A method and apparatus for using an optimization tool to optimize a design that uses a gated clock structure. In short, the present invention allows a standard optimizer tool to determine the relative timing of two or more signals that arrive at a logic gate, wherein the logic gate forms a gated clock signal. Typically, standard optimizer tools can only check the relative timing between two or more signals that arrive at a storage element. In accordance with the present invention, selected logic gates may be modeled as a storage element. Thus, a standard optimizer tool may be used to correctly optimize a design that uses a gated clock structure, and in particular, to correctly optimize the logic that provides the clock and enable signals to a clock gating element.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic design automation (EDA) systems used for designing integrated circuits. The invention is more specifically related to a method and apparatus for optimizing a gated clock structure using a standard EDA optimization tool during the integrated circuit design process.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The design process for all integrated circuits is composed of several discrete operations. Initially, the proposed functionality for a circuit is analyzed by one or more chip designers. These designers define the logical components of the circuit and their interactions by specifying the logic design using design capture tools. These design capture tools are commonly implemented in software executing on an engineering workstation, with well-known input devices being used to receive design information from the chip designer, and output devices, such as computer displays, being used to provide visual feedback of the design to the designer as it is being constructed. Such software is typically implemented as part of an electronic design automation (EDA) system. Specifically, the design entry operation involves generating a description of the logic design to be implemented on the circuit chip in an appropriate machine readable form. Chip designers generally employ hierarchial design techniques to determine the appropriate selection and interconnection of logic and/or memory devices which will enable the chip to perform the desired function. These techniques involve describing the chip's functionality at various levels of abstraction, ranging from the most general function performed by the chip to the precise functions performed by each logic and/or memory element on the chip.
A common method for specifying the integrated circuit design is the use of hardware description languages. This method allows a circuit designer to specify the circuit at the register transfer level (also known as a "behavior description"). Using this method, the circuit is defined in small building blocks. The names of the building blocks are specified by the circuit designer. Thus, they usually are logical names with specific functional meaning.
Encoding the design in a hardware description language (HDL) is a major design entry technique used to specify modern integrated circuits. Hardware description languages are specifically developed to aid a designer in describing a circuit. These languages often contain specific functions and syntax to allow complex hardware structures to be described in a compact and efficient way.
It is useful to distinguish between those components of an integrated circuit design called cells, provided by a silicon chip vendor as primitive cells (i.e., leaf candidates), and the user-defined hierarchy blocks built upon them. One way is to speak of a "cell library" vs. a "design library" as two separate libraries, both of which are available to subsequent designs. Alternatively, at least initially, a design library contains a cell library. A cell library is a database containing detailed specifications on the characteristics of each logical component available for use in a design. Initial cell library contents are usually provided by the chip vendor. The components in the cell library are identified by the generic description of the component type. For example, the term "NAND" for a NAND gate is its type description and distinguishes this component from others such as OR gates, flip-flops, multiplexors, and so on. A two-input NAND gate might be of type 2NAND. When a 2NAND component is specified as part of a given circuit design, it is given an instance name, to distinguish it from all other 2NAND gates used in the circuit. The instance name typically includes the instance names of all parent instances by concatenation when defining the instance in the context of the chip.
A single name is sufficient when dealing only in the context of a single user function. The user-defined blocks can then be used to design larger blocks of greater complexity. The user-defined blocks are added to the design library, which grows from the additions of new design modules as the design evolves. The top level of the design hierarchy may be a single block that defines the entire design, and the bottom layer of the hierarchy may consist of leaf cells, the cells (i.e., the logical components) that were originally provided in the cell library. The resulting design is often called a detailed (or gate-level) description of the logic design.
The generation of the detailed description is often accomplished by logic design synthesis software for HDL entry. The logic design synthesis software generates a gate-level description of user-defined input and output logic, and also creates new gate-level logic to implement user-defined logical functions. Typically, the logic design synthesis software is executed many times during the integrated circuit design process, because errors may be detected during the simulation and testing phases of the design cycle and then fixed in the behavioral description.
The output of the design capture and synthesis tools is typically a logic design database which completely specifies the logical and functional relationships among the components of the design. Once the design has been converted into this form, it may be optimized by sending the logic design database to a logic optimizer tool typically implemented in software.
In many logic optimizer tools, the optimization process may include a characterization step and an optimization step. During the characterization step, various optimization parameters are assigned to selected portions of the design. For example, for those portions of the design that are to be optimized for timing, the characterization step may perform a timing analysis of the design, and identify critical paths within the design that need to be improved by optimization. The characterization step may then assign timing constraints to those portions of the design, indicating the degree that they must be optimized to meet the desired timing goals.
After the characterization step is complete, the optimizer tool may perform an optimization step. The optimization step typically attempts to optimize the design such that all of the timing constraints assigned by the characterization step are satisfied. During the optimization step, the logic optimizer may, for example, remove logic from the design that is unnecessary, minimize the logic that is necessary to implement certain functions, increase the power of selected cells to improve performance, etc.
After the design has been optimized, the circuit designers typically verify that the resulting logic definition is correct and that the integrated circuit implements the expected function. This verification is currently achieved by timing and simulation software tools. The design undergoes design verification analysis in order to detect flaws in the design. The design is also analyzed by simulating the design to assess the functionality of the design. If errors are found or the resulting functionality is unacceptable, the designer modifies the behavior description as needed. These design iterations help to ensure that the design satisfies the desired requirements.
After timing verifications and functional simulation have been completed on the design, placement and routing of the design's components is performed. These steps involve allocating components of the design to locations on the integrated circuit chip and interconnecting the components to form nets. Finally, final timing verification is performed after placement and routing is complete.
A problem in the above design process may occur when gated clocking schemes are used in the design. That is, typical logic optimizer tools can only handle standard clocking schemes, such as where a number of clock signals are independently generated and distributed through the system. For high performance designs, however, it is often desirable to use gated clocking schemes to increase the density and performance of the design. Because of the design difficulties associated with generating and routing a number of independent clock signals, it has been found that a gated clocking scheme can increase the performance of a design by as much as 10-20 percent over the standard clock schemes.
In a gated clock scheme, both a clock enable signal and a clock signal may be provided to a logic gate, wherein the output of the logic gate may provide a "gated clock" signal to corresponding storage elements. For the proper operation of the design, however, the clock enable signal must typically arrive at the logic gate within a predetermined time relative to the clock signal. Otherwise, the gated clock signal may not have the expected clock pulse width, or may be susceptible to clock glitching that may upset the desired state of the system. Standard optimization tools typically do not have the capability of checking the relative timing of signals arriving at a logic gate. Rather, standard optimization tools typically only have the capability to check the relative timing between signals that arrive at a storage element, such as a register, by using setup and hold times that are defined for the storage element.
Despite the forgoing limitations, the use of standard logic optimizer tools has a number of advantages. For example, standard logic optimizer tools are readily available from a number of vendors, including Synopsys, Inc. Further, standard logic optimizer tools may be more reliable than a custom logic optimizer tool because widespread use by a number of users may have identified many software bugs or limitations. These software bugs and limitations are often corrected by the software vendor in a timely manner. For these and other reasons, it can be desirable to use a standard logic optimizer tool in the above-referenced design process. Of course, a logic optimizer tool that can correctly optimize designs that use gated clocks would also be desirable.
In view of the foregoing, one skilled in the art would recognize that a logic optimizer tool that can correctly optimize a design that use gated clocking schemes would be a valuable advance in the art. Further, one skilled in the art would recognize that a design process that uses a standard logic optimizer to correctly optimize a design that uses a gated clocking scheme would be a valuable advance in the art.

Method and apparatus for optimizing a gated clock structure using a standard optimization tool


The present invention relates to the field of paging terminals within a communication network. In order to contact a group of terminals, a common group identification is allocated to each of the terminals within said group. Thereafter, a paging message is created comprising said common group identification. The paging message is then transmitted to all terminals within said group by a single paging operation.

The present invention relates generally to the field of contacting terminals of a network. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and an arrangement for contacting a group of terminals within a communication network, a method in a terminal for a communication network and a terminal for a communication network.
The traffic generated in mobile communication networks such as, for example, GERAN (GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network) and UTRAN (UTMS Radio Access Network) has so far mostly been dominated by services that require human interaction. Examples of such services include, for example, regular speech calls, web-surfing, video-chats, sending MMS, etc. This is also what is anticipated for E-UTRAN (Evolved UTRAN). As a consequence, these networks are designed and optimized primarily for these so-called "Human Type Communication" (HTC) services.
There is, however, an ever-increasing market segment of Machine Type Communication (MTC) services, which do not necessarily need human interaction. MTC may include a very diverse flora of applications. Just to give a few examples, such applications may range from vehicle applications (automatic emergency calls, remote diagnostics and telematics, vehicle tracking etc.) to gas- and power-meter readings. Other examples include network surveillance and cameras.
Requirements put on the serving network by such services will most probably significantly differ from what is provided by today's HTC-optimized mobile networks, as outlined in 3GPP TS 22.368, "Service requirements for machine-type communications".

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Contacting a group of terminals within a wireless communication network


Methods and apparatus for chemical mechanical polishing are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a table top and a transfer station and multiple polishing stations are mounted on the table top. The apparatus further includes multiple washing stations, where each washing station is located between either two polishing stations or between a polishing station and a transfer station. Multiple carrier heads are supported by a support member that is rotatable about an axis. The transfer station and the multiple polishing stations are arranged at approximately equal angular intervals about the axis.

Integrated circuit devices are typically formed on substrates, most commonly on semiconductor substrates, by the sequential deposition and etching of conductive, semiconductive, and insulative film layers. As the deposition layers are sequentially deposited and etched, the uppermost surface of the substrate, i.e., the exposed surface of the uppermost layer on the substrate, develops a successively more topologically rugged surface. This occurs because the height of the uppermost film layer, i.e., the distance between the top surface of that layer and the surface of the underlying substrate, is greatest in regions of the substrate where the least etching has occurred, and least in regions where the greatest etching has occurred.
This non-planar surface presents a problem for the integrated circuit manufacturer. The etching step is typically prepared by placing a resist layer on the exposed surface of the substrate, and then selectively removing portions of the resist to provide the etch pattern on the layer. If the layer is non-planar, photolithographic techniques of patterning the resist layer might not be suitable because the surface of the substrate may be sufficiently non-planar to prevent focusing of the lithography apparatus on the entire layer surface. Therefore, there is a need to periodically planarize the substrate surface to restore a planar layer surface for lithography.
Chemical mechanical polishing or planarizing (CMP) is one accepted method of planarization. This planarization method typically requires that the substrate be mounted in a wafer head, with the surface of the substrate to be polished exposed. The substrate supported by the head is then placed against a rotating polishing pad. The head holding the substrate may also rotate, to provide additional motion between the substrate and the polishing pad surface. Further, a polishing slurry (typically including an abrasive and at least one chemically reactive agent therein, which are selected to enhance the polishing of the topmost film layer of the substrate) is supplied to the pad to provide an abrasive chemical solution at the interface between the pad and the substrate. For polishing of an oxide layer, the slurry is usually composed of silica grit having diameters in the neighborhood of 50 nm. The grit is formed by fuming and is then placed in a basic solution having a pH in the neighborhood of 10.5. The solution is then strongly sheared by blending so that the grit remains in colloidal suspension for long periods. For metal polishing, the grit may be formed from either silica or alumina.
The combination of polishing pad characteristics, the specific slurry mixture, and other polishing parameters can provide specific polishing characteristics. Thus, for any material being polished, the pad and slurry combination is theoretically capable of providing a specified finish and flatness on the polished surface. It must be understood that additional polishing parameters, including the relative speed between the substrate and the pad and the force pressing the substrate against the pad, affect the polishing rate, finish, and flatness. Therefore, for a given material whose desired finish is known, an optimal pad and slurry combination may be selected. Typically, the actual polishing pad and slurry combination selected for a given material is based on a trade off between the polishing rate, which determines in large part the throughput of wafers through the apparatus, and the need to provide a particular desired finish and flatness on the surface of the substrate.
Because the flatness and surface finish of the polished layer are dictated by other processing conditions in subsequent fabrication steps, throughput insofar as it involves polishing rate must often be sacrificed in this trade off. Nonetheless, high throughput is essential in the commercial market since the cost of the polishing equipment must be amortized over the number of wafers being produced. Of course, high throughput must be balanced against the cost and complexity of the machinery being used. Similarly, floor space and operator time required for the operation and maintenance of the polishing equipment incur costs that must be included in the sale price. For all these reasons, a polishing apparatus is needed which has high throughput, is relatively simple and inexpensive, occupies little floor space, and requires minimal operator control and maintenance.
An additional limitation on polishing throughput arises because the pad's surface characteristics change as a function of the polishing usage, and the pad also becomes compressed in the regions where the substrate was pressed against it for polishing. This condition, commonly referred to as "glazing", causes the polishing surface of the polishing pad to become less abrasive to thereby decrease the polishing rate over time. Glazing thus tends to increase the polishing time necessary to polish any individual substrate. Therefore, the polishing pad surface must be periodically restored, or conditioned, in order to maintain desired polishing conditions and achieve a high throughput of substrates through the polishing apparatus. Pad conditioning typically involves abrading the polishing surface of the pad to both remove any irregularities and to roughen the surface.
Pad conditioning, although it raises the average polishing rates, introduces its own difficulties. If it is manually performed, its consistency is poor and it incurs operator costs and significant downtime of the machinery, both decreasing the cost adjusted throughput. If the pad conditioning is performed by automated machinery, care must be taken to assure that the surface abrading does not also gouge and damage the polishing pad. Furthermore, if the relative motion between the conditioning tool and pad is primarily provided by the pad rotation, the relative velocity and dwell time varies over the radius of the pad, thus introducing a radial non-uniformity into the reconditioned pad.
A further limitation on traditional polishing apparatus throughput arises from the loading and unloading of substrates from the polishing surface. One prior art attempt to increase throughput, as shown by Gill in U.S. Pat. No. 4,141,180, uses multiple polishing surfaces for polishing the substrate to thereby allow optimization of polishing rate and finish with two different pad or slurry combinations. A main polishing surface and a fine polishing surface are provided within the described polishing apparatus at a polishing station. A single polishing head, controlled by a single positioning apparatus, moves a single substrate between the different polishing stations on the apparatus.
Another method of increasing throughput uses a wafer head having a plurality of substrate loading stations therein to simultaneously load a plurality of substrates against a single polishing pad to enable simultaneous polishing of the substrates on the single polishing pad. Although this method would appear to provide substantial throughput increases over the single substrate style of wafer head, several factors militate against the use of such carrier arrangements for planarizing substrates, particularly after deposition layers have been formed thereon. First, the wafer head holding the wafer being polished is complex. To attempt to control the force loading each substrate against the pad, one approach floats the portion of the head holding the wafer. A floating wafer holder necessitates a substantial number of moving parts and pressure lines must be included in the rotating and moving geometry. Additionally, the ability to control the forces pressing each individual substrate against the pad is limited by the floating nature of such a wafer head assembly, and therefore is a compromise between individual control and ease of controlling the general polishing attributes of the multiple substrates. Finally, if any one substrate develops a problem, such as if a substrate cracks, a broken piece of the substrate may come loose and destroy all of the other substrates being polished on the same pad.
Polishing throughput is yet further limited by the requirement that wafers be washed at the end of polishing and sometimes between stages of polishing. Although washing time has been limited in the past by simultaneously washing multiple wafer heads, insofar as the washing requires additional machine time over that required for polishing, system throughput is adversely affected.
Therefore, there is a need for a polishing apparatus which enables optimization of polishing throughput, flatness, and finish while minimizing the risk of contamination or destruction of the substrates.
The high-speed polishing required for a high-throughput polishing apparatus imposes severe restrictions and requirements on the polishing apparatus. The mechanical forces are large, but minute scratches incurred in polishing are fatal to integrated circuits. Hence, the design must control and minimize mechanical aberrations. The environment of CMP processing is harsh so that the machinery must be carefully designed to lengthen lifetime and reduce maintenance. Also, the slurry, when allowed to dry on the wafer or any part of the apparatus, tends to form a hardened layer that becomes very difficult to remove. In general, a high-throughput apparatus needs to be easy to operate, require little operator intervention, be easily serviced for regular or unscheduled maintenance, and not be prone to failure or degradation of its parts.
If a polishing system is to be commercialized, it must be flexible and adaptable to a number of different polishing processes. Different integrated-circuit manufacturers prefer different polishing processes dependent on their overall chip design. Different layers to be planarized require distinctly different polishing processes, and the chip manufacturer may wish to use the same polishing system for two different polishing processes. Rather than designing a polishing system for each polishing process, it is much preferable that a single design be adaptable to the different processes with minimal changes of machinery.


A device implementing an adaptive wide area network (WAN) link assessment system may include a processor configured to transmit data to a WAN over a first link on a first wireless interface. The processor may be configured to, responsive to a determination based on connection information that a first escalation condition is satisfied, configure the first link to provide expanded connection information. The processor may be configured to, responsive to a second determination based on the expanded connection information that a second escalation condition is satisfied, perform a probe operation with respect to a server on the WAN over the first link. The processor may be further configured to, when the probe operation is not successfully completed within a predetermined amount of time, begin to transmit the data to the WAN over the second link on the second wireless interface.

Mobile devices may include multiple wireless interfaces, such as cellular interfaces, Wi-Fi interfaces, etc., that may be used to establish communication links with a WAN, such as the Internet. The Wi-Fi interface of a device may typically be connected to the WAN through a wireless local area network (LAN), such as through a wireless access point. Thus, when the device is connected to the WAN via the Wi-Fi interface, the device may also be connected to one or more other devices on the LAN.

Adaptive wide area network link assessment


Front vehicle body structure includes left and right front side frames, a subframe provided on the undersides of the side frames, and left and right mounting brackets for connecting the side frames and subframe. Engine-transmission unit is mounted on the subframe. Respective rear half portions of the side frames extend toward the rear of the vehicle body while gradually approaching the centerline of the vehicle body. Left and right mounting brackets are provided, on the respective rear half portions, to project toward the centerline. The left and right mounting brackets are detachably connected to the subframe. When an impact load greater than a predetermined intensity has been applied, the left and right mounting brackets are detached from the subframe and then squashed by the engine-transmission unit while effectively absorbing the impact.

From Japanese Patent No. 3226896, for example, there is known a front vehicle body structure for motor vehicles, where left and right front side frames 101 and 102 have their respective rear half portions that are bent relative to their front half portions toward each other, i.e. inwardly in a width direction of the vehicle, to prevent an engine-transmission unit from being accidentally displaced into a vehicle compartment.
The front vehicle body structure disclosed in the 3226896 patent will be described with reference to FIG. 13 hereof. The disclosed front vehicle body structure 100 includes left and right front side frames 101 and 102 disposed in a front section of the vehicle body. Of the left and right front side frames 101 and 102, portions 101a and 102a located rearwardly of the engine-transmission unit 103 are bent toward each other, i.e. inwardly in a width direction of the vehicle. The engine-transmission unit 103 is fixedly mounted, via mounting members 104 and 105, between respective front half portions 101b and 102b of the left and right front side frames 101 and 102.
As an impact load F is applied rearwardly to the front ends of the left and right front side frames 101 and 102, the front side frames 101 and 102 more or less compress or get squashed due to the applied load F, which could displace the engine-transmission unit 103 toward the rear of the vehicle body. However, such displacement of the engine-transmission unit 103 can be effectively prevented by the unit 103 abutting against the inwardly-bent rear portions 101a and 102a of the left and right front side frames 101 and 102. Thus, the engine-transmission unit 103 is prevented from abutting against a dashboard panel partitioning between the vehicle compartment and an engine room, so that a predetermined space in the vehicle compartment can be maintained or secured despite the applied impact load.
However, if the impact load F is relatively great, it may not be appropriately absorbed by only the compression or squash of the left and right front side frames 101 and 102. In such a case, the engine-transmission unit 103 would hit the inwardly-bent portions 101a and 102a without the impact load F being sufficiently absorbed. Therefore, there is a need to enhance more than necessary the rigidity of the engine-transmission unit 103 and left and right front side frames 101 and 102, in which regard a further improvement has to be made.


A magnetizing jig used in cooperation with a magnetizing yoke formed with a circular magnetizing face, for fixing a ring-like magnetic encoder base plate to be magnetized thereto and magnetizing it by exciting a multi-pole magnetizing coil provided on the magnetizing yoke. The magnetizing yoke has holding portion to which the magnetic encoder base plate is concentrically held so as to face the circular magnetizing face, whereas the magnetizing jig is incorporated into the magnetizing yoke, keeping a predetermined positional relation which is in advance deviated from the center of the magnetizing yoke so as to correspond to the positional deviation amount between the arrangement center of the multi-pole magnetizing coil and the center of the magnetizing yoke.

A magnetizing apparatus provided with a magnetizing yoke arranged with plural magnetizing coils in a radial pattern or in a circumferential manner has been used for magnetizing a magnetic encoder provided with the south pole and the north pole in a circumferential manner. Positioning hole is provided at the center of the magnetizing yoke as the center of the yoke, the magnetic encoder base plate to be magnetized is placed thereon or is faced each other to be fixed with a presser jig, then the magnetizing current is externally supplied to a wire of a magnetizing coil to achieve multi-pole magnetizing on the magnetic encoder on which the S poles and N poles are alternately arranged (for example, JP-A-10-115628).


A method, system, and a computer program product for converting asymmetric requests into symmetric requests are disclosed. In a first aspect, the method comprises a computer partitioning a query into a set of partitions along a dimension of a multi-dimensional data source, wherein each partition of the set of partitions comprises more than one member and the query has a query result count. The method includes the computer creating a candidate query for each partition of the set of partitions, wherein each candidate query has a candidate query result count. Responsive to a determination that the query result count is greater than a sum of the candidate query result counts, the method includes the computer substituting the query with the candidate queries.

In a two dimensional matrix of data cells, each cell has two defining features: a function (e.g. tuple function) and a value. The function is editable by a user and when run, an associated value is returned and displayed in the cell. In a multidimensional database, a tuple is comprised of a set of data members from different dimensions, where one of the dimensions contains measure members (e.g. tuple, ([Products].[All Products], [Years].[All Years], [Measure].[Revenue]).
When a cell with a tuple function is run, the value of the tuple is looked up in a local cache. If a local cache of a data processing system contains no value for the tuple, the tuple is requested from a server. The cache can be cleared at any time and a collection of cells or all of the cells can be refreshed in one operation. When the refreshing occurs, the tuples are collected in a randomized order. After all of the tuples are collected, the request is made to the server and the tuples are batched together in one request. However, this conventional batch tuple request is inefficient because it is common for multiple tuples to share member references.
To overcome this issue, conventional methods include utilizing a transformation to convert the batch tuple request into a crossjoin of a collection of member sets across each dimension. Thus, the asymmetric request is converted into a symmetric request. This conventional method has the drawback of returning more data than the batch tuple request. Therefore, there is a strong need for a cost-effective and efficient solution that converts a batch tuple request into a collection of symmetric requests while minimizing the amount of extra data that would result from the conversion. The present invention addresses such a need.

Minimizing result set size when converting from asymmetric to symmetric requests

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


A server computing device receives, from a client device, a request for data objects. The server computing device calculates a number of data objects to be returned to the client device based on the request for data and performs a first query with a distributed search engine to search a distributed index for the data objects in the request based on at least a first portion of the number of data objects. The server computing device then write each data object from a first data object set returned by the distributed search engine from the distributed index to an output stream buffer and sends the data objects stored in the output buffer when a first condition is satisfied.

A distributed database is a database in which storage devices are not all attached to a common processor. The distributed database may be stored in multiple computers, located in the same physical location, or may be dispersed over a network of interconnected computers. The multiple computers may be referred to as a cluster of nodes that may store a distributed index that is a collection of "documents" or other data objects distributed across the nodes. The distributed index may include a plurality of subsets called shards that are distributed over the various nodes and that store the various data objects. The distributed database may use a distributed search engine such as, for example, Elasticsearch™ to store, retrieve, and manage the various data objects stored in the distributed database. Distributed search engines often use pagination to retrieve the data objects when a search of the distributed database is performed.
Embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures, wherein showings therein are for purposes of illustrating embodiments of the present disclosure and not for purposes of limiting the same.


A golf club head cover and method of using is disclosed. The golf club head cover includes a body having an upper portion and a lower portion, the upper portion adapted for protecting the head of the club, the lower portion operatively connected to the upper portion for protecting at least a portion of the shaft of the club, the lower portion having an open collar. The golf club head cover can include an identifier that identifies a size of the golf club head cover. The present invention also includes a method of using the golf club head cover. The method includes providing a golf club head cover having a body with an upper portion and a lower portion, inserting a golf club head into the upper portion, and pressing the hosel or shaft of the club into the lower portion to secure the golf club head cover to the club.

The present invention relates generally to the field of golf accessories. More particularly, but not exclusively, the present invention relates to an improved golf club head cover and methods of using the golf club head cover.
Golf club head covers have been widely used for some time to protect the heads of golf clubs. Using the cover protects a golf club head from marring, scratching or other damage often caused by contact with other clubs or club heads. The cover can also protect at least a portion of the golf club shaft from similar damage.
One problem with club head covers is that they tend not to stay secured to the club head and/or shaft. When a club head cover fails to maintain its position secured to a club head or shaft, it does not serve its intended function, as it is no longer protecting the club head. Some prior art head covers are susceptible to being undone, allowing the club head cover to become dislodged.
A further problem with golf club head covers is the amount of effort required to secure the head cover around the golf club when storing, as well as the time required to remove the golf club head cover when using the club. Prior art golf club head covers generally require some additional effort to both secure and unsecure the head cover from the golf club. If the amount of effort becomes too much, it is likely that the golfer will simply not use the head cover, particularly during a round of golf. Of course, if the head cover is not being used, then it can not fulfill its intended purpose of protecting the golf club head.
Yet another problem with golf club head covers has been created due to the number of different type of clubs now available. The sizes of golf club heads no longer follow any generalized rules. For example, many clubs are oversized. Thus, a head cover that is identified as appropriate for a driver, may not actually fit all drivers that are available given the varying sizes. Thus, a golfer may not be able to determine what size of golf club head cover to get for a club without trying various sizes. Although a one-size-fits-all golf club head cover could be used, such a golf club head cover is likely to have at least some of the deficiencies previously discussed. Thus, there are problems in identifying what golf club head cover to use with what club.
Therefore, problems remain in the art, and there exists a need in the art for an improved golf club head cover.
A general object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is the provision of an improved golf club head cover and methods of using the golf club head cover that overcome the problems and deficiencies found in the prior art.
Another object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is the provision of a golf club head cover and methods of using the golf club head cover to protect a golf club head from marring and scratching.
Another object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is the provision of a golf club head cover and methods of using the golf club head cover that also protect at least a portion of the golf shaft from damage.
Yet another object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is the provision of a golf club head cover that is easily and quickly secured to a golf club.
A still further object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is the provision of a golf club head cover that is resistant to becoming accidentally unsecured.
A still further object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is the provision of a golf club head cover that is durable in use and economical to manufacture.
Another object, feature, or advantage of the present invention is a golf club head cover that readily allows a golfer to determine if the golf club head cover will fit a particular club.
These as well as other objects, features and/or advantages of the present invention become apparent from the following specification and claims.

Method and apparatus for a golf club head cover


In a cover stitch sewing machine which forms double chain stitch seams, needle threads are pulled out from the needle thread tensioning devices, passing over a thread hanging point on a needle thread pulling-up spring and the needle thread take-up completes drawing-up of the needle threads after needle thread loops of the respective needles are seized by the looper. The sewing material is then fed one feed pitch as the needles are moved down and the needle thread take-up draws out the needle threads, while the needle threads are pulled up at the thread hanging point by the elasticity of the needle thread pulling-up spring, thus preventing slack in the needle threads below the needle thread eyes. The threads which are connected with the needle thread loops, are drawn up by the thread hanging point of the needle thread take-up against the resiliency of the needle thread pulling-up spring.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cover stitch sewing machine, and more particularly to a cover stitch sewing machine in which at the time of sewing with a fine stitch pitch, when a needle thread take-up runs out needle threads by lowering a plurality of needles, the needle threads are taken up due to the elasticity of a needle thread pulling-up spring thus preventing the occurrence of a slack of the needle threads which extendedly exist below needle thread eyes whereby a double chain stitch seams having no skips are formed.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known a cover stitch sewing machine in which a plurality of needle threads are supplied to a plurality of needle thread eyes of a plurality of needles by way of a plurality of needle thread tensioning devices and a needle thread take-up, a looper thread is supplied to a looper from a thread spool by way of a looper thread tensioning device and a looper thread take-up, and a cover stitch of double chain stitch seams is formed in a sewing material on a needle plate due to the intertwining of the needle threads of the respective needles and the looper thread of the looper in response to a cooperative operation of the plurality of needles and the looper (see Japanese Patent Laid-open 2000-93671).


A method for optimizing a transaction consisting of an initial sequence of computer operations, the method including identifying one or more idempotent operations in the initial sequence. The method further includes reordering the initial sequence to form a reordered sequence consisting of a first sub-sequence of the computer operations followed by a second sub-sequence of the computer operations. The second sub-sequence has only the one or more idempotent operations.

A transaction is assumed to be a sequence of one or more computer operations, also herein termed computer steps, performed by a computing system, which change a state of the system. Methods for processing transactions, and in particular for recovering "gracefully" from a failure in such processing, are very well known in the art. Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques, by Gray and Reuter, published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Mateo Calif. (1993), describes transactions and their processing in detail, and sections 1.2 and chapter 10, respectively entitled "What Is a Transaction Processing System," and "Transaction Manager Concepts," are incorporated herein by reference.
As stated in the above-referenced section 1.2, a transaction has the properties of Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID). The properties are described in section 1.2, and may be summarized as follows:                Atomicity Either all operations happen or none happen.        Consistency The transaction must result in a correct transformation of the state. The transaction must be a "correct program."        Isolation Even though transactions execute concurrently, it appears to each transaction, T, that others executed either before T or after T.        Durability Once a transaction completes successfully (commits), its changes to the state survive failures.
A transaction manager, which may comprise one or more sub-managers, depending on the computing system in which the transaction is being executed, monitors the progress of the transaction. By monitoring the transaction, the manager ensures that the ACID properties are complied with and also enables the possibility of a graceful recovery if a failure occurs during the transaction process. To perform the required monitoring, transaction managers known in the art save information concerning the computing system at various points of the transaction, such as at the beginning of the transaction, and at save points during the transaction. The save points are typically specified by a transaction protocol under which the transaction is processed.
The size of the information saved varies according to the protocol, and in protocols known in the art the size is of the order of the total size of variables involved in the transaction, or of the number of computer operations of the transaction. Chapter 10 of Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques describes a "DO-UNDO-REDO" protocol, in which information termed a transaction log is stored during the transaction process (the "DO" phase). The transaction manager can UNDO the transaction—typically necessary if it is determined that one of the ACID properties has not been complied with—by undoing each of the logged individual actions in a reverse order from the most recently logged action. The transaction manager can REDO the transaction—typically to recover from a system failure—by redoing logged actions in a forward direction.
Computer operations and processes may be classified as idempotent or non-idempotent. An operation is idempotent if performing the operation more than one time gives the same result as performing the operation once; conversely, an operation is non-idempotent if repeating the operation gives a different result. Thus, the operation "set my account to be $1,000 in credit" is idempotent, whereas the operation "add $1,000 to my account" is not. A process is idempotent if it comprises only idempotent operations.
In chapter 10, Gray and Reuter discuss formulating transactions with idempotence in mind, describing, for example, a method of transaction logging termed value logging. Value logging records both old values and new values of object states, so that each operation using the log is idempotent, and operating either an UNDO or a REDO process using the log renders both processes idempotent.

Using idempotent operations to improve transaction performance

International Business Machines Corporation


There is provided an adjustment circuit which delays a first and a second signal by a desired delay. After the first and the second signal are inputted to the adjustment circuit via a first and a second signal line, respectively, the first and the second signal are exchanged and are inputted via the second and the first signal line, respectively. A detection circuit receives the first and the second signal from the adjustment circuit, and detects the phase differences of these signals, before and after the exchange. The holding circuit holds a first phase difference detected by the detection circuit before the exchange, and holds a second phase difference detected by the detection circuit after the exchange. When the holding circuit holds the first and the second phase difference, a comparison circuit compares these phase differences. A counter counts in accordance with the comparison results of the comparison circuit, and sets the desired delay of the adjustment circuit.

The present invention relates to a delay difference adjustment circuit and a phase adjuster, more particularly, to a delay difference adjustment circuit which adjusts the delay difference between delays of two signal lines (hereinafter referred to as "the delay difference") through which the two signals are transmitted, and to a phase adjuster which adjusts the phase difference between the two signals.
When the phase difference between the two clock signals flowing in a circuit is measured, each of the clock signals has been measured by a measuring instrument such as an oscilloscope by inputting them via two cables. Since the delay difference always exists even if the lengths of the two cables are equal, it is necessary to adjust the delay difference.
Referring to FIG. 5, the conventional device which adjusts the delay difference includes an observed circuit 41 which has clock signals CLK41 and CLK42 as the objects of observation, the measuring instrument 42, a variable delay circuit 43 which is located inside the measuring instrument 42 and delaying the clock signal inputted from the input IN42 by the delay amount, cables 45a and 45b. Each of the cables 45a and 45b connects the observed circuit 41 and the measuring instrument 42. When an observer supplies the clocks CLK41 and CLK42 to the measuring instrument 42 via the two cables 45a and 45b and measures these phase differences by the measuring instrument 42, firstly, the clock signals CLK41 and CLK42 are inputted to an input IN41 and IN42 of the measuring instrument 42, respectively. At that time, the display circuit 44 of the measuring instrument 42 indicates an apparent phase difference as the waveform or a phase difference, and the apparent phase is stored. Next, the observer exchanges the cables 45a and 45b. The clock signal CLK41 is inputted to the input IN42 through the cable 45b and the clock signal CLK42 is inputted to the input IN41 through the cable 45b. The next apparent phase difference is displayed in the display circuit 44 and is compared with the apparent phase difference which has been previously stored. The observer adjusts the delay amount of a variable delay circuit 43, by supplying a direction for delay amount setting to the input IN43 from the outside of the measuring instrument 42.
The conventional device, as described above, which adjusts the delay difference has had the problem that all of the operations had to be made manually to adjust the delay difference between the two clock signals which are observed via the two cables. More specifically, the observer has to perform all of a series of operations, including storing the phase differences of the two clock signals, exchanging the two cables, comparing the phase differences, and adjusting the delay amounts. Therefore, it takes inordinately amount of labor and time to adjust the delay difference.
Furthermore, since the above-mentioned conventional device is not capable of automatically adjusting the delay difference between the two cables, the phase adjustment of the clocks could not be made automatically.

Delay difference adjustment circuit and phase adjuster


Compounds of formula G1-L-G2, where -G1 is a radical structurally close to cryptolepine, -L- is a single covalent bond or a covalent linking biradical selected from (CH2)rNR′″(CH2)s and —(CH2)rNR′″(CH2)sNR″″(CH2)t—, —R′″ and —R″″ are radicals, same or different, selected from the group consisting of H and (C1-C3)-alkyl; r, s and t are an integer from 1 to 3 and, -G2 is H or a radical structurally close to -G1, are intercalators. They are compounds which intercalate between DNA base pairs, and are useful as therapeutic agents against cancer, as assess by an in vitro test of cytotoxicity with human leukemia cells Jurkat E6-1 and human carcinoma cells GLC-4. Preferred compounds are those where -G1 is bonded to -L- through a carbonyl amino and -L- is —(CH2)3NCH3(CH2)3 or —(CH2)2NCH3(CH2)sNCH3(CH2)2— where s =2 or 3. -G1 is a radical selected from (IIa) y (IIb); -G2 is a radical selected from H, a radical of formula (IIa), a radical of formula (IIb), the N-radical of 1,8-naphthalimide, the C4-radical of 2-phenylquinoline, and the C9-radical of acridine.

Intercalators are a group of compounds that bind between the DNA base pairs. This intercalation can produce an interruption of transcription, replication and/or topoisomerase activity. It has been found that many compounds that bind to DNA by intercalation have antiproliferative properties and in vivo antitumour effects. Intercalators have been used as anticancer drugs. Cryptolepine is a naturally occurring alkaloid and it is used in traditional medicine against malaria. Its formula, shown below, is structurally close to some compounds of the present invention. Cryptolepine is able to bind CG-rich sequences of DNA containing non-alternating CC sites, and it has been reported as potential anticancer drug (cf. e.g. J. N. Lisgarten et al., "The antimalarial and cytotoxic drug cryptolepine intercalates into DNA at cytosine-cytosine sites", Nature Structural Biology 2002, vol. 9, pp. 57-60). Thus, the provision of new intercalators with anticancer activity is highly desirable.

Substituted quinolines for the treatment of cancer

Consejo Superior de Investigactiones Cientificas


A communication system having an excellent communication path capacity characteristic even in an insight transmission environment in which a transmitter and a receiver can see each other directly in an MIMO communication system and a wireless communication device for the communication system, including: a wireless device having a transmitter for distributing transmission data including encoded data and a training signal to a plurality of antennas, and transmitting the data as radio signals from the plurality of antennas at a predetermined timing; a plurality of wireless devices having repeaters each for receiving the radio signal, storing the radio signal into a buffer so that the radio signal is delayed by predetermined time, and transmitting the radio signal delayed; and a wireless device having a receiver for receiving the radio signals from the plurality of second wireless devices by a plurality of antennas and demodulating the encoded data by using the training signal multiplexed on the received radio signal. Each wireless device determines whether relaying operation is necessary or not and transmits a control signal for controlling the relaying operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless transmission repeater system and wireless equipment for use in the system. More particularly, the invention relates to a wireless transmission repeater system in which a plurality of repeaters are disposed between a transmitter and a receiver in a wireless transmission repeater system such as a mobile communication system, and wireless equipment used for the system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional mobile communication system, to improve reception sensitivity of a receiver of a radio signal transmitted via a transmission antenna from a transmitter, selective diversity reception of employing two reception antennas and using a reception signal from the antenna of a higher signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, and synthetic diversity reception of adding signals from two reception antennas in accordance with the S/N ratio are known. In a 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) as one of standardization organizations of third-generation mobile communication standards, a transmission diversity technique of improving reception sensitivity of a receiver by making a path (propagation path) of a radio signal to the receiver insusceptible to the influence of obstacles from the viewpoint of probability by transmitting the same signal from two transmission antennas is known.
A standardization organization (3GPP2) examining a communication system different from the 3GPP has proposed a communication system (MIMO: Multiple Input Multiple Output) such that, as shown in FIG. 1, a transmitter 101 transmits transmission data so as to be distributed to M pieces of antennas, radio signals arriving via transmission paths H are received via N antennas by a receiver 102, and M transmission signals are obtained from N reception signals by signal processing, thereby obtaining received data.
The principle of the MIMO system will be described. When M transmission signal vectors distributed by the transmitter 101 are set as s=(s1, s2, . . . , sM), a signal is transmitted from a transmission antenna "i" is multiplied by hji and a resultant signal is received by a reception antenna "j", a reception signal xj by the receiving antenna "j" is expressed by the following expression (1).xj={Σ(hji×si)}+vj {i=1 to M}  (1)where vj denotes noise which occurs at the reception antenna "j" in the receiver 102. When a matrix H of N rows and M columns using hji as an element, reception signal vector x=(x1, x2, . . . , xN), and noise vector v=(v1, v2, . . . , vN) which occurs in the receiver 102 are used, the expression (1) can be expressed as the following expression (2).x=Hs+v  (2)
When the propagation path matrix H and the noise vector v in the expression (2) are known, a transmission signal "s" can be obtained from the reception signal "x". However, the propagation state between the transmitter 101 and the receiver 102 changes according to time and a place of communication, so that the propagation path matrix H is not determined unconditionally. Consequently, a training signal is multiplexed on a transmission signal, the training signal is received by the receiver 102, and an action matrix W for obtaining the transmission signal from the received signal is calculated. By obtaining the action matrix W, the state of the propagation path matrix H and the noise vector "v" is learned by training. By using the reception signal "x" which is received after the training period and the action matrix W, an estimation value s′ of the transmission signal can be expressed by the following equation (3).s′=WTx  (3)
According to the MIMO system, data of an amount which is ideally larger by the number (M times) of transmission antennas as compared with the system of sending transmission data from a single antenna can be transmitted. Consequently, the MIMO system is expected as a system of a large communication capacity per a radio frequency band (high frequency use efficiency).
As shown in FIG. 2A, in the case where many buildings exist as in cities, radio signals from the transmitter 101 are reflected by many buildings and arrives at the receiver 102 via various paths. Such propagation paths will be called a multipath transmission environment. As shown in FIG. 2B, transmission paths in which no obstacles and buildings by which a signal is reflected exist between the transmitter 101 and the receiver 102 will be called an insight transmission environment. FIG. 2C is a graph showing the characteristics of the capacity of communication path and the number of transmission/reception antennas in the MIMO system with respect to the multipath transmission environment and the insight transmission environment. It is understood from FIG. 2C that the capacity of the communication path increases in proportional to increase in the number of transmission/reception antennas in the multipath transmission environment, whereas the capacity of the communication path in the insight transmission environment is smaller than that of the multipath transmission environment and, even when the number of transmission/reception antennas increases, the capacity of the communication path does not increase. In the example shown in FIGS. 2A to 2C, when the number of transmission antennas of the transmitter 101 is 3 and the number of reception antennas of the receiver 102 is 3, reception signals x1, x2, and x3 can be expressed as the following expressions (4), (5), and (6), respectively.x1=h11s1+h12s2+h13s3+v1  (4)x2=h21s1+h22s2+h23s3+v2  (5)x3=h31s1+h32s2+h33s3+v3  (6)
In the multipath transmission environment, since a path from a transmission antenna 201a to a reception antenna 202a and a path from a transmission antenna 201b to the reception antenna 202a are different from each other, the elements h11 and h12 in the propagation path matrix have different values. On the other hand, in the insight transmission environment, as compared with the distance between the transmission antennas 201a and 201b, the distance between the transmission antenna 201a and the reception antenna 202a and the distance between the transmission antenna 201b and the reception antenna 202a are sufficiently longer. Consequently, the transmission antennas 201a and 201b seem to be almost in the same position from the reception antenna 202a, so that the propagation path matrix elements h11 and h12 have similar values. For a reason similar to the above, h11 and h13 have similar values, and h11 and h21 have similar values, so that it becomes difficult to separate the transmission signals s1, s2 and s3 from the expressions (4), (5), and (6).
Accordingly, it can be said that the MIMO system has the better communication path capacity characteristic in the multipath transmission environment as compared with the insight transmission environment. On the other hand, also in the insight transmission environment, it is desired to provide the MIMO system of a larger communication path capacity.

Multi point wireless transmission repeater system and wireless equipments


A vortex spoiler (180) for delivery of a cooling airflow (192) in a turbine (108) engine (100) including a plurality of inlet ports (182) formed circumferentially about a radial exterior sidewall (188), and a plurality of outlet ports (184) formed circumferentially about a radial interior sidewall (190). The plurality of inlet ports (182) are coupled to the plurality of outlet ports (184) via a plurality of ducts (186). Each of the ducts is formed having an interior diameter at the inlet port and the outlet port formed at a preselected angle normal to the surface of the each of the radial sidewalls to form a radially curved profile such that a cooling airflow (192) may pass radially inwardly through each of the plurality of ducts (186) with minimal tangential stress and minimal static pressure loss.

Turbine engines are used as the primary power source for many types of aircraft. The engines are also auxiliary power sources that drive air compressors, hydraulic pumps, and industrial gas turbine (IGT) power generation. Further, the power from turbine engines is used for stationary power supplies such as backup electrical generators for hospitals and the like.
Most turbine engines generally follow the same basic power generation procedure. Compressed air generated by axial and/or radial compressors is mixed with fuel and burned, and the expanding hot combustion gases are directed against stationary turbine vanes in the engine. The vanes turn the high velocity gas flow partially sideways to impinge on the turbine blades mounted on a rotatable turbine disk. The force of the impinging gas causes the turbine disk to spin at high speed. Jet propulsion engines use the power created by the rotating turbine disk to draw more air into the engine, and the high velocity combustion gas is passed out of the gas turbine aft end to create forward thrust. Other engines use this power to turn one or more propellers, fans, electrical generators, or other devices.
Engineers have progressively pushed turbine engines to extreme operating conditions in an attempt to increase the efficiency and performance of the turbine engines. Extreme operating conditions generate high temperatures and thus high heat conditions, and high pressure conditions that are known to place increased demands on engine components, manufacturing and technologies. As a result, these engine components need to be cooled during operation to increase the life of the components.
A vortex spoiler traditionally delivers at least a portion of the cooling necessary to reduce the heat generated by these extreme operating conditions. Traditionally, the vortex spoiler is positioned between an impellor and a hub of the turbine engine and serves to deliver a secondary cooling air flow to downstream components. The vortex spoiler is typically machined using an end mill process and includes a straight, radially configured profile defined by a plurality of blade defined passages. However, a traditional vortex spoiler having a radially configured profile produces a rather large pressure loss at an exit of a duct that leads to the turbine components being cooled. This large pressure loss results in a decrease in the delivery of air flow to the components downstream. In addition to this large air pressure loss, undesirable tangential stresses can be created.
It should thus be appreciated from the above that it would be desirable to provide a vortex spoiler that is configured to deliver cooling air at an exit leading to the turbine components without a resulting significant pressure loss. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.

Vortex spoiler for delivery of cooling airflow in a turbine engine


To provide a wafer preventing a breakage of a crack or a chip off from being brought about in a polishing step and a polishing apparatus and a polishing method of polishing the wafer, there is provided a wafer in a shape of a plate substantially in an angular rectangular shape used as a raw material of a piezoelectric vibrator. All of corner portions D1, D2, D3, D4 substantially in the angular shape are formed in shapes of curved faces by chamfering providing curvatures. The corner portions D1, D2, D3, D4 in the shapes of the curved faces at least include a first curved face portion and a second curved face portion chamfered by curvatures different from each other or the same curvature. A reference face of a crystal orientation of the raw material is specified by the first curved face portion or the second curved face portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wafer, a wafer polishing apparatus of polishing a wafer to adjust a predetermined thickness, a wafer polishing method, a method of fabricating a piezoelectric vibrator of fabricating a piezoelectric vibrator by utilizing the wafer polishing method, a piezoelectric vibrator fabricated by the fabricating method, an oscillator, an electronic apparatus and a radiowave timepiece having the piezoelectric vibrator.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a portable telephone or a portable information terminal apparatus uses a piezoelectric vibrator utilizing quartz or the like as a time source, a timing source of a control signal or the like or a reference signal source or the like. As a piezoelectric vibrator of this kind, various ones are known, for example, a piezoelectric vibrator having a piezoelectric vibrating piece of a tuning fork type, a piezoelectric vibrator having a piezoelectric vibrating piece of carrying out a thickness slipping vibration or the like is known.
Meanwhile, the piezoelectric vibrating piece is formed by various piezoelectric members of quartz, lithium tantalite, lithium niobate and the like. Specifically, a raw stone of a piezoelectric member is cut to constitute a wafer, thereafter, the wafer is polished to a predetermined thickness. Further, the polished wafer is cleaned and dried, thereafter, etched by a photolithography technology to form an outer shape of a piezoelectric vibrating piece, and an electrode is formed by patterning a predetermined metal film. Thereby, a plurality of piezoelectric vibrating pieces can be fabricated at a time from a single wafer.
According to the piezoelectric vibrating piece fabricated in this way, a thickness of its own depends on a thickness of a wafer, and therefore, the above-described polishing is made to constitute a particularly important step for determining a quality or the like. Normally, in polishing, a lapping step of roughly polishing a wafer cut from a raw stone to a thickness to some degree, and a polishing step of subjecting the wafer to mirror face polishing to finish highly accurately to a predetermined thickness after the lapping step are carried out. Further, a wafer subjected to such polishing in a shape of a rectangular plate (including square plate shape) near to a state of cutting a raw stone is frequently used as a mode thereof (refer to, for example, JP-A-2006-339896, JP-A-2007-184810).
Further, the polishing is carried out generally by utilizing a general polishing apparatus. Here, a polishing apparatus of a background art will be simply explained in reference to FIG. 28 through FIG. 31.
As shown by FIG. 28 and FIG. 29, a polishing apparatus 200 includes a sun gear 201, an internal gear 202, and a carrier 203. Further, upper and lower sides of the carrier 203 are arranged with an upper surface plate 204 and a lower surface plate 205. Both of the sun gear 201 and the internal gear 202 are rotated in counterclockwise direction, and the carrier 203 is made to carry out a planetary movement. That is, the carrier 203 is revolved in the counterclockwise direction while rotating the carrier 203 in the clockwise direction.
The carrier 203 is constituted by a circular plate of, for example, a diameter of several inches, formed to be sufficiently thin in comparison with a wafer S1 before being polished, and is formed with a holding hole 203 A of holding the wafer S1. As shown by FIG. 30, the holding hole 203A is formed in a square shape or a rectangular shape in an opening thereof in correspondence with the shape of the wafer S1, and is formed in a square shape (rectangular shape) one size larger than the wafer S1 to hold the wafer S1 with play. Further, in the example, only one of the holding hole 203A is formed to the carrier 203 in accordance with large-sized formation of the wafer S1.
Further, a plurality of pieces of the carriers 203 are arranged at respective predetermined angles between the upper surface plate 204 and the lower surface plate 205, and therefore, according to the polishing apparatus 200, a plurality of the wafers S1 can simultaneously be polished by 1 batch of polishing.
The upper surface plate 204 and the lower surface plate 205 are attachably and detachably fixed with polishing pads P at respective faces thereof opposed to each other. Further, the wafer S1 held by the carrier 203 is pinched by the two surface plates 204, 205 from upper and lower sides. At this occasion, the upper surface plate 204 is brought into a state of applying a predetermined load on the wafer S1. The lower surface plate 205 is rotated in the counterclockwise direction constituting a direction reverse to a direction of revolving the carrier 203.
Further, as shown by FIG. 29 and FIG. 31, the upper surface plate 204 is formed with a plurality (several tens) pieces of supply paths 204a penetrating the upper surface plate 204 for supplying a polishing solution W to between the two surface plates 204, 205. Specifically, the supply paths 204a are formed at respective predetermined intervals along an inner side circle of a radius ra, a middle circle of a radius rb, an outer side circle of a radius rc. Further, the polishing solution W is supplied to the supply path 204a by way of a supply hose, not illustrated. Thereby, the polishing solution W can be supplied to between the two surface plates 204, 205 by way of the respective supply paths 204a and the wafer S1 can be polished by utilizing the polishing solution W.
Further, the polishing pad P formed at the upper surface plate 204 is formed with an opening so as not to close the supply path 204a. Further, the polishing solution W mixed with a polishing agent of a small particle size is used. Further, when the lapping step or the polishing step is carried out, normally, different polishing apparatus 200 are used although the polishing apparatus 200 are constructed by the same constitution. However, when lapping is carried out, normally, the polishing pads P are respectively detached from the upper surface plate 204, the lower surface plate 205 and are not used. This is for progressing lapping by finely destructing the wafer surface by a polishing member (isolated abrasive grain).
A simple explanation will be given of a case of polishing the wafer S1 by carrying out a lapping step by the polishing apparatus 200 constituted in this way.
First, the respective carriers 203 are set on the lower surface plate 205 in a state of separating the upper surface plate 204 and the lower surface plate 205. Further, the wafers S1 are respectively set to the holding holes 203A of the respective carriers 203 set in this way. After finishing the setting step in this way, the upper surface plate 204 is moved down and the upper surface plate 204 is pressed to the upper face of the wafer S1 by a predetermined load and the wafer S1 is squeezed by the two surface plates 204, 205.
Further, the carrier 203 is rotated and revolved by driving the sun gear 201, the internal gear 202 while supplying the polishing solution W to between the two surface plates 204, 205 by way of the supply path 204a. Further, the lower surface plate 205 is rotated simultaneously therewith. Thereby, the both faces of the wafer S1 held by the carrier 203 can be polished and the thickness of the wafer S1 can be finished to a predetermined thickness.
However, there is the following problem to be improved in polishing the wafer described above.
With regard to the wafer S1, the large-sized formation is progressed as described above in order to promote mass production performance by increasing a number of pieces taken from a single wafer. On the other hand, in order to meet a request for small-sized formation, also thin thickness formation of the wafer S1 is progressed. In this way, large-sized formation and thin thickness formation are simultaneously requested for the wafer S1, and therefore, when polishing is carried out in the mode shown in FIG. 30, a breakage of a crack or a chip off is liable to be brought about particularly at a corner portion thereof, as a result, yield is reduced.
Here, in polishing, normally, a corner portion of the wafer S1 shown in FIG. 30 is subjected to C chamfering (chamfering) to thereby prevent a crack or a chip off at the corner portion. However, even when the corner portion is chamfered, only a corner portion larger than right angle is formed and the corner portion still remains although the corner portion is small. Therefore, when the corner portion is brought into contact with an inner peripheral face of the holding hole 203A of the carrier 203 in polishing, point (line) contact is brought about, and therefore, by applying a large load thereto, a breakage of a crack or a chip off is liable to be brought about as described above.
That is, large-sized formation of the wafer S1 is progressed as described above, and therefore, when impacted or rubbed to the inner peripheral face of the holding hole 203A of the carrier 203 in polishing, the impact (load) is increased by an amount of large-sized formation. On the other hand, thin thickness formation is progressed, and therefore, the wafer S1 per se becomes brittle by that amount. Therefore, when impacted (loaded) considerably, a breakage of a crack or a chip off is liable to be brought about particularly at the corner portion as described above.
Further, in working a piezoelectric member of quartz or the like constituting a wafer to a piezoelectric vibrating piece, it is necessary to constitute an end face of the wafer by a reference face constituted by having an angle determined to a predetermined face based on a crystal thereof. Therefore, it is important for the wafer to be able to easily identify where such a reference face is.

Wafer, wafer polishing apparatus, wafer polishing method, method of fabricating piezoelectric vibrator, piezoelectric vibrator, oscillator, electronic apparatus and radiowave timepiece


A portable cigar holder for rapidly extinguishing a lighted cigar and for saving the extinguished cigar for later consumption is provided. The cigar holder comprises a hollow cylindrical tube having a closed end portion and an open end opposed to said closed end portion and a removable cap sized to close the open end of the tube for forming a substantially air tight container so as to promote rapid extinguishing of the lighted cigar. The cigar holder includes a specially configured snuffer which snuffer is in the shape of a bowl with the open end of the bowl facing the open end of the cigar holder and which snuffer is readily slideable within the cigar holder. The cigar holder of the invention accommodates cigars of different lengths while minimizing the overall length of the cigar holder so that the holder may be comfortably carried by the cigar smoker. The snuffer is preferably connected to the upper end of spring means at a point above the base of the snuffer and the snuffer is configured so that when the snuffer is moved downward in the tube when a cigar is inserted in the holder the lower portion of the snuffer is disposed (nested) within the spring means and the overall length of the cigar holder needed is shorter than prior art cigar holders for holding the same length cigars.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cigar holder device for rapidly extinguishing a lighted cigar and saving it for later consumption, and, more particularly, to an improved snuffer device readily slideably engaged within the cigar holder which snuffer enables the cigar holder device to accommodate cigars of longer lengths than previous cigar holders of the same overall dimensions.
2. Description of Related Art
Cigar smokers, because of the length of time required to smoke an entire cigar, often need to extinguish a cigar before it is completely consumed. As more and more public facilities become designated non-smoking sites, this problem becomes even more pronounced. Devices for extinguishing lighted smoking materials and/or saving them are known in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,764,862 to Vogelsang illustrates a portable cigar or cigarette extinguisher comprising a hollow member having a cylindrical bore for receiving the cigar. U.S. Pat. No. 3,173,641 to Dorrance illustrates an ash tray and snuffer device. The Dorrance device comprises a hollow receptacle open at one end and closed at the other which is mounted to a base by a wire support structure. U.S. Pat. No. 802,300 to Maclachlan illustrates another cigar extinguisher and retention device. The Maclachlan device comprises a hollow, conical cap and an elastic tube for covering the extinguished cigar. U.S. Pat. No. 450,312 to Hieatzman illustrates a closed case for extinguishing and preserving a cigar. The Hieatzman device comprises a base portion having a blade type device for cutting off the burning portion of the lighted cigar. The base portion includes a hollow portion for receiving the cigar. The device further includes a telescopic portion which fits into the hollow portion to form a sealed container.
Another type of cigar holder is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,978,981 to Musick. This device differs from the other devices in that it is not intended to be used as a cigar extinguisher. The Musick device comprises a receptacle for receiving the lighted end of the cigar and a separate cap for receiving the wet end of the cigar. The receptacle has a mesh venting screen to permit the cigar to burn. As a result of this construction, this type of device could not easily be carried in a pocket of a user.
Still other types of holders for lighted tobacco products are illustrated in Swiss Pat Nos. 212,845 and 248,289. The device in the '845 patent uses a spring operated snuffer to help extinguish the cigar or cigarette. It lacks, however, a cap for creating sufficient pressure to substantially instantaneously extinguish the cigar or cigarette.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,777,968 and 4,907,604, both of which are owned by the assignee of the present invention, cigar holders for rapidly extinguishing a lighted cigar and saving the extinguished cigar for later consumption are shown. In the '968 patent, the cigar holder comprises a hollow cylindrical tube having a closed end, an open end, and an end cap for sealing the open end to form a substantially air tight container. A spring controlled snuffer is positioned within the tube and adapted for movement relative to the tube. In the '604 patent, a similar cigar holder is shown having an improved end cap which is configured to receive and reshape an unlit, wetted tip of the extinguished cigar and a pin having a pointed end for punching a hole in the unlit cigar tip.
Bearing in mind the problems and deficiencies of the prior art, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved device for extinguishing and saving a cigar.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device as above which will accommodate cigars of longer lengths than other devices while still maintaining the same overall length of prior art devices.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a device as above which will extinguish a cigar and not adversely affect the taste of the cigar.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a device as above which may be carried within the pocket of the user's apparel.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent from the following description and drawings in which like references numerals depict like elements.


The invention relates to an absorbent article, such as diaper, an incontinence protector or the like. In order to prevent urine from being mixed with faeces in the rear area of the article, an essentially liquid impermeable membrane is laid between an inner cover layer and an absorbent layer laying outside of it. The article has an opening to a pocket lying outside the membrane to make possible transport of urine from a front wetting area of the article to a rear area of the absorbent body which lies outside the membrane.

When wearing absorbent articles, such as diapers and incontinence protectors, it is important to prevent, as much as possible, urine from spreading backwards in the article so as to come into contact with the anus and the skin surrounding it. It is even more important to prevent urine from being mixed with faeces in the rear portion of the article and then coming into contact with the sensitive area around the anus.
AU-B-45 217/85 describes a diaper with a collection pouch for collecting urine and keeping the urine separate from the body of the wearer. The diaper comprises an inner layer of hydrophobic, essentially liquid impermeable material. This layer is provided with an oblong opening at the front portion of the crotch area. On either side of the opening, elastic elements are mounted which, during use, keep the inner layer against the body of the user. An absorbent body is bent laterally under the influence of the elastic elements and is spaced from the inner layer. Thus, a channel is formed for collecting urine and faeces, which are thereafter spread over the absorbent body beneath the liquid impermeable inner layer and are kept separate from the skin.
GB-A-2 159 693 discloses a diaper which is provided with collecting pockets at the end edges or at least at one end edge, for example the rear portion. The collecting pocket is formed by layers of liquid permeable material covering a portion of the diaper and being fixed thereto along a waist edge and a portion of the lateral edges. On the layer edge facing the crotch area, i.e. along the opening of the pocket, there is applied an elastic element transversely, which strives to pull the layer together laterally and create a small gap between the layer and an absorbent body. These collecting pockets are intended to prevent leakage of primarily faeces.
Furthermore, EP-A-0 357 298 and EP-A-0 359 410 describe absorbent articles where solid excrements are removed from the skin of the user with the aid of collecting pockets. The inner layer of the article is liquid permeable and has a small opening, through which solid excrement is conducted to an absorbent body. The intention is in this case that the opening should be small and correctly placed. An arrangement of elastic means can be disposed on the inner layer in order to adjust the position of the opening and thus minimize its size.
None of these previously known absorbent articles is, however, constructed to effectively prevent urine, especially in a rapid heavy emission by a wearer lying on his back, from reaching the faeces receiving area of the article and thus coming into contact with the area surrounding the anus of the wearer. This problem is particularly pertinent to incontinence protectors which are to be worn for a relatively long period, for example over a night, by a patient lying in bed.


A projection system and method for depth-based projection of image-based content is provided. The projection system receives a sequence of image frames to be projected on a physical surface of a three-dimensional (3D) structure. The projection system controls a depth sensor to acquire depth data associated with the physical surface and feeds a first input including the acquired depth data and a first image frame of the received sequence of image frames to a neural network-based model. The projection system further receives a set of geometric correction values as a first output of the neural network-based model for the fed first input and modifies the first image frame based on the received set of geometric correction values. The projection system further controls the illumination circuitry to project the modified first image frame onto the physical surface.

Light-based projectors (such as projectors based on digital light processing) are commonly used to project content on a physical surface (for example, a projection screen). These projectors are widely used in environments, such as meeting rooms, cinema halls, or classrooms. In some scenarios, when the physical surface is at an angle with the projector or the physical surface is not smooth or even, the shape of projected content on the physical surface appears warped or distorted. For example, if the projector is not aligned correctly with the physical surface (such as a wall), the projected content may appear trapezoidal in shape, as against an expected rectangular shape. The warping or distortions may be undesirable and unpleasant for viewers of the projected content. Typically, projectors require a manual adjustment or alignment with the physical surface to correctly project the media content on the physical surface. However, the process of manual adjustment is quite cumbersome as well as time consuming.
Limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of described systems with some aspects of the present disclosure, as set forth in the remainder of the present application and with reference to the drawings.

Depth-based projection of image-based content


A model (1) is obtained by dividing a golf ball into meshes. The model (1) comprises a large number of elements (3). An outermost layer of the model is wholly formed by fine elements (3a). The outermost layer is wholly formed by a fine element region. A number (Na) of divisions in the fine element region is larger than a number (Nb) of divisions on an inner layer in the fine element region. A ratio (Na/Nb) is 1.1 to 15.0. The fine element (3a) and an element (3b) on the inside of the fine element (3a) are tied to each other. A physical property value of the golf ball is analyzed by a finite element method using the model (1).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of analyzing a physical property of a golf ball. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of forming a model of a golf ball of which physical property is to be analyzed by a simulation such as a finite element method, a finite volume method or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
A golf ball is hit with a golf club and thus flies. A resilience characteristic during hitting greatly influences a flight distance of the golf ball. A golf player is very interested in the flight distance. Therefore, a golf ball manufacturer has aimed at obtaining an improvement in a resilience performance and has made an effort toward development all the time.
In the development of the golf ball, first of all, a design is carried out and a trial product is then fabricated. The trial product is subjected to a hitting test and a flight distance is measured together with a resilience coefficient. Data thus obtained by the measurement are decided. If the obtained result is insufficient, the data are fed back to a next design. In the development of the golf ball, thus, the design, the trial production and the evaluation are repeated, which takes a great deal of labor and time.
In place of the hitting test or together with the hitting test, the physical property is measured in a room in some cases. Examples of the physical property which can be measured in the room include a resilience coefficient, a compression deformation (so-called compression), a specific frequency, an impact force and the like. The physical property can be measured more easily in the room than the hitting test. However, the measurement of the physical property in the room is the same as the hitting test in that the trial product is to be fabricated. Thus, it takes a great deal of labor and time to develop the golf ball.
Only the data on the physical property of the whole golf ball can be obtained by any of the hitting test and the measurement of the physical property in the room. It is hard to grasp a behavior presented by each portion of the golf ball during collision or compression and deformation. For this reason, trial and error are often repeated from a design to an evaluation in the development of the golf ball.
There has also been proposed a method of carrying out a simulation utilizing a finite element method, a finite volume method or the like, thereby evaluating a golf ball without performing trial production. In the simulation, an analyzing object (a golf ball) is divided into a large number of meshed elements so that a model can be obtained.
In consideration of precision in the analysis to be carried out by the simulation, it is preferable that the number of divisions in the model should be larger. However, an increase in the number of divisions causes an increase in a load applied to a computer. Consequently, a time required for the analysis is considerably prolonged. An enhancement in the precision in the analysis is contrary to a reduction in the time required for the analysis.

Method of analyzing physical property of golf ball


Disclosed is a mechanism on receiving processors in a parallel computing system for providing order to data packets received from a broadcast call and to distinguish data packets received at nodes from several incoming asynchronous broadcast messages where header space is limited. In the present invention, processors at lower leafs of a tree do not need to obtain a broadcast message by directly accessing the data in a root processor's buffer. Instead, each subsequent intermediate node's rank id information is squeezed into the software header of packet headers. In turn, the entire broadcast message is not transferred from the root processor to each processor in a communicator but instead is replicated on several intermediate nodes which then replicated the message to nodes in lower leafs. Hence, the intermediate compute nodes become “virtual root compute nodes” for the purpose of replicating the broadcast message to lower levels of a tree.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to parallel computing system and, more particularly, to a novel technique for asynchronous broadcasts where ordered delivery of broadcast messages is maintained between compute nodes in the parallel computing system where packet header space is limited.
2. Description of the Prior Art
To achieve high performance computing, multiple individual processors have been interconnected to work cooperatively to solve a computational problem allowing for parallel processing. In a parallel computing system multiple processors can be placed on a single chip, or several chips each containing one or several processors, embedded DRAM, system-on-chip integration, and local caches memories have been forming so-called "compute nodes" which interconnected forming a parallel computing system.
In designing high bandwidth/Floating point Operations Per Second (FLOP) parallel computing systems, such as IBM's Blue Gene/L™ it is sometimes desirable to provide a communication software architecture with low overhead for communications. For example, in Blue Gene/L™, the communication software architecture is divided into three layers; at the bottom is the packet layer, which is a thin software library that allows access to network hardware and at the top is the Message Passing Interface (MPI) library, discussed below. In between the packet layer and the MPI library layer is a single layer called the message layer that glues together the Blue Gene/L™ system. To achieve speed/efficiency of the system, a restriction is placed on the length of the packet header. In IBM's Blue Gene/L™ a packet header can only be a multiple of 32-bytes and is limited to no more than 256 bytes. The message layer is an active message system built on top of the packet layer that allows the transmission of arbitrary buffers among compute nodes with the assistance of the MPI library layer.
Parallel computer applications often use message passing to communicate between processors. The Message Passing Interface (MPI) specification is widely used for solving significant scientific and engineering problems on parallel computers and provides a simple communication API and eases the task of developing portable parallel applications. Message Passing Interface Forum, "MPI: A Message-Passing Interface Standard," University of Tennessee, 1995; see http://www.mpi-forum.org/docs/mpi-11-html/mpi-report.html.
MPI supports two types of communication, 1) point-to-point and 2) collective. In point-to-point messaging, a processor sends a message to another processor that is ready to receive it. A point-to-point communication operation can be used to implement local and unstructured communications.
In collective communication operation many processors participate together in the communication operation. In other words, processors are collected into groups and each data packet sent from one processor to another are sent in a specific order or context and must be received in the same order or context. According to the MPI forum, contexts are further defined as providing the ability to have separate safe "universes" of message passing in MPI. Hence, a context is akin to an additional tag that differentiates messages. The parallel computer system manages this differentiation process using the MPI library. A group or context in MPI together forms a communicator, which encapsulates internal communication structures in a parallel computer system into modules. A processor is identified by its rank in the group associated with a specific communicator. Examples of collective operations are broadcast, barrier, all-to-all.
MPI implements a one-to-all broadcast operation whereby a single named processor (root) sends the same data to all other processors. In other words, MPI's broadcast operation provides a data movement routine in which all processors interact with a distinguished root processor so that each processor receives its data. At the time of broadcast call, the data to be communicated are located in a buffer in the root processor. The root processor's broadcast call consists of three arguments, the specific location of the data, the type of data and the number of elements to be sent to each destination. After the call, the data are replicated in the buffer of all processors in the communicator.

Asynchronous broadcast for ordered delivery between compute nodes in a parallel computing system where packet header space is limited


A first embodiment of a system for measuring and analyzing a machine property comprises a vibration detector; power source; data transmitter, and first data processor which can obtain and convert sensed vibration data into digital data to be transmitted through the data transmitter to a system server which comprises software for processing and analyzing data comprising the received sensed vibration data. In a second embodiment, the system comprises a vibration sensor and a terminal used to obtain sensed vibration data from the sensor and convert it into digital data to be transmitted through the first data transceiver, and, optionally, to a system server. In this embodiment, data may be presented visually on the user display area and user input received input from the user input area.

Typical monitoring systems are integrated with a building automation system and installed by a Heating/Ventilation/Air Conditioning ("HVAC") expert. Installation often involves installation of multiple, e.g. five or more, sensors installed inside the machine to measure temperatures and pressures. This process is often expensive and time consuming.
A need exists for relatively low cost sensor systems that can be installed by a layperson, including systems that comprise multiple processes and components that enable a layperson to perform real-time problem diagnosis and continuous monitoring of complex machinery.

System responsive to machine vibrations and method of use