The present invention discloses an octave-key transfer-bar protection device, which is installed on a saxophone to protect an octave-key transfer-bar on the saxophone, and which comprises a structure body, and a collision-protection bar arranged on the structure body and encircling an accommodation space. The structure body is fixed to the external surface of the saxophone. The octave-key transfer-bar is arranged inside the accommodation space and encircled by the collision-protection bar. The collision-protection bar can protect the octave-key transfer-bar from being deformed by collision. Thus, the performer can correctly lower or raise the gamut via the octave-key transfer-bar.

The saxophone is a wind instrument having a peculiar tone color, which can be played solo and is widely used by individual performer. Refer to FIG. 1. To increase the gamut, a conventional saxophone 1 has an octave-key transfer bar 2 to trigger an octave valve 3 and control the resonant frequency of the saxophone 1 by opening and closing the octave valve 3, whereby the gamut of the saxophone 1 is lowered or raised. Thus, the performer has a wider gamut to present the music.
In the conventional saxophone 1, the octave-key transfer bar 2 is arranged on the surface 4 thereof. When the performer presses a button 5, the button 5 actuates a link bar 6 to move the octave-key transfer bar 2 and open or close the octave valve 3. Thus is varied the resonant frequency of the saxophone 1.
The octave-key transfer bar 2 may be deformed by collision during performing or delivering, which will vary the displacement of the octave-key transfer bar 2 actuated by the link bar 6, the extent of opening or closing the octave valve 3, and the extent of increasing or decreasing the frequency of the saxophone 1 can not be achieved. Consequently, the performer cannot present the exact pitches but has an imperfect performance.

Octave-key transfer-bar protection device


A method for motion tracking and constructing a mosaic of video objects is disclosed. Also disclosed is a method for synthetic object transfiguration from a mosaic. A 2-D triangular mesh is employed to represent a video object, which permits to describe the motion of the object by the displacements of the node points of the mesh, and to describe any intensity variations by the contrast and brightness parameters estimated for each node point. Using the temporal history of the node point locations, the nodes of the 2-D mesh are continued to be tracked even when they become invisible because of self-occlusion or occlusion by another object. By adding new nodes or updating the 2-D triangular mesh, any uncovered parts of the video object are incrementally added to the mosaic. A finite number of views representing the constructed mosaic are selected and used for synthetic transfiguration of a replacement object in place of the original one.

In a wide variety of image sequence processing and analysis tasks, including object-based video manipulation, there is a great need for an accurate method for tracking the boundary, motion, and intensity of a video object throughout an image sequence. The video object may be only partially visible in each frame of the image sequence because of self occlusion, or occlusion by another video object.
Tracking the boundary of an object has been discussed in M. Kass, A. Witkin, and D. Terzopoulos, "Snakes: Active Contour Models", International Journal of Computer Vision, volume 1, no. 4, pp. 321-331, 1988; F. Leymarie and M. Levine, "Tracking Deformable Objects in The Plane Using An Active Contour Model", IEEE Transactions Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, volume 15, pp. 617-634, June 1993; K. Fujimura, N. Yokoya, and K. Yamamoto, "Motion Tracking of Deformable Objects By Active Contour Models Using Multi-scale Dynamic Programming", Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, vol. 4, pp. 382-391, December 1993; B. Bascle, et al., "Tracking Complex Primitives in An Image Sequence", in IEEE International Conference Pattern Recognition, pp. 426-431, October 1994, Israel; F. G. Meyer and P. Bouthemy, "Region-Based Tracking Using Affine Motion Models in Long Image Sequences", CVGIP: Image Understanding, volume 60, pp. 119-140, September 1994. The methods disclosed therein, however, do not address the tracking of the local deformations within the boundary of the object.
Methods for tracking local deformations of an entire frame using a 2-D mesh structure are disclosed in J. Niewglowski, T. Campbell, and P. Haavisto, "A Novel Video Coding Scheme Based on Temporal Prediction Using Digital Image Warping", IEEE Transactions Consumer Electronics, volume 39, pp. 141-150, August 1993; Y. Nakaya and H. Harashima, "Motion Compensation Based on Spatial Transformations", IEEE Transaction Circuits and System Video Technology, volume 4, pp. 339-357, June 1994; M. Dudon, O. Avaro, and G. Eud; "Object-Oriented Motion Estimation", in Picture Coding Symposium, pp. 284-287, September 1994, CA; C.-L. Huang and C.-Y. Hsu, "A New Motion Compensation Method for Image Sequence Coding Using Hierarchical Grid Interpolation", IEEE Transactions Circuits and System Video Technology, volume 4, pp. 42-52, February 1994; Y. Altunbasak and A. M. Tekalp, "Closed-form connectivity-preserving solutions for motion compensation using 2-D meshes," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, volume 6, no. 9, September 1997. However, these methods always include the whole frame as the object of interest. They do not address the problem of tracking an individual object within the frame.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,280,530, which is herein incorporated by reference, discusses a method for tracking an object within a frame. This method employs a single spatial transformation (in this case affine transformation) to represent the motion of an object. It forms a template of the object, divides the template into sub-templates, and estimates the individual displacement of each sub-template. The parameters of the affine transformation are found from the displacement information of the sub-templates. Although this method employs local displacement information, it does so only to find a global affine transformation for representing the motion of the entire object. Therefore, while it tracks the global motion of an entire object, it cannot track any local deformations that occur within the object.
The method disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/636,622 entitled "Tracking Motion and Intensity Variations Using Hierarchical 2-D Mesh Modeling," Graphical Models and Image Processing, volume 58, no. 6, pp. 553-573, November 1997, which are herein incorporated by reference, tracks the boundary, local motion, and intensity variations of a video object throughout an image sequence. It also describes how 2-D mesh-based object tracking can be used for object-based video manipulation such as synthetic object transfiguration and augmented reality. However, this method assumes that the object being tracked is not occluded throughout the image sequence.
A method for occlusion-adaptive tracking of video objects using 2-D meshes is discussed in Y. Altunbasak and A. M. Tekalp, "Very low bit rate video coding using object-based mesh design and tracking," SPIE/IS&T Symposium on Electronic Imaging Science & Technology, San Jose, Calif., February 1996; Y. Altunbasak and A. M. Tekalp, "Occlusion-adaptive content-based 2-D mesh design and tracking for object-based coding," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, volume 6, no. 9, September 1997. However, this method is developed for the purpose of video-object compression and is capable of tracking frame-to-frame motion of the video object only. It does not provide a complete representation of the motion and intensity variations of the video object throughout the image sequence. It also lacks disclosing a recipe as to how to link the parts of the object being tracked that become disjoint because of occlusion by other video objects in the scene.
Mosaicing is used as a means for obtaining an efficient and complete representation of video sequences in M. Irani and et al., "Efficient representations of video sequences and their applications," Signal Processing: Image Communication, volume 8, pp. 327-351, 1996. However, in this paper, mosaic construction is described for global transformations only and cannot be used for manipulation of video objects with local motion.
Although the presently known and utilized methods are satisfactory, they are not without drawbacks. Consequently, a need exists for an improved method for mosaicing and tracking an object in an image sequence which is undergoing local motion and intensity variations in the presence of occlusion.

Method for object tracking and mosaicing in an image sequence using a two-dimensional mesh


A battery assembly configured to cooperate with an atomizing assembly to form an electronic cigarette is provided; and the battery assembly comprises a sleeve, a battery disposed along an axial direction of the sleeve, and an end cover mounted on an end of the sleeve; the end cover is telescopically connected to the sleeve; and a first charging electrode and a second charging electrode are mounted on the end cover and arranged in the sleeve; the first charging electrode and the second charging electrode are configured to be exposed and connected to an external charger when the end cover extends out of the sleeve, thereby providing charging electric power to the battery. In the present application, outside impurities cannot adhere to the atomizing assembly, and the normal working of the electronic cigarette cannot be adversely affected by the impurities.

An electronic cigarette comprises a battery assembly and an atomizing assembly. The battery assembly is configured to supply electric power to the atomizing assembly of the electronic cigarette. Electronic cigarettes are classified as disposable electronic cigarettes and non-disposable electronic cigarettes. In a disposable electronic cigarette, a battery of the battery assembly cannot be charged. As the disposable electronic cigarette doesn't have a charging function, tobacco tar of the disposable electronic cigarette is often unable to be exhausted when the disposable electronic cigarette is used.
In a non-disposable electronic cigarette, a battery of the battery assembly can be charged. FIG. 1 is a schematic view of charging principle of a non-disposable electronic cigarette in the prior art. In the rechargeable battery of the non-disposable electronic cigarette, the charging interface of the rechargeable battery is disposed on a connection portion between the battery assembly and the atomizing assembly. When the battery is charged, the atomizing assembly needs to be detached from the battery assembly, so that two charging terminals of the battery are exposed. Thus, when the battery is charged, the atomizing assembly is not connected with a controller of the non-disposable electronic cigarette and the battery. By adopting the non-disposable electronic cigarette that needs to detach the atomizing assembly from the battery assembly when it is charged, the charging operation spends much time and much work, and the connection portion between the atomizing assembly and the battery assembly may loose after use for a long time. Furthermore, detaching the atomizing assembly may cause the atomizing assembly to be lost, and impurities may enter the non-disposable electronic cigarette and adversely affect normal working of the non-disposable electronic cigarette in frequent detachment operations of the atomizing assembly.

Battery assembly and electronic cigarette comprising the same

HUIZHOU KIMREE TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. SHENZHEN BRANCH


A power tool has a tool spindle, a hammer unit, a drive including a motor having a motor driven shaft, a motion conversion gear for generating reciprocating piston movement, and a disengageable coupling located between the motor and the motion conversion gear and engaging the hammer unit. The coupling has two coupling parts which held apart, one of the coupling parts being axially fixed and another of the coupling parts being axially movable and arranged on the motor-driven shaft rotatable relative to the shaft. A gear linkage connects the another coupling part with the shaft and transmits portions of a torque of the shaft to the another coupling part in form of an axially directed closing force.

The invention is related to a hammer drill having a coupling which is engaged for generating movement to a tool spindle in the drill when the tool is against a work surface.
A motorised hammer drill is already known from German Patent Publication DE-OS 35 06 695 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,976), the hammer unit of which can be switched off by means of a coupling between a motor-driven intermediate shaft and the motion conversion gear, which produces the reciprocating piston movement. The coupling force is amplified by a lever which is loaded by the reaction forces of the hammer unit. The amplifying force applied to the coupling is absorbed by a pin in the housing and a bearing of the intermediate shaft, which is supported in a special metal bearing bridge. The effectiveness of the force amplification can be reduced by tolerances of the lever, the bearing pin and the bearing bridge. With very adverse conditions during operation, the generation of heat can cause yield of the plastic housing and thus a displacement of the pin. Moreover, any undesirable reduction of the pressing force with such lever designs can lead to a lengthening of the engagement path.

Hammer drill with hammer drive action coupling


The selection of which channel to use by a cable modem terminating system (CMTS) is made a function of input supplied by a spectrum analyzer. Note that typically the cable distribution system has coupled to it at the head end not only the CMTS but also a spectrum analyzer, which has been used in the prior art only for initial establishment and subsequent maintenance of the network, tasks which are performed manually by field technicians. In one embodiment of the invention an interface is established between the CMTS and the spectrum analyzer so that the CMTS and the spectrum analyzer can communicate with each other, and the decision on which channel to use for the upstream is made by the CMTS based at least in part on information provided by the spectrum analyzer. Alternatively, the CMTS and spectrum analyzer are each interfaced to a spectrum controller which makes the decision of which channel to use for the upstream based at least in part on information provided by the spectrum analyzer. The spectrum controller then instructs the CMTS to carry out its decision.

Conventional cable modem systems use any of the conventional 6 MHz bandwidth television channels for downstream communications, i.e., from the cable modem terminating system to the cable modems. Such television channels are at relatively high frequencies, e.g., 60 MHz and higher. For the upstream communication, i.e., from the cable modems to the cable modem terminating system, relatively low frequencies, e.g., 5–42 MHz, are employed.
The reason that use of such low frequencies has become ubiquitous for upstream communication is because cable was originally only a downstream medium and historically it was deemed desirable to maximize the number of available downstream channels for television use. As the amplifiers that were used in the cable networks were bandwidth limited, and so only could only provide so many channels from the lowest frequency channel allowed by FCC rules in the channel plan to the highest frequency channel that could be amplified by the bandwidth limited amplifier, all the available channels were assigned for downstream use. When it became recognized that upstream communication was desirable, the only spectrum that was available, without sacrificing available television channels, was the bandwidth below the lowest channel in the channel plan. As a result, notwithstanding that higher bandwidth amplifiers that are available today, the art continues to essentially use for the upstream communication only the low frequencies that are below the lowest channel in the channel plan.
Unfortunately, such low frequencies are often subject to noise, which increases the bit error rate and reduces throughput. This noise is typically only within certain frequency ranges. So long as the frequencies selected for the uplink is not within the range of the noise, upstream communication can take place relatively error free.
In an attempt to insure that the upstream communication takes place using an upstream channel that is not in the frequency range of the noise, the prior art teaches that it is possible to change the channel or "hop" from one channel to another. According to one prior art technique the hopping is performed according to a predefined schedule which does not take into account actual conditions on the cable. According to another prior art technique, when the bit error rate is detected to have increased, transmission is halted and a "snapshot" of the channel conditions is taken using a digital signal processor (DSP) which is included in each cable modem terminating system module, also known as a port adapter, which is the head end cable modem that serves a predefined geographic area. The "snapshot" of the channel conditions looks across the whole upstream frequency range, e.g., 5–42 MHz, and determines the power present at each frequency. Using the snapshot it selects the widest possible channel with the lowest power and over the downstream instructs all the cable modems it serves to hop so as to use that channel for the upstream, to which it also tunes.

Cable modem termination system for upstream frequency band


When male and female connector housings 1 and 11 are in a half-fitted state, a spacer insertion groove 24 located at a posterior end of a locking arm 20 does not fully open. In order to prevent forcible insertion of a spacer, the insertion ends 33 of a spacer 30 have an inclined lower face, to reduce or eliminate a force tending to push up the locking arm 20. Even in the case where the first insertion ends 33 are forcibly inserted into half-fitted connector housings 1 and 11, complete insertion is prevented because a second insertion member 38 of the spacer 30 and the position of a through hole 23 are not aligned. Half fitting is thus reliably detected.

As shown in FIGS. 8 to 10 of this specification, a spacer 52 is commonly used as a means for detecting the fitted state of two connectors. When two connector housings 50 and 53 fit together correctly, a locking arm 51, that changes shape and bends as the fitting progresses, reverts to its unbent shape, and a protrusion 54 formed on the locking arm 51 fits into a lock receiving groove 55 formed on the corresponding connector housing 53, thereby locking the housings 50 and 53 together. An opening 56 is provided between the locking arm 51 and the facing face of the housing 50, the opening 56 allowing the insertion of the spacer 52.
In the case where the fitting of such a pair of connector housings 50 and 53 has not been correctly carried out and these are in a half-fitted state, as shown in FIG. 9, the entrance of the opening 56 towards the posterior of the locking arm 51 is not sufficiently wide. For this reason, the spacer 52 cannot be inserted easily, and this informs the operator that the connector housings 50 and 53 are in a half-fitted state.
An anteriorly tapering tapered face 52A is formed on the anterior end portion of the spacer 52, this tapered face 52A making it possible to smoothly carry out the initial insertion operation into the space 56 located below the locking arm 51. However, as shown in FIG. 9, in the case where the insertion of the spacer 52 is carried with the tapered face 52A upwards, a force F applies bending the locking arm 51 upwards. For this reason, in the case where the operation is carried out with the excessive force, even if a half-fitted state exists, as shown in FIG. 10, the anterior end of the locking arm 51 gets bent upwards, making the insertion of the spacer 52 possible. Allowing such a possibility results in a decrease in the reliability of detection of the half-fitted position, and an appropriate solution is desirable.
The present invention has been developed after taking the above problem into consideration, and aims to provide a connector having a higher reliability as regards detecting the half-fitted state.


The mirror elements mirror device spatial light modulator are selectively deflected. Such deflection causes incident infrared radiation to be reflected in selected directions. The number of deflected mirror elements as well as the degree of deflection determines the amount of reflected radiation which travels through an aperture and is collimated by suitable imaging optics, thus creating an infrared image that appears to be at infinity.

Numerous military systems employ sensors which image in the infrared. A thorough testing of these sensors requires a controlled generation of simulated, yet realistic scenes that can be produced in a laboratory or indoor test range. The creation of artificial scenes in the infrared is technically difficult and the current state of the art is not as sophisticated as, for example, the art of creating artificial scenes in visible light where numerous types of projectors, cathode ray tubes, plasma displays, and liquid crystal displays are available. In fact, a technology of creating artificial scenes in the infrared which is available from CI Systems, Inc. is representative of the current commercial state of the art. The CI Systems technology achieves the simulation of infrared scenes by moving perforated puppets and silhouettes in front of a thermal source of radiation. Some other current techniques include arrays of small resistors which are made to glow from the heat induced by an electric current applied to them and the use of liquid crystal devices to modulate a beam of infrared radiation.

Infrared image projector utilizing a deformable mirror device spatial light modulator

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army


Methods and systems for selecting, in a broker-dealer system for automated trading of securities, a path for sending an order for securities to a terminus market, in which the broker-dealer system includes at least one port, the port being coupled through at least one path to at least one terminus market, wherein each path includes at least one direct link between a port and a market system and optionally one or more additional links between the said market system and other market systems, each path having a first terminus at a port and a second terminus at a terminus market, terminus markets being markets to which orders for securities are sent by the broker-dealer system.

Systems for automated trading of securities need to be fast, reliable, and flexible. Delays in execution of orders for securities affect different investors differently. Viewed according to their interest in speed of execution, investors can be classified in three broad categories: traditional investors, hyperactive investors, and professional traders. Traditional investors trade approximately once a month. Traditional investors are interested in long term investment. Traditional investors may have very little concern with speed of execution because traditional investors, intending to hold a stock for months or years, often are perfectly happy with any price in a stock's daily trading range.
Hyperactive investors are serious hobbyists or enthusiasts rather than professional investors. They do not earn their living exclusively from investing. They have other professions or occupations, but they are focally interested in the process of investing. Hyperactive investors trade approximately once daily, about twenty times more often than traditional investors. Hyperactive investors are often interested in popular stocks in which they may remain invested for relatively short periods of time, perhaps only a few days or hours. In addition, hyperactive investors, being the informed enthusiasts that they are, are increasingly aware of the high performance available to professional traders in automated systems for trading securities. Hyperactive investors therefore increasingly demand high speed of execution of orders for securities.
Professional traders are full-time, individual, professional securities traders, including so-called 'day traders.' Professional traders make as many as thirty to fifty trades a day, perhaps fifty times as many trades as hyperactive investors and a thousand times as many as traditional investors. Professional traders may account for as much as fifteen percent of the trading volume on Nasdaq. For professional traders, speed of execution is a matter of financial survival, crucially important. A delay in execution of even a few seconds can cause a loss for a professional trader because markets can change so quickly. When a professional trader enters an order, the order must be executed as quickly as possible.
One of the potential bottlenecks in systems for automated trading of securities is the data communications connections between broker-dealer systems and markets to which broker-dealer systems send orders for securities. Broker-dealer systems receive orders from customers, send the orders to markets, receive responses from markets, and communicate order status to customers. Orders are sent to markets through data communications paths that include a port at one terminus of the path and a market at the other. Responses are received from markets through paths. A market can be connected to a broker-dealer system through more than one port. If a path partially fails or is slowed for mechanical or electrical reasons, the broker-dealer system can be slowed. If a path fails completely, the broker-dealer system can be disabled with regard to the market served by that path.
To improve speed, flexibility, and reliability, broker-dealers add additional paths to their systems, so that more than one path is available from a broker-dealer to a particular market. Adding paths improves overall throughput of orders and responses to and from markets and reduces the risk of being completely disabled with respect to a market if a path fails. System performance can still vary widely, however, from the point of view of a customer whose order is sent through a path that is slowed or stopped by overload or mechanical failure.
The data communications systems in systems for automated trading of securities are typically assumed to demonstrate discrete failure of components or complete failure of entire subsystems. It is commonly assumed, for example, that if a path for communications fails, the path will fail completely. Paths can fail, however, in a gradual manner, degrading in performance until the path is practically useless despite not evidencing complete failure. Systems designed only to detect complete failure may do a poor job of detecting and administering gradual failures of components or subsystems.
Methods and systems are therefore needed for selecting paths dependent upon path availability, path performance, and optionally other qualities of paths, as well as detecting problems with paths, such as gradual deterioration of performance, so that other paths can be selected for sending order to markets when it would be helpful to do so in support of the overall quality of performance in broker-dealer systems.

Method and system for multi-path routing of electronic orders for securities


A method for preparing an oxide dielectric thin film, for use in a dielectric thin film device, is described. Briefly, a film forming chamber is heated, and a thin film of dielectric, about 200 nm thick, is formed by sputtering or another deposition method. After the film is formed, evacuation of the film forming chamber is suspended, and oxygen gas is introduced into the chamber. The film is oxidized after its formation by maintaining the film in the oxygen atmosphere for a period of time, which can include cooling steps. The resulting dielectric thin film has excellent dielectric properties, such as a high dielectric constant and great dielectric strength.

SiO.sub.2 (silicon dioxide) or SiN (silicon nitride) is usually used as a dielectric material when producing a thin film capacitor for use in an integrated circuit (IC), such as a signal storing capacitor in a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory). Recently, as demand for a more highly integrated semiconductor device is increasing, a dielectric material which has high dielectric constant and small leakage current is also increasingly sought after. This has led to today's active research on oxide dielectric thin films with high dielectric constant, made of such materials as STO (SrTiO.sub.3, strontium titanate), or (Ba, Sr) TiO.sub.3 (barium strontium titanate), either of which has a dielectric constant higher than conventional dielectric materials such as SiO.sub.2 and SiN.
For example, Japan Journal Applied Physics. Vol. 31 (1992, pp. 3025-3028, T. Kuroiwa et al.) discloses a study of electric properties of an oxide dielectric STO film which is made by employing an RF (radio frequency) sputtering method.
According to this publication, the oxide dielectric STO film is formed in the manner presented as follows. First, on an Si substrate, a thermally-oxidated Si film with a thickness of 300 nm and a Pt film with a thickness of 100 nm as a lower electrode are laminated in this order in a film forming chamber at a temperature of 600.degree. C. Thereafter, with the pressure of oxygen in the film forming chamber maintained at 26.6 Pa, an RF sputtering is conducted so that an oxide dielectric STO film with a thickness of 75 nm is formed on the Pt film. After the film formation, the substrate is cooled down in the oxygen atmosphere. To evaluate the electric properties of the oxide dielectric STO film, other Pt films as upper electrodes are formed on the oxide dielectric STO film at room temperature.
According to the evaluation, when a voltage of 2 V was applied to the STO film through the upper and lower electrodes, the oxide dielectric STO film had a leakage current of 4.0.times.10.sup.-9 A/cm.sup.2 and a dielectric constant of 205. It is reported as a result of the evaluation that the leakage current depended greatly on the oxygen defects contained in the film, while it did not depend on the dispersion of Pt atoms from the lower electrode to the oxide dielectric STO film. It is also reported that conditions of the oxygen atmosphere can be an important factor in determining the quality of an oxide dielectric STO film. To be more specific, the higher the pressure of the oxygen in the chamber during film formation, the less oxygen defects are formed in the oxide dielectric STO film.
An oxide dielectric thin film is generally manufactured by the following methods: a sputtering method, MOCVD (Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition) method, a reactive vapor deposition method, and a laser ablation method. The following description briefly explains these methods. According to the sputtering method, ions are collided against a target in a low-pressure atmosphere so that atoms or molecules from the target are deposited on a substrate. According to the MOCVD method, a substrate is heated up so that a thin film is formed on the substrate based on a mutual thermal decomposition and a chemical reaction between an organometal compound and a group five hydrogen compound. According to the reactive vapor deposition method, when oxygen, for example, is utilized, a material is thermo-evaporated at the pressure of oxygen so that a reaction is caused between the vaporised material and the oxygen, and a product thus obtained through the reaction is deposited on the substrate. On the other hand, according to the laser ablation method which utilizes dense photons of a laser, a laser is projected on the surface of an evaporative material so that a chemical bond on the surface of the evaporative material is cut causing the evaporative material to be evaporated, thereby causing a thin film to be formed on the substrate.
After an oxide dielectric thin film is formed in an oxygen atmosphere and at a constant temperature by employing either of the above-mentioned methods, either of the following four conventional methods is usually applied as a post-treatment: a first conventional method of cooling the substrate while stopping the supply of oxygen; a second conventional method of cooling the substrate while leaving it in the same oxygen atmosphere that was used in the film formation process; a third conventional method of cooling the substrate in an oxygen atmosphere such as an oxygen gas or an oxygen plasma; and a fourth conventional method of taking the substrate out of the film forming chamber and applying a heat treatment to the substrate in an oxygen atmosphere.
However, if either of these conventional post-treatments is applied after forming an oxide dielectric thin film, the oxide dielectric thin film device thus obtained has such unfavorable properties as low dielectric constant, great leakage current, and small dielectric strength. It is considered that the reason is that oxygen is not sufficiently absorbed in the film during the film formation process, thereby causing a lot of oxygen defects in the crystal lattice of the oxide dielectric thin film. Regarding the fourth conventional post-treatment method, since the substrate is once taken out of the film forming chamber after the film formation, moisture and carbon dioxide in the air are adhered to the film surface, thereby obstructing the absorption of oxygen into the film. It is seen that this causes a lot of oxygen defects in the crystal lattice.
Thus, when an oxide dielectric thin film to which such a conventional post-treatment has been applied is used for producing an oxide dielectric thin film device, the following problem arises. It is impossible to steadily obtain an oxide dielectric thin film device having preferable dielectric properties, such as being superior in insulation, having dielectric constant as high as bulk's, and hardly exhibiting dielectric breakdown.
Then, it may be expected that such a problem can be solved by raising the oxygen pressure in the film forming process so that enough oxygen is absorbed. However, considering the principles of the film forming methods, the foregoing methods of film forming (the sputtering method, the MOCVD method, the reactive vapor deposition method, and the laser ablation method) is virtually infeasible. To be more specific, regarding the sputtering method, since the method, according to the principles, naturally tends to cause glow discharge by applying DC voltage or high frequency voltage, abnormal discharge tends to happen when, for example, gas of around 50 Pa or above is introduced. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain the stable glow discharge. As to the MOCVD method, the reactive vapor deposition method, and the laser ablation method, it is requisite that the vapor pressure of the materials is higher than the degree of vacuum. But, it is extremely difficult, when the pressure of oxygen is high, to achieve a vapor pressure of, for example, around 50 Pa or above by heating evaporative materials.

Method of producing dielectric thin film element


A plasma display panel and the manufacturing method thereof. Forming partition wall structures on the back substrate of the paste display panel and forming the column-shaped protrusions at the positions corresponding to the cuts on the rib on the front substrate of the plasma display panel. The manufacturing process is simple and the alignment of the front and back substrate is easy. In addition, the size of the opening of the rib and the size of the cut can be easily adjusted according to the needs of the application during the manufacturing process.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plasma display panel and the manufacturing method thereof, more particularly to the partition wall structure of the panel and the manufacturing method thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The rib of the plasma display panel (referred to PDP in the following) commonly has a stripe-shaped structure. However, the grid-mesh rib structure is also used at present, for example, the one disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,701,056 by NEC. The structure disclosed by NEC forms stripe-shaped ribs on the back substrate of the PDP and forms grid-mesh-shaped ribs on the front substrate of the PDP, then assembles the front and back substrates, as shown in FIG. 1. The structure disclosed by NEC has the following four disadvantages:
Since the front substrate has an additional rib manufacturing process in the NEC structure, the cost is relatively high.
When assembling the front and the back substrates, the high aligning precision of the two substrates is strictly required; this deepens the difficulty of the manufacturing process.
To ensure that the front and the back substrate are precisely aligned, increasing the width of the rib of the front and the back substrates is often required. Hence the opening rate of the PDP is compromised.
Due to the width of the rib, the effective area of the coating fluorescent body becomes smaller.

Method of manufacturing a partition wall structure on a plasma display panel


An arithmetic control circuit (52) is configured to bring the measuring element (38) for a lens into contact with at least two points (measurement points P1, P2) of one of two refracting surfaces of the lens Lm held in the lens holder by controlling the measuring element shifter (driving motor 6), obtain the coordinates of the two points according to the detection signal from the position detector (linear scales 24, 40), and obtain a curve value Cv of one refracting surface of the lens from the difference of the coordinates of the two points.

In general, as eyeglass frames, a rim frame (full rim frame), a rimless frame (two-point frame), a grooved frame (half-rim and Nylor) and the like are known.
In the grooved frame, for example, a retention groove which extends in the circumferential direction is formed on an outer circumferential face of a lens, a half-rim is firmly affixed to the upper side of the lens (eyeglass lens), and Nylor which is supported by both ends of the half-rim is arranged in the retention groove in the lower side of the lens, so that the lens is affixed to the half rim by Nylor.
For this grooved frame, it is necessary to form the retention groove extending in the circumferential direction on the outer circumferential face of the lens. This retention groove is obtained by forming a circular groove extending in the circumferential direction on the outer circumferential face of the lens by a cutter and the like after the rim of the circular unprocessed eyeglass lens is formed into the lens (eyeglass lens) shape by a lens grinder according to lens shape data.
Meanwhile, a lens shape measurement device disclosed in JP H10-166250A is known. The lens shape measurement device disclosed in JP H10-166250A includes a lens frame holder provided in the main body of the measurement device, a rotation base provided in a frame of the main body in a horizontally rotatable manner, and a rotation and driving motor which rotates and drives the rotation base. The lens shape measurement device also includes a slider mounted on the rotation base in a linearly movable manner in the horizontal direction, a measurement shaft mounted on the slider in a vertically movable manner, and a measuring element for a lens frame which is set in the upper end portion of the measurement shaft and engages with a V-groove of a lens frame of a rim frame.
In this lens shape measurement device, a moving radius ρi (a change in a distance from a geometric center of a lens frame to a V-groove) relative to a rotation angle θi of the rotation base and a displacement Zi in the up and down direction can be obtained as lens frame shape data (θi, ρi, Zi) by moving the measuring element for a lens frame along the V-groove.
As the above lens shape measurement device, a device in which a lens holder (lens holding unit) which holds a lens is detachably attached to a main body and a measuring element for a lens is arranged in a slider to freely rise up and fall is known. In this lens shape measurement device, the measuring element for a lens is set up and has contact with the outer circumferential face of the lens held by the lens holder, and the rotation base horizontally rotates by the rotation and driving motor, so that the measuring element for a lens is slidably moved in the circumferential direction along the outer circumferential face of the lens, and the moving radius ρi (a change in a distance from a geometric center or an optical center of a lens to a rim) of the lens relative to the rotation angle θi of the rotation base can be obtained as lens circumferential face shape data (θi, ρi).
In this lens shape measurement device, the shape data of the lens frame is obtained as the above-described three-dimensional shape data; however, the shape data of the lens is two dimensionally obtained as a moving radius ρi relative to a rotation angle θi.
Consequently, in order to process the retention groove on the lens, it is necessary to hold an unprocessed eyeglass lens between lens rotation shafts which are mounted on a lens grinder in series, rotate the lens rotation shafts and the unprocessed eyeglass lens together at a predetermined angle Δθ before grinding the rim portion of the unprocessed eyeglass lens according to the circumferential face shape data (θi, ρi) by a grinding stone, and measure positional data in the direction along the lens rotation shafts of the front side refracting surface and the back side refracting surface in the moving radius ρi of the unprocessed eyeglass lens by an edge thickness measurement unit.
Meanwhile, when ordering eyeglasses in opticians, for example, it is general to select one's favorite eyeglasses from displayed sample eyeglasses. In an actual situation for such sample eyeglasses, demo-lenses (dummy lenses) are attached to a frame or a rimless frame. The circumferential face (edge face) of the demo-lenses attached to the frame (rim) is formed in a shape along the three-dimensional shape of the frame (rim).
However, an actual eyeglass lens has a difference in a curvature of a refracting surface according to a prescription of the eyeglasses, or in an edge thickness according to a rotation center of a lens in the grinding of the rim of the lens. For this reason, in a grooved frame, when mounting an actual eyeglass lens on a half-rim, a bending process is performed to the half rim according to the rim shape of the eyeglass lens.
However, it is desirable to mount the eyeglass lens on the half-rim frame without performing such a bending process for a half-rim. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to measure a three-dimensional shape of a half-rim; however, in the above-described measurement device, a three-dimensional shape of a half-rim can not be measured.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a lens shape measurement device which can specify a three-dimensional shape of a half-rim frame even in a grooved frame by obtaining a circumferential face shape and a curvature of a refracting surface of a lens such as a demo-lens.


Disclosed is a process wherein a two-stage hydroconversion process for converting a heavy hydrocarbonaceous feedstock to lower boiling products which process comprises: (a) reacting the feedstock in a first reaction stage at hydroconversion conditions which include temperature from about 650.degree. F. to 900.degree. F., and hydrogen partial pressure ranging from about 50 to 5000 psig in the presence of a metal compound which is convertible to a solid, non-colloidal, metal-containing catalyst, said metal selected from the group consisting of metals from Groups IVB, VB, VIB, VIIB, and VIII, of the Periodic Table of the Elements, wherein said metal compound is: (i) soluble in the hydrocarbonaceous feed; or (ii) soluble in an organic medium that can be dispersed in the hydrocarbonaceous oil, or (iii) soluble in water resulting in an aqueous solution which can then be dispersed in the hydrocarbonaceous feedstock; (b) passing the resulting product stream to a second reaction stage where it is reacted under slurry hydrotreating conditions which include: (i) temperature in the range of 650.degree. F. to 750.degree. F., with the promise that this slurry hydrotreating stage be operated at a temperature at least 25.degree. F. less than the first stage, and (ii) hydrogen partial pressures in the range of 800 to 4000 psig, and in the presence of hydrogen and a hydrotreating catalyst comprised of at least one Group VI metal and at least one Group VIII catalyst, on an inorganic oxide support.

There is substantial interest in the petroleum industry for converting heavy hydrocarbonaceous feedstocks to lower boiling liquids. One type of process suitable for hydroconversion of heavy feedstocks is a slurry process using a catalyst prepared in a hydrocarbon oil from a thermally decomposable metal compound catalyst precursor. The catalyst is formed in situ in the hydroconversion zone. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,226,742 and 4,244,839 which are incorporated herein by reference.
It is also known to use such catalysts in hydroconversion processes in which coal particles are slurried in a hydrocarbonaceous material. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,077,867 and 4,111,787.
Further, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,740,295 and 4,740,489, both of which are incorporated herein by reference, teach a method wherein the catalyst is prepared from a phosphomolybdic acid precursor concentrate. The precursor concentrate is sulfided prior to final catalyst formation. This presulfiding step is taught to produce a catalyst having greater control over coke formation. The sulfiding agent in these two patents requires a hydrogen-sulfide containing gas, or a hydrogen-sulfide precursor. The resulting catalyst concentrate is used for hydroconversion of heavy hydrocarbonaceous materials to lower boiling products.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,151,070 teaches a two-stage slurry hydroconversion process in which the second stage is operated at more severe conditions than the first stage stage. The more severe conditions include higher temperatures.
The term "hydroconversion", with reference to a hydrocarbonaceous oil, is used herein to designate a catalytic process conducted in the presence of hydrogen in which at least a portion of the heavy constituents of the oil is converted to lower boiling products. The simultaneous reduction of the concentration of nitrogenous compounds, sulfur compounds, and metallic constituents of the oil may also result.
While there are various hydroconversion and hydrotreating processes which are commercially practiced, there still exists a need for process variations which will increase the level of conversion of higher boiling products to lower boiling products, particularly high quality liquid products.

Hydroconversion process with slurry hydrotreating


A shaker assembly and method, of which the shaker assembly includes a shaker tank, a mixing tank in fluid communication with the shaker tank and positioned adjacent thereto, an overflow weir positioned between and separating the shaker tank and the mixing tank, a first shaker positioned over the shaker tank, and a second shaker. The first and second shakers are configured to operate in parallel to partially separate a solid from a liquid of a drilling waste fluid. During normal operation, at least some of the liquid flows from the first and second shakers to the shaker tank, and from the shaker tank over the overflow weir and into the mixing tank.

When drilling a wellbore in a subterranean formation, a fluid is pumped down into the wellbore to cool the drill bit and to circulate cuttings from the subterranean formation back to the surface. This fluid with cuttings is referred to as a drilling fluid waste. The drilling fluid waste may present additional environmental liabilities and be expensive to dispose of at the surface. As a result, it may be desirable to dispose of the drilling fluid waste by pumping the drilling fluid waste back into the subterranean formation.
The drilling fluid waste may first be treated, e.g., to remove solids from the drilling fluid waste that might otherwise fall out of suspension in the drilling fluid waste. These solids are removed in several ways, and potentially through multiple mechanisms in series. A shaker is one such mechanism that is used to remove solids from drilling fluid waste. The drilling fluid waste is sent to the shaker, where it runs across a vibrating screen, which removes solids that are larger than the size of the screen mesh, while allowing fluids and smaller particles to exit.

Parallel shaker assembly for drilling fluid waste disposal


An object matching management apparatus includes an information storage part storing objects composing operation results, a communication part communicating with operation terminals for specified objectives, and an information processing part controlling operations of the information storage part and the communication part. The information processing part acquires information on processing performed on a specific one of the objects from an operation terminal through the communication part, updates the specific object stored in the information storage part based on the acquired processing information, and transmits the acquired processing information to another operation terminal through the communication part.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an object matching management system for producing results while establishing synchronization of object information between a plurality of terminals.
2. Description of the Related Art
In designing and producing a product, generally, a designer creates the design information of the product, such as design drawings and component lists. A variety of information necessary for the production of the product is further created from the design information. Based on such information, selection of individual product components, designing of mounting, and verification of product profitability are performed. Thereby, information required for implementing the product is made clear, so that the production is performed according to the production plan.
A description will be given of the production of, for instance, an electronic component such as a printed circuit board (PCB) or a power supply unit (PSU). In a design section, generally, a circuit diagram is created by using CAD software, and at the same time, a list of components for the circuit is created.
Based on the circuit diagram and the component list, proposals on the assembly plant of the electronic component, the estimated price of the product, and a variety of information required for the production of the electronic component are discussed and determined. The discussion and the determination of the information are performed by a plurality of organizations having their respective special functions.
The above-described proposing of the assembly plant and discussion of the estimated price, that is, so-called downstream operations, are performed referring to the circuit diagram and the component list created in the upstream section. Therefore, if there is mismatching of components between the circuit diagram and the component, the downstream section cannot determine which of the circuit diagram and the component list correctly describes the components, thus affecting the estimation and discussion operations. Accordingly, if there is a change in the component list created in the design section, the change should be reflected in the circuit diagram.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-194741 discloses a configuration that prevents operations from being affected by mismatching between the diagram and the list by collating the circuit diagram, the substrate diagram, and the component list created in the design section with one another, determining a mismatch, and showing an operator the mismatch.
However, no such system exists in the prior art represented by the above-described technology that instantaneously reflects a change in the component list created by the design section in the circuit diagram and vice versa without going through a correction input operation by the operator.
When a correction input operation by the operator is required in reflecting a change, the operator should verify, each time, which component to change, and in some cases, may forget to make the change. Thus, the correction input operation by the operator lacks accuracy and efficiency. Accordingly, such an apparatus and a system have been desired that, in showing the same object information on platforms having different roles, such as platforms for creating the circuit diagram and the component list, respectively, of the same product, instantaneously reflect a change in the object information shown on one of the platforms in the object information shown on the other of the platforms.

Object matching management system enabling instantaneous reflection of change in object information in operation terminals


A circuit for detecting a frequency correction burst in a TDMA digital mobile communication system. The circuit comprises a first multiplier for inputting I-channel data modulated by a continuous phase shift key and multiplying the inputted I-channel data by a sine wave frequency of the frequency correction burst to produce a first channel signal I1(nT); a second multiplier for inputting Q-channel data modulated by the continuous phase shift key and multiplying the inputted Q-channel data by the sine wave frequency of the frequency correction burst to produce a second channel signal Q1(nT); a low-pass filter for lowpass-filtering the first and second channel signals I1(nT) and Q1(nT) to produce first and second filtered channel signals I2(nT) and Q2(nT); a first energy estimation unit for estimating energies of the first and second channel signals I1(nT) and Q1(nT), respectively to generate a first instantaneous signal energy E.sub.p (nT); a second energy estimation unit for estimating energies of the first and second channel signals I1(nT) and Q1(nT), respectively to generate a second instantaneous signal energy E.sub.q (nT); a normalization unit for normalizing the first instantaneous signal energy E.sub.p (nT) to the second instantaneous signal energy E.sub.q (nT) to generate a normalized signal G(nT); and a burst discriminator for detecting only a frequency correction burst from the normalized signal G(nT).

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a time division multiple access (TDMA) digital mobile communication system, and more particularly, to a circuit in a mobile station for detecting a frequency correction burst, which is periodically transmitted from a base station to achieve frequency adjustment and time slot synchronization between the base station and the mobile station in the TDMA digital mobile communication system.
2. Related Art
Modem digital mobile communication system include a central base station fixedly located at a predetermined terrestrial site with a predetermined radio coverage to establish communication with a plurality of mobile stations geographically spaced from the central base station by means of the time division multiple access (TDMA) technique.
In a TDMA communication system, digital information intended for a single receiver, for example, a single mobile station is modulated onto a single TDMA signal transmitted to all mobile stations. Multiple users of a single frequency signal are accommodated by allowing access to the TDMA signal by each individual user at different time intervals. The timed access is divided into groups of multiple time frames with each time frame corresponding to an allotted time interval for one radio frequency burst containing digital information for an individual receiver. Contemporary TDMA communication systems are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,000 for Circuit For Eliminating Spurious Components Resulting From Burst Control In A TDMA System issued to Yamamoto et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,543 for Phase-Coherent TDMA Quadrature Receiver For Multipath Fading Channels issued to Borth et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,852,090 for TDMA Communications System With Adaptive Equalization issued to Borth et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,155 for Method And Circuitry For Symbol Timing And Frequency Offset Estimation In Time Division Multiple Access Radio Systems issued to Chuang et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,262 for Method And Apparatus For Triggering Measurements From A TDMA Signal issued to Johnson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,533,028 for Communications Subsystem Between Base Stations And Base Station Controllers In Burst Communications Systems issued to Hita de la Torre et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,597 for Autonomous Synchronization Of Base Stations In A Digital Wireless Radiotelephone Network issued to Gerszberg et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,319 for Receiver Path Selection Based On Burst-Type In A Time Division Multiple Access Receiver issued to Daniel, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,015 for Apparatus And Method For Synchronization And Error Detection Of Received Digital Data Bursts In A TDM/TDMA System issued to Bain.
In order to establish communication between the base station and the mobile station in a TDMA digital mobile communication system, frequency adjustment and time slot synchronization must be achieved. One contemporary technique for frequency adjustment and time slot synchronization between the base station and the mobile station using a frequency correction burst is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,887,050 for Frequency Control Apparatus And Method For A Digital Radio Receiver issued to Borth et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,241,688 for Frequency And Time Slot Synchronization Using Adaptive Filtering issued to Arora, U.S. Pat. No. 5,390,216 for Synchronization Method For A Mobile Radiotelephone issued to Bilitza et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,800 for Mobile Radio Receiver For A Radio Transmission System issued to Frank. The frequency correction burst is a pure tone sine wave at 67.5 kHz, consisting of 148 samples, that is transmitted from the base station periodically in time slot zero of a data stream, and is subsequently detected at the mobile station to estimate a frequency offset between the carrier frequencies of the base station and the mobile station in order to achieve time slot synchronization between the base station and the mobile station.
Contemporary techniques for frequency adjustment and time slot synchronization, as I have observed however, require complex and cost prohibitive circuitry to detect the frequency correction burst contained in a TDMA signal, even when the mobile communication channel exhibits multiple path fading characteristics. Moreover, the required circuitry often fails to reliably detect the frequency correction burst, and requires a lot of time to detect the frequency correction burst.

Circuit and method for detecting frequency correction burst in TDMA digital mobile communication system


In one embodiment, a rotatable element includes a plate, a plate support, a cradle, and a cradle support. The plate is coupled to the cradle via the plate support. The cradle is coupled to a surrounding frame by the cradle support. The plate and cradle are suspended over a cavity so that, in conjunction with the plate support and the cradle support, both the plate and cradle are capable of freely rotating about different axes of rotation when suitably actuated. Since the plate is capable of rotating independently of the cradle, yet also rotates when the cradle is rotated, the plate is rotatable about two axes of rotation. In some cases, the axis of rotation of the plate is perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the cradle. Since the cradle does not surround the plate, the plates of adjacent rotatable elements can be placed very close to one another (i.e., as close as about 1 micron) to provide, for example, an array of very-closely-spaced mirrors.

An array of individually-addressable, movable, micro-machined mirrors can be used in optical communications networks to route or switch optical signals, e.g., optical cross connect, etc. Each mirror in the array is supported over a group of electrodes in such a way that the mirrors are free to move, e.g., rotate about an axis, etc., when actuated, such as by applying a voltage across a mirror and one or more of the underlying electrodes. By varying the amount that a mirror tilts, or the direction in which it tilts, or both, an optical signal that is incident on the mirror can be directed to a desired location, such as a particular optical fiber.
Some newer mirror arrays have mirrors that are rotatable about two perpendicular axes of rotation, e.g., as is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,631, which is incorporated by reference herein.
It is desirable to provide a high density of optical transfer for communications applications. In particular, in some applications, e.g., de-multiplexing, etc., the mirrors must be very tightly spaced (about 1 to 2 microns) to enable flat pass bands with high spectral efficiency. Gimbaled mirrors, as exemplified by those described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,631, are not suitable for such applications because the gimbals present a limitation as to how close adjacent mirrors can be to one another. In particular, there must be a gap between adjacent mirrors that is at least twice the width of a gimbal. In fact, the minimum gap is somewhat larger than this, since the minimum gap must also take into account the gap between the mirror and the gimbal and the gap between the gimbal and the support. Furthermore, some minimum separation distance must be provided between adjacent gimbals to maintain the integrity of the substrate layer to which the gimbals are attached.
It is possible to fabricate gimbaled mirrors that are somewhat smaller than the exemplary structure disclosed in the '631 patent. Nevertheless, with the structure of prior-art gimbaled mirrors, it is not currently possible to achieve a mirror spacing of less than about 15 to 20 microns between prior-art gimbaled mirrors. Consequently, prior-art gimbaled-mirror arrays are not suitable for use in applications that require very close perimeter-to-perimeter spacing, e.g., about 15 microns or less between adjacent mirrors in a mirror array.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Apparatus comprising an array of tightly spaced rotatable optical elements with two axes of rotation


To provide a hydrogenation catalyst which does not contain chromium oxide, unlike conventional copper/chromium oxide catalysts, and therefore does not cause any environmental contamination or health hazard, and which shows an activity, selectivity and durability at equivalent or higher levels to or than those of conventional copper/chromium oxide catalysts. A hydrogenation catalyst which comprises, as the main components, (1) copper and (2) at least one member selected from the group consisting of silicon oxide, calcium oxide and calcium silicate, wherein the content of the copper is from 20 to 60 wt % based on the entire amount of the hydrogenation catalyst, and in the calcium silicate, the molar ratio of calcium oxide (CaO) to silicon oxide (SiO2) is less than 1.

As a useful catalyst to be used for such a hydrogenation reaction, a copper/chromium oxide catalyst has been widely known as a copper chromite catalyst (e.g. Non-Patent Document 1).
As a specific example, a process for producing aniline has been known wherein a gaseous nitrobenzene is reduced with hydrogen by means of a copper/chromium oxide catalyst under such conditions that the reaction temperature is from 180 to 370° C., the pressure is from 0.1 to 0.5 MPa and a nitrobenzene concentration is from 2 to 14 vol % (e.g. Patent Document 1). However, such a catalyst containing chromium oxide is likely to cause environmental contamination or health hazard, and a due care is required in its handling, and further, substantial labor and costs have been required also for the treatment and recovery of the catalyst used.
Further, a process for producing an aromatic amine by hydrogenation of an aromatic nitro compound by using a modified Raney copper which comprises copper, iron and aluminum as basic components, has been proposed (e.g. Patent Document 2). However, a Raney metal catalyst is usually susceptible to deterioration of the activity due to surface oxidation and is therefore required to be stored in water or in an inert gas atmosphere, and a due care is required for its handling. Further, while its activity is high, it has such a problem that the durability is inadequate.
Recently, a molded hydrogenation catalyst has been proposed which is made of a natural clay mineral such as copper, calcium silicate, attapulgite, etc. (e.g. Patent Document 3). While such a molded catalyst is excellent in strength and durability, it contains natural material as raw material, and it has a drawback that reproducibility is poor with respect to the composition or particle size of the catalyst to be produced, due to variations in its composition or physical properties.
Further, a molded catalyst comprising copper, calcium silicate, hydrotalcite, etc., has been proposed (e.g. Patent Document 4). However, such a molded catalyst employs hydrotalcite having the composition controlled, and petal-shaped calcium silicate, and therefore, it has an economical problem that the price is obliged to be relatively high.

Hydrogenation catalyst, process for its production and its use


In an image forming apparatus accommodating a developing device, a developing roller 1 includes a magnet member 3 non-rotatably fixed and a sleeve 2 rotatably moved around the outer surface of the magnet member 3, powdery developers D held on the outer periphery of the sleeve 2 are brought into contact with a photosensitive member 10 to visualize an electrostatic latent image, and the magnet member 3 is provided with a magnetic pole portion N.sub.0 having first and second magnetic poles N.sub.1 and N.sub.2. The first and second magnetic poles N.sub.1 and N.sub.2 have the same polarities and are adjacent to each other and confront the photosensitive member 10. The powdery developers D include three developer parts, an upper developer D.sub.1, a middle developer D.sub.12 and a lower developer D.sub.2, which are successively retained on the outer surface of the sleeve 2 by the first and second magnetic poles N.sub.1 and N.sub.2. The upper developer D.sub.1 retained by the first magnetic pole N.sub.1 and the middle developer D.sub.12 retained by the middle portion between the first and second magnetic poles N.sub.1 and N.sub.2 are brought into contact with the photosensitive member, while the lower developer D.sub.2 retained by the second magnetic pole N.sub.2 is held out of contact with the photosensitive member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developing device for developing an electrostatic latent image to be visualized by contacting powdery developer (or developing powder) onto a photosensitive member, and in particular to an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, printer or the like accommodating such a developing device.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there have been proposed some kinds of developing devices each including a developing roller constituted by a magnet column member with a plurality of magnetic poles and a sleeve overlaid on the outer surface of the magnet column member wherein an electrostatic latent image is turned visual by contacting developing powder retained on the outer surface of the sleeve with the outer surface of a photosensitive member. These developing devices are classified broadly into two types, an inner pole fixed type and an inner pole rotary type. In each of the inner pole fixed type developing devices 101a and 101b as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 respectively, a magnet column member 103 is non-rotatably fixed and a cylindrical sleeve member 102 overlaid on the outer surface of the magnet column member 103 is rotated in a direction shown by an arrow a. On the other hand, in the inner pole rotary type developing device 101c as shown in FIG. 3, the magnet column member 103 as well as the sleeve member 102 overlaid thereon is rotated in a direction shown by an arrow a'.
Moreover, the inner pole fixed typed developing devices are generally classified into two types, a single pole type as shown in FIG. 1 and a double pole type as shown in FIG. 2. In the single pole typed developing device 101a, as shown in FIG. 1, there is provided a single magnetic pole N confronting to a developing zone Q between the sleeve 102 and the photosensitive member 100 closely facing to each other, and only the developing powder retained by the magnetic pole N is brought into contact with the outer surface of the photosensitive member 100 so as to form a toner image. In the double pole typed developing device 101b, as shown in FIG. 2, there are provided double pairs of magnetic poles (N.sub.1, S.sub.1) and (N.sub.2, S.sub.2) in the outer peripheral portions of the magnet column member 103, wherein the magnetic poles N.sub.1 and N.sub.2 (S.sub.1 and S.sub.2) have the same polarities and the magnetic poles N.sub.1 and N.sub.2 are adjacent to each other in the outer peripheral portion of the magnet column member 103 confronting to the developing zone Q, so that the developing powder portions retained by the magnetic poles N.sub.1 and N.sub.2 are both contacted onto the outer surface of the photosensitive member 100 so as to develop an electrostatic latent image to be visible. It is to be noted here that the transporting speed of the developers in these developing devices of three kinds is set faster than the moving speed of the surface of the photosensitive member.
However, these developing devices 101a, 101b and 101c have various drawbacks respectively as following.

Developing device for use in an image forming apparatus


Apparatuses and methods for maintaining an optimal beam direction in a wireless communication system are provided. The method for operating a receiving node in a wireless communication system includes, determining a first transmission beam is determined as a preferred transmission beam using a plurality of reference signals transmitted by a transmitting node, generating preferred transmission beam information, transmitting the preferred transmission beam information to the transmitting node, receiving transmissions from the transmitting node via the first transmission beam, and determining whether a change of a transmission beam is necessary. When the change of the transmission beam is determined to be necessary, generating a beam change request and transmitting the beam change request to the transmitting node.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for adaptively performing beam forming in a wireless communication system that uses a Super High Frequency (SHF) band.
2. Description of the Related Art
To meet continually increasing Radio Frequency (RF) data traffic demands, wireless communication systems are evolving so as to support higher data transmission rates. For example, an emphasis in the development of a 4th Generation (4G) wireless communication system is an improvement in spectral efficiency in order to increase a data transmission rate. However, it has become difficult to meet the continually increasing RF data traffic demands with only improvements in the spectral efficiency.
The above problem may alternatively be addressed by employing a wider frequency band. A frequency band used by a mobile communication system of the related art is typically 10 GHz or less. The reason for this is that it is very difficult to secure a wider frequency band at 10 GHz or less. However, a wider frequency band may be more easily secured in a super high frequency band (e.g., 30 GHz through 150 GHz). The super high frequency band may also be referred to as the millimeter (mm) wave band.
However, the use of the super high frequency band has a shortcoming in that as a frequency for wireless communication increases, a radio path loss increases. Accordingly, as the frequency for wireless communication increases, radio reach distance is correspondingly shortened, thereby resulting in a reduced service coverage area. However, there is a technique to address this shortcoming, namely beam-forming. Beam-forming addresses the radio path loss and increases the radio reach distance.
Beam-forming may be classified into a transmission beam-forming and a reception beam-forming. The transmission beam-forming concentrates a reach region of a radio wave in a specific direction. The reach region of a radio wave may be concentrated in a specific direction using a plurality of antennas. Generally, a structure including the plurality of antennas is referred to as an antenna array, and an individual antenna included in the antenna array is referred to as an array element. In a case where transmission beam-forming is applied, a transmission distance of a signal increases in an intended direction, and simultaneously, the transmission distance of the signal in directions other than the intended direction are minimized. Therefore, interference to other users located in directions other than the intended direction is reduced. In the reception beam-forming, a reception side concentrates reception of radio waves from a specific direction using a reception antenna array. Accordingly, strength of a signal received from an intended direction increases, and strength of a signal received from directions other than the intended direction are excluded, so that an interference signal from a direction other than the indented direction is effectively blocked.
As described above, in order to secure a wider frequency band, utilization of a super high frequency band, that is, a millimeter (mm) wave band, is expected. In this case, beam-forming may be employed to overcome a radio path loss. Therefore, techniques are desired for effectively performing beam-forming in a mobile communication environment where a user moves and a radio environment changes.

Apparatus and method for adaptive beam-forming in wireless communication system


In order to provide a tubular threaded joint constituted by a pin and a box each having threads and an unthreaded metal contact portion with excellent galling resistance and gas tightness even in extremely cold environments at −60° C. to −20° C. and rust preventing properties without using a compound grease, a thermoplastic solid lubricating coating containing low friction copolymer particles made from an acrylic-silicone copolymer and preferably further containing a solid lubricant (e.g., graphite) in a thermoplastic polymer matrix (e.g., selected from polyolefin resins and ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer resins) is formed on the surface of the threads and unthreaded metal contact portion of a pin and/or a box.

Oil country tubular goods such as tubing and casing used in the excavation of oil wells for recovery of crude oil or gas oil are normally connected with each other using tubular threaded joints. In the past, the depth of oil wells was 2,000-3,000 meters, but in deep wells such as recent offshore oil fields, the depth can reach 8,000-10,000 meters. The length of an oil country tubular good is typically 10 some meters, and tubing having a fluid such as crude oil flowing in its interior is surrounded by a plurality of casings, and hence the number of oil country tubular goods which are connected together can reach a huge number of a thousand or more.
In their environment of use, tubular threaded joints for oil country tubular goods are subjected to loads in the form of tensile forces in the axial direction caused by the weight of oil country tubular goods and the joints themselves, complex pressures such as inner and outer pressures, and geothermal heat. Therefore, they must be able to guarantee gas tightness without being damaged even under such severe environments.
A typical tubular threaded joint used for connecting oil country tubular goods has a pin-box structure constituted by a member which has male (external) threads and is referred to as a pin and a member which has female (internal) threads and is referred to as a box. Typically, a pin is formed on both ends of an oil country tubular good, and a box is formed on the inner surface of both sides of a threaded joint component (a coupling).
As shown in FIG. 1, a threaded joint which has excellent gas tightness and is referred to as a special threaded joint has a seal portion and a shoulder portion (also referred to as a torque shoulder) on each of the pin and the box. The seal portion is formed on the outer periphery near the end surface closer to the end of the pin than the male threads and on the inner periphery on the base of the female threads of the box, and the shoulder portion is formed on the end surface at the end of the pin and on the corresponding rearmost portion of the box. The seal portion and the shoulder portion constitute an unthreaded metal contact portion of the pin or box of the tubular threaded joint, and the unthreaded metal contact portion and the threaded portion (male or female threads) constitute a contact surface the pin or box thereof. By inserting one end (a pin) of an oil country tubular good into a coupling (a box) and tightening the male threads of the pin and the female threads of the coupling until the shoulder portions of the pin and the box are made to abut and then interfere with a suitable torque, the seal portions of the pin and the box intimately contact each other and form a metal-to-metal seal, thereby maintaining the gas tightness of the threaded joint.
When tubing or casing is being lowered into an oil well, due to various problems, a threaded joint which was once tightened is sometimes loosened, the threaded joints are lifted out of the oil well, then they are retightened and lowered into the well. API (American Petroleum Institute) requires galling resistance so that gas tightness is maintained without the occurrence of unrepairable seizing referred to as galling even when a joint undergoes tightening (makeup) and loosening (breakout) 10 times for a joint for tubing and 3 times for a joint for casing.
In order to increase galling resistance and gas tightness when performing makeup of a threaded joint for oil country tubular goods, a viscous liquid lubricant (a lubricating grease) which is referred to as compound grease and which contains heavy metal powders is applied to a contact surface of a threaded joint (namely, to the threads and the unthreaded metal contact portion of the pin or box). Compound grease is prescribed by API Bulletin 5A2.
In the past, it has been proposed to subject a contact surface of a threaded joint to various types of surface treatment such as nitriding, various types of plating including zinc plating and composite plating, and phosphate chemical conversion treatment to form one or more layers in order to increase the retention of compound grease or improve sliding properties. However, as described below, the use of compound grease poses the threat of adverse effects on the environment and humans.
Compound grease contains a large amount of heavy metal powders such as zinc, lead, and copper powders. At the time of makeup of a threaded joint, grease to which has been applied is washed off or overflows to the exterior surface, and there is a possibility of its producing adverse effects on the environment and particularly on marine life due to harmful heavy metals such as lead. In addition, the process of applying compound grease worsens the work environment and working efficiency, and there is a concern of its toxicity towards humans.
In recent years, as a result of the enactment in 1998 of the OSPAR Convention (Oslo-Paris Convention) aimed at preventing marine pollution in the Northeast Atlantic, strict environmental restrictions are being enacted on a global scale, and in some regions, the use of compound grease is already being regulated. Accordingly, in order to avoid harmful effects on the environment and humans during the excavation of gas wells and oil wells, a demand has developed for threaded joints which can exhibit excellent galling resistance without using compound grease.
As a threaded joint which can be used for connecting oil country tubular goods without application of compound grease, the present applicants proposed in WO 2006/104251 a tubular threaded joint in which the contact surface of at least one of a pin and a box is coated with a two-layer coating having a viscous liquid or semisolid lubricating coating and a dry solid coating formed atop it. The dry solid coating can be formed from a thermosetting resin such as an acrylic resin or from an ultraviolet curing resin. The viscous liquid or semisolid lubricating coating has tackiness so that foreign matter easily adheres thereto, but by forming a dry solid coating atop it, the tackiness is eliminated. Since the dry solid coating is destroyed at the time of makeup of a threaded joint, it does not interfere with the lubricating properties of the lubricating coating disposed beneath it.
In WO 2007/42231, the present applicants disclosed a threaded joint having a thin lubricating coating without tackiness which contains solid lubricant particles dispersed in a solid matrix exhibiting plastic or viscoplastic rheological behavior (flow properties) on the threads (of a pin and a box). The matrix preferably has a melting point in the range of 80-320° C., and it is formed by spray coating in a molten state (hot melt spraying), by flame coating of powder, or by spray coating of an aqueous emulsion. A composition used in the hot melt method contains, for example, polyethylene as a thermoplastic polymer, wax (such as carnauba wax) and a metal soap (such as zinc stearate) as a lubricating component, and calcium sulfonate as a corrosion inhibitor.
In WO 2006/75774, the present applicants described a tubular threaded joint in which the contact surface of at least one of a pin and a box is coated with a two-layer coating comprising a solid lubricating coating comprising a lubricating powder and a binder, and a solid corrosion-preventing coating which does not contain solid particles formed atop the solid lubricating coating.    Patent Document 1: WO 2006/104251    Patent Document 2: WO 2007/42231    Patent Document 3: WO 2006/75774

Tubular threaded joint having improved low temperature performance

NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORPORATION


A coulter with a coulter disc for delivering agricultural materials into soil along one direction F of travel, a height measuring apparatus which is located in the region of the coulter disc for measuring a penetration depth Tm of the coulter disc into the soil, a coulter holder for swivelling holding of the coulter disc on a coulter frame and height setting relative to the coulter frame, the penetration depth T of the coulter disc being controllable/adjustable depending on the measured penetration depth Tm.

Sowing devices with coulters distributed uniformly along the sowing width for delivering agricultural materials, especially seed and/or fertilizer, into cultivated soil should ensure a uniform sowing depth/penetration depth and, after delivery of the seed/fertilizer, the pressing/closing of the furrow which is optimum for the respective seed conditions. In this case not only does the seed/fertilizer play a major part, but also the soil composition, such as for example the moisture content of the soil and mainly obstacles which are present in or on the soil, such as rocks.


A liquid crystal display includes a first substrate, a pixel electrode which is disposed on the first substrate and includes a first subpixel electrode which is disposed at a pixel area and includes a plurality of first branch electrodes, and a second subpixel electrode which is separated from the first subpixel electrode, disposed at an outer edge of the pixel area, encloses the first subpixel electrode and includes a plurality of second branch electrodes, a second substrate facing the first substrate, a common electrode disposed on the second substrate, and a liquid crystal layer disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate, where a first voltage applied to the first subpixel electrode is larger than a second voltage applied to the second subpixel electrode.

(a) Field
The invention relates to a liquid crystal display.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display ("LCD") is one of flat panel display devices that are widely used and generally includes two display panels where field generating electrodes such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode are formed, and a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween.
The LCD generates an electric field in a liquid crystal layer by applying a voltage to the field generating electrodes, to determine orientations of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer and control polarization of incident light, thereby displaying an image.
The LCD also includes a switching element connected to each pixel electrode, and a plurality of signal lines including gate lines and data lines for applying the voltage to the pixel electrode by controlling the switching element.
Among the LCDs, a vertically aligned mode LCD in which a long axis of the liquid crystal molecules are arranged to be perpendicular to a display panel in the state in which an electric field is not applied has been in the limelight due to a high contrast ratio and a wide reference viewing angle thereof. A wide reference viewing angle is defined as a viewing angle that makes the contrast ratio equal to 1:10 or as a limit angle for inversion in luminance between grays.
In order to approximate side visibility to front visibility in the vertical alignment ("VA") mode LCD, a method of causing a difference in transmittance by dividing one pixel into two sub-pixels and applying different voltages to the two sub-pixels has been suggested.


A control device for a first motorized pressure build-up device of a braking system of a vehicle. The control device is designed to output at least one first piece of information to an activation device of a second motorized pressure build-up device of the braking system by, under consideration of the respective first piece of information, a first motor activatable in such a way that a pressure prevailing in at least one partial volume of the braking system is varied in accordance with a pressure change signal, which is interpretable as the respective first piece of information for the activation device using a second pressure sensor unit of the second motorized pressure build-up device.

Control devices for activating at least one motorized pressure build-up device of a braking system of a vehicle such as, for example, a brake booster and/or at least one hydraulic unit of the braking system are described, for example, in German Patent Application No. DE 10 2015 202 337 A1.

Control devices for motorized pressure build-up devices and method for transmitting at least one piece of information between two motorized pressure build-up devices


A crystal growth device includes a crucible and a heater setting. The crucible has a bottom and a top opening. The heater setting surrounds the crucible and is movable relative to the crucible along a top-bottom direction of the crucible and between first and second positions. The heater setting includes a first temperature heating zone and a second temperature heating zone higher in temperature than the first temperature heating zone. The heater setting is in the first position when the crucible is in the second temperature heating zone and in the second position when the crucible is in the first temperature heating zone.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heating device and, more particularly, to a crystal growth device for growing crystals.
2. Description of the Related Art
The quality of a crystal rod depends upon several factors, such as a crystal growing process, purity of a crystal raw material, etc. In particular, in the design of a crystal growth device, a heating zone provided for the molten crystal raw material has a direct influence on the crystal growth interface, the nucleation at an initial stage of the crystal growth, the grain size during the crystal growth process, and the like that are in connection with the quality of the final product of the crystal rod. Therefore, the research and development of the crystal growth device is always a subject concerned by the industry.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional crystal growth device 1 comprises a crucible 11 for receiving a crystal raw material, a heating member 12 surrounding the crucible 11 and movable relative to the crucible 11 along a top-bottom direction of the crucible 11 for heating the crucible 11, a heat conducting member 13 surrounding the crucible 11, and a pedestal 14 on which the heat conducting member 13 and the crucible 11 are placed.
During the crystal growth, the heating member 12 starts heating to provide a crystal raw material 100 contained in the crucible 11 with a fixed temperature heating zone. After the crystal raw material 100 is molten, the heating member 12 is moved upwardly relative to the immobilized crucible 11 such that the molten crystal raw material 100 begins to proceed nucleation and crystal growth along with the varying temperature (i.e. the lowering of the temperature) of the heating zone resulting from the movement of the crucible 11 relative to the heating member 12 and from the conduction of heat by the heat conducting member and the pedestal 14. Finally, a crystal rod is obtained.
When the conventional crystal growth device 1 is used to produce, for example, a polysilicon crystal rod, according to the research, if, during the crystal growth process, the crystal growth interface 101 of the molten silicon crystal raw material is controlled to have a flat, or even slightly convex crystal surface, the heat stress may be reduced. In addition, controlling of the efficiency and mass of the nucleation at the initial stage of the crystal growth may enhance the formation of the twin boundary to facilitate the elimination of the lattice defects such as, dislocation and to obtain polysilicon crystal rod with an improved quality. However, in the conventional crystal growth device 1, since a single temperature heating zone is formed by means of the heating member 12, control of the temperature gradient of the heating zone is insufficient, and the key factors of crystal growth, such as nucleation, the form of the solid-liquid grain interface 101 and the like are difficult to handle effectively when the silicon crystal raw material is grown in the crucible 11.
In addition, when the crystal rod is prepared by such as the Bridgeman method, the crucible is lowered away from a heating unit that generally includes a top heater and an annular side heater that are mounted separately. A cooling water circulation device is additionally disposed in a base plate in order to enhance the control of the crystal growth speed. Although the initial crystallization speed in the bottom of the crucible may be increased, similar to the conventional crystal growth device 1, it is difficult to control the heating zone of the solid phase region and the solid-liquid interface. In addition, the molten crystal raw material in the crucible may begin to solidify at the surface thereof as the heaters are moved gradually away from the molten crystal raw material. Furthermore, the movement of the crucible is liable to cause the crucible to damage due to vibration, and interfere with the crystal growth.
In addition, to further improve the crystal growth quality, for example, Taiwanese Utility Model No. M386302 and Taiwanese Patent Publication No. 201111566m disclose a technique that provides a special heat conduction design for a base plate.
However, a polysilicon crystal rod with a better quality is still required for the rapidly increasing development of the semiconductor industry and photoelectric industry. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a crystal growth device that has a more precise temperature gradient control for a heating zone.