A method for verification includes providing an implementation model, which defines model states of a target system and model transitions between the model states, and providing a specification of the target system, including properties that the system is expected to obey. A tableau is created from the specification, the tableau defining tableau states with tableau transitions between the tableau states in accordance with the properties. The tableau transitions are compared to the model transitions to determine whether a discrepancy exists therebetween.

Hardware verification is currently the bottleneck and the most expensive task in the design of a semiconductor integrated circuit. Model checking is a method of formal verification that is gaining in popularity for this purpose. The method is described generally by Clarke et 1. in Model Checking (MIT Press, 1999).
To perform model checking of the design of a device, a verification engineer reads the definition and functional specifications of the device and then, based on this information, writes a set of properties {φ} (also known as a specification) that the design is expected to fulfill. The properties are written in a suitable specification language for expressing temporal logic relationships between the inputs and outputs of the device. Such languages are commonly based on Computation Tree Logic (CTL). A hardware model M (also known as an implementation) of the design, which is typically written in a hardware description language, such as VHDL or Verilog, is then tested to ascertain that the model satisfies all of the properties in the set, i.e., that Mφ, under all possible input sequences. Such testing is a form of reachability analysis.
Model checking is preferably carried out automatically by a symbolic model checking program, such as SMV, as described, for example, by McMillan in Symbolic Model Checking (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993). A number of practical model checking tools are available, among them RuleBase, developed by IBM, which is described by Beer et al. in "RuleBase: an Industry-Oriented Form Verification Tool," in Proceedings of the Design Automation Conference DAC'96 (Las Vegas, Nev., 1996).
As hardware devices grow larger and more complex, the set of properties needed for model checking becomes unwieldy. The verification engineer has no systematic way to be sure of whether the property set is complete, in the sense of covering all possible states and transitions that may occur in the model. If the property set is incomplete, a bug in the design may go undetected. The engineer may therefore continue to add more and more properties indefinitely, never knowing whether the set is yet sufficient or not.
Coverage metrics have been applied in various fields of simulation-based verification in order to measure and improve the completeness with which a given simulation tool represents the actual behavior of a target system. An application of such a metric to model checking is described by Hoskote et al., in "Coverage Estimation for Symbolic Model Checking," in Proceedings of the Design Automation Conference DAC'99 (IEEE Computer Society Press, 199). This publication presents a method for estimating whether a set of properties is sufficient to cover all possible states of a model. It notes, however, that the disclosed method cannot point out functionality that may be missing in the model, nor can it ensure that all possible paths between the states are covered. The publication also indicates that "path coverage would be an ideal coverage metric because it can provide coverage of actual executions of the circuit over time." The publication considers that by comparison with state coverage, "path coverage is a much more intractable problem."

Identification of missing properties in model checking


A carrier having an end panel construction that snaps into place during formation of the carrier and has the ability to follow the contour of adjacent curved or beveled packaged articles. Tabs foldably connected to an end panel flap and adjacent dust flaps cause the flaps to snap into place. The dust flaps are either connected to the side panels by angled fold lines or comprise continuations or extensions of the side panels.

Sleeve-type carriers are typically formed from a blank which is delivered to a packaging machine in the form of a collapsed sleeve. The sleeve is erected or opened in the machine and articles are loaded through one or both ends of the sleeve, after which the ends of the carrier are closed. Formation of the end panels of the carrier normally requires the end panel flaps and the dust flaps to which the end panel flaps are glued to be separately folded into place by separate folding steps. While this process continues to be successfully employed in the packaging industry, there are certain areas which nonetheless could be improved.
It would be desirable to facilitate the closing of the end panels by providing a more automatic closing operation. It would also be desirable to have a carrier which is capable of more closely following the contours of curved packaged articles in order to more tightly hold the articles within the package. Normally, the end panels of a sleeve-type carrier form right angles with the side panels, which makes it difficult for the corner areas of the carrier to contact curved articles such as beverage cans and bottles.
An example of a more automatic end closure arrangement is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,487 which provides triangular webs for connecting the end panel flaps to the dust flaps or so-called closure flaps. The connecting webs cause the dust flaps to move into place when the end panel flap is moved from an open vertical position to its final closed position in the end of the carrier. In addition, separate triangular corner panels are provided between the side panels and the closure flaps. The angles formed by the corner panels with both the side panels and the closure panels are greater than 90.degree., which enables the corner area of the carrier to conform to a curved surface more readily than the usual right angled corner configuration of conventional sleeve-type carrier designs.
Although the patented carrier is an improvement over conventional designs in the areas discussed, it would be desirable to further improve certain features of the carrier. The connecting webs are not always conducive to easy closure of the end panel flaps due to the thickness of the various folds of material in the end corner areas. Also, the triangular corner panel arrangement does not provide the desired degree of contact with the surface of curved articles. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a sleeve-type carrier that improves upon the performance of prior art carriers in the areas discussed.


A clutch assembly is provided for engaging a PTO assembly with a primary drive shaft of a vehicle engine. The clutch assembly includes a synchronizing clutch for rotating an output member and a primary clutch positionable to rotationally connect the output member to the primary drive shaft.

Vehicles such as trucks and tractors can employ a power take-off ("PTO") assembly used to power an implement such as an auxiliary attachment or separate machine. For example, a fire truck may employ a PTO assembly to power a water pump. In some instances, the PTO assembly allows the implement to draw energy or power from the vehicle's engine by employing a clutch assembly to connect/disconnect the PTO assembly with the vehicle's engine. Current clutch assemblies include split-shaft PTO assemblies, chassis transmission-mounted PTO assemblies and sandwich PTO assemblies. In a split-shaft PTO assembly, the main drive shaft of the vehicle is required to be disengaged from a rear differential in order for the PTO assembly to be engaged, which prevents a pump driven by the PTO from operating while the vehicle is in motion. In a chassis transmission-mounted PTO assembly, the PTO assembly draws power directly from the transmission, which can limit a size of pump that can be used with such a PTO assembly. Sandwich PTO assemblies can be positioned between a main engine and transmission to conserve space. However, the clutch employed is limited by size and expense in order to provide sufficient power to operate the implement.


A feeder restoration method starts in response to an overcurrent fault on a feeder (22) that causes a circuit breaker (42) to trip open, reclose once, trip again, and attempt to reclose again. During the time period between the first and second reclosings, any remote sectionalizing switches (46) on the faulty feeder are opened if they have also sensed the overcurrent fault, and a substation processor (50) evaluates the status of the faulty feeder and an alternate feeder (32, 34). After the second trip of the circuit breaker, the processor verifies whether the remote sectionalizing switch was closed and a remote tie switch (40) to the alternate feeder was open. If the circuit breaker locks open, the substation processor determines whether the remote sectionalizing switch did not sense the overcurrent condition (which indicates that the fault is between the circuit breaker and the sectionalizing switch) or simply failed to open. The processor then verifies that the remote sectionalizing switch voltage is zero and opens the switch. The processor next determines whether the alternate feeder and its associated transformer (30) and circuit breaker (44) can pick up the dropped load, and if they can, the substation processor modifies the alternate circuit breaker trip current settings to accommodate the new total load plus a surge current and closes the remote tie switch to transfer the load to the alternate feeder.

There are previously known devices and methods for restoring electrical power to a load following a fault. In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,112 for FAULT DETECTION METHOD AND APPARATUS and U.S. Pat. No. 3,668,351 for SECTIONALIZING AND PROTECTIVE APPARATUS FOR SINGLE HOUSE TRANSFORMER describe typical electrical power distribution systems in which various customers and users (hereafter "loads") are supplied with electricity in networks such that power is distributed to the loads from more than one system network path or more than one source. In such distribution systems, faults may be isolated by employing sectionalizing switches while maintaining power delivery to the loads that are not in the immediate vicinity of the faulty sections, i.e., where the fault occurs. To achieve this fault isolation, various devices are arranged throughout the distribution system at appropriate locations to efficiently provide for the interruption and isolation of faults. These devices include fuses, circuit breakers, remote sectionalizing switches, and remotely and locally operated power distribution switches. Conventional power distribution systems commonly employ stand-alone, local logic and sensing devices for restoring power to loads following a fault.
For example, a conventional power distribution system receives at substations remotely produced high voltage through transmission lines. At a first substation, the high voltage is transformed by a transformer to a lower voltage for distribution through overhead or underground first feeder sections and associated transformers to a first set of loads. Likewise, a second substation produces a lower voltage for distribution through overhead or underground second feeder sections and associated transformers to a second set of loads. The first feeder sections are isolated from the second feeder sections by a remotely located, normally open ("NO") tie switch.
The first and second substations include associated first and second circuit breakers, which receive the lower voltage from the respective transformers and deliver the lower voltage through the respective feeder sections to the respective loads. Conventional circuit breakers include local controllers that sense a predetermined sequence of reclosing cycles in the presence of locally sensed overcurrents whereby delivery of electrical power is interrupted via the breaking of the circuit for predetermined intervals followed by the reclosing of the circuit. The reclosing sequence continues until either the fault is cleared or a predetermined number of reclosing operations have taken place, whereupon the circuit breaker locks out to continuously open the circuit until appropriate action can be taken by maintenance personnel to repair the circuit. In this manner, momentarily occurring overcurrents or fault conditions that are self-clearing allow the restoration and maintenance of power delivery to the loads without permanent opening or lock out of the circuit.
Remotely located along the first feeder sections between the first set of loads is a normally closed ("NC") sectionalizing switch, which is arranged to count the number of first circuit breaker reclosing operations. Likewise, remotely located along the second feeder sections between the second set of loads is another NC sectionalizing switch that is arranged to count the number of second circuit breaker reclosing operations. After a predetermined number of counts, for example, three, the relevant remote sectionalizing switch has sufficient local intelligence to open its switch during its associated circuit breaker open time period to isolate a particular fault and allow the circuit breaker to successfully reclose. At other locations, such as in branch sections of feeder lines, fuses may be provided and coordinated with the other protective devices to sense overcurrents and faults so as to interrupt current before the breakers, and/or sectionalizing switches can operate. Additionally, automated or manual distribution switches are provided at various points in the distribution network to provide suitable isolation, sectionalizing, and rerouting of power via different sources.
Information and control data regarding the operation, sensing, and control of the power distribution system is typically provided by a controller locally associated with each circuit breaker, sectionalizing switch, distribution switch, or circuit point. Data communication to system control processors in associated substations is typically via suitable communication channels, such as hardwires, radio, fiberoptics, telephone lines, or powerline carriers. The information and control data include the closed/lockout state of the breakers, closed/open state of the tie switch and sectionalizing switches, actuating command data for the above breakers and switches, and the sensed voltage and current at associated points in the power distribution system.
While particular breaker, switch, and parameter information is typically available throughout the power distribution system, presently available local control methods are not coordinated and can, therefore, erroneously respond to feeder faults as a result of magnetizing inrush currents, cold-load pickup, backfeed conditions, and overloads caused by corrective actions. Thus, in conventional systems, the location and cause of a feeder fault may not be confidently known via the information received at a control site.
What is needed, therefore, is an overall coordinated method of sensing and operating the various components in a power distribution system to efficiently locate, isolate, and restore the system after the occurrence of a feeder fault or overcurrent condition. In particular, what is needed is a feeder restoration method that provides faster power restoration to a greater number of loads than is provided by prior methods.

Automated power feeder restoration system and method


A cosmetic composition comprising Rooibus tea extract in combination with at least one protective agent which is a daytime protective agent, a night time protective agent, or mixtures thereof and methods for exfoliating skin and treating menopausal or peri-menopausal skin.

Treatment of keratinous surfaces such as skin with various types of botanical extracts is well known. As women age, cosmetics companies are becoming more interested in incorporating botanical extracts into skin treatment products because, in many cases, these extracts are believed to contain very minute amounts of ingredients that exert a beneficial effect on the skin. One beneficial effect sought in those who use skin care products is exfoliation. In general, gentle exfoliation of superficial keratinous skin cells results in smooth, clear, luminous skin. While there are a variety of exfoliating ingredients available, such as alpha hydroxy acids, sometimes these acidic ingredients cause skin irritation or dryness. Accordingly, there is a need to find naturally occuring materials that will provide a skin exfoliating effect without causing irritation or dryness. Further, it is desirable to formulate cosmetic products containing such exfoliants with additional ingredients that maximize the effectiveness of the exfoliant and protect the skin from the effects of exfoliation treatment.
There is also a need to provide skin care compositions that are beneficial in treating the adverse effects of menopause and peri-menopause on the skin. Such effects include skin laxity, dryness, yellowing, age spots, wrinkles, lines, and discolorations.
It has been discovered that a particular extract from Rooibus tea is beneficial in exfoliating skin and treating some of the skin conditions associated with menopause or peri-menopause.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method for exfoliating skin with a naturally occurring botanical extract, in particular Rooibus tea.
If is a further object of the invention to provide a method for exfoliating skin and ameliorating the effects of exfoliation on skin by preparing cosmetic compositions containing the exfoliating agent, Rooibus tea extract, in combination with protective agents.
It is a further object to provide a composition for treating the adverse skin conditions associated with menopause and peri-menopause.
It is a further object of the invention to provide cosmetic compositions that contain Rooibus tea extract in combination with protective agents.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a cosmetic composition and method for treating the adverse effects of aging on skin with an extract from Rooibus tea.

Cosmetic compositions containing Rooibus tea extract


When a redundancy circuit is fully used and a further defect is present, an irreparable-state signal is produced. When the irreparable-state signal is produced, a defect is judged. When the irreparable-state signal is not produced, upon testing for quality judgment, extraction of a defective memory cell, programming an address of the defective memory cell into a fuse, and confirmation about whether or not the address is properly programmed are carried out. Quality judgment is possible only by confirming address information of the written address as confirmation after programming into the electric fuse.

This invention relates to a semiconductor apparatus and, in particular, to a redundancy circuit for repairing a defective memory cell and a semiconductor apparatus having the redundancy circuit.
Recently, a semiconductor apparatus is miniaturized and developed towards larger-scale integration. For example, in the field of a dynamic random access memory (hereinafter abbreviated to DRAM), products having a memory capacity of 1 Gbit are developed and put into practical use.
Such DRAM has a main memory cell array region in which a normal memory cell array is disposed and a redundancy circuit for repair in which a spare memory cell array region is disposed. In case where a defect is found in a part of the main memory cell array region, a defective memory cell is replaced by a spare memory cell. By the use of the redundancy circuit, the semiconductor apparatus integrated in a large scale is improved in yield and lowered in cost.
The redundancy circuit requires a programmable element for memorizing an address of the defective memory cell. As the programmable element, use is predominantly made of a breaking fuse comprising a polysilicon or a metal wire to be cut by a laser trimmer. However, such technique of cutting the fuse by the laser trimmer can not repair a defect after assembling the semiconductor apparatus. In view of the above, use is also made of an electric fuse, such as a capacitor fuse, capable of repairing the defect after assembling.
Repairing by the redundancy circuit is carried out in the following manner. At first, quality judgment of judging whether each product is defective or non-defective is carried out by the use of a tester to extract a defective memory cell. Next, the address of the defective memory cell is programmed into the fuse by the laser trimmer. Then, quality judgment is carried out again by the tester. In case of the electric fuse, the address of the defective memory cell is electrically programmed into the fuse. Thus, testing is carried out twice to extract the defective memory cell and to verify completion of repairing.
Such repairing using the electric fuse is disadvantageous in the following respect. A testing efficiency is low because testing is carried out twice. In the past, a testing time was short. It was therefore possible to carry out testing twice. However, the semiconductor apparatus integrated in a large scale and having a memory capacity on the order of 1 Gbit requires a long testing time. Further, testing is carried out taking into account mutual interference among a number of memory cells and therefore requires a testing time as long as several hours. Such long-time testing is carried out twice upon extracting the defective memory cell and upon verifying completion of repairing. This results in low testing efficiency and high cost.
In order to avoid the above-mentioned problem, it is proposed to carry out testing for verifying completion of repairing only in an area around the repaired memory cell so as to shorten the testing time. In this technique, however, the address of the memory cell to be repaired is different in each individual product. It is therefore necessary to individually test each product by the use of an individual test program. As compared with a current technique of simultaneously testing a plurality of products in parallel, the above-mentioned technique is disadvantageous in view of man-hour required in preparation of a plurality of test programs and a testing time. Thus, the problem of low testing efficiency due to two-times testing remains unsolved.
The redundancy circuit is disclosed in several related documents. Japanese Unexamined Patent application Publication (JP-A) No. H06-084393 (Patent Document 1) corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,424 discloses a repairing circuit using an electric fuse. According to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2003-338192 (Patent Document 2) corresponding to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003-213954 A1, an address of a defective memory cell is latched in an I/O compression test. The latched address is programmed into an electrical fuse. Thereafter, a functional test is performed. According to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2001-307497 (Patent Document 3) corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,639 B1, a memory cell unit has a normal port and a test port. Upon a writing operation via the normal port, an address and data are latched. In a next cycle, data written via the test port in a preceding cycle is read and compared with the latched data. Upon detection of mismatching as a result of comparison, a defective cell is detected and the latched address and the latched data are used as redundant means. The address and the data are latched by software without using a fuse. When the redundant means is full, an overflow signal is produced.
In the above-mentioned patent documents 1 and 2, the problem of low testing efficiency is not yet solved. In the patent document 3, the test port is provided in addition to the normal port so that chip area overhead is large. Further, the patent document 3 discloses a repairing circuit without using a fuse, which is a technique different from this invention. None of these documents discloses any suggestion for solving the problem addressed by this invention, i.e., low testing efficiency due to testing carried out twice,
As described above, when the redundancy circuit is used, the quality judgment is at first carried out by the use of the tester to extract the defective memory cell. Next, the address of the defective memory cell is programmed into the fuse. Then, quality judgment is carried out again by the use of the tester. Thus, testing is carried out twice to detect the defective memory cell and to verify completion of repairing. This results in a problem of low testing efficiency.

Redundancy circuit and semiconductor apparatus having the redundancy circuit


This invention comprises a unique method for the sale of natural stone, special packaging for the stone and a method of doing business to make the stone available in high volume stores to the average consumer. The method comprises prefabricating the stone into slabs at or near the location where it is quarried, into sizes and shapes which are common, and often standard, in household bathrooms and kitchens. The stone slabs may, or may not, include cut-outs for sinks and faucets of various standard size. The pre-fabricated stone is then packaged in a box or carton which is designed to specially protect the stone, especially at the corners where most damage occurs, and shipping the packages to high volume, do-it-yourself consumer outlets.

Countertops for bathrooms, kitchens and the like are an important part of any home. These countertops can be made from many different materials such as stone, including marble and granite, tile, or formica, as well as wood and metal. Natural stone, marble or granite is the most desired and the most expensive of these materials. As a result there have been produced man-made materials made to look like stone which are derived of mixtures of resins or cement with the addition of stone chips. These include terrazzo, agglomerates and conglomerates, and cultured or faux marble.
Stone is a natural solid formation of many minerals. There are hundreds of types of stone that have been quarried through the centuries. Quarries are located all over the world. A majority of natural stone comes from Italy, Spain, Turkey, United States, Mexico, China, Taiwan, India, Greece, Canada, France and Brazil. The more familiar natural stone types that are used in construction today are identified in four catagories: sedimentary, metamorphic, igneous and man-made.
Sedimentary stone came from organic elements such as glaciers, rivers, wind, oceans and plants. Tiny sedimentary pieces broke off from these elements and accumulated to form rock beds. They were bonded through millions of years of heat and pressure.
Metamorphic stone originates from a natural change from one type of stone to another type through the mixture of heat, pressure, and minerals. The change may be a development of crystalline formation, a texture change, or a color change.
Marble is a recrystallized limestone that formed when the limestone softened from heat and pressure and recrystallized into marble where mineral changes occurred The main consistency is calcium and dolomite. Marble ranges in many colors and is usually heavily veined and shows lots of grains. Its hardness rates from 2.5 to 5 on the Measure of Hardness (MOH) Scale.
Marble is classified into three categories, as classified by Stone World, an industry magazine::
1. Dolomite: If it has more than 40% magnesium carbonate.
2. Magnesian: If it has between 5% and 40% magnesium carbonate.
3. Calcite: If it has less than 5% magnesium carbonate.
Slate is a fine-grained metamorphic stone that formed from clay, sedimentary rock shale, and sometimes quartz. Slate is very thin and can break easily. It usually has a black, grey or green color.
Serpentine is identified by its marks, which look like the skin of a serpent. Most popular colors are green and brown. Hardness rates from 2.5 to 4 on the MOH scale. Serpentine does not always react well to recrystalization or diamond polishing.
Igneous stones are mainly formed through volcanic material such a magma. Underneath the Earth's surface, liquid magma cooled and solidified. Mineral gases and liquids penetrated into the stone and created new crystalline formations with various colors.
Granite is primarily made of Quartz (35%), Feldspar (45%), and Potassium. It usually has darker colors and contains very little calcite, if any. Granite has a heavy crystalline and granular appearance with mineral grains. It is very hard material and easier to maintain than marble, yet it is still porous and will stain. There are different types of granite depending on the percentage mix of quartz, mica and feldspar. Black granite is known as an Anorthosite. It contains very little quartz and feldspar and has a different composition than true granite.
Man-made stone is derived of mixtures of resins or cement with the addition of stone chips. These include terrazzo, agglomerates and conglomerates, and cultured or faux marble.
Natural stone is far more expensive than man-made and is in great demand by those who can afford it. Until now, no method has been developed to sell natural stone at prices that are reasonable to the average consumer.

Method of packaging and selling natural stone


A conductive member (10) includes a conductive supporting body (1), an electric resistance adjusting layer (2), which is formed onto the conductive supporting body (1) and is disposed to face a photoconductor (4), and a pair of space holding members (3, 3) disposed in both ends of the electric resistance adjusting layer (2), so as to have contact with the photoconductor (4) to maintain a predetermined gap (G) between the electric resistance adjusting layer (2) and the photoconductor, and each of the space holding members (3, 3) includes a cylinder portion (3a) attached to the outer circumference surface (2a) of the electric resistance adjusting layer and an end plate (3b) provided in one end portion of the cylinder portion and disposed to have contact with the end surface (2b) of the electric resistance adjusting layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conductive member used in an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, laser beam printer and facsimile, a process cartridge having the conductive member, and an image forming apparatus having the process cartridge.
2. Related Art
There has been used a conductive member as a charging member, which performs a changing process to a photoconductor, photoconductive drum, or image carrier, or as a transferring member, which performs a transferring process to toner on a photoconductor, in an image forming apparatus of electrophotographic system such as a conventional electrophotographic copying machine, laser beam printer and facsimile.
FIG. 9 illustrates an image forming apparatus 120 of electrophotographic system having a conventional charging roller. The image forming apparatus 120 of electrophotographic system comprises a photoconductive drum 102 on which an electrostatic latent image is formed, a charging roller 102, which has contact with the photoconductive drum 101 to perform a charging process, an exposure device 103 such as leaser beam, a developing roller 104, which transfers toner to the electrostatic latent image of the photoconductor drum 101, a power pack 105, which applies DC voltage to the charging roller 102, a transfer roller 106, which transfers a toner image on the photoconductive drum 101 onto a recording paper 107, a cleaning device 108, which cleans the photoconductive drum 101 after the transfer process, and a surface potential meter 109, which measures the surface potential of the photoconductive drum 101.
This image forming apparatus 120 of electrophotographic system includes a process cartridge detachable system. More particularly, in the image forming apparatus 120 of electrophotographic system, the process cartridge 110 having the photoconductive drum 101, charging roller 102, developing roller 104 and cleaning device 108 can be detachably attached to the body of image forming apparatus. The process cartridge 110 needs to comprise at least the photoconductive drum 101 and charging roller 102. This process cartridge 110 is attached to a predetermined position of the body of image forming apparatus. Thereby, the process cartridge 110 is connected to a driving system and electric system disposed in the body of image forming apparatus. Moreover, a functional unit normally required for another electrophotographic process is omitted in FIG. 9 because it is not required in the present invention.
Next, the basic image forming operation of the conventional image forming apparatus 120 of electrophotographic process will be explained.
If DC voltage is applied to the charging roller 102, which has contact with the photoconductive drum 101, from the power pack 105, the surface of the photoconductive drum 101 is equally charged at high potential. After that, if the image light is irradiated to the surface of photoconductive drum 101 by the exposure device 103, the electric potential is decreased in the irradiated portion of the photoconductive drum 101. Such charging mechanism to the surface of photoconductive drum 101 by the charging roller 102 has been known as discharge according to Paschen rule in a micro space between the charging roller 102 and the photoconductive drum 101.
Since image light is distribution of light volume corresponding to white/black of an image, if the image light is irradiated, electric potential distribution, i.e., an electrostatic latent image corresponding to a recording image is formed on the surface of the photoconductive drum 101 by the irradiated image light. If the portion of the photoconductive drum 101 formed with such an electrostatic latent image passes through the developing roller 104, toner is transferred depending on the high-low potential, and a toner image that the electrostatic image is visualized is formed onto the photoconductive drum 101. A recording paper 107 is fed to the portion of the photoconductive drum 101 formed with the toner image by a resist-roller (not shown) at a predetermined timing, and overlaps the toner image. After this toner image is transferred to the recording paper by a transfer roller 106, the recording paper 107 is separated from the photoconductive drum 101. The separated recording paper 107 is fed via a feeding path, and is thermally fixed by a fixing unit (not shown). Thereafter, the recording paper 107 is discharged outside the body of image forming apparatus. If the transferring is completed as described above, the surface of photoconductive drum 101 is cleaned by the cleaning device 108, and also the residual charge on the surface is eliminated by a quenching lamp (not shown). Therefore, the image forming apparatus is ready for a next image forming process.
There has been known a contact charging method, which brings a charging roller into contact with a photoconductor drum, as a charging method using a conventional charging roller (reference to JP S63-149668A and JP H01-267667A). However, such a conventional contact charging method has following problems.
(1) A material comprising a charging roller exudes from the charging roller, and the material adheres to a surface of a body to be charged. Thereby, the charging roller mark remains on the surface of body to be charged.
(2) If direct voltage is applied to a charging roller, the charging roller, which has contact with a body to be charged, shakes, resulting in generation of charging sound.
(3) Since toner on a photoconductive drum is adhered to a charging roller (especially, toner is easily adhered by the above exuding), a charging performance of charging roller is reduced.
(4) A material comprising a charging roller is adhered to a photoconductor drum.
(5) When stopping a photoconductive drum for a long time, a charging roller is deformed permanently.
A charging device having a close charging method, which allows a charging roller to come close to a photoconductive drum, has been proposed as an art for solving the above problems (reference to JP H03-240076A and JP H04-358175A). In the charging device having this close charging method, the charging roller faces the photoconductor drum to be the closest distance (50-300 μm), and the photoconductive drum is charged by the voltage applied to the charging roller. In the charging device with the close charging method, since the roller does not have contact with the photoconductive drum, the material comprising the charging roller is not adhered to the photoconductive drum and the roller is not permanently deformed when the drum is stopped for a long time. Accordingly, the above problems of the charging device with the conventional contact charging method are solved. Moreover, in the charging device with the close charging method, the amount of toner to be adhered to the charging roller is reduced, so the toner on the photoconductive drum, etc., is unlikely adhered to the charging roller. Therefore, the charging device with the close charging method is a superior charging device.
In a charging device with a close charging method described in JP H03-240076A and JP H04-358175A, spacer ring layers are attached to both end portions of a charging roller in order to maintain a gap between the charging roller and a photoconductive drum. However, in the charging device with this close charging method, since an accurate gap is not considered, the gap between the charging roller and the photoconductive drum is fluctuated by variations in the dimensional accuracy of the charging roller and spacer rings. Thereby, the charging potential of photoconductive drum is fluctuated. Therefore, toner is adhered to a white background when forming an image; thus, an image error is generated.
In order to solve the above problem, there has been proposed a charging device including tape-based space holding members each having a predetermined thickness (reference to JP2002-139893A). However, if the charging device including the tape-based space holding members is used for a extended period, the tape-based space holding members are worn away, or toner enters between the charging roller and the tape-based space holding members and is fixed therebetween. Thereby, the gap is not maintained between the surface of photoconductive drum and the surface of charging roller. Moreover, in the charging device including this tape-based space holding members, a highly accurate gap is not formed because of variations in the thickness of tape-based space holding members.
Consequently, the present inventors have proposed a charging member 210. As shown in FIG. 10, the charging member 210 comprises a conductive supporting body 201, an electric resistance adjusting layer 202 formed on the conductive supporting body 201, and space members 203, 203 formed in both ends of the electric resistance adjusting layer 202. Each of the space members 203, 203 comprises thermoplastic resin, which satisfies durometer hardness: HDD30-HDD70 and abrasion mass of taber type abrasion tester: 10 mg/1000 cycle or less (reference to JP2004-354477A).
This charging member 210 comprises a structure that the space members (space holding members) 203 are pressed into both end portions of the electric resistance adjusting layer 202. In this charging member 210, the space members 203 are formed in the end portions of electric resistance adjusting layer 202. Each of the space members 203 has contact with the end surface of the electric resistance adjusting layer 202 and the conductive supporting body 201. Therefore, long-period reliability is improved, compared to the tape-based space holding member. In addition, the gap can be accurately controlled by the simultaneously process (eliminating process) of the electric resistance adjusting layer 202 and the space members (space holding members) 203.
In such a charging member 210, the space members or space holding members 203 and the electric resistance adjusting layer 202 comprise a different material, each other, in consideration of fixing toner. However,. ionic conductive agent is used as resistance adjusting agent of the electric resistance adjusting layer 202, so the water-absorbing property of the electric resistance adjusting layer 202 is increased. Therefore, the electric resistance adjusting layer 202 absorbs moisture at high temperature and high moisture, and the measurement of electric resistance adjusting layer 202 is fluctuated. The space members 203 in the charging member 210 comprise olefin series resin, so the insulation property and toner fixing resistance are improved. However, this space members (space holding members) 203 have a small amount of measurement fluctuation at high temperature and high moisture, compared to the electric resistance adjusting layer 202. Therefore, the gap formed between the charging roller and image carrier at high accuracy is fluctuated by environmental fluctuation.
In order to solve such a problem, the present inventors have proposed a conductive member 310. As shown in FIG. 11, the conductive member 310 comprises a conductive supporting body 301, an electric resistance adjusting layer 302 formed on the conductive supporting body 301 and space holding members 303 disposed in both ends of this electric resistance adjusting layer 301. The electric resistance adjusting layer 302 comprises step portions or step portions having one step or more provided in the vicinity of both ends. The step portions are disposed in both ends direction, and the step portions having one step or more are disposed in the central direction. Each of the space holding members 303 has contact with two surfaces or more comprising the step portion of the electric resistance adjusting layer 302 to be fixed thereto (reference to JP2005-019517A).
However, in the conductive member 310, if a cutting process, grinding process and the like are performed onto the surfaces of thin space holding members 303, the space holding members 303 drop out of the electric resistance layer 302 or are deformed by the stress of the cutting tool. Therefore, the gap between the conductive member and the image carrier is fluctuated.

Conductive member, process cartridge having the same, and image forming apparatus having the process cartridge


At least one MOS transistor is produced by forming a dielectric region above a substrate and forming a gate over the dielectric region. The gate is formed to include a metal gate region. Formation of the metal gate region includes: forming a layer of a first material configured to reduce an absolute value of a threshold voltage of the transistor, and configuring a part of the metal gate region so as also to form a diffusion barrier above the layer of the first material. Then, doped source and drain regions are formed using a dopant activation anneal.

An MOS transistor, whether an NMOS or PMOS transistor, conventionally has source and drain regions as well as a gate insulated from the substrate by a dielectric region, commonly referred to by the person skilled in the art by the term "gate oxide".
Doped polysilicon has for a long time been used as a gate material, in particular for the 120 nm to 450 nm technology nodes. As a semiconductor material, its Fermi level is adjustable throughout the bandgap of silicon by implantation of dopants, which makes it possible to adjust the desired electrical characteristics, in particular the threshold voltage.
Originally, silicon dioxide (SiO2) was used as the gate oxide. With technical development, however, the thickness of the gate oxide is decreasing, the effect of which is to increase the tunneling leakage current. It has therefore been necessary to use a gate oxide with a higher dielectric permittivity. This is the reason why the gate oxide was firstly nitrided in order to become silicon oxynitride (SiON), which makes it possible to increase its dielectric constant.
However, transistors having polysilicon gates as well as gate oxides formed by SiON have a high leakage current associated with a phenomenon of depletion of the polysilicon, which leads to high threshold voltages for the transistors.
It was then envisaged to insert, between the silicon oxynitride and the polysilicon gate, a material with high permittivity (referred to as a "high-K" material) having dielectric constants K of more than 10.
This makes it possible to reduce the tunneling leakage current but leaves remaining the problem of the phenomenon of depletion of the polysilicon gate, therefore still leading to a high threshold voltage.
In order to reduce the threshold voltage of the transistor, it is then proposed, in particular for technology nodes of 28 nanometers and less, to replace the polysilicon gate with a metal layer of a "mid-gap" material, that is to say one whose work function lies substantially between the level of the conduction band of silicon and the level of the valence band of silicon.
There are principally two solutions for producing a metal gate.
A first solution consists in depositing the dielectric region/metal gate stack after production of the doped source and drain regions and the dopant activation anneal. This is a so-called "gate last" architecture, according to the terminology well known to the person skilled in the art.
This makes it possible to widen the range of possible metals having a high work function in order to adjust the characteristics of the device. On the other hand, such a manufacturing method is significantly more complex and the design rules of the circuits are more constringent.
Another solution consists in producing the metal gate before production of the doped source and drain regions and the dopant activation anneal. Such an architecture is referred to as "gate first", according to terminology well known to the person skilled in the art.
Such an architecture simplifies the manufacture and design of the circuits. However, it means that the gate/dielectric stack undergoes the dopant activation anneal at more than 1000° C. This is a major constraint which limits the choice of the materials. By way of nonlimiting example, the pairing TiN/HfSiON has been adopted for its thermal stability, titanium nitride having a work function of close to 4.6 eV when it is annealed at more than 1000° C.
Such a gate stack thus makes it possible to reduce the leakage current and avoid the phenomenon of depletion, which makes it possible to reduce the threshold voltage of the transistor.

Method for producing a metal-gate MOS transistor, in particular a PMOS transistor, and corresponding integrated circuit


A silver halide photographic light-sensitive material is disclosed, comprising a support having thereon at least one silver halide emulsion layer containing silver chloroiodobromide grains at a proportion of 60% or more of the entire projected area, the grain being a tabular grain which has a dislocation line, an aspect ratio of from 1.5 to 100, a multi-layer structure comprising a core and one or more shell layer in which the core and the shell are different in the halogen composition, said silver chloroiodobromide having a layer containing silver chloride.

Among silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials, a color photographic light-sensitive material, particularly a color reversal light-sensitive material which is often used by professional cameraman is in many cases used as an original for printing. As the digital technique proceeds in recent years, various image processing techniques have come to be easily available and relatively cheap printed matters obtained by greatly enlarging a trimmed original are increasing.
Under such circumstances, the color light-sensitive material in recent years is being continuously required to have still more higher image quality, particularly excellent sharpness.
In the field of light-sensitive materials using silver halide, it is known that the silver halide grain itself has light scattering characteristics and largely affects on the sharpness. A silver halide grain having a equivalent-sphere diameter of from 0.2 to 0.6 .mu.m particularly causes large scattering of visible light. For the purpose of improving this scattering, a so-called tabular emulsion having a grain size larger than the grain thickness is used. The production method of a tabular grain and the technique of using the grain are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,386,156, 4,504,570, 4,478,929, 4,414,304, 4,411,986, 4,400,463, 4,414,306, 4,439,520, 4,433,048, 4,434,226, 4,413,053, 4,490,458 and 4,399,215.
On the other hand, as a means for improving the sharpness from the silver halide emulsion side, a technique using development effects (interlayer effect and intralayer effect) is presented. Examples of this technique include a method of using a fogged emulsion in a light-sensitive emulsion layer disclosed in JAP-A-51-128528 (the term "JAP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"), a method of specifying (reducing) the emulsion layer structure and the iodide content in the emulsion to enhance the development effects disclosed in JAP-A-59-64843, and a method of using tabular grains and specifying the iodide content to enhance the development effects disclosed in JAP-A-62-18552.
These methods are certainly effective in increasing the development effects and improving the sharpness, which, however, imposes a serious restriction on the common technique of tabular grains where a high silver iodide layer is localized inside the grain to generate a dislocation line to thereby increase sensitivity or improve pressure property, as disclosed in JAP-A-63-220238.
Under these circumstances, development of a technique for increasing the sensitivity, enhancing the development effects and improving the sharpness using a tabular grain reduced in the light scattering-has been demanded.

Silver halide photographic light-sensitive material


This invention describes tiling structures, methods, and circuits for making large flat-panel displays from an array of microdisplays. The inventive displays overcome the intrinsic size limits of monolithic microdisplays and allow the construction of large area, low cost, high brightness, high contrast magnified view or rear projection flat panel displays having visually imperceptible seams and are optically uniform. A structure wherein multiple microdisplay tiles are mounted on a thermally matched common substrate having inherent temperature control features is described. Additional integrated circuits such as CMOS circuits may be embedded either in the back plane of the microdisplay tiles themselves and/or in the common substrate if the common substrate is made from a suitable semiconductor material. These circuits can provide functions such pixel addressing, image control, or even complete microprocessor functions within the flat-panel display assembly itself.

Microdisplays (.mu.D) are the most recent addition to the family of flat-panel displays. While .mu.Ds are based on a number of different techniques to generate or modulate light, all are based on the use of microfabrication technologies to produce a rectangular array of pixels on a semiconductor (usually silicon) back plane. Examples of .mu.Ds include liquid crystal displays (LCDs), field emission displays (FEDs), and digital micro-mirror displays (DMDs).
Pixels in .mu.Ds can be fabricated to have pitches in the range of 10 .mu.m.times.10 .mu.m to 20 .mu.m.times.20 .mu.m, which results in display array size of approximately 10.24 mm.times.7.68 mm having XGA resolution (1024.times.768 pixels) at 10 .mu.m pixel pitch.
Control, driver and image processing circuits may be embedded into the back plane. When viewed through a suitable magnifying lens, these .mu.D pixel arrays can be designed to appear to the human observer as equivalent to a desktop monitor (e.g., a 15" diagonal monitor) when viewed at distances of approximately twice the diagonal dimension. In these direct-view, magnified applications, .mu.Ds are suitable for use in such applications as portable televisions, compact discs, digital video discs (DVDs), personal digital assistant (PDA) applications and the like.
In contrast, when projected on the back side of a large screen through an optical system and viewed from the front, .mu.Ds may have the potential to produce images that rival conventional front screen projectors using polycrystalline LCDs. In this projection configuration, .mu.Ds may be used in applications such as large screen TVs, multi-user (multi-viewer) computers, multi-media, and home theaters.
However, many design problems have heretofore prevented the realization of this potential. For example, small reflective microdisplays generally have a rather low geometric efficiency, which makes high brightness, projected images difficult to achieve. Small microdisplays also force the use of small size arc lamps or special lamps that provide high luminous output at small source size in order to maintain geometric efficiency.
The construction of a typical reflective LCD .mu.D device is herein described and serves as a starting point for describing tiled .mu.D assemblies. The tiling structures, fabrication methods, and circuits for other reflective or emissive .mu.D displays are essentially the same and are therefore not described separately.
The back plane of a typical .mu.D is formed from a crystalline silicon chip which includes CMOS integrated circuits that have been fabricated using a typical SRAM process as is well known to those skilled in the art. Minimum feature sizes of about 1 .mu.m or less are typical on such chips. No significant difference in the fabrication process, compared to standard CMOS chips, occurs until the application of the upper levels of metal interconnect. Multi-layer Al/SiO.sub.2 metallization is still used, but the topmost metal layer forms a two-dimensional array of rectangular mirrors, each about 10-30 .mu.m on a side with a gap of about 1 .mu.m between each pair. These mirror elements serve as the pixels of the .mu.D, the topmost Al layer being polished to a mirror finish in order to serve as a highly effective optical mirror with a reflectivity generally larger than 80%. The gaps between the mirrors are filled with a dielectric material, typically SiO.sub.2, with a low optical reflectivity. Therefore, the mirror array forms the image plane of the microdisplay.
The ratio of the optically active area of each mirror to the entire area of the mirror plus any optically inactive areas, such as gaps, is called the aperture ratio. Typical .mu.D aperture ratios are on the order of 85%, which is much higher than is possible with direct view transmissive active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCDs). The metal layer immediately underneath the mirror surface forms light shields under the gaps that prevent light from reaching the light sensitive CMOS circuitry in the back plane. Each mirror element is connected to a CMOS driver circuit through single or multiple vias that provide the voltage to that particular pixel. The rest of the metal interconnect in/on the back plane is used for conventional addressing (e.g., matrix addressing) of the pixels and for regular circuit functions and services for the CMOS circuitry. The CMOS back plane can also contain some or all of the circuits needed for display addressing (e.g., row and column drivers for matrix addressing), control circuits, and any desired image processing circuits.
Given the CMOS back plane with mirror elements, the .mu.D is assembled as follows. A passivation layer and an LCD alignment layer are applied to the top of the mirror plane. A seal bead with a small fill port is next dispensed around the pixel array in the periphery using screen-printing or a dedicated dispensing system. Separately, a glass cover plate having on its lower side a conductive transparent electrode film (e.g., indium-tin-oxide (ITO)), and possibly another alignment layer for the LC material, is fabricated. Large area microfabrication techniques may be used to make arrays of cover plates, which may be scribed and broken into appropriate sizes. A common cover plate is placed on the seal, aligned to the CMOS back plane mirror array and then bonded to the seal bead. The display is next filled with a suitable liquid crystal material, such as twisted nematic liquid crystal (TN-LC) or ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) material. The fill port is then sealed. This liquid crystal fill may also contain spacer particles that are dispensed throughout the fill, unless spacers have optionally been fabricated on top of the mirror array. Alternatively, the well that is formed by the seal can be filled with liquid crystal before the formation of the seal between the back plane and a common cover plate. A polarizer film may be applied on the top surface of the common cover plate or placed elsewhere in the optical system.
Next, the .mu.D component is mounted on an interconnect substrate, usually flex, and connections are made from the edge of the CMOS back plane to the substrate. Finally, the .mu.D component is suitably encapsulated, thus providing environmental protection. Plastic encapsulation is typically used in consumer products. The resulting .mu.D modules produced in this manner are compact, lightweight, and relatively inexpensive.
The optical systems for use with .mu.Ds provides three separate functions: (a) providing light, (b) forming color, and (c) magnifying the image to the desired size. There are several ways to produce color. Most direct view transmissive AMLCDs form color by placing a color triad (e.g., red, green and blue) into each pixel, using white backlight and color filters. This is called the spatial color generation technique. Since this increases the pixel pitch by a factor of three, compared to a monochromatic pixel array, this technique is not preferred in .mu.Ds.
The second mechanism used to produce color is to use a separate display unit for each color and then to combine the colors into a single, final image. This so-called three channel approach is the favored technique in commercial, front-projection displays with polysilicon transmissive LCDs. However, in .mu.D applications, this approach may be acceptable only for large, rear projection systems.
In the third method, the mirror array is illuminated sequentially with different colors, one at a time, thus forming the proper color mix as a time average in the human vision system. This is called the field sequential approach. The sequential field colors can be formed from white light by using a three-color filter on a "color wheel"; or can be formed by three separate color light sources. In some magnified view .mu.Ds compound semiconductor solid state light emitting diodes are modulated to produce the field sequential illumination of the mirror array. Field sequential operation requires a pixel response time that is fast enough to resolve the illumination times. For example, at VGA resolution and a frame rate of 60 Hz, the pixel response time should be on the order of 30 .mu.s.
The magnification of the image can be accomplished using refractive or reflective lens assemblies that are well known and widely utilized in standard optical projection systems.
Consider as an illustration the characteristics of a .mu.D manufactured by Displaytech, a Longmont, Colo. based company. The VGA display has 640.times.480 pixels, a pixel pitch of 13 .mu.m, a pixel spacing of 1 .mu.m, FLC fill, an aperture ratio of 85%, a 85% mirror reflectance, field sequential 15 bit color (32,768 colors), a pixel array size of 8.32 mm.times.6.24 mm, and a 60 mW power consumption. The full display engine uses field sequential illumination from red, blue, and green LEDs, and a single external polarizer. The pixel response time is on the order of .mu.s, fast enough to support field sequential operation.
Although currently available .mu.Ds provide only VGA and SVGA resolutions, much higher resolution devices are anticipated in the future. Table I summarizes characteristics of higher resolution .mu.Ds that may be available. Two pixel pitches, 10 and 30 .mu.m, are given in this table, the 10 .mu.m pitch is representative of field sequential color and the 30 .mu.m pitch of spatial color. The rightmost column specifies the magnification factor for rear projector applications with a 40" screen diagonal. Similar numbers can be generated for magnified .mu.D applications.
TABLE I ______________________________________ Array Magnification Pixel Size to 40" Acronym Resolution Pitch (mm) Diagonal ______________________________________ VGA 640 .times. 480 30 .mu.m 19.2 .times. 14.4 41.8x 10 .mu.m 6.4 .times. 4.8 125x SVGA 800 .times. 600 30 .mu.m 24 .times. 18 33.4x 10 .mu.m 8 .times. 6 100.2x XGA 1024 .times. 768 30 .mu.m 30.1 .times. 23.0 26.6x 10 .mu.m 10.2 .times. 7.7 78.5x SXGA 1280 .times. 1024 30 .mu.m 38.4 .times. 30.7 20.9x 10 .mu.m 12.8 .times. 10.2 62.6x UXGA 1600 .times. 1200 30 .mu.m 48 .times. 36 16.7x 10 .mu.m 16 .times. 12 50.1x TBA 1800 .times. 1440 30 .mu.m 54 .times. 43.2 14.8x 10 .mu.m 18 .times. 14.4 44.5x ______________________________________
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a tiled, flat-panel display composed of microdisplays.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a tiled, flat-panel display composed of microdisplays and having visually imperceptible seams therebetween.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a tiled, flat-panel .mu.D display having the .mu.D tiles attached to a common substrate.
It is another object of the invention to provide a tiled, flat-panel .mu.D display having a semiconductor common substrate.
It is a still further object of the invention to embed control circuity in either the semiconductor back plane of the .mu.Ds or in the semiconductor common substrate, or both.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a common substrate which is thermally and mechanically matched to the thermal and mechanical characteristics of the individual .mu.D tiles.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide cooling structures as part of the tiled, flat-panel .mu.D structure to maintain the operating temperature of the display.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide heat-generating means in the display which, when coupled to appropriate temperature sensors and control circuitry, can dynamically maintain an essentially fixed temperature in the tiled, flat-panel .mu.D assembly.

Tiled, flat-panel microdisplay array having visually imperceptible seams


A method for updating a parameter of a model, a distributed training system, and an electric device are related to a field of deep learning technologies. The method includes: obtaining a batch training period of batch training data to be trained for a model; increasing priorities of tasks ranked at a bottom in a sequence of gradient communication tasks for parameters of the model when the batch training period is greater than or equal to a preset period threshold; and performing a communication of gradients of the parameters and updating the parameters based on priorities of the gradient communication tasks for the parameters in the model.

Presently, in a deep learning distributed training, a deep learning model is deployed on a plurality of training nodes. Full amount of training data is divided based on the number of training nodes, and each training node is assigned with a plurality of batches of batch training data. For each training node, after the deep learning model is trained with a batch of batch training data, a loss function is calculated, a gradient value of each parameter in the deep learning model is determined in combination with the loss function, and then the gradient value of the parameter is communicatively sent to other training nodes. In this way, each parameter at each training node is updated based on the gradient values of the parameters of all the training nodes.
In the above solution, there is a case where a same communication link is employed by a plurality of training tasks to send the gradient values of the parameters. If gradient values of parameters of a certain training task are transmitted continuously, the transmission of the gradient values of parameters of other training tasks may be affected, which may reduce a training speed and prolong a training period.

Method for updating parameter of model, distributed training system and electric device

BEIJING BAIDU NETCOM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


Detergent and/or cleaning compositions incorporating a wide range of surfactants derivable from new C.sub.9 -C.sub.15 detergent alcohols obtainable from Sasol.

The hydroformylation of olefins into aldehydes (oxo synthesis) was discovered by Roelen in 1938 and has thus long been known for the synthesis of fatty alcohols. Aldehydes made by hydroformylating long-chain olefins are readily hydrogenated into primary alcohols. See "Higher Oxo Alcohols", Lewis F. Hatch, Wiley, New York, 1957; and "New Syntheses with Carbon Monoxide", Ed. J. Falbe, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1980. Hydroformylation (including suitable catalysts) and the conventional conversion of the resulting alcohols into anionic surfactants such as alkyl sulphates and alkyl alkoxysulphates are also described in "Anionic Surfactants--Organic Chemistry", Volume 56 of the Surfactant Science Series, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1996, all the foregoing references hereby being incorporated in their entirety. Nonionic surfactants, such as the products of ethoxylating the alcohols, are also available using conventional ethoxylation. See "Nonionic Surfactants", Volume 1 of the Surfactant Science Series, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1966 and "Surface Active Ethylene Oxide Adducts", N. Schonfeldt, Pergamon Press, New York, 1969, these volumes and the enclosed references where pertinent being incorporated in their entirety.
Sasol manufactures olefins using Fischer-Tropsch technology which has been shown to be suitable for the manufacture of detergent alcohols, and thereby, a wide range of surfactants. The F-T process was developed since the late 1940's, and has been successfully implemented by Sasol under the trade name "Synthol" in the early 1960's. The Synthol technology is based on circulating fluidized bed (CFB) reactors.
The fixed bed F-T reactors are in operation since the successful startup of the plant in 1956. In 1957 the first mention is made of the use of Sasol feedstocks in LAB production. See "Sasol, 1950-1975", by Johannes Meintjies, Tafelberg, Cape Town, 1975, p 90; 92 (ISBN 0-624-00780-4).
Since the start of the F-T commercial units, research on both the process as well as the products has been undertaken. This led to the commercialisation of two new reactor types for the F-T reaction being the Sasol Advanced Synthol reactor (SAS) and the Slurry Bed F-T Reactor. This resulted in even better process efficiency at lower capital and operating cost.
All the F-T reactors produce a variety of valuable chemicals. One of the major product groups is olefins. Olefins produced include linear alpha olefins, mono-methyl branched alpha olefins, di- and tri-methyl branched alpha olefins and significantly lesser amounts of other branched and/or linear internal olefins. When the products of these reactors are worked up by distillation and/or other separations techniques and hydroformylated or oxydized by any similar technique, new detergent alcohol mixtures are obtained. The preferred method is separation via distillation and hydroformylation.
The same olefins can be produced using shorter chains of olefins C.sub.3 to C.sub.8 by adding, as a process step, dimerisation or oligomerization. Typically dimerisation of single carbon number fractions or mixtures thereof. Preferably a mixture of C.sub.7 to C.sub.9 or the single cuts C.sub.7 or C.sub.8 or C.sub.9. Oligomerization will typically be single carbon cuts or mixtures from C.sub.3, C.sub.4, C.sub.5, C.sub.6 that is oligomerized to C.sub.9 to C.sub.24.
These novel mixtures are technically advantageous when converted to various surfactants (some of the effects are described in an article called: "Fatty OXO-Alcohols: Relation between the alkyl chain structure and the performance of the derived AE, AS, AES" by A. Zatta et. al., World Surfactants Congress, 4.sup.th (1996), Volume 1, 213-226, CESIO), and economically attractive for the manufacturer of detergents. Also refer to WO 9701521 A1 published Jan. 16, 1997 assigned to Sastech, which is based on 95ZA-0005405 of Jun. 29, 1995. These documents are by means of reference incorporated herein in their entirety.
The detergent and cleaning products industries being old and well established, there are numerous publications on the use and incorporation of surface active agents (surfactants) in detergents. Among the many which can be cited are those referenced in Mc Cutcheon's well-known formulary and in Kirk Othmer's Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 1st-4th editions, volumes in the hereinbefore-referenced Surfactant Science Series, and large numbers of patents. Collections useful to the formulator further include "Detergent Manufacture Including Zeolite Builders and Other New Materials", Ed. Sittig, Noyes Data Corp., New Jersey, 1979, "Detergents and Textile Washing", G. Jakobi, A. Lohr et al, VCH Publishers, New York, 1987, and "Liquid Detergents", Volume 67 in the Surfactant Science Series, Ed. K-Y. Lai, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1997.
In the recent past, there has been an increasing desire from the manufacturer(s) of detergents to provide more soluble and cool-water effective cleaning compositions. This stems from the fact that in many countries, washing temperatures are on the decline. It is highly desirable to be able to clean fabrics and other articles in cool or cold water because of the energy economy, due to the large number of consumers who do not have access to convenient sources of hot water, and because cool water washing is less damaging and shrinking to fabrics. The greater use of more delicate synthetic fibers also contributed to the cooler washes. As has now been discovered, there is a very good "fit" between the need of the detergent manufacturer and what is now available from Sasol in the form of certain mixtures of methyl branched and some linear detergent alcohols as precursors for surfactant manufacture (especially methyl branched primary alcohols). Specifically, it is predicted from theory and observed behavior that methyl branching will enhance solubility of a surfactant without negatively affecting surfactant performance. A general rule for ionic surfactants is that the critical micelle concentration (cmc) is halved by the addition of one methylene group to a straight chain hydrophobic tail attached to a single hydrophilic group. See the hereinbefore-referenced Vol. 56 in the Surfactant Science Series.
One other desire from a manufacturing point of view is that detergents need to be less toxic and less irritating to the skin. These new detergent alcohols have the further advantages from a toxicity point of view as stated in "Environmental and Human safety of Major surfactants" by S. S. Talmage, pp 59,Chapter 4. This publication is hereby being incorporated in its entirety.
Specific work on the benefits of mono branched alcohols (this work includes methyl branching) versus linear alcohols is already demonstrated in the work of A. Zatta et al previously mentioned.
Accordingly it is an object herein to provide novel detergent surfactants derived from alcohol mixtures from hydroformylated F-T olefins such as those derived from all Sasol's F-T Reactors, and all manner of cleaning and detergent products making use of the advantageous properties of these materials.

Detergent and cleaning compositions derived from new detergent alcohols


An antenna combination includes a feed-through having an input side including a connector for coupling to a transmission line connector and an output side including an inner cavity attaching to an aperture in a top surface or a nozzle of a tank. A foam filled dielectric rod antenna is coupled to the output side of the feed-through having a nose portion including a sub-portion within the inner cavity and a rod-shaped portion from beyond the inner cavity to an antenna launch end. The rod-shaped portion includes an outer solid dielectric material including a thickness transition region, wherein a thickness of the solid dielectric material decreases toward the antenna launch end to a constant minimum thickness shell region that extends to the antenna launch end. The outer solid dielectric material defines an inner hollow region. A dielectric foam fill material fills the inner hollow region.

Rod antennas or horn antennas are generally used for microwave-based level measurement systems for products in containers or storage tanks, which can also be used measure interfaces between different dielectric materials. Rod antennas have a narrow and elongated configuration which are suitable for storage tanks having a small opening or flange size and a sufficient height for accommodating the antenna. Horn antennas are wider and shorter as compared to rod antennas. Advantages of horn antennas include moderate directivity (gain), a low standing wave ratio (SWR), broad bandwidth, and simple construction and adjustment.
Horn antennas are usually the antenna of choice for high pressure radar gauging. In the case of a small tank opening (<4 inch or 10.2 cm), horn antennas with such small diameters lack the gain and half-power beam width (HPBW) to generally meet required system accuracy. Hollow dielectric rod antenna are also known for high pressure radar gauging.


An apparatus for one of direct and indirect application of a coating medium onto a traveling fiber material web includes at least one doctor element for application and/or metering of the coating medium. At least one doctor element is formed of a carbon fiber material.

1. Field of the Invention.
The present invention relates to doctor blades, and, more particularly, to a doctor blade for leveling and/or metering a layer of liquid or viscous coating medium.
2. Description of the Related Art.
A doctor blade is used to level and/or meter coating medium onto a moving background. With direct application of the coating medium, a moving background is a material web, such as a paper or cardboard web. With indirect application, a moving background is the surface of a transfer element which transfers the coating medium onto the material web.
It is known for a doctor blade to be formed of materials such as high carbon spring steel, beryllium copper, stainless steel or fiberglass. A problem is that these materials have generally poor wear characteristics.
What is needed in the art is a doctor blade that has higher strength and better wear characteristics.
The present invention provides a doctor blade formed of a high strength composite material, such as carbon fiber. Also provided are various arrangements for positioning such a doctor blade relative to the moving background.
The invention comprises, in one form thereof, an apparatus for one of direct and indirect application of a coating medium onto a traveling fiber material web. At least one doctor element applies and/or meters the coating medium, and is formed of a carbon fiber material.
An advantage of the present invention is that, because of the higher strength and wear characteristics of the carbon fiber material, the doctor blade has a longer useful life.
Another advantage is that the doctor blade has better lubricity because of the carbon material.
Yet another advantage is that the position of the doctor blade relative to the moving background can be closely controlled.

Voith Sulzer Paper Technology North America, Inc.


A setting apparatus for making a setting to detect that a moving object in an image has passed a line set in the image accepts designation of one of a position and a partial region in an object region in the image, and makes a setting to detect that the designated position or partial region in the object region of the moving object in the image has passed the line set in the image.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a passage detection apparatus for an object in an image, and a setting apparatus and a method for passage detection.
Description of the Related Art
There is provided a technique of detecting an object in an image by performing image analysis. An object is detected from each frame image of a moving image using this technique, thereby performing object tracking on the moving image. Furthermore, as an application of the object tracking technique, a monitoring camera system or the like performs passage detection to determine whether an object has passed through a given region on an image plane.
For example, International Publication No. WO03/032622 discloses a technique of performing passage detection by analyzing, after a person in a captured image is segmented and a segmented image region overlaps a preset boundary line, whether the person has traversed in a designated direction.
As described above, if a segmented object has traversed in a designated direction, it can be detected that the object has passed. However, it is impossible to detect, with only this method, a case in which an object has gone beyond a designated boundary line. Furthermore, in this method, the timing when an apparatus determines that an object has passed may be different from the timing when the user wants to be notified that the object has passed.


A grease gun includes a tubular casing having a first end, a second end, and an interior cavity defined by interior sidewalls. A pump mechanism is positioned at the first end of the casing. A piston is disposed in the interior cavity in sliding contact with the interior sidewalls. A shaft is provided having a first end secured to the piston and a second end that extends past the second end of the casing. A ratchet mechanism is positioned at the second end of the casing which engages and imparts axial movement to the shaft to move the piston toward the first end of the casing. The ratchet mechanism applies sufficient pressure to force entrapped air from the grease gun.

A problem frequently encountered with grease guns is the entrapment of air in the grease. This entrapped air adversely effects the operation of the grease gun. The patent literature has numerous references to the problem, and a variety of solutions have been proposed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,144 which issued to Pressi in 1981 discloses a grease gun having a tubular casing with a threaded attachment cap. The inner thread of the attachment cap is cut away along a groove running in an axial direction. The groove serves as an air outlet, so that air can escape from the tubular casing through the groove when the attachment cap is not entirely screwed onto the tubular casing. When an air lock is experienced due to entrapped air, the attachment cap is loosened so that continued application of pressure to expel grease expels the unwanted air. The air outlet is made considerably smaller than the grease outlet so that during the expulsion of air as little grease as possible is expelled.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,404,967 which issued to Barry in 1995 discloses a grease gun that has two passageways in which are positioned pistons. The two passageways share a common outlet controlled by a ball valve. The pistons are mounted on a common piston mounting block and, consequently, move in unison. As the pistons move forward in unison, they push a predetermined quantity of grease through the common outlet. If air enters one of the two passageways, grease will continue to pass through the other of the two passageways to the common outlet, causing the ball valve to open and releasing the air lock.
The solution proposed by Pressi is workable and has come into commercial usage. When the grease gun user loosens the attachment cap to open the air passage, care must be taken not to loosen the attachment cap too much. If the attachment cap is too loose it will "pop" off the tubular casing when pressure is applied. When air bleeds off through the air passage, a quantity of grease often follows the air through the air passage making an unwanted mess.
The solution proposed by Barry is a complex and expensive solution to a relatively simple problem. Insufficient time has passed to determine whether the solution proposed by Barry will gain commercial acceptance.


A pressure bulkhead has a plurality of holes and divides a low-pressure chamber at low pressure in the vertical direction. A cooling-tube bank is located in an upper section of the low-pressure chamber and performs heat exchange with low-pressure steam guided to the low-pressure chamber by introducing coolant therein to condense the low-pressure steam to low-pressure steam condensate. A reheat chamber serves as a lower section of the low-pressure chamber and stores the low-pressure steam condensate falling from the holes in the pressure bulkhead. A high-pressure-steam introducing unit introduces high-pressure steam within a high-pressure chamber at high pressure to the reheat chamber. A plurality of plate members are parallel to each other below the pressure bulkhead and extend in a falling direction of the condensate falling from the holes in the pressure bulkhead.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to multistage pressure condensers used in steam turbine plants.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, in a steam turbine plant, steam that has driven the steam turbine is exhausted from the turbine so as to be guided to a condenser. The steam guided to the condenser exchanges heat with coolant guided to the condenser so as to be condensed into steam condensate. The steam condensate obtained in the condenser is heated via a heater and is supplied to a boiler. The heated steam condensate supplied to the boiler is turned into steam so as to be used as a driving source for the steam turbine.
In such a steam turbine plant, a multistage pressure condenser is used for achieving higher plant efficiency with increasing temperature of the steam condensate guided to the heater from the condenser, as well as for minimizing the amount of coolant used for the heat exchange performed in the condenser.
FIG. 5 schematically illustrates the configuration of, for example, a two-stage pressure condenser constituted of high-pressure and low-pressure condensers.
A low-pressure condenser 2 in a multistage pressure condenser 1 constituted of high-pressure and low-pressure condensers mainly includes a pressure bulkhead 4 that has multiple holes 8 and that partitions a low-pressure drum 3, in the longitudinal direction thereof, into upper and lower sections; a low-pressure cooling-tube bank 5 provided in the upper section of the low-pressure drum 3 and to which coolant is guided; and a reheat chamber 6 located in the lower section of the low-pressure drum 3.
Exhaust (low-pressure exhaust) guided to the upper section of the low-pressure drum 3 from a steam turbine (not shown) exchanges heat with the coolant guided to the low-pressure cooling-tube bank 5 so as to be condensed into low-pressure steam condensate. The low-pressure steam condensate is accumulated above the pressure bulkhead 4 so as to form a condensate pool 7. Since the pressure bulkhead 4 is provided with the plurality of holes 8, the low-pressure steam condensate falls toward the reheat chamber 6 from the condensate pool 7.
The reheat chamber 6 is connected to a steam duct 13 that guides the steam-turbine exhaust to the reheat chamber 6 of the low-pressure condenser 2 from the high-pressure condenser 22. Therefore, the low-pressure steam condensate falling into the reheat chamber 6 makes gas-liquid contact with high-pressure steam guided from the steam duct 13 so as to be reheated. The reheating efficiency becomes higher with increasing gas-liquid contact time between the reheated low-pressure steam condensate and the exhausted high-pressure steam.
In order to increase the gas-liquid contact time, the Publication of Japanese Patent No. 3706571 discloses providing a tray 9 for storing the low-pressure steam condensate falling into the reheat chamber 6 from the multiple holes 8 until the low-pressure steam condensate overflows therefrom, as shown in FIG. 5.
Furthermore, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2009-52867 discloses suspending an angle iron element, with its apex oriented upward, or a spiral element from the pressure bulkhead.
Moreover, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. Hei 11-173768 discloses suspending a cylindrical liquid film, extending in the longitudinal direction of the low-pressure drum, into the reheat chamber from the pressure bulkhead.
However, recently, there have been demands to further increase the gas-liquid contact time relative to the inventions disclosed in the Publication of Japanese Patent No. 3706571, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2009-52867, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. Hei 11-173768 so as to achieve higher reheating efficiency.
In the inventions disclosed in the Publication of Japanese Patent No. 3706571, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2009-52867, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. Hei 11-173768 and the case shown in FIG. 5, when the pressure difference between the high-pressure condenser 22 and the low-pressure condenser 2 increases (to, for example, 50 mmHg), the water level of the condensate pool 7 in the low-pressure condenser 2 rises, possibly causing the low-pressure cooling-tube bank 5 located above the pressure bulkhead 4 to become submerged in the condensate pool 7.
Therefore, FIG. 6 shows a measure taken to prevent the low-pressure cooling-tube bank (not shown) from being submerged in the condensate pool 7 by increasing the capacity of the condensate pool 7 by lowering a part 4a of the pressure bulkhead 4 in the low-pressure condenser 2 by, for example, about 50 cm toward the reheat chamber 6. However, if the part 4a of the pressure bulkhead 4 is lowered toward the reheat chamber 6 in this manner, the distance from the part 4a of the pressure bulkhead 4, having the multiple holes 8, to the tray 9 becomes shorter, which is a problem in that the gas-liquid contact time between the falling low-pressure steam condensate and the high-pressure steam becomes shorter, resulting in reduced reheating efficiency.
On the other hand, if the low-pressure cooling-tube bank is provided above and away from the condensate pool without lowering the aforementioned part of the pressure bulkhead toward the reheat chamber, the overall size of the condenser would increase.

Multistage pressure condenser and steam turbine plant equipped with the same


The present invention provides a method for preparing an ion optical device. A substrate is fabricated with a hard material adapted for a grinding process, the substrate at least including a planar surface, and including at least one insulating material layer. Next, one or more linear grooves are cut on the planar surface, to form multiple discrete ion optical electrode regions on the planar surface separated by the linear grooves. Then, conductive leads are fabricated on other substrate surfaces than the planar surface and in a through hole inside the substrate, to provide voltages required on ion optical electrodes. By using high-hardness materials in cooperation with high-precision machining, higher precision and a desired discrete electrode contour can be obtained.

In order to fabricate an ion optical device capable of forming a certain electric field distribution in a space, it is often necessary to machine an ion optical lens with a complex surface. By taking a two-dimensional linear ion trap as an example, its main body usually requires two pairs of quadrupole field electrodes (refer to PCT Application Publication No. WO2003/067623 A1) with a hyperbolic cylindrical surface. In order to avoid difficulty in machining the quadrupole field electrodes with the hyperbolic cylindrical surface, a manner of using a planar structure to replace a curved structure is also proposed, for example, US20040135080A1. In order to improve field perfection, a Chinese Patent with Patent No. ZL200410024946 describes a planar linear ion trap mass analyzer constructed with a printed circuit board. Such a two-dimensional linear ion trap consists of a main body portion and end caps at two ends of the main body portion.
FIG. 1 is a structural view of a typical two-dimensional linear ion trap. A slot 4 on a main body portion 2 is used for ion extraction. In use, a Direct Current (DC) voltage applied to the two end caps 1 and 3 is higher than that applied to the main body portion 2, and in addition, an RF voltage varying with time is further applied to the main body portion 2, for the purpose of generating a quadrupole filed inside the linear ion trap. When an ion (a positive ion is taken as an example) meets a quadrupole stability condition, a Radio Frequency (RF) electric field applied perpendicular to an axial direction of the ion trap and a DC electric field applied parallel to the axial direction of the ion trap are bound, and mass analysis also can be performed at this time, so as to achieve the purpose of ion storage and ion analysis.
A substrate typically used for a printed circuit is an FR4 type epoxy resin fiberboard, and the material will release various gases adsorbed in a vacuum environment, which is not suitable for a vacuum environment where the ion trap works (the vacuum degree reaches 10−1-10−4 Torr). Moreover, for such a material, processes of photolithography and corrosion of metal coatings on the surface of the printed circuit board are often used to make discrete electrodes having high symmetry. FIG. 2A to FIG. 2C illustrate three adverse consequences possibly generated through the above corrosion process. The corrosion process defines that the corrosion depth may not be very deep, which means, the grooves with depth-to-width ratio (aspect ratio) larger than or equal to one could not be easily fabricated or accurately controlled. Therefore either it may result in that the corrosion time is too long to undermine morphology of a metal electrode 5, as shown in FIG. 2A or the corrosion depth is too shallow so that an electrode player with a depth more than 0.2 mm cannot be made on the surface, which results in that a charge 6 is easily accumulated in regions between the discrete electrodes 5 during use of the device, as shown in FIG. 2B, and the accumulated charge 6 easily forms an electric field in a space other than the electrode surface, causing distortion of the quadrupole field inside the ion trap, and affecting ion trap mass analysis capability. Even if appropriate depth and width parameters can be found, as concentration of a corrosive liquid will become smaller with change of time in a region where it contacts with metal, the corrosion speed becomes slow with change of time, with the consequence that the morphology of the corroded metal electrode 5 is trapezoidal, as shown in FIG. 2C. Situations shown in FIG. 2A and FIG. 2C all may cause deterioration of position accuracy and collimation of the electrode pattern, and affect field distribution in the trap, thereby adversely affecting transmission or analysis performance of the ion optical device.
There are other methods used for fabricating isolated electrodes. In TW200733149A the author disclosed a method for preparing a kind of chip resistor, in which transverse separated lines parallel to each other could be generated one by one using separated linear cutting. These lines could be also cut the component surface into certain depth to form electrodes which may be separated as well. Using this method, separated electrodes described in patent CN1838371 could be fabricated. However, the previous cutting method can only fabricate full planar electrodes and can not realize highly accurate electrodes formation, such as less than 5 microns in tolerance. Also, the integrated error from each cutting will further enlarge the inaccuracy. In precise ion optics as mass analyzer or mobility analyzer, the insulator on the planar will cause surface charge problem, and better tolerance must be guaranteed in order to obtain excellent mass analysis performances, especially for planar quadrupole and ion trap analyzers.

Method for manufacturing ion optical device

SHIMADZU RESEARCH LABORATORY (SHANGHAI) CO. LTD.


An exhaust pipe structure including paired separate exhaust pipes configured so that the paired separate exhaust pipes are supported in a vehicle provided horizontally in a manner such that a vertical load is applied from a first exhaust pipe, by a moment that turns the first exhaust pipe about an axis connecting two support members of the first exhaust pipe due to a weight of the first exhaust pipe, to a universal joint, and a vertical load is applied from a second exhaust pipe, by a moment that turns the second exhaust pipe about an axis connecting two support members of the second exhaust pipe due to a weight of the second exhaust pipe, to the universal joint. The vertical loads are approximately the same magnitude and act in opposite directions to combine to be substantially zero.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure of an exhaust pipe connected to an internal combustion engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, vibrations generated by the internal combustion engine in operation are transmitted to the exhaust pipe connected to the internal combustion engine. A load caused by these vibrations is thus imposed on the exhaust pipe, which disadvantageously lowers durability and reliability of the exhaust pipe. In addition, the vibrations are transmitted through a support member for the exhaust pipe to a vehicle body, causing undesirable noise and vibrations in the vehicle interior. Therefore, in order to suppress transmission of exhaust pipe vibrations or absorb the vibrations, a widely used exhaust pipe structure has: an exhaust pipe including plural separate exhaust pipes connecting in series to join an exhaust manifold of the internal combustion engine; and a universal joint, such as spherical joint, used for connecting the separate exhaust pipes to allow them to bend flexibly at the joint. An example of this type of exhaust pipe structure is shown in Japanese patent application publication JP-A-2002-160536. The exhaust pipe includes a first exhaust pipe, a second exhaust pipe, and a tail pipe, the first and second exhaust pipes being joined by a spherical joint. The exhaust pipe thus formed inhibits transmission of vibrations from the internal combustion engine to the exhaust pipe. This improves durability and reliability of the exhaust pipe, while suppressing undesirable noise or vibrations in the vehicle interior.
The aforementioned exhaust pipe structure is designed such that the exhaust pipe is provided with heavy components, such as a muffler and a catalytic converter, imposing a load on the universal joint connecting the separate exhaust pipes. This can cause the exhaust pipe to be displaced from its normal position in the static state. When the vehicle travels off-road or over an uneven road surface, the exhaust pipe, supported at the position out of the normal mounting position, can be excessively displaced beyond the allowance range. Thus, the exhaust pipe tends to interfere with peripheral components. Preferably, the exhaust pipe is supported at a position adjacent to the universal joint, so that the exhaust pipe is prevented from being displaced from the normal position. Nonetheless, supporting the exhaust pipe in this preferred manner is sometimes difficult mainly due to insufficient body strength at the position adjacent to the universal joint. As described above, which part of the exhaust pipe to be supported and where to locate the universal joint depend on constraints of the vehicle body, such as body structure. This could result in difficulty in supporting the exhaust pipe at its normal position in the static state.