text stringlengths 61 141k | meta dict |
|---|---|
The defense mechanisms to protect the mammalian gastrointestinal (GI) tract from colonisation by pathogenic bacteria are highly complex. The GI tract of most mammals are colonised by native microflora, and invasive pathogenic micro-organisms. In a healthy individual, these competing microflora are in a state of equilibrium. Modification of the intestinal microflora equilibrium may lead to or prevent many GI disorders, both in humans, and other mammalian species, such as companion animals including cats, dogs and rabbits. The well being of companion animals is closely related to their feeding and GI health, and maintenance of the intestinal microflora equilibrium in these animals may result in healthier pets.
The number and composition of the intestinal microflora tend to be stable, although age and diet may modify it. Gastric acidity, bile, intestinal peristalsis and local immunity are factors thought to be important in the regulation of bacterial flora in the small intestine of human beings and various other mammals. Often pet GI disorders, including those found in canines and felines, are linked to bacterial overgrowth and the production of enterotoxins by pathogenic bacteria. These factors disrupt the intestinal microflora equilibrium and can promote inflammation and aberrant immune responses.
During the last few years, research has begun to highlight some valuable strains of bacteria and their potential use as probiotic agents. Probiotics are considered to be preparations of bacteria, either viable or dead, their constituents such as proteins or carbohydrates, or purified fractions of bacterial ferments that promote mammalian health by preserving and promoting the natural microflora in the GI tract, and reinforcing the normal controls on aberrant immune responses. It is believed by some that probiotic bacteria are more effective when derived from the species, or a closely related species to the individual intended to be treated. Therefore, there is a need for probiotic strains derived from companion animals to be used for companion animals, that are different to those derived from humans.
WO 01/90311 discloses probiotic micro-organisms isolated from fecal samples obtained from cats and dogs having probiotic activity. However, these bacteria were obtained from fecal samples, and may not form part of the natural intestinal microflora present in the upper portion of the GI tract.
Consequently, there is a need to provide strains of bacteria obtainable by isolation from the natural intestinal microflora present in the upper portion of the GI tract that are particularly adapted for companion animals, and have been selected for their probiotic properties and ability to survive processing, and to incorporate these strains into compositions that are suitable for their use. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
This invention relates to sheet receiving apparatuses for reproducing machines. These devices commonly take the form, for example, of output trays or sorter collators.
There are presently a number of copiers capable of copying on both sides of a sheet, a process known as duplexing. Duplexing may be carried out manually by restacking the copy sheets after copying on the first side, and then placing them in the sheet feeder supply tray for copying on the second side, or it may be carried out automatically by various means as, for example, the use of an auxiliary feeder tray such as in the Xerox "4000" copier.
One of the problems which occurs with many copying machines, as well as other kinds of reproducing machines when they do simplexing which involves imaging on only one side of a sheet or duplexing as above-noted, is the generation of improperly collated sets of copy sheets in the output tray. For simplex copying proper collation can be obtained by properly orienting the output tray so that if sheets 1 through 10 are copied serially in the order 1 through 10, they will appear in the output tray in that order. Similarly, numerous sorter collator type devices have been devised which are capable in a simplex mode of operation of providing properly collated sets of copies.
When one performs duplex copying with the above-noted output tray or sorter the resulting copies of the documents 1 through 10 are improperly collated and appear in the order 2, 1, 4, 3, etc., instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., as desired.
One approach at solving this problem is set forth in IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 5, Oct. 1971, at page 1453. In accordance with the above-noted bulletin a duplexing copier is provided which incorporates a sorter collator which has feed paths which ensure that the sheets having printed matter on one side are deposited in collator bins with the printed matter facing down and sheets having printed matter on both sides are deposited with the last side copied facing up. This is accomplished using a sorter collator having two rows of back-to-back bins. One row for receiving sheets copied on one side, and the other row for receiving sheets copied on both sides. Diverters are used to direct the sheets to the appropriate transports for deposition in the selected row and bin depending on whether they were simplex or duplex copied. While this approach would appear to overcome the above-noted problem, it does so at a substantial sacrifice in space since the two rows of back-to-back bins are required as well as separate transports for each row of bins.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,937, granted Feb. 1, 1972, to Schutz, there is disclosed a collator that can be adapted to accept sheets fed from either of two sides of the collator thus retaining or inverting in the receiver the uppermost side of the sheets as fed to effect a desired sheet orientation in the receiver. While the approach of this patent is more compact than that of the previously noted IBM bulletin, it is not as useful since the machine would have to be turned around in order to change the orientation of the sheets in the bin.
A variety of sorter collator devices have been proposed such as those presented in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,561,754, granted Feb. 9, 1971, to Gaffron; 3,685,819, granted Aug. 22, 1973, to Deutsch; 3,721,435, granted Mar. 20, 1973, to Zanders, and 3,788,640, granted Jan. 29, 1974, to Stemmle wherein the sorter bins are moved or pivoted to facilitate loading thereof. In each of these devices and other devices of a similar nature, the bins are not moved to change their orientation so as to provide for proper collation of either simplexed or duplexed copy sheets. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, we, the inventors, typically hybridize a large number of nectarine, peach, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as "Diamond Jewel". The present variety was hybridized in 1983 by us in a cultivated area of our experimental orchard at Bradford Farms near Le Grand, Calif. in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). It was the result of a seedling using Red Diamond (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 3,165) as the selected seed parent and an unnamed seedling as the selected pollen parent. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of nectarine tree, we asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects.
The fruit produced by the present variety most nearly resembles the fruit of May Diamond (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 5,454) by being a full red colored nectarine, by ripening in early June, and by having excellent firmness, but is distinguished therefrom and an improvement thereon by being a clingstone instead of a freestone and by being sweeter in flavor. Being a clingstone variety is becoming more desirable to the long distant shipper due to the absence of a pit cavity where internal breakdown often occurs. Also, improvements in flavor are very valuable in today's marketplace.
The present variety is similar to its selected seed parent, Red Diamond (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 3,165), in fruit appearance by being a full red colored nectarine with excellent firmness, but is distinguished therefrom by ripening 22 days earlier and by being a clingstone instead of a freestone. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to data processing and, in particular, to a data processing system and method for creating accounts in a network. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a data processing system and method that automate account creation in a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Companies and other organizations now frequently utilize local area networks (LANs) to perform many essential business functions, for example, file sharing, routing intra-office information, calendaring, data processing, printing, etc. When an organization expands its communication capabilities by obtaining access to an additional network such as the Internet or World Wide Web, it is often desirable to provide an individual account on the new network for each of number of users of the LAN.
Heretofore, the process of creating individual accounts on the new network was laborious and involved manually entering into a computer each individual username or user ID for which an account was to be created. Thus, the conventional method of account creation is very time consuming in cases in which numerous accounts are to be established and is prone to human error in entering the selected usernames or user IDs. It would therefore be useful and desirable to provide an improved method of account creation in a network that addresses these shortcomings. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor memory device and, more particularly, to a semiconductor memory device including a power supply circuit.
2. Description of the Background Art
In recent years, in order to realize cost reduction lower electric power consumption and higher speeds, miniaturization of transistors utilized in semiconductor memory devices has been progressed. In order to ensure the reliability of miniaturized transistors, it is necessary to lower the power supply potential which is fed from outside.
Semiconductor memory devices are generally equipped with an internal power supply circuit. For example, in the case of a DRAM, the internal power supply circuit serves to reduce a high power supply potential supplied from the outside to a lower potential, in order to supply a potential which is harmless to miniaturized transistors and capacitors in memory cells.
However, if the power supply potential supplied from the outside is reduced, this produces a problem that a sufficient driving potential for operations can not be supplied. Particularly, when the voltage generated between the gate and source of a MOS transistor constituting a sense amplifier in the memory array is not sufficiently higher than the threshold voltage of the MOS transistor, the driving capability of the MOS transistor is degraded, thereby increasing the time for amplifying micro-signals generated on bit line pairs.
A method for overcoming this problem is a sense amplifier driving method which is generally called a “over-drive sensing method”.
Conventionally, the power supply for the high-side potential of sense amplifiers for detecting and amplifying small potential differences read into bit line pairs has been a potential from the internal power supply circuit, namely a potential generated by reducing the power supply potential supplied from the outside. On the contrary, with the “over-drive sensing method”, the high-potential side power supply line of the sense amplifier is supplied with a power supply potential from the outside, instead of a reduced potential from the internal power supply circuit, for a constant time interval just before and after the activation of the sense amplifiers, thereby increasing the operation power supply for the sense amplifiers and enabling the sense amplifiers to amplify micro-signals at high speeds.
As a concrete example of the over-driving sensing method, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-216779 discloses an internal power supply potential generating circuit and the control method thereof for semiconductor devices. The internal power supply potential generating circuit includes an over-drive driving circuit and two types of step-down regulators having different output potentials. Further, in the reading operation, the over-drive driving circuit is operated at first and then the first step-down regulator is operated, and on standby the second step-down regulator which outputs a lower potential than that of the first step-down regulator is operated, in order to reduce the current consumption.
Conventional over-drive sensing methods supply an external power supply potential to the sense amplifiers for a constant time interval, regardless of the amplitude of the external power supply potential. With this configuration, even if the external power supply potential is equal to or higher than the maximum value of specification of product or equal to or lower than the minimum value of specification of product, the external power supply potential is supplied to the sense amplifiers for a constant time interval. Therefore, if the external power supply potential approaches or exceeds the maximum value of specification of product, excessive voltages are applied to memory cells through the sense amplifiers.
On the other hand, if the external power supply potential approaches or decreases below the minimum value of specification of product, there has been generated a problem that the effect of high-speed operations of the sense amplifiers with over-drive method can not be obtained. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of soybean breeding. In particular, the invention relates to the novel soybean variety A1026649.
2. Description of Related Art
There are numerous steps in the development of any novel, desirable plant germplasm. Plant breeding begins with the analysis and definition of problems and weaknesses of the current germplasm, the establishment of program goals, and the definition of specific breeding objectives. The next step is selection of germplasm that possess the traits to meet the program goals. The goal is to combine in a single variety an improved combination of desirable traits from the parental germplasm. These important traits may include higher seed yield, resistance to diseases and insects, better stems and roots, tolerance to drought and heat, better agronomic quality, resistance to herbicides, and improvements in compositional traits.
Soybean, Glycine max (L.), is a valuable field crop. Thus, a continuing goal of plant breeders is to develop stable, high yielding soybean varieties that are agronomically sound. The reasons for this goal are to maximize the amount of grain produced on the land used and to supply food for both animals and humans. To accomplish this goal, the soybean breeder must select and develop soybean plants that have the traits that result in superior varieties. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic article surveillance (EAS) and more particularly to a portable apparatus that resets the security features of an EAS device to a preselected configuration.
2. Description of the Related Art
EAS systems are well known for the prevention or deterrence of unauthorized removal of articles from a controlled area. In a typical EAS system, tags designed to interact with an electromagnetic field located at the exits of the controlled area are attached to articles to be protected. If a tag is brought into the electromagnetic field or “interrogation zone”, the presence of the tag is detected and appropriate action is taken. For a controlled area such as retail store, the appropriate action taken for detection of an EAS tag may be the generation of an alarm. Some types of EAS tags remain attached to the articles to be protected, but are deactivated prior to authorized removal from the controlled area by a deactivation device that changes a characteristic of the tag so that the tag will no longer be detectable in the interrogation zone. U.S. Pat. No. 4,510,489 illustrates one such EAS system.
The majority of EAS tag deactivation devices are fixed at a specific location, such as adjacent a point-of-sale (POS) station in a retail environment. If an article is purchased, and for whatever reason the attached EAS tag is not deactivated at the deactivator adjacent the POS station, the EAS tag will set off an alarm at the store exit. To then deactivate the EAS tag, the article must be brought back to the deactivator adjacent the POS station, which causes confusion and customer embarrassment. Handheld deactivators for RF type EAS tags, which are part of a handheld bar-code scanner, are known, but still require the EAS tag to be brought near the POS station, within range of the handheld scanner/deactivator cord, for deactivation.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/723,641, filed Nov. 27, 2000, a cordless, handheld deactivator that deactivates EAS tags when they are away from or “remote” from the hardwired deactivator near the POS station is disclosed. Operation of that device, and many other devices, require storing a security code, or personal identification code, into the device that must be input to activate the device, much like a password permits access to a computer. Upon initial use of the device, a security code is selected by the user and must be input before the device can be activated. If the selected security code is forgotten, the device cannot be activated. A service call must be made to reinitialize or reset the device to the initial factory configuration. Once the device is initialized, the user can select a new security code for operation. An apparatus is needed that provides a secure method to enable a user to reinitialize the device so that a new security code can be stored therein. Presently, re-initialization requires a service call for security reasons. Otherwise, a stolen portable deactivator, or similar device, could be reinitialized and used by a thief, even though the thief does not know the security code that was initially used to activate the device.
Certain devices may have other user-defined settings, which would be lost upon reinitializing the device. A reinitializing apparatus could be used to read and temporarily store the user-defined settings and restore the device to those settings upon reinitialization. Thus, a technician performing service call to work on such a device will be able to reset the device to user-specified settings rather than to default factory settings after servicing the device. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to a cash memory device containing a cash memory of 2 way set associative method, and more particularly to a cash memory device having a function for replacing ways by means of an LRU (Least Recently Used) algorithm and the like.
With progress of computers, more speeding up in access is demanded. In response to such demand, a system provided with a cash memory device composed of cash memories thereby to intend speeding up in accessing of data increases. However, there is still a need for a cash memory device having a faster processing speed in these days where processing speed of computer increases dramatically.
In computer system, a cash memory and a cash memory device provided with a cash control section capable of high-speed reading/writing has been heretofore been used for eliminating differences in speed between a CPU and a main memory. In such a cash memory device, data transmission between the CPU and a cash memory (main memory) is carried out in line unit.
As a method for allowing data on a main memory to correspond to a line in a cash memory, there is a set associative method wherein the main memory and the cash memory are divided into a plurality of sets (a set of lines: called by the name of xe2x80x9cwayxe2x80x9d), and a certain data on the main memory shall be disposed on only a line contained in each way which has been previously determined. For example, if there are two ways, it is called by the name of xe2x80x9c2 way set associative methodxe2x80x9d.
Such cash memory holds a part of the data stored in the main memory, it is, for instance, memory of the above-mentioned 2 way set associative method. The cash memory is composed of tag RAM (Random Access Memory) retaining an address representing storage positions of data and data RAM retaining the above described data.
In each of two ways in tag RAM, a bit LRU which is used in determination of an old way is maintained in accordance with LRU algorithm. In LRU algorithm, a way which has not been referred to for the longest period of time in two ways is the one corresponding to the above described old way. Bits LRU retained in two ways, respectively, are used for determining a fact which way is an old way in the two ways.
Furthermore, in either a case where a cash hit which means that data to be read exists in cash memory arises, or a case where replacement which means that the data and addresses in cash memory should be updated arises, a cash control section accesses two ways, respectively, to update an old way, whereby bits LRU retained in the respective ways are updated. As a result, the old way shifts from an either way where cash hit (replacement) arose to the other way.
Meanwhile, as mentioned above, when bits LRU are updated as a result of arising of cash hit or replacement in a conventional cash memory device, a cash control section must access to two ways, respectively. More specifically, in case of updating bits LRU, two times of access are required in such that first, the cash control section accesses to either of two ways, and then, it accesses to the other way. Accordingly, there has been such a problem that a processing speed becomes slow by an amount of period of time required for accessing operations of two times in a conventional cash memory device.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a cash memory device by which a processing speed can be elevated.
In order to achieve the above described object, the invention described in a first aspect of the invention relates to a cash memory device utilizing an algorithm wherein replacement is conducted with respect to an old way retaining data which has not been accessed for the longest period of time, characterized in that the cash memory device is composed of a cash memory (corresponding to a primary cash memory 11 in the first embodiment which will be mentioned hereinafter) containing two ways each retaining bits taking a value 0 or 1 together with data and an address, respectively; an old way determining means (corresponding to a primary old way determining circuit 13 in the first embodiment which will be mentioned hereinafter) for determining which way of the two ways is the above described old way on the basis of patterns of two bits retained in the above described two ways; and a control means (corresponding to a primary cash control circuit 14 in the first embodiment which will be mentioned hereinafter) for inverting only the bits retained in a way which has been accessed in the two ways in the case when the present way which has been accessed is the above described old way, while maintaining values of the bits retained in the present way in the case when the way which has been accessed is not the above described old way.
According to the present invention, in the old way determining means, an old way is determined from two ways on the basis of patterns of two bits in 2-bit composition (combinations of xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d). Thus, when either of two ways is accessed, the control means determines whether or not the way which has been accessed is an old way on the basis of a result of determination by the old way determining means, and when the accessed way is an old way, only the bits retained in this accessed way are inverted. Accordingly, bits in the other way which has not been accessed are not inverted. Namely, in this case, the control means accesses one time to only either way of these two ways.
On one hand, when the way which has been accessed is not the above described old way, the control means maintains values of bits retained in this way. Namely, in this case, the control means accesses to neither of these two ways nor the other.
As described above, according to the invention as described in the first aspect of the invention, it is arranged in such that when an old way is accessed, only the bits retained in the old way in two bits which have been retained respectively in two ways are inverted, so that it is sufficient for only one time access in case of updating bits, whereby a processing speed can be elevated in comparison with two times access in the prior art.
Furthermore, a second aspect of the invention relates to the cash memory device as described in the first aspect of the invention, characterized in that when a way which was cash-hit or replaced is the above described old way, the aforesaid control means inverts only the bits retained in the aforesaid way which was cash-hit or replaced, while when the aforesaid way which was cash-hit or replaced is not the above described old way, values of the bits retained in the present way are maintained.
According to the present invention, an old way is determined from two ways on the basis of patterns of two bits in 2-bit composition (combinations of xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d) in the old way determining means. Then, when either of two ways is cash-hit or replaced, the control means determines whether or not the way which was cash-hit or replaced is an old way on the basis of a result of determination by the old way determining means, and when the aforesaid way is an old way, only the bits retained in the aforesaid way are inverted. Accordingly, bits retained in the other way are not inverted. Namely, in this case, the control means accesses to only either of two ways one time.
On the other hand, when the way which was accessed is not the aforesaid old way, the control means maintains values of bits retained in the way which was accessed. Namely, in this case, the control means does not accesses to both the ways of these two ways.
As described above, according to the second aspect of the invention, it is arranged in such that when an old way is cash-hit or replaced, only the bits retained in the old way in two bits which have been retained respectively in two ways are inverted. Accordingly, it is sufficient for only one time access in case of updating bits, whereby a processing speed can be elevated in comparison with two times access in the prior art.
Moreover, a third aspect of the invention relates to a cash memory device utilizing an algorithm wherein replacement is conducted with respect to an old way retaining data which has not been accessed for the longest period of time, characterized in that the cash memory device is composed of a cash memory (corresponding to a primary cash memory 11 in the first embodiment which will be mentioned hereinafter) containing two ways each retaining bits taking a value 0 or 1 together with data and an address, respectively; an old way determining means (corresponding to a primary old way determining circuit 13 in the first embodiment which will be mentioned hereinafter) for determining which way of the above described two ways is the above described old way on the basis of patterns of two bits retained in the aforesaid two ways; and a control means (corresponding to a primary cash control 14 in the first embodiment which will be mentioned hereinafter) for inverting only the bits retained in the aforesaid way in the case when the above described replacement has been conducted.
According to the present invention, an old way is determined from two ways based on patterns of two bits in 2-bit composition (combinations of xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d) in the old way determining means. When replacement is made with respect to an old way, only the bits retained in the old way are inverted. Therefore, bits in the other way are not inverted. Namely, in this case, the control means accesses to only either way of two ways one time.
As described above, according to the third aspect of the invention, it is arranged in such that when an old way is replaced, only the bits retained in the old way are inverted, so that it is sufficient for only one time access in case of updating bits, whereby a processing speed can be elevated in comparison with two times access in the prior art.
Furthermore, a forth aspect of the invention relates to a cash memory device as described in any one of the first to third aspects of the invention wherein a plurality of the above described cash memories are prepared so as to correspond to their rank levels.
According to the present invention, it is arranged in such that even if a plurality of cash memories are disposed so as to correspond to their rank levels such as upper level and lower level, only the bits retained in an old way are inverted. Accordingly, it is sufficient for only one time access in case of updating bits, whereby a processing speed can be elevated in comparison with two times access in the prior art. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of integrated circuits. More particularly, the present invention relates to interfacing integrated circuits to busses and circuits having higher voltage ranges.
2. Art Background
To achieve greater transistor densities and speeds for integrated circuits, circuits designers are reducing the physical dimensions of the transistors fabricated on the integrated circuits. Greater transistor densities enable implementation of greater functionality in an integrated circuit. However, as the physical dimensions of the transistors of an integrated circuit decreases, the supply voltage for the integrated circuit correspondingly decreases.
For example, metal oxide semi-conductor (MOS) transistors contained on newer generation high density integrated circuits are fabricated with smaller channel lengths than MOS transistors on older lower density integrated circuits. The gate oxides layers of the MOS transistors are reduced in width in accordance with the reduced channel length. However, the thinner gate oxide layers of the newer generation integrated circuits cannot withstand the high voltage levels of prior generations having thicker gate oxide layers.
As a consequence, the newer generation MOS integrated circuits operate with lower supply voltages than previous generations. For example, many newer generation MOS integrated circuits operate with a 3.3 V supply voltage rather than a 5 V supply voltage common in prior generations.
Nevertheless, in many applications an integrated circuit operating with a low supply voltage must interface with devices and buses operating at higher voltages. If a low voltage integrated circuit is coupled to a high voltage environment, the thin gate oxide layers of the low voltage MOS transistors gradually deteriorate. The gradual deterioration of the gate oxide layers leads to unreliability and ultimate failure of the integrated circuit.
Referring briefly to FIG. 1, a typical prior art tri-state input/output circuit for a pad of an integrated circuit is illustrated. An output data signal 101 is coupled to the gates of a transistor Q10 and a transistor Q12. An output enabled bar signal (OEB) 104 is coupled to control the gates of transistors Q11 and Q15. An output enable (OE) 105 is coupled to control the gates of transistors Q13 and Q14. The output circuit has a pull-up transistor Q16 and a pull-down transistor Q17. The n-well 106 of the transistor Q16 is coupled to the supply voltage VCC. The input circuit is comprised of a pull-up transistor Q18 and a pull-down transistor Q19.
For the prior art circuit to function properly, the supply voltage VCC must be greater than or equal to the voltage at an output pad 102, and the voltage at the output pad 102 must be greater than or equal to the voltage at a common node 107. Transistors contained in the prior art circuit are vulnerable to gate oxide layer breakdown if the output pad 102 is coupled to a bus or other circuit having higher voltage swings than the VCC supply voltage. The pull-up transistor Q18 and the pull-down transistor Q19 are vulnerable. Also, a conducting path exists from the drain of the transistor Q16, into the n-well 106 of the transistor Q16, and onto the VCC supply voltage node 100.
One prior technique of interfacing a low voltage integrated circuit to a high voltage environment is to employ an interface chip as a buffer between high and low voltage environments. However, such interface chips adds significant delays in signal transfer to and from the low voltage integrated circuit. Moreover, such an interface chip requires extra system board space and increases the cost of the system.
Another prior technique for interfacing low voltage devices to a high voltage environment is to fabricate high voltage transistors directly on the low voltage integrated circuit. The high voltage transistors interface directly to the high voltage environment, while protecting the low voltage transistors contained on the integrated circuit. However, such a solution requires extra process steps during integrated circuit fabrication in order to form the larger high voltage transistors. The extra steps increases the cost of fabrication and reduces the yield of the fabrication process. Also, such a solution requires that the integrated circuit chip be supplied with a higher voltage VCC for the outputs.
As will be described, the present invention is a voltage interfacing circuit for interfacing a low voltage integrated circuit to a high voltage environment, while implementing only low voltage transistors on the integrated circuit. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell stack formed by stacking a plurality of power generation cells in a stacking direction. A reactant gas discharge passage extends through the fuel cell stack for allowing a reactant gas after partially consumed in power generation reaction to flow through the reactant gas discharge passage in the stacking direction. An end plate is provided at one end of the fuel cell stack in the stacking direction, and a humidifier connected to the reactant gas discharge passage is attached to the end plate.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, a solid polymer electrolyte fuel cell employs an electrolyte membrane comprising a polymer ion exchange membrane. The electrolyte membrane is interposed between an anode and a cathode to form a membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The membrane electrode assembly is sandwiched between separators to form a power generation cell. In use, normally, a predetermined number of power generation cells are stacked together to form a fuel cell stack for use in a vehicle.
The fuel cell stack mostly adopts internal manifold structure for supplying a fuel gas and an oxygen-containing gas as reactant gases to anodes and cathodes of the stacked power generation cells, respectively. The internal manifolds include reactant gas supply passages and reactant gas discharge passages extending through the power generation cells in the stacking direction.
An external device such as a humidifier is connected to the reactant gas discharge passage of the fuel cell stack through a discharge pipe. In the structure, minute electrical current may flow from the portion connecting the fuel cell stack and the discharge pipe through condensed water (short-circuiting through liquid).
In an attempt to suppress short-circuiting through liquid of this type, for example, a fuel cell system as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-332674 is proposed. As shown in FIG. 13, the fuel cell system includes a fuel cell stack 1. The fuel cell stack 1 has a stack body formed by stacking a plurality of cell modules 2. At opposite ends of the stack body in the stacking direction, end plates 3a, 3b are provided.
Supply pipes 4a, 5a, 6a and discharge pipes 4b, 5b, 6b are connected to one end plate 3a for the humidified hydrogen, the humidified air, and the coolant, respectively. The supply pipes 4a to 6a and the discharge pipes 4b to 6b are made of electrically insulating material.
However, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-332674, in particular, the water produced in power generation reaction tends to be condensed, and retained in an air discharge passage (not shown) connected to the discharge pipe 5b. Further, water component of the water diffused back through the electrolyte membrane tends to be condensed, and retained in a hydrogen gas discharge passage (not shown) connected to the discharge pipe 4b.
In the structure, the condensed water is discharged into the discharge pipes 4b, 5b by the reactant gas discharging pressure. As a result, short-circuiting may occur between the metal members through the liquid, i.e., the condensed water. In an attempt to address the problem, the discharge pipes 4b, 5b may be designed to be considerably elongated to increase the insulation resistance. However, since the discharge pipes 4b, 5b are made of electrically insulating material, if the discharge pipes 4b, 5b are elongated, the strength of the discharge pipes 4b, 5b may become insufficient. Further, the piping operation may become laborious, and the pipe structure may have a large scale. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
One of the main problems with green energies, such as wind and solar, is that they do not generate electricity when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. Another problem with these two systems and hydroelectric generation is that there is presently no way to economically store electrical energy when there is a surplus of energy created by these methods.
It is a principal object of the method and apparatus of the present invention to provide an efficient and inexpensive way to use electricity, from any source, and convert it to hydrogen and oxygen gases. In these forms the potential energy of electricity can be stored and transported for many different reasons, such as the generation of electricity and powering moving vehicles. The process uses a known procedure of electrolysis to break water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. Once the infrastructure of the present invention is in place, it is able to store large quantities of hydrogen (and oxygen if desired), under high pressures without the need for compressors. It can also provide constant high pressures to initiate the transportation of the hydrogen gas from the storage area through pipeline without compressors. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
FIG. 1 depicts a simplified block diagram of a first CCD image sensor that performs charge multiplication in accordance with the prior art. Pixel array 100 includes vertical charge-coupled device (CCD) shift registers (not shown) that shift charge packets from a row of pixels 102 one row at a time into low voltage horizontal CCD (HCCD) shift register 105. Low voltage HCCD shift register 105 serially shifts the charge packets into a high voltage charge multiplying HCCD shift register 110. Charge multiplication occurs in charge multiplying HCCD shift register 110 through the application of large electric fields to the gate electrodes (not shown) overlying HCCD shift register 110 during charge transfer. The large electric fields produce a signal larger than originally collected in the pixels in pixel array 100. The large electric fields are created by overdriving the gate electrodes over the extended HCCD shift register 110 with sufficiently larger voltages. Typically, charge multiplying HCCD shift register 110 can multiply the number of charge carriers in each charge packet by a factor of two to one thousand. The multiplied charge packet output at the end of charge multiplying HCCD shift register 110 is sensed and converted into a voltage signal by output amplifier 120.
A conventional output amplifier can have a minimum noise level of eight charge carriers, meaning the output amplifier is unable to detect a signal when a charge packet contains less than eight charge carriers. One advantage of a multiplying HCCD shift register 110 is the ability to amplify or multiple charge packets that would not normally be detected by an output amplifier. For example, a charge multiplying HCCD shift register can take an input of just one undetectable charge carrier (e.g., electron) and convert it to a larger detectable group of one thousand charge carriers. The output amplifier is now able to detect the charge packet and convert the charge packet to a voltage signal.
One drawback to a charge multiplying HCCD shift register is its dynamic range. If the charge packet entering the multiplying HCCD shift register has two hundred charge carriers and if the gain is one thousand, the two hundred charge carriers are multiplied to 200,000 charge carriers. Many charge multiplying HCCD shift registers are unable to hold 200,000 or more charge carriers, and the charge carriers bloom (spread out) into the pixels adjacent to the HCCD shift register. When the capacity of the charge multiplying HCCD shift register is 200,000 charge carriers and the gain is one thousand, the maximum signal that can be measured by a charge multiplying HCCD shift register is 200 charge carriers with a noise floor of one charge carrier. That is a dynamic range of 200 to 1. To illustrate how poor that dynamic range is, an output amplifier with a minimum noise level of eight electrons can easily measure charge packets containing 32,000 charge carriers for a dynamic range of 4000 to 1.
To overcome this limitation, prior art CCD image sensors (see FIG. 2) have added a second output amplifier 200 to HCCD shift register 105. If the image is known to contain charge packets too large for the charge multiplying HCCD shift register 110, the charge packets are serially shifted through HCCD shift register 105 to output amplifier 200 instead of towards the charge multiplying HCCD shift register 110. One disadvantage to this implementation is the entire image must be read out of either output amplifier 200 or output amplifier 120. If an image contains both bright and dark regions, the image must be read out of output amplifier 200 so the bright regions do not bloom (flood) the charge multiplying HCCD shift register 110. But when the entire image is read out of output amplifier 200, dark regions in the image are not shifted through the charge multiplying HCCD shift register and do not receive the benefit of charge multiplying HCCD shift register 110. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to processes for preparing stable photoresist compositions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is a desire in the industry for higher circuit density in microelectronic devices that are made using lithographic techniques. One method of increasing the number of components per chip is to decrease the minimum feature size on the chip, which requires higher lithographic resolutions. The use of shorter wavelength radiation (e.g., deep UV e.g. 190 to 315 nm) than the currently employed mid-UV spectral range (e.g. 350 nm to 400 nm) offers the potential for higher resolution. However, with deep UV radiation, fewer photons are transferred for the same energy dose and higher exposure doses are required to achieve the same desired photochemical response. Further, current lithographic tools have greatly attenuated output in the deep UV spectral region.
In order to improve sensitivity, several acid catalyzed chemically amplified resist compositions have been developed such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,491,628 (Jan. 1, 1985) and Nalamasu et al, “An Overview of Resist Processing for Deep UV Lithography”, 3. Photopolymer Sci. Technol. 4, 299 (1991). The resist compositions generally comprise a photosensitive acid generator and an acid sensitive polymer. The polymer has acid sensitive side chain (pendant) groups that are bonded to the polymer backbone and are reactive towards a proton. Upon imagewise exposure to radiation, the photoacid generator produces a proton. The resist film is heated and, the proton causes catalytic cleavage of the pendant group from the polymer backbone. The proton is not consumed in the cleavage reaction and catalyzes additional cleavage reactions thereby chemically amplifying the photochemical response of the resist. The cleaved polymer is soluble in polar developers such as alcohol and aqueous base while the unexposed polymer is soluble in non-polar organic solvents such as anisole. Thus the resist can produce positive or negative images of the mask depending of the selection of the developer solvent. Although chemically amplified resist compositions generally have suitable lithographic sensitivity, in certain applications, their performance can be improved by (i) increasing their thermal stability in terms of thermal decomposition and plastic flow and (ii) increasing their stability in the presence of airborne chemical contaminants. For example, in some semiconductor manufacturing processes, post image development temperatures (e.g. etching, implantation etc.) can reach 200° C. Brunsvold et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,939,070 (issued Jul. 3, 1990) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,931,379 (issued Jun. 5, 1990) disclose chemically amplified, acid sensitive resist compositions having increased thermal stability in the post image development stage. Brunsvold's resist compositions form a hydrogen bonding network after cleavage of the acid sensitive side chain group to increase the thermal stability of the polymer. Brunsvold avoids hydrogen-bonding moieties prior to the cleavage reaction because such hydrogen bonding is known to unacceptably destabilize the acid sensitive side chain. Although Brunsvold resists have suitable thermal stability, they also have lower sensitivity and therefore are unsuitable in certain applications.
With respect to chemical contamination, MacDonald et al. SPIE 14662. (1991) reported that due to the catalytic nature of the imaging mechanisms, chemically amplified resist systems are sensitive toward minute amounts of airborne chemical contaminants such as basic organic substances. These substances degrade the resulting developed image in the film and cause a loss of the linewidth control of the developed image. This problem is exaggerated in a manufacturing process where there is an extended and variable period of time between applying the film to the substrate and development of the image. In order to protect the resist from such airborne contaminants, the air surrounding the coated film is carefully filtered to remove such substances. Alternatively, the resist film is overcoated with a protective polymer layer. However, these are cumbersome processes.
Therefore, there was a need in the art for an acid sensitive, chemically amplified photoresist composition having high thermal stability and stability in the presence of airborne chemical contaminants for use in semiconductor manufacturing. Apparently, this was accomplished in the invention outlined in U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,020 which relates to a photosensitive resist composition comprising (i) a photosensitive acid generator and (ii) a polymer comprising hydroxystyrene and acrylate, methacrylate or a mixture of acrylate and methacrylate. The resist has high lithographic sensitivity and high thermal stability. The resist also exhibits fair stability in the presence of airborne chemical contaminants. However, in the above cited prior art and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,284,930 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,850 there is another issue of stability in a photoresist composition in that where there are used acidic cation exchange materials to remove trace metals from the precursor polymer solutions, there remains free acid radicals which carry through the process to the resist composition and render them unstable for the end intended use. Thus, one of the objects of the present invention is an improved process for preparing stable photoresist compositions.
The processes of the present invention provide methods which are fast, clean, and render the photoresist composition very stable over a period of time.
2. Prior Art
The following references are disclosed as general background information.
1. U.S. Pat. No. 4,898,916 discloses a process for the preparation of poly(vinylphenol) from poly(acetoxystyrene) by acid catalyzed transesterification.
2. U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,015 discloses a process for preparing low optical density polymers and co-polymers for photoresists and optical applications.
3. U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,007 discloses a process for making low optical polymers and co-polymers for photoresists and optical applications.
4. U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,020 discloses a process for making a photoresist composition containing a photosensitive acid generator and a polymer comprising the reaction product of hydroxystyrene with acrylate, methacrylate or a mixture of acrylate and methacrylate.
5. EP 0813113 A1, Barclay, discloses an aqueous transesterification to deprotect the protected polymer.
6. WO 94 14858 A discloses polymerizing hydroxystyrene without the protecting group.
Other patents of interest are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,679,843; 4,822,862; 4,912,173; 4,962.147; 5,087,772; 5,284,930; 5,288,850; 5,304,610; 5,395,871; 5,789,522; 5,939,511; 5,945,251; 6,414,110 B1; 6,787,611 B2; 6,759,483 B2; and 6,864, 324 B2.
All of the references described herein are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Metal articles are often used in contact with internal human or animal body tissue for a wide range of uses. However care must be taken, particularly if such articles are implanted into the human or animal body, that they are long-lasting, non-corrosive and do not leach metal ions into the body.
Orthopaedic implants (such as a replacement hip) conventionally employ a metal-on-polymer arrangement, but suffer from the disadvantage of wear-induced osteolysis associated with polyethylene debris, even with improved modern polyethylenes. Metal-on-metal prostheses offer an alternative without these disadvantages, potentially providing greatly increased dislocation resistance and a longer service life, opening up the technique for the young active category. However, because of the stresses encountered in orthopaedic implants, particularly in articulating orthopaedic implants, it would be beneficial to use coatings to reduce wear.
Additionally, the use of metal-on-metal orthopaedic implants can result in undesirable wear debris, at levels such that they are detectable in blood. For example, cobalt/chromium has been shown to provide a ten-fold increase in these potentially carcinogenic metal ions in the blood of a patient, compared to normal healthy subjects.
A coating for an articulating orthopaedic implant, must satisfy a number of additional demanding requirements, e.g. it must be hard, have low surface friction and also be tough enough to withstand potentially high impact forces over a long period of time. Coatings which are not tough enough (i.e. too brittle) or hard wearing enough may have a short service life or may even become detached, which could be catastrophic. It would be additionally advantageous if such coatings had anti-microbial properties.
It is becoming generally accepted that silver in ionic form has antimicrobial properties. Also very fine particles of silver e.g. nano-particles, have a surface area to volume ratio such that they can readily oxidise to form the ionic compound silver oxide which provides an antimicrobial effect. However, larger silver structures tend to be ineffective antimicrobials. It is therefore not simply a matter of using silver as a coating in order to provide an antimicrobial effect. In any case, silver is too soft for use as a coating in applications where a significant amount of stress is encountered, e.g. in articulating orthopaedic implants.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,361,567 discloses a process of forming an anti-microbial coating on a surface of a medical implant, which involves incorporating silver into a diamond-like carbon coating. However, whilst diamond-like carbon is very hard and has a low friction, it is often a brittle material. It is therefore not ideal for use as a coating especially in articulated prosthetic implants. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Scaffoldings of this type are often very high and for setup must have a sufficient stability without which the outer outline dimensions specified by the platform would have to be enlarged beyond the degree of technologically required and permissible for transport. It is therefore a familiar practice, and regulated by pertinent codes, that the stability of the base of the scaffolding is increased by being able to pull the rollers arranged in pairs out of their transport position apart from each other, thus increasing the base area when setting up the scaffolding. The roller, however, cannot be moved additionally in a direction perpendicular to the one specified by the widening traverses. For this purpose, additional extension traverses would have to be inserted and thus the entire arrangement would be significantly more complicated. However, the expansion of the base in the perpendicular direction is actually just as desirable. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
HIV infection of susceptible cells, such as CD4+ T-cells, is mediated by the interaction of CD4 and a cell surface chemokine co-receptor with the gp120 envelope protein. The HIV viral particle initially binds via its gp120 envelope protein to the CD4 receptor of the target cell. A conformational change occurs in gp120 that results in its subsequent binding to a chemokine receptor, such as CCR5. See, e.g., Wyatt et al., Science, 280:1884-1888 (1998). HIV-1 isolates arising subsequently in the infection bind to the CXCR4 chemokine receptor.
HIV does not immediately replicate in all infected cells, but instead can progress to a state of latent infection, where the HIV is dormant. Upon activation of a latent infected cell, for example by engaging T-cell surface CD3 and CD28, the “dormant” HIV virus can become activated, initiating the process of viral replication. HIV replication results in the production of infectious HIV particles, facilitating the spread of the infection throughout the subject cells.
The pool of latently infected cells in the resting CD4+ T-cell compartment is considered one of the major impediments to HIV eradication. When latently infected, resting T-cells become reactivated, viral particles released during the reactivation process can spread to and infect resting T-cells, as well as activated CD4+ T-cells. This reactivation process can facilitate the continual replenishment of the CD4+ T-cell reservoir, offsetting the benefits of antiviral therapy, such as HAART, and contributing to the persistence of HIV and initiation of new infection cycles. See, e.g., Chun et al., J. Clin. Invest. 115:3250-3255, 2005.
Accordingly, methods capable of detecting and treating HIV infection during its latent phase are needed. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Web-based applications include files that are located on web servers along with data that is stored in databases. For example, there may be a large number of servers located within different networks to handle the traffic that is directed to the online service. Splitting databases in an online service may result in the service being unavailable for a period of time. For an online service, the splitting process may result in a significant disruption to the customers. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In a conventional double power supply system, a first power supply, which can be any type of solar cell, fuel cell, wind power generator, or power grid, can receive external energy for conversion to energy that is stored within the first power supply. A second power supply can be power supply that can store energy, such as battery. When energy stored in the first power supply is sufficient, the first power supply may transfer energy to the second power supply and to the load. However, when the energy of the first power supply is insufficient, the second power supply may transfer energy to the load for driving separately.
Thus, conventional approaches transfer energy to the load from either the first power supply or the second power supply. However, disadvantages of this approach include increased circuit complexity and/or lower reliability, possibly resulting in failure to meet requirement of current applications. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The invention relates to a process for the preparation of melamine by thermal decomposition of urea and catalytic conversion of the resulting isocyanic acid and the use of a special catalyst in such a process. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Computer networks often contain numerous resources, varying in type, size, and use. These resources include computers and peripheral devices. In order to consistently identify such resources and facilitate their use by users, networks provide directory services. Directories normally contain information about the resources, (i.e., email addresses on the network). Ideally, a directory service will hide the physical implementation of the network it is provided on, representing the various resources of the network in a consistent manner. This has the advantage of allowing users to address any resource on a network without knowledge of the actual physical configuration of the network, the resource, or its connection to the network.
One of the most important directory services in use today is the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). The LDAP directory service model is based on entries. Each entry in LDAP comprises a collection of attributes. In turn, each attribute consists of a type and one or more values. The type of an attribute identifies the format of the data contained in the values of that attribute. Thus, an attribute with the type “mail”, for example, might contain one or more email addresses in its value fields. In addition to attributes, each entry also has a unique name, called a “distinguished name”. The distinguished name makes possible unambiguous references to the entry.
Entries in an LDAP directory service are organized in a tree structure. Under the protocol, data may be stored in any arbitrary fashion, as long as a tree structure is maintained. Presently, there are no well-defined protocols for structuring Directory Information Trees (DITs). This may not be a problem for an application that sets up its own directory and populates it from scratch, since the application can define the structure of its DIT in any manner. When an application has to work with an existing directory, however, it will have to first become familiar with the DIT structure in use. And this may prove to be a daunting task, especially in the case of large and complex directories.
Aside from the issue of familiarizing new applications with existing directory structures, there is also the problem of imposing standard structures throughout a directory. Presently, if an organization wishes to impose such a standard, it must do so through an administrator who would need to manually maintain the structure of the DIT each time an entry is added, deleted, or modified.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a method and system for managing a directory so that when entries are created in the directory, the rest of the defining structure can be built automatically. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Liver disease, in one typical example, develops and progresses as follows: (1) acute hepatitis develops mainly due to viral infection and drug allergy, (2) the acute hepatitis transitions to chronic hepatitis, and (3) the chronic hepatitis further progresses and transitions to liver cirrhosis or liver cancer. It is important to prevent liver diseases from becoming chronic. In addition, patients with alcoholic or non-alcoholic fatty liver associated with lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity and diabetes have been increasing in recent years.
Subjective symptoms are less in an early stage of liver diseases. Particularly, chronic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis are characterized by almost no early symptoms. Therefore, it is important to observe what kind of state the liver is now in by the inspection including blood tests at medical examinations. Aspartate aminotransferase (hereinafter referred to as AST) and alanine aminotransferase (hereinafter referred to as ALT) are each a test item that is most basic in a liver function test. Both AST and ALT are enzymes that are present in the organ cells and catalyze the transamination of amino acids. When the hepatocytes are destroyed due to damages such as inflammation, AST and ALT in the cells flow out into the blood, and blood levels of these escaped enzymes elevate. A normal value of blood AST is 12 to 40 IU/L and a normal value of blood ALT is 5 to 40 IU/L. In contrast, the blood ALT value in a patient with acute hepatocyte disorder may be 500 IU/L or more.
Fatty liver is a disease in which neutral fat accumulates in hepatocytes. When hepatocytes of a patient with fatty liver are viewed under a microscope, vacuoles containing fat droplets are observed. In many cases, AST value and ALT value of fatty liver patients are slightly higher than the normal values (2 to 4 times the normal value, or less). Fatty liver includes simple steatosis and steatohepatitis accompanied with fibrosis of the hepatocytes. It is often the case that an AST value and an ALT value in the steatohepatitis are high in comparison with those in simple steatosis.
Blood AST and ALT values are important indicators in the inspection of liver dysfunction, and an improvement of AST value and ALT value is needed in the prevention and treatment of various liver diseases.
Various medicaments for the prevention or improvement of liver dysfunction are known. As a medicament for the prophylaxis or treatment of viral hepatic disease, a therapeutic agent for hepatitis B or hepatitis C is known in addition to hepatitis virus vaccines. Known liver function-improving agents derived from natural products include an extract from cortex of Mallotus japonicus (Patent Document 1), lactoperoxidase (Patent Document 2), S2U type triglyceride (Patent Document 3), glutathione and turmeric (Curcuma longa) (Patent Document 4), isomaltulose (Patent Document 5), and Japanese apricot extract or a neutralization product of Japanese apricot extract for patients with viral hepatitis (Patent Document 6).
Insulin sensitizers, therapeutic agents for dyslipidemia, medicaments for liver, and angiotensin II1 receptor antagonists have been reported as effective for inhibiting fat accumulation in the liver (Non-Patent Document 1). Known agents which are derived from natural products and prevent fat accumulation in the liver include a high polymer polysaccharide substance MPS-80 (Patent Document 7), a hemicellulose obtained from corn bran and/or partially degraded product thereof for patients with alcoholic liver disease (Patent Document 8), a polysaccharide having a molecular weight of 400,000 or more derived from tea (Patent Document 9), a culture and/or bacterial cells of lactic acid bacteria belonging to Lactobacillus gasseri (Patent Document 10), olive or an extract thereof (Patent Document 11), barley bran or Cc-amylase treated product thereof (Patent Document 12), and bacterial cells of Lactobacillus helveticus (Patent Document 13). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Traditionally, a person who controls the music played at an event is referred to as a “disc jockey” or “deejay.” For example, when a person hosts an event such as a party, the person may act as the disc jockey or ask another person to act as the disc jockey by controlling the music played at the party. The person acting as the disc jockey then manually selects songs, e.g., from a music library such as the personal music collection of the party host, to be played at the party. The person acting as the disc jockey typically selects songs to be played at the party (e.g., by arranging a playlist of songs) with the audience and/or a desired vibe of the party in mind. However, the person acting as the disc jockey may be limited to selecting songs from his or her own personal music collection and/or the music collection of the party host. A more collaborative, automated, and/or social experience related to the music played at the party and/or at another event is desired. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Certain types of drills and drivers can produce enough torque through reduction gearing that manufacturers include an overdrive clutch between the tool spindle and the motor. This is done to avoid scenarios where the tool can overpower the user or a component in the transmission of the tool could be damaged.
When a threshold torque is surpassed, the overdrive clutch can open and reduce or eliminate the torque that is transmitted through the clutch. By reducing the torque, the user can continue to hold the tool and/or can avoid possible damage to the transmission. Notwithstanding, the overdrive clutch can be relatively large, it typically includes many components and can be relatively complex. A relatively high part count and associated complexity can add additional costs to the tool. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Different kinds of systems—familiarly called leaching systems—are used to disperse water within the soil of the earth in connection with subsurface sewage disposal systems (wastewater systems). Those systems can also be used in other applications for receiving, holding and dispersing other waters or liquids, such as receiving stormwater, or for drainage applications.
A traditional leaching system comprises a perforated pipe running through crushed stone contained within a shallow trench. Tar paper or salt hay, laid on top of the crushed stone, has been used to stop the overlying soil from migrating downward over time into the interstices of the crushed stone.
Another type of leaching system comprises interconnected galleries, namely pre-formed concrete chambers having perforated sidewalls. Buried galleries are often surrounded with crushed stone.
Another type of leaching system utilizes molded or thermoformed plastic leaching chambers. The chambers are arranged as strings of interconnected units, often in parallel spaced-apart rows. A typical chamber has an arch shape cross section, a solid top, an open bottom, a multiplicity of corrugations, and perforated sidewalls. Leaching chambers are exemplified by products sold under the Infiltrator® brand name. Geotextile may sometimes be laid onto the plastic leaching chambers to stop fine sand from migrating into the chamber interior. Crushed stone may be placed against the sidewalls of buried chambers.
Still another type of system comprises horizontally-laid cylindrical leaching units comprised of plastic foam beads contained within netting. These are exemplified by products sold under the EZflow® brand name. Typically an EZflow drainage unit is tubular shape, about 10 to 12 inches in diameter and 10 feet long; and it may comprise an integral barrier of geotextile which stops migration of soil downwardly into the spaces amongst the beads. See U.S. Pat. No. 8,256,990 for a description of such kind of product which includes barriers; the disclosure of the patent is hereby incorporated by reference. Alternately, the installer of a drainage unit may provide a separate overlying barrier which is placed onto the unit before the trench containing the unit is backfilled.
While the primary function of a leaching system is to disperse water to the surrounding soil, it is important that leaching systems provide within themselves space for storing water, to handle situations where the in-flow is greater than the rate of outflow to the surrounding soil. Thus, the storage volume per unit length is important.
Generally, leaching system units which are made of plastic are attractive because of low weight and associated ease of transport and installation compared to the older stone-and-trench and concrete gallery systems. Shipping costs can often be a significant factor and in that respect the arch shape cross section leaching chambers are attractive because they nest readily
The height of the leaching unit is also referred to as the profile of the leaching unit. An aim for many applications is to have a leaching unit profile which as low as possible. Low profile units require a shallower trench. That is desirable when the water table or bedrock is not deep since the bottom of a leaching unit should be a certain distance above such features.
Typically there is a regulatory minimum for the overlying soil thickness, usually 6-12 inches, for sanitary reasons. But having overlying soil also reduces the load of a vehicle or the like which is transmitted to the leaching unit. A leaching unit has to be sufficiently strong to resist the weight of overlying soil and other loads, such as motor vehicles which traverse the soil surface.
Inventors have sought to make low profile leaching system units. For example, see the commonly owned low profile leaching chamber described in Moore, U.S. Pat. No. 7,914,230; Ditullio U.S. Pat. No. 6,129,482 and Potts U.S. Pat. No. 7,465,390. Low profile leaching units inherently have less storage capacity per unit length that normal or high profile units; and having good storage capacity can be a regulatory and engineering requirement, particularly when the rate of percolation of water into the soil is low. Thus, it is an aim for any improved unit to have adequate storage volume per unit length.
The leaching units of the above-mentioned prior art systems vary in their load bearing capacity. Generally, arch shape cross section plastic leaching chambers have obtained the requisite strength from a combination of wall thickness, arch shape cross section, corrugations, and ribs. The strength of a plastic bead-within-netting type unit is a function of the crush strength, or compressibility of the bead array.
The present invention is preferably made of plastic. Generally, in a leaching unit which is made of plastic reducing the weight—and therefore the cost of material and shipping—is important to the maker. Product cost is also important: Purchasers are concerned about the cost of providing, by means of a leaching unit, a desired amount of leaching area and a desired amount of storage volume within the system. It is a general object to reduce cost in these contexts. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Consumer electronics platforms such as smart televisions (TVs), set-top boxes, blu-ray players, laptops, tablet, cell phones, etc., may display video content from a variety of sources such as professional content, online streaming video content, Internet based content, and home content shot on multiple devices, wherein the perceptual quality of the video content can vary over a broad range. While video-enabled platforms may contain one or more video post-processing components such as de-noising and contrast enhancement components, these components can have fixed operating points that might not account for the significant variability in perceptual video quality of the input source. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to information search and retrieval. More specifically, systems and methods are disclosed for performing searches using queries that are written in a character set or language that is different from the character set or language of at least some of the documents that are to be searched.
2. Description of Related Art
Most search engines operate under the assumption that the end user is entering search queries using something like a conventional keyboard, where the input of alphanumeric strings is not difficult. As small devices become more common, however, this assumption is not always valid. For example, users may query search engines using a wireless telephone that supports the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) standard. Devices such as wireless telephones typically have a data input interface wherein a particular action by the user (e.g., pressing a key) may correspond to more than one alphanumeric character. A detailed description of WAP architecture is available at www1.wapforum.org/tech/documents/SPEC-WAPArch-19980439.pdf (“WAP 100 Wireless Application Protocol Architecture Specification”).
In the usual case, the WAP user navigates to the search query page, and is presented with a form into which they input their search query. With conventional methods, the user may be required to press multiple keys to select a particular letter. On a standard telephone keypad, for example, the user would select the letter “b” by pressing the “2” key twice, or would select the letter “s” by pressing the “7” key four times. Accordingly, to enter a query for “ben smith”, the user would ordinarily need to enter the following string of key presses: 223366077776444844, which map to letters as follows:
22→b
33→e
66→n
0→space
7777→s
6→m
444→i
8→t
44→h
After the user has entered their search request, the search engine receives the word or words from the user, and proceeds in much the same manner as if it had received the request from a desktop browser wherein the user employed a conventional keyboard.
As can be seen from the foregoing example, this form of data entry is inefficient in that it requires eighteen keystrokes to enter the nine alphanumeric characters (including the space) corresponding to “ben smith”.
Similar difficulties may arise when typing queries using non-target-language keyboards. For example, Japanese text can be expressed using a variety of different character sets, including hiragana, katakana, and kanji, none of which are easily entered using a typical ASCII keyboard based on the Roman alphabet. In such a situation, the user will often make use of a word-processor such as Ichitaro, produced by JustSystem Corp. of Tokushima City, Japan, that is able to convert text written in romaji (a phonetic, Roman-alphabet representation of Japanese) to katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Using the word processor, the user can type a query in romaji, and then cut-and-paste the translated text from the word processor's screen into a search box on the browser. A drawback of this approach is that it can be relatively slow and tedious, and requires the user to have access to a copy of the word processor, which may not be feasible due to cost and/or memory constraints.
There remains, therefore, a need for methods and apparatus for providing relevant search results in response to an ambiguous search query. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention concerns an improved polarizer assembly for a spectrofluorometer and, more particularly, a novel polarizer assembly in which the input polarizer and the output polarizer are each modular and have self-contained motor drives.
Known in the art is a spectrofluorometer which includes an excitation monochromator which directs a light beam from a suitable light source through an excitation or input polarizer to a sample, from the sample through an emission or output polarizer and a depolarizer to an emission monochromator and to a detector. In polarization measurements, a fluorescent solution is excited by the beam of light whose electric vector is polarized vertically with the excitation polarizer. Since the electric and magnetic vector components of the light beam are always perpendicular to each other and have equivalent magnitudes, only the electric vector is specified. The vertically polarized light will excite only those sample molecules with vectors that are not perpendicular to the direction of polarization. The intensity of the two linearly polarized components of the fluorescent light emitted by the sample is measured by orienting the emission polarizer so as to transmit one component and then the other.
Thus in polarization measurements, the polarization of the generated light, which is emitted from the sample when polarized light is directed into the sample, may be indicative of the size of the particles in the sample. Prior art spectrofluorometers typically include an excitation (input) polarizer and an emission (output) polarizer with each of the polarizers comprising a polarizing filter that is rotatable between a vertical position and a horizontal position. In one application, a depolarizer is associated with the emission polarizer for depolarizing the emitted light from the sample which is then passed to a detector, such as a photomultiplier tube. In other applications, the depolarizer replaces either the emission or excitation polarizer.
Prior art polarizer assemblies were not constructed on a fully modular basis and did not include polarizer modules that were easily rearranged to perform alternate functions. Prior art motorized polarizers typically had the motor mounted to a base and a mechanical drive was coupled to each of the polarizers, thereby requiring that the drive be disconnected in order to remove the respective polarizer. Further, in prior art polarizer systems, in order to achieve 90.degree. rotation in some instances the motor would be energized for a time duration sufficient to ensure that the travel had been completed. In other instances, a switch closure would be provided in order to deenergize the motor. Prior art polarizer assemblies which were not motorized would typically require the operator manually to move the polarizer 90.degree. from a vertical position to a horizontal position.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a modular polarizer assembly in which the polarizers can be located in alternate positions on a mounting base for various functions.
Another object of the present invention is to provide modular polarizers which each have self-contained motor assemblies.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a system in which the polarizer filters of a polarizer assembly are motor driven with means for ensuring that the filters rotate exactly 90.degree. as required.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent as the description proceeds. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet guiding device for use in a facsimile or copying machine, for example, as a sheet guiding device of an original document feeding device for a facsimile or copying machine. More particularly, it relates to a sheet guiding device which guides sheets in a state where the conveyance reference thereof is located at the center of the sheet guiding device.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIGS. 17 to 19 illustrate a conventional sheet guiding device which is utilized as part of an original document feeding device for a facsimile machine.
In FIG. 17, reference character 1 denotes an original platen formed on the upper surface of a facsimile machine body. Original documents are placed on this original platen 1. Reference numerals 52 and 53 denote sheet guides which are position restricting members disposed in contact with or adjacent to side edge portions of an original document P (see FIG. 18) (hereinafter also referred to as a "sheet") placed on the original platen 1 to restrict the position of the sheet side edge portions. The sheet guides 52 and 53 are movable in a direction perpendicular to the sheet feeding direction, indicated by arrow A in FIG. 18, so that they can restrict the position of the side edge portions of sheets having various sizes, such as A row and B row, as shown in FIG. 18.
When one of the side guides 52 and 53 is moved, that movement is linked to movement of the other one, whereby the other one is also moved, so that the center of the sheet to be guided is located at a fixed position.
The structure of the sheet guides 52 and 53 will be described below with reference to FIGS. 20 and 21.
As shown in FIGS. 20 and 21, a portion of each of the sheet guides 52 and 53 is fitted into a groove 54 formed in the original platen 1 as a guide member. Rack members 57 and 58 are mounted on those portions of the sheet guides 52 and 53 by means of screws 59. Rack members 57 and 58 are arranged in mesh with a pinion 56 provided at the central portion of the original platen 1. When sheet guide 53 is moved in a direction indicated by an arrow `a`, pinion 56 is rotated in a direction indicated by an arrow `c`, whereby sheet guide 52 is moved in an outward direction indicated by an arrow `b`. When sheet guide 53 is moved in a direction opposite to the direction indicated by the arrow `a`, sheet guide 52 is moved in an inward direction reverse to the direction indicated by the arrow `b`. The width between the sheet guides 52 and 53 is thus adjusted by opening or closing the sheet guides according to the width of the original document. The sheet guides 52 and 53 may be fixed to a preselected position by means of a click (temporary fixing means).
However, in the aforementioned conventional sheet guiding device, since the sheet guides move in a direction perpendicular to the sheet feeding direction, by a distance corresponding to the width of the various types of sheets, and then guide the forward portion of the sheets with respect to the sheet feeding direction, indicated by the arrow A in FIG. 18, when large sheets having, for example, an A3 size, are fed, they may be fed slantingly because only the forward portions thereof are guided. When the guiding position is set for sheets having a large size (A3), sheets having a small size (A5) may be fed slantingly or may not be set correctly because only the trailing edge portions thereof are guided. Furthermore, since the sheet guides move in a direction perpendicular to the sheet feeding direction, if the click is weak, sheet guides 52 and 53 may be moved away from each other by the sheets. Consequently, correct guiding of the sheets may be prevented, and the sheets may be fed obliquely.
A sheet feeding device having sheet guides 52 and 53, as shown in FIG. 19, is also known. The sheet guides 52 and 53 have proximal end portions 52a and 53a formed parallel to the original platen 1. Pins 52c and 53c, projecting from the proximal end portions 52a and 53a in a downward direction, are fitted into grooves 52b and 53b formed in the original platen 1 in such a manner as to be slidable therealong, whereby sheet guides 52 and 53 are made movable in a direction perpendicular to the sheet feeding direction. In this structure, the space W1 between the pins 52c and between the pins 53c cannot be increased. Thus, sheet guides 52 and 53 have a backlash in a sub-direction thereof, as shown by arrows `d` in FIG. 19, and may thus make the sheets feed obliquely.
There is not a great difference in width between the sheet sizes A4 and LTR, and those sizes may be indistinguishable from each other by a size detecting device of the type which employs, for example, a microswitch. The size displayed on the original platen by means of a silk-screen process may not be visible at all or may not be clearly visible.
Furthermore, when large sheets are to be fed, an auxiliary member 51 provided at the rear end of the original platen 1 is rotated about a shaft 51a, as shown in FIG. 17, to receive the trailing edge portion of the large sheets (B4, A3). The trailing edge support plate has support portions 51a at the right and left thereof. A pin provided on each of the support portions 51a is in engagement with a hole opened in the original platen. The trailing edge support plate is mounted on the original platen by inserting the pins into the right and left holes utilizing the elasticity of the material which forms the trailing edge support plate. Therefore, the trailing edge support plate, which remains open in a state indicated by a dot-dashed line in FIG. 17, may become an obstacle. When a user bumps the opened trailing edge support plate, the plate may come off or the pins provided at the two ends thereof may break. Also, a large number of originals placed on the trailing edge support plate may bend the trailing edge support plate. Finally, it is difficult to open the trailing edge support plate after the originals are placed thereon. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
This invention relates to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) thermal device, and its method of manufacture. More particularly, this invention relates to a MEMS thermal actuator whose driving means is separated from a passive member by a small gap.
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are very small moveable structures made on a substrate using lithographic processing techniques, such as those used to manufacture semiconductor devices. MEMS devices may be moveable actuators, valves, pistons, or switches, for example, with characteristic dimensions of a few microns to hundreds of microns. A moveable MEMS switch, for example, may be used to connect one or more input terminals to one or more output terminals, all microfabricated on a substrate. The actuation means for the moveable switch may be thermal, piezoelectric, electrostatic, or magnetic, for example.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a prior art thermal switch, such as that described in U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0211178 A1. The thermal switch 10 includes two cantilevers, 100 and 200. Each cantilever 100 and 200 contains a passive beam 110 and 210, respectively, which pivot about fixed anchor points 155 and 255, respectively. A conductive drive circuit 120 and 220, is coupled to each passive beam 110 and 210 by a plurality of dielectric tethers 150 and 250; respectively.
When a voltage is applied between terminals 130 and 140, a current is driven through conductive circuit 120. The Joule heating generated by the current causes the circuit 120 to expand relative to the unheated passive beam 110. Since the circuit is coupled to the passive beam 110 by the dielectric tether 150, the expanding conductive circuit drives the passive beam in the upward direction 165.
In addition, applying a voltage between terminals 230 and 240 causes heat to be generated in circuit 220, which drives passive beam 210 in the direction 265 shown in FIG. 1. Therefore, one beam 100 moves in direction 165 and the other beam 200 moves in direction 265. These movements may be used to open and close a set of contacts located on contact flanges 170 and 270, each in turn located on tip members 160 and 260, respectively, at the distal ends of passive beams 110 and 210. The sequence of movement of contact flanges 170 and 270 on tip members 160 and 260 of switch 10 is shown in FIGS. 2a-2d, to close and open the electrical switch 10.
To begin the closing sequence, in FIG. 2a, tip member 160 and contact flange 170 are moved about 10 μm in the direction 165 by the application of a voltage between terminals 130 and 140. In FIG. 2b, tip member 260 and contact flange 270 are moved about 17 μm in the direction 265 by application of a voltage between terminals 230 and 240. In FIG. 2c, tip member 160 and contact flange 170 are brought back to their initial position by removing the voltage between terminals 130 and 140. This stops current from flowing and cools the cantilever 100 and it returns to its original position. In FIG. 2d, tip member 260 and contact flange 270 are brought back to nearly their original position by removing the voltage between terminals 230 and 240. However, in this position, tip member 160 and contact flange 170 prevent tip member 260 and contact flange 270 from moving completely back to their original positions, because of the mechanical interference between contact flanges 170 and 270. In this position, contact between the faces of contact flanges 170 and 270 provides an electrical connection between cantilevers 100 and 200, such that in FIG. 2d, the electrical switch is closed. Opening the electrical switch is accomplished by reversing the movements in the steps shown in FIGS. 2a-2d. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to stores for spare parts and to the methods for allocating kits of spare parts. It relates, in particular, to the field of the automotive industry but also to any other industrial field in which vehicles or machines require different spare parts for their repair.
In a store for spare parts, each type of spare part is specifically stored in a compartment. This is, therefore, the case, for example in US 2003/055753, in which, in paragraph 60, it is mentioned that a kit consists of a container, i.e., a compartment. The kits, i.e. the containers or compartments, contain a set of parts. They may also contain consumables. As spare parts, it is apparent that the compartment, on the one hand, contains only one kit of the same parts and, on the other hand, the compartment or kit, which is considered to be equivalent, is permanently allocated to one machine. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Recent years have seen increased high performance in electronic devices such as mobile information devices and information appliances following the development of digital technology. As such, there is an increasing demand for higher-capacity, reduced writing power consumption, increased speed during writing and reading, and extended operational life of nonvolatile storage elements.
In view of these demands, it is considered that there is a limit to the miniaturization of flash memories using existing floating gates. On the other hand, in the case of variable resistance nonvolatile storage elements using a variable resistance layer as a material for a storage unit, there are expectations for further miniaturization, increased speed, reduced power consumption, and so on, since configuration is possible using storage elements having a simple structure in which the variable resistance layer is sandwiched between a lower electrode and an upper electrode.
As an example of such a nonvolatile storage device using variable resistance elements, the cross-point nonvolatile storage device has been proposed (for example, PTL 1). This nonvolatile storage device includes memory cells (variable resistance elements) provided in a matrix to correspond to cross-points between word lines that are arranged to be parallel to each other and bit lines which are arranged so as to cross the respective word lines. Each memory cell is provided with a variable resistance layer whose resistance value changes according to an electrical signal provided between the word line and the bit line.
In the case of such a cross-point nonvolatile storage device, since a transistor does not need to be provided to each memory cell, there is the advantage of allowing the implementation of high-density placement of cells.
[Citation List]
[Patent Literature]
[PTL 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-68984 | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Conventionally well-known laminated sheets include paper base phenolic resin laminated sheets, paper base unsaturated polyester resin laminated sheets, and glass-cloth base epoxy resin laminated sheets These laminated sheets have been produced by impregnating the respective base with a resin and heat-curing a plurality of the resulting prepregs. The term "laminated sheet" as used herein means a laminated sheet having a thickness of from 0.5 to 5 mm which is used, for example, as a base of various electronic parts.
During the production of phenolic resin laminated sheets, curing of a phenolic resin is accompanied by the forming of reaction by-products, such as water, which adversely affect physical properties of the resulting laminated sheet. To avoid this, it is necessary to forcedly dissolve water, etc. in the cured product by applying a high pressure by means of a large-sized pressing machine or other machine suitable for applying high pressure to such a cured laminate. Phenolic resins generally require a long time for curing, and the additional application of high pressure also requires additional prolonged periods of time. Moreover, laminated sheets comprising phenolic resins are inferior to alternative component resins in electrical characteristics, such as dielectric constant, dielectric dissipation factor, tracking resistance,.and other relevant characteristics.
During the production of glass-cloth base epoxy resin laminated sheets, on the other hand, high pressures required for production of phenolic resin laminated sheets are not necessary, since the curing reaction is not accompanied by formation of by-products, (e.g., water), as is observed with a condensation reaction of phenolic resins. Nevertheless, curing of epoxy resins still requires long periods of time.
In order to solve these above-mentioned problems, it has been proposed to produce laminated sheets using paper as a base and an unsaturated polyester resin as an impregnating resin. According to this process, since curing is effected through radical polymerization, the time required for curing is reduced to thereby eliminate the above-described disadvantages. However, unsaturated polyester resins have poor heat resistance which results in laminated sheets exhibiting low stiffness and strength under elevated temperatures. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
A push for higher performance and smaller die size drives the semiconductor industry to reduce circuit chip area by approximately 50% every two years. The chip area reduction provides an economic benefit for migrating to newer technologies. The 50% chip area reduction is achieved by reducing the feature sizes between 25% and 30%. The reduction in feature size is enabled by improvements in manufacturing equipment and materials. For example, improvement in the lithographic process has enabled smaller feature sizes to be achieved, while improvement in chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has in-part enabled a higher number of interconnect layers.
In the evolution of lithography, as the minimum feature size approached the wavelength of the light source used to expose the feature shapes, unintended interactions occurred between neighboring features. Today minimum feature sizes are approaching 45 nm (nanometers), while the wavelength of the light source used in the photolithography process remains at 193 nm. The difference between the minimum feature size and the wavelength of light used in the photolithography process is defined as the lithographic gap. As the lithographic gap grows, the resolution capability of the lithographic process decreases.
An interference pattern occurs as each shape on the mask interacts with the light. The interference patterns from neighboring shapes can create constructive or destructive interference. In the case of constructive interference, unwanted shapes may be inadvertently created. In the case of destructive interference, desired shapes may be inadvertently removed. In either case, a particular shape is printed in a different manner than intended, possibly causing a device failure. Correction methodologies, such as optical proximity correction (OPC), attempt to predict the impact from neighboring shapes and modify the mask such that the printed shape is fabricated as desired. The quality of the light interaction prediction is declining as process geometries shrink and as the light interactions become more complex.
In view of the foregoing, a solution is needed for managing lithographic gap issues as technology continues to progress toward smaller semiconductor device features sizes. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates generally to the preparation of metal oxide thin films and more particularly to the preparation of solution-derived metal oxide thin films from metal diketonate or carboxylate precursors.
Metal oxide thin films have applications ranging from catalysts to capacitors. For example, ruthenium oxide materials can be used in electrochemical capacitors and nickel-, cobalt- and rhodium-oxide thin films are useful in catalysis of hydrocarbon oxidation reactions.
Solution routes are widely used for the production of thin films through spin-casting or dip-coating methodologies. These methods are typically used due to the flexibility in the stoichiometry of precursor solutions, the ease of altering processing variables, cost effectiveness (inexpensive), and the reduction of the sintering temperatures.
Sol-gel methods are often used to produce thin films but sol-gel processing generally suffers from limitations due to the relative solubilities of the various metals salts and metal alkoxides. Therefore, the starting materials are often modified to permit adequate solubility, adding processing steps to the method. These methods generally require synthesis of novel starting materials, relatively long mixing times, and/or heating during preparation of the desired precursor solutions. Miller et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,116,643, issued on May 26, 1992, as well as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,946,710 issued on Aug. 7, 1990, and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,028,455 issued on Jul. 2, 1991, describe a sol-gel method for producing ferroelectric thin films using alcohol and acid solvents in proportions sufficient to ensure equal reaction rates. However, Miller et al. also require heating to drive off the solvent, the addition of further reagents to quench reactivity and the introduction of water to hydrolyze the produced precursors.
Hampden-Smith, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,308,601 issued on May 3, 1994, describes a metallo-organic decomposition method for making metal oxides at low temperatures. Again, because of the problems associated with achieving adequate solubility, the method of Hampden-Smith requires synthesis of the starting materials as well as acid modification of all precursors and the addition of water.
One standard method of producing metal oxide solutions has been to decompose or hydrolyze metal halide compounds to yield the metal oxide. For example, Zheng et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,851,506, issued on Dec. 22, 1998) and Jow et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,600,535, issued on Feb. 4, 1997) also discuss a method for making ruthenium oxide by hydrolyzing ruthenium compounds, and more particularly ruthenium halide compounds, in an aqueous solution at an elevated temperature with the addition of a hydroxide compound. Zheng et al. utilized this process to eliminate the need to form the precursor metal oxide solution by decomposing ruthenium chloride at elevated temperatures of 300-400.degree. C. as was previously done in prior art.
Tomita (U.S. Pat. No. 5,256,443, issued on Oct. 26, 1993) discuss a method of preparing thin films from a sol solution containing a noble metal alkoxide in an organic solvent for use in sensor applications. Tomita starts with one or more metal alkoxides in an alcohol solvent with acetic acid as a catalyzing agent to form a solution that can be deposited as a thin film on a substrate.
Boyle et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,858,451, issued on Jan. 12, 1999) present a solution-route method for synthesizing ferroelectric material thin films of the general formula (Pb,La)(Nb,Sn,Zr,Ti)O.sub.3 using multiple metal precursor solutions dissolved in amine and other solvents where the metal precursor compounds can be metal acetates or metal acetylacetonates.
Improvements to the preparation of metal-oxide thin film materials by these methods would be to reduce the preparation or synthesis time, to prepare the materials using commercially-available starting materials, to reduce the concentration of impurities in the final film, and to reduce the severity of the preparation conditions, particularly the severity of the heating conditions. Once the precursor solutions have been prepared, either thin films or powders can be prepared by standard methods. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates generally to devices for measuring reflective, transmissive, or self-luminous samples and reporting their spectrophotometric, spectroradiometric, densitometric, or other colorimetric appearance attributes.
Users of desktop color systems have a need to accurately measure color. Color systems end-users expect accurate color matching between their source (scanner or monitor) and the color hardcopy produced by their color digital printer. In order to achieve WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") color, color imaging devices must be characterized and calibrated transparently to the user, and work seamlessly with popular software applications. Support for import and export of image data described in a device independent format such as CIE is increasingly a requirement.
The inputting of colors represented by physical samples into an electronic design for display and printing is currently a tedious process. The end-user has several options. The sample may be scanned, but the color reproduction will be poor for the reasons discussed above. The sample may be visually matched by specifying. RGB or CMYK amounts for the application, but the match will be device dependent and highly variable. A color specification system may be employed by visually matching the sample to one of the specified colors then entering the color specification to the application, but the match will be device dependent, highly variable, and rely upon application compatibility with the color specification system.
One application where WYSIWYG is particularly important is color desktop publishing. In many desktop and workstation environments, color end-users (e.g. publishing, prepress, design, graphics, etc.)have a wide selection of input and output devices (e.g. scanners, monitors, printers, imagesetters, etc.) and color creation applications. Since this environment is generally open-architecture, the calorimetric characteristics of the various devices and applications are not, and cannot be, well-matched due to the multi-vendor nature of the market. As a result, the quality of color reproduction between input and output is highly variable and generally poor. In order to achieve consistent color matching in this highly disparate environment, several companies have introduced software-based color management system (CMS) technology based on device independent color. The principle of operation of such systems is to reference all devices (device dependent) to a common CIE color space (device independent). A simple work flow for such a CMS might be comprised of the following steps: (1) the image scan (Scanner RGB) is referenced to CIE; (2) the image is converted to Display RGB for editing; (3) the displayed image is referenced back to CIE; and (4) the image is converted to printer CMYK for output.
Generally, the CMS vendor provides several key elements: a library of device characterization profiles, a color matching method, and color transformation software. Since the expertise and equipment required for the creation of profiles is expensive, device characterization is performed by the CMS vendor for an average device for average viewing conditions. Unfortunately, characterization accomplished in this manner is done under factory conditions and not for the end-user conditions (device, light source, media, viewing, etc.). Since an end-user's device will be quite different from the device that was profiled at the factory, some vendors offer hardware/software calibration. Calibration only partially compensates for the differences between factory conditions and end-user conditions but does not satisfy the need for end-user device characterization compatible with open architecture CMS. However, there are no end-user characterizors for ambient, display, or hardcopy characterization due to the high cost of such equipment and lack of suitable end-user software. Currently, CMS products are generally proprietary and must be purchased from the CMS vendor. As open architecture CMS technology will be included as part of the operating system, device manufacturers, third parties, and end-users will require custom CMMs or profiles.
The combination of CMS technology, factory characterization, and end-user calibration improves the average color reproduction on the desktop somewhat, but is expensive, complex, and does not meet the end-user requirements for quality, cost, speed, and compatibility. End-users need a fast, low-cost, simple hardware/software characterizor enabling them to easily characterize (not just calibrate) their specific scanners, monitors, and printers to their specific viewing conditions in a manner that is compatible with open architecture CMS technology.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,137,364 discloses a color sensor that employs a plurality of LEDs (light emitting diodes) and an array of photodetectors. The McCarthy sensor utilizes individually addressable, customized LEDs as its illumination sources and a photodetector array, where each photodetector measures reflectance of the sample at a different visible wavelength, and where each element's spectral sensitivity must be individually optimized. The McCarthy sensor also utilizes a single beam reflectance measurement scheme. Thus, the photodetectors must be made as stable as possible by maintaining at a constant temperature and being protected from humidity; etc. Furthermore, the McCarthy device requires expensive and stable components since the measured energy collected from the color sample must be constant. Such expensive and customized components nevertheless may also, experience long term drift and may be highly sensitive to noise.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,377,000 to Berends discloses a color sensor that utilizes a single illumination source positioned directly above the sample, 21 sample photodetectors arranged circumferentially around the illumination source and positioned at 45.degree. angles with respect to the sample, and 2 reference photodetectors positioned to receive light directed from the single illumination source. Berends utilizes a "pseudo-dual beam" reflectance measurement scheme in an attempt to eliminate the need of an additional 19 reference photodetectors that would be required in a classic dual-beam reflectance measurement scheme. This is performed by configuring the 2 reference photodetectors to sample the illumination source at opposite extremes of the visible light. spectrum, and by applying a "least squares fit" calibration calculation to simulate the required 21 reference channel readings. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing integrated circuits and other electronic devices. More particularly, the invention relates to an improved process for photoresist patterning in the manufacture of integrated circuits and other electronic devices.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
The manufacture of integrated circuits requires an accurate and precise method to form patterns on wafers to delineate the areas for subsequent doping, isolation, interconnections, etc. The technology involved in the generation of these patterns is known as microlithography and in general involves the following steps: (a) a mask or reticle is made with the required information, (b) a thin layer of a photoresist is coated, as by spin coating onto the wafer, (c) the photoresist is exposed through the mask using the appropriate radiation, such as ultraviolet light, E beam, X-ray, or the like and (d) a relief mask is formed using a suitable solvent called the developer.
The development of photoresist patterns in applications is especially suitable for lithographic definition of very small features. These techniques, in general, employ a top imaging layer, an intermediate layer to be used as a mask, and a bottom planerizing layer. These schemes, however, increase process complexity and expense.
Surface-sensitive processes, where only the surface of the resist needs to be exposed, offer the performance advantages of multilayer schemes with the simplicity of single layer processing. One of the best known processes is the so-called "Desire" process. This process consists in selectively incorporating silicon-containing species in the exposed areas of the photoresist from the gas phase using a silylating agent such as hexamethyldislazane amine, HMDS. In an oxygen plasma, the regions that have incorporated silicon, turn into silicon dioxide. This protects the underlying photoresist from the oxygen plasma, whereas the unexposed regions are etched away in the plasma, with the end result that a positive relief image is formed.
Some of the other dominant schemes are described as follows:
In the bilayer process, resist on polymethylemethacrylate (PMMA) is accomplished by spinning PMMA and baking to drive off the solvent. Resist is spun and baked, then exposed and developed. The PMMA is exposed to ultraviolet light where the resist has to be removed. The PMMA is then developed. The advantages of this technique are the high resolution and good linewidth control of the resist layer, because it is on a planerized antireflective layer. The disadvantages are the poor thermal stability of the PMMA, interfacial mixing of the resist and PMMA, linewidth measurement, difficulty of rework, and inability to do in-line with a stepper.
In the trilayer process, resist on glass on polymer is accomplished by spinning a planerizing antireflective polymer onto the substrate. Then Spin-On-Glass (SOG) is spun or another inorganic layer is sputtered onto the antireflective polymer layer. Next resist is spun on the inorganic layer, exposed and developed. The inorganic layer is etched and then used as a mask for etching the planerizing polymer. The advantages of this technique are the same as the bilayer technique plus good thermal stability of the planerizing substrate and no interfacial mixing. The disadvantages are high defect density, high cost, high cycle time, need for develop etch, and inability to do in-line with stepper.
In the "Promis" or "Desire" process, surface imaging dry develop is accomplished by spinning photoresist. The resist is exposed, baked, and put in a silane (HMDS or other) atmosphere. The silane diffuses into the exposed resist and reacts with the phenol group. This incorporates silicon into the exposed area. The resist is then developed by putting the wafer through reactive ion oxygen etching. The silicon acts as an etch mask. The advantages of this process are extremely high resolution and depth of focus, low cost and short lithography cycle time. The disadvantages are (1) difficult development, because there is no pattern as yet and (2) one cannot know if the pattern is a good one and whether it is worthwhile to proceed with further processing, (3) poor linewidth control, due to softbake sensitivity and non-uniform silicon layer, (4) swelling (overlay control), and (5) need for develop etch.
Workers in the field have published actively and patents of general interest to the present invention include Reichmanis et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,481,049 "Bilevel Resist"; Grieco et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,005 "Device Lithography Using Multi-Level Resist Systems"; Hult et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,551,418 "Process for Preparing Negative Relief Images with Catonic Photopolymerization"; Ito et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,552,833 "Radiation Sensitive and Oxygen Plasma Developable Resist"; Namatsu et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,916 "Intermediate Layer Material of Three-Layer Resist System"; Mimura et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,170 "Silylation Method onto Surface of Polymer Membrane and Pattern Formation Process by the Utilization of Silylation Method"; Allen et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,810,601 "Top Imaged Resists"; Maheras et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,859,573 "Multiple Photoresist Layer Process Using Selective Hardening"; and Garza et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,008 "Dry Development of Photoresist". | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as clinical healthcare data storage and distribution, financial transaction processing, procurement, stocking and delivery tracking, provision of data services and software, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. Information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems. Additionally, information handling systems may have two or more display platforms with one or more display screens to output images. The information handling system can also include hinges to allow the display platforms to transition to different positions.
The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items. It is understood that the components in the above referenced figures are not necessarily drawn to scale and are often simplified. Variations of components or variation as to connection of components including use of additional components not depicted or using fewer components and features are contemplated. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
As capacity requirements for data center networks (DCNs) in public and private clouds increase, copper-based electrical links are being phased out in favor of fiber-optic links. For example, in DCNs with link capacities of 10 Gbps or higher, switch-to-switch links are generally optical. In some cases, electrical links may remain between servers and top-of-rack (ToR) switches.
An optical link in a data center may comprise transceivers at each end of the optical link, which are connected via optical fiber. The transceivers may plug into switches or servers and convert signals between optical and electrical domains.
Generally, links of a data center have a relatively high degree of reliability resulting from overprovisioning of the optical layer by current manufacturing and design practices. For example, transceivers may be manufactured to a stringent requirement based on worst-case assumptions about anticipated operating conditions (e.g., the amount of signal loss or corruption due to connectors in a data center). Such overprovisioning may result in equipment costs that are larger than necessary while adding little or no benefit to operating performance. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Existing successful heat engines are steam turbines, gas turbines and positive displacement engines (reciprocating piston and rotary Wankel) utilizing various thermodynamic cycles (Diesel (or rather Sabathe), Otto and Stirling cycle). These engines, although now having been developed for more than century (almost 2 centuries in the case of Stirling), still stop short from fulfilling the requirements imposed on prime movers by modern economy. Thus steam turbines require huge steam boilers and steam condensers and are troublesome to exploit, therefore their applications are restricted to power plants and propulsion of ships and some other heavy machinery. Gas turbines, thermal efficiency of which can achieve even 65% in large units destined for power generation and industrial applications (e.g. in most recent large turbines built by GE, which in fact are compound heat machines with large heat exchanger), usually, particularly in small units, display much poorer figure than positive displacement engines, are more complicated technologically and more expensive, and therefore are unlikely to earn as dominant position as Diesels enjoy today due to these and other well-known inherent drawbacks and limitations. Thus positive displacement engines still have important advantages over turbines that render them irreplaceable for most applications.
Most common positive displacement engine in use (and in fact most common heat engine), Diesel engine, achieves maximum overall efficiency of slightly beyond 50% (large stationary or marine units, which again are compound heat machines comprising Diesel engine, turbocharger, supercharging air cooler and auxiliary power turbine), and average Diesel efficiency is merely ˜40%, a poor figure in comparison with 70-75% originally assumed by its inventor in late 19th century. Thermal efficiency of Diesel cycle rises with the compression ratio, but this method for improving overall efficiency of real Diesel engines is obstructed by friction loses rapidly rising with loads of engine's mechanism. Moreover, conventional connecting rod—crank mechanism's strength becomes a concern in highly loaded Diesel engines.
Another well-known positive displacement heat engine is the (external combustion) Stirling engine. This engine is closest to the ideal Carnot engine in terms of thermal efficiency, and another important advantage over known internal combustion engines is its capability to utilize various sources of thermal energy. However, Stirling engine is expensive to manufacture and troublesome to maintain, and this renders it considerably inferior to internal combustion engine in most applications, and prevents from earning wide acceptance.
There are many non-conventional designs of heat engines (most of them focusing on transforming gas force into driving torque of rotating shaft), e.g. rotary engines like Wankel, recently patented quasi turbine (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,164,263 and 6,899,075), spherical engines (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,325,038, and 6,941,900, and Russian patent 2,227,211) and oscillating pivotal engine (see www.PivotalEngine.com). However, so far none of those non-conventional engines, with Wankel-type engine being the only exception of economically (but certainly not conceptually) marginal importance, was successful, and probably none of them has any chance to even go beyond the stage of prototyping. Technically, this is due to the fact that the answer to the principal question any new engine is obliged to answer: “Does the new engine do its work better than conventional one?” is decidedly negative for all those non-conventional designs, including Wankel's. Even the answer to the more general question: “Does the new engine do its work in any aspect better than conventional one?” is negative for almost all non-conventional engines. (In the case of the Wankel engine, the answer to this more general question is positive, but superiority of Wankel over conventional engines in certain aspects (great power/weight and power/volume ratios, kinetic simplicity and smoothness of operation) is overshadowed by its inherent drawbacks (weak structure, inability to cope with large outputs, inferior efficiency, weakness of sealing, inherent inability to incorporate high compression ratios)). Conceptually, this is mainly due to the fact that those new engine designs (e.g. quasi turbine) focus on certain isolated aspects of heat engine while ignoring some other aspects (e.g. sealing, mechanical strength and reliability).
For example, recently patented positive displacement rotary engine, quasi-turbine, is complex both kinetically and structurally, its moving elements of complicated shapes are likely to be subjected to excessive thermal stresses and renders the engine weak structurally and more difficult to seal than Wankel engine; thus the engine is unlikely to do well the job of heat engine (it would be better as pump or compressor). Some other rotary engines (e.g. satellite engine, see publication WO9618024) use toothed wheels to transfer the pistons movement to rotary motion of engine's shaft. This not only makes these engines complex but also unreliable, as engine's elements that meet along a line are not well suited to bear shock loads met with in internal combustion engines.
Fuel cell is a very promising source of power for many applications, but it seems improbable it will become appropriate for applications where high power density is essential in any foreseeable future.
Thus there is a need for highly efficient universal source of mechanical power, and highly efficient and clean thermodynamic processes for producing hot high pressure gases, like detonation, compression ignited combustion of homogeneous charge and very high-pressure Sabathe cycle, render positive displacement internal combustion engines a very interesting proposition, provided that efficient way for converting thermal energy into useful mechanical power is incorporated. It is to be stressed that lack of such effective method for converting thermal energy into driving torque is an important obstacle to develop a practical Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) and Positive Displacement Detonation (PDD) engine. The reason is that maximum gas forces themselves, as well as gradients of gas forces (understood as function of time), met with in HCCI and PDD engines (at least those utilizing stoichiometric mixture, which is the most efficient thermodynamically, and also most efficient from the point of view of power/weight and power/volume parameters) are much higher than in conventional IC engines, and conventional mechanisms are unable to cope with such extreme loads. This is one of the reasons, for which the planned “HCCI engines” are to utilize the more efficient HCCI mode of operation only while producing power at a moderate rate (and working on loan mixtures), converting into ordinary Diesel mode of operation when the power demand rises (the other reason is that IC engine working on loan mixture produces less pollutant nitrogen oxides).
It is to be stressed that none of the non-conventional engine designs in United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and European Patent Office (EPO) patent data bases offers satisfactory mechanical structure of the ICE suitable for coping with extreme loads while assuring engine's compactness and good sealing. Moreover, none of the known positive-displacement internal combustion engines approaches highly desirable structural simplicity of gas turbines. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Oxidation-reduction reactions are critical mechanisms which regulate many enzymatic reactions in the cell, both during growth and quiescence. The reduction of ribonucleotides to the corresponding deoxyribonucleotides, needed for DNA synthesis during cell proliferation, is catalyzed by the enzyme ribonucleotide diphosphate reductase. Glutaredoxin is a glutathione (GSH)-dependent hydrogen donor for ribonucleotide diphosphate reductase and contains the active peptide site encoded by the amino acid residue sequence -C-P-Y-C- (SEQ ID NO:6). This consensus sequence is conserved in glutaredoxin from such different organisms as E. coli, vaccinia virus, yeast, plants, and mammalian cells. Glutaredoxin has inherent GSH-disulphide oxidoreductase (thioltransferase) activity in a coupled system with GSH, NADPH, and GSH-reductase, catalyzing the reduction of low molecular weight disulphides as well as proteins. Glutaredoxin has been proposed to exert a general thiol redox control of protein activity by acting both as an effective protein disulphide reductase, similar to thioredoxin, and as a specific GSH-mixed disulphide reductase (Padilla, Calif. et al. (1996) FEBS Lett. 378:69-73).
In addition to their important role in DNA synthesis and cell division, glutaredoxin and other thioproteins provide effective antioxidant defense against oxygen radicals and hydrogen peroxide (Schallreuter, K. U. and Wood, J. M. (1991) Melanoma Res. 1:159-167). Glutaredoxin is the principal agent responsible for protein dethiolation in vivo and reduces dehydroascorbic acid in normal human neutrophils (Jung, C. H. and Thomas, J. A. (1996) Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 335:61-72; Park, J. B. and Levine, M. (1996) Biochem. J. 315:931-938).
The human glutaredoxin cDNA encodes an approximately 12 kDa protein. Site-directed mutagenic studies suggest that replacement of C-7 with S-7 reduced the tendency of the protein to form homodimers and that the N-terminal M-1 is removed during cellular processing (Padilla, Calif. et al. (supra)). Three heat-labile proteins which have glutaredoxin-like properties have been isolated from HeLa cells. Two have a molecular mass of approximately 12 kDa, and the other has a molecular mass of greater than 30 kDa (Tsang, M. L. and Weatherbee, J. A. (1981) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 78:7478-7482). Glutaredoxin has also been identified in plant tissues and in yeast (GenBank accession number Z49699; Gan, Z. R. (1992) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 187:949-955).
Nitrosourea anti-tumor drugs covalently deactivate ribonucleotide reductase by alkylating the thiolate active site. Deactivation prevents further thioltransferase activity by glutaredoxin and could determine the cytostatic properties of these drugs (Schallreuter, K. U. et al. (1990) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1054:14-20).
The discovery of a new human glutaredoxin .beta. and the polynucleotides encoding it satisfies a need in the art by providing new compositions which are useful in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of immunological and neoplastic disorders. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to a device for detecting a flow of powder particles, particularly paint particles, said flow being arranged to flow in a transportation line between a reservoir holding powder particles and at least one powder spray gun of the kind wherein an electrical field charges the particles.
Electrostatic powder coating processes for application of paint-powder particles use spray guns of a kind wherein an electric field charges the paint-powder particles, for instance guns known as corona guns. The powder particles are supplied to the gun from a powder reservoir by way of transportation lines. In industrial applications large-dimension systems are often used wherein a plurality of guns and transportation lines, for instance in the number of 15, are arranged in parallel.
Problems arise when for some reason or other the paint-powder particle flow is obstructed in the transportation line and the particles are prevented from reaching the gun. As a result, an insufficient amount of paint powder will reach the product to be coated.
When several guns are used simultaneously it is difficult to discern visually that a certain part of the product is coated to an insufficient degree with the powder for an acceptable layer of paint to be obtained in the subsequent heat treatment in an oven. Consequently, the fault is not corrected until the defect, i.e. the unsatisfactorily painted products, are discovered in the subsequent quality control step. Likewise, it is difficult to discern in which one of the guns that the obstruction occurs. For this reason it is often necessary to examine large parts of the transportation line system to find the fault. Fault-localising and discarding are, however, time-consuming and expensive.
The object of the present invention is to provide a simple and reliable device for detection of a flow of powder particles that may be used to monitor large transportation-line systems.
This object is achieved in accordance with the present invention in a device of the kind defined in the introduction, which device is characterised in that a portion of the transportation line is provided on its interior face with an electrostatically friction-charging material, that a signal-carrying line interconnects a unit for measuring electrical signals and the electrostatically friction-charging material in said portion, and that said unit is provided with a third line to close the circuit between said unit and said material in said portion.
The electrostatically friction-charging material on the interior face of said transportation line portion is of such a nature that it is electrostatically charged by the friction arising upon contact between the powder particles of a flow streaming through the line and the material. The magnitude of the charge of the material is then measured by said unit for measuring electrical signals. In this manner the device in accordance with the invention provides a tool for detection of whether or not a particle flow is moving through the transportation line, since the measuring unit shows response only when particles flow through said portion of the transportation line.
The third line preferably is connected to earth.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention all of said transportation-line portion is manufactured from an electrostatically friction-charging material.
The powder flow can be generated by means of a pump that is connected to the transportation line.
Preferably, the electrostatically friction-charging portion of the line could be provided adjacent to the pump. It goes without saying that this portion of the line could be located upstream or downstream from the pump in the direction of travel of the powder flow. It could likewise be located inside the pump itself.
In large systems where several powder guns are arranged for simultaneous operation one detecting device in accordance with the invention may be arranged in each one of the transportation lines leading to the respective spray guns. The signals from each one of the measuring units of the respective detecting devices may be supplied to a control panel for system monitoring. Owing to this monitoring feature any flow obstruction in any one transportation line thus may be immediately detected and localised. Consequently, the fault may be remedied before it has led to production disturbances, and the fault-localising time is reduced since the control panel will show in precisely which transportation line the fault is to be found.
In addition, the device in accordance with the invention is inexpensive and easy to install, in new as well as in existing transportation-line systems. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
There are many electrical connectors which are known from the published prior art or the marketplace. These connectors seek to connect together electrical conductors without soldering and often without the use of tools. Connectors exist for multistranded insulated wires or cables as well as coaxial cables.
Several such connectors are sold by Swenco Products, Inc. under the mark POSI-LOCK®. Many of these connectors are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,228,875; 5,868,589; 6,358,103 B1; 6,494,753 B1; 6,568,952 B1; 6,692,313 B1; 6,695,653 B1; 6,814,630 B1; 6,830,491 B1; 6,851,966 B1; 6,866,550 B1; and U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. US2004/0192121 A1. These connectors usually require stripping the insulation off of a terminal portion of the wire, and all are connected together by twisting a cap onto a connector body. But helical twisting motions of a multistranded conductor as it is being connected often torsionally stress the metallic strands sought to be connected, resulting in a less than optimum physical and electrical connection. A need therefore persists for connectors which can make a secure electrical connection to a multistranded insulated electrical conductor without twisting one part onto another. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Digital video capabilities can be incorporated into a wide range of devices, including digital televisions, digital direct broadcast systems, wireless communication devices such as radio telephone handsets, wireless broadcast systems, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, desktop computers, tablet computers, digital cameras, digital recording devices, video gaming devices, video game consoles, and the like. Digital video devices implement video compression techniques, such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4, or ITU-T H.264/MPEG-4, Part 10, Advanced Video Coding (AVC), to transmit and receive digital video more efficiently. Video compression techniques perform spatial and temporal prediction to reduce or remove redundancy inherent in video sequences. New video standards, such as the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard being developed by the “Joint Collaborative Team—Video Coding” (JCTVC), which is a collaboration between MPEG and ITU-T, continue to emerge and evolve. This new HEVC standard is also sometimes referred to as H.265.
Block-based video compression techniques may perform spatial prediction and/or temporal prediction. Intra-coding relies on spatial prediction to reduce or remove spatial redundancy between video blocks within a given unit of coded video, which may comprise a video frame, a slice of a video frame, or the like. In contrast, inter-coding relies on temporal prediction to reduce or remove temporal redundancy between video blocks of successive coding units of a video sequence. For intra-coding, a video encoder performs spatial prediction to compress data based on other data within the same unit of coded video. For inter-coding, the video encoder performs motion estimation and motion compensation to track the movement of corresponding video blocks of two or more adjacent units of coded video.
A coded video block may be represented by prediction information that can be used to create or identify a predictive block, and a residual block of data indicative of differences between the block being coded and the predictive block. In the case of inter-coding, one or more motion vectors are used to identify the predictive block of data from a previous or subsequent coding unit, while in the case of intra-coding, the prediction mode can be used to generate the predictive block based on data within the CU associated with the video block being coded. Both intra-coding and inter-coding may define several different prediction modes, which may define different block sizes and/or prediction techniques used in the coding. Additional types of syntax elements may also be included as part of encoded video data in order to control or define the coding techniques or parameters used in the coding process.
After block-based prediction coding, the video encoder may apply transform, quantization and entropy coding processes to further reduce the bit rate associated with communication of a residual block. Transform techniques may comprise discrete cosine transforms (DCTs) or conceptually similar processes, such as wavelet transforms, integer transforms, or other types of transforms. In a discrete cosine transform process, as an example, the transform process converts a set of pixel difference values into transform coefficients, which may represent the energy of the pixel values in the frequency domain. Quantization is applied to the transform coefficients, and generally involves a process that limits the number of bits associated with any given transform coefficient. Entropy coding comprises one or more processes that collectively compress a sequence of quantized transform coefficients.
Filtering of video blocks may be applied as part of the encoding and decoding loops, or as part of a post-filtering process on reconstructed video blocks. Filtering is commonly used, for example, to reduce blockiness or other artifacts common to block-based video coding. Filter coefficients (sometimes called filter taps) may be defined or selected in order to promote desirable levels of video block filtering that can reduce blockiness and/or improve the video quality in other ways. A set of filter coefficients, for example, may define how filtering is applied along edges of video blocks or other locations within video blocks. Different filter coefficients may cause different levels of filtering with respect to different pixels of the video blocks. Filtering, for example, may smooth or sharpen differences in intensity of adjacent pixel values in order to help eliminate unwanted artifacts. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
A variety of chromogenic substrates to peroxidase have been reported in the literature as being useful analytical techniques for the detection and measurement of peroxidase activity. Analytical techniques utilizing peroxidase or peroxidase coupled to antibodies and other molecules serve in the measurement of biological properties and components of compounds of interest. Typical components include among others glucose, maltose, bacteria, viruses, enzymes, drugs, hormones and the like. for example, it is known that chromogenic substrates such as benzidine, 0-tolidine, 0-toluidine, and compounds such as 3-methyl-2-benzothiazolinone hydrazone and 3-(dimethylamino)benzoic acid can be used to monitor peroxidase activity. However, certain of these compounds have been shown to be carcinogenic and very sensitive to light, oxygen from the air and hydrogen peroxide.
In an article by T. T. Ngo and H. M. Lenhoff, Analytical Biochemistry, 105, 389-397 (1980), a chromogenic assay for peroxidase and peroxidase-coupled reactions is disclosed and it is indicated that the assay is sensitive and versatile. This assay is based on the oxidative coupling of 3-methyl-2-benzothiazolinone hydrazone and 3-(dimethylamino)benzoic acid. In the presence of hydrogen peroxide and the aforementioned two compounds, peroxidase catalyzes the formation of a deep purple compound, most likely an indamine dye, which has a broad absorption band between 575 and 600 nm with a peak at 590 nm. Using this assay system solutions of peroxidase can be determined in picomolar amounts by either a rate or a fixed-time method.
In the Journal of Immunological Methods, 60, 61-68 (1983) W.D. Geoghegan et al reported the use of the above Ngo-Lenhoff peroxidase assay for solid phase ELISA. While acknowledging the extreme sensitivity of the method and the rapid production of the indamine dye from the chromogen, the authors indicated that problems were encountered in the adaption of the assay to ELISA. for example, the blank developed color, exposure to light resulted in increased dye production, and other problems. However, by the use of various buffer systems, citric acid, and the like, it was possible for the authors to utilize the Ngo-Lenhoff assay for solid phase ELISA.
Notwithstanding the sensitivity and versatility of the Ngo-Lenhoff method, a chromogenic substrate would be desirable which could exhibit excellent stability against ultraviolet light, and which would not be affected by either hydrogen peroxide or peroxidase alone. It was observed that the presence of hydrogen peroxide alone was detrimental to the Ngo-Lenhoff assay. Additionally, known immunodiagnostic systems usually require that the reaction be terminated by the addition of acid or other chemicals.
Accordingly, one or more of the following objects will be achieved by the practice of the present invention. It is an object of this invention to provide a chromgenic substrate which is useful in the quantitative and qualitative determination of peroxidase in biological substances, particularly biological fluids. A still further object of the present invention is to provide a unique chromogenic substrate to peroxidase which forms upon oxidative interaction a dye which can easily be observed by the naked eye, or determined qualitatively or quantitatively by absorption. Another object of this invention is to provide a substrate to peroxidase which exhibits superior stability against untraviolet light, oxygen of the air, and hydrogen peroxide. A still further object of this invention is to provide a method for detecting peroxidase activity in biological samples or immunodiagnostic formats involving peroxidases by employing the substrate of the present invention. Another object is to provide substrates which can be used in immunodiagnostic systems without the need to terminate the reaction by the addition of acids or other chemicals. These and other objects will readily become apparent to those skilled in the art in the light of the teachings herein set forth. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the technical field of energy storage devices. More particularly, the present invention is in the technical field of rechargeable batteries using an iron anode.
2. State of the Art
Iron electrodes have been used in energy storage batteries and other devices for over one hundred years. Iron electrodes are often combined with a nickel base cathode to form a nickel-iron battery. The nickel-iron battery (Ni—Fe battery) is a rechargeable battery having a nickel (III) oxide-hydroxide cathode and an iron anode, with an electrolyte such as potassium hydroxide. The active materials are held in nickel-plated steel tubes or perforated pockets. It is a very robust battery which is tolerant of abuse, (overcharge, overdischarge, and short-circuiting) and can have a very long life even if so treated. It is often used in backup situations where it can be continuously charged and can last for more than 20 years. Due to its low specific energy, poor charge retention, and high cost of manufacture, however, other types of rechargeable batteries have displaced the nickel-iron battery in most applications.
The ability of these batteries to survive frequent cycling is due to the low solubility of the reactants in the electrolyte. The formation of metallic iron during charge is slow because of the low solubility of the ferrous hydroxide. While the slow formation of iron crystals preserves the electrodes, it also limits the high rate performance. These cells charge slowly, and are only able to discharge slowly. Nickel-iron cells should not be charged from a constant voltage supply since they can be damaged by thermal runaway. The cell internal voltage drops as gassing begins, raising the temperature, which increases current drawn and so further increases gassing and temperature.
The industry, however, would be greatly served by such a battery, e.g., a Ni—Fe or Mn—Fe battery, which shows improved performance. The uses would thereby be increased. A battery with an iron anode having improved efficiency, charge retention and cycle life would be greatly welcome. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to a device for generating a variable magnetic field, and in particular, though not limited to a device for generating a magnetic field of variable direction.
Many manufacturing processes require that the manufacturing process be carried out in a magnetic field. Magnetic fields are also required in the field of medical healthcare, and in particular, in the field of medical diagnostics, for example, in NMR scanners.
In the semiconductor industry semiconductor substrates are formed from single large silicon crystals which are grown from an electrically conductive melt in relatively strong magnetic fields. In general, single crystal silicon from which semiconductor substrates for use in semiconductor chips are formed are in the form of circular wafers cut from boules grown by a method known as the Czochralski method. The current trend in the formation of such wafers is towards wafers of ever increasing diameter. The industry standard has progressed from four inch through six inch to eight inch diameter wafers, and now twelve inch and even greater diameter wafers are envisaged. Semiconductor materials other than silicon are also grown by the Czochralski method, such as germanium, silicon-germanium alloys, gallium arsenide, indium antimonide and other Class III-V or II-VI compounds. Other methods of growing semiconductor crystals from a melt include methods which are referred to as the floating-zone and Bridgeman methods for forming circular boules, as well as the dendritic-web method for forming flat strip material.
During crystal growth it is important to control parameters in the melt such as the crystal orientation, thermal flux, rotation and pull rates, convection in the molten bath and distribution of impurities in the crystal. In order to stabilise the convective flow pattern in the electrically conducting melt and to dampen oscillations, as well as to achieve a uniform, low and radially homogeneous distribution of impurities, such as, oxygen, large diameter pure boules of silicon are grown from the melt in a magnetic field. In general, three magnetic field patterns are used in the commercial growing of semiconductor crystals, these are:
(i) a transverse field,
(ii) an axial field, and
(iii) a cusp field.
The effects of these three field configurations in the growth of semiconductor crystals is discussed in an article entitled xe2x80x9cUse of a Magnetic Field in Melt Growthxe2x80x9d by DTJ Hurle and R W Series in the xe2x80x9cHandbook of Crystal Growth, volume 2Axe2x80x9d, Chapter 5 published by North Holland, Amsterdam in 1994. Suitable magnetic fields have been produced by devices which comprise electromagnets or Helmholz coils. However, the physical size of the device must be such as to accommodate the growing crystal, the melt and an associated furnace. Electromagnets are bulky and require continuous expenditure of energy to drive the current in the excitation coils required to produce the necessary magnetic flux. Helmholz coils suffer from similar disadvantages. Additionally, a cooling system is required in order to remove the heat generated in electrically resistive coils, and in super conducting coils continuous cooling is required in order to maintain the super conductor below its super conducting transition temperature.
Additionally, in practice it is not possible to predict the precise effect of a magnetic field on crystal growth from first principles, and thus, it is necessary to proceed empirically to optimise the magnitude and direction of the field, as well as the field profile. Indeed, in many instances, different field conditions are required during the growth process of the crystal, for example, a magnetic field which is suitable for the early stage of the growth may not be suitable for the middle stage, and similarly, the latter stage of the crystal growth may require a further different magnetic field. While it is possible to vary the magnitude of the field produced by devices comprising electromagnets and Helmholz coils by varying the electric current, there is only limited scope for varying the field profile and direction in such devices.
There is therefore a need for a device for generating a variable magnetic field, and there is also a need for a device for generation a variable magnetic field which in particular is suitable for use in the semiconductor industry for growing large single crystal silicon from a melt. Indeed, there is also a need for a device for generating a variable magnetic field for use in other industrial applications, for example, in the melt growth of metals by techniques such as jet casting, where a magnetic field is used to stabilise a molten jet of metal, and also, in the medical and medical diagnostic field.
The present invention is directed towards providing a device for generating a variable magnetic field.
According to the invention there is provided a device for generating a variable composite magnetic field, the device comprising a ring member defining a main central axis and a central area around the central axis within which the composite magnetic field is generated, a plurality of discrete magnetic field generating means for generating respective magnetic fields mounted at spaced apart intervals around the ring member for generating the composite magnetic field in the central area, wherein the respective magnetic field generating means are orientably mounted on the ring member for varying the orientations of the magnetic fields generated by the magnetic field generating means for varying the composite magnetic field, and a means is provided for varying the orientations of the magnetic field generating means and for retaining the magnetic field generating means in desired orientations.
In one embodiment of the invention each magnetic field generating means defines a corresponding secondary axis.
In another embodiment of the invention the respective magnetic field generating means are mounted on the ring member with their respective secondary axes extending parallel to each other and parallel to the main central axis.
In a further embodiment of the invention the respective magnetic field generating means are mounted on the ring member with their respective secondary axes located on a common pitch circle, the centre of which coincides with the main central axis.
Preferably, the respective magnetic field generating means are mounted with their secondary axes equi-spaced apart circumferentially around the main central axis. Advantageously, each magnetic field generating means generates a magnetic field extending transversely of its corresponding secondary axis. Preferably, each magnetic field generating means generates a magnetic field extending perpendicularly to its corresponding secondary axis. Ideally, each magnetic field generating means is magnetised such that its direction of magnetisation extends transversely of its secondary axis.
In one embodiment of the invention each magnetic field generating means is rotatably mounted about its secondary axis for varying the orientation of the magnetic field generated by the magnetic field generating means (18) relative to the main central axis.
In another embodiment of the invention the means for orienting each magnetic field generating means rotates the respective magnetic field generating means about their respective secondary axes. Preferably, a plurality of means for orienting the magnetic field generating means are provided, one orienting means being provided for each magnetic field generating means. Advantageously, each orienting means comprises an electrically powered motor. Preferably, each electrically powered motor is a stepper motor.
In one embodiment of the invention a monitoring means is provided for determining the angular position of each magnetic field generating means about its secondary axis, and the orienting means is responsive to the monitoring means for orienting the magnetic field generating means.
Preferably, the monitoring means comprises a plurality of angular position determining encoders, one encoder being provided for each magnetic field generating means.
In another embodiment of the invention a retaining means is provided for retaining each magnetic field generating means in any one of a plurality of orientations.
Preferably, a plurality of retaining means are provided, one retaining means being provided associated with each magnetic field generating means. Advantageously, each retaining means comprises the stepper motor corresponding to the magnetic field generating means.
Preferably, each magnetic field generating means is independently orientatable relative to the other magnetic field generating means.
Advantageously, each magnetic field generating means comprises a permanent magnet.
Advantageously, each magnetic field generating means is provided by a rod-shaped permanent magnet.
Preferably, the secondary axis of each rod-shaped permanent magnet is defined by the longitudinal geometrical central axis of the rod-shaped permanent magnet.
Advantageously, each rod-shaped permanent magnet is of circular transverse cross-section.
In one embodiment of the invention each permanent magnet is of a high coercivity grade material.
In another embodiment of the invention each permanent magnet is of a rare-earth material.
In a further embodiment of the invention at least two ring members are provided, the ring members being co-axially arranged with their respective main central axis coinciding with each other.
Preferably, the respective ring members are arranged side by side axially along the main central axis.
Advantageously, the respective ring members are of similar diameter.
In one embodiment of the invention the respective ring members are arranged for axially abutting each other.
Preferably, the pitch circle diameters of the respective ring members along which the corresponding magnetic field generating means are located are of similar diameter.
Advantageously, each ring member is of circular shape.
In one embodiment of the invention each ring member comprises at least eight magnetic field generating means.
Further the invention provides a method for generating a variable composite magnetic field using the device according to the invention, wherein the method comprises orienting the respective magnetic field generating means located on each ring member to an orientation for generating the composite magnetic field of the desired type and direction.
Additionally, the invention provides a method for growing a semiconductor crystal using the device according to the invention wherein the crystal being grown is grown in the composite magnetic field.
The advantages of the invention are many. The device according to the invention allows the composite magnetic field generated by the device to be varied readily and easily. All that is required is to orient the magnetic field generating means in order to vary the composite magnetic field generated by the device. By virtue of the fact that the device generates the composite magnetic field in a central area around the main central axis defined by the ring member, the device according to the invention is particularly suitable for use in industrial and indeed medical fields. In particular, the devices particularly suitable for use in industrial manufacturing processes where a magnetic field is required during the carrying out of the manufacturing process, and in particular, where it is desired to vary parameters of the magnetic field during the manufacturing process, such as, for example, in the growth of large, pure single crystal semiconductors. By virtue of the fact that the orientation of the magnetic fields generated by the respective magnetic field generating means can be independently orientated both the orientation and the profile or type of the composite magnetic field can readily easily be varied. Indeed the strength of the composite magnetic field can also be varied. Needless to say, the advantages which are derived from the device according to the invention are equally beneficial in the application of the device to other industrial processes, medical diagnostic applications, as well as medical therapeutic methods. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to secured data transmission to and from a remote device, and more specifically to a method and apparatus for secure key establishment and data encryption that enables the secured wireless data transmission to and from a remote device.
2. Discussion of the Background
Efficient wireless communication between remote objects has been a long term goal of many different areas of industry. With the increased processing capabilities of today's computer processors as well as the continued advancement within the communications industry, one would assume that wireless communications between remote devices would have become quite pedestrian in nature. To the contrary, accompanying the swift advancement of the above-described technologies is the reality that some basic goals within the wireless communication industry have yet to be achieved.
For example, one aspect of remote device communication that continues to need refinement is data security and the manner in which secured data is transmitted to and from remote devices. Specifically, since a remote device normally uses a wireless transmission medium, the ability to transmit and receive data securely can be hampered by many factors such as weather and positioning of the remote device. This, in turn, reduces the reliability and security of messages sent from and received at the remote device.
Additionally, since narrow bandwidth transmission channels are used to transmit data over the air to a base location, remote devices are currently unable to efficiently support the encryption techniques usually employed with larger bandwidth transmission mediums. For example, when the Internet is accessed via a wired transmission medium, a web page can be retrieved using TCP/IP protocols. Using these or similar protocols, private accounts can be accessed on-line, once a security handshake is performed to ensure a secure link. To ensure that a secure link exists between two parties, certificates are exchanged and validated. However, with regard to wireless transmission mediums incorporating the aforementioned narrow-band communications protocols employed, this type of encryption and security is not efficient.
One possible solution to the above noted problems would be to modify an existing narrowband protocol in order to utilize a transmission protocol between the remote device and the base that could handle some of the bandwidth requirements of the security algorithms currently available. This solution, however, would be especially problematic for fleet management businesses. Most fleet management businesses would like to track hundreds (or more) of remote devices at the same time. Unfortunately, the amount of network resources and associated hardware that is required to support a fleet of remote devices employing large amounts of bandwidth is not economically feasible. The associated costs to build and maintain such a network is prohibitive.
Additionally, upon power-up, remote devices do not include any of the necessary security keys required to encrypt data. The keys are obtained by performing a key establishment routine after the initial power-up routine is complete. With most remote devices that employ encryption techniques, the security keys are established “out-of-band” (e.g., through the use of an external input or code). However, when remote devices are used that do not include a user interface, the establishment of security keys out-of-band is not plausible, since there is no user to receive and process the out-of-band information. Thus, when such remote devices employed there is currently one available option when establishing security keys: install the security keys in the remote device at the factory prior to powering the remote device. This option however is less than desirable as security is jeopardized by having a third party install security keys. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates generally to a fuel intake system for an automobile internal combustion engine and, more particularly, to a supercharger used in the fuel intake system.
For boosting the power output of the automobile internal combustion engine, the use of a supercharger has long been well known. In particular, the supercharger of a type comprising a compressor and a turbine connected together with the compressor and adapted to be driven by exhaust gases emitted from the engine is generally referred to as a turbo supercharger or a turbo-charger.
With the supercharger utilizing the exhaust-gas turbine, i.e., the turbocharger, it has often been experienced, and it is quite natural that, even though the engine is operating under a condition requiring the supply of the supercharged air or air-fuel mixture, the latter tends to be short of the required amount particularly when the engine operates at a low speed with the flow of the exhaust gases consequently retarded.
In order to obviate the above described problem, a solution is disclosed in any one of the Japanese Laid-open Pat. Publications No. 55-137314 and No. 55-156226, laid open to public inspection on Oct. 27, 1980 and Dec. 5, 1980, respectively, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,315,488 and No. 4,315,489, both patented Feb. 16, 1982.
All of these publications discloses a fuel intake system which comprises a primary intake system and an auxiliary intake system including a supercharger in the form of a displacement air pump driven by a drive unit, for example, the automobile engine. These prior art fuel intake systems are generally so designed that, when and so long as the load imposed on the engine is smaller than a predetermined value, only the primary intake system is brought into operation to supply a combustible air-fuel mixture into the engine through an associated primary intake port, but when and so long as the load on the engine is larger than the predetermined value and at least during the period in which the engine undergoes the compression stroke, the auxiliary intake system is brought into operation together with the primary intake system to allow a supercharged air from the supercharger to be supplied into the engine through an associated auxiliary intake port in parallel with the supply of the air-fuel mixture. These prior art systems appear advantageous in that, since the supercharger is comprised of the displacement air pump driven by the engine, the supply of the supercharged air into the engine would not be caused to be short of the required amount even at a low speed engine operating condition during which the flow of the exhaust gases through the exhaust manifold tends to be retarded.
Any one of the above discussed publications discloses the use of a primary throttle valve disposed in a primary intake passage of the primary intake system for regulating the flow of air prior to being mixed with fuel or an air-fuel mixture, an auxiliary throttle or timing valve disposed in an auxiliary intake passage of the auxiliary intake system downstream of the supercharger or displacement air pump with respect to the direction of flow of the supercharged air towards the engine, and a relief passage having a relief valve for relieving the supercharged air in part or in whole to the atmosphere or back to the suction side of the supercharger.
However, the auxiliary throttle or timing valve employed in the last two of the above mentioned Japanese publications as well as both of the U.S. patents is so positioned and so designed as to allow the supercharged air to flow therethrough to the engine in correspondence with change in load on the engine, for example, during the high load engine operating condition. On the other hand, the auxiliary throttle or timing valve employed in the first mentioned Japanese publication is so positioned and so designed as to allow the supercharged air to flow therethrough to the engine each time the engine is brought into the compression stroke.
Specifically, the fuel intake system in any one of the first three publications is disclosed as applied to the piston engine whereas that in any one of the last two publications is disclosed as applied to the rotary piston engine or Wankel engine. In particular, the first mentioned Japanese publication is directed to the use of the fuel intake system in a multi-cylinder internal combustion engine comprising, for example, two engine cylinders.
In any event, the use of the displacement air pump involves the following problem. Any fluid displacement device including, for example, the displacement air pump now under discussion, is of a design wherein suction and delivery ports thereof open and close alternately, and the delivery characteristic thereof exhibits a substantially pulsating flow of fluid during the continued operation of such device. Because of the above described design characteristic of the fluid displacement device, the supply of the supercharged air to the engine fluctuates for a given engine speed in such a manner that the engine receives the supercharged air at a time, but does not receive it at a different time, unless the displacement air pump is synchronized in operation with the engine, i.e., unless care is taken to render the timing at which the air pump delivers the supercharged air to match with the timing at which the engine requires the supercharged air (at least during the period in which the engine undergoes the compression stroke). Once this happens, the purpose for which the supercharger is utilized cannot be fulfilled to the maximum available extent.
In addition, the last mentioned Japanese publication, that is, Laid-open Pat. Publication No. 55-156226 also discloses the use of a secondary air supply system for supplying to an engine exhaust system a secondary air necessary to substantially purify the exhaust gases emitted from the engine. This secondary air supply system includes a secondary air supply passage extending between the delivery side of the supercharger and the exhaust manifold and having a flow regulator for controlling the effective cross sectional area of the secondary air supply passage according to the load on the engine. The flow regulator is in the form of a three-way rotary valve having three ports communicated respectively to the delivery side of the supercharger, the exhaust manifold and the suction side of the supercharger, the passage between the flow regulator and the suction side of the supercharger being used to relieve a portion of the supercharged air back to the suction side of the supercharger. In this arrangement, since the flow regulator is required separately of the supercharger, the fuel intake system for the engine tends to be complicated in construction and expensive to manufacture.
Moreover, when it comes to a multi-cylinder internal combustion engine, as the number of the engine cylinders increases, the supercharger as well as the timing valve necessary to distribute the supercharged air selectively into the engine cylinders must be driven at the increased speed to enable the supply of the supercharged air to be synchronized with the firing sequence in these engine cylinders. For example, assuming that the supercharger is driven at a given speed for the two-cylinder engine, the four-cylinder or six-cylinder engine will require the supercharger to be driven at a speed twice or three times the given speed because a longer time is required to complete the firing of all of the engine cylinders than in the two-cylinder engine. Accordingly, driving the supercharger at the increased speed may result in the overheating of the supercharger to such an extent as to result in the reduction in service life of the supercharger. Although this problem may be obviated if plural superchargers are employed in operatively coupled relation to each other, this obviously renders the system expensive in cost and complicated in structure and, yet, not reliable in operation. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to an adjustable air resistance system for fitness equipment which is controlled by a programmable control unit to give a gradually increased air resistance to the points of application on a fitness equipment.
A variety of exercising apparatus have been disclosed for the purpose of obtaining a good bodily health and condition, and have appeared on the market. These apparatus commonly use hydraulic cylinders and weights to give a resistance to the points of application, causing the player to consume one's energy. FIG. 1 illustrates a steppers according to the prior art, which comprises a master supporting frame and an auxiliary supporting frame obliquely connected together at the top and respectively supported on the ground by a respective stand, a handlebar mounted on the master supporting frame at the top, a counter mounted on the handlebar in the middle, two pedals suspended from the cross bar on the auxiliary supporting frame by two hydraulic cylinders, a pulley fastened between the master and auxiliary supporting frames to hold a steel rope, which has two opposite ends respectively connected to either pedal. When in use, the hands hold the handles, and the legs step on the pedals alternatively. FIG. 2 illustrates a gym according to the prior art, which is comprised of a leg press, a high pulley, a thigh & knee machine, weights, a shoulder press, a chest press, and a hip flexor. The aforesaid steppers and gym produce certain effects to help the player exercise the muscles. However, they still have drawbacks. The damping moment of the steppers is fixed, and can not be conveniently regulated according to different requirements. Changing the damping moment of the steppers is difficult, because the points of connection between the hydraulic cylinders and the pedals must be changed. In the gym, the weights can be changed so as the load is regulated. However, it is inconvenient to change the weights. While changing, one must stop the exercises. Further, it is dangerous to use the gym during the stage of warm-up. Because the weights produce a high resistance, the muscles may be torn easily during the beginning when entered the exercises. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Cartridge valves have long been commonly used and in connection with a wide variety of applications for example the control of industrial tools. Cartridge valves are generally cylindrical in shape, are often solenoid actuated and are connected to a valve manifold. The valve manifold may contain many cartridge valves to independently control multiple functions of tools.
The cartridge valve has an overall cylindrical shape due to the solenoid coil with a plunger slideably positioned within the coil. The valve often has a central valve passage through a centrally located nose and a second valve opening radially spaced outward of the first valve passage. The valve seat is located about the central first valve passage to seat the plunger that is actuated by energizing the solenoid coil. Cartridge valves may be normally open valves that are closed when actuated or normally closed valves that are opened when actuated.
Known connections between the cartridge valve and the manifold have been often a threaded connection. The threaded connection can be about the nose of the cartridge valve that threadably engages complementary threads in the valve manifold. The flow capacity of the valve of a predetermined outer diameter is often dictated by the maximum diameter of the central valve passage commonly called the valve orifice that can be placed through the central nose. In turn, the maximum diameter of the central valve passage is constrained by the dimensions of the outer threads and the thickness of the nose wall for adequate structural strength.
What is needed is an improved cartridge valve with improved flow capacity that easily connects to and disconnects from the valve manifold. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The invention relates to electromagnetic shielding panels and, in particular, to translucent electromagnetic shielding panels comprising a pane of coated glass or plastics.
Glass and transparent plastics are translucent to short wave electromagnetic radiation, i.e. radiation having a frequency in the range 20 to 10000 MHz, so that stray emissions from electronic data processing equipment can escape through windows and be detected outside. Such escape prejudices the security of the information being processed. Moreover, entry of extraneous electromagnetic signals, such as radar signals, through the windows of rooms housing electronic data processing equipment can effect the proper operation of the equipment.
It is known that the transmission of short wave electromagnetic radiation through windows can be prevented or at least reduced by providing the window with a continuous electroconductive layer and earthing the layer all around the periphery of the window to provide an electromagnetic shielding window.
A number of glass products incorporating electroconductive layers have been offered for use in electromagnetic shielding windows. One such product is glass carrying an indium tin oxide coating having a sheet resistance in the range 4 to 6 ohms per square. Such coatings may be deposited by reactive sputtering but, in order to obtain the high conductivity (low resistance) required, it is necessary to heat the glass substrate. Suitable apparatus for coating large areas of glass is expensive; the coatings are therefore generally deposited in relatively small areas and are expensive to apply.
Another known product is laminated glass incorporating a layer of fine metal mesh in a plastics interlayer between two panes of glass. Unfortunately, the mesh not only reduces the light transmission through the laminate but also obscures the view. Moreover, because the final metal mesh is expensive, laminates incorporating the mesh are expensive to produce.
It has also been proposed to apply a polyester film carrying a sputtered coating of a metal or metal alloy such as titanium, stainless steel, bronze, sterling silver or 24 carat gold to glass with the coated face of the film towards the glass to provide an electromagnetic shield. Unfortunately, it is difficult to make electrical contact with the coating on the film without damaging the film, so that there are problems in earthing the coating.
There is a need for a high performance translucent electromagnetic shielding panel which can be produced economically with good optical properties. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Numerous devices for attachment to trees and the like, in order to provide an elevated observation area for hunting and/or bird watching have been previously disclosed in the art. FIG. 1 illustrates one example of a conventional tree stand 5 that includes a vertical central frame 6 that is strapped 7 directly to the side of a tree 2. A lower platform 6a is typically connected to the bottom of the frame, and supported by a cable 6c in order to provide an area where a user can stand Likewise, a smaller platform 6b is typically connected to the top of the frame where the user can sit.
As shown, conventional tree stands suffer from a problem due to the close proximity of the frame 6 and the tree 2. To this end, the user 1 attempting to sit on the seat 6b has very little back room, and must often sit on the outermost portion of the seat, which is extremely uncomfortable and ergonomically unfriendly. Additionally, when the surface of the tree is not smooth, which is usually the case, raised bumps and notches 2a further act to discomfort the user. Over time, these discomforts can cause a user to constantly shift their body position, which can lead to long term back pain and acts to greatly increase the chances of accidentally falling off of the platform.
Moreover, owing to the extremely limited space within the stand, it is common practice for hunters to clip backpacks 3 and other such items to the bottom of the stand 6a in order to keep from having to climb to the ground each time an object is needed. However, getting access to the hanging bag 3 can be extremely awkward as a user must often reach beneath the surface of the lower platform in order to access the bag. Alternatively, the bag can be placed on top of the lower platform 6a, but such action further reduces the available space to the user, which raises the likelihood of the user tripping over the bag and falling off of the platform, or accidentally knocking the bag 3 itself off of the platform.
Accordingly, the need exists for a tree stand with an integrated storage and mounting system that does not suffer from the drawbacks discussed above. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates generally to softball and baseball bats, and more particularly to such bats having an exterior shell covering at least a portion of the bat.
In an effort to continually improve bats, manufacturers seek out new materials and designs. Most top of the line bats utilize the highest tensile and yield-strength alloys available, such as the 7000 series hard alloys, titanium and composites, all of which are readily available to manufacturers. Thus, in an effort to differentiate products constructed of the same materials, manufacturers and engineers focus on the development of features that will enhance the performance and durability of the bat. To this end, there have been several attempts to design bats which include structural features to maximize performance and/or reinforce the interior of the tube for increased durability.
One such attempt was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,364,095, assigned to Easton, Inc., which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, is directed to a tubular metal ball bat internally reinforced with fiber composite. The bat comprises a hollow metal tube including a metal sleeve compressively engaged with the interior of the tube. The sleeve is formed of carbon fibers in an epoxy matrix.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,777, issued to McNeely, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, is directed to a ball bat with rebound core. The McNeely invention comprises a hollow tube having a tube wall including a barrel portion, a tapered portion and a handle portion. The bat includes an inner damper that is covered by a resilient attenuator sleeve. The inner damper is inserted into the hollow tube such that the resilient attenuator sleeve is compressed between the inner damper and the tube wall. A cap covers the open top of the tube and a knob is installed to the open bottom.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,398, issued to Eggiman, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, is directed to a softball bat having a tubular insert. A tubular aluminum bat frame is provided with a large diameter impact portion, an intermediate tapering portion, and a small-diameter handle portion. A tubular insert is suspended within the impact portion by interference fits at each insert end. A gap exists along the length of the suspended insert separating the insert from the interior of the impact portion. The gap is filled with grease to facilitate relative movement between the insert and the tubular frame when a ball is batted.
All of the aforementioned devices utilize an interior reinforcing mechanism with an exterior tube of uniform wall thickness. What is needed then, is a bat having an exterior shell covering and in direct communication with a portion of the bat body. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In laboratories, bispecific antibodies have been widely used for the retargeting of immune effector cells to tumor cells. In this case, one binding site is directed against a tumor-associated antigen (TAA) and the second antigen against a trigger molecule on the effector cells, such as for example CD3 on T cells (Kontermann, MABS 2012 (4) 182-197; Chames and Baty, MABS 2009 (1) 539-547; Moore et al. Blood 2011 (117) 4542-4551). The first bispecific antibodies targeting CD3 and a tumor cell associated antigen were of rodent nature and were produced using hybrid hybridomas (Liu et al. 1985 PNAS 82: 8648, Staerz et al. 1986 PNAS 83:1453, Lanzavecchia et al. 1987, Eur. J. Imm. 17:105). In these hybrid hybridomas the reassortment of Ig heavy and light chains resulted in the production of bispecific functional antibody molecules within a much larger pool of monospecific and non-functional bispecific antibodies resulting from heavy and light chain mispairing. Because of their double specificity, these functional bispecific antibodies were able to bridge murine and human cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) to target cells and trigger cytotoxic function resulting in the lysis of tumor cells displaying the relevant antigen. However, the CD3×TAA bispecific IgG mediated induction of tumor cell lysis by polyclonal resting human T cells could not be achieved unless co-stimulation was provided by added exogenous IL-2 or anti-CD28 mAb. This is exemplified by the hybrid rat IgG2b/mouse IgG1 CD3×CD19 bispecific molecule that was able to induce lysis of the CD19 positive REH B-ALL tumor cell line by resting human T lymphocytes only upon co-administration of IL-2 (Haagen et al. 1995 Blood 85:3208). Zeidler et al. demonstrated using a similar rat IgG2b/mouse IgG2a CD3×Epcam molecule that bispecific IgG-induced lysis of Epcam-positive tumor cells could be achieved in mixed cell cultures comprising both peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and tumor cells without addition of exogenous IL2 (Zeidler et al. 1999 J. Immunol. 163:1246). The authors claimed that the ‘third’ arm of the antibody, the Fc region, is causing this effect through interaction with Fcγ receptor-positive accessory cells present within the PBMC fraction. In particular, the strong activation potential was correlated to the hybrid subclass combination mouse IgG2a/rat IgG2b that, in contrast to other reported combinations (e.g., mouse IgG2a/mouse IgG1 or rat IgG2b/mouse IgG1), not only binds but also activates Fcγ receptor-positive accessory cells. This so-called triomAb CD3×Epcam bispecific antibody, also known as catumaxomab, has been developed clinically and has been registered in Europe for palliative treatment of abdominal tumors of epithelial origin. While this bispecific antibody has clearly demonstrated clinical efficacy, its rodent nature induces anti-product immune responses upon repetitive dosing and therefore prevents a widespread application of this format.
Alternative CD3×TAA formats have been explored to solve both the manufacturing issues and the immunogenicity problems associated with the hybrid rodent triomAb format. Such formats are often immunoglobulin-like molecules that deviate from full length human IgG molecules, and include molecules such as Dual-Affinity Re-Targeting (DART™) molecules that are developed by Macrogenics worldwide web at macrogenics.com/Platforms-DART.html, Bispecific T cell Engager (BiTE®) molecules that were developed by Micromet, now Amgen (Sheridan C, Nat Biotechnol. 2012 (30):300-1), Dual Variable Domain—immunoglobulin (DVD-Ig™) molecules that are developed by Abbott, and TandAb® RECRUIT molecules that are developed by Affirmed world wide web at affimed.com/tandab-recruit. It was demonstrated for one of these formats that successful retargeting of peripheral blood lymphocytes to lyse CD19-positive tumor cells using a CD3×CD19 diabody required pre-activation the of the peripheral blood T lymphocytes, now using anti-CD3 antibody plus human IL-2 (Kipriyanov et al. 1998 Int. J. Can. 77:763). Other formats, such as the bivalent single chain Fv CD3×TAA BiTE® format (Loffler et al. 2000 Blood 95:2098) do not require pre-activation of resting T cells and is able to induce antigen positive tumor cell lysis in vitro in an extremely efficient manner (Dreier et al. 2002 Int. J. Canc. 100:690). Additional studies using BiTE®s targeting different TAAs revealed that the potent efficacy of the BiTE® format was correlated to the antigen size and particularly to the distance of the epitope on the TAA to the tumor cell membrane (Bluemel et al. 2010 Cancer Immunol. Immunother. 59:1197). The effective formation of cytolytic T cell synapses was demonstrated for BiTE® molecules which is explained to form the structural basis for their potency (Offner et al. Molecular Immunology 2006 (43) 763-771) which is also believed to be linked to the small size of the BiTE® format. If size matters, this would suggest that larger molecules such as intact IgG would be too large to form effective cytolytic synapses. The CD3×CD19 BiTE®, blinatumomab, has demonstrated remarkable clinical efficacy in refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma and acute lymphatic leukemia patients (Bargou et al. 2008 Science 321:974). Although the CD3×CD19 BiTE® displays very efficient tumor cell lysis at low levels in vitro, administration of this bispecific format to patients is associated with significant challenges. Due to their small size, BiTE®s are rapidly cleared from the circulation and dosing of patients thus requires continuous infusion. As the dosing regimen has an overall duration of more than 2 months, this treatment has a significant impact on the quality of life of the patients.
There thus remains a need for effective full length bispecific T cell engaging IgG molecules in eradicating aberrant cells that combine a long circulatory half-life upon intravenous administration without the need for continuous infusion without being immunogenic and with only limited side effects. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
This invention relates to a small mass transit vehicle having an air conditioning unit mounted upon the rear wall of the vehicle and, in particular, to apparatus for attenuating the sound generated by the unit.
In many small buses of the type used to shuttle people about airports or the like, the air conditioning unit that is used to provide cooling to the passenger compartment is generally mounted upon the outside of the buses rear wall. An opening is provided in the rear wall through which return air from the passenger compartment is drawn into the evaporator section of the air conditioning unit. Conditioned supply air from the evaporator is distributed throughout the bus through a system of ducts. The opening in the rear wall is typically situated directly over a row of seats located along the rear wall of the bus. As a consequence, passengers that are seated in the rear of the bus are subjected to a good deal of noise produced by the evaporator fans and the return air flow that is being drawn through the opening. The noise levels throughout the bus can, under certain conditions, be high enough so that passengers cannot effectively communicate verbally with the bus driver. Failure to communicate leads to a good deal of confusion within the bus and the failure of passengers to debus at the desired locations. This, in turn, produces missed connections and other unwanted travel delays.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to reduce the noise level in the passenger compartment generated by the air conditioning system of a small bus such as an airport shuttle bus or the like.
A still further object of the present invention is to improve the ability of passengers in a small bus to communicate effectively with the operator of the bus.
Another object of the present invention is to break the sound path of air that is returning from the passenger compartment of a small bus to the air conditioning unit of the bus without adversely effecting the efficiency of the unit.
These and other objects of the present invention are attained in a small mass transit vehicle that contains an air conditioned passenger compartment. The air conditioning unit is secured to the outside of the bus""s rear wall. An opening is located centrally in the rear wall through which return air from the passengers compartment is drawn into the evaporator of the air conditioner. A housing is mounted over the central opening which has a front wall that extends laterally beyond either side of the opening. Apertures are mounted in the extended sections of the front wall so that the return air is forced to move over a tortuous path of travel between the apertures and the central opening thereby attenuating the noise associated with the return air flow. The interior surfaces of the housing are covered with an open celled foam which further attenuates the sound produced by the air conditioning unit. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Food storage containers are popularly used to store food that is left over after a meal. The food is packed into the storage container, sealed, and placed into a refrigerator. Such food containers are typically reusable and made of plastic and have a lid. The lid seats snugly on the container to help preserve the food and isolate it from the environment. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to an external rear view mirror assembly comprising a positive connection that fits mirror components as a support frame mounted to a mirror housing or shell. More particularly, the invention is related to method to assemble a rear view mirror in a few steps.
2. Description of the Related Art
External mirror assemblies are ubiquitous for contemporary motor vehicles and have long been used to aid the driver in operating the vehicle, especially in improving the rearward view of the driver. Selected components of the mirror assemblies must be connected during the assembly process. For example, a tilt actuator assembly used to adjust the mirror to provide a proper field of view is typically mounted to a rigid frame within the mirror assembly housing and is operably connected to a reflective element. The rigid frame is typically mounted within the mirror assembly housing to provide structural support to the housing and connected the mirror assembly to the vehicle. The various connections are typically made with threaded fasteners, such as screws. The fasteners are separate components which an assembler must select in the proper number and properly install in order to properly assemble the mirror.
At times, the correct number of fasteners may not be installed. Also, the fasteners may not be tightened to the proper torque, thereby loosening over time so that the mirror assembly no longer operates satisfactorily. The failure to install the correct number of fasteners or to tighten the fasteners to the proper torque requires a costly replacement of the affected part(s) and can contribute to a reduction in vehicle safety due to operational failure of the mirror assembly.
One aspect, the invention relates to an improved vehicular mirror assembly comprising a mirror bracket adapted to be mounted to a vehicle; a mirror housing mounted to the base and comprising a rearwardly-facing opening; a reflective element mounted within the mirror housing in register with the rearwardly-facing opening; a tilt actuator mounted to at least one of the mirror housing and the bracket, and to the reflective element for tiltably actuating the reflective element.
In prior art as U.S. Pat. No. 7,448,589 a solution is disclosed that comprises: a snap-fit assembly for interconnecting selected components of a vehicular mirror assembly, the components comprising a mirror housing, a mounting frame having at least one of a first mounting aperture. The snap-fit assembly comprises a first mounting stud with a first portion having a first diameter and a second portion having a second diameter smaller than the first diameter. The second portion is adapted for snap fit communication with the first mounting aperture and the first portion is adapted for supporting communication with the mounting frame.
The snap fit solution according prior art connects support frame and mirror housing several connectors to fix the components. For the snap fit means have circular bodies more than a single mean is necessary to fix components rigidly without the possibility to pivot around one snap fit mean. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The stack-gate ETOX-cell, one of the most popular cell structures for flash memories, is widely programmed by channel hot-electron (CHE) and erased by Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling through the source side or the channel area.
The n-channel ETOX-cell is conventionally fabricated by a twin-well process or recently in a triple-well process as shown in FIG. 1. The triple-well structure is typically used to protect cells from noises generated outside the deep n-well by reverse-biasing the deep n-well to p-well junction, e.g., the deep n-well is biased to the highest potential (Vcc) and the p-well is biased to the lowest potential (Vss). The n+ source is typically doubly implanted by As.sup.75 (with a high dose of 3E15/cm.sup.2.about.1E16/cm.sup.2 for the n+ junction) and P.sup.31 (with a lower dose of .about.1E14/cm.sup.2 for the n-junction) so that the source junction can be biased at high voltage (e.g. .about.12 v) during erase operation. The n+ drain is typically implanted by As only with a high dose (.about.1E16/cm.sup.2) and the drain side does not need the lightly-doped-drain (LDD) implant and spacer structure.
Note that the LDD structure is not useful in an ETOX-cell, although it is important in CMOS transistors for reducing electrical field during switching for lower hot-electron generation. The tunnel oxide (T.sub.ox) is typically 80-120 angstroms thick, the inter-poly dielectric (T.sub.pp) typically consists of thin oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) layers. As an example, a typical ETOX-cell based on 0.35 um CMOS design rule has the following cell parameters: T.sub.ox .about.90 angstroms, T.sub.pp.about.160 angstroms (oxide equivalent thickness), and control-gate to floating-gate coupling ratio of .about.0.8.
The ETOX-cell of FIG. 1 is programmed by channel-hot-electrons (CHE). The bias for programming is typically: V.sub.d =7v, V.sub.cg =9 to 12 v, and V.sub.s =0 v. Under these bias conditions, there is a large channel current (.about.1 mA/cell) for hot electron generation near the channel surface of the drain. Hot electrons are injected into the floating-gate when the oxide energy barrier is overcome and when assisted by the positive control gate bias. After programming, the amount of net electrons on the floating-gate increases, which results in an increase of the cell threshold voltage (V.sub.T). The electrons in the floating-gate will remain for a long time (e.g. 10 years at room temperature), unless intentionally erased. The drawback of CHE programming is low injection efficiency and large power consumption during programming.
The cell is erased by Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) tunneling through the source side or the channel area. The bias during source side erase is typically: V.sub.d.about.0 v or floating, V.sub.cg.about.-5 v to 0 v, and V.sub.2 =+9 to +12 v. This establishes a large electrical field (.about.10 Mv/cm) across the tunnel oxide between the floating-gate and source overlap area. Electrons on the floating-gate will tunnel into the source and be removed away. It is known that there is large gate induced drain leakage (GIDL) current that occurs at the source side during erase as well as the associated degradation of the tunnel oxide.
The bias for F-N erase through the channel area is typically: V.sub.d.about.floating, V.sub.cg.about.15 v, V.sub.pw.about.0 v. A large electrical field (-10Mv/cm) can be established across the tunnel oxide between the floating-gate and the p-well channel area (in accumulation). Electrons on the floating-gate will tunnel into the channel area and be removed through the p-well bias. It is well known that a high negative voltage is required on the control-gate and the tunnel oxide is easily degraded by the high electrical field during erase.
The read biases of the prior art ETOX-cell are typically: V.sub.d.about.1 v to 2 v, V.sub.cg.about.V.sub.cc, V.sub.s.about.0 v, V.sub.pw.about.0 v, V.sub.dnw =Vcc, and V.sub.sub.about.0 v. The channel may be inverted or not depending on the net electron charge stored on the floating-gate, and results in the on and off of the cell as measured by the read current I.sub.read representing the digital information of "1" or "0" stored in the cell.
Turning to FIG. 2, another prior art flash cell is shown that uses band-to-band tunneling induced hot electron (BBHE) generation and injection. The cell is a p-channel ETOX cell that only uses electrons tunneling through the tunnel oxide. This can avoid oxide degradation by hole injection. The bias for programming the p-channel cell is shown in FIG. 2. Electrons are initially generated on the surface of the p+ drain by the known mechanism of band-to-band tunneling. They are further accelerated when flowing toward the n-well and gain energy through the electrical field in the p+/n-well junction. Hot electrons as generated by junction high field and impact ionization can overcome the oxide barrier with the help of positive bias on the control gate and are injected onto the floating gate. The initial electrons on the p+ drain can also be injected to the floating gate by Fowler-Nordheim tunneling if the electrical field across the oxide is large enough (about 10 Mv/cm). In short, the drain current during programming is contributed by three components: hot electron injection to the floating gate, Fowler-Nordheim tunneling to the floating gate, and GIDL current to the n-well. Note that the BBHE mechanism can be implemented only on a p-channel cell.
Nevertheless, each of these prior art approaches have disadvantages regarding size, current drain, and/or implementation as an array. What is needed is a method for manufacturing a flash cell having the advantages of small cell size and easily implemented as an array. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates generally to improved methods and apparatus for providing a demand-paged virtual memory in a computer workstation.
Modern-day workstations are typically capable of running a plurality of applications at one time. Each application normally requires its own memory in order to run the application. If a running application should use up all of the workstation's available memory, the application will usually be caused to wait or terminate, which may significantly slow up performance of the application, or require that the application be rerun when sufficient memory becomes available. An additional problem that can occur with a workstation running a plurality of applications is that, when a new application is initiated at the workstation and there is insufficient memory available, a running application will be forced to terminate and be swapped out in order to permit the new application to run. Such situations make it important that a workstation provide sufficient memory to run all of the applications which the user intends be run at the same time. As a result, a workstation normally has to be provided with sufficient total memory to run all of the applications that a user may wish to run at the same time without the workstation's memory becoming oversubscribed.
One known way of increasing the memory available to a computer workstation is to provide a virtual memory arrangement which permits the workstation to use memory which is not currently available in the workstation's main memory. For example, it is known to use a paging arrangement wherein the workstation's main memory is capable of storing a prescribed number of pages, one or more of which may be swapped with those contained, for example, on a disk drive attached to the workstation. When an application running on the workstation requests a page which is "not present" in the workstation's main memory, a situation commonly known as a page fault occurs. The workstation's operating system resolves this page fault by reading in the "not present" page from the disk into a free page (i.e., a page not currently in use) in the workstation's main memory. If the workstation does not have a free page, then the "not present" page is caused to replace a page in the workstation's memory. The particular workstation page which is replaced is determined based on an algorithm that attempts to choose for replacement a page which is not likely to be needed. One well known algorithm for this purpose is the "least recently used" (LRU) algorithm which replaces a page in a workstation's main memory based on the page which has been least recently used. This algorithm is typically implemented by providing a stack which links pages based upon usage.
A significant disadvantage of such an (LRU) algorithm is that it requires a significant amount of processing overhead for its implementation. In addition, this LRU algorithm does not work well when a workstation is running a plurality of applications, since the "least recently used" approach does not take application priorities into account and thus can cause pages to be replaced from a running application at an inappropriate time.
Another known type of page replacement algorithm is commonly referred to as a "clock" algorithm, wherein memory pages are arranged in a single circular list (like the circumference of a clock). The clock pointer (or hand) points to the last page replaced, and moves clockwise when the algorithm is invoked to find the next replacement page. When a page is tested for replacement, the access bit in the corresponding page table entry is tested and reset. If the page has been referenced since the last test, the page is considered to be part of the current working set, and the pointer is advanced to the next page. If the page has not been accessed, and is not "dirty" (i.e., does not need to be written back to its backup store) it is eligible for replacement. While this clock algorithm requires less overhead than the LRU algorithm, it still does not perform well for a workstation running a plurality of applications at the same time. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In microfiche blowback systems it is highly desirable to use a magnification that can be varied readily. This is because various forms of microfiche use different reduction ratios, and also because specific users of the system have various preferences in the blowback magnifications that are utilized. The magnification of the system adheres to the fundamental relationship ##EQU1## WHERE D.sub.2 IS THE IMAGE-TO-LENS LENGTH (THE LONG CONJUGATE LENGTH) AND D.sub.1 IS THE OBJECT-TO-LENS LENGTH (THE SHORT CONJUGATE LENGTH). The lens equation ##EQU2## RELATES FOCUS TO THE LONG AND SHORT CONJUGATE LENGTHS. In systems where the focal length (f) of the lens is fixed, magnification is often achieved by changing the long conjugate length d.sub.2. From equation (2) it is seen that changes in the long conjugate length will affect focus and that to maintain focus such a change will require a corresponding change in the short conjugate length.
Generally, magnification control is achieved by manual control of one of the path lengths d.sub.1 or d.sub.2 with automatic control of the second path length being maintained. In this type of magnification control of the prior art, the second path length is moved in strict accordance with the lens equation (1), it being assumed in those systems that focus will be achieved if the relationships of the lens equation (1) are maintained. A disadvantage of this type of system is, for example, a lack of compensation for variations, such as temperature expansion or contraction of the support structure for the projection lens or the object. Since at high magnification and low f/numbers, tolerances may be very small between the lens and the object plane, on the order of 0.001 inches, systems which rely solely on the solution of lens equation (1) are not always satisfactory.
In automatic focus systems, such as described in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,968,994 and 3,421,815, means are provided to evaluate the focus of an actual image and to control the movement of some element of the optical system to maintain a focus condition once it has been achieved regardless of extraneous movement. These systems, known as optical probe focus servo systems, utilize a light source which projects a target image of high resolution backward through the optical system to the object plane, with the target image reflected from the object being projected back through the image system and reimaged at the target plane. If the long and short conjugate lengths are correct in relation to the optical probe imaging lens focal length, the return image will be superimposed on the target and no focus adjustment need be made. If the conjugate lengths are incorrect, that is, not in accordance with lens equation (1), the condition occurs in which the returned target image is in a defocused condition at the target plane. This condition can be sensed, and used to generate a servo-control signal to effect repositioning of the image plane.
Several problems relate to the auto focus system described in the referenced patents. One problem is that the system only maintains focus after it has been manually set, and that it must be manually set each time magnification is changed. A second problem involves the focus control system, which varies the optical path length between lens and object by direct movement of the object plane. Within the tolerances of the system, this direct movement may be difficult to control. A third problem which exists is stray light, there being no means to differentiate between light arriving at the sensor as a result of a focusing condition and light that arrives at the sensor due to extraneous sources of light such as light which will be scattered in the optical system. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
A password is a special sequence of characters that uniquely "authenticates", i.e., confirms a user's identity, to a computer system and that is used for security purposes to control access to information and operations of the computer. Specifically, each user of the system is associated with an "account" that includes access rights to the computer's resources. In addition, each account has a name and a password, the latter being known only to the user authorized to access the account. Passwords are typically assigned to accounts as they are created, although many systems allow the users to change their passwords to any sequence of characters they desire.
When allowed to select their own passwords, users tend to choose passwords that are easily remembered; unfortunately, these passwords may also be easily guessed. One common threat to a password-based authentication system is an impostor capable of guessing the password of an authorized user. With the use of an automated system configured to generate character sequences at a high rate, the impostor can quickly "guess" large numbers of common names and words, typically by replaying every word in a dictionary. This is called a "dictionary attack".
In a stand-alone computer, the operating system has the responsibility for authenticating users. That is, upon presentation of a valid user's password during a login procedure, the operating system verifies the identity of the user by checking the presented password against a list of valid passwords. This type of authentication procedure may prevent a dictionary attack because, after a certain number of wrong guesses, the operating system can disable the account being attacked. Such an attack is, however, difficult to prevent in a distributed data processing network if there is no centralized intermediary that can observe the guesses.
A distributed network system typically includes various computer nodes interconnected by a communications medium. In many distributed systems, the user must send a password to each remote node in order to access its resources. If the user has the same password on all systems, the local node can save the entered password and automatically send it to the remote nodes when needed. In any case, this type of "remote" authentication is susceptible to another common, password-based system threat known as eavesdropping, i.e., interception of the password by wiretapping the network. If successful, eavesdropping can permit impersonation of the user by means of the intercepted password. To counter such a threat, cryptography is often used to preserve the confidentiality of the transmitted password when authenticating the user to remote nodes.
A third threat to a password-based authentication system is the penetration of a node that stores each authorized user's password for the purpose of authenticating each user to the system. Here, successful penetration of the node will allow the intruder to learn the passwords of all users. This threat can also be addressed with cryptography, although it is not always possible to protect against each threat in a single system.
The computer nodes described herein may include nodes that are directly accessed by users, e.g., workstations, and nodes running specialized applications, e.g., servers. These nodes, the processes running on these nodes and the users of the distributed system are called "principals". The authentication exchange described herein is performed on behalf of the principals.
A well-known cryptographic technique used to perform remote authentication is public key cryptography. In this method of secure communication, each principal has a public encryption key and a private encryption key, and two principals can communicate knowing only each other's public keys. An encryption key is a code or number which, when taken together with an encryption algorithm, defines a unique transformation used to encrypt or decrypt dam. A public key system may be used in such a way as to ensure confidentiality of the information being transmitted, i.e., to ensure that the information may not be understood by an eavesdropper, as well as to ensure the authenticity of the sender of the information. The specific public key technique described herein is an RSA encryption scheme. It will, however, be understood to those skilled in the art that other public key systems may be used.
According to this type of encryption, the private key is known only to the owner of the key, while the public key is known to other principals in the system. Public key cryptography is also called "asymmetric" encryption because information encoded with one of the key pair may be decoded only by using the other key in the pair. With RSA crytptography, a principal's public and private keys are selected such that the transformations that they effect are mutual inverses of each other and the sequential application of both transformations, in either order, will first encode the information and then decode it to restore the information to its original form.
Accordingly, to effect a secure transmission of information to a recipient, a principal encodes ("encrypts") the information with the recipient's public key. Since only the intended recipient has the complementary private key, only that principal can decode ("decrypt") it. On the other hand, to prove to a recipient of information that the sender is who he purports to be, the sender encodes ("signs") the information with its private key. If the recipient can decode ("verify") the information, it knows that the sender has correctly identified itself.
Operation of a public key cryptography system will now be described with reference to an illustrative login authentication exchange between a workstation, acting on behalf of a user, and a remote server. Such operation may be understood without reference to the specific transformations that are used for encryption and decryption. Basically, the workstation encrypts a message for confidentiality by performing a transformation using the server's public key, and the server de, crypts the message by performing a transformation using its private key.
Specifically, a user logs into the workstation with the user's password and the workstation derives a secret, non-complementary, encryption key by applying a known hash algorithm to the password. The workstation then requests the user's private key from a directory service of the remote server. The user's private key has previously been encrypted under the same secret encryption key and stored as a "credential" in the directory. A credential is a table entry comprising the user's name and the user's private RSA key; in other words, the credential is a representation of the user in the computer. The remote server returns the encrypted private key to the workstation, which uses the secret key to decrypt and obtain the private key.
In this password-based authentication system, the encrypted private key is transmitted over the network from the directory server to the workstation. Since knowledge of the password is not needed to initiate the request, an impostor can easily request a copy of the encrypted message. Equipped with a copy of the encrypted message, the impostor can attempt to decrypt the message by guessing various passwords and hashing them with the known hash-code algorithm to form the secret key. In other words, the impostor need only request the encrypted message once and, thereafter, it can continuously attempt to decipher the message on its own computer without the risk of being audited or detected. The impostor knows it has successfully derived the secret key and decrypted the message if the decrypted result yields an intelligible, valid private key. An impostor that can demonstrate possession of the private key may thus across system resources on behalf of the user.
A solution to this problem has been proposed using public key cryptography to enhance the security of a system that is primarily based on secret key authentication. This system employs a method to ensure that the contents of messages exchanged over the network are unintelligible to an impostor, even if the impostor has correctly decrypted a captured message. According to the method, the workstation generates a random bit string to which is concatenated a hash-coded version of the user's password. This quantity is encrypted under the authentication server's public key and forwarded, together with the username, as a message to the authentication server. The authentication server decrypts the message with its private key and checks that the workstation supplied the correct hash total for the user's password. If so, the server creates a ticket for the user and performs a boolean (exclusive-OR) function on the ticket and the random bit string. The result of this latter operation is encrypted under the user's password hash value and returned as a message to the workstation. Since the impostor does not know the random bit string, it cannot distinguish between successful and unsuccessful decryptions of the message. This is because there is no information in a successfully decrypted message that would provide the impostor with information that the decryption was successful.
It is apparent from the description above that the authentication server of the secret key system must have knowledge of the user's password. If the authentication server is compromised, it could use its knowledge of the password to impersonate the user. It is a significant advantage of a public key cryptography system that only the user has access to the user's private key. Yet, the lack of a trusted, on-line agent to oversee the login process makes the public key distributed system particularly vulnerable to a dictionary attack. The present invention is directed to the password guessing problem in a public key environment and provides the same degree of security against the dictionary attack as the above-described secret key system without revealing the private key to any other party. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Flight data recorders, also known as “black boxes”, maintain data representing the state of the aircraft in which they are mounted, and are designed, configured, and manufactured to withstand periods of fire and pressure which may be associated with a crash. They also contain transponders and batteries for energizing the transponders to facilitate location of the flight data recorder.
On at least one occasion, an airliner fitted with a flight data recorder was lost, apparently in a midair breakup, over deep ocean. Use of deep-diving submarines was attempted, but the flight data recorder was not recovered within a time span during which the transponder could have been kept energized. Therefore, improved flight data recorder recovery is desired. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In recent years, vehicles and the field of automotive maintenance have experienced rapid growth in computerized systems both within automotive vehicles and in computerized diagnostic tools that identify maintenance issues with the vehicles. For example, most modern vehicles include one or more computer systems that are often referred to as an electronic control unit (ECU). In some vehicles, the ECU controls and monitors the operations of numerous systems including, but not limited to, the engine, steering, tires, transmission, brakes, fuel delivery or battery level monitoring, and climate control systems. Some vehicles also include numerous sensors that monitor various aspects of the operation of the vehicle. The ECU receives the sensor data and is configured to generate diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) if the sensors indicate that one or more systems in the vehicle may be failing or operating outside of predetermined parameters.
Many vehicles use a controller area network (CAN) vehicle bus to transmit data between the ECU and the onboard sensors, components, and systems in the vehicle. The CAN bus, or other equivalent data networks in a vehicle, provides a common communication framework between the ECU and the various sensors and systems in the vehicle. Additionally, the CAN bus or equivalent network enables communication between the ECU and external diagnostic tools through a port that is typically accessible from within a cabin of the vehicle near the driver's seat. The ECU and the diagnostic tools interfaced therewith often use an industry standard protocol, such as a version of the on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol, such as the OBD-II protocol.
In response to determining that the ECU of a vehicle has generated one or more DTCs, a technician may refer to instructions for resolving the issue that has caused the ECU to generate the DTC. Some technicians, particularly technicians that are new to the industry, may be unfamiliar with the procedures described in the instructions and, therefore, may be unable to resolve the issue on their own. In other situations, instructions for resolving the issue that caused the ECU to generate the DTC may be locally unavailable, again leaving the technician unable to resolve the issue. Accordingly, further developments in the area of vehicle diagnostics and repair are desirable. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Modern optical telecommunications systems often employ optical fibers for carrying signals. Low-cost, high-performance, highly integrated fiber optic interface circuits are becoming increasingly necessary to meet the demands of high-speed digital data communication. One standard circuit function for fiber optic communication systems is a transimpedance amplifier that is used within an optical receiver.
FIG. 1 depicts an architectural diagram of a typical optical receiver. The light from an optical fiber 101 impinges on photodiode detector 102, producing a current IPD. Transimpedance amplifier 103 converts the very small currents indicative of optical signals applied to photodetector 102 into a large signal voltage, VTIA, which is further amplified by post amplifier 104 to voltage VPA for output to digital circuitry.
FIG. 2 depicts a schematic diagram of the transimpedance-input stage of a transimpedance amplifier in the prior art. An input current is injected into node 201. This current falls across input resistance RS and reverse-biased diode D1, both connected to power source VSS. Node 201 is electrically connected to the gate terminal of NMOS transistor MB and the source of NMOS transistor M1. The gate terminal of transistor M1 is electrically connected to the drain terminal of transistor M2 and one terminal of resistor RB. The output of the circuit is terminal 202, which is electrically connected to the drain of transistor M1, and one terminal of resistor R1. The second terminal of resistor R1 is electrically connected to the second terminal of resistor RB and to power supply VDD.
The feedback of the voltage at point 2 between transistor MB and resistor RB to the gate of transistor M1 serves to keep the biasing of the output voltage at point 3, VOUT, stable. When the current of M1 increases, the voltage at point 3 increases and the drain current of MB increases. This causes the voltage at point 2 to decrease and this, in turn, causes the drain current of M1 to decrease to its previous value.
FIG. 3 depicts the small signal analysis of the circuit of FIG. 2 in the prior art. This analysis is for the circuit at mid-band, where parasitic capacitances are ignored. From FIG. 3a, the sum of the two transistor gate-to-source voltages is equal to the voltage drop across resistor RB, orVGS1+VGSB=−gmBVGSBRB (Eq. 1)
FIG. 3a is rearranged in FIGS. 3b and 3c. FIG. 3b shows the dependent current source between nodes VIN and VOUT in FIG. 3a can be split into two dependent current sources to ground. From FIG. 3c-1 and equation (1), since VGS1=−VGSB (1+gmBRB), then the value of dependent current source is −gm1VGSB(1+gmBRB). Since the voltage across the current source is proportional to the current through the source by a factor of VGSB, the current source, with polarity reversed, can be replaced by an equivalent resistor of value 1/(gm1(1+gmBRB)). Also from FIG. 3c-1, VGSB=VIN, soVGSB=RS∥1/(gm1(1+gmBRB)IIN (Eq. 2)ZIN=RS∥1/(gm1(1+gmBRB)≈1/(gm1(1+gmBRB) (Eq. 3)Thus, the input impedance is low, an ideal characteristic for an input current source represented by the photodetector.
From FIG. 3c-2:
V OUT = - g m1 V GS1 R1 = - R1 g m1 ( - V GSB ( 1 + g sB RB ) ) = R1I IN g m1 [ RS 1 / ( g m1 ( 1 + g mB RB ) ) ] ( 1 + g mB RB ) ≈ I IN RB ( Eq . 4 ) so that the transimpedance is:VOUT/IIN≈RB (Eq. 5)As the circuit operates at higher and higher frequencies, the parasitic capacitances of the transistors must be taken into consideration. They will have the effect of inducing poles into the transimpedance equation 4, thus reducing transimpedance gain.Once the input current has been converted into a voltage by the transimpedance amplifier, it is often desirable to further amplify the voltage output. FIG. 4 depicts a typical common-source voltage amplifier circuit of the prior art. FIG. 4a is the circuit with input resistance RS connected to the gate of an NMOS transistor. The drain of the transistor is connected to a resistor RD at the output VOUT. RD is also connected to power supply VDD. FIG. 4b is the high frequency model of the common-source amplifier taking parasitic capacitance into effect across the terminals of the transistor. We obtain the transfer function of the voltage amplifier using nodal analysis:
V X - V IN R S + V X sC gs + ( V X - V OUT ) sC gd = 0 ( Eq . 5 ) ( V OUT - V X ) sC gd + g m V X + V OUT ( 1 R D + sC db ) = 0 ( Eq . 6 ) From (6), VX can be expressed as
V x = V OUT ( sC gd + 1 R D + sC db ) g m - sC gd ( Eq . 7 ) By substituting &7) into equation (5), the transfer function of the amplifier is:
V OUT V IN ( s ) = ( sC gd - g m ) R D R S R D ξ s 2 + [ R S ( 1 + g m R D ) C gd + R s C gs + R D ( C gd + C db ) ] s + 1 And ξ = C gs C gd + C gd C db + C gs C db ( Eq . 8 ) By manipulating equation (8), the denominator can be expressed as:
D = ( s ω p1 + 1 ) ( s ω p2 + 1 ) = s 2 ω p1 ω p2 + ( 1 ω p1 + 1 ω p2 ) s + 1 ( Eq . 9 ) The coefficient of s is approximately equal to 1/ωp1 if ωp2 is much higher in frequency. It follows from equation (8) and (9) that the poles are located at:
ω p1 = 1 R S ( 1 + g m R D ) C gd + R S C gs + R D ( C gd + C db ) ( Eq . 10 ) and ω p2 = R S ( 1 + g m R D ) C gd + R S C gs + R D ( C gd + C db ) R S R D ( C gs C gd + C gs C db + C gd C db ) ( Eq . 11 ) This analysis shows that the amplifier gain falls off at about 40 dB per decade of frequency at high frequencies, i.e. frequencies that are likely to be in the range of the data of the fiber optic receiver of FIG. 1.
To achieve higher bandwidth for the amplifier of FIG. 4 in the prior art, an inductance is introduced in series with the load resistor RD. FIG. 5 shows what is called a shunt peaked amplifier of the prior art. FIG. 5a shows shows capacitance Co which includes all the capacitance at the output node. When the amplifier is used for a wideband application, inductance LS in series with resistance RD extends the bandwidth of the amplifier that is normally limited by the time constant RDCo, by introducing a zero as shown by the small signal analysis represented by the circuit of FIG. 5b as follows:
V OUT V IN = g m ( R D + j ω L S ) 1 + j ω R D C o - ω 2 L S C o = g m R D ( 1 + j ωτ m ) 1 + j ωτ - ω 2 τ 2 m ( Eq . 12 ) Where τ=RDCo and m=LS/(RD2Co)
In order to bring the resonance frequency close to the bandwidth of the fiber optic receiver of FIG. 1, the value of LS would be unrealistically high and therefore too large to fit on a typical integrated circuit. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In many medical procedures, it is necessary to locate an opening in tissue so that some form of treatment, diagnosis or revision, can be applied to that opening. For example, in order to perform transluminal balloon angioplasty, an opening must be created in an artery in order to insert a balloon. This opening must later be closed.
Transluminal balloon angioplasty is used in the treatment of peripheral vascular disease to increase or restore blood flow through a significantly narrowed artery in a limb; it is also used in the treatment of blockage of the coronary arteries. In fact, coronary angioplasty has emerged as a major viable alternative to bypass surgery for revascularization of stenotic and occluded coronary arteries. Unlike bypass surgery, angioplasty does not require general anesthesia, opening of the chest wall, use of a heart-lung machine, or transfusion of blood. Angioplasty is not only less invasive and less traumatic to the patient, it is also less expensive because of the shorter hospital stay and shorter recovery time.
Transluminal balloon angioplasty is performed by first inserting a hollow needle through the skin and surrounding tissues and into the patient's femoral artery. A guidewire is advanced through the hollow needle and into the artery, then along the patient's vasculature toward the site of the blocked blood vessel or heart valve to be treated. X-ray imaging is used to help move the guidewire through the vascular system and into position just past the stenosis to be treated. A balloon catheter is then threaded over the guidewire and advanced until the deflated balloon is within the stenosis. The balloon is then repeatedly inflated to widen the narrowed blood vessel. After the procedure is complete, the catheter and guidewire are withdrawn from the blood vessels and the patient.
Angiography, which is used to detect diseases that alter the appearance of blood vessels, is performed in a similar manner. A hollow needle is first inserted into the femoral artery and a guidewire is inserted through the needle and into the affected blood vessel. A catheter is threaded over the guidewire and into the blood vessel. X-ray imaging is used to guide the catheter to a desired position. Contrast medium is then injected, and a rapid sequence of x-ray pictures are taken so that blood flow along the affected vessel can be studied. The catheter and guidewire are later removed from the patient's body.
After the catheter used during angioplasty or angiography are removed, the puncture wound in the femoral artery must be closed and the bleeding through the puncture site in the artery stopped. Currently, ice packs and/or pressure are applied to the area surrounding the wound for a period lasting up to several hours in an attempt to stop the bleeding. There exists, however, a significant chance that the wound will reopen and begin bleeding again when the patient moves. Another possible complication is the development of a false aneurysm, which increases the risks of both infection and reopening.
Although efforts have been made to close the puncture wound using staples, clips, collagen plugs, and sutures, they have been unsuccessful, largely due to the inability to see the puncture wound in the femoral artery, and also because of the difficulty of controllably modifying the artery in the limited space provided.
Other wounds in the vasculature of a patient can also be difficult to see, and are thus difficult to locate, access and close. Thus, a device and method to facilitate locating and closing of such wounds in the vasculature of a patient would be extremely beneficial. A device having the ability to consistently and reliably locate, isolate and close the puncture wound would eliminate the prolonged bleeding currently associated with such wounds. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
This invention relates generally to methods and apparatus for measuring surface topographies and more particularly to methods and apparatus for measuring the surface topographies of semiconductor wafers, hard disk platters, optical blanks and other high-tolerance workpieces.
Integrated circuits are formed on semiconductor wafer substrates by a number of processing steps. These steps include deposition, etching, implantation, doping, and other semiconductor processing steps well known to those skilled in the art.
Thin films are typically formed on wafer surfaces by a deposition process. These thin films can comprise, for example, silicon dioxide, AlSi, Ti, TiN, PECVD Oxide, PECVD Oxynitride, doped glasses, silicides, etc. The thickness of such films usually ranges from about a few hundred angstroms to several micrometers. Often, three or more film layers are formed on the surface of a single semiconductor wafer.
In the art of fabricating semiconductor wafers, it is of known importance to minimize or control stresses in surface films. High surface stresses can cause, for example, silicide lifting, the formation of voids or crack and other conditions that adversely affect semiconductor devices (i.e. chips) which are fabricated on the wafers. In practice, surface stresses become more problematical as the level of circuit integration increases, and are especially troublesome when fabricating large scale integration (LSI), very large scale integration (VLSI), and ultra large scale integration (ULSI) semiconductor devices.
The stress in the surface film of a semiconductor wafer can be either compressive or tensile. A compressive stress in a surface film will cause a wafer to slightly bow in a convex direction, while a tensile stress in a surface film will cause a wafer to slightly bow in a concave direction. Therefore, both compressive and tensile stresses cause the surface of the semiconductor wafer to deviate from exact planarity. The extent of the deviation from planarity can be expressed in terms of the radius of curvature of a wafer surface. In general, the greater the magnitude of surface stress, the smaller the radius of curvature.
Because of the problems that can be caused by stresses in surface films on semiconductor wafers, it is highly desirable to be able to measure such stresses. The measurements can be used, for example, to identify wafers that are likely to provide low yields of semiconductor devices or which might produce devices prone to early failure. In normal practice, stresses in surface films are not measured directly but, instead, are inferred from measurements of the radius of curvature of the surface of interest.
A system for measuring film stress by measuring the radius of curvature of a wafer is described in an article entitled "Thermal Stresses and Cracking Resistance of Dielectric Films on Si Substrates," A. K. Sinha et. al., Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 49, pp. 2423-2426, 1978. Other systems are described in copending patent application Ser. No. 07/822,910, filed Jan. 21, 1992 and U.S. Ser. No. 07/357,403, filed May 26, 1989. All of these systems linearly scan across a wafer to determine the curvature of the wafer along that scan line. This type of wafer scanning can be referred to as a "1-D" linear scan reflecting the fact that it is a one-dimensional scan of the wafer's surface, such as in the x direction. A 1-D scan is quite effective for wafers having fairly uniform surface topographies and uniform film layers, but may be less than adequate for more complex surface topographies or for film layers that are somewhat uneven. This is because the radius of curvature for such wafers may be significantly different when taken along different scan lines along the surface of the wafer. If the particular scan line chosen provides a radius of curvature is which far from the average radius of curvature, the film stress calculated from the radius of curvature will be incorrect.
There are other applications for a method and apparatus for measuring surface curvature besides determining the mechanical stress in films. For example, it is often desirable to know the surface curvature (i.e. the "flatness") of hard disk platters or the radius of curvature of optical elements. In the prior art, such curvature measurements were made by expensive laser interferometry equipment. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In current database systems, users have to group and replace data for queries by writing CASE statements using Structured Query Language (SQL) code. Writing SQL CASE statements by hand requires users to know CASE syntax, as well as to know the data and the data's underlying structures that are to be processed. The CASE statement also has different syntaxes for different situations. For example, the CASE statement has different syntaxes depending upon whether the user is replacing discrete values and/or replacing a range of values. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In three-phase arc furnaces, scrap metal is melted by means of electrical energy, with the conversion of the electrical energy into thermal energy that is required for the melting process taking place in the three arcs which burn between the electrode tips and the material to be melted. For process control, the operating point of the arc furnace can be varied by step-by-step adjustment at the voltage supplied to the arc furnace via a furnace transformer, as well as by step-by-step, separate adjustment, of the distances between the electrode tips and the material to be melted. The chosen operating point is maintained by controlling the distances between the electrodes and the material to be melted. This is generally done by means of impedance regulation b forming an actual impedance value for each electrode from continuously measured electrical variables such as the phase voltage and the phase current, and using the error between this actual impedance value and a predetermined set impedance value to define a manipulated variable for adjusting the height of the respective electrode.
In order to match the operating point of the arc furnace to the variable requirements for furnace operation during the melting process, those operating points which are respectively assigned to a voltage level on the furnace transformer from predetermined characteristics for furnace operation are stored, in the case of a method that is described in European Patent No. 0 036 122, as set impedance values in a digital memory. The furnace operator then manually selects suitable operating points from this digital memory during the melting process.
The presetting of the operating points and set impedance values for setting the height of the electrodes has until now been carried out as a function of previously defined process phases (first bucket, second bucket, refining) and sections within these process phases (placing the electrodes against the cold scrap, melting down, final melting on a flat melt bath), with the set impedance values in each case being predetermined and fixed during these sections. This previous procedure is based on the assumption that the conditions within a section remain sufficiently constant and are reproducible from charge to charge. Steady-state balancing of the three-phase arc furnace is also carried out on the basis of similar principles.
On the basis of relatively detailed knowledge about the behavior of alternating-current arcs in three-phase arc furnaces, one may, however, assume that the preconditions for steady-state setting of the arc furnace do not occur. In fact, it should be assumed that the conditions in the individual arcs vary even during the sections of the process phases and, in particular, unbalanced operating conditions can occur with respect to the arrangement of the electrodes in the three-phase arc furnace. If the set impedance values are then set in a balanced and steady-state manner on the assumption of balanced conditions in the arc furnace, then, if the furnace conditions are actually asymmetric, this leads to different manipulated variables which then produce arcs of different length via the adjustment of the heights of the electrodes. Optimum utilization of the power supply to the arc furnace is not possible in this case. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
A cluster provider provides cloud computing instances that can be rented (e.g., by the hour) and configured to perform cloud computing jobs. Demand for cloud computing services varies over time; enough cloud computing instances exist to satisfy even a peak demand. A varying number of unused cloud computing instances therefore are available at any given time. In order to derive some value from the unused cloud computing instances, the cluster provider offers them for use at a lower rate, with the caveat that they may be recalled at any time. It is in a customer's best interest to take advantage of the lower rate, however, the desire for the lower rate must be balanced against the risk of losing computing resources at any time. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) semiconductor circuit devices and particularly to a macro structural arrangement and method for generating macros for VLSI semiconductor integrated circuits.
VLSI semiconductor circuit devices typically define complex systems including an extremely great number of circuits and multiple functional macros. The term circuit designates an entity consisting of one or two cells or areas of silicon containing circuit components. The term macro designates an entity consisting of many cells arranged for a particular function, such as a memory or a programmable logic array (PLA).
Due to the complexity and the extremely great number of circuit components or cells that must be contained on one semiconductor substrate in a VLSI device or chip, a custom design approach is not practical. The custom design approach, as is known in the art, may be defined as a technique to obtain maximum utility of the area of the semiconductor substrate, or chip, for the circuits implemented on a particular substrate, or chip, by individually designing the component locations and metalization connections for each circuit. In the custom design approach, the chip designer is unconstrained and has essentially total freedom to optimize the design to meet the density and performance requirements of the application. However, these advantages are outweighed by the inherent deficiencies of the required design time and design expense.
Various different design approaches have been proposed and utilized in the art to reduce the deficiencies of the custom design approach. One effective approach implemented by the assignee of the present application is a master-image approach that is described in Donze et al., "Masterimage Approach to VLSI Design", IEEE Computer publication December 1983 pp. 18-25 and further described in Donze et al, "PHILO-A VLSI DESIGN SYSTEM", IEEE-ACM Nineteenth Annual Automation Design Proceedings, 1982 (ISSN 0146-7123, Library of Congress No. 76-150348). The disclosures of the above-identified publications are incorporated herein by reference. The PLA macro generation program described in these publications enables the chip designer to generate a variable-size PLA macro by varying the horizontal direction with the vertical direction fixed. The selected size PLA macro is designed prior to the physical design of the chip and stored as an entity in a design library.
The master image computer design system utilizes the library of predesigned circuits and functional macros. An overall chip image for a particular VLSI device is generated utilizing selected circuits and macros from the library that are placed on the chip image and then wired automatically to generate a physical description necessary to build the masks for the desired system. Automatic placement and wiring programs consist of placement, global wiring and detailed wiring routines. A delay calculator/optimizer program is used in conjunction with these routines for optimizing performance characteristics for the desired system.
Static random access memories (RAMS) are widely used in VLSI semiconductor devices. Present master image computer design systems generate semiconductor chip designs utilizing available versions of RAM macros having fixed sizes. Many of the predesigned RAM macros have been designed by custom design technique with high circuit density in order to minimize semiconductor area and to provide high performance characteristics for the memories. This custom RAM macro design approach, while providing individual, fixed size RAM macros with the advantages of high integration density and high speed, does not facilitate the generation or design of an individual RAM macro with a selected storage capacity. To the contrary, generating a design or physical description for a particular RAM macro having a particular desired storage capacity is normally a very time consuming and difficult task. Accordingly, chip designers typically select one of the available RAM macros from the library that has sufficient size for his particular application. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Audio and video communications communicate information ephemerally. Such media content, such as a phone number, web site, or address, may not be remembered by a listener or viewer. Spontaneously recording such information may not be possible or may be impractical depending on the concurrent activities of the recipient of the information.
Additionally, producers of media content, such as news, weather, traffic, sports, advertisers, music and video, do not have a way to easily provide listeners or viewers with links to additional content. They also are unable to easily determine how many people are listening and more importantly, how many are responding to a particular media production, at least contemporaneously with the distribution of the media content. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The general rectification terminal mainly is used on electrodes of vehicle generators to transform AC power to DC power. Such type of terminal has a pedestal with a tin blade located thereon, and then a chip is mounted onto the tin blade. The tin is heated and melted to solder the chip on the pedestal. Finally the terminal is encased and packaged with plastics or resin. On the conventional rectification terminal the conductive element frequently deforms due to impact or stress of external forces. The design of the terminal also makes assembly and installation difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,060,776 entitled “Rectifier diode”mainly includes a base which has a pedestal. The pedestal holds a semiconductor chip to be bonded to a head wire. The base has a protective sheath filled with a package to securely encase the pedestal and semiconductor chip in the space of the protective sheath. However, when the rectifier diode is pressed onto a rectifier sheet the juncture of the base and protective sheath easily deforms under forces. Hence the service life of the rectifier diode suffers. To remedy the aforesaid problem, U.S. patent application No. 20070105454 entitled “diode” provides a gap between the base and protective sheath so that a buffer room is provided during pressing of the diode onto a rectifier sheet to prevent deformation of the base.
Another U.S. Pat. No. 6,667,545 entitled “Rectifier diode with improved means for tension relief of the connected headwire” includes a press-fit base which has an extended securing region to hold a semiconductor chip. The semiconductor chip is bonded to a head wire. The securing region has a peripheral end portion and a collar. The collar and peripheral end portion form respectively an included angle α and α′ with the axis of the head wire. The angle α is greater than the angle α′ so that the surrounding of the semiconductor chip forms a passivation agent.
The conventional techniques mentioned above still have shortcomings. For instance, the rectification chip terminal generally is formed at a small size to save space. This also happens to the aforesaid conventional techniques. The small size creates many manufacturing problems, such as during soldering process the protective sheath is jutting over the base and forms interference that makes soldering more difficult. Product quality suffers. Installation also is more difficult. Manufacturing process is longer and takes more time. Moreover, the protective sheath has an inner wall perpendicular to the plane of the base. As a result the package easily breaks off during pouring. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art. Gauges are utilized within industries to display a value of a parameter being monitored by the gauge. In the automotive industry, gauges may be displayed as part of the instrument panel or dashboard for indicating information pertaining to the operating conditions of a vehicle. These gauges include, but are not limited to, speedometers, tachometers, engine coolant temperature, engine oil temperature, fuel level, oil pressure, battery voltage and the like. The gauges may include an analog face for displaying a valve of a monitored parameter. More specifically, an analog gauge may include a face plate having indicia thereon such as numbers, letters or indicators and an illuminated pointer that rotates to the indicia to indicate the level of the parameter. While current analog indicating instruments with illuminated pointers have generally proven satisfactory for their intended purposes, each has been associated with its share of limitations.
One such limitation of current illuminated pointers is that they are currently capable of being illuminated in only one color at a time. In a world of driving where increasing road speeds require gauges to be read with increased eye speed, a multiple color pointer may permit such gauge to be focused upon and read more quickly. Another limitation of current illuminated pointers is that utilizing a single color light source to concurrently achieve multiple colors of emitted light from the pointer is unachievable. Related to the single color light source problem is how to leave current gauge structure and methods largely unaltered while achieving a pointer that emits multiple colors.
What is needed then is a device that does not suffer from the above limitations. This, in turn, will provide a gauge pointer that is capable of being illuminated simultaneously in multiple colors while largely maintaining current gauge structure and a single color light source. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
N-phosphonomethylglycine, commonly referred to as glyphosate, is an important agronomic chemical. Glyphosate inhibits the enzyme that converts phosphoenolpyruvic acid (PEP) and 3-phosphoshikimic acid to 5-enolpyruvyl-3-phosphoshikimic acid. Inhibition of this enzyme (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase; referred to herein as “EPSP synthase”) kills plant cells by shutting down the shikimate pathway, thereby inhibiting aromatic acid biosynthesis.
Since glyphosate-class herbicides inhibit aromatic amino acid biosynthesis, they not only kill plant cells, but are also toxic to bacterial cells. Glyphosate inhibits many bacterial EPSP synthases, and thus is toxic to these bacteria. However, certain bacterial EPSP synthases may have a high tolerance to glyphosate.
Plant cells resistant to glyphosate toxicity can be produced by transforming plant cells to express glyphosate-resistant EPSP synthases. A mutated EPSP synthase from Salmonella typhimurium strain CT7 confers glyphosate resistance in bacterial cells, and confers glyphosate resistance on plant cells (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,535,060, 4,769,061, and 5,094,945). Thus, there is a precedent for the use of glyphosate-resistant bacterial EPSP synthases to confer glyphosate resistance upon plant cells.
An alternative method to generate target genes resistant to a toxin (such as an herbicide) is to identify and develop enzymes that result in detoxification of the toxin to an inactive or less active form. This development can be accomplished by identifying enzymes that encode resistance to the toxin in a toxin-sensitive test organism, such as a bacterium.
Castle et al. (WO 02/36782 A2) describe proteins (glyphosate N-acetyltransferases) that are described as modifying glyphosate by acetylation of a secondary amine to yield N-acetylglyphosate.
Barry et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,463,175) describe genes encoding an oxidoreductase (GOX), and states that GOX proteins degrade glyphosate by removing the phosphonate residue to yield amino methyl phosphonic acid (AMPA). This activity suggests that glyphosate resistance can also be conferred, at least partially, by removal of the phosphonate group from glyphosate. However, the resulting compound (AMPA) appears to provide reduced but measurable toxicity upon plant cells. Barry describes the effect of AMPA accumulation on plant cells as resulting in effects including chlorosis of leaves, infertility, stunted growth, and death. Barry (U.S. Pat. No. 6,448,476) describes plant cells expressing an AMPA-N-acetyltransferase (phnO) to detoxify AMPA.
Phosphonates, such as glyphosate, can also be degraded by cleavage of C—P bond by a C—P lyase. Wacket et al. (1987) J. Bacteriol. 169:710-717 describe strains that utilize glyphosate as a sole phosphate source. Kishore et al. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 262:12164-12168 and Shinabarger et al. (1986) J. Bacteriol. 168:702-707 describe degradation of glyphosate by C—P lyase to yield glycine and inorganic phosphate.
While several strategies are available for detoxification of toxins, such as the herbicide glyphosate, as described above, new activities capable of degrading glyphosate are useful. Novel genes and genes conferring glyphosate resistance by novel mechanisms of action would be of additional usefulness. Single genes conferring glyphosate resistance by formation of non-toxic products would be especially useful.
Thus, novel genes encoding resistance to herbicides are needed. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Many electrophotographic (EP) printers and copiers utilize laser printheads that operate by discharging small areas of a photoreceptor, after which toner is applied to the photoreceptor in a manner such that some toner is attracted to the areas of the photoreceptor that have been discharged by the laser light. Once that has occurred, a sheet of print media is applied to the photoreceptor in a manner that the toner adheres to the sheet of print media in the same pattern to which the toner was attracted to the photoreceptor.
EP printers and copiers usually provide toner through a developer section that uses a doctor blade to uniformly spread the toner particles along the entire width of the developer section so that toner is available across the imaging width of the photoreceptor. In many laser printers, the photoreceptor is cylindrical in shape and is commonly referred to as a photoconductive (PC) drum, which is charged to a relatively high voltage by a charge roller. The areas of the PC drum that maintain this large voltage magnitude tend to repel toner particles, while the discharged areas of the PC drum tend to attract toner particles.
The electrical characteristics of the main components of a laser print engine will typically degrade somewhat during usage of the components. For example, the charge voltage on a PC drum will tend to decrease over its usage life because the voltage supplied by the charge roller will encounter a higher resistance as the surfaces of the major components become somewhat contaminated. The PC drum itself can have its capacitive characteristics change over time as a cleaner blade scrubs away toner particles that did not adhere to print media during a printing operation.
As the components of a laser print engine tend to degrade somewhat during the life span of the print engine, the printer output darkness will gradually become either lighter or darker. In many EP printers, the printer output darkness gradually turns darker over the life of a removable EP process cartridge, and without any type of correction, this gradual darkness increase can become noticeable to the human user. By the end of the life span of some EP process cartridges, the printer output darkness may have shifted by as much as 15 L* units (of CIELAB L*a*b* color space). Consequently, when a new process cartridge is installed, the printer output darkness will be noticeably lighter to many human users.
There have been some attempts in the past to adjust certain operating parameters to account for certain changes in properties of EP printers and copiers. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,945 (by Stephens) discloses an illumination control system for EP copiers that can compensate for changes in the electro-photosensitive properties of the reusable photoconductive insulator member during its useful life. The Stevens system senses and stores usage information about the photoconductive member, and over the life of the photoconductor can increase the exposure in accordance with a non-linear schedule that corresponds to photochemical, sensitometric changes that occur with increasing cumulative usage.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,575,505 (by Parmigiani) discloses an EP printer or copier that compensates for the gradual deterioration of performance of the electrophotosensitive member by gradually raising the bias voltage on the development electrode. The Parmigiani system counts the number of cycles of operation of the EP printer or copier and changes the bias voltage applied to the magnetic brush in response to a predetermined number of cycles in the machine. In this manner, the bias voltage is automatically raised, based upon the number of copies produced by the machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,272,503 (by LeSueur) discloses an EP printer or copier that stores a value that varies as a function of usage of a replaceable sub-assembly, and a controller automatically adjusts a selected operating parameter in accordance with a stored value to maintain the printing quality of the printer/copier. The operating parameters that may be adjusted include the photoreceptor charge level, exposure level, developer bias level, and the response level of the automatic density control system. The memory of a replaceable cartridge or cassette that holds toner can store the print count, number of revolutions of the photoconductive belt, number of charge cycles, and the difference between an intended and the actual charge on the photoreceptor. One of the problems that LeSueur notes is when the age of the cassette increases, the characteristics of the developer device may change, thereby leading to deterioration of the line development performance of the printer, even though the solid area development capability may remain constant. This may be corrected by adjusting the automatic density control setpoint to restore the line development performance. Another effect noted by LeSueur that may occur as the cassette ages is that concentration of toner in the sump of the developer device may drop even though the print quality parameters are satisfied. Use of the cassette at such reduced toner concentration levels may cause a shortening of the life of the developer material, and thus of the cassette. The LeSueur system adjusts the parameters to maintain the toner concentration at its desired level over the age of the cassette, by increasing the toner concentration to prevent a shortening of the life of developer material, thus prolonging the useable life of the cassette.
The patents discussed above may increase the life of a replaceable cassette or cartridge, or they may keep certain operating parameters to a more nominal value over the life of the EP printer, but they do not specifically compensate for a gradual increase or decrease in printer output darkness of an EP printer or copier. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to a cockpit module of a vehicle, with a cup holder which has an opening for receiving a drinking vessel, and an illumination device for illuminating the cup holder.
Cup holders are used in vehicles in order to give the occupants the possibility of, on the one hand, safely storing drinking vessels and, on the other hand, having the drinking vessels easily accessible during the journey. Cup holders in which the drinking vessel is placed into an opening, so that it is held securely against slipping or tipping over, are arranged at different locations within the vehicle. A disadvantage of the known solutions is that the use of the cup holder in the dark requires increased attentiveness, since the cup holders are generally not illuminated. This is particularly because the illumination is costly, since illumination means have to be provided on the cup holder and have to be connected to the power supply of the vehicle by elaborate wiring. As an alternative thereto, cup holders can also be illuminated by a light-guiding means being laid from the illumination means as far as the cup holder. Nevertheless, the illumination means generally has to be wired up in this case too. Accordingly, in particular for cost reasons, cup holders are often entirely unilluminated or only inadequately illuminated. When the vehicle driver uses a cup holder of this type, he has to first laboriously search or even feel for the cup holder in the dark. As a result, the vehicle driver is distracted unnecessarily from the events on the road, thus putting traffic safety at risk. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Production of pharmaceutically active peptides and proteins in large quantities has become feasible (Biomacromolecules 2004; 5:1917-1925). The oral route is considered the most convenient way of drug administrations for patients. Nevertheless, the intestinal epithelium is a major barrier to the absorption of hydrophilic drugs such as peptides and proteins (J. Control. Release 1996; 39:131-138). This is because hydrophilic drugs cannot easily diffuse across the cells through the lipid-bilayer cell membranes. Attentions have been given to improving paracellular transport of hydrophilic drugs (J. Control. Release 1998; 51:35-46). The transport of hydrophilic molecules via the paracellular pathway is, however, severely restricted by the presence of tight junctions that are located at the luminal aspect of adjacent epithelial cells (Annu. Rev. Nutr. 1995; 15:35-55). These tight junctions form a barrier that limits the paracellular diffusion of hydrophilic molecules. The structure and function of tight junctions is described, inter alia, in Ann. Rev. Physiol. 1998; 60:121-160 and in Ballard T S et al., Annu. Rev. Nutr. 1995; 15:35-55. Tight junctions do not form a rigid barrier but play an important role in the diffusion through the intestinal epithelium from lumen to bloodstream and vice versa.
Movement of solutes between cells, through the tight junctions that bind cells together into a layer as with the epithelial cells of the gastrointestinal tract, is termed paracellular transport. Paracellular transport is passive. Paracellular transport depends on electrochemical gradients generated by transcellular transport and on solvent drag through tight junctions. Tight junctions form an intercellular barrier that separates the apical and basolateral fluid compartments of a cell layer. Movement of a solute through a tight junction from apical to basolateral compartments depends on the “tightness” of the tight junction for that solute.
Polymeric nanoparticles have been widely investigated as carriers for drug delivery (Biomaterials 2002; 23:3193-3201). Much attention has been given to the nanoparticles made of synthetic biodegradable polymers such as poly-ε-caprolactone and polylactide due to their good biocompatibility (J. Drug Delivery 2000; 7:215-232; Eur. J. Pharm. Biopharm. 1995; 41:19-25). However, these nanoparticles are not ideal carriers for hydrophilic drugs because of their hydrophobic property. Some aspects of the invention relate to a novel nanoparticle system, composed of hydrophilic chitosan and poly(glutamic acid) hydrogels that is prepared by a simple ionic-gelation method. This technique is promising as the nanoparticles are prepared under mild conditions without using harmful solvents. It is known that organic solvents may cause degradation of peptide or protein drugs that are unstable and sensitive to their environments (J. Control. Release 2001; 73:279-291).
Following the oral drug delivery route, protein drugs are readily degraded by the low pH of gastric medium in the stomach. The absorption of protein drugs following oral administration is challenging due to their high molecular weight, hydrophilicity, and susceptibility to enzymatic inactivation. Protein drugs at the intestinal epithelium could not partition into the hydrophobic membrane and thus can only traverse the epithelial barrier via the paracellular pathway. However, the tight junction forms a barrier that limits the paracellular diffusion of hydrophilic molecules.
Chitosan (CS), a cationic polysaccharide, is generally derived from chitin by alkaline deacetylation (J. Control. Release 2004; 96:285-300). It was reported from literature that CS is non-toxic and soft-tissue compatible (Biomacromolecules 2004; 5:1917-1925; Biomacromolecules 2004; 5:828-833). Additionally, it is known that CS has a special feature of adhering to the mucosal surface and transiently opening the tight junctions between epithelial cells (Pharm. Res. 1994; 11:1358-1361). Most commercially available CSs have a quite large molecular weight (MW) and need to be dissolved in an acetic acid solution at a pH value of approximately 4.0 or lower that is sometimes impractical. However, there are potential applications of CS in which a low MW would be essential. Given a low MW, the polycationic characteristic of CS can be used together with a good solubility at a pH value close to physiological ranges (Eur. J. Pharm. Biopharm. 2004; 57:101-105). Loading of peptide or protein drugs at physiological pH ranges would preserve their bioactivity. On this basis, a low-MW CS, obtained by depolymerizing a commercially available CS using cellulase, is disclosed herein to prepare nanoparticles of the present invention.
The γ-PGA, an anionic peptide, is a natural compound produced as capsular substance or as slime by members of the genus Bacillus (Crit. Rev. Biotechnol. 2001; 21:219-232). γ-PGA is unique in that it is composed of naturally occurring L-glutamic acid linked together through amide bonds. It was reported from literature that this naturally occurring γ-PGA is a water-soluble, biodegradable, and non-toxic polymer. A related, but structurally different polymer, [poly(α-glutamic acid), α-PGA] has been used for drug delivery (Adv. Drug Deliver. Rev. 2002; 54:695-713; Cancer Res. 1998; 58:2404-2409). α-PGA is usually synthesized from poly(γ-benzyl-L-glutamate) by removing the benzyl protecting group with the use of hydrogen bromide. Hashida et al. used α-PGA as a polymeric backbone and galactose moiety as a ligand to target hepatocytes (J. Control. Release 1999; 62:253-262). Their in vivo results indicated that the galactosylated α-PGA had a remarkable targeting ability to hepatocytes and degradation of α-PGA was observed in the liver.
Heppe et al. in U.S. patent application publication no. 2006/0051423 A1, entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, discloses a chitosan-based transport system for overcoming the blood-brain barrier. This transport system can convey active agents or markers into the brain. The transport system contains at least one substance selected from the group consisting of chitin, chitosan, chitosan oligosaccharides, glucosamine, and derivatives thereof, and optionally one or more active agents and/or one or more markers and/or one or more ligands. However, Heppe et al. neither teaches a chitosan-shelled nanoparticle transport system, nor asserts substantial efficacy of chitosan-shelled nanoparticles permeating through blood-brain barriers.
Thanou et al. reported chitosan and its derivatives as intestinal absorption enhancers (Adv Drug Deliv Rev 2001; 50:S91-S101). Chitosan, when protonated at an acidic pH, is able to increase the paracellular permeability of peptide drugs across mucosal epithelia. Co-administration of chitosan or trimethyl chitosan chloride with peptide drugs were found to substantially increase the bioavailability of the peptide in animals compared with administrations without the chitosan component.
Chitosan (CS)-based complexes have been considered as a vector for DNA delivery; nonetheless, their transfection efficiency is relatively low. There appears to have a clinical need to incorporate a negatively charged organic substrate, such as poly(γ-glutamic acid), in CS/DNA complexes to enhance their gene expression level. Furthermore, the inclusion of a negatively charged organic substrate in CS/siRNA complexes could significantly expedite the onset of gene knockdown, enhance their inhibition efficiency and prolong the duration of gene silencing. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Industrial controllers are special purpose processing devices used for controlling (e.g., automated and semi-automated) industrial processes, machines, manufacturing equipment, plants, and the like. A typical controller executes a control program or routine in order to measure one or more process variables or inputs representative of the status of a controlled process and/or affect outputs associated with control of the process. A typical control routine can be created in a controller configuration environment that has various tools and interfaces whereby a developer can construct and implement a control strategy using industrial and conventional programming languages or graphical representations of control functionality.
Industrial controllers measure inputs and control outputs in a serial continuous manner. Inputs and outputs can be recorded in I/O memory. The input values can be asynchronously or synchronously read from the controlled process by one or more input modules and output values can be written directly to memory by a processor for subsequent communication to the process by specialized communications circuitry. An output module can interface directly with a controlled process by providing an output from memory to an actuator such as a motor, drive, valve, solenoid, and the like. During execution of the control routine, values of the inputs and outputs exchanged with the controlled process can pass through memory. Values of inputs in memory can be asynchronously or synchronously updated from the controlled process by dedicated and/or common scanning circuitry. The input values in a data table are updated and modified in real-time. Similarly, output control variables are calculated constantly.
Other areas of an enterprise system may wish to utilize the data measured by an industrial controller or keep a record of the output conditions. For instance, a database might be used to keep records of the values of certain inputs or outputs. This could be desired in situations where decisions affecting the overall manufacturing process are heavily influenced by a particular aspect of the industrial process. Enterprise Information Technology (IT) systems, such as database systems, are transactional in nature. As such, the data in the real-time controller environment is typically retrieved in scheduled batches at periodic intervals by complex custom systems. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel tank structure for a saddle-ride type vehicle.
2. Description of Background Art
In order to limit the discharge of vaporized fuel in the fuel tank toward the outside of the tank, fuel tanks have heretofore been increased and are designed not to release tank inner pressure to the atmosphere when pressure in the fuel tank is equal to or lower than a predetermined pressure.
In this case, although the pressure in the fuel tank is equal to or lower than the predetermined pressure, a certain level of pressure is released from around a tank cap when a filler neck of the fuel tank is opened. Therefore, a quantity of fuel may possibly leak out from the filler neck.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 10-236366 discloses the structure wherein a cover member covers the periphery of a filler neck of a fuel tank of a saddle-ride type vehicle to make the upwardly projection of a tank cap inconspicuous. In addition, a passage for discharging downwardly the fuel and the like coming from a breathing hole provided in the tank cap is formed by a gap between the upper surface of the fuel tank and the cover member.
In this case, the tank cap has a second seal member for closing the gap between the outer circumferential portion of the tank cap and the cover member in addition to a first seal member for closing the filler neck. The second seal member is designed to efficiently lead the fuel leaking from the filler neck to the gap between the cover member and the fuel tank for discharge.
The second seal member for closing the gap between the tank cap and the cover member is provided in addition to the first seal member for closing the filler neck as in the above conventional technology. In such a case, however, there is a problem in that it is necessary to set tightening margins, loads and the like accurately so as to allow both the seal members to function appropriately, which easily leads to an increase in the cost. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
This invention relates to generally to vehicular and stationary liquid tanks and specifically to apparatus and methods for heating the valves of vehicular water tanks to prevent or undue freezing of such valves.
Trucks and other vehicles carrying large water tanks suffer from cold related problems during inclement weather. One particular problem which occurs is that of valve freezing. This same problem also occurs with stationary tanks, for example xe2x80x9cin fieldxe2x80x9d oil storage tanks.
In a typical vehicle having a water tank, the water tank has an inlet/outlet valve to an outlet line and a vacuum line. The vacuum line induces a vacuum inside the tank to induce water to enter via the inlet/outlet valve. The vacuum line also pressurizes the tank to force water to exit via the inlet/outlet valve.
A vacuum tank or scrubber tank or scrubber may be employed upon the vacuum line to prevent water or evaporated moisture from the tank from reaching the pump which supplies the vacuum or increased pressure. Such a tank may simply serve as a condensate trap. However, in cold conditions the scrubber tank may itself freeze, thus reducing the efficiency of the pump or blocking the line entirely.
The water in the tank is substantially protected from freezing by its large thermal mass. In addition, tank heaters may prevent water in the tank from freezing. While tank heaters are sufficient to prevent freezing of the water in the tank, they are not sufficient to prevent freezing in the various valves, scrubber tanks and other appendages to the tank. Such appendages have relatively little mass and contain relatively little water, thus leaving them open to the certainty of swift heat loss in cold weather. The wind chill induced during vehicle motion, when operating on any parts that have become externally wet, can easily induce freezing even when the actual external temperature is above the freezing point of water. Heaters located in or on the water tank itself are not able to help prevent such freezing. It is normally not possible to entirely clean all the water from the inside of a valve, and even a modest residue is sufficient to freeze a valve (or scrubber, pipe, or other appendage) and render the vehicle inoperable until heat is applied to the affected part.
In addition, when a vehicle is parked for a night, it may suffer freezing which must be undone when the vehicle is next placed into service.
In the past, the most common method of unfreezing the valve was application of a blowtorch to the exterior of the valve to warm the metal until whatever water residue was freezing inside of the valve melted and freed the valve. This has some disadvantages, however, for example requiring trucks to carry blow torches. In addition, it is not uncommon to find a small residue of oil or other petrochemicals remaining in such a tank, even when the tank is ordinarily used to carry water. Vapors from such chemicals have in the past ignited, causing an explosion of the tank. Several accidents a year occur in this manner. Trucks hauling water, fire trucks, street sweepers, trucks going to and from oil rigs, tanker trucks for service stations or airports and numerous other types of vehicles are all plagued by this problem. Vacuum trucks, in particular, are widely used in the petroleum industry to remove and transport a wide variety of products, by-products, wastes and other liquids, including but not limited to flammable and inflammable hydrocarbons, caustics, hazardous materials, etc. Such tanks are often used to service isolated stationary tanks, for example by removal of product, or for spill recovery and material transfers. Such trucks are equipped with a further wide variety of equipment, accessories, and systems to prevent or minimize liquid carryover into the vacuum pump during loading or off-loading. These include filters, baffles, deflectors, swash plates, moisture traps or scrubbers, cyclones, screens, baskets, bags and cartridges, internal and secondary shut-offs, multiple routings, scrubber drain valves, isolation valves, bleeder valves, manifold/inlet/outlet valves and external scrubbers. Such trucks are often protected from over-pressure by relief valves or rupture discs such as pop-offs.
The same problems occur with stationary tanks.
A need exists to prevent vehicular water tank valves, scrubber tanks and lines from freezing, and to undue such freezing when it occurs.
General Summary
The present invention teaches the use of vehicle engine coolant circulated through couplings, sleeves or similar fittings which are utilized at the locations where freezing is likely to occur.
In one embodiment, the invention teaches a manifold heater built to mate with pipe flanges holding between them an ordinary valve.
In an alternative embodiment, the invention teaches a scrubber heater meant to serve as a short section of vacuum line/drain line positioned just beneath the scrubber so as to warm the air entering the scrubber and the scrubber itself as well.
In an alternative embodiment, the invention teaches a quick disconnect cuff for unfreezing valves, pipes or accessories other than those on the vehicle or stationary tank equipped with the invention.
Summary in Specific Reference to the Claims
It is therefore one aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a water tank valve heater for use upon a water cooled vehicle engine, the heater comprising: 1) a first coolant line having first and second ends, the first end being operatively connected to such vehicle engine by which means coolant may pass between such vehicle engine and such first coolant line; 2) a second coolant line having third and fourth ends, the fourth end being operatively connected to such vehicle engine by which means coolant may pass between such vehicle engine and such second coolant line; 3) a heater body disposed at such valve, 4) the heater body having a coolant conduit therethrough, the coolant conduit having an inlet and an outlet in operative connection with each other, the second end and third end being operatively connected to such heater body respectively at the inlet and outlet, by which means coolant may pass between the first and second coolant lines.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater wherein the heater body is disposed at such valve by being secured to a pipe entering such valve adjacent to the valve.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater wherein the heater body is disposed at such valve by being secured directly to such valve.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater wherein the coolant conduit is serpentine.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater wherein the coolant conduit widens within the heater body to from a cavity.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater wherein the coolant conduit divides shortly after entrance of coolant into the heater body, and reunites shortly before exit of the coolant from the healer body.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater further comprising: 5) first and second couplings at the second and third ends of the coolant lines, the first and second couplings being dimensioned and configured to operatively connect respectively to the inlet and outlet.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater further comprising: 6) a bypass valve having first and second positions, the first position allowing flow of coolant directly from the second end to the third end, the second position preventing flow of coolant directly from the second end to the third end.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater wherein the material of the heater is one member selected from the group consisting of: steel, aluminum, polymer, and combinations thereof.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater further comprising: 7) disposed on the surface of the conduit a coolant resistant material comprising one member selected from the group consisting of: a sleeve, an insert, a coating, a treated portion of the heater body, and combinations thereof.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a heater used on a generally cylindrical valve, wherein: 8) the heater body is generally cylindrical and hollow, having a diameter greater than such cylindrical valve, 9) the heater body being disposed about the cylindrical valve, and 10) each end of the heater body is closed by means of a generally circular plate having a hole through which the generally cylindrical valve passes, wherein the hole is the same shape and dimension as the exterior surface of the generally cylindrical valve.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a water tank scrubber heater for use upon a water cooled vehicle engine, the heater comprising: 1) a first coolant line having first and second ends, the first end being operatively connected to such vehicle engine by which means coolant may pass between such vehicle engine and such first coolant line; 2) a second coolant line having third and fourth ends, the fourth end being operatively connected to such vehicle engine by which means coolant may pass between such vehicle engine and such second coolant line; 3) a heater body disposed at such scrubber, 4) the heater body having a coolant conduit therethrough, the coolant conduit having an inlet and an outlet in operative connection with each other, the second end and third end being operatively connected to such heater body respectively at the inlet and outlet, by which means coolant may pass between the first and second coolant lines.
It is therefore another aspect, advantage, embodiment and objective of the present invention to provide a method of thawing frozen water valves on water tank vehicles and water tanks served by vehicles, the method comprising the steps of: 1) heating engine coolant in an engine, 2) passing the coolant through a heater body disposed upon a water valve. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Evaluation of left ventricular function is of interest for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications. During normal cardiac function, the left atrium, the left ventricle, and the right ventricle observe consistent time-dependent relationships during the systolic (contractile) phase and the diastolic (relaxation) phase of the cardiac cycle. During cardiac dysfunction associated with pathological conditions or following cardiac-related surgical procedures, these time-dependent mechanical relationships are often altered. This alteration, when combined with the effects of weakened cardiac muscles, reduces the ability of the ventricle to generate contractile strength resulting in hemodynamic insufficiency.
Ventricular dyssynchrony following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery is a problem encountered relatively often, requiring post-operative temporary pacing. Atrio-biventricular pacing has been found to improve post-operative hemodynamics following such procedures.
Ventricular resynchronization therapy has been clinically demonstrated to improve indices of cardiac function in patients suffering from congestive heart failure. Cardiac pacing may be applied to one or both ventricles or multiple heart chambers, including one or both atria, to improve cardiac chamber coordination, which in turn is thought to improve cardiac output and pumping efficiency. Clinical follow-up of patients undergoing resynchronization therapy has shown improvements in hemodynamic measures of cardiac function, left ventricular volumes, and wall motion. However, not all patients respond favorably to cardiac resynchronization therapy. Physicians are challenged in selecting patients that will benefit and in selecting the optimal pacing intervals applied to resynchronize the heart chamber contractions.
Selection of atrial-ventricular (A-V) and inter-ventricular (V-V) pacing intervals may be based on echocardiographic studies performed to determine the settings resulting in the best hemodynamic response. However, this approach provides only an open-loop method. After evaluating the hemodynamic effect of varying combinations of pacing intervals, a physician must manually select and program the desired parameters and assume that the patient's device optimal settings remain unchanged until a subsequent re-optimization visit. Automated methods for selecting pacing intervals during multi-chamber pacing have been proposed. A four-chamber pacing system that includes impedance sensing for determining the timing of right heart valve closure or right ventricular contraction and adjusting the timing of delivery of left ventricular pace pulses is generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,223,082 issued to Bakels, et al., incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Programmable coupling intervals selected so as to provide optimal hemodynamic benefit to the patient in an implantable multichamber cardiac stimulation device are generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,473,645 issued to Levine, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Doppler tissue imaging has been used clinically to evaluate myocardial shortening rates and strength of contraction. This rate of contraction has been investigated as a determinant of clinical health of the ventricle. Doppler tissue imaging has also been used to investigate coordination between septal and lateral wall motion for predicting which patients are likely to benefit from cardiac resynchronization therapy. Evidence suggests patient response is dependent on the degree of ventricular synchrony before and after therapy. Doppler tissue imaging studies have shown that the left ventricular mid to mid-basal segments show the greatest improvement in shortening following cardiac resynchronization therapy. Detection and monitoring of left ventricular wall motion, therefore, would be useful in optimizing cardiac resynchronization therapy.
Implantable sensors for monitoring heart wall motion have been described. A sensor implanted in the heart mass for monitoring heart function by monitoring the momentum or velocity of the heart mass is generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,838 issued to Vallana et al. A catheter for insertion into the ventricle for monitoring cardiac contractility having an acceleration transducer at or proximate the catheter tip is generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,077,236 issued to Cunningham. Implantable leads incorporating accelerometer-based cardiac wall transducers are generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,777 issued to Moberg, et al. A device for sensing natural heart acceleration is generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,693,075, issued to Plicchi, et al. A system for myocardial tensiometery including a tensiometric element disposed at a location subject to bending due to cardiac contractions is generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,418 issued to Ferek-Petric et al. All of the above-cited patents are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Detection of peak endocardial wall motion in the apex of the right ventricle for optimizing A-V intervals has been validated clinically. A system and method for using cardiac wall motion sensor signals to provide hemodynamically optimal values for heart rate and AV interval are generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,549,650 issued to Bornzin, et al., incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. A cardiac stimulating system designed to automatically optimize both the pacing mode and one or more pacing cycle parameters in a way that results in optimization of a cardiac performance parameter, including for example heart accelerations, is generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,727, issued to Tockman, et al.
A need remains, however, for providing a device and method for monitoring left ventricular wall motion and for selecting optimal cardiac pacing intervals that produce the greatest improvement in left ventricular wall motion during multi-chamber or biventricular pacing delivered to improve heart chamber synchronization, chronically or acutely. Improved left ventricular wall motion is expected to reflect an improvement in cardiac chamber synchrony and generally result in a net improvement in cardiac efficiency. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
This invention relates to the use of electromagnetic waves and, more particularly, relates to devices for changing the propagation direction of an electromagnetic wave.
In the years since the development of radar systems for military applications during World War II, radio ranging systems have undergone extensive refinement and have been employed in many different environments, both military and civilian. One component required by such systems, and more broadly by most electronics systems employing the use of electromagnetic waves in general, is a device capable of directing the wave energy in a particular direction. In a radar system, for example, the beam frequently must be swept in azimuth and elevation, while the antenna in a communications system often must be directed toward a receiving unit.
Although steering devices adequate to handle the needs of conventional radars are known in the art, the recent trend toward the development of radar systems utilizing radio waves in the millimeter wavelength region has complicated the design of the beam steering function.
Millimeter wave active and passive radars possess an inherent allweather capability. Because of this feature, defense organizations have emphasized the development of millimeter wave systems for a number of major weapons systems. Millimeter wave radars have been contemplated, for example, for use in terminal guidance for mobile anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and air-to-surface projectile and missile systems, surface-to-air guidance and tracking, "smart" disposable warheads, and moving target identification and tracking. Particularly where such radars are designed for uses requiring a compact radar unit, such as on a ballistic missile, the small size of a millimeter wave antenna (due to the reduced wavelength as compared to conventional radars) is an additional attractive feature of the millimeter wave radar.
Conventional mechanical radar antenna sweeping systems, however, are inherently slow in response, relatively large in size, excessively heavy, and tend to be mechanically unstable, each of these attributes making these types of antennas unsuitable for use in the millimeter wave region missile radars. Furthermore, the discrete element phased array antennas used at longer (centimeter) wavelengths are not practical in the millimeter wavelength region because of the small physical dimensions, the large number of individual elements, and the exact tolerances which are there required. A ferromagnetic phased array, whether of the discrete element or space fed mosaic design, includes costly magnetic control coils in the antenna structure, and in addition is difficult to fabricate and tends to be less compact than is desired. Semiconductor diode phase shifters are limited in speed by carrier recombination time and require complicated structures for their implementation.
Consequently, a need has developed in the art for a beam steering device which is fast, reliable, relatively low in cost, compact, and light-weight in millimeter wavelength embodiments. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Field of Invention
The invention relates to an electrical test structure in an integrated circuit, in particular in a DRAM circuit with trench capacitors. The invention further relates to a test method.
A multiplicity of process steps are necessary for fabricating an integrated circuit on a semiconductor substrate. A number of process steps during which a specific (partial) structure of the circuit is produced is referred to as a module; examples thereof are modules for forming isolation trenches in the substrate, for forming a transistor or for forming a capacitor. In order to identify defect sources, it is necessary to check individual process steps or complete modules in a suitable manner to ascertain whether prescribed specifications are being adhered to. It is thereby possible to use so-called "monitor wafers" (additional wafers on which the complete circuit is not fabricated) or the wafers with the partly completed circuits themselves. Optical or electrical test methods, inter alia, can be employed, the circuit itself or dedicated test structures being evaluated.
The present invention relates to a test method and a test structure which can be used, in particular, in the fabrication of DRAM memories with trench capacitors and a polysilicon strip (surface strap) as an electrical connection between the selection transistor and the capacitor, and will be explained in more detail using this example. The essential steps of the fabrication method or of the process module that is relevant in this case for the type of memory cells mentioned are illustrated in FIGS. 5 to 8. Provision is made (see FIG. 5) for forming, in a semiconductor substrate 1, a trench 2 for a capacitor, whose wall is provided with a capacitor dielectric 3 in the lower section and with a thicker insulation collar 4 in the upper section. The trench is filled with doped polysilicon 5a, 5b as storage electrode. An isolation trench 6 is formed, which partly overlaps the trench and is filled with TEOS, for example. The isolation trench serves, in particular, to effect insulation from a neighboring cell which adjoins the memory cell illustrated in FIG. 5 in a mirror-inverted manner on the right-hand side. The selection transistor is then formed adjacent to the capacitor trench 2. A so-called gate stack comprising, in particular, n-doped polysilicon 8, a further conductive layer 9 (for example WSi or another silicide) arranged thereon and a covering insulation layer 10 (for example made of silicon oxide or nitride) is formed on a gate oxide 7. An insulating spacer 11 preferably made of the material of the covering insulation layer is produced on the sidewalls of the gate stack and the S/D regions 12 of the transistor are implanted. If appropriate, the spacer may be designed in two parts, LDD regions being implanted after the first spacer element in a known manner. The selection transistor of the memory cell is thus completed. A silicon nitride layer 13 is subsequently applied. The layer 13 has a preferred thickness in the range of from 20 to 30 nm.
The method further provides (see FIG. 6) for the nitride layer 13 to be removed, with the aid of a photomask, at the locations at which the surface straps for electrical connection between the selection transistor and the capacitor are intended to be formed. At the same time, the upper region of the trench capacitor is etched into and, in particular, the thick insulation collar is removed at that location down to a predetermined depth, thereby enabling contact with the capacitor here as well. The photomask thus has an opening above a region of the capacitor filling and the adjacent S/D region. The etching process employed (for example using CHF.sub.3 /CF.sub.4 and oxygen and argon) also attacks the covering insulating layer 10 and the side wall spacer 11 of the gate stack, so that there is a risk that the doped polysilicon 8 of the word line is uncovered. After the removal of the photomask, implantation using BF.sub.2 ions, in particular, is performed; the remaining nitride 13 acts as a doping mask in this case. The opening in the nitride layer 13 corresponds to the opening in the photomask. It is essentially the case that uncovered silicon is p-doped--that is to say the region of the capacitor filing and the adjacent S/D region--while hardly any B.sup.+ ions are deposited in uncovered silicon oxide. Afterwards, undoped polysilicon 14 is applied and p-doped section by section by means of outdiffusion from the underlying doped silicon and polysilicon. The polysilicon 14 thereby fills the hole produced in the trench. Its preferred thickness is from 50 to 100 nm.
The undoped polysilicon 14 is removed (see FIG. 7) by a KOH etching process or another suitable selective etching process which does not attack the p.sup.+ -doped polysilicon sections 14' thus produced. The doped p.sup.+ -type polysilicon sections 14' form the "surface straps". There is a risk, however, of possibly uncovered n-doped polysilicon 8 of the gate likewise being attacked and removed. P.sup.- -doped silicon as a gate constituent would also be attacked by the etchant. This leads to the failure of the selection transistor (and hence of the memory cell) since a cavity is then produced above the gate oxide and the transistor cannot be driven, i.e., switched. It has been shown that the failing cells are usually distributed statistically and there exist correlations not just with one preceding process step, but with a number of preceding process steps.
The failure mechanism described leads to a dip in the yield. Electrical inline monitoring during the production process has not been possible heretofore, in particular as the problem generally occurs only in the cell array. There is an equally small possibility of unambiguously assigning the KOH attack to (subsequent) test data.
Further details of the method, only the essential points of which have been described here, are disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,294 (European application EP 543 158 A2) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,731,218 (European application EP 651 433 A1--in particular columns 4 and 6 of the description). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The present invention relates to a system for sharing listener objects among multiple applications each running inside its own virtual machine.
Computer hardware and storage media can only create, store, and process binary information, i.e. information written using only two digits, “0” and “1”. A compact disc, for example, has a surface subdivided into tiny sections that are either pitted (1) or not pitted (0) such that a laser can detect the presence or absence of pits. Similarly, microprocessors have inputs and outputs to which a reference voltage either is (1) or is not (0) present. (Microprocessors repeatedly measure the voltage at each input and output at regular intervals, or cycles—hence the speed of a processor is expressed in cycles per second, or “Hertz.”) Accordingly, any computer program, as well as any data used in that computer program, must first be expressed in binary code for a computer to run the program or process the data.
Though binary code is conceptually simple, its use to perform computerized tasks introduces two drawbacks. First, binary code is a relatively inefficient way to express information. As a simple example, the number “100” in decimal notation is expressed as “1100100” in binary code, and therefore must at a minimum occupy seven “pits” on a compact disc and/or occupy either a single input of a processor for seven cycles (if entered serially) or seven inputs for one cycle (if entered in parallel). In technical terms, the space that a piece of information occupies, or alternatively the number of time cycles a piece of information occupies, is referred to in “bits.” That is to say, the number “100” is a 7-bit number because it takes seven digits to express in binary code. The number “101” is also a 7-bit number, coded as 1100101, as is every number between “64” (1000000) and “127” (1111111).
In computer applications, binary code is even more inefficient because computerized information is, by convention, typically expressed in multiples of 8 bits, e.g. 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit, etc. The reason for this convention is that a computer processing or storage device has no physical way of distinguishing when one number ends and another number begins. Accordingly, the convention is to write a program that specifies the bit-rate, i.e. the number of bits that each piece of data processed in the program will occupy. If a program is written in 8-bit code, for example, every piece of data occupies eight bits, e.g. the number 0 is coded as 00000000, the number 1 is coded as 00000001, and the number 255 is coded as 11111111. In 8-bit code, therefore, every piece of data has a value between 0 and 255 and every piece of data occupies 8 bits even if it could theoretically be represented by a single bit. If a program requires that any piece of data take on a value greater than 255, the bit-rate for the program must be increased incrementally to 16-bit, 24-bit, etc. as appropriate.
A computer program operating in binary code may therefore use a tremendous amount of storage space and processor cycles, particularly when graphics are involved. For example, a photographic quality image is often coded at 24-bits for every pixel. If the image resolution is 2 million pixels, as is common with today's digital cameras, each image would occupy 48 million bits, or 4 Megabytes, where a byte is defined as 8 bits per byte (due to the convention of expressing binary code in multiples of 8 bits). Manipulating that image would similarly require 48 million cycles of processor time for each manipulation. The amount of storage space and processing time increases exponentially when manipulating video because the computer system must process and store many such images every second. In addition, there are many other computer applications that are at least as intensive as image processing. Applications of such intensity tend to slow considerably as data is “bottlenecked” in the computer system.
One way of minimizing the impact of the inefficiency of binary code has been to increase the amount of storage space and processing speed of computers. For example, personal computers sold commercially today offer up to 300 gigabytes (300 billion bytes) of hard drive storage, 4 gigabytes (4 billion bytes) of temporary memory storage, and processing speeds of over 4 gigahertz (4 billion cycles per second). Business computers, such those used in the motion picture industry are even faster and include more storage. In other words, as computer applications have demanded more storage space and processing time, the computers have become faster with higher storage capacity. Still, while these numbers are impressive, computer systems are not sufficiently fast as to eliminate all bottlenecks, and in fact, as computers become faster with more available storage, new applications are developed to take advantage of the improved technology so as to provide the need for even faster computers, even more storage space, etc.
Another way of minimizing the impact of the inefficiency of binary code is to write computer programs and applications as efficiently as possible. Thus there is always an emphasis on writing computer code that achieves its outcome in as few steps or calculations as possible. Similarly, a computer program should not be written in 24-bit code when only 8-bit code is required for the application, and the computer program may compress data when appropriate.
A second drawback of using binary code to perform computerized tasks is that it is impractical to write a computer program in binary code, particularly with complex programs. The first rudimentary computers, for example, were operated by mechanically toggling electrical switches between on and off states to enter a sequence of binary instructions. Computer programs simply specified the sequence of binary instructions to enter. This method was feasible so long as the program was no more than about a hundred instructions long. Beyond that point, programming directly in binary code became too complex, and programs too difficult to correct, or debug. Moreover, because the binary instructions were dependent upon the particular electrical circuitry of the computer processor and related hardware, the programmer was required to know in detail the particular architecture of the computer being used by the program.
To accommodate computer programs of increasing complexity, as well as to facilitate the introduction of personal computers into the marketplace, modern operating systems were developed. Early computer operating systems, such as Microsoft Corporation's MS-DOS disk operating system (DOS) software, essentially acted as an interface with a computer's hardware so that a user could issue specific commands or instructions to the computer written in more ordinary language. The operating system would recognize the commands, and automatically issue the instructions to the computer in binary code. For example, in MS-DOS software, entering the command “MEM” into the computer would result in the computer displaying the types and amounts of computer memory available. The person issuing the command did not need to know anything about binary code or the manner in which the command being entered produced the desired result. The user simply needed to either memorize or look up a set of commands in an instruction manual.
Further, early operating systems recognized simple programming languages, such as Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) and FORTRAN, written in terms more intuitive than binary code. In these languages, commands such as WRITE, READ, LOOP, SET and other intuitive terms provided a means to write computer programs in a manner easily learned and perhaps more importantly, in a manner more easily readable when debugging the program. A simple computer program to calculate the area of a circle, for example, might have been written in BASIC approximately in this form:
10PROGRAM 120WRITE “This is a program to calculate the area of a circle.”30WRITE “Please enter the radius of the circle”40READ R50SET A=Π *R{circumflex over ( )}260WRITE “The area of the circle is” R70END
In this example, after a person typed “RUN PROGRAM 1”, the computer would execute the command lines in numerical sequence, whereby a person would be prompted to enter the value for a radius, defined as “R”, after which the computer would square that value, multiply the squared value by pi and print out the computed area. Writing this same program in binary code not only would have required much more time and effort on the part of the programmer, but the programmer also would have had to know the technical specifications of the computer processor. Obviously, the introduction of operating systems along with intuitive programming languages was a boon to both consumers and computer programmers.
A number of such operating systems and programming languages became prevalent. For example, Apple Inc.'s MAC OS and Microsoft's WINDOWS operating systems improved (from a consumer's perspective) upon simple text-based operating systems such as DOS by allowing a user to issue instructions to the computer using a point-and-click graphical interface displayed on a computer monitor. Computer applications, such as word processing programs, computer games, and a host of others took advantage of this functionality to provide products that could be used more intuitively through the graphical interface. Today, a host of operating systems are used, such as many versions of the WINDOWS, MAC OS, LINUX and WINDOWS NT software, among others.
A wide variety of programming languages also became prevalent. At first, most new programming languages followed the model of the early FORTRAN language by structuring the programming language as a series of commands by which a programmer would issue instructions to a computer in a logical order. The most popular of these language types is a program called “C.” The creation of “C” is considered by many to have marked the beginning of the modern age of computer languages. “C” successfully synthesized what had seemed to be conflicting attributes of several existing programming languages, adding new attributes to form a single, powerful structured language that also happened to be easy to learn. Moreover, it was a programmer's language. Prior to the development of “C”, computer languages were generally designed either as academic exercises by engineers or designed by bureaucratic committees. “C”, however, was developed by programmers, reflecting the way they approached the task of programming. As a result, “C” found wide and rapid acceptance in the programming community, attracting many followers who had near-religious zeal for it.
Once again, however, the increasing complexity of computer programs exposed an underlying flaw of “C” as well as its predecessors. Each of these programming languages requires that a program be written as a series of linear steps or instructions (with an occasional loop or branch thrown in). In fact, writing such a program is similar to constructing a geometric proof, and like a proof, once a program such as C or FORTRAN exceeds a certain number of steps (somewhere between 25,000 and 100,000 lines of code), the program becomes too complex to write effectively.
Therefore a new approach to computer programming began to find acceptance in the programming community, commonly referred to as object-oriented programming. Object-oriented programming approaches a programming task in roughly the same way that a person's mind might approach that task—by abstracting a solution. Rather than defining a series of steps, or instructions by which a task could be accomplished, an object-oriented program focuses first on a program's data, defining classes of data and objects, where an object is a particular instance of a class. An object-oriented program still contains instructions, referred to as methods, which often are embedded within the classes or objects themselves. An example of a simple object oriented program that displays the volume of two boxes might look like this:
class Box { double width; double height; double depth; // display volume of a box void volume ( ) { System.out.print (“Volume is ”); System.out.println (width*height*depth); }}class BoxDemo { public static void main (String args[ ] { Box mybox1 = new Box ( ); Box mybox2 = new Box ( ); // assign values to mybox 1's variables mybox1.width = 3 mybox1.height = 20 mybox1.depth = 15 // assign values to mybox2's variables mybox 2.width = 3 mybox2.height = 6 mybox2.depth = 9 // display volume of mybox1 mybox1.volume ( ); // display volume of mybox2 mybox2.volume ( )
In this example program, a box class is first defined having the variables of width, height, and depth (the term “double” identifies the type of number that the variable is allowed to be). The box class also defines a method to display the volume of an object box of this class by multiplying width by height by depth. Once this class has been defined, the program defines a second class BoxDemo which includes two objects of the initial box class. The class BoxDemo then twice calls the method of the first box class for displaying the volume of a box, once to display the volume of mybox 1 and once to display the volume of mybox2.
Object oriented programming has quickly gained widespread popularity. One particularly popular object oriented language is called JAVA, which is the programming language used in the foregoing example. JAVA is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems Inc. The reason the JAVA programming language has become so popular is its versatility in defining classes and objects, as well as its ability for one class or object to call functions in other classes and objects as well as to reuse data in other objects simply by referencing the function or the data. In the JAVA language, therefore, it is very easy to create multiple variations of a defined class, to create new variations of an old class, and to reuse a method previously defined by one class in a new class. Parenthetically, another object oriented programming language that has become popular is C++, which expands C to include the functionality of both object oriented programming and the instruction oriented programming of C.
The JAVA language, like any other programming language relies upon an interface to convert the program to the required binary instructions. With the JAVA programming language, this interface is called a “Virtual Machine” (VM) because the interface behaves as if it were a computer unto itself. Every time a JAVA language based computer application is initiated, the application initiates a VM to run the application. The JAVA virtual machine (VM) will be described in much greater detail later in this specification, but several important principles will be introduced now. First, while the input to a JAVA VM is always the JAVA programming language, the output of a JAVA VM is customized to the particular platform, or operating system, that hosts the JAVA VM. In other words, every JAVA application must be customized to the host operating system so that the VM that it creates is capable of converting the JAVA programming language to the commands unique to the host operating system, which in turn issues the appropriate binary instructions to the computer.
Second, JAVA VMs are designed to be independent of one another. If two JAVA applications are running on the same computer, each application creates its own VM which is self sufficient, i.e. neither VM needs rely upon the VM of the other application. If one application should close, the other application will not be affected. This often becomes problematical, however. Recall that even with today's processors and storage devices, a computer's resources may still be strained by intensive applications. With multiple JAVA applications running simultaneously, each creating its own VM, system resources may be strained and slowdowns may result. In other words, there is often a trade off between the desired independence of multiple JAVA applications and the speed at which the applications may run.
Third, the creators of the JAVA VM, Sun Microsystems, emphasized uniformity of the JAVA VM with respect to all of the host operating systems. Thus, while the “guts” of each VM will of necessity be different across each platform, a user of a JAVA VM was not intended to be able to recognize any difference, seeing the same functionality regardless of the host platform. This, however, became problematical. Many operating systems offer unique features not available to other operating systems. Thus a business operating on the WINDOWS NT operating system might desire to have a JAVA VM, and hence the JAVA application running the VM, take advantage of that unique functionality. The same would hold true for a user of a system with a MAC OS, LINUX, WINDOWS 9× or other operating system. Therefore, although Sun Microsystems' JAVA VM is uniform across all platforms, an industry has blossomed by which JAVA applications may be truly customized to a host operating system whereby the features of the host operating system are more fully exploited, and custom tailored to the particular needs of the business or person running the application.
This diversity among JAVA VMs tends to hinder the improvement of the JAVA VM and the programming language because many such improvements are tied to the particular species of JAVA VM upon which the improvement was developed. Many businesses may like the particular improvement, but dislike other aspects of the JAVA VM. In that instance, a business with its own custom or proprietary VM would have the options of buying the new VM with its perceived advantages and faults, or spend the time and resources to engineer its own VM, which it likes, to include the new improvement. Exacerbating this problem is that the new improvement may be proprietary, thus eliminating the second option.
What is desired then, is an improved system for implementing object-oriented computer applications that both efficiently allocates computer hardware resources among multiple computer applications running simultaneously on the same computer or network of computers, or among multiple threads of a single computer application running on a computer or network of computers, while also preserving the independence of multiple, simultaneous applications. What is further desired is such an improved system that is sufficiently flexible so as to be compatible not only with the diverse range of existing object-oriented computer applications, but also with object-oriented applications that are developed or modified in the future. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In traditional development and deployment technologies, configuration information including security information was deployed to and persistently stored at systems on which one or more instances of one or more types of environments are to be run. Since these systems were potentially shared among different types of environments, users from the different environments may edit the source code of the configuration information that was shared, at least in part, among the different environments. However, problems arise when a user from a first type of environment edits the source code in a way that may detrimentally affect the configuration for a second type of environment.
Furthermore, writing a generic application that works for all environments is not easy. Some traditional approaches are error-prone. For example, one way is to edit “/etc/hosts” files to resolve hostname issues. This usually only works for advanced developers. An alternative approach is to put many if/else in the configuration information source code to differentiate the handling of different types of environment data. This approach creates a lot of code paths that will only execute in one type of environment, and makes testing/debugging in one type of environment (e.g., development) for issues from another type of environment (e.g., production) extremely difficult. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Various types of image sensors are commercially available. One type, the full frame sensor, is shown in FIG. 1. The imaging operation of this sensor has an exposure step, a transfer step, and a readout step. The imaging process consists of exposing the sensor 1 over a time period varying from as little as a few hundred nanoseconds to as long as minutes. The photosensitive area 2 of the sensor 1 is represented by triangles. The image transfer step transfers the pixel charge, one row at a time, into the horizontal register, labeled M. The readout step transfers the collected charge in row M, one pixel at a time out of sensor 1 through the floating diffusion 3 and out through the buffer 4 until the row is read out. This line transfer and readout steps repeat until all lines have dumped their charge into row M and then read out. The charge transfer and readout operation requires that the sensor 1 have a shutter or that the transfer be done in the dark, otherwise the image will become smeared as light hitting the sensor 1 will change the image as the transfer operation is in progress.
Another type, the interline transfer image sensor 10, is shown in FIG. 2. Rows 1 through M-1 refer to photosensitive rows. Columns 1-N refer to columns of pixels 12. The triangle symbol represents the photo-active area 14 of the pixel while the shaded part represents a masked transfer charge storage area 16. The imaging operation consists of an exposure period, a transfer operation, and then an image readout operation. The readout operation consists of shifting one line at a time into the adjacent line in the direction of row M, the horizontal register 18. The charge in the horizontal register is transferred out of the sensor pixel by pixel, through the floating diffusion 20 and the output buffer 22.
The interline transfer image sensor of FIG. 2 can be used as a color sensor by the use of a color filter array (CFA) over the photodiodes. Typical color pixel patterns are (where G is green, B is blue, and R is red) GGGB . . . , GGGR . . . in alternate rows with 75% G pixels and 25% B+R pixels, or GRGR . . . , BGBG . . . , in alternate rows with 50% G pixels, 25% B pixels, and 25% R pixels. If such a sensor is operated at a higher frame rate, either the field of view (image height) or maintenance of the color pixel pattern suffers. In such a color interline transfer image sensor, there is thus a need to increase the frame rate and increase sensitivity, while decreasing image memory, preserving the color pixel pattern and maintaining the effective field of view of the imager. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The field of art to which the invention pertains includes a field of tree transports, and more particularly, with respect to a tree transport for positioning adjacent a tree and transporting the tree once it is cut down.
2. Background of the Invention
Numerous devices for transporting trees and poles are known. These include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,362,451; 765,586; 3,112,037; 713,501; 2,650,063; 1,174,950; and 2,614,705. These patents utilize numerous devices for loading and transporting logs, but do not include a device which can be utilized to position the device when cutting a tree and then loading the tree onto a transport device and transporting the tree to a desired location. Such a device could be used when cutting Christmas trees, for example. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vacuum system which comprises an evacuatable chamber, including a gas inlet and a gas outlet, for storage, measurement or treatment of objects sensitive to dust contamination.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various means are known for realising a vacuum clean room for performing measurements on, the preprocessing or the processing, or the temporary storage of objects sensitive to dust contamination during a processing cycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,975 describes a processing chamber in which an object to be processed, that is to say a semiconductor wafer, is covered by a displaceable cover plate during the non-processing phases.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,687,542 describes a system for the intermediate storage of wafers where a number of wafers is arranged, accommodated in a sealed box, in a space to be evacuated, the box being opened only when the space has been sealed and evacuated.
JP-A 59-114814 describes a vacuum system in which a prevacuum pumping valve comprises a porous material which acts as a choke valve.
JP-A 61-58252 describes a specimen chamber in which the gas flow is always directed downwards during filling or evacuation of the space in order to achieve dust reduction. The aim is to prevent the stirring up of dust particles.
Even though all these means lead to a given improvement in view of dust contamination, it has been found that they are not adequate for many applications. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Content addressable memory (CAM) is a special type of computer memory used in certain high speed searching applications. Unlike standard computer memory (Random Access Memory or RAM) in which the user supplies a memory address and the RAM returns the data word stored at that address, a CAM is designed such that the user supplies a data word and the CAM searches its entire memory to see if that data word is stored anywhere in it. If the data word is found, the CAM returns a list of one or more storage addresses where the word was found (in some architectures, it also returns the data word, or other associated pieces of data). Thus, a CAM may also be referred to as an associative array.
Because a CAM is designed to search its entire memory in a “single” operation, it is much faster than RAM in virtually all search applications. However, there are cost disadvantages associated with CAM. Unlike a RAM chip, which has simple storage cells, each individual memory bit in a fully parallel CAM must have its own associated comparison circuit to detect a match between the stored bit and the input bit. Additionally, match outputs from each cell in the data word must be combined to yield a complete data word match signal. The extra circuitry generally increases power dissipation since every comparison circuit is active on every clock cycle. Energy per search and search speed are two important criteria used to evaluate CAM performance. In general, two types of CAM architecture are used. A not AND (NAND)-type CAM array generally has lower power consumption, but it is generally slower because the match line is charged/discharged through many transistors in series. A not OR (NOR)-type CAM array is generally a faster type of CAM array, but it dissipates a larger amount of power because all high-charged match lines except one are discharged through many transistors in parallel. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an elastic foamed sheet which is particularly suitable for backing pads to be used for retaining a semiconductor wafer on a rotary attaching disc of a polishing device in the process of mirror polishing of the semiconductor wafer and a wafer-polishing jig using the elastic foamed sheet.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The semiconductor wafers to be used for IC's and LSI's require at least one of the opposite surfaces thereof to be given a mirror finish by polishing. Generally, this polishing is effected by keeping a given wafer securely on the rotary attaching disc of the polishing device and pressing this wafer against an abrasive cloth laid on a stationary disc similarly kept in rotation while supplying an abrasive liquid to the interface of abrasion.
As means to retain the wafers on the polishing carrier plates in this case, the wax method which attains fast retention of the wax on the carrier plates by applying wax to one surface of the wafer and fastening the wafer to the carrier plates through the medium of the wax. This method enjoys the advantage of enabling the wafer surface to be polished with high planar accuracy. Owing to the use of the wax for fastening the wafer to the polishing device, however, this method suffers from numerous disadvantages that the work of attaching or detaching the wafer to and from the polishing device consumes much time and labor, that the work of cleaning the polishing device after each use thereof calls for an enormous toil, that the remaining wax defiles the wafer being handled, and that the special solvent to be used in the process of cleaning goes to jeopardize the work environment.
As means to eliminate these problems, the waxless method has been developed which effects the fast retention of a wafer on the rotary attaching disc of the polishing device not through the medium of wax but through the medium of a laminate of sheets each obtained by impregnating an artificial leather sheet or a non-woven fabric of polyester fibers with a polyurethane resin and imparting a finely foamed structure to the surface of the impregnated sheet. At present, this meshod is in popular use.
The conventional laminate mentioned above is generally constructed as illustrated in FIG.8. To be more specific, a retaining backing 51 constructed to have a wafer held fast against the lower surface thereof, a reinforcing member 52, a carrier 53, and a peel paper 54 are superposed sequentially in the order mentioned and adhesive agents 55, 56, and 57 are interposed between the adjoining layers so as to join them fast. The peel paper 54 can be peeled from the layer of the adhesives 57 when the laminate is attached to the rotary attaching disc of the polishing device.
The waxless method which used the laminate described above has the advantage that the laminate permits the wafer to be attached thereto and detached therefrom so easily as to enhance the efficiency of quantity production of wafer. It has been pointed out, however, that wafers polished by the waxless method are inferior in planar accuracy to those produced by the wax method. When wafers are to be polished by the use of the conventional laminate discribed above, the highest attainable flatness of the polished surfaces expressed by TTV (total thickness variation) is on the order of 5 .mu.m. This polishing cannot decrease this magnitude any further. This limited flatness may be ascribed to the use of the peel paper 54 in the conventional laminate and to the numerosity of the component layers of the laminate. The term "TTV" mentioned above refers to the difference between the highest point and the lowest point of thickness of a polished wafer expressed in .mu.m.
The reason for the aforementioned inability to lower the magnitude of flatness below about 5 .mu.m may be logically explained as follows.
Since the peel paper 54 itself contains fairly large undulations in the surface thereof and further since the peel paper 54 engulfs air while a tackiness agent or adhesive agent 57 is applied to the surface of the carrier 53 and the peel paper 54 is superposed on the applied layer of the tackiness agent or adhesive agent and the peel paper 54 is then wound up, the layer of the tackiness agent or adhesive agent 57 fails to assume a uniform thickness. Thus, the surface of the retaining backing 51 does not become flat when the laminate is attached to the rotary attaching disc.
Further, owing to the fact that the conventional laminate has a large number of component layers (seven layers inclusive of the peel paper 54 in the illustrated example), the rises and falls or undulations formed on the surface of the retaining backing 51 are suffered to become large because the ununiformities of thickness in the component layers of the laminate are accumulated while they are superposed even if these component layer are produced each with the highest possible uniformity.
In the internal structure of the conventional laminate, the bubbles occluded therein have a random size distribution and the reinforcing fibers incorporated therein have a random density and direction arrangement. Owing to this internal structure, when the laminate is pressed and polished in conjunction with the wafer, the compression deformation of the laminate is locally deprived of uniformity on the rear surface of each of a plurality of wafers retained on the carrier plates or on the rear surface of one and the same wafer. As a result, the amount of polishing to be attained is locally deprived of uniformity. This local ununiformity may well be considered to form one of the factors responsible for the limited flatness mentioned above. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Since an organic electroluminescence device (in the Description, occasionally, referred to as organic EL device) emitting high-luminance light was reported in 1987 by C. W. Tang, et al. Eastman Kodak Co. (Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 51, p. 913, 1987), development of materials for the organic EL device and improvement of device structure have rapidly progressed. Recently, practical application of the organic EL device to, for example, a car audio component or the display of a mobile phone has started. Currently, in order to further expand the use of the organic EL (electroluminescence), for example, development of material for improving luminous efficiency and durability and development of full-color display are being actively performed. In particular, in the application of the device to medium-sized panels, large-sized panels, or lightings, it is necessary to further increase luminance by improving luminous efficiency and to establish a method of mass production suitable for enlarging the size of a product.
Regarding a method of mass production of panels, vacuum deposition where a low molecular compound is evaporated under vacuum for forming a thin film on a substrate is conventionally used. However, this method has disadvantages such that: a vacuum facility is necessary, and a difficulty in forming an organic thin film having a uniform thickness increases with the size. Therefore, such a method is not necessarily suitable for mass-producing large-sized panels.
Meanwhile, as methods for readily increasing the size of a product, production processes using a luminescent high molecular weight material, that is, an ink-jetting method and a printing method, have been developed. In particular, the printing method can continuously form films with a large length and is therefore excellent in enlargement of the size of a product and mass productivity.
Recently, in order to expand the use of the organic EL device, material development using a phosphorescent compound having high luminous efficiency has been actively performed (for example, JP 2003-526876 A (Patent Document 1) and JP 2001-247859 A (Patent Document 2)).
Furthermore, JP 2005-314689 A (Patent Document 3) discloses a compound having a structure derived from a siloxane compound as a luminescent high molecular weight complex compound.
[Patent Document 1] JP 2003-526876 A
[Patent Document 2] JP 2001-247859 A
[Patent Document 3] JP 2005-314689 A | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information indicating system in which plural-character words can be represented by a humanly-sensible code of sequential indicia, such as a series of tones.
2. Prior Art
Sequential sensible readouts have been used in various fields. For example in horology, coded sequential audible indicia (sounds) have been periodically made by chiming clocks, grandfather's clocks, ship bell clocks, cuckoo clocks, alarm clocks, etc. Non-sequential audible indicators also have been used to indicate that a certain stage in a process has been achieved, such as a sound that indicates when a prescribed period of time has passed, a temperature has been reached, etc.
However no audible indicators were available to indicate precise information, such as, in horology, the exact time during the period between quarter-hour intervals. The other audible indicators gave indications only at specific stages in the process being monitored. Using these conventional audio indicators, it was not possible to know, for example, the temperature of an oven before the alarm point was reached. Similarly, a device for sounding an alarm after a period of time has elapsed (a kitchen timer, for example) could not indicate the time prior to the end of the set time period.
Accordingly it is one object of my invention to provide a sensible indicator which can provide far more precise and complete information about a process or changing data.
In may earlier U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,777 Dec. 9, 1975, there is taught a multiple character word indicating system in which the characters of the word are indicated sequentially at a single section. While this system is desirable and advantageous and provides a more economical readout, or a larger readout, it is not usable by the sightless or by persons with extremely limited version. Also it requires a relatively complex transducer capable of indicating plural characters at a single station.
Accordingly other objects of the present invention are to provide a character indicating system which can be used by the sightless or by persons with extremely limited vision, to provide such a system which requires a far simpler readout device, and to provide an information indicating system which is susceptible of being sensed audibly, palpably or visibly. Further objects and advantages will become apparent from consideration of the ensuing description thereof. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Traditionally, gloves such as work gloves are manufactured in a seven step method which comprises:
1. Spreading the cloth; PA1 2. Cutting the glove pattern or pieces; PA1 3. Sewing the pieces together; PA1 4. Closing the glove body; PA1 5. Attaching the cuff to the glove body; PA1 6. Turning the glove inside-out; PA1 7. Inspecting the finished glove.
In the above method, the cut pieces are carried to seamstresses where the pieces are joined together using conventional sewing equipment and the glove body is closed by further sewing operations. Both of these steps designated (3) and (4) above involve considerable manual work and are time-consuming and costly.
The objective is to improve on the traditional manufacturing process first by reducing the basic number of manufacturing steps and further by eliminating a great amount of the time-consuming manual labor which was involved primarily under steps (3) and (4) of the traditional method. As a result, the method embodied in this invention is much more economical in the overall. Steps (1) through (4) of the traditional method have been eliminated and have been replaced by only two operations or steps which are performed automatically, thus eliminating the manual labor previously involved in the sewing operations. The new and simplified method of manufacturing gloves comprises the following steps:
1. Quilting two layers of cloth or other material preferably by embroidery stitching to produce multiple repetitive glove body outlines or patterns integrally in the quilted material.
2. Die cutting around the margins of the multiple glove bodies immediately outwardly of their stitching lines to cleanly separate pre-sewn glove bodies from the quilted layered material.
3. Attaching cuffs conventionally to the pre-sewn glove bodies.
4. Turning the gloves inside-out.
5. Inspecting the finished gloves.
It can be observed by comparing the traditional and improved methods of manufacturing gloves that the principal difference lies in the fact that the main method steps are reversed in the new method. In the traditional method, the individual glove body pieces are first cut out of sections of material and are then sewn together to produce glove bodies. In the present method, the glove bodies are sewn first in the quilted layered material and are then cut and separated from the material in a substantially completed state, needing only to have the cuff attached and to be turned and inspected.
While the invention is applicable to work gloves formed of cloth, it is not limited to this type of glove and can be employed to produce leather gloves or gloves formed of plastics or other suitable materials. In some cases, lined gloves can be produced by the method merely by inserting lining layers of material in the lay-up prior to the quilting operation.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent during the course of the following description.
The below-listed known prior art patents of general interest only are made of record herein under 37 C.F.R. 1.56:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,538,262; 1,538,263; 1,811,570; 2,847,676; 3,866,245; 3,945,049. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
This invention relates generally to steam distillation of ammonia and ammonium ion compounds from aqueous solutions of such compounds and relates more particularly to the removal of ammonia from weak ammonia liquor produced during a coking operation.
The vapors given off during thermal decomposition of coal to produce coke for use in the steel industry contain various components including tars, light oils, phenols, naphthalenes, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, ammonia and water. These vapors are customarily initially cooled in a primary cooler. During such cooling the excess moisture condenses and absorbs ammonia, ammonium compounds and other lesser contaminants and is then known as weak ammonia liquor. The weak ammonia liquor, or WAL, may be recirculated through the primary cooler several times until the WAL becomes saturated with ammonia and other constituents and must be treated to remove the ammonia.
For perhaps as long as 100 years direct contact countercurrent steam stills have been used to remove ammonia from the weak ammonia liquor generated during the coking of coal. As is more fully described in the U.S. Steel publication, "The Making, Shaping and Treating of Steel", 9th ed., Harold E. McGannon, ed. (1971) pp 165 et seq, the most prevalent process for extracting ammonia from weak ammonia liquor is the Semi-direct Process. In this process, weak ammonia liquid is first stream distilled in a so-called "Free" leg to remove the "free", or thermally decomposable, ammonia, i.e. ammonium compounds which are readily dissociated by heat. Exemplary "free" ammonia compounds are ammonium carbonate, ammonium sulfide and ammonium cyanide, which compounds when decomposed, form ammonia and carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia and hydrogen cyanide, respectively.
Following the first steam distillation in the free leg, the once distilled weak ammonia liquor is combined with an excess of an aqueous slurry of calcium hydroxide, or "milk of lime" in a "Lime" leg. By combination of the predistilled liquor with milk of lime slurry, the "fixed", or non-thermally decomposable, ammonium ion compounds contained in the liquor, i.e. ammonium chloride, ammonium thiocyanate and ammonium sulfate, are subjected to an alkaline environment where a chemical reaction takes place in which the ammonium ion is converted to ammonia and water. The resulting weak ammonia liquor-milk of lime (WAL-MOL) suspension or slurry, containing sufficient lime, both solid and dissolved, to give a CaO to NH.sub.4.sup.+ molar ratio of not less than 1:2, is then allowed to overflow into the "Fixed" leg of the ammonia still, where a direct contact countercurrent flow of steam extracts the hydrated ammonia from the descending liquor slurry. As the ammonia is driven from the descending WAL-MOL slurry, the equilibria present in the slurry, shown in equations I and II EQU ca(OH.sub.2) .revreaction. Ca.sup.2+ + 2OH.sup.- (I) EQU nh.sub.4.sup.+ + oh.sup.- .revreaction. nh.sub.3 + h.sub.2 o (ii)
are shifted to the right, with the result that solid Ca(OH.sub.2) dissolves continuously as the liquor descends, and substantially all the ammonium ion present in the liquor is converted to ammonia and driven off.
The free and the fixed legs of the ammonia still are of similar construction and are each comprised of an upright column having internally disposed horizontal plates or trays. Each plate is equipped with gas-liquid contacting means through which ascending steam may pass. The gas-liquid contacting means are conventially either sieve holes or bubble cap assemblies.
In operation liquor enters the top of the still column and flows from tray to tray, either through downcomers in each plate or through dual flow sieve tray orifices, countercurrently with ascending steam and vapors to the bottom of the column where an effluent port allows the residual ammonia liquor, or so-called still bottoms, to be discharged to a storage vat prior to further processing.
The fixed leg and the free leg of a conventional ammonia still are normally interconnected in such a way that the stream introduced at the bottom of the fixed leg, passes directly from the top of the fixed leg to the bottom of the free leg and upwardly to the top of the still where the steam, along with entrained ammonia and acid gases, leaves the still. Once this steam/ammonia/acid gas stream leaves the top of the free leg, it may be routed to a dephlegmator to condense a portion of the steam and thence either to a sulfuric acid saturator to produce ammonium sulfate or to an incinerator for the combustive destruction of the gases.
One major drawback in the use of such a conventional ammonia still is the tendency of the distillation column to become plugged or fouled. Once a column has been in operation for a period of time, solid calcium compounds tend to accumulate in and around the gas-liquid contacting means, i.e. the bubble caps or sieve tray openings, thereby restricting and eventualy interrupting or interfering with upward flow of steam, particularly through the free leg. Such interruption or interference, of course, reduces the efficient intercontact of steam and liquor and therefore reduces the efficiency of ammonia removal from the liquor. When this occurs, the tower must be cleaned, a process which requires that it be taken out of service, dismantled and the calcium solids removed from the tray openings. Such removal is not only costly in man hours spent cleaning, but also necessitates either adequate storage facilities for the liquor accumulated during the still down-time or, alternatively, a duplication of ammonia still facilities whereby one facility may be used while the other is being cleaned.
Furthermore, since the still fairly rapidly becomes fouled or plugged between cleaning stages, the still is inevitably operated for a large percentge of the time between cleaning stages in a partially blocked condition. Ammonia stills for the distillation or stripping of weak ammonia liquor derived from coal coking operations have in the past, therefore, been designed with considerable excess capacity and with relatively low liquid to gas ratios. This is accomplished by designing the individual plates larger so that more total open area for passage of steam through the plates is available than would be necessary during unfouled operation. The increased open area is provided to insure the passage of adequate steam for efficient stripping of ammonia from the liquor at all times, both when the column is clean and when the column is partially fouled. This arrangement, however, results in relatively more steam overall being required for operation of the still, with a consequent high consumption of steam compared to that which would be required if the still were designed only for that amount of steam which is required for efficient stripping during unfouled operation. In other words, if no fouling and plugging occurred, a still could be designed for the relative passage of less steam per amount of liquor passed through the still. In most cases this would mean that the still would require a lesser diameter with respect either to its height, or more particularly with respect to its rated liquor throughput or capacity, because the total surface area of each tray or plate could be reduced. The usual molar liquid/gas ratio in conventional ammonia stills is in the range of 3 to 5.
One solution to the fouling problem is described in the March, 1975 issued of I&SM in an article by A. C. Naso and J. W. Schroeder entitled "A New Method of Treating Coke Plant Waste Waters", beginning at page 34. In their process, caustic soda is substituted for milk of lime and is added to the liquor prior to distillation. By this substitution, calcium ions are eliminated entirely from the process, thereby obviating the problem of calcium solids formation in the still. While such a solution is effective in eliminating column fouling, the cost of caustic soda as compared with that of lime renders the use of such a process economically unsatisfactory. Although the authors of this article claim that their process can be made economically feasible, this cannot be accomplished without extensive replacement or redeisgn of existing ammonia still equipment.
In light of the foregoing, there exists a need for a process which will eliminate the problems associated with free leg fouling and which will do so economically. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Carpet fibers can be severely and permanently stained or soiled when certain household substances such as coffee, chocolate, mud and fruit drinks are inadvertently spilled on them. These items contain artificial and natural colorants. Many of these colorants are acid dyes which cause the most severe stains, as these acid dyes often attach themselves to available dye sites on the carpet fiber. As a result, some carpets must be prematurely replaced because of unsightly soiling or staining.
Many carpet manufacturers have attempted to prevent unwanted staining of fibers by treating the carpet fibers with a stain resisting coating material. Examples of such stain resisting coatings include condensation productions made from aromatic sulfonic acids, and formaldehyde. Although these coatings have imparted some stain resistance, many of the coatings do not completely eliminate it. In addition, often foot traffic on carpet wears off the coating, leaving the exposed carpet fibers with little or no protection against staining.
Various fluorochemicals have also been applied to carpet fibers in order to reduce their water and oil wettability. The fluorochemical reduces the tendency of soils to adhere to the fibers, thereby making the removal of soils from the carpet fibers easier than if the fluorochemicals were omitted, but offers little protection to the carpet fibers from spills containing acid dye colorants unless the colorants are immediately removed from the fibers. Foot traffic on carpet will often wear off the fluorochemicals as well.
A number of cleaning solutions have been proposed in the past for removing stains and soils from fibers. For instance, volatile solvent dry-cleaning fluids have been proposed, but such fluids are less than satisfactory in removing water-soluble stains or soils. In addition, aqueous compositions containing synthetic detergents have been proposed for removing stains and soils from fibers, but such compositions have not been found to be particularly effective.
One of the problems with these cleaning solutions is that while they may, at times, loosen and/or disperse the soil, they often fail to prevent redeposition of the dispersed soil onto the cleaned carpet fibers. Suspension of the soil in the cleaning liquor allows the soil to be picked up by a cleaning implement such as a cloth or sponge. The soil which is not removed is redeposited on the fibers. For example, it has been found that if residual coffee stains, which are dispersible or soluble in water, remain after cleaning, the stains can be concentrated at the surface of the cleaned carpet as it dries, resulting in an appearance of inadequate cleaning. An additional problem with cleaning solutions is the carpet fibers can become tacky due to film left behind by residual cleaning components. The film attracts and retains soils, which results in a cleaned carpet that will soil more easily after a cleaning than prior thereto. Finally, rinsing current cleaning solutions with large amounts of water causes the fibers in the carpet and, many times, the pad under the carpet, to become saturated with water, which can result in degradation of the pad and/or carpet. The moisture trapped in the padding promotes microbial growth which can present health and/or odor problems.
In order to avoid leaving a tacky residue, formulations based on volatile solvent systems have been proposed. Although these systems clean well without leaving residues, they contain substantial amounts of volatile organic compounds ("VOCs" ) which are regulated because of their potential adverse effects on air quality within the home as well as in the environment. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a cleaning composition which effectively removes stains and soil from a soft surface using substantially less VOCs.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a method of cleaning a soft surface which requires a minimal amount of rinsing.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide efficacious cleaning composition which removes stains and soil without removing the permanent color from the carpeting.
These objects and others will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from the following description of the present invention. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
The subject matter of the invention is a sewing machine and also a piercer for a sewing machine.
Hemstitching machines and two-needle sewing machines have been known for over one hundred years and still operate using the same principle today. According to this principle, two needles, which are each associated with one hook, create two zigzag stitching sections that are parallel to each other. In order to separate the two stitches from each other, the woven threads are pushed somewhat apart with an auxiliary piercer and an opening or a hole is formed in the fabric. In order to be able to loop the woven threads forced apart with the needles at the edges of the holes, deep grooves at the side running in the axial direction are embedded in the piercer. Due to the tension of the woven threads, there is still free passage for the needles in the grooves for a piercer that has already cut into the fabric. In order to be able to lead the needles through these two opposing passages, the latter are mounted so that they can rotate on the lower end of the common needle-and-auxiliary piercer bar oscillating vertical to the needle plate and are moved in an oscillating manner. That is, a first stitch is realized with inwards pivoted needles, so that their tips are guided into the side grooves of the piercer through the opening created in the free space of the grooves in the fabric reaching downwards to the hooks. During the piercing, the needles contact the grooves with such a strong force that they exhibit bending. The subsequent stitch is then realized with needles that have been pivoted back, i.e., that are not bent and that penetrate essentially vertically into the fabric. For the next stitch, the needles are pivoted inwards again and are bent when they cut into the fabric and contact the grooves of the piercer. They are also bent somewhat to the side by the hooks, so that the tip of the hook can grip the needle thread loop.
This method, which has been used unchanged for a century, has the disadvantage that for every second stitch, lateral forces act on the needle and bend the needle. In addition, it is not guaranteed that all of the woven threads will be pressed outwards during the inner stitch, i.e., the stitch, for which the needles are guided bent into the grooves of the piercer. Often there are still individual woven threads within the opening, which degrades the visual image of the hemstitch, because they cross through the formed hole. Another disadvantage consists in the fact that the tips of the needles lie very close to each other for complete engagement in the fabric and consequently the tips of the two hooks under the needle plate must also lie very close to each other. Due to the close arrangement of the two hooks, the piercer cannot penetrate very deeply into the fabric or its tip must have a large tapering angle in order to form sufficiently large holes. This has the consequence that when the woven threads are spread by the quick penetration of the “blunt” tip of the piercer, the woven threads can be ripped. Such a hemstitching machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,093,558. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to flexible polyurethane foams having a high flame resistance and smoke resistance and to heat compression-moldings thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Polyurethane foams have a broad use from seat and cushion materials for furniture, vehicles and ships to cloths and architecture materials. Furthermore, it has been known that foam sheets can be obtained by compression-molding the polyurethane foam under heating by utilizing the thermoplasticity of flexible polyurethane foams and the foam sheets have been broadly used for both surface adhesive tapes; imitation leathers; packing cushion materials for protecting optical machines, precision machines and glass; a slip preventer for a mat; prevention of shock noise when a door is opened and closed; wrapping and the like.
Substantially all the above described materials are inflammable and in order to satisfactorily adapt the foam sheet to the above described uses, it has been recently demanded to use flame resistant polyurethane foams.
However, the well known processes, that is, use of phosphorus compounds, a combined use of halogen and phosphorus compounds, use of a metal oxide, such as antimony oxide, use of a reactive flame retardant and the like can give a certain degree of flame resistance to polyurethane foams but the generation of smoke when burning is rather larger than the case where no flame retardant is used and there has been a great problem in view of the smoke emission.
Moreover, the process heretofore carried out for molding the foam into a sheet comprises compressing a flexible polyurethane foam at a high temperature 150.degree.-200.degree. C. for a long time and this process has not been preferable in view of save of energy and productivity. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Computer generated images are typically made up of many different components or graphical elements which are rendered and composited together to create a final image. The compositing may be performed by special-purpose hardware, or by software running on a general or special-purpose computer system, such as a microprocessor inside a printer.
The bit depth at which compositing is performed limits the accuracy, or quality, of the final image. A bit depth of 8 bits per channel is commonly used in current renderers. For a renderer working in an RGBA color space, a bit depth of 8 implies that each channel (R, G, B, and A) of each pixel is limited to 256 discrete levels. When the pixel result of a compositing operation lies somewhere between two representable levels, the result is rounded to one level or the other.
In order to achieve greater accuracy of color data, some renderers have been designed to work at a higher bit depth, such as 16. However, 16 bit renderers are necessarily substantially slower than an 8 bit renderer. In a color space such as RGBA, compositing in bit depths greater than 8 provides only limited advantages over a bit depth of 8, especially if most or all objects to be rendered are initially represented in a bit depth of 8. In these cases, for a large part of typical images to be rendered, there is no advantage at all in higher bit depth rendering, and for the part where there is an advantage, the advantage is small. For this reason, the small advantage of increased accuracy is usually avoided in favor of maintaining the speed of the renderer.
Graphical content differs from image to image, and some images to be rendered may gain no benefit whatsoever from using a higher bit depth. One prior art approach examines the objects to be rendered, and renders the image in greyscale (that is, a single channel color space) if all objects to be rendered are greyscale, and in color (for example a three-channel color space such as RGB) if any objects to be rendered are not greyscale. This is effectively using triple the bit depth to render the image when the image contains any color. The disadvantage of this approach is its inflexibility. For an image which contains even a single pixel in color, where the rest of the page is black and white text, the whole page will be rendered using color compositing. Such color compositing is much slower than the greyscale compositing which would be performed if that single color pixel were absent.
A further prior art approach to compositing divides the image space into regions, and modifies the compositing expression for each region depending on the contributing objects, in order to optimize compositing. However, this approach does not teach methods of improving the quality of the composited image. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In spite of the admonitions of adults, children outdoors rely on the attentiveness of motorists for their safety. A leading cause of accidents involving vehicles is the inability of a motorist to detect the presence of a child-pedestrian. The inability of a motorist to observe a child-pedestrian is further compounded during darkness and the early twilight seen in northern climates during the winter months. Additionally, holiday associated events such as trick or treating and caroling place child-pedestrians in an environment with vehicles under low ambient light conditions.
Prior art attempts to make child-pedestrians more visible have routinely focused on incorporating reflective elements into outerwear articles. These efforts have met with limited success owing to the child-pedestrian forgetting to wear the reflective article or quickly outgrowing the same. Alternatively, conventional bicycle indicator lights and headlamps have been advocated as child-pedestrian night safety devices. These, however, have met with limited success owing to the unwillingness of a child-pedestrian to wear such a light. Still another problem with conventional lights and headlamps is the confusion as to the identity of the light wearer. The typical conical reflector and resulting light beam is associated with bicycles and walkway lights found in residential areas and not a child-pedestrian. Thus, there exists a need for a child-pedestrian safety light that a child is desirous of wearing and that clearly identifies to a passing motorist that the light source indicates the proximity of a child-pedestrian. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for processing video data, a video server, a gateway server, and a method for managing and processing video data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the conventional video data processing system, a video content of video contents are supplied from a video tape recorder (VTR) on which a moving picture and audio signals output from a video camera are recorded as the video content, are encoded and converted into a video file, and are recorded on a storage medium of a video server. When non-linear editing is carried out, an editing unit accesses the video server of the video data processing system, and reads a video file from the storage medium of the video server. Further, the editing unit carries out non-linear editing of the read video file. For this reason, in order to carry out non-linear editing, the imaged image must be encoded, and must wait until it is recorded on the storage medium of the video server.
Incidentally, in recent years, the storage medium of the video camera has been switched from a tape to a randomly accessible medium such as a hard disk, a semiconductor memory, and the like. When a semiconductor memory or the like is used as the storage medium of the video camera, it becomes possible to directly record a video signal from the video camera on the storage medium as a video file. As a result of this, it becomes unnecessary to subject the video signal from the VTR to encoding processing, and hence it becomes possible to shorten the waiting time up to the starting of the non-linear editing. However, the time for transferring the video file that has been imaged to the storage medium of the video server, and recording the video file is not resolved yet.
It should be noted that in order to shorten the time for transferring the video file to the video server, there is proposed, in Jpn. Pat. Appin. KOKAI Publication No. 2005-51491, a technique wherein an image signal, i.e., video data with low resolution and a small amount of data is transferred, editing work is then carried out, and then only data conforming to the editing content is transferred is proposed. However, although the waiting time is shortened by transferring data of low resolution, the waiting time is not eliminated. Further, using this method poses a problem that it is difficult to confirm the video data at the original image quality at the editing time. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.