A protective fabric jacket for placement on an object to be protected from excessive heat includes a first layer; a second layer; and an intermediate spacer fabric layer that is disposed between the first layer and the second layer. The first and second layers are attached to the intermediate spacer fabric layer to form a layered structure. The intermediate spacer fabric layer comprises a flexible honeycomb or octagonal shaped spacer fabric that has a plurality of cells defined therein. The protective fabric jacket also includes a settable material that disposed within the cells and includes a cementitious mixture and one or more organic polymers and is settable to a hardened material.

In different industries, many different pieces of equipment are used in many different environments, many of which can be harsh. Exemplary industries include but are not limited to oil and gas, building, marine, military, nuclear, etc. The equipment can be formed of many different types of material, including but not limited to composite materials (nonmetallic) and metals. One of the threats to the equipment is in the form of excessive heat and fire that can easily damage the equipment.
Extreme heat is thus a common threat in facility operations and can lead to loss of containment if the materials exposed to it have poor heat resistance. If non-metallic materials are exposed to either extreme temperatures or fire can ignite their polymer matrix. This scenario could lead to a loss of containment which could make the fire emergency more difficult to control, besides to create a toxic smog from the polymer combustion.
Moreover, when non-metallic materials are exposed to extreme temperatures, above their glass transition temperature of their polymer matrix, their strength and stiffness get significantly reduced. This can lead to failure of the materials over time.
Certain techniques are used to protect the equipment from such external damage originating from excessive heat as by a fire. For example, protective jackets and wraps can be used to protect such equipment. While these products provide some protection, there is a need for an improved wrap or jacket for placement about the equipment for protection thereof.

Fabric jacket to prevent nonmetallic equipment from extreme heat, external damage and fire


A triangular waveform generator is converted to a free running oscillator controlled by a calibration code. The free running oscillator can be synchronized to an external clock signal by comparing the external clock frequency to the frequency of the triangular waveform and adjusting the calibration code until the discrepancy in frequency is minimized.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to pulse width modulation (PWM) and class-D amplifiers and specifically to clock-synchronized triangular waveform generators.
2. Related Art
Power delivery systems such as power amplifiers, switching voltage regulators, and electric motors often employ pulse-width modulation (PWM) to convey information or deliver power in an efficient manner. For example, class-D amplifiers employing PWM are used in powered audio devices due to their advantages in power consumption and size over traditional analog amplifiers. The improved power efficiency reduces the need for bulky heat sinks or advanced packaging, making class-D amplifiers more suitable for low-cost integrated circuits.
The class-D amplifier produces an output comprising a sequence of pulses. Pulse-width modulation is typically employed to encode audio information into these pulses by varying their individual widths. The average value of these pulses represents the instantaneous amplitude of the output signal. These pulses also introduce unwanted high-frequency content which may be removed by a low pass filter.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the typical architecture of a class-D amplifier 100. The input signal is converted to pulses using modulator 102 which can be a pulse-width modulator. A common implementation of a pulse-width modulator uses a high-speed comparator to compare the input signal against a triangle wave. The modulated signal is then amplified by amplifier 104 and finally demodulated by low pass filter 106. The demodulated signal can then be used, for example by speaker 108.
FIG. 2 shows a typical PWM generator. Input reference signal 202 is compared by comparator 206 against a repetitive modulation source, such as a sawtooth or triangular waveform generated by ramp generator 204. When the input reference signal is greater than the modulation source, the signal level of PWM output signal 208 is high; when the input reference signal is less than the modulation source, the signal level of PWM output signal 208 is low.
In communication systems using class-D audio amplifiers, PWM performance is optimized for peak amplifier linearity. For a given modulation frequency, PWM performance is improved when the modulating source is a triangular waveform instead of a sawtooth. FIG. 3A shows traces of the signals related to a PWM generator using a sawtooth waveform. Graph 302 shows the sawtooth modulation source superimposed on the input reference signal. Graph 304 shows the resultant PWM output signal. FIG. 3B shows traces of the signals related to a PWM generator using a triangular waveform. Graph 312 shows the triangular modulation source superimposed on the input reference signal. Graph 314 shows the resultant PWM output signal. Because reference information is encoded on both the rising and falling edges of PWM signal 314, as opposed to only one edge of PWM signal 304 when a sawtooth modulating source is employed, a triangular waveform is a preferable modulation source.
In a typical class-D audio amplifier system, the input audio signal is an analog waveform reconstructed from digital samples. In order to reduce spectral folding and aliasing issues, it is desirable to have the triangular waveform synchronized to a frequency related to the sampling clock. Usually the sampling clock is a divided down version of a master clock. To avoid the aforementioned issues, the triangular waveform should be synchronized to another clock that is also divided down from the same master clock.
Other challenges with the design of a synchronized triangular waveform generator include drift due to the triangle wave not returning to the same voltage level after each clock cycle, synchronization where the triangle waveform frequency does not match the clock rate of a given input clock, and linearity in either the upward ramp or downward ramp of the triangle waveform. Therefore, there is a need in the industry for an inexpensive and improved clock-synchronized triangular waveform generator.

System and method for clock-synchronized triangular waveform generation


A cartridge comprising layers of adsorbent sheet is described. The cartridge includes an indicator that characterizes the consumption state of the adsorbent within the cartridge. The indicator is applied in a way such that discrete areas of indicator are visible. These discontinuous areas of indicator may be applied to the outside surface of the cartridge. Alternatively, the discontinuous areas may be formed by cutting windows in the outermost layer of the cartridge and either coating indicator on the layer beneath the window, placing an indicator layer between the window and the layer beneath it or filling the window with an indicating plug of material so that the indicator is visible from the outside of the cartridge. The indicator layer and indicator plug embodiments allow the use of any indicator with any adsorbent.

During surgical procedures anesthetic agent may not be entirely consumed and in such cases air exhausted by the patient can be recycled. This allows for the efficient use of anesthetic, as well as avoiding needless release to the atmosphere, where many anesthetic agents can contribute to global warming. In order for a patient to rebreathe their exhausted air, exhaled CO2 must be adsorbed. This is achieved by passing the recycled air through a CO2 adsorbent comprising calcium hydroxide or lithium hydroxide or mixtures thereof (sodium hydroxide is often used in combination with calcium hydroxide to catalyze the reaction to calcium carbonate). In order to determine how much of the adsorbent has been reacted, granular adsorbent materials are typically coated with as little as 0.001 w/w % indicator dye that changes color when the absorbent is reacted (U.S. Pat. No. 7,476,641). In the case of calcium hydroxide, the color change occurs because of the decrease in pH due to the conversion of calcium hydroxide to calcium carbonate, as well as the short term consumption of sodium hydroxide. This lowers the pH to less than 10.3, causing an ethyl violet indictor to turn from clear to purple. By monitoring how much of the adsorbent has been converted, the anesthesiologist can determine how much time is available before the adsorbent must be changed. Indicator also allows decisions to be made between procedures as to whether adsorbent beds should be changed before the next procedure.
One problem with existing granular absorbents is that the indicating chemistry may be a contaminant, and this contaminant is currently mixed in throughout all of the adsorbent. The US Navy uses calcium hydroxide CO2 adsorbents for military rebreather diving, and reported an incident where amine odors were observed with the use of color indicating granular adsorbents (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8653065).
Methods have been proposed to put indicator not in the adsorbent, but rather in thin layers between the adsorbent and an outer transparent wall of the canister that holds the adsorbent (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,326,514; 5,109,838). This does not, however, address another issue with granular adsorbents. Improperly packed beds or beds that settle during shipping can lead to gas channeling (Miller, R. D. et. al., Miller's Anesthesia, vol. 1. 2015, Elsevier, p. 788-790) and therefore a non-uniform reaction zone (FIG. 2), which makes it difficult to objectively determine when the granular bed is spent. Adsorbent canisters are therefore often pulled well before all of the adsorbent is utilized, to prevent the possibility of patient exposure to excessive levels of carbon dioxide due to early breakthrough. The use of indicating layers on the outside of an adsorbent bed does not give information on potential gas channeling and early breakthrough inside the bed.
Another problem with existing granular absorbent indicators is that the gradual color change from unreacted to reacted material makes it difficult to discern the location of the reaction front.
As shown in FIG. 2, the front of color indicator can move less than one-third the length of a granule filled canister from initial breakthrough to final exhaustion. This does not give the best possible resolution for consistently and accurately measuring the amount of unreacted adsorbent. It would be better if the color indicator front moved across the entire canister length, from initial breakthrough to final exhaustion.
Another problem is that many indicators used with granular CO2 adsorbents revert back to their initial color after the end of a procedure (U.S. Pat. No. 7,476,641). This can happen in the calcium hydroxide system employing sodium hydroxide because the sodium hydroxide that is initially consumed in the reaction sequence—decreasing the pH and turning ethyl violet to purple—is slowly regenerated at the end of the reaction sequence, thereby increasing the pH and turning the ethyl violet back to clear. This makes it difficult to determine if partially used adsorbents beds have enough capacity to be used in another procedure.
In summary, there is a need for an adsorbent cartridge that gives a uniform and reproducible flow front with a sharply contrasting indicator that gives an accurate, objective and long lasting indication of the consumption state of the adsorbent within the cartridge. This invention addresses this need and others.

Adsorbent cartridge with accurate visual indicator


In order to provide a pressure-swing-adsorption oxygen production process which can maintain the product recovery at a high level while enhancing the oxygen productivity and reducing the unit power consumption, a pressure recovery step is carried out in which communication is provided between an outlet end of an adsorption column which has completed an adsorption step and an outlet end of an adsorption column which has completed a regeneration step, and in which gas remaining in the adsorption column which has completed the adsorption step is collected within the adsorption column which has completed the regeneration step; and simultaneously with the pressure recovery step, a gas mixture which has approximately the same composition as feed gas mixture is introduced into at least one of the adsorption column which has completed the adsorption step and the adsorption column which has completed the regeneration step through the inlet end thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for producing oxygen by means of a pressure swing adsorption separation, and more specifically, relates to a process for producing oxygen, having a purity of approximately 90%, from a gas mixture principally containing oxygen and nitrogen, such as air, by means of a pressure swing adsorption separation using an adsorbent capable of selective adsorption of nitrogen.
2. Description of Related Art
As processes for producing an oxygen enriched product by treating a gas mixture principally containing oxygen and nitrogen, such as air, processes for producing oxygen by means of pressure swing adsorption systems (hereinafter referred to as "oxygen PSA process") are widely employed. An oxygen PSA process is generally carried out by using an apparatus which is provided with a plurality of adsorption columns which are packed with zeolite as an adsorbent, which is capable of selective adsorption of nitrogen; such an oxygen PSA process is basically designed to continuously produce an oxygen enriched product by alternately repeating within each adsorption column an adsorption step, in which the operation is carried out at a relatively high pressure, and a regeneration step, in which the operation is carried out at a relatively low pressure.
Such an oxygen PSA apparatus enriches an oxygen product and separates it from air, making use of the highly selective adsorptivity of zeolite for nitrogen; however, since the adsorptivity of zeolite for oxygen is approximately the same as that for argon, the separated and enriched oxygen product contains argon, and has a concentration of approximately 95% at maximum.
On the other hand, with regard to the requirements of the users of this oxygen, in the case when oxygen is used for cutting a metal, oxygen having a concentration of not more than 99.5% causes problems in cutting speed and at the cut surface of materials; the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law in Japan specifies that oxygen concentration is required to be at least 99.5% for oxygen for medical use at hospitals or the like. However, since an oxygen concentration of not more than 95% is sufficient for steel manufacture or the like using an electric furnace, and since the oxygen concentration of about 90% is sufficient for most other applications for oxygen, the applicable range of the oxygen PSA process is very wide. Accordingly, for users for whom the oxygen concentration of about 90% is sufficient and who consume a large amount of oxygen, various improvements have been carried out in the PSA process in order to obtain oxygen at a lower cost.
In order to improve the performance of the oxygen PSA process, attention is directed to two points, namely: raising productivity of oxygen per unit amount of adsorbent to be used, so as to reduce the size of the apparatus; and enhancing product oxygen recovery so as to reduce the unit power consumption.
As described in the above, an oxygen PSA process comprises an adsorption step and a regeneration step as basic steps; in order to enhance oxygen recovery, a pressure recovery step (pressure equalization step), a re-pressurization step, or the like are usually added to the basic steps. Furthermore, there are some cases in which in place of the pressure recovery step, a cocurrent depressurization step is employed so as to utilize an enriched oxygen remaining within the adsorption column as a product or a purging gas; and there are other cases, in order to raise the productivity of oxygen per unit amount of adsorbent, in which a purging (vacuum purge) operation is carried out in the regeneration step with a part of a product gas so as to promote desorption of nitrogen from an adsorbent. This purging operation is a process to reduce the partial pressure of more strongly adsorbable component in the gas phase, thereby promoting the desorption of nitrogen, by way of supplying a part of product gas through an end of a product outlet at the stage when the pressure inside the adsorption column is lowered by evacuation; it is irrelevant whether the purging operation is employed in a regeneration process carried out at normal pressure or in a vacuum.
As an example of a conventional process carried out in order to improve the performance of an oxygen PSA process, Japanese Patent Application, First Publication (Kokai), Sho 63-144104, discloses a process in which a pressure equalization step is employed by which gases are recovered simultaneously from both an upper section (product gas outlet section) and a lower section (feed gas inlet section) of each of two adsorption columns which are connected (upper-lower simultaneous pressure equalization). When this is the case, a great amount of gas can be recovered; however, with regard to the adsorption column which receives the gas, a gas in which oxygen is relatively concentrated is collected within the upper section of the column, and air or a gas which has a nitrogen content higher to some degree than air is collected within the lower section of the column. Therefore, according to this process, the productivity of oxygen per unit amount of adsorbent is comparatively low, although the product recovery is high.
In addition, according to the disclosure in Japanese Patent Application, First Publication (Kokai), Sho 63-144103, in a pressure equalization step, gases are recovered simultaneously from both an upper section and a lower section of each of two adsorption columns which are connected in a similar manner to the above; at this time, the lower line regulates the recovery from the lower section of the column by way of evacuating a part of the gas which is recovered from the lower section by using a vacuum evacuation line. According to this process, problems arise in that the gas recovery is comparatively low in comparison with the above process, and thus the product recovery is not very high, as well as in that since the pressure increase due to the recovery within the column of the receiving side is low, the necessary amount of oxygen for product repressurization in the subsequent pressurization step becomes larger, and the adsorption pressure of the column which is producing oxygen in an adsorption step is reduced.
That is to say, with regard to an oxygen PSA process, since to maintain the product recovery at a high level and at the same time to enhance the productivity of oxygen per unit amount of adsorbent were mutually exclusive requirements, such a process as satisfies both has not been developed.

Oxygen production process by pressure swing adsorption separation


A system for controlling a plurality of ophthalmic microsurgical instruments is disclosed. Particularly, the present invention includes an ophthalmic surgical handpiece, such as an intraocular surgical scissors or forceps which is powered by an electric stepper motor. The handpiece converts the rotational motion of the stepper motor into a linear motion to operate the surgical scissors- or forceps-type instruments.

This invention relates generally to microsurgical and ophthalmic systems and, particularly, to the field of ophthalmic surgical instruments, and more specifically, to a handpiece especially for scissors or forceps, which handpiece is actuated by a foot pedal controlled stepper motor and which provides the capability of transferring the rotary motion of the stepper motor output to linear motion, to thereby operate the surgical instrument.
Present day ophthalmic microsurgical systems provide one or more surgical instruments connected to a control console. The instruments are often electrically or pneumatically operated and the control console provides electrical or fluid pressure control signals for operating the instruments. The control console usually includes several different types of human actuable controllers for generating the control signals supplied to the surgical instruments. Often, the surgeon uses a foot pedal controller to remotely control the surgical instruments.
The use of intraocular surgical scissors is well known. While manually operated scissors are still in widespread use worldwide, they suffer from the disadvantage of being subject to human limitations on speed and accuracy. The use of surgical scissors with electric motor drive is also widespread. Electrical motor driven scissors are divided into two well known types based upon the type of drive, those that are solenoid actuated and those that are driven by a direct current motor or "proportional" control.
Most intraocular scissors have design similarities in which a pair of cutting blades extend from the end of a tubular needle with one blade being fixed and the other, opposed blade end being reciprocated between an open and a closed position with respect to the fixed blade. This reciprocating motion is accomplished through the action of one of the driving systems mentioned, such as, for example, a manual or electric motor drive.
Electric motor drivers of either rotary or linear solenoid type activate scissor closure by controlled transfer of the motor energy to the movable blade. The scissors may be of the vertical design (the guillotine, or the parallel blade type), the angled or horizontal-style, or of another design, or the driver may instead be used to actuate other instruments, besides scissors, that operate similarly (i.e., forceps).
The linear solenoid type of drive provides a reciprocating action in which the electrical actuation of a solenoid causes the movable blade to move to the closed position in relation to the fixed blade and then, usually through the operation of a spring, to return to the open position. An example of a handpiece of this type is seen in the patent which issued to Lo et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,275,607.
One known example of a proportional control is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,757,814, which issued to Wang et al., for a proportional control for a pneumatic cutting device. However, that device, although disclosed as proportional, includes a linear solenoid valve actuated by a selectively varied electrical signal generated by a power supply and is controlled by a potentiometer which is in turn operated by a foot pedal.
The rotary electric motor drive may also be considered as a "proportional-cut" mode of operation because the motor is typically a stepper or rotary motor. The motion of the movable blade is controlled by the surgeon and the rate and amount of closure of the blade is proportional to the rate and amount of movement of the control device by the surgeon.


Methods and apparatus are disclosed for dynamically allocating bandwidth to a plurality of client devices coupled over a network to a physical layer device (PHY). The PHY is preferably configured to utilize a connection criteria, such as bandwidth requirement for the client devices, to negotiate and connect the devices to a host device in a desired order.

1. Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure relates generally to data traffic flow in physical layer devices.
2. The Prior Art
As the capacity in computer networks have increased, providing access to such capacity to the desktop remains a challenge for designers. As the last link to a user's computer is typically a copper link such as a cable, this link is often the limiting interface in a network.
One disadvantage of newer devices compliant with faster-rate standards such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GE) is that devices typically do not provide for auto-negotiation between devices to establish links at rates lower than 10 Gbps. In other words, newer generation 10 Gbps equipment may not be able to establish links with legacy devices at lower link rates (such as 2.5 Gbps), especially over extended copper lines that typically feed desktop units.

Method and apparatus for dynamically allocating traffic in a physical layer device


A dowelling jig (10) comprising a pair of spaced apart rail members which comprise an upper rail member (11) and a lower rail member (12), at least one drill guide member (13) which is slidable between the spaced apart rail members and which is releasably lockable relative to at least one of said spaced apart rail members.

The problem of drilling holes in timber to facilitate the accurate assembly of joinery and furniture using dowels is well known. Dowels are usually short lengths of timber which are used to join wooden sheets together. Initially, holes must be drilled into the wooden sheets and a dowel is then inserted into the hole in each sheet. Glue is usually squeezed into the hole prior to insertion of the dowel. It is critical that the holes in each sheet are precisely aligned to enable the two sheets to be properly joined together via the dowel. Even a small misalignment creates an unacceptable join. Therefore, even a minor inaccuracy in the positioning of dowel holes creates alignment problems which are not simply overcome, and are time consuming to correct or disguise.
It is well known to provide some sort of framework to enable the holes to be accurately drilled into the sheets. These devices are typically called dowelling jigs, and several devices are known. A disadvantage with many types of conventional dowelling jigs is the complexity of the device especially in ensuring that a plurality of holes can be accurately formed in a particular sheet. Other conventional devices are quite fiddly to use. Many devices are very expensive to manufacture and are therefore not readily accepted by cabinet makers and DIY people. Other conventional dowelling jigs are suitable only for forming holes in the face of the material or forming holes in the edge of the material but are not entirely suitable or easy to use to form holes both in the edge and the face of the material. Some conventional dowelling jigs are extremely large and therefore are not very useful in confined spaces or on smaller work benches.
It will be clearly understood that, if a prior art publication is referred to herein, this reference does not constitute an admission that the publication forms part of the common general knowledge in the art in Australia or in any other country.


A load control device (e.g., a switching device) for controlling power delivered from an AC power source to an electrical device (e.g., a lighting load) may be configured to detect that a relay is stuck closed and attempt to fix the relay. The relay of the load control device may be adapted to be coupled between the source and the electrical device to control the power delivered to the electrical device so as to generate a switched-hot voltage. The load control device may comprise a detect circuit configured to generate a detect signal indicating a magnitude of the switched-hot voltage, and a control circuit configured to monitor the detect signal. The control circuit may be configured to determine that the relay is stuck closed in response to the detect signal, and to control the relay in order to attempt to fix the relay by repeatedly closing and opening the relay.

Load control devices, such as switches, for example, use mechanical switches, such as electrical relays, to switch alternating currents being supplied to an electrical load. These electrical relays may include at least two contacts (e.g., a fixed contact and a movable contact), and may be in an open state or a closed state. The lifetime of such electrical relays may be shortened by arcs or sparks caused as the contacts of the relay attempt to come into contact with one another (i.e., when the relay attempts to close).
Some electrical loads, such as drivers for light-emitting diode (LED) light sources, behave as capacitive loads. When an LED light source is switched on by the load control device, there is a large in-rush of current into the driver, which quickly subsides as the input capacitance of the driver charges up to line voltage. This temporary current surge can be problematic as the number of drivers controlled by an electrical relay increases. For example, in the case of a full 16-amp (e.g., steady-state) circuit of drivers, the in-rush current can approach 560 amps. Though short-lived (e.g., only a few line cycles or shorter), this level of surge can wreak havoc on the contacts of even a relatively large relay having a high current rating (e.g., 50 amps). The problem stems from the fact that each time a pair of contacts of the electrical relay close or snap together, there is a tendency for the contacts to bounce apart. When this bouncing occurs during a large current surge, the intervening gas or air ionizes and arcing occurs. The arcing has the effect of blasting away the conductive coatings on the relay contacts which eventually causes the relay to fail, either due to erosion of the contact material, or, more commonly, due to welding of the contacts in the closed position.
Some prior art switching circuits for drivers have required advanced components and structures (such as microcontrollers and multiple relays per driver circuit), and complex switching techniques. An example of such a switching circuit is described in greater detail in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,068, issued May 3, 1994, entitled TWO RELAY SWITCHING CIRCUIT FOR FLUORESCENT LIGHTING CONTROLLER, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,633,540, issued May 27, 1997, entitled SURGE-RESISTANT RELAY SWITCHING CIRCUIT, the entire disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference. Other prior art switching circuits seek to suppress arcs by controlling the relay actuation time such that the relay contact(s) close as nearly as possible to a zero cross of the alternating-current (AC) waveform. An example of such a switching circuit is described in greater detail in commonly-assigned U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0268474, published Sep. 18, 2014, entitled METHOD OF CLOSING A RELAY SWITCH AND APPARATUS THEREOF, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. However, switching circuits utilizing these prior art techniques are still susceptible to having stuck relays due to welding of the contacts in the closed position.

Load control device having stuck relay detection


A first portion is set near or in contact with a second portion. The first and second portions are electrically connected by spraying fine metal particles particles of gold, nickel or copper in a carrier gas of helium, argon, hydrogen or nitrogen on the first and second portions to form a metal bump. Prior to spraying the fine metal particles to form the metal bump, hard particles of titanium, copper, hafnium, zirconium or vanadium may be sprayed on the first and second portions to remove contamination layers.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a connection method and a connection device for electrical connection of small portions, in particular, various portions in electronic parts, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to electrically connect the inner lead portion of a lead frame and a bonding pad formed on a semiconductor chip, a wire bonding method using a gold wire or aluminum wire is generally used. Recently, methods of forming a bump on a bonding pad and electrically connecting the bump to the wiring pattern formed on a film cartlet or electrically connecting the bump to the wiring pattern formed on the board as in TAB (tape automated bonding) or flip-chip bonding have been used. With the above methods, the bonding pad and the bonding wire, the bonding wire and the inner lead portion, and the bump and the wiring pattern are electrically connected to each other by metal bonding. Further, soldering is often used for electrical connection at the time of mounting of electronic parts on the printed-circuit board.
However, the wire bonding method has defects that the arrangement of elements formed on the semiconductor chip is limited and it is difficult to reduce the pitch between the pads. That is, in order to connect the bonding wire and the bonding pad to each other by metal bonding, it is necessary to apply a physical load such as heat, pressure or ultrasonic vibration to the connection portion. Therefore, when a semiconductor element is formed in an area directly under the bonding pad, the element may be damaged and the characteristic thereof may be deteriorated. Thus, the semiconductor element cannot be formed in an area near or directly under the bonding pad. Further, since the shortest distance between adjacent bonding wires is limited by the outer diameter of a bonding capillary, it is practically difficult to reduce the pitch between the pads to be less than 100 .mu.m. For this reason, the chip size of a semiconductor chip in which a large number of pads are required to be formed must be increased.
In a connection method using no bonding wire, unlike TAB or flip-chip bonding, a larger amount of heat and a higher pressure may be often applied to the connection portion than in the wire bonding method. For this reason, the elements formed in the semiconductor chip may be often damaged. Further, the pad pitch may be reduced to less than approx. 80 .mu.m, but since it is not preferable to reduce the size of the bump from the viewpoint of the mechanical strength, reduction in the pad pitch is limited. Further, since a large number of bumps and a large number of wiring patterns are connected at the same time, the heights of the bumps must be made constant and the connection position must be precisely determined. Thus, the connection method, such as TAB and flip-chip bonding, has the defects that various conditions for connection are severe, variation in the connection state and connection strength tends to occur and it is difficult to attain the stable connection.
In a case where electronic parts are mounted on the printed-circuit board, for example, where the outer lead portion of the semiconductor device is connected to the wiring pattern formed on the printed-circuit board by soldering, solder must be previously attached to the outer lead portion. Further, flux or the like must be coated on a to-be-connected portion. In addition, it is necessary to remove the flux by using organic solvent after the soldering is completed. Thus, the connection method using solder requires a large number of working steps, the working efficiency is low and the reliability thereof is low. Further, since the organic solvent and solder vapor are harmful, the environmental protection measure must be taken and the manufacturing cost will be increased.

Connection method and connection device for electrical connection of small portions


A needle-syringe assembly, operable in a normal mode and convertible to a retraction mode, comprises an elongated, generally cylindrical barrel, a plunger slidably mounted in the barrel, and a needle holder carrying a hollow needle on the distal end thereof. The barrel forms a hollow nozzle located at the distal end of the barrel. The plunger forms a coaxial cavity extending therethrough, and the plunger includes a helical slot exposing a proximal portion of the coaxial cavity. The needle holder is slidably mounted in the coaxial cavity of the plunger. During the normal mode, a distal portion of the needle holder is engaged within the nozzle by a taper lock. To switch from the normal mode to the retraction mode, the taper lock is disengaged by rotary movement of the plunger relative to the barrel. While preventing rotary movement of the needle holder relative to the barrel, continued rotary movement of the plunger causes a lateral arm of the needle holder to ascend through the helical slot so that the needle holder retracts into the coaxial cavity of the plunger and the needle is concealed.

A hypodermic needle has many applications in modern medicine. One application is to fit the hypodermic needle into a syringe and to then insert the needle into a person's body for intra-muscular, subcutaneous, or intravenous injection of medications. Another application of the hypodermic needle is to introduce a guidewire into a central vein of a person. The hypodermic needle acts as a sharp introducing instrument through which the guidewire is advanced into the vein of the patient. Following insertion of the guidewire, the needle is removed and a catheter is threaded over the guidewire and, when in place, used for diagnostic monitoring or for therapeutic procedures such as hemodialysis. Yet another application is to collect blood samples for tests using a hypodermic needle with two sharp puncturing beveled ends mounted on the barrel of a syringe. The distal puncturing end of the needle is inserted into a person's vein while an inverted rubber-capped vacuum tube is pushed into the barrel so that the other end of the needle pierces the rubber cap of the vacuum tube. Thus, a blood sample passes from the vein, through the needle, and into the vacuum tube. A fourth application of the hypodermic needle is to coaxially mount a catheter over a hypodermic needle and to puncture a vein of a person's body with the needle. Following needle puncture, the over-the-needle ("OTN") catheter is advanced into the vein, the needle is removed, and the catheter is connected to an intravenous line for fluid infusions into the vein. The foregoing applications constitute the most common applications of hypodermic needles.
A hypodermic needle entering into a patient's body is invariably contaminated by the patient's blood and body fluids. Following use of the needle, the needle presents a risk to physicians, nurses, and other health care personnel because the needle might transmit an infection or disease to such personnel if it were to accidently puncture them. Thus, health care personnel are in constant danger of contracting infections and diseases, some of which may be deadly. Other potential victims of accidental needle punctures include sanitation workers which later dispose of garbage containing the hypodermic needle. The diseases which may be transmitted by a contaminated hypodermic needle include Immune Deficiency Virus, Hepatitis, Rabies, Kure, Encephalitis, and Arbor viruses. The outcome of contracting one of these diseases is often fatal because there are no known cures for any of these diseases. Often a needle puncture in a person's skin is so trivial that it remains unrecognized until the person becomes seriously ill.
The problem of suffering accidental needle punctures is well recognized. As a result, enormous inventive effort has been devoted to concealing the sharp needle point of hypodermic needles. Despite this effort, the prevalence and magnitude of needle prick-transmitted diseases is still high, as reflected in such recent articles as "Health Care" by Helene Cooper, Wall Street Journal (Nov. 25, 1992); The G.M.P. Letter (May 1992); Devices & Diagnostics Letter, Vol. 19, No. 19 (May 8, 1992); and FDA Medical Bulletin, Vol. 22. No. 2 (Sep. 22, 1992).
In order to avoid the transmittal of disease by needle punctures, efforts have been directed to preventing exposure of the sharp point of the hypodermic needle. One approach is to cap the needle following use. This approach, however, presents a risk of danger because it involves placing the fingers directly opposite to the needle point. To help keep the fingers away from the needle point while capping the needle, needle caps provided with wide mouths or long handles have been developed by others. Examples of such needle caps are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,735,617; 4,742,910; 4,747,835; 4,767,412; 4,850,976; 4,852,584; 4,892,525; 4,906,235; 4,919,656; 4,928,824; 4,958,622; 5,066,279; 5,190,532; and 5,195,982. While the foregoing needle caps reduce the risk of suffering a needle prick, this approach still requires a person to place his/her fingers near the needle and such finger placement is an active invitation to a needle prick. It cannot be over emphasized that even a single contaminated needle prick is unacceptable.
Another approach to concealing hypodermic needles following use is to provide safe disposal containers as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,746,017; 4,828,107; 4,903,832; 4,994,044; 5,024,326; and 5,067,949. Such safety containers, however, do not solve the problem because needle pricks can and do occur even before the hypodermic needles reach their final disposal destination in the safety containers.


It is provided an authentication method for realizing a network authentication function for an authentication system, the authentication system including an authentication server for authenticating a terminal used by a user, and a switch for mediating an authentication sequence between the terminal and the authentication server. The authentication method includes steps of: providing, by the switch, identification information for identifying the switch to the authentication server in the authentication sequence; authenticating, by the authentication server, an authentication request transmitted from the terminal; transmitting, by the authentication server, an authentication result of the authentication to the switch based on the provided identification information on the switch; and authenticating, by the switch, access from the terminal based on the authentication result received from the authentication server.

This invention relates to a network authentication system.
As communication networks become more important as an infrastructure, more various functions for enhancing security are proposed. One of the functions is network authentication. A network authentication system mainly includes an authentication switch coupled to a terminal and an authentication server for authenticating the terminal. In the conventional network authentication system, the terminal transmits an authentication request packet to the authentication switch. The authentication switch uses authentication information included in the received authentication request packet to inquire of the authentication server whether or not the received authentication information is registered therein. When notified by the authentication server that the authentication information has been already registered therein, the authentication switch allows communications of a source MAC address of the authentication request packet.
As background arts in this technical field, there are JP 2006-33206 A and JP 2010-62667 A.
JP 2006-33206 A discloses the following authentication system. Specifically, in the authentication system, a DHCP server dispenses an IP address in response to a request received from a terminal apparatus. The authentication server receives an authentication frame transmitted from the terminal apparatus, and performs authentication of the terminal apparatus. After completing the authentication, the authentication server notifies a registration information database within an authentication hub of communication permission for the terminal apparatus. In the authentication hub, a frame receiving circuit part receives a frame transmitted by the terminal apparatus. The authentication hub refers to the registration information database based on transmission source information of the frame, to thereby determine transmission of the frame, rewriting-and-transmission thereof, and discarding thereof, and transmits the transmission frame whose transmission or rewriting-and-transmission is permitted to a transmission buffer.
Further, JP 2010-62667 A discloses a network system in which a switching hub having an authentication function for authenticating a user terminal includes authentication means for transferring a packet for requesting authentication received from the user terminal to the authentication server, and transfers a packet of authentication response received from the authentication server to the user terminal, while determining that the above-mentioned user terminal has been authenticated when information on successful authentication is read out with reference to the packet of the authentication response.

Authentication method, transfer apparatus, and authentication server


A MIS transistor includes a gate electrode portion, insulating sidewalls formed on side surfaces of the gate electrode portion, source/drain regions and a stress film formed so as to cover the gate electrode portion and the source/drain regions. A height of an upper surface of the gate electrode portion is smaller than a height of an upper edge of each of the insulating sidewalls. A thickness of first part of the stress film located on the gate electrode portion is larger than a thickness of second part of the stress film located on the source/drain regions.

1 Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method for fabricating the semiconductor device, and more particularly relates to an effective technique in application to a semiconductor device including a MISFET having a sidewall structure and a method for fabricating the semiconductor device.
2. Description of Prior Art
As a field-effect transistor mounted in a semiconductor device, an insulating gate type field-effect transistor called MISFET (metal insulator semiconductor field-effect transistor) has been known. This type of MISFETs is characterized in that the degree of integration can be easily increased, and therefore has been widely used as a circuit element constituting an integrated circuit to contribute to acceleration recent reduction in device size. However, with reduction in device size, different kinds of problems regarding MISFETs have come to the surface. One of the problems is stress applied to a channel formation region in a MISFET. In an ultra-fine CMIS (complementary MIS) process with a gate length of 0.1 μm or less, device temperature has been reduced more and more for the purpose of introduction of new materials, suppression of a short channel effect in MISFETs and the like. With a reduced temperature, a residual stress tends to remain in a device. A residual stress resulting from process is applied to a surface layer portion in an active region of a semiconductor substrate, i.e., a channel formation region of a MISFET.
As for change in transistor characteristics with respect to a stress applied to a channel formation region, when a stress is applied in the same direction as the direction (gate length direction) in which a drain current (Id) flows, the followings have been known.    (1) A drain current of an n-channel MISFET (which will be herein referred to as an "nMISFET") is reduced due to a compressive stress and is increased due to a tensile stress.    (2) A drain current of a p-channel MISFET (which will be herein referred to as a "pMISFET") is increased due to a compressive stress and is reduced due to a tensile stress.Therefore, in recent years, techniques for intentionally utilizing a stress applied to a channel formation region to improve a driving power of a transistor have drawn attention.
For example, there has been proposed a method in which after formation of MISFETs, as silicon nitride films for a self aligning contact which also serve as interlevel insulating films (and which will be hereafter referred to as "liner nitride films"), a nitride film (tensile stress film) 107 for generating a tensile stress in a channel formation region is selectively formed, as shown in FIG. 17A, in an nMISFET region and a nitride film (compressive stress film) 108 for generating a compressive stress in a channel formation region is selectively formed, as shown in FIG. 17B, in a pMISFET, so that a driving power of each of the MISFETs is improved (see Non-patent reference 1). In each of FIGS. 17A and 17B, 100 denotes a semiconductor substrate, 101 denotes a gate insulating film, 102 denotes a gate electrode, 103 denotes an extension region, 104 denotes insulating sidewalls, 105 denotes source/drain regions, and 106 denotes a silicide layer. As shown in FIGS. 17A and 17B, the tensile stress film 107 itself shrinks and the compressive stress film 108 itself expands.
It has been known that the larger a thickness of each of a tensile stress film and a compressive stress film is, the larger a stress generated in a channel region becomes. Therefore, a tensile stress film having an increased thickness and a compressive stress film having an increased thickness can improve respective driving powers of an nMISFET and a pMISFET.
(Patent Reference 1)
Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-273240
(Non-Patent Reference 1)
S. Pidin, et al., CMOS Architecture using Tensile and Compressive Nitride Films, Semiconductor/Integrated Circuit Technology 68th Symposium Lecture Memoir, pp. 19-22, 2005

Semiconductor device and method for fabricating the same


Reinforced glass produced by overlaying a coating of thin material on a surface of a plate of glass which is optionally silvered, coating a mixture of silicone and epoxy resin on another surface of the glass, and drying at ambient temperature. A layer of highly-exothermic unsaturated polyester resin is then coated on the surface of the glass and dried. The glass is placed into a mould with the uncoated surface facing downwards. A suitable amount of lowly-exothermic unsaturated polyester resin is poured into the mould. A layer of highly-exothermic unsaturated polyester resin is coated on a surface of a plate of reinforcing material and dried. Before the lowly-exothermic unsaturated polyester resin is completely dried, the reinforcing material is overlaid on the glass with the coated surface of the reinforcing material facing downwards. The resultant assembly is then pressed and dried.

The present invention relates to reinforced glass having good resistance to impact and heat and relates to a process for producing the same.
Some types of furniture are made of wood either coated with paint or overlaid with a plate of glass. However, the overlaid glass may be easily broken by impact or heat, i.e., its resistance to impact and heat is poor. In addition, without treatment, paints cannot be solidly adhered to glass. Methods to have a desired pattern on glass known to skilled persons include engraving the glass or sandblasting. The designs on the glass created by the above methods are usually unnatural or not vivid.
It is the purpose of this invention, therefore, to mitigate and/or obviate the above-mentioned drawbacks in the manner set forth in the detailed description of the preferred embodiment.

Reinforced glass and process for producing the same

Wulin Tsun, Jenwu Hsiang, Kaohsiung Hsien


A method and system for increasing standardization and reuse of feature driven design of automotive vehicles. An automotive vehicle is represented by a vehicle model, which includes a set of features defining vehicle functionality and information on how to implement each feature. A features database stores information on how a feature is implemented, including the physical parts it requires and the configuration of the parts. A parts database is also provided for maintaining information on vehicle parts. Coupled to the features database and the parts data base is a feature manager arranged to determine physical implementation information for each feature based on the implementation information. The physical implementation information is included in the vehicle model. A conflict manager is provided for resolving conflicts between implementations of separate features, and an optimizer for standardizing parts and implementations across multiple vehicle models.

1. Field of the Invention
The following invention relates to systems and methods for designing automotive vehicles.
2. Background Art
Traditionally, automotive vehicles have been designed as a composition of mechanical and electrical parts. A manufacturer may represent a vehicle in its records as a bill of materials, or parts list, along with computer drawings. The vehicle can then be manufactured to the specifications set out in the bill of materials and drawings.
A typical design cycle may include a manufacturer's marketing department indicating a set of requirements to the engineering department, who determine what parts to use and how to configure them to meet the requirements. This may be an iterative process, with engineering responsibility often being divided across vehicle subsystems. For instance, a separate group of engineers may be assigned to work on the vehicle's powertrain. Those engineers' responsibility could, in turn, be divided among vehicle engine and transmission.
Automobile manufacturers often design and manufacture multiple vehicles simultaneously. Because of volume discounts from suppliers, the cost of duplicative engineering efforts, and other efficiency concerns, it is advantageous for the manufacturer to standardize engineering knowledge, such as parts use and implementation, across different product offerings and thus leverage engineering efforts across different products. To achieve this, teams of engineers often work on more than one product offering, and are encouraged to drive this standardization.
However, the common parts-centric design scheme can prevent realizing the true potential of engineering standardization. It can be difficult to track the engineering knowledge behind the existing physical reuse, and thus may not be conducive to future reuse, especially as human talent migrates to different jobs. Thus it is desirable to have a system for and method of designing vehicles that better preserves engineering knowledge and promotes effective reuse and standardization.


The present disclosure includes switching resonant filter circuits and methods. In one embodiment, a circuit includes a plurality of resonant switching circuits arranged in a three (3) or four (4) element PI network. In one embodiment, an undesired signal frequency is applied to two resonant switching circuits and a carrier frequency of an RF signal is applied to the other two resonant switching networks so that the network attenuates the undesired signal frequency and passes the carrier frequency. In another embodiment, the resonant switching circuits are configurable to shift a peak impedance so that undesired signals may be attenuated.

The present disclosure relates to electronic systems and methods, and in particular, to switching resonator filter circuits and methods.
Filter circuits are used in a wide range of electronic applications. Filter circuits are typically used as stages in a signal path to allow some frequency components of a signal to pass through the filter while other frequencies are attenuated by the filter. One common example filter is an LRC filter shown in FIG. 1. An LRC filter includes an inductor L, resistor R, and a capacitor C. An LRC filter may be used as a band pass filter, where a range of frequencies within the "pass band" are allowed to pass while frequencies above and below the pass band are attenuated. The pass band is typically centered around a "center frequency," which in the case of an LRC circuit is ωo=1/sqrt(LC). In practical implementations, edges of the pass band are set according to frequencies above and below the center frequency where the attenuation increases to 3 dB.
Filters are often characterized in terms of "quality factor" or "Q". Quality factor describes a resonators bandwidth relative to the center frequency (e.g., Q=fo/Δf, where fo is the center frequency in Hertz and Δf is the width of the pass band (or bandwidth) of the filter. For the parallel LRC filter in FIG. 1, for example, the quality factor is Q=R*sqrt(C/L). In this case, increasing R increases Q. However, in practical applications achieving high Q using passive components, such as resistors, would result in large circuit areas, high losses, and reduced circuit efficiency. High quality factor circuits are desirable to pass desired frequency components while attenuating other unwanted frequency components that may be close in frequency to the desired frequency components. It would be advantageous to achieve alternatives to typical L, R, and C filtering with very high quality factor filters.

Switching resonator filter circuits and methods


A power factor correction converter and a control method are disclosed. A power factor correction converter includes a power conversion module, a capacitor, a third switch unit, and a fourth switch capacitor. The power conversion module includes a first switch, a second switch, a first switch unit, a second switch unit, and an inductor. The first switch is coupled to a first input terminal. The second switch is coupled to a second input terminal. The first switch is coupled between an output terminal and the first switch. The second switch is coupled between the output terminal and the second switch. The inductor is coupled between the first and the second switch unit. The capacitor is coupled to the output terminal. The third switch unit is coupled between the second input terminal and the capacitor. The fourth switch unit is coupled between the first input terminal and the capacitor.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a power factor correction converter. More particularly, the present invention relates to a power factor correction converter having low conduction losses.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1A depicts a power factor correction converter 100 according to the prior art. As shown in FIG. 1A, when a switch SW1 is turned on, a power factor correction inductor L11 stores energy through a bridge rectifier 110. Conversely, when the switch SW1 is turned off, the power factor correction inductor L11 releases energy to an output capacitor C01, through a diode D01. To put it simply, three semiconductor devices (such as diode) are turned on when the power factor correction inductor L11 stores or releases energy, thus conduction losses of the power factor correction converter 100 are increased.
FIG. 1B depicts a bridgeless power factor correction converter 120 according to the prior art. As shown in FIG. 1B, during the positive half cycle of voltage of the AC power VAC, a switch SW12 is kept being turned on and a switch SW11 and a diode D11 are selectively conducting. During the negative half cycle of voltage of the AC power VAC, the switch SW11 is kept being turned on and the switch SW12 and a diode D12 are selectively conducting. Under the circumstances, high frequency switching AC signals are generated between terminals of the AC power source VAC and the output voltage thus results in increased common mode noise of the power factor correction converter 120. Typically, an electromagnetic interference filter is disposed between the AC power source VAC and the power factor correction converter 120 to reduce common mode noise. However, with such a configuration, the total power consumption is increased and thus increases the conduction losses of the power factor correction converter 120.
In order to solve the aforementioned problems, those skilled in the art are striving to find a solution, but no applicable method has yet been put forward. Therefore, there is a need to reduce conduction losses while reducing common mode noise in a power factor correction converter.

Power factor correction converter and control method thereof


A quick coupler provides a way to securely lock implements to the coupler utilizing a design which receives hooks at connection locations and then directs pins into pockets at a rear of the implement. Instead of directing the pins along a pocket axis (as is done in the prior art), the pins are directed at an angle relative to the pocket axis thereby securely connecting the coupler to the implement. In fact some embodiments can have a pin extension system spaced from a wedge plate surface defining the pocket of the implement.

Loaders of various kinds are used in various industries including construction, such as site preparation or other tasks, mining and other industries. Implements can be mounted onto the end of an arm to perform work. Buckets are certainly one common implement attached to loaders. Forks are another. Other implements also exist in the marketplace. By providing a quick coupler, an operator can relatively quickly remove one implement from the loader and attach another.
Quick couplers have evolved over time. At one point, couplers were not particularly quick and utilized pins that were not easy to remove to switch implements. Operators had to manually remove pins, remove the implement, locate a new implement in a correct relationship relative to the coupler and then reinstall the pins. This process proved to be laborious. A profound evolution occurred with the first generation of quick couplers which allowed the operator to control the coupler from the cab of the loader. The operator could provide a command (usually hydraulic in nature) to withdraw a pin to release at least a portion of an implement so that the implement could then be removed, possibly by moving the arm to disengage the implement at another location. The process could then be reversed to connect the next implement.
Caterpillar corporation created an innovative quick coupler that has received wide acceptance in the marketplace with U.S. Pat. No. 7,882,898 for the coupler and U.S. Pat. No. 7,814,689 for the implements. While this combination of quick coupler and implements has been well received in the marketplace, the combined wedging action of the coupler with the implements is believed to cause wear over time on wedge surfaces. Accordingly, the applicant believes that a need exists to provide a quick coupler to the marketplace which can accept existing or newly constructed implements, and in many applications, without engaging a wedge coupling surface of the implements.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved quick coupler in the marketplace.


An integrated circuit including a memory cell and a method of manufacturing the integrated circuit are described. The memory cell includes a buried gate select transistor and a resistive memory element coupled to the buried gate select transistor. The resistive memory element stores information based on a resistivity of the resistive memory element.

Memory devices are used in essentially all computing applications and in many electronic devices. For some applications, non-volatile memory, which retains its stored data even when power is not present, may be used. For example, non-volatile memory is typically used in digital cameras, portable audio players, wireless communication devices, personal digital assistants, and peripheral devices, as well as for storing firmware in computers and other devices.
A wide variety of memory technologies have been developed. Non-volatile memory technologies include flash memory, magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), phase change random access memory (PCRAM), conductive bridging random access memory (CBRAM), and carbon memory. Due to the great demand for memory devices, researchers are continually improving memory technology, and developing new types of memory, including new types of non-volatile memory.

Resistive memory element and method of fabrication


An electronic music device for skaters is boot mounted and includes a sensor sensing skate states capturing forward backward direction of motion and inside outside lean. A sensory signal conditioning and calibration circuit converts mapped signals into audible tones. An audio amplifier powers wired or wireless headphones. The skater plays music with skates like a musician plays music on a musical instrument. The device tuned as different musical instruments, in a synchronized precision skating team allows musical composition performance. The skaters play the music with their skates creating musical and choreographic dance.

A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a musical instrument based on skates. More particularly, the present invention relates to a device attached to figure skates for transforming a physical performance into electronic sounds, notes and music.
B. Discussion of Related Art
Previous advances in figure skating and other skating disciplines have been achieved through improved equipment, better coaching, sports medicine and psychology and appropriate nutrition. In figure skating, primary emphasis is commonly placed on the use of training techniques and fixed equipment intended to reinforce the skater's proper upper and lower body position, and the use of the skater's muscle memory. To date, skaters have relied on the ability of a coach to observe their movements and suggest or demonstrate steps for improvement. Feedback from a coach requires frequent and intensive coach time.
Since its invention in the last century, skating has been analogous to silent movies. Live or mostly prerecorded music accompanies a skating performance both in the competitive and the entertainment world of skating. All skaters skate to prerecorded music when they perform. Ice dancers and synchronized skating teams, for instance are judged on the precision with which they interpret the music. For single free style skaters and for pair skaters the music is often treated as required accompaniment with few interspersed musical crescendos when the skaters jump or spin. However, no matter what the event is, skaters in all cases skate to the music.
It is well known, however that during skating the blades generate sounds. Unfortunately, these sounds are nothing more than scrapes, whistles or toe pick scratches that are not particularly entertaining. In fact, skating as quietly as possible is considered by most skating professionals to represent quality skating.
A variety of devices, which use the feet, hands and fingers or other body parts of a dancer, to control musical instruments have been demonstrated, published, and patented in the past. Most of them are associated with gloves, shoes and other types of footwear. However, there have been no such devices that use skates as the source of music. Examples are seen in the following U.S. patents: U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,305 to Medler; U.S. Pat. No. 5,911,650 to Cox; U.S. Pub. No. 2005/0153265 (Kavana); U.S. Pat. No. D488,284 to Kavana, etc.
In the Tap-Tronic invention http://www.usc.edu/dept/dance/p3_more.html#ZT Alfred Desio described the Zapped Taps, Tap-Tronics™. In his concept, each dancer used electronically amplified tap shoes. Transducer microphones in a tapper's shoes were wired to a transmitter either hand-held or placed in a pocket. The tap sounds were relayed to a receiver and could go through special effects modules, a number of synthesizers, and other electronic equipment. There was a special effect due to performance: the music was developed and changed by the dancer at the moment that the dance took place. Basic elements included the tap sounds, any electronic devices, and the material that the composer had pre-programmed into the sequence.
In the 1987 U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,305 "Tap dance shoe including integral electromechanical energy conversion means", the inventors Charles E. Medler and Terry C. McInturff featured a tap attachment to a tap dancing shoe. The tap included pickup means for converting the mechanical vibration energy generated by the tap striking the floor into a substantially undistorted electrical signal suitable for remote processing and amplification. Also disclosed was a wireless radio transmission system adapted for carrying by a dancer using the shoe whereby the electrical signals picked up by the pickup means are transmitted to a remote receiver/amplifier unit.
In 1999, "Ice skating simulator apparatus and method of using same" by Cox received U.S. Pat. No. 5,911,650, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. This invention is concerned with a skating apparatus for facilitating replication of a skating stride, comprising a support surface with a pair of pivotable simulator arms. Each pivotable simulator arm supports a foot portion that is slidable along the pivotable simulator arm in a guide track. The foot portions are coupled to a resistance mechanism, via a chain, to provide resistance to the foot portions during a skating stride. The resistance mechanism includes a retraction device for retracting a chain during the return stroke of the foot portion. While this invention provides tactile feedback to the skater with the purpose of improving her skating skills, it does not have means to convert this feedback to music. Variations of the Cox patent are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,955,608 and 6,551,221, the disclosures of which is incorporated herein by reference.
In 2005, "Entertainment device" of Jordan Kavana was published under US Patent Pub. No. 2005/0153265. The invention describes an interactive entertainment device that can be used as a karaoke machine, a dance teaching aide, a combination of a karaoke machine and dance teaching aide, a competition device, and others. The interactive entertainment device may include a central processing unit, a dance mat having one or more sensors for receiving input from a user, a display device for displaying words of songs, one or more input devices, such as microphones, and one or more speakers for playing songs.
In 2004, "Virtual reality musical glove" by Kavana received U.S. Design Pat. No. D488,284. Also by the same inventor is provided the design of gloves, which are commercially available as the "HandBand", a virtual musical instrument that uses the bending of the fingers connected with strings to micro-switches to control a wirelessly connected music synthesizer capable of playing tunes and other special effects.
In several Ice Skating shows including the 1998-1999 "Stars on Ice" Olympic champion Ilia Kulik performed a couple of unusual programs choreographed by Sarah Kawahara ("Noise" and "Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk") in which he used his natural musicality and his stroking ability to always match his prerecorded music beat for beat. With microphones on his hands and feet he added skating sound effects to his skating. His blades tapped and swooshed out intricate rhythmic vignettes that were musically complex and visually awesome, building in intensity to an incredible finish (Miriam Ellis). See websites http://p 198.ezboard.com/fkulikskrewonlineform8.showMessage?topicID=723.topic http://www.kuliks-krew.com/Kulik_programs/noise5.shtml
Other related publications are:    John Kymissis et al., "Parasitic Power Harvesting in Shoes," Presented at the Second IEEE International Conference on Wearable Computing, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 132-139, October, 1998.    N. Shenck, J. Paradiso, "Energy Scavenging With Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics," IEEE Micro, vol. 21, No. 3, May-June 2001, pp. 30-42.
Joe Paradiso's system description in 2001 states "We have instrumented a pair of dancing sneakers to each measure 16 different parameters, including continuous pressure at 2 points in the sole below left and right toes, continuous pressure at the front of the shoe for pointing, dynamic pressure below the heel, bi-directional bend of the sole, orientation about the 'magnetic vertical' (a 3-axis solid-state compass), tilt in two axes (a low-G MEMs accelerometer), high-G's/shock in 3 axes (a piezoelectric accelerometer), angular rate about the vertical (a vibrating reed rate gyro), height above electric field transmitters in the stage, translational position (sonar from 4 separate locations), and battery status (continuous level and discrete warning). All sensors reside on the shoe itself, together with a PIC microcomputer to sample and serialize the data, an FM wireless transmitter to broadcast updates (at up to 20 kbits/sec, giving us a 350 Hz state update from both shoes) and a 9-volt battery that lasts a day or so." http://www.media.mit.edu/resenv/pubs/papers/2000—12_ISEA_Shoe.pdf presents Joe Paradiso's dance shoe personal reflections including a vision of an orchestra performing music while using these musical sneakers. Paradiso Expressive footwear is for computer-augmented dace performance. See http://www.media.mit.edu/resenv/pubs/papers/97—10_Wearcon_Shoe.pdf.
In 1997, Yamaha introduced its Miburi system, consisting of a vest hosting an array of resistive bend sensors at the shoulder, elbows, and wrist, a pair of handgrips with two velocity-sensitive buttons on each finger, and a pair of shoe inserts with piezoelectric pickups at the heel and toe. It is the most advanced wearable musical interface to have hit the commercial music world. See website http://web.media.mit.edu/˜joep/SpectrumWeb/captions/Miburi.html. The most recent models employ a wireless data link between a belt-mounted central controller and a nearby receiver/synthesizer unit. Yamaha has invented a semaphore-like gestural language for the Miburi, where notes are specified through a combination of arm configurations and key presses on the wrist controllers. Degrees of freedom not used in setting the pitch are routed to timbre-modifying and pitch-bending continuous controllers.
Sonic Banana is a bend sensor midi controller with good references on Miburi and Paradiso's shoes. See http://www.iua.upf.es/mtg/reacTable/musictables/singer_sonicbanana.pdf.
In a paper "Towards a choice of gestural constraints for instrumental performers" Axel Mulder discusses many of the conceptual issues related to a successful mapping of the musician's gestures to the performance of music using various musical instruments. See http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/emid/IRCAM/Mul.pdf.
Although the foregoing devices may be well suited for their respective purposes, they either involve microphones to capture the natural sounds produced by the skates or tap shoes or use sensors that are suited to capture the movement of the foot while dancing on a dance floor and map these movements to arbitrary sounds.


A network interface controller atomic operation unit and a network interface control method comprising, in an atomic operation unit of a network interface controller, using a write-through cache and employing a rate-limiting functional unit.

1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to atomic operation units (AOUs) for network interface controllers (NICs).
2. Description of Related Art
Note that the following discussion refers to a number of publications by author(s) and year of publication, and that due to recent publication dates certain publications are not to be considered as prior art vis-a-vis the present invention. Discussion of such publications herein is given for more complete background and is not to be construed as an admission that such publications are prior art for patentability determination purposes.
A key capability for parallel computers, particularly those supporting partitioned global address space (PGAS) programming models, is the ability to efficiently support remote atomic operations. A common usage model for remote atomic operations is to have many nodes access a small number of variables on a given target node. A unit capable of performing atomic operations is sometimes provided on the network interface along with a local cache of data. The local cache on the network interface controller (NIC) poses a set of challenges regarding the frequency with which items are propagated to the node's primary memory. The present invention provides a mechanism for managing this cache along with mechanisms to reduce data traffic to the host processor.
Atomic operations have been supported on the network interface for quite some time with the restriction that the data item only be modified through a specific Application Programming Interface (API). For example, the Quadrics Elan network adapters, J. Beecroft, et al., "Meiko CS-2 interconnect Elan-Elite design", Parallel Computing, 20(1011):1627-1638 (1994); and F. Petrini, et al., "The Quadrics network: High-performance clustering technology", IEEE Micro, 22(1):46-57 (January 2002), support SHMEM, Cray Research, Inc., SHMEM Technical Note for C, SG-2516 2.3 (October 1994), perform atomic operations using an Elan thread. A similar scheme was provided on the Cray T3E, S. L. Scott, "Synchronization and communication in the T3E multiprocessor", Seventh ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (October 1996), but was provided at the memory controller, where it is easier to guarantee ordering semantics, is always visible to the processor, and does not consume system bus bandwidth to flush an item. While placing the operations at the memory controller is quite appealing technically, it is generally less feasible in modern system implementations where the memory controller is part of the host processor chip.
Upcoming networks by supercomputer vendors may support SHMEM style atomics with an atomic unit on the network interface along with a local cache. However, none of these adapters are believed to include a write-through cache or a local tracking of outstanding items evicted from the local cache. More importantly, these designs likely use time-outs to mitigate the amount of traffic placed on the interconnect to the host processor rather than a more flexible rate absorbing mechanism.
Collective operations are closely related to atomic operations and have been studied on programmable network interfaces (e.g., D. Buntinas, et al., "NIC-based reduction in Myrinet clusters: Is it beneficial?", Proceedings of the SAN-02 Workshop (February 2002); A. Moody, et al., "Scalable NIC-based reduction on large-scale clusters", Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE SC2003 Conference (November 2003); however, collectives are fundamentally different in the way they accept data and provide results.
Previous designs have attempted to implement atomic operations on the network interface using a local cache. One of the fundamental problems, however, is that the access mechanisms for variables touched by the atomic operations are sub-optimal. In general, previous designs have used a time-out to manage the local cache. This time-out allows the cache to update the host memory after a predefined interval, but brings a certain set of constraints on performance. For example, one usage of atomic operations is to allow the local host to track "completion events". These events can be signaled by atomically incrementing a variable, with the host waiting for a certain value of the variable to be reached before proceeding. "Waiting" typically consists of polling the location of the atomic element in host memory and having that value be updated as quickly as possible. It is generally desirable to relax these constraints by increasing the frequency with which updates are written to host memory; however, doing so could easily overwhelm the link between the network interface and the host processor.
The fundamental limitation associated with time-outs for moving data from NIC cache to host memory is the specific time-out value that is chosen. If the time-out value is too large, a significant performance penalty is incurred because the host has to wait for an extended period of time to determine that the value has been updated. If the time-out value is too small, it loses its impact because it no longer reduces traffic to the host.
At this point, it is useful to consider traffic models for atomic operations. There are three basic points in the spectrum to consider. The first is a light traffic model, where some number of locations are modified atomically "occasionally". Virtually any atomic unit is sufficient for this class of operation as it happens seldom enough to have minimal impact on performance. The second is "global random access" traffic as might be seen in the GUPS (Giga-Updates per Second) benchmark. In this case, regardless of access rate, caches have no value as the operation never hits cache. These cases require that the functional unit and cache operate efficiently in high miss rate scenarios. The third case, and interesting case for the discussion of bandwidth mitigation, is one where a small number of variables are heavily accessed through atomic operations at a given node. This type of access occurs frequently when managing locks or structures such as shared queues. What is unique about the third case is that it can generate a large amount of traffic to the host memory that can be mitigated by caching on the network interface.
The mechanism provided by the present invention uses a write-through cache combined with traffic mitigation at both the atomic unit as well as the queue between the atomic unit and the host processor. It also provides appropriate mechanisms for tracking "in flight" operations as necessary. Together, these optimizations significantly enhance performance for atomic operations.

NIC atomic operation unit with caching and bandwidth mitigation


There is a hot stick with measuring calipers. The hot stick has a hot stick stock and a hot stick driving bar. Movement of the hot stick driving bar controls the movement of fixed and movable jaw portions of internal and external caliper measurement jaws. In operation a dimension measuring element displays a distance between the fixed and movable jaw portions of the internal and external caliper measuring jaws. A hand grip allows an operator to move the hot stick driving bar relative to the hot stick driving bar. The hot stick stock and the hot stick driving bar both at least partially made of a dielectric material to allow measurements of at least one component of electrical power transmission equipment. The measurements may then be used to modify the electrical power transmission equipment.

This patent document relates generally to hot stick measurement tools and in particular to calipers.
There is a need for calipers that may safely measure distances in locations where there are live electrical currents, such as electrical power transmission equipment. Additionally, calipers used to measure distances between features of electrical power transmission equipment must also allow for measurements at a distance from an operator of the calipers.