In a photomask blank serving as a base member for producing a halftone-type phase shift mask in which a light-transmissive substrate is formed thereon with a light-semitransmissive phase shift pattern having a desired opening, a light-semitransmissive phase shift film, a chromium film, and an etching mask film are stacked in order on the light-transmissive substrate. The etching mask film is made of an inorganic-based material having a resistance against dry etching of the chromium film. The photomask blank further may has a resist film formed on the etching mask film.

This invention relates to a method of producing a photomask for use in production of a semiconductor integrated circuit, a liquid crystal display device, or the like, and to a photomask blank for use therein.
Following high integration of semiconductor integrated circuits, liquid crystal display devices, etc., and so forth, there has been an increasing demand for high pattern accuracy with respect to photomasks that are used in fine processing during the production process thereof.
In the photomasks currently used, a pattern formed by an opaque film is provided on a transparent substrate, and a chromium-based material is generally used as the opaque film in terms of processability of a highly accurate pattern.
However, with respect to the demand for higher accuracy of the patterns of the photomasks following the high integration of the semiconductor integrated circuits and so forth, it has become clear that the current method of forming a pattern from a chromium-based opaque film by using a resist pattern as an etching mask raises a problem of variation in CD (critical dimension) accuracy due to the loading effect in connection with a photomask wherein pattern regions having a global opening ratio difference are compositely present in the mask plane. As the photomask wherein the pattern regions having the global opening ratio difference are compositely present in the mask plane, there is specifically cited a photomask wherein a plurality of kinds of functional devices are disposed in the mask plane. As such a photomask, there is cited, for example, a photomask having patterns with a difference in density and used in production of a system LSI wherein memories, logic circuits, and so forth are compositely mounted, or a D-RAM, a liquid crystal display device, or the like wherein memory cells or pixel regions, and peripheral circuits and so forth formed therearound are compositely mounted. In such a photomask, for example, the opening ratios of opaque patterns (the ratios of portions where no opaque films are formed) differ between a memory region and a logic circuit region. In the current state, in order to produce such a photomask, a desired resist pattern is first formed on a chromium-based opaque film, then, using this resist pattern as a mask, the chromium-based opaque film is patterned by dry etching mainly with radicals by the use of a chlorine-based and oxygen-based mixture gas or the like. For example, when resist patterns having the same dimensions are formed in respective regions having an opening ratio difference in opaque pattern so as to form chromium-based opaque film patterns of the same dimensions, respectively, there arises a problem that the respective opaque patterns formed by dry etching using the resist patterns of the same dimensions as masks exhibit different dimensions due to the difference between the opening ratios in the respective regions by the so-called loading effect to thereby cause variation in CD accuracy.
Here, the loading effect is a phenomenon that etching characteristics (etching rate, selection ratio, etc.) change depending on a magnitude of an etching area of an etching-subject film so that a CD shift in the mask plane changes (see, e.g. VSLI Synthetic Dictionary (Science Forum) pp. 865). More specifically, it is a phenomenon that when the etching area increases, the utilization efficiency of etchants decreases to reduce the etching rate (see, e.g. Submicron Lithography "Synthetic Technological Material Collection" pp. 353).
Generally, in dry etching of a thin film made of a material containing chromium, chlorine and oxygen are used as dry etching gases to etch chromium by producing chromyl chloride. There is a problem that since contribution of radicals is large in this etching reaction, the etching progress directivity is particularly difficult to control.
As a means for solving the problem about the photomask caused by the reduction in CD accuracy due to the foregoing loading effect, there is a method wherein a pattern accuracy in etching is not lowered by improving inequality of opening ratios in a pattern peripheral region and a pattern central portion (see, e.g. Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2001-183809). Specifically, this method is a method of providing a peripheral opening ratio adjusting pattern in a non-irradiated region where light from a light source is not irradiated in an exposure process using a photomask.
On the other hand, there is also a method of disposing a dummy etching pattern for dry etching rate correction in a pattern exposure region or outside the pattern exposure region when producing a phase shift photomask (see, e.g. Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. H8-234410). In this method, as the dummy etching pattern in the pattern exposure region, use is made of a pattern having a size not greater than the resolution limit by transfer.
However, in the conventional methods described in Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2001-183809 and Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. H8-234410, there is a problem that when local inequality exists in the pattern opening ratio (i.e. when pattern regions with different densities compositely exist), it is complicated to provide an adjusting pattern corresponding thereto and it is difficult to cope with high integration of semiconductor integrated circuits. Further, since it is necessary to form the pattern that is not normally required, an increase in pattern data amount used in production of a photomask can not be avoided. This becomes a large problem in producing semiconductor devices with extremely high integration in recent years.
As a literature describing another method of suppressing the loading effect, there is U.S. Pat. No. 6,472,107. This literature describes that the loading effect can be suppressed by etching an opaque film by the use of a hard mask layer made of Ti, TiW, W, Si3N4, SiO2, TiN, spin-on glass, or the like. In this method, it is not necessary to form the pattern, which is not normally required, when producing the photomask like in Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2001-183809 and Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. H8-234410 as described above. Note that the method itself of etching the opaque film by the use of the hard mask layer as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,472,107 has been proposed for a long time also as a technique of solving a problem of reduction in CD accuracy when use is made of a resist having a small dry etching resistance (see, e.g. Japanese Patent Publication (JP-B) No. S63-39892). In terms of improving the CD accuracy, as another technique of improving the CD accuracy of a chromium film pattern, Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. H10-69055, for example, discloses that the CD accuracy is improved by reducing the thickness of a chromium film and the thickness of a resist film that requires about three times the thickness of the chromium film.
Meanwhile, there is a phase shift mask as a photomask apart from the one called a binary mask and having been used for a long time wherein the opaque film pattern is formed on the transparent substrate. The phase shift mask improves contrast of a transferred image by providing a phase shifter portion on the mask and by shifting by 180° the phase of light passing through the phase shifter portion and a portion adjacent thereto to cause mutual interference of the light at a boundary portion therebetween. As the kind of phase shift mask, there are cited, for example, a Levenson type, a halftone type, a chromeless type, and so forth. A phase shifter layer in the Levenson-type phase shift mask is formed by normally etching a glass or is comprised of a film made of a material serving to shift a phase. A phase shifter layer in the halftone-type phase shift mask is comprised of a semitransparent phase shift material layer. These phase shift masks require an opaque ring at a peripheral portion of a pattern region for preventing leakage of exposure light. A chromium-based opaque film is normally used as this opaque ring. In the production of a phase shift mask having such an opaque ring, use is normally made of a blank in which an opaque film is formed on a phase shift material layer. First, the opaque film is etched to form a desired opaque film pattern, then the phase shift material layer is etched using the opaque film pattern as an etching mask for the phase shift layer, and then the opaque film is removed while leaving at least a portion of the opaque film that will serve as the opaque ring, thereby to produce the phase shift mask. By using such a method, the phase shift material layer has achieved a higher CD accuracy as compared to etching using a resist pattern as a mask.
Meanwhile, in recent years, further integration of the semiconductor devices has been advanced, wherein the line width has also been discussed from a line width of up to 130 nm to a line width of 90 nm, 65 nm, and further 45 nm so that higher densification of patterns has also been advanced. Therefore, there is a tendency that patterns of the photomasks are also formed further finer and much stricter values are required also for the CD accuracy thereof. There is also a tendency that since diversification of the patterns has been advanced, differences in density of the patterns also increase.
As described above, the foregoing U.S. Pat. No. 6,472,107 describes that the loading effect is suppressed by using the hard mask, and Japanese Patent Publication (JP-B) No. S63-39892 describes about improving the CD accuracy by using the hard mask. However, in order to suppress the loading effect and to achieve the high CD accuracy under the circumstances where the finer formation of the patterns and the differences in density of the patterns are in progress as described above, it is insufficient to merely use the hard mask and further technological improvement is required.
On the other hand, in terms of the improvement in CD accuracy under the foregoing circumstances, in the method described in Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. H10-69055, since the chromium-based opaque film requires a prescribed opaque property (e.g. OD (optical density) of 3.0 or more), there is a limit to reduction in thickness of the opaque film, and resultantly, there is also a limit to reduction in thickness of the resist, and therefore, there is a limit to improvement in CD accuracy.
Further, in the production of the phase shift mask, the pattern shape of the opaque film to serve as the etching mask is directly reflected on the pattern shape of the phase shift material layer, and therefore, a dimension control of the opaque film pattern performs a very important role. In particular, the phase shift mask is a mask that is effective in fine formation of a pattern in a semiconductor device as compared to the binary mask. In recent years, since further finer formation of patterns has been progressed, further stricter dimensional accuracy of phase shift material layers has been required. On the other hand, there is also a problem that, depending on the etching condition of the phase shift material layer, the surface of the chromium-based opaque film is damaged on etching of the phase shift material layer, and particles generated thereby affect the etching of the phase shift material layer and remain as a pattern defect, which thus narrows the width of selection in etching condition.

Photomask producing method and photomask blank


The present application is directed to methods of operating a multi-color image forming device in a mono-color mode. The methods may include performing three basic loops during the printing in the mono-color mode. A first loop may include printing mono-color pages up to an initial preset maximum. The preset maximum may prevent a wear mark from forming on the non-operational PC members due to rubbing against the moving ITM. A second loop may occur when the mono-color pages exceeds the initial preset maximum. The second loop may include rotating the non-operational imaging stations to prevent wear. A third loop may occur when the number of mono-color images exceeds an overall maximum number. The third loop may include resetting the non-operational image forming stations to allow for continuing printing in the mono-color mode.

The present application is directed to methods of forming a toner image and particularly to methods of forming a mono-color toner image within a multi-color image forming device.
Color image forming devices such as but not limited to printers, facsimile machines, copiers, and combination machines form images with two or more different colors of toner. Each color of toner may be stored within an imaging station and transferred to an intermediate member as a toner image during the image formation process. For multi-color images, two or more different colors of toner are transferred to the intermediate member and combined to form the final image. For mono-color images, a single color of toner forms the final image.
Each imaging station includes at least one photoconductive member. During the image formation process, the imaging stations are activated and the photoconductive member is rotated. Further, the toner is moved within the image forming station. The life of the photoconductive member is largely determined by the total number of revolutions. Further, the toner within the imaging stations is churned during the image forming process which also decreases its effective life. Prior art image forming devices have addressed extending the lives of the photoconductive members and toner in a variety of different manners.
Many standard image forming device do not treat a multi-color image differently than a mono-color image. The imaging stations for the non-used toner continue to rotate the photoconductive member and churn the toner even though no toner is transferred from that specific station. Other image forming devices use a mechanism that retracts the intermediate member away from the photoconductive member. This may increase the life of the photoconductive member, but adds complexity and cost to the image forming device.

Methods of operating a multi-color image forming device in a mono-color mode


The invention provides a method for the treatment of prophylaxis of autoimmune inner ear disease, in particular, deafness caused by autoimmune inner ear disease, which comprises administering to a host in need thereof a vaccine comprising peripheral myelin protein zero. The invention further provides diagnostic methods and kits derived from the protein.

There is a high incidence of inner ear diseases such as progressive sensorineural hearing loss, sudden deafness, otosclerosis and Meniere's disease. The etiology of these inner ear diseases remains unclear or unknown. However, evidence now suggests that certain inner ear diseases, including those above, appear to be of autoimmune origin. In patients with inner ear disease, several attempts have been made to identify specific antigens with which circulating antibodies and active lymphocytes react. Antibodies against type II collagen and heat shock protein p70 have been described in patients suffering from idiopathic inner ear disease (e.g. Yoo et al., Science 1982, 217, 1153–1155).
It is known that the 30,000-Mr (30 kDa) protein present in guinea pig inner ear is recognized by autoantibodies in sera from patients with inner ear disease. The 30,000-Mr inner ear antigen has been partially purified by chromatography (M Y Cao et al., Mol Cell Biochem. 1995, 146, 157–163). This inner ear antigen has now been sequenced, and partial internal sequences and N-terminal sequence (in total 84 amino acids) of this protein have been obtained. It has been found that the 30 000-Mr inner ear protein is the major myelin protein zero (MPP, Pzero, Po). The complete sequence of the bovine, rat, mouse, chick, and human proteins has been determined. Each contains 229 amino acids and a signal peptide of 29 amino acids. Po is highly conserved between species and the interspecific replacement rate of Po between human and guinea pig is very low.


Faults in a variable valve timing mechanism can be accurately diagnosed without influence of a detection error by a crank angle sensor and the like. A phase difference of a crank angle between a standard angular signal REF output from the crank angle sensor and a phase detection signal detected at a predetermined angular position of a cam shaft is counted every control state of the variable valve timing mechanism. Next, a variation between a phase difference counted at a time of OFF control state and a phase difference counted at a time of ON control state is calculated as a diagnosis parameter. Then, in the case that the diagnosis parameter is smaller than a standard value for determination, a fault in the variable valve timing mechanism is determined.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a diagnosis apparatus for diagnosing a variable valve timing mechanism, more particularly to a diagnosis apparatus for diagnosing a variable valve timing mechanism which switches a phase of a cam shaft of an internal combustion engine with respect to a crank shaft in correspondence to an operational condition and switches an open and close timing of an intake and/or exhaust valve in correspondence to the operational condition, in which whether or not the switching of the phase is normally performed is diagnosed.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional diagnosis apparatus in a variable valve timing mechanism which switches a phase between a crank shaft and a cam shaft so as to control an open and close timing of an intake and/or exhaust valve is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.4-112908.
The apparatus is provided with a sensor for detecting a predetermined angular position of the crank shaft, a sensor for detecting a predetermined angular position of the cam shaft, and is structured such as to calculate a phase difference of a crank angle between the crank shaft and the cam shaft on the basis of detected signals from these sensors and to diagnose a fault on the basis of a fact that whether or not the phase difference of the crank angle becomes a value corresponding to a control state of the variable valve timing mechanism.
In the above-described conventional diagnosis apparatus, if there is an error in the detected position detected by the sensor for detecting the crank angle and the sensor for detecting the phase of the cam shaft, a dispersion occurs in the detected phase difference so that there is a fear that a fault is erroneously diagnosed because the predetermined phase difference is not obtained even when the mechanism is normally operated or inversely a normal operation is erroneously diagnosed even when the predetermined phase difference is not obtained. Accordingly, there is a problem that it is difficult to accurately diagnose an error of a small phase angle.

Diagnosis apparatus for diagnosing variable valve timing mechanism


Activity is determined for each frequency band in a frame, and when it is determined that an activity-OFF state has not continued for a predetermined number of times for preceding frames, normal coding processing is performed for the frequency band. When it is determined that the activity-OFF state has continued for the predetermined number of times or more, DTX coding is performed for the frequency band. After this processing has been performed for all of the bands of one frame, a total power of the one entire frame and the power of the band or bands to which the DTX coding is applied are calculated. Subsequently, a new target bit value is calculated based on a ratio of the total power of the one entire frame and the power of the band or bands to which the DTX coding is applied.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an audio signal coding apparatus and an audio signal decoding apparatus capable of reducing the number of bits contained in a coded wideband audio signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
A speech signal compressing/coding method such as AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate) defines that a coding bit rate can be changed frame by frame based on the detected signal activity.
In the AMR method, in order to reduce transmission power, it is detected whether the activity of an input signal to be coded is voice or not in units of coding, that is, frame by frame (VAD control), and when the input signal is determined as being voice, the input signal is transmitted in the form of a normal audio coded frame, whereas when the input signal is determined not to be voice, only the basic information of the frame is transmitted discontinuously (DTX (Discontinuous Transmission) control) in the form of a comfort noise frame. However, because the DTX control is executed in frames, when this method is applied to a wideband signal such as an audio signal, the DTX control is performed for the whole band to determine whether the activity is present in the input signal.
FIGS. 8A and 8B are views showing transition of the output bit rate, for example, when the DTX control of the AMR method is applied to a wideband audio signal. FIG. 8A indicates power of an audio signal in each frequency band in units of frames on the time axis. The frequency bands without the activity are illustrated by hatching. For instance, a frame F1 contains a plurality of frequency bands all having activity. A frame F2 contains a plurality of frequency bands all having no activity. A frame F3 and a frame F4 contain a plurality of frequency bands having no activity in part of the frequency bands. In this case, only the frame F2 has no frequency band with activity in the whole bandwidth and is recognized as a frame to be subject to the DTX control. Thus, the output bit rate of the frame F2 can be reduced to a low rate through a discontinuous transmission (DTX control) as a comfort noise frame. However, since the frames F3 and F4 contain frequency bands with activity, the frames F3 and F4 are not recognized to be subject to the DTX control. That is, since frames F3 and F4 do not deal with non-audio signal of the AMR method in spite of the presence of the frequency bands without the activity, the discontinuous transmission (DTX control) is not performed.
In addition, according to the MPEG2 audio standards, the AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) method adopting the time-to-frequency transform coding is used.
FIGS. 9A and 9B are views used to describe a bit rate in the AAC method. FIG. 9A is the same as FIG. 8A. Although the function of performing a discontinuous transmission is not incorporated in the AAC method, the AAC method is a variable length frame method by which the number of bits per frame can be changed according to the signal characteristic of each frame, and an instantaneous coding rate for each frame is variable (corresponding to a solid line in FIG. 9B) . The number of bits per frame is determined by taking into account the characteristic of a signal and the buffer model (a bit reservoir serving as a buffer to manage a cumulative difference between the number of bits used in frames in the past and an average number of bits based on a target rate) in reference to the number of bits based on the target rate set from the outside (corresponding to a dotted line in FIG. 9B), and the coding rate is controlled to reach the target rate on average.
For example, in the case of the frame F2, which contains frequency bands without the activity (only a slight number of bits is required), even when the number of bits is reduced for this frame,, as is indicated by a hollow arrow, a surplus number of bits is used for another frame. Also, in the case of the frames F3 and F4, which contain frequency bands without the activity in part of the frequency bands, even when the number of bits is reduced for such a frequency band or the frame containing such a frequency band with no activity, as is indicated by a hollow arrow, bits are allocated to the other frequency bands or to another frame. Hence, as is shown in FIG. 9B, even when there are many signals that require only a slight number of bits (with fewer activities), the resulting number of bits is the number of bits based on the pre-set target rate and a total coding rate is not reduced. This method is therefore by no means efficient.
A variable rate coding method for controlling the coding bit rate frame by frame is disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 3-191618. In this coding method, variable rate control is performed for an SNR, whichmeans sound quality, to be constant. In addition, a signal sequence, such as an audio, is divided into plural frequency bands, and the number of bits is controlled for each frequency band on the basis of signal power in each frequency band. It should be noted, however, that because the presence or absence of an audio is determined in the whole frequency bands and a sum of coding quantities of the entire frame is controlled, the control is not performed for each frequency band. This method is therefore a technique that is the same as the AMR method.
The coding method in the related art has a problem that the rate control cannot be performed finely and bands cannot be utilized efficiently.

Apparatus for coding a wideband audio signal and a method for coding a wideband audio signal


A data recording apparatus capable of preventing easily copying of information is disclosed with which, even if information is copied, the copied information cannot be reproduced, the data recording apparatus having a terminal to which encoder ID specific for the data recording apparatus is input, a recording unit for recording at least the encoder ID on an optical disk, and an encoding circuit for, in accordance with the encoder ID, encoding data supplied through a terminal and required to be recorded so that encoded data is, together with the encoder ID, recorded on the optical disk.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data recording apparatus for recording data on a record (recording, recordable or recorded) medium, a method therefor, a data reproducing apparatus for reproducing data recorded on a record medium, a method therefor and a record medium on which data has been recorded. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information providing/collecting apparatus for providing and collecting so-called multimedia information, such as video information and music information, or program information and a method therefor.
2. Related Background Art
As a data record medium on which information signals, such as Audio data, video data and various data items, are recorded, means for optically recording information signals, specifically, a so-called compact disk (CD) for use in the music field and a CD-ROM which meets the CD standard and which is used for data have been used all over the world in recent years.
Hitherto, information providing service has been realized as a so-called data base system and a personal computer communication system in each of which a user terminal (a terminal of an information collecting side) and an information provider are connected to each other through, for example, the telephone line to enable information required by the user to be taken out. Another information providing service has been realized with which a large-capacity medium, such as a so-called CD-ROM having encoded information recorded thereon is distributed and key information for decoding encoded information is transmitted to the user by, for example, communication so that encoded information recorded on the CD-ROM is decoded and decoded information is copied on a hard disk or the like so as to be used.
Moreover, a technique has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 2-60007 in which a password formed by encoding a file key by using a code key is supplied to a computer; and a program written on the record medium is decoded by a coding mechanism to prevent copying and sharing of the software program.
Hitherto, all of information items recorded on the foregoing CD or the CD-ROM are read by a reproducing apparatus and copied onto, for example, a hard disk. Then, data copied onto the hard disk is supplied to an encoder system for the CD or the CD-ROM to newly make a CD or a CD-ROM so that a pirate edition is easily manufactured. As described above, the security function, such as the copy protection, has been unsatisfactory.
The foregoing problem is also critical for a so-called digital video disk (DVD), which is expected to be a data record medium for a next generation.
On the other hand, in the conventional information providing service, a method has been employed in which key information for decoding is transmitted to a user in such a manner that key information is transmitted by means of voice through a telephone line. Thus, key information has not been encoded particularly. However, the foregoing method has a risk in view of keeping security.
In the case where communication is employed to transmit key information, one-to-one connection is usually established. Therefore, there is substantially no risk of key information being stolen. However, in the case where key information is transmitted through a network, there arises a problem in protecting key information.
Therefore, in an information providing system, in which mediums, on each of which encoded information has been recorded in a large quantity, are distributed by the information provider; and only in a case where a user requires information to obtain from the medium, key information for decoding the code is supplied and accounting is performed, the problem in view of security when key information is transmitted results in a risk to arise in that key information can be obtained by a person except the subject user. In the foregoing case, the information providing system cannot be held. If whether or not the user is a formal user cannot be specified, there is a risk that account is put down to another person. Also in the foregoing case, the information providing system cannot be held.
Thus, security improvement in transmitting key information from an information provider to a user and reliable specification of a user are important requirements.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving a decoding key encoded with specific information to decode encrypted information of a record medium


A wireless communication network has a plurality of child nodes and a control node. Communication is carried out by using infrared or the like. The child nodes have modulators and demodulators. The modulators include modulation sets comprising the same kind of a modulation system having different multiple value formation levels. The modulation system is selected from the modulation sets in accordance with the communication distance or the communication speed necessary for the child node. Data is transmitted at high speed by precisely and simply restricting multiple paths. A delay amount of multiple paths whereby the S/N ratio remains equal both where multiple paths are present and where they are not present, is calculated; and a reflection position constituting the delay amount also is calculated. When an optical signal is reflected from outside of the reflection position, the delay amount is increased and the S/N ratio is deteriorated more than in the case where the multiple paths are not present and accordingly, the radiation angle of a light emitting unit and the light receiving angle of a light receiving unit are set such that the signal reflected from outside of the reflection position can be restricted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a modulating and demodulating method and a transmitting method of a control apparatus and a control apparatus using thereof which is preferably applied to a case in which a wireless communication network or the like is constructed by utilizing infrared ray or the like. In details, when communication is carried out between an apparatus on the controlling side (control node) and an apparatus on the controlled side (controlled node) which function as terminals of wireless communication, modulation sets adopting the same kind of a modulation system having different multiple value formation levels are prepared and an optimum modulation system is selected in accordance with communication distance or communication speed flexibility in respect of participation in a wireless communication network can be provided under more pertinent circuit scale.
Further, when optical transmission is carried out as a wireless communication, in obtaining reception data by receiving an optical signal outputted from a transmitter, the optical signal which is delayed is restricted such that a bit error rate thereof is not deteriorated more than a predetermined bit error rate by which adverse influence of the delayed optical signal is avoided and transmission of data can be carried out at high speed and excellently.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with progress of spread of portable devices, wireless formation of various analog and digital interfaces is promoted. Particularly, in the field of computer, wireless formation and high speed communication are intensively carried out, for example, by using technologies represented by wireless LAN (local area network) and IrDA (infrared data association), construction of a network (wireless network) by noncontact connection has been progressed not only between portable devices (communication devices or the like) disposed in the same room but also between a portable device and an installed device (television receiver or the like).
According to the wireless network, there is constructed a network in which one device constitutes a parent node (control node) and remaining one or more of devices constitute child nodes (controlled nodes) and communication between the parent node and the child nodes is connected by optical communication utilizing infrared ray or the like.
FIG. 1 shows a case in which a wireless communication network is constructed by one parent node 10 and one or more, three in this example of child nodes 20 (20A, 20B and 20C). Means (transmitting means and receiving means) for carrying out optical communication by infrared ray are installed at insides of the respective nodes 10 and 20. The child node 20 can communicate with only the parent node 10 by carrying out communication in synchronism with each other by using infrared ray.
When such a network for wireless communication is constructed, as a modulation system used in communication between the respective child nodes 20 and the parent node 10, the following cases are conceivable.
(1) The same modulation system is adopted for the parent node 10 and the child nodes 20.
(2) The respective nodes adopt different modulation systems.
Meanwhile, the following problems are conceivable in the above-described wireless communication means. That is, when the system (1) mentioned above is adopted as a communication system in carrying out data communication in order to simplify communication control and reduce the circuit scale as less as possible, the communication control is simplified since the same modulation system is adopted in the respective communication, however, transmission speed and communication distance between the nodes are fixed by the adopted modulation system and accordingly, a communication system which is devoid of flexibility is constituted.
Therefore, in order to carry out higher speed communication, the problem cannot be dealt with unless the modulation system is changed and when lower speed communication is sufficient, a wasteful equipment is provided. Because the circuit scale cannot be reduced.
Further, according to the system (2), when different modulation systems are adopted in communication between respective nodes such as between the parent node 10 and the child node 20A or the parent node 10 and the child node 20B, in the respective child nodes 20A, 20B and 20C, synchronizing circuits in correspondence with the modulation systems used by the respective child nodes become necessary and further, the communication control is also complicated.
Further, when transmission of data is carried out by using an optical signal of infrared ray or the like, on the reception side, as shown by FIG. 2, a direct signal from the transmission side and an optical signal which is delayed by being reflected by a reflecting object are supplied. Therefore, multiple paths are caused by a direct signal shown by FIG. 3A and a reflected signal (ghost signal) shown by FIG. 3B in which the signal level of the direct signal is attenuated and the signal is delayed and a reception signal shown by FIG. 3C is outputted from the reception side.
In this way, the signal waveform of the reception signal is changed by reflection of the signal and accordingly, S/N ratio (signal to noise ratio) is deteriorated, when the data transmission speed becomes fast, influence of the change in the signal waveform is significant and data cannot be transmitted correctly.
Therefore, in order to remove such an adverse influence by the multiple paths, for example, there is carried out a processing in which in starting data transmission, predetermined data is transmitted and received, influence of multiple paths is confirmed and adverse influence of multiple paths is removed from a reception signal in data transmission thereafter. However, according to a method of using so-to-speak adaptive automatic equalization where data transmission is carried out correctly by removing influence of multiple paths, circuits for removing influence of multiple paths are added and load of signal processing for removing influence of multiple paths is increased.
Hence, it is an object of the present invention to be able to construct a wireless communication network without excessively enlarging circuit scale and which is rich in flexibility by being able to select a pertinent modulation system in accordance with communication distance and communication speed.
Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide an optical transmission method and an optical transmission apparatus capable of transmitting data at high speed and excellently by precisely and simply restricting multiple paths.
In order to resolve the above-described problems, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a modulating and demodulating method of a control apparatus, wherein in a wireless communication network in which one or more of controlled control apparatuses are present in respect of one control apparatus and mutual communication is carried out between the control apparatus and the controlled control apparatuses by using infrared ray or the like, modulation sets comprising a same kind of a modulation system having different multiple value formation levels are prepared for the controlled control apparatuses, a modulation system is selected from the modulation sets in accordance with communication distance and communication speed necessary for the controlled control apparatuses and a signal is modulated by using the selected modulation system.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a control apparatus, wherein in a wireless communication network in which one or more of controlled control apparatuses are present in respect of one control apparatus and mutual communication is carried out between the control apparatus and the controlled control apparatuses by using infrared ray or the like, the controlled control apparatuses are respectively installed with modulating means and demodulating means of a signal, the modulating means are prepared with modulation sets comprising a same kind of a modulation system having different multiple value formation levels, a modulation system determined in accordance with communication distances and communication speeds necessary for the controlled control apparatuses is selected from among the modulation sets and the signal is modulated by using the selected modulation system.
According to the present invention, the modulation sets comprising the same kind of the modulation system having different multiple value formation levels are prepared for child nodes which are the control apparatuses on the controlled side. The parent node which is the control apparatus on the controlling side periodically transmits control blocks by using modulation having a lowest multiple value formation level among the modulation sets. The modulation system having the lowest multiple value formation level is utilized in consideration of the fact that a child node capable of carrying out communication only by the communication system having the lowest multiple value formation level participates in the wireless communication network.
By contrast, according to the modulation system used in the child node, the multiple value formation level is selected in accordance with a priority in the communication distance and the communication speed.
For example, when a child node which has a priority in the communication speed over the communication distance communicates with the parent node, the modulation system having a comparatively high multiple value formation level is adopted from among the modulation sets. By contrast, when a child node which has a priority in the communication distance over the communication speed communicates with the parent node, the modulation system having a comparatively low multiple value formation level is adopted from among the modulation sets. Therefore, the parent node is provided with the demodulating means capable of demodulating all of the modulation systems which can be selected by the child nodes.
Further, according to an optical transmission method of the present invention, transmission and reception of the optical signal is carried out while restricting an optical signal having a large delay amount than a delay amount of an optical signal which is delayed when the delayed optical signal is received and the reception data constitutes a predetermined bit error rate.
Further, according to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an optical transmission apparatus comprising transmitting means for transmitting an optical signal based on transmission data, receiving means for providing reception data by receiving the optical signal outputted from the transmitting means and optical restricting means for restricting the optical signal supplied from the transmitting means to the receiving means by being delayed by more than a predetermined delay amount. Further, the transmitting means includes modulating means for distributing the transmission data and carrying out quadrature modulation by using the distributed transmission data and signal outputting means for transmitting the optical signal based on the transmission signal provided by the modulating means, the receiving means includes demodulating means for forming reception data by demodulating a signal provided by receiving the optical signal and the optical restricting means restricts the optical signal having a delay amount larger than a delay amount of the optical signal which is delayed when the delayed optical signal is received and the reception data constitutes a predetermined bit error rate.
According to the optical transmission method and the optical transmission apparatus, when the optical signal outputted from a transmitter is received and the reception data is provided, the optical signal having a delay amount larger than a delay amount of the delayed optical signal is restricted at the predetermined bit error rate by restricting a radiation angle or a light receiving angle of the optical signal by optical signal restricting means of, for example, a light blocking tube, an optical lens or the like such that the bit error rate is not deteriorated more than the predetermined bit error rate.

Modulating and demodulating method and transmitting method of control apparatus and control apparatus


A low water contact lens material having high O.sub.2 permeability, a lower water content and reduced polymer matrix size provides adequate O.sub.2 to the cornea, but does not wick water away from the eye nor allow protein or other tear components to penetrate and deposit in the lens. Such a lens is made by polymerizing and crosslinking a prepolymer which contains a cyclic polyol with polyalkylether segments containing curable segments. The cyclic polyols consist of alkoxylated glucose or sucrose which are then reacted with an isocyanate to produce an ultraviolet curable prepolymer. The prepolymer is then placed in a mold and polymerized by exposure to ultraviolet light. The free hydroxyl groups of the material react with a highly hydrophilic reagent to form covalent bonds thus making the surface of the material more wettable.

Any ophthalmic lens must meet a variety of criteria in order to be acceptable for wear. Foremost for a contact lens, any material placed over the cornea of the eye must in some way provide for the passage of oxygen to the eye and waste products away from the eye. With hydrated soft contact lenses this is accomplished by having a material that, inherent with its high water content (sometimes over 50%), passes oxygen to the eye via the water contained in the lens.
Hydrated soft contact lenses, however, can act as a wick, drawing water way from the tear fluid in the eye and hastening its evaporation. This results in the "dry eye" effect, wherein an excess of moisture is drawn away from the eye by the hydrophilic lens.
In contrast, the hard contact lens does not exhibit this wicking effect because water does not absorb and pass through the lens, but rather is underneath the lens. Hard lenses, however, can have a deleterious effect on the eye because of its non-pliable nature and the movement of the lens over the cornea whenever the wearer blinks can cause mechanical agitation.
Other desirable and undesirable characteristics are divided between hard and hydrated soft contact lenses.
For example, hard contact lenses do not absorb proteins and lipids to the extent that a high water content hydrogel does. The semi-rigid and hard lenses do adsorb some surface proteins and lipids, but these low water content materials absorb no proteins or lipids into the bulk material. Proteins and possibly lipids are taken into the material of the soft lenses along with the tear fluid where they may be deposited. In general, this necessitates cleaning of the hydrated lens to remove protein and lipid deposits. Furthermore, hard contact lenses typically exhibit a higher strength and higher refractive index because they contain more plastic and less water allowing them to be made thinner.
Soft hydrated contact lenses have enjoyed wide acceptance because of high degree of comfort and an extended period of wear. Most soft hydrophilic contact lens polymers produced over the last decade have strived to increase the water content of the material because of the water's contribution to wearer comfort and the passage of oxygen and carbon dioxide through the lens. This increase in water content, however, leads to the aforementioned problem with wicking of moisture away from the eye and also reduces the refractive index of the lens (i.e., the ability of the lens to bend light), and decreases the stiffness of the lens resulting in poorer handling properties. This in turn requires the lens to be thicker in order to meet the refractive requirements necessary for the optical correction needed by the wearer.
If a lens material is either not permeable enough to oxygen and carbon dioxide, or does not provide the "tear pumping" action required to move the tear layer between the cornea and the lens to transport oxygen and carbon dioxide, negative physiological responses occur, which include: acidosis, decreased metabolic rates, thinning of the cornea, microcysts, and stromal edema.
Other physiological problems can occur even with highly permeable lenses from effects such as protein deposits, lens ageing, occlusions, mechanical abrasion and bacterial contamination such as papillary conjunctivitis, acute inflammation, acute red eye, and 3 and 9 o'clock staining of the central cornea.
The importance of water content for oxygen permeability in a hydrogel contact lens is shown in FIG. 1. Permeability of a gas through a material is expressed as a quantitative value given by Dk, which is equal to the diffusion constant, D, times the solubility, k. At 35.degree. C., Dk for a typical hydrogel lens is quantitatively expressed as [2.0.times.10.sup.-11 ]e.sup.[.0442("%H2O")] (cm.times.mm/s)(ml O.sub.2 /mm.times.Hg).
Despite the increased water content of hydrogel contact lenses, current hydrogel lens may not supply the cornea with enough oxygen and corneal edema during wear may not be as low as desired.
It is believed that extended wear contact lenses would at a minimum need to have a Dk/L (where L being the thickness of the lens) between 75.times.10.sup.-9 and 90.times.10.sup.-9 (cm.times.ml O.sub.2)/(s.times.ml.times.mm Hg) to reduce corneal edema to an acceptable level.
Current high water content lenses, for example, those that are approximately 70% water, need to be made at approximately 140 to 250 microns thickness to achieve the necessary optical and other physical properties. With this water content and at this thickness, it is seen in FIG. 2 that the Dk/L is about 55.times.10.sup.-9. Even with a hydrogel material having a water content of 80% and with a Dk equal to 53, a lens would have to be produced at approximately 70 microns in order for Dk/L to be 75.times.10.sup.-9.
As stated above, however, increasing the water content tends to lower the refractive index of the contact lens material and therefore require an increase in lens thickness. Even if this were not the case, however, thinner contact lenses have lower strength, less desirable handling properties and at high water content tend to dehydrate to such an extent that corneal staining occurs.
Examples of the current practice in the art of producing polymers for contact lenses is shown in European Patent Applications 0 330 614 and 0 330 615 both filed on Feb. 16, 1989. These publications describe contact lens polymers containing polyoxyalkylene and having the usual desirable properties of a soft contact lens, but both are described as containing in the hydrated state between 10% and 90% water, preferably between 35% and 55%. water by weight. European Patent Application number 0 263 061 filed on Aug. 24, 1987 also describes a contact lens material consisting of a polyoxyalkylene backbone unit and absorbing less than 10% water by weight. This polyoxyalkylene backbone forms a polymer which requires the addition of carbonyl containing monomers to induce surface wettability, but which also lowers oxygen permeability.
EP patents 330614, 330615, and 330618 uses polyether and carbamate linkages to produce contact lens polymers of both low and high water content but also use small molecular weight monomers to increase the water content of the base polymer. These patents fail to teach the use of more biocompatible materials such as sugars which contain carbon atoms bonded to two oxygen atoms (geninal) as part of their structures. The materials of the references also require large amounts of hydrophilic modifiers to induce wettability and silicon materials require surface treatment of some type.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,225,012 discloses a polymer that is prepared by polymerizing 1,2:5,6-di-o-isopropylidene-3-O-methacryloyl-D-glucose and then removing the isopropylidene groups from the glucose by acid hydrolysis. U.S. Pat. No. 3,356,652 describes a polymer that is derived from 2-(D-glucose)oxyethyl methacrylate. Both U.S. Pat. No. 3,225,012 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,356,652 use the glucose component of the polymer as a terminated pendant group off of a repeating carbon backbone,, and not as the primary repeating group from which the polymer chain is formed.
It is an object of the invention to devise a contact lens construction and material where dehydration of the lens, and therefore the eye, is of little concern and furthermore does not allow proteins or other tear components to penetrate and deposit in the lens.
It is a further object of the invention, that a material and construction of a contact lens would have sufficient refractivity and a modulus of elasticity such that the lens could be processed thin enough to present a high degree of wearer comfort.
More specifically, it is the object of the invention to provide a contact lens material and construction wherein the permeability, Dk; of the material in combination with its thickness, L, would provide a gas transmissibility through the lens, equal to Dk/L, exceeding that attainable with current hydrogel soft contact lenses.
It is a further object of the invention to devise a polymer capable of inducing surface wettability without the addition of oxygen-permeability inhibiting carbonyl monomers.
The above objects of the invention are attained while maintaining the comfort level of current soft contact lenses by maintaining pliability and wettability of the lenses thus minimizing mechanical agitation of the cornea.

Soft, high oxygen permeability ophtalmic lens


The present invention relates to a die casting machine. A molten metal (melted liquid) is supplied into a evacuated casting space that is formed by a combination of a movable mold and a fixed mold. The molten metal is first moved in a horizontal direction along a molten metal injection pipe and is then injected into a chamber located at the bottom of the casting space. Thereafter, the molten metal is moved in a vertical direction by means of a follower plunger and is then inserted into the casting space. Therefore, since occurrence of a turbulent flow of the molten metal injected into a mold is prevented, a product of a high quality with no minute bubbles can be obtained. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a die casting machine having a vacuum apparatus wherein a material is injected into a vacuum tank disposed in a melted liquid crucible via a pair of valves and another valve is also disposed even in a molten metal outflow hole of the vacuum tank to keep the degree of vacuum within the vacuum tank in a good state, whereby a good-quality product made of an alloy having a high melting point that is heavily oxidized in air can be produced, and casting method using the same.

Forming using the casting machine includes injecting a molten metal into a mold and pressurizing the metal until it is solidified. This method has been widely used because of accuracy of a cast product, reduction in culling machining, etc.
As shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, a conventional die casting machine can be classified into a horizontal type die casting machine in which a molten metal (melted liquid) is moved horizontally and a vertical type die casting machine in which the molten metal is moved vertically. In the horizontal type die casting machine, when a molten metal is horizontally injected into the mold by a plunger, minute bubbles are generated due to severe occurrence of a turbulent flow in a L-shaped bend portion (T) of FIG. 7. Meanwhile, in the vertical type die casting machine, when a molten metal is horizontally injected into the mold by the plunger, minute bubbles are generated due to severe occurrence of a turbulent flow in a L-shaped bend portion (Q) of FIG. 8.
Therefore, minute bubbles are generated in a product. It is difficult to obtain a product of a good quality and to product a product of a high quality as a conventional die casting machine due to lots of defective products.
In addition, there was disclosed a conventional vacuum apparatus of a die casting machine for producing a product of a high quality in a vacuum state by shutting an alloy of a high melting point, which is easily oxidized by oxygen in air, from oxygen in air. Referring to FIG. 16, the conventional vacuum apparatus has a construction in which a fixed mold 100, a movable mold 200, a support rod 400 into which an induction coil coolant circulating pipe 110 and a power supply cable 900 are inserted, a melted liquid crucible 300 to which a high frequency induction coil 800 is fixed, and nippers 500 for injecting a material into the melted liquid crucible 300 are surrounded by one vacuum tank 600. In this construction, however, lots of time is taken to evacuate the interior of the vacuum tank 600 by means of the vacuum pump 700. Also, the degree of vacuum within the vacuum tank 600 is not good Therefore, there is a problem that a product of a good quality is not produced using an alloy of a high melting point that is easily oxidized in air.

Die casting machine and casting method by thereof machine


A side view mirror including a multiplexor chip, NTC thermistor within the housing. The multiplexor controls multiple functionality from the housing and provides simplified LIN bus connection to the vehicle.

It has become an increasingly complex task to provide the proper controls for all of the features and to provide them in a convenient location to the operator of the vehicle. Typically, all multifunctional mirrors feature a wiring harness of somewhat complex proportions having sometimes six, seven or eight wires leading to various functions inside of the mirror housing, all of which must be controlled outside of the mirror housing. This adds complexity to the vehicle assembly where controllers and computer chips must be provided for in the vehicle. This makes mirror functionality and vehicle integration costly, complex and somewhat burdensome from a mirror sales point of view.
Therefore, it has been a goal in the art to provide a less complex, lighter weight, and improved method for controlling mirror functions in a side view mirror.


A method and system to detect and evaluate improper grounding/grounded bonds in an electrical power system is disclosed. An example method is detecting improper grounding in an electrical power system having a plurality of monitoring devices coupled to a grounded conductor and a grounding conductor. Data of the voltage between the grounded conductor and the grounding conductor is received from the plurality of monitoring devices. The spatial orientation of the data from the plurality of monitoring devices is determined within a hierarchy of the electrical power system. The voltage data received from the plurality of monitoring devices is compared to determine a bond (or lack of a bond) between the grounded conductor and the grounding conductor.

It has been a long established fact that wiring and grounding inadequacies may result in many potential electrical vulnerabilities. In fact, a well known Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) study in the 1990s stated that as much as 80% of power quality problems relate to inadequate wiring or grounding. Because of the frequency of wiring errors and the resulting potential for loss of life, property, product, and revenue, it is important to provide electrical energy users with capabilities that help determine unintentional (and even intentional) wiring errors that would have been otherwise overlooked.
There are several functions served by properly grounding an electrical system, some which are mentioned above. The National Electrical Code (NEC) and/or local electrical codes typically govern the general requirements for grounding and bonding of electrical installations. Some specific requirements include: 1) systems, circuits, and equipment required, permitted, or not permitted to be grounded; 2) circuit conductor or conductors to be grounded on grounded systems; 3) location of grounding connections; 4) types and sizes of grounding and bonding conductors and electrodes; and 5) methods of grounding and bonding.
Ultimately, these codes are intended to provide guidelines that facilitate the safety of equipment and personnel. Other objectives of suitable grounding configurations include providing a path for dissipating high energy electrical discharges, preventing static build-up, and establishing an equipotential voltage reference point for the electrical system. There are other important standards and guidelines that discuss wiring and grounding beyond those concerned with safety as they relate to equipment and personnel. The IEEE Emerald Book (IEEE 1100, Recommended Practice for Powering and Grounding Electronic Equipment) describes methods "to enhance equipment performance from an electric powering and grounding standpoint, while maintaining a safe installation as prescribed by national and local electric code requirements."
An effective grounding path is defined by the NEC as "an intentionally constructed, permanent, low-impedance electrically conductive path designed and intended to carry current under ground-fault conditions from the point of a ground fault on a wiring system to the electrical supply source and that facilitates the operation of the overcurrent protective device or ground fault detectors on high-impedance grounded systems." A key aspect of this definition is that the ground path is meant to be used "under ground-fault conditions," and not during steady-state operation. A primary reason ground paths are not meant to provide a return path for the current during steady-state conditions is that equipment may become inadvertently energized, posing a safety hazard to personnel. Another reason to avoid ground currents is the potential to introduce equipment interference problems into the electrical system.
The 2005 NEC Section 250.30(A)(1) states that "an unspliced system bonding jumper in compliance with 250.28(A) through (D) that is sized based on the derived phase conductors shall be used to connect the equipment grounding conductors of the separately derived system to the grounded conductor (neutral). This connection shall be made at any single point on the separately derived system from the source to the first system disconnecting means or overcurrent device, or it shall be made at the source of a separately derived system that has no disconnecting means or overcurrent devices. The NEC allows for a single neutral-ground bond (connection) at the service entrance or at any separately derived system."
FIG. 1 generally illustrates a properly bonded electrical system 10 having a utility service entrance 12, a main switchgear 14, a step down transformer 16 and a panelboard 18. Neutral (grounded) conductors 20 and grounding conductors 22 are provided for the components 12, 14, 16 and 18. FIG. 1 illustrates a "single" point of bonding 24 between the grounding conductors 22 and the grounded conductor 20 on each separately derived component (one at main switchgear 14 and the other at the step-down transformer 16).
FIG. 2 generally illustrates the electrical system 10 in FIG. 1 in an improperly (or "illegally") bonded state. FIG. 2 illustrates a "single" point of bonding between the grounding conductor 22 and the grounded conductor 20 for each separately derived component as explained above in FIG. 1, but also has a bond 26 between the grounding conductor 22 and the grounded conductors 20 on the panel board 18. This additional neutral-ground (N-G) bond 26 at the panelboard 18 will allow current to circulate on the grounding conductor 22 during steady-state conditions creating both potentially hazardous electrical conditions and equipment operational issues.
What is needed, therefore, is a detection system to determine automatically the presence of potential improper grounded-grounding conductor configurations in an electrical power system. There is a further need for a system to determine automatically the location of improper grounded-grounding conductor configurations. There is also a need for a system that determines the absence of an expected grounded-grounding bond in an electrical power system. Aspects of the present invention are directed to fulfilling these and other needs.

Method and system to identify grounding concerns in an electric power system


A serial column system for producing relatively large quantities of both high purity nitrogen gas and high purity nitrogen liquid using a first column producing the high purity gas and a second column producing the high purity liquid, with second column top fluid refluxing the first column.

High purity nitrogen gas is finding increasing use as a blanketing or inerting gas in the manufacturing of high value components, such as semiconductors, where freedom from contamination by oxygen is critical to the manufacturing process. Typically the high purity nitrogen is produced by the cryogenic rectification of air and piped directly to the semiconductor manufacturing plant. While such cryogenic air separation plants are highly reliable, these plants, like all production facilities, are subject to disruptions which could cause a reduction or stoppage of the high purity nitrogen flow from the cryogenic air separation plant to the semiconductor manufacturing plant. To avoid the catastrophic consequences of such a flow reduction or stoppage, high purity nitrogen plants have a liquid storage tank filled with liquid high purity nitrogen which can be quickly vaporized and passed on to the semiconductor manufacturing plant if the need arises.
While the high purity nitrogen plant may be able to produce some high purity nitrogen as liquid, at best it can produce only small quantities of such liquid. Accordingly, it is conventional practice to bring liquid high purity nitrogen to the storage tank by tanker truck or other transport means from a distant high purity liquid nitrogen production plant. While this conventional practice serves the intended purpose of maintaining the storage tank filled with liquid high purity nitrogen in case the need for its use arises, it is costly and cumbersome. It is desirable to have a facility which can produce high purity nitrogen gas and can also produce relatively large quantities of high purity nitrogen liquid so that transport of such liquid to the facility may be eliminated.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a cryogenic rectification system which can produce relatively large quantities of both high purity nitrogen gas and high purity nitrogen liquid.

Serial column cryogenic rectification system for producing high purity nitrogen


The solar cell comprises a front side comprising a first doped layer, a backside comprising formations defining channels therebetween, the backside further comprising a second doped layer situated on at least some of the surfaces of the channels facing the front side, and an electrically conductive layer situated on at least some surfaces of the channels facing the front side. The first and second doped layers comprise opposite polarity types.

The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to solar cells.
Fabrication costs associated with molded wafer solar cells are generally less than fabrication costs associated with cast wafer solar cells. However, the molded wafer cells are typically somewhat less efficient and much thicker, for example on the order of 600 microns, than cast wafer cells.
Because the generated photocurrent has to be conducted through the entire wafer, a reduced open circuit voltage occurs in molded wafer solar cells. Under normal operating conditions, the open circuit voltage is also impacted by the temperature rise of the molded silicon wafer solar cells. Cooling of any solar cell, whether molded or cast for example, that is packaged in a conventional module is a challenge because the cells are laminated in a package using materials that act as thermal insulators.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide improved cooling in solar cells generally and more particularly to prevent reduced open circuit voltage in molded wafer solar cells.

Solar cell including cooling channels and method for fabrication


A substrate including a base substrate; a scattering layer which is formed on the base substrate, includes a binder and scattering particles for scattering light, and has an uneven structure formed on a surface thereof opposite the base substrate; and a planarizing layer which is formed on the scattering layer and has a flat surface formed thereon, is provided. Here, the refractive index Na of the scattering particles and the refractive index Nb of the planarizing layer satisfy the expression |Na−Nb|≧0.3, an organic electronic device including the substrate, and a method of manufacturing the same are provided. Light-extraction efficiency can be improved and the manufacturing process can be simplified without degrading device performance.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate for an organic electronic device having a novel structure, an organic electronic device including the substrate, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Discussion of Related Art
An organic electronic device refers to a device that can induce the flow of electric charge between an electrode and an organic material using holes and/or electrons. The organic electronic device is a type of electronic device used as a current source since excitons formed in an organic material layer are separated into electrons and holes by means of photons flowing into the device from an external light source according to its operation principle, and the separated electrons and holes are transferred to different electrodes; or a type of electronic device which is driven by electrons and holes which are injected into an organic material by applying a voltage or electric current to two or more electrodes. Examples of an organic electronic device include an organic light emitting diode (OLED), an organic solar cell, an organic photoconductor (OPC) drum or organic transistor, etc.
The OLED refers to a spontaneously light emitting device using electroluminescence in which light emits when an electric current flows in a light-emissive organic compound. The OLED has attracted much attention as a next-generation material in various fields such as displaying or lighting since the OLED has advantages in that it has excellent thermal stability and low drive voltage.

Substrate for an organic electronic device and an organic electronic device comprising the same


Described is a consignment store for the separate acceptance, storing, and issuing of consignments. The consignment store has a handover device for the separate acceptance and handover of the consignments to separate carrier elements, a detecting device for detecting heights of the consignments, and a rack system with holding elements arranged one above the other in a vertical direction and which define holding levels. The holding and carrier elements are of corresponding design such that, on two adjacent holding levels, two carrier elements carrying one consignment can be held one above the other in a vertical direction, and such that, on a holding level, a carrier element can be held with a consignment taller than the spacing to the next holding level. A control device allocates carrier elements in a vertical direction one above the other to different holding elements/storage positions dependent on the detected height of the consignments.

Consignment stores and methods for the operation thereof are known in a wide variety of embodiments. In general, consignments are handed over to the consignment store, are temporarily stored in the consignment store, and are subsequently issued again. If the consignments are of different sizes, it is known for the consignments to be allocated to particular storage locations in a manner dependent on their size. To prevent unauthorized access to the consignments, the movement to the storage locations for the temporary storage of the consignments and the subsequent issuing of the consignments can be automated. In this case, it is often sought to utilize the space available for the temporary storage of the consignments as efficiently as possible. Accordingly, consignments are normally assigned to compartments of different size, depending on how large the consignment is. The outlay of the apparatus and the handling effort increases depending on how efficiently the available storage space is utilized. Because of this, it is impossible to achieve fully satisfactory results.

Consignment store and method for accepting, temporarily storing and issuing consignments


A part of cell stack portions constituting a part of a fuel cell stack is used as a voltage detection portion, the size of a frequency component belonging to a predetermined specific frequency range is extracted from a voltage signal detected and the existence/absence of abnormality of a fuel cell system is diagnosed on the basis of the frequency component extracted.

This invention relates to a fuel cell system having fuel cell stacks and its diagnosis system. More particularly, the invention relates to a fuel cell system using PEFC (Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells).
A method that divides a large number of cells constituting a fuel cell stack into a plurality of cell groups, measures an output voltage for each cell group and diagnoses an operating condition on the basis of a mean voltage of the output voltages, voltage fluctuation and the value of the output voltage for each cell group has been proposed as one of technologies for the fuel cell system and its diagnosis system. JP-A-2004-127915, for example, discloses in its Abstract a system having a cell monitor capable of monitoring a voltage of each cell group as a fuel cell system that is applied to an electric motor car.

Fuel cell system and diagnosis system for the fuel cell system


A digital data memory having a bit structure in a memory cell based on an intermediate separating material with two major surfaces having thereon a magnetoresistive, anisotropic ferromagnetic thin-film of differing thicknesses. These bit structures are fabricated within structural extent limits to operate satisfactorily, and are fabricated as series connected members of storage line structures. A corresponding conductive word line structure adjacent corresponding ones of these memory cells is used for selecting or operating them, or both, in data storage and retrieval operations. Bit structures can be fabricated with further alternating intermediate separating, material layers and varied thickness ferromagnetic thin-film layers, and a configuration thereof can be provided for use as an isolated memory cell.

The present invention relates to ferromagnetic thin-film structures exhibiting relatively large magnetoresistive characteristics and, more particularly, to such structures used for the storage and retrieval of digital data.
Many kinds of electronic systems make use of magnetic devices including both digital systems, such as memories, and analog systems such as magnetic field sensors. Digital data memories are used extensively in digital systems of many kinds including computers and computer systems components, and digital signal processing systems. Such memories can be advantageously based on the storage of digital symbols as alternative states of magnetization in magnetic materials provided in each memory storage cell, the result being memories which use less electrical power and do not lose information upon removals of such electrical power.
Such memory cells, and magnetic field sensors also, can often be advantageously fabricated using ferromagnetic thin-film materials, and are often based on magnetoresistive sensing of magnetic states, or magnetic conditions, therein. Such devices may be provided on a surface of a monolithic integrated circuit to provide convenient electrical interconnections between the device and the operating circuitry therefor.
Ferromagnetic thin-film memory cells, for instance, can be made very small and packed very closely together to achieve a significant density of information storage, particularly when so provided on the surface of a monolithic integrated circuit. In this situation, the magnetic environment can become quite complex with fields in any one memory cell affecting the film portions in neighboring memory cells. Also, small ferromagnetic film portions in a memory cell can lead to substantial demagnetization fields which can cause instabilities in the magnetization state desired in such a cell.
These magnetic effects between neighbors in an array of closely packed ferromagnetic thin-film memory cells can be ameliorated to a considerable extent by providing a memory cell based on an intermediate separating material having two major surfaces on each of which an anisotropic ferromagnetic memory thin-film is provided. Such an arrangement provides significant "flux closure," i.e. a more closely confined magnetic flux path, to thereby confine the magnetic field arising in the cell to affecting primarily just that cell. This result is considerably enhanced by choosing the separating material in the ferromagnetic thin-film memory cells to each be sufficiently thin. Similar "sandwich" structures are also used in magnetic sensors.
In the recent past, reducing the thicknesses of the ferromagnetic thin-films and the intermediate layers in extended "sandwich" structures, and adding possibly alternating ones of such films and layers, i.e. superlattices, have been shown to lead to a "giant magnetoresistive effect" being present in some circumstances. This effect yields a magnetoresistive response which can be in the range of up to an order of magnitude greater than that due to the well known anisotropic magnetoresistive response.
In the ordinary anisotropic magnetoresistive response, varying the difference occurring between the direction of the magnetization vector in a ferromagnetic thin-film and the direction of sensing currents passed through that film leads to varying effective electrical resistance in the film in the direction of the current. The maximum electrical resistance occurs when the magnetization vector in the field and the current direction therein are parallel to one another, while the minimum resistance occurs when they are perpendicular to one another. The total electrical resistance in such a magnetoresistive ferromagnetic film can be shown to be given by a constant value, representing the minimum resistance, plus an additional value depending on the angle between the current direction in the film and the magnetization vector therein. This additional resistance has a magnitude characteristic that follows the square of the cosine of that angle.
Operating magnetic fields imposed externally can be used to vary the angle of the magnetization vector in such a film portion with respect to the easy axis of that film. Such an axis comes about in the film because of an anisotropy therein typically resulting from depositing the film during fabrication in the presence of an external magnetic field oriented in the plane of the film along the direction desired for the easy axis in the resulting film. During subsequent operation of the device having this resulting film, such operational magnetic fields imposed externally can be used to vary the angle to such an extent as to cause switching of the film magnetization vector between two stable states which occur for the magnetization being oriented in opposite directions along the film's easy axis. The state of the magnetization vector in such a film can be measured, or sensed, by the change in resistance encountered by current directed through this film portion. This arrangement has provided the basis for a ferromagnetic, magnetoresistive anisotropic thin-film to serve as a memory cell.
In contrast to this arrangement, the resistance in the plane of a ferromagnetic thin-film is isotropic for the giant magnetoresistive effect rather than depending on the direction of the sensing current therethrough as for the anisotropic magnetoresistive effect. The giant magnetoresistive effect involves a change in the electrical resistance of the structure thought to come about from the passage of conduction electrons between the ferromagnetic layers in the "sandwich" structure, or superlattice structure, through the separating non-magnetic layers with the resulting scattering occurring at the layer interfaces, and in the ferromagnetic layers, being dependent on the electron spins. The magnetization dependant component of the resistance in connection with this effect varies as the sine of the absolute value of half the angle between the magnetizations in the ferromagnetic thin-films provided on either side of an intermediate non-magnetic layer The electrical resistance in the giant magnetoresistance effect through the "sandwich" or superlattice structure is lower if the magnetizations in the separated ferromagnetic thin-films are parallel and oriented in the same direction than it is if these magnetizations are antiparallel, i.e. oriented in opposing or partially opposing directions. Further, the anisotropic magnetoresistive effect in very thin films is considerably reduced from the bulk values therefor in thicker films due to surface scattering, whereas a significant giant magnetoresistive effect is obtained only in very thin films. Nevertheless, the anisotropic magnetoresistive effect remains present in the films used in giant magnetoresistive effect structures.
As indicated above, the giant magnetoresistive effect can be increased by adding further alternate intermediate non-magnetic and ferromagnetic thin-film layers to extend a "sandwich" structure into a stacked structure, i.e. a superlattice structure. The giant magnetoresistive effect is sometimes called the "spin valve effect" in view of the explanation that a larger fraction of conduction electrons are allowed to move more freely from one ferromagnetic thin-film layer to another if the magnetizations in those layers are parallel than if they are antiparallel or partially antiparallel to thereby result in the magnetization states of the layers acting as sort of a "valve."
Thus, a digital data memory cell based on the use of structures exhibiting the giant magnetoresistive effect is attractive as compared to structures based on use of an anisotropic magnetoresistive effect because of the larger signals obtainable in information retrieval operations with respect to such cells. Such larger magnitude signals are easier to detect without error in the presence of noise thereby leading to less critical requirements on the retrieval operation circuitry.
A memory cell structure suitable for permitting the storing and retaining of a digital bit of information, and for permitting retrieving same therefrom has been demonstrated based on a multiple layer "sandwich" construction in a rectangular solid. This cell has a pair of ferromagnetic layers of equal thickness and area separated by a non-magnetic layer of the same area but smaller thickness. These ferromagnetic layers are each a composite layer formed of two stratums each of a different magnetic material, there being a relatively thin ferromagnetic stratum in each of the composite layers adjacent the non-magnetic layer and a thicker ferromagnetic stratum in each of the composite layers adjacent the thin ferromagnetic stratum therein. The ferromagnetic material of the thick stratum in one of the composite layers is the same as that in the thin stratum in the other composite layer, and the ferromagnetic material of the thin stratum in the first composite layer is the same as the ferromagnetic material in the thick stratum of the second composite layer. Each of the composite layers is fabricated in the presence of a magnetic field so as to result in having an easy axis parallel to the long sides of the rectangular solid. The dimensions of the cell structure were 10 .mu.m in length and 5 .mu.m in width with a non-magnetic layer of thickness 30 .ANG.. The composite ferromagnetic layers are each formed of a 5 .ANG. thin stratum and a 50 .ANG. thick stratum.
Thus, this memory cell structure has a pair of ferromagnetic layers of the matching geometries but different magnetic materials in the strata therein to result in one such layer having effectively a greater saturation magnetization and a greater anisotropy field than the other to result in different coercivities in each. In addition, the structure results in a coupling of the magnetization between the two ferromagnetic layers therein due to exchange coupling between them leading to the magnetizations in each paralleling one another in the absence of any applied magnetic fields. As a result, the electrical resistance of the cell along its length versus applied magnetic fields in either direction parallel thereto is represented by two characteristics depending on the magnetization history of the cell. Each of these characteristics exhibits a peak in this resistance for applied longitudinal fields having absolute values that are somewhat greater than zero, one of these characteristics exhibiting its peak for positive applied longitudinal fields and the other characteristic exhibiting its peak for negative applied longitudinal fields The characteristic followed by the resistance of the cell for relatively small applied longitudinal fields depends on which direction the magnetization is oriented along the easy axis for the one of the two ferromagnetic layers having the larger coercivity. Thus, by setting the magnetization of the layer with the higher coercivity, a bit of digital information can be stored and retained, and the value of that bit can be retrieved without affecting this retention through a determination of which characteristic the resistance follows for a relatively small applied longitudinal field.
Such memory cell behavior for this structure can be modeled by assuming that the ferromagnetic layers therein are each a single magnetic domain so that positioning of the magnetization vectors in the ferromagnetic layers is based on coherent rotation, and that uniaxial anisotropies characterize those layers. The angles of the magnetization vectors in the two ferromagnetic layers with respect to the easy axis in those layers are then found by minimizing the magnetic energy of these anisotropies summed with that due to the applied external fields and to exchange coupling. That total energy per unit volume is then ##EQU1## As indicated above, once the magnetization vectors have taken an angular position with respect to the easy axis of the corresponding layer at a minimum in the above indicated energy, the effective resistance between the ends of the memory cell structure is determined by the net angle between the magnetization vectors in each of these layers.
Because of the assumption of single domain behavior in the ferromagnetic layers, the above equation would seemingly be expected to improve its approximation of the system total magnetic energy as the length and width of that memory cell structure decreased toward having submicron dimensions. However, this mode of operation described for providing the two magnetoresistive characteristics based on the history of the magnetization, in depending on the differing anisotropy fields in the two ferromagnetic layers because of the differing materials used therein, becomes less and less reliable as these dimensions decrease. This appears to occur because decreasing the cell dimensions gives rise to larger and larger demagnetizing fields in the two ferromagnetic layers which, at some point, overwhelm the effects of the anisotropy fields so that the above described behavior no longer occurs as described. In addition, the magnetizations of the two ferromagnetic layers rotate together under the influences of externally applied fields at angles with respect to the corresponding easy axis at angular magnitudes much more nearly equal to one another because of the increasing demagnetization fields in these layers as the dimensions thereof decrease. As a result, these ferromagnetic layers are less and less able to have the magnetizations thereof switch directions of orientation independently of one another as the dimensions thereof decrease so that the structure they are in becomes less able to provide the above described memory function in relying on only these ferromagnetic layer anisotropy differences. Thus, an alternative arrangement is desired for such "sandwich" structure, or superlattice structure, memory cells having submicron dimensions which provide desirable magnetoresistance versus applied magnetic field characteristics that can be used for storing and retrieving data bits of information.

Giant magnetoresistive effect memory cell


Tomatoes (11) or other articles are placed over moving cutter blades (20) in article openings (46) of an article locator (44) of the article slicer (10). Article pushers (24) move downwardly and have downwardly extending pusher fins (26) for pushing the tomatoes though the cutter blades (20). The article pushers (24) have laterally extending front openings (36) for receiving a high pressure fluid spray for cleaning the fins (26) and cutter blades (20) without disassembling the components of the slicer. The article pushers (24) are carried by a movable support plate (78) between retracted positions behind the cutter blades (20) and extended positions over the cutter blades (20). A pick and placer (76) is carried by the same movable support plate (78) and moves simultaneously in the same lateral directions as the article pushers (24), between positions over the on-coming line of tomatoes (11) on an entrance conveyor (64) and over the cutter blades (20).

When a restaurant is to serve sliced food items, such as sliced tomatoes, a substantial amount of preparation time would be required at the restaurant to slice and otherwise prepare the sliced products. After the food products are purchased and delivered to the restaurant, typically they would have to be cleaned, sliced, and made available for placement on the salad, sandwich, or other menu item. It is somewhat difficult for the person slicing the food items to prepare slices of uniform width and consistency and there is a substantial amount of waste because of improper slicing, etc. and there is the potential for cross contamination in the restaurant.
In the instance of fast food restaurant chains, the owners of the restaurant chain usually desire to present a uniform food product, such as hamburgers of uniform size, appearance and taste, with sliced tomatoes applied to the hamburgers, and with the hamburgers and all of the ingredients being substantially identical from one restaurant to another. It has become important that tomatoes, in particular, be sliced to a desired thickness when placed on sandwiches, salads, etc. of a restaurant of a chain of fast food restaurants. This provides the customer with confidence that the food products will be uniform from one restaurant to another within a chain of the restaurants. Accordingly, restaurant managers now prefer to receive food items in proper configuration and condition for placement on a sandwich, salad, etc., for immediate service to the customer without requiring the preliminary preparation steps such as slicing the food products.
Manual handling of slices of tomatoes, such as described above, adds to potential public health issues from contamination and adds to the potential of bruising the products and liquid loss from the products.
It is therefore desirable that the design and operation of a tomato slicer take into consideration the delicate nature of the tomato, the importance of minimizing the impact of the slicer on the tomatoes, the cleanliness of the equipment performing the slicing process, and the speed of operation of the slicer.
Various prior art slicing machines have been disclosed for the purpose of slicing food products. The prior art includes U.K. Patent Specification 600,131 dated Sep. 28, 1945 that discloses a slicer that would push potatoes through parallel cutter wires to form the potatoes into a pair of end slices and a plurality of intermediate slices of uniform thickness. The end slices are to be collected separately from the intermediate slices.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,799,496 discloses a slicing device similar to the U.K. potato slicer that would simultaneously push a plurality of tomatoes through parallel reciprocating cutter blades.
U.S. patent publications 2006/0021484 and 2006/0225547 disclose article slicers and methods suitable for slicing tomatoes and other relatively soft articles into parallel slices while discarding the heel portions and the stem portions of the bodies of the articles.
Publication 2006/0225547 discloses an article slicer with fluid cleaning of some of the surfaces and an external pick and placer that may be aligned with the slicer to place tomatoes in the slicer.
It is a problem with some prior art article slicers to effectively and efficiently clean the surfaces of the slicer during operation and after operation of the slicer. For example, when the slicer is used to slice tomatoes and other articles that leave a residue on the surfaces of the slicer, the parts may have to be disassembled, cleaned and reassembled.
A desired feature of article slicers is the cleaning of the equipment after the equipment has been used without having to disassemble the slicer. It is desirable to remove any particles, such as the skin of a tomato, seeds or other residue, and the juices exuded from the articles during the slicing and handling operations, and it is desirable to apply a disinfectant to the surfaces of the equipment that make contact with the articles so that the equipment is sanitized before reuse.
Another desired feature for article slicers is the feeding of the articles, such as tomatoes, to the slicer in sufficient quantity and in the proper pattern that matches the intake requirements of the slicer for maximizing the operational speed of the slicer without reducing the quality of the work product.
It is these features and problems that this invention addresses.

Article slicer with integral pick and placer


A machine configured to prevent unintentional motion in a linkage pivotally connected to a frame may include a first hydraulic actuator connected to the linkage and a second hydraulic actuator connected to the linkage. The machine may include a sensor and an electronic control module in communication with the sensor. The electronic control module may be configured to close a valve of the first hydraulic cylinder and/or cancel an actuation command to one of the first hydraulic actuator and the second hydraulic actuator in response to the electronic control module determining unintentional motion of the linkage has occurred based on the sensor.

Hydraulically actuated systems, such as hydraulically actuated linkages, may include a plurality of hydraulic actuators that each moves a linkage in a desired range of motion. Thus, the plurality of hydraulic actuators may be used to provide controlled movement of the linkage. However, in some circumstances, when a first hydraulic actuator is actuated, the first hydraulic actuator may induce unintentional movement in the linkage. Further, the first hydraulic actuator may cause a second hydraulic actuator to store energy that may release and also cause unintentional movement in the linkage.

Controlled motion in a hydraulically actuated system


A display apparatus having: a panel displaying a picture; a panel driver enabling the panel to display the picture; a scaler transferring an input image signal to the panel driver; a key input part generating a color change execution signal for the input image signal by manipulation of a user; and a controller modifying a voltage level value of the input image signal and transferring a modified input image signal to the scaler, if the input image signal transferred to the scaler is identical over a predetermined period of time, after receiving the color change execution signal from the key input part. As described, an embodiment of the present invention provides the display apparatus and the control method thereof providing the user with the information displayed on the screen and preventing screen modulation when identical display data are displayed on the screen over the predetermined period of the time.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display apparatus and a control method thereof, and more particularly, to a display apparatus and a control method thereof preventing a screen modulation when identical display data are displayed on a screen over a long period of time.
2. Description of the Related Art
A display apparatus, for example, a display apparatus used in an airport or a bank, often displays identical data carrying specific character messages over a long period of time at a stationary position on the display apparatus. In such case, a screen modulation occurs due to a physical variation of a displaying component of the display apparatus. For example, if an identical image is displayed on an LCD (liquid crystal display) over the long period of the time, an array of liquid crystals solidifies, making it difficult to display another image.
To solve such a problem, a method of adding dummy data at each specific frame using a pixel shift, a screen saver, or a scaler was adopted. But, the pixel shift and the screen saver cannot provide a user with information displayed on the screen. Particularly, the pixel shift cannot solve a screen modulation problem when an identical color is displayed within a fixed pixel shift range. Also, the screen may blink when the dummy data are added at each specific frame.

Display apparatus and control method thereof