A fuel injector, in particular a fuel injector for fuel-injection systems of internal combustion engines, has a valve needle which cooperates with a valve-seat surface to form a sealing seat, and an armature which is connected to the valve needle, the armature being acted upon in the closing direction by a restoring spring and cooperating with a magnetic coil. The armature has a guide flange which is guided at an opposite surface. The guide flange does contact the opposite surface in all places, so that recesses are formed between the guide flange and the opposite surface.

From German Published Patent Application No. 196 26 576, a fuel injector is already known where an electromagnetic coil cooperates with an armature, which is in force-locking connection to a valve needle at whose spray-discharge end a valve-closure member is positioned. The armature is embodied as a plunger armature which is guided in a magnetic restrictor of the magnetic circuit. The armature is provided with a circumferential flange, which forms the upper bearing position. The guide flange is supported in the magnetic restrictor between the two poles of the magnetic circuit. As a result of this design, the guide flange of the armature and the section of the housing on which the guide flange extends, are at comparable magnetic potentials, so that no crossover of the magnetic flux occurs at the guide flange. By the guide flange being supported in the magnetic restrictor, the guide flange thus remains free of magnetic radial forces.
A particular disadvantage of the aforementioned printed publication is the large overall length of the armature, which makes a weight optimization of the armature more difficult. In addition, the circumferential guide flange on the armature obstructs the draining of fuel from the working gap, so that larger hydraulic losses result.
Furthermore, it is known to guide the section of the valve needle facing the armature inside a component of the housing. The armature is not guided in the housing or in the pole component.
Disadvantageous in the guidance of the valve needle in a guide component positioned downstream from the armature, in particular, are the radial forces which, due to an eccentric positioning of the armature, act on the component made up of armature and valve needle. Especially because of the disadvantageous lever ratios between the valve-needle guide sections and the point where the magnetic radial forces become active, this sometimes produces considerable frictional forces in the guide sections. Even slight offsets or manufacturing tolerances of the valve needle, the guide sections or the armature cause eccentric offsets of the armature, resulting in high frictional forces and, thus, in wear of the components and malfunctions of the fuel injector.


A semiconductor device includes a lead frame, an oscillator, an integrated circuit and first bonding wires. The oscillator includes plural terminals separated from each other by a predetermined distance, and that is mounted to an oscillator mounting region formed on a first face of the lead frame. The oscillator mounting region has a narrower width than the distance between the plural terminals. The integrated circuit is mounted to a second face of the lead frame, which is on an opposite side to the first face. The first bonding wires connect the plural terminals of the oscillator to terminals of the integrated circuit.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a measurement device.
2. Related Art
Recently, in measurement devices such as electricity meters for measuring integral power consumption, there is an increasing demand to separately measure integral power consumption by time band. Accompanying this trend, measurement devices are known that include a built-in semiconductor device equipped with an oscillator and an integrated circuit, in order to enable measurement of power and time.
As an oscillation device employed in such a measurement device, an oscillation device is known (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2009-213061) in which an oscillator and an IC chip that oscillates the oscillator are disposed side-by-side along the plane direction on one face of a single wiring board, with the one face of the wiring board sealed with resin.
A piezoelectric device is known (for example, JP-A No. 2008-219348) in which an IC is mounted to a wiring board, a piezoelectric transducer is stacked on the IC, and connection pads of the IC and external terminals of the piezoelectric transducer are connected together by solder balls.
Moreover, a piezoelectric oscillation device is known (for example, JP-A No. 2007-234994) in which a piezoelectric transducer is mounted to one face of a lead frame, and an integrated circuit including an oscillation circuit that drives the piezoelectric transducer is mounted to the other face of the lead frame.
The oscillation device, the piezoelectric device and the piezoelectric oscillation device of these references are devices in which an oscillator and an oscillation circuit are integrated together. However, since the oscillation device, the piezoelectric device and the piezoelectric oscillation device respectively include the two components of a microcontroller that performs timing and an oscillation device, coordination between these components is required.
Moreover, in the oscillation device of JP-A No. 2009-213061, the mounting surface area tends to become larger due to the oscillator and the IC chip being disposed side-by-side along the plane direction on the one face of the single wiring board.
In JP-A No. 2008-219348 and JP-A No. 2007-234994, the semiconductor device can be made more compact compared to cases in which an integrated circuit and an oscillator are mounted side-by-side on one face of a lead frame. However, since wiring needs to be pulled round to the back side of the lead frame in order to electrically connect the integrated circuit to the oscillator, the wiring resistance may become high.
To address this, a device might be considered in which an oscillator is disposed to one face of a lead frame, an integrated circuit, such as an LSI formed with a circuit for performing processing using a clock supplied from the oscillator, is disposed on the other face of the lead frame, and these components are integrally sealed together with a resin.
However, it is necessary to consider the influence imparted by the oscillator that is now disposed in a package on the flow of resin when performing resin sealing during manufacture of this device. Unless, there is a possibility that voids and the like arise inside the device due to failing effective discharge of air entrapped in the resin.
Further, in cases in which the oscillator has a higher height than the integrated circuit, since it is difficult to dispose the lead frame at the center of a mold in the height direction, there is a possibility that the pressure from poured resin on the lead frame becomes uneven between both faces of the lead frame. In such cases, since there is a need to match the height direction dimension of the cavity in the mold to the oscillator if attempting to dispose the lead frame at the center of the height direction of the mold, the thickness of the sealing resin of the semiconductor device increases than in cases in which the lead frame is not disposed at the center of the height direction of the mold.

Semiconductor device and measurement device


A distributed generator system is provided having an alignment hub to assist in the alignment and securement of an engine and a generator of the system. The system comprises a distributed generator system having an engine and a single bearing generator, and an alignment hub for defining an alignment position between the engine and the generator and maintaining the alignment within a predetermined tolerance.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an alignment hub for a distributed generator system. In particular, the invention comprises an alignment hub for defining an alignment position between an engine and a single bearing generator and maintaining the alignment within a predetermined tolerance.
2. Background
Distributed generator systems, or gensets, are electric generating facilities used for a variety of purposes. Gensets are found in industry, home, marine and many other environments where there is a need to generate electricity. Most commonly a genset consists of an engine, typically an internal combustion engine, linked to an electrical generator.
The basic configuration of a genset comprises an internal combustion engine linked with some type of an adaptor to a generator. The adaptor forms a releasably secure connection that aligns the crankshaft of the engine to the rotor shaft of the generator. Power is transferred from the engine to the generator through this connection. In particular, with internal combustion engines a flywheel, which is an energy storage system in the form of a rotating mass mounted on a crankshaft of the engine, is connected to a flex plate located on the generator that can drive the rotor shaft of the generator. Through this connection, engine power is transferred to the generator for the purpose of generating electricity. Generally, the flex plate and the flywheel are joined together with a plurality of bolts located along the outer circumference of the two pieces. An adaptor plate is secured around the combination to secure and seal the connection between the flex plate and the flywheel.
Frequently, the engine used in gensets is diesel powered. Diesel engines operate most efficiently at relatively low rpms. For example, diesel engines used in gensets typically operate at 1500 rpms for 50-hertz power or at 1800 rpms for 60-hertz power. This power range works well for diesel engines, and places relatively little demand on the precision of the alignment between the engine and the generator. At such lows rpms, vibration resulting from improper alignment is not critical.
In some cases gasoline internal combustion engines have been used with gensets, however, the results have been less than successful. The optimum power range of gasoline engines is much higher than diesel engines. For example, gasoline engines normally operate at 3000 rpms for 50-hertz power or at 3600 rpms for 60-hertz power. Relatively high rpm operation creates a problem that is exacerbated by the drive to reduce engine emissions. A variety of devices have been developed to reduce the nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions. This is generally accomplished by making the engines run very lean. Internal combustion engines produce less power when running lean than when running stoichiometric. To produce more power means running the engines at even higher rpms.
The need to run at such high rpms places great demand on the alignment between the engine and the generator in a genset. The higher the rpms the more vibration that occurs. Also, due to the fact that gensets normally rely on diesel engines that run at low rpms the demand for precession alignment has been low, and techniques for alignment are poorly evolved. The worse the alignment the greater the vibration. Vibration causes excess wear, fatigues bearings, weaken points of connection, and presents a safety issue. Over time vibration can cause the bolts that connect the flywheel and the flex plate to fail, and the engine and generator can separate while operating. These components are typically large and heavy, and injury to property or person can easily result form such operational failure.
Generally, alignment is determined by the location holes on the flywheel and the flex plate. Perfect alignment results when the axis of rotation of the engine crankshaft is precisely coincident with the axis of rotation of the generator rotor shaft. In practice, the fact that the boltholes are not precisely machined, the perimeter location of the bolts holes, and play in the boltholes all contribute to poor alignment. The effect of the weight of the genset components also contributes to the alignment problem. The components are quite heavy, especially in larger gensets. This weight settles on the bolts and peens and distorts the boltholes, which quickly distorts the alignment. Furthermore, operational stress causes a similar problem.
As a result, the use of modem gasoline internal combustion engines, or any type of engine that operates at relatively high rpms, in gensets has been difficult to impossible due to the problems associated with alignment of the engine and the generator. Thus, a need exists for an improved apparatus and method of alignment.


An internal combustion engine diagnostic sensor system comprises a fuel rail for the engine wherein the fuel rail has a high pressure inlet end, a plurality of injector ports, and a terminating end and wherein a piezoelectric sensor is mounted on the terminating end. The piezoelectric sensor is in open communication with contents in the fuel rail. In addition, the internal combustion engine diagnostic sensor system comprises a fuel rail for the engine wherein the fuel rail has a high pressure inlet end, a plurality of injector ports and a terminating end. There is also a connector disposed at the high pressure inlet end of the fuel rail wherein the connector has a near end that is openly connected to the fuel rail, and a distal end that has mounted thereon, a valve. There is surmounted on the valve, a piezoelectric sensor, wherein the piezoelectric sensor is in open communication with the contents of the fuel rail through the valve.

Automotive diagnostic devices are well known in the art and are based on vacuum sensors and ignition sensors and are usually comprised of large pieces of equipment, such as, for example, a Snap-on, Sun Machine, automotive engine analyzer. More recently, there has evolved a new diagnostic sensor that is used to diagnose engine ailments that is an insertable component having means by which the device is connected to the exhaust pipe of the engine and the device signals the operation of the engine while it is running. Such devices are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,589, that issued on Nov. 26, 2002 to John L. Brock and U.S. Pat. No. 6,609,416 that issued to Brock on Aug. 26, 2003, both of which are incorporated herein by reference for what they teach about the construction, components, and materials of the sensors disclosed therein.


There is provided an externally readable memory for storing information in each memory address, and this memory is provided with an information refinement detection function; this memory comprises: an input means for entering first input data for comparing data items stored in the memory and second input data for comparing addresses in the memory, wherein the first and second comparison data are externally; means for determining matches/mismatches of both data items stored in the memory and addresses of the memory according to both of the input data provided by the input means, and further performing logic operations on both of the match/mismatch determination results; and means for outputting addresses with positive results of the logic operations. This memory may be applicable in a broad range of fields including intelligent information search as well as artificial intelligence.

Today, vast information is easily utilized in the form of data, but there are still various challenges to be addressed in order to detect and utilize pertinent information. In particular, basic technologies commonly used in information detection such as image recognition, speech recognition, OCR character recognition, full-text search, biometrics authentication with fingerprints and the like, are pattern recognition techniques for detecting or analyzing matching and/or similar information (patterns) among subject information; there techniques have become essential to advanced information processing, and are used in broad applications ranging from, for example, social infrastructure equipment, industrial equipment, factory equipment, digital cameras and home appliances to the latest robots and artificial intelligence.
With this kind of method, the tap remains screwed into the sleeve, so the sleeve must be removed from the tap. However, for example, in the case of grasping the sleeve with a tool such as a pair of pliers and removing the sleeve from the tap by turning the tap, there is a problem in that because the sleeve is extremely thin, there is a possibility that the sleeve may be damaged.
The largest technical challenge of information detection such as pattern recognition is to reduce the number of comparison combinations (the number of searches) while comparing the information. To this end, attempts have been made, for example, to find an optimal algorithm for the subject information in order to reduce the number of comparison combinations (the number of searches), or to utilize a fast computation machine such as a supercomputer in order to find the answer depending on the information contents in question, and in some cases, the detection accuracy was sacrificed.
The present invention relates to Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-33376, entitled "Method of Commonly Managing Information in Information Processing Devices, Method of Detecting Information, Content-Addressable Memory for Performing Global Parallel Comparisons of Data-Address Relative Relationships, and Information Processing Device Comprising a Function to Commonly Manage Information, Software Program and Content-Addressable Memory for Performing Global Parallel Comparisons of Data-Address Relative Relationships" by the present inventor filed by the present applicant on Feb. 18, 2010, which invention provides a memory capable of, and methods of addressing the longstanding challenge of assuring the accuracy of information detection in pattern recognition and information detection technologies as above, while minimizing the number of comparison combinations (the number of searches, the search time). The present application claims a priority of the above patent application.
Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-47215, entitled "Semiconductor Integrated Circuit Provided with Information Refinement Detection Function, and Method of and Device Using said Semiconductor Integrated Circuit" by the present inventor filed by the present applicant on Mar. 4, 2010, regarded the above Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-33376 as an independent invention, changed the expression of the invention name as in "semiconductor integrated circuit provided with information refinement detection function," and disclosed the concept of dual parallel logic operations on match/mismatch determination results, which is the most important feature of the present invention. Also in this patent application, the range of detected information was extended from two-dimensional images to one- or multi-dimensional information. The present application claims a priority of entirety of the above patent application.
The present application has integrated the above two prior patent applications; added mainly to the Application No. 2010-47215, means for reducing the number of information refinement circuits, means for multiplexing the dual parallel logic operations and a method of using the memory, for example, as applied to artificial intelligence; added more descriptions; and changed some expressions.
As described above, there are a wide range of information detection technologies such as pattern recognition and pattern matching; therefore, numerous inventions exist for reducing the search time. However, there is no example of technique or memory found to essentially avoid sequential processing on individual memories, which is destined to happen in the von Neumann-architecture computers, in order to reduce the search time.
For reference, JP-A-H 7-114577, entitled "Data Searching Device, Data Compression Device and Method Using the Same" shows techniques of repetitively searching for information by comparing adjacent data items, whereas the invention of the present application discloses techniques of not only comparing adjacent data items, but also, in all memories, comparing data contents of the data and location relationships between the data addresses in a dual parallel manner.
Next, a memory provided with an information refinement detection function is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-65597, filed by the same applicant and inventor as that of the present application, and this memory allows information search of non-von Neumann architecture since it does not require sequential address processing of the von Neumann architecture, and performs the information refinement by itself in order to search for the information in question.
However, this memory cannot be used in some cases and also information still needs to be searched faster than in conventional information search methods in some other cases. In view of the foregoing technical background, the present application enables an efficient and fast information search using a memory, such as a typical content-addressable memory, capable of comparing data in parallel and outputting addresses as the results.
Although no prior patent application is found to disclose one of the features of the present invention, the parallel comparison of data addresses detected by comparing data in parallel, one prior technology of comparing addresses is found in Japanese Patent No. 3575632, entitled "Computer System and Operation Method for the Same," which relates to pipelined processors, particularly counterflow pipelined processors.
Current typical computer systems are based on an information processing regime (a processor-based architecture) centered literally on the CPU (central processing unit), which has all-purpose information-processing functions.
However, even these CPU's capabilities of all information processing exhibit poor performances when finding a particular piece of information among vast data due to various negative effects generated by the information processing. The present invention has been devised in consideration of this technical background as well.
In information processing, search processing for a desired piece of information among vast data is performed quite frequently, and often users of an information processing device is unaware of the processing running in their devices; for accurate understanding of this search processing, it is essential to correctly understand two steps or concepts in information processing: "information search" and "information detection," which are separately defined in the present invention.
Although these two concepts are not strictly distinguished when it is generally used, the "information search" means an action to look for and retrieve a desired piece of information from some information, whereas the "information detection" means an action to identify a desired piece of information among the retrieved information (including adding meaning to and recognizing the information).
On rare occasions, a desired piece of information may be directly identified without the action to look for it, but in most cases, information is searched by processing that integrates different aspects of the "information search" and the "information detection."
The above information processing may be easily understood with a metaphor of sales activities, wherein the search and detection are compared to visits with many customers (search) and orders received as a result (detection), respectively, and wherein the performance of the sales activities and the information processing largely depend on the visiting activities and the search processing, respectively; while most of the customer visits may be unfruitful, they must be done to receive orders, and likewise, the information detection may not be performed without first conducting the information search
As a first example of the above, when a user searches for a desired piece of information from vast information on the Internet, the user provides an information search website with information (typically a vocabulary) as a search key, and an enormous information search engine of the information search website searches through an extensive information summaries (words or sentences) that were collected and accumulated from the Internet by information crawling, and selects and displays/outputs relevant websites, and then users identify and use desired websites from the displayed/output websites; in other words, only the "information search" is automated.
As a second example of the above, when the "information search" is performed for a desired piece of information from, for example, a database in a memory or a hard disk, typically a CPU performs a sequential search for each address, and then executes processing to identify the desired information according to the sequential search results, and finally the desired information is found as the "information detection."
If a CPU with a machine clock of 1 GHz class searches through a memory with 1 GB address space, several seconds are required for simply scanning all addresses of the memory in order to find a desired piece of information, and an additional small fraction of time is needed for identifying (detecting) the desired information among the data found by the scanning.
Therefore, in order to achieve the fast information search detection, the search time is reduced generally by algorithm improvement and parallel processing of the CPU.
In this case, the algorithm improvement refers to an effort to reduce the search time, for example, by limiting the address range which is searched based on characteristics of information array in a storage medium of the memory and characteristics of information being searched; or by improving an information array by limiting the search address range to addresses with a certain condition.
Facial or smile recognition by a digital camera and speech recognition are common examples of the algorithm improvement, and each of these techniques has been developed with labor-intensive efforts by expert engineers over an extended period of time, wherein the accuracy of information detection and the processing time largely depend on a quality of the algorithm, and also pieces of information to be detected is limited to ones which can be detected according to its usage purpose or within a predetermined processing time.
After the algorithm improvement, the search time may be further reduced by dividing the addresses into a plurality of groups and searching them with a plurality of CPU's, respectively, wherein the search time may be reduced generally in proportion to the number of the CPU's.
For example, some of the above-mentioned enormous information search engine of the information search website use tens of thousands of personal computers to reduce the search time, and many supercomputers perform parallel processing using multitudes of CPU's, resulting in larger and more expensive devices.
As explained above, in order to automatically find a desired piece of information among some information, the following two kinds of information processing are essential: the "information search" action to look for and retrieve some information to be searched (sequential processing for each address when performed by a CPU), and the "information detection" action to identify the desired information among the information sequentially processed and retrieved (including the concepts of adding meaning to and recognizing the information).
Analogous to the above metaphor of sales activities and visits with customers, in many cases, most of the searched and retrieved information is irrelevant and truly desired information is extremely limited, rendering the action of information search a heavy burden in the information processing.
This is due to the fact that the CPU is essentially of von-Neumann-processor-based architecture and destined to sequentially search for data address-by-address in the memory, in other words, perform the "information search."
Therefore, what has been long needed in the information processing industry is to provide an information processing system (e.g., memory-based architecture) capable of essentially eliminating the sequential information search, which is inevitable for the von Neumann information processing.
There have been many researches initiated as national projects to address weaknesses (bottlenecks) of processor-based architectures and to develop a memory-based architecture (an information processing system in which the memory plays the main role) such as a neurocomputer as artificial intelligence which imitates a human brain as a memory, but it has been difficult to create general-purpose products and to mass-produce them.
One of the means for realizing this information processing system is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-65597, entitled "Memory Provided with Information Refinement Detection Function," filed by the present applicant and inventor.
Since a memory-based architecture encompasses a wide variety of forms such as the neurocomputer, one of the simplest examples will be described below to facilitate the understanding of the memory provided with the information refinement detection function of the above application, and the memory-based architecture of the present application.
In the following, the memory provided with the information refinement detection function is or may be simply described as an information detection memory.
Here, we attempt to detect some pattern information in weather data of past 100 years in a particular geographical region, wherein each data address chronologically corresponds with each day during the 100 years, and stores the highest air temperature of the respective day. As an example, we consider information search and detection for any day with the highest temperature of 5° C., AND with a particular temperature pattern, wherein the highest temperature on the day before and the day after were 10° C. and 15° C., respectively (although any combination of the day and the temperature, and any number of days may be considered).
The number of addresses for the above temperature pattern data is 365 days*100 years=36 k (36,000), and if the temperature in this geographical region ranges from 0° C. to 36° C., it may be assumed that there are about 10 days/year for each one-centigrade range, in other words, there are about 1 k (1,000) days for each of 5° C., 10° C. and 15° C. temperatures.
As the above-described algorithm improvement, only March through May and October through December may be searched in order to limit the search address ranges as much as possible considering that the temperatures 5° C., 10° C. and 15° C. are not common in January, February and June through September, but these months may also include the temperature pattern due to some abnormal weathers.
Accordingly, there are other reliable ways to search for three consecutive days with the temperatures 5° C., 10° C. and 15° C. in the above order, without relying on any algorithms:
(1) Store the weather data in a typical memory, sequentially search for 5° C. days through the memory using a CPU and compare the temperatures of the days before and after each day found by the search: the number of information processing steps is 36 k (the number of addresses)+α.(2) Store the weather data in a content-addressable memory, provide the memory with 5° C. as comparison data, sequentially output 5° C. days from the memory and compare the days before and after each of the 5° C. days using a CPU: the number of information processing steps is 1 k (the number of 5° C.-day addresses)+β.(3) Store the weather data in a information detection memory, provide this memory with both of the temperatures and the relative days (addresses) as comparison data three times and output the 5° C. days from the memory: the number of information processing steps is 3 (comparison processing)+(output processing).
The above (3) utilizing the information detection memory describes the concept of memory-based information processing, which requires no information search and is capable of reducing the number of information processing steps to about oneten-thousandth to thereby allow drastic improvement of the information processing speed.
Although the above is an example of pattern detection of weather data using a memory-based architecture, the number of information processing steps in searching for, for example, identical images or similar images among image data is also typically several times to several tens at most; therefore the memory-based architecture enables various information processing tasks that are impossible with typical processor-based architectures.
It is possible in particular to store program information as data so that a CPU may search though the data to process operations, or to perform information detection on a large database with a integrated information processing using both a CPU (i.e., processor-based information processing) and the memory-based information processing according to the present invention, as discussed in detail below.
As prior art examples of the memory-based information processing, JP-A-2003-036269, entitled "Information Processing Device, Information Processing Method and Memory for Storing a Information Processing Program" proposes an example of a memory-based search engine, and JP-A-2001-229172, entitled "Data Processing Device and Processing System Using Tables" proposes an example of a memory-based data processing device using tables, but neither of these is based on the concepts of the present invention.
Based on the background art described above, the concept to utilize the relationship itself of the data address array as a device for detecting information and the concept itself to actively utilize the relationship of the address array are very unique, and there is no prior technology found based on these concepts.
The objective of the present invention is to ensure or improve information detection accuracy, minimize the number of data comparison steps, and provide an information detection memory of non-von Neumann architecture and a method of using the memory which enable information detection by the memory itself, wherein the information subject to the detection includes information addressed or addressable in one- or multi-dimensional arrays, and wherein the detection is performed with, for example, pattern recognition or knowledge processing by determining sameness or similarity between information subject to the detection (e.g., unknown information) and reference information (e.g., known information) based on conditions of respective relationships among a plurality of data items and among a plurality of addresses of the unknown information and the known information.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a method of and a circuit for comparing addresses capable of efficient and fast detection of pattern information outside of a memory; and a memory and its device and artificial intelligence capable of parallel comparison of data.
Yet another objective of the present invention is to establish a novel information processing system of memory-based architecture capable of essentially eliminating the concept of information search in information processing; and provide a new-generation information processing system for taking advantage of the processor-based architecture such as a CPU and seamlessly combining the processor-based architecture and the memory-based architecture.

Memory having information refinement detection function by applying a logic operation in parallel for each memory address to the match/mismatch results of data items and memory addresses, information detection method using memory, and memory address comparison circuit for the memory


In a wireless telephone system, a wireless section of the base station for informing talking mobile wireless terminals of a connection request through a first frequency and for transmitting/receiving control data to a mobile wireless terminal which is in a reception waiting state through a second frequency during talking between the mobile wireless terminals is further simply constituted. Synchronous information is transmitted from the base station through the first frequency, and the first and the second mobile wireless terminals which have received the synchronous information perform a bi-directional and direct talking in a synchronized manner with the base station on the basis of the synchronous information. In this way, the base station is able to ensure a free period which is allocated to switching of the oscillation frequency of a frequency-selecting oscillators and to transmission/reception of the control data by using the second frequency, in addition to a period for transmitting the synchronous information through the first frequency.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a wireless telephone system, and more particularly, is suitably applied to a digital cordless telephone system in which plural portable units are registered at a base unit to communicate between the base unit and the portable unit or between the portable units.
2. Description of the Related Art
As this type of a digital cordless telephone system, there is a personal handyphone system (PHS) scheme wherein wireless communication is performed between a base unit connected to a public telephone network with a wire and portable units or between the portable units in accordance with a time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme. In the PHS-scheme digital cordless telephone system, extension communication is performed between the plural portable units registered at the base unit or between the base unit and the portable units, and communication is performed between the portable unit and a telephone connected to a public telephone network, that is, an outside line.
On the TDMA scheme in the PHS-scheme digital cordless telephone system, the time base is divided into 5 [ms] frames. The respective frames are divided into a total of eight time slots, that is, continuous four transmission time slots and continuous four reception time slots. The duration of each time slot is 625 [.mu.s].
In the PHS-scheme digital cordless telephone system, by using one transmission time slot in one frame on the base unit side and using one reception time slot on the portable unit side, digital data which is comprised of physical slots having the stated number of bits is transmitted from the base unit to the portable unit through a certain frequency. Besides, in the PHS-scheme digital cordless telephone system, by using one transmission time slot in one frame on the portable unit side and using one reception time slot on the base unit side, the digital data which is comprised of the physical slots having the stated number of bits is transmitted from the portable unit to the base unit through the same frequency as the aforementioned frequency.
The PHS-scheme digital cordless-phone system causes the portable units which are in a reception waiting state to intermittently receive only control data which is transmitted from the base unit, so that power consumption of the portable units in this state is decreased. That is, the base unit transmits the control data to the respective portable units by using 625 [.mu.s] for each 125 [ms], that is, by using one time slot for each two hundred time slots. At this time, the base unit transmits the control data intermittently using a dedicated frequency (hereinafter, referred to as a control carrier).
On the other hand, the respective portable units in a reception waiting state receive only the control data transmitted using the control carrier, once for each stated period, for instance, once for every one or two seconds.
When a request to connect has occurred, the base unit transmits an individual number of a called-side portable unit by means of the control data, so as to call up the portable unit having the individual number within one or two seconds. After the portable unit has been called up, the base unit discriminates the contents of the connection request, such as a calling or reception to/from the outside line, extension communication with the base unit, and extension communication with another portable unit, and then assigns the portable unit a time slot for transmission/reception of voice data and an arbitrary communication frequency (hereinafter, referred to as a communication carrier) excepting a frequency for a direct talk between portable units.
Thereby, the respective portable units in a reception waiting state are not needed to operate in a mode of always searching, for instance, ten communication carriers for a direct talk between portable units, and to check whether or not a call for extension communication between portable units exists. Therefore, the respective portable units receive only the control data transmitted from the base unit using the control carrier, so that the power consumption in a reception waiting state is decreased considerably in comparison with that of continuous reception and the portable unit communicates with the base unit or with another portable unit via the base unit.
Here, as shown in FIGS. 1A to 1C, the state will be described wherein, after a base unit CS which accommodates two time slots transmits the control data through the control carrier to assign the transmission/reception time slots and the communication carrier of the frequency ft, the base unit relays communication between portable units PS1 and PS2, where T1 to T4 are transmission time slots and R1 to R4 are reception time slots. The base unit which accommodates two time slots comprises only one oscillator for selecting a frequency (wireless channel) in its wireless section, and switches the oscillation frequency so as to generate the communication carrier of the arbitrary frequency.
As shown in FIG. 1B, the portable unit PS1 transmits digital voice data to the base unit CS by using the communication carrier of the frequency ft at the transmission time slot T1 of the period S1. As shown in FIG. 1A, the base unit CS receives the voice data at the reception time slot R1 of the period S1, and then transfers the voice data to the portable unit PS2 at the transmission time slot T3 of the period S7 by using the communication carrier of the frequency ft. As shown in FIG. 1C, the portable unit PS2 receives the voice data at the reception time slot R1 of the period S7, and causes the time slot to be synchronized.
On the other hand, the portable unit PS2 transmits voice data to the base unit CS by using the communication carrier of the frequency ft at the transmission time slot T1 of the period S3. As shown in FIG. 1A, the base unit CS receives the voice data at the reception time slot R3 of the period S3, and then transfers the voice data to the portable unit PS1 at the transmission time slot T1 of the period S5 by using the communication carrier of the frequency ft. As shown in FIG. 1B, the portable unit PS1 receives the voice data at the reception time slot R1 of the period S5, and causes the time slot to be synchronized.
In this manner, the portable units PS1 and PS2 mutually transmit and receive the respective voice data via the base unit so as to cause the time slots to be synchronized, so that communication between the portable units is performed.
However, in the case where the aforementioned digital cordless telephone system has a portable unit PS3 in addition to portable units, there has been such a problem that the base unit CS is not able to transmit, during talking between the portable units PS1 and PS2, the control data to the portable unit PS3 by using the control carrier of frequency that is different from that of the communication carrier ft, before the talking between the portable units PS1 and PS2 is terminated.
As a result, such a trouble has occurred that the other portable unit, for instance, PS3 in a reception waiting state can not receive the control data using the control carrier from the base unit CS during the talk between the portable units SP1 and SP2, and it is put out of the speakable zone. Besides, even if a connection request based on outside line communication, extension communication, a door-phone, etc. has occurred, the base unit CS has not been able to inform the portable unit SP3 in a reception waiting state that the connection request has occurred.
In order to solve these problems, it may be considered that a base unit CS which accommodates three time slots transmits the control data by using the control carrier during the talk between the portable units. That is, as shown in FIG. 2B, the portable unit PS1 transmits voice data to the base unit CS by using the communication carrier of the frequency ft at the transmission time slot T1 of the period S12. As shown in FIG. 2A, the base unit CS receives the voice data at the reception time slot R2 of the period S12, and then transfers the voice data to the portable unit PS2 by using the communication carrier of the frequency ft at the transmission time slot T4 of the period S18. As shown in FIG. 2C, the portable unit PS2 receives the voice data at the reception time slot R1 of the period S18, and causes the time slot to be synchronized.
On the other hand, the portable unit PS2 transmits voice data to the base unit CS by using the communication carrier of the frequency ft at the transmission time slot T1 of the period S14. As shown in FIG. 2A, the base unit CS receives the voice data at the reception time slot R4 of the period S14, and then transfers the voice data to the portable unit PS1 by using the communication carrier of the frequency ft at the transmission time slot T2 of the period S16. As shown in FIG. 2B, the portable unit PS1 receives the voice data at the reception time slot R1 of the period S16.
As shown in FIG. 2A, in addition to relaying the voice data of the portable units PS1 and PS2, the base unit CS transmits control data which is directed to the portable units, so-called down control data, to another portable unit by using a communication carrier of a frequency fc at the transmission time slot T1 of the period S15. Besides, at the reception time slot R1 of the period S11, the base unit CS receives up control data which has been transmitted from the other portable unit to the base unit by using the control carrier of the frequency fc.
In this connection, the control data is transmitted and received once for each 125 [ms] (25 frames) as described above.
In this manner, the base unit CS becomes capable of transmitting/receiving the control data to the portable unit PS3, as well as relaying the voice data of the portable units PS1 and PS2, owing to the use of three time slots. However, in this state, pairs of such time slots are produced that are neighboring and their frequencies differ from each other, such as the reception time slots R1 and R2, the reception time slot R4 and the transmission time slot T1, and the transmission time slots T1 and T2.
However, when it is tried to obtain the frequencies fc and ft by switching the oscillation frequency of a single oscillator for frequency selection, it is hard to ensure waiting time for stabilization of the frequency after switching. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 3, it has been the only way that a wireless section 1 of the aforementioned conventional base unit CS which accommodates three time slots is provided with two frequency-selecting oscillators 2 and 3, and the two oscillators 2 and 3 are switched alternately by a VCO switch 4 so as to obtain the frequencies fc and ft. Therefore, such a problem has existed that the constitution of the wireless section of the base unit CS is complicated.
In this connection, the frequency-selecting oscillators 2 and 3 have been composed into frequency synthesizers, each of which has a phase locked loop (PLL) 5 and a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) 6.


Foundation equipment for a pole, in particular, or a lighting pole.

As known, currently in the technical field of lighting pole installation normally is provided the use:                of a concrete foundation, prefabricated or executed on site, provided with a hole wherein the lighting pole is inserted, and        of an installation manhole where the electrical line cables arrive, and wherein the exit terminal boards of the power supply electric wires of the lamp installed, on the pole are housed.
However, current techniques for the installation of poles require high costs and extensive time expenditure and the use of skilled labor. In addition, the existing concrete structures are invasive structures not usable in areas subject to specific environmental constraints.

Foundation equipment for a pole in particular for a lighting pole

Abstract: The equipment includes                at least one screw element adapted to be screwed into the ground; and        at least one box-like body, mechanically fixed to the screw element.

Abstract: The box-like body is divided into two compartments by a partition wall. One compartment is adapted to receive the lower end of the pole.


A method for producing a toner including dissolving or dispersing a toner constituent mixture including a binder resin and a colorant in an organic solvent to prepare a toner constituent mixture liquid; dispersing the toner constituent mixture liquid in an aqueous medium including a particulate dispersant to prepare an emulsion; and removing the organic solvent from the emulsion while applying a shearing force to the emulsion. A toner manufactured by the method and having a spindle form while satisfying specific particle diameter relationships. An image forming apparatus using the toner. A toner packing method and device in which the toner is fluidized and pressurized to be fed from a fluidizing container to a toner container on which a gas-powder separation sieve is set to discharge air therefrom.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toner for use in developing electrostatic latent images prepared by a method such as electrophotography, electrostatic recording and electrostatic printing. More particularly, the present invention relates to a toner for use in image forming apparatus such as copiers, printers and plain paper facsimiles, which utilize a direct or indirect developing method. In addition, the present invention also relates to a method for manufacturing the toner, an image forming apparatus and a process cartridge using the toner, and a method and a device for packing the toner.
2. Discussion of the Background
In electrophotographic image forming apparatus, images are typically formed by the following method:    (1) an image bearing member such as photoreceptors is charged with a charger (charging process);    (2) the charged image bearing member is exposed to imagewise light to form an electrostatic latent image on the image bearing member (light irradiating process);    (3) the electrostatic latent image is developed with a developer including a toner to form a toner image on the image bearing member (developing process);    (4) the toner image is transferred onto a receiving material optionally via an intermediate transfer medium (transfer process);    (5) the toner image is fixed on the receiving material by a fixing device upon application of heat, pressure and/or the like (fixing process); and    (6) toner particles remaining on the image bearing member even after the transfer process are removed by a cleaner so that the image bearing member can be ready for the next image forming processes.
Recently, images formed by electrophotography are requested to have high image qualities (especially, good image reproducibility) whether the images are monochrome images or color images. In particular, half tone images typically have a large image area proportion in full color images. Therefore, by improving image reproducibility of color toners, various color images can be faithfully reproduced. In attempting to produce high quality color images having good evenness and good color reproducibility, toners having a small particle diameter and/or a spherical form have been proposed and developed.
Published unexamined Japanese Patent Applications Nos. (hereinafter JP-As) 2002-148863, 05-313416 and 02-148046 have disclosed methods for manufacturing a spherical toner which include the following processes:    (1) mother toner particles including at least a binder resin and a colorant are dispersed in water or an aqueous solvent including a dispersant to prepare a dispersion;    (2) a mixture of a softening agent which can soften the mother toner particles, and an organic solvent which can be mixed with water or the aqueous solvent and can dissolve the softening agent is added to the dispersion so that the mother toner particles absorb the softening agent; and    (3) the softening agent is removed from the mother toner particles.
By using these methods, spherical toners having a proper particle diameter distribution can be prepared without particularly limiting the binder resin.
However, the toners prepared by these methods have a drawback in that toner particles tend to invade into a gap between an image bearing member (e.g., a photoreceptor) and a cleaner (e.g., a cleaning blade) because of easily rolling (i.e., because of having an excessive rolling property), thereby causing a cleaning problem in that undesirable streak images are produced in the resultant images. In addition, the toners have a drawback in that when a dot image is developed and transferred, toner particles in a dot image scatters around the dot image due to their excessive rolling property, resulting in formation of toner scattering images.
In addition, JP-As 61-22354, 06-250439 and 09-68823 have disclosed toners which include toner particles including a colorant and a binder resin, wherein the toner particles have a volume average particle diameter of from 3 to 9 μm and a specific particle diameter distribution.
By using the toners having such a small particle diameter, images having good evenness can be produced without causing a background development problem in that the resultant images have background fouling which is caused by undesirable charge properties of the toners.
However, the toners have a drawback in that toner particles tend to invade into a gap between a photoreceptor and a cleaner in the cleaning process, resulting in occurrence of the cleaning problem. If the toners have an irregular form, the toners do not cause the cleaning problem. However, another problem occurs in that the resultant images have poor fine line reproducibility because toner particles move differently in the image developing process and the image transfer process.
In addition, JP-A 2002-207317 discloses a toner having a flat form. The toner is prepared by the following method:    (1) resin particles having an average primary particle diameter of from 10 to 500 nm is subjected to a salting-out/fusion treatment to prepare secondary particles of the resin; and    (2) the secondary resin particles are flattened to prepare the flat toner.
By using this flat toner, high image-density and high quality images having smooth surface can be produced without forming the toner-scattering problem mentioned above.
However, the toner has poor fluidity, and thereby the toner particles cannot be densely and uniformly arranged in a dot toner image. Therefore, when images are formed at a high dot (or linear) density, the toner images have poor dot reproducibility. The same is true for toners having an irregular form.
JP-A 07-152202 discloses a polymer solution dispersing method using a polymer solution dispersing technique utilizing shrinkage of the dispersed polymer solution. Specifically, the method is as follows:    (1) a toner constituent mixture including toner constituents such as binder resins and colorants is dispersed or dissolved in a volatile solvent such as organic solvents having a low boiling point to prepare a toner constituent mixture liquid;    (2) emulsifying the toner constituent mixture liquid in an aqueous medium including a dispersant to prepare drops of the toner constituent mixture liquid in the aqueous medium; and    (3) removing the volatile solvent, resulting in shrinkage of the liquid drops and formation of toner particles.
When a solid particulate material which is not dissolved in the aqueous medium is used as the dispersant, the resultant toner particles have an irregular form. However, when the solid content of the toner constituent mixture liquid is increased to improve the productivity, the viscosity of the toner constituent mixture liquid seriously increases, and thereby the average particle diameter of the resultant toner particles increases and the particle diameter distribution thereof is also broadened. If a resin having a low molecular weight is used as the binder resin to decrease the viscosity, a problem in that the fixability (particularly, the hot offset resistance) of the resultant toner deteriorates occurs.
JP-A 11-149179 discloses a modified polymer solution dispersing method in which a resin having low molecular weight is included in the toner constituent mixture liquid to decrease the viscosity of the toner constituent mixture liquid (resulting in easy emulsification of the toner constituent mixture liquid) and the low molecular weight resin is subjected to a polymerization reaction in the liquid drops to improve the fixability of the resultant toner. However, the method has drawbacks in that the resultant toner particles have broad particle diameter distribution; the surface of the toner particle is not smooth; and the shape of the toner particles cannot be controlled.
Because of these reasons, a need exists for a toner which has good cleanability and which can produce high quality images without causing the fogging problem and without deteriorating fine dot reproducibility.

Toner, method for manufacturing the toner, method and device for packing the toner, and image forming apparatus using the toner


Disclosed is a remotely controlled display system in which various forms of messages may be remotely provided to a display, and information regarding the display and/or the message may be provided to the control location. The information provided to the control location may be status information regarding the status of the message or the message medium, which may be, for example, a billboard or other sign, or it may be the verification of the message(s) sent to the remote location for display.

Prior art remote display controllers provided control from a control location to a remote display or sign by means of direct electrical connection or radio wave communication. In such systems, a signal was transmitted from the remote location to the display. One of several predetermined messages stored at the display was selected and displayed. In some cases, a provision was made to acknowledge receipt of the signal. The display, however, did not provide to the control location a positive response indicating that the correct message had been selected, or that the message had been properly displayed.
The prior art systems also offered no means for providing information to the control location relating to the status of the display itself, as distinguished from the displayed message.


A one-return wave equation migration is used to extrapolate both down-going and up-going waves. Followed by a properly designed imaging condition, the partial image contributed form turning waves is correctly reconstructed. Numerical examples show that this method can significantly enhance definition of an overhanging salt boundary and a geological structure with vertical features.

The Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains a one-return wave equation migration to extrapolate both down-going and up-going waves. Followed by properly designed imaging conditions, the partial images contributed from turning waves and multiple reflections are correctly reconstructed. Numerical examples show that this method can significantly enhance the imaging of an overhanging salt boundary and vertical faults.
The Prior Art
Conventional one-way wave equation migration has been successfully and widely applied to 3D pre-stack depth imaging for years. This method recursively downward continues source and receiver wavefields independently. It handles primary reflections but ignores the turning waves that propagate beyond 90° and multiple reflections, such as duplex waves that describe propagation paths with a double reflection involving a reflecting base boundary and a near vertical feature. It fails to produce good images of the geologic structure that contains strong turning waves and duplex waves, such as an overhanging salt boundary and geological structure with steep dip. Based on the two-way hyperbolic wave equation, reverse-time migration propagates the source wavefield forward and the receiver wavefields backward in time. Reverse-time migration has no dip limitation and also images most wave types, including turning waves and duplex waves. A properly designed imaging condition is critical to suppress the artifacts in prestack reverse-time migration. However, it is computationally expensive in that it demands huge storage and memory capabilities for large 3D datasets.
The Kirchhoff migration can handle the turning waves. Ratcliff et al. used the Kirchhoff integral method for imaging salt structures in the Gulf of Mexico ("Seismic Imaging of Salt Structures In the Gulf of Mexico," The Leading Edge 11(4), 15-31, 1992). Reverse-time migration (Baysal, et al, "Reverse Time Migration," Geophysics 48(11), 1514-1524, 1983; Biondi et al., Prestack "Imaging of Overturned Reflections by Reverse Time Migration", Expanded Abstracts, SEG 72nd Annual Meeting 1284-1287, 2002) takes into account the turning waves, but it is usually computationally too expensive for practical applications.
One-way wave equation migration has been successfully and widely applied to 3D pre-stack depth imaging for years (O'Brien et al, "Wave Equation Pre SDM Advances Subsalt Imaging", Offshore March, 2002, 36-40). Traditional one-way wave equation migration recursively downward continues source and receiver wave fields independently. It ignores the waves that propagate beyond 90°, stated as evanescent energy. In fact, the evanescent energy propagates upward and is received by geophones at the surface. Especially for those areas with a significant velocity gradient along depth, this part of energy can be record as the turning waves.
Claerbout ("Imaging the Earth's Interior," Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1985, p. 272-273) proposed a two-pass phase shift, post-stack time migration for imaging turning waves. Since turning waves have abnormal moveout that degrades the images quality after normal move and (NMO) stack, this method has not been widely practiced. Hale et al., ("Imaging Salt Substructures With Turning Seismic Waves," Geophysics, 57(11), 1453-1462, 1992) extended Claerbout's algorithm by pre-computing and tabulating phase shifts as a function of depth and reflection slope to avoid the upward-pass continuation. They also demonstrated how to preserve turning waves during stacking of seismic data to make the algorithm more useful.
Another option to migrate turning waves using one-way propagators is to extrapolate wave field along horizontal (Zhang J. et al, "Turning Wave Migration by Horizontal Extrapolation," Geophysics 62(1), 291-296, 1997) or tilted coordinates (Shan G. et al, "Imaging Overturned Waves by Plane-Wave Migration in Titled Coordinates," Expanded Abstracts, SEG 73nd Annual Meeting, 1067-1070, 2004; and Crawley et al, "DSR Wave-Equation Migration for Steep and Overturned Events," Expanded Abstracts, SEG 75th Annual Meeting, 2005). The implementation based on this strategy is complicated for 3D cases. Also the lateral velocity variations tend to be stronger at the subsurface image point in the new coordinates.
The approach proposed is an extension of Claerbout's method based on the following aspects: Extend from post-stack time migration to prestack depth migration to avoid loss of turning waves in the stack stage; Use more accurate propagators, such as generalized screen propagators (GSP) (Jin, S., Wu, R. S. et al, "Prestack Depth Migration Using a Hybrid Pseudo-Screen Propagator," Expanded Abstracts, SEQ 68th Annual Meeting, 1819-1822, 1998; Jin and Walraven, "Wave Equation GSP Prestack Depth Migration and Illumination," The Leading Edge, 22, 604-610, 2003) and velocity-adaptive-coordinate-transform VAVT (Xu, S. et al, "One-way Wavefield Extrapolation Via Velocity Adaptive Coordinate Transform," Expanded Abstracts, SEG 73rd Annual Meeting, 1067-1070, 2003) instead of phase-shift, to handle steep deeps with strong lateral velocity variations; and Design a specific imaging condition to obtain the image volumes contributed from different wave patterns.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,138,584 to Hale describes a method for migrating seismic data for formations that are located in geological media that cause seismic waves to be refracted so substantially that the waves turn upward. The method includes the steps of tabulating a first phase shift function as a function of the wave vector and the angular frequency of seismic waves in the geological media, tabulating a second phase shift function, storing the tabulated values of the first and second phase shift functions, calculating a third phase shift function based upon the first and second phase shift functions; and migrating recorded seismic data using the first, second and third phase shift functions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,274,605 to Hill describes a process for depth migration of seismic wave information that has been derived from geological media that causes rapid lateral velocity variations in seismic waves. The process includes the step of decomposing waves fields recorded at the earth's surface using Gaussian beams as basic functions. Then, according to the process, the set of Gaussian beams is extrapolated downward into the earth to obtain the subsurface wave field. Finally, the wave field is processed to provide depth-migated images of subsurface reflectors.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,120 to Li et al describe an overturned wave identified in initial seismic data and revised seismic data gathering parameters are calculated (e.g., a range of locations for a seismic source and detectors laterally displaced from the source). The gathered seismic data is used to image the interface by using an imaging algorithm capable of migrating down going and upcoming reflections.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,679 to Albertin describes an approximation method for imaging seismic data that originates from steeply dipping or overturned strata. The method provides a viable alternate approach to the generalized f-k migration that does not relay explicitly on some form of pertubation series expansion and thus avoids the steep-dip instability that is present in previously-known methods. This method is particularly useful in the presence of a moderate lateral velocity gradient, something that prior-art methods have trouble accommodating. An advantageous feature of the disclosed method is that the migration/imaging operators are composed of simple numerical coefficients.
Duplex waves describe propagation paths with a double reflection involving a reflecting base boundary and a near vertical feature (Marmalyeyskyy, et al., "Migration of Duplex Waves," Expanded Abstracts, SEG 75th Annual Meeting, 2005. Duplex waves exist in the geologic structure with vertical features such as faults and flank of salt bodies. In this case, primary reflections may not be recorded in a limited acquisition aperture. Therefore, one-way wave equation migration cannot produce the image of such events. Instead, doubly reflected duplex waves are recorded and should be taken into account in the migration. Migration of duplex waves can be conducted by Kirchhoff method. Marmalyeyskyy et al (2005) showed impressive results for imaging of the steep salt dome boundary and vertical fault. Due to the high frequency asymptotic approximation, the Kirchhoff method, however, has fundamental limitations in producing good subsurface images in complex media. Based on the concept of multiple fore-scattering, single back-scattering (MFSB) in heterogeneous medium, the present method uses a one-return wave equation migration that downward and upward extrapolates both down-going and up-going waves. Followed by a properly designed imaging condition, one-return migration produces the depth image of primary reflections that is same as conventional one-way equation migration as well as the image from the contribution of turning waves and duplex waves that one-way methods fail to handle.


A method of the present invention duplicates data of a source medium to target media. The source medium is stored ground data and effective data, wherein the ground data are repeated to fill up the source medium and the effective data overwrite some of the ground data. Next, reading data of the source medium and comparing the data to the ground data. If the data are not as same as the ground data, then copy the data to the at least one target medium. If the data are as same as the ground data, then read the next t data of the source medium and repeating the comparing step.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a computer peripheral device, and more particular to a method for duplicating data from a source data medium to a plurality of target media in a fast and reliable way.
2. Description of the Related Art
A simple and fast way of duplication is cloning the source medium to another medium. For a read-only media, there will not be the issue of writing datum, so that such media have the data gathering up to have all data effective for duplication.
There are random-access medium, which may read and write data, having empty regions for the data written therein latterly, so that a file may be divided into several fragments and stored in different regions of the medium. The random-access medium usually has a manage space and a data space, wherein the manage space stores the information of operating system and file system, such as partition table, active program, file allocation table (FAT) etc., and the data space stores the data of the files therein. FAT is a table recording the contents of the data in the data space, including names of the files, addresses of the data, such as cluster addresses, for the index of the files.
To duplicate a source random-access medium to another target random-access medium, the data of the manage space of the source random-access medium are copied first, and then system will read the content of FAT to copy the files in the data space in a way of file by file. As a result, the read/write heads of the source and target media reciprocate between the FAT in the manage space and the fragments of files in the data space repeatedly that slows the speed of duplication much when the files have a large number of fragments and the fragments are not centralized.


An improved, pumpless respirator (ventilator) humidifier is provided with a water refilling device (1, 2) and with an electrically heated evaporator (5). The evaporator (5) has a tubular housing, which is filled with a porous sintered material. A front side of the housing is in liquid connection with the automatic water refilling device (1, 2) and the other front side is in connection with an evaporator chamber (4), through which breathing gas flows. The evaporator (5) is provided with a porous sintered glass or ceramic with a pore size of 10 μm to 40 μm in a first, lower, unheated area (14), and the evaporator (5) is provided with a porous sintered metal with a mean pore size of 50 μm to 200 μm in a second, upper area (15) heated by means of a heater (6).

The respirator humidifiers used hitherto have, in general, active humidifying systems, with heated evaporating chambers, via which the breathing gas to be humidified is sent. These humidifiers have a high airway resistance (resistance) and high compliance, which has a disturbing effect on the quality of the artificial respiration. In addition, these humidifying systems have a relatively long heat-up time, because the humidifier must first heat up the total amount of water present in the evaporator chamber before the humidifier can exert the desired humidifying output. This may take up to 30 minutes, and the humidifying output is reduced relatively greatly each time cold water is refilled, which is disadvantageous for the respiration therapy.
A humidifier of this type has become known from DE 198 08 590 C2 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,102,037), where the dispensing of the amount of water, which depends on the tidal volume flow, with superheated steam is described. The drawback of this device is the necessary pump to dispense the amount of water. Thus, parts subject to wear are present, which must be replaced by the user at regular intervals.


Disclosed is an electronic circuit for the bidirectional conversion of a high input voltage to a direct-current output voltage with indirect coupling, more specifically such a circuit for use in a power supply system for rail vehicles, that is provided with a primary converter, one single common transformer and a secondary converter. The primary converter includes at least three primary converter sections connected in series, the output lines of which are each connected to a respective one of the transformer primary windings.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an electronic circuit for bidirectional conversion of a high input voltage to a direct-current output voltage with indirect coupling, more specifically, an electronic circuit for use in a power supply system for rail vehicles.
2. Related Art
Nowadays, 16.7 Hz or 50 Hz transformers are utilized in rail vehicles to convert the high voltage of 15 kV or of 25 kV respectively in the overhead lines of a railroad system to the voltage of nearly 1000 V, whereby the value does not exceed the rating of silicon power components which are able to drive the electric motors. These transformers are disadvantageous because of their overall weight. This weight occasions loss of energy, which is undesirable since energy costs have to be saved to an ever increasing extent in rail vehicles as well. Their size, furthermore, considerably reduces the useful space available as complementary components may also be required to cope with other direct current voltage power supplies (1.5 kV DC, 3 kV DC).
The published application DE 198 17 752 A1 describes a feeding circuit for feeding an electric driver unit that supplies a plurality of drive groups including at least one driving motor and one input converter. Each input converter (thus fed by the equivalent ratio of the input voltage) is provided with a transformer to operate the driving motors of the separate secondary direct-current voltage circuits with different loads. To achieve that the load is uniformly distributed to the input converters of the individual drive groups, a compensating circuit which electrically links the driving converters together is provided. The choice of the described low fundamental frequencies of the transformer suggests that the transformer converters are operated in a non-resonant mode.
The circuit disadvantageously has an additional compensating circuit which is necessary because the converter sections are submitted to different loads. This makes the system even more complicated which increases the failure probability. Due to the hard switch operation of the transformer converters, the efficiency of the system is comparatively low. Taking the low frequency into account, the totality of the individual transformers is heavy in comparison to a comparable single transformer. It is also required to use as many motors as converters in order to be able to cope with the high voltage. This may lead to a significantly higher weight than conventional traction drivers (especially with 25 kV).
At least one of published German application 198 27 872 and European Patent No. 820 893 A2 describes a driving circuit for a rail vehicle consisting of mains series connection and of secondary parallel connection of converter sections, each converter section being provided with at least one transformer. Several secondary converter sections are furthermore utilized.
Taking into account the growth law for transformers, and due to the plurality of individual transformers, the circuit has the disadvantage that it has a high overall weight and that it involves accordingly higher costs compared to a system with but one transformer. The several secondary converter sections furthermore require considerable expenditure.
The publication Carpita M. et al, "Preliminary Design of a 18 kV locomotive", 19 Sep. 1995, EPE'95, 6th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Sevilla, Sep. 19–21, 1995, Vol. 2, Page(s) 2.153–2.158, European Power Electronics and Drive's Association XP000537737 describes a feeder system for operating rail vehicles with 18 kV direct-current voltage systems. This system comprises a transformer with several associated converter sections. The transformers are allocated one or several secondary rectifiers. The operation of this circuit is unidirectional, i.e., the energy only flows from the overhead line to the vehicle drive so it is not possible to recover the breaking energy. Another drawback is that the input voltage of the primary converters of the transformer is directly determined by the overhead line. As a result thereof, operation in the resonant mode cannot be realized if the direct-current output voltage is to remain stable. Therefore, operation is hard switching with high losses and accordingly low efficiency. Furthermore, a change in the configuration topology for operation with an alternating voltage or with lower dc voltage is not possible.

Medium frequency energy supply for rail vehicles


A cutting jig for cutting a plate material positioned on a supporting surface, includes a jig body, a rolling blade rotatably supported with the jig body to roll on and cut the plate material, and paired holding parts rotatably supported with the jig body at respective sides of the rolling blade in a direction along a rotation axis of the rolling blade to roll on and hold adjoining portions of a cut portion of the plate material, each adjoining portion on which a stress acts due to the rolling blade cutting the plate material at the cut portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutting jig and a cutting apparatus for cutting a plate material used when, for example, manufacturing a head suspension of a disk drive incorporated in an information processing unit.
2. Description of Related Art
A disk drive has rotatable disks such as magnetic or optical disks and head suspensions each supporting a read/write element to read and write data on a corresponding disk.
The head suspension is generally made of plate-like parts such as a base plate, a load beam, and a flexure. The parts of the head suspension partly overlap each other and are joined together at the overlapped portions.
For such head suspension, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-57723 discloses a manufacturing method in view of efficiency. According to this method, chain products are prepared for component parts of a head suspension in advance. Each chain product includes a plurality of the same parts that are chained together in a frame. Among the chain products, parts composing each head suspension are joined together to efficiently form a plurality of head suspensions that are chained together through the frames of the chain products. The chained head suspensions are cut from the frames into individual head suspensions.
In this method, chain sheets are preferably prepared for the chain products. Each chain sheet as a plate material includes a plurality of the same chain products that are chained together in a frame. From the chain sheet, individual chain products are cut with a die.
However, there are different types of head suspensions and parts for different disk drives that vary in shape and size, and therefore, a common die is not used among different types of head suspensions and parts.
In a case of a high-volume manufacturing, a special die is prepared fore given type of a head suspension. In a case of a low-volume manufacturing such as trial manufacture, however, it is hard to prepare such a special die considering the cost and the like.
In the low-volume manufacturing, individual chain products are cut from a chain sheet with scissors or a cutter blade. This deforms the individual chain products as well as chained parts thereof even if the cutting is carefully carried out. This deformation results in deteriorating a dynamic characteristics of a head suspension as a product.

Cutting jig and cutting apparatus for cutting plate material with rolling blade while holding plate material at each side of rolling blade


Techniques for caching media data, including streaming media data, using content-sensitive identifiers. The content-sensitive identifiers enable a caching proxy or a caching server to unambiguously determine the version or contents of media data cached by the caching proxy for a particular data pointer or data reference (e.g., a URL) such that an appropriate version of the media data can be served to a requesting client system in an efficient and economical manner.

The present invention relates to data caching, and more particularly to techniques for caching media data, including streaming media data, using content-sensitive identifiers.
The advent of communication networks such as the Internet has enabled users to access data stored by one or more servers coupled to the communication networks. The data may be stored in files on the servers and may be accessed by users using client systems coupled to the servers via one or more communication networks. The term "client system" is intended to refer to any computer system or like mechanism which is used by a user to request information or data stored by a server or to request a service provided by a server. The term "server system" is intended to refer to any computer system or like mechanism which stores information and provides the information in response to a user request received from a client computer, and/or provides some service. It should be apparent that a particular computer system may function both as a client and as a server.
The data stored by the servers may include media data, including streaming media data. The term "media data" is intended to include data of various types including audio data, video data, image data, streaming media data, and other types of data and combinations thereof. The term "streaming media data" is generally used to refer to media data intended to be transported at a select (often, subscribed) bit rate, and with a desired timeliness. The streaming media is adapted for playback in a desired order without regard to the order the streaming media data is received by a client system. Steaming media generally conforms to a real-time delivery protocol, such as, e.g., Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), RTP, or the like. Streaming media data may also refer to data that may be contained in files stored by a media server that begin playing while the files are being transmitted over the network to a media player executing on a client system. This is in contrast to conventional data files that must be downloaded entirely to a client system before the user can view/play them using the client system. Streaming media may comprise a combination of video data, audio data, image data, interactive media data, animation data, panoramic data, executable files, presentation data, applet data, data files and other types of data in an integrated form. Streaming media data may also include "live" data streams.
Data pointers and/or data references are typically provided to enable users to access the stored data. For example, in the World Wide Web ("Web") environment, a user may access data stored in a particular file by selecting a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) associated with the particular file. Using the client system, the user may configure a data request by selecting a URL using a program such as a browser or a multimedia player executing on the client system. In response to the data request, data corresponding to the user-selected URL may be communicated to the client system and output to the user. Examples of browsers include the Internet Explorer browser program provided by Microsoft Corporation, the Netscape Navigator browser provided by Netscape Corporation, and others. Examples of media players include RealPlayer™ provided by RealNetworks, Microsoft Windows Media Player provided by Microsoft Corporation, and QuickTime™ Player provided by Apple Corporation, and others. Various other programs may also be used to configure data requests and to output the data received in response to the data requests.
Caching proxies or servers may be used to reduce the time required to provide the requested data to the clients. Typical file caching methods include a cache receiving a file from a file server, and storing the entire file. Later, when a user requests data stored by the file, instead of serving the file from the file server, the file is served from the cache. Because the cache is typically a server that is closer to the client or has a higher bandwidth than the file sever, the file is served to the client quickly from the cache.
However, attempting to apply typical file caching methods to files that store media data, especially streaming media data, raises many problems. For instance, serving a streaming media data file from a cache requires much more processing by the cache than with classical file transfers over the web. Unlike static web servers, conventional servers which store streaming media data (referred to as "streaming media data servers") do not provide information on the expected length of time that the media data associated or represented by a particular data pointer or data reference (for example, a URL) and stored by the streaming media data servers will remain unchanged (i.e., streaming media URLs do not unambiguously identify content associated with the URL). Due to this, at any given time, conventional caching proxies or caching servers that cache the media data streams for a particular URL cannot unambiguously determine if the version of the media data cached by the caching proxy for the particular URL is the same as the media data stored by the media data server for the particular URL. For example, the media data associated with a particular URL may have changed on the media data server after a caching server caches the data. As a result, when servicing a client media data request for the particular URL, the caching server may serve out a version of the media data to a client system which is outdated (also referred to as "stale data") and which does not correspond to the media data associated with the URL and stored by the media data server ("current data").
Thus, there is a need for techniques that enable a caching proxy or a caching server to unambiguously determine the version of media data cached by the caching proxy for a particular data pointer or data reference (e.g., a URL) such that an appropriate version of the media data is served to a requesting client system in an efficient and economical manner.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Caching media data using content sensitive object identifiers


The system for managing materials comprises: a material yard which has a material carry-in port and a material carry-out port, the material yard being divided into a plurality of yard sections which store materials; a plurality of first tags which record data of the materials to be read in a non-contact manner, the first tags being attached to the materials managed in the material yard; a second tag which stores and sends data of an identification ID issued for each of lots into which the materials are classified to check a current position of each of the lots via a position sensing signal transmitted to the material yard, the second tag being attached to each of the lots; a reading device which reads the data recorded in the first tags, the reading device being provided in at least one of the material carry-in port and the material carry-out port within the material yard; a plurality of receiving devices which receive a data signal of the identification ID transmitted from the second tag, the receiving devices being respectively provided in the yard sections; a plurality of transmitting devices which transmit the position sensing signal received from the second tag to check the current position of the second tag, the transmitting devices being provided on each of a plurality of predetermined positions in the material yard; and a database which records the data of the materials and management data for managing the materials so as to manage the materials.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for managing materials in a material yard on a construction site or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
A material yard for temporarily storing materials used for the operations is provided in the vicinity of a construction or civil engineering operation site or the like. Generally, the material yard is divided into a plurality of yard sections, so that materials are classified in order to be stored according to operation steps and types of materials. However, such the material yard may extend for several hundred square meters depending on the site. In this case, conventionally, identification IDs for identifying the materials are manually checked when carrying in materials, and then the materials are classified to be stored according to those yard sections. In the case of stacking the materials, for example, non-target materials sometimes need to be located to another site when a target material is to be taken out. When shipping a target material, the material is retrieved by checking the identification ID at a database and a yard section where the material is located. However, this retrieval operation is required to visually find where a specific section is located and at which position within the section the material is located (because there is often no predetermined shelf or the like within the yard section). Therefore, in the case in which the material yard is vast, it is very difficult to find out the material rapidly.
Recently, in a method for managing such a carrying-in of article, a classification of article, a storage of article, and a carrying-out of article, the identification ID of article is read by means of a device with a non-contact tag such as a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), thereby managing the carrying-in, the classification, the storage, the carrying-out, and the like. In addition to reading of data at the time of carrying-in and carrying-out using such a non-contact tag, a system is devised to be notified through blinking of a guide lamp where an article is to be stored or is stored when information is sent from a carried terminal (see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-233410, for example).
However, in the material yard on a construction site, civil engineering site, and the like, which is not clearly divided by shelves or the like, the stored articles vary from time to time, while positions where the articles are stored vary from time to time. In this case, in a system as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-233410, it is difficult to guide an operator by providing a fixed guide lamp. Furthermore, it may also be difficult to attach a non-contact tag to a material depending on type thereof.

System and method for managing materials


An impact driver includes a hammer that is rotated by a motor and an anvil configured to be struck by the hammer to rotate the anvil about a rotational axis. A hammer case houses the hammer. Two or more bearings are provided inside the hammer case and support the anvil. To inhibit vibration of the anvil during operation, the bearings may be differing types, such as a regular ball bearing and an angular contact ball bearing, and/or the bearings may have different inner and/or outer diameters. A contact member, such as an O-ring, may be disposed in an insertion hole of the anvil to reduce vibrations that are transmitted to the tool bit.

In the impact driver shown in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication 2016-107375, a hammer is coupled, via balls, to a spindle, and the rotation of a motor is transmitted thereto. A rotational-impact force (impact) is intermittently generated by the repeating engagement (owing to a coil spring externally mounted on the spindle) of a hammer with an anvil (which constitutes an output shaft onto which a bit is mounted), and disengagement of the hammer from the anvil as the torque applied to the anvil increases.