A digital watermarking technique is disclosed, in which image data are converted to frequency components through discrete wavelet transform and quantized into a set of quantized coefficients, which are then divided into a plurality of blocks. A digital watermark is embedded in the quantized coefficients by performing ON/OFF adjustment of bit information, such that the relation between natural number T and the bit information defined by N (N is an even number) significant bits Qnm (x, y) of the m-th bit plane of the n-th block satisfies the ON state represented by equation (1), or the OFF state represented by equation (2), depending on whether the hash value of the n-th block is odd or even. Then the quantized coefficients are encoded to produce a code stream.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved technique for embedding a digital watermark in digital contents information during an encoding process, which watermark is durable against degradation and more undecipherable to a third party, and a technique for detecting unauthorized use during the decoding process using the digital watermark embedded in the compressed code stream.
2. Description of Related Art
Digital information (or digital contents), such as digital images, can be copied easily by computers, without degrading the information. In recent years and continuing, along with the progress in digital image technologies, digital photographs taken by a digital camera are likely to be used as evidence. There is some digital information protected by copyright, and unauthorized copy or reuse of the copyrighted digital contents is prohibited.
In general, digital contents are easy to copy, and easy to tamper with by rewriting or overwriting the contents through simple modification processes. For this reason, digital contents are often copied dishonestly, and the copied contents are willfully misappropriated, destroyed, or tampered with.
To overcome this problem, a technique called digital watermarking or data hiding has been proposed, which is used to prevent unauthorized copying by embedding information into digital contents (such as digital images). The embedded information is invisible when the digital contents are reproduced in an ordinary manner. By checking the digital watermark embedded in the digital contents, it can be determined whether the digital contents have been used dishonestly.
A digital watermark embedded in digital contents has several uses, such as    A. Recording copyright information,    B. Tracking information about illegal copying,    C. Providing a past record of IP addresses,    D. Preventing illegal copying (invisible and high-durability type),    E. Application to anti-tampering (invisible and low-durability type),    F. Authentication,    G. Secure (encrypted) communications,    H. Embedding notes or labels of digital contents for indicating the owner (either visible or invisible type), and    I. Enabling removal of the watermark (visible or invisible type for distributing contents).
Among these, systems for preventing illegal copying (above-described item D) have been proposed for the purpose of protecting the copyright of a creator of digital contents.
For example, it is proposed, when selling or distributing digital contents regarding copyright related information, such as information about the copyright owner and the purchaser himself/herself in the digital contents, to let the contents provider of the digital contents inform the purchaser about the digital watermark representing the copyright related information in order to allow the purchaser to know about the copyright. This system aims to psychologically inhibit a person with common sense from making improper use of the digital contents. Although a malicious user may ignore the copyright and make an unauthorized use, it is possible for the copyright owner to identify the malicious user and assert the copyright by acquiring the illegally used digital contents and extracting the digital watermark from the acquired digital contents. See "Technical Report about Digital Watermarking", March, 1999, Nippon Denshi Kogyo Shinko Kyokai. The original source is "Prevention of Illegal Copying of Electronic Information", Nikkei Business, Feb. 23, 1998, at 68-70 (1998).
Techniques for embedding digital watermarks in digital contents (hereinafter, referred to as "digital watermarking") are grouped into (1) embedding a digital watermark directly in sampling values of the contents data, and (2) embedding a watermark in frequency components.
With the former technique (for embedding a watermark directly into sampling values), the process workload for processing and compressing the digital contents is not so heavy. However, when performing digital processing and compression of the digital contents in which a watermark is embedded, the digital watermark is likely to be lost.
On the other hand, the latter technique (for embedding a watermark in frequency components) requires heavy processing for embedding and extracting the digital watermark into and from the digital contents. However, it is durable against digital processing and compression.
Meanwhile, for monochromatic digital photocopy, facsimile, and monochrome print of a newspaper, lossless image compression using black-and-white bi-level images and capable of restoring the original image without loss is recommended and widely used. As lossless image compression schemes, MH/MR/MMR under G3/G4 standards of the International Telecommunications Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) are known.
However, these schemes are inferior in coding efficiency for intermediate processed images or error-diffusion processed images, and accordingly, image compression may not be correctly performed.
To overcome this problem, a method called arithmetic coding, which a type of entropy coding, is attracting attention. For instance, JBIG, which is a group for investigating a new international standard for a coding scheme of bi-level images, employs arithmetic coding called QM-coder, which is recommended as an ITU-T standard.
In contrast, those products that handle multi-level images including digital color images or gray-scale images (e.g., digital still cameras and digital video cameras) often employ lossy compression. Lossy compression is a technique that gives priority to the compression effect when storing data, while making a sacrifice of slight degradation of image quality due to loss of detailed information of the original image. Examples of the lossy compression technique include JPEG and MPEG, which are based on signal-to-frequency conversion using discrete cosine transform (DCT).
As the post-JPEG standard, JEPG 2000 is attracting a great deal of attraction as the coding standard unifying lossless and lossy coding schemes, as well as unifying bi-level data and multi-level data. JPEG 2000 employs discrete wavelet transform (DWT) for converting a signal into elementary frequency components to reduce image degradation during high-rate compression. In addition, MQ-coder is used to achieve high-rate compression. MQ-coder is an arithmetic coding scheme similar to the above-described QM coder, and is approved by JBIG.
The above-described former (first-listed) digital watermarking technique (i.e., watermarking directly in the sampling values of the digital contents) is unsuitable for digital contents of multi-level images to be subjected to compression, because the image quality is degraded due to encoding and compression of images performed when storing the digital contents. Due to the degradation of the images, the digital watermark embedded in the digital contents is also degraded. As compression encoding and decompression decoding are repeated, the distinguishability of the digital watermark embedded in digital contents weakens. In the worst case, it becomes difficult to detect unauthorized use of the digital contents in spite of the fact that the digital watermark is embedded in the contents.
To this end, it is preferable to employ the above-described latter technique for embedding a watermark in the frequency component (or the code stream prepared for compression) when the digital watermark is used for the purpose of preventing unauthorized use of digital contents, so that the digital watermark can be correctly detected even after encoding and decoding processes are repeated.

Durable and undecipherable digital watermarking technique and detection of unauthorized use


A motor control device controls energization of a motor by interchangeably converting a direct current electric power of a power source and an alternating current electric power of the motor with a power conversion circuit according to a power running operation and a regeneration operation of the motor. A voltage instruction value calculation unit calculates a q-axis voltage instruction value and a d-axis voltage instruction value by feedback control of dq-axis currents. A voltage instruction value limit unit limits at least one of the q-axis voltage instruction value and the d-axis voltage instruction value. The voltage instruction value limit unit performs a q-axis voltage limit prioritize process for limiting the q-axis voltage instruction value over the d-axis voltage instruction value, or a d-axis voltage limit prioritize process for limiting the d-axis voltage instruction value over the q-axis voltage instruction value, during the regenerative operation of the motor.

The related art includes, in an electric power steering apparatus, a motor control device that controls energization of a motor by operating a power conversion circuit according to a power running operation and a regenerative operation of a steering assist motor. Here, a situation where the regenerative operation occurs may include, for example, a time when a road wheel of a vehicle rides on an obstacle while traveling thereby causing a reverse input to an output shaft of a motor or a time when a steering wheel is operated while the vehicle is jacked up (i.e., when the road wheel has no load). In addition, there is a possibility that the regenerative operation may occur when the vehicle is steered suddenly for emergency avoidance during a travel or when a voltage of a power supply device is low.
For example, in the related art, a dq-axis voltage instruction value is limited so that an absolute value of a power source current becomes equal to or less than a target value, for preventing damage to switching elements or the like due to regenerative energy during the regenerative operation of the motor.
In the present disclosure, "reducing a power source current" means bringing the power source current defined by a negative value close to 0 during the regenerative operation. The motor control device of the related art uniformly limits a d-axis voltage instruction value and a q-axis voltage instruction value mainly for the purpose of reducing the power source current for the protection of electronic components, without considering a motor current and/or a generated torque at the time of limiting the instruction values.


An information processing system includes a first control unit including a first memory configured to store first software, and a first controller configured to perform processing based on the first software and to update the first software in a case where an instruction to update the first software is received, and a second control unit configured to be coupled to the first control unit, the second control unit including a second memory configured to store second software that is the same as the first software, a second controller configured to perform processing based on the second software, and a first power supply circuit configured to start power supply to the second controller in a case where a failure in the first control unit is detected.

In recent years, as information processing systems for which high reliability is demanded, an information processing system has been known in which, in order to increase the failure tolerance, control devices including hardware, such as a processor, are provided redundantly and both the control devices are caused to perform information processing. Such an information processing system has a function of continuing information processing using an input/output signal to a backup control device that is operating normally even when an error occurs in a control device that is being used as an active control device.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 62-191299 discloses an example of a related art.

Information processing system and processing method for information processing system


This invention relates to a cellular radio system including a mobile telephone exchange, base stations and mobile stations, the geographical area covered by the cellular radio system being divided into location areas and the mobile stations being arranged to send location update messages to the base stations. In order that the number of mobile stations located in the area may be ascertained more accurately than before, the system includes storing means for monitoring location update messages and for storing data contained in the location update messages in a memory means, and means for transmitting the data stored in the memory means further to the operator of the system, for an estimation of the need of capacity for the different parts of the system on the basis of the stored data.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of estimating the need of capacity for different parts of a cellular radio system divided into location areas, mobile stations being arranged to send location update messages to the other parts of the system in predetermined situations. The invention relates further to a cellular radio system comprising a mobile telephone exchange, base stations and mobile stations, the geographical area covered by the cellular radio system being divided into location areas and the mobile stations being arranged to send location update messages by radio to the base stations in predetermined situations.
This invention relates to determining so-called Hot-Spot locations in a cellular radio system, which means finding possible bottlenecks as to the required traffic capacity. A problem associated with planning cellular radio systems consists in estimating the traffic capacity needed. Cellular radio systems are generally dimensioned by assuming that all mobile stations belonging to the system do not communicate simultaneously, but the aim of the dimensioning is to find the maximum conceivable number of telephones which are assumed to communicate in practice at a predetermined moment, after which the system is dimensioned in such a way that it is capable of coping with this load. In order that the dimensioning of the system at least to some extent may be based on reality (and not only on guesswork) within a predetermined geographical area, it is necessary to find out the number of mobile stations simultaneously located within said area.
2. Description of Related Art
Solutions for finding out the number of mobile stations located in a predetermined area are previously known, whereby the number of mobile stations is found out on the basis of measurement reports of active mobile stations (call going on). This means that, in a GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) system, for instance, active mobile stations measure continuously, while being on a traffic channel, besides the signal strengths of their own base stations, also signals from six strongest neighbouring base stations and transmit reports on measurement results continuously to the other parts of the system. However, the most significant drawback of this known solution is that it is based expressly on detecting active mobile stations. This means in practice that only those mobile stations through which a call is going on at said moment are taken into consideration. It is clear that this way of detection may give a rather distorted picture of the number of mobile stations actually located in the area, because passive phones located in the area, meaning those mobile stations through which no call is going on at said moment, are not considered in any way. However, the number of passive phones may be rather big, for which reason they should absolutely be taken into consideration when the system is dimensioned.
An object of this invention is to solve the above problem and to facilitate the dimensioning of the cellular radio system in such a way that the real number of phones located in a predetermined geographical area could be taken into consideration at the dimensioning better than before. This object is achieved by the method according to the invention, which is characterized in that for an estimation of the need of capacity in a predetermined geographical area: a new location area covering said area is defined for the system; said new location area is defined to be the location area of the base stations located in said area, at least during the time of estimating the need of capacity; location update messages transmitted from the new location area are monitored; statistics are kept on the location update messages detected, those statistics including an information on at least the number of location update messages received from the area; and the need of capacity for the area is estimated on the basis of the data stored in said statistics.
The invention is based on the idea that the number of mobile stations located in a predetermined area can be estimated more accurately than before by compiling statistics on location update requests/messages transmitted from the mobile stations to the other parts of the system, said requests being transmitted by the mobile stations in a manner known per se to the other parts of the system in predetermined situations anyway, for instance when they move from a location area to another or at predetermined intervals. When a new location area is initially created for the area to be monitored, the size (surface area) of which new area can be considerably smaller (for instance a single radio cell or a few of them) than the location areas used normally, the need of capacity can be ascertained accurately within the very area which is of interest. When statistics are kept on location update messages during a relatively long period, the number of phones in the area can be found out more accurately than before, because the number of passive mobile stations can be detected as well. The most significant advantage of the method of the invention is thus that it gives a more accurate picture of the number of phones located in the predetermined geographical area of interest, whereby potential bottlenecks concerning the capacity of the system can be found more easily than previously, and that the method of the invention can be applied by very small measures to existing systems by means of a software.
In a preferred embodiment of the method of the invention, a radio cell-specific information is maintained on from which location area mobile stations are coming when they send location update messages to a predetermined radio cell. This embodiment of the invention enables that statistics can be kept on the movements of the mobile stations. Accordingly, in the vicinity of harbours, airports and frontier crossing points, for instance, it is possible to keep statistics on where the mobile stations xe2x80x9cturning upxe2x80x9d come from.
In a second preferred embodiment of the method of the invention, a message is initially sent to the mobile stations belonging to the system, the message making the mobile stations shorten that cyclic time period during which they at least once send a location update message to the other parts of the system. By means of this preferred embodiment of the invention, it is possible to make sure in advance that a location update message is received during a relatively short monitoring period from as many mobile stations as possible.
In a third preferred embodiment of the method of the invention, an information on the number of those mobile stations located in the area from which a connection, such as a call, is going on at a predetermined moment is also entered into the statistics. This embodiment enables a more accurate estimation of the need of capacity than before, because an information on the number of both passive (no call going on) and active (a call going on) mobile stations can then be entered into the same statistics.
Another object of the invention is a cellular radio system to which the method of the invention can be applied. The cellular radio system of the invention is characterized in that the system comprises storing means arranged in a base station controller for monitoring location update messages received by base stations and for storing data contained in the location update messages in a memory means in response to detecting a location update message, and means for transmitting the data stored in the memory means further to an operator of the system for an estimation of the need of capacity for the different parts of the system on the basis of the data stored in the memory means.
According to the invention, it is preferable to monitor location update messages expressly in a base station controller, via which location update messages are transmitted anyway. Accordingly, applying the invention does not require any additional new components in the system, but the invention can also be applied to existing systems by reprogramming the base station controllers. This enables an estimation of the need of capacity without significant additional costs.
The preferred embodiments of the method and the cellular radio system of the invention appear from the attached dependent claims 2 to 4 and 5 to 7.

Method of estimating the need of capacity for different parts of a cellular radio system


A network communications tunnel is established by assigning a unique label to each communications link between adjacent nodes in a pre-defined network path. A node's unique label is used to forward a data packet to the adjacent node in the pre-defined path. The unique labels for all the nodes in the pre-defined path are stored by each node in the tunnel. A bypass tunnel to bypass a node in the pre-defined path may be established to reroute data packets around a failed communication link in the tunnel. The bypass tunnel may be established before the communication link failure providing fast tunnel restoration.

There is a growing need for realtime data transfer on the Internet to support realtime applications such as, teleconferencing and live video. However, the Internet is not designed for realtime data transfer. Data is transferred on the Internet using Transmission Control Protocol ("TCP")/Internet Protocol ("IP"). TCP/IP includes four layers, the application layer, the transport layer, the network layer and the link layer.
Data originates in the application layer, for example, the application data may be frames of a live video to be transmitted from a source node to a destination node. The transport layer includes the TCP protocol. The TCP protocol in the source node processes the frames of the live video into TCP data packets and assigns a sequence number to each packet of data. The TCP protocol in the destination node reassembles the TCP data packets transmitted by the source node using the data packet's sequence numbers.
The network layer includes the IP protocol. The IP protocol adds an IP address for the destination node to each TCP data packet. The size of the IP address added is dependent on the version of the IP protocol used. Version 4 of the IP protocol ("IPv4") adds a 32 bit IP address to each TCP data packet. Version 6 of the IP protocol ("IPv6"), adds a 128 bit IP address to each TCP data packet. The link layer in the source node sends the TCP data packets including IP addresses over the physical medium. The link layer in the destination node receives the TCP data packets sent by the source node over the physical medium.
By dividing the application data into TCP data packets and providing the IP address for the destination node on each TCP data packet, each TCP data packet may travel on a different path between the source node and the destination node. Due to congestion in nodes along paths from the source node to the destination node, TCP data packets sent on different paths may not arrive in order.
For real-time data, for example, a live video the application can not wait until all the data packets are reassembled because the data packets are used as soon as they arrive at the destination node. If a data packet does not arrive at the destination node in time this delayed packet may be noticeable, for example, a delay in a data packet for live video may result in a loss of one or more frames of the video.
Extensions to TCP/IP have been proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force ("IETF") to add support for realtime data transfer. One proposed extension to provide in-order delivery of data packets for realtime data transfer between a source node and a destination node is Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) described in "A Framework for Multiprotocol Label Switching" by Callon et al. in a Network Working Group Internet Draft published at http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-mpls-framework-02.txt on May 21, 1998 incorporated herein by reference. MPLS adds a label to a data packet to guide the data packets through nodes along a pre-defined path in a network. The pre-defined path is called a Label Switched Path ("LSP") Tunnel. LSP tunnels may be established using the Resource ReSerVation Protocol ("RSVP") described in "Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) Version 1 Functional Specification" by Branden et al. RSVP, Network Work Group, Request for Comment, 2205 published at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2205.txt on September 1997 incorporated herein by reference.
A "tunnel" in general, therefore, as used herein refers to a pre-defined path through networks. The "tunnel" may be established by RSVP or any other protocol now or hereafter established to support real time data transfer.
A tunnel failure may occur, for example, due to a hardware failure in one or more nodes or a communication link between nodes, requiring a new tunnel to be established to restore data packet transfer to transfer data. Until the new tunnel is established, data packets for the realtime application such as, live video are not being transmitted to the destination node.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


The present invention relates to substituted camptothecin derivatives of formula (I) wherein the symbol - - - - represents a single or double bond; R.sub.1, R.sub.2 and R.sub.3 are as defined under (a) or (b) below: (a) R.sub.1 and R.sub.2 are, each independently, hydrogen; C.sub.1 -C.sub.4 alkyl; C.sub.3 -C.sub.7 cycloalkyl; phenyl C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl; an optionally substituted phenyl ring; --NR.sub.5 R.sub.6 wherein one of R.sub.5 and R.sub.6 is hydrogen, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl or benzyl and the other is hydrogen, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkanoyl, an optionally substituted C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkoxycarbonyl, an optionally substituted benzoyl, phenyl C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkanoyl, an optionally substituted C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkoxycarbonyl, an optionally substituted phenoxycarbonyl or phenyl C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkoxycarbonyl, or R.sub.5 and R.sub.6, combined together with the nitrogen atom to which they are linked, form a 4-7 membered saturated, optionally substituted, heteromonocyclic ring residue; COOR.sub.8 wherein R.sub.8 is hydrogen, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, C.sub.3 -C.sub.7 cycloalkyl or phenyl C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl; or COR.sub.9 wherein Rg is C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, C.sub.3 -C.sub.7 cycloalkyl, phenyl C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, an optionally substituted phenyl ring or NR.sub.10 R.sub.11 wherein R.sub.10 and R.sub.11 are, each independently, hydrogen or C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl; and R.sub.3 is hydrogen, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl or an optionally substituted phenyl ring; or (b) R.sub.1 and R.sub.3, combined together, form a 5-8 membered, optionally substituted, carbomonocyclic ring, and R.sub.2 is hydrogen, C.sub.1 -C.sub.4 alkyl or C.sub.3 -C.sub.7 cycloalkyl; R.sub.4 is hydrogen, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, C.sub.3 -C.sub.7 cycloalkyl or phenyl C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl; X is hydrogen,C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, C.sub.3 -C.sub.7 cycloalkyl, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkoxy, C.sub.3 -C.sub.7 cycloalkoxy, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkanoyloxy, benzoyloxy, amino, hydroxy, nitro, halogen or it is a methylenedioxy group linked to the positions 10 and 11 of the molecule, and the pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof. The compounds according to the invention are useful in therapy as antitumor agents. ##STR1##

Camptothecin and some of its analogs display potent antitumor activity by the inhibition of Topoisomerase I, that is an enzyme involved in some important cellular functions and cellular growth (see, for instance, Wani et al., J. Med. Chem. 1987, 30, 1774; Hsiang et al., Cancer Res. 1989, 49, 4385; Cancer Res. 1989, 49, 1465).
Anticancer activity of Camptothecin both in vitro and in vivo is significantly greater for the lactone versus the carboxylate form (as disclosed, for instance, by W. J. Slichenmyer et al., in "The Current Status of Camptothecin Analogues as Antitumor Agents", J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 1993, 85, 271-291, and reference therein), since a closed a-hydroxy lactone ring is an important structural requirement for both passive diffusion of drug into cancer cells, as well as for successful drug interaction with the pharmacological target. It has recently been pointed out that, in the presence of biologically relevant levels of human albumin, the biologically active form of camptothecin has a very short half-life (about 12 min.), and 2 hours after drug addition to human plasma, a percentage greater than 99% of the drug has converted to camptothecin carboxylate, the biologically inactive and potentially toxic form of the drug (see Burke, G. T.; Mi, Z. "The Structural Basis of Camptothecin Interactions with Human Serum Albumin: Impact on Drug Stability", J. Med. Chem. 1994, 37, 40-46). The same authors disclose also the importance of the substitution in 9 and 7 positions on the camptothecin nucleus in order to improve drug stability in the presence of albumin.
There is therefore a need to find new camptothecin derivatives that have high intrinsic potency, and may gain, at the same time, stability in the presence of serum albumin.

Substituted camptothecin derivatives and process for their preparation


Disclosed herein is a method of deagglomerating ceramic powder to inhibit agglomeration and provide a uniform particle size, a deagglomeration mill used for the above method, and a method of preparing uniformly mixed ceramic slurry using the deagglomerated ceramic powder. The deagglomeration method of the ceramic powder includes loading a mixture of ceramic powder and solvent into the deagglomeration mill which includes a hollow cylindrical mill cover having a diameter larger than a length and having a plurality of beads therein; rotating an impeller of a main shaft disposed longitudinally at an internal center portion of the mill cover at a peripheral velocity of 6–10 m/s, using a driving means; deagglomerating the ceramic powder by the action of beads which are moved by a rotational force of the impeller; and discharging the mixture of ceramic powder and solvent from the deagglomeration mill.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method of deagglomerating ceramic powder to have a uniform particle size; a deagglomeration mill used for the above method; and a method of preparing highly dispersed ceramic slurry using the deagglomerated ceramic powder.
More specifically, the present invention relates to a method of deagglomerating ceramic powder so as to inhibit agglomeration and achieve a uniform particle size; a deagglomeration mill for use in the above method; and a method of preparing highly dispersed ceramic slurry using the deagglomerated ceramic powder.
2. Description of the Related Art
Fabrication techniques of multilayer ceramic capacitors (hereinafter, abbreviated as 'MLCC') have recently trended toward miniaturization and ultrahigh capacitance, which can be realized by thinning an inner electrode and a dielectric layer and stacking more layers.
In particular, with the aim of manufacturing a multilayer structure having ultrahigh capacitance, a dielectric material, such as BaTiO3, MgO, MnO2, V2O5, Cr2O3, Y2O3, rare earth elements, and glass frit, constituting the dielectric layer, should be made fine. Also, slurry preparation to disperse fine particles is required to minimize the effects of high electric fields due to the formation of a thin dielectric layer of 3 μm or less so as to ensure electric reliability.
However, the formation of the fine particles causes high surface area, thus increasing the driving force of a sintering process. Eventually, rapid particle growth occurs.
In the fabrication of MLCCs having ultrahigh capacitance, BaTiO3, which comprises most of the starting materials, is used having the particle sizes of 0.2, 0.15 and 0.1 μm.
These particles agglomerate mostly during a particle synthesis process such as a hydrothermal process, an oxalate process, hydrolysis or solid-state synthesis, and during a heat treatment process to ensure consistent particle size and crystallinity and remove impurities.
Meanwhile, a chip is generally fabricated by mixing the BaTiO3 powder with a ceramic additive, an organic solvent, a plasticizer, a binder, and a dispersing agent to prepare a slurry using a basket mill, followed by forming, laminating and compressing the slurry.
A conventional slurry preparation process is illustrated in FIG. 1. That is, BaTiO3, the ceramic additive, the solvent and the dispersing agent are weighed and mixed, followed by primary milling for 12–24 hours, to obtain a pulverized product. Thereafter, the pulverized product is mixed with the binder, the plasticizer and the solvent, followed by secondary milling for about 12 hours and then filtering. At this time, however, reagglomeration and viscosity become high, and thus, it is difficult to perform the filtration process. After the filtration process, the mixed state of the slurry is analyzed using PSA (Particle Size Analysis), SEM (Scanning Electronic Microscopy) and EPMA (Electron Probe Micro Analysis).
As for conventional slurry dispersion, in cases where fine powder is dispersed using a basket mill or bead mill, soft and hard agglomerations of BaTiO3 are difficult to remove. The two mill media are zirconia and yittria zirconia, with a size of 0.6–1 mm.
The fine ceramic powder should be deagglomerated for high dispersion and grain growth control, before being used for the preparation of ceramic slurry. This is because an additive is not uniformly dispersed into neck-formed powders, and also, particles agglomerated during the heat treatment function as one crystal particle, and thus, it is impossible to form a dielectric thin film layer. As well, the reliability decreases. Therefore, the ceramic powder, for example, BaTiO3 powder, should be deagglomerated.
Specifically, in cases where BaTiO3 is finely particulate, agglomeration of the particles results in a wide particle size distribution. For example, 0.2 μm BaTiO3 has a particle size distribution of a D50 of 0.48 μm and a D90 of 1.0 μm. However, after such particles are subjected to deagglomeration treatment, the particle size thereof can be lowered to a D50 of 0.25 μm and a D90 of 0.45 μm, with narrow dispersion. That is, a uniform particle size can be ensured. By such a deagglomeration process, deagglomeration of the ceramic powder and attainment of a uniform particle size of the powder are realized.
Turning now to FIG. 2, a conventional bead mill 100 used for deagglomeration of ceramic powder is illustrated. The conventional bead mill 100 includes a hollow cylindrical mill cover 101 having an inlet 102 to load a mixture of ceramic powder and solvent into the mill cover 101, an outlet 104 to discharge the deagglomerated mixture therefrom, and a plurality of beads 114 therein. Further, a main shaft 110 is longitudinally disposed in the mill cover 101 to act as a central rotation shaft. Also, a driving means 120 for rotating the main shaft 110 is operatably connected thereto.
The driving means 120 is commonly exemplified by an electric motor, and is connected to the main shaft 110 through a power transfer belt 122 and pulleys 124a and 124b. Moreover, a plurality of circular discs 126 is mounted on the main shaft 110 to be rotated therewith. Each disc 126 has a plurality of through holes 126a so that the beads 114 can act to apply an action force to the ceramic powder upon rotation of the disc 126.
In the conventional bead mill 100 or basket mill as shown in FIG. 2, the mill cover 101 has a diameter (H) of 185 mm and a length (L) of 463 mm, and thus, a ratio of diameter to length of the hollow cylindrical mill cover 101 is 0.5 or less. That is, the bead mill 100 is relatively long relative to its diameter. In addition, the beads 114 have diameters of 0.65 mm or more. In the cases of using the conventional bead mill 100, the BaTiO3 powder is deagglomerated while having a long retention time in the bead mill 100. Hence, a high impact force and a high shear force are applied to the ceramic powder, and the ceramic powder particles are primarily pulverized, resulting in the generation of larger amounts of fine particles having sizes of 0.001–0.01 μm.
Since the fine particles have a particle size distribution with wide dispersion, the ceramic slurry having the above particles causes particle growth in the dielectric material after sintering, and thus, abnormal particle growth occurs.
Upon using the ceramic powder obtained by the conventional bead mill 100, it is difficult to separate the agglomerated particles from each other, and as well, the powder has a wide particle size distribution due to the pulverized primary particles. In particular, the pulverized fine powder having a wide size distribution acts as a driving force for abnormal particle growth during the heat treatment, and hence, negatively affects the electric reliability and dielectric properties.
In the MLCC having ultrahigh capacitance, the slurry is prepared by increasing the amount of an organic solvent, such as toluene, ethanol or butanol, to reduce the viscosity of the slurry, and is then filtered using a filter having a size of 1–2 μm to obtain a final slurry.
However, the slurry preparation method as mentioned above is disadvantageous because the solid content of the powder decreases while the content of the polymer increases, thereby generating larger amounts of residue and causing high constriction when burning out the binder. Also, the size of the filter is limited by the unmelted binder, and the lifetime of the filter is shortened.

Method of deagglomerating ceramic powder, deagglomeration mill used therefor and method of preparing highly dispersed slurry using the deagglomerated powder


The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for power demand load leveling of a power supply driving a plurality of LED's through the use of pulse width modulation. A first modulating signal provided from a pulse width modulator is applied to a delay means for generating second, third and fourth modulating signals each delayed from the previous modulating signal by a predetermined time. The modulating signals are used to modulate control signals corresponding to four groups of associated LED's in order to permit only one group of LED's to be turned on at any one time, although more than twenty five percent of the LED's may be active at any one time. Each of the first, second, third and fourth modulating signals are applied to a different group of four groups of activation switches along with their respective control signals to enable the switches and activate an associated group of LED's. The predetermined time, representing a time delay between each of the modulating signals, is chosen to correspond to twenty five percent of the period of the first modulating signal. Due to the time delay between the inputs of the different modulating signals, only one group of LED's will change state from off to on at any one time even though each group of LED's may be activated during a period and more than twenty five percent of the LED's may be active at any one time.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of power demand load leveling, particularly in the field of pulse width modulation of LED's for controlling the intensity of the LED's without overloading the power supply.
(2) Prior Art
On the front of many supercomputers, panels are provided with an array of LED's for indicating the processes which the computer is performing at any one time. To light the LED's in the array, control lines from different processing sections of the computer are carried via a system bus to the LED panel and are connected to the LED's through transistor switches used for enabling the LED's. When a specific control line in the system bus is sent high, the respective transistor switch is enabled so as to turn on the and activate the LED associated with that control line.
To control the intensity of the LED's within the array, pulse width modulation of the control signals transmitted by the control lines has been used to produce a series of rapid activations of the enabled LED's. This is performed by providing a modulating signal having a series of pulses as input to the gating control logic. The gating control logic enables their respective LED's when the gating control logic simultaneously receive a high input from the control lines and a high input from the modulating signal. The input from the modulating signal consists of a series of digital pulses having high and low states, with at least one change of state occurring within each period of the modulating signal. The width of a given pulse in the period of the modulating signal determines the length of time that the enabled LED's will be activated during the period. The period is in the order of microseconds so that the series of activations of the LED's produce an appearance that the LED's are being dimmed rather than being turned on and off.
The gating control logic for each LED in the array receives the same modulating signal so that each enabled LED is turned on and off at the same time and at the same rate as the other enabled LED's as determined by the pulse within the period of the modulating signal. The rapid succession of activations produced by the modulating signal thereby causes each of the enabled LED's to have the same intensity output. For a small number of LED's in the array, this type of pulse width modulation switching presents no problem for the power source since the current demand on the power supply is usually in the order of several amps.
However, for larger arrays of LED's, the total amount of current required to activate all of the LED's can be in the order of 50 to 100 amps. Because the conventional method of pulse width modulation switching of LED's activates all enabled LED's at once upon the rising edge of a pulse in the modulating signal, an enormous current demand is produced when a significant percentage of the LED's is enabled. Each time this occurs, the sudden change in current demand may overload the power supply and trigger the power supply over current detection which shuts down the power supply. In addition, the power supply may have severe difficulty in maintaining a regulated voltage during these high current switching transitions. When the power supply responds to a sudden change in the current demand the output voltage will change in the inverse direction of the current demand, especially with switching power supplies.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for pulse width modulation of LED's that reduces the magnitude of the instantaneous change in the current demand on the power supply such that a more stable output voltage can be maintained.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for pulse width modulation of an array of LED's in which only twenty five percent of the maximum current demand is switched at any one time.

Method for pulse width modulation of LEDs with power demand load leveling


The present invention may be used to analyze subject content, search and analyze reference content, compare the subject and reference content for similarity, and output comparison reports between the subject and reference content. The present invention may incorporate and utilize text from intrinsic and/or extrinsic subject documents. The analysis may employ a variety of metrics, including scores generated from a natural language processing system, scores based on classification similarity, scores based on proximity similarity, and in the case of analysis of patent documents, scores based on measurement of claims.

A variety of projects require search, analysis and comparison of document content. For example, in the field of patent analysis, work may involve analysis of content from one or more subject patents, analysis of extrinsic documents to patents, such as file histories or dictionaries, and work may revolve around finding and analyzing reference content and evaluating claims in the one or more subject patents against the reference content and against the extrinsic texts.
A patent prior art search may first involve manual selection of terms from the claims or specification of a subject patent, from the file history of a patent, or terms known to be similar in meaning, typically selected from a thesaurus or dictionary. After the terms are selected, and logical connectors or relationships formulated, the terms are often used to query for relevant reference content via keyword query searching. Additionally, in the case of patent searches, searchers may design filters to restrict results to references associated with certain classifications, potentially using UPC or IPC classifications associated with the subject patent. Other fields of information may be employed to find reference content, such as inventor names, or references cited directly or indirectly by the subject patent.
In the field of patent prior art searching, the task may be all the more complicated by the fact that multiple references may be combined in order to form a rejection of a subject patent. For example, if a first reference document contains support for one part of a claim, and a second reference document contains support for a second part of a claim, then the reference content might be combined, especially if there is a reason or motivation for the combination of reference documents. Interestingly, the prior art search may involve not only the search for the reference documents that anticipate a claim, but may also require special analysis and consideration as to why the combination of references can be grouped together.
After relevant reference content has been found from a prior art search, questions arise as to whether claims from a subject patent document read on reference content, especially given claim interpretation. Claims may be interpreted based on language used in claims, language used in the specification associated with the claims, language used in the file history of the subject patent, and potentially, language used in extrinsic sources, such as dictionaries. When preparing office action responses, patent examiners may wish to include claim charts that include the claim text, a construction of claims from language in the claims, specification, file history and/or extrinsic sources, and the text of relevant references. Yet preparation of claim charts that match claim strings to portions of content from one or more references, particularly claim charts including supporting text from a file history or extrinsic sources, may be time consuming and require significant work. This task of producing claim charts is particularly burdensome if a subject patent document contains hundreds of claims, and each claim contains many claim strings, and if the file history runs for some length. Even more daunting may be selecting text from the prosecution history of siblings within a patent family (e.g. divisionals, continuations, continuation-in-parts.)
It is notable that the processes and types of information that are useful in prior art searching may be useful for other processes within patent analysis, or for other business applications entirely. For example, still within the field of patent analysis, comparison of patent claims, accompanied by text extracted from the supporting specification and patent file history, and accompanied with text from reference content may be performed when one or more patents of a portfolio are compared against product documentation, in order to determine product infringement.
As another example, the analysis and systems described herein may be used to analyze other legal instruments, such as contracts. In particular, association and analysis of terms of contracts with extrinsic (parole) evidence is of particular interest.
As another example, in a different business field, such as generic web search engines, determination of groups of references, that when combined are applicable to a user query, may be useful for general query processing.
Like reference numerals are used to designate like parts in the accompanying drawings.

Parsing, analysis and scoring of document content


A method of facilitating mid-span access of an optical fiber ribbon cable, and the resulting cable, that provides for redeveloping and/or modifying excess ribbon length with the accessed cable structure. The method includes the use of a form placed within the cable structure that controls the excess ribbon length. The method may further include the reconstitution of severed strength members.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to a method of accessing one or more optical fiber ribbons at an intermediate point along a length of optical fiber ribbon cable, and more particularly to managing the excess ribbon length at the access point.
2. Technical Background
Communication networks are used to transport a variety of signals such as voice, video, data transmission, and the like. Traditional communication networks use copper wires in cables for transporting information and data. However, copper cables have drawbacks because they are large, heavy, and can only transmit a relatively limited amount of data with a reasonable cable diameter. Consequently, optical fiber cables replaced most of the copper cables in long-haul communication network links, thereby providing greater bandwidth capacity for long-haul links. Still, most communication networks still use copper cables for distribution and/or drop links on the subscriber side of the central office. In other words, subscribers have a limited amount of available bandwidth due to the constraints of copper cables in the communication network. Stated another way, the copper cables are a bottleneck that inhibit the subscriber from fully utilizing the relatively high-bandwidth capacity of the optical fiber long-hauls links.
As optical fibers are deployed deeper into communication networks, subscribers will have access to increased bandwidth. But certain obstacles exist that make it challenging and/or expensive to distribute optical fibers toward the subscriber from fiber optic cables.
Optical fiber cables should at once have small cross sections, be light, and yet provide maximum protection to the optical fibers housed within. An optical fiber ribbon comprises a plurality of optical fibers bonded together, generally in a planar arrangement, and provides a cost effective way to obtain a high optical fiber density within a given cable structure. Cables may contain one or more optical fiber ribbons, usually divided into one or more stacks of many individual ribbons, and may have total fiber counts that extend into the thousands of fibers.
Optical fiber cables stretch under load, and similar to their loose fiber counterparts, ribbon cables may be manufactured in a manner such that a total length of a given ribbon is longer than the total cable length. The ribbon length that exceeds the cable length is referred to as the "excess ribbon length", and its presence allows, inter alia, for stretching of the cable without severely straining the optical fibers within. Undue strain may cause the optical fibers comprising the ribbons to exceed their breaking stress.
From time to time there may be a need to access an optical fiber/optical fiber ribbon at an intermediate point between the cable ends, a process commonly referred to as mid-span access. For example, there may be a need to reroute an individual optical fiber ribbon, or one or more individual optical fibers that comprise a ribbon, in a direction that varies from the routing direction of the remainder of the ribbons in the cable. This is especially true in a distribution cable. Common names for this process include "breakout" or "furcation" (e.g. bifurcation), or a "tap". That is, mid-span access may be necessary to tap into a cable and produce further, separate routing for portions of the original cable. These further separate routings, are variously referred to as "drop" cables or tether cables.
Mid-span access requires that the sheath or jacket surrounding the internal cable structure, and other intervening interior cable structure, be removed or otherwise opened to allow access to the optical fibers ribbons within the cable. A common problem encountered during a mid-span access operation is that once the cable has been breached, the excess ribbon length causes the optical fiber ribbons to spring out from the opened cable structure. Reconstituting the cable after the splice has been completed is thus problematic—it can be quite difficult to re-insert the ribbon, thus released, into the cable. Another problem that may be encountered is repairing a severed strength member during a mid-span access. As can be imagined, these tasks are difficult under the best of conditions, therefore the manufacture of preteiminated cables having the requisite number of taps is often undertaken in a factory setting. Still, the above difficulties must be overcome.

Method of providing mid-span access to an optical fiber ribbon cable and the optical fiber ribbon cable


A testing system includes a plurality of test applying portions and a plurality of testing portions, each test applying portion having a test device that generates an output signal and each testing portion tests the output signal of the test device, in response to the test applying portion. The testing system further includes a switch portion that switches the output signal of the test device between the test applying portions and the testing portions. The switch portion includes, a first switch having an input port and a plurality of output ports, which selects the output port for connecting the input port, a second switch having a plurality of input ports and an output port, which selects the input port for connecting the output port, and a connecting portion that has a plurality of transmission parts that connect the output ports of the first switch and the input ports of the second switch.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to testing systems and testing system control-methods, and more particularly, to a testing system, testing system control method, and test apparatus, by which multiple test devices or elements to be tested are tested with multiple test apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Testing the test devices or elements to be tested, such as light emitting devices that emit optical signals such as, for example, semiconductor lasers or the like or semiconductor devices that emit electrical signals, is performed as described as follows. The power supply, signal generator, temperature controller, or the like applies voltage, current, signal, temperature, or the like on the test devices or elements such as, for example, the semiconductor lasers or semiconductor devices. The voltage, current, signal, temperature, or the like causes the test devices or elements to output test signals to be tested, such as the optical signals or electrical signals, respectively. A tester implements a test for a test item on the test device or element by use of the test signal to be tested. Hereinafter, a test applying portion includes: a power supply; a signal generator; a temperature controller; and a controller that controls them. A testing portion includes: a tester; and a controller that controls the tester.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 10-68753, electrical signals output from multiple test devices or elements are connected to multiple testers by a switch, and the testers implement tests by use of the electrical signals.
If the testers are physically at a distance from the objects to be tested in such a testing system, the testers physically located at a distance should preferably be used efficiently. Also, the testing time should preferably be shortened.

Testing system and testing system control method


Provided is a semiconductor package that may prevent deformation of stacked semiconductor chips and minimize a semiconductor package size. The semiconductor package includes a package base substrate, a lower chip stacked on the package base substrate, an upper chip stacked on the lower chip, and a first die attach film (DAF) attached to a bottom surface of the upper chip to cover at least a portion of the lower chip. The first DAF may be a multi-layer film including a first attaching layer contacting the bottom surface of the upper chip and a second attaching layer attached to a bottom of the first attaching layer to cover at least a portion of a side surface of the lower chip.

The inventive concept relates to a semiconductor package, and more particularly, to a semiconductor package in which a plurality of semiconductor chips are stacked.
With the rapid development of electronic industry and the requirements of users, electronic devices become smaller in size, higher in capacity, and multifunctional. Therefore, semiconductor packages used in electronic devices need to become smaller in size, higher in capacity, and multifunctional. One approach for addressing these challenges is to provide a semiconductor package including a plurality of semiconductor chips. However, when a plurality of semiconductor chips are stacked and included in a semiconductor package, a semiconductor package size may need to increase. This can be due to various factors such as the upper semiconductor chip being thickened or a support member being used to prevent deformation of the stacked semiconductor chips.


Stable reference nucleic acid for use in all steps of molecular screening and diagnostic assays and method of making. A desired nucleic acid sequence is amplified, ligated into an expression vector, and used to transform a vehicle. A cellular vehicle is subsequently killed without affecting the encapsulated nucleic acid. The vehicle membrane is stabilized under controlled conditions to a stability substantially matching that of a test cell membrane. The recovered nucleic acid is used as a standard or control in molecular diagnostic and genetic testing assays.

Nucleic acids encompass both deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). DNA, present in all nucleated cells, carries the information needed to direct the synthesis of every protein in the body. A single alteration in the correct sequence of the four DNA bases (adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine) may result in a defective protein. Depending upon the protein and the affected organism, the defect may range from inconsequential to life-threatening, or may be of intermediate severity. Diseases as diverse as cystic fibrosis, some types of cancer, sickle cell anemia, and atherosclerosis are known to result from specific genetic alterations. RNA, the intermediary between DNA and protein, is the product of transcription of a DNA template. RNA assays are being performed with increasing frequency in research and clinical laboratories. This is due at least in part to the prevalence of RNA viruses such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS and the hepatitis C virus (HCV), and the development of drugs used in treating infections with RNA viruses.
Nucleic acid assays are routinely performed, either manually or by automated instrumentation, in numerous reference and clinical laboratories. A nucleic acid assay may be performed to detect the presence of foreign DNA or RNA, which may indicate infection with a foreign organism. For example, a variety of molecular assays are used to establish the presence and identity of nucleic acids from the Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1), Chlamydia, and other organisms causing sexually transmitted diseases. An individual's DNA may also be analyzed to detect, treat, and in some cases prevent genetic disease. Genotype determination of genes for Factor-V Leiden, hereditary hemochromatosis, lipoprotein lipase mutations, and cystic fibrosis have important implications for health management. The Human Genome Project holds the promise of many more examples of medically efficacious genetic diagnostic determinations. The recent discovery of the breast cancer associated gene (BRCA-1) has highlighted both the importance of screening individuals for predisposition to a disease, and also the attendant need for accurate, precise, reproducible, and controlled nucleic acid assays.
Laboratories that perform clinical assays must meet federal and state accrediting agencies' requirements for quality control tests in order to obtain and maintain accreditation. For example, the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) specifies that quality control samples must be analyzed during every batch of patient specimens analyzed. The federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988 (CLIA'88) mandates similar requirements, as do inspection agencies from most states. The College of American Pathologists (CAP), a non-profit peer inspection group, also requires that quality control samples be analyzed during each analytical run.
In the field of molecular pathology and genetic testing, a quality control sample includes a reference DNA or reference RNA of known quantity and quality to evaluate the reliability of all steps of a test. Such reference nucleic acid is ideally as similar as possible to the test sample, and also has broad applicability to all sample preparation and test formats. Additionally, the reference nucleic acid should be easily produced, quantitated, and packaged with minimal technical capability.
Materials meeting these requirements, however, are lacking in the field of molecular pathology and genetic testing. This is due in large part to the variety of different technologies and techniques currently employed for a given diagnostic determination. For example, genetic determinations currently include the use of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the ligase chain reaction (LCR), branched DNA, allele specific hybridization, and direct sequence determination. In addition, so-called "home brew" produced primer oligonucleotides, and isotopically labeled or non-radioisotopic based probes are used in a variety of configurations in genetic testing, but without any systematic quality control materials, and hence without any validation. The aforementioned factors, coupled with the lability of nucleic acids, make it virtually impossible to obtain standard reagents to qualitatively and/or quantitatively assess the overall accuracy, reliability, and efficiency of the numerous manipulations performed in all phases of a laboratory assay, that is, from sample preparation through diagnostic determination. For example, one commercially available material for use as a control in a DNA assay consists of lyophilized DNA powder to be diluted and used beginning at an amplification step, which is late in the protocol and well after sample preparation. Thus, for the steps preceding amplification there is no reference DNA by which the accuracy, reliability, and efficiency of these steps may be evaluated. An additional drawback in the use of this material is the apparent lack of extraneous nucleotide residues and other milieu representative of that which is found in normal cellular extracts.
Even a single alteration in the base sequence of a nucleic acid may have severe consequences to a patient undergoing diagnosis of a genetic disease. Because of the importance of such assays, and also because of the wide range and large numbers of molecular diagnostic assays performed, there is a great need for stable reference nucleic acids to monitor test conditions as closely as possible.

Stable encapsulated reference nucleic acid and method of making


An electrophotographic photoconductor has a conductive substrate and a photosensitive layer. The photosensitive layer is laminated on the conductive substrate and includes at least phthalocyanine compound as a photoconductive material. In the photosensitive layer, the content of o-phthalonitrile polymer except the phthalocyanine compound is in a range of 100 nmol to 200 mmol with respect to 1 mol of the phthalocyanine compound. Thus, the electrophotographic photoconductor has an excellent surface-charge retention.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electropthographic photoconductor to be used in a printer, a copying machine, a facsimile machine, and so on using the method of electrophotography. Especially, the present invention relates to an electrophotographic photoconductor having an excellent surface-charge retention by an improved photoconductive material for a photosensitive layer of the photoconductor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, technical features required of electrophotographic photoconductors include abilities to hold surface charges in a dark place, to generate charges by receiving light, and to transport the charges by receiving light. The electrophotographic photoconductors can be grouped into two different types: one is a single layered type and the other is a so-called multiple layered type. The single layered type photoconductor has a single layer that combines the above abilities, while the multiple layered type one has function-separated laminated layers including a first layer responsible for generating charges and a second layer responsible for holding surface-charges in a dark place and for transporting charges at the time of receiving light.
Carlson process can be applied on an image formation based on the method of electrophotography using one of the above photoconductors. The Carlson process includes the steps of: uniformly charging the surface of the photoconductor in the absence of light by causing a corona discharge by airbreakdown; forming a latent image (a charge pattern on the photoconductor that mirrors the information to be transformed into the real image) of characters, figures, and the like of a source document; developing the latent image by adhering toner particles to the latent image by virtue of the electric field created by the charges on the photoconductor; transferring the developed toner particles on the photoconductor to paper by corona charging the back of the paper with a charge opposite to that of the toner particles and permanently fixing the image to the paper by melting the toner into the paper surface; and discharging and cleaning the photoconductor of any excess toner using coronas, lamps, brushes and/or scraper blades, recovering the photoconductor for reuse.
Heretofore, the following photoconductive materials have been used for the above electrophotographic photoconductors. The photoconductive materials include a compound prepared by dispersing an inorganic photoconductive material such as selenium, selenium alloy, zinc oxide, or cadmium sulfide into a resin binder and a compound prepared by dispersing an organic photoconductive material such as poly-N-vinyl carbazole, polyvinyl anthrancene, phthalocyanine compound, or bis-azo compound in a resin binder, or by the vacuum deposition instead of the dispersion.
The process of purifying the phthalocyanine compound as one of the above organic photoconductive materials has been studied in various ways in many references including A. W. Snow, et al., Macromorecules, 17 (8), 1614 (1984). These references describes 2, 4, 6-tris (2'-cyanophenyl)-1, 3, 5-triazine (hereinafter, it is abbreviated as triazine) which is a trimer as a polymerization product of o-phthalonitriles except a phthalocyanine compound (hereinafter, the product is abbreviated as a phthalonitrile polymer) in particular.
As described above, it is a known fact that the man skilled in the art uses the phthalocyanine compound as a photoconductive material of the electorophotographic photoconductor. In addition, the process for purificating the phthalocyanine compound has been also studied in various ways. In spite of those considerable works, by the way, some of the products of o-phthalocyanine polymerization may be defined as materials responsible for the electrophotographic properties of the electrophotoconductor. In this case, however, they have not been defined to a satisfactory degree under present circumstance. That is to say, the relationship between the materials associated with the process of preparing phthalocyanine compound and the electrophotographic properties, especially a surface-charge retention of photoconductor have not been defined well in spite of indicating the examples of various studies of phthalocyanine compound and various preparing processes for purifying the phthalocyanine compound.


A cutting machine including a cutting mechanism which can occupy at least one work position and one set-down position; a hitching structure; a carrying beam connected on the one hand to the hitching structure by a first articulation and on the other hand to the cutting mechanism by a second articulation; a lightening device including an elastically deformable element, and a locking device intended to block the first and second articulations. In the set-down position, the hitching structure and the carrying beam are held by the elastically deformable element and the first and second articulations are locked.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutting machine including:
a cutting mechanism; PA1 a hitching structure intended to be connected to the hitching device of a motor vehicle; PA1 a carrying beam connected on the one hand to the hitching structure by means of a first articulation and on the other hand to the cutting mechanism by means of a second articulation; PA1 a lightening device including an elastically deformable element connected on the one hand to the hitching structure by means of a third articulation and on the other hand to the cutting mechanism by means of a fourth articulation; PA1 a locking device intended: PA1 the pivoting of the hitching structure with respect to the carrying beam about the longitudinal axis of the first articulation, and PA1 the pivoting of the carrying beam with respect to the cutting mechanism about the longitudinal axis of the second articulation. PA1 the locking device includes a limiter intended to limit the pivoting of the hitching structure with respect to the carrying beam about the longitudinal axis of the first articulation; PA1 the limiter is connected, at one of its ends, to the hitching structure by means of a seventh articulation and, at the other of its ends, to the carrying beam in a sliding manner by means of a connection including a journal of longitudinal axis at least substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the first articulation, which journal is guided in at least one oblong hole lying at least substantially near the middle part of said carrying beam; PA1 there are provided two oblong holes in which the ends of the journal are guided, and the longitudinal axis of each oblong hole extends at least substantially at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the first articulation; PA1 the locking device includes a latch intended simultaneously to lock the pivoting of the hitching structure with respect to the carrying beam about the longitudinal axis of the first articulation and the pivoting of the carrying beam with respect to the cutting mechanism about the longitudinal axis of the second articulation; such a latch makes it possible, with a single manual action, to place the cutting machine in a set-down position in order to set it down; PA1 the latch includes a lever connected, at one of its ends, to the limiter by means of an eighth articulation of longitudinal axis coincident with the longitudinal axis of the journal; PA1 the lever includes a first bearing surface at its other end and a second bearing surface situated between this first bearing surface and the eighth articulation; PA1 in the set-down position, the first bearing surface of the lever bears on the cutting mechanism, in so doing, the upward pivoting of the carrying beam, that is to say the pivoting in the clockwise direction about the longitudinal axis of the second articulation, is blocked; PA1 in the set-down position, the second bearing surface of the lever bears against a stop provided on the carrying beam; in so doing, the pivoting of the hitching structure toward the cutting mechanism, that is to say in the clockwise direction about the longitudinal axis of the first articulation, is blocked; PA1 said stop provided on the carrying beam is situated between the two oblong holes in which the journal is guided; PA1 in the set-down position, in order to adjust the position of the hitching structure, provision is made for: PA1 in a position other than the set-down position, the lever is retracted in such a way as to allow, on the one hand, the carrying beam to pivot with respect to the hitching structure about the longitudinal axis of the first articulation and, on the other hand, the cutting mechanism to pivot with respect to the carrying beam about the longitudinal axis of the second articulation; PA1 in a position other than the set-down position, the lever is retracted in such a way that its longitudinal axis is substantially coincident with the longitudinal axis of the limiter; PA1 the hitching structure includes two lower hitching points and, in the set-down position, the lower hitching point furthest from the cutting mechanism is situated lower down than the lower hitching point closest to said cutting mechanism so as to make the cutting machine easier to hitch to the motor vehicle.
to lock the pivoting of the hitching structure with respect to the carrying beam about the longitudinal axis of the first articulation, PA2 to lock the pivoting of the cutting mechanism with respect to the carrying beam about the longitudinal axis of the second articulation. PA2 the limiter to be of adjustable length and/or PA2 the lever to be of adjustable length and/or PA2 the second bearing surface to be adjustable and/or PA2 the stop to be adjustable;


A magnetic resonance apparatus in which magnetic metal pieces are accommodated in an accommodation section so as to correct uniformity in a main magnetic field, includes an acquisition unit which acquires temperature information related to at least one of a temperature of the magnetic metal pieces accommodated in the accommodation section, a temperature of the accommodation section, and a temperature of a position in the vicinity of the accommodation section, and a temperature adjustment unit which adjusts the temperature of the magnetic metal pieces to a target temperature by preheating the magnetic metal pieces on the basis of the temperature information acquired by the acquisition unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic resonance apparatus in which a magnetic metal part is accommodated in an accommodation section for correction of uniformity in a main magnetic field.
2. Description of the Related Art
A magnetic resonance apparatus is provided with a magnet (a permanent magnet or an electromagnet) for generating a main magnetic field and a gradient magnetic field system (a gradient coil) for generating a gradient magnetic field. The main magnetic field is a static magnetic field and should desirably have high uniformity. In order to maintain the uniformity of the main magnetic field, shimming is performed. Shimming is roughly classified into passive shimming and active shimming. In the passive shimming, a magnetic metal piece (iron piece or the like) called a shim is arranged in the vicinity of the magnet, thereby adjusting magnetic field distribution of the main magnetic field. More specifically, arrangement of a plurality of magnetic metal pieces is contrived, whereby uniformity of the main magnetic field is maintained. In the active shimming, by adjusting a current to be caused to flow through a coil (shim coil), a correction magnetic field for uniformizing the main magnetic field is generated.
Then, in the passive shimming, it is known that non-uniformity of the main magnetic field is caused by variation of the temperature of the magnetic metal piece. It is also known that an offset is caused in the main magnetic field by the variation of the temperature of the magnetic metal piece. As a cause of the temperature variation, heat generation from a gradient coil and heat generation caused in a magnetic metal by an eddy current induced by generation a gradient magnetic field are mainly considered. When the temperature of the magnetic metal is changed by such heat generation, the magnetic susceptibility of the magnetic metal is changed and, as a result of this, the intensity of the main magnetic field is changed locally or entirely.
A technique is known in which a correction magnetic field for correcting non-uniformity or the like of the main magnetic field is included in a gradient magnetic field (see, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2-206436). In this technique, a temperature of a magnet is detected, and a correction amount is determined in accordance with the temperature. Further, an offset of a current value corresponding to the correction amount is added to a current for generating a gradient magnetic field which is originally required, and the resultant current is supplied to a gradient coil.
In the above-mentioned prior art technique, the main magnetic field is corrected by the gradient magnetic field, and hence the correction amount and the correction resolution have their limits, and there has been no guarantee that the uniformity and intensity of the main magnetic field could have been kept constant.

Magnetic resonance apparatus with temperature controlled magnet shim pieces


In some embodiments, the disclosed systems and methods provide a client-server infrastructure capable of supporting a variety of asynchronous and synchronous collaboration activities in a so-called collaboration place. Some of these activities include chatting, viewing and/or editing one or more data files, and sharing one or more applications, data files, and/or displays. The client-server infrastructure supports seamless navigation between the supported asynchronous and synchronous activities in the collaboration place. Additionally, the client-server architecture supports data persistence, so that data files associated with the collaboration place can be stored for subsequent access.

Traditionally, people who were separated by geographic distances and who desired to collaborate with each other in so-called "real time" had relatively few options. An expensive option included traveling to a common geographic location or place to meet, chat, share notes, and discuss ideas. A less expensive, but arguably less productive, option included participating in a telephone conference call and concurrently exchanging email messages.
However, companies are just beginning to fully realize that phone and e-mail are no longer the most efficient ways for communication in today's disperse organizations. Currently the market of collaboration consists of a variety of companies offering a variety of separate solutions. The capabilities of these known solutions include: presence, instant messaging, web conferencing and team or project workspaces. In the current market, vendors can only offer stand-alone products for each of these solutions. Solutions are generally limited in scope to address either asynchronous collaboration or synchronous collaboration. Known attempts to combine synchronous and asynchronous collaboration have provided awkward solutions because they require leaving one mode in order to act in the other mode.
A drawback of these solutions is that each is a separate application and the use of these software on a separate basis is cumbersome, complicated, and expensive. For example, in current workspace applications, more than one person can view a document in the same virtual environment, but these technologies only offer serial editing, allowing only a single individual to make edits to the document when that individual has that document open on his or her computer. As such, while collaborating in a serial editing environment, people are only allowed to edit one at a time. Each edit must be discussed over instant messaging or e-mail and collaborators must wait to make edits. Thus, in such systems, the permission to edit the document must be passed back and forth as if they were writing on the same piece of paper with one pen. Such techniques can result in ending that momentum that can come with successful collaboration sessions.
Another application commonly used for collaboration is E-mail. However, companies are finding that e-mail is overwhelming their organizations. Companies are complaining of losing hours of productivity a day to sorting through e-mail. Another example of a conventional collaboration tool is instant messaging (IM), otherwise referred to herein as chat. IM is typically implemented using peer-to-peer communications. Chat is a transit real-time or "live" activity in which interface activity is synchronously updated as the interaction progresses. Prior known attempts to combine synchronous IM-type tools with asynchronous collaboration tools, such as browser-based conferencing tools, have resulted in cumbersome products that often require users to leave one of the modes of communication to enter the other of the modes of communication.
Another example of a conventional collaboration tool is browser-based conferencing. Such on-line conferencing activity is typically a transient event. In some known systems, static recordings of the sessions are recorded for later replay. One drawback of such systems is the inability to provide features for continued collaboration, resuming collaboration, or sharing asynchronous collaboration on the same subject.
Concurrently using a number of stand-alone collaboration tools, such as combinations of one or more of the previously described tools and/or one or more other available tools, leads to inevitable problems. For example, compatibility problems and productivity losses are inevitable when using several separate stand-alone collaboration tools. Transferring information from one tool to another tool can often result in data files or edits being lost, permissions being incorrectly updated, and/or sessions or connections being dropped. Switching from one stand-alone application to another stand-alone application so that a collaboration can "move" from IM, to a browser-based conference, and to a shared workspace can waste valuable time and frustrate collaboration participants.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide improved systems and methods for collaboration, which for example can overcome the illustrative drawbacks of existing collaboration tools mentioned or provide new functionality to users.


A controller ensures that ring-tones of a relatively-small pool of distinct ring-tones are individually assigned to telephones of a group of telephones in such a way as to maximize the physical separation of telephones with the same or similar ring-tones. One telephone after another generates an audio signal, such as a chirp or a ring-tone, while the other telephones listen for the audio signal and report results of their listening to the controller. The controller uses the results to assign ring-tones to the telephones. A graph-coloring algorithm may be used to make the assignments.

Many modem telephones have the capability of generating any selected one of a plurality of different ring tones. An example is the Avaya 4620 phone of Avaya Inc., which provides eight possible ring tones. Also, many cell phones support user-defined or downloaded ring tones, including music files. When telephones are being installed in an office, each telephone is assigned a default ring tone. For example, a script exists for the Asterisk open-source private-branch exchange (PBX) system that assigns ring tones to individual extension numbers or Internet protocol (IP) addresses.
The problem is that the phones in one area—that is, telephones that are physically perceived to be fairly close to each other—may be configured to generate the same default ring tone, and thus it can be very difficult to distinguish one ringing phone from another. The default ring-tone of a telephone can subsequently be changed to a different ring tone by a user of that telephone. Nevertheless, ensuring that ring tones of a large number of phones are sufficiently different from each other to be readily distinguishable is a challenge. Software such as the Heresy AI Composer from Wild Palm generates unique ring tones for cell phones, and claims to be theoretically capable of generating billions of compositions. Nevertheless, generating a unique ring tone for each phone is not necessarily a good solution, because it is difficult to ensure that, as the number of ring tones increases, the ring tones actually sound different from each other.

Automatic provisioning of distinct ring-tones for co-located telephones


The invention concerns a self-clamping connector for single-wire or multi-wire electrical conductors. It includes a spring loaded clamp; with one or more leaf springs and a corner-angle conductive core with eccentric slots, in which leaf springs with a larger loop shape with a greater effective length are used to contact an inserted conductor.

The invention concerns a self-clamping connector.
Clamping connectors are known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,397,514. In the connector presented in the named U.S. Patent, the effective length of the leaf springs corresponds approximately to the diagonally measured distance between the guide-member leg and the contact leg of the conductive core piece. If a "soft" spring characteristic is to be obtained with this known clamping connector, as is necessary for inserting multi-wire and particularly fine-wire electrical conductors, then the effective length of the leaf springs must be dimensioned appropriately larger. However, due to the greater length of the leaf springs, a greater distance results between the guide-member leg and the contact leg of the conductive core piece with the consequence that the material requirement for punching out and shaping the conductive core piece is correspondingly greater.
This is a disadvantage, since the material from which the conductive core piece is to be produced must be a good current conductor and is relatively expensive. Also, in current conductors of this type, we are dealing with a mass-produced product, and any increased requirement for expensive material considerably increases the total production costs.
The task of the invention is to create a clamping connector of the above-named type, which makes possible the use of softer (longer) leaf springs without increasing the material consumption for the conductive core piece thereby.
In the clamping connector of the invention, the large loop part of the leaf spring is the determining factor for the desired soft spring characteristic. The loop part extends in a direction opposite the direction of conductor introduction and utilizes the free space of the construction inside the insulation-material housing of the clamping connector, which is present in connectors of this type due to the structural constriction of the channel of conductor introduction in order to form a point-precise inlet hopper for the clamping site.
The looped leaf spring is mounted with its head part in the guide-member leg, which is connected directly to the contact leg of the corner angle at the point of the corner-angle construction of the conductive core piece. According to the invention, if the foot end of the leaf spring forms with the contact leg a clamping place next to the point of the corner angle (which is possible in the contact insert according to the invention without adversely affecting the desired spring characteristic), then the guide-member leg of the corner-angle conductive core is essentially loaded in a pulling manner by the clamping forces of the leaf spring. Undesired bending moments do not occur on the guide-member leg, so that the strength of the guide-member leg must be calculated only relative to tensile strength, whereby there can be a corresponding savings of material with the constructive dimensioning of the guide-member leg.
This applies also to the constructive dimensioning of the contact leg of the corner-angle conductive core. With this feature (arrangement of the clamping site in the vicinity of the corner point), the latter also need not absorb noteworthy bending moments and remains free overall of mechanical loads of all types (=no bending forces, no pulling forces). The contact leg essentially serves only for current conduction and thus may be optimized in its cross-sectional dimensions exclusively from the point of view of a sufficient cross section for conducting current. This also saves material.

Self-clamping connectors for single-wired and multi-wire conductors


Iron oxide magnetic powder having small crystallite size and a small specific surface area, a manufacturing method therefor and a magnetic recording medium having excellent surface characteristics and satisfactory electromagnetic conversion characteristics are provided. The iron oxide magnetic powder contains crystallite having size of 30 nm or less when measured by an X-ray diffraction method and has a specific surface area of 30 m.sup.2 /g or less when measured by a BET method, and a magnetic recording medium using the iron oxide magnetic powder as the magnetic member thereof are provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coating type magnetic recording medium for use in an audio tape, a video tape or the like, iron oxide magnetic powder contained in a magnetic layer of the magnetic recording medium and a manufacturing method therefor.
2. Description of Related Art
Hitherto, .gamma.-iron oxide coated with Co and thus having intense coercive force, that is, maghemite (.gamma.-Fe.sub.2 O.sub.3) has been employed to manufacture video tapes for use in home video tape recorders.
On the other hand, an intermediate of .gamma.-iron oxide coated with Co, that is, so-called magnetite (Fe.sub.3 O.sub.4), has been used widely because of a high magnetization rate and a high absorbance. Since magnetite has a large number of Fe.sup.2+ ions per unit volume thereof, it has a high magnetization rate. Therefore, it raises the magnetic flux density as a magnetic recording medium, thus causing the electromagnetic conversion characteristics to be improved.
However, the electromagnetic conversion characteristics depend upon the size of magnetic powder as well as the magnetic characteristics. Since the width of transition region for flux reversal is therefore reduced in proportion to the size of the magnetic powder, the high region (short wavelength) characteristics, which determine the resolution of an image, are affected considerably. As for the reproduction output, information can effectively be reproduced only in a case where the major axis of magnetic powder is not longer than 1/2 of the recording wavelength. The ratio (S/N) of an output signal with respect to noise which generates at the time of reproduction is considered to be in proportion to the square root of the inverse number of the volume of the magnetic powder.
To obtain the above-mentioned characteristics, the size of magnetic powder is required to be reduced. If the size of magnetic powder is reduced, the specific surface area (the surface area per unit weight) is enlarged and thus the cohesiveness among particles is intensified. Moreover, the number of particles per unit volume is enlarged. Therefore, the viscosity of the coating is raised, thus resulting in that magnetic powder cannot easily and uniformly be dispersed. That is, if magnetic powder is not uniformly dispersed, satisfactory surface and magnetic characteristics of the magnetic layer cannot be obtained. Thus, there arises a problem in that expected characteristics cannot be obtained.
However, the factor actually relating to magnetization of signals is the size of each crystal particle forming a single magnetic domain. Therefore, reduction in the size of crystallite contained in skeleton particles relating to dispersion while retaining the size of the skeleton particles enables the above-mentioned contrary characteristics to be realized.

Iron oxide magnetic powder and magnetic recording medium using the same


Metallic cord for reinforcing elastomeric articles and apparatus for making same including a round section and equal diameter filaments and a core (11) of two strands of two filaments (5,6,15,16) one strand being untwisted and the other strand having a twist and a first lay length so as to be twisted around the one strand.. An outer layer (12) of filaments (21-28) twisted around the core (11) and having the same twist direction and a second lay length half of the core (11) lay length.

Conventionally cord filaments have a round cross-section, i.e. a cross-section which fits substantially into a circle, though the use of shaped filaments, for instance flat wires, is gaining acceptance in the tire reinforcement field. It is common to provide the filaments with a thin coating of an alloy including at least copper and zinc, which increases the adhesion level of the filament with elastomeric material, particularly during the vulcanization process.
It has been observed, that when pneumatic tires reinforced by steel cords are cut or punctured, the exposed cord rapidly deteriorates upon contact with corrosive liquids, such as salt solutions or water. The liquid enters the cut or puncture and rapidly progresses along the entire length of cord destroying the tire assembly. It is believed that one reason for this deterioration is an imperfect rubber penetration through the twisted cord during the vulcanization step of the tire. The resulting voids within the cord construction facilitate the penetration of the corrosive liquid along its length. A complete rubber penetration into the inside of the cord also suppresses the risk of filament migration within the cord.
In order to avoid the above problems, a great number of so-called open cords or rubber penetrating constructions, wherein a rubber layer is interposed between the steel filaments, has been proposed. Open cord constructions like 2+2, 3+1, 2.times.1 have been successful in the passenger tire field. However, in case of multilayered structure cords, as are required to reinforce the elastomeric material of light-truck and truck tires, it has up to now not been possible to develop a cord construction allowing a complete penetration of the elastomeric material into the inner core of the cord.

Open metallic cord for penetration by elastomer