A process is disclosed for the preparation of an essentially tetramer-free, substantially stroma-free, polymerized, pyridoxylated hemoglobin. Also disclosed is an essentially tetramer-free, substantially stroma-free, polymerized, pyridoxylated hemoglobin product capable of being infused into human patients in an amount of up to about 5 liters.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to methods and apparatus for preparing red blood cell substitute products, i.e., hemoglobin products. It further relates to an acellular red blood cell substitute comprising an essentially tetramer-free, cross linked, polymerized, pyridoxylated hemoglobin solution which is free of stromal contaminants.
2. Description of Related Art
For a number of years, blood banks have provided whole blood for replacement during surgery, because of trauma, or for other situations. However, whole blood obtained from human donors is not suitable for a variety of uses. In particular, the use of whole blood is problematic because of the requirement for donor-typing, stability and shelf-life problems and toxicity caused by viruses and other contaminants. These problems are especially pertinent to emergency situations, such as the use of blood by the military. Consequently, much effort has been devoted to the development of substitutes for whole blood obtained from human donors. This development has resulted in various modifications to blood from human or other mammalian sources. Stroma-free hemoglobin is known in the art to have oxygen transport and reversible oxygen (or ligand) binding capacities. Since toxicity problems have precluded use as a blood substitute, stroma-free hemoglobin has required further modifications to provide a nontoxic, useful pharmaceutical product.
These modifications include (1) rendering hemoglobin free or substantially free of stroma and stromal contaminants; (2) pyridoxylation; (3) polymerization or cross-linking; (4) removal of tetramer, and (5) modification with carbon monoxide or other ligands.
However, hemoglobin solutions prepared by these techniques, while capable of carrying sufficient quantities of oxygen to support life, have been plagued with many undesirable side effects and properties. For example, a major troubling side effect is a decrease in kidney performance. These changes were thought to be due to the presence of unwanted contaminants such as bacterial endotoxin or fragments of red cell membranes (stroma). While contaminants such as these can indeed produce renal alterations, hemoglobin solutions essentially free of the above contaminants still produce substantial renal dysfunction. The cause for the renal dysfunction has been ascribed to physiologically unacceptable amounts of unpolymerized hemoglobin tetramer. Other undesirable side effects of the infusion of tetrameric hemoglobin are vasoconstriction, hemoglobinuria, depression of heart rate, elevation of mean arterial blood pressure and extravasation of infusate especially into the peritoneal cavity.
In practice, no known hemoglobin-derived blood substitute has been successful in totally avoiding toxicity problems. These products also have unacceptably low half-lives after administration to human patients. Such half-lives require replacement of blood volume repeatedly over short periods of time. Consequently, there is a substantial need for hemoglobin products that are non-toxic to patients and have substantial half-lives after administration. Of course, these products must be capable of reversibly transporting oxygen to tissues in a manner similar to that achieved by whole blood.
The present invention provides hemoglobin substitutes that are non-toxic to humans and have substantial half-lives of at least 15 hours when administered to humans. The hemoglobin products of the invention are stroma-free, pyridoxylated and polymerized as well as being free of viral and other toxic contaminants. Further, these products are substantially free of leukocytes (white blood cells) and platelets.
The present invention also encompasses processes for preparing the inventive hemoglobin substitutes. The processes include removing leukocytes and platelets from blood; washing and lysing the red blood cells; removing stromal contaminants and stroma by filtration and heat-treating; preparing the deoxy form of the hemoglobin; pyridoxylation and polymerization; further purification and concentration; and deoxygenation. The resulting hemoglobin product may be then formulated to provide a hemoglobin product having levels of various electrolytes within normal physiological ranges.
The invention also provides an aqueous formulation of pyridoxylated, polymerized hemoglobin, where the hemoglobin is a glutaraldehyde-polymerized hemoglobin containing tetrameric material, having the molecular weight profile of FIG. 3. This formulation may be used to prepare an acellular red blood cell substitute. In this aspect, the formulation is first purified to remove tetramer and then combined with appropriate amounts of electrolytes to produce a physiologically acceptable, acellular, red blood cell substitute that may subsequently be used to treat a human patient requiring an infusion of an oxygen carrier.

Method and apparatus for preparing an acellular red blood cell substitute


For protecting wildlife from high voltage conductors proximate to a utility pole, dielectric covers are used to cover fuse cutouts, bushings, or other connections to insulators. Such covers include a vertical slot for receiving an energized wire so the cover can be installed using a hot-stick while the wire is energized. To eliminate leakage currents flowing across the cover under high voltage conditions, which previously led to localized melting of the cover, inner walls of the cover are molded that are laterally separated from the outer walls of the cover. The double wall design eliminates leakage currents due to the extra dielectric wall and air gap, and the inner wall is not subject to contamination from conductive pollutants. The double wall design also increases the insulating properties of the cover.

Applicant's own U.S. Pat. No. 7,154,034, incorporated herein by reference, describes a dielectric fuse cutout cover. The cover protects birds and other animals from electrocution, which may also trigger an over-current condition due to electrical shorts between phases or phase to ground that may cause a power outage. Other types of dielectric covers for bushings, transformer taps, and other high voltage connections are known for preventing wildlife from electrocution.
Such cutout covers have a body that forms a single dielectric wall surrounding the cutout's metal upper contact assembly.
Applicant was informed by linemen that some cutout covers, bushing covers, lightning arrestor covers, and other types of dielectric covers for high voltage parts have developed melted portions after a period of use under high voltage conditions. Applicant surmised that the melting is due to heat generated by leakage currents flowing along the outside surface of the cover. Such melting of the cover increases the chances of a flashover due to exposed energized parts, which may cause a power outage.
Therefore, what is needed is an improved design of a cutout cover, or other cover for a high voltage component, that prevents such leakage current and melting.

Double walled high voltage insulator cover for mitigating leakage current


An integrated circuit package system is provided including forming a substrate with a device thereover, forming an encapsulation having a planar top surface to cover the device and the substrate spanning to an extraction side of the encapsulation, and forming a recess in the encapsulation from the planar top surface.

Modern electronics, such as smart phones, personal digital assistants, location based services devices, enterprise class servers, or enterprise class storage arrays, are packing more integrated circuits into an ever shrinking physical space with expectations for decreasing cost. Contemporary electronics expose integrated circuits and packages to more demanding and sometimes new environmental conditions, such as cold, heat, humidity, and everyday handling requiring integrated circuit packages to provide robust structures.
Electronic appliances also provide flexibility provide modular support for consumers to customize features important to them. This flexibility requires robust, durable, and ergonomically usable form factors of these modules. These modules may provide various functions such as providing connectivity for wireless access to storing digital pictures.
Numerous technologies have been developed to meet these requirements. Some of the research and development strategies focus on new technologies while others focus on improving the existing and mature technologies. Research and development in the existing technologies may take a myriad of different directions.
One proven way to reduce cost is to use mature package technologies with existing manufacturing methods and equipments. Existing packaging technologies struggle to cost effectively meet the ever demanding reliability, durability, and usability requirements of today's integrated circuits and packages.
Most integrated circuit devices use molded compound as an epoxy mold compound (EMC) for protecting package. The encapsulation formed from the molding compound and other packaging structures tend to increase the size or format factor of the overall package. Other usability structures add more complexity and may increase the size or decrease the durability of the overall package structure. These additional structures may also limit how many modules may be simultaneously used within the physical constraints available in the electronic appliance.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit package system providing low cost manufacturing, improved usability, and improved durability for the integrated circuit package. In view of the ever-increasing need to save costs and improve efficiencies, it is more and more critical that answers be found to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.


A photographing apparatus comprises: a photographing device which takes an image of a subject; a focusing control device which controls the focusing status of the photographing device in response to an input of a focusing instruction; a focusing judgment device which, upon an input of the photographing instruction after the input of the focusing instruction, judges whether or not a focus position at the time of the input of the focusing instruction is optimum; and a photographing control device which controls to execute photographing using the focus position as it is if the focus position at the time of the input of the focusing instruction is judged to be optimum, and controls to execute photographing after performing focusing control again if the focus position is judged to be not optimum.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photographing apparatus and a focusing control method, and specifically relates to a photographing apparatus having an automatic focus adjustment (AF control) function and a focusing control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-154669 discloses an automatic focus adjustment device employed in a still video camera, etc., the device comprising: an autocorrelation method-focusing device, and a hill climbing-method focusing device, the device, when a change in a subject after focusing is small, performing hill climbing-method focusing control, which has high focusing precision, and when a change in a subject after focusing is large, performing high-speed focusing control using the autocorrelation method, and then performing hill climbing-method focusing control to follow the change in the subject after focusing.
Conventionally, cameras configured so that AF control is performed for a subject in an AF area to be brought into focus when a focusing instruction is input, and after the AF control, an instruction to execute photographing and recording (photographing instruction) is input are known. Such a camera has a problem in that when a subject or the camera is moved during the time from a focusing instruction until a photographing instruction, the subject located within the AF area at the time of the input of the focusing instruction would fall outside the AF area at the time of the input of the photographing instruction, and the subject would become out of focus in an image actually photographed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-154669 above enables to follow a change in a subject at high speed using a combination of two types of focusing devices. However, the combination of two-types of focusing devices has a problem in that AF control processing becomes complicated. Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-154669 is not configured to focus on a particular subject, so it is different in AF control method from the present invention.

Photographing apparatus and focusing control method


The invention concerns a device comprising at least a fixed element (2), secured to a vertebra, at least a mobile element (10), capable of moving relative to the or each fixed element, and at least an intermediate element (22) for articulating the mobile element relative to the fixed element. The intermediate element (22) is received in an internal volume of the mobile element % (10), and the fixed element (2) is received at least partly in an internal volume (26) of the intermediate element (22). Means are provided for securing, at least in translation, said intermediate element (22) to the fixed element (2), comprising the periphery of the substantially rigid outlet of the internal volume of the intermediate element.

A known device of this type exists, which has at least two pedicle screws, each of which has a first end connected with a corresponding vertebral body, a swollen intermediate portion, as well as a second threaded end. Auxiliary components, provided with a bow for attachment of a rod extending between the vertebrae, are arranged on each of the aforementioned swollen portions. A bolt, which cooperates with the threaded end of each screw, makes possible the immobilization of each auxiliary component, once the latter is positioned in the appropriate manner.
This known device nevertheless has certain disadvantages, in that it involves a relatively delicate assembly process. Furthermore, once implanted, it offers no degree of freedom between the different elements of which it consists. Thus, when forces are exerted on the vertebral bodies, this absence of degree of freedom induces a transmission of these forces over the whole device, so that the latter has a tendency to become disconnected from the vertebrae which it connects and furthermore induces malfunctionings with regard to the whole vertebral chain.


A realistic electro-mechanical toy that can simulate lifelike purring and other vibratory sensations of animals and other creatures by transmission of vibrations to the body of the mechanical toy providing enhanced and lifelike interaction with a user. An arm is coupled to a body and includes a finger portion at an end of the arm. The finger portion is biased against a cam which is rotatably coupled to the body and includes one or more protuberances on a surface perimeter such that when the cam is rotated a vibration is transmitted to the body simulating lifelike purring and other vibratory sensations. The cam is rotated in a back and forth motion and is synchronized with a sound element producing a purring sound occurring around the time the vibration is transmitted to the body.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mechanical toys exhibiting realistic actions and functions. More particularly, the invention relates to a realistic electro-mechanical toy that can simulate lifelike purring and other vibratory sensations of animals and other creatures by transmission of vibrations to the body of the mechanical toy.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, many sectors of the toy industry have responded to consumer demands for more realistic toys and games with enhanced capabilities by utilizing technological advancements to make toys and games more realistic and lifelike.
Consumer driven evolutions in the industry are found in toys embodied as creatures, animals, dolls and various other life forms real or imagined. For example, dolls can now speak, walk, and even roller skate, exhibiting movements and actions more realistic and lifelike than anyone could have imagined even ten years ago.
To provide a more realistic and interactive doll or toy, a cost-technology trade off becomes important. As is known, new technologies cannot typically be implemented to meet customer demands because of other constraints played on the industry by consumers. One of the most important constraints is cost. Therefore, even though technologies may exist to meet consumer demands, those technologies cannot be applied to this industry until they have adapted in such a way as to be more cost effective. To this end, the toy industry has employed relatively inexpensive motors and linkage assemblies to provide realistic mechanical dolls and toys. However, although such dolls may provide some realistic movable body parts, the dolls do not exhibit realistic sensations or functions which would provide an enhanced and lifelike interaction with a user.
An attempt to increase the realism of a doll or toys' functions focused on simulating a heartbeat, as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3,298,132 to Elwell for "Heartbeat Simulating Mechanism for Dolls" issued Jan. 17, 1967, disclosing a mechanism for producing a pattern of intermittent vibratory sounds. Elwell discloses a radially extending disc carrying four radially projecting pairs of fingers mounted on an operating shaft and in contact with a rigid stud upstanding from a heart chamber. Upon rotation of the operating shaft, contact between the stud and each finger results in a visible shock wave extending over the heart chamber and producing simulated auricle and ventricle sounds.
The Elwell mechanism does not disclose an arm coupled to a body and biased against a cam including one or more protuberances on a surface perimeter, or alternatively, a cam including an elliptical surface perimeter. Elwell does not suggest a realistic electro-mechanical toy that can replicate lifelike purring and other vibratory sensations of animals and other creatures by transmission of vibrations to the body of the mechanical toy.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists for a mechanism to replicate lifelike vibratory sensations and functions of toys, animals and other creatures to provide an enhanced lifelike and realistic interaction with the user.

Transmission of vibrations to a body creating realistic sensations in mechanical toys


A button assembly and a washing machine having the same, by which a simplified structure enabling to perform assembly and disassembly of the button assembly are disclosed. The button assembly includes a panel having at least one button hole, at least one push button inserted in the at least one button hole in part, and an elastic part coupled to the panel to prevent the at least one push button from being separated from the panel and to elastically support a rear side of the at least one push button.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a washing machine, and more particularly, to a button assembly and washing machine having the same, by which assembly and disassembly of the button assembly are facilitated.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, in a washing machine, a tub contains water and detergent inside and a laundry is put in a drum installed within the tub. And the drum is rotated to perform washing, rinsing, and dewatering. The washing machine is an apparatus for removing filth or dirt attached to the laundry using the detergent and mechanical energy applied thereto appropriately.
Specifically, a drum, which is horizontally installed within a drum type washing machine, contains detergent, water, and laundry therein and is then rotated by a drive force of a motor to remove filth or dirt attached the laundry. Such a drum type washing machine avoids causing damage or ravel to the laundry, consumes less water, and brings about a washing effect of beating and rubbing.
A general drum type washing machine consists of a cabinet forming an overall exterior, an opening formed at a front side of the cabinet for putting/pulling a laundry in/from the washing machine, a door provided to the front side of the cabinet to open/close the opening, a tub provided within the cabinet to contain water therein, a drum rotatably installed within the cabinet to perform washing on the laundry therein, a multitude of perforated holes formed at a wall of the drum so that the water passes through the perforated holes, an inlet pipe for supplying the water within the cabinet, and an outlet pipe for discharging the water outside the cabinet.
A control panel is provided to an upper front side of the cabinet to control an operation of the washing machine. And, a button assembly for inputting an operational condition of the washing machine and a display unit for displaying an operational state of the washing machine are provided to the control panel. The control panel including the button assembly 20 according to a related art is explained in detail by referring to FIG. 1.
First of all, a plurality of push switches 31, a plurality of light-emitting diodes 32, an integrated circuit (not shown), and a circuit board 30 having segments and the like mounted thereon are provided inside a control panel 10. And, a button assembly 20 consists of a plurality of push buttons 21 pushing the push switches 31, respectively, a panel 22 covering a front side of the circuit board 30 and having the push buttons 21 provided thereto, and a plurality of plate springs 23 elastically supporting the push buttons 21 in a direction opposite to a push direction, respectively.
And, a plurality of button holes 22a are formed on the panel 22, whereby the push buttons 21 are inserted in the button holes 22a, respectively. Moreover, a display unit (not shown) displaying an operational state of the washing machine is provided next to one side of the button assembly 20.
When a specific one of the push buttons 21 is pressed from a front side of the control panel 10, the pressed push button 21 overcomes an elastic force of the plate spring 23 to press the corresponding push switch 31. Hence, a specific operational condition of the washing machine is inputted to operate the washing machine, accordingly. Meanwhile, if an external force pressing the push button 21 is released, a restoring force of the plate spring 23 makes the push button 21 return to its original position.
However, in the related art button assembly, the push button 21 is hooked on the panel 22 to enable a push behavior and the plate spring 23 is locked to an inside of the panel 22 by a screw, whereby the assembly and disassembly of the button assembly 20 are complicated to reduce work efficiency thereof.

Button assembly and washing machine having the same


In a computer system, parallel streams of digital data are transmitted from a source to a destination in bursts or packets. At the beginning of each burst all the parallel data signals contain a start bit. Each data signal is received by a deskewing buffer which transmits the data signal through a delay line with multiple taps. At the beginning of each clock cycle the signal value Data(i) at each tap (i) in the delay line is latched. Each resulting latched signal value LData(i) is compared with the latched signal value LData(i+1) for the next tap down the delay line to generate a set of comparison signals C(i). When the start bit of a new burst is received, one of the comparison signals will have a distinct value from all the others, thereby indicating the delay line tap at which the phase of the received data signal is approximately synchronized with the receiver's clock signal. The data stored in the deskewing buffer's latches represents the phase of the received digital signal and is retained until the end of the burst transmission. A multiplexer which outputs a selected one of data signals from the tapped delay line in accordance with the values of the comparison signals. The selected data signal is sampled and latched at each clock cycle, thereby generating a deskewed data signal that is synchronized with both the receiver's clock signal and also with the other parallel data streams.

Referring to FIG. 1, many digital systems have data busses and other data communication lines which contain many parallel communication paths. For instance, a typical cable that carries data between a computer and its printer will have sixteen or more parallel data lines as well as a number of parallel control signal lines. Parallel data lines are frequently used simply because it is possible to transmit data much faster over N parallel lines than over a single data line.
In many cases, parallel streams of data are transmitted from a source to a destination over a path in which the delays to which the parallel bit streams are subjected cannot be accurately controlled. Variable delays are introduced not only by differing lengths of the signal paths, but also by variations in the delay of drivers and receivers. In order for the receiver at the destination to accurately recover the data the individual data bits must be sampled by a clock at the receiver. This clock can have the same frequency as the transmitter, but the transmitter and receiver will not necessarily have the same phase, further exacerbating the problem of correctly receiving the data.
The need for deskewing parallel bit streams increases as the transmission speed from source to destination is increased because the differences in propagation delays between parallel lines becomes a more significant fraction of the time window in which the data must be sampled. For instance, if the maximum difference in propagation delays of a set of parallel communications paths is four nanoseconds, equivalent to 0.04 clock periods when transmitting at a rate of 10 Megabits per second, that same maximum difference in propagation delays is equivalent to 0.5 clock periods when transmitting at a rate of 125 Megabits per second.
The need for deskewing also increases as the differences in delay of the signal drivers and receivers for each bit increase relative to the period of the system's clock. This problem is particularly acute when a manufacturing technology such as CMOS is used for drivers and receivers, since it is difficult to produce a number of circuits with identical delays using that manufacturing technology.
FIG. 1 shows a "snap shot" representation of a set of parallel bits being transmitted at the source, and a representation of the same bits at the input port of the destination. The function of the deskewing buffers of the present invention is to convert the received, skewed streams of digital data into deskewed streams, and also to adjust these streams of data so that each bit is accurately sampled by a defined clock signal at the receiver.

Method and apparatus for deskewing digital data


A magnetoresistive element includes a first magnetic layer having an axis of magnetization perpendicular to the film surface and a fixed magnetization orientation; a second magnetic layer having an axis of magnetization perpendicular to the film surface and a changeable magnetization orientation; a first nonmagnetic layer arranged between the first and second magnetic layers; and a third magnetic layer having an axis of magnetization perpendicular to the film surface and a fixed magnetization orientation opposite that of the first magnetic layer. The first magnetic layer has a first magnetic material film in contact with the first nonmagnetic layer, a nonmagnetic material film in contact with the first magnetic material film, and a second magnetic material film containing Co100-xWx (0<x<40 at %) and in contact with the nonmagnetic material film. As current flows via the nonmagnetic layer, the magnetization orientation of the second magnetic layer changes.

In recent years, as the next-generation solid state nonvolatile memory capable of carrying out operation with high speed read/write, high capacity, and low power consumption, people have paid much attention to magnetic random access memory (hereinafter to be referred to as MRAM) exploiting the magnetoresistive effect of a ferromagnetic material.
In particular, magnetoresistive elements having a ferromagnetic tunnel junction have attracted much attention as they have been found to demonstrate a significant ability to change magnetoresistivity. The ferromagnetic tunnel junction has a 3-layer laminated structure including a memory layer where the magnetization direction is changeable, an insulator layer, and a fixing layer that maintains a prescribed or intended magnetization direction in the memory layer.
A magnetoresistive element having a ferromagnetic tunnel junction is also called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). People have proposed using a spin injection write system using spin momentum transfer (SMT) as the memory write system for MTJ's.
According to the spin injection write system, as a spin polarization current flows in the magnetoresistive element, the magnetization direction of the element is inverted. As a consequence, the volume of the magnetic layer needed to form the memory layer decreases and thus the current to inject spin polarization electrons decreases. Consequently, it is expected that a spin injection based writing system may have both very small memory cell and unit size and low current requirements for switching.
The ferromagnetic material that forms the magnetoresistive element may be the so-called vertical magnetization film, a film having a simple axis of magnetization.
When crystal magnetic anisotropy is exploited in the constitution of the vertical magnetization type, shape magnetic anisotropy is not exploited, so that the size of the element can be smaller than the in-plane magnetization type. Also, as the dispersion in the easy axis of magnetization is small, by adopting a material with a high crystal magnetic anisotropy, it is possible to realize both finer structure and lower current while maintaining a high resistance to thermal disturbance.
Usually, the magnetostatic stray field generated of the reference layer in the MTJ element where the memory layer and the reference layer are of the vertical magnetization type is higher than that of the MTJ element of the in-plane magnetization type.
Also, a memory layer with a coercive force lower than that of the reference layer is significantly influenced by the leak magnetic field of the reference layer. More specifically, under the influence of the magnetostatic stray field of the reference layer, thermal stability degrades, and switching current value and its range increase. This is undesirable.

Magnetoresistive element and magnetic memory


A vehicle electronic apparatus (1) includes an electronic control section (2) received in an accommodation cavity (23) in an instrument panel (22) in a vehicle for effecting an electronic function in the vehicle, a switch section (3) detachably attached to the electronic control section (2) for controlling the electronic control section (2), and a cover panel (4) to be fitted in the accommodating cavity (23) in the instrument panel (22) to cover the switch section (3) at the front side. It is possible to use in common the electronic section (2) which is an expensive electronic element and also to design the cover panel (4) with flexibility. The switch section (3) can be produced in compliance with the designed cover panel (4). A common use of electronic parts will achieve a reduction of cost and enhance a flexibility in design of an interior of the vehicle.

This invention relates to a vehicle electronic apparatus which is attached to an instrument panel in a vehicle and controls vehicle electronic equipment such as an air conditioner, an audio system, a car navigation system, and the like.
Heretofore, such a vehicle electronic apparatus includes an electronic control section which controls electronic equipment such as an air conditioner, a car navigation system, and the like, manual switches which are provided on the front side of the electronic control section and send command signals from a driver to the electronic equipment, and a cover panel which is mounted on the front side of the manual switches. These elements are formed together as a single unit. When a single or plural electronic apparatuses are put or piled on each other in an accommodating cavity in the instrument panel, the cover panel is aligned with the instrument panel with respect to a single plane. Accordingly, the driver can control the vehicle electronic equipments concentrically and the cover panel keeps a good appearance of interior of a vehicle.
There are various kinds of automotive vehicles such as a sedan, a sport car, and the like. Interiors of the vehicles are different in accordance with the types of vehicle.
However, the electronic control section, manual switches, and cover panel are formed together as a single unit. In the case where the electronic control section which takes a great part of cost in the vehicle electronic apparatus is used in common in different vehicles in order to reduce the cost of the vehicle, the cover panel is limited in its shape and design, thereby making it more difficult to distinguish each class of the vehicle.
Since this problem will weaken a competitive power of the vehicle in the modern times when a personal taste has become various, this problem should be overcome by all means.

Integrated instrument panel switch assembly

Harness System Technologies Research, Ltd.


The present invention is a height adjustable pedestal having a gas spring which is easily separated from a furniture component support. The height adjustable pedestal of the present invention can be used in chairs and table. The present invention also provides a method of releasing the tapered upper section of the gas spring from the socket in which it is retained. The method involves no impact forces. The pry lever can be used to apply a force directly on the top of the gas spring cylinder. The invention allows the gas spring to be released simply without the possibility of damage to the gas spring, or other chair component.

Height adjustable work chairs are used in home, office, education, and industry. These height adjustable chairs typically include a seat that swivels in relation to the base of the chair. The height adjustment is typically obtained from a telescoping spring height adjustment mechanism which is usually a gas spring. This gas spring is a telescoping column that includes a cylinder which includes a pressurized gas such as nitrogen; a piston extending downwardly from the cylinder which supports the cylinder in an elevated position and includes an end which secures the gas spring to the chair base; and a valve located within the cylinder which allows the movement of gas within the cylinder.
The upper section of the cylinder is typically tapered and is secured within a tapered socket within a furniture component support mechanism. The furniture component support mechanism is used to support a furniture component such as a chair seat or table top. If the furniture component support mechanism supports a chair seat, the mechanism may be referred to as a chair seat support mechanism. The chair seat support mechanism is also known as the chair tilt mechanism, particularly on chairs with adjustable backrests or chairs having a tilting chair seat.
Also included in the furniture component support mechanism is a lever that actuates the valve located in the gas spring. The valve typically includes a button extending from the top of the cylinder. When the button is depressed by the lever the pressurized gas within the cylinder is allowed to move through the valve. The cylinder will descend if a force exceeding gas pressure is applied on the spring or raise the cylinder if no force is applied on the spring. The gas spring may additionally include an air or oil damping mechanism which slows the rate of compression and extension for the gas spring.
The gas spring is typically supported in a vertical position between a base and a furniture component support by a vertical stand tube. The stand tube includes a top opening sized so that the cylinder of the gas spring can move vertically and rotationally in relation to the stand tube, yet remain supported by the stand tube regardless of the vertical or rotational position of the cylinder. The stand tube is typically a metal cylinder which includes top and bottom ends. An opening on the top end is included which is sized to accommodate a gas spring cylinder which moves vertically in relation to the stand tube. In some instances a bushing may be disposed within the opening to minimize friction between the gas spring cylinder and the stand tube. The opening serves to both guide the gas spring cylinder as well as to vertically support the gas spring which extends between the chair seat support mechanism and the chair base.
The bottom end of the stand tube cylinder typically is tapered for insertion into a base. The tapered bottom end is typically pressed into a tapered socket at the hub or center of the base. The stand tube bottom typically includes an opening through which the distal end of the piston of the gas spring can extend so as to be secured to the bottom of the stand tube. Typically, a clip type fastener is typically used to secure the distal end of the piston of the gas spring to the bottom of the stand tube.
During assembly of a chair the tapered upper section of the gas spring cylinder is seated, or secured, into the socket of the gas spring support mechanism. Similarly, during the assembly process the tapered end of the stand tube is seated within the tapered socket of the chair base.
During use of the chair, the weight of the chair user is transferred from the chair seat to the chair base through the gas spring/stand tube assembly. Because of this, the tapered upper section of the gas spring cylinder can become very securely pressed into the socket of the gas spring support mechanism.
Replacing a damaged gas spring typically involves the replacement of the entire gas spring/stand tube assembly. For this reason, the tapered upper section of the gas spring cylinder must be released from the socket within the gas spring support mechanism. Additionally, the tapered end of the stand tube must also be released from the chair base. This procedure is required to replace a damaged gas spring such as one which has developed excessive play or one which has lost internal gas pressure.
Release of the gas spring cylinder from the socket of the gas spring support mechanism typically requires a sharp impact force applied to the chair seat. The force of this impact will eventually cause the release of the tapered upper section of the gas spring cylinder from the socket. This impact force, however is transferred directly through the chair seat, and may in result in damage to the chair seat or another chair component.
In the event that the procedure needs to be done in view of the chair owner, the chair owner would watch a hammer wielding technician or sales person disassemble the chair. Multiple hammer blows is hardly the type of treatment that the chair owner expects their expensive chair should receive in this circumstance.
For this reason, there is needed a mechanism which assists the removal of the tapered upper section of the gas spring cylinder from the socket within the furniture component support within which it is secured.
The present invention is a height adjustable pedestal having a gas spring which is easily separated from a furniture component support. The height adjustable pedestal of the present invention can be used in chairs and tables. The present invention also provides a method of releasing the tapered upper section of the gas spring from the socket in which it is retained. The method involves no impact forces. The pry lever can be used to apply a force directly on the top of the gas spring cylinder. The invention allows the gas spring to be released simply without the possibility of damage to the gas spring, or other chair component.
Depending on the type of furniture component support used in the pedestal, access holes which allow for the quick release pry lever to be used are provided within the furniture component support. In some versions of the invention, the access holes provide a surface on which the pry lever can pivot. In other version, a separate pivot surface is provided within the furniture component support. The inclusion of access holes in a chair seat support or other furniture component support does not represent any difficulty for the manufacturer. Because of this, the invention provides significant benefits at little cost to chair assemblies. The invention would work equally well in table assemblies that use telescoping gas spring assemblies.
The present invention greatly eases the process of gas spring replacement as it is performed in height adjustable pedestals. Through the use of the present invention, the chair owner or service technician is ensured that no damage to the chair will result from the release of the gas spring from the furniture component support within which it has been disposed. No damaging hammer blows will be applied to the chair seat.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent upon inspection of the following drawings, description, and claims.

Gas spring quick release mechanism and method of use


A production system for automated assembly of vehicle components, in particular for automated assembly of structural components of an aircraft or spacecraft. The production system includes vehicle components with status sensors that can determine status data of the respective vehicle component, positioner units to grip the respectively associated vehicle component at mounting points and move the respectively associated vehicle component into an assembly position, a position-measurement system to determine the assembly position of each vehicle component, force sensors to determine at least one of reaction forces and moments of each gripped vehicle component at the mounting points in the assembly position, and a computer-based control system in data communication with the vehicle components, the positioner units, the position-measurement system and the force sensors, and configured to control the positioner units based on determined status data, the determined assembly positions and the determined reaction forces and moments of the vehicle components.

Although generally applicable to the assembly of any kind of vehicle or vehicle component, in particular large components of landborne, airborne, or waterborne vehicles, the disclosure herein and the problem on which it is based will be explained in greater detail with reference to the fuselage assembly of commercial passenger aircraft.
The fuselage shell of a modern aircraft consists of metal or composite material, e.g. carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP), formed as a rigid framework of stiffening elements that is covered by a skin. The framework normally comprises a series of frames bent into a circumferential direction according to the shape of the fuselage cross section and a plurality of longitudinal stringers or longerons that are joined to the frames. A typical fuselage shell is divided in the longitudinal direction into shell sections, each of which may individually be assembled from smaller shell portions. For example, a fuselage aft section of a fuselage shell may be assembled by circumferentially adjoining two side shell portions (including window openings), a lower shell portion and an upper shell portion to form a circumferential shell, and by closing off this circumferential shell in the aft direction with a single smaller tapering tail section.
The assembly of such shell sections or other large structural components, as for example passenger floors, cargo floors, etc., out of smaller shell portions is usually managed by positioning the individual aircraft components relative to each other within an iterative process using a plurality of positioner units that grip and move the aircraft components. To this end, the positioner units may be supported by an automated positioning system, which in turn may include a measurement system, e.g. a laser tracking system. However, the final control in this iterative process is commonly still in the hand of a human operator. For example, the human operator may have to intervene in the automatic positioning process in case one component leaves predefined system boundaries of the positioning system. Such system boundaries may for example be defined by the acceptable limits on the reaction forces on the aircraft components in the mounting points of the positioner units indicating the allowable residual stresses in the aircraft components. The assembly system may provide information on the reaction forces and the current positions of the aircraft components. Based on this information the operator may initiate, e.g. after an automatic stop due to exceedance of a reaction force limit, another positioning attempt following an alternative trajectory. As a consequence, there is a need for further automatizing the whole positioning process (cf., for example, US 2016/0074926 A1, US 2015/0344154 A1 and US 2014/0157588 A1).

Production system for the automated assembly of vehicle components and method for controlling a production system


A color display device comprises an electron gun, a display screen and a color selection electrode as well as a deflection means. The distance between the electron beams is dynamically varied, i.e. the distance between the electron beams in the deflection plane decreases as the beams are deflected in at least one direction. The decrease of the distance enables the distance between the color selection electrode and the display screen to be increased in that direction. As a result, the curvature of the color selection electrode is increased, which has a position effect on the strength, doming and microphonics of the color selection electrode. The distance is dynamically varied by first and second means, the first means being arranged in or near the pre-focusing parts of the electron gun. Said first means comprise magnetic means outside the neck of the CRT for generating dynamically varying magnetic fields, and magnetic field conducting means to conduct the fields to a position near the electron beams.

The invention relates to a color display device comprising a color cathode ray tube including an in-line electron gun for generating three electron beams, a color selection electrode and a phosphor screen on an inner surface of a display window, and a means for deflecting the electron beams across the color selection electrode, the color display device comprising a first and a second means arranged at some distance from each other to dynamically influence the convergence of the electron beams so as to decrease the distance between the electron beams at the location of the deflection plane as a function of the deflection in at least one deflection direction, the first means being arranged in or near the pre-focusing portion of the electron gun.
Such a display device is known from international patent application no. WO99/34392.
The aim is to make the outer surface of the display window flatter, so that the image represented by the color display device is perceived by the viewer as being flat. However, an increase of the radius of curvature of the outer surface will lead to an increase of a number of problems. The radius of curvature of the inner surface of the display window and of the color selection electrode should also increase, and, as the color selection electrode becomes flatter, the strength of the color selection electrode decreases and hence the sensitivity to doming and vibrations increases. An alternative solution to this problem would be to curve the inner surface of the display window more strongly than the outer surface. By virtue thereof, a shadow mask having a relatively small radius of curvature can be used. As a result, doming and vibration problems are reduced, but, other problems occur instead. The thickness of the display window is much smaller in the center than at the edges. As a result, the weight of the display window increases and the intensity of the image decreases substantially towards the edges.
The known color display device comprises a first and a second means arranged at some distance from each other to dynamically influence the convergence of the electron beams so as to decrease the distance between the electron beams at the location of the deflection plane as a function of the deflection in at least one deflection direction. By virtue thereof, the distance between the electron beams (also referred to as the xe2x80x98pitchxe2x80x99) in the plane of deflection can be changed dynamically in such a manner that this distance decreases as the deflection increases. By dynamically changing this distance (the pitch) as a function of deflection, and hence as a function of the x and/or y coordinate(s), the distance between the display window and the color selection electrode can increase in the relevant deflection direction. The shape of the inner surface of the display window and the distance between the display window and the color selection electrode determine the shape, and in particular the curvature, of the color selection electrode.
Since the distance between the electron beams decreases as a function of the deflection, the distance between the display window and the color selection electrode increases and the shape of the color selection electrode can deviate more from the shape of the inner surface of the display window than in previous cathode ray tubes, in particular the curvature of the color selection electrode is larger. Such a larger curvature (or, in other words, a smaller radius of curvature) increases the strength of the color selection electrode and reduces doming and microphonics.
In the known color display device, the first means comprises one or more components of the pre-focusing portion of an electron gun. The outermost apertures of the G2 and G3 electrodes are offset with respect to each other and a dynamic potential difference is applied between them. In this manner, a dynamic electric field is used to influence the convergence (or divergence) of the electron beams.
Providing such a dynamic potential difference, however, entails providing a dynamic voltage difference between electrodes. This requires a separate voltage supply circuit, which is relatively expensive. Some guns use a DAF (Dynamic Astigmatism and Focus) design in which a dynamic voltage is supplied to the G3 electrode. This dynamic voltage, however, is usually mainly dependent on the horizontal deflection, rather than on the vertical deflection. The dynamic voltage range is very limited as a function of vertical deflection enabling only limited influence on the convergence.
It is an object of the invention to provide a color cathode ray tube of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph, in which the outer surface may be flat or substantially flat, while, at the same time, the above problems are overcome or reduced.
To this end, the color display device in accordance with the invention is characterized in that the first means comprises generating means for generating, outside the neck of the cathode ray tube, a dynamic magnetic field and conducting means inside the neck of the cathode ray tube and in or near the prefocusing portion of the electron gun to conduct the magnetic field to a position near the outer electron beams so as to form a local magnetic field for influencing the electron beams.
In the device in accordance with the invention, there is no need for an extra supply circuit for supplying a dynamic electric potential. In the color display device in accordance with the invention, a local magnetic field is generated for influencing the electron beams. An important advantage is also that this correcting field may be used at will, i.e. the set maker may make use of the invention when wanted, without having to change the gun or the supply circuit to the gun.
Preferably, the conducting means are attached to the G2 or G1 electrode. This enables a magnetic field to be attained very close to the cross-overs of the electron beams. Preferably, the conducting means are arranged at a surface of the G2 electrode facing the G1 electrode or at a surface of the G1 electrode facing the G2 electrode, placing the local magnetic fields even closer to the cross-over. By placing the local magnetic fields close to the cross-overs of the electron beams, a situation is attained where the beams remain converged on the screen. This is due to the fact that the main lens has the task of creating a sharp image of the cross-overs on the screen.
These and other aspects of the invention are apparent from and will be elucidated with reference to the embodiments described hereinafter.

Color display device with a deflection-dependent distance between outer beams


A heater controller is provided. The heater controller includes a switching unit which switches a conduction state of a heater with an AC power source between ON and OFF at a timing at which an AC power voltage becomes zero; and a control unit which controls the switching unit at each unit interval corresponding to a half wave period of the AC power voltage. The control unit outputs a switch signal for switching the conduction state based on a pattern in a control time period set as an integral multiple of the half wave period. In the pattern, ON intervals in which the conduction state is to be ON, and OFF intervals in which the conduction state is to be OFF are arranged so that one of the ON intervals and the OFF intervals, a number of which is smaller are not successive within the control time period.

A heater controller is provided in an image forming apparatus such as an electrostatic copier or a laser printer in order to control the temperature of a heater contained in a heater roller. The heater controller controls such heater in the heater roller to become a temperature appropriate for the type of sheet, for example, ordinary sheet, OHP, and the like so that a toner image onto the sheet is thermally fused (fixed) on the sheet while the sheet passing through the heater roller and a pressing roller.
Such kind of heater controller controls a halogen lamp and the like consuming comparatively large power as the heater. Therefore, a larger current fluctuation such as rush current occurs when the conduction state of the heater from an AC power source is switched between ON and OFF. This larger current fluctuation sometimes causes a flicker in the halogen lamp itself or a light emitter which is connected to the same power line as the image forming apparatus.
As an example of countermeasures against such flicker, it is conceivable to continuously control the power supplied to the heater by adopting phase control of interrupting a current in arbitrary phase. However, the waveform of the current flowing into the heater becomes discontinuous rather than a sine wave, and therefore, a harmonic current flows into the power line and terminal noise increases.
JP-A-9-80961 describes a related-art heater wave number controller which performs a wave number control of switching the ON/OFF state of a heater at the period timing at which an AC power supply voltage becomes zero (zero crossing timing), thereby controlling the conduction state of the heater in half-wave units of the AC power supply voltage to suppress occurrence of a harmonic current.
In the heater wave number controller, the switching timing of the conduction state of the heater from OFF to ON is fixed within a control time period set to an integral multiple of a half period of AC power supply voltage and the switching timing from ON to OFF is varied according to the difference between a target temperature and a current heater temperature, thereby controlling the temperature of the heater.
By the way, it is known that a level at which flicker is offensive to a human being is that a change frequency of illuminance becomes about 8.8 times per second (8.8 Hz) although it depends on the illuminance of a light emitter and an individual difference. That is, the higher the switching frequency of the heater conduction state, the shorter a change period of the illuminance (illuminance change period) of a lighting emitter so that the flicker becomes negligible.
However, in the related-art heater wave number controller, if an attempt is made to perform heater control by fractionating the set step of heater output to maintain the accuracy of temperature adjustment, the control time period needs to be long and thus the illuminance change period is prolonged according to the duration of the control time period, and there is a possibility that flicker occurs.

Heater controller and image forming apparatus


Systems and methods of processing shaped data to include selectively performing a modification operation. The modification operation may be performed in response to determining that shaped data satisfies one or more shaping adjustment criteria. Shaping of data may be discontinued to at least a portion of a memory based on a health metric for the portion satisfying a threshold.

As the number of write/erase (W/E) (a.k.a. program/erase (P/E)) cycles performed in a flash memory increases, data retention capability of the flash memory is reduced and the probability of failures is increased. Such failures are usually related to wearing of an oxide isolation layer of cells in the flash memory due to electrons passing through the oxide isolation layer during W/E cycles and generating electron trap sites. Such failures can be manifested in several ways, such as by failing to erase or program a block of cells in the flash memory or by having reduced cell data retention (i.e., a reduced ability to store data reliably for a certain period of time). As cell dimensions shrink, a corresponding reduction in endurance may become a limiting factor affecting commercial viability of non-volatile memories, such as NAND-based flash memory.
Data with a distribution that is different (e.g., significantly different) than a distribution induced by an independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) bit source having equal probability for 1 and 0 may be said to be "shaped." Examples of shaped data include data that contains a higher number of 1-s than 0-s, or vice versa (e.g., data which contains a higher number of 0-s than 1-s). An amount of shaping may correspond to entropy of a data source that is determined relative to an alphabet of data and its distribution. For example, binary entropy is the entropy of an i.i.d. data source having an alphabet {0, 1}. Binary entropy can be determined as H(p)=−p(0)log2 p(0)−p(1)log2 p(1), where p(0) is the probability that the data source will generate the value 0 and p(1) is the probability that the data source will generate the value 1. If the data source has a distribution of 90% 0-s and 10% 1-s, the entropy H(p) is approximately equal to 0.47. As another example, if an i.i.d. data source has an alphabet that contains four symbols {A, B, C, D}, the entropy of the data source can be determined as H(p)=−p(A)log2 p(A)−p(B)log2 p(B)−p(C)log2 p(C)−p(D)log2 p(D). If A, B, C, and D are represented in the data by the ordered pairs (0,0), (0,1), (1,0), and (1,1), respectively, low entropy but equal probability of states A and D may result, such as when p(0,0)=p(1,1)=0.05 and p(1,0)=p(0,1)=0.45.
Any data that includes a logical page of data having entropy lower (e.g., significantly lower) than one (where one is the binary entropy of data having 50% zeros and 50% ones) can be considered to be shaped. Criteria for considering a value of entropy to be significantly lower than '1' may vary according to each particular implementation. In some examples, shaped data may have a higher number of 1-s because in conventional NAND flash systems, '1' typically represents an erase ("ER") state while '0' typically represents a programmed state. Shaping data to have a higher number of 1-s may increase a useful life of a flash memory because increasing the proportion of memory cells that are set to the erase state (i.e., cells set to logical '1") causes less wear of the flash cells and increases the number of W/E cycles that the NAND flash cells may undergo while maintaining a pre-defined storage reliability.
In many cases, wearing of the cells of a non-volatile memory (NVM) may be the factor that limits the useful life of a flash memory system. Various methods may be used to shape compressible data to form shaped data, such that the portion of 1-s in the shaped data is larger than the portion of 0-s. Because '1' typically corresponds to the Erase state in a NVM, the NVM partition may experience less wear when programmed with shaped data. Thus, shaping the data stored in the NVM may reduce wear, thereby increasing an endurance of the NVM. Additionally, shaping the data may reduce an average bit error rate (BER). However, shaping data may increase a variance (e.g., a maximum or instantaneous value) of the BER due to potentially problematic combinations of shaped data.


A mailbox system that has a distributed architecture is disclosed. The system includes an application server, a media server, and message storage system having subscriber mailboxes. Application messages may be stored in a subscriber's mailbox. When the subscriber accesses an application message, the application server uses the application message to create an application, which is then provided to the media server. The media server then executes the application for the subscriber.

Today, communication solution providers must rapidly create useful, vendor-agnostic, targeted, standards-compliant, and cost-effective telephony/video and entertainment applications that easily integrate with other enterprise or carrier solutions and leverage existing deployed infrastructure. These solutions can vary from VoiceXML-based voice mail to video-enabled store front applications.
Messaging applications and call completion applications are a key offering of communication service providers. A vast majority of subscribers call into their mailbox to check their messages. This subscriber activity provides a unique and untapped distribution channel for both existing and new products. In terms of a distribution channel, the subscriber is familiar with the store (the mailbox), comes to the store often and receives a personalized and trusted experience. However, currently, there are only a few products in the store such as certain types of messages (voice, video and fax) and certain types of content through a portal.
There exists a need for a communication system having a mailbox with the infrastructure capable of rapidly delivering a plethora of customized and personalized services, or product promotions with possibly short life spans to individual users and groups of users for services without massive deployment procedures and use of permanent platform resources.

Signed message based application generation and delivery


A thrust reverser includes a pair of doors covering corresponding portals in an exhaust duct between an inlet and outlet nozzle at opposite ends thereof. The duct also includes a pair of side beams having actuators mounted thereon, and operatively joined to the doors for selective rotation thereof about corresponding pivots. Blister fairings are disposed inside the duct and sealingly join the doors to the beams around respective ones of the pivots.

The present invention relates generally to aircraft engines, and, more specifically, to thrust reversers therefor.
Turbofan gas turbine engines are commonly used for powering aircraft in flight. In a turbofan engine, air is pressurized in a compressor and mixed with fuel and ignited in a combustor for generating hot combustion gases which flow downstream through turbines which extract energy therefrom. A high pressure turbine powers the compressor, and a low pressure turbine powers the fan disposed upstream of the compressor.
Propulsion thrust is provided by the combination of the hot combustion gas exhaust from the core engine with the pressurized fan air which bypasses the core engine. In a long duct turbofan engine, the fan air bypasses the core engine inside a surrounding nacelle and is mixed with the core exhaust prior to discharge from the engine in a combined exhaust stream.
During aircraft landing, it is common to employ thrust reversers with the engine in which doors are selectively opened for blocking the aft direction of the engine exhaust and redirecting it in the forward direction for providing additional braking for the aircraft. There are two basic types of thrust reversers having doors mounted either post-exit to the discharge exhaust nozzle, or preexit from that outlet nozzle.
Since thrust reversers are used solely during aircraft landing they must be integrated into the engine with minimal adverse effect during all remaining conditions of operation including takeoff, cruise, and descent. However, in view of the attendant complexity in providing thrust reversers at the discharge end of the engine, the prior art is quite crowded with myriad forms of thrust reversers attempting to minimize adverse affects thereof while maximizing aerodynamic performance of the engine.
Since an aircraft engine is specifically configured for powering an aircraft in flight, engine weight is a primary design factor, and the introduction of a thrust reverser should minimize the corresponding increase in engine weight. Propulsion efficiency of the engine is yet another significant design factor, which is also adversely affected by the introduction of thrust reversers in various forms.
For example, a post-exit thrust reverser includes a pair of clamshell doors which are deployed in the form of an open clamshell for redirecting the engine exhaust in the forward direction during landing. Since the deployed clamshell doors must closely adjoin each other at their trailing edges, when the doors are retracted or stowed, the trailing edges thereof typically form a fishmouth configuration which introduces undesirable aerodynamic drag during normal operation of the engine. Drag is a performance penalty which reduces overall efficiency of the engine with this type of thrust reverser.
In pre-exit type thrust reversers, the reverser doors are located upstream from the discharge end of the nozzle resulting in a typically more complex configuration for integrating the doors in the stowed and deployed positions thereof. In particular, the stowed doors must minimize aerodynamic losses of the exhaust channelled therethrough during normal operation, as well as providing a streamlined outer surface for reducing drag thereover. And, the doors should be suitably sealed to the exhaust nozzle when stowed for reducing or minimizing exhaust gas leakage through the convoluted perimeter of the doors.
Since the exhaust nozzle is annular in configuration, each of the two doors must be suitably arcuate to match the annular configuration of the nozzle when stowed. The two doors are thusly arcuate at their forward and aft ends with relatively straight side edges therebetween, and with inner and outer surfaces which must suitably blend with corresponding inner and outer surfaces of the exhaust duct in which they are mounted.
Adding to the complexity of thrust reverser design is the inherent necessity for suitable actuation thereof for deploying open the doors when required and retracting closed the doors to their stowed positions when not required for aircraft landing. Various forms of actuators are found in the prior art having different advantages and disadvantages, which also increase the complexity of effective sealing of the doors.
Yet another significant design factor for thrust reversers is the integration with the actuating means of suitable safety devices for preventing unintended deployment of the thrust reversers except for aircraft landing. Such deployment prevention must be integrated with the actuating means without introducing excessive weight penalty, yet providing a durable and rugged thrust reverser actuation system for long life thereof.
Accordingly, it is desired to provide an improved thrust reverser with integrated components for enhancing aerodynamic performance in a compact and rugged assembly.
A thrust reverser includes a pair of doors covering corresponding portals in an exhaust duct between an inlet and outlet nozzle at opposite ends thereof. The duct also includes a pair of side beams having actuators mounted thereon, and operatively joined to the doors for selective rotation thereof about corresponding pivots. Blister fairings are disposed inside the duct and sealingly join the doors to the beams around respective ones of the pivots.


According to one embodiment, a semiconductor manufacturing device includes a first stage, a second stage, a transfer unit, and a detector. The first stage corrects a position of the semiconductor chip. The second stage supports an object into which the semiconductor chip is to be installed. The transfer unit transfers the semiconductor chip picked up from the first stage to the second stage. The detector detects an elastic wave from the semiconductor chip. The detector is attached to at least one of the first stage and the second stage.

In the recent years, aside from a capacity increase, size reduction and thinning of a semiconductor package are under progress for installing the same to a limited space. As the semiconductor package, there is a multilayer structure in which a plurality of semiconductor chips is laminated in one package. Under such a circumstance, due to a thickness of the semiconductor chips being very thin, a crack is easily generated in the semiconductor chips. The crack may occur by a load being accumulated at a portion with a foreign matter, in a case where a semiconductor chip is mounted on a stage on which the foreign matter is adhered.
The crack generated in the semiconductor chip is detected by an appearance observation inspection using a magnification observation and recognition camera, for example. For example, a method in which a surface of the semiconductor chip mounted on the stage is taken by the recognition camera, and image information obtained therefrom is processed is known. In this method, there is a case in which a contrast difference becomes small between the crack and a portion on a periphery thereof, when a resin layer is formed on the surface of the semiconductor chip. It becomes difficult to obtain an accurate inspection result by the determination on the crack becoming insufficient.
For example, a method in which infrared light is irradiated from a rear surface side of the semiconductor chip having the resin layer formed on its surface, and the crack is detected from a difference in reflected light is known. In this method, there is a case in which the contrast difference becomes small between the crack and the portion on the periphery thereof, when an adhering layer is formed on a rear surface of the semiconductor chip. It becomes difficult to obtain an accurate inspection result by the determination on the crack becoming insufficient. Further, a structure of the semiconductor manufacturing device becomes complicated by providing a facility to irradiate with the infrared light from the rear surface side.
In a case where the crack generated in the semiconductor chip is not detected before being packaged, and is determined as a defect for the first time upon an inspection of a finished product, that finished product is going to be dealt as a defective product. In this case, components other than the semiconductor chip in which the crack has occurred and manufacturing cost thereof are wasted. Further, a large number of defective products will be produced, due to the difficulty in specifying the cause of the crack.

Semiconductor manufacturing device and semiconductor manufacturing method


The forces exerted by actuators are detected and devices are provided, which use those detected forces to regulate a pressure force exerted by one cylinder against another cylinder in a printing machine. The several forces can also be used for placing or removing one cylinder with respect to another cylinder. One cylinder may be mounted in a cylinder holder which is, in turn, mounted in a frame holder. At least two actuators are arranged between the cylinder holder and the frame holder. These actuators exert a radially directed force against the cylinder holder when they are actuated by a control signal.

Inking units or dampening units of printing presses are employed for conveying an ink or a required dampening agent from appropriate supply devices to printing zone. Rollers or cylinders are provided in the inking unit or in the dampening unit for forming the required ink film or dampening agent film. The term roller and cylinder have the same meaning for understanding the present invention and will be used interchangeably. The rollers come into contact with each other along so-called roller strips. The ink film or the dampening agent film can be transferred in the roller strips from one roller to another roller.
Rollers, which are adjustably supported in a machine frame, are provided in such inking units or dampening units. A contact pressure in the roller strips can be changed by displacing these adjustably seated rollers with respect to the other rollers. An inking unit, with a distribution roller seated fixed in the frame and with a forme cylinder also seated fixed in the frame, is known from EP 0 826 501 A1. Inkis transferred from the distribution roller to the forme cylinder by use of an application roller that is arranged between the distribution roller and the forme cylinder. The application roller is itself adjustably seated in the machine frame and can be pressed, with an adjustable force, into the gap between the distribution roller and the forme cylinder. The device for seating the application roller is embodied in this prior device in such a way that the force with which the application roller is pressed into the gap between the distribution roller and the forme cylinder always acts along a bisecting line of an angle. In other words, although the size of the force for pressing the application roller can be changed, the direction of the force is unchangeably preset by the structural embodiment of the setting device. Thus, only the size of the contact pressure force can be changed for setting the contact pressure in the roller strips between the forme cylinder and the distribution roller on the one hand, and the application roller on the other hand. The resulting contact pressures in the roller strips ensue on the basis of the preset geometry.
A device for clamping bearing bushes of printing and forme cylinder bearing of a printing press is known from the Letters Patent DD 64 064. The device provides a hydraulic force for pressing the bearing bushes against the bore wall of the machine frame. The bearing bushes consist of two bushing sleeves shrunk on each other. Two hydraulically chargeable pressure chambers have been worked into the inner wall of the outer bearing bush, which pressure chambers are placed on both sides at 120° in respect to the resultant of the mean forces acting on the bearing. The true running properties of the cylinders are improved with this device, because a movement of the cylinders which is, to a large extent, vibration-free is achieved by the removal of the play which the bearing bushes have in the bore of the machine frame which receives them.
Letters Patent DE 15 61 014 C1 shows a roller bearing which is adjustable in only one direction, and which is used, in particular, for distribution and application rollers of inking units of printing presses. Setting assemblies, for adjusting the roller transversely in respect to its axis, are provided. The setting assemblies are arranged between a bearing journal connected with the frame wall and a housing, which housing receives one roller end and which is preferably embodied in a cup shape. The bearing journal and the housing are connected with each other by spring elements, which act oppositely to the setting assemblies. Here, the spring elements are preferably embodied as radially extending rubber bumpers, and the setting assemblies acting on the bearing journal are either embodied as a radially arranged setting screw, or as two setting screws arranged at 45°. In accordance with a further embodiment, the engagement or the disengagement of the roller, and therefore the adjustment of the roller bearing, can also take place by the use of two pressure chambers, which are diametrically arranged inside the housing and which can be acted on by air or a fluid, wherein the pressure chambers acting against each other are selectively charged with pressure.
A device for setting a contact pressure between rollers of a printing press is known from DE 100 01 582 A1. Hydraulic actuating elements, which are preferably embodied as double piston cylinders, are arranged between the adjoining rollers.
A device and a method for the semi-automatic setting of rollers is known from EP 0 958 918 A1. An adjustable first roller is placed against at least one second roller fixed in the frame. Spring-elastic elements charge the first roller with a spring-elastic force in the direction of the second roller.

Method and devices for regulating at least one cylinder in a printing press


A mechanism for protected operating system boot that prevents rogue components from being loaded with the operating system, and thus prevents divulgence of the system key under inappropriate circumstances. After a portion of the machine startup procedure has occurred, the operating system loader is run, the loader is validated, and a correct machine state is either verified to exist and/or created. Once the loader has been verified to be a legitimate loader, and the machine state under which it is running is verified to be correct, the loader's future behavior is known to protect against the loading of rogue components that could cause divulgence of the system key. With the loader's behavior being known to be safe for the system key, the validator may unseal the system key and provides it to the loader.

Computer security is often dependent on being able to predict the behavior of software components. In general, the security of a system may flow from the premise that a known program whose behavior is understood, which proceeds from a known good state, will act in a predictable manner. Conversely, the thwarting of security—which may involve getting a computer system to behave in ways that are outside the contemplation of its designer—can generally be realized by replacing or changing a known program, or running it in a state in which its behavior is not understood. Thus, one aspect of providing security for a computing environment includes verifying that a known program is being used, and that it is proceeding from a known good state.
One area where predictability of behavior is particularly important is in the loading of an operating system and its components. Although the operating system itself may be designed to provide some level of trustworthiness as to its behavior, the time before such an operating system has been loaded is a time when the system is particularly vulnerable to attack, since the infrastructure that protects the operating system from attacks may not have been established yet (or may be in the process of being established). Thus, ensuring that the operating system loads in a predictable way is important for protecting the operating system from certain classes of attacks.
One type of security breach that can flow from non-secure loading of an operating system relates to the protection of the key (or keys) that enable certain restricted functionality. By way of example but not limitation, the MICROSOFT WINDOWS operating systems employ a system key, or "SYSKEY," that is used to protect various processes by making the correct performance of those processes dependent on the availability of SYSKEY. For example, the key needed to decrypt private information that is stored by the operating system in encrypted form may be derivable from the SYSKEY.
Conventionally, the keys needed to perform restricted operations are protected by the logon procedure. Typically, the user must correctly authenticate himself (e.g., by providing correct logon credentials, such as a username/password combination) prior to commencing use of the system. Use of the keys is enabled only if the user correctly authenticates, and the system will only permit the user a limited number of tries (e.g., three) before concluding that the user has failed to logon properly. (This type of limit on the number of attempts to logon prevents unauthorized users from enabling use of protected functionality by using a brute force attack to guess the password in the case of, say, a stolen laptop computer.) However, using the logon procedure to protect access to keys assumes that the operating system loader correctly loaded the operating system with the correct logon program, and that the use of the keys has not been otherwise enabled by rogue code that may be running. If a rogue loader was used instead, and the rogue loader causes a rogue logon program to be loaded with the operating system, then the use of keys might be enabled, or the keys might even be divulged, without the correct credentials having been entered. Since the loading of the operating system provides an opportunity for a security breach, protection of the keys in such a situation requires that the loading of the operating system take place under circumstances where it can be verified to take place correctly.
One problem that occurs with verifying the security of an operating system load process is that legitimate operating system loads can involve many different programs (e.g., there are numerous different "option ROMs," which are pre-OS programs that run during a system boot procedure), and there are numerous different procedures that can be performed as part of an operating system load. Thus, there are a nearly uncountable number of different legitimate machine states during a load, and identifying all such states and verifying that the machine is in a known good state may prove to be an infeasible task. However, not all parts of the load procedure have security implications. It may be more efficient to let the load proceed without any attempt to evaluate its security, but then set the environment to a known good state before starting any procedure that could affect a security-related function, such as the distribution of keys. More generally, an arbitrary system can be allowed to run for some time without any type of security evaluation, as long as the system can be set to a known good state before allowing any actions that have security implications to take place.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a mechanism that overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art.

System and method for protected operating system boot using state validation


A cutting tool comprises: a first cutting insert having a first side surface for interconnecting a first upper surface and a first lower surface, a first cutting edge located at the intersection between the first upper surface and the first side surface, and a first groove section located in the first side surface and extending to the first upper surface so as to divide the first cutting edge; a second cutting insert having a second upper surface, a second side surface, a second cutting edge located at the intersection between the second upper surface and the second side surface, and a cutting edge reinforcing section located on the second upper surface at an end thereof which is positioned on the second cutting edge side; and a holder for mounting thereto the first cutting insert and the second cutting insert. The first cutting insert and the second cutting insert are mounted to the holder in such a manner that the first cutting edge and the second cutting edge are located on the outer peripheral side of the holder, that the first lower surface and the second upper surface are in proximity to each other, and that the rotation trajectories of the cutting edge reinforcing section and the first groove section are partially superposed on each other.

Conventionally, there has been used a throw away type cutting tool structured such that a cutting insert having a cutting edge is installed to a holder.
As the cutting insert used in the cutting tool mentioned above, for example, in patent document 1, there is disclosed a cutting insert provided with a cutting edge which is positioned at an intersection of an upper surface and a side surface, and a groove portion which is provided on the side surface in such a manner as to divide the cutting edge. Divided cutting edges divided by the groove portion contribute to a reduction of a cutting resistance.
On the other hand, in the case of using the cutting insert having the divided cutting edges as mentioned above, since an uncut part is generated in a portion corresponding to the groove portion, in the workpiece, it is necessary to install a cutting insert having a different arrangement of the groove portion into the holder. Specifically, two kinds of cutting inserts are attached to the holder in such a manner that located at a position on a rotational locus of the groove portion of one cutting insert installed to the holder is a cutting edge of the other cutting insert.
However, in the cutting tool to which these cutting inserts are attached, a great load is applied to the cutting edge portion of the other cutting insert corresponding to the groove portion of one cutting insert. Therefore, the cutting edge portion tends to be chipped.

Cutting insert, cutting tool and cutting method using the same


An apparatus for transforming an input garbage mixture into separate fermented and non-fermented output products has a fermentation stage for depositing an input garbage mixture into non-compacted swathes to allow fermentation of the fermentable, organic waste materials therein, an input stage for loading the garbage mixture, and at least one grinder/separator stage having a grinder for grinding the garbage mixture into smaller particles and a separator with a screen of a selected mesh size for separating ground waste particles up to the selected mesh size as a fermented output product, and conveying the remainder of the particles to a reject output as a non-fermented output product. Fermentation of the input garbage mixture allows for organic maturation of the fermentable, organic waste materials in the mixture, as well as softening and rendering the fermented materials more susceptible to being broken up into small particles in the grinder/separator stage. The input stage is equipped with a hopper, a pulsed air dryer, and a magnetic drum for picking off ferrous materials. In a preferred configuration, the grinder has three rotating axles in triangular arrangement carrying chains mounted in rows thereon with hardened tips on their free ends. Successive grinder/separator stages are used to reduce the particles to the desired output size, with the separator of each subsequent stage having a progressively finer mesh size. A pulverizer/grinder stage pulverizes the reject output (mostly plastics) into smaller particles. The pulverized particles can be compressed and heat molded to form fence parts, paving blocks, road bedding materials, etc. A modified version of the grinder is used for shredding old tires into rubber particles that can be compression-molded into usable items. The invention includes the related processes and processed products.

In conventional processes for handling garbage, household waste that has been collected from urban areas is collected and deposited in a pit. Then, the waste material is roughly crushed and fragmented in order to facilitate incineration or stocking in landfills. Some processes seek to convert the organic waste materials in the garbage mixture to a usable fertilizer product by grinding the garbage to separate the organic materials from the remainder of waste materials. The remainder is not reused, but is then stored or buried in the ground.
Various machines are known for breaking up and grinding garbage into smaller aggregates or fragments. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,471,811 shows a grinder/slasher having two rotating axles arranged in the same horizontal plane carrying mechanical link chains which are driven in moving contact with each other over their whole lengths for grinding input garbage materials into smaller pellets that are recovered through a screen. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,952,492, a grinder system employs three axles turning in the same direction, two of them in the same horizontal plane, carrying mechanical chains which work over their entire lengths. Great Britain Patent 1,105,143 shows grinders equipped with blades mounted on parallel, rotating axles. French Patent 2,299,086 shows a grinder with jagged disks carried on an axle driven in rotational and axial movements for grinding large plastic materials.
The prior art systems employing mechanical chains have problems in that the chains can become snarled, and are subjected over their whole lengths to high levels of wear and deterioration. Moreover, the prior art systems do not have provision for readily separating the fermentable waste from the non-fermentable waste materials so that a fertilizer product as well as various other products for industrial uses can be obtained.

Process and machines for transforming household waste


An optical head device may include a twin laser light source which is integrally provided with a first laser beam emitting element and a second laser beam emitting element, a light receiving element, and an optical system including an objective lens for converging a laser beam on an optical recording medium. The optical system is provided with a detection lens structured of a toric lens. The toric lens applies an astigmatic difference caused by a toric face to the one of the return light beams, and the toric lens applies the other of the return light beams an astigmatic difference caused by a toric face and astigmatism composed of astigmatism and curvature of image field caused by passing off-axis position to coincide a focusing position of the first laser beam with that of the second laser beam.

An optical head device which is capable of reproducing and recording information from and in different types of an optical recording medium (optical disk) such as a CD and a DVD is, for example, structured such that a twin laser light source is used which is provided with a first laser beam emitting element and a second laser beam emitting element which emit laser beams with different wavelengths. When the twin laser light source is used, two laser beams are passed through an approximately common optical path. Therefore, since an optical path composite element is not required, the number of parts is reduced and thus cost can be reduced (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-272218 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-24276).
However, in an optical head device provided with a twin laser light source, when a focusing error signal is to be detected by an astigmatism method, there are the following problems.
When wavelengths are different, axial chromatic aberration of a lens is occurred. On the other hand, an optimal position of each of the optical elements is determined by its wavelength. Therefore, when a plurality of laser beam emitting elements is provided for respective wavelengths, defocus adjustments are required to be performed by optimizing positions of the light emitting elements and other optical elements for respective wavelengths. However, when a twin laser light source is used, since two laser beam emitting elements are integrated with each other, defocus adjustment by utilizing the above-mentioned method is unable to be performed.
Further, in order to enhance qualities of reproducing and recording, a detection lens is sometimes disposed before a light receiving element. However, when the twin laser light source is used, in addition to the problem of the above-mentioned axial chromatic aberration, two laser beam emitting elements are disposed apart about 110 μm from each other. Therefore, the optical axis of a return light beam of at least one of the laser beams is located at an off-axis position of the detection lens and thus curvature of image field is occurred.
Accordingly, when the twin laser light source is used, a difference between focus error offsets of the respective wavelengths becomes large and thus a servo-control is not performed satisfactory to cause signal quality to reduce.


An apparatus and associated method for altering the propagation constant of a region of equalizing propagation constant in an optical waveguide. The method comprising positioning an electrode of a prescribed electrode shape proximate the waveguide. An altered region of equalizing propagation constant is projected into the waveguide that corresponds, in shape, to the prescribed electrode shape by applying a voltage to the shaped electrode. The propagation constant of the region of equalizing propagation constant is controlled by varying the voltage.

This invention relates to optical devices, and more particularly to optical waveguide devices.
In the integrated circuit industry, there is a continuing effort to increase device speed and increase device densities. Optical systems are a technology that promise to increase the speed and current density of the circuits. In long-distance waveguide applications such as fiber optic transmission lines, optical signals can be attenuated differently through different bandwidths of the optical signals. That is, a high-bandwidth portion of the optical signal can be attenuated to a different signal strength than the low-bandwidth portion of the optical signal. Dynamic gain equalizers are devices that equalize the gain for light through the multiple light bandwidths. Dynamic gain equalizers can be formed from multiple passive elements, with each passive element made from glass or clear plastic or alternatively from a semiconductor material, such as silicon.
Dynamic gain equalizers, as with most optical devices, are susceptible to changes in such operating parameters as temperature, device age, device characteristics, device age, device characteristics, contact, pressure, vibration, etc. As such, the various components of the dynamic gain equalizers are typically contained in packaging that maintains the parameters as desired. Providing such packaging is extremely expensive. Even if such packaging is provided, passive dynamic gain equalizers may be exposed to slight condition changes. Passive dynamic gain equalizers perform differently under different conditions. For example, different bandwidths of light will be attenuated to different levels depending on the conditions. If the characteristics of a passive dynamic gain equalizer is altered outside of very close tolerances, then the optical dynamic gain equalizer will not adequately perform its function. In other words, there is no adjustability for passive dynamic gain equalizers.
As such it would be desirable to provide an optical dynamic gain equalizers that can controllably equalize the strengths of multiple bandwidths of light. Additionally, it would be desirable to provide a mechanism to compensate in dynamic gain equalizers for variations in the operating parameters such as temperature and device age.
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and associated method for altering the propagation constant of a region of equalizing propagation constant in an optical waveguide. The method comprising positioning an electrode of a prescribed electrode shape proximate the waveguide. An altered region of equalizing propagation constant is projected into the waveguide that corresponds, in shape, to the prescribed electrode shape by applying a voltage to the shaped electrode. The propagation constant of the region of equalizing propagation constant is controlled by varying the voltage.

Dynamic gain equalizer method and associated apparatus