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The present invention relates to a cross-connecting module and, more particularly, to a cross-connecting module for switching transmission lines of higher orders.
Conventionally, a cross-connecting module of this sort performs cross-connection by using an STS1 signal having an overhead format as illustrated in FIG. 12 as a unit. This STS1 signal is a signal of SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) standard.
As in FIG. 12, the overhead of the STS1 signal consists of transport overhead 33 including section overhead 31 and line overhead 32, and path overhead 34.
On the other hand, in cross-connecting an STS3 signal formed by multiplexing three STS (Synchronous Transport Signal) 1 signals and having an overhead format as shown in FIG. 13, this STS3 signal is byte-interleave-demultiplexed into three STS1 signals, and cross-connection is performed for each of these three STS1 signals.
As in FIG. 13, the overhead of the STS3 signal consists of transport overhead 37 including section overhead 35 and line overhead 36.
That is, as depicted in FIG. 10, the start bit of an input STS3 signal is detected by a synchronous circuit 1. On the basis of the start bit thus detected, the STS3 signal is byte-interleave-demultiplexed by a demultiplex circuit 2.
Three STS1 signals obtained by the byte-interleave-demultiplex performed by the demultiplex circuit 2 are stored in elastic memories 3, 4, and 5 for absorbing phase differences and applied to a cross-connecting module 11 via interface circuits 8, 9, and 10, respectively.
Note that each of the interface circuits 8 to 10 also checks, on the basis of bytes H1 and H2 as the pointers of the STS1 signal in FIG. 12, whether the corresponding input STS1 signal can be cross-connected by the cross-connecting module 11.
After being cross-connected by the cross-connecting module 11, the three STS1 signals are transferred to synchronous circuits 15, 16, and 17 via interface circuits 12, 13, and 14, respectively, as in FIG. 11.
The synchronous circuits 15, 16, and 17 detect the start bits of the three STS1 signals and transfer the timings at which the start bits are detected to memories 18, 19, and 20, respectively. Consequently, the STS1 signals that are cross-connected by the cross-connecting module 11 are stored in the memories 18 to 20 on the basis of the start bit detection timings.
The STS1 signals thus stored in the memories 18 to 20 are sequentially read out from the memories 18 to 20 under the control of a read controller 21 and byte-interleave-multiplexed by a multiplexer 26.
The STS1 signal rate is 51.84 Mbps. To increase the efficiency of the transmission, the STS1 signals are multiplexed to the higher rate signal. An STS3 signal formed by multiplexing three STS1 signals.
As illustrated in FIG. 3, in an STS3 signal (to be referred to as a concatenation signal hereinafter) to be processed in this method, the data of each of three STS1 signals described above is handled as single data. Therefore, the bytes H1 and H2 of the pointers of each of the second and third STS1 signals are replaced with bytes H1* and H2* of fixed values, respectively.
The fixed value of the byte H1 is "10010011" [to be referred to as 93(HEX) hereinafter], and the fixed value of the byte H2* is "11111111" [to be referred to as FF(HEX) hereinafter].
In performing data transmission in accordance with the above method, this concatenation signal is byte-interleave-demultiplexed by the demultiplex circuit 2 and stored in the elastic memories 3 to 5 in the same manner as in the above-mentioned processing.
Since, however, the pointers of the second and third STS1 signals which are byte-interleave-demultiplexed by the demultiplex circuit 2 have the bytes H1* and H2* of fixed values, the interface circuits 9 and 10 determine that these pointers exceed a cross-connectable range.
It is therefore impossible to cross-connect the second and third STS1 signals by the cross-connecting module 11.
In the conventional cross-connecting module discussed above, if the signal to be processed is the concatenation signal in which the data of each of three STS1 signals is handled as single data, the interface circuits arranged before the cross-connecting module determine that the pointers of the second and third STS1 signals that are byte-interleave-demultiplexed by the demultiplex circuit exceed the cross-connectable range. Consequently, these signals cannot be cross-connected, and this makes transmission of the concatenation signal impossible.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a condensate treatment conducted in a condensate demineralization apparatus of a nuclear power plant, and relates particularly to a method and apparatus for condensate demineralization that enable a high-purity treated water, having a low concentration of sulfate ions derived from organic impurities eluted from a cation exchange resin, to be obtained in a stable manner over a long period of time.
2. Description of Related Art
In a nuclear power plant, following electric power generation using the steam generated within the nuclear reactor or steam generator, the steam is cooled using seawater, and the resulting condensate is then treated with ion exchange resins in a condensate demineralization apparatus, before being fed back into the nuclear reactor or steam generator. This condensate may include seawater components that have seeped into the condensate system, suspended corrosion products generated from plant structural materials and composed mainly of iron oxides (hereafter referred to as “crud”), and ionic impurities. In order to remove these impurities to obtain a high-purity treated water, the nuclear power plant is provided with a condensate demineralization apparatus that uses ion exchange resins to perform a demineralization treatment of the condensate. The ion exchange resins used in the condensate demineralization apparatus include a cation exchange resin that adsorbs cations, and an anion exchange resin that adsorbs anions, and these resins are typically used in combination.
In this condensate demineralization apparatus, in those cases where a cation exchange resin and an anion exchange resin are used in combination, typical examples of the resin combination include combinations of a gel-type cation exchange resin and a gel-type anion exchange resin, and combinations of a porous cation exchange resin and a porous anion exchange resin. Generally, gel-type resins have low osmotic resistance, whereas porous resins have low abrasion resistance, and in consideration of these drawbacks, gel-type resins are typically used in the condensate demineralization apparatus of plants where backwashing regeneration is conducted frequently, whereas porous resins are used in those plants where chemical regeneration is conducted frequently. Porous resins have particularly low abrasion resistance, and therefore during transfer within the condensate demineralization apparatus from the demineralization tower that houses the ion exchange resin bed to the regeneration tower that performs regeneration of the ion exchange resin, contact between resin particles or between resin particles and metal materials may cause damage to the surface of the resin particles or even fracture of the resin particles. Accordingly, in plants such as BWR nuclear power plants where backwashing is used to strip the crud adhered to the surface of the cation exchange resin, a combination of a gel-type cation exchange resin and a gel-type anion exchange resin is typically used due to the more favorable abrasion resistance of these exchange resins.
Moreover, in a porous resin, the resin matrix structure is more dense than that of a gel-type resin, and therefore the rate of diffusion of an adsorbed ion into the particle interior is slower than that observed for a gel-type resin, meaning porous resins tend to exhibit inferior performance in terms of reaction rate and regeneration efficiency. As a result, in those cases where a porous resin is used in a condensate demineralization apparatus, the apparatus design must take these properties of porous resins into consideration, for example by providing an increased regeneration level (namely, the amount of chemical used).
The ion exchange resin used in the condensate demineralization apparatus of a nuclear power plant exhibits a superior removal capability for ionic components such as seawater components typified by NaCl introduced from the upstream side of the resin, but a problem arises in that organic impurities (hereafter abbreviated as “TOC”) composed mainly of polystyrenesulfonic acids tend to be eluted from the cation exchange resin. If this TOC is carried into the nuclear reactor or steam generator, then sulfate ions are generated, which causes a deterioration in the water quality within the nuclear reactor or the steam generator.
Accordingly, in order to raise the nuclear reactor or steam generator water quality to a higher level of purity, the amount of leaked TOC eluted from the demineralization tower filled with the ion exchange resins must be minimized.
Examples of methods that have been proposed to address this problem include a method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 11-352283, in which a strongly acidic gel-type cation exchange resin is used that has a cross-linking degree of 12 to 16% that is considerably higher than the more typically used cross-linking degree of 8 to 10%, a method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2001-314855, in which the anion exchange resin is positioned as the lower layer of the ion exchange resin bed so as to adsorb the TOC eluted from the cation exchange resin, and a method disclosed in Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 8-224579, in which a mixed bed is formed using a strongly acidic gel-type cation exchange resin and a porous anion exchange resin having a Gaussian particle size distribution.
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Image articles comprising security images are well known. Security images generally comprise an image which is invisible or undetectable under ambient conditions, and which can be rendered visible or detectable by application of a suitable stimulus; or alternatively, the image may change from one colour under ambient conditions to another colour upon application of a stimulus.
Security images may be manufactured by coating security inks or compounds onto a substrate. Examples of known compounds which when coated onto a substrate provide a security image include photochromic compounds which generally change from colourless to coloured upon the application of ultraviolet light, and thermochromic compounds which generally change from colourless to coloured upon the application of heat.
Image articles which include security images are useful in many areas of industry such as in packaging, identification cards, and labels, for example. It is useful to provide packaging which includes a security image invisible to a user under ambient conditions, but which can be rendered visible upon application of a stimulus; for example, if a customs and excise official wishes to check that imported goods are genuine goods or whether they are counterfeit goods. If the packaging includes the security image, rendered visible or detectable by suitable stimulus, the customs and excise official can determine that the packaging, and hence the goods, are not counterfeit. Likewise, it is advantageous to provide an identification card in which an image is invisible or a defined colour under ambient conditions, but which can be rendered visible or detectable, or change colour upon application of a stimulus in order to prove the identity of a user of the identity card, and in order to determine that the identity card is genuine and not a counterfeit identity card. There are many known examples of such security images, for example, in the applicant's co-pending applications PCT/GB2005/001763 and PCT/GB2005/001766.
In the manufacture of bank notes, it is desirable to include as many security features as possible, which may include multiple security images using a variety of compounds capable of changing colour upon application of a stimulus (including movement of the bank note to change viewing angle), or turning coloured from colourless, or vice versa.
In many countries, officials and state authorities use apparatus, such as third party verifiers, which detect the percentage light absorbance and/or reflection at a wavelength of approximately 800-900 nm (in the infrared region), to detect whether specific security images comprising compounds which absorb infrared radiation between 800-900 nm are present; and hence help to determine whether or not a bank note is genuine or counterfeit.
It is desirable to provide bank notes which contain security images comprising compounds capable of exhibiting 50% or less light reflectance at approximately 800-900 nm. Many bank notes include Carbon Black as a pigment which possesses the characteristic of less than 50% light reflectance at 800-900 nm. Unfortunately, in order to provide a suitably strong image, with the required light reflectance characteristics at 800-900 nm, Carbon Black is generally needed in a concentration which produces a dull grey image in the positions where the Carbon Black is located, when coated at concentrations generally used (for example, 3% w/w of the total weight of the ink dispersion laid down on the substrate paper for bank notes). Bank note counterfeiters recognise from the dull grey image that Carbon Black is present in bank notes, and commonly now use Carbon Black in order to avoid their counterfeit bank notes being detected as counterfeit when utilising third party verifiers to verify the light reflectance at 800-900 nm.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a security image on a bank note or any other image article requiring a security image, in which a security image includes one or more compounds having a 50% or less light reflectance at 800-900 nm at a given concentration within an image (and preferably around 850 nm), and in which the compound utilised does not create a strongly coloured image. It would be particularly advantageous to provide such a compound for inclusion in a security image in which the compound produces a substantially colourless security image, but which has 30% or less light reflectance at 800-900 nm. Most preferably 10% light reflectance in the 800-900 region is desired.
It is therefore an aim of the preferred embodiments of the present invention to overcome or mitigate at least one problem with the prior art, whether expressly disclosed herein or not.
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A business entity may be associated with a particular physical location and may provide a variety of items, including goods and services, for purchase by customers of the business entity. In a typical transaction, a customer may visit the physical location of the business entity, select a particular item provided by the business entity, and pay for the item using one of a variety of different means of payment accepted by the business entity. The business entity may accept, for example, payment via cash, a credit card, a debit card, a check, a charge account, a bank transfer, trade, or other the like.
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This invention relates to a cleaning apparatus especially designed to eliminate the toner adhering to the photoconductor of a xerographic printing apparatus by means of a fur brush.
In a conventional cleaning apparatus, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a fur brush 2 contacting the surface of a photoconductor 1 is driven by a brush motor 3 to remove residual toner T remaining on the photoconductor 1. A housing 4 is disposed in such a manner as to surround the fur brush 2 with an adequate clearance. The residual toner T removed by the fur brush 2 is sucked in the air flow generated by a suction blower B, passing through the housing 4 to a suction chamber 5, and is transported to a reclaiming system R.
With such a cleaning apparatus, however, if the speed of the air flow along the inner wall surface of the housing 4 is not sufficient, some of the reclaimed residual toner tends to adhere to the inner surface of the housing 4 and accumulate therein. The accumulated toner gradually increases in thickness, and when the cleaning apparatus is vibrated, the toner is stripped from the inner surface of the housing 4 to fall down. As this toner cannot be drawn off by the suction air flow, it falls down on the surface of the photoconductor 1, which causes poor printing. Therefore, the conventional cleaning apparatus requires frequent cleaning of the interior of the housing 4 before the toner is so stripped, and costs a great deal for maintenance.
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Turbochargers extract energy from a vehicle exhaust to drive a compressor to deliver air at high density to the engine intake, allowing more fuel to be combusted, thus boosting the engine's horsepower. Tighter regulation of engine exhaust emissions has led to an interest in boost devices capable of delivering ever higher pressure ratios. One way to achieve this is to drive the compressor wheel at higher tip speeds, typically translating to 80,000 RPM to 300,000 RPM, depending upon the diameter of the compressor wheel. Not only high rotational speeds, but also shaft forces to rapidly accelerate the compressor wheel, create high tensile loading of the compressor wheel. This loading is especially severe particularly near the bore. It is conventional to reinforce the backwall of a compressor wheel with a central bulge.
Compared to a compressor wheel, a turbine wheel is usually made of a higher value alloy, able to withstand the high temperatures and corrosive gasses to which the turbine wheel is exposed. The turbine wheel also differs from a compressor wheel in the manner of joining to the shaft, i.e., while a compressor wheel typically has a through-going bore by which it is seated on a shaft, and is fixed to the shaft via a nut, a turbine wheel is solid and is materially fixed to the shaft, e.g., by welding or brazing. Turbine wheel backwalls also differ from compressor wheel backwalls. Turbine wheels backwalls are conventionally substantially flat. See US Patent Application 2010/0003132 (Holzschuh) assigned to the assignee of the present application, which forms the basis for FIGS. 1 and 2.
Since the turbine wheel and compressor wheel are fixed to the same shaft, the turbine wheel must spin at the same high RPM as the compressor wheel. The turbine wheel is also subjected to repetitive stresses and can experience low cycle fatigue failure. There is thus a need to further guard against the possibility of low cycle fatigue failure in turbine wheels.
The commercial turbocharger industry is cost driven. While there is a need to reduce to low cycle fatigue failure, this objective must be accomplished economically, i.e., without resort to high cost measures such as multiple-alloy wheel manufacturing techniques, exotic alloys, five-axis milling from billet, time-consuming cold-working to remove surface defects, etc.
It has recently been discovered that compressor wheels provided with a slightly longer, profiled hub end have improved life against low cycle fatigue. Compressor wheels with this design have been referred to as “superback”. To accommodate the added length of the superback compressor wheel, the industry found the need to redesign other associated features of the turbocharger such as flinger and diffuser.
Although there are significant structural, metallurgical, and joining differences between compressor wheels and turbine wheels, the present inventors investigated wither increased hub length could also provide benefits to turbine wheels with regard to prevention of low cycle fatigue. Since turbine housings are generally designed to receive turbine wheels with flat backs, and since it is conventional practice to balance turbine wheels by removing material from a flat region of the backwall, there was a question as to how to design a “superback” turbine wheel to, on the one hand, possibly provide the desired benefit, and on the other hand, cause the minimum disruption to the industry, e.g., allow the industry to continue with conventional balancing processes, and to incorporated into the available line of turbine housing with minimum re-design and re-engineering of cooperating turbocharger components.
An initial turbine wheel superback design provided a generally conical transition between an elongated weld hub and the flat backwall of the turbine wheel (FIG. 2). This turbine wheel superback design was tested commercially and was found to meet expectations. The present inventors nevertheless investigated to see whether even greater improvements could be achieved. The inventors considered different alloys, mechanical surface treatments, chemical surface treatments, coatings, heat treatments and other options.
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This invention relates to a motor and an electric pump.
One related motor disclosed, for example, in JP-A-2005-168098, is known. Namely, as shown in FIG. 6, the motor 91 has a cylindrical stator 93 fixed to an inner peripheral surface of a motor case 92. The stator 93 is formed by superimposing together a plurality of electromagnetic steel sheets each made of a steel material which is a magnetic material having high magnetic permeability. As shown also in FIG. 7, a plurality of teeth 93a are formed on and project from an inner peripheral surface of the stator 93 at predetermined intervals, and conductor wires are wound on these teeth to form coils 94.
As shown in FIG. 6, an output shaft 95 is inserted in and rotatably supported on the motor case 92 through a pair of bearings 96a and 96b, and a rotor 97 is mounted on the output shaft 95 for rotation therewith. A tubular magnet 98 is fixedly mounted on an outer peripheral surface of the rotor 97, and this magnet 98 is disposed in such a manner that its outer peripheral surface is opposed to the inner peripheral surface (more accurately, distal end surfaces of the plurality of teeth 93a) of the stator 93 through a slight clearance. Namely, the rotor 97 and the magnet 98 are rotatably supported in a space formed within the stator 93 (more accurately, generally defined by the distal end surfaces of the plurality of teeth 93a). The rotor 97 is rotated by a rotating magnetic field produced by energizing the coils 94.
The motor of this construction has been used as a power source of an electric pump suited for use as a fuel pump, a water pump, an oil pump, a hydraulic pump of a transmission, etc., for a vehicle. For example, an electric pump is disclosed in JP-A-2005-337025, in which in order to reduce the number of component parts and also to achieve a compact design, a single common shaft serves as an output shaft of a motor and also as a drive shaft of a pump.
However, in the above related motor, the stator is mounted on the motor case by press-fitting the former into the latter. Therefore, there has been a fear that following problem might be encountered. Namely, as shown in FIG. 7, the stator 93 is formed such that a transverse cross-section of its outer periphery has a circular shape, and the motor case 92 is formed such that a transverse cross-section of its inner periphery has a circular shape. The outer diameter of the stator 93 is substantially equal to or slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the motor case 92. When the stator 93 is forced or press-fitted into the motor case 92 through one open end thereof with a predetermined force, the stator 93 is fixed to the motor case 92, with its outer peripheral surface held in intimate contact with the inner peripheral surface of the motor case 92.
When the stator 93 is thus press-fitted into the motor case 92 to be fixed thereto, the stator 93 receives a compressive force (external stresses) from the motor case 92 over the entire periphery thereof. As a result, compressive stresses (internal stresses) directed outward from its center occurs in the stator 93. It is commonly known that when such compressive stresses occurs in the stator 93, magnetic properties of the stator 93 are adversely affected, so that iron loss (core loss) increases. In order to suitably prevent the rotation of the stator 93 relative to the motor case 92, it is necessary to secure a certain degree of press-fit interference which is the dimensional difference between the outer diameter of the stator 93 and the inner diameter of the motor case 92. However, as the press-fit interference increases, the compressive stresses occurring in the stator 93 increases and hence the iron loss increase. Further, as the iron loss of the stator 93 increases, the amount of heat generated in the motor 91 increases, which leads to a lowered efficiency of the motor 91. These problems are encountered commonly with the type of motors in which a stator is press-fitted in a motor case to be fixed thereto as in the above related motor.
In recent years, there is still a tendency for vehicles to be computerized, and therefore it has been required to further reduce power consumption. Motors also are not an exception, and it has been required to secure a higher efficiency. Furthermore, in the case where the motor is used as the drive source of the above electric pump, the lowered efficiency of the motor leads to a lowered output power of the electric pump. In this respect, also, it has been strongly desired to secure the still higher efficiency of the motor.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to: an image forming apparatus such as a multifunctional digital machine called a multifunction peripheral (MFP) having various functions such as copier, printer, facsimile, and scanner function; an operation control method for the image forming apparatus; and a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium with an operation program being stored thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
Some MFPs as described above are allowed to implement their functions only after having various applications installed thereon. In other words, installing an application program (also referred to as application, simply) enables such an MFP, having various functions such as copier and printer functions, to use application-based features of their functions, which are different from regular features of their functions, by cooperative work between the functions and the application.
Such an MFP can give users or business sections use authorities to the functions thereof. Naturally, the users or business sections are required to have their own authorities to the functions in order to use application-based features of the functions. Conventionally, once a user is successfully logged on to the MFP through user authentication by the application, the MFP allows any users to use the application-based features of the functions within the range of the authority of the logon user.
That is, for example, an authorized user for color copy, having been successfully logged on to the MFP possibly may leave the MFP for a while without logging off; even an unauthorized user can perform color copy on behalf of the authorized user during his/her absence, which may cause a problem.
Furthermore, an authorized user may possibly ask an unauthorized user to use only a particular function (color copy, for example) for some reason while being logged on to the MFP; the unauthorized user can also use other functions on behalf of the authorized user without his/her agreement, which also may cause a problem.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2009-053762 discloses a technique making user operation less trouble by requiring user authorization only once for a workflow, when a plurality of apparatuses cooperatively perform various operations in accordance with the workflow.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-129956 discloses a technique provided with: a first authenticator which performs department authentication on the department of a user who intends to access an image forming apparatus; and a second authenticator which performs individual authentication on the user himself/herself. In this technique, the user is permitted to use all functions of the image forming apparatus if the second authenticator identifies him/her as being authorized; the user is permitted to use only basic functions among all the functions if the first authenticator identifies his/her department as being authorized.
However, the technique described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2009-053762 does not achieve the prevention of unauthorized use by a third person, because in this technique, the authority of an authorized user is effective while the workflow is active.
The technique described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-129956 does not achieve the prevention of unauthorized use by a third person neither, because in this technique, even an unauthorized user can use not only basic functions but also all the functions while an authorized user is logged on.
Therefore, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 2009-053762 and No. 2008-129956 and any other conventional techniques do not solve the problem that even an unauthorized user can use functions of an MFP on behalf of an authorized user after the authorized user leaves the MFP without logging off.
The description herein of advantages and disadvantages of various features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed in other publications is in no way intended to limit the present invention. Indeed, certain features of the invention may be capable of overcoming certain disadvantages, while still retaining some or all of the features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed therein.
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TAB bonding is well known in the semiconductor arts. A semiconductor die for TAB bonding includes metal bond pads disposed on a surface thereof. A TAB lead tape includes a flexible insulating film such as a polyimide having a metal conductive pattern formed on the insulating material. The metal conductive pattern includes lead portions which are coupled directly to the metal bond pads disposed on the surface of the semiconductor die. In employing TAB bonding, no wire bonding is necessary.
It is also well known in the semiconductor arts to encapsulate semiconductor devices. Encapsulation is typically performed with a polymer, plastic or similar material. The encapsulation most often surrounds the entire semiconductor die. The encapsulation protects the die from moisture and contaminants as well as providing physical protection.
Encapsulating semiconductor devices in plastic and similar materials has various disadvantages. Since the encapsulating material completely encapsulates the semiconductor device, plastic encapsulated packages are often relatively thick. The thickness of these packages includes the sum of the thicknesses of the semiconductor die, the encapsulation disposed on top of the semiconductor die and the encapsulation disposed beneath the semiconductor die. In wire bonded packages, this thickness also includes the height of the wire bonds. In TAB bonded packages where the bond pads are of a significantly lower height than wire bonds, this is not a significant problem.
Encapsulated semiconductor devices generally have poor thermal dissipation properties. When heat is given off by the semiconductor die, it typically must then dissipate through the encapsulation. Well known encapsulation materials do not dissipate heat adequately. The heat dissipation problem is somewhat improved by the addition of heatsinks to encapsulated packages. However, when heatsinks are encapsulated as is well known in the art, the heat must still dissipate through the encapsulation. Packages having an exposed heatsink are also well known in the art. The exposed heatsink dissipates heat adequately in some applications although it is not optimum. A semiconductor die is typically attached to a heatsink using glass filled die attach material. Whenever a semiconductor die is attached to a heatsink, a certain amount of thermal conductivity is lost between the die and the heatsink and thermal dissipation suffers.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to have an encapsulated semiconductor package that is relatively thin, has excellent thermal dissipation properties, adequately protects the semiconductor die from moisture and contaminants and is relatively inexpensive to manufacture.
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With development of the modern wireless communications, relays have become indispensable wireless communication apparatuses. Through use of the relays, the communication coverage of the wireless networks gets extended, so ubiquitous and diverse wireless communication services can be provided.
Relay systems currently conceived are mainly classified into the following two kinds of architecture: one-way and two-way. Because two-way relay systems have higher spectrum utilization efficiency than one-way relay systems, two-way relay systems are expected to grow in usage in the future. Currently in a two-way relay system, the two-way relay plays the relaying role through one of the following two commonly used signal processing schemes in the broadcast phase: the Amplify-and-Forward (AF) scheme and the Decoded-and-Forward (DF) scheme. However, the AF scheme has the problem that the transmit power of the two-way relay is high, and the DF scheme has the problem that the two-way relay suffers from a high computational complexity.
Accordingly, an urgent need exists in the art to provide a signal processing scheme that can reduce either the transmit power or the computational complexity of the two-way relay.
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1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to liquid crystal devices, methods for manufacturing such liquid crystal devices, and electronic apparatuses. The present invention particularly relates to a liquid crystal device in which light sources are prevented from being misaligned with a light guide plate, a method for manufacturing such a liquid crystal device, and an electronic apparatus including such a liquid crystal device.
2. Related Art
Liquid crystal devices are known as electro-optical devices for displaying images. The liquid crystal devices each include a pair of substrates, opposed to each other, having electrodes. The liquid crystal devices display pictures or images including characters in such a manner that voltages are selectively applied to pixels corresponding to intersections of the electrodes and thereby light passing through a liquid crystal material contained in the pixels is modulated.
A transmissive liquid crystal device includes a lighting unit for transmissive display and a liquid crystal panel. The lighting unit includes a flexible printed circuit (FPC) board, a light source such as a light-emitting diode (LED), and a light guide plate. For the thickness or size reduction of the liquid crystal device, the light source is mounted on the FPC board and is placed near the edge of the light guide plate such that light emitted from the light source is guided to the liquid crystal panel.
JP-A-2002-98945 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1) discloses a method for manufacturing a liquid crystal device including an FPC board. In the method, the following steps are combined into one: a step of fixing a light-shielding tape for preventing light from leaking from a light source and a step of fixing a double-faced adhesive tape for bonding a backlight and a liquid crystal panel together. Therefore, the method is efficient.
In particular, a light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 is used in the method. With reference to FIG. 14, the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 includes a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film 205 serving as a base, a light-shielding layer 204 lying on a face of the PET film 205, a first adhesive layer 203, and a second adhesive layer 206. The PET film 205 and the light-shielding layer 204 are sandwiched between the first and second adhesive layers 203 and 206. The light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 is sandwiched between a first release sheet 202 and a second release sheet 207. The light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 is used in a step of bonding a liquid crystal panel 210 to a light source unit 212.
Although the liquid crystal panel 210 is bonded to a light source unit 212 including the light source 213 with the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 and the light source unit 212 is electrically connected to an FPC board 293, no stress is generated in the FPC board 293. As shown in FIG. 15A, the liquid crystal panel 210 can therefore be held flat.
In FIGS. 15A and 15B, in order to provide a clear understanding of the arrangement of stacked members, the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 is shown so as to be in direct contact with a light source FPC board 217 and a light-reflecting plate or a light-reflecting film 216. However, there is a possibility that the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 cannot be seen in a sectional view like FIG. 15A or 15B depending on the width of the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 or the width of an end section (not shown) of a housing 202 in contact with the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200.
In the liquid crystal device disclosed in Patent Document 1, the liquid crystal panel 210 is lifted by bending the FPC board 293 attached to the rear face of the liquid crystal panel 210 as shown in FIG. 15B.
That is, the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 is released from the liquid crystal panel 210 (particularly from the end section of the housing 202). This causes the light source FPC board 217 to be lifted in the direction indicated by Arrow A in FIG. 15B.
Therefore, the light source 213 is misaligned with a light guide plate 215. This can reduce the amount of light emitted from the light source 213 to the light guide plate 215 or can vary the intensity of light applied to the light guide plate 215. Therefore, the following problem is caused: a problem that the liquid crystal device displays an image with low or nonuniform brightness.
The lift of the light source 213 causes a problem that portions of the light source 213 are seen by observers. This problem is called hot spots.
An opening may be formed in the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 such that the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 is prevented from being bonded to the light source unit 212. However, this reduces the light-shielding ability of the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200, that is, this causes the light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape 200 to be useless.
Another light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape having a large width, a large area, and/or high adhesive strength may be used to tightly bond the liquid crystal panel 210 to the end section of the housing 202. However, this does not comply with a requirement that the display area of the liquid crystal panel 210 is maximized. Furthermore, there is a problem in that this light-shielding double-faced adhesive tape is inferior in repairability.
Alternatively, a cover may be provided on the housing 202 such that the liquid crystal panel 210 is prevented from being lifted. However, this does not comply with requirements that the thickness of the liquid crystal device is minimized and the number of components of the liquid crystal device is also minimized.
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{
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(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a lifting jack and more particularly, to a lifting mechanism and spacer block arrangement for use in a hydraulic/air lifting jack.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
When wishing to lift a load, for example, a machine, lathe, construction, etc., or to support a first member on a second member at the desired pitch, a small hydraulic/air lifting jack may be used. A small hydraulic/air lifting jack is highly movable, however it has a limited lifting stroke. When lifting a load, the user may have to operate the hydraulic/air lifting jack to lift the load to the desired elevation through several lifting stokes. Further, after each lifting stroke during a lifting operation, a respective movable support block is used to support the load in position and a spacer block is inserted under the lifting mechanism of the hydraulic/air lifting jack so that the lifting mechanism of the hydraulic/air lifting jack can be operated to lift the load again. If the spacer block in use can not be positively maintained in position, the load and the lifting mechanism may fall, thereby resulting in an accident.
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{
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Conventionally, a digital stereo set is controlled by using a control panel or a remote controller. As known, the control panel or the remote controller can only provide basic control items, and the control panel or the remote controller can not be personalized. With increasing development of science and technology, the functions of the current handheld devices such as smart phones or tablet personal computers become very complete. Moreover, the current handheld devices have diversified controllable items and can perform personalized control actions. Consequently, it is an important issue to research how to use the handheld device to control the digital stereo set.
Nowadays, the handheld device may be in communication with the digital stereo set by a wireless communication technology in order to control the digital stereo set. The wireless communication technology widely used in the handheld device is for example a Wi-Fi communication technology, a Bluetooth communication technology or a near field communication technology. Regardless of which wireless communication technology is adopted, both of the handheld device and the digital stereo set should be additionally equipped with corresponding chips. In other words, the use of the wireless communication technology is neither cost-effective nor user-friendly. For example, a Bluetooth pairing process is very complicated. In addition, the same Bluetooth device fails to be operated by many handheld devices simultaneously. Moreover, since the above-mentioned wireless communication technologies belong to radio frequency communication technologies, the generated electromagnetic radiation is detrimental to human health, and a problem of electromagnetic radiation channel occupancy occurs.
Therefore, there is a need of providing an improved communication and control method for a handheld device and a digital stereo set in order to eliminate the above drawbacks of the wireless communication and provide abundant personalized control actions.
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{
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The present invention relates to a proton conductor, a production method thereof, a polymer made of proton conductors, methods of making the polymer, and an electrochemical device using the polymer of proton conductors.
One of the most widely used proton conductors is Nafion, which is a perfluorinated sulfonic acid functionalized polymer. The structure of Nafion is shown in FIG. 3, and can essentially be divided in two substructures: i) a perfluorinated linear backbone 12; and ii) perfluorinated side chains 14 bearing sulfonic acid functions, i.e., the proton delivering sites. It combines an acceptable proton conductivity with an extreme inertness against chemical as well as thermal influences.
In addition, known fullerene compounds include, for example, compounds 1 through 6 (see FIGS. 4A-F) bearing acidic functional groups like sulfuric acid esters (—OSO3H) or sulfonic acid groups (—SO3H) that are capable of conducting protons within their solid-state structure. These proton-delivering sites can either be attached directly to the fullerene core or via various spacer molecules. Depending on the amount of water contained within the crystal, these compounds show proton conductivities higher than 10−2 S/cm. However, these fullerene-based materials suffer from several disadvantages. The most striking one is a lack of resistance to thermal and/or chemical decomposition. As an example, the butyl-linked fullerosulfonic acid (compound 6, FIG. 4F) first starts to decompose at about 100-110° C. Yet, thermal and chemical stability are prerequisites for any compound used in a fuel cell application.
Accordingly, there exists a need to provide materials that can be effectively and readily made and used as proton conductors for a variety of difference applications.
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Adjustable shower curtain rods are known. A common adjustable rod, sometimes referred to as a tension rod, takes the form of a telescoping, two-piece rod. The two rod halves can be rotated relative to one another to shorten or lengthen the rod to fit the shower or bath enclosure. Such rods are typically supported by respective brackets fastened to opposed walls of the shower or bath enclosure.
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High performance IC chips dissipate energy at a high power density and require cooling to maintain the operating temperature within a specified range. Ineffective cooling may lead to an increased junction leakage, reduced operability, and, in extreme cases, operating failures.
Cooling methods typically involve placement of radiant fins, heat sinks, or fans at a surface of the microprocessor or its package. These traditional cooling methods, which are generally remote from the sources of heat generation within the microprocessor, are increasingly becoming inadequate as the functionality per chip continues to increase. Thus, more effective cooling techniques are required.
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In a system of networked computers, a computer communicates with other computers in the network via a data link or medium. The interface between the medium and the computer is often referred to as a network controller. The network controller interprets data from the computer and modulates an electromagnetic wave that is propagated on the medium in response to the data, and also receives and demodulates electromagnetic waves propagating on the medium in order to provide received data to the computer.
Within the context of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) layered communication model of the ISO (international Standards Organization), a network controller provides the function of a DLC (Data Link Control) and a PHY (Physical layer). A standard for a popular network and medium is defined in IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) standard 802.3, commonly referred to as Ethernet. Ethernet further divides the DLC so that it includes a MAC (Medium Access Control) sublayer.
In the past, a network controller usually comprised a set of semiconductor components residing on a card. However, with the number of transistors on a die increasing, the level of integration is also increasing. As a result, the MAC usually associated with a network controller may be integrated with the chipset of a personal computer. With such an arrangement, the PHY may be supplied separately by manufacturers other than the manufacturer of the chipset. Consequently, it is desirable that the interface between a MAC and PHY be flexible enough so that PHYs from different manufacturers, with possibly different numbers of pin counts and data link speeds, may be connected to the MAC. It is also desirable that the pin count for such an interface be kept as small as possible without sacrificing flexibility and future requirements.
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The braking device generally used e.g. in an elevator hoisting machine is a machine brake which mechanically engages a rotating part of the hoisting machine. The machine brake may be constructed e.g. as a drum brake or a disc brake. The braking function of the machine brake is activated when the supply of power to the electromagnet of the brake is interrupted e.g. by means of a relay or contactor. The relay/contactor which interrupts the supply of power to the electromagnet of the brake is usually of a type that only remains in the conducting state for as long as power is being supplied to the control terminal of the relay/contactor. Supply of power to the control terminal takes place via the elevator safety circuit and is interrupted when the safety circuit is opened. When the brake is activated, a brake shoe is pressed mechanically against a braking surface to brake the motion of a rotating part of the hoisting machine.
As the machine brake of a hoisting machine usually also functions as a safety device consistent with the requirements of safety regulations, the aim is to design the machine brake/brakes in such a way that the operation of the machine brake/brakes will not cause any danger e.g. due to a failure situation or some other functional irregularity. For example, the braking apparatus of the hoisting machine may comprise two separate brake shoes and in conjunction with these two separate sets of push springs to ensure that the braking power will not be completely lost if one of the brake shoes/push springs fails.
The safety regulations relating to the hoisting function of an elevator have changed because new implementations have become feasible due to the development of technology and, on the other hand, e.g. also because elevators are increasingly being constructed without a machine room. Experts working under the applicant's control are endeavoring to develop the braking apparatuses of hoisting machines by analyzing possible failure situations and improving the functioning of the braking apparatus in different operational situations of the elevator. Some of the issues for further development detected as regards the operating safety of the braking apparatus of a hoisting machine are the following: It is important to ensure that the braking power is sufficient to stop the movement of the elevator car in all operational situations, even in a situation where the elevator car is carrying an approx. 25-percent overload while running in the down direction. The problem is that the braking power may gradually diminish e.g. due to dirt, grease or the like having got on a brake shoe or a braking surface of the hoisting machine. Especially in elevator systems without machine room, but also in systems with machine room, care has to be taken to ensure that a brake failure—e.g. a fault in an electromagnet, push spring or brake shoe of the brake—will not result in a risk to a serviceman working in the elevator shaft pit or on the top of the elevator car. If the brake functions correctly, the braking power will suffice to stop a downwards moving elevator car carrying a 25-percent overload e.g. in an emergency stopping situation. This leads to the consequence that an upwards moving elevator car with full load may stop in an emergency stopping situation with a deceleration rate even dangerously high for the passenger. This deceleration problem is particularly notable in elevator systems without counterweight. Reliability of the brake control is equally important for safe operation of the brake as reliability of the operation of the mechanical brake components. A control failure that prevents activation of the brake/brakes is particularly dangerous. Therefore, any failure of the braking apparatus should always take place in a so-called safe failure direction, so that a failure situation always leads to activation of the brake/brakes. It is also necessary to make sure that a short circuit or a similar cross connection in the brake control circuit will not prevent activation of the brake/brakes.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to ridge and mesa optical waveguides, and methods of making ridge and mesa optical waveguides.
2. Related Art
This section is intended to present to the reader various introductory concepts that may be related to various aspects of the present invention. As such, it is believed that this section may be helpful in providing the reader with information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. The statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions of prior art.
Ridge and mesa optical waveguides are well-known classes of multi-layer structures that are useful for guiding light along a selected pathway. Ridge and mesa optical waveguides can also be, as an example, optically integrated with active and passive electronic devices such as phase modulators and optical switches, configured for controlling and otherwise affecting the path and nature of light propagating through such optical waveguides. Optical waveguides, including ridge and mesa optical waveguides, typically include a core region surrounded by a cladding region. The core region has a higher refractive index than does the cladding region. The resulting refractive index gradient serves to confine a portion of the light to propagation through the core region. The ridge in a ridge optical waveguide additionally serves to optically channel light propagating at the top surface of a substrate located adjacent to the ridge, along a path defined by the lateral position of the ridge on the substrate. In an example, the ridge in a ridge optical waveguide may include portions of the core and cladding regions of the optical waveguide. The ridge may cause light to propagate in the substrate along the path of the ridge on the substrate. The ridge in a ridge optical waveguide may as an example define a path for a portion of an optical circuit. At the same time, wider lateral dimensions of the substrate relative to lateral dimensions of the ridge permits transmission of a greater optical bandwidth, through the substrate along a path in the same direction taken by light propagating through the ridge itself. In a mesa optical waveguide, the entire core and cladding regions may define a substantially integrated optical path.
There is a continuing need for new types of ridge and mesa optical waveguides, and for methods of making such ridge and mesa optical waveguides.
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Urinary incontinence (UI), as defined by the International Continence Society, is “the complaint of any involuntary leakage of urine.” The most common type of urinary incontinence in women is stress urinary incontinence (SUI), followed by urge and mixed incontinence. Urinary incontinence is not a life-threatening or dangerous condition, but it is socially embarrassing and may cause withdrawal from social situations and reduced quality of life. An estimated 80% of people affected are women. Urinary incontinence is believed to affect at least 13 million people in the United States, and is expected to increase sharply with the aging of the baby boomers.
A variety of approaches have been designed to diagnose the cause of SUI. The most widely used method is urodynamics to measure storage and voiding functions of the urinary bladder and the urethra. Urodynamic testing normally consists of two main phases: 1) filling cystometry to investigate storage of urine in the bladder, including ability to store without leakage during provocative maneuvers such as coughs and in-spot jogging, and 2) followed by a pressure-flow measurement to examine urine voiding performance. During these tests, a thin, flexible catheter, called a Foley catheter, is inserted into the bladder through the urethra, and residual bladder volume is measured followed by the performance of filling, provocative and voiding studies. More sophisticated testing uses an intravaginal or peri-anal electrode to measure the electrical activity of the pelvic floor muscles. Further ambulatory urodynamic studies with natural filling are also applied for patients to avoid the unnatural environment of the urodynamic clinic. Ambulatory studies have been found useful for confirming overactive detrusor muscle activity in patients for whom conventional urodynamic tests failed to reproduce symptoms.
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This invention relates to a method for improving the extraction of plutonium with tributyl phosphate. More particularly, it relates to a method for improving the degree to which plutonium ions can be stripped from an organic to an aqueous solution by the removal of radiolytic degradation products of tributyl phosphate which would otherwise form nonstrippable plutonium complexes and precipitates.
Solvent extraction processes are in wide use for the reprocessing of spent fuel from nuclear reactors as well as actinide scrap material generated in the fabrication of nuclear fuel elements. Tributyl phosphate (TBP) in an organic solvent base or diluent, e.g., kerosene or carbon tetrachloride, is often employed to extract the actinides from the fission products or other impurities. This process is generally referred to as the Purex Process and is described in "Reactor Handbook," 2d Edition, Volume II, "Fuels Reprocessing," Stoller and Richards, Interscience, 1961. A more particular process to which the present invention is applicable is described in Chemical Engineering Progress Symposium Series, Vol. 63, No. 80, L. E. Bruns, "Geometrically Favorable Plutonium Scrap Recovery Plant," pp. 156-162, 1967. In order to partition the actinide values, this process relies on the propensity of uranyl nitrate to be held in the organic phase by tributyl phosphate while plutonium-III is stripped into an aqueous phase.
The use of tributyl phosphate as an extractant for uranium and plutonium has a widespread acceptance in the nuclear industry for the past 25 years. This material, nevertheless, suffers from both chemical and radiological degradation when exposed to the radioactive solutions containing extractable actinides. The presence of the degradation products such as the dibutyl phosphate (DBP), monobutyl phosphate (MBP) and phosphoric acid has a detrimental effect upon the extraction process. Among the problems created by the presence of these materials are poor phase separation in the contactor or column with subsequent losses by entrainment, reduced throughput, extraction of fission products along with the actinides and the inability to partition actinides caused by the formation of nonstrippable complexes and precipitates in the organic phase.
Previous techniques to remove degradation products from tributyl phosphate have included carbonate scrub solutions, the use of macrorecticular ion exchange resins and others such as a reduction scrub with hydrofluoric acid. All of these techniques involve the use of extra process equipment and chemicals along with the disposal of the additional radioactive waste. With the use of carbonate scrubs, the concentration of degradation products rises to a level such that the entire organic stream must periodically be discarded. Hydrofluoric acid brings with it the risk of PuF.sub.4 precipitation. All of these treatment techniques are expensive. An ideal solution to these problems would be one which would minimize the formation of these degradation products or permit their removal at an early point in the process.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an in-wall heater which is disposed by being embedded in a recess formed in a room wall.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an in-wall heater of this kind, there has hitherto been known an in-wall heater which comprises an outer case, a combustion housing which is provided within the outer case and in which a burner is built, a heat exchanger which is provided within the outer case so as to be positioned behind the combustion housing and causes combustion exhaust gas from the combustion housing to flow, an air intake opening and a blast opening each provided in the outer case, a warm air fan within the outer case which sucks in room air from the air intake opening and sends the air into the room from the blast opening via a section where the heat exchanger is disposed, control equipment which is disposed in a side space on one lateral side between the outer case and the combustion housing within the outer case, and an exhaust duct downstream of the heat exchanger which is disposed in a side space on the other lateral side between the outer case and the combustion housing within the outer case (refer to the Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 5-37129, for example).
In a usual on-floor heater, generally, an air intake opening is provided in the back surface of an outer case. In an in-wall heater, however, the outer case enters into the recess in a room wall and, therefore, it is impossible to suck in room air from the back surface side of the outer case. Therefore, in the above-described conventional in-wall heater, a bottom plate portion of the outer case is raised from the floor surface, the air intake opening is provided in the bottom plate portion, and the warm air fan is disposed behind this air intake opening. And the room air is sucked into the warm air fan from the air intake opening via the space below the combustion housing and the room air is sent from the warm air fan into the blast opening to an upper part of the front surface of the outer case via the section where the heat exchanger is disposed behind the combustion housing and the space above the combustion housing.
A filter is mounted on the air intake opening in order to prevent the entry of dust into the outer case and it is necessary to clean the filter by periodically detaching the filter. If the air intake opening is provided in the bottom plate portion of the outer case as in the above-described conventional in-wall heater, it is troublesome to attach and detach the filter and maintainability worsens.
In order to solve this problem, there is also known an in-wall heater in which an air intake opening is provided in a front surface of an outer case in addition to a blast opening (refer to the Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 6-69602, for example). In this in-wall heater, however, a suction sound generated when room air is sucked in from the air intake opening is radiated forward directly from the front surface of the outer case and the noise becomes large. Incidentally, also when an air intake opening is provided in a bottom plate portion of the outer case, a suction sound echoes in a space between the bottom plate portion and the floor surface and this echo is radiated to the front side of the heater, generating a relatively large noise.
When control equipment and an exhaust duct are disposed respectively in a side space on one lateral side and in a side space on the other side within the outer case as with the heater described in the Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 5-37129, there is a fear that the temperature of the control equipment may rise due to the heat from the combustion housing, causing heat loss of the control equipment and, at the same time, there is a fear that the temperature in the side space on the other side may rise due to the heat from the combustion housing and the heat from the exhaust duct, causing overheating of the room wall.
In view of the above points, the present invention has as its object the provision of an in-wall heater which can suppress an increase in noise due to a suction sound without impairing maintainability and can ensure also cooling performance in side spaces within an outer case.
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Manufacturers of electronic consumer devices, such as televisions, radio tuners, digital video disk players, video cassette recorders, set-top cable television boxes, set-top satellite boxes, etc., typically supply a remote control along with each electronic consumer device. The remote control can control the associated electronic consumer device by sending an operational signal with a key code to the electronic consumer device. Each such key code corresponds to a function of the selected electronic consumer device, such as power on, volume down, play, stop, select, channel advance, channel back, etc. Thus, a electronic device is controlled by a codeset of key codes.
Codesets can differ from each other not only by the bit patterns assigned to the key codes, but also by the timing, modulation and framing protocols used to modulate the bit patterns onto operational signals. In order to avoid the situation where a signal containing a key code operates an electronic device that is not selected, manufacturers of electronic consumer devices may use different codesets for different devices. Although each model of electronic device might not have a unique codeset, there are nevertheless thousands of codesets used to operate the various types, brands and models of electronic consumer devices sold in the world market today.
Microcontrollers in remote controls are typically supplied to remote control manufacturers preloaded with codesets that operate the various types, brands and models of electronic devices that the remote control is to operate. It is therefore of significant value to a microcontroller manufacturer to be able to supply the appropriate codesets needed for each possible remote control application. A microcontroller manufacturer that has the codesets needed for a particular remote control application has a competitive advantage over another microcontroller manufacturer that does not have the needed codeset. Microcontroller manufacturers therefore devote great effort and expense amassing a large and comprehensive databases of codesets. These codeset databases are valuable to the microcontroller manufacturers. Microcontroller manufacturers therefore attempt to keep their codeset databases proprietary.
Not only does knowledge of codesets constitute a competitive advantage to a microcontroller manufacturer, but knowledge of codesets is also of value to remote control manufacturers and providers of codeset database services. An unscrupulous remote control manufacturer has an incentive to purchase microcontrollers cheaply without preloaded codesets, and then to load copied codesets that were assembled and compiled by a microcontroller manufacturer. In this way the remote control manufacturer can avoid paying for the collection costs borne by the microcontroller manufacturer. In a similar fashion, a provider of codeset database services also has an incentive to provide services using copied codesets that were assembled and compiled by a microcontroller manufacturer.
A microcontroller manufacturer may wish to allow its microcontrollers to be loaded with a codeset after the remote control containing the microcontroller has been shipped. This can involve transmitting a newly available codeset over a telephone cable or a cable TV line to a consumer. Using various programming aids, the consumer receives the transmitted codeset and loads it into the remote control microcontroller. Although the codesets that a consumer loads onto a commercially available universal remote control can be vulnerable to copying, it is relatively time consuming and costly to copy a large number of codesets, for example, thousands, using the programming aids typically made available to consumers.
A microcontroller manufacturer may also wish to allow remote control developers to have access to a large number of codesets so that the remote control developers can develop new models of remote controls that contain the manufacturer's microcontroller. Currently a developer who wants to develop microcontroller software for a new model of remote control first writes a “software functional specification” that describes the desired functionality of the new remote control. The software functional specification is a document that is sent to the microcontroller manufacturer. The microcontroller manufacturer uses the software functional specification to select the required codesets from the manufacturer's database of codesets. The manufacturer then writes microcontroller software that performs the functions specified in the software functional specification. The resulting software is then sent to the developer, who tests the software in the developer's test system. If the developer finds a deficiency in the software, then the microcontroller manufacturer typically debugs the software until the developer is satisfied. This is a time consuming process. Microcontroller manufacturers typically want to limit the amount of their own resources devoted to developing software for remote control developers, especially developers who purchase only low volumes of microcontrollers.
Microcontroller manufacturers could reduce the amount of their resources devoted to developing software for remote control developers by providing the developers access to the manufacturer's database of codesets. Providing such access to developers, however, might provide an opportunity for an unscrupulous seller of remote controls or an unscrupulous provider of codeset database services to copy a large number of codesets with minimum effort.
A solution is therefore desired that allows remote control developers to download codesets from a database of codesets and to use the downloaded codesets for authorized purposes, but that at the same time prevents an unscrupulous remote control seller or codeset database service provider from copying a large number of codesets from the database of codesets.
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This invention relates generally to determining position by electromagnetic radiation. More particularly, the invention relates to an improved system for displaying transmitted position data between vehicles.
As the world becomes a more crowded and busy place, vehicular traffic, on land, on sea and in the air has correspondingly become more crowded. This has resulted in the increased likelihood of collisions with other vehicles as well as with stationary objects. In addition, a need has been recognized to manage the increased traffic levels in a more efficient manner to allow the greatest use of the highways and airways. Anticollision devices have been developed which alert the operators of the vehicles in the event of an imminent collision so that evasive actions may be undertaken. So called smart roads have been proposed to allow properly configured land based vehicles such as automobiles and trucks to be controlled by a central agency.
The problem of collisions is particularly acute with aircraft as the potential for a catastrophic loss of life is great. The Federal Aircraft Administration (FAA) has mandated that all aircraft having more than 30 seats be equipped with collision avoidance equipment generally known as Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS). The commercial TCAS system relies on the continuous operation of Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System (ATCRBS) transponders in all private, commercial and military aircraft. There are a variety of types of ATCRBS transponders in use which have a number of deficiencies. For instance, not all of the transponders transmit altitude information making collision avoidance somewhat problematic. Another problem is that the TCAS are limited in areas of high traffic volume where system saturation causes transponder signals from different aircraft to overlap. For example, if two aircraft are equidistant from the radar transmitter, they will respond at the same time and overlay each other's signal. Furthermore, the timing of the return signal must be accurately measured to help determine the location of the aircraft. A greater problem, however, is the high cost of the TCAS which has inhibited its widespread use in noncommercial aircraft.
A number of references have suggested that the Global Positioning System (GPS) made be used as part of a collision avoidance system. GPS is currently the most precise positioning system generally available to the general public and has significantly dropped in price in recent years. The GPS comprises a network of 24 satellites orbiting the earth. Each satellite transmits a ranging signal modulated on a 1.575 Ghz carrier. By monitoring the signal from a plurality of satellites, a GPS receiver can determine its position, i.e. latitude, longitude and altitude, to an accuracy of about 100 meters. In general, an aircraft would need to receive signals from four of the GPS satellites for an altitude measurement. More accurate signals are available to the military. Differential GPS, also available to the public, is more accurate than standard GPS, but requires an additional land based transmitter and special permission from the government.
Although many of the proposed GPS-based systems are simpler and cheaper than the TCAS presently in use which relies on transponders and interrogations, in areas of high traffic volume the number of transmissions and receptions which must occur can cause the systems to saturate. One notable effort to alleviate the problems of a GPS-based system is taught by "Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Coding System", U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,123 to Rich et al. In the Rich system, the airspace is divided up into a grid of volume elements. A collision avoidance signal is transmitted wherein the carrier signal is modulated by a psuedonoise code which is function of the volume element in which the aircraft is located. Each aircraft only tracks collision avoidance signals from vehicles in its own and immediate surrounding cells. Based on the calculated paths of the aircraft, a warning of an impending collision can be provided to the pilot.
In the opinion of the applicants, the Rich system suffers from a number of deficiencies. First, the signal they transmit is modulated by a pseudo random signature signal, called a "gold code", which needs to be received with expensive reconfigurable correlation receivers. The Rich systems transmit and depend on carefully chosen "gold codes" which are intended to produce distinct correlation peaks. The receiver has to be capable of searching for the signals. The requirement of complicated transmission and reception equipment frustrates the objective of having a system which is inexpensive enough to be generally available to the public. While there is perhaps less price sensitivity for aircraft, it has been demonstrated that the high cost of the TCAS has prevented its widespread adoption in noncommercial aircraft. Furthermore, as the reader with understand, the Applicants believe that the present invention has a more general applicability to land and water vehicles which have higher price sensitivity.
The volume elements proposed by Rich are rather coarse, on the order of 5 miles on a side. Despite a psuedorandom multiplexing feature when multiple transmitters transmit in the same cell, noise and other saturation effects can occur when there is too much traffic in the rather large volume element. The large volume element allows the Rich system to only look at the aircraft's element and those immediately adjacent. For some applications, it would be preferable to understand the vehicles present in an extended set of cells surrounding the vehicle. For example, it might be extremely difficult to use the Rich system as a central control facility. An airport control center, for example, may have a very difficult time reading signals from more distant volume elements with the vehicles in closer cells all transmitting simultaneously.
Although the Rich system uses the accurate GPS time to set the phase of their encoding signals, these can still be subject to delays from the speed of light propagation causing phase shifts. Their coding scheme causes "interference annuli" which prevent the craft from hearing each other at certain times. The system uses the GPS time as part of the input to the transmission process, but does not use it to prevent simultaneous transmissions.
This invention solves these and other important problems.
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The synchronous buck switch-mode power converter is a commonly used topology for switch-mode power supply (SMPS) applications. The SMPS topology is gaining wider acceptance because of its high efficiency, small size and light weight. However, as the size of an SMPS is decreased, heat dissipation/removal therefrom becomes more problematic. Even though the typical efficiency of an SMPS may be 90 percent, there still remains 10 percent of the energy used by the SMPS becoming wasted heat. In addition, the high efficiency of the SMPS is optimized for only a single load condition. However, in real world applications power utilization loads vary over a wide range, and so do the associated SMPS efficiencies at those loads. Current sensing in the SMPS topology can be challenging and must be overcome in design. Knowing or monitoring the current being injected into the load provides protection for the power converter and can improve dynamic performance during closed loop control thereof.
Inductors in the SMPS are used to store energy during a portion of the switching cycle. The electrical characteristics, e.g., inductance and magnetic saturation values, of the SMPS inductor may vary widely. The tolerance of the inductor characteristics varies with temperature and/or voltage, so SMPS systems must be “over-designed” to optimize SMPS system efficiency for worst case conditions. Also, accurate measurement of the inductor current from one SMPS to another and at different load currents becomes problematic. Having the ability to accurately calibrate inductor current sense circuits associated with the inductors of a multiphase SMPS system would improve the dynamic performance and eliminate hot spots for the multiple phase converters of the multiphase SMPS system. In addition, having the ability to communicate with the SMPS system allows for operating parameters to be monitored, diagnostics to be performed, and operating objectives to be altered.
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{
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Proper alignment of a golf club head at an address position relative to a golf ball may improve the performance of an individual. Various alignment aids have been used on the golf club heads to improve the individual's visual alignment.
For simplicity and clarity of illustration, the drawing figures illustrate the general manner of construction, and descriptions and details of well-known features and techniques may be omitted to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure. Additionally, elements in the drawing figures may not be depicted to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help improve understanding of examples of the present disclosure.
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Users of streaming media content, such as movies, TV shows, podcasts, or music, are often interested in sharing at least part of the experience with other people. One currently available option for such a user is to attach the entire item of streamed content as a file attachment to an e-mail message that is sent to the desired recipients, optionally including one or more comments in the message. Other options include uploading a link to the entire item of content to a hosting service operated by a third party for later access by those recipients, or “ripping” the item of content into another streaming service accessible to those recipients. If the media content were a simple Word file, rather than streaming media, the user would have the option of attaching a Word Comment to draw attention to a particular section of text in the file and emailing the entire file to a desired recipient, but in the streaming media cases of interest to the present invention, where video and/or audio information is involved, all of the above options make significant data transfer demands on the networks in question. The demands are unnecessarily large when, as is often the case, the user only wishes to share a small portion of the item of media content as being particularly interesting, funny, relevant etc.
Services such as YouTube do allow users to attach a link to a chosen point in an item of streaming media and send the result to a recipient, so that the recipient is encouraged to begin playback at that chosen point, but even in these cases, the entire item is referenced, and the recipient may—at least in theory—have access to the entire stream.
However, one common problem with all current options concerns copyright and authorization issues. Take the case where the initial user is legitimately accessing the item of steaming media content, for example after having subscribed to a service authorized by the creator or owner of the content to permit access to preselected, typically paying users. Unless the user in question knows that all of the desired recipients also have permission to play the item in question, sending the item as an attachment, a link upload, or via “ripping” is likely to violate the terms of the user's agreement with the streaming service, if the transfer is even technically possible. However, there may be many cases where the owner of the streamed content is willing to allow a partial “sharing” i.e. the sharing of a short clip, which increases exposure and awareness of the item for the public but stops short of unfair intellectual property duplication or theft.
There is therefore a need for a method that allows a subscriber to a streaming media service to create a clip of an item of content, and share that clip, and that clip alone, with other people regardless of whether those other people are subscribers or otherwise authorized to access and stream the entire item. Ideally, such sharing would occur with minimal effort by the user, and involve minimal interruption of the streaming of the entire item of content to the authorized user.
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Body components or bodies of automobiles are immersed into appropriate baths to undergo treatment or painting. Suitable holes require to be provided to allow the liquid to flow in and to flow out again. Such holes have to be closed afterwards, primarily for protection from corrosion. A large number of different closing plugs have become known to close such openings. The are commonly made of plastics and are mounted by hand by urging them into the opening. To this end, such closing plugs mostly have a flange which leans against one side of the sheet, and locking means which grip behind the other side of the sheet. Since air and/or water is to be prevented from entering the flange sealingly bears against the sheet and an additional sealing agent may be provided, e.g. a hot-melt adhesive. If a hot-melt adhesive material is used it may be contemplated to omit the snap connection and to arrange for the plug to be mounted exclusively by means of the hot-melt adhesive. Finally, plugs are also known which are completely formed from a hot-melt adhesive material. As is known, openings or holes in the area of automobile bodies have a sound transmission characteristic different from that of the material outside the holes. Another sound transmission will also result if a closing plug is employed. Moreover, there is a danger that the closing plug will vibrate, thus producing noise.
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Independently heating or cooling several zones can be accomplished with a heat pump system having a plurality of zone heat exchangers, each operable as a condenser in the heating mode and as an evaporator in the cooling mode. In such a system, each zone heat exchanger is connected to both a gas line and a liquid line for passing refrigerant therethrough. The gas lines are connected to a common gas line manifold and each liquid line, which usually includes an expansion valve, is connected to a common liquid line manifold. Typically, the system also includes an outdoor heat exchanger that functions as an evaporator in the heating mode and a condenser in the cooling mode.
In the cooling mode, refrigerant supplied by a compressor passes in turn through the outdoor heat exchanger (giving up the heat of compression to ambient air), bypasses an outdoor expansion valve, enters the liquid line manifold, and passes through each liquid line. The refrigerant passes through the indoor or zone expansion valves and expands upon entering the zone heat exchangers, where it absorbs heat from zone air as the refrigerant vaporizes. The flow exits the zone heat exchangers through the gas lines, enters the gas line manifold, and returns to the compressor, completing the cycle.
In the heating mode, the flow is reversed, however, the zone expansion valves are now bypassed and the outdoor expansion valve becomes active. Furthermore, the zone heat exchangers provide heat to the zone air while the outdoor heat exchanger absorbs heat from the ambient air.
When the temperature conditioning demand is satisfied, the appropriate zone heat exchanger is deactivated by closing off the refrigerant flowing therethrough. This poses no problem in the cooling mode, because the expansion valve on the liquid line can stop the flow entering the heat exchangers. Any liquid refrigerant inside the inactive heat exchanger will vaporize as it is exposed to the compressor suction pressure through the gas line and gas line manifold.
However, deactivating a heat exchanger during the heating mode poses a problem. When only the zone expansion valve or a liquid line solenoid valve is used to stop the flow, vaporized refrigerant will condense and eventually accumulate to a point where it floods the inactive heat exchanger. This deprives the remaining active system of the refrigerant needed to function properly.
It is possible to solve this problem with an upstream valve on the gas line of each zone heat exchanger. But these valves, being disposed on the inherently large diameter gas lines, must also be relatively large and therefore, more expensive and prone to leak. In addition, the pressure drop across valves used for this purpose is typically less than 30 psi which makes it even more difficult to obtain a positive seal. Nevertheless, this method as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,916,638; 4,299,098; and 4,399,664 is still used.
Another solution, as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,994,142 and 4,528,822 includes a large refrigerant holding reservoir relied upon to maintain a sufficient refrigerant charge in the system. Although appropriate in large systems, its complexity and cost make this method impractical in smaller systems.
In view of the above, it is an object of this invention to provide a relatively simple and inexpensive method of preventing flooding of an inactive heat exchanger that is interconnected in parallel with a plurality of other heat exchangers.
Another object is to deactivate a zone heat exchanger without using a valve on the heat exchanger's gas line.
A further object is to maintain a sufficient refrigerant charge, without using a holding reservoir, to enable proper operation of a heat pump system having a plurality of independently activated zone heat exchangers.
These and other objects will be apparent from the attached drawings and the description of the preferred embodiments that follow below.
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Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, a conventional bulb assembly of a lighting string includes a connector (1), a holder (2), and a bulb (3). Conductive plates (4) are provided in the connector (1), such that the plates (4) can contact with conductive wires (31) of the bulb (3), when the bulb (3) and the holder (2) are assembled within the connector (1). This known conductive plate (4), in order to provide effective elastic contact, is designed with an elastic plate (41), which is folded upside-down from the conductive plate (4) and is inclined. As assembly, the folded portion (42) between the conductive plate (4) and the elastic plate (41) will be easily broken under elastic compress. When the elastic plate (41) is fallen, it causes ineffective electrical contact between the conductive plate (4) and the conductive wire (31) of the bulb (3).
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Polycarbonate is a widely used polymeric material, due to its high level of heat resistance, dimensional stability, and ease of molding. To improve other performance properties such as chemical resistance and/or reduce the cost, other polymers, such as polyamides and polyesters can be blended with the polycarbonate.
US 2007/0066743 describes blends of polycarbonate and polyester using a vulcanizate along with an optional core/shell modifier and optional linear terpolymers to improve the impact resistance.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,015,261 discloses polyester and polycarbonate blends containing both a linear polyethylene having epoxy groups and an acrylic-based core/shell impact modifier. Acrylic core, core/shell impact modifiers provide less low temperature impact resistance than other types of impact modifiers.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,119,152 describes impact-modified polyesters having core/shell impact modifiers and ethylene epoxide copolymers. The polyester may contain up to 30 percent of polycarbonate or copolyetherester. The ratio of core/shell to ethylene epoxide copolymer is either a) 60-90/40-10 if 18-40% combined impact modifiers is present, and 60-75/40-25 when 2-18% of the combined impact modifiers are present.
It has now been found that blends of polycarbonate with higher levels of polyester and/or polyamide can provide good impact strength, when blended with the proper blend of core/shell and functional polyolefin impact modifiers.
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Injured areas must often be protected with a cast, bandage or other protective dressing. These areas should be kept dry and free from water or other moisture. Plaster casts disintegrate when wet and even casts made from synthetic materials such as fiberglass should be kept moisture-free to prevent the cast lining from deteriorating and the skin under the cast from macerating.
Commonly used protective devices include a bag and strap variety such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,562,834 and 4,363,317. These devices consist essentially of a large vinyl bag with a string or strap to secure the open end of the cover over the affected area. These covers suffer from several drawbacks. First, they are relatively difficult to put on an arm without assistance since the string or strap must be manipulated around the cast or bandage. Additionally, many of these devices are not truly watertight and cannot be completely submersed. Further, the material from which these bags are constructed is subject to tearing when in contact with rough fiberglass cast edges, thus rendering the coverings useless.
Another commonly used cast protector consists of a thin latex bag as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,043,326 and 4,139,003. These bags tear easily, failing to last the full convalescence period. Additionally, these devices may fit improperly and can be so tight that blood flow is restricted or so loose that they leak.
Another protective device consists of a vinyl bag with a flat latex diaphragm and collar as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,945. Although generally more effective than the bags disclosed above, the vinyl used is susceptible to tears. The diaphragm must be cut to size for most patients, a practice to which some patients and orthopaedic technologists object.
The present invention overcomes the above-noted shortcomings of conventional protective coverings. The covering can be applied easily one-handed, without assistance. The material used is durable, flexible and provides an effective watertight seal. Thus, the covered limb can be completely submersed and still maintain a waterproof environment within the protective cover. These and other advantages of the subject invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the Description of the Preferred Embodiment together with the drawings.
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There are several types of display devices available for producing text or images for viewing. Presently, the most prevalent display types are Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs), which make up the majority of desktop displays and televisions, and Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), which make up the majority of displays of portable devices, such as laptop computers, telephones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Several other types of displays are not as well known, but are either available in limited quantities or are still being developed, such as plasma displays, Field Emission Displays (FEDs), Digital Light Processing (DLP) (a form of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS)), Image Light Amplifiers (ILAs), and Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). Each of these system types can generate displays for direct viewing, or can project an image on a surface for indirect viewing.
Many of these types of displays have problems with output uniformity from one picture element (pixel) to the others. For instance, in FED and LED systems, some individual pixels may generate more light for a given amount of driving signal than others. During the production of these displays, each pixel in the display is calibrated by individually lighting it and measuring the individual pixel's light intensity output. The measurements are compared to the output of the other pixels in the display. Adjustments are then made, such as by decreasing or increasing the drive signal when displaying that pixel, i.e., trimming (calibrating) the display circuitry for driving the pixels. This calibration can be done for a single level of the driving signal, or the driving signal can be varied throughout the entire gamma curve so that the pixels are measured at different levels of input, from being fully off to being fully on.
This uniformity test and calibration is typically done at manufacturing time, and the adjustments are usually permanently made. Therefore, if the output performance of the individual pixels changes over time, image quality of the display can degrade.
Another problem that some displays have is maintaining overall correct display brightness for the amount of light in the room. For instance, when the room itself is brightly lit, the display must be bright as well to be seen above the ambient light. When the room is dimly lit, a bright display would be overpowering and difficult to view, unless the display is darkened. Some displays can automatically adjust their brightness level in response to other light in the room. They do this by including a photosensor to sense the ambient room light, and then adjust the brightness of the entire display based on the sensor output. One problem with this system is that the sensor may be in an unusually bright or dim area compared to the majority of the display, giving a reading that is inaccurate for the entire display. For instance the sensor may be in a shadow, while the majority of the screen is in bright light. Using multiple sensors in various locations of the screen may help the problem, but this solution increases the complexity and the cost of the display. None of the sensors can be directly in front of the display otherwise they would cover the display. Therefore, no matter how many photosensors are included around the display, none of the sensors are actually measuring light on the display itself, but rather only measure light around the display screen.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other deficiencies in the prior art.
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The present invention relates generally to connector means and, more particularly, to electrical connector means known commercially as "electrical caps and connectors". In addition, it will be understood the description of the invention, contained herein, will be equally applicable to plug connector means (the cable "cap") as well as to receptacle connector means (the cable "connector").
The art is replete with connector devices for coupling the ends of a pair of electrical cables. In virtually all of these devices component parts have been secured together in assembled unit(s) by metallic threaded fasteners - e.g. for fastening the terminal housing to the connector front to form the connector body and/or for fastening the connector body to the connector housing (outer casing). Such structures, however, suffer several disadvantages. Numerous small fastening screws are needed to complete installation, requiring small tools, inconveniencing the electrician and adding to fabrication costs. Furthermore, the metallic fasteners are often installed on the surfaces of connector bodies which are to face each other when plugged together. The proximity of these metallic parts always gives rise to the potential danger of a short circuit.
In addition, cap and connector apparatus heretofore known have generally necessitated fabrication in more than one size in order that most multi-conductor cables, particularly for four-and five-conductor cables may be fitted with these devices. Thus, significant additional fabrication expenses and efforts are required.
Furthermore, in connector devices having a ground terminal/contact located centrally of the connector front, it has been the practice to wire the ground conductor of the cable to the ground terminal by wrapping the conductor around a centrally located screw (i.e., by binding screw termination) which is threaded into the ground terminal. Usually, the ground conductor insulation must be removed differently than the other conductors, inconveniencing the electrician, and the convenience of wire clamp termination cannot be utilized for wiring such ground terminals.
Accordingly, there is a need for a new and improved electrical cap and connector assembly capable of relatively simple and inexpensive fabrication; enabling speedy, secure and simple installation; and characterized by safe and durable construction.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide new and improved electrical connector apparatus. Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved electrical connector apparatus capable of substantially speedy and simple installation.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a new and improved electrical connector apparatus characterized by dead front surfaces having no exposed metallic parts with the exception of the protruding plug prongs.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a new and improved electrical connector apparatus which can be assembled by simply snapping together all major component parts.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a new and improved electrical connector apparatus which eliminates the need for threaded fasteners for assembling the apparatus.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new and improved electrical connector apparatus having component parts, most of which can be fabricated from a moldable plastic material.
It is still another object of the invention to provide new and improved connector apparatus which can be simply adapted for a wide range of multi-conductor cables and a wide range of amperage ratings.
It is also another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved electrical connector means which enables fast and simple wiring of the ground conductor in connectors having a centrally located ground terminal.
Objects and advantages of the invention are set forth in part herein and in part will be apparent herefrom, or may be learned by practice with the invention, the same being realized and attained by means of the structures, instrumentalities and combinations pointed out in the appended claims. Accordingly, the invention resides in the novel parts, structures, arrangements, combinations and improvements herein shown and described.
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Electrical (galvanic) isolation between devices can be provided with an isolator with an isolation barrier is between input circuitry and output circuitry. The input circuitry can be referenced to a first ground and the output circuitry can be referenced to a different, second ground, which is galvanically isolated from the first ground such that there is no current between them.
In addition to providing for isolated transfer of an information signal, such devices typically also have input and output circuitry to be powered by power supplies that are isolated from each other. The power supplies can be provided, for example, with two separate power supplies having different ground, or by providing an isolated DC-DC converter with discrete transformers to derive power for one side of the barrier from power supplied to the other side of the barrier.
An example of a full-bridge forward DC-DC converter is shown in FIG. 1. A converter 100 has switching transistors MP1, MP2, MN1, and MN2 driving a transformer TR1. The four switching transistors can be implemented in all PMOS or all NMOS type. In typical operation, first the transistors MP1 and MN2 are on for a time interval DT (0<D<1); then transistors MN1 and MN2 are on for a time interval (1-D)T, where T represents half the period of a cycle. Next, transistors MP2 and MN1 are on for a time duration of DT; and transistors MP1 and MP2 are on for the duration of the cycle. The voltage or power transfer is controlled by the variable D, as power is transferred only during the two DT periods.
During the first DT interval when transistors MP1 and MN2 are closed (on), current is provided through the primary winding 102 of transformer TR1 and induced in secondary winding 104 for delivery to a rectifier 106, filter 108 and a load (not shown) which is connected between the output terminal V(OUT) and an output-side ground GNDB (which is distinguished from the input-side ground GNDA). Current is also drawn to charge the magnetizing inductance of the transformer. This magnetizing inductance gets discharged in the second DT interval when transistors MP2 and MN1 are turned on.
To produce a small isolator, micro-transformers can be used. As used here, a “micro-transformer” means a small transformer in which at least one winding is formed using planar fabrication methods, including but not limited to semiconductor techniques, and preferably in a way that facilitates interconnection with other circuit elements on the same or similar substrate. A planar winding can be formed over (on or above) a silicon substrate, or on a printed circuit board (PCB) or other material. A micro-transformer is said to be “on-chip” if the windings are both formed over a semiconductor substrate, potentially in contact with or spaced from the substrate. Examples of on-chip micro-transformers, and particularly “air-core” micro-transformers, are shown in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,291,907 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/214,883, filed Aug. 8, 2002, and published as publication no. 2003/0042571, both of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. Micro-transformers typically have small inductance (L) and high series resistance (R), so they have small L/R values. The interval DT should be shorter than L/R, or else the transformers will get current saturated and lose efficiency because of the voltage drop across series resistance R. If a filtering inductor LF is also formed as a micro-inductor, further efficiency can be lost due to high series resistance. Large filter inductance can be difficult to obtain with a micro-transformer, thereby encouraging the use of a high value of a filter capacitor C2 to minimize ripple on the converter output. Use of a large filter capacitors is generally inconsistent with a goal of making a small isolators.
In order to use micro-transformers, high switching frequencies are used to drive the transistor switches, in some devices with resonant switching. But as the frequency gets high and DT gets small, the control circuitry can become more complex and difficult.
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a hull for a sailing ship which makes it possible to sail under a sail and by an engine when necessity arises.
2. Prior Art of the Invention
As this type of a ship has a sailing mast, it is necessary for such ship to have lumps such as lead, concrete, etc. as ballast laid down on the lower part of the hull in accordance with the dimension of the sail, so that the ship would not turn over sideways when a strong wind blows.
Also, this type of a ship generally has an auxiliary propulsion engine for use when the ship sails in and out of a harbor. If this auxiliary engine is large, the ballast also must be made large in order to lower the gravity of the ship. Therefore, the space in the hull is greatly restricted. In order to secure a space of a predetermined size for living, an engine of a small horse power was used in the conventional ship.
However, if it happens that wind ceases when the ship is sailing far out at sea under a sail or that a heavy storm makes it impossible for the ship to continue sailing under a sail, this auxiliary propulsion engine is the only power to rely upon. However, since the engine is small in horse power because of the reason mentioned above, a desired speed is unavailable. This often invites such risks as that the ship can not return to the harbor before sun set and that the ship is involved in storm.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adaptive wireless parameter control method, a QoS control device and a wireless communication system, and more particularly to an adaptive wireless parameter control method, a QoS control device and a wireless communication system, which fix wireless parameters adaptably, depending on quality of service required for packets to be transmitted, in transmitting the packets wirelessly.
2. Descriptions of the Related Arts
In next generation mobile communication systems (International Mobile Telecommunication-2000: IMT-2000), requirements for the maximum information transmission speed in accordance with “mobile environment”, “walking environment” and “quasi-stationary environment” are 144 kbps, 384 kbps and 2 Mbps, respectively, and genuine multimedia mobile communication can be realized in addition to voice service. However, when considering rapid spread of Internet, diversification and high capacity of information in recent years as well as progress of next generation Internet, development of a wireless access scheme for realizing an information transmission speed exceeding 2 Mbps in mobile communication is urgent.
Under such background, a scheme for realizing a high-speed packet transmission with the maximum information transmission speed of 2.4 Mbps based on IS-95 wireless interface is proposed in the literature (CDMA/HDR: A Bandwidth-Efficient High-Speed Wireless Data Services for Nomadic Users (P. bender, P. Black, M. Grob, R. Padovani, N. Sindhushayana, and A. Viterbi: IEEE Communication Magazine vol. 38, no. 7, pp 70-77, July 2000)). Furthermore, also in 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), the investigation for realizing a high-speed packet transmission with the maximum information transmission speed of about 8.5 Mbps, which expands W-CDMA wireless interface, has been performed.
In the high-speed packet transmission as described above, have been investigated applications of technologies including adaptive modulation/demodulation and error correction (channel encoding) based on an adaptive wireless link control (link adaptation) proposed in the literature (Symbol Rate and Modulation Level-Controlled Adaptive Modulation/TDMA/TDD System for High-Bit-Rate Wireless Data Transmission (T. Ue, S. Sampei, and N. Morinaga: IEEE Transaction. VT, pp 1134-1147, vol. 47, no. 4, November 1998)) and an automatic repeat request (ARQ) proposed in the literature (Automatic-Repeat-Request Error Control Schemes (S. Lin, D. Costello, Jr., and M. Miller: IEEE Communication Magazine, vol. 12, no. 12, pp 5-17, December 1984)).
The adaptive modulation/demodulation and error correction based on the link adaptation means a scheme for switching a data modulation multi-value, a spreading factor (SF), the number of multi-codes, and an encoding factor of the error correction to others depending on propagation environments for users, in order to effectively perform a high-speed data transmission. Herein, for example, as to the data modulation, the maximum throughput of the system can be increased by sequentially switching from the QPSK modulation, which is adopted in the present W-CDMA, to more efficient multi-value modulations, that is, 8 PSK, 16 QAM and 64 QAM, according to improvement of the propagation environments. To be concrete, when assuming that SF be equal to 4, the number of multi-codes be equal to 3 and a forward error correction factor be equal to ½, it is possible to perform ultra high-speed data transmission of 8.5 Mbps by use of W-CDMA wireless interface showing a chip rate of 3.84 Mcps when 64 QAM is used as a data modulation scheme.
Incidentally, in such broadband wireless access, diversification in requirements for quality of service (QoS) such as a transmission speed, a transmission delay and a residual BER (Bit Error Ratio) is predicted.
For example, in traffic such as voice and video for which real time transmission is required, increases in a transmission delay and in delay fluctuation cause significant deterioration of quality. Accordingly, bit error concerning the packets is permitted within a range satisfying communication quality without dumping of the packet that includes the error so that a transmission delay time from a transmission end to a receiving end must be constrained to a range of the requirements in accordance with the quality of services (QoS).
On the other hand, in non-real time traffic such as file transfer and WWW (World Wide Web) browsing, though a demand for the transmission delay is weaker compared to the real time traffic, transmission with high throughput and reliability, which is basically free from error, is required.
Although an automatic repeat request (ARQ) in the packet transmission scheme is an effective technology for high reliability transmission, it causes transmission delay and delay fluctuation in the real time traffic.
Furthermore, while receiving quality is improved by performing channel encoding with high error correction capability, throughput is decreased due to a decrease in frame efficiency.
Accordingly, in order to provide multimedia services effectively in such a packet transmission scheme including a mix of various types of traffic, effective applications of an error control (QoS control) technology between wireless sections are more important. Specifically, when the error control (QoS control) by a technology such as an error protection using an automatic repeat request between a wireless sections and a forward error correction (FEC) is performed, different standards for respective kinds of traffics must be applied.
However, in conventional link adaptation technology, wireless parameters including the optimum modulation scheme and the forward error correction method which are adapted only to a wireless link state (conditions of propagation path) have been merely selected, and QoS based on requests concerning traffic characteristics, in particular delay, has not been considered.
From the above described viewpoints, it has been proved to be very useful to select wireless parameters including the modulation scheme, the forward error correction scheme, and the upper limit of repeat times of the automatic repeat request while taking into consideration the trade off between advantages and disadvantages in the error modulation scheme adaptively switched in response to the QoS requirements. Moreover, it is inferred that combinations of respective adoptive selections vary in accordance with the QoS requirements.
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This disclosure is generally directed to toner processes, and more specifically, emulsion aggregation and coalescence processes, as well as toner compositions formed by such processes and development processes using such toners for use with electrophotographic copying or printing apparatus.
Emulsion aggregation/coalescing processes for the preparation of toners are illustrated in a number of patents, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,290,654, 5,278,020, 5,308,734, 5,370,963, 5,344,738, 5,403,693, 5,418,108, 5,364,729, and 5,346,797; and also of interest may be U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,348,832; 5,405,728; 5,366,841; 5,496,676; 5,527,658; 5,585,215; 5,650,255; 5,650,256; 5,501,935; 5,723,253; 5,744,520; 5,763,133; 5,766,818; 5,747,215; 5,827,633; 5,853,944; 5,804,349; 5,840,462; 5,869,215; 5,863,698; 5,902,710; 5,910,387; 5,916,725; 5,919,595; 5,925,488 and 5,977,210. Other patents disclosing exemplary emulsion aggregation/coalescing processes include, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,730,450, 6,743,559, 6,756,176, 6,780,500, 6,830,860, and 7,029,817. The disclosures of each of the foregoing patents and publications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
Improved toners and methods for their production remain desirable.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to original reading apparatuses for reading images of originals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Original reading apparatuses such as copy machines, facsimiles, image scanners, and so on typically read an image of an original by illuminating the original, which has been placed on a platen glass. Japanese Patent No. 4788577 discloses mounting a plurality of LEDs upon a long, thin printed wiring board in the longitudinal direction thereof, and illuminating an original by converging the light from the plurality of LEDs using a light guide.
However, the invention disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 4788577 does not disclose the manner in which the light guide is attached to a base member. Research performed by the inventors of the present application has shown that shininess, fogging, and so on occur in an image when the light guide expands due to heat. FIGS. 16A to 16D illustrate an example of fogging and shininess occurring when reading a spread thick original such as a book or the like. As shown in FIG. 16A, when a spread thick original P is placed upon a platen glass 140, the central area of the original is distanced from the platen glass 140. As shown in FIG. 16B, the reading result designed to be obtained is obtained in the case where the light guide is not warped. However, if the light guide is warped, there are cases where fogging will occur in the center of the image, as shown in FIG. 16C, or shininess will occur in the vicinity of the center of the image, as shown in FIG. 16D.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transmission liquid crystal display and a method of forming the same, and more particularly to a transmission liquid crystal display with an improved contact hole structure and a method of forming such contact holes therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, liquid crystal displays have widely been used in various fields due to their advantageous light weight and low power consumption. A transmission active matrix liquid crystal display is a highly attractive liquid crystal display. Such a display has an active matrix substrate and an opposite substrate, which together define an inter-space filled with liquid crystal. The active matrix substrate has plural thin film transistors, which serve as switching devices for switching display pixels, wherein the display pixels are provided over the active matrix substrate. The opposite substrate is transparent, for allowing transmission of light. It is important for such a display to have improved contrast and color and also increased display screen area.
In order to achieve such improvements, it is necessary to increase transmittivity of a back-light emitted from a back-illuminator, which illuminates a liquid crystal panel.
Advanced liquid crystal displays reduced weight, thickness and power consumption. In order to reduce power consumption, it is quite effective to save or reduce a power comsumption by the back-illuminator.
Regarding improved transmittivity of the back-light, it is effective to increase an aperture efficiency of a display portion, which includes pixels. In view of increasing the aperture efficiency, the display has the following structural elements.
The liquid crystal device has a planarized transparent organic insulating film, which covers entire regions including the interconnections coupled with the electrodes and the thin film transistors, wherein an aperture comprises a transparent film which permits light-transmission. An inter-layer insulator as a protector is further provided, which overlies the substrate and underlies the planarized transparent organic insulating film. Transparent pixel electrodes are provided over such a planarized transparent film. Contact holes are formed, which penetrate laminations of the planarized transparent organic insulating film and the inter-layer insulator, so that contact plugs are then formed in the contact holes, whereby the transparent pixel electrodes over the planarized transparent film are electrically connected through the contact plugs to interconnections, which underlie the inter-layer insulator, wherein the interconnections are coupled with the electrodes of the thin transistors over the substrate.
The above inter-layer insulator comprises an inorganic insulating film, whilst the planarized transparent film comprises an organic insulating film. This means that the contact holes penetrate the laminations of the organic and inorganic films. The contact holes are formed by an etching process for selectively etching such laminations, before the contact holes are filled with the contact plugs by a sputtering process. The etching process and the subsequent sputtering process, however, damage the planarized transparent organic insulating film, whereby the film is deteriorated in light-transmittivity. This means that the light-transmittivity of the apertures is reduced.
Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 10-20342 discloses contact holes which penetrate laminations of an overlying photo-sensitive organic insulating layer and an underlying inorganic insulating layer. A photo-lithography technique may be utilized to form the contact holes in the overlying photo-sensitive organic insulating layer, before a dry etching process is carried out with use of the processed overlying layer as a mask for forming the contact holes. The dry etching process uses an etching gas which contains carbon, fluorine and hydrogen in order to prevent deterioration of the overlying photo-sensitive organic insulating layer and also prevent the underlying layer from side-etch.
Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 11-283934 discloses another conventional technique to prevent any substantal increase in a resistance value of the contact plug in the contact hole. Contact holes are formed in a transparent resin inter-layer insulator by an etching process, by which residues remain on bottoms of the contact holes. A further sputter cleaning process is carried out to remove residues from the bottoms of the contact holes because the residues may increase the resistance, wherein the residues are removed by impacts of sputtered particles in hydrogen, helium or nitrogen atmosphere.
FIG. 1A is a fragmentary cross sectional elevation view of such a sputter cleaning process for removing the residues from the contact holes. The planarized top surface of the transparent organic film 8 is directly exposed to the sputtered particles, whereby the planarized surface becomes a rough surface 17a, and an upper region 17b of the transparent organic film 8 is damaged and deteriorated in film quality. FIG. 1B is a fragmentary cross sectional elevation view of the transparent organic film with the damaged upper region by the sputter cleaning process of FIG. 1A. The above organic film 8 has a C—C bonding structure. In the upper region 17b of the organic film 8, this C—C bonding structure may be broken by the sputtered particles, whereby the molecular structure of the upper region 17b is changed, for example, side chains of the molecule structure are broken, As a result, the above rough surface 17a is formed. This rough surface 17a causes a remarkable decrease in light-transmittivity of the transparent organic film 8.
In the above circumstances, it would be advantageous to develop a novel transmission liquid crystal display and method of forming the same free from the above problems.
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In the current environment of computer networks and the proliferation of digital or digitized multimedia content which may be distributed over such networks, a key issue is copyright protection. Copyright protection is the ability to prevent or deter the proliferation of unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. It provides a reasonable guarantee that the author of a copyrighted work will be paid for each copy of that work.
A fundamental problem in the digital world, as opposed to the world of physical media, is that a unlimited number of perfect copies may be made from any piece of digital or digitized content. A perfect copy means that if the original is comprised of a given stream of numbers, then the copy matches the original, exactly, for each number in the stream. Thus, there is no degradation of the original signal during the copy operation. In an analog copy, random noise is always introduced, degrading the copied signal.
The act of making unlicensed copies of some content, digital or analog, whether audio, video, software or other, is generally known as piracy. Piracy has been committed for the purpose of either profit from the sale of such unlicensed copies, or to procure for the “pirate” a copy of the content for personal use without having paid for it.
The problem of piracy has been made much worse for arty type of content by the digitization of content. Once content enters the digital domain, an unlimited number of copies may be made without any degradation, if a pirate finds a way to break whatever protection scheme was established to guard against such abuses, if any. In the analog world, there is generally a degradation in the content (signal) with each successive copy, imposing a sort of natural limit on volume of piracy.
To date, three general types of schemes have been implemented in an attempt to protect copyrights.
1) Encryption
2) Copy Protection
3) Content Extensions
Copy Protection and Content Extensions generally apply in the digital world only, while a scheme related to Encryption, commonly known as scrambling, may be applied to an analog signal. This is typical in analog cable systems.
Encryption scrambles the content. Before the content is made ready for delivery, whether on floppy disk, or over a network, it must be encrypted, or scrambled. Once the content has been encrypted, it cannot be used until it is decrypted, or unscrambled. Encrypted audio data might sound like incomprehensible screeching, while an encrypted picture or video might appear as random patterns on a screen. The principle of encryption is that you are free to make as many copies as you want, but you can't read anything that makes sense until you use a special key to decrypt, and you can only obtain the key by paying for the content.
Encryption has two problems, however. 1) Pirates have historically found ways to crack encryption, in effect, obtaining the key without having paid for it; and 2) Once a single legitimate copy of some content has been decrypted, a pirate is now free to make unlimited copies of the decrypted copy. In effect, in order to sell an unlimited quantity of an encrypted piece of software, the pirate could simply buy one copy, which they are entitled to decrypt.
Copy Protection includes various methods by which a software engineer can write the software in a clever manner to determine if it has been copied, and if so to deactivate itself. Also included are undocumented changes to the storage format of the content. Copy protection was generally abandoned by the software industry, since pirates were generally just as clever as the software engineers and figured out ways to modify their software and deactivate the protection. The cost of developing such protection was not justified considering the level of piracy which occurred despite the copy protection.
Content Extension refers to any system which attaches some extra information to the original content which indicates whether or not a copy may be made. A software or hardware system must be specifically built around this scheme to recognize the additional information and interpret it in an appropriate manner. An example of such a system is the Serial Copyright Management System embedded in Digital Audio Tape (DAT) hardware. Under this system, additional information is stored on the disc immediately preceding each track of audio content which indicates whether or not it can be copied. The hardware reacts this information and uses it accordingly.
A fundamental problem with Encryption and Content Extension is the “rogue engineer”. An employee who helped design such a system or an individual with the knowledge and means to analyze such a system can modify it to ignore the copyright information altogether, and make unlicensed copies of the content. Cable piracy is quite common, aided by illicit decoder devices built by those who understand the technical details of the cable encryption system. Although the cable systems in question were actually based on analog RF signals, the same principle applies to digital systems.
The practical considerations of weak encryption schemes and rogue engineers have served to limit the faith which may be put in such copyright protection schemes. The invention disclosed herein serves to address these problems with conventional systems for digital distribution. It provides a way to enforce copyright online. The invention draws on techniques from two fields, cryptography, the art of scrambling messages so that only the intended recipient may read them, and steganography, a term applied to various techniques for obscuring messages so that only the intended parties to a message even know that a message has been sent, thus it is termed herein as a stega-cipher. The stega-cipher is so named because it uses the steganographic technique of hiding a message in multimedia content, in combination with multiple keys, a concept originating in cryptography. However, instead of using the keys to encrypt the content, the stega-cipher uses these keys to locate the hidden message within the content. The message itself is encrypted which serves to further protect the message, verify the validity of the message, and redistribute the information in a random manner so that anyone attempting to locate the message without the keys cannot rely on pre-supposed, knowledge of the message contents as a help in locating it.
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The present invention concerns a bag-in-carton type container which comprises a carton and a flexible inner bag bonded to the inner surface of the carton for storing a fluid inside, and also a fluid level detector for detecting the fluid quantity remained in the container.
A bag-in-carton used as a container for a liquid is usually in the shape of approximately rectangular parallelepiped. The inner bag is bonded to four side surfaces of the carton. The bag-in-carton is generally used as a container for a low-viscosity liquid such as juice or liqueur.
An ink cartridge disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 93/16968 is for use in storing a high-viscosity liquid like an ink and so on. While the high-viscosity liquid is taken out of the cartridge by sucking with a pump and so on, an inner bag deforms according to the sucking.
When the inner bag deforms, the bag pulls a display tape that covers an opening of the cartridge. As the tape is pulled and separated from the opening, an area of the opening that is not covered by the tape changes, so that the amount of the ink contained in the inner bag can be confirmed visually.
Further, a light-emitting device and a light-detecting device electrically detect the state in which the tape covers the opening. When the amount of the ink is below a certain level, this fact is displayed on a display panel.
However, according to the conventional way of detecting the amount of ink, it is required that the opening stated above is formed on the ink cartridge to confirm the amount of the ink.
In the case where the opening is thus formed on the cartridge, the carton may deteriorate in rigidity and be damaged by shocks caused in conveyance and so on.
Further, the electrical detecting of the amount can be conducted only when the ink is below the certain level. Therefore, in such a case where a large amount of printing is conducted by a printer and the printer is controlled by a remote computer, there is some fear that printing stops on complete consumption of the ink. Hence, if the detecting is not conducted before starting of printing, printing duly starts and continues. Further, if the detecting is conducted during printing, the ink may be consumed before completion of printing. This may waste time if an operator is not aware of the situation.
Further, according to the constitution thus stated, the ink cartridge can not be precisely detected to be empty. Since the cartridge emptiness is detected by judging the separation state of the display tape, a display of emptiness can be possible on the printer side when the ink is actually consumed. This deteriorates efficiency in operating the printer.
A generalized printing apparatus does not detect the amount of ink stored in a cartridge. The apparatus detects the diameter of ink-whirl inside the apparatus by measuring the capacitance thereof. When the amount of the ink is not sufficient, supplementary ink is sucked and supplied. When ink-shortage continues for some ten seconds, the apparatus judges that the ink is empty and this is then displayed.
Therefore, even in the case where an operator sets an empty ink cartridge inside the apparatus by mistake, time of some ten seconds is required until the apparatus detects this fault. Consequently, if the apparatus starts to operate in this condition, spoilage sheets may be sent out due to an ink shortage.
Further, type of ink used for printing has been increased recently and also many types of ink cartridge are provided according to the types of the ink. However, said ink cartridges can not detect the types of the ink.
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The digital signage technology has been known as a technology used in the advertisement display device for displaying advertisement content in a shop.
For example, shops in areas gathering many foreign visitors have desires to easily translate advertisement content into another language and display the translated advertisement content in their shops.
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As environmental concerns have led to increasingly strict regulation of engine emissions by governmental agencies, reduction of nitrogen-oxygen compounds (NOx) in exhaust emissions from internal combustion engines has become increasingly important. Current indications are that this trend will continue.
Future emission levels of diesel engines will have to be reduced in order to meet Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulated levels. In the past, the emission levels of US diesel engines have been regulated according to the EPA using the Federal Test Procedure (FTP) cycle, with a subset of more restrictive emission standards for California via the California Air Resources Board (CARB). For example, the Tier II emission standards, which are being considered for 2004, are 50% lower than the Tier I standards. Car and light truck emissions are measured over the FTP 75 test and expressed in gm/mi. Proposed Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) emission levels for light-duty vehicles up to model year 2004 are 0.2 gm/mi NOx and 0.08 gm/mi particulate matter (PM). Beginning with the 2004 model year, all light-duty Low Emission Vehicles (LEVs) and ULEVs in California would have to meet a 0.05 gm/mi NOx standard to be phased in over a three year period. In addition to the NOx standard, a full useful life PM standard of 0.01 gm/mi would also have to be met.
Traditional methods of in-cylinder emission reduction techniques such as exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and injection rate shaping by themselves will not be able to achieve these low emission levels required by the standard. Aftertreatment technologies will have to be used, and will have to be further developed in order to meet the future low emission requirements of the diesel engine.
NOx adsorber catalysts have the potential for great NOx emission reduction (70-90%) and for extending engine life. However, low temperature operation of adsorbers seems to be a problem. The main reason for this problem seems to be the fact that the reductants, especially D2 fuel, starts to boil at around 180 degrees Celsius. At temperatures below this, the injected fuel has a strong tendency to condense and does not participate in the release and reduction step of NOx adsorbers (catalytic converters). Also, if the droplet size is large, atomization is not good and the fuel does not vaporize easily even at the higher temperature, thereby limiting adsorber performance.
Current devices on their own, such as spraying system nozzles and injectors cannot do anything about the condensation at low temperature. Also, the droplet size measurement shows that they have a sauter mean diameter (SMD) in the range of 30-60 μm. If this droplet size can be reduced further, the vaporization will become faster and easier. This will improve the reductant participation in the catalyst reactions and improve the NOx adsorber capacity and NOx conversion efficiency.
There is therefore a need for a system and method for enhancing internal combustion engine aftertreatment applications that can reduce emission levels for diesel engines. The present invention is directed toward meeting this need.
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This invention generally relates to aerial cameras as may be used on aircraft and more specifically to an assembly for gravity stabilizing both the camera and its operator from aircraft motion tending to affect picture image quality.
The invention is particularly adapted to dirigibles or the like, wherein the relatively stable aerial platform provided by such a vehicle is utilized for television camera operations. For example, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Akron, Ohio, operates a fleet of "blimps" for aerial advertising purposes and also for carrying crews that televise various sporting and public interest events.
In the operation of dirigibles for TV use, winds aloft tends to cause pitch, roll and yaw motion of the vehicle and therefore, also effect camera operation as the camera operator must always compensate for vehicle motion in order to keep the camera trained on the scene below. Thus, picture quality is affected by excessive camera motion. Various camera stabilizing mounts are available and within the prior art including automated gyro mounts, and the like, all of which result in extremely sophisticated and expensive equipment that also add unwanted weight and bulk to be carried in the limited area of the vehicle control cabin.
It is therefore a primary object of this invention to provide an assembly for gravity stabilizing an aerial camera such as to substantially limit the affects of vehicle motion on camera operation.
Another object of the invention is to include the camera operator in a gravity stabilized assembly in conjunction with a stabilized camera such that both camera and operator motion are essentially independent of changes in vehicle attitude while aloft.
A further object of the invention is to provide an assembly that is effective in isolating both camera and operator and which is relatively inexpensive to assemble, extremely unsophisticated and easily maintained while adding a minimum of excess weight to the vehicle.
Accordingly, the beforementioned and related objects of the invention are accomplished in an assembly for gravity stabilizing a camera and its operator from vehicle attitude changes while aloft comprising in combination: a camera mounting frame assembly; a universal assembly that mounts the camera frame assembly to provide front-to-rear, side-to-side, and rotational motion to the camera mounting frame; an operator mounting assembly to provide front-to-rear and side-to-side motion to the operator; and means interconnecting the camera frame assembly and the operator mounting assembly to effect an integrally combined camera/operator assembly that is gravity stabilized irrespective of the motions of the airborne vehicle.
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One method of analyzing a failing semiconductor device, or a Device under Test (DUT) involves the use of Thermal Induced Voltage Alteration tool (TIVA) or Optical Beam Induced Resistance Change (OBIRCH) that make use of a scanning laser source to thermally induce voltage or current changes in the DUT. The TIVA uses a laser (Infra Red spectrum) to scan and thermally induce resistances changes and then monitor a voltage changes. The OBIRCH works similarly to the TIVA, but uses a laser to thermally activate the fail site and then monitor the current fluctuation. Thus they work on the principle that they sense variations at the power supply to the DUT. In other words they sense leakage currents at a DC level while a laser probe is used to scan across the DUT as illustrated in FIG. 1. By scanning back and forth with the laser over the DUT surface along a path, as indicated by reference numeral 100, the TIVA produces localized heating of the circuitry. This impacts the DC power supply reading as measured by the TIVA, allowing the TIVA to identify failure sites that produce leakage current. Typically the TIVA provides a visual picture of the DUT and identifies, by means of spots on the picture, the leakage current error sites. This is done by monitoring and collecting the x-y coordinate information of the laser probe at the time the DC power supply variation is identified. In addition the TIVA produces a die spot on the stored image of the DUT.
However, the TIVA is not capable of identifying and mapping failure sites that have a small AC signal fluctuation that is superimposed on a large DC level, thus severely limiting the use of the TIVA to the identification small AC signal and mapping of only a limited set of error conditions.
The present invention provides new applications for the TIVA and provides the means of effectively using the TIVA to identify and map other error conditions on a DUT.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a super conducting quantum interference device (SQUID), more particularly, it relates to a digital SQUID control system used for a magnetic flux meter for measuring a weak magnetic flux irradiated from an object to be measured.
2. Description of the Related Art
SQUID's are utilized for detecting a weak magnetic flux with very high sensitivity. That is, the SQUID can respond to a change in a weak magnetic flux based on the quantum interference effect of the magnetic flux. Accordingly, the SQUID is mainly utilized for, particularly, a high sensitivity magnetic flux meter having a highly sensitive magnetic sensor. The high sensitivity magnetic flux meter is utilized, for example, in the field of medical equipment to measure the magnetic flux from a human body.
In general, the SQUID can be classified into two types, i.e., an analog type SQUID and a digital type SQUID. Both analog and digital types have two Josephson junctions and a superconductivity coil. The present invention relates to a digital type SQUID.
The high sensitivity magnetic flux meter utilizing the SQUID includes a SQUID, a pick-up coil detecting the magnetic flux from an object and magnetically coupled to the SQUID, and a feedback circuit supplying a control current to a feedback coil also magnetically coupled to the SQUID.
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Paving machines are used for depositing, spreading, compacting, and smoothing paving material on a roadbed in such a manner that a uniform and drivable surface is produced. Screed assemblies are used to smooth and compact the paving material. The screed assembly is typically drawn behind the paving machine and is adjustable to establish both the thickness of the deposited layer of paving material and the width of the area over which the material is spread.
Modern screed assemblies typically include one or more base or fixed portions and one or more extendable portions that may be adjusted relative to the fixed portions to control the working width of the screed assembly. A common arrangement uses two base portions arranged end to end such that they may be independently tipped from horizontal to permit laying a paved mat having a desired cross-section, for example, a center crown. Each base portion commonly includes an extendable portion that may be moved inwardly to minimize the width of the screed assembly during transport and may be extended outwardly up to a maximum extension length to increase the paving capacity of the machine.
It is desirable to provide a screed assembly in which the fully extended screed width is at least twice the fully retracted width. However, achieving a full doubling of screed width is difficult because of necessary structural overlaps in portions of the fixed and extendable screed elements. Because of this, the fully extended screed width is typically several centimeters less than double the fully retracted width.
One example of a screed assembly adapted to address this problem is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,695, which describes an apparatus that uses a number of telescopic rods to permit elongation of the base screed portion in the extended position. However, this is a complex mechanical arrangement involving multiple components moving relative one to the other, and may not be suitable for screed assemblies where a high degree of rigidity is required and where simplicity of operation is necessary for trouble-free operation.
The present invention is directed to providing a double extending screed that overcomes one or more of the problems set forth above.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of semiconductor patterning. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of simultaneously forming patterns on a die of an alignment mark and other dies.
2. Description of the Related Art
Photolithography is a critical process that decides whether or not a semiconductor device can be successfully fabricated. Thus, photography occupies an important position in the semiconductor fabrication process. A common device fabrication process is taken as an example. Usually, according to the complexity of a device, a fabrication process needs 10 to 18 photolithography and exposure steps. In order to precisely transfer the pattern onto the chip, an alignment between layers needs to be performed before each photoresist exposure step. This is in order to avoid incorrect pattern transfer and the consequent chip disposal.
In a traditional exposure process, alignment mark is formed over the chip according to the location of a mask in order to achieve alignment. In order to avoid damage on the alignment mask during semiconductor fabrication, usually no pattern is formed around the alignment mark. However, this causes the oxide layer formed over the empty region around the alignment mark to remain to form a residual oxide layer after performance of chemical mechanical processing.
A fabrication process of a shallow trench isolation is taken as an example. FIGS. 1A through 1C are schematic cross-sectional views showing the progression of steps for producing a conventional shallow trench isolation structure.
As shown in FIG. 1A, a substrate 100 having alignment marks 102 thereon is provided. A mask layer 104 is formed over the substrate 100, and then a photoresist layer 106 is formed over the mask layer 104. Using the mask layer 104 as an etching mask, the mask layer 104 and a portion of the substrate 100 are removed to form a trench 108 in the substrate 100.
As shown in FIG. 1B, the photoresist layer 106 is removed and then a silicon oxide layer 110 is formed over the substrate 100 so that the mask layer 104 is covered while the trench 108 is filled.
As shown in FIG. 1C, a chemical-mechanical polishing operation is carried out to remove redundant silicon oxide material from the silicon oxide layer 110 using the mask layer 104 as a polishing stop layer. Subsequently, a silicon oxide layer 110a is formed inside the trench 108. Lastly, the mask layer 104 is removed.
In general, the density of trenches on a silicon chip is non-uniform and there are some empty regions on the silicon chip free of isolation structures. In the process of removing the oxide material above the mask layer 104 in a chemical-mechanical polishing operation, some of the oxide material above the empty region 112 will be retained to form a residual oxide layer 110b.
To reduce thickness of the residual oxide film on top of empty regions, dummy isolation regions are sometimes formed over the empty regions 112 on the substrate 100 so that a uniform polish can be achieved. FIGS. 2A through 2D are schematic cross-sectional views showing the progression of steps for producing conventional shallow trench isolation structures and dummy isolation regions on empty regions in a substrate.
As shown in FIG. 2A, a photomask having both isolation region pattern 114 and dummy isolation region pattern 116 are used to pattern a photoresist layer 106. After photo-exposure, the patterns are transferred to the photoresist layer 106.
As shown in FIG. 2B, the photoresist layer 106 is developed. Hence, the isolation region pattern 114 and the dummy isolation region 116 are formed in the photoresist layer 106. Using the photoresist layer 106 as an etching mask, the mask layer 104 and the substrate 100 are etched to form trenches 108 in the isolation region as well as dummy trenches 118 in the dummy isolation region.
As shown in FIG. 2C, the photoresist layer 106 is removed and then an oxide layer 110 is formed over the substrate 100. Hence, the mask layer 104 is covered while the trenches 108 and the dummy trenches 118 are filled.
As shown in FIG. 2D, a chemical-mechanical polishing operation is carried out to remove any redundant oxide material above the mask layer 104. The mask layer 104 is also removed to form isolation structures 110a and dummy isolation structures 110c in the substrate 100.
In the aforementioned method, the isolation region pattern 114 and the dummy isolation pattern 116 are formed on the same photoresist layer 106 as shown in FIG. 2A. In carrying out photo-exposure, a pattern on the photomask 400 in FIG. 4 is transferred to each exposure shot 120 in the silicon chip 100 shown in FIG. 3 one by one to form isolation region pattern 114 in the photoresist layer 106 above the substrate (silicon chip) 100. Thereafter, the pattern of the photomask 400 is transferred onto the empty regions 112 around the alignment mark 102. In this manner, the isolation region pattern 114 and the dummy isolation pattern 116 are formed on the same photoresist layer 106.
As shown in FIG. 3, dimensions of shots 122 of the alignment marks 102 above the silicon chip are different from a dimension of the exposure shots 120 in each exposure operation. During an exposure process of dummy isolation region pattern, a corner 404 (for example, the left/upper corner) of the chromium film 402 on the photomask 400 in FIG. 4 is aligned with a corner 130 (for example, the upper/left corner) of an alignment shot 122. In addition, the non-transparent blade 300 of a stepper is used to block a portion of the area on the photomask 400 that corresponds to the alignment mark 102 and a portion of the alignment marking shot 122. Because of the chromium film 402 on the photomask 400 and the non-transparent blade 300 of the stepper, light is permitted to pass in a specified region only. Consequently, trench pattern at the corner 404 of the photomask 400 is transferred to the corner 130 of shot 122 only. To form a complete dummy isolation pattern 116, the photoresist layer 106 at the other corners of the alignment shot 122 must be transferred by carrying out similar steps.
The method demands a multiple of exposures to form a complete dummy isolation pattern 116 in the photoresist layer 106 above the alignment shot 122. Consequently, throughput of the station decreases and wear of the non-transparent blades increases.
In general, the number of exposures can be reduced by placing the alignment mark to one side of the alignment shot rather than the middle and attaching neighboring alignment shots shot-to-shot as shown in the magnified view of FIG. 3. However, by so doing, the chip areas surrounding such alignment marks are likely to be affected by subsequent polishing operations.
The invention is directed to a method of a forming semiconductor pattern. The method includes dividing a chip into a plurality of first exposure shots and a plurality of second exposure shots. After an alignment mark is formed in one of the dies of a first exposure shot, a waiting-for-patterning layer is formed over the chip. A negative photoresist layer is formed over the waiting-for-patterning layer. First exposure processes are carried out one-by-one to form a plurality of first exposed regions and a plurality of unexposed regions in the negative photoresist above the first exposure shots and the second exposure shots. A second exposure process is next carried out to form a second exposed region in the negative photoresist above the alignment mark. The second exposed region overlaps with the first exposed region and the unexposed region above the self-aligned mark and the overlapping region covers the alignment mark region. A photoresist development is carried out to remove the negative photoresist in the unexposed regions and expose the waiting-for-patterning layer. Using the negative photoresist layer as a mask, the exposed waiting-for-patterning layer is etched to form a pattern. The negative photoresist layer is removed.
This invention also provides a method of forming semiconductor patterns. A substrate having a plurality of dies thereon is provided. The substrate is divided into a plurality of first exposure shots and a plurality of second exposure shots. An alignment mark is formed in one of the dies of a first exposure shot. A mask layer is formed over the substrate and then a negative photoresist layer is formed over the mask layer. First exposure processes are carried out one-by-one to form a plurality of first exposed regions and a plurality of unexposed regions in the negative photoresist layer above the first exposure shots and the second exposure shots individually. The unexposed regions include a plurality of trench pattern. A second exposure process is next carried out to form a second exposed region in the negative photoresist above the alignment mark. The second exposed region overlaps with the first exposed region and the unexposed region above the alignment mark, and the overlapping region covers the alignment mark region. A photoresist development is carried out to remove the negative photoresist in the unexposed regions and expose the mask layer. Using the negative photoresist layer as a mask, the exposed mask layer is removed to form a trench pattern. The negative photoresist layer is removed. Using the patterned mask layer as a mask, a portion of the substrate is removed to form a plurality of trenches in the dies amongst the first exposure shots and the second exposure shots. An insulation layer is formed over the chip to cover the mask layer and fill the trenches. A chemical-mechanical polishing operation is carried out to remove the excess insulating material above the mask layer. The mask layer is removed so that the insulation layer inside each trench of the second exposure shots becomes an isolation region. The insulation layer inside each trench of the second exposure shots becomes a dummy isolation region.
According to the embodiment of this invention, dimensions of the first exposure shots containing the alignment mark are identical to other second exposure shots. Hence, when the aforementioned exposure operation is conducted, the desired pattern of the first exposure shot containing the alignment will emerge as long as the stepper carries out the exposure sequentially. In other words, one exposure needs to be carried out to form the first exposure shot that contains the alignment mark. Compared with the conventional multi-step exposure process, the method of this invention is faster. In addition, this invention is also capable of increasing throughput, reducing non-transparent blade wear and lowering production cost.
In addition, by forming a negative photoresist layer over the substrate, chromium film on photomask for clearing peripheral region can be used to align with the periphery of the alignment mark region. Hence, light can pass through the clearing region and transfer the pattern to the chip so that an exposed region is formed above the alignment mark. Because position and dimensions of the exposed region depend on the chromium blocking layer in the photomask rather than the mask-blocking non-transparent blade in a stepper, optical diffraction can be prevented. Therefore, the pattern on the clearing region of the photomask can be correctly transferred to the photoresist layer.
In this invention, dummy isolation regions are formed around the peripheral region of the alignment mark so that the density of trenches in the first exposure shot with the alignment mark and other second exposure shots are almost identical. Thus, a uniform polishing rate is provided in subsequent chemical-mechanical polishing operation.
Furthermore, whether the alignment mark is in the middle of the chip or on one side close to a die, one exposure is all that is required to form the dummy isolation region pattern around the alignment mark. Consequently, the alignment mark can be positioned in the middle of a die so that the effect of the alignment mark on the peripheral chips is greatly reduced.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a faster exposure process, decreases the fabrication cost, and providing a uniform polishing rate during chemical mechanical polishing. In addition, in the present invention the alignment mark can be positioned in the middle of a die so that the effect of the alignment mark on the peripheral chips is greatly reduced.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
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Many of today's applications allow for dynamic, asynchronous data transfer, using multiple communication protocols and a variety of servers. Often, such applications gather data from distributed, heterogeneous sources. Clients having client-side functionality often also have server-side components, which may need additional processing before the server sends the data back to the client over a network. This separation of components over the network can cause latency that may affect the overall performance of an application that is executing on the network. Understanding the elements which contribute to this latency is important for developing and maintaining applications that must meet certain performance requirements.
In addition to performance issues caused by network latency, many application developers are now using new application technologies (such as Web 2.0 technologies) having features that enhance the interactivity of the user experience but at the cost of increasing network traffic. When compounded with network latency and bandwidth constraints, the large amounts of network traffic generated by these new technologies can create bottlenecks that can significantly impact system performance.
To accurately predict the performance of an application, the individual components of the application may be tested both during development and in a production environment. Generally, performance testing solutions create synthetic transactions involving virtual users (Vusers) on an emulated network in order to predict application performance in production.
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1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an information processing device having a user interface configured to display various setting items and receive setting input, a method and a computer-readable storage device therefor.
2. Related Art
In information processing devices such as a personal computer, and peripheral devices such as a printer and a scanner, a user interface to be used by a user to set various setting items for executing respective functions is provided. It is common that such a user interface is configured to receive user operations (e.g., selection of enabling/disabling respective setting items, selection of setting values) using a keyboard and/or mouse are received with displaying a setting screen for receiving user input of respective setting items.
When a plurality of setting items are set, some setting items may have exclusive relationship. That is, some setting items may not be set simultaneously (e.g., setting of one setting item may restrict setting of another setting item). For example, if the number of colors for scanning an image is set to 256 colors, a resolution of the image is limited to 600 dpi or lower. In such a case, the number of colors and the resolution for scanning have exclusive relationship, and it is impossible to set the number of colors to 256 colors and the resolution to more than 600 dpi at the same time.
When such an exclusive relationship exists, the setting items are displayed as gray-out items, or removed from a selection item list so that the items having the exclusive relationship cannot be selected simultaneously.
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for managing a communication network, in particular for generating tests at a higher-level network management center, and to a communication system for carrying out the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In radio communication systems, information (for example speech, image information, or other data) are transmitted with the aid of electromagnetic waves via a radio interface between transmitting and receiving radio stations (base station and mobile station). The emission of the electromagnetic waves is performed in this case at carrier frequencies that lie in the frequency band provided for the respective system. In the case of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication), the carrier frequencies lie in the region of 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz. Frequencies in the frequency band of approximately 2000 MHz are provided for future mobile radio networks using CDMA or TD/CDMA transmission methods via the radio interface, for example the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) or other third-generation system.
The principles of a general management network, which are also denoted as TMN principles (TMN: Telecommunications Management Network) define a plurality of management levels for the management of a communication system, for example a mobile communication system, each level having a dual function. In the managing system, each level apart from the lowermost has a manager function for the level situated therebelow. In the managed system, each level apart from the uppermost has an agent function for the next higher level.
In an object-oriented environment, there is a multiplicity of objects that constitute network resources with a specific functionality in each case. In the case of the object-oriented environment, such as exists typically between manager and agent in a mobile radio network, each agent functionality is appropriately provided by a specific object that is available as a managed object (or object instance MOO of an object class.
The object is produced as the result of a modeling activity in which the parameters and boundary conditions, inter alia, are defined in addition to the functionality, and is known both to the manager and to the executive agent at the corresponding interface. In a mobile radio network, for example, the interface can be what is termed the O interface between an operation and maintenance center (OMC in FIG. 1) and a base station system (BSS).
An object instance of a specific managed class A, which is also denoted as managed object class, can include further object instances of the same or other classes. Such a relationship between object instances—not classes—is also denoted in the modeling as containment relationship.
A relationship between object classes which specifies that an object instance of a class is defined as a superior object for objects of another class, or can be so defined, is also denoted as name binding. A hierarchical assignment of objects in which the hierarchy is organized on the basis of name binding relationships is generally denoted as a naming tree.
In a telecommunication network, for example a mobile radio network, the network monitoring and control is usually performed in this case from two manager locations: on the one hand, centrally from an operation and maintenance center OMC, which corresponds to an element manager, and, on the other hand, on site by a local maintenance data terminal LMT (LMT: Local Maintenance Terminal) that can be connected to various network units. In a mobile radio network, for example, such network units are a base station subsystem BSC, a base station transceiver station BTSE (BTSE: Base Transceiver Station Equipment) that takes account of the hardware modeled or taken into account there, or a transcoder and rate adapter unit TRAU.
From an operational viewpoint, an overall telecommunication network managed by a service provider is subdivided into a plurality of network regions, as may also be seen from FIG. 1. Although the overall network includes hardware from various manufacturers, within each of these network regions both the network elements and the management systems set forth above are usually supplied from the same manufacturer, since the management at the operation and maintenance center OMC and at local maintenance data terminals must take account of all manufacturer-specific characteristics of the hardware. This includes, in particular, the tests of the functionality of individual components.
During the night, holidays and at the weekend, on the one hand the mobile radio network is monitored by a higher-level network management center that is usually denoted as network management center (NMC) since the regional operation and maintenance centers OMCs are unstaffed at these times. On the other hand, the interface between the network management center NMC and the regional operation and maintenance centers OMCs must remain manufacturer-independent, to permit a functional integration of manufacturer-specific network regions under a standard network management center NMC.
This independence of the OMC-NMC interface from manufacturer can arise in an object-oriented management environment through the exclusive use of what are termed functional object classes, in particular management object classes (functional-related MOC). The functional objects in this case model the network resources of a telecommunication network from a functional, manufacturer-independent point of view. By contrast therewith, the manufacturer-specific interface between the operation and maintenance center OMC and the network elements is also familiar with what are termed equipment-related management object classes (MOC) that differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. In this case, network elements are, for example, the base stations BSS, which are managed in a network region by an OMC.
To be able to react quickly to unforeseeable events, for example a failure of specific hardware components, the operator of the network management center NMC must be capable of starting appropriate tests. However, by contrast with operators at the operation and maintenance centers OMCs, the operators at the network management center have no system-specific knowledge of the equipment of a specific manufacturer. It is therefore impossible to carry out manufacturer-specific tests.
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One method to control intake and exhaust valve operation during engine operation is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,332,446. This method uses electromechanically actuated valves to control vibration of an internal combustion engine caused by cylinder deactivation. The method causes at least one of a plurality of cylinders to operate in a cylinder deactivation mode in which the intake stroke, combustion stroke and exhaust stroke are inhibited. The method then controls the pressure within each inactive cylinder that operates in the cylinder deactivation mode.
Once the above-mentioned method has set the stroke of each cylinder, timing of valve opening and closing is determined by retrieving a map based on accelerator pedal position and engine speed. Finally, a further valve timing adjustment is made to correct for air-fuel errors and valve operating conditions. Specifically, valve temperature and power supply voltage are referenced to correct valve opening and closing times.
The inventors herein have determined that the before-mentioned approach can have several disadvantages. Specifically, while it may adjust electromechanical valve opening and closing time based on supply voltage, variations in the electrical system can still lead to degraded performance. For example, if the vehicle experiences temporary reduced power conditions, there may be insufficient electrical energy to operate all of the valves as suggested in the prior art. Further, even if there is sufficient electrical energy, the overall efficiency of the system can become degraded if too many electrically actuated valves are operated.
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1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures herein generally relate to a device, a data processing method and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Among image forming apparatuses such as multifunction peripherals, there are apparatuses that can implement applied functions of image processing for image data in addition to inherent functions of image forming apparatuses, such as copying, printing, scanning or the like. For example, there are image forming apparatuses that can execute OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processes or the like for image data obtained by scanning paper documents.
However devices such as image forming apparatuses are strictly restricted in hardware resources, and processing speeds for image processing of high load may be less than those of general-purpose computers or the like.
Then, external devices such as computers having relatively high processing performances may be required to perform image processing of high load via a network.
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The integrated circuit is the building block used in a high performance electronic system to provide applications for usage in products such as automotive vehicles, pocket personal computers, cell phone, intelligent portable military devices, aeronautical spacecraft payloads, and a vast line of other similar products that require small compact electronics supporting many complex functions.
A small product, such as a cell phone, can contain many integrated circuit packages, each having different sizes and shapes. Each of the integrated circuit packages within the cell phone can contain large amounts of complex circuitry. The circuitry within each of the integrated circuit devices work and communicate with other circuitry of other integrated circuit devices using electrical connections.
Products must compete in world markets and attract many consumers or buyers in order to be successful. It is very important for products to continue to improve in features, performance, and reliability while reducing product costs, product size, and to be available quickly for purchase by the consumers or buyers.
The amount of circuitry and the amount of electrical connections inside a product are key to improving the features, performance, and reliability of any product. Furthermore, the ways the circuitry and electrical connections are implemented can determine the packaging size, packaging methods, and the individual packaging designs. Attempts have failed to provide a complete solution addressing simplified manufacturing processing, smaller dimensions, lower costs due to design flexibility, increased functionality, leveragability, and increased IO connectivity capabilities.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit system for improved yield, thermal cooling, low profile, and improved reliability. In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems. In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.
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In Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, a random access procedure is used to achieve uplink synchronization for a terminal device, also known as User equipment (UE), which either has not yet acquired, or has lost, its uplink synchronization. There are two types of random access procedures, contention-based and contention-free.
FIG. 1 shows a signaling sequence of a contention-based random access procedure. As shown, the contention-based random access procedure involves four messages, referred to as MSG1, MSG2, MSG3 and MSG4, respectively. MSG1 and MSG3 are uplink messages from a UE to a network node (e.g., an evolved NodeB (eNB)) and MSG2 and MSG4 are downlink messages from the network node to the UE. The contention-free random access procedure involves only two messages, MSG1 and MSG2.
Both MSG2 and MSG4 are carried in Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) and scheduled via Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH). The scheduling information for MSG2 is transmitted in a common search space and the scheduling information for MSG4 is transmitted in a UE-specific search space. Since the PDCCH needs to be decoded based on Cell Reference Signal (CRS), the random access procedure in LTE depends on the CRS.
The next generation networks are expected to be highly energy efficient. One of the design principles for the next generation networks is to minimize static, always-on signals in order to reduce energy consumption at the network side and to reduce interference to UEs served by neighboring eNBs. As a result, the CRS may not exist in the future. Hence, it will perhaps not be possible for the UE to receive MSG2 and/or MSG4 based on the CRS any more.
There is thus a need for a solution for random access to enable the UE to receive MSG2 and/or MSG4 when no CRS is available.
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This invention relates to wall security fixtures and in particular to fixtures for precast walls and brick walls.
Precast walls i.e. walls which employ a series of spaced, upright posts and concrete panels spanning between the posts are extremely popular. One major disadvantage from which they suffer is that it is a simple matter for an intruder to scale the wall and gain entrance to the walled area if the wall is not of great height. Some people have attempted to provide such walls with greater security by arranging barbed wire above the highest panel. While effective to some degree, the result is rather unsightly. The problem outlined above is not limited to precast walls only. The same problem also exists with brick walls.
This invention seeks to provide security fixtures which are aesthetically more acceptable, and a method of manufacturing such fixtures.
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The present invention relates to an optically powered signal transmission apparatus which communicates bidirectionally between two stations, with electric power supplied from one to the other through a light beam.
Many optical transmission systems are known which transmit data through an optical fiber cable transmission network between two or more stations. Such systems offer enhanced data security, immunity to electromagnetic noise (EMI and RFI), and excellent explosion-proof properties. This latter feature makes such systems ideally suited for operating in potentially explosive atmospheres.
FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a conventional optical signal transmission apparatus according to the prior art. A control station 10 controls two field stations 20 and 30. Field station 20 typically contains transducers and works as a sensor which measures temperature, pressure, etc. or works as an actuator which adjusts temperature, pressure, etc. Control station 10 includes an optical transceiver circuit 13a for use with field station 20. Control station 10 also includes an optical transceiver circuit 13b for use with field station 30. Field station 30 is identical to field station 20, and optical transceiver circuit 13b is identical to optical transceiver circuit 13a. The descriptions of field station 30 and optical transceiver circuit 13b are therefore omitted.
Optical transceiver circuit 13a includes a light source 131 for producing a light beam. The light beam passes through an optical light splitter-coupler 133' and an optical fiber 41 to field station 20. In field station 20, the light beam enters a light splitter-coupler 23' where it is reflected to a light receiver 221'. Light receiver 221' converts the optical signal to an electrical signal which is sent to a control circuit 21. Control circuit 21 is an interface with any type of transducer (not shown) or sensor (not shown) that are in field station 20. Control circuit 21 detects control data in the electric signal. Control circuit 21 controls a light source 222' for producing an outgoing light beam which passes through light splitter-coupler 23' and optical fiber 41. The light beam is reflected by optical light splitter-coupler 133' to a light receiver 132. Light receiver 132 converts the optical signal to an electrical signal which is sent to a control circuit 11. Control circuit 11 detects data produced by field station 20. Optical fiber 41 is connected to control station 10 by a connector 51a and to field station 20 by a connector 51b. A battery 27 powers field station 20.
Field stations 20, 30 are assumed to be placed in adverse environments, such as, for example, in dangerous areas in an oil refinery or chemical factory, in which a potentially explosive atmosphere exists. Because of this, battery 27 must be explosion-proof or meet intrinsic safety conditions for avoiding high voltages.
In addition, battery 27 must be replaced on a regular basis. Care must be taken in designing and locating field station 20 to facilitate battery replacement. The conventional optical signal transmission system is therefore subject to high material and labor costs for replacing batteries.
For these reasons, optically powered signal transmission systems have been developed which eliminate the need for a battery. Solar cells are used to convert light, transmitted through a power optical fiber, to electric power to power the field station. The return signal from the field station is normally carried over a separate signal optical fiber. This requires two optical fibers; the power optical fiber and the signal optical fiber.
Sensor systems are being developed which use one optical fiber for both power and signal. A power light beam is sent from a control station to a remote sensor over an optical fiber where part of the light is converted to electricity to power the sensor. The remainder of the light beam, after being modulated with a digital signal produced by the sensor output, returns to the control station via the same optical fiber. The amount of light converted to electric power is quite limited. In addition, optical fiber lengths are limited due to the necessity for the optical signal to return to the control station without undue attenuation. Another drawback to such systems is that the signal communication is one-way, from the sensor to the control station. Bidirectional communications requires either a battery at the field station or two cables, one for the power and one for the signal.
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Prior art trough shaped solar concentrators have been based on either curved parabolic reflectors or linear flat strip reflectors arranged in a Fresnel configuration where each strip reflector was mounted at an angle to reflect the sunlight falling on it to the central line focus of the trough. When a receiving element designed to receive the concentrated solar energy and convert it to another type of energy is placed at the line focus of the trough concentrator, the preferred embodiment of most of these concentrators, a concentrating solar collector is achieved. In prior art trough shaped solar collectors the receiving element has been placed at the very top edge, just within the aperture, trough mouth, of the trough, or above the trough opening. While this placement of the receiving element works, greater thermal efficiency, for a receiver designed to convert the solar energy to thermal energy, can be achieved by locating the receiver element further down inside the boundaries of the trough reflector.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device including a circuit formed by using a thin film transistor (hereinafter also referred to as a TFT) and a manufacturing method thereof. For example, the present invention relates to an electronic device provided with, as a component, an electrooptic device typified by a liquid crystal display panel or a light-emitting display device having an organic light-emitting element.
In this specification, a semiconductor device generally refers to a device which can function by utilizing semiconductor characteristics, and an electrooptic device, a semiconductor circuit, and an electronic device are all semiconductor devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a technique for forming a thin film transistor (TFT) using a semiconductor thin film (several nm to several hundred nm) formed over a substrate having an insulating surface has attracted attention. A thin film transistor is broadly applied to electronic devices such as an IC and an electrooptic device, and particularly, a thin film transistor as a switching element of an image display device is expected to be developed quickly.
In particular, an active matrix display device (a liquid crystal display device or a light-emitting display device) provided with a switching element formed of a TFT for each of display pixels arranged in matrix has been actively developed.
In an active matrix display device, development of expanding an effective image region in a pixel portion has been advanced. In order to enlarge an area of an effective image region, it is necessary to make an area of a TFT arranged in a pixel portion (a pixel TFT) as small as possible. In addition, in order to reduce a manufacturing cost, development of forming a driver circuit and a pixel portion over the same substrate has been also advanced. In particular, a TFT using a polysilicon film can be operated at high speed because field effect mobility is higher that that of a TFT using an amorphous silicon film.
In a module mounted in a display device, a pixel portion for performing image display for each function block and a driver circuit for controlling the pixel portion such as a shift register circuit, a level shifter circuit, a buffer circuit, or a sampling circuit, which is based on a CMOS circuit, are formed over one substrate.
In a case where a driver circuit and a pixel portion are formed over the same substrate, there is a tendency that an area of a region except for a pixel region, which is referred to as a frame portion, is increased, as compared with a thin film transistor in which a driver circuit is mounted by a TAB method. In order to reduce an area of a frame portion, it is necessary to make scale of a circuit forming a driver circuit smaller.
In particular, in a light-emitting display device provided with organic light-emitting elements (EL elements) arranged in matrix, a plurality of TFTs having different functions is necessary in one pixel. Further, also in a liquid crystal display device, it is attempted to form a switching TFT and a memory element such as an SRAM in one pixel. In addition, even in the case where a pixel portion and a driver circuit are formed over the same substrate, it is expected to downsize as much as possible.
In Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No: H10-98189), a field effect transistor having a gate electrode in which one side portion is thin is disclosed. The field effect transistor of Patent Document 1 has a structure in which a cross-sectional shape of the gate electrode is an L-shape, a sidewall spacer is formed along a back side of the L-shape, and a low-concentration drain (LDD: Lightly Doped Drain) is formed only on a drain side by injecting an ion in a high-concentration by using the gate electrode provided with the sidewall spacer as a mask. In addition, a silicide layer is formed over the surface of the L-shape of the gate electrode.
Further, in Patent Document 2 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No: H7-142734), a thin film transistor having an LDD region on one side is disclosed. The thin film transistor of Patent Document 2 is provided with a sidewall spacer only on one side of the gate electrode. It is described in Patent Document 2 that a high-concentration drain region below the sidewall spacer that is formed in ion injection by using the sidewall spacer as a mask has an inclined connection structure, and the inclined connection structure has similar effect to the LDD structure.
Further, in Patent Document 3 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No: H10-32327), a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device is disclosed, in which sidewalls having different widths are formed on a source side and a drain side, and an ion is injected to form a high-concentration impurity diffusion layer.
Further, a process for manufacturing a TFT is disclosed in Patent Document 4 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No: 2002-151523) by the present applicants, in which a photomask or a reticle provided with an assist pattern that is formed of a diffraction grating pattern or a semi-transmitting film and has a function of reducing light intensity is employed in a photolithography step of forming a gate electrode.
Further, a thin film transistor having two gate electrode layers and an LDD region on one side is disclosed by the present applicants in Patent Document 5 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No: 2000-228527).
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an X-ray diffraction measurement method and an X-ray diffraction apparatus both for performing X-ray diffraction measurement by use of a fixed divergence slit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, in an X-ray diffraction measurement, X-ray emitted from an X-ray source is applied to a sample at an incident angle “θ”, and diffracted X-ray emitted from the sample at a diffraction angle “2θ” is detected by an X-ray detector, and intensity I of the diffracted X-ray is calculated based on an output signal of the X-ray detector. Diffraction angle “2θ” is always an angle double the incident angle “θ”. Given that diffracted X-ray intensity I is a function of the X-ray incident angle “θ”, the diffracted X-ray intensity can be expressed by I(θ). On the other hand, given that diffracted X-ray intensity I is a function of diffraction angle “2θ”, the diffracted X-ray intensity can be expressed by I(2θ). In the present specification, the expression of I(θ) is frequently used for convenience' sake.
In the above X-ray diffraction measurement, X-ray emitted from the X-ray source is irradiated on the sample with its size in the sample width direction restricted by a divergence slit (DS). A method in which X-ray diffraction measurement is performed with the slit width (that is the divergence angle) of the divergence slit being fixed has widely been known. For example, section 7-3 “X-ray optics” in page 178 (7-th chapter “Diffractometer and Spectrometer Measurements”) of “Elements of X-ray diffraction, New Edition” (written by B. D. Cullity and translated by Gentaro Matsumura, issued from KK AGNE, Mar. 25, 1989, 7-th edition) discloses that the spread angle (i.e., divergence angle) of a commonly used divergence slit is “1°”, that is, divergence angle is set to a fixed value.
Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. S50-63982, in column of Prior Art and FIG. 1 (corresponding description is shown in page 2), discloses that the divergence angle of the divergence slit is set to a fixed value. Hereinafter, in the present specification, a divergence slit whose divergence angle is set to a fixed value is referred to as “fixed divergence slit” and a divergence slit whose divergence angle is variable is referred to as “variable divergence slit”.
Conventionally, in X-ray diffraction measurement using the fixed divergence slit, a sample S is disposed at a standard sample area, which is defined by standard sample width Wr×standard sample height Hr, as shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B. In a typical X-ray diffraction apparatus, setting is made such that Wr=Hr=20 mm. FIG. 6B is a cross-sectional view taken along Z6-Z6 line of FIG. 6A. As shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B, X-ray emitted from an X-ray source F is irradiated on the sample S with the divergence thereof restricted by a divergence slit 101. When diffracted X-ray is generated from the sample S, the diffracted X-ray is detected by an X-ray detector 102.
X-ray applied to the sample S is shown rectangularly by a chain line surrounding the sample S in FIG. 6A. The width W0 of X-ray applied to the sample S is determined by divergence angle “β” of the divergence slit 101 and X-ray incident angle “θ”. The width W0 is referred to as “X-ray irradiation width” hereinafter. FIG. 6B shows a case where X-ray incident angle θ is a low angle. In this case, X-ray irradiation width W0 is larger than standard sample width Wr. FIG. 7C is a case where X-ray incident angle θ is the boundary angle between a low angle and high angle. In this case, X-ray irradiation width W0 is equal to sample width. The sample width in FIG. 7C is the standard sample width Wr. FIG. 7D shows a case where X-ray incident angle θ is a high angle. In this case, X-ray irradiation width W0 is smaller than standard sample width Wr.
In FIG. 6A, the height of X-ray applied to the sample S, that is the length of the X-ray in a direction perpendicular to the X-ray irradiation width W0, is illustrated to be larger than the standard sample height Hr for clearly showing them. Actually, the height of X-ray applied to the sample S is substantially same as the standard sample height Hr. Such a condition of the height of X-ray applied to the sample S against the standard sample height Hr also applies to FIGS. 8A, 8B, and 9A, respectively.
In the present specification, the sample disposed in the aforesaid standard sample area is hereinafter referred to as “standard-arrangement sample”. When X-ray diffraction measurement is performed using the fixed divergence slit for the standard-arrangement sample, X-ray incident angle θ is moved from a low angle region shown in FIG. 6B to a high angle region shown in FIG. 7D while the surface of the sample S is scanned with X-ray, and the diffracted X-ray from the sample S is detected by the X-ray detector 102 during the scanning operation.
There may a case where a sufficient amount of sample cannot be prepared for actual X-ray diffraction measurement. In this case, it is impossible to fill up the entire standard sample area (Wr×Hr) shown in FIG. 6A with the sample S. In order to cope with such a case in which the amount of the sample is insufficient, two arrangement methods of the sample shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B are available.
The first method shown in FIG. 8A is a method in which the sample width is made equal to standard sample width Wr and the sample height Hs is made smaller than standard sample height Hr. In the present specification, this arrangement is referred to as “laterally-elongated arrangement”. On the other hand, the second method shown in FIG. 8B is a method in which the sample width Ws is made smaller than standard sample width Wr and the sample height is made equal to standard sample height Hr. In the present specification, this arrangement is referred to as “longitudinally-elongated arrangement”.
In the case of the laterally-elongated arrangement shown in FIG. 8A, a relationship between X-ray irradiation width W0 and sample width Wr in the course of change in X-ray incident angle θ (see FIG. 6B) is the same as that in the case of the standard-arrangement sample which is shown in FIGS. 6B, 7C, and 7D. That is, in this case, the X-ray irradiation width falls equal to or smaller than the sample width in a wide range of the diffraction angle 2θ. The amount of X-ray applied to the sample is constant in the region within which the X-ray irradiation width falls equal to or smaller than the sample width, and relative X-ray intensity (i.e., intensity ratio) of a peak existing in this range is measured correctly. In the diffraction angle region within which the irradiation width exceeds the sample width, the relative intensity decreases since the amount of effective X-ray is reduced.
The relative X-ray intensity of a peak means a ratio of observed X-ray intensity relative to “true” X-ray intensity. The “true” X-ray intensity means X-ray intensity observed in the diffraction angle region within which the X-ray irradiation width falls equal to or smaller than the sample width. That is, when the X-ray irradiation width is within the sample width, an X-ray intensity having the same strength as that of the true X-ray intensity is observed.
In the case of the longitudinally-elongated arrangement, as can be understood from FIGS. 9B, 10C and 10D, X-ray irradiation width W0 runs off sample width Ws even when X-ray incident angle θ is a relatively high angle. When X-ray irradiation width W0 runs off sample width Ws, X-ray is applied to unnecessary portion outside the sample width and, accordingly, the amount of X-ray applied to the sample width is reduced, with the result that the relative X-ray intensity of a peak of the diffracted X-ray is reduced to prevent correct determination of a peak of the diffracted X-ray.
Under such circumstances, when X-ray diffraction measurement is performed for a sample of insufficient amount, those skilled in the art in the field of X-ray measurement generally select the laterally-elongated arrangement in which a correct and constant relative X-ray intensity (namely intensity ratio) in a wide range of the diffraction angle 2θ can be maintained. However, in the case where the laterally-elongated arrangement is adopted, the X-ray irradiation height always runs off sample height Hs in FIG. 8A. This reduces the amount of sample that can contribute to diffraction, thus posing a problem in that a sufficient diffracted X-ray intensity cannot be obtained especially on the high angle side of the X-ray incident angle θ. In order to obtain a sufficient diffracted X-ray intensity in this situation, measurement needs to be performed for a very extended period of time. This is unrealistic.
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This invention relates to valve positioning devices used to insure the correct position of a valve stem and the like in relationship to pneumatic signal pressure originating from a separate controlling instrument which is part of process control equipment. There are numerous state-of-the-art devices that are capable of performing similar functions, for example, U. S. Pat. No. 3,293,992 describes such a device being an integral part of a piston and cylinder mechanism.
Most state-of-the-art positioning devices are rather sophisticated and complex structures, wherein the valving means are usually of a two stage amplifying variety, which makes these devices sensitive to impurities in instrument air such as water or dust.
Secondly, any two stage servo-device tends to be dynamically unstable under certain conditions.
Another drawback of present state-of-the-art devices is the fact that the mechanical interconnection between the sensed valve stem position and the spring force generated on top of a signal diaphragm (to generate feed-back) is done with levers whose tilting motion is converted into rotary motion via round shafts supported by guide bushings and through other rotary to linear conversion mechanisms. All of these tend to be complex and, in addition, subject such shaft bearings to atmospheric corrosion and dirt.
My invention overcomes these difficulties by providing for a positioning device that employs only a simple one stage three way valve to yield superior dynamic stability and employs only one stamped feedback lever without need for a separate rotary to linear conversion mechanism but instead employs two opposed pivot points, used both as support and to provide guidance for the required tilting action. Additionally, my positioning device uses a simple set screw to selectively block the exhaust flow from said three way valve, therefore providing a simple but effective means to change not only the sensitivity but also the speed of response of my positioning device. Finally, as is made apparent in my preferred embodiment, the device is very simple, it consists of very few parts and therefore can be manufactured at low cost.
These and other features and advantages will be better understood from the following detailed description.
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This invention relates to a charge coupled device and, in particular, a charge coupled device for reading signals from a solid-state image sensing device.
A charge coupled device as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 is known in the art. FIG. 1 is a top view showing a conventional solid-state image sensing device and FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view as taken along line I--I in FIG. 1. The device includes an n-type region 12 as a transfer channel and p.sup.+ -type regions 14A, 14B as a channel stopper in the surface area of a p-type semiconductor substrate 10. The n-type region 12 is formed between the p.sup.+ -type regions 14A and 14B. Regions 12, 14A and 14B are entirely covered with an insulating layer 18. The device includes electrodes 20A, 20B, . . . on insulating layer 18 to control an electric field in the transfer channel. The electrodes 20A, 20B, . . . extend in a direction perpendicular to that in which the transfer channel extends. The electrodes 20A, 20B, . . . are selectively connected to terminals .phi.1, . . . , .phi.4 where control voltages are received at a predetermined phase difference. That is, electrodes 20A and 20E are connected to terminal .phi.1 and electrodes 20B and 20F are connected to terminal .phi.2. Electrodes 20C and 20G are connected to terminal .phi.3 and electrodes 20D, 20H are connected to terminal .phi.4. When electrodes 20A, 20 B, . . . receive the corresponding control voltages sequentially, an electric charge in the transfer channel is transferred in the direction indicated by arrow A in FIG. 1.
FIG. 3 shows potential distribution in n-type region 12 and p.sup.+ -type regions 14A and 14B. When the control voltage is supplied to, for example, electrode 20D, potential 22 in the n-type region 12 is structurally set at a level lower than potentials 24A and 24B (i.e., a substrate potential level) in p.sup.+ -type regions 14A and 14B. The charge is transferred from the portion in n-type region 12 situated below electrode 20C to the portion in n-type region 12 situated below electrode, 2D. Potential 22 in the region falls to level 22A as shown in FIG. 3. This charge is indicated by a hatched area in FIG. 3, noting that a portion 26 in FIG. 3 shows a defect in the n-type region.
With the aforementioned charge coupled device, when control voltage is applied to, for example, electrode 20D, a corresponding charge is stored in a transfer channel at a portion below the electrode 20D. At this time, the charge so stored is uniformly distributed in the channel-width direction in which it is transferred, as indicated by an arrow A in FIG. 1. Where a larger charge, for example, is transferred, a greater potential change occurs at a portion stored with the charge. In other words, an adequately larger drift field is locally self-induced in the transfer channel in which case the charge is moved at high speed in the transfer channel. On the other hand, if a smaller amount of charge is involved for transfer, a very weak electric field is self-induced in the transfer channel and thus the electric charge is moved in the transfer channel at a very slow speed corresponding to the thermal diffusion. That is, the speed with which the electric charge is transferred in the charged coupled device is slowed down due to a decrease in the amount of charge to be transferred. When the transfer speed needs to be set above a predetermined value, there is a possibility that an adequate dynamic range will not be obtained in the charge coupled device. Where a defect occurs in the transfer channel as at a portion in FIG. 3, a predetermined amount of charge is trapped as transfer loss for each transfer. The transfer inefficiency .epsilon. of the charge coupled device is represented by: EQU .epsilon.=QT/QS
where
QT stands for the amount of charge trapped. PA1 QS stands for the amount of charge to be transferred.
The transfer inefficiency is increased in proportion to the amount of charge to be trapped and in reverse proportion to the amount of charge to be transferred. When the charge is transferred as a signal, such trapping causes a lowering in the reliability of the device.
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Obesity has risen dramatically in the U.S. and foreign countries during the past 30 years and the explanations therefore have ranged from the prevalence of fast-food, the lack of physical activity resulting from increased computer and TV use, etc. But certain data indicates that these factors are not the root cause of the obesity statistics. While the rise in caloric intake and decreased physical activity may play a part in the rise in obesity around the world, another significant factor that has not been adequately addressed is the incidence of obesity due to infection by certain bacterial or viral agents. The present invention is the first to appreciate this connection in a manner that provides a non-pharmaceutical (and thus safe) way to inexpensively address a root cause of obesity.
There are a number of weight control systems and methods to lose weight. A person can select a particular program designed to control the weight of that individual, including protocols involving exercise and diet activities. Such programs are difficult for individuals to adopt due to many factors, ranging from the need for persistent positive behaviors, economic wherewithal to join work-out establishments, the inability to maintain a healthy diet, etc. As a result, such programs often fail the individual, who then often subsequently become more despondent about weight and health issues. Knowing what causative factors may be involved in the weight gain of particular individuals could assist them in addressing how best to address their specific situation and to avoid ineffective regimens in an effort to reduce weight and obesity related diseases.
The problem of overweight individuals and obesity has now become a nation-wide problem for the USA. More than 60% of Americans (about 127 million adults) are overweight (see websites of American Obesity Association www.obesity.org, Centers for Disease Control www.cdc.gov, etc.). There has also been a dramatic simultaneous increase in the prevalence of obesity and of certain types of cancer. A worldwide epidemic of obesity accelerated dramatically starting about 1980. In the USA the prevalence of obesity in adults more than doubled in the 20 years from 1980 to 2000 (from 15% to 31%), whereas the prevalence increased only slightly in the prior 20 years from 1960 to 1980 (from 13.5% to 15%). The prevalence of obesity in children tripled from about 1970 to 2000. Likewise, cancers of the breast, prostate, colon, and liver have also rapidly increased in prevalence in recent years.
On any given day people accumulate germs on their hands from a variety of sources. This can include many sources of germs such as direct contact with other people, contaminated surfaces such as tables, escalator handholds, foods, and even animals such as the family dog or cat. Subsequent to these contacts, if people don't wash their hands frequently and use the correct technique, they can easily infect themselves by touching their eyes, nose, mouth, or food. Further, failure to wash their hands will render a person a carrier who spreads germs to others by touching those people directly or by touching surfaces which others contact, such as doorknobs, faucets, counters, etc. As a consequence of inadequate hand hygiene, especially in children, infectious diseases are commonly spread from one person to another. Everything from the common cold and flu to gastrointestinal disorders, such as infectious diarrhea, are easily communicated from one person to the next.
Influenza (the flu) is a contagious disease that is caused by 3 viruses, influenza A, B and C. It attacks the respiratory tract (nose, throat, and lungs). The flu is different from a cold. While both are caused by viruses, high fever, headaches and extreme exhaustion are much more common with the flu. The flu can also cause serious complications such as bronchitis and pneumonia for certain high-risk groups. Influenza outbreaks occur in each hemisphere of the globe at least once a year and are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world every year. Currently, between three and five million cases of severe illness and up to 500,000 deaths worldwide are attributable to the flu. Tens of millions of people died from flu epidemics in the 20th century. New strains of flu virus appear almost every year or so. Approximately 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations are directly associated with influenza every year in the United States. If a strain with similar virulence to the 1918 flu epidemic emerged today, experts predict that it could kill between 50 and 80 million people. In April 2009 a novel flu strain evolved that combined genes from human, pig, and bird flu. On Jun. 11, 2009, the World Health Organization officially declared the outbreak to be a pandemic. Every year in the US, 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu, and over 200,000 are hospitalized.
The economic ramifications of the flu and colds are enormous. Up to a billion colds a year occur in the U.S. alone, causing about 60 million lost days of school and 50 million lost days of work—adding up to $25 billion in lost productivity. Americans alone spend around $5 billion on over-the-counter remedies every year. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reports that of the expected 60 to 120 million Americans who will suffer from H1N1 symptoms, half of those cases are expected to seek medical attention, with as many as 1.8 million leading to hospitalization.
Inadequate hand hygiene and improper hand washing techniques also contribute to food-related illnesses, such as salmonella and E. coli infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as many as 76 million Americans get a food-borne illness each year. Of these, about 5,000 die as a result of their illness. Others experience the annoying signs and symptoms of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. This chilling statistic could easily be reduced if food handlers and people eating prepared food, washed their hands using proper techniques and for sufficient time periods.
The common cold is in general initiated by viral infections by the so-called cold viruses, such as rhino virus, corona virus, coxsackie virus, RS-virus, echovirus or other cold viruses. On average, all human beings suffer 2 to 3 times a year from infections in the upper respiratory passages. The majority of common colds in the Fall are caused by rhinovirus infection, whereas the majority of common cold occurring in January, February and March are caused by Coronavirus infections. (The converse is true in the Southern hemisphere.) Allergic syndromes, for example asthma, may be initiated by common cold viruses, especially the rhinovirus. Up to 70-75% of all patients suffering from common colds have rhinovirus infections ongoing either as a single infection or co-infection. In humans, adenoviruses infections are common and cause acute upper respiratory tract infections, enteritis or conjunctivitis, as well as other diseases.
The average pre-school child experiences 6-10 upper respiratory infections or common colds per year whereas the average adult experiences 2-4. The effects of the common cold can be uncommonly disruptive, forcing otherwise normal persons to stay away from work, school, etc. Individuals who are at increased risks, such as individuals suffering from bronchitis or asthma, may also experience a life-threatening exacerbation of their underlying conditions. The average annual expenditure for various cold treatments exceeds USD $2 billion in the United States, with similar amounts being expended each year in Europe.
Most colds are viral and are the leading cause of visits to the doctor. Antibiotics are prescribed for more than 60 percent of common colds, despite bacteria being involved in less than a few percent of the cases. The over prescription of unwarranted antibiotics has lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria so that when truly needed to treat a bacterial infection, antibiotics may not be able to treat it. Some contend that antibiotics actually make colds worse by killing ‘friendly’ bacteria and creating an environment more hospitable to viral infections. Antibiotics can also have side effects such as diarrhea and yeast infections. Despite repeated contentions, herbal remedies, such as Echinacea, for colds and the flu have yet to be supported with scientific studies.
Individuals infected with the flu virus are potentially contagious for the length of time one has symptoms, up to 7-10 days following the beginning of illness, and the initial incubation period is 24-48 hours. Influenza is spread by coming into contact with mucus membranes. The flu may be spread when a person touches a surface that has flu viruses on it, such as a doorknob, and then touches their nose or mouth. A single cold virus can have 16 million offspring within 24 hours.
In the past, individuals were taught to “cover their mouths” when they sneezed or coughed, resulting in viruses being transferred to one's hands where they can survive for a significant amount of time. Thus, this social practice of a courtesy actually promulgated the spread of disease, rather than avoiding its spread. According to the Mayo Clinic, the transfer of germs from hands to eyes, nose and mouth is the primary source for getting sick. Wearing face masks has been tried in order to limit transmission of colds and flu viruses. With the exception of certain Asian cultures, however, this practice has not been well received. Respirators, which are tight-fitting masks that filter airborne particles, are also beneficial, but they can be uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time and are expensive and cumbersome.
Rhinovirus infections in normal persons are initiated by selected events, which can be considered to occur sequentially. The steps in the rhinovirus pathogenesis are believed to include viral entry into the outer nose, mucociliary transport of virus to the posterior pharynx, and initiation of infection in ciliated and non-ciliated epithelial cells of the upper airway. Viral replication peaks on average within 48 hours of initiation of infection and persists for up to 3 weeks; Infection is followed by activation of several inflammatory mechanisms, which may include release or induction of interleukins, bradykinins, prostaglandins and possibly histamine, including stimulation of parasympathetic reflexes. The resultant clinical illness includes rhino sinusitis, pharyngitis, and bronchitis, which on average lasts one week. A secondary bacterial or microbial infection may follow subsequently to the viral infection and a sustained and more serious inflammation may result. Air-way infections or allergic rhinitis and/or asthma may pose serious health problems as it can be potentially life-threatening for susceptible groups such as elderly people with chronic airway problems or persons suffering from a deficient immunity, such as AIDS-patients, cancer patients etc.
In view of the long felt but unsolved needs related to the above description of viral and bacterially related health concerns, there is a desperate need for a simple and effective system and method of avoiding the undesired infections, occurrences, and symptoms/syndromes associated with hand-to-face transmissions of disease. In particular, a long felt but unsolved need relates to preventing infection with viral agents that cause obesity and/or cancer.
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In the art of cookery the making of pastry for the upper and lower crusts of pies is an ancient skill and one practiced by almost all housewives. A mann of properly prepared dough is placed on a floured flat surface and thinned by rolling pressure applied in strokes directed radially outwardly in many directions, the mass of dough being thereby converted to an approximately circular thin sheet. With acquired skill, the cook is able to select an initial quantity of dough which can be rolled out to a crust of proper thickness and of generally circular outline slightly larger than a pie pan. The process is accomplished using a cylindrical rolling pin a few inches in diameter, and longer than the diameter of the pie pan.
The rolling of pastry crust is in fact an accelerated flow procedure, the dough acting as a plastic or extremely viscous and somewhat elastic liquid. A wide range of doughs is known, from very rich pastry doughs to self-rising and yeast doughs. Each stroke of the rolling pin causes a "wave" of dough to move outwardly ahead of the roller. A shearing force develops between the dough being moved at each end of the roller and the adjacent masses of dough, and after the crust has reached some degree of thinness these shearing forces tend to produce thin spots in the crust. A skillful cook almost unconsciously varies the pressure of the roller against the dough at different locations in the rolling stroke, and also continuously varies the radial direction of the stroke, to mitigate this problem.
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Fowl have become a significant component of the diets of various countries throughout the world. In fact, in many countries, fowl have become a diet staple.
In some countries, particular fowl, such as turkey, has become a traditional holiday meal. For example, in the United States, turkey is generally accepted as the traditional Thanksgiving main course.
The demand for turkeys, chickens, ducks, etc. has spawned numerous "farms" for raising one or more of these types of fowl. For example, throughout the United States, "turkey ranches" now proliferate. Such facilities are intended to provide turkeys for the tables of the world in mass quantities.
Governmental agencies in various countries require vaccination and treating of birds (for example, turkeys) prior to their being placed in commerce. Additionally, various other operations might be desired to be performed on birds. Typically, these include insemination and debeaking, although, certainly, other operations exist.
In performance of such operations, a number of persons are designated as, for example, inoculators. A plurality of other persons are designated as "catchers". The standard procedure utilized in the prior art to accomplish an inoculation procedure is to have the plurality of catchers each capture a bird, hold it firmly while an inoculator effects inoculation, and then release the bird back into the flock. The procedure is inefficient because a "catcher" must wait until the procedure is finished before it can release one bird and catch another.
The problem is made more acute because of the fact that, in the performance of some procedures, a particular part of the bird must be made accessible. For example, when the procedure being formed is insemination rather than inoculation, the bird's vent must be made accessible to the inseminator. As will readily become apparent when one considers the efforts a bird makes to escape its restraints, it would be virtually impossible for the inseminator to hold the bird still, make its vent accessible, and effect the insemination procedure. It is for this reason, therefore, that "catchers" have, heretofore, been required to remain involved in restraining a bird until the procedure is completed.
It is to these problems and dictates of the prior art that the present invention is directed. It is an apparatus, the use of which enables a "catcher" to "shackle" a bird and immediately go back to the flock to capture subsequent birds.
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The present invention arose from recognition of a long-standing problem in finding the keyhole of a door lock in the dark and guiding a key thereto for unlocking the door. Prior attempts to solve this problem have not, insofar as I am aware, been successful. Providing an electric light fixture near the door is of no help when one has forgotten to turn the light on in advance and access to the light switch cannot be obtained without first unlocking the door. Such an electric fixture is also of no assistance when the bulb is burned out, or the fixture is improperly positioned to illuminate the keyhole. Also, it is undesirable from the standpoint of energy wasteage and cost to leave electric lights turned on to illuminate a keyhole when one may not return for several hours or more.
Further, most people cannot be relied on to carry a flashlight with them just in case it may become necessary to unlock a door in the dark. Moreover, while some people do generally carry matches or the like, it is cumbersome and dangerous to simultaneously manipulate matches and keys, particularly while otherwise engaged in carrying packages or holding open a spring-loaded screen door or the like.
Accordingly, the objects of this invention include provision of:
A keyhole sighting device which both by sight and mechanical guidance assists in finding and directing a key into a keyhole in the dark.
A device, as aforesaid, securable to various key receiving members, such as doorknobs, dead lock bosses, and the like.
A device, as aforesaid, which may be mass produced at relatively low cost as a one-piece member equipped to secure itself fixedly to the key receiving member.
A device, as aforesaid, which additionally cushions a doorknob or the like to reduce injury to persons or things bumping thereinto, and which additionally provides a high-friction gripping surface for engaging and rotating a doorknob by hand.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons acquainted with apparatus of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.
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Dealing with noise may be a significant obstacle in providing an effective hearing aid. Hearing aid users may have difficulty hearing desired audio signals due to electromagnetic interference, acoustic feedback, and various other noise signals. Some types of noise may be annoying and irritating to hearing aid users, and certain noise conditions may even render a hearing aid practically unusable.
Hearing aid manufacturers have implemented various technologies to address noise. For example, some hearing aids may attempt to boost gain in frequency subbands with low noise while reducing gain in frequency subbands with high noise. One problem with this frequency-gain approach is that desired signals may be attenuated along with noise signals. Another problem with many frequency-gain approaches to dealing with noise is the inaccuracy of traditional algorithms for detecting which frequency subbands contain noise. In other words, many traditional algorithms may be somewhat ineffective in distinguishing between noise signals and desired signals.
Frequency-gain technologies and other traditional noise reduction techniques may be particularly ineffective for dealing with certain types of noise. For example, electromagnetic interference within a hearing aid may be picked-up by a telecoil, and such electromagnetic interference may be periodic with a fundamental frequency and numerous strong harmonics. Periodic electromagnetic interference may span numerous frequency bands and may be difficult to address using traditional noise reduction technologies. Other periodic noise signals, such as acoustic feedback, may also be inadequately handled by many prior noise reduction techniques.
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to a cleaning equipment and in particular to one which can dispense liquid detergent for cleaning things as desired.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The conventional cleaning brush includes a hollow handle having a rear open end closed by a cap and a front end fixedly mounted with a coupling, and a brush head coupled to the flange of the coupling and secured in place by a locking lock. However, when cleaning household things with such a conventional cleaning brush, a detergent must be separately applied, thereby causing much inconvenience in use.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a cleaning equipment which can obviate and mitigate the above-mentioned drawbacks.
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This invention relates to a process for effectively and completely removing heavy metals from aqueous solutions with hydrosulfite and iron. The present invention is useful for treating metal ion containing waste water generated by industries such as metal plating, metal surface finishing or printed circuit manufacturing.
Prior to the present invention, methods for producing ferrous dithionite (iron hydrosulfite) have been explored as a possible new way to make sodium hydrosulfite. Sodium hydrosulfite is manufactured by several methods and several hundred million pounds per year are used worldwide each year. It is mainly used for, 1) bleaching woodpulp for newsprint, 2) reducing textile vat dyes, and 3) reductive leaching of ferric oxide from kaolin clays. All these major uses for hydrosulfite are for whitening or enhancing the color stability of materials to which it is applied. Most iron compounds are black or dark colored, thus discouraging the use of iron hydrosulfite for any of these major applications of sodium hydrosulfite.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,791 discloses improvements in making iron hydrosulfite and converting it to sodium hydrosulfite. More than 90% of the iron must be removed and replaced by sodium in order to use the resulting solution for leaching kaolin. A large volume of iron precipitate is produced which absorbs and wastes a large portion of the hydrosulfite, causing this process to be uneconomical. Prior to the present invention, with the exception of applicant's prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,279, no commercial use for iron hydrosulfite had been developed and efforts to develop iron chemistry in connection with hydrosulfite were abandoned.
Ferrous sulfate has been used to stabilize a sodium dithionite solution. In Japanese Patent JP 54029897, a 2% solution of sodium dithionite was used to decolorize dyeing wastewater containing Prussian Brilliant Red H3B [23211-47-4]. Adding some ferrous sulfate to the dithionite solution improves the stability of the decolored wastewater solution. There is no mention of any interaction or involvement by heavy metals existing in this prior work relating ferrous ion to dithionite ion.
Metallic iron has long been known to react directly with certain other metals that are dissolved in acidic aqueous solutions. The iron dissolved into the acidic solution and the other dissolved metal deposits a metallic layer on the surface of the iron. Referred to as metallic replacement or cementation, this characteristic of metals has commonly been used in the commercial extraction of copper from ores and acid leaching of mine tailings. After some time, the surface of the iron is so covered with the other metal that the iron becomes unreactive and the reaction ceases.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,902,896 addresses this limitation and discloses the use of a soluble thiosulfate compound to aid the cementation of such metals as copper, silver, gold and platinum group metals from aqueous solutions. The patent discloses that the cemented metal flakes off the base metal, exposing fresh surfaces. Two properties of thiosulfate limit its utility for this purpose. In strong acid solutions, thiosulfate decomposes to sulfur dioxide and elemental sulfur, which is colloidal and coats all surfaces it contacts. Also, dilute thiosulfate solutions are very corrosive on ferrous alloys, particularly on stainless steel materials.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,634,071 describes the use of sulfur dioxide for reducing ferric ions contained in recirculated ore leaching acid solutions. Some improvements in the cementation of copper using metallic iron were observed as relating to decreased oxidation of the iron and copper metals by ferric ions. No reference is made to dithionite. At the high sulfuric acid concentrations noted, it is very unlikely that dithionite ion could exist.
U.K. Patent Application GB 125828 A, filed Jun. 16, 1983 discloses a process for removing copper ion from solution by contacting the solution with steel wool, converting only a small portion of the iron into copper. This process is commercially undesirable due to 1) the uneconomically low conversion of iron to copper, and 2) handling the materials. The recovered copper has a lower recycling value due to the cost of processing required for separating it from the residual steel wool fibers.
Many other methods exist for removing heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions, and which are commonly practiced in the pretreatment of industrial wastewaters containing environmentally toxic metals. When dissolved heavy metal solutions are free of chelating agents, they can be effectively treated by simply admixing an alkaline or caustic compound to precipitate the insoluble metal hydroxide. Sodium hydroxide, soda ash, lime or magnesium hydroxide slurry are all used to do this.
Frequently, however, complexing ammonium ions of chelating compounds such as the sodium salts of etheylenediaminetetra-acetic acid (E.D.T.A.) and others having similar properties are present. They occur as ingredients in the used plating baths, cleaners and brighteners drained into the wastewater. In such cases, it is necessary either; 1) to use a strong chemical that breaks the chelant-to-heavy metal bond and forms a stable, insoluble compound or complex of the toxic metals, or 2) to add a chelant than does the toxic metal ion, to free the heavy metal to precipitate as an insoluble hydroxide. Processes of both types are currently practiced.
Sodium sulfide is used to effectively precipitate heavy metals. Its sole advantage is the extremely low solubility of most heavy metal sulfides. Most are capable of existing in the presence of even the strongest chelating agents. Also, metal sulfide precipitates are slimy and difficult to filter. Large quantities of flocculants and filter aids are used, generating large volumes of sludge and corresponding high disposal costs.
Sodium borohydride is a strong, water soluble reducing agent that has an advantage of producing a compact semi-metallic sludge. There are several reasons for its not having broad acceptance for heavy metal removal in waste-water treatment: 1) it is very expensive, 2) precipitated metals easily reoxidize and redissolve in the presence of dissolved ammonia, 3) dangerous concentrations of potentially explosive hydrogen gas can accumulate in the space above a reaction using sodium borohydride, and 4) at times when pH is not controlled perfectly, reactions occurring at an elevated pH of 8 or higher give off toxic fumes of hydrogen sulfide gas, dangerous to workers and sensitive equipment.
Hydrazine is another strong reducing chemical capable of breaking a metal ion bond to chelants. It is used to a limited extent for heavy metal removal, but like borohydride, lacks widespread acceptance. Partly because it too is very expensive to use, and it too can generate dangerous volumes of hydrogen gas when acidified, hydrazine has also been placed on a list of chemicals suspected of being carcinogenic. This has been a major impediment to its industrial use.
Several compounds have been used that form insoluble metal complexes with heavy metal ions. All exert a stronger attraction to the metal ion than the chelants normally occurring with the metals in the wastewaters. Insoluble starch xanthate is one such material, reportedly effective at complete removal of dissolved metal from the water. Its drawback is its generation of huge volumes of sludge, which retains a high water content and costs the user a severe penalty for disposing of same as a hazardous waste.
Another such complexing agent has gained widespread use. Known in the water treatment trade as D.T.C., or as dimethyl- dithiocarbamate, it is fairly effective at completely removing the heavy metal ions from solution. However, D.T.C., is quite expensive and generates quite high volumes of sludges which are unusable for current recycling methods. The precipitate is light in density and difficult to gravity settle, and it also gives off a foul smelling odor.
The conventional wastewater treatment process, perhaps most frequently used by the largest number of industries, uses ferrous sulfate heptahydrate powder. Ferrous ion is substituted at a controlled acidic pH of about 2 to 3, to replace toxic heavy metal ions that are bonded by chelating agents. This allows the heavy metal ions to be rendered insoluble as hydroxides which are precipitated from an alkaline solution.
In the presence of strong chelants or free ammonia dissolved in alkaline solutions, a large excess of this source of ferrous ion is required. Normally, 5 to 10 ferrous ions are added for each copper ion being removed from chelated waste-waters. In heavily chelated streams, as many as 25 to 30 ferrous ions per heavy metal ion may be required in order to prevent the chelants from dissolving the heavy metal hydroxide. The commercial ferrous sulfate has seven waters of hydration and is only about 20% iron by weight. In some cases, over 100 pounds of ferrous sulfate powder is added to the wastewater for each pound of chelated or ammoniated copper removed generating 60 to 80 pounds of sludge.
In typical treatment systems, each additional pound of iron used adds about 4 pounds to the weight of sludge made. This can be reduced to about 3 pounds of dry sludge per pound of iron if a sludge dryer is used. When ferrous sulfate is dissolved into wastewater, it causes acidity in the water. Each mole of iron introduced this way requires using two moles of sodium hydroxide to neutralize the iron and form ferrous hydroxide. Therefore, when large excess amounts of ferrous sulfate heptahydrate powder are used, the total chemical cost for treatment is compounded. Higher hazardous waste sludge disposal costs are also incurred.
Sodium hydrosulfite is a strong, water soluble reducing agent. It can reduce heavy metal ions to zero valance and produce a metallic precipitate that is resistant to reoxidation. Commercial products are available as either a 13-14% buffered solution or as 85-95% powder. However, sodium hydrosulfite solutions are quite unstable and have a very short shelf life. Storage tanks need to be refrigerated and inert gas blanketed. The powdered products have an acrid odor and a dust that is extremely irritating to a worker's eyes and nose. Damp or wet powder can spontaneously ignite into flames, creating a toxic smoke of sulfur dioxide. These objectionable properties have prevented sodium hydrosulfite products from gaining any major share of usage for heavy metal removal or for wastewaters treatment in general.
While the process described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,279 is extremely effective in removing heavy metals from aqueous solutions containing heavy metals, the use of ferrous dithionite is relatively more expensive than the use of an alkali metal hydroxide which is currently used to form a metal hydroxide sludge which is further treated to recover heavy metals or safely stored in approved storage areas. In contrast, the use of ferrous dithionite provides the substantial advantage that it effects a process which minimizes or eliminates the need to store sludge since relatively innocuous ferric ions can be safely removed from the treatment process with treated waste-water. However, in some instances, it may be desirable also to substantially eliminate ferrous and ferric ion from wastewater.
It would be highly desirable to provide a simple, non-hazardous process for removing heavy metals from aqueous solutions that would;
1) use non-hazardous materials in a safe and simple method that does not give off foul odors or toxic or explosive gases or irritating dust, and, PA1 2) achieve very low levels of residual toxic heavy metal ions resulting in environmentally compliant wastewater for discharge to the sewer, and, PA1 3) minimize hazardous waste sludges requiring regulated transport and expensive disposal, and, PA1 4) produce dense, fast settling or easily filterable solids with high metal concentrations suitable for recycling and reuse of the metals. PA1 5) substantially eliminate ferrous and/or ferric ions from waste water. PA1 1) an atomic weight heavier than calcium, that is greater than 40.08, and PA1 2) its compounds exhibit biological toxicity when released into the environment.
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Software programs for creating text-based documents, such as word processing and desktop publishing programs, often allow the author of a document to incorporate visual elements, such as pictures, charts, and graphs into documents. The author of the document typically places the visual elements in the desired locations, and a text layout routine automatically places the text around the visual elements. Certain text-processing programs place text around a visual element by first surrounding the visual element with a "bounding rectangle," which serves as a constraint, around which the text layout routine places the text. The bounding rectangle is selected such that the entire visual element is located within the bounding rectangle.
Using bounding rectangles as text-layout constraints can make the resulting document difficult to read when the visual elements have jagged or uneven shapes. In this situation, bounding rectangles surrounding the visual elements may leave relatively large areas of blank space in certain lines of text. Forcing a reader's eye to jump over these blank spaces makes the text difficult to read and increases the page space required to display the document. These shortcomings are exaggerated when a visual element has a serpentine shape or includes empty interior spaces.
Text-based documents have improved readability, require less display space, and take on a professional, polished appearance when the text wraps around, or form-fits, to the shape of the visual elements. To form-fit text to the shape of visual elements within a document, a constraint that follows the edge of the visual element typically is defined first. A text layout routine may then place the text around the constraint. Text-processing programs have been developed with the ability to bound visual elements with polygon constraints. Text layout routines within these programs have also been developed with the ability to place text around the polygon constraints.
However, these prior text-processing programs experience a number of shortcomings. A first shortcoming arises when the text is rendered in a "rich-text" format. Rich-text formatting allows the user to change the properties of text, such as color, style, font type, and font size, on a character-by-character basis. Text rendered in a rich-text format can therefore vary in height and width depending on the font size and type, as well as other formatting options, including bold, subscript, superscript, and so forth. Moreover, changing the width of the field into which a rich-text string is placed can alter the height of the text string. For this reason, breaking a rich-text string into a number of horizontal spans to fit around one portion of a constraint can cause the text to increase in height and overlap another portion of the constraint.
Prior text-processing programs are not configured to address the problems caused by rich-text formatting. As a result, text that is intended to wrap around a visual element may, in fact, overlap the constraint and interfere with the visual element. This problem can be overcome by increasing the required clearance between the constraint and the text, but this solution decreases the precision of text placement and, thus, reduces the readability of the text. Alternatively, the text layout engine may search iteratively for an acceptable text placement.
For example, each time an attempted text placement overlaps a constraint, the text layout engine may invalidate that text placement solution and attempt another solution. Because the text layout routine takes some time to perform its task, causing the text layout routine to search iteratively for text placement solutions can slow the text-processing program to the point of unacceptable performance. The processing speed of the text layout routine can usually increased only at the cost of decreased text-placement precision. At present, text-processing programs can be improved both in processing speed and in text-placement precision.
Another problem results from the nonportability of previous text layout routines. A software development company, such as MICROSOFT, may have a number of text-processing application programs that use text layout routines. For example, a word processing program, a desktop publishing program, a program for creating Internet home pages, may each use a text layout routine. At present, each application program includes its own text layout routine, which is embedded within the program code and tailored to its particular host application program. Maintenance must therefore be performed for the text layout routines of each program individually. For this reason, it is cumbersome to maintain and upgrade the text layout routines. In addition, each text layout routine may operate somewhat differently, which may confuse or aggravate a user who has more than one of the application programs.
There is, therefore, a need in the art for a text layout program having improved processing speed and text-placement precision for use with rich-text documents. There is a further need for a portable text layout program that may be accessed by an number of different text-processing application programs.
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The inventive concepts described herein relate to an apparatus and a method capable of providing map data through network and a system including the same.
With the development of a smart phone and a mobile device, a communication network becomes essential to use a navigation function. However, most of existing terminals may have restrictions on performing the navigation function: loading of mass map data in advance, downloading of mass map data, and real-time connection to the communication network.
Due to the above-described restrictions, a user may waste a storage capacity or a communication packet much more than when the user necessitates only a hoped-for function.
First, a conventional navigation system may produce necessary information with a plurality of separate files according to characteristics of the necessary information. For example, files corresponding to components such as road data, background data, and search data exist. If a file for a requested service does not exist, it may be impossible to provide the requested service.
A file for a requested service exists by the Nation or by the city and province. That is, the file corresponds to a navigation service area. For example, disclosed in KR Registration No. 1005321440000 is a technique for providing map data of areas, divided by the mesh, to a navigation terminal using a network.
In case of the above-described conventional navigation way, even though being a communication-type navigation system, a navigation system must download mass map data to perform a navigation function.
Second, in the latest communication-type navigation system, most map data is stored at a server portion, and minimal data on map screen display and route guidance is transmitted toward a client terminal. In this case, it is unnecessary to early download mass map data. However, if communication is cut off, the navigation system may not perform its function any longer, which is fatal at the foreign country or mountainous territory where many communication cut-off areas exist.
With the above description, the conventional navigation system may be of at least one of two disadvantages: downloading of predetermined mass map data and real-time communication.
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Poly(vinylidene fluoride) polymers have found broad application as insulation for high-temperature wire, for tank linings, in protective paints and coatings, as encapsulants, in films, and for a variety of other uses. More recently, with the development of polymer electrets, interest in poly(vinylidene fluoride) films has grown even greater, particularly since the films have been show to have piezoelectric properties of a high order, as well as to display pyroelectric characteristics.
Commonly, PVDF films have been prepared by a film casting process using a "coat hanger" die, coupled with a second processing stage involving stretching of the film on a tentering frame. The second stage involves a solid state stretching, either uniaxially or biaxially, carried out at a desired temperature below the film's melting temperature. Films produced by the technique described generally exhibit both superior quality and good uniformity. However, the tentering film process has the disadvantage of requiring more initial capital investment than a "blown film process", described in the following, because of the complexity of the equipment required.
The alternative technique of tubular film extrusion, which allows the film being processed to be simultaneously biaxially stretched, i.e., both longitudinally and transversely, was developed some years ago. The technique involves the extrusion of film from a circular die, and its subsequent orientation in a longitudinal direction through "drawing" of the film by means of a film wind-up apparatus. The drawing results due to the fact that the wind-up occurs at a faster speed than the film extrusion rate, the difference being expressed as the "draw down ratio". During the process of extrusion, air is also introduced into the forming tube, expanding its transverse cross-section, thus providing orientation transverse to the film's longitudinal axis, an expansion known as the "blow-up ratio".
Films produced by the blown film process, however, are generally insufficiently oriented to provide good physical properties. In order to provide adequate orientation during the blown film process, therefore, a second stage solid state stretching is sometimes applied to the initially blown film. This dual stretching operation is termed a "double bubble tubular film process"; and it involves the reheating and reinflation of the tubular film after it has been collapsed following its initial formation.
PVDF can readily be processed by the single bubble blown film process employing a variety of drawn down and blow-up ratios. However, when an attempt is made to additionally stretch the oriented film thus obtained in two directions by means of a second bubble-forming procedure, the film is easily torn and broken during the added stretching. Furthermore, during the second stretching, the resulting film commonly "necks", i.e., its thickness becomes extremely uneven, a phenomenon occurring over the entire surface of the film. In addition, and unlike other crystalline polymers, necking in polyvinylidene fluoride does not show any tendency to disappear, even when the stretching temperature is elevated almost to the melting point of the film.
The described difficulty in further stretching is caused by the high crystallinity of PVDF, its extremely high crystallization rate, and the high intermolecular cohesive force of the molecules.
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The present disclosure relates to gas turbine engines, and more specifically to seals for use in turbine sections of gas turbine engines.
Carbon seal assemblies are used in gas turbine engines between rotating shafts and static frames, and between two rotating shafts. Carbon seal assemblies maintain lubricating fluids within a bearing compartment or bearing chamber and seal against hot air intrusion or cooling air leakage. Some carbon seal assemblies include multiple carbon rings stacked axially against one another. During engine operation, these carbon rings can rotate against one another and against adjacent seats, causing the carbon rings to wear unevenly and prematurely.
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and specifically relates to a semiconductor memory including hierarchized bit lines.
(2) Description of Related Art
The art related to the present invention includes a semiconductor memory device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-71384. In this semiconductor memory device, a plurality of bit lines are provided for one read/write amplifier, and a bit line selected from those bit lines is electrically connected to the read/write amplifier.
The present inventors have found that semiconductor memory devices such as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-71384 cause the following problems.
When a non-selected bit line adjacent to a selected bit line is in a floating state, noise is introduced to the floating non-selected bit line via word lines or the substrate, and the noise introduced to the non-selected bit line may affect the selected bit line. In order to reduce the effect of such noise, normally, non-selected bit lines are clamped (fixed) to a reference potential (normally, ground potential).
For clamping means, a technique in which, for example, an NMOS transistor is provided between each bit line and a reference potential, and the on/off of this NMOS transistor is controlled using the inverted level of a corresponding bit line selection signal may be employed. However, such fixing means requires provision of an inverter for inverting the level of a bit line selection signal to each bit line, resulting in an increase in the number of components constituting the circuit.
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to antiperspirant compositions in the form of gelled sticks.
2. The Related Art
Cosmetic sticks which exhibit a clear appearance can be prepared using sodium stearate as a gelling agent or structurant. Unfortunately, these clear sticks cannot be formulated with antiperspirant-active salts because the alkaline gelling agents will react with the acidic salts. This incompatibility has been surmounted through use of neutral structurants, for instance, use of low melting point waxy materials such as stearyl alcohol. Stability is good but the resultant sticks are opaque.
For many years, the art has investigated a unique gelling agent known as dibenzyl monosorbitol acetal (DBMSA) for use in translucent or transparent sticks. No derivative of sorbitol or any other gelling agent has yet been found which equals its structurant properties. However, it is also known that acetals are stable only in alkaline or neutral media, but not in acidic media. Under an acidic environment even in the presence of small amounts of water, the acetal hydrolyzes or will react with alcohol, e.g. ethanol, to form a different acetal.
Thus, antiperspirant sticks containing acidic antiperspirant-active salts in the presence of DBMSA in reactive alcoholic solvents have not been satisfactory because, in time, especially at elevated temperatures, they deteriorate and liquefy. There is a need, therefore, to find a way to stabilize these sticks against such deterioration.
Antiperspirant sticks containing dibenzyl monosorbitol acetal and antiperspirant-active salts are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,154,816 (Roehl et al.). These sticks contain, in addition to the antiperspirant-active salt and DBMSA, a lower monohydric alcohol, a di- or trihydric alcohol, a propylene-/ethylene-glycol polycondensate, and optionally an alkylolamide. A problem with these products is their stickiness on application. U.S. Pat. No. 4,346,079 (Roehl) reports elimination or significant reduction of the stickiness problem through replacement of at least part of the polycondensate with an oleaginous compound.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,582 (Schamper et al.) found the Roehl antiperspirant sticks, even with the improved stickiness control, were not stable on extended exposure at elevated temperatures. The problem was addressed through use of a gel stabilizer such as magnesium sulfate, zinc acetate and hexamethylenetetramine. Another remedy for stickiness is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,381 (Schamper et al.) wherein non-reactive solvents were used to replace reactive ones. Less reactive alcohols were identified as isopropanol, isobutanol, dipropylene glycol and other higher molecular weight alcohols. A still further approach was described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,725,430 (Schamper et al.) wherein N-(2-hydroxyethyl)acetamide was utilized as a stabilizing agent in the gel.
Another refinement of the DBMSA system is reported in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,917 (Luebbe et al.) which utilizes a coupling agent and buffering adjustment agent to improve the stick. The coupling agent may be a polypropylene glycol (PPG) ether of a C.sub.4 -C.sub.22 fatty alcohol. Suitable buffering adjustment agents were stated to be coconut monoethanolamide, sodium aluminum chlorohydroxylactate, sodium hydroxide, stearamide monoethanolamide, acetamide MEA, zinc acetate, zinc oxide, zinc stearate, zinc carbonate and similar materials.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,743,444 (McCall) describes improvements in gel rheology and transparency, while maintaining hardness and physical integrity. These benefits were obtained by incorporation of a C.sub.14 -C.sub.16 fatty alcohol.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,102 (Randhawa et al.) in conjunction with a DBMSA gel stick describes novel solvents for use therein to allow processing at lower temperatures. The novel solvent is a compound having not greater than about five carbon atoms that includes, for instance, morpholine, pyridine, acetic acid, ethylene carbonate, propylene carbonate, etc.
EP 0 512 770 A1 (Benfatto et al.) describes DBMSA compositions wherein water and lower monohydric alcohols have been replaced with dihydroxy aliphatic alcohols containing 3 to 6 carbon atoms as solvents.
Westwood Chemical Corporation in its data sheets has suggested that a DBMSA gel stick could be stabilized with zinc glycinate. At higher temperatures this technology is insufficiently effective to prevent cloudiness arising in the gel stick. Clarity is especially adversely effected when the compositions contain emollients necessary to improve product aesthetics and avoid the tacky feel associated with this type of formulation.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an antiperspirant stick gelled with DBMSA which does not deteriorate or become sticky, even at higher temperatures.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an antiperspirant stick gelled with DBMSA that not only is stable but has good clarity, i.e. at least translucent if not transparent.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an antiperspirant stick gelled with DBMSA that includes emollients yet minimizes the tacky feel commonly associated with these types of formulations.
These and other objects of the present invention will become more readily apparent from consideration of the following summary, examples and detailed description.
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Each satellite that orbits the Earth can have a distinct ephemeris. The ephemeris can include various information, such as the position or orbit of the satellite on a number of dates and times in a regular sequence. Some satellites can use their orbit information for various applications. For example, a satellite's orbit information can be used for altimeter and imaging system applications. A satellite in a global positioning system (GPS) can use its orbit information to provide location and time information anywhere on or near the Earth, where a GPS receiver has an unobstructed line of sight to the GPS satellite.
Satellite navigation systems, such as the GPS, enable a receiver to determine a location from ranging signals received from a plurality of satellites. The ranging signals can be broadcasted on frequencies, such as the L1 signal (1.57542 gigahertz [GHz]), L2 signal (1.2276 GHz), and/or L5 signal (1.17645 GHz). L1 can have a wavelength of about 19 centimeters (cm) and L2 can have a wavelength of about 24 cm. Position can be determined from code and/or carrier phase information. A code division multiple access (CDMA) code is transmitted by the GPS satellites to the receiver and correlated with replica codes to determine ranges to different satellites, which can be used to determine the position of a GPS receiver on or near the Earth. Generally, a GPS receiver receives signals from multiple GPS satellites (e.g., four) to find its position.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method of manufacturing an article of fiber-reinforced composite material. More particularly, the invention relates to a method of manufacturing an article of fiber-reinforced composite material having at least one locally placed, sharply curved portion, such as a recess, a groove, a protrusion, a ridge or the like.
The invention also relates to a specific tool component for forming in an article of fiber-reinforced composite material at least one locally placed, sharply curved portion.
2. Description of Related Art
When producing strong light-weight products of a fiber-reinforced composite material for e.g. the aircraft industry, such as control surfaces, flaps, doors, hatches, integral panels or the like, problems may arise to accurately form sharply curved recesses or protrusions in the product due to the limited ability of a flexible vacuum membrane to follow the profile of such sharply curved sections of the matrix and, hence, to properly depress the lay-up of a fiber sheet laminate into these sections during the evacuation of the membrane. This will necessitate the addition step of applying external forces to the membrane by means of an autoclave or the like. It is known to use auxiliary tool components to improve the forming of corner sections of products of fiber-reinforced composite material. US 2006/0068170 A1 discloses a method and a tooling aid for applying pressure on a fiber sheet laminate in order to properly form two opposite corner portions of an entirely U-shaped product. For this purpose a flexible U-shaped auxiliary tool element having a concavely curved web or base section and two opposite corner sections is positioned over the laminate in a female mold. When an enclosing sealed membrane is evacuated, the latter exerts a pressure on the flexible, curved base section of the tool element, thereby causing the base section to flex downwardly to stretch the underlying laminate while at the same time expanding the corner portions of the tool element outwardly towards the corresponding corner parts of the mold surface. However, such a tool element is not suitable for forming products of fiber-reinforced composite material having at least one locally placed, sharply curved portion, such as a recess forming a narrow groove or a protrusion forming a ridge of the product, i.e. where the membrane is not capable of depressing the laminate close enough to the mold surface.
Moreover, EP 0 992 336 A1 discloses use of one or more auxiliary stiff support elements for resin-impregnating and hardening of a preformed composite article, e.g. an L-shaped product, in a further process step following a pre-forming step, where the evacuation of flexible bags is not sufficient to support the composite material. Such support elements are not suitable as auxiliary tools for forming in one single thermoforming step and without using external forces of e.g. an autoclave locally placed, sharply curved portions in a lay-up of fiber sheets by using an enclosing evacuateable membrane.
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The present invention relates to a method of holding a substrate and a substrate holding system to hold a substrate securely during a production process for treating the substrate, such as semiconductor device, while it is being cooled.
Among substrate treating apparatuses for production of semiconductor devices, there are a lot of substrate treating apparatuses requiring the cooling substrates, such as a plasma treatment apparatus, a sputtering apparatus, a dry etching apparatus, a CVD (chemical vapor deposition) apparatus and a high energy ion implantation apparatus. Since the treating environment in these apparatuses is generally a vacuum, it is difficult to cool a substrate by bringing it into contact with a cooling surface, as in atmospheric pressure, because of the decrease in thermal conductivity which occurs in a vacuum. Although there is abundant literature concerning thermal conductivity in a vacuum (rarefied gas), the amount of heat transferred by contact is small because of the small real contact area when surfaces come into contact with each other. Especially in heat transfer between a substrate and a cooling surface, it is difficult to strongly press the substrate against the cooling surface since there is a possibility to damage the substrate. Therefore, various ideas, such as placing a soft elastomer on the surface contacting the substrate, have been proposed. However, in recent years, it has been more conventional for a gas to be introduced between the substrate and a cooling surface to cool the substrate using the gas as a coolant, when the heat load in the substrate increases or a requirement to cool the substrate to lower the temperature thereof arises.
There are various types of gas cooled substrate holding systems. They can be roughly categorized as follows: (1) a gas cooling type system where the back surface of a substrate and a cooling surface contact each other and a gas is introduced into the gap between the surfaces formed by the surface roughness, and (2) a gas cooling type system where the back surface of a substrate and a cooling surface do not contact each other and a gas is introduced into the gap between the surfaces.
The prior art gas cooling type systems belonging to the former category (1) are described in, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2-27778 (1990), Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-274625 (1987), Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-251375 (1989), Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-154334 (1991) and Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 4-8439 (1992). And, the prior art gas cooling type systems belonging to the latter category (2) are described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-102319 (1988), Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-312223 (1990), Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-174719 (1991). Further, there is another type of system, described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-30128 (1990), where, before introducing a cooling gas, the back surface of a substrate and a cooling surface are brought into contact with each other, but during cooling the substrate is pushed up due to gas pressure caused by introducing the cooling gas and does not contact the cooling surface.
In these cooling systems, providing that a certain cooling gas is used, the cooling capacity (magnitude of transferred heat) with the cooling gas depends on the pressure of the gas and the distance between the back surface of a substrate and the cooling surface (gap in the back surface of the substrate). FIG. 8 schematically shows the characteristic of thermal conductivity in a low pressure situation. When the pressure of the cooling gas is low, the amount of transferred heat is proportional to the pressure of the cooling gas and independent of the magnitude of the gap between both of the surfaces. When the pressure of the cooling gas is higher than the pressure PO, where the mean free path of the cooling gas nearly coincides with the gap, the amount of transferred heat becomes constant and independent of the gas pressure. The pressure of the cooling gas in the type of system in category (1) described above is generally in the region where the heat transfer is proportional to pressure, and the pressure of the cooling gas in the type of system in category (2) described above is generally in the region where the heat transfer is independent of pressure.
Characteristics and problems in various methods of cooling a substrate will be described below.
First, a description will be made on the case where cooling is performed under a condition that a substrate contacts a cooling surface. The cooling methods belonging to this type are disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 2-27778 (1990), Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 62-274625 (1987), Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-251375 (1989), Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-154334 (1991) and Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 4-8439 (1992). In the cooling method of this type, although the substrate and the cooling surface contact each other, only the most protruding portions on the cooling surface contact the substrate when it is observed in detail. The indented portions on the cooling surface and on the substrate do not contact each other, and the gaps are approximately 10 xcexcm to 50 xcexcm, although this depends on the surface roughness. In a case where a cooling gas is introduced in the gap, the pressure is generally several Torrs, which is in a region nearly equal to the mean free path. Therefore, a sufficient cooling efficiency can be obtained by properly setting the pressure as shown in FIG. 8.
However, when the cooling gas is supplied from a specified single portion, as shown in the figure in Japanese Patent Publication No. 2-27778 (1990), the pressure is highest in the cooling gas supplying portion and decreases as it goes toward the peripheral portion of the substrate. Since the cooling efficiency has a pressure dependence as shown in FIG. 8, there arises a disadvantage that uniformity of the temperature distribution is deteriorated due to the non-uniformity of the cooling efficiency. If there is no gas leakage, that is, no gas flow, the pressure distribution does not occur and the temperature distribution becomes uniform. However, in order to achieve this, the peripheral portion of the substrate needs to be shielded. This is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-274625 (1987) or in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 2-135140. Further, the method in which cooling gas is supplied from plural portions to make the pressure distribution on the back of the substrate uniform is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-251735 (1989) or in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-61325 (1992). In any case, in these cooling methods, since the back surface of the substrate and the cooling surface contact each other in a large area, there is a disadvantage in that a lot of foreign substances become attached to the back surface of the substrate when contacting the cooling surface. Further, in order to prevent the cooling gas from leaking through the peripheral portion of the substrate using a shielding material, a load for the shielding needs to be applied. Therefore, a way of tightly fixing the substrate in some manner is required.
Description will be made below of a cooling method where a substrate and a cooling surface do not contact each other and a cooling gas is supplied into the gap. The prior art method is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-174719 (1991) or in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-6270 (1992), in which a substrate is mechanically fixed to a cooling surface from the top surface or the side surface of the substrate. Since the substrate, in these examples, is mechanically fixed, there is a disadvantage that foreign substances are apt to be produced at the fixing portion. In the methods described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-102319 (1958) and in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-30128 (1990), a substrate is not fixed specially, but is held by the weight of the substrate itself. In this case, in order that the leakage of the cooling gas is not increased too much or the substrate is not caused to float up, the pressure of the cooling gas has to be limited to a low level. This causes a disadvantage in that the cooling efficiency is decreased.
Electrostatic adhesion is a known method of fixing a substrate electrically. An example where a substrate is fixed to a cooling surface with this method and projections are provided on the periphery of the substrate is described in Japanese Patent-Application Laid-Open No. 62-208647 (1987). A substrate contacts a cooling surface only at a plurality of projections provided in separate spaced relation on the outer periphery and inner periphery of the substrate, which is described in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-208647 (1987). And, this publication indicates that cooling gas easily leaks and that the adhering force is unstable. Further, in order to improve this method, it is effective if the outer periphery is not projected and the projections are provided only on the inner peripheral portions, and further, if the projections in the inner periphery are provided in the central portion, instead of in separate spaced relation. In this case, the gap between the substrate and the cooling surface-becomes non-uniform over the surface of the substrate, which causes a non-uniform pressure distribution on the back surface of the substrate. When the gap between the back surface of the substrate and the cooling surface varies from one position to another, the ratio of the mean free path of the cooling gas and the gap has an uneven distribution over the surface of the substrate. Therefore, a disadvantage arises in that the temperature distribution is apt to become large due to the difference in cooling efficiency, as can be understood from FIG. 8, even if the pressure distribution is not so large. In the electrostatic adhering method described in this example, there are provided positive and negative electrodes on the cooling portion to which a direct current high voltage is applied to produce an electrostatic adhering force. In the electrostatic adhering method of this type, there may arise a disadvantage in that, when a substrate is treated in a plasma, the electric charge on the surface of substrate produced by irradiated ions or electrons is apt to be non-uniform, and so a current flows on the surface of substrate to damage the substrate.
Each of the conventional technologies, as described above, has the main objective of cooling a substrate efficiently. However, with an increase in integration of semiconductor devices in recent years, it is required to decrease the amount of small foreign substances, such as particles or dust and heavy metal impurities, to less than the allowable limit in the past. The same can be said for foreign substances attached on the back surface of a substrate. When the amount of foreign substances attached on the back surface of a substrate is large, there arises a disadvantage in the next process in that the foreign substances on the back surface are attached to the top surface of an adjacent substrate, or are removed first from the substrate and attached to another substrate. Therefore, decreasing the amount of foreign substances is an important problem for stabilizing the semiconductor production process or improving the yield. Attaching of foreign substances on the back surface of a substrate occurs by contacting the back surface of the substrate to another member. Therefore, a lot of foreign substances are attached to a substrate by contacting a cooling surface for the substrate.
Further, the prior art does not refer to the consideration of substrate size. Although it is mentioned that the influence upon the process is lessened by leaking cooling gas into the treating chamber, with the adhering force being as small as possible, the relation between the adhering force and the cooling gas pressure is not mentioned.
A conventional substrate holding system in a substrate etching apparatus generally employs a method in which a substrate is pressed along its periphery with hooks, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-148837 (1990) or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-267271 (1990). When there is such a member contacting the surface of the substrate, problems arise in that the contact portions in the substrate are obstructed by the etching, the contacting member itself being also etched to some extent together with the substrate. As a result, the foreign substance sources, such as reaction products, are attached to the contacting member and the contacting member may be damaged, which may lead to production of foreign substances.
On the other hand, in a substrate holding method in which a substrate is held using electrostatic force (hereinafter, referred to as xe2x80x9celectrostatic adheringxe2x80x9d), as described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-135753 (1990), a substrate is placed on an electrostatic adhering portion made of a dielectric material and a high voltage is applied to hold the substrate with an electrostatic adhering force. In this case, there is no special member to press the substrate in the periphery of the substrate. Therefore, the problem of the possibility of producing foreign substances as described in the above example is solved. However, the positional relationship between the substrate and the electrostatic adhering member is such that the substrate is placed in the uppermost position (substrate etching space side) and a step is formed in the electrostatic member such that the electrostatic adhering member comes to be placed below the substrate. When such a step exists, gas flow during etching a substrate changes abruptly at the periphery of the substrate to cause a non-uniform etching in the substrate in some cases.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method of holding a substrate and a substrate holding system in which the amount of foreign substances on the back surface can be decreased, and only a small amount of foreign substances may be transferred from a mounting table to a substrate.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of holding a substrate and a substrate holding system where the deformation in a large diameter substrate can be suppressed, and the cooling efficiency for the substrate can be kept sufficiently high.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method of holding a substrate and a substrate holding system in which damage to the substrate caused during treating the substrate can be prevented.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a method of holding a substrate and a substrate holding system in which a cooling gas can be quickly dispersed over the back surface of a substrate when the cooling gas is introduced, after the substrate is electrostatically attracted, and substrate temperature control suitable for high productivity can be performed.
Another object of the present invention is to improve the product yield of substrate etching and the availability of the substrate etching apparatus providing a substrate holding system which is subjected to a reduced amount of foreign substances as described above and is capable of performing uniform etching.
According to the present invention, there is provided a ring-shaped leakage-proof surface having a smooth surface on the specimen table corresponding to the periphery of the substrate, a plurality of contact holding portions which bear against and support the substrate on the specimen table between the corresponding position to the periphery of the substrate and the corresponding position to the center of the substrate, and electrostatic attraction means for generating an electrostatic attraction force to attract the substrate toward the ring-shaped leakage-proof surface and the contact holding portions.
In order to decrease the amount of foreign substances which may adhere on a substrate, it is effective to decrease the contact area between a cooling surface and a substrate. However, the distance between the cooling surface and the back surface of the substrate needs to be kept at a distance so as not to decrease the cooling efficiency of a cooling gas. In order to realize this, a small high step is provided on the cooling surface, such that the back surface of the substrate and the cooling surface do not contact each other whether the cooling gas is introduced or not. Although the cooling surface and the back surface of the substrate contact each other at protruding portions provided on the step portion of the cooling surface, the area of the contact portions needs to be limited so as to be as small as necessary. In the present invention, therefore, an electrostatic attraction function is given to the cooling surface to attract the substrate to the protruding portions of the cooling surface.
Prevention of leakage of the cooling gas has to be considered. According to the present invention, this can be attained by providing a ring-shaped protruding portion having a smooth surface, that is, leakage-proof surface, on the cooling surface corresponding to the peripheral portion of a substrate, and fixing the back surface of the substrate to the cooling surface with electrostatic adhesion to prevent the cooling gas from leaking.
According to the present invention, the following effects are obtained. One of the effects is a solution for the problem concerning the transportation of foreign substances in a pusher portion relating to handling of the substrate. The pusher provided inside or through a mounting table contacts other members and cannot avoid a foreign substance source. In the present invention, the excess cooling gas flows toward the opposite side of the mounting table through the hole. Since the foreign substances produced are carried in the opposite direction to the substrate, the amount of foreign substances attached to the substrate is decreased.
Another effect of the present invention is that a cover is provided in the back surface of the mounting table to protect the mechanism in the back surface of the mounting table from being contaminated by reaction products over a long time of use as much as possible. Since complex mechanisms, such as the coolant supplying system and the vertical driving mechanism for the mounting table, are usually constructed in the back of the mounting table, it is troublesome when the reaction products produced by etching attach to these parts. In order to avoid this, according to the present invention, a cover is provided in the back surface of the mounting table such that the excess cooling gas flows into the inside of the cover, the pressure inside the cover being kept higher than the pressure in the treatment chamber during treating to suppress the reaction products from entering the treatment chamber, which protects the mechanism in the back surface of the mounting table from contamination by reaction products over a long time of use.
The prevention of damage to the substrate can be attained by connecting the electric circuit for electrostatic adhesion from the substrate side to a grounded part, such as the vacuum chamber, through the plasma to minimize the electric potential over the surface of the substrate.
According to the present invention, a substrate contacts a cooling surface at a ring-shaped leakage-proof surface and at contact holding portions positioned inwardly of the ring-shaped leakage-proof surface. However, since the back surface of the substrate does not contact the cooling surface in most of the remaining part of the area, attaching of foreign substances caused by contact can be prevented. Although the cooling efficiency for the substrate cooling is decreased a little compared to when the substrate contacts the cooling surface under the same pressure of the cooling gas, a sufficient cooling efficiency can be obtained by forming a step on the cooling surface smaller than approximately 100 times the mean free path of the cooling gas. The gap between the back surface of the substrate and the cooling surface is large in comparison to that in the conventional cooling method, where the substrate and cooling surface contact each other over the whole surface. Therefore, the conductance between both surfaces is large so that supplying and exhausting of cooling gas are easily performed. That is, the time to supply and exhaust the cooling gas is short, and so the time for treating a substrate can be shortened. Further, there is a function that the conductance at the contact portion of the periphery of the substrate and the cooling surface is very small in comparison to the non-contract portion of the inner portion of the substrate (in the molecular flow region, the conductance is proportional to the square of gap), the pressure difference across the non-contact portion being small, that is, the cooling efficiency being uniform.
When the substrate temperature is controlled using a cooling gas as a coolant, the pressure of the cooling gas is required to be higher than 2 Torrs. And, the higher the pressure is, the higher the efficiency of heat transfer becomes. on the other hand, the electrostatic adhering force largely depends on the temperature of the substrate being controlled. In a typical production line today, the temperature is approximately xe2x88x9260xc2x0 C. to +100xc2x0 C., and an adhering force of 40 to 100 gf/cm2 is stably obtained under an applied voltage in general of 300 to 1000 V. Concerning the pressure control of the cooling gas, it is difficult to control the pressure precisely, since the pressure largely changes depending on the time constant of the gas supplying system or the relationship between the relative roughnesses of the contact surfaces of the substrate and the mounting table. Therefore, the target of the pressure control may be, for example, 10 Torrsxc2x15 Torrs.
When the outer periphery of the substrate is fixed by adhesion with the conventional method and a gas is filled in the back of the surface with the pressure of 10 Torrs, the substrate is deformed by 0.1 to 0.25 mm. This magnitude of deformation degrades the work accuracy of substrate etching as well as lessens the heat transfer efficiency of the cooling gas. To solve this problem, adhering portions are additionally provided on the center side of a substrate, for example, one ring-shaped adhering portion for a 6xe2x80x3 substrate, two ring-shaped adhering portions for an 8xe2x80x3 substrate, in addition to the adhering portion on the periphery of the substrate. Therewith, the deformation can be prevented.
It is well known that when a substrate contacts another member, foreign substances are certainly attached to the contact point. From this point of view, it is clearly preferable that the electrostatic adhering surface is small. However, taking the pressure control level and adhering force into consideration as described above, it is suitable in the up-to-date technical level that the adhering area is less than approximately half of the total area of the substrate. This is because, when the electrostatic adhering force is 40 gf/cm2 and the adhering area is half of the total area, the total adhering force for an 8xe2x80x3 substrate becomes approximately 6280 gf, and the separating force with the cooling gas of 15 Torrs is approximately 6100 gf.
Further, by providing a pusher for substrate transportation in a hole penetrating the back surface of the mounting table, the excess cooling gas serves as a carrier gas for carrying foreign substances produced at the pusher portion to prevent the foreign substances from attaching to the substrate. In addition to this, the excess cooling gas is introduced into-the inside of a cover on the back surface of the mounting table and makes the pressure inside the cover higher than the pressure in the treating chamber to prevent contamination of and attaching of reaction products to the mechanisms on the back of the mounting table.
In order to prevent abnormal discharge from occurring when the high frequency voltage is applied to the substrate to generate a bias voltage for etching the substrate, a high frequency voltage applying portion and a standard electric potential portion are insulated with an electrical insulating material so as not to face each other directly. In addition to the above measures, a pin for transporting the substrate is provided and is constructed so as to be electrically conductive. Since the electrostatic adhering force due to a remaining charge can be instantaneously dissipated by removing the charge accumulated in the substrate by causing the pin to contact the substrate when the substrate is transported, the substrate is not lifted with unnecessary force.
Since the flow passage to conduct the coolant for controlling the temperature of the substrate is formed by diffusion welding or soldering in such a structure that the portion forming the flow passage is completely jointed, no seal is required when a through hole is provided in any place except the flow passage. Therefore, a temperature detector or a detector for detecting the presence or absence of substrate can be easily provided.
In order to make the gas flow on the surface of a substrate uniformly, a gas flow controlling member (hereinafter referred to as a xe2x80x9csusceptorxe2x80x9d) is provided in the outer peripheral portion of the substrate. The surface of the susceptor is at a higher level than that of the substrate so that the gas flow does not abruptly change direction at the periphery of the substrate. The surface of the susceptor facing the periphery of the substrate is formed normal to the surface of the substrate to restrict movement in the lateral direction or sliding of the substrate. Further, there are some cases in which the reaction products produced by substrate etching or the plasma flows into the gap between the cover member facing the back surface of the substrate in the peripheral portion and the back surface of the substrate to cause foreign substances to attach on the back surface of the substrate. This phenomena is prevented by the distance between the back surface of the substrate and the cover member.
As described above, since contact between a foreign substance source and a substrate is eliminated as far as possible, the transfer of foreign substances to the substrate can be decreased. Further, since the gas flow is made uniform, the uniformity in the substrate etching over the surface can be improved. Since the detector for measuring substrate temperature and the detector for detecting the presence or absence of a substrate can be easily installed by modification of the structure and the manufacturing method of the substrate holding system, the reliability and the operability of the apparatus can be improved.
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The present invention relates to protective equipment for hockey and other such sporting activities. More specifically, the invention relates to protective pants having an interchangeable protective unit.
In recent years, safety has become an issue of increasing importance in professional and amateur sports. Sports such as hockey, that often involve rough physical contact between players, require that the players devote an increased amount of attention towards their protection and physical safety. Thus, it is important that players have proper equipment to protect them from injury during a game.
Hockey pants are one of the most important pieces of protective equipment that hockey players wear. The Hockey pants cover the player""s midsection from the waist to the knees and provide the needed protection to the player""s upper leg and pelvic region so that injury to those areas may be prevented.
Hockey pants are not only worn to protect a player, they are also a very visible piece of equipment. The color of the hockey pants is an integral part of the hockey uniform that designates which team a player belongs to. Often, especially with amateur players, a player will belong to more than one hockey team, which means that for each team a player belongs to, he or she may be required to purchase in the colors of that team. This mean that a given player could have two or three different pairs of hockey pants, each in a different color.
Selling color-specific hockey pants could also be problematic for hockey equipment retailers. Hockey pants are reasonably expensive and it is possible that at the end of a season a retailer will find that say, all the hockey pants in blue and black (which turned out to be the most popular colors of the season) have been sold, but that a significant quantity of red hockey pants are still left over.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,926,856 (Duval) describes hockey pants having removable padding members. The protective hockey pant disclosed by Duval comprises an outer shell, multiple back padded members and an upper padded member. The upper padded member and the multiple back padded members can be releasably attached to the outer shell so that the shell can be laundered. A disadvantage of the hockey pant disclosed by Duval is that the front padded member, and each individual back padded member is a separate element. This makes removing and inserting the padding members a laborious, time consuming task. It also creates the added difficulty of remembering how each padding member fits back into the outer shell.
An object of the invention is to provide hockey pants that have interchangeable protective padding that is quick and easy to insert and remove from the hockey pant.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a protective-padding unit that combines a plurality of padding elements into one piece.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a one-piece protective padding assembly that can be attached or removed from within an outer hockey pant quickly and easily.
As embodied and broadly described herein, the present invention provides a hockey pant assembly comprising an outer pant having a right leg portion, a left leg portion and a pelvic region; and an inner protective padding comprising a protective girdle and a pair of front thigh padding protectors. The protective girdle comprises a rib padding protector and a hip padding protector. The inner protective padding is releasably connected to an upper portion of the outer pant; the inner protective padding adapted to be removable as a unit from said outer pant.
Advantageously, with a removable padding assembly the retailers would only have to stock one type of padding assembly, which is the more costly part of the hockey pant, and could then stock a variety of colors and styles of outer pants which are the less expensive part of the hockey pant. If there were some red outer pants left over at the end of the season, it would not be as big a loss to the retailer as to have completely assembled protective pants left over.
As embodied and broadly described herein, the present invention provides a hockey pant assembly kit comprising at least two outer pants each having a right leg portion, a left leg portion and a pelvic region; and an inner protective padding comprising a protective girdle and a pair of front thigh padding protectors. The inner protective padding is releasably connected one of the outer pants and is adapted to be removed from one of the outer pants and inserted into another one of the outer pants.
Other aspects and features of the present invention will become apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon review of the following description of specific embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the accompanying figures.
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Phase change materials are materials that can be repeatedly altered into distinct physical states that can be utilized for a desired task. More specifically, phase change memory is a type of non-volatile random-access memory that utilizes a detectable change in the physical state of the phase change material as an information storage medium. For example, the change in phase of a material from an amorphous state to a crystalline state or vice versa, can be induced and then detected in order to store and then retrieve information. As a simplified example, a chalcogenide material can be heated and cooled in a manner that solidifies the material in an amorphous state, or the chalcogenide can be heated and cooled in a manner that solidifies the material in a crystalline state. Other specific heating and cooling protocols may be employed to result in solidification of the chalcogenide material at different specific degrees of crystallinity across the spectrum between completely amorphous and completely crystalline states.
Once solidified, the phase change material is non-volatile. The phase change material state, whether solidified to a crystalline, semi-crystalline, amorphous, or semi-amorphous state, is thus retained until reprogrammed. This is due to the fact that, once solidified, the state of the material is not dependent upon electrical input.
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Sound intensity is a function of acoustic pressure and acoustic particle velocity. In measuring sound intensity at a particular location in an acoustic field, it is necessary to determine the instantaneous acoustic pressure and the component of instantaneous acoustic particle velocity in the direction of interest. Once these components are known, any of a number of well known systems can be utilized to calculate intensity. Typical known methods of calculation involve time averaging or spectrum averaging.
For example, if a time averaging system is used, the component of the sound intensity in the direction of interest, I.sub.n can be calculated using the integral equation: ##EQU1## where p=instantaneous acoustic pressure; u.sub.n =component of the instantaneous acoustic particle velocity in the n-direction; T=averaging time; I=sound intensity; dt=derivative over time.
Alternatively, sound intensity in the direction of interest, I.sub.n can be calculated using spectrum averaging from the equation EQU I.sub.n =1/2Re{P(W)U.sub.n *(w)}
where Re {} denotes the real part of the enclosed expression and P(w) and U.sub.n (w) are complex Fourier transforms of the acoustic pressure and component of the acoustic particle velocity in the n-direction respectively. In this equation, U.sub.N *(w) is the complex conjugate of U.sub.n (w).
In the past, three basic types of intensity probes have been used for measuring sound intensity. Such known probes usually utilize a pair of closely spaced microphones or a microphone and an accelerometer for determining acoustic pressure and acoustic particle velocity. However, because the acoustic pressure and particle velocity are not measured at exactly the same point in space, the sound intensity calculated therefrom is in error.
Therefore, a primary objective of the present invention is the provision of a method and means for more accurately calculating sound intensity.
Another objective of the present invention is the provision of a method and means for calculating sound intensity by measuring the acoustic pressure and acoustic particle velocity at the same point in space.
A further objective of the present invention is the provision of a method and means for determining sound intensity wherein acoustic particle velocity and acoustic pressure are measured directly.
These and other objectives will become apparent from the following description of the invention. cl SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and means of determining sound intensity by measuring the instantaneous acoustic particle velocity and instantaneous acoustic pressure at a single point. Sound intensity can then be calculated from these two components.
The acoustic pressure is measured by subjecting a microphone to the sound such that the microphone diaphragm vibrates. A microphone output voltage is generated by the vibrating diaphragm and is proportional to the instantaneous acoustic pressure.
The instantaneous acoustic particle velocity is measured by projecting a laser beam onto the vibrating diaphragm and reflecting the beam from the diaphragm so that the Doppler frequency shift of the beam can be detected. A laser Doppler vibrometer is used to project the beam and detect the Doppler frequency shift of the beam. The Doppler frequency shift of the beam is then converted by a Doppler frequency tracker into a tracker output voltage which is proportional to the instantaneous acoustic particle velocity. The sound intensity is calculated from the voltages by employing any well-known average technique, such as time averaging or spectrum averaging.
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The present invention relates to amorphous metals and, more particularly, to a method for slitting an amorphous metal foil.
The invention herein disclosed is based upon work sponsored in part by the Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, Calif.
Amorphous metals are metal alloys in which the usual crystalline structure is not present. A resume of amorphous metal materials and their properties is contained in a paper entitled METALLIC GLASSES: A MAGNETIC ALTERNATIVE, by Donald Raskin and Lance A. Davis, published in IEEE Spectrum, November 1981, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference. In brief, an amorphous metal is formed by cooling a molten alloy at such a high rate (typically exceeding a million degrees per second) that the usual crystalline structure of the metal does not have time to form. Instead, the metal is frozen into a metastable condition in which the disorder of the molten form is preserved.
Amorphous metals exhibit a number of differences in their properties from the normal crystalline form of the same alloy which make them especially suitable for certain applications. They are harder, more abrasive and more sensitive to mechanical stresses, have higher mechanical strength, flexibility and electrical resistivity than their crystalline forms and some alloys of amorphous metal exhibit the softest magnetic characteristics of any known materials. This latter property is especially desirable for magnetic core materials since the ease with which a magnetic material is magnetized and demagnetized controls the hysteresis losses experienced when the magnetic material is repetitively magnetized first in one direction and then in the other direction as is customarily the case for magnetic core materials in AC machinery.
An AC distribution transformer, for example, has its primary winding permanently connected to the AC line. Thus, the primary winding continuously cycles the transformer core between extremes of magnetic intensity. The repetitive traversing of the hysteresis loop of the transformer core produces hysteresis losses which must be made up by primary power. These hysteresis losses represent an overhead cost of operating the transformer which is independent of load. Even during periods of light or zero secondary loading, power must be fed to the primary to supply the hysteresis losses in the transformer core. Substitution of a suitable amorphous metal for the magnetic steel normally used in transformer cores can reduce this hysteresis overhead by a factor of 4 or more.
Amorphous metals also have characteristics which have heretofore interfered with their use. One of the problems in amorphous metals made by the above-referenced process arises because the need for an extremely rapid cooling rate during the casting of a strip of amorphous metal dictates that the amorphous metal strip must be extremely thin. Thicknesses of about 0.076 mm are about the maximum which can be produced, with more typical values on the order of from about 0.025 to about 0.05 mm. Normal transformer core laminations are about ten times thicker. Thus, about ten times as many layers of amorphous metal are required to form a transformer core of the same cross section as are required with the steel laminations of the prior art.
Space factor is important in many magnetic cores. Space factor is defined as the ratio of the actual volume of core material to the physical volume consumed by the core. If the layers making up the core do not lie flat upon each other but instead remain separated by air or other non-magnetic material, the physical volume consumed by the core increases without a corresponding increase in magnetic properties. If burrs or irregularities are present on the edges or surfaces of the core laminations, the laminations do not lie flat and consequently the space factor is degraded. The thinness dictated by the way amorphous metals are made adds to the problem. For example, edge burrs and/or surface irregularities which are small enough to be ignored on the edges of conventional core laminations may cause severe degradation in the space factor when ten or more times as many layer are used.
Amorphous materials are so hard and abrasive that it is extremely difficult to cut the as-cast strip into the sizes and shapes needed to form a core. Conventional cutting techniques include, for example, slitting with rotary shearing devices, scissors-type cutters and pinch-type cutters, all of which rely on sharp cutting edges for clean cuts. The required sharp cutting edges of these devices rapidly degrade due to the hard abrasive material being cut, even when the cutting edges are made of hard materials such as, for example, an appropriate tungsten carbide. Wheel-type slitting devices also suffer from the thinness of the amorphous metal strip. That is, if the amorphous metal strip is, for example, about 0.038 mm thick, then the cutting wheels must be set for a clearance on the order of 0.0051 mm or less. Such tolerances call for the best, and most expensive, attainable tolerances and, even when such tolerances are attained, the cutting must be performed under controlled temperature conditions. When the cutting edges wear, they begin to produce kerfs or burrs which prevent successive layers of a core from laying in complete contact with each other and thus result in degraded space factor.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,328,411 and 4,356,377 disclose laser and/or electron beam cutting techniques for forming complex shapes by either melting and cutting completely or partially through an amorphous strip or heating it above its crystallization temperature so that the desired cutting line assumes the brittle crystalline form of the alloy which can thereafter be easily broken to separate the desired shape from the remainder of the strip. Although these techniques avoid the degradation in edge quality resulting from worn cutting edges of cutting tools, they still produce reduced space factor due to edge burrs. In addition, the heating that these techniques produce along the cutting line leaves crystallized alloy with a resulting degradation of the magnetic properties in these areas which use of the amorphous material is intended to provide.
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The present invention refers to industrial and medical radioscopy (X-ray inspection) and especially to a fibre optic X-ray camera which, due to its structural design, is suitable for use under a high level of irradiation. This property is of importance for many industrial applications where the service life of conventional X-ray cameras is insufficient.
FIG. 2 shows a typical fibre optic X-ray camera composed of a scintillator device 20, a fibre optic system 22 and a semiconductor sensor 24. The semiconductor sensor 24 normally consists of CCD sensors or photodiode arrays. The scintillator device 20 converts an X-radiation 26, which impinges on the X-ray camera and which has passed e.g. an object 28 to be examined, into visible light whereupon the fibre optic system 22 conducts the light produced in the scintillator device 20 onto the sensor 24 which provides detection of the light with local resolution. The fibre optic system 22 replaces here a conventional lens optic system, since, in comparison with a conventional lens optic system, the fibre optic system 22 entails substantially lower losses of light; this has the effect that the sensitivity of the fibre optic X-ray camera is much higher than that of a camera comprising a lens optic system.
Fibre optic X-ray cameras can advantageously be used for all applications where a compact structural design or a high local resolution is required. As shown in FIG. 2, the fibre optic system 22 can be implemented as a so-called taper in the case of which an image of the input window is formed on a smaller output window.
However, in view of their comparatively short service life under a high level of irradiation, fibre optic X-ray cameras have not yet gained importance for industrial applications.
The reason for the short service life of this kind of camera under a high level of irradiation is to be seen in the fact that only part of the X-radiation 26 is absorbed by the scintillator device 20. In the insulator material of which the fibre optic system 22 consists, normally glass, colour centres are produced, whereby the fibre optic system 22 discolours and becomes brown and the quantity of light coming from the scintillator device 20 and arriving at the semiconductor sensor 24 decreases continuously. At a radiation dose of typically 100 kRad, the camera gets unfit for use. In the case of industrial applications, this dose may be reached within a few hours or days. According to the prior art, it was necessary to replace fibre optic systems whose quality had deteriorated in this way or to anneal them during a long interruption of operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,594,253 discloses a hybrid luminescent device for converting ionizing and penetrating energy, such as X-ray beams, gamma rays, neutrons, ions, electrons and the like, into visible light for display applications. The hybrid luminescent device comprises a phosphor screen arranged on the input surface of a fibre optic scintillator which can, in turn, be releasably coupled to a camera or to a some kind of recording medium.
JP 9-90039 A discloses a fibre optic radiation sensor making use of an optical fibre, which is formed by coating a core with a cover layer, and measuring the radiation dose in the vicinity of the fibre by detecting the light propagation loss of the fibre which occurs when defects are caused in the glass of the fibre by gamma rays which are present in the vicinity of the fibre. A hole extending in the longitudinal direction of the fibre is formed through the cover layer, and a metal wire, which produces heat when the wire is excited, is conducted through the hole so that the defects in the core and in the glass in the vicinity of the core can be healed effectively when the wire is excited.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,229,069 A discloses a device for remote viewing of objects located in areas with ionizing radiation fields. A fibre optic channel consisting of a bundle of fibres transmits the recorded image of an object to be viewed beyond a biological shield provided as protection against the ionizing radiation. A heat source implemented as a coil is provided for contributing to a thermal stabilization of the light conduction properties of the fibre bundle in the area with ionizing radiation by heating the fibre bundle.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a fibre optic X-ray camera which permits an improved detection of X-radiation for a long period of time.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for an improved detection of X-radiation for a long period of time.
The present invention is a device for detecting X-radiation comprising:
a scintillator for converting X-radiation impinging thereon into light;
a detecting device for detecting the light produced by the scintillator;
a fibre optic system for conducting the light produced by the scintillator from an input end of the fibre optic system arranged at the scintillator to an output end of said fibre optic system, the detecting device being arranged in spaced relationship with the fibre optic system and an optical means being provided between the detecting device and the fibre optic system, said optical means directing the light emerging from the fibre optic system onto the detecting device; and
a heating means used for heating the whole fibre optic system during the detection of X-radiation to a predetermined temperature with a homogeneous temperature distribution.
The present invention is a further a method for detecting X-radiation comprising:
converting an X-radiation into light by means of a scintillator;
detecting by means of a detecting device the light produced by the scintillator; and
conducting the light from an input end of the fibre optic system arranged at the scintillator to an output end of said fibre optic system;
directing the light emerging from the fibre optic system onto the detecting device, which is arranged in spaced relationship with the fibre optic system, with the aid of an optical means provided between the detecting device and the fibre optic system; and
heating the fibre optic system with the aid of a heating means during the detection of X-radiation to a predetermined temperature with a homogeneous temperature distribution.
The present invention is based on the finding that the problems described, which arise when a fibre optic X-ray camera is used especially under a high level of irradiation, can be reduced by heating at least part of the fibre optic system to a predetermined temperature at which the colour-centre reduction rate vfxe2x88x92 is higher than or equal to the colour-centre production rate vf+, while the X-radiation is being detected. By means of this measure, the production of colour centres during the operation of the X-ray camera is avoided to a very large extent, whereby a discolouration of the fibre optic system is prevented.
Hence, one advantage of the present invention is to be seen in the fact that an exchange of the fibre optic system or an annealing of the fibre optic system, which would entail an interruption of operation, can be dispensed with completely or is at least only necessary after an operating period that is much longer than the operating periods which have hitherto been possible.
A further advantage which the invention described hereinbelow shows in comparison with the prior art is that it permits a substantially improved service life of the fibre optic X-ray camera under a higher levels of irradition. The longer service life allows the use of this type of X-ray camera under industrial conditions for the first time.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, an improved fibre optic X-ray camera and an improved method of detecting X-radiation are provided so as to permit a long-term operation of the fibre optic X-ray camera also under higher levels of irradiation, a mechanical stress on or a non-uniform radiation resistance of the fibre optic system caused by inhomogeneous temperature distribution in the fibre optic system being avoided. The detecting device is arranged in spaced relationship with the fibre optic system and an optical means is provided between the detecting device and the fibre optic system, the optical means directing the light emerging from the fibre optic system onto the detecting device.
During operation of a fibre optic X-ray camera, i.e. especially when the fibre optic system is heated, a sensor coupled directly to the fibre optic system is exposed to high temperatures due to the fact that the fibre optic system is heated strongly. This high temperature causes a high dark signal in the sensor, and this will result in a deterioration of the image quality and in reduced dynamics of the X-ray camera.
This problem can be solved by cooling the fibre optic system on the side facing the sensor. This solution is, however, disadvantageous insofar as, due to the resultant inhomogeneous temperature distribution in the fibre optic system, high mechanical stresses have to be expected, which may result in a formation of cracks and which may therefore cause damage to the fibre optic system.
This inhomogeneous temperature distribution in the fibre optic system is also disadvantageous insofar as, in the case of a disadvantageous diameter/length ratio of the fibre optic system, the strongly inhomogeneous temperature distribution in the fibre optic system will additionally cause a locus-dependent variation of the radiation resistance and, consequently, an irregular discolouration of the fibre optic system in certain areas thereof.
The present invention is based on the finding that the above-mentioned problems entailed by an inhomogeneous temperature distribution, especially under high levels of irradiation, can be eliminated by arranging the detecting device (the sensor) in spaced relationship with the fibre optic system, the light emerging from the fibre optic system being conducted via an optical means to the sensor. Since the fibre optic system can be heated uniformly throughout its whole length, a homogeneous temperature distribution will be achieved in the fibre optic system without influencing the electronic properties of the sensor, faster heating of the whole fibre optic system being additionally possible in this way. Furthermore, due to the homogeneous temperature distribution in the fibre optic system, the occurrence of mechanical stresses in the material of the fibre optic system will be avoided to a large extent, whereby mechanical loads on the fibre optic system, which might cause damage to the fibre optic system, will be reduced extremely.
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According to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th ed. (American Psychiatric Association), obsessions are persistent ideas, thoughts, impulses or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress. They are intrusive because they interrupt the normal flow of thinking, dominating all other thoughts and the patient cannot control them. The patient struggles in vain to resist his obsessions, which can take up a great mount of time and energy, but usually the more resistant he/she is, the more strongly these thoughts come back. As opposed to psychotic disorders, they are contrary to the patient's very nature and he/she remains aware that these thoughts do not make sense and are a product of his/her mind. Most common obsessions include: thoughts about contamination, e.g. an excessive fear of dirt, germs, bodily fluids, dust, etc.; repeated doubts, e.g. about having done something or not, or about fearing to harm somebody; need to have things in a particular order, e.g. with perfect symmetry; aggressive or horrific impulses and images; and, sexual or pornographic images.
Together with these obsessions the patient may feel driven to compulsions, i.e., to repetitive behaviors or mental acts that are clearly excessive, in order to prevent some feared event or imagined danger becoming a reality. The most common forms of compulsive behavior are washing, cleaning, checking, requesting reassurance, hoarding, repeating, ordering, which can be time-consuming and interfere with the daily routine. The most common mental compulsions are counter-images, counting, rumination, and repeating prayers or words. A patient may suffer from one or more types of obsessions and compulsions at the same time. These obsessions and compulsions only become matters of clinical concern when their intensity and/or frequency cause marked distress, are time-consuming or significantly interfere with normal life, e.g. disrupting daily routines so much that working and concentrating correctly, taking part in social activities, or enjoying relationships with others becomes problematic.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (hereinafter OCD), such as above defined, is a chronic psychiatric disorder with a worldwide lifetime prevalence rate of about 2.5%, according to P. Bebbington in Br.J.Psychiatry (1998) 173:2-6. The rate for OCD in first-degree relatives of OCD individuals is even above 10%. The rate for OCD is also higher for monozygotic twins than for dizygotic twins. The onset of OCD is usually earlier in males (between 6 and 15 years) than in females (between 20 and 29 years). Drugs that help OCD are classified as antidepressants, e.g. clomipramine (a serotonin-uptake inhibitor) and selective serotonin-uptake inhibitors (hereinafter SSRI) such as fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, sertraline and paroxetine. However, although about 60% of OCD patients have at least a moderate response to such medication, unfortunately at least 20% of OCD patients have no response at all to any of these drugs and fewer than 20% of those treated with such medication alone end up with no OCD symptoms. Moreover, the above-mentioned drugs have numerous side effects including nausea, drowsiness, insomnia, dry mouth and sexual dysfunction.
Clomipramine is even lethal in overdose. Another disadvantage of SSRIs is their ability to interact with other medications metabolized in the liver, thus either increasing side effects or inhibiting therapeutic benefits. Further, since the long-term effects of these drugs on a fetus are not yet clearly understood, giving such anti-obsessional medication to pregnant or breast-feeding women is usually avoided. According to most studies, a significant improvement in OCD symptoms is not noticeable until 6 to 10 weeks after starting SSRI treatment. Although some patients are able to discontinue medications after a six to twelve month period without relapsing, it is usually reasonable to stay on a full therapeutic dose for at least six months after OCD symptoms have been brought under control.
Some OCD patients may be helped with behavioral therapy, and often this kind of therapy is associated with the pharmacological treatment. Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) is another alternative therapy, but only a few OCD patients improve thereafter.
In spite of the development of the above-mentioned therapies, a small, but significant proportion of OCD patients remain totally resistant to them. Furthermore, due to the side effects of the drugs and to the long-term treatment needed to ascertain the reality of symptom relief, some patients are discouraged because of the delay in improvement while side effects appear first and therefore tend to discontinue treatment at an early stage. A few of these patients, who are extremely ill and severely incapacitated, are candidates for neuro-surgical treatment.
Surgery for mental disorders is still a controversial issue partly due to the lack of randomized and double-blind controlled studies. However, neurosurgeons have been at least partially successful in treating chronic anxiety disorders by creating surgical lesions at specific locations in the neural circuitry of the brain that controls anxiety. For instance, there are numerous clinical reports substantiating that small and precisely placed lesions produced with stereotactic neurosurgical technique in specific regions of the brain (the anterior limbs of the internal capsules, the cingulum and the medial frontal subcaudate white matter) may ameliorate chronic and incapacitating OCD symptoms, as disclosed e.g. by Cosyns et al. in Adv.tech.Stand.Neurosurg. (1994) 21:239-279 and Lippitz et al. in Acta Neuroch. Suppl. (1997) 68:61-63. For the most part, these surgical procedures result in a destruction of the fiber pathways connecting various regions of the nervous system included in the list given above. Such a surgical treatment carries a low risk of complications and side effects but an obvious drawback is the irreversibility of a permanent lesion produced in the brain as documented by Stagno et al. in The Journal of clinical ethics (1994) 5(3):217-223 and by E.Hundert in The Journal of clinical ethics (1994) 5(3):264-266.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,537 “Techniques For Treating Anxiety By Brain Stimulation And Drug Infusion” by Rise issued Oct. 3, 2000 discloses using electrical stimulation in a nearly continuous manner to treat an anxiety disorder, e.g. by means of an implantable signal generator and an implantable electrode having a proximal end coupled to the signal generator and having a stimulation portion for electrically stimulating a predetermined stimulation site in the brain tissue. This patent discloses the following criteria for treatment of anxiety. Electrical stimulation of neural tissue may be implemented by providing pulses to two electrodes preferably having amplitudes of 0.1 to 20 volts, pulse widths varying from 0.02 to 1.5 milliseconds and repetition rates preferably varying from 2 to 2,500 Hz. An appropriate stimulation for use in connection with the anterior limb of the internal capsule is a high frequency stimulation, which aims at decreasing the neuronal activity in that portion of the brain. Enhanced results can be obtained by using a closed-loop system incorporating a sensor suitable for detecting symptoms of the disorder being treated, for instance a physiological signal related to heart rate, respiration rate, blood gases, galvanic skin response or muscle tension, the detected symptom being used to provide feedback to the patient to adjust stimulation parameters. The efficacy of treatment is enhanced if the neural tissue is stimulated while drugs such as GABA agonists are being administered by means of a pump implanted below the skin of the patient.
There is a need in the art for a method of treatment of OCD disorders which is safe and reversible and which provides the OCD patient with an effective relief from most OCD symptoms within a reasonable period of time while at the same time avoiding the various side effects of anti-depressant drugs such as clomipramine, SSRIs and GABA agonists.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is for shelving construction, and more particularly, pertains to a shelf assembly system for connection of one shelf to another shelf. A plurality of common and interchangeable components are incorporated to provide for rapid setup and assembly of shelving in a simple and straightforward manner not requiring the use of tools.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior art devices for assembly of shelving boards have been, in general, unsimplified in design and construction, often requiring the use of hand tools for assembly and erection. The use of annular grooves and rings and other configurations called for construction of geometrically configured and difficult to manufacture components for the attachment of legs to the shelving boards. Often these assembly methods proved somewhat expensive and required specialized and complicated machining for configuring the shelf board to accommodate leg attachment members and other assembly components.
The present invention provides a shelf assembly system which is simple to use, incorporates a minimum of components members, and which is readily utilized to construct shelf members with a minimum of effort.
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The invention relates to handles, and, more particularly, to handles for shifting or actuating a transmission. Still more particularly, the invention relates to shift handles for marine propulsion devices.
It is known in the marine art to provide outboard motors with shift handles that extend upwardly from the propulsion unit and adjacent the engine cowl assembly. This arrangement presents a problem if the cowl assembly is split along a vertical plane since the upwardly extending shift handle will interfere with removal of the cowl assembly.
Attention is directed to the following U.S. Pats. Nos.:
______________________________________ Bouthors, et al 3,483,769 December 16, 1969 Rubinstein 3,091,978 June 4, 1963 Jones, et al. 4,412,826 November 1, 1983 Baxter 3,436,987 April 8, 1969 Carella 3,383,945 May 21, 1968 Schwalm 3,313,386 April 11, 1967 ______________________________________
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The present invention relates to a display control apparatus, an information processing apparatus, and a control method.
In an information processing system (or apparatus), a display device is generally used as a means for realizing an information visual expression function. A CRT display device is most popular as such a display device, as is well known.
In display control in a CRT display device, an operation for writing an image to be displayed in a video memory (to be referred to as a VRAM hereinafter) arranged in an information processing apparatus and an operation for reading out display data from the VRAM are independently performed.
In the above CRT display control, write access of display data to the video memory to update display information and read access for displaying display information are performed independently of each other. For this reason, desired display data can be advantageously written at an arbitrary timing without considering the display timing in the program on the information processing system side.
The number of display dots on a display device in an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer is generally 640.times.400 to 640.times.480 dots. The number of display colors is a maximum of 16 in most display devices.
Along with recent advance in OS's (Operating Systems) and hardware, it is now possible to mount a display board or card on an existing information processing apparatus so as to increase not only the number of display dots but also the number of colors. The display board or card is a so-called graphic accelerator board (card) (to be referred to as a display control board hereinafter). Liquid crystal displays (LCD) have recently received a great deal of attention as substitutes for existing CRT devices because the LCD takes less space.
In the liquid crystal display, the number of colors is generally smaller than that of the CRT. Therefore, image data to be displayed on the LCD must be processed to some extent, and the processing result must be displayed.
For example, the assignee of the present invention has proposed a display using a ferroelectric liquid crystal cell (this display will be referred to as an FLCD hereinafter) as one type of LCD. One of the features of the FLCD lies in that a liquid crystal cell can retain its display state even after removal of an electric field. More specifically, the FLCD has a sufficiently thin liquid crystal cell, and each elongated FLC element in the cell maintains its aligned state even upon removal of the applied electric field. The FLCD using this FLC element has a memory effect for storing display contents due to the bistable properties of the FLC element. The details of the FLC and FLCD are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,699.
The number of colors of the FLCD is 16 at present. However, binarization techniques such as error diffusion can greatly increase the apparent number of display colors.
When a graphic accelerator board for a liquid crystal display such as an FLCD as an output target is taken into consideration, at least a circuit for converting display data into data to be displayed on a liquid crystal display is required.
To check if such a circuit operates properly, the board is connected to an FLCD (this FLCD is, of course, one that has been confirmed as operating properly), a sample image is displayed, and it is determined by observation with the human eye whether any defective portion is present. This operation is time-consuming and requires much labor of those who test the graphic accelerator boards.
To drive an FLCD, since a display image is stored beforehand and displayed, unlike in a CRT or other liquid crystal displays, a time margin is formed in the continuous refresh driving period. As a result, so-called partial rewrite driving for updating only the display state of an updated portion on the display screen independently of the continuous refresh driving can be performed.
In the FLCD, binarization halftone processing is performed to increase the number of pseudo display colors. A typical example is an ED (Error Diffusion) method for maintaining the image qualities of both a natural image and a character image. This ED processing requires continuity of an image in processing because an error occurring in a given pixel is sequentially diffused (distributed) to adjacent pixels.
The following problem is posed when processing using the ED method and the partial rewrite processing is to be simultaneously performed.
More specifically, as described above, according to the ED method, an error occurring in the process propagates like a wave, so that an image as a processing target must be continuous. If some updated portions are present, these portions become discrete in the vertical direction.
To immediately reflect the ED processing result on the FLCD, the transfer rate of the ED processing result must be equal to that of the FLCD. In this case, the partial rewrite position is not fixed, but may be an arbitrary position on the display screen. To cope with this by directly transferring the ED processing result to the FLCD, some technical problems are left unsolved.
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An interior permanent magnet motor (hereinafter called an IPM motor) including a permanent magnet embedded inside a rotor can generate reluctance torque as well as magnet torque resulting from attractive force/repulsive force between a coil and the permanent magnet, and therefore compared with a surface permanent magnet motor (SPM motor) including a permanent magnet attached to an outer periphery of a rotor, the IPM motor has higher torque and higher efficiency. Therefore such an IPM motor is used as driving motors in hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles and the like requiring high output performance. Typically used permanent magnets therefore include sintered magnets of rare-earth magnets, ferrite magnets, alnico magnets and the like.
In order to realize smooth insertion of a permanent magnet into a slot formed in a rotor core and to avoid damage of the permanent magnet at a slot edge, in general, the IPM motor is designed so that the slot is horizontally longer and has a larger dimension than the permanent magnet, and a space defined by a lateral side face of the magnet and a slot face is filled with resin of a non-magnetic material, followed by curing of the resin, thus fixing the permanent magnet.
Referring to FIG. 8, such a state of a magnet fixed inside a slot is described below.
FIG. 8a partially shows a stator S provided with a coil C around a tooth T and a rotor R including permanent magnets PM in a predetermined number embedded therein, the rotor R being arranged rotatably inside the stator S to make up a conventional IPM motor.
At a rotor core making up the rotor R is bored a rotor slot RS to contain the permanent magnets PM, and a lateral side of the rotor slot is filled with non-magnetic resin F1, F2 to fix the permanent magnet PM. In the illustrated example, two permanent magnets PM are arranged like a substantially V-letter shape to form one magnetic pole.
Meanwhile, the resin F1, F2 should naturally fix the permanent magnets PM from the lateral sides thereof in the rotor slots RS, and further has a function as a flux barrier to suppress flux leakage from the permanent magnets PM. As a shape to suppress the flux leakage MJ from the permanent magnets PM, the resin F1, F2 has a shape as shown in FIGS. 8a and 8b, for example.
Herein, as is easily understood, the flow of flux J from the stator side into a permanent magnet PM provided in the rotor tends to pass through the rotor core having high magnetic permeability, and therefore the flux J entering from the stator side tends to concentrate on a corner area of the permanent magnet PM on the stator side.
Referring to FIG. 8b, such a tendency is described below. The resin F1, F2 on the lateral sides of a permanent magnet PM have thicknesses t1′ and t1″ at a part in contact with the permanent magnet PM that are smaller than the thickness t1 of the permanent magnet PM. That is, since the slot is bored in this area to have dimensions and shapes for resin F1, F2 having the thicknesses t1′ and t1″ smaller than the thickness t1, the permanent magnet PM can be aligned at their lateral edges K1 and K2.
If the resin F1, F2 has a thickness at a part in contact with the permanent magnet PM larger than the thickness of the permanent magnet PM, then the permanent magnet PM cannot be aligned in the slot, which may influence on magnetic characteristics of the motor.
In this way, the permanent magnet PM can be securely aligned in a sophisticated manner at the lateral edges K1 and K2. However, since the resin F1, F2 having such dimensions and shapes is formed on the lateral sides of the permanent magnet PM, the resin F1, F2 will have parts therein with thicknesses t2 and t3 that are significantly smaller than the thickness t1 of the permanent magnet PM.
Then, as stated above, since the flux J from the stator tends to pass through the rotor core having high magnetic permeability, the flux J likely passes through not the permanent magnetic PM having the thickness t1 but the routes through the thicknesses t2 and t3 in the resin F1, F2 that are the shortest routes to be reachable to the rotor core having high magnetic permeability. Then, during the course of passing through these routes, the flux J will concentrate on and pass through the corner areas of the permanent magnet PM on the stator side, thus increasing demagnetizing field that acts on the corner area of the permanent magnet PM on the stator side.
Herein the demagnetizing field is made up of the sum of internal magnetic field flowing from N pole to S pole inside the magnet and the above-stated external magnetic field entering from the stator side, among which the external side can be said to mainly decide the magnitude and the direction of the demagnetizing field.
In order to secure a desired coercive force against this demagnetizing field, there is a need to increase a coercive force of the magnet, especially at the corner areas on the stator side.
Then, as typical measure to improve this coercive force of a permanent magnet, the alloy composition making up the permanent magnet is partially replaced with Dy (dysprosium) or Tb (terbium) that are metals having high coercive force performance so as to increase anisotropy field of the metal compound and so increase the coercive force. However, the usage amount of dysprosium or terbium greatly exceeds the natural abundance ratio of rare-earth elements and additionally the estimated amount of commercially developed deposits is extremely low, and moreover the existing regions of the deposits are eccentrically located across the world, and therefore the necessity of strategy for these elements has been recognized.
Even if a coercive-force distribution magnet is manufactured including dysprosium or the like with the impregnation amount corresponding to a required coercive force varying with each part of a magnet, in order to give a coercive force to the magnet against high demagnetizing field, more dysprosium or the like has to used for the part, resulting in the failure to effectively reduce the usage amount of dysprosium or the like.
In view of such a present situation, the present inventors came up with the idea of a rotor capable of reducing demagnetizing field that might be generated in a magnet by modifying the shapes and the structures of both of a slot bored in the rotor and a magnet fixed in the slot, and accordingly capable of reducing a coercive force required for the magnet, and so reducing the usage amount of expensive rare metals used to increase coercive force performance of the magnet.
Conventionally Patent Document 1 discloses a technique for a rotor including a flux barrier in a L-letter shape in planar view formed at a corner of a slot.
This rotor is provided with the flux barrier in a L-letter shape in planar view at a corner of the slot, whereby cogging torque of the motor can be reduced. However, even in this configuration, the flux from the stator side as shown in FIG. 8b still tends to pass through this L-shaped flux barrier because this flux barrier also has a smaller thickness than the thickness of the permanent magnet. Therefore, demagnetizing field that might be generated at a corner area of the permanent magnet on the stator side still remains high, and it is still difficult to reduce the usage amount of dysprosium or the like used to secure a coercive force against this demagnetizing field. Patent Document 1: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2000-278896 A
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The invention generally relates to an arrangement to guide and support a fuel conduit within a turbine engine. More particularly, this invention relates to a structural support for spraybars within a trailing edge box.
Turbine engines may have afterburners, or augmenters, located at the rear of the engine before an exhaust nozzle. Afterburners utilize unused oxygen from the turbine engine to obtain a second combustion. The second combustion provides additional thrust for the turbine engine. An afterburner includes trailing edge boxes that house fuel spraybars. The fuel spraybars are located in the trailing edge boxes to spray fuel where it can mix with unused oxygen.
Turbine engines and afterburners are subject to heavy vibrations, which may cause high wear on the engine and afterburner components. The hostile environment requires support for the fuel spraybars and other components. Typically, the trailing edge boxes are formed from a metal casting to provide a surface for supporting the spraybar. In order to provide the required support and structure the metal casting has thick walls which result in a heavy component. The fuel spraybars and related tubing are mounted adjacent to each trailing edge box for support. The fuel spraybars and tubing are usually attached to the trailing edge boxes with brackets for support and guidance, and to limit the motion of the fuel spraybars and tubing during operation.
A lighter arrangement to guide and support spraybars in a turbine engine is desirable.
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The invention relates to a method and a apparatus for the targeted coating process of catheters or balloon catheters. The term “catheters” herein means catheters exclusive of a balloon.
The treatment of stenosises is provided by placing stents and/or by using so called balloon catheters in order to dilate the respective vessels again. Here, in recent years considerable results have been achieved. Because of that, in many cases a dilatation of the vessel lumen exceeding 90% of the value before the constriction has started can be achieved.
However, in the past a renewed constriction (restenosis) has happened with numerous patients after a few months. Mostly, this is a consequence of the immoderate proliferation, especially of the smooth muscle cells, due to the forcible dilatation of the vessel walls. After healing up the injury the proliferation thereof does not stop immediately, thus frequently leading to a restenosis. One can inhibit this effect by coating the stents and the balloon catheters with an anti-restenosis active agent.
As a rule, the balloon catheters and stents have to travel a long path inside the vessels until they reach the location of the vessel constriction. Here, one is faced with the problem to prevent a premature separation of the active agents prior to reaching the destination and to ensure that the active agent is available in a predefined quantity at the location of the vessel constriction.
With the exclusive application of balloon catheters the contact time with the vessel wall only lasts some seconds to a few minutes during the dilatation of the balloon which aggravates the situation. Thus, it is necessary for the existing contact area to completely be used if possible by means of a uniform coating process, and for the active agents to be provided with a high bio-availability.
The stenosis of arteries is often combined with massive calcification. The vessels concerned can only be dilated to their original lumen again by means of very high pressure. For this purpose, a pressure-resistant balloon is inserted which forms into a stable cylinder through dilatation closely bearing against the vessel wall and pressing the active agents applied from the outside with appropriately high pressure against the vessel walls.
With the same method a local medicament dose can also be carried out without a dilatation of the vessels being necessary. Examples can be found with alterations of the vessel wall which are not associated with stenosis (e.g. vulnerable plaques, deposited thrombi). Other examples include the treatment of vessels by mechanical means or by thermal methods. In these cases, an overstretching of the vessel walls and a laceration combined therewith are not desired. As a result, the balloons which are used do not either bear against the irregular vessel walls completely and the active agents will be pressed against these with lower pressure.
In numerous publications there are proposed solutions which should prevent the premature separation of the active agents with the stents. One possibility consists in housing the active agent in small cavities and by preventing the premature separation by means of a protective coating (US 2004/0071861 A, WO 2003/035131 A). Likewise, described is the possibility to apply an inflexible final coating over the active agent layer which breaks open with the expansion (WO 2000/45744 A1). By contrast, DE 102007010354 A1 describes a combination of the active agent layer and absorbable sacrificial coating layer situated thereabove.
Coatings with active agents have also been described with balloon catheters. However, due to the greater surface and the folded structure they are more difficult to implement. Beyond that, an immediate release of the active agents from the catheter to the vessel walls is necessary as a result of the short contact time.
The possibility of reliably preventing restenosis even during the short contact of the balloon catheters with the blood vessels has been disclosed for the first time in WO 2002/076509 A2. Therein a balloon catheter is described which releases the active agent immediately in a bio-available form during contact with the vessel wall.
In numerous publications of the prior art there are described active agents and complex combinations from very diverse materials which are suitable for coating stents and/or balloon catheters.
In EP 0519063 B1 there is disclosed the possibility to coat a folded balloon being initially expanded and then deflated again with micro capsules in which a pharmaceutical agent can be included. A disadvantage of this embodiment lies in the fact that the majority of the micro capsules is separated from the balloon surface while inserting the balloon catheter into a vessel, and that only the capsules in the folds reach the destination. Thus, the quantity of the micro capsules being available during the expansion and hence the separated agent quantity is not known.
WO 2007/090385 A2 discloses a possibility of providing the folds of a balloon catheter specifically with an agent. With this embodiment the entire agent stock reaches the destination.
In the aforementioned two embodiments (EP 0519063 B1 and WO 2007/090385 A2) the agent is only transferred via one part of the balloon surface to the vessel walls. In this manner, it cannot be made certain that the agent in necessary quantity does reach all affected places of the vessel wall.
In WO 2004/006976 A, lipophilic pharmaceutical preparations are applied onto a structured, especially rough, surface of the expanded balloon through spraying, immersion or absorbing. By means of a lipophilic layer between the pharmaceutical preparation and the balloon surface the separation of the agent should be facilitated.
The most often described solutions for coating catheters and balloon catheters are based on a substrate decelerating the release of the agents. However, in the course of this the contact time between the balloon surface and ambient tissue is relatively short.
In contrast to this, DE 102007036685 A1 discloses the coating process of a balloon catheter in such a manner that at least one agent is immediately released. very diverse compositions functioning as agents and transport mediators are disclosed therein.
In WO 2008/086794 A2 there is generally disclosed the coating process of catheter balloons by means of a volumeter and a dispensing device. Thereby a great many different methods for the coating process are used. However, it is known that not all methods described therein result in a surface having the same characteristics in quality.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,322,847 B1 there is disclosed a possibility of removing surplus portions resulting from the coating process by means of a gas jet. But it is more useful to avoid such surplus portions already during the coating process, and thus to render superfluous a later treatment. Drying the coating during the treatment with the gas jet cannot completely be avoided. Consequently, the calibration of the system is very expensive because, on the one hand, a gas jet which is too weak cannot remove the surplus portions of the layer which have become more solid, and, on the other hand, a gas jet which is too strong can damage the layer in such a manner that the object to be coated is not completely covered any longer.
US 200610029720 A1 discloses a method of coating a medical device by applying the coating solution onto the top end of the vertically set up medical device. Then, the distribution takes place by means of flow processes due to gravity. One advantage of the invention is the good possibility of automation. With medical devices, in particular stents, uniform coating and, in particular, a very uniform distribution of the contained agents across the surface is of great significance. However, uniform distribution of the coating solution represents a problem with this method. This particularly applies to heavily structured objects such as stents or balloon catheters. The formation of projections and drops cannot practically be avoided with the flow technique, and additional methods, such as e.g. according to U.S. Pat. No. 6,322,847 B1, have to be used.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,406,754 B2 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,921 B1 describe a device and a method for coating a tubular or wire-like medical device including the possibility to leave out such regions which should not obtain any coating. With this method it is also possible to apply various coatings onto different regions of the medical device. For this purpose, a chamber is used which encloses the medical device at the ends such that coating solution is not allowed to escape. As a result, coating can take place through feeding and draining off the coating solution in the chamber or by means of a relative motion of the chamber and medical device. This approach has just several disadvantages. The impermeable seal of the chamber at the ends is technologically very expensive because many of these products are either heavily structured, e.g. stents, or have folds of such as e.g. balloon catheters. During a relative motion of the chamber and medical device the new coating, already existing coatings or even the medical device itself can be damaged the impermeable seal. Likewise, residual quantities remaining in the chamber and damages of the coating at the sealing positions represent a problem during opening the chamber.
In US 2007/0128343 A1 there is disclosed a possibility of having two spray nozzles by means of which two different coating solutions can be applied. A spraying method has several disadvantages which are not overcome by the present publication. For a uniform coating it is necessary to move the spray nozzles and the object to be coated relative to the longitudinal axis and to carry out a rotational motion of the object or an adequate motion of the spray nozzles as well. The well-defined quantity of the substances applied on the objects is just hard to guarantee as always a part of the substances do not arrive on the object to be coated during spraying. However, this is of great significance exactly with medically effective components.
Practicable compositions of coating solutions are described in detail in the prior art documents. The methods for coating are primarily presented in terms of calculated filling of the folds of the catheter balloon and/or applying a specific quantity of the coating solution.
The same way, there are disclosed many possibilities of designing the surface of the balloon, be that through structuring or by means of an additional treatment.
Common to prior art documents is that the effect of the coating method on the structure and the quality of the surface is not sufficiently taken into account. Likewise, the ambient conditions and further process parameters having a decisive influence on the quality properties of the surfaces are only insufficiently represented.
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Technological Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that forms an image by transferring and fixing a toner image onto a paper sheet.
Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses that form an image on a paper sheet with toner have been known. In such an image forming apparatus, a reverse conveyance path that forms a conveyance path for reversing each paper sheet is provided so that images can be formed on both surfaces of each paper sheet as each paper sheet is reversed (see JP 2006-124100 A, for example).
In a conventional image forming apparatus, a conveyance path that reverses a paper sheet in the reverse conveyance path is formed. Therefore, paper sheets that can be reversed in the reverse conveyance path are limited by the length of the reverse conveyance path.
In recent years, there is an increasing demand for formation of images on both surfaces of a paper sheet called a long paper sheet that is too large to be stored in a paper cassette. However, in order for a long paper sheet to be reversed, the length of the reverse conveyance path needs to be increased, and, as a result, the apparatus becomes larger in size.
Also, in a case where the reverse conveyance path is made longer so that a long paper sheet can be reversed, the reverse conveyance path may be extended outside the unit that houses the reverse conveyance path. In such a structure, conveyance may be suspended if a long paper sheet is stuck at a position between the reverse conveyance path inside the unit that can be pulled out of the apparatus main body and the reverse conveyance path extended outside the unit.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to light-emitting diode (LED) packaging. More specifically, the invention relates to LED packaging for motor vehicle headlamp and other applications.
2. Description of Related Art
An LED is one type of semiconductor that generates light when voltage is applied to it. There are various advantages to using LEDs in vehicle headlamp applications, such as long lifetime, low drive voltage, high vibration resistance, and high tolerance to repeated power switching.
An LED is typically provided in an LED package that provides optics for the LED, such as a dome, and LED terminals for electrical connection. The LED terminals are typically provided having one of several variations, such as gull leads or flat terminal strips. In vehicle headlamp applications, typical methods of providing electrical connection to LED packages include soldering the LED terminals to a printed wiring board, utilizing a wave soldering or reflow process, and/or crimping the LED terminals to wiring. Typically, an LED package is first connected to a printed wiring board or a T-Clad, and then secondarily, the printed wiring board or T-Clad utilizes another electrical connection, such as a header or board connector, for outer interconnection within a circuit. These types of LED terminal connections may not be robust because, without also having mechanical interlocking features, the connections may separate. In addition, the installation process may be costly due to material costs for multiple interconnection processes. The installation process may also be open to error because the installer must undertake multiple steps, some of which may require a high amount of precision.
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a seat assembly for an automotive vehicle. More particularly, the invention relates to a seat assembly having a linkage system for automatically moving a seat cushion downward and forward and translating a seatback downward and rearward in response to pivoting the seatback between an upright position and a folded position.
2. Description of Related Art
Automotive vehicles include one or more seat assemblies for supporting seat occupants within a passenger compartment of the vehicle. Typically, seat assemblies include a generally horizontal seat cushion and a generally vertical seatback. It is well known in the seating art to provide a stowable seat assembly movable between a seating position for supporting the seat occupant above the floor and a stowed position lying flat against the floor, or nested within a recess formed in the floor.
In such stowable seat assemblies, the seatback is normally pivotally coupled to the seat cushion at a seatback pivot located between a lower end of the seatback and a rearward end of the seat cushion. The seatback pivot allows the seatback to pivot between a generally upright position and a folded position overlying the seat cushion. The seat cushion often includes a four-bar-linkage or front and rear legs extending between the seat cushion and the floor of the vehicle for moving the seat cushion between a raised position spaced above the floor and a lowered position resting along the floor. The seatback defines a load floor when the seat assembly is in the stowed position.
When such stowable seat assemblies are in a second or third row, behind a forward seat, an interference condition is often created when folding the seatback forward. Specifically, the seatback cannot pivot between the upright position and the folded position without an upper end of the seatback contacting the forward seat. This interference condition is magnified by federal motor vehicle safety standards, such as FMVSS 202a, which create high seatback height requirements. In addition, with the seatback pivotally coupled to the seat cushion at the seatback pivot, the load floor height is determined by the amount the seat cushion is lowered toward the floor.
It is therefore desirable to provide a mechanism or linkage system which lowers the seatback pivot such that the seatback is at a predetermined load floor height when the seat assembly is in the stowed position. It is also desirable that the linkage system translates the seatback pivot rearward such that the upper end of the seatback clears a forward seat as the seatback moves between the upright position and the folded position. It is further desirable that this motion be done while lowering the seat cushion.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to oil and gas pipelines and, more particularly, is concerned with a pipeline buoyancy control assembly and a tie-down attachment member therefor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Oil and gas pipelines often need to be anchored or stabilized. Underwater pipelines and pipelines buried in saturated soils may attempt to float. This buoyancy must be controlled by some means. A variety of assemblies or methods have been developed over the years for anchoring pipelines. Passive gravity systems, such as weights, are common. Other systems have included the employment of helical screw anchors with steel or polyester pipebands.
A representative example of a prior art pipeline anchor apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,552 to Johannesson et al. The Johannesson patent shows an elongated flexible tie-down strap extending over a pipeline and attached at opposite ends to left and right anchor units. The tie-down strap is made of polyester webbing and has a loop formed and sewn at each of its opposite ends of the strap. Each loop is secured to a tie-down bracket along a side thereof facing the pipeline. The tie-down brackets are mounted to extension rods which, in turn, are attached to anchor rods of the respective anchor units. Each anchor rod has a helical anchor attached thereabout. Each tie-down bracket has a side sleeve-like connector defining a channel or slot running alongside the bracket through which passes one of the tie-down strap loops. Each loop of the tie-down strap wraps around an outer wall of the side connector of one of the tie-down brackets.
Problems exist, however, with many prior art designs. For instance, in the case of the Johnannesson et al. anchor apparatus, eccentric loading due to the strap being connected by the tie-down bracket on one side of the anchor rod creates undesirable high bending stress and concentration of stress in the anchor rods of the arrangement. Further, due to corrosion, the side connector of the tie-down bracket may break at either of its locations of securement to the anchor rod and thereby permit release of the strap. If this occurs, the pipeline would be free to float upwardly at that point overloading adjacent anchor sets, which could lead to a catastrophic failure.
Consequently, a need remains for an assembly which provides a solution to the aforementioned problems in the prior art without introducing any new problems in place thereof.
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{
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In an image-forming apparatus such as a printer, electronic photocopier, and facsimile apparatus, a conductive member such as a conductive roll, conductive blade, and conductive belt has been used for the mechanism where semiconductivity is required.
Such a conductive member, depending on their application, are being asked to provide a desired range of electroconductivity (electrical resistance value and variation in same, environmental dependency, and voltage dependency), various performances such as non-contaminating ability, low hardness, and dimensional stability.
As the rubber forming part of such a conductive member, a polyether rubber and the like which have semi-electrical conductivity in the rubber itself have been used. However, in recent years, in the image-fainting apparatus, higher speed has been demanded. For the conductive member, particularly the conductive roll, further lower electrical resistance has been desired.
Further, there has been conventionally a problem that, under application of voltage to a conductive member in which a polyether rubber and the like are used, upon continuous use, the conductive member deteriorated due to electric current so that electrical resistance value of the conductive member increases and quality of an image is impaired accordingly when used for the application of an image-forming device. For solving this problem, for example, Patent Document 1 discloses the art of introducing, into a polyether rubber, 0.1 mol % to less than 30 mol % of units of a monomer having onium ion introduced using a nitrogen atom-containing aromatic heterocyclic compound such as 1-methylimidazole as onium-forming agents.
However, when reacting a polyether rubber with the nitrogen atom-containing aromatic heterocyclic compound such as 1-methylimidazole react (onium-forming reaction) by the batch type method, there is the problem of poor productivity.
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{
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Inkjet printers have a series of nozzles from which individual ink droplets are ejected to deposit on print media to form desired printed images. The nozzles are incorporated in various types of printheads and their proper functioning is critical to the creation of quality images. Thus, any partial or total blockage of even a single nozzle may have a significant impact on a printed image, particularly in the case of a pagewidth printer.
The nozzles are prone to blockage due to their exposure to ever-present paper dust and other particulate matter and due to the tendency of ink to dry in the nozzles during, often very short, idle periods. Prior to ejection, the ink forms a meniscus at the nozzle opening. Exposure to air (frequently warm) evaporates the ink solvent to leave a solid deposit that can block the nozzle.
Servicing systems are conventionally employed for maintaining the functionality of printheads. Such systems provide capping, purging and or wiping. Capping involves the covering of idle nozzles to preclude exposure of ink to drying air. Purging is normally effected by evacuating a capping chamber, thereby sucking deposits from the printhead that block or have the potential to block the nozzles. Wiping is performed in conjunction with the capping and/or purging functions and involves gently sweeping a membrane across the face of the printhead.
Most conventional inkjet printers use a reciprocating printhead which is traverses across the width of a momentarily stationary page or portion of print media. In these printers, service stations are provided at one side of the printing zone and, on command, the printhead is traversed to the service station where it is docked while servicing is performed and or the printer is idle.
The above described servicing system is not feasible for pagewidth printers because of the stationary printhead assembly that extends across the full width of the printing zone. The printhead assembly effectively defines the print zone and it cannot be moved outside of that zone for servicing. Furthermore, a pagewidth printhead has a significantly larger surface area and contains a vastly greater number of nozzles than a conventional inkjet printhead, especially in the case of a large format printer. These factors dictate that the servicing of printheads requires an entirely different approach to that of conventional scanning type printheads.
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{
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Active inductors are often used to extend the bandwidth of bandwidth-limited circuits, such as amplifiers employed in high frequency communication systems. The bandwidth of an active inductor-loaded amplifier (or buffer) is generally a function of the total output capacitance and resistance, along with an inductance “L” which, for an active inductor, is in turn a function of a resistance “R”, parasitic capacitance, and transconductance of the transistor utilized to implement the active inductor.
A number of techniques have been proposed or suggested for tuning an active inductor utilizing a fixed resistance value such that a portion of the capacitive load is canceled (and the bandwidth is thereby extended). Process variations in the manufacturing of integrated circuits, temperature variations, and supply variations, however, often significantly affect the resulting resistance, capacitance, and transconductance of an active inductor circuit. Thus, the resulting available bandwidth is also subject to wide variations, despite any selection of resistance or capacitance values for fabrication.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/929,843, entitled. “Three-Terminal, Tunable Active Inductor,” assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated by reference herein, discloses an active inductor circuit that is capable of being tuned to achieve a desired bandwidth, over process, temperature and supply variations. Generally, one embodiment of the disclosed active inductor circuit controls the gate voltages applied to one or more PMOS transistors to provide a variable resistance and thereby extend the bandwidth. While the disclosed active inductor circuit can be continuously tuned to achieve a desired bandwidth, it has been found that the range of resistance control required for some applications requires prohibitively large PMOS devices.
A need therefore exists for an improved active inductor device that provides a tunable bandwidth using digital control. A further need exists for an active inductor device that provides a tunable bandwidth with improved linearity.
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{
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The present invention relates to accessing data sources such as relational databases and non-relational data sources. More particularly, the present invention relates to accessing such data sources utilizing a standard relational database management system interface such as the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) system.
Conventional relational database management systems allow for data to be accessed based on a physical table definition. The physical table definition provides a physical disk location for the information stored in the database. Such a system may provide satisfactory results in many applications, however, if the database is accessed by different applications, then changes in the database must typically be reflected via changes to the different applications. Thus, a change in the underlying data structure may require changes to each of the applications which access the data merely to retain their existing functions. Furthermore, conventional relational database management systems may be limited in their ability to access non-relational data such as keyed, binary and sequential files.
Efforts to isolate the underlying physical structure of relational databases have included allowing the use of synonyms as logical names for tables and allowing views to contain data from more than one table. However, the use of synonyms may be limiting in the ability to isolate physical data information from end-user applications as knowledge of the underlying physical structure may still be required in that synonyms have typically not been provided for individual column definitions.
One system for isolating physical information about a database from the applications accessing the database is described in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,887 to Kingberg et al. (the disclosure of which is incorporated herein) which describes a system for logical access of relational databases. However, the Kingberg et al. system may require a separate database driver which provides logical access. Thus, applications which currently utilize standard relational database management systems, such as ODBC, may require modification to be compatible with the system of Kingberg et al. Furthermore, Kingeberg et al. may not provide access to non-relational data sources utilizing logical access.
In light of the above discussion, a need exists for improvements in the access of differing data sources without requiring the applications to have knowledge of the physical structure of the accessed data sources.
In view of the above discussion, it is an object of the present invention to provide data source access without requiring knowledge of the underlying physical structure of the data source.
A further object of the present invention is to provide access to both relational and non-relational data sources utilizing a logical data model.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide logical access to data sources utilizing a standard database management system interface such as the ODBC interface.
Yet another object of the present invention is to allow for modifications in underlying data source structures without requiring revisions to applications which access the data sources.
A further object of the present invention is to provide access to data sources which is backward compatible with applications utilizing existing data source access interfaces.
These and other objects of the present invention may be provided by methods, systems and computer program products which access at least one data source by intercepting a command to a relational database management system and determining if the intercepted command accesses the data source utilizing a logical table name. If the intercepted command accesses the data source utilizing the logical table name, then the logical table name is translated to a physical table name. The intercepted command is then provided to the relational database management system utilizing the physical table name translated from the logical table name so as to provide access the data source utilizing the logical table name.
In a further embodiment of the present invention, if the intercepted command accesses the data source utilizing a logical table name and a logical column name, then the logical table name is translated to the physical table name and the logical column name translated to a physical table name. The intercepted command is then provided to the relational database management system utilizing the physical table name translated from the logical table name and the physical column name translated from the logical column name so as to provide access the data source utilizing the logical table name and the logical column name.
By intercepting commands to a standard relational database management system and then translating logical information in the commands to physical information, access to data sources may be provided without requiring knowledge of the underlying physical structure of the data source, only knowledge of the logical model. By providing access to data sources utilizing a logical model, modifications in underlying data source structures may be made without requiring revisions to applications which access the data sources. Furthermore, by utilizing a standard database management system interface application programmers need not learn a new custom interface but may utilize existing database access drivers to access the data source.
In a still further embodiment of the present invention, it is determined if additional relational database management system commands are required to provide the function of the intercepted relational database management system command utilizing the physical table name and the physical column name. If so, then the additional database management system commands are generated utilizing physical table names and physical column names and the generated commands are provided to the relational database management system utilizing the physical table name and the physical column name so as to provide access the data source utilizing the logical table name and the logical column name. Thus, the present invention provides for instances where the commands which would be generated if the application were aware of the underlying physical structure of the data sources differ from those which are generated based on the logical model of the data sources.
In a particular embodiment of the present invention, the intercepted command is provided to the relational database management system if the intercepted command does not contain a logical table name. Preferably, the relational database management system comprises an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) system. Furthermore, an ODBC compatible application program may generate the intercepted command. In such an instance, where the intercepted command comprises an ODBC query, the interception of the ODBC query may be performed by exiting the ODBC command processing function subsequent to the ODBC command processing function parsing the ODBC query to determine a type of command associated with the ODBC query.
By utilizing ODBC, the present invention provides logical access to data sources utilizing a standard database management system. Furthermore, the present invention may provide compatibility with existing applications which are aware of the underlying physical structure of the data sources by passing the commands on if logical information is not included in the commands. Thus, the present invention may provide access to data sources which is backward compatible with applications utilizing existing data source access interfaces.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a plurality of data sources are accessed and a plurality of logical column names are associated with the intercepted command. In such a case, a first of the plurality of logical column names may be translated to a first physical column name associated with a first of the plurality of data sources and a second of the plurality of logical column names may be translated to a second physical column name associated with a second of the plurality of data sources. The intercepted command may then be provided to the relational database management system utilizing the first physical column name associated with the first of the plurality of data sources and utilizing the second physical column name associated with the second of the plurality of data sources. Furthermore, at least one of the first and the second of the plurality of data sources may be a relational database and at least one of the first and the second of the plurality of data sources may be a non-relational data source.
In a particular embodiment of the present invention, the translation from logical information to physical information may accomplished by accessing a table of metadata wherein the metadata defines a relationship between the logical table name and the physical table name and mapping the logical table name to the physical table name utilizing the metadata. Preferably, the table of metadata is a relational table.
Furthermore, when the data source is a plurality of data sources a logical model may be defined for accessing data from the plurality of data sources. Metadata may then be generated which describes a relationship between the logical model and data stored in a plurality of data sources. The generated metadata may then be stored as the table of metadata. The relationship between the logical model and the data stored in the plurality of data sources may then be revised by revising the metadata and updating the table of metadata to reflect the revised metadata. Thus, the present invention may provide access to both relational and non-relational data sources utilizing a logical data model.
As will further be appreciated by those of skill in the art, the present invention may be embodied as methods, apparatus/systems and/or computer program products.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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|
Ticks can transmit a number of diseases such as Rocky Mount Spotted Fever and Lyme Disease to people and animal hosts. Thus, a tick should be quickly and effectively removed from the host. Improperly removing a tick from a host can increase the chance of the tick infecting the host with a disease or causing other medical problems.
Ticks are often difficult to remove from the host because they insert a portion of their mouth part into the host to reach the blood supply and also secrete an adherent cement onto the skin of the host to help anchor themselves to the host. If a tick is removed improperly from the host, the tick can be mutilated and the head of the tick torn off and left embedded in the host. Such an improper removal of a tick increases the chance that the tick will infect the host with a disease and that the area on the host where a portion of the tick's head is left embedded will become infected.
Prior art tick removing devices and methods that attempt to effectively remove an attached tick are known. Prior art tick removing devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,303,268; 4,442,837; 4,976,718; 4,979,771; 5,002,323; 5,078,729; 5,116,347; and 5,137,318.
In order for a tick removing device to be capable of removing a tick effectively, the tick removing device must be capable of securely gripping the tick during the tick removal process. Prior art tick removing devices often require that the user continuously squeeze or apply a pressure to the tick-removing device during the tick removal process. The removal of a tick is more difficult if the user must continuously apply a pressure to the tick removing device in order to grip the tick. In particular, if the person or animal moves while the tick is being removed, the user may loose his or her grip on the tick removing device causing the tick to slip from the tick removing device.
Prior art tick removing devices also often have relatively complex designs, and accordingly are difficult to manufacture and are expensive. Tick removing devices also often tend to wear out after repeated use so that they fail to sufficiently grip a tick to allow for the tick's effective removal.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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