There is provided a method and system for efficiently generating administrative reports in an automated manner and for enabling users, who contributing to the reports, to create and store task, goal, progress and performance related descriptions, of varying complexity and detail, in a central database location from which appropriate task, goal and progress descriptions can be selectively retrieved for use in a desired periodic report for use in workload and performance management. This method and system frees up full time employees from the time consuming work of repeatedly preparing descriptions and information for workload and performance reports and substantially eliminates rework for administrative assistant who often consolidate and compile reports.

The generation of administrative reports relating to the activities, tasks, assignments, priorities and performance of full time employees (FTE) in an organization is a common and frequent manual process. The reports are typically prepared by employees in one organizational level for review, comment and approval by individuals in a higher or more senior level in the organization. The reports typically include workload and performance related reports, among other reports. Workload reports include information relating to an employee's current and projected assignments or tasks and priorities. Performance reports include information relating to the status, priority and progress of tasks that have been assigned to an employee or that the individual is responsible for. Further, performance reports can include information that tracks an individual's progress toward organizational goals and the employee's personal and professional development goals.
Typically, administrative reports are generated on a regular and periodic basis to meet the needs and requirements of individuals or departments within an organization. For example, the reports could be generated weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, at midyear and/or at year's end. Administrative reports enable organizations to carry out workload management and performance management of their employee workforce. The reports can serve as a tool for supervisors and senior management to know the workload of employees, how employee resources are being allocated, whether the allocation of personnel resources is optimum, how to improve employee productivity, whether employees are making progress toward organizational goals, the productivity of employees and department, etc. For employees, the reports can serve as a tool to stay on schedule in their assigned tasks and responsibilities, and as a means to track and measure progress toward their personal development goals.
Existing processes for preparing workload or task reports are very time consuming for the employees that are required to prepare descriptions of their assigned tasks and status or updates for those tasks. The preparation of workload reports typically involves various levels of employees or personnel in an organization or company depending on the number and level of managers, leaders or supervisors that will receive the workload reports.
Typically, employees on a first or initial level will prepare descriptions or summaries of the tasks they are responsible for. The first level employees commonly provide a status or update on their assigned tasks as required by a particular report. Further, depending on the type of workload or task report ultimately being prepared, the first level employee will often provide varying levels of detail or complexity in their description and summaries. For example, the desired report may be a bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly report. These periodic reports tend to have the same general content but different levels of detail. Thus, the employee will have to repeat the preparation of task descriptions or summaries with the same general content but different levels of detail to match the desired report. Furthermore, the employee may have to send the prepared task descriptions to different individuals in an organization or to different locations or departments in the organization.
Once the employee has completed the preparation of the tasks descriptions, the employee can send them to a designated individual or group of individuals. However, before sending the prepared descriptions, the employee may send them to an assigned administrative assistant. The administrative assistant will generally be familiar with the employees tasks and will review, verify and compile the employee's task descriptions. The administrative assistant will typically be assigned to various employees and thus will review and compile all the tasks descriptions submitted to her by various employees.
Once the employee task descriptions are compiled and ready for submission, either the individual employee or the responsible administrative assistant will forward all the prepared task descriptions to a next designated level for inclusion into the desired report. For example, if the desired report is for an accounting department, the employees may be first level accountants and they may be submitting their tasks descriptions to their manager, supervisor or department head, who are typically at a second or higher level in the organization relative to the employee preparing the task descriptions. Further, the prepared tasks descriptions are usually submitted to a second administrative assistant supporting the second level manager, supervisor or department head. The second administrator will also received other prepared descriptions from other first level administrative in the same department. This can be the case because an administrative assistant may only be assigned to a few employees, e.g., four employees, while there may be a large number of employees in the department, e.g., twenty employees. Thus, there would be more than one administrative assistant in the first level for that department.
The second administrative assistant will then compile all the received task descriptions into the desired report, e.g., a monthly report of employee workload and task status. If the second level is the final destination of the report, then the prepared report is a master report. The report is then submitted to the second level manage, supervisor or department head. The second level individual can then use the prepared master report for workload management. The second level individual will be able to see where his employees resources are allocated and be able to track their task progress in light of department or organizational goals or benchmarks. The second level individual could then maintain the status quo if all is well or reassign, re-prioritize, and reallocate employee resources as deemed necessary to meet department or organizational goals.
If the desired report is intended to be for a next or higher level, e.g., at a higher senior level above the department level, the compiled report prepared by the second administrative assistant will be sent to a next or third level. Once the compiled report for one department is complete and ready for submission, the responsible second level individual or the assigned second level administrative assistant will forward the prepared department report having the compiled task descriptions to the next designated third level for inclusion into the desired third level report. For example, if the desired report is for an overall organization, the second level individual may be a department head or supervisor that is submitting the department compiled report having tasks descriptions to a senior leader or organization head, who is at a third or higher level in the organization relative to the department head submitting the department report. Again, the compiled individual department reports are typically submitted to a third administrative assistant supporting the senior leader or organization head. The third administrator will again received other prepared department reports from other second level administrative assistants from the various organization departments, e.g., engineering, marketing, research, finance, payroll, etc. This is the case, as each department head in the second level, usually via an administrative assistant, will submit their compiled department report.
The third administrative assistant will then compile all the received department reports into the desired report, e.g., a monthly report of department tasks and status along with employee workload and task status. If the third level is the final destination of the report, then the compiled report is a master report. The report is then submitted to the third level senior leader or organization head. The third level individual can then use the prepared master report for workload management. The third level individual will be able to determine the progress of each department in the organization and where employees resources are allocated. The third level individual will be able to track department progress toward organizational goals or benchmarks. The third level individual can then maintain the status quo if all is well or reassign, re-prioritize, or reallocate department and employee resources as deemed necessary to meet organizational goals. Those of skill in the art, will readily recognize that this manual process is typically repeatable for a large organization or group that has a large number of employees, departments, groups, businesses units, or organizational layers.
A similar manual process is carried out for the creation of performance reports for employees in department or organization for use in performance management reports. In these types of reports, the employees and supervisors might enter descriptions of development goals for themselves and for their work group, individual employees might further enter goals aimed at meeting goals set by supervisors or their own development goals. Further, employees and supervisors may enter comments relating to performance evaluations. The performance reports can be used to track employee development goals and work performance for employee performance review.
Performance reports are typically generated at mid-year and year-end when employee goal assessments are prepared and performance reviews are conducted. The employees, managers and supervisors can then use the prepared performance reports for performance management. Individual employees and supervisory personnel are able to determine whether the employee's tasks and responsibilities are pertinent to developing the employee's skill and abilities. Also, employees and supervisory personnel are able to track employee progress toward their individual and company goals, as well as determine whether the employees are performing their jobs at an acceptable level. In this manner, employees and supervisory personnel can determine, among other things, if an employee needs to be reassigned to another more challenging position or whether performance raises should be given.
The manual processes described are representative of existing methods used to generate reports in organizations to assist in workload and performance management. The reports can be generated on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or semi-yearly, yearly basis, or any other desired time period. Further, the processes just described are manual process that are time intensive and typically take full time employees (FTE) away from performing their primary organizational duties and responsibilities in order to prepare the description for administrative reports. For example, an engineer, account and payroll employee must take time out of performing their engineering, accounting or payroll duties to prepare task and performance related descriptions and status for workload and performance reports. In addition, administrative assistant are typically brought into the manual report preparation process and must spend a large amounts of time manually compiling receive task and performance related descriptions into complied workload or performance reports.
Another drawback to existing the manual report generation processes is that, depending on the type of report to be generated, the various employees creating the task and performance related descriptions must typically create the task and performance related descriptions at different points in time and usually stored them at different locations, e.g. each employee might store their workload or performance descriptions on their own separate computers or on the computers of their administrative assistants. Thus, the various employee workload and performance descriptions are typically scattered throughout a department or organization which makes the report generation process more time consuming since takes time to create and bring the appropriate employee descriptions together for the compilation of a desired report. Thus, existing manual report generation processes, like those described, can be very time and manpower intensive, and can substantially interfere with an employee's primary duties and responsibilities, as well as their ability to provide a high level of value added work to the organization.
There is thus a need for an improved and efficient method for generating administrative reports in an automated manner for use in workload and performance management. There is also a need for an automated method for generating administrative reports that enables users contributing to the reports to create and store task, goal and progress related descriptions in a central location from which appropriate task, goal and progress descriptions can be selectively retrieved for use in a desired periodic report for use in workload and performance management.

Method and system for automated generation of a requested report in a computer system


A lens sheet for use as a Fresnel lens sheet or a lenticular lens sheet of rear projection screens, which includes a plastic substrate and a lens element disposed on the plastic substrate. The plastic substrate includes at least a first surface layer, an intermediate layer and a second surface layer. Each of the first surface layer and the second surface layer has a saturated water absorptivity higher than that of the intermediate layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to lens sheets for rear projection screens for use in rear projection television sets.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As shown in FIG. 1, the rear projection screen for use in a rear projection television set is a combination of, at least, a Fresnel lens sheet 1 disposed on the light source 5 side and a lenticular lens sheet 2 disposed on the watcher side, and further a front panel 3 further disposed adjacent to the lenticular lens sheet on the watcher side. A mirror 4 is further disposed to reflect light rays from the light source 5 to the rear projection screen. These sheets are mounted in a rear projection television set nearly in a close contact with each other. The Fresnel lens sheet and the lenticular lens sheet include diffusion elements, by which images are focused. Therefore, if the distance between the sheets is broadened for some kind of cause, projected images become blurred. The major cause of broadening the distance between the sheets is the warp or deflection of sheets due to the change in their water absorption depending on the change of ambient humidity.
To prevent such a disadvantage, there have been proposed various techniques for reducing the warp or deflection of the sheets caused by the change of ambient conditions. For example, JP 11-072848A proposes to make the surface layers of the front panel and the Fresnel lens sheet, each layer facing to the lenticular lens sheet, from a material having a larger water absorption than those of the opposite layers. JP 2000-214533A proposes to control the thickness of sheet, the degree of warp or deflection and the saturated water absorptivity. JP 2002-207253A proposes to form polycarbonate resin or MS resin (MMA-styrene copolymer resin) on both surfaces of a PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) resin layer.
The proposed prior art techniques intend to reduce the warp or deflection of each sheet or a stack of sheets due to ambient humidity, by forming surface layers of Fresnel lens sheet and lenticular lens sheet from a low water-absorptive resin or by forming the surface layers of a stack of Fresnel lens sheet/lenticular lens sheet from a low water-absorptive resin. However, a single-layered sheet having a layer structure different in both surfaces, such as a sheet described in JP 11-72848A, is likely to undergo warp or deflection due to water absorption during its transportation because of its asymmetry. When both surface layers are made of a low water-absorptive resin and have a large thickness as described in JP 2002-207253A, the amount of antistatic agent to be added to the surface layers is increased. If the surface layers are thin, the water absorptivity of sheet is governed by that of the intermediate layer, to increase the degree of warp or deflection.
To reduce the warp or deflection of Fresnel lens sheet and lenticular lens sheet due to water absorption (moisture absorption), it is effective to reduce the water absorptivity of whole sheet. Generally, the Fresnel lens sheet is constituted from a plastic substrate and a Fresnel lens made of an ultraviolet cured resin, which is laminated to the surface of the substrate. The Fresnel lens is composed of a series of annular lens sections taken out of a simple lens which are concentrically arranged on a surface, and exhibits the same effects as those of a simple lens although having a smaller thickness. The Fresnel lens sheet is produced by applying an ultraviolet curable resin on the surface of the substrate, pressing a metal or resin mold having a shape matching with the contour of the Fresnel lens surface against the applied resin, and irradiating ultraviolet light from the side opposite to the mold to cure the resin into the Fresnel lens shape. The thickness of the plastic substrate is usually from 1.0 to 4.0 mm, and the thickness of the lens portion made of the ultraviolet cured resin is about 100 μm. The adhesion strength between the ultraviolet cured resin and the plastic substrate is important, because they may be separated from each other during the assembling into television sets, etc. if the adhesion strength is low. The main cause to reduce the adhesion strength can be the polarities of the raw materials themselves. Urethane-based resins and acrylate-based resins are widely used as the ultraviolet curable resins. If the plastic sheet contains a low polarity component such as styrene, the adhesion strength between the plastic sheet and the ultraviolet cured resin is reduced.


There are provided a multilayer ceramic capacitor and a board having the same. The multilayer ceramic capacitor may include: three external electrodes disposed on a mounting surface of a ceramic body to be spaced apart from each other and connected to lead portions of internal electrodes, wherein an interval between adjacent lead portions is 500.7 μm or less, widths of one-side margin portions of the external electrodes in a length direction of the ceramic body that are not in contact with the corresponding lead portions are 20.2 μm or more.

The present disclosure relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor and a board having the same.
In accordance with the recent trend for the miniaturization and increases in the capacitance of electronic products, demands have increasingly been made for electronic components used in electronic products to be relatively small while having high capacitance.
Among electronic components, in the case of multilayer ceramic capacitors, when equivalent series inductance (hereinafter, referred to as "ESL") increases, performance of electronic products in which the capacitors are provided may be deteriorated. In addition, in accordance with the miniaturization of the electronic products and increases in the capacitance of the electronic components, increases in ESL of the multilayer ceramic capacitors may have a relatively significant effect on deteriorations in performance of the electronic products.
Particularly, in accordance with increases in the performance of integrated circuits (IC), decoupling capacitors have been increasingly used therein. Therefore, demand for multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) having a 3-terminal vertical multilayer structure, so-called "low inductance chip capacitors (LICC)", capable of decreasing inductance in capacitors by decreasing a distance between external terminals to decrease a current flow path, has increased.
In the case of such multilayer ceramic capacitors, reliability and mounting defect rates may be significantly affected by the shapes and sizes of external electrodes.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Multilayer ceramic capacitor and board having the same


An ink storage chamber has a middle wall and a damper wall, which are in parallel to a flow direction of ink and which face each other vertically with a distance therebetween, and a surrounding wall surrounding a circumference of a space between the middle wall and the damper wall. On the middle wall, there is formed a pair of flow regulating ribs projecting toward the damper wall and extending substantially in parallel to the flow direction in a state of having a distance from the damper wall. A space sandwiched by the pair of flow regulating ribs is a main flow region, and spaces between the flow regulating ribs and the surrounding wall is sub-flow regions. A distance between the middle wall and the damper wall in the sub-flow regions is smaller than that in the main flow region. Accordingly, a wasted ink amount during purging can be reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid-droplet jetting apparatus such as an ink-jet printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known an ink-jet printer having an ink-jet head with a plurality of nozzles for jetting ink droplets, and an ink storage chamber for temporarily storing ink to be supplied to the ink-jet head from an ink cartridge, in which a part of a wall defining the ink storage chamber is formed of a flexible film which absorbs pressure fluctuation of ink (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-262723).
To absorb the pressure fluctuation of ink adequately by this flexible film, it is necessary that a large area of the flexible film is assured. However, when the area of the flexible film is made large, a channel cross-sectional area of the ink storage chamber becomes large, and hence partial stagnation may be generated in the flow of ink. Accordingly, in the ink-jet printer disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-262723, a pair of flow regulating ribs is provided so as to guide the ink to flow smoothly from an ink inlet port to an ink outlet port of the ink storage chamber.
Further, in the ink-jet printer described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-262723, the attached ink cartridge and the ink storage chamber are communicated with a tube.
As described above, the part of the wall defining the ink storage chamber of this ink-jet printer is formed with a flexible film that absorbs pressure fluctuation of ink. Therefore, when the ink-cartridge is attached to a cartridge attaching part of the printer main body, an attaching pressure thereof is absorbed by elasticity of the flexible film, when it is transmitted to the storage chamber. The smaller the area of the flexible film is, the shorter the release time required for completely absorbing this attaching pressure becomes.


In accordance with various embodiments, initial servo data are written to a storage medium as a series of radially overlapped spiral segments. Final servo data are thereafter written to the medium while concurrently servoing on said overlapped segments.

The present case is generally directed to servo data and more particularly, to the writing of final servo data based on initial servo data. Servo data are often used in a control system to provide feedback positional control for a control object. In the environment of a data storage device, such data can be used to detect and control the position of a read/write transducer adjacent a rotatable storage medium.
The servo data can be provided in a number of ways. In one approach, a servo track writer engages a data storage device to write an initial set of servo data to the storage media mounted therein. The initial servo data can take a number of forms, such as a series of spaced apart, continuous spirals that extend across the media surfaces in helical fashion from an outermost diameter (OD) to an innermost diameter (ID). Final servo data are thereafter written using the initial servo data as a prewritten positional reference.

Servo writing using radially overlapped servo segments


The present invention discloses a process for producing sodium 2-keto-L-gulonate from sorbitol and recovering 2-keto-L-gulonic acid in high recovery yields, by controlled cation exchange treatment of the micro-organism free fermentation broth and/or adjusting PII of said purified fermentation broth, followed by direct crystallisation of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid monohydrate.

It is known that 2-keto-L-gulonic acid can be produced by fermentation from L-sorbose and/or sorbitol.
FR 1 376 741 relates to a process for the preparation of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid, which is an intermediate in the production of L-ascorbic acid (=vitamin C).
It is demonstrated that the fermentative mixture can be used directly for esterification of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid into L-ascorbic acid.
EP 0 518 136 describes a method for preparing 2-keto-L-gulonic acid that comprises cultivating a mixed culture of micro-organism (A) which belongs to the genus Gluconobacter or Acetobacter, and a micro-organism (B) capable of producing 2-keto-L-gulonic acid from L-sorbose and both of said micro-organisms are co-existing in the medium during at least part of the entire cultivation period.
EP 0 278 447 relates to a fermentation process for producing 2-keto-L-gulonic acid by conversion of L-sorbose by means of mixed cultures of microorganisms comprising Gluconobacter oxydans and Bacillus megaterium.
EP 0 972 843 relates to a continuous fermentation process for the manufacture of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid from sorbitol by fermentation with micro-organisms, in which process a nutrient medium containing sorbitol is incubated in a first fermentation vessel with a micro-organism capable of converting sorbitol to L-sorbose, and the resulting fermentation broth is transferred continuously to a second fermentation vessel where it is incubated with a micro-organism capable of converting L-sorbose to 2-keto-L-gulonic acid.
EP 0 213 591 describes a process for producing 2-keto-L-gulonic acid and vitamin C respectively and the method further describes that the isolation of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid may be effected by the formation of a salt or by using the difference in properties between the product and impurities such as solubility, adsorbability and distribution coefficient between two solvents. Although the use of an adsorbent such as ion exchange resins is described as being one of the most convenient processes for isolation of the product, the 2-keto-L-gulonic acid thus obtained is in general not pure.
EP 0 221 707 relates to a method for producing 2-keto-L-gulonic acid and describes a harvesting method wherein the culture broth is freed of cells by filtration, centrifugation or treatment with activated carbon and concentration of the solution. Solvent extraction, chromatography, precipitation or salting-out may be applied in a suitable combination and/or in repitition.
WO 01/09152 relates to a process for the purification of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid by continuous liquid chromatography using a weakly basic ion exchange resin. It mainly relates to recovering 2-keto-L-gulonic acid substantially water-free from aqueous solutions.
EP 0 359 645 relates to a process for obtaining pure 2-keto-L-gulonic acid from a fermentation broth containing the calcium salt of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid. Said process comprises separating the insolubles, concentrating the medium, precipitating calcium sulphate by adding concentrated sulphuric acid, treating with cation exchange resin, removing strong acid ions by anion exchanger, concentration and separating the 2-keto-L-gulonic acid by crystallisation.
EP 0 805 210 relates to a process wherein sodium 2-keto-L-gulonate is crystallised from the fermentation broth, the obtained crystals are pulverised and suspended in a lower alcohol containing a water-free acid and finally the salt of 2-keto-L-gulonate is converted into a lower alkyl ester of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid.
A further need exists to have a process for obtaining 2-keto-L-gulonic acid in high recovery yields and wherein the purification step is simple and easily reproducible.
The current invention provides such a process.

Process for the manufacture of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid


A recording tape cartridge which can be assuredly positioned in a drive device. A positioning cover bridges across and parallel to a mounting portion of a bucket of the drive device. Stoppers are provided at corner portions of the positioning cover that are positioned at a deeper side of the bucket. Angled surfaces, which are surface-contactable with the stoppers, are provided at a magnetic tape cartridge. The magnetic tape cartridge can be positioned in horizontal directions in the drive device by surface-contacting the angled surfaces with the stoppers. Consequently, reference holes for positioning the magnetic tape cartridge in horizontal directions in the bucket are not required.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording tape cartridge and a drive device thereof for positioning a case accommodating a reel, upon which a recording tape such as a magnetic tape or the like is wound, in the drive device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recording tapes such as magnetic tapes and the like are used as recording media for saving data (information) of computers and the like, for audio uses, for video uses, and the like. In order to prevent damage to a recording surface of such a recording tape, due to adherence of dust or the like to the recording surface, finger contact and the like, the recording tape is employed in a recording tape cartridge. In this recording cartridge, the recording tape is wound onto a reel and the reel is rotatably accommodated in a case formed of resin.
"Single reel cartridges", in which a recording tape wound onto a single reel is accommodated in a case (these are principally used for back-up of information for computers and the like), two-reel cartridges, which are provided with two reels for winding and unwinding (for example, audio cassettes, video cassettes and the like), and the like are known as recording tape cartridges. Whenever information is to be recorded or replayed with one of these recording tape cartridges, the recording tape cartridge is loaded at a drive device (a recording/replaying device).
In a state in which the recording tape cartridge has been loaded into the drive device and the case has been positioned in the drive device, the recording tape is drawn out of the case. This recording tape is guided along a predetermined tape path, and is set at a position close to a recording/replaying head of the drive device. In this state, information is recorded onto the recording tape and/or information that has been recorded on the recording tape is replayed.
As a method for positioning a recording tape cartridge in a drive device, there are methods such as that disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open (JP-A) No. 11-126398. In such a method, seat portions are provided in reference holes, which are provided at two places in a lower surface of the case. Respective positioning pins of the drive device are inserted, and the recording tape cartridge is positioned in horizontal directions. Further, positioning of the recording tape cartridge in a vertical direction is implemented by the positioning pins abutting against the seat portions.
There are many cases in which the reference holes are dually used as hole portions of bosses for screws, which usually fix an upper case and a lower case which constitute the case. However, in such cases, the positions of the reference holes are constrained by the bosses (or the positions of the bosses are constrained by the reference holes). Further, when the hole portions are formed in the case, formation failures such as short shot due to unsatisfactory filling of resin, coarsening of a design surface due to movement of air bubbles during forming, and the like tend to occur.
Furthermore, when hole portions are formed in a case, portions corresponding to the hole portions are usually provided as inserts fixed to a movable-side mold, which are separate bodies from a movable-side mold body. Consequently, flash may occur at a parting portion between the inserts and the movable-side mold body. There is a risk that stripping off this flash may have an undesirable effect on functioning of the tape.
Correspondingly, there are also cases in which inserts are fixed to a fixed-side mold. In such cases, if flash occurs at a parting portion between the inserts and the fixed-side mold, this flash is at an outer side of the case. Therefore, this will not have any effect on functioning of the tape. However, the outer side of the case is a design surface. Therefore, because parting lines will appear on the design surface, this method is not usually employed.
Accordingly, when hole portions are formed in a case, there is some damage due to the provision of inserts at a movable-side mold or a fixed-side mold. On the other hand, in cases in which inserts are not provided, gas retained at a deeper region of a hole portion cannot escape. As a consequence, short shot of a boss is induced. The deeper the depth of the hole, the more remarkably this tendency is exhibited.

Recording tape cartridge and drive device thereof


Disclosed is a sound generation device including a receiver which receives a sound emission instructing signal in which time data is included and a difference calculator which calculates a difference between a timing indicated in the received time data and a timing when the sound emission instructing signal is received by the receiver, when the sound emission instructing signal in which the time data is included is received. The sound generation device further includes a histogram creator which creates a histogram on the basis of the calculated difference and a difference calculated previously, when the difference is calculated and a timing controller which controls a timing for supplying the received sound emission instructing signal to a sound emission unit on the basis of the calculated difference and a most frequent difference in the created histogram, when the difference is calculated.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sound generation device, a sound generation method and a storage medium in which a sound generation program is stored.
2. Description of Prior Art
There is known a configuration where the performance operator with which a performer carries out operations is independent from the device equipped with the sound output unit such as a speaker, and signals giving instruction to emit predetermined sounds are sent to the device equipped with the sound output unit from the performance operating unit in a wireless manner (for example, see JP Hei08-241081).
If such configuration is to be applied to the device which allows to play an instrument virtually in a virtual space, the performance will be unnatural to the performer if the time lags until the actual sound emission from the operations for sound emission are too long or such time lags are not uniform.
Therefore, in order for a performer to enjoy the performance as an instrument, it is important to make the time lags until the actual sound emission from generating of the sound emission instructing signals be short as possible to stabilize the device.
In view of the above, JP Hei08-241081 discloses a computer music system connected with a plurality of sound sources wherein the transmission time period of the MIDI signals to the plurality of MIDI sound sources are measured in advance, the delay time by which the transmissions of MIDI signals to other MIDI sound sources are delayed according to the MIDI sound source having the maximum transmission time period is set and the MIDI signals are transmitted to the MIDI sound sources in a delayed fashion by the delay control to simultaneously emitting the sounds in the MIDI sound sources as a configuration for performing the plurality of sound sources simultaneously without a user of the computer music system noticing the time lags.
The transmission time periods of the MIDI signals to the plurality of the MIDI sound sources are predictable. Therefore, according to the method described in JP Hei08-241081, variation in the transmission time period of the MIDI signals can be revolved and the streaming reception can be stabilized.
However, the technique described in JP Hei08-241081 is for resolving the delays caused by external factors such as the transmission method in the data sending side and the like when transmitting the data and the sound emission (replay) timings depend on the timing in the device on the receiver side which is equipped with the sound output unit.
In such technique for resolving the delays, the sound emission timings being off can appropriately resolve in a case where there is no time lag (error) between the system timer in the performance operating unit and the system timer of the device equipped with the sound output unit. However, in reality, the technique described in JP Hei08-241081 could not resolve the time lags in a case where there is time lag (error) in the system timer in the device which performs the communication.

Sound generation device, sound generation method and storage medium storing sound generation program


A user equipment (UE) receives and decodes a first erroneous transport block (TB) from a base station in a mobile communication network. The UE allocates a first soft buffer having a first buffer size. The first soft buffer is associated with a first HARQ process for storing the first TB. The UE then receives and decodes a second erroneous TB from the base station. The UE allocates a second soft buffer having a second buffer size. The second soft buffer is associated with a second HARQ process for storing the second TB. The UE releases a portion of the first soft buffer to be allocated as part of the second soft buffer. The dynamic buffer allocation method reduces mismatch between rate matching and soft buffer storing when the total number of HARQ processes is small. In addition, more HARQ processes can be supported when the corresponding TB size is small.

A Long-Term Evolution (LTE) system offers high peak data rates, low latency, improved system capacity, and low operating cost resulting from simple network architecture. An LTE system also provides seamless integration to older wireless network, such as GSM, CDMA and Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). In LTE systems, an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) includes a plurality of evolved Node-Bs (eNodeBs or eNBs) communicating with a plurality of mobile stations, referred as user equipments (UEs). Enhancements to LTE systems are considered so that they can meet or exceed International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced) fourth generation (4G) standard.
One of the key enhancements is to support bandwidth up to 100 MHz and be backwards compatible with the existing wireless network system. Carrier aggregation (CA) is introduced to improve the system throughput. With carrier aggregation, the LTE-Advance system can support peak target data rates in excess of 1 Gbps in the downlink (DL) and 500 Mbps in the uplink (UL). Such technology is attractive because it allows operators to aggregate several smaller contiguous or non-continuous component carriers (CC) to provide a larger system bandwidth, and provides backward compatibility by allowing legacy users to access the system by using one of the CCs.
A technique referred to as Hybrid Automatic Repeat ReQuest (HARQ) is employed for error detection and correction. In a standard Automatic Repeat ReQuest (ARQ) method, error detection bits are added to data to be transmitted. In Hybrid ARQ, error correction bits are also added. When the receiver receives a data transmission, the receiver uses the error detection bits to determine if data has been lost. If it has, then the receiver may be able to use the error correction bits to recover (decode) the lost data. If the receiver is not able to recover the lost data using the error correction bits, then the receiver may use a second transmission of additional data (including more error correction information) to recover the data. Error correction can be performed by combining information from the initial transmission with additional information from one or more subsequent retransmissions.
In order to perform HARQ, certain amount of HARQ memory space is required to store the data. Furthermore, multiple HARQ processes are needed to detect and recover multiple erroneous transport blocks (TBs). For LTE systems in FDD, the HARQ memory space is equally divided for 8 HARQ processes for transmission modes (TMs) without spatial multiplexing, and 16 HARQ processes for TMs with spatial multiplexing. For LTE systems in TDD, the number of required HARQ processes varies based on the corresponding TDD UL-DL configuration. The buffer size for each HARQ process is calculated by considering the maximum TB size (TBS). Depending on UE category and TM, either full buffer size or limited buffer rate matching (LBRM) is designed for each HARQ process. Already in Rel-8/9, UE may be short of HARQ processes since the specified minimum requirement on the number of HARQ processes can be smaller than the maximally required number. This may have an impact on the peak system throughput if conservative scheduling method is used by the network.
With carrier aggregation, the HARQ memory space is not increased to take into account CA behavior for UE category 1-5 due to backwards compatibility. The buffer size for each HARQ process is still equally divided among serving cells in CA scenarios, which makes the received coded bits possible to be bigger than its buffer size. For UE category 6-7, although the total soft channel bit buffer size is increased, it is designed to be backwards compatible to UE category four. All of these indicates that the soft channel bit buffer may be smaller than what is assumed at eNB. In LTE Rel-10, rules are defined for discarding overflowed coded bits at UE side, while the rate matching at eNB remains the same. This creates a mismatch between eNB rate matching and UE soft bit storing for both FDD and TDD modes and performance degradation is expected. In LTE Rel-11, different TDD UL-DL configuration among aggregated cells are supported. As a result, the maximum number of required HARQ processes may not be the same, thus different HARQ performance among different serving cells is expected. A solution is sought to provide intelligent HARQ buffer management for reducing the mismatch between rate matching at eNB and soft buffer storing at UE when the total number of active HARQ processes is small, and for increasing the total number of HARQ processes than minimum requirements when TBS is small.

HARQ memory space management for LTE carrier aggregation


1,4-dihydropyridine derivatives of Formula 1 or pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof: ##STR1## wherein the substituents are disclosed herein and which are useful against tumor cells which have acquired resistance to one or more drugs used as chemotherapeutic agents.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to 1,4-dihydropyridine derivatives and their use against tumour cells which have acquired resistance to one or more drugs being used as chemotherapeutic agents.
Where chemotherapy is used to treat cancers, the anti-cancer agent being administered, frequently becomes ineffective during treatment, a phenomenon known as `acquired drug resistance`. In some cases this resistance can be to several kinds of anti-cancer agents i.e. a `multidrug resistance`.
It has been shown that the tumour cells which have acquired this multidrug resistance show enhanced excretion of the anti-cancer agents which are being administered as a treatment for the cancer. (T. Tsuruo, Pharmacia Review, No. 23, 115-125 (1987) and Japanese Journal of Cancer Research 79, 285-296 (1988)).
It is not practicable to overcome this problem by simply administering larger doses of the anti-cancer agent(s) as these agents have severe side-effects. Animal tests have suggested that the problem may be overcome by administering the anti-cancer agent(s) in combination with a calcium antagonist, (T. Tsuruo, Pharmacia Review, No. 23, 115-125 (1987)). However, the use of calcium antagonists has not provided a practicable solution to the problem, as the amounts of calcium needed are highly toxic and cause a lowering of blood pressure. Thus, there is a need for therapeutic agents which may help overcome the problems of acquired drug resistance.
Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 1-316357 discloses that 1-substituted 1,4-dihydropyridine derivatives may be useful as drugs for overcoming acquired resistance to anti-cancer agents. A series of compounds are disclosed which are free of calcium antagonizing action. However, the compounds are extremely hydrophobic so that their administration would present practical difficulties. The application does not test the effectiveness of the compounds in vivo.
There is a need for drugs useful for overcoming multi-drug resistance but which exhibit low toxicity.

1,4-dihydropyridine compounds useful as reverse resistance agents


A catalyst applicable to the synthesis gas conversions especially E-T slurry processes, said catalyst comprising: a) a support containing at least a first aluminate element of mixed spinel structure of formula MxM′(1−x)Al2O4/Al2O3.SiO2, x ranging between and excluding 0 and 1, or of simple spinel structure of formula MAl2O4/Al2O3.SiO2, said support being calcined in an at least partly oxidizing atmosphere, at a temperature ranging between 850° C. and 900° C., and b) an active phase deposited on said support, which contains one or more group VIII metals, selected from among cobalt, nickel, ruthenium or iron. Said catalyst is used in a fixed bed or suspended in a three-phase reactor for hydrocarbon synthesis from a CO, H2 mixture.

Considerable work has therefore been done in order to stabilize the support with regard to these support rehydration and/or redissolution processes.                It is thus taught in patent WO-99/42,214 that the introduction of elements selected from among: Si, Zr, Cu, Zn, Mn, Ba, Co, Ni, La allows to substantially limit the support rehydration/dissolution process in acid or neutral aqueous media.
A preferred way of modifying the support consists in grafting at the surface of said support organic Si compounds of TEOS (TetraEthylOrthoSilicate) or TMOS (TriMethOxySilane) type.                Patent WO-02/07,883 teaches that modification of a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis catalyst support by impregnation of an organometallic compound of formula Me(OR)x with x ranging from 1 to 5, Me being a metal selected from among the following elements: Si, Zr, Cu, Zn, Mn, Ba, Co, Ni, Na, K, Ca, Sn, Cr, Fe, Li, Tl, Mg, Sr, Ga, Sb, A, Hf, Th, Ce, Ge, U, Nb, Ta, W, and R designating an alkyl or acyl group, allows to limit the formation of crystallized phases responsible for the activity loss of the catalyst under the operating conditions of the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.
The organometallic compound can possibly be decomposed by calcination after deposition of the active phase by impregnation. The major drawback of this preparation mode is the use of an organic solvent intended to solubilize the organometallic compound prior to the deposition thereof by impregnation.                Patents U.S. Pat. No. 5,169,821 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,806 teach that the introduction of silicon, zirconium or tantalum in a cobalt-based catalyst supported on titanium oxide of anatase type should allow to obtain a stabilizing effect towards a high-temperature regenerative treatment.        Mechanical stabilization towards the severe attrition conditions that prevail when using a slurry can also be obtained by adding silica (SiO2) and alumina (Al2O3) to an initial titanium oxide (TiO2) phase as described in patent WO-99/39,825.        The use of phases of spinel structure MAl2O4 in catalysis (hydrocarbon steam reforming, partial oxidation, water dealkylation) is generally justified by the particular surface properties of these solids, and their excellent textural and mechanical stability in the high temperature range required for these applications (for example in methane reforming for the production of synthesis gas as described by Xu Z, Li Y, Zhang J, Chang L, Zhou R, Duan Z in Applied Catal A General, (2001), 213(1), 65-71.
Simple (AB2O4) or mixed (AxA′1−xB2O4) spinels are synthesized by bringing metal oxide mixtures obtained by coprecipitation of metallic precursors to high temperature.                In Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, the use of simple spinel type supports is described by Kondo S, Muraki H, Fujitanii Y in Sekiyu Gakkaishi (1984) 27 (6), 556-563. The use of MgAl2O4 allows to obtain, under test conditions (fixed bed), more active catalysts than on various transition aluminas (γ, δ, α).
The presence of silicon, notably in silica-alumina form, in the support is however not mentioned by any of these authors.

Cobalt-based catalyst for fischer-tropsch synthesis


Optically active or racemic compounds represented by the formula ##STR1## where R.sub.1 is C.sub.1 to C.sub.4 straight chain or branched alkyl; R.sub.2 is selected from the group consisting of H, --OR.sub.1, --SR.sub.1, --NH(R.sub.1), --N(R.sub.4)(R.sub.5), aminocarbonyl, halogen, and --CN, where R.sub.4 and R.sub.5 are independently C.sub.1 to C.sub.6 straight chain or branched alkyl, or taken together form a 3- to 7-membered heterocycloalkyl substituent, such heteroatom selected from the group consisting of oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur, optionally including an additional heteroatom which is selected from the group consisting of nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur; R.sub.3 is cyclopentyl or: ##STR2## where R' and R" are independently H, .dbd.O, --OH, or --NH.sub.2, with the proviso that R' and R" can be taken together form the following structure as R.sub.3 : ##STR3## where R'" is --OH or --NH.sub.2 ; and with the further proviso that when R.sub.3 is cyclopentyl or norbornyl, then R.sub.2 cannot be H or halogen; and pharmaceutically-acceptable salts thereof.. These compounds are useful as diuretics, renal protectives against acute or chronic renal failure, as well as agents to facilitate recovery from coma, to improve the therapeutic outcome resulting from defibrillation or cardiopulmonary resuscitation by preventing post-resuscitation bradycardia, bradyarrhythmia and cardioplegia, to restore cardiac function following a cardioplegic procedure, and to treat or prevent intermittent claudication.

Adenosine (9-.beta.-D-ribofuranosyl-9H-purin-6-amine) was characterized in the late 1920's as having hypotensive and bradycardic activity. Since then, considerable research in the molecular modification of adenosine has led to the general conclusion that cardiovascular activity is limited to analogs having intact purine and .beta.-ribofuranosyl rings.
Further research more clearly defined how the activity of these adenosine analogs affected the purinergic receptors in peripheral cell membranes, particularly the A.sub.1 and A.sub.2 receptors.
Adenosine antagonists have helped explain the role of adenosine in various physiological processes. Specifically, selective antagonists for the adenosine A.sub.1 receptor were critical in defining the physiological importance of A.sub.1 receptor activation. Non-selective adenosine antagonists such as caffeine and theophylline served as starting points for structure activity research with the goal of creating A.sub.1 receptor selective antagonists. An example of such a discovery is 8-(Dicyclopropylmethyl)-1,3-dipropylxanthine (Shimada, J., et al., J. Med. Chem., 34:466-9 (1991)). Alternatively, various non-xanthine adenosine antagonists have been identified, including triazolo[4,3-a]quinoxalinamines, triazoloquinazolines, pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-7-ones, and adenine derivatives (Williams, M., Med. Res. Rev., 9(2):219-43 (1989)). A series of adenine derivatives was identified in U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,655. The search continues for potent and selective adenosine A.sub.1 receptor selective antagonists, useful as pharmacological tools and as therapeutic agents.


A memory using an SRAM memory cell intended for low-voltage operation is designed to decrease the threshold value of MOS transistors constituting the memory cell without substantial decrease in the static noise margin, which is the operational margin of the memory cell. To this end, a voltage Vdd′ higher than a power supply voltage Vdd of a power supply line for peripheral circuits is supplied from a power supply line for memory cells as a power supply voltage for memory cells. Since the conductance of driver MOS transistors is in-creased, the threshold voltage of the MOS transistors within the memory cells can be reduced without reducing the static noise margin. Further the ratio of width between the driver MOS transistor and a transfer MOS transistor can be set to 1, thereby allowing a reduction in the memory cell area.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor memory device. More particularly, it relates to a semiconductor memory device preferable for a SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) which has secured the operational margin during write operation, and operates at a low voltage and a low electric power.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been an increasingly growing trend towards portable devices, which increases a demand for lower power consumption of a large-scale semiconductor integrated circuit (LSI). Therefore, a technology of an LSI operating at a voltage of not more than 1 V becomes necessary. In the future, presumably, there will be growing demands for a further decrease in supply voltage from that of an LSI operating at a supply voltage of about 0.9 V, so that an LSI operating even at a supply voltage of about 0.5 V will be demanded.
For operating the LSI at a low voltage, the decrease in threshold voltage of a MOS transistor is achieved so that the supply current can be obtained even at a low voltage. However, when the threshold voltage of the MOS transistor in the memory cell of a SRAM has been reduced, the static noise margin, which is the margin with respect to a noise, is reduced, resulting in an unstable read operation. This is shown in FIGS. 24A and 24B. The double-headed arrow line indicated by a reference numeral 11 in FIG. 24A denotes the static noise margin of a prior-art memory cell of which the threshold value is not reduced. In contrast, as shown in FIG. 24B, the static noise margin 12 of the memory cell whose threshold value has been reduced is narrowed.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a circuit configuration of a memory cell of a SRAM. The memory cell of the SRAM is made up of N-channel MOS transistors (driver MOS transistors) N1 and N2 whose sources are coupled to each other, P-channel MOS transistors (load MOS transistors) P1 and P2 whose drains are coupled to the drains of the driver MOS transistors N1 and N2, respectively, and N-channel MOS transistors (transfer MOS transistors) N3 and N4 whose gates are respectively coupled to a word line WL, and whose source-drain paths are coupled between bit lines BL and /BL (where the sign "/" is used in place of the bar sign denoting the inversion) and the drains of the driver MOS transistors N1 and N2, respectively.
Incidentally, in FIG. 2, a reference numeral 4 denotes a source line of the load MOS transistors P1 and P2, i.e., a power supply line for the memory cell; 5, a source line of the driver MOS transistor N1 and N2, i.e., normally a ground line for the memory cell; 6 and 7, data holding nodes (storage nodes) of the memory cell; a reference character Vw, the voltage of the word line WL; Vb1 and Vb2, the voltages of the bit lines BL and /BL, respectively; Vddm, the voltage of the power supply line 4 for the memory cell; and Vssm, the voltage of the ground line 5 for the memory cell. Further, Vn1 and Vn2 denote the voltages of the data holding nodes 6 and 7, respectively, which individually correspond to "1" or "0" as data so as to be in the mutually inverse relationship.
Then, a description will be given to a conventionally adopted method for preventing the static noise margin of the SRAM memory cell having such a configuration from being reduced even when the threshold value of each MOS transistor has been reduced.
For preventing the static noise margin of the SRAM memory cell from being reduced even when the threshold voltage of the MOS transistor has been reduced, the conductance of the driver MOS transistors N1 and N2 are required to be made larger as compared with the conductance of the transfer MOS transistors N3 and N4. For attaining this, it is only required as follows: a voltage Vdd′ higher than a high-level voltage Vdd of the word line WL is applied as the voltage Vddm of the power supply line 4 for the memory cell to be coupled to the sources of the load MOS transistors P1 and P2, and the voltage to be applied to the gate electrodes of the driver MOS transistors N1 and N2 are set to be higher than the voltages to be applied to the gate electrodes of the transfer MOS transistors N3 and N4. As a result, the conductance of the driver MOS transistors N1 and N2 is increased, and the static noise margin is also increased as shown by a double-headed arrow denoted by a reference numeral 13 in FIG. 24C.
Therefore, with a prior-art SRAM memory intended for low-voltage operation, as disclosed in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 9-185886, there are adopted a method in which, only during read operation, the voltage of the power supply lines for the whole memory cell array is increased, or a high voltage is applied to the power supply line for the memory cell to be read, i.e., the memory cell selected during read operation, and other methods.
The reason why the voltage Vddm of the power supply line for the memory cell is boosted only during read operation is because the operational margin during write operation decreases with an increase in ratio between the conductance of the load MOS transistors P1 and P2 and the conductance of the driver MOS transistors. For this reason, with a prior-art method, the voltage Vddm of the power supply line 4 for the selected memory cell or memory cell array is boosted only during read operation to suppress the reduction in the operational margin during write operation.
Incidentally, in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 9-185886, it is described as follows: it is also possible to constantly set the power supply potential for the memory cell to be applied to the memory cell higher than the power supply potential for the peripheral circuits only during read operation.
Further, for conventional SRAM memory cells not intended for only low-voltage operation, the conductance of the driver MOS transistors is required to be set larger than the conductance of the transfer MOS transistors as described above in order to ensure a larger static noise margin during read operation. For this reason, the gate width of driver MOS transistor have been manufactured larger than the gate width of the transfer MOS transistor. Particularly, as disclosed in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 2001-28401, in the layout of the memory cell used in a prior-art SRAM memory shown in FIG. 9, in spite of the fact that the diffusion regions of the driver MOS transistors and the transfer MOS transistors are formed with out curves, the diffusion regions are not arranged in the form of a simple rectangle due to the difference in size of the gate width. Incidentally, in FIG. 9, a reference numeral 33 denotes a contact; 34, N-type diffusion layers serving as the sources and the drains of N-channel MOS transistors (below, referred to as NMOS transistors) N1, N2, N3, and N4; 35, a polysilicon serving as a gate electrode; 36, one SRAM memory cell region; and 39, P-type diffusion layers serving as the sources and the drains of P-channel MOS transistors (below, referred to as PMOS transistors) P1, P2, P3, and P4.
Further, the same prior-art example of Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 2001-28401 describes as follows. In order for the ratio of the gate width between the driver MOS transistor and the transfer MOS transistor to be 1, the manufacturing process is changed in the following manner. For example, each gate oxide film thickness of the transfer MOS transistors N3 and N4 is increased as compared with that of the driver MOS transistors N1 and N2, alternatively, the impurity concentration of a low-concentration drain region for electric field relaxation is reduced, thereby to cause a difference in driveability, resulting in an increase in so-called cell ratio.
However, with the prior-art method in which a high voltage is applied to the power supply line for the memory cell array only during read operation described above, it takes much time for the power supply voltage Vddm for the memory cell array to change into a desired voltage Vdd′ higher than the power supply voltage Vdd for the peripheral circuits. Further, an extra electric power required for charge and discharge of the power supply line is consumed for increasing and decreasing the voltage of the power supply line for the memory cell array. Accordingly, although this circuit is a SRAM circuit operating at a low voltage, it becomes incapable of implementing the lower power consumption. This is due to the following fact. Even when only the power supply voltage Vddm for the selected memory cell for executing the read operation is boosted, the power consumption is increased to one degree or another. Whereas, when the power supply voltage for the memory cell is constantly set higher than the power supply voltages for the peripheral circuits and the like, it is necessary that the ground voltage for the memory cell is set higher than the ground voltage of the peripheral circuits during write operation and during standby, and that the ground voltage for the memory cell is set at the same level as the ground voltage for the peripheral circuits only during read operation. This eventually requires the relative increase and decrease in voltage between power supply lines, so that the extra electric power required for charge and discharge of the power supply lines is consumed.
Further, by forming the diffusion regions 34 and 39 as shown in FIG. 9, and the polycrystal silicon (polysilicon) layer 35 in a line form to generate a high-symmetry layout, it has become possible to suppress the variations in manufacturing as compared with the layout previous to that, wherein less symmetry is present, and the polysilicon is curved. However, with this layout, each gate width W1 of the driver MOS transistors N1 and N2 is different from each gate width W3 of the transfer MOS transistors N3 and N4 for controlling the conductance. As a result, the diffusion regions 34 and 37 are formed in a shape falling short of a perfect rectangle as shown in FIG. 9. Actually, by setting the ratio W1/W3 of the gate width W1 of the driver MOS to the gate width W3 of the transfer MOS to be 1.5 to 2, the ratio of the conductance between the driver MOS transistor and the transfer MOS transistor is controlled to secure the static noise margin. Therefore, as compared with the SRAM memory cell which has not yet adopted this layout, the variations in manufacturing are reduced. However, as compared with the case where the diffusion regions are formed in perfect rectangle, the variations can be considered to be larger.
Further, as described in the same prior-art example of Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 2001-28401, with the method in which the gate width ratio W1/W3 of 1 is achieved by the change in manufacturing process, for example by changing the impurity concentration of the low-concentration drain region to cause a difference in driving force, and thereby increasing the cell ratio, unfavorably, the manufacturing conditions become complicated, resulting in a reduction of yield, and the number of manufacturing steps is increased, incurring a rise in cost.

Semiconductor memory device with memory cells operated by boosted voltage


Characterization of organic contaminants in subsurface formation is performed by methods for detecting the presence of nonaqueous phase liquid in a subsurface formation, and for determining the composition and for determining the volume of nonaqueous phase liquids. Generally the methods comprise introducing one or more partitioning tracers and one or more non-partitioning tracers at one or more injection points located in the subsurface formation and measuring separation between the one or more partitioning tracers and the one or more non-partitioning tracers from one or more sampling points located in the subsurface formation to determine presence, composition and/or volume of nonaqueous phase liquid in the subsurface formation. In addition, the methods can be used to assess the performance of an attempted remediation.

In the 1980's, it became apparent that many hazardous waste sites had received organic liquids, such as petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, creosote solutions and coal tars which had subsequently migrated into the subsurface beneath these sites. Once in the subsurface, these liquids dissolved and caused the contamination of ground-water supplies and then proved resistant to their quantitative removal by the remedial approaches available. These liquids are known to environmental scientists and engineers as non-aqueous phase liquids, or "NAPLs". NAPLs such as petroleum hydrocarbons, which are lighter than water, are identified as "LNAPLs", while those denser than water such as chlorinated solvents are known as "DNAPLs".
NAPLs are generally of sufficiently low aqueous solubility and volatility that their limited dissolution into ground waters or volatilization into gases has resulted in predictions of their residence in the subsurface for tens, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. However, their toxicity is often such that their solubilities are many times the permitted maximum contaminant levels allowed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in drinking water. For example, the most common NAPL contaminant found in ground waters beneath hazardous waste sites, the metal degreasing solvent trichloroethene, has an aqueous solubility of 1385 milligrams/liter but a maximum contaminant level of 5 micrograms/liter.
Partly because of their ubiquitous use in industry and commerce, low maximum contaminant levels and mobility in the subsurface in dissolved and gaseous states, NAPLs and NAPL constituents, such as benzene derived from gasoline, have come to occupy a central place in the technical and regulatory processes associated with the characterization and remediation of hazardous waste sites. In addition, NAPLs have become the focus of this concern because of the extreme difficulty in detecting their presence. In the context of this discussion, "detection" means the act of inferring the amount, location and/or composition of the NAPL. In recent years, a number of knowledgeable observers have commented on the cost and impracticality of detecting DNAPLs using conventional site-characterization techniques. See, for example, Huling and Weaver, DNAPL site evaluation, Project Summary, EPA/600/SR-93/022, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, R.S. Kerr Environmental Research Laboratory, Ada, Okla., 74820 (1993); Cohen and Mercer, Dense nonaqueous phase liquids, Ground Water Issue, EPA/540/4-91-002, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, R.S. Kerr Environmental Research Laboratory, Ada, Okla., 74820 (1989); MacKay and Cherry, "Groundwater Contamination:Pump-and-treat Remediation," Environmental Science and Technology, 23(6):630-636 (1993).
However, despite the expenditure of billions of dollars annually by the U.S. Government through the Environmental Protection Agency (for instance, in the implementation of Superfund), the U.S. Department of Energy (implementing the Environmental Restoration Program), the U.S. Department of Defense (implementing the Installation Restoration Program), as well as private corporations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported in April, 1993 (Cohen and Mercer, 1993) that "relatively little effort has been expended on developing new site-characterization tools or methods for DNAPL sites." This situation has resulted in substantive problems for DNAPL site characterization, in particular because of the tendency of DNAPLs, due to their density and viscosity, to migrate both vertically and laterally from their point of entry into the subsurface to considerable depth. Consequently, DNAPLs are "largely undetected and yet are likely to be a significant limiting factor in site remediation" (Huling and Weaver, 1991).
It follows from the sparing solubility and volatility of NAPLs that, generally, the vast majority of the mass of an organic liquid released to the subsurface may remain in the NAPL form. Relatively minuscule concentrations will be present in the dissolved and vapor states, but it is these less important phases that are generally monitored for compliance with regulations concerning the performance of the remedial operations at a site (see, Environmental Protection Agency, "General methods for remedial operations performance evaluations," EPA/600/R092/002, R.S. Kerr Environmental Research Laboratory, Ada, Okla. 74820 (1992)).

Characterization of organic contaminants and assessment of remediation performance in subsurface formations

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


An electron beam generating device has at least one electron emitting element and at least one modulation electrode on a substrate. The modulation electrode may be provided on the same or reverse side of the substrate as or to the side bearing the electron emitting element. The electron emitting element is constituted of a lower potential electrode, a higher potential electrode and an electron emitting portion between the electrodes. The lower potential electrode has a different dimension than the higher potential electrode, or the substrate region bearing the electron emitting element has a different thickness than the other region, depending on the type of arrangement of the electron emitting element and the modulation electrode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electron beam-generating device for emitting an electron beam in accordance with an information signal. The present invention also relates to an image-forming apparatus and a recording apparatus employing the electron beam-generating device.
2. Related Background Art
Thin type image displaying apparatuses are known. The known thin displaying apparatus has a plurality of electron-emitting elements and an image-forming member counterposed thereto: the image-forming member being a member which emits light, changes its colors, become electrified, or deteriorates on collision of electrons, and being made of a material such as a fluorescent material and a resist material. FIGS. 92 and 93 illustrate schematically conventional electron beam displaying apparatus respectively as examples of such image-displaying apparatuses.
FIG. 92 illustrates an electron-beam display apparatus having electron-emitting elements and an image-forming member counterposed thereto, and modulation electrode provided therebetween. Specifically, the electron-beam display apparatus has a rear plate 1671, supports 1672, wiring electrodes 1673, electron-emitting portions 1674, electron passage holes 1675, modulation electrodes 1676, a glass plate 1677, a light-transmissive electrode 1678, a fluorescent material (an image-forming member) 1679, and a face plate 1680. The shadowed portions 1682 denote bright spots of the fluorescent material. The electron-emitting portions 1674 of the electron-emitting element (constituted of the parts 1672, 1673, and 1674) is formed by a thin film formation technique to take a hollow structure without contacting with the rear plate 1671. The modulation electrodes 1676 are placed in the space above the electron-emitting portions (in the electron-emitting direction) and have electron beam passage holes 1675.
With this electron beam display apparatus, thermoelectrons are emitted by heating the electron-emitting portion 1674 having a hollow structure by applying voltage to the wiring electrodes 1673; the electrons are taken out through the passage hole 1675 by applying voltage to the modulation electrode 1676 for modulating the electron beam according to an information signal; and the electrons taken out are accelerated and made to collide against the fluorescent material 1679. An image is displayed on the fluorescent material 1679, an image-forming member, by use of an XY matrix formed from the wiring electrodes 1673 and the modulation electrodes 1676.
FIG. 93 illustrates another electron-beam display apparatus which has a base plate 1791, modulation electrodes 1792, a thermoelectron beam sources (electron-emitting elements) 1793, an upward deflection electrode 1794, a downward deflection electrode 1795, a face plate 1796 having a light-transmissive electrode and a fluorescent material (an image-forming member). On the base plate 1791, the modulation electrodes 1792, electron-emitting elements 1793, and the image-forming member are placed in the named order. As shown in the broken-line circle in FIG. 93, the modulation electrodes 1792 and the electron-emitting element 1793 are placed with a spacing therebetween. The thermoelectron source is made of a tungsten wire coated with an electron-emitting substance, having the outside diameter of about 35 .mu.m, and emitting thermoelectrons at an operation temperature of from 700.degree. C. to 850.degree. C.
Conventional image display apparatuses involve problems below:
(1) In the display apparatus of FIG. 92, the modulation electrodes are placed in the space above the electron-emitting elements (in the direction of electron emission), so that the positional registration of the electron passage holes of the modulation electrodes with the electron-emitting portions is not easy, making insufficient the quantity of the electron emission of the electron beams, PA0 (2) The display apparatuses shown in FIGS. 92 and 93 have interspace between the modulation electrode and the opposing electron-emitting element. This interspace causes the following problems: (a) The distance between the modulation electrode and the electron-emitting portion cannot readily be kept constant, and the resulting variation of the distance (variation caused by impact, thermal distortion during driving, and so forth) causes undesired variation of the quantity of the electron emission of the electron beam, and (b) The distances between the modulation electrodes and the electron-emitting elements cannot readily be made uniform, and the non-uniformity of the distances causes the variation of the modulation among the electron beams emitted from electron-emitting portions.
The above problems give the disadvantages of insufficient contrast and variation of luminance of the displayed image and so forth in image display apparatuses.
To solve the above problems, the applicants disclosed, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,554, an electron beam-generating device which comprises an electron-emitting element and a modulation electrode for modulating an electron beam emitted from the electron-emitting element, the electron-emitting element and the modulation electrode being arranged on the same plane of a substrate, or the modulation electrode being placed on the reverse side of the substrate of the electron-emitting element, and also disclosed an image-forming apparatus employing the above electron beam-generating device.

Electron beam-generating device, and image-forming apparatus and recording apparatus employing the same


A method and apparatus for natural language processing using morphology and rhyming. The method and apparatus employ a hybrid of dictionary and rule-based approaches for both speech and speech recognition. In an illustrative embodiment of the present invention the pronunciation of a word is determined by rhyming the word, or components of the word, with a reference word, or components of the reference word. In another illustrative embodiment of the present invention, the spelling of a word is determined by rhyming the word, or components of the word, with a reference word, or components of the reference word.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to natural language processing in general, and more particularly, to methods and systems for speech synthesis and speech recognition.
2. Description of the Related Art
A speech synthesis system is a machine that accepts as input a text stream and provides as output a speech signal. One aspect of a speech synthesizer converts words into phonemes. A phoneme is a member of the set of the smallest units of speech that serve to distinguish one utterance from another in a language or dialect. The /p/ of pat and the /f/ of fat are two examples. Typically, the conversion from text to phonemes is performed either by looking the words up in a dictionary or by sounding them out from their orthography (e.g., spelling) according to set of phonetic principles. An excellent tutorial on the topic is D. H. Klatt, "Review of text-to-speech conversion for English," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 82(3), pp. 737-775 (Sept. 1987).
Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages; the dictionary approach provides the highest quality output but fails for words (e.g., proper nouns) which are not in the dictionary. The rule-based approach is more comprehensive in its coverage but produces unacceptable results for irregular words. Today, most speech synthesizers use both approaches. The dictionary approach is utilized when possible, and the rule-based approach is used when the dictionary approach fails.
A speech recognition system is a machine that performs the inverse function of a speech synthesis system. It accepts as input a speech signal and outputs a text stream representing that speech. One aspect of a speech recognition system converts phonemes or sequences of phonemes into words. As in contemporary speech synthesis systems, this conversion is usually performed using the dictionary approach when possible and the rule-based approach otherwise.

Method and apparatus for speech processing using morphology and rhyming


There is disclosed a toner which comprises at least a binder resin, a coloring agent, and a wax and in which a deformation amount of the toner (R200) at the time of application of a load of 200 g at a temperature of 120° C. is 45% to 75% and in which a deformation amount of the toner (R500) at the time of application of a load of 500 g at a temperature of 120° C. is 65% to 85% and in which there is at least one endothermic peak or shoulder in a range at 60 to 120° C. in a DSC curve at the time of temperature rise measured by a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). By the toner, an offset can be inhibited from being generated in heating/pressurizing/fixing in which an oil for preventing a high-temperature offset is not used or a use amount of the oil is reduced, and an OHP fixed image superior in transparency can be obtained.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toner for use in developing a static charge image formed in methods for forming an image such as an electrophotographic method, electrostatic recording method, and electrostatic printing method, and also relates to a method for forming a full-color image using the toner.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in a full-color copying machine, there has been used: a method in which four photosensitive members and a belt-like transfer member are used, and static charge images formed on the respective photosensitive members are developed using cyan, magenta, yellow, and black toners, and subsequently transferred onto a transfer material conveyed between the photosensitive member and the belt-like transfer member during passing the transfer material straightly to form a full-color image; or a method in which the transfer material is wound around the surface of the transfer member by an electrostatic force or a mechanical function like a gripper, the transfer member is disposed opposite to the photosensitive member, and a step of developing and a step of transferring is carried out four times to obtain a full-color image.
Moreover, for the toner for use in the full-color copying machine, colors of the respective toners are requested to be sufficiently mixed in a step of heating/pressurizing/fixing from viewpoints of enhancement of color reproducibility or transparency of an overhead projector (OHP) image.
Therefore, as the toner for the full-color copying machine, a low molecular weight binder resin, which has a sharp melt property as compared with a toner for a general monochromatic copying machine, has been used. However, with the use of the low molecular weight binder resin, resistance to high-temperature offset sometimes drops, when the toner is molten in the step of heating/pressurizing/fixing.
Even when mold release agents such as a polyethylene wax and polypropylene wax are added to the toner in order to enhance the resistance to high-temperature offset at the time of the fixing, for the toner for full color using the low molecular weight binder resin, the binder resin is completely molten in the step of heating/pressurizing/fixing, and therefore the mold release agent does not sufficiently fulfill its effect. Therefore, it has been difficult to sufficiently reduce high-temperature offset.
In order to reduce the high-temperature offset, coating a fixing roller with an oil is also performed, but with the use of the oil, an oil streak in an image at the time of the fixing sometimes raises a problem.
To solve the problem, a toner and a method for forming an image have been proposed in which toner particles are manufactured by a suspension polymerization method, a wax is contained in the toner particles, and accordingly any fixing oil is not used (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 8-314300 and 8-50368).
However, when a large amount of wax is contained in the toner, concave/convex portions are easily made in the surface of the fixed image with the toner including the binder resin containing a styrene-acryl resin which is a major component. As a result, permeability of the OHP drops.
Moreover, a large number of toners have been proposed, including: a toner which shows a specific melting behavior in a nip portion of a fixing device (e.g., see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-39538); a toner which has a specific viscoelastic characteristic (e.g., see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-75305); and a toner which contains a specific wax (e.g., see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2002-14488, 2002-14489, and 2002-40712). However, with respect to either compatibility between low-temperature fixing property and resistance to high-temperature offset, or the transparency of the OHP fixed image, any sufficiently satisfactory toner has not been proposed yet.
To solve the problem, there has been a demand for a toner which realizes the compatibility between the low-temperature fixing property and resistance to offset in the step of heating/pressurizing/fixing not using any oil for preventing the high-temperature offset or using a reduced use amount of the oil, and which is superior in the transparency of the OHP fixed image.

Toner, method for forming a full-color image, and process cartridge


Performing atomic operations on data entities having an arbitrary size is disclosed. Version data is associated with a data entity. The version data is saved to a first attribute. The data entity is then accessed. The saved version data is compared to the current version data. If the two are equal, the data entity is valid.

This invention relates generally to computer systems, and more particularly to performing atomic operations on a data structure.
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and data as described below and in the drawing hereto: Copyright 8 1998, 1999, Microsoft Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
It is common in today""s multiprocessing and multithreaded computing environments for various executable units running on a computer system to share data by reading and writing data structures residing in shared memory. Sharing data in this manner provides an efficient mechanism for threads to communicate information with one another.
A common problem associated with using data structures in shared memory is managing multiple simultaneous requests to access the data structures and ensuring that accesses to the data are atomic. Guaranteeing atomic access is important because it ensures that the data structure is completely updated before another thread attempts to use the data. As an example, consider a data structure that is 32 bytes long. Without atomic access, one thread may have updated 16 bytes of the data structure when a second thread reads the data structure. The reading thread will read a corrupt version of the data structure, because the first 16 bytes will be new data while the last 16 bytes will be old data.
Atomic access to a data structure can be guaranteed by the hardware when the data structure meets size and alignment restrictions imposed by the particular hardware (typically the size of a machine word or floating point number). Atomic access cannot be guaranteed by the hardware for data structures that do not meet these restrictions. For example, on the Intel IA32 and IA32 compatible architectures, a data structure can only be read atomically by the hardware if it is 64 bits or smaller. In addition, a 64-bit data structure must be aligned on a 64 bit memory boundary and 32 bit data structures must be aligned on a 32 bit memory boundary to be read atomically.
In order to allow for atomic reads of data structures larger than that supported by the hardware, previous systems have provided software mechanisms to guarantee atomic reads of data structures. One such system involves the use of a lock mechanism. In systems using a lock, a thread that requires access to a shared data structure first acquires a lock on the data structure, typically using a function provided by the operating system. The process then updates the data structure. After the data structure is updated, the requesting thread releases the lock. Other threads that require access to the data structure may also attempt to acquire a lock on the data structure. If an attempt occurs while another thread has the data structure locked, the attempt will fail, and the requesting thread will block or wait until the lock becomes available.
Two types of locks are typically provided, exclusive locks and shared locks. An exclusive lock is used by threads that are writing a data structure. The writing thread has exclusive access during the lock period, no other thread may read from or write to the data structure. A shared lock is typically used by a thread that is reading a data structure. A shared lock allows other threads to read the data structure, but does not allow any thread to write to the data structure while the shared lock is in effect.
While software locks allow exclusive and atomic access to data structures, locks are expensive in terms of CPU (Central Processing Unit) and memory resources. The locking mechanisms are routines built around simpler data structures that can be atomically updated via hardware or firmware mechanisms. In addition to the overhead involved in the software used to implement the lock, the accesses to the lock data structures can cause pipeline stalls, poor memory-bus utilization, and cache memory misses. The problems listed above can occur regardless of whether the lock is an exclusive or shared lock. In addition, the problems listed above are compounded when a large number of threads need to access the same shared data structure.
Therefore there is a need in the art for a way to atomically access a data structure that is more efficient than the software lock mechanism used in previous systems.
The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed by the present invention, which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.
The systems and methods presented perform atomic operations on data entities having an arbitrary size. This includes data structures that cannot be atomically read by the hardware. The operations include read and write operations on the data entities.
Version data is associated with the data entities that are operated on. The version data is generated such that no simultaneously executing program units can erroneously determine that two different versions of a data entity are the same.
In one method, a program unit writes, or updates, the data entity. The write program unit acquires exclusive access to the version data associated with a data entity, sets the version data to a predetermined invalid value, and then updates the data entity. The write program unit then updates the version data to a new value and terminates exclusive access to the version data.
In another method, a program unit reads, or accesses, the data entity. The read program unit saves the version data associated with the data entity, reads the data entity, and then compares the current version data to the saved version data. If the current version data is set to a predetermined invalid value, the read program unit determines that a write program unit is in the middle of updating the data entity. This causes the read program unit to restart the attempt to read the data entity.
If the current version data is not equal to the saved version data, the read program unit determines that a write program unit has updated the data entity in the middle of the read program unit""s attempt to read the data entity. This also causes the read program unit to restart the attempt to read the data entity.
The systems and methods summarized above, and various other methods for performing atomic operations on data entities will be described in detail in the next section.
The present invention describes systems, clients, servers, methods, and computer-readable media of varying scope. In addition to the aspects and advantages of the present invention described in this summary, further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent by reference to the drawings and by reading the detailed description that follows.


A semiconductor device includes a first trans-impedance amplifier, a second trans-impedance amplifier, a peak hold circuit, a comparator and a threshold current setting circuit. The first trans-impedance amplifier converts a first current signal generated by a first photodiode, into which an optical signal is input, into a first voltage signal. The second trans-impedance amplifier converts a second current signal generated by a second photodiode, to which an optical signal is blocked, into a second voltage signal. The peak hold circuit holds the peak value of the first voltage signal. The comparator outputs a pulse on the basis of the first and second voltage signals. The threshold current setting circuit draws out a threshold current.

The present invention relates to semiconductor devices. For example, the present invention can be preferably applied to an optical-coupling type isolation amplifier used for transmitting and receiving optical signals.
Manufacturing instruments such as AC motors and inverters are widely used in the state of being controlled by control devices in factories and plants. There are many cases where electric power sources used for these manufacturing instruments are required to have high voltages. On the other hand, the control devices that give control signals to these instruments do not require electric power sources with high voltages. In other words, the control devices have only to be supplied with electric power sources whose voltage values are large enough to activate logic circuits the control devices include.
An optical-coupling type isolation amplifier, which has some regions of different voltages isolated from each other and transmits control signals, is used to materialize such control devices. The optical-coupling type isolation amplifier includes an input side (primary) circuit that receives a signal from a transmitter, and an output side (secondary) circuit that outputs a signal to a receiver.
The input side circuit includes an A/D (Analog to Digital) converter (for example, a delta-sigma AD converter), an encoder that encodes a signal sent from the transmitter, a driver that drives a light-emitting diode (LED), and the like. The output side circuit includes an optical receiver circuit that receives light emitted by the light-emitting diode, a decoder that decodes the signal encoded by the input side circuit, and the like.
In the optical-coupling type isolation amplifier, an optical signal is transmitted between the light-emitting diode and a photo diode by using a pulse-width modulated clock pulse for the signal transmission between the input side circuit and the output side circuit, so that both isolation and high-accurate signal transmission are realized.
As related technologies, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publications No. 2004-179982, No. 2008-236392, No. 2010-178327, and No. 2007-096593 disclose technologies which reduce pulse-width distortion generated in the output signals of optical-coupling type isolation amplifiers. In addition, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-340072 discloses an optical-coupling type isolation amplifier that has improved noise tolerance.

Semiconductor memory with threshold current setting circuit


The present invention is a tube press designed to squeeze excess toothpaste, ointments, and similar materials trapped at the bottom of a collapsible tube dispenser. Two rods having oblongated cross-sections are positioned in parallel and have notches to guide and hold two bands or O-rings at each end. The rods have preferred cross-sections of ellipses or football shapes. A tube-receiving slot is formed by gradual slopes towards a nip. The bands or O-rings provide pressure against the tube which is sandwiched between the two rods within the nip. Sliding the whole assembly up the length of the tube forces the residual contents to the top.

The present invention relates to tube presses. The invention is a novel design for a tube press. It is designed to be used with various products that come in tubes such as toothpaste, ointments, glue, etc. It is a common problem for anyone using toothpaste, or any other item dispensed by manually squeezing a plastic tube, to have the contents of the tube spread throughout the tube, and in particular to the closed bottom end of the tube when the user is attempting to dispense the contents. The problem becomes greater as the tube becomes less full. It is the object of the present invention to provide assistance to the manual dispensing of material contained within such tubing. It is a further object of the present invention to prohibit the contents of a collapsible tube dispenser from spreading to the closed end of the tube, gathering the contents towards the open end and making each successive discharge of a portion of the tubes contents as easy as the first.
A number of devices have been designed that attempt to perform the same function as the present invention. However, most prior inventions are relatively complex and contain several component parts. The present invention is simple and easy to use. Some fairly simple devices have also been designed, but these are typically of a construction having a fixed gap width through which the tube is inserted. Devices of the fixed gap width design commonly make it difficult to initially insert the closed end of a tube. Also, depending on the tube and its contents, the fixed gap width either leaves a small amount of the contents in the end which should be empty, or creates too tight a fit for the device to effectively be slid along the length of the tube. It is an object of the present invention to overcome these problems in the prior art.
The present invention works well on the new plastic type tubes. When old turnkey style presses (which squeezes the tube by rolling it) are used on a new plastic tube, the tube tends to unroll and the key type press becomes ineffective and much more difficult to use than the present tube press.
With the present invention, the tube remains flat throughout. With the key type presses, the tube is slowly rolled up. This may be considered unsightly and may make the tube harder to store (such as sitting in a cup).
The inventor's parent application, now patented, provided a tube press having parallel, abutting rods with circular, rounded or polygonal cross-sections. The present invention provides alternate embodiments for those rods, improving their design for some applications.


Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for uploading, by a verified party, verified-party content to a media platform, receiving requests by a client device for store content, and displaying the uploaded verified-party content along with store content on the client device.

Artists have the ability to sell digital media items online and the ability to connect with fans through various media outlets. However, there is no current solution for allowing artists to reach out to fans with non-store content through the same store interface that is used to allow the fans to acquire the artist's content. Additionally, there is no current solution that allows an artist to post non-store content for the artist's fans and later convert the content into store content that can be acquired by fans and added to the fans' media libraries.