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This invention relates to an electronic key assembly for use with an electronic lock assembly, having a spring loaded data pin and contact for providing a touch pressure signal and data transfer for operation of the electronic lock assembly.
In many environments, such as apartment houses, multi-family dwellings, condominiums or the like, the transient nature of residents present problems in using conventional locking mechanisms in association with a door having a latch which is operable from both sides of the door by means of a handle or the like. In such environments, keys usable to unlock conventional lockable latching mechanisms are easily replicated, thereby potentially compromising the security provided by the lockable latching mechanism. As tenants or occupants move from such an environment, a key or copy of the key can be retained, though the former tenant or occupant is no longer entitled to access thereto. Similarly, if maintenance or repair procedures require access by other personnel, maintaining security may again be compromised if keys are duplicated or not returned by the repair or maintenance personnel. Thus, security standards in such environments may require that the lock be removed in its entirety and replaced, or the lockable latching mechanism is swapped with another mechanism from another unit to ensure security. Another alternative is to have the lockable latching mechanism re-keyed such that the previous key will not operate the mechanism. In each of these situations, the replacement, re-keying or swapping of the lockable latching mechanism is costly, both in terms of expense and/or personnel resources, and presents a time consuming and inefficient process for ensuring security.
Attempts have therefore been made to provide enhanced security by providing an electronic lock which employs a programmable processor which can be programmed to only allow operation of the lock if a valid key is used. Thus, when a tenant moves from a premises, the electronic lock can simply be reprogrammed so that the old key will not operate the lock, thereby eliminating the need to replace or re-key the lock. Although electronic locks using card readers, key pads or contact activated data ports are known, various deficiencies in such electronic lock assemblies have been found, and such systems have generally been cost prohibitive or complex, thereby limiting widespread use in such environments.
Based upon the foregoing deficiencies, this invention relates generally to an electronic touch key for electronic lock sets, and more particularly to an electronic key for use with a lock set, which provides a signal to the user that an authorized key has been properly applied to the lock.
The electronic key is a touch key, which operates the locking mechanism by merely touching the key to an electronic sensor on the lock set. Typically an electronic lock set provides either an audible and/or visible signal that the touch key has been properly applied, and that the door has been unlocked.
As an example, an electronic access control deadbolt may be operated by an electronic key according to the invention, wherein a cylinder plug associated with the lock set includes a fixed data contact pin, which is preferably flush with the face of a cylinder plug, to prevent tampering. The electronic key thus must be designed to properly contact the fixed data contact associated with the lock set for proper operation, presenting problems in forming the proper contact upon insertion of an electronic key. To facilitate making this proper contact with the fixed data contact pin associated with the lock set, the present invention provides a construction which facilitates making the contact, and yet provides a durable and simple construction for the electronic key.
The foregoing and other aspects will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
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The time controls, for machines that manufacture glass articles have been well known for a long time. These glass article manufacturing machines generally consist of drums which have a plurality of cams that directly and mechanically move a series of actuating valves of the individual mechanisms of the machine. These actuating valves operate the mechanisms in a predetermined sequence dictated by the programming of the manufacturing run that is being undertaken, and, the manufacturing process is subordinated to the speed of the machine which in turn is set according to the desired time cycle. It is also well-known that in this type of machine it is impossible to change any of the cams while the machine is functioning. The speed of the mechanisms is a constant and cannot be varied at will during production cycle.
As it is also well-known, time controls which consist of a timing drum provided with mechanical cams have been slowly substituted by electronic timing controls. The first of these substitutions were merely electronic circuits (without a major change with respect to their performance) which were to be substituted for the traditional drums. Later electronic circuits were developed to carry out independent functions, i.e., so that the electronic control can introduce variables with respect to the starting time and the duration of operation, as well as the speeds of operation of the different mechanisms of the machine.
In spite of the fact that the present electronic timer controls are highly efficient, and can carry out the production function at a much greater speed, these electronic timer controls do not have the capacity to determine the speed characteristics for each one of the machine's mechanisms as subordinate to the geometry of the article. It is for this reason that with such electronic timer controls, it is necessary to individually set the speed mechanisms through the use of manually operated valves.
The requirement for a fully electronic control is one which is known in the art. The intention is that by merely providing the control system with information of the parameters of the geometry of an article to be produced, as well as the production cycle desired, the control must be capable of calculating the starting times, speeds of the individual mechanisms, finishing times, and other similar functions of a glass article manufacturing machine. It should also be able to calculate the time of the desired cycle, and be capable of carrying out the operations at an adequate speed, and, with speed profiles that are also adequate to satisfy the needs of a particular geometry of the articles to be produced.
The electronic timer controls that exist in previous techniques, however, are not capable of carrying out said functions and therefore they are not satisfactory. An operative electronic control would greatly facilitate changes in speed and other functions of the various mechanisms of the glass article forming machine, particularly if speed changes could be made without the need of operator intervention, i.e., without the need that the operator himself introduce to the electronic timer control an operating table specific to a predetermined article as related to its particular geometry and its time of production.
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This invention relates to means which may be connected to the windings of an electric motor, such as an overhead ceiling fan permanent split capacitor (PSC) motor, externally of the motor housing so as to permit the direction of rotation of the motor to be selectively reversed and so as to permit multiple speed operation of the motor in either direction of rotation.
In certain motor applications, such as in PSC overhead ceiling fan applications, it is desirable that the motor be capable of operating in either direction (i.e., either clockwise or counter-clockwise) so that the ceiling fan can be operated to move air in an upwardly or downwardly direction, as desired. Typically, the reversal of the direction of rotation of the motor shaft is accomplished by changing the connection point across opposite sides of the run capacitor in series with the auxiliary winding of the motor. However, many such non-reversible motors used for overhead ceiling fan applications were manufactured as multi-speed motors which had a plurality of windings connected in series with tapping points between the various main windings which could be selectively tapped by means of a multiple position speed selector switch. Certain of the motors had a different number of turns in one main winding than in the other main winding such that when the motor was operated in one of its preselected operational speeds, the motor was operated with unbalanced windings (i.e., unbalanced physical turns).
While the operation of a motor with unbalanced windings did not pose any significant problems at any of its normal operating speeds, it was not practical to readily convert such unbalanced, multiple speed non-reversible motors for reversible operation utilizing a motor reversing switch which reversed the connection of the leads to the main windings. In most instances, it was necessary to open up the motor housing and to add an additional lead wire which required a considerable expenditure of time and money to convert "non-reversible" motors to reversible motors.
There has been a long standing need for apparatus or means which can be readily added to a multiple speed, non-reversible motor so as to convert the motor to a multiple speed, reversible electric motor.
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In a field of X/Gamma ray safety inspection, an X/Gamma ray container/vehicle inspection system is usually used, in which a container serves as an object to be inspected. The X/Gamma ray container/vehicle inspection system includes an X/Gamma ray imaging subsystem, a scanning control subsystem, a running inspection subsystem and a radiation safety subsystem. Herein, the X/Gamma ray imaging subsystem as the core of the whole system includes a ray source, a detector and a data acquisition and control module, and is configured to generate X/Gamma ray transmission images. When scanning a container/vehicle to be inspected, the ray source generates high-energy X/Gamma ray pulses penetrating goods to be inspected. The X/Gamma ray is received by a high-sensitivity detector array and converted into output signals, which are processed by the data acquisition and control module to be into a series of digital image signal in real time. Upon completing the whole scanning process, the system automatically generates a complete image of the inspected container/vehicle.
In order to acquire high quality images, the detector is required to be aimed at the direction of the X/Gamma ray source as far as possible. The detector module is consisted of a plurality of detector units arranged side by side. Detectors in the existing X/Gamma ray container/vehicle inspection system are usually arranged in an array configuration as shown in FIG. 1 or in an arc configuration as shown in FIG. 2. However, both of the above configuration manners have obvious disadvantages.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of detectors layout in the array configuration. The array configuration manner may save space and facilitate folding and transporting. However, there exists relatively larger angle differences and gap between respective detector modules, which leads to larger scattering crosstalk among detector units in detector modules. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of detectors layout in the arc configuration. In the arc configuration manner, although respective detector units directly face to the direction of beam ray, relatively larger space is occupied, and there is farther distance from the detector to a ray source (e.g., an accelerator, an X-ray machine and a man-made source, etc.), thereby causing a weak signal.
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Rechargeable or secondary lithium batteries are often used in electronic devices requiring a steady and reliable source of electrical energy. The essential components of a rechargeable lithium battery are an anode or negative electrode, a cathode or positive electrode and a lithium ion conducting non-aqueous electrolyte. The anode active component of a rechargeable lithium battery is a substance which is capable of inserting or intercalating lithium ions when the battery is charged and releasing lithium ions when the battery is discharged. The cathode active component of a rechargeable lithium battery is capable of incorporating lithium ions reversibly, whereby the lithium ions are released when the battery is charged and are reincorporated in the cathode active component on discharge. The electrolyte of a rechargeable lithium battery is usually a non-aqueous electrolyte, most commonly a solid or liquid polymer bearing a lithium compound having dissociable lithium ions, or a microporous polymer which has been impregnated with an organic liquid having a lithium salt dissolved therein, or any non-aqueous substance that is capable of conducting electricity by means of movement of lithium ions. The cathode active component is commonly a lithium containing chalcogenide, most frequently a lithium containing transition metal oxide.
Transition metal oxides and solid solutions of such oxides have been known to be utilized in the positive electrode of a rechargeable lithium battery and are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,518,842, issued on May 21, 1996 to Fey et al.
Carbon in the form of graphite or petroleum coke or similar high purity carbon particles, which readily intercalates lithium ions, is often used as the anode active substance in rechargeable lithium batteries. It is known that a portion of the lithium inserted in the carbon particles and similar intercalating substances, is retained irreversibly, the irreversibility may be affected by several factors, such as history of the heat treatment of the carbon particles, variations in crystal structure, particle size and so on, resulting in different amounts of irreversibly retained lithium in the anode. The reversible capacity of carbon in a lithium ion battery varies between 310 and 380 mAh/g (443.4-533.4 mAh/cm.sup.3, based on 1.43 g/cm.sup.3 bulk density for graphite commonly used in carbon anodes). Carbon in the form utilized in anodes, is relatively inexpensive and readily available, however, the energy density that carbon containing anodes are capable of providing is usually not as high as would be desirable; furthermore, carbon is light and voluminous, hence cannot be packed densely, which further reduces the energy density obtainable from negative electrodes containing carbon as the anode active substance. It is to be noted, however, that most rechargeable lithium batteries contain some lithium which does not participate in the charging-discharging process step in other battery components, that is usually the cathode and the electrolyte also have a portion of irreversibly bonded lithium ions.
There are publications describing substances other than carbon, which are capable of reversibly inserting lithium ions. U.S. Pat. No. 5,294,503, issued on Mar. 15, 1994, to Chen-Kuo Huang et al. teaches the utilization of lithium-magnesium-silicon compounds as anodes in a rechargeable lithium battery. Other glassy-type compounds, containing for example boron, in which elemental lithium is dissolved, have also been known to be used as anode active materials in rechargeable lithium batteries. U.S. Pat. No. 5,284,721 issued to K. W. Beard on Feb. 8, 1994, describes compounds having the general formula of Li.sub.x M.sub.a X.sub.b for utilization in the anode of a lithium secondary battery, where M is one of scandium, titanium, yttrium or zirconium, and X is a chalcogen, usually oxygen or sulphur. In particular, K. W. Beard utilizes lithium titanium oxides as anode active compounds. Koksbang et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,090, issued on May 23, 1995 describe the use of lithium-manganese compounds of different oxygen contents in the anode and in the cathode of a rechargeable lithium battery. Yoshio Idota in U.S. Pat. No. 5,478,671 describes the use of a lithium-transition metal oxide or a lithium-transition metal vanadate as the anode-active material of a rechargeable lithium battery. There are several other instances in which a metal oxide or a metalloid oxide doped with lithium is the active material of the anode of a rechargeable lithium battery, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,468, issued on Aug. 13, 1996 to Nobuharu Koshiba et al. a rechargeable lithium battery anode is described, containing a lithium bearing titanate having the general formula Li.sub.x Ti.sub.y O.sub.4, and having a specific crystal structure. Tin oxide is also known to be capable of incorporating lithium ions and hence to form the negative-active component of the anode of a rechargeable lithium battery. It is noted, however, that the above discussed lithium-metal oxide compounds although capable of providing lithium secondary batteries having high energy density initially, often exhibit a noticeable drop in the energy density after repeated discharging and charging, suggesting that the insertion of lithium ions in the anode active component may become irreversible due to changes in crystal structure or grain size, or to similar effects. In other words, the above described oxide compounds may replace carbon as the conventional anode active material utilized in rechargeable lithium batteries, however, their readiness in incorporating lithium ions reversibly and repeatedly has not been clearly demonstrated.
There is a need for an anode active compound for use in a rechargeable lithium battery, which is oxidation and corrosion resistant, provides high reversible anode capacity even after repeated cycling and which is also dense.
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Children and adults make sand sculptures, snow sculptures and the like using toy buckets and toy shovels. For example, a person uses a toy bucket repetitively to make a sand castle. A person fills the toy bucket with sand using the toy shovel, flips the toy bucket upside down, and taps or hits the bottom of the bucket to release the sand article, which is in the shape of the interior of the bucket. In this way, the toy bucket is used like a mold.
Various shapes for the toy sand bucket can be used to create different cast shapes (e.g. castled tops). Other sand or snow toys have a multi-component mold. The pieces of the mold are attached together to form the mold body. After the mold is filled with sand or snow, the pieces of the mold body are carefully removed away from the casted sand or snow article. This avoids having to hit or tap the mold to separate the mold from the casted sand or snow article.
Another toy used for forming snow blocks includes a mold body and a strap. Before the person fills the mold with snow, the person must first ensure the strap lines the interior side surfaces and the bottom surface of the mold. After the person fills the body of the mold, the person pulls on both ends of the strap to help pull the casted snow article out of the mold.
Another toy used for molding sand includes a pump to extract water from the sand in the mold. The pump includes a bellow and a fabric or felt filter to allow water to pass through, but not sand. The pump also includes a valve to create suction when pumping. The pump additionally includes elastic bands to bias a piston in the pump towards a certain direction. Such a toy includes an ejector plate that is fixed to the pump mechanism. The ejector plate moves by a person sliding the mold relative to the ejector plate and the thereto fixed pump mechanism. Alternatively, a user turns a knob to actuate a rack and pinion gear that pushes the ejector plate and the thereto fixed pump mechanism relative to the mold.
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The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to ultrasound measurement probes, and more particularly to phased array ultrasound measurement probes.
Ultrasound measurement probes are used to inspect test objects in order identify and/or characterize defects, flaws, and other anomalies in the test object. Phased array ultrasound measurement probes are particularly useful in measuring the thickness of materials subject to corrosion or other wear. Use of ultrasound measurement probes generally causes wear on the probe itself until the probe is worn down, resulting in the entire probe being replaced. A probe may be replaced if a probe with a longer cable length is desired, such as when scanning a larger area. A probe may also be replaced if a different test controller is used, as test controller manufacturers may use probe connectors with different configurations.
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Particular embodiments generally relate to wireless transmitters.
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
FIG. 1 depicts a conventional transmitter 100. Differential in phase (I) and quadrature (Q) signals may be processed through separate channels. For example, the I and Q signals are input into digital programmable gain amplifiers (DPGAs) 102a/102b, which amplify the signals. Digital-to-analog converters (DACs) 104a/104b convert the digital I and Q signals to analog. The I and Q signals are then input into low pass filters (LPFs) 106a/106b, which provide attenuation of component noise, quantitization noise, and also provide gain.
Upconverters 108a/108b receive the I and Q signals from low pass filters (LPFs) 106a/106b. Also, a synthesizer 110 generates a local oscillator (LO) signal. Frequency divider/LO generator 112 then generates the I version for the LO signal (LO I) and Q version for the LO signal (LO Q). The LO I signal is sent to upconverter 108a and the LO Q signal is sent to upconverter 108b. Upconverters 108a and 108b upconvert the I and Q signals (at the baseband) to differential radio frequency (RF) signals. The differential RF signals output from upconverter 108a and upconverter 108b are summed through current summing circuitry 114 and converted to a single-ended output through a balun 116.
Balun 116 outputs the RF signal to power amplifier (PA) buffers 118 (or pre-power amplifiers). Each PA buffer 118 may be used for a wireless band, such as second generation (2G) high band (HB), 2G low band (LB), third generation (3G) HB, 3G HB/LB, and 3G LB. PA buffers 118 are used to drive external power amplifiers that are off of an integrated chip (IC). The filtering and linearity that is required by wireless applications is often not sufficiently provided by low pass filters 106.
FIG. 2A depicts a conventional differential PA buffer 118. Upconverters 108a/108b include Gm transistor pairs 202a/202b and mixers 204a/204b, respectively. The baseband I and Q signals are received at Gm transistor pairs 202a and 202b, respectively. Gm transistor pairs 202a/202b convert a voltage to a current.
Mixer 204a and mixer 204b receive the LO I and LO Q signals, respectively, and upconvert the I and Q signals to differential RF signals. The differential RF signals are combined in cascode transistor pair 206. The combined RF signals are then alternating current (AC) coupled through AC coupling capacitors 208a and 208b to PA buffer 118. For example, PA buffer 118 includes a differential pair of transistors 210 and transistors 211a and 211b. PA buffer 118 buffers the signal and outputs a differential signal to balun 116. Balun 116 then outputs the RF signal to a power amplifier at Pout.
FIG. 2B depicts a conventional single-ended PA buffer 118. Gm transistor pairs 202a/202b, mixers 204a/204b, and cascode transistor pair 206 operate similarly as described with respect to FIG. 2A. The differential RF signal from cascode transistor pair 206 is output to balun 116. The single ended output of balun 116 is then AC coupled through an AC coupling capacitor 208 to PA buffer 118. PA buffer 118 includes a first transistor 212a and a second transistor 212b that buffer the signal. A single-ended output is then output to the power amplifier.
In both examples in FIGS. 2A and 2B, PA buffers 118 add noise and distortion, which affects the linearity of the signal.
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Pain may be defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage. Chronic pain afflicts 40% of the U.S. population and is associated with numerous deleterious medical conditions. Persistent and highly debilitating, chronic pain is generally accompanied by weakness, sleeplessness, a lack of appetite, irritability and depression. Over time, the quality of life is profoundly affected and patients are often incapable of accomplishing the simple tasks of everyday life.
Currently used pain treatments apply a three-step pain ladder which recommends the administration of drugs as follows: non-opioids (e.g., aspirin, acetaminophen, etc.), then, as necessary, mild opioids (e.g., codeine) and finally strong opioids (e.g., morphine). Despite this arsenal of drugs, over 50% of patients with chronic pain are not effectively treated.
The ineffectiveness of current pain treatments is, inter alia, due to significant toxicity issues with existing drug therapies. Mild to severe toxicity is induced by all classes of pain drugs: non steroidal inflammatory drugs cause gastro-intestinal damage, coxibs are associated with heart failure, and opioids are responsible for numerous side effects including respiratory depression, sedation, digestive malfunctions and addiction.
Transcription factors are important factors in multiple signaling pathways and frequently control the concurrent expression of numerous genes. Many transcription factors are involved in the regulation of the expression of genes that are involved in pain including, but not limited to, POU factors, upstream stimulatory factors (USF), EGR1, cAMP-response element binding protein/activating transcription factors (CREB/ATF), activating protein 1 (AP1), serum response factor (SRF), promoter selective transcription factor (SP1) and the runt related transcription factor 1 (RUNX1).
Thus, there may be significant therapeutic potential in inhibiting transcription factors in order to monitor the expression of genes involved in pain. Accordingly, what is needed are selective, readily available non-toxic transcription factor inhibitors.
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The present invention relates generally to excavation apparatus, and more particularly relates to earthworking tooth and adapter assemblies.
Large excavating buckets, loading buckets and the like are typically provided with a series of teeth which are each formed from two primary parts--a relatively large adapter and a relatively small replaceable point. The adapter has a base portion which is connectable to the forward lower lip of the bucket and a nose portion onto which the tooth point is removably secured by a suitable connecting pin. Compared to that of the adapter, the useful life of the point is rather short--the adapter typically lasting through five ore more point replacements until the tremendous earth forces and abrasion to which it is subjected necessitates its replacement.
Because the much larger adapter is considerably more expensive than its smaller replaceable point, it is desirable to replace the point before it has been worn away to the extent that the nose portion of the adapter, disposed within a pocket in the rear end of the tooth, point, is exposed to earth abrasion and also worn away, thereby undesirably loosening the adapter/point fit when a new tooth point is installed on the adapter. On the other hand, it is also desirable not to prematurely replace a tooth point, still having a portion of its useful operating life left, simply to protect the nose portion of its associated adapter from earth abrasion. Such premature tooth point replacement, of course, can also significantly increase the overall expense associated with the particular excavation or loading process.
The proper economic balance is thus struck when the tooth point is replaced just prior to the time at which it wears through to its adapter nose. However, in practice, it is quite difficult to precisely determine this ideal tooth point replacement time, and considerable skill and experience are required to even approximate it because if the adapter nose becomes visible through a side wall portion of its associated tooth point it is usually too late to prevent earth abrasion wear on the adapter nose and the relatively expensive adapter must be prematurely replaced. Because there has heretofore been no reliable method for precisely determining the time at which the adapter nose is about to be exposed through a worn away portion of its tooth point, tooth points of this type are generally removed and replaced well before this tooth wear condition is reached.
Another problem also exists in conventional tooth and adapter assemblies and relates to the preservation of the necessary snug interfit between the adapter nose and the tooth point pocket which receives it. Under normal tooth operating load conditions, a flat top side surface of the tooth pocket bears against and is supported by a corresponding flat top side surface of the adapter nose, and this tooth-supporting force is fairly well distributed over the flat top side surface of the adapter nose.
However, under extreme operating loads the tooth point tends to bend forwardly and downwardly relative to the adapter nose. This undesirably concentrates the adapter nose/tooth engagement along the top front edge of the adapter nose, thereby substantially accelerating nose wear and loosening the critical nose/tooth fit. In turn, this often necessitates premature adapter replacement.
In view of the foregoing, it is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide tooth and adapter assembly apparatus which eliminates or minimizes the above-mentioned and other problems, limitations and disadvantages typically associated with conventional tooth and adapter assemblies.
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In a liquid sealed vibration isolating device such as an engine mount, an elastic partition member is provided in a partition member for partitioning a liquid chamber into a primary liquid chamber and secondary liquid chamber, in order to absorb an internal pressure of the primary liquid chamber. A relief valve is integrally provided in an outer circumferential part of the elastic partition member. When the cavitation generating condition where the cavitation is generated in the primary liquid chamber has been created at the time an excessive amplitude vibration such as to generate the cavitation is inputted, the relief valve is opened so as to leak hydraulic liquid of the secondary liquid chamber into the primary liquid chamber, so that the hydraulic pressure of the primary liquid chamber is heightened to thereby prevent the cavitation. This type of the vibration isolating device is known to the public.
FIG. 15 is a plan view of the elastic partition member 100 as referred to above. The elastic partition member 100 is formed in a circular shape and retained in fitting engagement with a rigid part of a partition member. An elastic movable diaphragm 110 is located in a center part of the elastic partition member 100, and a thick rigid frame section 120 is located in the form of a concentric circle in an outer circumference of the elastic movable diaphragm 110 and configured to fix an outer circumferential portion of the elastic movable diaphragm 110. In the radial direction of the elastic partition member 100, a relief valve 130 is integrally formed outwardly of the rigid frame section 120. An opening angle θ of the relief valve 130 in relation to the rigid frame section 120 is constant in the longitudinal direction.
A plurality (four in this example) of relief valves 130 are provided on the outer circumferential portion of the elastic movable diaphragm 110 at proper spaced intervals in the circumferential direction and are easy to bend relative to the rigid frame section 120 by a bending groove 140 which is formed along an outside of the rigid frame section 120 and opened to the primary liquid chamber.
An enlarged part of the drawing is a cross sectional view of a part of the relief valve 130. In this cross section, the relief valve 130 extends radially outwardly from the rigid frame section 120 and obliquely upwardly toward the primary liquid chamber so as to project into a leak passage 150.
The leak passage 150 is a passage which is provided in the rigid part of the partition member for retaining the elastic partition member 100 in an engagement relationship and which provides communication between a primary liquid chamber 170 and a secondary liquid chamber 180. The leak passage 150 is closed when a distal end of the relief valve 130 comes into sealing contact with an inner wall 160 of the leak passage 150, and is opened when the distal end of the relief valve 130 is brought out of contact with the inner wall 160 of the leak passage 150, whereby to provide communication between the primary liquid chamber 170 and the secondary liquid chamber 180. At the time the cavitation generating condition is not satisfied (at the time of the normal condition), the leak passage 150 is closed.
When meeting the cavitation generating condition, since the primary liquid chamber 170 side becomes a negative pressure, the hydraulic liquid within the leak passage 150 pushes up and opens the relief valve 130 from the secondary liquid chamber 180 side so as to create a relief valve opening condition where the hydraulic liquid is leaked and flows from the secondary liquid chamber 180 side into the primary liquid chamber 170, so that the hydraulic pressure of the primary liquid chamber 170 is heightened thereby to prevent the generation of the cavitation.
FIG. 16 is a plan view of the partition member 200. The partition member 200 has a circular rigid member 210 made of metal and the like for supporting the elastic partition member 100 and is formed with an opening portion 220 at a center thereof. An annular fixing section 230 is provided around the opening portion 220, and the rigid frame section 120 is fixed on this fixing section 230. The elastic movable diaphragm 110 surrounded by the rigid frame section 120 is visible through the opening portion 220.
In an outer circumferential side of the fixing section 230, valve openings 240 are formed on a concentric circle of the fixing section 230 at 90° intervals. Each of the relief valves 130 faces the valve opening 240.
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to methods of treating patients with primary brain tumor, such as glioblastoma, by administering a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) antagonist.
2. Description of Related Art
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression is nearly ubiquitous in human cancer, consistent with its role as a key mediator of tumor neoangiogenesis. Blockade of VEGF function, by binding to the molecule or its VEGFR-2 receptor, inhibits growth of implanted tumor cells in multiple different xenograft models (see, for example, Gerber et al. (2000) Cancer Res. 60:6253-6258). A soluble VEGF antagonist, termed a “VEGF trap” or “VEGFR1R2 trap” has been described (Kim et al. (2002) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99:11399-404; Holash et al. (2002) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99:11393-8), which publications are herein specifically incorporated by reference in their entirety.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to an apparatus and method for providing and using optimized function variants in compiled code when return codes of function or method calls are ignored upon return.
2. Background of the Invention
A compiler is a computer program, or set of programs, that translates source code, in a high-level programming language, into code of a lower level language, e.g., assembly language or machine language. Commonly, the output of the compiler has a form suitable for processing by another program, such as a linker, but it may also be output in a human-readable format. The most common use of a compiler is to translate source code such that an executable program is generated. Compilers are likely to perform many, or all, of the following operations: lexical analysis, pre-processing, parsing, semantic analysis, code generation, and code optimization.
One type of code optimization that may be performed by a compiler is to perform inline expansion, i.e. inlining, of function calls or method calls to achieve a performance improvement over non-inline function, or method, calls. That is, functions within source code may be specified as inline function calls thereby requesting that the compiler inline the function, i.e. copy the complete contents of the function, into the resulting translated code. Inline expansion is typically used to eliminate the inherent time overhead that occurs in calling a function. Inline expansion is typically used for functions that execute frequently, as this overhead is more significant in this case. Inlining also has a space benefit for very small functions and is an enabling transformation for other optimizations.
While inlining may provide a performance benefit, there are some inefficiencies associated with inlining. One major inefficiency is the problem with code bloat. That is, each time an inlined function or method call appears in the source code, it is replaced with the full content of the function or method being called. This may significantly increase the size of the resulting executable code, e.g., if a function is called 200 times, there will be 200 copies of that function. This code bloat may lead to slower performance and “thrashing.” For example, if the executable size of the program is too big, the system may spend most of its time going out to disk to fetch the next chunk of code thereby causing the system to “thrash” on memory pages.
In addition, often times in code functions are called without checking the return code or value. For example, a memory allocation function may be called in order to allocated a register but the calling code may not do anything with the value returned by the memory allocation function. When this happens, all the code that went into generating the return value may result in wasted processor cycles and memory. This is made even more of an issue if this function code is inlined and thus, copied many times into the resulting executable code.
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Among the naturally occurring tetraborate ores, relatively few are ubiquitous, thus commercially valuable. As examples, there may be mentioned tincal or borax (Na.sub.2 B.sub.4 O.sub.7.10H.sub.2 O), kernite or rasorite (Na.sub.2 B.sub.4 O.sub.7.4H.sub.2 O), tincalconite (Na.sub.2 B.sub.4 O.sub.7.5H.sub.2 O), and the most common refined tetraborates, such as borax pentahydrate (Na.sub.2 B.sub.4 O.sub.7.5H.sub.2 O) and anhydrous borax (Na.sub.2 B.sub.4 O.sub.7). These are given as illustrative examples of boron-containing minerals which may be employed in the practice of the present invention, but it is to be understood that the invention is in no way intended to be limited thereto. In fact, this invention is quite versatile and is designed to utilize any of the tetraborate ores and refined tetraborates for manufacturing ammoniumtriborate and ammoniumpentaborate.
If the tetraborate ore is calcined to render it anhydrous prior to treatment, methylborate-ammonia adduct [(CH.sub.3 O).sub.3 B.NH.sub.3 ] is produced which can be further processed into ammoniumpentaborate, as described in my co-pending application, Ser. No. 135,177, filed Mar. 28, 1980, and in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,177, issued Apr. 1, 1980.
A quantitative esterification of boric acid to methylborate in the presence of sulfuric acid has been earlier demonstrated by H. I. Schlesinger, H. C. Brown, D. L. Mayfield and J. R. Gilbreath, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 75, 213-215 (1953). Several patents dealt with the recovery of boron content from ores through the formation and distillation of the volatile methylborate (R. P. Calvert et al, U.S. Pat. No. 1,308,577, 1919; F. H. May et al, U.S Pat. No. 2,833,623, 1958).
Addition compounds between methylborate, ammonia and amines have been described by Goubeau et al, (Z. anorg. u. allgem. Chem. 266, 27-37, 1951; ibid, 266, 161-174, 1951). H. A. Lehmann and W. Schmidt (Z. Chem. 5, 65-66 and 111, 1965) have described ammoniumpentaborate formation from boric acid and ammonia in polar solvents. But, the methylborate-ammonia adduct has not been prepared directly from alkali metal borates, such as tincal (borax) or other tetraborate ores.
As is also mentioned above, the commercially important ammonium pentaborate can be produced in accordance with the present invention. Ammoniumpentaborate was previously manufactured exclusively from the less abundantly occurring alkaline earth pentaborates, such as colemanite, Gerstley borate (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,412; Swiss Pat. No. 354,760; Belgian Pat. No. 631,217; Italian Pat. No. 794,945) and potassiumpentaborate (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 2,948,592). Transformation of borax to ammoniumpentaborate in dilute (10%) aqueous ammoniumchloride solution at 100.degree. C. was earlier reported (U.S. Pat. No. 2,867,502; Ch. O. Wilson et al, Advances in Chem., Serial No. 32, 20-26, 1961). In these processes, the separation of sodiumchloride and ammoniumpentaborate was cumbersome. Most importantly, the distillation of a large volume of water from the pentaborate required high energy. As will subsequently be described, the process according to the present invention, which uses different reagents and solvent, requires significantly lower energy.
As a sole product, ammoniumtetraborate (biborate of ammonia) was obtained from alkali metal or alkaline earth metal borate ores upon the treatment of their water suspension with ammoniumcarbonate, ammoniumhydrocarbonate, ammoniumsulfite or ammoniumbisulfite (Ch. Masson et al, Brit. Pat. No. 10,361, 1897). But, in the absence of methanol, no ammoniumtriborate (NH.sub.4.B.sub.3 O.sub.5.3CH.sub.3 --OH) could be formed.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a bulldozer assembly and, more particularly, to a bulldozer assembly in which the length of the push arms which connect the bulldozer blade to the vehicle may be extended or retracted to angle the bulldozer blade.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typically, vehicles which had the capability of providing an angled bulldozer blade utilized a C-frame assembly to support the blade and the connecting arms. The C-frame assembly was large, added considerable weight to the machine, and caused the machine to be heavily unbalanced. Further, the C-frame assembly positioned the bulldozer blade away from the front of the machine which sometimes generated load balance and distribution problems.
Prior art vehicles, which were equipped with bulldozer assemblies, had a blade and push arms which formed a U-shaped structure. These U-shaped structures were relatively weak in their ability to withstand side loads. As shown in Stedman et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,825,074 entitled "Interacting Bulldozer Stabilizer and Equalizer Bar," issued July 23, 1974 and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the vehicle's ability to handle side loads could be enhanced by employing a single rigid stabilizing link pivotally coupled between the forward portion of the main frame of the vehicle and the bulldozer assembly. This so-called "tag link" resists relative lateral movement therebetween. However, this tag link could not conveniently be used with conventional type angle blades which were adjustable.
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{
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This invention relates to a foldable knife or tool and more particularly to a mechanism for automatically locking a tool or knife blade into extended position with respect to a handle.
One of the inherent problems with folding, tools is the tendency of the tool blade to fold back toward the handle during use. Aside from interrupting the work, a collapsing blade can damage the workpiece or injure the user.
A wide variety of locking mechanisms have been devised to overcome this problem. At one end of the spectrum are the mechanisms which require additional manipulation to lock the tool blade into extended position, and further manipulations to unlock the tool blade so that it may be refolded. While these types of locking mechanisms can be very effective, the additional steps required to lock and unlock the blade may be considered undesirable. Mechanisms of this type are disclosed in Leatherman U.S. Pat. No. 4,888,869, and German Patent No. 822,507.
At the other end of the spectrum are automatic locking mechanisms which require no additional manipulation beyond extending and refolding the blade. The major disadvantage of these types of locking mechanisms is that they may not be reliable to lock the blade in extended position. An example of such an automatic locking mechanism is shown in Leatherman U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,862, disclosing a flat portion on the base of a blade interacting with a spring. This type of locking mechanism is sometimes called a "slip back" lock.
In the middle of the spectrum are locking mechanisms which lock automatically, but require additional manipulation to unlock. Examples of these types of mechanisms are shown in French Patent No. 83,10567; Hart et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,302,877; Leatherman U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,862; and Neely U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,379.
While the locking mechanism disclosed, for example, in FIG. 6 of Leatherman U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,862 is functional, it is not completely satisfactory. One problem is that a lip defining one side of a notch receiving a spring-loaded catch can act as a cam and force the catch out of the notch, releasing the blade from a desired locked position.
In folding knives or multi-blade tools, the base of each blade or tool bit typically has a projection, sometimes called a "kick," which projects a small distance beyond the shank of a tool bit or a sharpened edge portion of a blade, to rest on structure within the handle or other part of the knife which holds the bits or blades when they are folded. The kick acts as a limit stop to hold the tools or blades in desired positions and prevent a sharpened edge from contacting any surfaces inside the handle when the blades are in their folded configuration. For a tool such as that shown in Leatherman U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,862, it has been necessary in the past to remove material so as to bevel an outside face of the kick of each blade or tool bit located adjacent a sidewall portion of a handle in the form of a U-shaped channel, to avoid undesired sideward forces on the blade and allow the kick to rest on the inside of the base of the U shape of the channel. Forming such a bevel is a time-consuming additional operation which adds to the cost of such folding-blade tools.
What is needed, then, is an improved locking mechanism which is engaged automatically upon placing a blade in a desired position and which is less susceptible than previously known locking mechanisms to being disengaged by the very forces it is intended to resist in a multi-blade tool which can be manufactured economically.
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{
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Anti-lock braking systems are used in motor vehicles, including some motorcycles and motor scooters, to prevent vehicle wheels from locking against rotation when excessive braking force is applied to an individual wheel brake. Such systems control the brake fluid pressure applied to a wheel brake in a manner which maximizes the braking force yet allows the wheel to predominantly roll, rather than slide, across a road surface. A typical anti-lock braking system includes a number of wheel speed sensors, an electronic control unit (“ECU”) which monitors the wheel speed sensors to detect and respond to wheel lockup, and a motorized hydraulic control unit (“HCU”) which may be actuated by the ECU in response to wheel lockup to reduce and ultimately modulate the brake fluid pressure that is delivered to the affected wheel brake.
Anti-lock braking systems used in automobiles such as passenger cars and light trucks are conventionally designed as multiple channel units where the ECU and HCU are integrated to form an electro-hydraulic control unit (“ECHU”). The integration of the ECU and HCU permits constituent elements such as valve solenoids to be surface mounted on the ECU control circuit to reduce the complexity of assembly, while the provision of multiple channels permits the pumping elements servicing each channel to be driven by a common, suitably specified motor. The predominant method of providing multiple channels in an EHCU employs pairs of opposed piston pumps driven by a single cam or eccentric mounted on a motor shaft, so that the opposed piston pumps and common HCU motor are oriented perpendicular to each other within the overall device.
Anti-lock braking systems used on motorcycles and motor scooters are typically adapted from the multi-channel, integrated designs described above due to economies of scale. However while such systems can provide the braking performance required in these vehicles, their designs do not efficiently adapt to the spatial constraints and opportunities present in these vehicle framing systems. Accordingly, there is a need for a hydraulic modulator unit that is adapted for use with motorcycles, motor scooters, and other such vehicles having a generally open, comparatively planar frames.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a photometric apparatus and photometric method and, more particularly, to a photometric apparatus and photometric method for obtaining photometric values by making use of an integrator capacitor that integrates a photocurrent produced from an optical sensor.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional photometric apparatus for obtaining photometric values by utilizing an integrator capacitor that integrates a photocurrent produced from a light-receiving device such as an optical sensor is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 324328/1992. In the conventional technique disclosed in the specification of this laid-open publication, whenever charging voltage for an integrator capacitor charged with a photocurrent reaches a reference voltage, a pulse is produced. A photometric value is obtained either based on the number of pulses produced for a given time or from the time in which the charging voltage reaches the reference voltage.
However, where a photometric value is obtained based on the number of pulses produced in a given period with this conventional example, the same number of pulses are produced, whether the given time passes immediately after a certain pulse is generated or the given time passes immediately prior to generation of the next pulse. Therefore, the same photometric value is indicated, although the actual amounts of light incident on the optical sensor differ in practice. That is, the conventional example has the problem that the same photometric value is output if actual amounts of brightness (amounts of light) are different, thus providing poor accuracy. Where the time taken to reach the reference voltage is measured and the amount of incident light is calculated from the measuring time, if the amount of light incident on the optical sensor is small, a long time is necessary. Hence, the efficiency is low.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a photometric apparatus and photometric method capable of measuring a wide range of incident light amounts accurately and efficiently.
To achieve the above-described object, the present invention provides a photometric apparatus comprising: an optical sensor for generating a photocurrent according to the amount of incident light; an integrator capacitor for integrating the photocurrent from the optical sensor; a voltage detection means for detecting the voltage across the integrator capacitor; an integration time-measuring means for measuring an integration time for which the integrator capacitor integrates the photocurrent; resetting-and-controlling means for resetting the integrator capacitor whenever the voltage across the integrator capacitor exceeds a given voltage value; a totalizing means for finding a total voltage value integrated by the integrator capacitor during a given time; and a photometric means for finding a photometric value based on the total voltage value and on the integration time from the integration time-measuring means.
According to the configuration of the present invention described above, the photometric value is found based on the total integrated voltage value and integration time, the total integrated voltage value being owing to the photocurrent integrated by the integrator capacitor for the given time. Therefore, accurate photometry can be carried out. Furthermore, whenever the voltage across the integrator capacitor exceeds the given voltage, the integrator capacitor is reset. Also, the total voltage value integrated by the integrator capacitor for the given time is found. A voltage value exceeding the capacitance of the integrator capacitor is obtained as the total voltage value. Consequently, the capacitance of the integrator capacitor can be reduced. If an integrator capacitor with a small capacitance is used, high-resolution photometry can be performed.
Furthermore, the present invention provides a photometric apparatus that is based on the above-described configuration and further characterized in that the integration time measured by the integration time-measuring means during the given time is made equal to the given time subtracted by the time for which the resetting- and-controlling means are resetting the integrator capacitor during the given time.
In this configuration, the actual integration time within the given time can be found accurately. Therefore, accurate photometry can be carried out.
In addition, the present invention provides a photometric apparatus that is based on the above-described configuration and further characterized in that the totalizing means accumulates the difference between the voltage value of the integrator capacitor at the start of integration and the voltage value of the integrator capacitor immediately prior to resetting done by the resetting-and-controlling means after the start of the integration on each resetting during a given time to thereby obtain a sum value and that the difference between the voltage value of the integrator capacitor after a lapse of a given time and the voltage value of the integrator capacitor at the start of integration is added to the aforementioned sum value, thus deriving the total voltage value.
This configuration makes it possible to find the total voltage value accurately, the total voltage value being owing to integration by the integrator capacitor within the given time. Hence, accurate photometry can be carried out.
Further, the present invention provides a photometric apparatus that is based on the above-described configuration and further characterized in that the given time is 9.2 milliseconds or an integral multiple of it.
In this configuration, execution of accurate photometry is enabled if the amount of incident light varies (e.g., alternates) when the light is alternating light such as light from a fluorescent lamp.
Additionally, the present invention provides a photometric apparatus that is based on the above-described configuration and further characterized in that a voltage detection means has a detector for detecting the voltage across the aforementioned integrator capacitor at regular intervals of time. In this apparatus, the given voltage for the resetting-and-controlling means is set lower as the amount of incident light is increased.
In this configuration, if the amount of incident light is large and the voltage integrated by the integrator capacitor rises at a high rate, the voltage across the integrator capacitor is prevented from reaching the saturation range in the detection range of the detection portion or the saturation range of the integrator capacitor itself on detection of the detection portion. In consequence, accurate photometry can be performed.
Further, the present invention provides a photometric apparatus that is based on the above-described configuration and further characterized in that at least two integrator capacitors having different capacitances are included and that these capacitors are selectively used, only one at a time, according to the amount of incident light.
In this configuration, the capacitance of the integrator capacitor can be selected according to the amount of incident light. Therefore, high-resolution photometry can be carried out.
Further, the present invention provides a photometric apparatus that is based on the above-described configuration and further characterized in that the voltage detection means has an A/D converter for converting the voltage value across the integrator capacitor into a digital value at regular intervals of time except during resetting performed by the resetting-and-controlling means and that the integration time-measuring means measures a product as an integration time, the product being obtained by multiplying the number of A/D conversions made by the A/D converter within a given time by a certain period.
This configuration makes it possible to accurately find the actual integration time within the given time. Consequently, accurate photometry can be performed.
Further, the present invention provides a photometric apparatus that is based on the above-described configuration and further characterized in that at least two optical sensors are included and that these sensors are selectively used, only one at a time. This configuration can cope with multiple-split photometry.
Another aspect of the present invention provides a photometric method comprising the steps of: (a) producing a photocurrent according to the amount of incident light; (b) integrating the photocurrent; (c) detecting the voltage obtained by integrating the photocurrent; (d) resetting the integration whenever the integrated voltage exceeds a given voltage and repeating the steps (b), (c), and (d); (e) finding a total voltage value integrated during a given time; (f) measuring the time for which the photocurrent is integrated; and (g) finding a photometric value based on the integration time and on the total voltage value. This method involving these steps permits execution of accurate photometry.
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{
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Recently, as electronic devices or appliances trend toward miniaturization, low power consumption, high performance, multi-functionality, and so on, there is a demand for semiconductor devices capable of storing information in various electronic devices or appliances such as a computer, a portable communication device, and so on, and research and development for such semiconductor and related electronic devices have been conducted for the semiconductor devices. Examples of such semiconductor devices include semiconductor devices which can store data using a characteristic switched between different resistance states according to an applied voltage or current, and can be implemented in various configurations, for example, an RRAM (resistive random access memory), a PRAM (phase change random access memory), an FRAM (ferroelectric random access memory), an MRAM (magnetic random access memory), an E-fuse, etc.
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{
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The present invention relates to a cryptographic communication system and a cryptographic communication method and, particularly, to a cryptographic communication system and a cryptographic communication method that enhance security.
In a communication system, communication data is encrypted to prevent wiretapping, falsification and the like of the communication data. One of techniques for the encryption is common key cryptosystem in which both ends of communication use a common encryption key (which is referred to hereinafter as a common key). In the common key cryptosystem, it is necessary for both ends of communication to share the common key without a third party knowing. One of techniques to achieve that is public key cryptosystem using RSA (registered trademark), elliptic curve cryptography and the like.
A technique to provide an integrated circuit that can prevent use of an illegally copied IC is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010-226603. A technique to generate a security word such as RSA public key or secret key using a circuit for generating unique data that is physically uncopyable or another element to thereby ensure security of an integrated circuit used in electronic equipment is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (Translation of PCT Application) No. 2010-527219.
Further, a technique to reduce time for key exchange in a communication system to perform cryptographic communication using a common encryption key through a local area network is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-341528. A technique to easily verify completeness of data in data transmission/reception by ad-hoc wireless connection is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-26899.
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{
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A clutch, in particular a multiple plate wet clutch, generally includes an input component and an output component, which are supported coaxially to each other so that they can rotate with respect to each other. A first set of frictional elements are non-rotatably connected to the input component and are capable of being axially displaced. Similarly, a second set of frictional elements are non-rotatably connected to the output component and are also typically capable of being axially displaced. Typically, the frictional elements of the first set are disposed alternately with the frictional elements of the second set in the axial direction. A compression device axially compresses the structure of first and second frictional components and the first set of frictional elements frictionally engage the second set of frictional elements. Depending on the degree of compression, a partial or complete transmission of torque between the input and output components is achieved in this way. Typically, a clutch of this sort can be placed in a drivetrain before or after the transmission, in particular a dual-clutch transmission. The clutch can be used for selectively interrupting a flow of torque during a gear change by forming a partial or complete connection between the input and output components.
A tooth arrangement is typically used for the torsional support of the frictional partners on their respective sides, such that the frictional partners are axially movable. If the clutch is only partially engaged, then the torque transmitted between the frictional partners brings about a relative rotation of the frictional partners relative to the tooth arrangement of the sides assigned to them. This rotation exerts a force operating in a circumferential direction, which puts a strain on the tooth arrangement of the frictional partners, so that the movability of the frictional partners in the tooth arrangement may be made more difficult. The greater the transmitted torque, the more severely the frictional partners tend to stick to the tooth arrangement and resist axial movement. In a normal stack of first and second frictional partners, under a load provided on one side by the compression device, the force operating axially on one frictional partner may therefore decrease as its distance from the actuating side increases.
This loss of axial force may lead to torque hysteresis, which may make it difficult to precisely control the torque transmissible by means of the clutch. A connection between the axial force exerted by the compression device and a rate of transmission of torque by the clutch can depend on a prehistory of the actuation, in particular on whether an increasing or decreasing compression force is affected.
If the clutch is part of a drivetrain of a motor vehicle, then this may detract from precise gear changing and gentle acceleration with minimum jerking. The object of the invention is therefore to specify a clutch which realizes improved controllability by reducing torque hysteresis.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2013-84692 describes a wiring substrate incorporating an electronic component such as a chip type capacitor element (chip capacitor). The wiring substrate includes a core substrate, and the core substrate includes an accommodation hole (cavity) that accommodates the electronic component. The wiring substrate includes a wiring pattern and a via (via wire) to electrically connect the electronic component to a semiconductor chip that is mounted on the wiring substrate.
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{
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Communication between computers creates a point of vulnerability with respect to the security of the data traffic and, in some cases, even the endpoint computers themselves. Many techniques are available for addressing network security. Techniques exist for protecting application-to-application communication on a single logical connection, such as secure socket layer (SSL), often used for web browser to web server hypertext HTTP traffic. Other techniques exist to protect all data traffic between endpoints by protecting the network connection itself, rather than traffic between two applications. Examples of this are several forms of virtual private network, such as Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP)/Internet Protocol Security (IPSec). A virtual private network encrypts at one end and decrypts at the other to secure all traffic between the endpoints from listening and man-in-the-middle attacks.
However, such secure protocols often require special set up, such as IPSec certificates or use not standard ports that tend to be blocked by firewalls at a corporate level. Tunneling traffic may be blocked at an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that blocks Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE blocking). Yet another inconvenience to tunneled protocols is the use of network address translation (NAT) with locally-assigned IP addresses.
Additionally, even when a secure channel is created, an interruption in the lower-level connection, by either a routine timeout or network problem, may strand the upper level application connections. Recovering from such an interruption in service often requires application-to-application recovery after reconnection of the network.
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{
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1. Technical Field
The invention generally relates to the focusing of images captured by cameras.
2. Related Art
Various auto-focus techniques have been developed to provide in-focus camera images. In one such technique, a digital camera lens may be translated to various incremental positions at different distances from an image sensor. The image sensor captures an image at each incremental position while the lens remains stationary. A sharpness filter may be applied to each image to provide an associated sharpness score for each image. The lens position associated with the highest sharpness score may then be used for capturing in-focus images.
Unfortunately, this approach can sometimes be problematic for fine-grained incremental changes between lens positions. In such cases, images taken at adjacent or nearby positions may exhibit little difference from each other. Consequently, their associated sharpness scores may also exhibit very little difference. As a result, it can become difficult for a processor performing an auto-focus process to clearly identify a preferred lens position associated with an in-focus image over other lens positions associated with slightly out-of-focus images. Moreover, if there is little difference between the images in a given range, the processor may take longer and consume excessive processor resources to analyze a potentially large number of similar images in the range.
Although various non-linear functions (e.g., Sobel filters or Laplacian filters) may be used in an attempt to further distinguish between similar images, such functions are typically computationally-intensive and therefore require additional time and/or additional processor resources. Such implementations can accordingly increase the cost and decrease the overall efficiency of the auto-focus process.
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{
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My invention relates to an overdrive protection circuit, and particularly to an overdrive protection circuit that limits the gain of a broadband frequency amplifier in a power line carrier system.
In previous power line carrier systems, the gain of a broadband frequency amplifier was controlled by a feedback loop using the magnitude of a pilot frequency signal. When the broadband frequency amplifier was turned on, or when the feedback loop was switched into the circuit, large magnitude signals in the broadband of frequencies tended to overdrive the amplifier. As a result, the pilot frequency signal was suppressed, and the gain of the amplifier was kept too high so that the signals were distorted, or so that those operations in the power line carrier system that depended on the pilot frequency signal were faulty.
Accordingly, a primary object of my invention is to provide a new and improved overdrive protection circuit for power line carrier systems.
Another object of my invention is to provide a new and improved circuit for use with power line carrier systems to maintain the gain of a broadband frequency amplifier at the desired level, even though the pilot frequency signal may be lost or suppressed.
Another general object of my invention is to provide a new and improved circuit that prevents overdrive and thus improves the reliability and quality of a power line carrier system.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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(1) Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is a method of manipulating data between applications on an handheld electronic devices.
(2) Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
Generally known methods of obtaining data from one application for use in another application require a user to go through multiple procedural steps. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, a Windows PC user who intends on emailing a content of a website 10 to a friend will need to move the cursor to “file,” click on “file” for a pull down menu 11, and then move the cursor to “send to” and initiate another pull down menu 12, and then move the cursor to “page by E-mail,” and then click on “page by E-mail.”
Similarity, a user could also use copy-and-paste function to copy information from one application to paste onto another application. This typically requires the user to manually select and choose a copy function, close one application, open another application, then manually select and chose a paste function.
When the applications are utilized on a single window handheld device, these required steps become very tedious and time consuming.
Thus, there is still a need for relatively more efficient ways to retrieve data from one application for use in another application.
All referenced patents, applications and literatures are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. Furthermore, where a definition or use of a term in a reference, which is incorporated by reference herein, is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply. The invention may seek to satisfy one or more of the above-mentioned desires. Although the present invention may obviate one or more of the above-mentioned desires, it should be understood that some aspects of the invention might not necessarily obviate them.
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{
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The present invention relates to a transmission for automobiles, and more particularly to a hydraulic transmission equipped with a lock-up clutch.
A fluid torque converter such as is now widely used for a hydraulic transmission for automobiles comprises an impeller connected to the engine output shaft, a turbine connected to the input shaft of a gear transmission mechanism, and a stator adapted to deflect the flow of fluid which returns from said turbine to said impeller in order to effect torque conversion between the engine output shaft and the input shaft of the gear transmission mechanism, according to the difference between the rotational speed of said output shaft and said input shaft, while transmitting rotational power. In this torque converter, there exists inevitably a slippage between the impeller and the turbine even under the optimum operating condition where the rotational speed of the turbine has almost approached the rotational speed of the impeller. This slippage lowers the power transmission efficiency as compared with that of direct power transmission by a mechanical clutch. This results in poor fuel consumption of the automobile, which leads to problems regarding economy of petroleum and quality of exhaust gas.
In order to solve these problems, a hydraulic transmission system equipped with a lock-up clutch has been proposed. This system includes in parallel a hydraulic transmission, as, for example, a torque converter, and a friction clutch, the latter being adapted to be selectively actuated for effecting direct transmission, according to the operational condition of the automobile.
Various types of hydraulic transmissions with lock-up clutches have been proposed, including a typical one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,338,358 and our former proposal set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,108,289. However, one problem concerned with these known types of hydraulic transmissions having lock-up clutches is that the axial length of the transmission becomes substantially longer than that of a corresponding hydraulic transmission having no lock-up clutch, due to the fact that the lock-up clutch is contained in a transmission housing which encloses a turbine and stator in its front portion and provides an impeller by its rear portion. The lock-up clutch is positioned between the front end wall of the housing and the turbine and generally includes a piston or diaphragm which operates as a hydraulic actuator for the lock-up clutch and a clutch disk, axially arranged in sequence. In particular, when a buffering means is incorporated in the clutch disk so as to lessen the shock caused at the engagement and disengagement of the lock-up clutch, the axial space required for mounting the clutch disk becomes substantially large, because such a buffering means generally includes one or two auxiliary disk members arranged axially in sequence and several coil springs incorporated in the assembly of the clutch disk and the auxiliary disk members along the peripheral portions of the auxiliary disk members. However, in the design of automobiles, it is often very important that the axial dimension of the hydraulic transmission should be limited without a certain relatively small axial length, and in view of this it is strongly desirable for a lock-up clutch to be incorporated in a hydraulic transmission without substantially increasing the overall axial length of the transmission.
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{
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Conventional lighting devices providing indoor and outdoor lighting typically use incandescent electric light bulbs, florescent lamps, or halogen lamps. The existing lighting devices, however, have short lifespan, high costs, and/or hazards associated with them. Recently, light emitting diode (LED) lamps have been used to provide general lighting to overcome some of the shortcomings of the existing lighting devices. Even in LED operated lamps, however, most of the light is absorbed or lost as heat, wasting a high percentage of the energy that can be provided as light. According, it is desirable to have a more efficient lighting device that can eliminate or reduce loss of energy and more efficiently provide lighting.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In the past, the insertion of small items into wells of various shapes formed in a plate has been a tedious and time consuming task. This has been particularly true when appropriately sized small items, such as porous polypropylene frits or other small items of composite material, were inserted into the multiple wells of a microtiter polypropylene plate such as a 1 mL 96 well microtiter plate. Such insertion has involved a manual technique wherein each item is individually placed into an empty well of the microtiter plate and is then manually seated in the well using a hand-held 5 mm rod.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide a novel and improved multiple well microtiter plate loading assembly and method wherein a plurality of frits or similar small items are seated in wells in a receiving plate in a single operation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a novel and improved multiple well microtiter plate loading assembly and method which includes a frit loading unit and a frit insertion device. The frit loading unit is designed to rapidly load a plurality of frits or other small items into apertures in the frit insertion device which includes a plurality of insertion pins to insert the frits simultaneously into the wells of a multiple well microtiter.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a novel and improved method for simultaneously loading a plurality of small items into the wells of a multiple well microtiter plate which includes providing a microtiter support unit with a plurality of frit receiving apertures extending therethrough which are arranged to correspond in position to the position of the wells in the microtiter plate. An elongate plunger pin is inserted into each of the apertures and a frit is loaded into each aperture to rest on the plunger pin. A microtiter plate is then inverted on the microtiter support unit with the wells aligned with the apertures, and the plunger pins are moved into the wells to seat the frits in the wells.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a novel and improved apparatus for simultaneously loading a plurality of frits or similar small items into the wells of a multiple well microtiter plate which includes a frit insertion device including a base upon which a plurality of plunger pins are mounted so that each plunger pin registers with a well in the microtiter plate. A deck unit is movably mounted in spaced relationship to the base and includes a plurality of apertures extending therethrough, each of which receives a pin. A frit is placed on each pin within the apertures and the deck unit is movable toward the base to cause the pins to extend into the wells of a microtiter plate seated on the deck unit to seat a frit in each well.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Arrangements for adjusting a rear view mirror for vehicles include as a rule a first element on the vehicle side, a second element opposite the first element and a reflecting surface, such as a mirror surface. The first element on the vehicle side is fixed by a fastening arrangement, such as an extension arm or the like that is substantially immovable on the vehicle. The movable second element can be adjusted by a pivot bearing opposite the first element that pivots about an axis.
The movability or adjustability of the movable second element opposite the first element on the vehicle side requires from a structural viewpoint a slot or free space, such as an articulated slot or joining slot between elements or structural parts, that can move or be adjusted relative to each other in order to be able to ensure the required degree or degrees of freedom for the particular adjusting movements.
These articulated or joining slots can be present, for example in the case of so-called head adjusters, directly between the vehicle-side first element and the mirror head supported on it in a movable or adjustable manner. In the case of so-called glass adjusters, such a slot can be present between the vehicle-side first element and the mirror carrying plate that carries the reflecting surface (the mirror glass). In another known construction type of a head adjuster, the element that can move or be adjusted opposite the vehicle-side first element supports the mirror carrier plate. The housing of the mirror head is fixed on the mirror carrier plate and moves with it such that the housing is drawn so far to the rear that it at least partially covers the connecting position between the vehicle-side first element and the movable second element. In addition to the constructional joining slot between the vehicle-side first element and the movable second element, there is in this construction another constructionally conditioned slot or free space between the edge of the opening in the mirror housing and the engagement area between the vehicle-side element and the movable element, such as described in European patent EP2195195B1.
A rear view mirror is known from German application DE19803459A1, which has a circumferential slot between a glass unit and a housing. The glass unit has a mirror element and mirror carrier plate. The glass unit is closed by an elastically deformable damping element that dampens or prevents primarily undesired vibrational movements of the glass unit. This damping element also seals the slot against environmental influences as a side effect.
German patent DE915538B describes a similar construction principle with a circumferential slot between a glass unit and a housing. The glass unit has a mirror element and a mirror carrier plate. The glass unit is closed by an elastically deformable damping element that centers the glass unit in the housing and therefore centers an adjustment unit to the end of the housing. A sealing of the slot against environmental influences results here as a side effect in a manner similar to that of German application DE19803459A1.
In general, slots or free spaces between a glass unit or glass structural group and a housing are necessary for reasons of construction and functionality. The glass unit includes a mirror element and a mirror carrier plate, and the housing comprises the glass unit. However, the slots and free spaces can also cause problems and possible disturbances in daily operation.
Water, road salt or the like, contamination in the form of dust, ice crystals and other foreign objects can get into the slot and adversely affect or even prohibit at least temporarily the functionality of the mirror arrangement. The foreign objects can prevent a smooth adjustment of the particular elements of the mirror over the course of time. Contaminations can very rapidly adversely affects or even prevent the smooth functioning of the articulated connection or hinge connection given the very narrow articulation slots or joining slots between two articulation parts or hinge parts, which are prevented by the foreign objects from touching each other. In the case of a head adjuster, such as the one described in the above-cited European patent EP2195195B1, there is the additional problem that foreign objects enter the housing through the slot. The slot extends through the housing opening between the housing opening and the adjustment mechanism. The slot faces the travel direction of the vehicle so that wind caused by the traveling drives precipitation, stirred-up foreign bodies or the like through the slot into the interior of the mirror head housing.
The attempt is made to construct the slot between the housing opening and the adjustment mechanism on the vehicle side as narrow as possible in order to minimize the penetration of dirt and moisture. However, the problem of icing can then increase. The column freezes and closes, which can lead to problems in the adjustment movements or even to damage of the adjusting drive when the drive must operate against the additional holding force of the ice.
Therefore, a sealing element is located in the circumferential slot between the glass unit and the housing that comprises the glass unit, such as described in German application DE19803459A1 or German patent DE915538B. The sealing element is located on the circumferential outer edge of the glass unit or mirror carrier plate and cooperates with a directly adjacent counter surface that is formed by the mirror housing radially surrounding the glass unit. Therefore, a resistance to the adjusting movements of the glass unit acts through the friction of the sealing means on the counter surface of the housing and on the radially outermost edge of the glass unit. Therefore, the actual adjustment unit (whether manual or motor-driven) must overcome a comparatively high counter-moment, which necessitates in the case of a motor-driven adjustment an appropriately dimensioned drive and force transmission means.
In an arrangement of the seal in the slot between the outer edge of the glass construction group and the inner surface of the housing, such as described in German application DE19803459A1, there is furthermore the danger that the adjustment is rendered impossible by icing. This problem is even addressed in German application DE19803459A1, which suggests as a counter measure an appropriate (for example, inductive) heating device that heats the sealing means and keeps it warm. Of course, this is a structure that requires increased construction and is also more prone to disturbances.
Another problem especially in the construction, such as in the device of European patent EP2195195B1, is the fact that wind noises can be amplified by the slot, or additional whistling noises can even be produced.
Finally, such a slot also adversely affects the entire optical appearance. Considered on the whole, a slot causes the deterioration of the functional, aerodynamic and aesthetic qualities of the entire vehicle mirror.
An arrangement for adjusting a rear view mirror is sought that does not include the slot described above or the associated disadvantages.
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{
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The invention relates to a rotary actuator which is pressure medium operated and comprises at least one pressure medium cylinder. Axial movement produced by the cylinder is converted into rotation movement by means of converting means.
The invention further relates to a method for producing rotation movement and to a converting actuator.
The field of the invention is defined more specifically in the preambles of the independent claims.
Rotation movement may be generated by means of different pressure medium operated actuators, such as hydraulic motors and rotary actuators. Typically the actuators producing rotation comprise rotating vanes, which have shown to contain some disadvantages.
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{
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The present disclosure relates to a structure for reducing the amount of water splashed on a vehicle engine.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-198139 discloses an accessory drive belt cover for an engine as an exemplary structure for reducing the amount of water splashed on a vehicle engine. Specifically, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-198139 describes an accessory drive system including a crankshaft pulley, an accessory pulley, and an endless transmitting member (an accessory drive belt) wound between the pulleys. This system is installed near one end of an engine body in the direction in which its output shaft extends, and is covered with the accessory drive belt cover disposed near the one end.
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{
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Technologies for uniformly irradiating a predetermined plane with laser light emitted from a light source such as a semiconductor laser have conventionally been proposed. For example, in a light irradiation apparatus in which laser light incident from a light source part is divided by a plurality of lenses in a cylindrical lens array and irradiation regions of the light from the plurality of lenses are superimposed on one another in an irradiation plane by another lens, an optical path length difference generation part is provided between the light source part and the cylindrical lens array. The optical path length difference generation part includes a plurality of transparent parts that produce a difference in optical path length between each other, the difference being longer than the coherence distance (coherence length) of the laser light, and light that has passed through the plurality of transparent parts respectively enters the plurality of cylindrical lenses. This prevents interference fringes from appearing and achieves uniformity of the intensity distribution of the light irradiated onto the irradiation plane (as examples of such an apparatus, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 61-169815, 2004-12757, and 2006-49656, for example).
Incidentally, in a drawing apparatus in which a spatial light modulator is disposed in the irradiation plane in the above-described light irradiation apparatus and spatially modulated light is irradiated onto an object to draw a pattern, a light irradiation apparatus capable of irradiating the irradiation plane with high-intensity light having a uniform intensity distribution is required in order to increase the speed of pattern drawing.
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{
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A light scanning device of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes a transparent window for transmitting a laser beam, deflected by a polygon mirror, to the outside of the light scanning device. Dust that adheres to the transparent window blocks the laser beam, as a result of which image quality of an output image is reduced. In particular, for the light scanning device that exposes a photoconductor from therebelow in a gravitational direction, toner that has fallen from a developing device due to vibration generated when a cartridge (in which the developing device and the photoconductor are integrated to each other) is removed adheres to the transparent window.
Regarding this issue, PTL 1 describes an image forming apparatus that allows a slit, provided in a light scanning device and that is used for passing a laser beam therethrough, to be dustproof by moving the slit by a shutter moving mechanism. FIG. 8 in PTL 1 illustrates a structure that moves a shutter in a first direction by a motor and that moves the shutter in a second direction using an elastic force of a spring that is connected to an inner wall of an opening provided in the shutter and an upper cover of the light scanning device.
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Molded case circuit breakers, when an abnormal current such as an over current and a short-circuit current is applied to a circuit, protect the circuit by breaking the circuit. In molded case circuit breakers described above, it is necessary to interrupt an arc induced at an opening time that a fixed contact point and a movable contact point are separated from each other when breaking the circuit.
FIG. 1 illustrates a general molded case circuit breaker disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No. 2001-0043240.
Referring to FIG. 1, in general, a front compartment 12 and a rear compartment mutually divided from each other are located in a molded case circuit breaker 10. Also, a fixed contact point 60 and a movable contact point 61 are located in the front compartment 12 and a driving device for transferring the movable contact point 61, and particularly, an electrode shaft 78 is located in the rear compartment 14. In the general molded case circuit breaker 10 configured as described above, the electrode shaft 78 prevents transfer of an arc from the front compartment 12, to which the arc is actually induced, to the rear compartment 14. Also, the induced arc is transferred to an arc extinguishing chamber 58 located in front thereof.
However, the general molded case circuit breaker has limitations as follows.
Generally, the electrode shaft 78 is located inside the rear compartment 14. However, the rear compartment 14 has to additionally have a certain space, that is, a height to allow the driving device to operate. Accordingly, a height of the molded case circuit breaker 10 substantially increases.
Also, in general, as described above, the height of the molded case circuit breaker 10 substantially increases. Accordingly, while the fixed contact point 60 is being separated from the movable contact point 61, a floating arc is transferred to a rear end of the front compartment 12 and the rear compartment 14, thereby causing damage in the driving device.
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{
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The present invention relates generally to a method for varying the bend radius while forming a stabilizer bar of a vehicle suspension system.
Vehicles are commonly equipped with suspension systems for absorbing road shock and other vibrations, while providing for a smooth and comfortable ride. A suspension component, such as a stabilizer bar, is often used to increase roll rigidity and to improve the steering stability of the vehicle.
When forming a stabilizer bar in a CNC (computer numeric control) controlled bending machine, the bar is positioned within the machine so that the stabilizer bar is proximate to the forming tool at the desired point of formation. The stabilizer bar is formed over the forming tool at this point, creating a bend in the stabilizer bar. Because the forming tool is of a fixed design, the radii of the bends formed on the stabilizer bar cannot be varied while using the same tool. Bends of different radii can be formed by using different forming tools, but this requires changing the forming tool manually during formation, which is both time consuming and impractical.
Hence, there is a need in the art for a method for varying the bend radius while forming a stabilizer bar, which allows for the formation of bends of different radii on the bar while using the same forming tool.
This invention relates to a method for varying the bend radius while forming a stabilizer bar by varying the radius of the forming tool over which the stabilizer bar is bent.
In a first embodiment of the invention, a bent chain is used to form the stabilizer bar. The chain is positioned by actuators on a CNC controlled bending machine which engage the links of the chain and shape the chain into the desired radius. The stabilizer bar is then formed by wrapping the bar over the positioned chain, forming the stabilizer bar at the desired radius.
In another embodiment, the forming tool is conical shaped. Because the top of the cone has a smaller diameter than the bottom of the cone, bends of different radii can be formed on the bar using the same forming tool. The cone shaped tool is positioned by extending or retracting the tool perpendicularly to the length of the bar.
In another embodiment, an eccentric cam shaped forming tool of varying radii is used to form the stabilizer bar. The eccentric can shaped tool is positioned to form the stabilizer bar by rotating the tool so that the desired radius of the eccentric tool contacts the stabilizer bar at the point of formation.
A worker in this art would recognize that other ways of varying a bend radius can be used. Accordingly, the present invention provides a method to vary bend radius while forming a stabilizer bar.
These and other features of the present invention will be best understood from the following specification and drawings.
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{
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With known apparatuses for manufacturing ventilation ducts and the like, a series of bends are made in a metal web to form a duct section. The duct section then is closed by one or more seams extending the length of the duct section. The seams can be folded or welded shut.
A seam can be pre-formed by bending and aligning free edges of the partially formed duct. However, known seams must be clamped, backstopped, or otherwise supported from an inner surface of the duct section in order to properly apply the forces required for adequate closure. Such clamping is not easily provided in-line with apparatus for bending the duct section. Thus, the duct section typically is removed from the bending apparatus to another work station for final closure of the seam. Removal of the duct section to the other work station requires extra steps for handling and aligning the duct section in the other work station. These extra steps reduce the efficiency of production.
Once the duct section is removed from the bending apparatus, the seam can be closed by repeatedly banging a hammer against the free edge of the seam. However, the repeated impacts of the hammer are noisy and tend to deform the metal along the seam. Alternatively, Welty (U.S. Pat. No. 5,189,784 hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety) discloses an apparatus for forming and closing seams in box-shaped ducts. However, Welty's previous apparatus is not adapted for use in-line with other machinery. In particular, manual handling is required to properly position a duct section relative to Welty's clamps and rollers. Thus, Welty's previous apparatus, although a significant advance in the art of its day, does not perfectly optimize efficiency of production.
In view of the continuous improvement in the art of making ducts from sheet metal, it is desirable to provide yet further improvements in forming and handling a duct section.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera processor which successively carries out image exposing, developing, fixing, washing and drying, and, more particularly, to a film storage device in a camera processor in which a long film is successively subject to an exposure and development operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A variety of systems have been proposed and implemented in which a photo-sensitive material, such as microfilm, is successively subjected to photographing and developing. In these systems, a photographing section and a developing section are provided adjacent to each other so that photographing, developing, fixing, washing and drying are performed successively. Since a film feeding speed during the photographing operation is generally different from a film feeding speed during the developing operation, various methods have been employed in order to carry out the photographing operation and the developing operation in succession.
According to one of these methods, a buffer chamber is provided between the photographing section and the developing section so that the exposed film is stored in the form of a loop within the chamber, and the difference between the feeding speed in the photographing section and that in the developing section is absorbed or adjusted by the buffer chamber. According to a second method, instead of providing a buffer chamber, a storage chamber is provided to store a certain amount of exposed film. When a predetermined amount of film is exposed and stored in the storage chamber, the film is cut, the photographing operation is stopped, and, subsequently, the stored film is developed.
The former method is advantageous in that the photographing and developing operations can be conducted simultaneously; however, it is disadvantageous in that, when looped, the film overlaps and rubs against adjacent film, thus generating static electricity. Additional disadvantages are that the film may be scratched, and an intricate means is required for adjusting the photographing speed according to the conditions of the loop.
In the second method, as in the first method, the film may rub against adjacent film when stored, thus generating static electricity and possibly scratching the film. As the practical size of the storage chamber is limited, the length of a film which can be stored is limited to several meters. Therefore, the length of a film which can be processed by this method is also limited.
According to a third method, an exposed film is wound on a reel in a storage chamber. It is then cut and fed to a developing unit by turning the reel in the opposite direction, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 43632/1981. In this method, the exposed film can be stored and developed without encountering the above-described problems. However, this latter method is disadvantageous in that, after the developing operation has begun, the next photographing operation cannot be carried out until all the film which is wound on the reel is fed out.
In a film storage device disclosed by Japanese Patent Application No. 146105/1981, two film winding reels are provided on the same surface of a rotary plate. The rotary plate is turned by a rotary shaft which is perpendicular to the rotary plate so that photographing and developing operations are carried out simultaneously for the two reels. However, this device suffers a drawback in that the film storage section is very bulky.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to flash memory. More particularly, the invention relates to a flash memory device capable of operating at multiple speeds.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flash memory is one type of commonly used nonvolatile memory. Nonvolatile memory is distinguished from volatile memory (e.g., Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and Static Random Access Memory (SRAM)) in its ability to retain stored data in the absence of applied electrical power. As conventionally available, flash memory may be classified into NOR flash memory and NAND flash memory.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a portion of an array structure for a conventional flash memory device.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional flash memory device includes a memory cell array comprising a plurality of memory blocks (BLK0 through BLKn−1) and a plurality of bit lines (BLei and BLoi, where “i” varies from 0 to m−1). A collection of page buffers is associated with odd and even pairs of bit lines (e.g., BLe0 and BLo0). Each page buffer may be configured to select one or both of the corresponding pair of bit lines. For example, during a bit line setup interval of a program operation, each page buffer may be configured to drive its corresponding pair of bit lines with a pre-charge voltage. Subsequently, each page buffer may be configured to drive either one of its corresponding pair of bit lines with a program voltage (e.g., a ground voltage) or a program-inhibit voltage (e.g., a power supply voltage).
FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram showing a portion of the bit line and memory block arrangement identified by the dotted line shown in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 2, paired bit lines BLe0 and BLo0 are respectively connected in strings of memory cells (MC). Each string includes a string select transistor (SST) having its source connected to a corresponding bit line, a ground select transistor (GST) having its source connected to a common source line CSL. The memory cells, or more particularly the transistors associated with the memory cells (MC31 through MC0), are connected in series between the source of the string select transistor (SST) and the drain of the ground select transistor (GST).
In the foregoing configuration, operation of the string select transistor (SST) is controlled by a voltage applied to a string select line (SSL), and operation of the ground select transistor (GST) is controlled by a voltage applied to a ground select line (GSL). Operation of the memory cells (MC31 to MC0) is controlled by a voltage applied through a corresponding word line (WL31 to WL0). In FIG. 2, one of the bit lines BLe0 and BLo0 may be driven with a program voltage or a program-inhibit voltage by a corresponding page buffer. During such operation, and as is well known in the art, the non-driven bit line in the paired bit lines operates as a shield line. Before being driven with the program or program-inhibit voltage, however, both of the paired bit lines BLe0 and BLo0 may be simultaneously pre-charged with a pre-charge voltage via the corresponding page buffer.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating nominal power consumption as a function of program operation internal within a conventional flash memory device, such as the one illustrated in FIG. 1.
As is well understood in the art, the program operation illustrated in FIG. 3 includes a high-voltage enable interval 10, a bit line setup interval 11, a program execution interval 12, and a verify read interval 13. During the high-voltage enable interval 10, a high voltage required for the program execution interval 12 is generated. In the bit line setup interval 11, both bit lines (BLei and BLoi) are pre-charged by a corresponding page buffer, and then one of the paired bit lines is driven with a program voltage or a program-inhibit voltage via the corresponding page buffer. During the program execution interval 12, a selected word line is driven with a program voltage while unselected word lines are driven with a pass voltage. During the verify read interval 13, a determination is made as to whether the memory cells connected to the selected word line (i.e., the memory cells in the selected page) have been properly programmed (i.e., “programmed normally”). One sequential pass through the foregoing intervals 11 to 13 constitutes “a program loop”, or “a unit loop”, which may be repeated until memory cells in the selected page are programmed normally.
As depicted in FIG. 3, the program operation draws the greatest operating current, and thereby consumes the most power, during the bit line setup interval 11. This result arises from the fact that both of the paired bit lines (BLei and BLoi) are simultaneously pre-charged with the pre-charge voltage. A peak current drain is indicated in FIG. 3 by the level “Imax”. Of note in this regard, the peak amount of current drawn during the bit line setup interval 11 may be limited not to exceed some defined critical limit. Such a critical limit may be defined in relation to any number of system requirements or tolerances within a flash memory device.
For example, in an exemplary case where a flash memory device is characterized by a 2 KByte page depth and an even/odd bit line configuration, a peak current limit (Imax) may arise when 2 KB*2 (4 KB) bit lines are simultaneously pre-charged with a power supply voltage (VCC) during a bit line setup interval. Under these assumptions, the peak current limit (Imax) may reach 60 to 120 mA. This peak current limit may preclude (or greatly inhibit) the use of multiple operating speeds within a flash memory device supporting selectively enabled modes characterized by different operating speeds. In such devices, peak current consumption may exceed a defined peak current limit in one operating mode during its bit line setup interval.
One conventional example of a flash memory device supporting selectively enabled operating modes having different operating speeds is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,724,682, the subject matter of which is hereby incorporated by reference. In this conventional example, a flash memory device is disclosed having both single and double speed operating modes. Continuing forward with the assumptions stated above, a flash memory device with a single speed operating mode performs a read or program operation in relation to a 2 KB unit, and therefore simultaneously drives 2 KB bit lines. (As will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, this unit size may alternately be configured (e.g.,) as 512 B, 1 KB, etc.). Thus, in a case where each page buffer is connected to a pair of even and odd bit lines, and although the flash memory device is running in a single speed operating mode, 4 KB (2 KB*2) bit lines must be simultaneously driven.
Where this type of flash memory device is embedded in a portable or mobile host device, the capabilities of the supporting host device battery must be considered, along with other flash memory related system considerations. For example, the effect of simultaneously driving (pre-charging) paired bit lines must be considered. Yet, the possible provision of single and double speed operating modes must also be considered. That is, battery capabilities, peak current limit definition, and global programming intervals must be carefully balanced to allow multiple speed operating modes, such that peak current demanded by one operating mode does not exceed allowable critical limits and/or battery capabilities.
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The mechanism by which specificity of physiological responses are conferred by a limited number of signal transducing substances, typically enzymes, is poorly understood. Cellular receptors on the surfaces of various cells are involved and initiate multiple signaling pathways. Some of the receptors on neutrophils are known: the PAF receptor, the interleukin-8 receptor and the fMetLeuPhe receptor all belong to the super-family of G-protein-linked receptors. A common feature of these receptors is that they span the cell membrane seven times, forming three extracellular and three intracellular loops and a cytoplasmic carboxy-terminal tail. The third loop and the tail exhibit extensive variability in length and sequence, leading to speculation that these parts are responsible for the selective interaction with the various G-proteins. Many of these G-protein-linked receptors stimulate the activation of three phospholipases, phospholipase C (PLC), phospholipase D (PLD) and phospholipase A.sub.2 (PLA.sub.2). These phospholipases constitute a family of regulatory enzymes which trigger various neutrophilic functions, for example adherence, aggregation, chemotaxis, exocytosis of secretory granules and activation of NADPH oxidase, i.e., the respiratory burst.
The main substrates for the phospholipases are membrane phospholipids. The primary substrates for PLC are the inositol containing lipids, specifically and typically phosphotidylinositol (PI). PI is phosphorylated by PLC resulting in the formation of PIP, phosphotidylinositol 4-phosphate. The primary substrate for PLD and PLA.sub.2 is phosphatidylcholine (PC), a relatively ubiquitous constituent of cell membranes. The activity of cytosolic PLA.sub.2 on PC liberates arachidonic acid, a precursor for the biosynthesis of prostaglandins and leukotrienes and possible intracellular secondary messenger. PLD, on the other hand, catalyzes the hydrolytic cleavage of the terminal phosphate diester bond of glycerophospholipids at the P-O position. PLD activity was originally discovered in plants and only relatively recently discovered in mammalian tissues. PLD has been the focus of recent attention due to the discovery of its activation by fMetLeuPhe in neutrophils. PLD activity has been detected in membranes and in cytosol. Although a 30 kD (kilodalton) and an 80 kD activity have been detected, it has been suggested that these molecular masses represented a single enzyme with varying extents of aggregation. See Cockcroft, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1113: 135-160 (1992). One PLD has been isolated, cloned and partially characterized. See Hammond, J. Biol. Chem. 270:29640-43 (1995). Biological characterization of PLD1 revealed that it could be activated by a variety of G-protein regulators, specifically PKC (protein kinase C ), ADP-ribosylation factor (ARF), RhoA, Rac1 and cdc-42, either individually or together in a synergistic manner, suggesting that a single PLD participates in regulated secretion in coordination with ARF and in propagating signal transduction responses through interaction with PKC, PhoA and Rac1. Nonetheless, PKC-independent PLD activation has been associated with Src and Ras oncogenic transformation, leaving open the possibility that additional PLDs might exist. See Jiang, Mol. and Cell. Biol. 14:3676 (1994) and Morris, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences 17: 182-85(1996). The difficulty may arise at least in part from the fact that in the phospholipase family enzymes may or may not be activated by, and catalyze, multiple substances, making sorting, tracking and identification by functional activities impractical.
There exists a need in the art for the identification and isolation of phospholipase enzymes. Without such identification and isolation, there is no practical way to develop assays for testing modulation of enzymatic activity. The availability of such assays provides a powerful tool for the discovery of modulators of phospholipase activity. Such modulators would be excellent candidates for therapeutics for the treatment of diseases and conditions involving pathological mitogenic activity or inflammation.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Heretofore, stockings have been designed in the form of a sock which includes a pattern of flexible material applied to the sole. The purpose of the flexible material is to restrict slippage as the wearer stands or walks upon a floor and provide a continuous barrier on the bottom of the sock from fluids or moisture beads when in contact with the floor surface. These types of stockings may be used by medical patients, yoga participants, or people relaxing at home.
While the patterned, flexible material provides increased traction, such may still result in foot slippage upon the underlying floor should the stocking become twisted or mis-positioned upon the wearer's foot.
Accordingly, it is seen that a need remains for a safety stocking that provides a better slip resistance. It is to the provision of such therefore that the present invention is primarily directed.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Handheld wireless communications devices may not be able to adequate handle bursts of data for a particular application, such as e-mail. For example, when the Advanced Programming Interface (API) injects messages in the Outlook message store, Outlook may not be able to transfer received mail messages fast enough to accommodate the mail receive rate.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a capability of handling bursty e-mail data packets, as found in legacy handheld wireless communications devices.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention relates to a filling system for filling bottles or other containers with a liquid filling material consisting of a mixture of a main component and at least one additional component, wherein, with a filling material is in the form of a beverage, the main component is, for example, water and the at least one additional component is at least a flavoring.
In production installations of the beverages industry, the main component is usually mixed with one or more additional components in a mixing installation that is separate from the filling machine. The finished filling material or mixed product is then delivered from this mixing installation to the filling machine.
There have been previous proposals for the mixing of at least one main component and at least one additional component to be effected during the filling of the containers, i.e. at the particular filling element and/or in the container itself, with the at least one main component and the at least one additional component being delivered to the particular filling element in the quantity that is necessary for the mixing ratio.
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EFI engines in automobiles are commonly controlled by an on-board computer, typically a microprocessor-based device, which controls the timing and duration of the fuel injection in response to operational parameters sensed by a number of sensors on the engine, e.g. temperature, engine speed, throttle position, air flow, etc. These operational parameters can be measured many times per second so that the engine is continually operated at optimum efficiency.
Many microprocessor or micro-computer based control circuits for EFI engines are programmed to accept measured values of sensed operational parameters only when such values fall within a predetermined range e.g. to avoid responding to spurious signals or to avoid acting on faulty measurements. If the value of an operational parameter as measured by a particular sensor is outside the predetermined range, the sensor may be judged by the computer control system to have failed (whether this is, in fact, correct or not), and the actual output signal of the sensor may be replaced by a standard value (as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,780,826) . The use of a default value enables the engine to keep operating despite the failure of a sensor. However, although the engine will still operate, it will not perform as efficiently as it should. Since the fault in the engine may be masked by the default value inserted by the computerised electronic control system, it IS difficult, if not impossible, for mechanics to locate and correct the fault using conventional tools.
Complex and expensive diagnostic equipment is PG,3 normally required to locate the fault. Such equipment is often computer-based, requiring a computer device manufactured specifically for that particular application. The use of such complex and specialized diagnostic equipment and the need for trained technicians result in increased costs for motor vehicle repair.
It is the object of the present invention to provide apparatus for computer-aided diagnosis of EFI engines which is within the economic and technical reach of most motor mechanics.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method of computer-aided diagnosis of EFI engines wherein a diagnostic computer program includes tutorial information to enable such diagnosis to be performed by most motor mechanics.
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In present Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, intra-frequency and Non-intra-frequency handovers occur when certain parameters pass specified thresholds. Hand downs or inter-radio access technology (i-RAT) handovers from LTE networks occur when the user equipment's (UE's) given Qrxlevmeas value passes a fixed value called Qrxlevmin. Qrxlevmin is a static value maintained within the LTE core network. This value's inflexibility results in situations where a mobile user is handed down to a non-LTE network prematurely even though another available physical-layer cell identity (PCI) would be available shortly. Handing down to a non-LTE network requires that the UE enters idle mode in order for the UE to again search for available LTE networks. With many applications on handsets being in an “always on” state, the time period until a UE enters idle mode again may be very long, and thus keep the UE from re-entering the LTE network for an extended period of time. Therefore, a solution is needed that would allow the Qrxlevmin and Sintrasearch values to be dynamic so that handovers and hand downs can occur more efficiently.
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Diabroticine beetles are a significant problem during the growth of, inter alia, corn (field, pop, seed, and sweet), beans, Cucurbitaceae (including cucumbers, melons, squash, and pumpkins), peanuts, peas, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Corn is conveniently used to describe the effects of diabroticine beetles. These pests are the direct or indirect (i.e., as a vector for bacteria and inoculation of melons and squash) cause of millions of dollars of crop and garden damage annually. Damage by these beetles has continued despite over 30 years of attempts at control.
Diabroticine beetles encompass multivoltine and univoltine species. Multivoltine species (e.g., the southern corn rootworm) can produce up to 3 generations a year. Univoltine species (e.g., northern and western corn rootworm) have a life cycle that starts with eggs laid 4-24 inches below the soil surface in the Fall. In early Spring and over the course of several weeks, the larvae (a form of immature beetle) hatch and begin to feed on nearby roots thereby destroying the root's anchoring abilities and the microhairs responsible for mineral, nutrients, and water assimilation. If the plant roots have not been so damaged that the plants falls over, the yield from the affected plants is reduced due to impaired nutrition.
After feeding, the diabroticine larvae pupate and emerge from the ground as adult beetles. Univoltine beetles emerge at some time during mid July through August (depending on local climate). Male diabroticine beetles emerge about 1 week before the females (week 1) which, in turn, emerge at about the same time as corn silks emerge. Because the fresh silks emit a number of volatile agents which are attractive to both the male and female beetles, the 7-10 days of silking represents a period of high feeding activity for the beetles. The beetles immediately begin to migrate up the stalk toward the leaves, ears, and silks. This compulsion is quite strong since there is evidence that the beetles will not move down the corn stalk in response to attractants. Throughout this period, the beetles feed and mate.
The key to control of the diabroticine beetles is to disrupt the life cycle by affecting the immature and/or adult beetles. One method known in the art as "banding" refers to the practice of trying to control the larvae by applying a contact insecticide in or along a furrow containing planted seeds. The theory behind banding is that larvae will enter the treated area when searching for roots and die due to contact with the insecticide.
Unfortunately, microbial attack impairs the efficacy of insecticides in the soil well before all the larvae have had time to hatch and enter the treated band. Concerns for groundwater contamination, the impact on nontarget organisms (e.g., bird kill), and the hazards of human exposure to the toxic insecticides all restrict the use of soil insecticides that might be capable of surviving in the soil through the larval feeding stage.
The effectiveness of banding is also limited by the plants themselves. Plant roots often extend well beyond the treated band leaving the roots vulnerable to attack.
It has been proposed to use the tissue of dried gourds from the Cucurbitale order in combination with 0.01-10% by weight (wt %) of an insecticide to make a lethal bait for the control of diabroticine beetles. Due to genetic evolution, corn rootworm larvae have evolved to compulsively feed on cucurbitacins.
From Canadian Patent No. 1,195,922, the bitter tasting cucurbitacins in the gourd tissue acts as a compulsive feeding stimulant for diabroticine beetles but is a feeding deterrent to beneficial insects. By coating the gourd tissues with an insecticide according to the teachings of the disclosure, it was asserted that the beetles would compulsively consume a lethal quantity of insecticide.
It would be desirable to have a bait formulation that would provide a high level of efficacy against immature and mature diabroticine beetles when applied through conventional application equipment as a sprayable aqueous solution, as well as when applied as a dry granular bait.
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The present invention relates to a storage and order-picking system comprising order-picking stations for manually picking articles to order containers, wherein the articles are pre-picked in a “batchwise” manner before being distributed to the order containers, i.e. they are assembled in groups and retrieved from a ware-house in accordance with the group.
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Pests cause millions of human deaths around the world each year. Furthermore, there are more than ten thousand species of pests that cause losses in agriculture. The world-wide agricultural losses amount to billions of U.S. dollars each year.
Termites cause damage to all kinds of private and public structures. The world-wide termite damage losses amount to billions of U.S. dollars each year.
Stored food pests eat and adulterate stored food. The world-wide stored food losses amount to billions of U.S. dollars each year, but more importantly, deprive people of needed food.
There is an acute need for new pesticides. Certain pests are developing resistance to pesticides in current use. Hundreds of pest species are resistant to one or more pesticides. The development of resistance to some of the older pesticides, such as DDT, the carbamates, and the organophosphates, is well known. But resistance has even developed to some of the newer pesticides.
Therefore, for many reasons, including the above reasons, a need exists for new pesticides.
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Coronary heart disease (CHD) is commonly caused by atherosclerotic narrowing of the coronary arteries and is likely to produce angina pectoris, heart attacks or a combination. CHD caused 466,101 deaths in the USA in 1997 and is one of the leading causes of death in America today. To address CHD, intra-coronary stents have been used in large percentages of CHD patients. Stents increase the minimal coronary lumen diameter to a greater degree than percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) alone.
Intravascular ultrasound is a method of choice to determine the true diameter of a diseased vessel in order to size the stent correctly. The tomographic orientation of ultrasound enables visualization of the full 360° circumference of the vessel wall and permits direct measurements of lumen dimensions, including minimal and maximal diameter and cross-sectional area. Information from ultrasound is combined with that obtained by angiography. Because of the latticed characteristics of stents, radiographic contrast material can surround the stent, producing an angiographic appearance of a large lumen, even when the stent struts are not in full contact with the vessel wall. A large observational ultrasound study after angiographically guided stent deployment revealed an average residual plaque area of 51% in a comparison of minimal stent diameter with reference segment diameter, and incomplete wall apposition was frequently observed. In this cohort, additional balloon inflations resulted in a final average residual plaque area of 34%, even though the final angiographic percent stenosis was negative (20.7%). Those investigators used ultrasound to guide deployment.
However, using intravascular ultrasound as mentioned above requires a first step of advancement of an ultrasound catheter and then withdrawal of the ultrasound catheter before coronary angioplasty thereby adding additional time to the stent procedure. Furthermore, it requires an ultrasound machine. This adds significant cost and time and more risk to the procedure.
One common type of coronary artery disease is atherosclerosis, which is a systemic inflammatory disease of the vessel wall that affects multiple arterial beds, such as aorta, carotid and peripheral arteries, and causes multiple coronary artery lesions and plaques. Atherosclerotic plaques typically include connective tissue, extracellular matrix (including collagen, proteoglycans, and fibronectin elastic fibers), lipid (crystalline cholesterol, cholesterol esters and phospholipids), and cells such as monocyte-derived macrophages, T lymphocytes, and smooth muscles cells. A wide range of plaques occurs pathologically with varying composition of these components.
A process called “positive remodeling” occurs early on during the development of atherosclerosis in coronary artery disease (CAD) where the lumen cross-sectional area (CSA) stays relatively normal because of the expansion of external elastic membrane and the enlargement of the outer CSA. However, as CAD progresses, there is no further increase in the external diameter of the external elastic membrane. Instead, the plaque begins to impinge into the lumen and decreases the lumen CSA in a process called “negative remodeling”.
Evidence shows that that a non-significant coronary atherosclerotic plaque (typically <50% stenosis) can rupture and produce myocardial infarct even before it produces significant lumen narrowing if the plaque has a particular composition. For example, a plaque with a high concentration of lipid and a thin fibrous cap may be easily sheared or ruptured and is referred to as a “vulnerable” plaque. In contrast, “white” plaques are less likely to rupture because the increased fibrous content over the lipid core provides stability (“stable” plaque). A large lipid core (typically >40%) rich in cholesterol is at a high risk for rupture and is considered a “vulnerable” plaque. In summary, plaque composition appears to determine the risk of acute coronary syndrome more so than the standard degree of stenosis because a higher lipid core is a basic characteristic of a higher risk plaque.
Conventionally, angiography has been used to visualize and characterize atherosclerotic plaque in coronary arteries. Because of the recent finding that plaque composition, rather than severity of stenosis, determines the risk for acute coronary syndromes, newer imaging modalities are required to distinguish between and determine the composition of “stable” and “vulnerable” plaques. Although a number of invasive and noninvasive imaging techniques are available to assess atherosclerotic vessels, most of the standard techniques identify luminal diameter, stenosis, wall thickness and plaque volume. To date, there is no standard method that can characterize plaque composition (e.g., lipid, fibrous, calcium, or thrombus) and therefore there is no routine and reliable method to identify the higher risk plaques.
Noninvasive techniques for evaluation of plaque composition include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, MRI lacks the sufficient spatial resolution for characterization of the atherosclerotic lesion in the coronary vessel. Minimally invasive techniques for evaluation of plaque composition include intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), optical coherence tomography (OCT), raman and infrared spectroscopy. Thermography is also a catheter-based technique used to detect the vulnerable plaques on the basis of temperature difference caused by the inflammation in the plaque. Using the various catheter-based techniques requires a first step of advancement of an IVUS, OCT, or thermography catheter and then withdrawal of the catheter before coronary angioplasty thereby adding additional time and steps to the stent procedure. Furthermore, these devices require expensive machinery and parts to operate. This adds significant cost and time and more risk to the procedure.
Thus, a need exists in the art for an alternative to the conventional methods of determining cross-sectional area of a luminal organ and determining the vulnerability of a plaque present within a luminal organ. A further need exist for a reliable, accurate and minimally invasive system or technique of determining the same.
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The present invention relates to an electrophotographic printing apparatus. More particularly, it relates to a multilayered photosensitive member of doped amorphous silicon formed on a printing drum. It further relates to a top or outer layer made of hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide formed atop of the photosensitive member for protecting the member. It still further relates to the method for fabricating the top layer.
Electrophotography is a well-known technology, and electrophotographic printing apparatuses are widely used in the field. The apparatus has a photosensitive member disposed on the surface of a printing drum. In the first process step of the electrophotographic printing method, the photosensitive member is charged to a uniform potential to sensitize it using an electrostatic charger such as a corona discharger. The charged portion of the photosensitive surface is exposed to a light image of an original document which is to be reproduced. This records an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive member corresponding to the original document. Thereafter, the latent image is developed by bringing a developing material such as a toner powder into contact therewith. In this way, a powder image is formed on the surface of the photosensitive member which is to be transferred onto a recording sheet. Thereafter, the powder image is permanently affixed to the recording sheet in the image configuration. Finally, at the next cleaning station, residual toner particles are removed from the surface of the photosensitive member. This is a typical cycle of the conventional electrophotographic printing process, taking approximately 20 seconds or so for a standard level apparatus, and several seconds for a high speed apparatus.
The photosensitive member of the printing drum described above consists of photosensitive, chargeable materials such as selenium or chalcogenide glasses (arsenic-selenium alloys and compounds). It is also known to utilize organic photosensitive materials therefor. Recently, however, amorphous silicon has become widely used, as for example, that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,507,375, issued on Mar. 26, 1985.
The requirements for devices of an electrophotographic printing apparatus are as follows. The material of the surface layer of the photosensitive member of the printing apparatus, which is formed on a printing drum, must have a high photosensitivity in the spectral range of the employed light source, such as a laser source. The material must also have a specific electrical impedance in darkness (dark resistance) of a magnitude greater than 10.sup.12 .OMEGA. cm, in order to substantially retain an electrostatic latent image thereon during at least one cycle of the printing operation, approximately 20 seconds as described above. The material must also have properties which remain unaltered with a continuous loading and unloading, i.e. which operates in a fatigue-proof manner and which is sufficiently resistant to abrasion during the printing operation, to various environmental hazards such as high humidity and to damages caused by the corona discharge. It is difficult to satisfy these requirements with a single photoconductive layer. For example, a photosensitive material having a high dark resistance and a high light conductance at the same time, is rarely found.
In order to fulfill these requirements described above, therefore, a multi-layered photosensitive member of amorphous silicon has been developed, being a well-known technology. One example is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,452,874 issued on June 5, 1984 to Ogawa et al. An amorphous layer II (top layer) of amorphous silicon carbide layer containing silicon atoms, carbon atoms, and hydrogen atoms, is disclosed therein, being accompanied with a method for forming the layer by electrically decomposing a gaseous mixture of hydrogenated silicon gases and hydrocarbon gases. A gas mixture of silane (SiH.sub.4) and methane (CH.sub.4) typically is used.
FIG. 1 is a schematic partial cross-sectional view of a multi-layered photosensitive member. On a cylindrical drum base 1 of conductive material such as aluminum, a charge blocking layer 2 of highly p-type doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is formed by a conventional method such as a glow discharge CVD (chemical vapor deposition) method for decomposing and depositing gaseous mixture of silane (SiH.sub.4) and diborane (B.sub.2 H.sub.6) with electrical energy.
Over the charge blocking layer 2, a photoconductive layer 3 of slightly p-type doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is formed by the same CVD method employing the similar gaseous mixture with a different gas ratio from the one of the preceding case. The photoconductive layer 3 has high electrical conductance under exposure to light (light conductance) but not so high dark resistance.
Thereafter, a top layer 4 is formed on the photocoductive layer 3 for not only protecting the surface thereof from various environmental hazards but also for retaining the charges of the electrostatic latent image formed thereon and for preventing the latent image from being dispersed and weakened. The top layer 4 is formed of a photosensitive material having a high dark resistance such as hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO:H), hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiN:H), or hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H). The top layer 4 has also high abrasion resistive properties sufficient to protect the surface from exterior mechanical damage during the operation.
The charge blocking layer 2 has a rectifying characteristics due to the difference of doping density between the charge blocking layer 2 and the photoconductive layer 3. Consequently, the injection of electrical carriers from the drum base 1 into the photosensitive member under dark condition is blocked and excess charges generated in the photoconductive layer 3 under exposure of light is allowed to flow from the photoconductive layer 3 to the drum base 1. Thus, by the aid of the charge blocking layer 2 and the top layer 4, the entire surface of photosensitive member has high dark resistance, being immune from any image flow or image weakening.
Among the above-described requirements for a photosensitive member formed on a printing drum, the following are characteristic of the top layer 4: a charge retaining capability for maintaining charges of a latent image recorded therein; resistance to deterioration when exposed to a corona discharge during the charging process, and resistance to abrasion and moisture caused by the exterior environment. However, these requirements have not been satisfied with a prior art top layer, causing some problems with the electrophotographic printing apparatus. The problems may be attributed to some defects in the top layer 4, such as small pin holes. Such defects of the top layer 4 are considered to be caused by some defective structure in the material of the layer 4.
Generally, the structural defects, namely, local distortion of the silicon network, of the amorphous silicon or amorphous silicon compounds such as amorphous silicon carbide, are caused by the presence of dangling bonds, that is, non-terminated bonds of silicon atoms. For example, in intrinsic amorphous silicon (a-Si), the distribution density of the dangling bonds is approximately 10.sup.20 cm.sup.-3. In hydrogenated amorphous silicon, three non-terminated bonds are intended to be bonded to hydrogen atoms (H). It is reported that the density of the dangling bond can be reduced to approximately 10.sup.15 cm.sup.-3 with an adequate fabricating method. However, the hydrogen atoms tend to be bonded to silicon or other atoms non-uniformly.
Particularly, in hydrogenated amorphous silicon compounds such as hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide, hydrogen atoms are attracted and bonded to carbon atoms. The uniform distribution of bonded hydrogen atoms is desirable for reducing the structural defects in amorphous silicon compound material. Thus, a material having fewer dangling bonds therein and a method for fabricating the material are keys to improving the photosensitive member of the printing drum, and the solution of the above described problems.
Various efforts have been directed to solve the above problems regarding a top layer for an electrophotographic photosensitive member. The quality and the production efficiency depends on the combination and composition of the foregoing gas mixture. In a view to further improvement, namely, in order to achieve faster film formation rate and more resistance against the damage of the surface of the substrate (hereby, a photoconductive layer 3) caused by a glow discharge plasma during glow discharge CVD process, a new gaseous mixture and the resulting hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide layer has been studied.
In the above description, a glow discharge CVD method is introduced for the formation of a photosensitive member. Other conventional methods, such as a sputtering method, and a laser assisted CVD method, are available for the same purpose. However, in the following, the glow discharge method will be described. The selection of the methods will depend on the quantity of production, variety of products, and investment for installed facilities.
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It is known to inspect the seal, or tightness, of a connection between two glued elements using a non-destructive inspection method consisting in detecting a leak of a tracer gas such as, for example, helium.
However, this inspection method requires that sophisticated and expensive devices are purchased.
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The present invention generally relates to devices which affect the transmission of optical fiber signals. More particularly, the present invention relates to optical waveguide attenuating devices.
In optical fiber communication systems which transmit optical signals over long distances, it is generally desirable to minimize light losses due to absorption and scattering in the optical fibers. In many instances, however, it is necessary to employ optical attenuator devices to reduce the amount of power present in the optical signal.
For example, communication system receivers optimally function within a certain range of an optical input level, and it is therefore necessary to adjust the input level to the desired range. The path attenuation in an optical communication system is a function of fiber length and the fiber attenuation coefficient. Thus, the path attenuation can be adjusted by increasing the fiber length, but this is not practical using low loss fibers. Accordingly, high loss optical fiber attenuators are used to increase the path attenuation where it is impractical to use long lengths of low loss fibers. Attenuators also are utilized to equalize optical signals from different sources, or to simulate the presence of a long low loss line when calibrating an optical component or network.
Fiber attenuators are also used at terminations for the ends of unused optical fibers of devices such as wavelength division multiplexers and star couplers to eliminate unwanted back reflections. The use of fiber attenuators as terminators for unused fibers in star couplers is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,618, which is relied upon and incorporated by reference.
Optical fiber attenuators typically comprise an optical fiber having a core and a cladding, the core including a dopant material which increases the attenuation of the optical fiber. The dopant can be introduced by solution doping transition of rare earth elements into the fiber's core, and the attenuation of the fiber is directly proportional to the dopant concentration and the fiber length. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,633,974. Solution doping has several disadvantages, however, chiefly that solution doping involves an additional processing step which must be performed after fabrication of the optical fiber.
Another fiber attenuator described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,793 involves vapor deposition doping the core of an optical fiber with a variable valency element such as Ti, V, Cr, or Fe, which is partially present in a lower valency state. The presence of the lower valency state is controlled by the amount of oxygen used during the deposition process or by consolidating the preforms in a reducing atmosphere. The attenuations achieved with the fiber described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,793 are reported as only reaching about 25 dB/m. In certain applications, such as terminators, it is desirable to provide an attenuator having an attenuation in excess of 100 dB/m.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method for fabricating an optical attenuating device capable of providing a broad range of attenuations.
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A content addressable memory (CAM) device is a storage device having an array of memory cells that can be instructed to compare the specific pattern of an input string (e.g., a search key or a comparand word) with data stored in rows of the array. The entire CAM array, or segments thereof, may be searched in parallel for a match with the comparand data. If a match exists, the CAM device indicates the match condition by asserting a match flag, and may indicate the existence of multiple matches by asserting a multiple match flag. The CAM device typically includes a priority encoder that determines the highest priority matching address (e.g., the lowest matching CAM index). The highest priority matching (HPM) address, the contents of the matched location, and other status information (e.g., skip bit, empty bit, full flag, as well as match and multiple match flags) may be output from the CAM device to an output bus. In addition, associative data may be read out from an associated addressable storage device (e.g., DRAM).
To increase bandwidth, it is desirable for CAM devices to handle multiple flows (e.g., different input strings) at the same time. This can be achieved using a CAM array having rows of multi-compare CAM cells that can compare multiple input strings with stored data therein at the same time. For conventional multi-compare CAM arrays, the match results associated with respective multiple compare operations are provided simultaneously to a single priority encoder, which in turn generates the HPM index. Because conventional priority encoders generate the HPM index as a function of priority (e.g., the physical location of the matching data relative to the non-matching data), the output match results of one flow can dominate the output match results of other flows depending upon the arrangement of data stored in the CAM device. For example, if input strings associated with a first flow F1 most frequently match higher-priority CAM data and input strings associated with a second flow F2 most frequently match lower-priority CAM data, then the priority encoder will most frequently report the match results (i.e., the HPM indices) of the first flow F1, even if the second flow F2 also has match conditions during the same compare cycle. In this case, the match results of the first flow F1 override the match results of the second flow F2, thereby unfairly rendering the accuracy of the second flow's match results subject to the match results of the first flow. Indeed, the preferential reporting of match results for one flow over the match results of other flows is not acceptable in multi-flow search systems for which multiple flows are deemed to be equally important (e.g., such as those currently employed in QoS functions, regular expression searching, intrusion detection, and so on).
The problem of under-reporting the match results of some flows in favor of the match results of another flow can be addressed by providing a separate priority encoder for each flow to be simultaneously compared in the CAM device. However, because priority encoders are complex logic circuits having a number of hierarchical levels of logic gates, providing a separate priority encoder for each flow in a multi-flow CAM device would dramatically increase the size and power consumption of the CAM device.
Thus, there is a need for a flow-sensitive priority encoding scheme for a CAM device that ensures an even distribution of match results between multiple flows without requiring a separate priority encoder for each flow.
Like reference numerals refer to corresponding parts throughout the drawing figures.
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1. Field of the Invention
The field of invention relates to game apparatus, and more particularly pertains to a new and improved tax board game apparatus wherein the same is directed to the simulation of income taxing relative to a life-like situation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Game apparatus of various types have been indicated in the prior art with game apparatus directed to monetary themes indicated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,071,135 and 4,799,686. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,440,397 to be Butner sets forth a tax game having a single substantially serpentine path to associate various penalties and rewards along the path.
The instant invention attempts to overcome deficiencies of the prior art by providing for the award and penalties in association with further card draws from associated card decks relative to individual spaces of an inner and outer path of spaces and in this respect, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.
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The present invention relates to the use of powerlines for transmission of high frequency signals. More particularly, but not exclusively, the present invention relates to the use of powerlines: in wireless communications where the powerlines are used as antenna; the communication of signals across transformers, open circuits or other devices associated with powerlines; and monitoring powerline noise to determine information about devices connected to a powerline. To assist in explanation of the present invention, problems associated with powerlines are discussed. Such problems may seem unrelated, without the benefit of this disclosure.
Generally, it is known to use powerlines for communications, such as may be used for home networking or other purposes. In such a network, computers or other network devices are interfaced to an outlet of the powerline and communications signals are sent over the power line. The powerline signals typically have a frequency of 60 Hz so a high pass filter can be used to filter out the 60 Hz. The communications signals sent over the power line are substantially higher such as on the order of 4 to 24 MHz. U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,413 to Beukema discloses one such example of using powerlines for communications. Various HomePlug® devices exist from multiple manufacturers. One problem exhibited by various examples of such devices is that such devices do not demonstrate adequate surge survivability. U.S. Pat. No. 6,130,896 to Luker et al. discloses another example of such a use of powerlines for communications. Luker et al. further discloses that a device connected to the powerlines may also be connected to an access point with an antenna for providing wireless communication.
Another problem related to communications over powerlines is the effect of open circuits, equipment such as transformers, or other devices or signals transmitted across the powerlines. Communications over powerlines may not be viable in certain applications unless effects of open circuits, equipment such as transformers, or other devices can be managed.
A seemingly unrelated problem is failure of devices connected to power lines, such as, but not limited to, transformers. Failure of such devices may result in disruptions of service. It would be advantageous if failure of such devices could be predicted prior to its occurrence so that devices could be repaired or replaced prior to failure.
Another seemingly unrelated problem relates to worker safety in large structures and mines. In the event of a disaster such as a structural failure or mine cave-in, locating workers as expeditiously as possible becomes a primary concern. Yet doing so can be difficult for a variety of reasons and presents a more complex set of problems than is present in other location finding applications. For example, services such as GPS are not options because the workers within certain structures, especially metal structures or workers who are underground have no line-of-sight to either GPS satellites or other workers. Radio signals become highly attenuated which makes it impractical to use conventional approaches. What is needed is a way to locate workers trapped within a large structure or in a mine.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to amusement park games and more specifically to an amusement maze. The maze of the present invention can be located indoors and consists of a plurality of pivotal wall panels whereby each panel may pivot to open a passage way or close a passage way creating a new maze pattern. Each wall panel unit consists of two pivotal panels mounted to a pillar. The cell panels can be constructed of a variety of materials ranging from opaque to transparent. The heights of the individual cell panels can range from greater than half panels=that the user can see over so the whole maze is visible to higher than eye level, so that the user can see no further than the cells adjacent to and nearby the cell the user occupies. Each unit is computer controlled and can flip the panels back and forth by means of a servomotor mounted to each pillar. When a plurality of units are joined together, they create cells. The cells create the maze. The maze can be reconfigured from day to day or minute to minute, by changing the pivotal wall panel configuration and creating a new pattern. The number of cells joined together is variable. The more cells joined together the larger the maze. Located within each cell, a motion sensor, a voice activated panic alarm, a hand activated panic button and direction lights that may lead a player to the nearest exit. All are safety features linked to the main monitor and computer. The main computer is located in a building out side of the maze in the attendant""s room. The attendant""s room consists of the main computer and monitor used in the operation and reconfiguration of the maze and maze patterns. Located outside of the attendant""s room is a computer and monitor for the player that may reconfigure the maze pattern as per the user""s request. The monitor may show the progress a player is achieving related to the maze challenge the player has chosen.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are other amusement mazes designed for game activities. Typical of these is U.S. Pat. No. 5,046,720 issued to Bolly on Sep. 10, 1991
Another patent was issued to Greer on Sep. 22, 1998 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,809,708. Yet another U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,371 was issued to Sanders on Jan. 5, 1999 and still yet another was issued on May 25, 1999 to Sanders et al. as U.S. Pat. No. 5,906,373.
Another patent was issued to Tobin et al on Oct. 26, 1999 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,830.
An amusement maze is located inside of a building and defines a labyrinth walking path. The maze is formed by upright flexible panels which are appropriately arranged in selected longitudinally and laterally extending patterns. The panels are supported by ropes anchored to a single sidewall of the building and are suspended above the floor of the building by wires which extend upwardly to the ceiling.
An integrated prefabricated furniture is provided for finishing or fitting-out open plan building spaces, such as for offices, classrooms, hotels/motels, conference centers, medical treatment facilities, etc. A demountable architectural wall system covers the fixed walls of the building room, a portable partition wall system defines the interior space into individual work settings, and a demountable movable wall system forms custom width partitions. The three wall systems are completely compatible and fully integrated in both function and appearance, and provide similar utility raceways at common heights, as well as interchangeable cover panels. A modular column cover system selectively covers the support columns in the building room, and provides vertical utility routing and storage that integrates with the raceways in the wall systems. Pre-assembled facades, the freestanding storage case system, a space frame system, a prefabricated low raised floor construction, a modular overhead link head system, and accessories are disclosed and are designed to be used anywhere throughout the furniture system, and to serve to personalize the various individual work settings to accommodate specific users and tasks. Advantageously, the furniture system is readily reconfigurable.
A water targeting game (10), known as WATER TAG.TM. The game (10) consists of three major elements: a targeting vest (12), a water gun (140) and an obstruction maze (142) wherein the game is played. The targeting vest (12) includes a front vest (14) and a back vest (16) that are joined together at their upper peripheral edge (26) by a pair of adjustable shoulder straps (70) and that are adjusted at a person""s waist by a pair of waist straps (74,76). Between the two vests is a cavity (56) and on the front section (42) of the vest, is located a plurality of water collecting openings (58) that serve as targets. When playing the game, the water gun emits a stream of water that is aimed at the openings (58) from where the water falls into the cavity (56). The water collected in the cavities (56) is viewed through a sealed vertical window (62) that is also located on the vest""s front section (42).
A WATER TAG.TM. game (10) that consists of a maze structure (14) having an outer perimeter wall (16) enclosing a plurality of sections (20,22,24,26) and protrusions (40). An opening (36) admits players armed with water guns (12) into the maze structure (14). Once inside the players circulate among the sections (20,22,24,26) and the protrusions (40), firing their water guns (12) at each other. The maze structure (14) is inflated when the WATER TAG.TM. game is being played and can be deflated for storage and transportation.
A constructable spinning top maze kit having a base upon which rail pieces may be removably mounted to form a maze through which the spinning top may travel when launched from a launcher. Multiple bases may be joined together in a single plane to create an indefinitely-extendable maze, or multiple bases may be assembled in multiple planes to create an indefinitely-extendable multi-level maze. Because rail pieces are removably mounted on the base pieces, a maze may be disassembled and reconstructed to form another maze have a completely different geometry, or one or more rail pieces may be repositioned to less drastically alter the geometry of the maze. As with the rail pieces, the launcher may be removably mounted on the base pieces. Therefore, the launcher may be positioned at a variety of locations in a maze, easily repositioned, and used within a variety of maze geometries. One or more pins may be placed on the base to provide a game with the objective of launching the top in a manner such that it will knock over the pins. The rail pieces may have downward-directed dowels with spacings which are integer multiples of a unit distance, and the base may have holes separated by the unit distance into which the dowels of the rail pieces may be inserted, thereby maximizing the number of rail configurations on the base.
While these amusement maze games may be suitable for the purposes for which they were designed, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention, as hereinafter described. It is thus desirable to provide an amusement maze which defines a walking path for challenging the skill of a person to find the proper path from an entrance to an exit. It is further more desirable to provide a maze that may constantly change its pattern by means of computer programs designed for that purpose.
The present invention discloses an amusement maze. The maze of the present invention can be located indoors and consists of a plurality of pivotal wall panels whereby each panel may pivot to open a passage way or close a passage way creating a new maze pattern. Each wall panel unit consists of two pivotal panels mounted to a pillar. Each unit is computer controlled and can flip the panels back and forth by means of a servomotor mounted to each pillar. When a plurality of units are joined together, they create cells. The cells create the maze. Located within each cell, a motion sensor, a voice activated panic alarm, a hand activated panic button and direction lights that may lead a player to the nearest exit. All are safety features linked to the main monitor and computer. The main computer is located in a building out side of the maze in the attendant""s room. The attendant""s room consists of the main computer and monitor used in the operation and reconfiguration of the maze and maze patterns. Located outside of the attendant""s room is a computer and monitor for the player that may reconfigure the maze pattern as per the user""s request. The monitor may show the progress a player is achieving related to the maze challenge the player has chosen.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide an amusement maze for entertainment.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an amusement maze which defines a walking path for challenging the skill of a person to find the proper path from an entrance to an exit or final goal.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a computer controlled maze system consisting a program capable of a plurality of possibilities in maze patterns.
Still yet another object of the present invention is to provide pivotal wall panel units attached to a pillar and operating by a servomotor controlled by a main computer.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a wall panel unit that when joined together with other units create a cell. When a plurality of cells are joined together, they create a maze. The more cells assembled the larger and more versatile the maze. The maze can be constructed on one level (i.e., a ground floor) or multiple levels, two stories or more.
Additional objects of the present invention will appear as the description proceeds.
The present invention overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art by providing a maze network consisting of safety features such as a motion sensor, a voice activated panic alarm, a hand activated panic button and direction lights that may lead a player to the nearest exit.
The foregoing and other objects and advantages will appear from the description to follow. In the description reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments will be described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the invention. In the accompanying drawings, like reference characters designate the same or similar parts throughout the several views.
The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is best defined by the appended claims.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of driving an electronic display device having EL (electro luminescence) elements formed on a substrate. More particularly, the invention relates to a method of driving an EL display device using semiconductor elements (elements using semiconductor thin films) as well as to electronic equipment of the type in which an EL display device is used as a display part.
Incidentally, the term “EL element” used herein indicates both an element which uses emission from a singlet exciter (fluorescence) and an element which uses emission from a triplet exciter (phosphorescence).
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in the field of self-emitting elements, the development of EL display devices having EL elements has been becoming more and more active. EL display devices are called organic EL displays (OELD(s)) or organic light emitting diodes (OLED(s)).
Such an EL display device is of the self-emitting type which differs from liquid crystal devices. An EL element has a structure in which an EL layer is interposed between a pair of electrodes (an anode and a cathode), and ordinary EL layers have a stacked structure. Representatively, there is a stacked structure which is called “hole transport layer/light emitting layer/electron transport layer”, proposed by Tang et al. of Kodak Eastman Company. This structure has very high emission efficiency, and is adopted in nearly all EL display devices currently under research and development.
Other structures may also be adopted, such as a structure in which “a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, a light emitting layer and an electron transport layer” are stacked on an anode in that order, or a structure in which “a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, a light emitting layer, an electron transport layer and an electron injection layer” are stacked on an anode in that order. The light emitting layer may also be doped with a fluorescent pigment or the like.
All the layers provided between a cathode and an anode are herein generically called “EL layer”. Accordingly, all the aforementioned hole injection layer, hole transport layer, light emitting layer, electron transport layer and electron injection layer are encompassed in the EL layer.
When a predetermined voltage is applied across a pair of electrodes (both electrodes) of the EL layer with the above-described structure, recombination of carriers occur in the emitting layer, whereby the EL element emits light. Incidentally, “EL element emits light” is herein called “EL element is driven”.
As a driving method for the EL display device, there is an active matrix type EL display device.
FIG. 3 shows an example of the construction of a pixel portion of an active matrix type EL display device. A gate signal line (G1 to Gy) to which a selection signal is to be inputted from a gate signal line driver circuit is connected to the gate electrode of a switching TFT 301 which is provided in each pixel of the pixel portion. Either one of the source and drain regions of the switching TFT 301 provided in each pixel is connected to a source signal line (S1 to Sx) to which a signal is to be inputted from a source signal line driver circuit, while the other is connected to the gate electrode of an EL driving TFT 302 and to either one of the electrodes of a capacitor 303 which is provided in each pixel. The other electrode of the capacitor 303 is connected to a power supply line (V1 to Vx). Either one of the source and drain regions of the EL driving TFT 302 provided in each pixel is connected to the power supply line (V1 to Vx), while the other is connected to the other electrode of the EL element 304 provided in each pixel.
The EL element 304 has an anode, a cathode and an EL layer provided between the anode and the cathode. In the case where the anode of the EL element 304 is connected to the source region or the drain region of the EL driving TFT 302, the anode and the cathode of the EL element 304 become a pixel electrode and a counter electrode, respectively. Contrarily, in the case where the cathode of the EL element 304 is connected to the source region or the drain region of the EL driving TFT 302, the cathode and the anode of the EL element 304 become a pixel electrode and a counter electrode, respectively.
Incidentally, the potential of the counter electrode is herein called “counter potential”, and a power source for applying the counter potential to the counter electrode is herein called “counter power source”. The difference between the potential of the pixel electrode and the potential of the counter electrode is an EL driving voltage, and the EL driving voltage is applied to the EL layer.
As a gray scale display method for the above-described EL display device, there are an analog gray scale method and a time gray scale method.
First, the analog gray scale method for the EL display device will be described below. FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing the case where the display device shown in FIG. 3 is driven by the analog gray scale method. The period from the moment when one gate signal is selected until the moment when the next gate signal line is selected is herein called “one line period (L)”. The period from the moment when one image is selected until the moment when the next image is selected corresponds to one frame period. In the case of the EL display device shown in FIG. 3, since the number of gate signal lines is “y”, y-number of line periods (L1 to Ly) are provided in one frame period.
As the resolution of the EL display device becomes higher, the number of line periods for one frame period becomes larger, and the driver circuit of the EL display device must be driven at a higher frequency.
The power source lines (V1 to Vx) are kept at a constant voltage (power source potential). In addition, the counter potential is kept constant. The counter potential has a potential difference from the power source potential to such an extent that the EL elements emit light.
In the first line period (L1), a selection signal from the gate signal line driver circuit is inputted to the gate signal line Gi. Then, analog video signals are inputted to the source signal lines (S1 to Sx) in this order.
Since all the switching TFTs 301 connected to the gate signal line G1 are turned on, the analog video signals which have been inputted to the source signal lines (S1 to Sx) are respectively inputted to the EL driving TFTs 302 via the switching TFTs 301.
According to the potential of the analog video signal inputted to each of the pixels when the switching TFT 301 is turned on, the gate voltage of the EL driving TFT 302 varies. At this time, the drain current of the EL driving TFT 302 is determined at a 1-to-1 ratio to the gate voltage thereof in accordance with the Id-Vg characteristic of the EL driving TFT 302. Specifically, according to the potential of the analog video signals inputted to the gate electrode of the EL driving TFT 302, the potential of the drain region of the EL driving TFT 302 (an EL driving voltage corresponding to the on state of the switching TFT 301) is determined and a predetermined drain current flows into the EL element 304, and the EL element 304 emits light at the amount of emission corresponding to the amount of the drain current.
When the above-described operations are repeated until the termination of inputting the analog video signals to the respective source signal lines (S1 to Sx), the first line period (L1) terminates. Incidentally, one line period may also be defined as the sum of the period required until the termination of inputting the analog video signals to the respective source signal lines (S1 to Sx) and a horizontal retrace period. Then, the second line period (L2) starts, and a selection signal is inputted to the gate signal line G2. Similarly to the first line period (L1), analog video signals are inputted to the source signal lines (S1 to Sx) in this order.
When selection signals are inputted to all the gate signal lines (G1 to Gy), all the line periods (L1 to Ly) terminate. When all the line periods (L1 to Ly) terminate, one frame period terminates. During one frame period, all the pixels perform displaying and one image is formed. Incidentally, one frame period may also be defined as the sum of all the line periods (L1 to Ly) and a vertical retrace period.
As described above, the amounts of emissions of the respective EL elements are controlled by the analog video signals, and gray scale display is provided by the control of the amounts of emissions. In this manner, in the analog gray scale method, gray scale display is carried out by the variations in the potentials of the respective analog video signals inputted to the source signal lines.
The time gray scale method will be described below.
In the time gray scale method, digital signals are inputted to pixels to select the emitting states or the non-emitting states of the respective EL elements, whereby gray scales are represented by the cumulation of periods per frame period during which each of the EL elements.
In the following description, 2n gray scales (n is a natural number) are represented. FIG. 5 is a timing chart showing the case where the display device shown in FIG. 3 is driven by the time gray scale method. One frame period is divided into n-number of sub-frame periods (SF1 to SFn). Incidentally, the period for which all the pixels of the pixel portion displays one image is called “one frame period (F)”. Plural periods into which one frame period is divided are called “sub-frame periods”, respectively. As the number of gray scales increases, the number by which one frame period is divided also increases, and the driver circuit of the EL display device must be driven at a higher frequency.
One sub-frame period is divided into a write period (Ta) and a display period (Ts). The write period is the period for which digital signals are inputted to all the pixels during one sub-frame period, and the display period (also called “lighting period”) is the period for which the respective EL display devices assume their emitting states or non-emitting states in accordance with the input digital signals, thereby performing displaying.
The EL driving voltage shown in FIG. 5 represents the EL driving voltage of an EL element for which emitting state is selected. Specifically, the EL driving voltage (FIG. 5) of the EL element for which emitting state is selected is 0 V during the write period, and has, during the display period, a magnitude which enables the EL element to emit light.
The counter potential is controlled by an external switch (not shown) so that the counter potential is kept at approximately the same level as the power source potential during the write period, and has, during the display period, a potential difference from the power source potential to such an extent that the EL element can emit light.
The write period and the display period of each sub-frame period will first be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 3 and 5, and subsequently, the time gray scale method will be described.
First, a gate signal is inputted to the gate signal line G1, and all the switching TFTs 301 connected to the gate signal line G1 are turned on. Then, digital signals are inputted to the source signal lines (S1 to Sx) in that order. The counter potential is kept at the same level as the potential of the power supply lines (V1 to Vx) (power source potential). Each of the digital signals has information of “0” or “1”. Each of the digital signals of “0” or “1” means a signal which has a voltage of high level or low level.
Then, the digital signals which have been inputted to the source signal lines (S1 to Sx) are respectively inputted to the gate electrodes of the EL driving TFTs 302 via the switching TFTs 301 which are in the on state. The respective digital signals are also inputted to the capacitors 303.
Then, the above-described operations are repeated by inputting gate signals to the respective gate signal lines (G2 to Gy), whereby digital signals are inputted to all the pixels and the input digital signal is held in each of the pixels. The period required until the digital signals are inputted to all the pixels is called “write period”.
When the digital signals are inputted to all the pixels, all the switching TFTs 301 are turned off. Thus, an external switch (not shown) connected to the counter electrode causes the counter potential to vary so that a potential difference which enables the EL element 304 to emit light is produced between the counter potential and the power source potential.
In the case where the digital signals have information of “0”, the EL driving TFTs 302 are turned off and the EL elements 304 do not emit light. Contrarily, in the case where the digital signals have information of “1”, the EL driving TFTs 302 are turned on. Consequently, the pixel electrodes of the respective EL elements 304 are kept at approximately the same potential as the power source potential, and the EL elements 304 emit light. In this manner, the emitting states or the non-emitting states of the EL elements 304 are selected in accordance with the information of the digital signals, and all the pixels perform displaying at the same time. When all the pixels perform display, an image is formed. The period for which the pixels perform displaying is called “display period”.
The lengths of the write periods (Ta1 to Tan) of all the n-number of sub-frame periods (SF1 to SFn) are the same. The display periods (Ts) of the respective sub-frame periods (SF1 to SFn) are denoted by Ts1 to Tsn.
The lengths of the respective display periods are set to become Ts1:Ts2:Ts3: . . . :Ts(n−1):Tsn=20:2−1:22: . . . :2−(n−2):2−(n−1), respectively. By combining the desired ones of these display periods, it is possible to provide display in the desired number of gray scales within 2n gray scales.
The display period is any one of Ts1 to Tsn. Here, it is assumed that predetermined pixels are turned on for the period of Ts1.
Then, when the next write period starts and data signals are inputted to all the pixels, the next display period starts. At this time, the display period is any one of Ts2 to Tsn. Here, it is assumed that predetermined pixels are turned on for the period of Ts2.
It is assumed that the same operations are repeated as to the remaining (n−2)-number of sub-frames, whereby the display periods are set as Ts3, Ts4, . . . , Tsn in this order and predetermined pixels are turned on during each of the sub-frames.
When the n-number of sub-frame periods appear, one frame period terminates. At this time, the gray scale of a pixel is determined by cumulatively calculating the length of the display period for which the pixel has been turned on. For example, assuming that n=8 and the obtainable luminance in the case where the pixel emits light for all the display period is 100%, if the pixel emits light during Ts1 and T,2, a luminance of 75% can be represented, and if Ts3, Ts5 and Ts8 are selected, a luminance of 16% can be realized.
Incidentally, in the driving method using the time gray scale method which represents gray scales by inputting n-bit digital signals, the number of plural sub-frame periods into which one frame period is divided, the lengths of the respective sub-frame periods and the like are not limited to the above-described examples.
The above-described analog gray scale method has problems to be described below.
The analog gray scale method has the problem that the unevenness of the characteristics of TFTs greatly affects gray scale display. For example, it is assumed that the Id-Vg characteristics of switching TFTs differ between two pixels which represent the same gray scale (the characteristic of either one of the pixels is shifted as a whole to a plus or minus side relative to the characteristic of the other).
In this case, the drain currents of the respective switching TFTs take different values, and gate voltages with different values are applied to the EL driving TFTs of the respective pixels. In other words, different amounts of currents flow into the EL elements of the respective pixels, and as a result, the amounts of emissions from the EL elements differ from each other and the same gray scale cannot be represented.
Even if equal gate voltages are applied to the EL driving TFTs of the respective pixels, the EL driving TFTs cannot output the same amount of drain current so long as the Id-Vg characteristics of the EL driving TFTs are not even. For this reason, if the Id-Vg characteristics of the switching TFTs slightly differ from each other, the amounts of currents outputted from the EL driving TFTs greatly differ from each other even when equal gate voltages are applied to the EL driving TFTs. As a result, owing to a slight unevenness of the Id-Vg characteristics, the amounts of emissions from the EL elements greatly differ between adjacent pixels even if signals of the same voltage are applied to the EL driving TFTs.
Gray scale display actually becomes far more non-uniform owing to a synergistic effect of the unevenness of the characteristics of the switching TFTs and the unevenness of the characteristics of the EL driving TFTs. Thus, analog gray scale display is extremely sensitive to the unevenness of the characteristics of TFTs. Accordingly, when this EL display device provides gray scale display, there is the problem that the display becomes considerably uneven.
The time gray scale method has a problem to be described below.
In the time gray scale method, the luminance of an EL element is represented by the time for which a current flows in the EL element and the EL element emits light. Accordingly, it is possible to greatly suppress the non-uniformity of display due to the unevenness of the characteristics of TFTs, which is a problem in the analog gray scale method. However, there is another problem.
The current which flows in the EL element is controlled by a voltage to be applied across both electrodes of the EL element (EL driving voltage). This EL driving voltage is a voltage obtained by subtracting the voltage across the drain and the source of an EL driving TFT from the potential difference between a power source potential and a counter potential. In order to avoid the influence of the non-uniformity of drain-source voltages due to the unevenness of the characteristics of EL driving TFTs and keep the EL driving voltage constant, the voltage across the drain and the source of the EL driving TFT is set to be far smaller than the EL driving voltage. At this time, the EL driving TFT is operating in a linear region.
In the TFT operation, the linear region corresponds to the operating region in which a voltage VDS across the drain and the source of the TFT is smaller than a gate voltage VGS of the TFT.
Here, the current flowing between both electrodes of the EL element is influenced by temperature. FIG. 17 is a graph showing the temperature characteristic of the EL element. From this graph, it is possible to know the amounts of currents which flow between both electrodes of the EL element with respect to voltages applied across both electrodes of the EL element at certain temperatures. A temperature T1 is higher than a temperature T2, and the temperature T2 is higher than a temperature T3. As can be seen from FIG. 17, even if the voltage applied across the both electrodes of the EL element in the pixel portion is the same, the current flowing between both electrodes of the EL element becomes larger owing to the temperature characteristic of the EL element as the temperature of the EL element becomes higher.
The luminance of the EL element is proportional to the amount of current flowing between both electrodes of the EL element.
In this manner, the time gray scale method has the problem that the current flowing between both electrodes of the EL element varies owing to variations in the environmental temperature at which the EL display device is used if a constant voltage is continuously applied across both electrodes of the EL element, and the luminance of the EL display device varies and accurate gray scale display becomes impossible.
In the active matrix type EL display device, for the above-described reasons, if the conventional analog gray scale method or time gray scale method is used, it is impossible to perform accurate gray scale display.
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1. Field of the Present Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of microprocessor based computers and more specifically to improving the reliability, flexibility, and power consumption in network computers and other limited resource computers.
2. History of Related Art
The increasing number of computing applications for which a local area network provides a desirable solution has focused increased attention on maximizing network value by carefully controlling the implementation of resources on each computer in the network. In the past, local area networks were frequently designed by interconnecting two or more personal computers, possibly in combination with a large capacity, centralized server machine. The wide spread availability and acceptance of disk based operating system software that eliminated much of the design overhead associated with implementing a local area network greatly contributed to the proliferation of networks comprised of a two or more essentially stand alone machines. Despite the ease with which such networks can be implemented, these networks are not designed to maximize value to the end user because these networks fail to distribute resources in an optimal fashion. More specifically, networks comprised simply of a collection of stand alone machines unnecessarily duplicate resources that can be offered via the network and centralized in one or more network servers. Attempts to address this concern by simply stripping resources from each network computer have resulted in network machines that lack desirable flexibility and features. Examples of such attempts include modifications or simplifications to the power supply of stand alone machines and the elimination of local permanent storage such as disk based devices. Unfortunately, the drawbacks resulting from such attempts to reduce the cost and eliminate unnecessary repetitiveness from network computers overwhelms the advantages achieved. The simplification of a conventional power supply, for example, has typically resulted in a computer incapable of implementing a conventional low power mode while elimination of disk based media from machines severely limits the software applications available to operate on such machines. Accordingly, it is desirable to introduce various improvements and features into computers, designed specifically for use in a network environment to achieve a machine that reduces cost and eliminates unnecessary redundancy in network resources without suffering a noticeable decrease in reliability, flexibility, and performance.
The problems raised above are in large part addressed by a network computer according to the present invention that facilitates local recovery of network machines, low cost implementation of permanent local storage, improved reliability through a reduction in the network computer""s susceptibility to EMI effects, as well as additional benefits discussed in greater detail below. The invention combines the savings achieved by minimizing network computer resources while offsetting the major drawbacks that occur in machines from which resources have been simply removed.
Broadly speaking, a first application of the invention contemplates a boot code storage device configured with computer instructions for executing a boot code validity check in response to a boot event to facilitate local recovery of a computer such as a network computer. In response to the boot event, such as powering up a computer in which the boot code storage device is located, an image of a boot code is copied from a first storage medium to the boot code storage device if the validity check is negative. Remaining portions of the boot code including a start up sequence are executed if the validity check is positive. In one embodiment, the boot code validity check determines the presence or absence of a boot code jumper in a motherboard to which the boot code storage device is connected. In the preferred embodiment, the boot code storage device comprises a flash memory device, preferably including a plurality of sectors. In the preferred embodiment, the boot code validity check is part of a boot block of the boot code residing in a first sector of the flash memory device. The boot block and boot code reside in contiguous memory of the boot code storage device in one implementation. The first storage medium from which the boot code is copied, in one embodiment, is a compact flash card configured with an image of the boot code.
The first application further contemplates a method of respond to a computer boot event in which a boot code validity check is executed. An image of a boot code is then copied from a first storage medium to a boot code storage device of the computer if the validity check is negative. Remaining portions of the boot code, preferably including a start up sequence, are executed if the validity check is positive. The boot event may comprise a power up of the computer or a LAN wake up event. The validity check preferably includes determining if a boot code jumper is present on the computer""s motherboard. In the preferred embodiment, the boot code validity check is executed as part of a boot block that forms a portion of the boot code residing in a first sector of the boot code storage device, such as a flash memory device.
The first application of the invention still further contemplates a method of restoring a network computer in which an operator or user configures the computer to fail a boot code validity check, such as by inserting a jumper into a boot code jumper block of the computer""s motherboard. A boot event is then executed, such as by powering on the computer, to initiate the validity check. In response to failing the validity check, an image of a boot code is copied into a boot code storage device of the computer from a first storage medium. In an embodiment in which the first storage medium is a compact flash card, the method permits local recovery of a computer that does not have a hard drive or other disk based storage medium.
A second application of the invention contemplates a method of creating a boot code image in which a computer is configured to fail a boot code creation bypass test prior to executing the bypass test. When the bypass test is subsequently executed, an image of a boot code stored in a boot code storage device is copied to a first storage medium in response to failing the bypass test. Preferably, the computer is configured to fail the bypass test by inserting at least one jumper in a motherboard of the computer. In this embodiment, the absence or presence of the at least one bypass jumper determines the outcome of the bypass test. In one embodiment, the boot code creation bypass test is executed in response to a boot event, such as a system power on or reset. In the preferred embodiment, the bypass test comprises a portion of a boot block portion of the boot code. In one embodiment, the boot code is stored to a compact flash card in response to the failure of the bypass test. A flash memory device including a plurality of sectors is used as the boot code storage device. In one embodiment, the boot block and boot code creation bypass test reside in a first sector of the flash memory device while the remaining portions of the boot code including a start up sequence reside in subsequent sectors.
The second application of the invention further contemplates a boot code storage device configured with instructions for executing a boot code creation bypass test in response to a boot event. If the bypass test fails, the boot code executes a routine that copies an image of a boot code from the boot code storage device to a first storage medium, such as the compact flash card indicated previously. If the bypass test passes, the boot code jumps around the boot block and the copy routine and executes a start up sequence to bring the computer to a predetermined initial state. In embodiments in which the boot code storage device is a flash memory device, the flash memory device preferably includes a plurality of sectors, where the boot block resides in the first sector.
The second application of the invention further contemplates a method of restoring a computer network. A first network computer is configured to fail a boot code creation bypass test. The bypass test is then executed and, in response to failing the bypass test, an image of a boot code is copied from a boot code storage device of the first network computer to a first storage medium. A second network computer is then configured to fail a boot code validity check and the validity check executed on the second computer. In response to failing the validity check, an image of the boot code is then copied from the first storage medium to a boot code storage device of the second network computer. The configuring of the first network computer comprises inserting at least one boot code creation jumper in a motherboard of the first network computer, while the configuring of the second network computer comprises inserting at least one boot code validity jumper in a motherboard of the second network computer.
A third application of the present invention contemplates a network computer. The computer includes a motherboard powered by a power supply via a single power supply plane, a clock generator, a processor, and a system memory attached to the motherboard; and a network interface preferably integrated into the motherboard. The network computer is configured to assume a low power state in response to a low power event. The computer is further configured to transition from the low power state to a full power state in response to a wake up event. The wake up event may comprise a LAN wake up in the form of a command issued by a server computer coupled to the network computer via a network. In this way, the power mode of the network computer is remotely manageable by the server computer. In one embodiment, the network computer lacks a disk based storage device, but includes local permanent storage comprising a compact flash card. Preferably, the network computer""s clock generator is configured to produce a clock signal for the processor when the network computer is in the full power mode, and further configured to produce no clock signal in the low power mode. In one embodiment, the network computer further includes at least one peripheral device coupled to the processor via a peripheral bus, such as a PCI bus. In this embodiment, the computer is preferably configured to transition each peripheral device on the peripheral bus to a power management mode when the network computer enters low power mode. A preferred embodiment of the invention includes a computer with a full power mode power consumption of less than approximately 65 watts and a low power mode maximum power consumption of less than approximately 15 watts. In one embodiment, the low power event includes simply pushing an on/off button of the network computer. Similarly the wake up event may include pushing the on/off button a second time. The wake up event may be a LAN wake up event in which a wake up signal is received via the network interface, or a xe2x80x9cwake on ringxe2x80x9d event in which the wake up signal is received via a modem connection to the computer.
The third application of the present invention further contemplates a computer network, including a network computer and a server computer. The network computer includes a motherboard powered by a power supply via a single power supply plane, a clock generator, a processor, and a system memory attached to the motherboard, and a network interface that is preferably integrated into the motherboard. The network computer is configured to assume a low power state in response to a low power event and further configured to transition from the low power state to a full power state in response to a wake up event. The wake up event may be a LAN wake up signal issued by a server computer coupled to the network computer via a network medium. The server computer is interfaced to the network computer via the network and preferably configured to issue the wake up signal to the network computer. In one embodiment, the network computer is characterized by the lack of a disk based storage device, and the inclusion of local permanent storage in the form of a compact flash card. In one embodiment the local permanent storage of the server computer includes a disk based storage device and may further include a compact flash card. In the preferred embodiment, the network medium comprises cable or twisted wires. Alternatively, the network is wireless. Preferably, the low power event invokes a routine that halts the network computer clock generator and places peripheral devices attached to peripheral busses of the network computer into a power management mode. The wake up event preferably executes a reset of the peripheral busses and the clock generator.
The third application of the present invention still further contemplates a method of managing power consumption in a computer network in which a network computer including a motherboard powered by a power supply via a single power plane is forced to assume a low power mode in response to a low power event. A wake up event, such as a LAN wakeup signal issued by a server computer of the network, or a modem signal from a modem device of the network computer is then executed to transition the network computer from the low power state to a full power state. The low power event may comprise simply pushing an on/off button of the network computer. Preferably, the low power state of the network computer comprises a state in which a clock generator of the network computer is halted.
A fourth application of the present invention contemplates a network computer including, a chassis, a power supply affixed to an interior surface of the chassis, a motherboard powered by the power supply, the motherboard including a clock generator, a boot code storage device, a processor, and a system memory and a network interface suitable for interfacing the network computer to a server computer via a network. The network computer lacks a disk drive, but includes local permanent storage such as a compact flash card. Preferably, the network computer includes one or more peripheral devices connected to a peripheral bus of the computer. In the preferred embodiment, the network interface includes one or more devices and associated circuitry integrated into the motherboard and includes an RJ45 connector. In one embodiment, the power supply powers the motherboard via a single power plane and the computer consumes less than approximately 65 watts in a full power mode and less than approximately 15 watts in a low power mode. Preferably, the boot code storage device comprises a flash memory device configured with boot code processor instructions. In one embodiment, the network computer includes disk drive facilities for receiving a disk drive unit such that a disk drive may be installed in the network computer.
The fourth application of the invention further contemplates a method of testing a network computer including connecting a disk based storage device to a network computer that lacks a disk based storage device but includes local permanent storage, such as a compact flash card. A disk based operating system, such as OS/2(copyright), Windows 98(copyright), or Windows NT(copyright), is then loaded on the network computer via the disk based storage device. A test suite supported by the disk based operating system on the network computer is then loaded and executed on the network computer to verify its functionality. The disk based storage device is then removed. In one embodiment, the method further includes similarly installing the disk based storage device in each of a plurality of network computers comprising the network, whereby a single such disk based storage device may be used to verify each of the plurality of network computers.
The fourth application of the invention still further contemplates a computer network, including at least one network computer comprised of a chassis, a power supply affixed to an interior surface of the chassis, a motherboard powered by the power supply, and a network interface preferably integrated into the motherboard and suitable for interfacing the network computer to a server computer via a network medium. The network computer lacks a disk based storage device, but includes local permanent storage such as a compact flash card. The network further includes a server computer interfaced to the network computer via the network medium. The server computer includes a chassis, a power supply attached to an interior of the server computer chassis, a motherboard, and local permanent storage including a disk based storage device. In one embodiment, the network computer power supply powers the motherboard via a single power plane and consumes less than approximately 65 watts of power. Preferably, the network interface is integrated into the motherboard and provides for an Ethernet connection to the network including an RJ45 connector. The network medium may comprise cable, twisted wire, or the atmosphere in a wireless embodiment of the network. The server computer may include additional local permanent storage in the form of a compact flash card.
A fifth application of the invention emphasizes a connector for use in a network interface to reduce EMI effects in a high speed network. The connector includes, a connector housing, preferably formed of a conductive material such as aluminum. The housing includes a receptacle face that defines a receptacle opening. A receptacle of the connector is attached to an interior surface of the housing and suitable for receiving a terminus of the network cable through the receptacle opening. The connector has a connector circuit including a cable port coupled to the network cable and an interface port coupled to the network interface. The housing defines at least one conduit adapted for receiving a light pipe. Preferably, the network interface is integrated into the motherboard a provides for an Ethernet connection. In one embodiment, the connector circuit includes magnetic components. In the preferred embodiment, the connector comprises an RJ45 connector. In an embodiment advantageous in physically smaller computers such as network computers, a maximum dimension of the housing is less than approximately one inch. In one embodiment, the connector further includes a light pipe received within the light pipe conduit. In this embodiment, a first end of the light pipe terminates at the receptacle face of the housing adjacent to the receptacle opening.
The fifth application of the invention is directed to a motherboard with an integrated network interface. The motherboard includes a printed circuit board, a connector affixed to the printed circuit board, an LED attached to the printed circuit board, and a light pipe. The LED indicates status of the network interface. The connector includes a housing and a receptacle within the housing configured to receive a network cable terminus through a receptacle opening in a receptacle face of the housing. The housing defines at least one conduit adapted to receive a light pipe. The light pipe is received within the light pipe conduit such that a first end of the light pipe terminates at a light pipe opening in the receptacle face of the housing and a second end of the light pipe terminates proximal to the LED. In this configuration, light produced by the LED proximal to the second end of the light pipe is observable at the first end of the LED. The interface is preferably provides for an Ethernet connection and the connector, such as an RJ45 connector, includes a connector circuit that has magnetic components wherein the separation of the LED and the magnetic components improves EMI susceptibility of the connector.
The fifth application of the invention further contemplates a network computer including a chassis, a motherboard including an integrated network interface. The motherboard is attached to an interior of the chassis and powered by a power supply within the chassis. The motherboard includes a processor and preferably includes at least one expansion slot. The interface preferably provides for an Ethernet connection and includes a connector, an LED and a light pipe. The connector, such as an RJ45 connector, is affixed to the motherboard and includes a housing that defines at least one conduit adapted to receive a light pipe. The LED is attached to the motherboard and configured to indicate status of the network interface. The light pipe is received within the light pipe conduit with a first end of the light pipe terminating at a light pipe opening in the receptacle face of the housing and a second end of the light pipe terminating proximal to the LED such that light produced by the LED is observable at the first end of the LED.
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Many types of input devices are presently available for performing operations in a computing system, such as buttons or keys, mice, trackballs, joysticks, touch sensor panels, touch screens and the like. Touch screens, in particular, are becoming increasingly popular because of their ease and versatility of operation as well as their declining price. Touch screens can include a touch sensor panel, which can be a clear panel with a touch-sensitive surface, and a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) that can be positioned partially or fully behind the panel so that the touch-sensitive surface can cover at least a portion of the viewable area of the display device. Touch screens can allow a user to perform various functions by touching the touch sensor panel using a finger, stylus or other object at a location dictated by a user interface (UI) being displayed by the display device. In general, touch screens can recognize a touch event and the position of the touch event on the touch sensor panel, and the computing system can then interpret the touch event in accordance with the display appearing at the time of the touch event, and thereafter can perform one or more actions based on the touch event.
Mutual capacitance touch sensor panels can be formed from a matrix of drive and sense lines of a substantially transparent conductive material such as Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), often arranged in rows and columns in horizontal and vertical directions on a substantially transparent substrate. In some touch sensor panel designs, the substantially transparent drive and/or sense lines can be routed to one edge of the substrate for off-board connections using metal traces in the border areas of the substrate where transparency may not be required. Because these metal traces are thin, low resistance conductive material may be needed. To create such traces, multiple layers of conductive material may be needed to adhere low resistance material to the substrate and form the traces. However, the processing of multiple layers can increase manufacturing costs. In addition, there can be reliability issues involved in the fabrication of stackups of these thin metal layers. Furthermore, these thin metal traces do not provide maximum shielding from noise sources such as the LCD.
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The invention relates to a method and a circuit arrangement for monitoring the operation of a processor, particularly a hardware watchdog circuit in a motor vehicle.
Patent specification DE 43 29 872 C2 discloses a monitoring circuit for microprocessors, where a monitoring circuit for the processor to be monitored is regularly reset by means of a trigger signal during normal operation. If the processor is in a current saving mode, the monitoring unit sends an interrupt signal to the processor. If the processor does not react to this interrupt signal on account of an error, the monitoring circuit produces a reset pulse.
A known device (DE 32 43 760 C2) for monitoring the operation of a processor comprises a counter with a separate clock oscillator. The counter has a reset input which is reset by a reset signal transmitted by the monitored processor at cyclic intervals of time. If the reset signal is absent, the counter outputs a “graduated reaction” depending on the period of time for which a signal is absent, i.e. initially a signal is transmitted which sets a software interrupt. If this does not result in the program being restarted, a signal triggering a hardware reset on the processor is sent after a pre-set period of time. This restarts the processor, as after the power supply is switched on. If the processor continues to send no reset signal to the counter, the processor is deactivated and/or an alarm is triggered in a third and final stage.
A drawback of the known device is that the processor respectively receives only one request signal to set a software interrupt and to perform a hardware reset. If the processor is not able to perform a restart at this time on account of a temporary disturbance, the system remains inactive and the processor needs to be isolated from the power supply in order to be reinitialized.
Such a temporary disturbance can be triggered by an electromagnetic disturbance signal, for example. When the disturbance has decayed, the processor would restart without any difficulty following a fresh hardware reset signal. In the case of the known device, however, no further hardware reset signal is forthcoming at this point, and the processor remains inactive.
Secondly, the nonmaskable interrupt preferred for the known device does not permit the processor to be operated in a current saving mode. The processor would need to reset the counter before the first, usually brief period of time has elapsed, otherwise the processor would be “woken up” again by the setting of the software interrupt. Consequently, only a minimal current saving is obtained.
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The spine consists of thirty-three vertebrae, which includes seven cervical vertebrae, twelve thoracic vertebrae, five lumbar vertebrae, five sacrum and four coccyx. As is commonly known, if the spine is subjected to a strong external force, it becomes deformed. When the deformation of the spine is such as shown in FIG. 8, once the force is eliminated, the spine can return to normal. If the deformation of the spine is as shown in FIG. 9, even when the force is removed, the spine cannot return to normal and the sufferer must be treated with medical apparatus. However, the sufferer must go to a hospital and spend a lot of time to be treated by the conventional medical apparatus, which is inconvenient.
The present invention provides an improved apparatus for reforming a spine to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.
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The present disclosure generally relates to a method of forming a Group III nitride structure on a substrate, and more particularly to a method of forming a planar Group III nitride material structure on a patterned substrate. The present disclosure also relates to a semiconductor structure including a Group III nitride material structure which has a planar uppermost surface and a corrugated bottommost surface.
Group III nitride materials are a unique group of semiconductor materials which can be used in a wide variety of applications including, for example, optoelectronics, photovoltaics and lighting. Group III nitride materials are composed of nitrogen and at least one element from Group III, i.e., aluminum (Al), gallium (Ga) and indium (In), of the Periodic Table of Elements. Illustrative examples of some common Group III nitrides are AlN, InN, GaN, GaAlN, and GaAlInN. By changing the composition of Al, Ga and/or In within a Group III nitride material, the Group III nitride material can be tuned along the electromagnetic spectrum; mainly from 210 nm to 1770 nm. This spectrum includes the visible light emitting diode (LED), which is more than a 10 billion dollar industry with a forecasted double digit yearly growth rate. This continuous growth in LED demand enables the infrastructural build-up for the growth and fabrication of Group III nitride based semiconductor devices.
For GaN integration on silicon, there is a large lattice mismatch value between those two types of semiconductor materials. As such, thick (on the order of 2-3 μm) strain-compensation buffer layers are grown on silicon prior to device formation. Such buffer deposition requires temperature cycling so as to maintain the stain level of the gallium nitride material which increases the growth time and wastes materials. This “thick and engineered” buffer layered approach increases the cost and is one of the main bottlenecks for forming epitaxial gallium nitride materials on silicon substrates.
In view of the above, there is a need for providing a method for epitaxial forming a Group III nitride material on a surface of a silicon substrate that avoids the formation of the “thick and engineered” buffer layers and thus reduces the cost of forming epitaxial Group III nitride materials on silicon substrates.
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(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved structure for a connector of a cigarette lighting device of cars, more particularly directed to improving load bearing stability of external connections of the connector of the cigarette lighting device of cars and to obviating poor electrical contact. A lateral end of an electrically conductive elastic plate projecting slightly from an outer peripheral side of a jack is provided with a vertically depressed slide groove, which is provided with a recessed or bulging oblique face in a suitable position. A rear end of a housing of the jack is provided with annular threads. The slide groove is insertably provided with a push block that matches a bottom side of a groove hole of the slide groove and that is capable of filling a depression of the slide groove. The push block has a flange or recessed groove at a rear end. The threads at the rear end of the housing of the jack threadedly engage a turning nut. The turning nut has a front end provided with a recessed groove or a flange for inter-engagement with the flange or recessed groove of the push block. The housing of the jack is inserted into an insert hole of the cigarette lighting device of a car. By rotating the turning nut, the push block is brought to displace forwardly and rearwardly, with the oblique face guiding the push block to project upwardly to abut against the inner wall of the insert hole to thereby secure the jack and to enhance the load bearing ability and stability of external connections of the connector of the cigarette lighting device. Besides, slippage, improper electrical contact or difficult insertion may be prevented.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
For connection of electrical circuits, cars are equipped with cigarette lighting devices having circular sockets. For business, travel and information transmission, mobile phones, satellite communication devices, liquid crystal display devices, etc. are very popular. These devices are also turned on when in cars. And cars also provide a source for charging these devices. Besides, most countries have prohibited use of hand-held communication equipment when driving. Therefore, hand-free devices becomes necessary, and cigarette lighting device sockets do not merely permit electrical connection and extend to include article support seats, hand-free charging seats, extension seats, etc. Load bearing has therefore become a function of cigarette lighting device sockets. However, conventional cigarette lighting device sockets are formed by bending metallic electrically conductive electrodes into a suitable shape to be clamped in the socket housing, with the outer edges projecting from the outer end face of the socket housing. Therefore, it is inserted into a circular insert hole of the cigarette lighting device, the internal diameter of the circular insert hole can clamp the metal electrically conductive electrode to cause it to bend down inwardly to achieve a stretching supporting force and to connect to the electrically conductive plate on the hole side to achieve electrical connection. However, since the metallic electrically conductive plate achieves pressing and stretching by virtue of the elasticity and bending ability of the material of the electrode, it is not easy for the conductive plate to provide a pressing force and a strong stretching elastic force at the same time. Besides, due to differences in the bent shape and size as well as the selection of metallic material, oftentimes there is excessive resistance, which prevents easy insertion and removal. Sometimes, breakage even occurs. If the gap between the socket and the insert hole are increased, the connection may easily become loosened when driving on rugged surfaces or at a high speed. There may be unstable signal reception, interrupted signal reception or even damage due to falling of the electrode.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to methods and systems for limiting supply bounce, such as power supply and/or ground bounce.
2. Background Art
There is a trend towards increasing the number of digital I/O pads on integrated circuits (xe2x80x9cICsxe2x80x9d) to increase the integrated functionality and the number of bits of data processed. When multiple digital I/O pads switch simultaneously, currents in supply (power supply and/or ground) lines associated with the digital I/O pads tend to vary with time. Such transient current changes interact with supply line inductances to cause excursions in supply voltages. Thus supply (power supply and/or ground) voltages may oscillate above and/or below normal levels. This is called supply bounce or VDD/GND bounce. The increase of positive power supplies above normal operating levels and the decrease of ground below normal operating levels leads to relatively large amounts of current flow between the power supplies and pads. This limits the number of output pads which can simultaneously switch at any given time.
Methods and systems are therefore needed to limit supply bounce.
The present invention is directed to methods and systems for limiting supply (power supply and/or ground) bounce. The invention enables control of output current drive dependent on changes in supply levels.
In accordance with the invention, gate drives of output drivers (e.g, PMOS and/or NMOS output drivers) are varied according to supply swings. For example, when a power supply, VDD, or a ground supply, GND, voltage increases above normal operating levels, the gate drive of a PMOS output driver is reduced. When a ground supply, GND, or VDD power supply voltage falls below normal operating levels, the gate drive of an NMOS output driver is reduced. This leads to reduced current flow between the supplies and the pad, thereby reducing supply bounce.
Further features and advantages of the invention, as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the invention, are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is noted that the invention is not limited to the specific embodiments described herein. Such embodiments are presented herein for illustrative purposes only. Additional embodiments will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art(s) based on the teachings contained herein.
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The present application relates generally to computer systems and applications, and, more particularly, to passwords for accessing computer systems and applications.
Communications networks are widely used for nationwide and worldwide communication of voice, multimedia and/or data. As used herein, the term “communications networks” includes public communications networks, such as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), terrestrial and/or satellite cellular networks, private networks and/or the Internet.
The Internet is a decentralized network of computers that can communicate with one another via Internet Protocol (IP). The Internet includes the World Wide Web (web) service facility, which is a client/server-based facility that includes a large number of servers (computers connected to the Internet) on which web pages or files reside, as well as clients (web browsers), which interface users with the web pages. The topology of the web can be described as a network of networks, with providers of network services called Network Service Providers, or NSPs. Servers that provide application-layer services may be referred to as Application Service Providers (ASPs). Sometimes a single service provider provides both functions.
It is common to use passwords, such as Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) and text-based passwords, to allow users to access various computer applications, web-based services, computer systems, and other types of communications networks. While security may be enhanced by creating longer, more complex passwords, such passwords may become more difficult to remember. In fact, studies have shown that users as a result tend to pick shorter, more predictable passwords.
In addition, because the use of passwords is pervasive, it may not be unusual for a user to have to remember a large number of different passwords. However, it may be difficult for users to remember large numbers of passwords, particularly complex passwords that satisfy strong security measures. In addition, because users may be required to generate new passwords periodically, many users may create passwords that are sufficient to satisfy only the minimum level of security deemed acceptable.
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Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus, such as a digital camera, an electronic apparatus, and a method of calculating a light amount change characteristic of light from a photographing object.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, image pickup apparatuses, such as a digital camera, have come to be equipped with an image pickup device improved in sensitivity. This has made it possible to photograph a picture without blurring at a high shutter speed even under a relatively dark environment, such as indoors. However, fluorescent lamps, which are widely used as indoor light sources, produce a phenomenon called flicker in which illumination light periodically fluctuates due to influence of the frequency of a power supply (in general, a commercial power supply). When image pickup is performed at high shutter speed under such a light source that produces flicker (hereinafter referred to as the “flickering light source”), exposure unevenness or color temperature variation of an image can be caused between frames due to the influence of flickering, and further, exposure unevenness and/or color unevenness sometimes occur(s) within one frame.
Further, image pickup apparatuses have become prevalent which are equipped with a live view function for sequentially displaying images periodically picked up by an image pickup device on a display section provided in the image pickup apparatus. Also in the live view function, in a case where the charge accumulation time period of each picked-up frame is short, exposure unevenness sometimes is caused within a frame due to the influence of flickering.
To solve this problem, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-222935, there has been proposed a technique for detecting a state of flicker of illumination light, and adjusting the timing of image pickup such that the center of an exposure time substantially coincides with timing in which the light amount of the illumination light becomes a maximum value. Further, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-222935, there has been proposed a technique for detecting an illuminance of the illumination light at sampling intervals of 1 msec, and detecting a blinking period of the illumination light based on a result of the detection of the illuminance.
However, in the method of detecting a state of flicker of illumination light, described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-222935, the charge accumulation time period of a photoelectric conversion device used for the detection is limited. This causes a problem that under a condition of dark environmental light, erroneous detection of flicker is likely to occur. Further, also in a case where luminance variation is caused by a photographing object appearing in a photographing image, erroneous detection of flicker is likely to occur.
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1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to an electrical apparatus and a shielding structure for a heat dissipation opening, and more particularly to an electrical apparatus having a shielding plate for shielding a heat dissipation opening when the electrical apparatus is not used and its shielding structure for the heat dissipation opening.
2. Related Art
Notebook computers have been widely used among the current information products because they have the main advantages of good mobility and capable of being carried by the user to anywhere according to user's requirements. In the highly developed and advanced information technology, a notebook computer may serve as a mobile workstation capable of obtaining and transferring the network information, the database management, and the likes. Thus, the notebook computer is the best choice for implementing the mobile office.
Electrical components that are closely integrated in a computer housing have been reduced in size in the notebook computer. When the notebook computer is being used, the electrical components tend to generate heat, which causes the temperature in the housing to rise. The portion that tends to generate heat in the notebook computer is generally close to the hard disk drive, the CPU and the power supply at the backside of the notebook computer. Typically, in a short-time usage, the heat dissipation does not constitute a problem. However, when the notebook computer is used for a long-time at a fixed location, the temperature may be too high, thereby deteriorating the qualities of the electrical components.
As shown in FIG. 1, in order to improve the heat dissipation effect of a notebook computer 1, the prior art provides a plurality of heat dissipation openings 12 on a backside of a housing 11 of the notebook computer 1 such that the cooling fan in the housing 11 can exchange the hot air for the cooling air. This brings the heat out via the heat dissipation openings 12 so as to reduce the temperature in the housing 11.
However, the efficiency of the electrical components in the housing 11 of the conventional notebook computer 1 tends to be decreased because particles or dust may fall into the heat dissipation openings 12, which are through holes.
It is therefore an important subjective of the invention to provide an electrical apparatus and a shielding structure for heat dissipation openings for solving the above-mentioned problems.
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The detection of a narrow band signal component, such as a sinusoidal signal in a noise signal, is a problem that often needs to be solved. Different known methods are available to solve this problem. A first method is using correlation calculations, a second is a method based on parametrizing followed by peak picking, and a third is using a number of zero crossing counters.
All these known methods bear the drawback that high computer power is necessary because of the complex algorithms which must be applied. In particular, this is the case if speech signals are being processed. Possible fields of application are telecommunication products, audio products or hearing devices. Under the term xe2x80x9chearing devicexe2x80x9d so-called hearing aids, which are used to correct an impaired hearing of a person, as well as all other acoustical communication systems, for example radio sets, must be understood.
The present invention refers to a method for checking an occurrence of a signal component in an input signal, a use of the method, as well as a hearing device.
To check the occurrence of a signal component in an input signal a method is disclosed, where a measure for the frequency of an input signal is determined, the determined variance is compared with a given limit value, and, the occurrence of a signal component is confirmed if the variance is within a given range in relation to the given limit value.
The method according to the present invention is characterized by a number of very simple method steps, which can be performed by using little computer power. Therefore, the method according to the present invention qualifies in particular for the use in systems having restricted access to energy supply, as for example for mobile devices which must be power line independent, or for systems in which the occurrence of a signal component must be determined very quickly.
In further embodiments of the present invention it is proposed to use the method for the detection and elimination of signal feedback. Signal feedback is a known problem in hearing devices, in mobile telephones and other telecommunication products. A number of solutions have been elaborated by the telecommunication industry. It is known to attenuate the signals in the signal feedback path by corresponding adjustment of the attenuation in the transfer function in the feedback path. Furthermore, the use of auto- and/or cross correlations schemes has been envisioned by which the correlation of the input signal and the output signal are calculated in the time domain or in the frequency domain. The results of the calculations are used to adjust the transfer function in the signal feedback path, using the LMSxe2x80x94(Least Mean Square)xe2x80x94algorithm (feedback canceller). Alternatively, the results of the calculations are used to adjust the transfer function in the forward path, whereby the loop gain is reduced at the critical frequencies.
For further information on the known methods it is referred to the following printings: U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,467, EP-0 656 737, WO 99/26453, WO 99/51059, DE-197 48 079.
The known methods have been used successfully but have the drawback that again a high computer power is necessary to obtain useful results. The use of the known algorithms in hearing devices leads to an increased energy usage. As a result thereof, the operating time until the next recharge or replacement of the batteries is reduced which must be prevented.
In case the loop gain reaches a value which is greater than one in a given frequency range, and in case the magnitude of signal components is some decibels lower at other frequencies than the frequency of the feedback signal if the gain is increased in the forward path, then a notch filter according to the present invention can be used to reduce the signal feedback. In case that different critical frequencies lie too far apart, several notch filters can be used according to a further embodiment of the present invention.
In order that a notch filter can be adjusted to the critical frequency, i.e. the feedback frequency, the critical frequency must be detected first. According to the invention this is performed by the calculation of the variance of the measure for the frequency of the input signal, whereas signal feedback is being detected if the variance lies within a predetermined range in relation to a predetermined limit value.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a filter media for removing liquid airborne particulates from an air stream and, more particularly, to a new and improved filter media for removing liquid paint overspray particles from air streams being exhausted from a paint spray booth, the filter media including both an overspray collection filter and an electret type of electrostatic filter.
2. Background of the Invention
Spray booths are used in a variety of industrial applications for applying paint to many different products. A number of different spray atomizing application techniques can be used in such spray booths. One of these techniques is an air atomization technique wherein coating or paint particles are mixed with an air stream being ejected from a spray gun and the air stream is directed to the product being coated. Another technique is an airless atomization technique wherein the coating material is atomized and propelled by hydraulic pressure to the product being coated. Yet another technique is an electrostatic spraying technique. The product to be coated is grounded and the coating material is atomized (either by an air or airless technique) and is electrically charged. As a result, the coating materials are deposited on the product due to the electrical attraction of charged coating particles to the product being coated.
Regardless of the spray technique that is used, a paint spray booth is commonly employed to contain evaporating solvents and to capture airborne atomized paint particles so as to minimize their impact on the environment and to protect painters from being unnecessarily exposed to the solvents and paint particles used in the coating process, particularly those that may be toxic. In fact, the use of spray booths is normally required for most liquid paint spray applications by federal or state regulatory agencies, including in particular, the Environmental Protection Agency. Moreover, spray booths tend to enhance the quality of the finish being applied to a product being coated by providing a clean environment for the application of liquid coatings to these products.
In such spray booths, it is necessary to maintain a consistent, steady and uniform flow of air throughout the booths. Among other things, the consistent air flow prevents the accumulation of partially dried overspray on an object being coated so that the appearance of the object is not marred and tends to assist in providing the product with a quality finish. Moreover, spray booths prevent the accumulation of hazardous concentrations of potentially explosive solvent vapors. In fact, environmental clean air standards require that the emissions from spray booths must not include more than certain levels of particulates.
To remove paint particulates from the air being exhausted from a spray booth, the common practice is to employ a replaceable fibrous filter which will trap the overwhelming majority of these paint particulates. These filters soon become clogged with such particulates so that the air flow through the spray booth tends to be substantially reduced, thus decreasing the air flow past the worker inside the booth and the products being coated. Moreover, the spray booth has to be shut down to replace such clogged filters (once per eight hour shift is not uncommon) and the fibrous filters are not inexpensive.
While it may not be readily apparent, the capture and retainment of droplets of liquid coatings is technically very different and significantly more complex than filtering dry particles from moving air streams in connection with, for example, a HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning) system. The spectrum of materials commonly referred to as coatings or paints that are used in a spray booth exhibit a broad range of physical characteristics. Some UV-cured coatings have low viscosities approximating water whereas some commercial high solids coatings have viscosities ranging from molasses to peanut butter. Some coatings dry in seconds at ambient temperatures whereas many thermoset or baking enamels will literally never dry at normal plant ambient temperatures.
Unlike dust and most other dry particles that need to be entrapped in a filter, paint overspray is comprised of wet, atomized, paint droplets typically ranging in size to as large as 30 microns in diameter. As more and more of these particles are being entrapped by an overspray filter, the captured wet particles tend to adhere to each other to the point where they may succumb to the force of gravity and begin migrating down through the filter media. These and other related, unique technical aspects of overspray arrestance demonstrate that the filtration of paint overspray from moving air streams is significantly different and more complex than the filtration of dust and dry particles from moving air streams. In fact, many of the companies in the overspray filtration market are not the same companies in the dust collection and general air filtration markets.
In recent years, advancements in microelectronics has significantly improved the performance capabilities of scientific test instrumentation used in evaluating filtration of overspray paints and the like. In particular, the commercial availability of computerized particle counters has made it possible to measure the functionality of overspray arresting filters in ways not even envisioned a decade ago. For several decades, the only real scientific means for evaluating the relative performance of arresting filters for overspray paints was a, recognized but somewhat (by today's standards) crude, qualitative test procedure commonly known as an "arrestance efficiency" test. This test was and still continues to be conducted by independent filter testing laboratories.
With the increased public focus on environmental issues and the resulting regulations, overspray arrestor filter manufacturers developed what they considered to be more efficient filters. However, neither the manufacturers nor the test laboratories had a means to fully quantify the actual performance of these "more efficient" arresting filters. While existing test procedures found very little difference between various competitive arresting filters, users reported significant functional differences between them.
In the early 1990's, the assignee of the present application, Chemco Manufacturing Company, Inc. of Northbrook, Illinois, initiated an effort to find a new and more effective way to evaluate its arresting filters and, more importantly, to produce performance data that would provide a qualitative basis for its product development process. As a result of this initiative, a test protocol was developed for measuring the efficiency of an overspray filter as a function of the number and size of the actual paint droplets that impinges on a test filter. The data produced by this type of test provided new insights in the arrestance process.
One of the unexpected, but consistent, findings of the new test procedure was that while most overspray arresting filters are fairly effective in stopping the larger sized droplets (i.e., those greater than 10 microns in diameter), a significant amount of smaller diameter particles (i.e., those having a diameter in the range of 0.25-2.5 microns) were present in the air stream being exhausted from a paint booth. The presence of these low mass droplets in the air stream exiting an arresting filter could present a problem because the low mass to surface area ratio of these droplets results in the droplets remaining entrained in the exhaust air stream from the spray booth long enough to be carried out in that exhaust stream and thus expelled into the atmosphere.
Upon this realization, attempts were made to minimize or even to eliminate this phenomenon. Consideration was given to utilizing an externally generated electrostatic field to capture the problematic smaller droplets. However, the paint overspray accumulated on the electrical connection between the generating device and the individual overspray collection filters at an unacceptable rate (the filter had to be changed as frequently as every four hours of use). As a result, the use of an external power supply to maintain an electrostatic field to capture the smaller droplets was not deemed to be practical.
Another way that was considered for entrapping these smaller sized droplets involved the use of an electrostatic field generating concept known in the fibers trade as "electret." Basically, an electret media is considered either a media that contains a permanent electrostatic charge imparted onto the media when it is being manufactured or a media compromised of an appropriate combination of dissimilar fibers which generates an electrostatic charge by virtue of the friction generated when air passes in very close proximity to those dissimilar fibers. In the first case, the media must be constructed of a dielectric fiber capable of holding an electrostatic charge for years. Polypropylene has been proven to be a suitable material for use in such permanently charged media. In the second case, the requisite electrostatic charge is generated by the passage of the air being filtered through a non-woven media fabricated from a blend of dielectric fibers of opposite polarities such as modacrylic and polypropylene. However, it was found that the paint overspray accumulated on this electret media to such an extent that it neutralized the desired electrostatic effect of the electret media at an unacceptable rate when the electret media was used alone as an overspray filter.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved overspray paint filter media for the exhaust of an overspray paint booth.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved air filtration media for capturing and retaining airborne particulates including in particular finely atomized droplets of liquid coating materials from an air stream being exhausted from an overspray paint booth.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved a filter media for removing airborne particulates from an air stream being exhausted from an overspray paint booth that includes both an overspray collection filter and an electret type of electrostatic filter.
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Oligonucleotides are known to hybridize to single-stranded RNA or single-stranded DNA. Hybridization is the sequence-specific base pair hydrogen bonding of bases of the oligonucleotides to bases-of target RNA or DNA. Such base pairs are said to be complementary to one another.
In determining the extent of hybridization of an oligonucleotide to a complementary nucleic acid, the relative ability of an oligonucleotide to bind to the complementary nucleic acid may be compared by determining the melting temperature of a particular hybridization complex. The melting temperature (T.sub.m), a characteristic physical property of double helices, denotes the temperature (.degree. C.) at which 50% helical (hybridized) versus coil (unhybridized) forms are present. T.sub.m is measured by using the UV spectrum to determine the formation and breakdown (melting) of the hybridization complex. Base stacking which occurs during hybridization, is accompanied by a reduction in UV absorption (hypochromicity). Consequently, a reduction in UV absorption indicates a higher T.sub.m. The higher the T.sub.m, the greater the strength of the bonds between the strands.
Oligonucleotides can be used to effect enzymatic cleavage of a target RNA by using the intracellular enzyme RNase H. The mechanism of such RNase H cleavage requires that a 2'-deoxyribofuranosyl oligonucleotide hybridize to a target RNA. The resulting DNA-RNA duplex activates the RNase H enzyme and the activated enzyme cleaves the RNA strand. Cleavage of the RNA strand destroys the normal function of the target RNA. Phosphorothioate oligonucleotides operate via this type of mechanism. However, for a DNA oligonucleotide to be useful for cellular activation of RNase H, the oligonucleotide must be reasonably stable to nucleases in order to survive in a cell for a time period sufficient for RNase H activation. For non-cellular uses, such as use of oligonucleotides as research reagents, such nuclease stability may not be necessary.
Several publications of Walder et al. describe the interaction of RNase H and oligonucleotides. Of particular interest are: (1) Dagle et al., Nucleic Acids Research 1990, 18, 4751; (2) Dagle et al., Antisense Research And Development 1991, 1, 11; (3) Eder et al., J. Biol. Chem. 1991, 266, 6472; and (4) Dagle et al., Nucleic Acids Research 1991, 19, 1805. According to these publications, DNA oligonucleotides having both unmodified phosphodiester internucleoside linkages and modified phosphorothioate internucleoside linkages are substrates for cellular RNase H. Since they are substrates, they activate the cleavage of target RNA by RNase H. However, the authors further note that in Xenopus embryos, both phosphodiester linkages and phosphorothioate linkages are also subject to exonuclease degradation. Such nuclease degradation is detrimental since it rapidly depletes the oligonucleotide available for RNase H activation.
As described in references (1), (2) and (4), to stabilize oligonucleotides against nuclease degradation while still providing for RNase H activation, 2'-deoxy oligonucleotides having a short section of phosphodiester linked nucleotides positioned between sections of phosphoramidate, alkyl phosphonate or phosphotriester linkages were constructed. While the phosphoamidate-containing oligonucleotides were stabilized against exonucleases, in reference (4) the authors noted that each phosphoramidate linkage resulted in a loss of 1.6.degree. C. in the measured T.sub.m value of the phosphoramidate containing oligonucleotides. Such a decrease in the T.sub.m value is indicative of a decrease in hybridization between the oligonucleotide and its target nucleic acid strand.
Applications of oligonucleotides as diagnostics, research reagents, and therapeutic agents require that the oligonucleotides be transported across cell membranes or taken up by cells, appropriately hybridize to target RNA or DNA, and subsequently terminate or disrupt nucleic acid function. These critical functions depend partly on the initial stability of oligonucleotides towards nuclease degradation. Further, these functions depend on specificity of the oligonucleotide for a target DNA or RNA molecule.
A serious deficiency of oligonucleotides for these purposes is their susceptibility to enzymatic degradation by a variety of ubiquitous nucleases which may be intracellularly and extracellularly located. Unmodified, "wild type", oligonucleotides are not useful as therapeutic agents because they are rapidly degraded by nucleases. Therefore, modification of oligonucleotides for conferring nuclease resistance on them has been the primary focus of research directed towards the development of oligonucleotide therapeutics and diagnostics.
Modifications of oligonucleotides to enhance nuclease resistance has generally taken place on the sugar-phosphate backbone, particularly on the phosphorous atom. Phosphorothioates have been reported to exhibit resistance to nucleases. In addition, phosphorothioate oligonucleotides are generally more chemically stable than natural phosphodiester oligonucleotides. Phosphorothioate oligonucleotides also exhibit solubility in aqueous media. Further, phosphorothioate oligonucleotide-RNA heteroduplexes can serve as substrates for endogenous RNase H. Additionally, phosphorothioate oligonucleotides exhibit high thermodynamic stability. However, while the ability of an oligonucleotide to bind to a target DNA or RNA with fidelity is critical for its hybridization to the target DNA or RNA, modifications at the phosphorous atom of the oligonucleotides, while exhibiting various degrees of nuclease resistance, have generally suffered from inferior hybridization properties [Cohen, J. S., Ed., Oligonucleotides: Antisense Inhibitors of Gene Expression (CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Fla., 1989].
One reason for this inferior hybridization may be the prochiral nature of the phosphorous atom. Modifications on the internal phosphorous atom of modified phosphorous oligonucleotides results in Rp and Sp stereoisomers. Modified phosphorus oligonucleotides obtained thus far, wherein the resulting molecule has nonsymmetrical substituents, have been racemic mixtures having 2.sup.n isomers, with n equal to the number of phosphorothioate intersugar linkages in the oligonucleotide. Thus, a 15-mer phosphorothioate oligonucleotide, containing 14 asymmetric centers has 2.sup.14 or 16,384 diastereomers. In view of this, in a racemic mixture, only a small percentage of the oligonucleotides are likely to specifically hybridize to a target mRNA or DNA with sufficient affinity.
Chemically synthesized phosphorothioate oligonucleotides having chirally pure intersugar linkages had thus far been limited to molecules having only one or two diastereomeric intersugar linkages. Until recently, the effects of induced chirality in chemically synthesized racemic mixtures of sequence-specific phosphorothioate oligonucleotides had not been assessed since synthesis of oligonucleotides having chirally pure intersugar linkages had yet to be accomplished by automated synthesis. This was due to the non-stereospecific incorporation of sulfur during automated synthesis. For example, Stec et al., J. Chromatography, 326:263 (1985), synthesized certain oligonucleotide phosphorothioates having racemic intersugar linkages, however, they were able to resolve only the diastereomers of certain small oligomers having one or, at most, two diastereomeric phosphorous intersugar linkages.
However, Stec et al. [Nucleic Acids Res., 19:5883 (1991)] subsequently reported the automated stereo-controlled synthesis of oligonucleotides. The procedure described in the above-mentioned reference utilizes base-catalyzed nucleophilic substitution at a pentavalent phosphorothioyl center.
The synthesis of phosphorothioates having all Rp intersugar linkages using enzymatic methods has been investigated by several authors [Burgers and Eckstein, J. Biological Chemistry, 254: 6889 (1979); Gupta et al., J. Biol. Chem., 256: 7689 (1982); Brody and Frey, Biochemistry, 20: 1245 (1981); and Eckstein and Jovin, Biochemistry, 2:4546 (1983)]. Brody et al. [Biochemistry, 21:2570 (1982)] and Romaniuk and Eckstein, [J. Biol. Chem., 257:7684 (1982)] enzymatically synthesized poly TpA and poly ApT phosphorothioates, while Burgers and Eckstein [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 75:4798 (1978)] enzymatically synthesized poly UpA phosphorothioates. Cruse et al. [J. Mol. Biol., 192:891 (1986)] linked three diastereomeric Rp GpC phosphorothioate dimers via natural phosphodiester bonds into a hexamer.
The relative ability of an oligonucleotide to bind to complementary nucleic acids may be compared by determining the melting temperature of a particular hybridization complex. The melting temperature (T.sub.m), a characteristic physical property of double helixes, denotes the temperature (.degree. C.) at which 50% helical versus coil (unhybridized) forms are present. T.sub.m is measured by using the UV spectrum to determine the formation and breakdown (melting) of hybridization. Base stacking which occurs during hybridization, is accompanied by a reduction in UV absorption (hypochromicity). Consequently a reduction in UV absorption indicates a higher T.sub.m. The higher the T.sub.m, the greater the strength of the binding of the strands. Non-Watson-Crick base pairing has a strong destabilizing effect on the T.sub.m.
In a preliminary report [Stec, J. W., Oligonucleotides as Antisense Inhibitors of Gene Expression: Therapeutic Implications, Meeting abstracts, Jun. 18-21, 1989], thymidine homopolymer octamers having all but one linkage being modified phosphate linkages ("all except one") Rp stereoconfiguration or "all except one" Sp stereoconfiguration in the intersugar linkages were formed from two thymidine methylphosphonate tetrameric diastereomers linked by a natural phosphodiester bond. It was noted that a Rp "all except one" methylphosphonate non-sequence-specific thymidine homooctamer, i.e. (dT).sub.8 having all but one Rp intersugar linkage, formed a thermodynamically more stable hybrid (Tm 38.degree. C.) with a 15-mer deoxyadenosine homopolymer, i.e. (dA).sub.15, than a hybrid formed by a similar thymidine homopolymer having "all except one" Sp configuration methylphosphonate linkages and of d(A).sub.15 (Tm<0.degree. C.), i.e. a d(T).sub.15 having all but one Sp intersugar linkage. A hybrid between (dT).sub.8 having natural phosphodiester linkages, i.e. octathymidylic acid, and d(A).sub.15 was reported to have a Tm of 14.degree. C.
More recently, Ueda et al. [Nucleic Acids Research, 19:547 (1991)] enzymatically synthesized mRNAs intermittently incorporating Rp diastereomeric phosphorothioate linkages for use in translation systems. Ueda et al. employed T7 coliphane DNA having seventeen promoters and one termination site for T7 RNA polymerase. In vitro synthesis by T7 RNA polymerase produced mRNAs having from several hundred to tens of thousands of nucleotides.
Backbone chirality may also affect the susceptibility of a phosphorothioate oligonucleotide-RNA heteroduplex to RNase H activity. The ability to serve as a template for RNAse H has significant therapeutic implications since it has been suggested that RNAse H causes cleavage of the RNA component in an RNA-DNA oligonucleotide heteroduplex. With oligonucleotides containing racemic mixtures of Rp and Sp intersugar linkages, it is not known if all phosphorothioate oligonucleotides can function equally as substrates for RNase H. For a variety of catalytic reactions, hydrolysis of the phosphodiester backbone of nucleic acids proceeds by a stereospecific mechanism (an in-line mechanism) and inversion of configuration. Therefore, there may be only a small percentage of oligonucleotides in a racemic mixture that contain the correct chirality for maximum hybridization efficiency and termination of translation. Thus, increasing the percentage of phosphorothioate oligonucleotides that can serve as substrates for RNAse H in a heteroduplex will likely lead to a more efficacious compound for antisense therapy.
To enhance hybridization fidelty, phosphorothioate oligonucleotides having substantially chirally pure intersugar linkages are greatly desired. Further, such phosphorothioate oligonucleotides having substantially chirally pure intersugar linkages would lead to more efficacious therapeutic compounds. However, until now little success has been achieved in synthesizing such molecules. Therefore, simple methods of synthesizing phosphorothioate oligonucleotides having substantially chirally pure intersugar linkages are greatly desired.
It has been recognized that nuclease resistance of oligonucleotides and fidelity of hybridization are of great importance in the development of oligonucleotide therapeutics. Oligonucleotides possessing nuclease resistance are also desired as research reagents and diagnostic agents.
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Technology carts typically comprise a rolling cart that supports IT technology such as a computer, CPU or the like. Technology carts are often found in healthcare environments such as hospitals where they can be moved between patient areas for use by a healthcare professional. Technology carts may have a laptop configuration where the on-board technology comprises a lap top or a LCD/CPU configuration where the on-board technology may comprise a separate CPU and monitor, similar to a desk top computer.
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Conventionally, an imager circuit comprises a matrix of pixels that are coupled to charge transfer circuits allowing the electric charge of the pixels to be transferred to a processing circuit after each exposure of the pixel.
The processing circuit may comprise a plurality of analog-digital converters allowing, for each column of the matrix of pixels, the charge value of the pixel to be converted, row by row, to a digital value.
The analog-digital conversion operation may be clocked using a single clock signal generator common to all of the analog-digital converters of the circuit. The clock signal is therefore propagated from the clock signal generator over a distance that is proportional to the size of the matrix of pixels, in order to be transmitted to the analog-digital converter associated with each column.
In order to obtain a high level of precision during the analog-digital conversion of the signal, it is preferable for the frequency of the oscillator to be as high as possible. Thus, doubling the frequency of the clock signal makes it possible to obtain a digital value coded on an additional bit.
As such, the higher the frequency of the signal, the more difficult it is to transmit it over long distances without this leading to a deformation of the signal.
FIG. 1 illustrates two timing diagrams c1 and c2 showing the variation in a clock signal of 800 MHz in frequency generated by a clock signal generator.
The first timing diagram c1 corresponds to a measurement of the signal taken directly at the output of the clock signal generator while the clock signal generator is not coupled to any propagation path. The duration t of the edges of the signal is short here, and shorter than quarter of the period of the signal.
The second timing diagram c2 corresponds to a measurement of the signal taken at the end of a propagation path of 4 millimeters.
It is observed that the signal is deformed.
Specifically, due in particular to the high capacitive load of the optical path, the duration of the edges of the signal is longer than quarter of the period of the signal. This deformation depends on the characteristics of the propagation path.
Conventionally, a follower amplifier is located at the end of the propagation line, making it possible to compensate for deformations of the signal. However, if the signal is deformed such that the duration of its edges is longer than quarter of the period of the signal, then the follower amplifier will no longer be capable of reshaping the signal, and the signal output by the follower amplifier will include distortions, such as, for example, high states and low states of different durations.
Thus, a signal is acceptable, i.e., considered to be non-deformed, if, for example, the duration of its edges at the input of the follower amplifier is shorter than quarter of the period of the signal.
It has been observed that the degree of deformation of the signal increases notably with the frequency of the propagated signal, and/or with the length of the propagation path.
It is therefore not currently possible to use a single high-frequency clock signal generator to clock all of the analog-digital converters of an imager once the size of its matrix of pixels becomes too large (typically a few millimeters).
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Position determination procedures include timing-based procedures in which timing information for signals transmitted from various wireless devices/nodes are received, measured, and used to derive location information. For example, in observed-time-difference of-arrival (OTDOA) based positioning, a mobile station may measure time differences in received signals from a plurality of network nodes (such as base stations). Because positions of the base stations can be known, the observed time differences may be used to calculate the location of the mobile device.
To further help location determination, Positioning Reference Signals (PRS) may be provided in order to improve OTDOA positioning performance (and/or performance of other position determination procedures). The measured time difference of arrival of the PRS from a reference cell (or other reference point such as a positioning beacon) and one or more neighboring cells is known as the Reference Signal Time Difference (RSTD). Using the RSTD measurements, the absolute or relative transmission timing of each cell, and based on the known position(s) of nodes (e.g. physical transmitting antennas for the reference and neighboring cells), the position of a receiving mobile device may be derived.
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This invention relates to a magnetic refrigerator using a working material which radiates heat when it is magnetized and absorbs heat when it is demagnetized.
Magnetic refrigerators are based on the well-known phenomenon that working materials consisting of rare-earth-metal compounds, such as gadolinium-gallium-garnet (Gd.sub.3 Ga.sub.5 O.sub.12, abbreviated GGG), or alloys, such as an alloy of erbium and nickel, radiate heat when they are magnetized and absorb heat when they are damagnetized. The temperature of the working material is lowered by adiabatic demagnetization. The working material lowered in temperature extracts heat from an object to cool it. These magnetic refrigerators have an advantage over conventional gas refrigerators in having improved refrigerating capacity per unit volume of the object for cooling.
The magnetic refrigerators require two heat exchanging processes to be executed alternately; a heat discharging process for discharging heat generated from a magnetic material or working material by adiabatic magnetization, and a heat absorption process for extracting heat from the object by means of the working material cooled by adiabatic demagnetization. To obtain a high-efficiency refrigerating cycle through the two alternating heat exchanging processes, it is necessary to securely prevent heat transfer from the working material to the object in the heat discharging process, and to quickly transfer heat from the object to the working material in the heat absorption process.
A prior art magnetic refrigerator is provided with chambers for individually executing the heat discharging and absorption processes so that the working material alternately enters the chambers. For efficient heat exchange, it is necessary to fully maintain the air-tightness between the working material and chambers. In practice, however, it is technically difficult to securely seal the working material and the chambers. Insufficient sealing leads to a reduction in refrigerating efficiency. Moreover, the need of a transfer mechanism for the working material complicates the construction of the refrigerator.
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One field of application for the disclosed bone anchoring device is holding together a bone, e.g. a vertebra, and a support member, e.g. a rod, in a desired relative position, while allowing in some cases a limited amount of relative movement, for example to aid in healing of breaks or to correct bony structure deficiencies and abnormalities. In particular, sufferers of abnormal spine curvature or other spine deficiencies may benefit from the disclosed bone anchoring device.
When the spine of a person has abnormal curvature or other deficiencies, e.g. a damaged intervertebral disc, vertebrae usually need to be stabilized in a correct position relative to one another.
A common technique for providing vertebral stabilization is to fix bone anchors, such as pedicle screws or hooks, to certain vertebrae, the bone anchors being then, in turn, fixed to a support member, usually an elongate structure such as a rod. The rod connects the anchors together, thereby providing stabilization between the vertebrae.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,562 discloses a bone screw having a threaded shank to be anchored into the bone and a fixed head formed integrally with the shank, the fixed head having a U-shaped slot for receiving a rod. This so-called monoaxial bone screw has a high resistance to loads. However, the screw head cannot be moved relative to the shank and the rod or the bone screw must be favorably positioned in order for the rod to be placed within the U-shaped slot. This may be sometimes very difficult to do.
For this reason, polyaxial bone screws may be preferred. Polyaxial bone screws allow rotation of the head, or receiver, about the threaded shank until a desired rotational position of the receiver is achieved relative to the shank. Thereafter, a rod can be inserted into the receiver and eventually the receiver is locked or fixed in a particular position relative to the threaded shank.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,875,065 discloses an example of a polyaxial bone screw. This screw comprises a shank having a threaded portion topped by a shank head, a receiver for receiving the shank head and a retainer structure comprising two discrete pieces. The retainer pieces totally circumferentially surround the shank head and are captured between the receiver and the shank head. As shown in FIGS. 6 to 8 of U.S. Pat. No. 7,875,065, for assembling the bone screw, the retainer pieces are first top-loaded into the receiver, passed therethrough and placed in the bottom thereof. Then, the shank head is bottom-loaded into the receiver, between the two retainer pieces. However, placing the retainer pieces in their right position may present practical difficulties and take time. Moreover, misplacement of the retainer pieces may make the shank head difficult to insert between them. Furthermore, in the disclosed embodiments, the shank head is non-spherical and articulation occurs between the retainer pieces and the receiver.
While polyaxial bone anchoring devices and, in particular, polyaxial bone screws have proven effective, further improvements, especially regarding their assembly and handling, would be beneficial.
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to mechanisms employed to raise and lower groupings of luminaires or other apparatus mounted to a support assembly and positionable at or near a distal end of a mast such as a high mast as is useful for illumination of a roadway or the like, the invention particularly relating to a latching mechanism of compact conformation permitting configuration of a relatively low profile support assembly having improved operation and esthetic appeal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Clusters of luminaires intended for outdoor illumination have long been mounted to a support ring capable of being hoisted to or near the top of a “high mast”, typically through use of a winch and associated hoisting cables, the support ring being readily lowered for necessary maintenance, repair or replacement of the luminaires. In certain applications, devices other than luminaires are mountable by a support ring for raising/lowering of the resulting assembly along a high mast, reference herein to luminaires so mounted encompassing such other devices. In accomplishment of the functions so noted, the support ring carrying the luminaires must be mounted for movement along the mast between a lowermost or ground-level position necessary for servicing and the like and an operational uppermost position at or near the top of the mast at which the luminaire-bearing support ring is releasably yet positively latched to a stationary support permanently located at an upper portion of the mast. Latching mechanisms typically employed for accomplishing such functions include a latch pin carried by the support ring, such latch pins engaging latch barrels mounted to the stationary support permanently mounted at the top of the mast. Mating of a number of the latch pins with a corresponding number of the latch barrels on completion of the hoisting operation results in positive engagement between the latch pins and the latch barrels sufficient to latch the support ring to the stationary support until disengagement to allow the luminaire-bearing support ring to be lowered back to the ground as desired. Latch barrels such as are common in the prior art are mounted substantially vertically with openings disposed downwardly to permit receipt of one each of the latch pins into said opening as the latch pins engage the latch barrels, the latch pins being necessarily oriented in a vertical sense in order to provide the desired function. Vertical orientation of the latch pins and latch barrels unavoidably cause the assembly resulting from the mating of the support ring and stationary support to be less than compact in “height”, thereby lending a bulky appearance to the resulting assembly. Prior high mast lighting systems, while functional mechanically and useful for accomplishment of intended operation, have not generally exhibited esthetic appeal due at least in part to an unavoidable height dimension relative to other dimensions of known support ring/stationary support assemblies. Further, mechanical sub-assemblies of prior art systems are typically exposed to view and are therefore lacking in esthetic appeal. An architecturally appealing high mast hoisting system could be realized by the ability to reduce the height of such assemblies along with the ability to cleanly mate the support ring with the stationary support so that the assembly appears as an essentially unitary enclosure or housing from which luminaire-mounting arms cleanly and attractively extend for mounting of luminaires or the like. Attainment of an architecturally appealing structure at reduced cost lends increased improvement over the prior art, such cost reduction being realized in part by elimination of costly and bulky latch barrels. Such bulky latch barrels, when exposed to view, are lacking in esthetic appeal. Prior art difficulties associated with jamming of latch pins with camming surfaces disposed within the interior of latch barrels would preferably be avoided by improved latch pin structure having cam-following pins positively engageable with such camming surfaces without the tendency to “cock” or tilt with resultant jamming.
The prior art is replete with systems proposed for use and which are actually used for raising and lowering luminaire assemblies along high mast poles, such prior systems being deficient in esthetic appeal as alluded to hereinabove. Typical prior art systems include that system described by Murray et al in U.S. Pat. No. 4,234,165, in which a circular support ring carrying luminaires is hoisted along a high mast pole to an operational position adjacent a cylindrical housing disposed atop the pole, the housing covering a stationary support. The support ring simply abuts the housing and is not esthetically pleasing in appearance. Luminaires carried by a support ring are raised and lowered according to the teachings of Garchinsky in U.S. Pat. No. 4,228,488, the support ring abutting a housing covering a stationary support mounted atop a high mast pole on completion of the raising function, the result being less than esthetically pleasing. Latimer, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,975,726 discloses a high mast lighting system comprised of a luminaire-bearing annular support ring which fails to visually integrate with a covering housing fixed atop a high mast pole on hoisting of the support ring to an operational position adjacent the housing. Blahut, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,845, fails to provide a high mast system with visual appeal. Garchinsky, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,149,230 and 4,429,355 discloses high mast assemblies of conventional appearance. The appearance of the high mast systems disclosed by Richter in U.S. Pat. No. 6,261,122 and Thompson in U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,884 is essentially less than pleasing as are the systems disclosed by Staniec in U.S. Pat. No. 6,074,075; Hunt et al in U.S. Pat. No. 3,633,980; Savoca in U.S. Pat. No. 5,718,602; Richter in U.S. Pat. No. 6,261,122 and Thompson in U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,717 inter alia.
The art has experienced a long-felt need for a high mast hoisting system having architectural esthetics as well as a favorable cost profile. The present high mast system addresses such needs by providing a luminaire-bearing support ring of a shape and dimensions permitted in part by a low profile latching mechanism that further permits economies of cost in the construction of a system used in environments within which the invention is intended.
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Aluminum alloys are useful in a variety of applications. However, improving one property of an aluminum alloy without degrading another property is elusive. For example, it is difficult to increase the strength of an alloy without decreasing the toughness of an alloy. Other properties of interest for aluminum alloys include corrosion resistance and fatigue crack growth resistance, to name two.
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The detection of specific nucleic acid sequences is an important tool for diagnostic medicine and molecular biology research. Gene probe assays currently play roles in identifying infectious organisms such as bacteria and viruses, in probing the expression of normal genes and identifying mutant genes such as oncogenes, in typing tissue for compatibility preceding tissue transplantation, in matching tissue or blood samples for forensic medicine, and for exploring homology among genes from different species.
Ideally, a gene probe assay should be sensitive, specific and easily automatable (for a review, see Nickerson, Current Opinion in Biotechnology 4:48-51 (1993)). The requirement for sensitivity (i.e. low detection limits) has been greatly alleviated by the development of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and other amplification technologies which allow researchers to amplify exponentially a specific nucleic acid sequence before analysis (for a review, see Abramson et al., Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 4:41-47 (1993)).
Specificity, in contrast, remains a problem in many currently available gene probe assays. The extent of molecular complementarity between probe and target defines the specificity of the interaction. Variations in the concentrations of probes, of targets and of salts in the hybridization medium, in the reaction temperature, and in the length of the probe may alter or influence the specificity of the probe/target interaction.
It may be possible under some limited circumstances to distinguish targets with perfect complementarity from targets with mismatches, although this is generally very difficult using traditional technology, since small variations in the reaction conditions will alter the hybridization. New experimental techniques for mismatch detection with standard probes include DNA ligation assays where single point mismatches prevent ligation and probe digestion assays in which mismatches create sites for probe cleavage.
Finally, the automation of gene probe assays remains an area in which current technologies are lacking. Such assays generally rely on the hybridization of a labeled probe to a target sequence followed by the separation of the unhybridized free probe. This separation is generally achieved by gel electrophoresis or solid phase capture and washing of the target DNA, and is generally quite difficult to automate easily.
The time consuming nature of these separation steps has led to two distinct avenues of development. One involves the development of high-speed, high-throughput automatable electrophoretic and other separation techniques. The other involves the development of non-separation homogeneous gene probe assays.
For example, Gen-Probe Inc., (San Diego, Calif.) has developed a homogeneous protection assay in which hybridized probes are protected from base hydrolysis, and thus are capable of subsequent chemiluminescence. (Okwumabua et al. Res. Microbiol. 143:183 (1992)). Unfortunately, the reliance of this approach on a chemiluminescent substrate known for high background photon emission suggests this assay will not have high specificity. EPO application number 86116652.8 describes an attempt to use non-radiative energy transfer from a donor probe to an acceptor probe as a homogeneous detection scheme. However, the fluorescence energy transfer is greatly influenced by both probe topology and topography, and the DNA target itself is capable of significant energy quenching, resulting in considerable variability. Therefore there is a need for DNA probes which are specific, capable of detecting target mismatches, and capable of being incorporated into an automated system for sequence identification.
As outlined above, molecular biology relies quite heavily on modified or labeled oligonucleotides for traditional gene probe assays (Oligonucleotide Synthesis: A Practical Approach. Gait et al., Ed., IRL Press: Oxford, UK, 1984; Oligonucleotides and Analogues: A Practical Approach. Ed. F. Eckstein, Oxford University Press, 1991). As a result, several techniques currently exist for the synthesis of tailored nucleic acid molecules. Since nucleic acids do not naturally contain functional groups to which molecules of interest may easily be attached covalently, methods have been developed which allow chemical modification at either of the terminal phosphates or at the heterocyclic bases (Dreyer et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1985, 82:968).
For example, analogues of the common deoxyribo- and ribonucleosides which contain amino groups at the 2' or 3' position of the sugar can be made using established chemical techniques. (See Imazawa et al., J. Org. Chem., 1979, 44:2039; Imazawa et al., J. Org. Chem. 43(15):3044 (1978); Verheyden et al., J. Org. Chem. 36(2):250 (1971); Hobbs et al., J. Org. Chem. 42(4):714 (1977)). In addition, oligonucleotides may be synthesized with 2'-5' or 3'-5' phosphoamide linkages (Beaucage et al., Tetrahedron 49(10):1925 (1992); Letsinger, J. Org. Chem., 35:3800 (1970); Sawai, Chem. Lett. 805 (1984); Oligonucleotides and Analogues: A Practical Approach, F. Eckstein, Ed. Oxford University Press (1991)).
The modification of nucleic acids has been done for two general reasons: to create nonradioactive DNA markers to serve as probes, and to use chemically modified DNA to obtain site-specific cleavage.
To this end, DNA may be labeled to serve as a probe by altering a nucleotide which then serves as a replacement analogue in the nick translational resynthesis of double stranded DNA. The chemically altered nucleotides may then provide reactive sites for the attachment of immunological or other labels such as biotin. (Gilliam et al., Anal. Biochem. 157:199 (1986)). Another example uses ruthenium derivatives which intercalate into DNA to produce photoluminescence under defined conditions. (Friedman et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 112:4960 (1990)).
In the second category, there are a number of examples of compounds covalently linked to DNA which subsequently cause DNA chain cleavage. For example 1, 10-phenanthroline has been coupled to single-stranded oligothymidylate via a linker which results in the cleavage of poly-dA oligonucleotides in the presence of Cu.sup.2+ and 3-mercaptopropionic acid (Francois et al., Biochemistry 27:2272 (1988)). Similar experiments have been done for EDTA.sup.1 -Fe(II) (both for double stranded DNA (Boutorin et al., FEBS Lett. 172:43-46 (1986)) and triplex DNA (Strobel et al., Science 249:73 (1990)), porphyrin-Fe(III) (Le Doan et al., Biochemistry 25:6736-6739 (1986)), and 1,10-phenanthronine-Cu(I) (Chen et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA, 83:7147 (1985)), which all result in DNA chain cleavage in the presence of a reducing agent in aerated solutions. A similar example using porphyrins resulted in DNA strand cleavage, and base oxidation or cross-linking of the DNA under very specific conditions (Le Doan et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 15:8643 (1987)).
Other work has focused on chemical modification of heterocyclic bases. For example, the attachment of an inorganic coordination complex, Fe-EDTA, to a modified internal base resulted in cleavage of the DNA after hybridization in the presence of dioxygen (Dreyer et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 82:968 (1985)). A ruthenium compound has been coupled successfully to an internal base in a DNA octomer, with retention of both the DNA hybridization capabilities as well as the spectroscopic properties of the ruthenium label (Telser et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 111:7221 (1989)). Other experiments have successfully added two separate spectroscopic labels to a single double-stranded DNA molecule (Telser et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 111:7226 (1989)).
The study of electron transfer reactions in proteins and DNA has also been explored in pursuit of systems which are capable of long distance electron transfer.
To this end, intramolecular electron transfer in protein-protein complexes, such as those found in photosynthetic proteins and proteins in the respiration pathway, has been shown to take place over appreciable distances in protein interiors at biologically significant rates (see Bowler et al., Progress in Inorganic Chemistry: Bioinorganic Chemistry, Vol. 38, Ed. Stephen J. Lippard (1990). In addition, the selective modification of metalloenzymes with transition metals has been accomplished and techniques to monitor electron transfer in these systems developed. For example, electron transfer proteins such as cytochrome c have been modified with ruthenium through attachment at several histidines and the rate of electron transfer from the heme Fe.sup.2+ to the bound Ru.sup.3+ measured. The results suggest that electron transfer "tunnel" pathways may exist. (Baum, Chemical & Engineering News, February 22, 1993, pages 2023; see also Chang et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 113:7056 (1991)). In related work, the normal protein insulation, which protects the redox centers of an enzyme or protein from nondiscriminatory reactions with the exterior solvent, was "wired" to transform these systems from electrical insulators into electrical conductors (Heller, Acc. Chem. Res. 23:128 (1990)).
There are a few reports of photoinduced electron transfer in a DNA matrix. In these systems, the electron donors and acceptors are not covalently attached to the DNA, but randomly associated with the DNA, thus rendering the explicit elucidation and control of the donor-acceptor system difficult. For example, the intense fluorescence of certain quaternary diazoaromatic salts is quenched upon intercalation into DNA or upon exposure to individual mononucleotides, thus exhibiting electron donor processes within the DNA itself. (Brun et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 113:8153 (1991)).
Another example of the difficulty of determining the electron transfer mechanism is found in work done with some photoexcitable ruthenium compounds. Early work suggested that certain ruthenium compounds either randomly intercalate into the nucleotide bases, or bind to the helix surface. (Purugganan et al., Science 241:1645 (1988)). A recent reference indicates that certain ruthenium compounds do not intercalate into the DNA (Satyanarayana et al., Biochemistry 31(39):9319 (1992)); rather, they bind non-covalently to the surface of the DNA helix.
In these early experiments, various electron acceptor compounds, such as cobalt, chromium or rhodium compounds were added to certain DNA-associated ruthenium electron donor compounds. (Puragganan et al., Science 241:1645 (1988); Orellana et al., Photochem. Photobiol. 499:54 (1991); Brun etal., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 113:8153 (1991); Davis, Chem.-Biol. Interactions 62:45 (1987); Tomalia et al., Acc. Chem. Res., 24:332 (1991)). Upon addition of these various electron acceptor compounds, which randomly bind non-covalently to the helix, quenching of the photoexcited state through electron transfer was detected. The rate of quenching was dependent on both the individual electron donor and acceptor as well as their concentrations, thus revealing the process as bimolecular.
In one set of experiments, the authors postulate that the more mobile surface bound donor promotes electron transfer with greater efficiency than the intercalated species, and suggest that the sugar-phosphate backbone of DNA, and possibly the solvent medium surrounding the DNA, play a significant role in the electron transport. (Purugganan et al., Science 241:1645 (1988)). In other work, the authors stress the dependence of the rate on the mobility of the donor and acceptor and their local concentrations, and assign the role of the DNA to be primarily to facilitate an increase in local concentration of the donor and acceptor species on the helix. (Orellana et al., supra).
In another experiment, an electron donor was reportedly randomly intercalated into the stack of bases of DNA, while the acceptor was randomly associated with the surface of the DNA. The rate of electron transfer quenching indicated a close contact of the donor and the acceptor, and the system also exhibits enhancement of the rate of electron transfer with the addition of salt to the medium. (Fromherz et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 108:5361 (1986)).
In all of these experiments, the rate of electron transfer for non-covalently bound donors and acceptors is several orders of magnitude less than is seen in free solution.
An important stimulus for the development of long distance electron transfer systems is the creation of synthetic light harvesting systems. Work to date suggests that an artificial light harvesting system contains an energy transfer complex, an energy migration complex, an electron transfer complex and an electron migration complex (for a topical review of this area, see Chemical & Engineering News, Mar. 15, 1993, pages 38-48). Two types of molecules have been tried: a) long organic molecules, such as hydrocarbons with covalently attached electron transfer species, or DNA, with intercalated, partially intercalated or helix associated electron transfer species, and b) synthetic polymers.
The long organic molecules, while quite rigid, are influenced by a number of factors, which makes development difficult. These factors include the polarity and composition of the solvent, the orientation of the donor and acceptor groups, and the chemical character of either the covalent linkage or the association of the electron transfer species to the molecule.
The creation of acceptable polymer electron transfer systems has been difficult because the available polymers are too flexible, such that several modes of transfer occur. Polymers that are sufficiently rigid often significantly interfere with the electron transfer mechanism or are quite difficult to synthesize.
Thus the development of an electron transfer system which is sufficiently rigid, has covalently attached electron transfer species at defined intervals, is easy to synthesize and does not appreciably interfere with the electron transfer mechanism would be useful in the development of artificial light harvesting systems.
In conclusion, the random distribution and mobility of the electron donor and acceptor pairs, coupled with potential short distances between the donor and acceptor, the loose and presumably reversible association of the donors and acceptors, the reported dependence on solvent and broad putative electron pathways, and the disruption of the DNA structure of intercalated compounds rendering normal base pairing impossible all serve as pronounced limitations of long range electron transfer in a DNA matrix. Therefore, a method for the production of rigid, covalent attachment of electron donors and acceptors to provide minimal perturbations of the nucleic acid structure and retention of its ability to base pair normally, is desirable. The present invention serves to provide such a system, which allows the development of novel bioconductors and diagnostic probes.
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The present invention relates to nutrient compositions for mammals such as infusions and sports drink and more particularly to nutrient compositions comprising L-glutamyl-L-cystine (hereinafter referred to as Glu-Cys-Cys) and/or L-glutamyl-L-cysteine disulfide [hereinafter referred to as (Glu-Cys).sub.2 ].
L-cysteine (hereinafter referred to as cysteine) is not considered to be an essential amino acid since cysteine is synthesized from L-methionine (hereinafter referred to as methionine) in a living body. Therefore, nutrient supplementation of sulfur-containing amino acids such as cysteine has been made using methionine. In recent years, however, it has been revealed that conversion of methionine into cysteine is not sufficiently made in bodies of newborns and patients with hepatic cirrhosis, homocystinemia, etc. It has thus been pointed out that for nutrient supplementation of sulfur-containing amino acids, it is necessary to supplement not only methionine but also cysteine [Metabolism, 37, No. 8, 796 (1988)].
It has further been revealed that demand for sulfur-containing amino acids increases after immoderate exercise or upon drinking and effectiveness of administration of cysteine or L-glutathione (.gamma.-L-glutamyl-L-cysteinyl-glycine, hereinafter referred to as glutathione) which has a cysteine residue has been recognized.
Cysteine is unstable in solution, so that it is difficult to add cysteine directly to a liquid nutrient composition such as an infusion. Use of N-acetyl-L-cysteine in place of cysteine has been studied and has been partly put into practice. However, it has been pointed out that there is a problem in its stability. Furthermore, glutathione having a cysteine residue is more stable than cysteine, but the problem remains unsolved when it is sterilized with heating. On the other hand, L-cystine (hereinafter referred to as cystine) is considered to be equivalent to cysteine from a nutriological standpoint, and it is extremely stable as the oxidized form of cysteine. However, because of low solubility in water (less than 0.11 g/l at 25.degree. C.), cystine cannot be used in an infusion, etc. Recently, glutathione disulfide having a cystine residue (oxidized form of glutathione) has been examined for this purpose but has not been provided for practical use yet.
As a method for improving the stability of cysteine, there is known a method in which cysteine is acetylated as described above. The method has been partly used practically in the prescription of infusion. With respect to cystine considered to be equivalent to cysteine from a nutriological standpoint, methods for improving the solubility by using glutathione disulfide having a cystine residue and by converting cystine into a peptide have been studied. As nutrient compositions containing cystine-containing peptides, there are known a composition comprising N,N'-bis-.alpha.-aspartyl-L-cystine [hereinafter referred to as (Asp-Cys).sub.2 ] (Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 151156/87), a composition comprising N.sup.2 -cysteinyl-N.sup.6 -L-cysteinyl-L-lysine [hereinafter referred to as Cys-Lys(Cys)] (DE 3206810), a composition comprising compounds represented by (X-Cys).sub.2 (wherein X is Gly, Ala, Leu, Ile or Phe) (EP 264953), a composition comprising bis(acetylglycyl)-L,L-cystine (Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 233999/88), and the like. Further, there are a report on the solubility of L-cysteinyl-bis-L-alanine [hereinafter referred to as (Cys-Ala).sub.2 ] in Clin. Nutr., Spec. Suppl. 4, 116-123 (1985) and a report on the behavior of bis-.alpha.-L-alanyl-L-cystine [hereinafter referred to as (Ala-Cys).sub.2 ] and bis-glycyl-L-cystine [hereinafter referred to as (Gly-Cys).sub.2)] in blood in J. Nutrition 118, 1470 (1988).
It has been desired to develop a technique for supplying unstable cysteine or cystine which is nutriologically equivalent to cysteine as nutrient compositions in a liquid form prepared by sterilization with heating.
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Today, people of the world need a lot of energy for daily living.
For obtaining energy to meet human need, it is not necessary to search outside the earth. Each year, solar radiation provided the earth with about 5×1021 BTU of energy. This quantity is about equivalent to 1.4×1018 KWH (kilowatt hour). About 32% of the direct solar radiation is immediately reflected back to space. Most of the absorbed energy is eventually radiated back into space with the characteristic black body temperature of about 10 degree Celsius. A very small fraction of the energy is converted to coal, crude oil and other form and stored for a period of more than 100 years. The short term stored energy available before black body radiation back into space is mostly in the form of ocean surface temperature change (increase, 43% of the energy) and water vapor evaporation (23%). It is estimated that about two percent of the solar radiation energy has later been converted to wind energy. Technology to extract energy from the wind and ocean is at the threshold of able to supply the energy need of the whole world.
The electricity need for the world is about 1.4×1013 KWH a year. The electricity need is about 0.001 percent of the absorbed solar radiation energy. Generated electricity represented the most important form of economically significant human energy need. It is also possible to convert electrical energy into other form to provide human with almost all energy need. Total solar radiation is about 5,000 times the world energy need. Using the estimate that forty percent of the solar radiation energy has been converted to ocean thermal energy, the ability to use 0.03 percent of the ocean thermal energy would be sufficient to provide all the electricity need.
In tropical area, ocean surface temperature is likely to reach 28 degrees Celsius or more. At the depth of 500 meter, the temperature is 10 degrees Celsius. At even greater depth (about 1000 meters), the temperature is 4 degrees Celsius, the maximum water density temperature. The available thermal energy for each square kilometer (to 500 meter depth) is roughly equivalent to the energy of 250 meter of water at a temperature difference of 15 degrees Celsius. The value is
( 250 ) ( 100 ) ( 1000 ) ( 100 ) ( 1000 ) ( 100 ) ( 15 ) = ( 3.75 ) ( 10 15 ) ( calories ) = ( 1.57 ) ( 10 16 ) Joules = ( 4.3 ) ( 10 9 ) Kilo - Watt - Hour
Each square kilometer of ocean may receive a maximum of (1.35)(109) watts of energy. Using 8 hours [(2.88×104) seconds] as the equivalent time during each day that maximum solar input is possible, the possible maximum daily energy input is about (3.9×1013) Joules. The available heat content of the ocean surface (to 500 meter depth) is equivalent to more than 400 days of deposited solar energy. The heat content of the ocean to 1000 meter depth is equivalent to 1000 days of deposited solar energy. For each square kilometer of the tropical ocean, the stored thermal energy is about (3.9×1016) Joules, or 9.2 Megaton of TNT. The energy stored in 10 square kilometer of the tropical ocean is greater than the energy of any hydrogen bomb ever made. The ocean is actually a much better energy reservoir then the oil deposit for the world. The energy is replenished daily by the sun. As long as the earth stay is orbit around the sun and the solar radiation stay at close to the current level, the energy supply is available.
If the OTEC plant is situated close to a significant electricity user, the generated electricity may be connected to the power grid. The energy use efficiency will be higher. If the energy storage form is liquefied hydrogen, the energy use efficiency will be lower as it is unlikely that one hundred percent of the hydrogen energy can be converted back to electricity again.
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Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image processing of rendering a scene by tracing rays.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there is proposed a technique, called computational photography, of generating image data based on information (to be referred to as “light-field data” hereinafter) about the directions and intensities of rays in a space (see, for example, literature 1). Since image data for which the focus is adjusted after image capturing can be generated using this technique, it is possible to advantageously compensate for a failure in focus adjustment at the time of image capturing with image processing.
In computational photography, image data (light-field data) for which focus adjustment is possible after shooting is obtained using a light field camera. Examples of the light field camera are a Plenoptic camera in which a microlens array is arranged in front of an image sensor and a multiple-lens camera in which a number of sets of image sensors and lenses are incorporated.
The user may want to synthesize an image (to be referred to as a “CG image” hereinafter) created using a computer graphic rendering method (to be referred to as a “CG rendering method” hereinafter) on the image for which focus adjustment is possible. To do this, if CG rendering is performed without using light-field data, it is necessary to prepare CG images which are focused on all distances. In this case, however, since it takes long time to create such CG images, it is not preferable to prepare the CG images which are focused on all distances.
Therefore, it is desirable to create a CG image by computational photography by generating light-field data similar to that captured by the light field camera using the CG rendering method, and using the generated light-field data.
As a method of creating light-field data by the CG rendering method, there is provided a method described in literature 2. Since, however, this method generates light-field data based on one ray for each pixel of an image, the quality of the generated light-field data is insufficient to be synthesized with captured light-field data. Literature 1: R. Ng, M. Levoy, M. Bredif, G. Duval, M. Horowitz, P. Hanrahan “Light Field Photography with a Hand-held Plenoptic Camera” Stanford Tech Report CTSR 2005-02, 2005 Literature 2: Steven G. Parker et al. “OptiX™: A General Purpose Ray Tracing Engine” ACM Transactions on Graphics, August 2010
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The present invention relates to natural language processing, and more particularly, to synchronization of natural language input and graphical user input in a graphical user interface.
Graphic user interface (GUI) applications perform well in most tasks, in part, because the GUI provides options which relate directly to functionality available within an application and from which the user may select what he/she wants to do. However, GUI applications can sometimes be difficult to use. For example, in some instances, the functionality requires opening many sub-dialog boxes, which may not be intuitive for a user. Additionally, many steps may be required to fill in the GUI elements with the proper information. GUI elements may include pull down or pop up menus, check boxes, radio buttons, text or other types of data input fields, and so on. Moreover, the user may not know where to find available options within the GUI. With small devices (such as hand-held devices, personal digital assistants, wireless phones with networking capabilities, and so on), entry of the information into the GUI may be difficult. Finally, handicapped individuals may have difficult navigating and completing a GUI form, for example.
To overcome some of the limitations associated with GUIs, natural language applications have been developed, which can allow a user to easily express concepts that would be fairly complex in a GUI. For example, in natural language, a user may request “Find all emails to Bill that I sent last week”, “Change the screen resolution to 1280×1024”, “where is the web page about Microsoft Corporation”, “Please delete all unread emails”, and so on. Each such utterance is readily understandable, but may add multiple layers of complexity in completing a GUI form.
However, there are some problems with NL applications, such as discoverability, confusion, dead-end, and training problems. Discoverability refers to situations where the user is unaware of what he/she can do in the program. Confusion refers to problems that arise when users do not understand how the application interpreted a particular text input. A dead-end refers to a situation where the software program provides no option or mechanism for the user to alter what he/she intended. Finally, there is no mechanism to train the user how to utilize NL input.
There is ongoing need for intuitive user interfaces for improved user-program interaction. Embodiments of the present invention provide solutions to these and other problems and provide advantages over existing semantic authoring tools.
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In the present disclosure, where a document, an act and/or an item of knowledge is referred to and/or discussed, then such reference and/or discussion is not an admission that the document, the act and/or the item of knowledge and/or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge and/or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; and/or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned with. Further, nothing is disclaimed.
An image is captured via an image capture device, such as a camera. The image capture device typically includes a lens, such as a wide-angle lens. For example, a camera with a wide-angle lens may have a magnitude of a viewing angle (horizontal or vertical) up to about 180 degrees. When a camera captures an image through a wide-angle lens, such as in a fish-eye lens camera, then the image is often round or distorted. Therefore, such image may be converted into a flat image through a dewarping process, whether native to the camera or remote from the camera. However, the dewarping process can introduce distortions into the flat image, which are undesired.
Additionally, many systems of video-observation and video-analysis put high demands on processing speed. For example, some of such systems process video in real-time at a rate of several tens of frames per second. However, correcting or removing one or more distortions introduced by the wide-angle lens can mandate large expenditures of computing resources. Such large expenditures are generally not desired.
Accordingly, there is a desire to provide various technologies to at least partially alleviate such drawbacks.
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to television information transmission and reception and more particularly to the transmission and reception of high definition television signals comprising augmentation panels to the left and right of a NTSC compatible center panel, high frequency luminance, and stereo high fidelity audio.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional NTSC color television systems transmit picture information at a rate of 59.94 picture fields per second, two constituting a frame, each frame consisting of 525 horizontal scan lines. To reduce the transmission and reception bandwidths required to reproduce the transmitted picture, these horizontal scan lines are interlaced from field-to-field With a ratio of two-to-one, that is only every other scan line is transmitted in each field. Scan lines omitted in one field are transmitted in the next succeeding field, thus all the odd numbered fields contain one set of scan lines and the even numbered fields contain the set of scan lines which interlace with the scan lines in the odd numbered fields. This arrangement permits the transmission, reception, and picture reproduction at bandwidths reduced from that required for every scan line to be transmitted in each frame.
Television pictures reproduced in these conventional systems have aspect ratio of four to three, i.e. for every four units of horizontal width there are three units of vertical height. High definition television (HDTV) systems utilize TV screens with aspect ratios that are increased from the conventional 4:3 to aspect ratios of 16:9 transmit information for an entire image frame without field interlacing, thus providing improved picture resolution. To maintain compatibility with existing TV receivers the HDTV is divided into three panels, the center panel comprising the conventional TV picture, while and the augmentation for HDTV is contained in the panels on the left and right of this center panel. The augmentation signals for providing the left and right panels are transmitted separately from the conventional TV signals. These signals are combined in the HDTV receiver, while the augmentation signals are ignored by the conventional receivers. Additionally, sound quality is improved with the transmission of digital stereo audio of compact disc quality.
Techniques for providing HDTV-NTSC compatible television signals and augmentation signals are disclosed in U.S. patent applications Ser. Nos. 057,847; 057,849; 122,148; and 084,968 U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,567. All these applications are assigned to the assignee of the present invention and are incorporated herein by reference.
In addition to the information for extending the picture width, the augmentation signals include information for providing improved resolution by transmitting a line differential signal, and a high frequency luminance component. As previously configured, these transmissions required a channel bandwidth of 6 MHz. It is the purpose of this invention to provide a sYstem that transmits the augmentation information within a 3 MHz channel.
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1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to integrated circuits using substrates, and more specifically, to integrated circuits having vias through the substrate.
2. Related Art
Through-substrate vias (TSVs), also called through-silicon vias because the substrate is nearly always silicon in current semiconductor manufacturing, have provided increased functionality of integrated circuits. The TSVs, however, result in manufacturing challenges and have side effects. One of the side effects is that the stress induced by a TSV affects an area around the TSV and thus alters the performance of semiconductor devices near the TSV. A solution is to simply have a design rule that prohibits placing transistors, or other elements affected by stress, near a TSV. This reduces area available for transistors and the other elements affected by stress. The seriousness of the problem varies with how many TSVs there are and how much stress they induce.
Accordingly there is a need to provide further improvement in TSVs and methods therefor.
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Cardiac arrhythmia is a major cause of mortality in cardiovascular pathologies. Aberrancies in cardiac Ca2+ signaling have been associated with development of arrhythmia. For instance, it has been found that leaky ryanodine receptors elevate local Ca2+ concentrations causing membrane depolarizations that trigger arrhythmias. Increases in frequency of Ca2+ sparks that trigger Ca2+ waves are known to activate depolarizing currents responsible for early or late after-depolarizations and arrhythmias. Due to such findings, Ca2+ signaling has been a primary target of antiarrhythmic pharmacotherapy. In fact, inhibition of the spontaneous release of Ca2+ (e.g., via leaky ryanodine receptors) is proposed to be critical in the pharmacotherapy of arrhythmias, as reported recently for clinical use of flecainide.
The regulation of Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) is mediated not only by binding of Ca2+ to ryanodine receptor 2 (RyR2), but also by a host of regulatory proteins that include calmodulin, protein kinase A, FK506-binding protein (FKBP12.6), Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II, protein phosphatases (calcineurin), and junctional and luminal SR proteins junctin, triadin, and calsequestrin. In addition, mitochondrial-derived reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been reported to modulate RyR2-mediated Ca2+ spark activity, supporting the possibility that local control of SR Ca2+ release is regulated partially by mitochondrial ROS production. In ischemia-reperfusion-induced arrhythmias, experimental evidence also suggests deleterious effects arising from mitochondrial Ca2+ overload, ROS generation, and opening of permeability transition pores that leads to overactive RyR2 activity, causing local membrane depolarizations. It has been suggested that these depolarizations propagate from cell to cell and can be effectively suppressed by free oxygen radical scavengers.
Xanthohumol, a prenylated chalcone, is one of the principal flavonoids present in hop plant cone extracts. Flavonoids have been reported to have therapeutic effects as an antiproliferative in human breast cancer, colon cancer, and ovarian cancer, and in preventing cancerous cell growth through inhibition of cytochrome P450 enzymes. Xanthohumol has also been suggested to counteract low-density lipoprotein-induced oxygen-damaging effects, improve neuronal plasticity, and produce therapeutic effects against arteriosclerosis and osteoporosis.
Unfortunately, a host of drugs targeted to sarcolemmal Na+, Ca2+, and K+ channels for antiarrhythmic pharmocotherapy have had limited clinical success. What is needed in the field are agents that can be effective in reducing the cardiomyocyte Ca2+ leak that leads to arrhythmia.
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It is known to store, ship and dispense liquids in collapsible and flexible impervious bags, bladders or containers made from plastic or other polymeric materials. Further, bags of liquids are used in a wide range of industrial and medical applications, including without limitation, containment of cell culture medium, reagents, wash solutions, water and pharmaceutical. Such bags of liquids range in size from fractions of a liter to a thousand liters in volume. In many applications, the liquids in the flexible bags are very expensive and any loss in storage, transportation or usage is costly. The flexible bags are used because they can reliably store liquids without contamination and are relatively inexpensive. However, a flexible bag of liquid, especially a larger one, is very unwieldy and difficult to physically handle and is subject to damage by the rigors of transportation.
To protect a flexible bag of liquid during storage and transportation, it is placed inside a container that, depending on the application, is made of cardboard, plastic, stainless steel or other material. In many applications, the flexible bags of liquid are placed in a shipping container and surrounded by packing material to protect the flexible bag during shipment. Prior to use, the flexible bag is removed from the shipping container and placed in another container, for example, a tote, tray, rack or cart. That container may be suitable for stacking, autoclaving and/or storage. In some applications, the flexible bag is placed in a third, different container that supports the flexible bag while liquid is being dispensed from the bag. The use of multiple containers to transport, store and dispense the liquid is costly, labor intensive and subjects the flexible bag to damage as it is moved from one container to another.
It is also known to use a common container to support a flexible bag of liquid during transportation, storage and use; however, such containers are generally designed for, and limited to, a particular application and are not suitable for use in other industrial and laboratory settings. For example, it is known to transport, store and dispense beer from flexible bags located in stackable steel barrels. It is also known to place flexible bags of liquid in cardboard boxes that can be stacked during transportation, storage and use of the liquid media from the flexible bag. While a cardboard box has some rigidity and may be suitable for smaller bags, it may not be suitable for larger volume containers of liquid; and cardboard is generally considered unsuitable for use in a sterile or “clean” environment.
Consequently, there is a need for a container for a flexible bag of liquid that overcomes the disadvantages identified above.
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The need to operate sensors in harsh environments is common. Examples include sensors, switches, and the like, which are designed to operate in abrasive environments, in corrosive chemicals, and the like. Oftentimes the long term sensor operation is hindered by the continued contact the environment. The problem is particularly severe in the field of electro acoustic sensors, also known as Acoustic Wave Devices. Thus the present specifications will relate to the application of a coating to mitigate the problems associated with such operations, primarily by using the AWD sensor. The skilled in the art will recognize the applicability of the coating to other devices.
Piezoelectric sensors are well known. They are used for sensing material properties such as viscosity and density, for detecting the presence of certain materials in an environment, for measuring purity of fluid substance, and the like. Structures known for acoustic sensing range from the simple crystal resonator, crystal filters, acoustic plate mode devices, Lamb wave devices, and others. Briefly, these devices comprise a substrate of piezoelectric material such as quartz, langasite or lithium niobate, or thin films of piezoelectric material, such as aluminum nitride, zinc oxide, or cadmium sulfide, on a non-piezoelectric substrate. The substrate has at least one active piezoelectric surface area, which is commonly highly polished. Formed on the surface are input and output transducers for the purpose of converting input electrical energy to acoustic energy within the substrate and reconverting the acoustic energy to an electric output signal. These transducers may consist of parallel plate (bulk wave) or periodic interdigitated (surface-generated wave) transducers. Each sensor has at least one sensing area which is exposed to the environment being measured. The interaction between the surface and the environment causes measurable changes in the electrical characteristics of the sensor. The sensors may be used for sensing density, viscosity, and other such physical parameters.
Piezoelectric devices are generally manufactured from hard, crystalline materials. However, even those surfaces change when exposed to certain chemicals or abrasives. Piezoelectric based sensors are very susceptible to changes in the sensing area. Thus their use was so far limited to environments that will not damage such surfaces. Damage may be chemical such as etching, or mechanical such as abrasion. Therefore the usability of such sensors in environments like oil wells measuring of characteristics of drilling mud or oil, sensing characteristics of ink, melted polymers, and similar abrasive materials was heretofore limited as the sensors will suffer from high variability over time. Other environments which can harm such sensors are chemically reactive materials such as strong acids and bases used in polymer processing, pulp and paper processing, and other industrial and chemical processes. Furthermore, the need for a conductive electrode or shield layer in the most desirable sensor topologies introduces a further susceptibility to chemical attack and/or abrasion as virtually all metals have one or more chemical susceptibility and or are soft, abrasion prone materials. A further common requirement to liquid phase sensing is that the sensing surface be sufficiently smooth. Many liquid phase AWD sensors require nanometer or lower average roughness.
The electrodes that are deployed in the most desirable sensor topologies are commonly made of gold (Au) deposited by any convenient method. In many cases the electrode have to be electrically insulated from the environment.
Insulating surfaces, devices, electrodes, and the like, from an hostile environment is commonly done by coatings the likes of plastic, glass or similar materials. However such coatings often interfere with the operation of the sensor. For example in an AWD type sensor, the coating must have acoustic qualities that will not significantly impede the sensor operation, as well as the desired hardness, toughness, electrical characteristics, and the like. Plastics and glass incur excessive damping and are not always chemically resistant, nor are they sufficiently hard.
Diamond Like Carbon, or DLC hereinafter, is well known coating material. DLC enjoys high hardness and therefore high resistance to abrasion, it may be smoothly applied, and generally provides an excellent coating layer whose thickness may be tailored to need. DLC is deposited using common methods such as vaporizing, ion implanting, and the like.
Certain materials do not adhere well to each other. DLC suffers from poor adhesion to materials like gold, platinum, silver, most oxides, and many other materials, especially piezoelectric materials commonly used in AWD sensors and the like. Therefore, while the DLC clearly provides the required abrasion resistance, providing adequate adhesion between a DLC layer and a piezoelectric material or an electrode deposited on such piezoelectric material presents a problem. In other cases, different coating materials exhibit undesirably large ion migration problems which adversely effect electrical or acoustic characteristics of the desired coating.
Implantable medical devices have been demonstrated with relatively thick (in the order of several to several hundred microns) coatings of DLC, on thin (a few nanometers) adhesion layers, as shown in “EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON DIAMOND-LIKE CARBON AND NOVEL DIAMOND-LIKE CARBON-POLYMER-HYBRID COATINGS” Mirjami Kiuru, PhD Dissertation, University of Helsinki (2004). Typical substrates for such coatings are refractory metal parts such as titanium hips. When these coatings are applied to semiconductor devices the films are extremely unreliable. These coating films often suffer from delaminate and in some cases cause breakage of the silicon substrates.
Therefore, there exists a continuing and yet unresolved need for a sensor capable of continued operation in broad range of chemical, thermal and mechanical harsh environments.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a coating that will provide the above mentioned characteristics when applied to a sensing area of a sensor. Since no single material offers all of the ideal properties, many applications will ultimately require a series of layers, relaxing the requirements of the individual layers but further requiring compatibility amongst the layers. Preferably the coating should be sufficiently smooth to address fluid-phase sensor applications.
Many such acoustic sensors utilize an electrode on the sensing surface, and the coating provided by the present invention is particularly beneficial to such sensors. The skilled in the art will recognize that the term electrodes may relate to ground electrodes, transducers (especially in the case of actively driving or driven electrodes), other structures that cause perturbation or reflection in the piezoelectric crystal, or other conductors that either carry electrical energy or deliver it to a predetermined point.
An additional objective of the present invention is to provide the sensor with a smooth (preferably nanometer scale) sensing surface with excellent abrasion resistance, excellent chemical resistance and the ability to withstand temperature extremes from −50° C. to +350° C. Suitable coatings include alloys of silicon-aluminum oxynitride (SiAlON) including the extremes of silicon nitride, aluminum oxide and the like, amorphous boron nitride, amorphous and nanocrystalline carbon, boron carbide (including the like of boron doped diamond and boron doped DLC), and β-C3N4. All of these materials offer abrasion resistance and thermal stability with varying degrees of chemical resistance.
Of these coatings, so-called diamond-like carbon (DLC) is found to offer the best properties of surface smoothness, chemical resistance and abrasion resistance. While there is considerable debate as to an exact definition of diamond-like, for the purposes of the present invention it shall be taken to imply all films with a molar percentage of greater than 75% carbon and having mixed chemical bonding state of graphitic (sp2) and diamond (sp3). It should be noted that the term also extend to various modification of diamond-like carbon, such as boron-doped diamond (BDD), carbon-rich refractory metal carbides, and the like.
Diamond-like carbon is well-adhered to metals that form carbides, such as tungsten, molybdenum, tantalum, niobium, vanadium, hafnium, zirconium, titanium, and chromium in increasing order of typical adhesive strength. These metals are traditionally used in so-called adhesion layers. The adhesive strength of these metals is in direct proportion to their ability to inter-diffuse and alloy with adjacent materials.
Inter-diffusion of the adhesion layer into the DLC film is undesirable since it leads to unstable film properties and poor aging characteristics. It is especially desired that the underlying metal have low mobility in the carbon and that metal will have low mobility into the carbon, a condition that may become critical at high temperatures. Therefore by way of example, while titanium and zirconium offer excellent adhesion, they are excessively mobile in carbon and vice versa at high temperatures. On the other hand tungsten is an excellent barrier metal (has low mobility and prevents other atoms from diffusing into or through it); however tungsten has the poorest adhesion. Niobium and tantalum are the preferred metals for a barrier/adhesion layer under diamond-like carbon.
Niobium and tantalum offer good chemical resistance and excellent adhesion of the outermost DLC layer. Both materials are sufficiently conductive for shielding but are inadequate for many electrode requirements. In these cases an innermost layer of a thermally stable material with chemical resistance and high conductivity is required. Although aluminum is frequently employed as an electrode material it is chemically active and highly mobile at elevated temperatures. The preferred metals are gold and platinum, although silver and palladium are also acceptable for some preferred embodiments. Platinum has the most favorable properties while gold is more commonly employed. Ruthenium, Rhodium, Rhenium, Osmium and Iridium may also prove desirable in specific applications.
Applying the coating to a piezoelectric material presents yet another problem stemming from the extremely high film stresses associated with DLC and the significant mismatch of thermal expansion between DLC and such metal or piezoelectric materials as are commonly employed. The preferred embodiment of the present invention therefore utilizes application of a relatively thin DLC coating (of less than 1 μm) and a thicker adhesion/barrier metal system than is traditionally employed (of about 200 nm).
The adhesion of tantalum to gold or platinum and of the electrode to the piezoelectric substrate can be improved through a thin adhesion layer of chromium or titanium. The most preferred embodiment would consist of a thin (Circa 10 nm) titanium, zirconium or chromium layer, a conductive (50-200 nm) gold or platinum electrode layer, another thin (Circa 10 nm) titanium, zirconium or chromium layer, a barrier layer (25-300 nm) of niobium or tantalum, and a surface of DLC (10-500 nm).
The exact composition of the DLC is a matter of choice. Prior art in thin film development suggest numerous dopants or surface treatments ranging from several parts per million to several percent of nitrogen or various metals. Details of thin film may be found in “Synthesis and Evaluation of TaC:C Low-Friction Coatings”, Daniel Nilsson, Ph.D. Dissertation, ACTA Universitatis Upsaliensis (2004). Fluorine dopants have been considered from trace levels through 67 atomic percent (perfluoroalkanes). The abrasion and chemical resistance of such films appear best when the atomic percent carbon is maximized.
Films with only 33% carbon include the limit of hydrocarbons and fluorocarbons (e.g. Teflon®) and have no abrasion resistance. Films in the range of 33% to 66% carbon are characteristic of carbide alloys. These films are extremely hard but are not as chemically resistant or as thermally stable as DLC. In many cases the surfaces are not as smooth as true DLC. Thus only films containing approximately 67% or higher percentage carbon in their bulk are specifically considered as “DLC” herein. Our experience with tantalum-doped and fluorine-doped films indicates that the film should preferably have in excess of 90% carbon and the most preferred embodiment has in excess of 97% carbon.
While chemical resistance and passivation generally favor an insulating layer as is obtained by pure carbon DLC, certain sensor applications using carbon electrodes in electrochemical sensors, notably electrochemical-AWD hybrids, require a conducting DLC layer. Boron doped (˜1019 cm−3, consistent with silicon doping levels, up to 1% B; 99% C) diamond is a suitable material for use in electrochemical and/or acoustic sensors, and is considered as a type of DLC.
A further object of the invention includes the ability to attach chemically selective probes to the DLC surface.
Thus in one aspect of the present invention there is provided a coated Acoustic Wave Device (AWD) based sensor, the sensor having at least one piezoelectric plate having two opposing faces, one of said faces having a sensing area, the sensor having a coating applied to the sensing area, the coating characterized by: a first electrode disposed on the sensing area; a barrier layer disposed over the first electrode, the barrier layer comprising at least one metal selected from the group consisting of tantalum, niobium, vanadium, molybdenum, or a combination thereof; and an abrasive resistant layer comprising Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) disposed over the barrier layer.
Optionally the coating further comprises an adhesion layer disposed between the barrier layer and the electrode. Further optionally another adhesion layer may be disposed between the electrode and the sensing face. The adhesion layers may be titanium, zirconium, chromium, vanadium, niobium, tantalum, molybdenum, or a combination thereof.
Preferably the first electrode comprises a metal selected from a group consisting of platinum, palladium, gold, silver, copper, aluminum, osmium, iridium, or a combination thereof. Optionally the DLC may be boron doped diamond. Further optionally, chemically selective probes are coupled to the DLC.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention there is provided a coated acoustic wave device sensor as described above, having a second electrode disposed on the face opposite the face comprising the sensing area, forming a parallel plate resonator with said first and second electrodes. Optionally, a third electrode is disposed on the face opposite the face comprising the sensing area, wherein the first and second electrodes form an input parallel resonator, acting as an input transducer, the first and third electrode also form an output parallel resonator, acting as an output transducer; wherein the input and output resonators being sufficiently close to couple acoustic energy from the input resonator into the output resonator, for forming a multi-pole coupled resonator filter.
In another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of passivating an electrode, the method characterized by the steps of: depositing a barrier layer onto said electrode, the barrier layer comprising at least one metal selected from the group consisting of tantalum, niobium, vanadium, molybdenum, or a combination thereof; and, depositing an abrasive resistant layer comprising Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) onto said barrier layer.
Optionally the method further comprises the step of depositing an adhesion layer between the electrode and the barrier layer. Most preferably the electrode is coupled to an acoustic wave device based sensor. Optionally, the method further comprise the step of coupling chemically selective probes to the DLC layer.
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Power boats have used stern trim tabs to provide extra stern lift to help adjust the boat to the desired trim while underway. Although trim tabs have been made in many different shapes and have been applied to boats in many ways, only a small percentage of existing boats have ever used trim tabs.
In experimenting with trim tabs, I have devised an improved shape that is both simple and economical to make and install and also is highly effective in use; and I have found that a low cost addition of my trim tabs to existing boats can bring these boats to a plane at a lower engine rpm that would otherwise be required. This saves fuel and improves boat performance.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a matrix substrate, a liquid crystal device using the substrate, and a method for producing the matrix substrate.
2. Related Background Art
The world of today is a multimedia world, and equipment for communication by image information is becoming more and more important. Among others, the liquid crystal display devices are drawing attention because of their slimness and low power consumption. The liquid crystal display industry has grown to be a basic industry comparable to the semiconductor industry. Liquid crystal display devices are mainly used for 10-inch notebook-size personal computers at present. It is expected that liquid crystal display devices of larger screen sizes will be used not only for personal computers, but also for workstations and televisions for home use in the future. With an increase in screen size, however, manufacturing equipment becomes expensive, and, in addition, electrically exacting characteristics are demanded for driving of such large screens. The manufacturing cost will thus increase abruptly in proportion to the square to cube of the size with increasing screen size.
Recently, attention has been drawn to a projection method for preparing a compact liquid crystal display panel and optically enlarging a liquid crystal image to display an enlarged image. This is because the microstructure tendency of semiconductors permits decrease in size, improvement in the characteristics, and decrease in the cost, similar to the scaling rule to improve performance and cost. From these aspects, in the case of the liquid crystal display panel of the TFT type, TFTs have to be compact and have sufficient driving force, and transition is now occurring from TFTs using amorphous Si to those using polycrystal Si. Video signals of the resolution level conforming to the NTSC system, etc. used in ordinary televisions do not require so quick processing.
This allows not only the TFTs but also peripheral driving circuits such as shift registers or decoders to be made of polycrystal Si, whereby liquid crystal display devices can be constructed in a monolithic structure of a display region and a peripheral driving circuit region. Polycrystal Si is inferior to single crystal Si, however. For realizing high definition televisions having a higher resolution level than the NTSC system or display of the XGA (eXtended Graphics Array) or SXGA (Super eXtended Graphics Array) class in resolution standards for computers by polycrystal Si, a shift register needs to be composed of a plurality of segments. In this case, noise, called ghost, appears in the display region at portions corresponding to borders between the segments. A solution to this problem is desired in this field.
On the other hand, focus is also drawn to display devices using a single crystal Si substrate, which can realize extremely high driving force as compared to display devices of the monolithic structure of polycrystal Si. In this case, the transistors of the peripheral driving circuitry have sufficient driving force, and thus the divisional driving described above is not necessary. This solves the problem of the noise and the like.
Even with either of these polycrystal Si and single crystal Si, a reflection-type liquid crystal device can be provided in such a structure that a reflection-type liquid crystal element is formed by connecting the drain of each TFT to a reflective electrode and interposing the liquid crystal between the reflective electrodes and a transparent common electrode and that horizontal and vertical shift registers for scanning of the liquid crystal element are formed on the same semiconductor substrate. The applicant of the present application filed Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-73103 to disclose the reflection-type liquid crystal device using a substrate of polycrystal Si or single crystal Si. The invention disclosed in the application solves the following problems: when light is incident to a pixel electrode, the incident light is scattered in all directions by unevenness of the surface, and reflection efficiency of light thus becomes very small; and this unevenness of surface becomes the cause of alignment failure in a rubbing step of the alignment layer in a liquid crystal packaging process, and this results in causing alignment failure of the liquid crystal, so as to degrade the display image due to lowering of contrast.
In the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-73103, the pixel electrode surface is polished by chemical mechanical polishing (hereinafter referred to as “CMP”). This smooths the pixel electrode surface like a mirror-finished surface and makes the whole pixel electrode surface be in a common plane. This prevents the irregular reflection and alignment failure caused by the unevenness and thus permits display of an image with high quality.
A method for producing an active matrix substrate, disclosed in the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-73103, will be described referring to FIGS. 39A to 39E and FIGS. 40F to 40H. FIGS. 39A to 39E and FIGS. 40F to 40H show a pixel section and, at the same time as a step of forming the pixel section, the peripheral driving circuits such as the shift registers for driving the switching transistors in the pixel section can also be made on the same substrate.
An n-type silicon semiconductor substrate 201 with an impurity concentration of not more than 1015 cm−3 is locally thermally oxidized to form LOCOS 202, and, with the LOCOS 202 as a mask, ions of boron are implanted in a dose of about 1012 cm−2 to form PWL 203, which represents p-type impurity regions with an impurity concentration of about 1016 cm31 3 . This substrate 201 is again thermally oxidized to form gate oxide film 204 having an oxide film thickness of not more than 1000 Å (FIG. 39A).
Gate electrodes 205 made of n-type polysilicon doped with phosphorus of about 1020 cm−3 are formed, and thereafter ions of phosphorus are implanted in a dose of about 1012 cm−2 over the entire surface of substrate 201 to form NLD 206, which represents n-type impurity regions having an impurity concentration of about 1016 cm−3. Subsequently, using a patterned photoresist as a mask, ions of phosphorus are implanted in a dose of about 1015 cm−2 to form source and drain regions 207, 207′ having an impurity concentration of about 1019 cm−3 (FIG. 39B).
PSG 208, which is an interlayer film, is formed over the entire surface of substrate 201. This PSG 208 can be replaced by NSG (Nondoped Silicate Glass)/BPSG (Boro-Phospho-Silicate Glass) or TEOS (Tetraethoxy-Silane). The PSG 208 is patterned to form contact holes immediately above the source and drain regions 207, 207′, Al is evaporated by sputtering, and thereafter the Al layer is patterned to form Al electrodes 209 (FIG. 39C). In order to improve ohmic contact characteristics of the Al electrodes 209 with the source and drain regions 207, 207′, a barrier metal such as Ti/TiN is desirably placed between the Al electrodes 209 and the source/drain regions 207, 207′.
Plasma SiN 210 is deposited in a thickness of about 3000 Å over the entire surface of substrate 201, and then PSG 211 is deposited in a thickness of about 10000 Å thereon (FIG. 39D).
Using the plasma SiN 210 as a dry etching stopper layer, the PSG 211 is patterned so as to leave only separating regions between pixels, and thereafter the plasma SiN 210 is patterned by dry etching to form through holes 212 immediately above the Al electrodes 209 in contact with the drain regions 207′ (FIG. 39E).
Then a pixel electrode layer 213 is deposited in a thickness of not less than 10000 Å on the substrate 201 by sputtering or EB (Electron Beam) evaporation (FIG. 40F). This pixel electrode layer 213 is a metal film of Al, Ti, Ta, W, or the like, or a compound film of these metals.
The surface of the pixel electrode layer 213 is then polished by CMP (FIG. 40G).
An alignment layer 215 is further formed on the surface of the active matrix substrate formed by the above steps, and the surface thereof is subjected to an alignment process such as a rubbing process. The substrate is bonded through a spacer (not illustrated) to an opposite substrate, and then liquid crystal 214 is injected into the gap between them to complete a liquid crystal element (FIG. 40H). In this case, the opposite substrate is composed of a color filter 221, a black matrix 222, a common electrode 223 of ITO or the like, and an alignment layer 215′ on a transparent substrate 220.
A driving method of this reflection-type liquid crystal element is as follows. By the peripheral circuits such as the shift registers formed in an on-chip fashion on the substrate 201, a signal potential is applied to a source region 207 and, at the same time, a gate potential is applied to the associated gate electrode 205 to switch the switching transistor of that pixel on, thereby supplying signal charge to the drain electrode 207′. The signal charge is accumulated in a capacitor of the depletion layer of the pn junction created between the drain region 207′ and the PWL 203 to give a potential through the Al electrode 209 to the pixel electrode 213. When the potential of the pixel electrode 213 reaches a desired value, the potential applied to the gate electrode 205 is switched off to turn the pixel switching transistor off. Since the signal charge is accumulated in the pn junction capacitor part described above, the potential of the pixel electrode 213 is fixed before the pixel switching transistor is next driven. This fixed potential of the pixel electrode 213 drives the liquid crystal 214 encapsulated between the substrate 201 and the opposite substrate 220 illustrated in FIG. 40H.
In the reflection-type liquid crystal display device described above, the surface of the pixel electrode 213 is smooth, and the insulating layer is filled in the gap between adjacent pixel electrodes; therefore, the surface of the alignment layer 215 formed thereon is also smooth without unevenness. This prevents the decrease of light utilization efficiency due to scattering of incident light, the decrease of contrast due to inappropriate rubbing, and occurrence of bright lines due to a horizontal electric field raised by a level difference between the pixel electrodes. Therefore, the quality of a display image is improved.
The liquid crystal display device has excellent characteristics as described above, but studies by the present inventors have shown that the device is still susceptible to further improvement.
Specifically, the formation of the pixel electrode layer 213 is carried out by deposition of the electrode material at a high temperature and further thermal treatment so as to sufficiently densely pack the electrode material in recessed portions, which raises a possibility that residue or gas or the like will evolve and heat brings about reaction thereof.
The heat could bring about reaction between the pixel electrodes and the base layer thereof at the corners of the bottom of the pixel electrodes (or at the base of the insulating separation regions between the pixel electrodes) in some cases. Particularly, in the case where there are the pixel electrodes and a shielding layer or an electroconductive layer for formation of a capacitor placed through an insulating layer below the pixel electrodes, there is a possibility that the state of the insulating layer becomes imperfect at the base of the separation regions between the pixel electrodes, whereby the pixel electrodes react with the electroconductive layer or whereby leak current flows between them.
This will be described in more detail referring to FIG. 41 and FIG. 42.
FIG. 41 is a sectional view of a reflection-type liquid crystal display device, which is similar to that illustrated in FIG. 40H, but which clearly shows the shielding layer 7 provided in the matrix substrate 410. In FIG. 41, the liquid crystal display device is constructed in a structure in which the liquid crystal layer 14 is interposed between the matrix substrate 410 and the opposite substrate 420. The opposite substrate 420 is constructed of a common electrode 15 and an anti-reflection film 20 provided on a transparent substrate 16.
In the matrix substrate 410, numeral 10 represents the source electrode of each transistor being a switching device of pixel electrode 12, and numeral 11 represents the drain electrode connected to the pixel electrode 12. Numeral 7 indicates the shielding film made of an electroconductive metal material. The shielding film 7 is separated from the pixel electrodes 12 by insulating film 21. Numeral 9 designates an electrically insulating member for separating the pixel electrodes from each other.
In the liquid crystal panel illustrated in FIG. 41, the pixel electrode 12 and shielding film 7 compose a capacitor through the insulating film 21, which works as a storage capacitor during application of an electric field to the liquid crystal.
FIG. 42 is an enlarged view of the part near the insulating member 9 for separation of the pixel electrodes in FIG. 41.
As illustrated in FIG. 42, a discontinuity surface is likely to be formed at the root part of the insulating member 9 during deposition of the insulating film 21 because of the nearly vertical configuration of the insulating member 9. This increases the possibility that dielectric breakdown may occur with this discontinuity surface as a leak path at a lower voltage than the withstand voltage against dielectric breakdown of the insulating film 21.
Since the separation region part 9 between the pixel electrodes 12 also serves as a stopper on the occasion of CMP or the like, it needs to have some mechanical strength, and there are some cases where further increase of the mechanical strength is demanded of the separation region part between the pixel electrodes in view of the tendency toward higher density and the like.
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This application claims the benefit of a Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-190556 filed Jun. 28, 2002, in the Japanese Patent Office, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to instruction control methods and processors, and more particularly to an instruction control method for processing a plurality of instructions including branch instructions at a high speed in an instruction control which involves branch prediction and delay instructions for branching, and to a processor which employs such an instruction control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, various instruction processing methods are employed in order to improve the performance of the processor. An out-of-order processing method is one of such instruction processing methods. In the processor which employs the out-of-order processing method, a completion of one instruction execution is not waited and subsequent instructions are successively inserted into a plurality of pipelines to execute the instructions, so as to improve the performance of the processor.
However, in a case where execution of a preceding instruction affects execution of a subsequent instruction, the subsequent instruction cannot be executed unless the execution of the preceding instruction us completed. If the processing of the preceding instruction which affects the execution of the subsequent instruction is slow, the subsequent instruction cannot be executed during the processing of the preceding instruction, and the subsequent instruction must wait for the completion of the execution of the preceding instruction. As a result, the pipeline is disturbed, and the performance of the processor deteriorates. Such a disturbance in the pipeline is particularly notable in the case of a branch instruction.
The branch instructions include conditional branch instructions. In the case of the conditional branch instruction, if an instruction exists which changes the branch condition (normally, a condition code) immediately prior to the conditional branch instruction, the branch does not become definite until this instruction is completed. Accordingly, because the sequence subsequent to the branch instruction is unknown, the subsequent instructions cannot be executed, and the process stops to thereby deteriorate the processing capability. This phenomenon is not limited to the processor employing the out-of-order processing method, and a similar phenomenon occurs in the case of processors employing processing methods such as a lock step pipeline processing method. However, the performance deterioration is particularly notable in the case of the processor employing the out-of-order processing method. Hence, in order to suppress the performance deterioration caused by the branch instruction, a branch prediction mechanism is normally provided in an instruction control unit within the processor. The branch prediction mechanism predicts the branching, so as to execute the branch instruction at a high speed.
When using the branch prediction mechanism, the subsequent instruction and the instruction at the branching destination are executed in advance, before judging whether or not a branch occurs when executing the branch instruction. If the branching occurs as a result of executing the branch instruction, the branch prediction mechanism registers therein a pair of instruction address at the branching destination and an instruction address of the branch instruction itself. When the instruction is read from a main storage within the processor in order to execute the instruction, the registered instruction addresses registered within the branch prediction mechanism are searched prior to executing the instruction. By providing the branch prediction mechanism and predicting the branching, the instruction control unit can fetch the instructions from the main storage and successively execute the instructions while minimizing delay of the instructions.
A problem occurs when an instruction control method which is employed by the processor uses delay instructions for branching. In this case, the branch instruction is executed in the following manner. For example, if an instruction sequence is a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a3 is a conditional branch instruction and a4 is a delay instruction, the instructions are executed in a sequence a1, a2, a3, a4, b1, b2 if the conditional branch instruction a3 branches, and are executed in a sequence a1, a2, a3, a5, a6 if the conditional branch instruction a3 does not branch, where b1 is an instruction at the branching destination.
According to the prior art, branch information indicating whether or not a branch instruction at an arbitrary instruction address has branched in the past is registered, and the instruction address of the branch instruction, the instruction address at the branching destination when branching or the instruction address which is executed next when not branching are paired with the branch information and registered therewith. The registered branch information and instruction. address pair is used to predict whether or not the branch instruction branches. However, in either case where the branch instruction branches and the branch instruction does not branch, the pair of branch information and instruction address must be registered, and there was a problem in that a large storage capacity is required for the instruction control.
In addition, when the prediction of the branching fails, and particularly when the branch instruction which could not be predicted is decoded, it is always necessary to temporarily stop executing the subsequent instructions until the branch condition of the branch instruction becomes definite and the judgement is made on the branch, regardless of whether or not the branch instruction branches. As a result, the entire process flow of the instruction process within the processor is stopped temporarily, and there was a problem in that the performance of the processor greatly deteriorates.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication buzzer, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a communication buzzer which is used in a communication device such as a portable phone, a beeper or the like, to inform of the reception of an incoming call.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a direct current buzzer used in a small-sized communication device functions to inform of the reception of an incoming call The direct current buzzer serves as an essential component of a communication device such as a portable phone, a beeper or the like. Recently, as communication devices continue the trend toward structural miniaturization in view of portability or convenience for use, components thereof have also been gradually miniaturized.
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a cross-sectional view which illustrates a structure of a communication buzzer according to the related art. The direct current communication buzzer 11 includes a printed circuit board (PCB) 2 which has a lead wire 1. A base plate 3 is put onto an upper surface of the printed circuit board 2. A shaft 4 is mounted to a center portion of the printed circuit board 2 and base plate 3 such that it projects upward through them. Electromagnetic actuating means 5 is fitted around the shaft 4 which projects upward. As an example, a core prepared by winding a coil around an iron-core is used as the electromagnetic actuating means 5. Both ends of the electromagnetic actuating means 5 are connected to positive and negative electrodes of the printed circuit board 2, respectively, by means of soldering, etc.
On an upper surface of the base plate 3, a magnetic piece 6 is disposed around the electromagnetic actuating means 5 such that it is separated therefrom by a predetermined radial distance. Also, a vibrating plate support member 7 having a cylindrical configuration is arranged on an edge portion of the base plate 3 such that it surrounds the magnetic piece 6. A vibrating plate 8 is seated onto a shoulder which is formed adjacent an upper end of a circumferential inner surface of the vibrating plate support member 7. Finally, an outer case 9 is fitted around the vibrating plate support member 7 such that it closes an upper end thereof, and a packing material is filled into a gap between the vibrating plate support member 7 and the printed circuit board 2 thereby to construct a complete communication buzzer 11.
In the communication buzzer 11 constructed as mentioned above, as the vibrating plate 8 is vibrated, a sound wave is generated as described below. First, magnetic force generated by the magnetic piece 6 is absorbed by the base plate 3 which is made of metallic material, and then, is transferred to the shaft 4. The shaft 4 which receives the magnetic force through the base plate 3, attracts and curves the vibrating plate 8 downward. In this state, as current is applied to the printed circuit board 2 through the lead wire 1, the shaft 4 is magnetized through the electromagnetic actuating means 5 to further attract and curve the vibrating plate 8 downward. Thereafter, as the current applied to the printed circuit board 2 is momentarily shut off, the vibrating plate 8 which is attracted and curved downward, is returned to its original curved position.
Accordingly, by repeatedly and alternately performing a current supply operation and a current shut-off operation, the vibrating plate 8 is vibrated while being further curved downward and being returned to its original curved position, thereby generating a sound wave.
However, the communication buzzer 11 of the related art suffers from defects in that since the current supplied to the electromagnetic actuating means 5 can leak through the conductive base plate 3, the separate printed circuit board 2 must be necessarily used, and by this, manufacturing cost is increased and assembling time for assembling the printed circuit board 2 and the base plate 3 is lengthened.
In particular, due to the fact that the communication buzzer 11 of the related art has a number of components, assembling time is further lengthened and miniaturization of an end product is considered to be difficult. That is, in order to miniaturize a communication buzzer and shorten assembling time, sizes of components must be decreased and the whole structure of the communication buzzer must be simplified. Nevertheless, in the communication buzzer 11 of the related art, since the printed circuit board 2 and the base plate 3 are assembled with each other, the shaft 4 is mounted to the printed circuit board 2 and the base plate 3, the electromagnetic actuating means 5 and the magnetic piece 6 are disposed on the upper surface of the base plate 3 such that they are spaced apart from each other by the predetermined radial distance, and the vibrating plate support member 7 for arranging the vibrating plate 8 is separately fabricated and fitted around the magnetic piece 6, the number of components is increased and assembling procedure is complicated, thereby lengthening assembling time and setting limits to the miniaturization of the components.
Moreover, when the radial distance between the electromagnetic actuating means 5 and the magnetic piece 6 does not kept constant, the vibrating plate support member 7 is apt to be deviated from a center of the shaft 4. If the vibrating plate support member 7 is deviated, because the vibrating plate 8 is also deviated from the center of the shaft 4, reliable operation of the vibrating plate 8 cannot be ensured. Therefore, assembling operation of the communication buzzer must be carefully performed, by which assembling time is further lengthened and productivity is deteriorated.
In addition, while a distance between an upper end of the shaft 4 and the vibrating plate 8 should be kept constant, in the communication buzzer of the related art, since the shaft 4 is mounted to the printed circuit board 2 and the base plate 3 by being squeezed against them through a press, an assembling error may be caused. Accordingly, a constant distance between the upper end of the shaft 4 and the vibrating plate 8 cannot be ensured.
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At a typical oil and gas production site, a crude mixture from a well is brought to the surface and then separated into oil, gas and water in a three phase separator vessel. After separation, normally the oil goes to an oil storage tank, the water to a water tank and the natural gas to a natural gas pipeline.
Conventional separation systems leave a significant amount of natural gas entrained in the oil which flash vaporizes in the oil storage tanks. The natural gas that flash vaporizes in the storage tanks is contaminated by ambient air which decreases its economic value. This low value natural gas that has been contaminated is typically burned off at a combustion flare or vented directly to the atmosphere. Direct tank venting, fugitive emissions (gas leaks) from tanks, and exhaust from combustion flares significantly increases air pollution and greenhouse gasses, and wastes natural gas that could be recovered and sold.
Conventional approaches to processing hydrocarbon mixtures are inefficient at recovery of natural gas vapors and burn-off significant quantities of natural gas vapors. Some efforts have been made to reduce the burn-off or combustion flaring of natural gas vapors, such as US Pat. Publ. No. 2013/0213085 to Ward (“Ward”). Ward discloses systems and methods for processing a hydrocarbon mixture wherein heat is generated from compression of recovered natural gas vapors and used to provide a heating medium for a heat exchanger. While some recovery efficiencies are realized through Ward's application of heat, the improvements are modest and not as effective as the method and system disclosed in which oil and condensate are processed on-site at low pressure or in a vacuum. Ward is incorporated by reference in its entirety. Ward is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,992,838 to Mueller (“Mueller”) discloses a method and system to reduce oxygen from flash vapor captured from storage tanks wherein the flash vapor is compressed and then refined in an oxygen reduction subsystem and sent to a sales line. While some oxygen is removed through Mueller's application of his subsystem, the effectiveness is modest in that oxygen is not entirely removed from the gas stream. In addition to modest oxygen reduction, byproducts are generated such as CO2 and H20 which are not economically viable products while the former is a greenhouse gas and the latter promotes corrosion in gas sales pipelines. In addition to byproducts, Mueller's system and method realizes poor efficiency due to H2S contamination which damages the catalyst bed. The method and system herein processes oil and condensate prior to storage tanks eliminating oxygen contamination by ambient air and eliminating the need for a specialized catalyst that can be damaged by H2S. Mueller is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
A system and method for oil and condensate on-site processing at an oil and gas production site is disclosed. The system comprises an oil and condensate distillation unit and a vapor recovery unit. In one embodiment, the oil and condensate distillation unit operates at low pressure or vacuum conditions to reduce the vapor pressure above the column of oil within the tubing, thereby increasing the production of oil and condensate and capturing entrained natural gas otherwise lost or burned off. Benefits include improved quality and volume of recovered natural gas and decreased air pollution, in addition to increased oil and condensate production at the well site.
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an error display system for displaying an error such as an abnormality or a malfunction occurring at an apparatus including various drive mechanisms such as a workpiece processing mechanism and a workpiece transporting mechanism.
(2) Description of the Related Art
In an apparatus including various drive mechanisms such as a workpiece processing mechanism and a workpiece transporting mechanism and a process performed by the apparatus, there has been adopted a display system for notifying an operator of an error such as an abnormality or a malfunction occurring at each drive mechanism. For example, an IC transporting apparatus includes a display device capable of readily identifying a transport error occurrence site in course of transport of an IC among respective processing mechanisms from a loader to an unloader.
This display device schematically displays main processes performed by the respective processing mechanisms from the loader to the unloader, and allows a light emitting diode, corresponding to a process in which an error occurs, to flash. In addition, the display device displays a message about the error on a lower portion of a display region thereof (refer to, e.g., JP-A 06-148251 (FIG. 1)).
However, a conventional display device has the following problems.
The conventional display device is effective at identifying a process in which an error occurs. However, the conventional display device only uses character information in order to notify an operator of a state of the error occurring at a drive mechanism in the process. This results in the following disadvantage: only a skilled operator can promptly identify an error occurrence site in the drive mechanism based on the character information. In particular, as a result of advanced automation of an apparatus in recent years, an operator does not necessarily to manage the apparatus constantly. Consequently, skilled operators are reduced in number, and there arises a problem that it takes much time to correct an error.
In addition, an operator must visually check whether or not a drive mechanism subjected to error correction is normally actuated in a state that the drive mechanism is actually actuated, resulting in complicated work.
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This invention relates to segmenting, transforming, and viewing electronic documents.
People often access electronic documents such as web pages, text files, email, and enterprise (proprietary corporate) data using desktop or laptop computers that have display screens that are larger than 10 inches diagonally and using connections to the Internet that have a communication rate of at least 28.8 kbps. Electronic documents are typically designed for transmission to and rendering on such devices.
Internet-enabled devices like mobile phones, hand-held devices (PDAs), pagers, set-top boxes, and dashboard-mounted microbrowsers often have smaller screen sizes, (e.g., as little as two or three inches diagonally across), relatively low communication rates on wireless networks, and small memories. Some of these devices cannot render any part of a document whose size exceeds a fixed limit, while others may truncate a document after a prescribed length. Accessing electronic documents (which often contain many paragraphs of text, complex images, and even rich media content) can be unwieldy or impossible using these devices.
Automatic content transformation systems convert electronic documents originally designed for transmission to and rendering on large-screen devices into versions suitable for transmission to and rendering on small-display, less powerful devices such as mobile phones. See, for example, Wei-Ying Ma, Ilja Bedner, Grace Chang, Allan Kuchinsky, and HongJiang Zhang. A Frameworkfor Adaptive Content Delivery in Heterogeneous Network Environments. of SPIE Multimedia Computing and Networking 2000. San Jose, Calif., January, 2000.
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The present invention relates to cochlear prosthesis used to electrically stimulate the auditory nerve, and more particularly to a process for mapping a signal level into a stimulation current level.
Hearing loss, which may be due to many different causes, is generally of two types: conductive and sensorineural. Of these, conductive hearing loss occurs where the normal mechanical pathways for sound to reach the hair cells in the cochlea are impeded, for example, by damage to the ossicles. Conductive hearing loss may often be helped by use of conventional hearing aids, which amplify sound so that acoustic information does reach the cochlea and the hair cells. Some types of conductive hearing loss are also amenable to alleviation by surgical procedures.
In many people who are profoundly deaf, however, the reason for their deafness is sensorineural hearing loss. This type of hearing loss is due to the absence or the destruction of the hair cells in the cochlea which are needed to transduce acoustic signals into auditory nerve impulses. These people are unable to derive any benefit from conventional hearing aid systems, no matter how loud the acoustic stimulus is made, because their mechanisms for transducing sound energy into auditory nerve impulses have been damaged. Thus, in the absence of properly functioning hair cells, there is no way auditory nerve impulses can be generated directly from sounds.
To overcome sensorineural deafness, numerous implantable cochlear stimulation systems—or cochlear prosthesis—have been developed which seek to bypass the hair cells in the cochlear (the hair cells are located in the vicinity of the radially outer wall of the cochlea) by presenting electrical stimulation to the auditory nerve fibers directly, leading to the perception of sound in the brain and an at least partial restoration of hearing function. The common denominators in most of these cochlear prosthesis systems have been the implantation, into the cochlea, of electrodes, and a suitable external source of an electrical signal for the electrodes.
A cochlear prosthesis operates by direct electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve cells, bypassing the defective cochlear hair cells that normally transduce acoustic energy into electrical activity in such nerve cells. In order to effectively stimulate the nerve cells, the electronic circuitry and the electrode array of the cochlear prosthesis perform the function of separating the acoustic signal into a number of parallel channels of information, each representing the intensity of a narrow band of frequencies within the acoustic spectrum. Ideally, the electrode array would convey each channel of information selectively to the subset of auditory nerve cells that normally transmitted information about that frequency band to the brain. Those nerve cells are arranged in an orderly tonotopic sequence, from high frequencies at the basal end of the cochlear spiral to progressively lower frequencies towards the apex, and ideally the entire length of the cochlea would be stimulated to provide a full frequency range of hearing. In practice, this ideal is not achieved, because of the anatomy of the cochlea which decreases in diameter from the base to the apex, and exhibits variations between patients. Because of these difficulties, known electrodes can only be promoted to the second turn of the cochlea at best.
The signal provided to the electrode array is generated by a signal processing component of the Implantable Cochlear Stimulation (ICS) system. In known ICS systems, the acoustic signal is first processed by a family of parallel bandpass filters. Next the output of each bandpass filter is independently amplitude mapped into a simulation level using a mapping consistent with normal perception. In known systems, the mapping is a compressive mapping that is based on the log of the magnitude of each independent sample of the outputs of the band pass filters. The log is taken of the magnitude of each sample, then multiplied by a first scalar and added to a second scalar, and the sign of each sample is then applied to the compressed value. Disadvantageously, the log function can result in a DC component in the resulting signal, distorts sinusoidal inputs, and is computationally intensive.
The DC component arises from the asymmetry of the input waveform. The signal is processed before the amplitude mapping to remove DC bias, and as a result the total area under the waveform, at the output of the bandpass filters, sums to zero. But, the compressive nature of the log function reduces narrow high peaks much more than wide low peaks, and thereby creates a DC bias. A wideband speech signal is very asymmetric by nature, so the likelihood of generating such a DC bias is high. The presence of the DC bias poses a potential for tissue damage after long term use, and may cause the charge in a capacitor typically, used for energy storage in the implantable stimulation circuit, to grow large resulting in undesirable nonlinear behavior.
The shape of a waveform processed by the amplitude mapping may be distorted by the compression. For example, samples from the peak of a sinusoidal waveform are compressed more than samples between the peaks, and as a result the sinusoid becomes more like a square wave with rounded corners than like a sinusoid. When patients are tested for psychophysical thresholds, sine waves are used as the stimulating signals for each electrode. The frequency of each sine wave is selected as the center frequency of the band pass filter that processes the signal for the corresponding electrode in normal system operation. When the threshold levels determined during psychophysical testing are later applied to a compressed sinusoid, which compressed sinusoid has the same peak stimulating current as the original sinusoid that the thresholds are based on, the perceived loudness may not be the same as with the original sinusoid. Although the peak stimulation currents of the original sinusoid and the compressed sinusoid are the same, the amplitude mapping brings up the “shoulders” on the compressed sinusoid, making it more like a square wave with rounded corners. As a result of “raising the shoulders” of the sinusoid, charge per phase raises, which results in the perceived loudness increasing. This increase in perceived loudness may be significant for patients with a narrow dynamic hearing range.
The processing required to compute the log of each sample, in each frequency band, at a high data rate, is a computationally demanding process that expends significant power in the signal processor. The development of Behind-The-Ear (BTE) speech processor, and fully implantable cochlear stimulators, requires that power consumption be reduced to a minimum. A BTE ICS system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,824,022 issued Oct. 20, 1998 for ‘Cochlear stimulation system employing behind-the-ear speech processor with remote control.’ Behind-the-ear speech processors offer several advantages, but their small size limits the size of the battery they may carry (which in turn limits the capacity of the battery.) The small battery size results in a requirement for very low power consumption. Processing, such as that required by known amplitude mapping methods, work against the need to reduce power dissipation. The '022 patent is herein incorporated by reference.
An improvement to the current compressive processing is needed to both improve performance, and to reduce the power consumption required for signal processing.
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This disclosure is directed toward power machines. More particularly, this discussion is directed toward power machines with lift arms that are capable of carrying a work implement as well as systems and methods for positioning the work implement by controlling the position of the lift arms. Power machines, and more particularly, loaders, have long had lift arms that can carry work implements such as buckets and the like for performing various work tasks. Operators of these machines can advantageously manipulate lift arms carrying such implements to perform various tasks. Not only would an operator have the ability to manipulate the position of the lift arms (known generally as a lift operation), but also to manipulate a position of the work implement with respect to the lift arm (known generally as a tilt operation).
One example of such a task is a digging and loading operation, where an operator may be digging soil with a bucket and then dumping the soil in a truck bed. To perform this task, the operator will have to position the implement via lift and tilt operations to place the bucket in a position to dig soil and then position the implement again to dump the soil into a truck bed. Repetitive positioning of the implement requires that the operator repeatedly concentrate on precisely controlling the lift arm to place the bucket in the dig position and the dump position.
In addition, raising and lowering the lift arms of a power machine and particularly a loader by manipulating one or more lift arm actuators can change the angle of the implement with respect to gravity over the lift arm path of certain loaders. That is, if the path of the lift arm is not perfectly vertical, simply raising or lowering the lift arm will change the orientation of the implement with respect to gravity unless the implement is also tilted with respect to the lift arm. This can cause material contained within a bucket, for example, to spill out during the raising or lowering process. This relationship between an implement and gravity can be further changed if the power machine is travelling over uneven terrain.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air intake device for a multi-cylinder internal combustion engine.
2. Background Art
Japanese Patent JP-A-2005-325696 discloses an air intake device of a V-type engine. The air intake device includes a surge tank having an internal space divided into an upper portion and a lower portion. The surge tank is disposed upwardly of the engine. The upper portion of the internal space of the surge tank functions as a surge tank for a first bank of the engine. The lower portion of the internal space of the surge tank functions as a surge tank for a second bank of the engine. A partition between the upper portion and the lower portion of the surge tank includes an on/off valve. With the on/off valve closed, the upper portion of the surge tank is shut off from the lower portion thereof. With the on/off valve open, the upper portion of the surge tank communicates with the lower portion thereof.
Generally speaking, a small surge tank volume improves torque in low to middle speed regions and response, while reducing torque in a high speed region. A large surge tank volume, on the other hand, improves torque in the high speed region and reduces torque in the low to middle speed regions.
In the air intake device of the known art, the upper portion and the lower portion of the surge tank each function as a small surge tank for the corresponding bank with the on/off valve closed in the low to middle speed regions. In the high speed region, the upper portion and the lower portion of the surge tank function integrally as a large surge tank with the on/off valve opened. This improves engine torque throughout the entire speed region.
Including the above-mentioned document, the applicant is aware of the following documents as a related art of the present invention. [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent JP-A-2005-325696 [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent JP-A-2007-16755 [Patent Document 3] Japanese Patent JP-A-2003-307159
The air intake device of the known art, however, has the following problem. Specifically, when the on/off valve is opened, a vane of the on/off valve advances into the upper and lower tank space to block an air flow, leading to increased suction resistance.
In addition, in the air intake device of the known art, it is necessary to make the on/off valve as large as possible in order to have a sufficiently large opening area when the on/off valve is open. A large on/off valve, however, contributes to a narrow flow path cross-sectional area when the on/off valve is open, which makes it necessary to make the surge tank higher. Such an air intake device as this one requires that the surge tank be disposed in a space between the engine and an engine hood, imposing stringent restrictions on the height of the surge tank. If the surge tank is tall, therefore, it makes it impossible to dispose the surge tank at an optimum position, at which each cylinder has an equal intake pipe length. This results in a problem of varying intake pipe lengths among different cylinders.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a circuit and method for controlling inversion of a Delay Locked Loop (DLL), and a synchronous semiconductor memory device incorporating such a DLL.
A claim of priority is made to Korean Patent Application No. 2003-96385 filed on Dec. 24, 2003, the subject matter of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many applications involving the transmission of various signals, it is critical to accurately reproduce signal timing characteristics upon reception of, or prior to transmission of the signals. That is, the signals must typically be synchronized in their transmission and reception to a standard timing signal (e.g., a clock). A Phase Locked Loop (PLL) or a DLL is commonly used to synchronize the timing characteristics of one or more signals.
The conventional PLL generates a voltage control signal corresponding to a phase difference between an external clock signal and a reproduction clock signal. The phase of the reproduction clock signal is adjusted in relation to the voltage control signal to follow the phase of the external clock signal by means of varying the frequency of the reproduction clock signal.
The conventional DLL similarly generates a voltage control signal corresponding to a phase difference between the external clock signal and the reproduction clock signal, but adjusts a delay period for the reproduction clock signal in response to the voltage control signal to thereby control the phase of the reproduction clock signal such that it follows the phase of the external clock signal.
A DLL is commonly used in digital signal processing systems and synchronous memory devices, such as Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM). Common DLL configurations use an inversion scheme that provides a fast locking of signals at the beginning of a phase locking operation.
Referring to FIG. 1, a typical inversion scheme implemented in a DLL circuit compares the phase of a received external clock signal (EXCLK) with the phase of a reproduction clock signal (RCLK) in order to generate (i.e., “output”) the reproduction clock signal RCLK without inversion when the phase difference, τ 1, between the clock signals EXCLK and RCLK is greater than one half of a cycle, (i.e., T/2(τ 1<T/2)). (See, timing relationship (iii) in FIG. 1). In contrast, an inverted reproduction clock signal (RCLKB) is output when the phase difference, τ 2, is less than one half of a cycle (i.e., T/2 (τ 2<T/2)). (See, timing relationship (ii) in FIG. 1). Within the foregoing timing relationships, the “following time”(i.e., a delay time) required to lock the rising edge of RCLK to the rising edge of EXCLK can be reduced to no more than half a clock cycle.
However, this is not the case where the duty cycle ratio of RCLK falls below 50%. (See, timing relationship (i) in FIG. 1). In such cases, the reproduction clock signal ERCLK must be delayed by more than half a cycle when inversion is performed because otherwise the phase difference during the next cycle would be mistakenly seen as being less than a half cycle despite the phase difference actually being more than a half cycle.
Thus, DLLs using the inversion scheme experience a problem in that the initial locking time is additionally delayed by as much as the change of the duty cycle ratio for the reproduction clock signal RCLK. Operating speed suffers accordingly when one cycle of the clock signal is larger than a predetermined maximum delay period, and phase unlocking may occur because the locking delay adjustment cannot be performed for such delay periods.
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As technologies advance rapidly, manufacturers are adding an increasingly large number of features to their products. Since customer needs vary over a wide range and constantly evolve, it is necessary for manufacturers to implement systems that can handle the customization of features for the initial configuration of and the subsequent changes in the product feature set. For example, a manufacturer of mobile phones such as Motorola, for instance, may offer mobile phones that are capable of supporting a number of features in addition to voice such as data, texting, GPS services, Wi-Fi connectivity, web browsing, text-to speech and so on. The direct customers of the manufacturer, who in the case of mobile phones are often service providers such as Verizon and ATT, for instance, may wish to obtain mobile phones with different combinations of these features in order to meet the varying needs of the end users.
Another example includes a manufacturer of set top boxes, such as Motorola, for instance, who may offer set top boxes that are capable of supporting a number of features in addition to simple cable programming. The direct customers of the manufacturer, who in the case of set top boxes are often service providers such as ComCast or Cox, for instance, may wish to obtain set top boxes with different combinations of these features in order to meet the varying needs of the end users.
To address this issue, manufacturers have turned to feature licensing, which provides a feature control mechanism that allows customers to obtain a license to enable only the product features that meet their specific needs. Feature licensing brings many benefits to both manufacturers and customers. For example, feature licensing allows manufacturers to have a single build of a product that incorporates all available features and rely on feature licensing to enable different combinations of features. In addition, customers can get the exact features for a product that meets their specific needs without having to pay for undesired features. Feature licensing also allows manufacturers and customers to manage product upgrades and downgrades through license changes, eliminating the need to deploy different product versions and reducing operational downtime.
To achieve such benefits, however, different manufacturers, and even different organizations within the same manufacturer, have tended to build their own feature licensing systems to support their own product lines. These systems are often designed with only one or a few similar product lines in mind, and consequently cannot be easily extended to support other product lines. Once such custom-designed systems are developed, they need to be individually maintained and supported. Such repeated efforts result in increased cost in product development, deployment and support.
Alternatively, as disclosed herein, a generic feature licensing system can be provided that can support different product lines, which may include product lines from multiple manufacturers and not just from a single manufacturer. Such a generic feature licensing system may be operated and supported by a third party. Users of such a system may include users associated with the manufacturers, operators of the system who support and maintain the system, and customers who will be using the various features of a product for which licenses are being obtained. Customers may include, by way of example, service providers and/or the consumer end user.
On the customer side, end users may have to use multiple feature licensing systems if they have products from multiple manufacturers. Different user interfaces and processes in different feature licensing systems for similar tasks can cause confusion in users, which leads to the need for increased user training and support efforts.
This problem calls for a feature license provisioning system that must be integrated into the device manufacturing process and as an extension to the above-mentioned generic feature licensing framework.
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"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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