This invention teaches stress release metal electrodes for gate, drain and source in a field effect transistor and stress release metal electrodes for emitter, base and collector in a bipolar transistor. Due to the large difference in the thermal expansion coefficients between semiconductor materials and metal electrodes, significant strain and stresses can be induced in the devices during the fabrication and operation. The present invention provides metal electrode with stress release structures to reduce the strain and stresses in these devices.

In electronic circuits, devices in the forms of bipolar junction transistor (BJT), heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT), metal semiconductor field effect transistor (MESFET), metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET), pseudomorphic high electron mobility field effect transistor (pHEMT) and metamorphic high electron mobility field effect transistor (mHEMT) are used for switching and amplification, whereas devices in the forms of p-n junction and Schottky junction are used as rectifiers. The semiconductors for the above devices may be selected from a group of Si, Si/Ge, GaAs, InGaAs, GaN, InGaN, AlInN and etc. For high power applications, the above-mentioned devices are operated at high current densities and the un-wanted joule heating in the semiconductor regions and interfaces between the semiconductor and metal electrodes is high. The un-wanted joule heating leads to an increase in the temperature of the devices and circuits. Take GaN HEMTs as an example, the local channel temperature can be as high as 500-1000 K at a bias voltage of 20 V. In addition to the variation of temperatures during the operation, the devices and circuits may go through heating process during the fabrication and after the metal electrodes have been deposited.
It is noted that for the formation of metal electrodes, the selection of materials is determined by the following considerations: [1] low electrode resistance, [2] good adhesion, [3] low thermal diffusion, and [4] good stability. Due to these requirements, materials for forming metal electrodes in electronic devices are limited. For III-V compounds, various metals such as Ti, Al, Au, Ge, Ni, Pd, Zn, W and their combinations have been developed for both ohmic electrodes and Schottky electrodes. For Si based devices and circuits, materials for metal electrodes are often selected from a group of W, WSi2, Ti, TiN, Cu, Al, TaSi2, TiSi2, etc.
As shown in Table 1, although the above-described materials are suitable for forming low resistance electrodes to the semiconductors listed, their thermal expansion coefficients are substantially larger than that of the semiconductors in the list. Therefore, during the fabrication or operation when the temperatures are raised, there is more severe expansion of the metal electrodes on the semiconductor substrate than that of the semiconductor, causing tensile stresses in the semiconductors and the interfaces. Contrarily, when the temperatures are reduced, the shrinkage of the metal electrodes is more severe than that of the semiconductors, causing a compressive stresses in the semiconductors and the interfaces. Microscopic defects are often formed in semiconductors due to these strain and stresses. The formation of these microscopic defects may lead to performance degradation and lifetime reduction in the devices.
TABLE 1Thermal expansion coefficients of some materialsCoefficientCoefficientMaterial(×10−6/K)Material(×10−6/K)GaAs5.73Au14.1InGaAs5.05Cu17InP4.6Ti9Ge5.6Ni13Si3.2Al23 (12.9)GaN4AlN4.5InN3Alumina6-7Sapphire4.5Silicon carbide3.2Epoxy Resin10-100
For power devices operated at high frequencies, the power density can not be easily reduced due to the limitation of phase delay. A typical power density is 1 W per mm length of the metal electrodes for GaAs-based devices. Such high power density will cause elevated temperatures in the channel layers. Take HEMTs for power application as an example, the GaAs-based semiconductor channel temperature can rise to 150° C. whereas the ones based on GaN can be more than 200° C. Formation of microscopic defects in the semiconductor channels caused by strain and stresses is therefore inevitable during fabrication and operation, especially for power devices.

Stress release structures for metal electrodes of semiconductor devices


A method for navigating between display layers is applied in a display device. The display device includes a touch screen and a display panel. The method includes following steps of determining a target display layer according to whether a pinching gesture or an expanding gesture is performed. When the expanding gesture is performed, expanding a distance between relevant columns or rows of icons currently displayed to reveal icons on the target display layer, and visually compressing formerly-displayed icons to two opposite edges of the display panel during the expanding gesture. When the pinching gesture is performed, narrowing a distance between columns or rows of icons on the target display layer which are introduced respectively from the two opposite edges to cover columns and rows of old icons, and visually expanding the newly-introduced icons during the pinching gesture.

Many electronic devices provide a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows users to interact with the various functionalities provided by the electronic device. The GUI employs a number of icons displayed on a number of screens. The icons may be program icons that allow a user to select and execute an application or functionality in the electronic device, such as opening a web browser, starting an email application, playing a game or other types of functionality. A user will navigate between different screens using a touch gesture such as a swipe so as to view and select an icon displayed on a different screen.

Display device and method for navigating between display layers thereof


An NFS server, an NFS server control program and an NFS control method can reduce the extended lock reacquisition period. The NFS server comprises a prior-to-restart lock acquiring client information recording section for recording the identifiers of the NFS clients that have acquired locks before a restart of the NFS server and the number of the first files that is the number of files for which locks have been acquired, a lock acquiring client information recording section for recording the identifiers of the NFS clients that have reacquired locks after the restart of the NFS server and the number of the second files that is the number of files for which lock have been reacquired and an NSM that ends the reception of any lock reacquisition request from any of the NFS clients when the number of the second files of all the NFS clients acquired by the prior-to-restart lock acquiring client information recording section becomes equal to the number of the first files.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an NFS server, an NFS server control program and an NFS server control method that can suitably be used for an NFS (network file system).
2. Description of the Related Art
To begin with, a known NFS will be described in terms of configuration.
FIG. 3 of the accompanying drawings is a schematic block diagram of a known NFS server, illustrating the configuration and the operation of a lock acquisition process thereof. The illustrated NFS comprises an NFS client 1 and an NFS server 102. The NFS client 1 by turn comprises an application 11, an NLM (network lock manager) 12, an NSM (network status monitor) 13, a lock acquiring server information recording section 14. The NFS server 102 comprises an NLM 122, an NSM 123 and a lock acquiring client information recording section 124. The lock acquiring server information recording section 14 is a nonvolatile recording apparatus for recording a list of the names of the hosts of the NFS server that is acquiring a lock. The lock acquiring client information recording section 124 is also a nonvolatile recording apparatus for recording a list of the names of the hosts of the NFS client that is acquiring a lock.
When the application 11 of the NFS client 1 acquires the lock of a file of the NFS server 102, it executes a lock acquisition process. When the NFS server 102 is restarted for a takeover, for instance, it executes a lock reacquisition process for the file for which the NFS client 1 had acquired the lock before the restart.
Now, the operation of a lock acquisition process of the known NFS will be described below.
Firstly, the application 11 of the NFS client 1 transmits a directive (fcnt1 ( ) system call) for a lock acquisition request to the NLM 12 (S11). Upon receiving the directive, the NLM 12 transmits a directive for recording in the lock acquiring server information recording section 14 to the NSM 13 along with the names of the hosts of the NFS server 102, to which the lock acquiring request is addressed (S12). Upon receiving the directive for recording, the NSM 13 records the names of the hosts of the NFS server 102, if the names have not been recorded yet, in the lock acquiring server information recording section 14 (S13) and returns a response to the directive for recording to the NLM 12 (S14). Upon receiving the response, the NLM 12 transmits a lock acquisition request to the NFS server 102 (S15).
Upon receiving the lock acquiring request, the NLM 122 of the NFS server 102 acquires the lock according to the lock acquisition request and transmits a directive for recording the acquired lock in the lock acquiring client information recording section 124 to the NSM 123 along with the names of the hosts of the lock acquisition requesting NFS client 1 (S21). Upon receiving the directive for recording, the NSM 123 records the names of the hosts of the NFS client 1, if the names have not been recorded yet, in the lock acquiring client information recording section 124 (S22) and returns a response to the directive for recording to the NLM 122 (S23). Upon receiving the response, the NLM 122 transmits a lock response to the NFS client 1 (S24). Upon receiving the lock response, the NLM 12 of the NFS client 1 returns a response to directive of the lock acquisition request to the application 11 (S25) and ends the lock acquisition process.
Thereafter, as long as the NFS client 1 holds the acquired lock, the NFS server 102 keeps the recorded names of the hosts of the NFS client 1, whereas the NFS client 1 keeps the recorded names of the hosts of the NFS server 102.
If the NFS server is restarted typically at the time when a takeover of the NFS server occurs in the NFS having a cluster configuration, the NFS server has forgotten the details of the lock and hence requests the NFS client to reacquire the lock that had been acquired before the restart.
Now, the operation for the lock reacquisition process of the known NFS will be described below.
FIG. 4 is a schematic block diagram of the known NFS server, illustrating the configuration and the operation of a lock reacquisition process thereof. In FIG. 4, the reference symbols same as those of FIG. 3 respectively indicate the objects same as or equivalent to those of FIG. 3 and hence will not be described here any further.
In order to prevent the lock of the file that the NFS client is trying to reacquire from being acquired by some other NFS client, an extended lock reacquisition period (normally about 45 seconds), which is a fixed period, is predefined in the NLM 12. After the restart of the NFS server 102, the NLM 122 starts the extended lock reacquisition period and receives only lock reacquisition requests in this period and does not receive any ordinary lock acquisition request.
Firstly, the NSM 123 of the NFS server 102 reads in the contents of the lock acquiring client information recording section 124 and acquires the names of the hosts (S31), the locks of which had been acquired before the restart. Then, it transmits a notification indicating that the lock needs to be reacquired (SM_NOTIFY) to the NFS client 1 (S32) and deletes the information on the NFS client 1 in the lock acquiring client information recording section 124 (S33).
Upon receiving the notification, the NSM 13 of the NFS client 1 transmits a directive for a lock reacquisition request to the NLM 12 (S34). Upon receiving the directive for a lock reacquisition request, the NLM 12 transmits a lock reacquisition request to the NFS server 102 according to the directive (S35). A lock acquisition request and a lock reacquisition request has a same message format and if the reclaim flag contained in the message is No, it indicates a lock acquisition request but, if the reclaim flag contained in the message is Yes, it indicates a lock reacquisition request.
Upon receiving the lock reacquisition request from the NFS client during the extended lock reacquisition period, the NLM 122 of the NFS server 102 determines if it is a lock reacquisition request or not. If it is a lock reacquisition request, the NLM 122 reacquires the lock and transmits a directive for recording in the lock acquiring client information recording section 124 to the NSM 123 along with the names of the hosts of the lock reacquisition requesting NFS client 1 (S41). During the extended lock reacquisition period, the NLM 122 determines if it is a lock reacquisition request or not according to the reclaim flag of the received message and executes the processing step of S41 if the received message shows a lock reacquisition request (reclaim flag=Yes) but returns an error message to the NFS client who sent the lock acquisition request if the received message shows a lock acquisition request (reclaim flag=No).
Upon receiving the directive for recording, the NSM 123 records the names of the hosts of the NFS client 1 in the lock acquiring client information recording section 124 (S42) and returns a response to the directive for recording to the NLM 122 (S43). Upon receiving the response, the NLM 122 transmits a response to the lock reacquisition request to the NFS client 1 (S44). Upon receiving the response, the NLM 12 of the NFS client 1 transmits a directive for recording in the lock acquiring server information recording section 14 to the NSM 13 along with the names of the hosts of the NFS server 102, to which the lock acquisition request is addressed (S45). Upon receiving the directive for recording, the NSM 13 records the names of the hosts of the NFS server 102 in the lock acquiring server information recording section 14 (S46) and returns a response to the directive for recording to the NLM 12 (S47).
Thereafter, upon receiving a lock reacquisition request from the NFS client, the NLM 122 executes the processing steps of S41 through S47. In the processing step of S41, the NLM 122 determines if the extended lock reacquisition period has elapsed or not and, when the extended lock reacquisition period ends, it terminates the lock reacquisition process. Thereafter, the NLM 122 receives an ordinary lock acquisition request for a lock acquisition process.
As a prior art system that is associated with the present invention, clustering systems having an interface section that is adapted to be driven by a battery and transfer management data to a second server machine when a trouble occurs in a first server machine so that the second server machine continues the service according to the management data are known (see, for example, Patent Document 1: Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-44310).
However, as the time that needs to be spent for starting a node of a cluster has been reduced and NFS clients have been improved so as to operate at high speed in recent years, the above described extended lock reacquisition period has become too long. Additionally, the time period necessary for reacquiring a lock varies depending on the system and the situation, it is has become difficult for the person who manages the NFS to appropriately predefine the extended lock reacquisition period.

NFS server, NFS server control program and NFS server control method


In a portable terminal having a photographic function for receiving photographic light from a camera subject and obtaining image data, the portable terminal comprises an optical member receiving photographic light from the camera subject, and a cover member mounted on a slidable basis. The cover member selectively opens and shuts to cover said optical member in accordance with a sliding operation. The cover member has a mirror on a surface of the cover member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable terminal and a portable telephone, which have a photographic function for receiving photographic light from a camera subject and obtaining image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as computer technology advances, portable terminals come into wide use. Of the portable terminals, a portable telephone and a PHS (Personal Handyphone System), (which will be referred to as portable telephones, hereinafter), for performing a radio communication between those and a base station explosively come into wide use. As a popular machine type of the present portable telephones, there is raised a machine type incorporating thereinto a camera.
By the way, Japanese Patent Publication TokuKai. 1998-268386 discloses a camera having a mirror for oneself photography. On the other hand, also in a portable telephone incorporating thereinto a camera there is known a portable telephone having a mirror for oneself photography.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the conventional portable telephone incorporating a camera.
A portable telephone 9 shown in FIG. 1 is a folding type of telephone folding up. The portable telephone 9 shown in FIG. 1 incorporates thereinto a camera. A transparent camera panel covers a photographic lens of the camera. The photographic lens is not illustrated in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows the portable telephone 9 in a state that it folds. On a surface of the portable telephone 9 in this state, there are provided an antenna 91 for communications, apertures 92 from which a terminating sound emanates, a sub-display 93 provided in addition to a main display (not illustrated), the above-mentioned transparent camera panel, or a camera panel 94, and a mirror 95 for oneself photography provided in the vicinity of the camera panel 94. To take a picture of one's own face by oneself using such a portable telephone 9, an operator has the portable telephone 9 at the ready in such a manner that the photographic lens turns toward oneself, confirms composition of a photograph in view of the mirror image reflected in the mirror 95, and depresses a shutter button (not illustrated). Then, an image representative of one's own face at the time of the depression of the shutter button is taken into the portable telephone 9 in form of image data.
However, sticking of stains such as dust and fingerprints to the camera panel 94 covering the photographic lens makes it difficult to take a clear picture, even in the event that a picture of any thing including one's own face is taken. The camera panel 94 of the portable telephone 9 shown in FIG. 1 is always exposed, and thus it is easy that a stain sticks to the camera panel 94. For this reason, when a user operates the portable telephone 9 shown in FIG. 1, the user has to take a care so that no stain sticks to the camera panel 94. Thus, the operability is lowered. Further, there is a possibility that a stain sticks to the camera panel 94 at the time of carrying and keeping. For this reason, it may happen that prior to starting the photographic operation a work to remove a stain sticking to the camera panel 94 has to be performed. This work also makes the operability to be lowered.
Further, the wide use of such a portable telephone with a camera makes it possible for anyone to easily take a picture around. On the other hand, it is difficult for those around one to determine whether an operator of the portable telephone performs a photographic operation or another operation. In the event that the operator happens to operate the portable telephone in a telephone mode turning toward a person, there is a possibility of arousing the person's suspicion about sneakingly taking a shot of the person.
Japanese Patent Publication TokuKai. 2001-309003 discloses a portable telephone with a camera having a cover member covering a photographic lens, which cover member opens and shuts selectively. The portable telephone disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication TokuKai. 2001-309003 has no camera panel for covering a photographic lens. The photographic lens is disposed at the closest one to the camera subject side, of parts of a photographic optical system of the portable telephone. Here, the one disposed closest to the camera subject side, of parts of the photographic optical system, is referred to as an optical member. According to the portable telephone disclosed in this Japanese Patent Publication, a cover member can cover the optical member at the time of nonuse of the camera. Thus, a possibility that a stain sticks to the optical member is reduced. Further, covering the optical member by the cover member removes arousing one's suspicion about a candid shot.
However, the portable telephone disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication TokuKai. 2001-309003 is not provided with the mirror 95 as shown in FIG. 1. On the other hand, Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3064740 discloses a portable telephone with no camera having a mirror and a cover for covering the mirror, which cover opens and shuts selectively.
In view of the above, it is considered that technology of the cover member disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication TokuKai. 2001-309003 is applied to the portable telephone 9 shown in FIG. 1. By the way, it is preferable that the mirror for oneself photography is disposed in the vicinity of an optical member as much as possible in order to reduce a discrepancy in one's eye at the time of oneself photography as much as possible. According to the portable telephone 9 shown in FIG. 1, the mirror 95 is disposed in the vicinity of the optical member. Thus, when it is intended that technology of the cover member disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication TokuKai. 2001-309003 is applied to the portable telephone 9 shown in FIG. 1, there occurs necessity that an open and shut mechanism for a cover member is arranged with a specific mechanism in such a manner that when the cover member is opened it is prevented that the cover member covers the mirror. This brings about degradation of operability of an open and shut operation of the cover member.
Provision of the cover member makes it possible to prevent a stain from sticking to the optical member when the cover member covers the optical member. This may improve the operability of the open and shut operation of the cover member. However, regardless of the existence of the mirror, even if the cover member is provided on a portable telephone with a camera, the optical member exposes at the time of photography. Thus, there remains a possibility that a stain sticks to the optical member. For this reason, there is obliged such a work that prior to the start of the photographic operation a stain sticking to the optical member is removed, which work involves degradation of operability.

Portable terminal and portable telephone having a camera and lens cover


According to some embodiments, a multi-panel door system includes a fixed panel and an active panel. Both panels are secured to the astragal of the door frame by securement members driven into and through hinges connected to the active panel, through the astragal, and into the fixed panel. The securement members are driven through a middle portion of the astragal stem in order to align the fixed and active panels in a recessed position with respect to the door frame. The fixed panel and the active panel are coplanar. Hinge support plates are placed between the hinges and the astragal and communicate forces transmitted through the securement members into deeper portions of the astragal.

Panels in many multi-panel door systems are offset, i.e., the outer or inner surfaces of the panels do not align within a plane. In addition, in many door systems the panels are recessed with respect to the door frame using fixed stops physically placed between the panels and the frame. The fixed stops are secured to the interior facing surfaces of the frame to secure the panels in their recessed positions. Replacing the panels in these systems is difficult and cumbersome.


A device for the magnified viewing of an object, from which object rays originate, includes a lens system (1) for collecting object rays. In one embodiment of the invention, the device includes: a display (2) from which display rays (14) originate, and; a left eyepiece (3) and a right eyepiece (3), via which a left-eye and right-eye beam (5 and 6) of visual field rays are projected into the left and right eye of a user of the device. According to this inventive embodiment, an optical component (7, 8, 9, 10, 11) is provided with a physical ray distributing surface (12) on which a beam of collected object rays (13) and a beam of display rays (14) can be superimposed and can be divided up into the left-eye beam and right-eye beam (5, 6) of the visual field rays. This enables a reduction in losses of display rays and object rays.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to devices for the magnified viewing of an object, comprising an objective, a left eyepiece and a right eyepiece.
2. Description of the Background Art
Such optically magnifying devices, for example conventional binoculars or professional microscopes, have one eyepiece each for each eye of a user in order to permit viewing of an object over a prolonged period without premature fatigue. In contrast to a monocular telescopic sight, for example, a target object a long distance away can, if required, also be viewed for hours in an ergonomic manner. Such an optically magnifying device can also be provided with a display by means of which an image can be made available to the user, optionally also during the magnified viewing of the object. This image may be, for example, a thermal image of the object, a night vision image or an image having a represented measured value. Accordingly, prolonged viewing of the display without premature fatigue is also possible only via two eyepieces.
The two eyepieces of such devices must be formed in a manner known per se so as to be movable relative to one another in order to be able to adapt the spacing of the eyepieces to the individual eye spacing of the viewer. A left-eye and right-eye beam of optical rays can be projected into the left and right eye of the user via the left eyepiece and right eyepiece, respectively. These beams must correspond to one another in a manner known per se within narrow optical tolerances in order to avoid causing the user a headache on prolonged viewing. If the entry area for object rays emanating from the object is dimensioned to be appropriately large and transmission losses caused by the device are kept small, the projected visual field rays have an intensity which permits prolonged viewing of a distant object even under less optimal light conditions.
Hand-held devices in the form of conventional binoculars which are intended for viewing a distant object have a left-eye and a right-eye direct vision system having in each case an objective, an image inversion system and an eyepiece. As a rule, both direct vision systems are designed to be optically identical and are connected to one another via a folding mechanism. This permits in a simple manner the required mobility of the eyepieces with simultaneous compliance with the narrow tolerances with respect to the parallelism of the optical axes of the two direct vision systems and the optical imaging of the two separate beams. In this way, it is possible to realise light and robust devices for convenient viewing of distant objects, which devices can be held by the user himself in his hand and can be carried to the place of use. When provided with high-quality direct vision optical systems, they can also be used under less optimal light conditions, for example in twilight.
Since, when viewing a distant object using binoculars, information about the distance thereof relative to the user is often also of interest different measuring sensors, for example distance meters and/or magnetic compasses are integrated in so-called measuring binoculars. DE 37 04 848 A1 discloses such measuring binoculars in which measured values shown on a display are input via a physical beam splitter surface into the left-eye direct vision system and made available to the user during viewing of the distant object. At the physical beam splitter surface, rays collected by the objective are inevitably lost during such input, at least from the wavelength range of the input rays. This is disadvantageous particularly in the case of polychromatic displays. In addition, a part of the rays emanating from the display is also inevitably lost at the same physical beam splitter surface. Since the major part of the energy demand of such measuring binoculars is now due to the display, input losses of display rays additionally aggravate the energy supply problem present as a rule in the case of such portable devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,165 discloses computerised binoculars having two separate direct vision systems which have a digitally actuatable screen display with a multiplicity of pixels. By means of these, not only measured values but also recorded or computer-generated images can be projected into one of the two beam paths of the binoculars and optionally superimposed on a direct vision image. If a recorded and displayed image of the same object is to be superimposed on a direct vision image of an object, the precision of such a superimposition must meet high requirements so that the user does not see troublesome multiple images. For prolonged viewing, it would be possible in principle to provide two screen displays. However, this would have adverse effects on the energy consumption and the production costs of the device.
US 2002/0034004 A1 discloses binoculars having two separate direct vision systems which have a common display for the two separate direct vision systems. Via optical switches and partly transparent mirrors, it should be possible in this way to superimpose a digital image of the display alternately on the two direct vision images. Significant parts of the rays emanating from an object and from the common display would be lost thereby at the two disclosed physical beam splitter surfaces which are provided in the two separate beam paths of the direct vision systems, in particular in the case of a polychromatic display.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,961 discloses a day/night vision sighting system which has a direct vision system, a distance metre and an indirect vision system with an infrared image sensor and a display also for reproducing images recorded by the infrared image sensor. During use at night, images recorded by the infrared image sensor are made available to the user via the display, a partly transparent mirror and a single eyepiece. Such day/night vision sighting systems are now in the form of monocular laser distance metres or monocular telescopic sights which are not very suitable for prolonged observation.

Devices for the magnified viewing of an object


This invention generally relates to apparatus and methods for driving passive, electro-optic displays with greater efficiency. The invention is particularly suitable for driving passive matrix organic light emitting diode displays.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to methods and apparatus for driving passive, electro-optic displays with greater efficiency. The invention is particularly suitable for driving passive matrix organic light emitting diode displays.
2. Related Technology
Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) comprise a particularly advantageous form of electro-optic display. They are bright, colourful, fast-switching, provide a wide viewing angle and are easy and cheap to fabricate on a variety of substrates. Organic LEDs may be fabricated using either polymers or small molecules in a range of colours (or in multi-coloured displays), depending upon the materials used Examples of polymer-based organic LEDs are described in WO 90/13148, WO 95/06400 and WO 99/48160; examples of so called small molecule based devices are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,539,507.
A basic structure 100 of a typical organic LED is shown in FIG. 1a. A glass or plastic substrate 102 supports a transparent anode layer 104 comprising, for example, indium tin oxide (ITO) on which is deposited a hole transport layer 106, an electroluminescent layer 108, and a cathode 110. The electroluminescent layer 108 may comprise, for example, a PPV (poly(p-phenylenevinylene)) and the hole transport layer 106, which helps match the hole energy levels of the anode layer 104 and electroluminescent layer 108, may comprise, for example, PEDOT:PSS (polystyrene-sulphonate-doped polyethylene-dioxythiophene). Cathode layer 110 typically comprises a low work function metal such as calcium and may include an additional layer immediately adjacent electroluminescent layer 108, such as a layer of aluminium, for improved electron energy level matching. Contact wires 114 and 116 to the anode the cathode respectively provide a connection to a power source 118. The same basic structure may also be employed for small molecule devices.
In the example shown in FIG. 1a light 120 is emitted through transparent anode 104 and substrate 102 and such devices are referred to as "bottom emitters". Devices which emit through the cathode may also be constructed, for example by keeping the thickness of cathode layer 110 less than around 50-100 nm so that the cathode is substantially transparent.
Organic LEDs may be deposited on a substrate in a matrix of pixels to form a single or multi-colour pixelated display. A multicoloured display may be constructed using groups of red, green, and blue emitting pixels. In such displays the individual elements are generally addressed by activating row (or column) lines to select the pixels, and rows (or columns) of pixels are written to, to create a display. Either a passive matrix or an active matrix configuration may be employed. Broadly speaking in a passive matrix display a pixel driver such as a constant current driver is multiplexed onto a pixel whereas in an active matrix display a dedicated driver is provided for each pixel. Thus so-called active matrix displays have a memory element, typically a storage capacitor and a transistor, associated with each pixel whilst passive matrix displays have no such memory element and instead are repetitively scanned, somewhat similarly to a TV picture, to give the impression of a steady image.
FIG. 1b shows a cross section through a passive matrix OLED display 150 in which like elements to those of FIG. 1a are indicated by like reference numerals. In the passive matrix display 150 the electroluminescent layer 108 comprises a plurality of pixels 152 and the cathode layer 110 comprises a plurality of mutually electrically insulated conductive lines 154, running into the page in FIG. 1b, each with an associated contact 156. Likewise the ITO anode layer 104 also comprises a plurality of anode lines 158, of which only one is shown in FIG. 1b, running at right angles to the cathode lines. Contacts (not shown in FIG. 1b) are also provided for each anode line. An electroluminescent pixel 152 at the intersection of a cathode line and anode line may be addressed by applying a voltage between the relevant anode and cathode lines.
Referring now to FIG. 2a, this shows, conceptually, a driving arrangement for a passive matrix OLED display 150 of the type shown in FIG. 1b. A plurality of constant current generators 200 are provided, each connected to a supply line 202 and to one of a plurality of column lines 204, of which for clarity only one is shown. A plurality of row lines 206 (of which only one is shown) is also provided and each of these may be selectively connected to a ground line 208 by a switched connection 210. As shown, with a positive supply voltage on line 202, column lines 204 comprise anode connections 158 and row lines 206 comprise cathode connections 154, although the connections would be reversed if the power supply line 202 was negative and with respect to ground line 208.
As illustrated pixel 212 of the display has power applied to it and is therefore illuminated. To create an image connection 210 for a row is maintained as each of the column lines is activated in turn until the complete row has been addressed, and then the next row is selected and the process repeated. Alternatively a row may be selected and all the columns written in parallel, that is a row selected and a current driven onto each of the column lines simultaneously, to simultaneously illuminate each pixel in a row at its desired brightness. Although this latter arrangement requires more column drive circuitry it is preferred because it allows a more rapid refresh of each pixel. In a further alternative arrangement each pixel in a column may be addressed in turn before the next column is addressed, although this is not preferred because of the effect, inter alia, of row resistance. It will be appreciated that in the arrangement of FIG. 2a the functions of the column driver circuitry and row driver circuitry may be exchanged.
The skilled person will understand that where the term "brightness" is employed, when it is applied to an OLED it should generally be taken to mean luminance.
It is usual to provide a current-controlled rather than a voltage-controlled drive to an OLED because the brightness or more precisely, luminance, of an OLED is determined by the current flowing through it, this determining the number of photons it outputs. Thus the brightness-current curve of an OLED is broadly linear whereas the brightness-voltage curve is strongly non-linear. For this reason, in a voltage-controlled configuration the brightness can vary across the area of a display and with time, temperature, and age, making it difficult to predict how bright a pixel will appear when driven by a given voltage. In a colour display the accuracy of colour representations may also be affected.
FIGS. 2b to 2d illustrate, respectively, the current drive 220 applied to a pixel, the voltage 222 across the pixel, and the light output 224 from the pixel over time 226 as the pixel is addressed. The row containing the pixel is addressed and at the time indicated by dashed line 228 the current is driven onto the column line for the pixel. The column line (and pixel) has an associated capacitance and thus the voltage gradually rises to a maximum 230. The pixel does not begin to emit light until a point 232 is reached where the voltage across the pixel is greater than the OLED diode voltage drop. Similarly when the drive current is turned off at time 234 the voltage and light output gradually decay as the column capacitance discharges. Where the pixels in a row are all written simultaneously, that is where the columns are driven in parallel, the time interval between times 228 and 234 corresponds to a line scan period.
It is desirable for many applications to be able to provide a greyscale-type display, that is one in which the apparent brightness of individual pixels may be varied rather than simply set either on or off. Here "greyscale" refers to such a variable brightness display, whether a pixel is white or coloured.
The conventional method of varying pixel brightness is to vary pixel on-time using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). In the context of FIG. 2b above the apparent pixel brightness may be varied by varying the percentage of the interval between times 228 and 234 for which drive current is applied. Normally in a PWM scheme a pixel is either full on or completely off but the apparent brightness of a pixel varies because of time integration within the observer's eye.
Pulse Width Modulation schemes provide a good linear brightness response but to overcome effects related to the delayed pixel turn-on they generally employ a pre-charge current pulse (not shown in FIG. 2b) on the leading edge 236 of the driving current waveform, and sometimes a discharge pulse on the trailing edge 238 of the waveform. This can improve the greyscale resolution but at the expense of increased power consumption. As a result, charging (and discharging) the column capacitance can account for roughly half the total power consumption in displays incorporating this type of brightness control. Other significant factors which the applicant has identified as contributing to the power consumption of a display plus driver combination include dissipation within the OLED itself (a function of OLED efficiency), resistive losses in the row and column lines and the effects of limited current driver compliance, as explained in more detail later.
FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram 300 of a generic driver circuit for a passive matrix OLED display. The OLED display is indicated by dashed line 302 and comprises a plurality n of row lines 304 each with a corresponding row electrode contact 306 and a plurality m of column lines 308 with a corresponding plurality of column electrode contacts 310. An OLED is connected between each pair of row and column lines with, in the illustrated arrangement, its anode connected to the column line. A y-driver 314 drives the column lines 308 with a constant current and an x-driver 316 drives the row lines 304, selectively connecting the row lines to ground. The y-driver 314 and x-diver 316 are typically both under the control of a processor 318. A power supply 320 provides power to the circuitry and, in particular, to y-driver 314. It will be appreciated that which electrodes are labelled as "row" electrodes and which are labelled as "column" electrodes is arbitrary.
FIG. 4 shows, schematically, a current driver 402 for one column line of a passive matrix OLED display, such as the display 302 of FIG. 3. Typically a plurality of such current drivers are provided in a column driver integrated circuit, such as Y-driver 314 of FIG. 3, for driving a plurality of passive matrix display column electrodes.
A particularly advantageous form of current driver 402 is described in the applicant's co-pending British patent application no. 0126120.5 entitled "Display Driver Circuits". The current driver 402 of FIG. 4 outlines the main features of this circuit and comprises a current driver block 406 incorporating a bipolar transistor 416 which has an emitter terminal substantially directly connected to a power supply line 404 at supply voltage Vs. (This does not necessarily require that the emitter terminal should be connected to a power supply line or terminal for the driver by the most direct route but rather that there should preferably be no intervening components, apart from the intrinsic resistance of tracks or connections within the driver circuitry between the emitter and a power supply rail). A column drive output 408 provides a current drive to OLED 412, which also has a ground connection 414, normally via a row driver MOS switch (not shown in FIG. 4). A current control input 410 is provided to current driver block 406 and, for the purposes of illustration, this is shown connected to the base of transistor 416 although in practice a current mirror arrangement is preferred. The signal on current control line 410 may comprise either a voltage or a current signal.
The arrangement of FIG. 4 is useful because the (optionally variable) current generator has a high compliance, that is a low value of Vs-Vo, where Vs is the supply voltage and Vo is substantially the maximum output voltage of the current source. The lower the current driver compliance (i.e. the greater Vs-Vo), the greater the power losses due to limited driver compliance. Further compliance-related techniques for reducing power consumption are described in the Applicant's UK Patent Application number 0213989.7 filed on 18 Jun. 2002.
Specific examples of OLED display drivers are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,119, U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,520, U.S. Pat. No. 6,332,661, EP 1,079,361A and EP 1,091,339A; OLED display driver integrated circuits are also sold by Clare Micronix of Clare, Inc., Beverly, Mass., USA. The Clare Micronix drivers provide a current controlled drive and achieve greyscaling using a conventional PWM approach; U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,119 describes a driver circuit in which pulse width modulation is used to control brightness; U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,520 describes driver circuitry in which each column driver has a constant current generator to provide digital (on/off) pixel control; U.S. Pat. No. 6,332,661 describes pixel driver circuitry in which a reference current generator sets the current output of a constant current driver for a plurality of columns; and EP 1,079,361A and EP 1,091,339A both describe similar drivers for organic electroluminescent display elements in which a voltage drive rather than a current drive is employed.
Prior art techniques for reducing the power consumption of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,323,849 and EP 0 811 866A. U.S. Pat. No. 6,323,849 describes an LCD display with a partial display mode in which a control circuit controls display drivers to turn off a portion of the display which does not show useful information. When the LCD module is in a partial display mode the line frequency may also be reduced whilst maintaining the same frame refresh rate, allowing a lower voltage to be used to produce the same amount of charge. However, a user must predetermine which portion of the display is to be used, which will typically require additional control functions and software in the device for which the display is provided. EP 0 811 866A describes a similar technique, albeit with a more flexible driving arrangement. Another technique is described in the Applicant's UK patent application number 0209502.4.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,823,121 describes an electroluminescent (EL) panel driving system which detects the absence of a HIGH level signal representing a spot illumination of the EL panel in the image data of a line and, in response to this, prevents four circuits (a pre-charge circuit, a pullup circuit, a write-in circuit and a source circuit) from being activated. However the power savings provided by this technique are specific to the drive arrangement for the type of electroluminescent panel described and are not readily generalisable. Furthermore the savings are relatively modest.
It is generally desirable to reduce the power consumption of the display plus driver combination, particularly whilst retaining the ability to provide a variable brightness or "greyscale" display.

PWM driver for a passive matrix display and corresponding method


The construction vehicle includes an engine, an accelerator pedal, a main pump configured to be driven by the engine, first and second traveling motors driven by pressured oil discharged from the main pump to generate driving force for traveling, a driving shaft configured to receive the driving force from the first traveling motor and the driving force from the second traveling motor, a clutch configured to switch between transmission and non-transmission of the driving force from the second traveling motor to the driving shaft, an accelerator opening degree detection unit, a vehicle velocity detection unit, and a control unit. The control unit is configured to determine the switchover velocity depending on the opening degree of the accelerator pedal, and to control the clutch when the vehicle velocity that is detected by the vehicle velocity detection unit reaches the switchover velocity.

Some construction vehicles (e.g., wheel loader) traveling by the driving force generated by a plurality of hydraulic motors have been conventionally known. This type of construction vehicle includes two hydraulic motors, that is, a first hydraulic motor and a second hydraulic motor, a driving shaft to which the driving force to be generated in these hydraulic motors is transmitted, and a clutch that is configured to switch between transmission and non-transmission of the driving force from the second hydraulic motor to the driving shaft. In addition, the driving forces from the two hydraulic motors are transmitted to the driving shaft when the clutch is on the engaged state during the low-velocity traveling. Then, when the vehicle velocity increases, the clutch is changed to the non-engagement state. Thus, only the driving force to be generated by the first hydraulic motor is transmitted to the driving shaft (see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2001-108062).


A valve lifter guide (100) includes a base (111) and at least one conduit (101) extending from the base (111). The conduit (101) has a first inwardly curved surface (103) opposed to a second inwardly curved surface (105) such that the conduit is capable of holding a valve lifter (200) between the first inwardly curved surface (103) and the second inwardly curved surface (105).

Internal combustion engines are known to utilize valve lifters, also known as roller tappets, that have a roller that engages a camshaft lobe and an interface that engages a push rod at the other end. The rollers reduce friction to extend their life. The rollers need to maintain a particular orientation with respect to the camshaft to prevent damage to the rollers and/or the engine itself. For example, the roller may rotate about an axis parallel to the axis of rotation of the camshaft.
Metal guides are known to maintain the rollers in a specific orientation. Metal guides are often time-consuming and complicated to install, expensive to manufacture, and generate unwanted engine noise, in addition to suffering from wear due to metal-on-metal contact.
Accordingly, there is a need for a valve lifter guide that is inexpensive, easy to install, and does not generate unwanted engine noise.

International Engine Intellectual Property Company, LLC


Disclosed are various approaches for generating a user interface in which data items are grouped together. Additionally, a bulk action can be taken by a user on a grouping of data items within the user interface. An example of such a user interface can be within an email client used to manage email messages. Email messages can be grouped according to a grouping factor and a bulk action can be taken on a grouping from within the user interface.

Users within an enterprise can be inundated with email messages. A user might have multiple email accounts across multiple organizations, work and personal, that can contribute to a deluge of email messages. Users might devote considerable time and resources to processing these email messages. In other words, users have to invest time to determine what the context of each email is and then determine an action in response to the email. For example, the user might wish to delete or archive the message, forward the message, flag the message, or take other actions with respect to the email.
The problem can be exacerbated when a user is away from his or her email or fails to process his or her email inbox after a longer period of time. For example, a user that is on vacation for a week returns to a week's worth of email messages that might require action. Additionally, some users might wish to keep their inboxes clean of old or stale email messages so that they can view and attend to recently received emails that might require immediate attention.
Email clients often require a user to take an action on individual email messages, particularly in a mobile context. In some contexts, users can individually select email messages and perform an action on the selected email messages, but the messages must still be individually selected. Accordingly, there remains a problem with users having to touch of interact with individual messages to perform actions, which can be overwhelming in environments where users are dealing with large volumes or email, which is a scenario that is becoming more and more prevalent.

Taking bulk actions on items in a user interface


The polymerizable liquid crystal composition includes at least two selected from the group of compounds represented by the following Formulas (1) and (2):

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a polymerizable liquid crystal composition and uses for the same, more specifically to a polymerizable liquid crystal composition which reflects light of a specific wavelength in the vicinity of room temperature, a polymer including the above composition and uses for the above polymer.
2. Related Art
A cholesteric liquid crystal molecule has a spiral structure in a liquid crystal state. Accordingly, when a cholesteric liquid crystal phase is irradiated with light, it reflects a circular polarizing light of a specific wavelength corresponding to a spiral rotational direction of the liquid crystal molecule and a length of the pitch. For example, when irradiated with a visible light, it reflects selectively lights having wavelengths of blue, green, yellow and red corresponding to a length of a pitch in the liquid crystal. The color tones thereof are different from those of pigments and dyes which take on colors by absorption of lights and have a visual dependency in which a color tone changes according to viewing angles. Further, a length of a pitch in cholesteric liquid crystal can be controlled by temperature and the kind of compounds, and therefore it can selectively reflect not only visible lights but also lights of near infrared and ultraviolet regions.
There have been materials which selectively reflect lights of various wavelengths in a broad wavelength region making use of the characteristics of the cholesteric liquid crystal. They are, for example, liquid crystal pigments, coating materials, spray inks, print inks, cosmetics, printed matters for preventing counterfeit, ornamental articles and the like. Further, they are proposed as well for polarizing plates in optical devices such as liquid crystal displays and holographic devices, compensation plates, optical films such as color filters and the like. In the case of a cholesteric liquid crystal pigment which is an existing material, flake-shaped cholesteric liquid crystal polymers and microencapsulated cholesteric liquid crystal are used. The uses thereof include coating materials for cars, cosmetic ingredients and the like.
A polymer of a mixture including a chiral polymerizable mesogen compound having an optically active group, a non-chiral polymerizable mesogen compound, a photoinitiator and the like is described as a pigment which is processed in a flake form in JP 2000-505485 T (Patent Document 1; WO 97/30136). In Patent Document 1, the kind of chiral polymerizable mesogen compound and the content thereof in the mixture are changed to thereby control the pitch in a spiral of cholesteric liquid crystal and obtain a pigment having a desired color tone.
Further, a microencapsulated liquid crystal material is described in JP H8-24625 A/1996 (Patent Document 2). The above material has a structure in which a copolymer of glutamic γ-ester having a thermotropic cholesteric liquid crystallinity is covered with a film including an epoxy resin and amine as structural components. The glutamic γ-ester copolymer has a high cohesive property and therefore has to be aligned by applying a shearing stress after being molten in order to solidify it. In Patent Document 2, however, cohesion can be avoided by microencapsulation, and the operability in solidification is enhanced.
The above flake-shaped or microencapsulated liquid crystal material is used as a color material for coating materials, ink components and cosmetic ingredients. However, a flake-shaped pigment used as a color material is produced by forming a cholesteric polymer layer on a support, peeling it and then crushing the polymer layer. A microcapsule is produced by forming a resin coating film on a cholesteric liquid crystal material. Further, a process of a multistage in which they are dispersed once in a solvent, coated on an object material and fixed is required.
In contrast with this, in JP H10-508882 T/1998 (Patent Document 3; U.S. Pat. No. 5,798,147), a composition including a polymerizable liquid crystal monomer and a chiral liquid crystal monomer or a chiral non-liquid crystal monomer is applied directly or after being dissolved in a solvent on a support at a relatively low temperature, and it is then cured by an energy beam. In Patent Document 3, a composition including a mixture of tricyclic liquid crystalline compounds in which a nematic phase area is 90° C. or higher and a chiral monomer is used in examples. Further, in mixing the respective components of the composition, they are dissolved in dichloromethane and then subjected once to heat treatment up to 70° C. A cholesteric material which is a color material preferably exhibits a stable cholesteric liquid crystal phase in the vicinity of room temperature in order to carry out coating and print treatment in the vicinity of room temperature of a relatively low temperature.
A composition including 2 to 3 components of polymerizable liquid crystal monomers which are cholesterol derivatives is described as the above material in JP S59-109505 A/1984 (Patent Document 4; U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,896). Among them, a 1:1 mixture of a compound Va and a compound Ve each described in Example 7 exhibits a cholesteric phase in a wide temperature range and realizes fixation of cholesteric colors of blue, green and orange by photocuring in a range of 10 to 32° C. in the vicinity of room temperature. In the method of the Patent Document 4, however, the temperature of the materials has to be controlled at an interval of 5° C. in curing in order to obtain the targeted polymer, and a polymer which takes on specific reflected colors of red, green and blue at a fixed room temperature has not been obtained.

Polymerizable liquid crystal composition and uses for the same

Abstract: wherein m is 5 or 10; and

Abstract: wherein n is 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 or 9, and R is hydrogen or methyl    wherein said composition includes at most only two compounds of Formula (1) in which m is 10; and    wherein said composition does not include a compound of Formula (2) in which n is 3 and R is hydrogen.


History information of storage destinations designated for storing data input to an image processing device is managed. The priorities of a plurality of storage areas which are storage destination candidates are determined based on the managed history information. To assist a user designate a storage destination, a display unit displays information indicating the plurality of storage areas arranged based on the determined priorities. Based on the displayed information, the user designates one of the storage areas as the storage destination. A control unit effects control so as to store the data in the storage area designated by the user.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus (e.g., multi-function apparatus having scanning and printing functions) capable of enabling a user to select a storage destination to store data, and the control method, program, and storage medium thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, a technique for storing input data in a storage device such as a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or the like has been known. For example, with a multi-function apparatus including a scanner apparatus or printer apparatus, the data scanned and input by the scanner apparatus can be stored in an HDD included in the multi-function apparatus. Also at this time, an arrangement may be made wherein the storage area of the HDD is divided into a plurality of storage areas beforehand, which can be employed as personal boxes by assigning a password to each of users, for example.
Also, in recent years, such a multi-function apparatus has been used by being connected to a network in many cases, whereby the multi-function apparatus can be used by collaborating with a plurality of external apparatuses. In such a case, for example, the data scanned and input by a scanner apparatus included in the multi-function apparatus can also be directly stored in the storage area included in an external apparatus connected thereto via a network.
Now, when selecting a storage destination from a plurality of candidates to store data input via a scanner apparatus of a multi-function apparatus, a user sometimes must take too much time and effort to select the storage destination. A problem sometimes occurs particularly in the case of employing a storage area by dividing it into a plurality of storage areas, in the case of setting a hierarchical structure, or in the case of connecting to a plurality of external apparatuses. In other words, a great number of candidates selectable as a storage destination can cause a user to designate an erroneous storage destination, or to take too much time in searching for a desired storage destination in some cases.
In order to solve such a problem, for example, a scanner apparatus has been known wherein a plurality of information indicating a storage destination are registered beforehand, and when actually selecting a storage destination of data, only the storage destination in a running state is displayed in a selectable manner (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-94444, for example).
Also, a system has been known wherein storage areas (boxes) which were divided for each group to which respective users belong are assigned beforehand, an operating user is authenticated, and the box assigned to the group to which the user belongs is displayed in a selectable manner (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-101194, for example).
However, the above-mentioned existing techniques cause the following problems. For example, even if an arrangement is made wherein a plurality of storage destination information are registered beforehand so as to be displayed, but in the event that there are a great number of selectable storage destinations, there is a possibility that it may still take too much time for a user to find a desired storage destination.
Also, in the event that a screen for displaying selectable storage destination candidates is small, a great number of storage destination candidates may cause a user to take too much time for searching a desired storage destination.
Also, for example, even in the event that a storage destination is registered by being correlated with a certain user beforehand, frequently used storage destinations sometimes differ depending on a date or place wherein the user performs operations. For example, there is a case wherein a certain user frequently designates an external apparatus A as a storage destination on weekdays, but frequently designates an external apparatus B as a storage destination on holidays; with the existing techniques, the fixed storage destination candidate is always displayed, which is not user-friendly.

Data processing apparatus, and the control method, program, and storage medium thereof


Disclosed is a semiconductor memory device which comprises an internal clock generating circuit receiving a clock signal from outside to generate an internal clock signal to be supplied to a random access memory. The internal clock generating circuit includes a circuit for canceling internal clock generation for generating a signal activating an internal clock signal during operation based on an external clock signal, a chip select signal and a write enable signal, and a circuit for setting the internal clock signal based on an output of the circuit for canceling internal clock generation and for resetting the internal clock signal based on an internal clock reset signal. A dummy cycle is provided next to a write cycle.

Recently, the progress in the technique for miniaturization of a semiconductor device is outstanding. For example, a memory mounted on an ASIC (application specific IC) product, such as RAM (random access memory) or ROM (read-only memory), is used for a large variety of uses, such as a high-end server, a high-end router or a mobile use and, in keeping up with the tendency to the increase of the capacity of the RAM, there is raised a demand for a higher density (a smaller area) and for a higher operating frequency.
Under this situation, the so-called precharge operation, which directly follows the write operation and which completes the write operation of a memory cell by causing a full-swing of the bit line pair to which the memory cell is connected, is one of the factors limiting the frequency characteristic of the RAM.
The RAM which can meet the request on the part of users cannot be achieved without speedup of the cycle of the write cycle. However, the state-of-the-art RAM suffers from a gap between the characteristics for the write cycle and those for the read cycle. This difference tends to be more apparent with increase in the memory capacity of the RAM.
FIG. 9 shows characteristics of write cycle and read cycle in a RAM, in a tabulated form. This figure shows that the write cycle takes time longer by 6 to 15% than the read cycle, with the difference being 200 ps to 1.1 ns.
FIG. 10 is a timing chart for illustrating the internal operation in a conventional typical synchronous RAM. A word line pulse driving system is used in which, after rising of an external input clock (CLK), an internal reference clock (ICLK) is generated to set a selected word line (WL) to an activated state only for a predetermined period of time. The pulse timing is set from the perspective of assuring a variety of operational margins of the RAM, such as assuring                time of inverting a cell (write operation), and        cell read margin (read operation).
As long as the write cycle is concerned, the timing is set so that one of the voltages applied to one of the bit lines of a bit line pair is changed from the VDD level to the GND level, with a 'full-swing' operation, as indicated at '1' in FIG. 10 in order that a stabilized voltage level will be obtained despite a variety of sorts of variable elements in cell inversion, while the voltage applied to the other bit line remains at VDD. The Variable elements in cell inversion includes process-related elements or variable elements in the cells or in loads on bit lines.
On the other hand, as for a read cycle, the timing is set so that a 'half-swing' operation, as indicated at '2' in FIG. 10, will be carried out because it is only sufficient to send the difference potential, as needed by an I/O line pair (DLDT/DLDB) of a sense amplifier section used for amplifying the level of the memory cell information once the information has been supplied to the bit lines.
In general, from the perspective of simplifying the peripheral circuit, the write read control clock and the precharge are of the same timing. In FIG. 10, WEB denotes a write enable signal, PC a control signal for controlling the precharging of bit lines, YSL a control signal for on/off control of a column switch, an I/O line pair a wired contact as selected by a column switch YSL, SAPC a precharging signal for the sense amplifier section, SES a sense amplifier enabling signal, DLDT/B an I/O line pair of the sense amplifier section, and DO denotes a data output. The configuration of, for example, the bit line pair, sense amplifier and the I/O line pair of the sense amplifier section is to be in keeping with the routine DRAM configuration as well known in the art. For example, reference may be made to the disclosure of the Patent Documents 2 and 3. The I/O line pair DLDT/B of the sense amplifier section, for example, is equivalent to a line pair IO/IOB connected via a column switch to a bit line pair in the sense amplifier section.
[Patent Document 1]
JP Patent Kokai Publication No. JP-A-04-326270
[Patent Document 2]
JP Patent Kokai Publication No. JP-P2000-40370A
[Patent Document 3]
JP Patent Kokai Publication No. JP-A-10-55673


A touch screen panel includes a plurality of pixels on a substrate, a sealing thin film on the substrate, and a plurality of sensing electrodes on the sealing thin film, each of the sensing electrodes having a mesh structure, the mesh structures of the sensing electrodes and the pixels overlapping different portions of the substrate.

1. Field
Example embodiments relate to a touch screen panel, and more particularly, to a touch screen panel of which image quality is not damaged even in the case of using a metal material capable of being sintered at a low temperature.
2. Description of the Related Art
A touch screen panel is an input device capable of inputting a predetermined command by allowing a user to touch a screen with his/her hand or with an object. Since the touch screen panel, as described above, does not require a separate input device, e.g., a keyboard, a mouse, or the like, its use is increasing, e.g., in mobile devices.
The touch screen panel may be implemented as, e.g., a resistive type, an optical sensing type, a capacitive type, and the like. For example, the capacitive type touch screen panel may include a transparent electrode, e.g., made of an indium tin oxide (ITO) material, to detect a point at which capacitance is changed according to a contact by a user's hand or object, thereby recognizing a contact position.
For example, the transparent electrode may be formed by a photolithography process. In another example, the transparent electrode may be formed by a printing process, followed by sintering a transparent electrode material in a liquid form. However, since these processes are performed at a high temperature, pixels may be deteriorated and damaged.


An operating voltage tuning method for a static random access memory is disclosed. The static random access memory receives a periphery voltage and a memory cell voltage. The steps of the method mentioned above are shown as follows. First, perform a shmoo test on the static random access memory to obtain a shmoo test plot and a minimum operating voltage. Compare the minimum operating voltage with a preset specification. Position a specification position point on the line which the periphery voltage is equal to the memory cell voltage in the shmoo test plot corresponding to the preset specification. Fix one of the memory cell voltage and the periphery voltage and gradually decrease the other to test the static random access memory and obtain a failure bits distribution. Finally, tune process parameters of the static random access memory according to the specification position point and the failure bits distribution.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tuning method of process parameters of a memory and more particularly, to a tuning method of minimizing operating voltage for a static random access memory.
2. Description of Related Art
The Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) is a common random access memory. A feature of the SRAM lies in that as long as power is supplied to the SRAM, data stored in the SRAM will not be lost. This is different from a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which has to periodically re-flash data lines. As a result, the SRAM still plays an irreplaceable role in today's electronic products.
The common SRAM has a so-called 6T structure comprising six transistors. Referring to FIG. 1, FIG. 1 shows a circuit diagram of a conventional 6T SRAM. FIG. 1 illustrates an SRAM 100 of size 1 bit. The SRAM 100 mainly comprises 4 transistors PL1, PD1, PL2, and PD2 which form a latched circuit to store data. Transistors PG1 and PG2 are respectively switches controlled by a word line WL. When the SRAM 100 is selected (to be written into or read from), the transistors PG1 and PG2 are turned on simultaneously and data is transmitted through a bit line BL and an inversion bit line BLB so as to perform data access. The SRAM 100 in FIG. 1 is merely a 1-bit memory unit, which, however, exists in a great quantity in one or a plurality of memory arrays having capacity of several million bits.
A so-called shmoo test is commonly used to test and analyze the SRAM. The shmoo test is often used for analysis of semiconductor circuits and generally for repetitively testing the operating voltage of the to-be-tested circuit having capacity of several million bits by gradually increasing or decreasing the operating voltage to evaluate the quality distribution of the to-be-tested circuit at various operating voltages. Referring simultaneously to both FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, FIG. 2 illustrates a distribution of the SRAM under the shmoo test. The horizontal axis in FIG. 2 represents a memory cell voltage VCell applied on the transistors PL1, PL2, PD1, and PD2 and the vertical axis represents a periphery voltage VPERI applied on the transistors PG1 and PG2. The stars in FIG. 2 represent the voltages at which all the SRAM in the circuit under test can work normally, while the blank areas represent the voltages at which not all the SRAM in the circuit under test can work normally.
In addition, a straight line 210 represents the situation when the memory cell voltage VCell is equal to the periphery voltage VPERI. A dot PT on the straight line 210 is where a minimal operating voltage Vcc_min of the SRAM under test occurs.
In general, the reasons why failure occurs in the SRAM include inevitable errors in the manufacturing process (generally referred to as early fail) in addition to two main factors, one being Static Noise Margin (SNM), and the other being Write Noise Margin (WMN). The latter two factors respectively represent noise tolerance of the SRAM when being read and written. Moreover, these two factors are usually inverse. That is, the SRAM having higher SNM usually has lower WNM and vice versa. As a result, when the SRAM needs to operate on a lower operating voltage, a designer has difficulty adjusting corresponding process parameters.
The abovementioned shmoo test can only indicate whether the failure of the SRAM under test is caused by the WNM or the SNM. Therefore, the shmoo test can not provide the designer enough information to properly adjust the process parameters of the SRAM corresponding to the SNM or the WNM and to further adjust the minimal operating voltage. Meanwhile, the shmoo test also can not provide information regarding whether there are early fail bits inherent therein.

Operating voltage tuning method for static random access memory


A visual editor for generating a custom email message. An editor interface may display an approximation of an email message. A user may customize content and layout of an email message through the editor interface. A user interface system may track such customizations to enable faster remote operations to be performed on content of the email message. A plurality of substantially modular renderers may enable a plurality of different output representations to be generated from a single stored representation of the email message.

1. Field of Invention
The instant invention relates to designing electronic mail (email) messages, and, more particularly, the instant invention relates to the editing of content and layout of email messages.
2. Discussion of Related Art
One way organizations have typically provided information, such as advertisements, coupons, news, etc., to customers, members, and/or the public in general is through mass distributions of mail. The Internet allows distribution of information to be performed cheaper and quicker through email rather than traditional mail. Using email, an organization can generate an email message containing, for example, an advertisement or a newsletter and nearly instantly send the email to recipients around the world.
Despite the cost reduction in distributing information by sending email rather than traditional mail, organizations, such as corporations, non-profit groups, and community or religious organizations, can still spend large amounts of money and time to prepare and transmit an effective email campaign to a large number of recipients. For example, organizations may hire designers to design email layouts, graphics, text, and advertising elements individualized for each email campaign. Organizations may also purchase computer systems to generate and transmit the email and hire technology experts to upkeep these computer systems. To ease the creation of effective email campaigns, email design tools have been developed. Such tools include wizards and templates that provide organizations with tools to more easily design effective email campaigns. Furthermore, email transmission services have been developed that manage recipient lists and transmit email messages. Such services allow an organization to transmit large numbers of email messages to extensive recipient lists without the need to purchase specialized computer systems or hire experts to maintain such computer systems.


A personal refueling station for a personal-sized electric vehicle has a polygonal base structure housing a refueling system and a plurality of flat panels hinged thereto which open to form a flat surface and close up to an upright pyramid for storage. The flat panels have solar PV arrays mounted on their inside surfaces which generate electricity from sunlight in the open position. The electricity is used to generate hydrogen for hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles, or is stored for recharging non-hydrogen electric vehicles. Alternatively, hydrogen or electricity may be provided from an external renewable power source. The station can also have utility hookups to provide excess hydrogen or electricity to an external energy usage, such as a home, business, or other station. The personal refueling station has a compact design that can be installed at home or business locations. It is designed to accommodate a personal-use electric vehicle such as an electric car or cart or a personal VTOL hovercraft. It can be used in a stationary location or transported for remote use, as well as operated by remote control.

There is a growing market and need for electric vehicles that can be fueled using renewable energies such as solar, wind, hydro and biochemical (fuel cell) processes that produce electricity. While there are existing renewable energy systems for supplying electricity to homes and businesses, there are no currently no known systems adapted for use as personal vehicle fueling and storage stations.
Currently, the electric vehicle market is targeting the use of hydrogen fuel cells for electric refueling in accordance with renewable energy priorities recommended by the U.S. Government. Larger scale hydrogen fueling stations have been proposed in government demonstration projects in preparation for building a national infrastructure. In January 2001, HyGen Industries LLC and Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International, Inc., in Torrance, Calif., undertook a project to develop, demonstrate, deploy, commercialize and market renewable hydrogen generation for vehicle fueling systems. In July 2001 the first hydrogen production and fueling station in the Los Angeles area started operation at Honda Motor Company's research and development center. In October 2001 a hydrogen refueling station was installed in Brunnthal-Nord, near Munich, for refueling of a small test fleet of fuel-cell powered buses to connect south-east localities with the east railway station of Munich. The technology was provided by ET (Energy Technology), a company founded in 1997 by hydrogen experts from the space company DASA. The Munich installation was the fourth in Germany after previous installations at the Munich Airport and in Hamburg and Oberstdorf. In 2003, the Schatz Hydrogen Generation Center installed a complete hydrogen production, compression, storage, and dispensing facility at SunLine Transit Agency in Thousand Palms, Calif. The facility provides compressed hydrogen at 3600 psig for use in the SERC hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle fleet operated by SunLine Transit and the City of Palm Desert.
However, such current efforts to create renewable energy refueling stations face a number of intractable problems. Stations which take in compressed hydrogen gas for generation of electricity for refueling electric vehicles have problems with the cost and safety of transporting remotely-generated hydrogen to the station, and the large infrastructure costs of providing sufficient on-site electrical energy storage for use in recharging electric vehicles. Vehicles that come to a central refueling station may experience a long refueling delay to recharge vehicle batteries or to take in hydrogen gas for on-board fuel cell generators. Long delays in refueling each vehicle multiply into worse problems of long lines and traffic congestion for vehicle operators. It is deemed highly desirable to provide a renewable energy refueling approach using facilities that are distributed and adapted to refuel electric vehicles on a personal scale.

Personal renewable-energy fueling and storage station for electric-powered vehicles


Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing and using techniques for finding application latency degradation causes in an application on a distributed computing system. Variables associated with the application and the computing system are identified, including variables that are candidates for being responsible for latency degradation. A total latency is divided into latency components, that each corresponds to an aspect of the total application latency. Each latency component is divided into study classes, that each includes a subset of the candidate variables. For each study class, combinations are generated for the subset of the variables; a latency distribution is determined for each variable combination; the determined latency distributions for the combinations are compared with corresponding latency benchmark values for the same combinations to determine whether a degradation in latency distributions has occurred for particular combinations among the one or more combinations, and a result is provided to a user.

This invention relates to large-scale computing systems. Latency is one of the more important problems to address in large-scale, distributed computing systems. In general, latency can be defined as the period of time that a component in a computing system is waiting for another component. Latency can therefore be considered "wasted time," and is consequently undesirable. On an individual computer, latency is typically low and of little concern to the computer user, but on a large-scale distributed computing system with millions of users, it is desirable to minimize latency so that each user experiences the system as being responsive to their requests. In order to minimize latency, it is important to identify when latency degradations occur and to find potential causes for the latency degradations so that relevant alerts can be sent to administrators and other parties that are interested in the health of the computing system, so that they can take the appropriate actions to address the latency degradations.
One example of a large-scale distributed computing system is a system that is used to host an electronic mail (email) system. For example, the hosted email application "Gmail" is available from Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., and is run on a large distributed system. The application has millions of users and serves a very large number of requests every day on many computers. Each of these requests has some associated variables, for example, the browser used by the user, the location of the user, the location of the Gmail cluster serving the user, the action the user is taking (for example, sending mail, reading mail, and so on), just to mention a few variables. Each of these variables has a set of possible values, which can affect the latency of the requests, either by itself or in interaction with other variables. As can be realized, there can be several million of possible variable value combinations that may explain any latency degradations in the computing system. Given this, it is prohibitively computationally expensive to enumerate all the possibilities.
Thus it would be desirable to have improved techniques for navigating a large search space to find potential latency degradations and the variables that are responsible for causing the latency degradations. At the same time, it is also desirable to use computing resources efficiently, and to generate a relatively small number of meaningful alerts that can be appropriately addressed.

Monitoring of metrics to identify abnormalities in a large scale distributed computing environment


A power-actuated vise apparatus includes a first jaw which is disposed on a base, and a second jaw which is supported by a carrier to be movable in a longitudinal direction by an angular force in an initial course. The carrier is further pressed by a linear force in a subsequent course to bring the second jaw into tightened engagement with a workpiece against the first jaw. A servo control mechanism is disposed to drive a torque transmitting member so as to transmit a torque force. A force coupler unit is configured to couple the torque transmitting member to the carrier and to take up the torque force from the torque transmitting member to result in generation of the angular force and the linear force.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a power-actuated vise apparatus, more particularly to a power-actuated vise apparatus which has a servo control mechanism for servo-controlling movement of a movable jaw in a working procedure.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional vise apparatus generally includes a fixed jaw secured on a base, a movable jaw slidable relative to the fixed jaw, a threaded bolt coupled to the movable jaw, and a handling rod connected to the threaded bolt. In operation, the user grips the handling rod to rotate the threaded bolt so as to permit movement of the movable jaw for tightening and loosening a workpiece between the jaws.
It is desirable to provide a power-actuated vise apparatus for use with an automatic device, such as a robot, to perform quick and steady operation.


An improved strap has a first end portion, a second end portion, and a middle portion extending between the first and second end portions. An inner surface of the middle portion and inner and outer surfaces of the first end portion include a foam material. The foam material of the inner surfaces of the middle and first end portions is positionable against skin of the patient. An outer surface of the middle portion includes a fabric material and a foam region. An inner surface of the second end portion includes a retainer for connecting the inner surface of the second end portion to the fabric material of the outer surface of the middle portion.

The present invention relates to a new and improved strap and a method of using the strap to treat a patient.
A known strap for use in treating a patient includes a layer of foam which is connected with a layer of fabric. When the strap is to be utilized to treat a patient, the layer of foam is placed in engagement with the skin of the patient and the strap is wrapped around a portion of the patient. Known straps which may be utilized for treating a patient are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,811,154 and 5,036,838.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


The club has a hinge interposed on a shaft between the hand grip and club head, the hinge allowing the shaft to articulate about thirty degrees in both a front and back direction from the longitudinal axis of the shaft. The hinge has a female and male member. The female member is in the form of a yoke with a bore at the end of each yoke side arm. The male member has a body portion through which a bore passes and which is axially aligned with the bores of the yoke side arms. A pivot pin passes through these bores to provide the pivot point of the hinge. A U-shaped spring is attached to the female member interior to the yoke side arms. A ball bearing in a projecting nose of the male member rotates along the interior side arms of the spring. The ends of the female member side arms have pairs of oppositely directed ramps providing a stop along an outer shelf on each side of the male member body portion.

1. Field of The Invention
This invention relates to golf training clubs. More particularly, it refers to an improved hinge for a golf training club permitting the shaft of the club to articulate from the normal longitudinal axis of a standard golf club.
2. Description of The Prior Art
Golf swing training devices of many different designs are well known in the prior art. Many of the prior art golf training clubs have hinges allowing a portion of the club to swing or articulate in a single direction. Examples of this prior art is seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,497,237 and 3,033,575. U.S. Pat. No. 4,854,585 describes a two-way hinge mechanism. This latter patent employs a hinge activated by a longitudinally extending coil spring located within a generally hollow cylindrical portion. A spherical member at one end of the spring is urged towards a cavity between a pair of yoke arms. The hinge allows the shaft of the golf club to articulate front and back up to ninety degrees. Such a golf training club has drawbacks in causing the articulation of the hinge to be unnecessarily large at ninety degrees so that a golfer could be thrown off balance. Furthermore, the hinge mechanism is difficult to maintain in good operating condition. Improvements on this golf training club is needed.


A method of reconstructing a previously occluded area of a video image frame exposed by the motion of a segment within said image frame. In one embodiment the method involves approximating the color values of the pixels in the newly exposed area from the color values of the neighboring image segments. The process is refined by identifying a set of neighboring segments to the exposed area, called fill segments, that most closely resemble the color values of the pixels within the exposed area. These fill segments are then used to reconstruct the color values of the exposed area. In one embodiment, the identities of the fill segments are transmitted to an exemplary decoder.

The world's technologies for communication, information and entertainment is steadily becoming digital. As part of this trend, still pictures are being stored and transmitted digitally; video is being transmitted and stored in digital form. Digital images and video together constitute an extremely important aspect of modern communication and information infrastructure. Efficient methods for processing multi-dimensional signals such as digital video and images are of deep technological significance. Examples of common application areas where such sophisticated processing is absolutely necessary include image and video compression for efficient video storage and delivery, manipulation of digital images and video frames for effective generation of artificial scenes, image or video restoration etc.
In the context of video compression since a number of the same objects move around in a scene spanning several video frames, one attempts to create shortcuts for describing a current video frame being encoded or compressed in relation to other video frames that have already been transmitted or stored in the bit stream through a process of identification of portions of the current frame w/other portions of previously sent frames. This process is known as motion compensation. As illustrated in FIG. 1A, in technologies such a MPEG 1, 2 and 4, the image frame is subdivided into square blocks that are then matched to a previously encoded frame and a displacement vector, also called motion vector, is placed in the bit stream indicating that the block in question should be replaced by the corresponding block in a previously encoded frame.
Such block-based motion compensation suffers from the limitation that the objects within most images are not built up of blocks. Such an attempt leads to poor matching and motion compensation. In particular blocks that traverse the boundary of two objects tend to have even poorer matches than others. This situation is illustrated in FIG. 1B where block 102 is matched with block 102′ of a previous frame, but block 104 at the boundary of two objects cannot be matched with block 104′. Hence it becomes desirable to be able to directly manipulate the inherent constituent components in any given video frame, which are the objects or parts of objects, segments of arbitrary shapes (as allowed for instance in MPEG4 or as disclosed in Prakash I) as the fundamental entities for use in motion compensation. Any form of motion compensation based on blocks or objects suffers from an additional drawback that as objects move in a video scene, previously occluded regions that constitute new information, appear in the image frame. Such new information in regions that were previously occluded and are now visible, hereafter referred to as exposed area or exposed region, constitute a very large proportion of the encoded information or bit stream in existing video compression technologies. Furthermore, applications such as artificial scene generation based on manipulation of objects or segments that are moved and placed in new locations, also result in such exposed areas. In applications such as image or video restoration where certain parts of an image may be unavailable, lost or corrupted, such regions may also be considered as unknown regions or exposed areas.

Method of filling exposed areas in digital images


A spring activated pool cue is disclosed for use in games such as billiards. The device has also been designed to be taken apart for convenient storage and transport.

(1) Field of the Invention
This invention is directed toward pool cues used in games that are played on a billiard table such as pool, billiards, snooker, and the like. The pool cue of this invention is a hollow shaft wherein a mechanical spring loaded mechanism is activated inside the cue so that the cue tip is projected outward to strike a billiard ball. The striking force may be varied by an adjustment at the end of the cue. The design of the cue looks very similar to a standard pool cue that is manually struck against the billiard ball. The cue is designed to be disassembled for convenient storage and transport.
(2) Description of Related Art
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,348,006, 5,628,691, 4,949,964, and 4,718,671 all disclose various methods of creating a variable length cue stick. The methods in these patents include screw assembly and telescoping. Various locking methods are disclosed to fix the telescoping length.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,441 discloses a cue tip that is spring loaded in connection with a silicone encasement. The goal is to provide additional momentum to the ball when struck.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,299,983 discloses a spring activated cue using a ratchet and pawl. The invention is overly complicated in order to move the cue tip forward and backward, and most of the cue length moves relative to the end which contains the spring actuation mechanism. This makes it difficult for an operator to hold and aim correctly.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,123 discloses a spring activated cue using a saw tooth ratchet mechanism that locks the cue tip inside the hollow cue shaft. It is difficult for the operator to know exactly where the cue tip will strike the ball as the cue tip is recessed within the hollow cue.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,526,370 discloses a spring activated cue designed with two pieces: a moving portion and a fixed portion. The moving portion is difficult for the operator to hold steady and strike on the desired ball spot when suddenly activated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,588 discloses a spring activated cue tip for a shorter cue length with an awkward push button and method to vary the striking force. The striking force is restricted to a few select forces and is not continuously adjustable.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,447,805 discloses a spring activated cue. Similar to U.S. Pat. No. 4,526,370 the moving portion is difficult for the operator to hold steady and strike on the desired ball spot when activated. Also the striking force is restricted to a few select forces and is not continuously adjustable.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,604,023 discloses a spring activated cue tip with a moving stock piece at the end of the cue. When activated, the device is designed for the cue tip to strike the ball and return to the latched position. To do this, a stock piece at the other end pops out. The end stock piece is then pressed inward to reset the device. There is additional internal undesirable movement that disturbs the aim of the operator and makes the striking force less predictable.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,182,530 discloses a spring activated cue tip that includes two springs and a gun trigger type of release mechanism. A primary forcing shaft strikes a secondary shaft which is attached to the cue tip. The energy needed to activate the device is set by a sliding collar. The collar is troublesome and the operator must remember to slide it to the proper forward position or the device activation will impact the collar which is liable to hurt the operator's hand. The gun trigger is an unnatural and undesirable way of holding a cue, making the cue awkward to aim.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 673,753 and 673,693 both disclose a spring activated cue. Similar to U.S. Pat. No. 4,526,370, the suddenly moving portion is difficult for the operator to hold steady and strike on the desired ball spot when activated. Two springs are used to create the striking energy and also retract the moving portion partially into the fixed portion.
In addition, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,634,123, 4,526,370, 4,134,588, and 3,447,805 the adjusting mechanism provides a higher striking force with the longer ball striking movement which is undesirable as a longer cue may contact other balls causing a game violation.
None of the above disclosed spring activated devices provide for operator convenience in traveling or storage. There has been no consideration for convenient disassembly for a more convenient length suitable for a carrying or storage nor has there been consideration for economic and simplified manufacturability.

Spring activated pool cue designed for convenient storage