Systems and Methods for identifying in the gateway processes or application processes whether an imported transaction is a loop-back transaction, and if so performing work for the imported transaction under the parent transaction. Upon receiving a work request from a remote transaction processing system, an endpoint identifier included as part of the work request is analyzed to determine whether the work request is associated with a parent transaction initiated at the local transaction processing system. If the endpoint identifier indicates that the work request is associated with a transaction initiated in the local transaction processing system, a global transaction identifier included as part of the work request is analyzed to determine the identity of the parent transaction. If the work request includes a remote TIP URL, the application process that receives the request is configured to analyze the global transaction identifier and determine the identity of the parent transaction. If the remote transaction processing system sends a push request, the gateway process that receives the request is configured to analyze the global transaction identifier and determine the identity of the parent transaction. Work is thereafter performed according to the work request under the parent transaction such that a new transaction is not initiated.

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the xerographic reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure in exactly the form it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention relates generally to transaction processing, and more particularly to techniques for identifying whether an imported transaction is associated with a parent transaction that was exported by the same transaction processing system that received the imported transaction.
A transaction is most often defined as an explicitly delimited operation, or set of related operations, that change or otherwise modify the content of an information collection (e.g., database or databases) from one consistent state to another. Changes are treated as a single unit in that all changes of a transaction are formed and made permanent (the transaction is xe2x80x9ccommittedxe2x80x9d) or none of the changes are made permanent (the transaction is xe2x80x9cabortedxe2x80x9d). If a failure occurs during the execution of a transaction, resulting in the transaction being aborted, whatever partial changes were made to the collection are undone to leave it in a consistent state.
A transaction processing system typically includes a transaction manager (TM); a collection of subsystems, called resource managers (RMs), which are essentially abstractions of available services, such as database systems; application programs; and the like. The transaction processing system provides a way to interconnect applications and resource managers while maintaining data integrity and transactional consistency.
The application process initiating a transaction invokes various services and/or resource managers to perform various operations and tasks necessary to complete the transaction. All services and resource managers invoked to perform operations for the transaction register with a transaction manager, stating that they are joining the transaction. A transaction manager typically provides transaction management functions, such as monitoring the progress of the transaction and coordinating the commit processing and rollback of the transaction, and protects the integrity of user data. When all operations, or work, have completed, the initiating application process notifies the transaction manager of this fact. The transaction manager then initiates an agreement protocol to coordinate commitment processing among all services and resource managers (including foreign transaction managers) participating in the transaction. In transaction processing the standard agreement protocol is the two-phase commitment (2PC) protocol. A description of the 2PC protocol, as well as a detailed overview of transaction processing, is presented in J. Gray et al., Transaction Processing Concepts and Techniques, Morgan Kauffman, 1993, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
Briefly, in phase one of the 2PC protocol, the transaction manager issues a request prepare signal to each participant (i.e., the transaction manager asks each participating service or resource manager if it believes the operations it performed to be a consistent and complete transformation). If any participant votes no, the commit fails and the transaction is aborted and rolled back; if all participating resource managers vote yes (ready to commit), the transaction is a correct transformation and phase two commences. In phase two of the 2PC protocol, the transaction manager issues a commit request signal informing each participant that the transaction is complete, and records this fact in the transaction""s log. After all participants acknowledge the commit request, the transaction manager records this fact and forgets about the transaction.
Recently, a Transaction Internet Protocol (TIP) that uses the 2PC paradigm has been proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Attached hereto, as Appendix A, is the final version of the IETF paper describing TIP and its requirements. The IETF paper describes a simple 2PC protocol applicable to transactions involving resources in a distributed, Internet-connected transaction. Basically, two models are described: a xe2x80x9cPushxe2x80x9d model and xe2x80x9cPullxe2x80x9d model.
In the Push model, an application on a first transaction processing system requests that the transaction manager of that system xe2x80x9cexportxe2x80x9d a transaction, T1, to a second transaction processing system to perform some work on behalf of the application. The transaction manager of the first system xe2x80x9cpushesxe2x80x9d transaction T1 to the second system by sending a message to the transaction manager of the second system. The message requests that the second system start a local transaction associated with transaction T1 as a subordinate of the first system, and return the name, for example xe2x80x9cLT1xe2x80x9d, for that local transaction branch on the second system together with the Internet address of the local transaction branch. The transaction manager forwards to the application the name, LT1, and the internet address of the transaction on the second system associated with transaction T1. The application then sends a message to the desired application on the second system, asking it to xe2x80x9cdo some work, and make it part of the transaction that your transaction manager already knows of by the name of LT1.xe2x80x9d Additionally, the first and second transaction managers each update a global map by associating the global transaction T1 initiated on the first system with the exported transaction branch LT1. The global map is a data structure that is typically maintained by each transaction manager in order to associate any and all remote transaction branches, such as LT1, with associated global transactions, such as T1. Because the first system""s transaction manager knows that it sent the transaction to the second system""s transaction manager, the first system""s transaction manager knows to involve the second system""s transaction manager in the 2PC process.
In the Pull model, an application on the first system merely sends a message to an application on the second system, requesting that it xe2x80x9cdo some work, and make it part of a transaction that my transaction manager knows by the name of T1.xe2x80x9d The application on the second system then requests that its transaction manager enlist in the transaction T1. The second system""s transaction manager xe2x80x9cpullsxe2x80x9d transaction T1 over from the first system and initiates a local transaction, LT1, associated with transaction T1. Also, both transaction managers each update their system""s global map. As a result of the pull, the first system""s transaction manager knows to involve the second system""s transaction manager in the 2PC process.
In both the pull and push models, a resource on the second transaction processing system may xe2x80x9cloop backxe2x80x9d a transaction by exporting transaction LT1 to the first transaction processing system to perform work on behalf of transaction LT1. For example, a resource on the second transaction system may send a pull request message to a second application on the first transaction processing system requesting that the second application xe2x80x9cdo some work, and make it part of a transaction that my transaction manager knows by the name LT1.xe2x80x9d The second application then requests that its transaction manager enlist in the transaction LT1. The first system""s transaction manager will check its data structure, for example its global map, and will see that transaction LT1 is associated with transaction T1, which was initiated locally on the first transaction processing system. Rather than pulling the transaction LT1 over from the second system, the first system""s transaction manager will return transaction T1 to the second application, so that the second application performs the requested work under transaction T1. Similarly, if a push request is sent from the second system to the first system""s transaction manager, the first system""s transaction manager will perform the lookup and will see that transaction LT1 is associated with transaction T1. The first system""s transaction manager will then initiate the work at the second application under transaction T1, and respond to the second system by issuing an appropriate response, such as an xe2x80x9calready pushedxe2x80x9d response. In both examples of a loop-back transaction described above, the first system""s transaction manager performs a lookup to determine whether the imported transaction is associated with a parent transaction exported by the first system.
The present invention provides systems and methods for identifying whether a transaction imported to the local transaction processing system from a remote transaction processing system is subordinate to a parent transaction initiated by the local transaction processing system (i.g., a loop-back transaction). In particular, the present invention provides techniques for identifying in the gateway processes or application processes whether an imported transaction is a loop-back transaction, and if so performing work for the imported transaction under the parent transaction.
According to the invention, upon receiving a work request from a remote transaction processing system, an endpoint identifier included as part of the remote transaction identifier is analyzed to determine whether a parent transaction was initiated at the local transaction processing system. If the endpoint identifier indicates that the transaction was initiated in the local transaction processing system, the transaction identifier is analyzed to determine the identity of the parent transaction. Pull requests are typically sent directly to the desired application process by the remote transaction processing system and push requests are typically sent to the local transaction manager through a gateway process. In the pull case, the application process that receives the request is configured to analyze the global transaction identifier and determine the identity of the parent transaction, and in the push case, the gateway process that receives the request is configured to analyze the global transaction identifier and determine the identity of the parent transaction. Work is thereafter performed according to the work request under the parent transaction such that a new transaction is not initiated.
According to an aspect of the invention, a method is provided for detecting a loop back of a transaction in a transaction processing system having a transaction manager (TM) and an application process. The method typically comprises the steps of creating a local transaction in the transaction processing system by the TM, the local transaction having an associated first transaction identifier (TXID); performing work for the local transaction by the application process; sending a first work request associated with the local transaction to a remote transaction processing node; wherein the first work request includes a global transaction identifier (G1) associated with the local transaction, and wherein G1 encodes the first TXID; and receiving a second work request associated with a remote transaction from the remote transaction processing node, wherein the remote transaction is subordinate to the local transaction, wherein the second work request includes G1. The method also typically comprises the steps of determining whether G1 is associated with a transaction created by the first transaction processing system; and if so decoding a portion of G1 so as to obtain the first TXID.
According to another aspect of the invention, a transaction processing system is provided that is communicably coupled to one or more remote transaction processing nodes. The system typically comprises a transaction manager (TM), wherein the TM creates a local transaction having an associated first transaction identifier (TXID), and wherein the local transaction is exported to a first one of the remote transaction processing nodes. The system also typically comprises an application process, wherein the application process receives a work request associated with a remote transaction from one of the first remote transaction processing node and a second remote transaction processing node, wherein the remote transaction is subordinate to the local transaction, wherein the work request includes a first global transaction identifier (G1) associated with the local transaction, and wherein G1 encodes the first TXID, wherein the application process determines whether G1 is associated with a transaction created by the TM; and if so the application process decodes a portion of G1 so as to obtain the first transaction identifier (TXID).
According to yet another aspect of the invention, a transaction processing system is provided, which is communicably coupled to one or more remote transaction processing nodes. The system typically comprises a transaction manager (TM) and an application process that performs work for a local transaction, wherein the TM creates the local transaction which has an associated first transaction identifier (TXID), and wherein the local transaction is exported to a first one of the remote transaction processing nodes. The system also typically includes a first gateway process, wherein the first gateway process receives a push request associated with a remote transaction from one of the first remote transaction processing node and a second remote transaction processing node, wherein the remote transaction is subordinate to the local transaction, wherein the push request includes a first global transaction identifier (G1) associated with the local transaction, and wherein G1 encodes the first TXID, wherein the first gateway process determines whether G1 is associated with a transaction created by the TM; and if so the first gateway process decodes a portion of G1 so as to obtain the first TXID.
Reference to the remaining portions of the specification, including the drawings and claims, will realize other features and advantages of the present invention. Further features and advantages of the present invention, as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the present invention, are described in detail below with respect to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers indicate identical or functionally similar elements.

Systems and methods for the detection of a loop-back of a transaction


Lens surfaces are transferred by press-molding a glass material (16) by an upper mold (1) and a lower mold (2). After the lens surfaces are transferred, the outer circumferential portions of the upper and lower molds (1, 2) are clamped and pressed sideways to correct a shift between the optical axes of the transfer molding surfaces of the upper and lower molds (1, 2) and an inclination of the optical axes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a molding apparatus and method of obtaining a glass molded product by press-molding a glass material heated to be deformable.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a conventional glass molding method of obtaining an optical device by pressing a glass material, a general approach is to perform molding by using a set of molds including a pair of upper and lower molds and a mold frame for slidably holding these upper and lower molds. In molding a lens by using this method, it is necessary to prevent a difference between the optical axes of one optical function surface and the other optical function surface and an inclination of the optical axes. To this end, it is necessary not only to accurately finish the mold frame, the upper mold, and the lower mold but also to increase the accuracy with which the mold frame and these molds are assembled.
Since, however, demands on an improvement of the accuracy of press molding of a lens and on reduction in the manufacturing cost are continually increasing, the conventional method cannot satisfy some of these demands. One is the problem of the difference between the optical axes of the two surfaces of a lens or an inclination of the optical axes.
In the above conventional method, for example, the upper and lower molds are slidably incorporated into a hole formed in the mold frame (guide member) for guiding the molds for transferring optical surfaces to a glass material. To increase the optical axis accuracy of a lens, it is necessary to increase the fitting accuracy between the upper and lower molds and the mold frame. However, the improvement of the optical axis accuracy is limited by the processing accuracy of each mold and the high-temperature slidability during pressing.
The upper and lower molds for transferring the optical function surfaces to a glass material are slidably supported by the guide member, and the glass material is inserted between the upper and lower molds and press-molded. If the optical axes of the upper and lower molds, which are originally aligned with each other, produce a parallel shift in the guide member, parallel decentering is produced in the molded lens.
Also, if the upper or lower mold inclines in the fitting gap in the guide member, the optical axes of two optical function surfaces incline.
In Japanese Patent Publication No. 4-21610, the positional relationship between the lower mold and a slide core is maintained because these two members are in contact with each other. However, the upper mold requires a gap so as to be movable in the slide core. Consequently, it is difficult to precisely match the optical axes of the upper and lower molds.
It is, therefore, the first object of the present invention to provide an optical device molding apparatus and method capable of obtaining a glass molded product with high optical axis accuracy.
It is the second object of the present invention to provide an optical device molding apparatus and method capable of more effectively achieving the first object of the present invention with a simpler mold structure.
It is the third object of the present invention to provide an optical device molding apparatus and method capable of obtaining a glass molded product with not only high optical axis accuracy between the two surfaces of an optical device but also high accuracy in the positional relationship between the circumferential surface and the optical axes.
It is the fourth object of the present invention to provide an optical device molding apparatus and method capable of smoothly extracting a molded product without complicating the mold structure.
It is the fifth object of the present invention to provide an optical device molding apparatus and method capable of processing an optical device with any arbitrary shape.
It is the sixth object of the present invention to provide an optical device molding apparatus and method capable of regulating a shift between the optical axes of aspherical optical function surfaces and an inclination of the optical axes.

Optical device molding apparatus and method, and optical device


An ultrasonic peening-type integrated machining method for cutting and extrusion includes: applying transverse ultrasonic vibration or a vibration component, which is vertical to a cutting speed direction to a cutting tool on a machine tool; setting a cutting parameter and an ultrasonic vibration parameter such that a dynamic negative clearance angle is generated in a cutting procedure and a flank face of the cutting tool conducts ultrasonic peening extrusion on the surface of the workpiece; setting an extrusion overlap ratio; setting a wear standard of flank faces extruded by the cutting tool; controlling a vibration cutting trajectory phase difference of the cutting tool during two adjacent rotations; and turning on the machine tool in order to ensure that cutting and surface extrusion strengthening of the workpiece are completed in one procedure without separate strengthening procedures. The method conducts extrusion strengthening on the surface of the workpiece while cutting the workpiece.

With the development of high-tech equipment in the fields of aerospace, weapon, nuclear power, transportation and the like, requirements on properties of a surface of a part are higher and higher. Main failure modes of the material are wear, corrosion, fatigue and the like. Fatigue cracks will generate on a surface of the material under load, and if they further develop, fatigue fracture of the material will occur to cause overall failure of a component, so surface anti-fatigue manufacturing plays an important role in the part producing and manufacturing procedures. In order to improve reliability of the part and prolong its service life, surface strengthening technologies are generally used to process a surface structure of the part without changing properties of the matrix material. Common surface strengthening technologies include shot peening, surface rolling, laser peening and the like. The shot peening is to use high-speed shots to intensely peen a surface of the part or component so as to generate a strain hardening layer and induce residual compressive stress; the surface rolling/extrusion is to use a rolling/extrusion tool in a certain form to apply a pressure with a certain value to a surface of the material such that the surface generates a tiny local plastic deformation to achieve effects of improving the surface roughness and obtaining the residual compressive stress; and the laser peening is to use high-power-density stress waves generated by laser induction such that a metal surface generates plastic deformation to cause dislocation density increasing and generate the residual compressive stress so as to improve properties including hardness, fatigue life and the like.
However, all the above common surface strengthening technologies have deficiencies or development limitations. The shot peening is hard to accurately control a strengthening area and causes roughness increasing of a workpiece surface to be processed due to plastic indentations formed by shot peening; the surface rolling/extrusion is easy to influence processing accuracy of weak-rigidity parts due to a relatively large action force, is easy to cause workpiece surface scratching or generate adverse residual stress at a relatively large processing speed, and is hard to be achieved by utilizing the traditional machining equipment in the existing production line; and although the laser peening can achieve relatively great effects, it has generally relatively low peening efficiency and relatively long processing procedure, and the laser peening equipment is very expensive, all of which limit large-scale application of the laser peening. Additionally, a common problem of these surface strengthening technologies is to essentially add a strengthening procedure, but to a narrow structure, the strengthening reachability is poor.
The common cutting can achieve a certain effect of ironing the workpiece surface generally by utilizing methods of adjusting parameters including arc radius of a cutting edge of a cutting tool, cutting depth and the like or arranging a negative chamfer at the cutting edge of the cutting tool; however, such methods bring a great radical thrust force and also influence the processing accuracy of the weak-rigidity parts like the surface rolling/extrusion technology.

Ultrasonic peening-type integrated machining method of cutting and extrusion


In order to ensure that region extraction for extracting a specified internal organ can be effected with high reliability, a region expansion method is applied by using a combination of an expansion condition taking the local density change into consideration and an expansion condition taking the global density change into consideration.

The present invention relates to a method of automatically performing, for individual internal organs, a region extraction processing (hereinafter the region extraction processing for individual internal organs will be referred to as "internal organ extraction") needed as Pre-processing when each internal organ is displayed three-dimensionally by using in-body image data, especially, a tomography image which is imaged three-dimensionally.
In order to display a specified internal organ three-dimensionally, the internal organ must first be extracted from image data. However, any method of performing the internal organ extraction automatically has not been established yet and for accurate extraction, a contour of the internal organ must be inputted manually for each slice image. However, the amount of three-dimensional data is very large and therefore, in the clinical setting requiring real time performance, the manual internal organ extraction is unpractical.
Two approaches to the general method for region extraction have been contrived including:
(1) A method of tracking the contour of a region of interest (hereinafter abbreviated as an ROI) PA1 (2) A method of Performing the region expansion by starting from a point inside an ROI.
The method in item (1) above is for automatically tracking the contour of an internal organ by looking up a local density difference of an image and has hitherto been used widely in the medical image processing. An example of this method is discussed in Radiology, Vol. 171, No. 1, April 1989, pp. 277-280. This type of method of tracking one line is however, liable to be fatally affected by noise and artifacts, facing a problem of impairment of reliability. In addition, the method is carried out by merely processing the slice sheet by sheet and fails to effectively utilize data of three-dimensional structure.
The method in item (2) above is for extracting an ROI by first selecting a certain point inside the ROI, retrieving a point connecting to the selected point from adjoining pixels, and taking in the connected point to expand the ROI. In general, this method is called region growing and referred to in Digital Picture Processing by Azriel Rosenfeld, pp. 334-335. Typically used as the condition for deciding the connection (hereinafter referred to as the expansion condition) is the difference between average density over the entire region and density of a tracking point. The prior art method finds many applications to, for example, character pattern extraction but is difficult to apply to the internal organ extraction because good results can not be obtained when the method is applied by simply using the above condition for medical images having sophisticated forms and density changes.

Region extracting method and three-dimensional display method


A lithium battery protection circuit coupled to a lithium battery is provided. The lithium battery protection circuit includes an over-charge protection circuit and a logic circuit coupled to over-charge protection circuit. The logic circuit has a first logic output and a second logic output. The lithium battery protection circuit also includes a level shift circuit coupled to the logic circuit through the first logic output and the second logic output, and the level shift circuit is configured to convert the first logic output and the second logic output to high voltage levels in an over-charge protection state. Further, the lithium battery protection circuit includes a substrate switching circuit coupled to the level shift circuit and a power transistor coupled between a negative end of the lithium battery and an external circuit negative electrode. The level shift circuit includes a first inverter coupled to the second logic output, a plurality of PMOS transistors, at least one of which has high source-drain voltage and low gate-source voltage, and a plurality of NMOS transistors, at least one of which is a low-voltage NMOS transistor.

When charging a lithium battery, if the charging voltage is too high, there might be a risk of battery explosion; if the charging voltage is too low, the battery life may be affected. In addition, when charging discharging the lithium battery, other abnormal conditions, such as excessive current and short-circuit, may also occur. Sometimes, the severity of such abnormal conditions may reach a certain level and may pose dangers to personal safety. To prevent these anomalies, special protection circuits re used to protect the lithium battery during the charging/discharging processes.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional lithium battery protection circuit. As shown in FIG. 1, the protection circuit includes a control circuit 1 (integrated circuit or IC), high-voltage power transistors M1 and M2, resistors R1 and R2, and capacitor C1. The drain terminals of the power transistors M1 and M2 are connected together; the gate terminals of the power transistors M1 and M2 are connected to the control circuit 1; the source terminal of the power transistor M1 is connected to the ground; and the source terminal of the power transistor M2 is connected to one end of the resistor R2 and also to the negative electrode "B−" to external circuits. The other end of the resistor R2 is connected to control circuit 1.
Further, one end of the resistor R1 is connected to the positive electrode of the lithium battery, and the other end of the resistor R1 is connected to one end of the capacitor C1. The other end of the capacitor C1 is connected to the ground and also to the negative electrode of the lithium battery. Both resistor R1 and capacitor C1 are connected to the control circuit 1. Two ends of the lithium battery are respectively connected to the external circuit positive electrode "B+" and negative electrode. "B−" When a load or an external circuit is connected between the positive electrode "B+" and negative electrode "B−", the lithium battery discharges and provides current to the load; when a charger is connected between the positive electrode B+″ and negative electrode. "B−" the lithium battery is charged by the charger.
The control circuit 1 includes a bias and reference circuit, a multi-channel switch, an over-discharge protection circuit, and an over-charge protection circuit. Both the over-discharge protection circuit and the over-charge protection circuit are connected to the multi-channel switch. The over-discharge protection circuit and the over-charge protection circuit are also connected to logic circuit 2 via the delay circuit. The logic circuit 2, on the one hand, is connected to the gate terminals of power transistors M1 and M2 external to the control circuit 1 and, on the other hand, is connected to system sleep circuit 5. The excessive-current protection circuit 3 and short-circuit protection circuit 4 are connected to resistor R2 external to control circuit 1, and also to the logic circuit 2 via the delay circuit.
During a lithium battery charging process by a charger, if the battery voltage is higher than an over-charge protection voltage (typically 4.2V˜4.3V), the logic circuit 2 turns off the power transistor M2, which further cuts off the charging circuit loop and stops charging tale lithium battery. After the power transistor M2 is turned off, because no load current flows through the charging circuit loop, the charger's output voltage becomes higher than usual. The external circuit negative electrode "B−" can have a negative high voltage (up to −20V), which requires logic circuit 2, excessive-current protection circuit 3, short-circuit protection 4, and power transistor M2 to be able to withstand the negative high voltage. Meeting such requirement is necessary to ensure that the protection circuit can be used in high-voltage charging applications, and also improves reliability of the protection circuit under different application conditions.
During a discharging process, if the voltage of the lithium battery drops below an over-discharge protection voltage (usually 2V˜2.5V), and the low-voltage condition lasts longer than a specified delay time the logic circuit 2 turns off the power transistor M1, which stops the discharging. This condition may also show that the lithium battery has been exhausted. In order to better protect the lithium battery, logic circuit 2 also starts system sleep circuit 5 to put the entire control circuit 1 into a sleep state. Thus, the power consumed by the control circuit 1 itself can be reduced. Further, during the discharging process, if there is excessive-current or short-circuit condition, the logic circuit 2 also turns off the power transistor M1 to stop the discharging to protect the lithium battery.
Although the protection circuit as shown in FIG. 1 can achieve the goal of protecting the lithium battery during the charging/discharging processes, only the control circuit 1 is an integrated circuit, and other components in the protection circuit are external components. Thus, the degree of integration is relatively low and the manufacturing cost is relatively high.
FIG. 2 shows another conventional lithium battery protection circuit. As shown in FIG. 2, compared with the protection circuit in FIG. 1, the previous external resistors R1 and R2 and the power transistor M1 and M2 are integrated into the control circuit 1. Level shift circuit 6 and substrate switching circuit 7 are added to combine the power transistors M1 and M2 into one power transistor. Thus, the chip area and cost are reduced. The level shift circuit 6 is connected to the logic circuit 2, the substrate switching circuit 7, and the gate terminal of power transistor M1. The substrate switching circuit 7 is connected to the substrate of the power transistor M1 and the level shift circuit 6.
Although the protection circuit as shown in FIG. 2 increases the degree of integration and lowers cost, the excessive-current protection circuit 3, short-circuit protection circuit 4, level shift circuit 6, and substrate switching circuit 7 generally use low-voltage MOS devices (a low-voltage MOS device may only be able withstand a relative low voltage between the gate-source and the source-drain). In general, no other additional protective measures are used. Therefore, when protecting an overcharging condition, the protection circuit may be unable to withstand the high negative voltage from the external circuit negative electrode "B−". Thus, the protection circuit may have a low reliability and may be limited on its applications.
The disclosed methods and systems are directed to solve one or more problems set forth above and other problems.


A reading device, such as a mobile tablet, may download an electronic reading material, such as a textbook, to local memory. The reading device may store a reader profile representing one or more aspects of a user's reading ability. The reading device may convert the downloaded reading material using the reader profile to better conform to the user's reading ability. As the user reads reading materials using the reading device, the user may provide feedback as to portions of text in the reading materials, including whether a word is not recognized, whether a grammatical construction is confusing, etc. Using the received feedback, the reading device may modify the reading profile to further improve the degree to which it represents the user's reading ability. Once modified, the reader profile may be used to re-convert already downloaded reading materials or to convert subsequently downloaded reading materials.

Different persons may have different reading abilities due to various factors such as age, education, native language, vocabulary, and/or general intelligence. Typically, reading materials are published in only a single version, which may correspond to a particular reading level. As a result, a publication corresponding to an intermediate reading level may be overly challenging for a reader having only an elementary reading ability, yet may be overly simplistic for a reader having an advanced reading ability.
The problem of disparate reading abilities may present problems in education settings, where a group of students having different reading abilities may be required, by school or state curriculum, to read the same textbook. And the problem may be particularly acute in special education classrooms, where reading abilities may vary even more significantly between students.
Accordingly, there is a need for enabling different persons having different reading abilities to read the same reading materials at their respective reading levels.

System and method for customizing reading materials based on reading ability


Provided is an intake air cooling system for a marine vessel having a turbocharger. The intake air cooling system for the marine vessel includes: a turbocharger which compresses the intake air introduced from the outside using a portion of the exhaust gas generated by the engine, wherein the turbocharger has a front end through which the intake air is introduced and a rear end through which the compressed intake air is supplied to the engine; a cooling part which cools at least one of the intake air compressed in the turbocharger and the exhaust gas passing through the turbocharger, wherein the cooling part includes one or more cooling units disposed along the flow of the intake air or the exhaust gas; and an absorption cooling device which receives heat from the working fluid circulated through the cooling unit.

A general vessel is equipped with an internal combustion engine such as a diesel engine, for multiple purposes such as generation of propelling power for a vessel or generation of electrical power used in a vessel.
In the internal combustion engine, generally, strokes of intake, compression, explosion, and exhaustion are used to generate power. In a fuel intake process, intake air is introduced with fuel into the inside of the internal combustion engine. An efficiency of the internal combustion engine may be increased by increasing pressure of the intake air.
Accordingly, a vessel equipped with a turbocharger for supplying a large amount of intake air by increasing pressure of the intake air has been recently suggested.
An intake air compression method using the turbocharger includes a supercharger method of mechanically driven by engaging a toothed wheel to a crank shaft of the internal combustion engine and a turbocharger method that is driven by an exhaust turbine using an exhaust gas generated from the internal combustion engine.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a vessel equipped with a turbocharger for compressing an intake air by a turbocharger method.
When an exhaust gas E having certain pressure and temperature is discharged from an internal combustion engine, that is, an engine 310, of the vessel, the exhaust gas E is supplied to a turbocharger 100.
In this state, a rotational force is generated in an exhaust turbine 111 by the energy of the exhaust gas E supplied to the turbocharger 100. The rotational force is transferred to a compression turbine 112 connected to the exhaust turbine 111. The compression turbine 112 compresses an external intake air "a" and supplies the compressed air to the engine 310, by using the rotational force.
In the turbocharger 110, the intake air "a" is compressed in a compression process according to an adiabatic compression process. Thus, a temperature of the intake air "a" after the compression, that is, a temperature of the intake air "a" at a rear end side of the turbocharger 110 increases compared to a temperature of the intake air "a" before the compression, that is, a temperature of the intake air "a" at a front end side of the turbocharger 110.
In general, as the temperature of the intake air "a" supplied to the engine 310 that is the internal combustion engine increases, the efficiency of the engine 310 decreases. In this regard, as the temperature of the intake air "a" at the rear end side after passing through the turbocharger 110 increases, the efficiency of the engine 310 is degraded.
Further, when the vessel is operated in a high temperature environment such as in tropical regions, the intake air "a" is compressed from the front end side of the turbocharger 110 in a state in which the temperature of the intake air "a" is increased, and thus, the efficiency of the engine 310 is further degraded.

Intake air cooling system for a marine vessel having a turbocharger


A spectral representation of an audio signal having consecutive audio frames can be derived more efficiently, when a common time warp is estimated for any two neighboring frames, such that a following block transform can additionally use the warp information. Thus, window functions required for successful application of an overlap and add procedure during reconstruction can be derived and applied, the window functions already anticipating the re-sampling of the signal due to the time warping. Therefore, the increased efficiency of block-based transform coding of time-warped signals can be used without introducing audible discontinuities.

Several ways are known in the art to encode audio and video content Generally, of course, the aim is to encode the content in a bit-saving manner without degrading the reconstruction quality of the signal.
Recently, new approaches to encode audio and video content have been developed, amongst which transform-based perceptual audio coding achieves the largest coding gain for stationary signals, that is when large transform sizes, can be applied. (See for example T. Painter and A. Spanias: "Perceptual coding of digital audio", Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 88, No. 4, Apr. 2000, pages 451-513). Stationary parts of audio are often well modelled by a fixed finite number of stationary sinusoids. Once the transform size is large enough to resolve those components, a fixed number of bits is required for a given distortion target. By further increasing the transform size, larger and larger segments of the audio signal will be described without increasing the bit demand. For non-stationary signals, however, it becomes necessary to reduce the transform size and thus the coding gain will decrease rapidly. To overcome this problem, for abrupt changes and transient events, transform size switching can be applied without significantly increasing the mean coding cost. That is, when a transient event is detected, the block size (frame size) of the samples to be encoded together is decreased. For more persistently transient signals, the bit rate will of course increase dramatically.
A particular interesting example for persistent transient behaviour is the pitch variation of locally harmonic signals, which is encountered mainly in the voiced parts of speech and singing, but can also originate from the vibratos and glissandos of some musical instruments. Having a harmonic signal, i.e. a signal having signal peaks distributed with equal spacing along the time axis, the term pitch describes the inverse of the time between adjacent peaks of the signal. Such a signal therefore has a perfect harmonic spectrum; consisting of a base frequency equal to the pitch and higher order harmonics. In more general tennis pitch can be defined as the inverse of the time between two neighbouring corresponding signal portions within a harmonic signal. However, if the pitch and thus the base frequency varies with time, as it is the case in voiced sounds, the spectrum will become more and more complex and thus more inefficient to encode.
A parameter closely related to the pitch of a signal is the warp of the signal. Assuming that the signal at time t has pitch equal to p(t) and that this pitch value varies smoothly over time, the warp of the signal at time t is defined by the logarithmic derivative
      a              (      t      )        =                              p          ′                                  (          t          )                            p                          (          t          )                      .
For a harmonic signal, this definition of warp is insensitive to the particular choice of the harmonic component and systematic errors in terms of multiples or fractions of the pitch. The warp measures a change of frequency in the logarithmic domain. The natural unit for warp is Hertz [Hz], but in musical terms, a signal with constant warp a(t)=a0 is a sweep with a sweep rate of a0/log 2 octaves per second [oct/s]. Speech signals exhibit warps of up to 10 oct/s and mean warp around 2 oct/s.
As typical frame length (block length) of transform coders are so big, that the relative pitch change is significant within the frame, warps or pitch variations of that size lead to a scrambling of the frequency analysis of those coders. As, for a required constant bit rate, this can only be overcome by increasing the coarseness of quantization, this effect leads to the introduction of quantization noise, which is often perceived as reverberation.
One possible technique to overcome this problem is time warping. The concept of time-warped coding is best explained by imagining a tape recorder with variable speed. When recording the audio signal, the speed is adjusted dynamically so as to achieve constant pitch over all voiced segments. The resulting locally stationary audio signal is encoded together with the applied tape speed changes. In the decoder, playback is then performed with the opposite speed changes. However, applying the simple time warping as described above has some significant drawbacks. First or all, the absolute tape speed ends up being uncontrollable, leading to a violation of duration of the entire encoded signal and bandwidth limitations. For reconstruction, additional side information on the tape speed (or equivalently on the signal pitch) has to be transmitted, introducing a substantial bit-rate overhead, especially at low bit-rates.
The common approach of prior art methods to overcome the problem of uncontrollable duration of time-warped signals is to process consecutive non-overlapping segments, i.e. individual frames, of the signal independently by a time warp, such that the duration of each segment is preserved. This approach is for example described in Yang et. al. "Pitch synchronous modulated lapped transform of the linear prediction residual of speech", Proceedings of ICSP '98, pages 591-594. A great disadvantage of such a proceeding is that although the processed signal is stationary within segments, the pitch will exhibit jumps at each segment boundary. Those jumps will evidently lead to a loss of coding efficiency of the subsequent audio coder and audible discontinuities are introduced in the decoded signal.
Time warping is also implemented in several other coding schemes. For example, US-2002/0120445 describes a scheme, in which signal segments are subject to slight modifications in duration prior to block-based transform coding. This is to avoid large signal components at the boundary of the blocks, accepting slight variations in duration of the single segments.
Another technique making use of time warping is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,169,970, where time warping is applied in order to boost the performance of the long-term predictor of a speech encoder. Along the same lines, in US 2005/0131681, a pre-processing unit for CELP coding of speech signals is described which applies a piecewise linear warp between non-overlapping intervals, each containing one whitened pitch pulse. Finally, it is described in (R. J. Sluijter and A. J. E. M. Janssen, "A time warper for speech signals" IEEE workshop on Speech Coding'99, Jun. 1999, pages 150-152) how to improve on speech pitch estimation by application of a quadratic time warping function to a speech frame.
Summarizing, prior art warping techniques share the problems of introducing discontinuities at frame borders and of requiring a significant amount of additional bit rate for the transmission of the parameters describing the pitch variation of the signal.

Time warped modified transform coding of audio signals


A fuel tank cap structure and method of manufacturing which prevents a parting line formed on a cover member in the process of injection molding from being undesirably shaven. The fuel tank cap includes a casing body and a cover member that is rotatable in one direction relative to the casing body via a ratchet mechanism when a torque of or above a predetermined level is applied to the cover member. The cover member has fitting projections that are held by an outer ring member of the casing body. A slide mold is used for manufacturing the cover member having the fitting projections that are undercut in the injection molding. This causes a parting line to be formed on a top wall of the cover member. Anti-shaving projections formed at substantially the same height as that of the parting line prevent the parting line from being slid against the outer ring member and shaven.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel tank cap with a pressure control valve for controlling pressure in the fuel tank and method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
One known example of fuel tank caps is disclosed in JAPANESE UTILITY PATENT PUBLICATION GAZETTE No. 6-88606. FIG. 38 is a sectional view illustrating a fuel tank cap 300. As shown in FIG. 38, the fuel tank cap 300 includes a plastic casing body 302 screwed to a filler neck FN of a fuel tank (not shown), a cover member 330 attached to the casing body 302, and a negative pressure valve 340 received in a valve chamber 304 of the casing body 302 for controlling pressure in the fuel tank. The negative pressure valve 340 includes a rubber valve body 342, a valve supporting member 346 with a fitting aperture 346a for supporting the valve body 342, and a spring 348 for pressing the valve body 342. When the differential pressure between the tank pressure and the atmospheric pressure applied to the valve body 342 increases to or above a predetermined level, the negative pressure valve 340 opens to make the tank pressure approach atmospheric pressure.
The cover member 330 is detachably and rotatably attached to the casing body 302. The attachment-detachment mechanism includes four flange members 308 that are arranged along the circumference of the casing body 302 and formed to extend outward in the radial direction of the casing body 302, and an engagement projection 334 that is formed on an inner wall of the cover member 330. The cover member 330 is pressed onto the flange members 308 of the casing body 302, which then ride over the engagement projection 334. This enables the cover member 330 to engage the casing body 302.
The engagement projection 334 is projected from the inner wall of the cover member 330. Since this portion is undercut in injection molding, a slide mold is used for manufacturing the cover member 330. A split trace of the slide mold is formed on a bottom wall 332 of the cover member 330. When the cover member 330 is rotated relative to the casing body 302 via a ratchet mechanism 320, the split trace is slid to cause shavings.
The cover member 330 is manually operated to open and close, and is required to have an additional function, for example, the function of quickly discharging electricity when the user who is electrostatically charged manually touches the cover member 330 in a dry atmosphere.

Fuel tank cap and method of manufacturing the same


An information system for a vehicle includes a computer for handling informational data corresponding to operation of the vehicle. A primary display is connected to the computer in a position to be viewed by a driver of the vehicle for presenting the informational data in multiple, sequential, interactive menu screens. A manual controller mounted on the steering wheel allows input to the computer and manipulation of the primary display through the menu screens. The controller includes a scroll wheel which is oriented so that its rotational axis is parallel to the steering axis. The controller includes a central push button for activating a particular selection highlighted on the primary display. A plurality of category selector buttons operate as mode switches for activating various vehicle system subjects through the information system. The scroll wheel and push button selectors establish an interface for the driver which can be operated intuitively, without taking eyes off the road or releasing the driver's grip of the steering wheel.

Information systems for vehicles have been proposed in which a computer connected to various systems of the vehicle is used to present system information and allow a driver to interact with the various systems. The computer is connected to an input device for receiving manual inputs from a driver of the vehicle, and a display that is viewable by the driver. In keeping with modern computer operating systems, the display presents the system information through multiple, sequential, interactive menus and submenus which take a driver from general to specific levels of information and control. The driver uses the input device in conjunction with the display menus to review vehicle information and adjust any adjustable settings.
Various input devices have been proposed for this application, including keyboard arrangements, push button interfaces, and multi-function joystick controllers. A primary disadvantage of these prior art input devices resides in the fact that a driver must remove his hands from a controlling grip on the steering wheel in order to manipulate the input device. These prior art systems also inadvertently urge the driver to direct his gaze toward the input device to make sure that the controls are actuated properly. Because a steering wheel is always turning, placement of the input device on the steering wheel has not been favorably received for multi-function information system applications. The "real estate" of a steering wheel is by nature a moving plane of reference. Most types of prior art input devices would be difficult for a driver to operate from a steering wheel mounted position without looking at either the controller or the display screen to see if he has moved the controller in the right direction or manipulated the controller in the intended manner.
There exists a need for a vehicle information system of the type that displays informational data to the driver in multiple, sequential, interactive presentations which does not require the driver to remove his hands from a controlling grip on the steering wheel, and is more conducive to blind manipulation, i.e., by tactile senses and without looking directly at the input device or the display screen.

Vehicle information system with steering wheel controller


A power steering system is disclosed herein that includes an electronic control unit that determines a set-point value for a damping moment in the power steering system. The system also includes a first sensor connected to the control unit and operable to determine a sign of a steering angle. The sign of the steering angle refers to a clockwise angle from dead center being designated as positive or negative and a counter-clockwise angle from dead center being assigned the other designation. The system also includes a second sensor connected to the control unit and operable to determine the sign of a steering wheel angular velocity. The sign of the steering wheel angular velocity refers to movement of the steering wheel in the clockwise direction being designated as positive or negative and movement in the counter-clockwise direction being assigned the other designation. The control unit can establish the set-point value for the damping moment with a predefined first damping multiplier when the steering angle and the steering wheel angular velocity have the same sign and with a predefined second damping multiplier when the steering angle and the steering wheel angular velocity have different signs.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a power steering system for a motor vehicle and to a method of influencing the damping of a power steering system.
2. Description of Related Art
Power steering systems providing to the driver a steering assist force in steering maneuvers are generally known from the prior art. Regarding the damping behavior of a power steering system, it has turned out to be of advantage to damp any steering forces applied actively by the driver out of a center position of the steering wheel only slightly or not at all and, on the other hand, to provide stronger damping of an automatic return motion of the steering wheel into its center position (when the driver has largely released the steering wheel). Since, owing to the weak or absent damping, the steering behavior is very direct, the driver's own steering movements give him/her a secure steering feel. When the driver releases the steering wheel for an automatic return motion into the center position of the steering wheel, however, a strong damping of external impulses such as, e.g., bumps in the road will occur. This improves on the return motion properties of the steering system and on vehicle safety in general.
DE 39 29 176 C2, and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,804 A1, both of which are incorporated by reference herein, already describes a power steering system in which different damping values may be provided depending on the direction of actuation of the steering wheel. The term direction of actuation of the steering system here means, for one thing, the cramping of the wheels, i.e. from driving straight ahead to driving around a bend, and, for the other, the returning of the wheels from driving around a bend to driving straight ahead. The input quantities used here are the angular velocity of the steering wheel and the steering torque, which are then converted into an appropriately adjusted damping moment in a complex process.
It is an object of the present invention to simplify the method of influencing the damping of a power steering system and to provide a power steering system which, depending on the respective steering situation, provides different damping moments involving little expense.

Power steering system and method of influencing the damping of a power steering system


A rotary welding attachment member comprising a cam member having a cam surface and a rotatable base movable relative to the cam member. The rotatable base supporting a support rod and the support rod supporting a rider block which is movable along the support rod. A movable torch head, supporting a welding tip, being supported by the rider block. The torch head being coupled to the rotatable base via a flexible coupling to facilitate conveyance of a welding wire and a welding gas to the torch tip while the rotatable base, the support rod, the rider block and the torch head facilitating a supply of electrical current to the torch tip. An indexing mechanism, at least partially support by the rotatable base and cooperating with the cam surface, moves the rider block radially inwardly or outwardly along the support rod as the rotatable base rotates.

The present invention relates to a welding device adaptor member for attachment of a rotary welding device for providing a uniform spiral welding bead on a planar surface.
A wide variety of machinery exists in working conditions throughout the world which is exposed to abrasive and stressful conditions. Large work loads, open and corrosive conditions and time all work to wear out surfaces, such as planar or bearing surfaces, which require replacement and/or repair. For large bearing or planar surfaces, there is often a need to buildup material. Various attempts have been made to provide automated machinery for depositing welding beads in a uniform manner on the inner bores or other surfaces.
Wherefore, it is an object of the present invention to overcome the above mentioned shortcomings and drawbacks associated with the prior art welding devices.
It is an object of the invention to provide a rotary welding attachment member for uniformly building up a planar surface which is easy to setup and provides a very uniform buildup of material on the desired surface.
It is another object of the invention to provide a rotary welding attachment member for the buildup of material that is easy to position and reposition or to change the feed direction of the movement of a rider block.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a rotary welding attachment member that will create a helical or spiral buildup of material on a planar surface, which has relatively simple adjustments to allow the rotary welding attachment member to move either radially inward or outward during the helical or spiral buildup of material.
A still further object of the invention is to provide an adapter device for facilitating coupling of the rotary welding attachment member to a variety of different welding devices.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a light weight rotary welding attachment member which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture but is durable, dependable and relatively easy to utilize.
The present invention relates to a rotary welding attachment member comprising: a cam member having a cam surface; a rotatable base movable relative to the cam member, the rotatable base supporting a support rod and the support rod supporting a rider block which is movable along the support rod, a movable torch head, supporting a welding tip, being supported by the rider block, the torch head being coupled to the rotatable base via a flexible coupling to facilitate conveyance of a welding wire and a welding gas to the torch tip while the rotatable base, the support rod, the rider block and the torch head facilitating a supply of electrical current to the torch tip; and an indexing mechanism, at least partially support by the rotatable base and cooperating with the cam surface, for moving the rider block radially along the support rod as the rotatable base rotates.
The present invention also relates to a rotary welding attachment member comprising: a cam member having a cam surface; a rotatable base movable relative to the cam member, the rotatable base supporting a support rod and the support rod supporting a rider block which is movable along the support rod, a movable torch head, supporting a welding tip, being supported by the rider block, the torch head being coupled to the rotatable base via a flexible coupling to facilitate conveyance of a welding wire and a welding gas to the torch tip while the rotatable base, the support rod, the rider block and the torch head facilitating a supply of electrical current to the torch tip; an indexing mechanism, at least partially supported by the rotatable base and cooperating with the cam surface, for moving the rider block radially along the support rod as the rotatable base rotates, the indexing mechanism comprising an indexing rod supported by the rotatable base, the indexing rod having a roller which is biased, by a spring, into engagement with the cam surface of the cam member and the indexing arm is coupled to the rider block to convey the rider block one of radially inwardly and radially outwardly as the indexing arm is radially conveyed to due to the engagement between the roller and the cam surface; the rider block having an indexing locking plate which engages with the indexing arm and an indexing locking plate spring biases the indexing locking plate into a partially skewed position such that any motion of the indexing arm tending to orient the indexing locking plate in a transverse, non-skewed orientation facilitates relative movement between the indexing arm and the rider block while any motion of the indexing arm in the opposite direction tends to further skew the indexing locking plate and engages the rider block with the indexing arm so that the rider block is coupled to the indexing arm.

Automated welding device for the buildup of material


A shift regulating member projecting from an inner circumferential side of a belt that engages an engaging member on a roller, and a pressing member that presses the belt are described. The pressing member may press the belt between the roller with the engaging member and another roller. In some aspects, the pressing member may be intermittently pressed against the belt.

Conventionally, belts used in the image forming devices such as electronic photographic systems included conveyance belts for carrying recording media, photoreceptor belts for carrying developing agent images and intermediate transfer belts.
These belts are generally continuous belts that are suspended over a plurality of support rollers including drive rollers and are known to shift due to the occurrence of biasing forces in the lateral direction of the belts due to the shifts in the degree of alignment caused by tolerance in components and circumferential differences at both ends of the belt.
A shift regulating member projected inside at the end of the inner circumferential face of the belt is installed along the circumferential longitudinal direction, and an engagement member that engages with the shift regulating member is located at the position facing the shift regulating member at least on one of the support rollers over which the belt is suspended such that the shift regulating member and the engagement member are engaged to regulate shifting of belts.
A developing agent and paper powder tend to be easily adhered on the belt. In order to remove these particles, in other conventional systems, a cleaning member is brought into contact with the outer circumferential face of the belt to remove adhered substances such as developer and paper powder that have adhered to the belt.
However, for example, when using such a cleaning member, due to shifts of the degree of alignment between the cleaning member and the support roller, the application of force is generated to shift the belt so that even though a technology to prevent shifting of the belt is applied, there is a danger that the running of the belt becomes unstable.
This phenomenon occurs not only with cleaning members, but it also occurs when stress are applied to the running belts as in the case when a plurality of drums are in contact at the same time.

Image forming apparatus with shift regulating member


A side panel assembly is disclosed which is of simple construction and provides easy access to the assembly contents for servicing or the like. The side panel assembly includes a front wall (14), a back wall (12) and a side wall (16) which is bent to match the shape of the front (14) and/or back (12) wall. The front wall (14) is connected to the side wall (16) by inserting a fastener (30) through the front wall (14) and a pull-out tab (26) extending from the side wall (16). A method and apparatus for use in constructing the side panel (16) are also provided. The method and apparatus allow for automation of the lay-out, cutting to length, flanging and notching of the side panel (16).

Side panel assemblies typically include a front wall, a back wall, and a side panel which extends between the front and back walls to form a housing or enclosure. In many applications, it is desirable to form the side panel of such an assembly from a continuous web of material which is bent to conform to the periphery of the front and/or back walls. Such an assembly may, for example, form a housing for electrical components or a container for articles of various types.
One application of such assemblies is in forming lighted channel letters, words or other designs in the sign industry. In this regard, a lighted channel letter is commonly formed by placing a light or lights within a three-dimensional letter shaped housing. The channel housing normally includes a transparent or translucent front wall or cover and a side wall or channel formed from metal which extends about the outer and/or inner periphery of the letter. The channel thus provides the housing with a depth sufficient to house the light or lights.
In manufacturing channel letters, it is desirable to provide easy access to the internal light source for servicing. In addition, it is desirable to sealably interconnect the channel to the cover and back plate to provide some protection against moisture penetration and undesired light leaks. A further consideration in manufacturing channel letters is minimizing construction material and labor costs. Thus, it is important to achieve ease of access for servicing and sealing protection without unduly complicating channel letter construction or increasing material costs.
One known type of channel letter is depicted in FIG. 1. The channel letter 1 comprises a layered base plate 2 including central wood layer 2b having metal sheets 2a and 2c attached to the major faces thereof; a plastic cover 3;
and a channel 4 extending between said base plate 2 and cover 3. The channel 4 is interconnected to the base plate 2 by inserting a screw, nail or other fastener through the channel 1 into the central layer 2b of base plate 2. In this regard, the base plate 2 is formed with a thickness sufficient to receive the fastener.
The interconnection between the channel 4 and cover 3 can also be seen in FIG. 1. The cover 3 is adhesively affixed to a flexible plastic flange 5 which is oriented substantially perpendicular to the cover 3. During construction, the channel 4 and flange 5 are bent together to form a seam 6 such that the flange 5 is captured within the seamed channel 4. An adhesive and/or sealant may also be applied at the flange/channel interface. Additionally, a strip of foam 7 is attached to the base plate 2 adjacent to the channel 4 to guard against light leaks.
One disadvantage of such channel letters is that they require a relatively thick base plate 2 to receive the screw. This increases the material requirements and costs of manufacturing. In addition, the seaming of the flange and channel 4 is a relatively complicated process and requires that the cover 3 be affixed to the flange 5, thereby further increasing construction costs.
Heretofore, forming the channel of a channel letter has generally been a labor-intensive process in which the required calculations and bending processes were largely performed manually. A channel can be formed from a length of stock material by forming a series of bends, e.g., corners or curves of appropriate shape at the appropriate positions on the stock. In practice, depending on the equipment used to form the bends, curves may be formed by a series of chord-like flat surfaces rather than one continuously curved surface. Several parameters must be considered in bending the channel to the appropriate shape. These parameters include the longitudinal positioning of the bends on the channel stock, the shape of the bends, and the sequence for making the bends. As used herein, the term "shape" includes the total angle of a corner or curve, the radius of curvature of a curve, and other bend characteristics. The material and thickness of the sheet stock may also need to be considered in forming the design.
Upon consideration, it will be appreciated that selecting a sequence for making the bends is problematic. For example, in bending a strip of stock material to form a channel, the bends cannot necessarily be made in the same sequence as they would be in writing the letter. This is because such a sequence might result in mechanical interference between the already bent portions of the stock and the remaining, as yet unbent, portions of the stock or the machinery used to bend the stock. That is, such a sequence might result in the unbent portion of the stock coming into contact with the bent portion or the machinery. Such interference can often be avoided by selection of a suitable sequence for making the bends.
The process of bending a strip of stock material to form a channel has therefore typically required the skill of an experienced operator. Commonly, such an operator would physically measure the front or back wall of the channel letter and use the measurements to determine the shapes and positions of the bends. Thereafter, the operator could often determine an acceptable sequence for making the required bends by drawing on experience and skill or through a trial and error process. The operator then normally manually attached bending instructions regarding the positions, shapes and sequence of the bends directly to the side strip. For example, the instructions could be manually written on the stock or on tape which was then attached to the stock. A machinist could then use the instructions to make the desired bends.
Such manual processes have a number of drawbacks. First, as stated above, such manual processes typically require the skill of an experienced operator to perform measurements, determine an acceptable sequence for making the bends, and provide instructions regarding the positions, shapes and sequence of the bends. In addition, such manual processes are generally time consuming, thereby increasing the manufacturing costs of the channel letter. Moreover, such manual processes are often inexact and highly susceptible to error. Thus, manual processes can be inefficient, costly and inaccurate.
A number of computer numeric controlled machines for bending metal are known. However, these machines do not determine the positions, shapes and sequence of bends for forming stock material into a channel of a channel letter. Such machines, therefore, do not solve the problems discussed above.


A nanostructure including a nanoporous material having micropores filled with a fragmented thin-film material from the opening-side of each micropore, the nanoporous material being obtained by placing a thin-film material on a surface of a nanoporous material and pressing the thin-film material so that the thin-film material is cut out at the surface edge of each micropore of the nanoporous material and pressed into the micropore. By removing the nanoporous material form the nanoporous material, microparticles constituted from the thin-film material that filled the nanoporous material are obtained. By covering all the wall surfaces of the micropores of the nanoporous material in advance, nanocapsules each constituted from a tubular structure composed of the thin film covering the entire wall surface of the micropore and a cover made of a thin-film material filled in the vicinity of the opening of the micropore can be formed.

Microparticles are usually defined as particles 1 nm to 1 μm in size. Microparticles by themselves are used as stable monochromatic fluorescent particles or magnetic particles; in addition, they are used as building blocks of tunable light-emitting diodes, single-particle transistors, very-high-density magnetic recording media, and the like. In recent years, their fields of application have expanded along with technological advancement in individual fields, and this has led to an increase in demand.
There have been many reports on such microparticles including a metal, such as gold, platinum, or nickel, or a compound such as titanium oxide, zinc oxide, cadmium selenide, and zinc sulfide. As the production process therefor, a homogeneous precipitation method, a hydrothermal synthesis method, a hot-soap method, and the like have been known.
It has also been known that a porous oxide film having nanoholes periodically arranged into a triangular array at nanoscale intervals can be formed by an anodization process of aluminum (for example, nonpatent document 1). By carrying out a two-step anodization process, a periodic structure of nanoholes with improved regularity, perpendicularity, linearity, and independence can be formed (nonpatent document 2).
By using a method of filling nanoholes in an anodized film with a metal, semiconductor, or the like or a nanohole replica method, various applications have been attempted including coloring, magnetic recording media, EL light-emitting elements, electrochromic elements, optical elements, solar cells, gas sensors, and the like (patent documents 1 to 9). Furthermore, nanoholes are expected to be applied to various other fields including quantum devices such as quantum wires and MIM elements and molecular sensors with nanoholes used as chemical reaction sites (nonpatent document 3).    Nonpatent document 1: R. C. Furneaux, W. R. Rigby & A. P. Davids "NATURE" Vol. 337, p. 147 (1989)    Nonpatent document 2: Jpn. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 35, Part 2, No. 1B, pp., L 126-L 129, 15 January (1996)    Nonpatent document 3: Masuda "Kotai Butsuri [Solid Physics]" 31, 493 (1996)    Patent document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 06-32675 (Patent No. 3004127)    Patent document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-200090    Patent document 3: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-285791    Patent document 4: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-139317    Patent document 5: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-166717    Patent document 6: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-277659    Patent document 7: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-073859    Patent document 8: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-128832    Patent document 9: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-130171

Process for producing nanoparticle or nanostructure with use of nanoporous material


A driving assistance device includes a guide line detecting unit configured to detect the guide line, a remaining distance acquiring unit configured to acquire a remaining distance to the scheduled stop position, and a braking control unit configured to control deceleration of a vehicle. The guide line detecting unit detects a base-point mark, a curvature of the guide line, and a curvature feature point. The remaining distance acquiring unit acquires the remaining distance on the basis of the position of the base-point mark when the guide line detecting unit has detected the base-point mark, and acquires the remaining distance on the basis of the position of the curvature feature point when the guide line detecting unit has not detect the base-point mark and has detected the curvature feature point.

In the related art, a driving assistance device described in Patent Literature 1 is known as a driving assistance device that controls driving of a vehicle on the basis of a guide line leading to a scheduled stop position. The driving assistance device described in Patent Literature 1 performs steering control and deceleration control of a fixed-route bus along a guide line and stops the fixed-route bus at a bus stop when the guide line marked on a road surface is detected.

Driving assistance device and traffic system


A method of fabricating a double gate, FINFET device structure in a silicon on insulator layer, in which the channel region formed in the SOI layer is defined with a narrowed, or necked shape, and wherein a composite insulator spacer is formed on the sides of the device structure, has been developed. A FINFET device structure shape is formed in an SOI layer via anisotropic RIE procedures, followed by a growth of a silicon dioxide gate insulator layer on the sides of the FINFET device structure shape. A gate structure is fabricated traversing the device structure and overlying the silicon dioxide gate insulator layer located on both sides of the narrowest portion of channel region. After formation of a source/drain region in wider, non-channel regions of the FINFET device structure shape, composite insulator spacers are formed on the sides of the FINFET shape and on the sides of the gate structure. Metal silicide is next formed on source/drain regions resulting in a FINFET device structure featuring a narrow channel region, and surrounded by composite insulator spacers located on the sides of the device structure.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods used to fabricate semiconductor devices, and more specifically to a process sequence used top fabricate a FINFET device, a field effect transistor formed on an silicon on insulator (SOI) layer, with the mesa type device comprised with fin like features.
(2) Description of Prior Art
Micro-miniaturization, or the ability to fabricate semiconductor devices comprised with sub-micron features, have allowed performance increases for devices comprised with the sub-micron features to be realized, while the manufacturing cost of a specific semiconductor chip formed with sub-micron features has been reduced. The decrease in performance degrading junction capacitance as a result of the use of sub-micron features, as well as the ability to obtain a greater number of semiconductor chips, still providing circuit densities comparable to counterpart semiconductor chips formed with larger features, have made the increased performance, and decreased fabrication cost objectives achievable. However as device features shrink specific parameters such as short channel effects, punch through, and leakage currents become more prevalent for devices formed with sub-micron features than for counterparts formed with larger features.
This invention will describe a process sequence in which device performance is further improved via additional decreases in junction capacitance via formation of the sub-micron type device on a silicon on insulator (SOI) layer of the device. A FINFET device defined in the SOI layer, with only the needed elements of the device now overlying the insulator layer of the SOI layer, results in a reduction in capacitance and thus increased performance when compared to counterpart FET devices fabricating within a semiconductor substrate and thus presenting higher parasitic junction capacitance. The ability to form the FINFET device on an SOI layer also reduces punch through leakage and short channel effects when compared to devices formed in a semiconductor substrate. However to maintain a narrow channel region for the mesa like FINFET device the portion of conductive material between the source and drain regions has to be minimized. This can result in unwanted channel resistance, adversely influencing device performance. Therefore a process and design for a FINFET device, reported in this present invention, will describe a necked channel region in which only a portion of conductive material located between the source and drain region will be necked or narrowed, while the other portions of the conductive region located between the source and drain regions will be wider thus minimizing the channel resistance of the FINFET device. In addition this invention will describe a procedure used to form a wrap up insulator spacer that will protect the exposed sides of the raised, FINFET device from a silicide procedure applied to source/drain regions. Prior art, such as Muller et al, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,252,284B1, Shirasaki, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,996,574, Yuzurihara et al, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,428,237, Burroughes et al, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,701,016, Kitajama, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,010, and Ohmi et al, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,242,783B1, describe methods of forming FINFET type devices, however none of these prior arts disclose the unique features of this invention, such as the necked channel region, and the wrap up insulator spacer.

Method of fabricating a necked FINFET device

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


An illuminated toy construction apparatus including a plurality various shaped building members which are configured to be “popped” together to create a variety of characters and objects. Some of the building members include a docking cup and fitting while others are releasably connected by aligning with one another and “popping” together. The building members including a nipple fitting may be attached within a dimensioned channel to create a semi-rigid joint while the disc-shaped members form a hermetically sealed sphere. Further included is a base member which may be releasably connected to other adjacent members and further encloses at least one light emitting diode, motor, and base wheelset to allow the apparatus to move along a flat surface and create an interactive futuristic character or object.

Children of all ages have used construction toy systems for many decades. The first erector sets were comprised of metal fittings using basic nuts and bolts, which enabled children in the 1920s to construct basic structures. Though these early games were challenging or physically demanding to create, they revolutionized a play pattern that has quickly become a staple in the global toy industry.
Today, many popular toy construction companies such as LEGOS® utilize rectangular shaped blocks which make connecting these pieces relatively easy. Though these designs are easily assembled, the uniform shape and configuration of the blocks limits the user's ability to manipulate models once initially connected.
Further construction sets have attempted to employ more user-friendly connectors which allow for flexible joints using hooks, snaps, or v-shapes. However, these designs were often expensive, and the connectors often failed after only a few uses.
Currently, there are several toy construction sets that have integrated a light source within their building blocks. Specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 8,371,894 to Rosen/Dattari; U.S. Pat. App. No. 20140349544 to Chien; and U.S. Pat. App. No. 20130109268 to Lin. However, despite their respective advantages, these references do not disclose an illuminated toy construction set where the building members may be "popped" together or create a semi-flexible joint using a nipple fitting.