An improved bicycle with pressure regulators on the wheels and shock absorbers, with five pressure gauges located on the handlebars which continuously measure the pressure existing in a depository configured on the frame, the tires of the wheels, and shock absorbers, located respectively in the front and rear zone. The pressure gauges are connected to the depository and to the tires and to the shock absorbers through flexible tubes. Each pressure gauge has a support provided with two push-buttons, by means of which pressure is added to the tires or shock absorbers, or the pressure is reduced therein, the air contained in the depository going to the shock absorbers and the tires.

The present specification refers to an improved bicycle with pressure regulators on the wheels and shock absorbers. The clear purpose of this is to enable the user of the bicycle to directly regulate the air contained in the wheels of the bicycle and the air contained in the shock absorbers, to reduce or increase the pressure of these elements in accordance with the emission of air towards the wheels or towards the shock absorbers of air contained within the frame of the bicycle itself. The wheels or shock absorbers act as a depository containing pressurized air. The bicycle has pressure gauges which indicate the pressure existing in the wheels and in the shock absorbers, and a pressure gauge which indicates the air contained in the depository formed by the frame itself.
The improved bicycle has pressure regulators on the wheels and shock absorbers. Air is contained within the bicycle frame, which acts as a depository of air. A proportionate quantity of air can be emitted towards the wheels or towards the shock absorbers, thereby increasing the air pressure at those elements. Depending on the action of the cyclist operating some push-buttons at the handlebars, one can also emit the contained air from the shock absorbers or from the wheels, in order to adapt them to the characteristics of the terrain on which one is traveling.
The improved bicycle with pressure regulators on the wheels and shock absorbers is based upon a conventional bicycle, preferably a mountain bicycle, the frame of which is configured as a depository containing pressurized air. The frame has the appropriate load or intake valve and the appropriate discharge valve. The depository is connected to five pressure gauges that indicate, respectively, the air pressure contained within the depository, the air pressures contained within the front wheel and the rear wheel and, in addition, the air pressures contained in the front and rear shock absorbers.
Associated with each of the pressure gauges, except for the frame, are operating devices including push buttons that, depending on their mounting and direct action on the pressure gauges of the wheels and shock absorbers, cause one of the entry of air in the wheels or in the shock absorbers upon pushing on one button or the like, while, upon acting on the other push-button, they cause the emission of the contained air. These actions are adapted to the characteristics of the terrain on which the cyclist is traveling.
The fifth pressure gauge continuously indicates the air contained within the depository.
To summarize, when a cyclist is traveling on terrain with suitable characteristics, it is necessary for the shock absorbers and wheels to have the appropriate pressure in order to travel properly. The cyclist will increase the appropriate pressure of the tires and shock absorbers. But once they cyclist leaves the terrain which requires greater pressure or hardness in the cited elements, he needs to travel with lower pressure. The cyclist then appropriately acts on the push-buttons and emits from the wheels and from the shock absorbers the amount of air necessary in order to travel ideally.

Bicycle with pressure regulators on the wheels and shock absorbers


Stamps and methods of making stamps for applications in anti-counterfeiting and authentication. The stamps are relatively small in size and feature nanoscale and microscale identification regions and features. High throughput manufacturing and high resolution methods are used to make the stamps including electron beam lithography and optical lithography. Anti-fouling coatings can be applied.

A need exists to provide for better protection and security against counterfeiting and grey-market trading, particularly for pharmaceuticals. A review of counterfeiting in pharmaceuticals and its economic effects may be found in, for example, (1) "Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals: Current Status and Future Projections," A. I. Wertheimer, N. M. Chaney, T. Santella, J. Am. Pharm. Assoc. 43(6):710-718, 2003, and (2) Chapter 4 of the book "Counterfeiting exposed: protecting your brand and your customers," D. M. Hopkins, L. T. Kontnik, M. T. Turnage (Wiley, Ed. 2003); ISBN: 0471269905. Chapter 12 describes current anti-counterfeiting methods, such as holograms, intaglio printing, color-shifting technologies, and chemical or biochemical taggants. In many cases, however, most of these prior methods are not appropriate for pharmaceuticals, since they would require the addition of a non-edible or unapproved chemical compound to the tablet or capsule. There is therefore a need for an improved anti-counterfeiting method that does not significantly modify the target pharmaceutical unit.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Stamps with micrometer- and nanometer-scale features and methods of fabrication thereof


Certain aspects of the present disclosure generally relate a regulator. For example, the regulator may include a control stage, a sense capacitor having first and second terminals, the first terminal coupled to an output of the voltage regulator, and a current amplifier having an input coupled to the second terminal of the sense capacitor and an output coupled to the control stage. The control stage of the regulator may adjust the output voltage of the regulator based at least in part on a current generated by the current amplifier.

Power management integrated circuits (power management ICs or PMICs) are used for managing the power requirement of a host system. A PMIC may be used in battery-operated devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, wearables, etc., to control the flow and direction of electrical power in the devices. The PMIC may perform a variety of functions for the device such as DC to DC conversion, battery charging, power-source selection, voltage scaling, power sequencing, etc. For example, a PMIC may be used for voltage regulation and may include a low-dropout (LDO) regulator.
When a regulator experiences a load attack, the output voltage of the regulator may dip below a target voltage value due to an increased current drawn by the load. Accordingly, it would be beneficial to enhance the transient response of the regulator to compensate for such a voltage dip to maintain regulation.

Methods and apparatus for voltage regulation using output sense current


A method of animating a virtual object within a virtual world, wherein the virtual object comprises a plurality of object parts, wherein for a first object part there is one or more associated second object parts, the method comprising: at an animation update step: specifying a target frame in the virtual world; and applying control to the first object part, wherein the control is arranged such that the application of the control in isolation to the first object part would cause a movement of the first object part in the virtual world that reduces a difference between a control frame and the target frame, the control frame being a frame at a specified position and orientation in the virtual world relative to the first object part, wherein applying control to the first object part comprises moving the one or more second object parts within the virtual world to compensate for the movement of the first object part in the virtual world caused by applying the control to the first object part.

Various methods of animating virtual objects within virtual worlds are well-known. Such methods have been employed in generating animations for computer games, films/movies, animation simulators, etc.
The animators who generate these animations (e.g. the developers of computer games who develop software for carrying out an animation during a computer game, or the creators of animations for use in a movie) will wish to control how the animations are performed. However, the level of control which an animator may have over the animation is often less than desired. It would therefore be desirable to be able to improve how control can be applied to a virtual object within a virtual world in order to animate that virtual object (e.g. provide a wider range of control options in order to give an animator or a computer program more flexibility when generating animations).
Additionally, computer-generated animations may sometimes look less than "natural" (i.e. somewhat "robotic") to a human observer who is used to seeing real-world motion. For example, a human observer is very used to seeing people walking around in the real-world and can therefore detect irregularities in (or unnatural characteristics of) a computer-generated simulation of a person walking. It would therefore be desirable to be able to improve how control can be applied to a virtual object within a virtual world in order to generate more natural-looking, convincing and realistic animations of virtual objects.

Animating a virtual object within a virtual world


A color film supply apparatus has a supply roll holding unused color film. The apparatus simplifies the handling of the color film. For this purpose, the supply roll and a waste roll to hold used film are supported in a cassette-type, portable housing in a manner such that a length of the color film extends between the supply roll and the waste roll and the housing has, between the supply roll and the waste roll, an opening that is at least as wide as the color film and permits free access to both sides of the color film. In addition, a straight edge is located in the section of the housing containing the waste roll and deflects the travel path of the color film.

1. Field of the Invention
The subject of the invention is a supply apparatus for color-bearing film with a supply roll to hold unused color-bearing film.
2. Description of Related Art
For proofing color separations in the printing field, the surface of an image-bearing film is made tacky, for example, by exposure of areas on which a color will be applied. The image-bearing film is then brought into contact with a color-bearing film, or "color film" for short, by a laminator. The laminator has a nip formed by two rollers. In this nip, the color film is pressed against the image-bearing film. Beyond the nip, the color film is separated from the image-bearing film. In this manner, the color remains adhered to the previously tacky areas. The process is repeated with the appropriate number of colors, usually four. Thus, the color separation can be inspected visually, particularly whether the resolution is right.
In known laminators, the supply apparatus for color films consists of a series of color film supply rolls suspended before the nip. The ends of the color films hang down and are fastened on each supply roll, for example, by an adhesive strip. To make a color separation, a technician grasps the end of the film of the desired color, pulls a length of it off the supply roll and threads the end into the nip, for example, with the assistance of a stream of air. The image-bearing film is then similarly threaded into the roller nip. The nip is closed and lamination can start. As soon as the image-bearing film has passed through the nip, the nip is re-opened. The used color film is separated from the supply roll, for example, with a knife. The supply roll is rotated in a direction opposite to the unwind direction in order to backwind any remaining excess of color film. The color film adhering to partial areas of the image-bearing film is then pulled away from the image-bearing film. The used color film is waste.
The manipulation of the color films is relatively cumbersome. The repeated back and forth winding of the color films on the supply rolls can result in some color being rubbed off the film, leading to a defective color separation. Finally, handling of the used film is troublesome. The used color film sheets not only occupy a relatively large space as waste, but they are also difficult to recycle. Moreover, some effort and dexterity are required to separate the color film from the image-bearing film.


A light emitting element having an organic compound, which can be extended its longevity is provided. According to the present invention, there is provided a constitution in which, in order to protect a light emitting element from moisture, an inorganic insulating film 312a, a stress relaxation layer 312b having transparency and a hygroscopic property, and an inorganic insulating film 312c are repeatedly laminated over a cathode. The stress relaxation layer 312b having transparency and the hygroscopic property uses at least one film selected from the group consisting of a film comprising a same material as that of a layer 310, containing an organic compound, sandwiched between a cathode and an anode, a layer capable of being formed by vapor deposition, and a layer capable of being formed by coating.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device having a circuit comprised of thin film transistor (hereinafter, TFT) and a manufacturing method thereof. For instance, the present invention relates to a light emitting device using a light emitting element which has a film containing an organic compound (hereinafter, organic compound layer) between a pair of electrodes and which can give fluorescence or luminescence by receiving an electric field, and a manufacturing method thereof. The light emitting device referred to in the present specification is an image display device, a light emitting device or a light source (including lighting installation). Additionally, the following are included in examples of the light emitting device: a module wherein a connector, for example, a flexible printed circuit (FPC) or a tape automated bonding (TAB) tape, or a tape carrier package (TCP) is set up onto a light emitting element; a module wherein a printed wiring board is set to the tip of a TAB tape or a TCP; and a module wherein integrated circuits (IC) are directly mounted on a light emitting element in a chip on glass (COG) manner.
In addition, the semiconductor device in this specification is the device in general which can function by utilizing the semiconductor characteristics. An electro-optic device, a light emitting device, a semiconductor circuit and an electronic device are all semiconductor devices
2. Related Art
A light emitting element using an organic compound as a luminous body, characterized by its thin thickness, light weight, high-speed response, low-voltage DC drive, and so on, has been expected its application to a next-generation flat panel display. Especially a display device, in which light emitting elements are arranged in a matrix configuration, is considered that it has an advantage over the conventional liquid crystal display device in terms of its wide angle and superior visibility.
A light emitting mechanism of a light emitting element may be as follows. That is, when a voltage is applied on the organic compound layer sandwiched between a pair of the electrodes, an electron injected from the cathode and an electron hole injected from the anode are brought into recombination with each other at the luminescence center of the organic compound layer to form a molecular excitation. Subsequently, light emission is occurred by discharging energy when the molecular excitation returns to a ground state. There are two types of the excitation state, a singlet exciton and a triplet exciton. The light emission may achieved in either state.
The light emitting device constructed of a plurality of light emitting elements arranged in a matrix configuration may be operated by a passive matrix drive (passive matrix type) and an active matrix drive (active matrix type). However, when the pixel density increases, it may be preferable to use the active matrix type in which a switch is provided for every pixel (or every dot) since it can be driven at a low voltage.
Furthermore, low-molecular type material and high-molecular type (polymer) material have been studied for an organic compound to be provided as an organic compound layer (i.e., a light emitting layer in the strict sense), which may be a center of a light emitting element. Among them, the attention has been focused on the high-molecular type material because of its high heat resistance and convenience in handling compared with the low-molecular type material.
For forming a film from an organic compound, vapor deposition, spin-coating, and ink-jetting have been known. Among them, for realizing a full-color image formation using a polymer material, the spin-coating and the ink-jetting have been particularly known.
The disadvantage of a light emitting element having an organic compound is easily deteriorated by various factors, so that the greatest object thereof is to increase its reliability (make longer its life span).
A light emitting element having an organic compound is deteriorated mainly by oxygen and moisture. As a defective state due to this, the partial deterioration of luminance and nonluminous region are occurred.
The expansion of nonluminous region may proceed merely with time or with time during which light emitting element is driven. Particularly, in the case nonluminous region is occurred soon after manufacturing a light emitting material having an organic compound, the expansion of nonluminous region is often proceeded with time, and is sometimes end up with whole nonluminous region.
In addition, the nonluminous region tends to generate from a marginal portion of luminous region, and expands with time as if contracting the luminous region. Therefore, this defective mode is called shrink.
These defects cause a certain light emitting element to be a nonluminous element at high speed, particularly, with respect to an active matrix type light emitting device, because shrink heavily damages such a small light emitting region in the active light emitting device. Further, in the case the area of luminous region is small, the proportion of nonluminous region becomes bigger, according to the reduction of luminous region. Therefore, when manufacturing a display device using a light emitting element, it is difficult to obtain a display device which has a high-definition (basically a pitch of a pixel area is small) and higher reliability.
Non luminous region such as a black spot may be generated just after manufacturing a light emitting element having an organic compound, This defective mode is referred to as dark spot. And this dark spot may be enlarged with time.

Light emitting device comprising film having hygroscopic property and transparency and manufacturing method thereof

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


A voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) assembly and module incorporating a ball grid array resonator as part of the tank circuit of the voltage controlled oscillator. The VCO module preferably incorporates at least an oscillator circuit, the tank circuit, and an output buffer stage circuit all defined by a plurality of interconnected electrical/electronic components including the ball grid array resonator which are mounted to a printed circuit board. In another embodiment, the oscillator assembly also includes a phase-locked loop circuit defined at least in part by an integrated circuit mounted to the printed circuit board.

Voltage controlled oscillators incorporating coaxial resonators have proven to be effective for a variety of applications up to frequencies of 1.5 GHz and bandwidths up to 3%. There remains, however, a need for a voltage controlled oscillator operable at frequencies greater than 1.5 GHz and bandwidths greater than about 3%.
The present invention addresses this need by incorporating a ball grid array resonator into the tank circuit of a voltage controlled oscillator.

Voltage controlled oscillator module with ball grid array resonator


A switching device which includes a lighting source (18) having an SMC (surface mounted component) type light emitting diode, which includes a pair of connection members (52) with base portions (82) each soldered or otherwise joined to a plate (76) of the SMC diode. The connection members have right angle bends (88) and pin portions (86) extending down from the bends. The lighting source lies within a switch mechanism (16) and within an operating member (14), with the pin portions projecting through channel portions (61) of an insulative casing into holes in energizing conductors (40).

The present invention relates to a switching device of the type comprising a casing forming a cavity, a switching mechanism in the casing and an operating member for operating the switching mechanism. A light source carried by the casing is connected to energizing conductors. The light source comprises a LED (light emitting diode) element and at least two connection members extending at least partially through the casing to the energizing conductors. The light source illuminates a control button of the operating member.
In order to be visible from the operating region at which the control button is pushed, the light source must be positioned outside the switching mechanism. The LED is commonly constructed with a transparent head that contains a light-emitting semiconductor element. The LED element is connected to a pair of conductors that are embedded in the transparent head and that have free ends forming flat conductive connection areas on a side of the transparent head. Such flat connection areas are suitable for surface mounting on a circuit board by direct soldering to traces on the circuit board. Such LED's are widely available at moderate cost.
In practice, the internal region of the casing of the switching device is occupied by the switching mechanism. In a switching device where the control button is depressed, or pushed down, the presence of the LED can result in a tall switching device.
A major object of the invention is to provide a low cost switching device with a light source that is compact in height.

Switching device with integrated light source


A first graphical asset and a second graphical asset associated with a simulated character of a video game are received. The first graphical asset and the second graphical asset that share a same physical location on the simulated character are paired together. Graphical conflicts between the first graphical asset and the second graphical created as a result of the pairing are then resolved.

Simulation video games are a category of video games generally designed to simulate aspects of a real or fictional reality as closely as possible. A "life simulation" is a sub category of simulation video games in which a player can control one or more virtual life forms (e.g., a simulated human character, an animal, etc.). The SIMS 3, published by Electronic Arts Inc., is an example of a life simulation video game. In The SIMS 3, a player can create a character for a life simulation and configure its appearance by changing its body type, physical attributes, clothing, or accessories. A player may select from a predefined list of "parts" or "graphical assets" such as hair, hats, pants, shirts, boots, shoes, etc. The player can then assign one or more graphical assets to physical locations on the simulated character. Where the graphical assets overlap on the simulated character, graphical conflicts may be created, requiring a decision to be made (either by the user when selecting the graphical assets or by the simulation) regarding which asset to display on the character at the point of overlap. In The SIMS 3, graphical assets are designed to avoid graphical conflicts entirely by strongly limiting asset pairing combinations. For example, all boot assets are designed with a fixed height (so that all boots pair with all pants at a specific physical location on the simulated character) and type (so that all boots will always cover all pants). Additionally, hat assets may not be combined with different types of hair assets. All hat assets are designed with an incorporated hair asset to avoid resolving graphical conflicts between pairing a hat asset that appears tightly fitting (e.g., a baseball cap) to a hair asset that appears comparatively voluminous (e.g., curly hair or an "afro" hairstyle). Further, more unusual types of graphical assets that span multiple physical locations of the simulated character require a complete asset replacement, such as a full-body outfit.

Resolving graphical conflicts between objects


In the perpendicular magnetic recording head according to the invention, the inclined surface, which is inclined toward the trailing side at the tilt angle θ1 with respect to the virtual vertical line extending from the top surface of the recording medium, is formed in the trailing-side cross section of the main magnetic pole in such a manner that it extends from the front-end surface in a direction where it is spaced apart from the recording medium. If the inclined surface is formed in the main magnetic pole as described above, the absolute value of the magnetic field gradient α1 of the recording magnetic field can be increased and a magnetization inversion width can be decreased. It is thus possible to reduce magnetization inversion noise.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a perpendicular magnetic recording head which performs recording by applying a magnetic field onto a recording medium, such as a disk, in a vertical direction. More particularly, the present invention relates to a perpendicular magnetic recording head and a method of manufacturing the same, wherein a magnetization inversion width (a magnetization shift width) among recorded patterns in which magnetization recorded on a recording medium is inversed to one another can be reduced and magnetization inversion noise can be reduced.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1 discloses a perpendicular magnetic recording head including a read/write pole serving as a main magnetic pole or a core layer, and a return pole serving as a return yoke layer, wherein a gap layer is formed between the core layer and the return pole, as shown in FIGS. 12 and 16.
In the perpendicular magnetic recording head shown in FIGS. 12 and 16 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1, a recording magnetic field is generated from the read/write pole or the core layer to a data storage layer (that is, a recording medium). The recording magnetic field passes through the data storage layer and then returns to the return pole. If a vertical recording magnetic field is applied from the read/write pole or the core layer, the data storage layer is magnetized in a vertical direction, so that a recording signal is recorded on the data storage layer.
The perpendicular magnetic recording head shown in FIGS. 12 and 16 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1 has a structure in which a surface of the gap layer side of the read/write pole or the core layer is inclined toward the return pole at a predetermined angle with respect to a direction vertical to a top surface of the data storage layer (a surface opposite to the core layer and the return pole).
In the perpendicular magnetic recording head disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1, a recording magnetic field is isotropically spread from the read/write pole or the core layer serving as the main magnetic pole. At this time, as the recording magnetic field becomes wide toward a trailing side or a leading side, the magnetic field strength becomes weak. Upon recording by the perpendicular magnetic recording head, the recording medium moves from the leading side of the perpendicular magnetic recording head to the trailing side. Thus, the recording magnetic field spread toward the trailing side is rewritten on previously recorded patterns (recorded patterns that have been written by a recording magnetic field at the leading side), which have been written on the recording medium. For this reason, the recording magnetic field having the small magnetic field strength, which has been spread on the trailing side, causes a phenomenon that increases a magnetization inversion width (a magnetization shift width) among recorded patterns whose magnetization is inversed to one another. Thus, there is a problem in that magnetization inversion noise caused by the large magnetization inversion width is increased in a reproduction output that is obtained when a reproduction element travels on the recorded patterns. Accordingly, in the perpendicular magnetic recording head, it is necessary to reduce magnetization inversion noise by decreasing the magnetization inversion width.
Such magnetization inversion is generated on the basis of an interface (that is, an isomagnetic interface) where the recording magnetic field strength from the read/write pole or the core layer serving as the main magnetic pole is the same.
The width (an isomagnetic interface width) in a recording medium sliding direction of the isomagnetic interface is related to the magnetization inversion width.
Furthermore, the isomagnetic interface width is related to a magnetic field gradient α of a recording magnetic field. If an absolute value of the recording magnetic field gradient α increases, a magnetization inversion width can be made small. It is thus possible to generate a phenomenon of magnetization inversion noise.
In this case, the relationship between the recording magnetic field gradient a and the magnetization inversion width will be described below. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the relationship between a main magnetic pole and a recording medium of a perpendicular magnetic recording head according to a related art, and a location of the main magnetic pole and a recording magnetic field strength generated from the main magnetic pole.
A reference numeral 130 in FIG. 2 indicates the main magnetic pole of the perpendicular magnetic recording head. Magnetic field strength curves 211 and 212 of FIG. 2 show the relationship between the location using the main magnetic pole 130 as a reference and the magnetic field strength of a recording magnetic field (the recording magnetic field strength) which is generated from the main magnetic pole 130, on a top surface Ma1 and a bottom surface Ma2 of a hard film Ma (that is, a recording layer) of a recording medium M. In FIG. 2, the curve 211 indicates the recording magnetic field strength on the top surface Ma1, and the curve 212 indicates the recording magnetic field strength on the bottom surface Ma2.
As shown in FIG. 2, as it approaches the main magnetic pole 130 (toward a direction Z2 in FIG. 2), the recording magnetic field strength on the top surface Ma1 of the hard film Ma gradually increases. The recording magnetic field strength rapidly increases in a region opposite to a trailing-side cross section 130c in a front-end surface 130a of the main magnetic pole 130.
In the same manner, as it approaches the main magnetic pole 130, the recording magnetic field strength on the bottom surface Ma2 of the hard film Ma gradually increases. The recording magnetic field strength rapidly increases in a region opposite to the trailing-side cross section 130c in the front-end surface 130a of the main magnetic pole 130.
Furthermore, the recording magnetic field strength on the top surface Ma1 of the hard film Ma and the recording magnetic field strength on the bottom surface Ma2 of the hard film Ma have the maximum in a region opposite to the front-end surface 130a of the main magnetic pole 130.
Furthermore, as it becomes spaced apart from the main magnetic pole 130 in the direction Z2, the recording magnetic field strength gradually decreases.
A straight line 250 that overlaps the magnetic field strength curves shown in FIG. 2 refers to the amount of coercive force Hc of the hard film Ma constituting the recording medium M. As shown in FIG. 2, in the perpendicular magnetic recording head H, when the recording magnetic field strength is larger than the coercive force Hc of the hard film Ma (that is, the recording layer), magnetization inversion occurs in the hard film Ma. Thus, the hard film Ma is magnetized in a vertical direction and magnetic data is thus recorded on the hard film Ma.
A magnetization inversion width is a distance W3 from the intersection (c) of the recording magnetic field strength curve 211 on the top surface Ma1 and the straight line 250 indicating the coercive force Hc of the hard film Ma to the intersection (d) of the recording magnetic field strength curve 212 on the bottom surface Ma2 and the straight line 250 indicating the coercive force Hc of the hard film Ma in a direction Z1-Z2 (that is, a recording medium sliding direction), in the recording magnetic field strength curves shown in FIG. 2. Magnetization inversion is generated in the region of the hard film Ma having this distance W3. The distance W3 is the magnetization inversion width W3. The region of the hard film Ma having the distance W3 (that is, a region where magnetization inversion is generated) will be referred to as a region B.
An isomagnetic interface 200 exists within the hard film Ma at a location opposite to the region B where magnetization inversion is generated. Accordingly, a distance (the width of the isomagnetic interface) W4 between a top surface 200a and a bottom surface 200b of the isomagnetic interface 200 in the recording medium sliding direction (the direction Z1-Z2 in FIG. 2) is equal to the magnetization inversion width W3.
In FIG. 2, in the case in which the recording magnetic field of the top surface Ma1 within the magnetization inversion width W3 has a tilt angle θ3 with respect to a virtual vertical line L3-L3 that vertically extends with respect to the top surface Ma1 of the hard film Ma, the magnetization inversion width can be made small by making small the tilt angle θ3. This can result in the phenomenon of magnetization inversion noise. Further, the tilt angle θ3 can be made small by increasing the absolute value of the magnetic field gradient α of the recording magnetic field (the recording magnetic field gradient), which is defined as the recording magnetic field strength in a direction vertical to the top surface Ma1 (a direction Y1-Y2 in FIG. 2) that varies per unit distance of the recording medium sliding direction (direction Z1-Z2 in FIG. 2).
In the perpendicular magnetic recording head disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1, if the recording magnetic field from the read/write pole or the core layer serving as the main magnetic pole is inclined toward the trailing side at a predetermined angle with respect to the direction vertical to the recording surface of the recording medium, the tilt angle θ3 can be made small. Accordingly, the absolute value of the magnetic field gradient α of the recording magnetic field can be increased.
However, FIGS. 12 and 16 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1 do not clearly describe what direction is the trailing side of the perpendicular magnetic recording head. The perpendicular magnetic recording head shown in FIGS. 12 and 16 may not surely make small the magnetization inversion width.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1, it can be also read that the reason why the surface of the gap layer of the core layer formed in the perpendicular magnetic recording head shown in FIGS. 12 and 16 is inclined is to facilitate film formation.
In FIG. 12 or 16 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1, the surface located at the gap side of the return pole is inclined at a predetermined angle with respect to a direction vertical to the data storage layer, and is thus formed as an inclined surface. In this state, if the gap layer and the read/write pole or the core layer are formed on the inclined surface of the return pole without change, the read/write pole or the core layer can be easily formed. Since the read/write pole or the core layer is laminated on the inclined surface of the return pole, however, the surface located at the gap layer side of the read/write pole or the core layer can be formed to have the same angle as the inclined surface of the return pole. In other words, if the read/write pole or the core layer is laminated on the return pole after the return pole is formed, the read/write pole or the core layer has a shape similar to the shape of the return pole. For this reason, the read/write pole or the core layer is formed to have the tilt angle.
Accordingly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,619 B1 never discloses the relationship between a reduction of the tilt angle of the read/write pole or the core layer and a magnetization inversion width or a reduction of magnetization inversion noise. The relationship between them is still unclear.

Perpendicular magnetic recording head where main magnetic pole having inclined surface is formed and method of manufacturing the same


Apparatus for connecting an interconnecting cable between first and second printed circuit (PC) boards comprises: a base member disposed on a side of the first PC board for fixedly attaching one end of the interconnecting cable to the first PC board; a first connector attached to the other end of the interconnecting cable; a second connector disposed on a side of the second PC board; and a spring member attached to the base member for supporting the first connector away from the side of the first PC board, the spring member operative to force the first connector against the side of the second PC board to cause slidable engagement of the first and second connectors when one of the first and second PC boards is slid past the other of the first and second PC boards. Apparatus and method of providing optical connection between a first optical array electrically coupled to a first printed circuit (PC) board and a second optical array electrically coupled to a second PC board for providing optical communication between the first and second optical arrays are also disclosed.

The present invention relates to optical communications, in general, and more particularly to apparatus and method of providing an optical connection between printed circuit (PC) boards for optical communication there-between.
Greater demands for increased bandwidth are being made on data communication between electrical data processing units or subunits, like printed circuit (PC) boards, for example. Communication rates of tens of gigabits per second are exemplary of such demands. These demands can not be met by traditional metal electrical connections, like those found on mother boards and back plane connections, for example. One solution to meet these demands is to create optical communication channels for board-to-board communication using light coupling between an array of light emitters of one PC board and an array of light detectors of another PC board.
A drawback to this solution is that a mechanical light coupling interconnection between parallel PC boards is no simple task. Thus, a simple and automatic interconnection of the light coupling between PC boards is desirable to render optical communication between PC boards a commercially viable reality. The present invention intends to satisfy this desire through suitable interconnection apparatus.

Apparatus and method of providing an optical connection between PC boards for optical communication

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A connector housing has a terminal-accommodating chamber (4) and a mount opening (6) for a terminal-locking device, which communicates to the terminal-accommodating chamber (4). A terminal-locking device (2) with a resilient locking member (8) is mounted in the mount opening (6) to cause the resilient locking member (8) to engage with a terminal inserted into the terminal-accommodating chamber to lock the same in place in the chamber. The terminal-locking device, when mounted to the connector housing, reliably prevents the terminal from slipping rearwardly out of the terminal-accommodating chamber.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a connector equipped with a terminal-locking device which securely locks a terminal in place in a terminal-accommodating chamber of a connector housing.
2. Description of the Related Art
The fixing of a terminal in a terminal-accommodating chamber of a connector housing is generally effected by providing a terminal with an integral raised piece and engaging the raised piece with a bottom wall of the terminal-accommodating chamber, or by providing a ceiling wall of the terminal-accommodating chamber with an integral resilient locking arm and engaging the arm with a shoulder or in a hole of an electric contact of the terminal.
The raised piece and the locking arm, however, have a drawback that they are subject to damages on, among other things, repeated coupling and decoupling of connectors, resulting in the terminal slipping off or in a contact failure.
In view of such drawbacks, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Specification No. 64-54678 discloses a connector K provided with a mechanism for double-locking a terminal as shown in FIGS. 14 and 15.
In the connector K, a locking arm c is provided in each terminal-accommodating chamber b of a housing a, and throughholes d are provided in an outer peripheral wall of the housing a, which throughholes communicate to respective terminal-accommodating chambers b. An insertion pin e is inserted through the throughhole d to bring its locking projection el into engagement with a terminal f for double-locking the terminal f from slipping off.
The connector K, however, has a drawback that, since the locking arm c is integrally formed with the housing a by molding, it cannot be largely displaced for the structural reason, often resulting in insufficient locking of the terminal f.
Another drawback is that, since the locking arm c and the insertion pin e are separate parts, each molded from synthetic resin material, there are cases where size errors of molded pieces especially when doubled cause an insufficient locking of the terminal f, and where even when the terminal f is in incompletely inserted position in the terminal-accommodating chamber b, the insertion pin e is inserted irrespective of such position of the terminal f, resulting in a continuity failure.


According to one embodiment, there is provided an optical encoder having a photodetector array comprising motion detection photodetectors and at least one reference photodetector vertically offset from the motion detection photodetectors. The output signal generated by the at least one reference photodetectors is employed to correct undesired variations in the amplitudes of the output signals generated by the motion detection photodetectors. Such variations typically arise from various mechanical and optical misalignments in the optical encoder, and are compensated for by using the reference output signal to add to or subtract from, as required, the amplitudes of motion detection output signals.

Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown an optical encoder system 10 of the prior art comprising light emitter 20 (typically an LED), code wheel or strip 30 having apertures 31a-31f disposed therein, and light detector 40 comprising photodiodes 41a (A) and 41b (A\). In optical encoder 10, collimated light beam 22 emitted by light emitter 20 projects light onto code wheel 60. Collimated light beam 22 is interrupted by masked or optically non-transparent portions disposed between apertures 31a-31f as code wheel 60 rotates in first direction 110 or in second direction 112. (Note that code wheel 60 rotates substantially in a plane defined approximately by collimated light beam 22 as it is projected from light emitter 20 towards light detector 40.) Portions 50a and 50b of collimated light beam 22 project through apertures 31e and 31d onto light detector 40 and sweep across photodiodes 41b (A\) an 41a (A) as code wheel 60 rotates in direction 110 or 112 in the plane. As code wheel 60 moves in direction 110 or 112, the light patterns projected onto first vertical portion 70 of light detector 40 by beam portions 50a and 50b change, and the output signals provided by photodiodes 41a and 41b change correspondingly. These output signals are generally employed to generate a pair of quasi triangular signals, which are then used to determine any one or more of the position, speed and direction of code disk 60.
In practice, optical encoder 10 of the type illustrated in FIG. 1 suffers from several disadvantages, including undesired variations in the amplitudes of the output signals provided by photodiodes 41a and 41b. For example, the amplitudes of the output signals provided by photodiodes 41a and 41b may not be properly synchronized. Undesired amplitude variations such as these may arise due to process variations occurring during the manufacture of optical encoder 10, errors or misalignments in the layouts of the photodiodes 41a and 41b, wobbling of code disk 60, variations in the light output by light emitter 20, mechanical misalignment in or of one or more of light emitter 20, code wheel 60, or light detector 40, and other problems. In an optical encoder 10 of the type shown in FIG. 1, symmetrical amplitudes between output signals provided by photodiodes 41a and 41b are important to permit subsequently performed signal processing techniques to be accomplished accurately.
FIG. 2 shows idealized output signals provided by photodetectors 41a (signal "A") and 41b (signal "A\"), where maximum and minimum amplitudes 105 and 107 of such respective output signals are achieved, and where the respective maxima and minima of such signals occur at precisely the same times. In actual practice, however, such synchronization of the peaks and valleys of output signals A and A\ may be difficult to achieve owing to the factors described above.
Several approaches have been taken in the prior art to solve the foregoing problems. One such approach is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,463,393, where two amplitude-encoded sinusoidal signals are squared and summed to provide a compensatory signal. Another such approach is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,404, where quadrature signal errors are continuously corrected by generating an error function signal equal to the sum of squares of the normalized values of each of the quadrature signals, minus a reference constant. Most prior art techniques for correcting errors in quadrature signals fall into one of several categories: matching channel gains to minimize gain error; system calibration, and cross-channel coupling to reduce spatial quadrature errors. To date, none of these solutions to correcting undesired amplitude variations in the output signals provided by photodetectors in optical encoders has proved entirely satisfactory. Additionally, some prior art techniques for correcting such amplitude variations require relatively complicated data processing techniques and circuitry, which of course adds to the cost of an optical encoder.
What is needed is an optical encoder where amplitude variations in the outputs provided by the photodetectors or photodiodes thereof may be corrected quickly, accurately and reliably without resorting to complicated data processing techniques and circuitry, and that may be manufactured at low cost.

Optical encoder with amplitude correction

Avago Technologies ECBU IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.


The present invention provides a substitution fluid preparation which is characterized by containing at least one selected from 3-hydroxybutyric acid, 3-sodium hydroxybutyrate and 3-potassium hydroxybutyrate. The substitution fluid preparation of the present invention can be easily metabolized in the body of a patient to provide a good energy source and is also effective for suppressing increased protein catabolism in the living body.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substitution fluid preparation, and more particularly to a substitution fluid composition which is applied as an energy source, for the suppression of increased protein catabolism in the living body and also for improvement of metabolic acidosis to traumatized patients or severely burned patients in the acute phase, post-operative patients, patients in hepatic insufficiency, patients unable to take foods orally, patients in the state of metabolic (except diabetes-induced) acidosis, all of whom have a common symptom of impaired carbohydrate metabolism.
2. Description of the Prior Art
3-hydroxybutyric acid as the principal ingredient of the substitution fluid composition of the present invention was first found in the urine of some diabetic patients in the form of (R)-3-hydroxybutyric acid and was then deemed to be a useless metabolite occurring in the living body under morbid conditions. Also, as fat-derived energy substrate the object of concern were long-chain fatty acids and the physiological significance of this substance had been rather neglected for a long time. Recently, however, the true physiological significance of this substance has come to be realized as a complementary substrate as substitute of glucose and also as a retainer of caloric homeostasis in the living body.
As to the significance of this substance as energy substrate, it is already known that it is a fat-derived energy substrate, that it is hydrophilic and has an extremely good migration-to-tissues behavior and that it has been used in preference to long-chain fatty acids or glucose in vitro experiments involving tissues of various kinds [(1) Forsey R. G. P., Reid. K. Brosnan J. T. Can. J., "Physiological Pharmacology," 65, 401-406, 1987; (2) Robinson A. M., Wiliamson D. H., "Physiological Reviews," 60 (1), 143-187, 1980], and judging from all these, it can be safely said that this substance is an excellent energy substrate.
When the supply of glucose is unavailable in the living body, it is already known that this substance provides a useful energy substrate, and there are also reports that (RS)-3-sodium hydroxybutyrate administered intravenously to patients under a "very-low-energy diets" therapy proved to be effective in suppressing protein catabolism [(1) Rawan G. L. S., Semple S. L. G., "Lancet," 1, 15-17, 1983; (2) Sherwin R. S., Hendler R. G., Felic P., "The Journal of Clinical Investigation," 55, 1382-1390). These are reports of the cases in which this substance was administered to the living body under the forced condition of scarcity of glucose. The present inventors, however, made rather extensive studies of traumatized patients or severely burned patients in the acute phase, post-operative patients with strong indications of surgical aggression, patients in hepatic insufficiency, patients unable to take foods orally, patients in the state of metabolic (except diabetes-induced) acidosis et al. and found and confirmed that many of such patients were falling into the state of abnormality of metabolism with regard to glucose, amino acid et cetera, this resulting in insufficient utilization of intravenously-administered nutrients such as sugar, amino acids and fat, and they were forced to use energy produced inside through decomposition of protein in their bodies and also that the levels in blood of alanine and glutamine resulting from decomposition of protein were increasing and due to the simultaneous loss of nitrogen, the cumulative nitrogen equilibrium in blood was markedly biased toward the minus side. Patients under such conditions are very likely to have their cells' immune function lowered and suffer from complication by serious infection diseases.

Substitution fluid preparation comprising 3-hydroxy-butyric acid (.beta.-hydroxybutric acid) and its salts

Kanegafuchi Kagaku Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha


A hematological specimen for classifying and counting leukocytes with a flow cytometer is prepared. A sample to be assayed is prepared by eliminating influences of erythrocytes from a hematological sample without changing leukocytes morphologically; adjusting the pH value to a level suitable for staining; and staining the leukocytes with at least two dyes including Astrazon Yellow 3G capable of specifically staining at least basophils and immature granulocytes and Neutral Red capable of specifically staining at least eosinophils. Thus leukocytes contained in the hematological sample can be classified at least three or six groups including immature granulocytes by measuring a single specimen with a flow cytometer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for preparing a specimen for classifying and counting blood corpuscles in the practice of clinical testing. More particularly, it relates to a method for preparing a specimen to be used in classifying and counting leukocytes with a flow cytometer by means of optical measurements on blood corpuscles.
2. Prior Art
Peripheral blood of normal subjects contains five types of leukocytes, namely, lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils, eosinophils and basophils.
These leukocytes differ from each other in function and, therefore, the classification and counting of leukocytes contained in the peripheral blood is highly useful in the diagnosis of various diseases.
It is well known that the peripheral blood of a patient with, for example, leukemia contains immature granulocytes which are usually observed not in the peripheral blood but in the bone marrow. Therefore, it is highly important to detect, classify and count these immature granulocytes for diagnostic purposes.
Classification and counting of leukocytes have most commonly been accomplished by the differential counting method which is also referred to as the visual counting method or simply as the manual method. In this method, a blood sample is smeared on a glass slide and the blood corpuscles in the smear are fixed and stained for microscopic examination. The technician identifies the type of individual leukocytes according to their morphological features or the degree of dye uptake and thus performs classification and counting. In ordinary laboratories, 100 to 200 leukocytes are usually counted for each sample and the percentage of the total leukocyte count occupied by each type of corpuscle is recorded as a measured value.
The differential counting method has several disadvantages such that the preparation of the specimen to be examined requires troublesome procedures; that the classification through microscopic observation should be made by a skilled person and the measured value considerably varies from technician to technician; that the small number of leukocytes to be counted causes large statistical errors; and that it is a great burden for the technician to classify and count leukocytes by this method.
Therefore attempts have been made in order to automatically classify and count a number of leukocytes to thereby increase accuracy and save labor. Recently, automated devices based on a flow system for solving the above-mentioned problems have been marketed.
These automated devices may be roughly classified into the following three types depending on the measurement principle.
A device of the first type consists of three lysing agents and three types of detection units. In the first step, cells other than leukocytes contained in a blood sample are lysed with the first lysing agent and RF and DC signals of the remaining leukocytes are measured. Then the leukocytes are classified into three types, namely lymphocytes, monocytes and granulocytes depending on the difference in the signal intensity.
The RF and DC signals will be now illustrated.
A direct current (DC) is applied between electrodes located at the both sides of a small aperture. Then a signal, which is produced due to a change in impedance upon the passage of a particle through the aperture, is referred to as a DC signal. On the other hand, a signal, which is produced due to a change in impedance upon the passage of a particle through the aperture when a radio-frequency (RF) current of several tens MHZ is applied between the electrodes, is referred to as an RF signal. Needless to say, both of these currents may be applied simultaneously and thus both of the DC and RF signals can be detected.
In the second step, cells other than eosinophils contained in the blood sample are lysed with the second lysing agent and the DC signals of the remaining cells are measured. Thus the eosinophils alone are classified and counted depending on the difference in the signal intensity.
In the third step, cells other than basophils contained in the blood sample are lysed with the third lysing agent and the DC signals of the remaining cells are measured. Thus basophils alone are classified and counted depending on the difference in the signal intensity.
Finally, the neutrophils are calculated by subtracting the eosinophils determined in the second step and the basophils determined in the third step from the granulocytes determined in the first step.
A device of the second type consists of one lysing agent and one detection unit. As Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 502533/1989 describes in detail, this method comprises treating a blood sample with a lysing agent whereby blood corpuscles other than leukocytes can be lysed without damaging leukocytes, measuring RF, DC and scattered light signals at the same time and then classifying and counting five types of leukocytes by appropriately combining the above-mentioned three signals.
A device of the third type consists of two agents and two detection units. In this method, blood corpuscles other than leukocytes contained in a blood sample are first lysed with a lysing agent and then subjected to peroxidase-staining with a dye solution. Next, the absorbance and scattered light signal of each leukocyte are measured and the leukocytes are classified and counted into four types (lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils and eosinophils) depending on the difference in the signal intensity. Then the blood sample is treated with another lysing agent capable of lysing blood corpuscles other than basophils. After measuring two types of scattered light signals, the basophils are classified and counted depending on the difference in the signal intensity.
The above-mentioned disadvantages of the manual method are solved by each of these automated methods. From the viewpoint of precision, in particular, a remarkable improvement has been achieved. Thus these automated methods are almost satisfactory in the practice of clinical testing.
However none of these methods makes it possible to specifically classify and count immature granulocytes. Accordingly, there is a problem that a sample containing immature granulocytes cannot be accurately analyzed or the presence of immature granulocytes per se cannot be detected by these methods. In marketed devices, an abnormality in a scattergram due to the occurrence of immature granulocytes is detected and a warning of, for example, abnormal or suspect flag is given so as to urge re-examination with the manual method by a technician, thus minimizing overlooking of abnormalities. In this case, however, the re-examination with the manual method is required, which means the object of labor-saving is not completely achieved.
Separately, there have been reported some methods whereby fluorescence or scattered light of each leukocyte in a fluorochrome-stained blood sample are measured with a flow cytometer so as to classify leukocytes. Major examples of these methods are described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 853/1984, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 20820/1975 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 70166/1988.
Furthermore, we have proposed methods of classifying leukocytes with the use of the above-mentioned flow cytometer in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 134957/1988 entitled "METHOD OF CLASSIFYING LEUKOCYTES BY FLOW CYTOMETRY" and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 134958/1988 entitled "METHOD OF CLASSIFYING LEUKOCYTES BY FLOW CYTOMETRY AND REAGENTS USED IN THE METHOD.
When a specimen, obtained by eliminating influences of blood corpuscles other than leukocytes from a hematological sample by an appropriate method, is assayed with a marketed flow cytometer as shown in FIG. 1, it is generally known that a scattergram as shown in FIG. 2 is obtained and the leukocytes are divided into three subpopulations respectively comprising lymphocytes 1', monocytes 2' and granulocytes 3' mainly depending on the difference in the side scattered light intensity and each of these subpopulations can be easily classified and counted. It is also possible, further, to divide the granulocytes into subpopulations comprising eosinophils, basophils and neutrophils by combining the said process with the above-mentioned fluorochrome-staining.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 134958/1988, we have already disclosed a method of dividing leukocytes into five subpopulations and classifying and counting each subpopulation with the use of a flow cytometer and reagents to be used in this method. In this method, eosinophils and basophils are specifically fluorochrome-stained with Astrazon Yellow 3G. As the results of continuous studies, we have found out that Astrazon Yellow 3G further specifically stains immature granulocytes and thus allows the immature granulocytes to emit specific fluorescence to a degree comparable to eosinophils, as FIG. 3 shows. 1', 2', 3", 4' and 5' respectively mean lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils, eosinophils and immature granulocytes, and basophils.
In this method, however, eosinophils are equivalent with immature granulocytes in intensity of fluorescence and fluorescent wavelength as well as in intensity of side scattered light signal. It is therefore impossible to separate eosinophils and immature granulocytes into different subpopulations.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 134957/1988, we have further disclosed a method for classifying leukocytes into five types with the use of a combination of Neutral Red, which specifically stains eosinophils, with Astrazon Orange G, which specifically stains basophils. In this method, it is also impossible to specifically stain immature granulocytes and, therefore, granulocytes cannot be separated from immature neutrophils.
On the other hand, U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,509 discloses a manual method for classifying and counting leukocytes wherein all leukocytes including immature granulocytes are fluorochrome-stained with Basic Orange 21 and then counted under a fluorescent microscope. However the above-mentioned disadvantages of the manual method cannot be solved by this method. Thus this U.S. patent provides no automated method.

Method for classifying and counting leukocytes


A dry heat sterilization system having a housing and a number of plenums to guide the flow of hot air. Hot air is forced to flow through the plenums, the intake slide duct and into the bottom of the containers. The hot air will rise and exit from the top of the container through the exhaust slide duct. Furthermore, the external surfaces of the container are also sterilized through the use of semi-pierced duct walls with adjustable diffuser panels. Hot air will re-circulate until it reaches a pre-determined temperature. The container and its contents can be safely handled once the exhaust air blower removes hot air from the system.

Traditionally, steam is a common way to sterilize cages and other contaminants. A widely-used device for heat sterilization is the autoclave. Autoclave commonly use steam heated to 121° C. (250° F.), at 103 kPa (15 psi) above atmospheric pressure to transfer sufficient heat to sterilize the content. For effective autoclaving, the steam needs to be able to penetrate the entire device. For this reason, an autoclave must not be overcrowded, and the lids of bottles and containers must be ajar. Furthermore, indicators must be placed in the most difficult place to sterilize to ensure that steam actually penetrates these areas.
Unfortunately, the use of steam autoclaves bears high initial cost, high operating cost (steam boiler, distribution lines, high volumes or water, and licensing of operators), and high maintenance costs. Furthermore, the user of the steam autoclaves must allow the steam to cool down to ambient liquid form before disposing to the drain.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a sterilization system using dry heat convection. The use of a dry heat convection sterilizer eliminates the high initial costs, operating costs and maintenance costs of sterilization via the autoclave. Furthermore, the use of dry heat convection sterilizer benefits the environment because hot steams will not be released from the system into the environment.

Dry heat convection sterilization system


A free point tool has at least one sensor to measure deformation of a stuck conduit in a borehole. A set of anchors is located adjacent to and on each side of the sensor. The anchors include anchor arms that move from a stowed position to an extended position. Each of the anchor arms has a pad, which pad has a contact face. The contact face is structured and arranged to engage the conduit. The pad is coupled to the respective anchor arm in an articulating manner, such as by a pin joint or a ball and socket joint. The pad can be easily coupled to or disconnected from the arm. This allows the pad to be selected for the downhole conditions, including conduit physical characteristics and environmental conditions downhole. The anchors also include cam arms coupled between the anchor arms and an actuator. There are provided at least two sets of anchor linkages of cam arms and anchor arms so as to adapt to the conduit inside diameter.

Conduits, such as drill string, tubing, or casing are inserted into or pulled from oil and gas boreholes. During the insertion or removal process, the conduit may become stuck.
When the conduit is stuck, the operator determines the depth of the stuck point. Once the stuck point is determined, the conduit above the stuck point can be backed off or cut at a location just above the stuck point and the conduit is then removed.
To determine the stuck point, a tool is inserted into the conduit. The tool is commonly referred to as a free point tool; its role is to find the location just above the stuck portion of the conduit, referred to as the free point.
The free point tool is lowered to a depth and then coupled to the conduit by way of anchors. The anchors deploy out to engage the inside diameter of the conduit. In the prior art, the anchors are arms, the ends of which have serrations designed to contact a range of conduit inside diameters.
Once the anchors engage the inside diameter of the conduit, torsional and tensional deformations are applied to the conduit from the surface. The free point tool has sensors that measure the local torsional and tensional deformations downhole. Based upon comparison of these measurements to the applied loads, the free point of the stuck conduit can be determined.
With the prior art anchors, the anchors may slip and render the measurements inaccurate or suspect. This is because only part of the serrations contact the conduit inside surface. What is needed is an anchor that will hold more securely.

Method and apparatus for anchoring tool in borehole conduit


A mechanical oscillator has components with dimensions in a sub-micron range to produce resonance mode oscillations in a gigahertz range. A major element is coupled to a minor, sub-micron element to produce large amplitude gigahertz frequency oscillation that is detected with readily available techniques. The mechanical structure can be formed according to a number of geometries including beams and rings and is excited with electrostatic, magnetic and thermal related forces, as well as other excitation techniques. The mechanical structure can be arranged in arrays for applications such as amplification and mixing and is less sensitive to shock and radiative environments than electrical or optical counterparts.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to small scale mechanical oscillators, and relates more particularly to nanoscale mechanical oscillators with several vibrational elements that permit a number of resonance modes.
2. Description of Related Art
Microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems, MEMS and NEMS, respectively, are fabricated typically with semiconductor technology as mechanical devices. Some of their advantages include good resistance to thermal shock, electromagnetic radiation, and impact shock. As with typical mechanical structures, MEMS and NEMS structures possess natural vibrational frequencies that are determined by their exterior dimensions. For example, it is well known that a simple doubly clamped beam structure has a fundamental transverse resonance frequency determined by the equation
                    f        =                                            E              ρ                                                      t                          L              2                                                          (        1        )
Where E is Young's modulus related to material stiffness, ρ is material density, t is a thickness dimension parallel to displacement and L is the length of the beam. Devices with dimensions on the order of microns typically have resonance frequencies on the order of tens of kilohertz up to a few megahertz. Devices with dimensions on the order of sub-micron levels have proportionally higher resonance frequencies in the gigahertz range. The high resonance frequencies available from MEMS and NEMS devices, with associated fast switching times, have been used successfully in a number of applications including mechanical switches and memory elements, mass or inertial sensors and other frequency-selective elements such as filters, mixers and amplifiers.
While MEMS devices have enjoyed popularity in a number of applications and benefited from a widespread effort in research, NEMS devices have not found as great a utilization. One difficulty in effectively applying NEMS devices to a given problem is that that the signal magnitude derived from operation of a NEMS device can be difficult to detect and signal strength can be significantly smaller than the counterpart MEMS devices. Because NEMS devices operate in a gigahertz range of frequencies, the small-scale responses are typically characterized by diminished amplitudes and increasing dissipative effects that result in a loss of signal fidelity. The signal losses are the result of numerous phenomena and are often well known. For example, the dissipative effects are increased by a heightened sensitivity to surface or processing induced defects in the silicon structures. The surface to volume ratio of the devices is increased thus making the sensitivity to defects more pronounced, and sensitivity to clamping losses derived from beam mounting points is also increased. Accordingly, losses that were small or negligible in MEMS devices become significant in the smaller NEMS devices as sensitivity to dissipative effect increases. The decrease in system size also leads to an increase in the effective stiffness of the structure, resulting in extremely small displacements even in resonance mode. Larger structures can provide high-order harmonics to overcome some of the size dependent effects, but the amplitude of high-order harmonics decreases rapidly with increasing harmonic order.
The difficulties in applying NEMS devices to produce mechanical RF and high-speed structures, for example, are thus highly challenging. Materials that can be challenging to work with, such as silicon carbide and diamond, provide higher sound velocities based on the stiffness-density ratio
                              E          ρ                                    (        2        )
Other factors involved in providing a desired NEMS device include the length of the beam L, which should be on a sub-micron scale to obtain gigahertz frequency ranges. As the size of the oscillating beam decreases to the sub-micron scale, the relationship between elastic stiffness of the material and the structural dimensions results in difficult to detect femtometer-level displacements in the sub-micron structures.
Some techniques are available for detecting mechanical motion on the femtometer scale, such as coupling the resonator to an RF single electron transistor, or utilizing a SQUID sensor, a piezoelectric sensor or optical interferometry. These types of detection schemes typically have the object of enabling observation of quantum mechanical motion. However, the measurement sensitivity of the equipment at close to GHz frequencies in millikelvin temperatures continues to remain orders of magnitudes beyond the quantum mechanical signal size.
For example, observation of quantum behavior is governed by dissipation or energy relaxation of 1/Q. As structures become smaller, and thus stiffer, the spring constant k increases and the displacement at resonance, x=FQ\k decreases for a given amplitude of force F. Although it is desirable to obtain sub-micron scale mechanical devices to generate gigahertz range oscillations, it is also important to have a structure with relaxed characteristics to decrease the spring constant k to obtain a larger and detectable displacement. Simple gigahertz range beams produce small displacements at resonance that are very difficult to detect and it is difficult to de-couple the spring constant k from the beam natural frequency. The relationship between spring constant k and natural frequency produces signal dispersion influences that are difficult to overcome because the spring constant and the natural frequency are difficult to decouple. Accordingly, it is extremely difficult to realize a gigahertz frequency oscillator based on a vibratory structure, such as that of a beam.


Methods and apparatus to improve address translation performance in virtualized environments are described. In one embodiment, a switching logic may translate a virtual address of a memory access request (e.g., transmitted by a transmitting agent and directed to a receiving agent) into a corresponding physical address. Other embodiments are also disclosed.

The present disclosure generally relates to the field of electronics. More particularly, an embodiment of the invention relates to techniques for improving address translation performance in virtualized environments.
Input/output (I/O) virtualization is a technology being developed to ensure that I/O devices function properly in a virtualized environment. For example, when an I/O device issues a direct memory access (DMA) request in a virtualized environment (for example, where there may be more than one operating system (OS) executing in the system), a translation may be performed on the address specified by the DMA request to ensure that the DMA operation and resulting effects are committed to the OS that corresponds to the I/O device.
The ATS (Address Translation Services) specification (e.g., draft revision 0.9, October 2006) seeks to mitigate the affects of address translation by offloading the address translation function to a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) express (PCIe) device (which may operate in accordance with PCIe Specification, Revision 2.0, October 2006). For example, the PCIe device may request an address translation and cache the translation data within a local cache to enable later use of the cached data for faster I/O DMA operations. ATS, however, may generate a substantial amount of traffic on a PCIe bus which may overwhelm the PCIe bus, resulting in degraded performance. Performance may be even more degraded as data transfer rates increase or as the number of address translation requests increases.

Address translation performance in virtualized environments


An oil-based ink for piezoelectric inkjet printers contains a binder resin, a pigment and a solvent. The solvent contains a cyclic ester and a compound represented by the following formula (1):

Conventional inkjet recording methods include the continuous method and the drop-on-demand method. According to the former method, continuously-ejected inks are selectively caused to strike a medium. According to the latter method, on the other hand, inks are selectively ejected. In recent years, however, drop-on-demand printers have become the mainstream. These drop-on-demand printers can be divided into two types, one being the bubble jet system that inks are rapidly heated to eject them by the resulting bubbles, and the other being the piezoelectric system that inks are ejected using ceramics (piezoelectric elements) which deform when voltages are applied.
The above-described piezoelectric system, which uses conventional oil-based inks, ejects the inks by using piezoelectric elements as pumps to convert electric energy into mechanical energy, and basically, can eject various ink materials. However, this system ejects inks depending on the existence or non-existence of signals. At the edge (end faces) of nozzles through which the ejection of the inks is suspended, the solvents in the inks evaporate. As a consequence, ink clogging may take place by the deposition of solid components from the inks or the ejection of the inks may be inhibited by viscosity increases of the inks within the nozzles due to concentration of the inks. It has, accordingly, been required to frequently conduct maintenance work. In particular, inks which are useful in the production of prints for outdoor use employ, as printing media, non-absorbent media, namely, plastic films such as polyvinyl chloride sheets. They, therefore, use as an ink solvent a solvent having relatively high volatility. As a consequence, the inks dry up rapidly, resulting in marked occurrence of ink clogging.
When the air dissolved in an ink exceeds a certain level, microbubbles which occur in printhead nozzles as a result of the development of cavitation by high-frequency oscillations of piezoelectric elements absorb pressures, leading to a reduction in drive response. In addition, ejection troubles may be induced by the production of bubbles within nozzles as a result of changes in the surrounding air temperature.
With a view to overcoming the above-mentioned problems, inkjet pigment inks making use of high-boiling solvents have been proposed as substitutes for conventional oil-based inks (JP-A-2003-96370). However, the inks disclosed in JP-A-2003-96370 use, as a non-aqueous organic solvent, only glycol ether esters either singly or in combination in order to avoid ink viscosity increase or pigment flocculation during storage. As a consequence, they are equipped with improved solubility of solid components such as resins in the solvents but, when employed in such piezoelectric inkjet printers as mentioned above, no sufficient ink ejectability is available. Further, when printing is resumed subsequent to a temporary discontinuation, the ink ejection recoverability is lowered, thereby failing to provide prints of stable quality.

Abstract: wherein X1 represents an alkyl group, X2 represents a hydrogen atom or an alkyl group, and n stands for an integer of from 1 to 4. The amount of the cyclic ester is from 1 to 60 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of the compound represented by the formula (1). Preferably, the cyclic ester is a compound represented by the following formula (2):

Abstract: wherein X3 and X4 each independently represents a hydrogen atom or a C1-7 alkyl or alkenyl group, and m stands for an integer of from 1 to 3.


In a section of a ballasted track that extends over a plurality of crossties, ballast is removed and crossties are removed. Crosstie blocks mounted in concrete slabs are inserted, lifted, and fastened to the rails. The rails are supported by temporary, vertically adjustable supports and adjusted. In an area that extends over a number of concrete slabs, infill concrete is filled in from the underground up to at least part of the height of the concrete slabs, and after the infill concrete has hardened, at least a part of each of the supports located between two respective concrete slabs is removed. The method allows the conversion to be carried out without changing the position of the rails. After the placement of the supports, the track is immediately operable again so that the relevant section need not remain closed until all method steps are completed.

The increasing travelling speeds of trains call for slab tracks, which are capable of taking up the arising loads better than ballasted tracks. The reference WO00/61866 describes a method for renewing a railway track where the existing track bed that is associated with the track is removed and the track is laid on the substructure. After optionally building a substructure for the new railway track, at least one support layer for a slab track is built in and subsequently the existing track is dismantled. A slab track, more particularly with rails mounted on a concrete or asphalt support layer or rails having crossties that are cast into a concrete layer, is produced by building a new track and adjusting and fixing the new track.
The increasing traffic density on the railway networks calls for ever shorter interruptions for track maintenance and renewal. The aforementioned method is not suitable for a conversion of short track sections with short operation interruptions.

Method for converting a ballasted track into a slab track


A driver circuit for plasma display panels is provided. The claimed driver circuit includes four switches and an energy recovery circuit coupled to an equivalent capacitor of a plasma display panel. The present energy recovery circuit includes a first unit, coupled to ground and the X side of the equivalent capacitor, for passing current of charging/discharging the equivalent capacitor from the X side and/or Y side; and a second unit, coupled to the first unit and the Y side of the equivalent capacitor, for passing current of charging/discharging the equivalent capacitor from the Y side. With the aid of four voltage sources, it is not necessary for the present energy recovery circuit of the driver circuit to adopt capacitors for charging/discharging the equivalent capacitor of the plasma display panel.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driver circuit, and more particularly, to a driver circuit for plasma display panels.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for planar matrix displays such as plasma display panels (PDP), liquid-crystal displays (LCD) and electroluminescent displays (EL display) in place of cathode ray tube terminals (CRT) due to the advantage of the thin appearance of the planar matrix displays. This kind of planar display is, in general, designed to achieve display through discharge glow in which charges accumulated over electrodes are released with application of a given voltage.
In a PDP display, charges are accumulated according to display data, and a sustaining discharge pulse is applied to paired electrodes in order to initiate discharge glow for display. As far as the PDP display is concerned, it is required to apply a high voltage to the electrodes. In particular, a pulse-duration of several microseconds is adopted usually. Hence the power consumption of the PDP display is quite considerable. Energy recovering (power saving) is therefore sought for. Many designs and patents have been developed for providing methods and apparatus of energy recovering for PDP. One of the examples is U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,353, "Drive Unit for Planar Display" by Kishi, et al., which is included herein by reference.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a prior art driver circuit 100. An equivalent capacitor of a plasma display panel is marked as Cpanel. The conventional driver circuit 100 includes four switches S1 to S4 for passing current, an X-side energy recovery circuit 110 and a Y-side energy recovery circuit 120 for charging/discharging the capacitor Cpanel from the X side of the capacitor Cpanel and the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel respectively. S5, S6, S7 and S8 are switches for passing current. D5, D6, D7 and D8 are diodes. V1 and V2 are two voltage sources. C1 and C2 are capacitors adopted for recovering energy, and L1 and L2 are resonant inductors. The X-side energy recovery circuit 110 includes an energy-forward channel comprising the switch S6, the diode D6 and the inductor L1, and an energy-backward channel comprising the inductor L1, the diode D5 and the switch S5. Similarly, the Y-side energy recovery circuit 120 also includes an energy-forward channel comprising the switch S8, the diode D8 and the inductor L2, and an energy-backward channel comprising the inductor L2, the diode D7 and the switch S7.
Please refer to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 is a flowchart of generating the sustaining pulses of the equivalent capacitor Cpanel of the PDP by the conventional driver circuit 100 illustrated in FIG. 1.
Step 200: Start;
Step 210: Keep the voltage potentials at the X side and the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel at ground by turning on the switches S3 and S4 and turning off other switches;
Step 220: Charge the X side of the capacitor Cpanel by the capacitor C1 and keep the voltage potential at the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel at ground by turning on the switches S6 and S4 and turning off other switches; wherein the voltage potential at the X side of the capacitor Cpanel goes up to V1 accordingly;
Step 230: Ignite the equivalent capacitor Cpanel of the PDP from the X side by turning on the switches S1 and S4 and turning off other switches; wherein the voltage potential at the X side of the capacitor Cpanel keeps at V1 and the voltage potential at the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel keeps at ground accordingly;
Step 240: Discharge the capacitor Cpanel from the X side and keep the voltage potential at the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel at ground by turning on the switches S5 and S4 and turning off other switches; wherein the voltage potential at the X side of the capacitor Cpanel goes down to ground accordingly;
Step 250: Keep the voltage potentials at the X side and the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel at ground by turning on the switches S3 and S4 and turning off other switches;
Step 260: Charge the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel by the capacitor C2 and keep the voltage potential at the X side of the capacitor Cpanel at ground by turning on the switches S8 and S3 and turning off other switches; wherein the voltage potential at the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel goes up to V2 accordingly;
Step 270: Ignite the equivalent capacitor Cpanel of the PDP from the Y side by turning on the switches S2 and S3 and turning off other switches; wherein the voltage potential at the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel keeps at V2 and the voltage potential at the X side of the capacitor Cpanel keeps at ground accordingly;
Step 280: Discharge the capacitor Cpanel from the Y side and keep the voltage potential at the X side of the capacitor Cpanel at ground by turning on the switches S7 and S3 and turning off other switches; wherein the voltage potential at the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel goes down to ground accordingly;
Step 290: Keep the voltage potentials at the X side and the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel at ground by turning on the switches S3 and S4 and turning off other switches;
Step 295: End.
Please refer to FIG. 3. FIG. 3 shows a diagram illustrating the voltage potentials at the X side and the Y side of the capacitor Cpanel, and the control signals, M1 to M8, of the switches S1 to S8 in FIG. 1 respectively. In FIG. 3, the horizontal axis represents the time, while the vertical axis represents the voltage potential. Note that the switches S1 to S8 are designed to close (turned on) for passing current when the control signal is high, and to open (turned off) such that no current can pass when the control signal is low.
Conventionally, the energy recovery (power saving) circuit provides two individual channels of charging and discharging the equivalent capacitor respectively (energy-forward channel and energy-backward channel) for each side of the equivalent capacitor Cpanel. Further, each individual channel of charging and discharging each side of the equivalent capacitor adopts a capacitor to implement the energy recovery job. Therefore, the amount of required components is quite large. Furthermore, the area of capacitors C1 and C2 is usually considerable. Hence the cost of energy recovery circuit is not easy to reduce.

Driver circuit for plasma display panels


A vehicle seat of a vehicle is basically provided with a seat cushion, an annular frame, a hook or striking member and a vehicle body engagement element. The seat cushion is disposed within the vehicle. The annular frame disposed within the seat cushion. The striking member is attached to the annular frame to attach the vehicle seat to the vehicle body. The vehicle body engagement element is attached to the annular frame so as to serve as a load transferring point at which the vehicle body engagement element transfers a bending load of the annular frame to the vehicle body as the vehicle seat is being initially lifted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to vehicle seats. More specifically, the present invention relates to a vehicle seat configured to prevent its frame from bending when being moved from an installed position to an access position (e.g., pop-up or release position).
2. Background Information
A vehicle seat is generally fixed to a vehicle body. However, sometimes, the vehicle seat needs to be removed from the vehicle for various reasons such as maintenance or repair. In this regard, the vehicle seat may include hooks, which can be coupled to a latching device installed to the vehicle body. For example, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Application No. (Hei) 05-001347 discloses a seat mounting arrangement has a seat cushion with a metal frame that is releasably coupled to the vehicle body by a pair of rear latches located at a rear end of the frame and a pair of front latches located at a front end of the frame. The rear end of the wire frame is coupled to a wire frame of a seat back by hooks so that the seat can be removed. The seat cushion can be removed by applying a vertical lifting force to release the engagement force of one pair of the latches while the other pair of latches acts as a pivoting structure. Another example of a seat mounting arrangement is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. (Hei) 11-34709. In this publication, the seat mounting arrangement has a seat cushion with a wire frame that is releasably coupled to the vehicle body by a pair of grommets at a front end of the wire frame. The rear end of the wire frame is coupled to a wire frame of a seat back by hooks so that the seat can be removed.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved vehicle seat. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.


A milling and grinding device, for machining a workpiece, includes a rack, a positioning tool, a spindle, a tool magazine, a milling cutter, a grinding wheel, and a controller. The rack defines a receiving chamber, and includes a workstation at a bottom of the receiving chamber. The positioning tool is mounted on the workstation to position the workpiece. The milling cutter and the grinding wheel are received in the tool magazine. The milling cutter is capable of milling the workpiece to form a hole. The grinding wheel is capable of grinding the hole of the workpiece. The controller is mounted on the rack, and capable of controlling the spindle to receive the milling cutter or the grinding wheel from the tool magazine, to mill or grind the workpiece. The tool setting gauge is mounted on the workstation, and capable of sharpening the grinding wheel in a different grinding precision.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to milling and grinding devices, particularly to a milling and grinding device to machine a hole in a workpiece and a machining method using the milling and grinding device.
2. Description of Related Art
When machining a workpiece, an internal grinding machine or a milling machining is used. The grinding machine can machine holes with high precision, but has low efficiency. The milling machining can efficiently machine the inner hole, but accuracy is low.
Therefore, there is room for improvement in the art.

Milling and grinding device and machining method using the same

HONG FU JIN PRECISION INDUSTRY (ShenZhen) CO., LTD.


The first reception operation is started in response to an acquisition request. Power supply to a RF unit and a demodulator is stopped after synchronization with the GPS signal is established. Based on information acquired from a sub-frame in the GPS signal, a time point to start the second reception operation is determined. Elapsed time is counted using a counter clock synchronized with transmission timing of the navigation message, while a reception frequency of the satellite, a PRN code unique to the satellite, and a frequency and a phase of the PRN code are retained. When the elapsed time arrives at the time point, the power supply to the RF unit and the demodulator is restarted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a GPS receiver apparatus which acquires specific information from a GPS signal and information acquisition method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A GPS receiver apparatus which utilizes the global positioning system (GPS) receives radio waves sent from satellites and measures a current position of the apparatus. Currently, various types of GPS receiver apparatus are used depending on the intended purposes. The GPS receiver apparatus captures and tracks a plurality of satellites (four or more satellites in general) and acquires the whole navigation message sent from the satellites to calculate a position of the receiver apparatus at high speed and with high accuracy.
As shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B, the navigation message has a hierarchical structure that includes 25 main frames each of which includes 5 sub-frames. Each of the sub-frames includes 10 words. The main frames are sent every 30 seconds, the sub-frames are sent every 6 seconds, and the words are sent every 0.6 seconds. As a master frame, 25 main frames are sent every 12.5 minutes. The second word in each of the sub-frames contains data referred to as a hand over word (HOW), and the HOW includes accurate time information provided by the GPS satellites, i.e., time of week (TOW) that is a value expressed in units of 6 seconds beginning at 00:00:00 on every Sunday. Therefore, usage of the time information allows current clock time held by a clock circuit contained in the GPS receiver apparatus or any equipment including the GPS receiver apparatus to be accurately corrected.
For example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2007-263598 discloses a technique to reduce power consumption required for time correction in a GPS receiver apparatus having a display function. According to this technique, when correcting a clock time once a day, the GPS receiver apparatus firstly starts supplying power to a tuner circuit and a signal processing circuit, the former of which receives radio waves from GPS satellites via an antenna, and the latter of which decodes reception signals contained in the received radio waves in parallel and detects a navigation message. When the time correction operation is completed, the power supply to the tuner circuit and the signal processing circuit is immediately terminated.
The above-described navigation message includes not only the time information in the sub-frames but also date information in the first sub-frame. That is, the third word in the first sub-frame contains data referred to as a week number (WN) (see FIG. 7). Described in the WN word is the number of weeks past from the week starting from 00:00:00, Jan. 6, 1980, where a week number of this week is set to "0". Therefore, when the GPS receiver apparatus has a calendar function, the current date can be automatically set (or corrected) using the date information, as required by a user at the time of firstly starting usage of the apparatus or at the time of initializing the apparatus.
The HOW is contained in all sub-frames; however, the WN word is contained only in the first sub-frame as described above. Thus, when receiving the navigation message so as to acquire the date information, it is desirable to fortunately receive the first sub-frame immediately after a satellite is captured. However, when the second sub-frame is received immediately after the satellite is captured, for example, reception of the radio waves from the satellite should be continued until the first sub-frame can be received next time. Therefore, acquisition of the date information to set the current date consumes significantly large power in comparison with acquisition of the time information. Especially when the GPS receiver apparatus uses a coin cell battery or other types of small battery (including rechargeable battery), continuous operation time of the apparatus is largely reduced.

GPS receiver apparatus and information acquisition method thereof