A backlight module for a liquid crystal display (LCD) device includes a bottom plate, a plurality light sources, a light-premixing unit, and a light-mixing unit. The light sources are mounted on the bottom frame. The light-premixing unit is located above the bottom frame. The light-premixing unit includes a first diffuser. The light-mixing unit is located at a distance above the light-premixing unit. The light-mixing unit includes a second diffuser. The backlight module can effectively reduce the thickness of and meet the slim-line requirement of the LCD.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backlight module and a liquid crystal display (LCD) module using the same, and more particularly, to a backlight module with a reduced light mixing height and an LCD device using the backlight module.
2. Description of Related Art
LCDs are widely applied in a current information product or appliance since they have the advantages of lower prices and mature manufacturing technologies.
An LCD typically uses a passive way to display. Namely, the display requires a backlight module for illumination so that the LCDs generally comprise the backlight modules. The backlight module essentially provides a uniform and sufficient light to an LCD panel and is one of the main optical modules for the LCD. Currently, a light source with LEDs contributes a breakthrough to LCD products, which relatively improves the lighting efficiency to process the efficiency about a half of a cold cathode florescent lamp (CCFL). Also, the LEDs are a low-power self-illuminating light source and typically an auxiliary light source for power-saving products. Therefore, considerable research has included the LEDs in the backlight module of an LCD as a light source.
In a backlight module using a plurality of LEDs as a light source, a mixture of white light is proportioned to the distances between the LED light sources and the light-mixing heights. The different distances between the light sources have the different light-mixing heights. When the distance between the light sources is fixed, a light-mixing unit is used to reduce the light-mixing height. FIG. 1 is a top view of a frame 10 with a typical direct-type light-mixing LED backlight module. FIG. 2 is a schematic side view of the typical backlight module of FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the frame 10 has a bottom plate 11. The material of the bottom plate 11 can be a metal or polycarbonate (PC). The frame 10 contains a light-mixing unit 13 (FIG. 2) of the backlight module. The bottom plate 11 has a plurality of LEDs 12 in an array arrangement, which emit red, blue and green beams. As shown in FIG. 2, the light-mixing unit 13 is located above the LEDs 12. The red, blue and green beams emitted by the LEDs 12 are mixed in partial areas above the bottom plate 11 to thereby form a white light at, for example, area A, but the result may not be a completely white light. The light-mixing unit 13 is a diffusing mechanism to diffuse the beams emitted by the LEDs 12 so as to expand the lighting angle of the LEDs 12 and to make the light uniform. The light-mixing unit 13 has a diffuser and a transparent plate. The diffuser can be loaded on the transparent plate. The light is delivered from the light-mixing unit 13 to an LCD panel 14 via area B.
In this case, a uniform color light can be generated by meeting a specific diffusing height and using the light-mixing unit 13, after the LEDs 12 have emitted the different colors. The diffusing height required for the uniform color light is about 50 mm and more. Namely, since the lighting angle emitted by the LEDs 12 is not large, a certain distance between the light-mixing unit 13 and the plate 11 is required for completely mixing the different color light emitted by the LEDs 12 and further providing a uniform and good color rendering white light to the LCD panel 14. If the light-mixing unit 13 is very close to the LEDs 12, the lighting angle of the LEDs 12 is not significantly expanded. If the light-mixing unit 13 has two diffusers, the brightness is reduced and the diffusing height cannot be reduced effectively.
As cited, in the aforementioned backlight module, the thickness of which is limited by the distance between the light-mixing unit and the bottom plate, so the entire thickness of the LCD cannot meet the slim-line trend. Therefore, it becomes an important issue to shorten the distance between the light-mixing unit and the bottom plate and to provide a slim LCD to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.

Backlight module and a liquid crystal display module using the same


Vertical take-off, landing and horizontal straight flight of an aircraft includes activation a plurality of front and rear lifting propellers, each of which is connected to a respective independently operating electric motor. In addition, horizontal straight flight of the aircraft includes activation of additional left and right pushing propellers, each of which is connected to an independently operating electric motor. The front and rear lifting propellers are respectively positioned generally horizontally and symmetrically opposite to one another and equidistantly relative to a longitudinal axis of the aircraft. The right pushing propeller and the left pushing propeller are positioned generally vertically and symmetrically opposite to one another and equidistantly relative to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft.

From the state of the art, the Multi-rotor Heavy Convento-rotorcraft is known (see Patent of the Russian Federation No. 2521121 for an invention, published on Jun. 27, 2014).
The Convento-rotorcraft is made in the form of the high-positioned monoplane, having rotors in rotary annular channels on the wing consoles, a fuselage with two power beams pivotally mounted in a diamond-shaped rocker plan, which has the possibility of deflecting its beams in the longitudinal plane and equipped with bearing rotors on pylons on its opposite tops. The rotors are connected by transmission shafts to the engines of the power plant mounted in the root part of the wing.
The Convento-rotorcraft has the tail unit with an all-movable stabilizer, the three-rack retractable wheel landing gear, the wing is made in the form of combination of two wings with the close location to each other, mounted by the ledge. The front wing is higher than the rear with the negative degradation of the first to the second in the angle of attack. The inter-gondola sections of the front and rear wings are equipped with the slat and flap and are mounted so that between the rear edge of the front wing and the front edge of the rear wing, which has 45% of the area of the front wing, there is a narrow gap equal to 2.5% of the chord of the front wing at the distance between the middle lines of the profile of the front and rear wings, equal to 30% of the chord of the rear wing.
The disadvantages of the known technical solution are: need to turn the movers; low handling and maneuverability; low safety of take-off, flight and landing of aircraft due to the lack of protection of the rotors from collisions with the ground surface and other obstacles; and large weight and size parameters (characteristics) of the aircraft.
From the state of the art, the method of flying in the air with the possibility of vertical take-off and landing is known (see Patent of the Russian Federation No. 2566177 for an invention, published on Oct. 20, 2015).
The flight method involves the creation of the air flow directed from top to bottom by coaxial movers with blades rotating in opposite directions. The blades have the ability to rotate around their longitudinal axis with the change of the angle of attack. By changing the rotation angles of the movers blades during each rotation, ensure the creation of the horizontal component of the thrust vector and the stabilization of the flight. Horizontal thrust in the steady-state horizontal flight mode is created by the jet mover. By turning the blades of the mover to the angle of attack of 0° in the mode of prolonged horizontal flight, the closed aerodynamic surface is formed—the rotating wing with the possibility of creating the climb power. The movers are connected to the engine through the gear drive system. The mover blades are connected to tilt system, gyroscope and control system.
The disadvantages of the known technical solution are: low reliability and controllability, since for horizontal flight there is one mover installed in the center; possibility of only horizontal straight flight; jet mover is used, which leads to the deterioration of maneuverability and environmental friendliness; low safety of take-off, flight and landing of the aircraft; and lack of protection of the rotors from collisions with the ground surface and other obstacles.
From the state of the art, the method of flight of aircraft and aircraft for its implementation are known (see International Publication of the Application WO2017198082 for an invention, published on May 8, 2017).
The disadvantages of the technical solution known from the state of the art are: need to change the horizontal position of the airframe for straight flight; need to use partially the thrust of the lifting movers to create the force pushing the aircraft forward; low safety of take-off, flight and landing of the aircraft; low flight speed; low flight comfort of the aircraft for passengers; low reliability.
An objective of the group of inventions described herein is to create a compact, safe aircraft during take-off/landing and flight with high maneuverability and controllability, as well as increased flight speed.

Methods of vertical take-off/landing and horizontal straight flight of aircraft and aircraft for implementation


An optical mouse, with shade compensation, has a light source, a sensor and a controller. The light source illuminates a sampling plane of a mouse. The sensor consists of a 2-dimensional array of sensing elements to capture an image from the sampling plane and temporarily store the image into a 2-dimensional array of pixels, each having a pixel value. The controller is connected to the sensor for adjusting the pixel values according to a predetermined table, thereby achieving a shade compensation for the sensing elements.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a mouse device and, more particularly, to an optical mouse with shade compensation and its shade compensation method
2. Description of Related Art
A typical optical mouse has an image sensor consisting of plural image sensing elements. The sensor can sense two sequential images for motion detection. The image sensor is integrated into an integrated circuit (IC) to accordingly save cost. A transparent adhesive is coated on the IC, in order to protect the IC and the image sensor thereon and also allow the light passing through the transparent adhesive such that the image sensor can operate normally.
However, in the test step of an IC manufacturing, due to that every sensor may have different sensitivity, uneven adhesive or grain contamination, poor image sensitivity may be encountered, which further causes a decision mistake on motion detection of the optical mouse. Accordingly, the ICs having defective sensors are discarded in the IC test process, resulting in a poor IC yield.
Therefore, the prior manufacturing does not process partial image losses caused by minor defective sensors so as to have poor yield and performance. Therefore, it is desirable to provide an improved mouse to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.

Optical mouse with shade compensation and its shade compensation method


Before an HSG-Si film is formed, silicon films are pre-coated on the inner wall of a reaction chamber (12) for forming the HSG-Si film on a wafer (14) and in a boat (25) which is used for accommodate and support the wafer (14) in the reaction chamber (12), and then the wafer (14) is fed into the pre-coated reaction chamber (12) to form the HSG-Si film in the state that impurities on the wafer (14) have been removed. By pre-coating the silicon films, the impurities such as water, oxygen, hydrocarbon and organic materials can be removed, and a surface area increase rate of the HSG-Si film formed on the wafer (14) can be improved.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gaseous-impurities capturing method which is used to capture gaseous impurities in a semiconductor device manufacturing process, and an apparatus for manufacturing a semiconductor device by using the capturing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, higher integration design has been required for semiconductor devices such as semiconductor memories (for example, dynamic RAM (hereinafter referred to as DRAM), etc., and in order to meet this requirement, the area which is indispensable to each memory cell has been extremely reduced. For example, in the case of 1 MDRAM or 4 MDRAM, a design rule for providing the minimum design width of 0.8 micrometer is adopted. On the other hand, in the case of 16 MDRAM, a design rule for providing the minimum design width of 0.6 micrometer is adopted. As the area of the memory cell is reduced as described above, the amount of charges accumulated in the memory cell is also reduced, and thus it is difficult to ensure the charge amount which is required for the memory cell in accordance with the high integration design.
On the other hand, in order to ensure the charge amount required for the memory cell, a memory cell having a trench type or laminate type capacitor has been proposed and used in practice.
A memory cell structure having a laminate type capacitor has an advantage that it has higher resistance to a soft error than a memory call structure having a trench type capacitor, and also an advantage that it causes no damage to a silicon substrate. Therefore, the memory cell structure having the laminate type capacitor has been expected as a memory cell structure of the next generation. Further, it has been considered that the resistance to alpha ray is enhanced by designing a trench capacitor in the laminate type trench structure. Accordingly, the laminate type memory call is promising as a next generation technique.
In such a situation, there has been proposed an application of an HSG (hemi-spherical-grain) technique to a laminate type capacitor which is applicable to DRAMs of 64 Mbytes or more (as disclosed in Japanese laid-open Patent Application No. Hei-8-306646). According to the HSG technique, a large number of hemi-spherical grains or mushroom-shaped grains are formed on the surface of a storage electrode of a capacitor to substantially increase the surface area of the storage electrode and thus achieve a large capacity.
When the storage electrode as described above is formed, silicon-contained gas such as SiH.sub.4 or the like is irradiated onto a deposited amorphous silicon layer to arrange silicon atoms serving as nucleuses on the layer, and after the irradiation, the silicon atoms located around the nucleuses are collected with the thus-formed nucleuses at the center, whereby uneven particles, that is, hemi-spherical or mushroom-shaped grains are formed on the surface. The film having the hemi-spherical or mushroom-shaped grains becomes a polysilicon film as a result, and in the following description, the layer having the hemi-spherical or mushroom-shaped grains is hereinafter referred to as "HSG-Si film".
In the case where the hemi-spherical grains are formed on amorphous silicon as described above, if a natural oxide film of several atom layers or the like is formed on the surface of amorphous silicon, the oxygen atoms of the natural oxide film disturb migration of Si atoms, and thus disable the formation of hemi-spherical grains. Actually, a silicon oxide film as a natural oxide film is formed on amorphous silicon even under such a condition that the partial pressure of oxygen is equal to about 1.times.10.sup.-6 Torr. Therefore, impurities such as oxygen, water, etc. must be prevented from remaining in the atmosphere during the process of forming the hemi-spherical grains.
In order to solve the above problem, the Japanese patent application described above discloses a method of treating a natural oxide film formed on amorphous silicon with hydrogen fluoride solution to remove the natural oxide film, and then putting a wafer in an apparatus having a load lock chamber to form an HSG-Si film.
However, in the case where many wafers are put into a reaction chamber (formed of quartz, SiC or the like), which is evacuated by an vacuum pump and heated, through the load lock chamber, even when the natural oxide films on the wafers are temporarily removed by the hydrofluorination, it is confirmed that natural oxide films are formed on amorphous silicon again and impurities such as water, etc. remain in the heated reaction chamber. This is because when the wafers are put into the reaction chamber, water which is adsorbed at the inside of and on the surface of the silicon oxide film formed on the wafer is heated and separated from the silicon oxide film. If the number of wafers is small, the effect of water, oxygen and organic materials which are separated from an interlayer film, etc. is small. However, if many wafers are put into the reaction chamber, the amount of the impurities is increased, and thus it is difficult to keep the Si film surface clean. Particularly, the increase of the partial pressure of water has a strong effect on the formation of HSG. This is because the water separated from the silicon oxide film promotes oxidation of the electrode surface on the wafer.
As described above, it has been found that when the natural oxide film remains on amorphous silicon, silicon atoms do not sufficiently gather around the atoms serving as nucleuses even when silicon-contained gas is irradiated, and thus the surface area increase rate of the HSG-Si film has a limitation. This is because the natural oxide film disturbs the migration of silicon atoms on the surface of amorphous silicon. Further, once the electrode surface is oxidized, the surface area increase rate of the HSG-Si film is not enhanced even when the vacuum degree of the load lock chamber and an anneal chamber is set to about 1.times.10.sup.-8 Torr by a turbo pump or the like.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. Hei-5-206046 proposes that an impurities-capturing function is provided by a reactor core pipe itself which is used in a heat treatment step of a semiconductor manufacturing process. According to this technique, the reactor core pipe is formed of polysilicon, and a heat treatment which causes the impurities of polysilicon itself to gather at the upper end portion of the reactor core pipe is performed when the reactor core pipe is formed.
This publication does not indicate the problem that the surface area increase rate for the formation of the HSG-Si film has a limitation. Further, this publication does not suggest that the reactor core pipe is used to form the HSG-Si film.
Further, since the impurities capturing capability is provided to the reactor core pipe itself, even if the reactor core pipe of this publication is applied to form hemi-spherical grains, the capturing capability of the reactor core pipe is reduced due to adhesion of impurities every time the reactor core pipe is used. Therefore, it is required to exchange the reactor core pipe by a new one or treat the reactor core pipe at high temperature again. Accordingly, this reactor core pipe is unsuitable for repetitive use.
Next, referring to Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. Hei-1-197388, this publication proposes that high-purity getter material which can adsorb and absorb residual impurities under vacuum is attached in a growth chamber of a molecular-beam crystal apparatus. In this publication, high-purity Al, Mn, Nd, Sc, Sm and Yb are suggested as the capture material. As described above, this publication indicates that metal capture material which is formed of Al or the like is suitable to capture residual impurities such as H.sub.2 O, CO, CO.sub.2, etc.
However, such metal capture material is gasified and vaporized by a high-temperature heat treatment at 500.degree. C. or more, and thus it is not applicable to a semiconductor device manufacturing process in which the overall reaction chamber is subjected to the high-temperature heat treatment. Further, the device characteristic is generally deteriorated if metal is attached to Si, and thus the metal capture material is unsuitable for the device manufacturing.
Actually, when the HSG-Si film is formed by the HSG technique, amorphous silicon is usually subjected to the heat treatment at, a high temperature of about 550.degree. C. in an anneal chamber of an LPCVD apparatus (that is, a reaction chamber which is reduced in pressure and kept at high temperature) to be annealed, thereby forming an HSG-Si film. As described above, when the HSG-Si film is formed, the high-temperature heat treatment of about 550.degree. C. is required, and thus the metal capture material as disclosed in the above publication is not usable as getter material in the HSG-Si film forming process.

Method for capturing gaseous impurities and semiconductor device manufacturing apparatus


An auto-centering apparatus of a steady rest has: a base part; a main support part installed on the top of the base part, and a loading unit installed on the top of the main support part; at least one side support part installed on the top of the base part and located at least one side of the main support part, and a loading unit installed on the top of the side support part; a lift-up module installed in the base part and coupled to the main support part; and a connecting unit installed between the main support part and the side support part.

In most turning machine tools, especially for heavy-duty lathes, a common contact steady rest is generally employed, that is, the supporting claws of the steady rest, usually in a number of three, are orientated and disposed for allowing the same to engage with a workpiece directly and thus enabling the heavy workpiece to be fixed securely so as to be processed by tools fitted in the machine tool.
Nevertheless, it is important to have the aforesaid supporting claws properly centered so as to ensure the workpiece to be processed with sufficient accuracy. However, the centering of those supporting claws is not synchronized, but is performed respectively that causes the centering of the steady rest to be a very time consuming task, and generally can also cause large concentricity deviation. Therefore, it is in need of a steady rest with synchronization centering ability.

Auto-centering apparatus of a steady rest

INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE


Provided is a motion guide device in which a moving member is equipped with circulation path moldings. With the device, ease of assembly and moldability can be improved. A moving member is provided with circulation path moldings, which have: holding sections that extend along loaded rolling-element rolling sections; return path configuring sections that configure return paths; and a pair of direction-change path inner circumference configuring sections that configure the inner circumferences of a pair of direction-change paths. The circulation path moldings are provided with a first molding in which one direction-change path inner circumference configuring sections is integrally molded with the holding section and a second molding in which the other direction-change path inner circumference configuring section is integrally molded with the return path configuring section. The first molding and the second molding are separate bodies.

A motion guide device is used for highly accurately guiding an object to be guided, such as a table, in making a linear motion or a curvilinear motion. A motion guide device includes a track member, and a moving member which is movably assembled to the track member via a plurality of rolling elements. When the moving member moves along the track member, the rolling elements make a rolling motion between the members to thereby allow the moving member to achieve a swift motion.
The track member is provided with a rolling-element rolling section extending in a longitudinal direction. The moving member is provided with a loaded rolling-element rolling section opposed to the rolling-element rolling section of the track member, a return path parallel to the loaded rolling-element rolling section, a loaded rolling-element rolling path provided between the rolling-element rolling section and the loaded rolling-element rolling section, and a circulation path including a pair of direction-change paths connected to the return path. As a kind of a motion guide device, there is proposed a motion guide device in which a circulation path is configured by a circulation path molding and the circulation path molding is incorporated into a moving member to facilitate manufacture of the moving member (see Patent Literature 1). The circulation path molding has a holding section that extends along a loaded rolling-element rolling section, a return path configuring section that configures a return path, and a pair of direction-change path inner circumference configuring sections that configure the inner circumferential portions of a pair of direction-change paths. The holding section holds the rolling elements or a holder that holds the rolling elements and plays a role of preventing them from falling from the moving member.
In the motion guide device described in Patent Literature 1, the circulation path molding is divided into several sections in a state of being integrally molded with at least one connector out of four connectors ((1) a connector between the holding section and one direction-change path inner circumference configuring section, (2) a connector between one direction-change path inner circumference configuring section and the return path configuring section, (3) a connector between the return path configuring section and the other direction-change path inner circumference configuring section, and (4) a connector between the other direction-change path inner circumference configuring section and the holding section) that configure a resin circulation path molding. Further, three modes are provided as modes of continuity for the connectors of the circulation path molding. First one is a mode in which the holding section and the pair of direction-change path inner circumference configuring sections are integrally molded, and the return path configuring section is separately provided. The second one is a mode in which one direction-change path inner circumference configuring section is integrally molded with the holding section and the return path configuring section, and the other direction-change path inner circumference configuring section is separately provided. The third one is a mode in which the holding section and the return path configuring section are integrally molded with the pair of direction-change path inner circumference configuring sections, and the holding section and the return path configuring section are divided into two halfway in a longitudinal direction.
According to the motion guide device described in Patent Literature 1, the integral molding of at least one connector can ensure the continuity of the circulation path molding and exert an effect of enabling smooth circulation of the rolling elements. In addition, the division of the circulation path molding into two, that is a minimum number of divisions, exerts an effect of facilitating assemblage of the circulation path molding.


An attachment clip for connecting a top-feed fuel injector to a socket on a fuel rail has a cylindrical wall that is coaxial with the fuel inlet tube of the injector and contains a pattern of circumferentially spaced apertures. At each aperture there is at least one catch that extends from the margin of a circumferentially extending edge of the aperture radially inwardly and axially toward the fuel injector body to terminate at a distal end that is axially within the axial span of the aperture. The circumferential span of each catch is less than that of the aperture. As the fuel inlet tube is pushed into the socket, the catches are resiliently flexed by engagement with the socket rim until the distal ends of the catches clear a lip extending around the outside of the rim at which point they relax to lodge behind the lip thereby attaching the fuel injector to the socket.

Various forms of clips for fastening different fuel injection system components together have heretofore been proposed. Certain clips are designed to be assembled to one of the components preparatory to assembling that component to the other; for example, certain clips assembled to a fuel injector are designed to allow the fuel injector to be fastened to a fuel rail socket, or cup, by simply pushing the clip-containing fuel injector into the socket. Other forms of fastening a fuel injector to a fuel rail socket embody catches that are integrally formed with a portion of the body of a fuel injector and that snap over a lip on a socket. Examples of the latter appear in U.S. Pat. No. 4,991,557 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,038,738.
The present invention relates to a new and different fastening clip that is well-suited for integral formation with a portion of the body of a fuel injector and that provides convenient attachment and secure retention. Briefly, the disclosed embodiment of clip comprises a cylindrical wall that circumferentially bounds, and is spaced radially outwardly of, the fuel inlet tube and that has several circumferentially spaced apertures at which catches are disposed. Each catch extends from a circumferentially extending edge of the corresponding aperture radially inwardly and axially toward the body of the fuel injector to lodge behind a lip extending around the outside of the socket rim when attachment of the fuel injector to the socket has been completed. The circumferential span of each catch lies within the circumferential span of the aperture at which it is disposed. The catches flex as they pass over the socket lip during insertion of the fuel injector inlet tube into the socket. Once they have cleared the lip, the catches relax, lodging behind the lip to provide an interference therewith that prevents removal of the fuel injector from the socket. The catches are somewhat in the nature of deflectable barbs that allow relatively easy insertion of the fuel injector into the socket, but that strenuously resist removal of the fuel injector from the socket once they have passed the socket lip.
Details of the invention are disclosed in the following Description of a Preferred Embodiment which is accompanied by drawings. The drawings illustrate a presently preferred embodiment of the invention according to the best mode contemplated at this time for carrying out the invention.


In a data processing system including at least two processing units having different throughputs for performing sequential access upon a main storage unit, the number of elements of the main storage unit simultaneously accessed by the processing units is different, or the sequence of elements accessed by one of the processing units is reversed, thereby substantially improving the input/output throughput for the main storage unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing system including at least two processing units having different throughputs for a main storage unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in an effort to provide more rapid processing, vector computers have been developed. But even in such a computer, when carrying out an ultra-large scale scientific calculation, sometimes it is not possible for all of the data to be stored at the same time in a main storage unit, thus increasing the overhead of the input/output processing. Accordingly, to reduce this overhead, an extended storage unit is provided in addition to the main storage unit.
Note, an extended storage control unit for the extended storage unit has a smaller throughput for the main storage unit than other units such as a vector unit.
In a computer system having a plurality of processing units, such as the vector unit, the extended storage control unit, and the like, the processing units have different throughputs for the main storage unit, and when the processing units perform sequential access upon the main storage unit simultaneously, there may be a problem in that the throughput of one processing unit, such as the vector unit having a large throughput, becomes the same as that of another processing unit, such as the extended storage control unit having a small throughput, thereby reducing the data processing efficiency of the system. This will be later explained in more detail.

Data processing system for processing units having different throughputs


Provided is a position detecting device that is capable of precisely detecting the coordinates of the center of a disc-shaped substrate from image data captured by one camera, calculating the amount of positional misalignment of the disc-shaped substrate on a support member as the disc-shaped substrate is being transported during processing, and correcting the position such that the substrate can be located at the precise loading position. Isosceles right triangles, each having the radius of the disc-shaped substrate as one side, are generated from the coordinates of two places on edge data extracted from the image data and the radius on the edge data, and the coordinates of the center position of the disc-shaped substrate are detected by using the Pythagorean theorem.

In manufacturing a general semiconductor integrated circuit, an integrated circuit having a fine pattern is formed by repeatedly performing various processes such as exposure, deposition process, etching process and heat treatment on the substrate such as a semiconductor wafer.
Thus various processes are performed by using a substrate processing apparatus having a processing chamber configured of exclusive instruments for performing respective processes. The substrate processing apparatus is composed by connecting one or several various processing chambers to a transport chamber for storing a conveyance robot. The conveyance robot is provide with a conveyance arm for mounting and transporting the disc-shaped substrate such as a semiconductor wafer at the center. Further, the transport chamber and the processing chambers are provided with means for maintaining each inner part in a vacuum environment, and connected to each other through gate valves. Here, the disc-shaped substrate held by the conveyance robot is transported, mounted on a mounting table installed to the processing chamber by using the conveyance arm, and then, the various processes are performed on the disk-shaped substrate.
The substrate processing apparatus is required to precisely transport the substrate at a predetermined position of the mounting table in order to appropriately process the disc-shaped substrate mounted on the mounting table. Therefore, the substrate processing apparatus needs the disc-shaped substrate precisely positioned on the predetermined position of the mounting table in the processing chamber. After first detecting positional misalignment of the objective disc-shaped substrate, if a positional misalignment occurs, the disk-shaped substrate needs to be located on the predetermined position by correcting the positional misalignment. Specially, it is difficult to directly detect the position of the disc-shaped substrate in the processing chamber because of processes executed or substance used/deposited in the processes. Therefore, it is necessary to detect the position of the disc-shaped substrate in the predetermined place within the transport chamber which is connected with the processing chamber.
In a conventional method for detecting position of the disc-shaped substrate, for example, like in patent literature 1, the disc-shaped substrate is mounted on a rotatable pedestal, the periphery is detected by a line sensor as being rotated, and the positional misalignment is detected based on a rotation angle of the pedestal and detection results from the line sensor.
However, the rotatable pedestal and the line sensor must be installed into the transport chamber with the method disclosed in Patent literature 1, and therefore, this requires increasing the size of the transport chamber. Further, the disc-shaped substrate held by the conveyance robot requires a series of actions for detecting the positional misalignment by being once mounted on the pedestal and rotated, therefore causing the problem that throughput is reduced.
Accordingly, recently, as disclosed in Patent literature 2, the peripheral part of the semiconductor wafer has been captured for a plurality of times, and the position of the semiconductor wafer has been detected based on the captured images. That is, a plurality of cameras are located on the upper surface outside the transport chamber and a light source is located on the undersurface outside the transport chamber opposing the cameras. The cameras are positioned so as to pick up images of the peripheral part of the semiconductor wafer being transported in the transport chamber, and capture the peripheral part in passing timing of the semiconductor wafer. Here, the position is detected based on image data capturing a plurality of peripheral parts.

Device and method for detecting position of semiconductor substrate


A control apparatus for speedily warming up a catalyst disposed within an exhaust pipe connected to an internal combustion engine. The control apparatus calculates a demand fuel injection quantity into the engine on the basis of an operating state of said engine, and corrects the calculated demand fuel injection quantity on the basis of a warming-up state of a catalyst provided in an exhaust pipe of the engine so that an air fuel ratio in the engine is repeatedly controlled to a rich side and a lean side in a state that the warming-up of the catalyst is not completed. The control apparatus is equipped with an inhibiting function to inhibit the air fuel ratio from being controlled to the rich side and the lean side when the engine takes an operating state that the injection quantity is set to a rich side with respect to the theoretical air fuel ratio.

The present invention relates to a control apparatus for speedily warming up a catalyst for purification of emissions generated from an internal combustion engine (which will be referred hereinafter to as an engine).
Various types of devices have hitherto been proposed which controls the ignition timing to a retardation side in the case that the engine is started at the time of being in a cooled state, thereby decreasing the maximum combustion temperature and increasing the temperature of emissions (exhaust gases) from the engine so as to reduce the hazardous components (HC, NOx) to be discharged from the engine. For example, according to the Japanese patent Publication No. 62-39269, the ignition timing is retardation-corrected in accordance with the cooling water temperature in the case that the engine is started at the time of being in a cooled state, and when the cooling water temperature reaches a predetermined temperature lower than the temperature corresponding to the fully warmed-up state of the engine, the retardation amount is decreased in accordance with the time period elasped from the time that the water temperature reaches the predetermined temperature so as to accelerate the increase in the emission temperature to speedily warm up the catalyst for purifying the emissions.
There is a problem which arises with the aforementioned device, however, in that difficulty is encountered to set the retardation amount to a large value because this retardation of the ignition timing causes reduction of the engine torque, thereby making it difficult to sufficiently warm up the catalyst due to the increase in the emission temperature resulting from the retardation control to require a long time period until reaching the temperature (the warming-up completing temperature) which allows the sufficient purification of the hazardous components of the emissions through the catalyst. This causes a problem in which the hazardous components are discharged into the atmosphere because of the insufficient purification action of the catalyst until the catalyst temperature reaches the warming-up completing temperature.

Control apparatus for speedily warming up catalyst in internal combustion engine


A differential drive has a drivable differential carrier rotatably supported in a differential housing. Two axle shaft gears are rotatably held in cylindrical bores in the differential carrier. The axle shaft gears are coaxially arranged relative to each other. A plurality of differential gears are supported in bores in the differential carrier. The axle shaft gears rotate with the differential gears and are arranged axis-parallel. One group of the differential gears engage one of the axle shaft gears and another group of differential gears engage the other of the axle shaft gears. Each of the one group of the differential gears engage at least one of the other group of differential gears to achieve an uneven torque distribution between the axle shaft gears. Also, both the axle shaft gears have substantially equal rolling circle diameters and equal outer diameters and at least the gears of the one group of differential gears have two axially different regions with different rolling circle diameters. One of two regions engages one of the axle shaft gears and the other one engages at least one of the other group of differential gears.

The invention relates to a differential drive with a drivable differential carrier rotatably supported in a differential housing. Two axle shaft gears are rotatably held in cylindrical bores in the differential carrier. The two axle shaft gears are coaxially arranged relative to one another. A plurality of differential gears are also supported in bores in the differential carrier. The differential gears rotate with the differential carrier and are arranged axis-parallel therewith and to the axle shaft gears. A first group of differential gears engages one of the axle shaft gears and a second group of differential gears engages the other of the axle shaft gear. Each differential gear of the first group engages at least one of the differential gears of the second group to achieve an uneven torque distribution between the axle shaft gears.
Differential drives of this type are used as so-called central differentials in motor vehicles driven by several axles. Central differentials distribute torque unevenly to the driven axles with the highest percentage of torque, as a rule, being allocated to the axle loaded by the engine. A differential drive of this type is shown in EP 0 347 165 A1. Here, a differential has axle shaft gears of different sizes spaced at axial distances from one another. This spacing ensures that the differential gears engage either one or the other axle shaft gear and are able to find a region of undisturbed mutual tooth engagement.


An electronic device (1640) includes a non-volatile store (1620) holding a plurality of encrypted sub-applications (SubApp n), and application-specific identifications (ASIDs) to respectively identify the encrypted sub-applications (SubApp n), and at least one wrapper having a representation of code to call (2220) a function (KPPA2) and supply a said application-specific identification (ASID) to the called function (KPPA2) to determine a storage location (UU) and access (2250) the storage location (UU) for contents and to call (2260) for decryption of the encrypted sub-application (SubApp n) using the contents of the storage location (UU) as a key; and a processor (1660) coupled to said non-volatile store (1620) and operable to access the representation of code and execute the code (2220, 2260). Various electronic devices, information products, processes of manufacture, and apparatus are disclosed and claimed.

This invention is in the field of information and communications, and is more specifically directed to improved electronic devices, and apparatus for information and communication processing, information products, and processes of manufacture. Without limitation, the background is further described in connection with wireless and wireline communications.
Wireless communications of many types have gained increasing popularity in recent years. The mobile wireless telephone or cellular telephone has become ubiquitous around the world. Mobile telephony communicates video, audio and digital data, in addition to voice. The market for portable devices such as cell phones and content players is expanding with many more features and applications. Wireless data communications in wireless local area networks (WLAN) and short-range wireless data communication are also proliferating.
Security is important in both wireline and wireless communications for improved security of retail and other business commercial transactions in electronic commerce and wherever personal and/or commercial privacy is desirable. Added features and security add further processing tasks to the communications system where cost and power dissipation are already important concerns.
Ensuring the confidentiality of code and digital rights managed media content is important. In some cases, it is desired that software also be usable only on a particular device such as one single handset or product unit. In other words, if the software were transferred to another handset, the software should fail to operate on that other handset. Furthermore, the software code should be protected from compromise while it is being programmed into the electronic device on the factory floor.
It is desirable to improve information products such as software and/or content for secure distribution on media or over the Internet and other networks.
Keeping the cost of manufacture low, increasing the efficiency of obtaining software and media content performances, and maintaining high performance and low power dissipation are important goals in electronic devices and processes of manufacture.
It would be highly desirable to solve any or all of the above problems, as well as other problems by improvements to be described hereinbelow.

Electronic devices, information products, processes of manufacture and apparatus for enabling code decryption in a secure mode using decryption wrappers and key programming applications, and other structures


An exemplary oil transformer insulation module includes at least a first flat layer and a second layer adjacent and substantially and parallel to the first layer. The first and second layers include planar first insulation material and are connected to and spaced apart from a third corrugated layer that is arranged between the first and second layers. The third layer includes planar second insulation material, has lateral edges, and is corrugated such that all the cavities formed by the corrugated form can be flooded with a liquid via the lateral edges.

Known high-voltage transformers or high-voltage inductors having a rated voltage on the high-voltage side of 220 kV or 380 kV, for example, a rated power of >100 MVA, for example, and a weight of 200 t or higher, for insulation and cooling purposes, can be arranged in an oil-filled transformer tank, the oil providing both insulation and improved cooling functions. The distance between the high-voltage transformer and the inner wall of the oil tank is substantially governed by technical insulation aspects, for example, by the distance between one potential-exhibiting region and an earthed or another potential-exhibiting region and the geometrical form of the components to be insulated from one another. Depending on predetermined boundary conditions, however, a minimum insulation clearance can be specified, which causes the oil tank to become unnecessarily large or unavailable.
Therefore, it is known to arrange wall-like insulation barriers, as they are called, in regions that are particularly critical in terms of insulation technology within the oil-filled transformer tank, by means of which insulation barriers the insulating paths that can be loaded only to a limited extent in the oil are subdivided or arranged such that a maximum voltage gradient is not exceeded. This affords the advantage that the oil-filled space between transformer and tank wall can be embodied such that it is not unnecessarily large. Barrier systems of this type can include solid panels of pressboard, which are arranged on a complex holding construction in accordance with the individual specification within the transformer tank.
Known barrier systems of this type can be inflexible and difficult to mount and, with regard to the geometries that can be realized, are ultimately limited to a panel form. As a result, if appropriate, only arrangements that are not optimal in terms of insulation technology can be realized. Furthermore, known barrier systems can be dried under the action of heat in a vacuum before being installed in the transformer. This drying can cause the barrier systems to warp, such that they no longer meet the technical insulation specifications.


An interfolding machine, having first and second folding counter rotating rollers, a substantially cylindrical body and a plurality of folding means for engaging at a contact line (15) for making a stack of folded and/or interfolded sheets in a folding area. Each folding roller (1) is held by at least one support (10) arranged substantially opposite to the contact line in order to not impede folding operations in the folding area. Between the support and the folding roller, a bearing (20) is mounted that allows free rotation. The support holds the folding roller at an angular portion circumferentially unoccupied by folding elements or mechanical clamps and inclined at an angle with respect to a plane containing the axes of the two rollers. The support does not interfere with the adjusting operation of the folding roller and allows processing of the sheet or web of paper without interrupting continuity.

As known, in the paper converting industry a variety of machines and processes are used for making paper napkins, wipers, certain types of toilet paper and other articles in the form of folded and/or interfolded stacks of sheets.
A production process starts from a web having a certain transversal width, from which sheets are obtained, that are folded, stacked continuously and then split into stacks of a same height as the final packages. Each of the stacks is called a log and has the same length as the above described transversal width. The logs, moreover, are cut off and wrapped into many packages with determined final size.
In some cases, the sheets obtained from the web are folded separately from one another and then stacked already folded. In other cases, the sheets are interfolded, namely are folded into panels by overlapping at the same time a panel of a previous sheet with a panel of a following sheet. In this way, when pulling a sheet from the stack, at the moment of the use also a panel of the following sheet is pulled out, with consequent advantages for certain types of uses. Among the possible interfolding ways, stacks of L, Z or W interfolded sheets are known having 2, 3 and 4 panels respectively.
For the production of interfolded stacks, machines are known that use one or two webs of paper coming from a reel that are cut into sheets and then supplied offset with respect to one another on folding counter-rotating rollers.
More precisely, the webs are cut into sheets by means of cutting rollers that engage with respective blades. In case of L or W interfolding, the webs are cut so that they form a sequence of offset sheets coming preferably from two different directions. Therefore, the sheets coming from both directions are supplied alternately to the folding rollers so that each sheet coming from a first direction overlaps a portion of the sheet coming from the second direction, and vice versa.
The sheets coming from both directions, in order to be overlapped in the above described way, adhere to the respective folding rollers by means of a vacuum-suction step or by means of mechanical gripping.
In machines where mechanical clamps hold the paper, special folding rollers 101 are used, as shown diagrammatically in FIGS. 1 and 2. In particular, a folding roller 101 of prior art is circumferentially equipped with a plurality of folding elements 103 alternated to a plurality of mechanical clamps 104. In particular, each mechanical clamp 104 consists of a fixed jaw 104a and a movable jaw 104b operated by a cam mechanism.
The folding process of the sheets or of the web of paper provides two counter rotating folding rollers that contact along a line where a folding element 103 of one roller forces a sheet or web of paper into a mechanical clamp 104 of the other roller according to a predetermined combination of movements. The alternation of the folding elements 103 and of the mechanical clamps 104 on the boundary of the folding roller 101 causes the sheet or web of processed paper to fold according to different possible configurations.
More in detail, when mechanical clamp 104 is at a first predetermined angular position, movable jaw 104b is operated by a cam and pushes against fixed jaw 104a the sheet, which engages on the surface of folding roller 101. Then, when then mechanical clamp 104 is at a second predetermined angular position, the cam mechanism opens mechanical clamp 104 releasing the sheet that then leaves roller surface 101.
Therefore, the sheet or web of paper is held on the folding roller in a certain angular portion defined between the above-described angular positions. Then, the downstream end of each sheet leaves its own folding roller at the contact line between the two rollers, adhering to the other folding roller, to which also the upstream end of the previous sheet adheres.
In addition to mechanical sheet holding systems, vacuum holding systems are known where the sheet of paper is caused to adhere to the folding roller surface by a vacuum-suction system. Furthermore, mixed vacuum-mechanical systems are known.
Both in the case of folding rollers with mechanical clamps and of vacuum folding rollers the need is felt for increasing the interfolding sheets' width, obtaining longer logs to cut-off for increasing productivity of the process and for reducing production costs. This would require an increased length of the rollers, which is impossible technically.
In fact, one technical reason is that the diameter of the rollers should also be increased proportionally, but this is impossible because the diameter is strictly given by a determined linear development necessary for interfolding. On the other hand, even maintaining the same diameter, the length of the rollers cannot be increased, since they are already weakened for the presence of circumferential grooves, and during the production process they are already subject to an inevitable bending, which has to be minimum for not damaging the machine and/or the product. Therefore, folding rollers with increased length cannot be made beyond a certain limit, because this causes the roller to bend too much, thus limiting the maximum length of the log at the outlet of the machine, then limiting productivity.

Folding roller for paper converting machine

MTC—Macchine Trasformazione Carta S.r.l.


The present disclosure relates to a cathode additive, a method for preparing the same, and a cathode and a lithium secondary battery including the same. More specifically, one embodiment of the present disclosure provides a cathode additive that can offset an irreversible capacity imbalance, increase the initial charge capacity of a cathode, and simultaneously inhibit the generation of a gas in a battery.

A lithium secondary battery uses electrode active materials capable of reversible intercalation and deintercalation of lithium ions, in an anode and a cathode, realizes the transfer of lithium ions by an electrolyte, and produces electrical energy by the oxidation and reduction reactions in each electrode.
However, during the 1st cycle charge-discharge of a lithium secondary battery, lithium ions that are intercalated in an anode (battery charge) and then deintercalated (battery discharge), and lithium ions that are deintercalated from a cathode (battery charge) and then cannot be recovered again (battery discharge) are necessarily generated. This is related to the irreversible capacity of both electrodes.
As the irreversible capacity difference of the electrodes is large, the initial efficiency of a cathode decreases, and the energy density gradually deceases during the operation of a battery, and thus the cycle life of a battery may decrease.

Cathode additive, preparation method thereof, and cathode and lithium secondary battery comprising the same


Intervertebral disc prostheses are provided. More particularly, the invention provides disc prostheses that have adjustable disc heights, that are readily converted into fusion prostheses and that provide a range of motions that effectively mimic the natural range of motions of a spinal disc.

The present invention relates generally to the field of intervertebral disc prostheses. More particularly, the invention relates to disc prostheses that have adjustable disc heights, that are readily converted into fusion prostheses and that provide a range of motions that effectively mimic the natural range of motions of a spinal disc.
Intervertebral discs provide elastic support upon compression between adjacent vertebrae in the spine. Damage to these discs, resulting from degeneration and wear, may produce mobility limitations, pain, discomfort and even paralysis. Conventional approaches to the treatment of pathologic, degenerated or ruptured spinal discs include fusion of adjacent vertebrae and disc replacement. In a spinal fusion procedure, the faulty disc may be removed and replaced with a mechanical cage which maintains the proper disc spacing and helps support the load imposed on the spine. Ultimately, bone grows in and around the cage. The vertebrae that are involved in the fusion no longer take part in normal spinal flexing.
Disc replacement is an alternative approach to fusion. Many disc prostheses have been proposed. Unfortunately, the proposed disc prostheses suffer from practical limitations. Ideally, a disc prosthesis will mimic the range of motion of a natural vertebral disc, including side-to-side and front-to-back bending motions, compression in the axial direction and rotation and translation between vertebrae. The disc prosthesis should provide a proper disc height between vertebrae as well as proper alignment of the spine. The disc prosthesis should also be biocompatible, stable and durable. A typical disc prosthesis may be expected to last 30 years or more at approximately 2 million cycles per year.
Unfortunately, disc replacement carries significant risks. For example, distracting the vertebrae to insert or replace a disc prosthesis may injure the vertebrae, the vertebral endplates and the surrounding tissues and ligaments, including the spinal cord, nerve elements and blood vessels. This can be particularly problematic if the disc prosthesis requires repeated replacement or when it is desirable to switch from a disc prosthesis to a fusion prosthesis.
Thus, a need exists for a durable disc prosthesis that minimizes strain on the vertebrae, endplates and ligaments during insertion and replacement while providing a natural disc height and range of motion. Also desirable, is a disc prosthesis that may be easily converted into a fusion prosthesis while minimizing the risk of disc extrusion and its potentially lethal complications.

Vertically adjustable intervertebral disc prosthesis


Systems and methods allow driving a solid-state image pickup apparatus at high-speed operation by reducing a number of different samples in the horizontal and vertical directions. In an exemplary embodiment, three or more odd-numbered pixels are incorporated into a single block and signal charges from same color outputs are added within transfer registers such that an average center of the pixels coincides with a pixel at a center of the block. Three transfer electrodes are preferably provided for a column of a vertical transfer register in a part of the vertical transfer register on a side of the horizontal transfer register. The three transfer electrodes may be formed from one layer of three different gate electrode layers. The vertical registers may be arranged in a three column cycle. Preferably, an imaging device employing this structure has a switching mode of operation between a mode in which mixed charges that result from adding signal charges of predetermined pixels from one block are output and a normal mode for outputting all pixel information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for driving a solid-state image pickup apparatus comprising e.g. a CCD register, a solid-state image pickup device and a camera comprising the solid-state image pickup device.
2. Description of the Related Art
The number of pixels in the solid-state image pickup device has remarkably increased with the progress of technology. With such an increase of the number of pixels, a function to reduce the amount of output data during one frame period as the need arises is strongly desired.
For example, in an electronic still camera, when taking a picture, priority is given to the resolution of a still picture for causing the CCD image pickup device to output e.g. 500 lines at a speed of e.g. 30 frames/sec. On the other hand, when viewing through an electronic finder, priority is given to the dynamic resolution for causing the device to output 250 lines at a speed of 60 frames/sec.
Unfortunately, according to this method, signals for the remaining 250 lines are not used and discarded.
Contrary to this, the applicant of this application has previously invented a technique for deriving signals from adding together signal charges apart by two pixels from each other in the vertical direction within a vertical transfer register (see Patent Gazette of Laying-Open No. 9-55952).
Due to this technique, it has become possible, in a solid-state image pickup apparatus having a color filters arranged repeatedly in a cycle of two vertical pixels, to mix signal charges of two pixels without discarding the signal charges and at the same storing time.
FIG. 1 is a conceptional diagram of the signal transfer by the CCD solid-state image pickup apparatus in this case.
Concerning the color filters, what is called Bayer's arrangement color filters are employed in which they are arranged in a two pixel cycle in both vertical and horizontal directions, greens G within each cycle being arranged diagonally in a checkered pattern, blues B and reds R being arranged in the remaining checkers, as shown in FIG. 2.
Letters in FIG. 2 denote colors of the filters (red R, green G, blue B) and numerals denote coordinates of pixels represented by row and column numbers (mn for the m-th row and the n-th column), respectively.
In FIG. 1, circle marks indicate positions of the weight center of the added signals and letters within the circle marks denote corresponding colors (red R, green G, blue B). Further, symbols shown outside the circle marks denote coordinate positions of the added components in FIG. 2.
First of all, signals corresponding to the first row G11, R12, G13, R14, etc. and signals corresponding to the third row G31, R32, G33, R34 etc. are added together inside the solid-state image pickup device to form signals having the weight centers in the second row of the color filters (G11+G31, R12+R32, G13+G33, R14 R34, etc.).
Also, signals corresponding to the second row B21, G22, B23, G24, etc. and signals corresponding to the fourth row B41, G42, B43, G44, etc. are added together inside the image pickup device to form signals having the weight centers in the third row of the color filters (B21+B41, G22+G42, B23+B43, G24+G44, etc.).
By using this method, signal charges of four pixels in the vertical direction can be made two signals and therefore the number of lines in the vertical direction can be made half, thus allowing the amount of data in one frame to be reduced.
According to the driving method described above, however, while the number of lines in the vertical direction can be made half and the amount of data in one frame can be reduced, a balance of resolutions in the horizontal direction and in the vertical direction will deteriorate in case of square grid pixels.
Specifically, though not shown in FIG. 1, because signals corresponding to the fifth row are added to those corresponding to the seventh row to form signals having the weight centers in the sixth row, these signals will be located four pixels apart from the same color signals which are derived from adding signals corresponding to the first row to signals corresponding to the third row to form signals having the weight centers in the second row.
Accordingly, for example, intervals between the same color pixels are two pixel intervals in the horizontal direction, whereas such intervals in the vertical direction are four pixel intervals, thus making the vertical resolution lower than the horizontal resolution.
Moreover, when the amount of data in one frame is to be reduced further using this method, the balance of the horizontal and vertical resolutions will become worse. For example, when one million, three hundred thousand pixel CCD having a normal speed of 15 frames/sec is operated at a speed of 60 frames/sec, the vertical resolution will go to one fourth.
Because it is necessary to reduce further the amount of data in the horizontal direction in order to overcome the foregoing problem, the present inventor proposed a method for driving the solid-state image pickup apparatus which enables the amount of data in the horizontal direction to be reduced by applying the aforesaid method for reducing the amount of data in the vertical direction.
FIG. 3 is a conceptional diagram of the signal transfer in the solid-state image pickup apparatus where the amount of data in the horizontal direction is reduced in addition to the reduction of the amount of data in the vertical direction. The arrangement of color filters is the same as that of FIG. 2.
In FIG. 3, circle marks denote positions of the weight center of the added signals and letters within the circle marks denote corresponding colors. Additionally, symbols shown outside the circle marks denote coordinate positions of the added components in FIG. 2.
Signals corresponding to four pixels G11, G13, G31, G33 of green G located in the left lower part of FIG. 2 are added together inside the solid-state image pickup device to form a single signal having the weight center in the position G22.
Likewise, signals corresponding to four pixels of blue B, namely, B21, B23, B41, B43 form a single signal having the weight center in the position R32. Signals corresponding to four pixels of red R, namely, R12, R14, R32, R34 form a single signal having the weight center in the position B23. Signals corresponding to four pixels of green G, namely, G22, G24, G42, G44 form a single signal having the weight center in the position G33.
According to this method, even when the color filters in a 2×2 cycle are used, it was possible to reduce the number of samples to one fourth inside the CCD solid-state image pickup device and further to solve the problem of asymmetry between the horizontal direction and the vertical direction.
By the way, when constructing the solid-state image pickup apparatus which is capable of switching between a normal outputting process and the outputting process for reducing the number of samples as the need arises, it is preferable to use the same algorithm for processing signals in those two outputting processes, if possible.
Furthermore, if samples are equal in number, it is preferable that a spacial distance relation among sample points is uniform, which enables the higher resolution and enable the conventional method for processing signals to be applied, thereby giving an advantage to make simpler of the signal processing.
According to the solid-state image pickup apparatus illustrated in FIG. 3, the weight center of samples (the position of G22) of the added signals of G11, G13, G31, G33 is one pixel apart from the weight center of samples (the position of B23) of the added signals of R12, R14, R32, R34, whereas the weight center of samples (the position of B23) of the added signals of R12, R14, R32, R34 is three pixels apart from the weight center of samples (the position G26) of the added signals of G15, G17, G35, G37.
In other words, it is possible to extract from signals output by the CCD solid-state image pickup apparatus signals in the same order as that of the original arrangement of color filters, whereas the symmetrical nature with respect to the parallel spacial distance relation carried by the original color filters is spoiled.
Thus, due to the non-uniformity of spacial distance relation in the arrangement of sampling points, it was difficult to apply the conventional algorithm in processing signals.

Method for driving an imaging device and image pickup device, wherein signals corresponding to same color outputs are combined


A parking brake control assembly for a motor vehicle is provided which includes a housing, a movable actuator disposed in the housing which is operable to apply or release parking brakes, and an actuator spring pivotably mounted in the housing. The actuator spring pivots in response to the movement of the movable actuator. A portion of the actuator spring is biased to a first position by a predetermined force, and if the force applied on the portion exceeds the predetermined force, the portion moves to a second position. The housing also houses a switch actuatable by movement of the movable actuator for indicating desired position of the parking brakes, and a piston in fluid communication with a source of fluid. The piston is positioned adjacent the portion of the actuator spring, and the piston is movable by the pivoting movement of the actuator spring to cause fluid to be ejected such that the ejected fluid indicates desired position of the parking brakes.

Braking systems, including parking brake systems, for vehicles have become increasingly complex and costly to manufacture over recent years. As braking systems in general have become more complicated, so have the mechanisms for their control. The increased complexity of the brake control mechanisms have typically resulted in the shift away from the pneumatic or hydraulic-based control mechanisms to an electronic-based control mechanism.
A significant problem with an electronic-based control mechanism for a braking system is the consequences posed by an unexpected loss of electrical power. Such electrical power failure may create a dangerous condition leading to bodily injuries and property damage. The prior art discloses brake control systems designed to prevent such a hazardous condition from occurring in the event of power failure by providing an additional mechanically actuated means for controlling brake application.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,443,306 ("the '306 patent") to Broome discloses an electronically controlled braking system for a motor vehicle which includes a foot-operable brake valve 11 for electronically controlling brake application (col. 4, lines 48-56). The foot valve 11 includes a body 60 defining an exhaust port 78 which houses solenoid valves having valve members 98, 99, an abutment member 68, a coil spring 66, a tapered coil compression spring 76, a modulating piston 62 having an annular downward extension 75, a valve member 80 having a valve seat 81, a compression spring 82, and a differential piston 91 (col. 9, line 58-col. 10, line 16; FIG. 2). When there is failure of the electronic system, the solenoid valves of the foot valve 11 are de-energized and the above-described components of the foot valve 11 interact to allow the foot valve 11 to function as a standard pneumatic foot brake operating valve (col. 9, line 58-col. 10, line 22).
The disadvantages posed by the '306 patent are complexity and cost. Given that the foot valve 11 includes numerous discrete components which have to be assembled together (see FIG. 2), some of which have been described above, the electronically controlled braking system of the '306 patent is complex to manufacture. Furthermore, this complexity and the number of components needed make the electronically controlled braking system of the '306 patent costly to manufacture.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,370,449 ("the '449 patent") to Edelen discloses an electrically controlled parking brake system which includes an electrically operated valve 20 and a mechanical valve 18 (col. 2, lines 18-36). The mechanical valve 18 is mechanically actuated by a valve actuator 22, and the electrically operated valve 20 is actuated by a pair of solenoids 34, 36, which are controlled from a transmission shift console 40 (col. 2, lines 18-55; FIG. 1). The electrically operated valve 20 is held in position following actuation of the solenoids 34, 36 by a mechanical detent 38, so that in the event of power loss, the valve 20 will retain the previous position (col. 2, lines 36-52). If the last position of the valve 20 retained was the parking brakes applied position, then in the event of power loss, the parking brakes will remain applied (col. 2, lines 39-47). If the last position of the valve 20 retained was the parking brakes released position, then in the event of power loss, the control of the brakes is returned to the mechanical valve 18 (col. 2, lines 47-52).
Like the disadvantages presented by the '306 patent, the disadvantages posed by the '449 patent are complexity and cost. It is complex and costly to manufacture the electrically controlled parking brake system of the '449 patent since there are required the mechanical valve 18, the electrically operated valve 20 with solenoids 34, 36, and numerous components required to interconnect the two valves.
What is desired, therefore, is a parking brake control assembly which provides redundant control outputs to ensure parking brake integrity in case of electrical, hydraulic or pneumatic failure, and which provides cost and ease of manufacturing advantages over the prior art systems.

Control assembly for providing redundant control outputs for operating a parking brake system


A display method and device, related to the field of electronic terminals. The electronic device includes a first display and a second display. The first display and the second display jointly display first display content if the first display is disposed on the electronic device; or the first display and the second display separately display content if the first display is not disposed on the electronic device, where the first display displays second display content, the second display content is related to first display content, and the second display displays third display content. The first display may be detachable, and the second display may be non-detachable. Embodiments are applied to scenarios in which displays of the electronic device jointly and separately display content, to improve display utilization of the electronic device or display flexibility, optimize a display function and/or an interaction function of the electronic device, and improve user experience.

Currently, wearable electronic devices are widely used, and an existing wearable electronic device generally provides a screen as a window of interaction between a user and the electronic device.
Because of limitations on the shape of the wearable electronic device, the display screen of the wearable device is usually relatively small. Viewing display content or interacting through touching by a user on the display screen may not be as convenient as that performed on a mobile phone, tablet computer, or the like. For example, because the screen is small, a displayed icon or key of the wearable electronic device may be small. Consequently, an accidental touch may often occur when the user performs a touch. It is also inconvenient for the user to manually enter content, for example, dialing or entering context information, using the display screen of the wearable electronic device. If the user intends to share information such as a two-dimensional code using the screen of the wearable electronic device, the information may not be easily identified because of the small screen, resulting in a sharing difficulty. Therefore, an improvement in display utilization or display flexibility based on the shape of the wearable electronic device, and further optimization of a display function and/or an interaction function of a wearable device to improve operation experience of the user is an urgent requirement to be met.


An electronic endoscope apparatus includes an electronic endoscope including an insertion portion, an operation portion, and a universal cord; a plurality of types of signal cables which are selectively placed between the insertion portion and a connection connector of the universal cord, have equal lengths and different diameters, and include overall shields having surface areas corresponding to the diameters; and an electromagnetic covering member which is configured to have a predetermined surface area and covers a small-diameter signal cable to form a shield reinforcing portion, the shield reinforcing portion electrically connected to the overall shield of the small-diameter signal cable causing a sum of the surface area of the shield reinforcing portion and the surface area of the overall shield of the small-diameter signal cable to be set to be equal to or larger than the surface area of the overall shield of a large-diameter signal cable.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic endoscope apparatus, an electronic endoscope of which is configured to include an image pickup apparatus at a distal end portion of an insertion portion and such that one image pickup cable selected from among a plurality of types of image pickup cables is provided inside a universal cord.
2. Description of the Related Art
Endoscopes are in widespread use in medical and industrial fields. An example of an endoscope is a so-called electronic endoscope which has, at a distal end portion of an insertion portion, a built-in image pickup apparatus for forming an endoscopic image of an inside of a patient, an inside of a structure, or the like. The electronic endoscope can perform an observation while displaying the endoscopic image on a display apparatus, such as a monitor, which is an outside apparatus.
The image pickup apparatus is connected to, for example, a video processor which is an apparatus outside the electronic endoscope through an image pickup cable. The image pickup cable is inserted through the insertion portion, an operation portion, and a universal cord in the electronic endoscope and is connected to the video processor via a connector. The universal cord is exposed to an environment which is susceptible to disturbance noise generated by a different medical instrument or the like. An overall shield which blocks noise is provided for the image pickup cable to prevent image quality degradation due to noise.
Recently, there has been a need for higher quality of an endoscopic image. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2009-279148 discloses an electronic endoscope apparatus which has achieved prevention of size increase, particularly increase in a diameter of an insertion portion, even in a case where an image pickup apparatus that can acquire a high-quality image is placed at a distal end portion of the insertion portion.
In the above-described electronic endoscope apparatus, a plurality of types of image pickup cables having equal lengths and different diameters are prepared in advance according to specifications of electronic endoscopes. Such preparation allows easy creation of a finished product suited to uses of each type of electronic endoscope and easy assembly.


A slide-out drive member controllably moves a slide-out section that is associated with a vehicle, such as a recreational vehicle, from a retracted position to an extended position. The slide-out drive member includes an inner driven member with embedded teeth with tips that are preferably substantially flush with a bottom surface of the inner driven member; and an outer member that houses the inner driven member along with a gear mechanism that engages with the teeth in the inner driven member to drive the inner driven member, thereby driving the slide-out section. The present slide-out tube overcomes the deficiencies of conventional slide-out tubes by driving the slide-out section in a smooth, uniform, even manner while providing a low profile.

Conventional recreational vehicles (RV) are available in a number of different types depending upon the size requirements and other desires of the purchaser. For example, the purchaser or user can select an RV that is motorized and can be driven by itself or one can be selected that requires a tow vehicle to tow the RV. Consumers increasingly want additional, increased interior room and also want to be provided with additional options available with the RV. One option that has found increasing commonality in recent years is the incorporation of one or more slide-out sections into the RV. The slide-out sections are part of an automated system where the user simply activates the system resulting in the slide-out section extending outward from an exterior wall of the RV. The slide-out section when placed in its extended position increases the overall available interior space. Slide-out sections can be incorporated into any number of different types of RVs including motor homes and fifth wheel trailer type RVs.
Conventional RVs typically include slide-out mechanisms with one or two arms that are the drive means for driving the slide-out section. The slide-out mechanism is often incorporated above the floor of the vehicle since it is difficult to integrate the slide-out mechanism into the chassis. It is also difficult to integrate the slide-out mechanism into the chassis in a way that maintains a pleasing appearance for the vehicle. As a result, the slide-out mechanism is typically placed in the above the floor location; however, by incorporating the slide-out mechanism above the floor of the upper deck, the amount of available interior space in the upper deck decreases and thus, it is counterproductive to place the mechanism at this location.
One exemplary type of slide-out mechanism incorporated above a floor of the RV is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,338,523, which discloses a sliding mechanism for extending and retracting a slide-out compartment. The sliding mechanism includes a guide member having two securing flanges separated by a gap that communicates with an interior channel. A slider rail is disposed within the interior channel and has a middle portion adapted with a plurality of holes formed therein. Extending from the middle portion are two securing members that cooperate with the securing flanges of the guide member to maintain the slider rail within the interior channel as the middle portion extends into the gap. Within the interior channel at one end of the guide member, a gear mechanism is provided. The gear member drivingly engages a plurality of teeth on the gear within the plurality of holes in the middle portion of the slider rail.
While the sliding mechanism of the '523 patent is suitable for some uses, it suffers from a number of disadvantages. For example, the sliding mechanism is of the type that while the slider rail slides within the guide member, the sliding mechanism can not be mounted flush to an underside of a support member, such as the floor, since the topmost portion of the sliding mechanism is the sliding rail whose securing members slide along the securing flanges. Thus, only the opposite side of the guide member can be mounted flush against a support member. This limits the locations where the sliding mechanism can be mounted and more importantly, this design does not particularly lend itself to being mounted to an underside of the support member since the topmost sliding rail prevents such an arrangement. It would therefore be desirable to construct a sliding mechanism where the sliding mechanism and the gear mechanism can still be disposed within the channel defined in the guide member; however, the guide member is constructed so that it can be mounted in two ways, either to an underside of a support member or it can be mounted to a topside of the support member.

Slide-out member with embedded gear rack for use in slide-out room mechanisms


A rechargeable battery includes an electrode assembly including a first electrode, a second electrode, and a separator located between the first electrode and the second electrode; a case accommodating the electrode assembly; a cap plate sealing an opening of the case; and an insulation case located between the cap plate and the electrode assembly, the insulation case having a base and a side wall protruding from the base, the side wall including avoiding portions formed thereon.

1. Field
The described technology relates generally to a rechargeable battery pack.
2. Description of the Related Art
A rechargeable battery differs from a primary battery in that a rechargeable battery can be repeatedly charged and discharged, while the latter only irreversibly converts chemical energy to electrical energy. A low-capacity rechargeable battery is typically used as the power supply for small electronic devices, such as cellular phones, notebook computers and camcorders, while the high-capacity rechargeable battery is typically used as the power supply for driving motors in hybrid vehicles and the like.
Types of rechargeable batteries include a nickel-cadmium battery, a lead-acid battery, a nickel-hydride battery, a lithium ion battery, and a lithium polymer battery. In particular, an operation voltage of the lithium ion secondary battery is three times higher than that of the nickel-cadmium battery used as a portable electronic equipment of the nickel hydride battery. In addition, the lithium ion secondary battery has been widely used because of high energy density per unit weight.
Some rechargeable batteries use a lithium-based oxide as a positive electrode active material and a carbon-based material as a negative electrode active material. In general, a rechargeable battery is classified as a liquid electrolyte battery or a polymer electrolyte battery according to the type of electrolyte, and a battery using the liquid electrolyte is called a lithium ion battery and a battery using the polymer electrolyte is called a lithium polymer battery.
When an impact is applied in a longitudinal direction to rechargeable batteries, the rechargeable batteries may become deformed, thereby being maintained in a dangerous state. When the rechargeable batteries are deformed, an internal short-circuit may occur. When the internal short-circuit occurs in a portion having high resistance, excessive heat may be generated in the rechargeable battery.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the described technology and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Rechargeable battery having insulation case


Provided are a method for processing streaming media data and a terminal. The method includes the following. Determine whether streaming media data to be downloaded satisfies a pre-download condition when the streaming media data to be downloaded is detected. Download the streaming media data to be downloaded, based on a determination that the streaming media data to be downloaded satisfies the pre-download condition. Play streaming media data downloaded in a playing environment of the streaming media data, upon detecting the playing environment.

With the development of streaming media technology, terminals such as mobile terminals are able to play streaming media data online. Currently, upon detecting existence of streaming media data to be downloaded, a terminal can download the streaming media data to be downloaded only after receiving from a user an operation for triggering playing and play streaming media data downloaded only after download of the streaming media data to be downloaded is completed. If a download process is affected by the network environment, for example, the network signal is poor, a download speed of the streaming media data to be downloaded may be affected, which prolongs download time of the streaming media data to be downloaded and thus makes the streaming media data unable to be played in time, thereby providing poor experience for users.

Method for processing streaming media data and terminal

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