Methods and a corresponding system for conserving inter-MSC trunk capacity when multiple serving systems provide coverage at a particular geographic area. A first determination is made that when a first mobile station and a second mobile station are both at the particular geographic area, the first mobile station and the second mobile station engage in communications with each other. A second determination is made that the first mobile station and the second mobile station are both at the particular geographic area. And responsive to making at least the first and second determinations, the first mobile station is provisioned with preferred roaming list data that causes the first mobile station to be served by a given one of the multiple serving systems that also serves the second mobile station.

Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A typical cellular wireless network includes a number of base stations that radiate to define wireless coverage areas, such as cells and cell sectors, in which mobile stations such as cell phones, tablet computers, tracking devices, embedded wireless modules, and other wirelessly equipped communication devices, can operate. In turn, each base station may be coupled with equipment that provides connectivity with one or more transport networks. Such equipment may include a mobile switching center (MSC) or other serving system that is configured to provide connectivity with the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and/or the Internet for instance. With this arrangement, a mobile station operating in coverage of the network may engage in air interface communication with a base station and may thereby communicate via the base station with various remote network entities or with other mobile stations.
An MSC may also be designed to provide connectivity among multiple base stations under the control of the MSC. For example, the MSC may provide connectivity between a first mobile station that is served by a first base station under the control of the MSC and a second mobile station that is served by a second base station that is also under the control of the MSC. In a cellular wireless network that includes multiple MSCs, inter-MSC trunks may provide connectivity between mobile stations that are served by separate MSCs. For instance, to provide connectivity between a first mobile station that is served by a first MSC and a second mobile station that is served by a second MSC, the first MSC or the second MSC may establish a dedicated circuit on an inter-MSC trunk between the first MSC and the second MSC so that the first mobile station and the second mobile station may communicate. As an example, the inter-MSC trunk may be a T1 digital communications link.
In general, a cellular wireless system may operate in accordance with a particular air interface protocol or "radio access technology," with communications from the base stations to mobile stations defining a downlink or forward link and communications from the mobile stations to the base stations defining an uplink or reverse link. Examples of existing air interface protocols include, without limitation, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) (e.g., 1×RTT and 1×EV-DO), Long Term Evolution (LTE), WiMAX, iDEN, TDMA, AMPS, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), GPRS, UMTS, EDGE, MMDS, WI-FI, and BLUETOOTH. Each protocol may define its own procedures for initiation of calls, handoff between coverage areas, and functions related to air interface communication.
In accordance with the air interface protocol, each coverage area may operate on one or more carrier frequencies and may define a number of air interface channels for carrying information between the base station and served mobile stations. These channels may be defined in various ways, such as through frequency division multiplexing, time division multiplexing, and/or code-division multiplexing for instance.
Furthermore, mobile stations may store a preferred roaming list (PRL), which includes a prioritized list of communication systems that the mobile station may access and/or not access. In a CDMA system for instance, a PRL is a database that assists a mobile station in the acquisition and selection of a serving CDMA network. For a CDMA 1×RTT system, a PRL includes (i) an acquisition table which lists the band and frequencies that the mobile station is to use when searching to acquire a system and (ii) a system table which identifies systems by a system identification code (SID) and network identification code (NID) pair. For a CDMA 1×EV-DO system, a PRL similarly includes an acquisition table and a system table. However, within the system table, 1×EV-DO systems are identified by a subnet ID as opposed to a SID, NID pair. Each CDMA base station broadcasts its SID, NID pair or subnet ID in system overhead messages. Thus, when a mobile station detects and allowed system, the mobile station may connect to the identified system.

Determining a serving system for a mobile station in an area served by multiple serving systems


The present invention provides layered polymeric media to control the spatial and spectral distribution of energy in optical beams, particularly high intensity, broadband, multi-line laser beams. This structure is an improved version of prior art thin-film (vaccum deposited) interference filters and "rugate" structure filters.

1. Field
This invention relates to light limiters which protect optical detectors or sensors (including eyes). It is well known that unprotected optical sensors can be damaged by exposure to intense laser radiation. Protectors or optical limiters may be of two general types, active or passive. Active optical limiters require a predetermination of the presence of threat radiation and then must provide an external stimulus (such as an applied electric field) to operate the limiter. Active devices are usually complex (tunable filters for example) and are unable to respond to short pulses or bursts of harmful radiation. Passive protectors are preferred since the threat radiation itself triggers the desired protective response.
An ideal protector must fulfill various requirements: it must not degrade or attenuate desired radiation (low insertion loss); it must provide complete blocking of radiation above some predetermined detector damage threshold (harmful to the sensor or eyes), it must be sensitive over a sufficiently wide wavelength range to block all undesired radiation, it must have a wide field-of-view, it must (in many cases) be fast acting, and it must be capable of simultaneously blocking a multiplicity of intense laser wavelengths emanating from a single source.
Of late, there has been considerable interest in protecting sensors and eyes from high-power multi-line laser sources (directed energy) which are currently under development. The basic design of such lasers include a neodyminum-doped laser host material such as glass or yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG). The fundamental output wavelength of such lasers is at 1.05 to 1.06 micrometers depending on the particular laser host material. This fundamental wavelength is frequency doubled (wavelength is halved) to approximately 0.53 micrometers and the beam at this wavelength is used to pump a Raman cell which, in turn, emits several additional laser frequencies which are typically at several hundreds of Angstroms from the pump wavelength. These laser systems (known as "rainbow" or "white light" lasers) are designed to deliver all of these laser lines simultaneously. That is, four or five laser lines at different wavelengths (each are separated by several hundered angstroms in the visible spectrum) will arrive at a targeted sensor simultaneously. In addition, the multiplicity of laser wavelengths (each at substantial intensity) are capable of being delivered to the system in short pulses (10 nanoseconds) at a repetition rate of 10 Hz or in a number of random delivery rates.
2. Prior Art
This threat poses a serious problem for existing sensor-protection technology. Fixed-line filters are not viable solutions since the exact wavelengths of the Raman shifted 0.53 micrometer pump laser are uncertain and could even be changed during operation of the laser. Another drawback of fixed-line filters for so many laser lines is the large insertion loss. This particular problem applies to state-of-art "rugate filters" as well, that is, if more than three rejection wavelengths are designed into the filter, the overall transmission of the filter is seriously degraded which in turn impaires the sensor mission. Tunable filters are not capable of countering such a threat for two reasons: they cannot respond to nanosecond pulses and they cannot filter a multiplicity of laser lines simultaneously.
An object of the present invention is to overcome these problems and provide passive broadband sensor protection against high-intensity, short-pulse, high repetition rate multi-line lasers. The teachings of the invention can be used to passively protect night-vision devices, sensitive photodetectors and eyes.

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army


An infant exercise cushion including a substantially rigid core element preferably in the form of a hollow pipe. A soft resilient material surrounds a substantial portion of the core element. The soft resilient material forms a curved outer surface for the cushion so that the cushion may be rolled on the floor when there is interface between the infant and the cushion.

This invention relates to cushions for use by infants and more particularly relates to cushions for use by infants to increase upper body strength.
In 1992 the American Academy of Pediatrics implemented a nationwide campaign titled "Back to Sleep." The Back to Sleep campaign was designed to decrease the occurrences of sudden-infant death syndrome due to infants sleeping in the prone position and to encourage parents to place infants on their backs for sleeping. The Back to Sleep campaign has successfully led to a 40% reduction in sudden-infant-death syndrome. However, one negative factor of infants sleeping on their backs has been the delayed development of their upper body gross motor skills, specifically crawling.
Cylindrical and wedge-shaped cushions have heretofore been utilized as props for infant floor play. U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,853 issued to Linge shows a cushion for supporting an infant which enables the development of muscular strength and motor coordination. The Linge cushion is in the shape of a solid rectangle with a hollowed-out portion to receive the baby's torso. The Linge cushion also includes storage compartments for storing toys, diapers, and other baby related materials. U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,585 issued to Fery shows a spherical device used to support a baby to alleviate abdominal pain.


An electrical connector includes a faceplate and a cover plate. The faceplate is provided with at least receptacle having two slots. A rectangular recess is provided on the faceplate outside the slots. A tongue of a length corresponding to that of the slots is provided between the slots. Each slot is provided with a slide groove at an outer side thereof. The cover plate is received in the recess and has a length substantially equivalent to the distance from bottom edges of the slots to a bottom edge of the recess. The cover plate includes an indentation at an upper end shaped to receive the tongue, and two side wings each having a hook extending downwardly from outer edges thereof for engaging the slide grooves. When the cover plate is disposed in the recess of the faceplate, the side wings will contact the tongue. When the cover plate is in a use position, the slots are exposed on the faceplate to allow insertion of a plug. When the cover plate is pushed forwardly such that the hooks advance along the slide grooves until the tongue is completely received in the indentation, the side wings will cover the slots respectively to ensure safety and prevent entry of dust into the slots.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electrical socket, and more particularly to an improved structure of an electrical socket provided with means to conceal the slots when not in use.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Slots of electrical sockets are generally exposed on the outside for facility of use, but they pose danger to children, who may insert pointed objects into the slots. Many countries have, therefore, set up strict rules governing the specifications for electrical sockets.
Furthermore, dust and foreign particles may get into the slots of electrical sockets since they are exposed on the outside. Short circuits may result if there is too much dust and dirt inside the slots, which may damage electrical appliances connected thereto or even cause fire. An improved socket structure is therefore necessary.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,244,398 to the applicant of the present invention, an electrical socket with a safety means is disclosed. The electrical socket taught in said patent includes a Y-shaped elastic division plate between two terminals such that, when a plug is inserted into the socket, an outwardly extending wall at a top portion of the division plate will withdraw due to elasticity to enable electrical connection. Conversely, when the plug is removed, the outwardly extending wall of the division plate will bounce back to seal the slots.
There is also available on the market a safety device for use with electrical sockets. In such a structure, an insulated plate is provided with insulated blades for insertion into slots of the electrical socket. When the electrical socket is not in use, the insulated plate is fitted onto the electrical socket to seal the slots. However, since it is not integrally formed with the electrical socket, it can be easily misplaced.


A toe guard for an open toe sandal is presented. The toe guard is formed of a curved panel of rigid plastic extending around and over the front toe portion of the foot bed of the sandal and can have a base wall disposed between an upper innersole and a lower outersole.

This invention relates generally to footwear and more specifically to an improvement in a sport sandal upper that enhances comfort and safety of the sandal.
Sandals constitute one of the earliest footwear known to man. Typically, sandals incorporate either a leather or rubberized sole which can be attached to the human foot by straps extending across the Achilles heel and toes of the user. Prior art sandals were designed for walking. Sandals however, have been recently developed for more demanding sports-related activities on land, paved surfaces and in water as represented by U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,195 (""195) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,492 (""492).
Sandals are generally classified as either xe2x80x9cclosed-heelxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9copen-heelxe2x80x9d. xe2x80x9cOpen-heelxe2x80x9d sandals are typically provided with a single strap that passes over the wearer""s foot above the bridge, or a combination of a strap with toe-thong that extends from a strap over the bridge of a wearer""s foot to the sole of the sandal, and which is generally positioned between two of the wearer""s toes. xe2x80x9cClosed-heelxe2x80x9d sandals typically include a strap or upper portion positioned behind the wearer""s heel to support the wearer""s foot within the sandal. Both types of sandals usually have an open toe structure.
This invention relates to open toe sandals. An open toe sandal, especially when absent a toe thong permits the foot to slide forwardly when the sandal is planted during walking, running, climbing and especially when stopping quickly. The sole of the foot will slide forwardly and toes can extend beyond the front end of the sole causing chafing, blisters on the sole of the foot and on the skin surfaces under the straps of the sandal. The toes are also exposed to being hit with rocks or sand kicked up by the runner, bicyclist or the like in front of the wearer of the sandal or during walking or playing on a beach or in the surf. Water sports such as kayaking, rafting also expose the toes to injury when wearing an open toe sandal.
The problem of the foot sliding forward in an open toe sandal has been addressed by improvements in the straps across the front of the ankles and across the front to the foot. The upper surface of the innersole of sandals has been relieved and contoured to stabilize the foot from linear movement. Also the front portion of the innersole has been relieved to form an upwardly sloping ramp which receives the bottom of the front portion of the foot including the toes. All of these measures provide some improved linear stability but are not adequate to hold the foot in place during quick stops or turns.
The present invention prevents injury to the foot and toes in an open toe sandal. Linear and transverse stability are both improved by the present invention.
The present invention comprises an upraised toe guard which is positioned on the front, marginal lip of the sandal. The guard extends laterally from the side of the big toe around to the side edge of the small toe. The guard extends rearwardly at least to front edge of the nails usually no further rearwardly then the start of the toes. The guard need not extend rearwardly past the rear joint of the big and small toes. The toe guard of the invention slants vertically upwardly and rearwardly, preferably in a curved profile to form a shield and cover over the front toes. The rear edge of the toe guard extends rearwardly at least to the front of the toes and need not extend past the rear joint of each toe. The upper lip of the toe guard preferably extends rearwardly a greater amount in the area above the big and adjacent toe and decreases in width as it continues toward the inner and outer edges of the sandal.
The toe guard can be rigid or soft. It is preferably formed of a fairly rigid plastic material such as Hytrel(copyright). The toe guard can be attached to the front lip of an open toe sandal. It is preferred that toe guard has a base wall that can be positioned between an upper innersole and a lower outer sole during the step of adhering the innersole to the outer sole. In the case of use of an innersole with an upwardly slanted, curved ramp, the curved toe guard extends above and over the curved ramp.
These and many other attend features and advantages of the invention will become better understood as the invention becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed descriptions when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.


The present invention relates to an LED driver for driving a plurality of light emitting diodes (LEDs), comprising a current controller to control power supply of a predetermined power source unit to make a current flowing in the plurality of LEDs reach a predetermined target current value which sequentially changes corresponding to the respective LEDs; a plurality of divergence switches to flow or interrupt the current with respect to each of the plurality of LEDs; a bypass switch being connected in parallel with respect to the plurality of divergence switches and the plurality of LEDs and to flow or bypass the current supplied to the plurality of LEDs by being open or short-circuited; and a switch controller to sequentially open and close the plurality of divergence switches corresponding to change of the target current value and control the bypass switch to be short-circuited in a range where the current supplied to the LEDs increases, corresponding to the rise of the target current value. Thus, the present invention provides an LED driver which drives an LED in a low voltage to improve light efficiency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an LED driver. More particularly, the present invention relates to an LED driver, which drives light emitting diodes at low power to improve efficiency.
2. Description of the Related Art
Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are used as a light source of a liquid crystal display (LCD) apparatus, as well as a digital micromirror device (DMD) display apparatus such as a digital light processing (DLP) projection TV, a projector, and the like, using a DMD.
FIG. 1 illustrates the DMD display apparatus which employs LEDs as the light source. The DMD display apparatus employs a plurality of LED modules 210 corresponding to respective colors of red, green and blue (RGB).
The LED modules 210 are driven by an LED driver 200, and the driven LED modules 210 emit red green and blue light signals to sequentially project to the light onto a DMD module 230 through a lens 220. In a DMD, hundreds of thousands or even millions of mirrors 240 are integrated into the DMD module 230 by a micro electro-mechanical system (MEMS) process, and independently turn on and off. Accordingly, RGB color signals projected to the DMD module 230 display a predetermined picture on a screen 250.
A DMD display apparatus using LEDs as the light source has several advantages as compared with a conventional display apparatus using a discharging lamp as the light source. A DMD display apparatus has high light efficiency, a longer life span of the LEDs than the discharging lamp, and does not require a mechanical apparatus such as a color wheel.
The LED driver 200 for driving the LED modules 210 typically comprises a circuit configuration as shown in FIG. 2. The LED driver 200 in FIG. 2 may be referred to as a switch mode driving circuit. The LED driver 200 comprises a current detector, an error amplifier 272, a PWM modulator 274, a gate circuit 276, a switch 278, an inductor 280, a first diode 282, a second diode 284 and a switch block 286.
The LED driver 200 detects the current flowing in the LED modules 210 through the current detector, compares a voltage corresponding to the detected current to a target voltage Vref through the error amplifier 272, and outputs a voltage difference signal.
The PWM modulator 274 compares an output of the error amplifier 272 and a predetermined triangular wave, and generates a pulse width modulation (PWM) signal. The gate circuit 276 drives the switch 278 which is realizable as a metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) by the pulse width modulation (PWM) signal. The inductor 280 integrates a square wave pulse output and allows the LED modules 210 to be supplied with a direct current having a ripple corresponding to the switching of switch 278.
As the amount of light for each of RGB colors is different in white light, the amount of current Io flowing in the LED modules 210 should be different for each of RGB colors, and it can be adjusted through the reference voltage Vref. The switch block 286 comprises a divergence switch which is connected to the LED module 210 corresponding to each of the RGB colors, and makes the current Io flow in the LED module 210 by synchronizing the switches 286 with changes of the reference voltage Vref. Thus, as Vref changes, the switches Vr, Vg and Vb turn on/off so that different levels of current flow through the LED's according to color.
The LED module 210 which is driven by the LED driver 200 comprises a single module that connects dozens of LEDs in serial/parallel corresponding to each of RGB colors. A current of more than 20 A and a voltage of more than 20V is typically used to drive the LED module 210. Also, the smaller the ripple of current Io is, the better it is for equalizing the characteristic of the picture quality. Also, the switching and the transient phenomenon should be fast for high light efficiency when sequentially driving the LED module 210 corresponding to each of RGB colors.
The driving circuit of the switch mode in FIG. 2 is enough to ensure high efficiency with respect to high power. However, because an inductor is used to reduce the ripple current, the switching frequency must be raised or the inductor must have a large inductance. As the inductance is raised, the transient phenomenon becomes slow, thereby lowering the light efficiency.
If driving the LED driver 200 with a discontinuous current mode (DCM) as illustrated in the pair of waveforms shown in the upper part in FIG. 3, a dead zone is lengthened in which the DMD can not operate due to the slow transient phenomenon of an inductor having a large inductance, thereby lowering the light efficiency.
As shown in a lower part of FIG. 3 as a pair of wave forms, the flow of the current Io is in a continuous current mode (CCM) and the light efficiency is increased a little if the dead zone is reduced while changing the divergence switch in the LED driver 200. However, a reverse recovery current is generated in the second diode 284 while changing the divergence switch, which may adversely affect the stability of the circuit and generate unwanted electromagnetic interference (EMI).
For example, the reverse recovery current generated while a current of about 20 A flows in the LED module 210 may be a few tens or hundreds of amps. As the reverse recovery current flows through the LED module 210, deterioration of the LEDs is accelerated. Also, the DMD module is turned off until the reverse recovery current disappears and the circuit is stabilized, thereby lowering the light efficiency.
Accordingly, there is a need to raise the light efficiency by minimizing the dead zone in the divergence switch without causing a reverse recovering current, and improving a transient response through increase of charging and discharging slopes of the current Io. The charging and discharging slopes of the current Io of the LED driver 200 are provided as Equations 1 and 2:
                                          ⅆ            i                                ⅆ            t                          =                              Vcc            -                          V              D                                L                                    [                  Equation                                                              1                ]                                                      ⅆ            i                                ⅆ            t                          =                              V            D                    L                                    [                  Equation                                                              2                ]            where, Vcc refers to a power voltage, VD is a voltage applied to a diode, and L is the inductance of the inductor 280. Because VD is invariable, the discharging slope given in equation 2 is also invariable corresponding to a predetermined inductance. Meanwhile, the charging slope is variable as the Vcc can be changed.
The charging and discharging slopes of the current should be as large as possible to obtain a fast transient response for high light efficiency. As the discharging slope is fixed, the charging slope may be raised for a fast transient response. However, in order to adequately raise the charging slope, the power voltage Vcc may be too large. For example, the power voltage Vcc should be doubled relative to the LED voltage VD as Vcc=2VD to make the charging slope and the discharging slope identical. However, as the power voltage becomes large, accordingly a switching noise and the EMI becomes large and components having a of the ability to withstand the higher voltage are needed, thereby raising the production costs.


A ribbon mechanism mounted in the lid of a printer includes a ribbon carriage pivotally coupled to the lid for folding out of the lid by virtue of its mass when the lid is open and for folding in the lid as the lid is closed. A gear train is mounted on the ribbon carriage for driving the ribbon take up core. A thermal printhead is resiliently mounted in the ribbon carriage and automatically aligned against the platen with alignment tabs. The ribbon carriage is movably linked to a printer hinge by way of a linkage having an elongated slot at one end for slidably engaging an integral ribbon carriage post and with an aperture at the other end for pivotally mating with a lever arm provided on the printer hinge. The ribbon carriage post slides linearly inside the linkage slot between maximum xe2x80x9cdownxe2x80x9d/maximum xe2x80x9cupxe2x80x9d positions at each end of the linkage slot, respectively.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to printers and more particularly to a ribbon fold out mechanism mounted in the lid of a thermal printer to facilitate loading of ribbon media and printhead maintenance.
2. Prior Art
A thermal printer is usually provided with a printhead which comprises a large number of exothermic resistors arranged on an electrically insulating base. By selectively applying electric current to the exothermic resistors, heat is generated and applied to a thermo-sensitive print medium so as to print characters, pictures or both. The basic construction of a conventional thermal transfer printer includes a platen, thermal printhead, ribbon supply and take up mechanism, stepping motor and a gear train for driving the platen. A continuous strip of print media (e.g., paper, cloth, etc.) usually from a clamped print media roll is positioned between the platen and the ribbon with the thermal printhead caused to press the ribbon against the print media thereby printing characters or pictures on the print media strip using heat generated from the thermal printhead.
One of the most important aspects for the user in setting up a thermal transfer printer for printing is ribbon and media loading. Ribbon loading in conventional thermal transfer printers is a complicated, generally undesirable task which frequently involves ten or more steps. The usual steps are unlatching the printer, opening the lid of the printer, loading the ribbon supply roll, loading the ribbon take up roll, opening up the ribbon mechanism, threading the ribbon, wrapping the ribbon around the ribbon mechanism, taping it to the ribbon take up roll, taking up the ribbon slack, closing the lid of the printer and finally, re-latching the printer. Of the above-described steps, ribbon threading is usually the most difficult step to accomplish and as such can be a source of frustration for the user. Media loading usually requires the user to thread the media under or through the ribbon mechanism. Furthermore, conventional thermal transfer printers do not provide easy access to the thermal printhead for maintenance which adds to the overall cost of meeting the printing needs of the average user.
Therefore, the need arises for an improved low cost thermal transfer printer which significantly reduces the number of steps involved in ribbon and media loading. Such a printer should preferably be capable of loading ribbon and media without having to thread through/around the ribbon mechanism. The need also arises for a thermal transfer printer which provides easier access to the thermal printhead for regular maintenance by the user.
The present invention meets the above needs and is directed to a printer comprising a base having a platen, a lid coupled to the base, the lid having an open position and a closed position, a ribbon mechanism coupled to the lid, means for driving the ribbon mechanism and the platen when the lid is in the closed position and means for automatically presenting the ribbon mechanism for loading of ribbon when the lid is in the open position.
These and other aspects of the present invention will become apparent from a review of the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention.


Methods and apparatus for expediting detection of collision between any of N objects are disclosed. When a determination is made that a plurality of the N objects are one of (a) located in a plane and (b) collinear along a line parallel to an axis of a first coordinate system; one example method selects a second coordinate system wherein less than the plurality of the N objects lie in any plane of the second coordinate system; and performs a sweep and prune process on the N objects using the second coordinate system. Another example method responds to the determination by performing a sweep and prune process on the N objects while ignoring any set of objects having more than a predetermined number of members.

Many computer simulations must be capable of detecting collisions between bodies or objects in the simulation to realistically portray effects such as deflections. To this end, prior art collision detection system take the positions of N objects as inputs, and report which pairs of objects are in contact with each other, One brute force technique to this problem tests each possible pair of objects in the simulation for contact with one another. Under this approach, in a simulation containing N objects, the number of tests performed is:
      (                            n                                      2                      )    =            n                    (                              n            -            1                    2                )              .
The time needed to complete this test is O(N2) (which is pronounced "big Oh of N squared") which means that there exists positive constants c and n0 such that, for N greater than or equal to n0 the run time of the test is less than or equal to cN2. This is true because, if objects are moved (as would happen, for example, between frames of an animated movie or other computer simulation), all N(N−1)/2 calculations must be repeated to test for collisions between the objects in their new positions.
An existing technique, known as "sweep and prune," can be used to reduce the average run-time of this brute force technique to O(N) per frame. Sweep and prune exploits the spatial coherency between frames in the simulation. More specifically, in most simulations, objects move a small distance between frames. Therefore, the information used to detect collisions in one frame can be reused in seeking collisions in the next frame.
Sweep and prune employs three sorted lists, one for each axis (e.g. the X, Y and Z axes) in a given coordinate system. Each of the lists contain the projections of each object onto the list's corresponding axis. Because objects tend to move only a small distance between each time interval, the lists can be resorted in O(N) time using the well known insertion sort algorithm (assuming an initial sort has been completed). Once sorted, each list is reviewed to determine which, if any, pairs of object projections overlap on the associated axis. Finally, a set of potentially colliding objects is generated by finding all pairs of objects that overlap in all three lists. An exact test for collision may then be performed on the pairs of objects in this set.
While the average run time for sweep and prune is O(N) for many applications of collision detection, there are important and common exceptions where the average running time of sweep and prune degrades to O(N2). To consider some examples, let the sorted lists of object projections onto the X, Y and Z axes be Lx, Ly, and Lz, respectively. The set SI is the set of object pairs generated by processing list LI, were I is X, Y, or Z. The set S is defined to be the intersection of the sets Sx, Sy, and Sz. The set S is the final set of potentially colliding pairs of objects produced by sweep and prune.
Collisions are rare events. Thus, the number of collisions expected per frame is much less than the number of objects in the simulation. However, if the distribution of objects in the simulation and the coordinate system used in sweep and prune are aligned in some fashion, then at least one of the sets SI found by processing the lists LI will be larger than the number of objects N in the simulation. For example, if all of the objects exist in the XY plane, then all of the objects have overlapping projections onto the Z axis. Thus, when the list Lz, is processed, the set Sz will contain n(n−1)/2 pairs of potentially colliding objects. As a result, the running time of sweep and prune degrades to O(N2). Since in many simulations objects tend to reside in a plane, the average run time of sweep and prune tends to be O(N2).
Sweep and prune will also run in O(N2) time if the objects in the simulation are collinear along a line parallel to one of the X, Y or z axes.

Methods and apparatus for expediting detecting collision between any of N objects


According to an embodiment described herein, a method for testing a memory includes receiving an address and a start signal at a memory, and generating a first detector pulse at a test circuit in response to the start signal. The first detector pulse has a leading edge and a trailing edge. A data transition of a bit associated with the address is detected. The bit is a functional bit. The method further includes determining whether the bit is a weak bit by determining whether the data transition occurred after the trailing edge.

Many electronic systems can be divided into two categories: processing and data. Data are stored in memory for access in order to be used in processing or interactions with other systems or users. Performance of an electronic system is often related to the performance of the memory incorporated into the system.
In electronic systems, the most common types of memory used are flash memory, dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), static random-access memory (SRAM), and magnetic hard disk drive (HDD), although there are numerous other types and variations. Flash memory is composed of special transistors having a floating gate that is insulated and can store a charge. A DRAM element is usually composed of a transistor coupled to a capacitor that is dynamically refreshed to maintain a charge level. An SRAM element is usually composed of a number of transistors coupled together in a configuration operable to selectively couple outputs to either ground (VSS) or a high voltage node (VDD). A magnetic HDD is composed of magnetic disks with polarized magnetic bits being read or written as the disks spin at a high speed. Generally, each memory element has two states that can be read from and written to in order to serve as a memory bit.
Usually, important characteristics of a memory system may include read and write speed, reliability, and power consumption, among others. In many instances, system timing and operation speed are a key specification and memory plays an important role in determining what timing and operation speed may be used. Further, manufacturing of various types of memory systems usually introduces some amount of variation in performance. Such variations may result in decreased memory performance and increased cost as the manufacturer or customer characterizes and/or improves the performance of the manufactured memory systems.

System and method for improving memory performance and identifying weak bits


Adding a dye with a visible color to an ultraviolet radiation curable composition which contains a photoinitiator which generates free radicals upon exposure to ultraviolet radiation produces a composition which changes visible color upon exposure to ultraviolet radiation. This visible color change indicates that the composition has cured. This cure indication is useful for compositions curable by ultraviolet radiation in the electronics and electrical industry.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of curing compositions by ultraviolet radiation.
2. Background Information
The curing of an ultraviolet radiation curable composition upon exposure to ultraviolet radiation varies with the kind of ingredients making up the composition, the kind of equipment used for generating the ultraviolet radiation, the geometry of the device having a film, coating, or encapsulant to be cured, and the curing conditions to which the device is exposed. These variables make it difficult to determine at what point the composition is sufficiently cured. Many times to avoid the chance that a composition may be under cured, the dosage of ultraviolet (UV) radiation which is given the items to be cured are excessive. Excessive dosages may not harm the items, but it could, and furthermore, using excessive dosages is expensive and a waste of resource. Therefore, the discovery of the present method permits establishing curing conditions which can result in sufficient cure without either undercuring or overcuring.
Materials for the electrical and electronics industry need to meet stricter requirements because the electronic devices are becoming smaller and more complex. The field of printed circuit boards is no exception. The various coatings require that the materials protect the electronic devices and components from the environments which they may encounter either during processing or in use. Coating printed circuit boards with compositions which will cure to a film and which will provide the required protection without changing the designed electronic properties or otherwise damage the boards components is difficult to achieve because the components are very small and often of shapes and design which demands compositions which have special uncured properties, special curing properties, and special application properties.
Printed circuit boards often need to be protected from contamination of the electrical and electronic components. This protection can be provided by coating or encapsulating the device bearing board with a protective film to avoid or minimize the reduction in the electrical performance due to contamination. Moisture and humidity are considered to be the worst contaminant because it must be dealt with in most environments. Moisture and humidity can drastically lower insulation resistance between conductors, accelerate high voltage breakdown, accelerate dendritic growth, and corrode the conductors. Other than moisture, chemical contaminants from the environment such as dust, dirt, solvents, acids, fungus, oils, and fuels or which are used in the manufacturing process such as organic solvents, fluxes, vapors, acids, release agents, and metal dust. Handling a printed circuit board can also cause contamination, for example, from fingerprints. Conformal coatings are also used to protect the electronic components from the harmful aspects of extremes in temperature, shock, and abrasion.
Many conformal coatings and potting compositions are known in the art and are available commercially. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. One prior art conformal coating material is based on acrylics. Acrylic coatings make excellent coating and potting systems because they have desirable electrical and physical properties, are resistant to fungus growth, have a long life, low or no exotherm during cure, and have little or no shrinkage during cure. From some viewpoints, the acrylic coating systems have a production advantage because they can be readily applied by spraying, dipping, or brushing. However, this is also a disadvantage because the films are formed from solvent containing acrylic systems. The evaporation of the solvent is a slow and expensive step and the solvent vapors need to be controlled for environmental reasons. The solvents typically used are the chlorinated solvents, such as trichloroethane and methylene chloride.
The combined impact of high energy costs and more stringent control regulations which restrict emissions of volatile solvents into the atmosphere has created a need in the coatings industry for high solids or solventless systems which do not require a large amount of energy for conversion of the system into a high performance coating. Coatings which are 100% solids are known and have a rapid cure at a relatively low conversion energy demand. Such coatings are acrylated coatings which cure by ultraviolet radiation or by electron beam exposure. These are all reasons why it is important to have the ability to know when a UV curable composition is cured so that extra energy usage is avoided and the cost is kept to a minimum.

Method of indicating a cure point for ultraviolet radiation curing compositions by color change


An absolute encoder includes a first drive gear (worm gear 1d) configured to rotate in accordance with rotation of a main spindle, and a first driven gear (worm wheel 2a) that engages with the first drive gear. The absolute encoder includes a second drive gear (worm gear 2b) provided coaxially with the first driven gear and configured to rotate in accordance with rotation of the first driven gear, and a second driven gear provided, in a plan view, on a side opposite the first drive gear with respect to the first driven gear and the second drive gear, the second driven gear engaging with the second drive gear. The absolute encoder includes an angular sensor configured to detect a rotation angle of a rotating body that is rotated in accordance with rotation of the second driven gear.

Conventionally, for various control machine devices, rotary encoders are known to be used to detect locations or angles of movable elements. Such encoders include incremental encoders for detecting relative positions or angles and absolute encoders for detecting absolute positions or angles. For example, Patent document 1 describes an absolute rotary encoder for digitally measuring, as an absolute amount, a rotation amount of a rotation axis for movement control, or a rotation amount of a rotation axis for power transmission, where the rotation axis for movement control is used in a given device such as an automatic controller or a robotic device, and the rotation axis for power transmission is used for opening and closing a valve provided in the given device.

Absolute encoder for detecting rotation angle


The present invention relates to a method and a device for supporting positioning with a minimum of assistance data signalling. The method in the radio device that shall perform the positioning measurements comprises determining (440) a positioning reference signal pattern, based on a cell identity and a pre-defined mapping between the cell identity and the positioning reference signal pattern, and performing (450) positioning measurements based on the determined positioning reference signal pattern.

The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is one of the third generation mobile communication technologies designed to succeed GSM. 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a project within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to improve the UMTS standard to cope with future requirements in terms of improved services such as higher data rates, improved efficiency, and lower costs. The Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) is the radio access network of a UMTS system and evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN) is the radio access network of an LTE system. As illustrated in FIG. 1, an E-UTRAN typically comprises user equipment (UE) 150 wirelessly connected to radio base stations (RBS) 100a-c, commonly referred to as eNodeB (eNB). The eNB controls one or more areas referred to as cells 110a-c. In FIG. 1 the UE 150 is served by the serving cell 110a. Cells 110b and 110c are neighboring cells.
Mobile user positioning is the process of determining UE coordinates in space. Once the coordinates are available, the position can be mapped to a certain place or location. The mapping function and the delivery of the location information on request are parts of the location service which is required for the basic emergency services. Services that further exploit the location knowledge, or that are based on location knowledge to offer customers some additional value, are referred to as location-aware and location-based services, respectively. The possibility of identifying a radio device's geographical location in the network has enabled a large variety of commercial and non-commercial services e.g. navigation assistance, social networking, location-aware advertising, and emergency calls. Different services may have different positioning accuracy requirements imposed by the application. Furthermore, regulatory requirements on the positioning accuracy for basic emergency services exist in some countries.
There exist a variety of positioning techniques in wireless communications networks, differing in their accuracy, implementation cost, complexity, and applicability in different environments. Positioning methods can be broadly categorized into satellite based and terrestrial methods. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is the standard generic term for satellite navigation systems that enable subscribers to locate their position and acquire other relevant navigational information. The global positioning system (GPS) and the European Galileo positioning system are well known examples of GNSS. In many environments, the position can be accurately estimated by using positioning methods based on GPS. Nowadays the networks also often have a possibility to assist UEs in order to improve the terminal receiver sensitivity and the GPS start up performance (Assisted-GPS positioning, or A-GPS). GPS or A-GPS receivers, however, are not necessarily available in all wireless terminals, and not all wireless networks have the possibility to provide or assist GPS-based positioning. Furthermore, GPS-based positioning may often have unsatisfactory performance in urban and/or indoor environments. There is thus a need for a complementary terrestrial positioning method implemented in the wireless network.
There are a number of terrestrial positioning methods, which determine the UE position by signals measured by the UE and/or by the radio network nodes such as the RBS, including:                cell identity based methods,        network based uplink time difference of arrival (U-TDOA) of signals at different RBS,        UE-based and UE-assisted observed time difference of arrival (OTDOA) of signals from three or more sites or locations, and        fingerprinting or the pattern matching positioning method.OTDOA is a positioning method which exploits the multi-lateration technique to calculate the UE position based on TDOA measurements from three or more locations. To enable positioning, the UE should thus be able to detect signals from at least three geographically dispersed RBS. This implies that the signals need to have high enough signal-to-interference ratios (SINR). Furthermore, the signals need to be transmitted frequently enough to meet the service delay requirements. In such a UE assisted solution, a serving mobile location centre (SMLC in GSM and UMTS, enhanced SMLC (E-SMLC) in LTE) calculates the UE position based on the positioning measurements reported by the UE. The E-SMLC 100 is either a separate network node (as illustrated in FIG. 1) or an integrated functionality in e.g. the eNB.
OTDOA positioning is using Reference Signal Time Difference (RSTD) measurements as specified in the 3GPP standard i.e. the relative timing difference between the timing of a neighbour cell and a reference cell. In a positioning report containing measurements for a number of cells, a same reference cell is used for all of the measurements. The reference cell is one of the strongest cells and very often it is the UE's serving cell, although it might sometimes be another neighbour cell. This may for example be the case when a UE cannot handover to a stronger but overloaded cell or when the UE is close to a base station serving only UEs within a closed subscriber group.
Downlink UE-assisted OTDOA is currently being discussed in 3GPP for LTE, for which it has been commonly recognized that the hearability issue needs to be addressed to enable positioning service that meets the service requirements. It has e.g. been shown that using synchronization signals (SS) and cell-specific reference signals (CRS) for positioning without interference management results in positioning coverage problems due to low SINR and/or insufficient number of strong signals from different RBS. The problem is particularly relevant for synchronized networks or networks with high data load, as there is a high probability of parallel transmissions in multiple cells on the resource elements used for CRS or SS, which leads to high interference. To address these issues and enhance positioning measurements, new physical signals, positioning reference signals (PRS), in combination with low-interference subframes have been proposed. PRS are transmitted in downlink according to a predefined PRS pattern which may differ by e.g. site, cell, or subframe. This implies that the UE needs to know what PRS pattern that is used for a certain cell, in order for it to be able to detect the PRS and perform the positioning measurements needed for the positioning services. Positioning methods in E-UTRAN can apply so called Physical Cell Identities (PCI) as defined in the 3GPP standard. 3GPP defines 504 unique PCIs, which are intended to support efficient radio terminal UE measurement reporting procedures. The PCIs are grouped into 168 unique PCI groups, each group containing three unique identities. The grouping is such that each PCI is part of one and only one PCI group. A PCI calculated as NIDcell=3NID(1)+NID(2) is thus uniquely defined by a number NID(1) in the range of 0 to 167 representing the PCI group, and a number NID(2) in the range of 0 to 2 representing the PCI within the PCI group.
The number of available unique PCIs in LTE will most likely not be enough in typical radio network deployments and therefore have to be reused, so they can be viewed as local cell identities. A network, however, will also maintain unique global cell identifiers. PCIs are planned during the network planning phase, either during initial network planning or during network re-planning and optimization, and are physically assigned to the cells as part of the initial cell configuration procedure. There exists a relation between PCIs and physical signals, which means that PCI planning has a strong impact, for example, on physical-layer procedures like the cell search performed during the initial network access or at handovers.
As already mentioned above, the candidate signals for downlink positioning measurements in LTE are the SS, the CRS, and the PRS.
Secondary Synchronization Signals (SSS):
These signals, which are followed by the primary synchronization signal (PSS) are transmitted in subframes 0 and 5 in the second last OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) symbol of the first time slot in the indicated subframes and only in 62 resource elements, i.e. over less than six Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) in the centre of the allocated bandwidth. The mapping between PCI and SS is described in the 3GPP standard. To ensure good cell detection performance, PCIs have to be planned to avoid the same PSS and either of the two SSS short codes in common in neighbouring cells, utilizing 3 and 168 unique sequences available for PSS and SSS, respectively. In LTE there exists a mapping between SS sequences and PCI, but not between the SS transmission pattern and PCI though, as the pattern is always the same. However, because of bad cross-correlation properties (e.g. compared to CRS) due to short sequences, infrequent transmission, and a small transmission bandwidth, SSS are not optimal candidates for positioning measurements.
Cell-Specific Reference Signals (CRS):
These signals are transmitted on resource elements in every subframe, and over the entire bandwidth. Up to six frequency shifts are possible, which are specified as a function of the PCI k=6m+(v+vshift)mod 6, where v={0,3,6} (specified in 3GPP TS 36.211) and vshift=NIDcell mod 6. This corresponds in practice to a frequency re-use of six and three, for one and two (or four) transmit antennas respectively. The CRS transmission pattern is thus retrievable for a given PCI since essentially the same pattern is used applying different shifts in time (when there are four antenna ports) and frequency.
Positioning Reference Signals (PRS):
As mentioned above, PRS are newly proposed physical signals with transmission patterns that are different from those for the standardized physical signals (e.g. SSS and CRS). Careful planning of PRS patterns among the cells in order to minimize the interference on colliding resource elements in neighboring cells is crucial for the positioning performance. PRS patterns can generally be grouped into three groups:                Regular patterns—an example of a regular pattern is illustrated in FIG. 2(a)        Random patterns        Patterns based on Latin squares, Costas arrays and Modular sonar sequences. An example of a 9×9 Costas array is illustrated in FIG. 2(b).
In general, given a set of patterns, it should be possible to group them such that all patterns within a group are orthogonal to each other, although they overlap in one or more resource elements with at least one pattern from any other group. A considerable disadvantage with random (pseudo-random) patterns is that large pattern tables may be required, which makes them less favourable for PRS since this may increase the signalling overhead and the RBS and UE complexity.
Mobility for a UE includes idle mode mobility (by means of cell reselection) and connected mode mobility (by means of handover). Cell reselection is a mainly UE autonomous function without any direct intervention of the network. However, to some extent the UE behaviour during the idle mode mobility scenario could still be controlled by broadcasted system parameters and a performance specification. Handover on the other hand is fully controlled by the network through explicit UE specific commands and by a performance specification. In both idle and connected modes the mobility decisions are mainly based on the same kind of downlink neighbour cell measurements. For example in E-UTRAN the following downlink neighbor cell measurements (measured for the serving and the neighbor cells) are specified primarily for mobility purpose:                Reference signal received power (RSRP), which is a cell-specific signal strength metric.        Reference signal received quality (RSRQ), which is a cell-specific signal quality metric, corresponding to RSRP/carrier RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator). RSSI is the total power received by the UE from all sources, including interfering sources, which means that the RSRQ also takes the interference into account.
RSRP and RSRQ indicate the radio conditions experienced by the UE. A lower reported value of RSRP from the serving cell will e.g. depict that the UE is far from the serving base station.
A neighbour cell list (NCL) contains, for example, cell-specific information for neighbour cells and their physical cell identities (PCI). An NCL is typically created for mobility purposes. In e.g. UTRAN, an NCL is uploaded in each NB, and cell identities comprised in the NCL are measured to support the mobility decisions. The drawback of the NCL is that it requires extensive work to keep it updated, since a change in the cell planning also affects the NCL.
In LTE, the NCL is not mandatory for mobility. The UE instead blindly detects cell identities during the cell search procedure. However, in the existing positioning solution in LTE, the information related to the PRS patterns used in the cells is signalled to the UE in the form of an NCL. A similar solution exists in the UTRAN for positioning. However the NCL is error prone, and—as already explained above—expensive to dynamically maintain and update. It is a complex task to create an NCL with cell identities that are suitable for positioning measurements, since an optimal list may depend on the UE position in the cell. Furthermore, NCLs created for mobility are not very well suited for positioning since it is important that positioning measurements are done in cells located in different sites. Therefore, NCLs for mobility and positioning are not recommended to be used interchangeably. Therefore, even if there is an NCL signaled to the UE for positioning, the UE may need to create an additional cell list for mobility purpose.

Methods and arrangements in a telecommunication system


Disclosed is a displacement detecting device for measuring displacement or velocity of an object. The device is provided with a casing having an optical window, a light-emitting element and a light-receiving element incorporated in the casing, a transparent plate member provided in the vicinity of the window, a first optical function element provided on the transparent plate member for splitting the light generated by the light-emitting element into plural light beams emitted therefrom, and a second optical function element provided on the transparent plate member for guiding the lights to the light-receiving element, the lights being modulated when the emitted light beams are irradiated onto a relatively displacing object.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical displacement detecting device, such as an encoder, a velocity sensor or an acceleration sensor for measuring displacement or velocity of an object, utilizing a fact that a light beam diffracted, or scattered by an object being displaced is subjected to phase modulation corresponding to the displacement or the velocity of the object.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, optical displacement sensors for precisely determining the physical amounts such as displacement of an object by irradiating the object with light, for example, an optical encoder, a laser Doppler velocimeter or a laser inteferometer, are widely utilized principally in the fields of NC working machines, OA equipment, robots or the like. As conventional examples of such displacement sensors, an optical encoder is disclosed for example in the Japanese Utility Model Laid-open Application No. 1-180615 and in the Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 62-121314. Also, a laser Doppler velocimeter is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 2-262064.
For wider applications of such displacement sensors, there are desired further compactization (to the order of millimeters) and a higher precision and a higher resolution (in the order of 0.1 .mu.m). A size in the order of millimeters will enable the field of application to be wide, since such a device can be used on smaller objects for example by direct adhesion thereon.

Displacement detecting device with integral optics


In a linear guide device comprising: a guide rail fixedly secured to the mounting surface of a supporting member such as a machine bed; and a slider slidably engaged with the guide rail. Recesses are formed in the mounting surface of the guide rail and in the mounting surface of the supporting member, respectively, to provide a space therein. The space thus provided is filled with a hardenable filling material. The hardenable filling material is solidified therein, thus serving as a key held between the guide rail and the supporting member to prevent the guide rail from being displaced sidewards.

This invention relates to a linear guide device, and more particularly to a mechanism for preventing guide rails from displacing sidewards in the linear guide device (hereinafter referred to as "a guide rail sideward displacement preventing mechanism", when applicable).
In general, in a linear guide device, its guide rail is extended axially and has ball rolling grooves in both sides which are also extended axially, and its slider is engaged with the guide rail through a number of rolling balls. The linear guide device thus constructed is fixedly mounted on a flat mounting surface of a machine tool or industrial machine. For instance, the guide rail is mounted on the upper surface of a machine bed with bolts, and the slider is secured to the lower surface of a machine table with bolts. However, when the slider is greatly shocked in a lateral direction, then it may be displaced laterally. In order to overcome this difficulty, as shown in FIG. 6 a stepped surface D is formed in the machine bed 3, and with one side of the guide rail 1 on the stepped surface D, the guide rail 1 is pushed against the stepped surface D with a lateral push plate 5 so that the guide rail 1 is prevented from being shifted laterally.
In this case, the stepped surface D must be high in straightness, because it is necessary that the machine table guided linearly through the slider 2 by the guide rail 1 is moved with high precision; that is, it is rather difficult to machine the stepped surface D to meet the above-described requirement. In general, a machine table is guided by two guide rails. Therefore, the two guide rails must be in parallel with each other. And formation of two stepped surfaces results in an increase in manufacturing cost. In addition, it is, of course, necessary to form the lateral push plate 5, and in order to mount the latter 5 on the machine bed, it is necessary to use a number of mounting bolts, and to form a number of tapped holes in the machine bed 3 for the mounting bolts. Thus, it takes a lot of time and labor to install the guide rails.
In order to eliminate the above-described difficulties, for instance Japanese Utility Model Application (OPI) No. 147927/1988 and Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 156633/1988 have proposed methods of preventing a guide rail from displacing laterally. In the former method, a plurality of elongated stripe-like protrusions are formed on the mounting surface (or lower surface) of the guide rail in such a manner that they are extended longitudinally, to resist against the lateral displacement of the guide rail. On the other hand, in the latter method, a dovetail groove is formed in the base surface, and the guide rail is fixedly secured therein with bolts, and gaps between the guide rail and the dovetail groove are filled with a molding material, and the latter is solidified.
Those methods are simple, and are intended to prevent the lateral displacement of the guide rail without formation of the stepped surfaces which must be high in precision. However the former method in which the mounting surface of the guide rail is made uneven is disadvantageous in that it is impossible to positively fixedly secure the guide rail. On the other hand, the latter method, in which the dovetail groove is formed in the base surface, is intended to increase the rolling guide damping effect, and is disadvantageous in that it is rather difficult to machine the dovetail groove or to form the rail, which results in an increase in manufacturing cost. In addition, the rail is high, and therefore the guide rail is liable to be bent when subjected to thermal treatment.

Guide rail sideward displacement preventing mechanism


The disclosure relates to a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger includes a shell and heat exchange tube bundles located in the shell, the shell has an inlet and an outlet, and a refrigerant flows in through the inlet, exchanges heat with a fluid in the heat exchange tube bundles, and then flows out from the outlet, and the outlet is provided with an extension section that extends into an interior of the shell and has a receiving portion configured to receive at least a part of a liquid in the refrigerant flowing toward the outlet after heat exchange. The disclosure is easy to manufacture, install and maintain, and has a low cost. By optimizing the structure of an outlet pipeline of the heat exchanger, the influence of liquid carryover can be effectively controlled, and the overall performance, safety and reliability of the system can be enhanced.

The present disclosure relates to the technical field of heat exchange, and in particular to a heat exchanger.
Various types of heat exchange devices, apparatuses or systems have been provided in the prior art, which have been widely used in many industrial fields, places, etc., and can bring great convenience. However, these existing heat exchange devices, apparatuses or systems still have some drawbacks and shortcomings in aspects such as structural configuration, heat exchange effect, work performance, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance, and can be further improved and optimized.
For example, FIG. 1 shows a side view of the structure of an existing flooded evaporator. Most of shells of such flooded evaporators are cylindrical and have a large space volume. Heat exchange tube bundles are installed at a bottom of the shell. A refrigerant inflows from an inlet A of the shell, and exchanges heat with a fluid in the heat exchange tube bundles before leaving the flooded evaporator from an outlet B of the shell. Due to the limitations such as liquid carryover (LCO), such heat exchangers are usually conservative in design, so as to avoid problems such as expensive improved design and deteriorated system performance caused by the LCO. Therefore, it has been customary for a long time to use baffles in the industry as a solution to mitigate the LCO.


An articulated arm for an awning has an articulation part and an arm profile which are inserted one into the other. Furthermore, pull-off protection is present. The articulation part and the arm profile are inserted one into the other with a press fit, and the pull-off protection is designed as a claw present between the articulation part and arm profile.

The invention relates to an articulated arm for an awning, with an articulation part and with an arm profile which are inserted one into the other and which are provided with pull-off protection.
The invention relates, furthermore, to a method for the production of an articulated arm of an awning, in which an articulation part and an arm profile are inserted one into the other and are protected against being pulled off from one another.
Articulated arms are in widespread use in shading installations and serve, for example, for guiding an awning cloth when the latter is moved in or out. Such an articulated arm consists of an arm profile, usually a hollow profile, to the ends of which articulation parts are attached. The articulation parts usually have a tenon which is driven into the interior of the hollow profile. The awning arm is mounted in an articulated manner, that is to say moveably, by means of the articulation part.
Depending on the configuration of the awning, this is a single awning arm pivotable out of an upright position into a tilting position, for example in the case of sun-blinds, or a collapsible arm composed of two articulated arms, in the case of collapsible-arm awnings which move out and in essentially horizontally or at a downward inclination. Awnings are structures which have a very long useful life, a lifetime of ten, fifteen and twenty years being customary.
Furthermore, during this period of time, awnings are exposed to rough environmental conditions, since they are normally mounted on the outsides of buildings. When the awnings are moved out and in, particularly where collapsible-arm awnings are concerned, considerable forces act on the connection between the articulation part and arm profile, considerable tensile or compressive forces acting alternately on the components pushed one into the other when the awnings are moved out and in.
Care must therefore be taken to ensure that there is pull-off protection which permanently prevents the arm profile from being pulled off from the articulation part.
It became known to implement the pull-off protection by means of a screw connection or a clinch bolt which extend transversely with respect to the insertion direction through the arm profile and the tenon, pushed into the latter, of the articulation part.
This pull-off protection has the disadvantage that it is visible from outside and forms a point where unsightly dirt accumulations or possibly corrosions may occur, so that even moisture and dirt can penetrate into the interior of the arm profile. Inside the arm profile are received tension devices, such as springs, ropes, chains of the like. Conventionally, the arm profile and articulation part are produced from aluminum or aluminum alloys which are corrosion-resistant. However, the screws or bolts are produced from ferrous materials and tend, particularly in long-term use, to corrosion.
The adhesive bonding technique was therefore adopted for connection purposes. In this case, the dimension of the tenon, to be pushed into the arm profile, of the articulation part was selected such that it has a sufficient undersize to introduce all adhesive between the outside of the tenon and the inside of the arm profile.
Particularly in the case of collapsible-arm awnings, which often have a width of several meters and also drop lengths of several meters, the outer drop rod should be in exactly parallel alignment with the housing carrying the winding shaft, both in the extended and in the retracted state. Angular deviations out of this parallel alignment of only one or two degrees lead, in the case of extremely wide awnings, to an unsightly skewing in alignment between the drop rod, whether it is retracted or extended, and the housing.
All the abovementioned manufacturing methods have some relatively high inaccuracy factors due to tolerances and angular errors, and it is highly complicated to implement the connection during manufacture.
In adhesive bonding, the arms have to be held and oriented, for example, in a special holding machine, and it is necessary to wait until the adhesive compound has cured completely.
In connection by means of rivets or screws, after the arm profile has been attached or pushed onto the articulation part corresponding bores have to be made and the screws or rivets inserted into these.
This is highly time-consuming and is a considerable impediment to the manufacturing flow.
Awning manufacturers endeavor to dispatch the individual parts, particularly in the case of international sales networks, to the distributors who then have to carry out the final manufacture of the articulated arms at a correspondingly high outlay.
It is an object of the invention to remedy this and to provide an articulated arm and a method for the production thereof, which is simple to carry out and ensures a permanently reliable, in particular pull-off protected connection between the arm profile and articulation part.

Articulated arm for an awning and method for the production thereof


An antenna sharing device having a transmission filter connectable between a branch node of an antenna and a transmitter and a reception filter connectable between the branch node and a receiver. At least one of the transmission filter and the reception filter includes: a first parallel resonance circuit having a capacitor and a coil connected in parallel; a second parallel resonance circuit magnetically coupled to the first parallel resonance circuit; and a capacitor serially connected to the first parallel resonance circuit. One of the first and second parallel resonance circuits has a first resonance frequency, the other of the first and second parallel resonance circuits has one of the first resonance frequency and a second resonance frequency, and a combination of the first and second parallel resonance circuits and the capacitor forms an equivalent circuit providing a small insertion impedance at a third resonance frequency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the structure of a transmission filter and reception filter of an antenna sharing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile radio apparatuses, such as cordless main and sub-telephones and mobile telephones, communicate bi-directionally using a single antenna shared for transmission and reception.
Such an antenna uses an antenna sharing device for separating transmission and reception signals so as to prevent them from being mixed with each other at a transmitter or receiver.
FIG. 13 is a block diagram of an antenna sharing device. An antenna 1 is coupled at an antenna branch node 2 to a transmission filter 5 and to a reception filter 6. The transmission filter 5 is connected to a transmitter (not shown) at a terminal 3, and the reception filter 6 is connected to a receiver (not shown) at a terminal 4. Transmission and reception signals are separated by the filters 5 and 6.
FIG. 14 is a circuit diagram showing part of a transmission filter of a conventional antenna sharing device. This transmission filter is constructed of a band-pass filter and a parallel resonance circuit 11. The parallel resonance circuit 11 is connected between an antenna branch node 2 and the output terminal of the band-pass filter which is constructed of a plurality of parallel resonance circuits 10 and coupling capacitors C.sub.9. The input terminal of the band-pass filter being connected to a transmitter. The band-pass filter passes only transmission signals and intercepts unnecessary signals, and the parallel resonance circuit 11 prevents reception signals from entering the transmitter.
Such a transmission filter requires a number of coils of the parallel resonance circuits 10 and 11. Moreover, each parallel resonance circuit is required to be shielded within a case, making its size large and resulting in a large size antenna sharing device.

Antenna sharing device using mutually coupled resonant circuits


Aspects of the present disclosure provide an apparatus for wireless communications. The apparatus generally includes a printed circuit board (PCB) and a plurality of antenna elements. Each of the plurality of antenna elements is mechanically attached to a perimeter of the PCB via one or more solder elements. Each of the solder elements are spaced apart from each other and electrically isolated from each other in a vicinity of the antenna elements.

In attempts to make 60 GHz radio systems more compact, manufacturers attempt to minimize distances between components of such radio systems while maintaining performance Radio modules often have antennas around their edges, and placing grounded solder balls or posts can negatively affect the antenna performance. Most antennas require that any extraneous metal structures be several wavelengths from the antenna's radiating structure to work most efficiently. Excess metal can ground out the antenna, thereby reducing the impedance match and ruining the antenna's efficiency.
The mechanical/electrical connection between the module and main board can be built from structures such as solder balls or posts, metal pads, other electromechanical structures, or solder paste. All of these connectors are metallic. A metallic ground that provides both thermal and mechanical connectivity to all the solderable elements is an ideal solution. However, this large ground plane in the area of the antennas is damaging to the antenna performance.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a solution to problems in the existing art by permitting attachment of metallic grounding components of an antenna radio system without decreasing antenna performance.

System and method for attaching solder balls and posts in antenna areas


To execute cache data identity control between disk controllers in plural disk controllers provided with each cache. To prevent a trouble from being propagated to another disk controller even if the trouble occurs in a specific disk controller. The identity control of data is executed via a communication means between disk controllers. In case update access from a host is received, data in a cache memory of a disk controller that controls at least a data storage drive is updated. It is desirable that a cache area is divided into an area for a drive controlled by the disk controller and an area for a drive controlled by another disk controller and is used.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates a disk sub-system composed of multiple disk units and a disk controller that controls these, particularly relates to a disk controller composing the disk subsystem by plural disk controllers and a method of controlling a cache memory in the disk controller.
2. Description of the Related Art
A disk controller (hereinafter called DKC) stores and reads data in/from multiple disk units (hereinafter called disk drives or merely drives). The disk drives and DKC are generically called a disk subsystem. FIG. 17 shows the configuration of such a conventional type disk sub-system.
In the conventional type disk sub-system, two host computers 0 are respectively connected to two disk sub-systems 1 via a channel 2. A logical disk 7 is a memory area which the host computer 0 recognizes. The host computer 0 instructs to refer to data at a specific address of the logical disk 7 and to request the update of the data via the channel 2. For the channel 2, there are a fiber channel, SCSI and others.
The disk sub-system 1 is roughly composed of DKC 10 and plural drives 17. DKC 10 and the plural drives 17 are connected via a drive interface 16. For the drive interface 16, a fiber channel, SCSI and others are used.
DKC 10 is roughly composed of a channel controller 11 that controls channels, a disk drive controller 14 that controls drives, a control memory 12 that stores the control information 3 of DKC, a cache memory part 13 that stores read data 5 and update data 6 and further, a connection mechanism 15 that mutually connects each component. For the connection mechanism 15, a bus, an interconnection network and others are used.
DKC 10 executes the reference of data and update processing according to the instruction of the host computer 0. Such a conventional type disk subsystem is disclosed in Japanese published unexamined patent application No. Hei 12-99281 for example.
In recent computer environment as represented by the explosive popularization of the Internet, storage capacity used by a user rapidly increases. As a result, the management cost of daily increasing data also continues to increase and the reduction of the management cost is an important problem. Also, a storage area network (hereinafter called SAN) for centralizing disk subsystems heretofore connected each server and as a result distributed, attracts attention. FIG. 18 shows a conventional type example of disk subsystems in SAN environment. Plural sub-systems are connected to the host computers 0 via SAN-SW 11. One disk sub-system is composed of only one disk controller.
As described above, the further increase of storage capacity and the increase of the number of connected channels are demanded for a disk subsystem by the change of environment surrounding the disk subsystem.
It is conceivable in consideration of such a background that a disk sub-system heretofore composed of one DKC is composed of plural DKCs. Hereby, for a disk subsystem, larger storage capacity and the more number of connected channels can be provided.
For a general method of composing plural DKCs, it is conceivable to compose DKC by clusters. However, in this case, there is a problem that it is difficult to share data between DKCs. To solve this problem, it can be realized to share data by enabling the mutual access of data between DKCs using connection means between DKCs.

Disk controller and method of controlling the cache