A central location of a telephone switching system is placed where favorable local exchange tariffs are available. The central location includes a caller responsive unit which compares the caller identification accompanying the call attempt against a prestored list of identification data assigned to authorized system users. A positive comparison result causes the system to signal to the originator to terminate the call attempt. The system thereafter calls the originating caller telephone from the central location. The system allows the originating caller to input the number of the party to whom a connection is desired by the originator. The system responds by establishing a connection with the called party and bridges communications between the called and calling parties at the central location. The system includes the capability of employing audio responses of various types to calling or called parties.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telephone switching systems in general and, more particularly, to telephone systems wherein interconnections between calling and called parties are performed under control of data processing or computer equipment. The present invention is especially useful in conjunction with telephone interconnection systems which are intended for providing the most economical domestic and international telephone service to those who subscribe to the service by providing apparatus and methods in a system organized for quickly and efficiently employing the most advantageous domestic and international tariff rates to user originated traffic.
Tariff rates for originating traffic often vary greatly. There is a need, therefore, to provide a service that will allow callers to take advantage of tariff rate differences to achieve the most economically advantageous cost for their respective domestic and international traffic.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Interexchange carriers (IXCs) are telecommunication carriers that provide what is commonly known as long distance, or interexchange, service between geographical areas called Local Access Transport Areas (LATAs). It is understood LATAs were created by a United States Federal Court in an antitrust case. The court limited local exchange companies (LECs) to providing telephone service only within LATAs (intraLATA service) and expressly forbid LECs to provide service between LATAs (interLATA service). Thus, IXCs receive originating traffic from the LEC in that LATA, carry the traffic to the terminating LATA, and deliver it to the LEC serving the terminating LATA.
A wide variety of sometimes user interactive arrangements for applying data processing equipment or computers to telephone line switching and control have developed. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,071,698 by Barger et al describes an arrangement for demonstrating and then selling products, such as audio recordings, by the use of a telephone system. It employs either a human operator or an automated program as alternative interfaces. Both procedures make use of an audio repeater wherein product demonstrations are stored.
Statistical acquisition and analysis using a telephone system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,968 by Katz. An example is in the obtaining of medical data from a selected group of people. A voice generator or a human operator prompts the called party to originate data by telephone instrument actuation. Yet another statistical data handling telephone system using audio units for prompting while utilizing multiple processors is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,739 by Katz.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,150 by Katz applies a processor to make available a multiplicity of formats for services such as public polls, lotteries, auctions, promotions, sales operations and games. The telephone terminal of the user operates a switch to select a format with the processor testing to determine whether the request is proper. Katz et al in U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,046 describes use of a database to simulate a call termination signal to prompt the caller to hang up their telephone at the end of a recorded message.
An arrangement for conference call interconnecting a plurality of parties is shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,939,773 and 4,987,590 by Katz. The system bridges all the telephones of an intended group with a voice generator for prompting. Authorization of the participants is verified.
Use of automatic audio response units in combination with telephone switching operations is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,482,057 by Abbott et al. A more interactive functioning in conjunction with a telephone call relay system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,945 by Carbullido. Remote user terminals communicate with an Audio Response Unit (ARU) or an attended terminal to acquire from the originating user certain identification and/or credit card information. A unique call reference number is assigned to the call and stored. If a need to relay the call exists, the caller is bridged to a terminal block for person to person audio communications.
The prior art has also recognized that it is possible to realize cost savings because of the telephone tariff differentials as between various geographic locations. For instance, calls originating from the United States are frequently less expensive than calls originating from another country.
Thus, a system was developed to take advantage of this tariff differential. In the prior art system, an input line is dedicated to a particular user. That is, for each subscribing user there is a unique dedicated input line. When the user calls into the system on that line, typically allowing it to ring only once, the system employs an autodialer configuration to call the user who responds by entering the desired number. The system dials that number on another line and then bridges the user with it upon response by the called party.
The aforementioned system can likewise establish conference call patches, or the like, all at the local call tariff rates. Such a system is described in the Jan. 9, 1992 New York Times article entitled Hot-Wiring Overseas Telephone Calls by Anthony Ramirez. It suffers the disadvantage of requiring input telephone trunks dedicated to specific users with one such trunk for each user. It also is limited in flexibility and adaptability by the autodialer hardware. Thus a need remains for a system that can function with a minimum number of dedicated telephone trunks, but is expandable with ease to accommodate large numbers of subscribers while likewise enjoying the ability to rapidly relocate the entire system to other geographic areas to take advantage of changing tariff structures.

Interactive telephone system for optimizing service economy

Cygnus Telecommunications Technology LLC


In a device for measuring the complete polarization state of light over a spectral bandwidth, an optical input signal (41) with wavelengths of light within a spectral band is incident on two or more diffraction gratings (42, 44, 46, 48), or incident from at least two directions on one or more diffraction gratings (72, 74), and the intensity is measured as a function of wavelength for at least four of the diffraction spectra produced by the grating(s). The polarization state of light is then calculated as a function of wavelength over the spectral bandwidth from the intensity measurements.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to photopolarimeters, particularly spectrophotopolarimeters. Specifically, the present invention relates to photopolarimeters that use diffraction at more than one grating or multiple diffraction at the same grating to measure all four Stokes parameters of arbitrarily polarized light over a range of wavelengths of light.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The spectral characteristics of grating diffraction are well known and widely exploited in spectroscopy. Light incident on a grating is dispersed into a spectrum, enabling spectroscopy with a slit and grating rotating mechanism, or with a stationary grating and an array detector that intercepts the diffracted light. The spectrum is usually measured using fan-out of only one diffracted order, typically the −1 diffracted order.
The polarization characteristics of grating diffraction are less well known and exploited. In general, each of the orders of diffraction contains different information about the polarization state of the light incident on the grating. By simultaneously measuring the spectra of four or more orders of diffraction, a grating spectrometer can be designed to yield the complete polarization state for the entire spectrum of light.
Azzam U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,146, issued Aug. 9, 1994 and incorporated herein by reference, discloses a division-of-amplitude photopolarimeter (DOAP) based on conical grating diffraction or planar grating diffraction. The Azzam instrument comprises a diffraction grating selected to produce at least four orders of diffraction; a source of an incident light beam whose state of polarization is to be measured, the source oriented such that it directs the light beam to the diffraction grating; at least four photodetectors, each of which intercepts a different diffracted order of the light beam diffracted from the grating; and calculating means responsive to the photodetectors for determining the four Stokes parameters descriptive of the polarization state of the light beam.
If the grating is used in the planar diffraction configuration, the instrument further comprises polarizers that are inserted in the path of at least two of the diffracted beams. One of the diffracted orders of the light may be directed to an alignment detector used to properly align the instrument.
The Azzam patent discloses that instruments that employ planar diffraction have certain advantages over instruments that employ conical diffraction. For example, planar diffraction allows a more compact instrument geometry because all diffracted beams and the detectors can be disposed in one plane.
There are several novel features of the Azzam instrument, generally referred to as a grating-division-of-amplitude photopolarimeter, or G-DOAP, that provide utility in applications. For example, the Azzam G-DOAP delivers a fraction of the entire beam of incident light to each of the detectors used in the instrument. Thus the Azzam instrument differs in principle from a division-of-wavefront photopolarimeter (DOWP) that delivers different portions of the beam of incident light to different detectors. As a result, the Azzam division-of-amplitude instrument is inherently insensitive to transverse spatial variations of the light intensity in the beam that produce errors of measurement in a division-of-wavefront instrument.
The G-DOAP is a complete photopolarimeter, i.e., it determines the signs and values of all four components of the Stokes parameters (conventionally designated S0, S1, S2, S3) that describe the polarization state of the incident light. As such, it provides more information than is obtained by a conventional rotating analyzer photopolarimeter. Also unlike a rotating analyzer device, the Azzam instrument distinguishes right and left circular or elliptically polarized light, distinguishes circular polarized states of light from depolarized light, and measures the sign of the third Stokes parameter, S3.
A further novel aspect of the Azzam instrument is that, since there are no moving parts, all intensity measurements can be obtained simultaneously. Thus the measurement rates are not limited by the time required to perform mechanical adjustments.
An example described in the Azzam patent applied the instrument to measure the polarization state of light at a single wavelength equal to 633 nm. Intensity measurements obtained for zero, −1, −2, and −3 orders of diffraction were used for polarimetric analysis and the −4 order of diffraction was used for alignment.
Unlike this example in Azzam, use of the present invention as a spectroscopic polarimeter for measurements over a range of wavelengths requires that all intensity measurements used for polarimetric analysis be obtained on non-zero orders of diffraction.
To provide a spectroscopic polarimeter based on the Azzam invention, which is the object of the present invention, it is desired that the instrument have a wide spectral bandwidth, high sensitivity for operation with relatively small light intensities, simplicity of construction, and the ability to be readily modified to operate over different spectral ranges that are of interest in applications.
In designing such an instrument, there are several practical issues that must be addressed. A first practical issue in the design of a spectroscopic polarimeter is that light of different wavelengths that is diffracted in different orders will tend to be focused to the same position on the detectors of the instrument, since the angles of diffraction will be equal if the products of wavelength and order number are equal. Four orders of diffraction must be measured. Thus, for example, a polarimeter that applies measurements in orders −1, −2, −3, and −4 will be limited to wavelengths no more than 1.2 times the minimum wavelength of light received due to interference of light diffracted in the −5th order with the −4th order spectrum.
To overcome this problem, spectral blocking filters may be placed to intercept the path of diffracted beams and expand the wavelength range at which the diffraction intensities can be detected without interference from higher-order spectra. It is also possible, but not necessarily desirable in view of other design issues, to adjust the angle of incidence of the light beam on the grating so that both positive and negative diffraction orders can be observed, allowing measurements to be obtained without order overlap and in an increased spectral range, for example, in diffraction orders +2, +1, −1, and −2.
A second practical issue is that the sensitivity of the instrument is limited by the tendency of the diffraction efficiency to be smaller for higher-order diffraction. Thus, instruments designed to detect higher-order diffraction spectra will tend to exhibit smaller sensitivity and require more intense light sources.
A third practical issue is that, as disclosed by Azzam, in the planar diffraction configuration, polarizers must be inserted in the path of at least two of the diffracted beams. Otherwise, the instrument cannot function as a complete polarimeter. While it is not necessary to insert polarizers in the paths of diffracted beams for the conical diffraction instrument, the sensitivity of both the planar and conical diffraction instruments to the polarization state of the light can be increased by inserting such polarizers into the paths of the diffracted beams. In practice, inexpensive sheet polarizers may be used for this purpose, but the sheet polarizers are effective over a limited wavelength range and may not provide sufficient sensitivity of the instrument to the polarization state of light over the full spectral range for which measurements are possible.
A fourth practical issue is that inexpensive polarizers and spectral blocking filters may not be available in the wavelength range of interest. This can occur in the vacuum ultraviolet spectral range, where few materials are available that transmit light.
Thus a primary object of the present invention is to provide a spectroscopic photopolarimeter that applies diffraction at multiple gratings or multiple diffraction events at a single grating.
Another object of the invention is to provide an instrument that can use a relatively large oblique angle of incidence at the grating(s) to increase the sensitivity of the instrument to the polarization state of light.
Another object of the invention is to provide a photopolarimeter that achieves a relatively equal range of light intensities at each of the array detectors at which intensities are measured.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a photopolarimeter with multiple gratings that are oriented to achieve increased sensitivity to the polarization state of light and allow measurement of the complete state of polarization of light without any polarizers inserted into the paths of diffracted beams.

Photopolarimeters and spectrophotopolarimaters with multiple diffraction gratings


A burner assembly having a blower housing, a blower to supply air to the burner assembly, a blast tube having a longitudinal axis, a fuel source to supply fuel to the burner assembly, a center tube that is substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis and conveys air and fuel to a center tube burner end opening, a plurality of premix tubes, each of which is substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis and conveys air and fuel to a premix tube burner end opening, a diffuser that is disposed in the center tube near the center tube burner end opening, a nozzle that is disposed in the center tube substantially perpendicular to the diffuser. The center tube air and fuel mixture is fuel rich and the premix tubes air and fuel mixture is fuel lean. A method for burning the center tube air and fuel mixture and the premix tubes mixtures.

It is known to use burner assemblies for the production of steam and hot water. Conventional burner assemblies and methods, however, suffer from one or more disadvantages. For example, conventional burner assemblies and methods produce excessive amounts of the undesirable combination of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) (collectively NOx). As a result, conventional burner assemblies and methods require either expensive and complex external flue gas recirculation piping and controls or burner geometry using internal flue gas recirculation systems to lower NOx emission levels. Conventional burner assemblies and methods also may require undesirably high amounts of excess oxygen to reduce NOx emission levels. As a result, conventional burner assemblies and method have undesirably low combustion efficiencies. Further, conventional burner assemblies and methods may produce undesirable acoustic coupling. Still further, the burner heads in conventional burner assemblies and methods using internal flue gas recirculation are undesirably located within the combustion chambers.
It would be desirable, therefore, if an apparatus and method for a burner assembly could be provided that would not produce excessive amounts of the undesirable combination of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) (collectively NOx). It would also be desirable if such an apparatus and method for a burner assembly could be provided that would not require either expensive and complex external flue gas recirculation piping and controls or burner geometry using internal flue gas recirculation systems to lower NOx emission levels. It would be further desirable if such an apparatus and method for a burner assembly could be provided that would not require undesirably high amounts of excess oxygen to reduce NOx emission levels. It would be still further desirable if such an apparatus and method for a burner assembly could be provided that would not have undesirably low combustion efficiencies. In addition, it would be desirable if such an apparatus and method for a burner assembly could be provided that would not produce undesirable acoustic coupling. It would also be desirable if such an apparatus and method for a burner assembly could be provided that would not dispose the burner head within the combustion chamber.

Apparatus and method for a burner assembly


A sealing device includes a body part for irremovably receiving the shank of a bolt. The body has a barrel for receiving the bolt, a resilient clip being provided within the barrel for locating behind a shoulder of the bolt. The clip has a head having a widenable gap formed there-through, the head being attached to legs at either side which locate against the sides and bottom of the interior of the barrel.

Bolt seals are generally used for locking doors or containers, in a similar manner to a padlock (the bolt performing the function of the U-shaped hasp of the padlock). However, unlike a padlock, bolt seals are not intended to be opened by any sort of key. Rather, they are removed by destruction of the seal, in particular by cutting the bolt with a special tool such as a bolt cutter. These bolt seals thus provide a secure locking of a door, in particular the door of a container to be transported by lorry, sea or air. The seals may be provided with a unique serial number, so that they are tamper evident. Although in most seals the bolt is straight, in some situations it is desired that the bolt has a bent or cranked shape


A conventional circuit requires a booster circuit for generating a voltage higher than an external power supply voltage, thus low power consumption is difficult to be achieved. In addition, a display device incorporating the aforementioned conventional switching element for booster circuit has problems in that the current load is increased and the power supply becomes unstable with a higher output current. The invention provides a booster circuit including a first transistor, a second transistor, a first capacitor element, a second capacitor element, a diode, and an inverter, wherein one electrode of the first transistor is maintained at a predetermined potential, the output of the inverter is connected to the gate electrode of the first transistor and one electrode of the second transistor through the second capacitor element, the input of the inverter is connected to the other electrode of the first transistor through the first capacitor element and connected to the gate electrode of the second transistor, and the diode is connected between the other electrode of the first transistor and the other electrode of the second transistor so as to be forwardly biased.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a booster circuit having a new configuration, and more particularly, the invention relates to a semiconductor device using a charge pump as a booster circuit. Also, the invention relates to an electronic apparatus having the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
The booster circuit is classified into the one with a coil and the one with a capacitor element. The latter one with a capacitor element is generally called a charge pump. A conventional charge pump comprises: a first boosting block including a booster circuit for generating a voltage higher than an external power supply voltage, a diode that is connected to an output of the booster circuit, maintains the output voltage of the booster circuit at a predetermined level, and has a zener voltage higher than the external power supply voltage, and a voltage dividing resistor element for generating a reference voltage of a predetermined level in accordance with the voltage maintained at a predetermined level by the diode; and a second boosting block that generates and outputs a voltage of which the output level is controlled to be a predetermined level in accordance with the reference voltage generated by the first boosting block, has a higher output current capacity than the first boosting block, and does not operate in a standby mode (see Patent Document 1).
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-79561
In the circuit disclosed in Patent Document 1, which requires a booster circuit for generating a voltage higher than an external power supply voltage, low power consumption is difficult to be achieved.
In addition, a display device incorporating the aforementioned conventional switching element for charge pump has the following problem. The charge pump, unlike other switching regulators, generally does not have a function to feed back an output voltage to stabilize the output, leading to a heavier current load and an unstable power supply with a higher output current.

Booster circuit, semiconductor device, and electronic apparatus

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


A computer implemented method of producing output pixels for display in a graphics system, in which the steps include performing rendering operations on one or more pixels, wherein the rendering operations includes the steps of using a POI analyzer to determine one or more of: (a) whether a pixel is a POI or a pixel not of interest (PNOI); (b) selecting different resolutions for a POI and for a PNOI.

US publication number 2013/0176322, entitled "Application-Transparent Resolution Control by Way of Command Stream Interception" (hereinafter "Resolution Control") discloses an independent software program that is configured to run and intervene seamlessly on the fly between a graphical native application which is run on a CPU and a GPU which renders graphical commands in order to create an image on a screen or off screen buffers. This may be configured as shown in FIG. 4B of the aforesaid Resolution Control application wherein the Dynamic Resolution Modifier is interposed between the CPU and the GPU. Absent such a software program, the GPU will render an image based on the input of stream of commands and shaders as were generated by the native application from the CPU.
By interposing the Dynamic Resolution Modifier between the CPU and the GPU, it receives a stream of commands and shaders which were generated by the native application as its input instead of the native flow of the 3d API towards the GPU. It then intercepts and analyzes them and based on different considerations such as user experience, heat level, frame rate, power consumption or battery level, may change some or all of these commands and/or shaders, as graphically shown on the right hand side of the drawing in FIG. 4B. A modified stream of commands and/or shaders may be generated by a spatial resolution controller which is then sent to the GPU for rendering instead of the original commands and shaders which were generated by the native application from the CPU. In this way, the software program dynamically, in real time, controls and modifies the resolution of an image on a frame by frame, resource by resource basis. As such, it has the capability to sample a resource in one resolution and write that resource into a different resolution.
It is known to those skilled in the art that reading and writing may be done from/to a single resource or from/to multiple resources. A resolution reduction of a resource may be done by modifying the API commands, which for the sake of this entire application may be 3D or 2D, to render only part of that resource. As the state of the native application, hardware or other resources of the system on which the native application runs change, the resolution of a frame or a resource may be scaled up again. A resource which has been modified by a dynamic resolution modifier no longer carries with it the original resolution as generated previously by the native application. Up scaling such modified resources requires proper sampling and rendering techniques in order to keep user experience above a predefined threshold. This is critical to 2D Heads Up Displays (HUD) resources as well as others.
Also, in the prior art, anti-aliasing (AA) mechanisms such as super sampling (SSAA) and multi sampling (MSAA) are known. Such mechanisms, as known to those skilled in the art, sample at least one spot in a resource's pixel and calculate the visibility of such pixel in the rendered resource based on coverage and occlusion criteria of a primitive polygon it has to render. Primitive polygons such as triangles or lines inherently have discontinuities. This leads to unavoidable aliasing, irrespective of the sampling rate chosen. AA software creates a grid of sampling points to be sampled in a resource's pixel. Such a grid may include 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or more sampling points per pixel. Moreover, the spatial distribution of such sampling points may be along the main axis x and y of a pixel or at any rotated angle. For example, a technique known as MSAAX4 may practice a grid of 4 sampling points per pixel that are rotated at 45 degrees angle to the main axis of the pixel. Statistics show that better sensitivity to detect geometrical edges is achieved by using a rotated grid. In practice, in this example, 4 samples are taken per pixel. This data set of 4 points is then used in order to render this sampled pixel. Any pixel in the original resource is rendered into a new pixel in the new resource. However, note that there is no change of a final resource resolution. This is a simple pixel to pixel conversion. The only purpose of this mechanism is to reduce aliasing. The way aliasing is reduced is by averaging the sampled data points of each pixel. Once data points are averaged, the raw sampled data disappears and there is no further use for this data. SSMA increases the system processing costs of rendering and it is hardly used today. MSAA, on the other hand, requires less system resources and is widely used for anti-aliasing purposes. An article which discusses MSAA in detail is "A Quick Overview of MSA", by Matt Pettineo, published Oct. 24, 2012.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for controlling spatial resolution in a computer system


A gas sensor comprises an atmosphere-side cover, ventilation filter, and filter cover as well as a sensing element and housing. The atmosphere-side cover has i) a first section of a first diameter located on a tip-end side in a axial direction of the housing and fixed on an axially base end of the housing, ii) a second section of a second diameter smaller than the first diameter, the second section being located on an axially base-end side, iii) a stepped section formed between the first and second sections, and iv) a rib protruding outward from the second section and being formed between the stepped section and the second section. The ventilation filter is mounted on the second section and has an axially tip-end section being in contact with an axially base-end section of the rib. The filter cover fixes the ventilation filter between the second section and the filter cover.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gas sensor that can be used to control combustion in an internal combustion engine, such as an engine for a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is a gas sensor that detects levels of various types of gas components within the exhaust gas.
One example of such gas sensors is shown in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2002-82085. In this publication, as shown in FIG. 12, a gas sensor is installed in the exhaust system of an internal combustion engine, such as an engine for a vehicle.
Specifically, as shown in FIG. 12, the gas sensor 9 includes a sensing element 92, a housing 93, and an atmosphere-side cover 94. The sensing element 92 detects a particular gas concentration within the gas to be measured. The sensing element 92 is inserted into the housing 93 and held therein. The atmosphere-side cover 94 is fixed onto the base-end side of the housing 93. On the tip-end side of the housing 93, a cover 97 serving as a gas-being-measured-side cover is secured to the housing 93. This cover 97 is formed as a double-structure cover composed of an inner cover 971 and an outer cover 972. Gas introducing openings 973 are formed through both inner and outer covers 971 and 972. Hence, a gas 974 to be measured is introduced into the inside of the inner cover 71 through the openings 973.
As shown in FIG. 12, the atmosphere-side cover 94 includes a large diameter section 941, a small diameter section 942, and a stepped section 943. The large diameter section 941 is fixed onto the housing 93. The small diameter section 942 is mounted on the base-end side of the atmosphere-side cover 94. The stepped section 943 is formed to connect the large diameter section 941 and the small diameter section 942.
The base-end side of the atmosphere-side cover 94 is covered by a filter cover 96. In addition, as shown in the diagram, a waterproof ventilation filter 95 is sandwiched between the atmosphere-side cover 94 and the filter cover 96. The ventilation filter 95 is fastened by fastening sections 960 in a caulking manner, provided in two locations in the axis direction. As shown in FIG. 12, the ventilation filter 95 is positioned so that the tip-end section of the ventilation filter 95 is in contact with the stepped section 943.
Air-introducing openings 944 are formed through both covers 94 and 96, so that atmosphere 945 is introduced into the inside of the atmosphere-side cover 94 through the openings 944. The atmosphere 945 serves as a reference gas.
As is known, the sensing element 92 has the capability of sensing the concentration of a particular (i.e., designated) component of a gas to be measured. A sensed signal from the sensing element 92 is supplied to an external unit via lead portions 921, connectors 922, and lead wires 923.
When the gas sensor 9 is in use, the temperature of the tip-end side of the gas sensor 9 becomes high. The heat is transmitted to the base-end side, and the temperature of the ventilation filter 85 also becomes high. Therefore, the ventilation filter 95 becomes deteriorated by the heat, through repeated use of the gas sensor 9 in the exhaust system of the internal combustion engine. There is risk of the deterioration of the waterproof properties of the ventilation filter 95.
As a result, it is necessary for the ventilation filter 95 to be placed as close to the base end of the gas sensor 9 as possible. Further provision of a new stepped section on the base-end side of the stepped section 943 and disposition of the ventilation filter 95 near the base end of the gas sensor 9 can be considered. However, a narrow crevice is easily formed between the atmosphere-side cover 94 and the filter cover 96 when the stepped section is increased. When moisture or the like leaks into the crevice, it is difficult to drain the moisture or the like. Therefore, there is a risk of crevice corrosion caused by the moisture or the like.

Gas sensor with improved heat resistance


An electronic device includes a top panel configured to have an operation surface; a detection circuit configured to detect a position of an operation input on the operation surface; a vibrating circuit configured to be attached to the top panel to generate vibration on the operation surface; a control circuit configured to drive the vibrating circuit by a driving signal for generating natural vibration of an ultrasonic wave band on the operation surface, in which the driving of the vibrating circuit is performed such that an intensity of the natural vibration changes in accordance with the position of the operation input to the operation surface and a temporal change degree of the position; and a damping member configured to abut against a position that corresponds to a node of a standing wave generated by the natural vibration on a surface opposite to the operation surface of the top panel.

In the related art, there are haptic devices that have a compliant suspension system. The haptic device includes a housing component, a touch screen component, and at least one compliant suspension member that couples the touch screen component and the housing component to each other such that the touch screen component is movable with respect to the housing component.
The haptic device includes a piezoelectric material segment that generates a force for moving the touch screen component with respect to the housing component and is coupled to at least one surface of at least one suspension member that provides a haptic effect to a user of the touch screen component.
In response to the force generated by the piezoelectric material segment, the at least one suspension member is configured to allow movement of the touchscreen component with respect to the housing component in a first direction, and is configured to suppress movement between the touch screen component and the housing component at least in a second direction (for example, refer to Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2015-522897).


A pole vibration damping means includes an annular housing with internal radial pole encircling chambers in which lead spheres are provided for effecting damping of first mode harmonic vibrations with the assembly being attached to the upper end portion of the pole and operating in conjunction with a pole vibration damping device mounted medially for damping second harmonic mode vibrations.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vibration damping apparatus and methods. More specifically, the invention relates to vibration damping apparatus and methods for reducing wind induced vibration of light poles, flag poles and the like.
Light poles and similar devices are subject to wind induced vibrations which can result in costly and hazardous failures of such structures. Many parameters including pole geometry and materials, wind speed, wind gust frequency and velocity are involved in effecting pole vibration. For many years those of skill in the art were of the belief that second harmonic mode vibrations were solely responsible for structural failures of poles and vibration dampers such as that shown in applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 3,612,222 were designed so as to reduce second harmonic mode vibration. Second harmonic mode vibration of poles is generally considered to be of approximately four cycles of vibration per second. However, within recent years a number of pole failures have occurred which were not caused by second harmonic mode vibrations but were resultant from first harmonic mode vibrations which occurred at a frequency of approximately one vibration cycle per second.
The present invention in one aspect is directed to vibration dampers for poles capable of reducing first mode natural frequency vibrations.
2. Related Art
The prior art is replete with devices and methods intended to reduce pole vibration as exemplified by the following discussed prior art patents.
Applicant's earlier U.S. Pat. No. 3,612,222 discloses a pole-mounted second mode natural frequency vibration damping assembly employing a metal rod loosely fitted in a tubular member attached to the pole.
Feldberg U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,286 purports to be an improvement over applicant's earlier U.S. Pat. No. 3,612,222 with respect to which it differs only in a minor manner relating to the attachment of the device to a pole.
Kemeny U.S. Pat. No. 6,035,981 discloses a complicated broadband passive mass damper intended for use on machinery or other equipment.
Aida et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,961 discloses a dynamic vibration absorber mounted on a light pole by a variety of magnetic devices.
Phillips et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,682,069 discloses a vibration damping assembly mounted on a strut about which the device surrounds.
Hamada et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,593,144 discloses a vibration damping device mounted on a drive shaft.
Knodo et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,736,701 discloses a variety of devices for attachment to the upper end of a mast.
Lehmann et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,216 is directed to a vibration damping assembly for a periscope.
Buckley U.S. Pat. No. 4,350,233 discloses a vibration damping device provided internally of a pole or the like effecting first harmonic mode vibration damping.
Reed U.S. Pat. No. 3,568,803 discloses a vibration damping device attached to the upper end of a mast.
Reutlinger U.S. Pat. No. 3,382,629 discloses a vibration damping assembly attached to a mast or pole.
Nishioka et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,259,212 discloses a pole vibration damping device mounted on the outer end of a curved pole.
Chen U.S. Pat. No. 3,245,177 is directed to a vibration damping device for reducing vibrations of a chimney or the like by the use of porous, loose fill material and liquid.
Chen U.S. Pat. No. 3,174,589 is similar to the above-noted U.S. Pat. No. 3,245,177.

Pole vibration damping assembly and method


Insulated gate bipolar conduction transistors (IBCTs) are provided. The IBCT includes a drift layer having a first conductivity type. An emitter well region is provided in the drift layer and has a second conductivity type opposite the first conductivity type. A well region is provided in the drift layer and has the second conductivity type. The well region is spaced apart from the emitter well region. A space between the emitter well region and the well region defines a JFET region of the IBCT. An emitter region is provided in the well region and has the first conductivity type and a buried channel layer is provided on the emitter well region, the well region and the JFET region and has the first conductivity type. Related methods of fabrication are also provided.

Power devices made with silicon carbide (SiC) are expected to show great advantages as compared to those on silicon for high speed, high power and/or high temperature applications due to the high critical field and wide band gap of SiC. For devices capable of blocking high voltages, such as voltages in excess of about 5 kV, it may be desirable to have bipolar operation to reduce the drift layer resistance via conductivity modulation resulting from injected minority carriers. However, one technical challenge for bipolar devices in silicon carbide is forward voltage degradation over time, possibly due to the presence of Basal Plane Dislocations (BPD) in single crystals of silicon carbide. Thus, unipolar devices such as SiC Schottky diodes and MOSFETs are typically used for high power applications.
SiC DMOSFET devices with a 10 kV blocking capability have been fabricated with a specific on-resistance of about 100 mΩ×cm2. DMOSFET devices may exhibit very fast switching speed of, for example, less than 100 ns, due to their majority carrier nature. However, as the desired blocking voltage of devices increases, for example up to 15 kV or more, the on-resistance of a MOSFET device may increase substantially, due to the corresponding increase in the drift layer thickness. This problem may be exacerbated at high temperatures due to bulk mobility reduction, which may result in excessive power dissipation.
With the progress of SiC crystal material growth, several approaches have been developed to mitigate BPD related problems. See, e.g., B. Hull, M. Das, J. Sumakeris, J. Richmond, and S. Krishinaswami, "Drift-Free 10-kV, 20-A 4H—SiC PiN Diodes", Journal of Electrical Materials, Vol. 34, No. 4, 2005. These developments may enhance the development and/or potential applications of SiC bipolar devices such as thyristors, GTOs, etc. Even though thyristors and/or GTOs may offer low forward voltage drops, they may require bulky commutating circuits for the gate drive and protections. Accordingly, it may be desirable for a SiC bipolar device to have gate turn-off capability.
SiC devices may provide specific on-resistances two orders of magnitude lower than that of conventional silicon devices. Due to their superior on-state characteristics, reasonable switching speed, and/or excellent safe-operation-area (SOA), 4H—SiC insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) are becoming more suitable for power switching applications. SiC IGBTs are discussed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,831,288 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,121,633, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein as if set forth in their entirety.
However, due to the nature of bipolar devices, SiC IGBTs may lack current saturation capability and may have a higher activation percentage at high temperatures for p-type dopants in SiC. A high p-type activation percentage may cause lower JFET effect between n-wells for p-channel IGBTs or a higher minority injection efficiency from p-type collector for n-channel IGBTs. Both of these conditions may result in a negative temperature coefficient of on-resistance.
Due to low carrier lifetimes on SiC, the majority carriers modulation in the emitter side may be low, which may result in a high forward voltage for IGBTs.

Insulated gate bipolar conduction transistors (IBCTS) and related methods of fabrication


A communication system includes a probe transmission server 3 which transmits at fixed intervals of time a probe multicast packet distributed along the same path as a main multicast packet, a delay insertion server 5 which appends the same fixed delay time to each of the main multicast packet and the probe multicast packet, a backup server 2 which generates synchronism and delay backup multicast packets from the main multicast packet and transmits them, and a communication control device 7 which determines the communication of the main multicast packet based on a reception interval of the probe multicast packet, generates a backup main multicast packet from the backup multicast packet when a communication break is detected, and transmits it. The communication system, upon implementing a broadcast-type multicast service, enhances compensation of communication breaks when detecting and recovering from a fault in an IP network, and reduces the network traffic.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication system which distributes a continuous stream packet from at least one server to multiple clients via an IP network, a delay insertion server, a backup server, and a communication control apparatus.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-349665, filed Dec. 2, 2004, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
To implement a service such as video distribution, a multicast is defined in an open systems interconnection (OSI) Layer-3 internet protocol (IP), and various types of protocol corresponding thereto are mounted and executed (e.g. see Non-Patent Literature 1: Beau Williamson, "IP Multicast Network Development Guide Vol. 1" Softbank Publishing Corp., Jul. 3, 2001.). Various types of highly reliable multicast communication protocols for supporting a multicast without losing data have been proposed (e.g. see Non-Patent Literature 2: M. Handley et al, "The Reliable Multicast Design Space for Bulk Transfer" The Internet Society, 2000).
One general example of a packet loss compensation system in a multicast distribution network currently in active use is a forward error correction (FEC)-based system, disclosed in the Non-Patent Literature 2. In this method, error correction information relating to one or a number of packets is transmitted simultaneously with the relay data, or multiplexed as appropriate, and errors are corrected on the receiving side. The Non-Patent Literature 2 also discloses various systems based on data retransmission in accordance with an acknowledgement (ACK) or a negative-acknowledgement (NACK) from the receiving side.
However, even if a high-reliability IP network is constructed using a router (L3 {Layer-3}) with a redundant configuration, a time of approximately several seconds to several tens of seconds is required for conventional multicast path control protocols due to dynamic changes in the multicast distribution path which accompany L3 switch/link disorders and the like. All data distributed during this period is lost.
In the FEC-based packet loss compensation system, a fixed rate of redundant data must be relayed irrespective of whether or not there are packet losses. This makes it impossible to compensate a large amount of continuous packet loss of the type mentioned above. Moreover, retransmission-based systems require the addition of an ACK/NACK reply function on the terminal side, and the addition of a retransmission function in the router and the transmission terminal. Protocols which guarantee the arrival of all packets are problematic in that they do not guarantee the arrival times.
In view of the above problems, the present inventors have disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-060528 a technique, used when implementing a broadcast-type multicast communication service using an IP network having a redundant configuration, for compensating communication breaks caused when disorders in the IP network are detected and repaired. There is also a demand to reduce the traffic on the network by enhancing compensation of these communication breaks.

Communication system, delay insertion server, backup server and communication control apparatus


The invention provides a compound of silver nanowire with polymer. The compound comprises a resin, a dispersant, and a plurality of silver nanowires. The dispersant is capable of copolymerizing with the resin. The dispersant has a plurality of functional groups capable of connecting with the silver nanowires respectively. Therefore, the silver nanowires could disperse in the resin by means of the functional groups of the dispersant.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a compound of silver nanowire with polymer, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a compound which silver metal nanostructures dispersing therein and capable of restraining the metal nanostructures from drifting.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conductive metallic colloid is formed by adding metallic particles in a resin (e.g. epoxy resin). On the market, silver particles are commonly doped in a resin to from a conductive silver colloid. Because the conductive silver colloid is colloidal, it could be printed on various kinds of electronic products by means of screen-printing so that it is broadly used in applications. For example, the conductive silver colloid could be used to manufacture a specific circuit, a film switch, or connect two conducting circuits.
The silver particles used for doping on the market mentioned above are generally micro-sized. However, if nano-sized silver particles could be doped in a resin, the resistivity of the conductive silver colloid could be further decreased, and the quality and the yield of the film circuit screen-printed by the conductive silver colloid could be improved. Moreover, the conductive silver colloid doped with silver nanoparticles may not required high-temperature thermal treatment, so that it might be favorable for a plastic substrate which is incapable of tolerating high-temperature thermal treatment.
On the other hand, different nano-types of silver doping (e.g. silver nanoparticles or silver nanowires) could be used for adjusting the characteristics of the conductive silver colloid. For example, if nanowires are doped in a resin, because the conducting path length of electrons is lengthened and the hopping distance between the conducting islands is shortened, the electronic circuit manufactured by the conductive silver colloid will increase its conductivity.
In the prior art, there are various kinds of methods for manufacturing various types of nano-sized silver. Those methods are such as wet chemical reduction method, mechanical polishing process, thermal cracking the precursor with silver, and high energy plasma pyrolysis, etc. However, though the methods for manufacturing silver nanoparticles or silver nanowires are developed in the prior art, there are still many problems in manufacturing a conductive silver colloid doped with those nano-sized silver. For example, nano-type silver should be well dispersed in a resin to make sure the good yield of the conductive silver colloid. Therefore, how to well disperse the nano-sized silver in a resin is the key point for the researchers.
Furthermore, in the application of film switch, the conductive silver colloid still has the problem of silver drifting (if other kinds of metal nanostructure is doped, the metal nanostructure could happen to drift). The phenomenon of silver drifting is that when a bias is added to the film switch formed by the conductive silver colloid under a wet condition, the silver particle in the film switch would drift according to the electric field to form a larger particle or a dendritic structure in the film, so as to affect the electronic device to induce an extraordinary situation and even damage the electronic devices.
In the prior art, in order to avoid the effect of drifting silvers, a layer of carbon colloid is disposed on the film switch to isolate the mist so as to avoid the silver particles in the film being oxidized or drifted. However, adding the carbon colloid layer would increase the cost of the film switch and complicate the manufacture. On the other hand, the thickness of the carbon colloid layer needs precisely controlling to avoid the thick thickness resulting in the carbon colloid layer peeling off and further affect the electronic device itself.

Compound of silver nanowire with polymer and compound of metal nanostructure with polymer

Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology Armaments Bureau, Ministry of National Defense


A method and apparatus for modulating an RF signal. The RF signal is supplied to a grating modulator having a grating, and light of at least a first wavelength is supplied as a first optical carrier to the grating modulator. The first carrier light is modulated by the grating modulator, wherein the first wavelength of the first carrier coincides with a null in the third derivative of a transmittance spectrum of the grating. Optionally, light of at an additional, second wavelength as a second optical carrier, is supplied to the grating modulator which modulates the second carrier light. The second wavelength of the second carrier coincides with another null, but different than the first mentioned null, in the third derivative of a transmittance spectrum of the grating.

The RF photonic link of this disclosure has enhanced linearity because 3rd order distortion products are suppressed. This suppression of the 3rd order distortion is useful for RF photonic links that carry RF signals having a signal bandwidth that is no larger than one octave. Grating modulators generally are considered to have poor linearity. The presently disclosed technology achieves high-linearity performance from grating modulators.
There are a number of commercial applications of RF photonic links. These applications include fiber radio in which signals for wireless RF networks (such as cell phone networks) or links are transported to/from the base stations through optical fiber. These signals have limited bandwidth but are at high carrier frequency, with the carrier frequency ranging from 1 to 60 GHz. The bandwidth of these signals is generally less than 5-10% of the carrier frequency. The signal bandwidth for defense applications can be even larger but many applications still have a bandwidth of less than one octave. The enhanced SFDR (Spur Free Dynamic Range) of the presently disclosed technology is well suited to both the commercial applications and the defense applications.
Some prior optoelectronic modulators have achieved enhanced linearity in their modulation performance by operating them at conditions for which the 3rd derivative of the modulator transfer function is minimized. An article by Farwell et al. (IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 5, no. 7, July 1993, pp. 779-782) describes applying a DC bias voltage, in addition to the applied RF signal, to a Mach-Zehnder interferometric modulator so that its operation about that bias point has reduced 3rd order intermodulation products. Other articles, by Welstand et al. (IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 7, no. 7, July 1995, pp. 751-753), and by Sun et al. (Electronics Letters, vol. 31, no. 11, 25 May 1995, pp. 902-903) describe applying a DC bias to an electro-absorption modulator such that the transfer function of that modulator has a null in its third derivative for a specific laser wavelength. The presently disclosed technology does not need to apply a DC bias voltage but rather can use the choice of a particular laser wavelength to determine the operating point of the modulator. The primary difference between the present disclosure and these prior art references is the use of the grating modulator.
A prior enhanced-linearity link is described in an article by Johnson and Roussell (IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 2, no. 11, November 1990, pp. 810-811). This link supplies laser light at two optical polarizations, both TE and TM, into the optical waveguide of the modulator. For light of TM polarization, the transfer function of a Mach-Zehnder interferometric modulator has a positive slope with a first shape; for light of TE polarization, the transfer function of that modulator has a negative slope with a second shape. This prior link achieves a suppression of the 3rd order intermodulation distortion in the modulated output by supplying input light of a specific ratio of TE and TM polarizations into the modulator and by applying a specific DC bias voltage to the modulator. At this bias voltage, the 3rd derivative of the transfer function for TE polarization has the opposite sign as the 3rd derivative of the transfer function for TM polarization. Thus, the 3rd-derivative contributions from a combination of both the TE and the TM polarized modulated light can cancel each other. The combination of the TE and TM polarized modulated light actually reduces the effective amount of the linear modulation (arising from the first derivative or slope of those transfer functions, since those slopes also have opposite signs and thus their contributions subtract from each other, too). However, that relatively small reduction in modulation efficiency is acceptable given the substantial suppression of the intermodulation distortion. In contrast to this prior art, for the present disclosure, the contributions to the linear modulation (first derivative of the transfer function) from the two laser wavelengths add to each other whereas the contributions to the distortion (third derivative of the transfer function) cancel each other.
Optical modulators based on a grating formed in an optical waveguide have been described in articles by An, Cho and Matsuo (IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, vol. QE-13, no. 4, April 1977, pp. 206-208), by Cutolo et al. (Applied Physics Letters, vol. 71, no. 2, 14 Jul. 1997, pp. 199-201) and by Kim et al. (Electronics Letters, vol. 41, no. 18, 1 Sep. 2005). FIG. 3 shows an illustration of such a grating modulator. This modulator has a waveguide with a grating form in it, similar to the waveguide shown in FIG. 2a. A pair of electrodes is formed alongside the grating waveguide and the RF modulating signal is applied to these electrodes, producing an electric field across the grating waveguide. In general, these prior modulators use non-travelling-wave (or "bulk") RF electrodes to apply the modulation controlling electric field. Those RF electrodes are not part of any RF waveguide. Those "bulk" electrodes typically are connected to an RF signal source by means of an RF cable and wires and represent the termination point for the RF cable. Although FIG. 3 shows laterally placed electrodes, one of the electrodes also could be placed above the grating waveguide, with the other electrode (or electrodes) placed at the sides of the waveguide or at the bottom of the substrate containing the waveguide.


A rolling bearing is composed of an outer race, an inner race and rolling elements interposed between the outer race and the inner race. A lubricant composition comprising a polyether lubricant as a base oil is filled in the bearing. Preferably, the polyether lubricant has a kinematic viscosity 90-160 cSt at 40.degree. C.

1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a rolling bearing, and especially to a rolling bearing effectively usable under such usage conditions that a housing with the rolling bearing held thereon is elastically deformed by external force and off-load is applied to the bearing due to the resulting deformation or in such a field that the bearing is used at high temperature and high speed and under heavy load.
2) Description of the Related Art
In the case of a rolling bearing employed, for example, in an alternator of an automobile, its outer race is prone to damage, primarily flaking and the like because its aluminum-made housing undergoes elastic deformation due to external force and off-load is hence applied. In the case of a rolling bearing employed in an electromagnetic clutch, on the other hand, a shaft is made of aluminum so that its inner race to which off-load is exerted due to elastic deformation of the shaft is more susceptible to damage.
Employed as such conventional rolling bearings for automobiles are ball bearings each of which uses, for both outer and inner races, a bearing steel such as high-carbon chromium bearing steel having an oxygen content of 9 ppm or so. Standard heat treatment (so-called "whole quench hardening") has been applied to the race more susceptible to damage (i.e., the outer race in the case of an alternator or the inner race in the case of an electromagnetic clutch) to impart rolling contact fatigue strength thereto, and a grease comprising as a base oil a synthetic polyester lubricant or poly-.alpha.-olefin lubricant having a kinematic viscosity of 30-50 cSt at 40.degree. C. is filled as a lubricant.
Reflecting the technological developments in recent years, bearings to be employed in electrical components of automobiles such as alternators and electromagnetic clutches are required to meet increasingly stringent usage conditions. In particular, usage conditions for bearings to be used in alternators are becoming far more stringent, including higher temperature and speed because of higher engine performance and heavier load due to an increased belt tension. Bearings of the conventional specification, however, cannot cope with such changes in usage conditions, leading to frequent occurrence of the problem that their life is shortened due to premature flaking of the raceway surfaces of their outer races. There is accordingly an outstanding demand for the effective solution of the problem.


A method and system is disclosed for enhancing network security by using a service entry stack in a distributed computer network. After an event system receives an indication for a publisher to publish a first event to a subscriber list of one or more event subscribers, authorization concerns are examined for publishing the first event to each event subscriber by sequentially examining each event subscriber in the subscriber list. When publishing the first event to the event subscriber, a service entry stack is utilized for recording event execution information and process hierarchy of the distributed computer network so that such information can be used for enhancing the security of the distributed computer network.

The present invention relates generally to distributed computer network systems, and more particularly, to a method and system for enforcing network security by preserving and utilizing execution information in a service entry stack.
A distributed computer network system typically comprises a large number of individual nodes, such as workstations, PC's, terminals, host computers, and data storage components, which are tied together across a network. Also, the distributed network system may comprise remotely located clients tied together to utilize common data storage components and to share processing power of multiple nodes. The distributed computer network complicates the management of transactions because of the fact that transactions or events are happening independently or dependently at different locations. In view of various operations happening in the distributed computer network, the management of the data transactions and the security thereof is a critical element of the operation of the network.
In the distributed computer network system, various applications are somewhat related. For a particular process, one or more events may happen in the system, and they may be related. For example, a particular triggering event happening in one application may affect the operation of others or trigger a new series of operations (therefore, more events) in other applications. For example, if there is an application that maintains the current employee list in a company, if one employee leaves the company, the human resources personnel may want to delete the information about the leaving employee from the employee list. Accordingly, this application performs its own internal logic for removing the departing employee from the list. After this change is made to the list, other applications may have to take various actions. For instance, the current application needs to notify other applications operated by the security department to take away all this departing employee's authorized access rights, including deactivating his badge, applications operated by the telephone department to block his extension and voice mail, applications operated by the IT department to bounce his emails with a necessary notification message. As such, the inter-relation among various applications/events makes the management of the distributed network system hard to manage, especially for the security concerns.
One important issue is how one application needs to notify other related applications about an event that has a common concern, and how these applications could work together. In other words, to synchronize all the applications running on a distributed system and control the security measures in a systematic way is a practical challenge. It is known in the art, that one way to solve this problem would be to have a central database storing information about which recipients ("subscribers") care about which notifications ("events") from which senders ("publishers"). In this central database, a subscriber should specify which events it cares about, or which publishers it cares about receiving an event from. On the other hand, a publisher wanting to announce an event to all interested parties can easily find all the subscribers in the database. The publisher could examine the subscriber list in the database and perform some filtering logic to decide which of the subscribers who wanted to be notified should actually be notified of the event.
As it is known, the events published in the distributed network may need to be secured for various reasons. Maintaining data integrity and security is, in general, a major aspect of today's computer network. What is needed is an efficient method for enforcing network security in a distributed network with event based processing systems.

Method and system for enforcing network security by preserving event execution information utilizing a service event stack


Examples of an integrated circuit with a contacting gate structure and a method for forming the integrated circuit are provided herein. In some examples, an integrated circuit device includes a memory cell that includes a plurality of fins and a gate extending over a first fin of the plurality of fins and a second fin of the plurality of fins. The gate includes a gate electrode that physically contacts the first fin and a gate dielectric disposed between the gate electrode and the second fin. In some such examples, the first fin includes a source/drain region and a doped region that physically contacts the gate electrode.

The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. In the course of IC evolution, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while geometry size (i.e., the smallest component (or line) that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. This scaling down process generally provides benefits by increasing production efficiency and lowering associated costs. However, such scaling down has also been accompanied by increased complexity in design and manufacturing of devices incorporating these ICs. Parallel advances in manufacturing have allowed increasingly complex designs to be fabricated with precision and reliability.
For example, advances in fabrication have enabled three-dimensional designs, such as a fin-like field effect transistor (FinFET). A FinFET may be envisioned as a typical planar device extruded out of a substrate and into the gate. An exemplary FinFET is fabricated with a thin "fin" (or fin structure) extending up from a substrate. The channel region of the FET is formed in this vertical fin, and a gate is provided over (e.g., wrapping around) the channel region of the fin. Wrapping the gate around the fin increases the contact area between the channel region and the gate and allows the gate to control the channel from multiple sides. This can be leveraged in a number of way, and in some applications, FinFETs provide reduced short channel effects, reduced leakage, and higher current flow. In other words, they may be faster, smaller, and more efficient than planar devices.
The transistors that make up the integrated circuit, whether planar transistors, FinFETS, or other non-planar devices may serve a number of purposes from computation to storage. An integrated circuit device may include millions or billions of transistors arranged in computational cores, memory cells (such as Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) cells), I/O units, and/or other structures. Accordingly, the minimum transistor size and minimum spacing between transistors in the memory cells and elsewhere may have a profound effect on the size of the completed circuit.

Integrated circuits with contacting gate structures

TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD.


A photosensitive belt receiving case is provided, which includes a sidewall having a predetermined shape and an outer wall which extends from the edge of the sidewall. A plurality of grooves are formed at opposing sides of a portion of the outer wall combined with the sidewall. An inner wall extending from the sidewall parallel to the outer wall is provided inside the outer wall, and has a plurality of grooves which face the grooves of the outer wall, so that a photosensitive belt is received between the outer and inner walls and the edge of the photosensitive belt is partially exposed through the grooves.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a case for receiving a photosensitive belt in a printer or a photocopying machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
A general printing apparatus such as a printer or a photocopying machine, as shown in FIG. 1, includes a photosensitive belt 10 having a surface on which an image to be printed is formed by a developing unit 20 while circulating and being supported by a plurality of rollers 11, 12 and 13 installed in the main body of the printing apparatus. If the photosensitive belt 10 is used for a long time, the accuracy of the formed picture is lowered. Thus, the photosensitive belt 10 must be replaced periodically with a new belt. During replacement, the photosensitive belt 10 is manually combined with the rollers 11, 12 and 13. Accordingly, the replacement is awkward and difficult due to the significant flexibility of the photosensitive belt. Furthermore, this difficulty may result in improper replacement, causing a malfunction of the printing apparatus.


This invention discloses a monolithic inductor including a body made by compressing a magnetic powder, a coil positioned in the body, and a permanent magnet positioned in the body and in a magnetic circuit formed by applying current to the coil. The monolithic inductor of this invention includes the magnetic body containing the permanent magnet and the coil. The permanent magnet in the magnetic circuit (path of magnetic flux lines) formed by applying current to the coil generates a reverse-bias magnetic field, thereby increasing the operating range of the magnetic body, the saturation current of the magnetic body, and the rated current of the inductor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to monolithic inductors, and in particular to a monolithic inductor for increasing saturation current of the magnetic material of the inductor, and the rated current of the inductor, by means of a reverse-bias or forward-bias magnetic field generated in a magnetic circuit by a permanent magnet.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, every inductor is associated with a rated current, or a critical current, which is defined by either temperature rise or inductance decrease. The temperature rise current is the DC current value with which the inductor body has a temperature increase up to a rated value, for example, 40° C. On the other hand, with the direct current increasing to the saturation current of the magnetic material of the inductor, inductance decreases, thereby results in current surge. The saturation current is the DC current value with which the inductance decreases down to a rated amount, for example, 20%.
At present, a method for overcoming the aforementioned problem about low rated current (saturated current) and inductance decrease is addressed by a wire-wound iron powder core which, however, is unfit for small-sized and low-profile products.
Accordingly, an issue calling for an urgent solution involves developing a monolithic and low-profile inductor characterized by a relatively great operating range (that is, rated current) and prevent the inductance decrease due to high current operation.

Industrial Technology Research Institute


An object is to provide a resonator and a vibrator with a high Q value in which dissipation of vibration energy in vibration of the vibrator is small, and a thickness of a support part of the vibrator of a beam structure is made thicker than a thickness of the vibrator and the support part is formed in axisymmetry with respect to a length direction of a beam. By this configuration, brittleness of the support part is improved and loss of vibration energy from the support part is reduced and also loss of vibration energy resulting from surface roughness of a surface of the vibrator can be reduced, so that a resonator having a high Q value can be provided.

A mechanical resonator using a microfabrication technique has received attention in recent years.
One example of a conventional mechanical resonator will be described with reference to FIG. 33. FIG. 33 is a simplified diagram showing a configuration of a mechanical vibration filter using flexural vibration proposed in Non-patent Reference 1.
This filter is formed by patterning on a silicon substrate using a thin film process, and is constructed of an input rail 104, an output rail 105, straddle mounted beams 101, 102 placed at an air gap of 1 μm or less with respect to the respective rails, and a coupling beam 103 for coupling the two beams. A signal inputted from the input rail 104 is capacitively coupled to the beam 101 and generates electrostatic force in the beam 101. A filtering output of the input signal is constructed so as to be fetched by exciting mechanical vibration only when a frequency of the signal matches with the vicinity of a resonance frequency of an elastic structural body made of the beams 101, 102 and the coupling beam 103 and further detecting this mechanical vibration as a change in capacitance between the output rail 105 and the beam 102.
In the case of being set at an elastic modulus E, a density ρ, a thickness h and a length L for a straddle mounted beam with a rectangular cross section, a resonance frequency f of flexural vibration is shown by the following formula.
                    f        =                  1.03                                h                          L              2                                                                    E              ρ                                                          [                  Mathematical                                                              formula                                                              1                ]
When a material is set at polysilicon, it becomes E=160 GPa and ρ=2.2×103 kg/m3 and also when dimensions are set at L=40 μm and h=1.5 μm, it becomes f=8.2 MHz and a filter with a band of about 8 MHz can be constructed. Steep frequency selection characteristics with a high Q value can be obtained by using mechanical resonance as compared with a filter constructed of a passive circuit such as a capacitor or a coil.
However, in the construction described above, there are the following restrictions in the case of constructing a filter having a higher frequency band. That is, it is apparent from (mathematical formula 1) that it is first desirable to change a material and increase E/ρ, and when E is increased, the amount of displacement becomes small even when force of flexing a beam is equal, and it becomes difficult to detect displacement of the beam.
Also, when an index representing flexibility in a beam is set at a ratio d/L between a length L of the beam and the amount d of flexure of the beam center at the time of applying a static load to a beam surface of a straddle mounted beam, d/L is expressed by a proportional relation of the following formula.
                              d          L                ∝                                            L              3                                      h              3                                ·                      1            E                                              [                  Mathematical                                                              formula                                                              2                ]
From these, in order to increase a resonance frequency while holding a value of d/L, at least E cannot be changed and it is necessary to obtain a material with a low density ρ, and it is necessary to use a composite material such as CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics) as the material with a low density at a Young's modulus equal to that of polysilicon. In this case, it becomes difficult to construct a micromechanical vibration filter in a semiconductor process.
Hence, a second method without using such a composite material includes a method for increasing h·L−2 by changing a dimension of a beam in (mathematical formula 1). However, an increase in the thickness h of the beam and a decrease in the length L of the beam result in a decrease in d/L of (mathematical formula 2) which is an index of flexibility and it becomes difficult to detect flexure of the beam.
When a relation between log(L) and log(h) is shown in FIG. 34 with respect to (mathematical formula 1) and (mathematical formula 2), a straight line a has a relation obtained from (mathematical formula 1) and a straight line b has a relation obtained from (mathematical formula 2). In this FIG. 34, in the case of selecting h and L in the range (region A) upper than a straight line with a gradient "2" using a point A of the present dimension as an initial point, f becomes large and in the case of selecting h and L in the range (region B) lower than a straight line with a gradient "1", d/L becomes large. Therefore, the hatch portion (region C) in FIG. 34 is in the range of h and L capable of increasing a resonance frequency while ensuring the amount of flexure of the beam.
It is apparent from FIG. 34 that miniaturization of both dimensions of the length L of the beam and the thickness h of the beam is a necessary condition in a higher frequency of a mechanical vibration filter and miniaturization of L and h at the same scaling, that is, a decrease in L and h while being placed on the straight line with the gradient of 1 is a sufficient condition of the hatch portion of FIG. 34.
By miniaturizing a dimension of a mechanical vibrator in a conventional mechanical resonator thus, a resonance frequency can be increased. However, there was a problem that the case where a mechanical Q value reduces and the Q value necessary to obtain desired frequency selection characteristics cannot be obtained occurs by miniaturizing the dimension generally.
Hence, a resonator using a single-crystal material is contemplated as a resonator with a good Q value. In a vibrator of the single-crystal material, internal atoms are regularly arranged, so that a higher Q value can be obtained as compared with a polycrystalline material. For example, FIG. 35 is a straddle mounted beam structure fabricated by processing an SOI layer of a silicon substrate 204 constructing an SOI (Silicon on Insulator) substrate shown in Non-patent Reference 2. However, in this structure, a beam can be vibrated by removing a BOX (Buried Oxide) layer 203 under the SOI layer using hydrofluoric acid and the BOX layer under a support part 205 is also removed and the support part becomes brittle. Consequently, vibration of the support part 205 becomes nonnegligible and with a decrease in a resonance frequency of a straddle mounted beam, dissipation of vibration energy from the support part occurs, so that it becomes difficult to obtain a large Q value.
Hence, an example of improving brittleness of the support part 205 by thickening a thickness of the support part 205 more sufficiently than a thickness of a vibrator 201 constructing a beam is disclosed in Non-patent Reference 3. FIG. 36 is a structure of the vicinity of a support part 205 of a straddle mounted beam shown in Non-patent Reference 3. A thickness of the support part 205 is a thickness of a silicon substrate 204 and a thickness of the beam is thin sufficiently with respect to the thickness of the silicon substrate and therefore, the support part 205 has a robust structure. However, a structure of the support part is not axisymmetrical with respect to a length direction of the beam, so that the support part 205 becomes brittle as the support part of one side (for example, the side A) with respect to the axis retracts in the length direction of the beam. Since the side A and the side A′ of the support part 205 are formed by dry etching and individual lithography of two times, high-accuracy alignment of the lithography of two times is required in order to reduce retraction of one side. It becomes very difficult to perform this alignment step as a dimension of the vibrator becomes fine from the order of μm to the order of nm.
Also, in the method of fabrication of the vibrator of Non-patent Reference 3, it is difficult to approach the vibrator 201 and form an electrode 202. FIG. 37 is a diagram showing cross sections of the substrate and the vibrator of FIG. 36. Since there is an opening part between the substrate and the vibrator as shown in FIG. 37A, in the case of attempting to form the electrode 202 proximate to a side surface of the vibrator 201 by a thin-film formation technique such as sputtering, there is the opening part, so that the electrode cannot be anchored to the substrate or a robust electrode structure cannot be formed because a thickness of the electrode near to the opening part becomes extremely thin as shown in FIG. 37B.
There is also a technique in which boron is diffused from a surface of a silicon substrate and anisotropic etching is performed from a back surface of the silicon substrate and a diffusion layer of the boron is used as an etching stop layer of the anisotropic etching (Non-patent Reference 4). When a diffusion region of boron is formed in a beam shape, a beam type vibrator can also be formed as shown in FIG. 38. An electrode can be formed on the substrate surface since there is no opening part on the substrate surface before the anisotropic etching is performed. However, an effect of an etching stop varies depending on variations in diffusion of boron, so that it was difficult to obtain a beam shape having a predetermined dimension and it was extremely difficult to obtain a desired value with respect to a resonance frequency. Also, a surface of the vibrator is not flat, so that loss of vibration energy resulting from surface roughness occurs and a Q value reduces.
Also, a smaller vibrator must be formed in order to increase a resonance frequency of a resonator to a VHF band or a UHF band. With this, an opposite area of the vibrator and the electrode becomes smaller, so that capacitance becomes small and also an impedance becomes high. In a high-frequency signal, energy loss of an RF signal increases when the extent of an impedance mismatch becomes high. As this solution method, there is a method for reducing an impedance by electrically connecting plural resonators in parallel and approaching a match state. FIG. 39A is a resonator constructed of a vibrator using aluminum as a material. A vibrator 201 has a straddle mounted beam structure and is supported by a support part 205. An electrode 202a for excitation and an electrode 202b for detection are placed on both side surfaces of the vibrator 201 through gaps. In this configuration, the vibrator 201 produces flexural vibration in a direction attracted in a direction of the electrode 202a for excitation and its resonance frequency is 35.5 MHz. FIG. 39B is a configuration of electrically connecting plural resonators of FIG. 39A in parallel and reducing an impedance.
FIG. 40A shows impedances at the time of setting the number N of resonators electrically connected in parallel at 1, 10 and 100. However, the individual resonators are fabricated with extremely high dimension accuracy, so that variations in a resonance frequency become substantially 0. As shown in FIG. 40A, the impedance can be reduced without changing resonance characteristics as the number N is increased.
FIG. 40B shows impedances in the case of having variations (0.3 MHz in a standard deviation) in resonance frequencies of individual resonators. In the case of having the variations, as the number N of resonators is increased to 10 and 100, the peak at the resonance frequency is not sharp and it becomes difficult to construct a good resonator.
The variations in resonance frequencies must be suppressed by processing individual resonators with high accuracy in order to electrically connect plural resonators in parallel for reduction in the impedance thus. In a resonance frequency of a straddle mounted beam, a thickness and a length of the beam become predominant in flexural vibration and a length of the beam becomes predominant in torsional vibration, so that it becomes important to manage the thickness and the length of the beam in the case of using flexural resonance and it becomes important to manage the length of the beam in the case of using torsional resonance.                Non-patent Reference 1: Frank D. Bannon III, John R. Clark, and Clark T.-C. Nguyen, "High-QHF Microelectromechanical Filters", IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 512-526, April 2000        Non-patent Reference 2: Vincent Agache et. al, "CHARACTERIZATION OF VERTICAL VIBRATION OF ELECTROSTATICALLY ACTUATED RESONATORS USING ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPE IN NONCONTACT MODE", Proc. of IEEE TRANSDUCERS '05, pp. 2023-2026        Non-patent Reference 3: A. Tixier-Mita and others, "SINGLE CRYSTAL NANO-RESONATORS AT 100 MHz FABRICATED BY A SIMPLE BATCH PROCESS", Proc. of IEEE TRANSDUCERS '05, pp. 1388-1391        Non-patent Reference 4: Chang-Jin Kim and others, "Silicon-Processed Overhanging Microgripper", Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1992, pp. 31-36

Vibrator, resonator using the same and electromechanical filter using the same


An apparatus for printing not only embossing braille characters but also an embossing figure on a recording medium such as paper, using a projection of a rod employed as a debossing die and a printing underlay employed as an embossing die. The printing underlay includes at least one elastic layer. The apparatus includes an element to stop a depressing depth of the projection into the printing underlay so that the depressing depth is uniform. The element to stop the depressing depth of the projection into the printing underlay may include a step formed on a part of a periphery of the printing rod, and additionally a stopping wall whereby the depressing depth of the projection into the printing underlay is stopped by the step knocking against the stepping wall. Different projections with different step positions may also be provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a braille printing apparatus, and more particularly to an apparatus that prints not only embossing braille characters but also an embossing figure.
2. Discussion of the Background
Braille is printed as a series of raised dots on a medium such as paper in which each character is represented as a dot pattern, forming the basic braille written units that are read by touch. Special braille writers, braille typewriters and the like are used to write braille. Braille may be printed using a zinc printing plate in which character dot impressions are produced. A typesetting machine is then used to produce a printing plate from the zinc printing plate. The printing plate is then pressed onto the surface of the recording medium, e.g., paper, to produce the printed braille material.
In braille typewriters, braille is printed on a recording medium, such as paper, using a hard braille plate employed as an embossing die and a printing rod having a pin-shaped projection employed as a debossing die.
FIGS. 1(a)-1(c) show a way to print braille in a background braille typewriter. A braille plate 200 has many recesses 200a forming a two dimensional matrix of recesses 200a on the surface of the braille plate 200. A recording medium P, such as paper, is placed on the surface of the braille plate 200, and is pressed by a projection 201 of a printing rod that fits required recesses 200a of the braille plate 200, see FIG. 1(a) and FIG. 1(b), and this results in making an embossing braille P1, see FIG. 1(c).
This type of braille typewriter that makes an embossing at a uniform position fixed by the recesses 200a of the braille plate 200 is used for only embossing braille characters, and cannot be used for embossing a figure. Accordingly, another type of braille typewriter is contemplated that has a braille plate made of soft synthetic rubber so that it can be used for embossing a figure.
FIGS. 2(a)-2(c) show a way to print braille with another type of background braille typewriter. A braille underlay 100 employed in a manner similar to the braille plate 200 of FIG. 1 is made of soft synthetic rubber. A recorded medium P, such as paper, placed on the surface of the braille underlay 100 is pressed by the projection 101a of the printing rod at any required position at will, see FIG. 2(a) and FIG. 2(b), and the result is that an embossing braille P1 is formed, see FIG. 2(c).
FIG. 3 shows a type of background braille typewriter using the soft printing underlay 100 such as is shown in FIG. 2 as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Utility Model Application (KOKAI-JITSUYO) 56-24244. In this device the recording medium P is held by a spring 108 on a platen 100 and is pressed by the projection 101a of a printing rod 101 having a pin-shaped projection 101a employed as a debossing die, to make embossing points on the recording medium P. A first pulse motor 102 at one end of spindle 12 of the platen 100 drives the platen 100 in forward and reverse rotations. The rod 101 may be moved by a second pulse motor 107, rod 101 being slidably supported by shaft 104, and rod 101 is connected with wire 106 formed over rollers 105 and 103.
In this type of braille typewriter, the underlay 100 has enough thickness to stop a depth of the embossing and absorb the shock of the pressure of the projection 101a. However, by virtue of the elasticity of the underlay 100, particularly the loss of elasticity of underlay 100 over time, and particularly at areas of heavy use, the depressible depth of the underlay 100 does not become uniform in proportion to a dispersion of hardness of the surface of the underlay 100. In some cases, the projection 101a of the printing rod 101 may tear and break the recording medium P by pressing it too deep.