Densely spaced gates of field effect transistors usually lead to voids in a contact interlayer dielectric. If such a void is opened by a contact via and filled with conductive material, an electrical short between neighboring contact regions of neighboring transistors may occur. By forming a recess between two neighboring contact regions, the void forms at a lower level. Thus, opening of the void by contact vias is prevented.

1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to the field of semiconductor manufacturing, and, more particularly, to the formation of a semiconductor device which has a reduced tendency to generate electrical shorts through contact ILD voids.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern integrated circuits comprise a large number of circuit elements, such as resistors, capacitors, transistors and the like. Typically, these circuit elements are formed on and in a semiconductor layer, such as a silicon layer, wherein it is usually necessary to substantially electrically isolate adjacent semiconductor regions from each other in which the individual circuit elements are formed. A representative example in this respect is a field effect transistor, the active area of which, i.e., the highly doped drain and source regions with an inversely lightly doped channel region disposed therebetween, is defined by an isolation structure formed in the semiconductor material.
Since the critical feature sizes of the circuit elements, such as the gate length of field effect transistors, are steadily decreasing, the area enclosed by the isolation structures, as well as the isolation structures themselves, is also reduced in size. Among the various techniques for forming the isolation structures, the so-called shallow trench isolation (STI) technique has proven to be the most reliable method and has become the most frequently used technique for forming isolation structures for sophisticated integrated circuits.
According to the STI technique, individual circuit elements are insulated from each other by shallow trenches etched into the semiconductor material. This semiconductor material may be a semiconductor substrate, when bulk semiconductor devices are considered. Alternatively, a semiconductor layer may be formed on an insulating substrate, as is the case, for example, for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates, in which the circuit elements are formed. The trenches are subsequently filled with a dielectric material, such as an oxide, to provide the required electrical insulation of adjacent circuit elements.
On the other hand, the circuit elements need to be electrically contacted. A typical example of such an electrical contact in the fabrication of semiconductor devices is the formation of contact plugs, wherein openings extending through an interlayer dielectric (ILD) are filled with a conductive material in order to electrically connect to the respective circuit element. A bottom region and sidewall region of the opening is usually provided with an appropriate intermediate layer, that is, a conductive layer, so that subsequently deposited conductive material exhibits good adhesion to the surrounding dielectric layer, and undue interaction of the conductive material with the surrounding dielectric layer may be avoided during processing as well as during operation of the semiconductor device. In advanced semiconductor devices, the interconnect plugs are typically formed of a tungsten-based metal that are provided in an interlayer in the electric stack, which is typically comprised of silicon dioxide, including a bottom etch stop layer typically formed of silicon nitride.
In modern integrated circuits, openings (so-called vias) are formed exhibiting an aspect ratio that may be as high as approximately 8:1 or more, and the opening may have a diameter of 0.1 μm or smaller. Further, the high integration and the close packing of circuit elements, in particular the close packing of field effect transistors, also leads to a high aspect ratio between the gate electrodes of neighboring transistors. The etch stop layer formed above the circuit elements increases the aspect ratio even further. Therefore, in highly integrated circuits, the ILD deposition is not able to fill the originated gap between neighboring circuit elements, for example, between neighboring gate electrodes of field effect transistors, and thus causes a void along adjacent gates.
With reference to FIGS. 1A-1D, a typical conventional process for manufacturing contacts to neighboring circuit elements in accordance with a well-established tungsten technology will now be described in more detail in order to illustrate the problems involved in the formation of a reliable and high yield semiconductor device.
FIG. 1A schematically shows a semiconductor device 100 during a manufacturing stage for the formation of a contact interlayer dielectric above two neighboring circuit elements, such as transistors 110 formed above an appropriate semiconductor substrate 101. Each circuit element 110 may comprise one or more contact regions, such as a contact region of a gate electrode 111, and of drain and source regions 112. The contact regions may comprise a silicide portion 111A, 112A which provides a good and reliable electrical contact. The circuit elements 110 are covered by a dielectric material which may comprise a contact etch stop layer 102, which may be formed of silicon nitride. The circuit elements 110 are electrically isolated by a shallow trench isolation 114. The shallow trench isolation 114 may be slightly recessed with respect to the contact regions 112A of the source and drain regions 112. Although, in an initial manufacturing stage, the shallow trench isolation is planarized with the surface of the semiconductor layer 101, the slight recessing of the STI may occur due to material removal from the STI during manufacturing of the circuit elements 110, e.g., by etch or cleaning processes.
In highly integrated circuits, as shown in FIG. 1A, the small distance between the gate electrodes 111 of the circuit elements 110 leads to a high aspect ratio of the gap 116 between the gate electrodes 111. The etch stop layer 102, as well as the slight recess of the shallow trench isolation 114, further enhances this high aspect ratio.
FIG. 1B shows the semiconductor device 100 of FIG. 1A in a further advanced manufacturing stage, wherein silicon dioxide 103 is deposited on the etch stop layer 102 on the basis of well-known techniques, e.g., plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) techniques, e.g., on the basis of TEOS (tetraethylorthosilicate, Si(OC2H5)4), thereby providing a dense and compact material layer.
It was found by the inventors that, for narrow gaps 116, the deposition process of the interlayer dielectric 103 is not capable of filling these gaps 116 completely, but rather a void 118 develops as is schematically shown in FIG. 1C, which shows a further advanced manufacturing step of the semiconductor device 100. It should be noted that FIGS. 1A-1D are not drawn to scale but are exaggerated to some extent for illustration purposes.
FIG. 1D shows the semiconductor device 100 in a further advanced manufacturing stage. Herein, the formation of the interlayer dielectric layer 103 has been completed. Further, after any optional planarization processes for planarizing the layer 103, a photolitho-graphic sequence has been performed on the basis of well-established techniques, followed by anisotropic etch techniques and recipes for forming the contact openings 104 in the layer 103. The etch process for forming the contact openings 104 may be reliably controlled on the basis of the etch stop layer 102. Thereafter, a further etch process may be performed to finally open the contact etch stop layer 102 on the basis of well-established techniques. Thereafter the titanium layer, e.g., a Ti/TiN layer may be formed on the basis of ionized physical vapor deposition, such as sputter deposition 105. The term "sputtering" or "sputter deposition" describes a mechanism in which atoms are ejected from a surface of a target material upon being hit by sufficiently energetic particles. Although, in principle, the barrier layer 105 may be formed by using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques, sputter deposition is widely used for the deposition of the barrier layer 105 for the following reasons.
Sputter deposition allows relatively uniform deposition of layers over large area substrates, since sputtering may be accomplished from large-area targets. Control of film thickness by sputter deposition is relatively simple as compared to CVD deposition and may be achieved by selecting a constant set of operating conditions, wherein the deposition time is adjusted to achieve the required film thickness. Moreover, the composition of compounds, such as titanium nitride used in the barrier layer 105, may be controlled more easily and precisely in sputter deposition processes as compared to CVD. Additionally, the surfaces of the substrates to be processed may be sputter cleaned prior to the actual film deposition so that any contamination of the surface may be efficiently removed and further recontamination prior to the actual deposition process may be effectively suppressed. For an efficient deposition of a moderately thin material within the contact openings 104 having a moderately high aspect ratio, so-called ionized sputter deposition techniques are used in which target atoms liberated from the target are efficiently ionized by a respective plasma ambient while moving towards the substrate. On the basis of a DC or RF bias, the directionality of the moving ionized target atoms may be significantly enhanced, thereby enabling the deposition of target material at the bottom of the contact openings 104 even for high aspect ratios.
As shown in FIG. 1D, the void 118 formed in the interlayer dielectric layer 103 is opened by two neighboring contact openings 104. The subsequent Ti/TiN barrier cannot seal the opening 120 in the contact via 104. Therefore, the following deposition of tungsten 122 fills (at least in part) the void 118 and causes an electrical short between neighboring contacts. Such an electrical short reduces the overall yield.
The present disclosure is directed to various methods and devices that may avoid, or at least reduce, the effects of one or more of the problems identified above.

Method for preventing the formation of electrical shorts via contact ILD voids


An image processor is able to recognize one object as a mass as if viewed by human eyes even though the object appears to be separated in two pieces. The image processor performs steps to input digital image information and store it in the memory, to process each pixel having density information with threshold value so as to convert them into binary images such as active and non-active images, to provide the same label number for a group of active images which are adjacent each other, to make a list and calculate center of gravity for each label and a distance between the center of gravity and a furthest point of each label and an angle relative to a line connecting the center of gravity and furthest point, to detect the existence of active images which belong to another label within a certain range extending from the line, and to output the list as a pair label information if other active images of another label are found.

Conventionally, there have been many types of image processing apparatus for inspecting, recognizing, determining, or analyzing objects with use of images. Generally, most of them perform the image processing by using a computer which processes an image as a digitized image. Among the conventional types, there is also an apparatus which displays an image in two-tone such as black and white, or red and blue, by converting density of pixels into a binary system, as 0 and 1. The present invention relates to an image processor having object recognition ability which deals with the images which are processed by binary system, i.e., binary images. In this case, a pixel is defined as one of the points which compose a screen, i.e., an element, and an image is defined as a pixel having density value. In the binary image system, an image displayed as 1 or in black is called an active image. On the other hand, an image which is displayed as 0 or in white is called a non-active image.
Conventionally, a labeling system has been utilized so that the image processing apparatus is able to recognize an object which appears to be a mass of object to human eyes. In the conventional labeling system, it is arranged that the active image objects, which are adjacent each other and considered to be a mass, are labeled as "A, B, C . . .". The objects labeled in the same letter, for example as "A", are recognized to be in the same group.
However, the conventional labeling system is associated with the following disadvantage. Even though it is appeared to be a mass to human eyes, if there is one missing pixel in the object, the apparatus recognizes the object as the two separate objects. For example, as in FIG. 4, if there is a gap 55 between each pixel in the right and left sides of a golf club as a result of an interruption by noise or the like, the image processing apparatus recognizes the golf club as the two separate objects, a club head 51 and shaft 50. The image processing apparatus may recognize the left object as a hammer, the right object as a bar. Thus, it has been very difficult for the conventional image processing apparatus to recognize an object with gaps as a whole, even though it is appeared to be the golf club to human eyes, i.e., one continuous object.

Image processor having object recognition ability


A method is provided for dynamically tracking a plurality of entities progressing through an operation each having an electronic tagging device associated therewith. The method includes sensing signals emitted by each of the plurality of tagging devices, at predetermined instances or when triggered by external events, by a plurality of sensors located at predetermined sites with respect to the operation, each signal including information uniquely identifying the corresponding tagging device, communicating the sensed signals and corresponding energy levels at which they were sensed by each of the plurality of sensors to a data processor, processing the unique identification information provided by the signals and their energy levels to determine a location of each tagging device relatively to the predetermined sites of the sensors, and dynamically updating a path of each tagging device and the associated entity based on the determined location with respect to at least a portion of a displayed map of the operation.

During vehicle transportation/movements routinely experienced in dealership environments, vehicular entities are typically subjected to or involved in unpredictable and location altering movements due to activities engaging associated personnel and/or clients. Similarly, in warehouse environments, various entities, such as containers, are often moved between a starting location and a future location, with some uncertainty arising regarding the path taken between these two locations and the future location. As more users, personnel employees or clients are involved in the movements of these mobile or movable entities, the likelihood of a movable entity being misplaced or removed from the corresponding environment increases. So, typical issues relating to on-demand locating of these movable entities increase with the size of the environment and/or the number of movable entities involved.
These environments have typically used inefficient tools or approaches for tracking these movable entities, such as bar-coded labels and/or magnetic stripe tags and documents such as bills of lading and manifests and/or paper labels, which have lead to wasteful management assets and increase in overall operation costs. These tracking approaches typically do not track substantially continuously these movable entities along paths of a process or operation without human intervention. Moreover, these tracking approaches require bringing or providing suitable readers to these bar-coded labeled or magnetically tagged entities to ensure logging of the proper locations of these entities.
Electronic tracking and/or positioning devices or tags are utilized to overcome these cumbersome disadvantages associated with these conventional tracking approaches. These tags may use either radio frequency identification (RFID) or global positioning system (GPS) technologies. Applications of RFID technology are wide ranging and involve detection of tagged entities as they pass or are stationed near a RFID sensor or reader via unique identification of specific tags associated with these entities, and storing data relating to the tags into the RFID reader or alternate data storage for later recovery. Applications of GPS technology involve determining a position of a GPS receiver or entity by measuring the distance between itself and three or more GPS satellites. Measuring the time delay between transmission and reception of each GPS radio signal gives the distance to each GPS satellite, since the signal travels at a known speed. The signals also carry information about the satellites' location. By determining the position of, and distance to, at least three satellites, the receiver can compute its position using trilateration or triangulation. Receivers typically do not have perfectly accurate clocks and therefore track one or more additional satellites to correct the receiver's clock error.
These RFID and GPS electronic tracking technologies can be useful tools in well-known techniques of productivity improvements of process or operations. With today's emphasis on "lean implementation" in business environments, manufacturing and service, companies seek to acquire tools that effectively identify problems affecting productivity and update work-in-progress operation flows with newly inserted tasks. A basic philosophy of the lean implementation into an operation flow is to target inefficiency and to improve economical goals, which is accomplished by focusing on determining production times that meet or exceed customer requirements. Initiatives of lean implementations typically begin with a development of a value stream map of an operation. However, the value stream map does not take into consideration a dynamic aspect of the operation and a product mix that may be in production at different times.
Six Sigma is a method, based on standard deviations, used to analyze and identify variations in operation flows to provide productivity improvements. As such, some companies have integrated aspects of the six-sigma and lean tools to improve productivity in the manufacturing and service environments. However, when process or operation map studies and forecasting simulations are required due to changes in operation constraints, further off-line actions have to be undertaken such as building, verifying and validating simulation models for experimentation of improvements. These actions thus lack a dynamic aspect of integrations or modifications in model simulations.
Accordingly, a system and method is desired that can integrate and combine electronic tracking technologies with varied analytical and implementation tools to dynamically track entities involved in operations so as to simulate and analyze these operations while subjected to any applicable conditions and scenarios to provide productivity improvements.

System and method for dynamically tracking and state forecasting tagged entities


A multisection blade for a wind turbine includes a hub extender having a pitch bearing at one end, a skirt or fairing having a hole therethrough and configured to mount over the hub extender, and an outboard section configured to couple to the pitch bearing.

This invention relates to wind turbines, and more particularly to wind turbines having rotor blades built in more than one piece.
Recently, wind turbines have received increased attention as an environmentally safe and relatively inexpensive alternative energy source. With this growing interest, considerable efforts have been made to develop wind turbines that are reliable and efficient.
Generally, a wind turbine includes a rotor having multiple blades. The rotor is mounted within a housing or nacelle, which is positioned on top of a truss or tubular tower. Utility grade wind turbines (i.e., wind turbines designed to provide electrical power to a utility grid) can have large rotors (e.g., 30 or more meters in diameter). Blades on these rotors transform wind energy into a rotational torque or force that drives one or more generators, rotationally coupled to the rotor through a gearbox. The gearbox may be used to step up the inherently low rotational speed of the turbine rotor for the generator to efficiently convert mechanical energy to electrical energy, which is fed into a utility grid. Some turbines utilize generators that are directly coupled to the rotor without using a gearbox.
As the power generating capacity of wind turbines increase, the dimensions of their rotor blades and other components also increase. At some point, practical transportation and logistics limits may be exceeded. These non-technical limitations lead to constraints on the energy production ratings of on-shore wind turbines.

Multi-piece wind turbine rotor blades and wind turbines incorporating same


A sampling rate converting method and apparatus for converting the sampling frequency of a 1-bit digital data obtained a .SIGMA..DELTA. modulator to 32 kHz, 48 kHz, 96 kHz or 192 kHz without producing jitter. A decimation filter 3 decimates the sampling frequency of 1-bit digital data of 2.8224 MHz supplied from an input terminal 2 by 1/2-tuple decimation. An interpolation filter 4 oversamples the frequency of the output of the decimation filter 3 by quintuple oversampling with an integer ratio of 1:5. A decimation filter 5 decimates the frequency of the output of the interpolation filter 4 by 1/21-tuple decimation with an integer ratio of 21:1.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a sampling rate converting method and apparatus for converting by filtering the sampling frequency of a 1-bit digital data equal to 64 times 44.1 Khz or the sampling frequency of 1-bit digital data equal to 49 times 48 kHz.
2. Description of the Related Art
The method for digitizing speech signals for recording, reproduction and transmission has hitherto been practiced on a recording/reproducing apparatus having an optical disc, such as a compact disc (CD), a magnetic tape, such as a digital audio tape (DAT), or in digital broadcasting such as satellite broadcasting. In digitizing the speech signals in such digital audio data transmitting method, it has been prescribed to use formats 48 kHz or 44.1 kHz as the sampling frequency and 16 or 20 bits as the numbers of quantization bits.
As another method for digitizing the speech signals, a method known as a sigma-delta (.SIGMA..DELTA.) has been proposed, as shown in Yoshio Yamazaki, "AD/DA Converter and Digital Filter", Journal of Japan Society of Acoustics, vol. 46, No. 3 (1990) pages 251 to 257.
An arrangement of a (.SIGMA..DELTA.) modulator for performing the (.SIGMA..DELTA.) modulation of, for example, one bit, is shown in FIG. 1, in which an input audio signal at an input terminal 91 is supplied via an adder 92 to an integrator 93. The signal from the integrator 93 is fed to a comparator 94 so as to be compared to, for example, the neutral potential of the input audio signal and quantized by, for example, one-bit quantization each sampling period. The frequency of the sampling periods, that is the sampling frequency, is selected to be 64, 49 or 128 times the conventional sampling frequency of 48 kHz or 44.1 kHz.
These quantization data are fed to a one-sample delay unit 96 so as to be delayed by one sampling period. The delayed data is converted by, for example, a 1-bit D/A converter 95 into analog signals which are supplied to the adder 92 so as to be added to the input audio signal from the input terminal 91. Output quantized data from the comparator 94 is taken out at an output terminal 97. Thus, with the .SIGMA..DELTA. modulation by the .SIGMA..DELTA. modulator, an audio signal having a wide dynamic range can be obtained, even with the number of bits as small as one bit, by using a sufficiently high sampling frequency. In addition, the frequency range that can be transmitted can be increased.
In addition, the .SIGMA..DELTA. modulation has a circuit arrangement that lends itself to integration and can achieve high precision in A/D conversion relatively easily, so that it is frequently used within an A/D converter. The .SIGMA..DELTA. modulated signals can be passed through a simple analog low-pass filter for restoration to the analog audio signal. Therefore, by exploiting these features, the .SIGMA..DELTA. modulator can be applied to a recorder handling high-quality data or to data transmission.
Meanwhile, should it become necessary to convert the 1-bit digital data obtained by the .SIGMA..DELTA. modulator into digital data having the sampling frequency of 32 kHz or 48 kHz, accurate conversion has so far not been achieved due to jitter or the like.
For example, if the sampling frequency of 1-bit digital data, which is 64 times 32 kHz, is to be converted into a sampling frequency of 48 kHz, the result of calculations gives 32000.times.64/48000=42.6 . . . which is not a whole number, so that accurate conversion is not feasible.
On the other hand, if the sampling frequency of 1-bit digital data, which is 64 times 48 kHz, is to be converted into a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz, the result of calculations gives 48000.times.64/44100=69.65 . . . which is not a whole number, so that accurate conversion is again not feasible.
The same holds for the case of converting the sampling frequency of one-bit digital data equal to 64 times 96 kHz into 44.1 kHz.

Sampling rate converting method and apparatus


Methods and apparatus for digitally enhancing images are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes analyzing an acquired image to provide a high sensitive low light image and a low sensitive high light image, and then summing the high sensitive low light image and the low sensitive high light image to create an enhanced image.

Aerial refueling is commonly employed to increase the range and flight duration of an aircraft. Aerial refueling is typically accomplished by having a tanker aircraft carrying a payload of fuel fly on a specified flight path. A receiving aircraft flies in close proximity to the tanker aircraft, and fuel is transferred from the tanker aircraft to the receiving aircraft via a rearwardly-extending boom. The boom is typically operated by an operator located in the tanker aircraft who maneuvers the boom into temporary engagement with a fuel-receiving port of the receiving aircraft. After a desired quantity of fuel is transferred to the receiving aircraft, the operator disengages the boom from the fuel-receiving port, and the receiving aircraft continues on its designated mission. Known aerial refueling systems include, for example, those systems disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,996,939 issued to Higgs et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,206 issued to Ward, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,763,861 and 4,633,376 issued to Newman.
In early aerial refueling systems, the boom operator performed the task of manipulating the boom into the fuel-receiving port by direct observation using the naked eye. In more advanced systems, the boom operator views the boom and receiving aircraft remotely by means of camera(s) positioned on a rearward portion of the tanker aircraft. The camera(s) transmits images to a display or monitor located inside the tanker aircraft, typically in a forward portion of the aircraft.
Although desirable results have been achieved using prior art aerial refueling systems, some drawbacks have been noted. For example, during some operating conditions, aerial refueling operations may be hampered by glints, shadows and glare caused by the sun, atmospheric water vapor, or reflections from aircraft surfaces. These conditions may hamper aerial refueling operations, such as by precluding clear visualization of the fuel-receiving port, and may necessitate a deviation of the tanker aircraft and the receiving aircraft from the planned course into an alternate course that allows the boom operator an improved view of the fuel-receiving receptacle. This may necessitate delays in the refueling process and in the overall mission, resulting in increased demands on the tanker aircraft and the receiving aircraft and their respective crews. Thus, there exists a need for an enhanced viewing system that reduces adverse viewing conditions that may otherwise hamper aerial refueling operations.

Image enhancement for aerial refueling operations


An apparatus for controlling a tunable filter of the present invention includes a tunable filter, a generating device for generating a reference light whose wavelength is within a transmission wavelength band of the tunable filter, a detecting device for detecting an interaction signal, such as a beat signal, caused by interaction between a desired component of an input light to be input into the tunable filter and the reference light and a controlling device for controlling the tunable filter based on the interaction signal. The controlling device controls a current flow through a wavelength control terminal of the tunable filter such that a center filtering wavelength of the transmission wavelength band of the tunable filter substantially coincides with a wavelength of the desired component.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for controlling a tunable filter to be utilized in wavelength or frequency division multiplexing systems or the like, an apparatus therefor and an optical communication network including such apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
In general, a tunable filter has a transmission coefficient for a wavelength of light to be input therein as shown in FIG. 1. When multiplexed optical signals of different wavelengths are input into such tunable filter, a signal of wavelength selected according to the relationship between wavelength and transmission coefficient of the tunable filter is filtered out. Normally, a signal of a single wavelength is taken out of the multiplexed signals of different wavelengths input into the tunable filter since a wavelength interval between adjacent signals of the multiplexed signals is wider than a half-value width (wavelength width at a transmission coefficient whose value is a half or 50% of that of a maximum transmission coefficient: see FIG. 1) of the tunable filter. The intensity of the selected or filtered signal is at its maximum when a center transmission or filtering wavelength of the tunable filter is coincident with that to be selected.
Usually, the center filtering wavelength of a tunable filter can be changed or tuned by controlling a current flow through a terminal thereof for changing its filtering wavelength. Therefore, if the relationship between a value of such current flow and the center filtering wavelength is already known, a signal of any desired wavelength can be filtered out by causing the current corresponding to the desired wavelength to flow through a filtering-wavelength changing terminal of the tunable filter.
FIG. 2 shows an example of prior art methods for controlling a tunable filter. In FIG. 2, a voltage-to-current (V-I) converter 201 and a constant current source 202 are connected to a tunable filter 203. In the prior art method, the relationship between a filtering wavelength control current and a filtering wavelength of the tunable filter 203 needs to be accurately measured in the first place. The measurement is conducted under a condition under which temperature is stably set to a predetermined value since the filtering wavelength control current-dependent filtering wavelength characteristic of the tunable filter 203 is greatly varied due to the change in temperature.
The relationship between the filtering wavelength of the tunable filter 203 and a wavelength selection control signal input to the converter 201 is thus determined from the above-mentioned measured value, considering a voltage-current converting characteristic of the converter 201. Further, a gain control current-to-gain characteristic of the tunable filter 203 is measured.
The operation of the prior art system is as follows. First, the temperature is set to the predetermined value at the time of measurement. Then, the gain control current is caused to flow into the tunable filter 203 through its gain control terminal by the current source 202 to set a gain of the tunable filter 203 to a given value. Further, the wavelength selection control signal is set to a voltage corresponding to a wavelength of any desired siganl. This control voltage is converted into a current by the voltage-to-current converter 201, and this current is caused to flow into the tunable filter 203 through its wavelength control terminal.
Thus, the filtering wavelength of the tunable filter 203 is set to the wavelength of the desired signal. When multiplexed signals of different wavelengths are input into the tunable filter 203, the signal of the desired wavelength is output pursuant to a transmission factor characteristic of the tunable filter 203 since the center filtering wavelength of the tunable filter 203 is coincident with that of the signal desired to be output.
In the prior art system, however, when the wavelength of an input signal or center filtering wavelength of the tunable filter 203 is changed, an amount of the signal light to be output is reduced. In the worst case, the desired signal will not be output at all. As a result, temperature stabilization circuits are required for stabilizing the wavelength of an input light emitted from a light source (i.e., stabilizing a laser diode for emitting a light signal) and the center filtering wavelength of the tunable filter 203. Further, a highly precise and stable voltage-to-current converting circuit 201 with little variance is required for accurately setting the value of current to be supplied to the wavelength control terminal of the tunable filter 203.
However, it is difficult to always maintain the center filtering wavelength of the tunable filter 203 at a constant value since techniques for realizing the converting circuit 201 mentioned above are hard to achieve.
Moreover, the current-to-wavelength characteristic of the tunable filter 203 must be accurately measured beforehand, so that the number of steps of a process for controlling the tunable filter 203 will be increased.
For solving the above-discussed problem, there may be a solution that a transmission band of a tunable filter is made wide enough to cope with wavelength fluctuations, but this solution inevitably restricts the possible multiplexing number of signals of different wavelengths.

Method for controlling a tunable filter and an apparatus therefor


The staple remover includes a large and small arm cooperating to withdraw staples. The larger arm includes at a working end a pair of prongs between which is centered a single prong provided at a working end of the smaller arm. The prongs include curved camming surfaces extending from arm working ends toward their pivoted ends. Arms are interconnected at their pivoted ends so as to be opened and closed for cooperation when removing bound staples. The camming surface of the single prong of smaller arm is shorter than the camming surfaces of the prongs of the larger arm such that a staple will be deformed and discarded rather than clinging to remover prongs. Included within the arms is a collection box with a magnetized plate or drawer positioned for capturing the discarded staples. An opening in the collection box permits removal of the plate for crushed staple disposal.

The present invention relates to the field of hand tools, and more specifically to hand-wielded implements for removing bound staples from stapled documents or other layered materials.
Fastening and unfastening layered document pages and the like have long been necessary tasks in both business and residential settings. A century ago, such work was delegated to sturdy, sharply pointed pins somewhat more substantial than a florist's stick pins and tailor's straight pins currently in use. Document pins generally were elongated with one end bent into a T-shape or L-configuration so as to provide a blunt pushing surface. With one hand, usually employing a bare thumb or other finger, a user would press against the blunt pushing surface so as to puncture through layered documents from a front side to a backside thereof. Next, using bare fingers of the other hand, the pin would be pressed and forcibly redirected for a return pass entirely through the layered document, thus delivering its sharp point exit at the front of the layers.
The result would be that the document pages would be snuggly secured, although a clearly hazardous pin point would remain conspicuously exposed. Injuries from this practice and from its hazardous result were common, often to the extent that bloodstains on the fastened documents were not uncommon.
In subsequent years, mechanical staplers were developed, thus putting an end to the hazardous pinning method. The most common staple design continues to be a segment of wire configured so as to have two short, generally parallel legs interconnected by a slightly longer wire bridge. Often the staple legs are sharpened at their tips. These staples are loaded into a stapling machine and dispensed manually or mechanically on demand.
Table model staplers were popular for decades, performing as static stapling stations. These were soon joined by small, portable (non-static) hand-wielded versions that would be moved to the stapling target. More recently, stapling has most often been performed automatically by auxiliary stapling units mounted on high volume photocopiers. Stapling technology has made great advancement while the staples themselves have seen little or no change. While stapling techniques have become safer and more efficient, staple-related injuries have continued, especially during un-stapling (staple removal) efforts.
Staple pulling since early times continues to be a manual effort. Staple removal implements ranged from a user's thumbnails to a handy pocketknife or letter opener. Of course, these techniques induced injuries, as well. In the relatively recent past, specialty hand tools have been developed for removing staples. Custom staple-pullers are presented either as an integral feature of handheld staplers or more frequently as standalone devices.
Handheld staple removers are available in various designs. Most common are the hand powered variety, often including either a wedging blade or cooperative prong elements to spread and lift the staple. Single blade staple removers are often constructed by machining, casting, or forging metal into a blade sized for insertion beneath a staple bridge portion. The blade may be progressively narrower at its leading tip so that its movement under the staple bridge serves to slightly lift the staple bridge and then to push it away from the document layers in a camming action, thus unbending and extracting the staple legs.
Jaw type extractors or pullers with opposed prongs or tips extending from a common hinge are also shaped such that they effectively narrow toward their tips so that their insertion beneath the staple bridge initially lifts the bridge slightly, then pushes and spreads it away in a camming action so as to unbend and extract the staple legs. Hence, the staple is essentially pushed or wedged out of its fixed engagement. With either tool, blade or jaw type, the removed staples will remain jammed upon the remover blade or jaw tips, or they simply take flight.
So, while advancements in stapling technology have all but eliminated the hazards involved in fastening pages or other materials together, there have been no effective improvements in the manual staple removal process, particularly since the removed staples must ultimately be manually handled and disposed of one-at-a-time. The most exasperating issue is that the removed staples too often are left scattered on workspace desks, tables, and carpets, or tenaciously wedged on the staple remover itself. These used staples remain as sharp as when first applied, ready to wreak injury to the user's hands or clothing.
The broken, jammed or clinging staple can cause painful damage to the user's fingers and to the device itself, as well as to the documents or materials to which the staple is attached. Yet another problem with the currently available models is that they do not provide an efficient or effective built-in-storage facility for the removed staples. This results in a littering of the workplace and a menace to both the cleaning staff and the vacuum cleaners.
The prior art reflects a number of inventions developed to address some of these problems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,430, issued on Sep. 28, 1999, to Olson, provides magnetic areas on the outside of a four-pronged staple remover, presumably to catch the ejected staple if it happens to land on one of the magnetic areas. However, there is some doubt as to the effectiveness of the Olson device. If the removed staple frees itself from clinging onto the large arm of the Olson device and does not land on the designated magnetic areas, it can fly out in any direction away from the magnets. Thus the primary problem—breaking, jamming, and clinging staples, as well as a lack of proper storage means—remains to be addressed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,784,370, issued on Nov. 15, 1988, to Strickland provides a staple remover with a unique clamp for removing a broken staple. The Strickland concept appears reasonable in theory, but in practice problems continue to exist with respect to clinging staples and a lack of a storage facility for the removed staples.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,641,114B1 to Carmen, while disclosing an attractive round-bodied staple remover, does not address how the user will be able to view the staple and insert the teeth of the remover underneath the staple to successfully remove it from papers to which it is attached. For the user of the round-bodied staple remover, it is important that he/she sees that the teeth of the remover fit between the two legs of the staple without any guesswork. Thus, not only are the problems of broken, jammed, clinging and flying staples not addressed by Carmen, another problem is introduced by blocking the user's line of sight.
Thus, all conventional type staple removers that have two teeth/prongs on each of a pair of cooperating arms (where one of said cooperating arms is larger than the other) have at least three inherent problems: (1) the breaking of the staple while being removed; (2) the jamming of one leg of the staple in the papers, while being removed, and (3) the clinging of the staple onto the larger arm of the device.
The first two problems occur because the smaller of the cooperating arms of the staple remover (as in currently available models) is not always evenly centered within the receiving chamber of the larger arm (i.e., between puller prongs of the larger arm). The third problem occurs because of the length of the camming surface area of currently available models. On these conventional models, the camming area begins at the tip of the teeth/prongs and extends all the way to the chamber area. This kind of construction does not allow the removed staple to fall free into a channel section of the large arm, so it thus remains clinging on an arm of the staple remover.
Therefore, while numerous staple puller models have been introduced in the past, they all display the aforementioned design flaws and are thus unable to address the practical problems solved by the present invention. The present invention is based on the ideal of preventing problems before they occur, and it is designed in such a way that it prevents the aforementioned inherent problems of the conventional type staple removers currently in use. The inventive construction proposed herein is new and novel.
Accordingly, it is the primary object of the present invention to provide a staple remover that removes the staple without breaking it into pieces. It is a further principal object of the present invention to provide a staple remover that successfully removes staples without allowing them to cling to the papers or to the arms of the staple remover itself.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a box (shield) to prevent staples from escaping and littering the work area (and from endangering the user's eyes, hands, toes, etc.). It is still another object of the present invention to provide a shorter camming surface area in order to allow the removed staple to fall or be projected into a collector box area without clinging to the a remover arm.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a tray or drawer with a magnetic surface or magnetized portions that catch and collect removed staples for later removal and disposal, for example by withdrawing the tray through a convenient housing opening. A further object of the present invention is to crush or otherwise deform removed staples into different shapes and sizes in order to avoid having removed staples clinging to the papers or the staple remover's arms.
A further object of the present invention to enhance productivity and safety on the part of both the end-user and cleaning staffs of organizations (where applicable). Finally, it is an object of the present invention to create a staple remover that requires simple material and minimal labor, and that can easily be produced in a cost effective manner.
These and other objects of the present invention can be seen in detail by referring to the following specifications and technical drawings.


A cassette lid opening/closing mechanism of a cassette tape driver for a cassette and the like cassettes, which is simply constructed at a reduced price. Holes are formed in the lid opening/closing levers and are pivoted to the support shafts on the side plates of the cassette holder. Hooks at the ends of the lid opening/closing levers are folded inwardly of the cassette holder and then forwardly. The side plates of the cassette holder extend backwardly to enter into the hooks. When the cassette tape is inserted in the cassette holder so that the cassette holder is slid back, the lid opening/closing levers turn and the hooks depress the lid of the cassette tape from the lower side so that the lid is open. The side plates limit the play of the lid opening/closing levers in the right-and-left direction. Therefore, the lid opening/closing levers are pivotally attached without requiring highly precisely machined shafts or bearings.

1.Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cassette tape drive for DATs and video cassettes. More specifically, the invention relates to a mechanism for opening and closing the lid of tape cassettes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional cassette tape drive of this type will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, wherein reference numeral 1 denotes a cassette tape drive. Referring to FIG. 4, the cassette tape drive 1 is so formed that a cassette tape (not shown) is inserted through an opening in the front surface (lower side in the drawing); i.e., the cassette tape is inserted in a cassette holder 2 provided in the opening.
On the side surfaces 3 of the cassette holder 2 are mounted lid opening/closing levers 4, 4. As shown in FIG. 5, bearings 5 are secured at intermediate positions of the lid opening/closing levers 4, 4. Support shafts 6 are provided on the side surfaces 3 of the cassette holder 2 to outwardly protrude in a horizontal direction. The bearings 5 of the lid opening/closing levers 4, 4 are loosely fitted in the support shafts 6, so that the lid opening/closing levers 4 are pivotally supported. The ends of the lid opening/closing levers 4, 4 rearwardly protrude beyond the cassette holder 2, and are folded inwardly of the cassette holder 2 and then forwardly to form hooks 7.
To put the cassette tape into the cassette tape drive 1, the cassette tape is inserted in the cassette holder 2. The cassette holder 2 is then pushed by the cassette tape and moves back. At this moment, pins 8, 8 provided at the other ends (lower side in the drawing) of the lid opening/closing levers 4, 4 are guided sliding along the lower surfaces of cam pieces 10, 10 fastened to the inner surfaces of the frame 9, whereby the above other ends descend, and the hooks 7 at the ends ascend to push both ends of the lid at the front surface of the cassette tape. The lid is then turned upwards and the magnetic recording surface of the cassette tape is exposed.
In order that the lid of the cassette tape is reliably opened and closed, plays of the lid opening/closing lever must be limited in the right-and-left direction, and the hooks at the ends must be brought into reliable engagement with both ends of the lid at the front surface of the cassette tape. In the conventional cassette tape drive, therefore, the bearings fitted to the lid opening/closing levers and the support shafts fitted to the cassette holder have sufficient lengths in order to pivotally support the lid opening/closing levers. Accordingly, the bearings and the support shafts account for an increase in the number of parts, resulting in an increase in the manufacturing cost. It therefore becomes necessary to decrease the number of parts and to suppress the cost of production. The object of the present invention is to solve these problems.

Cassette tape drive having an improved mechanism for opening and closing a tape cassette lid


An ignition coil having annular primary and secondary coils, the primary coil wound around a central core member and including a permanent magnet made of a magnetic material that is less than fully dense, and is interposed between one end of the central core member and one end of a C-shaped iron core surrounding the primary and secondary coil assembly and assuring the elimination of any air gap between the C-shaped iron core and the central core member. Alternatively, the permanent magnet may be replaced with an electrically non-conductive shim of substantially equal dimension such that the energy output is substantially reduced and the charge/discharge interval substantially increased to thereby allow use of the same basic modularly constructed coil assembly for totally different ignition strategies.

In use in popular ignition systems for internal combustion engines is an ignition coil or coils having a C-shaped iron core within a non-conductive housing, with the primary and secondary windings wound on individual bobbins inter-nested within one another and lying within the boundaries of the C-shaped iron core. The coil is filled with epoxy potting material or other insulating material as a final step in the process. Despite being filled with epoxy, the gap between the ends of the legs of the C-shaped iron core are referred to as an "air gap". It is also known that the efficiency can be increased and compactness of the overall coil structure, including the housing, can be reduced by nearly filling the air gap portion of the aforementioned iron core with a permanent magnet. Such a coil construction is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,990,881. Part of the success in making such a coil design commercially practical has been the discovery of a very strong permanent magnetic material containing such elements as samarium (Sm), neodymium (Nd), and other similar rare earth, high energy materials. The permanent magnet used is made entirely of such material and referred to as "fully dense". The air gap of the iron core of the ignition coil, although reduced by insertion of the magnet, is still retained in the design of the aforementioned coil.
In contrast, in the subject invention a permanent magnet-type ignition coil is provided having preferably no air gap and also assuring that should there be a small air gap due to component tolerance stack-up it will be in a predetermined location thereby enhancing considerably the efficiency and power output of the coil. This allows for a substantial reduction in the size of the overall unit for acquiring the same unit power output. A further feature of the subject invention is the design and use of a permanent magnet composed of a bonded magnetic material, which is less than fully dense, made of these most recently available rare earth, high energy materials such as samarium and neodymium, thereby providing a material which is equally effective, but far less expensive than the fully dense permanent magnet heretofore used, and having the added benefit that its thickness, including the magnetizing alloy elements Nd or Sm or equivalent, provides for less expensive fabrication and easier handling during assembly of the coil.
Additionally, it is clear from the prior art that little thought has been given to developing a modularly constructed ignition coil whereby with minor reconstruction of several components the same coil may be used for at least two separate ignition strategies, the first strategy requiring a high energy output suitable for use in a single strike ignition per combustion event within the combustion chamber, and the second ignition strategy requiring a significantly lower energy output and suitable for use in a rapid re-striking, multiple strike, ignition per combustion event.


A liquid crystal element which comprises an oriented liquid crystal polymer and with which a liquid crystal display less apt to have display unevenness in a wide viewing range including the front and slant directions can be fabricated; and an optical element and a polarizing element each containing the liquid crystal element. The liquid crystal element comprises either a layer of an oriented liquid crystal polymer or a substrate and formed thereon the layer of an oriented liquid crystal polymer, wherein the liquid crystal polymer layer has an average in-plane haze of 10% or higher and a dispersion of the in-plane haze H (%) within the range represented by the relationship a-.sqroot.(10a).ltoreq.H.ltoreq.a+.sqroot.(10a) wherein "a" is the average haze (%), or has an average in-plane haze lower than 10% and a dispersion of the in-plane haze H (%) within the range represented by the relationship 0.ltoreq.H.ltoreq.b+.sqroot.(10b) wherein "b" is the average haze (%). The optical element comprises a multilayer structure comprising the liquid crystal element and a retardation film laminated thereon. The polarizing element comprises a multilayer structure comprising the liquid crystal or optical element and a polarizing plate laminated thereon.

Liquid crystal elements comprising an oriented layer of a liquid crystal polymer or comprising a substrate and the oriented layer formed thereon are utilized in various optoelectronics fields. Examples thereof include a retardation plate for compensating for a retardation of a liquid crystal cell to thereby inhibit coloration or the like and a circularly polarized light separation layer which uses a cholesteric liquid crystal as a liquid crystal polymer. The circularly polarized light separation layer separates natural light into left- and right-circularly polarized lights and converts the same into linearly polarized light through a 1/4 wavelength plate to thereby diminish absorption loss due to a polarizing plate. This separation layer is hence expected to bring about, for example, an improvement in the brightness of a liquid crystal display.
In practically using the oriented layer of a liquid crystal polymer, retardation characteristics in a three-dimensional direction including in-plane and thickness direction is related in a retardation film for compensation, and reflection characteristics including circular dichroism (wavelength region for selective reflection) is related in a circularly polarized light separation layer. Therefore, the oriented layer has conventionally been controlled so as to have optical characteristics according to the purpose of use. However, even where retardation characteristics, reflection characteristics, etc. have been matched and hence there has been no problem in visual perception in the front (perpendicular) direction, there has been the problem such that display unevenness such as coloration has developed in visual perception from slant direction.

Liquid crystal element comprising oriented liquid crystal polymer with an average in-plane haze of 10% or higher


A blower/vacuum having an air inlet cover and a blower tube, both of which attach to a blower housing for operation of the blower/vacuum in a blower mode. The air inlet cover may removably attach to both the blower housing and to the blower tube. In some embodiments, operation of the blower/vacuum may generally be restricted unless both the blower tube and the air inlet cover are first installed. The blower/vacuum may further be adapted to operate in a vacuum mode by removing the air inlet cover and blower tube and replacing the same with a vacuum tube assembly and a vacuum collection container, respectively.

Convertible blower/vacuum units (also referred to herein as "blower/vacs") are commonly used by homeowners and professionals alike for the removal of debris from yards, driveways, sidewalks, etc. As used herein, a convertible blower/vac is a portable device which can be configured for use as either a debris blower or vacuum. When used as a vacuum, vacuum attachments coupled to a housing of the blower permit leaves or similar debris to be vacuumed into an attached bag or other debris container.
When used in the blower configuration, blower/vacs provide a sweeping action created by the production of a fast moving stream of air generated by a rotating impeller located within the blower housing. The impeller draws air into the housing through an air inlet and exhausts an accelerated air stream through an air outlet. The air stream is typically channeled through a tapered, removable blower tube. In addition to providing a more precisely focused air stream, the tapered blower tube also contributes to an air stream of greater velocity.
Because many blower/vac units are designed for hand-held use, they are often made of lightweight materials and utilize lightweight power sources, e.g., small electric-(battery and corded) and gasoline-powered motors. While applicable to blower/vacs having most any power source, the present invention is particularly advantageous for use with corded electric blower/vacs and the remainder of this discussion will focus on the same.
Although size and weight are criteria to consider in the selection of a blower/vac motor, available power is also a factor. Generally speaking, maximum electric current draw for these and other portable consumer devices may be restricted to ensure conformance with conventional household circuits and available electrical equipment (e.g., extension cords). For example, a typical blower/vac may be designed to operate, within acceptable margins, on a 120 volt (60 Hertz), 15 amp circuit.
Nonetheless, a blower/vac motor designed to draw a particular current load under normal operating conditions, e.g., when operating in blower mode with the blower tube installed, may, under certain circumstances, exceed that load. For example, removal of the blower tube may reduce back pressure in and around the impeller, permitting the motor to spin faster and thus draw additional current.
One solution that addresses this "tube removed" condition is to provide a motor that will produce maximum power, e.g., draw maximum current, when the blower tube is removed. However, such motors will inherently operate at a lower speed, and thus draw less current, when the blower tube is installed. Another solution is to provide a motor that is optimized for blower operation, e.g., operation with the blower tube installed. However, as mentioned above, motors optimized for maximum current draw during blower operation may exceed the maximum desired current load if the blower tube is removed.
While either option is acceptable, a solution that yields the desired current draw, i.e., produces the maximum desired motor speed, with the blower tube installed while preventing excessive current draw when the blower tube is removed, would be advantageous. Moreover, a blower/vacuum that utilizes components (e.g., motor and impeller) configured to provide increased air flow, for a given motor size, would be advantageous.

Air inlet cover and portable blower/vacuum incorporating same


The test apparatus (PC,KB,DIS,PR,IF) communicates via a standard serial bus (12) with a device under test (DUT) to verify conformity with a standard application protocol defining the format, meaning and applicability of messages passed via the bus (12). The apparatus generates a test sequence of commands and requests and analyses the replies of the DUT for conformity. The test sequence and the analysis are adapted automatically in response to previous replies of the device, to provide a thorough but efficient test of the device and any subdevices identified within it. Where the standard application protocol defines extended autonomous cooperation between devices, the test apparatus emulates one or more further devices to be controlled and interrogated by the device under test.

The invention relates to test apparatus for verifying the conformity of a device under test with a standard protocol.
Many standard and proprietary interfaces for electronic communication exist, for example the parallel bus communication within any personal computer, the RS232 serial interface, wireless communication channels and so forth. Each is characterised by a communication protocol defining voltage levels, pulse timings, arbitration, encrypting and/or error correcting algorithms and so forth, to ensure that devices can reliably exchange information (messages).
It is important to verify that a new device using the protocol conforms fully with the protocol to the extent that it is defined. For "low-level" communications protocols such as the RS232 interface, this is a relatively simple matter of timing and level measurements. Moreover, standard chips are available to implement such protocols and when these are incorporated into a device, conformity with the standard can be taken for granted.
A different scale of verification problem arises however when the protocol defines not only how messages are passed, but also the meanings of the messages, rules for when and where the messages are applicable, and the behaviour of the device in response to these messages. A high-level, so-called "application protocol" is presently desired, for example, to extend the IEC standard for the Domestic Digital Bus (D2B) to allow the flexible interconnection of consumer audio/video equipment and other systems. Verifying conformity with a high-level application protocol is not easy because many different device types and configurations may be allowed, with special protocols for each, and many different message formats may be defined.
Moreover, the application protocol may provide rules by which different devices cooperate over an extended time period to achieve a desired result. Protocols by which a number of domestic audio/video apparatuses can cooperate via a D2B bus to identify a signal path are described for example in GB-2 223 114-A (PHN 12678). Protocols by which updated status information can be transmitted automatically by a device are described for example in our United Kingdom patent application 9113793.5 copending with the United Kingdom patent application from which this application claims the benefit of priority (PHQ 91019). The distributed control nature of the D2B system in particular allows distribution of control intelligence through all devices of the system, in contrast to other protocols where there is a clear master-slave relationship between devices.
At the same time, the need for a comprehensive and reliable verification of conformity is absolute in such a field, since many independent manufacturers may be producing devices of many different types for use in an integrated system, while acceptance of the system into the market place depends entirely on consumer confidence in the true inter-brand compatibility of these devices.

Test apparatus for verifying the conformity of a device under test with a standard application protocol


Communication systems (101, 102) having dedicated communication resources are provided with receivers (111, 116) that monitor the communication resources (104, 108) of other communication systems. Communications between communication units in various systems are interchanged through appropriate interaction of the repeaters and the dedicated receivers so provided.

Trunked communication systems are known in the art. In general such systems include a resource controller, which may be centrally located or distributed, that manages communications between communication units such as, for example, fixed location, mobile, and portable two-way radios, on a plurality of communication resources such as, for example, frequency pairs or time division multiplexing time slots, that are supported by a plurality of corresponding repeaters.
A number of such systems are available, including the Smartnet and Privacy Plus systems from Motorola, the Clearchannel LTR system from E.F. Johnson, and the Sixteen Plus and Sweet Sixteen systems from General Electric.
In general, such systems tend to operate independent of one another. Therefore, a communication unit located in a first system will generally not be able to communicate with a second communication unit located in a second communication system.
Some prior art systems interlink one or more communication systems through use of an appropriate dedicated land line. So configured, communication units in different communication systems may be able to communicate with one another. Such an approach, however, poses several disadvantages, including increased cost and relative inflexibility.
A need thus exists for a system and method for economically and flexibly interlinking two or more communication systems.

Intersystem communication system and method


A method for generating and employing a camera noise model, performed by a processing unit, is introduced to at least contain the following steps. A camera noise model is provided. A first frame is obtained by controlling a camera module via a camera module controller. A blending ratio corresponding to each pixel value of the first frame is generated according to the camera noise model, the pixel value of the first frame and a corresponding pixel value of a second frame. A third frame is generated by fusing each pixel value of the first frame with the corresponding pixel value of the second frame according to the blending ratio. A de-nosing strength for each pixel value of the third frame is adjusted according to the blending ratio. Each pixel value of the third frame is adjusted using the corresponding de-nosing strength.

Technical Field
The present invention relates to image processing, and in particular, it relates to image de-noising methods and apparatuses using the same.
Description of the Related Art
Image noise is the random variation of brightness or color information in images, and is usually an aspect of electronic noise. It may be produced by the sensor and circuitry of a scanner or digital camera. Image noise can also originate in film grain and in the unavoidable shot noise of a photon detector. Image noise is an undesirable by-product of image capture that adds spurious and extraneous information. Accordingly, what are needed are image de-noising methods and apparatuses using the same to reduce image noise.

Image de-noising methods and apparatuses using the same


There is provided a remote control unit capable of setting time by a simple operation at a time when a battery is attached. In the remote control unit which is operated by the battery to remote-control operation start and stop of an apparatus main body and in which setting of a timer operation by a clocking means is possible, when the battery is attached to start the operation, a forced mode setting means displays a clocking initial value in a liquid crystal display in step 1, starts a monitor timer in step 2, and sets a “time setting mode” in which the setting of a clocking start initial value is possible by UP and DOWN switches without depending on the operation of a time set switch. When the UP or DOWN switch is not operated in step 3, and time is up in the monitor timer in step 6, processing advances to step 7, and the forced mode setting means switches the mode from the “time setting mode” to an “operation instructing mode” in which the operation of the apparatus main body is possible by an ON/OFF switch.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote control unit, more specifically, the present invention relates to a battery operated remote control unit that includes a clock function and a timer function.
2. Description of the Related Art
A remote control unit for controlling a main body apparatus that includes a timer function to transmit a signal to the main body apparatus at a preset time is known (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-260963).
The remote control unit must also include a clock function in order to utilize the timer function. The user, however, needs to perform an operation in order to set a clocking initial value of a clock to the present time when a battery is initially attached to the remote control unit or when the battery of the remote control unit is replaced. In the remote control unit in Patent Document 1 described above, a laborious operation has to be disadvantageously performed to operate up and down switches to set the clocking initial value after the battery is attached to the remote control unit. Further, a clock switch is operated to bring the unit into a state in which the setting of the clocking initial value is possible.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-described disadvantage and provide a remote control unit in which time setting is possible by a simple operation at a time of attaching of the battery.


An input protection circuit includes an inverting amplifier circuit which converts the potential of an input signal input in such a way that the potential of the input signal lies in the input range of the potential range of a signal inputtable to an IC internal circuit. One protection diode is connected to a virtual ground node between an input resistor and an operational amplifier and a positive power-supply terminal to allow the input signal which has excessively exceeded the input range on the positive power-supply terminal side to flow toward the positive power-supply terminal, and another protection diode is connected to an arbitrary point between an input terminal and the input resistor and a negative power-supply terminal to allow the input current of the input signal which has excessively exceeded the input range on the negative power-supply terminal side to flow toward the input terminal from the negative power-supply terminal, thereby protecting the IC internal circuit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an input protection circuit for a semiconductor integrated circuit, and, more particularly, to an input protection circuit which protects a semiconductor integrated circuit against a static damage.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been a known problem that when static electricity of a high voltage is applied to a semiconductor integrated circuit (hereinafter referred to as "IC"), the internal circuit of the IC is statically damaged. To prevent such a static damage on an IC, various techniques have been proposed.
As an ordinary technique to prevent a static damage on an IC, to protect the internal circuit of the IC (hereinafter also referred to as "IC internal circuit") against static noise or the like, a plurality of static protection diodes are arranged in series between both power supplies at the peripheral portion of an input terminal to which a signal is input. The static protection diodes are connected between the input terminal and the positive power supply and between the input terminal and the negative power supply. Therefore, it is not possible to input a voltage signal with a voltage (negative power supply voltage−diode's threshold voltage) and a voltage signal with a voltage (positive power supply voltage+diode's threshold voltage) to the input terminal.
Such a conventional input protection circuit will be discussed below referring to FIGS. 1 to 4. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one example of the conventional input protection circuit. As shown in FIG. 1, the input protection circuit is constructed by connecting protection diodes D1001 and D1002 between an input terminal T1001 and a positive power-supply terminal T1002 and between the input terminal T1001 and a negative power-supply terminal T1003, respectively. In the conventional input protection circuit shown in FIG. 1, the protection diodes D1001 and D1002 are connected directly to the input terminal T1001. An input protection circuit which is constructed like the circuit in FIG. 1 is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent No. 2757701 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-22077.
Given that VDD is a positive power-supply potential level, VSS is a negative power-supply potential level and VF is a threshold voltage of the protection diodes D1001 and D1002 (also called a forward drop voltage which is generally about 0.7 V), when a potential V1 to be applied to the input terminal T1001 becomes greater than VDD+VF, the protection diode D1001 is turned on. When the potential V1 to be applied to the input terminal T1001 becomes smaller than VSS−VF, on the other hand, the protection diode D1002 is turned on. As shown in FIG. 2, therefore, the conventional input protection circuit shown in FIG. 1 cannot transfer the input signal exceeding VDD+VF or the input signal lower than VSS−VF to an internal circuit 1001.
Even if the potential of the input signal to be input to the input terminal T1001 does not become greater than VDD+VF, the forward bias voltage is applied to the protection diode D1001 when the potential of the input signal exceeds VDD. This produces a forward leak current I1002 from the input terminal T1001 toward the positive power-supply terminal T1002.
Further, in case where the input impedance of the internal circuit 1001 is finite, when part of an input signal current I1001 that should inherently flow toward the internal circuit 1001 flows toward the positive power-supply terminal T1002 via the protection diode D1001 when the input signal potential V1 exceeds VDD, as shown in FIG. 3. As a result, the input signal waveform is distorted by the leak current I1002 that flows, separated, toward the positive power-supply terminal T1002 from the protection diode D1001.
The same is true of the protection diode D1002, and a forward leak current I1004 is produced in the protection diode D1002, as shown in FIG. 4, when the input signal potential gets lower than VSS, thus deforming the input signal waveform.
In case of the input protection circuit disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-22077 where elements, such as input resistors, of an inverting amplifier circuit are connected between the input terminal T1001 and the protection diodes D1001 and D1002, when static electricity of a high voltage which statically damages the internal circuit of the IC is applied, the elements to be connected to the input terminal T1001 are statically damaged before the internal circuit of the IC is statically damaged.
As discussed above, the conventional input protection circuits had a problem such that an input signal whose potential would exceed the positive power-supply potential or an input signal whose potential would become lower than the positive power-supply potential would be deformed. Further, in case where an attempt is made to solve the problem by the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-22077, the input resistor may be statically damaged.


A toothbrush provides a head with bristles, a neck and a handle. An eccentrically rotational weight is engaged for rotation with a motor, the weight disposed within the head. The motor is disposed within the handle. The head and neck are integrally formed with a natural resonance frequency of vibration approximately equal to the rotational speed of the motor and synchronized therewith.

1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is hand held electric appliances and more particularly electric toothbrushes.
2. Description of Related Art
The benefits of electric toothbrushes are well known. One type of electric toothbrush utilizes an eccentrically moving weight coupling to motor's rotating shaft to cause a handle of the toothbrush to vibrate, the vibration of the handle being transmitted to the bristles of the brush via a neck coupling the bristle portion/head of the brush to the handle. The use of such devices is not always desirable however, at least in part because of the relatively large amount of vibration required in the handle in order to get an acceptable amount of vibration of the bristles, and the corresponding high energy usage and the uncomfortable degree of vibration transferred to the hand of a person using such a brush. Examples of such prior art toothbrushes can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,685,080, 5,421,726, 5,651,157, 5,706,542, 5,718,667, and 5,706,542. An eccentric weight, as the term is used herein, is a weight whose center of mass is not on the center of rotation of the weight.
Unfortunately, current toothbrushes are constructed in a manner that is cost prohibited. Moreover, such toothbrushes are unduly cumbersome because of their weight, and size, and/or because of a battery charger accessory. Thus, there is a continuing need for affordable electric toothbrushes that are not unduly cumbersome, are relatively inexpensive and do not use excessive energy.
The following art defines the present state of this field:
Giuliani et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,189,751 describes a vibrating toothbrush, which includes a toothbrush body and a lever arm having toothbrush bristles at one end thereof. The lever arm is mounted for pivotal movement at a pivot member, which is in the vicinity of the other end of the lever arm. In one embodiment, a pair of permanent magnets are provided at the other end of the lever arm, positioned side-by-side with opposite polarities. An electromagnet is provided to the rear of the lever arm. The electromagnet includes an E-core having top, bottom and center legs with a coil wound around its center leg which receives an alternating current driving signal from an oscillator/battery section. The frequency of operation is in the range of 150-400 Hz. The action of the alternating current in the electromagnet causes the lever arm to move about the pivot member, first in one direction and then in an opposing direction to provide the desired vibrating effect.
Hahn, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,681 describes an electric toothbrush with a handle, a brush head and a shank, which connects the handle to the brush head. A rotary motor is arranged in the handle and drives an unbalanced mass. The unbalanced mass driven by the motor is supported on one side or on both sides in the shank close to the brush head and is driven via an extended drive shaft, preferably an intermediate shaft, by the motor.
McDougall, U.S. Pat. No. 6,421,866 describes an electric toothbrush having a balanced mass provided on a shaft extension that rotates freely about a longitudinal axis, inside a cavity in a brush head. The shaft extension and the brush head are flexibly coupled to a drive shaft and to a remote end of a shank respectively. When the shaft is rotated by an electric motor in a handle, of the toothbrush, an offset stub axle, effectively at a remote end of the shaft extension and fitted to a bearing in the brush head, causes the brush head to vibrate. The shank is not caused to vibrate to any extent.
Wolf, Susan, Hendrix, Ph.D., Suzanne (1998). Automated Toothbrush Comparison Statistical Report. Clinical Research Associates, describes an evaluation of 6 toothbrushes that was performed using two populations to determine if toothbrushes with sonic or ultrasonic capabilities reduce dental plaque, more effectively than a manual or other automated toothbrushes. The Sensonic (Teledyne) and Sonicare (Optiva) toothbrushes claim sonic capabilities and the Ultrasonex (Sonex) claims ultrasonic capabilities. Control toothbrushes were the Interplak (Corsair) and Ultra Plaque Remover (Braun), which are automated toothbrushes not claiming sonic or ultrasonic capabilities, and the Advantage (Oral-B) manual toothbrush. Population one consisted of 24 non-handicapped subjects, while Population two consisted of 24 institutionalized handicapped subjects. Non-handicapped subjects were included to represent the majority of the population, while handicapped subjects were included because they have been reported as having frequent problems with heavy plaque in their oral cavities due to lack of manual dexterity necessary for effective tooth brushing.
Staff. (1998, July). CRA Status Report: Toothbrushes, Sonic & Ultrasonic. CRA Newsletter. P. 2-3, provides a comparison between sonic, ultrasonic, and manual toothbrushes. CRA laboratory & clinical studies compared plaque removal capability, test subject preferences, durability, & maintenance of 6 different toothbrushes over a 1¼ year period.
The prior art teaches vibrating toothbrushes, rotary bristle toothbrushes, and laterally oscillating toothbrushes. The prior art also includes electric toothbrushes in common use such as the Advantage by Oral-B, Interplak by Conair, Sensoic by Teledyne, Sonicare by Optiva, Ultra PR by Braun and Ultrasonex by Sonex. However, the prior art does not teach the matching of the natural frequency of vibration of the toothbrush itself with the purposely generated vibration frequency of the operational engine of the toothbrush. The present invention fulfills these needs so as to enable low energy usage, low energy loss in the handle of the device, improved vibratory action in the bristles and other benefits, and provides further related advantages as described in the following summary.


The present invention relates to removable and/or replaceable liners for use in a wide variety of footwear. Liners may be permanently connected to the collar of the shoe, or may be semi-permanently attached for easy removal from the collar. The liners can be quickly removed from the interior of the shoe using any number of disengagement devices. Removing the liner from within the shoe permits rapid drying of the liner when it becomes wet due to moisture generated by the foot within the shoe or from external environmental conditions. Semi-permanently attached liners can be detached for cleaning or for replacement by another liner depending on the needs of the wearer. Disengagement means can be provided in conjunction with the liner, which enable the wearer to easily pull the liner out of the shoe.

The present invention relates generally to a lining material for use in the interior of footwear. More particularly, the present invention relates to an inner liner that is reversible and/or removable.
Footwear typically includes an external portion and an internal portion. The external portion comprises functional and aesthetic materials designed, in part, to protect the wearer's foot against the elements, in addition to making the shoe aesthetically appealing. Leathers and synthetics are examples of rugged materials that are used on the external surface of a shoe. The internal surface or lining of a shoe is typically designed to promote the comfort of the wearer's foot. In addition to a soft, comfortable footbed that the foot rests on, the shoe lining is typically soft and smooth to protect against abrasion of skin.
During wear, mechanical stress occurs between the foot and the shoe. However, other stresses arise within the shoe that may create discomfort for the wearer. Among the most noticeable are environmental stresses created by the external or ambient climate (e.g., rain, snow, heat) and the internal or micro climate created by the foot while it is in the shoe. Because the foot is typically confined in a shoe, heat and moisture (in the form of perspiration) produced by the foot build up inside the shoe and are difficult to control. During intense activities the lining of a shoe can become saturated with perspiration. In addition, weather conditions such as snow and rain can cause the lining of a shoe to become saturated with water.
The condition of a lining within a shoe is extremely important, as the lining is a component that has very close proximity to the foot and has a direct impact on the comfort of the foot. Attempts have been made to control the internal environment of a shoe through climate control features such as waterproof-permeable membranes and airflow systems. These features have had only limited success, primarily because they are overpowered by the internal micro climate of the shoe and the external macro climate of the elements. For example, once the interior of the shoe becomes saturated with moisture, it is difficult to dry out the shoe. One could try to air dry the shoe, which is time consuming. Alternatively, one could use heating devices such as a hair dryer. However, in this case, the inside of the shoe can become very hot, which could damage components of the shoe. Furthermore, using a hair dryer or other heating device with the lining in situ rarely results in thorough drying inside the shoe. Thus, there remains a need for a lining that is quickly and easily refreshable and/or replaceable in order to provide an immediate, renewed environment to the internal cavity of the shoe.

Removable or reversible lining for footwear


A method of rapidly and precisely managing a dialog turn between a user and an agent by using speech information, facial expression information, and delay time information includes generating first dialog turn information using dialog information analyzed from a speech uttered by the user, generating second dialog turn information using facial expression information analyzed from a face image of the user, and determining a final dialog turn using the first and second dialog turn information, information on a status of the spoken dialog system, information on whether the user speech is input, and information on a no-answer time of the user.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spoken dialog system, and more particularly, to a method of and apparatus for rapidly and precisely managing a dialog turn between a user and an agent by using speech information, facial expression information, and delay time information, and a spoken dialog system using the method and apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Agents are classified as software agents and hardware agents. The software agents generally work as an interface on a screen of a computer. The hardware agents are such as humanoid toys and humanoid robots or pet toys and pet robots. Such agents can converse with users in compliance with their embedded programs. In general, monotonous types of speech dialogs are made between the agents and the users. For example, the users answer the agents' questions, the agents answer the users' questions, or the agents carry out the users' commands. Also, since scenarios made by the programs embedded in the agents limit the dialogs' contents, the degree of freedom of speech dialogs is quite low. In addition, the users and the agents do not freely exchange speech dialogs, and thus the speech dialogs are unnatural.
As a conventional technique for overcoming the monotonousness and unnaturalness of speech dialogs, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2002-196789 suggests a speech interactive device which develops speech dialogs with a user based on a recognition standby time counted by a timer and a counter (i.e., a time from when a speech from the speech interactive device utters until the user recognizes the speech uttered from the speech interactive device). However, the speech interactive device starts working only after the recognition standby time has elapsed without the user's speaking. Thus, the speech dialog exchange between the user and the speech interactive device is not rapidly performed. As a result, the speech dialogs are delayed and the user feels bored.

Method of and apparatus for managing dialog between user and agent


Systems and methods presented herein provide for locating user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network. The system includes one or more wireless access points, wherein each wireless access point is operable to detect signal of a UE in the wireless communication network, and to train with the UE to establish a communication link with the UE. The system also includes a network processing element communicatively coupled to the wireless access points and operable to extract channel estimation and signal strength information of the UE from the wireless access points via said training with the UE, to compare the channel estimation and signal strength information of the UE from the wireless access points to stored signatures of the UE, and to determine a location of the UE in the wireless communication network based on the comparisons.

Various techniques exist for locating user equipment (UE), such as cell phones, in a wireless network. Early versions of locating UEs included cell tower triangulation, a fairly inaccurate location solution. Since then, many UEs have been configured with global positioning system (GPS) modules that quickly and accurately identify the location of the UE via GPS satellites. However, GPS location solutions are often ineffective indoors as the satellite signals are faint and unable to propagate through certain structures.
Signal strength "fingerprint" techniques have been considered as a solution for indoor localization. In these fingerprint-based techniques, a set of different "training locations" is employed with each location being associated with a parameter of the radio frequency (RF) signal received by one or more indoor wireless access points. Received signal strength values from the wireless access points are concatenated to form a "fingerprint vector" in which the location of the UE is then estimated using various algorithms. However, this solution is also fairly inaccurate in that the amount of data used in the estimation relies on a single type of variable data (i.e., the received signal strength), much like the earlier location techniques of cell tower triangulation.

Locating user equipment in a wireless network


Test apparatus heats or cools a small chamber according to a given thermal profile based on data from a thermal sensor; and the change of a component put in the chamber is measured in real time by a measuring sensor and the relationship between temperature and change in shape is displayed as its measurement results.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for quantitatively measuring influence on a product, such as a device or component, by temperature when some temperature stress is applied to the product in a process for manufacturing or using it.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently in the semiconductor component field packages are getting larger due to a multi-pinned component and getting thinner due to a lighter, thinner miniature device on which a component is mounted. Especially in the case of a surface-mounted component a product package cannot resist thermal stress at the time of reflow and a thinner package is one factor in increased quality failures such as lower reliability and poor soldering.
FIG. 1A shows the conventional test method for checking the change of a surface mounted component at the time of reflow. Conventionally the change of the component is checked by visually inspecting a swelling, crack or distortion left on measured component 2, scanning them with supersonic waves and measuring their dimensions after some thermal stress is applied in a reflow furnace 1, because there is no technology for measuring the change of the component while heating or cooling it. In reflow furnace 1, a different temperature distribution can be set in different positions and a thermal change can be given to components moving in the furnace. For the dimension measurement instrument 3 instruments such as a micrometer and calipers are used.
However, there are the following shortcomings in the conventional test method:
In the conventional method the change of component 2 is checked after a thermal stress is applied. However, when component 2 is actually mounted on a printed circuit board using reflow furnace 1, it is considered that component 2 transitionally undergoes a complicated change in shape according to the internal evaporation volume of component 2, the strength of component 2 and the applying conditions of heat.
On the other hand, a clearance between the bottom of a package and a printed circuit board in component 2 is smaller due to the development of a thinner package and when the dimensions of the package bottom exceeds this clearance due to a transitional transformation by heat, the lead wires of component 2 ark floated; and solder is not sufficiently applied to the lead wires and it is expected that this poor soldering causes a failure.
FIG. 1B shows such a virtual inflation at the bottom of the package. In this case when a portion below the integrated circuit chip (IC) 4 in component 2 expands and protrudes downwards from the end of the lead wire even for an instant, a failure due to poor soldering occurs. However, when the package shrinks and restores within the clearance after the reflow, only poor soldering remains and its cause cannot be specified. Therefore, in the conventional method it is difficult to ascertain whether there are any problems.

Apparatus and method for testing product heat-resistance


Backfill scheduling for embarrassingly parallel jobs. A disclosed method includes: receiving an initial schedule having a plurality of jobs scheduled over time on a plurality of nodes, determining that a first job can be split into a plurality of sub-tasks that can respectively be performed in parallel on different nodes, splitting the first job into the plurality of sub-tasks, and moving a first sub-task from its position in the initial schedule to a new position to yield a first revised schedule.

The present invention relates generally to the field of task management, and more particularly to resource allocation.
Most modern parallel job schedulers give static resource allocations to jobs, that is, a job is allocated the number of independent resource sets (herein called nodes) that it requested in its job script and uses these resources in a dedicated manner throughout its execution. The widely used backfill algorithm based on the principle of first-come, first-served (FCFS) does the following: (i) maintains jobs in the order of their arrival in the job queue and schedules them in order if possible; (ii) upon a job's completion (or arrival, if there are no jobs currently running and no jobs currently in the queue), dispatches jobs from the queue front and reserves resources for the first job ("queue top job") in the queue that cannot be run due to insufficient resource availability; (iii) based on the user estimated wall times of the running jobs, calculate the backfill time window (user runtime estimates are inherently inaccurate such that there might be instances when backfill windows are left unpopulated due to runtime overestimation by users); and (iv) traverse the job queue and schedule jobs that can fit into the backfill window and whose execution will not interfere with the advance resource reservation of "queue top job" (such jobs should either complete before the reserved "queue top job" start time or occupy only resources that the advance reservation does not need to use).
Technical computing is increasingly oriented towards very large data sizes, with big data analytics emerging as a cutting edge technology. A large proportion of jobs in the big data analytics area are embarrassingly parallel (EP) jobs. In parallel computing, an embarrassingly parallel workload (or embarrassingly parallel problem) is one for which little or no effort is required to separate the problem into a number of parallel sub-tasks. This is often the case where no dependency (or communication) need exist between the parallel sub-tasks.
Some conventional schedulers employ a process in which the EP job is scheduled to start when a minimum number of resources are available. These methods that dynamically and adaptively schedule jobs in a way that aims to fill available resources optimally often employ the concept of "resizable jobs." In such schedules, jobs can shrink or expand to accommodate the changing pattern of resource availability. For example, once an EP job is started, it runs continuously until the EP job is completed. During this time, the EP job can be: (i) expanded by dynamically assigning it more resources ("expanding"); and/or (ii) shrunk by dynamically taking away some resources ("shrinking"), for example if resources are required for other high priority jobs.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

International Business Machines Corporation