A non-volatile memory organized into flash erasable blocks sorts units of data according to a temperature assigned to each unit of data, where a higher temperature indicates a higher probability that the unit of data will suffer subsequent rewrites due to garbage collection operations. The units of data either come from a host write or from a relocation operation. Among the units more likely to suffer subsequent rewrites, a smaller subset of data super-hot is determined. These super-hot data are then maintained in a dedicated portion of the memory, such as a resident binary zone in a memory system with both binary and MLC portions.

Solid-state memory capable of nonvolatile storage of charge, particularly in the form of EEPROM and flash EEPROM packaged as a small form factor card, has become the storage of choice in a variety of mobile and handheld devices, notably information appliances and consumer electronics products. Unlike RAM (random access memory) that is also solid-state memory, flash memory is non-volatile, and retaining its stored data even after power is turned off. Also, unlike ROM (read only memory), flash memory is rewritable similar to a disk storage device. In spite of the higher cost, flash memory is increasingly being used in mass storage applications. More recently, flash memory in the form of solid-state disks ("SSD") is beginning to replace hard disks in portable computers as well as in fixed location installations. Conventional mass storage, based on rotating magnetic medium such as hard drives and floppy disks, is unsuitable for the mobile and handheld environment. This is because disk drives tend to be bulky, are prone to mechanical failure and have high latency and high power requirements. These undesirable attributes make disk-based storage impractical in most mobile and portable applications. On the other hand, flash memory, both embedded and in the form of a removable card or SSD are ideally suited in the mobile and handheld environment because of its small size, low power consumption, high speed and high reliability features.
Flash EEPROM is similar to EEPROM (electrically erasable and programmable read-only memory) in that it is a non-volatile memory that can be erased and have new data written or "programmed" into their memory cells. Both utilize a floating (unconnected) conductive gate, in a field effect transistor structure, positioned over a channel region in a semiconductor substrate, between source and drain regions. A control gate is then provided over the floating gate. The threshold voltage characteristic of the transistor is controlled by the amount of charge that is retained on the floating gate. That is, for a given level of charge on the floating gate, there is a corresponding voltage (threshold) that must be applied to the control gate before the transistor is turned "on" to permit conduction between its source and drain regions. In particular, flash memory such as Flash EEPROM allows entire blocks of memory cells to be erased at the same time.
The floating gate can hold a range of charges and therefore can be programmed to any threshold voltage level within a threshold voltage window. The size of the threshold voltage window is delimited by the minimum and maximum threshold levels of the device, which in turn correspond to the range of the charges that can be programmed onto the floating gate. The threshold window generally depends on the memory device's characteristics, operating conditions and history. Each distinct, resolvable threshold voltage level range within the window may, in principle, be used to designate a definite memory state of the cell.
Current commercial products configure each storage element of a flash EEPROM array to store either a single bit of data or more than a single bit of data. A single-level-cell (SLC) memory has each cell storing a single bit of data by operating in a binary mode, where a single reference level differentiates between two ranges of threshold levels of each storage element.
The threshold levels of transistors correspond to ranges of charge levels stored on their storage elements. In addition to shrinking the size of the memory arrays, the trend is to further increase the density of data storage of such memory arrays by storing more than one bit of data in each storage element transistor. A multi-level-cell (MLC) memory has each cell storing more a single bit of data by operating in a multi-level mode, where two or more reference levels differentiates between more than two ranges of threshold levels of each storage element. For example, commercial flash memory products now operate in four states (2 bits of data per storage element) or eight states (3 bits of data per storage element) or 16 states per storage element (4 bits of data per storage element). Each storage element memory transistor has a certain total range (window) of threshold voltages in which it may practically be operated, and that range is divided into the number of states defined for it plus margins between the states to allow for them to be clearly differentiated from one another. Obviously, the more bits a memory cell is configured to store, the smaller is the margin of error it has to operate in.
The transistor serving as a memory cell is typically programmed to a "programmed" state by one of two mechanisms. In "hot electron injection," a high voltage applied to the drain accelerates electrons across the substrate channel region. At the same time a high voltage applied to the control gate pulls the hot electrons through a thin gate dielectric onto the floating gate. In "tunneling injection," a high voltage is applied to the control gate relative to the substrate. In this way, electrons are pulled from the substrate to the intervening floating gate. While the term "program" has been used historically to describe writing to a memory by injecting electrons to an initially erased charge storage unit of the memory cell so as to alter the memory state, it has now been used interchangeable with more common terms such as "write" or "record."
The memory device may be erased by a number of mechanisms. For EEPROM, a memory cell is electrically erasable, by applying a high voltage to the substrate relative to the control gate so as to induce electrons in the floating gate to tunnel through a thin oxide to the substrate channel region (i.e., Fowler-Nordheim tunneling.) Typically, the EEPROM is erasable byte by byte. For flash EEPROM, the memory is electrically erasable either all at once or one or more minimum erasable blocks at a time, where a minimum erasable block may consist of one or more sectors and each sector may store 512 bytes or more of data.
The memory device typically comprises one or more memory chips that may be mounted on a card. Each memory chip comprises an array of memory cells supported by peripheral circuits such as decoders and erase, write and read circuits. The more sophisticated memory devices also come with a controller that performs intelligent and higher level memory operations and interfacing. More recently, the memory devices in the form of SSD are being offered commercially in the form factor of a standard hard drive.
There are many commercially successful non-volatile solid-state memory devices being used today. These memory devices may be flash EEPROM or may employ other types of nonvolatile memory cells. Examples of flash memory and systems and methods of manufacturing them are given in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,070,032, 5,095,344, 5,315,541, 5,343,063, and 5,661,053, 5,313,421 and 6,222,762. In particular, flash memory devices with NAND string structures are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,570,315, 5,903,495, 6,046,935.
Nonvolatile memory devices are also manufactured from memory cells with a dielectric layer for storing charge. Instead of the conductive floating gate elements described earlier, a dielectric layer is used. Such memory devices utilizing dielectric storage element have been described by Eitan et al., "NROM: A Novel Localized Trapping, 2-Bit Nonvolatile Memory Cell," IEEE Electron Device Letters, vol. 21, no. 11, November 2000, pp. 543-545. An ONO dielectric layer extends across the channel between source and drain diffusions. The charge for one data bit is localized in the dielectric layer adjacent to the drain, and the charge for the other data bit is localized in the dielectric layer adjacent to the source. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,768,192 and 6,011,725 disclose a nonvolatile memory cell having a trapping dielectric sandwiched between two silicon dioxide layers. Multi-state data storage is implemented by separately reading the binary states of the spatially separated charge storage regions within the dielectric.
Flash Memory Characteristics and Trends
Flash memory behaves quite differently from traditional disk storage or RAM. First, existing data stored in the flash memory cannot be updated by simply being overwritten. Each cell must first be erased before a new write can take place on it. Consequently the update is always written to a new free location. To improve performance, a group of cells are operated on in parallel to access data page by page. When a page of data is updated by having the updated page written to a new location, the superseded page is rendered invalid and obsolete and becomes garbage cluttering the storage and will eventually be cleaned out to free up the space it is occupying.
Managing the updates and discarding the invalid ones are complicated by the block structure of flash memory. It is relatively time consuming to erase flash memory and to improve erase performance, the memory is organized into erase blocks where a whole block of memory cells are erased together simultaneously. A block generally contains a number of pages. As data is stored in a block page by page, eventually some of that data becomes obsolete. This means the block will contain many garbage data taking up space. However, the block can only be erased as a unit and so before the garbage data can be erased with the block, the valid data in the block must first be salvaged and copied into another block. This operation is commonly referred to as garbage collection and is an overhead of the block structure of the flash memory. The larger the block, the more time is required for the garbage collection. Similarly, the more frequently the data in the block is being updated, the more frequently will the block need to be garbage collect. Garbage collection is preferably performed in the foreground like during a write operation. This obviously will degrade the write speed.
Early applications of flash memory have been mainly for storing media files such as music and video files for portable hosts. These files tend to be a long run of data of sequential logical addresses which fills up the memory block by block. These data are archival in nature and not subject to much updating. Thus, the block structure works well for these type of data and there is little performance hit during writing since there is seldom need for garbage collection. The orderly sequential-address nature of the data allows logical address range to be partitioned into logical groups, with each logical group aligned with an erase block in the sense that the data of a logical group will fit neatly in a block. In this way, the addressing granularity is mainly at the block level as a page with a given logical address can be located by which block is storing the logical group it belongs to. Since the logical group is stored in the block in a self-indexed manner with its logical addresses in sequential order, the page can be quickly located.
The block management system implementing logical groups typically deals with updates and non-sequential writes by tracking them at the page level. It budgets a predetermined amount of resource for the page level tracking which manifests has limiting the number of logical groups having non-sequential or obsolete data. Generally, when subject to updates, some of the orderly blocks will contain obsolete data and keeping track of them will also consume part of the resource. When over the budget, a selected block with non-sequential or obsolete data is restored back to an orderly block in sequential order. This is accomplished by rewriting into a new block in sequential order with the latest updates. However the relocation will exact a performance hit. Such a system will work well if a host writes data that are conducive to maintaining mostly such orderly blocks being tracked at the block level, with only some random writes being tracked at the page level. Thus, by implementing logical groups aligned to block boundary, the address table is greatly simplified and reduced.
However, the block management system implementing logical groups will begin to be less optimized if the host writes mostly short and non-sequential data. This type of write pattern is prevalent in applications from a personal computer or smart mobile device. Solid-state disk (SSD) using flash memory is an attractive replacement for disk storage due to its low power, speed and ruggedness. Instead of long sequential writes, the flash memory must now deal mostly with short random writes. Initially, the performance will not suffer since as long as free space can be found, the data can be written there. However, with constant use and frequent updates, the predetermined resource for page tracking will eventually be exhausted. At that point, performance can take a big hit as the next write may have to be accompanied by a relocation of a block. The larger is the block the longer it will take to perform relocation of a block. Also a large block and short and non-sequential data will cause the logical group in the block to contain invalid data more frequently and consume page addressing resource faster and therefore cause relocation to take place more frequently.
The problem with the large block size cannot be easily solved by simply reducing the block size as the block size tend to increase geometrically with each new generation of memory technology. With higher integration of circuits more memory cells are being fitted in the same die. The block size, measure in columns and rows increases geometrically. This is especially the case for memory of the NAND type. The memory is an array of NAND strings where each string is a daisy chain of memory cells and a minimum erase block must be formed by a row of such NAND string. If the NAND string has 32 cells, a block will contain 32 rows of cells. The number of memory cells in a NAND string also increases with each generation, so the block size increases column-wise and row-wise.
The block size, which is dictated by the physical memory structure, is in present generation as large as 4 MB. On the other hand, the operating system of personal computers typically allocates logical sectors in size of 512 kB and often writes a page as a cluster of logical sectors in 4 kB unit. Thus, there is a great mismatch in the addressing granularity of a logical group corresponding to a block and a page. In the scheme of logical group, the ideal situation for a block is either nothing is written or the block is filled up sequentially with the entire logical group of valid data. In either case there is no fragmentation and there is no need for garbage collection or relocation. In the case of short random writes into a large block, the block becomes non-ideal very quickly and eventually will need relocation. This amounts to inefficient writes since the same page may have to be written and then re-copied one or more times (also referred to as "write amplification".)
An alternative, conventional addressing approach suitable for short random writes is to not use logical groups, but to track every page independently as it is being written to a block. Instead of maintaining the stored data as orderly logical group in a block, each page is tracked as to which block it is stored in and at what offset in the block. Thus, in this page addressing scheme, there is no burden of storing or maintaining data in groups in order of sequential logical addresses. However, the page addressing scheme will have an address table much larger than that for the logical group address scheme. For example, if there are 1000 pages in a block, then the address table for the page addressing scheme will be approximately 2 to 3 orders of magnitude larger.
The page addressing scheme exact penalty in terms of a much larger address table. In practice, it will require more system resources and a relative large RAM to work with the memory controller. This is because the address table is usually maintained in flash memory but is cached to the controller RAM during operation to provide faster access. Current technology allows at most 2 to 4 MB of RAM to be fabricated on the controller chip. This is insufficient for systems using a page addressing scheme and additional external RAM chips will be required. The additional pinouts and interface circuits to support external RAM chips would add significantly to the cost.
Another problem with addressing granularity having very small units, such as 4 kB, is that it creates fragmented data, which is scattered between the blocks so much that maximum parallelism during read and data copy (due to update) is not achievable. Also, the amount of copy increases as small update can still trigger copy of one or more entire block.
Thus, there is a need to provide a nonvolatile memory that can efficiently handle data access characterized by short random writes into large blocks without suffering from the disadvantages and problems mentioned above.

Tracking and handling of super-hot data in non-volatile memory systems


An aircraft includes comprises toilet that includes a protection device configured to contain effects of a malicious device, in order to protect both a fuselage of the aircraft and passengers of the aircraft against the effects of the malicious device.

In the past, aircraft have been subjected to attacks by persons of malicious intent, in particular, by means of explosives. These attacks, depending on the circumstances, have resulted in injury to passengers or even, in the most serious cases, damage to the fuselage of the aircraft leading to destruction of the aircraft and endangering all the passengers. The crew members of an aircraft are trained to react to an attack by a person of malicious intent seeking to detonate an explosive device in the aircraft. However, the procedures in force are complex to implement and there is a need for a device that makes the task of the crew members easier in such a situation. There is also a need for a device that makes the task of the crew members easier in the event of a person of malicious intent preparing a chemical or bacteriological attack.

Aircraft comprising toilets designed to contain the effects of a malicious device


A connection terminal 9 of a cable 8 is fastened to a right area of a terminal block of a relay box 1, using a bolt 26. At this time, a connection terminal 6 of a power supply cable 5 is not connected to a power supply-side terminal 11 or a relay terminal 15, and power is not supplied from a battery to power seats. Then, a tab 30 provided on the connection terminal 6 of the power supply cable 5 is inserted into the relay terminal 15 from an inlet 19, and the connection terminal 6 and the relay terminal 15 are electrically connected to each other temporarily. Thus, operations of the power seats are checked.

Conventionally, in a vehicle assembly plant, operations of electrical components are checked using battery power, through electrical component checks that are performed in the course of assembly. In recent years, a battery may be installed in a location from which a battery cannot be easily taken out, such as in a console, because a vehicle is a hybrid vehicle or has an enlarged engine and the battery cannot be installed in an engine room (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2017-169407).

Power relay device with readily accessible connection terminal


A method and an apparatus for supplying a label to a pseudo-core with the label held in the right position that can reduce the rate of producing defective molded products. They also can delivery a label with reduced suction force for drawing the label so as to downsize the apparatus and reduce the cost. A label 25 that is sucked and held at least at a longitudinal central part thereof is introduced into a pseudo metal mold 23 having a hollow section 23a whose inner surface shows a profile substantially agreeing with the outer profile of a corresponding pseudo-core and an aperture section 23b communicating with the hollow section 23a by way of pseudo metal mold 23 so as to extend along the inner surface of the hollow section 23a, while it is being resiliently deformed. Subsequently, the label 25 is supplied to the pseudo-core 21 coming into the hollow section 23a of the pseudo metal mold 23.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for supplying a label in an in-mold labeling system to a pseudo core so as to be placed in position in the inside of a metal mold by the pseudo-core at a high level of accuracy. The method and apparatus are applicable in a label insert molding operation including the step of molding synthetic resin integrally with a label placed in position in a metal mold and wherein the label has a desired design of letters and/or a graphic printed thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
Known techniques in the field of label insert molding where products such as cups, containers and etc. are produced by molding integrally with a label on the surface, the label carrying a desired design of letters and/or a graphic printed thereon, include the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 5-285981. According to the patent document, a label is wound around a pseudo-core showing an outer profile exactly agreeing with that of the expected molded product and having a large number of suction pores on the outer surface thereof. Then, the label is drawn and held in position around the pseudo-core and the pseudo-core is brought into the metal mold with the label wound around it. Subsequently, the label is released from the drawn and held state and inversely drawn to the metal mold so as to be placed in position in the latter.
When the label is held in the state of being wound around the outer surface of the pseudo-core with the above described label placement method, a longitudinally middle part of the uppermost layer of the multilayer label is brought close to a part of the outer surface of the pseudo-core and the label is drawn to the latter so that the label may be resiliently deformed by the suction force and wound around the entire outer surface of the pseudo-core.
However, the above described method is designed to draw the label along the longitudinal peripheral edges thereof so as to make it wound around the outer surface of the pseudo-core and hence requires the pseudo-core to exert a strong label drawing force onto the label. Therefore, it requires the use of a large negative pressure (vacuum) generating apparatus, which by turn makes the entire delivery system large and costly.
Additionally, when the label is resiliently deformed and wound around the outer surface of the pseudo-core, the attitude of the label, that of the longitudinal peripheral edges thereof in particular, can easily be distorted to make the label that, which is wound around the pseudo-core, very unstable. When the label is wound around, held by the pseudo-core in an unstable state and placed in position in the metal mold for molding, the label can easily be displaced relative to the molded product and/or creased to make the molded product a defective one.

Method and apparatus for supplying label to pseudo-core in in-mold labeling system


The present invention relates to a composition comprising ethyl vanillin or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof as an effective ingredient for preventing or treating muscle disease or for improving a muscle function. Having the capability of upregulating the expression of a protein associated with muscle protein synthesis and muscle mass increase in myocytes and downregulating at an mRNA level the expression of an enzyme involved in muscle protein degradation, ethyl vanillin can exhibit effects of muscle differentiation, muscle regeneration, and muscle strengthening through an increase in muscle mass against muscle diseases attributed to muscle function decrease, muscle consumption, or muscle degradation and can suppress sarcopenia. Thus, ethyl vanillin can be used for preventing or treating muscle diseases or for promoting muscle differentiation, muscle regeneration and muscle strengthening, muscle mass increase, or muscle generation or for improving muscle function.

In 2000, the elderly population in South Korea accounted for 7.2% of the total population and thus Korea has entered an aging society, and is expected to enter a super-aging society in 2050 (2013 elderly statistics, the National Statistical Office). Muscle mass in humans decreases with age (about 10-15% at an age of 50-70 years, and 30% or more decrease at an age of 70-80 years), and accordingly, muscle strength and muscle function are also weakened, which is referred to as age-related sarcopenia. Age-related sarcopenia is a major cause of limiting the independent living of the elderly by inducing activity disorders and gait disturbances. In addition, sarcopenia lowers a basal metabolic rate, increases insulin resistance, promotes type 2 diabetes, and increases the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease by 3-5 times. Currently, no drug has been approved for the treatment of sarcopenia, and drug repositioning technology is being developed to apply a myostatin inhibitor or other FDA-approved agents for the treatment of diseases to sarcopenia.
Muscles are divided into skeletal muscles, cardiac muscles, and visceral muscles, and thereamong, skeletal muscles are the most abundant tissues in the human body, accounting for 40-45% of body weight. Skeletal muscles are attached to the bone by tendons, creating bone movement or force. One muscle is made up of numerous myofibers, which in turn are made up of numerous myofibrils consisting of actin and myosin. When actin and myosin move by overlapping each other, the length of muscles shortens or increases, causing overall muscle contraction and relaxation. An increase in myofibril size means an increase in myofiber thickness, resulting in an increase in muscle.
The type of myofibers that constitute muscles is mainly classified into Type I, Type IIA, and Type IIB by a metabolic process and a contraction rate that produce ATP. "Type I myofibers" have a low contraction rate and contain a large number of myoglobin and mitochondria, which are suitable for sustained, low-intensity aerobic activity. Type I myofibers have a red color and are also called red muscles, and the soleus is typical. Meanwhile, "Type IIB myofibers" are very short, but are used for high-intensity anaerobic exercise due to a high contraction rate thereof, and contain a low amount of myoglobin, thus having a white color. "Type IIA myofibers" have characteristics between the aforementioned two myofibers. With age, not only does the composition of Type I and II myofibers for each muscle site vary, but all types of myofibers are also reduced.
Skeletal muscles have the characteristics of being regenerated and maintained according to the environment, but these characteristics are lost with age, and consequently, as aging progresses, muscle mass is reduced and muscle strength is also lost. As a signaling system involved in muscle growth and regeneration, there is signaling which is mediated by insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF-1)/AKT to regulate protein synthesis. The activation of an IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R) present in the muscle cell membrane increases AKT phosphorylation through IRS1 and PI3K phosphorylation, and the latter activates mTORC phosphorylation. The activation of mTORC increases the phosphorylation of ribosomal protein S6 kinase beta-1 (p70S6K1), thereby not only increasing mRNA translation, but also increasing the activity of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4 G (eIF4G) and phosphorylating eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E binding protein 1 (4E-BP1). eIF4G and 4E-BP1 are involved in the formation of an eIF4F complex. That is, eIF4G binds to eIF4A and eIF4E to form an eIF4F complex, while phosphorylation of 4E-BP1 inhibits binding capacity for eIF4E, leading to an increase in free eIF4E. The latter combines with other translation initiation factors (eIF4G and eIF4A) to form an eIF4F complex, which in turn promotes translation initiation by stabilizing ribosomal structures, ultimately increasing protein synthesis (Bodine et al., Akt/mTOR pathway is a crucial regulator of skeletal muscle hypertrophy and can prevent muscle atrophy in vivo. Nature Cell Biology, 3, 1014-1019, 2001).
In addition, AKT phosphorylation stimulates myofiber growth by increasing eIF2B expression through glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) and also inhibits muscle loss by inhibiting the expression of forkhead box O (FOXO), which is a proteolytic transcription factor. Muscle loss is regulated by signaling mediated by receptors of the TGF-family, including myostatin, transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β), and activin. The binding of a ligand to TGF-β type II receptor phosphorylates a Type I receptor, and the latter phosphorylates the smad 2/3 complex and eventually activates FOXO. The latter increases the gene expression of muscle-specific ubiquitin-ligases, i.e., muscle RING-finger protein-1 (MURF1) and muscle atrophy F-Box (MAFbx)/atrogin-1, which attach ubiquitin to the lysine site of a target protein to promote proteolysis, eventually leading to muscle loss (Gumucio et al., Atrogin-1, MuRF-1, and sarcopenia. Endocrine, 43, 12-21, 2013).
Meanwhile, ethyl vanillin is registered as a flavoring agent in the European Council of Europe (COE), the Korean Food Additives Codex (KFAC), and the US Food and Drug Association (FDA) food additive database and is used as an adjuvant or the like, and is registered in the cosmetic ingredients list of the Korean Cosmetic Association for use as a sweetening agent of cosmetics or for mixing of fragrances. To date, ethyl vanillin is known to exhibit antioxidant and antimicrobial physiological activity (Non-Patent Document 1 and Non-Patent Document 2), and when administered via a route such as oral administration, transdermal administration, or the like, it has been reported that ethyl vanillin does not induce toxicity in vivo and can also exhibit significant biological activity (Non-Patent Documents 1 to 4).
Therefore, as a result of having determined that demand for a pharmaceutical composition, health functional food, or cosmetic composition that prevents muscle loss and exhibits a muscle function enhancement effect would continuously increase in modern societies in which aging continues and having screened an active compound capable of exhibiting a muscle function enhancement effect, the inventors of the present invention confirmed that ethyl vanillin could exhibit a muscle function enhancement effect and a muscle synthesis enhancement effect in muscle cells.
(Non-Patent Document 1) Tai et al. "Antioxidant Properties of Ethyl Vanillin in vitro and in vivo." Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry 75. 2346-2350. 2011
(Non-Patent Document 2) Yemiet al. "Effect of vanillin, ethyl vanillin, and vanillic acid on the growth and heat resistance of Cronobacter species." Journal of Food Protection®74. 2062-2069. 2011
(Non-Patent Document 3) American Pharmaceutical Association. Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association. American Pharmaceutical Association 1. 1912
(Non-Patent Document 4) Monsanto Co., 1991a. Final report of several tests with ethavan with cover letter dated 112191. EPA Doc 86-920000149, microfiche no. OTS0534355. Date Aug. 17, 1976. Unpublished report submitted by EFFA to FLAVIS Secretariat

Composition comprising ethyl vanillin as effective ingredient for exhibiting effect of muscle strengthening, muscle enhancement, muscle differentiation, muscle regeneration, or sarcopenia suppression

INDUSTRY-ACADEMIC COOPERATION FOUNDATION, YONSEI UNIVERSITY


A method for manufacturing a superconducting wire includes the following steps. A laminate metal having a first metal layer and a Ni layer formed on the first metal layer is prepared. An intermediate layer (20) is formed on the Ni layer of the laminate metal. A superconducting layer (30) is formed on the intermediate layer (20). By subjecting the laminate metal to a heat treatment after at least either of the step of forming a intermediate layer (20) and the step of forming a superconducting layer (30), a nonmagnetic Ni alloy layer (12) is formed from the laminate metal.

Conventionally, a superconducting wire having a substrate, an intermediate layer formed on the substrate, and a superconducting layer formed on the intermediate layer is used. As a substrate of such a superconducting wire, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2006-127847 (Patent Document 1), Japanese National Patent Publication No. 11-504612 (Patent Document 2) and the like are used.
Patent Document 1 discloses an orientation substrate for film formation including a non-orientated nonmagnetic first metal layer, and a second metal layer having a superficial layer with an oriented texture wherein the first metal layer has higher strength than the second metal layer. Patent Document 2 discloses a metal substrate having an alloyed biaxial orientation texture.

Method for manufacturing precursor, method for manufacturing superconducting wire, precursor, and superconducting wire


A webbing retractor has two torque transmitting routes for taking-up, such that rapid and reliable taking-up, and gentle taking-up are possible. When an engaging claw of a pawl restricts rotation of a ratchet plate, due to planetary gears rotating around a sun gear, rotation is transmitted from a drive gear to a carrier plate. On the other hand, when restriction of rotation of the ratchet plate is released, a clutch spring tightens around a tube portion of the carrier plate while rotation of the drive gear pulls one peripheral direction end of the clutch spring in a direction of rotation thereof. Frictional resistance between the tube portion and the clutch spring is increased, and rotation is transmitted from the drive gear to the carrier plate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a webbing retractor which structures a seat belt device for restraining, by an elongated, strip-shaped webbing belt, the body of a vehicle occupant who is seated in a seat of a vehicle or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
A seat belt device which restrains, by an elongated, strip-shaped webbing belt, the body of a vehicle occupant who is seated in a seat of a vehicle, is equipped with a webbing retractor which is fixed to the vehicle body at the side of the seat. The webbing retractor has a spool (take-up shaft) whose axial direction runs, for example, substantially along the longitudinal direction of the vehicle. The proximal end side, in the longitudinal direction, of the webbing belt is anchored at the spool. The spool can take up the webbing belt in the form of a roll around the outer peripheral portion of the spool. When the seat belt device is not being used, the webbing belt can be taken-up and accommodated on the outer peripheral portion of the spool.
An urging member, such as a spiral spring or the like which urges the spool in a take-up direction in which the spool takes up the webbing belt, is provided at the webbing retractor. Due to the urging force of this urging member, the webbing belt is taken up and accommodated. In the state in which the webbing belt is applied to the body of a vehicle occupant, slack or the like of the webbing belt is eliminated by the urging force of the urging member.
On the other hand, a mechanism has been conceived of which, when the vehicle rapidly decelerates or the like, takes-up a given amount of the webbing belt onto the spool, so as to eliminate the slight looseness called "slack", and increase the force by which the webbing belt restrains the body of the vehicle occupant, and even more reliably hold the body of the vehicle occupant. In this type of mechanism, generally, the state of rapid deceleration of the vehicle is detected by an acceleration sensor, and the mechanism forcibly rotates the spool in the take-up direction on the basis of an electric signal from the acceleration sensor.
In contrast, a structure has been thought of in which the distance to another vehicle or an obstacle ahead is detected by a distance sensor or the like. When the distance to the vehicle or the obstacle ahead is less than a given value, a motor is operated, and the spool is rotated in the take-up direction by the torque of the motor.
When the state of rapid deceleration of the vehicle such as that described above is cancelled, this structure, which rotates the spool by the driving force of a motor, can be used to rotate the spool by a predetermined amount in the pull-out direction so as to loosen the webbing belt, thereby lessening the pressing sensation imparted to the vehicle occupant.
However, in a usual state, when the pressing sensation or the releasing sensation is suddenly changed by loosening or tightening the webbing belt suddenly by the driving force of the motor, the vehicle occupant conversely has an uncomfortable sensation. Thus, it is desirable to, at usual times, have the motor drive the spool relatively gently at the time when the motor causes the spool to rotate.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


An interpolation method for enabling a robot to make a smooth connecting motion accompanied by velocity control even in the case where the connecting motion involves a nonzero-acceleration motion. During motion path planning for the robot, in order to perform an interpolation so that a point a.sup.(0) on a first motion path G and a point b.sup.(0) on a second motion path H may be smoothly connected by a connecting curve S, the connecting curve S being determined using a parameter including time instant t. First, a function p(T, t) satisfying boundary conditions (continuity of position, velocity, acceleration, etc.) corresponding to required smoothness C.sup.k is derived as a polynomial equation or the like including an unknown parameter T, and by optimizing a suitable evaluation function .epsilon.(T), T.sub.0 for keeping the velocity constant is obtained. Interpolation is performed using q(t)=p(T.sub.0, t), whereupon a connecting motion, in which the velocity is controlled to a constant value, can be attained. Where a composite function (q.smallcircle.f)(t) including an adjustment function f(t) corresponding to a desired velocity transition pattern is used for the interpolation, the velocity can be varied in a desired manner during the connecting motion.

In applications of robots such as a sealing robot or an arc welding robot, for example, when bringing the robot to continuously make rectilinear motion or arcuate motion, it is often necessary that motion paths be connected with a smooth connecting curve and that velocity control be performed for the robot motion along the connected curve. There have already been made several proposals for the curve to connect the paths of uniform rectilinear motions accompanying the velocity control of the motion on such a connecting curve. However, there has not been any interpolation method by which a smooth velocity control can be realized in those cases where one or both of motions to be connected are arcuate motions, in which the acceleration cannot be zero (nonzero-acceleration motion), so that the velocity control of such motions has been given up. This has been a major hindrance to the construction of the system for control or teaching of the robot.

Curve interpolation method for performing velocity control during connecting motion of a robot


Disclosed herein is a video-image processing apparatus including: a video-image processing section configured to execute output control on video-image streams each including unitary video images appearing along the time axis so as to output every unitary video image pertaining to each of the video-image streams repeatedly a plurality of times by sequentially switching the video-image streams to be output on a time-division basis; a frame memory for temporarily storing an immediately preceding unitary video image as it is or after replacing the luminance gradation of the immediately preceding unitary video image with a post-replacement luminance gradation where the immediately preceding unitary video image is defined as a unitary video image which immediately leads ahead of a current unitary video image being output by the video-image processing section and is selected; and an overdrive processing section configured to carry out overdrive processing on the current unitary video image.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video-image processing apparatus for carrying out overdrive processing on an input video-image signal, a video-image display apparatus employing the video-image processing apparatus and a video-image display system including the video-image display apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) apparatus of the active-matrix type is used widely as the image display section of a thin TV or the image display section of a portable terminal. The LCD apparatus employs a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) for each pixel of the LCD apparatus. Pixels employed in such an LCD apparatus are arranged to form a matrix including rows on the display screen of the LCD apparatus. In general, every pixel is driven by writing a video-image signal sequentially on a row-after-row basis into an auxiliary capacitor and a liquid-crystal device which are employed in the pixel in a direction from the top of the display screen to the bottom thereof.
By the way, depending on the application of the LCD apparatus, one frame period is divided into a number of sub-periods and the LCD apparatus is driven in a driving operation referred to hereafter as a time-division driving operation in order to display a video image which varies from sub-period to sub-period. A method adopted to carry out a time-division driving operation is referred to as a time-division driving method. Typical examples of an LCD apparatus adopting the time-division driving method are an LCD apparatus disclosed in documents such as Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-318363 in which a field sequential method is adopted and a 3D (3 Dimensional) image display system disclosed in documents such as Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. Hei 9-138384, 2000-36969 and 2003-45343 in which the so-called shutter glasses are used.
The field sequential method is a driving method, in accordance with which one frame period is divided into three frame sub-periods allocated to operations to sequentially write R (red), G (green) and B (blue) video-image signals respectively into pixels. In addition, in accordance with the field sequential method, the R, G and B light rays are emitted from a backlight synchronously with the R, G and B video-image signals respectively. In an ordinary LCD apparatus, a pixel is generally divided into R, G and B sub-pixels which are laid out spatially. Thus, the efficiency of the utilization of light is poor. By adopting the field sequential driving method, however, the efficiency of the utilization of light can be improved.
In the 3D image display system making use of shutter glasses, on the other hand, one frame period is divided into two frame sub-periods allocated to operations to alternately display two video images provided for the left and right eyes respectively as images having a disparity recognized by the left and right eyes. The 3D image display system makes use of shutter glasses which are switched to close the left eye and open the right eye and vice versa synchronously with the operations to alternately display the two video images provided for the left and right eyes. The viewer views a displayed image by wearing the switched shutter glasses which allow the image to be seen by the viewer as a 3D image.

Image processing apparatus, image display apparatus and image display system


The invention comprises suppressor oligonucleotides for reducing amplification of a non-target nucleic acid sequences; the method of designing and using such oligonucleotides, as well as kits and reaction mixtures.

Amplification of nucleic acids by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has many applications in biomedical research, diagnostics and biotechnology. The unique specificity of PCR enables selective amplification of a particular nucleic acid sequence in the presence of overwhelming amount of other sequences. Furthermore, PCR can distinguish a target sequence from another sequence that is different by as little as a single base-pair. For example, allele-specific PCR (AS-PCR) is capable of detecting small alterations in DNA and even single nucleotide mutations in the presence of the wild-type, non-mutant DNA (U.S. Pat. No. 6,627,402). In an allele-specific PCR assay, at least one primer is allele-specific, i.e. designed to preferentially match the target sequence (a specific variant of the sequence), but contains discriminating mismatches with non-target sequences (other variants of the sequence). Ideally, primer extension occurs only when the allele-specific primer is hybridized to the target sequence. In a successful allele-specific PCR, the target variant of the nucleic acid is amplified, while the other non-target variants are not, at least not to a detectable level. Unfortunately, with many targets, this ideal is not achievable. It is common that in later cycles of PCR, amplification of the non-target variants of the sequence also becomes detectable. This phenomenon is called "breakthrough amplification." Even though the AS-PCR primers are perfectly complementary (or at least, share the greater degree of complementarity) with the target sequence and are mismatched (or have more mismatches) with non-target sequences, often amplification of the non-target sequences cannot be completely avoided.
Breakthrough amplification is of special concern in assays where the sample contains small amounts of the target sequence and large amounts of the non-target sequence. For example, in an assay targeting a somatic mutation in a tumor, only a fraction of cells from the patient's sample are tumor cells. A fraction of tumor cells may contain mutations indicating susceptibility to a particular anti-tumor drug (mutations described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,294,468 and 7,960,118). In such a sample, a small number of the target (mutant) sequences are mixed with a large number of non-target (non-mutant) sequences. Breakthrough amplification of the non-mutant sequence would produce a false-positive result, falsely indicating the presence of a mutation and misdirecting the patient's therapy. If the specificity of the assay is limited by the breakthrough amplification, so is the clinical utility of the assay.
Various means of preventing or reducing non-specific amplification have been proposed (for example, chemical modifications that affect the specificity of amplification primers, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,011,611; using a blocker oligonucleotide, see U.S. Application Pub. No. 200953720). However, these methods are not always successful in entirely eliminating the breakthrough amplification. Accordingly, there is a need for alternative methods of preventing or minimizing breakthrough amplification in a nucleic acid amplification reaction.

Suppression of non-specific amplification with high-homology oligonucleotides


The invention provides a measurement apparatus which measures a wavefront aberration of an optical system to be measured, the apparatus includes a measurement mask which is inserted on an object plane of the optical system to be measured, and includes a plurality of reflection units configured to generate spherical waves by reflecting light, the measurement mask including a reflection layer configured to reflect the light, a first layer which is stacked on the reflection layer, has a plurality of openings, and is made of a first substance, and a second layer which is stacked on the first layer, has a window configured to expose a region in which the plurality of openings are arrayed, and is made of a second substance different from the first substance, wherein the plurality of reflection units are formed by portions of the reflection layer, which are exposed through the plurality of openings.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a measurement apparatus, an exposure apparatus, and a device fabrication method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A projection exposure apparatus has conventionally been employed to fabricate, e.g., a semiconductor device and liquid crystal display device by using photolithography. The projection exposure apparatus transfers a pattern formed on a mask (reticle) onto, e.g., a wafer via a projection optical system.
In recent years, to attain further micropatterning of semiconductor devices, the practical application of a projection exposure apparatus (EUV exposure apparatus) using EUV (Extreme UltraViolet) light (wavelength: about 10 nm to 15 nm) having a wavelength shorter than that of ultraviolet light is under study. Since light absorption is great in various substances in the EUV wavelength range, a dioptric system using light refraction is impractical. For this reason, the EUV exposure apparatus uses a catoptric system using light reflection as the projection optical system. To exactly transfer the pattern of a mask at a predetermined magnification, it is necessary to suppress the wavefront aberration of the projection optical system to λ/14 (=0.96 nm) rms or less on the basis of the Marechal standard.
Accurate control of a projection optical system on an exposure apparatus requires a technique of accurately measuring the wavefront aberration of the projection optical system. A lateral shearing interferometer has conventionally been known as a measurement apparatus which measures the wavefront aberration of the projection optical system used for the exposure apparatus. Techniques associated with this apparatus are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2006-332586 and 2006-196699.
Unfortunately, a laser produced plasma light source (LPP) and discharge produced plasma light source (DPP), which are often used as light sources of EUV exposure apparatuses, emit light beams with low directivities. This makes it very difficult to selectively converge such a light beam only on a reflection unit which generates an ideal spherical wave. Since even a region (light-shielding region) other than the reflection unit is irradiated with the light beam, a signal noise ratio (S/N ratio) necessary for wavefront aberration measurement cannot sometimes be obtained due to the light beam reflected by the light-shielding region. In other words, the light beam reflected by the light-shielding region acts as noise of an interference pattern. This makes it impossible to accurately measure the wavefront aberration of an optical system to be measured.

Measurement apparatus, exposure apparatus, and device fabrication method


A cascade power system and a method are disclosed for using a high temperature flue gas stream to directly or indirectly vaporize a lean and rich stream derived from an incoming, multi-component, working fluid stream, extract energy from these streams, condensing a spent stream and repeating the vaporization, extraction and condensation cycle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cascade power system for extracting usable power from heat produced from the combustion of biomass, agricultural waste (such as bagasse,) municipal waste and other fuels.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a cascade power system for extracting usable power from heat produced from the combustion of biomass, agricultural waste (such as bagasse,) municipal waste and other fuels, where the system includes an energy extraction subsystem, a separation subsystem, a heat exchange subsystem, a heat transfer subsystem and a condensing subsystem, where the system forms a lean stream and a rich stream from a fully condensed incoming working fluid stream, vaporizes the lean and a rich streams from heat derived directly or indirectly from a heat source stream, converts thermal from the lean and rich streams to a usable form of energy forming a spent outgoing working fluid stream and condensing the outgoing working fluid stream to from the incoming working fluid stream and to methods for converting vaporizing a lean stream and a rich stream and extracting energy therefrom.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, the most efficient biomass fueled power plants have an overall plant efficiency of up to 20%, i.e. the net power output of these plants is up to 20% of the LHV (Lower Heating Value) of the combusted fuel. To achieve this level of efficiency, current biomass power plants require a very complicated combustion system which is comprised of a gasifier and a char combustor, and a power train that uses both a gas turbine and a steam power system, consequently, such systems are quite expensive.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a more efficient and simpler system for combusting a fuel such as biomass and converting a higher portion of its Lower Heating Value of the combusted fuel in to usable energy such as electricity.


Poultry wings are suspended by their tip segments and oriented so that their outside surfaces face one side of the processing path, with right wings oriented with their elbows leading, and left wings oriented with their elbows trailing. The lower, primary segments are bent at the elbow joints by a bending guide, laterally and upwardly about an elbow guide, opening the elbow joints. The open joints are cut so as to release the primary segments. The mid-wing segments are compressed and the bone ends are moved laterally from the wing tip segments, causing the bone ends of the mid-wing segments to pop out of the tip segments. In both instances, the bones of the segments are exposed in the final products, so when the products are cooked, the exposed bone ends are free of grease, etc. and are suitable for grasping by the fingers of the hand for eating as finger food.

The use of poultry wings is somewhat limited because the amount of meat in the wing segments is relatively small when compared to other parts of the poultry carcass, and because the wing segments contain bones that are difficult to remove. This causes the use of poultry wings to be less economical than the use of other available poultry parts and parts of other carcasses.
Because of these problems, poultry wings and wing segments have been eaten by holding the cooked wings or wing segments in the hands and eating the meat away from the bones. While this use of poultry wings and wing segments is economical because the products do not have to be deboned before consumption, the wings are somewhat difficult to eat, particularly because the person eating the wings must grasp the wing with his or her hands, leaving a residue of grease or other undesirable matter on the hands.
In recent years, it has become desirable to produce cooked poultry wing segments with an end portion of the bones of the segments exposed. During the cooking process, the grease and other undesirable matter that is present on the exposed ends of the bones is evaporated or otherwise dissipated, leaving a relatively dry bone end for grasping by the hand of the person to eat the meat from the bone. Also, during the cooking process, the meat usually shrinks and moves away from the exposed bone end, increasing the amount of exposed bone.
At first, the separation of the wing segments from one another and pulling the meat away from a bone end was performed by hand. However, the hand operations were expensive and, therefore, the process was not economical.
More recently, efforts have been made to automatically separate wing segments of poultry products from one another and to retract the meat from about an end portion of the bone of the wing segments. When the wing segments are cooked, this achieves the desired end result of producing a cooked wing segment having a bone end exposed and substantially dry for handling by the person consuming the meat from the wing. However, the small size of the poultry wings and wing segments causes the process of producing the product to become cumbersome, unreliable, and uneconomical. This invention is directed to the solution of the problems associated with this process.

Poultry wing separator and partial deboner


An image processing apparatus includes an alteration unit and a control unit. The alteration unit alters a first image file stored in a removable storage medium in order to generate a second image file. The control unit controls to store the second image file in the storage medium without deleting the first image file from the storage medium, if the first image file includes authentication data that is used to authenticate whether the first image file has been altered.

Recently, proposed is a system to authenticate alteration of image data generated by an image sensing apparatus such as a digital camera as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,294 (hereinbelow, US '294) and Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2002-244924 (hereinbelow, JP '924).
Further, Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2001-78142 (hereinbelow, JP '142) discloses an apparatus which prohibits alteration of the contents of an image file if image-file authentication data is embedded in the image file. The authentication data means data necessary for determining whether or not the image file has been altered. The data is defined as "feature data" in JP '142.
However, in the apparatus in JP '142, as alteration of the content of image file with authentication data is prohibited, the contents of the image file, even if require alteration, cannot be altered. Further, if the image file with authentication data is altered, it is determined that the original of the image file has been altered.

Image processing apparatus, image processing method, computer program and computer-readable recording medium


An opening detector detects a state of a platen whether the platen is “opened” at a level equal to or above a set opening degree or “closed” at a level less than the set opening degree. A reading controller starts lighting of an illumination lamp in response to a change of the state of the platen from the “opened” to the “closed”. A rising detector detects a rising of light intensity of the illumination lamp. A size detector reads an image signal of an imaging element after the rising detector detects a rising of the light intensity, determines presence of a document in a main scanning direction, and decides a document size in the main scanning direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for reading an image from a document pressed against a translucent plate with a platen and generating image data of the image.
2. Description of the Related Art
As one of representative image reading apparatuses that read an image from a document pressed against a translucent plate with a platen, there is a flatbed system document scanner that can read not only a sheet document but also a book document, and automatically detect a document size before completing a reading and scanning of the document. An infrared sensor is conventionally used to detect a document size in reading the document by the flatbed system. In recent years, to detect a document size in the main scanning direction, a line sensor (a charge-coupled device (CCD)) for reading a document image has come to be used instead of the infrared sensor. Detection of document sizes is necessary not only in the main scanning direction but also in a sub-scanning direction. To detect a document size in the sub-scanning direction, the whole surface of the document needs to be pre-scanned. When the whole surface of the document is pre-scanned, a delay occurs in reading the document. Therefore, in actual practice, the infrared sensor is used to detect a document size in the sub-scanning direction, like in the conventional practice, and the line sensor is used only to detect a document size in the main scanning direction.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-257255 describes a document size detecting apparatus that turns on an illumination lamp at the time of closing a document cover, reads a document image using a CCD sensor during a period from when the document cover is to be closed until when the document cover is brought into contact with the document, and that detects an edge of the document in the main scanning direction based on the read image data. Even when the document cover is to be closed, illumination light is reflected from a document area until when the document cover is substantially brought into contact with the document, and the CCD sensor can detect the document size under the light. However, the illumination light is not reflected to the CCD sensor in the area outside the document, and the CCD sensor detects this area as a dark area. A difference of this brightness appears in the edge of the document of the read image data.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-138798 describes a document size detecting apparatus that drives an illumination lamp from a home position HP to a reading position when a document mat is opened, turns on the illumination lamp when the document mat is closed, thereby detecting a document size in the main scanning direction, and thereafter returns the illumination lamp to the home position. A reflection type optical sensor detects a size in the sub-scanning direction.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-198809 describes a document size detecting apparatus that first turns on an illumination lamp in a state that a document platen is closed, reads data with a CCD line sensor by plural sampling areas in the main scanning direction, adds plural lines and determines presence of the document in the sampling areas, thereby obtaining a document size in the main scanning direction.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-250028 describes an image forming apparatus that performs the following process. A first detector detects that a platen cover is being closed, and an exposure lamp is turned on. A scanner unit is moved in a sub-scanning direction, and an image sensor reads plural lines. A second detector detects completion of the platen cover. The exposure lamp is turned on again, and the scanner unit is moved in the opposite direction. The image sensor reads plural lines. The apparatus confirms a document size in the main scanning direction based on the total two sets of read information obtained by the scanning in forward and return directions. The apparatus detects a document size in a sub-scanning direction with a photo-sensor.
According to the system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-257255, a document size in the main scanning direction is determined by assuming that the inside of the document is white and the outside of the document is black, when the platen is opened. When black is inside the document, a line sensor reading position is moved, and a document size is detected based on a white line within the document. The system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-138798 is the same as the system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-257255 in that a document size in the main scanning direction is determined by assuming that the inside of the document is white and the outside of the document is black, when the platen is opened. However, data is obtained based on two conditions of when the lamp is turned on and when the lamp is turned off, and the influence of disturbance light is excluded. Both Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-257255 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-138798 are effective in that precision of the detection of a document size is increased based on two or more kinds of read data. However, these two publications do not refer to a point of decreasing the time until when the platen is closed or the light does not excite user's eyes. The system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-198809 is the same as the system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-257255 in that a document size in the main scanning direction is determined by assuming that the inside of the document is white and the outside of the document is black, when the platen is opened. However, a document size in the main scanning direction is detected using data read by the line sensor at plural points in the main scanning direction. According to the system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-198809, the time required until when the platen is closed is short. However, when the CCD line sensor reads the data, the light quantity of the lamp is in the middle of increasing, and the illumination light quantity can be unstable. Because the read data is simply averaged in the sub-scanning direction, the detection of a document size in the main scanning direction has a high risk of malfunctioning. The system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-250028 can have a problem similar to that of the system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-198809 at the first reading of data in the middle of closing the platen cover. At the second reading in the state that the platen cover is closed, the image on the document is read. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the size on the document. Furthermore, a size determining process based on the result of the first reading and the second reading can become complex.
While the user is closing the platen, when the document illumination lamp is turned on to detect a document size when the opening of the platen is large, the light of the lamp enters the user's eyes. Therefore, it is preferable to carry out the detection of the document size while the opening is as small as possible. However, when the detection is started while the opening is small, the platen is closed before the document size is successfully determined. This has a high possibility of a failure in determining the document size because the document cannot be discriminated from the white color of the surface below the platen. Consequently, it is necessary to turn on the lamp while the opening is small, and immediately detect the document size. However, the lamp to be used as the document illumination unit has a non-lighting time called a dark start when the lighting is started. It takes time for the light intensity to reach a predetermined value since the lamp is turned on. In general, the reading of a document is started after this dark start and the light intensity stabilization time passes. The dark start time has a large variation depending on environmental conditions such as brightness of the surrounding of the lamp and a temperature (a situation of an installation position), and a non-lighting period from the last lighting to the lighting this time. When the non-lighting period is long at a low-temperature and a dark position of small radiant ray like radiation, the dark start time is long. The dark start time is short at a high-temperature and a bright position of large radiant ray like radiation. For example, it takes about 300 ms as a maximum for the light intensity of a xenon lamp or a halogen lamp to be stabilized, and it requires a starting time of about 20 ms as a minimum for the light intensity to reach a level at which the document size can be detected.
Usually, by assuming a long dark start time, the lamp lighting is started when the platen has a relatively large opening. After a lapse of a setting time of the long dark start time since the lighting is started, the detection of the document size is started. As a result, in the environment of frequently reading the document at a short non-lighting interval in a warm and bright office, the document illumination light is quickly turned on at a relatively large opening when the platen is closed. Consequently, the lighting time of the document illumination lamp to detect the document size is long, and this has a high possibility of exciting the user's eyes. However, when the lighting starting timing of the document illumination lamp to detect the document size is delayed, the platen is substantially closed by the time when the light intensity of the document illumination lamp rises to a level suitable to detect the document size, immediately after the low-temperature and long non-lighting time. This has a high possibility of a failure in detecting the document size.

Document reading apparatus, image processing apparatus, image forming apparatus, and copying machine


A fiber optic connector resists signal interruption with a structure that has an inner body, that receives and mounts an optical fiber, and that has an outer body having an axial passage that receives the inner body. The outer body has two sections arranged in axial succession. The outer-body back section mounts a captive element for mechanical coupling with a further optical device with which the connector mates. The forward, second section of the outer body is arranged for limited axial displacement relative to the first section. The connector has structure forming two springs or like resiliently acting elements; one biases the front end of the inner body axially forward relative to the back of the outer body, and the second biases the front of the outer body forward relative to the back section of the outer body.

This invention relates to connectors for fiber optic cables. In particular, the invention relates to an improved fiber optic connector that allows quick connection and disconnection with mating connectors, and that is resistant to signal interruption.
Fiber optic communication cables typically include at least one light transmitting optical fiber clad in an optically insulating material. The cladding prevents dispersion of light out of the optical fiber. The fiber optic cable usually has a protective external buffer over the clad fiber, typically of a plastic material, such as nylon, which may or may not be removed to terminate the cable. Optical cables usually have an outer protective layer, called a jacket, which is typically made of PVC or polyurethane material. A yarn-like sleeve, typically made of KEVLAR polymer, is often placed between the buffer and the jacket to improve the tensile strength of the cable.
The growing use of fiber optic systems creates a need for a connector capable of optically coupling a segment of fiber optic cable to another optical device, such as an amplifier, diode or other active component; a switch or other circuit; or another segment of fiber optic cable. To achieve efficient light transfer, the connector must align and space the optical elements, with or without touching whichever is specified, with high precision. The alignment and spacing requirements are exceedingly demanding, due to the minute, micron-size diameter of the optical elements (e.g., fibers) being connected, coupled or otherwise terminated. During light transmission through the coupled elements, it is essential to maintain the precision alignment and spacing (or contact) of the coupled elements, otherwise a signal interruption occurs, i.e. the optical coupling deteriorates or fails.
One method of avoiding signal interruption is to design connectors that screw together, or are otherwise permanently or semi-permanently secured together. However, there is a need for optical connectors that resist signal interruption and that also allow quick connection and disconnection with mating connectors.
One problem with known connectors of the quick connect and disconnect type is that they are prone to inadvertent signal interruption. One known optical connector which allows quick connection and disconnection, and is marketed under the ST .RTM. mark, has a captive bayonet nut for mating with a bayonet receptacle, a body for supporting the optical fiber along an axis, and a spring. The body has a front end which exposes a facet end of the optical fiber for optical coupling with another optical element. The spring serves two functions: it pushes the facet end forward, towards the optical interface to maintain optical connection, and it pushes the mating bayonet receptacle to maintain the mechanical coupling of the two bayonet members.
If the back of this prior connector body, or its attached optical cable, is pulled with a force sufficient to compress the spring, the facet end is displaced axially backwards, away from the mating optical element, and signal interruption occurs. A signal interruption can also result from lateral forces applied on the back of the connector and which displace the facet end of the connector laterally, thus causing optical disconnect through fiber misalignment.
Another problem with known quick connect and disconnect connectors is that they provide only limited protection of the coupled optical elements from corrosive agents in the operating environment. There accordingly is a need for optical quick connect and disconnect connectors that can operate in hostile environments, such as in the presence of moisture or dust.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide a fiber optic connector that allows quick connection and disconnection with ST.RTM. compatible and other optical connectors, and that resists signal interruption, even when the connector or its associated optical cable is stressed, either axially or laterally.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a fiber optic connector that accommodates an environmental seal for sealing out moisture, dust, and like contaminants.
These and other objects and features of the invention will be apparent from the following description and the drawings.


A method for producing a ceramic substrate of the present invention includes a first process of providing holes in a shrinkage suppressing layer, a second process of filling the holes with a thick film material, a third process of laminating the shrinkage suppressing layer filled with the thick film material on an outermost layer of a ceramic substrate sintered in a preparatory process, followed by pressing, thereby obtaining a laminate, a fourth process of sintering the laminate, and a fifth process of removing the shrinkage suppressing layer. Thus, the kind of convex portions formed on the outermost layer of the ceramic substrate can be increased.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for producing a ceramic substrate, and an electronic component module using a ceramic substrate produced by the production method. In particular, the present invention relates to a method for producing a ceramic substrate having convex portions (bumps) on a surface, and an electronic component module using a ceramic substrate produced by the production method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hereinafter, a conventional method for producing a ceramic substrate with convex portions (bumps) will be described. FIG. 10 shows the processes of the conventional method for producing a ceramic substrate. More specifically, according to the conventional method, via holes are opened in a green sheet for sintering at low temperature (process 1). Thereafter, the via holes are filled with a conductor made of a silver paste (process 2). An inner layer conductor is formed on a surface layer of the green sheet filled with the conductor, whereby a plurality of green sheets with the inner layer conductors formed thereon are prepared (process 3). Separately from these processes, for pressing the green sheets, via holes are opened in a shrinkage suppressing layer made of an unbaked sheet that is not sintered at the sintering temperature of the green sheets (process 4), and the via holes formed in the process 4 are filled with a conductor (process 5). The green sheets formed in the process 3 are laminated, and the shrinkage suppressing layer filled with the conductor formed in the process 5 is laminated on an outermost layer of the laminate, followed by pressing (process 6). After the process 6, the resultant laminate is sintered at about 900° C. (process 7). After the process 7, the shrinkage suppressing layer laminated in the process 6 is removed (process 8). Consequently, a substrate with convex portions as shown in FIG. 11 is completed.
FIG. 11 shows a specific example of an electronic component module using a substrate with convex portions. Reference numeral 11 denotes a ceramic substrate in which a laminate of green sheets is sintered at low temperature, 12 denotes inner vias each connecting an upper surface to a lower surface of each layer of the ceramic substrate 11, and 13 denotes inner layer patterns. Reference numeral 14a denotes convex portions composed of a conductor formed on a lowermost layer 11b of the ceramic substrate 11, and 20 denotes a surface layer pattern connected to the convex portions 14a. Furthermore, reference numeral 15 denotes convex portions composed of a conductor formed on an uppermost layer 11a of the ceramic substrate 11, which is connected to a surface layer pattern 16 on the uppermost layer 11a and the inner vias 12.
Reference numeral 17 denotes a flip chip IC mounted on the upper surface of the ceramic substrate 11. A connection layer 18 formed on a bottom surface of the flip chip IC 17 is connected to the convex portions 15. Thus, an electronic component module 19 as a surface mounting module is completed. The prior art related to the invention of the present application is, for example, described in JP6 (1994)-53655A.
However, according to the conventional method for producing a ceramic substrate with convex portions, the shrinkage suppressing layer filled with a conductor is laminated on a green sheet laminate that has not been sintered, and thereafter, the shrinkage suppressing layer and the green sheet laminate are sintered simultaneously, whereby convex portions are formed. At this time, the green sheet laminate needs to be sintered, so that sintering is performed at a maximum temperature of 900° C. for a retention time of 20 minutes (JP6(1994)-53655A). In general, the baking temperature of a conductor, a dielectric (insulator), and a resistant material used as a thick film material is in a range of 850° C.±50° C., and the baking temperature at the center of a distribution is lower than about 900° C. that is the sintering temperature of the green sheet laminate. Thus, according to the conventional production method, only a conductive material that is baked at 900° C. can be used, and a general thick film material cannot be selected arbitrarily to form convex portions.
For example, the material for convex portions in JP6(1994)-53655A is limited to a conductive material containing no glass frit. However, the glass frit is largely related to the connection strength between the convex portions and the green sheets; therefore, when the convex portions are formed of a conductor containing no glass frit, convex portions with low connection strength with respect to the substrate or ceramic surface are likely to be formed. Thus, the convex portions formed by this method have low connection reliability.
Furthermore, according to the prior art, convex portions composed of a mixture of different kinds of thick film materials (i.e., convex portions in which a dielectric and a conductor are mixed) cannot be formed. Therefore, the following problem arises. There is a limit to a dimension 21 between the convex portions 14a and 14b including the surface layer pattern 20. That is, as shown in FIG. 12, when the electronic component module 19 is soldered to a parent substrate 22, if the dimension 21 is small, a short due to soldering occurs between the convex portions 14a and 14b including the surface layer pattern 20.
Herein, reference numeral 23a denotes lands formed on an upper surface of the parent substrate 22, and the lands 23a are provided at positions corresponding to the convex portions 14a. Similarly, reference numeral 23b denotes lands provided at positions corresponding to the convex portions 14b.

Method for producing ceramic substrate and electronic component module using ceramic substrate

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A peripheral component interconnect (PCI) device comprising a bus interface coupled to a component interconnect bus, a plurality of configuration space register sets, and virtual multiple-function logic. Each set of configuration space registers is associated with a function. The virtual multiple-function logic is coupled to the bus interface and the configuration space register sets. The virtual multiple-function logic provides access to a plurality of configuration space registers for a plurality of functions. The virtual multiple-function logic also enables a plurality of functions to share the bus interface and other internal logic.

The Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Local Bus specification relates to a 32-bit or 64-bit bus for transferring data between a microprocessor or central processing unit (CPU) and one or more peripheral devices. Peripheral devices, such as disk drives, may be integrated directly onto a motherboard. Other peripheral devices may be added through PCI expansion cards, such as multimedia, graphics, video, audio, and local area network (LAN) cards.
A PCI "device" is an electrical component that conforms to the PCI specification for operation in a PCI bus environment. Every PCI "device" (except host bus bridges) that conforms with the PCI specification should implement "Configuration Address Space" (also called "Configuration Space"). Configuration Space is a specific set of registers used for configuration, initialization and error handling.
Each PCI "device" may have one or more "functions." For example, a single device may have two "functions": one "function" relates to a SCSI bus controller, and another "function" relates to an Ethernet controller. Multiple "functions" may also perform the same task, such as a plurality of Ethernet controllers each being a separate "function" of a single "device." The PCI specification defines a "function" as a "set of logic that is represented by a single Configuration Space." The PCI specification defines each "function" to have a separate configuration register space, such as a unique 256-byte space, and logic associated with the function. Each function's unique configuration space may be accessed differently than input/output (I/O) or Memory Address Spaces.
A single PCI device may have multiple "functions." A "multi-function device" should provide a Configuration Space for each function, and thus have multiple Configuration Spaces. Each "function" in a "multi-function device" may be treated as a completely separate device for the purposes of PCI functionality, e.g., each function has its own set of configuration space registers.
In a conventional PCI device, the device's logic may typically be associated on a one-to-one basis with each function's configuration space. In a conventional multi-function PCI device, each function may have a register set that controls the operation of the logic associated with the function.
The PCI-Extended (PCI-X) Addendum to the PCI Local Bus Specification has improvements that enhance the speed and efficiency of the PCI bus. A "function" according to the PCI/X addendum specifies a set of behaviors and a set of registers required for PCI/X compliance.

Virtual peripheral component interconnect multiple-function device

Emulex Design & Manufacturing Corporation


A user interface (UI) for an Internet enabled TV lists content genre such as photos, music, and video, and for each genre a sub-list of content is provided regardless of the source of the content, i.e., regardless of whether the content in the particular genre is stored locally or is sourced from the Internet.

Internet-enabled TVs have been provided in which a TV can present programming not just from its local TV tuner, a local video disk player, etc. but also from sources of content communicating with the TV over the Internet. As understood herein, to a viewer what is important is not so much the source of content but the type of content. Unfortunately, present UIs do not effectively present to a viewer/user a UI that consolidates and integrates content by type irrespective of source.

Integrated user interface for internet-enabled TV


A method of manufacturing an induction motor rotor assembly, the method includes the steps of: providing a rotor; machining a plurality of re-entrant slots axially along an outer surface of the rotor; positioning a sleeve concentrically over the outer surface of the rotor; applying a friction stir welding process to the sleeve along each re-entrant slot axially along the outer surface of the rotor to cause the sleeve material to plasticise and flow into the axial re-entrant slot to form an axial re-entrant slot bar; and providing an electrical connection at each of the opposing axial ends of the rotor between respective ones of opposing ends of each of the axial re-entrant slot bars to thereby form the induction motor rotor.

Induction machines are widely used in motor and generator applications because in conjunction with modern power electronic systems they can provide flexible, efficient and reliable operation to generate and consume electrical power.
Induction motors are an example of asynchronous electrical machines. In an asynchronous machine, the magnetic field in the stator rotates at a speed which is different to the mechanical rotation of the rotor. The difference between these two rotation speeds is called slip.
Induction machines can broadly be broken down into two main categories, squirrel cage and wound rotor. Both squirrel cage and wound rotor machines use a similar stator construction but the rotor construction differs.
FIG. 1 shows a typical rotor 10 for a squirrel cage machine comprising a series of laminations 12 (stacked plates, approximately 0.35 mm thick) of soft magnetic material, often silicon steel, insulated from each other by an oxide layer or a polymer varnish and forming a stacked cylinder which is normally keyed to the motor shaft. The 'squirrel cage' 14 is embedded in this rotor and consists of thick conducting bars 16 (normally formed from copper) embedded in parallel slots or holes. These bars are short-circuited at each end by means of short-circuiting rings 18 (often called end caps or end rings). In an alternative prior art arrangement (not shown), the rotor may be solid with holes to accommodate the conducting bars.
In contrast, a typical wound rotor induction machine (not shown) comprises a rotor in which the conductors are formed from wound coils rather than the bars of the squirrel cage machine rotor. The rotating magnetic field induces a voltage in the rotor windings.
The increased complexity of the rotor coils means that wound rotor induction machines are usually significantly more expensive than squirrel cage rotor machines.
Particularly in aerospace applications, there is a need for induction machines to be lighter, to occupy less volume and to operate in higher temperatures than in other industries. Thus for a given occupied volume and mass, the power developed per unit mass must be greater. Since, the power is proportional to both torque and rotational speed, for a given torque capability the power is increased by increasing the rotational speed.
However, conventional squirrel cage and wound rotor motor designs have a ceiling peripheral speed of approximately 200 m/s, which is well beneath a theoretical upper limit of approximately 500 m/s. This is due to the limits of the mechanical construction of the rotors.

Induction motor rotor and a method of manufacturing the same


The invention relates to analysis methods for diagnosing diseases on human and animal samples. Said invention also relates to an evaluation method for diagnosing the individual stages of a disease in such a way that it is possible to display the progression thereof. Said invention also makes it possible to identify diseases in an early manner and to carry out therapeutic controls. The inventive method consists in carrying out actually known multivariable evaluation methods for classifying samples. Nevertheless, the invention is characterised in that no sample is allocated to a certain class, but it is classified in a data record based on the interpolation between different classes.

1. Field
The invention relates to the field of analytical methods suitable for diagnosing diseases with human or animal samples. To analyze the samples, electromagnetic spectra are recorded, stored and analyzed by multivariate analytical methods. The diagnosis of diseases using multivariate analytical methods is already known in the prior art and is explained in greater detail below. However, with the help of the inventive method, it is also possible for the first time to reliably detect individual manifestations of a disease syndrome in addition to detecting a specific disease. The inventive method thus makes it possible for the first time to diagnose individual stages of progression of a disease; this could provide information regarding the development of a disease, for example, or might reflect the effects of therapeutic methods on a patient's health status.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the prior art, most diagnostic methods are currently based on detection of individual characteristic substances in a sample to be analyzed to obtain information regarding a disease. These substances are detected in blood, urine or other body fluids, for example. Substances characteristic of a disease include, for example, disease-induced metabolites which accumulate in the body and can be detected in the blood. Samples taken from patients are analyzed by clinical analytical methods or by spectroscopic methods and are correlated with the patient's disease symptoms. On the basis of these findings, a medical diagnosis is made, taking into account the analytical results obtained on the sample as well as the patient's disease symptoms.
Frequently, however, it is found that diagnosing individual diseases is particularly difficult because the substances to be analyzed for the disease cannot be determined unambiguously or are even unknown. A diagnosis of such diseases can often be ensured only through complex analyses of varied parameters which provide an indication of the disease. For example, the so-called metabolic syndrome is an example of a disease that is difficult to diagnose; it is assumed that at least one of ten adults in the United States suffers from this syndrome. This disease is thus one of the most common health anomalies in western civilization. Metabolic syndrome involves an accumulation of five different risk factors for having a high cardiovascular mortality. Metabolic syndrome is diagnosed when a patient has at least three of five risk factors. The risk factors, i.e., parameters for detection of this disease, include obesity, hypertension, elevated cholesterol levels, elevated blood sugar and blood lipid levels. The example given here shows that five different tests are necessary to allow this disease to be diagnosed.
To simplify such complex test methods and gain a greater diagnostic certainty, methods of disease analysis have been developed that allow a reliable diagnosis to be made with just one measurement method even without a knowledge of a definite substance characteristic of a disease. These methods are performed by IR spectroscopy, for example, and utilize multivariate analytical methods, among others. With the help of multivariate analytical algorithms, it is possible thereby to perform a pattern recognition on spectra without having to perform a characterization of individual substances. Multivariate analytical methods make it possible to analyze an unknown sample with a high reliability and correlate it with various diseases as a function of a previously trained database. To compile the database, samples are first taken from patients having a specific syndrome. The measured spectra are then allocated to a class characterizing the particular disease family. If infrared spectra are recorded on a plurality of samples or methods belonging to a known class according to identical or at least comparable measurement methods, then there may be training of the database. These spectra are supplied to the multivariate analytical method according to their classification so that the database includes characteristic spectra patterns, each belonging to a certain class and thus belonging to a disease family. The system is trained with the help of multivariate analytical algorithms until a distinction can be made between different classes. For example, in this way it is possible to categorize samples taken from healthy people or from people sick with an anomalous condition that is to be investigated. If an unknown sample is measured, the system is able to correlate the unknown sample with a class with sufficient reliability so that a diagnostic indication is given. This is preferably based on pattern recognition of the measured spectrum in a previously defined measured wavelength range, and an allocation of an unknown sample to a previously classified disease group (sick/healthy) is then made on this basis. The basic principles of such a method which permits classification of samples by IR spectroscopy and multivariate analytical methods are described in the document EP 0 644 412, for example.
In addition, use of such a method for analyzing metabolic syndrome is disclosed in the document WO 03060515 A1. To this end, spectra of healthy patients and spectra of patients suffering from metabolic syndrome are taken in a predetermined wavelength range, stored and classified in a database.
Depending on the analysis to be performed, a wavelength range in which characteristic spectra patterns permit a reliable allocation to one class is selected. For example, a determination of the particular wavelength range which has proven suitable for analyzing a certain disease syndrome can be done, e.g., by means of multivariate analyses or by algorithms such as those described in NMA Biomedicine, vol. 11, issue 4-5 (1998), pp. 209-216. Consequently, a correlation matrix is first set up in various analytical methods such as discriminance analysis and cluster analysis. The analytical method then determines which wavelengths are to be used with which influence for classification on the basis of the correlation matrix. The wavelengths used for analysis span a space that matches in dimension the number of wavelengths. A subspace in which the allocation of samples to classes can be performed unambiguously is then selected by the analytical method. This results in an allocation of samples to a class from their spatial proximity in said subspace. As soon as a scheme for classification according to a disease family has been developed, the data can be stored in the system, so that an analytical system can make suggested diagnoses for a plurality of diseases.
Multivariate analytical methods such as those known in the prior art are explained in greater detail below on the basis of the example of discriminance analysis.
Linear discriminance analysis permits a separation between two data records, which in the example cited here reflect, for example, patient data on a healthy patient and on a sick patient, with the goal of permitting a reliable differentiation between the data records. Practice has shown that there is often overlapping of data records, with a number of data possibly being allocated both to the "healthy" data record and also to the "sick" data record. There is thus no definite classification of this data, which may be referred to as the intersection of the "healthy" and "sick" data records in the example cited here. An allocation of unknown samples whose measured parameters are in this intersection range of the two data records is therefore impossible. Like other multivariate analytical methods, linear discriminance analysis draws a boundary between two data records to which an allocation is to be made. All data within this limit/these limit values belongs to the "healthy class," for example. The larger the data record of a class, the more sensitive is an allocation of an unknown sample in this class, so that almost all samples belonging to this class are also allocated to it. However, such a large data record also includes the allocation of samples that have been incorrectly allocated to this class so that a sensitive allocation will have a low specificity accordingly. Therefore, the object of such analytical methods is to achieve an optimized allocation, finding a balance between sensitivity and specificity. Training in the program is possible, increasing the sensitivity and specificity of the allocation by measurement and allocation of known samples. In practice, in the analysis the process parameters that characterize the sensitivity and specificity are cited according to the respective allocation. The values of unknown samples which are directly in an intersection of data records are evaluated as not analyzable in order to avoid an excessive error in the allocation. A diagnostic indication cannot be given for a sample whose parameters are within the intersection.
Consequently, one disadvantage of the prior art is that a disease can be diagnosed only with respect to different classes (e.g., "healthy" or "sick"), without being able to take into account data within the intersection, for example. Thus the course of a disease in a patient, which is continuous per se, is divided into two discrete steps which allow only a "healthy" or "diseased" condition as a diagnostic indication. It is thus impossible to take into account a real course of a disease having stages of the disease.

Quantification of disease progression by means of interpolation between parameters based on electromagnetic spectra