A sheet handling apparatus for accumulating a plurality of sheets into a stack (18) and for feeding the stack (18) to an exit location includes first feeding belts (30) for feeding sheets along a feed path to a stacking area (43) at which there is provided a support plate (44) positioned lower than the feed path. A plurality of rubber strips (50) are arranged to urge each of the sheets leaving the feed path towards the support plate (44) whereby the stack (18) is formed supported by the support plate (44) with the rubber strips (50) engaging the top sheet of the stack (18). Part of the stack (18) projects beyond an edge of the support plate (44), and further feeding belts (114, 68) are adapted to grip this part of the stack ( 18 ) and thereafter feed the stack (18) to the exit location. The apparatus (10) may be used in an ATM for stacking printed sheets making up a bank account statement into a stack and for feeding the stack to a user of the ATM.

This invention relates to a method of handling sheets and to a sheet handling apparatus. The invention has application, for example, to a self-service financial terminal or automated teller machine (ATM) of the kind having the facility of providing a bank statement in response to a request made by a user of the terminal.
In operation of a known financial terminal of the kind specified, a user inserts a customer identifying card into the machine and then enters certain data (including a personal identification number and the type of transaction required) upon one or more keyboards included in a user console of the machine. If the requested transaction is the provision of a bank statement, the machine will cause a statement to be printed on a paper sheet and will cause the sheet to be fed to an exit port in the user console for collection by the user.
A problem experienced with the known financial terminal referred to above is that if a large amount of information is to be included in a requested statement then it may not be possible to set out all such information on a single sheet. In that case, it is necessary for the statement to be set out on two or more separate sheets which are fed in succession to the exit port and which are collected in succession by the user. From the user's point of view, it would be more convenient for two or more statement sheets to be presented at the exit port in the form of a stack, in a manner similar to that in which a cash dispensing mechanism of an ATM delivers a plurality of bank notes for collection by a user.
A known stacking and feeding mechanism for currency notes includes a rotating stacking wheel incorporating a series of curved tines. In operation, currency notes are fed one by one to the stacking wheel, each note entering between adjacent tines and being carried partly around the axis of the stacking wheel before being stripped from the wheel by stripper arms and stacked on transport means formed by endless belts. After the stack has been formed, the transport means feed the stack to an exit location. The stacking wheel of this known mechanism operates at high speed, and the mechanism is of somewhat complicated construction.


In an optical recording medium having two information recording layers, a highly reliable recording can be conducted in one of the recording layers in the back regardless of the recording state of the other recording layer closer to the side of the disc on which light is incident. A first photodetector 115 detects reflected light from a recording layer 103 in the back when the light is focused thereon. A second photodetector 116 is disposed outside the periphery of the first photodetector 115 and detects reflected light from a recording layer 105 located in front. When recording in the recording layer in the back, the write power is controlled in accordance with the output level of the second photodetector.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording method and apparatus for optical recording media having two information recording layers whose states can be varied by optical irradiation.
2. Background Art
The capacity of visual content recording media, such as optical discs represented by DVDs, is increasing, and an optical disc is being developed that is capable of recording over two hours of high-definition television (HDTV) pictures on a 120 mm-diameter disc. An optical disc format called Blu-ray Disc has lately been established which realizes a recording capacity of approximately 25 GB on one side of the disc by increasing its recording capacity by as much as about five times that of a DVD by employing a semiconductor laser of 405 nm wavelength and an objective lens with a numerical aperture of 0.85. A video recorder adapted for that format has also been put on the market. The Blu-ray Disc specifications are described in "System Description Blu-ray Disc Rewritable Format Part 1: Basic Format Specifications Version 1.0."
The capacity of optical discs can be increased by increasing their recording density, for example. However, reductions in optical spot size are nearing a limit due to limitations in laser wavelength and the objective lens, and there is little prospect for significant improvements in recording density.
In another method of achieving greater capacity apart from the improvement in recording density, the recording layer is divided into multiple layers. A multilayer optical disc has already been put on the market in the form of read-only optical discs or DVD-ROM discs that have two layers on either one side or both sides (for a total of four layers). There has been no recordable multilayer optical disc as a product so far but specifications for a double-layer rewritable disc in accordance with the Blu-ray Disc format have recently been established for the first time.
FIG. 2 shows the setup of a double-layer recordable optical disc system according to the conventional Blu-ray Disc format. A double-layer disc medium 101 is irradiated with laser light 108 emitted by a laser diode 107 to write or read information. The laser light has the wavelength 405 nm and is focused on a recording layer by an objective lens 112 with numerical aperture (NA) of 0.85, thus forming an optical spot of a diameter of about 400 nm, with which information is written or read. During the writing of information, a high-power laser light is shone in order to cause a physical change in the recording layer material, such that long and short recording marks are formed. A minimum recording mark length is 160 nm, and approximately 23.3 GB of information per recording layer, or approximately 46.6 GB of information can be recorded on a single double-layer optical disc.
The double-layer optical disc medium 101 is a disc with a diameter of 120 mm and a thickness of 1.2 mm and is made up of a substrate 102, a first recording layer (L0 layer) 103, a spacer layer 104, a second recording layer (L1 layer) 105 and a cover layer 106 sequentially stacked upon one another. The substrate 102 is a disc of thickness 1.1 mm and is made of polycarbonate resin or other material. On the surface of the substrate is formed a spiral guide groove (track) with a 0.32 μn pitch for allowing the optical spot to trace at a certain radial position (tracking). The recording marks are formed within the guide groove. The first recording layer (L0 layer) 103 is formed next to the substrate. The recording layer is normally made of a recording film disposed between protective layers, with the recording film being made of a phase-change material, such as a GeSbTe alloy or an AgInSbTe alloy. Regardless of whichever recording film material is used, binary data is recorded by assigning its "0's" and "1's" to a high-reflectance crystal portion and a low-reflectance amorphous portion, respectively, and the data is played back by identifying the "0's" and "1's" of the binary data based on their difference in reflectance. Next to the L0 layer 103 is formed the second recording layer (L1 layer) 105 via the spacer layer 104, which is formed to separate the first recording layer 103 and the second recording layer 105. The spacer layer 104 has a thickness of about 25 μm and is made of a UV curable resin. The structure of the L1 layer 105 is substantially identical to that of the L0 Layer 103. Finally, the cover layer 106, which has a thickness of 75 μm and is made of a UV curable resin, is formed to provide protection for the surface of the disc.
In the double-layer optical disc, however, during recording in the L0 Layer, which is located farther from the side on which the light is incident, different levels of laser power are delivered to the L0 Layer through a recorded region and an unrecorded region on the L1 layer, which is located before the L0 Layer, due to the effective difference in transmittance of the L1 layer.
To solve this problem, JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-109217 (Patent Document 1) discloses the difference in transmittance between the unrecorded and recorded portions in the L1 layer is limited, such that the L0 Layer can be recorded with a certain write power regardless of the state of recording on the L1 layer. Another method is disclosed in JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2002-279634 (Patent Document 2) whereby the write power directed to the L0 layer is controlled in accordance with the level of a read RF signal from the L0 layer.
Patent Document 1: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-109217
Patent Document 2: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2002-279634
Non-Patent Document 1: System Description Blu-ray Disc Rewritable Format Part 1: Basic Format Specifications Version 1.0

Information recording method and information recording apparatus


An electronic device according to various embodiments of the present invention may include an antenna module configured to sense an electromagnetic (EM) signal generated from an external electronic device, a communication module, a processor operatively connected to the antenna module and the communication module, and a memory storing instructions which, are configured to, when executed, cause the processor to identify the external electronic device based on at least part of the EM signal sensed from the external electronic device via the antenna module, identify whether the identified external electronic device is registered in a designated control application, and provide information related to the external electronic device based on whether the external electronic device is registered. In addition, other various embodiments of the present invention may be possible.

1. Field
Various embodiments of the present invention relate to an electronic device and a method for controlling an external electronic device by using an electromagnetic (EM) signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
With development of information and communication technologies, various performances of electronic devices have been implemented. Various services such as device control, shopping, or payment may be provided via portable electronic devices such as a smart phone or a tablet computer, and in recent years, there is a trend of being advanced to provide customized services based on a user and an environment to which the user belongs.
Electronic devices may be connected via a wired/wireless network within a determined space, so the electronic devices may operate organically. For example, a portable electronic device may monitor and control states of home appliances connected via a network, and thus, a range for living facility control, energy management, or a security service may be extended.
Shopping using electronic devices has also become active. Various schemes have been proposed to provide functions required for shopping, such as product recommendation, order, or payment, as well as price comparison for a product which a user desires, and to enable the user to shop faster and more conveniently via an electronic device.

Electronic device and method for controlling external electronic device


A packaging machine has belts for clamping both side edges of a film pulled out selectably from either of two film rolls and transporting it accordingly in either direction to a packaging station. Its film supplying apparatus includes a plurality of sensors capable of detecting both presence and absence of a film. They are disposed at both ends of the belts and each sensor is adapted to output a warning signal when either the presence or absence of a film is detected thereby, depending whether it is at the downstream or upstream end of the belt with respect to the direction of film being transported thereby. A lift mechanism for such a packaging machine for lifting loaded trays of different sizes against a stretched film includes a frame, a mechanism for moving the frame selectably upward or downward, a plurality of posts standing on the frame for supporting trays thereon, some of the posts being fixed posts, which are affixed to the frame, and the others being mobile posts, which can move horizontally in a specified direction within a specified range each towards or away from an associated one of the fixed posts, a slidable member extending perpendicularly to the specified direction and capable of sliding in this direction beyond the specified range, and a controller for stopping the slidable member at a plurality of stop positions within the specified range and wait positions outside the specified range. The controller also causes the slidable member and the mobile posts to move towards or away from each other at any of the stop positions.

This invention relates to a film supplying apparatus and a lift mechanism for a packaging machine of the type adapted to use a polyethylene film to wrap up not only articles like fresh foods but also the tray carrying them thereupon.
In a packaging machine of this type, the film is usually pulled out of a roll, and both side edges of a film to be cut to a specified size are clamped between upper and lower film transporting belts and transported to a packaging station where it is kept stretched. Articles carried on a tray to be packaged together therewith are pushed upwards from below by a lift against this stretched film piece. While the loaded tray is in this lifted-up position, a plurality of folding plates are activated to fold the four edge parts of the film piece downward towards the bottom surface of the tray to complete the packaging process.
With a packaging machine of this type, films with different widths are used, depending on the size of the articles to be packaged, or the size of the tray which carries them and is to be packaged together with the articles carried thereon. In such a situation, not only must the roll having a film with an incorrect width therearound be removed and another roll having a film with a correct width installed in its place, but both side edges of the front end of the newly installed film must also be set so as to be clamped by the film transporting belts. In other words, it is extremely troublesome and time-consuming to keep using films with different widths.
In view of the problem as described above, it has been known to provide two film storage spaces on both sides of the film transport belts, each film storage space storing a film roll having a film with a different width such that either of them can be selectively used for trays of a given size. Even if a packaging machine is thus provided with a film supplying apparatus having two film storage spaces, however, care must still be taken such that the end of the film not being used will not be caught by the film transporting belts. Moreover, the film from the newly installed roll must be carefully pulled out from the roll and be set correctly to be clamped between the film transporting belts. Especially if a film must be manually moved into a storage space or set between the film transporting belts, it becomes wrinkled easily if the tension thereon is reduced and its handling becomes even more difficult. In summary, prior art film supplying apparatus are difficult to use and their workability is disappointingly poor.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a film supplying apparatus for a packaging machine which allows films to be interchanged automatically such that the general workability of the machine can be improved at the time of exchanging films.
In anticipation for occurrences of erroneous film movement, packaging machines of this type are generally provided with many sensors. Before a series of packaging operations is started, the wrinkled front edge part of the film is cut off, but the operator may forget to remove the edge part which has been cut off. Even without any negligence on the part of the operator, the stretched film piece by itself may miss and fail to catch the tray which is lifted up by the lift. In such a situation, the film may be transported farther beyond the packaging station toward its downstream side, becoming wound around and caught below the end parts of the film transporting belts. Such an "overrun" situation of the film is detected by an overrun detection sensor adapted to detect the presence of the film where it normally should not be, such that the film transporting belts and other film supplying means can be stopped as soon as such an abnormal situation is detected. It has also been known to provide a film detector on the upstream side of the film transporting belts for stopping the belts and other film supplying and driving means as soon as it is detected that the film roll has run out of the film or that the film supply to the film transporting belts has been interrupted, for example, because the film has been caught around a supply roller.
If two film storage spaces are provided on both sides of the film transporting belts, as explained above, and if the direction of motion of the film transporting belts is made switchable, however, it becomes necessary to provide overrun detection sensors and film detection sensors of the kinds described above at both ends of the belts. In other words, the total number of detectors will have to be doubled. This affects not only the cost of the parts but also the labor required to install these extra sensors.
It is therefore another object of this invention to provide a film supplying apparatus for a packaging machine which uses each of its sensors both as an overrun detection sensor and as a film detection sensor, depending on the direction in which the film is supplied to the packaging station, such that the total number of sensors does not have to be increased although the film transporting belts may be movable in two opposite directions.
The lift for lifting trays of different sizes usually comprises a vertically movable base member provided with a plurality of posts adapted to hold a tray thereon. Since trays come in different sizes, however, it is desirable to be able to vary the separations among the posts according to the size of the tray to be lifted. For example, their separations should be increased for a larger tray so that it can be carried stably, and they should be brought closer together in the case of a smaller tray because a narrower film will be used for wrapping a smaller tray and the film transporting belts on both sides are brought closer together, making it necessary to prevent collisions between the film transporting belts and the peripheral posts.
In order to make the separations changeable among the posts, it has been known to attach the posts slidably onto the base member. From the point of view of workability, it has also been known to provide sliders by means of which the posts can be moved horizontally and their density per area can be controlled, but these sliders must be able to move the posts in all and mutually opposite directions. This results in a different problem of alignment and engagement between the sliders and the posts. After a periodic cleaning of the apparatus as a part of its maintenance work or occurrence of an abnormal situation, furthermore, the movable posts are probably found at random positions. It is then a problem to be considered how efficiently one can rearrange randomly positioned posts by bringing them to specified positions.
It is therefore still another object of this invention to provide a lift mechanism for a packaging machine capable of easily and efficiently move its posts horizontally.

Film supplying apparatus and lift mechanism for a packaging machine


An electrode reshaping process and apparatus is provided for use in a semiconductor etching device. A wafer is place between upper and lower electrodes of the semiconductor etching device. The apparatus and method selectively adjusts the shape of an upper electrode in the semiconductor etching device to compensate for non-uniformities inherent in the etching device. One or more motors attached to the upper electrode provide the electrode shaping forces in accordance with information provided by etch rate variation models stored in a host computer. With the shape of the upper electrode adjusted, the wafer can be etched more uniformally.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the art of semiconductor manufacturing and more particularly to a technique for reshaping an electrode in a semiconductor etching device.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
It is well known that during integrated circuit manufacturing, whole wafers are coated with a layer or layers of various materials such as silicon dioxide, silicon nitride, or metallization. Unwanted material can be selectively removed using masked photolithography and etchants to leave, for example, holes in a thermal oxide where diffusions are to be made, or long strips of aluminum for electrical interconnect between individual circuit elements. Using conventional techniques, fine-line geometries can be produced by removing or etching select regions of material between the structures.
There are several etching techniques commonly used, including: wet chemical, electrochemical, pure plasma, reactive ion, ion beam milling, sputtering, and high temperature vapor. Wet etching generally involves immersing wafers containing select areas of photoresist in an aqueous etching solution. Wet etching, while the oldest and least expensive technique, is gradually being replaced by dry etching techniques such as plasma etching and a combination plasma/reactive ion etching (RIE). Plasma and RIE techniques, often called dry etching, are relatively new and are performed in low pressure gaseous plasma. Dry etching generally involves fewer safety hazards, less spent chemical disposal problems, and also produces finer line geometric structures.
Dry etching generally requires an etching chamber capable of receiving gaseous plasma and one or more wafers to be etched. The plasma can be pressurized within the chamber and, after etching is completed, the gaseous material and volatile byproducts can be pumped away or evacuated from the chamber. Operating pressure depends upon the material being etched, the plasma chosen, and may range from a few torr to fractions of a millitorr.
The etching chamber includes a pair of electrodes at opposing sides or ends of the chamber. One electrode is generally charged by a RF power supply while the other electrode is grounded. Typically, the powered electrode is DC isolated from the RF generator by a capacitor so that negative electron charge accumulates upon the powered electrode during one half of the RF cycle while positive ion charge accumulates during the next half cycle. Since electrons are more mobile than ions, a negative potential will build upon the powered electrode in order to charge the electrode negative with respect to the grounded electrode and the gaseous plasma between the electrodes. Depending upon conditions, the voltage differential may be several hundred volts.
Dry etching is achieved by placing one or more wafers upon the powered electrode. The present invention will be further explained with respect to one wafer placed on the powered electrode, it being understood that more than one wafer may be placed on the powered electrode during an etching process.
The wafer is positioned to receive positive ions directed from the plasma toward the negatively charged, powered electrode. The ions are accelerated substantially perpendicular to the wafer surface and embedded into the surface. The ions chemically react with the wafer surface. The amount of reaction is often referred to as the etch rate. Etch depth is related to the rate at which the chemical reaction occurs within the wafer. The higher the etch rate, the deeper the resulting etch depth.
It is imperative in dry etching that the etch rate be uniform across the surface of the wafer. A non-uniform etch rate will result in a non-uniform etch depth. This non-uniform etch depth may result in devices from certain areas of the wafer failing to meet design specifications.
Etch rate across the wafer can vary with variations of one or more process parameters including: (1) process parameters associated with the electrodes such as electrode voltage and electrode gap or spacing, (2) process parameters associated with the plasma including pressure, temperature, composition, flow rate, etc., and (3) process parameters associated with the wafer such as temperature. For example, etch rate will vary across the wafer surface with a variation of the plasma pressure across the wafer. Etch rate will also vary across the wafer surface with a variation of voltage across the electrodes due to a varition of electrode gap across the wafer.
Electrode gap variations in general can be controlled in accordance with U.S. Pat. No. 5,354,413, which is incorporated herein by reference. In the aforementioned patent, an electrode position controller is provided which attempts to ensure that the electrodes are properly parallel during the etching process.
The aforementioned technique maintains a uniform gap between the electrodes so long as the electrodes have oppositely facing, planar surfaces. It is well known, however, that the material which forms the upper electrode slightly precipitates during each etching due to the corrosive effects of the plasma. As a result, the lower surface of the upper electrode eventually becomes substantially non-planar after a number of wafers have been etched.
FIGS. 1 and 2 show cross sectional areas of eroded upper electrodes with lower surfaces which have eroded into a non-planar convex or concave shape. The convex or concave shape of these electrodes will produce a variation in electrode gap across the wafer which in turn produces a variation in etch rate and etch depth across the wafer surface. The variations in electrode gap caused by the non-planar surfaces as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 can not be corrected by the technique disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,354,413.
One solution to this non-planar surface problem is to replace the eroded upper electrode with a new electrode having a substantially planar lower surface. Electrodes, however, are expensive. Each time a worn electrode is replaced, the semiconductor etching device chamber must be opened which provides an opportunity for dust and other contaminants to enter the chamber. Moreover, replacing the worn electrodes is a time consuming process and does not solve the problem of variations in the other process parameters such as variations in plasma pressure or variations in wafer temperature. Variations of these parameters across the wafer, like the electrode gap variations, can produce non-uniform etch rates across the wafer which in turn may produce devices failing to meet design specifications.

Electrode reshaping in a semiconductor etching device


The present invention is directed to a free radical control agent of the structural formula:

"RAFT" is an acronym that stands for reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer. It is but one of several controlled free radical polymerization (CFRP) systems in general use. RAFT is a robust and versatile system and amenable to emulsion polymerization. The RAFT process is mediated by RAFT agents. These agents are typically derived from specific dithioesters, xanthates, dithiocarbamates and trithiocarbonates designed to have both high chain transfer constants and good radical polymerization reinitiating efficiency.
With the current state of RAFT-CFRP technology, polymers of low polydispersity (PDI) and complex architecture can be synthesized in bulk or solution with relative ease. The major obstacle that remains to their widespread commercial use has been the difficulty in adapting CFRP methods to polymerization in aqueous dispersion (emulsion). Polymerization in waterborne organic dispersions is an environmentally superior way to conduct radical polymerizations because the need for organic solvents is eliminated.
The degenerative RAFT mechanism does not drastically affect the radical concentration in the particle which in turn, leads to a similar kinetic behavior seen in typical emulsion polymerization. Unfortunately, the use RAFT agents in typical ab initio (unseeded) emulsion polymerization have not proven to be straightforward. Problems include severe retardation, loss of molecular weight control, loss of colloidal stability and/or the formation of highly colored oily layers. Various reasons for this behavior are possible, such as the formation of destabilizing oily oligomers, and poor transport of RAFT agent from the monomer droplets through the water phase to the loci of polymerization in the micelles.
To overcome these problems and achieve successful emulsion polymerization under RAFT control, several techniques have been developed. One method uses the combination of preformed seed latex, a highly hydrophobic RAFT agent and acetone as an additive to aid in the transport of the RAFT agent through the water phase and into the seed particle. Subsequent swelling of the seed particles with monomer in the presence of a water soluble initiator lead to a controlled free radical polymerization. Another method uses an amphipathic RAFT agent which can mediate polymerization in both the aqueous and organic phases. RAFT in miniemulsion systems has also been tried with mixed results. While many of these techniques have been shown to work, most lack generality or suffer practical difficulties for commercial application.

Abstract: wherein R1 is a divalent alkyl group of 1 to 12 carbon atoms, R2 and R3 are each independently hydrogen or an alkyl group of 1 to 12 carbon atoms, and R4 is —OH or —COOH, with the proviso that the total carbon atoms of R1, R2, and R3 is no greater than 12; and wherein Y represents a functional group that is capable of activating a vinylic carbon toward free radical addition.


A booting system, a boot program, and a method therefor are provided. A boot source device and a boot target device are connected to each other via a transfer interface. The transfer interface is an interface where booting is supported by a BIOS of the boot target device. The boot source device transfers a first object corresponding to booting data which allows the boot target device to establish and use a connection including an interface other than the transfer interface, which is not supported by the BIOS, via the transfer interface. After the boot target device is enabled to use the interface other than the transfer interface, the boot source device transfers a second object corresponding to booting data for booting up an OS of the boot target device or the like via the transfer interface and transfer interfaces and to the boot target device to boot the boot target device.

Recently, due to the proliferation of general-purpose computer devices and a variety of other factors (e.g., the increased speed of various interfaces used in the general-purpose computer devices, the increase in capacity of a storage device (or a storage medium), the increased speed of a network, the security reasons and the like), the number of usage patterns, in which the general-purpose computer device is booted not only by an internal storage device (e.g., a hard disk drive or a semiconductor disk included in the general-purpose computer device) but also by an external storage device for use, has been increasing again.
These usage patterns were widely used as a method of booting the general-purpose computer device by using a floppy (registered trademark) disk to use the general-purpose computer even before the hard disk drive is generally used. Thereafter, the number of usage patterns decreased as an OS or an application used in the general-purpose computer established the environment premised on the presence of the hard disk.
The above-mentioned usage patterns using the general-purpose computer device as a boot target device are basically realized by loading booting data required for boot via a booting interface essentially supported by firmware (or a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or the like) of the boot target device from an external device.
As a specific example, there generally exists a method of directly booting the general-purpose computer device corresponding to the boot target device from an external storage medium such as a CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM for use, as is represented by a live CD, or a diskless computer which performs network boot via a network interface.
In addition to the above-mentioned example, there also exists a method of using an extended bootloader for allowing the booting data to be loaded even via an interface which is not directly supported by the firmware without requiring any change for the firmware.
For example, in the boot target device corresponding to the general-purpose computer device including the firmware which does not support the direct boot from a USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface nor a network interface but supports the direct boot from the CD-ROM or the floppy disk, there exists a method of storing a program operating as an extended bootloader to enable the boot from the USB interface or from the network in the CD-ROM or the floppy disk medium to first load the extended bootloader upon the boot of the boot target device and then to load the booting data required for the boot from the indirectly extended USB interface or network interface.
On the other hand, various improvements have also been made on a booting process used for booting the general-purpose computer device according to a specific purpose of use or condition.
In particular, due to the advantage in terms of cost, there are a large number of examples, in which the improvement of convenience is sought not by the improvement of hardware but by the improvement of software.
There are various specific contents of improvement. For example, various methods such as a method of effectively managing the booting data used in the boot target device without depending on the booting interface, a method of booting the boot target device at higher speed under a specific environment, and a method of making a waiting time for booting up the system unnoticeable to a user have been proposed.
Problems in the above-mentioned techniques will now be described.
In the existing techniques, once the transfer of the booting data used by the boot target device is started through a specific interface (including an interface extended by the extending bootloader), it is premised that the transfer of all the pieces of booting data is completed only via the fixed interface.
Even in this method, when the speed of the interface used for the transfer is sufficiently high and the amount of data to be transferred is relatively small, the waiting time does not appear as lowered convenience for the user because the waiting time for the completion of the transfer of the booting data to enable the boot target device is short.
However, in the general-purpose computer device or the like, which serves as the boot target device and uses a USB 1.1 interface, a time required to complete transfer of booting data may be extremely long (e.g., in the range of several tens of minutes to one hour or more), because the USB 1.1 interface has a relatively slow transfer speed. Of course, large amounts of booting data increase the transfer time, which may be the case for a large-scale general-purpose computer operating system and for software applications running on the operating system and the like.
This fact brings about a situation in which the above-mentioned usage pattern is not practical in view of the waiting time for the user, in view of the computer resources of the boot source device occupied for booting the boot target device, and in view of the portability of the booting system.
Besides, in the case where the boot target device is to be booted from the external storage device, the storage device remains connected to the USB interface to protrude from the boot target device until the transfer is completed once the transfer of the booting data is started from the storage device via the USB interface, in the existing techniques described in the background art. As a result, there is a possibility that the portability of the boot target device being booted is impaired. This may be the case when the storage device has a plurality of interfaces operating as an SD (Secure Digital) memory card and also as the USB memory card is used as the external storage device, and a portable general-purpose computer device has both an externally exposed USB port and a memory card slot which can hold the SD card therein as the interfaces, which supports the direct boot from the USB interface but not the direct boot from the SD memory card slot as firmware, is used as the boot target device.
The above description is similarly applied to the case where a general SD memory card is used via a USB style SD card reader adapter to be operated as the USB memory card in terms of the reduced portability of the boot target device being booted.
For solving the problems as described above, the boot source device having higher-speed hardware can be used to improve the waiting time for the user, and further, devising an external shape of the boot target device can improve the portability of the boot target device being booted currently. However, such solutions which involve a hardware modification generally brings about an increase in device cost.
Moreover, although it is possible to modify the firmware used in the boot target device to a special one according to the characteristics of a specific boot source device or storage device, such a solution impairs the characteristics of the boot target device corresponding to the general-purpose computer and also leads to an increase in development cost for the development of specific individual firmware.
A device booting system described below is configured to solve the above-mentioned problems.

Booting system, boot program, and method therefor

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA) receiver is disclosed which removes the pilot signal from the received signal. The pilot signal is defined by its multipath parameters (amplitudes, phase shift and delays) and its signature sequence. Since this information is known at the user's receiver terminal (i.e., handset), the pilot signals of the interfering multipath components of the baseband received signal are detected and removed prior to demodulation of the desired multipath component. The pilot signal may be cancelled prior to or following the data accumulation stage.

Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA) has become one of the most prominent schemes for wireless communication systems. CDMA users are distinguished from one another by different code sequences. Due to the wide band nature of the CDMA signal, the receivers can be made robust against fading by exploiting the built-in time diversity using a rake receiver. In a coherent implementation of a rake receiver, a pilot signal is used to obtain the amplitude and phase estimates of the channel needed for coherent detection. As in the case of the IS-95 CDMA system, the pilot signal is designed to be orthogonal to the users' spreading codes so that in the rare case of no multipath dispersion, the pilot signal will not cause interference at the matched filter output for the desired user. However, if there is multipath dispersion, there will be unwanted interference at the matched filter output due to a variety of multipath components which are not orthogonal to the desired signal. Specifically, for a given multipath component of a desired traffic channel, its matched filter output will have unwanted contributions due to its other multipath components and the other multipath components of the other channels and the pilot signal. Since the pilot signal represents about 20 percent of the power of the downlink signal, its multipath components can be especially damaging to a desired user's bit decision via the near-far effect if the total number of active traffic channels is high. Undesirably, conventional rake receivers do not account for the interchannel multipath interference, and as a result, its performance suffers.

Pilot interference cancellation for a coherent wireless code division multiple access receiver


In an event site or the like, a visitor may waste time and effort trying to find a spot where an event of interest may be taking place because the visitor is unable to look through the entire site from any particular spot. An information gathering robot roams in such an event site typically along a prescribed route, and notes spots of interest to transmit this information to a data server. The visitor can access the data server to find a spot of interest of his or her choice substantially on a real time basis.

In an event site where a large number of people congregate, such as a theme park, fair ground, bazaar, exposition, shopping mall and restaurant court, it is not possible to determine the state of congestion of a particular spot in the site unless the visitor actually walks to the particular spot. Therefore, it often happens that the visitor takes a trip to a particular spot and finds the spot too congested for the visitor to enjoy the spot. The visitor is thus forced to take unnecessary trips and waste time in an effort to find a spot of his or her choice.
Street performances are often shown in designated areas in a fair ground or in a street from which automobiles are blocked off. Various street performers show their performances irregularly and in various spots within the designated areas. Such a ground or event site is typically not designed so as to allow a general view of the site, and it is not possible for a visitor to find if any particular performance will suit the visitor's liking or not until the visitor actually comes to the spot. For this reason, each visitor has to take a tour of the entire site before he or she is capable of deciding which performance to see so that much time and effort has to be wasted.
The recent advance in technology allows images to be transmitted to remote locations by using the Internet and mobile phones (see Japanese patent laid open publication No. 2001-320460, for instance). If such a technology is used, a user can be informed on the state of a certain remote location without actually traveling to this location so that the user is not required to aimlessly move about and waste time and effort. Also, because the visitors can move with definite aims in most part, the distribution of the people within the site can be favorably averaged, and congestions in localized areas can be avoided.


A system to manage a supply chain may include a purchase order management module operable on a processor to electronically receive purchase order information from a buyer and to store and track information associated with each purchase order. The system may also include an invoice and trade document management module to electronically store, aggregate and manage invoices and trade documents related to each purchase order and information required for presentment and reconciliation of each purchase order.

The present invention relates to supply chain management, and more particularly to a system and method to manage supply chain settlement, risk and liquidity.
Doing business electronically or eBusiness is a common means and possibly a preferred means of doing business for some organizations today. Managing the creation and flow of data between buyers and sellers, settling discrepancies, transferring funds and other operations normally conducted during a transaction can be a challenge, particularly in an electronic or Internet environment. Electronic purchase orders must be created, recorded and tracked. Similarly, corresponding electronic accounts payable instruments must also be created, recorded and tracked. Rules or conditions established by a buyer that a seller must satisfy before payment may also need to be taken into account and tracked to determine if and when satisfied. Electronic invoices, trade documents and the like also need to be created, stored and tracked for satisfaction. Different types of payable instruments may also be used and any system needs to be able to manage any of the different types of instruments. There may also be discrepancies between the payment conditions set by a buyer and discharge information presented by a seller that may need to be resolved.

System and method to manage supply chain settlement, risk and liquidity


The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that enables the occurrence of print defects due to a first print start time delay to be eliminated without using a temperature sensor that has a small thermal time constant. When the temperature of a fixing belt serving as an image heating body is greater than or equal to a predetermined temperature following the elapse of a fixed time after an image forming operation is started, recording paper is transported to a nip area (fixing area) of a fixing apparatus before the temperature detected by a temperature sensor reaches a predetermined image fixing temperature, and an image forming operation is started immediately.

With this kind of image forming apparatus, a heat roller type, belt type, or similar heat-fixing apparatus has traditionally been used as a fixing apparatus that heat-fixes an unfixed toner image formed and held on a recording medium such as plain paper or an OHP sheet.
A known example of this kind of heat-fixing apparatus is provided with a rotatable heating roller that has a heat source such as a halogen lamp or heater, an endless fixing belt that presses against this heating roller and rotates together with this heating roller, and a pressure pad that is positioned on the inner side of this fixing belt, presses the fixing belt against the heating roller, and forms a fixing nip by means of the pressure area between the fixing belt and the heating roller (see, for example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. HEI 10-228196).
In recent years, due to demands such as shorter warm-up time and better energy-saving characteristics for image forming apparatus, attention has been drawn to heat-fixing apparatuses that use a heat-producing section employing induction heating (IH), which allows rapid and highly efficient heating, as the heat source, and reach the desired image fixing temperature in a short time (See, for example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. HEI 10-123861).
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a heat-fixing apparatus that uses an IH heat-producing section as the heat source. As shown in FIG. 1, this heat-fixing apparatus has an exciting coil 14 located inside a fixing roller 12 serving as an image heating body, and fixing roller 12 is made to produce heat by causing generation of an alternating field by means of this exciting coil 14 and a core 17 composed of ferrite or the like, and causing an eddy current to be generated in fixing roller 12. A recording medium 10 bearing an unfixed toner image 11 is then fed to the pressure area between fixing roller 12 and a pressure roller 13, and unfixed toner image 11 is fixed onto recording medium 10.
Another heat-fixing apparatus using an IH heat-producing section as a heat source has also been proposed that has a configuration in which a fixing roller serving as an image heating body is formed as a thin metal sleeve, and this metal sleeve is sandwiched and rotated by inner and outer pressure members (see, for example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. HEI 10-74007).
In a heat-fixing apparatus used in this kind of conventional image forming apparatus, the temperature of the image heating body such as a fixing belt, fixing roller, and so forth is normally measured by means of a temperature sensor positioned in contact with the image heating body. The calorific value of the heat source is then controlled based on the measurement result of this temperature sensor so that the temperature of the image heating body is maintained at an image fixing temperature suitable for heat-fixing an unfixed toner image onto a recording medium.
In the case of a heat-fixing apparatus that uses a halogen lamp or heater as a heat source, the warm-up time until the image heating body rises to the predetermined image fixing temperature is long, and therefore the thermal time constant of the temperature sensor has not been a problem.
However, in the case of a heat-fixing apparatus that uses an IH heat-producing section as a heat source, or that uses a fixing belt as an image heating body, the warm-up time is short (30 seconds or less, for example), and therefore the thermal time constant of the temperature sensor has an effect.
That is to say, while the use of an inexpensive temperature sensor is generally desirable with this kind of image heating apparatus in order to keep costs low, there is a drawback that an inexpensive temperature sensor normally has a large thermal time constant, and responsiveness to a rapid change in temperature is poor. Therefore, if a temperature sensor with a large thermal time constant is used in an image forming apparatus that has a short warm-up time, there is a problem of the actual temperature of the image heating body rising before the temperature detected by the temperature sensor rises, resulting in major overshoot.
Also, in this kind of image forming apparatus, control is performed so that an image forming operation is started when the temperature detected by the temperature sensor reaches the predetermined image fixing temperature. Therefore, if a temperature difference occurs between the actual temperature of the image heating body and the temperature detected by the temperature sensor as described above, there is a problem in that the first print start time is delayed in proportion to this temperature difference. This kind of first print start time delay is pronounced when image forming is performed after the image heating body is heated from a state in which the environmental temperature of the heat-fixing apparatus is close to room temperature.
Thus, a problem with this kind of conventional image forming apparatus is that the actual temperature of the image heating body becomes higher than the predetermined image fixing temperature due to the first print start time delay, and the glossiness of the first printed sheet is abnormally high.
The occurrence of print defects due to such first print start time delay can be eliminated by using a temperature sensor that is highly responsive to rapid temperature changes and has a small thermal time constant. However, a problem associated with the use of a temperature sensor with a small thermal time constant is increased cost.

Method and apparatus for controlling image forming operation of an image forming apparatus

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A firefighting vehicle can be transported to a fire, connected to a water supply hose, and maneuvered by remote or self-contained control to dispense water from the supply hose through a nozzle and onto the fire. The apparatus may be driven by a pair of independent, continuous tracks, and may include a video monitor to transmit real-time images to the operator to view the fire and control the apparatus. The nozzle and monitor may be mounted in a vertically rotatable turret portion, enabling water discharge from ground level to past vertical.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to fire protection equipment and associated hardware, and more specifically to an improved remote firefighting apparatus for use on wildland, structure or industrial fires.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Fire protection and firefighting equipment are of course well known and in widespread use. Some mechanical or robotic firefighting devices have been developed in an effort to limit or even eliminate the exposure of firefighting personnel to the hazards of a fire, as well as to permit firefighting in remote areas or areas inaccessible to humans. However, known robotic firefighting devices have many shortcomings, including limited firefighting capacity, poor traction and climbing ability, and restricted application to certain types of fires (e.g., structure fires only).


A method and a receiver device are disclosed for channel estimation of a broadcast channel. According to an embodiment, the receiver device determines a first channel estimation of demodulation reference signal (DMRS) from a transmitter device. The receiver device determines a second channel estimation of one or more synchronization related reference signals from the transmitter device. The receiver device determines a final channel estimation of a broadcast channel from the transmitter device based at least on the first and second channel estimations.

This section introduces aspects that may facilitate better understanding of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.
In order to connect to a network, a device needs to acquire network sync and obtain essential system information (SI). Sync signals are used for adjusting the frequency of the device relative to the network, and for finding proper timing of the received signal from the network. In new radio (NR), the synchronization and access procedure involves the following signals. Primary synchronization signal (PSS) allows for network detection in the presence of a high initial frequency error, up to tens of ppm (parts-per-million). Secondary synchronization signal (SSS) allows for more accurate frequency adjustments and channel estimation while at the same time providing fundamental network information, e.g. cell identity (ID). Physical broadcast channel (PBCH) provides a subset of the minimum system information for random access and configurations for fetching remaining minimum system information (RMSI). It will also provide timing information within a cell, e.g. to separate timing between beams transmitted from a cell. The amount of information to fit into the PBCH is highly limited to keep the size down. Furthermore, demodulation reference signal (DMRS) is interleaved with PBCH resources to receive it properly.
A synchronization signal (SS) and PBCH block (SS/PBCH block, or SSB in shorter format) comprises the above signals (PSS, SSS and PBCH DMRS) and PBCH. The SSB may have 15 kHz, 30 kHz, 120 kHz or 240 kHz subcarrier spacing (SCS). The remaining minimum system information (RMSI) is carried in physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) scheduled by physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) in NR, and contains remaining minimum system information, e.g. the bit map of the actually transmitted SS/PBCH blocks. The RMSI can have 15 kHz, 30 kHz, 60 kHz or 120 kHz SCS.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an SS block in NR. As shown, totally 4 orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols are used for PBCH, PSS and SSS transmission. The PSS is defined to be 127 subcarriers wide whereas the whole SS block is supposed to be 240 subcarriers wide. A number of SS/PBCH blocks constitute an SS burst set. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the transmission of an SS burst set. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the transmission of SS/PBCH blocks in slots. The frequencies shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 refer to SCS and the parameter L refer to the number of SS blocks transmitted in a half frame. As shown, the SS burst set is transmitted periodically. By using the SS blocks in the SS burst set, the UE can determine the downlink timing, frequency offset and acquire some fundamental system information (e.g. RMSI configuration) from the PBCH.
After SS detection, a UE acquires the frequency sync and timing sync in symbol level. To acquire frame level synchronization and get the essential SI, it is needed to do PBCH demodulation and decoding. The demodulation performance is mainly decided by the accuracy of channel estimation.

Method and receiver device for channel estimation of broadcast channel


A mixing apparatus for generating and mixing gas bubbles into an aqueous solution includes a structure defining an interior fluid-flow chamber that extends along a longitudinal axis between an input port at a liquid input end and an output port at a liquid output end. The structure includes a gas injection portion located upstream from the liquid output end and a mixing vane portion extending in the downstream direction from the gas injection portion. The gas injection portion defines a gas injection lumen and a first region of the interior fluid-flow chamber, while the mixing vane portion defines a second region of the interior fluid-flow chamber. The first region of the interior fluid-flow chamber includes a plurality of side fluid-path lumens that extend alongside a first part of the gas injection lumen. This first part of the gas injection lumen and the side fluid-path lumens merge with a downstream fluid-path lumen of the first region.

Bubbles contained in a liquid are visible to the eyes when the bubble sizes are range from 6 to 29 microns. We can see bubbles in carbonated drinks or those coming from the air diffuser in a water tank. Bubbles with the size of a few millimeters in diameter show visible surfacing action in a liquid, and the presence of fine bubbles of dozens of microns in diameter can be confirmed with white turbidity in a liquid, because these bubbles are scattering substances. Bubbles in diameter smaller than the wavelength of light are called ultra-fine bubbles, and they are too small to see. Ultra-fine bubbles have several unique properties including long lifetime in liquid owing to their negatively charged surface, and high gas solubility into the liquid owing to their high internal pressure. These special features of ultra-fine bubbles have attracted attention from many industries such as food, cosmetics, chemical, medical, semi-conductor, soil and water remediation, aquaculture and agriculture.

Apparatus in the form of a unitary, single-piece structure configured to generate and mix ultra-fine gas bubbles into a high gas concentration aqueous solution


A system and method for scalably monitoring and/or recording video data, preferably through a distributed network such as a computer network for example. The system and method of the present invention are characterized by the separation of functions, preferably into separate modules, for accessing the monitored and/or recorded data, and/or for accessing different hardware and/or software components of the system. This separation optionally and preferably is performed by restricting access to each of a plurality of layers or hierarchical levels in succession, such that access to the next layer or level is more preferably not permitted until access to a previous layer or level is approved. The system and method of the present invention also preferably provides security through this separation of functions. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is also provided a system and method for optionally adding the capability for monitoring and/or recording at least one type of media to an existing monitoring/recording system, as an “upgrade”. This preferred embodiment of the present invention may optionally and preferably be combined with the previously described system and method for scalably monitoring and/or recording video data.

Digital surveillance and recording systems are designed to provide digital management of video for security and monitoring applications. These systems are required to support multiple sites, multiple users and viewers, and to comply with a variety of storage architectures. Such systems should be flexible and scalable, in order to be able to grow as actual requirements grow.
Flexibility and scalability requirements are also a result of previous investments of organizations in other systems, which include computational processing power and networking infrastructure. In addition, these other systems may reflect other needs for recording media data, such as audio data for example. Thus, a number of different factors may influence both past and future purchasing and installation decisions for equipment (hardware and/or software, and/or other types of infrastructure) for monitoring and/or recording media data.
Many companies begin with the basic function of digital voice capture, recording and management to enable them to record the telephone and voice communications that occur during regular interactions of workers of the company. As digital voice recording and its benefits are assimilated within the organizations' operations, many look for additional areas where digital recording can further improve their business and operational processes.
Digital recording of other media, such as video, is increasingly being sought. However, adding the capabilities for recording a second type of media, such as video data, to an existing recording and/or monitoring system for a first, single type of media, such as audio for example, is currently not a simple task. For example, an organization may turn to the suppliers of digital voice recording solutions, in an attempt to obtain the additional functionality as an "upgrade" to their existing or upcoming digital voice recording systems, for commonality, logistics and cost savings reasons. However, such additional functionality can typically only be obtained by purchasing a complete system for monitoring and/or recording digital video data, which must then be added to the previously existing complete system for monitoring and/or recording digital voice data. Thus, currently available systems are merely additive in nature, as the two systems typically function separately, such that no advantage is obtained from having capabilities from recording and/or monitoring two different types of video data.
An additional problem of currently available systems for recording multiple different types of media is scalability. The requirement of adding more products and systems to fulfill the requirements of recording multimedia data clearly leads to many other practical, technical and logistical problems. For example, such requirements usually result in additional hardware, servers, applications, maintenance, and so forth. Issues of commonality, real estate and cost effectiveness become lost, since existing voice recording platforms cannot currently be used for the new multi-media recording needs.
However, problems of scalability are not limited to systems to which multimedia recording and/or monitoring functionality are added as an "upgrade". For example, currently available digital video recording systems also lack true scalability. Existing digital video recording systems are basically self-contained units, with the capacity of acquiring and recording a fixed number of video feeds. Such a formation is limited in capacity and expendability, whereas as an overall architecture, it maintains a unit-centric behavior requiring users and administrators to interact with each unit individually.
When the internal storage capacity becomes insufficient, most units are incapable of attaching archiving devices beyond the physical containment of the unit's chassis. Furthermore, these archiving devices must be pre-certified by the manufacturer, crippling the ability to exploit advancements in storage technology.
Furthermore, the channel capacity of a recording unit is typically limited by the amount of preinstalled inputs. When the need arises for additional video cameras to be recorded or viewed, an additional unit has to be installed. As mentioned earlier, this requires the operator of the system to interact with yet another unit, adding complexity and inefficiency to the whole process.
The architecture of existing systems does not provide for a robust central storage configuration. Such a configuration is mostly required in a multi-site installation, where video information should be recorded in the head office, for centralization or for disaster recovery reasons.
Another limitation is the ability to support a large number of simultaneous viewers. Most existing systems are designed to handle up to a dozen users. New systems are required to provide access for live and archived video for viewers from multiple locations, and in growing numbers.
The cumulative result of these limitations is a cumbersome architecture with limited and rigid scalability. These limitations further lead to an expensive and complex upgrade path, causing the task of expending a system's configuration to become costly and inefficient.

System and method for collecting video data


The present invention describes an optical reader system for reading a tag associated with an object in a datacenter. The optical reader system includes: a fixed first optical reader including a first image capturing device and a first light source, wherein the first light source is capable of directing light towards the tag of an object, wherein the first image capturing device is capable of taking an optical image of the tag when illuminated by light from the first light source; and a processing device capable of processing optical image data from the first image capturing device to determine tag information.

Identifying computer assets in the physical world is often problematic in practice, where manually entered inventory information is often updated and subject to undocumented changes. While software management tools often provide such information with respect to network topology, there is often a missing link that fails to relate this information back to the actual physical locations of the assets. Hence, it can sometimes be difficult for operations staff to quickly locate a particular asset, especially if it has been moved during a prior facility reconfiguration.
Within many facilities, racks of identical and differing devices are often difficult to distinguish from each other. A server product might place a concealed barcode identifier on a recessed tag, which needs to be manually pulled to expose the code. A single LED placed on the front panel of a server could act as a unique identifier or (UID) indicator. However, such identifying features are typically manufacturer specific and not industry adopted standards. Thus, a rack containing heterogeneous equipment from multiple vendors would be unable to fully support such features.
A related need is to determine the actual location of such assets in an autonomous manner. Labor and time intensive manual assets are performed to determine the composition of center facilities, often a requirement for insurance or other purposes. Such information would enable timelier and faster facilities audits, automate change management procedures and improve the time to locate a particular asset, perhaps in response to a device failure or unintended shutdown.
While the prior methods provide solutions to the problem of locating or monitoring assets within the data center, deployment, configuration and cost issues have prevented their widespread adoption and in some cases productization.

Optical system and method for monitoring and locating objects

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP


An iron-type golf club head comprising a high strength face plate with a face support is disclosed herein. In particular, the face plate is affixed to a perimeter region and to a face support that extends upwards from the sole proximate a front opening. The face plate preferably is welded to the perimeter region and brazed to the face support to optimize the sound and feel of the golf club head while preserving the strength of the face.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a golf club head with improved sound and forgiveness. More specifically, the present invention relates to an iron-type golf club head having a unique body construction designed to provide greater support to the face plate across its center.
2. Description of the Related Art
The prior art discloses various types of high strength faces for use with golf club heads, and particularly iron-type golf club heads. Using a high strength face allows for a decrease in face thickness without negatively affecting durability, and is traditionally used in clubs designed for players who need greater forgiveness. Traditionally, these types of golf club faces are welded to the rest of the golf club body only at a perimeter region of the body, which typically has an opening sized to receive the face and allow it to flex inwardly. One drawback of this configuration, however, is that, while the face flexes inside the perimeter weld, it can come into contact with thicker sections or other metal parts of the head. If this happens, the golf club head can resonate during impact and create a displeasing sound.
This problem limits the quantity of thick sections of the club head that are permitted to touch the face, and thus impacts the overall design of the golf club head. It also leads manufacturers to include undercut features with clubs having face inserts so that material is moved far away from the face. Though many players use undercut features, more advanced golfers tend to not like undercuts because of the association between undercuts and less skilled golfers, and thus prefer to use clubs without them. As such, there is a need for a golf club head having a face insert that has a design that is both appealing to more skilled users and causes a pleasing sound upon impact with a golf ball.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A fixing unit includes a photosensitive drum for bearing an image, an image forming member for forming the image on the photosensitive drum, a transfer charger for transferring the image formed by the image forming member to paper, a heating roller having a heat source for generating heat when a power supply is turned on for heating the paper to which the image is transferred by the transfer charger, a rotatable pressing roller which is brought into contact with and separated from the heating roller, for pressing the paper against the heating roller, a rotating plate for separating the pressing roller from the heating roller when the power supply is turned on, and a driving mechanism for rotating the pressing roller separated from the heating roller by the rotating plate. The driving mechanism includes a first gear arranged in the heating roller, a second gear arranged in the pressing roller, a driving gear engaged with the first gear and engaged with the second gear by a driven gear, and a driving motor for rotating the driving gear.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fixing unit for fixing a transfer image on paper, which is included in, for example, an electronic copying machine, and to an image forming apparatus having the fixing unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic copying machine includes a photosensitive body, and a latent image is formed on the photosensitive body by an image forming means. The latent image is supplied with a developer and thus developed. The developed image is transferred to paper by the operation of a transfer charger, and the paper is fed to a fixing unit, thereby fixing the image on the paper. The fixing unit includes a fixing roller and a pressing roller pressed on the fixing roller. The paper is caused to pass between the fixing and pressing rollers, and heated and pressed accordingly. The pressing roller is attached to a housing of the fixing unit, which is freely opened and closed, and contacts/separates from the fixing roller by opening/closing the housing. Normally, the pressing roller remains pressed against the fixing roller, irrespective of ON and OFF states of a power supply.
If an electronic copying machine is left alone for a long time and then its power is turned on, irregularity in temperature may occur in the fixing unit even in the ready state. Particularly in an electronic copying machine in which paper is heated only by a heater of a fixing roller, it goes into the ready state even when a portion opposite to a portion of a pressing roller pressed against the fixing roller remains cold. If, therefore, paper is caused to pass between the fixing and pressing rollers, a difference in temperature between both sides of the paper is considerably widened, and the paper is greatly curled. Even though the paper is not greatly curled, a low-temperature portion of the paper absorbs heat and a defect in fixing occurs accordingly.
In order to prevent the paper from being curled or to prevent the defect in fixing, a conventional copying machine has a technique of rotating the fixing and pressing rollers to uniform the surface temperature of the pressing roller when the copying machine is warmed up.
However, the warm-up time of an electronic copying machine is considered to be as important as the quality of an image, in view of its usage. If the pressing roller is rotated, it takes 50% longer time to warm up the machine than when the pressing roller is not rotated. Needless to say, this is because the pressing roller always contacts the fixing roller and the fixing roller absorbs heat as the pressing roller rotates.
A pressing roller of low hardness has recently been used to increase the rate of fixing. If, however, such a pressing roller is pressed against a fixing roller, a great creep occurs, resulting in a blur of fixing. Further, in a preheat mode, for keeping the temperature of the fixing roller lower than the usual temperature for fixing since the pressing roller remains pressed against the fixing roller, the pressing roller cannot be heated uniformly in the former case.

Fixing unit and image forming apparatus having the same


A sign system is provided. The sign system has a hoisting mechanism for moving a sign between an access or servicing position near ground level and an elevated display position. The sign system includes a first set of guide members and a second set of guide members and a drive system. Each guide member is generally tubular. The guide members of each set are connected together for telescopic movement. Each set of guide members includes an outermost guide member and an innermost guide member, one of which serves as an anchor guide member and the other of which serves as a sign supporting guide member. The sign supporting guide member includes at least one connector for connecting the sign thereto. The anchor guide members of the first and second sets of guide members are fixedly connectable in a generally vertical orientation to a wall or other vertical support means in horizontally spaced relation to each other such that the first and second sets of guide members are extendible downwards to move the sign to the access position and retractable upwards to move the sign to the display position. The drive system is operatively connected to the first and second sets of guide members for selectively moving the first and second sets of guide members between the extended position and the retracted position.

Sign systems for displaying banners are well known. Such sign systems are frequently used by retailers and other commercial establishments to advertise feature products, sales events, and special offers. Banners of this type may be displayed within a commercial establishment, but are also very frequently mounted outside of the commercial establishment, such as high up on an exterior wall where they may be readily viewed at a distance by prospective customers at ground level.
In many such sign installations it is desirable to be able to replace the specific advertising banner frequently, for example to promote seasonal products, or sales events that coincide with various holidays or other special occasions. For signs that are mounted at high levels, this can present a significant challenge. In some cases, the use of portable ladders would be impractical or unsafe, as for example due to inclement weather or excessive height. Fixed ladders may also present a security risk. Specialized mobile elevating equipment may be used to provide access to elevated display signs, but such equipment is very costly.
The object of the present invention is to obviate or mitigate these and other disadvantages of accessing known sign systems for displaying banners.

Elevated sign system with lowering mechanism to enable ground level servicing


An anchor for securing seat belt component to a vehicle includes a latch member for securing a tongue portion of the component within a housing. The latch member is movable between a first position wherein a protrusion on the latch member engages the tongue and a second position wherein the protrusion is displaced for releasing the tongue. A biasing member provides a biasing force to maintain the latch in the first position. The housing includes a latch-access area for allowing the latch member to be engaged for manually forcing the latch member to the second position to allow the tongue portion to be removed, so that the anchor does not have a release button.

Seat belt systems comprise two basic elements, a buckle portion and an extendable belt having a clasping portion adapted for removable clasping to the buckle portion. The buckle portion is typically anchored to the vehicle or a seat structure via webbing or a cable or other equivalent means secured to the buckle portion at one end and the vehicle at the other end.
The extendable belt is generally connected to a retraction mechanism that is also anchored to the vehicle or the seat structure depending upon the type of belt being used (e.g., lap belt or shoulder harness). In some shoulder harness applications the retraction mechanism is secured to the vehicle at one point and an end of the belt is secured to the vehicle at another anchor point wherein the clasping portion is slidably received on the seat belt webbing located between the retraction mechanism and the anchor point. In these systems the anchor point is below the occupant at the vehicle to seat interface and the retraction mechanism is at or above the occupants shoulder. Also, the retraction mechanism and the anchor point are on the same side of the seat and the buckle portion is on the other side thus, the belt must be drawn across the seat to be secured to the buckle portion. Accordingly, when the user desires to buckle the seat belt they pull on the belt until a sufficient portion of the webbing is unfurled from the retractor and clasping portion is secured to the buckle portion, which is located at the opposite side of the seat with respect to the anchor point. In addition, vehicle restraint systems also comprise pyrotechnically activated devices such as a pre-tensioners, which in the type of system described above are located in or below the seat at the same location as the anchor point thus, activation of the pretensioner will cause any seat belt slack at the anchor point to be drawn in by the pretensioner.
In order to secure the webbing of the seat belt to the vehicle at the anchor point, a pneumatic tool is used/required to drive anchor bolts or rivets to into the vehicle or seat frame. However, there typically is not a lot of available room to operate the tools for securing the seat belt at the anchor point. Moreover, in larger vehicles such as mini-vans wherein the seats are removable or relocatable it is undesirable to have one end of the seat belt webbing unremovably anchored to the seat structure, as the same is removable from its locations.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus for quickly and rigidly securing the extendable seat belt webbing to a vehicle using a minimal amount of installation tools.

Apparatus and method for attaching seat belt components


A cellular system access monitor for monitoring and reporting information relating to the operation of cellular telephone systems. The monitor features a cellular telephone of current design, responding to the expanded spectrum of 832 channels. The cellular telephone communicates with a controller using a self-clocking data transmission scheme to improve the reporting and displaying of cellular system parameters, such as cellsite control-channel identification numbers and textual cellsite identification information. Additionally, the monitor employes a calibration feature for measuring and displaying accurately signal strength in decibels. System parameters are shown on a bit-mapped display.

Cellular system access monitors (CSAM) are employed in the prior art to monitor and measure many of the operating characteristics of cellular telephone systems. Cellular systems of recent design have been greatly improved by incorporating enhancements and greater system subscriber capacity; however, cellular system access monitors have not kept pace principally because the cellular telephones which have been designed into those monitors are now outdated and are not capable of fully supporting all of the features of the enhanced systems. For example, there now exist 832 cellular channels in the recently expanded spectrum of a cellular telephone system; but, existing cellular system access monitors are only capable of accessing and monitoring the original 666 channels of the expanded spectrum.
Additionally, these access monitors are not capable of reporting basic information required to accurately assess the performance of the cellular telephone system. In particular, there is no reporting of the cellsite control-channel identification numbers, or textual cellsite identification information. Also due to the outdated nature of the cellular telephones used in the access monitors of the prior art received signal strength is not measured and displayed accurately in decibels calibrated in a manner recognizing the non-linear reception characteristics of a modern cellular telephone. This deficiency in the calibration technique causes erroneous signal amplitude measurements to be taken, and hence reduces the accuracy of the monitoring and reporting function which is a basic operational element in cellular system access monitors.


A foldable boarding ramp is operatively connected to a door opening provided in a body and is selectively extendable to the ground. The foldable boarding ramp is stored in a folded state inside a fairing covering a connecting portion between the body and a main wing. Thus, a reduction in the space of a passenger compartment and a cargo compartment due to the storage of the folded boarding ramp is prevented. In addition, an increase in air resistance can be suppressed without providing a dedicated fairing for covering the boarding ramp. Further, an interlocking member connects together a door for opening and closing the door opening and the boarding ramp when the door is opened. The boarding ramp may be automatically deployed to improve convenience.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a boarding ramp device for an aircraft that includes a body, a main wing, and a fairing for covering a connecting portion between the body and the main wing. The fairing bulges in a lower face of the body.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,486 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 4-230495 disclose a device in which a boarding ramp that is stored in a folded state in a body is deployed from a door opening formed in the body to the ground. The boarding ramp is stored in a folded state in view of the fact that there is a distance between the door opening and the ground. Thus, it is difficult for passengers to directly get on and off the aircraft without the use of a boarding ramp.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,684 discloses a device in which a door for opening and closing a door opening formed in a body is divided into a door upper-part and a door lower-part. A boarding ramp is provided on an inner surface of the door lower-part.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 4,440,364 discloses a device that includes a boarding ramp that is extendable from a stored position along a lower face of a body to a use position wherein the boarding ramp projects sideward of the body. A dedicated fairing is provided in the body so as to cover the boarding ramp in the stored state.
However, U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,486 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 4-230495 have a problem wherein the space for a passenger compartment or a cargo compartment of the aircraft is decreased by the boarding ramp because the boarding ramp in the folded state is stored inside the aircraft.
Also, the boarding ramp described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,684 has a problem that the device is applicable only to a small-sized aircraft wherein distance between the lower end of the door opening and the ground is about the length of the door lower-part because the boarding ramp is provided on the inner face of the door lower-part.
Further, the boarding ramp described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,440,364 has a problem in that the dedicated fairing for covering the boarding ramp in the stored position is required to be provided on the lower face of the body, which increases air resistance.


An information system and method for reducing workload load on servers in an information system network. The system defines a group of interconnected clients which have associated cache memories. The system maintains a shared group cache look-up table for the group having entries which identify data items cached by the clients within the group and identify the clients at which the data items are cached. Each client in the group has access to the group cache look-up table, and any client or group can cache any data item. The system can include a hierarchy of groups, with each group having a group cache look-up table. The group cache look-up tables minimize requests for data items outside the groups and greatly minimize the service load on servers having popular data items.

The present invention relates to a system and method for combining requests for data in an information system and, more particularly, to a system having a shared cache look-up table within groups of information appliances.
In conventional information systems, such as a distributed file system or the World Wide Web, requests for data items are directed to a server. If multiple requests are made at approximately the same time, the server becomes a bottleneck and subsequent requests queue up until the server can complete current requests. Each user perceives an increased latency and a degradation of system performance. For example, when the Shoemaker-Levy comet collided with Jupiter, many requests were made for the image data of the collision and the latency for providing the data was very long, or requests for the data were simply refused.
A server's performance can be increased by using a faster processor (or processors) and by increasing the bandwidth of the interconnect to the server. However, this can be expensive and, especially in the case of a transient event, not feasible to implement. In large distributed information systems, the aggregate demand for bandwidth of all the potential users (called "clients" in "client-server" systems) is enormous and cannot be satisfied by any single current server machine.
In certain systems, the demand for data is continuous such as in a distributed file system which serves the binary code of a commonly used application. In other systems, the demand for data can be predicted sufficiently far in advance, such as when Netscape distributes the latest version of its Internet browser. In these situations, multiple servers can be set up, typically distributed to be near the expected sources of the requests. In this approach, the users distribute their requests to all of the servers, so that there is no single bottleneck and each server receives only its share of requests. The user or system administrator manually attempts to select a relatively lightly loaded server to get low-latency service of the requests. Setting up the servers can be labor intensive and the users may find it undesirable to have to select a server.
In one proposed system, the server is "removed" by distributing its functions, such as storage, cache and control, over cooperating work stations. T. Anderson et al., Serverless Network File Systems, Computer Science Division, University of California at Berkeley, 15th ACM Symposium on Operating System Principles (December 1995). The server cache is replaced by cooperative caching which is implemented by forwarding data among client caches under control of managers. A globally replicated manager map indicates which manager (and the physical machine on which it is running) manages which groups of file index numbers. A file is read by using the manager map to locate the correct manager for the index number and sending a request for the file to that manager. Even with this distributed system, a particular manager can become a bottleneck if multiple requests for a particular data item are made at approximately the same time.

System and method for maintaining a shared cache look-up table


An information notification device 1 includes a memory unit 3, a request reception unit 42, and a communication unit 2. The memory unit 3 stores first equipment information indicating the internal state of a printer engine 113. When the image forming apparatus 101 is in sleep mode, the request reception unit 42 receives requests for second equipment information indicating the current state of the image forming apparatus 101. When the second equipment information is low rate of change with time first attribute information, the communication unit 2 transmits the first equipment information to the requesting source. When the second equipment information is second attribute information, whose rate of change with time is higher than first attribute information, the power supply 114 supplies power to the engine 113, the communication unit 2 obtains the second equipment information from the engine 113 and transmits it to the requesting source.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an information notification device. More specifically, the present invention relates to an information notification device for an image forming apparatus having a printer engine capable of forming images on a recording medium, and an electrical power supply unit capable of supplying electrical power to the printer engine.
2. Background Information
In recent years, image forming apparatuses provided with what is known as a sleep mode can be frequently seen. Sleep mode is a mode in which electrical power is provided to only the minimum necessary units of the units in the apparatus, in order to reduce electrical power consumption.
Furthermore, this type of image forming apparatus sometimes includes an information notification device that notifies the user of equipment information indicating the current internal state of the image forming apparatus, such as the number of sheets of paper, the amount of toner remaining, and so on. For example, if the image forming apparatus is capable of being connected to and communicating with an external apparatus such as a PC or the like, a user can obtain the desired equipment information regarding the image forming apparatus by using an external apparatus to request the current equipment information from the image forming apparatus.
An apparatus of this type is known in which when an equipment information request is received during sleep mode, electrical power is provided to the necessary units so that the equipment information regarding the current state within the apparatus can be obtained as shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-130526. Also, an apparatus of this type is known in which equipment information is stored in a storage unit just before the image forming apparatus is turned off, and when the image forming apparatus receives an equipment information request in sleep mode, the equipment information in the storage unit is transmitted to the source of the request as shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H9-214659.
A technology related to this is an image forming apparatus in which when several instructions to execute image forming processes are received in sleep mode, these processes are carried out together at a specific time as shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-88499.
In the apparatus of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-130526, every time a request for equipment information is received, it is necessary to supply electrical power to the printer engine that forms images on sheets, to start up the printer engine, and to obtain the current equipment information from the printer engine. However, starting up the printer engine generates noise, and electrical power is consumed.
Also, in the apparatus of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H9-214659, the equipment information output to the source of the request is not necessarily the most recent information. In other words, the information is not necessarily the equipment information at the time that the request was received. Therefore, there is a possibility that equipment information is output to the source of the request that is very different from the current state of the image forming apparatus.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved image notification device. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.

Information notification device on image forming apparatus in a sleeping mode


A nitride semiconductor light emitting device includes a substrate, a first conductivity type nitride semiconductor layer disposed on the substrate and including a plurality of V-pits placed in a top surface thereof, a silicon compound formed in the vertex region of each of the V-pits, an active layer disposed on the first conductivity type nitride semiconductor layer and including depressions conforming to the shape of the plurality of V-pits, and a second conductivity type nitride semiconductor layer disposed on the active layer. The nitride semiconductor light emitting device, when receiving static electricity achieves high resistance to electrostatic discharge (ESD) since current is concentrated in the V-pits and the silicon compound placed on dislocations caused by lattice defects.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor light emitting device and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to a nitride semiconductor light emitting device and a method of manufacturing the same, which can achieve high resistance to electrostatic discharge (ESD), and high light extraction efficiency.
2. Description of the Related Art
Light emitting diodes (LEDs), as one type of semiconductor light emitting device, generate light of various colors by electron-hole recombination occurring at a p-n junction when current is applied. LEDs are greatly advantageous over filament-based light emitting devices. That is, LEDs have a longer useful life span, lower voltage, superior initial driving characteristics, high vibration resistance and a high tolerance to repetitive power connection/disconnection. This has led to a continually increasing demand for LEDs. Notably, of late, a great deal of attention has been drawn to group III nitride semiconductors capable of emitting light in the short wavelength region including a blue-light region.
In general, group III nitride semiconductors (hereinafter, referred to as 'nitride semiconductors') have a composition of AlxGayIn1-x-yN where 0≦x≦1, 0≦y≦1 and 0≦x+y≦1. Such nitride semiconductor light emitting devices each include a light emitting structure obtained by sequentially growing an n-type nitride semiconductor layer, an active layer and a p-type nitride semiconductor layer. Light emission takes place as electrons from the n-type nitride semiconductor layer and holes from the p-type nitride semiconductor layer recombine in the active layer.
The light efficiency of nitride semiconductor light emitting devices is determined by external quantum efficiency and internal quantum efficiency. Here, the internal quantum efficiency reaches almost 100%, however the quantum external efficiency is excessively low.
Also, semiconductor light emitting devices are susceptible to electrostatic discharge (ESD), which is easily generated in people or objects. The resistance to ESD involves the reliability of semiconductor light emitting devices, and thus needs to be enhanced.

Nitride semiconductor light emitting device and method of manufacturing the same


In one embodiment, the present invention includes an apparatus having core logic formed on a die, input/output (IO) buffers surrounding the core logic, and a moat capacitance surrounding the IO buffers and extending to an edge of the die. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Semiconductor devices are typically formed of a plurality of layers deposited on a wafer and include various circuitry to perform desired functions. On a semiconductor die, which is an independent portion of a wafer having a complete design, on-die capacitance is used to suppress high frequency noise that is generated by certain circuitry. For example, many circuits include an input/output (IO) buffer that may generate such noise due to the high-speed switching of the buffer. Typically, on-die capacitance surrounds each IO buffer block to ensure noise compliance. Conventionally, the on-die capacitance which surrounds each IO block cannot be altered as it affects the entire die form factor, and die size shrinkage is near impossible (especially near tape out time of a design), unless the IO buffer has serious performance issues. Therefore, a conventional design usually carries more than required amounts of on-die capacitance. This is an overhead in design cost and a waste of silicon real estate.