A power tool including: a base slidable on a workpiece, and an opening provided through the base; a main unit supported to the base and movable in a first direction substantially perpendicular to the base, the main unit including an electric motor; a cutter driven by the electric motor, the cutter being capable of protruding through the opening from the base; a stopper pole supported to a housing coupled to the main unit, the stopper pole being movable in the first direction, the stopper pole having one end protruding from the housing toward the base, thereby regulating a moving distance of the cutter; a digital display unit including a moving distance detection portion for detecting a moving distance of the stopper pole and a digital display portion for displaying the moving distance; and a dust prevention member provided between a part of the stopper pole protruding toward the base and the moving distance detection portion, thereby preventing dust from entering into the housing.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a power tool. More particularly, the invention relates to a router having a main unit movable with respect to a base to finely adjust a position of a cutter, thereby adjusting a depth of a groove to be cut in a workpiece. Further, the invention relates to a portable electric router in which a stopper pole is moved with respect to the main unit to move the main unit with respect to the base to adjust the depth of the groove to be cut in the workpiece.
2. Related Art
Electric power tools called routers have been well-known for cutting a groove in a workpiece. The router comprises a base, a main unit, a cutter, and a pair of handles. The base has a sliding surface on which a workpiece slides. The base has a through hole that extends perpendicularly to the sliding surface.
The main unit is supported on the opposite surface to the sliding surface of the base. The main unit can be moved with respect to the base in a direction perpendicular to the sliding surface. A workpiece is generally contact with the sliding surface in a horizontal position. Therefore, a moving direction of the main unit is usually a direction perpendicular to the sliding surface or a vertical direction. Hence, the main unit supported over the base can be usually moved up and down with respect to the base. The main unit has two through holes in which a pair of pillar-shaped members are inserted.
The two pillar-shaped members, called columns, support the main unit to the base. These pillar-shaped members are arranged parallel to each other, each extending perpendicularly to the sliding surface. The pillar-shaped members are fixed at one end to the base. The other end portions of the pillar-shaped members are inserted in the through holes. A fastening member is provided near the through hole in the main unit. The fastening member is designed to fasten one pillar-shaped member to the main unit temporarily to prevent the pillar-shaped member from moving with respect to the main unit. While fastened by the fastening member, the pillar-shaped member is temporarily held immovable.
The main unit has two projections which extend from left and right sides of the main unit, respectively, when the sliding surface extends horizontally, contacting with a workpiece. The router has the pair of handles which are mounted on the distal ends of the projections, respectively. A user may hold the handles with hands, respectively.
The main unit incorporates an electric motor. The electric motor has an output shaft that extends to the base in a direction perpendicular to the sliding surface. The cutter is attached and secured to the distal end of the output shaft. The cutter can move through the through hole of the base downward from the sliding surface, when the main unit is moved down to the base.
A method of cutting a groove in a workpiece by using the router will be described below. The fastening member is operated, thus releasing the pillar-shaped members from the main unit, allowing the main unit to move with respect to the both pillar-shaped members. The user holds the handles with hands, respectively, and then moves the main unit to a desired position with respect to the base. The user operates the fastening member to fix the pillar-shaped members to the main unit, making the main unit immovable with respect to the base The cutter is then projected through the through holes to the workpiece by a desired distance from the sliding surface. The desired distance is the depth of a groove to be cut in the workpiece.
After setting the router in the above state, the user can hold the two handles with the hands, respectively, and move the router over the workpiece, contacting the sliding surface and maintaining the sliding surface in a substantially horizontal position. As a result, the cutter forms a groove in the workpiece because the cutter protrudes downward from the sliding surface. This type of router is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 6-020726.
When using the conventional router described above, the user needs to hold the handles with the hands, respectively in order to support the main unit. The user then moves the main unit to a desired position with respect to the base, and protrudes the cutter by a desired distance to the workpiece from the sliding surface. Therefore, it is difficult to finely adjust the protruding distance of the cutter.
There is another method of using the router. In this method, a support member is secured to the router to support the router to an edge of a so-called router table. That is, the router is used with the base of the router being held upward in a vertical direction with respect to the main unit. The router is then supported at the edge of the router table by means of a support member. In this case, the user holds the handles with the hands, respectively, to move the main unit up and down in the vertical direction against the relatively large weight of the main unit to adjust the protruding distance of the cutter. Inevitably, it is more difficult to finely adjust the protruding distance of the cutter.
A router is proposed which has a fine-adjustment mechanism to finely adjust a moving distance of the main unit with respect to the base. In this case, the main unit needs to be moved first to a position near the desired position prior to the fine adjustment. The user must hold the handles with the hands, respectively to move the main unit. Hence, a mode of using the router need to be switched between the fine-adjusting mode in which the fine-adjustment mechanism adjusts the protruding distance of the cutter and the main-unit moving mode in which the user manually moves main unit to change the position of the main unit with respect to the base considerably. Further, if the user tries to operate the router in either one of the modes without holding the main unit, the user cannot easily move the main unit by handles, nor finely adjust the protruding distance of the cutter.
An object of this invention is to provide a power tool in which a moving distance of a main unit with respect to a base can be fine-adjusted, thereby fine-adjusting a protruding distance of a cutter from the base to a workpiece.


Stable oxidizing biocide formulations containing bromine are provided for biofouling control in industrial water systems. The formulations contain at least one stable oxidizing bromine compound that is prepared from at least one oxidizing chemical reagent, at least one bromine source and at least one bromine or halogen stabilizer. The resulting products are a mixture of stable oxidizing bromine compounds that can be used as a primary or secondary biocide in an industrial water system.

The present invention relates to formulations used in biofouling control in industrial water systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods of preparing stable oxidizing bromine formulations and their use in biofouling control in industrial water systems.
Ozone is known to be an effective biocide and is used to control biofouling in various industrial water applications. However, ozone is also very reactive with other water treatment chemicals such as corrosion and scale inhibitors. As a result, it is difficult to maintain a residual ozone concentration in a system thereby substantially reducing the effectiveness of ozone as a biocide.
In an effort to overcome the deficiencies of ozone, the combination of ozone and bromine has been used. One method utilizes ozone activated hypobromite to increase the biocide residual concentration in the system and to reduce the reaction of ozone with other water treatment chemicals. However, bromine species such as OBr.sup.-, HOBr and Br.sub.2 are produced and are all both unstable and aggressive against water treatment chemicals as well.
Methods of generating stabilized hypobromite for use at levels of less than 100 ppm as a secondary disinfectant during water ozonation are also known. The ozonation processes are carried out at a pH of about 8.5. Compounds used to stabilize the hypobromite include 5, 5-dimethylhydantoin and succinamide.
Thus, while bromine compounds such as hypobromite have been used as secondary disinfectants or have been generated for on-site use without concern for stabilization of the bromine, to date, there has been only one successful method for providing oxidizing bromine formulations that are stable and that can be used for biofouling control. Therefore, methods of generating higher concentrations of stable oxidizing bromine formulations in a safer manner are needed so that such stable oxidizing bromine formulations can be combined with ozone and be an effective biofouling control system.

Stable oxidizing bromine formulations, methods of manufacture thereof and methods of use for microbiofouling control


One embodiment sets forth a technique for dynamically mapping addresses to banks of a multi-bank memory based on a bank mode. Application programs may be configured to perform read and write a memory accessing different numbers of bits per bank, e.g., 32-bits per bank, 64-bits per bank, or 128-bits per bank. On each clock cycle an access request may be received from one of the application programs and per processing thread addresses of the access request are dynamically mapped based on the bank mode to produce a set of bank addresses. The bank addresses are then used to access the multi-bank memory. Allowing different bank mappings enables each application program to avoid bank conflicts when the memory is accesses compared with using a single bank mapping for all accesses.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to parallel processing and, more specifically, to a parallel architecture that supports dynamic bank address mapping for multi-bank memory accesses.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a single-instruction multiple-thread (SIMT) processing environment, threads are organized in groups of P parallel threads called warps that execute the same program. Although the P threads of a thread group execute each instruction of the program in parallel, each thread of a thread group independently executes the instruction using its own data and registers. Each thread in the thread group is configured to access a multi-bank memory using a fixed mapping of per-thread addresses to the banks of the multi-bank memory. If multiple threads need to access two or more locations in the same bank of memory than can be accessed in a single clock cycle, a bank conflict exists.
Application programs are typically authored to reduce bank conflicts when the parallel threads of a thread group read and write the multi-bank memory so that data for all of the parallel threads in the thread group may be read or written in a single clock cycle. For example, a program may be authored so that either a row or a column of an array of data may be accessed by a thread group without any bank conflicts. When bank conflicts do occur, the accesses for addresses mapped to the same bank must be completed in separate clock cycles, thereby reducing performance.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is method for avoiding bank conflicts when parallel threads of a thread group access a multi-bank memory.

Dynamic bank mode addressing for memory access


Rotary barrier face seal of the non-contact type seal with helical grooves for a housing and a shaft, comprising means for introduction of an external barrier fluid towards the sealing interface. Said barrier fluid prevents sealed process fluid from entering past the sealing interface, thus providing sealing means for hazardous or repugnant fluids.

The invention relates to sealing devices for rotatable shafts, where either sealed or barrier fluid is employed to generate hydrostatic and hydrodynamic forces or aerostatic and aerodynamic forces between stationary and rotary seal faces to establish separation for their non-contact operation.
Rotary fluid film face seals, also known as non-contact seals are applied to high speed and high pressure rotary shaft sealing operations, where otherwise face contact would cause excessive heat generation resulting in wear and tear of the seal faces. In a non-contact seal face operation, seal faces will separate when rotational velocity reaches lift-off speed and thus undesirable face contact is avoided.
A most successful method of generating non-contact separation between two sealing faces is by applying a shallow helical groove pattern on either one of the surfaces of the sealing faces, while the opposite sealing face remains flat and smooth. The area where the two sealing faces define a sealing clearance is labeled the sealing interface. The referred helical groove pattern applied to one of the sealing faces extends inward from the higher pressure circumference of the outer diameter to the inner end of the helical groove specified as the groove diameter.
The helical groove pattern forces fluid during shaft rotation from the higher pressure end of the sealing interface toward said groove diameter and thus drives the sealed fluid into remaining non-grooved portion of the sealing interface, thus keeping the sealing faces separated. While a certain amount of fluid will pass through the sealing interface from the side of higher pressure to the side of lower pressure, such fluid amount is considered the seal leakage, an undesirable result of the need to maintain seal face separation. The cooperation between the helical grooved area and the non-grooved area on one of the sealing faces is a most effective approach to maintain a stable gap designated the sealing clearance.
The helical groove pumping action is an effective mechanism to move fluids in between the sealing interface, regardless of whether there are pressure differences or even against pressure differentials. Moreover, even in reversed pressure differential situations, the helical groove seal still operates with adequate separation between the sealing faces, but invariably accompanied by a certain amount of leakage. Such seals are frequently used to divide two different fluids near atmospheric pressure from each other or in contingencies where intermixing of fluids must be prevented if one of them is flammable and the other one is air.
With the presence of elevated rotational velocities and pressures it becomes increasingly difficult to establish a true barrier to prevent intermixing of fluids in non-contact operation. Prior art solutions include the introduction of a third, less chemically active fluid defined as an inert fluid using Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide or Helium to establish a barrier in a process called buffering. Said buffering can take two forms, either outside or within the sealing interface. Buffering outside the sealing interface requires incomparably larger amounts of costly inert gas due to large radial clearances requiring high flow rats of fresh, uncontaminated buffer fluid, whereas buffering inside the sealing interface, where both sealing clearances and fluid volume subjected to intermixing require much smaller amounts of buffer fluid. U.S. Pat. No. 4,523,764 provides for such purpose a buffer flow inlet as well as buffer flow outlet towards and away from the sealing interface, which as opposed to the present invention requires at least two fluid flow connections to the sealing face to establish a sealing clearance, then to recover part of the buffer fluid and more to provide for a true barrier function.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,212,475, 3,704,019 and 3,499,653 on the other hand, employ spiral grooves to establish a stable sealing clearance, but does not provide a solution to sealing applications, where true fluid separation or barrier is mandated.
According to the invention, buffer fluid is injected directly into and adjacent the upstream end of the sealing interface, with buffer fluid pressure slightly above that coming from the process end of the barrier unit, whereby some amount of buffer fluid is leaking towards the direction of the process, such being diametrical to that of normal interface flow and therefore terminating process fluid flow towards the sealing interface. Said amount of leakage is notably modest since it occurs through an extremely small sealing clearance of less than about 35 microns, preferably less than about 12 microns as compared to 120 microns, when buffering takes place outside the sealing interface. Resulting buffer fluid intermixing, consumption and cost being orders of magnitude smaller, when buffered inside the sealing interface, where above extremely small sealing clearances are a true result of optimum utilization of partial helical groove pattern.
Said minimal buffer fluid consumption makes it possible to minimize flow passages, which in turn facilitates the provision of more interface area for partial helical grooves, thus enhances a narrower and more stable clearance. Minimal buffer fluid consumption also makes it possible to avoid having to recover buffer fluid and having to provide flow passages for it which would once further reduce the sealing interface area needed for the advantageous benefits of the partial helical grooves.
These and many other features and attendant advantages of the invention will become apparent as the invention becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.


Provided is an information processing apparatus and an information processing method that are capable of providing contents suitable for a user. The information processing apparatus includes an information generation section that refers to information related to an action history and an action schedule of a user acquired and a database of event content information regarding a plurality of events, and generates profile information of the user while tying together information of stay places in past and future of the user and information of artistes of the events, and an output section that sets a priority for each of the plurality of artistes on the basis of the generated profile information, and outputs a content corresponding to each of the artistes in accordance with the priority.

These days, a technology that automatically provides a user with music pieces (contents) agreeing with an action history of the user is developed. Examples of such a technology include a technology disclosed in Patent Document 1 below that infers a place where a user stayed for not less than a prescribed time and can automatically provide music pieces in accordance with the result of inference. In detail, the technology disclosed in Patent Document 1 below preferentially infers a place where the time during which a user stayed is long, and provides music pieces on the basis of the inferred place; thus, can provide music pieces according to a place where the user stays daily, for example, a place such as the user's place of employment, school, or house.

Information processing apparatus and information processing method


A system and method for indexing a data record from an information source into a database, the database containing a plurality of data records, is provided comprising receiving a data record from an information source, the received data record having a predetermined number of fields containing information about a particular entity, standardizing and validating the data in the received data record. A system and method is also provided for retrieving records that refer to an entity characterized by a specific set of data values by comparing a predetermined number of fields within the received data record with a predetermined number of fields within the data records already in the database, selecting data records already in the database as candidates having data within some of the predetermined fields that is identical to the data in the fields of the received data record, and scoring the candidates to determine data records having information about the same entity.

This invention relates generally to a system and method for associating data records within one or more databases, and in particular to a system and method for identifying data records in one or more databases that may contain information about the same entity and associating those data records together for easier access to information about the entity.
Data about entities, such as people, products, or parts may be stored in digital format in a computer database. These computer databases permit the data about an entity to be accessed rapidly and permit the data to be cross-referenced to other relevant pieces of data about the same entity. The databases also permit a person to query the database to find data records pertaining to a particular entity. The terms data set, data file, and data source may also refer to a database. A database, however, has several limitations which may limit the ability of a person to find the correct data about an entity within the database. The actual data within the database is only as accurate as the person who entered the data. Thus, a mistake in the entry of the data into the database may cause a person looking for data about an entity in the database to miss some relevant data about the entity because, for example, a last name of a person was misspelled. Another kind of mistake involves creating a new separate record for an entity that already has a record within the database. In a third problem, several data records may contain information about the same entity, but, for example, the names or identification numbers contained in the two data records may be different so that the database may not be able to associate the two data records to each other.
For a business that operates one or more databases containing a large number of data records, the ability to locate relevant information about a particular entity within and among the respective databases is very important, but not easily obtained. Once again, any mistake in the entry of data (including without limitation the creation of more than one data record for the same entity) at any information source may cause relevant data to be missed when the data for a particular entity is searched for in the database. In addition, in cases involving multiple information sources, each of the information sources may have slightly different data syntax or formats which may further complicate the process of finding data among the databases. An example of the need to properly identify an entity referred to in a data record and to locate all data records relating to an entity in the health care field is one in which a number of different hospitals associated with a particular health care organization may have one or more information sources containing information about their patient, and a health care organization collects the information from each of the hospitals into a master database. It is necessary to link data records from all of the information sources pertaining to the same patient to enable searching for information for a particular patient in all of the hospital records.
There are several problems which limit the ability to find all of the relevant data about an entity in such a database. Multiple data records may exist for a particular entity as a result of separate data records received from one or more information sources, which leads to a problem that can be called data fragmentation. In the case of data fragmentation, a query of the master database may not retrieve all of the relevant information about a particular entity. In addition, as described above, the query may miss some relevant information about an entity due to a typographical error made during data entry, which leads to the problem of data inaccessibility. In addition, a large database may contain data records which appear to be identical, such as a plurality of records for people with the last name of Smith and the first name of Jim. A query of the database will retrieve all of these data records and a person who made the query to the database may often choose, at random, one of the data records retrieved which may be the wrong data record. The person may not often typically attempt to determine which of the records is appropriate. This can lead to the data records for the wrong entity being retrieved even when the correct data records are available. These problems limit the ability to locate the information for a particular entity within the database.
To reduce the amount of data that must be reviewed and prevent the, user from picking the wrong data record, it is also desirable to identify and associate data records from the various information sources that may contain information about the same entity. There are conventional systems that locate duplicate data records within a database and delete those duplicate data records, but these systems only locate data records which are identical to each other. Thus, these conventional systems cannot determine if two data records, with for example slightly different last names, nevertheless contain information about the same entity. In addition, these conventional systems do not attempt to index data records from a plurality of different information sources, locate data records within the one or more information sources containing information about the same entity, and link those data records together.
Thus, there is a need for a system and method for indexing information about entities from a plurality of different information sources which avoid these and other problems of known systems and methods, and it is to this end that the present invention is directed.

System and method for indexing information about entities from different information sources


An address buffer includes a latch circuit, and is controlled by an internal clock signal sent from a clock buffer. A decoding circuit section for selecting a word line is formed of a predecoder and a row decoder for further decoding a decoded output from the predecoder. The predecoder has no latching function, and the row decoder has a latch circuit. A pulse generating circuit generates two timing pulses based on a clock signal CK1. The activation of the row decoder is controlled by the two timing pulses.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to clock synchronization type semiconductor memory integrated circuits and, more particularly, to an improvement of an address decoding circuit.
2. Related Background Art
FIG. 14 shows a block diagram of a prior art clock synchronization type semiconductor memory integrated circuit. An external clock signal CLK is inputted to a clock buffer 4, in which internal clock signals CK1 and CK2 are generated. Address signals are inputted to an address buffer 8 in sync with the clock signals CK1, among which a row address signal is sequentially decoded by a predecoder 6 and a row decoder 7 to select a word line WL of a memory cell array 1.
The internal clock signal CK2 from the clock buffer 4 and a timing pulse PULSE generated at a pulse generating circuit 5 based on the internal clock signal CK1 are sent to the predecoder 6. The timing pulse PULSE is used for adjusting a transfer timing of a predecoded output PD1 to the row decoder 7.
A column address is decoded by a column decoder 9. Based on the decoded output from the column decoder 9, a column gate 3 is selectively driven to select a bit line of the memory cell array 1. Data of a memory cell MC determined by the selected word line WL and the selected bit line BL is read out to the bit line BL, sensed and amplified by a sense amplifier 2, and outputted via a data buffer 10.
In a large-scale semiconductor memory circuit, the memory cell array 1 is divided into a plurality of memory sections 1-1 to 1-n, as shown in FIG. 15. A main word line MWL is shared by the memory sections 1-1 to 1-n, and a plurality of word lines WL, each corresponding to one of the memory sections, are selectively connected to the main word line MWL in accordance with section selection signals SSL1 to SSLn.
FIG. 16 shows an example of a specific configuration of the row address decoding system (word line selecting system) shown in FIG. 14. The address buffer 8 includes a latch circuit (master latch), having inverters INV 4 and INV 5, for temporally holding address data inputted in sync with the clock signal CK1. In order to carry out a grouping selection of a plurality of main word lines MWL, the predecoder 6 includes a predecoding section 6a for selecting one line from a bundle of main word lines MWL, and a predecoding section 6b for selecting a bundle of main word lines MWL.
The predecoding sections 6a and 6b have NAND gates NAND1 and NAND3, respectively, for decoding an internal address A0 sent from the address buffer 8 in accordance with the clock signal CK2. Further, the predecoding sections 6a and 6b have latch circuits (slave latches) formed of inverters (INV9, INV10) and (INV13, INV14), respectively. The decoded output latched by the predecoding section 6a is taken from a NAND gate NAND 2 and sent to the row decoder 7 as an output PD1. The latch data of the other predecoding section 6b is sent to the row decoder 7 as an output PD2 via inverters INV15 and INV16 without being adjusted by the timing pulse.
The pulse generating circuit 5 generates a timing pulse PULSE in consideration of the number of logical circuits (delays) provided before the predecoder 6 decodes an address externally received. Specifically, in the example shown in FIG. 16, odd-number inverters INV24 to INV26 and a NAND gate NAND5 form an edge detecting circuit 51 for detecting a rising edge of the internal clock signal CK1, and even-number inverters INV28 to INV31 and a NOR gate NOR1 form a pulse width setting circuit 52 for determining a pulse width. Therefore, the pulse generating circuit 5 generates, in sync with a rising of the clock signal CK1, a timing pulse PULSE having a pulse width determined by the delays of the inverters INV28 to INV31.
The row decoder 7 includes a NAND gate NAND4 for further decoding the predecoded output PD2 and transfer gate transistors M1 and M2, which are controlled by the output of the NAND 4 and transfer the predecoded output PD1 to the main word line MWL. In more detail, in the row decoder, when the prededecoded output PD2 is inputted (all 1""s), the output of the NAND gate NAND4 becomes xe2x80x9cLxe2x80x9d, thereby turning on the transfer gate transistors M1 and M2 to supply the predecoded output PD1 to the main word line MWL.
FIG. 17 shows the timings in the above described row address decoder from the input of the external clock signal CLK to the activating of a word line. A timing pulse PULSE is generated so as to have a predetermined pulse width in which the predecoded outputs PD1 and PD2 are accomplished. Thus, the predecoded outputs PD1 and PD2 are further decoded by the row decoder 7, and the selection of a main word line MWL and a selection of a word line ML are carried out. In addition, in the row decoder 7, three inverters INV18 to INV20 inserted after the transfer gate transistors M1 and M2 are for the purpose of waveform formation, because an xe2x80x9cHxe2x80x9d level attenuation occurs in the transfer gate transistors M1 and M2, and the signal level is not fully compensated by only a single inverter. After a main word line MWL is selected, a word line WL is selected by a NOR gate NOR2 activated by a section selection signal SSL.
In the prior art clock synchronization type address decoder shown in FIG. 16, it is preferable to reduce the delay determined by the number of the logical circuits in the address buffer 8 and the predecoder 6, and to speed up the rising of a timing pulse PULSE generated by the pulse generating circuit 5 as much as possible. Since these sections are already formed of a minimum number of logical circuits, it is difficult to remarkably speed up the operations of these sections unless it is possible to reduce the delay of each logical circuit.
In the circuit arrangement shown in FIG. 16, it is rather the number of logical circuits needed to be used after the generation of the timing pulse PULSE until the selection of a word line WL that is preventing the speeding up of the operations. In FIG. 16, if the transfer gate transistors (M1, M2) are assumed to be a single logical circuit, the number of the logical circuits after the generation of the timing pulse PULSE until the selection of a word line WL is seven (NAND2, INV11, (M1, M2), INV18 to INV20, and NOR2). Due to the existence of these logical circuits, a considerable delay is caused before a word line is activated. In FIG. 17, a delay after the rising of the timing pulse PULSE until the activation of the selected word line WL is shown as xcfx842.
Further, as the capacities of semiconductor memories increase, if the number of bits in a row system is doubled, the number of row decoder is also doubled, thereby doubling the load per one predecoder. Accordingly, the delays caused by the predecoded outputs PD1 and PD2 are increased. In order to reduce such delays, the size of output buffer in the predecoder, i.e., the size of the inverters INV11 and INV16 in FIG. 16, maybe increased. However, there is a limit to the improvement of input waveform of a row decoder, which causes a large load. Further, there may arise another problem in that the increasing of the size of output buffer may increase power consumption.
Given the above mentioned circumstances, an object of the present invention is to provide a semiconductor memory integrated circuit in which the number of logical circuits needed to be used during a period from the input of a clock signal to the activation of a word line is reduced to speed up operations.
A semiconductor memory integrated circuit according to the present invention comprises: a memory cell array; a clock buffer for receiving a clock signal to generate an internal clock signal; an address buffer for receiving an address signal in accordance with said internal clock signal generated by said clock buffer; an address decoding circuit including a first stage decoder for decoding an internal address signal outputted from said address buffer to select a word line of said memory cell array, and a second stage decoder for further decoding an output of said first decoder to drive a selected word line; and a pulse generating circuit for generating a timing pulse for controlling an activation timing of said second decoder of said address decoding circuit based on the internal clock signal outputted from said clock buffer.
According to the present invention, timings of the first stage decoder of the address decoding circuit are not controlled by the use of clock signals, but timings of the second stage decoder are controlled thereby. Because of this, it is possible to reduce the logical delay caused in a period from the input of a clock signal to the activation of a selected word line, as compared to the prior art systems, thereby speeding up the operations.


In one embodiment, a data storage system includes a head configured to produce a signal representing data stored on a storage medium, a bank of noise whitening filters configured to apply one or more noise whitening filters to the signal to produce a filtered signal, and a data-dependent noise mean calculator configured to estimate a data-dependent noise mean from the filtered signal. The system also includes a branch metric calculator configured to perform one or more branch metric calculations on the filtered signal to produce one or more branch metrics, the one or more branch metric calculations accounting for the data-dependent noise mean. Moreover, the system includes an adaptive data-dependent noise-predictive maximum likelihood (D3-NPML) detector configured to generate an output stream from the one or more branch metric calculations.

In the field of magnetic storage systems, an electrical circuit called a read channel transforms physical magnetic flux changes measured in a data read head into abstract bits representing information stored to a magnetic medium. The abstract bits are produced by a symbol or sequence detector, which is designed to achieve a low bit-error rate when reading data written on magnetic media in hard disk drives, tape drives, etc. As the density of data written on the media increases, along with faster write speeds, conventional read-detect methods and devices which read the data stored on the magnetic media often are not adequate to detect the data at the error rates required by the users of such methods and devices.
To address these issues, attempts have been made at improving the performance of data detectors in read channels for magnetic storage systems, in particular tape storage systems. Known solutions to improve the performance of data detectors in read channels that go beyond a standard detector design, such as partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) detection, noise-predictive maximum-likelihood (NPML) detection, data-dependent NPML (DD-NPML), post-processing techniques, and other methods. However, even these methods and devices do not effectively compensate for all of the slight variations in the data being read. For example, non-linear effects, e.g., non-linear transition shifts (NLTS) in the magnetic medium recording and readback processes, may degrade detection performance as the noise becomes non-zero-mean and non-Gaussian, which is not accounted for in NPML or DD-NPML detection.

Adaptive data-dependent noise-predictive maximum likelihood detection for channels with non-linear transition shifts

International Business Machines Corporation


A surgical device is disclosed, and includes a pair of finger-mountable annular members, each having an electrode disposed thereon. An optical member is disposed on at least one of the pair of finger-mountable annular members and has a first set of light transmitting properties corresponding to a first set of physical parameters of at least one of the finger-mountable annular members. At least one finger-mountable annular member is configured to transition to a second set of physical parameters being different from the first set of physical parameters. The optical member is configured to transition from a first set of light transmitting properties to a second set of light transmitting properties, the second set of light transmitting properties corresponding to the second set of physical parameters, the second set of light transmitting properties being different from the first set of light transmitting properties.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to an electrosurgical device, and more particularly to one or more finger-mountable annular members including an electrode for treating tissue and an optical fiber for the detection of the changing physical characteristics of the finger-mountable annular member.
2. Background of Related Art
Electrosurgical instruments are commonly used in open and minimally invasive surgical procedures. Because nerve and muscle stimulation cease at 100,000 cycles per second (100 kHz), electrosurgical procedures can be performed safely at radio frequencies ("RF") above 100 kHz. At these frequencies, electrosurgical energy can pass through a patient with minimal neuromuscular stimulation.
Electrosurgery involves application of high RF electrical current to a surgical site to cut, ablate, or coagulate tissue. In monopolar electrosurgery, a source or active electrode delivers RF energy from the electrosurgical generator to the tissue and a return electrode carries the current back to the generator. The source electrode is typically part of the surgical instrument held by the surgeon and applied to the tissue to be treated. A patient return electrode is placed remotely from the active electrode to carry the current back to the generator.
In bipolar electrosurgery, one of the electrodes of the hand-held instrument functions as the active electrode and the other as the return electrode. The return electrode is placed in close proximity to the active electrode such that an electrical circuit is formed between the two electrodes, e.g., electrosurgical forceps, graspers, pencils, and the like. In this manner, the applied electrical current is limited to the body tissue positioned between the electrodes. When the electrodes are sufficiently separated from one another, the electrical circuit is open and thus incidental contact of body tissue with either of the separated electrodes inhibits current flow.
Bipolar electrosurgical instruments often include opposed electrodes disposed on opposing tissue engaging faces of a pair of cooperating members such as jaws, graspers, or plates. The electrodes are charged to opposite electrical potentials such that an electrosurgical current may be selectively transferred through tissue grasped between the electrodes. However, electrosurgical instruments often have a limited range of motion, e.g., due to mechanical design constraints. This limited range of motion may be disadvantageous to a surgeon working in an area that requires a complex series of movements. In such situations, it may be desirable to use electrosurgical instruments that facilitate a wide and variable range of motion to allow for complex surgical articulation. Thus, the mechanical nature of some electrosurgical instruments may limit the amount of tactile sensory feedback received by the surgeon during a procedure. In certain procedures, it may be useful to have the ability to determine how much pressure to apply to a coagulation, cutting, or sealing surface.


An electrophotographic image forming method is disclosed. The method includes a step of forming a static image on an amorphous silicon photoreceptor and a step of developing the image by a developer. The developer comprises a toner comprising colored particles comprising a resin and a colorant; and complex particles comprising resin particles comprising an acryl polymer, a styrene polymer or a styrene-acryl copolymer and hydrophobicized microparticles of an inorganic oxide which are bound to the surface of the resin particles.

As a traditional method of obtaining an electrostatic developer, complex particles are added to a developer cf. Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) No. 91143/1989. In this method, complex particles, comprising resin particles whose average grain size is smaller than that of colored particles at 0.05 to 3.0 .mu.m and inorganic microparticles bound to the surface of the resin grains, are used to keep the surface of the photoreceptor in a good condition by the polishing action thereof and hence improve the cleaning property.
However, when used for the image formation process using an amorphous silicon photoreceptor, the developer disclosed in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 91143/1989 poses the following problems:
(1) When cleaning is performed while a cleaning device is placed on the surface of the amorphous silicon photoreceptor under relatively high pressure to improve the cleaning property in the cleaning process, the complex particles between the cleaning device and the surface of the amorphous silicon photoreceptor undergo a great pressurizing force; therefore, resin particles constituting the nuclei of the complex particles are destroyed, and the morphology and surface properties of the complex particles become poor, which results in cleaning failure.
(2) When complex resin particles are destroyed as above, resin dust occurs, which is bound to the surface of the amorphous silicon photoreceptor by the cleaning device and thus forms a film on the surface of the amorphous silicon photoreceptor. As a result, potential reduction occurs there, resulting in black dot stain and black streak stain. In addition, the surface properties of the photoreceptor deteriorate early; repeated image formation is accompanied by image density reduction.
(3) Upon complex resin particle destruction, inorganic microparticles are detached and inorganic micro dust are formed. The micro dust damages the surface of the amorphous silicon photoreceptor and fails to be cleaned off because it is embedded in the damaged portion on the surface of the amorphous silicon photoreceptor. As a result, the toner adheres to the embedded inorganic microparticles and is fixed in the image formation process which follows, leading to the problem of black dot stain and black streak strain on the image.
(4) Under high-temperature high-humidity conditions, charge leaks into the atmosphere due to too high temperature or leaks into water adsorbed to the surface of the photoreceptor, which tends to cause image failure, the phenomenon in which latent imaging failure makes the image portion corresponding to the deteriorated portion unclear or makes lateral lines lost easily. In conventional complex particles, because the inorganic microparticles are covered by hydroxyl groups, the surface adsorbs water under high-temperature high-humidity conditions; if cleaning is performed in such a state, the surface of the photoreceptor adsorbs water and leads to imaging failure upon sweeping off the residual toner.
(5) Water adsorption under high-temperature high-humidity conditions affects the triboelectric charging property of toner particles to provide a region of charge leakage. Repeated image formation leads to image density reduction and fogging.

Image forming method comprising the use of a developer having complex particles therein


A slackless railcar coupler assembly, which is mountable in a railcar center sill, has a draft gear subassembly operable against a rear stop, and a slackfree coupler apparatus mounted in a coupler pocket forward of said draft gear subassembly, which subassembly and apparatus are connected to provide a dynamic load in both the buff and draft directions to avoid a mechanical, longitudinal stress load on the coupler assembly and railway car.

The present invention provides a railway car coupler or connector with a buff/draft gear assembly. More particularly, the invention relates to a slackless drawbar connector with an integral assembly to cushion the dynamic loading of the slackless connector in both the buff and draft directions of the coupled railcars.
The rail industry developed with the steam locomotive, which is a lower torque drive means than the modern diesel locomotive. The steam locomotive did not have the torque capacity to initiate drive on the full length of a train of tightly coupled cars, therefore, a degree of free-travel or free-play between cars was required to allow sequential initiation of car travel of loaded trains. The coupling apparatus between the cars had to not only accommodate the longitudinal travel in both directions, but also had the vertical and horizontal travel at the coupling as the train progressed along the rails. In addition, couplers are generally assembled from as-cast components, which do not have the dimensional tolerances associated with machined elements. Therefore, all the free play and relative loose connections associated with earlier couplers were acceptable conditions, and as noted above, they were necessary conditions.
The diesel locomotive brought about changes in the load-bearing capacity of trains, their physical parameters and in their operating characteristics. The physical and mechanical properties of the couplers joining the individual cars of the train also changed to accommodate the train improvements. The greater loads carried by modern railway trains have changed the perception of the coupler engineer and designer with regard to train operating characteristics. Indicative of this change in perception is that heavier loads are carried on rail cars and the industry has moved to maintain close-butted relationships between coupler draft components to lessen the impact forces on cars, couplers and lading.
Since most coupler drawbar connection parts are cast with little or no finish machining to provide dimensional control, it is desirable to provide a self-adjusting coupling device to accommodate component wear and to lessen the slack in the coupler connections. One type of self-adjusting articulated coupler is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,716,146.
In an exemplary slackless drawbar coupling structure, the drawbar extends between the car sill sides and nests in a pocket casting. The butt end of the drawbar may be convexly arcuate and abut a complementary front concave surface of a follower block. The back surface of the follower abuts the front surface of a wedge which has a rear surface abutting the rear wall of the pocket casting within the car sill. Either or both of the front and rear surfaces of the wedge member diverge upwardly to yield a gravity-assisted wedging force, which provides the slackless coupling arrangement. When the abutting surfaces become worn, the wedge member drops slightly to maintain the essentially slackless connection.
The top, bottom and vertically disposed side walls in the pocket casting of the drawbar coupling arrangement provide a cavity for the follower and the wedge. Upon horizontal angling of the drawbar, the side walls limit the lateral translation and, therefore, the rotation of the follower about the vertical axis of the arcuate butt end of the drawbar. Rotation of the follower may potentially cause the wedge to rotate about the car longitudinal axis and possibly hang up between the vertical walls, especially when the wedge is small in height relative to its width. A method of controlling rotation of the follower, and the relative orientation between the wedge and the follower provides for a very close tolerance between the vertical side walls of the cavity and the wedge and the follower side edges. As these are cast components, the procedure providing close tolerances between components requires an uneconomical amount of tolerance design and machining of finished parts.
The term slackless means that the drawbar (or coupler) is received within the center sill in a manner to minimize longitudinal play or movement. However, because successive railway cars in a train must accommodate relative movement between cars, when curves and inclines are negotiated, there must be a provision for each car to move in pitch, yaw and roll modes with respect to the coupler member. Moreover, there must also be a provision to remove the draft components for repair and replacement of parts and, to disconnect coupled cars.
In a slackless system, the coupler member is held in a manner to eliminate, or minimize, longitudinal movement with respect to the car body. As noted above, this may be done by providing a tapered wedge between a rear wall of a pocket casting (secured in the center sill) and a follower block which rests against the butt end of the coupler member. The wedge tends to force the follower block away from the pocket casting end wall and firmly against the butt end of the coupler member shank. In railway cars being pushed, the longitudinal forces cause compression of the coupler member against the follower, wedge and pocket end wall of the slackless arrangement.
When cars are being pulled, the longitudinal forces tending to separate the drawbar from the pocket casting are countered by a draft key or connecting pin, which is a metal bar extending laterally or vertically of the center sill and a slot or pin bore in the shank of the coupler member. In a slackless drawbar system, the drawbar is held tightly between the pin or key bearing block (with the connecting pin or draft key) and follower block by the wedge separating the pocket casting and follower block, which wedge compresses the follower block against the butt end of the drawbar. However, the mating faces of the follower block and drawbar are preferably curved to permit the drawbar to pivot, both vertically and laterally, and to permit the car to roll with respect to the drawbar. The drawbar also pivots at the draft key or pin connection on an arcuate pin or key bearing block interposed between the parts.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,593,827 to Altherr, a slackless coupler is shown with the drawbar extending into the car center sill. The front surface of a follower block in the center sill has an arcuate concave section abutting the convex arcuate end of the drawbar. The follower block rear surface has a convex shape of two generally planar surfaces joined at a vertex substantially in the vertical centerplane of the car. The wedge shim is provided with a generally concave surface, which complementarily abuts the convex surface of the follower block. The interrelationship of the shim and block surfaces maintains the orientation of the assembly and inhibits lateral translation between the shim, the follower and the side casting.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,853 to Altherr et al. also provides a slackless coupler with the placement of contoured spacer means within the center sill on either side of the coupler member, both above and below the draft key slots, to prevent lateral movement of the drawbar on the draft key. A preferred embodiment also includes access means or ports in the pocket casting for engagement or withdrawal of the wedge from contact with the follower blocks.
Draft gear assemblies have been known and utilized for coupler systems in the prior art, however, they frequently utilized large spring assemblies, which added to the weight of the undercarriage assembly and detracted from the freight carrying capacity of the railway car. Illustrative examples of draft gear assemblies operable to absorb buff and draft forces applied to the draft gear are shown in CAR AND LOCOMOTIVE CYCLOPEDIA, CENTENNIAL EDITION (1974), at page S9-s32. Force diagrams, which illustrate the effect of impact forces on a cushioning device from both directions along the longitudinal axis of the assembly, are noted in some of the figures. As with most known draft gear assemblies, the intent of these assemblies is generally to protect the freight car structure. Lading protection, however, requires varying degrees of energy dissipation. Sliding sill arrangements to accommodate lading protection are generally complicated assemblies with attendant higher assembly costs. Therefore, end-of-car cushioning devices evolved, which units could be installed outboard of the car bolsters, but do not fit within the standard draft gear pockets. These cushioning units have both greater travel and greater energy absorbing ability than convential draft gears. The American Association of Railroads, A.A.R., specifications for Special Cushioning Devices for Freight Cars are delineated at A.A.R. specification number M-921-65, and include impact testing, appraisal under actual service conditions and service experience.
Buff gears or buff gear assemblies are also known and utilized in railroad car couplers to form a compression spring assembly. These buff or draft gear assemblies are typically used between railway cars to buffer the impact of adjacent cars, and to compensate for the impact loads on the car couplers during operation of the train. A buff gear arrangement is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,678 to D. G. Anderson and includes a mounting assembly for positioning the cushioning apparatus in the coupler assembly. The buffer operates to absorb the force load from the impact between adjacent cars in a freight train, which may occur during humping of freight cars. However, the utilization of these buff/draft gear assemblies has not been feasible with slackless couplers, as these couplers had to be operable in both the draft and buff directions with little or no longitudinal freeplay in the coupler assembly.

Slackless railway coupler with draft/buff gear


A refrigerator has French doors with vertically extending confronting side walls. At least one of the confronting side walls has a movable sealing gasketing member adapted to sealingly engage the other confronting side wall when the doors are in a closed position. The doors move between an open position and into the closed position through a temporary intermediate partially closed position. In the partially closed position the doors extend over the refrigerator compartment with temporary non-sealing vertically extending portions of the confronting side walls of the doors spaced apart from one another a predetermined gap distance. A first set of magnets are positioned in the doors at least along the temporary non-sealing vertically extending portions of the confronting side walls. The first magnets have a magnetic field attraction strength insufficient to move the gasketing member across the predetermined gap distance and sufficient to seal the gasketing member to the other confronting side wall when the predetermined gap distance is reduced. A second set of magnets have a magnetic field strength greater than the first magnets. The second magnets are positioned in at least one location along each of the confronting side walls to trigger local movement of the gasketing member towards the other confronting side wall locally reducing the predetermined gap. This triggers the first magnets to move the gasket along the vertically extending portions into sealing engagement with the other side wall. In the preferred embodiment the second magnets are located as a continuation of and in alignment with the first magnets. Swiping of the confronting side walls of the doors is limited at the second magnets.

For several years the trend in domestic refrigerator cabinets has been to increase the size and in particular the width of the food compartments which brought about the use of double doors. The advantage of the larger refrigerator however, is lessened by fitting side-by-side a freezer on one side and a refrigerator on the other side of a refrigerator cabinet with a center vertical mullion against which the side-by-side doors close. Omission of the vertical mullion to maintain the freezer compartment on the top, the fresh food compartment below and yet still have side-by-side doors, introduces the problem of effectively sealing the doors along their juxtapositioned facing sides. To provide a thermal and/or air seal between the facing surfaces of the doors when the doors are closed, compressible gaskets have been developed that extend along the side face of each door and contact each other during door closure. Each gasket includes magnets extending vertically along the length of the gasket. The magnets in opposing gaskets are oppositely poled so that the magnetic poles attract when the doors are aligned in a side-by-side closed position. During door opening when one door is moved relative to the other door, like poles of the magnets pass by each other causing the magnets to repel and move the gaskets apart reducing wiping contact of the gaskets. However, once these "repelling" magnets pass by each other, gasket wiping occurs along the entire vertical length of the gasket.
Many different magnetic gasket sealing assemblies for side-by-side or "French" doors used to close an open front of a refrigerator cabinet are disclosed in the U.S. patent literature. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,248,159 issued Apr. 26, 1996 to Charles Hall teaches the use of three sets of magnets in two gaskets. A first pair of magnets are arranged to attract and seal the two gaskets when the doors are in the closed position. This first pair of magnets are hingedly attached in a flexible gasket to a second pair of magnets, one in each gasket which pivot the gasket sealing faces to move the first pair of magnets out of contacting position relative to each other during opening and closing of the French doors to reduce wiping. The magnetic gasket seals are arranged forward of a recessed shoulder in each of the French doors.
U.S. Pat. No 3,264,048 issued Aug. 2, 1966 to A. J. Koch et al describes a magnetic gasket seal for French doors where the gaskets overlap each other in the direction of opening which causes a wiping action which reduces the life of the gasket. Other examples of French door magnetic gasket seals are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,408,772 issued to Frehse on Nov. 5, 1968; U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,489 issued Oct. 7, 1980 to Charles Haag; U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,135 issued Sep. 8, 1981 to Buchser et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,657 issued Mar. 1, 1994 to Lowell Kiel and U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,680 issued May 10, 1994 to Lowell Kiel. All of these French door closure gasket seals are subject to wiping along the entire vertical length of the adjacent facing gaskets during closure thereby effecting the proper closure of the doors and gasket sealing integrity over the life span of the gasket.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,723,896 issued to Wurtz on Nov. 15, 1955 discloses a refrigerator French door seal where the seal is held in place against a recessed lateral edge portion of one of the doors. The seal includes a magnet that runs the vertical length of the door and is positioned within the gasket adjacent the outside edge of the door. The magnet is attracted to the metal in the recess portion of the gasket against the recessed portion of the door when the doors are open. When the doors are moved into a closed position relative to each other, the magnet in the gasket is now closer to the confronting lateral edge of the other door and this causes the vertical length of the gasket to move horizontally into contact with the other door. While this patent discloses the use of only one gasket, the vertical length of the gasket moves simultaneously into swiping contact with the other door and there is no delay associated with gasket movement. The gasket moves into contact with the other door during door closure causing the gasket to swipe against the door and be subject to the problems discussed above.
The aforementioned patents are concerned with sealing of French doors by using sealing gaskets with magnets that cause one or more of the door gaskets to move relative to the other gasket during opening/closing operation to reduce the effects of wiping. These patents do not address the problem associated with continued simultaneous swiping of gaskets along the entire vertical length of the gasket the doors are moved into a closed position. This wiping action reduces the longevity of the door seal integrity between adjacent doors and provides the user with an un-sure feeling that the door may not be properly closed. In some instances, the force used to close the door may be insufficient to overcome the wiping along the length of the gaskets leaving the doors partially ajar.
French door gaskets must seal along their entire vertical length, which for the most part extends between the upper and lower peripheral walls of the refrigerator cabinet to provide an effective seal which also creates the problematic wiping along the vertical length of the gaskets. Further, as the width of the refrigerator cabinet increases and the size the weight of the double doors increases. This increases the stress placed on door sealing gaskets. As a result the effects of prolonged wiping along the vertical lengths of these gaskets affixed to the opposing juxtapositioned sides of the refrigerator may cause premature gasket deterioration and misalignment shortening the life of the seal. While the use of a vertical mullion overcomes this problem because the entire length of the sealing gasket can close against the vertical mullion to distribute evenly the door closing forces along the length of the gasket and mullion, the use of the mullion defeats the purpose of providing a refrigerator cabinet having a single access to either or both of the fresh food compartment and the freezer food compartment when these compartments are positioned vertically above one another. Clearly, the patent literature for at least the last 40 years has recognized the difficulty in manufacturing an effective French door gasket seal between vertically extending and confronting side walls of the side by side doors.
While the wiping problem associated with the closure of French door gasket seals has been recognized in the past, to overcome this wiping effect of the gaskets, redesign of the hinges in the refrigerator has occurred resulting in lateral movement of the doors relative to each other during the initial door opening stage and the end of the door closing stage. Such a hinge design is disclosed in European patent 490 928 granted Aug. 31, 1994 to Oy Electrolux AB. While the lateral motion imparted onto the door by the hinge design eliminates wiping contact between the lateral adjacent French door gaskets, disadvantages lie in the added hinge expense due to its increased complexity and the resultant increase in size of the hinge construction adversely affecting the appearance of the refrigerator.
Clearly, there is a need for an improved French door seal that reduces or eliminates swiping contact along the vertical length of confronting gasket seals during door closure without requiring an expensive hinging structure.


A nitride semiconductor device comprises: a laminated body; a first and second main electrode provided in a second and third region, respectively, adjacent to either end of the first region on the major surface of the laminated body; and a third main electrode. The laminated body includes a first semiconductor layer of a nitride semiconductor and a second semiconductor layer of a nondoped or n-type nitride semiconductor having a wider bandgap than the first semiconductor layer, the second semiconductor layer being provided on the first semiconductor layer. The third main electrode is provided on the major surface of the laminated body and opposite to the control electrode across the second main electrode.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a nitride semiconductor device structure, and more particularly to a nitride semiconductor device having the structure of a heterojunction field effect transistor based on a heterostructure.
2. Background Art
Circuits such as switching power supplies and inverters are based on power semiconductor devices including switching devices and diodes, which are required to have such characteristics as high withstand voltage and low on-resistance (RON). There is a tradeoff relation between the withstand voltage and the on-resistance (RON), which relation depends on the device material. With the progress of technology development, the on-resistance (RON) of power semiconductor devices is reduced to nearly the limit for silicon (Si), which has been the main device material. For further reduction of on-resistance (RON), the device material needs to be changed. For example, wide bandgap semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN), aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN), and other nitride semiconductors and silicon carbide (SiC) can be used as switching device materials to improve the tradeoff relation determined by the device material, thereby dramatically reducing on-resistance (RON).
On the other hand, nitride semiconductors such as GaN and AlGaN can be used for heterojunction field effect transistors (HFETS) based on the AlGaN/GaN heterostructure. HFETs achieve low on-resistance through the high mobility of the heterointerface channel and the high electron concentration due to piezopolarization caused by heterointerface strain.
An HFET structure based on nitride semiconductors is disclosed (JP2001-168111A). In this structure, a source electrode, a gate electrode, and a drain electrode are formed on an n-type GaN channel layer, and a p-type GaN layer is formed under the n-type GaN channel layer to extract holes into the p-type GaN layer.

Nitride semiconductor device with a hole extraction electrode


This invention provides for the secretion of heterologous protein in plant systems. In particular, this invention provides for the production of heterologous proteins by malting of monocot plant seeds. The heterologous genes are expressed during germination of the seeds and isolated from a malt. Also disclosed are chimeric genes, vectors and methods relating to the present invention. Protein production by cell culture techniques is also described.

The ability to clone and produce a wide range of proteins from diverse sources became feasible with the advent of recombinant technology. The selection of expression hosts for commercial biotechnology proteins is based on the economics of fermentation and purification as well as the ability of the host to accomplish the post-translational modifications needed for full biological activity of the recombinant protein. Some of these post-translational modifications include: signal peptide processing, pro-peptide processing, protein folding, disulfide bond formation, glycosylation, gamma carboxylation and beta-hydroxylation. Some of the economic factors influencing the choice of an expression host include: rates of biomass production, equipment costs, medium composition and expense, processes for protein recovery and purification, product yields, and the potential for contamination.
Much of the early work in biotechnology was directed toward the expression of recombinant or "heterologous" proteins in prokaryotes, like Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. Such work in procaryotes provided ease of genetic manipulation, growth of the organisms in batch culture and the possibility of large-scale fermentation.
E. coli can perform signal peptide processing, protein folding, and disulfide bond formation. However, it cannot secrete proteins extracellularly glycosylate, gamma carboxylate, beta hydroxylate or process propeptides. B. subtilis suffers from the same limitations E. coli except that it is capable of extracellular secretion.
Total production costs from bacteria are also high because of problems with product recovery, purification, and the inability of bacteria to perform many of the post-translational modifications mentioned above. Furthermore, E. coli and other bacteria are pathogens and contaminants, such as, pyrogens and endotoxins, must be removed from the recombinantly produced protein. In addition, extensive post-purification chemical and enzymatic treatments (e.g., to refold the protein into an active form) can be required to obtain biologically active protein.
Because proteins are not secreted from prokaryotes, like E. coli, such cells must be disrupted for product recovery. The subsequent release of bacterial contaminants and other proteins make product purification more difficult and expensive. Because purification accounts for up to 90% of the total cost of producing recombinant proteins in bacteria, proteins, like tissue Plasminogen Activator (tPA), can cost several thousand dollars per gram to produce from E. coli.
Because of the many inadequacies associated with prokaryotic hosts, the biotechnology industry has looked to eukaryotic hosts like mammalian cell tissue culture, yeast, fungi, insect cells, and transgenic animals, to properly and efficiently express recombinant proteins. However, these hosts can suffer from any or all of the following disadvantages: expensive fermentation, low yields, secretion problems, inappropriate modifications in protein processing, high operating costs, difficulties in scaling up to large volumes, and/or contamination that either kills the host culture or makes product purification more expensive. For these reasons, existing eukaryotic hosts are unable to provide high-volume, low-cost protein production of recombinant proteins.
For most of those proteins requiring extensive post-translational modifications for therapeutic and/or functional activity, mammalian cell culture is the most common alternative to E. coli. Although mammalian cells are capable of correctly folding and glycosylating bioactive proteins, the quality and extent of glycosylation can vary with different culture conditions among the same host cells. Furthermore, mammalian culture has extremely high fermentation costs (60-80% of total production expense), requires expensive media, and poses safety concerns from potential contamination by viruses and other pathogens. Yields are generally low, for example, in the range of 0.5-1.5% of cellular protein, or up to about 300-400 milligrams per liter.
Yeast, fungi, insect cells and transgenic animals are currently being used as alternatives to mammalian cell culture. Yeast, however, produces incorrectly glycosylated proteins that have excessive mannose residues and generally limited eukaryotic processing. Further, although the baculovirus insect cell system can produce high levels of glycosylated proteins, these are not secreted--making purification complex and expensive. Fungi represent the best current system for high-volume, low-cost production, but they are not capable of expressing many target proteins. Transgenic animals are subject to lengthy lead times to develop herds with stable genetics, high operating costs, and contamination by animal viruses.
The biochemical, technical and economic limitations on existing prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems has created substantial interest in developing new expression systems for recombinant proteins. Plants represent the most likely alternative to existing systems because of the advantageous economics of field-grown crops, the ability to synthesize proteins in storage organs like tubers, seeds, fruits and leaves and the ability of plants to perform many of the post-translational modifications previously described. However, existing plant expression systems suffer from low yield (<1.5% of total cellular protein).
Furthermore, expression of the target protein occurs in the open field (in roots, stems, leaves, fruits and seeds), thus making it difficult to prevent the recombinant protein from entering the food and feed chain. This is an issue of much concern to government regulatory agencies.
Although the use of plant cell culture to express proteins has been discussed, the lack of knowledge about the genetics and biochemistry of plant gene expression and secretion has precluded this system from being developed into a commercially feasible one.

Process for protein production in plants

The Regents of the University of California


A writable optical disc has at least two chapters comprising a first chapter and a second chapter. Management data including a partition address is written in a management area in each chapter, and information is written in an information recording area after management area in the first chapter. A partition data is written in a partition area after the information recording area of the first chapter. The partition data is erased when writing the second chapter, so that the first chapter is discriminated from the second chapter, and a partition data is written in a partition area of the second chapter after writing of information in an information recording area thereof.

The present invention relates to a method of recording information on a writable optical disc wherein information can be written only once in each recording area thereof, and a system for operating the disc.
A spiral pregroove is formed on the surface of the writable optical disc. A wobbling signal for keeping the linear velocity at recording constant and position information are stored in the pregroove. A laser beam is radiated on organic pigment applied on the inner surface of the pregroove, whereby the surface is subjected to chemical change, so that information is recorded.
Referring to FIG. 5a showing a conventional recording format of the writable optical disc such as a CD-R (CD recordable), in a pregroove area of the disc are formed a power calibration area PCA for checking the strength of the laser beam, lead-in areas LI, data recording areas DATA, and lead-out areas LO. The lead-in area LI, data recording area DATA, and lead-out area LO are formed every time a recording occurs
The data recorded in each area is formatted as shown in FIG. 5b. Namely, a synchronizing signal SYNC and a synchronizing signal number S# are written at every predetermined length of each data.
In accordance with the conventional method, a large quantities of the lead-in data and lead-out data must be written at a time when data is recorded on the CD-R. If data are recorded many number of times, the number of the lead-in areas LI and lead-out areas LO increases, so that the area for recording the necessary data is decreased.
Upon reproduction of the data, since the recorded areas cannot be detected, the position of the last recorded lead-out area cannot be determined. The last recorded lead-out area is recognized only when the lead-out area next to the last recorded lead-out area is read to find that no data is recorded therein, that is, the lead-out area is an unformatted area. Since the lead-out area is unformatted, a synchronizing signal which is used for the spindle servo system cannot be obtained. As a result, the reproduced signal is not synchronized. The synchronized reproduced signal is obtained only after a complicated process.

Writable optical disc having a plurality of chapters each having recording area, management area and partition area provided therein


An oxide thin film comprising an oxide represented by ABO.sub.3, wherein A comprises at least one element selected from the group consisting of the groups IA, IIA, IIIA, IVB and VB of the periodic table, and B comprises at least one element selected from the group consisting of the groups IVA and VA of the periodic table, wherein said oxide thin film has a mixed structure in which crystal grains are dispersed in an amorphous phase or an ultrafine grain phase. The oxide thin film is prepared by preparing an organic solvent solution (1) of a metal alkoxide compound of A and a metal alkoxide compound of B; adding water, or water and a catalyst to the organic solvent solution (1) to prepare a solution (2); mixing the organic solvent solution (1) and the solution (2) to prepare a mixed solution; coating the mixed solution on a substrate to form a thin film; and subjecting the thin film to heat treatment.

An oxide thin film has conventionally been obtained by dry film formation, such as sputtering or vacuum evaporation, or wet film formation, such as a sol-gel process. However, film formation in dry process requires very expensive equipment. Besides, since different elements have different vapor pressures, it is difficult to produce stoichiometrically excellent films in a stable manner; the resulting films have deteriorated crystal properties; and the productivity is low for the cost. These disadvantages have prevented dry film formation processes from being put to practical use in this field.
On the other hand, a sol-gel method using an organometallic compound is advantageous in terms of low initial cost, precise controllability of chemical composition, uniformity on molecular level, reduction of operation temperature, ease of obtaining large-area films, and the like, and has therefore been given due study in various fields. In general, a sol-gel method is a method for synthesizing an oxide thin film through hydrolysis and dehydrating condensation. It comprises coating a substrate with a solution in which a precursor is hydrolyzed with water, followed by heat treatment.
For example, JP-A-4-19911 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application") proposes a method for forming a ferroelectric thin film comprising lead titanate (PT), lead zirconate titanate (PZT), third component-doped PZT or lanthanum-doped lead zirconate titanate (PLZT) by using a solution prepared by dissolving an organometallic compound containing lead, lanthanum, titanium or zirconium in an organic solvent and adding thereto a stabilizer and a prescribed amount of water. However, because the process involves hydrolysis using 0.1 to 1.5 mol of water per 1 mol of a metallic atom, the resulting thin film shows grain growth and has an increased leakage current. Further, a polycrystalline oxide thin film obtained by the process is sometimes composed of crystal grains of several microns in diameter depending on the conditions of preparation. Observation of a cross section of such a thin film under a transmission electron microscope (TEM) revealed fine boundary voids among crystal grains in both the surface and the inside thereof as shown in FIG. 1. It seems that a leakage current increases due to electric conduction through these pinholes or boundaries.
JP-B-62-27482 (the term "JP-B" as used herein means an "examined published Japanese patent application") discloses a method comprising coating a glass substrate with a solution containing an organometallic compound, drying the coating film in air at ambient temperature for 30 minutes and then in a thermostat set at 110.degree. C. for 30 minutes to complete hydrolysis reaction, and baking the coating layer in an electric furnace at a temperature of 550 to 800.degree. C. while forcibly introducing steam into the furnace. Although hydrolysis does not take place before coating, the resulting thin film still suffers from an increase of leakage current due to the forced introduction of steam into the electric furnace after coating.
Many of these conventionally proposed oxide thin films are utilizable as a ferroelectric thin film. A ferroelectric thin film comprising these oxides exhibits many excellent characteristics, such as ferroelectric properties, piezoelectric properties, pyroelectric properties, electrooptic effects, and the like, and has therefore been used in various fields of electronics. In recent years, application to the memory cells of dynamic RAM (DRAM) has been attracting attention with the rapid advancement of integration, and there has been a demand for an improved process for preparing an oxide thin film.

Oxide thin film and process for forming the same


A process which includes the step of heating a compound of Formula (I): ##STR1## wherein R.sup.1 is a hydroxyphenyl group or a group of Formula (II): ##STR2## and R.sup.2, R.sup.3, R.sup.4, R.sup.5 and R.sup.6 are independently in each occurrence H or a C.sub.1-10 alkyl group; to a temperature in the range of from 100.degree. C. to 400.degree. C. under reaction conditions sufficient to form one or more 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbenes.

The invention relates to a process for preparing or purifying 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbenes.
The 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbenes prepared by the processes of the invention are useful in the preparation of liquid crystalline polycarbonates, polyestercarbonates, phenoxy thermoplastics, epoxy resins, polyarylates and polyesters. High purity 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbene can impart high performance properties in polycarbonates, polyestercarbonates, phenoxy thermoplastics, polyarylates and polyesters.
The reaction of alpha-haloketones with aromatic compounds, such as chloroacetone and 3-chlorobutanone with phenol and its ethers to yield 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbenes is known, see for example, J. Chem. Soc., pp. 3360-2 (1954). Typically, 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-methylstilbene is prepared via the condensation of chloroacetone and phenol in the presence of an acid. This process also yields substantial amounts of dimeric coproducts and other impurities; see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,155. 4,4'-Dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbenes prepared by these processes are useful in thermoset polymer applications which do not require high purity. The impurities resulting from these processes make the 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbenes unacceptable for use in the production of thermoplastic polymers, such as polycarbonates, polyestercarbonates, phenoxy resins, polyarylates and polyesters. Also, the relatively substantial amounts of impurities produced by the process leads to a costlier process.
What is needed is a process for preparing or purifying 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbenes that can be performed efficiently with less cost and difficulty than current preparation or purification processes. What is also needed is a process that leads to a higher purity product than can be prepared under the current processes.

Process for the preparation and purification of 4,4'-dihydroxy-alpha-substituted stilbene


A semiconductor device capable of preventing contact between electrode terminals and a die pad as well as capable of surely performing wire bonding to the electrode terminals. A passive component is formed such that a vertical height of each electrode terminal is higher than that of an element part. More specifically, each cross-sectional area of the electrode terminals is slightly larger than that of the element part. Therefore, an upper part and lower part of each electrode terminal are slightly higher than (project from) the element part. Through an adhesive, the passive component is fixed such that the element part is located on the high position part so as to be nearly parallel to a substrate surface. Further, a part of each electrode terminal (bottom part) is located in each space within concave parts. Thus, a predetermined space is formed between each of the electrode terminals and the die pad.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device. More specifically, the present invention relates to a semiconductor device constituted by electrically connecting electronic components and passive components through bonding wires. The invention also pertains to a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a semiconductor chip (semiconductor element) such as an LSI (Large Scale Integration), for example, capacitors are connected between a power supply circuit and a ground circuit in order to suppress a power supply bounce or GND (ground) bounce caused by simultaneous switching of circuits within the semiconductor chip. As a result, stable feeding can be performed. Such capacitors are referred to as a bypass capacitor.
Further, in order to cut high frequency noises entering through a power supply line, inductors are also connected in series with the power supply line. Such inductors are referred to as a power supply filter.
When thus housing passive elements such as bypass capacitors or power supply filters in a semiconductor device having mounted thereon semiconductor chips and connecting the elements to semiconductor chips, the following advantages can be obtained. That is, the bypass capacitors or the power supply filters can be disposed closer to the circuits within the semiconductor chips, so that operations of the semiconductor chips can be stabled and as a result, electrical characteristics can be improved. Further, passive elements such as bypass capacitors or power supply filters need not be separately mounted on a system board for mounting thereon a semiconductor device, so that the number of components on the system board can be reduced and as a result, miniaturization of this system can be attained.
In such a semiconductor device, there is known a configuration such that using, as a passive element to be built into the device, a passive component in the form of chip component, connection between the semiconductor chip and the passive component is performed by bonding wires.
By using the passive components in the form of chip components, there can be used, for example, common chip components such as chip capacitors or chip inductors of which the outside dimension is standardized, which are referred to as so-called 1005 components, 0603 components or 0402 components. Therefore, semiconductor devices can be manufactured at low cost. The 1005 components have an outside dimension of 1.0 mm×0.5 mm×0.5 mm, the 0603 components have an outside dimension of 0.6 mm×0.3 mm×0.3 mm, and the 0402 components have an outside dimension of 0.4 mm×0.2 mm×0.2 mm. Any component has a shape that electrode terminals are provided on each end in the longitudinal direction.
Herein, there is known a method for interconnecting a passive component and a semiconductor chip using bonding wires (see, e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei 8-162607 (FIG. 2), Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-47811 (p18, FIGS. 6 and 7)).
When using this method, an area of a conductive pattern part can be reduced and therefore, a semiconductor device can be miniaturized. Further, a semiconductor chip and a passive component are interconnected using bonding wires without through conductive patterns and therefore, operations of the semiconductor device can be more stabilized, so that electrical characteristics can be improved.
Such passive components in the form of chip components are generally mounted on an inner lead part of a lead frame or a conductive pattern part such as an electrode pad of a wiring substrate using solder or a conductive adhesive in many cases. In this case, a conductive pattern having an area in view of region where solder or a conductive adhesive is wetted and spread is required. Further, a bonding region for connecting between the conductive pattern and the semiconductor chip by bonding wires is required.
Herein, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei 8-162607 (FIG. 2) discloses the following configuration. That is, on a die pad of a lead frame, a semiconductor chip and a capacitor are mounted and fixed closely to each other. Further, interconnection among the semiconductor chip, the capacitor and the lead frame is performed by wires. Then, the whole device is sealed with mold resins. In this publication, a method for fixing the semiconductor chip and the capacitor is not described in detail.
On the other hand, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-47811 (p18, FIGS. 6 and 7) discloses the following configuration. That is, on a die pad (stage) of a lead frame, a semiconductor chip and a passive component are mounted side by side. Further, the semiconductor chip and the passive component are connected through bonding wires. On a portion for mounting the passive component in the die pad, a concave part is formed by etching to allow the whole passive component to be mounted within this concave part through an insulating tape.
By taking such a configuration, the passive component is mounted through the insulating tape. Therefore, electrode terminals provided on each end of the passive component are prevented from coming in contact with the die pad. Further, the passive component is disposed closer to circuits within the semiconductor chip. As a result, electrical characteristics of the semiconductor device can be improved as well as operations thereof can be stabilized. Further, on the die pad, the concave part is formed and the passive component is mounted to fit within the concave part, and therefore, the mounted height of the passive component can be reduced.
However, in these preceding examples, when mounting and fixing the passive component on the die pad, an insulating tape is used as an adhesive material. At this time, a step of preparing a tape processed to a predetermined size and adhering the tape to the concave part is required and therefore, a process is complicated.
A method of using an insulating paste adhesive in place of the insulating tape is also considered; however, this method has a high possibility of causing the following problems in producing semiconductor devices.
In mounting a passive component on an insulating paste adhesive which is coated and supplied on a die pad using a dispenser, when a load imposed on such a passive component excessively increases, electrode terminals of the passive component and the die pad may be brought into contact with each other to cause a short circuit.
On the contrary, when a load imposed on the passive component excessively decreases, the passive component may be obliquely mounted on the die pad. When performing wire bonding to electrode terminals of the passive component in this state, a wire edge may fail to be surely connected to the electrode terminal.

Semiconductor device and manufacturing method thereof


A trampoline water spray device having a tubing which can be attached to a trampoline, the tubing being perforated with a plurality of holes, and where the tubing can be connected to a source of pressurized water and the pressurized water can flow from the plurality of holes to create a plurality of sprays around the circumference of the trampoline.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a water sprinkling/spraying device for use with a trampoline.
2. General Background
Trampolines are well known in the art for providing both recreation and physical fitness exercise. Because of their size and the nature of their use, however, trampolines are generally used out of doors. Accordingly, it is not uncommon that trampolines are used in locations that are unprotected from sunlight and are not climate controlled.
Additionally, the use of trampolines generally requires a degree of physical exertion. Because trampolines are generally used out of doors and under conditions which frequently subject the user to heat and sunlight, there is a need to provide a way to cool the trampoline user while still allowing the user to enjoy the device in its typical outdoor setting.
Since trampolines can frequently be an important part of a child's, as well as an adult's, physical fitness regime, it is particularly important to provide a way of cooling the trampoline user thereby allowing the user to both enjoy and benefit from extended trampoline use.
The present invention answers such a need by providing a water spray device to cool and refresh the trampoline user while the trampoline is in use.


These and other objectives are attained with a method and system for updating software applications or systems on a target client. The method comprises the steps of providing the target client with an update manager; and using the update manager to initiate a procedure to compare the level of software or services on the target client with the level of software or services available on a specified server to determine if an update is available on the server for the software or services on the target client. If an update is available, the update is copied from the server to the target client. Preferably, the update manager registers with the server manager to have a specified one or more of the applications or systems updated. The preferred embodiment of the invention uses information that currently exists with the customer and vendor that can make the update process more automated.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to updating software and operating systems. More specifically, the invention relates to the automatic updating of software and operating systems on a target, client system.
2. Background Art
Software and operating systems are constantly being updated with new features or with fixes to solve defects. The applications and systems can be updated with full product releases or with incremental releases.
Presently, customers that own applications and systems are required to get the updates and upgrade their software. The customer can get updates from a vendor, either electronically over the Internet, or physically on a CD tape, etc. In some cases, the customer must prove their entitlement to a software product or operating system before they are allowed to retrieve an update.
Customers can have multiple products residing on one machine from multiple vendors, and can have multiple platforms at their sites. Some products can update themselves, while others cannot. It would be highly desirable to provide customers with a solution that could provide updates for a single machine, or for their entire IT network. In addition, some IT networks are behind firewalls and require secure access to automatic updates.

Automated updates of software and systems