Methods of operating a base station serving a cell in a heterogeneous network and at least one relay node serving a subcell of the cell, in which a user equipment unit connects to the network via the base station or the relay node, are provided. The methods include receiving uplink access (Uu) signals at the relay node from the user equipment unit in a first frequency range, and transmitting uplink backhaul (Un) signals from the relay node to the base station in a second frequency range that is different from the first frequency range.

The increasing demand for high data rates in cellular networks requires new approaches to meet this expectation. A challenging question for operators is how to evolve their existing cellular networks so as to meet the requirement for higher data rates. In this respect, a number of approaches are possible: i) increase the density of their existing base stations, ii) increase the cooperation between base stations, or iii) deploy smaller base stations (low power nodes, or LPNs) or relay nodes (RNs) in areas where high data rates are needed within a base stations grid.
The option of deploying smaller basestations is in general referred to in the related literature as a "Heterogeneous Network", or "Heterogeneous Deployment" and the layer consisting of smaller base stations is termed a "micro", or "pico" layer. The original larger base stations are then referred to in this context as "macro" base stations.
Building a denser macro base station grid, while simultaneously enhancing the cooperation between macro base stations (hence either using options i) or ii) above) is a solution that meets the requirement for higher data rates; however such an approach may not necessarily be a cost-efficient option, due to the costs and delays associated with the installation of macro base stations, especially in urban areas where these costs may be significant.
FIG. 1 shows the basic principle of heterogeneous deployments. Large macro cells 10, which are geographic areas nominally served by a base station, are generally able to provide coverage to a larger service area. However, the addition of smaller micro/pico cells 11 can improve network capacity in certain regions of those macro cells. micro/pico cells are essentially subcells of a macro cell, and are served by low power, short range nodes, such as micro/pico base stations, using frequencies allocated by the macro base station. Allocation of resources between the macro and micro/pico cells can be semi-static, dynamic or shared across the macro-micro/pico layers.
A relay node (RN) is a particular type of low power node that can be provided for enhancing the coverage and capacity of a macro base station. A relay node typically implements a reduced protocol stack as compared to a typical micro or picocell base station. In its simplest form, a relay node is simply a repeater that receives and amplifies a signal from a macro base station. More complex relay nodes may implement higher protocol levels, such as media access control (MAC) layer functionality, up to layers such as mobility management, session set-up and handover.
Referring to FIG. 2, a relay node 30 provides an intermediate node between a user equipment unit (UE) 40 and an eNodeB 20, referred to in this context as a "donor", "serving" or "anchor" eNodeB, as it is providing resources to the relay node 30. Communications between the relay node 30 and the UE 40 is performed using the Uu interface, which is the same interface that the UE 40 normally uses to communicate directly to the eNodeB 20; from the standpoint of the UE 40, there is no difference in the protocol used when communicating with a relay node.
Communications between the relay node 30 and the donor eNodeB 20, referred to as "backhaul" communications, is performed using the Un interface on both the uplink (relay node to eNodeB) direction and the downlink (eNodeB to relay node) direction.
One of the main objects of micro/pico layers is to offload as many users as possible from the macro layers. In an ideal scenario, this may enable users to experience higher data rates in both the macro and micro/pico layers.
In this respect, several techniques have been discussed and proposed within 3GPP:
i) Extending the range of small cells by using cell specific cell selection offsets. A cell selection offset is an additional power margin for a cell that must be overcome before a handover to the cell will occur. Setting the cell selection offset for a particular microcell to a negative value can therefore increase the probability of a handover occurring to the microcell, thereby extending the range of the microcell.
ii) Increasing the transmission power of low power nodes and simultaneously setting appropriately the uplink (UL) power control target PO for the users connected to low power nodes.
The solution of deploying small base stations within the already existing macro layer grid is an appealing option, since these smaller base stations are anticipated to be more cost-efficient than macro base stations, and their deployment time is expected to be shorter as well. Even so, there will be scenarios in which deployment of pico- or macro-base stations and their associated backhaul costs may be prohibitive. In such scenarios, the use of relay nodes that employ in-band backhaul communications may provide a viable option that provides pico cell type coverage either indoors or outdoors and mitigates the cost and effort of deploying land-line backhaul to all the pico base stations.
One of the problems with heterogeneous networks employing relay nodes is that the RN backhaul link (Un) between the donor base station 20 and the RN 30 can generate additional interference above the levels that would normally be experienced, into the macro network, which may adversely affect the capacity of the macro network.
For example, Un uplink transmissions to a given macro donor eNodeB 20 from a RN 30 can cause interference into the backhaul Un uplink transmissions of relay nodes in adjacent macro donor cells. Furthermore, Un transmissions from an RN 30 within one macro cell could also interfere with uplink transmissions between the terminals or user equipment (UEs) to their serving RNs in neighboring cells. These interference scenarios are illustrated in FIG. 3.
FIG. 3 illustrates a portion of a wireless network including three macro cells 111a, 111b and 111c served respectively by macro base stations 20a, 20b, 20c. Each of the macro cells includes a plurality of relay nodes 30, including relay node 30a in macro cell 111a and relay node 30c in macro cell 111c.
Each relay node defines an associated microcell, such as the microcell 120 defined by the relay node 30a in macro cell 111a, in which the relay node communicates with UEs 40 over Uu communication links. Moreover, each relay node communicates with its donor macro base station 20 over Un communication links to provide backhaul communications for the relay node. The Un communication links may be in-band links that use the same frequencies as are used in the microcell associated with the relay node. However, the Un and Uu communications may be orthogonal in time in order to reduce or avoid interference within the microcell 120. For example, the Un and Uu uplink communications at a relay node 40 may be time division multiplexed to occur at different times to reduce or avoid interference.
As further illustrated in FIG. 3, the primary lobe of a directional beam in the Un uplink formed by a relay node may be directed at the donor base station. For example, the primary lobe of the directional beam 131 generated by the relay node 30a is directed at the base station 20a. However, the side lobes and back lobe of the beam may be directed toward other cells. For example, the uplink Un beam formed by the relay node 30b in macro cell 111b may have a side/back lobe 141 that is directed at the relay node 30a and a side/back lobe 143 that is directed at a UR 40b in the macro cell 111a. These lobes may cause undesirable interference in Un communications in macro cell 111a.
In addition, a side/back lobe directed at an eNB in a neighboring macro cell can cause interference to the Un uplink interface.
A reciprocal situation can occur in which downlink (DL) transmission on the Uu link between the relay node 30 and the UE 40 could cause interference into the downlink Un signals of neighboring cell RNs 30. These scenarios may be likely to occur, since it is anticipated that one of the likeliest deployment scenarios for relay nodes is that in which relay nodes are deployed at cell edges of neighbor donor macro base stations; hence it is very likely relay nodes might be close to each other.
In Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, the existing approach to mitigating this interference involves employing time division multiplexing of the Un and Uu transmissions within a donor cell in order to help mitigate the potential Un to Uu interference, as described in TS 36.216, E-UTRA Physical Layer for Relaying Operation, v10.3. Thus, for example the Un and Uu transmissions within a picocell served by a relay node 30 may be separated in time.
This approach could also be employed in combination with directional antenna beams between the serving eNodeB and the given RN(s) as shown in FIG. 3.
There are two main issues with the existing approaches. First, the use of time division multiplexing of the Un and Uu transmissions can mitigate interference within a given donor macro cell, but it does not guarantee mitigation of interference between RNs of adjacent donor cells. Even though the RN may use directional antennas for Un link, the sidelobes and or backlobe of the RN antenna for the Un link can still cause significant interference to RNs (i.e., the Uu link) in neighboring macro cells, since these RNs could be in close proximity. Such a situation may occur when RNs are deployed near the cell edge of neighboring macro cells, which is the most likely deployment scenario for relay nodes, as mentioned above. It can be possible to restrict in the time domain when neighboring cell RNs can transmit on their respective Un and Uu links, however this would require strict time synchronization between neighboring macro cells and the RNs within the neighboring cells. In general cellular networks may not be synchronized, thus a solution for deployment of relay nodes in unsynchronized networks will also be of benefit.

Fractional frequency re-use and beamforming in relay nodes of a heterogeneous network


Disclosed are various genes encoding proteins that are shown to play a role, direct or indirect, in microbial resistance of an organism in a biofilm and homologs thereof. Also disclosed are methods of identifying a compound that modulates microbial resistance of an organism in a biofilm, and methods of identifying genes that encode proteins that play a role, direct or indirect, in biofilm resistance.

Biofilms are complex communities of microorganisms, comprised either of a single or multiple species. Over the past few decades, there has been a growing realization that bacteria in most environments are not found in a unicellular, planktonic existence such as those typically studied in the laboratory, but exist predominantly in multi-cellular surface attached communities called biofilms. This realization has spurred much research into the physical and chemical properties of biofilms, their morphology, and the mechanism of their development.
The transition from the planktonic mode of existence to a biofilm is a regulated developmental process. This biofilm community has a number of distinct characteristics including the production of exopolysaccharides, the formation of chemical and pH gradients, a marked degree of structural heterogeneity, and the development of high level resistance to a variety of antimicrobial agents.
It has been shown that biofilm grown cells can become 10–1000× more resistant to the effects of antimicrobial agents than their planktonic counterparts. This characteristic of biofilms makes them extremely difficult to control in both medical and industrial settings. Traditional antibiotic therapies can eliminate planktonic bacteria, but organisms growing in a biofilm survive treatment and can eventually regrow once antibiotics are discontinued. The levels of antibiotic required to eliminate biofilm bacteria often cannot be achieved in the patient or are toxic. Therefore, biofilm-based infections can become chronic with the only recourse being removal of the contaminated surface.
The formation of biofilms can have serious negative consequences in medical, industrial, and natural settings, resulting in high costs both in human health and economic terms. Biofilm-associated infections extend hospital stays an average of about three days and it is estimated that up to 65% of nosocomial infections are biofilm-based with an associated treatment cost in excess of a billion dollars per year. In clinical settings, biofilms can form on a variety of surfaces. Biofilms formed on indwelling medical devices serve as a reservoir of bacteria that can be shed into the body, leading to a chronic systemic infection. Indeed, up to 82% of nosocomial bacteremias are the result of bacterial contamination of intravascular catheterizations. Examples of biofilms include oral microbes on teeth, chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients and bacterial contaminants on medical devices such as pacemakers and catheters. Biofilms can form in almost any hydrated environment that has the proper nutrient conditions, and can develop on a wide variety of abiotic (both hydrophobic and hydrophilic) and biotic (e.g., eukaryotic cells) surfaces.
The formation of biofilms is an important aspect of normal development for many microbial species. The mechanisms responsible for the increased biofilm resistance, however, are not well understood. It has been suggested that the exopolysaccharide matrix that surrounds the cells in the biofilm prevent diffusion of antimicrobial agents through the biofilm, thus preventing access of the agent to the cells. While this may be the case for some antimicrobial agents, for many others it has been shown that antimicrobial agents can penetrate the biofilm matrix but are still unable to kill cells in the biofilm. It has also been suggested that cells within the biofilm grow slowly in response to nutrient deprivation and perhaps some form of stress. Therefore, antimicrobial agents that only act on actively dividing bacterial cells would be non-functional in this sort of environment. While a number of studies support the idea that slowed growth rate can explain some aspects of biofilm-related resistance, other studies have suggested that the full extent of resistance cannot be accounted for by this mechanism. Finally, while it has been suggested that quorum sensing is involved in resistance to antimicrobial agents, it is not clear what role, if any, this system plays in biofilm-related antimicrobial resistance. To date, none of the models put forward adequately explain the level of resistance to biocides attained by cells in a biofilm.
There is emerging evidence that the transition from planktonically growing bacteria to life in a biofilm requires a genetic program that responds to a variety of environmental cues. It is possible that the development of biofilm-related antibiotic resistance is also a regulated event, and taken together with the marked biochemical and physiological heterogeneity of biofilms, the induction of a biofilm-related resistance phenotype may occur within distinct regions of the biofilm. The subset of biocide-resistant cells in the biofilm is referred to as "persistors". The term persistor refers to the fact that not all of the cells within the biofilm resist killing by antimicrobial agents resulting in the survival of a small population of very resistant cells after antibiotic treatment.
There exists a strong need to discover methods and compositions that will inhibit biofilm formation and overcome their resistance mechanisms.

Bacterial glycosyltransferase polypeptides involved in antibiotic resistance


A marine assembly which obviates the need for a rescuer to enter the water 500 to rescue an individual 400, and which includes a containment portion 14 which is generally semi-cylindrical in cross-section and which has a first firm portion 12 and a second substantially pliable netting portion 68, and which is selectively and pivotally articulable from a first closed position to a second open position, and a hoist assembly 100 which is operatively coupled to said containment portion 14, and a method of rescuing an individual 400 from a body of water 8.

Marine rescue devices and/or assemblies are used to selectively recover and/or rescue individuals who are stranded in (i.e., who are "adrift" and/or otherwise endangered or inconvenienced by being in) a body of water (e.g., an ocean, a lake, or another type of marine environment), and to selectively remove these individuals from the body of water and onto a ship, helicopter and/or other selectively movable assembly.
Prior and/or current marine rescue devices and/or assemblies are typically and selectively lowered into the water by the use a pulley device (e.g., a crank and/or winch mechanism and a cable assembly which cooperatively and selectively raise and lower the marine rescue device into the body of water). These devices typically include a containment and/or rescue/containment portion which, as previously indicated, is typically lowered into the water, whereupon the individual to be rescued must actively climb and/or maneuver into the containment portion of the assembly and is then removed from the water.
These foregoing devices, while sometimes effectively allowing an individual to be rescued, suffer from some drawbacks. For example and without limitation, the foregoing containment portion of each of the devices typically is wholly comprised of a soft and pliable "net" and/or "mesh" portion which is designed to hold and/or support an individual being rescued. This netting portion often becomes tangled (i.e., wrapped) around the individual or "around itself" and is very difficult to be accurately positioned within the water. Hence, these rescue devices and assemblies are oftentimes ineffective and/or difficult to operate and do not have a high probability of successful deployment.
Further, these prior and/or current rescue devices and/or assemblies are typically adapted so that an individual must "climb into" (i.e., actively move towards, onto, and/or otherwise into contact with) the respective containment portion since the soft and pliable netting portion is not easily maneuverable within the water and is not adapted to readily "scoop up" the individual to be rescued. In cases where there are strong winds and/or high waves and/or other "environmental-type" effects, it can be difficult or impossible for the individual to "climb into" the rescue assembly (or even ensure that these respective containment portions come close to the individual to be rescued). Additionally, if the individual to be rescued is unconscious or otherwise unresponsive, it can also be difficult or impossible to collect the individual with the rescue assembly portion.
There is therefore a need for a new and novel marine rescue device and a method for rescuing an individual, which allows a rescuer or rescuers to quickly, safely and efficiently collect a conscious and/or unconscious individual from a body of water, and which overcomes at least some of the drawback associated with prior and/or current marine rescue devices.

Marine rescue assembly and a method for rescuing an individual


An online system receives a content item including an image from an online system user. The online system accesses and applies a trained item detection model to predict a probability that a region of interest within the image corresponds to an item associated with an entity based on a set of pixel values associated with the region of interest. If the probability is at least a threshold probability, the online system accesses and applies a trained quality prediction model to predict a measure of quality of the image based on a set of attributes of the image. If the measure of quality is at least a threshold measure of quality, the online system includes the content item in a page associated with the entity maintained in the online system and/or adds a set of data associated with the item and/or the entity to the content item.

An online system allows its users to connect and communicate with other online system users. Users create profiles in the online system that are tied to their identities and include information about the users, such as interests and demographic information. The users may be individuals or entities such as corporations or charities. Because of the popularity of online systems and the significant amount of user-specific information maintained in online systems, an online system provides an ideal forum for allowing users to share content by creating content items for presentation to additional online system users. For example, users may share photos or videos they have uploaded by creating content items that include the photos or videos that are presented to additional users to whom they are connected in the online system.
Content items created by online system users may include images of various items (e.g., products) that are associated with entities (e.g., merchants) having a presence on an online system. For example, a user of an online system may create a content item that includes an image of a purse that is associated with a merchant that offers the purse for sale. Entities associated with the items may derive a benefit from the content items if tags added to the content items include information about the items and/or the entities. In the above example, a tag added to the content item may include a brand and model of the purse, a price of the purse, and a link to purchase the product on the merchant's web site. In this example, information included in the tag may be displayed to an online system user being presented with the content item when the user performs an interaction with the content item, allowing the user to easily obtain the information. Entities associated with the items also may derive a benefit from the content items if the images of the items are high-quality images (e.g., high resolution images that feature the items). In the above example, if the online system maintains a page associated with the merchant, to promote the purse, content items created by online system users that include high-quality images of the purse may be included in the page, such that online system users who view the content items in the page may be more likely to purchase the purse.
However, since online systems conventionally require tags to be manually added to content items, adding tags to content items may be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. For example, if a content item includes an image of different products, to manually add tags to the content item that include information about the products, an online system user may compare the image of each product to images of different products included in a product catalog and manually adds tags to the content item that include information about products in the product catalog matching products in the content item. Thus, online system users may forego adding tags to content items including images of items, limiting the dissemination of information about the items and/or entities associated with the items.
Furthermore, since several factors may be considered when identifying content items including images of specific items and when subsequently evaluating the quality of the images, identifying content items including high-quality images of these items also may be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. For example, since content items may include images of different items that are very similar in appearance, manual review of the images may be required to identify content items including images of a specific item. In the above example, once these content items are identified, since various characteristics of the images that may affect their quality may vary greatly (e.g., based on their resolutions and sizes, based on the percentages of the images that the item occupies, based on the number of items associated with other entities that also may be included in the images, etc.), manual review of the images also may be required to evaluate their quality. Thus, since it may be difficult to easily identify content items including high-quality images of specific items, entities associated with the items may not derive any benefit from these content items.

Including content created by an online system user in a page associated with an entity and/or adding data to the content based on a measure of quality of an image included in the content


A liquid ejection apparatus including: a liquid ejection head including two-dimensionally arranged pressure chambers, and corresponding ejection ports. On a surface on which the ejection ports are arranged, when a relative movement direction of a recording material is x, the direction perpendicular to the relative movement is y, a pitch of pixels is d, and m and n are different odd numbers of 3 or greater, the ejection ports are arranged in a manner such that and and nd are repeated alternately as the distance between the ejection ports adjoining in the y direction, and such that the ejection port arrays extending substantially linearly in an oblique direction to the x and y directions on an xy plane are formed. The ejection port arrays are constituted by (m+n)/2 ejection ports, and the ejection ports adjoining in the ejection port arrays are displaced by 2d in the y direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid ejection apparatus and a liquid ejection head.
2. Description of the Related Art
A recording system that uses a liquid ejection apparatus having a liquid ejection head configured to eject a liquid, such as ink, has various applications not only recording images on a recording material, such as paper. Hereinafter, "recording" refers to forming a desired dot group by ejecting a liquid including applications other than recording images on a recording material. The smallest component of the dot group to be formed is referred to as a pixel. The entire mechanism for ejecting a liquid provided in a liquid ejection head and consisting of ejection ports for ejecting droplets, pressure chambers communicating with the ejection ports, flow channels for supplying the liquid to the pressure chambers, and the like is referred to as an ejection mechanism unit.
There have recently been demands for high definition recording. To meet these demands, liquid ejection heads having a large number of ejection mechanism units arranged with high density have been developed. Arranging the ejection mechanism units with high density can be achieved by reducing the size of each ejection mechanism unit. Since there is a limit to the degree of reduction in size of each ejection mechanism unit, however, a large number of ejection mechanism units may be arranged in a predetermined range when the ejection mechanism units are arranged two-dimensionally.
An ordinary liquid ejection apparatus performs recording by ejecting a liquid while a recording material and a liquid ejection head are moving relatively. In a configuration in which the ejection mechanism units are arranged two-dimensionally, the size of the liquid ejection head is desirably reduced in the direction of the relative movement of the recording material.
Thus, the size of the entire liquid ejection head is reduced. Moreover, the liquid ejection head is generally manufactured at lower cost. Especially the size of a liquid ejection apparatus in which multiple liquid ejection heads are arranged, such as a color printer, is reduced. When recording is performed continuously by a plurality of liquid ejection heads, since a time difference between landing of the first droplet and landing of a subsequent droplet on a recording material, impairment in recording image quality caused by, for example, variation in bleeding of the liquid is reduced. Moreover, a decrease in relative position accuracy of dots related to conveying precision of the recording material is reduced.
To reduce the size of the liquid ejection head in the direction of the relative movement of the recording material, the ejection mechanism units need to be arranged with high density. If the size of the pixels to be recorded is constant, the range in which the ejection mechanism units are arranged in the direction of the relative movement substantially corresponds to the number of pixels per unit length/the number of ejection mechanism units per unit area. Thus, increasing the number of the ejection mechanism units per unit area is required. Moreover, the ejection ports of each ejection mechanism unit must be arranged at a pitch of the predetermined pixel in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the relative movement of the recording material.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-155734 discloses a method for arranging ejection ports at the pitch equal to that of the pixel in the direction perpendicular to the direction of relative movement while disposing nozzles with high density, by combining four kinds of nozzles (which correspond to the ejection mechanism units).
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520 discloses a method for arranging ejectors (which correspond to the ejection mechanism units) of the same configuration rotated by 180 degrees and two-dimensionally.
In the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-155734, the size of the liquid ejection head is reduced by combining nozzles of different types to increase the degree of freedom of arrangement and aspect ratio of the pressure chambers. Nozzles of different shapes, however, have different ejection characteristics. In the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-155734, there is a problem of unevenness caused in a recorded image due to the difference in the ejection characteristics of different types of nozzles.
In the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520, as illustrated in FIGS. 10 and 11 thereof, the ejection ports are arranged at the pitch equal to that of the pixel in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the relative movement of the recording material. Details of arrangement of the ejectors, however, are not described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520. In the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520, the ejectors are arranged at complicated distances in a manner such that the ejection ports are disposed at the pitch equal to that of the pixel. Thus, in the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520, the entire ejection mechanism units are not necessarily arranged with high density.
FIG. 11 of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520 illustrates a part of a configuration of the liquid ejection head illustrated in FIG. 10 of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520. In FIG. 11 of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520, the ejection ports are arranged on inclined lines between parallel main lines 6A and 6B disposed in each of the upper and lower areas of the drawing. The number of the ejection ports (i.e., ejectors) arranged on the inclined lines is recurrently four and three, and is not constant. Thus, because the ejection ports are disposed at the pitch of the pixel in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the relative movement, only three ejectors are disposed in some locations where four ejectors can be disposed actually in the up-down direction. In the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520, the ejection mechanism units cannot be arranged with density as high as possible.
In FIG. 11 of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520, the distance between ejection ports adjoining in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the relative movement of the recording material corresponds to two pixels where the adjoining ejection ports are close to each other, and 24 pixels where they are apart from each other. In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-90520, recording is performed at a 2-pixel pitch by the ejectors of each of the upper and the lower areas of FIG. 11 and, as a whole, recording at a 1-pixel pitch is performed.
Setting the distance between adjoining ejection ports to correspond to two pixels is possible in a case where pixel density is very low, but is problematic in a case where the pitch of the pixels is small. For example, in a case where recording is performed at 1200 dots per inch (dpi), the pitch of the pixels is about 21 μm. In an ordinary design, the magnitude of an ejection port is about 20 μm. Thus, there is a problem that the thickness of the partition walls of the pressure chambers of adjoining ejectors becomes as thin as about 20 μm, of which insufficient rigidity may cause crosstalking. Moreover, if an appropriate distance is not provided between the ejection port and the partition wall, an ejecting direction of the droplet may be changed due to the existence of the partition wall.
As described above, in the methods disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 6-155734 and 2007-90520, it is difficult to arrange the ejection mechanism units with high density, while satisfying indispensable design requirements. The design requirements herein are: arranging the ejection ports at a pitch substantially equal to that of the pixel in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the relative movement of the recording material; and not impairing performance of each ejection mechanism unit even if the pitch of the pixel is small.
The present invention provides a liquid ejection apparatus and a liquid ejection head capable of arranging ejection mechanism units with high density, while satisfying indispensable design requirements.

Liquid ejection apparatus and liquid ejection head


A method and computer program product are provided for defining a dynamic data storage class in-memory using a strongly-typed compiled language, and accessing data in the memory. A schema is defined of one or more key-value pairs of field names and data types, wherein the schema represents columns of a table in the memory. A table key is declared that represents the table in the memory. The dynamic data storage class is instantiated, using the strongly-typed compiled language, by passing the table key. Each instantiation of the dynamic data storage class is an individual row of the table in the memory. Fields of the dynamic data storage class are accessed by an overloaded indexer that uses strings as the field names in the schema.

In-memory processing of data has become much more prevalent. In the past, the size of data was relatively large compared to the available memory, and thus it was more important to think about how it was stored on disk media in terms of efficient access. With advances in memory technologies now outpacing the growth of many types of data, it is now possible efficiently store and work with data in-memory, as entire data sets can often fit within a computer. To illustrate, a company of 10,000 employees in the past may have had to process payroll information entirely within a database system that accesses disk media, for example using SQL to manipulate records. Complex database software was used to shuttle data back and forth and keep data indexed for efficient access. That same data can now fit easily into a computer many times over. Any inefficiencies lost with processing all the data in-memory, for example using brute-force methods compared to elegant SQL, would pale in comparison to having to access disk I/O, which is typically orders of magnitude slower.
Therefore, the problem and challenge of modern data processing is creating in-memory structures and methods to make it easier to work with data. Efficiency is also important, but it becomes much more paramount to make programmatic creation and access of data easier for software developers, and by extension, end users. To illustrate this importance, whole new languages, such as R, have been created around the storage and processing of data in-memory. Other languages have had to back-fit and create libraries to access generic data. Unfortunately, this shift towards in-memory processing has created several problems for strongly-typed languages and makes such supporting changes to the language and/or its libraries problematic at best.
At the heart of the problem is that data is malleable, evolving, and even user-defined. This notion is generally incompatible with the basic structure of a strongly-typed language, the class. A class has predefined properties by the programmer and once set, cannot generally be changed. An attempt to overcome this limitation for instance is the Expando class created for the DotNet (.NET) framework, where the programmer can add different properties dynamically. However, this is woefully inadequate in that it is inefficient for storing tabular data and it does not even directly work with one of the most important features of DotNet, namely, Language-Integrated Query (LINQ), making Expando's usefulness very limited. The other approach for this framework, and indeed an earlier approach, was the creation of the DataSet library that more efficiently dealt with the concept of in-memory tables comprising of rows and columns. Although workable for many use cases, the DataSet library suffers from the design limitation that it was to be front-end for a disk-based database system. It was largely ignored after LINQ and Object Relational Mapper (ORM) tools were introduced.
Accordingly, the data analytics industry has beaten a new path, creating new structures and libraries specifically for in-memory tabular storage of data, which are often incompatible with existing programming techniques. This presents a problem for many languages like C#, and indeed companies who have invested much into strongly-typed DotNet codebases. That is, very little of the in-language such as collections and LINQ can be used with these data libraries, and in particular, they must often import huge libraries that effectively contain another language just to support these new data classes. This is not ideal and often unacceptable, and is the problem that the present invention solves.

Single data class for in-memory creation and programmatic access of arbitrary data in a strongly-typed computer programming language


An electric power recovering system includes a switch disposed between a battery and a coil, and two diodes coupled between the coil and the battery. A capacitor is coupled between the diodes and is grounded. The switch is alternatively actuated either manually or by an alternatively actuating device for allowing the coil to generate a high voltage and for allowing the coil to charge the battery. A DC/DC converter is further coupled between the battery and the switch for providing an increased electric power.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recovering system, and more particularly to an electric power recovering system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A typical electric circuit for an electric power device is disclosed in FIG. 8 and comprise a battery 90 having a voltage V, a coil 91 having an inductance L and having a voltage V.sub.L, a resistor 92 or an electric appliance having a resistance R, and a switch 94 for coupling the resistor 92 to the battery 90 and for energizing the resistor 92. The voltage V equals to V=IR+L(di/dt). The power equals to P=IV=I.sup.2 R+LI(di/dt); in which I.sup.2 R equals to the heat that will be generated by the resistor 92, and LI(di/dt) equals to the energy in the coil 91. If U represents the energy stored in the coil 91, then (dU/di)=LI(di/dt). U=(1/2)LI.sup.2 which equals to the area of the shaded portion as shown in FIG. 7. As shown in FIG. 7, when the switch 94 is closed in order to energize the resistor 92, the voltage of the coil 91 V.sub.L drops quickly and initially and then smoothly after time T.sub.1. The current of the coil 91 I.sub.L increases quickly and initially and then smoothly after time T.sub.1. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 7, only in time T.sub.1 or only in the shaded area, the conversion of the energy stored in the coil 91 to power output may be excellently conducted. After T.sub.1, di/dt almost equals to zero, such that the voltage V is almost applied to the equation I.sup.2 R which means that the resistor 92 may generate a great heat after T.sub.1. This means that almost all of the electric power is wasted for generating unwanted heat. The heat may also damage the electric power device.
The present invention has arisen to mitigate and/or obviate the afore-described disadvantages of the conventional electric power devices.


A wiper device is located between a vehicle rear door and a rear window, which is opened independently from the door. An actuator having an output shaft is fixed to the rear door. A pivot disk is fixed to the output shaft. The pivot disk has a coupler hole. The actuator pivots the coupler hole in a predetermined angle range. A pivot shaft having a wiper arm is supported by the rear window glass. A crank lever having a coupler pin is fixed to the pivot shaft. When the rear window glass is closed with the coupler pin outside of the movement range of the coupler hole, engagement between the coupler pin and the coupler hole moves the coupler pin to the angle range of the coupler hole. Accordingly, the crank lever is positively coupled to the pivot disk by a simple structure.

The present invention relates to a vehicle wiper device, and more particularly to a wiper device for wiping an openable rear window.
A typical station wagon or a hatchback has a rear door for opening a trunk. There are openable glass type rear doors. The glass of an openable glass type rear door can be opened independently from the rear door. A typical wiper device for wiping the window glass of an openable glass type rear door is directly attached to the window glass.
The wiper device has a relatively heavy actuator. When the window is shut, the glass may collide with the rear door. The collision applies a relatively great force to the glass where the actuator is fixed. This can damage the glass. Manually opening and closing the window requires relatively great physical force. Also, if the actuator is attached to the glass, wiring for supplying electricity to the motor in the actuator becomes complicated.
To solve the above drawbacks, a wiper device having an actuator attached to the rear door has been proposed. In this device, a wiper arm is pivotally supported by the rear window. When the rear window is closed, the wiper arm is coupled to the actuator.
FIGS. 25 and 26 illustrate such a wiper device. The device includes an actuator 101, a transmission unit 102 and a wiper arm 103.
The actuator 101 is fixed to a rear door 104. A pivot disk 106 is fixed to an output shaft 105 of the actuator 101. The pivot disk 106 is rotated within a predetermined angle range, and the direction of rotation alternates. The disk 106 has a coupler hole 106a, which is radially spaced from the axis of the output shaft 105.
The transmission unit 102 includes a shaft holder 107, which is fixed to a rear window 108, which is glass. A pivot shaft 109 is rotatably supported by the shaft holder 107. When the rear window 108 is closed as illustrated in FIG. 25, the axis of the pivot shaft 109 is aligned with the axis of the output shaft 105. The distal end of the pivot shaft 109 extends to the exterior of the rear window 108. The wiper arm 103 is fixed to the distal end of the pivot shaft 109. The distal end of the wiper arm 103 is coupled to a wiper blade (not shown). The wiper blade wipes the surface of the rear window 108.
The distal end of the pivot shaft 109 (the end extending to the actuator 101) is coupled to the crank lever 110. As shown in FIGS. 25 to 28, the distal end of the crank lever 110 is coupled to a cylindrical pin holder 112. A substantially cylindrical coupler pin 111 is supported by the pin holder 112. The coupler pin 111 is axially movable in a direction parallel to the axis of the pivot shaft 109. The pin 111 is urged toward the disk 106 by a spring 115 accommodated in the pin holder 112. One end of the pin 111 is coupled to a limit ring 116.
When the rear window 108 is closed as shown in FIG. 25, the coupler pin 111 enters the coupler hole 106a in the disk 106, which operably couples the crank lever 110 to the disk 106. When the actuator 101 pivots the disk 106, the crank lever 110 pivots integrally with the disk 106. The alternating rotation of the crank level 110 is transmitted to the wiper arm 103 by the pivot shaft 109. Accordingly, the wiper arm 103 pivots in an angle range that corresponds to the angle range of the disk 106, which causes the wiper blade to wipe the surface of the rear window 108.
When the rear window 108 is opened, the coupler pin 111 is separated from the coupler hole 106a, which disengages the crank lever 110 from the pivot disk 106.
When the rear window 108 is opened, the wiper arm 103, the pivot shaft 109 and the crank lever 110 are free to pivot. Thus, if the rear window 108 is closed, the coupler pin 111 on the crank lever 110 may be misaligned with the coupler hole 106a. In this case, the coupler pin 111 contacts the surface of the pivot disk 106 and retracts against the force of the spring 115. However, the pin 111 is located in the path of the hole 106a ,and the hole 106a eventually becomes aligned with the pin 111 when the pivot disk 106 is pivoted by the actuator 101. When aligned with the hole 106a, the pin 111 enters the hole 106a.
To cause the pin 111 to positively enter the hole 106a, the wiper device of FIGS. 25 to 28 has pair of limit plates 113. The limit plates 113 are fixed to the holder 107 and are spaced apart by a predetermined angular interval to limit the pivot angle range of the crank lever 110 or the range of the pin 111. As shown in FIG. 27, a rubber cushion 114 is fitted about the pin holder 112 to reduce noise that is produced when the pin 111 hits the limit plates 113. The rubber cushion 114 contacts the limit plates 113, which limits the pivot angle range of the crank lever 110 within the pivot angle range X of the hole 106a. Therefore, when the rear window 108 is closed, the pin 111 is always located within the angle range X, or the path, of the hole 106a.
When the rubber cushion 114 contacts one of the limit plates 113 as shown in FIG. 27, the pin 111 is located within the range X of the hole 106a by a distance B. This is done to prevent the pin 111 from moving outside the range X of the hole 106a. However, the range X of the hole 106a is needed to permit the wiper blade to wipe a sufficient area on the window 108. Therefore, the wiper arm 103 must pivot in the range X of the hole 106a.
In FIG. 28, the pin 111 is engaged with the hole 106a. The rubber cushion 114 contacts one of the plates 113 and is deformed to permit the hole 106a to move to the end of the range X. Therefore, when the rear window 108 is closed, the crank lever 110 and the wiper arm 103 can be pivoted in a range that corresponds to the range X of the hole 106a.
However, in the wiper device of FIGS. 25 to 27, the rubber cushion 114 collides with one of the limit plate 113 every time the hole 106a is moved to one of the ends of the range X. This generates noise and can damage the rubber cushion 114 or the limit plates 113.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a simple and durable vehicle wiper device that securely engages a pivot shaft of a wiper arm with an actuator.
To achieve the foregoing and other objectives and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, a wiper device for wiping a window supported by a support is provided. The wiper device is located between the window and the support. The window opens and closes an opening in the support. The device includes an actuator, a first coupler, a pivot shaft, a second coupler, a wiper arm and a guidance structure. The actuator is supported by the support and has an output shaft. The first coupler is attached to the output shaft. The actuator pivots the first coupler in a first angle range. The pivot shaft is rotatably supported by the window. When the window is closed, the axis of the pivot shaft is aligned with the axis of the output shaft. The second coupler is attached to the pivot shaft. When the window is closed and the second coupler is at a predetermined rotational phase relative to the first coupler, the second coupler is coupled to the first coupler to transmit rotation of the output shaft to the pivot shaft. The wiper arm is attached to the pivot shaft. When the actuator is activated with the second coupler coupled to the first coupler, the wiper arm pivots in an angle range corresponding to the first angle range. When the second coupler is outside the first angle range, the guidance structure guides the second coupler to the first angle range by mechanical engagement.
Other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, illustrating by way of example the principles of the invention.


A food processing device has a housing with a lid, a rotatable attachment (e.g., a basket or beater) in the housing and a drive mechanism in the lid for rotating the attachment to process food in the housing. The drive mechanism has a manual actuator and a gear train for transmitting a driving force from the actuator to rotate the attachment. The actuator lies on an outer surface of the lid and is movable along the lid surface in opposite directions between two positions to rotate the attachment in a single direction. A ratchet assembly in driving engagement with the gear train transmits a rotational drive in only a single direction. A braking mechanism for braking the attachment, includes a manual operator and two braking shoes for movement by the operator to brake the attachment by friction.

Food processing devices of the type concerned, such as food spinners and mixers, are commonly used in kitchens for processing food such as drying food (salad or vegetable) or mixing dressing or sauce therefor. Such processing devices are hand operated utensils. In a typical construction, they include a housing having a lid, an operating attachment such as a basket or beater supported in the housing for rotation, and a drive mechanism for rotating the attachment to process food. The drive mechanism usually incorporates a handle on a crank for turning by a user.
Such food processing devices often require the use of both hands by a user. Although rotation of the basket or beater can be speeded up by adopting a gear train of a higher gear ratio, turning of the handle can be stiff.
The invention seeks to obviate or at least alleviate at least such problems or shortcoming by providing a new or otherwise manual food processing device.


An apparatus for ground fault current interrupter with overall end-of-life indication and shutdown protection function includes a first silicon-controlled rectifier, a reverse unit, a test switch unit and a ground fault current interrupter. The ground fault current interrupter includes a second silicon-controlled rectifier, a switch unit, a switch control unit and a rectifier filter unit. When a test current leakage signal is generated, a drive power is provided to the reverse unit, and the input power supply generates a current leakage phenomenon. If the ground fault current interrupter fails, then the second silicon-controlled rectifier will not be triggered, which makes the reverse unit trigger the first silicon-controlled rectifier, such that the rectifier filter unit outputs a DC power flowing through the first silicon-controlled rectifier to interrupt a power supply of the switch control unit. Therefore, the input power supply electrically connected to the switch unit can not deliver any power to the load electrically connected to the switch unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention in general relates to an apparatus for ground fault current interrupter, in particular, to an apparatus for ground fault current interrupter with overall end-of-life indication and shutdown protection function.
2. Description of Prior Art
Please refer to FIG. 1, which is an embodiment block diagram of a ground fault current interrupter according to prior arts. The name and working principle of each part are described below (which is applied to a load 50A):
Current leakage sensing circuit 20A: detecting current leakage of electrical equipment.
Control circuit 30A: accepting output signal of the leakage sensing circuit 20A, after a corresponding treatment, controlling on/off of a current interrupter 60A (described later) and off of a current leakage indicator.
Power supply circuit 40A: converting AC power into smooth DC power, which is then supplied to the current leakage sensing circuit 20A, the control circuit 30A and the current interrupter 60A, to make them work properly.
Current interrupter 60A: receiving output signal of the control circuit 30A, and correspondingly controlling connection and interrupt of electrical equipment and power supply.
Test Circuit 70A: capable of testing if the ground fault current interrupter can normally provide current leakage protection to electrical equipment and human body.
Re-set circuit 80A: after the ground fault current interrupter experiences gate-off due to current leakage fault or when the ground fault current interrupter is tested, the operation of the re-set circuit 80A can quickly re-close the ground fault current interrupter.
The aforementioned ground fault current interrupter according to prior arts can cut off AC power during the formation of current leakage, such that electrical equipment can prevent damage and ensure the safety of users. However, if its internal circuit is damaged (for example, silicon-controlled rectifier or integrated circuits or the current leakage sensing circuit 20A or the current interrupter 60A is damaged), it will be unable to achieve a cut off mission for the AC power during the formation of current leakage. Therefore, if we can increase operational normality of each important circuit in the ground fault current interrupter of prior arts under a condition that the increased overall protection circuit and warning function won't affect the own function of the ground fault current interrupter, the practicability of the ground fault current interrupter will be enhanced significantly.
Accordingly, after a substantially devoted study, in cooperation with the application of relative academic principles, the inventor has finally proposed the present invention designed reasonably to possess the capability to improve the drawbacks of the prior arts significantly.

Apparatus for ground fault current interrupter with overall end-of-life indication and shutdown protection function


A semiconductor integrated circuit is disclosed, in which a group of sense amplifiers activated at the same time by a selection signal on a selection signal line are divided into a plurality of blocks, and a power-source line for driving sense amplifiers is formed for each sense amplifier block so as to cross the selection signal line. Alternatively, an input/output line is divided into a plurality of sub-input/output lines, and a plurality of input/output lines are formed so that each input/output line crosses its sub-input/output lines, to form a hierarchical structure with respect to input/output lines. Thus, the load capacitance of each power-source line is reduced, and the time constant of each of the charging and discharging of the load capacitance is decreased. That is, the above semiconductor integrated circuit can operate at high speed.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor integrated circuit which can operate at high speed and is highly integrated, and more particularly to a large-capacity, high-speed dynamic random access memory (DRAM).
As the capacity of a semiconductor integrated circuit increases, the load capacitance thereof is usually increased, and thus the charge/discharge time of the load capacitance is also increased. Further, as the integration density of the semiconductor integrated circuit increases, the width and thickness of metal wiring are reduced, and thus the wiring resistance of a signal line is increased. Such an increase in wiring resistance furthers the above increase in charge/discharge time. Accordingly, it is indispensable for the realization of an ultra large scale integration circuit that reduction of the load capacitance or wiring resistance per one signal line must be achieved, thereby increasing an operation speed.
It is important for the high-speed operation of a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) to reduce the charge/discharge time associated with each of the data lines and which data lines characteristically produce the greater part of the load capacitance. One prior technique for reducing the charge/discharge time of data line is disclosed in a Japanese Patent Application JP-A-sho62-107,497 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,234). According to this technique, the load capacitance of a transistor for driving a group of sense amplifiers is reduced to one-half of an ordinary value. Accordingly, the charge/discharge time of a data line can be reduced to one-half of an ordinary value. However, with an increase in capacity of the DRAM, the load capacitance and the wiring resistance are further increased. Accordingly, it will become difficult in future instances to maintain the high-speed operation of the DRAM only by employing the above technique. In addition, in order to cope with a reduction in breakdown voltage of a circuit element resulting from an increase in integration of the DRAM and an increase in power consumption which, in turn, results from an increase in capacity thereof, an operating voltage associated therewith would be reduced. As a result, the operating voltage would remain close to the threshold voltage of each of MOSFETs making up a sense amplifier. Thus, there will arise a problem that the driving ability of the sense amplifier would become reduced and the high-speed performance thereof would be degraded substantially.
As the capacity of a DRAM is increased, a bit width (namely, the number of I/Os which are accessible at the same time) is usually increased from 1 or 4 bits to 8 bits (namely, byte width), 16 bits, or 32 bits. Accordingly, it is important to increase the number of input/output lines for transferring data between a memory array and an input/output circuit. Further, in order to cope with a substantial increase of test time resulting from an increase in integration of a DRAM, a highly-integrated DRAM is required to have a parallel test function. An example of the parallel test function is described on pages 240 and 241 of the Digest of Technical Papers ISSCC, 1985. It is important for such a parallel test to increase the number of input/output lines for transferring multi-bit data at once between a memory array and a peripheral circuit. In a conventional integrated circuit, however, the layout of, for example, a DRAM is arranged so that the input/output lines reach a sense amplifier. Accordingly, there arises a problem that an increase of the number of input/output lines correspondingly brings about an increase in the layout of the DRAM area.
As mentioned above, according to the prior art, it would be difficult to cope with an increase in charge/discharge time resulting from a substantial increase of load capacitance and wiring resistance that would be attributed to ultra LSI of the future. Further, it would also be difficult to increase a data bit width.

High-speed semicondustor memory integrated circuit arrangement having power and signal lines with reduced resistance


Methods and operations in mobile terminals and base stations are disclosed which control uplink signaling. A method in a mobile terminal controls uplink signaling to a base station, and includes receiving a MAC CE from the base station. The MAC CE indicates whether at least one of SRS or CQI reports should be transmitted for one or more serving cells configured for the mobile terminal. Transmission of at least one of the SRS or the CQI reports for the one or more serving cells from the mobile terminal to the base station is selectively activated and deactivated responsive to the MAC CE. Related methods and operations by base stations and mobile terminals are disclosed.

Carrier aggregation is one of the new features recently developed by the members of the 3rd-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for so-called Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and is standardized as part of LTE Release 10, which is also known as LTE-Advanced. An earlier version of the LTE standards, LTE Release 8, supports bandwidths up to 20 MHz. In LTE-Advanced, bandwidths up to 100 MHz are supported. The very high data rates contemplated for LTE-Advanced will require an expansion of the transmission bandwidth. In order to maintain backward compatibility with LTE Release 8 mobile terminals, the available spectrum is divided into Release 8—compatible chunks called component carriers. Carrier aggregation enables bandwidth expansion beyond the limits of LTE Release 8 systems by allowing mobile terminals to transmit data over multiple component carriers, which together can cover up to 100 MHz of spectrum. Importantly, the carrier aggregation approach ensures compatibility with earlier Release 8 mobile terminals, while also ensuring efficient use of a wide carrier by making it possible for legacy mobile terminals to be scheduled in all parts of the wideband LTE-Advanced carrier.
The number of aggregated component carriers, as well as the bandwidth of the individual component carrier, may be different for uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) transmissions. A carrier configuration is referred to as "symmetric" when the number of component carriers in each of the downlink and the uplink are the same. In an asymmetric configuration, on the other hand, the numbers of component carriers differ between the downlink and uplink. The number of component carriers configured for a geographic cell area may be different from the number of component carriers seen by a given mobile terminal. A mobile terminal, for example, may support more downlink component carriers than uplink component carriers, even though the same number of uplink and downlink component carriers may be offered by the network in a particular area.
LTE systems can operate in either Frequency-Division Duplex (FDD) mode or Time-Division Duplex (TDD) mode. In FDD mode, downlink and uplink transmissions take place in different, sufficiently separated, frequency bands. In TDD mode, on the other hand, downlink and uplink transmission take place in different, non-overlapping time slots. Thus, TDD can operate in unpaired spectrum, whereas FDD requires paired spectrum. TDD mode also allows for different asymmetries in terms of the amount of resources allocated for uplink and downlink transmission, respectively, by means of different downlink/uplink configurations. These differing configurations permit the shared frequency resources to be allocated to downlink and uplink use in differing proportions. Accordingly, uplink and downlink resources can be allocated asymmetrically for a given TDD carrier.
One consideration for carrier aggregation is how to transmit control signaling from the mobile terminal on the uplink to the wireless network. Uplink control signaling may include acknowledgement (ACK) and negative-acknowledgement (NACK) signaling for hybrid automatic repeat request (Hybrid ARQ, or HARQ) protocols, channel state information (CSI) and channel quality information (CQI) reporting for downlink scheduling, and scheduling requests (SRs) indicating that the mobile terminal needs uplink resources for uplink data transmissions.
Another element of uplink transmissions in LTE systems is the Sounding Reference Signal (SRS), which can be viewed as a type of pilot signal sent by an LTE mobile terminal (commonly called "user equipment," or "UE," in 3GPP documentation. Because the receiving base station (an "eNodeB," or "eNB," in 3GPP terminology) knows what the received SRS should look like, it can estimate the channel according to this formula:Received signal=Sent signal*Channel+Noise
The eNB can use the channel estimate obtained from SRS to perform link adaptation, to select an appropriate modulation and coding scheme (MCS) for the UE, etc.
In LTE, there are two types of SRS. Aperiodic SRS is sent by the UE upon request from the eNB. Periodic SRS is sent by the UE periodically. The periodic SRS is beneficial compared to the aperiodic SRS in that the eNB does not need to specifically request each periodic SRS transmission.
Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) refers to a measurement of downlink reference symbols, performed by a UE, and the resulting report sent to the eNB. The measurements may be made on Cell-specific Reference signals (CRS) and/or UE-specific reference signals. The UE knows the CRS signal and/or UE-specific reference signals sent by the eNB and estimates the effects of the downlink channel, again according to the basic formula:Received signal=Sent signal*Channel+Noise
The UE reports the channel estimation results back to the eNB and the eNB can use the information to perform link adaptation, select an appropriate modulation and coding scheme (MCS) for the UE etc. Note that in LTE, the reported channel estimate information is referred to as Channel State Information (CSI) or a channel-state report, which is a combination of a Channel Quality Indicator (CQI), which indicates the highest modulation-and-coding scheme that could be used in the downlink while maintaining a target block-error rate, a Rank Indicator, which indicates a transmission rank to use, and a precoder matrix indicator (PMI), which recommends a precoding matrix to be used for multi-layer transmission.
A time-alignment or timing-advance (TA) mechanism has been introduced in LTE to ensure that the uplink signals from different UEs are received by the network receiver in a time-aligned fashion. The UE maintains a TA value that tells the UE how much it should advance its uplink signals in relation to a timing reference. The eNB then sends TA commands to each UE, ordering them to transmit their UL signals earlier or later, i.e., to decrease or increase their TA value respectively, so that all UE's signals reach the receiving eNB time-aligned.
The UE has a TA timer that controls the validity of the TA value. If the TA timer is running, then the TA value is considered valid and the UE is allowed to perform UL transmissions. When the UE applies a received TA command it restarts the TA timer which means that the period for which the TA value is valid is extended. When the TA timer expires the UE is considered out-of-sync and is not allowed to perform uplink transmissions.
To support uplink carrier aggregation of uplink cells received at different reception points, Release 11 of the LTE specifications introduces multiple TA values. The concept of TA groups (TAGs) is also introduced. Each TA group has a TA value, a TA timer and a timing reference (the timing reference is the downlink reception timing of a cell within the TA group). A UE's cells may be grouped together in the TA groups according to which reception point is receiving the uplink transmissions for the cells, for example. The TAG containing the primary cell (PCell) is called the PCell TA group, or pTAG, but can contain one or more secondary cells (SCells). There can also be up to four other TA groups for a UE, each including only secondary cells, and which are called SCell TA groups, or sTAGs. Which TA group a UE's serving cells belong to is decided by the eNB and signaled by RRC signaling to the UE.
Since the PCell is "always on" and is needed for the UE to maintain connection to the network, it is expected that the pTAG's TA timer needs to always run when the UE is in connected state. sTAGs, however, only contain SCells, which are additional resources and are therefore less important.
The UE receives the configuration for periodic SRS and periodic CQI from the eNB through Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling. RRC signaling is comparatively slow, relative to Medium Access Control (MAC) signaling, and within 3GPP it has been targeted that RRC messages should be sent, if possible, less than once per second. Accordingly, there are no mechanisms to permit the eNB to stop periodic SRS/CQI signaling on a short timescale.

Fast termination of sounding reference signals and channel quality indicator transmissions


A paper container comprises: a container main body in the form of a rectangular parallelepiped that accommodates a number of papers or the like, such as tissue papers, that are placed one upon another, being folded; and an opening portion which is formed on a top of the container main body, wherein respective cuts 5 for a pair of up and down movable flaps 3a, 3b, and pairs of side flaps 4a, 4b, 4c, 4d are formed with a waved blade (corrugated) cutting tool whose blade portion has a pitch of 0.1 to 3.0 mm.

Conventionally, as a paper container for accommodating a number of papers or the like, such as tissue papers, that are placed one upon another, being folded, a paper container as disclosed in Patent Documents 1, for example, has been proposed.
With the container for tissue papers as disclosed in the Patent Documents 1, an opening portion is provided in a top wall of the container, and a plastic film is attached to the opening portion for closing it, with the film being provided with perforations for removing a tissue paper.
However, the container for tissue papers as disclosed in Patent Documents 1 is configured such that a plastic film is attached to the opening portion, and thus, in manufacturing, there is a need for preparing the plastic film, and attaching it to the opening portion, which increases manufacturing cost, and when the container for tissue papers is to be discarded as a used one, the plastic film must be peeled from the container for tissue papers, sorted, and discarded, from a viewpoint of environmental protection; therefore a problem of a user being requested to make extra work arises.
Patent Documents 1
Patent Publication No. JP/P2002-002836A
Having been developed in consideration of this conventional situation, the present invention eliminates a need for using a plastic film, which is used with the above-mentioned conventional container for tissue papers, and is intended to provide a paper container comprising a high-performance opening portion which offers excellent operability in removing a paper or the like, such as a tissue paper, and yet eliminates a possibility of a user's fingers being accidentally injured in removing the paper or the like, such as a tissue paper, in opening or unsealing the paper container, and that of the paper or the like, such as tissue paper, being damaged when it is removed from the paper container.


The present invention relates to a method for removing dyes from textile effluents and other organic substances using nanocomposites based on zinc hydroxides and carboxylic acids capable of adsorbing and degrading. More specifically, the present invention consists of a method to generate new zinc hydroxide-based materials, which allows removal and degradation of methylene blue and other organic compounds from wastewater from industrial effluents, particularly those from textile industry.

Dye removal from industrial effluents, specifically from textile industry, is particularly important because of its effects on public health and decreasing water resources availability. It is estimated that textile production (2017) amount to 100 billion kilograms per year using 9.8 trillion gallons of water and more than 500,000 tons of dyes and pigments (in a 1:20 dye:water ratio) to this end. Although this is an old problem, nowadays we are still looking for more efficient and environmentally friendly solutions.
Nowadays, the environmental problems associated with hazardous waste and toxic water pollutants have attracted a lot of attention. Wastewater derived from the manufacture of textiles, paper and other industrial processes contains non-biodegradable residual dyes. Release of toxic and potential carcinogenic substances, such as aqueous phase dyes, creates serious environmental contamination problems. Various chemical and physical processes have been developed such as coagulation/flocculation, activated carbon adsorption, reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration techniques to eliminate color from textile effluents. However, these techniques do not destroy contaminants, since they only transfer non-biodegradable matter to sludge, resulting in a new type of pollution, which requires additional treatment. Therefore, attention must be focused on techniques that lead to the total removal of dye molecules. There are many approximations reported in literature and in patent documents, for example, application WO2004089525 A2 is related to catalysts for photochemical processes which aims the environmental decontamination, being their characteristic a very superior photocatalytical efficiency when compared with the observed for pure titanium oxides. The composites, object of the invention, are a combination of TiO2 with a photosensitiser dye, capable to mediate photocatalytical processes using the incident radiation in wavelength ranges incapable to promote the excitation of the pure photocatalyst.
Patent application No. US 20130109357 A1 is related to a new magnetic dye-absorbing catalyst, which is the modification of the conventional magnetic photocatalyst. The catalyst consists of a composite particle that has a core-shell structure, with a magnetic particle as a core and a dye adsorbent (which can also exhibit photocatalytic activity) as a shell. Patent application No. US 20150315048 A1 relates to a material consisting of hard fibers on which nanoparticles of metals or metal oxides, preferably period IV transition metal oxides, are deposited using different techniques, said material being used in the degradation and removal of contaminants found in liquid matrices. The invention also relates to a method for in situ synthesis thereof.
State of the art document "IV Congreso Nacional de Nanotecnología 2016, Propiedades Fotocatalíticas de Nano-compositos laminares de ZnO/MoS2, F. Duran, E. Benavente and G. González discloses preliminary results of the behavior of nanocomposites formed by ZnO (carboxylic acid) and MoS2 (exfoliated) lamellar hybrids as photocatalysts in the degradation of the methylene blue dye under visible light. This document does not interfere with the present patent application.
In addition, document entitled "Methylene blue dye degradation using C-100 polymeric material modified with ZnO nanoparticles" has been published in the state of the art. In this work, the ZnO nanoparticles were incorporated inside C-100 as a kind of ion exchange material by impregnation with 8% Zn(CH3COO)2 solution (2). The modified material after Zn2+ loading was then treated with a solution of 5% sodium hydroxide to precipitate zinc hydroxide species on the surface of the C-100 exchanger as well as inside the internal pores of the polymeric matrix. After precipitation of zinc hydroxide, the materials were exposed to roasted vapor for an hour on the intermittent periods of time to form a zinc oxide. The synthesized samples with different ZnO loadings were denoted as Zn-HCIX and characterized using X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope, and the tunneling electron microscope. The synthesized materials were applied in the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye in aqueous medium using UV irradiation (wavelength=254 nm) under different experimental conditions. The data obtained indicate that the synthesized materials possess a very good adsorption capacity as well as excellent catalytic activity toward the removal of methylene blue.
However, there are no examples using the materials or procedures described by the present patent application. The most frequent is dye removal from industrial effluents using adsorbent materials from various origins. Photocatalytic mineralization of methylene blue is widely known, this dye is frequently used as a model molecule for organic pollutants. There is a plethora of scientific works in which a variety of different photocatalysts are used, including TiO2 and ZnO. The majority of the reports focus on testing the photocatalytic activity of the materials by kinetic evaluation of the methylene blue discoloration processes and not on the joint effect of adsorption removal and definitive elimination of the contaminant by photocatalysis.

Method for preparing laminar zinc hydroxide organic-inorganic nanocomposites for use in the removal and degradation of dyes from textile effluents


Described are handheld devices with combined image capture and image projection functions. One embodiment includes modulating and capturing a light beam along the same optic path. In another embodiment, the optical components are operable to switch between projection and capture modes. In yet another embodiment, the optical components may be formed on the same semiconductor substrate thereby increasing functionality.

Disclosed embodiments relate to handheld devices, and more particularly to combining image capture and image projection functions within a single device. Small, handheld electronic devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cell phones have incorporated still and/or video camera capabilities, and the trend is expanding. However, these devices have limited display capabilities because of their small size. Consequently, the small display size limits a user's ability to view or share pictures and/or videos with others.

Methods for combining camera and projector functions in a single device


A level of a sound signal including a voice signal and an environmental noise signal is detected and a level (power level) is sampled in response to a clock signal. It is detected whether the presently sampled level increases from the previously sampled level. An environmental noise level is estimated such that, when the presently sampled level increases from the previously sampled level, difference between the presently and previously estimated environmental noise levels is lower than a predetermined value. When the presently sampled level decreases, the presently estimated environmental noise level is equalized to the presently sampled value. The environmental noise level is estimated only when the detected level is smaller than the predetermined value. The sampling interval may be smaller than 250 msec. Estimation may be stopped in the presence of voice signal. An environmental noise level may be estimated when the detected level is smaller than a reference. A communication apparatus and data terminal including the An environmental noise level estimation apparatus are also disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an environmental noise level estimation apparatus, a communication apparatus including the same, a data terminal apparatus including the same and a method of estimating an environmental noise level.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An environmental noise level estimation apparatus is known. Japanese patent application provisional publication No. 9-247247 discloses a voice communication equipment. FIG. 8 is a block diagram of this prior art voice compunction apparatus. FIG. 9 is a time chart of the prior art. A microphone 201 receives sound and generates a sound signal which is a/d-converted by an a/d converter 202. The a/d converted sound signal is coded by a coder 203 and modulated by a modulation circuit 204 to transmit the sound signal. A reception signal is demodulated by a demodulator 207 and decoded by a decoder 208. A volume of the decoded signal is controlled by a volume control circuit 209 in accordance with a calculated noise level. An output of the volume control circuit 209 is supplied to a speaker through a d/a converter 210. The output of the a/d converter 202 is also supplied to a noise level calculation circuit 205 to calculate the noise level. A noise level renewing circuit 206 renews the noise level in accordance with an output of the noise level calculation circuit 205.
In this equipment, an amplification level of a voice signal is detected, means values are detected, and a minimum means value is detected from a plurality of means values as a sound noise level by the noise level calculation circuit 205. The mean value is detected every interval t1 and the noise level is renewed every interval t2 including the intervals t1. The volume is controlled in accordance with the noise level by a volume control circuit 209 every interval t2. The noise level is renewed every plurality of intervals for obtaining a plurality of means values.

Environmental noise level estimation apparatus, a communication apparatus, a data terminal apparatus, and a method of estimating an environmental noise level

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A communication plug comprises a cylindrical housing and a fastening ring. The cylindrical housing is provided therein with a space for receiving therein a connection guide wire and an insulator. The cylindrical housing is fitted into the fastening ring which has an inner threaded segment for fastening with a jack of a main machine. The fastening ring is further provided with a retaining ring having a plurality of indentations located in the circumference thereof. The cylindrical housing has a front end provided thereon with a rear cylindrical segment and further has a recessed segment located between the flange and the rear cylindrical segment. One end of the rear cylindrical segment, which is adjacent to the recessed segment, has a diameter greater than a diameter of another end of the rear cylindrical segment. The retaining ring has an inner diameter smaller than the largest diameter of the rear cylindrical segment. The retaining ring can be forced to deform so as to permit the fastening ring to be fitted securely over the recessed segment of the cylindrical housing.

A communication microphone is generally provided with an extendable cord having a plug that can be fitted into a jack of a main communication outlet for making an electrical contact. The plug must be so securely fitted into the jack that the plug can not be pulled out accidentally. The prior art plug has a metal housing which is encased by a collar having a threaded hole, which must be small enough to ensure that the collar does not disengage the housing of the plug. The cost of making such a communication plug of the prior art is relatively high. In addition, the manufacture of the prior art plug includes a plating process, which is a source of the environmental pollution. Furthermore, the plug housing must be punched and tapped, thereby resulting in an additional increase in the cost of making the communication plug of the prior art.

No. 22, 23rd Road, Taichung Industrial Park


The present invention provides a procedure for achieving accurate alignment between an X-ray mask and a device substrate for the fabrication of multi-layer microstructures. A first photoresist layer on the substrate is patterned by a first X-ray mask to include first alignment holes along with a first layer microstructure pattern. Mask photoresist layers are attached to second and subsequent masks that are used to pattern additional photoresist layers attached to the microstructure device substrate. The mask photoresist layers are patterned to include mask alignment holes that correspond in geometry to the first alignment holes in the first photoresist layer on the device substrate. Alignment between a second mask and the first photoresist layer is achieved by assembly of the second mask onto the first photoresist layer using alignment posts placed in the first alignment holes in the first photoresist layer that penetrate into the mask alignment holes in the mask photoresist layers. The alignment procedure is particularly applicable to the fabrication of multi-layer metal microstructures using deep X-ray lithography and electroplating. The alignment procedure may be extended to multiple photoresist layers and larger device heights using spacer photoresist sheets between subsequent masks and the first photoresist layer that are joined together using alignment posts.

Deep X-ray lithography involves a substrate which is covered by thick photoresist, typically several hundred microns in thickness, which is exposed through a mask by X-rays. X-ray photons are much more energetic than optical photons, which makes complete exposure of thick photoresist films feasible and practical. Furthermore, since X-ray photons are short wavelength particles, diffraction effects which typically limit device dimensions to two or three wavelengths of the exposing radiation are absent for mask dimensions above 0.1 micron. If one adds to this the fact that X-ray photons are absorbed by atomic processes, standing wave problems, which typically limit exposure of thick photoresist by optical means, become a non-issue for X-ray exposures. The use of a synchrotron for the X-ray source yields high flux densities, several watts per square centimeter, combined with excellent collimation to produce thick photoresist exposures with minimal horizontal run-out. Locally exposed patterns should therefore produce vertical photoresist walls if a developing system with very high selectivity between exposed and unexposed photoresist is available. This requirement is satisfied by polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) as the X-ray photoresist, and an aqueous developing system. See, e.g., H. Guckel, et al., "Deep X-ray and UV Lithographies for Micromechanics", Technical Digest, Solid State Sensor and Actuator Workshop, Hilton Head, S.C., Jun. 4-7, 1990, pp. 118-122.
As the thickness of the photoresist is increased, e.g., beyond 500 .mu.m, difficulties have been encountered when relatively soft (lower photon energy) X-ray sources are used for photoresist exposure. The wavelengths of soft X-rays are long enough that diffraction effects can lead to penumbral blurring of the X-ray mask shadow image. Difficulties can also arise from interface phenomena caused by the non-negligible reflectivity of common photoresist materials with respect to soft X-rays. It has also been found that for resist sheets thicker than about 500 .mu.m, soft X-rays cannot penetrate sufficiently to the bottom of the resist layer to guarantee development of the bottom regions of the resist without such a large exposure that the dose at the upper regions of the resist would become so high as to cause destructive overexposure. Such overexposure can cause distortion or fracture of the resist layer, or even destruction of the fragile soft X-ray mask which is typically positioned within a few microns of the resist layer. However, these problems can be avoided by exposing thick photoresist layers using hard (high energy) X-rays. Hard X-rays may be obtained by spectral shaping the X-ray beam from a source, such as a synchrotron, having a significant spectral content of high energy X-rays to substantially eliminate lower energy photons which have a short absorption length in the photoresist, and which would tend to be substantially absorbed near the top surface of the photoresist. Spectral shaping for hard X-rays may be accomplished by spectral filtering using, e.g., aluminum and/or silicon filters. The penetrating ability of hard X-rays allows photoresist layers up to several centimeters thick to be exposed, allows multiple stacked photoresist layers and substrates to be exposed simultaneously, and allows the X-ray mask to be formed on robust substrates, such as relatively thick and wide single crystal silicon wafers, on which an X-ray absorber such as gold is deposited in a pattern.
Deep X-ray lithography may be combined with electroplating to form high aspect ratio structures. This requires that the substrate be furnished with a suitable plating base prior to photoresist application. Typically, this involves a sputtered film of adhesive metal such as chromium or titanium, which is followed by a thin film of a metal which is to be plated. Exposure through a suitable mask and development are followed by electroplating. This results, after clean-up, in fully attached metal structures with very high aspect ratios. Such structures were reported by W. Ehrfeld and co-workers at the Institute for Nuclear Physics at the University of Karlsruhe in West Germany. Ehrfeld termed the process "LIGA" based on the first letters of the German words for lithography and electroplating. A general review of the LIGA process is given in the article by W. Ehrfeld, et al., "LIGA Process: Sensor Construction Techniques Via X-ray Lithography", Technical Digest, IEEE Solid State Sensor and Actuator Workshop, 1988, pp. 1-4.
The addition of a sacrificial layer to the LIGA process facilitates the fabrication of fully attached, partially attached, or completely free metal structures. Because device thicknesses are typically larger than 10 microns and smaller than 300 microns, free standing structures will not distort geometrically if reasonable strain control for the plated film is achieved. This fact makes assembly in micromechanics possible, and thereby leads to nearly arbitrary three-dimensional structures. See H. Guckel, et al., "Fabrication of Assembled Micromechanical Components Via Deep X-ray Lithography", Proceedings of IEEE Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, Jan. 30-Feb. 2, 1991, pp. 74-79.
It is possible to extend the LIGA process, with or without a sacrificial layer, for the formation of multi-layer micromechanical structures. This is achieved by performing several X-ray exposures of multiple photoresist layers, with electroplating of additional layers of metal after each exposure. In such a procedure, metal microstructures may be electroplated both onto the substrate plating base and onto the top surface of previously deposited microstructure layers. Replanarization of previously deposited microstructure layers, to achieve a substantially flat uniform surface, is typically required before electroplating subsequent metal microstructure layers thereon. Various machining, lapping, and polishing procedures may be used for replanarization.
A key to successful fabrication of multi-layer micromechanical device structures is the accurate alignment of subsequently deposited microstructure layers with previously deposited ones. For example, if a gear-shaft-gear combination is to be fabricated, with each component of the combination formed on a different microstructure layer, only a small eccentricity between the axes of the gears and shaft, and thus only a small alignment error between the microstructure layers, can be tolerated. Hence, a procedure to achieve high alignment accuracy between layers must be available in order to extend LIGA for the fabrication of multi-layer micromechanical devices.
Alignment procedures similarly play an important role in the related field of microelectronics fabrication. Microelectronics manufacturing uses alignment procedures for the fabrication of multi-level integrated circuits. Alignment procedures used in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) processing for microelectronics, for example, are usually of an optical nature. In the VLSI process, each level is formed to contain reference marks at a certain location. These marks are used for optically aligning a subsequent mask to a previous level. A microscope is focused on the alignment marks on both the previous work level and the subsequent level mask. The mask is then positioned such that the marks on the work level and the mask are optically aligned with each other, thus aligning the subsequent mask pattern with the previous level microelectronic pattern. During optical exposure through the subsequent mask, new alignment marks are transferred to the current work level. Using this method, the several layers which make up an integrated circuit are aligned with each other.
Since visible light is used for the optical alignment procedure, the procedure is limited to alignment gaps between the substrate and the mask which lie in the range of the depth of focus of the alignment microscope. In VLSI processing, the alignment gap between the device substrate and the mask is on the order of a few micrometers. However, in LIGA processes for the fabrication of relatively thick metal microstructures, the mask and the device substrate may typically be more than 100 micrometers apart. For the magnification required to optically align the LIGA substrate to a mask with submicron tolerance, the depth of focus is much less than 100 micrometers. Moreover, X-ray masks used in LIGA processing are typically formed from a silicon wafer (for hard X-rays) or a silicon wafer which includes a silicon nitride membrane (for soft X-rays) upon which a thin metal plating base layer is deposited for subsequent formation of the mask pattern by plating of an X-ray blocking material, such as gold, onto the plating base layer. The X-ray masks used in LIGA processing in most cases are, therefore, not optically transparent. For these reasons, the optical alignment procedure used in VLSI processing cannot easily be applied to the fabrication of multilayer micromechanical devices by the LIGA process.
An alignment procedure that may be used for fabrication of multi-layer microstructures by the LIGA process is suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,583, to Guckel. et al., entitled "Formation of Microstructures Using a Preformed Photoresist Sheet". This patent describes the use of thick preformed sheets of photoresist for the fabrication of photoresist and metal microstructures. Multiple photoresist sheets may be exposed to X-rays in various patterns, and then adhered together into a laminate. The laminate may then be adhered to a substrate and used for the fabrication of metal microstructures. Alignment of the various photoresist layers, such that microstructure regions formed therein by exposure to X-rays are aligned with each other, may be achieved by creating mechanical alignment structures during exposure of each photoresist layer, and then using these alignment structures to obtain mechanical registration between a previous layer and a subsequent layer. Exemplary alignment structures may consist of relatively large holes formed in each photoresist layer on opposite sides of the patterned portion thereof. The holes may be formed as part of the X-ray exposure and developing process for patterning the photoresist layer, so that the microstructure pattern and the alignment holes are formed simultaneously for each layer, and so that the relative position of the alignment holes with respect to the microstructure pattern is precisely controlled. The alignment holes are designed to accept pegs, which may be formed of a photoresist material or metal. Alignment between photoresist layers is achieved by assembling mounting holes in a subsequent layer onto the pegs placed in mounting holes from the previous layer, and gluing the subsequent photoresist layer to the underlying layer. Self-alignment is obtained because the alignment holes are exposed at the same time as the desired pattern in each layer, and therefore the alignment tolerance is governed by assembly tolerances. After the desired number of photoresist layers have been built up into a laminate, metal may be electroplated into the microstructure pattern regions in the photoresist laminate, if desired, to effectively form a multi-layer metal microstructure.

Radiation mask adapted to be aligned with a photoresist layer and method of making the same