode section having (first) electrodes (preselection electrodes) which can be driven row by row so as to extract electrons from the propagation means at predetermined extraction locations facing the luminescent screen, further means being provided for directing extracted electrons towards pixels of the luminescent screen for producing a picture composed of pixels.
It is known from EP-A-464 937 to arrange an apertured fine-selection plate, whose apertures are addressable by means of second, or fine-selection electrodes between the first electrodes and the screen. The arrangement is such that each extraction location of the addressing means is associated with at least two apertures in the fine-selection plate. The selection electrode section is thus of the multi-stage (in this case two-stage) type. This means that the fine-selection electrodes can be divided into groups and that the corresponding fine-selection electrodes of two or more groups can be coupled to each other. In fact, a preselection has already taken place and electrons can no longer land on a wrong phosphor element arrangement (phosphor triplet). This means that the drive can be simplified because the number of drives can be reduced.

Picture display device having a flat vacuum tube


A decorative and/or protective sleeve configured to cover a wooden beam includes a textured decorative surface, and an opening through which the beam may be inserted. The sleeve may have a faux wood surface texture to provide a fresh wood appearance and may further protect the beam from damage.

The embodiments herein relate generally to systems for protecting and enhancing the appearance of a home or other structure, and more particularly to systems for protecting and enhancing the exterior appearance of a structure such as a beam.
Wooden beam(s), which may be an exterior component of a residential home or other structure, may tend to rot or otherwise wear over time. This may degrade the appearance of the home. As such, a system which addresses this problem is desirable.


A computer network system includes a plurality of information provider computers, an information collector computer and a communication network for connecting these computers together. The information provider computers store therein a plurality of information sets in connection with respective generation number information including ID codes and version codes. The information collector computer stores therein the information sets in connection with the version codes, periodically or intermittently receives the generation number information, compares the same against corresponding information stored therein, and receives the information set if a corresponding version code is not stored therein.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer network system including an information collector computer and, more particularly, to a computer network system including a plurality of information provider computers, at least one information collector computer and a communication network for connecting these computers.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A network system is known wherein a plurality of units cooperate for processing while monitoring the operating state of each other unit. If these units are connected therebetween by one or more of communication network, the monitoring operation is generally performed while exchanging the data based on a simple network management protocol (SNMP). If these units are computers and the information is stored in the computers, the amount of data to be exchanged between the computers is large to thereby cause a heavy burden on the network as well as the computers. If such a computer network system includes a large number of computers connected via the communication network, the burden on the communication network as well as the computers further increases.
In such a large-scale computer network system, it is not practical to use a single monitoring computer for monitoring the information stored in a large number of other computers, i.e., information provider computers, and thus a plurality of monitoring computers, i.e., information collector computers are used for monitoring the information in a distributed processing. For such a network system, a technique is known wherein if an information provider computer updates the information therein, the information provider computer transmits the updated part of the information to the information collector computer, for reducing the amount of data to be exchanged for the monitoring.
However, there is a problem in such a system that if there are a plurality of information collector computers, each information provider computer must know the presence itself and the addresses of the information collector computers monitoring the each information provider computer. This increases a heavy burden on the each information provider computer which has own task for processing.

Computer network system including an information collector computer


An electrochromic device includes upper and lower substrate units, and an electrochromic laminate sandwiched between an upper electrode of the upper substrate unit and a lower electrode of the lower substrate unit. The electrochromic laminate includes en ion storage layer formed on the upper electrode, an active layer formed on the lower electrode, and a polymer electrolyte sandwiched between inner surfaces of the ion storage layer and the active layer. At least one of the inner surfaces has a roughened peripheral region such that an adhesion force generated between the roughened peripheral region and the polymer electrolyte is effective to minimize thermal shrinkage of the polymer electrolyte.

An electrochromic device is capable of varying its light transmission in response to a voltage applied between two electrodes on the device, and can be used for applications such as mirrors or windows of vehicles, buildings, etc. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional electrochromic device includes two glass substrates 15, two transparent electrodes 14 formed respectively on the glass substrates 15, and an electrochromic laminate sandwiched between the two transparent electrodes 14. The electrochromic laminate includes an active layer 12, an ion storage layer 13, and a polymer electrolyte 11 sandwiched between the active layer 12 and the ion storage layer 13. The polymer electrolyte 11 includes an adhesive material and thus can bond the active layer 12 and the ion storage layer 13 together. The active layer 12 is made of an electrochromic material, such as tungsten trioxide (WO3) . The ion storage layer 13 is made of a material which can undergo reversible oxidation and reduction reactions, such as nickel oxide. The transparent electrodes 14 are made of, for example, indium tin oxide.
Due to generation of internal stress of the polymer electrolyte 11 resulting possibly from irradiation of ambient light or changes in temperature of the electrochromic device in use, the polymer electrolyte 11 may suffer from thermal shrinkage after a period of use. The conventional electrochromic device thus may have a plurality of undesirable shrinkage lines 17 at its periphery 16 as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. Although the polymer electrolyte 11 may have an increased thickness to address such problem, the electrochromic device with a thick polymer electrolyte 11 would have a slow response speed in response to a voltage applied between the transparent electrodes 14.

Electrochromic device and process for making the same


An ionized air delivery system, such as a vehicle ionized air delivery system, includes an outlet body that is situated within a duct of a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The outlet body delivers ions to air flow in the duct of the HVAC system. The outlet body has an outer surface that is generally spherical at a region of the outer surface that confronts the air flow in the duct. Further, the outlet body has an outlet passage with a primary axis that is directed away from an exit of the duct of the HVAC system. Air flow in the duct passes across an exit opening of the outlet body and draws ions out of the outlet passage to mix with the air flow in the duct of the HVAC system.

Vehicles such as automobiles are sometimes equipped with air ionisation systems to deliver ions to passenger compartments. It is not uncommon for the air ionisation systems to be integrated into heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in the vehicles. Air ionisation has been shown to improved hygiene, remove odor, and furnish other gains. In a vehicle, one challenge encountered relates to the effectiveness of air ionisation systems over all blower speed settings of an HVAC system. At higher blower speed settings, it has been found that ions are not always delivered suitably to air flow in the HVAC system. In addition, other applications such as non-vehicle applications can be equipped with air ionization systems; similar challenges may be encountered in these non-vehicle applications.
Accordingly, one aim of the invention is to address the issues identified above, as well as address other possible issues that may arise.


Methods, systems, and devices are described for remote display of content in a wireless network. A source device capable of displaying content may identify one or more rendering instructions for content to be displayed remotely on a sink device. The source device may transmit the one or more rendering instructions to the sink device via a wireless peer-to-peer connection. The sink device may receive the one or more rendering instructions and may execute the one or more rendering instructions to render a display of at least part of the content. Further, the source device may receive data from the sink device via the wireless peer-to-peer connection. The identifying of the one or more rendering instructions by the source device may thus include identifying at least one rendering instruction based at least in part on the received data.

The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to Wi-Fi peer-to-peer remote display. Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be wireless local area network (WLAN), also known as Wi-Fi systems which utilize carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) mechanisms to access a wireless medium. These systems may also be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a peer-to-peer network allows wireless devices to directly communicate with each other. Devices within range of each other may discover and communicate directly without involving central access points. Wi-Fi peer-to-peer connections allow portable devices or computers to transmit video and audio to a compatible display wirelessly. The device that transmits the video and audio may be referred to as a source device. The compatible display (or device to be connected to a display) may be referred to as a sink device.
Various approaches have been considered for remote rendering of a mobile device's display, either on a monitor with a certain operating system or a monitor with no operating system. For example, Miracast 1.0 allows for wirelessly displaying video between devices over a Wi-Fi network. In general, content is compressed at the source device (e.g., cellular phone, tablet, etc.), packetized and transmitted to the sink device (e.g., PC, monitor, etc.). The sink device receives the packetized information, and then decompresses and displays the content.
For acceptable rendering, a high quality video codec standard, such as an H.264 CODEC, may be used. However, pixel domain compression using an H.264 CODEC in Miracast results in a relatively high power consumption, a relatively high wireless bandwidth requirement, and relatively low quality graphics and text. Further, increasing requirements for higher resolution content/display and display refresh rate are pushing the limits of the radio capabilities of 802.11 ac and 802.11 ad protocols.

Remote rendering for efficient use of wireless bandwidth for wireless docking


The present communication system has a communication terminal (100) and a communication terminal (200) that are respectively provided with a memory for writing and reading using error correction coding/decoding. The communication terminal (100) transmits data to the communication terminal (200) in a high speed mode or normal mode. In high speed mode, the communication terminal (100) reads coded data written in a first memory (112) and transmits the coded data to the communication terminal (200) without decoding. The receiving-side communication terminal (200) writes the received data in a second memory (212) without coding, and decodes the data when said data is read.

A wireless communication system includes a system for making communication between communication terminals comprising a storing means such as NANDFLASH memory. For example, data written in a NANDFLASH memory is read when being transmitted, and is exchanged between communication terminals in data communication between cell phones or in data communication between a cell phone and a personal computer. A communication terminal receiving the data writes the data in the NANDFLASH memory.
An error can occur in writing and reading data in and from the storing means such as NANDFLASH memory. Thus, error correction coding/decoding needs to be conducted on the data when the data is written in and read from the storing means.
On the other hand, there is known a technique using an advanced error correction decoding method for better effects at a low coding rate. There is further a technique for changing an error correction coding system or decoding algorithm depending on error situation (See Patent Literature 1, for example).
However, since a complicated error correction decoding method is used for a high error correction capability in a conventional art, an error correction decode processing requires much time, which causes an increase in a processing time for reading and decoding data from a memory, that is an increase in a latency when data is read from the memory.
According to the communication system of the present invention, there is provided a communication system capable of reducing latency when data is read from a memory.

Communication system and communication terminal


A purification catalyst and a gas-purifying apparatus are provided which are capable of sufficiently purifying a gas subject to treatment at low temperatures. The purification catalyst includes ZrO2 having a specific surface area of 50 m2/g or less and a monoclinic crystal system. The gas-purifying apparatus includes the aforementioned purification catalyst as a first purification catalyst, and a second purification catalyst containing Mn as a major component and disposed upstream of the first purification catalyst.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to purification of gases containing harmful substances produced in manufacturing processes, transportation, combustion, waste disposal and the like in the industrial and consumer fields and, particularly, to a gas-purifying apparatus of purifying a gas discharged from garbage disposal, a purification catalyst for use therein and a preparation process therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the gas purification technology gas purification methods of the adsortion type, ozone oxidation type, oxidative decomposition (combustion) type, biodegradation type and the like have been developed and improved in recent years. Among these methods, the method of the oxidative decomposition type using a catalyst has an advantage that it allows a garbage disposal apparatus which continually produces bad smell, to be rendered compact and maintenance-free and, hence, a gas-purifying apparatus employing this method has been put to practical use. Generally, activated alumina (Al2O3) carrying Pt or Pd is used as such a purification catalyst in combination with heating means such as a heater.
However, such a conventional gas-purifying apparatus employing the aforementioned catalytic oxidation method cannot sufficiently exhibit its ability under low temperature conditions at about 250° C. or below.
Garbage disposal apparatuses of the heat-drying type, bio-treatment type using microorganism and a like type that have been developed in recent years raise a problem that a gas produced therefrom gives off a bad smell. For this reason, the development of a gas-purifying apparatus having a higher gas-purifying ability at lower temperatures has been demanded.
Such a bad smell produced from a garbage disposal apparatus mainly comprises an organic sulfur compound, ammonia or an amine, a fatty acid such as acetic acid, propionic acid or valeric acid, and a combustible compound such as aldehyde or alcohol. One of the causes of a bad smell given off from a conventional garbage disposal apparatus is that a catalyst used cannot exhibit its catalytic performance sufficiently due to coexistence of various such smell components and moisture produced from garbage.
Among such smell components produced during garbage disposal, such compounds as methyl sulfide and methyl disulfide are hard to decompose at low temperatures in particular unlike hydrogen sulfide or the like. These sulfur oxides have raised a problem that they are easy to remain at a catalyst and act as poisoning substances with respect to the catalyst. On the other hand, such water-soluble compounds as amines and fatty acids have raised a problem that their decomposition activity is considerably lowered with increasing amount of moisture in a gas to be treated or that the coexistence of such a water-soluble compound with a sulfur-type smell causes poisoning of such coexistent gases, which suppresses their respective decomposition activity.
The present invention has been made in view of the foregoing problems associated with catalytic purification performed by a conventional gas-purifying apparatus using a catalyst, particularly by a garbage disposal apparatus, which problems become serious at low temperatures. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a purification catalyst and a gas-purifying apparatus which are capable of rapidly removing a smell and harmful substances satisfactorily at relatively low temperatures even if the gas to be purified contains moisture and a great variety of coexistent gas components.

Purification catalyst, preparation process therefor and gas-purifying apparatus

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A coating system is used on an engine component having an outer surface configured to be exposed to a first plurality of particles impinging against the outer surface at an angle within a first angle range and a second plurality of particles impinging at an angle in a second angle range. The system includes a bond layer overlying the engine component outer surface, a first erosion-resistant layer comprising a first material that is more resistant to erosion by particles impinging the component outer surface at an angle within the first angle range than by particles impinging within the second angle range, an interlayer overlying the first erosion-resistant layer, and a second erosion-resistant layer comprising a second material that is more resistant to erosion by particles impinging the component outer surface at an angle within the second angle range than by particles impinging within the first angle range.

Turbine engines may be used as the primary power source for aircraft or as auxiliary power sources for driving air compressors, hydraulic pumps, and the like. A turbine engine includes a fan, a compressor, a combustor, a turbine, and an exhaust. To provide power, the fan draws air into the engine, and the air is compressed by the compressor. The compressed air is then mixed with fuel and ignited by the combustor. The resulting hot combustion gases are directed against blades that are mounted to a wheel of the turbine. As a result, the gas flows partially sideways to impinge on the blades causing the wheel to rotate and to generate energy. The gas then leaves the engine via the exhaust.
In many cases, the compressor is coated with thermally-resistant materials that protect against heat that are present during engine operation. The coating may be a single or multiple layers of metal and/or ceramic material. However, when the air is drawn into the engine and compressed, other particles, such as ash, sand, or dirt, may be unintentionally drawn into the engine. Although the coating is generally sufficiently robust to withstand impacts from these relatively small particles, certain sections of the coating, such as those sections subjected to repeated contact with particles, may begin to wear over time. Consequently, these sections may experience unacceptably high rates of degradation which may result, in many cases, in the need for component repair and/or replacement. Additionally, significant operating expense and time out of service may be incurred.
Hence, there is a need for a coating that improves wear resistance of an aircraft component, such as a compressor. Moreover, it is desirable for the coating to be relatively inexpensive and simple to apply.

Multilayered erosion resistant coating for gas turbines


A truck bed extender including an elongated support adapted for securement in a trailer hitch mounted on a truck, and a shorter upright support pivotally mounted at the opposite end of the elongated support, for pivotal rotation from a collapsed position generally alongside said elongated support, to an upright position extending upwardly away from said elongated support. A pair of arms are pivotally mounted to said upright support, generally at the top thereof, for rotation from a collapsed position, in which the arms extend generally side by side upwardly from and generally in alignment with said upright support, outwardly to an operating position in which they extend outwardly in opposite lateral directions away from one another. The truck bed extender can readily be installed into a trailer hitch and erected to provide extended support for items placed in a truck bed, and can be readily collapsed into a generally elongated condition with said upright support and said arms extending generally alongside said elongated support.

It is often necessary to transport a load having a length that is greater than the bed length of the truck. When transported the load will extend beyond the body of the vehicle and may fall out or become damaged during transport because of a lack of horizontal or lateral support. Truck bed extenders can be mounted on the back of the truck, to provide support for such items.


Methods and apparatus are described for replicating a plurality of original packets in a packet flow which follows a first routing path. The packet flow is received with a first device, the first device being included in the first routing path. In the first device, the original packets in the packet flow are identified according to at least one predetermined criterion. In the first device, replicate packets corresponding to the original packets are generated. The original packets are transmitted from the first device along the first routing path. The replicate packets are transmitted from the first device along a second routing path which is different from the first routing path.

The present invention relates to transmission of data in a network environment. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus redirecting network traffic. Still more specifically, techniques are described herein for replicating packet flows for a variety of purposes including, for example, troubleshooting, load balancing, and reliability.
Generally speaking, when a client platform communicates with some remote server, whether via the Internet or an intranet, it crafts a data packet which defines a TCP connection between the two hosts, i.e., the client platform and the destination server. More specifically, the data packet has header fields which include the destination IP address, the destination port, the source IP address, the source port, and the protocol type. The destination IP address might be the address of a well known World Wide Web (WWW) search engine such as, for example, Yahoo, in which case, the protocol would be TCP and the destination port would be port 80, a well known port for http and the WWW. The source IP address would, of course, be the IP address for the client platform and the source port would be one of the TCP ports selected by the client. These five pieces of information define the TCP connection.
Given the increase of traffic on the World Wide Web and the growing bandwidth demands of ever more sophisticated multimedia content, there has been constant pressure to find more efficient ways to service data requests than opening direct TCP connections between a requesting client and the primary repository for the desired data. Interestingly, one technique for increasing the efficiency with which data requests are serviced came about as the result of the development of network firewalls in response to security concerns. In the early development of such security measures, proxy servers were employed as firewalls to protect networks and their client machines from corruption by undesirable content and unauthorized access from the outside world. Proxy servers were originally based on Unix machines because that was the prevalent technology at the time. This model was generalized with the advent of SOCKS which was essentially a daemon on a Unix machine. Software on a client platform on the network protected by the firewall was specially configured to communicate with the resident demon which then made the connection to a destination platform at the client's request. The demon then passed information back and forth between the client and destination platforms acting as an intermediary or "proxy".
Not only did this model provide the desired protection for the client's network, it gave the entire network the IP address of the proxy server, therefore simplifying the problem of addressing of data packets to an increasing number of users. Moreover, because of the storage capability of the proxy server, information retrieved from remote servers could be stored rather than simply passed through to the requesting platform. This storage capability was quickly recognized as a means by which access to the World Wide Web could be accelerated. That is, by storing frequently requested data, subsequent requests for the same data could be serviced without having to retrieve the requested data from its original remote source. Currently, most Internet service providers (ISPs) accelerate access to their web sites using proxy servers.
Unfortunately, interaction with such proxy servers is not transparent, requiring each end user to select the appropriate proxy configuration in his or her browser to allow the browser to communicate with the proxy server. For the large ISPs with millions of customers there is significant overhead associated with handling tech support calls from customers who have no idea what a proxy configuration is. Additional overhead is associated with the fact that different proxy configurations must be provided for different customer operating systems. The considerable economic expense represented by this overhead offsets the benefits derived from providing accelerated access to the World Wide Web. Another problem arises as the number of WWW users increases. That is, as the number of customers for each ISP increases, the number of proxy servers required to service the growing customer base also increases. This, in turn, presents the problem of allocating packet traffic among multiple proxy servers.
Network caching represents an improvement over the proxy server model which is transparent to end users, high performance, and fault tolerant. By altering the operating system code of an existing router, the router is enabled to recognize and redirect data traffic having particular characteristics such as, for example, a particular protocol intended for a specified port (e.g., TCP with port 80), to one or more network caches connected to the router via an interface having sufficient bandwidth. If there are multiple caches connected to the cache-enabled router, the router selects from among the available caches for a particular request based on a load balancing mechanism.
The network cache to which the request is re-routed "spoofs" the requested destination platform and accepts the request on its behalf via a standard TCP connection established by the cache-enabled router. If the requested information is already stored in the cache it is transmitted to the requesting platform with a header indicating its source as the destination platform. If the requested information is not in the cache, the cache opens a direct TCP connection with the destination platform, downloads the information, stores it for future use, and transmits it to the requesting platform. All of this is transparent to the user at the requesting platform which operates exactly as if it were communicating with the destination platform. Thus, the need for configuring the requesting platform to suit a particular proxy configuration is eliminated along with the associated overhead. An example of such a network caching technique is embodied in the Web Content Caching Protocol (WCCP) provided by Cisco Systems, Inc., a specific embodiment of which is described in commonly assigned, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/946,867 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,240,461) for METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING NETWORK DATA TRANSMISSIONS filed Oct. 8, 1997, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
Another specific embodiment of a packet redirection protocol which may be used to implement such a network caching technique is described in copending, commonly assigned, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/168,862 for METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REDIRECTING NETWORK TRAFFIC filed Dec. 2, 1999, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. According to a specific embodiment described in that application, the network caches have the capability of determining that particular redirected packets should be transmitted back to the redirecting router and reinserted into the original traffic flow. This may be done in a manner transparent to the source or destination of the packets. An example of a case in which packets would need to be reinserted in the original flow might be where the cache recognizes the source and destination pairs identified by the packets as corresponding to a connection requiring IP-based authentication. Another example would be where the cache is overloaded and is currently unable to handle all of the redirected traffic.
When information in a packet flow between two devices, e.g., a router and a network cache, is corrupted, it is useful for troubleshooting purposes to examine the sequence of packets as they are transmitted over the link. One technique for determining the cause of such corruption involves the insertion of a hub between the two devices and the connection of a network sniffer to the hub. The hub duplicates all the packets in the flow and the sniffer allows a technician to view the packet sequence. Unfortunately, this troubleshooting technique requires physically connecting the hub in close proximity to one of the two devices. As will be understood, this may not be practicable at geographically remote or isolated customer sites. Therefore, a technique is needed by which the troubleshooting of packet flows in particular routers may be made more practicable.
Another problem associated with network transmissions is reliability. That is, because of a variety of network conditions (e.g., hardware and software failures, network congestion, etc.), transmitted packets occasionally fail to reach their intended destinations. When a packet flow encounters such a condition, a new packet flow must typically be established to avoid the condition and make the specified connection. Not only is there a noticeable latency involved with reestablishing the packet flow, but there are certain client/server connections for which such an interruption is completely unacceptable. Therefore, there is also a need for improving the reliability with which data traffic is transmitted in network environments.

Methods and apparatus for redirecting network traffic


The present invention is related to an improved boardlock 10 for use in an electrical connector 40. The boardlock 10 features a plurality of arms 16, 18, 20 ,22 extending from a housing securing portion 12. The arms 16, 18, 20, 22 are joined together by integral neck portions 24, 26, 28 which act as pivot points to allow the boardlock 10 to be insertable into a variety of circuit board openings.

Board mounted electrical connectors are typically connected to a printed circuit board either by surface mount technology (SMT) or soldered through hole connections which may be accomplished through wave soldering techniques. In either instance, it is necessary to first accurately position the electrical connector so that its contacts engage complimentary contact surfaces on the printed circuit board, then temporarily hold the electrical connector in place, and finally form the electrical connections by SMT, wave soldering, or any other suitable method.
The step of temporally holding the connector in place over the contact interface is typically accomplished by a holding device which is incorporated into the housing of the electrical connector. These holding devices may be integrally molded into the housing or may be separate metal boardlocks which are fixed to the housing as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,111 by Roger L. Thrush et al. These boardlocks serve several purposes. First, they extend from the mounting face of the housing beyond the contact tails so that they engage openings in the printed circuit board first to insure that the connector is properly aligned for the tails to pass through the contact openings in the circuit board without being damaged. Secondly, once inserted into the openings of the circuit board, the boardlocks serve to hold the connector such that the mounting face of the housing remains flush or in engagement with the printed circuit board along its entire length.
The patent by Roger Thrush et al. teaches such a boardlock which serves both to align the electrical connector with the openings of the printed circuit board and to hold the printed circuit board in place during the soldering process.
These boardlocks are typically designed for a specific board opening with a variation of plus or minus 0.001 inch. As a result, a different boardlock is required for each different board opening. If such a boardlock is utilized in a board opening which is smaller than that specified, the insertion force required to secure the boardlock increases undesirably. The board openings however are not standardized and therefore each application will require a different geometry board lock to achieve the necessary retention forces and the desired insertion forces for the connector.
A problem exits in that each connector family must be designed with several different boardlocks in order to accommodate end applications having different diameter boardlock receiving openings in the circuit boards. While the board lock shown by Thrush et al. would fit into several different size board openings because it is compressible about two end points, the insertion force required to insert the connector becomes prohibitively high as the board opening is decreased.
It is therefore desirable to provide a versatile boardlock having the rigidity necessary for connector alignment and handling purposes and the flexibility to be inserted into several different size board openings while minimizing the range of insertion force necessary to accommodate the different size board openings.


A 180.degree. stackable, nestable plastic tote box has ledge supports and foot supports with a combination of vertical and angled surfaces for guiding an upper box relative to a lower box to a stacked position and resisting the tendency of the upper box to collapse into the lower box when it is heavily loaded. The box also has orientation buttons received in recesses at its rim which give the box an easily visible asymmetric appearance. A drainage collector is molded into each box end wall which underlies a lid of the box and collects drainage from the lid to channel the drainage to the outside of the box, and is formed in walls which help support an upper box on a lower box when it is laterally slid onto it for stacking. The box can be provided with a one-piece lid or a two-piece hinged lid. The one-piece lid has wedge structures depending downwardly from its rim which snap into holes in the top of the box. A padlock hole is formed in an angled wall at the end of the box for locking the lid shut. A piano-type hinge of the two-piece lid has tabs which extend into holes in the box when the lid is shut so as to prevent lateral disengagement of the box side wall from the lid. The box rim also has upstanding wall structures which confront wall structures molded into the lid to resist lateral separation of the hinge joint when the lid is closed.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in plastic tote boxes, and in particular to a tote box having improved stackability, drainage, and security.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Plastic tote boxes have been known for a number of years and have found wide spread usage in commercial and residential applications. Such boxes have been available having no lids, with one-piece lids which enclose the entire top of the box, or with two-piece lids, each piece of which is hinged along one side of the tote box and in which the pieces meet along a line of closure generally in the middle of the box top. These boxes are used for storing and transporting parts or other items and are reusable. The boxes and their lids are also typically made of plastic materials which are recyclable.
Such tote boxes which are both stackable and nestable are known in the industry as 180.degree. stack and nest boxes. With this type of box, in one orientation of an upper box relative to a lower box, the upper box has foot supports which are supported by ledge supports of the lower box near the top of the lower box, so that boxes containing items can be stacked with the lower boxes supporting the weight of the upper boxes. When the boxes are emptied as for example occurs when the parts are used in production, the boxes are prepared for return shipment or storage by nesting them together by turning the upper box from its stacked orientation 180.degree., in which orientation the upper box nests inside of the lower box, which conserves vertical space.
Particularly in industrial applications, plastic tote boxes can be used to carry heavy items and also are subjected to generally rough usage. When heavy items are loaded into a plastic tote box, distortion of the box inevitably occurs, particularly when a stacked box is only supported by its foot portions, typically at the ends of the box. The weight inside the box bows it inwardly and the forces transmitted from the foot supports of the upper box to the ledge supports of the lower box tend to push the end walls of the lower box outwardly so that the foot supports can slip off of the ledge supports, and the upper box falls down into the lower box. Consequently, this has limited the amount of weight which could be put into a box which was being stacked and also the total height and weight of the stack.
During shipment and storage, boxes of the type described, individually and in stacks, are also subjected to moisture, such as rain, condensation, accidental or intentional spraying, or leakage from an upper box to a lower box. If this moisture is permitted to enter the box, it can sometimes damage or ruin the items contained in the box. It is, therefore, desirable that moisture falling or collected on the box be directed away from the interior of the box.
Tote boxes of the type described are also expected to provide some level of security. Typically, a hole is provided near the top edge of the box through which a padlock can be inserted to lock a lid of the box closed. Because of the permitted size of the rim of the box and the configuration of the lid, the size of the hole has been limited, such that only a relatively small diameter shank of a padlock could be inserted through the hole, or making it difficult to insert the shank of a padlock through the hole. In addition, since the padlocks are usually provided only at the top midpoint of one or both end walls of the box, if the lid is not connected to the box along the side walls with a secure connection, access to the interior of the box can be gained by separating the lid from the box along the sides, which permits pilfering.
Also, in 180.degree. stack and nest containers, it is helpful to the person stacking or nesting them if the container has some obvious indication of its orientation, since its orientation determines whether it is in the stack position or the nest position relative to the lower container. Such an indication should be easily visible without additional effort from any angle from which a box is normally handled.


The smokeless liquid two-phase burner system of the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for burning a wide variety of flammable liquids using an integrated burner system. The system has both a primary injection path and an alternate injection path for the liquid fuel to be burned, as well as a main air pump or blower. The present invention also provides a method and apparatus for selectably injecting a secondary stream of a gas or vapor or volatile liquid into a flare system for the purpose of enhancing combustion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus that is selectably optimized for burning different classes of waste fuels using an integrated burner system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for selectably injecting a secondary stream of a gas or vapor into a flare system for the purpose of enhancing combustion of the waste fuel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flare systems are commonly used to burn waste flammable fluids such as oilfield drilling pit contents, fluids from pipeline depressurization blowdowns, and waste chemical streams. Commonly used flare systems are optimized for a particular class of fluids or even a specific fluid. In order to produce optimal burning so that the flare is both smokeless and complete combustion occurs, previous flare stacks have been provided with a capability of injecting a single type of gaseous phase into the flow stream of liquid being burned, along with the air stream normally fed to the flare to aid combustion. However, these flare stacks generally do not adapt well to a broad spectrum of flammable liquid properties. If a flare stack works well for lighter, more volatile fluids, it typically will be inadequate for a more viscous fluid or a less volatile fluid. If a fluid that has a low heating value is used with a flare system that has been designed for a high heating value fluid, the flare performance generally will be unsatisfactory.
A need exists for a flare system that can be adapted readily to various liquids with wide variations in their characteristic properties. Additionally, a need exists for a flare system that is completely self-contained.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Smokeless liquid dual-phase burner system


A frictional holding pad for removably attaching items, such as a cell phone, to a surface, such as a dash, to allow storage of items on the pad to prevent the items from shifting or sliding due to the movement of the support surface. A bottom surface of the pad is tacky to cling to the surface and a top surface is tacky to cling to the item. A lowermost contact surface of the pad can have a greater surface area than an uppermost contact surface. Indicia can be formed on the pad. The pad can be translucent or transparent. The pad can include an expanded vinyl material or a polyurethane material.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a frictional holding pad or material, particularly useful to releasably secure an object from movement in a vehicle. More particularly, the present invention relates to an expanded vinyl frictional holding material configured to non-chemically adhering to a planar or contoured support surface.
2. Related Art
It is often desirable to non-permanently adhere a first object to a second object, but retain the option of removing the first object without damaging either object. Conventional adhesive devices, however, often utilize a chemical bond that is permanent in nature so that removal of the adhesive device either damages the object on which it was used, or leaves a residue on the object that is difficult to remove without damaging the object. Similarly, mechanical retaining devices often are mounted to an object in such a way as to permanently alter the object. There are also magnetic devices in which two pieces are glued to the dash and phone, and then magnetically couple together.
Additionally, many items carried in day-to-day life must often be temporarily stored to free an individual's hands for other tasks. One common example of such a situation arises when an individual enters a vehicle. Items such as cell phones, personal digital assistants, writing instruments or glasses must be stored in order to free the hands of the individual so that he or she may operate the vehicle. In many cases, however, an individual may wish to have ready access to the items should the items be quickly needed, for instance if a call is received on the cell phone. Because most vehicles involve stop-and-go or side-to-side motion, placing such items on open surfaces raises the risk that the items will slide off the open surface during operation of the vehicle. The movement of such items can cause damage to the item itself, damage to the vehicle or interior accessories, and posses a safety problem. For example, a cell phone may break if it falls to the floor, or may fall onto another object, such as a laptop computer, causing further damage. In addition, a driver may be distracted by trying to retrieve the phone from the floor. Hence, storing such items on open surfaces is generally not a viable option.
While most vehicles include storage locations for such personal items, storing the items generally requires the inconvenience of opening a compartment, such as a glove box in an automobile, and storing the items along with the other items already contained within the compartment. Once stored in such compartments, items are not visible to an individual and are not easily accessible should the individual wish to quickly access the items.
Various solutions to the problem have been proposed. Most notably, special mounting devices have been used to secure items in the car. Such mounting devices typically have a base that is secured to some object in the vehicle, and a receiving portion to receive and hold the item. For example, some devices are configured to receive and hold a cell phone. Other devices are configured to receive and hold sunglasses. One disadvantage with such mounting devices is that they are typically customized to hold a particular item, or type of item, and are ill suited for other items. For example, a mounting device for a cell phone may not adequately hold sunglasses. Thus, it may be necessary to have several mounting devices within the vehicle, one for a cell phone, one for sunglasses, one for a GPS unit, etc. One disadvantage with having several mounting devices is that the vehicle appears cluttered. In addition, such mounting devices are typically sold as accessories, and thus add expense. Another disadvantage with such mounting devices is that they can permanently alter and devalue the vehicle.


A power semiconductor component and a method for the production of a power semiconductor component are disclosed. According to one embodiment of the invention, a topmost metallization region that is provided is formed in a manner extended laterally and outside contacts formed, in such a way that, as a result, a protection and sealing material region to be provided is formed, whilst avoiding electrically insulating additional protection and sealing layers that are usually to be provided.

In the production of integrated power circuits and of power semiconductor components, it is important, during the end processes of the overall production method, to protect the semiconductor circuit arrangement that has already been formed and on which the power semiconductor component is based in the underlying semiconductor material region with respect to specific end processes and the mechanical, thermal and contamination loading associated therewith. Usually, for this purpose, after the formation of the underlying semiconductor circuit arrangement, a protection and sealing material is applied on the corresponding topmost metallization or top metallization, which material has an electrically insulating effect and protects the underlying structures against mechanical, thermal and contamination stresses.
What is problematic about this procedure is that the material layer stacks used in this case have to be provided as additional measures. On account of the higher complexity of the structures, this leads to reliability losses and to an additional process engineering outlay in the overall production method. Furthermore, the materials used in this case are associated with a cost factor which must not be underestimated.

Power semiconductor component having a topmost metallization layer


A method, system and apparatus for connecting multiple memory device dies 51-54 to a substrate 56 which requires no trace between dies. A first embodiment assigns the connections of a memory device die 51 to be matched with other memory device dies 52-54 when mounted in staggered formation on the both sides of a substrate. The result is a daisy chained array connecting multiple integrated circuits with reduced capacitive loading. The capacitive loadings on the buses 57,58 between memory device dies 51,52,53 are reduced. The number of vias 57,58,59 is reduced because two stubs on the both sides of the substrate share one via. Another embodiment FIG. 7 arranges the dies in a closed loop.

Memory devices are used to store data in digital electronic devices such as computers. The demand for large memory systems with high bandwidth and low power consumption has increased during recent years. Early multi die memory devices in digital electronics included a plurality of dies connected in parallel to a common bus such a system is said to be connected by a multi-drop bus. Multi-drop connection with several memory device dies connected to a common bus in parallel is commonly used for a large memory system.
FIG. 1 shows a prior art embodiment of multi-drop connection with double sided memory device mounding. The memory device dies 1 and 2 are mounted to the first side 7 of a substrate 6. Dies 3 and 4 are mounted on the opposite side of substrate 6 directly opposed to dies 1 and 2 respectively. Substrate 6 may be a multi-layered PCB, or other similar substrate such as a ceramic wafer. Substrate 6 often includes internally routed signal traces 9 and 10 between memory device dies 1-4. Stub through vias 11-18 allow signal traces 9 and 10 to connect to the opposite surfaces 7 and 8 of substrate 6. Stub through vias 11-18 commonly terminate in pads 21-28 on surfaces 7 and 8. Pads 21-28 are configured to connect to solder balls 29 or other connections from memory device dies 1-4 to signal traces. Stub through via allows the solder ball 29 or other connection from memory device dies to the signal traces 9 and 10. Vias 11-18 are manufactured on a larger pitch than signal traces 9 and 10 to afford extra width, and the use of several such vias can limit the number of traces that can be routed through a single layer of the substrate. This may force additional layers and extra costs. The number of memory device dies connected to a bus is large. Capacitive loading of each memory device die and long trace cause large capacitive loading on the bus so that it is hard to get high bandwidth. And large capacitive loading means large power consumption.
More recent designs use interconnection of a plurality of memory device dies are connected in serial. The reason for doing so is to reduce capacitive loading on the bus by limiting the number of memory device dies. Such an array of memory dies is commonly referred to as a Daisy Chain. A variation connects the last die in the Daisy Chain to the first die to form a loop, such a device is referred to as being loop chained. FIG. 2 shows a prior art embodiment of a daisy chained interconnection or a loop chained interconnection with double sided memory device mounting. The memory device dies 31 and 32 are mounted to the first side 37 of a substrate 36. Dies 33 and 34 are mounted on the opposite side 38 of substrate 36 substantially opposite dies 31 and 32. Substrate 36 may be a multi-layered PCB, or other similar substrate such as a ceramic wafer. Substrate 36 includes internally routed signal traces 39 between die 31 and the outside and 40 between memory device dies 31 and 32, 41 between 32 and 34, 42 between 34 and 33 and 43 between 33 and the outside. Stub through vias 46-54 allow connections to the solder balls 56 or other connection from memory device dies 31-34 to signal traces 39-43. Because memory device dies 31-34 are connected each other point to point, capacitive loading of memory device dies 31-34 on the bus are smaller and the lengths of traces 36-43 are shorter than that of multi-drop connection of FIG. 1 so that the total capacitive loading on the bus are reduced. However there are still traces 36-54 between memory device dies and so that it is hard to get high bandwidth and low power consumption.

Method and apparatus for connecting memory dies to form a memory system


A new and distinct cultivar of Kalanchoe plant named ‘Don Darcio’, characterized by its upright, uniform and vigorous growth habit; freely branching habit; dark green-colored leaves; uniform and freely flowering habit; double pink-colored flowers; and excellent postproduction longevity.

The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Kalanchoe, botanically known as Kalanchoe blossfeldiana, and hereinafter referred to by the name 'Don Darcio'.
The new Kalanchoe plant is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Naaldwijk, The Netherlands. The objective of the breeding program is to create new double-flowered Kalanchoe cultivars with attractive foliage and flower coloration.
The new Kalanchoe plant originated from a cross-pollination made by the Inventor in Naaldwijk, The Netherlands in December, 2002, of a proprietary selection of Kalanchoe blossfeldiana identified as code No. 2000033, not patented, as the female, or seed parent with a proprietary selection of Kalanchoe blossfeldiana identified as code No. 20000153-2, not patented, as the male, or pollen, parent. The cultivar Don Darcio was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a flowering plant from within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled greenhouse environment in Naaldwijk, The Netherlands in October, 2006.
Asexual reproduction of the new Kalanchoe by vegetative terminal cuttings in a controlled greenhouse environment in Naaldwijk, The Netherlands since January, 2007 has shown that the unique features of this new Kalanchoe plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.


The present invention relates generally to a linear steering truck apparatus comprising a bolster member having two ends, the bolster being located along the transverse axis extending generally perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, generally located between and parallel to the transversely extending axles, a linear steering truck attachable to the car body, a plurality of pedestals, a pedestal engaged to an axle bearing, the axle bearing being rotationally engaged to one end of a transversely extending axle, and at least one pedestal being movably attached to at least one other pedestal situated in the same plane along the longitudinal axis, and rack and pinion steering components, where the geometry of pivot points from one axle to the bolster form a trapezoid and the geometry of pivot points from another axle to the bolster form a parallelogram, the pedestals being pivotably connected so that a lateral force at one axle is reacted by the other axle, wherein the car body mass acts as a pendulum mass restoring force, and the apparatus being steered to the center of the track with either end of the truck leading after the trapezoid side yaws.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of trucks for railroad cars, and in particular, to steerable trucks for railroad cars.
2. The Prior Art
The wheels which are used on railroad trucks are, almost universally, formed with conical tapered profiles. That is, the diameters of the wheels decrease, with the portions having the smallest diameter facing outwardly, relative to the railroad car. In addition, rims, having overall diameters substantially greater than the largest diameter portion of the tapered wheel surface, are located at the innermost portions of the wheels, and placed on the truck axles and axle bearings, such that the distance between the rims of the wheels on an axle (collectively, "wheel set") is slightly less than the distance between the inside edges of the rails.
In prior art conventional railroad trucks, the axles would be fixed relative to the truck. Typically, there would be provided two trucks situated adjacent the ends of a railroad car. Each truck is typically connected to the railroad car by a short, 14 or 16 inch diameter, cylindrical post extending downwardly from the carbody, which is received by a plate mounted generally centrally relative to the truck. The center post in such a typical prior art configuration would typically have been configured to permit a certain amount of pivoting of the truck, relative to the railroad car body. As a practical matter, the frictional forces generated by the surface contact area between the post and the plate, and the tremendous weight of the carbody, means that the amount of resistance to pivoting will be great. Thus, the friction between the truck bolster center plate and car body center bowl cause the truck to stick at any given position during travel.
However, steering forces between the wheels and rail are great enough to overcome this friction force. The steering forces cause the truck to yaw toward a position in the direction of travel. As the truck approaches the direction of travel, the steering forces decrease to a point no longer greater than the friction forces between the truck bolster center plate and car body center bowl. Since the friction forces between the plate and bowl are now greater than the steering forces, the frictions again cause the truck to stick in a position until the steering forces become great. This continuous entice energy process results in the truck never becoming truly aligned to the track. Additionally, this continuous entice energy process creates rolling resistance and wear on straight track as well as in curves.
This oscillation of the truck pivoting about the center post, describes a sinusoidal path along the track. As speed increases this phenomenon is more obvious and at higher speeds this becomes an unacceptable condition. This phenomenon is commonly called "hunting". Hunting starts at low speeds and can lead to unacceptable lateral wheel force, acceleration, and frequency unless constrained. The instability transfers rolling energy into undesirable lateral energy which creates rolling resistance, lading and car damage, and wheel and track wear.
As a railroad car having such prior art trucks would enter a curve, the rails move from under the wheels. The radius of one wheel increases as the radius of the other decreases. The different diameters creates a larger circumference on one wheel and smaller on the other. The difference in circumference causes one wheel to travel further than the other for the same revolution. The difference in travel causes the wheels and axle to turn in the direction of the curve. Ideally, the large circumference matches the length of the outside rail and the small circumference the inside rail.
The natural tendency of a single axle wheel set, in a curve, is to assume a posture is which the axle "points" to the center of curvature of the curve. This movement of a single axle may be referred to as "going radial". In a prior art two wheel set truck with fixed axles, the axles would not be free to assume this described posture independently of one another, and the truck as a whole would be forced to rotate about the center of the truck. This condition creates high forces on the wheel sets and the truck, increases wear on the truck components, and increases rolling friction, resulting in increased fuel consumption as a result of the additional energy which had to be expended to keep the railroad cars moving. Additionally, these high forces also wear the track and the wheels.
A typical prior art truck configuration would comprise two longitudinally extending (i.e., track-wise extending) side frames, with a transversely extending bolster attached to the side frames (the "three-piece truck"). The axles of the wheel sets would be mounted fore and aft of the bolster, with the axle ends being generally fixed relative to the side frames.
Even though nominally rigidly constructed, such a truck configuration would, under sufficient loading (such as during curves), deform. Typically, this deformation would take the form of the side frames, bolster and wheel-sets skewing relative to one another to form a parallelogram, as the forces exerted on the wheels push the axles to seek yawed positions through the curve. Such parallelogramming is believed to be a common cause of railroad car derailment at low speed in curves. In rigid frame trucks this parallelogramming does not occur.
Accordingly, it can be seen that making trucks rigid and mounting them rigidly to car bodies, in an effort to eliminate hunting, and providing truck pivoting and/or flexibility, to permit truck or axle yawing or steering in curves, can and have created a design impasse for the creation of an effective three piece truck. Frame bracing of the three piece trucks helps, but still does not give a satisfactory result on wheel life and track loads.
Numerous attempts have been made to produce trucks which satisfy the requirements for efficient rolling during both straight runs and curves. Such attempts have included the provision of resilient or elastic members in the side frames and/or bolsters, pivot-mounted axles and side frames with damping apparatus like shock absorbers, and various forms of cross-bracing and the like. Such prior art configurations typically have resulted in truck structures which are costly, heavy, and/or overly complex and prone to failure or requiring extensive maintenance and replacement of components.
One such attempt is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,530. The '530 patent discloses a steering apparatus that responds to high speed single rail vertical curve change so accurately that the truck would yaw as if it had detected a lateral curve. The car mass would continue in the original direction of travel creating high lateral force, which would lift the inside wheels from the rail. The alternating and repeated single rail vertical curves is referred to by the Association of American Rail Roads as the twist and roll regime.
To correct the problem an active lateral suspension steering system in combination with steering was conceived in U.S. Pat. No. 5,666,885. In the '885 patent, the lateral suspension movement was intended to retard or add steering in lateral acceleration regimes. The '885 invention has a prompting mechanism to facilitate turning, however the lateral suspension steering of the '885 patent is prone to high friction and not able to demonstrate the effects of steering combined with the lateral suspension.
Another such attempt to satisfy the requirements for efficient rolling during both straight runs and curves is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,546. The '546 invention incorporated a low friction lateral suspension steering that through lateral acceleration retards or adds steering. Although the mechanism provided the concept, it is too complex for practical application.


An apparatus and a process for precisely mounting integrated circuit packages on circuit boards. The package has guide pins on its bottom surface that mate with non standard holes on the circuit board. This simplifies the precise positioning of packages on circuit boards. When the package is properly mounted on the circuit board many leads on the bottom surface of the integrated circuit package are electrically connected with the circuit board.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an circuit board and, more particularly, to an circuit board that allows an integrated circuit package to be precisely and easily mounted.
2. Background Art
Recently, as the semiconductor technologies have developed, integrated circuits having complex functions have been introduced. As an example of such integration, the integration of a central processing unit (CPU) which performs very important functions of the microcomputer has progressed rapidly. In addition, to emit heat from the integrated circuit having complex functions, the shape of the package of the integrated circuit has been changed. For example, the CPU of a microcomputer has been developed from an 8086 8-bit processor to 80386, 80486, and 80586 32-bit processors through 80-286 16-bit processors. As CPUs having higher efficiencies have been developed, the number of the leads of the CPU rapidly increases. Moreover, as the density of the leads increases, new technologies for mounting the CPU on the printed circuit board have been developed.
In recent days, with high efficiency being required even in a small computer such as a notebook computer, a Pentium.TM. processor which functions as the CPU is mounted and will continue to be mounted in compliance with the requests of users. However, in the case of notebook computers, which require circuits that are further miniaturized, the use of small integrated circuits has become necessary. As the external size of integrated circuits becomes smaller, the shape of the package becomes more significant due to the heat that is generated. An integrated circuit of the TCP type is a very small compartment that includes 320 pins and has a spacing of 0.2 mm between the leads. As a result of the size of the integrated circuit package and the even smaller size of the printed circuit board, the exact mounting of integrated circuit devices has been an area of continuing research. Some techniques for mounting integrated circuit packages are shown, by way of example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,663,695 to Ohkawara entitled Holding Device for Mounting an Electronic Component on a Printed Circuit Board, U.S. Pat. No. 5,045,976 to Guilleminot entitled Device for Mounting a Metal Element on a Board, U.S. Pat. No. 5,160,270 to Reymond entitled Integrated Circuit Packages Using Tapered Spring Contact Leads for Direct Mounting to Circuit Boards, U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,901 to Edwards entitled Index Mounting Unitary Heat Sink Apparatus with Apertured Base, U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,675 to Taniguchi entitled Semiconductor Device Unit Having Holder, U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,612 to Windham entitled Carrier for Guiding and Supporting Semiconductor Devices, U.S. Pat. No. 5,555,488 to McLellan entitled Integrated Circuit Device Having Improved Post for Surface-Mount Package, U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,504 to Siegel entitled Surface Mountable Integrated Circuit Package With Detachable Module, U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,125 to Russell entitled Vertical Package Mounted on Both Sides of a Printed Circuit Board, U.S. Pat. No. 5,155,905 to Miller, Jr. entitled Method and Apparatus for Attaching a Circuit Component to a Printed Circuit Board, U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,057 to Johnson entitled Integrated Circuit Testing Assembly and Method, U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,057 to Johnson entitled Integrated Circuit Testing Assembly and Method, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,827 to Hahs, Jr. entitled Modular Interconnecting Electronic Circuit Blocks.
Often integrated circuit packages are mounted on a ball grid array (BGA) that has lead pins located on the bottom' surface of the BGA. The integrated circuit package is then placed on a printed circuit board by a surface mount technology (SMT) handler. When the BGA package is held and moved by the programmed SMT handler to be mounted on a printed circuit board, the lead pins of the integrated circuit supporting BGA package must be exactly positioned on the printed circuit board. Failure of the lead pins to be exactly positioned on the pads leads to the poor mounting of integrated circuit packages.
I have noticed, however, that since the lead pins of the BGA package are too short, it is difficult to determine whether the BGA package is correctly mounted on the printed circuit board. As the SMT handler moves during the package mounting operation, any deviation from the proper position of the SMT handler leads to the incorrect positioning of the integrated circuit package on the printed circuit board. I have further noticed that it is often difficult to determine whether the integrated circuit package is correctly mounted on the printed circuit board. I expect that an circuit board that made it easier to precisely position an integrated package would improve the efficiency of production


A device for treating with microwave plasma a container. The container is placed in a chamber (12) made of a conductive material and is rotationally symmetrical, and the device includes a wave guide tunnel (15) substantially perpendicular to the axis (A1) of the chamber and which emerges therein in the form of a rectangular window whereof the smaller dimension corresponds to its dimension along the chamber axis. The internal diameter of the chamber (12) is such that the microwaves are propagated in the chamber mainly according to a mode whereby the electric field resulting from the propagation of the microwaves exhibit an axial rotational symmetry.

The invention concerns processes for processing the surfaces of a container, of thermoplastic material, for example.
By way of example, the invention will find application in the field of depositing thin barrier-effect layers on bottles or jars made of thermoplastic materials such as polyethylene terephtalate.
Indeed, there is currently a search to improve the barrier properties of these containers, particularly with a view to decreasing their permeability to gas or to increase their opacity to certain radiations, such as ultraviolet, in order to increase the preservation time of the products packaged in these containers.
To that end, various processes have been proposed that seek either to modify the material of the container directly, at least at its surface, or to coat the container with a layer of organic or inorganic material in order to improve the container's properties. One particularly favorable way to achieve this consists of low-pressure plasma processing. In such a process, a vacuum is created inside the enclosure at the same time as a reaction fluid is injected into it under an absolute pressure preferably of less than 1 mbar. The reaction fluid varies, depending on the nature of the material to be deposited. It includes a precursor of the material to be deposited, generally in the form of a gas or a gas mixture. It can also include a carrier gas.
This reaction fluid is subjected to microwave-type electromagnetic radiation suitable for exciting the precursor in order to form a plasma that creates active molecules. In the case of processing by deposit, these molecules can be deposited on the surface of the container with a particularly strong physical-chemical bond that guarantees the stability of the deposited material. Nevertheless, in some cases, the processing can consist of a simple modification of the surface of the material of which the container is made. There is then no deposit of a new layer of material, but rather a modification of the containers material by interaction with the molecules or active parts of the plasma.
In particular, the use of microwave type electromagnetic radiation makes it possible to obtain deposits having a special structure that is impossible to obtain with other types of radiation, such as widely used radio frequency radiation.
One of the difficulties encountered in implementing these processes is in obtaining a uniformity of the processing over the whole surface to be coated. In the case of processing by deposit, these problems of homogeneity can have repercussions in terms of thickness of the deposited layer and in terms of the composition of this layer. Obviously, this poor homogeneity of the deposited layer is not satisfactory.
To obtain a homogeneous treatment, then, the use of a plasma offers the greatest possible uniformity.

Device for treating a container with microwave plasma


One embodiment of the invention is a method for resetting a partition of a multiple partition system, wherein the partition comprises a plurality of processors, the method comprising executing, by one processor of the plurality of processors, reset code from firmware, building a list of reset register addresses associated with the plurality of processors, sending an interrupt to the other processors of the plurality of processors, resetting the other processors by writing a reset code to their associated reset registers, and resetting the one processor by writing to its associated reset register.

In a computer system that includes Itanium Processor Family (IPF) chips, the processors are located in a plurality of cells and may be arranged in a plurality of partitions or protection domains. IPF chips are produced by Intel. Compared with monolithic systems, multi-cell or cellular computer systems are more difficult to reset. On monolithic computer architectures, all resources in the system can be reset simultaneously by asserting one pin or one wire. Cellular systems may be divided into different partitions, each of which need to be reset individually and at different times. Moreover, the cells may be migrated from one partition to another. This makes it is very difficult to reset the cells within a single partition.
FIG. 1 depicts a block diagram of a firmware model 100 for an IPF system. The firmware has three components that separate the operating system (OS) 101 from the processors 102 and the platform 103. The firmware, in general, isolates the OS 101 and other higher level software (not shown) from implementation differences in the processors 102 and the platform 103. The platform 103 includes all of the non-processor hardware. One firmware is the processor abstraction layer (PAL) 104. This layer includes processor implementation specific features and is part of the Itanium processor architecture. PAL 104 operates independently of the number of processors. Another firmware is the platform/system abstraction layer (SAL) 105. SAL 105 includes the platform-specific features. The last firmware is the extensible firmware interface (EFI) 106. This layer is the platform binding specification layer that provides a legacy-free application programming interface (API) to the operating system. PAL 104, SAL 105, and EFI 106 together provide system initialization and boot, machine check abort (MCA) handling, platform management interrupt (PMI) handling, and other processor and system functions which would vary between implementations. Additional information on IPF systems may be found in Intel manuals "Intel Itanium Architecture Software Developer's Manual" and "Itanium Processor Family System Abstraction Layer Specification", both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
A common specification used by the OS is the advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI) 107. This specification defines an industry standard interface that enables the OS to direct motherboard configuration and system power management, which is referred to as operating system directed configuration and power management (OSPM). Additional information on ACPI may be found in the ACPI specification "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification", which is incorporated herein by reference.
FIG. 2 depicts an example of a system 200 showing an arrangement of the processors 102 and platform 103 of FIG. 1. In FIG. 2, the system 200 has five cell boards 201, with each cell board comprising a plurality of processors 202. The system has two partitions or protection domains, namely partition A 203 and partition B 204. Resources within a partition may be used by any of the processors within the partition. Access to resources in other partitions is restricted, and thus this arrangement prevents errors in one partition from migrating to another partition.
Since cells in one partition can be reassigned to another partition, it is difficult to coherently reset all of the cells in a partition. Previous attempts to perform coherent reset of multiple cells typically introduced spurious errors into the partition. One solution is to reset each cell as the cell is located. However, this solution has a disadvantage in that resources disappeared that were still needed or being used by other cells in the partition. Thus, spurious errors are often introduced because there is too much time between the first cell of the partition being reset and the last cell of the partition being reset. Another solution is to reset each cell without attempting to idle the processors. However, this solution also introduces spurious errors into the partition because CPU are attempting transactions that depended on other resources. Another solution is to execute the reset code from main memory. However, this solution has the disadvantage that the main memory can become incoherent as cells reset, and allowing fetches to fail, thus compromising the ability to complete the reset.

Resetting multiple cells within a partition of a multiple partition computer system

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


An air seal valve comprises an annular valve body having a circular valve plate disposed internally thereof with a pair of axially spaced valves thereon defining a fresh air plenum, one of said valves comprising a truncated conical plate having a radially outer edge engageable with the valve body to effect a seal thereagainst.

The air seal valve of the present invention is an improvement on the valve disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,422, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
Incinerators are widely used to increase the temperature of process emissions to a temperature above the ignition temperature of combustible contaminants therein so as to oxidize the contaminants. Leakage of contaminated emissions past the relatively large flow control valves required for control of fluid flow to and from the incinerators cannot be tolerated. As disclosed in the aforesaid patent, such flow control valves selectively direct the emissions into one or more regenerators or high temperature combustion chambers, or vent the flow of decontaminated gases to atmosphere. Leakage the flow control valves seriously comprises the efficiency of the incinerator system and may result in significant air pollution.