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Server computers are utilized extensively today to provide for, among other uses, centralized or distributed storage repositories for applications software and the other software. Often, a server computer is utilized in a network environment to provide these applications and other software to other computers that may be interconnected through the network. This type of arrangement is particularly efficient for downloading common applications that may be utilized by a variety of different computers from one conveniently serviced server computer. Today, it is not uncommon for a large number of server computers to be physically mounted within a single computer rack that may be many feet tall. In the interest of space and economics, it would be helpful if each of the servers within the rack was able to provide the equivalent of a standalone server computer including the variety of physical devices that may be attached thereto. For example, a standalone server may well include a disk drive, CD ROM drive, DVD ROM drive, or other such storage devices that may be accessed by users of the server computer. However, when multiple server computers are mounted within a single rack, it is highly desirable to eliminate redundant devices, such as disk drives that may be utilized in the boot up process to load an operating system onto the server computer. The industry today has pushed the limits of density such that the functionality of a standalone server computer has been integrated onto a single plug-in card. These cards, often called “server blades,” allow for extremely high density computing resources within a single rack enclosure. This relatively high density of servers has also accelerated the desire to eliminate bulky hardware to a greater degree. The present invention may address one or more of the above issues.

Active phased array antenna systems are used in a wide variety of applications. As one example, a satellite may include an antenna system of this type in order to facilitate communication between the satellite and one or more ground stations on earth. In a phased array antenna system, especially for a satellite, it is desirable that the antenna system be relatively small in volume and relatively light in weight. On the other hand, antenna systems of this type typically use circuits such as monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMICs). Circuits such as MMICs generate a substantial amount of heat during operation. As the frequency of antenna operation increases, there is an increase in the amount of heat which is emitted by these circuits, which in turn can affect temperature gradients across the array. In particular, in a phased array antenna system, the existence of temperature gradients across the array can produce phase errors, which affect the accuracy of the antenna system. The higher the frequency of antenna operation, the smaller the permissible temperature gradients across the array. For example, where the phased array is operating at a frequency of about 5 GHz, the maximum allowable temperature gradient across the array is about 20.degree. C. In contrast, when the array is operating at a frequency of about 80 GHz, the maximum allowable temperature gradient across the array is only about 1.3.degree. C. If the maximum temperature gradient across the array cannot be kept below the maximum allowable gradient, then it is necessary to provide additional circuitry in the antenna system to effect dynamic phase error control compensation, which increases the complexity, cost and weight of the antenna system. Thus, it is important to have an efficient technique for cooling the circuitry of the antenna system, so that a substantially uniform temperature is maintained across the array. One traditional phased array antenna system has a configuration commonly known as an array slat arrangement, and uses forced flow of a liquid coolant. However, the thickness, volume and weight of this arrangement are greater than desirable, and the forced flow of the liquid coolant requires hardware for handling the coolant, which increases the effective volume and weight of the overall antenna system. A different approach, which is more recent, is commonly known as a tile array, and uses a multi-layer circuit board. The circuit board has the antenna elements and the circuit components of the antenna system mounted thereon, and cooperates with a relatively thin cooling arrangement. This has the advantage of being ultra thin and low in weight, and also provides shorter conductors for radio frequency signals than the traditional array slat approach. However, while this known approach has been generally adequate for its intended purpose, it has not been satisfactory in all respects. More specifically, the ultra thin configuration makes it difficult or impossible to use radio frequency circulators and/or isolators, as a result of which a given antenna system is typically configured to either send or receive signals, but not both. Further, only a limited amount of circuitry can be provided directly on the multi-layer circuit board within the size limits of the antenna element array, even where some of the circuit components are mounted in a stacked or "piggy-back" arrangement. As a result, it is difficult to provide multi-beam capability in an antenna system. A further consideration in such ultra thin antenna configurations is that it is typically difficult to separately optimize the cooling system and the packaging of the radio frequency circuitry, because the compactness of the system causes various design aspects to become interdependent. A further consideration in these ultra thin antenna systems is that, since various circuit components are provided directly on the multi-layer board, problems can occur as a result of different coefficients of thermal expansion.

The method, apparatus, and system according to the present invention are configured to compute interpolated image data of a video image data by means of line-based motion estimation and compensation and to detect and handle errors in interpolated image data obtained as result of performing the line-based motion compensation. The present invention allows efficient use of chip-internal memory and efficient interacting of components, devices, and/or modules enabling the line-based motion estimation and compensation, and processing of the interpolated image data obtained as result of performing the line-based motion compensation, wherein the quality of the resulting image data to be visualized is improved considerably and in an effective way at the same time. Hereinafter, the present invention and its underlying problem is described with regard to the processing of a video signal for line-based motion estimation and motion compensation within a video processing apparatus such as a microprocessor or microcontroller having line memory devices, whereas, it should be noted, that the present invention is not restricted to this application, but can also be used for other video processing apparatus. The market introduction of TV-sets based on 100/120 Hz frame rate or even higher required the development of reliable Field/Frame Rate Up-conversion (FRU) techniques to remove artefacts within a picture such as large area flickers and line flickers. Standard FRU methods, which interpolate the missing image fields to be displayed on Displays without performing an estimation and compensation of the motion of moving objects in successive image fields, are satisfactory in many applications, especially with regard to a better quality of the image and with regard to the reduction of the above-mentioned artefacts. However, many pictures contain moving objects, like persons, subtitles and the like, which cause so-called motion judders. This problem is better understood by referring to FIG. 1, wherein the motion trajectory of the moving objects (white squares) in the original image fields (i.e. transmitted and received image fields) is supposed to be straight-lined. If the missing fields/frames result from interpolation by means of the above mentioned standard FRU methods (i.e. without motion estimation and compensation), the motion of the moving object in the interpolated fields (dark grey squares) is not at a position as expected by the observer (dotted squares). Such artefacts are visible and induce a blurring effect especially of fast moving objects. These blurring effects typically reduce the quality of the displayed images significantly. In order to avoid such blurring effects and to reduce artefacts several methods for motion estimation and motion compensation—or shortly MEMC—are proposed. This MEMC provides the detecting of a moving part or object within the received image fields and then the interpolation of the missing fields according to the estimated motion by incorporating the missing object or part in an estimated field. FIG. 2 shows schematically the change of the position of a moving object between two successive image fields. Between two successive received image fields/frames, the moving objects will have changed their position, e. g. object MO which is in the previous field/frame T in position A is then in the current field/frame T+1 then in position B. This means, that a motion exists from the previous field/frame T to the current field/frame T+1. This motion of an object in successive image fields/frames can be represented by a so-called motion vector. The motion vector AB represents the motion of the object MO from position A in the previous field T to position B in the current field/frame T+1. This motion vector AB typically has a horizontal and a vertical vector component. Starting from point A in the previous field T and applying this motion vector AB to the object MO the object MO is then translated in position B in the current field/frame T+1. The missing position I of the object MO in the missing field/frame T+½ that has to be interpolated must be calculated by the interpolation of the previous field T and the current field T+1 taken account of the respective positions A, B of the moving object MO. If the object MO does not change its position between the previous field/frame and the current field/frame, e. g., if A and B are the same, position I in the missing field is obtained by the translation of A with a motion vector |AB|/2. In this manner the missing field T+½ is interpolated with a moving object in the right position with the consequence that blurring effects are effectively avoided. Theoretically, for each pixel of a field a corresponding motion vector has to be calculated. However, this would increase the number of calculation needed and thus the memory requirements enormously. To reduce this enormous calculation and memory effort there exist basically two different approaches: The first approach employs a so-called block-based MEMC. This first approach assumes that the dimension of the object in the image is always larger than that of a single pixel. Therefore, the image field is divided into several image blocks. For MEMC only one motion vector is calculated for each block. The second approach employs a so-called line-based MEMC. In this second approach the algorithm is based on a reduced set of video input data of a single line of a field or a part of this line. The present invention is based on this second MEMC approach. In present line-based MEMC systems, image data is usually stored in a local buffer or on chip memory, the so-called line memory, to which rather extreme bandwidth requirements are made. Many present MEMC systems, like the implementations described by Gerard de Haan in EP 765 572 B1 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,034,734, apply a cache memory (e.g. a two-dimensional buffer) to reduce the bandwidth requirements and to store a sub-set of an image. The motion compensation device or module fetches video image data from this cache while applying motion vectors. Typically, in MEMC systems this cache covers the whole search range of the motion vectors. Usually, the cache consists of a great amount of so-called line memories. This results in a relatively large amount of memory, e.g. 720 pixels wide and 24 lines (with an associated maximum vertical vector range of [−12−+12]. Such a cache comprising a great amount of single line memories requires a huge memory needed only for MEMC data buffering. As a consequence, the memory portion within the processor covers a relatively sizable chip area. Commonly used MEMC algorithms compensate the motion in two directions, i.e. the motion in the horizontal direction and as well in the vertical direction. For that operation a memory access should be randomly possible, which requires for an application in hardware sufficient embedded chip memory within the video processor for the different temporal incoming data streams. The size of this embedded chip memory strongly depends on the search range (i.e. search area) for the motion of an object, as already outlined above, where the motion estimation can match similar video patterns in two temporal positions and derive the velocity of the motion in terms of pixels per frame or per field. However, this matching process does not always work perfectly, since methods to determine the quality of the measured motion vector are required. Therefore, for the internal storage of further temporal incoming video signals additional memory resources are required. This, however, increases the amount of embedded memory even further, which leads to an increase of the chip area since for an integrated circuit it is the chip internal memory which significantly determines the chip area. Consequently, the chip is getting more and more expensive. Especially in the mainstream market segment such as for modern Plasma- and LCD-TVs these additional costs typically form a limiting factor for an MEMC implementation. The present invention is, therefore, based on the object to provide a more efficient use of the chip-internal resources and especially of the chip-internal memory with regard to motion estimation and motion compensation, wherein the quality of the resulting image data is to be improved at the same time.

The present invention pertains to an adapter for an electrochemical gas sensor with a housing accommodating an electrolyte, at least one measuring electrode arranged therein, and a membrane that screens the measuring electrode from a measured gas and is permeable to the measured gas. In an electrochemical gas sensor, the measured gas diffuses through a membrane into the electrolyte of the sensor. A measuring electrode, at which the measured gas is electrochemically converted, is located in the electrolyte. A current, which generates a measured signal, flows through the electrochemical gas sensor. The value of the measured signal is determined by the rate of the signal-generating process taking place at the electrode. It depends on the so-called mass transport (diffusion and optionally convection), on the one hand, and, on the other hand, on the resulting overall rate of the reaction taking place at the electrode, which may consist in turn of a plurality of partial steps (adsorption/desorption, homogeneous reactions, heterogeneous reactions, charge transfer, phase formation). Electrochemical gas sensors are designed, in general, such that the mass transport is the rate-determining partial step, because a linear concentration dependence of the signal can thus be achieved and the sensor has a substantially higher long-term stability. In a transport-controlled process taking place at the electrode, the resulting sensor current depends on the concentration gradient or the layer thickness of the depletion zone in front of the measuring electrode. If the sensor is operated in the diffusion mode, a spherical depletion zone is formed, which greatly limits the signal amplitude and may also be interfered with by ventilation. If gas is actively admitted to the sensor, more or less linear gradients are formed depending on the geometry and the velocity of flow. U.S. Pat. No. 4,017,373 shows an electrochemical gas sensor with a flow gap for the measured gas, wherein the feed and removal of the measured gas to and from the measuring electrode take place via thin pipelines. DE 196 19 169 C2 describes an electrochemical gas sensor with at least two electrodes, with an electrode carrier and with an electrolyte in a housing made of a material that is impermeable to electrolyte. The otherwise closed housing has an inlet capillary and an outlet capillary for the measured gas, so that an interaction is ensured between the measured gas sample and the measuring electrode in the electrochemical gas sensor, but the diffusion of moisture from the environment into the interior of the housing is prevented from occurring at the same time. The drawback of the prior-art electrochemical gas sensor is that the measuring sensitivity is low, so that low gas concentrations to be measured cannot be determined. The object of the present invention is to increase the measuring sensitivity of an electrochemical gas sensor. According to the invention, an adapter is provided intended for an electrochemical gas sensor with a housing accommodating an electrolyte. At least one measuring electrode and a membrane are arranged in the housing. The membrane screens the measuring electrode from a measured gas and is permeable to the measured gas. The measured gas will be defined below as both a measured gas in a gas mixture and a measured gas dissolved in a liquid. An inlet for feeding the measured gas to the side of the membrane located opposite the measuring electrode is formed either by the adapter or by the housing or by the adapter and the housing together. If the inlet for feeding in the measured gas is formed by the adapter and the housing together, the two parts have a geometry that releases the inlet for the measured gas when the parts are fitted together. An outlet for removing the measured gas from the side of the membrane located opposite the measuring electrode is correspondingly formed by the adapter or by the housing or by the adapter and the housing together. Between the inlet and the outlet, the adapter has a gas-impermeable surface extending in parallel to and at a spaced location from the membrane, so that the adapter and the membrane form a flow gap for the measured gas, a so-called capillary gap. A corresponding adapter is also called a capillary gap gas distribution adapter. The adapter can be connected to a pump, so that the measured gas fed in is sent through the gap by means of the pressure generated by the pump when the pump is arranged upstream or by the suction when the pump is arranged downstream. Due to the fact that the measured gas is passed through a flow gap, which is limited by two surfaces, namely, the gas-impermeable surface of the adapter and the membrane, good diffusion of the measured gas through the membrane and thus a measuring sensitivity of the electrochemical gas sensor that is improved many times is guaranteed. In a first embodiment, the flow gap has an essentially parallelepipedic shape, with two lateral limiting walls extending vertically between the flat membrane and the gas-impermeable surface. In a second embodiment, the flow gap is of a radially symmetrical design. The membrane and the gas-impermeable surface have the shape of circular disks. A central opening in the gas-impermeable surface acts either as an inlet for feeding in the measured gas or as an outlet for removing the measured gas. A ring-shaped gap is provided between the edge of the gas-impermeable surface shaped as a circular disk with a central opening and the housing. The measured gas is fed in via the central opening in the gas-impermeable surface, after which it is passed radially to the outside through the flow gap and is removed via the ring-shaped gap. This is especially advantageous because the velocity of flow decreases in the radial direction because of the continuity equation. As a result, the residence time of the measured gas at the membrane increases with increasing depletion due to the reaction with the electrolyte, so that little time is available for the diffusion of the gas through the membrane in areas with high measured gas concentration, and much time is available for this diffusion in areas with low concentration. However, it is conversely also conceivable that the measured gas is fed in via the ring-shaped gap. It is then passed through the flow gap radially in the inward direction and is removed via the central opening in the gas-impermeable surface. A third embodiment provides for a rotationally symmetrical design of the flow gap with the membrane formed as an outer cylinder jacket around the axis of rotation and with the gas-impermeable surface, which is formed as an inner cylinder jacket and is arranged coaxially to the outer cylinder jacket. An alternative variant of the third embodiment provides for the membrane being designed as an inner cylinder jacket and the gas-impermeable surface as an outer cylinder jacket. The measured gas is passed through the flow gap in parallel to the axis of rotation in both cases. In a special design of the third embodiment and its alternative variant, the outer cylinder jacket is limited by a gas-impermeable outer cylinder bottom extending at right angles to the axis of rotation. The inner cylinder jacket is limited by an inner cylinder bottom, which is located at a spaced location from the outer cylinder bottom. A central hole, through which measured gas is either fed in or is passed to the outside to the flow gap or is, conversely, removed, after it was passed radially in the inward direction from the flow gap, is located in the inner cylinder bottom. An additional embodiment is represented by an adapter detachably connected to the housing of the electrochemical gas sensor. A plug-type connection may be provided which optionally snaps in, or has a screw connection. As an alternative to this, the adapter is firmly connected to the housing of the electrochemical gas sensor, especially in one piece as part of the housing of the electrochemical gas sensor. In a preferred embodiment, the flow gap has a gap width of at most 2.5 mm. Optimal mass transport of the measured gas being sent by the membrane due to diffusion is guaranteed in this size range. The various features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and specific objects attained by its uses, reference is made to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which preferred embodiments of the invention are illustrated.

Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-202931) discloses a semiconductor device that includes a semiconductor substrate having a groove formed therein, an insulating layer formed on an inner surface of the groove, and a first conductor layer and a second conductor layer disposed above and below the insulating layer inside the groove.

The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to suspension systems, such as suspension systems used to support an inner vessel inside an outer vessel of a cryostat. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems typically include cryostats to cool coils and/or magnets of the MRI systems. The cryostats include an inner vessel filled with helium suspended within an outer vessel that provides a low pressure atmosphere or vacuum around the inner vessel. The inner vessel may be referred to as a helium vessel and the outer vessel as a vacuum vessel. In order to suspend the helium vessel within the vacuum vessel, some known cryostats include straps that are coupled to the helium vessel and vacuum vessels at various locations around the perimeter of the helium vessel. The straps are coupled with the helium vessel and the vacuum vessel such that the helium vessel is suspended within the vacuum vessel. For example, the helium vessel may be suspended by tensioning the straps such that the helium vessel is approximately equidistant from the interior surface of the vacuum vessel and able to account for thermal contraction due to temperature differences between the helium vessel and vacuum vessel. Some known cryostats use clevis fasteners to secure the straps to the helium vessels and the outer vessels. In some known cryostats, the clevis fasteners are multiple pieces such as having a clevis, a stud, a spool, pins, and nuts. The clevis is an approximately U-shaped body having holes on the ends of the U-shape that receive the spool. The pins are inserted through the spool to prevent the spool from being removed from the clevis. The stud is coupled with the clevis and is inserted into a through hole in a block coupled with the vessel. The stud may have a threaded end that receives the nuts to prevent the stud and clevis from being removed from the block. The strap is looped around the spool of one clevis connected to the inner vessel and around the spool of a clevis connected to the outer vessel to interconnect the vessels. These known clevis fasteners include several components to secure the clevis fasteners to the straps and to each other. Several clevis fasteners may be required to suspend a helium vessel inside the vacuum vessel. As a result, a significant number of components may be required to suspend the helium vessel within the vacuum vessel. The relatively large number of components may increase the cost and/or maintenance requirements of the cryostats.

A DRAM cell typically comprises a MOS transistor and a capacitor. An example of such a DRAM cell is shown in FIG. 1. The DRAM cell 10 of FIG. 1 comprises the MOSFET 12 and the capacitor 14. A word line is connected to the gate of the MOSFET 14. A bit line is connected to the source of the MOSFET 12. The capacitor 14 is connected to the drain of the MOSFET 12. The state of the DRAM cell 10 is determined by whether or not the capacitor 14 is holding a charge. The DRAM cell is read by using the bit line to determine whether or not a charge is stored in the capacitor. The DRAM cell is written by using the bit line to add or remove charge from the capacitor. However, the cell can only be read or written when the cell is addressed (i.e. activated) by the word line. With the continuous advancement of DRAM technology, the chip area used for one DRAM cell is getting smaller. There are two methods used to increase the capacitance of the capacitor in the DRAM cell. One method is to decrease the effective dielectric thickness and the other method is to increase the effective capacitor surface area. It is expected that future scaled DRAM cells will rely heavily on the quality and storage capacity of ultra thin dielectric materials that are sandwiched between two heavily doped polysilicon and/or silicon electrodes. However, higher capacitance values cannot be obtained without seriously degrading the device retention time. Specifically, films thinner than 50 angstroms present excessive leakage current due to direct carrier tunneling. For a given capacitor dielectric film, the larger the surface area, the larger the capacitance. FIGS. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 illustrate prior art Dram cells. The DRAM cell 20 of FIG. 2 comprises a MOSFET 22 and a capacitor 24 which are both formed on a silicon substrate 25. The MOSFET 22 comprises the source and drain regions 26 and 28, which regions are separated by the channel 29. It should be noted that the source and drain regions 26, 28 have a conductivity type opposite to that of the substrate. A metal contact 27 directly contacts the source region 26. A gate 30 is formed from polysilicon material (Poly-1) and is separated from the surface of the substrate by an oxide layer 31. An additional oxide region 32 is on top of the gate 30. The capacitor 24 sits on top of the drain region 28. The capacitor 24 has a first electrode 40 formed by a conducting polysilicon material (poly-2), a thin dielectric layer 42 which may be NO or ONO, and a second electrode 44 which is formed from a conducting polysilicon material (poly-3). The capacitor contacts the drain region 28 in a space between the oxide region 32 and the oxide region 52. FIG. 3 shows a DRAM cell 20' which is similar to the DRAM cell 20 of FIG. 2. The main difference is that the shape of the poly-2 electrode layer 40, dielectric layer 42 and poly-3 electrode layer 44 have been altered to increase the surface area of the capacitor 24. FIG. 4 shows a DRAM cell 20" in which the poly-2 electrode 40 has been made rugged to increase the surface area of the capacitor. FIG. 5 shows a DRAM cell 20'" in which the polysilicon electrode 40 is formed from a plurality of horizontal layers 41 to increase the surface area of the capacitor. Another capacitor structure which can be used to increase the capacitance of a DRAM cell is known as MOST (modulated stacked) capacitor. (See e.g. Y. K. Jun et al, "The Fabrication and Electrical Properties of Modulated Stacked Capacitor for Advance DRAM Applications" IEEE Electron Device Letters, Vol. 13, No. 8, August 1992, the contexts of which are incorporated herein by reference) . A DRAM cell 20"" having a MOST capacitor structure is illustrated in FIG. 6. In the capacitor 24 of FIG. 6, the poly-2 electrode 40 comprises a plurality of spaced apart vertical pillars 43. The capacitor dielectric 42 and poly-3 electrode 44 are then deposited over the spaced apart vertical pillars 43. In this manner a capacitor with a large effective surface area is formed in a DRAM cell. It is an object of the present invention to provide a technique for manufacture of a MOST capacitor for use in a DRAM cell.

1. Field of the Invention The invention concerns a process and a bandage for treatment of wounds. 2. Description of the Related Art For treatment of wound infections and wounds which contain dead tissue, for example, for treatment of the diabetic gangrene, fly larvae are employed, in particular larvae of the fly genus Lucilia (bluebottle flies) and in particular Lucilia scricata. The fly larvae (maggots) are employed for a specific amount of time, for example three days, in the wound in need of therapy. It has been shown that the maggots in this time remove necrotic tissue in the wound (biodebridement), eliminate bacterial infections and stimulate healing of the wound. In the method for treatment with surgical maggots employed until now, after cleansing of the wound the edge or rim of the wound is first covered with an adhesive strip. The maggots are applied to a fine mesh net, which is then inverted and adhered to the adhesive strips, such that the maggots are situated between the net and the wound surface. The net serves as an air-permeable cage, which restrains the maggots in the wound. After the effective time of approximately three days, the net is pulled off and the maggots are removed from the wound. In this method, various problems can occur. The adhesive bond between the net and the wound edge is not absolutely reliable. If the adhesive edge comes loose, it is not possible to prevent escape of maggots, which can then pupate so that bottle flies develop. The removal of the maggots from the wound after conclusion of the treatment is time-consuming and, in particular for the patients, is not aesthetic. Further, in larger wounds it cannot be guaranteed that the maggots are active in particular there where the strongest therapeutic effect is to be targeted. The present invention is concerned with a task of providing a process and a bandage for treatment of wounds, which overcome or reduce the above-mentioned disadvantages associated with the known treatment with surgical maggots. The invention is based upon the recognition that the therapeutic effect of the maggots on the wound is in particular attributable to the secretions secreted by the maggots. These secretions, in particular the digestive secretions, liquefy necrotic tissue so that it can be taken up by the maggots as nutrient. The secreted fluid has a strongly anti-bacterial effect and promotes wound healing. The fundamental concept of the invention is based on the idea that the maggots are not to be freely released into the wound, but rather a wound overlay or applique is to be to employed, which contains the secretion of fly larvae important for the therapeutic effect. The wound overlay can be strategically placed there where the secretion is desired to have a therapeutic effect. In this manner it can be ensured that even in larger wounds the entire wound surface can come in contact with the secretion in an even manner. Likewise, specific areas of the wound can be targeted for treatment with a higher dose and concentration of the secretion. The wound overlay can be applied with good contact with the wound surface. For this, one can also employ in certain cases a core or insert, which urges the wound overlay to lie against the wound surface. The good surface contact between the wound overlay and the wound surface ensures that the secretion is effective in the entire area of the wound surface. The wound overlay can, after conclusion of the active period, be removed from the wound in a simple and problem-free manner without leaving residues. In a preferred embodiment, a pouch of a fine-mesh net-like material, preferably a textile material, containing fly larvae is included in the wound overlay. One or more pouches, which contain the maggots, are introduced into the wound. The maggots contained in the pouch have no chance of escape or to migrate to other wound areas. Thereby, it is not only ensured that the maggots do not escape from the wound, but rather it is in particular also insured, that the maggots exercise their therapeutic effect in that wound area where the pouch is applied. In this way it is possible to produce a targeted enhanced or strengthened therapeutic effect in certain wound areas. Likewise, it can be ensured, by the application of multiple small-area pouches, or by the application of one large surface area pouch which is sub-divided into smaller enclosed chambers, that the maggots were distributed evenly over the entire wound surface and that they do not collect in an undesired manner in certain wound areas, in which for example the therapeutic effect is less necessary. Finally, by the enclosure of the maggots in a pouch, a rapid, simple and reliable removal of the maggots from the wound is possible. Since the patient does not see the maggots contained in the pouch, the aesthetic and psychological problems of treatment with surgical maggots is substantially reduced. The material, of which the pouches to be produced, is so finely meshed, that the maggots are reliably enclosed in the pouch. The mesh width of the material, that is, its pore size, is so dimensioned, that an unimpeded fluid exchange of the digestive secretions of the maggots and the dissolved and liquefied necrotic tissue is possible. Further, the textile material of the pouch is sufficiently air permeable to ensure the survival of the maggots. The fly larvae bred in sterile conditions are introduced into the pouch. It is also possible to introduce fly eggs into the pouches, so that the maggots emerge in the pouch. In order to keep the maggots alive until introduction into the wound, it is possible or necessary, for example, to introduce a maggot specific nutrient media together with the maggots, or to impregnate the pouch therewith. Since the maggots only sustain themselves with dead tissue, such a supplementation of nutrient media can also be important in the case that the wound area, in which the pouch is applied, does not sufficiently contain necrotic tissue. For the practical application of the wound overlay, it can be of advantage to provide large surface area pouches which can, for use, be cut to size to correspond to the wound. For this, the pouch can be subdivided by suitable means, for example by plastic clamps or adhesive material, so that a separation is possible and after the separation, the partial pouch is closed at the line of separation. It can also be of advantage, when a large surface area wound overlay is provided, for example, in sheets, which is subdivided into small closed chambers, each of which respectively contain a few maggots. This wound overlay can, on the basis of the confinement in chambers, be very simply cut to the required shape. The subdivision into chambers ensures that the maggots are maintained evenly distributed over the entire surface area of the wound overlay and evenly dispensed their secretion. In the place of pouches, in which living maggots are enclosed, it is also possible to employ a wound overlay which contains no living maggots but instead is permeated with the secretion of maggots. For this, maggots are bred in vitro and fed necroticed tissue, so that they form and release secretion. This secretion is then received and stored in a wound overlay. After removal of the maggots, the wound overlay impregnated with secretion can be applied to the wound. Such a wound overlay without living fly larvae is particularly suitable for such applications, in which in particular the anti-bacterial and healing promoting effect of the secretion is desired. However, it is usually also necessary to remove necrotized tissue from the wound, and in this case the wound overlay with enclosed maggots is to be preferred. Particularly in the case of large and deep wounds, in order to apply the wound overlay to the wound surface with good contact, it is preferable when the bandage supplementally includes a core or enclosure, which is applied upon the wound overlay and secured by an outer wound covering. The wound covering presses the core or insert against the wound overlay, whereby again the wound overlay is brought into good contact with the wound surface. The core or insert is preferably comprised of an open-pore material, in particular a foam plastic. As outer wound covering a plastic foil is preferably employed, which is applied over the wound and adhered to the wound edges. Such a foil as wound covering has the advantage, that the wound is closed off air-tight, whereby the development of the offensive strong odor of necrotic tissue is prevented. If the insert is comprised of an open-pore foam material, then the insert can take up and store surplus wound secretion. In the application of pouches with living maggots, the open-pore insert also serves as storage area for air and moisture, which is necessary for the survival of the maggots when the wound is closed over with an air-tight foil. If living maggots are employed, then it is advantageous when the air-tight covering of the wound is combined with a ventilation system. By means of such a ventilation system sufficient air can be introduced under the foil and into the open-pore insert, in order to ensure the survival of the maggots. In order to prevent the escape through the ventilation system of the odors evolved in the wound, the ventilation system is preferably closeable or sealable. When air is being supplied below the air-tight covering, the ventilation system is opened and the flow-through of air is carried out through the open porous insert. The emitted odors can, as desired, be captured by an odor filter. Between the individual ventilation phases, the ventilation system can be closed by an air-tight lid.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a protective plate provided at a front face of a plasma display (hereinbelow, referred to as PDP) to protect the main body of PDP and subjected to a treatment for reducing electromagnetic noises and near infrared rays generated from PDP. 2. Description of the Background Since a conventional PDP comprises very precise electric components, if it was used as it is and if a user acted on it to apply a force to its surface, there was a high possibility of causing damage. Accordingly, it was necessary to provide protection to prevent the damage. Further, since PDP generates electromagnetic waves harmful to human body and near infrared rays which causes erroneous operations of remote controllers for various kinds of electrical equipments, there has raised necessity for providing a protective plate having a shielding property to the electromagnetic waves. It is an object of the present invention to provide a protective plate for PDP provided with a near infrared ray shielding property and an electromagnetic wave shielding property and a method for producing the same. The present invention is to provide a protective plate for PDP comprising a conductive substrate for protecting PDP and an electrode in electrical contact with the conductive plate, and a method for producing the same. In a preferred example of the present invention, there is the above-mentioned protective plate for PDP (hereinbelow, referred to simply as the protective plate) wherein the conductive substrate for protecting PDP comprises a substrate and a conductive film formed on the substrate.

DE 10 2011 083 657 A1 describes a filter element for a fresh air system in a vehicle. At a carrier body, the filter element has two separately configured filter media bodies implemented as pleated filters, which are disposed diagonally opposite each other at the carrier body and delimit an intermediate clean chamber in the carrier body. The filter media bodies are each through-flown from the outside to the inside by the air to be cleaned; the clean air is discharged from the clean chamber via an outflow aperture in the carrier body. The carrier body of the filter element is configured as a frame having two parallel running webs, which at their end faces are connected with one end plate respectively. The outflow aperture for discharging the cleaned air from the clean chamber is introduced into one of the end plates. The carrier body is formed as a plastic injection molding component injection-molded onto the two filter media bodies. The injection molding creates a flow-tight connection between the outflow side of each filter media body and the support frame. The filter media bodies are identically structured and adjoin with their lateral end edges at the end plates of the carrier body. As a result, the filter element overall is approximately cuboidal.

The invention concerns a method for towing of an aircraft by means of a tractor which is attached to the aircraft, mainly to the nosewheel of the aircraft. When towing an aircraft by means of a tractor under the known technology, a tractor driver usually carries out the towing which takes place at low speed, i.e. not over 10 miles/hour (16 km/h), alone. Such towing of aircraft takes place when empty aircraft are moved around in an airport and when loaded aircraft are towed away from a gate to a place where the engines of the aircraft can be started up. However, it would be desirable if fully loaded aircraft could be towed at higher speeds than that mentioned above. If that could be safely achieved, taxiing of aircraft could be done by tractor tow instead of under the power of the engines of the aircraft. This would result in a considerable fuel saving. However, two important problems prevent this from being achieved with the known technology. First, such great forces between the aircraft and the tractor may develop during towing at higher speeds that the nose-wheel structure of the aircraft is unable to transmit them. Moreover, instability in the power transmission may easily cause directional instability with the danger of a jackknifing of the tow-train. Second, leaving the full responsibility for a fully loaded aircraft being towed at high speed with a tractor driver is hardly acceptable.

Nano-probe and nano-knives are very useful for applications such as medical diagnosis and surgery, scientific experiments and use as industrial sensors. Typically, nano-probes/knives are mounted on an electro-mechanical membrane. The electro-mechanical membrane for these devices is typically made from thin metal films or etched silicon layers. To enhance the sensitivity of the device, the electro-mechanical membrane must be made as thin as possible, which is problematic from a structural standpoint as electro-mechanical membranes formed of metal films and silicon become very brittle as they are made thinner.

The present invention relates to a new and distinctive soybean variety, designated 90B72 which has been the result of years of careful breeding and selection. 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, tolerance to drought and heat, and better agronomic qualities. Field crops are bred through techniques that take advantage of the plant's method of pollination. A plant is self-pollinated if pollen from one flower is transferred to the same or another flower of the same plant. A plant is cross-pollinated if the pollen comes from a flower on a different plant. Soybean plants (Glycine max), are recognized to be naturally self-pollinated plants which, while capable of undergoing cross-pollination, rarely do so in nature. Insects are reported by some researchers to carry pollen from one soybean plant to another and it generally is estimated that less than one percent of soybean seed formed in an open planting can be traced to cross-pollination, i.e. less than one percent of soybean seed formed in an open planting is capable of producing F.sub.1 hybrid soybean plants, See Jaycox, "Ecological Relationships between Honey Bees and Soybeans," appearing in the American Bee Journal Vol. 110(8): 306-307 (August 1970). Thus intervention for control of pollination is critical to establishment of superior varieties. A cross between two different homozygous lines produces a uniform population of hybrid plants that may be heterozygous for many gene loci. A cross of two plants each heterozygous at a number of gene loci will produce a population of hybrid plants that differ genetically and will not be uniform. Regardless of parentage, plants that have been self-pollinated and selected for type for many generations become homozygous at almost all gene loci and produce a uniform population of true breeding progeny. Soybeans, (Glycine max), can be bred by both self-pollination and cross-pollination techniques. Choice of breeding or selection methods depends on the mode of plant reproduction, the heritability of the trait(s) being improved, and the type of variety used commercially (e.g., F.sub.1 hybrid variety, pureline variety, etc.). For highly heritable traits, a choice of superior individual plants evaluated at a single location will be effective, whereas for traits with low heritability, selection should be based on mean values obtained from replicated evaluations of families of related plants. Popular selection methods commonly include pedigree selection, modified pedigree selection, mass selection, and recurrent selection. The complexity of inheritance influences choice of the breeding method. Pedigree breeding and recurrent selection breeding methods are used to develop varieties from breeding populations. Pedigree breeding starts with the crossing of two genotypes, each of which may have one or more desirable characteristics that is lacking in the other or which complements the other. If the two original parents do not provide all the desired characteristics, other sources can be included in the breeding population. In the pedigree method, superior plants are selfed and selected in successive generations. In the succeeding generations the heterozygous condition gives way to homogeneous lines as a result of self-pollination and selection. Typically in the pedigree method of breeding five or more generations of selfing and selection is practiced: F.sub.1 .fwdarw.F.sub.2 ; F.sub.2 .fwdarw.F.sub.3 ;F.sub.3 .fwdarw.F.sub.4 ; F.sub.4 .fwdarw.F.sub.5, etc. Pedigree breeding is commonly used for the improvement of self-pollinating crops. Two parents that possess favorable, complementary traits are crossed to produce an F.sub.1. An F.sub.2 population is produced by selfing one or several F.sub.1 's or by intercrossing two F.sub.1 's (sib mating). Selection of the best individuals may begin in the F.sub.2 population; then, beginning in the F.sub.3, the best individuals in the best families are selected. Replicated testing of families can begin in the F.sub.4 generation to improve the effectiveness of selection for traits with low heritability. At an advanced stage of inbreeding (i.e., F.sub.6 and F.sub.7), the best lines or mixtures of phenotypically similar lines are tested for potential release as new varieties. Backcross breeding has been used to transfer genes for simply inherited, highly heritable traits into a desirable homozygous variety or inbred line that is utilized as the recurrent parent. The source of the traits to be transferred is called the donor parent. After the initial cross, individuals possessing the desired traits of the donor parent are selected and repeatedly crossed (backcrossed) to the recurrent parent. The resulting plant is expected to have the attributes of the recurrent parent (e.g., variety) and the desirable traits transferred from the donor parent. This approach has been used extensively for breeding disease resistant varieties. Each breeding program should include a periodic, objective evaluation of the efficiency of the breeding procedure. Evaluation criteria vary depending on the goal and objectives, but should include gain from selection per year based on comparisons to an appropriate standard, overall value of the advanced breeding lines, and number of successful varieties produced per unit of input (e.g., per year, per dollar expended, etc.). Various recurrent selection techniques are used to improve quantitatively inherited traits controlled by numerous genes. The use of recurrent selection in self-pollinating crops depends on the ease of pollination, the frequency of successful hybrids from each pollination, and the number of hybrid offspring from each successful cross. Promising advanced breeding lines are thoroughly tested and compared to appropriate standards in environments representative of the commercial target area(s) for three or more years. The best lines are candidates for new commercial varieties; those still deficient in a few traits may be used as parents to produce new populations for further selection. Publically available or newly-released varieties of soybean can also be used as parental lines or starting materials for breeding or as source populations from which to develop other soybean varieties or breeding lines. These varieties or lines derived from publically available or newly-released varieties can be developed by using breeding methods described earlier, such as pedigree breeding, backcrossing and recurrent selection. These processes, which lead to the final step of marketing and distribution, can take from eight to twelve years from the time the first cross is made. Therefore, development of new varieties is a time-consuming process that requires precise forward planning, efficient use of resources, and a minimum of changes in direction. A most difficult task is the identification of individuals that are genetically superior, because for most traits the true genotypic value is masked by other confounding plant traits or environmental factors. One method of identifying a superior plant is to observe its performance relative to other experimental plants and to a widely grown standard variety. Generally a single observation is inconclusive, so replicated observations are required to provide a better estimate of its genetic worth. In addition to the preceding problem, it is not known how the genotype will react with the environment. This genotype by environment interaction is an important, yet unpredictable, factor in plant breeding. A breeder of ordinary skill in the art cannot predict the genotype, how that genotype will interact with various environments or the resulting phenotypes of the developing lines, except perhaps in a very broad and general fashion. A breeder of ordinary skill in the art would also be unable to recreate the same line twice from the very same original parents, as the breeder is unable to direct how the genomes combine or how they will interact with the environmental conditions. This unpredictability results in the expenditure of large amounts of research resources in the development of a superior new soybean variety. The goal of soybean breeding is to develop new, unique and superior soybean varieties. In practical application of a chosen breeding program, the breeder initially selects and crosses two or more parental lines, followed by repeated selfing and selection, producing many new genetic combinations. The breeder can theoretically generate billions of different genetic combinations via crossing, selfing and mutations. The breeder has no direct control at the cellular level. Therefore, two breeders will never develop the same line, or even very similar lines, having the same soybean traits. Each year, the plant breeder selects the germplasm to advance to the next generation. This germplasm is grown under unique and different geographical, climatic and soil conditions, and further selections are then made during and at the end of the growing season. The varieties which are developed are unpredictable for the reasons already mentioned. Mass and recurrent selections can be used to improve populations of either self- or cross-pollinated crops. A genetically variable population of heterozygous individuals is either identified or created by intercrossing several different parents. The best plants are selected based on individual superiority, outstanding progeny, or excellent combining ability. The selected plants are intercrossed to produce a new population in which further cycles of selection are continued. The single-seed descent procedure in the strict sense refers to planting a segregating population, harvesting a sample of one seed per plant, and using the one-seed sample to plant the next generation. When the population has been advanced from the F.sub.2 to the desired level of inbreeding, the plants from which lines are derived will each trace to different F.sub.2 individuals. The number of plants in a population declines each generation due to failure of some seeds to germinate or some plants to produce at least one seed. As a result, not all of the F.sub.2 plants originally sampled in the population will be represented by a progeny when generation advance is completed. In a multiple-seed procedure, soybean breeders commonly harvest one or more pods from each plant in a population and thresh them together to form a bulk. Part of the bulk is used to plant the next generation and part is put in reserve. The procedure has been referred to as modified single-seed descent or the pod-bulk technique. The multiple-seed procedure has been used to save labor at harvest. It is considerably faster to thresh pods with a machine than to remove one seed from each by hand for the single-seed procedure. The multiple-seed procedure also makes it possible to plant the same number of seeds of a population each generation of inbreeding. Enough seeds are harvested to make up for those plants that did not germinate or produce seed. Descriptions of other breeding methods that are commonly used for different traits and crops can be found in one of several reference books (e.g., Allard, 1960; Simmonds, 1979; Sneep et al., 1979; Fehr, 1987). Proper testing should detect major faults and establish the level of superiority or improvement over current varieties. In addition to showing superior performance, there must be a demand for a new variety. The new variety must be compatible with industry standards, or must create a new market. The introduction of a new variety may incur additional costs to the seed producer, the grower, processor and consumer, for special advertising and marketing, altered seed and commercial production practices, and new product utilization. The testing preceding release of a new variety should take into consideration research and development costs as well as technical superiority of the final variety. For seed-propagated varieties, it must be feasible to produce seed easily and economically. Soybean (Glycine max), is an important and valuable field crop. Thus, a continuing goal of soybean breeders is to develop stable, high yielding soybean varieties that are agronomically sound. The reasons for this goal are obviously 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. Pioneer soybean research staff create over 500,000 potential new varieties each year. Of those new varieties, less than 50 and more commonly less than 25 are actually selected for commercial use.

Applicant claims priority from German application 299 15 180.8 filed Aug. 30, 2000. A connector module that lie in the narrow underside of a mobile telephone, commonly includes signal contacts for passing power current and low to moderate frequency signals, and a coaxial contact for passing high frequency signals to an external antenna. Present connector modules of this type take up substantial space in the area that they occupy and in their thickness, which stands in the way of further miniaturization. Current coaxial connectors have substantial thickness because they use plug-in connectors with cylindrical inner and outer contacts that slideably engage mating cylindrical surfaces. It would be desirable to provide a connector module of small footprint and small thickness to facilitate the construction of even smaller mobile telephones. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a connector module is provided for installation in a mobile telephone apparatus, which is of small thickness and which has a small footprint. The module includes a molded dielectric body that is largely in the form of a longitudinally-elongated plate with first and second body parts at its end portions. A row of first contacts with a row of strip-shaped sides lies along the mating side of the first body part, and a coaxial contact pair is mounted in the second body part. The coaxial contact pair has inner and outer contacts that face at least partially in the mating direction for engaging corresponding contacts on a docking station by pressure applied in the mating direction.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention concerns a method for authenticating objects or substances using chemical marking or tracing. It applies more particularly but not exclusively to the fight against counterfeiting, to automatic sorting. 2. Description of the Prior Art As a general rule, numerous objects or substances whether in transit or on sale are identified by means of a bar code. With this code it is possible to define products but it is not sufficient for their authentication i.e. for certifying after analysis that the object or substance is indeed the one defined by the bar code. In an attempt to solve this problem, methods integrating a chemical marker into objects or substances have been developed. However, it is necessary to have recourse to laboratories to perform analyses and detect counterfeited products: this procedure is far too time-consuming and laborious. As for the solution which consists of developing analytical equipment specific to each product, this solution is not economically viable.

This invention relates to fasteners. The invention has particularly been devised for use where it is intended to secure a roofing or cladding panel to a purlin or stanchion, with a layer of insulation between the two. It is desirable that the insulation material should not be crushed or compressed excessively and hence the fastener required to secure the panel in position must be capable of supporting the panel at a position spaced from the purlin or other structural member to which it is to be secured, as well as performing the actual securing operation. A previously proposed type of fastener has comprised a self-tapping screw having an enlarged head, a resilient annular washer disposed beneath the head and being too large to pass through the hole provided in the panel, a rigid expander disposed below the washer and being of annular shape with an inwardly tapering lower end, and a rigid support sleeve having a slightly flared upper end, co-operable with the taper on the expander. The arrangement was such that the screw head and resilient washer remained on the outer side of the panel whilst the sleeve and the expander passed through the hole in the panel. As the self-tapping screw was screwed into the structural member, the spacer sleeve was trapped above the structural member and forced against the expander so that the flared upper end of the sleeve was forced up the taper and expanded further. Eventually, when the fastener was fully tightened, the flared end of the spacer sleeve was sufficiently enlarged to be pressed against the underside of the panel while the resilient sealing washer was firmly pressed against the upper side, sealing the aperture in the panel. This previously known fastener had a disadvantage that it was possible accidentally to start expanding the upper end of the sleeve whilst the flared portion was above, rather than below, the level of the panel. In this case, the panel would not be properly supported and might not even be properly secured to the structural member underneath. Furthermore, the seal between the resilient washer and the panel was wholly dependent on there being sufficient pressure exerted by the head to hold the underface of the washer against the upper face of the panel in sealing engagement.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for analyzing thermal deformation, and in particular to a thermal deformation analyzing method for analyzing thermal deformation of a substance in response to temperature increase or decrease, and as time elapses during a temperature increase or decrease. 2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a method for analyzing the structure of a substance (for example, a plastic molded part) has been proposed in which stress of the substance is analyzed based on the material data such as the linear expansion coefficient, Young""s modulus, and Poisson""s ratio of the substance, the shape and constraint condition of the substance, and, at the same time, the creep strain generated in response to the stress occurring on the substance is analyzed using Nutting""s formula shown as Equation (1) An example of analysis software is that marketed under the trade name ABAQUS. ∂ ϵ ∂ t = A ⁢ xe2x80x83 ⁢ σ n ⁢ t m ( 1 ) However, in such an analyzing method, because the tensile creep characteristic is used as the creep characteristic when the substance is bent (referred to as the bending creep characteristic hereinafter), there is a problem that the precision of the analysis of the bending creep characteristic is low. Also, because thermal shrinkage which occurs as time elapses is not considered, there is an additional problem that for a substance having a thermal shrinkage characteristic, the conventional method may result in large error. In order to solve the problem related to the bending creep characteristic KANTO JIDOSHA KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA, a co-applicant of the present application, proposed a method for precisely analyzing the bending creep characteristic by multiplying the tensile creep or compressive creep after heating, obtained as a result of an analysis using Nutting""s formula, by an experimentally determined correction coefficient (Japanese Patent Application No. Hei 9-352189). One object of the method for analyzing thermal deformation according to the present invention is to precisely analyze the thermal deformation of a substance which thermally shrinks over time. In order to achieve at least the object mentioned above, the thermal deformation analysis according to the present invention employs the following method. According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a thermal deformation analysis method for analyzing thermal deformation of a substance in which deformation occurs in response to an increase and the following decrease in temperature, and while the temperature increases and then decreases over time, wherein thermal deformation of the substance is analyzed based on a creep characteristic which relates to the creep deformation of the substance occurring during the temperature increase and the following temperature decrease as time elapses, and a thermal shrinkage characteristic which relates to the thermal shrinkage deformation of the substance occurring during the temperature increase and the following temperature decrease as time elapses. In this aspect of the thermal deformation analysis method, thermal deformation of the substance is analyzed based on the creep characteristic which relates to the creep deformation of the substance occurring during the temperature increase and the following temperature decrease as time elapses, and the thermal shrinkage characteristic which relates to the thermal shrinkage deformation of the substance occurring during the temperature increase and the following temperature decrease as time elapses. As a result, analysis can be more precisely performed compared to an analysis of the conventional method which does not take thermal shrinkage characteristic into account. It is also preferable to configure the thermal deformation analysis method to comprise a calculation step for deformation during temperature increase, for calculating the elasto-plastic deformation of the substance during the process of raising the temperature of the substance to a predetermined temperature, based on the elasto-plastic characteristic of the substance; a calculation step for creep deformation, for calculating the creep deformation of the substance when the substance is exposed to the predetermined temperature environment for a predetermined period of time, based on the creep characteristic; and a calculation step for deformation during the following temperature decrease, for calculating the elasto-plastic deformation of the substance during the process of cooling the substance from the elevated temperature to a predetermined low temperature, based on the elasto-plastic characteristic of the substance, wherein the thermal shrinkage characteristic is included in at least one of the three steps in calculating the deformation of the substance. In this manner, the deformation of the substance can be analyzed from the elasto-plastic deformation, creep deformation, and thermal shrinkage deformation, during a temperature increase and the following temperature decrease. In the aspect of the thermal deformation analysis method of the present invention comprising the above three steps, it is also preferable that the creep deformation calculation step is a step for calculating the deformation by taking the sum of the deformation produced by the creep strain obtained from the creep characteristic with respect to time and the deformation produced by the thermal shrinkage obtained based on the thermal shrinkage characteristic with respect to time as the total deformation with respect to time of said substance. In such a case, in the calculation, the thermal shrinkage deformation occurring as time elapses is assumed to be simultaneous with the creep deformation. Further, in the aspect of the thermal deformation analysis method of the present invention comprising the above three steps, it is also preferable that the calculation step for deformation during temperature increase is a step for calculating the elasto-plastic deformation of the substance based on the linear expansion coefficient of the substance obtained according to the elasto-plastic deformation characteristic and on the thermal shrinkage rate of the substance obtained according to the thermal shrinkage characteristic. In such a case, in the calculation, the thermal shrinkage deformation occurring as time elapses is assumed to be simultaneous with the elasto-plastic deformation during the temperature increase. Because the saturated amount of thermal shrinkage is calculated during temperature increase process, this is especially effective when the thermal shrinkage is saturated or nearly saturated at an early stage of the temperature increase. Still further, in the aspect of the thermal deformation analysis method of the present invention comprising the above three steps, it is also preferable that the calculation step for deformation during the following temperature decrease is a step for calculating the elasto-plastic deformation of the substance based on the linear expansion coefficient of the substance obtained according to the elasto-plastic deformation characteristic and on the thermal shrinkage rate of the substance obtained according to the thermal shrinkage characteristic. In such a case, in the calculation, the thermal shrinkage deformation occurring as time elapses is assumed to be simultaneous with the elasto-plastic deformation during the temperature decrease.

The present invention relates generally to gas turbine engines, and more particularly to gas turbine engine bladed rotors having separable blade platforms that are coupled to the rotor disk/wheel by mechanical engagement with the rotor disk lugs. Although the present invention was developed for gas turbine engines, certain applications may be outside of this field. Gas turbine engine rotors typically employ blade platforms that extend generally laterally of the blades to partially define an aerodynamic flow path between adjacent blades. One conventional approach utilized to retain the blades to the rotor disk/wheel has been by the utilization of dovetail and slot arrangements. Associated with this conventional approach of retaining the blades to the rotor disk/wheel has been the utilization of blades with integrally formed platforms. The continued demand on gas turbine engine technology has resulted in some prior attempts to create blade platforms separate from the blade. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,019,832 and 5,277,548 are two examples of prior efforts to utilize a bladed rotor with non-integral blade platforms. Present technological needs and manufacturing concerns for gas turbine engines requires continued development in the field of bladed rotors utilizing separable blade platforms. The present invention provides a novel and non-obvious way of coupling the separable blade platforms to the gas turbine engine disk/wheel.

Software applications are generally configured to store application settings in non-removable memory of a processing system. For example, it is common for software to be configured to store settings in either the system registry of the processing system, or data files which are stored in the hard drive of the processing system. However, in the event that the processing system crashes, application setting data is irretrievable, causing the user to reset the application settings which can be a time consuming task. A user may manually attempt to copy application setting data in a removable storage device in order to make a back up copy of the settings data. However, the user generally requires an extremely detailed knowledge of internal functionality of the software to copy the appropriate application settings successfully. Some solutions have proposed copying all settings associated with the user environment in a processing system. However, when all the settings are restored, one or more applications can malfunction. For example, system variables copied from one processing system can likely lead to malfunctioning software due to applications being installed in different locations in processing systems. Therefore, there exists a need for a method, system, computer readable medium of instructions, and/or a computer program product which copies application setting data for a selected one or more applications without the user requiring a detailed knowledge of the internal functionality of the selected one or more applications. The reference in this specification to any prior publication (or information derived from it), or to any matter which is known, is not, and should not be taken as an acknowledgment or admission or any form of suggestion that that prior publication (or information derived from it) or known matter forms part of the common general knowledge in the field of endeavour to which this specification relates.

Water normally contains alkali earth metal cations such as calcium, barium, magnesium, etc., and water "hardness" is directly related to the concentration of these cations in the water. Hard water reduces the effectiveness of detergents and soaps because these multivalent cations form insoluble salts with the anionic components of the detergent or soap, which precipitate from the detersive system and occlude dirt onto fabrics and form deposits ("scale") on sufaces and machine parts. Detergent compositions generally contain one or more detergent builders capable of chelating or sequestering the multivalent cations. Detergent builders not only prevent the formation of insoluble precipitates (e.g., calcium soaps) but also improve detergency by deflocculating soil aggregates coagulated by the cations and breaking up the cation-enhanced binding of dirt to substrates. Until the 1970's, the most widely used detergent builders were the condensed phosphates, especially sodium tripolyphosphate. However, with the discovery of the role of phosphates in the eutrophication of water systems, severe restrictions have been imposed on the use of phosphates in detergent compositions, and as a result there is a continuing need for the discovery of detergent builder compounds not based on phosphorus. Many alternative detergent builders have been proposed, notably the alkali metal salts of nitrilotriacetic acid, e.g., trisodium nitrilotriacetate (NTA). Also, oxygen-based analogs of NTA, e.g., 1-oxacyclopropane-2,3-dicarboxylic acid and organic polymers such as polyacrylates, polymaleates, and polymethacrylates. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,393,150, 3,666,664, 3,707,502, 3,839,215, and 4,067,816, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. The aforementioned polymeric detergent builders are effective; however as a general rule their usefulness increases as their molecular weight increases and at high molecular weight, synthetic organic polymers give rise to further environmental concerns. This is because even though such polymers do not contribute any phosphorus to water systems, the organic polymers are not biodegradable and consequently remain in the environment, virtually unchanged, for an extremely long time. A primary reason for the non-biodegradability of synthetic polymers is that since they do not occur in nature, no enzymes or microorganisms have yet evolved that can attack the synthetic polymer chains or utilize the polymers as food. Recent research indicates that the uninterrupted carbon backbone of common synthetic organic polymers is only sparingly susceptible to biological cleavage. Recent research indicates that introduction of a hydrolyzable group such as an ester linkage into the backbone of organic addition polymers gives a copolyester which is biodegradable on a reasonable time scale but retains many of the physical properties of the original, non-biodegradable addition polymer. (See, e.g., W. J. Bailey, "The Design of New Biodegradable Polymers", 6th International Symposium on the Stabilization and Controlled Degradation of Polymers, Lucerne, Swiz. (June 6, 1984); W. J. Bailey and B. Gapud, "Synthesis of Biodegradable Polyethylene", American Chemical Society Symposium Series No. 280: Polymer Stabilization and Degradation, pp. 423-31 (1985). It has now been discovered that copolymers can be prepared from methylene-substituted heterocyclic compounds and acrylate compounds via a ring-opening addition reaction to provide high molecular weight, carboxy-functional polymers useful, e.g., as detergent builders. The copolymers are characterized by active carboxylic acid groups and also by repeated ester linkages in the organic polymer chain. The carboxy functionality of the copolymers makes them effective metal cation chelators, and the ester units in the copolymer chain make the copolymers biodegradable.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention pertains to a method and apparatus for applying gasket strips to a surface. More particularly, the invention relates to an automated system using a robot guided head to manufacture gasket patterns, and is particularly suitable for applying gasket strips to circuit boards, covers, fixtures, cases components, etc. 2. Description of the Related Art Electronic circuit boards may require some type of shielding to prevent interference from electromagnetic signals. The shielding can protect the circuits on a circuit board from signals generated from sources outside the circuit board, or protect components and circuits outside the circuit board from signals generated on the board itself. It may also be desirable to shield components and circuits on one part of the circuit board from components and circuits on another part of the same circuit board. Shielding to prevent interference can be provided by applying an Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI) shielding gasket to the circuit board. The gasket material usually has conductive characteristics to act as an effective shield against electromagnetic signals. Surrounding the component where the interference must be shielded, the gasket is typically compressed between the circuit board and a metal cover or case. There are presently only a few methods of applying a shielding gasket to a circuit board, cover, or case. The first utilizes a molded gasket of the desired shape which is either glued in place, pressed onto a ridge (like a saddle), pressed onto a groove or channel, or uses the circuit board bolts to keep from shifting during use. Another method uses die-cut gasket patterns, but this is very expensive due to the high material waste. Additionally, both of these methods are extremely labor intensive, costly to redesign, and thus unpopular. They also limit the designer because changes to a design mid-production can be extremely costly. Another method for shielding circuits is to place beryllium copper clips or pegs onto a cover that makes contact with the circuit board. These, however, are labor intensive, costly to redesign, and difficult to put on. An innovative method of applying gasket material that eliminates these shortcomings is desirable. Gasket strips are also used in other industries. For example, automotive gaskets are used for sealing various engine parts to maintain gas and liquids, and in areas such as windshields to seal the environment from the car's interior. One device as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,759,810 to Jackson et al. applies precut lengths of gasket strips to a windshield. Because the gasket material must be precut, and an operator must load precut rolls of gasket in the device, it is not easily adaptable to different gasket patterns. Moreover, the device lays down a one piece continuous length of gasket to form the entire gasket pattern. This is not suitable for making complicated gasket patterns that may require many individual strips. Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for applying gaskets that is less labor intensive. Another object is to provide a method and apparatus for applying gaskets that is less expensive. A further object of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus for applying gaskets that minimizes the gasket material required. Another object of the invention is to provide an automated method and apparatus for forming complicated patterns of gasket strips. Another object is to provide an automated method and apparatus capable of making different patterns of gaskets. Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention can be realized and attained by the method and apparatuses particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

1. Field Embodiments relate to a secondary battery. 2. Description of the Related Art Unlike primary batteries, which are not chargeable, secondary batteries are chargeable and dischargeable. Low-capacity batteries, which may include a pack having one battery cell, may be used for small portable electronic products, e.g., cellular phones, plasma display panels (PDPs), notebook computers, cameras, etc. High-capacity batteries, which may include a pack having multiple connected battery cells, may be used as, e.g., power supplies for hybrid vehicles. Secondary batteries may be fabricated as various types, e.g., a cylindrical type, a prismatic type, or the like. The secondary battery may include an electrode assembly in which a separator is interposed between a positive electrode and a negative electrode. The electrode assembly may be inserted into a case with an electrolyte, and a cap assembly having an electrode terminal may be coupled with the case.

As more computer devices are networked, communication between the computer devices have become faster. Faster communication involve transmitting and receiving larger amounts of data signals between networked computer devices. Often, these data signals are divided into packets for communication onto a network by a data communication platform. The packets usually contain information relating to the handling and managing of the data signals. Handling and managing of the data signals may include information such as destination, origin, and other details of how to handle the data signals. Standards have been developed and included in the packets to allow the data communication platform to handle and manage data signals in a predetermined manner. There are a great number of these standards, known as protocols. However, due to increasing complexity of networked computer devices, new protocols are continually being developed. The protocols may be developed and implemented in software, thereby allowing the protocols to be less related to particular networked computer devices and more universal. Additionally, protocols developed and implemented in software allow for flexibility in developing and adding new protocols as needed by more complex networked computer devices. The protocols may also be developed and implemented in hardware. For example, the protocols may be developed and implemented using application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Because ASICs are designed in hardware for a specific purpose, they do not need to retrieve and execute stored instructions. As a result, ASICs usually provide faster, but less flexible, data signal communication between networked computer devices as compared to protocols developed and implemented in software. Even though protocols developed and implemented in ASICs provide faster data signal communication between networked computer devices as compared to protocols developed and implemented in software, the time required for manufacture and the inflexibility of ASICs lead some to utilize protocols developed and implemented in software for data communication between networked devices, which provides slower, but more flexible, data communication.

Laser processing machines (work stations) for laser marking workpieces can include a work space with a height-adjustable marking laser component (“height-adjustable laser component”) and a height-adjustable machine component in the form of a protection door that closes off the work space in a light-tight way. As the lens of the marking laser is directed downward, workpieces to be marked are positioned correspondingly under the marking laser. The focal distance between the workpiece and the marking laser must be relatively precise to facilitate laser marking the workpiece. The marking laser is generally displaced vertically relative to the workpiece to bring the marking laser to the height where the focal distance is correct. The protection door and the marking laser can be automatically driven, but generally only the protection door is equipped with a direct weight compensation system, such as a counterweight, gas spring or spring balancer. Laser marking generally does not implement very high displacement speeds so the axles of the displacement systems can be equipped with relatively small drives.

Ever stricter legal requirements with respect to permissible emissions of pollutants of motor vehicles with internal combustion engines require emissions of pollutants to be kept as low as possible during the operation of the internal combustion engine. This can be done, on the one hand, by reducing the emissions of pollutants which occur during the combustion of the air/fuel mixture in the respective cylinders. On the other hand, exhaust gas post-treatment systems are used in internal combustion engines, said systems converting the emissions of pollutants which are produced during the combustion process of the air/fuel mixture in the respective cylinder into non-damaging substances. For this purpose, catalytic converters are used which convert carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides into non-damaging substances. Both the reduction of emission of pollutants during the combustion and the conversion of the pollutant components with a high level of efficiency by means of a catalytic converter require a very precisely set air/fuel ratio in the respective cylinder. The manual “Handbuch Verbrennungsmotor [internal combustion engine manual]”, published by Richard von Basshuysen, Fred Schafer, 2nd Edition, Vieweg & Sohn Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, June 2002, pages 559 to 561, discloses a binary lambda control system with a binary lambda probe which is arranged upstream of the exhaust gas catalytic converter. The binary lambda control system comprises a PI controller, wherein the P and I components are stored in characteristic diagrams of the engine speed and the load. In the binary lambda control system, the excitation of the catalytic converter, also referred to as lambda fluctuation, occurs implicitly as a result of the two-point control. The amplitude of the lambda fluctuation is set to approximately 3%. In order to satisfy legal requirements relating to the emissions of pollutants, catalytic converters are moved increasingly close to the engine. Said catalytic converters may operate well with very low tolerance in the air/fuel ratio in the individual cylinders of an exhaust gas bank, specifically a significantly lower tolerance than is the case with an arrangement of the catalytic converters remote from the engine, owing to the short mixing section from the outlet valves to the catalytic converter. In this context, a cylinder-specific lambda control can be used. DE 19846393 A1 discloses cylinder-selective control of the air/fuel ratio in a multi-cylinder internal combustion engine having a lambda probe which is embodied as a discrete-level probe. Within the scope of the cylinder-selective control, the voltage difference of the lambda probe voltage signal of one cylinder is formed in relation to the voltage signals of the adjacent cylinders. The injection is then corrected with the difference value. This takes into account the fact that it is actually the strong change in the probe voltage in the region of the precisely stoichiometric air/fuel ratio which permits even small differences from an optimum air/fuel ratio to be detected. DE 10 2007 015 362 A1 discloses a lambda control method in an internal combustion engine having at least one discrete-level lambda probe which is arranged in an exhaust-gas-conducting exhaust gas system of the internal combustion engine upstream of an exhaust gas purification device and which is configured to generate a first measurement signal which is dependent on the oxygen content of the exhaust gas. The first measurement signal is used and corrected at at least two points. DE 10 2007 016 276 A1 discloses a binary lambda control system. A change of the mixture of the internal combustion engine is pilot-controlled by means of the engine control system. A stored characteristic curve of the lambda probe is adapted using the pilot-controlled changes of the mixture. DE 10 2007 029 029 A1 describes a lambda control method in an internal combustion engine with an engine control system for mixture formation and a front lambda probe, arranged in an exhaust gas system of the internal combustion engine, for detecting a front probe signal which characterizes a front oxygen content of an exhaust gas which is conducted in the exhaust gas system, upstream of a catalytic converter arranged in the exhaust gas system. In addition, arranged upstream of the catalytic converter in the exhaust gas system is a rear lambda probe for generating a rear probe signal which characterizes a rear oxygen content of the exhaust gas which is conducted downstream of the catalytic converter in the exhaust gas system. In order to make available an improved lambda control system provision is made to determine a lambda value by means of the front probe signal and a conversion rule. In addition there is provision to determine a lambda difference from the rear probe signal and to adapt the conversion rule by means of the determined lambda difference. WO 2013/045526 A1 discloses determining a correction signal for a fuel mass which is intended to be metered, by means of a lambda controller, in particular as a function of a measurement signal of an exhaust gas sensor. If at least one predefined condition is satisfied, within a predefined operating range of the internal combustion engine, a cylinder-specific diagnosis is carried out which relates to the emissions of pollutants on the basis of a consideration of unsmoothed running, wherein the cylinder-specific diagnosis is carried out actively only in a corresponding detection phase in which a modified integral parameter of the lambda controller is used, which integral parameter is reduced in terms of its absolute value compared to the integral parameter in a normal operating mode of the lambda controller. DE 10 2005 009 101 B3 describes a method for determining a correction value for influencing an air/fuel ratio in a respective cylinder of an internal combustion engine having a plurality of cylinders, injection valves assigned to the cylinders and an exhaust gas probe which is arranged in an exhaust gas section and whose measurement signal is characteristic of the air/fuel ratio in the respective cylinder. At a predefined sampling crankshaft angle related to a reference position of the piston of the respective cylinder, the measurement signal is detected and assigned to the respective cylinder. A controller value for influencing the air/fuel ratio in the respective cylinder is determined by means of one controller in each case, as a function of the measurement signal detected for the respective cylinder. A first adaptation value is determined as a function of the controller value when predefined first conditions are met, said conditions including a predefined first temperature range of a temperature which is representative of a temperature of the respective injection valve and including the fact that a quasi-steady-state operating state is present. When predefined second conditions which include a predefined second temperature range of the temperature which is representative of the temperature of the respective injection valve and which include the fact that a quasi-steady-state operating state is present are satisfied, a second adaptation value is determined as a function of the controller value. The correction value for influencing the air/fuel ratio in the respective cylinder is determined as a function of the first or second adaptation value as a function of the temperature which is representative of the temperature of the respective injection valve. DE 10 2008 058 008 B3 describes a device for operating an internal combustion engine with a plurality of cylinders, which are each assigned an injection valve, an exhaust gas section which comprises an exhaust gas catalytic converter, and a lambda probe which is arranged upstream or in the exhaust gas catalytic converter. An assignment unit is provided which is designed to determine cylinder-specific lambda signals as a function of the measurement signal of the lambda probe and to determine lambda difference signals for the respective cylinders as a function of the cylinder-specific lambda signals, with respect to a lambda signal which is averaged over the cylinder-specific lambda signals. In addition, an observer is provided which comprises a sensor model of the lambda probe, which sensor model is arranged in a feedback branch of the observer. The observer is embodied such that the cylinder-specific lambda difference signals are fed to it on the input side, and observer output variables related to the respective cylinder are representative of differences of the injection characteristic of the injection valve of the respective cylinder from a predefined injection characteristic. In addition, a parameter detection unit is provided which is designed to impress an interference pattern composed of cylinder-specific mixture differences, in reaction to the respectively predefined interference pattern, to change at least one parameter of the sensor model as a detection parameter, until at least one of the observer output variables represents, in a predefined fashion, the portion of the interference pattern which is assigned to its cylinder, and the at least one detection parameter is output.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an LCD (liquid crystal display) fastening method and equipment using common fastening portions suitable for various kinds of color LCDs, and improving the appearance of the display. This application is based on Patent Application No. Hei 11-111639 filed in Japan, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. 2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 4 is an assembly drawing for explaining a conventional method of fastening the LCD. FIG. 5 is an enlarged view of portion A in FIG. 4. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 1 indicates an LCD cover, reference numeral 2 indicates a color LCD, reference numerals 19 indicate brackets, reference numeral 7 indicates an LCD base, reference numerals 13 indicate bosses, reference numerals 20, 21, and 200 indicate holes for fastening screws, reference numerals 11 and 15 indicate fastening screws, and reference numerals 16 indicate latches. With reference to FIG. 4, in the conventional LCD fastening method, holes 21 through which fastening screws 11 are inserted are provided in the LCD base 7. In the above structure, first, fastening screws 15 are inserted into bosses 13 (provided in the LCD base 7) via holes 200 (provided in the brackets 19) so as to combine the base and brackets. Next, the LCD cover 1 is attached to the base 7 by inserting fastening screws 11 into holes 21 and holes provided in four latches, as shown in FIG. 5. The screws 11 are further inserted into holes 20 provided in the brackets 19. That is, brackets 19 are fastened to LCD 2 by using fastening screws 11 passing through holes 20 provided in the brackets. Examples of the related conventional technique are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Applications, First Publications, Nos. Hei 5-100212, Hei 7-170083, Hei 10-168424, Hei 10-207630, and Hei 11-6998. The conventional technique has the following problems. The first problem is a difficulty in using common portions suitable for various kinds of color LCD displays 2 of a portable laptop (or notebook) personal computer. The second problem is to have a process of attaching the LCD display 2 using fastening screws inserted from the outside of an external frame, which is not preferable in view of the appearance. In consideration of the above circumstances, an objective of the present invention is to provide an LCD fastening method and equipment for using common portions necessary for fastening a color LCD display, that is, common portions suitable for various kinds of color LCD display, thereby omitting the process of attaching the LCD by using screws inserted from the outside of an external frame and improving the appearance. Therefore, the present invention provides an LCD fastening method comprising the steps of: attaching brackets to a color LCD using first fastening screws inserted through holes provided in the brackets; attaching the brackets to an LCD base by inserting second fastening screws through holes provided in the brackets into bosses provided in the LCD base; and attaching an LCD cover to the LCD base by engaging a predetermined number of latches provided in the LCD cover with corresponding first ribs provided in the LCD base. The present invention further provides an LCD fastening method comprising the steps of: attaching brackets to a color LCD by inserting fastening protrusions provided in the brackets into corresponding holes provided in the color LCD; attaching the brackets to an LCD base by inserting second fastening screws through holes provided in the brackets into bosses provided in the LCD base; and attaching an LCD cover to the LCD base by engaging a predetermined number of latches provided in the LCD cover with corresponding first ribs provided in the LCD base. In either method, the step of attaching the brackets to the LCD base may further include engaging insert portions provided in the brackets with second ribs provided in an upper face of the LCD base. The present invention also provides LCD fastening equipment comprising: brackets attached to a color LCD by using first fastening screws inserted through holes provided in the brackets; an LCD base to which the brackets are attached by inserting second fastening screws through holes provided in the brackets into bosses provided in the LCD base; and an LCD cover attached to the LCD base by engaging a predetermined number of latches provided in the LCD cover with corresponding first ribs provided in the LCD base. The present invention also provides LCD fastening equipment comprising: brackets attached to a color LCD by inserting fastening protrusions provided in the brackets into corresponding holes provided in the color LCD; an LCD base to which the brackets are attached by inserting second fastening screws through holes provided in the brackets into bosses provided in the LCD base; and an LCD cover attached to the LCD base by engaging a predetermined number of latches provided in the LCD cover with corresponding first ribs provided in the LCD base. In either equipment, the brackets may further include insert portions engaged with second ribs provided in an upper face of the LCD base. According to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained. The first effect is that a common LCD base can be used for various kinds of color LCDs without providing holes for fastening screws in the base, thereby reducing manufacturing man-hours. The second effect is that a common LCD cover can be used for various kinds of color LCDs without providing holes for fastening screws in the cover, thereby reducing manufacturing man-hours. The third effect is that the fastening method can be selected by selecting brackets suitable for the relevant color LCD. Therefore, it is unnecessary to provide holes for fitting screws in the LCD base and LCD cover, and a preferable appearance will appeal to users.

Medical and dental care professionals are exposed to hazardous infectious pathogens on a daily basis. With the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other deadly and presently incurable diseases, the protection of these professionals from nasal and oral emissions, blood, and other bodily fluids has become more vital than ever. Because the eyes, nose and mouth include regions of thin and penetrable membranes, the face is an area requiring appropriate protection from flying contaminants and particulates. Several requirements must be met by a facial protection device of this type. It must be light weight and easily worn and removed. It must adequately shield the vital areas of the face yet not obstruct vision. It must provide ample ventilation as not to hamper breathing and to further avoid fogging and accumulation of moisture. In addition, it should be disposable for adequate and safe disposition of contaminants. Because such face protection is disposable and a large number of them may be used, ease of packaging and storage is also an important criteria.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a display device. 2. Description of the Related Art CRTs are widely used as display devices. A CRT has a great depth because it has a single electron gun assembly which applies an electron beam to all pixels provided. Further, it is heavy and consumes much electric power. It is therefore not suitable for a portable display device. Other kinds of display devices, such as plasma displays, EL displays and the like, are available but can hardly be used as portable display devices for various reasons. Only one portable display device put to practical use is a liquid crystal display. Thin and driven at a low voltage, the liquid crystal display is used in large numbers in wrist watches, pocket calculators and the like. In particular, TN-type liquid crystal displays have become incorporated in TV sets since they incorporate active switching elements (e.g., TFTs) and can exhibit display characteristics comparable with those of CRTs. However, TN-type liquid crystal displays uses light at low efficiency since they have a polarizing plates. They need to have a back light for supplementing light and inevitably consume much electric power. A liquid crystal display which has no polarizing plate are known. It is known as "polymer-dispersed type displays," which utilize scattered light. The polymer-dispersed type display cannot display multi-color images, as does a reflective direct-view type display. Each RGB pixel used in this display can utilize but only those components of transmitting light which fall within only a third of wavelength region, in order to display a color dot as in a light-transmitting type display. Comprised of three light-transmitting regions (red, green and blue regions), each RGB pixel can use only a ninth of the light passing through it for displaying a color dot. The amount of light used in, for example, a red region is so small that the light emitted from the red region, is a very dark red, appearing almost black. Furthermore, if a magenta filter, a cyan filter and a yellow filter are provided, respectively covering the three color regions of each RGB pixel, the polymer-dispersed type display can display neither high-luminance color images nor high-contrast monochrome images. This problem, which is inherent in any light-scattering, direct-view display (including a polymer dispersed type display), has yet to be solved. In other words, none of the light-scattering, direct-view type display hitherto known can be practically used as color display.

1. Field of the Invention The invention concerns the representation of semantic knowledge by the Resource Description Framework, or RDF, and more specifically concerns the integration of data represented by RDF into a relational database system. 2. Description of Related Art: FIGS. 1-3 RDF is a language that was originally developed for representing information (metadata) about resources in the World Wide Web. It may, however, be used for representing information about absolutely anything. When information has been specified using the generic RDF format, it may be automatically consumed by a diverse set of applications. FIGS. 1-3 provide an overview of RDF. Facts in RDF are represented by RDF triples. Each RDF triple represents a fact and is made up of three parts, a subject, a predicate, (sometimes termed a property), and an object. For example, the fact represented by the English sentence “John is 24 years old” is represented in RDF by the subject, predicate, object triple <‘John’, ‘age’, ‘24’>, with ‘John’ being the subject, ‘age’ being the predicate, and ‘24’ being the object. In current RDF, the values of subjects and predicates must ultimately resolve to universal resource identifiers (URIs). The values of objects may be literal values such as numbers or character strings. The interpretations given to the members of the triple are determined by the application that is consuming it. RDF triples may be represented as a graph as shown at 109 in FIG. 1. The subject is represented by a node 103, the object by another node 107, and the predicate by arrow 104 connecting the subject node to the object node. A subject may of course be related to more than one object, as shown with regard to “Person” 103. Each entity in an RDF triple is represented by a World Wide Web Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or a literal value. For example, the subject “John” is identified by the URI for his contact information. In RDF triple 117, the value of John's age is the literal value 24. In the following general discussion of RDF, the URIs will be replaced by the names of the entities they represent. For a complete description of RDF, see Frank Manola and Eric Miller, RDF Primer, published by W3C and available in September, 2004 at www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/. The RDF Primer is hereby incorporated by reference into the present patent application. An RDF representation of a set of facts is termed in the following an RDF model. A simple RDF model Reviewers is shown at 101 in FIG. 1. The model has two parts: RDF data 113 and RDF schema 111. RDF schema 111 is made up of RDF triples that provide the definitions needed to interpret the triples of RDF data 113. Schema triples define classes of entities and predicates which relate classes of entities. A property definition for the predicate age is shown at 112. As shown there, a predicate definition consists of two RDF triples for which the predicate is the subject. One of the triples, which has the built-in domain predicate, indicates what kind of entities must be subjects for the predicate. Here, it is entities belonging to the class person. The other triple indicates what kinds of entities must be objects of the predicate; here, it is values of an integer type called xsd:int. Schema 111 uses the SubclassOf predicate 110 to define a number of subclasses of entities belonging to the class person. Also defined are conference and university classes of entities, together with predicates that relate these entities to each other. Thus, an entity of class person may be a chairperson of a conference and an entity of class reviewer may be a reviewer for a conference. Also belonging to Schema 111 but not shown there is the built-in RDF predicate rdf:type. This predicate defines the subject of a triple that includes the rdf:type predicate as an instance of the class indicated by the object. As will be explained in more detail, RDF rules determine logical relationships between classes. For example, a built-in RDF rule states that the SubclassOf relationship is transitive: if A is a subclass of B and B a subclass of C, then A is a subclass of C. Thus, the class faculty is a subclass of person. The data triples to which schema 111 applies are shown at 113; they have the general pattern <individual entity>, <predicate>, <object characterizing the individual entity>. Thus, triple 115 indicates that ICDE 2005 is an entity characterized as belonging to the class CONFERENCE and triple 117 indicates that JOHN is characterized by having the age 24. Thus, RDF data 113 contains the following triples about John: John has an Age of 24; John belongs to the subclass Ph. D. Student; John is a ReviewerOf ICDE 2005. None of these triples states that John is a Person; however, the fact that he is a Person and a Reviewer is inferred from the fact that he is stated to be a Ph. D. Student, which is defined in schema 111 as a subclass of both Person and Reviewer. Because the Subclassof predicate is transitive, the fact that John is a Ph.D Student means that he is a potential subject of the Age and ReviewerOf properties. For purposes of the present discussion RDF models are best represented as lists of RDF triples instead of graphs. FIG. 2 shows a table of triples 201 which lists triples making up schema 111 and a table of triples 203 which lists triples making up RDF data 113. At the bottom of FIG. 2 is an RDF Pattern 205. An RDF pattern is a construct which is used to query RDF triples. There are many different ways of expressing RDF patterns; what follows is a typical example. When RDF pattern 205 is applied to RDF model 101, it will return a subgraph of RDF model 101 which includes all of the reviewers of conference papers who are Ph.D students. The pattern is made up of one or more patterns 207 for RDF triples followed by an optional filter which further restricts the RDF triples identified by the pattern. The identifiers beginning with ? are variables that represent values in the triples belonging to the subgraph specified by the RDF pattern. Thus, the first pattern 207(1) specifies every Reviewer for every Conference indicated in the RDF data 203; the second pattern 207(2) specifies every Reviewer who belongs to the subclass Ph.D.Student, and the third pattern 207(3) specifies every Person for which an Age is specified. The result of the application of these three patterns to RDF data 203 is the intersection of the sets of persons specified by each of the patterns, that is, the intersection of the set of reviewers and the set of Ph.D. Students of any age. The intersection is John, Tom, Gary, and Bob, who are indicated by the triples in data 203 as being both Ph.D students and reviewers. The manner in which entities in an RDF model relate to each other can be modified by applying RDF rules. An example RDF rule is shown at 301 in FIG. 3. Rule 301 is contained in a rulebase which, as shown at 303, has the name rb. The rule has a name, chairpersonRule, which is shown at 305. As will be explained in detail later, the rule specifies how the class of Persons who are conference chairpersons relates to the class of Reviewers for the conference. Rule body 310 has a left-hand side 307 specifying the rule's antecedent and a right-hand side 311 specifying the rule's consequent. The rule states that if an entity satisfies the conditions established for the left-hand side 307 (the antecedent), it also satisfies the conditions established for the right-hand side 311 (the consequent). The antecedent and the consequent are specified by RDF patterns. The RDF pattern for left-hand side 307 specifies any Person (?r) in the model who is a chairperson of any Conference (?c) in the model; the RDF pattern for right-hand side 311 specifies that any such person is also a reviewer for that conference. RDF pattern 312 shows the effect of rule 301. The pattern's triple specifies RDF triples which have the ReviewerOf predicate. Without rule 301, the pattern returns the subjects of those triples for ?r, or John, Tom, Gary, and Bob. The problem with this is that Mary is also a reviewer by virtue of rule 301; consequently, when the rule is taken into account, the triples include not only those with the ReviewerOf predicate, but those that have the ChairpersonOf predicate, and that adds Mary to the list of subjects for ?r. An RDF model 101 and the rules and other information required to interpret the model are termed together in the following an RDF dataset Components of an RDF data set are shown at 313 in FIG. 3. The components include RDF model 101, with its schema 111 and RDF data 113, one or more optional rulebases containing rules relevant to the model, and a list of optional aliases 323, which relate names used in the model to longer designations. The rulebases include an RDFS rulebase 319 which is a set of rules which apply to all RDF models. An example of the rules in this rulebase is the rule that states that an entity which belongs to a subclass of a class also belongs to the class, for example, that as a member of the class Ph.D.Student, John is also a member of the class Person. In addition, rules may be defined for a particular RDF model. Rule 301 is an example of such a rule. These rules are contained in one or more other rule bases 321. Aliases 323 relates short names used in a model to the URIs that completely identify the short name. For example, John, Mary, Tom, Gary, and Bob are all subjects and must therefore be identified by URIs. Aliases 323 will include a table that relates each name to its corresponding URI. Systems for Querying RDF Models A number of query languages have been developed for querying RDF models. Among them are: RDQL, see RDQL—A Query Language for RDF, W3C Member Submission 9 Jan. 2004, http://www.w3.org/Submission/2004/SUBM-RDQL-20040109; RDFQL, see RDFQL Database Command Reference, http://www.intellidimension.com/default.rsp?topic=/pages/rdfgateway/reference/db/default.rsp; RQL, see G. Karvounarakis, S. Alexaki, V. Christophides, D. Plexousakis, M. Scholl. RQL: A Declarative Query Language for RDF. WWW2002, May 7-11, 2002, Honolulu, Hi., USA. SPARQL, see SPARQL Query Language for RDF, W3C Working Draft, 12 Oct. 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-rdf-sparql-query-20041012/. SquishQL, see RDF Primer. W3C Recommendation, 10 Feb. 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer. The query languages described in the above references are declarative query languages with quite a few similarities to SQL, which is the query language used in standard relational database management systems. Indeed, systems using these query languages are typically implemented on top of relational database systems. However, because these systems are not standard relational database systems, they cannot take advantage of the decades of engineering that have been invested in the standard relational database systems. Examples of the fruits of this engineering that are available in standard relational database systems are automatic optimization, facilities for the creation and automatic maintenance of materialized views and of indexes, and the automatic use of available materialized views and indexes by the optimizer. What is needed if RDF triples are to reach their full potential are a technique for using RDF patterns to query sets of RDF triples that may be employed in a standard relational data base management system and techniques for using the facilities of the relational database management system to reduce the cost in processing time of queries on sets of RDF triples. The techniques used to integrate RDF data into a relational database system involve the use of a TABLE function. Consequently, a large part of the cost in processing time of queries on sets of RDF triples is the time required to set up the execution of the TABLE function, execute the TABLE function, and then transfer data from the TABLE function to the SQL query that contains the TABLE function. It is thus an object of the present invention to reduce the cost of execution of table functions.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a process for forming a center-filled confectionary rope. More particularly, the present invention relates to a process for covering a viscous candy mass with a candy coating by wrapping a layer of candy around the viscous candy center in a helical fashion. 2. The Background of the Invention Confectionary products are available in a variety of flavors, configurations, sizes, textures, and combinations. In recent years, confectionary products having an outer layer of one flavor, color, or type in combination with an inner layer of a second flavor, color, or type of confection have gained popularity. For example, many companies market chewing gum which has been injected with a sweet liquid or a soft center portion which is heavily flavored. As one chews the gum, the flavor-rich interior is released thereby providing a burst of flavor. The same concept has been used successfully with various types of candies. Hard candy exteriors are provided with liquid centers, soft candy centers, or hard candy centers of a second flavor. Additionally, those same types of candy centers have been used successfully in combination with an exterior in the form of a flavored gum, a hard candy, or a soft candy, such as caramel. Thus, a wide variety of combinations of confectionary products are available which have as their basic configuration a solid exterior portion with a second portion forming a center. Often this configuration takes the form of a rope of candy. Confectionary products of this nature can be made by hand by forming a long, rectangularly shaped layer to be used as the exterior. The center is then placed within the rectangularly shaped exterior in a longitudinal direction. The rectangularly shaped exterior layer is then wrapped around the center to form a center-filled confectionary "rope". The rope may be cut into several small pieces to form individual candies, or it may be stretched and folded back on itself several times to form a layered structure. Although making center-filled candies by hand, as described above, is a popular hobby, making candy by hand is an inadequate method of production when large quantities of candies are needed. When candy is to be sold commercially, the market generally cannot easily absorb the high labor costs involved in making confectionary products by hand. As a result, candy makers have attempted to develop equipment to minimize the use of hand formation techniques in manufacturing center-filled confections. However, the manufacturing of center-filled confectionary products in a factory, using equipment which continuously manufactures such a product, gives rise to several problems not encountered under the controlled conditions available when making candy by hand. When making candy by hand, one "batch" of candy passes through the various steps which make up the manufacturing process one step at a time. After one step is completed, the entire batch moves on to the next step. Thus, careful and continuous monitoring of the candy is possible at all times during the manufacturing process. When making candy in a factory, it is generally preferred to utilize a continuous manufacturing process whereby the candy is made according to an assembly line procedure. Thus, monitoring of individual batches of candy is not possible. The method utilized in the production process must therefore reliably produce a product of consistent quality. Manufacturing a center-filled candy presents problems when a continuous manufacturing process is used. Whereas manufacturing a confectionary product which comprises only one type of candy involves mixing the ingredients and cooking the candy to obtain the desired consistency before forming the candy into the desired shape, manufacturing a center-filled candy is more difficult. When manufacturing a center-filled candy, two separate candies must be made independent of one another and then passed through a forming process whereby the candy is formed into a confectionary rope with an outside layer of one type of candy and a center of the second type of candy. After the confectionary rope has been formed, the candy is cut into individual pieces or passed through a separate molding or forming process to form the candy into the desired shape prior to packaging. Extreme care must be taken when simultaneously dealing with more than one type of candy because if the temperature of the candy is not carefully controlled throughout the manufacturing process, the texture and hardness of the final confectionary product may be undesirably affected. The type of center used in the confectionary rope may also give rise to manufacturing problems. If it is desired to employ a liquid center, the candy center may be "pumped" along the manufacturing process. The temperature of the liquid center thus may easily be monitored and controlled because it is constantly enclosed within a tube. Such a liquid center may be injected into the center of a second candy to form a center-filled confectionary product. If the candy center to be employed is too viscous to be pumped, the methods described above are inadequate. Because of its viscosity, it may not be injected into the center of a confectionary product. It must, therefore, first be molded into a predetermined shape and then coated with a second candy. In many manufacturing facilities, this process is done by hand. It will be appreciated that the manual preparation of such a center-filled confectionary rope drastically increases the costs associated with production. Additionally, the time required for production is increased thereby rendering manual production methods inadequate for producing large quantities of candy. Another disadvantage associated with the manual production of a center-filled confectionary rope is that much candy is wasted during the process. After the confectionary rope has been formed by hand, it is fed into a rope sizer which further refines the geometric configuration of the rope. Waste occurs because when the center-filled confectionary rope is made by hand, the ends of the rope typically do not contain an adequate amount of the candy center. Thus, the cross section of the ends of the rope is not consistent with a representative cross section taken from the middle of the confectionary rope. In order to ensure a consistent cross section in the confectionary rope and a corresponding consistency in quality in the final product, it is necessary to cut off both ends of the center-filled confectionary ropes made by hand before they are introduced to the rope sizer. Because the confectionary ropes made by hand are comparatively small in length, cutting off the ends of each of these ropes results in a substantial amount of waste or the incorporation of additional steps to recover the unused candy. Additionally, it is difficult to control the temperature of the candy when making a confectionary rope by hand. The manual forming process occurs typically under conditions such that the candy is subject to an ambient air temperature of approximately 20.degree. to 25.degree. C. The candy is therefore being cooled as it is being molded, thereby resulting in a constant change in various properties of the candy. The texture and hardness of the finished product often lacks the consistency desired by many candy manufacturers. When making a center-filled candy, it may sometimes be desirable to employ an exterior coating or shell which comprises more than one type, color, or flavor of candy. Manufacturing a center-filled candy of this nature requires that at least three candies be monitored at once--the candy comprising the center and the two candies comprising the outer layer. Manufacturing such a product in a continuous manufacturing process obviously compounds the difficulties which are already present when manufacturing a center-filled candy, especially if it is desirable to employ a highly viscous candy in the center. It will be appreciated, therefore, that what is needed in the art is an apparatus and process for forming a center-filled confectionary product having a center which is highly viscous during the forming process. It would be a further enhancement in the art if such an apparatus and process could be used to manufacture a center-filled confectionary product continuously, thereby enabling the process of the present invention to be used in combination with the equipment utilized in modern candy manufacturing facilities. It would also be an enhancement in the art if such an apparatus and process could produce such a center-filled confectionary product having a quality comparable or superior to the quality of similar confectionary products made by hand. It would be a further advancement in the art if such an apparatus and process could produce such a center-filled confectionary product more economically than those processes presently utilized by the prior art. It would be an additional enhancement in the art if such an apparatus and process could be employed to produce such a center-filled confectionary product while controlling candy temperatures, thereby preventing undesired alteration of the texture and hardness of the candy during the forming process. It would also be an advancement in the art if such an apparatus and process could be utilized to produce such a center-filled confectionary product having an exterior layer which comprises two separate candies. Such an apparatus and process are disclosed and claimed herein.

A block trade is a single large trade in excess of a specific volume and/or a specific market value. The definition of a block trade varies across different financial products. For instance, on the equities market, a block trade has traditionally been defined as a trade of 10,000 shares or more or a trade with a total market value of at least $200,000. In contrast, a block trade on the options market has traditionally been defined as a trade of 500 contracts or more, with a total market value of at least $150,000. Many studies have been conducted on the impact of large block trades on prices in the marketplace, especially as relates to the equities market. Because block trades are perceived to indicate the trading strategies of large institutional investors, market participants often monitor block trades to determine if the market in a given issue is becoming increasingly bearish or bullish. When the price of a block trade is higher than the best offer in the market at the time, market participants typically interpret this to mean the market direction is moving upward for this issue. Similarly, when the price of a block trade is lower than the best bid at the time, market participants typically interpret this to mean the market direction is moving downward for this issue. The execution of a block trade at a price outside the quotes is deemed so important that some trading workstation systems are configured to automatically trigger an actionable alert every time a block trade executed outside the quotes is detected. On some markets, block trades outside the quotes are allowed, but only under certain conditions. If no such exception condition exists and a block trade executes outside of the quotes, the offending market center “owes a fill” to the market center that had the better price at the time the block trade was reported to the marketplace. The “satisfaction fill” is typically executed in the following manner. The market center whose quote was traded-through (“the aggrieved market center”) generally sends an electronic message (or satisfaction order) to the market center that traded-through the quotes (“the offending market center”) requesting satisfaction for the orders that were traded-through. When the offending market center fulfills the request for satisfaction by sending the requested number of shares (or contracts) at the block price to the aggrieved market center, the aggrieved market center then is able to adjust the trade price of the orders that were traded-through to be equal to the price of the shares (or contracts) that were part of the block trade. In this manner, the aggrieved market participants receive the price improvement they would have received had the block trade interacted with the public order book. While this “satisfaction fill” process protects orders that were at the top of the book when the block trade executed, it does not protect orders that were lower down in the book or that had a non-displayed component, such as a reserve order. When a block trade executes at a price worse than the best bid or offer, orders lower down in the book or ones that have a non-displayed component become subject to potential arbitrage. With respect to orders that were not at the top of the book and were not protected, other market participants, seeing these orders, may attempt to promptly execute against these orders and then turn around and trade such instruments on another market center to benefit from the spread created between the price the order was posted at and what may be perceived as the market's more ‘informed’ price, as indicated by the price of the executed block trade. Order types with a non-displayed component, such as reserve orders, are targets for possible arbitrage whether they are at the top of the book or not. Only the displayed portion of a reserve order at the top of the book is eligible for satisfaction at the block trade price. Whenever the displayed portion is depleted by trading, it is replenished at its original price, which is superior to the block trade price. Other market participants will typically attempt to execute against the reserve order at its superior price until it moves away or is depleted. Accordingly, there is a need for a posted limit order that will reprice itself less aggressively in view of a block trade executing in that issue at a trade price that is inferior to the prices quoted on the posting market center.

Catalysts for oxychlorination of ethylene to 1,2-DCE that comprise a copper compound, generally cupric chloride, and promoters based on salts of alkali and/or alkaline-earth metals and rare earth metals are well-known in the literature. The copper content of these catalysts is generally not higher than 6-8% by weight. Catalysts with a copper content that can reach 12-14% by weight are also known. Examples of these catalysts are disclosed in patent GB 1,189,815. The catalysts are prepared by coprecipitation of hydrogels of alumina and copper, followed by aging of the precipitate at 10 to 40° C. for at least 10 hours, drying and washing and finally calcining at temperatures between 300 and 600° C. for a time sufficient to convert the alumina hydrogel into gamma alumina. The catalysts are preferably used in a fluidized bed. Differently from catalysts that have a high copper content (12% by weight) obtained by impregnation of alumina with a solution of a copper salt, which according to the patent cited above provide low conversions of hydrochloric acid and considerable combustion of the ethylene to CO and CO2, catalysts prepared by coprecipitation allow to obtain, in the operating conditions cited in the patent, a good performance in terms of conversion and selectivity and in terms of stability of the fluidized bed. However, the drawback of these catalysts is due to the fact that it is necessary to work with high spatial velocities, i.e., with short contact times and accordingly with a considerable recycling of the unconverted ethylene. Commercial catalysts with a high copper content (12-13% by weight) are known which are probably prepared by means of the coprecipitation method and which cause a considerable combustion of the ethylene even when operating at relatively low temperatures (210° C.).

Detecting and serotyping Salmonella is essential to protecting the food supply and for understanding the epidemiology of this important food-borne pathogen. Determining the presence and serotype of the dangerous Salmonella ser. Enteritidis is of particular importance to the poultry and egg industries. The genus Salmonella is divided into two species, S. enterica and S. bongori (33). S. enterica is further divided into seven subspecies that can be abbreviated by Roman numerals, I, II, IIIa, Mb, IV, VI and VII. Subsp. VII was described by Multilocus Enzyme Electrophoresis (MLEE) and by phylogenetic analysis of housekeeping genes (2, 9 22). Subspecies V is now recognized as the separate species, S. bongori (28). Serotyping further divides the Salmonellae subspecies into subtypes, or serovars (ser.), by immunologic characterization of two surface structures, O-polysaccharide (O-antigen) and flagellin protein (H-antigen) (25, 27). The current standard for Salmonella serotyping is the Kauffmann-White serotyping scheme. This method currently includes the recognized 2,587 serotypes (4, 8, 9). A serotype is represented by an antigenic formula (e.g. I 4,5,12:i:1,2) indicating the subspecies; and O, Phase 1H, and Phase 2H antigens. Serotypes in subspecies I are also given a name (e.g. Typhimurium). Over 30,000 culture confirmed cases of Salmonella are identified in the United States each year. The production and quality control of the greater than 250 antisera required to generate the >2,500 serotypes using current methods is difficult and time consuming. Many isolates require three to five days or more to fully determine the serotype, which delays serotype submission to the public health data information systems. Improving the rate and accuracy of detecting and serotyping Salmonella in samples is essential to improving product safety. Thus, there is a need for compositions and methods useful to improve detection of and serotyping of Salmonella, especially within food.

1. Field of the Disclosure The present disclosure relates to a mobile terminal, and particularly, to a mobile terminal having a circuit board for power supply and an electronic device controlled by the circuit board. 2. Description of Related Art In general, a terminal may be classified into a mobile (portable) terminal and a stationary terminal according to a moveable state. The mobile terminal may be also classified into a handheld terminal and a vehicle mount terminal. As functions of the terminal become more diversified, the terminal can support more complicated functions such as capturing images or video, reproducing music or video files, playing games, receiving broadcast signals, and the like. By comprehensively and collectively implementing such functions, the mobile terminal may be embodied in the form of a multimedia player or device. Various attempts have been made to implement complicated functions in such a multimedia device by means of hardware or software. For example, a User Interface (UI) environment is provided in a mobile terminal to enable a user to easily and conveniently search for or select a desired function among available function. As the mobile terminal is regarded as personal belongings reflective of a user's personality, various designs are required. The various designs include structural changes and improvements to enhance the user's convenience. For the structural changes and improvements, electric connection between an electronic device and a circuit board, or a mechanism for mounting the electronic device, etc. may be considered.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a digital broadcasting system for transmitting and receiving digital broadcast signals, and more particularly, to a digital broadcasting system and a method of processing data. 2. Discussion of the Related Art The Vestigial Sideband (VSB) transmission mode, which is adopted as the standard for digital broadcasting in North America and the Republic of Korea, is a system using a single carrier method. Therefore, the receiving performance of the digital broadcast receiving system may be deteriorated in a poor channel environment. Particularly, since resistance to changes in channels and noise is more highly required when using portable and/or mobile broadcast receiving systems, the receiving performance may be even more deteriorated when transmitting mobile service data by the VSB transmission mode.

This disclosure relates to graphical user interfaces, and more specifically, to control elements of graphical user interfaces. Computing devices may provide a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays information of the computing device in human-readable form. A GUI may enable users to interact with the computing device by manipulating graphical elements of the GUI. For example, graphical elements may include taskbars, virtual buttons, drop-down lists, and other user interface elements that may provide mechanisms for inputting data by which to configure a computing device to perform certain tasks, such as display information. In some examples, GUIs may display information of a database, and may enable users to manipulate elements of the GUI to view different members or different dimensions of the database. In certain examples, GUIs may enable a user to create customized components that group user interface elements of the GUI. In some instances, a user may create multiple customized components to create a customized report. For example, a user may create a report including a first component that displays sales data of a particular line of products in the current year and a second component that displays the projected sales data for that same product line in the following year.

Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a development device used in an electrophotographic recording system with use of magnetic toner. Prior dry-type development devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,267,248, 4,297,970, and 4,309,498. Describing these development devices with reference to FIG. 2, an electrostatic latent image carrier 1 (hereinafter referred to as a photosensitive drum) has a development roll 2 provided in a confronting relation thereto. The development roll 2 comprises a nonmagnetic cylindrical sleeve 3 and a magnet roll 4 having a plurality of magnetic poles which axially extend and have polarities alternately different from each other in the circumferential direction. The magnet roll 4 is provided in the sleeve 3, and both are relatively rotatable. A developer tank 5 is provided around the development roll 2, and a development region P formed between the photosensitive drum 1 and the development roll 2 both arranged in a confronting relation keeping a slight space therebetween. In such a development device, a magnetic toner developer 6 is attracted onto the circumferential surface of the sleeve 3 by magnetic force of the magnet roll 4 in the developer tank 5. The sleeve 3 and the magnet roll 4 are rotated in the direction of the arrows A and B respectively at different speeds of revolutions, whereby toner chains are formed around the development roll 2 and carried from an outlet 7 provided on one end of the development roll 2 located upward of the circumference thereof to the development region P. In the development region P, the toner chains are frictionally brought into contact with the electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive drum 1 in rotation in the direction of the arrow E, whereby part of the developer 6 electrostatically adheres onto the photosensitive drum 1, carried to a transfer region (not shown), and transferred onto a paper sheet. By contrast, remaining developer 6 which does not adhere onto the photosensitive drum 1 is again retrieved from an inlet 8 provided on the other end of downward the development roll 2 downward the circumference thereof. Here, broken lines shown in FIG. 2 schematically show lines of magnetic force formed by the magnet roll 4. However, in such prior development devices, part of the developer adhered onto the photosensitive drum due to electrostatic force is subjected to larger magnetic force than the attraction force due to the above electrostatic force by a moving magnetic field produced by the rotation of the magnet roll prior to the transfer of the latent image onto the paper sheet. As a result, this part of the developer is moved onto the photosensitive drum or falls off downward of the photosensitive drum and drops on a printing paper sheet carried to the transfer region. The former deteriorates the picture quality formed on the printing surface while the latter brings about background stains on the printing surface. Namely, both exert bad influences upon the picture quality. For resolving these problems, a method is provided wherein the developer tank is formed with a magnetic substance and thereby the moving magnetic field does not exert a magnetic influence upon the photosensitive drum. However, this causes scattering of the developer. The scattering phenomenon will be described with reference to FIGS. 3(a), 3(b) and 3(c). The figures are schematics illustrating relations between the lines of magnetic force in the vicinity of the development roll and the developer. Therefore, the same numbers shall be applied to the same portions as the prior examples, omitting the description therefor. First, as shown in FIG. 3(a), the magnetic flux density is concentrated on an edge part 9a of the magnetic developer tank 9 due to the magnetic force from the magnet roll 4, so that the developer on the development roll 2 is captured near the concentrated region. The top end of the captured developer 6 located on the side of the development roll 2 is magnetized to an N magnetic pole in the vicinity of the edge part 9a of the developer tank 9, while the other end of the developer 6 on the developer tank edge part is magnetized to an S magnetic pole, as shown in FIG. 3(a). Given a state shown in FIG. 3(b) due to rotation of the magnet roll 4 in the direction of the arrow B, the top end of the developer 6 is moved in the direction of the arrow R by movement of the lines of magnetic force due to positional movements of the N and S poles. In addition, when the N and S poles reach positions shown in FIG. 3(c) due to the rotation of the magnet roll 4, a polarity of the edge 9a of the developer tank 9 is changed to the same S magnetic pole as the polarity of the top end of the developer 6 located on the side of the developer tank 9. Therefore, the developer 6 is scattered in the arrow T direction as shown in FIG. 3(c). Further, in FIGS. 3(a), 3(b), 3(c), even if the N and S poles are assumed to be reversed, the same situation as that shown in FIGS. 3(a), 3(b), and 3(c) is produced and the developer 6 is likewise scattered. Accordingly, the magnetic roll 4 is continuously rotated, whereby part of the developer 6 carried on the development roll 2 is continuously scattered. As a result, a problem is produced in which a surface of a printing sheet (not shown) is stained with the developer 6, and thereby the printing quality is sharply deteriorated.

Example embodiments relate to integrated circuit memory devices and methods of operating the same. With an increase in the degree of integration of semiconductor memory devices, circuit elements included in semiconductor memory devices may become miniaturized as well. Thus, process margins in semiconductor memory device fabrication processes for forming the circuit elements may be reduced. As a result, the probability of a micro-bridge defect occurring between adjacent memory cells may increase. A “micro-bridge defect” may refer to a phenomenon in which leakage current may occur due to a current path unintentionally formed between adjacent memory cells. When a micro-bridge defect occurs between memory cells, data stored in the memory cells may be lost.

As a lens type suitable for being a small size, and also suitable for a digital camera and for its smaller-sized zoom lens, in order from an object side, there is a zoom lens that has a first lens group having a negative refracting power, a second lens group having a positive refracting power, a third lens group having a positive refracting power and an aperture which is at an object side of the second lens group, moving integrally with the second lens group. When this zoom lens zooms from a wide-angle end to a telephoto end, at least the first lens group and the second lens group move, so that an interval between the first lens group and the second lens group can become small and an interval between the second lens group and the third lens group can become large. These types of zoom lenses are well-known. A zoom lens like this type has at least three positive lenses and two negative lenses in the second lens group and low dispersion glass having an Abbe's number of 80 or more is used as positive lenses of the second lens group. These types of lenses according to Japanese Patent Publication Numbers 2004-102211, 2006-113554 and 2005-24804 are known.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an anesthetic filter arrangement and in particular to a filter arrangement for the re-use of anesthetics in inhalation anaesthesia. 2. Description of the Prior Art Filter arrangements for the re-use of gaseous anesthetics are well known and are described in, for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,044,361 and 5,471,979. These filter arrangements generally have a filter housing in which there are provided openings delimiting a gas flow path through the interior of the housing. Disposed within the gas flow path is a filter element of an adsorption material for the alternate adsorption and desorption of gaseous anesthetic from and into gas passing along the flow path. These filters are placed within gas flow circuits of anesthetic ventilator systems so that anesthetic rich gas which is exhaled by a patient into the gas flow circuit during an expiration phase passes through the filter element along the flow path in one flow direction and so that breathing gas in the gas flow circuit which is to be supplied to the patient during an inspiration phase passes through the filter element along the flow path, usually but not necessarily, in the opposite flow direction. The filter element adsorbs gaseous anesthetic from the exhaled gas then desorbs this adsorbed gaseous anesthetic into the breathing gas. Such filter arrangements suffer from the disadvantage that their retention properties for the gaseous anesthetic are fixed, dependent on the adsorption and desorption characteristics of the filter element material. Adsorption and desorption of gaseous anesthetic to and from the filter element is then largely controlled by varying the flow of and to a lesser extent the concentration of gaseous anesthetic in gas passing along the gas flow path, through the filter element. However, varying the gas flow and concentration parameters may have undesirable effects on the ventilation of a patient who is connected to an anesthetic ventilator system in which the filter arrangement is disposed. It is an object of the present invention to provide an anesthetic filter arrangement, as well as an inhalation anesthetic system employing such a filter, wherein the degree of retention of gaseous anesthetic by a filter element can be varied. The above object is achieved in an embodiment of the present invention directed to an anesthetic filter arrangement wherein a filter housing has openings disposed to delimit a gas flow path in the interior of the housing adapted for passing gas to and from a patient, wherein a filter element, formed of an adsorption material is disposed in the gas flow path for alternatingly adsorbing gaseous anesthetic from and desorbing gaseous anesthetic into gas in the gas flow path, and wherein an energy source is in energy transferring communication with the filter element for supplying energy to the filter element to vary the retention of the gaseous anesthetic by the filter element. The retention of gaseous anesthetic by the filter element is thus varied through supplying either thermal or vibrational energy, at the element which thereby varies the adsorption and/or desorption of gaseous anesthetic. The thermal energy may be supplied to the filter element using an energy source formed by a resistive heater element, for example a thin wire, which can be placed in intimate thermal contact with the filter element, for example within the volume of the element material. Alternatively, the material of the filter element may be electrically conducting, for example activated carbon material, and used as the resistive heater element. This has the advantage that the thermal energy can be evenly distributed throughout the entire volume of the filter element without the need for integrating a separate resistive heater element. An electromagnetic energy source, such as an infra-red or microwave source may be employed to supply the thermal energy at the element. This has an advantage that the source may be located remote from the filter element which permits the use of a disposable filter element without the need to also dispose of components of the energy source. A source of vibrational energy, such as an acoustic, preferably ultrasonic, vibrational energy source, may be employed as the energy source. This has the advantage that the vibrational energy can be supplied from outside the filter housing, for example by using vibrational sources detachably mounted to an external surface of the housing. This permits the re-use of the vibrational sources when used with disposable filter elements and housings and also the ready modification of existing filter housings. The above object is also achieved in accordance with the principles of the present invention in an embodiment directed to an inhalation anesthetic system having a mechanical breathing aid for supplying a breathing gas, including an anesthetic gas, to ventilate a patient, a gas circuit connected to the breathing aid for conducting the breathing gas to the patient during an inspiration phase and for conducting exhaled gas from the patient during an expiration phase, and an anesthetic filter arrangement as described above disposed in the gas circuit, with the aforementioned alternating absorption and desorption of the gaseous anesthetic taking place in the expiration phase and the inspiration phase, respectively.

1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to a liquid crystal display device. More particularly, this invention relates to a liquid crystal display device that simplifies a wiring structure of a flexible printed substrate for supplying driving signals to a driver IC mounted by a flip chip mounting system, and reduces a cost by employing a novel signal transmission system. 2. Description of the Related Art Liquid crystal display devices have been wide spread as a display device for various image displaying apparatuses. An active matrix type liquid crystal display device, that has an active cell such as a thin film transistor TFT for each pixel and, switches and drives the active cell, applies a liquid crystal driving voltage (gray scale voltage) to a pixel electrode through the active cell. Therefore, this liquid crystal display device is free from cross-talk between the pixels and can conduct multiple gray scale display without employing a specific driving method for preventing cross-talk that has been necessary in a simple matrix type liquid crystal display device. FIG. 42 of the accompanying drawings is a block diagram useful for explaining a structural example of a driving circuit in an active matrix type liquid crystal display device. FIGS. 43A, 43B, 44A and 44B are explanatory views (signal time charts) for explaining horizontal direction timing and vertical direction timing of display control in FIG. 42. As shown in FIG. 42, the liquid crystal display device includes an interface substrate (a rigid printed substrate) having mounted thereto an interface circuit that receives display data (which will be called also “pixel data”) and a control signal from a host computer, and applies pixel data, various clock signals and various driving voltages to a liquid crystal panel TFT-LCD. The interface circuit has a display control device equipped with a timing converter TCON and a power supply circuit. The display control device outputs timing signals such as a data bus for transmitting image data, a data bus for transferring a second pixel, a clock D2 (CL2) required for a drain driver to acquire pixel data (which will be called merely “data”, too), a clock D1 (CL1) required for the drain driver to switch a liquid crystal driving signal, a frame starting direction signal for driving a gate driver and a gate clock (clock G), to the liquid crystal panel. The power supply circuit includes a positive gray scale voltage generating circuit, a negative gray scale voltage generating circuit, a voltage generating circuit for counter electrodes and a voltage generating circuit for gate electrodes. The number of display pixels of the liquid crystal panel constituting the liquid crystal display device shown in FIG. 42 is (1,024.times.3 in a lateral direction).times.(768 in a longitudinal direction). A liquid crystal panel having higher resolution is known, too. The interface substrate for receiving the display data and the control signals from the host computer receives data in pixel unit, that is, data of each of red (R), green (G) and blue (b) as a set, and transfers (or transmits) one pixel data set in a unit time to the drain driver through data lines shown in FIG. 38. The host computer transmits a clock signal as the reference of the unit time to the liquid crystal display device. More concretely, the liquid crystal display device having 1,024.times.768 pixels of this structural example uses ordinarily a frequency of 65 MHz. The liquid crystal panel TFT-LCD has a construction such that the drain drivers (called also “TFT drivers”) are situated in the lateral direction with the display screen as the reference. The drain drivers are connected to the drain lines of the thin film transistors TFT to supply a voltage for driving the liquid crystal. The gate drivers are connected to the gate lines, and a voltage is supplied to the gates of the thin film transistors TFT for a certain predetermined time (one horizontal operation time). A timing converter comprises a semiconductor integrated circuit (LSI), receives the display data and the control signals from the host computer and outputs necessary display data and operation clocks to the gate drivers on the basis of them. Incidentally, the data line for one pixel has 18 bits (six bits for each of R, G and B). The host computer transmits signals to the timing converter of the liquid crystal display device by low voltage amplification differential signals, or so-called “LVDS”. The timing converter transmits the signals at a CMOS level to the drain drivers. However, it is difficult in this case to supply 65 MHz pixel clocks. Therefore, the display date is transmitted in synchronism with both edges of the rise and fall of a 32.5 MHz clock. As shown in FIGS. 43A, 43B, 44A and 44B, pulses of one horizontal time cycle are given to the gate drivers on the basis of the horizontal synchronizing (sync) signal and the display timing signal so as to supply voltages to the gate lines of the thin film transistors TFT in each horizontal time. The frame starting direction signal is given, too, on the basis of the vertical sync signal so that display can be made from the first line in one frame time unit. The positive gray scale voltage generating circuit and the negative gray scale voltage generating circuit of the power supply circuit generate a reference voltage for converting a voltage, that is to be given to the liquid crystal in every certain time, to an alternating current. This alteration is conducted in practice as the positive gray scale voltage and the negative gray scale voltage are alternately switched and used inside the drain driver. Incidentally, the term “alteration” used hereby means alternation of the voltage to be given to the drain driver to the positive voltage side/negative voltage side in every predetermined time. Here, the cycle of this alteration corresponds to one frame time unit. The flip chip system described above is also called an “FCA system”. This FCA system is the one that directly mounts the driving IC (drain drivers and gate drivers) to the outer periphery of one of the substrates of the liquid crystal panel (generally, the lower substrate), and is also called a “chip-on-glass system (COG)”. Various signals and an operation power source to the driving IC (drain drivers and gate drivers) directly mounted to the substrate of the liquid crystal panel are supplied through the flexible printed substrate FPC connected to the interface substrate. FIG. 45 is an explanatory of a mounting example of a drain driver and a gate driver of a liquid crystal display device and an interface substrate. A drain line side flexible printed substrate FPC2 is fitted to one of the edges (to the lower edge in the drawing, a side in a major direction) of a liquid crystal panel PNL formed by bonding a lower substrate SUB1 and an upper substrate SUB2, and is folded to the back of the liquid crystal panel PNL along the arrangement of an open portion HOP. A gate line side flexible printed substrate FPC1 is fitted to the left edge (the left edge in the drawing, or a side in a minor direction), and its connector CT3, a connector CTR3 of the interface substrate PCB and a connector CTR4 connected to a connector CT4 of the drain line side flexible printed substrate FPC2 are coupled with one another. An interface connector CT1 for connecting signals from the host computer, a timing converter TCON, and so forth, are further fitted to this substrate FPC1. Incidentally, this example employs the data transfer system of an LVDS system. A reception side signal converter (LVDS-R) necessary in this case is integrated with the same chip as that of the timing converter TCON to reduce the mounting area on the interface substrate. An upper polarizer POL1 is bonded to the surface side of the liquid crystal panel. PNL (to the surface of the upper substrate SUB2) and a display area AR is formed inside the upper polarizer POL1. The chip IC2 mounted to the outer edge of the lower side of the lower substrate is the drain driver and the chip IC1 mounted to the outer edge of the left side is the gate driver. Symbol FGP represents a frame ground pad and FHL does a positioning hole.

The process of production of semiconductors includes processing of a circular silicon wafer typically 8" in diameter. The processing includes repetition of series of steps: oxidation and deposition; lithography; etching; and doping (implanting and diffusing). Depending on the maturity of the production process used, the wafer might be inspected for particles/production defects, mask alignment and critical dimension metrology between the processing steps. The frequency of inspection can be as often as every wafer in the development phase of a process, or on wafers from alternate production lots from mature processes. Particle (production defect) detection detects either the presence of contaminant particles introduced in the manufacturing process, or areas where processing has been defective so as to produce unwanted features in the structures of the device. Current methods of particle detection, such as those provided by Tencor Instruments or KLA Instruments, involve obtaining topological information from the surface of the wafer using optical techniques as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,347,001; 4,378,159; 4,755,874; 4,766,324; 4,845,558; 4,898,471; 5,030,008; 5,131,755; 5,264,912; 5,276,498; 5,355,212; 5,416,594,5,438,413 and European Patent Application 624787A, or topographical imaging scanning electron microscope techniques, such as the KLA SEMSpec system or those techniques described in JP 61 88294 These current techniques make no distinction between defects (particles) which will affect the operation of the completed integrated circuit (IC), which are known as "killer" defects, and those which have no detrimental effect, known as "nuisance" defects. Since nuisance defects can account for 90% of detected defects, some form of review is required to ensure that wafers which would otherwise produce acceptable yields of operational ICs are not rejected. This review is currently a manual operation. Defects are classified by inspection of an image of the wafer including the defect identified by the inspection system. Review is typically performed on optical or scanning electron microscope (SEM) review stations. Operators classify and tabulate defects based on prior experience and defect location. Relatively slow, manual, defect classification is the only current way to reduce the number of nuisance defects affecting wafer yields. This process still gives no direct information as to whether a defect will affect the performance of a completed device. These methods also suffer from the problem that they cannot detect defects which are invisible from the surface, be they nuisance or killer. Invisible killer defects include problems such as open vias, incomplete via holes and gate oxide integrity problems. All of these can result in an inoperative device but are undetectable with present in-line defect detection systems. Furthermore, as the geometries of semiconductors become smaller, optical techniques become less useful due to accuracy being limited by the optical diffraction limit of resolution. It is believed that for 0.25 .mu.m geometry integrated circuits, less than 50% of killer defects commonly encountered in a semiconductor manufacturing process are observable using optical techniques, even when operating in the short wavelength UV range. Optical techniques also operate less successfully after chemical mechanical polishing steps due to the formation of a planar surface which means that defects are less likely to scatter light, a key factor in some optical defect detection methods. SEM-based inspection systems have been proposed using die-to-die comparison methods. Such systems are optimized to obtain topographical information. Known techniques have small pixel size (0.1 .mu.m) and consequently very long inspection times, of the order of 10 to 80 hours for a complete wafer. This, combined with a high incidence of nuisance defect detection makes such techniques undesirable for production uses. Topographical data also does not reveal hidden defects and so suffers from the drawbacks of optical methods. It has been previously proposed to use an electron beam prober to obtain voltage contrast images of wafers. However, these techniques are slow since they require the electron beam to be scanned over the wafer several times before a good image can be obtained. SEMs, and electron beam probers, a variant of the SEM well known for functional probing of structures in integrated circuit devices, are also often used to obtain voltage contrast images of devices. In a voltage contrast image, the voltage of a structure being imaged determines the brightness of that structure in the image. This is achieved by using a filter electrode grid to control the detection of secondary electrons depending on their energy so as to enhance the voltage contrast. Such an approach has been used to image test structures formed in the wafer as an indicator of the reliability of the manufacturing process. SEMs have been used to detect invisible faults in the part-finished multi-chip module substrates (MCMs) and examples of these techniques are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,415,851, U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,203 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,278. These patents describe a technique in which a 2 keV electron flood gun is used to apply charge to the conductive nets of an MCM substrates, the nodes of which are then examined using an electron beam probe which is vectored from node to node to measure the voltage present at the nodes and discharge the nets. The voltage measurements are used to indicate the presence of faults in the nets. The MCMs examined with this technique are intended to locate and connect a number of completed IC devices. Similar techniques using higher and lower energy flood guns to pre-charge the conductors have been applied to MCMs It is an object of the present invention to provide a system suitable for inspecting semiconductor wafers which does not suffer from the deficiencies of known optical systems outlined above and which is capable of revealing hidden defects.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive imaging procedure that utilizes nuclear magnetic resonance techniques to render images within a patient's body. Typically, MRI systems employ the use of a magnetic coil having a static magnetic field strength of between about 0.2 to 3 Teslas. During the procedure, the body tissue is briefly exposed to RF pulses of electromagnetic energy in a plane perpendicular to the magnetic field. The resultant electromagnetic energy from these pulses can be used to image the body tissue by measuring the relaxation properties of the excited atomic nuclei in the tissue. During imaging, the electromagnetic radiation produced by the MRI system may be picked up by implantable device leads used in implantable medical devices such as pacemakers or cardiac defibrillators. This energy may be transferred through the lead to the electrode in contact with the tissue, which may lead to elevated temperatures at the point of contact. The degree of tissue heating is typically related to factors such as the length of the lead, the conductivity or impedance of the lead, and the shape and surface area of the lead electrodes. In some cases, exposure to electromagnetic energy may also induce an undesired voltage on the lead.

Recently, due to the development of the electronic communication industry, portable terminals are becoming necessities to a modern society while becoming an important means for delivery of fast changing information. Accordingly, a designers are competitively developing terminals having more convenient functions to guarantee many users. For one example, recently, portable terminals are supporting various services of Bluetooth®, Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and the like in addition to a voice call function. This results in an increase of a case where, to support these services, the portable terminals include a large number of antennas, each supporting a different frequency band. But, these antennas are mounted in a restricted space with difficulties in circumstances where terminals are miniaturized more and more.

With the remarkable development of small, thin, and high-functionality portable electronic equipment such as mobile phones and PDAs, there is a growing demand for smaller, thinner, and high-capacity batteries as their power source. Lithium ion rechargeable batteries can be designed small and high-capacity, and in particular, flat prismatic types are suitable in making the equipment thinner; they have therefore been increasingly used as the repeatedly usable rechargeable battery for portable electronic equipment. Because lithium ion rechargeable batteries have high energy density and contain a flammable organic solvent as electrolyte, it is essential to take account of safety measures. They must have such safety features as to ensure that no damage is caused to the equipment or injury to the user in the event that an abnormality arises for some reason. For example, if the positive and negative terminals of the battery are short-circuited for some reason, a large short-circuit current flows in high energy density batteries, whereupon the inner resistance generates Joule heat and the battery temperature rises. A temperature rise in the battery causes a rapid build-up of gas pressure inside resulting from reactions between positive electrode active materials and electrolyte, or from evaporation or decomposition of electrolyte, which may result in fire or explosion of the battery. Batteries may fall into a high-temperature state not only because of external short-circuiting but also of overcharge; the same applies if the portable electronic equipment loaded with the battery is placed near a heater or left inside a car parked in a hot weather environment. A battery abnormality can be induced by any of electrical, mechanical, or thermal factors; thus non-aqueous electrolyte batteries represented by lithium ion rechargeable batteries are provided with safety features for preventing batteries from falling into an abnormal state and for evading a further dangerous state even if an abnormality should arise. Such features are usually incorporated in batteries as their own natures; for example, active materials on the electrodes and electrolyte may be made not to be excessively reactive, or, a polyolefin porous film may be employed for the separator because of its “shutdown function,” in which minute pores are softened and close under an abnormally high temperature. Cylindrical lithium ion rechargeable batteries are usually provided with a protective feature such as a Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) element connected in series to the input/output circuit at the sealing end, which limits current flow in the event of external short-circuiting. Batteries that do not include the PTC element inside are normally provided with a PTC element or temperature fuse as outside circuit components. Further, a circuit for protecting the battery from overcharge and over discharge is an absolute requirement. In general, these constituent elements are all packed with the battery inside a pack case to form a battery pack. However, battery packs using pack cases are not suited to portable electronic equipment that are re-modeled in short cycles, because the manufacturing cost of molding dies used in the resin molding of pack cases tends to be high, and the time required for designing new molding dies is relatively long. Moreover, battery packs with resin-molded outer cases also have limitations in making portable electronic equipment smaller and thinner because of the limitations on the moldable thickness in the resin molding process. Furthermore, in order to prevent the user from disassembling a battery pack for wrong use or for satisfying curiosity, it must have a design that is hardly disassemblable, or a design that alerts the user that it has been disassembled. Taking account that the battery packs are used for portable electronic equipment, they also need to have a rigid structure that can withstand vibration or shocks in a falling accident, and a moisture resistance, particularly for the electronic circuit parts. In achieving the structure having a disassemblablity, a certain rigidity, and a moisture resistant, the idea has emerged that a battery may be united with a circuit substrate including a battery protective circuit by resin molding. The applicants of the present invention have disclosed resin-molded battery packs in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications Nos. 2002-134077 and 2002-166447, in which a battery and a circuit substrate are connected by a connecting member to form an intermediate product, which is placed inside a die, and resin is filled around the intermediate product such as to expose external terminals formed on the substrate to the outside, to unite the battery with the substrate. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-315483 discloses a structure in which a battery and a circuit substrate are connected by a connecting member and placed inside a die, and the circuit substrate is resin-sealed and fixed on the battery or its pack case (battery lid), or both the circuit substrate and the battery are resin-sealed. According to the structure shown in the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-315483, connectors are provided to the tips of leads extended from the resin-sealed circuit substrate for male-female connection coupling with the equipment side connectors. This external connection structure will present no problem if the equipment is relatively large and offers enough space for accommodating the battery, but the battery packs to which the invention is directed are primarily designed for small equipment where battery accommodation space is scarce, and therefore cannot adopt such connection structure. The battery pack according to the present invention requires a connection structure with the equipment side in which, when the battery pack is accommodated in the battery accommodation space provided on the equipment side, contact terminals or probes in the equipment make pressure contact with external terminals exposed on the outside at preset locations of the battery pack. In the case with a resin-molded battery pack containing a battery and a circuit substrate with external terminals, the outer dimensions of the battery pack and the locations of the external terminals must be precisely controlled, in order that the connection terminals on the equipment side in the battery accommodation space and the external terminals make pressure contact with each other with low contact resistance. If the dimensional precision is low, the contact resistance between the equipment-side connection terminals and external terminals becomes high, leading to malfunctions such as contact failure and voltage drop. Referring now to FIG. 26, in a structure in which external terminals are formed on the circuit substrate that is arranged parallel to a sealing plate of the battery, it is particularly necessary to precisely control the dimension L from the bottom face of the battery pack 100 to the surface of the circuit substrate 102 on which the external terminals 103 are formed. However, there tends to be variations in the height h of the battery 101, and because the circuit substrate 102 is connected with the battery 101 merely by a connecting member 104, its position and angle tend to vary. In a common battery pack structure, the battery 101 and the circuit substrate 102 are fixed in position by the pack case, so that the dimension L is controlled. However, in a structure in which the battery 101 and the circuit substrate 102 are united by resin molding, measures must be taken to absorb the variations in the height h of the battery 101 and to fix the circuit substrate 102 in position. Because of the difficulty in achieving precise control of the height, the prior art resin-molded battery packs employ one of the aforementioned connection structure using connectors or other alternative structures including, for example, a structure in which biasing means such as a spring is provided in the battery accommodation space in the equipment to apply a bias to the battery pack toward the equipment-side connection terminals so as to absorb the variations in dimensions; and a structure in which the battery pack has external terminals exposed at one end on the longer side, which will make sliding contact with resilient connection terminals on the equipment side when the battery pack is inserted into the battery accommodation space of the equipment, so as to avoid contact failure. These structures, however, require an increased accommodation space for the battery pack on the equipment side and a larger number of components for the connection of the battery pack, prohibiting the miniaturization of such equipment. Namely, these structures are hardly applicable to small electronic equipment such as mobile phones that have limited space. Furthermore, the resin molding for uniting a circuit substrate with a rechargeable battery must be performed under a low melting temperature of the filled resin and a low temperature of the die used, and a possibly small molding pressure so that the rechargeable battery and the electronic components are not thermally or mechanically affected. For example, favorable resin molding can be performed using hot melt resins that melt at low temperatures and are moldable with low temperature molding dies and low pressure. Hot melt resin, however, has a low hardness after curing and is not suitable as an outer member exposed to the outside because it is susceptible to scratches and contaminant adhesions. It is suited for uniting the rechargeable battery and the circuit substrate, but for the outer material, a resin that has a relatively high hardness is more desirable for good appearance. It is an object of the present invention to provide a battery pack of a rechargeable battery and a circuit substrate that are united by filling with resin, the battery pack being covered with a resin mold made of a resin material that is suited as an outer member at a given location exposed to the outside of the battery pack, and to provide a method for manufacturing a battery pack of a battery and a circuit substrate that are united by resin molding, with which the outer dimensions of the battery pack and the locations of external terminals are precisely controlled.

Airlines and other sellers have developed sophisticated revenue management systems (RMSs) to optimize revenue. Generally, when a flight is first added to an airline's flight schedule, the airline's revenue management system attempts to maximize revenue for the flight by establishing a plurality of fare classes and then allocating the number of seats and price assigned to each fare class. The revenue management system will thereafter continue to monitor the actual demand within each fare class relative to forecasted demand, to dynamically reevaluate the inventory allocation and pricing of each fare class for a given flight. In this manner, the airlines attempt to fly each aircraft as full as possible without allowing earlier-booking discount-fare passengers to displace later-booking full-fare passengers. While conventional revenue management systems employ sophisticated tools to anticipate future travel, forecasting errors invariably lead to unanticipated excess capacity. In addition, an airline can utilize its revenue management system to forecast its anticipated excess capacity on a given flight associated with seats that are predicted to be empty. Furthermore, unexpected external events, such as a price war or extreme weather conditions, can also affect an airline's excess capacity. Thus, in an attempt to reduce such excess capacity, airlines periodically reevaluate the inventory allocation and pricing of each fare class for a given flight. An airline cannot simply discount the published fares for such unsold seats, however, without either starting a fare war or compromising its own underlying fare structure (i.e., without also reducing its full-fare prices for business travelers). Thus, there is currently no effective way for airlines to dispose of such excess capacity. Although many airlines fill empty seats with “standby” passengers, this practice is typically limited to instances where some oversight on the part of either the passenger or the airline has occurred. For example, the passenger's flight may have been overbooked, the passenger may have missed an original flight, or the passenger may have purchased a ticket at or near the time of the flight. Moreover, standby travel is costly for the airline and is inconvenient for the passenger because there is no guarantee that the passenger will get to fly on the same day. In addition, airlines attempt to sell excess capacity utilizing consolidators, who traditionally sell airline tickets at a discount. Since the terms of the relationship between the airlines and the consolidators are generally not flight specific and are typically defined months in advance, the sale of tickets through a consolidator does not provide a sufficiently dynamic mechanism for airlines to sell such excess capacity when actual demand fails to meet forecasted demand. Even assuming that the airlines could release the tickets for sale through the consolidators at the last minute, there is currently no effective way for the consolidators to announce the availability and price of such tickets to customers. Airlines recognize that there is a large source of latent demand associated with leisure travelers who are willing to purchase tickets at a favorable price. There is currently no effective way, however, for an airline to receive an offer from a customer for leisure travel at a particular price set by the customer, below the airline's published fare. In particular, there is no effective way for the airline to be confident that if the airline accepts the customer's offer, the customer will book the ticket without using the information to ascertain the airline's underlying level of price flexibility, which, if known to an airline's competitors or customers, could dramatically impact the airline's overall revenue structure. As apparent from the above deficiencies with conventional systems for selling goods and services, such as airline tickets, a need exists for a system that permits a seller to sell excess capacity when actual demand fails to meet forecasted demand. A further need exists for a buyer-driven system that permits an airline to sell tickets to leisure travelers at a price set by the customer, typically below the airline's published fare. Yet another need exists for a system that permits sellers to stimulate sales of excess inventory, without compromising the seller's published price structure. Another need exists for a system that permits sellers to capture and process consumer demand for each selling price of a given item, such as a given fare class on each airline flight.

Example embodiments generally relate to producing non-detonable explosive samples and, more particularly, to producing such samples for use as training aids. Non-detonable training aid materials have been developed for allowing training of explosives detection dogs (EDD), dolphins, or other living or non-living entities that can detect presence of explosives through emitted vapors. The training aid materials desirably exude the same odor as bulk quantities of real explosives, but lack the detonable properties of real explosives and are otherwise safe to handle. Furthermore, the training aid materials can preferably produce vapors that exude the odor for at least a specific period of time after opening the package (e.g., 2 hours). Such training aid materials have been developed for peroxide-based homemade explosives (HME) allowing for training EDDs to detect such explosives in various environments. Some training aid materials are formed by coating materials with layers of the explosive molecules as dissolved in a solvent. These materials can similarly produce off-odors, however, due to addition of the solvent. The article “The Education of a Bomb Dog” by Joshua Levine in the July 2013 issue of Smithsonian Magazine provides the state of technology information reproduced below. Top training academy works double time to meet skyrocketing demand for canines who can sniff out danger. Then I first meet a likable young Labrador named Merry, she is clearing her nostrils with nine or ten sharp snorts before she snuffles along a row of luggage pieces, all different makes and models. They're lined up against the back wall of a large hangar on a country road outside Hartford, Conn. This is where MSA Security trains what are known in the security trade as explosive detection canines, or EDCs. Most people call them bomb dogs. Dogs are recognized as premier explosives detection systems. They are reliable, friendly, love to work, and are portable. Dogs have some intrinsic weaknesses such as sensory fatigue and limited detection lifespan, but still are preferred by law enforcement and the military for illicit substance detection. For example, the ATF have K-9s deployed for detection in over 13 different countries. Training K-9s is difficult because of limited targeted training aids and contamination (training on the impurity). In addition, shape recognition is not fully employed.

Computers utilize a wide variety of disks to store data. Disks are classified according to the storage medium employed, such as when "optical" disks are distinguished from "magnetic" disks. Disks are also classified as either "floppy" or "hard." Hard disks generally have greater storage capacity, faster data access times, and longer useful lives than floppy disks ("floppies"). Unlike hard disks, however, floppies are "removable." That is, floppies are easily released from, and reattached to, a disk drive which provides the computer with access to the data on the disk. FIG. 1 illustrates a disk 10 attached to a disk drive 12. The disk 10 illustrates physical characteristics of both floppies and hard disks. The disk 10 contains a number of concentric data cylinders such as the cylinder 14. The cylinder 14 contains several data sectors, including sectors 16 and 18. The sectors 16 and 18 are located on an upper side 20 of the disk 10; additional sectors may be located on a lower side 22 of the disk 10. The sides 20, 22 of the disk 10 define a platter 24. Floppy disks contain only one platter and thus are either single-sided or double-sided. For clarity of illustration only one platter 24 is shown in FIG. 1, but hard disks often contain several platters and thus may include one, two, or more sides. The upper side 20 of the disk 10 is accessed by a head 26 mounted on an arm 28 secured to the drive 12. To access different cylinders of the disk 10, the arm 28 moves the head 26 in toward the center of the disk 10 or out toward the periphery of the disk 10 according to the position of the desired cylinder. To access different sectors within a cylinder, the drive 12 rotates the disk 10 around a spindle 30, thereby rotating the desired sectors into adjacency with the head 26. Additional sides of a disk, including sides on additional platters, may be accessed in a similar manner by additional disk drive heads. Because each side of a disk is accessed by a corresponding disk drive head, the number of heads is sometimes used to indicate the number of sides of the disk that are accessible to the drive. For example, double-sided disks are accessed with double-headed drives. A given sector on the disk 10 may be identified by specifying a head, a cylinder, and a sector within the cylinder. Heads are generally numbered from the top of the drive proceeding downward, beginning at zero. Cylinders are generally numbered from the outside edge of the platter proceeding inward, beginning at zero. Sectors within a cylinder are generally numbered from a marker in the disk medium proceeding either clockwise or counter-clockwise, depending on the direction of disk rotation in the disk drive, and beginning at one. A triplet specifying the head number, cylinder number, and sector number in this manner is known as a "physical sector address." For instance, the sector labeled as 16 in FIG. 1 could have a physical sector address of (head zero, cylinder seven, sector two), or more concisely, a physical address of (0, 7, 2). The terms "address" and "pointer" are used interchangeably herein. Alternatively, a given sector may be identified by a "logical sector address." Each logical sector address is a single number rather than a triplet of numbers. The logical address of a sector corresponds to the number of sectors between the addressed sector and the "first" sector on the disk 10 along some specified path which traverses all available sectors in order. The first sector, known as "sector zero," is often located at a physical sector address of (0, 0, 1). One common traversal path begins at logical sector zero, traverses the sectors in cylinder zero of head zero, traverses the sectors of cylinder zero of head one, proceeds thus through cylinder zero on each successive head, proceeds to the sectors of cylinder one of head zero, and continues in like manner. However, other disk traversal paths are also used. Disks are also classified by rules governing the physical organization of data on the disk. Many disks mold the available space into one or more "partitions" by a "partition table" located on the disk. For instance, MACINTOSH.RTM. computers utilize a partition table having a composition that is specifically adapted for use with the MACINTOSH operating system (MACINTOSH is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.). Many SUN.RTM. workstation computers utilize a partition table composition that is specifically adapted for use with the SunOS.RTM. File System (SUN and SunOS are registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.). Other examples abound; different partition table compositions are almost as common as different operating systems and different file systems, which number in the hundreds. Unfortunately, different partition table compositions are usually incompatible. Detailed methods which correctly modify the contents of a first partition table will often scramble the contents of a second partition table if the first and second tables use different composition rules. A detailed method for reducing the number of disk sectors in a MACINTOSH partition, for instance, is likely to be of little help in shrinking a SunOS partition, and may even cause data loss if applied to the SunOS partition table. One partition table composition, denoted herein as the "IBM-compatible" partition table, is found on the disks used in many IBM.RTM. personal computers and IBM-compatible computers (IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation). IBM-compatible partition tables may be used on both floppies and hard disks, and they may be used with magnetic disks, optical disks, and disks employing other storage media. IBM-compatible partition tables may also be used with a variety of disk sector addressing schemes, including without limitation schemes that employ traversal paths different from the path described above and schemes which assign logical sector addresses that start over again at zero for each partition on the disk. As shown in FIG. 2, an IBM-compatible partition table 32 includes an Initial Program Loader ("IPL") identifier 34, four primary partition identifiers 36, and a boot identifier 38. As shown in FIG. 3, each partition identifier 36 includes a boot indicator 40 to indicate whether the partition in question is bootable. At most one of the partitions in the set of partitions defined by the partition table 32 is bootable at any given time. Each partition identifier 36 also includes a starting address 42, which is the physical sector address of the first sector in the partition in question, and an ending address 44, which is the physical sector address of the last sector in the partition. A sector count 46 holds the total number of disk sectors in the partition. A boot sector address 48 holds the logical sector address corresponding to the physical starting address 42. On disks having more than 1024 cylinders, the starting address 42 and the ending address 44 contain predetermined maximum values if the actual values are too large to store in the space given in the partition table 32; the actual values can be derived from the sector count 46 and the boot sector address 48. Some IBM-compatible computer systems allow "logical partitions" as well as the primary partitions just described. All logical partitions are contained within one primary partition; a primary partition which contains logical partitions is also known as an "extended partition." Logical partitions are represented by one or more lists of partition identifiers 36. Each list is attached in conventional fashion to one of the partition identifiers P1, P2, P3, or P4. Thus, the set of partitions defined by an IBM-compatible partition table includes any defined primary partition, regardless of whether that primary partition is an extended partition, and also includes any logical partitions defined by partition identifiers 36. Each partition identifier 36 also includes a system indicator 50. The system indicator 50 identifies the type of file system contained in the partition, which in turn defines the physical arrangement of data that is stored in the partition on the disk 10 (FIG. 1). The system indicator 50 utilizes predefined constant values to designate various file systems. For instance, the constant value 01H indicates a 12-bit File Allocation Table ("FAT") file system first used by the MS-DOSS operating system (MS-DOS is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation). Other values designate other file systems, including the CP/M-86.RTM. file system (registered trademark of Novell, Inc), the XENIX.RTM. file system (registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation), the NOVELL file system (trademark of Novell, Inc.), a 16-bit FAT file system of the MS-DOS operating system, and the PCIX file system. Values not recognized by a particular operating system are treated as designating an unknown file system. The system indicator 50 may designate a file system, such as the 12-bit FAT file system, which is used most widely in connection with a particular operating system, such as MS-DOS. However, operating systems and file systems are different components of the computer. The file system associated with a specific partition of the disk 10 (FIG. 1) determines the format in which data is stored in the partition, namely, the physical arrangement of user data and of file system structures in the portion of the disk 10 that is delimited by the starting address 42 and the ending address 44 of the partition in question. At any given time, each partition thus contains at most one type of file system. The operating system manages access, not only to the disk 10, but to other computer resources as well. Resources typically managed by the operating system include one or more disks and disk drives, memory (RAM and/or ROM), microprocessors, and I/O devices such as a keyboard, mouse, screen, printer, tape drive, modem, serial port, parallel port, or network port. The operating system accesses the disk 10 in part through subprograms known as "file system drivers." These drivers use internal file system data and assumptions about the file system to translate more abstract information such as file names and read/write requests into more detailed information such as sector addresses and physical disk accesses. By appropriate use of file system drivers, a single operating system can access files stored according to different file systems. For instance the OS/2 operating system can access both FAT files and High Performance File System ("HPFS") files (OS/2 is a mark of International Business Machines corporation). File system drivers do not alter the type of file system that is contained in a partition, nor do they alter characteristics such as the partition's size or its location on the disk 10 (FIG. 1). It is sometimes desirable to alter the contents of an IBM-compatible partition table. For instance, a person using a computer may wish to expand a particular partition to allow additional data to be stored in files within that partition. Conversely, the user may wish to shrink a specified partition by allocating fewer disk sectors to the partition. It may also be convenient or necessary to move a partition to a different location on the disk while substantially or exactly preserving the number of disk sectors allocated to the partition. One conventional approach to modification of an IBM-compatible partition table begins by copying all necessary user and system data off the disk to a temporary storage location such as a tape or another disk. The data copied includes without limitation the contents of files created by the user such as textual documents and spreadsheets, the contents of files required to run applications such as word processors, and system data such as directory information. Some internal file system data such as sector allocation maps does not necessarily need to be copied, but is often copied anyway. The familiar disk utility FDISK is then used to update the IBM-compatible partition table. The newly specified partition is then formatted with the familiar disk utility FORMAT or a similar utility. Finally, the data is copied back into the new partition on the disk. During this copying process the file system copy utility creates appropriate new file system structures reflecting the current locations of data on the disk. This approach to partition manipulation has several drawbacks. A temporary storage device with adequate storage capacity may not be readily available or affordable under the circumstances. Even if temporary storage is available, copying large amounts of data from the disk to temporary storage and then back again can take a substantial period of time. In addition, manipulating IBM-compatible partition tables in this manner is confusing and dangerous for many computer users. The FDISK utility assumes that the user is familiar with the intricacies of IBM-compatible partition tables, physical disk addresses, logical partitions, extended partitions, operating system assumptions regarding partitions, and related matters. Users who are unfamiliar with these technical details may easily and inadvertently destroy data. Less grievous but nonetheless undesirable situations can also arise if the user miscalculates the correct size or position of the new partitions. For instance, if the partition has been made too small to receive all the data from temporary storage, it becomes necessary to once again modify the partition table with FDISK, to reformat again, and to once again copy all the data from temporary storage into the reformatted partition. Even if everything works as desired the first time, this approach to partition modification can be very time-consuming. With a typical disk holding several hundred megabytes of data the process may require several hours to complete successfully. Some conventional partition manipulation approaches are limited to shrinking FAT partitions or HPFS partitions. These approaches are not capable of shrinking logical partitions. They provide no capability for expanding a partition or moving a partition to a new location on the disk while preserving the partition's size. Moreover, known approaches allow user data to be lost if power to the computer is interrupted during the partition shrinking operation. It is sometimes desirable to convert a partition from one file system to another. For instance, one known approach converts a FAT partition into an HPFS partition. However, the conversion is performed in place. That is, user data is left substantially in the same sectors on disk while FAT file system structures are converted into corresponding HPFS file system structures. This approach has the advantage of requiring only about enough additional disk space to hold the HPFS file system structures. However, during virtually the entire conversion operation, the partition is in a hybrid state that matches no single known file system. Thus, it is very likely that user data will be lost if the file system conversion is interrupted. In particular, data is likely to be lost if power to the computer is interrupted for even a moment during the conversion. Moreover, this approach is not integrated with means for shrinking, expanding, and moving partitions, or with efficient means for checking the integrity and self-consistency of the file system before and after the conversion. Thus, it would be an advancement in the art to provide a method that allows users who are unfamiliar with technical intricacies to easily shrink, expand, and move IBM-compatible disk partitions. It would be a further advancement to provide such a method which prevents data loss caused by interruptions such as a power failure during the manipulation of a partition. It would also be an advancement to provide such a method which properly shrinks, expands, and moves logical partitions and extended partitions. It would be an additional advancement in the art to provide such a method which safely converts partitions from one file system to another file system. It would be a further advancement to provide such a method which efficiently tests the integrity and consistency of the file system data within a partition. Such a method for manipulating disk partitions is disclosed and claimed herein.

In a tape player in general, a tape cassette is set in position by a series of loading operations, namely, first pulling the cassette into the tape player and then dropping it in the play position, and is removed by a series of ejecting operations, namely, first lifting it above the play position and then bringing it to a removable position. The series of loading and ejecting operations are performed by dropping or lifting a pack guide which carries the cassette and by moving back and forth a pack stopper which guides the cassette back and forth. In the prior art mechanims, the pack guide and the pack stopper are activated by driving an eject arm and an eject plate by means of a motor-driven cam. More specifically, when the eject arm is engaged and rotated by the cam, the eject plate linked to the eject arm moves back and forth. Responsive to the back and forth movement of the eject plate, the pack guide carrying the cassette is dropped or lifted by a cam of the eject plate, and the pack stopper connected to the eject arm via a resilient member moves back and forth and brings the cassette into the tape player or to the removable position.

1. Field Apparatuses consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a thin telephoto lens and an image pickup apparatus including the same, and more particularly, to a telephoto lens that is thin enough to be used in a mobile device and an image pickup apparatus including the thin telephoto lens. 2. Description of the Related Art A zoom lens including a refractive optical system is usually long and heavy, and a length of such zoom lens changes while a focal length is adjusted, and thus it is difficult to mount an optical zoom lens in a very thin mobile device such as a mobile phone. Recently, zoom lenses of various forms that are thin and have a minimized volume have been suggested, but the suggested zoom lenses are not yet compact enough to be used in a mobile device. Moreover, an F-number of the zoom lenses is increased, and the increased F-number may darken images. Due to this reason, a fixed focus lens is still typically used in a mobile device. However, a fixed focus lens has a fixed angle of view, and thus, it is difficult to create diverse effects when capturing an image using the fixed focus lens. In particular, a camera for mobile devices is generally designed to be suitable for short-range photographing, and thus may not be suitable for long-distance photographing. Accordingly, instead of using a zoom lens, two fixed focus lenses, that is, a wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens have been recently used together to provide zoom effects.

The disclosure herein relates to crosslinkable polymers for use in downhole applications such as drilling and completion operations. Many subterranean treatments require viscosified fluids. For instance, viscosified fluids may be used as or in drilling fluids, completion fluids, as well as other treating fluids. The term “drilling fluid” as used herein refers to any of a number of liquid and gaseous fluids and mixtures of fluids and solids (as solid suspensions, mixtures and emulsions of liquids, gases and solids) used in operations to drill boreholes into the earth. In some embodiments, a completion fluid may be used to control a well should downhole hardware fail, without damaging the producing formation or completion components. Such viscosified fluids can also be used to stave off the loss of fluids from the well bore to the surrounding formation, for example, when a kick or a thief zone is encountered. Naturally-derived polymeric viscosifying agents, such as cellulose derivatives, are often preferred over some synthetic agents because of their relative cost. But this cost savings is of little value if the viscosifying agent cannot maintain sufficient viscosity. Maintaining viscosity in a drilling fluid, for example, is important to provide hydrostatic pressure to prevent formation fluids from entering into the well bore, keep the drill bit cool and clean during drilling, carry out drill cuttings, and suspend the drill cuttings while drilling is paused and when the drilling assembly is brought in and out of the hole. Maintaining sufficient viscosity also may be important to control and/or reduce fluid loss into the formation. Moreover, a treatment fluid of a sufficient viscosity may be used to divert the flow of fluids present within a subterranean formation (e.g., formation fluids, other treatment fluids) to other portions of the formation, for example, by “plugging” an open space within the formation. At the same time, while maintaining sufficient viscosity of the treatment fluid often is desirable, it also may be desirable to maintain the viscosity of the treatment fluid in such a way that the viscosity may be reduced at a desired time, inter alia, for subsequent recovery of the fluid from the formation. Further complicating the use of some cellulose derivatives is that they are generally not viewed as thermally stable and easily solubilized. Furthermore, to provide sufficient viscosity, oftentimes cellulosic polymers are crosslinked using metal ions such as zirconium and titanium through techniques well known in the art. Unfortunately, however, the subterranean treatment fluids made with the resulting metal-crosslinked cellulosic polymers are not re-healable, meaning that the viscosity of these fluids degrades irreversibly under shearing and, therefore, is not resilient in drilling operations or other downhole operations that involve changes in shear.

The present invention relates to methods and devices for preparing beverages using capsules containing a food substance, such as a substance to be extracted and/or to be dissolved. The invention relates more precisely to a method and a device for preparing, in an optimized manner, a variety of beverages from substances of different types. The use of capsules containing a substance for preparing a beverage by extraction or by mixing under pressure is well known, particularly in the field of espresso-type coffees or soluble coffees, and is advantageous particularly for reasons of hygiene, storage freshness of the coffee and ease of use. There are various machines for preparing beverages using “capsules” containing a substance to be extracted, such as ground coffee, tea or a substance to be dissolved or dispersed, such as soluble coffee, chocolate, milk or a mixture or simple combination of these substances. The capsules may be closed capsules serving as a chamber for the injection of water and opening in order to release the liquid beyond a certain pressure threshold by means of the rupturing of a face of the capsule in contact with elements that are in relief. Water is usually injected by means of perforation through the capsule using a needle or spikes. An example of an extraction system of this type is described in Patent EP 0 512 470 B1 or, alternatively, EP 0 870 457. In the as yet unpublished European Patent Application No. 02000943.7, a description is given of a capsule having its own release-type means for rupturing a capsule film or membrane and thereby releasing the liquid extract when a pressure threshold has been achieved inside the capsule. The capsules may also be permeable chambers of the filter type or, alternatively, semi-permeable chambers comprising a filter component. It is known to use substances to be mixed (soluble or dispersible substances) and substances to be extracted under pressure using the same machine so as to offer a wider variety of beverages. For example, on one and the same machine, it is possible to prepare an “espresso” coffee when the capsule contains a ground coffee or a hot chocolate when the substance is a mixture of cocoa and powdered milk. However, it is observed that it does not suffice to fill a capsule with a different type of substance if a quality beverage—in terms of aroma, taste and/or volume of foam, for example—is to be obtained. In particular, the injection, mixing or wetting conditions may have a considerable influence on the quality of the beverage produced. Depending on whether a substance, resulting from grinding, pressed down into a capsule is involved, or, alternatively, a substance to be dissolved or dispersed in a liquid, such as a soluble coffee or a milk-based substance such as a cappuccino, chocolate or the like is involved, the way in which the water circulates through the capsule has an influence on the extraction or mixing conditions and thus on the final quality of the beverage. Thus, a product such as coffee or chocolate has to be dissolved or dispersed rapidly and completely, producing, preferably, a foam; on the other hand, a soluble tea preferably has to be dissolved without producing foam. Dissolution or dispersion has to be total, homogeneous and rapid, without giving rise to lumps or froth. In the case of products to be extracted, such as ground coffee, the optimum wetting conditions are different. The product must be thoroughly wetted, thereby optimizing the water/coffee contact surface, without creating preferred routes for the water through the bed of coffee. The creation of a privileged route through the bed of coffee may result in too sudden an increase in pressure and thus too rapid a release of the extract despite the fact that the extraction time is insufficient and part of the coffee has not yet been correctly wetted. The injection conditions may be improved, although this would only be in response to a particular problem or in connection with a particular substance. For example, Patent Application EP 1 299 022 A1 relates to a capsule cage comprising blades and a separate water entry for distributing the water through the capsule and eliminating the problems of obstruction and furring-up of the water-injection needles. For example, application EP 1 203 554 A1 relates to the shape of the piercing spikes for promoting water-flow conditions inside the capsule and preventing the rise of solid residues outside the capsule. However, there are no known devices that aim to meet the different, often contradictory, resultant wetting requirements in the case of extraction or the mixing, with water, of a substance contained in a capsule. Consequently, known devices are ill-suited to the preparation, in a manner that is adapted on each occasion, of a wide range of beverages from substances of different types.

The present invention relates to an inner container useful for shipping products. The inner container provides satisfactory protection during transportation and storage, and is easily and efficiently manipulated to display contained products for sale. Many products are shipped as multiple units of the product in one large container, with the intention of breaking them into smaller units. This can be done to minimize the shelf space for the product while maintaining back stock, or for a company to send separate units to different branch stores. To make this process user friendly, companies have developed inner containers, which can easily be removed from the large container. Most commonly, the inner containers are boxes which each hold several units of the product. The inner containers are placed in a larger shipping container and shipped to buyers. The products ultimately are displayed on store shelves. The storage of products on store shelves can be problematic. Products are typically placed onto the shelves by hand in a very orderly manner, but consumer interaction can create an unstable presentation of the products and inconsistent shelf appearance. The products can be knocked onto the floor or other unwanted areas, tipped over into a position that inadequately portrays the products to the consumer, and potentially damaged, resulting in a loss of profit for the companies manufacturing and selling the products. Adjacent products can also become intermixed, creating confusion for the consumer. In an effort to improve the above deficiencies of stocking and selling products, numerous containers have been designed and configured to act as display trays. The containers, housing a plurality of articles, can be placed onto a shelf in one step and minimize article displacement and/or damage. Examples of such containers are illustrated in the following: UK Patent Application Nos. 2,278,341 A and 2,233,316 A and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,553,666 and 5,464,151. Disadvantages with these containers, and others not listed, include difficult and aesthetically unacceptable opening, inadequate protection during transportation, and unsatisfactory article portrayal and retention. U.S. Pat. No. 5,803,348 attempts to address these disadvantages. The ""348 patent discloses a container that can be converted into a display by removing a hood portion from a tray portion with one hand. When the hood portion is removed, an associated front wall of the tray portion is also totally removed, allowing an unobstructed view of, and access to, the housed articles. Two disadvantages are apparent from this design. First, by totally removing the front wall, articles are not protected from being knocked to the floor or other unwanted areas. Second, the process of removing the hood and front wall frequently results in tearing the remainder of the container. When this occurs, the torn container is not aesthetically appealing for marketing purposes. UK Patent Application No. 2,162,820 A discloses a container having cut-away side walls on both a front and back region. A disadvantage of this design is that articles can fall out of the back of the container when opening and displaying. The container requires tearing four walls in order to display the products within the container. Thus, there is a need for an inner container that provides adequate protection during transportation and storage, yet is easily and cleanly opened for orderly display and retention of the products contained in it. The present invention provides an inner container configured for shipping, storing, and/or displaying goods, including: a bottom wall, two side walls, a front wall, and a back wall; the inner container further comprising a top section and a bottom section; the top section comprised of an upper front wall, two upper side walls, and optionally an upper back wall; the bottom section comprised of a lower front wall, two lower side walls, a back wall, and the bottom wall; the container top and bottom sections being linked by a discontinuous line of weakness having portions positioned substantially diagonally on the two side walls; wherein removal of the container top section from the container bottom section provides a display unit having side walls that increase in height from the front wall of the display unit to the back wall of the display unit. Opening of the container can conveniently begin from any side with the same end result. Additionally, the discontinuous line of weakness employs design features to provide consistent, easy, and clean opening to maintain operability and pleasing aesthetics during display. On removal of the container top section, the inner container of the present invention provides a display unit, which permits a sufficient balance between retaining the products in the display unit without displacement or damage and allowing for easy access by the consumer. Further, the inner container of the present invention employs materials and design features that provide satisfactory protection during transportation.

Conventionally, for example, non-patent document 1 describes a thermal management device in which an intercooler, a condenser, and a radiator are disposed in the same coolant circuit. The intercooler is a heat exchanger that cools the intake air to the engine by dissipating heat from the intake air into a coolant. The condenser is a heat exchanger that cools a refrigerant by dissipating heat from the refrigerant into a coolant in a refrigeration cycle. The radiator is a heat exchanger that cools the coolant by exchanging heat between the outside air and the coolant having the heat exchanged in both the intercooler and condenser.

The present invention generally pertains to a conference calling arrangement for a digital switching network and more particularly to a time shared three-port conference circuit for use in conjunction with a T-S-T digital switching network. Historically, switching systems were equipped with a number of conference circuits. When a request for a conference call is detected by such a switching system, this system would select an unused conference circuit to connect each of the conferees in a conference call arrangement. In this scheme, one conference call would require one conference circuit. With the advent of time division switching systems, conference circuits are required to manipulate PCM voice samples in an associated time slot switching environment. Time division switching systems utilize common equipment for a number of subscribers. One conference circuit for each conference call is inefficient. One such conference circuit for manipulating PCM voice samples is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,126,766, issued on Nov. 21, 1978, and having the same successor in interest as the assignee of the present application. This conference circuit is a three-port device for use in a private automatic branch exchange. This conference circuit handles only a single conference call at a time. Each conference call requires a separate conference circuit. Threshold level detection and last speaker retention features are provided by this circuit In addition, all three conferees' voice samples are compared before outputting the resultant loudest speakers' samples. Another digital multiport conference circuit is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,175,215, issued on Nov. 20, 1979, and having the same successor in interest as the assignee of the present application. This circuit provides for handling a single conference call at a time. In addition, threshold level detection and last speaker retention features are provided. Another multiport conference circuit is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,155, issued on June 16, 1981, and having the same successor in interest as the assignee of the present application. Similar to the above mentioned circuits, this circuit also handles one conference call at a time. Each of the above mentioned circuits suffers from the same deficiency of operating in a time shared switching system, while not itself being a time shared circuit. Accordingly, it is the object of the present invention to provide an efficient time shared conference circuit for use with a digital time division switching system.

Traffic delineators are known. Delineators are typically used on or near roadways or other paved or unpaved surfaces where automobiles, trucks, or other motorized or unmotorized vehicles travel. Often a series of delineators are arranged along a road, lane, or path so as to highlight or increase its visibility for the benefit of vehicle operators. FIG. 1 is an idealized perspective view of a roadway 110 along which delineators 112 have been placed to mark the path or direction of the roadway. Delineators can also be used in construction work zones to help guide vehicles along rerouted paths that may be unfamiliar to the vehicle operators. Perhaps because delineators can be used to direct or “channel” traffic in a given direction, they are sometimes also referred to as channelizers. In some cases, delineators may be used in applications where visibility from only one direction is considered important. In other cases, e.g., when placed between lanes of traffic that move in opposite directions, it may be important for the delineator to exhibit high visibility from both such directions. In still other cases, such as at intersections, it may be important for the delineator to exhibit high visibility from four or more different directions, e.g., north, south, east, and west. An example of a known delineator design is simply a post attached to a base. For improved visibility, the post may comprise high visibility materials. For daytime visibility, the post may be fabricated from bright diffuse materials, such as white or orange paint. For nighttime visibility, retroreflective sheeting may be wrapped around a portion of the post. Retroreflective sheeting has the characteristic of directing incident light back in the general direction from which it came, regardless of the angle at which the light impinges on the surface of the sheeting. Thus, as a vehicle approaches a roadway sign or other structure on which a retroreflective sheet is mounted, light from a vehicle headlamp may impinge on the sheeting, which then reflects the light back in the general direction of the headlamp. The retroreflection occurs in a small but finite angular cone, which cone encompasses the eye of the vehicle operator so that the operator perceives the sign as being conspicuously bright and highly visible. FIGS. 2 and 3 are provided for background purposes to exemplify two angles that may have some significance when discussing retroreflective sheeting, or other reflective sheeting. FIG. 2 is a top view of a vehicle 210 traveling in a direction 212 along a roadway 214. Reflective sheeting 216 is provided near the side of the road. Sheeting 216 is assumed to be flat and planar, and the axis 218 is perpendicular to the plane of the sheeting. (In cases where the reflective sheeting is not flat, each portion of the sheeting may be considered to be flat if the size of the portion is small enough.) Axis 220 represents the direction along which light from the vehicle headlamp impinges upon the sheeting 216. The angle β between the axes 218 and 220 is referred to as the entrance angle for the light. A side view of this situation is shown in FIG. 3, where the vehicle headlamp (or other light source) is shown separately and labeled as 310, and the eye of the vehicle operator (or other observer) is shown separately and labeled 312. An axis 314 extends directed between the headlamp 310 and the sheeting 216. Another axis 316 extends between the sheeting 216 and the observer 312. The angle α between the axes 314, 316 is referred to as the observation angle.

Field of the Invention The invention relates to a method of forming a fine conductive pattern, such as forming a coil winding on the upper surface of a substrate at the time of fabricating a thin-film magnetic head. Related Art To form a coil pattern of a thin-film magnetic head, a frame plating method or an ion milling method have principally been used heretofore as ordinary processes. Generally known fine conductive pattern preparing methods include a wet-etching method and a lift-off method. The wet-etching method is not suitable because of its too large side etching in the case where the required thickness of a conductive film is relatively large and where a fine conductive pattern whose thickness is about the same as or less than the conductive film is required, such as in the case of a coil pattern of a thin-film magnetic head. The above-mentioned fine conductive pattern forming methods address the following problems. Since the frame plating method uses an electroplating bath, not only many kinds of chemical solutions are used, but also bath composition fluctuations during the plating process are caused. This means that a number of process steps must be under control, thereby imposing the problem that the obtained conductive film is not stable nor is it less reproducible. Further, it is difficult to confine the grain size of a deposited substance to 1 .mu.m or less. When the width of the conductive pattern is several micron meters or less, the problem of migration is inevitably encountered. Particularly, in the case of plating with copper that is generally employed as a coil conductor of a thin-film magnetic head, problems such as having high specific resistance and undergoing changes in profile due to heat treatment-induced fluctuations in volume are caused. On the other hand, in the frame plating method, it is difficult to obtain a uniformly distributed thickness over the entire surface of the substrate. Particularly, it is more difficult to obtain a consistently distributed thickness on a fine pattern such as a coil portion and a comparatively large pattern such as a pad portion within the same chip. Further, while it is inevitably necessary to remove undesired plated ground layer since the frame plating method is an electroplating method, the process of removing the fine pattern portion involves sophisticated techniques. Therefore, it is difficult to improve operating efficiency. Since the etching ratio of the masking resist to the conductive film is almost 1:1 in the above-mentioned ion milling method, a resist thicker than the etching depth is required. That is, the conductive film having a relatively large thickness of about 3 to 5 .mu.m is required. This makes it difficult to process a fine conductive pattern whose inter-coil distance is 2 .mu.m or less. Since the etching process, the re-depositing process, and the injected ion scattering process are so interrelated not only is etching profile control is difficult, but also the conductive film is ejected out by ion bombardment. Therefore, re-deposition of the conductor onto the sidewalls of the resist or the like causes defective insulation of a product, thereby imposing the problem of product reliability. The above-mentioned lift-off method is designed to have such process steps, e.g., as shown in FIG. 3. That is, in FIG. 3, a coil portion 1 of a thin-film magnetic head is prepared by forming an insulating layer 3 on the upper surface of a substrate 2; and forming a masking pattern resist 4 thereon. The pattern resist 4 has groove portions 4a on which to form a coil pattern (see FIG. 3 (A)), and by depositing a conductor thereon, a conductive film 5 is formed inside the groove portions 4a (see FIG. 3 (B)). As a result, the coil portion of the thin-film magnetic head 1 is prepared. A coil pattern can be formed easily according to such a method. However, during the deposition of the conductor, the trapezoidal profile of each pattern resist portion 4 is broken due to thermal deformation, thereby causing the overhang profile to be lost (see FIG. 3 (B)). As a result, out of the conductive film 5, pattern portions 5a to be left unetched inside the groove portions 4a and lift-off portions 5b to be removed which extend on the pattern resist 4 are fused together to be inseparable. This imposes the problem of not being able to form a predetermined pattern.

Unless the context of the text requires otherwise, the term “craft” means any vehicle, watercraft, or ice craft. Examples of a vehicle would include wheeled vehicles and the like. Watercraft comprise by way of example, without limitation single, multihull and hydrofoil vessels. As used herein, ice craft comprises vehicles having skis and/or skate like blades for traveling over ice or snow surfaces. As used herein, the term “mast” will mean a rigid structural member projecting in a generally vertical direction from a deck or base to which it is attached. A “stay” is a rigid or flexible structural member providing lateral support to a mast to which it is attached. A stay is generally attached to a mast at a point away from the mast's point of attachment at a deck or base, that is, up the mast, and secured to the deck or mast away from, or distal to the attachment of the mast to the deck or base. As used herein, the term “sail” means a flexible sheet in the nature of fabric, membrane, or sheet used to capture wind or provide an aerodynamic lift. The term “lift” is not intended to denote an upward force, but rather refers to a component of the force that is perpendicular to the oncoming flow direction of air movement over a surface. It is desirable to have rigid aerodynamic lift surfaces that can be carried or mounted to a mast and controlled through all wind directions. That is, the aerodynamic lift surfaces can assume a power position generating lift or a non-power position in which the aerodynamic lift surfaces do not generate substantial lift.

As the developments of networked processing systems, such as the Internet, continue to advance more computing power and features are available to users. For example, information that historically has been limited to TV and Radio broadcasts on home appliances is now being made available through on-line computing services. The combination of networked computers and multimedia interactive graphic user interfaces permits the access and display of textual and graphic information in a manner, and at a speed, not previously known in the industry. As a result of these advancements in technology, various streaming content application solutions now exist to facilitate the transfer of streaming content over the Internet, such as Microsoft's Windows Media Technologies available from Microsoft Corporation located at Redmond, Wash. and Real Network's Streaming Media Solutions available from Real Networks located at Seattle, Wash. While these solutions have made streaming media content possible, they are neither designed to, nor sufficient to, support a real time interactive dynamic user interface. For example in the prior art, universal resource locator (URL) commands are used in combination with streaming media to change the user interface in a browser. For example, a media file containing a song may be downloaded or streamed to a user and at the end of media file, a URL command may be included to direct the browser to a site to purchase the song. These systems use static commands or URLs in the encoded content stream that need to be indexed prior to delivery to the displayed user interface. It is necessary to index streaming media every time a modification is made to a non-streaming element of video or audio. As a result, the displayed user interface is neither dynamic nor real time and cannot be modified “on the fly” to incorporate new high resolution images or DHTML. This requirement of indexing a static command with streaming video limits flexibility. For example, if information, such as a price or image, is changed often, the media file must be constantly reindexed. Thus, an e-commerce site may have to constantly index a media file. Therefore, there is a desire for a method, system and article of manufacture for integrating streaming content and a real time interactive dynamic user interface on a processing device network.

The present invention relates to a process and a device for producing a package of elongated winding material. Here elongated winding material is preferably to be understood as winding material containing metal, in particular copper, such as wire, blank or plastic-coated strands and so on. However, the invention shall also be applicable to winding material such as glass fibre cables, windable in a similar way as the examples mentioned. For simplicity reasons such elongated winding material is referred to as wire in the following paragraphs.

This invention relates to a ring tenser used in a twisting machine or the like for applying appropriate tension to a yarn when it is unwound from a yarn supply package. In such ring tensers, a slightest difference in weight will have a significant effect on characters of a yarn produced. Accordingly, selection of a ring employed in such ring tensers is done with care. In consideration of these circumstances, normally a structure is employed which facilitates replacement of a ring so that a ring may be promptly exchanged for another ring in accordance with characters of a yarn to be processed and so on. The present invention has thus been made to eliminate such troubles that the ring is accidentally dropped or lost and so on in operation of a conventional ring tenser which may often occur during exchanging operations of a ring. Details of such troubles will become apparent from the following description of a prior art structure given in connection with FIGS. 1 and 2.

Nasal obstruction is characterized by inflammation and/or anatomical conditions including nasal valve collapse, nasal valve obstruction, septal deviation, and medium turbinate hypertrophy. These conditions obstruct and restrict nasal airflow causing difficulties in breathing through the nose.

Particulate impurities in fuel are known to be the cause of engine breakdowns and wear problems, particularly with the diesel. A diesel fuel filter, after it is covered with dirt and grit, may stop passing fuel altogether, causing the engine to stop. Also, eventually some of the grit may somehow work its way through the filter, and do considerable damage to the diesel injectors. There is a need therefore for a fuel system which can be switched from one filtering zone to another so that the engine can be run while one of the filter zones is clogged, and also there is a need for a system which is easily purged and backwashed without requiring the replacement of filter elements.

1. Field of Our Invention Our invention relates to apparatus for testing mechanical heart valves, and in particular mechanical heart valves having a rigid annulus and one or more pivoting leaflets mounted therein. 2. Description of Related Art Various types of heart valve prostheses have been proposed, and many give generally satisfactory operation. One popular design for a heart valve prosthesis includes an annular valve body in which a pair of opposed leaflet occluders are pivotly mounted. The occluders are moveable between a closed, mated position, blocking blood flow in an upstream direction, thereby minimizing regurgitation, and an open position, allowing blood flow in a downstream direction. One such heart valve is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,390 to Campbell, which patent is assigned to CarboMedics, Inc., the assignee of our invention. A mechanical heart valve, such as that described in the '390 patent, can be expected to open and close a great number of times during its use. It is desirable to minimize, in so far as possible, the number of failures experienced in the use of a prosthetic heart valve. Testing for function is therefore an important part of prosthetic heart valve development and manufacture. Heart valve function testers are known which open and close the mechanical heart valve in an in vitro environment, mimicking the action of the heart. Fluid is forced past the valve to open the valve. An existing back pressure is then allowed to close the valve when the pulsatile forward pressure is removed. There is, however, another possibility for defects which can be tested. Minute cracks or other surface defects in pivots of leaflet occluders or in pivot recesses of the valve body are difficult to detect. It is known, however, from the application of fracture mechanics, that cracks below a certain maximum size will not cause failure. Cracks or other surface defects larger than the maximum allowable size can be detected by applying a proof test load to the component. The proof test load should be some multiple of the functional vivo load, to provide a factor of safety associated with the test. The primary purpose of proof testing is to detect components of heart valves with flaws larger than a specific size.

The present invention relates to an optoelectronic component having luminescence-emitting properties, comprising an optoelectronic element having a body with contacts which body is at least partially light-transparent for allowing emission of luminescence. Optoelectronic elements with luminescence-emitting properties, also called light emitting diodes, are semiconductor diodes which spontaneously emit luminescence within the area of the pn transition luminescence. In general, all colors of the visible light spectrum can be emitted by such light emitting diodes (LEDs), depending on the basic substance and doping material, such as red, green and also yellow as a mixed color. It is also technically possible to emit blue light, for example, with silicon carbide; however, blue has not been used commonly due to the low light efficiency. White light cannot be emitted with LEDs because white light has no specific wavelength since it is composed of the different colors of the visible light spectrum. The limitation to the presently known colors red, green, yellow and, to a certain extent, blue is especially disadvantageous when the excellent properties of LEDs, i.e., low current rating, low current loss due to heat generation, extremely small size, long service life, relatively low production cost, and excellent light yield, are to be used in devices such as vehicles which are to be supplied by the on-board electrical system which has a limited capacity. Especially for illuminating the multitude of switches and the symbols of these switches, used as display devices within vehicles, the aforementioned excellent properties of LEDs are used, and LEDs are therefore employed in great numbers in this field of technology. Despite the undisputed general advantages of LEDs, their use is difficult, and in certain cases it is even impossible, when colors other than red, green, or yellow are desired. In the past, for example, for the manufacture of the aforementioned switches and display components for the interior of motorized vehicles, it has been suggested to cover the outlet openings of switch elements, through which the light emitted by the LED passes, with complicated cover elements in the desired color so that at least partially the desired color can be achieved during operation of the LED. The resulting complicated switch designs, for example, of actuating elements of switches, keys, etc., which are for example provided with symbols etc. and which, for example, should be visible to the operator at night or in certain emergency situations must be constructed and produced for the aforementioned reasons with extremely complicated manufacturing operations because the light-transparent sections must be connected in a technologically very complicated manner to the non-light-transparent member of, for example, the aforementioned actuating element of a switch, key, etc., and furthermore, the connection must be light-sealing at the connecting edges. Additionally, the constructive embodiment of such an actuating element that is to be illuminated with an LED has the disadvantage that the light losses are very great because due to deflection and reflection only a small portion of the light originally emitted by the LED will pass through the cover element and is visible to the operator of a motorized vehicle. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an optoelectronic component of the aforementioned kind with which, on the one hand, a desired light color can be adjusted, and, on the other hand, the losses of light which are caused by the light-transparent covering elements, are prevented. Furthermore, the illumination of elements such as switches, keys, etc. is to be constructively improved, and a reduction of the manufacturing cost should be achieved, while at the same time separate cover elements are obsolete.

1. Field of the Invention This invention pertains to handling sheets of paper, and more particularly to apparatus and methods for sealing a folded sheet of paper to itself. 2. Description of the Prior Art Numerous types of business forms have been developed over the years. Many kinds of business forms are used as mailers. An example of a multi-page mailer type business form may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,167,739. Business forms are usually constructed as sheets of paper having patterns of pressure sensitive adhesive applied to one surface. The sheets are folded in a desired manner by a folding machine such that certain portions of the sheet come into facing contact with the adhesive. The folded sheets are then pressed together, which causes them to adhere to each other along the patterns of adhesive. Prior equipment for pressing folded sheets together include the reversing machines of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,133,828; 5,290,385; and 5,300,177. In those machines, a force biases one or more rollers into contact with mating rollers. A folded sheet is fed in a first direction into a roller nip until the sheet has almost completely passed through the nip. Then the rollers are reversed to drive the sheet through the nip again in the opposite direction. The biasing force is strong enough to activate the adhesive and thus create a finished business form. A primary disadvantage of the machines of the foregoing patents is the noise produced by the contacting rollers when no folded sheets are in the nips. Another disadvantage is that the finished forms leave the machines at the same locations that they entered the machines. Consequently, second folded sheets cannot be fed to the nips until the previous forms have been discharged and removed from the nips. U.S. Pat. No. 5,169,489 shows a pressure sealer system having four nips, two at one level and two at a higher level. The rollers of each nip are pressed together by spring biasing devices. Folded sheets are fed in a first direction between the two lower nips. Thereafter, the folded sheets pass to a higher elevation and reverse direction to pass through the two higher nips. Because of the four nip and reversing construction, the machine of the U.S. Pat. No. 5,169,489 patent is quite complicated as well as undesirably noisy. In addition, the reversing direction of the folded sheets complicates both the feeding of the folded sheets into the machine and the removal of the completed business forms from the machine. U.S. Pat. No. 5,183,527 describes a seal module in which one roller of a nip is spring biased to be non-parallel to another roller when no form is present. When a form is a-fed to the nip, the form forces the rollers against the force of the spring into a parallel relationship. The forms travel in one direction in the downstream direction through the seal module. There is no adjustment for the linear distance between the rollers, thus limiting the versatility of the seal module. In addition, initial setup of the seal module can be rather tricky. U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,427 discloses a pressure seal system in which two rollers of a nip are pressed into contact with each other by a biasing force. Forms passing through the nip are acted on by the biasing force but spread the rollers apart as they pass through the nip. The forms pass in one direction through the pressure sealer. The amount of noise as well as the wear on the rollers are important disadvantages of the seal system of the U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,427 patent. Thus, a need exists for improvements in machines that seal folded business forms.

1. Field of the Invention The invention relates to a board connector. 2. Description of the Related Art U.S. Pat. No. 7,134,910 discloses a board connector with a synthetic resin housing configured to receive a mating connector from the front. Mounting grooves are formed on side surfaces of the housing. Fixtures are mounted in mounting grooves and lower end portions of the fixtures are fixed to a circuit board by soldering. More specifically, the fixtures are formed by press-working a metal plate. Locks are formed at upper end portions of each fixture and project laterally from the opposite lateral edges. On the other hand, the mounting grooves each are formed to have a stepped shape with a widened upper end. The fixture is inserted into the mounting groove from above along the side surface of the housing, and a part of the fixture below the locks is pushed and press-fit into a narrow part of the mounting groove. This pushing operation is stopped when the locks contact step surfaces of the mounting groove. In this way, the fixtures are mounted while downward movements with respect to the housing are prevented. Thus, when the fixtures are fixed to the circuit board, the step surfaces of the mounting grooves are engaged with the locks of the fixtures to prevent upward detachment of the housing. The above-described board connector is mounted on the circuit board and used with a mating connector that is fit in the housing. A wiring harness pulled vertically out from the mating connector may move due to vibration or the like and the wiring harness could be pulled up during use. Thus, a force acts to tear the housing from the circuit board and the front step surfaces formed in the mounting grooves are mainly engaged with the front locks on the fixtures to prevent the housing from being torn from the circuit board. On the other hand, there is a tendency to thin the fixtures for weight saving and the like. If a large force acts on the housing in a direction to tear the housing, the locking portions may be deformed and bent so that engagement areas with the step surfaces are reduced. Therefore, the locks may disengage from the step surfaces and the synthetic resin step surfaces may be scraped away. The invention was developed in view of the above situation and an object thereof is to increase fixing strength of a board connector to a board.

The present invention relates to a novel welding method using a heating plate and a welding apparatus using a heating plate, and more particularly to a technique with which two synthetic resin parts supported by upper and lower jigs are previously heated by a heating plate and pressing and welding the two synthetic resin parts and which enables tact time to be shortened. As a means for joining two synthetic resin parts to each other, a welding method using a heating plate is known. The foregoing method has steps for preparing one pair of jigs, that is, an upper jig and a lower jig; making two synthetic resin parts, which must be joined to each other, supported by the corresponding jigs; heating the synthetic resin parts by a heating plate; making the two jigs approach each other in order to press joining portions of the two supported synthetic resin parts against each other so that the pressed portions are welded to each other. The schematic structure of the foregoing welding method using a heating plate is shown in FIGS. 1 to 6. An upper jig 2 and a lower jig 3 are disposed in a working region 1 so as to be joined to corresponding elevating means (not shown). Moreover, a heating plate 5 is disposed in a heating-plate standby region 4. The heating plate 5 is previously heated in the heating-plate standby region 4. Then, synthetic resin parts 6 and 7 are supported by the jigs 2 and 3, respectively (see FIG. 1). Then, the heating plate 5 is moved to the working region 1 so as to be disposed between the upper jig 2 and the lower jig 3 separated from each other in the vertical direction (see FIG. 2). Then, the upper jig 2 and the lower jig 3 are moved to approach each other, and then the synthetic resin parts 6 and 7 supported by the jigs 2 and 3 are brought into contact with the heating plate 5 (see FIG. 3). Thus, the synthetic resin parts 6 and 7 are heated. After the synthetic resin parts 6 and 7 have sufficiently be heated, the jigs 2 and 3 are separated from each other in the vertical direction. Moreover, the heating plate 5 is returned to the heating-plate standby region 4 (see FIG. 4). Then, the upper and lower jigs 2 and 3 are moved to approach each other, and the joining portions of the synthetic resin parts 6 and 7 are pressed with melted and joined against each other (see FIG. 5). Finally, the upper and lower jigs 2 and 3 are separated from each other in the vertical direction to extract the joined synthetic resin parts 6 and 7 (see FIG. 6) left on the lower jig 3. Thus, the welding operation is completed. The welding operation using the heating plate is performed as described above. In the conventional method, a working region a and a heating-plate standby region b are arranged as shown in FIG. 14. That is, a very simple arrangement has been employed in which the heating-plate standby region b is disposed at a deep position as compared with the working region a. In an actual manufacturing site, plural types of products, not only one type of products, are manufactured. Therefore, one welding apparatus using a heating plate is operated to perform welding of parts of a plurality of products. If parts of a next product are welded after parts of one product have been welded, the jigs and the heating plate must be changed to those for the parts of the next product. Hitherto, the following process must be performed such that the jigs 2 and 3 and the heating plate 5 for use to weld the parts of the previous product are removed from the working region a and the heating-plate standby region b by an operator c so as to be moved to a storage portion by using a carrier car or the like. Then, jigs 2 and 3 and the heating plate 5 for use to weld the parts of a next product are carried by similarly using the carrier car so as to be disposed in the working region a and the heating-plate standby region b. The foregoing operation is a complicated operation. Moreover, the heating plate 5 must be joined to a predetermined position of the heating-plate standby region b before the heating operation is started. Since a long time is required to heat the heating plate 5, a wasteful operating time cannot be omitted. In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to improve the working efficiency and shorten tact time. To overcome the foregoing problems, according to the present invention, there is provided a method of welding a plurality of parts comprising the steps of: setting a first and second jigs in a working region; putting the first and second jigs in a standby position; moving the heating plate corresponding to the first and second jigs and previously heated from a heating-plate stocker adjacent to a heating-plate standby region to the heating-plate standby region during setting the first and second jigs in the working region, and the parts supported on the first and second jigs in a working standby condition; heating the parts supported on the first and second jigs with the heating plate after moving the heating plate to the working region; welding the heated parts after removing the heating plate from the working; and conveying the heating plate from the heating-plate standby region and conveying the first and second jigs from the working region. The welding method using a heating plate according to the present invention has the step for moving the heating plate corresponding to the jig and previously heated from a heating-plate-stocker disposed adjacent to a heating-plate standby region to the heating-plate standby region during a period of time for introducing the upper and lower jigs into the working region and putting the jigs on operation standby. Therefore, a welding step using the heating plate can immediately be started after the jigs have been put on operation standby. Therefore, the working efficiency can be improved and the tact time can be shortened. To overcome the foregoing problems, there is provided an apparatus for welding a plurality of parts comprises a plural pairs of jigs, a plurality of heating plates, a working region, a heating-plate stocker, a heating-plate standby region, and a heating-plate slider. The pairs of jigs supports a plurality of parts, and each pair of the jigs has a shape different from another pair of the jigs. The heating plates respectively correspond to each pair of the jigs. The working region is for welding the parts with the jigs and the heating plates. The heating-plate stocker stocks and heats the heating plates. The heating-plate standby region is for standing by for moving the heating plates with heating between the working region and the heating-plate stocker. a heating-plate slider is for sliding the heating plates between the heating-plate standby region and the heating-plate stocker. Therefore, the welding apparatus using a heating plate according to the present invention has the structure that the heating-plate stocker is disposed adjacent to the heating-plate standby region and the heating-plate is moved from the heating-plate stocker to the heating-plate standby region by the sliding means. Therefore, change of the heating plates can be quickly performed. Hence it follows that the working efficiency can be improved and the tact time can be shortened.

1. Field of the Invention The invention relates to a liquid crystal composition suitable for use in an active matrix (AM) device, and an AM device containing the composition. In particular, it relates to a liquid crystal composition having a negative dielectric anisotropy, and a device of an IPS (in-plane switching) mode or a VA (vertical alignment) mode containing the composition. 2. Related Art On a liquid crystal display device, classification based on an operating mode of liquid crystals includes phase change (PC), twisted nematic (TN), super twisted nematic (STN), electrically controlled birefringence (ECB), optically compensated bend (OCB), in-plane switching (IPS), vertical alignment (VA), and so forth. Classification based on a driving mode includes a passive matrix (PM) and an active matrix (AM). PM is further classified into static, multiplex and so forth, and AM is classified into a thin film transistor (TFT), a metal insular metal (MIM) and so forth. TFT is further classified into amorphous silicon, polycrystal silicon and continuous grain silicon. The polycrystal silicon is classified into a high temperature type and a low temperature type according to a production process. Classification based on a light source includes a reflection type utilizing a natural light, a transmission type utilizing a backlight and a semi-transmission type utilizing both the natural light and the backlight. These devices contain a liquid crystal composition having suitable characteristics. General characteristics of the composition should be improved to obtain an AM device having good general characteristics. Table 1 below summarizes a relationship between the general characteristics of the two. The general characteristics of the composition will be explained further based on a commercially available AM device. A temperature range of a nematic phase relates to the temperature range in which the device can be used. A desirable maximum temperature of the nematic phase is approximately 70° C. or more and a desirable minimum temperature is approximately −20° C. or less. The viscosity of the composition relates to the response time of the device. A short response time is desirable for displaying a moving image by means of the device. Accordingly, a small viscosity of the composition is desirable. A small viscosity at a low temperature is more desirable. TABLE 1General characteristics of a liquid crystal composition and an AM deviceGeneralGeneral characteristics of an AMNocharacteristics of a compositionDevice1Temperature range of a nematicUsable temperature range is widephase is wide2Viscosity is small 1)Response time is short3Optical anisotropy is suitableContrast ratio is large4Dielectric anisotropy isDriving voltage is low and electricpositively or negatively largepower consumption is small5Specific resistance is largeVoltage holding ratio is large and acontrast ratio is large1) A liquid crystal composition can be injected into a liquid crystal cell in a short time. The optical anisotropy of the composition relates to the contrast ratio of the device. The devices having a VA mode, an IPS mode and so forth utilize electrically controlled birefringence. A product (Δn·d) of the optical anisotropy (Δn) of the composition and the cell gap (d) of the device is designed to be a constant value to maximize the contrast ratio of the device having a VA mode, an IPS mode and so forth. An example of the value is approximately 0.30 to approximately 0.35 micrometers (VA mode) or approximately 0.20 to approximately 0.30 micrometers (IPS mode). Since the cell gap (d) is generally approximately 3 micrometers to approximately 6 micrometers, the optical anisotropy of the composition is always in a range of approximately 0.05 to approximately 0.11. A large dielectric anisotropy of the composition contributes to a small driving voltage of the device. Accordingly, a large dielectric anisotropy is desirable. A large specific resistance of the composition contributes to a large voltage holding ratio and a large contrast ratio of the device. Accordingly, a composition having a large specific resistance is desirable at room temperature and also at a high temperature in the initial stage. A composition having a large specific resistance is desirable at room temperature and also at a high temperature after it has been used for a long time. Since an ultraviolet ray is used on production of the device, a composition having a large specific resistance is desirable at room temperature and also at a high temperature after it is irradiated with an ultraviolet ray. A composition having a positive dielectric anisotropy is used in an AM device having a TN mode. On the other hand, a composition having a negative dielectric anisotropy is used in an AM device having a VA mode. A composition having a positive or negative dielectric anisotropy is used in an AM device having an IPS mode. A liquid crystal composition having a negative dielectric anisotropy is disclosed in the following patent documents. JPH10-176167 A/1998 (U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,060), JP 2000-96055 A/2000 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,376,030 B1), JP 2001-354967 A/2001 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,764,722 B2) and JP 2003-13065 A/2003 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,764,723 B2).

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and, more particularly, relates to a technique effectively applied to a semiconductor device using an SOI substrate and a method of manufacturing the same. As an MISFET in which short-channel characteristics and element variations can be suppressed, an MISFET using an SOI substrate is used. The SOI substrate has a supporting board made of Si (silicon) or the like, an insulating layer (also called a BOX (Buried Oxide) layer) over the supporting board, and a thin semiconductor layer made of Si or the like over the insulating layer. An MISFET is formed by using the semiconductor layer. Such an MISFET can adjust the threshold voltage by applying voltage to the rear face side of the insulating layer. In some cases, in such an SOI substrate, the MISFET and other elements are mixedly provided. For example, patent literature 1 (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-235310) discloses a semiconductor device having an ESD protection transistor. It also discloses that the total capacitance of a transistor for capacitance between a drain electrode of an ESD protection transistor and a bulk substrate is a function of the capacitance of a gate oxide film, the depletion layer capacitance of an SOI layer, and the capacitance of an insulating layer. Patent literature 2 (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-64860) discloses a semiconductor device having an MOS varactor formed in a main surface of an SOI substrate. The MOS varactor has a gate insulating film formed in a surface of an SOI layer, a gate electrode formed over the gate insulating film, and an n+type semiconductor region formed in the SOI layer on both sides of the gate electrode.

Many methods have already been provided to form electric connection elements in vias, that is, holes or openings, through all or part of the thickness of a silicon substrate. The surface of the via is generally coated with an insulating layer, typically made of silicon oxide, enabling, in particular, to insulate the substrate connection element. Conventionally, the forming of the connection element comprises a step of depositing a barrier layer on the silicon oxide layer, followed by a step of depositing a third copper seed layer, coating the barrier layer, followed by a step of electrolytic deposition of a thicker copper layer, for example filling the entire via. The barrier layer particularly has the function of preventing a possible copper diffusion through the silicon oxide layer, which could cause a short-circuit between the electric connection element and the substrate. The barrier layer should further enable the copper seed layer to bond to the via walls. In certain cases, a specific bonding layer may be provided between the barrier layer and the seed layer to fulfill this function. The steps of depositing the barrier layer and the copper seed layer are generally carried out by vapor deposition, for example, by CVD (“Chemical Vapor Deposition”), or by ALD (“Atomic Layer Deposition”), or by PVD (“Physical Vapor Deposition”). A disadvantage of existing electric connection element manufacturing methods is that they are poorly adapted to the forming of connection elements in vias having a high form factor, that is a high depth-to-width (or diameter) ratio, for example, greater than 10. In practice, in such vias, it can be observed that the barrier layer and/or the copper seed layer do not very uniformly deposit over the entire surface of the via. In vias having a high form factor, interruptions of the barrier layer and/or of the seed layer, capable of resulting in malfunctions, may in particular be observed, for example, close to the bottom of the via. Another disadvantage of existing methods is the high cost of the equipment used to carry out the steps of vapor phase deposition of the barrier layer and/or of the copper seed layer.

1. Field of the Invention Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention relate generally to information searching and, more particularly, to using image duplicates to assign labels to images for use in image searching. 2. Description of Related Art Existing information searching systems use search queries to search data to retrieve specific information that corresponds to the received search queries. Such information searching systems may search information stored locally, or in distributed locations. The World Wide Web (“web”) is one example of information stored in distributed locations. The web contains a vast amount of information, but locating a desired portion of that information can be challenging. This problem is compounded because the amount of information on the web and the number of new users inexperienced at web searching are growing rapidly. Search engines attempt to return hyperlinks to web documents in which a user is interested. Generally, search engines base their determination of the user's interest on search terms (called a search query) entered by the user. The goal of the search engine is to provide links to high quality, relevant results to the user based on the search query. Typically, the search engine accomplishes this by matching the terms in the search query to a corpus of pre-stored web documents. Web documents that contain the user's search terms are “hits” and are returned to the user. Documents that include digital images may be searched using existing search engine technology. Existing search engines employ keyword searching to select which images to return as search results based on labels associated with the images. For example, if a user queries on “cars,” the search engine searches a corpus of image documents for images that have the label “cars” associated with them. This label may have been automatically assigned to the image by looking at the surrounding text from the document on which the image is located. For example, the following surrounding text may be used to assign labels to an image: 1) the filename of the image; 2) the anchor text associated with the image; 3) the caption associated with the image; and 4) document title. Unfortunately, labels assigned using such surrounding text may be incomplete since only a small portion of the surrounding text may be relevant to the image, and since different documents may focus on different parts of the image when describing it. For example, multiple news articles might each contain a copy of a picture of a company's headquarters, but with different captions, like “headquarters,” “corporate campus,” “IPO,” “stock dividends,” or “earnings report.” All of these words are associated in some way with the image of the corporate headquarters, but each is associated with only one copy of the image. This can lead to less than ideal image searching, because ideally it would be desirable to associate all of the words with each of the duplicate images.

The present invention relates generally to the field of “work manager threads” (see definition, below, in Definitions sub-section of the Detailed Description section), and more particularly to managing multiple active work manager threads. In application server environments, there are typically hundreds, or thousands, of concurrent users (“clients”). Each of these clients typically sends requests to the application server system. In order to handle all of the clients, a server computer typically has: (i) many resources (for example, processors, data storage devices); (ii) for each resource, a resource manager to manage the use of each resource in responding to these client requests; and (iii) work manager threads for communicating: (a) incoming client requests to the appropriate resource manager, and (b) request responses from each resource manager back toward the client who made the request. More specifically, the work manager threads: (i) take requests from the clients; (ii) apply the requests to the various resource managers of the server; and (iii) control and manage responses to the requests (for example, send applications, or results from running applications, back to the clients).

The invention relates to a tool for inserting prostheses within the body, and more particularly to tools for inserting prostheses, such as artificial discs and cages, within an intervertebral space. Spinal surgery involves many challenges as the long-term health and mobility of the patient often depends on the surgeon's technique and precision. One type of spinal surgery involves the removal of the natural disc tissue that is located between adjacent vertebral bodies. Procedures are known in which the natural, damaged disc tissue is replaced with an interbody cage or fusion device, or with a disc prosthesis. The insertion of an article, such as an artificial disc prosthesis, presents the surgeon with several challenges. The adjacent vertebral bodies collapse upon each other once the natural disc tissue is removed. These bodies must be separated to an extent sufficient to enable the placement of the prosthesis. However, if the vertebral bodies are separated, or distracted, to beyond a certain degree, further injury can occur. The disc prosthesis must also be properly positioned between the adjacent vertebral bodies. Over-insertion, or under-insertion of the prosthesis can lead to pain, postural problems and/or limited mobility or freedom of movement. Specialized tools have been developed to facilitate the placement of devices, such as disc prosthesis, between adjacent vertebral bodies of a patient's spine. Among the known tools for performing such procedures are separate spinal distractors and insertion devices. The use of separate tools to distract the vertebral bodies and insert a disc prosthesis or graft can prove cumbersome. Further, the use of some distractors can cause over-distraction of the vertebral bodies. Exemplary devices for installing prosthesis and/or grafts between vertebral bodies are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,431,658 and 5,505,732. U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,658 discloses a facilitator device for the insertion of bone grafts between two adjacent vertebrae. The disclosed tool has two flat, tong-like guides that distract the vertebrae as a screw-type inserter forces the graft between the distracted vertebrae. U.S. Pat. No. 5,505,732 discloses an apparatus and a method of inserting spinal implants. The intervertebral space is first distracted and a hollow sleeve having teeth at one end is then driven into the vertebrae that are adjacent the disc space. A drill is then passed through the hollow sleeve, removing the disc and the bone in preparation for receiving the spinal implant, which is then inserted through the sleeve. Despite existing tools and technologies, there remains a need to provide a device to facilitate the proper and convenient insertion of an object, such as a disc prosthesis, between adjacent vertebral bodies while minimizing the risk of further injury to the patient.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates generally to non-electric fluid heating and cooling devices. More particularly, the invention concerns a novel, non-electric fluid heating and cooling device for use in connection with medicament dispensers for dispensing medicinal fluids to ambulatory patients. 2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98 Many people die annually from hemorrhages. Treatment for severe hemorrhage usually requires the immediate and rapid infusion of critical fluids to prevent shock by replacing lost blood volume. To conduct this fluid resuscitation efficaciously in an austere environment, the medical professional must be able to easily transport the delivery system and fluid, and then initiate its use under significant logistical constraints. Furthermore, multi-step and time consuming methods for beginning fluid resuscitation can reduce a medical professional's ability to save lives in triage situations where a large number of patients are injured and in need of immediate medical attention. In order to maximize the chance of survival, fluid resuscitation is often necessary where the casualty must replace the blood volume lost from the wound. Similarly, the use of IV fluids to restore intravascular volume is considered the best way to manage a severe burn casualty and replenish fluids lost in the first 24 hours. Furthermore, fluid warming is often needed to prevent the onset of hypothermia in trauma patients suffering from catastrophic hemorrhage, where military studies suggest the practice of warming IV fluids prior to administration has significantly decreased the rate of preventable deaths. Accidental or uncontrolled hypothermia is also a well-recognized problem among trauma patients, requiring immediate clinical intervention. Moreover, up to 60% of patients admitted to regional trauma centers can be hypothermic. Although electronic portable fluid warming devices are currently available, they are not optimal for austere environments where weight and cube are of great concern. Current technologies typically rely on extremely heavy and bulky proprietary batteries, or electricity, that the medical professional must carry in addition to IV fluid bags, thereby eliminating space for other necessary medical supplies. Additionally, current technologies are not designed for direct integration to the IV fluid solution or delivery system modality. In other words, in addition to carrying the IV fluid bags, the medic must carry a separate fluid warming device and a separate battery; altogether which occupy more space and weight than the medic can afford. The invention described herein is a chemically driven fluid warming component/apparatus which would integrate in the dispenser or downstream of the dispenser on the administration line, without adding substantial weight or cube to the overall system. Because the technology relies on chemically generated heat, the need for electricity or proprietary batteries is eliminated, making it possible to heat fluids in austere environments, where previously warming IV fluids was very cumbersome. Separate to electronic fluid warmers, other fluid warming “sleeves” or “hot packs” exist that can generate enough heat for an IV bag. Contrary to the fluid warming apparatus described herein, however, the sleeves and heat packs require several minutes to an hour to generate enough heat to warm the fluids to the necessary temperature. The length of time it takes to heat fluids with these warmers is insufficient in environments where the rapid delivery of fluids is required to prevent the casualty from hemorrhaging. Therefore, warming sleeves and hot packs also do not serve as ideal solutions in a trauma environment. By way of additional background, administering intravenous fluids is a complex task that is even more difficult when intravenous volume IV replacement must be accomplished in the field. Very specific guidelines exist regarding appropriate physiological parameters that caregivers should use to identify which casualties actually require intravenous volume IV replacement in the field. Once intravenous or intra-osseous access is obtained and secured, current technology requires the caregiver to assemble the components of the IV solution prior to administration. A drip chamber must be connected to the fluid bag, the connecting line must be flushed, and then the line must be connected to the infusion site. When utilizing an intra-osseous site, the fluid bag then must be used in conjunction with a pressure infusing device to ensure appropriate flow rates. The complex logistical requirements for ordering, obtaining and storing appropriate medical supplies make the current technology most difficult. Further, the complexity of the process significantly jeopardizes safe and effective patient care within this environment. As previously mentioned, in order to maximize the chance of survival, fluid resuscitation is often necessary where the casualty must replace the blood volume lost from the wound. Similarly, the use of IV fluids to restore intravascular volume is considered the best way to replenish fluids lost in the first 24 hours. In certain instances, fluid cooling, rather than fluid heating is needed to prevent IV fluids from reaching dangerously hot temperatures. Extremely hot IV fluids can cause tissue damage and hemolysis, a condition that is characterized by the breakdown of the red blood cell's membrane. Hot fluids can also be a disadvantage in treating heat-stroke casualties in the desert, or other high temperature environments. For example, the average daily temperatures in Iraq and Afghanistan can be in excess of 54° C. (130° F.) and temperatures exceeding 52.2° C. (126° F.) have been shown to damage tissue and blood cells. Although fluids can be stored at safe temperatures at higher level echelons of care, the medic in the austere environment (echelon 1) is at the mercy of the ambient temperature of the environment. Although portable fluid cooling systems are currently available, they are not optimal for austere environments where weight, cube, and time required to cool are of great concern. Current electronic technologies are bulky, complex, and not suitable for austere environments due to weight and cube concerns. Alternatively, non-electric cooling pouches require the time consuming step of placing the IV fluid bag in the cooler and waiting 15 or more minutes; a step that is both time consuming and logistically complex as it requires the medic to carry both the IV fluid bag and the cooling pouch. The length of time it takes to cool fluids with these cooling systems is insufficient in environments where the rapid delivery of fluids is required to prevent the casualty from hemorrhaging. The invention described herein is a chemically driven fluid cooling component/apparatus which would integrate in the dispenser or downstream of the dispenser on the administration line, without adding substantial weight or cube to the overall system. Because the technology relies on chemically generated cooling, the need for electricity or proprietary batteries is eliminated, making it possible to cool fluids in austere environments where, previously, cooling IV fluids was very cumbersome. This invention, with IV fluid dispenser and the integrated fluid cooling component as a self-contained unit, would have significant logistical benefits over the currently used and disparate flexible solution bag, fluid coolers, and heavy batteries.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic trace determination method for determining a trace route on a substrate, that does not intersect with other traces on the substrate, automatically and by computer computation. 2. Description of the Related Art For example, in semiconductor integrated circuits such as an LSI, on a PCB and the like, as a typical example of an automatic wiring method for automatically providing traces without intersecting with obstacles existing on a substrate, a method called a labyrinth search method is described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11-161694, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-350813, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-044288, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-209288. In the labyrinth search method, trace routes on a substrate are set so as to secure clearance from obstacles and so as not to intersect with the obstacles by bypassing such obstacles by changing direction by 90 degrees or, in some cases, by 45 degrees. Such a setting technique can be implemented, in particular, in an LSI, a PCB and the like, which have peculiar pattern characteristics in that the disposed positions and shapes of the obstacles in the LSI, the PCB and the like have a certain regularity. On substrates of semiconductor packages such as PBGA, EBGA and the like, there exist a large number of elements, such as planes, gates, marks, internal components or other traces in the packages, that may obstruct the traces and shapes and the disposed positions or angles of such obstacles may vary significantly. Further, vias, balls, bonding pads (B/P), flip chip pads (F/C) or the like, which are to be starting or end points of the traces, may be positioned variously. Therefore, in trace design for the semiconductor packages, when the obstacles on the substrate are bypassed, the trace routes have to bypass the obstacles by changing direction by arbitrary angles which are not limited to 90 or 45 degrees. Thus, the labyrinth search method that has been conventionally used for automatic wiring in an LSI, a PCB and the like cannot be applied to the semiconductor packages. In view of these circumstances, in trace design for the semiconductor packages, a designer typically designs the trace routes of the semiconductor packages on a virtual plane by trial and error depending on the designer's skill, experience and intuition and, for example, by using a CAD system. In such manual trace design by trial and error, as the required traces become more complicated, the effort, time and difficulty for achieving the optimal traces is increased. Further, an unevenness in the quality of finished products is also increased. In reality, because the manual trace design by trial and error requires some days and it is not economical to spend more time on trace designing, the designer has to compromise to provide a certain design quality. As the semiconductor packages are miniaturized and integrated, automatization of trace design of the semiconductor packages will be one of the most important tasks in the future. In particular, when a trace, the optimal route of which is to be determined, is obstructed by other traces, it is difficult to automate the trace design. For example, in order to secure clearance from other obstructing traces so as to implement an optimal trace route, a position of the trace to be processed may be maintained but positions of the other traces may be moved. In such case, trace positions may be changed significantly over an entire substrate. Further, in the related-art automatic wiring method, it is possible to determine optimal routes of all traces on a substrate at a time but it is difficult to change wiring conditions such as, for example, trace widths, clearance and the like, of some of the traces. In view of the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic trace determination method that can determine a trace route, on a substrate, that does not intersect with other traces on the substrate, automatically and in a short time.

The present disclosure relates to electronic communication. In particular, the present disclosure relates to a system and methods for fallback messaging. The popularity and use of social networks and other types of electronic communication have grown dramatically in recent years. Traditionally users have used social networks to view and comment on each other's social stream, however new features to facilitate communication between members of a social network have been developed. For example, users can use built-in messaging functionality to send each other instant messages. While users once accessed these social networks exclusively on desktop or laptop computers via the Internet, users are now accessing these social networks on their portable electronic devices, such as smartphones, netbooks and tablets via the Internet However, Internet access from these portable electronic devices can, at times, be unavailable or intermittent and prevent users from receiving or sending messages to one another. For example, due to coverage dead zones, weak connectivity or overloaded cellphone networks, a user may fail to receive a message from another user of the social network. Current systems and methods have been limited in how they exchange messages when users are unable to reliably access the Internet. For example, when an Internet connection is intermittent or not readily available, a user using these systems and methods might not be able to send or receive messages, or night only be able to send or receive messages when access to the Internet is again available.

The present invention relates broadly to electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, and more particularly to a heat-shrinkable sheathing or other jacket for shielding a wire, cable, data or signal line, antenna, or other electrical conductor or elongate article. The operation of electronic devices such as computers, business machines, communications equipment, and the like is attended by the generation of electromagnetic radiation within the electronic circuitry and transmission lines of the equipment. As is detailed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,202,536; 5,142,101; 5,105,056; 5,028,739; 4,952,448; and 4,857,668, such radiation often develops as a field or as transients within the radio frequency band of the electromagnetic spectrum, i.e., between about 10 KHz and 10 GHz, and is termed "electromagnetic interference" or "EMI" as being known to interfere with the operation of other proximate electronic devices. To attenuate EMI effects, shielding having the capability of absorbing and/or reflecting EMI energy may be employed both to confine the EMI energy within a source device, and to insulate that device or other "target" devices from other source devices. In this regard, the shielding is provided as a barrier which is inserted between the source and the other devices. For the electronic device itself, the shielding typically is configured as an electrically conductive and grounded housing which encloses the device. For the electrical wire, cable, cord, or other conductor which supplies power to the device or transmits signals to or from the device, shielding has been provided in a similar manner by enclosing the conductor within an electrically conductive conduit or other housing. A more flexible and less cumbersome shielding has been provided by sheathing the conductor, which typically includes an inner conductive core and an outer layer of an electrically-insulating, dielectric material, within a tubular shielding layer woven or braided of a metal wire or other electrically-conductive fiber. For example, Hardie et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,483,020 discloses a parallel pair cable for high data signal transmission. The cable has a pair of parallel conductors which are surrounded by an insulating dielectric layer. The dielectric, in turn, is surrounded by a braided metal shield of a plated electrical conductor, which shield itself may be covered with an optional jacket. Singles et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,477,011 discloses a low-noise signal transmission cable which employs an insulative layer that is bonded to a surrounding shield layer via an adhesive. The shield may be a braided metal, conductive polymer, or wrapped foil layer. Gebs, U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,001 discloses a flexible, shielded cable assembly. The assembly includes a flexible metal conductor, a dielectric layer positioned about the conductor, and a flexible metallic shield disposed about the dielectric. The shield preferably employs a thin metallic foil and a metallic braid, ribbon, or tape disposed about the foil. Davies, U.S. Pat. No. 5,043,530 discloses a shield cable which includes an internal conductive core with 1-4 wire leads, each of which are insulated with a wrapping of an insulative tape. The voids between the leads are filled with an amorphous elastomer. A shield layer is provided by braiding a silver-copper alloy wire over the elastomer-covered conductive core. The strands of the shield become embedded in the elastomeric material which thereby fills the spaces in the braided structure. A barrier of an insulative jacket surrounds the elastomer-covered shield and conductive core. Vaupotic et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,015,800 discloses a controlled impedance transmission line which consists of a flexible cable having a side-by-side pair of conductors. The conductors are surrounded by respective inner and outer dielectric layers. A braided wire shield surrounds the dielectric layers, which shield, in turn, is surrounded and penetrated by an exterior jacket. Pithouse et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,545 discloses a conductor which is surrounded by a dielectric. A fabric in the form of a tubular sleeve is woven or positioned around the conductor. The fabric may include a conductive metal warp and a recoverable polymeric weft, which weft is recovered to secure the fabric through engagement with the dielectric. Maul et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,376,229 discloses a flexible, shielded electrical conduit. The conduit includes a flexible tubing, a flexible electrical shielding disposed within the tubing, and an axially compressed, radially expanded elastic woven retainer which forces the shielding into continuous contact with the tubing. The shielding may be provided as a weave of electrically conductive filaments. More recently, proposals have been made to provide shielding for wires, cables, lines, and the like in the form of a tubular, heat-shrinkable outer layer within which is received a conductive inner layer. For example, Derby, U.S. Pat. No. 3,576,387 discloses a heat-shrinkable shield formed of an outer layer of a heat-shrinkable tubing having an thin layer of a metal-filled polymeric matrix bonded to the inner surface thereof. The shield may be sheathed over an insulated wire or cable, and then heated to shrink the outer layer of the shield over the insulation of the wire or cable. Lau et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,106,437 discloses a conformable electromagnetic radiation suppression cover for a reflecting structure. The cover includes a tubular outer layer of an electromagnetic radiation absorber formed of a nonconductive composite with one or more kinds of dissipative particles dispersed in a shrinkable dielectric binder. An inner sealant layer is employed to fill any voids between the absorber and the structure. A thin metallic foil may be bonded between the sealant and the absorber as a ground plane. Nakamura et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,555,422 discloses a magnetic shielding article which includes a heat-shrinkable outer layer of a thermoplastic polymeric material and an inner layer of a magnetic shielding layer. The shielding layer may be formed of a thermoplastic material filled with a powdered ferrite. Landry et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,139 discloses a another heat-shrinkable tubing article. Such article is formed of an outer layer of a tubular, heat-deformable material having a thermoplastic melt liner which is bonded to the inner surface thereof. A fiber reinforcement layer is disposed between the melt liner and the shrink tubing. A representative commercial heat-shrinkable tubing shielding is marketed under the name "CHO-SHRINK.TM." by the Chomerics Division of Parker-Hannifin Corp., Woburn, Mass. The shielding is formed by coating a conductive compound onto the outer surface of a heat-shrinkable tube. Another such product is manufactured by Raychem Corp., Menlo Park, Calif., as a heat-shrinkable tube electroplated with an outer layer of a conductive metal. The above-described references and products have garnered acceptance for general use, and heretofore have constituted the state of the art with respect to the EMI shielding of wires, cables, data or signal lines, antennas, electrical conductors, and the like. It will be appreciated, however, that continued improvements in such shields would be well-received by the electronics industry. A preferred shielding would be of low cost and economical to manufacture, and would provide a uniform surface which resists cracking and other mechanical damage within rigorous service environments.

1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to the field of apparatus and methods for rotating substantially cylindrical objects, particularly drill pipe, drill collars, casing, etc. The word "cylindrical" is employed in this specification in its ordinary or common sense, namely to define objects which have a circular or substantially circular exterior cross-sectional shape. 2. Description of Prior Art In making joints between sections of the drill pipe used in drilling oil wells, and in disconnecting such joints, it is conventional practice to spin the drill pipe (rotate the same about the longitudinal axis thereof) by the following method: A length of chain is wrapped a number of times around the drill pipe, and one end of the chain is pulled. The chain then disengages the pipe and becomes a very dangerous moving object which may effect injury to the workmen. Because of such danger, because of the slowness of the operation, and because of other factors, large numbers of prior-art workers have attempted to provide automatic apparatus which will do the job successfully, rapidly, etc. The results of such prior-art efforts have not achieved widespread commercial success, so that the above-indicated archaic method of spinning pipe prevails to this day. Prior-art U.S. patents for effecting spinning or rotation of drill pipe, etc., and which are known to applicant, are the following: Nos. 1,639,710; 1,760,167; 1,805,007; 1,925,970; 2,450,934; 2,460,671; 2,523,159; 2,544,639; 2,573,212; 2,615,681; 2,650,070; 2,741,460; 2,746,329; 2,760,392; 2,784,626; 2,862,690; 2,928,301; 3,061,011; and 3,308,691. Some of the above-specified patents provide intermediate members between the chain (or other drive means) and the pipe to be spun, which is highly undesirable for reasons including (among others) excessive wear on such intermediate members. The remaining patents effect direct engagement between a chain or a belt and the exterior cylindrical surface of the pipe to be spun. The chains employed are frequently in the nature of bicycle chains, ordinary link-chains, etc., which often have teeth thereon disposed to bite into the pipe surface. For various reasons, including excessive wear, injury to the pipe, unsatisfactory operation, etc., all of such chains and belts have proved to be unsatisfactory. There has been known for decades a type of chain termed a "silent chain", and it has had wide application in industry. However, to the best knowledge of applicant, no prior-art worker has employed a silent chain for the direct frictional gripping (under pressure) and then spinning of a drill pipe or other cylindrical object. One prior-art worker has, as taught by U.S. No. 2,353,642, employed a silent chain to turn non-cylindrical objects, namely nuts and bolts, the relationship being such that the individual links of the chain fit against the faces of a nut or a bolt head (whether it be square or hexagonal). The indicated prior-art patent did not suggest, or provide any means to achieve, frictional gripping of a cylindrical object to be rotated. The prior-art apparatus and methods known to applicant are also deficient in other major respects. These frequently include (for example): (1) mounting the chain completely around the pipe, so that the chain must be broken prior to each spinning operation, (2) mounting the chain-drive motor and sprocket by means of a weak spring, instead of fixedly in any adjusted position, so that inadequate chain tension was developed, (3) mounting the chain on only three sprockets, which were so located that the chain tension created large torques tending to open the jaws and permit release of the pipe, (4) requiring some locking-connector means to lock the jaws closed, and which must be connected and disconnected between spinning operations, (5) requiring pipe-engaging teeth on the chains, which teeth wore the pipe excessively and also prevented desirable clutching action from occurring when the joint seated, (6) failing to compensate properly for the tendency of the spinning apparatus to rotate when the joint seats, (7) failing to grip a sufficiently large proportion of the pipe circumference, (8) failing to adequately control and equalize the jaw-closing mechanisms, (9) failing to compensate for depletion of air in the pneumatic supply, and (10) failing to generate sufficient torque.

As processors advance in complexity and operating rate, the heat generated in processors during operation increases, and the demands on cooling systems for processors also escalate. It has been proposed to cool processors with systems that circulate a fluid proximate to a processor die. In some cases, the systems may be tested before being filled with fluid. It may be advantageous to provide an apparatus and/or method to facilitate the testing and/or filling of such systems in an efficient and cost effective manner.

In general, tires are typically manufactured on a large scale through the build up of various layers onto a tire forming drum. The layers may include e.g., a carcass and other materials that provide the structure of the tire. The sides of these layers are turned up to create a toroid in the form of an uncured, tire intermediate. A layer or portion of tread rubber is then added to the tire intermediate to create what is sometimes referred to as a green tire. The green tire is subsequently cured by the addition of heat and pressure in a curing press. The walls of the curing press typically include mold features for molding a tread design or tread pattern into the tread portion of the green tire. These mold features may provide e.g., tread blocks of various shapes and configurations with one or more grooves separating the tread blocks from each other. Various sipes or lamelles may be added into the tread blocks as well. With aggressive tread designs, challenges to tire uniformity can be encountered in the conventional manufacturing process summarized above. As used herein, “aggressive” refers particularly to tread designs having deep (along the radial direction) and sometimes large tread blocks along the tread portion of the tire. Such designs can be commonly found, e.g., in military vehicle and off-road vehicle applications. In the manufacture of such tread designs, a large amount of the tread rubber from the tread portion of the green tire must be forced into mold features such as the cavities or apertures that create the tread blocks. Accordingly, a substantial amount of pressure is applied to displace this tread rubber and mold the tread features. Unfortunately, this required displacement of the tread portion to form the tread blocks can also cause undesired displacement of one or more the layers of the green tire that are located next to the tread portion. For example, the carcass and/or other layers can also be displaced to create local effects such as waves, bumps, undulations, or other undesirable irregularities that make the tire non-uniform along the circumferential and/or axial directions. Breaking belts can also be distorted the displacement of the tread portion. Such non-uniformity can create undesirable endurance problems for the tire by e.g., creating areas where unwanted temperature increases can occur during tire operation and thereby effecting tire endurance. Accordingly, a tire that can be manufactured with an aggressive tread pattern in a manner that can reduce or eliminate certain non-uniformities would be useful. More particularly, such a tire that can be manufactured through a method that can help eliminate undesired displacements of various layers of the tire during the molding process would be beneficial. Such a tire and a method of manufacture that can provide improvements in endurance would also be beneficial.

This invention generally relates to integrated circuits, and more particularly to integrated circuits (ICs) including on-chip inductors. Low-loss on-chip inductors (i.e., that are integrated on an IC substrate) are desirable in wireless communication devices such as cellular phones, pagers, GPS receivers, warehouse management RF identification tags, wireless computer local area networks (WLANs), personal digital assistants, and satellite telecommunication. Small portable devices, in particular, require the lowest possible power consumption for extended battery life and a maximal circuit integration to reduce device size and PC board complexity. The quest for low-loss inductors is driven by a fundamental trade-off between power consumption on one hand and the need for low-loss circuit passives (i.e., inductors and capacitors) on the other. Lowering the transistor bias in radio circuits reduces the power dissipation, but also significantly degrades amplifier gains, oscillator stability and filter selectivity. Using low-loss passives is the only viable technique to overcome this problem. However, many state-of-the art integrated coil architectures are still too lossy to be of use in integrated RF designs. Most present RF chipsets, therefore, are limited to using discrete inductors that take up valuable board space and increase board complexity. In addition, connections must be provided between an IC device and the discrete inductors, thereby requiring an IC package with a higher pin count (i.e., to support a connection between the IC device and the discrete inductors) than that required if the inductors were integrated (i.e., fabricated directly on) the IC device. Higher pin count IC packages are typically larger and more expensive than lower pin count packages. Accordingly, the integration of small inductors on silicon substrates has been the subject of intense worldwide research for many years. The structures proposed so far, however, have been variations of devices in which, due to technological constraints, the coil windings have almost always been implemented as spirals parallel to the underling substrate. FIG. 22 is a perspective view showing a simplified in-plane spiral coil winding 2200 formed on an IC substrate 2210, which in turn is mounted on a package or printed circuit board (PCB) 2220. Note that coil winding 2200 is substantially disk-shaped, and lies in a plane that is parallel to the upper surface of substrate 2210. Contact pads 2212, which are formed on the upper surface of IC substrate 2210, are connected by conventional bonding wires 2215 to corresponding pads 2222 formed on package/PCB 2220. FIG. 23 is a perspective cut-away view showing a portion of in-plane coil winding 2200 and indicating the magnetic fields (i.e., dashed lines) generated in the vicinity of coil winding 2200 during operation. This figure illustrates two major drawbacks of in-plane coil winding 2200. First, when substrate 2210 is conducting, such as silicon, the coil magnetic fields (dashed lines in FIG. 23) induce eddy currents in underlying substrate 2210. These currents cause resistive dissipation that contributes to the coil losses. The second problem arises when coil winding 2200 is operated at high frequencies, where skin and proximity effects force the coil current to flow along the outer surfaces A05 of coil winding 2200 (as indicated by shaded regions located at the outer edges of coil winding 2200). The xe2x80x9cskin depthxe2x80x9d is about 2 to 3 microns for typical conductors at frequencies of interest for wireless communication, for example, 900 MHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.4 GHz. The AC resistance of the coil conductor becomes appreciably higher than its DC resistance because the cross section of the conductor is not fully used. Solutions have been proposed and tried in the past to address the drawbacks associated with in-plane inductors. Eddy currents can be reduced, for example, by etching away the substrate underneath the coil. However, this approach is not practical as it sacrifices structural integrity and impedes placing electronic circuitry on the substrate underneath the coil, thereby wasting expensive silicon real estate. As coil quality factor fundamentally scales with the coil dimensions, coils tend to be much larger than the other circuit components. To reduce the AC resistance of the device in FIG. 23, the conductor can be made very thick using micromachining techniques such as LIGA (see xe2x80x9cThe LIGA Techniquexe2x80x94What are the New Opportunitiesxe2x80x9d, A. Rogner et al., J. Micromech. Microeng., vol. 2, 1992, pages 133-140). However, processing high aspect ratio structures is difficult and expensive. Various out-of-plane techniques have been suggested that address the induced current eddy problems of in-plane coil: structures. One such out-of-plane miniature coil structure that can be used as an on-chip inductor is disclosed in co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,392,524, entitled xe2x80x9cPhotolithographically-patterned out-of-plane coil structures and method of makingxe2x80x9d. The coil structure includes a lithographically produced elastic member having an intrinsic stress profile that is formed on the IC substrate. An anchor portion remains fixed to the substrate. The free portion end becomes a second anchor portion that may be connected to the substrate via soldering or plating. Alternately, the loop winding can be formed of two elastic members whose free ends are joined in mid-air. A series of individual coil structures can be joined via their anchor portions to form out-of-plane inductors and transformers. Although out-of-plane coil structures, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,392,524, reduce capacitive substrate coupling and minimize eddy current induction by taking the bulk of the magnetic fields out of the underlying substrate, the residual magnetic coupling leads to some level of performance degradation that is only avoided with toroidal out-of-plane microcoil structures. What is needed is an out-of-plane solenoid-type microcoil structure that minimizes performance degradation caused by both capacitive substrate coupling and eddy current induction. The present invention is directed to integrated circuit (IC) devices including an out-of-plane solenoid-type microcoil structure formed over an IC substrate, wherein one or more ground plane structures are provided on the IC device to reduce losses caused by capacitive coupling of the microcoil structure to the IC substrate, and to reduce magnetic losses due to eddy currents generated in the IC substrate by magnetic fields produced by the microcoil structure. Each out-of-plane solenoid-type microcoil structure is formed on a suitable dielectric layer (e.g., Benzocyclobutene: (BCB) formed on passivation, or a relatively thick passivation layer), which in turn is formed over the IC structure. The microcoil structure includes several base (contact) portions that are formed on the upper surface of the dielectric layer, and several loop structures extending over the dielectric layer and connecting the base pads in series. Contact pads located at each end of the microcoil are connected by via structures extending through the dielectric layer to the underlying IC structure. In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, the ground plane structure is formed directly under the base pads of the microcoil to minimize capacitive coupling between the microcoil loop structures and the IC substrate. In one embodiment, the ground plane structure is formed using the top metal layer of the underlying IC structure. In another embodiment, the ground plane structure is formed using a low-resistance plated layer (e.g., copper) formed on the upper passivation layer of the IC substrate (i.e., between the passivation layer and a separate dielectric film upon which the microcoil is formed). In either embodiment, a width of the ground plane structure may be less than a diameter defined by the microcoil loop structures. In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention, a low-resistance ground plane structure is provided between the passivation layer and the separate dielectric film of the dielectric layer, and extends past the end loop structures of the microcoil to reduce eddy current dissipation in the underlying IC substrate. In one embodiment, the ground plane structure comprises a sheet of low-resistance material (e.g., copper) that is formed between the upper passivation layer and the dielectric film, and has a peripheral boundary that extends well beyond the sides and ends of the microcoil, thereby allowing eddy currents to run freely without causing significant losses and minimizing magnetic coupling between the microcoil and the IC substrate. In another embodiment, the ground plane structure is slotted in a direction parallel to the microcoil axis to reduce the loop size of eddy current pathways induced by the microcoil. In another embodiment, the ground plane structure is xe2x80x9cIxe2x80x9d shaped, and includes end sections extending beyond the ends of the microcoil to reduce eddy currents, and a narrow section extending under the base pads between the end sections to reduce capacitive coupling. The present invention is applicable to any of several out-of-plane solenoid-type microcoil structures, including microcoil structures in which both the base pads and loop structures are formed from a stress-engineered spring metal film (i.e., a metal film intentionally formed with an internal stress gradient), microcoil structures formed using wire bonding techniques to connect base pad traces formed on the dielectric layer, and planar spiral inductors that are mechanically lifted out of the substrate plane. In one embodiment, the spring metal film is etched to form spaced-apart (offset) islands, each island including a central base pad and two fingers extending in opposite directions away from the base pad. A release material located between the spring metal film and dielectric layer is then removed (e.g., etched) from beneath the fingers (the base pads are masked to prevent release). The released fingers then bend upward into half-loop structures, and a finger associated with one island couples with the finger associated with another island. In another embodiment, a spring metal film is etched to form spaced-apart (offset) islands, each island including a base pad and a single finger extending away from the base pad. The release material is then removed to release the finger, and the released fingers bends into a helical shape such that its free end contacts an adjacent base pad. In yet another embodiment, microcoil structures are formed by wire bonding conductive traces formed on the dielectric layer, each trace having first and second spaced-apart contact pads, and an elongated interconnect line located between the first and second contact pads. The wire bonding places bonding wires such that each wire extends from a first contact pad of a first trace over the substrate surface to a second contact pad of a second trace, thereby forming a coil-like structure. In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, a multi-part ground plane structure includes a central portion formed under the base pads according to the first aspect to minimize losses due to capacitive microcoil/substrate coupling, and end portions formed outside of the ends of the microcoil to minimize eddy current dissipation. In one embodiment, the central portion is formed using the top metal of the IC substrate, and the end portions are formed by metal used to produce the microcoil. For example, when the microcoil structures are formed using a stress-engineered spring metal film, the end portions of the ground plane structure are formed from un-released portions of the stress-engineered spring metal film. Alternatively, when the microcoil structures are formed using bonding wires, the end.portions are formed by the metal layer used to form the base pad traces. The present invention will be more fully understood in view of the following description and drawings.

1. Field of the Invention Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to signaling of signed band offset values for sample adaptive offset (SAO) filtering in video coding. 2. Description of the Related Art The Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) of ITU-T WP3/16 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 is currently developing the next-generation video coding standard referred to as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). Similar to previous video coding standards such as H.264/AVC, HEVC is based on a hybrid coding scheme using block-based prediction and transform coding. First, the input signal is split into rectangular blocks that are predicted from the previously decoded data by either motion compensated (inter) prediction or intra prediction. The resulting prediction error is coded by applying block transforms based on an integer approximation of the discrete cosine transform, which is followed by quantization and coding of the transform coefficients. In a coding scheme that uses block-based prediction, transform coding, and quantization, some characteristics of the compressed video data may differ from the original video data. For example, discontinuities referred to as blocking artifacts can occur in the reconstructed signal at block boundaries. Further, the intensity of the compressed video data may be shifted. Such intensity shift may also cause visual impairments or artifacts. To help reduce such artifacts in decompressed video, the emerging HEVC standard defines three in-loop filters: a deblocking filter to reduce blocking artifacts, a sample adaptive offset filter (SAO) to reduce distortion caused by intensity shift, and an adaptive loop filter (ALF) to minimize the mean squared error (MSE) between reconstructed video and original video. These filters may be applied sequentially, and, depending on the configuration, the SAO and ALF loop filters may be applied to the output of the deblocking filter.

Digital picture viewers have been developed for personal computers that make it possible to view, using the computer monitor, digital photographs. PC-based picture viewer applications enable users to administer the contents of their digital camera flash memories. Among other things, managing digital photos using a PC addresses the complexities introduced by naming serialization conventions that are used by digital cameras, which can become difficult to administer once they lose their meaning as they become part of folders where they are simply copied. The present invention recognizes, however, that many users are not familiar enough to take full advantage of the picture viewer applications that have been provided. Even with a full keyboard, people feel reluctant to rename their pictures to more meaningful descriptions. Furthermore, as recognized herein the computer experience is for the most part a single person experience, in which a single user faces the computer monitor at a short distance to operate the picture viewer application. The present invention recognizes the desirability to provide a means to manage digital pictures in a carefree, fun group experience in the manner of watching TV. Indeed, as further recognized herein, a TV-centric application for managing digital pictures has become increasingly attractive with the advent of large screen liquid crystal display (LCD)/plasma displays and connections such as digital visual interface (DVI)/high definition multimedia interface (HDMI) that enable televisions to display and interface with computer applications. The present invention further recognizes the desirability of providing a way to classify digital pictures using a simple input device that does not require inputting the letters of classification indicia such as persons' names, picture locations, etc.

In most surface vessels having waterjet propulsion systems, the pump is mounted within the hull adjacent the stern transom with at least a portion of the pump and the pump discharge nozzle above the surface of the water. The water jet is discharged through a discharge conduit leading from the pump that passes through the transom and impinges on a steering nozzle mounted on the outside of the stern transom. The location of the outlet from the pump discharge conduit at the water surface permits the actuators for the steering nozzle and reversing deflector of the propulsion system to be above the water, thus simplifying the installation and maintenance of the actuators and the hydraulic lines leading to the actuators. Also, it is common to provide access ports in the pump above the waterline to permit the pump to be serviced without drydocking the vessel. Generally, the intake opening to the water supply conduit for the waterjet pump is located on the bottom of the hull a short distance forward of the pump and just far enough below the waterline to ensure that water is taken in under most operating conditions of the vessel. The location of the intake opening at a minimum height below the pump improves efficiency, as compared to a deeper location, by minimizing the vertical distance that the pump has to pump the water from the intake opening to the pump rotor. A disadvantage of having the waterjet pump relatively close to the water surface is the reduced hydraulic head of water at the pump inlet. The reduced suction head reduces the capability of the pump to absorb high power at slow speeds due to the onset of cavitation. The pump has to be larger than it would have to be if the suction head were greater in order to provide high power output at slow speeds without cavitation. Another disadvantage of most previously known waterjet propulsion systems is the relative complexity of the actuators for the steering nozzle and the reversing deflector and the outboard location of the actuators. The actuators are usually hydraulic piston/cylinders and require that several hoses pass through openings in the transom, which complicates the construction of the transom and requires seals in each opening. If there is a failure of an actuator or a hose, hydraulic fluid is lost to the environment. The outboard actuator systems for the steering nozzle and the reversing deflector are also not easily repaired when the vessel is at sea. One previously known arrangement for actuating the steering nozzle and reversing deflector of a marine waterjet propulsion system, which is described and shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,346, includes concentric shafts that extend vertically downwardly from a portion of the vessel hull that is located above the steering nozzle and reversing deflector, which are pivotally mounted on a bracket for rotation about a common vertical axis that coincides with the axis of the concentric shafts. The lower end of the inner shaft is coupled to the steering nozzle, and the lower end of the outer shaft is coupled to reversing deflector. The inner shaft is driven by a piston/cylinder steering actuator that is located within the vessel hull and is coupled by a steering lever to the upper end of the inner shaft. A piston/cylinder reversing actuator is coupled between the steering lever and the upper end of the outer shaft so as to pivot the reversing deflector relative to the steering nozzle. The steering/reversing mechanism of U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,346 has the advantages of requiring only a single penetration of the hull of the vessel and of enabling the steering and reversing actuators to be located within the vessel hull, where they are protected from the hostile water environment and can be serviced readily. The rotation of the reversing deflector about a vertical axis is, however, highly disadvantageous, inasmuch as in the retracted position for ahead propulsion, the reversing deflector resides laterally of the steering nozzle where it creates a large drag. In addition, an inactive positioning of the reversing deflector laterally of the steering nozzle requires additional athwart-ship space, which is limited in many waterjet propulsion applications. When a waterjet propulsion system is installed at the waterline of the vessel, most parts of the installation can be located above the water surface and do not contribute drag. Locating a water jet propulsion system in a fully submerged location to attain the advantages described above presents significant problems from the points of view of minimizing drag, minimizing the number of penetrations of the hull requiring seals, constructing the system so that it can be easily maintained and repaired, and avoiding installing hydraulic or electrical apparatus outside of the hull.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to wristbands in general and more specifically to an ultraviolet active wristband using a photochromic compound which has been described in my earlier invention (U.S. Pat. No. 5,581,090). The photochromic compound is any molecule in the spiropyran or spiroxazine group. 2. Description of the Prior Art Wristbands are used in many areas which include: Amusement parks and fun centers, College and university activities, Educational institutions activities, Fairs, Festivals and special events, Campgrounds, Parks and recreation, Night clubs, Bars and Taverns, Concerts, Promoters and Arenas, Resorts, Travel, Hotels and Motels, Sporting events and racetracks, Hospitals and health monitoring areas, Safety and special permit areas (government security areas). The intended use of wristbands is oriented towards: Admission and gate control, Alcohol control, Group passes, Pay-one-price, Ride and concession tickets, VIP passes, Computerized admission, Backstage passes, Pit passes, Door prizes, Identification, Pre-ticket sales, Rental etc. . . . The invention of wristbands is very old. Numerous patents have been issued relating to wristbands. Each invention has been designed to a specific use. For example, J. Gauvreau in U.S. Pat. No. 1,151,940, H. W. Weiss in U.S. Pat. No. 1,407,239, C. E. Ziegler in U.S. Pat. No. 1,427,891, and D. L. Schreindl in U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,025 disclose a wristband having an identification tag. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,122,947, M. B. Falla discloses a prepackaged patient identification kit and method for assuring correlation between a patient, his specimens and his records. The kit contains a wristband for identifying the patient. A similar system is marketed under the tradename IDENT-A-BAND by Hollister Incorporated of Libertyville, Ill. The IDENT-A-BAND system includes a wristband and a sheet of pressure sensitive labels. The sheet of labels includes a wristband label and other labels for specimen identification (c.f., Hollister Incorporated Products Catalogue). Precision Dynamics Corporation of San Fernando, Calif. manufactures numerous kinds of wristbands under the tradenames: VISABAND, SUPERBAND, SECURBAND, WATCHBAND, FUNBANDS, GLITTERBANDS. These wristbands are manufactured in different colors and shapes. Precision Dynamics most popular wristbands are the TYVEC Fiberbands. These feel and look like paper but are actually a strong, non-tearable fiber. In addition to TYVEC Fiberbands, Precision Dynamics Corporation manufactures plastic (e.g. Vinyl) wristbands. All the wristbands may be custom printed with different designs and colors (c.f., Precision Dynamics Corporation 1997 Products Catalogue). The intent of this invention is not to create an already existing and well spread product but to create a color changing wristband. In other words, contrary to already marketed wristbands manufactured in a static color (red, blue, purple etc. . . . ) or fluorescent colors (glow in the dark), the present invention teaches a wristband capable of changing color from clear to an intense visible color (purple, blue, yellow, red etc. . . . ) upon exposure to ultraviolet radiation (e.g., sunlight or any ultraviolet lamp at check point). The present wristband is also capable of reversing back to its initial color state upon removed from the ultraviolet radiation source. It is therefore understandable that the present wristband may be used numerous times since it is reversible in color.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates generally to the field of corn breeding. In particular, the invention relates to corn seed and plants of the hybrid variety designated CH140757, and derivatives and tissue cultures thereof. 2. Description of Related Art The goal of field crop breeding is to combine various desirable traits in a single variety/hybrid. Such desirable traits include greater yield, better stalks, better roots, resistance to insecticides, herbicides, pests, and disease, tolerance to heat and drought, reduced time to crop maturity, better agronomic quality, higher nutritional value, and uniformity in germination times, stand establishment, growth rate, maturity, and fruit size. Breeding techniques take advantage of a plant's method of pollination. There are two general methods of pollination: a plant self-pollinates if pollen from one flower is transferred to the same or another flower of the same plant. A plant cross-pollinates if pollen comes to it from a flower on a different plant. Corn plants (Zea mays L.) can be bred by both self-pollination and cross-pollination. Both types of pollination involve the corn plant's flowers. Corn has separate male and female flowers on the same plant, located on the tassel and the ear, respectively. Natural pollination occurs in corn when wind blows pollen from the tassels to the silks that protrude from the tops of the ear shoot. Plants that have been self-pollinated and selected for type over many generations become homozygous at almost all gene loci and produce a uniform population of true breeding progeny, a homozygous plant. A cross between two such homozygous plants produces a uniform population of hybrid plants that are heterozygous for many gene loci. Conversely, a cross of two plants each heterozygous at a number of loci produces a population of hybrid plants that differ genetically and are not uniform. The resulting non-uniformity makes performance unpredictable. The development of uniform corn plant hybrids requires the development of homozygous inbred plants, the crossing of these inbred plants, and the evaluation of the crosses. Pedigree breeding and recurrent selection are examples of breeding methods used to develop hybrid parent plants from breeding populations. Those breeding methods combine the genetic backgrounds from two or more inbred plants or various other broad-based sources into breeding pools from which new inbred plants are developed by selfing and selection of desired phenotypes. The new inbreds are crossed with other inbred plants and the hybrids from these crosses are evaluated to determine which of those have commercial potential. North American farmers plant tens of millions of acres of corn at the present time and there are extensive national and international commercial corn breeding programs. A continuing goal of these corn breeding programs is to develop corn hybrids that are based on stable inbred plants and have one or more desirable characteristics. To accomplish this goal, the corn breeder must select and develop superior inbred parental plants.

Known converter circuits comprise a multiplicity of drivable power semiconductor switches, which are connected to one another in a known manner in order to switch at least two switching voltage levels. Typically, such a converter circuit is connected to an electrical AC voltage system, which is in particular of three-phase design. Such converter circuits are often used in industrial installations, with the converter circuits being coupled to the power supply system and naturally with further fields of use and possible uses being conceivable. For the operation of the converter circuit, a control apparatus is provided which has a controller unit for forming a control signal by adjusting an H-th harmonic component of system currents to a system current setpoint value and which is connected to the drivable power semiconductor switches via a drive circuit for forming a drive signal from the control signal, the H-th harmonic component being produced by the converter circuit and generally being H=1, 2, 3, . . . Typical values for H are H=5, 7, 11, 13. The drive signal is therefore used to drive the power semiconductor switches. The abovementioned method for operating the converter circuit permits adjustment of an H-th harmonic component of the system currents to a system current setpoint value by means of the control apparatus. However, in an electrical AC voltage system, in addition to harmonic components in the system currents, it is also possible for harmonic components to occur in the system voltages, but these cannot be adjusted by means of the known method described above and therefore cannot be reduced.

Mains distribution--general In most major countries, electricity is supplied on a wide scale by electricity generating and distribution companies (electricity utilities). The distribution network normally consists of a large number of low voltage networks (often termed the mains) to which domestic and small business consumers are connected, with the low voltage networks being supplied through a higher voltage distribution network or system (often termed the grid). The low voltage (consumer) networks may for example operate at 230 V (or 440 V 3-phase). The distribution network will normally operate at more than one voltage. There is long-distance distribution at voltages of say 132 kV or 275 kV, which we will term high voltages. These high voltages are stepped down (possibly through 2 or more stages) through transformer and switching stations (which we will term primary or high voltage stations) to voltages of say 11 kV or 33 kV, which we will term intermediate voltages. These are in turn stepped down through further transformer and switching stations (which we will term substations) to the final consumer mains voltage.

The present application relates generally to the field of vehicle communication systems and portable electronic devices. More specifically, the present disclosure relates generally to the field of a key fob configured for interaction with vehicle systems. Vehicles such as automobiles are typically configured to receive signals from portable electronic devices configured to transmit one or more control signals. Such a portable electronic device might be, for example, a key fob. A key fob is an item that people often carry with their keys, for example, on a ring or a chain. Other such portable electronic devices are built into or form the bow of a key. Yet other such portable electronic devices are not built for coupling to a key and are standalone portable electronic devices (e.g., a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant) for transmitting control signals to the vehicle. A conventional key fob of the type discussed above is typically only configured to transmit radio frequency signals to a vehicle receiver. Typically the vehicle does not include a transmitter or transceiver for communicating with or back to the key fob.

The invention relates to the field of wireless communication, and, more specifically, to demodulating and decoding information symbols from a symbol-modulated radio signal that has suffered inter-symbol interference. Signals in a wireless communications system are subject to a number of phenomena that degrade signal quality. Each signal is reflected from many different man-made and natural objects. The receiver thus receives a number of signals delayed by one or more signal periods (called xe2x80x9cmultipathxe2x80x9d), as each reflected signal is received. If the period of delay is more than the time required to transmit one symbol (inter-symbol interference), then the decoder in the receiver may not be able to decode the symbol, causing poor sound (or data) quality to the user. Many different algorithms are used at the receiver to attempt to compensate for such effects. One such algorithm is the Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimator (MLSE) or xe2x80x9cViterbixe2x80x9d algorithm. Viterbi decoding of an information symbol modulated signal comprises sampling the signal to obtain samples that each depend on a limited number (L) of sequential information symbols, and then hypothesizing all possible ML sequences of the L sequential symbols that affect a given signal sample. The hypothesized sequences are used to predict the sample value, the sample value is compared to the received signal and the prediction error is accumulated in a metric for each sequence of symbols. When the sequence is advanced one symbol to predict the next sample, the oldest symbol drops out of the window of L consecutive symbols on which the next prediction sample depends and a tentative decision for that symbol is made. A tentative symbol decision is associated with each of the remaining ML sequences which builds a xe2x80x9cpath historyxe2x80x9d associated with each remaining sequence. It is known that the tentative decisions may be made before the next symbol is hypothesized so that the number of symbols hypothesized reduces to Lxe2x88x921 symbols after each iteration, and the number of remembered path histories with associated metrics is thus MLxe2x88x921. Prior art descriptions of MLSE (Viterbi) algorithms are contained in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,666 to Applicant entitled xe2x80x9cAdaptive Maximum Likelihood Demodulator;xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,250 to Applicant entitled xe2x80x9cMethod and Apparatus for Bidirectional Demodulation of Digitally Modulated Signals;xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,374 to Chennakeshu et al. entitled xe2x80x9cLow Complexity Adaptive Equalizer for U.S. Digital Cellular Receivers;xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,068 to Dent and Bottomley entitled xe2x80x9cGeneralized Diect Update Viterbi Equalizer;xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,645 to Applicant entitled xe2x80x9cChannel-Independent Equalizer Device;xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,053 to Applicant entitled xe2x80x9cMethod and Apparatus for Decoder Optimization,xe2x80x9d all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Further descriptions are found in U.S. patent Ser. No. 08/218,236 (Dent and Croft, filed Mar. 28, 1994); Ser. No. 08/305,727 (Dent, filed Sep. 14, 1994); and Ser. No. 08/393,809 (Dent, filed Feb. 24, 1995), all of which are incorporated herein by reference. In all of the above prior art, decoded symbols are entirely located in the set of sequences being postulated, in the set of path histories associated thereto, have been already extracted from the decoder or have not yet been hypothesized by the decoder at all. The prior art has thus addressed the need to limit decoder complexity by limiting the number of retained sequences through various means of limiting the number of sequential symbols that have to be jointly hypothesized. This can include just omitting one or more symbols and tolerating a loss of performance. Another prior art method utilizes symbols that have already passed from the hypothesis stage to the path history on which signal samples depend to predict the next signal sample. This is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,374 to Baier, which is incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the number of sequential symbols retained in the hypothesis stage is reduced from Lxe2x88x921 by the number of symbols in the path history that are used for signal prediction. In this algorithm, known as xe2x80x9cper-survivor processing,xe2x80x9d not all combinations of symbols that have passed into path history are tested, which results in a small loss of performance. However, in common with the previously discussed prior art, symbols are either entirely in the path history or not. The number of retained states may also be less than a power of the alphabet size when using another prior art method called the xe2x80x9cMxe2x80x9d algorithm. The M algorithm reduces the number of retained states by discarding those that have low likelihood metrics. Only the best M states are retained. The best M states, however, are not guaranteed to contain all values of the most recently hypothesized symbol. Having all values of the most recently hypothesized symbol is desirable in equalizers to demodulate signals that have propagated through multiple paths of differing delay, and wherein the path containing the greatest energy is not the path of shortest delay. The M algorithm is also described in connection with the processing of partial symbols, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,484,338 to Clark. Clark uses the M algorithm to limit the number of retained hypotheses to a desired number M. Each retained hypothesis in Clark comprises, however, a number xe2x80x9cnxe2x80x9d of complete symbols, not partial symbols. Clark uses the concept of partial symbols only to reduce the effort in expanding the number of retained hypotheses from M to M times the alphabet size by postulating a new symbol, down-selecting to the best M again, performing the expansion in two smaller expansion stages, and down-selecting to M again after each expansion stage. However, the technique of Clark involves premature selection after the first stage of expansion of values of the just-hypothesized partial symbol. This premature selection can lead to degraded performance because not all values of the partial symbol or alphabetic subgroup are guaranteed to be retained for further evaluation. The above ""338 patent to Clark, moreover, only discloses the possibility of dividing symbols into partial symbols when a whole symbol can be reconstructed from the linear, weighted sum of the partial symbols. The current invention solves one or more of the deficiencies of the prior art. The current invention describes how symbols may be allowed to straddle the region containing hypothesized symbols and the path history region, so that symbols exist partially in both states. This allows those parts of the symbol that are most important for predicting signal samples to be retained in the hypothesized state while the remaining parts can pass to the path history. This novel approach confers the advantage that, when using symbol alphabets larger than the binary alphabet, the decoder complexity can be tailored to values lying between two powers of the alphabet size, thereby allowing decoders of a maximum practical complexity (and thus performance) to be used. The prior art teaches decoders of only much less than the maximum practical complexity and performance or alternatively greater than the maximum practical complexity, i.e., impractical decoders. In accordance with one aspect of this invention, a method is disclosed for processing samples of a signal that has propagated from a transmitter to a receiver via multiple propagation paths in order to decode information symbols belonging to an alphabet of symbols. The method includes the step of hypothesizing symbol sequences having symbols from the alphabet of symbols and partial symbols, wherein the partial symbols identify sub-groups of symbols from the alphabet. The method further includes predicting an expected value of the signal samples for each of the hypothesized sequences and comparing actual values of the signal samples with the predicted values in order to determine a likelihood value for each of the sequences. The method further includes storing hypothesized sequences including whole symbols and partial symbols in associated with the likelihood values and selecting symbol sequences having the greatest of the determined likelihood values to be the decoded information symbols. Each of the decided symbols belongs to one of the sub-groups of symbols identified by the hypothesized partial symbols. In accordance with another aspect of this invention, a decoder is disclosed that decodes a signal modulated with information symbols belonging to an alphabet of symbols. The decoder comprises a maximum likelihood sequence estimator that hypothesizes alphabetic sub-groups containing the information symbols, to hypothesize symbols within the alphabet and to determine a sequence of the information symbols having a highest likelihood indication. The decoder also includes a channel estimator to estimate coefficients describing a channel through which the signal has propagated, a signal predictor that combines the channel estimates with corresponding samples of the signal to obtain a metric, and a metric accumulator to accumulate the metrics for hypothesized symbol sequences to determine the likelihood indications.

The present invention relates to fluid purifying apparatus and a method of purifying fluids and more particularly to a novel, compact structure suitable for purifying liquids such as water and to a novel method of accomplishing such liquid purification. It presently is known in the art of fluid purification to include in a fluid purifying system an arrangement for passing fluid to be purified such as liquid water from the feed side of a reverse osmosis unit to the product side of the reverse osmosis unit and then to an ultimate user during a purifying cycle and then, during a treatment cycle of the reverse osmosis unit, which treatment cycle includes disinfection/rejuvenation, to recirculate the liquid from the product side of the reverse osmosis unit back to the feed side in by-pass relation to the reverse osmosis unit in order to introduce suitable treating fluids through separate jugs or containers to disinfect and rejuvenate the system. Such a so-called "loop system" arrangement can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,784,771, issued to Ronald L. Wathen, et al. on Nov. 15, 1988. It also is known in the fluid purification art to utilize, before and after a fluid filtering means, which includes a carbon filter, an ultra-violet light-emitting tube, attention being directed to U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,131, issued to J. R. Noll on Sept. 6, 1988. Further, it is known in the fluid purification art to utilize a thermoelectric heat transfer module in such a manner that the cool side thereof is in thermal communication with a purified fluid, such as water contained in a storage chamber, a tap water and waste water supply being utilized to carry heat energy away from the hot side of the heat transfer module. Attention, in this regard, is being directed to U.S. Pat. No. 4,752,389, issued to Bruce D. Burrows on July 21, 1988. Finally, it is generally known to utilize an expandable fluid chamber within a confined zone with sensing and actuating means to control fluid flow to the chamber when the chamber reaches an expanded level, attention being directed to U.S. Pat. No. 3,089,513, issued to C. H. Kirk, Jr. on May 14, 1936 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,604,194, issued to M. E. Engingh on Aug. 5, 1986. Recognizing the limitations of these several aforenoted structures and further recognizing the need for a highly efficient, compact fluid purification apparatus particularly adapted for water purification, the present invention provides a fluid purification apparatus and method of purifying a fluid, such as water, which allows for ready, efficient, and economical manufacture, assembly, shipping, storage, maintenance and use. More specifically, the present invention provides for an improved flow-through housing arrangement for a water purification system which allows for ready, uniform ambient air flushing and cooling of several select parts of the system with a unique arrangement for diverting and exhausting outlet air from the system with a minimum of noise and air intrusion, utilizing the housing and liquid drain receptacle to accomplish the same and at the same time allowing ready removal of the drain receptacle. Further, the present invention provides for an improved, economical flow control in a reverse osmosis treatment loop and for a unique, unitary disinfection and rejuvenation container in such reverse osmosis treatment loop of a water purification system, the container being of unitary stable and balanced construction and yet allowing for ready alternative selection and introduction of disinfection and rejuvenation fluids into the treatment loop. In addition the present invention provides for a unique arrangement for treating fluids in a fluid purification system with ultra-violet radiation before the system pump, after the reverse osmosis purification and after storage but before tap usage in the system. Also, the present invention provides a novel fluid storage and bag assembly arrangement, including a unique arrangement for controlling, heating and cooling fluid in the storage arrangement and a unique modification for heating fluid in a storage chamber to purify the same for distillation introduction into a cold storage chamber, the cold and heated chambers utilizing the cool and hot sides of a thermoelectric module respectively in the treatment of the liquid, with the purifying effects of distillation in the modification serving in place of and/or in conjunction with a novel step of ultra-violet radiation treatment before passage to tap use. Moreover, the present invention provides a novel compact and efficient structural arrangement for mounting a hinged housing cover which nestingly receives the liquid tap and a novel arrangement for mounting the pump and filters included in the liquid filtration system so as to provide a compact, balanced unit assembly which isolates residual vibrations of the pump in the housing in which the assembly is disposed. In addition, the present invention provides novel, straightforward and economical to manufacture fluid flow control apparatus, eliminating costly check and solenoid valves otherwise required. Various other features of the present invention will become obvious to one skilled in the art upon reading the disclosure set forth herein.

1. Field of the Invention The present invention is related to a communication device and a method used in a wireless communication system, and more particularly, to a communication device and a method of handling collision of device-to-device communication in a wireless communication system. 2. Description of the Prior Art A long-term evolution (LTE) system supporting the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Rel-8 standard and/or the 3GPP Rel-9 standard are developed by the 3GPP as a successor of the universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) for further enhancing performance of the UMTS to satisfy increasing needs of users. The LTE system includes a new radio interface and a new radio network architecture that provides high data rate, low latency, packet optimization, and improved system capacity and coverage. In the LTE system, a radio access network known as an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) includes multiple evolved Node-Bs (eNBs) for communicating with multiple user equipments (UEs), and for communicating with a core network including a mobility management entity (MME), a serving gateway, etc., for Non-Access Stratum (NAS) control. A LTE-advanced (LTE-A) system, as its name implies, is an evolution of the LTE system. The LTE-A system targets faster switching between power states, improves performance at the coverage edge of an eNB, and includes advanced techniques, such as carrier aggregation (CA), coordinated multipoint (COMP) transmissions/reception, uplink (UL) multiple-input multiple-output (UL-MIMO), etc. For a UE and an eNB to communicate with each other in the LTE-A system, the UE and the eNB must support standards developed for the LTE-A system, such as the 3GPP Rel-10 standard or later versions. Different from the LTE/LTE-A system operating in a frequency-division duplexing (FDD) mode (or simply FDD system), transmission directions of subframes of a frequency band in the LTE/LTE-A system operating in a time-division duplexing (TDD) mode (or simply TDD system) may be different. That is, the subframes in the same frequency band are divided into UL subframes, downlink (DL) subframes and special subframes according to the UL/DL configuration specified in the 3GPP standard. FIG. 1 is a table 10 of the UL/DL configurations with subframes and corresponding directions according to the prior art. In FIG. 1, 7 UL/DL configurations are shown, wherein each of the UL/DL configurations indicates a set of transmission directions (hereinafter, directions, for short) for 10 subframes, respectively. Each subframe is indicated with a corresponding subframe number (i.e., subframe index) in FIG. 1. In detail, “U” represents that the subframe is a UL subframe where UL data is transmitted, and “D” represents that the subframe is a DL subframe where DL data is transmitted. “S” represents that the subframe is a special subframe where control information and maybe data (according to the special subframe configuration) is transmitted. Device-to-device (D2D) communication may be realized, after an initialization (e.g., connection establishment and/or peer discovery) is performed (e.g., assisted by an eNB). Then, two UEs may communicate (e.g., transmitting and/or receiving packets) with each other (e.g., directly) according to the D2D communication, and the eNB may not need to forward the packets transmitted between the UEs. According to the D2D communication, the UEs may communicate with each other via UL resources (e.g., UL subframes configured by the eNB). In general, the D2D communication may also be seen as a D2D service (i.e., proximity-based service (ProSe)). The D2D service can be a ProSe direct discovery or a ProSe direct communication. In addition, a D2D subframe, D2D transmission, D2D communication and D2D discovery can be termed as a sidelink subframe, sidelink transmission, sidelink communication and sidelink discovery, respectively. According to the currently developed 3GPP standard, frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) between a D2D communication and a device-to-cellular (D2C) communication is not allowed. The D2D communication and the D2C communication may occur on a same carrier. That is, a UE may be scheduled to perform a D2D transmission and a D2C transmission in a subframe of the same carrier. The D2D transmission and the D2C transmission cannot be performed successfully, because only one of the transmissions can be performed in the subframe. Accordingly, operations of the D2D communication and the D2C communication cannot proceed regularly. Thus, how to solve the collision between the D2D communication and the D2C communication is an important topic to be discussed.

In many inflation applications, such as tire inflation applications, it is highly desirable to keep water or other liquids from entering the target reservoir (e.g., end container, such as a tire), and to fill the end container with dry working fluid (e.g., air) instead of humid working fluid. This can be particularly desirable in applications where tire life maximization is desired (e.g., such as in tires-as-a-service applications) and/or in applications where the tire is being repeatedly inflated and deflated (e.g., in dynamic tire pressure control applications), because water in the tire lumen can contribute to increased tire degradation and tire imbalance. Thus, there is a need in the pumping field to create a new and useful inflation system with water management.

The present invention relates to a control unit for controlling safety-critical applications, having a microcomputer (MC), a monitoring unit (check unit, CU), and peripheral circuits (input output, IO). Furthermore, the present invention relates to a method for checking a microcomputer (MC) of a control unit for controlling safety-critical applications, the control unit having microcomputer (MC), a monitoring unit (check unit, CU), and peripheral circuits (input output, IO). In control units that control or regulate applications or functions that are critical with regard to safety, errors of the microcomputer (MC) or of a processor of the microcomputer may be detected by monitoring. Such control units having safety tasks are used, for example, for anti-lock braking systems, for traction control systems, and/or for electronic stability programs. The safety-critical applications controlled by the control unit are connected to the control unit via the peripheral circuits. In the case of single-computer control units, methods having a self-test, plausibility check, and watchdog may be available. For testing CMOS chips (integrated circuits, IC) at the manufacturer, methods and measuring devices for measuring the quiescent current are used. The background of the so-called quiescent current test is that in a digital CMOS chip in purely static logic, it is believed that almost the entire power loss during the switching operations occurs in its interior. In the rest state, the current flow is restricted to tiny leakage currents as well as to currents through pullup resistors or pulldown resistors at the inputs and through external loads at the output drivers. It is believed that various production-dependent errors may lead to increased conductivity between the positive and negative supply voltage, and that activating such defective regions (point defects) of the circuit causes the current consumption to increase abruptly. Such defects may be Ad ascertained by a highly exact measurement of the current consumption during the test operation and a comparison to corresponding setpoint values. As already stated, such a quiescent current measurement may be used in the manufacture of CMOS chips to sort out the defective chips after the manufacturing process. The quiescent current test method, which is believed to be available for use in the manufacturing of computer modules for the control units (as referred to above), to test the computer modules during their normal operation for detecting what may be the most frequent defects in the computer modules, in particular in the microcomputer (MC), e.g. lock-up errors (stuck-at), bridge errors (bridging), and/or interrupt errors (stuck-open). An available approach for increasing reliability in the case of control units (as referred to above) involves providing two MCs, which reciprocally test one another by parallel computing and/or plausibility checks. However, cost considerations may suggest using only one MC for such control units. An object of an exemplary method and/or exemplary embodiment of the present invention is to provide a control unit in which the reliability of the error detection is improved, and the detection is expanded to additional types of errors. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the monitoring unit (CU) has a first apparatus, arrangement or structure for measuring the quiescent current of the microcomputer (MC), at least one handshake line for controlling the measurement of the quiescent current runs between the first apparatus, arrangement or structure of the CU and the MC, the CU has a second apparatus, arrangement or structure for applying a test data input signal to the MC to process the test data input signal and compare the corresponding test data output signal of the MC to the corresponding test data output signal of the CU, and at least one test data signal transmission line runs between the second apparatus, arrangement or structure of the CU and the MC. In accordance with the exemplary embodiment and/or exemplary method of the present invention, the reliability of the error detection can be increased by using two different test methods that supplement one another. In this manner, it is believed that a significantly greater number of different error types of the computer modules of the MC can be detected. The control unit according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention can also have a plurality of MCs and a plurality of CUs. However, the following assumes that the control unit has one MC and one CU. The CU of the control unit according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention has a first apparatus, arrangement or structure for measuring the quiescent current of the MC. At least one handshake line for controlling the measurement of the quiescent current runs between the first apparatus, arrangement or structure of the CU and the MC. The handshake line can, for example, be a bidirectional line. After the control unit is switched on, the quiescent current is measured for a set number (typically 8 to 16) of selected commands within the framework of a test program. For example, 14 selected commands containing an internal machine cycle are processed for microcomputer TMS470. To supplement the quiescent current measurement, the CU of the control unit according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention has a second apparatus, arrangement or structure. At least one transmission line for test data signals runs between the second apparatus, arrangement or structure of the CU and the MC. The second apparatus, arrangement or structure applies a test data signal to the MC. The MC calculates a test data output signal, which is dependent upon the test data input signal and the states inside the MC. Defective states result in a changed test data output signal of the MC. In the second apparatus, arrangement or structure of the CU, the test data input signal is also processed to form a test data output signal that is used as a reference signal for checking the test data output signal of the MC. When calculating the test data output signal, the CU assumes an error-free, functioning MC. The completed calculation may have a xe2x80x9cvery simplexe2x80x9d design. The microcomputer does not have a double design, and the same computation is not carried out by the CU as by the MC, as is the case for parallel computer systems. Rather, starting from the input data of a predefined test function, the MC calculates the output data whose results are checked by the CU using the reference signal calculated by it. The test function used for calculating the output data may be xe2x80x9cvery simplexe2x80x9d in its implementation. The calculation only requires minimal computing time. However, complex tests and results from the application programs can also be included in this test function. Finally, the test data output signal of the CU is compared to the test data output signal of the MC. If they deviate from one another, or if the deviation exceeds a predetermined threshold value, the CU recognizes an error of the MC. The test result can be displayed by a display device and/or it can be provided that upon occurrence of an error, and the system may be controlled and/or regulated by the control unit to be switched off. According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the first apparatus, arrangement or structure includes an IDDQ measuring circuit, a voltage supply, an IDDQ measuring run control (MAS), and a control system of the CU, and that the connection between the first apparatus, arrangement or structure, and the MC includes two handshake lines that run from the IDDQ-MAS to the MC and at least one voltage supply line that runs from the voltage supply to the MC, at least one of the voltage supply lines running through {or across} the IDDQ measuring circuit. In semiconductors, IDD designates the positive supply current. IDDQ designates the quiescent current. The handshake lines are, for example, configured as START and END handshake lines for starting and acknowledging the completion of the functional test. The communication between the MC and the CU for measuring the quiescent current is carried out via the two handshake lines. The quiescent current of the MC is measured by the CU via the separate voltage supply lines. As stated, the exemplary embodiment of the present invention relates to a control unit having a monitoring unit for checking the microcomputer of the control unit. A voltage supply unit is provided for supplying voltage to the control unit and, as such, also to the microcomputer. The control unit of the CU includes an apparatus, arrangement or structure that can bring the MC into specific operating states. Furthermore, the IDDQ measuring circuit includes a measuring apparatus, arrangement or structure that ascertains the current or voltage in the voltage supply circuit of the MC, whereupon the determined current or the determined voltage may be compared in a comparison apparatus, arrangement or structure, also present in the IDDQ measuring circuit, to at least one predefined threshold value. By measuring the current or voltage, a plurality of possible errors in the computer can be ascertained using the IDDQ measurement. In this context, it is believed that what may be the most frequent errors in the components of the MC can be substantially covered using a minimum of test steps. Such errors can be lock-up errors (stuck-at), bridge errors (bridging), and/or interrupt errors (stuck-open). As a result of the combination of the quiescent current measurement and another suitable checking method, in particular including a check of the functionality of the MC based on test data records, it is believed that errors may be widely covered with respect to the significant errors in computer modules, in particular in CMOS processors, in a way that may be particularly advantageous for safety-critical applications. The abovementioned elimination of the second processor is largely retained so as to provide an economic advantage of the control unit according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, since the quiescent current measurement according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention may only require a minimal hardware expenditure. By specially controlling the MC, the IDDQ-MAS brings predetermined components of the MC into a low-current state. The background of this control involves the fact that components present in the MC may require a relatively high current. Since, as stated at the outset, the quiescent current measurement may be based on fluctuations in the quiescent current within relatively small bandwidths, the high current consumption of the MC components interfere with the IDDQ measurement. In particular, the components to which the IDDQ measurement does not apply are brought into a low-current state. Such components can be the MC output stage and/or an input stage (e.g. analog/digital converter), as well as circuits for internally multiplying the clock pulse. In the simplest case, the components having high current consumption are switched off during the test. Thus, internal circuit elements and circuit outputs that carry high currents are switched off. Subsequently, the quiescent current can be measured. In addition to switching off the components of the MC having high current as mentioned above, the core of the MC may be brought into a state of low current consumption. In the case of such MC modules configured specifically for the quiescent current measurement, a special operating state, a so-called IDDQ test mode, may be provided. In this operating state, all currents inside of the computer are switched off, i.e., the current in the MC core is minimized. The IDDQ design is such that standard errors in the MC core become noticeable as an increase in the quiescent current. Thus, for example, short-circuit errors and/or stuck-at errors (short circuit to ground or the supply voltage) are xe2x80x9cimmediatelyxe2x80x9d or quickly manifested in an increase in the quiescent current. In this context, it is not believed to be necessary to pass on (to propagate) the effect of such an error to the outputs of the MC. The increased current consumption is the immediate error indicator. In addition to the IDDQ test mode described above, it can be provided that only the MC components having a high current are switched off, and, in response to a command, the MC enters a defined low-current state. In this context, the MC core does not have to be specially configured for the IDDQ test mode. This is called the power-down mode. The power-down mode is initiated by loading internal components of the computer, such as the register and memory, with certain patterns, and by bringing the abovementioned computer components into a state of low current consumption, e.g., by executing a certain computer command. If this state is achieved, a clock generator can be selectively switched off or disconnected. Subsequently, the quiescent current or a corresponding voltage value is measured and compared to a threshold value corresponding to the above-set operating state (power-down state) of the MC core . If certain errors are present in the computer (stuck-at errors, bridging errors, stuck-open errors), the result may be an increase in the quiescent current or in the voltage drop caused by the quiescent current. After such a test step, additional test steps can follow in that the power-down mode is first exited by applying certain signal levels to specific connections of the MC. By again starting or switching on the clock generator, the internal computer components, such as the register and the memory, are loaded with additional patterns, and the abovementioned components are again brought into a low-current state, e.g., by executing a specific computer command (power-down command). The above-described measurement of the quiescent current then follows. As a result of a plurality of such consecutively performed measurements of the power-down current, errors in the registers, memories, and components of the computer core may be ascertained in an increasingly more complete manner. According to the exemplary computer and exemplary circuit, the individual test steps are ended by re-enabling the clock generator, by triggering a reset, or by triggering an external interrupt. After the last test step, the MC runs again in its normal operating mode (normal operation). In addition to the above-described quiescent current measurement in the power-down mode, provision is also made in accordance with the exemplary embodiment of the present invention for the quiescent current to be measured in the indicated IDDQ test mode (provided the computer to be checked is suitably configured). The start of the IDDQ test mode is initiated by changing the signal level at a connection of the MC, for example. Also in this context, the register and memory are loaded with certain patterns prior to entering the IDDQ test mode. Upon entering the IDDQ test mode, the computer components having high current consumption are switched off. Furthermore, by discontinuing or decoupling the time pulse while executing a command, the computer core can be kept in a state xe2x80x9ctypicalxe2x80x9d for this command. These commands are selected so that they adjust the states of the internal circuit nodes of the computer core so that as many errors as possible or at least more errors can be detected via the quiescent current measurement. The handshake for the quiescent current measurement is carried out or performed in a number of steps: S1: The MC sets the START signal to HIGH. Consequently, the CU knows that an IDDQ measurement is beginning. S2: The MC can selectively prepare to stop the time pulse (master clock, MCLK), in that it sets a signal PREP to LOW via an internal command. S3: The MC decodes the precisely defined instant within the next suitable command for the IDDQ test and also sets a signal DEKOD to LOW. Now the MCLK is set equal to LOW, and the digital component of the MC is set to static operation for the IDDQ measurement. S4: The CU performs the IDDQ measurement. S5: The CU outputs the level sequence LOW-HIGH-LOW at the signal END, thereby reactivating the MCLK. S6: The MC becomes active again and confirms the end of the measurement by setting the START signal to LOW. The MC continues the program and prepares the next IDDQ measurement or ends the IDDQ measurement when all measurements have been carried out. Two voltage supply lines may run between the voltage supply and the MC, one voltage supply line running through the IDDQ measuring circuit. The quiescent current of the MC is measured via the voltage supply line that runs through the IDDQ measuring circuit. According to another exemplary embodiment of the control unit according to the present invention, the first apparatus, arrangement or structure includes an IDDQ measuring circuit, a voltage supply, an IDDQ measuring run control (MAS), and a control system of the CU, and the connection between the first apparatus, arrangement or structure and the MC includes four handshake lines that run from the IDDQ-MAS to the MC and at least one voltage supply line that runs from the voltage supply to the MC, at least one of the voltage supply lines running through the IDDQ measuring circuit. In the case of four handshake lines, a time-pulse (CLK) line and a line for a power-down (PWRDN) control can be provided for the MC in addition to the lines START, END in the case of two handshake lines. In this exemplary embodiment of the control unit, a shared voltage supply line to the processor is sufficient, the quiescent current being measured in the voltage supply line. The clock generator is then stopped in the CU. The control of voltage supply circuits for analog circuits and IO circuits in the MC is carried out or performed via the PWRDN line from the CU. As such, only the quiescent current of the digital component of the MC flows in the measuring case through the shared voltage supply line. Advantageously, the first apparatus, arrangement or structure includes an initialization circuit, which receives an initialization signal from the voltage supply after the control unit is switched on and subsequently transmits an enable signal to the IDDQ-MAS to enable the IDDQ measurement. The successful completion of the IDDQ measurement is signaled by an additional signal to the control system of the CU. Consequently, the CU advances the test run in that the initialization circuit enables the test data signal generator via an additional signal. According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the second apparatus, arrangement or structure includes a test data signal generator for applying a test data input signal to the MC, a response generator for processing the test data input signal and for forming a corresponding test data output signal, a test data register for transmitting and receiving test data, and a comparator for comparing the test data output signal of the MC to the test data output signal of the CU. The connection between the second apparatus, arrangement or structure and the MC includes at least one test data transmission line, which runs between the test data register and the MC. Advantageously, two test data transmission lines may run between the test data register and the MC. The test data signal generator is also activated by the initialization circuit after the control unit is enabled. In the test data signal generator, the test data for the MC are generated in a virtually random order by a feedback shift register. With the aid of the Reed-Muller codes, the bit string for the test data output signal (the so-called reference signal) is formed in the response generator, for every test data input signal. This code is used to maintain a distance that is as great as possible in the space of numbers of the test data output signals (hamming distance). In the comparator, the theoretically calculated test data output signal from the response generator of the CU is then compared to the actual test data output signal of the MC from the test data register. The second apparatus, arrangement or structure may also include a trigger generator, which determines the instant at which the test data output signal of the MC is available at the comparator, in the case of an error-free MC. The trigger generator stipulates the instant of the comparison of the determined test data output signal of the MC and the actual response of the CU. As a result, it is at least better ensured that the time slices in the MC proceed correctly. The comparator not only checks the test data output signal for the correct data value but also to determine whether the test data output signal is transmitted within a specific timing window. Advantageously, the second apparatus, arrangement or structure includes an error counter, which counts up or down, if the test data output signal of the MC is not consistent with the test data output signal of the CU, and/or if the test data output signal of the MC is available at the comparator at an instant that differs from the one determined by the trigger generator. By a counting pulse, the comparator causes the error counter to count up or down. If the value and instant of the test data output signal are correct, the error counter is decremented, for example. If the error counter falls below a predefined value, an external warning light, for example, is switched on or off via a signal interface, and a relay for manipulating the safety-critical application is enabled. The manipulation of the application to be controlled may be limited to discontinuing the application. In the case of special applications, it can, however, be useful for the error counter to have a plurality of response thresholds, exceeding the response threshold resulting in a different reaction in each case. As a result, the application can be prevented from being immediately interrupted in the case of a singular disturbance, and the disabling path can be checked by the computer. If the MC responds to a test data input signal at the wrong instant or with an incorrect value, the same test data input signal is applied to the MC again until the instant and value of the test data output signal are correct. If this does not occur with a predefined time period, the CU switches off the control unit or the application, and it cannot be re-activated even by correct responses. The second apparatus, arrangement or structure may include an initialization circuit, which receives an initialization signal from the voltage source after the control unit is enabled, subsequently synchronizes the CU with the MC, and then activates the test data signal generator and the error counter. The CU is synchronized with the MC in that the CU waits for the first data transmission of the MC. An additional object of the exemplary embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method for checking a microcomputer so that the reliability of the error detection may be improved, and the detection may be expanded to additional types of errors. To achieve this object, in the exemplary method of the present invention, the CU of the control unit measures the quiescent current of the MC and applies a test data input signal to the MC, determines a first test data output signal, and compares a second test data output signal of the MC to the first test data output signal of the CU. Advantageously, the quiescent current measurement is in the form of an IDDQ measurement. The IDDQ measurement may be carried out or performed after the control unit is switched on after being enabled by an enable signal. According to another exemplary method according to the present invention, the second test data output signal of the MC is compared to the first test data output signal of the CU while the control unit is in operation. This may have the advantage that the control unit does not have to be switched off to test the functionality of the microcomputer. Rather, MC computing power not used for controlling the application can be used to check the MC while the control unit is in operation. A false test data output signal may be transmitted one time at regular intervals to the CU while the control unit is in operation to check the functionality of the disabling path. Another exemplary embodiment of the present invention involves the fact that a clock generator is stopped by the MC during the IDDQ measurement and/or while the second test data output signal of the MC is being compared to the first test data output signal of the CU. The clock generator is provided in the control system of the CU. The internal computer operations in particular are controlled as a function of the output signal of this clock generator. In the described IDDQ test mode, it is provided that this clock generator is switched off or disabled or disconnected from the MC. This can also be carried out or performed in the power-down mode when a particularly low quiescent current is to be achieved. The clock generator is switched off or disabled or disconnected especially at the start of every quiescent current measurement. The test data input signal of the CU may be generated by a test data signal generator, via a feedback shift register. The test data output signal of the CU may be generated by a response generator, with the aid of the Reed-Muller code. The exemplary control unit according to the present invention can be checked by two different test runs. A so-called start-up test is carried out immediately following the switching on of the control unit and prior to the operation of the control unit for controlling or regulating the safety-critical application. After the start-up test, a so-called online test is carried out or performed from time to time while the control unit is in operation. The start-up test is subdivided into two test segments, the so-called processor initialization segment (Proz-Init) and the subsequent so-called operating system initialization segment (BS-Init). The processor initialization segment includes a command test and a core test, a RAM/ROM test, and an IDDQ test. The operating system initialization segment includes a start-up control and a test of the CU. In the start-up control, different input values are tested on the control unit (e.g. a certain speed pattern of the wheels of a vehicle, as can typically occur at the input of an ABS control unit of the vehicle). The control unit carries out a regulation or control of the application based on the input values. The result of the simulated regulation or control is compared to corresponding setpoint values. When testing the CU, a defective MC is simulated, and the reaction of the CU to the defect is checked. The online test has a command test and a core test, a RAM/ROM test, a test of the CU, and a replication test. In the replication test, double memory spaces are provided for certain safety-critical variables, and certain safety-critical calculations are carried out twice. The contents of the double memory spaces and the results of the double calculations are compared to one another. The redundant storing and the redundant calculation are carried out by a processor of the control unit. Furthermore, the online test has a plausibility check in which control signals or regulation signals determined by the MC are checked for plausibility. In the case of an ABS control unit, one can, for example, check whether the speed, the acceleration, or the deceleration are within certain limits. Moreover, the values of the individual wheels of the vehicle must be in a certain relation to one another, which can also be checked. Finally, the online test has another operating system test and a test of the remaining monitoring units of the control unit.

Prior to the present invention, as set forth in general terms above and more specifically below, it is known, to employ various types of vaporizers. While these various vaporizers may have been generally satisfactory, the currently available vaporizers suffer from several well-known deficiencies. For example, the current vaporizers are relatively expensive, not very robust in their design, require that the vaporizer be taken apart in order to remove and replace the battery, cannot be locked or otherwise secured to prevent unauthorized use of the vaporizer, do not include interchangeable mouthpieces, and do not include a molecular sensor that will allow the user to determine the chemical, biological and/or physical composition of the material that the user desires to vaporize. Therefore, there is a need in the vaporizer art for a new and improved hand-held vaporizer that uses induction heating in order to more quickly and efficiently heat up the material that is to be vaporized, wherein the hand-held vaporizer also includes a biometric locking mechanism, interchangeable mouthpieces, an external battery source, and a molecular sensor. It is a purpose of this invention to fulfill these and other needs in the vaporizer art in a manner more apparent to the skilled artisan once given the following disclosure.

Three-dimensional images provide valuable information in an increasing number of situations. For example, long-term monitoring of the localization and activity of signaling molecules in cells together with changes in cell morphology is a power experimental method to assess the normal cellular internal state or the state during various pathological disorders. Currently, a majority of works investigating three-dimensional distributions of signaling molecules and morphological changes almost exclusively rely on construction of the three-dimensional image from z-series of multiple (normally >30) two-dimensional images. To do this, researchers are normally required to acquire z-series (depth/height axis) images of experimental samples using a confocal or two-photon microscopy. For example, a series of images may be captured of the same x-y area, each image being at a different distance from the subject of the image and having a different focal plane. Each of the z-series images has in-focus portions and out-of-focus portions. Known deblurring algorithms are then typically applied to each image to remove the out-of-focus portions for that image. Assembly of the resultant, in-focus z-series images results in a three dimensional image. This process is costly and time consuming. Most importantly in many applications, the acquisition of z-series images is inevitable to encounter the problems due to photo-toxicity and photo-bleaching, and would not be capable to detect faster spatio-temporal dynamics of signaling molecules and morphology changes.

The present invention relates to processors and computing devices and more particularly to compilers for optimized multiple function arithmetic execution units in a processor. Many practical applications require processing of very large amounts of information in a short period of time. Examples include weather forecasting, the design and modeling of complex dynamic systems and others, which applications frequently involve repeated estimation of modeling functions over a set of input parameters. One of the basic approaches to minimizing the time to perform such computations is to apply some sort of parallelism, so that tasks which are logically independent can be performed in parallel. This can be done, for example, by executing two or more instructions per machine cycle, i.e., by means of instruction-level parallelism. Thus, in a class of computers using superscalar processing, hardware is used to detect independent instructions and execute them in parallel, often using techniques developed in the early supercomputers. Another more powerful approach to exploiting instruction level parallelism is used by the Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processor architectures in which the compiler performs most instruction scheduling and parallel dispatching at compile time, reducing the operating burden at run time. By moving the scheduling tasks to the compiler, a VLIW processor avoids both the operating latency problems and the large and complex circuitry associated with on-chip instruction scheduling logic. As known, each VLIW instruction includes multiple independent operations for execution by the processor in a single cycle. A VLIW compiler processes these instructions according to precise conformance to the structure of the processor, including the number and type of the execution units, as well as execution unit timing and latencies. The compiler groups the operations into a wide instruction for execution in one cycle. At run time, the wide instruction is applied to the various execution units with little decoding. The execution units in a VLIW processor typically include arithmetic units such as floating point arithmetic units. An example of a VLIW processor that includes floating point execution units is described by R. K. Montoye, et al. in xe2x80x9cDesign of the IBM RISC System/6000 floating point execution unitxe2x80x9d, IBM J.Res. Develop., V. 43 No.1, pp. 61-62, January 1990. Additional examples are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,975, as well as pending patent application Ser. Nos. 08/733,480, 08/733,479, 08/733,833, 08/733,834, 08/733,831 and 08,733,832, the content of which is incorporated herein for all purposes. While these processors are capable of performing a variety of tasks adequately, it is perceived that the performance of VLIW processors can be improved further by optimizing them with respect to certain specialized but highly repetitive and often used in practice tasks, such as function evaluation using decomposition into Taylor series. A novel method and system is presented for use with a VLIW processor to optimize it for use in function evaluation. In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a novel approach is presented to enhancing parallelism in the evaluation of functions by table approximation methods using decompositions into Taylor series.

The present invention relates generally to flail-type crop conditioners for pull-type crop-treating equipment in the agricultural industry, and particularly to a flail-type conditioner that employs an improved reimpactor for redirecting treated crop material to the conditioning unit for additional treatment. During the process of producing and harvesting hay it is common to condition stalky plant material such as alfalfa, clover, or the like, by directing the crop material through a pair of conditioning rolls, thereby crimping the stems. This cracks the stems and thereby reduces the time cut plant material must remain in the field drying by increasing the rate at which moisture escapes. In addition to crushing or crimping, it is also well known that plant drying can be further enhanced by subjecting the plants to the more severe conditioning provided by flails. Flail conditioning causes the plant stems to be even more severely crushed, with more of the waxy covering removed. The various levels of conditioning to which plant materials are subjected have a direct affect on the drying rate. The instant invention relates to an improved reimpactorxe2x80x94a mechanism in a crop conditioning apparatus for redirecting materials already subjected to conditioning back to the conditioning unit for additional treatment. An example of a type of reimpactor is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,101,797, issued to Richard Koegel et al. on Aug. 15, 2000. Note, for example, in FIG. 3 thereof that guide elements 51 and 52 redirect the flow of crop materials in this maceration apparatus into the rotating impact rotor 23. A macerator is somewhat different from a conditioner in that it is intended to even more severely crush the crop materials. Another example of a reimpactor is used in a commercial flail conditioner sold by Kuhn and identified as the xe2x80x9cALTERNA 500xe2x80x9d. An adjustable bar with protruding fixed finger elements, all extending in the same direction, is affixed above the flail. The bar may be rotated to move the finger elements into and out of the flow path of the crop material, thus adjusting the amount of crop material that is redirected into the flail for additional treatment. Both the Koegel and Kuhn devices are rigid and thus in actual use become bent, deformed and broken when stones and other solid objects are passed through the apparatus. If, for example, a stone is fed into the conditioner and bends one of the fingers into the path of a flail element, either the finger or the flail element, or both, will likely be broken, and possibly even additional damage will result. It would be desirable and beneficial to provide a reimpactor that would overcome the above-noted disadvantages of known reimpactors. It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved reimpactor for use in a flail-type crop conditioner. It is another object of the present invention to provide a slotted reimpactor that is solid and rigid enough to withstand the severe operating conditions of a flail-type crop conditioner, i.e., able to absorb and withstand impacts from stones and other solid objects. It is a further object of the instant invention to provide a flail-type crop conditioner that is quieter in operation, requires less power, is more durable, reliable, and long-lasting than those known in the prior art. It is a still further object of the instant invention to provide a reimpactor for an agricultural flail-conditioner to redirect conditioned crop material to the rotating flail-conditioner for additional treatment prior to depositing it on the ground for drying. The reimpactor is constructed partially of a shock-absorbent material, such as urethane, so that it may retain its shape even upon impact with foreign objects such as stones or misshapen flails, thus displaying significant longevity and durability characteristics. The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will appear more fully hereinafter from a consideration of the detailed description which follows, in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein one primary embodiment of the invention is illustrated by way of example. It is to be expressly understood, however, that the drawings are for illustrative purposes and are not to be construed as defining the limits of the invention.

The present invention relates generally to battery chargers, and more specifically relates to an adapter apparatus for battery chargers used with cordless power tools. There has been continued innovation in the field of battery chargers that are used with cordless power tools. Examples of such battery chargers are those produced under the SKIL and BOSCH brands by the S-B Power Tool Corporation of Chicago, Ill., which are used with various cordless power tools also produced under the same brands. A typical battery pack ordinarily has a generally rectangular housing and a male stem connector extending from a surface thereof. The battery chargers ordinarily used for charging these battery packs are correspondingly sized and configured to contain a female slot for receiving the stem connector of the battery pack. The battery packs are further equipped with terminals for establishing electrical contact with mating terminals that are configured on an internal circumference of the female slot of the battery charger. In addition to the power tool itself, a power tool kit will often include two battery packs and a single battery charger, which is capable of charging only a single battery pack at a time. Heavy users will frequently purchase additional battery packs. Having multiple battery packs of a given type enables the user to continuously use the cordless power tool by swapping out depleted battery packs for fully charged battery packs. However, users typically have more battery packs than they have chargers, which prevents optimal charging of multiple battery packs at one time. This results an in inconvenience to the user, who must instead serially charge the battery packs. Moreover, the most common type of power tool battery pack uses Nickel-Cadmium (NiCd) batteries, which lose their charge over time when the battery packs are not inserted into a charger. Thus, users of conventional battery chargers are unable to maintain the charge in the battery packs during periods when the batteries are not in use. The present invention relates to a particularly efficient adapter apparatus for use with battery chargers for cordless power tools for allowing the user to charge multiple battery packs using a single charger. The present adapter apparatus couples to a battery charger and comprises a generally rectangular housing having a top portion and a bottom portion, with at least two female charging receptacles on the top portion, each charging receptacle being configured to receive a male stem connector of the battery pack. The bottom portion of the adapter also includes a male stem connector that is sized and configured to be received by a correspondingly sized and configured female charging receptacle in the battery charger. The battery charger is coupled to an AC outlet via a power cord extending from a rear surface of the battery charger.