A system for generating authorization codes, such as personal identification numbers, at the point of distribution of certificates of value on which the authorization codes are to be printed or otherwise encoded. Because the authorization codes are generated in real time, there is no need to store and safeguard an inventory of preprinted certificates, or even an inventory of activated authorization codes. The principles of the invention apply both to systems for generating incentive award certificates and to systems for generating purchased certificates of value. The incentive awards or certificates of value are tokens of prepayment for a service, such as long-distance telephone service or other service. The authorization codes generated for inclusion with the value certificates are unique and seemingly random. They are generated by taking a non-random unique code, such as a sequence code, and encrypting it to obtain seemingly random, but unique, authorization codes. Because each authorization code is not generated until immediately prior to distribution of the certificate with which the code is associated, security and other problems pertaining to preprinted certificates and cards are eliminated.

This invention relates generally to systems for issuing consumer promotions, usually in the form of coupons or certificates, in response to the purchase of preselected items in a retail store, or simply when a customer purchases one of the promotions. More specifically, the invention relates to systems for issuing promotions or certificates of the type that requires a unique personal identification number (PIN) to be conveyed to a customer receiving the item. PINs are printed or encoded on valuable certificates awarded to customers and subject to redemption for various promotional and marketing purposes. Each certificate must be resistant to fraud and must be secure from duplication. Therefore, each certificate's PIN number must be unique and, in general must be generated randomly. Having random but valid unique numbers requires the creation and storage of the numbers in databases. The administration of such a database becomes very time consuming, expensive and difficult. Therefore, there is a need for a PIN generation technique that eliminates the requirement for creating and maintaining a valid PIN database.
More specifically, the present invention relates to the awarding of property, goods, services, or rights, at the point-of-sale, based on certain criteria which can be measured at the point-of-sale, and where the authenticity of the award can be verified at the time of redemption with the use of a code that need not be established prior to the award. While the invention will be described mainly in connection with the awarding of free long distance telephone service, it is to be understood that the principles of the invention are also applicable to providing any award, at the point-of-sale, where the subsequent verification of the award can be accomplished without the need for a pre-established list of valid authorization codes.
A marketing technique that has enjoyed increasing popularity is the awarding, at the point-of-sale, of a free product or service as an incentive to purchase other products or services. Typical marketing programs offer 5 or 10 minutes of long distance service as incentives to purchasing the sponsoring company's product, as potential prizes for participating in a marketing contest, or as premiums offered under a retailer's frequent shopper loyalty program, or simply as a product for purchase. With respect to marketing long distance telephone service, there are generally two methods employed. One method entails the registration of the consumer and the issuance of a telephone "credit card" for which an account is established and is later credited with certain dollar amounts of telephone service based on the consumer's actions or purchases. Another method is to issue telephone "debit cards" to each consumer meeting the requirements of the particular marketing program. These debit cards are generally pre-authorized in 5 or 10 minute denominations. The issuance of a debit card does not establish an account, but rather is authorized for the specified amount of telephone service and then becomes useless after the telephone time is exhausted. With both methods, the consumer is usually required to dial a toll-free number and provide a personal identification number (PIN) in order to activate the free service. This PIN must be randomly generated prior to the issuance of the telephone credit/debit card so that verification of valid usage can be established prior to granting the free service.
With each of the processes described above, there is a requirement that a physical card (similar to a consumer credit card) be issued to the consumer. The manufacture and delivery of these cards represents a significant expense and therefore can be cost prohibitive in many circumstances. In addition, there are security concerns inherent in the manufacture and delivery of the cards since someone other than the intended user could easily convert them for their own use (especially in the case of the debit card since the PIN is generally pre-printed on the card itself). Another limitation of the current methods of marketing telephone cards is the fact that the account and/or a PIN must be generated prior to the issuance of a card. This can result in a time lag from the time the consumer complies with the offer and the time at which the telephone service is available (especially with respect to the credit card method). This limitation can also cause shortages or excess inventories of cards based on consumer demand (especially with respect to the debit card method).
Regardless of whether a certificate or award is presented to a consumer as an incentive to purchase selected products or simply in response to a request to purchase the service that the certificate provides, the difficulties described above have inhibited safe and efficient distribution of such certificates. The following paragraphs discuss the problems that apply specifically to the distribution of prepaid service certificates, such as prepaid long-distance calling cards.
Problems first arise at the manufacturing stage. Cards are typically preprinted with the value in dollars or the time in minutes, in preset amounts, even though the consumer may prefer to have a different value or time. Moreover, preprinted cards have the further limitation that they contain fixed important information, such as an "800" toll-free number for accessing the service. Access numbers may become overloaded and cause inconvenient delays for the user and new access numbers may have to be added to meet demand, but there is no convenient way to update this information on a pre-printed card. Similarly, each preprinted card has a PIN (personal identification number) that must be used to activate the card, i.e., turn it on for use. The preprinting of PINs on the card exposes the value of the card to anonymous and usually untraceable theft. Once the card is printed, its value can be stolen without physically taking the card itself. The theft can take place anywhere from the printing source to the retail outlet. It will be apparent that sending these "live" cards through a supply and distribution process is fraught with security risks. The special handling adds to the cost and difficulty of marketing and selling remote value cards. Unsuspecting consumers may purchase cards that are either depleted or being used by others purchased illegally. The merchandising and sales of tamper resistant cards adds to the cost and effort for everyone. Live cards with protected PINs must be treated as a near-cash item through the distribution and retailing process. As a delivery of cards is made to a store, if it is not kept under lock and key or in the cash drawer it may be easily stolen, lost or misplaced. The cards themselves are very small and easily concealed by unscrupulous employees or shoppers. Therefore, suppliers and retailers of these cards are exposed to a very large financial risk in handling the cards. If the value is taken illegally from a card, it is not possible for the retailer to accept the return or bill back the supplier.
One solution is to distribute "dead" cards instead of "live" ones. A dead card is one that has a PIN that must be activated by the retailer before distribution to the consumer. Activating preset PINs is very expensive, time consuming and error prone. Distributing dead cards with PINs that require activation is, therefore, inconvenient and is still prone to theft and misuse because some card suppliers preprint and assign the PINs in a uniform, predictable or unprotected manner. Dishonest persons may dial the access number and enter PINs until they successfully access the service, or may look for a pattern in multiple PINs, and then resell the PIN and access numbers to different users. Another potential problem is that some PIN sequences are purposely short, for the convenience of the user. This creates a dangerous situation, since a computer dialer can more easily pick and decipher short PINs that are not encoded.
Another proposed solution to the security problem is to use scratch-off coatings and removable tape covers over the PINs. This has a limited effect because the "live" and valuable cards can still be stolen and used anonymously by dishonest persons, anywhere through the supply chain.
Systems have been proposed in which prepaid cards are sold without a PIN. The PIN is activated or attached to the card after is a call is made to a central computer that issues PINs. In some systems of this type PINs may be downloaded in a batch, and then held until a card is purchased, at which time a PIN is attached to the preprinted portion of the card. The principal limitation of this method is that a call must be made to a central computer to issue a PIN. This slows the down the transaction and, in a retail environment, slows down the cashier while the computer is dialed and the PIN is issued. Further, a dishonest or inattentive cashier could sell or give away the value of the PINs.
Some prepaid telephone cards are sold or vended in enclosed plastic containers placed in a store display rack. The cashier selling such cards typically scans a bar code on the display itself, and a PIN is obtained by placing a call to the service provider. This bar-coded activation method fails to prevent fraud or misuse by others as the bar codes can be duplicated and used on more than one card. A thief could steal one or more cards and purchase one to obtain the valid batch code, thus activating the stolen cards as well.
It will be appreciated from the foregoing that prior art techniques for distributing certificates or cards redeemable for a valuable service all have practical difficulties that render the certificates or cards both inconvenient to the consumer and vulnerable to fraud or theft. There is a need for a new approach for distributing such certificates or cards in a convenient manner without compromising the security of the valuable services that are obtained by use of the cards. The present invention satisfies this need, as briefly described in the following summary of the invention.

Method and apparatus for generating personal identification numbers for use in consumer transactions


A data server receives multiple requests for data cubes that include data related to a user-specified subject matter. The requests are aggregated into an aggregated request, and an initial data cube is retrieved based on the aggregated request. Upon determining that the initial data cube fails to provide requisite data needed by the aggregated request due to data being missing from the initial data cube, the missing data is located and identified as augmentation data. The initial data cube and the augmentation data are sent to senders of the multiple requests for data cubes. Instructions are transmitted to install the initial data cube and the one or more of the sets of data into an electronic device that has been predetermined to be related to the user-specified subject-matter, the installation improves a functioning of the electronic device by modifying an operation of the electronic device.

The present disclosure relates to the field of electronics, and specifically to the use of electronics in creating data cubes. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to enhancing data cubes in order to upgrade their ability to fulfill a user-specified need.
A data cube is a collection of data that can be commoditized. Thus, a data cube is a collection of data can be sold, bought, borrowed, leased, installed, loaded, and/or otherwise used for one or more purposes.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


Radar apparatus provided with a transmit generator and antenna means for the transmission of comparatively long, linearly frequency-modulated transmitter pulses. Echo signals are received by antenna means and a heterodyne signal is generated in mixer stage. Propagation time differences for different echo pulses are compensated by means of a dispersive delay element incorporated in the radar receiver. Distortion of the echo pulses in the dispersive delay element is corrected on the basis of a Fresnel ripple correction. A Fourier transformation unit transfers the corrected echo pulses to time domain video with low sidelobes.

The invention relates to a radar apparatus comprising transmitter means provided with a transmit generator for generating a transmitter pulse modulated at a frequency sweep rate and a reference signal modulated at the same frequency sweep rate; receiver means provided with a mixer stage for generating a heterodyne signal from the reflected transmitter pulse and the reference signal, a dispersive delay element for the frequency-dependent delay of the heterodyne signal; and a Fourier transformer unit provided with a weighting function for transforming the delayed heterodyne signal.
Such a radar apparatus is known from patent specification U.S. Pat. No. 4,912,472. This specification relates to a radar apparatus which linearly transmits frequency-modulated pulses at a 50% duty cycle, the received echo pulses being processed as is customary in a FMCW radar by mixing them in receiver means with a reference signal and subsequently digitizing, weighting and Fourier-transforming the resulting heterodyne signal. A non-simultaneous arrival of received echo pulses as a result of propagation time differences is solved by incorporating a dispersive delay element in the receiver means. Since both the echo pulse propagation time and the frequency of the heterodyne signal linearly depend on the distance between the radar apparatus and the target producing the echo pulse, a dispersive delay element of a suitably chosen dispersiveness is undoubtedly capable of compensating any propagation time differences.
A drawback of the signal processing in said radar apparatus is that any distortion of the heterodyne signal, wherever caused, may give rise, after Fourier analysis, to spurious targets.


Aircraft flight path changes commanded by a pilot via the wheel, column and pedal (12) are converted to position sensor signals (14) and passed as the input to primary flight computer (26). The primary flight computer (26) converts these pilot inputs and the inputs from autopilot (25) into desired surface actuator commands and then transmits them to actuator control electronics (18). The actuator control electronics (18) also receives a position feedback signal, representative of the position of the aircraft control surface (42). The actuator control electronics (18) produces a control signal which is fed to the input of an actuator (32) which includes a hydraulic system (34). The actuator responds to control input signals to drive linkage (40) which then positions the control surface (42). A rate limiter (110) imposes maximum rate limits to the actuator input signal (30) to thereby reduce peak transient hydraulic fluid pressure in the hydraulic system (34) and corresponding return and pressure lines (36), (38) to specified maximum values.

The present invention relates to the electro-hydraulic servovalve art and, more particularly, to a rate limiter which limits the rate of change of the control signal applied to an aircraft electro-hydraulic servovalve to limit peak hydraulic pressure to a specified maximum value.
Electro-hydraulic servovalve systems are found in many applications, including the aircraft control art. There, aircraft control surfaces, such as the elevators and rudder(s) are driven into position by hydraulic actuators, each of which is under the control of an electrical command signal. This command signal is produced as a result of the pilot's or the autopilot's inputs representative of a desired change in the aircraft's flight path.
A problem that is common to such electro-hydraulic servo control systems, especially in aircraft applications, is that the hydraulic peak pressures under transient conditions, both on the pressure and return sides, may exceed acceptable limits. In addition, the magnitudes of the transient pressure variations may significantly reduce fatigue life of the hydraulic tubing and other components. Since the hydraulic system, including the various hydraulic lines must be capable of handling such transient pressure peaks and variations without failure, it is desirable to minimize the transient pressures to thereby reduce the peak pressure handling and fatigue life requirements on the hydraulic system.
One approach to reducing hydraulic transient peaks is through the use of an accumulator. An accumulator is a mechanical tank which connects to the pressure (and/or return) side of the hydraulic system. A reservoir of hydraulic fluid within the tank acts on a piston-like device having hydraulic fluid on one side and a compressed gas on the other. As a transient pressure peak occurs in the line, the piston displaces against the pressure of the compressed gas, thereby limiting the maximum value of the transient peak hydraulic pressure.
While hydraulic system accumulators do act to reduce transient pressure peaks, they add significant weight, cost and maintenance requirements to an aircraft.
Another possible approach is to reduce the pressure transients is to increase the hydraulic line diameters. However, this approach imposes even higher weight penalty than the use of accumulators.
It should be noted that there are two other ways of reducing or controlling the maximum servovalve rates without using the servovalve current rate limiter, but these methods also have serious deficiencies.
In the first alternate method, system gain can be reduced to slow down the servovalve and thus indirectly reduce the maximum servovalve rate. However, this also results in unacceptable degradation of the actuator dynamic response characteristics.
In the second alternate method, a servovalve with the servo controlled system can be mechanically modified to have a reduced rate capability. However, the desired rate capability can be achieved only at a specific hydraulic system supply pressure and temperature. In practice, the hydraulic system supply pressure and temperature can vary significantly over various flight conditions. The mechanically achieved servovalve rate limiting capability will then often be either too high to adequately control the pressure peaks or too low to achieve the desired actuator dynamic response characteristics.
There is a need in the art, therefore, for an apparatus and method which inherently reduces pressure transients created in hydraulic systems, such as are found on aircraft, which does not rely on the use of an accumulator or other additional hydraulic device and which does not result in unacceptable degradation of the actuator dynamic response characteristics.

Aircraft servovalve current rate limiter


A profile store can include a guest profile. A converter can be in the control domain. The converter can convert a gesture detected on a touch input device to a domain input for the guest domain. The guest profile for the guest domain can be used for the conversion.

A computing device can include a hypervisor also known as a virtual machine manager. The hypervisor presents to the guest operating systems a virtual operating platform and manages the execution of the guest domains. A hypervisor is a hardware virtualization technique to allow multiple operating systems, termed guests domains, to run concurrently on a computing device.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A dielectric ceramic material containing BaTiO3 as a primary component and a rare earth element as an additional component, wherein the material satisfies the relation 0.7xe2x89xa6M/N so as to make the density of the rare earth metal uniform between crystal grains, and the material satisfies the relation 0.8xe2x89xa6L/M so as to make the density of the rare earth metal uniform in a crystal grain. In these relations, M represents the number of crystal grains satisfying the relation 0.5xe2x89xa6Di/D; N represents the number of crystal grains constituting the ceramic material; and L represents the number of crystal grains satisfying the relations 0.5xe2x89xa6Di/D and Si/Dixe2x89xa60.3, wherein Di represents the mean density of the rare earth element in an arbitrary crystal grain i, D represents the mean density of the rare earth element in the entirety of the ceramic material, and Si represents the standard deviation of the density of the rare earth element in the crystal grain i.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dielectric ceramic material which is advantageously employed in a monolithic ceramic electronic element, such as a monolithic ceramic capacitor comprising an internal electrode formed of a base metal such as nickel or copper, and to a monolithic ceramic electronic element which is formed of the dielectric ceramic material.
2. Background Art
Miniaturization and cost reduction of monolithic ceramic electronic elements are now in progress. For example, a ceramic layer has been thinned in such a ceramic electronic element, and a base metal has been employed as an internal electrode. In a monolithic ceramic capacitor, which is a typical example of a monolithic ceramic electronic element, a dielectric ceramic layer as thin as approximately 3 xcexcm has been formed and a base metal such as nickel or copper has been employed as a material for producing an internal electrode.
However, it is known that when a dielectric ceramic layer becomes thin, the layer is affected by a strong external electric field, exhibiting a great variation in dielectric constant per unit of temperature change. Therefore, there has been demand for a dielectric ceramic material exhibiting high reliability in a strong electric field, which material constitutes a dielectric ceramic layer.
Such a dielectric ceramic layer may be formed of an ABO3 perovskite dielectric ceramic material. Usually, the ceramic material comprises crystal grains of core-shell structure. A crystal grain of core-shell structure comprises a core portion and an outer surface shell portion that differs in crystal structure and composition.
Such a core-shell structure is created during sintering of a ceramic material in such a manner that a shell portion is formed through diffusion of an additional componentxe2x80x94usually a rare earth elementxe2x80x94from the surface of a crystal grain which serves as a core. In a conventional thin dielectric ceramic layer, diffusion of a rare earth element in a shell portion enhances reliability of the shell portion. As a result, reliability of the entire ceramic layer is secured.
In more than rare instances, however, grains of core-shell structure produced have excessively thin shells because of uneven diffusion or dispersion of the rare earth element. When such a ceramic material comprising crystal grains of core-shell structure is employed for forming a dielectric ceramic layer of a monolithic ceramic electronic element and the ceramic layer is as thin as 3 xcexcm or less, the ceramic layer will have some portions of low reliability. As a result, reliability of the monolithic ceramic electronic element may be lowered.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide a dielectric ceramic material which can solve the aforementioned problem, and a monolithic ceramic electronic element which is formed of the dielectric ceramic element, such as a monolithic ceramic capacitor.
A more specific object of the present invention is to provide a dielectric ceramic material having a non-core-shell structure, in which the change in dielectric constant with temperature is small; and a monolithic ceramic electronic element which comprises a thin dielectric ceramic layer having a thickness of about 3 xcexcm or less, which has small size, high capacitance and high reliability, and which is produced at low cost.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a dielectric ceramic material comprising a primary component represented by the formula ABO3 and a rare earth element serving as an additional component, A in the formula representing Ba and optionally Ca and/or Sr, B in the formula representing Ti and optionally Zr and/or Hf, and O in the formula representing oxygen.
When the mean density of a rare earth element in an arbitrary crystal grain i of the crystal grains that constitute the ceramic material is represented by Di, the mean density of the rare earth element in the entirety of the ceramic material is represented by D, the standard deviation of the density of the rare earth element in the crystal grain i is represented by Si, the number of crystal grains satisfying the relation 0.5xe2x89xa6Di/D is represented by M, the number of the crystal grains constituting the ceramic material is represented by N, and the number of the crystal grains satisfying the relations 0.5xe2x89xa6Di/D and Si/Dxe2x89xa60.3 is represented by L, the ceramic material satisfies the following relations:
0.7xe2x89xa6M/N (i.e., the density of the rare earth element is uniform among crystal grains) and
0.8xe2x89xa6L/N (i.e., the density of the rare earth element is uniform within a crystal grain).
It must be noted that the aforementioned crystal grain i is not a specific crystal grain but an arbitrary crystal grain in the dielectric ceramic material. That is, when the number of the crystal grains that are present in the material is N, i may be an integer of 1 to N inclusive. Thus, for each one of the crystal grains that constitute a dielectric ceramic (number of grains: N), there can be calculated the mean density of the rare earth element (Di) in the crystal grains and the standard deviation of the density of the rare earth element in the crystal grains.
In the dielectric ceramic of the present invention, preferably, the mean size of the crystal grains is about 0.05-0.7 xcexcm, and the standard deviation of the size of the crystal grains is about 30% or less the mean grain size.
The present invention also provides a monolithic ceramic electronic element which is formed of the aforementioned dielectric ceramic material. More particularly, the present invention provides a monolithic ceramic electronic element comprising a laminate comprising a plurality of laminated dielectric ceramic layers and internal electrodes which are formed along specific interfaces between two dielectric ceramic layers adjacent to each other, wherein the dielectric ceramic layer is formed of the dielectric material.
In the monolithic ceramic electronic element of the present invention, the internal electrode preferably comprises nickel or copper, or an alloy thereof.
The present invention can be advantageously applied to, in particular, a monolithic ceramic capacitor. In such a case, the monolithic ceramic electronic element of the present invention further comprises first and second external electrodes which are formed on the outer surfaces of a laminate, wherein a plurality of internal electrodes are formed such that the internal electrodes overlap one another with respect to the vertical direction (stacking direction) of the laminate, and the internal electrodes which are electrically connected to the first external electrode and the internal electrodes which are electrically connected to the second external electrode are alternately provided in the stacking direction.
In the dielectric ceramic material of the present invention, crystal grainsxe2x80x94in which a rare earth element which exhibits effects on enhancement of reliability is almost uniformly dispersedxe2x80x94are present over the entirety of the dielectric ceramic material, and thus local segregation does not occur. Therefore, the ceramic material exhibits high reliability, and reliability can be secured from product to product.
In the dielectric ceramic material, the mean size of the crystal grains is about 0.05-0.7 xcexcm, and the standard deviation of the size of the crystal grains is about 30% or less the mean grain size, and thus dependence of the dielectric constant of the material on electric field is suppressed. In addition, in the case in which the ceramic material is applied to a monolithic electronic element, even when the thickness of a dielectric ceramic layer is about 3 xcexcm or less, temperature dependence of the dielectric constant of the electronic element can be suppressed.

Dielectric ceramic material and monolithic ceramic electronic element


An operating system in a shared processor logical partitioned data processing system is given a target percentage. The hypervisor assigns the target processor percentage to the operating system. The operating system also has a predetermined time slice to allot to threads in a multitasking environment. The operating system adjusts the time slice based on a per-virtual-processor percentage.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data processing and, in particular, to shared partitions in a logically partitioned data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method, apparatus, and program for time slicing in a shared partition.
2. Description of the Related Art
Large symmetric multi-processor data processing systems, such as IBM eServer™ P690 server, available from International Business Machines Corporation, DHP9000 Superdome Enterprise Server, available from Hewlett-Packard Company, and the Sun Fire™ 15K server, available from Sun Microsystems, Inc. may be partitioned and used as multiple smaller systems. These systems are often referred to as logical partitioned (LPAR) data processing systems. A logical partitioned functionality within a data processing system allows multiple copies of a single operating system or multiple heterogeneous operating systems to be simultaneously run on a single data processing system platform.
A partition, within which an operating system image runs, is assigned a non-overlapping subset of the platform's physical resources. These platform allocable resources include one or more architecturally distinct processors with their interrupt management area, regions of system memory, and input/output (I/O) adapter bus slots. The partition's resources are represented by the platform's firmware to the operating system image.
Past implementations had dedicated processor paritions, where LPARs are assigned dedicated physical processors. Shared processor LPAR (SPLPAR) allows LPARs to share the physical processors of a pool of dedicated processors. With SPLPAR, partitions can be assigned fractions of physical processors from this pool, rather than full physical processor, like under the dedicated processor model.
SPLPAR allows several servers to run on one machine. For example, a customer may employ ten servers running at 100 MHz. Each server consumes electricity and generates heat. Upgrading to a single 1 GHz server allows ten instances of an operating system to run on a single machine, thus consuming less energy and generating less heat. Each server may then be implemented as a logical partition receiving 10% of the central processing unit (CPU) resources. An administrator simply sets up each operating system with a target processor percentage of 10%.
In addition to using a fraction or percentage of the physical processors, an operating system typically uses a time slice to run multiple threads. A time slice is a short interval of time allotted to each user or program in a multitasking or timesharing system. The time slice is hard coded into the operating system and does not take into account the possibility of being allocated a fraction of a physical processor in a SPLPAR system.


Sewing apparatus for joining a first panel and a second panel and having an arm that is rotated about an axis normal to the surface of the first panel to rotate the first panel, a shoe biased to follow an edge of the first panel as the first panel is fed to the sewing machine, a detector to monitor the shoe and provide a signal indicative of a longitudinal orientation of the edge of the first panel, and means for adjusting the longitudinal orientation of the first panel with respect to a true feed direction in response to the longitudinal orientation signal. An edge flattener including a generally cylindrical component is provided.

Modern mattresses generally include an inner construction and a mattress sack that completely covers the inner construction. The sack is secured to the inner construction by means of a flange which is connected to the inner construction using hog rings or the like.
The ticking material of a mattress sack may be of many types, such as flat or quilted, and the sack generally includes identical top and bottom panels and a side panel, joining the top and bottom panels. The top and bottom panel may be sewn directly to the side panel, joined with boarder tape, or attached with a gusset.
To reduce manufacturing cost, attempts have been made to automatically attach the side panel to the top panel. Typically, these attempts have held the inner construction stationary on a table and have positioned the mattress sack over the inner construction. A self-propelled sewing machine then joins the side and top panel, by boarder tape for example, by moving around the table via a track mechanism. Many modifications to this basic structure have been made and will not be repeated here for the sake of brevity.
More recently, the basic principle of propelling the sewing machine around the mattress has been reversed: now, the mattress is moved, not the sewing machine. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,282 describes a mattress tape edge closing machine, in which the mattress and cover are lifted at an angle with respect to a stationary machine. The mattress is then moved past the machine. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 4,838,186 describes a sewing machine, including presser elements rotatably supported about a vertical axis to allow rotation of the mattress sack. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,579 describes a device for sewing the edges of a mattress cover on an inner construction, including a swingable arm for rotating the mattress construction.
Some of these machines are cumbersome because they operate on the entire mattress construction. Others have difficulty maintaining high quality "sizing", a necessity in the mattress field. "Sizing" is a term known in the art and is used to refer to the uniformity of a mattress's stitching and dimensions, and more generally to its appearance.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that a low cost and reliable machine for forming mattress sacks is needed.
Therefore, it is an object of the invention to provide a low cost machine for manipulating flexible fabrics, yet maintaining high quality sizing.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for manipulating mattress sacks and other flexible fabrics, such that the feeding of the material to the apparatus is automatically monitored and corrected to insure high quality sizing.
It is yet another object of the present invention to prepare the panel to ensure that panel filling does not protrude from the ticking layer.

Method and apparatus for manipulating and sewing flexible fabrics


Methods and apparatus are provided for controlling writing and reading of data in an array of A storage fields of a probe-based data storage device in which data is written to and read from the array of storage fields by a corresponding array of probes. One method provides error-tolerance by exploiting the inherent parallelism of the probe storage array. A user data block to be written to the A-field array is first coded to produce a plurality of C-byte codewords, such that r·C=k1A where r is the number of codewords and k1 is an integer greater than or equal to 1. A sub-blocks of k1 bytes are produced from the codewords by selecting successive bytes of each sub-block cyclically from the r codewords. The A sub-blocks are then written via respective probes to the corresponding storage fields of the storage field array.

In probe-based data storage devices, stored data is represented on a storage surface by the presence and absence of indentations, or 'pits', which are formed in the surface by a probe of the device. One example of such a device, based on the AFM (Atomic Force Microscope), is detailed in IBM Journal of Research & Development, Volume 44, No. 3, May 2000, pp 323-340, "The 'Millipede'—More Than One Thousand Tips for Future AFM Data Storage," Vettiger et al., and the references cited therein. In this device, the probe is a nanometer-sharp tip mounted on the end of a micro-fabricated cantilever. The tip can be moved over the surface of a storage medium in the form of a polymer substrate. A mechanism is provided for heating the tip, allowing the tip to penetrate the polymer surface to create a pit. Such a pit typically represents a bit of value '1', a bit of value '0' being represented by the absence of a pit at a bit position on the storage surface. In a read-scan mode, the thermo-mechanical probe mechanism can be used to read back data by detecting the deflection of the cantilever as the tip is moved over the pattern of pits in the storage surface.
As in the device of the above reference, probe-based storage devices may employ an integrated array of individually-addressable probes in order to increase data rates. Each probe of the array can read and write data within its own storage field as the array is moved relative to the storage surface. This is illustrated schematically in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings. Here, a storage surface 1 provides a regular array of storage fields arranged in M rows of N storage fields. Each storage field is labeled in the figure by (row number, column number). As indicated schematically by probes P in the figure, a corresponding array of M rows of N probes is provided such that each probe can read and write data in a respective storage field. In particular, as the probe array is moved relative to the storage surface, each probe P can be moved through a series of p rows of q bit-positions as represented schematically in the enlarged section of the figure. In each storage field, data can be written by writing bits at successive bit-positions along a row, and can similarly be read back as the probe is advanced through the appropriate series of bit positions.
A parallel addressing scheme can be used for the probe array, whereby multiple probes can be addressed simultaneously for the read/write operation at a given array position. In the above reference for example, the parallel addressing scheme operates via a grid of row and column address lines, such that probes in the same row are connected to the same row-address line, and probes in the same column are connected to the same column-address line. Probes in a given row are activated simultaneously for the read or write operation at a given bit position, successive rows being activated in turn until the entire array has been addressed. The probe array is then moved to the next bit position, and the operation is repeated. In a given write process, the bit sequences actually written to the storage surface may be derived from the input user data by various processing stages. For example, a type of RLL (Run-Length Limited) (d,k)-constraint code may be applied in order to increase areal density on the storage surface. At present, the use of probe arrays promises storage densities of 1 Tb/inch2 or even higher within a very small form factor and low power consumption, offering a new generation of ultrahigh density storage devices.
Various types of errors can be encountered in probe-based storage devices. These errors are typically related to surface damage such as scratches in the storage surface, to noise or to abnormal conditions during the read/write process, e.g. vibrations due to external shocks. In general in storage devices, such errors are typically handled using special types of error correcting codes (ECC) and proper data interleaving. While such mechanisms can be applied in conventional manner in probe-based storage devices, the operation of probe-based arrays as described above is somewhat different to the conventional devices in which these mechanisms are customarily used.
Another important consideration in probe-based storage relates to interface operation. Probe-based storage devices may use various interfaces for exchanging information with other processing devices, such as host processors, terminal processing units etc., in a data processing system. These interfaces may have various speeds, data bus widths and data formats. Different formats impose different sizes of user data blocks to be exchanged with the storage device. For example, one of the most common interfaces is the Compact Flash interface which uses one or more blocks of data, called 'sectors', each having a size of 512 (8-bit) bytes. Another well known interface is the Multimedia Card interface which does not require a specific sector size but allows an application to use a block of data which depends on the characteristics of the application, such as audio or video storage, multimedia streams, etc. The ability to accommodate such different interfaces would be highly desirable in probe-based storage devices.

Writing and reading of data in probe-based data storage devices


Alleles of the lysC gene from corynebacteria that code for desensitized aspartokinases, and to processes for the preparation of L-lysine using bacteria containing these alleles.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to alleles of the lysC gene from corynebacteria that code for desensitized aspartokinases, and processes for the preparation of L-lysine using bacteria containing these alleles.
2. Description of the Background
The amino acid L-lysine is used in human medicine and in the pharmaceutical industry, in the food industry and very particularly in animal nutrition.
It is known to prepare amino acids by the fermentation of strains of corynebacteria, especially a Corynebacterium glutamicum. Because of their great importance, attempts are constantly being made to improve the preparative processes. Improvements to the processes may relate to measures involving the fermentation technology, for example stirring and oxygen supply, or the composition of the nutrient media, for example the sugar concentration during fermentation, or the work-up to the product form, for example by ion exchange chromatography, or the intrinsic productivity characteristics of the microorganism itself.
The productivity characteristics of these microorganisms are improved by using methods of mutagenesis, selection and mutant choice to give strains which are resistant to antimetabolites or auxotrophic for metabolites of regulatory significance, and produce amino acids. A known antimetabolite is the lysine analogue S-(2-aminoethyl)-L-cysteine (AEC).
An important reaction step in the biosynthesis of L-lysine is the aspartokinase reaction. The enzyme aspartokinase catalyzes the conversion of L-aspartic acid to aspartylphosphoric acid. The gene coding for aspartokinase is called lysC or ask. The nucleotide sequence of the lysC or ask gene from the wild-type strain Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 is known and is described for example in Kalinowski et al. (Molecular Microbiology 5, 1197–204 (1991)) or Follettie (Journal of Bacteriology 175, 4096–4103 (1993)). The activity of the enzyme in the wild-type form is inhibited inter alia by mixtures of lysine and threonine, or mixtures of AEC and threonine, or lysine alone, or AEC alone.
The literature contains mutated forms of the lysC gene which were isolated after mutagenesis with e.g. N-methyl-N′-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine and selection with the aid of AEC. These lysC alleles code for aspartokinases which, compared with the wild-type form, exhibit a lower sensitivity to inhibition by mixtures of lysine and threonine, or mixtures of AEC and threonine, or lysine alone, or AEC alone. In this connection the aspartokinases are said to be desensitized or feedback-resistant or AEC-resistant. L-lysine-producing strains typically contain such desensitized aspartokinases.
Examples of such desensitized aspartokinases from corynebacteria are described in EP-A-0387527, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,688,671 and in publicly accessible data banks for nucleotide sequences, for example that of the European Molecular Biologies Laboratories (EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany) or that of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI, Bethesda, Md., USA).
Methods of recombinant DNA technology have also been used for some years to improve L-amino acid-producing strains of Corynebacterium by amplifying individual amino acid biosynthesis genes and studying the effect on amino acid production.

Method for producing L-lysine or L-lysine containing feed additives with a cornebacteria containing a mutated lysC


A high efficiency fuel-fired induced draft condensing furnace is provided with a horizontal vent termination assembly installed in an exterior wall of a building served by the furnace. The vent termination assembly, constructed entirely from PVC plastic pipe and fittings, includes a combustion gas vent pipe connected to the furnace's draft inducer fan outlet, horizontally extending through an opening in the wall, and having an open discharge end positioned outwardly beyond the wall. A larger diameter combustion air inlet pipe circumscribes the vent pipe within the wall opening and forms around the vent pipe an annular combustion air flow passage that is communicated with the furnace combustion air inlet. A coupling member connected to the outer end of the inlet pipe has a diametrically enlarged end portion positioned on the outside surface of the wall, axially inwardly of the outer vent pipe, and forming an annular inlet to the flow passage between the two pipes. The outer end of the vent pipe is left uncovered so as to permit direct, unimpeded axially outward discharge therefrom of furnace combustion gases. In a similar fashion, the enlarged end portion of the coupling member is left uncovered so as to permit direct, unimpeded axially inward entry therethrough of outside combustion air. Because the open outer ends of the concentric coupling and vent face in the same axial direction, the operating pressure differential across the furnace heat exchanger is substantially unaffected by changes in outside wind velocity and direction.

The present invention generally relates to fuel fired heating appliances, and more particularly relates to air intake and combustion products venting apparatus for high efficiency, fuel fired, induced draft condensing furnaces utilizing direct vents.
Direct vented fuel-fired heating appliances, such as furnaces serving indoor conditioned spaces, have sealed combustion chambers that require appliance intake air and flue gases to be passed through venting systems extended to an outdoor location and terminating within the same outdoor pressure zone.
The combustion systems of modern high efficiency, fuel fired, induced draft condensing furnaces typically include a heat exchanger structure formed from series-connected primary and secondary heat exchanger sections. A fuel/air burner structure is operatively connected to the inlet of the primary heat exchanger, and the inlet of draft inducer fan is coupled to the outlet of the secondary or "condensing" heat exchanger. During operation of the furnace, a fuel/air mixture is delivered to the burner structure which burns the mixture and flows the resulting flames and hot combustion gases into the inlet of the primary or "upstream" heat exchanger section.
At the same time, the draft inducer fan draws the hot combustion gases sequentially through the primary and secondary heat exchanger sections, and then discharges the combustion gases. During this combustion products flow process, supply air to be heated and delivered to a conditioned space served by the furnace is forced externally across the heat exchanger structure to receive combustion heat therefrom.
To supply combustion air to the furnace, and vent combustion gases discharged therefrom to the exterior of the building served by the furnace, it is conventional to respectively extend inlet and vent pipes from the burner structure inlet and the draft inducer fan outlet horizontally outwardly through an exterior wall of the building, or vertically through the roof of the building. Accordingly, during furnace operation the draft inducer fan simultaneously draws outside combustion air through the inlet pipe to the burner structure, and discharges cooled, moisture laden combustion gases (at approximately 120.degree. F.) through the vent pipe to the exterior of the building. Due to the corrosive nature of the cooled combustion gases discharged from a high efficiency condensing furnace of this general type, a preferred material for constructing the overall inlet and vent piping system therefor has been PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic pipe.
In horizontal venting and inlet applications, it has been conventional practice to extend the plastic inlet and vent pipes outwardly through the exterior building wall in a relatively close side-by-side relationship, with a vent termination cap structure secured to the exterior ends of the pipes. The cap structure functions to create an axial discharge of the combustion gases and a radial intake of the combustion air to thereby inhibit undesirable short circuiting of the closely adjacent intake and discharge flows at the outer ends of the pipes. In an alternative prior art arrangement the two side-by-side pipes are more widely spaced apart, with the exterior vent pipe portion projecting further away from the exterior building wall than the inlet pipe, and the cap structure is eliminated.
Each of these conventional intake and vent pipe arrangements is subject to several well known and heretofore unsolved problems. One such problem is the tendency of the outer end of the inlet pipe to ice up, and become blocked, during freezing weather due to its proximity to the considerable moisture being discharged with the cooled combustion gases through the adjacent vent pipe. Another problem flows from the tendency of varying outdoor wind velocities and directions to cause undesirable fluctuations in the internal pressure differential across the heat exchanger which, in turn, can adversely affect the venting capabilities of the furnace. This pressure differential fluctuation arises in instances where, due to the outer end geometry of the vent and inlet pipe structure, the outdoor wind pressure at the outer end of the vent pipe is greater or larger than the wind pressure on the outer end of the inlet pipe.
In an attempt to improve the performance of the overall venting and intake system, it has previously been proposed to extend the vent pipe concentrically through a larger diameter inlet pipe passing through the exterior building wall, and to provide the outer end of the larger diameter inlet with a rain shield structure. During operation of this concentric vent termination structure, the cooled combustion gases are axially discharged from the vent pipe, and the incoming combustion air enters the termination assembly in a radial direction through the rain shield structure.
While this prior art concentric vent termination structure tends to alleviate the problem of inlet opening freeze-up, it still tends to create undesirable pressure differential deviations between the inlet and outlet sides of the furnace heat exchanger in response to variations in the outdoor wind velocity and/or direction.
From the foregoing it can be seen that a need exists for an improved horizontal vent termination assembly, for use in conjunction with high efficiency condensing furnaces of the general type described above, which eliminates or at least substantially reduces the above-mentioned problems typically associated with conventionally constructed and configured vent termination assemblies. It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide such an assembly.

High efficiency fuel fired induced draft condensing furnace with horizontal plastic vent termination assembly


In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, an apparatus is provided for a vehicle equipped with a drive system and a controller for regulating the operating speed of the drive system. The apparatus includes at least one sensor for sensing a vehicle parameter and producing a parameter signal in response to the sensed parameter. A diagnostic device is provided for receiving the parameter signal, processing the parameter signal to detect the presence of an undesirable operating condition; determining the severity of the undesirable operating condition in accordance with a preselected strategy and responsively producing a severity level signal. The controller receives the severity level signal and limits the maximum speed of the vehicle in response to the severity level signal, whereby the maximum allowable vehicle speed decreases as the severity level signal increases.

In a variety of engine-powered vehicles, monitoring devices have been employed to detect the presence of various undesirable engine operating conditions, such as overheating, low oil pressure, low fuel, electrical system faults and the like. Such systems have provided indicators, such as warning lights, for alerting an operator of these sensed conditions.
The importance of the various monitored engine conditions usually varies as to criticality. For example, an air filter for an engine or a filter for the hydraulic fluid may gradually clog during operation of the vehicle. The vehicle operator should be warned of such clogging, but generally there is no when the vehicle returns for normal servicing and maintenance. A low fuel condition requires more immediate attention from the operator A loss of engine oil pressure or a loss of hydraulic fluid represent conditions which require immediate operator attention to prevent damaging the vehicle
U.S. Pat. No. 4,184,146, which issued to Fratzke et al. on Jan. 15, 1980 and is assigned to the assignee herein, recognizes and partially addresses the above problems. Fratzke al. provides a system for warning a vehicle operator of an undesirable operating condition of one or more of a plurality of monitored operating parameters of an engine-powered vehicle. Three degrees of warning are given, depending upon the criticality of the monitored parameter. Individually energizable low-intensity warning indicators are provided for each of the monitored parameters, and a multiplexing circuit is provided for staggered pulsing of the indicators. The existence of any critical fault will cause an intermittent operation of a more intense warning device, while the existence of a highly critical fault results in an additional intermittent warning of a still greater degree of intensity.
However, if an operator ignores the warnings and continues to operate the vehicle, it is possible for the vehicle to be severely damaged. U.S. Pat. No. 5,070,832 issued to Hapka et al. is directed toward derating engine power in response to detecting certain faults relating to engine fluid levels. Hapka includes a second derate schedule for more severe fault conditions. According to this second schedule, the maximum engine speed is gradually reduced over a certain time period and to a certain percentage of the normal maximum engine rpm.
In vehicles having a hydrostatic transmission, other faults can be present that will go undetected by an engine controller such as the one disclosed in Hapka. Those other faults can detrimentally affect vehicle performance and may prevent the vehicle from being operated. For example, in a vehicle propelled using tracks, if the transmission for one of the tracks fails, then operating the other track will not allow the vehicle to move forward. Similarly, in transmissions that have a plurality of gear ratios a transmission fault could effect vehicle performance. In either of these cases, the engine may operate normally, but continued operation of the vehicle could damage the transmission or other portions of the vehicle.
It would be preferable to have a transmission monitoring and control system that limits maximum vehicle speed and vehicle direction in response to a sensed transmission fault.
Some transmission faults may not create an imminent danger of damage to the vehicle. Other faults may have a greater tendency to damage the vehicle at one level as opposed to other levels.
It would be preferable to have a transmission monitoring and control system that could classify sensed faults according to the likelihood that the fault would damage the vehicle under continued operation. Such system would preferably include a graduated reduction in maximum vehicle speed corresponding to the classification of the sensed fault.
The present invention is directed towards overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.


A multiplying digital-to-analog converter includes an operational amplifier (OP-amp) operated under a first power supply voltage and a second power supply voltage; an OP-amp input switch block coupled to a common mode voltage for selectively coupling the common mode voltage to input nodes of the OP-amp, wherein all switches included in the OP-amp input switch block are implemented utilizing PMOS transistors only, and the common mode voltage is substantially equal to the first power supply voltage; a capacitor block coupled to the OP-amp input switch block; a sampling switch block coupled to the input signal for selectively coupling the input signal to the capacitor block; a reference voltage switch block coupled to the capacitor block for selectively coupling the reference signal to the capacitor block; and a feedback switch block coupled between the capacitor block and output nodes of the OP-amp.

The present invention relates to a multiplying digital-to-analog converter (MDAC), and more particularly, to a high-speed low supply voltage MDAC.
In the field of analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a pipeline ADC is commonly employed in high speed and high-resolution analog-to-digital converting operations. One of the most important blocks in the pipeline ADC is the MDAC (Multiplying digital-to-analog converter). Conventionally, there are a plurality of MDACs in the pipeline ADC, and each MDAC is responsible for generating a residue for use in the MDAC in next stage. Furthermore, the MDAC normally consists of an operational amplifier, a capacitor block, and a switching block, wherein the capacitor block is utilized to sample an input signal for assisting the switching block, and the operational amplifier outputs the residue between the input signal and an output bit of a subADC of the pipeline ADC to the next MDAC.
According to prior art, the common mode voltages of the input signal and the output signal of the operational amplifier are set to VDD/2, wherein VDD is the supply voltage of the operational amplifier. In addition, each switch in the switching block consists of an NMOS transistor MN combined with a PMOS transistor MP as shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a switch 10 according to prior art. When the MDAC operates under a low supply voltage, such as VDD=1.2V, a dead-zone emerges at the switch 10 when the switch is in the on mode. Please refer to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between the input voltage VIN and transconductance G of the NMOS transistor MN and the PMOS transistor of the switch 10 in the on mode. A curve 11 represents the transconductance G of the NMOS transistor, while a curve 12 represents the transconductance G of the PMOS transistor. It can be seen in the diagram that a dead-zone appears when the input voltage VIN is located between a voltage VDD-VTN and a voltage |VTP|, wherein VTN is a threshold voltage of the NMOS transistor and |VTP| is the absolute threshold voltage of the PMOS transistor. In other words, the switch 10 has the dead zone if the supply voltage VDD is low. If this is the case, the capacitor block may not be able to sample the input signal correctly.
Since the common mode voltages of the input signal of the operational amplifier are set to VDD/2, the input stage of the operational amplifier should also be biased at VDD/2. It is very difficult, however, to design an input stage biased at VDD/2 when the VDD is the low supply voltage but the system still needs to operate at high speed. Therefore, designing a pipeline ADC that operates under a low supply voltage but at a high operating speed is a current challenge in the field.

Multiplying digital-to-analog converter for high speed and low supply voltage


An image scanning device is provided that includes: an imaging lens; a linear image sensor; a rotating scanning system; and a shading correction system that corrects each pixel image signal for shading in accordance with image height and a magnification of the imaging lens. The magnification of the imaging lens changes according to the rotational position of the scanning system. The image scanning device may further include a color filter and a color correction system for correcting the pixel image signals for changes of wavelength transmittance of the color filter in accordance with image height and the magnification of the imaging lens.

The present invention relates to an image scanning device that is provided with a linear image sensor and a scanning system for capturing a two dimensional image of an object.
A conventional image scanning device of this type includes a linear image sensor, such as a CCD sensor (Charge Coupled Device sensor), which includes a predetermined number of photodiodes (representing pixels) arranged in a line and aligned in a predetermined direction. The image scanning device also includes an imaging lens for forming an image on the image sensor. The image sensor captures an image of one line (a scanning line) of the object and the scanning system operates to scan the object with the linear image sensor such that the linear image sensor captures a plurality of scanning lines until an image of the entire object is captured.
Generally, the scanning system operates such that the image sensor is driven in a direction perpendicular to the alignment direction of the image sensor.
In one conventional image scanning device, the imaging lens is combined with the image sensor as a scanning unit. The scanning system then operates such that either the scanning unit is driven to scan the object ("flatbed scanner") or the object is driven such that it is scanned by the scanning unit ("portable-style scanner"). In the first case, the object is placed, for example, on a transparent plate, and then the scanning unit is moved relative to the transparent plate. Generally, the transparent plate is located closer to the scanning unit, and the range of movement of the scanning unit generally must be as large as the object, such that the image scanning device is large and bulky. In the second case, since the object is moved past the scanning unit, a structure for moving the object must be provided. A well-known example of such a scanner is generally provided with a sheet feeder, and the object is generally a sheet of paper. Also in this case, the object moves past at a relatively close position to the scanning unit.
There is also known another type of scanning system with which an image of an object apart from the scanning system can be captured. In such a scanning system ("camera-style scanner"), an imaging lens is provided that forms an image of the entire object and then the image sensor is moved along a line representing the position of the image formed by the imaging lens. In such a system, the imaging lens is required to have an effective diameter corresponding to a diagonal line of the object. Such an image scanning device may be bulky and the imaging lens may be expensive to manufacture. Further, the system must have enough internal space to allow the movement of the image sensor and the moving mechanism therefor.
Further, when using a linear image sensor in a camera-style image scanning device, an image of the object may be subject to shading near the ends of the linear image sensor, and this shading should be corrected in order to obtain a high quality image. Also, since the object distance may vary within a wide range, the shading correction may vary depending on the object distance.
Still further, in a color camera-style image scanning device that uses color filters to generate a color image, an image of the object for a particular color may be subject to variations in brightness near the ends of the linear image sensor, due to variations in wavelength transmittance of the filters according to incident angle. Thus, color correction should also be performed in order to obtain a high quality image.

Image scanning device having a linear image sensor and a scanning system


A method and apparatus for an amplifier, such as a radio frequency amplifier embodiment as an integrated circuit is disclosed. Embodiments provide for operating with good energy efficiency at multiple power levels. Resonant components act to provide consistent operating parameters over the wide range of power levels used. A compensating impedance is switched into or out of circuit in high power mode to improve the match that would pertain without the compensation. Improved compensation and linearity may be provided using features disclosed. The invention may operate in the microwave region or at other RFs.

Co-pending parent U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/760,698 discloses a method and apparatus for an amplifier, such as a IC (integrated circuit) semiconductor amplifier for RF (radio frequency) signals, including high power RF in the microwave region.
The operating parameters of the designs of the parent application can be improved in various ways by exploiting the further refinements disclosed infra.
The disclosed improved amplifier designs are capable of multiple or variable power levels and superior tradeoffs between circuit performance and cost.

Method and apparatus for compensating and improving efficiency in a variable power amplifier


A thin circuit substrate and a circuit module are arranged such that the circuit module includes an IC mounted on a circuit substrate, the IC includes an IC body and an solder bump located on a mounting surface of the IC body, and the circuit substrate includes a substrate including a recess formed by recessing a portion of a mounting surface of the substrate on which the IC is to be mounted, and a terminal protruding from the mounting surface of the substrate. The terminal is to be electrically connected to the solder bump.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit substrate, a circuit module and a method for manufacturing the circuit substrate, and more specifically, to a circuit substrate on which electronic components are to be mounted, a circuit module and a method for manufacturing the circuit substrate.
2. Description of the Related Art
For mounting an electronic component, such as an IC, on a circuit substrate, the following technique is generally applied. Flat electrode pads are arranged in an array manner on the main surface of a circuit substrate. On the main surface of an IC, solder bumps are formed in an array manner. The IC is placed on the circuit substrate in such a manner that the solder bumps are aligned with the respective electrode pads, and the solder bumps are reflowed. The solder bumps are melted to fix the electrode pads, and the IC is thus mounted on the circuit substrate.
However, the circuit substrate and the IC have different thermal expansion coefficients. Consequently, for example, the circuit substrate may be warped by heat, and, thus, this mounting technique may result in connection failure between the circuit substrate and the IC. Accordingly, Japanese Patent No. 3203731 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-45143 disclose a semiconductor device substrate on which columnar bumps, but not flat electrode pads, are formed so as to protrude from the main surface thereof.
The columnar bump has a larger height than the electrode pad and is accordingly elastic. Even if the circuit substrate is warped by heat, the columnar bump can absorb the warping. Thus, the semiconductor device substrates disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3203731 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-45143 can prevent the occurrence of connection failure between the circuit substrate and the IC.
Such a semiconductor device substrate however increases the height of the circuit substrate by the height of the columnar bumps.

Method of manufacturing a circuit substrate


An object of this invention is to eliminate graininess caused by superposition of noise on an image reproduced as a hard copy. To achieve this object, this invention provides an image forming apparatus which forms an image corresponding to bitmap image data, including a determination unit which determines from the bitmap image data an image data area where a noise component is superposed, and an image processing unit which performs halftone processing for the bitmap image data so as to decrease the resolution in at least a predetermined direction for the image data area where the noise component is superposed, in comparison with an image data area where no noise component is superposed. More preferably, image formation based on the bitmap image data having undergone halftone processing by the image processing unit is performed by electrophotography, and the image processing unit performs halftone processing by using as the predetermined direction a scanning direction in forming a latent image with a light beam. Alternatively, the image processing unit performs halftone processing by dithering, and uses a threshold matrix having a matrix size larger in at least the predetermined direction for the image data area where the noise component is superposed, in comparison with the image data area where no noise component is superposed.

In recent years, image forming apparatuses such as a printer and copying machine which print images have greatly advanced in performance. There have also been developed printing methods using various output methods such as a silver halide method, thermal method, electrophotographic method, electrostatic printing method, and ink-jet method. Such image forming apparatuses can obtain a high-quality image and are very popular. Also, the image processing technique has remarkably been developed, and various methods are adopted for high image quality.
In general, image data input to an image forming apparatus is multilevel data of about 8 bits/pixel. To output such image data from the image forming apparatus, the image data must be converted by image processing into a format processible by the image forming apparatus. The image processing technique is called halftone processing or halftoning, and includes binarization processing and multilevel processing in accordance with the form of the image forming apparatus. Typical examples of binarization processing are error diffusion and ordered dithering. In particular, an electrophotographic image forming apparatus generally employs ordered dithering (to be referred to as dithering hereinafter) in terms of high resolution and low cost of the printing apparatus and the like.
However, dithering can express only two gray levels per pixel, and the matrix size must be increased to fully express grayscale such as halftone. This seriously decreases the resolution and image quality. To solve this problem, dithering using a submatrix has been proposed, but is not an ultimate solution.
In this situation, in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus adopting a scanner as an exposure apparatus, multilevel processing called PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) has been proposed as a method of expressing halftone at high resolution. In PWM, input multilevel image data is converted into an analog voltage, and the voltage is compared with a triangular wave. The resultant signal is converted into pulse width data, the data is sent to a laser driving unit, and the laser is caused to emit a beam for a time corresponding to the pulse width. The triangular wave can be regarded as a reference signal representing a binarization threshold.
FIG. 8 shows the PWM principle. The interval between dotted lines along the abscissa in FIG. 8 represents the length of one pixel. The ordinate represents an analog voltage value to each pixel, and corresponds to the density level from the minimum density (00 h) to maximum density (ffh). In PWM, the laser emits a beam for a time when an analog voltage (image signal) corresponding to each pixel is higher than the voltage of the triangular wave. Only the exposure width in the main scanning direction serving as the scanning direction of the scanner is modulated. In each pixel, toner is applied to only a portion irradiated with a laser beam, and the toner portion is printed. In PWM, no modulation is done in the sub-scanning direction, and pixels in the sub-scanning direction are connected to form a linear screen. A screen angle can also be defined by shifting the triangular wave generation timing by a predetermined amount for each main scanning line.
In an image forming apparatus which prints an image at a high resolution of about 600 dpi, the dot size by the triangular wave as shown in FIG. 8 is very small, and the distance between dots is short. For this reason, satisfactorily stable grayscale cannot be obtained under limitations on process conditions such as the laser spot diameter, toner diameter, and transcription.
As one method of fully expressing grayscale, PWM uses a triangular wave with a wavelength two or three times longer than one pixel, as shown in FIG. 9. Grayscale can be expressed by this PWM of expressing the densities of two or three pixels at once by one dot.
In PWM, the edge of an image easily becomes jagged because of a linear screen, and the resolution is only an integer fraction of the basic resolution of the scanner. For this reason, multilevel dithering is used as another multilevel processing method capable of taking a more flexible arrangement than PWM. In multilevel dithering, at least two thresholds are prepared for each square of a dither matrix, and the number of values (levels) which can be taken by a pixel corresponding to each square after dither processing is three or more (i.e., three levels or more). Each pixel generated by multilevel dithering is printed by PWM shown in FIG. 8, and grayscale is actually visually expressed. FIG. 10 shows an example of forming grayscale dots using multilevel dithering.
In binary dithering which can only express two gray levels per pixel, the dither matrix size must be increased to increase the number of expressible gray levels, decreasing the resolution. In multilevel dithering, one pixel is expressed by at least three values, and the number of gray levels can be increased without increasing the dither matrix size. Multilevel dithering can satisfy both the number of gray levels and high resolution.
A conventional color image forming apparatus uses a dither matrix with a relatively large size in order to give priority to grayscale in an output of a photographic image. However, a large dither matrix size decreases the resolution, the reproducibility of details becomes low, and the dither matrix is seen as a mass. To prevent this, the number of gray levels per pixel of the dither matrix is increased to decrease the dither matrix size and increase the resolution.
For example, dithering using a dither matrix of 8×8 dots capable of expressing four gray levels per pixel has the same grayscale expression ability as that of dithering using a dither matrix of 4×4 dots capable of expressing 13 gray levels per pixel. In this case, when the basic resolution of the scanner of the image forming apparatus is 600 dpi, the dither resolution is 600 dpi/8=75 dpi in the use of an 8×8 dither matrix, and 600 dpi/4=150 dpi in the use of a 4×4 dither matrix. Even with the same number of gray levels, the latter can reproduce an image at a resolution which is double that of the former.
When an image is reproduced and output using a high-resolution dither matrix, a uniform highlight portion which appears on the background of a photographic image photographed by a digital camera or a gradational highlight portion becomes a grainy image, degrading the image quality. Graininess tends to further stand out when high-resolution multilevel dithering is used to output a fine photographic image, because of the following cause.
A digital camera generally uses a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) as an image sensing element. In the CCD, generation of dark current noise is inevitable. In practice, a dark current noise value is superposed on image data at a highlight portion which seems uniform at a glance or a gradational highlight portion which seems to change stepwise. This leads to image data which contains noise changing slightly at random from original image data.
In a high-resolution multilevel dither matrix, the number of gray levels expressed by one pixel increases, low-density grayscale is expressed by a small toner application amount, and the dot reproducibility becomes unstable. A highlight portion is readily influenced by unstable dots, the density does not linearly change in correspondence with a change in image data, and the density varies in uniform image data.
Variations in image data by noise at the highlight portion of a digital camera image and unstableness of the toner application amount at the highlight portion of a high-resolution dither matrix interfere with each other. Density variations become uneven, outputting a low-quality grainy image.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method


An ink jet recording apparatus provided with a supporting member to support and convey a recording medium in a prescribed direction, a recording head to emit ink onto the recording medium, an activation energy ray irradiation unit which irradiates an activation energy ray on the ink emitted on the recording medium, and an activation energy ray absorption section formed by coating or mixing an activation energy ray absorption material, including an inorganic material, at a portion where the activation energy ray is irradiated.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to ink jet recording apparatuses, and in particular, to ink jet recording apparatuses provided with the function of reducing the reflected light of ultraviolet rays emitted from an ultraviolet ray emitting apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, ink jet recording apparatuses have been known as recording apparatuses that can print on various types of recording media typified by ordinary copying paper. An ink jet recording apparatus is a recording apparatus that forms images on the recording medium by emitting ink, which is the color material, directly onto the recording medium from nozzles provided on the surface of the recording head that is facing the recording medium, and making the ink land on, penetrate or get fixed onto the recording medium, and has excellent features in terms of the simplicity of the process, quietness during printing, and the quality of printing and printed images.
Recently, in ink jet recording apparatuses, there are situations in which image recording is done using as the recording medium various types of materials such as plastic or metal that do not have ink absorption capacity, and in such situations, in order to fix the ink on such recording media, it is very common to use photo-hardening type ink. Usually, in an ink jet recording apparatus using such photo-hardening type ink, an ultraviolet light radiating unit would have been installed in the apparatus for hardening the ink, and at the time of recording images on the recording media, immediately after causing the ink to land on the recording medium, the ink is hardened and fixed by irradiating the ink with ultraviolet light from a light source provided in the ultraviolet light radiating unit under some constant conditions enabling hardening of the ink such as the duration of radiation and number of times of irradiation.
As an ink jet recording apparatus provided with an ultraviolet light radiating unit described above, an ink jet recording apparatus 101 has been developed such as the one shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5. This ink jet recording apparatus 101 is provided with an ultraviolet light radiating unit 102 and a recording head 103 that can move freely in the left-right direction in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 (hereinafter referred to as the main scanning direction X), and the ultraviolet light radiating unit 102 moves in the main scanning direction X in combination with the movement of the recording head in the left-right direction.
However, when the ultraviolet light radiating unit 102 is placed at the home position A shown in FIG. 4 or the head movement direction changing position B shown in FIG. 5, that is, at a position at which it is not placed opposite the top surface of the platen 104, there was the problem that the reflected light of the ultraviolet light emitted from the ultraviolet light radiating unit 102 is irradiated onto the nozzle of the recording head 103, thereby causing the ink accumulated in the recording head 103 to get hardened.
In view of this, as a ink jet recording apparatus in which it is possible to prevent the clogging of the ink path of the recording head 103 due to hardening of the ink, as is shown in FIG. 6, an ink jet recording apparatus 111 has been developed (see, for example, Patent Document 1) in which plate members 105 and 106 that prevent reflection of ultraviolet light towards the recording head 103 have been placed in the regions of the home position A and the head movement direction changing position B so that they are in close contact with the bottom surface of the ultraviolet light radiating unit 102.
Further, in the case of an ink jet recording apparatus using photo-hardening type ink, because the ultraviolet light emitted from the ultraviolet light radiating unit was getting reflected at the top surface of the platen after the recording medium had passed and was irradiated on the emitting surface of the recording head, any ink or ink mist adhering to the nozzle was getting hardened. Because of this, there was the problem that the ink emitting ability was getting reduced and it was difficult to reproduce images in a stable manner.
Therefore, as an ink jet recording apparatus capable of reproducing high resolution images in a stable manner, an ink jet recording apparatus has been developed (see, for example, Patent Document 2), in which an ultraviolet light absorption section has been formed by coating an ultraviolet light absorbing material that includes an organic material (hereinafter referred to as an organic ultraviolet light absorbing material) on the top surface of the platen.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Open to Public Inspection No. 2004-338264.
Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Open to Public Inspection No. 2003-276256.
Here, in the case of the ink jet recording apparatus 111 disclosed in Patent Document 1 as described above, the purpose is to prevent the reflected light of the ultraviolet light emitted from the ultraviolet light radiating unit 102 placed at a position that is not opposite to the platen 104.
However, as is shown in FIG. 7, in case the ultraviolet light radiating unit 102 is placed at a position opposite to the platen 104, since the height of the gap S formed below the recording head 103 changes depending on the thickness of the recording medium P supported by the platen 104, when a rigid base material such as a plate material with a large thickness is used for the recording medium P, the height of the gap S is widely different when compared at a position above the rigid base material and at a position away from the base material.
Therefore, if the ultraviolet light radiating unit 102 is placed at a position above the surface of the platen 104 and separated from the rigid base material, there was the problem that the ink or ink mist adhered to the nozzle of the recording head 103 was likely to get hardened because of the increase in the amount of light radiated onto the recording head 103 by the radiated ultraviolet light after being reflected from the top surface of the platen 104 due to the increase in the height of the gap S.
On the other hand, in the case of the ink jet recording apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 2 as described above, although the ultraviolet light passing through the recording medium is absorbed by the ultraviolet light absorbing section provided on the platen, however, because the organic ultraviolet light absorbing material forming the ultraviolet light absorbing section gets dissociated due to irradiation with ultraviolet light, there was the problem that the ultraviolet light absorption effect in the ultraviolet light absorption section decreased substantially.
The present invention was made considering the points mentioned above, and the purpose of the present invention is to provide an ink jet recording apparatus that can prevent the hardening of the ink or ink mist adhered to the nozzle even when the thickness dimension of the recording medium is large.


A toothed belt drive with compression span comprising a first sprocket, a second sprocket, a toothed belt having a toothed belt length and trained between the first sprocket and the second sprocket, a first linear guide member in cooperative relation to and disposed a predetermined distance (B) from the toothed belt, a second linear guide member in cooperative relation to and disposed a predetermined distance (B) from the toothed belt, and the toothed belt length greater than a drive length such that the toothed belt forms a free-standing arcuate span between the first sprocket and the second sprocket on a toothed belt compression span.

The initial installation tension is the most critical factor to a successful synchronous belt drive. A synchronous belt drive is used to drive machines where a timed or synchronous condition is required. A synchronous belt uses a toothed belt to achieve the desired timing effect.
The conventional synchronous belt drive requires the tension ratio, which is defined as the ratio between the tight side tension and slack side tension, to be about eight (8) for good results. Using a tension ratio of about 8 proves to be a good approach for the constant load drive, for example, the fan drive, conveyer belt drive, and so on.
With high quality synchronous belt development, automotive industries explored the possibility of using synchronous belts to replace the metal chain for the transfer case applications. The traditional transfer case uses a metal chain to split the power from the engine to drive the front wheel and rear wheels. This arrangement requires a chain guide, sealed case, and oil lubrication. The advantage of the belt drive is the complete elimination of the oil, for a so-called dry transfer case.
The challenge of a dry transfer case is the belt initial installation tension. Because the large variation of the torque passing through the transfer case, if a tension ratio of 8 is used the required initial tension is significantly high. The high initial tension results in a poor drive efficiency and belt noise. On the other hand, if the initial tension is too low, the belt may jump a tooth when high torque is encountered.
The concept of using belt backward buckling to achieve the zero tension drive has been explored in the prior art. The idea is to use a belt pitch length longer than the drive length, and let the belt buckle backward on the slack side span. In the prior art device two bearings are placed at the exit and entrance of the slack span and serve as the guide to lead the belt into the desired backward buckling. When the forward torque is applied, the extra belt length is taken up by the backward buckling that forms an arc shape. The belt back bending stiffness is relevant to allowing the belt buckling in the backward direction.
In comparison to a metal chain drive, there is no bending stiffness due to the flexible chain link connections, therefore making it impossible to achieve the backward buckling.
Representative of the art is U.S. Pat. No. 8,308,589 which discloses a belt and chain drive for vehicles or for use in drive technology with an input shaft and an output shaft supported on a frame, the input shaft and the output shaft project out of the frame, with the following features: a) gear transmissions with gear wheels, which are embodied as belt and chain drives, are located between the input shaft and the output shaft, b) all of the gear wheels are constantly in rotation during operation, c) the gear transmissions located between the input shaft and the output shaft are embodied as belt and chain drives with toothed belts as traction mechanisms and with pulleys as gear wheels, d) the traction mechanism are reinforced with aramid, Kevlar, carbon fibers or other fibrous materials, is characterized in that e) the traction mechanism is pressed into a kidney-like shape onto the pulleys by at least one component during no-load rotation, and that under the effect of load this component does not touch the traction mechanism, and f) the kidney-like shape of the traction mechanism during no-load rotation is formed by a convex curvature of the driving side and by a concave curvature of the slack side, and g) the kidney-like shape of the traction mechanisms under load is formed by a straight shape of the driving side and by an intensified concave curvature of the slack side.
What is needed is a toothed belt drive having a drive length which is less than a toothed belt length such that the toothed belt forms a free-standing arcuate span between the first sprocket and the second sprocket on a toothed belt compression span. The present invention meets this need.


Systems, methods, and modes for automatic disposal of sharps in a medical environment via a pneumatic tube system and without a dedicated carrier from one of a plurality of dispersed sending stations to a secured central location. The system comprises a plurality of sending stations, a receiving stations routably connected to the plurality of sending stations via the pneumatic tubing and comprising a receiving container configured for storing sharps received via multiple deliveries, and a pump configured for creating a pressure differentiation within the pneumatic tubing for transmitting the sharps from one of the sending stations to the receiving station. The receiving container may be replaced by another receiving container when the receiving container is full.

Technical Field
Aspects of the embodiments relate to safe disposal of sharps, and more specifically to systems, methods, and modes for automatic disposal of sharps to a secured central location via pneumatic tubing.
Background Art
Sharps waste is classified as biomedical and biohazardous waste that consist of used objects or devices that were implemented in medical care or in medical or industrial research to puncture or lacerate the skin. Sharps can be made of metal, glass, or plastic and contain sharp or rigid points, corners, edges, or protrusions that can pierce, cut, slice, or scrape the skin. Examples of sharps waste include needles, syringes with and without needles, hypodermic and tubing, acupuncture needles, suture needles, tubing with needles, scalpel blades, blood vials, exposed ends of dental wires, broken glass or capillary tubes, culture dishes and slides, lancets, pipettes, root canal files, trauma scene waste that can cut, slice or pierce, or the like. Sharps are used to treat diabetes, arthritis, cancer, and other diseases, or to obtain blood samples for research to identify diseases.
Unfortunately, used sharps are very dangerous to humans and pets as they can cause accidental needle sticks, cuts, and punctures that can cause serious health conditions, spread infections, and transmit blood-borne diseases. The most common infections include hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Consequently, used sharps must be carefully handled and immediately disposed of after use. Proper sharps disposal also helps protecting the environment.
Used sharps are commonly disposed using dedicated sharps disposal containers dispersed throughout the hospitals in rooms where sharps are utilized, such as patient rooms, emergency rooms (ER), operating rooms (OR), and phlebotomy rooms. These containers are generally made of puncture-resistant plastic and leak-resistant bottom, sides, and lid. Routinely the containers are scheduled for pick up on the floors and placed in a contaminated area at a predesignated contaminated floor enclosure. Then the containers are routinely placed in a contaminated area near the loading dock or an area near an incinerator, in a few instances. Containers picked up by a waste management company are generally brought to a predetermined U.S. Government approved location, where they are emptied, decontaminated, and returned for reuse. If the sharps are emptied into an incinerator, the emptied containers are decontaminated and reused.
From the moment sharps waste is produced, it must be handled as little as possible to reduce risk of injury. Yet, the aforementioned disposal methods require prolonged handling of sharps until they can be properly disposed. The sharps have to be placed in containers, the containers must be collected by personnel from each hospital location and transported to the designated area. Moreover, the containers are accessible to unauthorized personnel, including patients and children. They may also get overfilled and if not emptied timely may increase the risk of accidental needle-stick injury.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for systems, methods, and modes for automatic and safe disposal of sharps to a secured central location via pneumatic tubing that entails minimal amount of handling.