There is provided an image forming apparatus capable of image forming on both surfaces of a sheet, having a first transfer portion which transfers an image formed at an image forming unit to a first surface of the sheet, and a second transfer portion which transfers an image formed at the image forming unit to a second surface of the sheet, wherein the sheet on the first surface of which the image is formed at the first transfer portion is conveyed to the second transfer portion while keeping a front of the image to a front in a conveying direction, and the sheet is conveyed while keeping an end portion in a width direction of the sheet conveyed through the first transfer portion and the end portion in the width direction of the sheet conveyed through the second transfer portion on same end portion side relative to the sheet conveying direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine and a printer, and specifically relates to the image forming apparatus having two-sided recording function for forming images on both surfaces of a sheet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to record on both surfaces of a sheet in an image forming apparatus of an electrophotographic type such as a copying machine and a printer, the conventional apparatus has the structure to be described below.
The conventional apparatus is provided with a two-sided conveying mechanism of a switch back type. The mechanism conveys the sheet to a transfer portion, where, the sheet abuts an image bearing member, after forming a toner image on the image bearing member, and the toner image is electrically transferred to the sheet, thereby transferring the toner image to a first surface of the sheet, and the mechanism conveys the sheet to a fixing unit to fix the image on the first surface. After that, the mechanism reverses the sheet by switch back, and conveys the same to a two-sided conveyance path, such that the toner image is transferred to a second surface of the sheet.
Meanwhile, in a case in which the images are recorded on both surfaces of the sheet, it is required to record transfer images of the first and second surfaces without positional misalignment relative to the sheet.
And there is the two-sided conveying mechanism, in which positional misalignment is corrected in the two-sided conveyance path, through which the sheet is conveyed to be transferred the toner image to the second surface thereof after fixation of the toner image to the first surface thereof. This is to correct the skew feeding when the sheet is conveyed with declination relative to the conveying direction, and to prevent positional misalignment in a sheet width direction, which is orthogonal to the sheet conveying direction. For example, a mechanism, in which an end portion of one side of the sheet is struck to a abutment member, being a horizontal registration reference by a sheet shifting unit, as a position aligning unit in the sheet width direction, is suggested as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-175037.
However, in the above-described two-sided conveying mechanism of the switch back type, front and rear of the sheet relative to the conveying direction switches. Therefore, the tip end of the sheet when entering into the transfer portion when transferring to the first surface and the tip end of the sheet when entering into the transfer portion when transferring to the second surface are tip ends of different sides. So, if a length of the sheet in the conveying direction is different, misalignment in the conveying direction might be generated between the image position of the first surface and that of the second surface, when transferring the toner image on the transfer belt at a predetermined timing, by detecting the tip end of the sheet. And, if there is a positional misalignment between the image of the first surface and that of the second surface, there is a problem that a length of a margin on an upper portion of the sheet, on which the image is formed, is different between the first and second surfaces, so that it is not well-looking.
Therefore, there is the two-sided conveying mechanism disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-020000. This is the two-sided conveying mechanism of a twist reversal type, in which the sheet is reversed by 180° in the sheet width direction so as to reverse only two surfaces of the sheet, and front/rear of the sheet relative to the conveying direction is not reversed, in order to improve a positional accuracy of the tip end of the image of the first surface and the tip end of the image of the second surface. In this mechanism, since the front and rear of the sheet is not switched by reversing the sheet, the positional alignment of the tip end of an image region on an upper portion of the first and second surfaces of the sheet may be performed with high accuracy.
However, the above-described conventional example has a problem as follows.
In the image forming apparatus having the two-sided conveying mechanism of the twist reversal type, the mechanism reverses the sheet by 180° in the sheet width direction while conveying the same, so that a large space is required in the sheet conveying direction and in the direction orthogonal to the sheet conveying direction. Especially, the larger the size of the sheet capable of image forming is, the larger the required space is. Therefore, a width and a height of the image forming apparatus main body become larger, so that the image forming apparatus itself becomes larger.

Image forming apparatus with curved conveyance path between first and second transfer portions


A thermoplastic resin composition comprising (A) 45 to 99% by weight of a graft copolymer obtained by special graft polymerization of a monomer (b) such as an aromatic vinyl compound, a methacrylic ester, etc. in the presence of grafted polymer rubber (a), and (B) 55 to 1% by weight of a thermoplastic aromatic polyester resin can yield shaped articles excellent in impact resistance, chemical resistance, etc. with excellent processability.

This invention relates to a thermoplastic resin composition and a molded article obtained therefrom and excellent in impact resistance, chemical resistance and resistance to thermal deformation.
Acrylonitrile-acrylic rubber-styrene terpolymers (AAS resins) are widely used due to having excellent properties in weather resistance, impact resistance, processability, etc., but insufficient in chemical resistance and heat resistance. On the other hand, thermoplastic aromatic polyester resins (hereinafter referred to as "polyester") are known as resins having excellent chemical resistance and heat resistance But these polyesters are poor in impact resistance, so that there has been proposed blend of the polyesters with ABS resins (acrylonitrile-polybutadiene rubber-styrene terpolymer resins), AAS resins, etc. (Japanese Patent Examined Publication No. 51-25261, Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication Nos. 54-150457, 57-94038, etc.). According to these proposals, since compatibility of ABS resins and AAS resins with polyesters is poor, there are obtained no composition having sufficiently satisfactorily balanced properties.
On the other hand, in order to improve weather resistance of ABS resins and surface quality of injection molded articles, Japanese Patent Examined Publication No. 47-47863 and U.S. Patent No. 4,393,172 disclose grafted polymers comprising a core formed by a crosslinked diene rubber, a first outer shell covering the core and formed by a crosslinked acrylic rubber, and a second outer shell formed thereon with a copolymer obtained by polymerizing glassy resin-forming monomer or monomers. These grafted polymers show good impact resistance but require further improvement. But these prior art references are quite silent on blending of these graft polymers with polyesters. Further, these prior art references are also quite silent on how to improve the impact resistance by other methods.
Japanese Patent Examined Publication No. 63-54729 (Japanese Patent Unexamined publication No. 58-187411) discloses the same grafted polymer as mentioned above, but obtained by stopping the polymerization in the course of formation of acrylic rubber. But this reference is quite silent on blending of such a grafted polymer with a polyester.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,026 discloses a thermoplastic polyester composition for molding comprising 1 to 40% by weight of the grafted polymer disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 4,393,172 mentioned above, and 99 to 60% by weight of a saturated polyester. According to this reference, the impact strength of the saturated polyester can be improved by blending with the grafted polymer. But the present inventors found that such a blending was insufficient to obtain desirable impact resistance. Particularly, it was found that even if the grafted polymer may have excellent impact resistance, the blending of such a grafted polymer with polyesters remarkably lowered the impact resistance.

Thermoplastic resin composition and molded articles obtained therefrom


A method in a first radio node for adapting a receiver type is described. The first radio node includes a first a second different receiver types. The first radio node is included in a wireless communications network, which further includes a second and at least one third radio nodes. The method includes adapting the receiver type to be one of the first and the second types in the first radio node, for receiving first signals from the second radio node, based on a relation between an activity of the first signals and second signals received from the at least one third radio node. The first signals include signals received from a first cell associated with the second radio node. The second signals include signals received from a second cell associated with the at least third radio node. The at least third radio node causes interference on the first signals.

Interference Cancellation/Mitigation Capable Receivers
In Universal Mobile Telecommunications System/High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (UMTS/HSDPA) several interference aware receivers have been specified for the User Equipment (UE). They are termed as 'enhanced receivers' as opposed to the baseline receiver (rake receiver). The UMTS enhanced receivers are referred to as enhanced receiver type 1 (with two-branch receiver diversity), enhanced receiver type 2 (with single-branch equalizer), enhanced receiver type 3 (with two branch receiver diversity and equalizer) and enhanced receiver type 3i (with two branch receiver diversity and inter-cell interference cancellation capability). The new receivers can be used to improve performance, e.g., in terms of throughput and/or coverage.
In Long Term Evolution Release-10 (LTE Rel-10), enhanced interference coordination techniques have been developed to mitigate potentially high interference, e.g., in a cell range expansion zone, while providing the UE with time-domain measurement restriction information. Further, for LTE Release-11 (LTE Rel-11), advanced receivers based on Minimum Mean Square Error-Interference Rejection Combining (MMSE-IRC) with several covariance estimation techniques and interference-cancellation-capable receivers are being currently studied. In future even more complex advanced receivers such as Minimum Mean Square Error-Successive Interference Cancellation (MMSE-SIC), which is capable of performing nonlinear subtractive-type interference cancellation, can be used to further enhance system performance.
Such techniques generally may benefit all deployments where relatively high interference of one or more signals is experienced when performing measurements on radio signals or channels transmitted by radio nodes or devices, but are particularly useful in heterogeneous deployments.
However, these techniques involve also additional complexity, e.g., may require more processing power and/or more memory. Due to these factors such receiver may be used by the UE for mitigating interference on specific signals or channels. For example a UE may apply an interference mitigation or cancellation technique only on data channel. In another example a more sophisticated UE may apply interference mitigation on data channel as well as on one or two common control signals; examples of common control signals are reference signal, synchronization signals etc.
It should be noted that the terms interference mitigation receiver, interference cancellation receiver, interference suppression receiver, interference rejection receiver, interference aware receiver, interference avoidance receiver etc are interchangeably used but they all belong to a category of an advanced receiver or an enhanced receiver. All these different types of advanced receiver improve performance by fully or partly eliminating the interference arising from at least one interfering source. The interfering source is generally the strongest interferer(s), which are signals from the neighbouring cells when the action is performed in the UE. Therefore a more generic term, 'enhanced receiver', which covers all variants of advanced receiver, is used hereinafter. Further, the corresponding interference handling techniques (e.g., interference cancellation, interference suppression, puncturing or interference rejection combining) for enhanced receivers are termed 'enhanced receiver technique' herein.
Heterogeneous Deployments
In 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), heterogeneous network deployments have been defined as deployments where low-power nodes of different transmit powers are placed throughout a macro-cell layout, implying also non-uniform traffic distribution. Such deployments are, for example, effective for capacity extension in certain areas, so-called traffic hotspots, i.e. small geographical areas with a higher user density and/or higher traffic intensity where installation of pico nodes can be considered to enhance performance. Heterogeneous deployments may also be viewed as a way of densifying networks to adopt for the traffic needs and the environment. However, heterogeneous deployments bring also challenges for which the network has to be prepared to ensure efficient network operation and superior user experience. Some challenges are related to the increased interference in the attempt to increase small cells associated with low-power nodes, aka cell range expansion; the other challenges are related to potentially high interference in uplink due to a mix of large and small cells.
According to 3GPP, heterogeneous deployments consist of deployments where low power nodes are placed throughout a macro-cell layout. The interference characteristics in a heterogeneous deployment can be significantly different than in a homogeneous deployment, in downlink or uplink or both.
Examples hereof with Closed Subscriber Group (CSG) cells are given in FIG. 1, where in case (a), a macro user with no access to the CSG cell will be interfered by the Home enhanced Node B (HeNB), in case (b) a macro user causes severe interference towards the HeNB and in case (c), a CSG user is interfered by another CSG HeNB. Heterogeneous deployments, however, are not limited to those with CSG involved.
Another example is illustrated in FIG. 2, where the need for enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC) techniques for DownLink (DL) is particularly crucial when the cell assignment rule diverges from the Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP)-based approach, e.g. towards pathloss- or pathgain-based approach, sometimes also referred to as the cell range expansion when adopted for cells with a transmit power lower than neighbour cells. In FIG. 2, the cell range expansion of a pico cell is implemented by means of a parameter A. The pico cell is expanded without increasing its power, just by changing the reselection threshold, e.g., UE selects cell of pico Base Station (BS) as the serving cell when RSRPpico+Δ≧RSRPmacro, where RSRPmacro is the received signal strength measured for the cell of macro BS and RSRPpico is the signal strength measured for the cell of pico BS.
Transmit Patterns and Measurement Patterns for Enhanced ICIC (eICIC)
To facilitate measurements in the extended cell range, i.e., where high interference is expected, the standard specifies Almost Blank Subframe (ABS) patterns for eNodeBs and restricted measurement patterns for UEs. A pattern that can be configured for eICIC is a bit string indicating restricted and unrestricted subframes characterized by a length and periodicity, which are different for Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD (40 subframes for FDD and 20, 60 or 70 subframes for TDD). Only DL patterns have been so far specified for interference coordination in 3GPP, although patterns for Uplink (UL) interference coordination are also known in prior art.
ABS pattern is a transmit pattern at a radio node transmitting radio signals; it is cell-specific and may be different from the restricted measurement patterns signaled to the UE. In a general case, ABS are low-power and/or low-transmission activity subframes. ABS patterns may be exchanged between eNodeBs via X2, but these patterns are not signalled to the UE, unlike the restricted measurement patterns.
Restricted measurement patterns (more precisely, "time domain resource restriction patterns" [TS 36.331]) are configured to indicate to the UE a subset of subframes for performing measurements, typically in lower interference conditions, where the interference may be reduced e.g. by means of configuring Multimedia Broadcast Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) subframes or ABS subframes at interfering eNodeBs.
Restricted measurement patterns may, however, be also configured for UEs with good interference conditions, i.e., receiving a measurement pattern may be not necessarily an indication of expected poor signal quality. For example, a measurement pattern may be configured for UE in the cell range expansion zone where typically high interference is expected, but a measurement pattern may also be configured for UEs located close to the serving base station where the signal quality is typically good which may be for the purpose of enabling a higher-rank transmission modes (e.g., rank-two transmissions).
Restricted measurement patterns are in general UE-specific, although it is known in prior art that such patterns may be broadcasted or multicasted. Three patterns are currently specified in the standard to enable restricted measurements:                Serving-cell pattern for Radio Link Monitoring (RLM) and Radio Resource Management (RRM) measurements,        Neighbor-cell pattern for RRM measurements,        Serving-cell pattern for Channel State Information (CSI) measurements.
Transmit patterns and measurement patterns are means for coordinating inter-cell interference in wireless network and improve measurement performance. Alternatively or in addition to inter-cell interference coordination techniques, measurement performance may also be improved by using more advanced receiver techniques, e.g., interference suppression or interference cancellation techniques.
UE Information about Other Cells
The UE is generally aware about the serving cell(s) configuration (see also the background on multi-carrier systems). However, the UE is not only receiving/sending data and performing measurements in the serving cell(s), it may also move for which the information about neighbour cells may be helpful for mobility decisions or the network or the network and/or the UE may also perform different radio resource management (RRM) tasks and hence measurements in neighbour cells may be needed. In LTE Rel-10, the UE may receive the aggregate neighbour cell information, e.g., an indication on whether all neighbour cells use the same MBSFN configuration as the Primary Cell (PCell).
Neighbour cells lists have been mandatory for mobility and RRM purpose in earlier networks, e.g., Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA). However, such lists (comprising e.g. neighbour cell identities) are optional in LTE, and the UE has to meet the same requirements, irrespective of whether the neighbour cell information is provided to the UE or not.
Further, the UE also receives interference from neighbour cells and the UE receiver may benefit from the knowledge about the interference character (e.g., when the interfering signal occurs and where in the frequency dimension). In LTE Rel-10, to enable eICIC, the UE may receive measurement patterns via its serving cell or PCell, as described above, for measurements in the serving cell or neighbour cells. In the latter case, only one measurement pattern is provided per frequency for multiple measurement cells, together with the list of cell identities (Physical Cell Identities (PCIs)). In Rel-11, the UE should be capable to deal with even higher interference and hence even more network assistance may be needed for the UE. For example, it has been proposed that the UE should be provided the information about the number of Cell Specific Reference signals (CRS) ports and the MBSFN configuration of at least some interfering cells.
Multi-Carrier or Carrier Aggregation Concept
To enhance peak-rates within a technology, multi-carrier or carrier aggregation solutions are known. For example, it is possible to use multiple 5 MegaHerz (MHz) carriers in High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) to enhance the peak-rate within the HSPA network. Similarly in LTE for example multiple 20 MHz carriers or even smaller carriers (e.g. 5 MHz) can be aggregated in the UL and/or on DL. Each carrier in multi-carrier or carrier aggregation system is generally termed as a Component Carrier (CC) or sometimes is also referred to a cell. In simple words the Component Carrier (CC) means an individual carrier in a multi-carrier system. The term Carrier Aggregation (CA) is also called (e.g. interchangeably called) "multi-carrier system", "multi-cell operation", "multi-carrier operation", "multi-carrier" transmission and/or reception. This means the CA is used for transmission of signaling and data in the uplink and downlink directions. One of the CCs is the Primary Component Carrier (PCC) or simply primary carrier or even anchor carrier. The remaining ones are called Secondary Component Carrier (SCC) or simply secondary carriers or even supplementary carriers. Generally the primary or anchor CC carries the essential UE specific signaling. The primary CC exists in both uplink and direction CA. The network may assign different primary carriers to different UEs operating in the same sector or cell.
Therefore the UE has more than one serving cell in downlink and/or in the uplink: one primary serving cell and one or more secondary serving cells operating on the PCC and SCC respectively. The serving cell is interchangeably called as primary cell (PCell) or Primary Serving Cell (PSC). Similarly the secondary serving cell is interchangeably called as Secondary Cell (SCell) or Secondary Serving Cell (SSC). Regardless of the terminology, the PCell and SCell(s) enable the UE to receive and/or transmit data. More specifically the PCell and SCell exist in DL and UL for the reception and transmission of data by the UE. The remaining non-serving cells on the PCC and SCC are called neighbor cells.
The CCs belonging to the CA may belong to the same frequency band (aka intra-band CA) or to different frequency band (inter-band CA) or any combination thereof (e.g. 2 CCs in band A and 1 CC in band B). The inter-band CA comprising of carriers distributed over two bands is also called as Dual-Band-Dual-Carrier-HSDPA (DB-DC-HSDPA) in HSPA or inter-band CA in LTE. Furthermore the CCs in intra-band CA may be adjacent or non-adjacent in frequency domain (aka intra-band non-adjacent CA). A hybrid CA comprising of intra-band adjacent, intra-band non-adjacent and inter-band is also possible. Using carrier aggregation between carriers of different technologies is also referred to as "multi-Radio Access Technology (RAT) carrier aggregation" or "multi-RAT-multi-carrier system" or simply "inter-RAT carrier aggregation". For example, the carriers from Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) and LTE may be aggregated. Another example is the aggregation of LTE and Code Division Multiple Access 2000 (CDMA2000) carriers. For the sake of clarity the carrier aggregation within the same technology as described can be regarded as 'intra-RAT' or simply 'single RAT' carrier aggregation. However, the term CA used herein may refer to any type of carrier aggregation, unless explicitly stated.
The CCs or the serving cells in CA may or may not be co-located in the same site or base station or radio network node (e.g. relay, mobile relay etc). For instance the CCs may originate (i.e. transmitted/received) at different locations (e.g. from non-located BS or from BS and Remote Radio Head (RRH) or Remote Radio Unit (RRU)). The well known examples of combined CA and multi-point communication are Distributed Antenna System (DAS), RRH, RRU, Coordinated Multi Point (CoMP), multi-point transmission/reception etc. The invention also applies to the multi-point carrier aggregation systems.
The multi-carrier operation may also be used in conjunction with multi-antenna transmission. For example signals on each CC may be transmitted by the eNB to the UE over two or more transmit and/or receive antennas.
According to Rel-11 carrier aggregation, one or more SCell can also operate on an Additional Carrier Type (ACT), which is also called as New Carrier Type (NCT). An ACT or NCT is a SCC but the cells on NCT may contain reduced number of certain type of signals in time and/or in frequency domain. For example a cell on NCT may contain Cell specific Reference Signals (CRS) only in one subframe per 5 ms. The CRS may also be reduced in the frequency domain e.g. CRS over central 25 Resource Blocks (RBs) even if cell BandWidth (BVV) is larger than 25 RBs. In a legacy carrier the CRS are transmitted in every subframe over the entire bandwidth. The SCell on NCT is therefore used for receiving data whereas important control information is mainly sent on the PCell which is transmitted on PCC. The PCC is always a normal legacy carrier i.e. contains all Rel-8 common channels and signals.
Multi-Carrier Setup or Release Procedure
A multi-carrier setup herein refers to a procedure which enables the network to at least temporarily setup or release the use of SCell, in DL and/or UL by the CA capable UE. There are two main concepts associated with the SCell setup or release and are elaborated below:                Configuration and de-configuration of SCell(s)        Activation and deactivation of SCell(s)
Configuration and de-configuration of SCell: The configuration procedure is used by the eNode B to configure a CA UE capable with one or more SCells (DL SCell, UL SCell or both). On the other hand, the de-configuration procedure is used by the eNode B to de-configure or remove one or more already configured SCells (DL SCell, UL SCell or both). The configuration or de-configuration procedure is also used to change the current multi-carrier configuration e.g. for increasing or decreasing the number of SCells or for swapping the existing SCells with new ones. The configuration and de-configuration are done by the eNode B using Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling.
Activation and deactivation of secondary cells: The eNode B in LTE can activate one or more secondary cells deactivated SCells or deactivate one or more SCells on the corresponding secondary carriers. The SCells which are only configured by the eNodeB can be activated or deactivated. The PCell is always activated. The configured SCells are initially deactivated upon addition and after a handover.
The network activates and deactivates the SCell(s) by sending the Activation/Deactivation Media Access Control (MAC) control element. The Activation/Deactivation command or more specifically, "Activation/Deactivation MAC Control Element (CE)" is sent via MAC to the UE. This MAC CE is identified by a MAC Protocol Data Unit (PDU) subheader as shown below:

The MAC CE has a fixed size and consists of a single octet containing seven C-fields and one R-field. The Ci and R fields in the Activation/Deactivation MAC control element are defined as follows:
Ci: if there is an SCell configured with SCellIndex i as specified in [8], this field indicates the activation/deactivation status of the SCell with SCellIndex i, else the UE shall ignore the Ci field. The Ci field is set to "1" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i shall be activated. The Ci field is set to "0" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i shall be deactivated;
R: Reserved bit, set to "0".
Typically the deactivation is done when there is no data to transmit on the SCell(s) to enable UE battery saving. Currently both UL and DL SCells are activated and/or deactivated simultaneously upon receiving the MAC CE. But in principle the activation/deactivation can be done independently on uplink and downlink SCells.

Enhanced receiver adaptation based on relation between signals from aggressor and victim cells


Communication system having a multiprocessor system serving the purpose of central control. Multiprocessor systems are used in communication systems for the purpose of central control. Care must thereby be exercised to ensure that the jobs/messages arriving from a periphery according to the FIFO principle are in turn deposited in the original sequence after being handled by processes being executed on the processors. A coordination procedure required for this purpose thereby uses a holding table. The logical sequence of jobs/messages is thus assured during the processing in the multiprocessor system.

The present invention is directed to a communication system having terminal equipment connected via line terminal groups as well as a switching matrix network for through-connection of calls and having a multiprocessor system for central control.
During the course of developing more and more complex data processing systems/communication systems, prior art single processing systems were expanded into multiprocessor systems. In contrast to the single processor systems wherein data/status messages are sequentially processed, parallel processing is utilized in multiprocessor systems. Compared to single processor systems, the multiprocessor systems have significant advantages, as indicated, for example, by the great increase in processing speed. The parallel processing of a plurality of tasks is achieved in that a task to be processed is divided into a plurality of sub-tasks, whereby one microprocessor processes respectively one sub-task, and the sub-results are subsequently combined to form an overall result. The sub-tasks are handled on the basis of the processes sequencing at the individual processors. A task/sub-task can thereby be composed of different functional organization sequences in the system. Thus, one process sequencing on a processor handles tasks/sub-tasks of, for example, error correction procedures, time-monitoring procedures or procedures of switching technology. Two or more processes, however, cannot simultaneously handle a sub-task. This is controlled by a monitoring process in the operating system.
What is problematical, however, is that various processes simultaneously access a memory register and can thereby produce undefined conditions. European Patent Application 0 274 715 A3 discloses a method for preventing simultaneous access of two processes to a memory register. By entering a processor number into the appertaining memory registers, the disclosed SECURE procedure prevents simultaneous access of a first process and of a competing, second process to this memory register. This occurs in that the competing, second process only modifies the memory contents of a memory register when a processor number is entered therein. Otherwise, this corresponds to the momentary access of an earlier, first process to that memory register and the competing, second process is entered into a waiting queue behind the first process. As soon as the present access is ended, the competing, second process in the waiting queue is now allowed to access this memory register. A simultaneous access of two processes to a memory register is thus prevented.
In a communication system, all processes are subjected to a hierarchic organizational structure. This is achieved by a prioritization of the process sequence. Thus, for example, a process having a higher priority can interrupt a process having lower priority at any time. When the process with higher priority has ended its task, a process having a lower priority can continue the handling of its original task. In communication systems, such processes having high priority are usually processes for error correction, time monitoring, etc. This, however, means that a process handling a task can be noticeably retarded in terms of its chronological sequence by a process having a higher priority. This is a particular disadvantage in that the sequence of the sub-tasks must be strictly adhered to.
Such a situation is to be avoided under all circumstances. When this situation occurs, the communication system therefore aborts the corresponding connection. One possibility of alleviating this situation is in employing known acknowledgement methods (such as handshaking). These methods can in fact be employed for data processing systems since the user (programmer) can wait a few 100 milliseconds in the least favorable case. In modern communication systems, however, the employment of such methods would lead to such a great load on the central bus system, as well as, on the corresponding processors that the resulting chronological delays could no longer be tolerated.


An engine air intake screen assembly having a rotating screen is provided. A blade is positioned directly under the screen to scrape accumulated debris off the inside surface of the rotating screen, and to also chop debris flowing through the screen. The screen covers an opening in a blower housing and rotates when the engine is running. In one form, a set screw allows the clearance distance between the blade and the inside surface of the rotating screen to be adjusted.

Internal combustion engines used on agricultural equipment (e.g. mowers) are often exposed to air that contains large quantities of foreign matter. During the normal operation of such engines, a fan draws in air for combustion and cooling purposes through an opening in an engine housing, typically called a "blower housing". Screens are typically placed over the air intake opening to reduce the amount of foreign matter that reaches the engine interior. The screens are typically designed to rotate along with the engine cooling fan so that most of the debris can be shred and shed from the screen, so that air can flow freely through the blower housing.
Even when rotating screens are used, there can still be problems caused by debris accumulating along the inside peripheral surface of the rotating screen. When debris accumulates on the inside peripheral surface of the rotating screen, the air intake inflow area is reduced.
Insufficient air flows and clogging of cooling fins can cause excessively high oil temperature, leading to lubrication quality breakdown (resulting in engine wear). Other problems can also arise, such as reduced horsepower. Compact engines with relatively small air passageways are especially susceptible to the clogging of cooling fins. It is therefore important with engines having a relatively compact cooling system, that passageways be kept as free as possible from debris so they can operate effectively.
There have been some efforts directed at preventing debris from entering the air intake opening around the peripheral edge of the rotating screen. For instance, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,046,458 and 4,838,908. These systems make it more difficult for debris to enter around the outer peripheral edge of the rotating screen. But, improved performance is desired, especially with respect to debris collecting under the screen near the periphery of the screen.
Another approach is the rotating screen described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,379. There, the peripheral edge of the screen is configured to created teeth which rotate outside a rim around the inlet. Debris is cut up into fine particles as it enters the opening in the engine housing. However, the exposed teeth raise some safety concerns and provide no way to correct for wear. Further, it is still desired to reduce the amount of debris collected under the screen.
It can therefore be seen that an improved engine intake screen assembly for alleviating these problems is desired.


An optical disk presents unit an object lens from being affected by an external disturbance caused by a reversed moving direction of an optical head when information is recorded or reproduced to or from an optical disk. The last moving direction of an optical head which has arrived at a target position of an optical disk is detected and, if it is opposite to a moving direction of the optical head for recording or reproducing information, the moving direction is inverted to the recording/reproducing moving direction before the optical head starts recording or reproducing information. At the time when the optical head inverts the moving direction, recording or reproduction of the information is not started. Therefore, no vibration or shock is applied to an object lens at the beginning of a recording or reproducing operation which might cause errors.

An optical disk is used as a mass storage device and an optical disk unit is used for recording or reproducing information to or from the optical disk. Known types of optical disks include a read-only compact disk (CD) for reproduction, a write-once optical disk (WO) for writing information to the optical disk just once and a magneto optical disk (MO) in which information can be freely recorded or reproduced. In these optical disks, each track is arranged in a fine spiral form in a direction from an inner circumference to an outer circumference forming a direction of recording or reproducing information.
The optical disk unit for recording or reproducing information to or from the optical disk generally includes a turntable directly connected to a driving motor for driving rotation of the optical disk. An optical head for recording or reproducing information to or from the optical disk has a head base, on which a light emitting element, a light receiving element, and an object lens are mounted. The object lens is supported by a lens driving mechanism so as to have a free displacement in a radial and axial direction of the optical disk, and the entire optical head is supported by a head carrying sledge mechanism so as to move freely in a radial direction of the optical disk.
There are two operational steps in recording or reproducing information to or from the optical disk by means of the optical disk unit; one is a target retrieval operation in which an optical head moves to a target position for a recording or reproducing operation and the other is the recording/reproducing operation itself. In other words, the optical head is first moved to a target position of the optical disk by means of the head carrying sledge mechanism in the target retrieval operation, and optical scanning is then executed on the track of the rotationally driven optical disk by means of the optical head in the recording/reproducing operation.
During optical scanning, a minute spot is focused on the track of the optical disk by concentrating emitted light of the light emitting element by means of the object lens, the object lens is appropriately displaced radially by means of the lens driving mechanism in accordance with a minute displacement of the track, and when the limit of the displacement of the object lens is near, the entire optical head is moved by means of the head carrying sledge mechanism and the object lens returned by the lens driving mechanism to a position where it again begins to be displaced as it follows the track. Information is recorded or reproduced to or from the optical disk driving the scanning operation.
If information is recorded into the optical disk by this type of optical disk unit, however, its beginning part may sometimes be lost. This is because when information is recorded into the optical disk, the head carrying mechanism moves the optical head to a target position of the optical disk, and then moves the optical head in the forward direction to record information. If these movement directions are opposite to each other, the object lens is shocked or vibrated when the optical head quickly turns around.
A lens driving mechanism supports the object lens on a lightweight movable part so as to have a free displacement with a low resistance since it is required to displace the object lens precisely and at a high speed and therefore it is not structurally resistant to an external disturbance such as vibration or a shock. On the other hand, a sledge driving mechanism is formed in a simple structure by means of a commercially available servo motor and a gear. Since it serves as a mechanism for moving roughly the entire optical head, it causes a great vibration or shock at the beginning of a carrying operation or when turned around.
Accordingly, if a track of the optical disk is optically scanned from a target position by means of the optical head, the optical scanning may not be favorably started if the moving direction of the optical head is inverted when the scanning operation is started. In this case, the beginning of the information to be recorded may be lost, and in the same manner, an error may also occur during reproduction of the information.

Optical disk unit having reduced recording and reproducing errors


A compressor system is described, including:                at least a first compressor having a suction side and a delivery side;        an anti-surge line;        an anti-surge valve arranged along the anti-surge line and controlled for recirculating a gas flow from the delivery side back to the suction side of the compressor;        a heat removal arrangement between the anti-surge valve and the suction side of the compressor.

Compressor systems for compressing a working fluid are commonly used in several industrial processes and plants. Typically, compressor systems are used for instance in plants for the liquefaction of natural gas (shortly LNG plants), where natural gas is compressed and liquefied to reduce the volume thereof, for transportation purposes. One or more refrigeration circuits are used to remove heat from the natural gas. A refrigerant fluid is made to circulate in the refrigeration circuit and is subject to cyclic thermodynamic transformations to remove heat from the natural gas and discharge the removed heat to a heat sink
In essence, a refrigeration circuit comprises a high pressure side and a low pressure side. The refrigerant fluid from the low pressure side of the refrigeration circuit is compressed and cooled in a heat exchanger in heat exchange relationship with a heat sink. The compressed and cooled refrigerant fluid is then expanded in an expansion device, such as an expansion valve or an expander and subsequently flows in a heat exchanger in heat exchange relationship with the natural gas, removing heat therefrom, prior to be compressed again.
A compressor system is used to compress the refrigerant fluid. The compressor system usually includes one or more compressors, such as centrifugal compressor(s) and/or axial compressor(s), where through the refrigeration fluid is compressed from the low pressure to the high pressure of the refrigeration cycle. Each compressor is usually comprised of an anti-surge line, connecting the delivery side of the compressor to the suction side thereof. An anti-surge valve arranged along the anti-surge line is selectively opened during start-up of the compressor, or when the operating conditions of the compressor are such that the operating point approaches the surge line. Recirculation of the processed gas prevents surging phenomena, which could otherwise result in serious damages to the compressor.
The anti-surge line has an inlet and an outlet. The inlet is fluidly coupled to the delivery side of the compressor and the outlet is fluidly coupled to the suction side of the compressor. Since the compressed gas delivered by the compressor is at a higher temperature than the low-pressure gas at the suction side of the compressor, the inlet of the anti-surge line is arranged downstream of a gas cooler, such that cooled gas enters the anti-surge line. This prevents overheating of the compressor during transient operating conditions, when the anti-surge valve is open.
If the working gas processed by the compressor, for instance a refrigeration gas for LNG, contains components of different molecular weights, the heavier components may condense in the gas cooler downstream the compressor and produce a liquid phase in the gas flow. In this case, if the anti-surge valve is opened, the fluid which circulates in the anti-surge line and through the anti-surge valve contains a percentage of liquid. Depending upon the operating conditions and the position of the compressor in the refrigeration cycle, the percentage of condensed gas can be relatively high, e.g. above 30% by weight or even equal to or higher than 40% by weight.
Typically, LNG plants using a so-called mixed refrigerant are subject to gas condensation in the gas cooler arranged upstream of the inlet of the anti-surge line. Mixed refrigerant can usually contain a mixture of propane, ethane, methane and possibly other components, such as nitrogen, isobutene, n-butane and the like. Especially the heavier components (propane and ethane) can condense in the gas cooler giving rise to a high amount of condensed gas in the refrigerant flow. The anti-surge valve can be damaged by the liquid flowing therethrough.
Similar issues may arise in any compression facility comprised of a compressor system with a compressor and an anti-surge line and anti-surge valve arrangement, whenever the temperature of the gas flowing through the gas cooler downstream of the compressor can drop below the dew point, i.e. the point where the heavier components of the gas start condensing.
A need therefore exists, to improve compressor systems, in order to prevent or alleviate the above mentioned drawbacks.

Compressor system with a cooling arrangement between the anti-surge valve and the compressor suction side and relevant method


The present invention relates to an automatic inter-axle differential sensor configuration (i.e., location) and calibration method for a vehicle having a tandem drive axle. The method involves determining the speed of the vehicle, determining pulses per minute from each inter-axle differential sensor via the vehicle electronic control unit (ECU), where each of the inter-axle differential sensors are connected to an inter-axle differential gear, determining a location of each inter-axle differential sensor from each of the inter-axle differential sensor pulses per minute, and assigning a number of teeth to each of the inter-axle differential gears in calibrating each of the inter-axle differential sensors. The revolutions per minute for each of the inter-axle differential sensors may be utilized to lock the inter-axle differential during slippage of the vehicle, without human intervention.

Tandem drive axle assemblies having a forward rear axle and a rearward rear axle in proximity with each other are well known. Such tandem drive assemblies are widely used on heavy duty trucks and other over-the-road vehicles, such as busses, which have a high vehicle weight and/or a high load carrying capacity. In such assemblies, both rear axles may be power driven.
An inter-axle differential (IAD) is commonly employed in such vehicles to split the input shaft torque between the front and rear axle of the tandem drive axle assemblies. It is common for an operator of such vehicles to engage and disengage a lock out that overrides or disables the IAD through the use of a pneumatic switch, which typically is mounted on the vehicle dash. In turn, the pneumatic switch applies air to an axle mounted actuator, which engages a sliding dog clutch to "lock" the inter-axle differential.
However, there are several shortcomings to the above-described manual methods of engaging/disengaging the IAD. Failure of the vehicle operator to notice wheel end slip occurring and engage the IAD, can result in spin out failures. Also, engagement of the IAD, while significant slipping is in process, can result in damage to the drive axle. Leaving the IAD engaged for an extended length of time can result in "drive line wind-up" and a resulting inability to disengage the IAD without reversing the vehicle. As a result of these shortcomings, extended wear can occur and the operator may not notice the wear, as actual engagement and disengagement of the IAD is not typically indicated.
Recently, automatic inter-axle differential lockout mechanisms have come into use, where typically two speed sensors (i.e., associated with an IAD clutch locking gear and an IAD helical gear) have been employed to monitor IAD gear speed (see, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0154787 to Claussen et al., which is incorporated herein). For such an IAD lockout mechanism to function properly, the mechanism must separately identify each speed sensor. Hence, it is common to specifically wire between the speed sensors and a control unit by way of different harness connectors, plugs, keys, etc., and to specifically install different sensors so that the sensors cannot be wired the same and/or communicated with through the same signals to the control unit. It is also common that for calibrating each of the gears used in the IAD, the correct combination of the number of teeth for each gear needs to be determined manually and in advance of utilization of the gears, in order to correctly calculate revolutions per minute (RPM) of the gears being monitored.
Examples of relevant art involving inter-axle differential lockout mechanisms are as follows. U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,422 to Schakel generally discloses a system for correcting drive wheel slippage in a heavy vehicle. A central processor compares the driveshaft speed to a non-driven wheel speed and locks an inter-axle differential of a tandem rear drive axle to drive front and rear drive axles at the same speed. If necessary, the inter-axle differential may alternatively lock a main differential of a single rear drive axle to drive first and second driven wheels at the same speed when the ratio of the driveshaft speed signal to a first non-driven wheel speed signal exceeds a predetermined limit. In a tandem configuration, if drive wheel slippage continues, main differentials of the front and rear drive axles are also locked.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0036361 to Romer teaches a drivetrain protection and management system that monitors and determines individual wheel speeds to detect wheel spin and slip conditions on a drive axle. When wheel spin or slip exceeds a threshold, the system automatically controls input torque to the drive axle by controlling engine or retarder torque. In addition to monitoring wheel speeds, the system monitors other vehicle characteristics such as engine torque/speed, the transmission ratio speed, transmission output speed, vehicle speed, and throttle position.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0175113 to Rodeghiero teaches a vehicle that includes steerable front wheels and an interaxle differential for transmitting torque from an engine to the front wheels and to rear wheels. The differential includes a controllable clutch operable to control a ratio of front wheel speed to rear wheel speed, while a control unit controls the clutch as a function of sensed steering angles and stored information including steering angles and corresponding front to rear wheel speed ratio values. The control unit, which is automatically calibrated, periodically obtains steering angle values and front and rear wheel speed values, it generates new front to rear wheel speed ratio values, and replaces one of the stored front to rear wheel speed ratio values with one of the new ratio values, if the steering angle values indicate that the vehicle has been in a straight ahead travel mode for at least a certain time period.
In contrast to the above cited relevant art, the present invention seeks to automatically determine the configuration (e.g., location of the IAD clutch locking gear and the IAD helical gear) of the IAD sensors and to automatically determine the correct combination of the number of teeth in each of the IAD gears so that each of the IAD sensors can be automatically calibrated. The present invention further seeks to not require the exact wires between the ECU sensor inputs and the IAD sensor terminals to be connected to each other, thus precluding the possibility of the sensors being installed at the wrong locations. As a result, the present invention seeks to reduce installation and maintenance complexity, along with reducing costs by not requiring separate connectors, identification, and sensors.

Automated inter-axle differential lock sensor configuration and calibration method


A motor 1 for traveling is attached to a frame 6 of a vehicle via mounts 3, 4 and 5 absorbing vibration. An air compressor 10 and an air compressor driving motor 11 are attached with respect to said motor 1 for traveling. The mounts 3, 4 and 5 are placed to be shared mounts absorbing vibration of the motor 1 for traveling, the air compressor 10 and the air compressor driving motor 11.

The present invention relates to a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon.
Recently, an electric vehicle is known as a vehicle driven by electricity. The electric vehicle has a motor for traveling. The electric vehicle requires accessories such as a water pump, an air-conditioner compressor, a brake negative pressure pump and the like for operating as a vehicle. Some conventional electric vehicles adapted a system wherein the accessory is driven by the motor for traveling.
There is a period of time in which the motor for traveling runs at idle, e.g., the electric vehicle is stopped, therefore, for driving the accessory, there is a case in which the vehicle is operated within an inefficient region of the motor for traveling. At start of the electric vehicle, the motor is put under heavy load and large capacity of a clutch is required in accordance with the load, therefore, the system is inefficient and costly.
To solve the above-described problems, accessories of a conventional electric vehicle is attached to the vehicle body directly. A motor is provided with respect to each accessory for driving the accessory.
The accessories and the motors for driving the accessories generate vibration and noise (hereafter referred to as vibration and the like), therefore, when the accessories and the motors are attached to the vehicle body directly, there is apprehension that the vibration and the like is increased. However, the accessories and the motors for driving the accessories do not generate significant vibration and the like. Therefore, even if the accessories and the motors are attached to the vehicle body directly, a rubber mount absorbs the vibration and the like sufficiently.
More recently, development of a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon, e.g., a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) has flourished. A fuel cell system used for the fuel cell electric vehicle is an electric power generation system having a fuel cell as the core, which supplies hydrogen as fuel gas to an anode of the fuel cell and supplies oxidized gas including oxygen such as air to a cathode of the fuel cell to generate electricity.
The fuel cell system has an air compressor for supplying the oxidized gas to the fuel cell and requires a drive motor for driving the air compressor.
However, the air compressor generates large vibration and the like, therefore, when the air compressor is attached to the vehicle body directly, vibration and the like is too large and an exclusive mount member for shutting out the vibration and the like must be provided. When the exclusive mount member is provided, there is problem that weight and cost are increased by an amount of the exclusive mount member.
On the other hand, a conventional electric vehicle is provided with a motor for driving each accessory, therefore, the conventional electric vehicle requires more motors by the number of accessories and there is problem that cost is increased.
An object of the present invention is to restrain vibration and the like in a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon without using a mount member for exclusive use of an air compressor.
Another object of the present invention is to drive an accessory of a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon without providing many motors.
To solve the above-described problems, a first aspect of the present invention is a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon wherein
a motor for traveling is attached to a frame of a vehicle via a mount absorbing vibration;
an air compressor and an air compressor driving motor are attached with respect to the motor for traveling and the mount is placed to be a shared mount absorbing vibration of the motor for traveling, the air compressor and the air compressor driving motor.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, the air compressor and the air compressor driving motor for driving the air compressor are attached with respect to the motor for traveling. Therefore, the mount absorbing vibration and the like of the motor for traveling absorbs vibration and the like of the air compressor and the air compressor driving motor and operates as the shared mount. Accordingly, vibration and the like of the air compressor can be restrained without providing an exclusive mount member.
A second aspect of the present invention according to the first aspect is a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon wherein at least a part of accessories of a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon is attached to the motor for traveling.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the air compressor, accessories such as a water pump, an air-conditioner compressor, a brake negative pressure pump and the like are attached to the motor for traveling, therefore, vibration and the like generated on these accessories can be absorbed by the shared mount at the same time.
The term of xe2x80x9caccessories of a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereonxe2x80x9d used in the present specification means accessories used for a fuel cell system including air compressor, in addition, e.g., accessories used for the vehicle itself such as a water pump, an air-conditioner compressor, a brake negative pressure pump, a power steering pump, a lubricating oil pump and an alternator.
A third aspect of the present invention according to the first or second aspect is a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon wherein width of an area made up of the whole accessories attached to the motor for traveling in a fore-and-aft direction is narrower than width of the motor for traveling in a fore-and-aft direction, and the whole accessories is placed within the width of the motor for traveling in a fore-and-aft direction.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, width of the accessories attached to the motor for traveling in a fore-and-aft direction is placed within the width of the motor for traveling. Therefore, the accessories are not protruded from the width of the motor for traveling in a fore-and-aft direction. Accordingly, e.g., when a fuel cell electric vehicle causes an collision accident, a problem is prevented such that accessories, which are smaller than the motor for traveling, are protruded from the motor for traveling toward a seat side and the accessories are an obstacle to an occupant or the like.
A forth aspect of the present invention according to the second or third aspect is a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon wherein a plurality of the accessories attached to the motor for traveling are driven integrally by the air compressor driving motor.
According to the forth aspect of the present invention, the accessories attached to the motor for traveling are driven integrally by the air compressor driving motor. Therefore, a motor for driving each accessory becomes unnecessary and the number of the motors can be reduced.
A fifth aspect of the present invention according to the forth aspect is a vehicle with a fuel cell system mounted thereon comprising a control device for controlling the number of revolutions of the air compressor driving motor in accordance with an amount of load generated from the accessories driven by the air compressor driving motor.
According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, a plurality of the accessories are driven by only the air compressor driving motor and at the same time, the number of revolutions of the air compressor driving motor is controlled in consideration of the load of each accessory, i.e., current of the air compressor driving motor is corrected. Therefore, the air compressor driving motor is controlled suitably on the basis of the load of each accessory.

Vehicle with fuel cell system mounted thereon


An Ethernet switch and a method of switch for selectively transporting or filtering network packets. Said Ethernet switch comprises plural network ports, a first and a second memory device, a first and a second memory control device, a switch device, and a memory management device. Network ports are for receiving or delivering network packets. The first memory device saves the source address and associated messages of the network packets. The second memory device saves the network packets received from the network port. The first and the second memory control devices control the read and write of the first and the second memory devices. Further, the switch device creates a source address and the associated messages of the network port for each network packet, and a destination address and the associated messages of the network port for each network packet in accordance with the contents of the first memory device.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a network component, particularly to an Ethernet switch and its method of switching, for selectively transmitting data among several data ports or filtering network packets.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Ethernet is the most popular local area network (LAN) in digital communication market. Previously, the Ethernet framework is a 10BASE5 bus topology network. 10BASE2 is a lower cost improvement of 10BASE5. Although 10BASE2 and 10BASE5 belong to the same bus topology network and operate at the same 10 Mhz frequency, 10BASE2 uses a different type of coaxial cable, and its transmission distance is limited to 200 meters. Both 10BASE5 and 10BASE2 networks have the following drawbacks: costly installation, inflexible installation, and inability to use existing wiring system in the building, among others. 10BASE-T network has been proposed to make use of twisted cable to construct a star topology network for overcoming the drawbacks of 10BASE2 and 10BASE5 network.
When the scale of LAN grows larger and the load of digital transmission among LANs is also increases, the Ethernet performance degrades with the increasing number of nodes connected the LANs. Consequently, high speed Ethernet operating at high clock frequency is provided to address to the requirement for large-scale LANs or high speed digital terminals. High speed Ethernet operates at 100 MHz clock frequency to basically improve the performance of the 10BASE Ethernet. Moreover, high speed Ethernet also defines a media independent interface, for easy connection of said network nodes to twisted cable media or fiber optical media-based networks, such as 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-T4, or 100BASE-FX networks.
Basically, 10BASE5, 10BASE2, 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-T4 or 100BASE-FX belong to the shared network system. That is, the bandwidth of the entire network system is shared by all nodes in the interconnecting network system. The bandwidth for 10BASE network system is 10 MHz, and the bandwidth for 100BASE is 100 MHz. Consequently, when the number of nodes in the interconnecting network system exceeds a critical value, the performance of said network system becomes saturated. To overcome this problem, segmenting methodology is employed to segment the entire network system into several independent sub-networks and place each sub-network in a different collision domain. Therefore, nodes connecting to a different sub-network do not share the bandwidth of other sub-networks. For example, if a non-segmented shared 100BASE network system connects 100 nodes, then each node of the fully loaded network shares only 1 MHz bandwidth. In contrast, if said shared 100BASE LAN system is segmented into two segments, then each node of the fully loaded network shares 2 MHz bandwidth. The segmented LAN employing the Ethernet protocol is called a switching Ethernet. Transmitted packets in different segments are switched by the Ethernet switch. The main purpose of the Ethernet switch is to switch the packets to different segments of the LAN; therefore, packets from one segment are delivered to another segment, while packets from a node to another node in the same segment are not delivered.
Associated technology is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,274,631 and 5,491,694.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the circuit of the discrete memory structure of the Ethernet switch.
As shown in FIG. 1, the Ethernet switch basically comprises of switch integrated circuit 100 and several port integrated circuits 110a, 110b, and 110c. The switch integrated circuit 100 controls the delivery and switch of network packets among ports. Port integrated circuits 110a, 110b, and 110c comprise internal memories 120a, 120b, and 120c for saving and switching network packets. Under this Ethernet framework, when a network packet is to be transmitted from port 130a to port 130b, the packet has to be first saved in the memory 120a, then transported from the memory 120a to the memory 120c. Therefore, the operating performance of this Ethernet switch is not promising. In addition, to enable the links of various LANs, such as 100BASE5, 10BASE2, 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-T4, or 100BASE-FX this type of Ethernet switch requires external memory, which is an additional cost.


In an automatic transmission provided with a hydraulic lockup clutch which can directly and mechanically engage an input shaft with an output shaft of a torque converter, input torque of the above torque converter is detected and an working oil pressure supplied to said lockup clutch is detected. And a target oil pressure for said lockup clutch is set based on said input torque, supply of the oil pressure is feedback controlled so that an actual working oil pressure gets close to said target oil pressure, and said lockup clutch is controlled to the semi-clutch state.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control device and a control method for an automatic transmission for vehicle and particularly to a device and method for controlling the working oil pressure of a hydraulic clutch (lockup clutch) which mechanically and directly engages an input shaft with an output shaft of a torque converter.
2. Related Art of the Invention
It is well known that the transmission efficiency of a torque converter can be improved by providing a hydraulic lockup clutch which mechanically and directly engages an input shaft with an output shaft of a fluid type torque converter and by locking up the above lockup clutch given a certain condition in a conventional automatic transmission of a vehicle.
During lockup control of the lockup clutch as mentioned above, if the lockup clutch is fully and directly engaged at low speed, when drive train vibration is large, a difference in rotation speeds between the input shaft and the output shaft in the torque converter becomes almost zero. Thus, at low speed, vibration and noise are increased, which is a problem, so that full lockup of the clutch is limited to the high speed side where drive train vibration is less.
In some conventional examples, semi-clutch control (slip lockup control) has been executed on the low speed side, where the drive train vibration is relatively large, by carrying out feedback control of a working oil pressure to be supplied to the lockup clutch so that the difference in rotation speeds between the input shaft and the output shaft of the torque converter becomes a predetermined value. When the above semi-clutch control is executed, efficiency of the torque converter can be improved even on the low speed side as a consequences of the drive train vibration being absorbed by the torque converter.
Also, when the difference in rotation speeds between the input shaft and the output shaft of the torque converter is obtained as mentioned above and the supply hydraulic pressure for the lockup clutch is feedback controlled so that this difference is converged into the neighborhood of zero, the working oil pressure in the full lockup control can be optimized according to input torque of the torque converter (See Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2-38754).
When lockup of the lockup clutch is to be controlled based on the difference in rotation speeds between the input shaft and the output shaft of the torque converter, engine revolution speed calculated using a detection pulse signal of a crank angle sensor can be used to determine the rotation speed of the input shaft of the torque converter, since the rotation speed of the input shaft is equal to the revolution speed of the engine. In the meantime, the rotation speed of the output shaft can be detected based on car speed and transmission gear ratio calculated from a detection pulse signal of a car speed sensor which obtains a rotation signal from an output shaft of the transmission.
Rotation speed can be determined using sensors which generate pulse signals synchronously with rotation, such as a crank angle sensor and a car speed sensor. The rotation speed may then calculated by obtaining a pulse generation cycle or by counting the number of generated pulses per unit time.
Higher accuracy is generally required for detecting the engine revolution speed crank angle sensor usually has a resolution higher than that of the car speed sensor, meaning that the engine revolution speed Ne is renewed in a shorter cycle.
Thus, the engine revolution speed Ne and a car speed VSP are different in an updating cycle of a rotation speed detected value, and in calculating the difference in rotation speeds of the both, the calculated difference in rotation speeds might be hunting due to a gap in updating timing of each of the rotation speeds regardless of an actual rotation difference, which in turn will lead to an error. This presents a problem since it is hard to execute lockup force control of the lockup clutch with high accuracy based on the difference in rotation speeds.
That is, with a rotation sensor, an updating cycle of calculated rotation speed is governed by the resolution of the sensor, and when the resolution of a sensor is low, a longer updating cycle is required. Then, if a difference in rotation speeds detected by rotation sensors with different resolution is to be obtained, a desired rotation speed difference can not be obtained due to a gap in updating timing, and when the updating timing is to be adjusted, such a problem occurs that updating at high speed becomes impossible or that calculating accuracy deteriorates. Therefore, it has been hard to calculate the difference in rotation speeds between the input and the output shafts of the torque converter at high speed and with high accuracy and it has been impossible to carry out lockup control with high accuracy based on the above difference in rotation speeds.

Control device and control method using torque feedback of a lock-up clutch in an automatic transmission

Japan Electronic Control Systems Co., Ltd.


Systems, apparatuses and methods may provide for technology that determines an efficient temperature of a processor based on real-time data and one or more part-specific parameters associated with the processor, determines a set of power differences between other temperatures and the efficient temperature, and stores the set of power differences to a register. In one example, a cooling subsystem is controlled based on the set of power differences in the register.

Cooling systems may reduce the junction temperature (e.g., the highest internal transistor operating temperature) of computer processors to ensure proper operation of the processors. Additionally, voltage compensation techniques may be used to maintain higher operating frequencies of processors at lower temperatures. The voltage compensation techniques, however, may also result in higher dynamic power and leakage current, which in turn creates a substantial increase in processor power dissipation. Accordingly, cooling and electrical energy costs may be increased, and processor performance may be reduced. Alternatively, if the junction temperature is too high, the higher leakage current associated with temperature will typically increase the electrical energy costs.

Processor power optimization in terms of system cooling overhead


A machine for harvesting tomatoes including devices for the automatic displacement of harvest containers having a conveyor for collecting stacks of containers and directing them toward a displacing device, which device removes the bottom one of the leading stack of containers and transports it to a loading device. The loading device uses a pincer to hold the container and move it between a filling position adjacent the harvested-tomato discharge belt and a lowered position in which it is adjacent to or rests on the ground.

The present invention proposes a machine for harvesting tomatoes (a tomato harvester), in which there are provided devices for the automatic displacement of the containers for the harvested product.
More especially, the harvester according to the invention is provided with a conveyor, on which the containers are deposited in stacks of 4 or more each, and which carries the stacks to a position in correspondence with equipment located on the rear part of the machine, where there are present means that take up the containers, lift them so that they come in correspondence with the devices that discharge the harvested product and that, when these containers are filled, and put them down onto the ground in stacks of two containers.
In this way, the personnel are relieved from this heavy work, one person being sufficient who, with the help of a truck or fork-lift, loads the stacks of containers in the front part of the machine, while all of the successive maneuvers are performed completely automatically.
The past few years have seen a great spreading of tomato harvesting machines, capable of cutting the plants, of separating the fruit from the leaves and branches, and then of directing the tomatoes that have been separated from the rest toward a conveyor belt that in turn discharges them into the harvest containers. These machines provide for a support surface on which there are deposited containers, called "bins", that are taken up one by one by the worker, positioned under the discharge belt, and then deposited on the ground once they are full. This is an operation that proves especially tiring and that uses personnel in a non productive manner, since the operators spend the major part of their time waiting for the containers or bins to be filled, prior to discharging them to the ground.
The Italian Utility Model application No. PC94U000003 of the Applicant describes a tomato harvesting machine to which there is applied a pallet-removing device capable of receiving a couple of these containers to deposit them on the ground when actuated by the operator. This is a rather advantageous solution, that eliminates the most tiring part of the work, but that still requires, however, the intervention of at least one person.

Tomato harvester, with devices for the automatic displacement of the harvest containers


A self-contained source of gamma-ray and neutron radiation suitable for use as a radiation surrogate for weapons-grade plutonium is described. The source generates a radiation spectrum similar to that of weapons-grade plutonium at 5% energy resolution between 59 and 2614 keV, but contains no special nuclear material and emits little α-particle radiation. The weapons-grade plutonium radiation surrogate also emits neutrons having fluxes commensurate with the gamma-radiation intensities employed.

Radiation detection technology is being deployed worldwide to address concerns regarding the illicit movement of radiological and nuclear materials. Equipment of different types and from various manufacturers is being distributed to operators with varying levels of training and different backgrounds. There is a need to reliably exercise and demonstrate the capabilities of these detectors and responders. In particular: (1) many detector developers, manufacturers, and vendors do not have weapons-grade plutonium, WGPu, for testing their hardware or isotope identification algorithms; (2) since the identification of shielded or masked plutonium depends on the plutonium radiation intensity and spectrum, a high-fidelity surrogate exhibiting the full WGPu spectrum is needed to test the effects of shielding and masking in different shielding configurations; (3) fixed-site radiation detection equipment (ports, border crossings, etc.) requires in situ testing capability, and (4) nuclear incident response exercises require credible materials.
The use of Nuclear Explosive-Like Assemblies (NELAs) is not always an attractive option for the stated applications, since NELAs typically contain actual SNM combined with inert materials (or conversely, high-explosives combined with non-radioactive materials), and their use is limited to secure facilities. The use of a NELA is prohibitive due to cost, safety and security concerns for all but the most pressing needs. By contrast, a non-SNM surrogate can be transported and deployed without the substantive administrative controls required for SNM.
Accordingly, it is an object of the embodiments of the present invention to provide a radiation surrogate having a neutron and gamma-ray signature which is representative of the neutron and gamma-ray spectrum of weapons-grade plutonium at an energy resolution of 5% without the use of special nuclear material.
Another object of the embodiments of the present invention is to provide a radiation surrogate having a neutron and gamma-ray signature which is representative of the gamma-ray spectrum of weapons-grade plutonium at an energy resolution 5% over an energy range of 59 keV to 2614 keV without the use of special nuclear material.
Still another object of the embodiments of the present invention is to provide a radiation surrogate having a neutron and gamma-ray signature which is representative of the gamma-ray spectrum of weapons-grade plutonium at an energy resolution 5% over an energy range of 59 keV to 2614 keV without the use of special nuclear material, and having low α-particle emission.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

The United States of America as represented by the United States Department of Energy


An integrated circuit device in which by connecting signal pads of a semiconductor chip to either a power potential lead or a ground potential lead of a package at assembly time, either of plural initial states set in the semiconductor chip in advance is set, and a microprocessor constituted by above-mentioned integrated circuit device in which a signal for setting an initial value of a data bus width control resister at resetting timing is inputted from a data size designating pad and set, and a register for controlling an effective data bus width is provided, and by changing the set value of the data bus width register by the instruction, an effective bit width of the data bus is changed to the value different from the initial set value, thereby the instruction under pre-processing as the pipeline processing is cleared, and the instruction right after is fetched at the effective bus width newly set for execution.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated circuit device wherein an initial state can be set at assembly time and the initial state is set by bonding wires, furthermore, it relates to a microprocessor capable of settling an effective bit width of a data bus and changing the effective data-bus width by instructions.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, in a system using a microprocessor, a method of using external pins for programming by hardware to set an internal state of the microprocessor without using software is used.
For example, in the microprocessor which accesses the external data bus to which peripheral devices of different data bus sizes are connected, a width of data bus must be switched to 8 bits, 16 bits, 32 bits etc. by reasons of a memory or I/O sides to access the external devices. As a means for switching the data bus width, a method called a dynamic bus sizing is known.
In the method of dynamic bus sizing, a signal specifying how many bytes is the memory or I/O device data width which is now addressed, is returned to the microprocessor from the memory side when returning acknowledge to the data strobe at read/write of the memory.
As an example of the conventional microprocessor adopting the method of dynamic bus sizing, a microprocessor MC68020 by Motorola Corp. is known.
In the following the microprocessor MC68020 by Motorola Corp. is described as the prior art.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a configuration of a bus interface of the microprocessor MC68020.
The bus interface of the microprocessor MC68020 comprises, an address bus 51 having the 32-bit width of A0 to A31 bit, a data bus 52 having the 32-bit width of D0 to D31 bit, a sequence control line and signal lines for interruption, arbitration control and so on.
The bus interface of the microprocessor MC68020 is capable of sending and receiving data by adjusting the bus width to the bus ports of 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit widths. However, for the purpose of dynamically interfacing with the bus having the bit width which differs in each bus cycle, informing the data size mutually with the outside by two size pins (SIZ1, SIZ0) and 2 sized data acknowledge pins (DSACK1, DSACK0).
A bit width of the operand requested by the microprocessor MC68020 is informed to all of the devices connected to the bus, by using the size pins (SIZ1, SIZ0).
Here, the 2-bit SIZ signal represents, ##EQU1##
The memory, when addressed adequately, informs the bit width of the operand transferred actually from the address to the microprocessor MC68020 by using the sized data acknowledge pins (DSACK1, DSACK0).
Here, the 2-bit DSACK signal represents, ##EQU2##
Relationship between the DSACK signal and SIZ signal is shown in the following.
i) The address (A0 to A31) of the memory which is requested by the microprocessor MC68O20 to be transferred and the SIZ signal of the number of requested bytes are outputted, and simultaneously, a direction of transfer is indicated by the read/write (R/W) signal.
ii) Next, an address strobe signal AS is turned to the low activity to indicate that various signals for data transfer are stabilized.
iii) A memory block and I/O block specified by the address and function code perform the following works.
It is decoded by contents of the addresses A1, A0 that which memory is to be accessed, and it is set by the SIZ signal that how many bytes are to be accessed.
In the case of 2-byte memory width (DSACK=LH), when the SIZ signal indicates one byte, depending on the address A0 which is "1" or "0" (even address or odd address), it is necessary to respond to address which is only for the high order byte or only for the low order byte. In this case, control of offset in memory words when accessing is classified into eight kinds as shown in a schematic view of FIG. 2. At this time, the DSACK signal is returned to the microprocessor in 2 bytes in any case.
When the 4-byte memory width is indicated (DSACK=LL), though fairly complicated control is necessary on the memory side, its state is shown in a schematic view of FIG. 3.
As shown in FIG. 3, in all cases, the off-set in the memory words is decided by the address signals A0, Al, and from the off-set position decided, how many bytes are to be actually accessed by the SIZ signal must be decided.
A decoding function of the size signals SIZ1, SIZ0 and the address signals A0, A1 must be, basically, included in each memory block and I/O block.
Details of the method of dynamic bus sizing of the microprocessor MC68020 is described in page number 5-2 of MOTOROLA "MC68020 32-Bit Microprocessor User's Manual".
As the conventional microprocessor is constructed as aforementioned, external pins for outputting the signal indicating the data width of operand request from the microprocessor to the peripheral devices, and external pins for receiving the signal indicating the operand width transferred from the peripheral devices to the microprocessor are necessary.
Furthermore, external circuits for decoding relationship between the signal indicating the data width of operand request and the address are required respectively on each memory block and I/O block.

Integrated circuit device and microprocessor constituted thereby


A process for fabricating a water-swellable porous plastic plug is provided, the process including the steps of: providing a porous substrate having a plurality of passageways therethrough, disposing into the passageways a hydrophilic polymer, irradiating the substrate to induce cross-linking of the hydrophilic polymer, such that the polymer forms a hydrogel coating on the walls of the passageways.

Samples for blood gas analysis have conventionally been collected in syringes having some means to vent air in the syringe prior to sample collection and to protect the sample from external air after collection. Many prior art devices accomplish venting with a filter across a hollow plunger rod which allows passage of air, but not blood, from the interior of the syringe during collection. U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,738 uses a hydrophobic filter and is exemplary of this art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,424,817 uses filters of paper or styrofoam and, in one embodiment, uses two filters, one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,238,003 includes a perforated or slotted disc having upper and lower faces which enclose a hydrophobic filter. The patent adds additional structure which allows the syringe plunger to be advanced during sample collection and thereby overcomes the problem, imposed by conventional fixed plungers, which may cause insufficient sample collection from a patient having low blood pressure.

Blood gas syringe having improved blood barrier


Two or more integrated circuit or memory chips (64-66, 104, 106-108, 116-118, 122-126) are stacked on a circuit substrate (72, 100) or a printed-wiring board in such a manner that the planes of the chips lie horizontally, rather than vertically, on the substrate or wiring board. The chips are preferably interconnected along all of their edges (68) and thence, preferably by ribbon bonds, to the substrate or wiring board. The thus assembled arrangement is hermetically sealed by coatings of passivation and encapsulant. Such chips (25) are oversized, as distinguished from chips conventionally diced from wafers. Specifically, each chip is larger than an individual wafer circuit (18, 20), that is, each wafer portion (24) which is selected to be formed into a chip has a size that is larger than the individual wafer circuit which it incorporates, thus overlapping adjacent circuits.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for fabricating and assembling integrated circuit or memory chips on a circuit substrate or printed wiring board and, more particularly, for stacking such chips into a contacting layered stack, such that their planes lie parallel to and in contact-with the plane of the circuit substrate or printed wiring board, and to the parallelly stacked chip assembly manufactured by the method.
2. Description of Related Art and Other Considerations
Conventionally, integrated circuit and memory chips are mounted singly in a hermetic package, and the package leads are interconnected to a substrate or a printed circuit board. Alternately, the chips are mounted onto a circuit board in a hermetic hybrid package whose external leads are interconnected to the printed wiring board.
When space and volume are at a premium, use of such conventional mounting arrangements results in a less than optimal overall circuit density and a lower circuit speed. Specifically, presently used mounting arrangements consume relatively large amounts of space and volume, and thus lessen circuit density. Further, the relatively large spacing between the chips lowers circuit speed and increases capacitances, thereby causing slower signal propagation through the circuit.
These problems have been recognized in the packaging technology, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,525,921 and 4,764,846. There, chips are stacked at right angles to the substrate and interconnected with edge metalizing circuitry. On one edge or face of the stack, the circuit lines terminate at metal bumps which are used to interconnect the stack directly to a substrate and its corresponding pattern of circuit pads. The chips are thus oriented so that their planes lie normal to the plane of the substrate.
The aim of these patents is to achieve a high density in the stack. However, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,764,846, to enable the mounting of its individual chips and their carriers to a stack-carrying substrate, the leads from the chips must be extended to a single side, which consumes a relatively large area, thereby militating against the desired aim of high density.
It is also possible further to increase density by lapping material from the back side of the wafer prior to its being diced into thinned chips. This thinning is expensive, and adds to the cost of the stack.
The bump mounting method of the stack is also costly, and its use in producing reliable connections is uncertain for use in such environments as airborne systems.

Stacked chip assembly and manufacturing method therefor


A capacitive sensor with at least one reference impedance (2) and at least one measuring condenser (3), at least one electrical alternating signal source (4), a current supply network (5) and an analysis unit (6) in which the reference impedance (2) and the measuring condenser (3) are connected via the current supply network (5) to the alternating signal source (4) and the analysis unit (6) in such a way that the charge and discharge currents of the reference impedance (2) and the measuring condenser (3) and/or an analysis signal from the analysis unit (6) that characterizes the charge and discharge currents of the reference impedance (2) and the measuring condenser (3) can be analyzed. As a result, the reference impedance (2) can be tuned. The capacitive sensor avoids—at least partially—drawbacks in the capacitive sensors known from the prior art in that the reference impedance can be tuned.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a capacitive sensor with at least one reference impedance and at least one measuring condenser, with at least one electrical alternating signal source, with a current supply network, as well as with an analysis unit, whereby the reference impedance and the measuring condenser are connected via the current supply network to the alternating signal source and the analysis unit such that the charge and discharge currents of the reference impedance and the measuring condenser can be analyzed by the analysis unit.
2. Description of Related Art
Capacitive sensors of the initially mentioned type are known from, for example, the U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,650,730 and 5,793,217 and are used for determining the capacitance of the measuring condenser or the change in the capacitance of the measuring condenser. These sensors have a special current supply network, namely such a one that consists of diodes, connected in series, which form a diode ring.
In the capacitive sensor itself, often only one electrode of the measuring condenser is designed, and the other electrode of the measuring condenser is formed by the surrounding area of the capacitive sensor. The measuring condenser is thus normally not a condenser in terms of a complete electrotechnical component, but rather an arrangement that is equipped with a capacitance whose active electrode is assigned to the capacitive sensor, whereby an electrical stray field extends from the active electrode into the surrounding area.
In the prior art, in most cases, a reference condenser is used as a reference impedance. Where there is concrete mention below of a reference capacitance, the embodiments still generally also apply to a reference impedance; the capacitance of the reference condenser then corresponds to the value of the reference impedance, independently thereof, as the reference impedance is implemented as a component. The charge and discharge currents of a reference condenser then correspond to the charge and discharge currents of a reference impedance, whereby the reference impedance can convert the energy supplied to it in some other way than only in the electric field of a condenser.
The capacitance of the above-described sensor can be changed, on the one hand, if the geometry of the arrangement, and thus, the stray field of the active electrode is changed; on the other hand, the capacitance of the sensor—without a change in the extension of the stray field—can also change in an alteration of the dielectric properties of the space, in which the electric field extends. Because of these general properties, capacitive sensors are frequently used as proximity switches and as fill-level detectors.
In capacitive sensors of the initially described type, the alternating signal source is usually designed as an oscillator, such as, for example, as a harmonic oscillator in the form of an LRC network, which is switched in such a way that it executes a continuous oscillation. As the signal level within the positive semioscillation of the alternating signal increases, the measuring condenser is charged via a current that flows over a first path of the diode ring, and the reference impedance—frequently designed as a reference condenser—is charged during the latter with a current that flows over a second path of the diode ring. The charge current that flows over one path in each case is derived as a discharge current via the respective other path.
The mode of operation of the above-described capacitive sensor is consequently based on the fact that the charge current of the reference impedance, which can be configured in particular as a reference condenser, or the charge current of the measuring condenser in each case flows over a path of the sensor or the current supply network that is different from the discharge current of the reference condenser or the measuring condenser. If the capacitances of the reference condenser and the measuring condenser are equally large, the current that flows in via the first path or the second path on average is equal to the current that flows out from the first path or from the second path of the current supply network that is designed as a diode ring. If the capacitances of the reference condenser and the measuring condenser vary in size, however, a resulting current is produced in the time mean in each path of the current supply network that is designed as a diode ring. By analyzing the differential currents of the charge and discharge currents that flow into the first and second paths of the current supply network, it is evident what the ratio is between the capacitance of the measuring condenser and the capacitance of the reference condenser.
In the generic capacitive sensors known from the U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,650,730 and 5,793,217, the currents that flow via the reference condenser and the measuring condenser into the analysis unit are fed via two current-voltage transformers to an adder, which processes the voltages with different signs so that a differential signal results. This differential signal is ultimately—after possible additional intermediate steps pertaining to circuit engineering—compared to a reference or threshold signal, whereby the reference signal defines a threshold, which, when reached, indicates a specific event, such as, e.g., a sufficient proximity of an object to the capacitive sensor or the presence/absence of a specific fill level.
The disadvantage to the above-described capacitive sensor is that the analysis of the current signals in the analysis unit is comparatively expensive. In particular, the presetting of a reference value, to which the difference of the current-voltage-converted currents is compared, is labor-intensive and costly in terms of circuit engineering, and in addition, is prone to frequency and amplitude fluctuations of the alternating signal. Furthermore, it has been found that the known sensors in the working frequency of 2 MHz indicated in the prior art are not suitable to be used as fill-level sensors, since they are not able to distinguish whether a medium fills a larger area of volume around the sensor or whether only a small adhesion of this medium to the sensor has remained after the medium that is to be monitored has left the area of the capacitive sensor; the fill level thus has dropped below the position of the capacitive sensor. Also, the above-described capacitance sensors are not suitable for interval operation, since, when the triggering of the current supply network is turned off, the differential current as the signal to be analyzed is also immediately brought together with the alternating signal from the alternating signal source and can no longer be used for another analysis.