An outputting transistor circuit of a push-pull structure has an outputting PMOS transistor and an outputting NMOS transistor connected in series between a first power supply and a grounded power supply. In a standby state, a voltage level of a gate terminal of the outputting PMOS transistor is set to a voltage level of a second power supply higher than a voltage level of the first power supply. In an active state, a voltage level of the gate terminal of the outputting PMOS transistor is changed to a voltage level of the first power supply in response to an active command or a read command, or in response to the state of a semiconductor memory device changing to the active state or a read state, and either the outputting PMOS transistor or the outputting NMOS transistor is turned ON in response to a data read signal from a memory cell.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor memory device such as DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory). In particular, the present invention relates to an output circuit for a semiconductor memory device that makes it possible to achieve both a reduction in leakage current when the device is on standby and a reduction in current consumption when the device is active, and to a data output method for using with this output circuit for a semiconductor memory device.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-139104, filed May 25, 2007, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In order to reduce current consumption in a system, in particular, an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) chip has been developed in which a reduction in the operating voltage has been achieved. In contrast, in DRAM, due to the need to secure operations of the memory cell portion, it is difficult to achieve a reduction in voltage compared with an ASIC which is a simple logic circuit. When the development periods of DRAM and ASIC are the same, the DRAM typically requires a higher operating voltage than that of the ASIC chip.
FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a system 1 for a recent mobile device in which DRAM has been mounted, with only that portion which is concerned with the present invention being shown. The system (i.e., a DRAM equipped system) 1 shown in FIG. 8 has an ASIC chip 10, and a DRAM (i.e., a DRAM chip) 20 that is used as a memory section for the ASIC chip 10. The ASIC chip 10 and a DRAM core circuit section 21 inside the DRAM 20 are connected via a data input/output circuit section 30 by means of two-way data lines DQ0 to DQn.
The respective data lines DQ0 to DQn and the ASIC chip 10 are connected by ASIC side drivers (i.e., line drivers) 11 and ASIC side receivers (i.e., line receivers) 12. The respective data lines DQ0 to DQn and the data input/output circuit section 30 inside the DRAM chip 20 are connected by output circuits 31 and input circuits 32.
Using the above described structure, the ASIC chip 10 performs the writing and reading of data on the DRAM 20 through the two-way data lines DQ0 to DQn.
As is shown in FIG. 8, while power supply voltage of 1.2V (VDDA) is supplied to the ASIC chip 10, power supply voltage of 1.8V (VDD) is supplied to the DRAM chip 20. Because of this, the voltage that is used at the interface between the DRAM chip 20 and the ASIC chip 10 needs to be 1.2V for the reasons explained below. Note that this interface is formed by the data input/output circuit section 30.
The first reason is that because the transistors used in the ASIC chip 10 have been optimized to 1.2V operation, it is necessary from the standpoint of gate breakdown voltage for the power supply voltage to be 1.2V or less. The second reason is that by lowering the voltage of the interface between the ASIC chip 10 and the DRAM 20 also to 1.2V, it is possible to curtail the current consumption of the system. Accordingly, in this system, the voltage VDDQ that is supplied to the output circuit 31 of the DRAM is 1.2V, which is a lower voltage than the voltage VDD of 1.8V that is supplied to the DRAM core circuit section 21. Namely, in the DRAM 20, it is only necessary for the output circuit 31 to operate at 1.2V. Here, in order to lower the operating voltage of the circuit, it is necessary for the threshold voltage of the transistors inside the circuit to be lowered. However, if the threshold voltage is lowered, the problem arises that there is an increase in leakage current when the transistors are OFF, and current consumption when the device is on standby increases. A specific example of the output circuit 31 is given below to illustrate this problem.
FIG. 9 is a diagram showing the circuit structure of the conventional DRAM output circuit shown in FIG. 8. In the output circuit shown in FIG. 9, a data reading signal OUTHB from a memory cell (not shown) is converted into a signal OUTH by an inverter that is formed by a PMOS transistor Q101 and an NMOS transistor Q201. The signal OUTH forms a gate signal of a PMOS transistor Q501 for a high signal output. In addition, a data reading signal OUTLB from the memory cell is converted into a signal OUTL by an inverter that is formed by a PMOS transistor Q301 and an NMOS transistor Q401. The signal OUTL forms a gate signal of an NMOS transistor Q601 for a low signal output. A source terminal of the PMOS transistor Q501 is connected to the power supply VDDQ, while a drain terminal thereof is connected to a drain terminal of the NMOS transistor Q601. A source terminal of the NMOS transistor Q601 is connected to VSS. An output signal DQ is output from a connection point between the NMOS transistor Q501 and the NMOS transistor Q601. Note that, in FIG. 9, the PMOS transistors Q101, Q301, and Q501 that are surrounded by dotted lines are low threshold (Low Vt) type PMOS transistors.
In the DRAM output circuit 31 having the above described structure, in order to make it possible for operations to be performed at the low voltage of the power supply VDDQ (i.e., 1.2V), it is necessary to lower the threshold voltage (Vt) of the PMOS transistors Q101, Q301, and Q501 approximately 0.4V from the 1.8V at which the PMOS transistors are used. Typically, because the leakage current when the transistor is OFF increases by one decimal place when the threshold voltage is lowered by 0.1V, the PMOS transistors Q101, Q301, and Q501 become transistors in which there is an increase in the OFF current of approximately four decimal places. In contrast, because the threshold voltage of the NMOS transistors is originally lower by 0.3V to 0.4V than that of the PMOS transistors, and because the OFF current is also reduced, not only are operations possible at the low voltage of 1.2V, but there is also no problem with leakage current. The only problem with leakage current is generated by PMOS transistors which are turned OFF when the device is on standby.
In order to illustrate this leakage current problem, a description is given below of a circuit operation with reference made to the timing chart shown in FIG. 10. Note that in the description given below, for example, the PMOS transistor Q101 is abbreviated to simply Q101.
The signals OUTHB and OUTLB that are input into the output circuit on standby (Standby) are at the levels of VSS and VDD respectively. Accordingly, Q101 is turned ON and the signal OUTH is at the VDDQ level, and Q501 is turned OFF. Moreover, Q301 is OFF and Q401 is ON, and the signal OUTL is at the level of VSS. Q601 is also OFF. Accordingly, the output from the output circuit 31 is in a Hi-z (i.e., high impedance) state.
Next, when an active command (ACT) is input into the DRAM via a command (CMD) input (see FIG. 8) in synchronization with a clock signal CLK, the DRAM core circuit section 21 changes to an active state (Active). In this state, data can be read by means of a read command (RED).
Next, when a read command (RED) is input in synchronization with the clock signal CLK, after two clocks, data is output to the output signal DQ that is connected to the output circuit.
Next, when both the signal OUTHB and the signal OUTLB are at VDD, the signals OUTH and OUTL are both at VSS, the Q501 is ON, the Q601 is OFF, and the output signal DQ at a VDDQ level is output.
Next, when both the signal OUTRHB and the signal OUTLB are at VSS, the signals OUTH and OUTL are both at VDDQ, the Q501 is OFF, the Q601 is ON, and the output signal DQ at a VSS level is output.
Next, when a pre-charge command (PRE) is input in synchronization with the clock signal CLK, the DRAM core circuit section 21 once again changes to a standby state (Standby), and the signals OUTHB and OUTLB are respectively at the levels VSS and VDD. Because of this, Q501 and Q601 are both OFF, and the output from the output circuit 31 is in a Hi-z state.
When the device is active, because the operating current is far greater than the leakage current from the transistors, the leakage current does not create a problem. The PMOS transistors which are OFF when on standby are Q301 and Q501, which is a transistor used for output, however, the gate level of Q301 is at the 1.8V VDD level of the DRAM core circuit section 21, and is 0.6V higher than the source level 1.2V of Q301. Because leakage current from the PMOS transistors when they are OFF is suppressed when the gate voltage is higher than the source voltage, the OFF current is at a level at which it does not create any problems.
Leakage current becomes a problem on standby only in the case of Q501 which is used for output, however, because Q501 drives the wiring or the substrate wiring between the DRAM chip and the ASIC chip 10, comparatively large sized transistors are used, and leakage current of several microamperes or more is generated. Typically, because the number of output terminals DQ in a DRAM is from 36 to 72, leakage current in a range of several 100 microamperes to 1 milliamperes is generated in the DRAM overall.
As is shown in FIG. 8, leakage current flows from the output circuit 31 to the ASIC side driver circuit 11 and the ASIC side receiver 12, and is the current consumed by the system when the DRAM is on standby. Typically, because DRAM having lower current consumption when on standby is in demand for DRAM used in mobile applications, it is not possible to overlook leakage current from transistors on standby in an output circuit.
Here, by setting the gate level of a PMOS transistor higher than the source level, it is possible to set the level of OFF at a deeper level and thereby restrict leakage current from the PMOS transistor. FIG. 11 shows a circuit in which the power supply of the inverter section that drives the gates of the transistors that are used for output is altered from VDDQ to VDD. FIG. 12 shows a timing chart of an output circuit of the DRAM shown in FIG. 11.
In the circuit shown in FIG. 11, the voltage of the drain of Q101 in the circuit shown in FIG. 9 has been altered to VDD (1.8V), but the basic circuit structure and operations are the same as the circuit shown in FIG. 9. In the timing chart shown in FIG. 12 as well, the only point of variance from the timing chart shown in FIG. 10 is that the output voltage VDDQ (1.2V) of the signal OUTH has changed to VDD (1.8V), and the basic timing is the same. Accordingly, any redundant explanation is omitted.
When the circuit is altered to the output circuit shown in FIG. 11, because the gate level of Q501 on standby is VDD=1.8V, leakage current is suppressed, and the above described problem of an increase in the system current on standby is solved. However, as is described above, because the size of the outputting PMOS transistors is large, current charging and discharging at the gate takes place at the level of the power supply VDD (VDD=1.8V), and the fact that operating current in the DRAM overall ends up increasing approximately several tens of milliamperes creates a problem.
Note that the power supply driver device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2005-304218 (referred to below as Patent document 1) exists as an output circuit that is constructed so as to be suitable for low voltage operations. However, this power supply driver device is not one in which, without there being any increase in operating current, leakage current is suppressed when the device is on standby.
As has been described above, in a conventional output circuit for a semiconductor memory device, leakage current during standby is suppressed by setting the gate level of the PMOS transistors for output to the voltage level of the power supply VDD which is a higher voltage level than that of the power supply VDDQ which is supplied to the output circuit, however, on the other hand, the problem arises that there is an increase in current when the device is active.

Output circuit for a semiconductor memory device and data output method


In an STC generating step, STCs (STC_d) delayed a time “System_delay” from STC (STC_medium) in compressed picture data read from a recording medium in the normal-speed reproduction mode is sequentially generated. In this STC generating step, there is set at shift from a variable-speed reproduction to normal-speed reproduction an STC initial value on the basis of results of comparison between PTS (PTS_s) in display picture data at the time of reproduction mode shift and {STC_medium at the shift−(delay due to the shift (shift_delay)+System_delay)}. Thus, when shifting the reproduction mode from a variable-speed one to normal-sped one in compliance with the MPEG standard, pictures can smoothly be displayed in the normal-speed reproduction mode without skipping over any displayed pictures.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a picture data reproducing apparatus and method, usable suitably for reproducing picture data coded according to the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) standard by decoding the data.
This application claims the priority of the Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-206119 filed on Jul. 15, 2002, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, various digital video coding techniques as typified by MPEG-2 (ISO/IEC 13818) have been proposed to compress a video by coding. The video compression according to the MPEG standard is such that a signal produced by effecting a hybrid transform which is a combination of inter-picture motion compensation and DCT (discrete cosine transform) undergoes quantization and variable-length coding.
According to the MPEG standard, picture planes (frames or fields) included in a video are compressed by coding them into any one of picture types including I, P and B pictures. The I picture is an intra-frame predictive coded picture or an intra coded picture. It is a picture predictively coded in one frame. The P picture is a frame forward-predictive coded picture or a predictive coded picture. It is a picture predicted by referring to a previous frame (I or P picture) which is already coded. The B picture is a bidirectionally predictive coded picture or a bidirectional coded picture. It is a picture predicted by referring to two frames, namely, a previous one and later one.
As above, according to the MPEG standard, video compression is done by inter-picture predictive coding, whereby it is made possible to efficiently compress a video and access the compressed video at random. Also, according to the MPEG standard, pictures of each of the above types are compressed into a data stream formed in units of a group of pictures (GOP) including an arbitrary number of pictures. The MPEG standard prescribes that at least one I picture should be included in a GOP to make it possible to make random access to a video compressed in units of GOP.
Note here that the MPEG-defined technique is not advantageous in that in case data is reproduced at a half, quarter, . . . , of a normal speed or in case a so-called variable-speed reproduction including frame advance and the like is shifted to the normal-speed reproduction, a skip is made over a picture being displayed due to the speed changing. Also, since picture cannot be displayed at the normal speed before reproduction of a recording medium is completely shifted to the one at the normal speed, shifting of the variable-speed reproduction to the desired normal-speed reproduction takes a long time before the user can actually view a video reproduced at the desired speed.

Picture data reproducing apparatus and method


A multilayer ceramic capacitor includes a ceramic laminated body including dielectric ceramic layers and internal electrodes stacked with the dielectric ceramic layers disposed therebetween. The dielectric ceramic layers contain a perovskite compound containing Ba and Ti, Zr, and a rare earth element, and ratios of Zr and the rare earth element to 100 molar parts of Ti are about 0.4 to 2.0 molar parts and about 0.05 to 0.5 molar parts, respectively. The molar ratio of Zr to the rare earth element is about 3.3 to about 8.0, and Al-containing segregated substances are present in about 80% or more of defective portions where continuity of the internal electrodes is interrupted. Dielectric ceramic constituting the dielectric ceramic layers has an average grain diameter of about 230 nm to about 350 nm.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor and more specifically relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor including a ceramic laminated body (capacitor body) including a plurality of dielectric ceramic layers and a plurality of internal electrodes stacked with the dielectric ceramic layers disposed therebetween.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with decreases in size and weight of electronic apparatuses, small multilayer ceramic capacitors capable of obtaining large capacity have been widely used. Multilayer ceramic capacitors widely known as such multilayer ceramic capacitors have, for example, a structure in which external electrodes are disposed on outer surfaces of a stack including a plurality of dielectric layers and a plurality of internal electrodes disposed at the interfaces between the dielectric layers so that the external electrodes are electrically connected to the internal electrodes.
A multilayer ceramic capacitor proposed as such a multilayer ceramic capacitor includes an internal electrode composed of nickel and disposed in a dielectric containing a main component and Y2O3 added as an additive at a predetermined ratio to MgO, the main component being represented by a composition formula:(1−x−y−z)BaTiO3+xCaZrO3+yMnO+zMgO
wherein 0.003≦x≦0.023, 0.005≦y≦0.030, and 0.010≦z≦0.080.
The multilayer ceramic capacitor can realize excellent characteristics such as a capacitance of about 40 μF or more, an insulation resistance of about 1000 ΩM or more, an electrostatic tangent of about 2.5% or less, and a temperature change within (−55° C. to +125° C.) ±15%.
However, multilayer ceramic capacitors have recently been used under various severe conditions and environments, leading to demand for a multilayer ceramic capacitor excellent in reliability at high temperature and high electric field and reliability at high humidity and high electric field and thus having higher reliability.


Transflective display panel and fabrication methods thereof. A substrate with a transmissive area disposed thereon is provided. A planarization layer is deposited on the substrate and a hole is then formed in the planarization layer to expose the transmissive area. A first reflective layer and a second reflective layer are formed on the planarization layer in sequence. An etching process is then performed to pattern the first reflective layer and the second reflective layer to expose the transmissive area. The etching process has a first etching rate to the first reflective layer and a second etching rate to the second reflective layer, which is larger than the first etching rate. A transparent electrode layer is then formed on the second reflective layer and the transmissive area.

The invention relates to display panels, and more particularly, to transflective display (LCD) panels with reflective layer structures.
As manufacturing costs decrease and quality improves, liquid crystal displays are increasingly employed in different products such as notebook computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, clocks, and the like. Liquid crystal displays are passive luminous devices and can include a backlight unit for LCD devices.
Typically, LCD devices can be divided into several types according to their display methods. Some examples are reflective LCD devices, transmissive LCD devices, and transflective LCD devices. A reflective LCD device saves power and reduces manufacturing costs by reflecting light from the environment to display images. A transmissive LCD device comprises an LCD panel and an additional backlight unit for providing a light source to the LCD panel, leading to higher brightness and less restrictions on use. Additionally, a transflective LCD device, which combines features of the transmissive LCD device and the reflective LCD device, is used because it can reflect ambient light to render images. The transmissive LCD device can also use a backlight unit to actively generate light in a low light environment, such as indoors or at night.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional transflective display panel 10. As shown in FIG. 1, the transflective display panel 10 comprises a substrate with a plurality of scan lines 12 arranged in a transverse direction, a plurality of data lines 14 arranged in a longitudinal direction perpendicular to the scan lines 12, and a plurality of pixels corresponding to an intersection of each scan line 12 and data line 14. Each pixel comprises a switch region 16 and a display region 18. In the transflective display panel 10, the switch region 16 comprises a thin film transistor, such as a polysilicon thin film transistor. The display region 18 can be covered by a reflective layer with a transmitting hole that forms a transmissive area 114 and a reflective area 115. Thus, ambient light can be reflected by the reflective layer to a display image. A backlight unit can provide an additional light source through the transmissive area 114 to assist image display in a low light environment.
FIG. 2 is a cross-section of the display region 18 along a line A-A′ in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 2, the transflective display panel 10 comprises a substrate 112 defined with the transmissive area 114 and the reflective area 115 thereon. In conventional fabricating processes for TFT display panels, an inter-layer dielectric (ILD) layer or a planarization layer 116 can be disposed on the substrate 112 to protect electric devices, such as the thin film transistor located in the switch region 16, on the substrate 112. A transmissive hole 118 is formed on the substrate 112 to expose the transmissive area 114.
According to conventional fabricating processes of transflective display panels, a transparent electrode layer and a reflective layer can be formed in different sequences. For example, a structure can be formed with the transparent electrode layer on top or with the reflective layer on top. Since the reflective layer and the transparent electrode layer have different work function, the structure with the reflective layer on top can produce flicker problems, therefore the structure with transparent electrode on top is used as it can provide work function identical, thereby avoiding flicker problems.
As shown in FIG. 2, an adhesion layer 120 and a reflective layer 122 are formed on the planarization layer 116 in sequence. Thereafter, a transparent electrode layer 126 is formed on the reflective layer 122. As previously described, the reflective layer 122 can reflect ambient light to render images. The adhesion layer 120 improves a bonding force between the planarization layer 116 and the reflective layer 122.
An etching process can be performed to pattern the reflective layer 122 and the adhesion layer 120 in the bottom of the transmissive hole 118 to expose the transmissive area 114 prior to formation of the transparent electrode layer 126. Thus, the light source from the backlight unit can transmit through the transmissive area 114.
Typically, the reflective layer 122 is an aluminum alloy and the adhesion layer 120 includes molybdenum (Mo). In the previously described etching process, the adhesion layer 120 has a larger etching rate than the reflective layer 122 due to material properties. This can result in an undercut phenomenon, shown for example as 123 in FIG. 2, to be present in an edge 124 of the adhesion layer 120 adjacent to the transmissive area 114. This can reduce step-coverage of the transparent electrode layer 126 and lead to the presence of a discontinuity region or a weak contact region when the transparent electrode layer 126 is formed thereon. Further, this can deteriorate the display performance of the transflective display panel 10. Thus, a new transflective display panel structure and a fabricating method thereof are desirable.

Transflective display panels and methods for making the same


The present invention describes a method for separating macromolecules, particularly heteroduplex from homoduplex DNA molecules. The macromolecules undergo a temperature sensitive structural denaturation which, when it occurs, results in a difference in the mobilities of the denatured components on a solid support. A polar to non-polar solvent gradient or modified solid support particular to each sample is not required, since the difference in mobility is achieved on conventional solid supports using a single mobile phase composition.

The present application is directed to a method of separating and detecting small sequence variations in macromolecules, such a polynucleotides having a single nucleotide alteration in a DNA sequence.
Several prior methods have been available for the detection of small changes or polymorphisms (PMs) in polynucleotide sequences, such as a single nucleotide mutation within a double stranded DNA (dsDNA) molecule. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis is one method of polymorphism detection but it can only detect those polymorphisms which contain an altered enzymatic reaction site. It is not suitable for the high sensitivity detection of unknown PMs.
By other methods, short sequences of complementary polynucleotides can be used as hybridization probes which allow one to distinguish specific known complementary sequences from sequences not complementary to the probe. However, these methods cannot be used to detect unknown polymorphisms in unknown locations within a polynucleotide sequence without first creating all possible combinatorial sequences. The use of combinatorial methods greatly increases the complexity of the detection of polymorphisms, since highly specialized chemical processes and costly instrumentation are required.
Some effective prior methods used to detect small changes in polynucleotide species such as DNA sequences have been based on the differing mobilities of the variant species, or their cleavage products in electrophoretic separations. These techniques may be used for separation of variant species of DNA. Single-stranded conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis relies on changes in the mobility of denatured DNA molecules due to the formation of secondary structures during electrophoresis. This technique requires analyzing a sample under several conditions to achieve optimum sensitivity, but only about 70% of polymorphisms can be detected this way.
Other techniques rely on detection of a heteroduplex formation in dsDNA. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and temperature gradient gel electrophoresis (TGGE) have much greater sensitivity than SSCP, but typically require that the sample contain so called xe2x80x9cGC clampsxe2x80x9d to produce reliable detection under chemical or thermal denaturing conditions. The incorporation of these GC clamps into the sample molecules increases the complexity and cost of sample preparation.
In other techniques the heteroduplex is detected by chemical or enzymatic cleavage at the polymorphism, followed by electrophoretic separation of the cleavage products. The chemical methods often require highly toxic reagents, and multiple reaction steps. The enzymatic methods typically require exotic proprietary enzymes and are difficult to reproducibily perform.
For the electrophoretic methods described above, slab gel electrophoresis is the most commonly used. Slab gel electrophoreis suffers from the drawback of being relatively slow, and attaining poor detection and quantitation of the samples. It is also quite labor intensive. Capillary electrophoresis is faster and not as labor intensive as slab gel electrophoresis, but reproducibility and quantitation are generally poor due to variation in capillary performance. Finally, all of the electrophoretic methods use polymeric matrices which complicate recovery of the identified variant species as the subsequent analysis, often performed by mass spectrometry.
More recently, an improved method of polymorphism detection utilizes liquid chromatography under denaturing conditions to detect polymorphisms in heteroduplex species dsDNA species. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,976. The technique, denaturating high performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC), requires that the sample be separated using optimized gradient reversed-phased liquid chromatography methods. Both the separation solvent composition gradient and the operating temperatures must be optimized since they are highly specific to a particular DNA fragment sequence. Homoduplex species can be distinguished from heteroduplex species by the altered chromatographic retention under optimized conditions.
Temperature gradient programming in liquid chromatography has been known but only to utilize the general effect of temperature in reducing retention, thereby enhancing elution from a column. For example, Djordjevic, et al. Anal. Chem., 70 (9)1921-25 (1998) disclose the analysis of oligonucleotides using a temperature programmed ion pair reversed phased method. The molecules are, however, single stranded nucleic acids. They are separated by the reduction of retention that occurs with increasing temperature. There is no showing of a conformational change induced by increasing the temperature nor detection of the extent of hybridization, since the samples are single stranded.
Jarrett, et al. J. Chrom., 508, 279-87 (1990) disclose the preparation of a chromatography affinity phase to which an oligothymidylic acid (DT)18 is covalently bonded. The affinity phase is used to separate single stranded oligonucleotides by temperature gradient elution. The sample is retained on the column by on-column hybridization, then by increasing the temperature there is successive displacement of longer complementary probes from the stationary phase based upon the affinity of the complementary pair DNA strands. The disadvantage of the technique is that it requires the synthesis of a unique phase for each target sample.
The present invention provides a method for separating macromolecules which does not suffer from such disadvantages and which is particularly useful for separating single nucleotide variants of DNA. The invention does not require chemical or enzymatic cleavage reactions, modification of sample DNA sequences with GC clamps, preparation of combinatorial probes, or extensive optimization of liquid chromatography gradient conditions and temperatures. The invention provides an easily automated high speed sensitive method which allows recovery of the analyzed dsDNA sample free from polymeric contaminants.
A liquid chromatographic method is provided for separating macromolecules such as polynucleotides which undergo a temperature sensitive structural denaturation by means of a temporal or spatial thermal gradient to produce differential chromatographic mobility of polynucleotide molecules on interaction with a stationary phase. The method is particularly adapted for the separation of variant DNA polymorphisms. A mixture of polynucleotide molecules is applied in a mobile phase to a stationary reversed phased support. The polynucleotide molecules remain undenatured or can be at least partially denatured. The mixture is then eluted with a mobile phase while exposing the polynucleotides to a temperature gradient effective to at least partially denature the polynucleotides, which results in separation. This temperature gradient may be formed either as a temporal temperature gradient applied to the entire stationary phase or as a spatial temperature gradient in the stationary phase through which the polynucleotides migrate.

Method of detecting sequence variations in macromolecules by thermal gradiant


Broad head arrowheads of the type that comprise expanding blades. Such broad heads comprise two blades a tip and a ferrule, each blade having a wing and an aperture, the ferrule comprising a passageway into one end of the ferrule along the longitudinal axis of the ferrule dimensioned to accept a pin having a longitudinal axis transverse to the longitudinal axis of the ferrule so that when the pin is passed through the apertures of the blades and inserted into the passageway into the ferrule, the tip can be fastened to the one end of the ferrule with the blades folded back on the ferrule with the wings of the blades extending from the ferrule so that when the mechanical broad head penetrates a target, the wings of the blades engage with the target causing the blades to swing out from the ferrule on the pin as the pin slides further along the passageway into the ferrule.

The instant invention relates to broad head arrowheads of the type that comprise expanding blades. The art denotes such broad heads as "mechanical broad heads". Broad head arrowheads are known and comprise either fixed or expandable blades. Fixed blade broad heads are mechanically simple but suffer from relatively high aerodynamic drag from the exposed fixed blades. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,102,147 and 8,118,694 disclose other broad heads having fully retracting blades. U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,713,152; 7,905,802; 8,905,874; and US Patent Application Publication 2015/0184986 disclose broad heads having partially retracting blades. Despite the above-mentioned advancements in the art of mechanical broad heads, there remains a need for a mechanical broad head having a better balance of reliability, lower cost, versatility and ruggedness factors.


A rear view mirror/video display includes a one-way mirror and a selectively activated video display that is mounted immediately behind the one-way mirror so that the driver is presented with a typical semi-obstructed rearward view when the video display is deactivated, and an unobstructed rearward view of substantially the same size and aspect ratio when the video display is activated. The video image is obtained from an imaging device mounted to capture a rearward field-of-view that is unobstructed by vehicle body panels but otherwise corresponds in content with that of the image reflected by the one-way mirror. Activation and deactivation of the video display may be manual, but is preferably automatic based on vehicle operating conditions.

Various arrangements have been suggested for presenting the driver or passengers of a motor vehicle with video images obtained from one or more video cameras mounted on the vehicle. Frequently, the objective is to provide the driver a view that is superior to that which is available with conventional inside and outside rear view mirrors. For example, a video camera may be mounted to produce a rear view image that is unobstructed by any portion of the vehicle body. In some instances, the video display is attached to, or incorporated into, a conventional rear view mirror housing; see for example, the U.S. Pat. No. 6,690,268 to Schofield et al. In other cases, the video display is incorporated into the instrument panel, or provided as a head-up display in the case of infrared imaging; see for example, the U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,439 to Groves et al.
While widely known, video display devices have not enjoyed any substantial usage in production vehicles, except in busses, recreational vehicles, and the like, where a view immediately rearward of the vehicle cannot be obtained with an inside rear view mirror. Accordingly, what is needed is an apparatus for displaying rearward-directed video images that can be cost-effectively implemented in a vehicle and easily used by drivers accustomed to using a conventional rear view mirror.

Vehicular rear view mirror/video display


The invention provides compositions and methods for conditioning the skin and reversing the effects of aging on the skin.

Skin is subject to insults by many extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Extrinsic factors include ultraviolet radiation (e.g., from sun exposure), environmental pollution, wind, heat, low humidity, harsh surfactants, abrasives, and the like. Intrinsic factors include chronological aging and other biochemical changes from within the skin. Whether extrinsic or intrinsic, these factors result in visible signs of skin aging and environmental damage, such as wrinkling and other forms of roughness (including increased pore size, flaking and skin lines), and other histological changes associated with skin aging or damage. To many people, skin wrinkles are a reminder of the disappearance of youth. As a result, the elimination of wrinkles has become a booming business in youth-conscious societies. Treatments range from cosmetic creams and moisturizers to various forms of cosmetic surgery.
Such extrinsic or intrinsic factors may result in the thinning and general degradation of the skin. For example, as the skin naturally ages, there is a reduction in the cells and blood vessels that supply the skin. There is also a flattening of the dermal-epidermal junction that results in weaker mechanical resistance of this junction. See, for example, Oikarinen, "The Aging of Skin: Chronoaging Versus Photoaging," Photodermatol. Photoimmunol. Photomed., vol. 7, pp. 3-4, 1990, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Accordingly, new compositions for regulating and minimizing the effects of aging on the skin are needed.


A method and apparatus for adjusting the contrast of an image, in which each pixel in the image has an initial brightness level that is within a range of brightness levels between a minimum brightness level and a maximum brightness level. For each brightness level within the range, the number of pixels that have the same initial brightness level is counted. The pixels are divided into at least two types by identifying the or each set of pixels having initial brightness levels in which each of a plurality of adjacent ones of said brightness levels has more pixels than a threshold number. The pixels of the plurality of adjacent ones of said brightness levels are treated as a first type. The remaining pixels are treated as a second type. For the or each set of pixels of the first type, contrast enhancement is carried out separately on those pixels.

A number of techniques are known for adjusting the contrast of an image, particularly in order to improve the contrast and therefore visibility of the image. Contrast adjustment or enhancement of images, particularly digital images, is used in many fields, including enhancing the contrast of a digital image for display by a television receiver or other display device, for printing by a printer, in digital cameras, etc., etc. Contrast enhancement is used to improve the contrast in medical and other images.
A known technique is so-called histogram equalisation. A discussion of histogram equalisation can be found in for example "Digital Image Processing", Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2001, by R. C. Gonzalez & Richard E. Woods. Histogram equalisation is based on the assumption that an image having good contrast has pixels having brightness levels that are generally equally distributed over the range of possible brightness levels that can be displayed by the display device, printed by the printer, etc. Individual pixels retain their brightness order (i.e. they remain brighter or darker than other pixels) . However, the values of the brightness levels of the individual pixels are adjusted so that they are equally distributed over the brightness scale.
Referring to FIG. 1, in histogram equalisation the brightness levels of the input digital image are subject to histogram generation 1 in which a histogram of the brightness levels of the pixels is generated. Then a cumulative distribution function is generated from the histogram 2. The cumulative distribution function is normalised as necessary to the available dynamic range of the display device, printer, etc. For example, the dynamic range may have 256 grey levels. This normalised cumulative distribution function is then used to map the brightness levels of the input digital image to brightness levels of an output image 3, which can then be passed for display, printing, etc. Histogram equalisation enhances the contrast for brightness values that are close to maxima in the histogram and decreases contrast near the minima. In other words, histogram equalisation improves the contrast in the image in areas of poor contrast at the expense of those areas where there is already good contrast.
A particular limitation of histogram equalisation is that large peaks in the histogram can be caused by large areas of similar brightness. Frequently, these correspond to areas of background which are often uninteresting. In any event, the effect of histogram equalisation can be over-enhancement and increased noise visibility. In the case where the histogram contains tall peaks, the generated cumulative distribution function becomes steep and brightness levels in the input image that are close to each other can be mapped to output brightness levels that are far from each other.
A number of techniques for overcoming this over-enhancement problem are known. For example, a modified cumulative distribution function is disclosed in "Adaptive Image Contrast Enhancement Using Generalizations of Histogram Equalization", by J. Alex Stark in IEEE Transactions on Image processing, vol. 9, no. 5, May 2000. Referring to FIG. 2, the generated histogram 4 is subject to a modified cumulation function 5 that weighs the histogram values. This weighing function is inversely proportional to the distance from the current pixel brightness level. In this way, large changes in the cumulation function 5 are avoided, such that the mapping 6 does not change the characteristics of the image severely. Nevertheless, a problem with this modified technique is that the weighing functions must be chosen in advance, and no single weighing function is sufficient to create a mapping that will avoid over-enhancement for all images. For example, for an input image that has extremely narrow peaks in the histogram of brightness levels, the weighing function must be adjusted accordingly. However, adjusting the weighing function to deal with narrowly peaked histograms will not give satisfactory visual results when the histogram is not narrowly peaked and the dynamic range is wider.

Method and apparatus for adjusting the contrast of an image

Vestel Elektronik Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S.


A positioning system has an initiator device configured for emitting a high-speed wireless signal, at least one reference device configured for receiving the high-speed wireless signal and emitting a low-speed wireless signal after receiving the high-speed wireless signal, at least one target device each having one or more components for receiving the low-speed wireless signals, and at least one engine configured for determining the position of each of the at-least-one target device by calculating the distance between the target device and each of the at-least-one reference device based on at least the times-of-arrival of the low-speed wireless signals, each time-of-arrival being the time that the corresponding low-speed wireless signal being received by the target device, and determining the position of the target device based on the calculated distances.

Many indoor/outdoor positioning systems are known. An example of an outdoor positioning system is a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the United States, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) of Russia, the Galileo positioning system of the European Union, and the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System of China. Other examples of indoor/outdoor positioning systems include positioning systems using received signal strength (RSS), inertial navigation systems (INS) using motion sensors (for example, accelerometers) and rotation sensors (for example, gyroscopes) for object positioning, pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) using accelerometers as a pedometer and magnetometer as a compass for pedestrian navigation, SteamVR® optical position tracking technology developed by Valve Corporation of Bellevue, Wash., U.S.A. (SteamVR is a registered trademark of Valve Corporation), Oculus constellation tracking technology developed by Oculus VR of Irvine, Calif., U.S.A., and the OPTITRACK® camera-based positioning system developed by NaturalPoint, Inc. of Corvallis, Oreg., U.S.A. (OPTITRACK is a registered trademark of NaturalPoint, Inc.).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Distance-based positioning system and method using high-speed and low-speed wireless signals


An apparatus for limiting deflection of the armature shaft 38, 38', 103 of an electrically powered tool, such as a hand held saw 10 or drill 91. In saw 10, the armature shaft 38, 38' extends as a cantilever from the motor 14 and has a geared connection 58, 60 to an arbor 44 for driving the saw blade 18. An arrangement for limiting the deflection of the armature shaft 38, 38' comprises a pilot member 72, 84 and a socket 68, 82 associated, respectively, with one and the other of the armature shaft and a motor housing supported wall. The socket 68, 82 is larger in cross-section than that of the pilot member 72, 84 and limits transverse deflection of the armature shaft 38, 38' away from its axis of rotation A. If the saw 10 stalls in the material being cut, force is transmitted from the geared connection 58, 60 to the armature shaft 38, 38'. The socket 68, 82 and pilot member 72, 84 permit the armature shaft 38, 38' to deflect a predetermined amount to counteract torques resulting from the geared connection 58, 60. In one embodiment, the pilot 72 extends from the armature shaft 38 to be received in an aperture 68 formed in the housing wall 66. In another embodiment, the pilot 84 extends from the housing wall 66' to be received in a bore 82 formed in the armature shaft 38'. According to a third embodiment, in drill 91, the shaft deflection limiter is constituted by an armature shaft pilot 111 disposed in a roller bearing aperture 117.

An electrically powered tool, such as a portable rotary hand held saw and the like, typically includes an electric motor for providing a source of power which is transmitted through a gear train to the saw blade or other implement for performing the intended work. As can be appreciated, there is a large amount of force exerted on the implement as it is worked through the material. This force, which is generated by the electric motor, is conducted through the gear train to the implement. Therefore, the gear train and the electric motor are necessarily designed to withstand the high stresses resulting from these forces.
The loads, and therefore the stresses, experienced by the gear train and the motor vary with the cutting conditions. When the power tool is freewheeling, i.e., the tool is operating but the implement is not cutting through material, the loading of the gear train is fairly low. When the tool is cutting easily through a piece of material, the loading of the gear train is still of fairly low magnitude. However, if the tool bogs down or "stalls" in the material, i.e., the implement is no longer moving smoothly through or is stuck in the workpiece, the loading and stresses acting on the gear train increase.
Although the implement may have "stalled" in the workpiece, the driving torque from the electric motor will continue and the force acting on the gear teeth may tend to force the gears apart and drive the armature shaft radially outwardly. If the armature shaft should deflect radially, the loading condition on the gear train will be further aggravated because the driving connection thereon will be via the tips of the gear teeth instead of against the faces of the gear teeth.
Therefore, to ensure that the gear teeth do not fracture or otherwise fail under such loading conditions, and hence, to ensure a long reliable life for the power tool, the gears are made from hardened steel. Hardened steel gears, however, are typically more difficult to manufacture and are more expensive as compared to other types of gears such as powdered metal gears. In addition to providing for hardened steel gears, care must also be taken to provide enhanced support bearings for the various elements of the power tool gear train to ensure that they too are not damaged by the adverse loading conditions, and particularly, by shaft deflection.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,973,449, it has been suggested that armature shaft deflection may be limited by supporting the distal end of the armature shaft in a bearing. However, this solution has been found to suffer from a number of disadvantages. The armature shaft is typically supported in a pair of bearings located, respectively, at each end of the armature winding. If a third bearing is added to support the distal end of the armature shaft, the armature shaft would then be supported in three bearings at spaced locations. Because of the tolerances inherent in the design of power tools, the accurate alignment of a single shaft in three spaced bearings is difficult. Misalignment will, of course, cause the development of friction and excessive heat in the bearings, leading to poor performance and potential failure of the device. Furthermore, the supporting of the distal shaft end in a bearing is difficult because the bearing is frequently located adjacent to an external housing wall typically made of plastic. The friction and heat generated in the bearing can lead to bearing failure and can lead to melting of the plastic housing in which the bearing is supported. Accordingly, it is, therefore, desirable to develop an improved durable mechanism for limiting shaft deflection with higher tolerances.


A sleeve bracket assembly has a track-base, a positioning-board and multiple positioning-mounts. The track-base has a bottom panel, a slide-rail and a connecting track. The slide-rail and the connecting track are respectively formed on a top surface of the bottom panel and a bottom surface of the bottom panel. The positioning-board is elastic, is mounted in the connecting track and has two rail-bars and a positioning-rack. The positioning-mounts are movably and rotatably mounted on the track-base, engage the positioning-board and each one of the positioning-mounts has a sliding-engaging seat and an inserting-button. The sliding-engaging seat is movably mounted in the slide-rail, engages the positioning-board and has at least three engaging-teeth selectively engaging the positioning-rack. The inserting-button is formed on the sliding-engaging seat.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sleeve bracket assembly, and more particularly to a sleeve bracket assembly that can allow sleeves to be rotated relative to the sleeve bracket assembly and also can position the sleeves securely on the sleeve bracket assembly.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional sleeve bracket assembly has a track-base and multiple sleeve mounts. The track-base has a top and a slide-rail. The slide-rail is formed in the top of the track-base. The positioning-mounts are movably mounted in the slide-rail of the track-base. Each one of the sleeve mounts has a sliding seat and an inserting-button. The sliding seat is rectangular and is movably mounted in the slide-rail of the track-base and has a top surface. The inserting-button is round, is formed on and protrudes from the top surface of the sliding seat and extends out of the slide-rail.
In use, sleeves are mounted around the inserting-buttons of the positioning-mounts, and the round inserting-buttons can allow the sleeves to rotate to enable numbers or signs on the sleeves to face a user. However, the inserting-buttons lack positioning structures and cannot securely hold on the sleeves. Then, the positions and the angles of the numbers or signs on the sleeves may easily change when the sleeves or the conventional sleeve bracket are hit by other objects, and the user needs to rotate the sleeves relative to the inserting-buttons to adjust the positions and the angles of the numbers or signs of the sleeves and this is inconvenient in use.
In addition, a positioning mount of another conventional sleeve bracket assembly has a round sliding seat and a rectangular inserting-button. The sleeves can be firmly positioned on the rectangular inserting-buttons and cannot be rotated relative to the slide-rail, and the user can rotate the round slide seats relative to the slide-rail to adjust the positions and the angles of the numbers or signs on the sleeves to face the user. However, the round slide seats lack positioning structures and cannot securely mounted in the slide-rail of the track-base. Then, the positions and the angles of the numbers or signs on the sleeves may easily change when the sleeves or the conventional sleeve bracket are hit by other objects, and the user still needs to rotate the sleeves to adjust the positions and the angles of the numbers or signs of the sleeves and this is also inconvenient in use.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention tends to provide a sleeve bracket assembly to mitigate the aforementioned problems.


An improved method for isolating the impacts of flow-altering events in corrosion transport from those due to steady state corrosion in boiler/steam cycle processes. The method includes monitoring, in real time, with a particle counter or particle monitor levels of suspended particles in a fluid flow stream and of automatically collecting insoluble particulates large enough to be captured on a 0.45 micron filter when, and only when, these levels exceed an “event threshold”. For use in subsequently characterizing flow-altering events without necessarily weighing the collected particulates for each excursion above this threshold, an average particle count/particle index is obtained and compared with the actual weight of insoluble particulates captured. When excursions are highly infrequent, concentrations of insoluble metal oxides likely to be present in the flow stream and capable of producing above-threshold PC/PIs can be determined and used to identify anomalies when particulates are captured.

This invention relates to monitoring particulate matter in fluid flow streams circulated in boiler/steam cycle process equipment.
A long-standing challenge for those engaged in power production is that of minimizing metal corrosion and transport in boiler/steam cycle processes. As is well known, water is extremely corrosive at high temperatures and oxidizes the walls of boilers, heat exchangers and associated piping as it circulates through them, forming soluble and suspended oxides of iron and copper. Importantly, a small buildup of these metal oxides can reduce the heat transfer rates sufficiently in a boiler/steam system to cause a catastrophic failure.
While the potential for corrosion transport related to upsets in system chemistry in boiler/steam cycle process equipment is widely understood, many basic questions remain. Some investigators have even suggested that velocity changes—which affect primarily the distribution of insoluble particulates—may play a more important role in the boiler cycle than does a steady corrosion rate. Questions have also been raised as to what extent conventional chemical measurements, i.e., conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, and specific ion measurements, indicate the level of metal transport in a system and whether anti-corrosion additives interact at all with insoluble contaminants. Uncertainties abound in part because previous monitoring efforts did not provide for correlating particulate iron and copper concentrations with an exact time of transport.
Moreover, only recently, after years of testing at various power plants, has the magnitude of the component contributed by insoluble particulates to corrosion transport become apparent. Using corrosion transport sampling equipment augmented by ion-exchange technology, investigators have now deduced that typically between 90 and 95 percent of the specii involved in metal transport phenomena are particulates large enough to be captured on a 0.45 micron filter. Obscuring this finding earlier was the fact that significant variations in the relative percentages of soluble and suspended metal oxides exist between individual power plants. Furthermore, these relative percentages vary with:                Sample stream and location sampled.        Oxidation/reduction environment at a particular sampling location.        Temperature, flow rate and system design.        System chemistry.
Substantially larger than the specii present at the onset of particulate formation, the insoluble particles measured with this augmented corrosion transport sampling equipment were, for each sample stream tested, first removed from it with the use of a 0.45 micron filter pad; and then the sample stream was directed through a series of ion-exchange resins, located downstream of the filter pad. The ion-exchange resins were used to selectively adsorb soluble species such as iron and copper ions. After the sample stream had been pushed through the pad and resins for a relatively long preset time interval (typically 24 hours), both the pad and resins were removed and separately dissolved, digested in acid and then ultimately subjected to a sophisticated and time-consuming atomic absorption spectroscopy-based metals analysis, so that their respective metal contents could be measured.
Unfortunately, flow-altering events—which typically occur during startup, shutdown and other non-steady state conditions—tend to occur over much shorter time intervals than a full 24-hour period. As a consequence, the impact of such events cannot be readily isolated from prior art data based primarily on 24-hour "composite" samples and the like.
For testing system particulate iron under non-steady state conditions, little has changed until now since boiler manufacturers Babcock and Wilcox introduced, many years ago, comparison charts which enabled users, who first captured particulate iron from one liter samples on filters, to estimate the type of iron oxide and the approximate concentration of particulate iron present based upon the appearance (color and intensity or darkness of color) of the material captured on the filter. This method, still used today during power plant startups, provides a quick, but nonetheless fairly accurate, test of system particulate iron. One of the drawbacks of this filter method is that low level trace metal analysis determinations are not possible.
Promising alternate approaches have involved using automated samplers to collect discrete ("grab") samples from a fluid flow stream either at periodic intervals or only whenever major excursions or "spikes" in the levels of contaminants in a flow stream are detected. The former approach has proven itself to be largely impractical, except possibly in the case of peaking/cycling boiler/steam systems. Recent extended monitoring of boiler/steam units having minimal starts during a year, for example, indicates that few, if any, distinct and significant flow-altering events occur in them for weeks at a time. Collecting samples only during major excursions, on the other hand, requires the use of an instrument for detecting particulates, such as the particle monitor employed in the automated sampler combination disclosed by Bryant and Veal in U.S. Pat. No. 5,798,699, or a particle counter.
Distinctly different from the particle monitor, the particle counter, which is based on the optical method of light blocking or "extinction", can detect 2 micron or larger particles in fluids and size them, putting them into "bins" of defined size ranges; the particle monitor, by contrast, can at most track trends in particulate concentrations—specifically, concentrations in aggregate of particles of the order of 1 micron or larger in size. Nevertheless, now that 0.45 micron and larger suspended particles are known to dominate metal transport to such a high degree, the particle monitor has gained wider acceptance as the instrument of choice for detecting particulates. Formerly, that position, as is well known, was held by the turbidimeter, an instrument which, unlike either the particle monitor or the particle counter, can, under favorable conditions, detect the onset of particulate formation.
Whether the particle monitor or the particle counter is used for detecting particulates, major obstacles remain for those seeking to isolate the impact of flow-altering events on corrosion transport. Both of these alternate approaches depend upon collecting individual discrete samples which tend to age quickly. And as they age, information is readily lost regarding the relative percentages of soluble and insoluble contaminants which may be present in the flow stream. Further, analyses of metal oxide transport phenomena are complicated by the fact that the quantity of particles of a given size range detected by the particle counter is dependent upon, among other things, the composition of the particles and the mixture of which they are a part. Specifically, recent testing by the applicants has shown that the particle count may be substantially lower than what would be expected on the basis of the mass of metal oxides captured on a 0.45 micron filter.

Method for selectively sampling particulates in boiler/steam cycle corrosion transport


A system for multimedia content delivery includes one or more processors; and a storage medium storing instructions. When executed, the instructions may configure the one or more processors to perform operations including: delivering to a set of client devices a manifest including fake segment URLs; receiving, from a client device, a segment request including a client ID and a requested URL. The method may also include selecting content for the at least one of the client devices based on the client ID when determining the requested URL is unavailable; redirecting the segment request to a content address associated with the selected content; and providing the selected content to the at least one of the client devices.

Over the top (OTT) services refer to multimedia content providers that stream content directly to viewers over the Internet, bypassing telecommunications, multichannel television, and broadcast television platforms that traditionally act as a content controller or distributor. Users have widely embraced OTT services, like web-based video on demand services, as alternatives to traditional multimedia platforms. Indeed, the adoption of OTT services has displaced traditional platforms. Thus, content developers and content broadcasters are now seeking to monetize OTT services to recoup lost revenue and capitalize on the new market.
Developers and broadcasters have turned to dynamic advertisement insertion (DAI) to generate revenue from OTT services while still providing a personalized user experience. DAI is a technology that enables advertisers to selectively reach consumers and provide personalized advertisement content. Using DAI, advertisers can identify and provide content that is more relevant for a customer, or group of customers, based on demographics, geographic location, and/or user profiles. For example, DAI allows OTT services to dynamically identify advertisements that are relevant for a user and insert them in the main content. By "stitching" advertisements in the main content, OTT services can generate revenue using traditional advertising models and continue to provide customized content. For example, DAI allows OTT services to include advertisements throughout the main content and charge according to the number of delivered advertisements. But, in addition, DAI enables OTT services to dynamically select and deliver advertisements for target customers, potentially enhancing customer's response.
DAI, however, faces important challenges that undermine the financial viability of some OTT services models. First, users are sometimes able to skip advertisements in their devices. For example, users may employ multimedia players that allow fast forwarding of content. Second, the proliferation of advertisement blocking methods and software jeopardizes the revenue and business model of OTT services. With advertisement blockers users can configure their devices to avoid receiving advertisements. For example, client devices may install web browser extensions that block advertisement content and/or prevent advertisement content display. Further, client devices and/or routers may be configured to implement firewalls and filters that block content from addresses associated with advertisers. These methods to block or skip advertisements interfere with DAI operation and jeopardize OTT services revenue because revenue from advertisements is normally based on the number of advertisements that are viewed completely by the users. Therefore, mechanisms that block and hide advertisements undermine the DAI operation and may significantly decrease the revenue of OTT services.
The disclosed systems and methods for providing multimedia content to client devices address one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the prior art.

Systems and methods for distributing content


A method for stabilizing an image and compensating for movement of a weapon is provided, comprising: providing an image stabilization device for an optical scope mounted on a weapon, wherein the image stabilization device includes a sensor to detect motion of the weapon; providing a trigger release device operatively connected to a trigger on the weapon; detecting movement of the weapon by the sensor; generating an output signal from the sensor, wherein the output signal corresponds to the position and velocity of the weapon in a plane perpendicular to the line of sight upon alignment of a feedback reticle with a telescopic sight reticle; processing the output signal to determine an optimal release period, and then generating a release signal during the release period; and using the release signal to activate the trigger release.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to methods for optical stabilization and movement compensation to improve the accuracy of small arms and similar systems.
2. Description of Related Art
A significant limitation of shooting accuracy is presented by unsteadiness of the firearm. Bench-rest competition shooters employ stable platforms for their rifles to remove this source of motion. However, most other shooters must be content with imperfect supports for their firearms. For example, a standing shooter hand-holding a rifle results in a relatively unstable condition, and most shooters place the rifle in contact with a fixed object, such as a tree, bipod, or other stable platform. With accurate rifles capable of accuracies of better than one minute of angle or about one inch per hundred yards, even slight movements of the rifle can lead to inaccuracies far in excess of the capability of the rifle. Even a shift of only 0.01 inch by the muzzle of the rifle can generate a significant inaccuracy in perfect shooting conditions. Moreover, factors such as wind, the shooter's breathing, and heartbeat can generate deviations in aim which will adversely affect the point of impact of the bullet. In a combat or hunting context, the shooter's physiological responses to stress or excitement can significantly worsen the motion associated with holding an imperfectly-supported rifle.
The motion or shake that causes shooting inaccuracy also presents a visual problem. High-powered riflescopes magnify the motion, thus blurring the image. This makes it difficult to detect, acquire, and identify targets. Oftentimes, a shooter might prefer a higher-powered rifle scope for accuracy, except that the shaky image in actual use makes such higher magnification impractical. Additionally, the effect of mirage produced by atmospheric convection currents viewed over large distances can further complicate the aiming process and introduce undesirable inaccuracies.
With respect to difficulties in image clarity and movement, optical stabilization for cameras and binoculars has seen great commercial success. Moving a lens to keep the image stable and centered as the device moves greatly improves these optical devices. These moving lens techniques are very reliable, inexpensive, and lightweight with low power requirements. Such optical stabilization would be helpful to a shooter as he attempts to identify and prepare to shoot at a target. However, when it comes to improving accuracy, there are no viable optical stabilizers for small arms, such as rifles and pistols, because although the image is stable, the lens train and the barrel continue to move. In practice, the shooter quickly identifies his target and centers the target in the stabilized image, but he still has no way of knowing when the barrel is aligned with the target. The barrel continues to move relative to the stabilized image due to unsteadiness in the position due to involuntary factors such as heartbeat, breathing, and muscular activity.
Specifically, a bullet fired at the precise instant that the moving barrel is exactly aligned with the target will always miss the target. Under those conditions, the moving barrel necessarily imparts movement to the bullet that will carry it away from the target. Skilled shooters sometimes acquire a rhythmic pattern with the barrel and pull the trigger at the right moment for the imparted barrel motion to bring the bullet into contact with the target when it arrives. Many hours on the range give them the "feel" for this effort at different ranges, but it is an imprecise solution to barrel movement, reflecting the need to compensate for movement that can never be completely eliminated. Ideally, a barrel movement compensation system, such as that presented herein, could track the position of the barrel relative to the stabilized image, and then release the firing mechanism at a calculated moment for the bullet to contact the target at the end of its flight. The result would be greater accuracy, as well as easier identification and alignment with the target prior to taking the shot.
Many attempts have been made to increase the accuracy of weapons, from small arms to heavy artillery. For weapon systems where optical acuity, bulk, weight, and power consumption do not appear to be concerns, it has been proposed to employ a gyroscopically-stabilized television image as a fire-control sighting system for a weapon on a moving platform to provide a still image. This is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,659,494 to Philbrick et al. The Philbrick system projects an image of the target on a photodetector, which converts the image into an electronic signal. An electron beam regenerates the image on a phosphor screen that is viewed by the user. The regenerated image is stabilized by a facility that shifts the electron beam based on gyroscopic inputs. While apparently suitable for aiming large weapon systems, it does not appear to be suitable for applications where a high quality image, and small size, low weight, low cost, and simplicity are desired. Moreover, it appears unsuited to adapt to existing rifle scopes.
The Philbrick patent further describes the system applied to a weapon with an electronic trigger system, so that the sighting system itself automatically sends an electronic signal that fires the weapon when the sight is in a neutral or "home" position in which the image is not shifted, unless the user inhibits firing by releasing pressure on a trigger solenoid. Thus, the Philbrick system is further unsuitable for adaptation to convention rifles using mechanical triggers.
The present invention addresses all of the foregoing concerns and difficulties attributable to movement of the firearm. By controlling the release of the firing mechanism instead of firing at the right position, the invention eliminates complex controls required with systems that directly operate the firearm. In other words, the firearm will only fire under the simultaneous occurrence of two conditions: (1) the trigger is pulled, and (2) a release signal is received from the compensation system upon a calculation that the bullet will intersect the target at the end of its time of flight. This method allows the shooter to identify and aim with a stable image of the target using a conventional optical stabilization system, select that target by pulling the trigger, and the system releases the firing mechanism when the motion of the barrel imparts the correct motion to the bullet so that it contacts the target at the end of its time of flight using information from that same optical stabilization system.
Thus, the present invention provides an inexpensive and simple way to overcome the otherwise unavoidable problems due to movement of the shooter and the firearm. Also, the invention resolves issues that have historically kept optical stabilization out of the small arms market.

Method of movement compensation for a weapon


A method for processing a carrier accordance with various embodiments may include: forming a structure over the carrier, the structure including at least two adjacent structure elements arranged at a first distance between the same; depositing a spacer layer over the structure, wherein the spacer layer may be deposited having a thickness greater than half of the first distance, wherein the spacer layer may include electrically conductive spacer material; removing a portion of the spacer layer, wherein spacer material of the spacer layer may remain in a region between the at least two adjacent structure elements; and electrically contacting the remaining spacer material.

Fabricating an integrated circuit (also referred to as IC, chip, or microchip) typically involves a plurality of processes. One development in semiconductor processing is the scaling of the integrated circuits to realize the smallest practicable feature size. Another driver in semiconductor industry is reducing the production costs. One way to reduce costs may be directly related with the number of required processes, wherein it is usually desired to use only as little number of processes as possible. Since errors or deviations from the optimally designed configuration may be introduced by the processes, due to misalignment, a limited overlay accuracy, inhomogeneities resulting from deposition processes and etch processes, a reduced number of processes may not only reduce the cost, it may also increase the yield, increase the reproducibility of the overall process, minimize the number of defective structural elements, and may reduce the time for the production of an electronic component.
In this regard, electrically contacting small structure elements (small meaning that the lateral extension of the structure element may be in the range of the according feature size of the planar processing) may cause problems if the size of the electrical contact is likewise small and the overlay accuracy of involved patterning processes may become relevant. Therefore, the electrically contacting of a structure element may be unreliable for structures, where the lateral extension of the structure element is not significantly larger than the electrical contact itself. According to this, additional processes are typically involved generating a larger contact landing area including one or more deposition processes, lithographic processes, etch processes (and the like) which may be undesired as described above, since the number of processes may increase.


An endogenerator is provided in which CO and H.sub.2 are generated as primary products of hydrocarbon oxidation. The reactor is a compact reactor and operates autothermally without auxiliary heating means.

Heat treatment of metals in a furnace requires an inert atmosphere, typically nitrogen. Reducing gases, such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen are added to the nitrogen to provide a buffer against oxygen leakage into the furnace.
The atmosphere compositions required to carry out the heat treating of ferrous and non-ferrous metals and alloys, the brazing of metals and the sintering of metal and ceramic powders are well known in the art.
Although in principle nitrogen is inert with respect to most metals and alloys at heat treating temperatures, in practice, reducing elements such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen (CO and H.sub.2) must often be added to the atmosphere composition in order to provide a buffer against inleak of oxygen into the furnace.
The oxygen that leaks into the furnace rapidly reacts with the CO and H.sub.2 present to form carbon dioxide and water (CO.sub.2 and H.sub.2 O) and as long as the CO/CO2 and H2/H2O ratios stay within desired limits the various heat treating processes can be carried out successfully. The actual CO/CO.sub.2 and H.sub.2 /H.sub.2 O ratios to be established will greatly depend on the particular process involved such as decarburization-free annealing, bright annealing, decarburization annealing and controlled oxide annealing of steels and these are well known in the art. For instance, for bright annealing of steels FIG. 1 shows an oxidation diagram for iron in CO/CO.sub.2 and H.sub.2 /H.sub.2 O mixtures. At 800.degree. C. atmospheres with CO/CO.sub.2 >1.4 and H.sub.2 /H.sub.2 O>1.8 will not oxidize steels (point B); in practice an atmosphere with CO/CO.sub.2 =5 and H.sub.2 /H.sub.2 O=6 (point A in FIG. 1) can advantageously be used since it will have an adequate buffer against O.sub.2 inleaks.
The known methods of preparing buffered atmospheres of this type fall in two main categories. The first category is generated atmospheres from endogenerators, exogenerators, ammonia dissociators. These atmospheres are inexpensive but they involve bulky equipment, are maintenance intensive and the atmospheres often lack consistency. The second category is atmospheres prepared from cryogenic nitrogen with the admixtures of hydrogen or methanol. These atmospheres are of high quality and very controllable but are also very expensive.
Several commercially practiced or proposed techniques to provide heat treating atmospheres for above-mentioned applications are known. One technique uses exothermic generators wherein atmosphere is produced in a refractory lined or a direct water-cooled combustion chamber with one or two burners to which a mixture of natural gas and air is delivered from controlled ratio pumping equipment. The generator is equipped with a cooler through which the products of combustion are discharged after removing a portion of the water produced in the reaction. There are two types of exothermic generators commonly used for ferrous annealing, the rich ratio exothermic generators in which the air to fuel ratio is typically about 6; the combustion atmosphere after cooling and removing most of the water will typically consist of 5% CO.sub.2, 11% CO, 14% H.sub.2 and 69% N.sub.2. Although the gas generated atmosphere has a low CO/CO.sub.2 ratio and is decarburizing, the atmosphere is suitable for oxide-free annealing of ferrous materials.
The other type is the purified exothermic generators in which the combustion gases are compressed and the CO.sub.2 and H.sub.2 O are removed by pressure-swing adsorption on molecular sieve beds. Atmosphere is suitable for decarb-free and oxide-free annealing of ferrous materials.
Another known technique uses endothermic generators diluted with nitrogen or exogas. In endothermic generators, the air to natural gas ratio is typically close to 25% of perfect combustion. Reaction takes place over a catalyst bed (usually Ni on Alumina brick) and external heat must be supplied to maintain the reaction. Gas composition from an endogenerator contains approximately 20% H.sub.2, 40% CO, balance N.sub.2. For annealing applications this gas is diluted in the furnace with N.sub.2 gas. The N.sub.2 can be from a cryogenic supply or impure N.sub.2 from membrane or PSA. Alternatively, the endogas can be diluted with exogas from an exogenerator.
Still another technique employs nitrogen/methanol systems wherein methanol is introduced directly into the furnace and at the furnace temperature dissociates into H.sub.2 and CO. For each gallon of methanol approximately 25 CF of CO and 50 CF of H.sub.2 are produced. N.sub.2 is also injected to obtain he desired atmosphere for annealing. The N.sub.2 can be from cryogenic supply or impure N.sub.2, from membrane or PSA.
A further known technique uses internally-mounted endothermic generators wherein the endothermic generator is mounted internally in the furnace thereby saving energy and eliminating the floor space requirement of an external generator. The internal generator is supplied with its own electrical heater and a precious metal catalyst is used for higher efficiency and lower space requirement. For annealing applications, dilution of the endogas with N.sub.2 can be used. The N.sub.2 can be from a cryogenic supply or impure N.sub.2 from membrane or PSA.
A still further technique is one in which endothermic conversion of impure nitrogen is used. In this process an endogenerator type reactor is used to convert the O.sub.2 present in nitrogen generated by membrane to H.sub.2 and CO. Typical membrane purity is low (between 3 and 5%). Resulting atmospheres have between 5 to 8% CO and 10 to 16% H.sub.2. Since only a small amount of heat is generated at these low O.sub.2 concentrations, it is necessary to preheat the reactants.
Finally, another technique employs the "in-situ" conversion of impure nitrogen. Various methods have been suggested of premixing nitrogen obtained from membranes or PSA with a predetermined quantity of hydrogen and/or hydrocarbon and injecting this mixture into the hot zone of the furnace. The amount of hydrogen and/or hydrocarbon used is several times the amount required for conversion of the oxygen in the impure nitrogen to the complete oxidation products CO.sub.2 and H.sub.2 O. Location and method of injection can be critical.
The aforesaid known techniques all have drawbacks such that they are not totally satisfactory heat treating atmospheres. Exothermic generators are separate pieces of equipment that need to be maintained. Cooling of the combustion gases and subsequent reheating involves thermal inefficiencies. Rich ratio exothermic generators with or without refrigerant dryers are relatively simple to operate and capital costs are modest. However resultant atmospheres are not of high quality and are not suitable for decarb-free annealing. Purified exogenerator atmospheres are of high quality, however capital and operating costs are high, since it involves compressing the combustion gases and there are losses in the use of molecular sieve beds.
Diluted endothermic gas gives a high quality atmosphere; endothermic generators are however more costly to operate than exogenerators and again involve a separate piece of equipment which must be controlled and maintained. Thermal inefficiency due to atmosphere reheating is also a disadvantage.
Nitrogen/Methanol delivers high quality atmosphere with low capital and maintenance costs. However operating costs are high due to the high cost of methanol. Thermal efficiency is also low since the furnace must provide the heat to dissociate the methanol and bring the injected gases to the furnace temperature.
Internally mounted endothermic generators are relatively new in the technology. Their principal advantage is that no separate generator is required. Furnace atmosphere controls are used to control the output of the generator avoiding duplication. The heat of reaction is not lost so thermal efficiency is high. Standard Nickel or precious metal reforming catalyst is used as in stand-alone generators. Since reforming reactions are slow, space velocities are low and this makes the system bulky which is a disadvantage for internally mounted systems. For example, for one commercially available system, the internally mounted generator delivering 800 SCFH of endogas measures 10.5" diameter and is 32" long.
An example of such a generator is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,160,380 issued Nov. 3, 1992 to Vocke et al. entitled PROCESS FOR IMPROVED PREPARATION OF TREATMENT GAS IN HEAT TREATMENTS.
The endothermic conversion of the oxygen in membrane nitrogen to CO and H.sub.2 has all the disadvantages of external endogenerators and substantially more heat must be provided than for the air/natural gas case. Thermal efficiency is low and capital cost is high.
"In-situ" conversion of impure nitrogen without the use of a catalyst. The principal disadvantage of these methods is that the oxygen in the impure nitrogen will initially give rise to the total oxidation products H.sub.2 O and CO.sub.2. If only H.sub.2 is used, sufficient H.sub.2 must be supplied to give the desired H.sub.2 /H.sub.2 O and CO.sub.2. The need for an external H.sub.2 source makes this approach expensive. If hydrocarbons such as methane or propane are used, the desired CO/CO.sub.2 and H.sub.2 /H.sub.2 O ratios are obtained through reforming of CO.sub.2 and H.sub.2 O in the furnace by adding sufficient excess hydrocarbon. These reforming reactions are slow at typical heat treating temperatures particularly when using methane. An example of this is shown in FIG. 2. The desired atmosphere can only be obtained if furnace temperatures are high enough and the gas residence time is long enough for sufficient reforming to take place. Gas composition will therefore be dependent on the operation of the furnace.
Other background references relating to the present subject matter are as follows.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,298,090 issued Mar. 29, 1994, to Garg et al. entitled "ATMOSPHERES FOR HEAT TREATING NON-FERROUS METALS AND ALLOYS" discloses a process for producing low-cost atmospheres suitable for annealing, brazing, and sintering non-ferrous metals and alloys from non-cryogenically produced nitrogen containing up to 5% residual oxygen. According to the process, suitable atmospheres are produced by 1) pre-heating the non-cryogenically produced nitrogen stream containing residual oxygen to a desired temperature, 2) mixing it with more than a stoichiometric amount a hydrocarbon gas, 3) passing it through a reactor packed with a platinum group of metal catalyst to reduce the residual oxygen to very low levels and convert it to a mixture of moisture and carbon dioxide, and 4) using the reactor effluent stream for annealing, brazing, and sintering non-ferrous metals and alloys in a furnace. The key features of the disclosed process include 1) pre-heating the non-cryogenically produced nitrogen containing residual oxygen to a certain minimum temperature, 2) adding more than a stoichiometric amount of a hydrocarbon gas to the pre-heated nitrogen stream, and 3) using a platinum group of metal catalyst to initiate and sustain the reaction between oxygen and the hydrocarbon gas.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,893, issued Nov. 9, 1993 to Bonner et al., entitled "IN-SITU GENERATION OF HEAT TREATING ATMOSPHERES USING A MIXTURE OF NON-CRYOGENICALLY PRODUCED NITROGEN AND A HYDROCARBON GAS", discloses a process for generating in-situ low-cost atmospheres suitable of annealing and heat treating ferrous and non-ferrous metals and alloys, brazing metals, sealing glass to metals, and sintering metal and ceramic powders in a continuous furnace from non-cryogenically produced nitrogen containing up to 5% residual oxygen. The disclosed process involves mixing nitrogen gas containing residual oxygen with a predetermined amount of a hydrocarbon gas, feeding the gaseous mixture through a nonconventional device into the hot zone of a continuous heat treating furnace, converting residual oxygen to an acceptable form such as a mixture of moisture and carbon dioxide, a mixture of moisture, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, or a mixture of carbon monoxide, moisture, and hydrogen, and using the resultant gaseous mixture for annealing and heat treating metals and alloys, brazing metals, sintering metal and ceramic powders, and sealing glass to metals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,254,180 issued Oct. 19, 1993 to Bonner et al., entitled "ANNEALING OF CARBON STEELS IN A PRE-HEATED MIXED AMBIENTS OF NITROGEN, OXYGEN, MOISTURE AND REDUCING GAS", discloses an improved process for producing high moisture containing nitrogen-based atmospheres suitable for oxide and decarburize annealing of carbon steels from non cryogenically generated nitrogen. These nitrogen-based atmospheres are produced by mixing non-cryogenically generated nitrogen containing less than 5.0 vol. % residual oxygen with a specified amount of hydrogen, humidifying the gaseous feed mixture, feeding the gaseous mixture into the heating zone of a furnace through a diffuser, and converting in-situ the residual oxygen present in it to moisture. According to the present invention, the total amount of hydrogen required for producing suitable atmospheres can be minimized by simultaneously humidifying the feed gas and controlling the residual oxygen level in it. The key features of the present invention include a) humidifying the feed gas prior to introducing it into the heating zone of a furnace operated above about 600.degree. C., b) selecting the level of residual oxygen in the feed gas in such a way that it minimizes hydrogen consumption, and c) using enough amount of hydrogen to convert completely the residual oxygen present in the feed gas to moisture and to maintain pH.sub.2 /pH.sub.2 O ratio in the heating zone of the furnace below about 2 for oxide annealing and at least 2 for decarburize annealing carbon steels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,509, issued Sep. 7, 1993 to Rancon et al. entitled "PROCESS OF THE PRODUCTION OF AN ATMOSPHERE FOR THE THERMAL TREATMENT OF METALS AND THERMAL TREATMENT APPARATUS", describes a process wherein the thermal treatment atmosphere is obtained by catalytic reaction of an impure mixture of nitrogen, advantageously obtained by permeation or adsorption, and hydrocarbon, the catalytic reaction being carried out at a temperature between 400.degree. and 900.degree. C., typically between 500.degree. and 800.degree. C., with a noble metal base catalyst, typically platinum or palladium on alumina support. The reaction may be carried out in a reactor placed inside or outside the furnace.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,369 issued Jun. 22, 1993 to Bowe et al., entitled "IN-SITU GENERATION OF HEAT TREATING ATMOSPHERES USING NON-CRYOGENICALLY PRODUCED NITROGEN", discloses a process for generating in-situ low-cost atmospheres suitable for annealing and heat treating ferrous and non-ferrous metals and alloys, brazing metals and ceramics, sealing glass to metals, and sintering metal and ceramic powders in a continuous furnace from non-cryogenically produced nitrogen containing up to 5% residual oxygen. The disclosed process involves mixing nitrogen gas containing residual oxygen with a pre-determined amount of a reducing gas such as hydrogen, a hydrocarbon, or a mixture thereof, feeding the gaseous mixture through a non-conventional device into the hot zone of a continuous heat treating furnace, converting residual oxygen to an acceptable form such as moisture, a mixture of moisture and carbon dioxide, or a mixture of moisture, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and using the resultant gaseous mixture for annealing and heat treating metals and alloys, brazing metals and ceramics, sintering metal and ceramic powders, and sealing glass to metals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,069,728 issued Dec. 3, 1991 to Rancon et al., entitled "PROCESS FOR HEAT TREATING METALS IN A CONTINUOUS OVEN UNDER CONTROLLED ATMOSPHERE", describes the heat treating of metals by continuous longitudinal passage of metallic pieces in an elongated treating zone under controlled atmosphere having a high temperature upstream end where the controlled atmosphere comprises nitrogen and reducing chemical substances, such as hydrogen, possibly carbon monoxide, and a down-stream cooling end under an atmosphere essentially formed by introducing nitrogen. In the high temperature upstream end, the nitrogen which constitutes the atmosphere is supplied by introducing nitrogen with a residual oxygen content not exceeding 5%. The nitrogen introduced in the downstream cooling end is substantially free of oxygen. Application of the process to the annealing of metallic pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,057,164 issued Oct. 15, 1991 to Nilsson et al., entitled "PROCESS FOR THERMAL TREATMENT OF METALS", discloses a process for thermal treatment of metals by passage of metallic pieces into an elongated zone under a controlled atmosphere, having an upstream section at an elevated temperature, where the controlled atmosphere comprises nitrogen and reductive chemicals, particularly hydrogen, possibly carbon monoxide; and a downstream section at a lower temperature under a controlled atmosphere. The invention is characterized by the fact that in the upstream section at an elevated temperature, the atmosphere comprises nitrogen having a residual content of oxygen between 0.5% and 5% produced by separation of air using permeation or adsorption techniques. The reductive chemicals are present at all times in a content at least sufficient to eliminate the oxygen admitted with the nitrogen. The controlled atmosphere in the section downstream from the elongated thermal treatment zone is formed by admission of a gaseous flow taken from the upstream section at an elevated temperature and transferred directly into the downstream section at a lower temperature.
Australian Patent Application 34059/93 dated Sep. 16, 1993 to Frey, entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FORMING A HEAT TREATING ATMOSPHERE", describes a method of forming a heat treating atmosphere by removing at least a substantial portion of the oxygen contained within a feed stream of air to produce a nitrogen rich gas and an oxygen enriched waste gas, mixing the nitrogen rich gas and a substituted or unsubstituted hydrocarbon gas to form a first mixture; and reacting the first mixture in the present of a non-noble metal catalyst to form said heat treating atmosphere containing a predominant amount of nitrogen gas and no more than trace amounts of carbon dioxide and water vapor.
PCT Patent WO 93/21350 Gross et al. dated Oct. 28, 1993 and entitled "METHOD OF PRODUCING A PROTECTIVE OR REACTIVE GAS FOR THE HEAT TREATMENT OF METALS" discloses nitrogen produced by non-cryogenic methods, such as those using pressure-change adsorption or membrane installations, cannot owing to its high oxygen content of about 0.1 to 5% V/V, be used for the heat treatment of metals, or can only be used to a limited degree. The invention proposes an endothermic catalytic conversion of the oxygen contained in the nitrogen by means of hydrocarbons to give a protective gas which is suitable for the heat treatment of metals.

Apparatus for producing heat treatment atmospheres


A roof cover type solar cell module includes a roof cover base member and a power generating unit. The roof cover base member has a mounting surface to which the power generating unit is mounted, and an underlap that can mate with an adjacent roof cover. The power generating unit is mounted to the mounting surface, leaving a part of the mounting surface uncovered. Thus, a roof cover type solar cell module for which a variety of materials can be used for the roof cover base member, which can be produced at low cost, and which is excellent in stability when placed on the roof surface, and also excellent in workability, weather resistance and design property, is provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solar cell module. More particularly, the present invention relates to a solar cell module having an outer structure allowing mating with an adjacent roof cover.
2. Description of the Background Art
To secure a solar cell module to a roof surface, in many cases, a stand is placed on a roof cover at the roof surface, and the solar cell module is secured to the stand. With recent diversification of the users' needs, however, a large number of solar cell modules having a solar cell integrated with a roof cover and excellent in design property have been proposed (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Laying-Open Nos. 11-324234, and 2002-070271).
In many of the proposed solar cell modules with the solar cell integrated with the roof cover, however, a power generating unit is housed in a concave portion or a bent portion that is provided in a roof cover base member to be mated with an adjacent roof cover. In such a case, a large area of the roof cover base member would externally be exposed after installation of the solar cell module on the roof surface. Thus, in order not to impair its design, weatherproof coating should be applied to or a weatherproof color steel plate should be used for the roof cover base member, which leads to an increased material cost.