The present disclosure discloses a multi-bubbling region column tray and a corresponding plate column. The multi-bubbling region column tray includes: at least two bubbling regions, provided with first openings for liquid and gas to be mixed and in contact with each other; and at least one non-side downcomer, including at least one hanging downcomer, where the hanging downcomer has a bottom part which includes one or more second openings allowing the liquid to flow toward a lower left side, and one or more third openings allowing the liquid to flow toward a lower right side; and the bottom part of the hanging downcomer is designed to separate the liquid flowing out from the one or more second openings and the liquid flowing out from the one or more third openings.

Column tray-type gas-liquid (also called "vapor-liquid") contact devices associated with chemical separation (e.g., rectification, absorption, and/or steam stripping) may be applied to fields such as oil refining, petrochemical industry, chemical industry, coal chemical industry, and environmental protection. The column tray technology of chemical separation has been applied for decades, and column trays are gas-liquid contact devices that are widely applied during chemical separation such as rectification and absorption.
In a general plate column (also called "tray column" or "trayed column"), column trays (also referred to as "column plates") are used as basic components for gas-liquid contact. Gas and liquid phases flow in a crossing manner (also referred to as "a crossflow manner") on a column tray, while the gas and liquid phases in a column are operated in a reflux manner level by level. The liquid phase enters a downcomer in an overflow form before flowing onto a next column tray. Each column tray includes three parts: a downcomer, a liquid receiving tray, and a bubbling region (also called "bubbling area"). Based on the number of bubbling regions of each column tray, a column tray may be classified as a single-overflow column tray, a double-overflow column tray, a three-overflow column tray, a four-overflow column tray, a six-overflow column tray, or a multi-overflow column tray.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the flowing of gas and liquid phases in a three-overflow column tray (where a multi-bubbling region column tray is adopted, and 4 column trays are shown in the figure) in related art. The column trays are multi-bubbling region column trays, and each column tray includes three bubbling regions 1, a side downcomer 200 (located along a perimeter of the column tray on one or two sides of the column tray), and a non-side downcomer 300 (which may be a center downcomer located in the center of the column tray and/or a waist downcomer located at a position other than along the perimeter or at the center of the column tray). Side downcomer 200 is vertically arranged at a side position and configured to provide a channel for liquid to flow downward. Bubbling regions 1 are provided with central openings. Liquid and gas are mixed and in contact with each other in these bubbling regions, from where gas continues to move toward an upper column tray, while liquid flows downward from a downcomer on another side. Non-side downcomer 300 is a downcomer arranged at a position of the column tray that is other than the position of the side downcomer. With a conventional non-side downcomer, after liquid flows down from the downcomer, it enters bubbling regions on the left and right sides through slots located on both sides. In addition, a region located directly below the downcomer is often used to receive the liquid flowing down from the downcomer. This region is referred to as a liquid receiving tray.
FIG. 2 shows a typical non-side downcomer in the related art, which is referred to as a "hanging downcomer" (also called "truncated downcomer") and characterized in that it includes a bottom plate 400 provided with openings (elongated openings 500) for liquid to flow downward. Compared with the conventional non-side downcomer, the advantage of the hanging downcomer is that the liquid receiving tray below the downcomer may also be used as a bubbling region (the design of the liquid receiving tray is omitted in this case). In this way, the area of the bubbling region is increased, thereby improving the processing capability of the column tray.
As shown in FIG. 1, in each bubbling region 1, liquid flows downward from an upper downcomer, transversely through the bubbling region, and into a downcomer on another side after being mixed with the gas moving vertically upward. Each non-side downcomer receives liquid flowing downward from two bubbling regions 1 above the non-side downcomer, and, at the bottom of the non-side downcomer, divides the liquid into two bubbling regions 1 below the non-side downcomer. If the non-side downcomer in FIG. 1 adopts the structure of the hanging downcomer in the related art shown in FIG. 2, after liquid flows to a lower column tray from the bottom part of the non-side downcomer, the liquid freely and randomly flows toward the left and right sides. Because of the free and random flowing, flow distribution on the left and right sides cannot be actively controlled, resulting in large randomness and uncertainty.
The randomness and uncertainty are not beneficial to a column tray provided with a plurality of bubbling regions (as shown in FIG. 1, each column tray includes three bubbling regions). This is because a multi-bubbling region column tray can achieve ideal separation efficiency only if the ratios of the amount of liquid to the amount of gas (referred to as "liquid-gas ratios") of the bubbling regions are substantially similar to each other or the same. In addition, since the area of the bubbling regions on two sides of the non-side downcomer may be different, the amounts of gas respectively flowing through the bubbling regions on the two sides may also be different. Therefore, the efficiency of the column tray can be maximized only if the liquid in the non-side downcomer is distributed according to a proportion of gas flowing through the bubbling regions on the two sides. However, even if existing multi-bubbling region column trays presently used in the industry have adopted a hanging downcomer, they still have not achieved the function of active liquid distribution. As a result, the liquid-gas ratios of the bubbling regions on the two sides of the bottom part of a non-side downcomer cannot be guaranteed to be substantially similar to each other or be the same, leading to an efficiency loss and wastes.

Multi-bubbling region column tray and corresponding plate column

Beijing Zehua Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd.


An airbag and airbag system for a driver's seat. The airbag and airbag system is capable of maintaining high inner pressure for a long time even with the use of a low-capacity inflator. The airbag is also capable of having a first and second chamber divided by an inner panel where the second chamber is deployed and inflated earlier. The internal pressure of the airbag and the speed of deployment of the airbag may be adjusted for the first and second chamber individually.

The present invention relates to an airbag and an airbag system for protecting an occupant in emergency such as a car crash, and more particularly, it relates to an airbag and an airbag system suitable for driver's seat airbag mounted to a steering.
Most of driver's seat airbag systems have an airbag mounted to a retainer in a folded condition and covered with a cover member called a module cover.
When a car impact has been sensed by a sensor, an inflator is activated to deploy an airbag by a gas (inflation gas) generated from the inflator.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2-74440 (incorporated by reference) discloses a driver's seat airbag that is divided into two chambers, a central chamber and an outer peripheral chamber, by a partition panel, the central chamber being first inflated and the outer peripheral chamber being next inflated. The partition panel has a gas circulation hole. The partition panel connects the rear and the front of the airbag and has the function of preventing the forward projection of the airbag during inflation. A vent hole is provided at the central chamber.
When the airbag disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2-74440 (incorporated by reference) is inflated and an occupant strikes against an occupant, gas in the outer peripheral chamber easily flows out through the vent hole of the central chamber. Therefore, in order to maintain the gas pressure in the outer peripheral chamber high over a long time, an inflator with long duration of gas generation must be used. Employing the inflator, however, makes it difficult to control the inner pressure of the airbag.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an airbag and an airbag system capable of maintaining high inner pressure for a long time even with a low-capacity inflator as compared with the conventional one.
The present invention relates to an airbag provided on a high-speed mobile body such as a vehicle, which deploys in case of emergency such as a collision for protecting a human body.
Various airbag systems such as an airbag system for a driver's seat are used for protecting an occupant in case of emergency such as a collision or the like of a vehicle. The airbag system for a driver's seat includes an airbag formed by seaming peripheries of a front panel on the occupant side and of a rear panel on the opposite side. The rear panel is formed with an inflator engaging opening for receiving the extremity of the inflator at the center thereof. The circumference of the opening is attached to a retainer by a bolt, a pin, a rivet, and the like. The rear panel is formed with a vent hole for releasing gas in the airbag when the occupant of the driver's seat crushes into the airbag for absorbing an impact.
In order to protect a passenger in an emergency such as a car collision, a variety of airbag apparatuses including a driver-side airbag apparatus have been used. The driver-side airbag apparatus has an airbag formed by stitching together the circumferential portions of a front panel close to a passenger and a rear panel remote from the passenger. The rear panel has an opening for engagement with an inflator, formed at the central part thereof in order to accept the front of the inflator therein. The periphery of the opening is fixed to a retainer with bolts, pins, rivets, or the like. The rear panel has vent holes for releasing air in the airbag so as to absorb a shock when the passenger sitting in the driver's seat runs into the airbag.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 1-247242 (incorporated by reference), an airbag including an inner panel extending between an inflator insertion aperture on the rear panel and the front panel, and being divided in the interior thereof into a first chamber at the center and a second chamber circumferentially thereof is disclosed. The inner panel is substantially circular shape and the outer periphery thereof is connected to the midsection between the center and the periphery of the front panel. The inner panel is formed with the opening for the inflator at the center thereof, and the edge of the opening is attached to the retainer together with the rear panel. The inner panel is formed with a communication port for communicating the first chamber and the second chamber. When the inflator is actuated, the first chamber is deployed first, and the second chamber is deployed subsequently.
In the airbag in the same patent publication, since gas is flown into the second chamber from the first chamber through the communication port, completion of deployment of the second chamber is later than completion of deployment of the first chamber. In addition, it is difficult to adjust the internal pressure or the speed of deployment of the first chamber and the second chamber individually.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 1-247242 (incorporated by reference) has disclosed an airbag in which an inner panel is disposed like extending between the inflator-engaging opening of the rear panel and the front panel so as to partition the inner space of the airbag into a first compartment and a second compartment. The inner panel has an approximately round shape when folded, and its outer circumferential portion is connected to an intermediate portion lying between the central portion and the circumferential portion of the front panel. The inner panel has an inflator-engaging opening at the central part thereof and the periphery of the opening is fixed to the retainer together with the rear panel. The inner panel has communication ports for mutual communication of the first compartment and the second compartment. When the inflator is activated, the first compartment inflates first and the second compartment inflates subsequently. Since gas flows into the second compartment from the first compartment through the communication ports, complete inflation of the second compartment lags behind complete inflation of the first compartment.


A magnetic resonance probe coil is fabricated using a superconductive material for the coil. Three distinct embodiments are described: a single-layer coil with no crossovers; a dual-film coil wherein the capacitors are formed through an intermediate dielectric layer; a single-layer coil incorporating a superconducting crossover. All of the embodiments are designed to take advantage of the properties of the superconducting material to achieve very high quality factors (Q) of tens of thousands to over a million. The superconductor is patterned into a spiral design to achieve self-resonance at a desired frequency in the range of 1 to 1000 MHz and the device operates at temperatures higher than 30 K. A broadband matching network is also disclosed which, when operated in conjunction with the superconducting magnetic resonance probe coil, allows operation over a wide range of frequencies while maintaining extremely low loss.

For certain applications, it is desirable to have a magnetic loop sensor, tuned by the addition of capacitance to resonate in the frequency range of 1-1000 MHz. In order to detect very weak magnetic fields such a sensor must generate extremely low levels of noise and consequently must have extremely low resistance and hence low loss. The lowest loss sensors are made of superconductor materials. Until recently, all superconductor materials had to be cooled below 30 K. to operate as superconductors. This requirement added significantly to the cost and complexity of systems which relied on these materials. The sensor design described here is one appropriate to high temperature superconductors, i.e., superconductor materials whose superconducting transition temperature (critical temperature or T.sub.c) is higher than 30 K. This latter class of materials, also known as cuprates, oxide superconductors and perovskites, is better suited to use in thin film form than in bulk forms. This physico-chemical difference necessitates new device and circuit designs to make these materials useful in superconducting applications. The design can also be fabricated using conventional superconductors, like niobium, which are available in thin film form.
For certain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applications, resonant frequencies of approximately 5 MHz and sufficiently low resistance that the coil has a resonant quality factor (Q) of not less than 10.sup.4, and even as high as 10.sup.6, are desired. The low resistances implied by these high values of Q ensure that the coil's internally generated thermal noise will be less than the noise generated by other noise sources within the imaging system, such as the tissue or object being imaged or the preamplifier coupled to the coil. To achieve such high Q, it is necessary that the equivalent series resistance of the LC resonator be less that approximately 100 .mu..OMEGA. to 1 m.OMEGA.. Such low resistance is achieved by the use of superconducting thin-film metallization in both the coil and the capacitor. A key advantage of this approach is that the sensor can be produced with a single superconductive film, and as a result it is more easily and reproducibly manufactured.
Several embodiments of this invention are disclosed herein. One embodiment of this invention consists of a multi-turn spiral coil (having inductance L) with an internal distributed interdigital capacitor (having capacitance C). The device operates in a self-resonant mode. One variation of this design has no connection between the inner end of the inductor coil and its outer end. Such a configuration is possible to fabricate in a single layer of superconductor with no crossover, that is, with no intervening dielectric layer.
An alternative design employs a single turn of interdigitated capacitor and has a crossover connection between the inner end of the inductor spiral and its outer end. This embodiment consists of a multi-turn spiral coil (having inductance L) connected to a surrounding interdigital capacitor (having capacitance C). It is useful for certain magnetic-resonance-imaging (MRI) applications, employing resonant frequencies of approximately 5 MHz, having an inductance of the order of 1 .mu.H, and an equivalent series of 1 m.OMEGA. or less. The corresponding resonant quality factors (Qs) are 10.sup.4 to 10.sup.6. Such low loss is achieved by the use of superconducting thin-film metallization in both the coil and the capacitor. Even the crossover (which connects to the inside end of the spiral coil and crosses over the other turns of the coil to reach one terminal of the capacitor) must be superconducting, which is achieved by the use of two thin films of superconductor with an intervening layer of insulating thin film. This design has a higher effective capacitance than does the single layer variant, which results in a lower resonant frequency. Because it does not require interdigital capacitors throughout the circuit, it can also be made with higher inductance than the single layer variant, allowing it to operate at lower frequencies at the expense of a crossover.
Other embodiments of the present invention employ two multi-turn spiral coils, placed in proximity to each other and with a sense of current flow such that their mutual inductance enhances their self inductances, coupled together by two annular capacitors at their inner and outer extremities in order to form a resonant circuit. Here the capacitance of the structure is increased in order to reduce the operating frequency. In these embodiments a key advantage is that the dielectric of the annular capacitors can be any suitable layer of material and can be made arbitrarily thin in order to reduce the resonant frequency.

Superconducting magnetic resonance probe coil


A method for reducing the length of servo-wedges in a disk drive comprising a concentric tracks, each track comprising embedded servo-wedges each having a track identification field (TIF) and a servo-wedge identification field (WIF), wherein the embedded servo-wedges are grouped into servo-wedge groups comprising a first and second sub-group of servo-wedges. The method includes selecting a servo-wedge from a selected servo-wedge group; storing a first subset of a track identification data (TID) corresponding to a selected track in TIF of selected servo-wedge; storing a second subset of TID in a first portion of WIF of selected servo-wedge if selected servo-wedge is in second sub-group; storing a first wedge identification data (WID) corresponding to selected servo-wedge in a second portion of the WIF if selected servo-wedge is in second sub-group; and storing a second WID corresponding to selected servo-wedge in WIF if selected servo-wedge is in first sub-group.

Disk drives conventionally partition disk surfaces via a series of angularly-spaced embedded servo-wedges disposed on the disk surfaces between data-wedges which contain data tracks with data sectors recorded in the intervals between servo-wedges on each track. The servo-wedges are used in positioning and maintaining a head over a desired track during write and read operations. Typically, servo-wedges are sampled at regular intervals by a read/write channel, and are processed by a servo controller to provide position information to a microprocessor for positioning a head over a desired track.
While the servo-wedges are essential to the operation of the disk drive, their inclusion on the disk surface results in a reduction of the disk surface area available for the data-wedges which in turn translate into a reduction in data capacity of a disk drive. As such, the servo-wedges are considered an overhead in the storage of data on a disk drive. The constant demand for increased data capacity of a disk drive has resulted in an increased number of tracks per inch and/or bits per track on a disk surface. This, however, has also required an increased number of embedded servo-wedges disposed on the disk surface, and thus increased the associated overhead to the disk drive, hindering efforts to maximize the data capacity of a disk drive.
Accordingly, what is needed is a reduction in the overhead associated with the use of embedded servo-wedges on a disk surface of a disk drive.

Reducing the length of servo-wedges in a disk drive


A display for soft proofing an image to be reproduced using a set of selected printing colors includes a plurality of display elements each for displaying a color substantially spectrally matched to one of a set of printing colors.

Printing processes typically involve the creation of one or more proofs that allow the printer or printing customer to view a sample of the image to determine if words are spelled correctly, if images are located as desired and to determine if colors have been reproduced satisfactorily. There are multiple points in the printing process where an image or composite of images may be critiqued. Proofing is a time-and-material consuming step in the printing process, but is traditionally considered to be necessary so that alterations and/or corrections, often at the last minute, can be made.
At first, proofs were made on the press used to print the job. Specifically, plates were made from composed films and one or more proofs were printed using the plate, ink and paper of the job. Often, several copies were printed for the approval of the customer. This proofing method is still the method of choice when large numbers of samples (referred to as "press proofs") are required. Such proofs are as close as, possible to the output to be produced by the job.
Because of the length of the traditional proofing cycle, products were developed that could lead to substantial reduction in proofing time. Such proofing processes create "offpress" proofs by sequentially exposing the four color films onto photosensitive colored foils that simulate the printed sheet. The colorants in the photosensitive foils are pigments that are similar to the printing ink pigments. The four colored foils are laminated in register on a white receiver sheet to produce the final offpress proof. Typically, these proofs were made immediately after the color scanning process, after color scan corrections were made and then again for the final composite proof. Of course, every adjustment required another proof to show the effect of the changes. Typical examples of offpress proofs are Cromalin by DuPont and Matchprint and Transfer key by 3M.
If only one or two copies of a proof are required, the offpress proof is less expensive than a press proof. While the spectral match to ink and paper is imperfect, it is close enough to be a useful guide to color approval. The time required to prepare offpress proofs that are of contract quality and acceptance is approximately 25 to 45 minutes per proof, as compared to the two to four hour time required for press proofing. Until recently, this turnaround time was generally considered acceptable.
In the 1980's, desktop publishing became a reality. Computers were finally powerful and inexpensive enough to allow for prepress color preparation off-site (e.g., at the publisher) from the color trade shop and printing plant. The results of color scans were displayed on cathode ray tube (CRT) color monitors. Color corrections and image manipulation were performed on the color monitor in the red-green-blue color space and transformed into cyan-magenta-yellow-black (CMYK) printing plate files. The CMYK files were converted to films and offpress proofs or press proofs were made from the films. From the beginning, there was a desire to use the color monitor as a soft proofing medium, but there were some limitations. The customer would need a remote color monitor for simultaneous viewing of the proof. Further, the viewing conditions would have to be controlled and/or standardized. Also, the color reproduced by the monitor was not considered to be representative of ink on paper, and therefore not useful as a consistent guide to color proofing owing to manufacturing processes, inherent differences between reflective and self-luminous displays and the mismatch between monitor primary colors and ink colors.
The demand for a soft proofing device has continued to increase, accelerated by other technological developments, primarily the "computer-to-plate" and "computer-to-press" printing processes. This technology has the potential to eliminate film completely, thus eliminating the offpress proof and increasing the demand for a high fidelity soft proofing system. Also, image assembly and page imposition in these processes are accomplished by manipulating data files, resulting in a significant reduction in the amount of time required to undertake these tasks and thereby shifting the production bottleneck to the proofing process.
Schreiber, U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,919 discloses a system for reproducing colors including apparatus for causing a reproduction on a CRT to be a colorimetric match for a final printed page. Changes to the image can be interactively made by observing the image on the CRT as adjustments are made.


A hollow, tubular wooden musical instrument comprises a body portion of lightweight, tubular cross-section having a first and second opposite ends and at least one wooden laminate layer defining a fingerboard surface along a length of the body portion; a tuning device capable of tensioning a plurality of strings mounted lengthwise along the fingerboard surface, the body portion being capable of withstanding string tensions of up to 1200 psi perpendicular to the body portion, and defining structure for emanating sounds produced by vibrating the strings. The hollow musical instrument has a conic-section cross section, e.g., circular or elliptical, or a compound conic-section cross-section, e.g., lute shape, and may be of uniform diameter, conical, or tapered diameter formats. It may be played as an acoustic or electric instrument. The hollow, tubular instrument can additionally be of modular design having predefined sections to facilitate changes of sounds or fingerboard surfaces. Whether of unitary or modular design, the instrument can be fitted in a sound chamber to provide additional resonance of tones generated by strings, or may be retrofitted in existing sound chamber devices.

All over the world and throughout the ages there has appeared many wooden stringed musical instruments, predominantly that are played by picking of the strings, e.g., with fingers or picks, or by bowing the strings, e.g., with a bow. Ethnic types of wooden stringed instruments that may be played by a bow include Valihas, Tambura, and zithers. These instrument traditionally are tubular shaped instruments having strings tensioned across the length of the tube and having a bridge mechanism lying transverse to the length of the strings.
The Tambura, in particular is a "drone lute", and is not designed for melodic playing. It contains a bridge that is moveable for adjusting the pitch and in essence lays down an accompanying chord as a backdrop for some other instrument. This instrument may be an idiochord, having a single string or, a heterochord instrument with multiple strings. Zither instruments are also droning instruments, and as such, produce one fundamental tone per string, with its associate overtones, at a time.
The Valihas is a heterochord instrument with multiple strings, and is more closely related to the harp with each string set to a specific pitch before they are played.
A common instrument found in India is the sitar, which may include a hollow neck that forms a gourd shaped resonant body and is not designed as a drone. Played strings run over arched metal and movable frets and sympathetic strings run under the frets in the troughed neck to lateral tuning pegs.
The more commonly known and appreciated stringed instruments include the guitar and related instruments, e.g., bass guitar, banjo, dobro, etc., and the violin, and related family of instruments, e.g., cello, viola, double bass, etc.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional guitar 40 is characterized by a body 45, having incurved sides 45a and 45b, a solid neck portion 55 extending from the body. Six strings 44 are fastened by tailpiece 47 at one end of the body 45 that are tensioned to pass over a bridge 46 mounted on the body and additionally pass over a nut 43 mounted near the end of the neck 55 and are wound around tuning pegs 42 situated at the end of the neck. For most of their length, the strings pass over a fingerboard 48 with the vibrating length of each string being defined by the bridge 46, and the nut 43. Frets 49 are provided that are pressed by fingers for changing the length of the vibrating string. A large circular hole 51 is provided for providing emanating sounds produced by the vibrating strings and resonating through the hollow body structure.
A hollow box shown in broken lines 52 forms the body of the guitar and functions to make the sound from the vibrating strings audible. The hollow box 52 is actually part of a resonant system consisting of a strings stretched across a bridge, and set into vibration at its resonance frequency which, in turn, exerts vibrating forces on the body of the instrument through the bridge. Particularly, the traditional bridge 46 (FIG. 1) has a foot print of 0.25 sq. in. to 6.0 sq. in. at the point where the bridge rests on the top plate of the sound chamber. The body 45 of the instrument serves two functions such as supporting the strings so that they can vibrate properly, and to make the sounds from the vibrating strings audible. As vibrating strings themselves disturb very little air and hence practically radiate no sound, the important job of the guitar body is to transmit these strings vibrations to the air in such a way as to give them loudness and tone.
The quality of the sound the guitar radiates will depend not only on the harmonic structure of the vibration of the string, but also on the way in which these harmonics are transmitted through the bridge to the body, and hence to the air through sound hole 51.
As shown in the side view of the hollow guitar body 45 FIG. 2, the strings 44 are when tensioned over the bridge 46 in the direction indicated by arrow B and arrow F. String tensions on guitars start at about 18 psi for the thinnest string on an acoustic guitar up to about 40 psi on the low "E" string of an electric guitar, heavy gauge). For an electric bass, string tensions may start at about 35 psi, for the thin string and exceed over about 50 lbs. for the lowest (heaviest gauge) string. Strings on upright acoustic basses may be tensioned starting at 60 psi and can exceed over 70 psi on the lowest string. The resulting tension creates a resultant force that is exerted downward as indicated by the direction of arrow A. This force is transmitted downward to the top plate of the body 45 with the transmitted downward force being proportionate to the tensile force of the string.
In view of the tensile forces exerted by the strings on such guitar instruments, especially in consideration of a hollow neck structure instead of the predominant solid neck construction as used in more commonly known and appreciated stringed instruments, it readily is understood that a minimum material wall and body strength must be provided. Thus, for example, a bass guitar, e.g., cannot be simply manufactured by tensioning a bass guitar string on a long piece of hollow bamboo, as the bamboo just can't hold the tension. Moreover, it is not a simple matter of just getting a larger piece of wood and hollowing it out, because, in order to withstand the string tension forces exhibited, the body walls would have to be thick or reinforced with strengthening materials, e.g., plastics or wood, making the instrument too heavy, bulky, and with very little body resonance.
It would thus be highly desirable to provide a wooden stringed musical instrument that is lightweight and easy to play, and can be manufactured at relatively low cost.
Additionally, it would be highly desirable to provide a wooden stringed musical instrument that is lightweight, hollow, and of cylindrical or conical (tapered) construction, and that can be circular and/or elliptical in cross-section and capable of accommodating tension created by thick gauge guitar strings, e.g., bass guitar strings.
Moreover, it would thus be highly desirable to provide a wooden musical stringed instrument that is lightweight and may be modular or unitary in design, and, is capable of being played in acoustic or electric formats, with or without additional sound chamber structure.


In order from a magnification side of the projection zoom lens system, five lens groups are arranged. The fourth lens group includes, in order from the magnification side, a negative lens having at least one aspheric surface, a positive lens, a negative lens concave toward the magnification side, a positive lens convex toward the reduction side, and a positive lens. The fifth lens group is formed of one lens, and is configured so that a ratio of a focal length of the fifth lens group to a focal length of the whole system at a wide-angle end is within a numerical range of 3 to 8.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a projection zoom lens system having a five-group configuration and a projection type display apparatus equipped with the projection zoom lens system. Specifically, the invention relates to a projection zoom lens system and a projection type display apparatus which are suitable particularly in a case where rays containing image information, which are generated from a light valve such as a transmissive or reflective liquid crystal display device or a DMD (Digital Micromirror Device) display device, are projected from the front side and magnified on a screen.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, there has been remarkable development of projection type display apparatuses which display image information of a computer, a television, and the like in an enlarged manner by using light valves such as a liquid crystal display device and a DMD display device.
A zoom lens system capable of changing the size of an image is generally used as a lens system provided in such projection type display apparatuses. However, in recent years, the zoom lens system has been required to have a large change rate, that is, a large zoom ratio.
Further, the zoom lens system is also required to have a function (which is a so-called lens shift projection function) of moving an image position far away from the projection type display apparatus during projection of the image and a function of obtaining a large image by projecting the image to a position close to the projection type display apparatus. Hence, the projection zoom lens system is required to achieve an increase in the angle of view.
Furthermore, considering an increase in the precision of the recent light valves itself and the requirements and convenience of a user who uses the apparatus in a small indoor space, the projection zoom lens system is required to achieve high resolution and compactness.
In the projection zoom lens systems having a five-group configuration are disclosed in JP-A-2001-91829 and JP-A-2001-100100, a negative first lens group, a positive second lens group, a positive third lens group, a fourth lens group, and a positive fifth lens group are arranged in order from the magnification side. During zooming, the first lens group and the fifth lens group remain stationary, and the second to fourth lens groups are moved.
Since these known projection zoom lens systems are configured so that the fourth lens group includes negative, positive, negative, positive, and positive lenses arranged in order from the magnification side, fluctuation in various aberrations accompanying the zooming operation is relatively small. In addition, since the fifth lens group is formed of one lens, a relatively compact configuration is achieved.
However, the known projection zoom lens system has a zoom ratio of 1.2 to 1.3 times or so and a total angle of view of 60 degrees or so at the wide-angle end. Thus, the zoom lens system does not comply with the recent requirements.

Projection zoom lens system and projection type display apparatus


An enterprise network opens a virtual private network tunnel with a data center by sending the data center a data request that includes a uniform resource identifier. The data center responds by sending the enterprise network ongoing reply data. A user wishing to access network data of the enterprise network transmits an access request to the data center. The data center authenticates the identity of the user and transmits the access request to the enterprise network. The enterprise network responds to the access request by performing acts upon the network data and/or by returning network data to the data center such that the user is enabled access to the network data. In an alternative embodiment, the data center caches a copy of network data to be retrieved by a remote user when the same network data is disconnected from the enterprise network.

1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for enabling a user to access data over a virtual private network. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for providing a user with controlled mobile remote access to network data over a spontaneous virtual private network.
2. Background and Related Art
In today's business world, many businesses protect their data from unauthorized access by installing firewalls into their network infrastructure. Typically, a firewall is configured to prevent unidentified users from accessing network data from a remote location. Although firewalls are generally very beneficial for enabling a business to have more control over who accesses its network data, they also have the undesirable consequence of disconnecting mobile professionals from critical and urgent business information when they are away from the office or otherwise unable to gain local access to the network data.
To enable a mobile professional to access business information from a remote location, some businesses have installed virtual private networks (VPNs) between the business and designated remote locations, such as from a professional's home or satellite office. The function of a VPN is to open a secure connection between the business network and a designated remote location through the business firewall. Although beneficial for providing remote access to network data, a VPN requires the installation of expensive hardware and/or software at the business network and sometimes at the remote location.
An embodiment of a prior art system and method for enabling remote access to network data over a VPN is shown in FIG. 1. As shown, a user 10 communicates with the business network 12 from a remote location through a VPN tunnel 14. At each end of the VPN tunnel 14 is a VPN node 16, 18. At the business network 12, the VPN node 16 straddles the business network's firewall 20. Network data 22 is transmitted through the firewall 20 at the VPN node 16 and through the VPN tunnel 14 to the user 10. According to the prior art, it is also possible for a remote business 23 to communicate with the business network 12 through a VPN tunnel 24, as shown between VPN node 16 and VPN node 26.
VPN hardware and software employ encryption technology and other security features at the VPN nodes to ensure that data transmitted through a VPN tunnel is not intercepted and that the user or remote business is authorized to access the business network data. The benefits of a VPN, however, are limited to discrete remote locations where the appropriate VPN software and/or hardware is installed. Accordingly, VPNs do not currently provide users with mobile remote access to network data stored behind business firewalls. In particular, a prior art VPN does not enable a user to access network data from a telephone while commuting in a moving vehicle.
There are also consequences associated with establishing a prior art VPN. In particular, a VPN requires a port or hole to be opened in the business firewall so that data can be transmitted between the business network and the remote VPN node. It is over the VPN port that hardware or software must be installed to ensure that only authorized users are provided access to the network data. However, despite the security mechanisms of the VPN to authenticate the identity of the user, the potential for a hacker to obtain unauthorized access to the business network is increased. For instance, a hacker may attack the firewall at the business VPN node or may obtain unauthorized access to network data by hacking into a remote user's computing device at the remote VPN node location. To prevent hackers from gaining access to network data, many businesses install secondary firewalls, so that if a hacker comes through the first firewall, they are more likely to be stopped before they penetrate the secondary firewall.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical firewall configuration for preventing unauthorized access to network data. This firewall configuration includes a primary firewall 20, a secondary firewall 28, and a demilitarized zone (DMZ) 30, which is the area between the primary firewall 20 and the secondary firewall 28.
Many businesses install proxy servers to intercept and filter data transmitted through the business's firewall infrastructure. Proxy servers are also beneficial for many other reasons, one of which is to enable users to access the Internet from behind a business firewall while enabling a business to limit the Internet sites that can be accessed. Proxy servers also hide the true identity of the Internet user by acting as a proxy in transmitting user requests. By acting as a proxy in transmitting user requests, the proxy server is able to filter user requests so that only qualified requests are honored. In essence, a proxy server can enhance the protection of a firewall infrastructure by prohibiting unauthorized requests from being honored. Proxy servers are particularly important for businesses that permit employees to access the Internet because Internet access requires additional holes or ports to be opened in the firewall infrastructure. Typically these ports include "port 80" and "port 443." A firewall and proxy server can collectively operate to prevent unauthorized users on the Internet from obtaining control over the business network by ensuring that data transmitted through the ports complies with defined protocols. Even though Internet access initiated from within a business typically requires "port 80" and "port 443" to be opened in the firewall, the potential for a hacker to gain unauthorized remote access to a business network through "port 80" and "port 443" can be substantially limited by using appropriate firewall and proxy server configurations.
The hole created in the firewall by a VPN, however, is difficult to police even with effective VPN hardware and software. A VPN also increases the number of fronts that have to be monitored, including the newly opened VPN port in the business firewall and each of the remote VPN nodes. Accordingly, although VPNs are beneficial for enabling authorized users to access network data from remote locations, VPNs are likewise detrimental for facilitating unauthorized access to network data from remote locations. VPNs make it difficult to police business firewalls, make it difficult to use proxy servers, and in consequence, weaken firewalls and provide users, authorized or not, with too much control over network data. VPNs can also be very expensive to install and maintain. Nevertheless, because of today's business need for mobile professionals to have access to critical and urgent information away from the office, many businesses are willing to expend the resources and take the risks that are associated with establishing VPNs.
In view of the foregoing, there is currently a need in the art for providing mobile professionals with controlled access to network data that is stored behind business firewalls, without weakening the associated firewall infrastructure and in an economic manner. There is also a need for providing users with mobile remote access to network data through a VPN, such that network data does not have to be obtained from discrete, predefined, remote VPN node locations. For example, it would be an advancement in the art to enable a mobile professional to access email messages through a VPN, while the mobile professional is commuting in a moving vehicle from a portable telephone device.

Spontaneous virtual private network between portable device and enterprise network


Provided a light guide (11) including side surfaces on which light is incident, a reflection prism surface having plural prisms (12) on which light is reflected, and a light emitting surface from which the light is emitted, in which the reflection prism surface includes a first region (PA) in which a pitch of the prisms (12) varies and a second region (TA) in which a depth of the prisms (12) varies. In the light guide (11), the first region is arranged in the side surface on which the light is incident, and a second region (TA) is arranged adjacent to the first region and in an inward side of the light guide (11).

A light guide in the related art disclosed in Patent Document 1 will be explained with reference to FIG. 12. The light guide has a rectangular parallelepiped shape. FIG. 12 is a perspective view of a related-art light guide. The related-art light guide includes LED light sources 13 and a light guide 11 as shown in FIG. 12.
The light guide 11 includes a reflecting prism surface 22 having plural prisms 12 and a light emitting surface 23 opposite thereto. The light guide 11 allows incident light to propagate therein, allowing the light to be reflected by the prisms 12 and emitting the light from the optical light emitting surface 23. LED light sources 13 are arranged on both end portions of the light guide 11.
The LED light sources 13 are light generating means generating light emitted to the light guide 11. The depth of the prisms 12 becomes deeper as getting away from the LED light sources 13. The prisms 12 are formed in this manner so that light generated directly from the LED light sources 13 and reflected light reflected on the light emitting surface 23 can be uniformly reflected as the entire light guide 11 regardless of positions. That is, the light is difficult to reach inside as the light propagates inside, therefore, large prisms are used for reflecting light more efficiently.
FIG. 12 is schematically expressed and shows the small number of prisms 12. This is the same in the following drawings. In this case, for example, the reflecting prism surface 22 actually has 169 triangular prisms 12 in the light guide 11. These prisms 12 are numbered in a manner that N=1, 2, . . . , 84, 85, 84, 83, . . . , 2, 1 from an end portion of the light guide 11 to the center.
A length W of the light guide 11 is 59.2 mm and a thickness D of the light guide 11 is 3.5 mm. A pitch between the prisms 12 is fixed at 0.35 mm. As the depth of the prisms 12 (the height of triangles), a depth in the first prism 12 at the endmost position is 24.3 μm, and a depth of the 85th prism 12 in the center is 75 μm.
In the related-art light guide 11, the depth of the prisms 12 is changed to thereby allow the guided light to be reflected to the light emitting surface 23 side. Though the thickness D of the light guide 11 is 3.5 mm, a portion through which light is transmitted to the center is necessary, therefore, the maximum depth of the prisms 12 is 75 μm (a thickness of several %).
In the above structure, it is necessary to make the heights of the prisms 12 further deeper for designing a light guide 11 having a further larger area. However, it is difficult to reduce the thickness of the light guide 11 with respect to the heights of the prisms 12 to be less than a certain ratio, and the possible thickness is limited by the heights of the prisms 12. Accordingly, when a thin-film light guide 11 with 0.2 to 0.3 mm is to be designed, it is difficult to secure a thickness enough to guide necessary light.

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.


In a ghost detector, synchronous detection is performed on a received video signal to provide a detected signal which is then converted to a band-limited signal having a predetermined bandwidth, a scanning synchronous component signal is extracted from the detected signal to provide a switching control signal for a ghost component detecting period on the basis of the synchronous component signal, and the band-limited signal is switched in response to the switching control signal so as to provide a switching signal. Then, the bandwidth of the switching signal is broadened to provide a time-compressed processing signal by a write/read operation for the switching signal on the basis of a predetermined control signal, time reversal on the processing signal is performed in an order reverse to the order of writing/reading the processing signal to provide a time-reversed signal, the processing signal is delayed by the period of the time reversal to provide a delay signal, the time-reversed signal and the delay signal are amplitude modulated by a predetermined carrier component signal to produce associated amplitude modulated signals, and a correlation signal that contains a significant waveform representing a ghost component of the received video signal is obtained.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a ghost detector for detecting a reflected wave (so-called "ghost" which is generated upon signal reception in television broadcasting) from buildings or other obstacles that is superimposed on a direct wave. More particularly, the invention relates to a ghost detector suitable for use in signal reception by mobile receivers. The invention also relates to a ghost suppressor for suppressing the unwanted effects of ghost.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A conventional circuit for removing reflected wave components from the signal received by a television receiver is well known as a "ghost canceler" and used for the purpose of signal reception by fixed receivers. In such a ghost canceler, a reference signal (GC signal) for vertical blanking is extracted from a video signal and any distortion present in the waveform of the received signal is corrected by a suitable apparatus such as a transversal filter so that the reflected component which was undesirably added to the reference signal is reduced to zero.
According to this conventional method of suppressing reflected waves, the reference signal for vertical blanking exists only for an extremely short time within a field period (1/60 second in the NTSC system) and the magnitude of the reflected wave component and the time of reflection are compensated, i.e., controlled to be reduced, for every 1/60 second, requiring a certain time, typically 3 to 4 seconds, for the reflected wave component to level off toward zero. When electric waves for television broadcasting are to be received by a fixed receiver, several seconds may well be taken to suppress the reflected wave and, hence, the above-described conventional method will cause no practical problems. However, this conventional method which takes time in ghost detection is unable to measure the actual generation of ghost during signal reception by a mobile receiver, making it impossible to realize a high-speed ghost canceler.
A further problem with the conventional system is that if a SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) convolver is directly used as a correlating device, the time required for the convolver to achieve correlation is very short, only a fraction of the length of scanning lines for television and, as a result, it has been impossible to detect ghosts of short delay time. If the time required for the convolver to achieve correlation is prolonged, the propagation loss which is caused during the correlating operation will increase to an impractical level.

Ghost detector with time reversal processing


The invention relates to a cellular telephone integration system, comprising an adapter and a mounting device, whereby the adapter incorporates a base body with a seating, whereby the adapter incorporates at least one interface with the cellular telephone. Here, the adapter incorporates a clip, which projects over the seating, in the direction of the seating from one edge of the base body in a clamping position under pretension such that a cellular telephone can be inserted between a free end of the clip and the seating in a clamping position, whereby the cellular telephone in the clamping position between the clip and the seating is secured by the clip pressing on the cellular telephone such that this is held firmly in position in the clamping position, even while the vehicle is in operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a cellular telephone integration system.
2. Description of Related Art
A cellular telephone integration system comprising an adapter and a mounting device is known from EP 2 125 434 B1, whereby the adapter comprises a seating, whereby a cellular telephone can be placed on the seating, whereby the mounting device is affixed to a vehicle, whereby the adapter is detachably clamped to the mounting device and comprises a base body, whereby the adapter incorporates at least one interface with the cellular telephone. Here, such adapters designed as a cradle are specifically customized for various cellular telephones.


The disclosure relates to a magnetic resonance apparatus with a patient positioning apparatus comprising at least one coil plug-in element and a communication unit, wherein the magnetic resonance apparatus comprises an adapter apparatus with a communication interface and the adapter apparatus is adapted to couple the communication unit to the at least one coil plug-in element of the patient positioning apparatus.

Magnetic resonance examinations are frequently perceived as unpleasant by patients. Reasons for this are, for example, a relatively long examination time that the patient has to spend within a patient receiving area of the magnetic resonance apparatus during the magnetic resonance examination. Herein, the examination time can be up to one hour. Moreover, during the long duration of the magnetic resonance examination, the patient should remain as motionless as possible to avoid repeated scans and/or image artifacts. Another reason why patients frequently perceive magnetic resonance examinations as unpleasant is that there is very loud noise exposure from the magnetic resonance apparatus, in particular a gradient coil unit of the magnetic resonance apparatus, during the magnetic resonance examination.
In order to make the stay during the magnetic resonance examination within the patient receiving area of the magnetic resonance apparatus as pleasant as possible for the patient, the availability of patient entertainment with music for patients during the magnetic resonance examination is known. Such patient entertainment in particular contributes to distracting and/or calming the patient during the magnetic resonance examination.
For example, headphones are available to the patient for audio output, in particular for audio output and/or to entertain the patient with music during the magnetic resonance examination. To avoid interference with magnetic resonance data acquisition during the transmission of audio signals during the magnetic resonance examination, it is common for the headphones provided and the signal transmission of audio signals and/or audio data to be embodied as magnetic resonance compatible. For the signal transmission, it is known to date to use a sound tube and sound headphones for the audio output. However, such sound tubes and sound headphones frequently have inadequate transmission quality and/or signal quality for effectively distracting the patient from the magnetic resonance examination.
A further option for patient entertainment is a patient entertainment system that includes a display and headphones. If a magnetic resonance head coil is used for the magnetic resonance examination on the patient, the display can be placed over the head coil with a frame so that the patient can look directly at the display during the magnetic resonance examination. However, such a patient entertainment system entails very high costs. Furthermore, for patient entertainment and/or patient communication, the display and headphones have to be actuated via radio. Moreover, the display and the headphones also have to be regularly supplied with batteries for a power supply, which in turn entails a high degree of maintenance.

Magnetic resonance apparatus with a patient positioning apparatus and a communication unit


The present invention provides a process for accurately combining low-resolution and high-resolution video streams into a single seamless display to a human observer. The present invention also provides a method for the smooth blending of high- and low-resolution video boundary. In order to create an effective visual display, it is advantageous that the boundary between high- and low-resolution video not be overly distracting and irregular. The present method to reduce distractions from the quadrilateral boundary between low-and high-resolution video by smoothly blending the two in an annular region between the two. This results in a much more visually pleasing, effective display. The present invention also provides a method for progressively mosaicking high resolution imagery over a low resolution image captured by our panoramic sensor. The observer is continuously presented with a low-resolution panoramic image of a remote scene, and this image is updated with high-resolution imagery from the high-resolution sensor, at selected locations of interest, as they are available.

Sensor and bandwidth constraints limit the spatial resolution and field-of-view (FOV) achievable in any visual system. In many applications (e.g. surveillance, teleconferencing), it is desirable to have both large field of view (e.g. to survey a panoramic area) and high resolution (e.g. to identify certain types of activity or to recognize faces).
Over the last ten years there has been increasing interest in the application of panoramic sensing to computer vision ((Danilidis & Geyer, 2000), (Hicks & Bajcsy, 2000), (Ishiguro, Yamamoto, & Tsuji, 1992), (Nayar, 1997), (Svoboda, Pajdla, & Hlavac, 1998), (Yagi & Kawato, 1990), (Yin & Boult, 2000)). Potential applications include surveillance, object tracking, and telepresence ((Haritaoglu, Harwood, & Davis, 1998), (Kanade, Collins, Lipton, Burt, & L. Wixson, 1998)). Most existing panoramic sensors are catadioptric, i.e. the sensor is composed of a camera and a curved mirror arranged so that the resulting system has a single viewpoint. It has been shown ((Danilidis & Geyer, 2000)) that the projection obtained with a catadioptric sensor with a single viewpoint is equivalent to the projection on a sphere followed by a perspective projection. Catadioptric sensors allow panoramic images to be captured without any camera motion. However, since a single sensor is used for the entire panorama, the resolution of such images may be inadequate for many applications. Switching from the 14 deg FOV of a typical lens to the 360 deg FOV of a panoramic camera results in a 26-fold reduction in linear resolution. For a standard 768×494 NTSC camera, horizontal resolution is reduced to roughly 0.5 deg/pixel, a factor of 60 below human foveal resolution.
There has been considerable work on space-variant (foveated) sensor chips ((Ferrari, Nielsen, Questa, & Sandini, 1995), (Pardo, Dierickx, & Scheffer, 1997)). However, since the number of photoreceptive elements on these sensors is limited, they do not provide a resolution or field of view advantage over traditional chips. Moreover, it is not clear how such sensors could be used to achieve a panoramic field of view over which the fovea can be rapidly deployed. A more common solution to the FOV/resolution tradeoff is to compose mosaics from individual overlapping high-resolution images that form a covering of the viewing sphere ((Irani, Anandan, & Hsu, 1995), (Kumar, Anandan, Irani, Bergen, & Hanna, 1995), (Szeliski, 1994), (Szeliski & Shum, 1997)).
These images can be obtained by a single camera that can rotate about its optical centre. Such a system is useful for recording high-resolution "still life" panoramas, but is of limited use for dynamic scenes, since the instantaneous field of view is typically small. An alternative is to compose the mosaic from images simultaneously recorded by multiple cameras with overlapping fields of view. The primary disadvantage of this approach is the multiplicity of hardware and independent data channels that must be integrated and maintained. For example, a standard 25 mm lens provides a field-of-view of roughly 14×10 degrees. Allowing for 25% overlap between adjacent images to support accurate mosaicking, achieving this resolution over a hemispheric field of view would require roughly 260 cameras.
The human visual system has evolved a bipartite solution to the FOV/resolution tradeoff. The field of view of the human eye is roughly 160×175 deg—nearly hemispheric. Central vision is served by roughly five million photoreceptive cones that provide high resolution, chromatic sensation over a five-degree field of view, while roughly one hundred million rods provide relatively low-resolution achromatic vision over the remainder of the visual field ((Wandell, 1995)). The effective resolution is extended by fast gaze-shifting mechanisms and a memory system that allows a form of integration over multiple fixations ((Irwin & Gordon, 1998)).
Variations on this architecture are found in other species. Many insects, for example, have panoramic visual systems ((Moller, Lambrinos, Pfeifer, & Wehner, 1998)). For example, the springing spider has four eyes that capture movement over the entire viewing sphere and two small field-of-view high resolution eyes used in predation and mating.
There have been some recent attempts to integrate high- and low-resolution imaging in artificial sensors. In June, 1996, Hughes Electronics filed a patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,710,661) Integrated panoramic and high resolution sensor optics, which describes an optical apparatus that monitors an entire panorama in low resolution, and simultaneously monitors a selected portion of the panorama in high resolution. A drawback to this system is that both high and low resolution data are recorded on the same sensor, limiting both foveal and panoramic resolution.
In April, 1998, OmniView Inc. filed a patent (WO9846014A1), Method and apparatus for inserting a high resolution image into a low resolution interactive image to produce a realistic immersive experience. This patent describes a process of inserting a high resolution image into a low resolution display to produce a more convincing virtual reality experience. This patent was awarded in October, 1998. There are other related patents on the blending of high resolution and low resolution imagery in visual displays (e.g. US1984000576432, Filed February 1984, Granted January 1987).
Geisler and Perry (1998) have demonstrated a wavelet-based video encoding system that progressively subsamples the video stream at image points distant from the viewer-defined region of interest. Recent work with saccade-contingent displays (Loschky & McConkie, 1999) has shown that video data viewed in the periphery of the human visual system can be substantially subsampled with negligible subjective or objective impact. While our attentive panoramic sensor is not eye-slaved, these prior results do suggest that attention-contingent sampling for human-in-the-loop video is feasible and potentially useful.
Yin and Boult (2000) have developed a multiresolution panoramic image sensor based on stacking multiple parabolic mirrors of different sizes. Since the entire pyramid is sensed by a single sensor, this technique provides efficient access to very low resolution data, but does not solve the problem of obtaining and integrating high-resolution data with data at panoramic resolution.
Mann and Picard (1997) have investigated correlation-based methods for computing homographies to fuse images of different resolution taken by the same camera at different focal lengths, but do not address the problem of fusing images over much greater resolution differences from different cameras in real time.


A controller controls respective braking pressures at wheels on a vehicle. The controller includes a processor electrically communicating with a first switching valve, which controls a first of the braking pressure at a first of the wheels, and a second switching valve, which controls a second of the braking pressures at a second of the wheels. The processor, during a braking control event, controls the switching valve associated with the higher of the braking pressures to maintain the higher braking pressure while switching a state of the switching valve associated with the lower of the braking pressures to increase the lower braking pressure.

The present invention relates to a vehicle braking system. It finds particular application in conjunction with an anti-lock braking system and will be described with particular reference thereto. It will be appreciated, however, that the invention is also amenable to other applications.
Heavy vehicle braking systems commonly rely on compressed air for operating a vehicle braking system. Compressed air is produced by a compressor and stored in at least one reservoir. Various valves control fluid communication between the at least one reservoir and various brake circuits and individual brake chambers on respective wheels. Opening a valve from a reservoir to a brake circuit or a brake chamber increases the volume available for the compressed air stored in the reservoir. If an increased volume is available for the same amount of compressed air, the pressure of the compressed air in the increased volume drops.
In general, an anti-lock braking system (ABS) applies, holds, and releases pressure at an individual brake or multiple brakes to improve traction of the associated wheel and, furthermore, enhance vehicle control. Applying, holding, and releasing an individual brake is achieved by actuating and deactuating a valve associated with that brake. As discussed above, if the valve is in the apply state, the volume available for the compressed air increases, thereby decreasing the pressure in the reservoir. Decreased pressure in a brake circuit may impact the braking torque available to other brake chambers in the circuit.
The present invention provides a new and improved apparatus and method for addressing a decreased pressure available to brake chambers in a circuit when a valve to one of the brake chambers is in the apply state.

System and method for controlling respective braking pressures at wheels on a vehicle


Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are disclosed for automated robotic sortation. In one embodiment, an example system may include a first robotic arm configured to grasp a moving object from a conveyor while the conveyor is in motion, a camera system configured to image objects moving on the conveyor, and a first scanner configured to scan machine-readable codes on objects moving on the conveyor. The system may be configured to sort objects from the conveyor using the first robotic arm based at least in part on an object destination.

As users increasingly make online purchases, fulfilment of such purchases and other orders may become increasingly complicated. For example, a fulfillment center may have output of upwards of one million packages per day. With such demands, efficiency of logistics related to processing orders and packages may be important. For example, use of robotic equipment to move or otherwise handle objects may improve efficiency. However, such robotic equipment may have difficulty completing certain tasks. Accordingly, improvements in various operations of order fulfillment, such as improvements to picking technology, sorting technology, packing technology, and so forth may be desired, such that manual efforts can be redirected to different tasks.

Systems and methods for automated robotic sortation


The present invention relates to a drum magazine, and more particularly, to a drum magazine in which a wheel cover, which is configured to provide an elastic force via a mainspring to a bullet guide unit configured to elastically support a bullet loaded in a drum at a loading hole which is an inlet of the drum, is rotatably disposed at an outer surface of the drum, wherein, at the time of loading, an elastic latch unit is elastically engaged with an inner ring gear of the wheel cover and allows rotation of the wheel cover only in one direction so that a loading space at an entry of the loading hole that is provided due to arbitrary rotation of the wheel cover in the one direction is maintained as it is even when a user removes his or her hand from the magazine, and, after the loading is completed, a latch control unit configured to disengage the elastic latch unit and the inner ring gear is operated so that an elastic restoration force of the mainspring, which is accumulated due to the loading, is transmitted to the bullet guide unit and the loaded bullet is elastically supported at the loading hole.

Generally, a drum magazine is configured to have bullets spirally loaded in a drum and has an advantage of being able to store a large amount of bullets.
Such drum magazines have already been introduced (for example, in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-2065856 (Title of Invention: Drum magazine; Date of Registration: Jan. 7, 2020).
In the related art, a handle manipulation part is installed on one surface of an outer portion of a main body portion, which is a drum. The handle manipulation part rotates in one direction and imparts an elastic force to a bullet guide member configured to elastically support a bullet at a loading hole inside the main body portion, and simultaneously causes an end portion of the bullet guide member to retreat from the loading hole to provide a loading space, in which a bullet may be loaded, at an entry of the loading hole. Also, the handle manipulation part is configured to maintain a rotated state when rotated by a predetermined angle once in one direction using a lever manipulation part.
In other words, in order to maintain the rotated state of the handle manipulation part that is rotated by the predetermined angle in the one direction, a user should continuously press the lever manipulation part to maintain an operating state. Then, when the user removes his or her hand from the lever manipulation part, the handle manipulation part rotates in the other direction on the basis of an elastic restoration force of a mainspring. The rotation of the handle manipulation part in the other direction is transmitted to the bullet guide member via a rotating shaft of a bullet guide part. Accordingly, the bullet guide member elastically supports the loaded bullet at the loading hole.


A gatherer stitcher is provided having a common drive unit driving at least two operating shafts, at least one and/or at least two different operating units, such as more particularly a gatherer chain and/or stitching station and/or a feeder and/or stitching carriage and/or ejector and/or 3-cutter, comprising two operating shafts, which permits an automated change in the phase angle between the two shafts. According to the invention, this is achieved in that an adjusting apparatus having at least one adjustment drive (4) that can be monitored is provided in order to set a phase angle at least between the two shafts.

(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a gatherer stitcher having a common drive unit driving at least two operating shafts operating at least one and/or at least two different operating units, where the operating shafts can include in particular a gatherer chain and/or stitching station and/or a feeder and/or a stitching carriage and/or an ejector and/or a 3-cutter. More particularly the invention pertains to an adjusting apparatus having at least one adjustment drive that can be controlled to set a phase angle between the two operating shafts.
(2) Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
Gatherer stitchers are generally paper-processing machines with which a product, for example a brochure, is assembled from a plurality of folded sheets and is stitched. Printed folded sheets from stacks, lying on folded sheet feeders or standing on the spine, are supplied in separated form, opened and placed on a gatherer chain. The number of folded sheets to be stitched is gathered and aligned on the gatherer chain by means of drivers. The gatherer chain transports the gathered folded sheets to a stitching device, where these are stitched with wire staples by means of stitching heads. In order to trim the edge of the stitched products, what is known as a trimmer (3-cutter) is normally provided after the ejector, from which the end products are transported onward to a delivery. If appropriate, perforation of the products can be provided.
In gatherer stitchers, two stitching principles can expediently be employed: stitching at a standstill or stitching on the moving product. In order to perform stitching on the moving product, the stitching device, comprising stitching carriage and bending-over device or stitching station, has to be moved together with the product to be stitched and has to be coordinated with the movement of the latter, at least for some time.
The gatherer stitcher is often driven by a central electric motor. In this case, the various subassemblies, such as the stitching apparatus, the gatherer chain, the folded sheet feeder, the ejector, the trimmer and possibly further components are driven by various gear mechanisms and a common shaft, what is known as a king shaft.
The respective subassembly comprises at least one operating shaft driven by the common shaft in order to fulfill its function, and to some extent there is also a plurality of operating shafts per subassembly. For instance, a folded sheet feeder has three corresponding shafts, in order to pull off the sheet and to open it in order to lay it on the gatherer chain.
Gatherer stitchers are often intended to be able to process an extremely wide range of sheets. For instance, papers of different size and/or different strengths are to be processed. For this purpose, it is to some extent necessary to adjust the phase angle between the operating shafts of different subassemblies and/or between the operating shafts of a subassembly. Hitherto, this has been carried but by hand, which is very time-consuming and to some extent relatively inaccurate.

Gatherer stitcher having two operating shafts


A coolant heating apparatus includes: a housing having a coolant flow path therein and configured to cause coolant to flow into the housing and to flow out from the housing after being heated; a sheath heater provided in an inside of the housing and configured to heat the coolant; and a heat conduction plate provided inside the housing and made of a heat-conductive material. A portion of the heat conduction plate is bent in a shape to enclose an outer circumferential surface of the sheath heater and to be in surface contact with the sheath heater so as to carry out heat conduction with the sheath heater, and a remaining portion of the heat conduction plate is in surface contact with the coolant inside the housing such that the coolant is heated by heat conducted from the sheath heater.

Recently, electric vehicles have been emerging as a social issue to solve problems, such as the implementation of environmentally friendly technologies and energy depletion. The electric vehicles have drawn attention as environmentally friendly vehicles due to advantages in that the electric vehicles do not emit carbon dioxide and are very quiet since the electric vehicles operate using a motor that receives electricity from a battery and output power, and in that the energy efficiency of the motor is higher than that of an engine.
However, unlike a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle in which coolant is heated using a heat source generated by an engine, the electric vehicles have a disadvantage in that it is impossible to heat coolant using heat generated from the engine since the electric vehicles are not separately equipped with an engine.
Therefore, it is necessary to separately provide an apparatus for heating the coolant. However, when air is generated within a coolant housing provided with a sheath heater, a heat generation portion of the sheath heater is exposed to the air instead of the coolant, and as a result, heat transfer quantity is decreased and furthermore, temperature of the heat generation portion is increased, which may cause a failure of the sheath heater.
It should be understood that the foregoing description of the background art is provided merely for the purpose of promoting the understanding of the background of the present disclosure, but is not intended to acknowledge that the present disclosure corresponds to the prior art that has already been known to those skilled in the art.


A server servicing a plurality of mobile communication systems for half-duplex communication is provided. The server comprises a transceiver to send and receive communication signals; a processor in operational relationship with the transceiver for processing executable code stored in a storage medium accessible by the processor, the executable code configured to cause the processor to detect a time duration in which a user continuously activates a half-duplex function.

PTT is a service for supporting instantaneous communications between two users in a one-to-one or one-to-group (one-to-many) manner. In general, when a user presses a PTT key of a PTT terminal (e.g., a walkie-talkie unit) the other users tuned on the same frequency or channel can hear the user.
A PTT communication network typically includes a PTT terminal that supports a PTT service and a PTT server for controlling the communication of voice and data in the PTT network. The PTT server also controls the "right to talk" (or right to speak) procedures for each PTT terminal. A user that has been granted the right to talk is said to have been granted the "floor" or a "talk burst".
A right to talk procedure refers to allocating qualifications for transmitting data in half-duplex communications, such as a PTT service, and is used for preventing collision conditions when more than two users attempt to communicate or transmit data simultaneously. Talk burst requests (or floor requests) from various users are granted or denied by the PTT server such that only one user (PTT terminal) at a time has the right to talk while other users must listen.
In the related art PTT service system, when a user wishes to obtain a right to talk, the user presses a key (e.g., PTT key) of the PTT terminal. If the right to talk has not been allocated to another PTT terminal, the PTT server transmits a talk burst grant message (i.e., floor grant message) to the requesting PTT terminal. However, if another PTT terminal already has received the right to talk, the PTT server transmits a talk burst deny message (i.e., floor deny message) to the corresponding PTT terminal of that user.
The PTT terminal that receives the talk burst grant message from the PTT server is allowed to transmit voice and data to one or more other PTT terminals via the PTT server. The other PTT terminal that receives the talk burst deny message from the PTT server outputs an error message in order to notify the user that the talk burst has been denied. The user then confirms the error message and again requests a right to talk by pressing the key of the PTT terminal waiting until the right to talk of another user is released.
In the related art talk burst allocation method in the PTT service system, a first user who wishes to obtain the right to talk may request a talk burst by pressing the key of the PTT terminal. If a second user has received the right to talk in advance of the first user, the first user must wait until the second user releases his right to talk. Only after the second user has released the line can the first user request a right to talk.
Accordingly, in the related art talk burst allocation method, when a user requests a right to talk, the user may not obtain such right to talk because another user already has the right to talk. In addition, if the user does not press the PTT key soon after deallocation of right to talk to another (i.e., after another user releases his right to talk), the user may lose his chance to other users who may press the PTT key on their PTT terminal more quickly than the first user.
Furthermore, in the related art talk burst allocation method when the user has data high priority, the user may not be able to transmit in advance of others because the right to talk is allocated regardless of the type or priority of data.
Thus, systems and methods are needed to overcome the noted problem.

Talk burst allocation in a PTT communication network


The embodiments herein describe hybrid parallelism techniques where a mix of data and model parallelism techniques are used to split the workload of a layer across an array of processors. When configuring the array, the bandwidth of the processors in one direction may be greater than the bandwidth in the other direction. Each layer is characterized according to whether they are more feature heavy or weight heavy. Depending on this characterization, the workload of an NN layer can be assigned to the array using a hybrid parallelism technique rather than using solely the data parallelism technique or solely the model parallelism technique. For example, if an NN layer is more weight heavy than feature heavy, data parallelism is used in the direction with the greater bandwidth (to minimize the negative impact of weight reduction) while model parallelism is used in the direction with the smaller bandwidth.

The present invention relates to using hybrid parallelism techniques for assigning layers in a neural network to an array of processors.
Training a neural network (NN) is a time consuming process. As a result, many training platforms use an array of processors (e.g., a 2D torus) to divide the workload of each layer of the NN. There are several known techniques for dividing workload among a plurality of processors. One such technique is data parallelism where workload is split by the features (or inputs) of the layers. In this technique, each processor can perform all the tasks for a particular batch (or minibatch) of training data. Using an image processor NN as an example, each processor may be assigned to process a respective image. To do so, the weights (or kernels) for that layer must be transmitted to each of the processors. In NN layers where the weights are larger than the features (referred to herein as weight heavy layers), using the data parallelism technique is inefficient because of weight reduction between the chips where at the end of each batch or minibatch training the weights are synchronized. This is a costly chip-to-chip operation and is often the main pain point with data parallelism.
Another technique is model parallelism where the workload for a layer is split in the output dimension. That is, the first several features are computed in one processor, the next several features are computed in another processor, and so forth. Doing so avoids having to send all the weights of the layer to each processor, and thus, avoids weight reduction. However, typically in a NN, every output feature requires the entire input channel. That is, to compute a few features, each processor still needs the whole input of the layer (e.g., the output from the previous layer). Using model parallelism, the input is replicated (referred to as performing "activations") in all the processors. Before the next layer in the NN can begin, each processor needs to receive the output calculated by every other chip—i.e., the activations of all the processors are communicated to each other. Thus, model parallelism is more efficient than data parallelism for weight heavy layers but less efficient for feature heavy layers (where the feature (or input) data is larger than the weight data).

Hybrid data-model parallelism for efficient deep learning

International Business Machines Corporation


Selective edge softening and selective edge dithering is introduced into an image representation to improve local control where halo problems are expected. Selective areas of dilation are isolated and separately dithered or halftoned, the result of which is then swapped back into or substituted for the stored original image. In this manner misregistration and color plane-to-plane interactions can be compensated for in plural image forming station architecture systems. The same technique is also valuable in monochrome systems as an aid to overcoming edge displacement and slow toner problems when the selective edge softening is selectively applied to edges which are in particular perpendicular to the fast scan direction.

The present invention relates to improving images produced by electrostatographic printers and copiers and more particularly, concerns solving the image problems of edge delineation, and leading edge deletion in an image. Such leading edge deletion and placement problems may manifest as phenomena typically referred to as line shrinkage, halo and white gap artifacts. These artifacts are also sometimes referred to as "slow toner".
In a typical electrophotographic printing machine, a photoreceptor is charged and exposed to record an electrostatic latent image therein. The photoreceptor is advanced to a development station where toner is deposited on the latent image. It has been found that when a toner powder cloud development system is used, large amounts of toner are deposited where there is an uninterrupted expanse of charged area (such as toward the middle of large image shapes), and toner is starved from locations where there is a strong or sudden change in charge (as found with narrow lines or shapes and on the edges of larger shapes). The result is edge displacement. The effect on large shapes causes them to exhibit a defect called halo, which manifests itself most clearly at the interfaces of solid colors. Halo in color systems appears as white lines at interfaces which should otherwise be a perfect match between two colors.
However, there are other sources of halo defects. These include misregistration and color plane-to-plane interactions, particularly on edges as found in plural image forming station architecture systems. One example of a plural image forming station architecture is an image-on-image (IOI) system in which the photoreceptive member is recharged, reimaged and developed for each color separation, followed by a single transfer of all colors to paper. Any misregistration of the imaging or development of the photoreceptive member will cause halo. Also, color plane-to-plane problems may occur where a prior developed color toner inhibits the development of a subsequent color toner. These various defects are also observable in single color images as edge distortion or displacement and line shrinkage dependent on the size of the printed object. Line shrinkage of course leads to poor line and text quality due to an erosion or shrinkage of the line edges and corners. Various approaches have been devised to solve these halo and slow toner effects.
The following patents appear to be relevant to edge dilation and the enhancement of the edge of image shapes.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,679, Image Character Enhancement Using A Stroke Strengthening Kernal, to Barski, et al., a character stroke is strengthened by processing video image data with a 16×16 kernal, and moving the kernal one pixel at a time through the image. For each pixel position, sections of the kernal, are selectively filled with black pixels in proportion to the number of black pixels in each section, in accordance with a set of predetermined rules.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,483,351, Dilation Of Images Without Resolution Conversion To Compensate For Printer Characteristics, to Mailloux, et al., discloses an image compensation system which provides dilation or erosion of image features using halfbitting or fullbitting in the rendition of bitmap images, especially on a write-white printer. A region of pixels of an image is isolated which includes two or more correctable pixel locations. A set of state determination rules, based on the formation of pixels in the isolated region, is used to determine a corrected binary pixel state for each of the correctable pixels. Corrections for one correctable pixel may be considered in the state determination rules for adjacent correctable pixels. A single enhanced output pixel is provided for each image input pixel, thereby preserving the original image resolution. Performing enhancements on multiple input pixels simultaneously increases the system throughput.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,350, Image Processing Method For Dodging With Softened Edge Transitions, to Bollman, incorporated by reference herein for its teaching, image appearance characteristics for a display may be defined by two data sets, a first standard data set for the image, and a second set for the area to be dodged, where the dodged area is separated from the remainder of the image by a series of edges. The appearance of any particular pixel in the original is determined by the first bit, or control plane, of the image data, the state of which indicates that pixel appearance is determined by one of the first or second data sets. To soften the transition of the image from one data set to another data set, at the dodged area edges, a filter function is applied to the control plane values, acting on areas adjacent the edge, to create a distribution of control plane values over an area adjacent to the edge. Error diffusion, or dithering of the filtered values, is then applied to quantize intermediate values generated by the filter function to legal values giving the illusion that the edge changes gradually from the first data set to the second data set, thereby creating a softened edge effect, using only a single control bit in the image data.
Therefore, a need exists for techniques which will solve these halo and slow toner effects. Further, there exists a demand for increasing the through-put of printing and digital imaging systems without incurring or exacerbating these problems. Thus, it would be desirable to satisfy such needs or demands by solving the aforesaid and other deficiencies and disadvantages.

Method of selective edge softening and rendering for the suppression of halo


A display device is disclosed. The display device includes a lamp emitting light, a plurality of filters dividing the emitted light into a red light, a green light, and a blue light, an additional light source unit compensating a light having a lowest light intensity among the divided red, green, and blue light, and a red liquid crystal display, a green liquid crystal display, and a blue liquid crystal displaying an image by using the light emitted from the lamp and the light emitted from the additional light source unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device, and more particularly, to a display device using a supplementary light source for enhancing brightness.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
As satellite broadcasting and digital broadcasting are being extensively introduced and provided, the demand and interest for wide screen displays are increasing, and with such increase, the expectations on projectors and their importance as a display device are also on the rise. Accordingly, many technologies for high luminance projectors are recently being developed.
For example, a liquid crystal display (LCD) projector divides a light emitted from a lamp, which is used as a light source herein, by using a plurality of color filters and combines the divided colors so as to represent a color image. However, in this case, there lies a problem in that a light intensity rate of each of the colors of red, green, and blue, which form the color image, should be controlled in accordance with the specific characteristic of the lamp.
In other words, in a spectrum of the lamp used in the LCD projector, the green region has the highest light intensity, whereas the blue region and the red region have relatively low light intensities. More specifically, due to the low light intensity of the blue region, which has the lowest luminosity factor, the brightness shown from the projector is seen to be relatively weak through the eyes of a viewer. Such phenomenon results in a decrease in the brightness of the LCD projector.
Therefore, in the related art LCD projector, in order to represent a color image corresponding to an input video signal, the light intensities of the red and green regions should be reduced in accordance with that of the blue region, which has the lowest light intensity, thereby controlling the white balance.
As described above, the related art LCD projector does not use all of the light emitted from the lamp. Instead, the related art LCD projector should control the color combination rate of red, green, and blue based on the color having the lowest light intensity, thereby causing the problem of decreasing the brightness of the entire screen.

Display device having an additional light source unit


A vacuum or hermetic packaged micromachined or MEMS device and methods for manufacturing the device so that the device has at least one substantially vertical feedthrough are provided. In a first embodiment, the method includes: providing a MEMS device fabricated on a first side of a substrate and located within a vacuum or hermetic cavity; forming at least one hole completely through the substrate between first and second sides of the substrate after the step of providing; and forming a path of electrically conductive material connecting the MEMS device and the second side of the substrate through the at least one hole to form the at least one substantially vertical feedthrough.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to manufacturing methods and vacuum or hermetically packaged micromachined or MEMS devices formed thereby having substantially vertical feedthroughs.
2. Background Art
Low-cost vacuum packaging of MEMS has become one of the most important challenges in the MEMS industry for a number of emerging applications including resonant sensors and RF MEMS. Many different packaging technologies have been developed over the years, including hermetic and vacuum packaging of MEMS. There are many requirements for a MEMS package. These include small size, vacuum/hermetic capability, integrated sealed feedthroughs, wafer level processing, compatibility with most MEMS processes, reliability, stability in the face of exposure to harsh environmental conditions such as temperature/humidity/vibration, and of course, above all, low cost. Unfortunately for the MEMS manufacturer, most of these requirements have to be satisfied at the same time. A package that cannot be fabricated at low cost, or is too large, or cannot provide feedthroughs, will not find many applications. This is where the challenge lies to further advance the field of MEMS sensors and Microsystems.
Many technologies have been developed for MEMS over the past few decades. One of these technologies is the so-called dissolved-wafer process (DWP) as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,815,472 and 5,377,524. The process forms heavily boron-doped silicon microstructures on a glass substrate. Electrical connections are made to the silicon microstructures using metal lines deposited on the glass substrate. This process has been used to produce many different types of sensors, actuators, and Microsystems, and has been specifically used to manufacture one of the highest performance gyroscopes for inertial applications developed originally by Draper Lab. An important requirement for the successful operation of the gyroscope is that it should be operated in vacuum for many years. Therefore, a stable vacuum packaging technology is needed for this device.
S. Cho developed a vacuum package for this device based on bonding a glass capsule to the device glass substrate using an intermediate layer of high resistivity polysilicon as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,837,562. Feedthroughs were formed from gold lines. During the bonding process, these gold lines interdiffused with the high resistivity polysilicon through a eutectic process to form sealed feedthroughs. The eutectic was able to reflow and therefore cover over the steps created by the gold lines. Although some data for the vacuum capability of this package was presented, no long term data has been presented. The electrical connections for this packaging approach were brought out as gold lines on the device glass substrate. Bonding pads were brought out to the edge of the chip and could be used for wire bonding. The fact that bonding pads were used on the same side as the device meant that additional die area was used. In addition, it was not easy to flip chip attach this die to a circuit board.
The following U.S. patents relate to semiconductor variable capacitance pressure transducers and methods of making same wherein one of the named inventors is also a co-inventor of at least one of the inventions described and claimed herein: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,261,086; 4,277,814; and 4,386,453.

Method of fabricating a package with substantially vertical feedthroughs for micromachined or MEMS devices

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