A sleeve hanging bracket has a track base and at least one positioning mount. The track base has a bottom panel, a slide rail, and a mounting recess. The slide rail is formed on and protrudes from a top surface of the bottom panel and has an upper opening and a sliding recess. The mounting recess is formed in a middle of a top surface of the bottom panel to form a stepped face between a bottom face of the mounting recess and the top surface of the bottom panel. The at least one positioning mount is movably and rotatably mounted on the track base and has a sliding seat and an inserting button. The sliding seat is movably mounted in the sliding recess above the mounting recess. The inserting button is formed on and protrudes from the sliding seat and extends out of the upper opening.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sleeve hanging bracket, and more particularly to a sleeve hanging bracket that can reduce frictions for positioning mounts of the sleeve hanging bracket to move smoothly and can facilitate user's easy identification of the sleeve' specifications.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional sleeve hanging bracket has a track base and multiple positioning mounts. The track base has a top and a slide rail. The slide rail is formed in the top of the track base and has a bottom surface. The positioning mounts are movably mounted in the slide rail of the track base. Each one of the positioning mounts has a sliding seat and an inserting button. The sliding seat is movably mounted in the slide rail of the track base and has a top surface. The inserting button is formed on and protrudes upwardly from the top surface of the sliding seat and extends out of the slide rail. In use, sleeves of different sizes are mounted around the inserting buttons of the positioning mounts to be stored on the conventional sleeve hanging bracket.
However, the bottom surface of the slide rail completely abuts the sliding seats of the positioning mounts and this will increase the frictions when the positioning mounts are moved relative to the slide rail. Then, the moving smoothness of the positioning mounts will be reduced by the frictions between the slide rail and the positioning mounts. In addition, the frictions between the slide rail and the positioning mounts will increase wear of the positioning mounts and this will increase the cost of using the conventional sleeve hanging bracket.
Furthermore, besides different sizes, the sleeves further have different specifications such as inch and metric measurement units. Although a user can identify the sizes of the sleeves by the marked numbers or scales on the sleeves to store the sleeves of different sizes on the conventional hanging bracket according to the sizes of sleeves sequentially, the user cannot identify the specifications of the sleeves on the conventional sleeve hanging bracket directly according to appearance of the conventional sleeve hanging bracket. Then, the user needs to further observe the sleeves to confirm the specifications of the sleeves and this is inconvenient in use.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention tends to provide a sleeve hanging bracket to mitigate the aforementioned problems.


An engine output control system includes an engine ECU having a fundamental ignition timing map, a fundamental fuel injection quantity map, a target throttle angle determination unit for determining a target throttle angle of an exhaust control valve, an exhaust control valve diagnosis unit for diagnosing operation of the exhaust control valve, an ignition timing map to be used during an abnormality for determining fundamental ignition timing when the exhaust control valve operates abnormally, and an abnormal fuel injection thinning-out table for determining a reduced rate of fuel injection when the exhaust control valve has been diagnosed as abnormal. The exhaust control valve driving unit supplies a driving current to an actuator in such a manner that the target throttle angle notified by the engine ECU coincides with actual valve throttle angle. The system is capable of obtaining sufficient traveling performance even when an exhaust control valve has is operating abnormally.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an output control system for an engine with an exhaust control device, and more particularly to an output control system for an engine equipped with an exhaust control function which controls an exhaust pulse by providing means such as a valve for changing an exhaust gas passage cross-sectional area midway in an engine exhaust air system.
2. Description of the Background Art
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-313621 or 2002-138828, there has been disclosed a technique for improving engine output by reducing resistance within an exhaust passage in a high speed area of an engine and utilizing a pulsation effect, or arranging an exhaust control valve for making the exhaust gas cross-sectional area variable within the exhaust passage in order to improve the startability for dynamically changing its throttle angle in accordance with control parameters such as a vehicle speed and an engine speed.
Assuming that the above-described exhaust control valve is functioning normally, fundamental ignition timing and fundamental injection quantity of fuel in a vehicle mounted with the above-described exhaust control valve are determined with a throttle angle, engine speed, vehicle speed or the like as parameters. Thus, actual ignition timing and fuel injection quantity are determined by multiplying these fundamental ignition timing and fundamental injection quantity of fuel by various correction factors. Therefore, since when the exhaust control valve is functioning abnormally for some reason or other, the fundamental ignition timing or the fundamental injection quantity deviates from the optimum value, there is a possibility of causing problems such as deteriorated engine performance and lowered fuel economy.
It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-described problems of the conventional technique, and to provide an engine exhaust control device capable of obtaining sufficient traveling performance even when the exhaust control valve is functioning abnormally.

Output control system for engine with exhaust control function


An apparatus and method of identifying objects with salient motion in a scene and program product therefor. A region of change is identified within a scene. Optical flow is determined for the region of change. Pixels moving in a common direction are identified as seed pixels. Seed pixels are expanded to form pixel clusters. Temporal imaging results are fused to identify those objects with salient motion.

It is well known that detecting moving objects in streaming video is a significant and difficult research problem. One may categorize motion, e.g., in a video of a typical real life environment, as interesting or salient and uninteresting or distracting. Salient motion is normally defined as motion from a transient object such as a person or a vehicle in the scene. Distracting motion is background oscillatory or random motion, e.g. leaves swaying in the wind. Since typically, salient motion is of interest in a particular scene, distracting motion complicates salient motion detection.
Background subtraction is one conventional approach to effectively detect moving objects in a scene with a stationary background. However, where the scene is dynamic with a non-stationary background, detecting moving objects is more difficult. Adaptive background subtraction has been developed to handle non-stationary background. For example, Ren et al., "Motion Detection with Non-stationary Background," International Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing, 2001, 78-83, teaches a Spatial Distribution of Gaussians (SDG) model to detect and, approximately, extract moving objects using motion compensation. Ren et al. demonstrates the capability of detecting small moving objects with a highly textured background with pan-tilt camera motion. In another example, Stauffer et al., "Adaptive Background mixture Models for Real-time Tracking", CVPR99, June, 1999, teaches modeling each pixel as a mixture of Gaussians and using an on-line approximation to update the model. Stauffer et al. can deal with lighting changes, slow-moving objects and introducing or removing objects from the scene. In yet another example, Monnet et al., "Background Modeling and Subtraction of Dynamic Scenes", International Proceedings of International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), 2003, Pages 1305-1312, teaches prediction-based online modeling of dynamic scenes. Monnet et al. has been somewhat effective on coastline scenes with ocean waves and on pastoral scenes with swaying trees. Unfortunately, the approaches all require extensive learning from hundreds of images of the scene background or, frames, without moving objects to learn the background model. Further, it is difficult to detect objects of interest in an area dominated by distracting motion, e.g., in an ocean scene, for example, especially if the distracting motion has the same general direction as the objects, e.g., as the ocean waves.
As shown above, background subtraction has not proven particularly effective and frequently provides false positives. False positives have been especially frequent for an environment that includes objects with distracting motion, e.g., specularities on water, vegetation in the wind and etc. For example, application of background subtraction to a person walking in front of oscillating branches on a windy day detects scene movement for both the person and the moving leaves. See, e.g., Horprasert et al., "A Statistical Approach for Real-Time Robust Background Subtraction and Shadow Detection," Proceedings of IEEE Frame-Rate Workshop, Kerkyra, Greece, 1999.
Finding the temporal difference in a video scene has proven to be the simplest approach to extracting moving objects and, also, adapting to a dynamic environment. Unfortunately, temporal differencing does not detect the entire shape of a moving object with uniform intensity. Hybrid change detectors have combined temporal difference imaging and adaptive background estimation to detect regions of change. For example, Huwer et al. "Adaptive Change Detection for Real-time Surveillance applications," International Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE Workshop on Visual Surveillance, 2000, pp. 37-45, teaches combining temporal differencing with adaptive background subtraction to handle lighting changes.
These prior art motion detection approaches still cannot handle quick image variations, e.g., a light turning on or off. Prior art adaptive background subtraction methods, in particular, require hundreds images to learn the background model, do not handle stationary objects in the scene that start to move; and cannot handle quick image variations and large distracting motion.
A limited example of salient motion detection is taught by Wildes, "A Measure of Motion Salience for Surveillance Applications," International Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, p 183-187, 1998. Wildes teaches using spatiotemporal filtering to measure motion salience. To accommodate the velocity-dependent nature of spatiotemporal filters, Wildes's method has been effective on rapidly moving objects by treating the moving objects as moving with a certain velocity. However, Wildes does not work for slow moving objects. Wixson, "Detecting Salient Motion by Accumulating Directionally Flow," IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol. 22. No. 8. pp 774-779, August, 2000 teaches accumulating directionally-consistent flow to detect salient motion. Wixson calculates subpixel optical flow and integrates frame-to-frame optical flow over time for each pixel to compute a rough estimate of the total image distance the pixels have moved. Wixson updates a salient measure on each frame. The Wixson salient measure is directly related to the distance over which a point has traveled with a consistent direction. However, Wixson has proven very time consuming and objects leave salience "trails" in the results.
Thus, there is a need for detecting objects in a video scene moving through the scene with salient motion, even in the presence of large objects with distracting motion and while ignoring objects in the scene moving with distracting motion and especially, without requiring large numbers of images or frames to identify stationary or background objects and, regardless of quick object variations.

Salient motion detection system, method and program product therefor

International Business Machines Corporation


A catalytic process selectively produces ethanol by contacting synthesis gas (syngas), composed primarily of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, with three catalysts within a reactor. The first catalyst is a hydrogenation promoter comprising Cu—Zn, Mo or Fe with an optional alkali metal additive and an optional support of aluminum oxide, silica, zeolite or clay. The second catalyst is a homologation promoter comprising one or more of the Group VIII metals in free or combined form with a co-catalyst metals consisting of Y or lanthanide or actinide series metals with optional additives and support. The third catalyst is a hydrogenation promoter. This series of catalysts improves the selectivity and yield for ethanol from syngas.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to a combination catalytic process for producing alcohols directly from synthesis gas (syngas) or any gas containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen. More particularly, the present invention pertains to a multi step catalytic process that promotes specific hydrogenation and homologation activities to improve the selectivity and yield of ethanol from a stream of syngas.
2. Description of Related Art
Global demand for energy continues to rise at a significant rate, particularly among developing industrialized nations. The increasing dependence of the United States on foreign sources of oil and natural gas and diminishing reserves have led energy producers to consider alternative or less conventional sources of energy for electricity production, domestic heating and transportation.
One source of energy that is available as an alternative to foreign sources of natural gas and petroleum in the United States is domestic coal. Coal continues to be an important source of fuel for electricity generation as well as a feedstock for chemical production. However, using coal as a primary source of fuel requires extensive processing to alleviate dust and gas emissions and other environmental concerns.
Converting coal into gas and other materials can also provide greater energy conversion efficiencies than found with traditional combustion in existing coal-fired power plants. Environmental pollutants may also be reduced over pulverized coal electricity production with the use of gasified coal.
The typical gasification process consists of placing coal in a vessel under high temperature and pressure and then introducing steam and oxygen into the vessel. The organic materials that are present in the coal are converted into carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and other carbon compounds. Other gases present include methane, and small amounts of ethane and propane. The combustible hydrogen and carbon monoxide components are typically separated from non-combustible water vapor, carbon dioxide and other gases. This mixture of combustible gasses from gasified coal is often referred to as synthesis gas or "syngas." Syngas may be used for combustion or as a feedstock for gas-to-liquid processes such as the Fischer-Tropsch process that produces valuable organic materials such as distillate fuels, naphtha and wax.
The high price of natural gas and oil has also caused the chemical industry in the United States to examine alternative feedstocks for the production of marketable chemicals. The chemical industry is the largest consumer of natural gas in the country and the substantial coal reserves make coal byproducts an attractive alternative to natural gas. Historically, coal gasification research has primarily focused on energy fuels and power production, with less emphasis on chemical production. For example, ethanol has been used as a fuel and as petroleum fuel additive that has the potential of reducing consumption and dependence on foreign oil. Adding ethanol to gasoline "oxygenates" the fuel mixture so that it burns more completely and reduces polluting emissions such as carbon monoxide. Brazilian domestic fuel, for example, currently contains at least 24% ethanol typically produced from sugar cane.
However, ethanol may also be used as a feedstock for the production of commodity chemicals. At the present time, much of ethanol that is not intended for human consumption is made synthetically, either from acetaldehyde made from acetylene, or from ethylene made from petroleum. Ethanol can also be oxidized to form acetaldehyde and then acetic acid and can be dehydrated to form ether. Ethanol is useful as a solvent for many substances and as a feedstock for many other organic compounds used in making perfumes, paints, lacquer, and explosives. For example, butadiene can be derived from ethanol that may be used in making synthetic rubber.
The technology for the production of syngas from various sources is well developed and advancements in production efficiency continue. Other sources of synthesis gas such as pyrolysis of wood and other agricultural waste and organic land fill waste are also under development. Unfortunately, present processes for the production of ethanol directly from syngas or any gas containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen do not have high selectivity for ethanol and are very complicated, inefficient and expensive processes.
Accordingly, there is an increasing need for a process that can directly convert syngas to ethanol with a high yield at relatively low cost. The present invention meets these needs as well as others and is a substantial improvement over the art.

Combination catalytic process for producing ethanol from synthesis gas


A system for temporal transmit apodization of an ultrasound transducer array. The system includes a waveform generator and an ultrasound transducer array having a plurality of transducer elements. Each of the transducer elements is driven by a signal generator that generates a periodic waveform. The duty cycle of each signal generator is determined by a predetermined setting of a duty cycle control. The duty cycle of each signal generator is calculated to achieve a desired beam profile of the transducer array, such as acoustic focusing for reducing the level of grating lobes and side lobes. Apodization is achieved by varying the effective amplitude at each array element by varying the duty cycle of the signal provided to each element.

Sound waves that have a frequency greater than approximately 20 kHz are referred to in the art as "ultrasound." In the medical field, ultrasound waves are useful for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Medical diagnostic ultrasound systems are useful for generating images of anatomical structures within a target area of a patient's body. The images are obtained by scanning a target area with waves of ultrasound energy. In therapeutic ultrasound applications, high intensity ultrasound energy is transmitted into a target area to induce changes in state of the target. High-intensity focused ultrasound ("HIFU") pulses induce changes in tissue state through thermal effects (e.g., induced hyperthermia) and mechanical effects (e.g., induced cavitation).
The use of high intensity focused ultrasound to destroy tissue or to alter the characteristics of tissue at a target location, volume, region or area within a larger mass, body or area of anatomical tissue presents many advantages, including minimization of trauma and pain for the patient, reductions in surgical incisions, stitches and exposure of internal tissue, avoidance of damage to tissue other than that which is to be treated, altered or removed, lack of a harmful cumulative effect from the ultrasound energy on the surrounding non-target tissue, reduction in treatment costs, elimination of the need in many cases for general anesthesia, reduction of the risk of infection and other complications, avoidance of blood loss, and the ability for high intensity focused ultrasound procedures to be performed in non-hospital sites and/or on an out-patient basis.
In high-intensity focused ultrasound hyperthermia treatments, intensity of ultrasonic waves generated by a highly focused transducer increases from the source to the region of focus where it can reach a very high temperature. The absorption of the ultrasonic energy at the focus induces a sudden temperature rise of tissue, which causes ablation of a target volume of cells in the focal region. Thus, as an example, HIFU hyperthermia treatments can cause necrotization of an internal lesion without damage to the intermediate tissues. The focal region dimensions are referred to as the depth of field, and the distance from the transducer to the center point of the focal region is referred to as the depth of focus. Ultrasound is a promising non-invasive surgical technique because the ultrasonic waves provide a non-effective penetration of intervening tissues, yet with sufficiently low attenuation to deliver energy to a small focal target volume. Currently there is no other known modality that offers noninvasive, deep, localized focusing of non-ionizing radiation for therapeutic purposes. Thus, ultrasonic treatment has a great advantage over microwave and radioactive therapeutic treatment techniques.
The beam emitted by a single ultrasound focused transducer element is generally effective within a fixed region, called the "focal zone." This focal zone frequently is smaller than the size of the target tissue. Treatment of extensive targets is consequently a problem. A solution to this shortcoming is to utilize a transducer comprising a plurality of individual transducer elements arranged closely together to form an array. These arrays are focused at the desired treatment site through a combination geometric and electronic focusing. Geometric focusing is determined by the physical geometry of the array, while electronic focusing involves the use of phase delays and wave interference to achieve constructive interference at the target tissue. Electronic focusing allows movement of the treatment location without the need for mechanical movement of the array.
When a plurality of transducer elements are arranged in an array and are energized to propagate a steerable acoustic beam, the beam includes a main lobe, a plurality of small side lobes and one or more grating lobes. Grating lobes originate from acoustic waves that combine along various axes that differ from the axis of the main lobe. Grating lobes are present in the acoustic beams propagated from nearly all linear arrays and normally contain substantial energy. Side lobes are secondary points of focus outside the treatment region as a result of diffraction of the ultrasound waves passing through a structure, such as tissue or bone. The appearance of grating lobes and side lobes decreases the power radiated to the focal point, reducing the effectiveness of treatment.
It is known in the art to minimize grating lobes and side lobes by transmit apodization, wherein the effective drive amplitude of at least a portion of the elements of an array is varied to affect the shape of the beam. Varying the transmit amplitude at individual elements of the array typically requires the use of variable or switched-rail power supplies or inefficient linear amplifiers at each drive channel. Such drive mechanisms are slow, prohibitively bulky, and costly, particularly considering the large number of array elements present in a typical transducer and the number of element apodization levels necessary for beamshaping.
Pulse width variation has previously been considered for transmit apodization in association with ultrasound imaging, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,135,963 to Haider and U.S. Pat. No. 6,599,245 to Ma et al. As is well-known in the art, a relatively short transmit pulse is preferable for imaging, and a single pulse is often used. If a single pulse is apodized by adjusting its width, the frequency spectrum of the electrical signal supplied to the transducer to generate a corresponding ultrasound signal will likewise be significantly modified. Thus, if various transmit apodization pulse widths are applied to different array elements, the focusing, frequency spectrum and effective amplitude of the aggregate ultrasonic treatment signal emitted by the transducer will vary. This may result in undesired effects. For example, ultrasound array elements typically have limited bandwidth so there is a severe limit to the amount of useful apodization that is possible. In addition, if the transmit waveshapes are different between elements of an array, the aggregated ultrasound signals of the elements do not efficiently form a focused beam. Also, any electrical matching required to couple the electrical signal to a transducer element can drastically alter the transmit pulse shape. As a result, apodization is of limited value for ultrasound imaging.
The desired characteristics of transmit apodization of ultrasound signals for therapeutic purposes differs considerably from signals transmitted for imaging. In particular, therapeutic transducers transmit an ultrasonic pulse train for a relatively long period of time. As a result, the center of the frequency spectrum is retained generally at the pulse repetition frequency of the pulse train and is not "pulled," rolled-off or skewed as with a transient pulse or a pulse train of short duration. If the width of the repeating pulses is short, such as a repeating pulse train of narrow spikes, the frequency spectrum broadens out and decreases in amplitude, but the peak of the spectrum remains at the pulse repetition frequency. Likewise, as the duty cycle of the pulse train increases towards a symmetrical shape (i.e., approximately equal times in "high" and "low" logical states) the effective amplitude of an array element increases. As a result of these characteristics, transmit apodization of ultrasound signals in the manner known for imaging will not produce satisfactory results when applied to therapeutic ultrasound signals.
Still, scientists and engineers continue to seek improved ultrasound medical systems. There is a need for a more efficient way to achieve transmit apodization of therapeutic ultrasound transducers.

Transmit apodization of an ultrasound transducer array


A secondary battery is provided with a safety vent that can decrease the increased inner pressure of the secondary battery by being rapidly fractured when the inner pressure of the secondary battery is increased over a predetermined value. The secondary battery is constructed with a sealed outer case forming a receiving space in an inner side, an electrode assembly received in the receiving space of the outer case, a safety vent formed on one surface of the outer case, and a fracture induction part formed on the surface of the outer case and disposed at a portion of a circumference region of the safety vent. The fracture induction part is relatively thinner than the other portion of the surface of the outer case.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a secondary battery, and more particularly, a secondary battery including a safety vent that can prevent defective fracture, such as a leak, from being generated by an external impact, and that may be rapidly fractured so as to improve stability of the battery when an inner pressure of the battery is increased above a selected value.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the use increase of portable electronic devices such as cellular phones, portable computers and portable personal digital assistants (PDAs), and the lightweight trend of electric bicycles, electric cars, and electric tools, the importance of a battery used for a power supply by the electronic products have become paramount, thereby driving much research on the design of batteries.
The secondary battery especially can be recharged and minimized, and have large capacity. Thus, a nickel-hydrogen (Ni-MH) battery and a lithium (Li) battery are widely used. Further, with the high performance and supply expansion of the portable electronic devices, the market for a small secondary battery has been expanded.
The lithium secondary battery has an operating voltage of 3.6 V that is three times more than the nickel-cadmium (Ni—Cd) battery or the nickel-hydrogen (Ni-MH) battery that are usually used as a power supply for portable electronic devices. In addition, the lithium secondary battery has a higher energy density per unit weight. Accordingly, the lithium secondary battery has been increasingly used in portable radio frequency devices as well as in other engineering fields.
The lithium secondary battery uses lithium group oxides as their cathode active material, and carbon material as their anode active material. Generally, the lithium secondary battery is divided into a liquid electrolyte battery and a polymer electrolyte battery, depending on a kind of an electrolyte. The lithium secondary battery has been fabricated in various types, such as a cylinder type, an angled type and a pouch type.
When the lithium secondary battery is overcharged, decomposition of the electrolyte occurs at the cathode, and that lithium metal is extracted at the anode. Thus, the battery may be degraded, and heat generation or firing in the battery may take place. The lithium secondary battery may generate gas inside the battery by an electrochemical reaction, and thus the pressure inside the battery may increase and the lithium secondary battery expands and becomes swollen. When the battery is under abnormal conditions, such as the occurrence of an internal short circuit or an overcharge of the battery, the lithium secondary battery may over-expand due to the increase of the inner pressure, and thus the battery may be fractured to fatally affect the stability of the battery.
Accordingly, the lithium secondary battery uses a safety vent to emit the gas generated inside of the battery to the atmosphere when the inner pressure of the secondary battery raises above a selected value. The safety vent may be made by a mechanical method, an etching method or an electric molding method. The safety vent is formed by making a groove with a certain depth in a portion of a cap plate or a can of the lithium secondary battery.
When a contemporary safety vent was formed in the cap plate or the can of the lithium secondary battery, however, the manufacturing process customarily used for forming the groove with a certain depth in each battery is difficult. Accordingly, operating pressure of the safety vent formed in the lithium secondary battery may not be uniform, so the credibility of the safety vent and the secondary battery including the safety vent has been declined.
Therefore, the safety vent may not be rapidly fractured even when the inner pressure of the battery raises above a certain value, or may be undesirably and defectively fractured in a leak type by an external impact generated when the battery is dropped.

Gongse-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do


An improved cell array and sense amplifier structure and embodied method are disclosed. The structure exhibits an improved noise characteristic by decreasing a coupling noise which occurs between bit lines by using, as a reference bit line, a bit line from an array of memory cells other than the array to which the bit line belongs, thus forming a predetermined spacing between a bit line and a reference bit line. The structure includes: an upper sense amplifier having an input terminal commonly connected with a first pair of bit lines of an adjacent first cell array and another input terminal commonly connected with a first pair of bit lines of a non-adjacent second cell array; and a lower sense amplifier having an input terminal commonly connected with a second pair of bit lines of the second cell array and another input terminal connected with a second pair of bit lines of the first cell array.

FIG. 1 is a schematic circuit diagram illustrating a conventional memory cell array and sense amplifier structure of a semiconductor memory device.
As shown therein, cell arrays CA0 through CAn each include a folded bit line structure in which memory cells are arranged at the intersections between every other one of word lines WL0 through WLn and bit lines BL1, /BL1, . . . , BLn, /BLn.
Odd pairs of bit lines BL and /BL are connected to multiple sense amplifiers SA arranged in a circuit unit above the cell array CA0, through block selection switches 3 and 4. The bit lines BL and /BL are also connected, through bit line pre-charge switches 1 and 2 with a pre-charge voltage VBLP line and a supply unit (not shown).
Even pairs of bit lines BL and /BL are connected with corresponding sense amplifiers SA arranged in a circuit below the cell array CA0, through block selection switches 3 and 4. The bit lines are connected to a pre-charge voltage supply unit (not shown) by pre-charge line VBLP through bit line pre-charge switches 1 and 2. The gates of the switches 1 and 2 are connected to a pre-charge control line BA.
The neighboring cell arrays CA include common sense amplifiers SA, i.e., there is an array of sense amplifiers between each pair of cell arrays. The above-described cell arrays CA are connected in a multiple cell structure, for thus forming multiple cell arrays.
FIG. 2 is a schematic detailed circuit diagram illustrating a sense amplifier circuit as shown in the circuit of FIG. 1.
As shown therein, there are provided a PMOS transistor PM1, a first NMOS transistor NM1 and a second NMOS transistor NM2 which are connected in series between a voltage Vcc and a ground voltage Vss. The source of the transistor PM1 is connected to Vcc and the drain is connected to both the signal line SPC and the source of the transistor NM1. The drain of the transistor NM1 is connected to signal line SNC and the source of the transistor NM2. The drain of the transistor NM2 is connected to ground. The gate of the PMOS transistor PM1 is connected to the signal SPE. The gate of NMOS transistor NM2 is connected to signal line SNE. The gate of transistor NM1 is connected to signal line SAEQ. For NMOS transistors NM1 and NM2, a plurality of sense amplifiers SA are connected in parallel between the common drain SPC of the PMOS transistor PM1 and the common drain SNC of the NMOS transistor NM2.
The operation of the conventional cell array and sense amplifier structure will now be explained with reference to FIGS. 1 through 3H.
First, the block selection switches 3 and 4 are turned on by a high level block selection signal BS0 as shown in FIG. 3C. The occasion that the cell array CA0 is selected will now be explained.
When a row address strobe signal /RAS (which activates the DRAM) is a low level (as shown in FIG. 3A), a corresponding word line WL0 becomes high level (as shown in FIG. 3B), so that the data from the memory cells connected with the word line WL0 are carried on the bit line connected with the memory cells.
The bit line pre-charge switches 1 and 2 are turned off by a low level bit line pre-charge signal BPO (as shown in FIG. 3D), so that the bit lines carrying the data from the accessed memory cells are not pre-charged.
Therefore, the data carried on the bit lines are inputted into the sense amplifiers SA connected in the circuit units arranged above and below the cell array CA0 through the block selection switches 3 and 4.
As shown in FIGS. 3E and 3F, if the sense amplifier PMOS transistor enabling signal SPE and the sense amplifier equalizing signal SAEQ are both at the low level, and the sense amplifier NMOS transistor enabling signal SNE is at the high level, the PMOS transistor PM1 and the NMOS transistor NM2 of the sense amplifier controller are turned on, and the NMOS transistor NM1 is turned off, so that the P side drain line SPC, as shown in FIG. 3G, becomes the high level (Vcc), and the N side drain line SNC becomes the low level (Vss).
Therefore, the sense amplifiers SA connected in the circuit units arranged above and below the cell arrays SA0, as shown in FIG. 3H, are activated, and the sensing operation of the data carried on the bit lines is performed.
If the signal /RAS becomes a high level, the word line WL becomes low level, for thus blocking the output of the cell data, and the bit line pre-charge switches 1 and 2 are turned on by a high level bit line pre-charge signal BPO, so that the bit lines are pre-charged to a bit line pre-charge voltage VBLP.
In addition, if the sense amplifier PMOS transistor enabling signal SPE and the sense amplifier equalizing signal SAEQ are both at a high level, and the sense amplifier NMOS transistor enabling signal SNE is at a low level, the NMOS transistor NM1 is turned on, so that the drain lines SPC and SNC, as shown in FIG. 3G, are equalized to the bit line pre-charge voltage VBLP.
However, in the conventional cell array and sense amplifier, since the bit line pairs of the bit line BL and the bit line /BL neighbor each other, coupling noise may easily occur therebetween.
Namely, if the word line WL is at the high level, the charges from the activated cells move along the bit line BL. At this time, if the neighboring reference bit lines /BL are influenced by the coupling capacitance, the voltage difference between the bit lines BL and the bit lines /BL is decreased, so that tolerance of noise is reduced during data sensing, i.e., sensitivity to noise increases.
In addition, as the data storage capacity of the DRAM is increased, and as the spacing between the bit lines is decreased, the above-described problems become more exaggerated.

Cell array and sense amplifier structure exhibiting improved noise characteristic and reduced size


A light emission apparatus that can restrict deterioration of resin used for the light emission apparatus, and that has a reasonable structure fit for actual use is provided, in which a light reflective layer is provided to cover the side surfaces of the chips 26 provided in the concave 2a. According to this, excitation light reflected by the phosphor layer 32, such as ultraviolet light, is reflected again by the light reflective layer 27. Therefore, the excitation light will not reach the resin layer 21, thereby restraining the deterioration of the resin. Moreover, the light reflective layer 27 covers the side surfaces of the chips 26, thereby efficiently conducting the heat emitted from the chips 26 to the metal substrate 20 via the resin layer 21. This improves the heat-dissipation efficiency of the chips 26.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light emission apparatus used as a light source of an illumination apparatus and of a display, and in particular relates to a technology for restricting deterioration in resin materials used in such a light emission apparatus.
(2) Related Art
Recently, in the field of illumination apparatuses, LED is getting attention as a light source. This is because with LED, light emitting energy can be expected to be improved in the future by research and development. Moreover, with LED, a surface light source with high intensity can be obtained by mounting a plurality of LEDs.
An example of surface light source using LEDs is disclosed in "Optical display" Ohm MOOK Hikari series No. 2, Ohmsha Ltd., Feb. 25, 2002, p. 46–52. In this document, a plurality of shell-type white LEDs are arranged on a substrate. Here, the shell-type white LED has a structure of molding LED chips emitting light having comparatively high energy such as blue to violet light (hereinafter, such a light is referred to as "excitation light"), with use of a resin in which phosphor particles that emit red, green, and blue lights by means of the excitation light are mixed (refer to published Japanese translation of a PCT application No. 2000-509912).
Incidentally, the resin generally deteriorates because the atom coupling is cut by means of the energy that the light has. In particular, the excitation light has a high energy, and so the deterioration in resin is prominent.
With the shell-type white LED, its chip has been molded by a resin. The resin is easy to deteriorate by means of the excitation light, and so turns yellow thereby changing light-emitting color, or cracks which then incurs entry of water, thereby deactivating the phosphor particles from the entered water, or increasing leak current in a case where the water adheres to the surface of the LED chips. In addition, the shell-type white LEDs are so-called discrete parts that emit white light independently from one another, therefore have limitation in enhancing mounting density, and incur large cost.
In view of the above problems, it is desired to structure a high-intensity surface light source, without using such a shell-type white LED.
In order to satisfy such a request, a hybrid structure has been considered in which LED chips, in a necessary number, are mounted on the substrate with high density, on which a phosphor film is disposed. By this hybrid structure, the excitation light emitted from all the mounted LED chips is converted into visible light by means of the phosphor film. With this structure, the mounting density of the LED chips is enhanced, while using the existing chip mounting technology. This is advantageous with a view towards easy implementation and cost-effectiveness.
In spite of these advantages, however, the hybrid structure is expected to have a problem that, since all the excitation light emitted from the LED chips will not be converted into visible light by the phosphor film, a part of the excitation light will be reflected on the resin covering the insulating substrate, to deteriorate the resin. Use of a ceramic substrate works to counter this problem. However, because of being expensive, the ceramic substrate is not suitable for this use if it requires numerous chips and so requires a large area. Other means can be also considered, such as reducing the amount of excitation light that is reflected from the phosphor film, or processing the substrate to be light resistant, in particular to be ultraviolet resistant. However, there is a limitation in preventing the excitation light from reflection. In addition, new problems are considered to arise. One example is that a heat emitted from the LED chip will be accumulated thereby deteriorating thermal-dissipation characteristic, in a case where, in an attempt to delay deterioration, a substrate is used that has a thick resin layer as a means to process the substrate to be light resistant. These problems similarly happen for the display in which numerous LED chips are disposed (in this specification, a combination of an illumination apparatus and a display is defined as "light emission apparatus").

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A computer system for conducting an electronic financial asset deposit auction over a computer network such as the Internet. The computer system includes a computer connected to the Internet, which performs the following functions: (1) receiving an electronic deposit application form from a prospective depositor; (2) providing such application to a deposit authorizer's computer over the computer network for approval; (3) receiving an electronic message from the deposit authorizer's computer indicating whether or not such deposit has been approved; (4) entering the deposit application into a database that is accessible to bidder/borrowers via the computer network, if the deposit is approved; and (5) maintaining the deposit application in the database for a predetermined period time during which bidder/borrowers may submit bids and the prospective depositor may accept a bid.

Traditionally, a person in need to find the highest return for his financial asset such as cash or shares will be faced with a number of difficult choices where he/she is faced with many offerings being maintained in accordance to a fix number of pre-determined criteria. He/she is asked to search a number of banking sites in order to find the best rates/offerings. While it is not difficult to see the depositing requirements for cash in the form of a fixed deposits or quick 24 hours rate, this invention also includes other type of financial assets such as shares which can be temporarily "lend" or deposited to a borrower in return for some interest cost. Share lending may not be well-known outside of the financial circle but it is widely practise since one of the criteria for shorting a market is to have shares-on-hand. Speculators who "short" a market do not have shares to begin with and if a market should go against them, they may have to resort to buying these shares back (which can be expensive) or temporary "borrow" them in the belief that the "rental" cost is less than the profits earned when the market does fall.
The current situation allows for prospective depositors to do manual search in accordance to his risk/return requirements and the credit risk of the Institution that provides such a facility. This invention improves on this by providing a discovery method using auction and includes a method where such financial institution or borrowers are checked for their credit suitability prior to allowing them to participate. While there are major portal such as Yahoo! and others that provide independent links to the such enabling institutions, they rarely help in determining the best deal. A search engine is only as good as the information provided for it to functions. Beyond that, it does not have the capabilities to capture risk/return values perceived by others. It can only provide the information but not the analysis. This Invention uses the auction method as an alternative to discovering a better result and hopefully the underlying analysis is reflected as well in regards to a particular risk/return requirement.
In this traditional way of looking for a good deal, the choice of using a search engine is rather limited—they are generally localised to the data captured by the database. Moreover, in order to compare different borrowers, the depositor needs to individually contact each one to determine their suitability in accordance to his risk/return preferences. There may be some straight vanilla offerings such as fixed term interest rate or a combination of fixed and floating or negotiable rates which the depositor must individually seek out.
The drawbacks for obtaining a suitable return through an agency or search portal is that (1) a limitation to data captured on the database be in on the Internet or from papers; (2) searching service is very time consuming and consequently expensive; (3) dealing with a regular agency is limited to regular business hours and they may not be independent; and (4) quality of borrowers varies and depositors usually are not able to ascertain their qualities.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system for conducting an electronic financial asset depositing auction wherein a prospective lender/depositor's requirements and contacts are auctioned off to a large number of potential borrower to get or discover the best rate within the shortest possible time;
It is an another object of the present invention to include financial assets such as shares in such a lending; and
It is a further object of the present invention that such financial asset depositing auction be conducted by using a computer network or networks, such as the Internet, which is accessible to a great number of prospective borrowers, as well as a great number of lenders.

System and method for conducting an electronic financial asset deposit auction over computer network


The present invention is directed to a method of dynamically controlling and displaying an Internet browser interface, and to a dynamically controllable Internet browser interface. In accordance with the present invention, a browser interface may be customized using a controlling software program that may be provided by an Internet content provider, an ISP, or that may reside on an Internet user's computer. The controlling software program enables the Internet user, the content provider, or the ISP to customize and control the information and/or functionality of a user's browser and browser interface.

When accessing the Internet (i.e., the worldwide web, the web, etc.), an Internet user typically executes, via a computer, a browser software program such as, for example, Netscape Navigator™ or Microsoft Internet Explorer™. The browser program (i.e., a browser) establishes a physical link to the Internet (via a modem and an Internet Service Provider (ISP), for example) and also provides a textual and graphical user interface, i.e., a browser interface, having a predetermined look and functionality, neither of which can currently be significantly changed by the Internet user. Thus, the browser interface remains relatively static as the Internet user navigates the Internet and moves from application to application or HTML (Hyper-text Mark-up Language) page to HTML page.
Limited control of the browser interface is currently available via an executable software program that may, for example, add functional buttons to the interface. However, the additional functionality is added to the browser interface when the browser is initially activated and remains static thereafter. Thus, it is not possible for a browser displaying a browser interface modified as just-described to dynamically download information from an Internet site and customize itself, either when the browser is initiated or as the users traverses the Internet. Such a modified browser interface also does not provide access to the various browser Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Plug-ins and interfaces.
The proliferation of Internet sites makes it increasingly difficult for content providers (i.e., owners of Internet sites) to maximize the time an Internet user spends at a particular Internet site. It is, of course, desirable for a content provider to be able to maximize that time an Internet user spends at that provider's Internet site, or to ensure that an Internet user returns to the content provider's site; this being generally referred to in the art as stickiness. It is also desirable to maximize the number of Internet users accessing a content provider's site. Briefly stated, an Internet content provider wants to attract a maximum number of Internet users to that provider's Internet site, and to maximize the amount of time those Internet users remain at that site; neither of which is possible using current Internet browsers.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method of controlling an Internet browser interface and a controllable browser interface


A method for forming plastic parisons to plastic bottles includes the following steps: introducing in a blow mold a plastic parison to be expanded, the blow mold having at least two lateral parts and a base part that is mobile in relation to said lateral parts in a longitudinal direction of the plastic parison; inserting a rod-shaped element in the interior of the plastic parison through a mouth of the plastic parison; applying a first pressure the plastic parison, applying a second pressure to the plastic parison, the second pressure deviating from the first pressure and being higher than the first pressure, applying a third pressure to the plastic parison, the third pressure deviating from the second pressure and being higher than the second pressure. The base part is advanced in the longitudinal direction of the plastic parison while at least temporarily applying the second pressure to the plastic parison.

The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for transforming plastic parisons into plastic containers and in particular plastic bottles. Such methods and apparatus have been known for a long time from the prior art. In this case heated plastic parisons are usually introduced into blow moulds and pressurised inside these blow moulds, so that a plastic container or a plastic bottle can be shaped. In this case different pressure stages are usually applied to the plastic parisons. Thus, it is for example known that first of all a preliminary blow moulding pressure is applied which serves for the first expansion of the container, followed by an intermediate blow moulding pressure and lastly a final blow moulding pressure. Furthermore, it is known from the prior art that for expansion of the containers a so-called stretching rod is inserted into the containers in order to stretch them. In addition, methods are also known from the prior art in which during the expansion process a base part of the blow mould is advanced towards the containers. Such methods are also designated as active base methods.
The object of the present invention is to improve such methods in particular with regard to the shaping of the plastic containers. In particular the shaping of the base region of such containers should be improved.

Method and apparatus for blow moulding of containers with a movable base part


A system and method is provided for identifying, accessing, and managing service applications for use with associated consumer electronic devices in a home network system. A client side process, executed by a client computing system in the home network system, operates in conjunction with a server side process executed by a server computing system that is coupled with the client computing system via the Internet. The client computing system is implemented by a gateway device coupled with each of the devices via the home network. The client side process includes the steps of: determining device ID information associated with at least one selected one of the consumer electronic devices in the home network system; determining a home network system configuration profile based at least on the device ID information; providing the home network system configuration profile to a selected server computing system via the Internet; downloading an application from the selected server computing system, the application being operative to provide a process associated with the selected electronic devices; and executing the downloaded application at the gateway device to provide a remote interactive process associated with the selected electronic devices.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to home network systems, and more specifically to a system and method for downloading selected multimedia content and applications based on a home network system configuration profile.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Modern home network systems provide interoperability of a variety of different types of consumer electronics devices used in a common home environment. Examples of such devices include workstations, personal computers, digital televisions, Personal Video Recorders (PVR's), set-top boxes, digital video recorders, game devices, personal digital assistants (PDA's), printers, audio devices (e.g., jukebox AV systems, CD players and mini-disc players), and audio/video (AV) hard drives providing additional storage of AV data that may be streamed to other devices. Home network systems provide for sharing of the resources of each of the electronics device in order to accomplish more sophisticated applications by providing seamless exchange of instructions and AV data between the peripheral devices.
In order to handle the exchange of both commands and multiple digital AV streams, a home network must employ a networking standard that guarantees quality of service. A number of flexible home network standards have been developed. As an example, the Home Audio Video interoperability (HAVi) standard, developed by eight major Consumer Electronics companies including Sony Corporation, provides a home network architecture is open, scaleable in implementation complexity, platform independent, and language neutral. The HAVi architecture uses the digital IEEE-1394 serial interface standard which is a high speed bus that meets the required multimedia bandwidth requirements and provides quality of service. HAVi is based on the IEEE-1394 standard, to allow devices to send and receive digital commands and streams of digital AV content at speeds up to 400 Mbps. Other home networks use Ethernet.
It is common that at least one of the devices in a home network system, such as a PC, will be configured to access the Internet. The Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) is an industry group working to define and promote an open standard for connecting the coming generation of smart consumer and small business appliances with commercial Internet services. The Open Services Gateway specification will provide a common foundation for Internet Service Providers, network operators and equipment manufacturers to deliver a wide range of e-services via gateway servers running in the home or remote office. However, there as yet no system and method for providing e-services for operating, maintaining, and diagnosing problems associated with consumer electronic devices via gateway servers running in the home or remote office.
The benefit of a network of interoperable devices is that the whole is greater than the sum of all the components. Home networks enable sharing of device resources in order to accomplish sophisticated applications by providing seamless exchange of instructions and AV data between electronic devices in the home network. Home network systems typically allow for configuring at least one device (e.g., a personal computer system) to be a controlling device that is operative to provide for remotely controlling other electronic devices in the home network system. For example, a user may program a recording on a VCR following a menu generated by the TV on the TV screen.
In HAVi standard home networks, there is no single controlling device. Any device in the network that has been designed to do so can control other devices. In order for a controlling device to control a particular controlled device in a home network, the controlling device must be able to access a particular application having instructions executable by the controlling device for controlling a particular controlled device, or providing other services associated with the device.
Some of the electronic devices in a home network system may be packaged and sold with a disk having an associated control application stored thereon for controlling the device. For these devices, the control application could be loaded to the controlling device from the disk. However, for other electronic devices, it may be that no compatible application is available.
The types of applications and media contents which may be used in a particular home network system depends on the particular configuration and capabilities of the system. Each home network system may include different types of consumer electronic devices and different types of means for interconnecting the devices. Adding new electronics devices to a home network system often expands the capabilities of the home network to execute different types of applications and media content. Because there are so many different configurations for a home network system, it is difficult for a user to be able to determine what types of applications and media content may be used in his or her home network as it is currently configured.
What is needed is a system and method for identifying and accessing applications and media content that may be used in a particular home network system.

Content and application download based on a home network system configuration profile


In view of the foregoing, an improved handheld electronic device having a reduced keyboard provides facilitated language entry by making available to a user certain words that a user may reasonably be expected to enter. Incoming data, such as the text of a message, can be scanned for proper nouns, for instance, since such proper nouns might not already be stored in memory and might be expected to be entered by the user when, for example, forwarding or responding to the message. A proper noun can be identified, for instance, on the basis that it begins with an upper case letter. The proper nouns can be stored, for example, in memory that may, by way of further example, be a temporary dictionary.

1. Field
The invention relates generally to handheld electronic devices and, more particularly, to a handheld electronic device that has a reduced keyboard and that facilitates the entry of text in communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples of such handheld electronic devices include, for instance, personal data assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones and the like. Many handheld electronic devices also feature a wireless or other communication capability, although other handheld electronic devices are stand-alone devices that are functional without communication with other devices. Such handheld electronic devices are generally intended to be portable, and thus are of a relatively compact configuration in which keys and other structures often perform multiple functions under certain circumstances or may otherwise have multiple aspects or features assigned thereto. With advances in technology, handheld electronic devices are built to have progressively smaller form factors yet have progressively greater numbers of applications and features resident thereon. As a practical matter, the keys of a keypad can only be reduced to a certain small size before the keys become relatively unusable.
In language entry applications, such as in a messaging or e-mail application, a keypad must be capable of generating substantially all of the elements desirable or necessary to form the relevant language. For example, in a language that employs Latin letters, a keypad must be capable of generating substantially all twenty-six of the Latin letters. In order to provide such functionality with relatively few keys, some keypads have included multiple linguistic elements per key, such as providing a plurality of Latin letters on each of at least some of the keys when the keypad is used to generate a language that employs Latin letters.
In order to make use of the multiple linguistic elements on any given key, numerous keystroke interpretation systems have been provided. For instance, a "multi-tap system" allows a user to substantially unambiguously specify a particular linguistic element, for example, on a key by pressing the same key a number of times equal to the position of the desired linguistic element on the key. Anther keystroke interpretation system includes key chording in which keys are pressed in various combinations to achieve particular results. Still another keystroke interpretation system might include a disambiguation routine which seeks to interpret the keystrokes in view of stored dictionary data, linguistic rules, stored algorithms, and/or the like.
While such disambiguation systems have been generally effective for their intended purposes, such disambiguation systems are not without limitation. In certain applications, the function of a disambiguation routine can be cumbersome if a user must expend substantial effort in entering language. One such situation in which this may occur is in the context of a word that may not already be in the stored dictionary. Another exemplary situation in which this may occur is when a word is already be stored in the dictionary but is considered to have a relatively low frequency, and this may require significant input effort by the user to achieve the desired word. Also, a desired word may not already be stored in the dictionary of the device. It thus would be desirable to provide a handheld electronic device having a reduced keyboard wherein the device might make available to a user words and the like that the user might reasonably be expected to enter, with such availability being provided substantially without introducing a significant processing burden on the device. Such words and the like might, for example, be somewhat unconventional.
Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the specification.

Handheld electronic device with reduced keyboard and associated method of providing improved disambiguation with reduced degradation of device performance


A milling system for a milling machine includes at least one cutting assembly configured to be coupled to a drum. Each of the cutting assemblies includes a base portion and an impact portion. The base portion includes a standoff coupled to the drum, a first base block coupled to the standoff, and a second base block coupled to the standoff at a position upstream of the first base block in a direction of rotation of the drum and at angle from the first base block. The impact portion includes a cutting bit and a tool holder coupled to the first base block, and a protective element coupled to the second base block.

The present invention relates to milling machines that are used to repair and/or reclaim a road surface. Milling machines are typically utilized to break up one or more layers of an old or defective road or other surface. Machines, such as cold planers, rotary mixers, and other milling machines, are used for scarifying, removing, mixing, or reclaiming material from ground surfaces, such as, grounds, roadbeds, and the like. Such machines include a rotor enclosed within a rotor chamber. The rotor includes a cylindrical shell member, or drum, and a number of cutting assemblies mounted on the shell member. When the machine is performing a cutting operation, cutting bits of the cutting assemblies impact the surface and break the surface apart. Thus, the cutting assemblies are arranged to cut the surface and to leave a milled surface, and different cutting assemblies often leave milled surfaces with different finishes, for example, textures, mixtures (e.g., with an emulsion fluid, water, etc.), densities, roughnesses, etc. One or more portions of the cutting assemblies or the drum may be adjusted and/or replaced in order to modify the resulting milled surface. Furthermore, one or more portions of the cutting assemblies may break, wear down, or otherwise require maintenance or replacement, leading to machine downtime.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,979, issued to Latham on Mar. 23, 1996 ("the '979 patent"), describes a cutting assembly that includes a cylindrical driven member with a surface that includes a plurality of recesses in a preselected pattern, with each recess including a bottom surface depressed below the surface of the cylindrical driven member. The '979 patent also includes a plurality of cutting bit holding elements. Each cutting bit holding element includes an aperture to receive a cutting bit and a lower portion sized to be received within one of the recesses in the cylindrical driven member. Each cutting bit holding element includes a locating element, and each recess includes a niche, such that the locating elements and the niches can be aligned to help ensure proper alignment of the cutting bit holding elements within the recesses. However, the cutting assembly of the '979 patent may not provide sufficient support, adjustment, or protection of the cutting elements on the cutting assembly, and servicing the cutting assembly of the '979 patent may require special tools. The systems and methods of the present disclosure may solve one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the art. The scope of the current disclosure, however, is defined by the attached claims, and not by the ability to solve any specific problem.

Milling systems and methods for a milling machine


A driver for a liquid crystal device includes a plurality of common drivers having a first common driver and a last common driver for comb-like driving that is coupled in cascade connection and a frequency divider that produces a second clock for interlaced driving by halving a period of a first clock that is provided from outside for serving as a basis of driving the drivers regarding each of the common drivers for comb-like driving aside from the first common driver and the last common driver. A converter circuit converts two periods of output data that are output in response to input data corresponding to one period of the first clock into one period of output data by using the second clock regarding input and output data of each of the common drivers for comb-like driving.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driver for a liquid crystal device, and more particularly to a driver for a liquid crystal device that is used with multiple common drivers for comb-like driving in cascade connection.
2. Description of Related Art
Mobile devices such as cellular phones have been widely used in recent years. Liquid crystal display (hereinafter called LCD) panels for such mobile devices, in particular cellular phones, employ simple matrix display, active matrix display, or other technologies. Simple matrix display technology turns pixels on with electrodes placed lengthwise and crosswise of a display, while active matrix display technology turns each element forming a pixel on and off.
More specifically, active matrix display technology includes thin-film transistor (TFT) display technology, which uses transistors incorporated in each pixel, and thin-film diode (TFD) display technology, which uses diodes incorporated in each pixel. Among other things, TFD display technology provides as wide a range of contrast and colors as TFT display technology for representing moving images and natural colors with low power consumption. Thus TFD display technology is expected to be widely used for cellular phones and other devices in the near future.
When an LCD panel utilizing one of the above-mentioned display technologies is mounted on a mobile device, particularly on a cellular phone, the size (in particular, the width) of its outer case is almost predetermined. Therefore, if a segment driver (or an X driver, hereinafter referred to as a SEG driver) that is coupled to a segment electrode of the LCD panel and a common driver (or a Y driver, hereinafter referred to as a COM driver) that is coupled to a common electrode are put together with the LCD panel in the case, the SEG driver is placed below the LCD panel, while the COM driver is placed to the left or right of the LCD panel. As a result, the display of the LCD panel is placed to the left or right from the center of the case.
To solve this problem, the COM driver that is originally placed to the left or right of the LCD panel is usually divided into two to be placed at both sides of the SEG driver (that is, placed to the left and right of the SEG driver) below the LCD panel. Thus the SEG and COM drivers for driving the LCD panel are placed below the LCD panel, while no driver is placed on the other three sides of the LCD panel. Consequently, the LCD panel is placed on the center of the case without tilting to the left or right.
For driving such an LCD panel whose COM driver is divided into two, the following two methods can be used. One is, as shown in FIG. 10, coupling a first COM driver Y1 and a second COM driver Y2 in cascade connection, sending input data from a SEG driver X to the first COM driver Y1, and thereby driving each shift register circuit in the first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2 sequentially so as to drive an LCD panel line by line from the top to the bottom. The other is, as shown in FIG. 11, scanning the LCD panel alternately from the right and left in a comb-like manner. Here, the latter is defined as comb-like driving.
In this comb-like driving method, the first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2 conduct a line scan alternately from the right and left on an LCD panel. The same input data are simultaneously input from the SEG driver X to the first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2. Moreover, by providing data that define scanning of the second COM driver Y2 follows scanning of the first COM driver Y1, each of the first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2 alternately drives scanning lines sequentially from the top to the bottom as shown in FIG. 11 (starting from line one to lines two, three, four, etc.).
The first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2 for comb-like driving that drive an LCD panel in a comb-like manner may be coupled in cascade connection for consecutive driving as shown in FIG. 12. This enables the first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2 for comb-like driving to operate in cascade connection, which can enhance their utility as a driver integrated circuit on the whole.
However, multiple common drivers for comb-like driving in cascade connection involve the following problem. The problem is described below with reference to FIGS. 13 to 15.
FIG. 13 shows the first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2 for comb-like driving in cascade connection. FIG. 14 shows input and output data, a clock signal, and shift register outputs O1 to O60 of the first COM driver Y1, while FIG. 15 shows input and output data, a clock signal, and shift register outputs O1′ to O60′ of the second COM driver Y2. It should be noted that external output data DYO (A) from the first COM driver Y1 is input data DYI (B) for the second COM driver Y2, and the timing of the external output data DYO (A) shown in FIG. 14 is identical to the timing of the input data DYI (B) shown in FIG. 15. Although FIGS. 14 and 15 should be put together in a drawing in chronological order, they are shown separately due to space limitations. Here, the first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2 each include a built-in shift register circuit having sixty flip-flops. The drawings show an example of the common line of each driver with sixty outputs.
Each of the COM drivers for comb-like driving produces a clock (hereinafter called an internal signal XINH) for interlaced driving by halving a period of a basic clock (hereinafter called an external signal YSCL) provided from outside for driving the drivers. Then the drivers reduce the external signal YSCL by one period with the internal signal XINH so as to produce a reduced clock (hereinafter called an internal signal YSCL), which enables the drivers to conduct comb-like driving.
In the first COM driver Y1 shown in FIGS. 13 and 14, DYI (A) represents input data (triggering the first COM driver Y1 and corresponding to one period of the external signal YSCL) that is input to the first COM driver Y1 from a SEG driver not shown in the drawings, and DYO (A) represents output data (showing an end of operations of a period of the shift register) of the first COM driver Y1. The output data DYO (A) from the first COM driver Y1 are sent to the second COM driver Y2, so as to serve as the input data DYI (B) of the second COM driver Y2.
The sixty flip-flops included in the built-in shift register circuit of the first COM driver Y1 for comb-like driving provide outputs O1 to O60 corresponding to two periods of the external signal YSCL as data for scanning each common line (Nos. 1 to 60) based on the input data DYI (A) corresponding to one period of the external signal YSCL. The flip-flops also provide the output data DYO (A) by two periods of the external signal YSCL.
As shown in FIGS. 13 and 15, the output data DYO (A) from the first COM driver Y1 and corresponding to two periods of the external signal YSCL are sent to the second COM driver Y2, so as to serve as the input data DYI (B) of the second COM driver Y2 for comb-like driving. As a result, the sixty flip-flops included in the built-in shift register circuit of the second COM driver Y2 for comb-like driving provide outputs O1′ to O60′ corresponding to four periods of the external signal YSCL as data for scanning each common line (Nos. 61 to 120) based on the input data DYI (B) corresponding to two periods of the external signal YSCL. The flip-flops also provide output data DYO (B) corresponding to four periods of the external signal YSCL.
However, multiple COM drivers for comb-like driving in cascade connection used as described above involve the following problem. The output data DYO (A) from the first COM driver Y1 for comb-like driving are output by two periods of the external signal YSCL, which is a basic clock provided from outside for driving the drivers. This hinders intended operations of the second COM drivers for comb-like driving in cascade connection.
To put it differently, when the first and second COM drivers Y1 and Y2 for comb-like driving in cascade connection scan lines as shown in FIG. 12, the scanning data of two periods output from the built-in flip-flops make the drivers scan every two lines as intended in the upper half of the LCD panel in the same manner as comb-like driving shown in FIG. 11. However, in the lower half the scanning data of four periods output from the built-in flip-flops make the drivers scan two lines simultaneously with a one-line interval. Consequently, two lines are active at a time, which doubles energy consumption of a driver integrated circuit on the whole.
In consideration of the above-mentioned problem, the invention aims to provide a driver for a liquid crystal device that not only can operate the second and following COM drivers normally in using multiple COM drivers for comb-like driving in cascade connection, but also can reduce energy consumption.


An optical fiber segment holder includes a lens holder body comprising a mating surface having a light transmissive material. At least one optical fiber segment is disposed in the lens holder body. The at least one optical fiber segment having an end face located behind the mating surface such that light travels to or from the at least one optical fiber segment through the mating surface.

Benefits of optical fiber include extremely wide bandwidth and low noise operation. Because of these advantages, optical fiber is increasingly being used for a variety of applications, including but not limited to broadband voice, video, and data transmission. Fiber optic networks employing optical fiber are being developed and used to deliver voice, video, and data transmissions to subscribers over both private and public networks. These fiber optic networks often include separated connection points linking optical fibers to provide "live fiber" from one connection point to another connection point. In this regard, fiber optic equipment is located in data distribution centers or central offices to support optical fiber interconnections.
Fiber optic connectors are provided to facilitate optical connections with optical fibers for the transfer of light. For example, optical fibers can be optically connected (i.e., in optical communication with) to another optical device, such as a light-emitting diode (LED), laser diode, or opto-electronic device for light transfer. As another example, optical fibers can be optically connected to other optical fibers through mated fiber optic connectors. In any of these cases, it is important that the end face of an optically connected optical fiber be precisely aligned with the optical device or other optical fiber to avoid or reduce coupling loss. For example, the optical fiber is disposed through a ferrule that precisely locates the optical fiber with relation to the fiber optic connector housing.
It is common to provide flat end-faced multi-fiber ferrules to more easily facilitate multiple optical fiber connections between the fiber optic connector supporting the ferrule and other fiber optic connectors or other optical devices. In this regard, it is important that fiber optic connectors be designed to allow the end faces of the optical fibers disposed in the ferrule to be placed into contact or closely spaced with an optical device or other optical fiber for light transfer. In conventional multi-fiber, fiber optic connectors for telecommunication applications, the excess fiber is removed by laser cleaving and the remaining protruding fiber may be precision polished to form a highly planar fiber array. This high precision polishing can be costly, difficult and time consuming.
Gradient index (GRIN) lenses offer an alternative to high precision polishing. GRIN lenses focus light through a precisely controlled radial variation of the lens material's index of refraction from the optical axis to the edge of the lens. The internal structure of this index gradient can dramatically reduce the need for tightly controlled surface curvatures and results in a simple, compact lens. This allows a GRIN lens with flat surfaces to collimate light emitted from an optical fiber or to focus an incident beam into an optical fiber. The GRIN lens can be provided in the form of a glass rod that is disposed in a lens holder as part of a fiber optic connector. The flat surfaces of a GRIN lens allow easy bonding or fusing of one end to an optical fiber disposed inside the fiber optic connector with the other end of the GRIN lens disposed on the ferrule end face. The flat surface on the end face of a GRIN lens can reduce aberrations, because the end faces can be polished to be planar or substantially planar to the end face of the ferrule. The flat surface of the GRIN lens allows for easy cleaning of end faces of the GRIN lens. It is important that the GRIN lens holder be designed with internal holders that place and secure the GRIN lenses in alignment with the desired angular accuracy to avoid or reduce coupling loss.

Optical fiber segment holders including shielded optical fiber segments, connectors, and methods


The invention relates to an ink-jet recording apparatus having a nozzle provided on a nozzle face of an ink-jet head and a cleaning device for cleaning the nozzle face. The cleaning device contains a gas with a solubility in water lower than that of air in water.

This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-290116, filed Oct. 3, 2005, which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-jet recording apparatus which ejects a water-based ink on a recording medium from a nozzle provided on a nozzle face of an ink-jet head.
2. Description of Related Art
In an inkjet recording method, an ink droplet is discharged from a fine nozzle, and then adheres onto a recording medium to form a recording. Various types of ink discharge methods may be used, including an electrostatic attraction method, a drop-on-demand method in which mechanical vibration or displacement is applied to an ink by using a piezoelectric element, and a thermal ink-jet method in which a bubble is generated by heating the ink.
An ordinary ink-jet recording apparatus is schematically shown in FIG. 3. This ink-jet recording apparatus 110 comprises a carriage 4 in which an ink-jet head unit 3 having an ink cartridge 1 and an ink-jet head 2 is mounted, a carriage drive unit (not shown) which reciprocates the carriage 4 along a carriage guide rod 5, a platen roller 6 which is disposed opposite to the ink-jet head unit 3 and transports a recording paper, a purge device 7 which aspirates the residual ink, which may contain bubbles or have an inappropriate composition, from the nozzle face 2a of the ink-jet head 2, and a rubber wiper 8 for wiping ink or a foreign matter from the surface of the nozzle face 2a at the home position.
Nevertheless, when the nozzle face 2a is repeatedly wiped by using the rubber wiper 8, there is a problem in that, for example, a fine scratch may sometimes be generated on the nozzle face or an ink repellant layer formed on an outermost surface of the nozzle face 2a may sometimes be removed. This causes the ink or dust tends to gradually deposit on the nozzle face 2a, which then leads to deterioration of recording quality.
The nozzle face 2a may also be cleaned in a non-contact matter by blowing off the ink or foreign matter using a gas.


A colored laundry detergent is provided that brightens on exposure to light.

WO2011/011799 (Procter and Gamble) discloses violet thiophene dyes containing a cationic group covalently bound to alkoxy groups for use in laundry detergents for whitening textiles.
To obtain other aesthetic colours in the detergent, violet cationic thiophene dyes are mixed with additional dyes. Colour brightness is a key attribute of colour that the consumer desires. Consumers do not like dull colours.


The present invention comprises a new class of compounds capable of modulating the c-kit receptor and, accordingly, useful for treatment of c-kit mediated diseases, including various inflammatory, fibrotic and/or mast cell mediated diseases such as mastocytosis. The compounds have a general Formula I

C-kit is a receptor tyrosine kinase expressed on the surface of mast cells, to which stem cell factor (SCF) is a ligand. Aberrant c-kit signaling is believed to be a mediator of certain autoimmune diseases. Binding of SCF to the c-kit receptor mediates various functions of the mast cell. As an important mediator of mast cell function, c-kit is thought to also play a role in pathologies associated with mast cells (MC). C-kit functions through mast cell generation, which plays an important role in triggering autoimmune diseases. Mast cells are tissue elements derived from a particular subset of hematopoietic stem cells that express CD34, c-kit and CD13 antigens (Kirshenbaum et al., Blood 94:2333-2342, 1999 and Ishizaka et al, Curr. Opinion Immunol. 5:937-943, 1993). Mast cells are characterized by their heterogeneity, not only regarding tissue location and structure but also at the functional and histochemical levels (Aldenberg and Enerback, Histochem. J. 26:587-596, 1994; Bradding et al., J. Immunol. 155:297-307, 1995, Irani et al., J. Immunol. 147:247-253, 1991).
Mast cells are thought to participate in the destruction of tissues by releasing various proteases and mediators categorized into three groups: pre-formed granule associated mediators (histamine, proteoglycans, and neutral proteases), lipid-derived mediators (prostaglandins, thromboxanes, and leucotrienes), and various cytokines, including IL-1, IL-2, IL-3, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, TNFα, GM-CSF, MIP-1a, MIP-1b, MIP-2 and IFNγ. The liberation of these mediators induces and activates various components of immune response involved in autoimmune diseases, and also promotes the tissue destruction process.
Activation of the auto-immune response is postulated to be caused by, or stimulated from, the degranulation of mast cells. Immature MC progenitors circulate in the blood stream and differentiate in the tissues. These differentiation and proliferation processes are influenced by various cytokines. Stem Cell Factor (SCF) and IFNγ are two cytokines which are important in influencing such processes. The SCF receptor is encoded by the proto-oncogene c-kit, which belongs to the type III receptor tyrosine kinase subfamily (Boissan and Arock, J. Leukoc. Biol. 67:135-148, 2000), along with PDGF and cFMS. Ligation of c-kit receptor by SCF induces its dimerization followed by its transphosphorylation, leading to the recruitment and activation of various intracytoplasmic substrates. IFNγ is another cytokine secreted by mast cells. It has been reported that IFNγ is responsible for major histocompatibility complexes associated with autoimmune diseases (Hooks et al., New England J. of Med., 301:5-8, 1979). These activated substrates induce multiple intracellular signaling pathways responsible for cell proliferation and activation (Boissan and Arock, 2000).
TNF is another cytokine produced by mast cells. More recently, it has been reported that the TNF produced by mast cells is involved in the pathogenesis of auto-antibody mediated vasculitis (Watanabe et al., Blood 11:3855-3866, 1994). Mast cells were also shown to control neutrophil recruitment during T-cell mediated delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions through TNF and macrophage inflammatory protein 2 (MIP-2). Accordingly, c-kit regulation may be useful in various types of inflammation including without limitation, rheumatoid arthritis, severe asthma, allergy associated chronic rhinitis, and the like.
Mast cells have also been implicated in liver allograph rejection (Yammaguchi et al., Hematology 29:133-139, 1999) and in liver fibrosis, where hepatic stallate cells produce the SCF that recruits the mast cells (Gaca et al., J. Hematology 30:850-858, 1999). These observations suggest that c-kit kinase inhibitors may help prevent organ rejection and fibrosis. Some possible related c-kit mediated therapeutic indications include idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and scleroderma. Mast cells have also been implicated in the pathology of multiple sclerosis (Secor et al., J. Experimental Medicine 191:813-822, 1999), and ischemia-reperfusion injury (Andoh et al, Clinical & Experimental Immunology 116:90-93, 1999) in experimental models using mice with mutant kit receptors that are deficient in mast cells. In both cases, the pathology of the diseases was significantly attenuated relative to mice with normal c-kit and mast cell populations. Thus, the role of mast cells in these diseases suggests that c-kit modulators might be useful therapeutics.
C-kit signaling is also important for fetal gonadal development, and plays a role in adult fertility (Mauduit et al, Human Rep. Update 5: 535-545, 1999). Spermatogenesis is inhibited through a reduction of c-kit activity in c-kit signaling through the PI3 kinase pathway (Blume-Jensen et al, Nature Genetics 24:157-162, 2000). C-kit expression has been observed to be lower in sub-fertile testes than in normal testicular tissue (Feng et al, Fertility and Sterility 71:85-89, 1999). C-kit signaling is also important for oogenesis and folliculogenesis (Parrott and Skinner, Endocrinology 140:4262-4271, 1999). These reports suggest that modulation of c-kit enzymatic activity may be a method to reduce both male and female infertility.
While various groups have published on inhibitors of c-kit kinase, disclosing various chemical compounds, including 2-phenylamino-imidazo[4,5-h]isoquinolin-9-ones (Snow, R J et al, J. Med. Chem. 2002, 45, 3394), pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidines (Burchat, A F et al, Bioorganic and Med. Chem. Letters 2002, 12, 1987 and Hanke, J H et al, J. Biol. Chem. 1996, 271, 695), pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidines (Altmann, E et al, Bioorganic and Med. Chem. Letters 2001, 11, 853), anilinoquinazolines (Wang, Y D et al, Bioorganic and Med. Chem. Letters 2000, 10, 2477), imidazoquinoxalines (Chen, P. et al, Bioorganic and Med. Chem. Letters 2002, 12, 3153), PCT publication entitled, "Methods of Modulating C-kit Tyrosine Protein Kinase Function with Indoline Compounds" and PCT publication entitled, "Use of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors for Treating Autoimmune Diseases", none of these groups describe the compounds of the present invention, and particularly as modulators of kinase enzymes such as c-kit, and useful for the regulation of autoimmune disease(s), allergies, asthma, cancer and the like.

Substituted pyridone compounds and methods of use

Abstract: wherein R1-6 are defined herein. The invention further comprises pharmaceutical compositions, methods for treatment of c-kit mediated diseases, and intermediates and processes useful for the preparation of compounds of the invention.


Techniques for ion beam current measurement using a scanning beam current transformer are disclosed. In one particular exemplary embodiment, the techniques may be realized as an apparatus for ion beam current measurement using a transformer. The apparatus may comprise a measurement device positioned adjacent a wafer and an ion dose control module coupled to the measurement device. The measurement device may comprise a transformer through which an ion beam passes onto the wafer. The ion dose control module may calculate ion beam current passing through the transformer and adjust dose based at least in part upon the calculated ion beam current.

Ion implantation is a process of depositing chemical species into a substrate by direct bombardment of the substrate with high-energy ions. In semiconductor fabrication, ion implanters are used primarily for doping processes that alter the type and level of conductivity of target materials. A precise doping profile in an integrated circuit (IC) substrate and its thin-film structure is often crucial for proper IC performance. To achieve a desired doping profile, one or more ion species may be implanted in different doses and at different energy levels. A specification of the ion species, doses and energies is referred to as an ion implantation recipe.
In conventional ion implantation, ions are extracted from a plasma source and are typically filtered (e.g., for mass, charge, energy, etc.), accelerated and/or decelerated, and collimated through several electro-static/dynamic lenses before being directed to a substrate. FIG. 1 depicts a conventional ion implanter system 100. As is typical for most ion implanter systems, the system 100 is housed in a high-vacuum environment. The ion implanter system 100 may comprise an ion source 102 and a complex series of components through which an ion beam 10 passes. The series of components may include, for example, an extraction manipulator 104, a filter magnet 106, an acceleration or deceleration column 108, an analyzer magnet 110, a rotating mass slit 112, a scanner 114, and a corrector magnet 116. Much like a series of optical lenses that manipulate a light beam, the ion implanter components may filter and focus the ion beam 10 before steering it towards a target wafer 120 (located in a wafer plane 12).
A number of measurement devices, such as a dose control Faraday cup 118, a traveling Faraday cup 124, and a setup Faraday cup 122, may be used to monitor and control the ion beam conditions. Specifically, measurement of ion dose rate in the ion implantation system 100 may be accomplished using these one or more measurement devices. Because incident ion flux may be measured as an electrical current, the ion dose rate of the target wafer 120 may be calculated by dose count electronics (DCE) (not shown) by taking a measured electrical current and dividing by an aperture area of the one or more measurement devices.
In the design and operation of an ion implanter, ion dose uniformity and ion beam utilization are major concerns since they directly impact the productivity of the ion implanter.
To achieve a uniform distribution of dopants, an ion beam is typically moved across the surface of a target wafer during an implantation process. FIG. 2A shows a typical setup for continuous implantation with an ion beam. In an ion implanter system, e.g., a scanned beam implanter, an ion beam spot 202 may be swept horizontally (i.e., in the X direction) along a scan path 204 across the surface of a wafer 206. A dose control Faraday cup 210 may be used to measure ion beam current. At the same time, the wafer 206 may be translated vertically along a path 208 (i.e., in the Y direction) through a process chamber. Thus, the ion beam spot 202 is scanned with respect to the wafer 206 in both the X and Y directions. The net effect of the movement of the ion beam spot 202 in the X and Y directions is a beam path 20, as depicted in FIG. 2B, that zigzags across the entire surface of the wafer 206 as well as its surrounding area. Since the ion beam spot 202 moves completely off the wafer 206 in each sweep, the total area covered by the ion beam spot 202 may be approximated with a box 22, which may be substantially larger than the wafer 206.
However, the traditional implantation method as illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B has a number of problems. For example, such a method often assumes that the ion beam spot 202 maintains the same profile and delivers the same dose at any location. Because conventional measurement devices, e.g., the dose control Faraday cup 118, the traveling Faraday cup 124, and the setup Faraday cup 122, are either intercepting or situated at the side of the wafer 206, the actual ion beam current, and therefore ion dose uniformity, at the wafer 206 may not be accurately measured or determined.
Furthermore, secondary electrons are typically produced upon energetic ion bombardment on these measurement devices. If secondary electrons are not suppressed or confined, most of these electrons may end up colliding with other components of the system 100, which may cause sputtering or heating up of these components or may interfere with the accuracy of ion beam current measurements. Consequently, the accuracy of measuring implant dose is greatly affected by unconfined secondary electrons.
Additionally, in the traditional method, the ion beam spot 202, in its scan path 204, may go completely off the wafer edge in each sweep, which is known as a "full overscan." Full overscans are deemed necessary to provide a uniform ion dose even at the edges of the wafer 206 and to allow real-time monitoring of ion beam conditions at measurement devices. If the spot size is small, the ion beam is off the wafer surface only briefly. However, if the spot size is large (e.g., greater than about a quarter of the wafer size), as is often the case for low-energy ion beams, the ion beam spot spends almost as much, if not more, time off the wafer as it does on the wafer. As a result, beam utilization becomes extremely low for a low-energy ion beam that is scanned fully off the wafer.
In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there are significant problems and shortcomings associated with current ion implantation technologies.

Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc.