Providing a network service is disclosed. A data associated with the service is received. It is determined whether a local context associated with the service is in an active state with respect to the service. The data is redirected to another chassis, via an inter-chassis backup connection, if it is determined that the local context is not in an active state with respect to the service.

A subscriber host may be reachable across a provider network via two or more pseudowires or other connections or paths. A pseudowire may be used to transport Ethernet frames, or other layer two data, via a layer three network, such as an IP network. Pseudowires have been used, for example, to transport Ethernet frame across a provider network, e.g., between provider edge routers, to provide services such as virtual leased line (VLL) and virtual private network (VPN) services. In some contexts, a subscriber host, or a group of hosts, may be served by a DSLAM or other access node that has access to a core provider network via two or more separate provider edge switches/routers, each of which may be reached by an endpoint at a far end of the core provider network by a different pseudowire or other connection. In some embodiments, the pseudowires may be associated with a particular service, subscriber, or other context with which the subscriber host is associated.
In such a configuration, it may be desirable to ensure that traffic associated with the subscriber host and/or the service or other context with which it is associated, pass through a designated one of a plurality of switches/routers (or other chassis) via which the subscriber host has connectivity to the core provider network, for example to facilitate accounting and other recordkeeping and/or to enforce policies such as service level agreements, quality of service commitments, etc. In addition, it is desirable that traffic not be lost or delayed unduly in the event of a link failure and/or switchover to a standby state, as could occur if a switch/router simply stopped forwarding, accepting, and/or receiving traffic associated with a service or other context with respect to which it has entered a standby state and/or with respect to which it has suffered a link or other failure.

Redundant far-end pseudo-wire connectivity


A method of forming a tungsten nitride thin film in an integrated circuit includes preparing a silicon substrate on a silicon wafer and placing the silicon wafer in a heatable chuck in a CVD vacuum chamber; placing a known quantity of a tungsten source in a variable-temperature bubbler to provide a gaseous tungsten source; setting the variable-temperature bubbler to a predetermined temperature; passing a carrier gas through the variable-temperature bubbler and carrying the gaseous tungsten source with the carrier gas into the CVD vacuum chamber; introducing a nitrogen-containing reactant gas into the CVD vacuum chamber; reacting the gaseous tungsten source and the nitrogen-containing reactant gas above the surface of the silicon wafer in a deposition process to deposit a WxNy thin film on the surface of the silicon wafer; and completing the integrated circuit containing the WxNy thin film.

In the semiconductor industry, tungsten thin films are usually deposited through use of a WF6 precursor and a H2 or SiH4 carrier gas. This process, however, is not able to form a WN thin film from a WF6 precursor and a NH3 reactant gas, because, when WF6 is used, there is always a fluorine contamination problem. This requires deposition of an extra barrier layer, such as TiN, to prevent direct contact of Si or SiO2 and WF6. See Yu et al., Critical Surface Reactions in the CVD of Tungsten by WF6 and WF6/SiH4 Mixtures, Materials Research Society, 1989, pp 221–230.

MOCVD of tungsten nitride thin films using W(CO)


The present invention relates to a luminescent rare earth compound and dichroism fluorescent composition thereof, and more particularly, the luminescent rare earth compound is a luminescent rare earth compound excited by shortwave UV (Ultra-Violet).

The present invention relates to a luminescent rare earth complex compound excited by narrow band UV. This compound generally emits strong red and blue visible ray wavelengths excited by UV light source of 240 nm-330 nm wavelength range.
Although the compound and mixtures thereof according to the present invention is colorless under reaction of daylight, when UV is excited, fluorescence appears in different colors in response to coupled state of metal ions and ligand. This UV complex compound may be widely employed for industry and bank security using luminous characteristics. The conventional luminous materials used for security feature in industry and bank fields were excited by near ultraviolet rays of 360 nm˜380 nm wavelength range.
The present invention is thus provided to satisfy needs of bank markets requiring a higher level of security and distinguishing from the conventional luminescent materials. In order to apply same to security-needed products, the luminescence characteristics can be demonstrated from coating and plastic molding only when luminous efficiency of complex compound is high, and heat resistance, light resistance and dispersibility are high as well.
Thus, although inorganic fluorescent substances show a high luminance at narrow band, the luminance characteristics abruptly decrease due to broken crystals during ink manufacturing. The lanthanides ionic compound may be widely applied to various fields such as fluorescent marks and fluorescence analyzing OLEDs due to long luminescence (light emitting) time, strong light emission and long Strokes' shift and narrow luminescence.
The electronic structure of rare earth ion (Ln3+) is relatively and effectively shielded by 5S2 and 5P6, which are outer orbital functions, such that there is no covalent bond, and only electrostatic bond becomes available in response to interaction between surrounding negative ions and dipolar molecules. The energy level of 4fb electronic shell of rare earth metal has the same parity, such that transition between 4fn-4fn is prohibited. On the contrary, due to mixture with odd-parity wavelength function, 4fn-4fn-15d1 transition or charge transfer (4fn-4fn-15L1, L=ligand) occurs, and partially changed to admissible state. Thus, a radiant cross-sectional area of absorption and luminescence is small on a solid state, and as a result, the luminescence time is very long as much as to a level of ms to thereby generate a luminescence of a narrow line width. Furthermore, this transition is very sensitive to environment of ligand coordinated about lanthanoids ions to generally demonstrate a characteristic of very strong absorption transition or emission transition when meeting with complex ligand over a simple coordination environment (See "Rare earth coordination chemistry: Fundamentals and Application, CHUNHUI HUANG, Wiley, 2010").
Thus, in order to design a rare earth compound having excellent characteristics of high luminescence and durability, it is important to perform a research related on the ligand. The major ligands include cryptands, calixarenes, β-diketones, macrocyclic ligands, carboxylic acid derivatives, heterobiary ligand (See "Europium: Compounds, production and Application", Lucia M., Nova Science Publishers, Inc., New York, 2009″).
This compound produces a strong luminescence due to antenna effect where strong absorption is generated from ligand, and energy effectively moves from ligand to central metal. Among these ligands, the europium-β-diketonate complex has received many researches, where the excited wavelength or energy transfer efficiency is influenced by substituents added to skeleton of β-diketonate complex. That is, the responded luminescence intensity of β-diketonate complex is greatly influenced by various substituents such as methyl, trifluoromethyl, phenyl, thiophenyl, poly aromatic monomer. Red fluorescent ink complex applied with europium-diketonate complex is known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,486,350 B2 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,108,742 B2. Although these complexes all emit a strong red color in solid and liquid phases, these complexes suffer from disadvantages of high solubility relative to solvent, low light stability and low heat stability. Most of these complexes showed luminescence characteristic when irradiated in near ultraviolet ray wavelength range of 360 nm-380 nm, and showed no luminescence characteristic when irradiated in near ultraviolet ray wavelength range of 240 nm˜330 nm.

Luminescent rare earth element compound and dichroic phosphor composition containing same

Abstract: The luminescent rare earth compound and/or products applied with the luminescent rare earth compound according to the present invention can emit strong red and green colors by being excited at 240-330 nm range of wavelengths, while not being excited at 360-380 nm range of wavelengths, and showing no colors under visible light.

Abstract: Furthermore, the compound may be variably utilized to printed materials and plastic mold products because of possessing high heat resistance, high light resistance and high dispersibility of medium light. In addition, compositions emitting respectively different colors at mutually different wavelength ranges can be provided by mixing the luminescent rare earth compound according to the present invention with other excited luminescent compounds.


An escrow vending machine has a secure, locking cabinet; a dispenser for cards or other merchandise; a bill acceptor, coin acceptor or similar cash acceptor; and a controller board within the cabinet and connected to the dispenser and to the cash acceptor. The dispenser contains a supply of prepaid telephone cards or other merchandise, and dispenses them one at a time in response to a control signal. The cash acceptor accepts and registers units of cash, e.g., dollars, and generates a pulse or other signal for each unit accepted. The controller board has an input that receives the cash signal from the cash acceptor and an output supplying the control signal to the dispenser. An escrow counter or register accumulates an escrow count of the pulses or cash signals. This enables the controller board to supply the control signal when the count in the escrow register equals or exceeds a preset number that represents a price or value. When this happens, the controller board stores the difference between the escrow count and preset number as a new escrow count. Then, when additional units of cash are inserted into the cash acceptor, and the latter produces additional cash signals, the escrow register counts up to increase the new escrow count. This enables the controller board to supply the control signal again when the new escrow count again equals or exceeds the preset number.

This invention relates to dispensing mechanisms, and is more particularly directed to devices for vending items, e.g., pre-paid debit cards (such as telephone long-distance calling cards) when a customer has deposited a predetermined amount of money into a coin and/or currency acceptor device.
Self-service card vending machines have become popular at locations where customers are likely to need to make local, regional, or long-distance calls. These machines are frequently located at airports, convenience stores, college student centers, and near pay telephone banks. The cards typically carry a toll-free access number, and a code or PIN number that the customer also dials for authority to connect to a distant party. Each card has a unique PIN number, which must be activated at the long-distance company at or before the time that the card is sold to the customer. These cards are variously referred to as phone cards, long distance cards, prepaid phone cards, debit cards, or telecards. These cards typically come in denominations such as $10, $20, or $50, which can correspond to 30 minutes, 60 minutes, or 150 minutes of long-distance calling time, respectively.
The current state of the art in card vending mechanisms requires the card dispenser to be interfaced with a main control board that is in turn connected to the currency acceptor or coin acceptor. This requires the vending company to purchase three separate parts, and to hook-up the three parts, namely the money acceptor, the controller board, and the card vender. The card venders are set up to dispense a single debit card when the controller provides the dispenser with a single impulse. This limits the flexibility of the device, and causes a problem when the customer inserts more value than the money required to purchase a single card.
The vending machine market has many types of dispenser mechanisms that are interfaced to a main control board. However, no one in the vending machine market incorporates a special, miniature controller board within the dispenser to solve the problem of having an external controller board.


A near field light emitting element has a first film made of e.g. Al, an intermediate film made of e.g. SiN and a second film made of e.g. Al on an emergent surface of a solid immersion lens made of a high-refractive material. A first hole is made in the first film, and a second hole is made in the second film. The second hole is smaller in area than the first hole.

This application is based on application No. 11-23969 filed in Japan, the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a near field light emitting element and an optical head which are suited to be employed in a high density optical memory (for recording/reading), a high resolution microscope or an optical processing device.
2. Description of Related Art
In the art of optical memories which optically record and read information, in recent years, with speed-up of computer processing and development of multimedia, high-density devices which are capable of recording an extremely large volume of information are demanded, and in order to comply with the demand, a near field optical recording technique is suggested. In a conventional optical memory using a laser beam, the recording density is limited depending on the diffraction limit of light, and such an optical memory can record and read marks of sizes of at least light wavelength (several hundred nanometers). A recently proposed optical memory which uses near field optics radiates light to a recording medium (optical disk) for recording/reading with the optical head and the recording medium arranged at an interval of only some dozen nanometers. At this time, the optical memory uses a fiber probe with a minuscule aperture smaller than light wavelength and a solid immersion lens. Thereby, in spite of the diffraction limit, it becomes possible to record and read minuscule marks of some dozen nanometers.
Such a near field optical technique is applicable to optical processing techniques for making minuscule patterns beyond the diffraction limit of light and to high resolution microscopes.
In the field of near field optical techniques, optical probes which permit minuscule light spots of a large quantity of light are desired. By adopting a method in which an aperture is made at a tapered end of an optical fiber, the size of the aperture is approximately 100 nm, and only {fraction (1/100)} or less of light can transmit the optical fiber, that is, the quantity of transmitted light is extremely small.
In order to solve this problem, making a tapered hole by anisotropic etching of a silicon substrate has been suggested (U.S. Pat. No. 5,689,480). By adopting this method, it is possible to increase the quantity of transmitted light. In this method, however, the hole is made in a film of monocrystal silicon by anisotropic etching, which is complicated and costs much.
An object of the present invention is to provide a near filed light emitting element and an optical head which can be fabricated in simple processes and use light efficiently.
In order to attain the object, a near field light emitting element according to the present invention comprises an element body; a first light transmitting portion which is provided on an emergent side of the element body; an intermediate film which is provided on an emergent side of the first light transmitting portion; and a second light transmitting portion which is provided on an emergent side of the intermediate film, the second light transmitting portion being smaller in area than the first transmitting portion. As the element body, for example, a solid immersion lens is used. At least one of the light transmitting portions is a minuscule hole made in a film or a minuscule light transmitting portion which is provided in a multi-layered film by alloying materials of the multi-layered film with each other under a high temperature.
According to the present invention, a light beam incident to the near field light emitting element is converged on the first light transmitting portion, and this converged light comes to the second light transmitting portion via the intermediate film. At the second light transmitting portion, the light beam is further narrowed and is emergent as near field light (in other words, optical near field). The light transmittance of the near field light is higher than the light transmittance when a conventional single slit is used and is almost equal to or higher than the light transmittance when a tapered slit is used.
Further, the first and second light transmitting portions and the intermediate film of the near field light emitting element can be formed by a conventional thin film forming technique and a conventional etching technique, which are easier than the method wherein a monocrystal silicon film is subjected to anisotropic etching.
Further, in the near field light emitting element according to the present invention, preferably, the first and second light transmitting portions are slits which extend in parallel to each other. In this case, the width of the second light transmitting portion (slit) is smaller than the width of the first light transmitting portion (slit). Although desired transmittance can be obtained merely with this arrangement, the transmittance can be further improved by making the direction of polarization of incident light correspond to the extending direction of the slits.

Near field light emitting element and optical head

Japan as represented by Director-General of Agency of Industrial Scientific and Technology


A system is disclosed comprising memory configured to store a temperature value based on a cost of a given energy resource, wherein the cost-based temperature value differs from a temperature value based on a temperature schedule. The system also comprises a controller operatively coupled to the memory and configured to compare the cost-based temperature value to the schedule-based temperature value, and to direct one of a cooling system and a heating system to maintain a temperature of an environment at the one of the cost-based temperature value and the schedule-based temperature value that results in an energy cost savings.

The subject matter disclosed herein relates to energy management, and more particularly to energy management effectuated by controlling temperature levels associated with a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system based on energy prices.
Many utilities are currently experiencing a shortage of electric generating capacity due to increasing consumer demand for electricity. Traditionally, utilities generally charge a flat rate, but with increasing cost of fuel prices and high energy usage at certain parts of the day, utilities have to buy more energy to supply customers during peak demand. Consequently, utilities are charging higher rates during peak demand. If peak demand can be lowered, then a potential huge cost savings can be achieved and the peak load that the utility has to accommodate is lessened. In order to reduce high peak power demand, many utilities have instituted time of use metering and rates which include higher rates for energy usage during on-peak times and lower rates for energy usage during off-peak times. As a result, consumers are provided with an incentive to use electricity at off-peak times rather than on-peak times.
Traditionally, to take advantage of the lower cost of electricity during off-peak times, a consumer typically manually operates an HVAC system during the off-peak times. For example, during off-peak times the consumer in cool mode can decrease the setpoint temperature of the HVAC system and during on-peak times the consumer can increase the setpoint temperature of the HVAC system and/or turn the HVAC system off. Control of the setpoint temperature is typically through a thermostat or a user interface/display associated with the thermostat. This user-managed approach is undesirable because the consumer may not always be present in the home to operate the system during off-peak hours. This is also undesirable because the consumer is required to manually track the current time to determine what hours are off-peak and on-peak.
One proposed third party solution is to provide an energy management system where a controller "switches" the actual energy supply to the HVAC system on and off. However, there is no active control beyond the mere on/off switching. There are also currently different methods used to determine when variable electricity-pricing schemes go into effect. Also, different electrical utility companies can use different methods of communicating periods of high electrical demand to their consumer, for example, phone lines, schedules, and wireless signals sent by the electrical utility company. Other electrical utility companies simply have rate schedules for different times of day.
Unfortunately, these existing energy management approaches require some unacceptable degree of user interaction and/or, when more fully automated, can result in undesirable temperature levels in the environment being managed.

Temperature control based on energy price


A paintbrush support apparatus for use in a container and a method of controlling the depth bristles of the brush may be dipped into paint in the container, as the paint level falls in the container. The brush support apparatus includes a rotatable disk that is adapted to accommodate the bristles of a brush resting thereon. The disk is physically configured to have an annular, helical thread configuration that cooperates with a mating helical thread structure that is adapted for inclusion in the container. Rotation of the disk causes the disk to move to varying levels in the container from a top of the mating helical thread structure to a bottom of the mating thread structure adjacent the bottom of the container.

In today's do-it-yourself culture, it would be difficult to find a do-it-yourselfer who has not at some time taken a paintbrush in hand to paint or repaint some aspect of his dwelling or its contents. When the job is bigger than a simple touch-up task, paint is often purchased by the quart or the gallon. It is quite common for the painter to simply open the container, make sure the paint is well mixed and then dip the bristles of the paintbrush into the paint, moistening the tips of the bristles with paint. Once the lower end of the bristles of the brush is moistened with paint to a predetermined height, the paint is transferred from the brush bristles to a surface to be painted. Then the brush is re-dipped in the paint. Care is required so as not to re-dip the bristles into the paint to a higher level on the bristles than on the initial dip. Individuals who paint infrequently may not be fully aware that the paintbrush bristles in a region near the end of the bristles are designed to provide a wicking action of the paint up into the bristles to provide optimum delivery of paint from container-to brush-to surface-to-be-painted. When the bristles of the brush are inserted in the paint such that the designed paint carrying capacity of the bristles is exceeded, there is a great tendency for paint to drip from the brush's bristles. As the painting progresses, it is common for a painter to find himself discouraged by what seems to be slow progress. In order to speed up the painting, it is common to dip the bristles of the brush deeper into the paint only to discover that the moment the brush's bristles have been dipped past a point where a metal band secures the bristles to the handle of the brush, there is suddenly too much paint on the brush. When the painter is applying paint to a surface above his head and he attempts to carry too much paint on the brush, the result is often paint running back over the paintbrush handle and onto the fingers of his hand holding the brush. This over-dipping is most often brought on by the painter's zeal to get on with the task of getting the paint onto a surface. Unwittingly the painter has sabotaged the useful life of his paintbrush, for the moment the paintbrush is dipped in the paint to a point above where the bristles are secured to the brush by the metal band, the bristles that are encased in the metal band become moistened with paint and quickly wick paint from the bristles up into the metal band where the bristles are secured to the handle. To their dismay, almost all do-it-yourself painters have had this experience, when the painting is finished and the brush has been cleaned up for later use, a close look at the brush reveals that paint is entrapped between bristles beneath the metal band that secures the bristles to the brush handle. Diligent applications of a wire brush to the bristles to remove old paint from the brush bristles adjacent the metal band appear to be successful. At a later date when the paintbrush is used again, the user is dismayed to discover that bristles of the brush adjacent the metal, which appeared soft and flexible at the end of the brush cleaning process, are now quite stiff. The delivery of paint is nowhere as easy as it was during the first use of the brush. Most people will agree painting is a pleasant experience when they have in hand a high quality, expensive paintbrush, having top quality bristles that are shaped to deliver optimum amounts of paint to a surface to be painted. It does not take many painting experiences of the type described above for a budget minded do-it-yourselfer to skip buying an expensive brush that he will probably ruin, and buy the cheapest brush. This cheap brush will have inferior paint carrying and application performance, but it can be thrown away when the task is done. It is common for experienced painters who paint all day long to discover that as the day progresses, the accuracy of their brush dipping skill tends to falter as they move up and down ladders and the paint level in the container changes as paint is removed.
A paintbrush holder which allows a paintbrush to be incrementally lowered into a paint can as paint is removed from the can by means of the brush is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,864 ('864) to Earl I. Lakier issued Aug. 21, 1990. The '864 provides a plate structure that rests in a pivotal manner on a top edge of the can, whereas another end of the plate is adjustably secured to an opposing edge of the can. A paintbrush may be placed upon the plate structure and as the plate is adjustably pivoted the plate moves down into paint in the container so as to adjust the depth to which a brush's bristles may be adjustably lowered into the paint.
An inherent drawback in the paintbrush holder of the '864 resides in the requirement that the brush holder be removed completely from the paint can and thoroughly washed between uses. A flexible, ratchet-type tie, secured to the adjustable end of the plate and the edge of the can, provides an inherent mating structure that may easily become fouled by paint that drips from a paintbrush as the brush is removed from the brush holder and excess paint is wiped from the brush across a lip adjacent the ratchet tie.
By its very design, the paintbrush support apparatus of the '864 patent requires that between uses the brush rests on its side against the support plate. During these moments between uses, paint inadvertently dripped or wiped from the brushes onto the surface of the support plate comes into direct contact with the brush bristles adjacent the metal band, which allows paint to be drawn into the bristles under the metal band. The long-term effect of this inadvertent wicking of paint drawn into bristles under the metal band eventually reduces the useful life of the paintbrush.
The subject invention avoids all the drawbacks of the '864 patent by providing an elegantly simple apparatus that may be readily added to any paint container and retained therein, covered by a lid, for subsequent use.


The method of self-calibrating for a sensor without using an additional device by using data sampling, an approximate value of linear errors obtained by performing the numerical integration of approximate values of a linear-error derivative, correcting the approximate value of the input value at each sampling point, and repeating the processing for correcting the approximate value of the linear error by necessary times.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a self-calibration method for sensors such as a displacement sensor, an angular sensor and so on.
2. Related Art
In developing displacement sensors and angular sensors on the order of nanometers and nano-radians, in addition to improving the accuracy thereof, it is difficult to obtain a calibration criterion that assures the accuracy thereof. Conventionally, to calibrate wavelength interpolation error of an interference displacement meter, a method using an X-ray interferometer (D. K. Bowen et al, "Subnanometer transducer characterization by X-ray interferometry", Precision Engineering, 12, 3 (1990) 165) and a non-linearity error compensating method using a linear drive range of a PZT (W. How and G. Wilkening, "Investigation and compensation of the non-linearity of heterodyne intergerometers", Precision Engineering, 14, 2 (1992) 91) have been proposed.
However, it is difficult for users to use the former method. On the other hand, in the latter method, it is difficult to determine whether or not calibrations have been correctly performed. In addition, most of such precision sensors require precise adjustments. Therefore, it is necessary to calibrate them in situ condition in such a manner that they are mounted in units. However, the conventional methods do not satisfy such needs.
To solve such a problem, the inventor of the present invention has proposed a self-calibration method for linearity errors of displacement sensors and angular sensors. In general, to obtain calibration data of a conventional sensor, a sensor system that has a higher accuracy than a sensor to be calibrated is required. In the self-calibration method, such an accurate sensor system is not required. The self-calibration that the inventor of the present invention has proposed are described in (1) Kiyono, Morishima, and Sugibuchi, "Self-calibration method against linearity errors for displacement meters", Journal of the Japan Society for Precision Engineering, 59, 12 (1993) 2043, (2) Kiyono, Ge, and Nishino, "High accuracy of interferometer by self-calibration of interpolation error", Journal of the Japan Society for Precision Engineering, 62, 2 (1996) 279, (3) Kiyono and Zhang, "Study of high accuracy self-calibration method for angular sensor", Journal of the Japan Society for Precision Engineering, 60, 11 (1994) 1591, and so forth.
In the self-calibration method for a displacement sensor, a reference sensor that is the same type of a sensor to be calibrated (hereinafter referred to as object sensor) is prepared. In addition, a lever system that allows the reference sensor to detect the n times the displacement of the object sensor is used. Thus, when the object sensor is calibrated with the reference sensor, the linearity error of the calibration result is decreased to 1/n by the lever system. By repeating the mutual calibrations, the linearity error can be converged to almost zero.
In the self-calibration method that the inventors of the present invention have proposed, the lever system that enlarges the calibration input values and the object sensor are required. Thus, it is difficult to calibrate a sensor in situ condition that the sensor is mounted in a unit. To accomplish such in situ calibration, a method that does not require an additional sensor and a lever system is desired.


A kind of anti-adhesion device for a relay. The device can include a control circuit and adhesion detecting circuit of first and second relays, which are used to respectively control power on and power off of the first and second electric heater. Closing a switch of the control circuit of the first and second relays is used to lead out the line and the output elements of the adhesion detecting circuit, to form a detecting loop. An interlocking circuit is bridged between the control circuit of the first and second relay. Therefore the first and second relay won't be closed at the same time, to avoid the fault caused by parallel connection of electric heaters. The adhesion detecting circuit can output a square wave when a relay has adhesion. The square wave avoids mixing with a low level output of the detecting circuit.

The invention relates to a detecting control device that may be used for an electric heater circuit, especially a kind of anti-adhesion device for a relay, which belongs to detecting control circuit technology.
A relay can be used to control the heating element of a water heater. Because the relay is used to control a big current loop, serious failures endanger the application of the water heater. Exemplary failures include continuous heating, parallel connection of heating elements, and current overload caused due to invalid adhesion of the relay (e.g., lack of operation or ON at all times). It was found through search that Chinese Patent ZL201020604497.5 discloses a kind of anti-adhesion technical scheme for a relay, which is of the function of relay adhesion detection, but with its own defects: when judged whether the relay is adhered according to the detecting signal is low level or not, the circumstances such as detecting circuit failure hasn't been considered, because no judgment will be made under this condition, so as to influence the stability of the whole detection system. Additionally, the function of adhesion detection and interlocking control of the relay can't be realized simultaneously in this technical scheme.

Kind of anti-adhesion device, a heating apparatus including the device, and method of operating the same


To sequence DNA, DNA samples marked with flourscent infrared dye are applied at a plurality of locations for electrophoresing in a plurality of channels through a gel electrophoresis slab. The channels are scanned with a laser and a sensor, that include a microscope focused on the gel slab. The focal point and slab are adjusted with respect to each other so that the focal point of the microscope remains on the gel slab during a scan. The data from the scan is directly used to amplitude modulate density readings on a display, and the scan is displayed in a horizontal sweep of a cathode ray tube, whereby said cathode ray tube provides intensity displays of bands representing DNA. Different sizes of glass gel sandwiches may be mounted to the same console for different sequencing tasks.

This invention relates to the sequencing of DNA strands.
In one class of techniques for sequencing DNA, identical strands of DNA are marked. The strands are separated into four aliquots. The strands in a given aliquot are either individually cleaved at or synthesized to any base belonging to only one of the four base types, which are adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine (hereinafter A, G, C and T).
The adenine-, guanine-, cytosine- and thymine-terminated strands are then electrophoresed for separation. The rate of electrophoresis indicates the DNA sequence.
In a prior art sequencing technique of this class, the DNA strands are marked with a radioactive marker, and after being separated by electrophoresis, film is exposed to the gel and developed to indicate the sequence of the bands. The range of lengths and resolution of this type of static detection is limited by the size of the apparatus.
It is also known in the prior art to use fluorescent markers for marking proteins and to pulse the fluorescent markers with light to receive an indication of the presence of a particular protein from the fluorescence.
The prior art techniques for DNA sequencing have several disadvantages such as: (1) they are relatively slow; (2) they are at least partly manual; and (3) they are limited to relatively short strands of DNA.


The present invention relates to a touch screen sensor substrate, to a touch screen sensor, and to a touch screen panel comprising same. The touch screen sensor substrate according to the present invention comprises: a plurality of sensing units formed of electrodes connected into a pattern of a predetermined direction at one surface of a base; and a connection unit which is formed of electrodes connected into a pattern of a direction which is the same as or similar to the direction of the pattern of the sensing units, and which connects the sensing units.

A touch screen panel, as an input and output means for sensing a touch position of a user on a display screen and receiving information on the sensed touch position to perform an overall control of an electronic device including a display screen control, is a device which recognizes a touch as an input signal when an object such as a finger or a touch pen is touched on a screen. The touch input device has been mainly mounted on a mobile device such as a mobile phone, personal digital assistants (PDA), and a portable multimedia player (PMP) in recent years. The touch input device is being used throughout overall industries such as a navigation, a netbook, a notebook, a digital information device (DID), a desktop computer using an operating system that supports touch input, an internet protocol TV (IPTV), a state-of-the-art fighter, a tank, and an armored vehicle.
However, since the touch panel is added on a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), a plasma display panel (PDP), an organic light emitting diode (OLED), and an active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) or embedded in the display device, there is a problem in visibility for a user.

Touch screen sensor substrate, touch screen sensor, and panel comprising same


A system and method for hydrogen (H) exfoliation are provided for attaching silicon-on-insulator (SOI) fabricated circuits to carrier substrates. The method comprises: providing a SOI substrate, including a silicon (Si) active layer and buried oxide (BOX) layer overlying a Si substrate; forming a circuit in the Si active layer; forming a blocking mask over selected circuit areas; implanting H in the Si substrate; annealing; removing the blocking mask; in response to the H implanting, forming a cleaving plane in the Si substrate; bonding the circuit the top oxide layer to the carrier substrate; and, cleaving the Si substrate. More specifically, the cleaving plane is formed along a horizontal peak concentration (Rp) H layer in the Si substrate and along the buried oxide layer interface.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to integrated circuit (IC) and liquid crystal display (LCD) fabrication and, more particularly, to a method for the transfer of partially completed very-large-scale integration (VLSI) circuits from single crystal silicon substrates to glass panels, for the production of flat panel displays.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is broad agreement in the flat panel display (FPD) industry that system-on-glass (SOG) technology is a natural evolutionary step for flat panel displays, especially for mobile devices. In fact, SOG is a natural confluence of display and microprocessor evolution because integration is a proven solution for greatly reducing costs, while improving the compactness and reliability of electrical systems.
Display modules have received some enhanced functionality, like display drivers and analog-to-digital converters, thanks to low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) technology. Conventionally, the best means for achieving adequate LTPS performance for SOG devices at a competitive cost is the crystallization of a thin amorphous layer of silicon with a laser beam. Unfortunately, this approach remains relatively expensive, even years after being introduced to LCD production. Moreover, even if polysilicon thin film transistors (TFTs) could be efficiently produced using this method, it is unlikely that they will have sufficient capability to realize some sophisticated functions like CPU operations and digital signal processing. Finally, the steadiness of drive currents produced by poly-Si TFTs may be inadequate for new technologies such organic electroluminescent displays.
In short, the convolution between cost and performance of polysilicon devices still pales compared to that of single-crystal silicon (c-Si). The trouble is in creating quality thin films of c-Si on transparent or flexible substrates, which usually are made of materials other than silicon. Other solutions to this hybrid field problem include Fluidic-Self-Assembly™ (FSA) by Alien Technology. FSA works fairly well for plastic substrates and semiconductor blocks thicker than 50 microns. Unfortunately, FSA placement depends on random probability and gravity. Because the probability of successful placement is small (<<20%), a large amount of blocks are needed. Also, as the blocks get smaller, Brownian motion becomes more disruptive to precise placement and more time is required for settlement. Finally, if glass substrates are desired, then another problem is the efficient etching of precise-sized holes. Other rapid assembly techniques, like capillary self-assembly, still require fluid, which usually demands use of surfactants, and remain susceptible to Brownian motion.
SOITEC and other researchers have developed and refined a means of efficiently creating thin films of c-Si by ion-cutting with a high dose hydrogen implantation. In related work, Joly et al. have extended the ion-cutting process (Smart-Cut) to produce devices on one substrate, and transfer these devices to a different substrate. While their work describes a process for transferring the devices, there is little discussion regarding the impact of high dose hydrogen implantation on device performance. It is acknowledged by many that the required large doses of hydrogen (˜5e16 atoms/cm2) can result in highly defective regions in the transferred silicon films.
FIG. 1 is a diagram of a hydrogen-induced cleaving process using a hydrogen blocking mask (prior art). To address some of the problems associated with the use of hydrogen, Bruel et al., describe the use of a blocking mask to protect active silicon regions from damage during the hydrogen implant. However, while blocking the channel areas during the hydrogen implant prevents damage, the subsequent transfer of the blocked regions (areas without H+ implant) is problematic. It is difficult to cleave the active Si regions from the underlying Si substrate in any reliable or predictable manner. Therefore, this process has not proved to be practical for large-scale fabrication processes, or for the transfer of very large active Si areas, such as VLSI circuits with a plurality of blocked areas.
It would be advantageous if a process existed for placing partially completed VLSI crystalline silicon devices onto non-silicon substrates for the purpose of making large area devices, especially display systems, such as display matrices, complementary signal processes, and control circuitry.
It would be advantageous if the above-mentioned transfer process included the use of blocking masks to prevent damage to sensitive areas during H+ implant, while permitting those areas to be transferred to another substrate via wafer bonding and cleaving.
It would be advantageous if the heat load of above-mentioned transfer process could be accommodated by plastic substrates, including PET materials.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Active silicon device on a cleaved silicon-on-insulator substrate


Disclosed is a stable dilute solution composition of a 3-isothiazolone compound selected from the group consisting of 5-chloro-2-methyl-3-isothiazolone, 2-methyl-3-isothiazolone, 5-chloro-2-ethyl-3-isothiazolone, 2-ethyl-3-isothiazolone, 4,5-dichloro-2-methyl-3-isothiazolone, and mixtures thereof in water having extremely low levels of copper ion and an oxidant.

This invention relates to stabilization of 3-isothiazolones microbicides. In particular, this invention relates to the stabilization of dilute solutions of 3-isothiazolone microbicides having very low levels of copper ion.
Microbicides are used commercially to prevent the growth of microbes in a variety of loci, such as cooling towers, metal working fluid systems, paint and cosmetics. One of the more important classes of microbicides is 3-isothiazolones. Many 3-isothiazolones have achieved commercial success because they are very effective in preventing microbial growth under a wide variety of conditions and in a variety of loci. Among the most important 3-isothiazolones are 5-chloro-2-methyl-3-isothiazolone, 2-methyl-3-isothiazolone, and mixtures thereof.
Although 3-isothiazolones are highly effective microbicides, some 3-isothiazolones suffer from being unstable under certain conditions. Without the presence of a stabilizer, many 3-isothiazolones chemically degrade and lose microbicidal efficacy. Much research has been devoted to stabilizing 3-isothiazolones.
Typical 3-isothiazolone products of a 3:1 mixture of 5-chloro-2-methyl-3-isothiazolone and 2-methyl-3-isothiazolone contain between 1 and 25 percent by weight of the 3-isothiazolone mixture and a similar amount of a stabilizer. Concentrate compositions of a 3:1 mixture of 5-chloro-2-methyl-3-isothiazolone and 2-methyl-3-isothiazolone generally contain about 5 to 35 percent by weight of the 3-isothiazolone compounds and require about 10 to 25 percent by weight of a stabilizer. Dilute solutions of a 3:1 mixture of 5-chloro-2-methyl-3-isothiazolone and 2-methyl-3-isothiazolone contain about 0.5 to 5 percent by weight of the 3-isothiazolone compounds. Dilute solutions have different stabilization requirements from 3-isothiazolone concentrates.
A variety of stabilizers for 3-isothiazolone dilute solutions are known. These known stabilized 3-isothiazolone dilute solutions suffer from having a high metal salt content so as to cause coagulation of latexes under certain conditions or from having limited stability. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,461,150 (Gironda, et al.), herein incorporated by reference, discloses the stabilization of dilute solutions of 5-chloro-2-methyl-3-isothiazolone, 2-methyl-3-isothiazolone and mixtures thereof with a low level of cupric ion in the form of a copper salt other than nitrate or nitrite. The weight ratio of the copper ion to the 3-isothiazolone compounds is in the range of 0.02:1.5 to 0.0008:1.5. These stabilized dilute solutions show good short term stability (4 weeks at 55.degree. C., for example) but show no or limited long term stability (8 weeks at 55.degree. C., for example). This patent does not address the problem of precipitate formation upon storage of the 3-isothiazolone compositions.
Although the use of stabilizers enables 3-isothiazolone dilute solutions to retain their microbicidal efficacy for a period of time, other problems may develop without significant loss of 3-isothiazolones, such as the formation of precipitate upon storage. The presence of this precipitate does not impact the efficacy of the 3-isothiazolones; however, the presence of the precipitate gives undesirable appearance to users of the product. It is clearly preferable from a commercial standpoint to have a product which does not form a precipitate.
Thus, there is a continuing need for 3-isothiazolone dilute solutions that have good long term stability and that are free of precipitate.

Stabilization of 3-isothiazolone solutions


A system and process includes continuously determining an applied armature voltage supplied to a polyphase synchronous machine for which a maximum mechanical load is characterized by a pull-out torque. The armature voltage is supplied from a power source via one of many taps of a regulating transformer. The armature voltage being supplied from the power source to the machine is changed by selecting one of the voltage levels from the taps of the regulating transformer. The tap voltage levels are selected based on the determined applied armature voltage to minimize power consumption of the machine while ensuring based on a predetermined confidence level that the pullout torque of the machine will not be exceeded.

A method and apparatus for regulating electric power being supplied to a polyphase synchronous machine under load is disclosed.
When supplying power to a polyphase synchronous machine that consumes a tremendous amount of electrical power, several needs compete and must be simultaneously considered in managing its electrical power distribution. A first concern has to do with maintaining delivered electrical power voltage levels within predetermined limits. A second concern relates improving overall efficiency of electrical power usage and distribution. A third concern relates to these and other concerns in light of changing electrical loading of the machine and variations in the character of the loading so that the voltages do not decrease to such a level that the synchronous machine enters a state known as pull-out, in which the stator and rotor magnetic fields fail to maintain mutual engagement, characterized by the rotor field slipping out of engagement with the rotating magnetic field of the stator. This condition, commonly known as either pull-out or pole slip, can result in damage to the machine. The mechanical load condition at which pull-out or pole slip occurs is known as the pull-out torque.
One technique to accommodate changes in electrical loading is to set preset threshold levels at high enough levels at which pull-out is not likely to occur. Although this technique provides a margin of safety for the machine, it results in inefficiencies as the voltage of the system must be kept sufficiently high at all times even when the machine is not under a high load. Thus for an energy efficiency standpoint, a lot of energy is wasted providing unnecessarily high margins of safety.

Electric power control system and efficiency optimization process for polyphase synchronous machine


Method for determining an axle geometry by recording and evaluating a topographical image of a face (6) of a wheel (1) fitted to an axle (2), and a sensor (10) for execution of the method. The method includes projecting light with a coding onto an area on the face (6) of the wheel (1) from a projecting direction; recording the light reflected from the area on the face (6) of the wheel (1) with an image converter (8), from a direction other than the light projecting direction; determining three-dimensional surface coordinates for the topographical image of the face (6) of the wheel (1) from the recorded light; and evaluating the topographical image in relation to a reference system.

The present invention relates to a method and a sensor for determining an axle geometry, such as the track and camber on an axle of a motor vehicle. In general, an axle geometry is determined for each wheel fitted to an axle by means of determining a normal vector on the face of the wheel in relation to a common reference system.
An axle geometry on fitted wheels is usually measured during the final assembly of the motor vehicle or when working on the running gear of the vehicle in a workshop. In order to adjust the relative alignment of the wheels in relation to a reference system (e.g., the axle or the entire vehicle) by adhering to specific set point values, the actual, measured values must first be determined. With these actual values, the wheels are then precisely aligned via adjustment elements, in which case a new adjustment for checking can be calibrated once again.
Conventional methods measure axle geometry by using laser probes. For the illumination and signal recording, so-called light section methods are used. For each wheel to be measured, a plurality of laser probes is used, wherein each laser probe projects a line of light, in a radial direction, onto the outer tire cover area. Accordingly, a height profile of this linear range of the tire cover is recorded or calculated, the profile being in a common reference coordinate system.
By combining the test results of several sensors, the position of the normal vectors of a wheel can be determined. This determination can be made for individual wheels or simultaneously for all the wheels. The practical use of this method is to determine the track and camber values and to evaluate these values with respect to their deviation from required values.
There are various conventional methods used to determine the position of a tire relative to a reference system. For example, German Patent Publication DE-A-29 48 573 discloses a method and a device for the non-contact measurement of vehicle axles. Specifically, DE-A-29 48 573 describes contact-free measurements for determining an axle geometry on motor vehicles that, in addition to an illumination, include TV receiver tubes as receiving units. The method disclosed in DE-A-29 48 573 involves looking at the elliptical image of the outer rim diameter of a wheel, whereby the characteristics of the ellipse are determined. By changing the relative position between the television camera and the wheel, several images are recorded for evaluation purposes.
Further, a non-contact recording sensor is generally known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,745,469 which, using a structured light, illuminates the surface of a rotating tire with at least two contour lines: The contour lines are recorded, converted optoelectrically, and then evaluated by means of a video camera using the light that is reflected back from the tire. Distances are then measured by triangulation.
However, conventional measurement methods for analyzing an axle geometry of a wheel on a motor vehicle have a disadvantage in that they project only lines, circles, or ellipses, as geometrically structured light patterns, on a wheel to be measured. As such, the surface of the wheel cannot be recorded completely, even if a plurality of images are successively evaluated on the rotating wheel.
In particular, the influence of unevenness on a tire cover surface of a motor vehicle tire plays an important role in that it interferes with the evaluation of the image, or it does not allow a stable recording of the measured values. Unevenness on the surface of a tire includes, for example, the name of the make of the tire, dimensional specifications, rotating direction arrows, or other specifications. In order to determine a reference plane that is used to represent e.g., the outer face of a tire, interferences caused by unevenness that is not distributed evenly must be calculated out or averaged out around the tire. This is not possible with conventional methods in which either the tire is aligned by determining the position of the tire rim, or the tire cover is scanned or illuminated with only a few contour lines.

Method for determining an axle geometry and sensor for its execution


A radio base station BTS and a mobile station UE of the present invention includes a receiving unit 11 configured to receive a plurality of downlink signals from a plurality of cells through a plurality of paths, and a cell identification determination unit 12 configured to determine downlink signals with an identical scrambling code which are received during a predetermined period, as an identical downlink signals transmitted from one and the identical cell, from among the plurality of received downlink signals.

Conventionally, in a mobile communication system in a WCDMA mode, a mobile station UE is configured to select a cell transmitting a downlink signal with the best quality as a serving cell through cell search procedure. The mobile station UE is configured to select only a cell transmitting a downlink signal with the best quality by the cell search.
Hereinafter, referring to FIGS. 7 and 8, description is briefly given of the cell search procedure and neighboring cell information acquisition procedure.
In FIG. 7, a receiving station receives downlink signals transmitted in cells #1 to #4 in radio base stations BTS #1 to #4 existing around the receiving cell. FIG. 8 shows an example of the receiving states of the downlink signals through the respective paths in the receiving station in this case.
Here, if the receiving station in FIG. 7 is a mobile station UE, the receiving station selects the downlink signal #3 with the best quality received via the path #3 through the cell search procedure.
However, if the receiving station performs cell search on multiple paths and acquires information on multiple neighboring cells, the receiving station can perform more advanced processing than the above.
For example, a radio base station BTS sets operational parameters in a "Plug & Play" mode, and therefore can set parameters based on a result of the cell search. Accordingly, if the receiving station shown in FIG. 7 is a radio base station BTS, the receiving station can perform more advanced processing by performing cell search on all the cells which establish the paths #1 to #4, and acquiring cell information on the cells which establish the respective paths #1 to #4.
In addition, handling of a multi-path is briefly described below referring to FIGS. 9 and 10.
In general, a mobile station UE receives a downlink signal through multiple paths from a radio base station BTS. In FIG. 9, if the paths #1 to #3 are present, the receiving states of downlink signals in a mobile station UE are shown in FIG. 10.
For the normal cell search processing to find a single cell, a radio base station BTS is configured to select only a cell which establishes a path #1 through which a downlink signal with the best quality is transmitted.
Meanwhile, when synchronization between the cell is completed, the mobile station UE can improve a communication quality by performing RAKE-combining on the downlink signals #1 to #3 with the same scrambling code which have an arrival time difference therebetween within a receiving window.
In general, such a mobile communication system employs a system design in which a same scrambling code is not assigned to neighboring cells. Further, in a case where some downlink signals are received from another cell using the same scrambling code, if the downlink signals have arrival time differences out of the receiving window, the downlink signals are not included in the RAKE-combining, and thus the downlink signals from the other cells are not combined.


An improved device delivers a fluid medicament to the subcutaneous tissue of a user. The device is better suited for patients with Parkinson's Disease and other central nervous system disorders, than conventional infusion devices. The device can include a reusable part including a drive component (e.g., motor) and control electronics and a disposable part including a medicament reservoir. Medicament can be evacuated from the medicament reservoir by a plunger assembly that includes a plunger attached to a lead screw that is rotated by a nut, all within the disposable part. The device can be fluidically coupled with the tissue via a flexible cannula. Various embodiments relate to an improved cannula insertion mechanism that delivers the cannula under a force applied by a spring. Various embodiments relate to improved filling of the device, for example, using a vial adapter and an automated filling station.

Delivery of medicaments, nutrients, or other liquid substances into the subcutaneous tissue of a patient is known to be an effective treatment technique for various medical conditions. Subcutaneous liquid administration may result in a more effective delivery of a substance into the circulatory system than other administration techniques (e.g., digestive tract, respiratory tract, etc.).
Subcutaneous delivery is often performed with an infusion pump. An infusion pump is typically a portable device carried by the patient that contains a medicament reservoir and drive components for delivering the medicament into the patient. Infusion pumps can deliver medicament in a more precise and controlled manner than can be accomplished with manual delivery by a patient or medical personnel. Infusion pumps are generally one of two types. The first type includes a standalone pump unit worn by a patient at a location remote from the delivery site (e.g., on a belt). The standalone pump unit pumps medicament from the reservoir through tubing to an infusion set attached to the patient's skin and accessing the subcutaneous tissue (e.g., via a flexible cannula). The second type is generally referred to as a "patch pump" and incorporates the medicament reservoir, drive components, and cannula all in a single unit adhered to the patient's skin. In some situations, infusion pumps deliver a continuous flow of medicament into a patient (sometimes called a basal dose). Infusion pumps can also deliver intermittent doses, in some cases controlled by the patient (sometimes called a bolus dose).
Given that subcutaneous medicament administration is typically performed with liquid substances, most infusion pump development has been for the treatment of medical conditions for which a liquid formulation medicament is therapeutically viable. The most prominent example is the use of infusion pumps for the subcutaneous delivery of insulin to patients with diabetes.
The most common medicament for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease is the drug levodopa, which is often administered in combination with the drug carbidopa. To date, therapeutic formulations of levodopa/carbidopa have only been available in solid or powder form and are typically administered with an oral pill or an inhaler product.
Recently, the Applicant has developed the first ever liquid formulation of levodopa/carbidopa having a therapeutic concentration appropriate for delivery to the subcutaneous tissue (described in greater detail in U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2013/0253056 and 2014/0051755, which are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties). This discovery makes it practical, for the first time, to develop an infusion pump device for use by patients with Parkinson's Disease and other CNS disorders.
Individuals with Parkinson's Disease and other CNS disorders exhibit different symptoms than individuals with diabetes. In addition, the drug dosage volumes are different for different conditions. Thus, currently available infusion pumps designed for the treatment of diabetes or other conditions are often inappropriate and ineffective for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease. Accordingly, a need exists for a new drug delivery device appropriate for use by individuals with Parkinson's Disease or other CNS disorders.

Device for subcutaneous delivery of fluid medicament


A peephole for a built-in lighting fixture type aiming device. A frame portion projected on an edge portion of an opening portion is formed on the side thereof with an engaging groove, a frame type hook plate is placed in contact with the peripheral edge of a window glass by a spring member and engaged by a hook with the engaging groove provided in the frame portion, and a seal gasket is held by the frame portion and the window glass with the aid of elasticity of the frame type hook plate to provide an airtight construction. The window glass is mounted by the frame type hook plate avoiding the need for a threaded mounting.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a headlamp, and more specifically to a peephole provided to read an aiming device, which is called VHAD (Vehicle Headlamp Aiming Device), of a headlamp in which an aiming device is built-in so as to effect external aiming without using an aiming device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional peephole 90 of this kind is shown in FIGS. 3 and 4. A housing 80 is formed with an opening portion 91 having a circular shape, for example, provided with an externally projecting frame portion 91a and is further provided with bosses 92 at suitable places, for example, at three places. A window glass 93 formed, for example, of transparent resin, is threadedly mounted on the opening portion 91 making use of the bosses 92. In order to secure an airtightness between the opening portion 91 and the window glass 93, a gasket groove 93a is provided at a position in the peripheral edge on the housing 80 side of the window glass 93, and a seal gasket 94 formed from a soft member, for example, such as a rubber member, is fitted therein. The seal gasket 94 is compressed by the frame portion 91a and the window glass 93 through screws 95 to provide an airtight construction.
However, in the aforementioned conventional peephole 90, when it is mounted, it requires an extremely troublesome work, for example, threaded mounting by use of three screws 95.
Further, when the built-in aiming device does not display a predetermined value during the shipment inspection of headlamps, it is necessary to remove the window glass 93 of the peephole 90 to readjust the aiming device. In this case, in the peephole 90 constructed as described above, it takes much time to mount and remove it, giving rise to a problem in that a working efficiency in the production line of headlamps is impaired.

Peephole for built-in lighting fixture aiming device


A battery management system includes at least one controller programmed to, in response to a battery current becoming approximately zero, output an open-circuit voltage based on a sequence of battery terminal voltages measured during a time interval in which the battery current remains approximately zero and while a charge polarization voltage is decreasing. The open-circuit voltage may be further based on a non-linear regression of the sequence of battery terminal voltages. The non-linear regression may minimize a mean-squared error between the battery terminal voltages and corresponding battery terminal voltage estimates. The at least one controller may command the battery current to zero for the time interval. The battery management system may be included in a vehicle with a traction battery.

Hybrid and electric vehicles include a traction battery comprised of a number of cells. Traction batteries store energy and provide power to electric machines for propulsion and other functions. A battery control system may monitor the operation of the traction battery and may control the traction battery based on a variety of inputs. A useful value for the battery control system is the battery state of charge (SOC). Battery SOC is an estimate of the amount of energy remaining in the traction battery. The SOC may be derived from an integration of a battery current. Integration of the battery current requires the use of high accuracy current sensors because even small measurement errors will be integrated over a long period of time. It may be beneficial to determine SOC in an alternate way.

Method for battery state of charge estimation


A method for calibrating a semiconductor test instrument leading cost reduction, simplified work, and short working time. Drivers are related to comparators in one-to-one correspondence. A clock signal and a strobe signal have a one-to-one correspondence. The phase of either a clock signal or a strobe signal is adjusted with reference to the phase of the other signal. The relative phase difference between clock signals or between strobe signals are determined. The phases of the clock and strobe signals are adjusted with reference to the relative phase difference.

The pin electronics of a semiconductor test instrument includes a driver for applying a signal to a device under test and a comparator for determining the logic of a signal output from the device under test correspondingly to the signal. The driver outputs a signal synchronizing with an input clock signal. Moreover, the comparator determines synchronously with an input strobe signal.
In the initial state of the semiconductor test instrument, because the time length of a signal route for each input/output pin of the device under test fluctuates, the timing for outputting a signal from the driver or the determination timing of the comparator shifts from an expected timing. Therefore, timing calibration is applied to the device under test before various tests are executed.
FIG. 73 is an illustration showing a conventional configuration of a semiconductor test instrument for performing timing calibration. In FIG. 73, a semiconductor test instrument 90 is connected to a socket board 94 through an exclusive cable 93 provided for a performance board 92. For example, to apply various tests to a device under test having a BGA (Ball Grid Array) type package, the socket board 94 on whose surface many pogo pins are provided. A test board 96 is used to simplify the operation for bringing a probe 99 extended from a reference driver/comparator (DR/CP) section 98 into contact with these pogo pins provided for the surface of the socket board 94 and has a structure in which pads provided for the surface and back are electrically connected each other.
FIG. 74 is an electrical layout diagram of the conventional configuration shown in FIG. 73. The semiconductor test instrument 90 is provided with a plurality of sets of drivers and comparators and each set of a driver and a comparator is connected to a common device socket end through the performance board (PB) 92 and socket board (SB) 94. In FIG. 74, a test board 96 is omitted.
FIGS. 75, 76, and 77 are illustrations showing the outline of conventional timing calibration. As shown in FIG. 75, phases (skews) of clock signals CLK1 to CLKn and strobe signals STB1 to STBn input to n drivers DR1 to DRn and n comparators CP1 to CPn respectively are shifted in the initial state of a semiconductor test instrument.
First, the probe 99 of the reference driver/comparator section 98 is connected to any device socket end through the test board 96 to make the phase of the strobe signal STB1 (timing of comparison by comparator CP1) coincide with the rise timing of a reference driver signal (reference DR) (FIG. 76). Then, after the phase of a reference comparator signal (reference CP) is made to coincide with the rise timing of an output signal of the reference driver, the phase of the clock signal CLK1 input to the driver DR1 is adjusted so that the rise timing of a signal output from the driver DR1 coincides with the output timing of the reference comparator signal (timing of comparison by reference comparator) (FIG. 77). The above timing calibration operation is performed every device socket end.
Because the timing calibration method of the above conventional semiconductor test instrument performs timing correction at a device socket end, it is necessary to repeat movement of the probe 99 provided for the reference driver/comparator section 98 and contact of the front end of the probe 99. Therefore, to automate the above operation, a special apparatus is necessary. It is considered to make a robot perform the above operation. However, this type of the robot is generally expensive and it is not easy to handle the robot in order to secure a high optional accuracy in many cases. Therefore, there is a problem that operation contents are complicated. It is possible to manually align the probe 99 without using a robot. However, when a device under test has many pins or there are many devices under test that are tested at the same time, the number of times for repeating movement and contact of the probe 99 greatly increases. Therefore, there is a problem that the working time until timing calibration is completed increases.

Method for calibrating semiconductor test instruments


A connector socket for external serial ATA (eSATA) and universal serial bud (USB) plugs has a casing, an eSATA contact set and a USB contact set. The casing has a cavity defined in the casing, an inner rear surface and a contact seat formed on and extending forward from the inner rear surface. The eSATA contact set is mounted on the contact seat and has multiple eSATA contacts being conductive and mounted on the contact seat. The USB contact set is mounted on the contact seat opposite to the eSATA contact set and has multiple USB contacts being conductive and mounted on the contact seat. The connector socket having the single contact seat is compact.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector socket and, more particularly, to a connector socket that may receive external ATA (eSATA) or universal serial bus (USB) plugs and that is compact.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer periphery equipment such as flash drives, portable hard disc drives or external CD-ROM drives is connected with the computer through the universal serial bus (USB) connector socket or Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers 1394 (IEEE1394) protocol. The most popular connector socket is USB 2.0 at present. Almost all computers have the USB 2.0 connector socket, and the upper limitation of a data transmission speed of the USB 2.0 connector socket is as high as 480M bps.
With the development of portable peripheral equipment, the data transmission speed is higher and higher. The invention of the hard disc external box makes the hard disc drive portable, and the speed of USB 2.0 is not insufficient to support the high speed transmission between the hard disc external box and a computer. Therefore, a new connector socket, external serial ATA (eSATA), which has a data transmission speed up to 3G bps to satisfy the portable hard disc drive, has been developed recently. USB and eSATA connector sockets have similar structures, and each of them has a casing, a contact seat and multiple contacts. The casing has a cavity having an inner surface. The contact seat is formed on and extends forward from the inner surface of the cavity. The contacts are mounted on the contact seat. However, the USB and eSATA connector sockets are not compatible with other.
With regard to notebook computers, the USB connector socket is an essential element in almost notebook computers. Undoubtedly, the eSATA connector socket will be the next essential element on the notebook computers in the future.
However, incorporating the USB and eSATA connector sockets on a notebook computer occupies a mounting space in the notebook computer and would prohibit other elements such as an IEEE 1394 connector socket or an audio connector socket from being mounted on the notebook computer.
An improved connector socket is developed and has an eSATA interface and a USB interface stacked vertically. However, mounting such a connector socket into the notebook computer increases the thickness of the notebook computer, which makes the computer not compact and unmarketable.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides a connector socket for eSATA and USB plugs to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.

Connector socket for eSATA and USB plugs


A foldable container includes a base panel and a pair of folding panels coupled with the base panel via a folding device, wherein the folding device includes a first load-carrying arrangement positioned on the base panel and a second load-carrying arrangement provided at the folding panels. The first load-carrying arrangement and the second load-carrying arrangement are pivotally connected to ensure the folding panels being folded with respect to the base panel so as to reduce the volumetric space of the container. Since the second load-carrying arrangement is adapted for withstanding substantial force, the foldable container is adapted to be moved by conventional hangers and stacked in a convenient manner.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a container, more particularly, relates to a foldable container.
2. Description of Related Arts
Conventionally, there are two types of foldable containers are widely used, wherein the first type of foldable container comprising a plurality of irregular panels disassembling with each other and the second type of foldable container comprising two side panels and a base panel. Accordingly, the first type of foldable container causes substantial waste on labor, stuff, time, thus rocketing the transporting costs of such containers because the assembling process is complicated and time consuming. For the second type of containers, it is impossible to enclose a sealed space, therefore merely applicable for transporting some special cargos. In addition, some reclusive hanging or hoisting equipment would be utilized for moving such open-style containers. That is to say, the special hanger would be a prerequisite for moving such containers, instead of using traditional ceiling-suspending equipments. Furthermore, such foldable containers are vulnerable to the weather condition such as the corrosion of rain and sea water. Chinese patent 96236835.0 discloses a foldable container having above mentioned problems. In addition, since most of the lifting holes of the container are collected on the base panel, while the top panels are coupled with the side panels by conventional fastening means, so that the top panel can not bear intensive force. In short, due to the fact of above mentioned shortcomings and problems, the conventional foldable containers are not suitable to be conveniently transported and stacked with an industrial scale, or adaptive to simplify the loading and unloading process. Undoubtedly, such foldable containers have been eliminated from the land and sea transportation industry.


A roller device mountable rotatably on a spindle includes a roller body having a tubular wall with two opposite open-end portions. Each open-end portion is provided with a retaining member formed on an inner peripheral surface of the tubular wall. Two covers are inserted respectively into the open-end portions of the tubular wall, and are adapted to be sleeved rotatably around the spindle. Each cover has an annular end wall transverse to the corresponding open-end portion, a surrounding wall extending inwardly and axially from an outer periphery of the end wall and abutting against the inner peripheral surface of the tubular wall, and an engaging member formed on an outer peripheral surface of the surrounding wall and interlocking the retaining member. The retaining and engaging members have recess-and-protrusion interlocking surfaces.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a roller device, more particularly to a roller device for a conveyer that is mountable rotatably on a spindle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIG. 1, a currently available roller device for a conveyer includes a roller body 1 sleeved on a spindle 3, two covers 2 (only one is shown) respectively covering two opposite ends of the roller body 1 and sleeved rotatably around the spindle 3, and two anti-leak units 4 (only one is shown) respectively disposed on outer sides of the covers 2. The roller body 1 has a smooth inner peripheral surface 102 defining a receiving hole 101. Each cover 2 has a cover body 201 received in the receiving hole 101, an annular sleeve 202 connected to an outer periphery of the cover body 201, and an annular groove 203 formed between the outer periphery of the cover body 201 and the annular sleeve 202 so as to permit radial expansion or compression of the annular sleeve 202.
After assembly, the covers 2 are respectively positioned on the two opposite ends of the roller body 1 through the expansion and compression of the annular sleeves 202 thereof. However, to prevent the covers 2 from falling off the roller body 1, the annular sleeve 202 must be adhered to the inner peripheral surface 102 of the roller body 1 by using an adhesive. Hence, assembly of the aforesaid roller device is troublesome and time-consuming, which result in a lowering of the production yield.


A method for managing the allocation of memory to one or more applications. The method includes allocating a variety of fixed size memory blocks to a requesting application, each of the fixed size memory blocks being free of header information to maximize memory usage. Free, or unused blocks of data of the same fixed size are maintained in a freelist having a number of block roots corresponding to the number of differently fixed size memory blocks. Each block root stores a root pointer to an unused memory block previously allocated to the application. To conserve memory, each unused memory block will store branch pointers to other identically sized unused memory blocks, thereby forming a sequential chain of unused memory blocks with the block root. Therefore, applications requesting the same sized memory block can re-use previously allocated fixed size memory blocks.

Wireless mobile devices, including personal digital assistants (PDA's) and mobile phones, have a multitude of functions ranging from voice and data communications to Internet browsing. Data communications can include text messaging or email, while Internet browsing can include viewing news websites.
While many wireless mobile devices have voice communication capabilities, wireless text messaging and e-mail are becoming a preferred means of communication. Furthermore, users are constantly demanding the ability to browse the Internet wirelessly on their mobile devices. Hence, news media, entertainment listings, and virtually any content on the Internet should be viewable from the mobile device. Such rich content requires buffering, or storage, which is provided by the on-board memory, such as memory 22, in the mobile device.
Unfortunately, the consumer demand for minimally sized mobile devices constrains the amount of memory which can be included in a mobile device. For example, some mobile devices are limited to 16 MB of on-board memory, some of which may be allocated for running software applications, while the remaining portion is dedicated for storing data. Although modern personal computers (PC) can have 2 giga-bytes of dynamic memory, the high number of concurrent processes and applications run by the PC can quickly consume the available memory, and if inefficiently used, can degrade system performance.
Fortunately, text data in email messages, documents and web pages, can be compressed using lossless compression schemes in order to alleviate memory demand, and reduce transmission time of the data to and from a base station. One example of such text compression is the YK compression algorithm disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,801,141 (Yang). Generally, the YK compression algorithm identifies longest prefix string matches in the document or page to be compressed, and replaces instances of repeating strings with a variable. The relative location of the variables are recorded, and storage of the compressed document can accordingly use less memory than the uncompressed document. The YK compression algorithm is but one compression scheme which can be used. Those skilled in the art will understand that there are different text compression algorithms which can be used.
Most applications, including compression schemes such as the YK compression algorithm, will need memory space to perform its functions. This memory can include static memory, transient memory and dynamic memory. Static memory allocation refers to the allocation of memory before the application is executed. Statically allocated memory provides high speed operation, but is generally restrictive, as the size of memory is fixed and unusable by other applications. Transient memory allocation refers to the allocation of memory for buffering information for a short duration of time. Transient memory is typically small, and does not significantly impact memory use relative to the static memory and the dynamic memory. Dynamic memory allocation refers to the allocation of memory while the application is running. Dynamic memory allocation is commonly used since applications will request and use specifically sized portions of memory for executing its functions. Of the listed types of allocated memory, dynamic memory allocation requires careful management to be effectively and efficiently used.
The following discussion herein relates solely to dynamic memory allocation. When memory is dynamically requested, the memory controller will first provide a specific portion of memory, such as a page, for use by the application. The application may then request one or more blocks within the page for storing data, where a block can be a predefined number of bytes or a specific number of requested bytes. When a block is requested by the application, the application will store a value corresponding to the actual size of the block in bytes. The purpose of storing this information is to allow the application to keep track of how much of the space within the allocated block is used up, so that it can request a larger memory block. as the need arises. In the YK compression algorithm for example, the data that needs to be stored can expand, eventually exceeding the capacity of the originally allocated memory block. In such a case, the allocated memory block can be released and a larger sized memory block can be allocated to the application in its place. If it is determined that the full capacity of the allocated memory block will never be used, then the allocated memory block can be released and a smaller memory block can be allocated in its place. Alternatively, the allocated memory block can be augmented by allocating one or more additional memory blocks to the application. FIG. 2 is a conceptual illustration of the typical data structure of a data block dynamically allocated to an application in a page of memory.
FIG. 2 shows a memory page 30 and two allocated blocks 32 and 34 within page 30. By example, the memory page 30 can be 64 k bytes in size. It is assumed in this example that addresses increase from the left side to the right side, and from the top to the bottom of page 30. When the application makes a request for memory having size "A", the memory manager will first ensure that there sufficient room in the page, and then allocate a block having size "A". A pointer, referred to as Pointer[1] for this first block, is returned to the application. Pointer[1] indicates the starting address of the block the application can use. If another request by the application is made for memory having size "B", then a second block having size "B" is allocated, and Pointer[2] is returned to the application. Although the application requests memory having size "A" or "B", additional information is appended to blocks 32 and 34 in the form of headers 36 and 38. Header's 36 and 38 include information regarding the size of the block it is appended to. This header can be 4 bytes long for example, and is considered overhead for the block. Hence, the data structure of an allocated memory has a payload portion for storing data, and a corresponding header portion.
The purpose of the header is now explained. When the application no longer needs either block 32 or 34 previously allocated to it, it will release the block and free it for later use. However, the memory manager must know the size of the block to be freed. Since the memory manager has the pointer to the beginning of the block to be freed, it will read the 4 preceding bytes of data to identify the size of the block. Therefore, the true size of the data block being used in the page 30 is the sum of the size of the requested payload space for storing data and the corresponding header. Accordingly, both the application and the memory manager will store a value corresponding to the size of the memory block. This data structure and general allocation scheme is ideally suited for applications where relatively large blocks of data are requested. For example, a typical application might request many blocks of memory each having a size of 128 bytes, therefore a 4 byte header represents approximately 3% overhead for the payload.
Unfortunately, this data structure is unsuitable for applications which request small blocks of memory, as will be further explained. A characteristic of the YK compression algorithm is the need to store many small blocks of data in a page of memory while executing its compression routine. A small block size can be between 6 bytes and 72 bytes for example. If a large proportion of blocks are 6 bytes in size for example, then a header 4 bytes in size accompanying the payload will contribute 40% overhead for the block. This means that a significant proportion of the page can be dedicated to storing header information, thereby reducing the effective memory available for storing actual data.
The general memory allocation scheme and examples described above assume that a page of memory is empty prior to allocation of memory blocks, which makes memory allocation straight-forward as the memory manager can progressively allocate sequential blocks of memory. An important feature of dynamic memory allocation is the ability to re-allocate freed blocks of memory within the page to one or more other applications. Unfortunately, there are inefficiencies in prior re-allocation schemes which add to the inefficiency of the header-based memory allocation scheme.
For example, the heap-based allocation scheme searches the memory for freed blocks of memory that are large enough to fit the requested block size. This scheme is processor intensive, and will negatively impact the performance of the system. The buddy block scheme maintains a linked list of free blocks, which can be memory intensive as the number of buddy blocks grows. The heap-based allocation scheme and the buddy block allocation scheme are well known in the art, and described in Fundamental Algorithms, Third Edition, Addison-Wesley, 1997, ISBN 0-201-89683-4, Section 2.4: Dynamic Storage Allocation, pp. 435-456, authored by Donald Knuth.
Another inefficiency in most general purpose memory allocation schemes is wasted space, also called internal fragmentation. For example, the buddy block allocation scheme typically manages blocks in sizes that are powers of two. So if the application requests an amount that is not an exact power of two, there is wasted space in the allocated block that will never be used.
Therefore, the available memory is quickly consumed when a large number of small memory blocks are allocated to one or more applications. This can be seen as low memory usage efficiency since a relatively high proportion of the memory may not be used to store application data.
Unfortunately, the application may cease to run if no further memory can be allocated to it. While more memory can be added to the mobile device to alleviate the high rate of memory consumption, the additional cost, increased size and increased power consumption of the device may not be acceptable to the end user.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a method and system for increasing the memory usage efficiency when dynamically allocating small blocks of memory to one or more applications.

System and method for dynamic memory allocation


A high speed/narrow I/O DRAM device comprises both a data input/output (I/O) port as well as a command port for receiving commands used to control the operations of the DRAM. The command port is defined as input only (i.e., for inputting command data). The present invention comprises multiplexing write data to be written and stored in the DRAM onto the command port with command data packets. The data I/O port can then become dedicated to streaming out seamless data since it no longer needs to flip between input and output data. Even greater bus efficiency can be realized if, during a command packet transfer, data writes to the DRAM are switched back to the data I/O port. With this input port switching protocol, greater bus efficiency and increased memory performance can be realized.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to high bandwidth/performance Dynamic Random Access Memories (DRAMs) and, more particularly, to high bandwidth/performance DRAMs with improved command bus utilization for increased data input/output (I/O) capabilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) performance is a well known limitation to computer system performance. Processor speeds are rapidly outpacing main memory performance, with both processor designers and system manufacturers developing higher performance memory subsystems in an effort to minimize performance limitations due to the slower DRAM devices. Ideally, the memory performance would match or exceed processor performance, i.e., a memory cycle time would be less than one processor clock cycle. This is almost never the case and, so, the memory is a system bottleneck. For example, a state of the art high speed microprocessor may be based on a 200 MegaHertz (MHZ) clock with a 5 nanosecond (ns) clock period. A high performance DRAM may have a 60 ns access time, which falls far short of processor performance.
This system bottleneck is exacerbated by the rise in popularity of multimedia applications. Multimedia applications demand several times more bandwidth for main memory or frame-buffer memory than computational intensive tasks such as spread sheet analysis programs or, other input/output (I/O) intensive applications such as word processing or printing.
Extended Data Out (EDO) and Synchronous DRAMs (SDRAMs) were developed to improve bandwidth. However, SDRAMs and EDO RAMs still do not match processor performance and, therefore, still limit system performance. Consequently, as faster microprocessors are developed for multimedia processing and high performance systems, faster memory architecture is being developed to bridge the memory/processor performance gap, e.g., wide I/O DRAMs.
Recent developments predict a major turning point for memory devices and related subsystems with a shift to high speed/narrow I/O devices. Recent developments in high bandwidth memory I/O design have shown performance advantages by separating memory command inputs from data I/O. This re-allocation of pin definition has increased the required memory function pins, but it has also permitted continuous data flow for high bandwidth memory. However, this re-allocation has also created a bus utilization inefficiency between command ports and data ports. While the data ports are continuously flipping direction to satisfy reading or writing of data, the command ports become active only when a new command packet must be received. This creates a bus efficiency imbalance which can impede performance and data rate potentials.

Input port switching protocol for a random access memory

International Business Machines Corporation