A player performs an input operation so as to draw a predetermined graphic on a touch panel. A type of attack against an enemy character may be determined based at least on a graphical shape of an input trajectory. An effectiveness of attack against the enemy character may be determined at least based on the size of the graphical shape of the input trajectory. Damage caused by attack to the enemy character may be determined based at least on the style and effectiveness of attack.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game system, and more particularly to a game system using a touch panel as an input device.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, there have been proposed game apparatuses which can be operated using an input device other than a controller having a cross-key pad and buttons. For example, there is a conventional game system for playing a game using a sword-like controller to attack enemy characters in the game. In this game system, a position of the sword-like controller and an amount of variation in the position per unit of time are detected by a sensor, and a degree of damage caused to an enemy character by attack is determined in accordance with the speed or amplitude of swing of the sword-like controller. In such a conventional game system, the player is able to feel as if he/she is attacking the enemy characters in the game using a real sword.
In the above conventional game system, the degree of damage caused to an enemy character is determined in accordance with the speed or amplitude of swing of the sword-like controller, and means of attacking the enemy characters is limited to a sword, lacking variation in attack. Such simple means of attacking makes the game itself monotonous, easily boring the player. Specifically, one input operation uniquely makes one type of attack action, and therefore the game easily bores the player. It is important in particular for a recent game to enable a variety of types of attacks including, for example, not only a direct attack by a sword but also an attack by magic, and also to enable a damage degree and an area affected by an attack to be designated, thereby facilitating the player not to be bored with the game.


Systems and methods of prioritizing retrieval and/or processing of data related to a subset of attributes based on a prediction of associated values are presented herein. In certain implementations, a request for values associated with respective first attributes may be received. Based on the request, first queries for data related to the first attributes may be performed. Based on the first queries, a first subset of data related to calculating at least some of the associated values may be received. At least some of the associated values may be predicted based on the first subset of data. Based on the prediction of the associated values, retrieval and/or processing of data related to a first subset of the first attributes may be prioritized over retrieval and/or processing of data related to one or more other subsets of the first attributes.

With the recent influx of smartphones, tablets, and/or other mobile devices having connectivity to the Internet, businesses, consumers, or other users are frequently receiving, analyzing, sharing, and creating new information. Obtaining such information may involve querying for data across a plurality of data sources. Because retrieval and/or processing of such data may be time consuming, and users are often not provided with their requested information until retrieval and processing of such data have finished, there may be considerable delay before a user is provided with any substantive information related to their request. These and other drawbacks exist.

Prioritization of retrieval and/or processing of data


The invention relates to process for the continuous production of 4-chloroacetoacetyl chloride, comprising the steps of (a) feeding diketene and chlorine into a thin film reactor and (b) reacting the diketene and chlorine to obtain 4-chloroacetoacetyl chloride. The invention also relates to a process for the production of 4-chloroacetoaceticacid ester, 4-chloroacetoaceticacid amide or 4-chloroacetoaceticacid imide from 4-chloroacetoacetyl chloride obtained according to the inventive process.

Methods for the production of 4-chloroacetoacetyl chloride 4-chloro-3-oxobutanoyl chloride) and esters obtained from 4-chloroacetoacetyl chloride are known in the art. In a specific process, the 4-chloroacetoacetyl chloride is obtained by reacting chlorine gas with diketene (4-methylideneoxetan-2-one).
The reaction takes place exothermally and therefore requires cooling. The reaction products are relatively sensitive to heat and the formation of undesired side products and decomposition is observed if temperature deviates locally or globally from a given range. For example, undesired reaction products may be regioisomers, such 2-chloroacetoacetyl chloride, or over-chlorinated products, such as di- or tri-halogenated compounds, such as 2,4-dichloroacetoacetyl chloride or 2,2,4-trichloroacetoacetyl chloride. Thus, it is difficult to determine efficient production conditions by which a high yield is achieved.
JP 113 824 suggests a process in which diketene is dissolved in a solvent and reacted in a column reaction vessel with chlorine under cooling. The chlorine gas is fed into the column in a continuous current or counter-current manner. However, selectivities of less than 90% are achieved.
A solvent-free process is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,468,356, according to which a diketene spray is continuously contacted with chlorine gas in a reaction zone at a temperature between 80° C. and 210° C. Subsequently, the intermediate product is subjected to an esterification reaction with ethanol. However, the overall yield is below 80% and thus relatively low, which is probably due to the exposure of the intermediate product to relatively high temperatures. Further, the reaction is carried out only with small amounts of starting compounds at a laboratory scale.
Reactions for the production of haloacetoacetic acids from diketene and chlorine on laboratory scale are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,950,412 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,701,803. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,508, the process of U.S. Pat. No. 3,701,803 is discussed. The inventors conclude that an upscale would not be possible because of problems associated with heat transfer. In order to provide an efficient reaction on increased scale, it is suggested to react a solution of diketene in an inert solvent with a solution of chlorine dissolved in an inert solvent in a tube reactor. According to Example 6, the acid chloride intermediate can be produced at a yield of 98%. However, the process is relatively inefficient, because both starting compounds are diluted in relatively large amounts of solvents. Thus, the overall reaction requires large amounts of solvent and consequently large reactors and equipment and more energy for cooling. When increasing the volume of the reactor, the yield dropped "drastically" and the selectivity was relatively low (U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,508, example 7). Thus it would be desirable to provide a more efficient process, which requires less solvent, is more selective and efficient on a large scale.
A laboratory process in order to produce ethyl-4-chloroacetoacetate from diketene and chlorine is disclosed by Pan et al., Shandong Huagong 2007, 36 (10) 4-6. In this process, it is suggested to use a relatively high concentration of diketene of about 24 to 28 weight-%. However, the yield of the ester is only about 80% and the reaction is carried out in a reaction flask on small scale, without any suggestion how to resolve the heat transfer problem on increased scale.
The processes known in the art are also problematic with respect to process safety. Especially when carried out in an industrial scale, the reaction requires high amounts of chlorine and diketene. These substances are highly reactive and hazardous when inhaled. When the reactor is damaged or when the process is disturbed and gets out of control, the reactants could harm the people in the environment and explode. Thus an industrial upscale, if at all, would only be possible under severe safety precautions.

Process for the production of 4-chloroacetoacetyl chloride, 4-chloroacetoacetic acid esters, amides and imides


A fairlead for a crane contains: a plurality of blocks connected together, a connecting unit for connecting the plurality of blocks, a pair of resilient elements fixed on a peripheral side of a slot of a rolling cylinder, such that a steel cable is rolled on the slot, wherein two first segments of the steel cable fall downwardly to connect with a hook so that the hook hooks an object. Each block includes a pressing body, a first bottom formed on the pressing body and having a plurality of arcuate recesses for corresponding to a circular diameter of the steel cable, and the first bottom also has plural guiding ribs for corresponding to the slot of the rolling cylinder.

A conventional fairlead for a crane is employed to guide a steel cable to be rolled on a rolling cylinder of the crane. However, when any related part of the fairlead is broken, the fairlead has to be replaced, thus causing high replacement cost.
The present invention has arisen to mitigate and/or obviate the afore-described disadvantages.


A rotary connector device includes a stator, a rotor rotatably fitted to the stator, a cable chamber surrounded by the stator and the rotor and also formed around a rotating center of the rotor circumferentially, a flexible flat cable accommodated in the cable chamber so as to allow rotating of the rotor in relation to the stator, the cable having one end led to the stator and another end led to the rotor, and a slip ring mechanism having two conductive rings fixed to the stator and two sliding terminals fixed to the rotor. The stator has a stationary top face part formed so as to cover an upside of the cable chamber, while the rotor has a rotary top face part formed so as to adjoin the stationary top face part of the stator. The slip ring mechanism is arranged in a clearance between the stationary top face part of the stator and the rotary top face part of the rotor.

The present invention relates to a rotary connector device for electrically connecting a stator member, such as steering column of an automobile, to a rotor member, such as steering wheel.
Japanese Patent Publication laid-open Nos. 2003-151711 and 2003-243119 disclose this kind of rotating connector devices. Each of the rotating connector devices comprises a stator fixed to a steering column, a rotor fixed to a steering wheel and rotatably assembled to the stator, a cable chamber arranged in the rotor and the stator and formed circumferentially around a rotating center of the rotor, a flexible flat cable accommodated in the cable chamber so as to allow a rotation of the rotor, the flexible flat cable having one end led toward the stator and the other end led toward the rotor, and a slip-ring mechanism. The slip-ring mechanism includes conductive rings fixed to the rotor and arranged around the rotating center of the rotor and sliding terminals arranged on the stator to slide on the conductive rings.
In operation, when the steering wheel is rotated, the rotor rotates in relation to the stator. For the rotation of the rotor, the flexible flat cable maintains an electrical connection between the stator and the rotor while changing its accommodated condition in the cable chamber. On the other hand, the sliding terminals maintain the electrical connection between the stator and the rotor while sliding on the conductive rings. In case of small conducting current flowing between the steering column and the steering wheel (e.g. ignition signal for air bag), a conducting route in the flexible flat cable is employed. To the contrary, in case of large conducting current (e.g. current for steering heater), a conducting route in the slip ring mechanism is employed.
Meanwhile, the above slip ring mechanism is positioned below the cable chamber in the following manner. In case of Japanese Patent Publication laid-open No. 2003-151711, a rotor has a shaft part formed to project from a cable chamber downwardly. The shaft part is provided with a projecting brim part to which conducting rings are fixed. On the other hand, a stator has a projecting part formed to project from the cable chamber downwardly. Terminal attachments are fixed to the projecting part of the stator by screws. The above-mentioned sliding terminals are fixed to the terminal attachments.
In the above-constructed slip ring mechanism, however, the number of components forming the mechanism is large to cause a rise in its manufacturing cost due to the structure where the sliding terminals are attached to the stator with the use of the sliding terminals. Additionally, since it is necessary to provide the stator with an exclusive space below the cable chamber to accommodate the slip ring mechanism, a dimension of the rotary connector device is increased in its axial direction, causing the device to be large-sized. Further, as mentioned above, the rotor has to be provided, as an exclusive attachment portion, with the brim part for the conductive rings of the slip ring mechanism.


Systems and methods of performing co-simulation of a partitioned circuit design using multiple programmable logic devices (PLDs) coupled together to form a boundary scan chain. A host computer is coupled to the scan chain via a programming cable. Resident on the host computer are run-time co-simulation blocks corresponding to blocks from the circuit design, where each block is designated to run on one of the PLDs in the scan chain; a programming cable device driver interfacing with the programming cable; and a proxy component. The proxy component is coupled to all of the run-time co-simulation blocks and the programming cable device driver. Each co-simulation block includes a unique pattern identifier, which is also present in the associated PLD. Using this pattern identifier, data and commands targeted to a specific PLD can be extracted from the scan chain, while ignoring data and commands targeted to other PLDs in the scan chain.

Hardware co-simulation allows a circuit or system designer to partition an electronic circuit design into multiple pieces, and to simulate or emulate one or more of these pieces on a hardware platform. The other portions of the design are typically simulated using software models running on a host PC workstation. The hardware platform operates under the control of the host workstation, which coordinates communication and data transfers between the software and hardware portions of the design. Hardware co-simulation can be advantageous over fully software-based simulations for numerous reasons, including simulation acceleration, the availability of hardware debug, and real-time verification capabilities.
Programmable logic devices (PLDs) are a well-known type of integrated circuit that can be programmed to perform specified logic functions. One type of PLD, the field, programmable gate array (FPGA), typically includes an array of programmable tiles. These programmable tiles can include, for example, input/output blocks (IOBs), configurable logic blocks (CLBs), dedicated random access memory blocks (BRAM), multipliers, digital signal processing blocks (DSPs), processors, clock managers, delay-locked loops (DLLs), and so forth.
Each programmable tile typically includes both programmable interconnect and programmable logic. The programmable interconnect typically includes a large number of interconnect lines of varying lengths interconnected by programmable interconnect points (PIPs). The programmable logic implements the logic of a circuit design using programmable elements that can include, for example, function generators, registers, arithmetic logic, and so forth.
The programmable interconnect and programmable logic are typically programmed by loading a stream of configuration data into internal configuration memory cells that define how the programmable elements are configured. The configuration data can be read from memory (e.g., from an external PROM) or written into the FPGA by an external device. The collective states of the individual memory cells then determine the function of the FPGA.
PLDs are well suited for hardware co-simulation, due to their reprogrammable nature. It is common for designs to be modified frequently during development. Therefore, in many cases it is useful to be able to co-simulate an up-to-date circuit. By using a PLD as the target platform, a circuit design can be re-complied into a PLD configuration data file once changes are made, and the PLD can be reprogrammed with the new configuration file.
Some PLD companies now provide co-simulations environments that support the use of their PLDs for co-simulation. For example, the "System Generator™ for DSP" software from Xilinx, Inc., is a high-level modeling system that allows electronic designs to be assembled, simulated, and translated into FPGA hardware. System Generator for DSP provides co-simulation interfaces that support numerous FPGA platforms, e.g., the Xilinx ML402 Evaluation Platform and other platforms. In System Generator for DSP, software interfaces and drivers to the PLD hardware are encapsulated by a "run-time hardware co-simulation block". A run-time co-simulation block functions like the other blocks in the circuit design, in that it has ports that produce and consume the same types of signals on which traditional blocks operate.
In the System Generator for DSP software, design hierarchy is supported by subsystems, or systems within other systems. A subsystem is represented as a special block in a "Simulink" diagram. Users can push into a subsystem block, which includes an additional diagram beneath it. Subsystems are used to identify the portion or portions of a design that a user wishes to co-simulate in hardware. When a particular subsystem is compiled for hardware co-simulation, everything within the subsystem is compiled into hardware resources. Once compilation is complete, a new run-time block is created that exposes the same external interface as the subsystem from which it was compiled. Additional information on how designs are compiled for hardware co-simulation can be found in the section entitled "Using FPGA Hardware in the Loop: Compiling a Model for Co-Simulation" (pages 187-189) of the "Xilinx System Generator for DSP v8.1 User's Guide" manual, which pages are hereby incorporated herein by reference. This document is dated Apr. 25, 2006, is available from Xilinx, Inc., and can also be found on the internet as of the filing date of the present patent application at: http://www.xilinx.com/support/sw_manuals/sysgen_ug.pdf.
One type of hardware co-simulation interface that has proved particularly useful is JTAG-based hardware co-simulation. JTAG hardware co-simulation allows any board with a JTAG header and a Xilinx FPGA to be used in the simulation-loop inside System Generator for DSP. To co-simulate a design, a user connects a programming cable (e.g., Platform Cable USB or Parallel Cable IV) to the JTAG header on the FPGA platform. Simulation commands and data are transmitted between the host workstation and hardware platform over the programming cable. Additional information on JTAG co-simulation can be found in the section entitled "Using FPGA Hardware in the Loop: JTAG Hardware Co-simulation" (pages 196-210) of the "Xilinx System Generator for DSP v8.1 User's Guide" manual, which pages are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
A shortcoming of the present system for co-simulation using JTAG is that the JTAG hardware co-simulation infrastructure does not support concurrent co-simulation using multiple PLDs. It is not uncommon for hardware co-simulation platforms to contain multiple PLD devices; however, JTAG co-simulation is not adequately supported for these platforms. Rather than a cohesive solution allowing concurrent co-simulation, JTAG co-simulation can only be performed using one of the PLDs at any given time.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide systems and methods enabling concurrent JTAG co-simulation of multiple PLDs in a co-simulation hardware platform.

Systems and methods of co-simulation utilizing multiple PLDs in a boundary scan chain


The disclosure herein describes a system for generating customizable summaries of multi-message conversations in email threads and other multi-message and multi-participant messaging applications. A summary icon is displayed if the number of messages in a thread exceeds a threshold number. Message data is cleaned and analyzed by ML models to generate feature vectors representing the messages content. Multiple loglinear regression models compute similarity between message sentences. Clustering algorithm(s) to generate a multi-message conversation thread summary based on the values. If the user selects the summary icon, the multi-message conversation thread summary is displayed. The summary includes summary sentences and/or annotations describing content of the messages in the thread, participants contributing to the messages in the thread, links back to the original messages in the thread and/or a count of the number of messages contributed by each participant.

Every day the users of email and other messaging applications receive long email or other message threads which contain conversations between multiple participants and a lot of questions and answers, or discussion about various topics. The participants contributing messages to the thread might be reaching an agreement on something common or raising various solutions to a problem. Moreover, these long messaging threads frequently have a lot of context and details of issues being discussed. There might be resolution to the issue, change in direction of discussion, or a mitigation agreed upon and being executed. However, it can be difficult or impossible to understand the full context without manually reading through the entire conversation thread in its entirety, one message at a time, to try and understand it. This can be a confusing, time-consuming, frustrating, and inefficient process for human users.

Multi-message conversation summaries and annotations


Provided is a single layer adhesive that provides the appropriate balance of adhesion and clean release required for a wafer dicing function and also provides the necessary bond required in a subsequent die attach step. The adhesive composition comprises an acrylate ester polymer having a functional group, a multi-functional thermosetting resin, wherein the acrylate ester polymer and the thermosetting resin are capable of reacting with each other, a multi-functional acrylate ester, an acrylate ester polymerization catalyst or curing agent, a thermally-latent catalyst suitable for curing the multi-functional thermosetting resin, and an acrylic acid salt.

Wafers of semiconductor material such as silicon and gallium-arsenide with integrated circuits formed thereon have a relatively large diameter. In the production of integrated circuits (IC), such a wafer is adhered to a pressure sensitive adhesive tape, sometimes called a dicing tape, and diced into IC chips. The IC chips (die or dice) are then removed from the dicing tape, an adhesive is applied to the chip or to a substrate, the chip is placed on the substrate and the adhesive is cured to attach the die to the substrate.
Dicing tapes must provide strong adhesion to a semiconductor wafer during the step of dicing the wafer into individual chips. However, the dicing tape also should subsequently provide a sufficiently low adhesion to the die to allow the individual chips to be removed from the tape quickly, cleanly, and easily. That is, it is useful for the dicing tape to have a reduced adhesion when the chip is removed, and there should be no residue from the dicing tape on the chip. Therefore dicing tapes have been prepared that have a balance of adhesion to the wafer to adhere strongly during the dicing step, but the tape also releases from the individual chips without leaving a residue on the chip when the chip is removed from the tape. Some dicing tapes have been prepared which may be detackified upon exposure to ultraviolet light to improve the clean removal of individual chips. Without a balance of adhesion, it is difficult to carry out the steps of dicing the wafer and picking and placing the individual chips. If the adhesion of the dicing tape is not balanced and some adhesive remains on the individual chip when it is removed from the dicing tape, additional steps are required to remove the adhesive residue from the chip. These additional steps often include organic solvents.
After the dicing operation and chip singulation is complete, a second adhesive subsequently must be placed between the chip and the substrate to hold the chip securely in place on a substrate. The second adhesive, often referred to as a die attach adhesive, can be applied to the surface of a chip that is opposite the circuits or it may be applied directly to the substrate to which the chip will be bonded. Using a separate die attach adhesive requires additional steps and equipment to place the adhesive either on the chip or the substrate. Some separate die attach adhesives have been epoxy resins that can be cured once the chip has been placed on the substrate.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


The present invention relates to two-sided illumination LED lens and LED module and an LED two-sided illumination system using the same; and, more particularly, to two-sided illumination LED lens and LED module including an incidence unit on which light impinges; a first exit unit corresponding to the incidence unit and transmitting a portion of the light upward; a reflection unit extended from the first exit unit and reflecting another portion of the light; and a second exit unit facing the first exit unit and transmitting the light reflected at the reflection unit downward, and an LED two-sided illumination system using the same.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to two-sided illumination LED lens and LED module and an LED two-sided illumination system using the same; and, more particularly, to two-sided illumination LED lens and LED module capable of allowing an LED to illuminate two sides and an LED two-sided illumination system using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an LED(Light Emitting Diode) is a semiconductor light emitting device which emits light when a current flows and converts electric energy into light energy as a PN junction diode made of GaAs and GaN optical semiconductors.
A region of light emitted from the LED ranges from red(630 nm˜700 nm) to blue-violet(400 nm) and also includes blue, green and white and the LED has advantages of low power consumption, high efficiency, a long operation lifetime and so on in comparison with conventional light such as an incandescent lamp and a fluorescent lamp and therefore the demand for the LED has been steadily increased.
Recently, an application range of the LED has been gradually expanded, that is, the LED has been applied to small illumination of a mobile terminal, illumination of a car, interior illumination, illumination of an exterior signboard or exterior illumination, and so on.
Particularly, the application range of the LED has been gradually expanded in the illumination signboard.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a two-sided illumination signboard 10 using a conventional LED.
Because unlike a fluorescent lamp, the general LED 11 irradiates light only to an emission surface and does not irradiate any light to an opposite surface thereof, as shown in FIG. 1, it needs to arrange the LEDs 11 and diffusion plates 13 on both sides of a circuit board 12.
Therefore, the construction of the two-sided illumination signboard using the LEDs has been complicated and the number of used LEDs has been increased, thereby augmenting a maintenance cost and a manufacture cost.

Two-sided illumination LED lens and LED module and LED two-sided illumination system using the same


Disclosed is a dispensing unit that may include a body having front wall, a first sidewall, a second sidewall, a floor, and a roof. In example embodiments the body may be configured to receive a second floor that may be arranged on the floor and the first and second sidewalls may be configured to receive holders for decorative members.

1. Field of the Invention
Example embodiments relate to a dispensing unit. In example embodiments, the dispensing unit may be configured to dispense articles such as lottery tickets.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the gaming industry, modular box-like structures are used for displaying and dispensing of lottery tickets. Normally, when a number of such dispensers are located together at a point of sale location, they are arranged in a stacked arrangement with one dispenser being stacked on top of another in a locked relationship. In the conventional art, the box-like structures have a body which may be partitioned into different regions to accommodate different card sizes. This is accomplished by providing various dividers in the body.


The present invention relates to an adhesive sheet, a manufacturing method thereof, an optical filter and a plasma display panel. The present invention provides an adhesive sheet having an excellent base adhesion property through a hydroxyl group applied to a base film and an isocyanate-based compound contained in an adhesive layer through a corona processing. Accordingly, the present invention provides an adhesive sheet having an excellent base adhesion property and improved high temperature stability by using a carboxyl group-containing acryl-based copolymer having a high glass transition temperature. Further, the adhesive sheet of the present invention contains a siloxane-based compound if needed, thus preventing an initial peeling force from being increased. Accordingly, the present invention provides an adhesive sheet with an excellent base adhesion property, high temperature stability, adhesive property and reworkability to glass, and provides a manufacturing method thereof, an optical filter containing the same and a plasma display panel.

Recently, the demand for high-definition and large-screen display devices such as digital televisions is increasing and thus improvements are being actively made in various fields such as cathode ray tubes (CRT), liquid crystal displays (LCD), and plasma display panels (PDP).
The CRT, which has been widely used in televisions, has a disadvantage that there is an increase in length and weight with an increase of screen size, although it has superior resolution and display quality. For this reason, the CRT is not suitable for large screens of 40 inches or more. The PDP can be implemented as a large screen, and a PDP of 100 inches has already been developed, whereby the PDP, together with the LCD, is at the head of the large-screen display field. However, the PDP has a problem in that the PDP filter is separated from glass due to high temperatures in the containers during shipping. Such separation occurs when a pressure-sensitive adhesive has a very low glass transition temperature (Tg) or its adhesive strength with respect to glass is reduced. To prevent the separation, it is necessary to secure stability at high temperature by increasing the Tg of the pressure-sensitive adhesive, and to increase the adhesive strength with respect to glass. In order to add high Tg and high adhesive strength to an acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesive that is mainly used in the PDP filter, a polar monomer including a carboxyl group should be used. However, the carboxyl group, although it increases the Tg of the pressure-sensitive adhesive, lowers close-adherence with respect to an adherend such as a base film, and builds up initial peeling strength, causing paste marks during reworking. Moreover, such a pressure-sensitive adhesive layer has very high adhesive strength with respect to a glass interface, whereby reworkability is significantly degraded due to high build-up of the peeling strength during high-speed peeling.
To solve the foregoing problems, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2005-263963 discloses a pressures-sensitive adhesive composition including an acrylic copolymer containing an isocyanate group. However, the disclosed technique has to use an isocyanate group-containing acrylic copolymer and an acrylic copolymer containing no isocyanate group as two separate components, resulting in a cumbersome process of mixing those two components before use. Furthermore, in this technique, the contained isocyanate group may react with glass, resulting in excessive increase of adhesive strength with respect to the glass interface.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 2006-143915 discloses a technique for forming a primer layer with resin having a reactive functional group on a polyester base film to improve adherence strength between the polyester base film and an acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesive. This technique, however, requires a very complex treatment process and greatly increases the manufacturing cost. Japanese Patent Publication No. 2006-290993 discloses a method for increasing close adherence to a base film by including methacrylate in a hydroxy group-containing acrylic copolymer. However, this technique fails to exhibit a greater Tg increase than the technique using a carboxyl group-containing monomer. In the above technique, to raise the amount of increase in Tg, an excessive amount of methacrylate monomer has to be added during polymerization. In this case, the molecular weight of the resin cannot be increased much, resulting in degradation of endurance reliability.

Adhesive sheet, manufacturing method thereof, optical filter and plasma display panel


A heat receiving apparatus includes a heat receiver including: a case that is provided at its inside with a flow path through which a refrigerant flows, and that conducts heat from a heat-generating part arranged outside the case; and a valve that is capable of changing a cross sectional area of a part of the flow path in a state where the refrigerant flows through the flow path.

It is known that a heat receiver which receives heat from a heat-generating part or the like and cools the heat-generating part or the like mounted on a printed circuit board installed in an electronic apparatus. A flow path through which a refrigerant flows is formed within the heat receiver. To improve the heat-receiving efficiency of the heat receiver, it is conceivable to increase a flow velocity of the refrigerant. For example, the flow path is designed so as to reduce a cross sectional area of a part of the flow path corresponding to a high temperature region of the heat-generating part, which increases the flow velocity of the refrigerant in the part, partially improving the heat-receiving efficiency. A technique related to such a heat receiver is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2004-134742, and 2012-28720.
Temperature distribution of the heat-generating part is changed in accordance with elapsed operating time of the heat-generating part or an operating condition thereof. For example, in some cases, the temperature of the whole heat-generating part is low, or the temperature of a part thereof is high. When the temperature of the whole heat-generating part is low, it is preferable that the cross sectional area of the flow path is large to some extent in order to reduce pressure loss. In contrast, when the temperature of a part of the heat-generating part is high, it is preferable that the cross sectional area of a part of the flow path corresponding to a high temperature region of the heat-generating part is small to some extent in order to improve the heat-receiving efficiency of receiving heat from the heat-generating part. However, a conventional heat receiver is not capable of changing the cross sectional area of the flow path on the basis of temporal change in the temperature distribution of the heat-generating part.

Heat receiving apparatus, cooling apparatus, and electronic apparatus


A powered device includes an interface that is responsive to a powered network and an integrated circuit device that is coupled to the interface to receive power and data from the powered network. The integrated circuit device includes a power rectification and protection device to generate a rectified power supply related to the power received from the interface, a switching regulator to selectively activate a switched power supply to associated load circuitry, and a power over Ethernet (PoE) controller. The PoE controller controls the switching regulator to provide the switched power supply to the associated load circuit when the rectified power supply is within an operating range.

Power over Ethernet (PoE), which is outlined in IEEE Std 802.3™-2005 clause 33 (the PoE standard), refers to a technique for delivering power and data to an electronic device via a network cable, such as a twisted pair Ethernet cable. Typically, a PoE system includes power sourcing equipment (PSE) to provide a power supply via Ethernet cabling to one or more electronic device, which may be referred to as powered devices. PoE reduces the need for a separate power source to deliver power to attached powered devices. Such powered devices may include voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephones, wireless routers, security devices, field devices to monitor process control parameters, data processors, and the like.
Generally, the PoE standard specifies that a powered device include a PoE compatible control device and a switch regulator device that takes a voltage supplied by the network cable (e.g. 36 to 57 Volts) and reduces the received voltage to a lower voltage level for use by circuit components of the powered device. For example, the lower voltage level may be within a range of 1.2 to 5 Volts.
Conventionally, powered devices utilize a PoE controller that is coupled to external diode bridges and external voltage protection devices. The PoE controller may be protected using external over-voltage or surge protection circuitry, but over-voltage conditions may still appear at an input of the switching regulator. To prevent breakdown due to over-voltage conditions, a high-voltage external switch may be used, which may have a high turn-on voltage, but which may increase the overall power consumption of the powered device.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved integrated circuit with a switching regulator and with PoE functionality.

Integrated circuit including a switching regulator design for power over Ethernet devices


In a distributed system where a plurality of sites broadcast data using a common communication line for data processing, the object site is identified by its unique identifier. When multiple sites are newly participating in the distributed system in operation, unique identifiers are allocated to the individual new sites.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of allocating identifiers for use in a distributed system using a LAN based on a broadcasting communication method such as a typical ETHERNET local area network and an apparatus for the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A distributed system using a local area network (LAN) is typical of distributed or parallel processing systems having a plurality of computers. In such a distributed system, the physical distances between computers (sites) constituting the system are limited to a relatively short distance. However, since the system of this type not only provides a communication line with a sufficient capacity but also allows use of most existing techniques, systems can be easily constructed. For this reason, the distributed system using a LAN have been developed in various places and put to practical use. In a distributed system, an identifier such as a site number, i.e., a unique number assigned to each site, is generally used to identify each site. Under this site identifying method, it is required that a new identifier is allocated to a new site when the new site enters the system.
Various conventional methods of allocating identifiers have been proposed. Those conventional identifier allocation methods are based on the assumption that the individual sites are physically connected to each other with n(n--1)/2 number of lines where n is the number of sites and, for example, that site i can communicate only with site j by specifying a communication port of the site j through one of the lines.
However, since, in the distributed system using a LAN based on a broadcasting communication method such as ETHERNET, each site broadcasts the same information to the other sites, the above assumption will not hold. Therefore, conventional identifier allocation methods cannot be applied to LAN-based distributed systems. This is because, in such distributed systems, new sites to which no identifiers have been assigned enter into the system almost at the same time, and it is impossible to inform each new site separately of the identifier assigned to that new site through the communication line. That is, in conventional identifier allocation methods, only one site to which no identifier has been assigned can exist at the same time in the distributed system. For this reason, in the system using the LAN based on the broadcasting communication method, for example, newly entering sites have been assigned identifiers beforehand and the users activate the desired sites using the assigned identifiers. This conventional method requires much time to allocate the identifiers and also raises some problems such as issuing duplicate identifiers and vulnerability to unauthorized entering.

Method of allocating identifiers and apparatus for the same


An evaporative emissions (EVAP) system for an engine of a vehicle includes an ion sensing system configured to measure a fuel/air ratio (FAR) within cylinders of the engine and a controller configured to, during an engine cold start period, perform open-loop lambda control of the engine including obtaining, from the ion sensing system, the measured FAR within the cylinders of the engine, comparing the measured FAR within the cylinders of the engine to a target FAR within cylinders of the engine, and based on the comparing, adjusting operation of at least one of the EVAP system and fuel injectors of the engine to maintain a stoichiometric operation of the engine, wherein the use of the ion sensing system for open-loop lambda control of the engine eliminates the need for a hydrocarbon (HC) sensor in the EVAP system.

Conventional evaporative emissions (EVAP) systems include a vapor canister and vapor transport lines. The vapor canister traps fuel vapor that evaporates from liquid fuel (e.g., gasoline) stored in a fuel tank of the vehicle. Engine vacuum is typically utilized to deliver the fuel vapor from the vapor canister to the engine through the vapor transport lines and into intake ports of the engine. The specific composition or concentration of the fuel vapor, however, is unknown. As a result, EVAP systems have been developed that utilize a hydrocarbon (HC) sensor for measuring the amount of fuel vapor being provided to the engine. These HC sensors, however, are expensive. Thus, while such EVAP systems do work well for their intended purpose, there remains a need for improvement in the relevant art.


A signal processing method includes sampling an analog signal, which has a spectral density defining one or more bands, to produce a digitized signal. A spectral transform of the digitized signal is expressed as a matrix multiplied by a vector, wherein the vector includes multiple elements that represent the spectral density of the analog signal as a function of frequency within respective spectral slices. Indices of a subset of the elements of the vector, in which the spectral density is concentrated, is determined. The analog signal is reconstructed from the digitized signal using the subset of the elements of the vector and a corresponding subset of columns of the matrix having the indices.

Reception and reconstruction of analog signals are performed in a wide variety of applications, including wireless communication systems, spectrum management applications, radar systems, medical imaging systems and many others. In many of these applications, an information-carrying analog signal is sampled, i.e., converted into digital samples. The information is then reconstructed by processing the digital samples.
The minimum sampling rate needed for perfect reconstruction of an arbitrary sampling method was established by Landau in "Necessary Density Conditions for Sampling and Interpolation of Certain Entire Functions," Acta Mathematica, volume 17, number 1, July, 1967, pages 37-52, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Various methods for signal sampling and reconstruction are known in the art. Some sampling and reconstruction methods refer to bandpass or band-limited signals, and in particular to multi-band signals, i.e., signals that are confined to a finite set of spectral bands. Methods for sampling bandpass signals are described, for example, by Vaughan et al. in "The Theory of Bandpass Sampling," IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, volume 39, September, 1991, pages 1973-1984, and by Kohlenberg in "Exact Interpolation of Band-Limited Functions," Journal of Applied Physics, volume 24, December, 1953, pages 1432-1435, which are incorporated herein by reference.
Lin and Vaidyanathan describe methods for periodic non-uniform sampling of multi-band signals in "Periodically Non-Uniform Sampling of Bandpass Signals," IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II, volume 45, number 3, March, 1998, pages 340-351, which is incorporated herein by reference. Methods for sampling and reconstruction of multi-band signals are also described by Herley and Wong in "Minimum Rate Sampling and Reconstruction of Signals with Arbitrary Frequency Support," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, volume 45, July, 1999, pages 1555-1564, and by Venkataramani and Bresler in "Perfect reconstruction Formulas and Bounds on Aliasing Error in Sub-Nyquist Nonuniform Sampling of Multiband Signals," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, volume 46, September, 2000, pages 2173-2183, which are incorporated herein by reference.
Additional methods for sampling and reconstruction of multi-band signals are described by Feng and Bresler in "Spectrum-Blind Minimum-Rate Sampling and Reconstruction of Multiband Signals," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ASSP), May 7-10, 1996, Atlanta, Ga., and by Bresler and Feng in "Spectrum-Blind Minimum-Rate Sampling and Reconstruction of 2-D Multiband Signals," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, Lausanne, Switzerland, Sep. 16-19, 1996, which are incorporated herein by reference.

Spectrum-blind sampling and reconstruction of multi-band signals

Technion Research & Development Foundation Ltd.


A signal cable is provided with a first signal line and second signal line which are respectively connected between a first signal device and a second signal device and are constructed so as to transmit appointed signals, wherein the second signal line is a constant potential line and connects the first shielding line to the second signal line at the same potential at the first signal device side and simultaneously connects the second shielding line to the second signal line at the same potential at the second signal device side. Especially, there are two cases, one of which is a case where the first shielding line is conductively connected to the second signal line at the first signal device side, and simultaneously conductively connects the second shielding line to the second signal line at the second signal device side, and the other of which is a case where the second shielding line is conductively connected to the second signal line at the first signal device side, and simultaneously conductively connects the first shielding line to the second shielding line at the second signal device side.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a signal cable for transmitting electric signals, and in particular to a preferable technique when the signal cable is connected to an acoustic device or video device and is used as a high quality acoustic signal cable or video signal cable for increasing the transmission efficiency of acoustic signals or video signals.
2. Prior Arts
Conventionally, a two-strand coaxial cable equipped with a pair of signal lines and shielded by a shielding line provided at the circumference thereof via an insulating layer and a set of coaxial cable which shields a signal line with a shielding line via an insulating layer have been used as an acoustic cable or video cable making a connection between acoustic devices or video devices.
An acoustic cable or video cable is required to transmit signals in such states that the transmission signals are prevented from being attenuated and major frequency components of the signals to be transmitted are faithfully maintained, in order to increase the transmission efficiency of signals transmitted by the cable. Therefore, these kinds of signal cables are variously devised to decrease the attenuation and strain of a signal waveform and to eliminate influences due to external noise by improving the amplitude characteristics and phase characteristics of signals to be transmitted.
As one of these devices, for example, a balance type two-strand shield cable which is a set of coaxial cable consisting of a signal line and a shielding line to shield the signal line via an insulation layer is disclosed in Japanese patent publication No. Hei-3-17330, wherein the shield line connected for continuity to the inputting part of the signal line is prepared, and the set of cable is further shielded and formed by a common grounding shield.
Furthermore, another Japanese patent publication Hei-1-302612 discloses a cable in which a set of signal lines and shield line are connected to each other at the inputting side similarly to that in the above patent, the circumference thereof is shielded by another shield line, and these are further shielded by insulation resin.
These signal cables succeeded in decreasing the loss of transmission signals and influences of external noise to some degrees by further providing another shield line outside the shield line of the coaxial cable as shown above.
The above signal cables have been greatly improved with regard to both faithfulness of transmission signals and elimination of external noise, in comparison with prior conventional signal cables. However, it is necessary to shield signal lines by two conductor layers via three insulation layers, and furthermore as it is necessary to connect the respective two shield lines to the signal lines and an grounding end of a device in addition to the signal lines at the connection, the construction thereof is complicated to cause it to be very difficult to lower the production cost thereof.
Furthermore, there are some acoustic devices and video devices, which function improperly if a shield line of the signal cable is connected to the grounding line of the device. In a case where it is intended that the signal cable is connected to such devices, it is necessary to secure a separate protection circuit between the grounding line of the device and internal circuits. Still furthermore, some devices do not have any grounding line to which the shield line of signal cable is connected. In a case where the above signal cable is connected to such devices, it is necessary to provide grounding in addition to the device.

Signal cable having parallel arranged shielded conductive lines


A thin film transistor and a non-volatile memory device are provided. The thin film transistor comprises a gate electrode, and a metal oxide channel layer traversing the upper or lower portions of the gate electrode. The metal oxide channel layer has semiconductor properties while having bixbyite crystals. An insulating layer is disposed between the gate electrode and the metal oxide channel layer. Source and drain electrodes are electrically connected to both ends of the metal oxide channel layer, respectively.

As a silicon film used as a semiconductor film of a transistor, an amorphous silicon film or a polycrystalline silicon film is used depending on applications. For example, in the case of a transistor included in a large-sized display device, it is preferable to use an amorphous silicon film that can have relatively uniform characteristics even though it is formed in a large area. On the other hand, in the case of a device including a driving circuit or the like, it is preferable to use a polycrystalline silicon film capable of exhibiting high field-effect mobility. As a method for forming the polycrystalline silicon film, methods are known in which an amorphous silicon film is subjected to high-temperature heat treatment or laser light treatment.
Recently, research is being conducted using an oxide semiconductor as a channel layer of a transistor (JP Publication 2006-165528). However, most of the oxide semiconductor layer is an amorphous layer, and is known to be electrically and chemically unstable, and it is known that it is difficult to exhibit sufficient field-effect mobility.

Thin film transistor and vertical non-volatile memory device including metal oxide channel layer having bixbyite crystal

Industry-University Cooperation Foundation Hanyang University


An outer rotor type fan-motor includes: a rotational shaft; a bearing assembly that rotatably supports the rotational shaft; a stator installed at an outer side of the bearing assembly; a permanent magnet assembly that covers an outer side of the stator at a certain distance and is installed at the rotational shaft; and a fan that includes a shaft fixing part for fixing the rotational shaft, a hub for covering an outer side of the permanent magnet assembly at a certain distance and blades formed around the hub. An insulation space is formed between the permanent magnet assembly and the fan to prevent transfer of vibration and noise of the permanent magnet assembly to the fan, and vibration or noise of high frequency can be reduced.

In general, as a blow fan applied to a refrigerator, an inner rotor-type fan motor in which a rotor installed within a stator is rotated has been known, and in such an inner-rotor type fan motor, cooling air is circulatively supplied into a refrigerator according to its blowing operation.
Recently, an outer rotor type fan-motor that can be made compact with respect to a diameter direction and an axial direction is employed in consideration of an installation space within the refrigerator.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the related art outer rotor type fan-motor. As shown in FIG. 1, the outer rotor type fan-motor 10 includes a rear bearing assembly 14 substantially attached to a casing (not shown), a stator 11 attached to the rear bearing assembly 14, a front bearing assembly 13 attached to the stator 11, a rotor 12 having a rotational shaft 15, which is supported to be freely rotated by the both bearing assemblies 13 and 14, at its central portion, and a fan unit 20 installed at an outer circumference of the rotor 12.
In detail, the rotor 12 is disposed at an outer circumference of the stator 11 and has a cylindrical cup shape, and includes a permanent magnet 12a attached on an inner circumferential surface of the rotor 12. One end portion of the rotational shaft 15 is fixedly press-fit at a central portion of one end portion of the rotor 12.
With such a structure, in the so-called outer rotor type fan-motor 10, the rotational shaft 15 is rotatably supported by the front bearing assembly 13 and the rear bearing assembly 14, and the permanent magnet 12 is disposed to face the stator 11 with a slight space therebetween.
The fan unit 20 is made of a synthetic resin material and includes a hub 22 that covers the outer circumferential portion of the rotor 12 and a plurality of blades 21 extending in a diameter direction on an outer circumferential surface of the hub 22. An shaft fixing part 22a to be combined with the rotational shaft 15 is protrusively formed at the central portion of the hub 22.
The outer rotor type fan-motor 10 may be constructed by directly attaching the permanent magnet 12 on an inner surface of the hub 22.
With reference to FIG. 2, the outer circumference of the rotor 12 directly contacts and is combined with an inner surface of the bottom of the hub 22 of the fan unit 20.
The rotor 12 is rotated according to interaction between the stator 11 and the rotor 12, and as the hub 22 combined by directly contacting with an outer surface of the rotor 12 is rotated together with the rotor 12, the fan unit 20 is rotated.
Accordingly, in the related art fan motor 10 as described above, when the fan motor 10 is rotated, electromagnetic exciting force generated through the space between the stator 11 and the permanent magnet 12a excites the permanent magnet 12a and the exciting force is emanated through the fan unit 20 which directly contacts and is combined with the permanent magnet 12.
Meanwhile, in order to prevent vibration or noise of the permanent magnet 12 from being transferred to the fan unit 20, in some cases, an embossing surface is formed to minimize a contact portion in combining the rotor 12 or the permanent magnet 12 and the hub 22, but in this case, a partial noise is still emanated through the fan unit 20.
As for the emanated noise, in the related art outer rotor type fan-motor, as shown in FIG. 3, a large amount of high frequency noise is generated in the frequency range of 2000 Hz or higher. In addition to the problem of the generation of the high frequency noise, the high frequency noise has a bad influence on the durability of the outer rotor type fan-motor especially in a resonated state.


A computer-implemented method for monitoring programs may include (1) placing a program within an enclave that includes a protected address space that code outside of the protected address space is restricted from accessing, (2) hooking an application programming interface call within the program in the enclave to monitor the behavior of the program, (3) inserting an enclave entry instruction into code outside of the protected address space that the program accesses through the hooking of the application programming interface call, and (4) monitoring the behavior of the program by executing the program within the enclave in an attempt to force the program to use the hooked application programming interface call in order to access data outside the enclave. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

Individuals and organizations often seek to protect their computing resources from attackers and malicious software. To protect their computing resources, these individuals may install and use security software, including anti-malware software. The security software that individuals use to protect their computing resources may work in a variety of ways. For example, security vendors may identify malicious programs and generate digital fingerprints that uniquely identify those programs. At client computing systems, security software agents may generate digital fingerprints for newly encountered software and then compare the new digital fingerprints with the digital fingerprints known to be malicious.
To determine that a software program is malicious, the security vendors may also perform a behavioral analysis of the program's behavior. For example, the security vendors may monitor the actions and instructions that the program performs in a controlled environment on a backend server. More specifically, the security vendors may monitor particular application programming interface calls that the program makes to external operating system resources. Based on an analysis of these calls, the security vendors may more accurately categorize the program as safe or malicious. Nevertheless, as disclosed in the present application, attackers are developing techniques for bypassing the monitoring of application programming interface calls, while still performing malicious functions. For example, the programs may bypass one or more lines at the entry point of the application programming interface call, thereby avoiding hooking and monitoring of the call, as discussed further below. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for monitoring programs.

Systems and methods for monitoring programs


An air intake for an engine of the type powering a water propulsion device of a watercraft is disclosed. The air intake includes an air box with at least one intake opening leading into an interior chamber. An intake passage leads from a combustion chamber of the engine to the interior chamber of the air box. The intake passage is defined at least in part by an intake pipe having a free end positioned within the interior chamber of the air box. The free end of the intake pipe is flared. In addition, one or more drain passages are preferably provided in the air box for allowing water to flow from the box to a point exterior thereof.

Watercraft, especially those of the type known as personal watercraft, are commonly powered by internal combustion engines positioned within their hulls. These engines are arranged to drive a water propulsion device for propelling the craft.
As is well known, it is undesirable to allow water to enter the intake system of such an engine, as the water may foul the combustion chamber(s) and cause the engine to stall or stop. In addition, the water may be passed through the engine to a catalyst positioned in the exhaust system, damaging it as well.
It is common for the air intake to be positioned at the top of the engine and may open upwardly. In the watercraft setting, this is undesirable, since water may flow directly into the intake and down into the engine. Thus, as one method for reducing the opportunity for water to enter the intake system, the air intake opening leading to the engine may be positioned within an air box, with air supplied to the air box through an inlet or pipe.
A problem also exists with this arrangement relating to the nature of personal watercraft. This type of watercraft is often capsized, laying on either side or completely upside down. When this occurs, water in the engine compartment or elsewhere may then still enter the air box or air intake to the engine.
An improved air intake arrangement for an engine of the type utilized to power a watercraft is desired.

Air intake for personal watercraft engine


A method and device for dispensing plastic shopping bags in one or more different packs, each pack having bags of the same size with hook-receiving openings in the vicinity of the top edges of its bags, the device including a rack behind and below which is provided a downwardly extending hooking element centrally aligned with the bar. The bags of each pack may be brought up and draped over the mounting plate in reverse position, then their hook-receiving openings are pushed over the hooking elements. After being so disposed and hooked, the bags are then brought back forward from their reverse position and draped over the transverse bar to cause them to hang downwardly in front of the hooking element. Removal of a bag is accomplished by grasping the downwardly hanging bag and pulling out from the remainder of the draped bag packs to detach it from the hooking element.

In recent years, plastic merchandise bags of various types have largely supplanted paper bags in retail stores. Among the reasons for this development are the fact that plastic bags are cheaper, easier to handle, to ship and to store, and more easily recycled and may be readily provided in a plurality of different sizes and configurations which they may often desire to hand to the customer at the time of sale in a shopping bag of a size most suitable to encompass the particular item or items of merchandise.
Among the more popular types of plastic bags are what have been termed "T-shirt" style merchandising bags and various other configurations of bags known as "merchandise bags". These may be provided by plastic bag manufacturers, either in rolls, or in a series of interconnected bags blocked-on-headers or fused together in some other fashion, or in packs in which bags of identical size and configuration are placed one upon another and may be shipped to the retailer in boxes or plastic or other wrappings. The present invention involves the dispensing of the latter types of bag packages i.e., those not shipped to the retailer in rolls.
The T-shirt bag in the non-rolled shipped form comprises a pair of side panels which are connected along their side and bottom edges to define a cavity adapted to receive articles. Each side of the bag towards it upper area is provided with a pair of straps spaced apart from each other. The straps of the two sides of the panels are joined together along their upper edges and may be open along their side edges, thereby to form two separate handles with open spacing between them above the upper open edges of the bag. These upper edges are not closed except for a small center area where the two abutting edges are joined by a pair of detachable looped or slotted extensions, known as blocked headers or tabs. These headers are not only joined together, but they may be joined with the corresponding extensions of adjacent bags, thereby to enable packs of bags to be kept together for handling and mounting on some type of horizontally extending projection which may be passed through the registering loops or slots in the extensions of a bag pack. In this manner, these extensions provide a hook-receiving opening. Examples of such mountings are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,819,898; 4,840,335; 4,981,216; 4,995,860 and 5,020,750.
All configurations of non-rolled merchandise bags have a closed bottom and sides with an open top defined by edges extending between the sides. These bags may be manufactured to incorporate a hook-receiving opening at a predetermined location, either above or below the open top of the bags. These bags may be joined together by fusing them in a variety of ways, enabling packs of bags to be kept together for handling and mounting in some type of horizontally extending projection which may be passed through the hook-receiving opening of a bag pack.
Heretofore, as seen from the patents listed above, principal attention has been given primarily to providing a method and means for dispensing bags of a single size, such as those for groceries in supermarkets.
The supermarket racks and techniques, however, are not satisfactory for merchandisers of garments, cosmetics, footwear, household articles, personal items, etc. A retailer vending any variety of goods ordinarily desires to be able to deposit the customer's purchases in some type of convenient shopping bag--one which is appropriate in size to the size of the item purchased. This renders it desirable for a retailer's cashier checkout station to have available packs of a plurality of one or more sizes of bags. However, if each different size bag pack is separately and singly mounted for ripping off and removal by the cashier or other store clerk, not only will considerable space be required, but also it may be necessary for the clerk to waste time and energy moving about to reach the different bag packs. This is not only inconvenient, but may be fatiguing for the clerks. What is desirable, therefore, is some type of rack arrangement whereby a plurality of packs of different size bags may be mounted together for convenient removal by a clerk exerting a minimum of effort and movement in or about his or her work station. It is also desirable to provide a simple method and means for dispensing bags from a single sized pack.

Method of and means for dispensing shopping bags from different size bag packs


A safety kick plate device and improved manufacturing thereof, wherein the safety kick plate device includes a base component including a communication element through which a light emission component is visible. A communication protection element provides reinforcement and strength to the communication element as well as mitigates damage to the light emission component.

Safety devices are used on architectural structures in a variety of environments to reduce risk. Many environments exist where various poor lighting scenarios occur, for example, dimmed lighting or darkness due to a power failure or smoke resultant from a fire. Risks may occur when people attempt to navigate in poorly lit environments; such risks include physical injury, lack of orientation, lack of information regarding navigation, and lack of familiarity with the environment.
Recently, laws, ordinances, codes, and/or regulations have been implemented that require certain safety signage in public gathering places—both new and existing structures—and include, for example, safety signage in egress pathways to communicate exits from the environment. Examples of public gathering places include, for example, high rise buildings, hotels, dormitories, arenas, stadiums, hospitals, underground environments such as parking structures and subways, prisons, and institutions to name a few. Although, even where signage is not required, certain circumstances may necessitate signage, for example, to indicate an unexpected stair on private property.
The prior art devices that are currently available are deficient in several respects including limitations in design and manufacturability. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,843,010 discloses a sign that requires light actuated by electricity. This presents the disadvantage of routing electrical wiring, which may not be feasible in certain environments. Further, because the sign requires electricity, the sign may not work when the power goes out such as in a blackout.
United States Patent Application Publication No. US 2007/0137077 discloses a sign that includes a photo-luminescent material, but also includes a lighting source of a plurality of light emitting diodes for charging the photo-luminescent material. Like that mentioned above, an electrical source is required.
While the prior art devices fulfill their respective particular objectives and requirements, the need still remains for safety devices and manufacturing methods thereof that fulfill the deficiencies of the prior art devices and provide additional functionality. The present invention satisfies this need.

Safety kick plate device and manufacturing methods


A light scanning unit includes: a light source generating and irradiating at least one beam corresponding to an image signal; a beam deflector deflecting and scanning the beam irradiated by the light source; and an f-θ lens forming an image from the beam deflected by the beam deflector onto a surface to be scanned, the f-θ lens being provided as one lens and satisfies the following equation (2):

1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a light scanning unit that scans an incident beam to be deflected onto a photosensitive medium and to an image forming apparatus using the same. More particularly, aspects of the present invention relate to a light scanning unit that has a structure for enhancing its sensitivity to curvature of a scanning line at a scanning surface due to a placement error of an f-θ lens and an image forming apparatus using the same.
2. Related Art
Generally, a light scanning unit is employed in image forming apparatuses such as laser beam printers, digital copiers, facsimile machines and multi-functional devices. Such a light scanning unit is used to deflect a laser beam irradiated from a light source and scan the laser beam in a main scanning direction of a photosensitive medium. An electrostatic latent image is formed on the exposed medium through scanning by the light scanning unit (referred to as "main scanning") and by the movement of the exposed medium (referred to as "sub-scanning").
The light scanning unit is also required to decrease the curvature of a scanning line on the scanning surface, which is associated with a placement error of an optical system.
In the light scanning unit, generation of the curvature of the scanning line due to the placement error of the optical system depends on a shape of an optical component and a sub-scanning magnification. The optical component usually has the shape of a lens in the main scanning direction, and its operation is influenced by whether light that has passed through a collimating lens is a parallel light or a converging light and by the number and location of f-θ lenses. In addition, an average and a deviation of the sub-scanning magnification are important factors in determining the magnification by the number and the location of the f-θ lenses and radii of curvature of an incident surface and an exit surface of the f-θ lenses.
Such a conventional light scanning unit is described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2004-184655 "OPTICAL SCANNER AND IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS USING SAME" (Jul. 2, 2004). For example, FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B show a conventional light scanning unit arranged to scan a laser beam in a main scanning direction of an exposed photosensitive medium. Referring to FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, the conventional light scanning unit comprises a light source 1 that generates and irradiates a beam, a beam deflector 5 that deflects an incident beam to scan the beam irradiated by the light source 1 onto an exposed medium 8, and an f-θ lens 9 that corrects an error contained in the beam deflected by the beam deflector 5. The conventional light scanning unit may also include a diaphragm 2, a collimating lens 3 that collects the beam irradiated by the light source 1, via the diaphragm 2, to be a parallel beam, and a cylindrical lens 4 that shapes the beam. The diaphragm 2, collimating lens 3 and cylindrical lens 4 are installed in an optical path between the light source 1 and the beam deflector 5.
The beam deflector 5 comprises a rotary polygonal mirror rotated by a driving source (not shown). The beam irradiated by the light source 1 changes its direction while it is reflected by the rotating beam deflector 5, thus determining a scanning direction. That is, if the rotary polygonal mirror rotates in a direction A, the incident beam is reflected by a reflecting surface 5a of the rotary polygonal mirror and scanned in a main scanning direction B onto a scanning surface of the exposed medium 8.
The f-θ lens 9 comprises two lenses, a first lens 6 and a second lens 7. The first lens 6 has a meniscus shape in its main scanning sectional view, and thus has a positive refractive power. If "fm" is a focal distance in the main scanning surface of the exposed medium 8 and d1 is a center thickness of the first lens 6, a condition of d1/fm<0.06 is satisfied. The second lens 7 has a surface corresponding to the incident beam that is formed as a non-spherical surface or an oval surface without an inflection point, in a sub-scanning direction. If R is the radius of curvature on a beam axis in the main scanning surface sectional view of the surface corresponding to the incident beam, a condition of 2.5<|R/fm| is satisfied.
Therefore, according to the conventional light scanning unit, the curvature of the scanning line can be minimized by lens placement and conditions mentioned above when there is a parallel eccentricity that corresponds to a movement of the f-θ lens 9 in the sub-scanning direction.
On the other hand, since the conventional light scanning unit as described with reference to FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B is configured as an infinite optical system, where the beam that has passed through the collimating lens 3 is scanned parallel and two f-θ lenses 9 are used to improve the sensitivity to curvature of a scanning line, there is a disadvantage in that a degree of freedom of the lens placement is decreased or limited. Accordingly, if a tandem type light scanning unit is symmetrically configured to center around the beam deflector, the degree of freedom of an optical placement is inevitably decreased.
In addition, when two f-θ lenses 9 are used, even if the sensitivity is sufficiently decreased in an optical design, the possibility of occurrence of a placement error is high compared to when a single f-θ lens is used. As a result, the possibility of a lowered performance is increased. Moreover, the manufacturing cost is higher and likewise, the productivity in manufacturing the conventional light scanning unit is lower, compared to a light scanning unit having a single f-θ lens.

Light scanning unit and image forming apparatus using the same

Abstract: -          0.2                <                                            SAG                                                                                1                        +                          SAG                                                                                2                                            d            2                          <        0.2                            (        2        )            where SAG 1 is Z value of an incident surface of the f-θ lens, which faces the beam deflector, SAG 2 is Z value of the exit surface of the f-θ lens, which faces the surface to be scanned, based on an XYZ coordinate system in which a main scanning plane is a Y-Z plane and a sub-scanning plane is an X-Z plane, and d2 is a center thickness of the f-θ lens.


An oxide etching method using low-medium density plasma includes a first etching step to pre-etch the oxide layer with low etching selectivity etchant to pre-form a contact opening and a monitoring opening. The low etching selectivity etchant can also etch the photoresist layer and the photoresist reaction residue. Then, a second etching with high etching selectivity on the oxide is performed to completely form the contact opening with a SAC property and the monitoring opening. The openings expose the substrate.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an oxide etching method, and more particularly to a method of etching oxide using low-medium density plasma to form a self-aligned contact (SAC).
2. Description of Related Art
In the current semiconductor fabrication processes, because the integration of an integrated circuit (IC) is very high, an IC chip no longer has adequate surface area for making the large number of required interconnects. In order to make the required interconnects used for connecting large numbers of reduced-dimension metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors, an IC design including two metal layers of interconnects is gradually becoming widely used. A contact opening for electrically connecting the metal layers has therefore been developed.
However, because the distance between each element in the MOS device is usually quite small, misalignment often occurs during pattern transfer. This causes unexpected etching on the metal layers in a subsequent etching process and results in a short circuit or current leakage. A self-aligned contact (SAC) has therefore been developed to solve the misalignment problem.
Current semiconductor technology has achieved sub-micron dimensions. Under this technology, the formation of SAC is more critical to the fabrication of a logic device, a DRAM device or a SRAM device. The SAC can currently be formed by low-medium density plasma oxide etchings, such as magnetic enhanced reactive ion etching (MERIE), reactive ion etching (RIE), or IEM.
FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B are cross-sectional views schematically illustrating a conventional oxide etch using low-medium density plasma. In FIG. 1A, a gate 102 with a spacer 104 on both sides is formed over a semiconductor substrate 100. The gate 102 in the conventional example is schematically shown as two gates 102. The spacer 104 includes, for example, silicon nitride. Next, an oxide layer 106 is formed over the substrate 100 by, for example, chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Next, a photoresist layer (not shown) is coated over the oxide layer 106 and is patterned to form a first photoresist layer 108a, which covers the gates 102 region, and a second photoresist layer 108b. The first photoresist layer 108a has an opening 109a, located above and between the gates 102. The second photoresist layer 108b has a wider opening 109b.
In FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, the oxide layer 106 is patterned, according to the first photoresist layer 108a, to form a contact opening 110, which exposes the substrate 100 and the spacer 104 between the gates 102. The oxide layer 106 is patterned, according to the second photoresist layer 108b, to form a monitoring opening 112, which is wider than the contact opening 110. The patterning process includes, for example, using a MERIE oxide etching with an etchant of a mixed gas of C.sub.4 F.sub.8 /CO/Ar. This mixed gas has a higher etching selectivity on the oxide layer 106 than on the spacer 104 so that the spacer 104 remains intact.
The photoresist layer 108a and 108b are usually made of polymer, and polymer can react with the etchant to produce carbolic particles which get dumped into the monitoring opening 112. A micro-loading may then occur in the monitoring opening 112 which degrades the subsequent etching efficiency so that the monitoring opening 112 as shown in FIG. 1B doesn't expose the substrate 100 and the daily quality measurement cannot effectively be monitored. The end result is that the IC chip quality cannot be effectively controlled.


A chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) proximity correction method for polishing a wafer is provided. The wafer has a polish area and a protected area. The method includes forming a material layer over the wafer to cover the polish area and the protected area and then forming a protective layer over the material layer. Thereafter, the protective layer is patterned so that the remaining protective layer is at a distance away from the boundary of the polish area to reduce shadowing effects. Because the boundary of the protective layer above the material layer recedes to an area at a distance away from polish area, the whole polish area can be cleanly polished.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process. More particularly, the present invention relates to a chemical-mechanical polishing proximity correction method and correction pattern thereof for reducing shadowing effects.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many types of processes are used in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. However, photolithographic process is one of the most important because that is what the critical dimension (CD) and hence overall level of integration of the finished product depends. To increase the critical dimension in photolithography, a few methods for increasing the resolution of photomask such as optical proximity correction (OPC) and phase shift mask (PSM) has been developed.
The optical proximity correction is a method that attempts to eliminate the deviation of critical dimension due to proximity effect. Proximity effect is most prominent for a fabrication process with a small line width. An optical proximity correction method is applied to resolve proximity effect in the active area and the outer corners in U.S. Pat. No. 6,451,680, for example.
The aforementioned proximity effect also occurs when a chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) operation is performed to polish a wafer in the fabrication of integrated circuit. In general, the problem is most significant in the corner region of a polish area.
FIG. 1 is a top view showing a conventional method of defining a wafer into a protected area and a polish area before performing a chemical-mechanical polishing operation. FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view along line II—II of FIG. 1. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a wafer 100 with device structures 200 therein is provided. The wafer 100 is divided into a polish area 102 and a protected area 104. Before carrying out a chemical-mechanical polishing operation, a material layer 202 is formed over the wafer 100 so that a portion of the material layer 202 within the polish area 102 is subsequently removed. To protect the device structures 200 outside the polish area 102, a protective layer is formed over the material layer 202 and then the protective layer within the polish area 102 is removed so that a protective layer 204 remains over the protected area 104.
In general, the upper surface of the protective layer 204 within the protected area 104 and the upper surface of the stop layer (the device structures 200) within the polish area 102 may not be at the same horizontal level. Typically, the protective layer 204 is at a slightly higher level. This causes the so-called shadowing effect at the boundary between the polish area 102 and the protected area 104. In other words, the material below the dash line in FIG. 2 (a boundary strip just outside the protected area 104) is very difficult to remove.
One solution to the shadowing effect is shown in FIG. 3. FIG. 3 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing another conventional method of defining a wafer into a protected area and a polish area before performing a chemical-mechanical polishing operation. As shown in FIG. 3, the wafer 300 is divided into a polish area 302 and a protected area 304. Furthermore, device structures 301 and 303 are formed in the polish area 302 and the protected area 304 of the wafer 300 respectively. The stop layer within the polish area 302 (the upper section of the device structure 301) is raised to match the top surface of the protective layer 308 within the protected area 304. Since the top of the device structure 301 is at a higher or the same level as the top surface of the protective layer 308, shadowing effect is eliminated after the material layer 306 is removed in a chemical-mechanical polishing operation. However, this method demands a major modification of the device structures inside a wafer and hence unsuitable for fabricating most semiconductor devices.

Chemical-mechanical polishing proximity correction method and correction pattern thereof


Description and specifications of a new and distinct blackberry cultivar named ‘A-1960’ which originated from seed produced by a hand pollinated cross of Ark. Selection Ark.-1583 (non-patented, unreleased genotype; female)×Ark.-1482 (non-patented, unreleased genotype; male) is provided. This new blackberry cultivar can be distinguished by its very firm fruit with long shape, medium-large size, attractive fruit appearance, very good flavor, excellent plant health, and cane erectness.

The new floricane-fruiting cultivar of blackberry called 'A-1960' is described herein. The new cultivar originated from a hand-pollinated cross of Ark. selections Ark.-1583×Ark.-1482 made in 1991. The seeds resulting from this controlled hybridization were germinated in a greenhouse in the spring of 1992 and planted in a field near Clarksville, Ark. (West-Central Arkansas). The seedlings fruited in the summer of 1994. One seedling, designated 'A-1960', was selected in 1994 for its very firm fruit with long shape, medium-large size, attractive fruit appearance, very good flavor, excellent plant health, and cane erectness.

The Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas


Apparatus, systems, and methods for enabling a user to access internal storage in the computing device when the computing device is inactive are disclosed. The computing devices include a primary bus and a secondary bus to access an internal storage device in the computing device, and a bus switch capable of detecting if the computing device is inactive connected to the primary bus and the secondary bus. When the computing device becomes inactive (e.g., is malfunctioning, lacks sufficient power, and is switched off), the bus switch switches access to the internal storage device from being via the primary bus to being via the secondary bus. As such, an external computing device is capable of accessing data in the computing device relatively easily when the computing device is inactive.

Computing devices (e.g., personal computer, laptop computer, cellular telephone, pager, personal digital assistant (PDA), BlackBerry, Palm Pilot, MP3 player, and the like) sometimes malfunction (e.g., crash, break, hang, freeze, and the like). Furthermore, portable computing devices require a power source (e.g., a battery) that sometimes becomes completely discharged (e.g., through use) rendering portable computing devices at least temporarily inoperable if users do not have a replacement battery or other type of power source (e.g., an electrical cord). In situations where computing devices have malfunctioned or are otherwise inoperable because they are unable to receive sufficient power, access to data stored in the internal storage of these computing devices is generally unavailable.
Prior apparatus, systems and methods for retrieving data from malfunctioning or devices that are not receiving sufficient power require that the internal storage devices be removed from the computing devices and be connected to a special device that can extract the data from the removed internal storage devices to make data available while the computing device is being repaired, replaced, or the battery is being charged. This process typically requires skill and knowledge beyond the capabilities of the average user. As such, when computing devices malfunction, average users are required to take their computing devices to a technician to extract the data from the internal storage devices, which can be expensive and/or inconvenient. In addition, in situations where portable computing devices temporarily lack sufficient power to operate, most users are unable to extract data saved in their portable computing devices until the batteries are recharged, replacement batteries are utilized, or the portable computing devices are otherwise able to receive sufficient power (e.g., by utilizing electrical outlets via electrical cords) to operate, which may be troubling if such means are unavailable. Thus, there is a need for apparatus, systems and methods that enable users to easily access internal storage stored in their computing devices when the computing devices malfunction or are not receiving sufficient power to operate. In other words, users need the ability to easily access data in computing devices when the computing devices are inactive.

System and method for utilizing an external computing device to access storage inside an inactive computing device

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


Disclosed are various embodiments for a system and method of processing a surface using a mixture containing magnetic particles. A mixture is disposed on a workpiece and exposed to a dynamic magnetic field. In response to the dynamic magnetic field, the magnetic particles of the mixture may move along the workpiece. The movement of the magnetic particles creates a pattern of grooves on the surface of the workpiece.

A freeform surface, such as the femoral component of a knee prosthetic, may require a specific surface pattern and a particularized level of roughness to meet certain specifications. As such, a freeform surface may be shaped and buffed in order to meet these specifications. Processing by hand may raise production costs, increase deviations in surface quality, and limit the variations in surface roughness and topography.

System and method of magnetic abrasive surface processing

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCH FOUNDATION


A display panel and a method of repairing the same are disclosed. The display panel includes a pixel array substrate, a signal processor and a touch-sensing layer. The touch-sensing layer is connected to the signal processor and includes touch-sensing electrodes, primary leads and spare leads. Each primary lead is used to receive a touch-sensing signal and transmit the touch-sensing signal to the signal processor; and each spare lead is used to replace the corresponding primary lead when a disconnection defect occurs in the corresponding primary lead as so to receive the touch-sensing signal instead. Defect rate of the display panel can be lowered.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of display technology, and more particularly to a display panel and a method of repairing the same.
Description of the Related Art
Conventional display panels are usually integrated with a touch-sensing-electrode layer so as to achieve a touch-sensing function.
The touch-sensing-electrode layer is generally formed in the display panel during the manufacturing process of the display panel.
However, during the process of forming the touch-sensing-electrode layer, the conductive wires for transmitting touch-sensing signals sometimes may have a disconnection defect that causes a corresponding touch-sensing area to malfunction, even further causing the display panel to be discarded.
Therefore, it is necessary to provide a new technical solution to overcome the problems existing in the conventional technology.

Display panel and method of repairing the same

SHENZHEN CHINA STAR OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


The present invention discloses a stage light having an unlockable brake motor, comprising a controlled component, and a braking motor that drives the controlled component to move, wherein the braking motor comprises a motor unit and a braking unit for braking the motor unit, and the braking motor is a power-off locking motor; and further comprising a controller, an auxiliary power source that supplies backup power to the braking unit, and an input unit that controls on and off of the auxiliary power source, wherein the motor unit and the braking unit are connected in parallel with each other and are both electrically connected to the controller.

With the development of the stage light technologies, the running speed of a controlled component of a stage light is getting faster, so that light beam scanning or the switching of light effects are becoming faster, for example, rotation of a light holder, and a focus lens, magnifying lens, cutter, etc. inside the light holder.
In an actual use process, a non-standard operation by an operator or sudden power failures, etc. would sometimes cause a stage light to be suddenly powered off, and thus, the controlled component falls down under the action of gravity, causing the controlled component to be damaged due to collision. Brake motors will be used in some stage lights for automatic locking after the power off, so that the controlled component is kept in an original position to prevent the controlled component from falling down; however, next time before the stage light is powered on, the controlled component is always in a locked state and cannot rotate or move, for example, since light holders or support arms of stage lights are locked due to power-off, the stage lights cannot recover to a regular shape and thus be stored, the stage lights need to be carried or wires need to be pulled, and each stage light needs to be plugged in again before packing, so as to enable the light holders or the support arms to be reset, which is very complicated and has a low packing efficiency.

Stage light having unlockable brake motor


A wear-resistant hardfacing and a method for applying such a hardfacing is taught herein. A finely powdered, wear-resistant alloy and a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution slurry is coated onto the metal surface of a tool, implement, or similar item to be hardfaced. Alternatively, a binding coating of PVA solution may be applied to the metal surface followed by application of a layer of a powdered alloy. After the slurry or PVA binding coating has dried, leaving a dry coat of alloy in a PVA matrix, the metal surface is heated to the fusion temperature of the alloy in vacuum, in an inert gas atmosphere, or in hydrogen atmosphere. The metal item with the fused coating is heat treated to impart desired mechanical properties to the part substrate material. The method of the present invention gives a smooth, dense coating of the wear-resistant hardfacing without nonmetallic inclusions.

The present invention relates to a method of coating a metal surface, such as the metal surface of a tool or an agricultural implement, with a hard, wear-resistant coating.
Coating a metal surface with another metal or metal alloy to enhance appearance, protect against corrosion, or improve resistance to wear is well known in the art of metallurgy. Coating tools, particularly cutting edges of tools, with a hard, wear-resistant alloy is a common industrial practice, especially in the art of agricultural implement fabrication, and is often referred to as "Hardfacing" or "hard surfacing." For example, see Alessi, U.S. Pat. No. Re. 27,852, Revankar U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,878 and No. 5,443,916, Brady, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,987, and Hill U.S. Pat. No. 5,456,323.
Hardfacing is often done by fusing a powdered, hard metal alloy onto a metal surface. Typically, this method involves coating the metal surface with an aqueous slurry of a powdered, homogeneous alloy, a powdered flux, a binding agent, and a suspension agent; drying the slurry to form a solid layer; and heating the metal surface to a sufficiently high temperature to fuse the alloy onto the surface. The flux is to protect the alloy from reacting with the gases in the fusing furnace atmosphere while the alloy is being heated. The suspension agent promotes a uniform slurry. The binder holds the alloy and flux powders in place until the alloy slurry has dried onto the metal surface.
One problem with this method of hardfacing is that the flux, binder and suspension agent additives in the slurry remain in the fused coating as undesirable nonmetallic inclusions, and reduce the volume of effective wear-resistant coating for a given coating thickness. These inclusions are discontinuities in the coating that increase its brittleness and thus promote coating material removal by fracture, rather than abrasive wear, resulting in premature wear and shorter wear life of the coating.
Another problem with the methods of the art is nonuniformity of coating thickness. There are two reasons of this problem. 1) The slurry application allows the slurry to flow, when wet, on vertical and sloping surfaces thus forming an uneven distribution of the powdered alloy. 2) The flux/binder mixture used in the coating slurry melts ahead of the coating powder, and the resulting liquid tends to displace the powder particles on vertical and sloping surfaces and nonuniformly distribute them before the alloy powder begins to fuse.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for uniformly hardfacing a metal surface with a wear-resistant alloy with substantially no nonmetallic inclusions. A second object is to provide a slurry of wear-resistant alloy for use in hardfacing.