The invention relates to a flexographic printer comprising: inner dividing means which, together with a surround casing, define first, second and third enclosures; and fluid circulation means which are used for the circulation of at least one fluid at a regulated temperature. The aforementioned enclosures are sufficiently closed off and insulated from one another and the fluid is circulated at a sufficient flow rate, such that the solvent vapour concentration in the atmosphere, originating from the ink, is below a lower pre-fixed explosion limit in at least the second and third enclosures which house means of actuating the rotation and movement of the cylinders and electric and/or electronic devices and/or elements associated therewith.

A flexographic printing machine typically consists of support structures on which one or more back-pressure cylinders are mounted, which support a moving continuous band of material to be printed, and one or more flexographic printing heads, each of which consists of a cliché-holder cylinder that can make contact with the cited band to be printed and an ink-well or inking unit, which includes at least one ink cylinder to supply ink to the cliché-holder cylinder. Each print head can be associated with its respective back-pressure cylinder having a relatively small diameter or all the print heads can be located around a single, central, large diameter back-pressure cylinder. The incorporation of several print heads is employed to successively print the continuous band in different colours. In this way, the first print head deposits ink of one colour on the band to be printed and the successive heads superimpose inks of other colours. To prevent colour mixing it is necessary to dry the previous colour ink before applying another. Drying the ink involves the evaporation of the pigment diluent it contains and this is usually accomplished using drying boxes located between the print heads, which include the means of blowing hot air onto the printed band, together with the option of air suction to extract the air contaminated with the solvent vapour from the area of influence of the drying box.
It is also usual to protect this type of printing machine with casing or fairings that basically meet certain safety functions, preventing operator access to dangerous components and health functions by reducing the level of noise reaching the operators and also improving the machine's visual aspect. In order to comply with the cited soundproofing function, the fairings tend towards greater levels of insulation and sealing, with the acoustic insulation also doubling as heat insulation.
Unfortunately, this combination of insulation and sealing also involves the following two disadvantages:                The heating of all the machine's components because of the heated air blown inside the casing by the drying boxes, and        A concentration of solvent vapour inside the casing, specifically the lower section since typical solvent vapour is denser than air.
The heating problem generally affects all the printer components and mechanisms, but very specifically the large-diameter central back-pressure cylinder and its support structures, in those machines fitted with them. This central back-pressure cylinder must be manufactured with certain dimensional tolerances, especially cylindricity, which are very close and must be maintained throughout operation periods. Because the drying boxes produce the hot air impulsion directly over localised areas of the back-pressure cylinder, cylinder expansion, especially when operating slowly, can produce deformation that exceed the permitted tolerance. The expansion deformation suffered by the support structures also negatively affects the machine's operation.
There are various well-known devices for cooling or maintaining the back-pressure cylinder at a constant temperature by means of circulating water. One such device consists of fitting the cylinder with a double steel wall that provides an intermediate space through which the cooling water is able to circulate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,418 describes a flexographic printing machine with support structures or beds fitted with the means to regulate the temperature. These means consist of one or more closed channels for the circulation of a cooling or temperature-regulating fluid. The channels follow spiral paths to cover at least the support structure zones where the back-pressure cylinder is mounted.
However, both the cited means for cooling the cylinder and the means of cooling the support structure or bed are designed for very specific areas of the machine, but do not provide any overall temperature regulation inside the casing.
With respect to the problem of solvent vapour concentration, the previously described means of extraction associated with the drying boxes are known, but they are not sufficient to prevent an accumulation of solvent vapour of the lower section inside the insulated casing. The vapour produced by commonly used solvents is highly inflammable and accumulations inside the casing normally exceed a determined lower explosion limit, which means that a high-level of intrinsic protection must be employed in the printer's electrical devices and components, the measurements of which are strictly regulated by industrial codes in most countries. The implementation of the cited means of high-level protection and safety involves high economic costs of the components and, in addition, does not reduce the concentration of the explosive vapours inside the casing.
The objective of this invention is to produce a flexographic printer with a surrounding casing and interior dividing means in order to produce at least two sections, fitted with the means to regulate the temperature and the vapour concentration levels inside the casing that are capable of providing a suitable operating temperature for the component parts and, at least in one of the described section, the one housing all the drive means and electrical or electronic devices, maintain a vapour concentration level below a preset lower explosion limit, which will make the application of the high-level means of protection unnecessary for the described electrical devices.
Another objective of this invention is to provide a flexographic printer with the additional advantage of protecting those elements associated the drives from dirt and to permit access for ease of cleaning in those areas exposed to possible impregnation by ink.

Flexographic printer with enclosures at a regulated temperature and vapor extraction


A superscalar complex instruction set computer ("CISC") processor (100) having a reduced instruction set computer ("RISC") superscalar core (110) includes an instruction cache (104) which identifies and marks raw x86 instruction start and end points and encodes "pre-decode" information, a byte queue (106) which is a queue of aligned instruction and pre-decode information of the "predicted executed" state, and an instruction decoder (108) which generates type, opcode, and operand pointer values for RISC-like operations (ROPs) based on the aligned pre-decoded x86 instructions in the byte queue. The instruction decoder includes in each dispatch position a logic-based conversion path, a memory-based conversion path, and a common conversion path for converting CISC instructions to ROPs. An ROP multiplexer (400) directs x86 instructions from the byte queue to the conversion paths. The ROP multiplexer includes scan logic (690) which rapidly scans the byte queue to generate for each dispatch position an array of bits (ISELx) that identifies the location of the opcode, and ROP information signals (ROPxNUM, ROPxDIFF, PGNXTx!). The scan logic is segregated into groups of bit processing logic (GP(x,y)) and includes a look-ahead capability (LAG(x)) between groups.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to instruction decoding, and more particularly to scanning a queue of variable length instructions to identify instruction elements for decoding.
2. Description of Related Art
General purpose processors typically are based on scalar instruction sets. Processor architectures are either RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) -based or CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) -based. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages, as has been widely discussed in the literature.
RISC architectures have been used in superscalar computer designs. The term "superscalar" describes a computer implementation that improves performance by concurrent execution of scalar instructions. Progress in implementing superscalar RISC architectures has been good. Scalar RISC architectures typically are defined with a pipelined implementation in mind, and include many features which facilitate superscalar implementation. These features include a fixed format and fixed length instructions, explicit instruction operands, and a load/store architecture. Superscalar RISC architectures are described in Johnson, Superscalar Microprocessor Design, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1991, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Although interest has been expressed in achieving superscalar CISC architectures, progress has been hindered in part because few CISC architectures were defined with superscalar implementation in mind. CISC architectures were defined at a time when the principal implementation technique was microcode interpretation of the instruction set, with an emphasis on deciding which operations should be combined into instructions rather than designing operations so that they could be overlapped. While enormously versatile, microcode interpretation does not facilitate development of pipelined architectures or superscalar architectures. Difficulties arise from numerous aspects of conventional CISC architectures, including instruction format complexity. An aspect of the instruction format complexity is instruction length variability.
An example of a CISC instruction format is the instruction format of the model 80486 microprocessor and the Pentium.TM. microprocessor, which are available from Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif. In this instruction format, which inherits characteristics from earlier Intel instruction sets and is generally known as the x86 format, an instruction may have an operation code ("opcode") consisting of one or two opcode bytes, a modify register or memory ("mod r/m") byte, a scale-index-base ("sib") byte, displacement bytes, and immediate date bytes. The opcode specifies the operation code, and may also contain a register identifier. The mod r/m byte specifies whether an operand is in a register or in memory. If the operand is in memory, fields in the mod r/m byte specify the addressing mode to be used. Certain encodings of the mod r/m byte indicate that a second byte, the sib byte, follows to fully specify the addressing mode. The sib byte consists of a 2-bit scale field, a 3-bit index field, and a 3-bit base field. These fields are used in complex memory addressing modes to specify how address computation is done. The displacement byte is used in address computation. The immediate data byte is used for an instruction operand. One or more additional bytes, known as prefix bytes, may appear before the opcode byte. The prefix byte changes the interpretation of the instruction, adding additional complexity.
As is apparent from the foregoing discussion, the length of an instruction in the x86 format is widely variable. The minimum instruction consists of a single opcode byte and is 8 bits long. A long instruction that includes a prefix byte may be 104 bits long. Longer instructions containing more than a single prefix byte are possible as well.
The variable instruction length and other complications of the x86 instruction format has resulted in complex and hence relatively slow decoding circuits. While slow decoding circuits may be acceptable in slow microprocessors and in some CISC microprocessors which handle complex instructions, they seriously impact performance in microprocessors having architectures in which each functional element is optimized for speed.

Instruction queue scanning using opcode identification


The present assembly relates to a wheel chair having a base frame, a seat frame and a back frame, and a control device for rotating the back frame relative to the seat frame. The back frame includes a back support to receive a trunk portion of a user, the back support being displaceable by another control device relative to the back frame. A control unit communicates with the control devices for rotating and for displacing, the control unit being adjustable to vary the displacement of the back support according to the rotation of the back frame to minimize shear forces between the user's trunk and the back support.

`Tilt` refers to a change in angle of the seat frame relative to the wheel chair frame, while the angle of the back frame relative to the seat frame stays constant.
`Recline` refers to a change in the angle of the back frame relative to the seat frame. In this case, the angle of the back frame relative to the seat frame increases or decreases to the desired back frame position while the seat frame angle relative to the wheel chair frame stays constant.
Shearing` refers to the shear or tangential forces that occur as a result of the relative displacement between the user's trunk and the back support. This occurs because the center of rotation of the user's trunk (approximately located at the user's hip joint) does not coincide with the axis of rotation of the back frame. Shearing is a problem because it can cause decubitus ulcers (pressure sores) on the user's body and because it creates problems in maintaining the correct position of the postural supports (e.g. chest pads, headrests) and control devices (e.g. chin control systems) relative to the user.
`Zero-Shear` is an industry used term that refers to a reclining back system that uses a mechanism which significantly reduces (but not necessarily completely) eliminates the effects of shear. Because the back support moves with the user, postural support and control devices are often attached to the back support to maintain correct positioning of these devices relative to the user.
Typically, zero-shear systems utilize a sliding back support that is either attached to the back frame with glide blocks or rollers. Sliding back supports are usually actuated with mechanical linkages, cam or cable systems and which travel at a fixed speed relative to the rotation of the back frame. The conventional devices have been found to be unsatisfactory, since they fail to take into account the specific needs of each user, tend to change from one user to another.
Conventional motorized wheel chairs have also been outfitted with `anti-tipping` wheels emerging from the chair to support the chair from overturning. However, there are some instances where conventional `anti-tipping` wheels fail to prevent overturning because they fail to take into account that the centre of gravity of the user may shift as the chair is adjusted.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to obviate or mitigate the above mentioned disadvantages.


A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device having recess gates includes forming an etch stop film on a semiconductor substrate; forming an etch stop film pattern selectively exposing the semiconductor substrate by patterning the etch stop film; forming a semiconductor layer on the semiconductor substrate; forming a hard mask film pattern exposing regions, for forming trenches for recess gates, on the semiconductor substrate; removing the semiconductor layer using the hard mask film pattern as a mask until the etch stop film pattern is exposed; forming the trenches for recess gates by removing the etch stop film pattern from the semiconductor substrate; and forming gate stacks, each of which is formed in the corresponding one of the trenches for recess gates.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and more particularly to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device having recess gates with uniform trenches.
2. Description of Related Art
As DRAM cells have become highly integrated, design rules for the miniaturization of devices have been developed. Thus, the size of cell transistors and the length of transistor channels have decreased. The decrease in the length of the channels generates a short channel effect, which causes a decrease in the threshold voltage, an increase in the leakage current, and deterioration of refresh characteristics. Accordingly, a semiconductor device having recess gates has been proposed, in which the length of the channel is increased without increasing the footprint of the gate by extending the channel downward into the substrate.
FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a conventional semiconductor device having recess gates.
With reference to FIG. 1, trenches 111, having a designated depth from the surface of a semiconductor substrate 100, are formed in the semiconductor substrate 100. The active regions in a cell are restricted by an isolation film 102. Then, a gate stack 112 is disposed in each of the trenches 111, and source/drain impurities are implanted into the semiconductor substrate 100, thus forming channels (A). The gate stack 112 includes a gate dielectric film pattern 104, a semiconductor layer pattern 106, a metal film pattern 108, and a hard mask film pattern 110. Compared with a semiconductor device having flat channels, the semiconductor device having the recess gates has channels of a longer length, thus reducing the short channel effect.
When trenches for recess gates are formed by etching the semiconductor substrate 100, the trenches are designed to have a uniform depth, but may have different depths depending on several process conditions. When the depths of the trenches are not uniform, threshold voltages of the cell regions is not uniformly distributed. Thereby, electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device may deteriorate.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method for manufacturing semiconductor device having recess gate


A method for opening a vehicle covering system for a convertible. The covering system has a first, second and third roof sections and a one-piece cover for stretching over all three roof sections. The three roof sections can be pivoted from an open position covering the vehicle to a terminal folded position within the vehicle.

This invention relates to a method for opening a motor vehicle covering system for a convertible, especially for a four-seated convertible, comprising three roof sections.
Open motor vehicles in the form of convertibles are enjoying growing popularity. Increasingly, these vehicles are not only being used as pure xe2x80x9cfair weatherxe2x80x9d vehicles during the warmer seasons, but must also be capable of withstanding all weather conditions in order to serve as an alternative to conventional coupes.
However, this means that, on the one hand, stable covering systems are needed which are resistant to all weather conditions, especially to snow and ice during the winter, and which, on the other hand, can be quickly and easily opened and then closed again at any time and during any season.
As such vehicles are being used on a daily basis, there is an increased need to provide them with greater loading capabilities, so as to allow for the transport of larger amounts of luggage and items purchased for household and residential use, especially for convertibles with four seats that are used as family cars.
A particular disadvantage of the motor vehicle covering systems for four-seated convertibles known in the art is that they are bulky when in a folded state. This reduces load volume, especially in the trunk space. In addition, these motor vehicle covering systems generally protrude upward significantly past the tail end of the motor vehicle, thus creating an esthetically unsatisfactory overall impression.
Therefore, the main objective of this invention is to provide a method for opening a motor vehicle covering system for convertibles, especially for four-seated convertibles, that allows the covering system to be easily folded open and closed and to be exceptionally space-saving when in its folded position.
This objective is solved by the features of claim 1.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a method for opening a vehicle covering system for a convertible comprising the following steps: providing a vehicle with a vehicle covering system comprising a first, front roof section, a second, central roof section, a third, rear roof section and a one-piece cover being is stretched over all three roof sections, the roof sections having supporting frame elements on each lateral side thereof and being contiguous with one another in the closed position of the vehicle covering system; pivoting the third, rear roof section in the direction of a tail of the vehicle, thereby lifting up the first, front roof section over the level of the top of the second, central roof section, moving the first, front roof section over the top of the second, central roof section by shifting the first, front roof section along a support hinged on the third, rear roof section, and simultaneously pivoting the first, front roof section together with the second, central roof section with respect to a third, rear roof section in the direction of a front end of the vehicle; depositing the third, rear roof section upside down in a bottom of the tail of the vehicle and depositing the first, front roof section together with the second, central roof section onto the third, rear roof section, thereby providing a folded terminal position with the roof sections being stacked over one another in a configuration in which the second, central roof section is sandwiched between said first, front roof section and said third, rear roof section.
This space-saving design can be effectively installed in the motor vehicle while at the same time providing for a substantially enhanced esthetic design of the covering system in the closed position. In addition, the space-saving closed position makes it possible to achieve a more favorable aerodynamic design, thus allowing for a significant reduction in the vehicle""s drag coefficient. This is not only advantageous in terms of fuel consumption, but can also lead to a substantial reduction in wind noise.
Advantageously, the third, rear roof section comprises two articulated support rods at each side of the vehicle, each having an upper and a lower end, wherein the lower ends each are hinged to the vehicle at a pivot so that the articulated support rods can be pivoted in the direction of the tail of the vehicle around a swiveling axis formed by the pivots of their lower ends.
When the opening mechanism starts, the supporting frame elements of the first, front roof section and the second, central roof section are lifted away from a front and a rear side window as to remove the side window gaskets of said frame elements from the side windows.
The first and the second roof section each are pivoted in the direction of a front end of the vehicle around a moving swiveling axis in the region of the upper ends of the articulated support rods of the third roof section. Therefore it is possible to save even more space in the folded terminal position.


The present invention discloses a method comprising a first step of the client transmitting a bandwidth test request signal to the server; a second step of the server transmitting a test request approval signal to the client; a third step of the client conducting a bandwidth test for respective lines; a fourth step of the client transmitting results of the bandwidth test to the server; a fifth step of the server setting first traffic distribution weights; a sixth step of the client setting second traffic distribution weights; and a seventh step of the server distributing data to respective lines depending on the first traffic distribution weights and transmitting the distributed data to the client and the client distributing data to respective lines depending on the second traffic distribution weights and transmitting the distributed data to the server.

Recently, with the development of Internet communication and network technology, the communication technology field has been developed very rapidly. Alongside such a development, the amount of data communication used between users has also greatly increased. Accordingly, the development of a system capable of transmitting a larger amount of data for a shorter time has now been highlighted as an important subject.
One of important factors in data transmitting is the data transfer rate. Data transfer rate refers to the amount of digital data transferred from one location to another location over a given time (generally, per second). Generally, the wider the bandwidth of a given path is, the higher the data transfer rate is. Data transmission in communication is typically measured in Bits Per Second (BPS). For example, the typical rate of Internet access by using a modem is about 56 Kbps, and the rate of data transmission conducted through a local area network, such as the Ethernet, is about 10 Mbps.
Another important factor in data transmission, together with the data transfer rate, is the number of lines through which data can be transmitted. The term "line" refers to, in brief, a path along which data is transferred when data transmission is performed between respective devices. For sure, it is apparent that a method of dividing and transmitting data using a plurality of lines improves the data transfer rate compared to a method of transmitting data using a single line.
In a case of transmitting data between a server and a client where equivalent lines through are exist between the server and the client, the prior art generally uses a method of distributing data packets having same amount of data into the existing equivalent lines. For example, if there are four lines and data composed of eight packets exists, the prior art uses a method of transmitting data by distributing two packets to each line. Alternatively, the prior art may use a method of setting a distribution ratio of data packets for respective lines through the user's manual manipulation and distributing data packets for respective lines using the distribution ratio.
However, when a plularity of lines are present between the server and the client, the bandwidths of the respective lines are not identical to each other, so that transfer rates for respective lines may be differently measured. As a result, when data packets having the same amount of data are distributed to the plularity of lines, as in the case of the prior art, there is a problem in that the maximum efficiency in data transfer rate cannot be realized.
Meanwhile, the distribution of data packets through the user's manual manipulation is also limited in that the bandwidths of respective lines are not always maintained at uniform values but may be varied due to changes in the surrounding environment or the like, so that distributing data packets are not always efficiently.

Method and system for transmitting data using traffic distribution for each line between server and client connected by virtual interface


The present invention provides novel power saving methods for programmable logic array (PLA) circuits. One method is to store the results of a previous PLA operation, and bypass a new operation if the inputs are the same as previous operation. Another method is to reset the PLA outputs when the correct results can be achieved by resetting output latches. A large PLA is divided into smaller sub-PLA""s while individual sub-PLA""s are controlled separately. It is therefore possible to save power by bypassing unrelated sub-PLA""s. PLA""s of the present invention consume less power than equivalent prior art PLA""s by orders of magnitudes. For most cases, PLA""s of the present invention also have better performance and better cost efficiency. The design procedures are completely controlled by user-friendly computer aid design tools. The regular structures of PLA and the simplicity in connections allow us to avoid RC effects of conductor lines. We are able to achieve full performance improvement as IC technologies continue to progress into smaller and smaller critical dimensions.

The present invention relates to circuit design methods for programmable logic arrays, and more particularly to power saving methods for programmable logic arrays.
Programmable logic array (PLA) circuits and gate array (GA) logic circuits are the most common building modules for integrated circuit (IC) logic products. After IC designers describe logic operations by hardware description language (HDL), computer aid design (CAD) tools automatically translate the HDL into PLA or gate array circuits. These two methods (PLA or GA) are exchangeable. Most of logic circuits can be implemented by either way. PLA CAD tools combine all the logic relationships between a large number of input and output signals into one large group of AND operations followed by one large group of OR operations, and represent those operations by arrays of programmable connections. The physical structure of a PLA is highly regular, and its timing is easily predictable. On the contrary, gate array CAD tools break down complex logic calculations into series of single step logic operations such as NAND, NOR, INVERT, and implement those logic operations by a large number of logic gates. Such procedure is called xe2x80x9csynthesizingxe2x80x9d in the art. The physical structures of GA logic circuits are nearly random. That is why they are often called xe2x80x9crandom logic circuitsxe2x80x9d in the art. It usually requires very complex connections between logic gates. As IC fabrication technologies progressed into deep sub-micron, the resistance of conductor lines and the coupling capacitors between conductors became significant. The complex connections in GA logic circuits make timing calibration and performance optimization very difficult even with the helps of the most advanced CAD tools. It is expected that future IC technologies will not be able to improve circuit performance by reducing transistor dimensions due to the resistance and capacitor (RC) of conductor lines. On the other hand, PLA adapts better for the RC problem in advanced IC technologies due to its regular structures. The limitation for PLA comes from its power consumption. PLA consumes much more power than GA. Power requirement makes it nearly impossible to implement a large logic circuit completely by PLA.
Before the invention itself is explained, a typical prior art PLA is first explained to facilitate the understanding of the invention. FIG. 1(a) is a schematic diagram showing the function and geometry of a prior art PLA. This PLA contains two programmable diode arrays (102,103). The first diode array (102) is called the xe2x80x9cAND arrayxe2x80x9d of the PLA because its function is to execute logic AND operations of its inputs. This AND array (102) contains (J+1) pairs of input lines (I0, I0#, I1, I1#, . . . , Ij, Ij#, . . . , IJ, IJ#), and (K+1) output lines (A0, A1, . . . , Ak, . . . , AK), where j, J, k and K are integers. Diodes (100) are selectively connected between the AND array input lines and the AND array output lines to control its logic functions. For the example in FIG. 1(a), A0 is connected to I0, I1#, and IJ# through diodes. If any one of the connected signals (Ib., I1#, IJ#) are low, A0 will be low. On the other word, A0=I0*I1#*IJ#, where xe2x80x9c*xe2x80x9d represents logic AND operation. For another example, Ak is connected to I1 and IJ# through diodes so that Ak=[I1*IJ#], . . . etc.
The second diode array (103) of the PLA is called the xe2x80x9cOR arrayxe2x80x9d because its function is to execute logic OR operations. This OR array comprises (K+1) input lines (A0xe2x80x2, A1xe2x80x2, . . . , Akxe2x80x2, . . . , AKxe2x80x2), and (M+1) output lines (R0, R1 . . . , Rm, . . . , RM), where k, K, m and M are integers. Diodes (109) are selectively connected between the OR array input lines and the OR array output lines to control its logic functions. For the example in FIG. 1(a), R0 is connected to A0xe2x80x2, A1xe2x80x2, and Akxe2x80x2 through diodes. If any one of the connected signals (A0xe2x80x2, A1xe2x80x2, Akxe2x80x2) are high, R0 will be high. On the other word, R0=[A0xe2x80x2+A1xe2x80x2+Akxe2x80x2], where xe2x80x9c+xe2x80x9d represents logic OR operation. RM is connected to A1xe2x80x2, Akxe2x80x2 and AKxe2x80x2 through diodes so that RM=[A1xe2x80x2+Akxe2x80x2+AKxe2x80x2], . . . etc. The horizontal lines of the AND array and OR array represent intermediate logic terms called xe2x80x9cmintermsxe2x80x9d in the art.
This PLA has (J+1) external input signals (IN1, IN2, . . . , INj, . . . , INJ), where j and J are integers. Each input signal is connected to one PLA input circuitry (105). Details of the PLA input circuitry (105) are shown in FIG. 1(b). For the example, the jxe2x80x2th PLA input signal (INj) is connected to an inverter (121) to generate an inverted signal INj# that is connected to the gate of an n-channel transistor (MN1). The source of MN1 is connected to the drain of another n-channel transistor (MN3). The drain of MN1 is connected to one PLA AND array input signal (Ij), that is also connected to the drain of a p-channel transistor (MP1). The source of MP1 is connected to power supply voltage Vcc. The gate of MP1 is connected to pre-charge signal PG#, that is also connected to the gate of MN3. The source of MN3 is connected to ground. The signal INj# is inverted by an inverter (122) before it is connected to the gate of an n-channel transistor (MN2). The source of MN2 is connected to the drain of another n-channel transistor (MN4). The drain of MN2 is connected to the other PLA AND array input signal (Ij#), that is also connected to the drain of a p-channel transistor (MP2). The source of MP2 is connected to Vcc, while the gate of MP2 is connected to the pre-charge signal PG#. The gate of MN4 is also connected to PG#. The source of MN4 is connected to Vss. When the PLA is idle, PG# is low, and both Ij and Ij# are pulled to power supply voltage Vcc. When the PLA is activated by pulling PG# high, Ij and Ij# are activated; if INj is high, Ij# is driven to ground voltage Vss while Ij is at high impedance state; if INj is low, Ij is driven to Vss while Ij# is at high impedance state. Referring back to FIG. 1(a), paired input signals are connected to vertical input lines (Ib., Ib.#, I1, I1#, . . . , Ij, Ij#, . . . , Ij, IJ#) of the AND array (102). These AND array input lines intersect horizontal AND array output lines (A1, A2, . . . , Ak, . . . , AK). At idle state, these horizontal lines (A1, A2, . . . , Ak, . . . , AK) of the AND array are pre-charged to Vcc using p-channel transistors (104) controlled by pre-charge signal PG#. The signal PG# is also connected to a delay circuit (108) to generate OR array pre-charge signals (PG, PG1#). FIG. 1(c) shows the structures of the delay circuit (108). A programmable delay circuitry (125) provides proper delay time, and the output of the delay circuit is connected to an inverter (126) to generate signal PG that is also connected to another inverter (127) to generate signal PG1#. These OR array pre-charge signals (PG, PG1#) control the data converters (107) between AND array and OR array. The structure of the data converter (107) is shown in FIG. 1(d). The kxe2x80x2th AND array output signal (Ak) is inverted by an inverter (123) before connected to the gate of a p-channel transistor (MP5). The source of MP5 is connected to PG1#, while its drain is connected to corresponding OR array input line (Akxe2x80x2). Signal Akxe2x80x2 is also connected to the drain of an n-channel transistor (MN5). The gate of MN5 is connected to PG, while its source is connected to ground Vss. At idle state, PG1# is low and PG is high so that Akxe2x80x2 is always driven to Vss. When the OR array (103) is activated, PG is low and PG1# is high; Akxe2x80x2 is driven to Vcc if Ak is high, while it is at high impedance if Ak is low.
FIG. 1(e) illustrates the timing waveforms of critical signals for the PLA. Before time Tst, the PLA is at idle state; both PG# and PG1# are low; all the AND array input signals (Ij, Ij#, j=0, 1, . . . , J) and output signals (Ak, k=0, 1, . . . , K) are high; all the OR array input signals (Akxe2x80x2, k=0,1, . . . , K) and all the PLA output signals (Rm, m=0,1, . . . , M) are low. At time Tst, the AND arrays are activated by pulling PG# high, and some of the AND array output signals (Ak, k=0,1, . . . , K) are pulled low depending on the diode connections and the value of PLA input signals. At time Tr in FIG. 1(e), PG1# is pulled high to activate the PLA OR arrays, and the values of the AND array outputs (Ak) propagate to the OR array to generate PLA outputs (Rm). The PLA outputs (Rm) are ready at time Td in FIG. 1(e). To terminate the PLA operation, PG# is pull down at time Trst, and all the signals return to their idle states at time Te as shown in FIG. 1(e).
The above example uses diodes in the programmable arrays. There are many other types of prior art PLA""s. For example, many prior art PLA""s use n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) transistors in the programmable array. The AND-OR arrays can be replaced by NOR-NAND arrays or other types of logic combinations. All of those prior art PLA""s follow similar operational principles, and they have the same problems that can be solved by the same solutions of the present invention. We will not describe other prior art PLA""s in further details.
For simplicity, we only reveal small parts of the programmable connections in the AND arrays and OR arrays in FIG. 1(a). In reality, a PLA usually have hundreds of minterms. FIG. 1(f) shows a symbolic representation used by the present inventor to show the connections in large programmable arrays. Each vertical line in the AND array (161) represents a pair of input lines. Each horizontal line in the AND array (161) represents one output line. An open dot (164) at the intersection between an input line and an output line of the AND array (161) represents a programmable connection between a positive input line and an output line at the intersection. A solid dot (163) at the intersection between an input line and an output line of the AND array (161) represents a programmable connection between a negative input line and an output line at the intersection. Each horizontal line in the OR array (162) represents an OR array input line. Each vertical line in the OR array (162) represents one output line of the OR array. An open dot (165) at the intersection between an input line and an output line of the OR array (162) represents a programmable connection. The peripheral circuits are not shown in details in this symbolic diagram. The symbolic diagram in FIG. 1(f) allows us to show the connections of large PLA with simple diagrams. We will use similar symbolic diagrams in the following discussions.
PLA circuits usually use smaller areas than combination logic circuits of the same functions. The regular structures of PLA also make it much easier to make modifications. Timing and speed of PLA circuits are much easier to control, especially for advanced IC technologies. Power consumption is its major disadvantage. The above example in FIGS. 1(a-f) illustrates the reasons why prior art PLA""s consume more power than gate array logic circuits. Gate array logic circuits break down complex logic calculations into single step logic operations, and implement those logic operations by series of logic gates. During a logic calculation, only those gates change their outputs would consume power. For most of cases, only a small part of the gates in a large GA logic circuitry consume power. A PLA combines all the logic relations between a large number of input signals and output signals into programmable logic arrays with hundreds of minterms. A PLA always consumes power whenever it is activated.
Even for the simplest logic operations the PLA will consume maximum power as if all the inputs and outputs are involved. Therefore, PLA""s usually consume much more power than equivalent GA circuits.
Engeler et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,249 provided a method to reduce PLA power consumption by designing PLA using CMOS static circuits. A static PLA consumes no power when all the PLA inputs are not changed. However, the static PLA still consumes a lot of power because each PLA signal is connected to a large loading. The static PLA also occupies much larger area than conventional PLA. The invention provides partial solution to the power consumption problem, but the major sources of the problem are not solved.
The primary objective of this invention is, therefore, to providing practical methods to reduce power consumed by PLA circuits. Another objective of this invention is to improve the performance of PLA. The other objective of the present invention is to provide power saving and performance improvement without increasing area and cost of PLA. Another primary objective of the present invention is to provide the capability to maximize the performance of logic circuits using advanced IC fabrication technologies.
These and other objectives are accomplished by novel PLA optimization methods. A large PLA is partitioned into smaller sub-PLA""s. Minterms with shared logic terms are grouped together into the same partitions. Each individual PLA sub-array is activated only when its operation is required. There will be no power consumption whenever a sub-array won""t influence the final outputs. A PLA of the present invention has the regular structures of prior art PLA""s, while it has the power consumption characteristics of current art GA logic circuits. The power consumption of the resulting PLA is as low as equivalent GA logic circuits. For most cases, PLA""s of the present invention occupy smaller areas than prior art PLA""s. The performance is also improved.

Power saving methods for programmable logic arrays


An electrical connection arrangement for electrical connection of an electrical device with a bottom part for holding at least one device-side cable, with a top part for holding at least one connection-side cable and with a contact body for electrical connection of the device-side cable to the connection-side cable, the bottom part and the top part being formed essentially of an electrically insulating material. The connection is improved in that at least one fastening device for fastening at least one device-side cable is formed in the bottom part, that the contact body is located in the top part and has a first contact device and a second contact device, and that, in the joined position of the bottom part to the top part, the contact body makes contact with the device-side cable with the first contact device and makes contact with the connection-side cable with the second contact device.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an electrical connection arrangement for electrical connection of an electrical device, especially an electric motor, with a bottom part for holding at least one device-side cable, with a top part for holding at least one connection-side cable and with a contact body for electrical connection of the device-side cable to the connection-side cable, the bottom part and the top part being formed essentially of an electrically insulating material.
2. Description of Related Art
Electrical connection arrangements of the type under consideration are known and are used for quite different contact-making and connection purposes. From plant construction for example terminal blocks are known which are designed conventionally for top-hat rail installation in a switching cabinet and consist of a bottom part and a top part (Phoenix Contact product catalog, COMBICON® Circuit board connection, 2000/01, pages 198-212). After the lower part of the connection arrangement is locked on, the device-side cable, from which the insulation has been stripped on the end side, is inserted into the bottom part and is electrically connected there to a contact body located in the bottom part by a clamping or screw connection. Connection-side stripped cables are then fastened in or on a contact body made as a push-on terminal strip which is located in the top part. When the top part and the bottom part are moved into the common joined position, at the same time, the contact between the contact body in the top part and the contact body in the bottom part, and thus, a connection between the connection-side and the device-side cable, are produced.
German Patent Application DE 102 32 281 A1 discloses another electrical connection arrangement which, in any case, is tailored to a special application for connecting a cable set to the stator-winding ends of an external-rotor motor. The bottom part of this connection arrangement is intended for mounting on the motor housing, the device-side cable—therefore the motor-side winding ends—being electrically connected to the contact bodies which are located in the bottom part and which are made as insulation piercing contacts; consequently, there is no need for preparatory insulation stripping of the device-side cable ends. The distributed contact bodies extend as far as a plug receiver which is made in the bottom part and into which the top part made as a plug-in terminal strip can be inserted. In the top part, there are, in turn, corresponding contact bodies which can be electrically connected to the connection-side cables. Via plug-in jumpers which can be inserted into the top part, various contact bodies located in the top part can be electrically connected to one another; this is used especially for optional wiring of motor windings into a star or triangle arrangement.
Even if the electrical connection of a device with the above described connection arrangement compared to the first example from the prior art has been simplified as a result of using insulation piercing contacts, the connection process is nevertheless still comparatively complex. In particular, when contact of the device-side cable with the insulation piercing contacts is made, there is the danger of mechanical and electrical damage since, after contact-making of the device-side cable, there is a device-side potential—for example, from a buffer capacitor—on the insulation piercing contacts.

Electrical connection arrangement with simplified fastening device for electrical connection of an electrical device


A valve body is provided with a valve chamber with a predetermined size having at both ends a fluid inlet and a fluid outlet, a coil spring mounted within the valve chamber of the valve body and expanding and contracting depending upon a variation of fluid temperature with respect to a predetermined value, and a needle inserted into the coil spring for opening and closing fluid passages by moving leftward and rightward within the valve chamber in response to the expansion and contraction of the coil spring.

The present invention relates to an automatic temperature control valve for automatically adjusting or controlling temperature of fluid passing through a valve body and, more particularly, to an automatic temperature control valve, wherein fluid or gas passing through a valve body is automatically adjusted or controlled using shape-memory alloy, thereby keeping the temperature of the fluid constant.
In general, a valve device controls the flow of fluid by using a valve stem and a handle adapted to depress a valve seat through which the fluid pass. Further, a temperature control device is employed to detect temperature of the fluid passing through the valve seat for a remote control of the fluid temperature.
As shown in FIG. 1, the prior art valve device for keeping the temperature of the fluid constant includes a fluid detecting sensor 103 mounted to a stem 102 of the valve 101 for detecting temperature of the fluid passing through a valve chamber, a transmission member 104 connected to the fluid detecting sensor 103 for transmitting signals therefrom, and a temperature control device 105 for opening and closing fluid passage depending upon the temperature signals from the transmission member 104 in order to keep the fluid at a constant temperature of a predetermined value.
Although the prior art valve device constructed in this manner works well during an initial period of time after an installation process, it experiences malfunction in controlling the temperature after a certain period of time, due to, e.g., aged components or external environmental factors. In addition, in the prior art valve device, the temperature control device is separated from the fluid detecting sensor by a long distance. Further, the prior art valve device is expensive and has a problem in that it""s configuration gives a discomfort in a repair process. Furthermore, since the valve device is manually opened and closed by the handle, it is cumbersome to manipulate the handle.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the invention to provide an automatic temperature control valve wherein fluid passage of a valve body is automatically opened and closed to allow only fluid having a desired temperature to be flown by using shape-memory alloy within the valve body in order to keep the fluid at a constant temperature of a selected value.
In order to achieve the object, the present invention provides a valve body including therein a valve chamber with a predetermined size having at both ends a fluid inlet and a fluid outlet; an expansion and contraction means mounted within the valve chamber of the valve body and expanding and contracting depending upon a variation of fluid temperature with respect to a predetermined value; and a first opening and closing means inserted into the expansion and contraction means for opening and closing fluid passages by moving leftward and rightward within the valve chamber in response to the expansion and contraction of the expansion and contraction means.

#404 Dongnam-Apt., Mansoo 5 dong, Namdong-Gu

303 Cheongovilla, Daechi-Dong Gangnam-Gu


A small wind power installation of between about 50 and 150 kW nominal power, which can be set up practically at any location in the world as independently as possible of intensive machine support. A wind power installation is disclosed with a plurality of installation parts such as rotor, generator, machine casing and pylon, wherein the installation parts are disposed in at least one container during transport to the building site of the wind power installation and are assembled to form a wind power installation at the location of construction of the wind power installation, wherein the container is such that it accommodates the pylon of the wind power installation and forms the foundation of the wind power installation when sunk into the ground.

The present invention relates to structures to support and set up a wind power installation, and more particularly to setting up a wind power installation that is of a smaller scale, such as 50 to 150 kw average power production.
1. Field of the Invention
Wind power installation technology has seen dramatic developments in the last 20 years. In the meantime there are installations of the order of magnitude of up to 5 MW and future development leads to an expectation of installations with an even greater nominal power. The present application does not preferably concern such megawatt installations but rather small installations, in particular a small wind power installation of between about 50 and 150 kW nominal power, which can be set up practically at any location in the world as independently as possible of intensive machine support.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, for the production of the wind power installations, it is usual for individual components of the wind power installation, for example the pylon, the rotor, the rotor blades, the generator, the machine casing, the transformer, the control electronics and so forth to be transported individually to the erection location, and assembled there. In that respect, erection of the pylon usually requires a crane which is also needed for positioning the machine casing and for mounting the rotor and the generator. The individual parts of the installation are taken to the place at which the wind power installation is to be erected, by means of trucks.

Construction apparatus and method for a wind power installation


The subject of the invention is a system for inducing an electric field in a conducting medium, especially for medical applications. The system according to the invention induces a flow of electric current through objects located in the conducting medium, which may have shapes that are complex or change with time, and has a medical application consisting in a complete or partial nerve impulse block. The system for inducing an electric field in the conducting medium comprises at least two component cores, whose magnetization is configured to be changed independently by a change of electric currents flowing through windings that are wound around them, and a torus-shaped encasement whose outer surface is electrically non-conductive, wherein the component cores are situated inside the encasement and encircle its opening, and the encasement is situated inside the conducting medium.

There are known systems that generate electric field utilizing the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction described by Faraday's law. Systems utilizing magnetic cores immersed in a medium with a good electrical conductivity enable to obtain high electric field intensity using significantly smaller current than in the case of systems utilizing air core coils. This is a result of much higher magnetic permeability of the materials the magnetic cores are made from, so that a small changing current, which flows through windings that surround them, allows to obtain a high changing magnetization of the core, thus creating a large electromotive force by the means of a high changing magnetic flux.
The possibility of a complete or partial nerve impulse block utilizing electrodes is known in the scientific field for a long time. Thus far it was not widely used outside the laboratory due to necessity for utilizing large currents that are generated continuously, which results in electrochemical reactions on the surface of electrodes that are harmful for the human body.
The publication "Contactless nerve stimulation and signal detection by inductive transducer", Maass, J., M. Asa, describes the use of an electric field induced by a magnetic core in order to elicit an action potential in a nerve in vivo. A magnetic core consisted of two halves that were covered with a medical-grade-silicon rubber, which allowed to put the core on a nerve fiber that constituted a secondary winding of the transformer. The publication does not mention a possibility of utilizing the silicone coat to provide a tight contact between the core and the nerve fiber, and the description as well as the drawings show that the nerve fiber should have an ability to move freely relative to the core.
The article "Magnetic nerve stimulation without interlinkage between nerve and magnetic flux", Ueno, S., et al., describes a magnetic core inducing an electric field in a conducting medium, which is surrounded by an insulating cover that enables shaping of the current flow. The cover may have an arbitrary, pre-determined shape. The article does not mention a possibility of using a cover made from an elastic material, which would decrease losses caused by a current not going into the nerve fiber by the means of a tight contact.
In patent literature the application WO 2001007111 describes a use of a system utilizing a magnetic core in order to transcutaneously elicit an action potential in patient's body by the means of an electric field induced by a magnetic core in a vessel filled with a conductive fluid. The application does not mention a possibility of utilizing the system to block nerve impulses. The cores may have various, pre-determined shapes and are covered with a non-conductive coat made from a stiff epoxy paste.
In U.S. Pat. No. 9,233,258 the patent description shows a system for generating an electric field by the means of magnetic cores situated in a cover comprising a conducting medium, in which a good electrical contact with the body is provided by filling with the conducting medium or by the means of an elastic membrane having a good electrical conductivity, through which an induced current flows. One of the variants describes a thin membrane of high dielectric constant, which acts as a conductor for capacitive currents of high frequency. The applied solutions allow only for affecting a small surface area and the patent description does not suggest utilizing deformable, electrically non-conductive elastomers, that would create a barrier for the current flow.
A magnetic coil intended for utilization in textile products, with a winding made from a conducting yarn and a core made from a fiber that contains a magnetic powder, which posses an ability to change its shape that is appropriate for textile products is known from patent description PL 206581. This system is, however, unsuitable for inducing and shaping an electric field in a conducting medium.

System for inducing an electric field in a conducting medium, especially for medical applications


This invention relates to a method of promoting the adhesion of textiles to rubber compounds through a vinyl compound plasma pre-treatment procedure and a subsequent application of resorcinol-formaldehyde latex (RFL) to the textile surface. The inventive method encompasses a process through which free radicals of compounds comprising strong carbon-carbon bonds form a film over textile films and then covalently bonded to the resin component of the RFL. Such a method thus produces an extremely strong and versatile adhesive that facilitates adhesion between rubber compounds and heretofore unusable or difficult-to-use textiles. The resultant textile/rubber composites are utilized as reinforcements within such materials as automobile tires, fan belts, conveyor belts, and the like. Such materials and composites are also contemplated within this invention.

This invention relates to a method of promoting the adhesion of textiles to rubber compounds through a vinyl compound plasma pretreatment procedure and a subsequent application of resorcinol-for aldehyde latex (RFL) to the textile surface. The inventive method encompasses a process through which free radicals of compounds comprising strong carbon-carbon bonds form a film over a textile substrate and then covalently bond the textile to the resin component of the RFL. Such a method thus produces an extremely strong and versatile adhesive that facilitates adhesion between rubber compounds and heretofore unusable or difficult-to-use textiles. The resultant textile/rubber composites are utilized as reinforcements within such materials as automobile tires, fan belts, conveyor belts, and the like. Such materials and composites are also contemplated within this invention.
It has long been known that adhering a textile, particularly one composed of filaments having high tenacity to a rubber enhances the modulus and tensile strength of the rubber component and provides long-lasting durability, particularly in high friction applications. Examples of such applications include fan and timing belts within automobile engines; vehicle tires; conveyor belts; and the like. The main requirement of such textile-reinforced rubber articles has been the strength of adhesion between the textile and the rubber. Without any primer treatment, the textile will not effectively adhere to the rubber. A weak bond between the two components results in separation of the two layers and mechanical failure of the resulting composite. Thus, it has been and is necessary to provide a textile treatment to enhance the adhesion of these two distinct components.
The primary method followed within the prior art of providing such adherence between rubber and textile layers includes coating or impregnating the textile layer with a formaldehyde latex, such as a resorcinol formaldehyde vinyl-pyridine rubber latex or RFL. This creates a resin layer which encapsulates the textile fibers and also has encapsulated within it rubber particles which can be adhered to the rubber compound through a curing process. Unfortunately, this process does not provide substantial adhesion between the resin encapsulating layer and the textile fibers. Various methods of promoting adhesion between the resin and the textile have been disclosed including pre-coating the textile with an RFL latex and an amino functional polyacrylate, as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,099, to Pelton, and in European Patent Application 665,390, to Tsubakimoto Chain Company, or utilizing a pre-activated textile which has reactive pendant groups to facilitate adhesion between the fabric surface and the reactive sites on the rubber layer, all of the aforementioned references being herein entirely incorporated by reference. The RFL coating method results in a composition which does not always provide sufficient adhesion between layers. Pre-activated textiles, such as a polyester fibers coated with an epoxy adhesion enhancer, are typically used in combination with an RFL treatment to further improve the textile adhesion to rubbers. Although such pre-activated textiles perform well in many cases, there remains a need for less expensive methods and compositions for adhesion promotion between rubber and textile layers in order ultimately to produce a reinforced, long-lasting, and durable rubber product. Also worth mentioning are U.S. Pat. No. 5,064,876, to Hamada et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,738, to Swofford, both of which teach a primer composition for promoting adhesion for polymer films.
Different, stronger textile/rubber composites have been formed through the utilization of plasma pre-treatment methods. Of particular interest are U.S. Pat. No. 5,501,880 to Parker et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,283,119 to Shuttleworth et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,053,246 to Shuttleworth et al. Each of these references discloses a plasma pretreatment of textiles in order to effectuate improved adhesion between the textile and a RFL rubber. Within these methods, the textile surface is cleaned with specific plasma gases (O2/CF4) initially and then treated again with other plasma gases to provide a surface which facilitates adhesion between the textile and the RFL. Plasma cleaning and activation provide a pristine surface with a more favorable surface energy for coating with an RFL latex. This increases the adhesion to the rubber by providing more thorough (and thus better) contact between the textile and the resin component of the RFL. However, there is still no substantial covalent bonding between the textile and the RFL. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,053,246 and 5,283,119, both to Shuttleworth et al., teach a subsequent step in which a CS2 plasma is utilized to plasma deposit a sulfur-containing film on the textile surface. This increases the adhesion further by allowing this film to cross-link with the rubber latex particles in the RFL. Unfortunately, the adhesion increase is relatively modest because the latex particles are substantially covered with the resin component of the RFL, blocking the creation of the desired covalent bonds. The chief benefit of these two patents is the availability of bonding rubber to a textile without utilizing an extra RFL component. However, the adhesion obtained is, again, unsatisfactory. Furthermore, sulfur-containing compounds present undesirable environmental hazards.
Thus, resin encapsulation of textile fibers appears to produce the limiting degree of adhesiveness for the resultant textile/rubber composite because the resin component will more easily become disengaged from around such textile fibers than if an actual resin film adhered substantially uniformly over the textile surface. This same type of problem has been noticed in other previous teachings, as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,466,424 to Kusano et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,316,739 to Yoshikawa et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,160,592 to Spitsin et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,780 to Pitt et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,925 to Furukawa et al.
This encapsulation characteristic has subsequently limited the types of textiles which may be employed within such prior methods. For instance, nylon (polyamide) is the primary (if not only) fabric available as a potential reinforcement material within the above-mentioned patent documents. This fabric permits strong adhesion between the resin of the RFL even through this encapsulation procedure and thus is readily utilized throughout the textile/rubber reinforcement composite industry. However, such a fabric suffers from a number of limitations itself. For example, as compared with polyester, nylon is much more expensive to use. Polyester, however, is very difficult to adhere with RFL rubber and thus has not proven to be easy to combine with rubber to form a proper reinforcement material in the past. Also, polyaramid textiles, such as Kevlar(copyright) (from DuPont du Nemours), Twaron(trademark) (from Akzo), and Technora(trademark) (from Teijin), as merely non-limiting examples, are well known as providing very strong reinforcements and are particularly desirable as textiles within such textile/rubber composites. However, these fabrics suffer from the same adhesion difficulty problem as with polyester and thus have had limited utility in the past within the pertinent industries (i.e., tire reinforcement, conveyor belts, and the like). As such, there still exists a need to facilitate adhesion between RFL rubber and polyesters or polyaramids in order to provide cost-effective and/or extremely strong textile/rubber reinforcement composites within the target industries (i.e., automobile tires, fan belts, conveyor belts, and the like).
It is thus an object of the invention to provide improved adhesion for a long-lasting and durable textile-reinforced rubber product comprised of any type of textile. A further object is to provide a plasma pretreatment method which itself provides versatility of selection of textiles. Another object of the invention is to provide a method of promoting adhesion which ultimately provides a textile-reinforced rubber product comprised of any type of textile which does not exhibit adhesive failure. Yet another object of this invention is to provide a method of plasma pre-treatment which ultimately produces vastly improved adhesive quailities within textile/rubber composites without incurring an appreciable amount of extra manufacturing costs.
Accordingly, this invention encompasses a method for promoting the adhesion between a textile and a rubber comprising the treatment of a textile in a vinyl compound plasma followed by coating the resultant textile with a resorcinol-formaldehyde latex and subsequently contacting said textile with a rubber compound. With greater particularity, this inventive method comprises the following steps
(a) providing a textile, at least a portion of which is comprised of fibers selected from the group consisting of polyaramids, polyesters, nylon and any mixtures thereof;
(b) plasma cleaning the textile surface, thereby attaching amino or carbonyl groups to the textile surface;
(c) treating the resultant textile of step xe2x80x9cbxe2x80x9d in a medium selected from the group consisting of a vinyl compound plasma and a plasma gas containing a vinyl compound, thereby attaching various carbon-bonded compounds having exposed free radicals to the textile;
(d) optionally coating the resultant textile of step xe2x80x9ccxe2x80x9d with a resin;
(e) coating the resultant textile of either of steps xe2x80x9ccxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cdxe2x80x9d with a resorcinol-formaldehyde latex (RFL);
(f) optionally coating the resultant latex-coated textile of step xe2x80x9cexe2x80x9d with at least one adhesive compound selected from the group consisting of a cement, a tackifier, an overcoat, a resin, and mixtures thereof;
(g) providing a rubber compound; and
(h) contacting the RFL-coated textile of either of steps xe2x80x9cexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cfxe2x80x9d with the rubber compound of step xe2x80x9cgxe2x80x9d.
Nowhere within the prior art has such a specific vinyl compound plasma treatment step been utilized to form a textile/rubber composite. Furthermore, nor has such a specific composition or method of utilizing such a specific plasma treatment been taught or fairly suggested. Such methods provide significant advantages over the standard adhesion methods of the state of the art.
The inventive method does not add an appreciable amount to the relative cost of preparing the target textile/rubber composite. In fact, the major costs involved in this inventive process are incurred from the rubber and/or textile components. The ability of this inventive method to provide polyaramid/rubber composites at relatively low cost as well as the ability of this method to produce polyester/rubber composites, again at very low cost, is thus highly unexpected and greatly desired within the suitable industries.
Such a method generally permits the application of very strong carbon-bonded groups to the textile surface through the treatment of the textile with a vinyl compound plasma. Without intending to be limited to any scientific theory, it is believed that the plasma generated with vinyl compounds produces a vast array of compounds having myriad different chain lengths and structures which easily bond to the surface of the substrate textile. As the plasma-generating process cleaves the vinyl compounds in random fashion, the resultant textile surface treatment appears to be highly tackified, most likely due to the formation of carbon-containing compounds having large amounts of freely exposed free radicals. This tacky composition thus appears to form an actual film layer on the textile surface. Apparently, the exposed free radicals produced on the textile surface through the vinyl compound plasma or plasma gas treatment bond to the RFL resin component themselves, thereby providing increasing bonding and adhesion between the textile substrate and the RFL. Since the degree of free radical generation is extremely high, the tacky vinyl compound plasma-generated composition thus adheres to a very large surface area of RFL. Combined with the very strong carbon bonds attached to the textile surface, the complete degree of adhesiveness between the textile and the RFL is very high. In addition, since the plasma polymerized vinyl film and the rubber latex of the RFL are very similar chemically, there will be increased mixing/solubility between the RFL and the textile, thereby providing increased adhesive properties. The RFL is then left exposed to produce very strong bonds with the rubber compound contacted with the resultant RFL-textile to form a very strong textile/rubber composite which exhibits rubber from rubber tearing before the textile and rubber exhibit any disengagement due to the very strong bond formed between the two components.
This inventive process also encompasses a plasma pre-treatment prior to vinyl compound plasma treatment in order to xe2x80x9ccleanxe2x80x9d the textile surface and theoretically apply other potentially strong bonding materials to the substrate. For example, an oxygen/tetrafluoromethane (O2/CF4) or an ammonia (NH3) pre-treatment provides both a mechanism to remove unwanted debris and impurities from the textile surface, but also produces carboxy or amino linkages, respectively, on the target substrate. These linkages react with the vinyl compounds generated from such plasma, again, to form very strong bonds which enhance the adhesive qualities of the overall textile/rubber composite structure. Such a pre-treatment is highly preferred but is not required to effectuate a desired degree of adhesiveness between the vast array of plasma-generated vinyl compounds and the resin component of the RFL.
The plasma treatment and pre-treatment require a certain degree of power and pressure in order to be effective within this inventive method. Also, fiber speed and thus exposure time for the target textile also appear to be of importance to the performance of the ultimate textile/rubber composite. For instance, generally acceptable conditions for the vinyl compound plasma treatment are from about 5 to about 1,000 millitorr (mT) pressure, from about 5 watts to about 2.5 kilowatts power, for an exposure time of from about 5 seconds to about 5 minutes. Preferred conditions and exposures times are from about 10 to about 500 mT, most preferred from about 50 to about 250 mT; from about 10 watts to about 1 kilowatt, most preferred from about 60 to about 250 watts; and from about 10 seconds to about 2 minutes, most preferred from about 30 seconds to about 1 minutes. Generally acceptable, and well known, conditions and exposures times for the plasma xe2x80x9ccleaningxe2x80x9d procedure are from about 10 to about 10,000 mT, preferred from about 50 to about 5,000 mT, and most preferred from about 100 to about 1,000 mT; 10 watts to about 10 kilowatts, preferred from about 100 watts to about 2.5 kilowatts, and most preferred from about 250 watts to about 1 kilowatt; and exposure times of from about 5 seconds to about 5 minutes, preferred from about 10 seconds to about 2 minutes, and most preferred from about 30 seconds to about 1 minute. In actuality, these conditions and exposure times may vary according to the type of plasma generator utilized. These conditions and exposure times were the optima for the PS1010 cord treater from Plasma Science (which is an air to air system). More specific conditions are listed below in the EXAMPLEs.
It has been found that the inventive methods can be utilized with any rubber compositions and with any type of smooth filament textile normally utilized as a rubber reinforcement material, not to mention any other type of smooth filament textile which has proven difficult to use in such applications in the past (i.e., polyaramids, polyesters). Examples of rubber compositions include, but are not limited to, natural rubber, polyurethane rubber, neoprene rubber, ascium, viton, hypalon, styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR), carboxylated SBR, acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR), butyl rubber, fluorinated rubber, chlorobutyl rubber, bromobutyl rubber, and ethylene-propylene-diene rubber (EPDM), and any mixtures thereof. Modified rubbers which are potentially useful, though more expensive, include hydrogenated SBR, hydrogenated NBR, and carboxylated NBR. Suitable textiles include, and are not limited to, those comprising polyester, polyester/cotton blends, polyamides, such as nylon-6 or -6,6, polyaramids (such as Kevlar(copyright), available from DuPont), polypropylene, boron derivatives, glass fibers, polyvinyl alcohols fibers, polypropylene oxide fibers, and carbon fibers. Of particular interest are polyesters and polyaramids since adhesion between these fibers and rubber has proven to be very difficult in the past. The textile component may be dyed or colored various shades and hues in order to facilitate categorizing the different widths, lengths, etc., of products such as, without limitation, timing belts, V-belts, and the like, for tires and for utilization in automobiles. Finally, the inventive methods, when utilized and/or practiced as intended, result in a textile-reinforced rubber product which does not exhibit textile/rubber adhesive failure.
Preferably, the inventive methods utilize any plasma treatment involving vinyl compound plasma generation. As noted above, the vast array of differing carbon-bonded compounds produced within such a specific treatment are highly desired, particularly since free radicals (which bond extremely well with the RFL resin) are easily produced in great quantities as a film on the textile surface. Thus, acrylic acid, ethylene, butadiene, vinyl pyridine, and any other such vinyl-group containing compounds (as well as any mixtures of such vinyl-group containing compounds) are useful as compounds for the plasma-treatment in this inventive method. The specifically named ones above are those which are most highly preferred due to their relatively low cost and their very effective performance. The plasma pre-treatment may utilize any xe2x80x9ccleaningxe2x80x9d plasma compound, such as O2/CF4 and NH3, as merely examples which removes debris, etc., from the substrate surface and preferably provides a potentially strong bonding linkage on the cleaned textile as well. Such plasma compounds are well known in the art.
Optionally, a pre-RFL treatment of the textile surface may be performed after the plasma treatment wherein various types of resins may be adhered to the newly created tacky textile surface in order to improve the adhesive characteristics of the overall target textile/rubber composite. Thus, resins such as epoxy resins, isocyanates (in toluene), piperazines, silanes, and the like (including mixtures of such resins), may be reacted with the plastma-treated textile surface thereby creating a film of resin bonded to the textile-surface free radicals generated from the plasma treatment. After such a film is produced, the desired RFL would then be brought into contact with the resultant resin-coated textile whereupon the resin component of the RFL would form a film on the previously produced resin film surface. Such a resin/resin bond thus provides the necessary bond strength to effectuate the desired adhesion to the overall composite structure.
Similarly, upon completion of the contacting between the plasma-treated textile and the RFL, such a resultant coated textile may also be coated with an adhesive compound which provides improved adhesion between the RFL and the rubber compound. Such compounds are selected from cements (such as, as merely an example, a solution of rubber in toluene), tackifiers (such as, again as merely examples, polysiloxanes), overcoats (such as, again as merely examples, compositions such as Chemlock(trademark), available from Lord Corporation, and Chemosil(trademark), available from Henkel Corporation), resins, such as those noted above for the pre-RFL treatment of the textile surface (i.e., epoxies, silanes, piperazines, isocyanates, and the like), and any mixtures thereof.
Any standard rubber additives, including ultraviolet absorbers, antioxidants, dyes, colorants, curing agents, perfumes, antistatic agents, fillers (such as carbon black), silanes, and the like may be added to the rubber. To the textile substrate may be added any other standard textile additives, such as dyes, colorants, pigments, ultra violet absorbers, antioxidants, and the like. To the inventive composition and/or RFL used in combination with the inventive composition may be added wetting agents, antioxidants, and filler dispersions (such as carbon black, carbon fibers, tackifiers, UV absorbers, silica, ZnO dispersions, and flame retardant compounds).
Furthermore, any well known RFL composition may be utilized within the inventive method. Such are extremely well known to the ordinarily skilled practitioner within the pertinent art and include combinations of resorcinol and formaldehyde in varying ratios and at varying temperatures and pH levels and solids. Furthermore, such resorcinol and formaldehyde compositions are combined with any number of rubber latex compounds and other additives, including, as merely examples, epoxies, urethanes, and the like. Such RFL compositions are very well known in the art and the utilization of such types of compositions (any number of which may be used in the inventive method) would be well appreciated by the ordinarily skilled artisan in the textile/rubber reinforcement composite art. One particularly preferred RFL comprises the epoxy adhesive composition of U.S. Pat. No. 5,565,507 to Marco et al.
Additionally, the curing step between the RFL-coated textile and the rubber compound is performed in any conventional manner, such as through heat-activated vulcanization in the presence of a curing agent (such as organic peroxide). Again, such a step should be well within the purview of the ordinarily skilled artisan in this field.
The Examples below are indicative of the particularly preferred embodiment within the scope of the present invention:


A method, apparatus and program storage device for providing asynchronous status messaging in a data storage system Asynchronous events are returned from a target to an initiator in response to a Read Message from the initiator. The return status message may or may not be associated with a previously given command or Logical Unit (LUN).

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to data storage systems, and more particularly to a method, apparatus and program storage device for providing asynchronous status messaging in a data storage system.
2. Description of Related Art
Business organizations often insist on continuous availability to critical data twenty four hours a day, every day of the year. For many businesses and organizations, such as banks and other financial institutions, the inability to access data for any period of time could lead to loss of financial transactions, financial losses, loss of credibility and reliability with customers, and maybe even a total failure of the business. Therefore, the ability to provide continuous availability to data for the mission critical applications is often a necessity for business survival.
Generally, data backup systems copy a designated group of source data, such as a file, volume, storage device, partition, etc. If the source data is lost, applications can use the backup copy instead of the original, source data. The similarity between the backup copy and the source data may vary, depending upon how often the backup copy is updated to match the source data. If the backup copy is updated in step with the source data, the copy is said to be a "mirror" of the source data, and is always "consistent" with the source data.
As can be seen, a key feature of any disaster recovery system is the backup of critical data and updates to such backed-up data as soon as possible. The simplest method of backing up data is with off-site backups. However, the extent of successful data recovery in the event of failure is dependent upon the frequency of updates to the backed-up data. One data back-up system is the Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy (PPRC) function offered by International Business Machines, Corporation (IBM), the assignee of the subject patent application. PPRC provides synchronous copying of data from a primary system to a remote (secondary) system. With PPRC, primary storage devices are coupled to counterpart secondary devices by suitable communications links. Often, both the primary and secondary systems include a non-volatile storage unit (NVS), such as a battery backed up storage unit, to maintain data in the event of a power or system failure. With PPRC, when data is written to the primary NVS, the data is then transferred to the NVS in the secondary controller. At later points in time, the data in the primary and secondary NVSs will be destaged to the attached storage devices. With PPRC, there is minimal risk of losing data upon the occurrence of a failure because data is at the secondary controller synchronously with updates to the data at the primary DASD managed by the primary controller.
The primary and remote system may be connected by using a proprietary system, such as Enterprise System Connection (ESCON®) or Fibre Connection (FICON™), or by using an open system. An open system is a system whose characteristics comply with standards made available throughout the industry, such as SCSI and fibre-channel (FC) systems. Proprietary systems use an interrupt protocol to provide synchronous operation between the two systems thereby facilitating messaging and event notification between the two systems. However, open systems, such as SCSI and fibre-channel, do not use interrupts. A device that begins a SCSI transaction issues a command to another device (the SCSI target) thereby giving the SCSI target a task to perform. Typically a SCSI host adapter is the initiator, but targets may also become initiators. Still, the primary and secondary system connected by a physical connection or fibre channel operate asynchronously. Thus, asynchronous events on a SCSI controller cannot be returned to a host initiator or peer subsystem initiator. Accordingly, such events go undetected by the initiator until a command completes or terminates.
It can be seen then that there is a need for a method, apparatus and program storage device for providing asynchronous status messaging in a data storage system.

Method, apparatus and program storage device for providing asynchronous status messaging in a data storage system

International Business Machines Corporation


An organic EL display panel offering improved luminance includes: a substrate; pixel electrodes arranged in rows and columns; an insulating film coating the confronting edges of pixel electrodes adjacent in a column direction; banks each elongated in the column direction over a gap between pixel electrodes adjacent in the row direction; a hole transport layer in a gap between the banks; an organic light-emitting layer over the hole transport layer; and a common electrode over the organic light-emitting layer. Light is emitted from a first light-emitting portion and second light-emitting portions of the light-emitting layer. The first light-emitting portion is a portion above the pixel electrodes excluding where the insulating film is disposed. The second light-emitting portions are portions above both the pixel electrodes and the insulating film.

In recent years, progress is being made in research and development of organic EL elements, which are light-emitting elements that use electroluminescence of a solid fluorescent material. Because organic EL elements are self-luminous elements, an organic EL display panel having such organic EL elements arranged in rows and columns on a TFT substrate offers advantages including high visibility and excellent shock resistance. An organic EL element is fabricated by laminating layers including an organic light-emitting layer between a pixel electrode (anode) and a common electrode (cathode), the organic light-emitting layer emitting light as a result of recombination of carriers (holes and electrons).
Examples of methods for manufacturing such organic light-emitting layers include a vapor deposition method and a printing method. Especially, when an inkjet method, which is a type of printing methods, is employed to form organic light-emitting layers, it is necessary to provide barriers (banks) formed, for example, from an insulating material between adjacent pixels in order to prevent ink drops from mixing into ink drops of a different color dripped into adjacent pixels. One method for forming banks is a line-bank method according to which a plurality of banks are formed in parallel lines so that organic light-emitting layers are partitioned into stripes (see Patent Literature 1, for example). Another method is a pixel-bank method according to which a grid-like (lattice-like) bank is formed to surround individual pixels.
FIG. 11 is a schematic sectional view showing the structure of an organic EL display panel 900 having banks formed by a typical line-bank method. Disposed on the upper surface of a substrate 91 are SD electrodes (source-drain electrodes) 92 of thin-film transistors that are for driving the organic EL elements. In addition, an interlayer insulation film 93 is disposed to coat the SD electrodes 92. Pixel electrodes 94 are disposed over (i.e., on or above) the interlayer insulation film 93 and connected to the SD electrodes 92 via contact holes 95 formed in the interlayer insulation film 93. Pixel-defining layers 96 are disposed over the pixel electrodes 94 in a manner to coat the edges of different pixel electrodes 94, the edges facing in the lateral direction in the figure. Over the pixel electrodes 94 and the pixel-defining layers 96, organic light-emitting layers 97 and a common electrode 98 are layered in order. In the organic EL display panel 900 having the above structure, portions of the organic light-emitting layers 97 constitute light-emitting portions are those located above the regions A9. Each region A9 is a region of the pixel electrode 94 excluding where the pixel-defining layer 96 is disposed.


A system for moving and diverting trains (5) of bobbins (7) in a spinning plant with more spinning mills (1) includes a pair of rails (40,41), along which a carriage (32) moves. The carriage (32) can be stopped at a point corresponding to one spinning mill (1) and carries, mounted thereon, a motor (39), which drives the trains (5), coming from a main feeding line (3) to terminal sections (10), situated beside the spinning mills (1). Activator means (29), situated also on the carriage (32), operate the switches (20,21,22) aimed at deviating the path of the trains from the main line (3) to union sections (15) joined to the terminal sections (10). The carriage (32) is moved by a motor (42) and its position along the rails (40,41) is determined by an encoder (43).

As it is known, spinning mills or other similar machines of the spinning plants are fed with bobbin rows or trains, with a roving wound around the bobbins to feed the spinning mills. The bobbin trains are moved along a monorail, which extends in the plant following suitable paths.
In some cases, the bobbin trains are temporarily placed inside magazines formed by sections of the monorail, arranged in rows placed one above another.
When the bobbins of a row, or of a train, are exhausted, or, according to different substitution techniques, are getting exhausted, the whole row is removed from the section beside the spinning mill and carried toward the bobbins filling station, while a new row of previously filled bobbins, possibly taken from the magazine, is introduced into the empty section.
The number of the rows of bobbins, which are to be brought to each side of the spinning mill, depends substantially on the type of yarn to be obtained and on the method used for feeding the spinning mill, so as to reduce as much as possible, or to eliminate, the downtimes, during which the exhausted, or getting exhausted bobbins are substituted with the full supply bobbins.
For example, the Patent Application No. BO2001A 000750, filed by the Applicant, proposes a feeding system, in which the number of bobbin rows to be supplied is twice the number of rows necessary to obtain the desired yarn. This is due to the fact that each work bobbin row has its spare bobbin row.
Therefore, the number of bobbin rows on each side of the spinning mill can reach and be even higher than eight units.
The bobbin trains travel hung, by hooking means of known type, to the links of a chain, which slides inside the monorail. The monorail is formed by a box-like body with a cross-like section.
The box-like body is open above and below, so as to allow the driving means, placed at predetermined distances, to get in touch with a flat surface of the chain dragging the bobbin train.
This type of moving, the used chain and the motor means for this operation, are described in the Italian Patent No. 1.213.982.
Besides the pulling devices arranged along the path, which extends along the whole plant, there must be also another pulling device situated for each terminal section present beside the spinning mill, to move the bobbin train, when it is introduced into and removed from the section.
Taking into consideration the fact that one spinning plant includes some tens of spinning mills and that each spinning mill can feature, situated at each side thereof, even eight or more monorail sections which form the final, bobbin dwelling section, it is easy to calculate that some hundreds of pulling devices are necessary only for the terminal dwelling sections.
The same thing relates also to the dwelling sections which form the magazine, where the bobbin trains are temporarily placed before being sent toward the spinning mills or similar machines. Further waste of means is caused by the switch devices necessary for diverting the bobbin trains
from the main conveying line toward the desired terminal section of the spinning mills or of the magazine.
In order to understand the problem better, reference is made to FIG. 1a, which shows schematically a plant in its main parts.
The figure shows as an example only a part of the plant related to a spinning mill, and it is to be borne in mind that in case of a magazine, the plant configuration is substantially identical.
The numeral reference 3 indicates the main conveying line, along which the bobbin trains are conveyed from the spinning mills 1 to the bobbin roving frames, where the empty bobbins are substituted with the full bobbins, and then vice-versa from the magazine to the spinning mills, in order to substitute the bobbin trains getting exhausted.
Along the main path of the monorail 3, there are nodes 11, where the sections of the monorail curved toward the heads 2 of the spinning mills, branch off.
Switching devices 20 are situated in the conjunction areas 11.
Each switching device, having the configuration as shown in FIGS. 2a, 2b, 2c, includes a deviating plate 23, called "penna", kept elastically in such a position as not to interfere with the path of the train along the main section 3.
When the path of the arriving train is to be changed toward a selected terminal section 10 or toward a dwelling section of a magazine, an activating device 25, formed usually by an electromagnetic or pneumatic activator. The activating device moves a lever, called also cam due to its cam profile aimed at avoiding possible jamming, and determines the rotation of the deviating plate, which interferes with the path of the bobbin train, thus directing it toward the branch arm 16.
As shown in FIG. 1a, each side of the spinning mill is supposed to have three work bobbin rows and three spare bobbin rows. Thus, the total number of the terminal sections 10 will be twelve units.
Therefore, at the present state, twelve pulling devices 31 are needed.
The figure shows in the most complete way only the first of the terminal sections 10, however it is understood that the other terminal sections have the same configuration. The main path 3 extends gradually toward the terminal sections 10.
First, three branch arms 16 extend from the main path 3 and then each branch arm 16 is divided, thus obtaining six segments 16, 17 which are further divided obtaining twelve conjunction sections 16, 17, 18, which join with the twelve terminal sections 10.
Otherwise, the twelve conjunction segments 16, which join the main line 3 with the twelve terminal sections 10 can be used, as shown in FIG. 1b.
In any case, only the spinning mill shown in FIGS. 1a and 1b needs a good twelve devices activating the deviating plate 23 of twelve switches, which multiplied by the number of spinning mills determine the use of some hundreds of activators, each equipped with a relative feeding and control circuit.
The same conditions are valid for the magazine.
The high number of the devices pulling bobbin trains and devices operating the switches determines a cost increase which, if already high in small or medium plants, assumes remarkable levels for the valuation of the manufacturing costs in a big plant with hundreds of spinning mills.

System and a method for moving and diverting trains of articles in a conveying plant for such articles


A method and means for controlling the operation of a machine by an operator having a transmitter mounted to a machine, a sensor attached to an operator or an operator's clothing, and a tracking device that receives signals from the sensor and determines the position of the sensor. Based on the determined position of the sensor, the tracking device sends signals to the operator and an actuator on the machine based on a comparison with a danger zone, warning zone, or operator zone.

Injuries resulting from the operation of machinery are well known and include injuries to body parts that become caught in machinery. Sometimes, articles of clothing become caught in operating machinery that also leads to injuries.
Prior art discloses several types of mechanisms that attempt to prevent or minimize the possibility of operators being injured when working with machines. These devices include the use of mechanisms, special mats, shoes, gloves, or other equipment that are cumbersome, expensive, or unreliable. Further, some of these devices are programmed to stop only after an operator makes contact with a danger point. These safety devices give a false sense of security to the operator and can add additional hazards to the machine. Therefore, it is desired to have a device that improves upon these deficiencies in the art.
An object of the present invention is to provide a system that ensures that a machine will not operate when an individual enters a danger zone.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a system that detects when an operator is near a danger zone.
Another object of the present invention if to provide a system that has a control system that will gradually shut down as an operator nears the danger zone.
These and other objectives, features, and enhancements will be shown by the following description.

Method and means for controlling the operation of a machine based upon the wearing of a sensor by a machine operator